A Sanctuary Sought

Another Year of Change

2012-01-10T10:08:00.000-08:00

If you had told me a year ago that 2011 would bring as much (or more) change than 2010, I would have laid down and died of exhaustion. Or laughed maniacally until the gentlemen in the white coats came along. Possibly both, in one order or the other.

And yet, the last few months were super-saturated with change. Jon and I are still slowly absorbing everything that has happened, because there is only so much your brain can take in and really appreciate at one time. Another baby on the way. A new job. A new state. A new house. A choice to bike instead of having a second car.

And of course, the corollary endings and farewells. The sale of a house, the goodbyes to friendships that had only just taken firm root, leaving another beloved church family.

Those are just the Big Things, in the midst of which are the smaller but just as meaningful everyday shiftings that come with life, especially life with preschoolers. My toddler becoming a little girl, my baby boy starting to figure out the world. Another new soul growing a body and preparing to join us and change everything again.

I think it's nap time.

After that, we'll see what 2012 brings.

Easter thoughts

2011-04-24T06:02:00.000-07:00

I'm staying home today due to a resurgence in my dastardly cold, and I'm sad to miss the joy of celebrating Easter with my church family. For that matter, I'm sad to miss the cousins Easter egg hunt with family on the other coast, and dinner with our friends down the street. Even if I was well, we couldn't participate in all of those events, but I'm still blaming it on the cold. I did mention it is dastardly?

Anyway, as I stumbled out of bed for the DayQuil and ibuprofen, resigning myself to the fact that I would have to stay home in bed, I thought about why Easter is so special. It is even more joyful than Christmas to me (and I love Christmas!), but I don't know that I've ever considered why until today. Isn't the day God became Man equally as momentous?

Emphatically, yes! But here's my thought: the birth of Jesus is a miraculous event that changed the world forever...but he could have done anything after he was born. He was (is) God made flesh, a vessel of divine power and sovereignty on Earth. He could have chosen to destroy the world, rule over the world, turn the world over to the chosen nation of Israel, or, after realizing what it meant from a human perspective, chosen simply not to have taken our sins upon himself. He chose to die for all.

The hero of the story, hanging from nails on a cross while his life's blood pours out and soaks into the dry ground.

Those who trusted him, gave up everything for him, heartbroken and confused.

A tragedy, while the Enemy looks on in triumph.

Until Easter.

"We're Almost Adults!"

2011-03-05T13:03:00.000-08:00

Those were the words (half-jokingly) uttered by my husband when I finished filling out our wills this morning. And you know what? It took me about twenty minutes, and that was with a headache, a baby pulling at my pant leg, and a preschooler whining to watch "Dora Snow Princess" on the laptop. But despite having to pause for a time-out (not for me!), I got it done.

Monday morning I'll call to make an appointment with a notary at our bank and it'll be all legal and official, and I can forget about it until we move or have an addition to the family.

I don't like to think about wills, because it's almost like I feel like I'm putting a sign on my back saying, "I'm all squared away, I can die now." As if that is somehow going to make it more likely for me to die early.

But even worse than that (irrational) thought is the (much more likely) possibility that Jon or I might leave behind a mess that could tear our families apart. We've both seen it happen to other families, even when there weren't young children involved. I hate even contemplating someone else raising my children, but without a will, a court of law will decide for me and that is completely unacceptable.

Now we have the peace of having a plan in place should the worst happen. It doesn't make the worst any more likely to happen, but it sure prevents a tangled mess of relationships and stress in the midst of grief.

If you don't have one in place, please, for the sake of everyone you love and care about, make a deadline for yourself NOW to remedy that.

Bee in my bonnet

2011-03-02T08:53:00.000-08:00

So why did I suddenly get a bee in my bonnet to get this "responsibility stuff" taken care of? No, I'm not ill and don't expect to be ill...I haven't received any death threats over having the cutest children in the world...and I'm not headed to Libya to become a freedom fighter. The fact is, everything I'm planning on doing this month falls in the category of "very important but never urgent until it is too late". And that kind of stuff tends to get superseded by "not important but urgent" needs like laundry and dishes and watching the season premiere of America's Next Top Model to find out what the weird bubble-walking scene is all about.

Hence the arbitrary deadline.

I think the bee, however, is actually an offshoot of teaching/coordinating Financial Peace University at our church. We've been working our "Total Money Makeover" for three years, but there's a new energy to our efforts. We have our starter emergency fund in place (yet again) and this month we're completely paying off four debts. Instead of just running in place to keep it from going backwards, our "snowball" is finally gaining momentum and rolling down the other side of the hill. So now I'm looking at the other areas of our lives that have been neglected and I finally have the energy to deal with them -- and I'm making the time to do so.

Act Like an Adult: Week 1 Goals

2011-03-01T08:47:00.000-08:00

It's here. March 1. Time to "Act Like an Adult".

Fortunately that doesn't mean that I can't spend the morning drawing castles and troll bridges on our chalkboard table with Aurelia. Or make funny faces at Baby Blaise until his belly jiggles to rival the likes of Ol' Saint Nick.

It does mean that I have three Big Girl goals this week:

1) Buy a waterproof fire safe for our important documents, a small cash emergency fund, and our back-up external hard drive.

2) Make a hard-copy list of ALL of our accounts, including account number, username, and password (if applicable). Place in said safe.

3) Sit down with Jon and actually fill out the will we purchased over three months ago from USLegalForms.com.

*Phew*...now my goals are out there and you can hold me accountable. :)

I'll update with progress later this week, and discuss why I think these steps are so important.

Gearing up for March

2011-02-25T08:15:00.000-08:00

We're 20% of the way through 2011. Looking ahead at our plan for the year, it almost feels like the year is already gone. Time to get cracking on those goals!

To help motivate myself, because I'm a nerdy checklist kinda girl, I'm naming March 2011 the "Act Like An Adult month". All those responsible things that keep getting pushed to the back burner...they're going to the top of my to-do list. Finishing our will. Putting together a "legacy drawer". Buying a water/fire-proof safe. Acquiring renters insurance. Hurricane preparedness.

So keep your eyes open, folks. I've always said that you can't grow old if you don't grow up, but I need to at least pretend to be an adult for a month so I can go back to joining my three-year old in her world of imagination. March 1st. It begins.

Knowledge isn't judgemental

2010-11-16T19:17:00.000-08:00

Yesterday over at To Love, Honor and Vacuum, Sheila sparked a bit of heated debate. Was the topic politics, religion, or sex education? Nope. None of the above. Try "decorating". A baby's room.

You can pop over and read the article yourself -- my post isn't really about the pros and cons of making a child's room into a suite retreat from family living. What surprised me (but shouldn't have) was the defensiveness of some of the comments. Several readers seemed to feel that Sheila was judging their choices and declaring a "bad parent" verdict. When all she really did was draw attention to several studies suggesting detrimental effects of having televisions in a kid's bedroom; in fact, she included hyperlinked references to the studies for readers to easily access the information she discussed.

Taking the results of scientific studies as a personal attack happens almost as often as policy-makers ignoring the results of studies that aren't "PC". And it happens to be one of my biggest pet peeves, but that might be my Vulcan blood showing through. Knowledge is knowledge; even if it has emotional repercussions or rocks your boat, please expend the mental energy to figure out why it bothers you and don't ignore the new information (or shoot the messenger).

I'll give an extreme example, one that I learned from a virologist during an "advances in immunobiology" lecture series. She led a research team trying to isolate the cause of a disease that was making a lot of people with AIDS sick, even killing them. The team eventually realized there was a correlation between the disease and owning a cat. This led to the discovery that the cats were transmitting an opportunistic virus. When this news was published, the researcher received death threats. People (especially those affected by the disease) were so upset by their (mis)perception that the researcher was suggesting they get rid of their cats that they wanted the study retracted. And an apology, of course.

Do you really think the researcher set out to conspire against AIDS patients having cats in their homes?

Sounds silly when you say it out loud like that.

