our story

i have decided to start a new blog. because of ryan’s new job and my new studies, i have decided to be a little more selective about who gets to see our blog. i have a terribly lacking collection of email addresses, so please email me at samantha.g.smith@gmail.com, so i can let you know the new address. unless, of course, you are a creeper. then, i will be keeping my secret from you.

*single mom:

ryan has made it through nearly 11 1/2 weeks of academy. just 2 more weeks until graduation, which makes me a very happy woman. until then, i remain a single mom, which can be quite tiring. noah and i both caught colds at the end of last week and were miserable for a few days. it just doesn’t seem right that you can catch a cold when it is 95 outside! besides a little cough, i think we are both back to normal, finally.

*single, pregnant mom

i am 14 weeks pregnant now, which seems crazy! this pregnancy is flying by now that i am feeling normal again! what is not flying by is the time until we find out if there is a little girl inside me or a little boy. i feel like the wait has been forever long, with even longer to go. people keep asking me what i’m having and i hate saying i don’t know. i just want to know. now please.

*single, pregnant, working mom

i started back teaching mid-august. i have moved from teaching 8th grade to kindergarten and i’m loving it. not that there aren’t some difficult times with 4 and 5 year olds, but they are just so fun. and so darn cute, too! 🙂 i also feel like i am learning lots about where noah will be in just a few years, which is neat. i’m only working two days a week, with another lady teaching the other 3 days. it’s a great schedule!

*single, pregant, working mom who is in grad school full time

back to school for me this week. classes started tuesday and i already know i’m going to love them. i have  had a sense of really being where i’m supposed to be (i.e. where the Lord wants me) during this whole starting grad school back. i’m not disillusioned about how hard it will be with having a toddler, being pregnant, working and having a husband with a new job, buuuttt, despite these things, i know this is what i should be doing. i am more excited that i ever have been about the prospect of being a counselor in a few years. i finally feel ready…really ready. nervous, sure…but ready! i am taking three classes this semester: one on interpersonal relations (i.e. how to talk to people-not as easy as it seems), one on crisis intervention and prevention, and one on grief counseling. here’s to learning a lot of new things!

my final news is that we have made an offer on a house this week. we lost our fixer-upper (long story, there), but found a wonderful house over the weekend and decided to jump on it before anyone else found it. we are waiting now to hear if they are going to accept or counter our offer. accept, accept, ACCEPT!!!

i was reminded earlier this week of why we don’t spend the night with other people much (i mean, other than the fact, of course, that i’m not in middle school any more. slumber parties for twenty-somethings and their baby just don’t happen!). we went to visit pop and bebe (or is it just bb??) and all was well until bed time. it should be noted that noah was good and tired, after playing hard all day and skipping his usual afternoon nap. as soon as noah was put into the bed, all hell broke loose. he started screaming, and it wasn’t the “i’m so tired” scream…he was M-A-D, though i have no idea why. he is really good about going to bed at night. so much so that, when we are home, i’ll tell him it’s time to go nightnight, and he’ll gather his stuff and go stand by his bed. but he was not in the mood this night. now, the truth of the matter is, if we had been home, i would have just let him cry it out (don’t be judging!). *gasp* i know, i know, it seems a little harsh, but we are people of routine. i know the reason he was so upset had to do with the fact that he was soooooo sleepy. and if it takes crying for him to fall asleep, so be it. he’s not a snuggler and very, very rarely falls asleep on anyone (save ryan’s dad, who has some kind of magical powers, i think). anyway, it took all of about 5 minutes of crying before the three of us couldn’t handle noah’s screams any more. honestly, it’s hard to let him cry when other people are listening, because i’m worried about what they might think of my parenting skills. so, bb went and got him out…and he was up for the next hour and a half, and screaming for more than half of  that time. by some miracle, he did eventually give up the fight and fall asleep with bb, but not until i totally lost it and had the thought, “i will never ever do this again.” of course, i don’t mean that really. it did make me think of those early days/nights of noah’s life. whoever came up with the phrase “sleeping like a baby” must have been a crackhead, because babies don’t sleep all that great at first… i’ll be honest, i’m a little nervous about having a new baby and noah. will we ever sleep?!?! i can just picture getting one to sleep, then the other waking up…then that kid waking the other up..and so on.. eeek!

