Introduction

I've never blogged before, so bear with me until I figure this out.  I guess I start with who I am?

See, this is the part about blogging I have a hard time with.  I don't like talking about myself.  I just can't understand why anyone would want to read about a stay-at-home mom with two kids.  But I'll do the best I can to give you an idea about my background and why I'm writing a blog in the first place.

I'm, as stated above, am a stay-at-home mother of two.  My husband works a white collar job that fortunately allows me to stay home with my kids.  I've always wanted to stay home and raise my children, probably because I watched my mom work her ass off to keep us clothed and fed and as a result was forced to leave us with strangers or on our own for large amounts of time.  I never felt the lack of a stay-at-home mom, but I did see how much she hated leaving us to go work at one of her three jobs.  I didn't want to have to do that.  And somehow, my life has turned out in such a way that I don't have to.

I grew up in Orange County, California.  No, Orange County is not all rich white people.  There are some places where there are rich white people, but there are also large areas of horrendous poverty.  I live in a wealthy suburb, the same one I went to high school in.  After high school, I went to college in Northern California. Once done there, I went to grad school back down here and got a Masters in Teaching.

It took years of subbing before I was hired as a teacher in one of the poorest cities in Orange County:  Santa Ana.  I worked for three years with the lowest scoring students in the district.  The average reading level in my classes was first or second grade.  The first year I went home crying about 75% of the time because it felt like everything I was doing was pointless.  The kids were mean and were so unlike the honors kids of my classes in high school or the kids I subbed for in the wealthier cities, it was like teaching aliens.  The second year I met one of the best teachers I've ever known and things got better.  I still had kids who didn't want to be there and who were rowdy and could be mean, but now I was learning how to teach them.  Their scores improved.  I became a better teacher.

Then I had a baby.  I loved teaching, but once I held my baby girl, I knew I loved her more.  I gave up my career to care for her full time and have never looked back.  I am a highly educated woman who chose to stay at home with her kids.

I'm highly educated and I'm opinionated.  I'm afraid that I'll share some opinions of mine that you won't agree with.  I'm not sorry for that, I don't apologize for not agreeing with everyone.  My hope for this blog is that it is a place I can share my thoughts and ideas honestly with you and you feel the same.  I hope that if I say something you disagree with that we can just agree to disagree.  So much of the internet is full of hate and anger, I would like this place to be a place of honesty, acceptance, and happiness.