Needed: One Perpetual Energy Machine

2010-11-04T05:07:00.000-07:00

I often joke with my husband that a stay-at-home-mom's job in a nutshell is to combat the massive amount of entropy generated by her children. You know, "Super Pickerupper" versus the archvillain "What's That Do?" and her sidekick "Mr. Poopy Pants".

Well, I don't know what's happened this past week, but entropy is getting the better of me. Maybe it's because we haven't been able to go for our pre-naptime walks or perhaps we're still recovering from the sugar high of Sunday night's fall festival. For whatever reason, my toddler is beating me when it comes to naptime (again).

As a result, I've spent far too much time considering this problem: how on earth is someone supposed to find the energy to fight a battle that has no end? I keep hoping that at some point, some of the training I've worked so hard to instill in my daughter will actually stick. After the toddler years, it must get easier...uh-oh. See, there I caught myself in what I know to be a myth. Sure, the battles I'm facing now will (eventually) be distant memories, but every stage of childhood/parenthood has its own, er, challenges. I'm going to be battling on behalf of my children (even when that means against my children) for as long as I'm their mother.

So...how, how, how, WHERE do I find the energy?

How has God been able to withstand His children pushing back against Him for thousands of years? I have a whole new comprehension and appreciation of His patience and faithfulness toward us. I'm also relieved to know that even He gets emotionally fed up on occasion, because it means there's hope that I can be a good parent despite the fact that my pool of patience isn't bottomless:

And the LORD said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and indeed it is a stiff- necked people! Now therefore, let Me alone, that My wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them." (Exodus 32:9, partial)

So why doesn't He give up? What keeps Him going in His pursuit of raising us up despite our many shortfalls?

The key is Love. He loves us, so He doesn't give up. Even when He destroyed the world in Noah's day, He wasn't giving up on His children -- He was just giving a new beginning and setting the stage for our rescue on the cross.

So when I'm running out of steam (or feeling steamrolled by the planet), that's what I'll turn to as well. Love is the fuel for this marathon.

)

Walks, Naps and Water

2010-10-22T19:30:00.000-07:00

As I may have mentioned, naps had become problematic around here. For a few months, a certain golden-haired toddler just couldn't remember how to fall asleep come afternoon. Which would be fine, if lack of sleep didn't result in mega-meltdowns come dinner time. And over-frequent useage of the word "NO!" before then.

All that has changed.

I am currently celebrating an entire week of easily getting Aurelia to sleep for naps. The key? A long walk after lunch, followed by warm tea with milk, a quiet read and off to bed. As a very pleasant side-effect, Blaise is tired after the stroll in the warm sun as well and he goes to sleep at the same time.

Sometimes we fly to see Grandma and Grandpa during our walk.

Sometimes we just fly high in the sky like a bird (if we're not too busy chasing butterflies).

While Blaise looks on, enjoying a splash of apple juice in his water bottle.

Then we like to see what marine bounty God has waiting for us at the end of the dock. Will the dolphins be back to play right in front of us today?

Enough watching, it's time to run! While pushing my baby brother in a stroller!

Here we come!

While Mom and Dad (who fills in for Hilary on Fridays) wait with bated breath.

You have a PRESENT for me?!?

"Honey, don't forget your brother"

Brother safely returned, the promised present handed over.

No caption needed.

No "Flipper" today, but Mr. Crabs came out for a show.

Goodbye, Bay. See you tomorrow!

Or later today, as it turns out! Because the water park is closed. Even though it is 85 degrees.

Liveable Laundry Goals

2010-10-19T09:38:00.000-07:00

Two of my favorite blogs are talking about laundry this week. As part of "Simplify Your Life" month, Sheila shares some great laundry tips and systems over at To Love, Honor and Vacuum. I'll share one quick tip that I've learned after nine years of marriage: if you want your husband to use the laundry hamper in your bathroom, take the lid off of it. Piles of laundry NEXT to the hamper drove me crazy for years. When we moved to our current house, there was a lidless hamper (not to be confused with the Lidless Eye of Sauron, even if that's how laundry appears in my nightmares on occasion) in the linen closet in the master bathroom. Now if I leave the door open to the linen closet, the hamper actually gets used!!! Wish I'd figured it out on my own, but I'm happy to embrace the serendipity (and results) of this discovery.

In perhaps my favorite post yet in her "31 Days To A Less Messy Nest", the Nester encourages us to lower our expectations. It is a simple change of perspective, but changing my laundry goal from "empty laundry hampers" to "having enough clean clothes available" really frees me from a lot of stress. There may not be a day in my foreseeable future when I don't have to do laundry, but if I simply accept that fact and move on, that's okay.

15 minutes to a simpler...mantel

2010-10-05T14:43:00.000-07:00

Over at To Love, Honor and Vacuum, Sheila issued a challenge to find an area of your home to declutter in 15 minutes. Although I had many options, I chose the mantel/bookcase area on our tv wall in the living room. Mostly because the other areas that popped into my head would require more than the allotted time...haha.

Here's the before:

Yes, the glass vases have been sitting there with paper in them since we moved. In June. A lot of the Wii gear was just scattered around the mantel, and someone has been forgetting to hand already viewed movies back to Aurelia when she picks out a new one. Oops.

And the after:

I put the less-used Wii gear in a box under the Wii remotes, the movies back in their homes and moved some of the movies down into the cabinets in the white bookshelves. I'm not in love with the flower to the left of the vcr, but something needs to go there to hide the wire clutter. It'll do for now.

Okay, so to make the deadline I cheated a little by simply moving the totes of toys and books to the laundry room for later sorting. Glancing at my plan for the week, that will happen on Thursday. So I won't let it bug me today.

Week 1 of Simplification

2010-10-04T13:36:00.000-07:00

Many of my favorite blogs are doing a "31 Days to --something better--" thing in October. I am loving the tips so far, on everything from how to take a better photograph to how to live more fully in grace. But the articles that are speaking to me the most right now are the ones focused on simplifying life. Sheila Wray Gregoire is devoting an entire month of blogging to this very topic (check out today's post at To Love, Honor and Vacuum for some wonderful insight as she kicks off the series).

I am very intent on creating a good daily rhythm to live by, and to that end I sat down last night and scheduled my entire week out...not every minute, but in a few reasonable blocks of time for each day. I don't intend to do this forever, but I thought it might be useful to be deliberate with the details for a while just to get the right pace. And I will NOT beat myself up if I don't stick to the plan -- which is good, because with a baby boy who woke up with a cold and another tooth coming in, pretty much nothing went according to schedule this morning.

Anyway, the reason for doing this is that over the past couple of weeks I've felt like I've neither accomplished anything nor spent any time doing little things I enjoy (like blogging). Part of this is because I've been fighting off a cold myself, and laundry and dishes do take up a lot of time...but mostly I've just been too sloppy with planning. I was also a bit depressed over not having the resources to do any real decorating, which killed my motivation to do much beyond tread water. There is no reason, however, that I can't clean and better organize what I already have.

Yesterday I started with the master bedroom. Why pick the room that is usually the last to get attention in a new house? Well, before I could decide what to do with the main living area, I had to figure out what furniture we owned would fit nicely in our bedroom. The room is hardly "done", but I'm really glad that I didn't wait until I had the desk I wanted or could build the bed or buy the curtains or find a good rug or recover the chair.We're already enjoying the new space.

More importantly, I can see the evidence of my work.

Which inspires me to keep this process going. Next up: pretending I actually own storage containers and organizing piles of what I would have in them and where they would be.

Because when my house is in order, I can spend more time doing this:

Focusing on the task at hand...the downside

2010-09-22T09:24:00.000-07:00

When my life was a duel between grad student and homemaker, I almost always had to just do what had to be done, one step at a time. Especially when our commute took up nearly three hours a day. THREE HOURS.

As a full-time "SAHM" now, I still use this approach for most everyday tasks. I don't really want to look at the broader view of the day and cringe at how much is full of mundane, repetitive housekeeping chores. If I just follow a rhythm of doing a few things that need to be done, then play with my children, take a break to read and have a mocha, then do a few more things that need to be done...then usually everything gets done and I don't feel overwhelmed.

