Last night I read an article from Gourmet Magazine (July 2007) that said 1 in 5 Americans eat ten or less kinds of food. 20% of us don't incorporate more than TEN different kinds of food!!
Boo!
According to Gourmet, some top items on the list are: French Fries, Fried Chicken, Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, & Chicken Nuggets.

I was shocked...slash intrigued.
I find myself getting bored with the same foods, so I wondered how many different kinds of food do I eat on a regular basis.
Not *completely* sure of the rules, I made two lists: one super-conservative list & one more detailed list. In the first list I kept things like 'fruit' and 'potatoes' as singular items, not listing each way I could eat them: French fries, mashed potatoes... In the second list I listed separately each item that could be considered a side for a meal: green beans, popcorn... In BOTH lists I kept each protein & grain as singular catagories: hamburger, chicken, bread (Instead of chicken delight, fried chicken, grilled chicken, wheat bread, asiago bread...)

In my 'liberal list' I have 79 different food items.
In my 'conservative list' I have 33!
Ten- ten! Can you *imagine* eating ten items or less on a regular basis???

Not me.
Lauren

Avacados
Limes
Tomatoes
-for homemade guacamole

Chicken Breast
Red Pepper
Green Pepper
-for fajitas

Shampoo
-for hair

Seal
-for leaky pipe in attic

Manilla Folders
-for Preschool Papers

……………..........................………………
I just need to sit down & write
my book.

I have always struggled with being satisfied with my job.

I've been teaching preschool for two years now...and in a lot of ways, I love my job more now than I ever have before.  For the last four months I've been writing curriculum, in which I've found a lot of contentedness.  I pull together themes, activities, crafts, music, literature and manipulatives in order to teach specific lessons.  (And of course, there's often a lot of time for those 'teachable moments' that there's no shortage of in preschool!) 

At the same time, my employer simply is not my favorite person in the world.  And because we're such a small facility, there's a lot of room for chafing. 
I have ten two-year olds. 
To myself.
Hands down, the most difficult classroom we have.
I still sometimes deal with biting; there's hair-pulling, toy-taking, tattling, tantrums...you name it!  And I'm the potty-trainer.  I change approximately 25 diapers a day (about eight of those are poopy) and take about twenty potty trips in between.
Anyone there, even the director, will tell you I have the most difficult class.

And did I mention I work 7:30am-5:30pm?  Yep! TEN HOUR DAYS.
Luckily, though, it's only our days a week.
Once a week a floater is in my room and I have the day off.
(Of course the floater never covers my lesson plans or seems to be able to do the small tasks associated with the general upkeep of a classroom...but that's another blog!)
My day off used to be Friday.  That was perfect because Steve has Fridays off.
Then we went back to eight hour days and the director hired a part-time person (in December), who doesn't work Fridays because her husband sometimes has them off.
When we made the switch back to ten hour days we were both asked if we would mind splitting Fridays.  One week I would have Thursday off and work Friday, the next I'd work Thursday and have Friday off.  I really wasn't bothered by that much, and agreed pretty easily... as did the other woman.

And then she got her days confused.
Not once or twice.
She's probably gotten her days mixed up once a month since February.
And usuall it's not that big of a deal...sometimes it even works out in my favor.

But then she traded days off with the assistant director for last week.
Only she wasn't supposed to have Friday off.
I was.

I held it all back.
I went to the director and let her know about the situation, but by this time Steve and I had cancelled our plans and the AD had made hers known, so I quietly told the director what had happened and asked her to just let it slide and we'd just switch other days to make up for it.
Instead of being thankful, she made a big scene about how she'd figure it out and acted liked I was just a JERK for saying anything to her about it at all.

Whatever.

I chalked it all up to us being hormonal or needing some distance...I was just going to take the high road and let it slide.

Yesterday at 12:30 I went to talk with her about plans for the end of this week.  The schedule of activities for my class got thrown off course because of last week, and I needed her to make some copies for the floater for Friday.
"You're working Friday.  You're off tomorrow."
"No, I'm not.  I'm off Friday."
"No..."
"You're joking..." (A smile crept across my face; I thought there was no way she was serious and she'd pulled a fast one on me.)
"No... I'm not.  You're working Friday.  Jill has a graduation party and has to get stitched removed.  You're working Friday. What?  ...Did you have plans?"

.....

"Yeah...but it'll be fine.  It'll be okay... I just have to go.  I can't talk about it right now."
I left shaking.  I went back to my class and sobbed.  I was so upset!  I did have plans.  A lot of plans.  Big plans.  But what did it matter now? 
I cried and kept shaking for the rest of nap time.
I talked with Steve...I tried to do other things...I prayed.
It was bad.

I finally pulled myself back together and after Steve and I had both prayed about it, I went back to speak with her again.
I VERY POLITELY asked if I could see her schedule.  I had obviously gotten some things confused.
She gave me the schedule and was nice...but it was "Nancy.Nice."  As in- twisted.  Two-faced.  Covering her behind and proving she couldn't be held liable for any of it.
"Can I ask you why you thought you had Friday off?"
"Because I've worked the last two Fridays.  Last week I was supposed to have Friday off, but that got mixed around.  To make up for the mistake I thought we had talked about me having two Fridays off in a row."
"Well, I think that all the confusion started back when you got your days off mixed up."
          (The first week of FEBRUARY...and we'd long ago straightened that out.)
"...And I know that was several weeks ago...but that's where I think it all started."

*gag*

"Okay.  Well, thank you.  Here's your calendar back."
"Lauren, I'm sorry that there was a mistake and you got hurt.  Well, not that there was a mistake, because I didn't make a mistake...but I'm sorry that there was a miscommunication and you were hurt in the process."


.....

See, there are parts of my job that I love, that are SO fulfilling. 
But it seems like every couple of months or so, I get put in my place. 
I become informed that I don't know anything and I need to follow blindly wherever she leads.
The lack of respect is sickening.

And what's difficult is that I feel like this is where God brought me- two years ago.  And so Steve and I have been praying for months that if this is where God wants me, that He'll show me. 
...
So last night I updated my resume.
I printed out some applications.
And I prayed a lot.

If this is where God wants me, then I'll stay and continue to do His work here.
But *maybe* the lesson I'm supposed to learn is that He doesn't WANT me to be miserable in my job.  That He'll lead as long as I keep moving and keep seeking.
I'm prayerfully applying for two different jobs.
I'm simply going to send in my resume and my application.
They might not even call for interviews; I could be completely different than what they're looking for.
But that's where I'm going to leave it up to God.

.....

I'm ready for things to be different.
This job has been good for me, and I've grown SO MUCH...
but now I kind of feel like a buterfly trapped in her own coccoon. 
The fit was okay before, but it's too constricting with these wings of mine.


..We'll see..
And I'll let you know.