“how we spend our days is, afterall, how we spend our lives.” what profound, if somewhat obvious, words. read them again, slower this time. stop. just think about that for a second. these words have etched themselves on to my heart. i cannot go through a day without being reminded of them. and usually with that reminder comes a conviction…conviction that i could probably surely use my time better. this is especially true lately. with ryan spending long amounts of time away from home, i have gotten very lax about the organization of my house. in fact, when he first went away, i thought i would spend a lot of time decluttering. but, thanks to the itty bitty one growing inside my tummy, i haven’t the energy even to think about that these days. but that’s really no excuse for wasting all of my moments, filling my time moping around, watching mindless tv and the such. however, the question is raised as to what i should be filling my moments with. something fulfilling because these moments add up to life… hmm…

i didn’t quite have 10, so here are the answers to the top 6 questions i’ve been asked lately about my pregnancy:

6. how far along are you? 5 1/2 weeks (which means the due date is sometime around late february, early march, i think…)

5. do you want a boy or a girl? i think the proper response is “i just want a healthy baby!” 🙂

4. were you trying? ummm…a little personal, don’t you think?! regardless, i’m pretty happy about the age difference between noah and this child: just under 2 years apart!

3. have you been eating pickles and ice cream or anything weird like that? i haven’t really craved anything yet with this pregnancy (a little early for that, i think), but when i was pregnant with noah, i craved whatever anyone talked about. the power of suggestion had a ridiculous hold over me. while we were living in colorado still, my mom mentioned eating guthrie’s for dinner…and  i could not get that greasy chicken and delish sauce out of my mind. for MONTHS, i craved that (there is no guthrie’s in co). i guess the oddest thing i craved was grapico, and that was because our parenting teacher was drinking one before class one day. i went out and bought a whole case of grapicos, popped one open, had about 3 sips and then couldn’t drink any more.

2. how are you feeling? constant waves of nausea and tiredness

1. are you having a boy or a girl?? great question…but we won’t know the answer for a few more months. 🙂 have no fear, though, we will let you know!

i cannot believe how many times today i’ve used the word no! i’m even getting tired of hearing it… “no, don’t pour your milk all over the floor” (which begs the question: why would you make a sippy cup for a toddler that leaks if turned upside down?? noah is FASCINATED with watching it pour out.) “no, don’t run out of the play area at the library.” “no, you can’t get out of your stroller yet.” ” no, you can’t have a sip of my sweet tea.” “no, don’t yell at mommy!” “no, please don’t pull my shirt down so everyone can see my bra.” “no, it’s not okay to spit out your chewed up food all over the floor at the library.” “no, you cannot pull all of the books off the shelves here, even if that is fun.” “no, you can’t get down and walk in the parking lot.” “no, you can’t carry a glass jar around and drop it continuously.” “no, it’s not okay to throw the groceries out of the cart right after mommy puts them in.” “no, you can’t throw your paci out it.” “no, not your lovey either.” phewwww, it’s been a day! and it’s barely half over… i’ll be glad when ryan gets home tonite!

i don’t want to come across as braggy, but oh. my. goodness. i just got some seriously sweet deals at walgreens and cvs. i have been couponing for a while now and finally seem to be getting it. you could do this, too!

at cvs: using coupons and extra care bucks (from prior shopping at cvs), combined with the deals of the week, guess how much i paid for the following:

$3.85! plus, i got $4 ECB to use on my next visit, so essentially, they paid me $.15 to take all of the above!! !

and at walgreens: guess how much!

$1.77 out of pocket, and i got $6 of register rewards for my next visit! so… i made $5.23!!! and got all of that great stuff! i’m amazed!

you can do it, too! feel free to ask questions if you are interested, but i’ll tell you i pretty much just follow this : hip2save.com!

i am at a charlotte mason conference right now in north carolina. for those who might not know, charlotte mason is a woman who had many wonderful ideas about education, whose philosophy the school i work for is based upon. i have been studying her ideas for years, but still am struggling to get them out. many of them resonate so deeply inside of me that i think of an old rich mullins’s song line “i did not make it, no it is making me…” maybe one day i can articulate them better, but for now i’ll just be sticking with my late night thoughts. and that is…what do we do with new ideas? when confronted with new and different things, how do we (i) react? i saw someone react badly (in my opinion) tonite, and i could almost visibly see the fear pouring out of her as she rejected a book that many have found encouragement, relief, provocation (can i use that word?) from. a spiritual, but not religious book that offers ideas about how to live in this world. the book doesn’t even really matter at this point (though i will say, i have loved the intro + 3 chapters i’ve read so far…relief is definitely the word that came to mind for me). anyway, my first response was superiority when i heard the lady start talking… “hello! obviously she doesn’t know that all truth is God’s truth!” but quickly following that thought was conviction. i was sooooo there not that long ago, and might not actually be as far from there as i would like to think i am today. but really, what is the right response to new ideas? what if they challenge your old ones? what if they hammer through, knock down, and steam roller right over the way you think? hmmm…i think i’ll just have to wonder on this a little more. i’d love to hear your thoughts….