The problem comes when I want (or need) to do more than just maintain the household. In Sheila Wray Gregoire's excellent blog, she asked yesterday for readers to comment on the biggest source of stress and "busy-ness" in their lives (she's getting ready to teach us how to simplify, woohoo!). This was an easy answer for me: House. Work.

I already know what I need to do to streamline housework. Mostly it involves some storage containers and a weekend of deep cleaning. But before I get storage containers, I need to paint my bookshelves. And before I paint my bookshelves I need to refinish my dining table and paint it. Which is going to require some coats of polyurethane, which means I need to clear out space in the garage (which is full of boxes of books waiting to go on freshly painted bookshelves). Before I do that, I need to spend an evening finishing up the final little details on my awesomely cute coffee table-turned chalkboard activity table.

Oops. Anyone see a problem with my (non) plan of action? If I just take care of the task at hand, I'll never actually complete the above list of projects. Fortunately, by writing out the list I was able to see that a lack of strategy won't work. And now that I type that out..."duh".

Wishful Wednesday: Video Scrapbooking

2010-09-15T05:05:00.000-07:00

What's Wishful Wednesday? A new linky?

Nah. Just what I wanted to call this post. Since I had an idea for a product I really wish someone would develop (pun intended...wait for it) at 6am while I was up feeding Mr. Hungry Poopy Pants...and today is Wednesday...you see how it came to be.

Anyway, wouldn't it be really cool to be able to "print" short video clips on 4x6 cards that you can put in a photo scrapbook? I guess good ol' J.K. Rowling already thought of the magical version of this. Maybe it's not so original.

But I really want it.

Because laying on the bed next to Blaise and watching him lift up his head and look out the window, listening to Jon puttering in the kitchen, smelling the coffee brewing...I wanted to capture ALL of that as my "Picture of the Day" so I can flip back to it in my Project Life kit twenty years from now.

I'm not asking for a holodeck here. Though that would be cool too, while we're busy wishing :).

The future of undervalued marriage?

2010-09-01T08:34:00.000-07:00

I ran across an astonishing article while skimming the Wall Street Journal this morning. Haha, doesn't that make me sound intellectual? Just know that I was reading it while rolling around on the floor with a baby and while my toddler scattered sections of the paper all over the living room. Don't want to give any false impressions.

Back to the article: "Only in Japan, Real Men Go To a Hotel With Virtual Girlfriends". Basically, a former honeymoon destination in Japan is trying to find a way to survive in a country where the population is shrinking and the marriage rate is falling. So they're catering to a new idea of "couple": real men taking their video-game character girlfriends on expensive weekend vacations. In the first month of the promotion, over 1500 men brought their virtual dates to Atami for romantic walks, an afternoon kiss and an evening of fireworks. They paid for two people to stay in a room at the hotel featured in the game, adding to the "realism".

Wives, homemakers, helpmates...if you ever doubted your value, consider this as proof positive that men NEED us in order to be their best.

My husband and I married when we were still undergraduate college students, which often surprises people. In response, my husband says that if he hadn't married me when he did, he likely wouldn't have finished college. Judging by his just-prior-to-marriage student id photo and his post-marriage driver's license photo, he would have become a bum instead. And then the world would be short one brilliant scientist (not that I'm partial in my assessment or anything).

The need for a companion, the despair of loneliness, goes so deep in man's nature that when a helpmate can't be found man creates one to fill the vacuum. The idea of a a grown man spending hours playing a video game to earn "boyfriend points" so his virtual girlfriend doesn't give him the silent treatment seems crazy until it is considered in light of the power of loneliness.

Fortunately, God knew this and created a better solution than Nintendo can compete with.

Moments of Grace

2010-08-26T07:29:00.000-07:00

Photo by Tim Marston

I've been thinking a lot about grace lately: how I see it in little ways each day, what it means, how to show it to my children. To my understanding, Grace is primarily the gift of a restored relationship with God. But grace is also the gift of waking up in a beautiful place in life that I didn't do anything to deserve. When I look back over the mistakes I've made in the past (you know, yesterday...or five minutes ago), or consider the aspects of my character that need to be "improved", I am convinced that it is only through grace that I am where I am.

Sometimes this feeling hits me more strongly than others, and it brings a peace with it that even if I took an unnecessarily winding path to get there, somehow I've ended up in a moment God had planned for me. Last Saturday evening was one of those moments. We piled in the Expedition and braved the crowds to attend a free concert down at the beach. We weren't sure if the weather would cooperate or if the children would be too tired or if we could find a parking spot or...but we didn't let that stop us.

And sitting there in the sunset, watching a pair of dolphins playing and the flock of birds dancing over the waves, embraced by joyful music, enjoying the company of friends and family, I couldn't have been more sure that this moment was a gift of grace.

No Better Time Monday: Picking Paint

2010-08-23T13:57:00.000-07:00

Last week I decided my "no better time" project was to get the house ready for some long-ish-term guests. So just some extra house cleaning and converting the nursery to a guest room. Which means having a baby sleep in our closet...good thing it's a walk-in, right?

Anyway, this week I did something a little more fun: picking out some paint for my first real decorating project in our new home. I promised myself that once I finished unpacking the last box inside the house, I could get down to some decorating. Done and done!

I'm starting small: an old coffee table I picked up at Goodwill for $8 just before I got married (nearly nine years ago!). It was my first furniture purchase for married life, so I'm kind of glad that I forgot to return it to a thrift store before the big move. I'm going to turn it into an activity table for my toddler daughter, hopefully ending up with some cute and functional AND practice my technique and try out some color choices.

No pictures this week, but keep your eye on the blog for the coffee table transformation! And don't forget to join in below with your own "never do list" project!

Just Call Me "Mombot"

2010-08-14T18:38:00.000-07:00

I admit it. I like reading my monthly Technology Review. On my Kindle.

In the August edition, I discovered that I am absolutely amazing.

Would you like to know why?

*drumroll*

I can fold a towel. In less than 20 minutes. YES!!

It turns out that robotics experts are excited to have finally developed a robot that can fold a towel properly in twenty minutes or less. Very complex algorithms are involved in order for the robot to determine the edge of the towel. They're hoping to teach it how to fold shirts next.

The bad news is that it doesn't look like we'll be automating laundry any time soon. Rosie, may we meet someday!

Vacations

2010-08-10T17:47:00.000-07:00

"Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, you ought to set up a life you don't need to escape from." -- Seth Godin

We are huge fans of Dave Ramsey around here. Our 2 year-old daughter recognizes his voice on the radio. Then shouts with glee, "Dave Ramsey Show!"

I also "follow" the Dave Ramsey Show on facebook, and the producer Blake usually puts up a couple quotes to ponder for the day. 90% of the time, I (and about 90% of the other fans) love the quote.

Then a couple of days ago he shared the Seth Godin quote listed above. My immediate reaction was...haha, come and potty train my toddler and feed my baby in the middle of the night and then get back to me about vacations, Seth! I love my life. I also love vacations. Furthermore, I think vacations are very important in allowing me to realize I love my life.

I was thinking about this point last Friday, after Jon took the afternoon off from work so we could all go down to the beach (and try out our awesome new beach umbrella, thank you World Market!). It was payday, and I make a habit of not cooking dinner on payday (Shhhh! Don't tell Dave!). So after we were done throwing sand in the air and rinsing the algae off our legs from splashing in the surf, it was time to get some dinner.

I wanted Panera Bread. Jon wanted Taco Bell.

Compromise time!

He dropped me off and drove down the street. They are so amazingly quick at Panera Bread that I had several minutes to sit and sip on my delicious frozen lemonade.

Yes, it's just as good as it looks. Anyway, as I was sipping away the thought came unbidden -- What a wonderful, lovely afternoon. I am so happy.

And it was true. But given how hectic it is to take two very young children to the beach, deal with the sand, the gear, the sand...I might not have noticed how lovely the day was if I hadn't had five minutes to pause and relax.

