Stress

Right now my boss is walking around the store, showing it off, to someone that he might hire. Yesterday I heard this guy asking for an application, he has been in the store many times for music, he's a piano teacher. I'm so relieved and excited. This semester has been very difficult at the music store. Totally manageable but stressful. There are days when I have to work by myself and just as often wait past time to leave for someone to take my place. I get nervous thinking what will happen is someone is late coming in? I have to teach. I have students waiting on me.. 2:00 turns into 2:10.. then into 2:13... I get antsy knowing I have a 2:45 lesson and I have to travel to get there.
What a relief to know that my boss has finally seen the need for someone to help cover our gaps. Probably in more ways than one. It is so nice to know that, perhaps.. perhaps, soon, I won't have to worry if I can stay an extra 5 minutes to make sure the next person gets here on time.

Today's entry will be all about stress! You will also get a chance to know me a little bit better :) Duh, when do you not know about me more through each journal entry. This semester I have been learning about stress management more than I ever had before. I know that since I graduated and especially since I got married (a year after college) that I've been learning about what I can and cannot cope with. For instance, I took a part time job teaching general music classes at a private school. I loved those children.. I could not handle teaching so many of them at once. The night before I went to teach them I would stress out about grades, I would stress about if the classroom was set up or if I'd have to rearrange things, I would worry about not seeming professional enough, I would worry that I wasn't getting through to all of them. I quickly found out that that was not the job for me. Although I love music, and I love teaching.. I simply didn't have enough time to devote to that job. Keep in mind I was teaching a private studio, working at the music store, singing at EWTN in the mornings and playing at a church on Sunday's. Wow.. that's a lot of work and a lot of music.

Jaime and I had a really amazing conversation months ago about work and money. You don't need to know the details of his work and money because this isn't his blog (and I know he reads it and would appreciate it if I only wrote about me). We had a talk about why I don't just get a day job doing something like being a secretary, something that paid decently and gave me steady hours from 9-5. Jaime was very patient and very loving while talking me through ways to maximize our time and resources to pay off our debt. (Gosh I love paying off debt) I felt very intensely that I want to continue teaching. The idea of getting off work at 4 or 5 sounds really nice but I would miss teaching, I feel fulfilled when I teach and I love watching children learn. So how do I capitalize on that without losing it like I did last year doing five part time jobs at once? I try to get more students.

I was so nervous about this. SO nervous. Because I already felt like I worked a lot, adding more students to this?! That's when Jaime walked me through it, he's the logical one you know. By teaching more students I could free up a few of my week days to have time for myself, time to think about teaching (specifically time to think about competitions for next year). You know what I've realized since adding 5 students and one more day of teaching to my schedule that I thought was already full, I enjoy teaching more than I thought I did. Go figure. I get so excited about each new student and I love knowing that I have very full afternoons, full of students, full of learning. I never get sick of them. I never get sick of reminding people that Middle C is such an easy note to remember.

Which brings me to stress. Right now I'm in the middle of a very packed very tightly timed semester. Each day I go straight from one job to another with several 12+ hour days back to back. Not that my jobs are extremely difficult, it's that I have no free time. My husband and I both love our free time. Jaime gets cranky if he doesn't get video game time, just like I get cranky if I can't sew, or read a book. Speaking of which I just finished all the Harry Potters, I almost cried. Almost. So I've been finding out lots of little things about myself that I didn't know, things that help me stay sane.

1. If I leave straight from the music store and go straight to teach, even if it means I have 15-45 minutes of free time to just sit, it's way better than stopping by home to see the doggies. I only live five minutes from the music store so it's very tempting to go home and 'relax' for a minute. I've found out that it stresses me out way more if I do that because I feel rushed, I worry about being late, and I don't enjoy the time I spent with the pups.

2. I made sweet tea this week and it tastes *almost* like my moms. I haven't made sweet tea very well in Alabama and gave up thinking it must be the water. This week I've had several moments where I poured a glass and just.. relaxed. It worked.

3. Quit thinking about where you'd rather be or how much longer you have until fill in the blank. There happen to be plenty of hours past 7:00 where I can enjoy plenty of different things. Yes, I still want to go to bed at 9pm, I might always be that way, but I've been trying to push myself to stay up later and last night I did, past when Jaime went to bed, for the first time ever.

4. Plan out my food and make sure to stock good tasting things even if those are Bud's Best Cookies. Even if your husband only let you keep three of the 10 bags that were given to you by your student. I also like to keep a stash of mac and cheese, Zataran's rice, Hamburger Helper, and M&Ms for baking. I haven't touched any of these this week... except the cookies, mostly because I know they are there for emergencies. I get home late, we're hungry, we need to eat pronto. I have some pesto in the fridge for the nights when I want to treat us to a better meal.

5. I have been practicing telling myself, in especially stressful situations at the music store, that it doesn't matter. "Carrie this doesn't matter, it's not your problem, just ignore it" Choose your battles.