what a fun weekend i’ve had! we kicked the birthday celebration off on friday by taking a trip to auburn. i wish i had taken pictures, but i, of course, left my camera in the car. i’m hoping ashley got some good ones! i’m not sure i’ve laughed like that in a long time, between hearing ruthie’s college stories, reminising (how do you spell that?!) with ashley (mostly about how we weren’t actually friends in college-lol), and giving lots of marital/parenting advise (even though ruthie’s not going to be there for yearrrrrss)-we had so much fun! though, we did miss my other sister, hannah, veryyyyyy much! 😦

saturday, ryan and noah woke me up to breakfast in bed. ryan’s really getting to be a pro at french toast, and my tummy likes that! then, noah and i went to a local farmer’s market while ryan went to work. i got to see an old friend and catch up with her for a minute. it’s so funny to me how our lives seem to weave back together after years at a time. i picked up some fresh honey from her and it seriously is the best honey i’ve ever tasted. de-lish!! after ryan got off, we went to the alabaster city fest, which was hot, hot, hot! but, i got a deal of the day there which i simply HAVE to write about 🙂 i got talked in to a newspaper subscription, which is nice for couponing. it only cost my 11.90 for the month, then they gave me a $10 publix giftcard just for signing up. but wait! it gets better! i talked my sister-in-law into signing up, since it was such a great deal (basically, $1.90 for a month of newspapers–every day! hello-that’s cheaper than buying one sunday paper!). when i went back with her to sign up, the guy gave me a $5 gift card for the referral. so…that translates to-they paid me $3.10 to take a paper every day for the next month! crazy!! also, i got an email today saying i won the drawing from thirty-one (who had a booth there)! i have no idea what i even one, but i LOVE everything thirty-one i’ve seen, so i can’t wait to pick that up!!

after the cityfest, noah went home to spend the night with bb and pop! ryan and i went to see a movie, then grabbed some dinner. the movie was a little disappointing, but still relaxing and cool. after dinner, we met up with my mom and dale for dessert. carrot cake from my favorite place, though we had terrible service…which means it’s moving down from it’s top spot on my list. but, the company was great!

yesterday, we visited a new church. i came to the realization that i have been trying to find a church that it just like the church we attended in colorado…and that’s simply not going to happen. every church is going to be different, and that’s not a bad thing. so, we’ll see where we go from here. after church, we had lunch with cece, papa g, christina, and roxie. i’ll be honest, i missed noah a lot while he was in motown, but it is a lot easier to eat when he’s not there! we had a relaxing lunch, then went to pick him up. when we got to my dad’s, noah was outside playing in the rocks, gathering them in his little hands. ryan and i got out of the car and were telling him how much we missed him, and he paid no attention to us. in fact, when i squatted down for a hug, he ran the other way! what a silly boy! !

and today-the birthday celebration continues! i’m headed breakfast with my mom and two sisters in just a few! whoohoo!!

yesterday, to kick off my birthday week, ryan, noah and i went to chattanooga with my cousin, richard. he is a member of the aquarium and was able to take us for free! i was so excited about noah getting to see all the fish, sure he would be entranced with these crazy little animals…but, not my child. he was interested in them for all of about 5 minutes, then he realized how much fun it was to run down the ramps all through the buildings. i guess we are partly to blame for this, as we were the ones who got him out of the stroller. so, ryan and i took turns watching him and looking at the exhibits. i’m a little bummed noah wasn’t more interested in looking at all the fish. maybe he’s just not quite old enough to enjoy it yet?? or maybe he’s just wayyyyy too full of energy. whatever the case, we were all exhausted by the end of the day! while looking for a place to buy noah a little milk, we did wander in to this hole in the wall cupcake shop. since we were kind of celebrating my birthday, we all decided we had to have a cupcake! 🙂 and i’m so glad we did…best cupcake i’ve ever had from chattanooga! i got red velvet with the most incredible cream cheese icing ever-piled high and wide!! yum yum!

there are definitely times in life when i wish noah was a little more mello (how do you actually spell that word?? mellow?)… but how can you not love the curious, wandering spirit in him? he just wants to check everything out, and that’s really not a bad trait. sure, it’s trying at times since he doesn’t really care if you’re with him or not, but… i am constantly trying to remember that i don’t want to squelsh such a great trait!