That's what good vacations do.

No Better Time Monday: On Time

2010-08-09T06:49:00.000-07:00

I've never been one to scrapbook or really spend any amount of time recording memories. If I was really, really ambitious, I might actually put some photos in a photo album. Without even adding so much as a date or "what under the heavens this event was and why I am covered in mud" comment.

But I'm coming to realize that an activity is enjoyed most fully in three parts: Anticipation. Participation. Recollection.Or, future, present, past. I previously considered the "Recollection" phase to be a time sink that keeps you from doing more of the "Participation" phase. Perhaps because I am now a mother, or simply because I am older, or maybe I was just blessed with an "aha" moment in the middle of the night...but I think was wrong.

I still don't have a lot of time to devote to recording events for future perusal, so I was excited to find Project Life. Which also happily takes care of my lack of creativity when it comes to making picture layouts!

Putting the book together was a breeze, taking up about two nap times. Printing out the pictures to bring the album up to date took one more nap time thanks to my new all-in-one printer (I wanted to start my year at the end of June, when we moved across the country). I've kept the pictures up, picking a "daily picture" almost every day.

"No Better Time Monday" comes into this project because I have not found or made the time to catch up on the journaling cards for July. And sure enough, it only took another nap time once I admitted I didn't have to (and likely didn't have the talent to) make every entry witty and Pulitzer-prize worthy.

It is really wonderfully satisfying to be able to sit down and look over our first month in our new home together. So I've made myself a promise: no more rolls of film sitting around for six years (or waiting on an SD card) in this family! :)

Did you knock off a project on your "never do" list this week? Tell us all about it and add a link below!

No Better Time Monday: Starting off BIG

2010-08-02T05:54:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the first edition of "No Better Time Mondays": a weekly challenge to get something done from that list of things we never get done. I want to first make it clear that this doesn't have to be something that you don't want to do...it could be something that you enjoy doing but just can't quite find the time for. Nor does it have to be something big. In my personal experience, most of the things I put off turn out to take way less time than I had imagined.

What I chose to do this week, however, was Big (yes, I meant to capitalize that word) and time-consuming.

*drum roll*

Potty Training. It seems like that should be a four-letter word...

We've been sort of potty training for several months now. Which means that whenever we thought about it, we'd put Aurelia on the potty and she would usually go so she could get a marshmallow for a treat. I didn't get serious about training her until we finished moving, but we've been here for a month now and I'm honestly Done with wrestling with her to change a diaper. So Friday through Sunday was designated "Potty School" weekend.

Several friends recommended using the "Potty Training 1-2-3" system, so I queued up the free online video and took careful notes of what to do, reassured by all of the smiling testimonials in the video from moms whose children were fully trained within a day -- maybe two. Yay!

Prepared for a couple days of not getting anything else done, we went to the store Thursday night to let Aurelia pick out treats to use as rewards. And "special" drinks to help create the "urge to go". And princess pull-ups and princess panties.

That's: Milk, Water and Juice. What chance does a toddler's bladder stand against that onslaught?

Starting Friday morning, I spent every waking hour asking "Are you dry and clean?" every ten minutes. We read "Olivia" a few thousand times while Aurelia sat on the big potty. She checked her teddy bear for "clean and dry".

Saturday, it was Daddy's turn.

Sunday, we double-teamed.

Today...she still won't tell us when she needs to go potty. No #2 in the toilet yet. "No" is the only answer I ever get when I ask if she needs to go potty (unless it means she can get out of bed during nap time, of course).

So for me, the first "No Better Time Monday" wasn't much of a success. It had to be done...but it is still not done. I think next week my challenge will be something Small and Quick. And Enjoyable.

Have a nice week!

Fitness Friday: Make Me Think edition

2010-07-30T06:47:00.000-07:00

Brenda at The Family Revised must have decided I've been getting too much sleep lately. So she created a Fitness Friday task that kept me up at night, trying to figure out how to write a post on the given topic(s)..."Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue."

Most of my ideas involved taking pictures, but the batteries on my camera completely died (hmm...might that have to do with Project Life?) and I only got to the store to replace them last night. So I'm going with the "popped into my head at 3am when I was up with Blaise" version. It was all very eloquent and witty in my head then, but now we're back in the real world.

An "old" challenge to my fitness: lack of time to exercise. Fortunately, this obstacle has been overcome by a combination of a son who likes to wake up for the day at 5am and my Wii Fit (yes, I'm still enamored with my Wii, so please forgive me if you're tired of hearing about it).

A "new" challenge to my fitness: in the short term, potty training my daughter. I'm trying the Potty Training 1-2-3 system starting today, with a goal of her being completely trained by Monday. Unfortunately a side effect is that we have a bunch of sugary and salty treats in the house, which I normally never have around, and they are already serving as a major temptation. Which is, of course, why I never have them in the house. Also, most of my time and energy will be focused on the training, so it will be tough to keep up with my exercise goals.

I'm hoping that my developing understanding of how little things can add up quickly will help me abstain. Again, love the Wii Fit option of having a food item goal to represent calories burned!. Also, I started weighing myself on the Wii twice a day -- before I exercise and after I've logged 45 minutes, and I love seeing the difference. For me, this is an excellent motivator to avoid blowing all my work on snacking.

Okay, now we're on "something borrowed". I'm borrowing some wisdom from Geneen Roth, my favorite food counselor and a very talented writer. To stop compulsive eating, she teaches that you must first learn to love food. Stop and enjoy every bite, savor each moment, and be aware of how your body really responds to food.

Finally, "something blue". This one is easy:

In the end, laughter and joy are more important than weight and inches.

Countdown to NBTM!

2010-07-29T11:35:00.000-07:00

Just 3 more days until we kick off "No Better Time Mondays"! Don't forget to pick a procrastination project to finish up, and drop by next week to share a link with us!

A Sanctuary for Sleeping

2010-07-28T15:20:00.000-07:00

It's hard to believe, but we've been in our new home for just a little over a month now. Earlier this week, I finished unpacking and organizing the laundry room. But that was mostly so I could feel like I was making measurable progress. Sort of the Dave Ramsey "Debt Snowball" approach to organizing a house.

The room that really needed to be done was Aurelia's room. It's been stuffed to the brim with boxes, toys scattered all over the floor, clothes tossed wherever...truly an insane mess. And we were wondering why she's been having a hard time getting to sleep at nap time??

I didn't take a "before" picture, but all of these boxes and garbage bags came OUT of her room today:

Keep in mind that some of those big boxes have more boxes inside. That's a lot of stuff.

And this is what is left:

A Challenge: No Better Time Mondays

2010-07-27T07:59:00.000-07:00

I'm sure I'm not the only one who could write an epic book-length list of things that need to be done, but I just keep, er, finding other things to do. Whether it's as big as detailing the inside of our car or as little as moving that pile of winter clothes on our closet floor...that happens to be the residence of a cockroach. Anyone else get the heeby-jeebies from those nasty critters? It's not their size that gets to me -- I've snuggled up in sleeping bags with horned beetles that could probably serve as full entrees, if you were into that kind of thing. It's the high speed scuttling into dark places. Shiver me timbers.

Anyway...

I'd like to invite all my bloggy friends to get into the spirit with me each Monday, and get something on that list done. Let's call it "No Better Time Mondays". I'll make a little blog button and everything. Don't leave me hanging here all alone! See you on Monday...right? :)

What a Good Monday Looks Like

2010-07-26T18:19:00.000-07:00

Monday didn't start out well. Super Fussy Pants had an especially fussy night, and we were all tired long before the day began.

But reflecting back on the day now, this is what I see:

A clean, organized laundry room. It may not seem like much, and it was certainly the low-hanging fruit when it comes to getting this house in order, but it is so very nice to have another small space that doesn't have a single unopened box in it.

I made my son laugh.

I danced with my daughter.

My daughter made my son laugh.

Chocolate pie for dessert. That my daughter helped me make.

Memories of my husband chasing sunlit bubbles with our daughter in the back yard.

At the end of the day, the kitchen is clean again. No dishes in the morning.

It was a good Monday.

Fitness Friday: Focus on Energy

2010-07-23T06:22:00.000-07:00

Fitness Friday again! And I'm happy to first update my last FF post to say that I am loving my Wii Fit Plus. I've used it for at least 30 minutes every day for the past week, and the games are addicting. Rhythm Kung Fu, I am your master! Obstacle course, I'm going to get you some day...and your little doggie too, haha.

I've read some criticisms about Wii Fit not being tough enough. It's not P90X, but it leaves me sweaty and sore. More important, it makes me want to exercise and it is so convenient to use that it, well, actually gets used. A typical Wii Fit day looks like this for me: get up with baby at 5:30, weigh in, exercise for thirty minutes. Sometime after baby takes a nap, usually when I'm feeling tired and funked out, fire it up again while Aurelia watches and makes fun of Mommy getting steamrolled by a log in the obstacle course. Or looks for Daddy's Mii character running around while Mommy's Mii cycles all over the island. We've made a game out of that, and it's a great way to keep my toddler occupied while I get in some exercise.

And this brings me to today's topic: focusing on energy. A side-effect of the Wii that I didn't expect is that doing a 5 minute game gives me a better energy boost than an afternoon mocha. Plus it's free (after the initial start-up costs, of course). And has zero calories. So when I find myself looking for a stress snack or a quick energy boost, I head for the living room now instead of the kitchen.

So far, I've lost 2 pounds (which is the most I want to lose in a week, since I'm still breastfeeding). Last night I took my measurements, since that's a better way to track fitness in my opinion. And I even took a "before" picture of myself...now you KNOW I'm serious.

Oh, and yes, that's a dresser behind me in my dining room. Isn't that where you keep yours?

Family Fun: Picnic in the Park

2010-07-21T08:35:00.000-07:00

A couple of days ago I was reaching the end of my patience so I loaded Aurelia and Blaise into the car a little earlier than usual to pick up Daddy from work, and we drove around the neighborhood for a bit. I'm glad we did, because we found a great park about two minutes from our house! So last night all four of us packed a picnic dinner and headed out for some play time.

We all had a great time -- Blaise enjoyed swinging on my lap, Aurelia raced around pretending to be a Sharptooth and chasing all the other kids (who loved being chased of course), and Jon and I chit-chatted away over a bottle of wine as the sun was setting. (I admit, I asked Jon to pick up some lemonade and then changed my order to wine and croutons.)

Which begs the question: why don't we do this more often? It is such a simple pleasure to be outside with my family. Maybe even more than usual, considering how the "inside" in our lives right now is still mostly full of boxes. I don't know the answer to the question, but I do know that we'll be adding picnics into our schedule more often -- at least twice a week, plus our weekly beach outing.

Speaking of new habits, now that my Project Life kit has arrived, I'm trying to take more pictures of our everyday life as a family. I'm really looking forward to chronicling our first year in Florida. For that reason alone, I'm glad I ordered the kit! Though you might start seeing some weird pictures as I attempt to expand my photographic horizons. Like this one. Food shots seem to be the rage these days. I don't know that I quite have the art down...

I think Aurelia must be getting into the spirit as well.

SAHM: Kitchen Helper

2010-07-16T13:26:00.000-07:00

One of the first challenges I've had to face as a new stay-at-home-mom is simply: how to get basic household chores done when I have a little helper who insists on doing her part? I don't want to discourage her from being involved in what I'm doing and I haven't found a satisfactory distraction technique. So most of the time I try to find a safe way to let her give a hand, even if the hand makes the job take much, much, much longer.

When cooking, I used to be able to set her up with a pile of tupperware and some spoons and she was happy doing her own thing while I prepared a meal. Now she wants to be right in the middle of the kitchen with me. But there are hot things and dangerous items in the kitchen, oh no!!!

Well, I've decided to approach kitchen safety like gun safety. If I teach her how to use the kitchen properly so that she is comfortable with it and aware of the dangers, instead of simply telling her she can't touch anything, she is much less likely to get hurt. (Don't worry, the guns are still locked up around here...this is just what's called an analogy ;-). Hence, you see that the burner to Aurelia's left in the picture above is red and hot. And she is happily cooking "chicken" or "rice" or "fries" or "soup", whichever her imagination alternately conjures up.

I also let her help me open the oven door when we bake something, showing her where it is safe to touch and where she would get burned. So far, so good. And I believe that allowing her a small level of independence makes it easier for her to accept when she really can't help with something, like actually taking something out of the oven or cooking with hot oil.

Fitness Friday: Wiiiiiii

2010-07-16T06:22:00.000-07:00

Due to diabetes raising its ugly head in her family, Brenda has resurrected "Fitness Friday" over at the Family Revised. While I'm sorry for the reason behind this, I'm also excited about the timing. We're finally settled enough down here on the Emerald Coast that I can seriously start to work back towards my normal size 8 self. I do not want to tell you what size pants I finally gave in and purchased last night...but I will, because Fitness Friday is about honesty, accountability and encouragement. Size 12.

It's not the number itself that bothers me. As I recall, the average woman in America is size 12, so I have plenty of company. But it's not a healthy weight for me and I feel very unsatisfied with my fitness level. I'll never be a slim, trim maiden again after having two wonderful children, but I do want to feel comfortable in my skin and comely for my husband.

My original plan was to join a gym with childcare, but after considering the practicalities I realized it would take up 2 hours every day in total. That's just not going to work for me right now. I'm still learning this stay-at-home mom stuff and I don't want to overload my schedule. So yesterday I sold our XBox 360 and bought a gently used Nintendo Wii with Wii Fit. On the advice of friends, I also bought the Fit Plus for an extra $10 at Target.

So now I'm going to set it up and give it a whirl. I'll let you know how it goes, ladies!

Wifey Wednesday: The T word

2010-07-14T08:00:00.000-07:00

Anyone who has been near me these past ~~few~~ several months knows what the T word is. And Tired really doesn't begin to cover it. Over at To Love, Honor and Vacuum, Sheila Wray Gregoire is talking today about what to do when you're too tired to be intimate with your husband. I'm too tired to walk straight, so you can guess how I feel about desire right now.

In case you need some help, I'll expound: If my beloved husband was wearing Indiana Jones's hat, made me laugh with George Clooney's charm, oozed with James Bond-esque suaveness and spoke with Russel Crowe's accent...I still wouldn't be at a "Zero" on the spark-o-meter.

Sheila offers some GREAT advice on how to rejuvenate, but really there is only one solution to my sleep deprivation, and that is for Baby Blaise to start sleeping longer than 2-3 hours at a time. Or for him to take a bottle more consistently. So I guess that's two solutions.

Right now the only thing in my power to control is to let my husband feel more of the consequences of this sleeping problem. At first I shielded him from the lack of sleep because he was working 20+ hours a day finishing his dissertation. I just focused bleary eyes on the day we were moved and his new job started so he could take a feeding in the middle of the night, as we did with our first baby. Somehow I've found myself taking all of them again -- mostly because of the bottle problem but also because I want my husband to get more than six hours of sleep.

But you know what? If he can get up at 5am so he can go to the gym for an hour every day, he has room in his schedule to help me get more than five hours of sleep broken into three or more chunks.

Other than that, if anyone has a magic solution to getting a 4-month old to sleep longer, please let me know what it is.

Wifey Wednesday: Easy tip for adding spice! (And I don't mean cooking!)

2010-07-07T12:07:00.000-07:00

It's Wifey Wednesday over at Sheila Wray Gregoires awesome blog, To Love, Honor and Vacuum. Today's topic is a dare to do little things to spice up the romance in relationships. I just want to share one of my favorite tools for keeping the conversation interesting with my husband (of almost 9 years! Where did the time go?): TableTopics.

The couple's edition is obviously a good place to start, but all of the conversation starter sets are really great. I bought a set for our anniversary last year and we went through half the cube over dinner; we were having so much fun answering the questions and discussing our answers that my husband barely glanced at the college football games on the restaurant's televisions! Maybe I should e-mail that selling point to the good folks over at tabletopics.com, eh?

Anyway, the point is that after being together for so many years, sometimes it's hard to think of something new to talk about. Especially if one of you spends most of the day changing diapers, doing laundry and figuring out what to cook next. (And we all know that you're not supposed to talk about your children on date night! :)

Oh, and when you're done with a set? Pass it along to another couple in need!

Changes

2010-07-06T11:16:00.000-07:00

June was a crazy month, and I don't mean that lightly. A part of me is glad that I was (am) so sleep deprived that I'm not likely to remember much of May/June. A new baby, Jon finishing his dissertation, moving across the country and a thus-far-futile attempt to complete my own graduate degree have left me reeling. Right now I should really be sleeping, or at least unpacking another box. But I feel like I need to claim a minute for myself. So here I am. Ready to focus on the much-anticipated new month and a new start.

I love the house Jon found for us to rent, and he is really enjoying his job. Actually, we're all enjoying it since he gets to come home for lunch every day and his amazing flex-time options mean we get him home an extra day on most weeks. It is really great to be just a couple minutes from the beautiful beaches of the Florida panhandle (no oil here yet!). Aurelia would live in the surf and sand if she had half a choice in the matter. She might come out for some ice cream or to play on a slide. Blaise...well, I love his chuckles and smiles, but that boy still needs to learn how to sleep. Let's not talk about that though -- I'm almost as sick of thinking about sleep as I am from lack of it. (By the way, lack of sleep/new parent jokes are not even remotely funny. Really. They're not.)

Boxes and half-assembled furniture fill most of the rooms still, since our "stuff" arrived only a few days ago. Sometimes I look at the piles and think we'll never organize everything again. Then I just open a box and start working...unless a diaper needs to be changed or food needs to be cooked or a mess cleaned up or the dryer just went off...haha. I think I'm done with the kitchen, unless a box made it to the wrong room. So that's progress!

Money has been fun for the past month. Transitions are ridiculously expensive. We get our first new paycheck in 3 days. If I've calculated everything correctly, that's almost exactly how many dollars we'll have left then. Fortunately chicken and rice can carry a menu plan a long way on the cheap. We break it up occasionally with tilapia and tater tots. And broccoli. Because clearly those three things go together.

Which brings me to an aside (as if the rest of this post is perfectly coherent): living in a house with just some camping gear for over a week really shows you 1) how little you really need to get along just fine, and 2) how nice a real bed is! And a changing table. Oh, and a place to sit.

And with that, I think I'm out of random thoughts on our recent life changes. More will come later, along with some more pictures from the professional photo shoot I won back in Washington. Gayle Sholtz photography, thank you!!

Casually Feminine: You wear it EVERY day

2010-04-16T13:48:00.000-07:00

I'm a day late in giving my input for "Casually Feminine Thursday" at The Family Revised, but I'm living in "newborn" time so I'm sure you'll forgive me. The topic this week is The Face. As a former Mary Kay consultant, the first thing that comes to my mind on this topic, at least right after how lovely a smile makes a face, is skin care. As my lovely and wonderful mentor once told me, you wear your face every single day. So doesn't it make sense to take better care of your face than you do your clothes?

Now, you don't have to "do" your face every day to be casually feminine. But I really think taking care of the basics goes a long way toward looking lovely. Here are the basics: cleanse, tone, moisturize and protect. Then if you want to add a touch of color, go for it! The key is to find a skin care system that works for you and then be consistent. Personally, I prefer the Timewise system from Mary Kay. It's very simple: I use the 3-in-1 cleanser in my morning shower and then moisturize just before putting on a light foundation and finishing with some powder. It takes less time than brushing my teeth, and I feel put together and ready to face the world when I'm done.

Once I've taken care of the basics, I also add a touch of bronzer to my cheeks, a soft color to my lips and a quick swipe of neutral eyeshadow and mascara so my eyes don't get lost behind my glasses. That takes care of my everyday look, but how far you take these extras depends on your definition of casually feminine.

L&D and the Garden of Gethsemane

2010-04-03T11:14:00.000-07:00

I'm convinced, after my second pregnancy and childbirth, that there are few experiences that make us more Christ-like than delivering a new life into this world. Choosing to carry and give birth to a child requires complete sacrifice of self -- and involves a level of courage, blood and agony that a man who has sweated blood can relate to.

Jesus knew what he was facing as he prayed in the Garden, and begged to be released from what had to be done. How many mothers-to-be have uttered similar (if not quite so eloquent...or coherent) prayers as they entered the last stages of labor? For myself, I know the end is near when I start asking if there's any way to opt out of the pregnancy after all. But then I start reminding myself -- the only way out is through, and the end is worth the effort.

I think the blurred weeks that follow childbirth also bring us closer to understanding Christ's loneliness in Gethsemane. “Could you men not keep watch with me for one hour?” Yes, I think Jesus understands the lonely, sleep-deprived hours a mother endures out of love for her new child. There are certainly radiant moments of joy in gazing down upon the face of an infant lying comfortably at the breast, even after getting only an hour of (interrupted) sleep. But there is also a sense that the rest of world, as it keeps on turning, has forgotten you completely.

Finally, did you know that "Gethsemane" literally means "olive press"? That sounds like an apt description of labor. And I'm sure my newest little 10 and half pounder would agree, given the bruises on his poor head!

Like a Lake

2010-01-05T10:35:00.000-08:00

¹ Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, (Hebrews 12:1, New King James Version)

It's time to lay aside the weights that have been suffocating me over the past several months. Time to clear away the rubble. Time to stop hiding my head in the sand and start behaving like a lioness of God.

For the first time in ages, I know exactly what I need to do. No laundry, dishes, experiments or reading can distract me, as much as those things need to get done. Nor do I need to make resolutions for the new year. I need to face the things that shame me, full in the face, and deal with them.

So that's what I'm doing today, however long it takes and whatever else it keeps me from doing. And I'm sharing this with you, dear abandoned reader, because I also need to humble myself and do this in "public".

Why deal with the past, rather than focus on new chances in a new year? Well, how can I be vulnerable to my husband, loving to my daughter (and soon-to-arrive new son), and confident in my work if I wall myself away in the dark in fear that someone will see my shame and failures? Where is there room for joy in a heart that's huddled in pain, unwilling to look at my own reflection?

I don't like sounding melodramatic, but I've been so unsure of who I'm becoming that I've just kind of floated along day by day, failing to meet obligations...and with each little failure, becoming less able to find a place to start taking care of the mess. Kind of like when you ignore your household chores for a while, and suddenly you can't stand it anymore but the task seems overwhelming -- do you go room by room or pick up the all the floors or throw your hands up in the air and put the blinders back on?

As Sara Groves so aptly writes in "Like a Lake",

standing at this waters edge
looking in at God's own heart
I've no idea where to begin
to swallow up the way things are

But this morning, something wonderful and unexpected happened. I have to face up to missing an important deadline for completing my graduate research, and in sorting through how to explain why I need more time (preferably without sounding like an emotionally incompetent fool), God came out of nowhere and freed my heart -- and gave me a plan and a place to start.

Now I wonder: if He had answered my desperate plea for someone to stand alongside me* in my darker moments over the past few weeks, would I have been ready to hear Him? If I hadn't been on the point of tears (or well past the edge) for so long, would I be ready now to clear away the rubble of my mistakes, whatever cost doing so brings me? I don't think so.

So I'm ready to start, by making a list of things I am ashamed to have done (or rather, not done) over the past year. Those I can't do anything about will go straight to the throne of grace. The rest I'll need to make a plan for, my prayer being this:

when it's over bring me stillness
let my face reflect the sky
and all the grace and all the wonder
of a peace that I can't fake
wide open like a lake.

*Not that I lack loving family and friends who would gladly stand with me if I asked. Rather, I was hoping for someone to miraculously know what I was going through without being told. And I was too ashamed to admit I needed someone to lean on.

I fought the yard

2009-05-25T20:22:00.000-07:00

...and the yard won.

There has been much evidence in the past to support the theory that I'm insane, but I always coolly brushed off such accusations with the defense that I merely vacationed at the Cliffs of Insanity. I hadn't actually purchased a condo there.

Well, today I'm here to tell you that I have no further defense. I'm offically a full-time resident at the Cliffs now -- in fact, I'm in the running for mayor. If I can just get my friend Molly the Pirate to agree to be my campaign manager, the election's in the bag. Who can say "no" to a pirate?

Back to my insanity. (Sorry, it tends to make me ramble).

As I've mentioned in recent weeks, we've been working on our yard this spring. To give a little bit of background, the people we bought the house from had purchased the property from a retired one-legged elderly lady who, according to neighbor testimony (including photographs), spent all of her time working in the yard. There is still evidence of all the energy she put into the landscaping -- beautiful curved concrete borders, loads of flowerbeds, huge delicious-smelling lilac bushes, etc. But the owners between this lady and ourselves were team long-haul truckers. Suffice it to say: they let things go a bit.

We've been slowly reclaiming the landscaping, but I wasn't able to do much last year. Maybe other moms can weed and garden with an infant in tow, but I could never figure it out. This year, Aurelia is happy to rub her hands around in the dirt (or eat the dirt, or rub her face in the dirt) while I garden right next to her. And I really, really want to make the yard pretty again. And put in a little vegetable garden.

So I spent $100 of poster competition prize money at Wal-mart (what? that isn't your nursery center of choice?) for seeds and corms and other plant terms I don't know that are supposed to turn into flowers and veggies if you put them in the ground and water them. Surely I can handle that?

Well, the good news is that I miraculously got most of the flower seeds into the ground last week. Now we have to finish the fence and paint it before the flowers get serious about growing, since most of them are vines I intend to have growing up the fence. Don't ask me how that's going to happen, because I don't have a clue. It just needs to.

Thus far, I've surprised myself by actually remembering to water the seeds and finding the time and energy to do so in the evening. This despite the fact that our hose isn't long enough and has several leaks precisely at the end by the nozzle, so I get annoyed and soaked every time I use it. But today...well, I feel like burning the gardening gloves and letting the weeds have their way with the "gardens".

WARNING: Hot steam venting ahead:

I cleaned out HALF of ONE flowerbed last week so I could plant seeds in it before I left to visit family for a long weekend. Tonight, after driving for six hours, starting laundry, a load of dishes, vacuuming, keeping up with a toddler who required my physical presence to do anything without crying... I headed outside to clean out the other half of the ONE flower bed. Then I saw some new weeds sprouting in the section I had already cleaned out, and figured I should keep up with the work I'd accomplished before working on the other half.

I couldn't even finish re-cleaning the first half of the bed. I was done. Nothing left in the tank except tears.

All I really want to know is: What kind of psychotic mushroom did I eat that made me think I could add on yardwork, when I can't even keep up with the bare necessities of housework???

On the bright side, I hear there are some nice vacation homes available in the Fire Swamp. Come by to visit anytime! Just ignore the weeds on your way to the door.

Fitness Friday: Three for one!

2009-05-15T10:53:00.000-07:00

Why do I feel an urge to go pick up an Alexandre Dumas book?

Oh, wait! That's , "all for one", not three for one. Nevermind!

Okay, so I've been out of the Fitness Friday loop for a few weeks. But as I choose to believe, better late than never! So let's see if I can fit all three recent assignments into this one post.

First, we were supposed to share pictures of our homes, specifically areas related to fitness. Wow, that's a good joke, Brenda! If I had time to clean my house, I'd have time to post! So, moving on...(But as a consolation, above is a picture of the rec center where I exercise).

The next assignment was to talk about how we sneak in exercise when we can't fit in our usual regimen. Umm...I use the stairs instead of the elevator? That sounds lame. Maybe this wasn't a good idea after all!

Honestly, if I can't make it to the rec center during the workday, then I just don't exercise. There is no other time in my schedule for so much as a set of sit-ups. Which is why it's crucially important that I get to the gym regardless of how hard it is to arrange me experiment schedule appropriately.

Let's see if I can do better with this week's assignment: what am I up against? Beyond looks are appearance, why is it so important to me to get and stay fit?

Well, I have the typical family history of heart attacks and strokes, but not any more so than the next ten people you run into. So I won't explore that very much. And in previous posts I've already talked about the need to set a good example for my child(ren).

I guess what I have to struggle with in particular is motivation, confidence and happiness issues. Getting up and doing something physical, pursuing a measurable goal, helps me feel like I've accomplished something. If I've accomplished something, I feel better about myself. If I let my confidence wane, it's not a pretty sight for anyone in my life.

So, to put it simply, being fit makes me feel like Lara Croft -- and that helps me keep the mindset that life is an adventure and God gave me gifts to be a hero in that adventure.

What I'm "up against" is the lie -- so easy to embrace -- that life is nothing more than the dreariness of endless laundry and having too many things to do.

Wanted: One Re-set

2009-05-12T15:14:00.000-07:00

I was thinking just this afternoon, after waking up grumpy and tired, forgetting to call my mother-in-law to let her know we were leaving the house (something I do EVERY SINGLE weekday morning), getting soaked in a nasty hailstorm that unleashed the very moment I opened the car door to transfer Aurelia to grandma's car, forgetting the library books that were due yesterday, miscommunicating with Jon about going to the gym...anyway, I was thinking I would love to have a "redo" for the day.

Then I realized that I really needed a total re-set on my attitude and perception for the past few weeks, not just today. For some reason, I feel really insecure after a major test. In this case, the Biotech Symposium and my annual Research-in-Progress seminar in front of my department. I wasn't nervous beforehand -- I was just going to do the best I could do, and I was too busy concentrating on putting my talk together to be worried. But afterward, despite very encouraging feedback from the faculty, I found that I couldn't stop second-guessing myself.

Of course, it didn't help that I came down sick almost immediately after giving my talk. It's hard to feel good about yourself when you're congested with zero energy. It's even harder when your sweet little daughter is even more ill than you are. I'm still not quite over the "spring crud", but fortunately Aurelia is pretty much back to her happy self.

Anyway, I think I need some event, or maybe some space, if you know what I mean, to separate myself from my dip into "no confidence land". A week by myself in the Bahamas should do it.

But I don't see that happening right away. Or in the next ten years.

So what can I do to re-set myself? I want to get back to happy and gracious. I'm tired of grumpy and touchy. If you've seen my road-map showing how to get from one to the other, please let me know!

A Powerful Moment

2009-04-23T12:17:00.000-07:00

I may be behind the times, but I just discovered the amazing performance of Susan Boyle on "Britain's Got Talent". If you are even slower than me to keep up with current events, please go see the video here. In fact, even if you've seen it already, go watch it again! I think I'm going to watch it every day for a while to bolster my spirit.

I don't want to spoil even the slightest part of the experience for anyone who hasn't yet watched the video, so please don't read any more until you've seen it!

Now, I just love everything about the performance, so I could go on about this for a while. I'll try to restrain myself. If anyone questions the power of music with integrity, I would point them to this as a perfect example of a song transforming an audience. At the beginning, the rolling eyes and skeptical laughter made it clear that nearly everyone in the room thought that Susan's dreams were ridiculous. As soon as she opened her mouth, however, all the "outside" stuff they were judging her by just fell away, revealing an amazing and captivating soul.

But the song didn't just transform Susan from a nondescript Scottish country woman into a passionate and beautiful creature, a true daughter of our vibrant Creator -- it remade the audience from a group of cynical people ready to judge a person for the slightest flaw, or for even daring to present his/herself as someone special, into a group of fellow dreamers! How long the change lasts, only God knows. But even if it was only for those brief few minutes during the song, I believe they -- we -- are all better for it.

Go Dream a Dream!!

And for a great article talking about what we can all learn from Susan Boyle (okay, so it's for aspiring writers, but I think everyone can get something out of it), take a jaunt over to Seekerville.

Fitness Friday: Reboot

2009-04-17T14:01:00.000-07:00

The sun is out, the woodstove lies cold and lonely in the corner of my living room, and it's time to reboot my Fitness Friday efforts. The past few weeks have been even more of a challenge than usual for my exercise goals. I have two major events coming up in the graduate student sphere of my life, so working in the lab has been a priority that trumps anything important but not urgent...like getting to the gym. Still, I'm proud that I did make it at least a couple of times a week. And now that I'm in the stage of writing up my research, it is easier to arrange my schedule around exercise.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Our Fitness Friday host, Brenda, gave us an actual assignment this week to help kick things off again. Here's my answers:

1. Introduce yourself: Hello, my name is: Megan. I'm a grad student studying infectious diseases, a mother of a 17 month-old little girl, and a wife in a wonderful 7-year-young marriage. And for a few more months I can say I'm in my mid-twenties.

2. Why I am back: I find that "meeting" once a week with other ladies working on fitness goals is very helpful to my own discipline. Sharing struggles and receiving comments on my own efforts (and, someday, progress!) are encouraging to my spirit.

3. My (fitness) goals in order of importance: First, I want to feel beautiful and captivating, and right now, for me, that means I need to drop fifteen pounds and tone up some muscles. As an aside, I want to make it clear that some of the most beautiful and amazing women I know are several sizes larger than me, and I know that beauty is about far more than what size clothes you wear. But personally I would feel much better about myself if I met my fitness goals.

Second, I want my family to be healthy and that starts with me. Not that my husband has any less influence than I do in our marriage, but I make the grocery lists and plan the meals. And I'm usually the one planning our schedule.

Third, we want to have more children and I don't want to gain ten pounds with each pregnancy! I need to get rid of the extra weight from #1 so I can fully enjoy the next pregnancy without being self-conscious.

And that's all for today! Hope to see you next week for another edition of Fitness Friday!

Wifey Wednesday: When Patience Pays Off

2009-04-15T11:57:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I participated in Wifey Wednesday, hosted by Sheila Wray Gregoire over at To Love, Honor and Vacuum. But the timing is perfect this week, as I'm sitting here smelling some lovely flowers my husband left on my desk while I was out this morning. They prove the point that patience (also known as "holding your tongue") really pays off. How's that, you ask? Read on, friend!

Last fall my husband (a grad student) gave a talk at a physics conference in Florida. At two previous conferences he won awards for his presentations, including a small but very welcome monetary award. We hadn't heard anything about the awards at the Florida conference, so we assumed that someone must have bribed the judges to steal the award from him...haha, just kidding.

Well, yesterday, out of the blue, he received the first place award certificate and a $300 check in his student mailbox. Yay!! I am so proud of him, and I'm thrilled to see his achievements recognized. He deserves the award, and much more.

But a little bitty part of me was already spending the money. We've been trying to scrape up some cash to do some landscaping in our yard, since we finally got those awful hedges out. On Monday we got some estimates on the lumber and paint for a simple wooden fence. The award check would cover it oh-so-nicely. Hopeful, I asked my husband if he was thinking about buying us a fence with the money. He wasn't keen on the idea, having the philosophy that extra money, especially for an award he earned at a conference, should be spent on fun things that don't otherwise fit in our budget.

It's times like this that root out any remnants of bitterness that might be sticking around in my heart. We've been having to pay $150 every month for a mistake my husband made last year, and it hasn't been easy, emotionally, to flush that much of our budget down the drain. Doesn't he owe it to me to try to make up for it if he has the chance?

I'm not proud of that thought, but there's a lot of justification for it. Regardless, I gritted my teeth but bit my tongue. Time to put into practice "love keeps no record of wrongs". The only way I was able to keep my thoughts to myself, however, was to ask myself another question: If I could buy my husband's happiness with this $300, would I even hesitate?

No - I would gladly spend it. I couldn't bear the idea of raining on his parade by asking him to spend the money on something as mundane as a fence. If it was a matter of not having enough for food or shelter, he would give it up without a second thought. I know this. So I gave up my bitterness and let the matter drop.

Then I get to my office this morning, after taking our daughter to storytime at the local library. A beautiful bouquet of spring carnations is filling the room with a fine fragrance. Even more lovely was the note attached to the vase, thanking me for my support as a wife and sharing a third of the award money to spend on myself (specifically, on clothes...but I've obtained permission to take a loan against the clothes money to get some spring flowers to plant before it's too late in the season). And as icing on the cake (almost literally), my favorite treat was in the little fridge: a glazed croissant and chocolate milk.

Clean Home Carnival: The Nursery

2009-04-01T14:53:00.001-07:00

JulieMom is hosting the first ever Clean Home Carnival! I must have been reading her mind, because I spent last weekend completely cleaning and reorganizing the nursery. This is something that needs to happen in every area of my house, but let's take things one thing at at time, okay?

What inspired this bout of organization? Well, to start out, it was the first weekend in over two months that I haven't been sick or working extra time in the lab or hosting family. Why the nursery? To tell the truth, it's usually one of the last places in the house to get serious attention, because it is almost exclusively used for sleeping, and with the lights turned off and the closet door closed, who would know or care that I had a ton of stuff shoved wherever it would fit? But I had a Starbucks/shopping date on Monday with a local mom I occasionally buy lots of clothes from (her daughter is now about 5 years old). I needed to know what we already had in the next couple of sizes so we wouldn't end up with twenty pairs of shorts and no tops. We're into modesty around here, you know?

Still, I probably just would have gone through the two bags of "too big" clothes except for the fact that we were all stuck inside due to nasty, depressing weather, and Aurelia was getting ancy-pantsy. So I figured there wasn't going to be a better time to just pull everything out of the closet and organize it all -- Aurelia gleefully helped, and we were all happy. Me because the room was organized and the monkey because she got to play with her old, way-too-small shoes.

The end result: goodbye to two full bags, one full box and two large unused items; hello to nicely arranged clothes in the appropriate size and lots of closet space. I'd take a picture, but Aurelia's asleep in the nursery at this very moment and I have my priorities.

Now, I just need to: clean the rest of the closets and the cupboards, do something with our bedroom, finish re-modeling the outdoor room, pull the hedges, build a three-rail fence around the front yard, rake the leaves (yes, I just wrote that), completely re-do the rock garden, wash the outside of the house, and plant some new bushes and flowers. Let's ignore the barn for now. And the little barn.

On the bright side: it looks like Aurelia is ready to help out with the yardwork!

And she found the first flowers of the year, welcoming them with a gentle caress (so she must know the difference between a flower and the cat).

Scheduling by Quadrant

2009-04-01T14:31:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I admitted that I haven't been able to successfully use a day planner for some time. Whether I'm at work or at home, I usually just go from one urgent task to the next until it's time to wind down for half an hour and then go to bed. This works for me, in general, but it's not ideal. If I hit one little road bump, my whole day can be lost. Worse (in my opinion at least), I feel like I never get any real rest - even though the whole point of me not using a planner is so I don't have to acknowledge the harsh truth that I have too much to do, allowing myself to take a little bit of time to do things that I find relaxing/enjoyable/fun, like writing for my blog.

So, I'm thinking about trying another approach. Instead of scheduling exact plans for the day, I'm going to do something that sounds un-fun and scientificky (yes, I just made up that word...you should try saying it, it's fun): schedule by "quadrants". Jon just finished reading a well-known book by Stephen Covey, called The Seven Habits of a Highly Effective Person. The author divides priorities into four quadrants (as seen in the diagram up top): Urgent/Important, Urgent/Not important, Not urgent/Important, and Not urgent/Not important.

Here's a slightly different way of looking at it:

I plan to try scheduling a certain (and appropriate) amount of time each day and week for all four "quadrants". Within the blocked out time period for Quadrant 1, for example, I could start an experiment that I need to finish before my upcoming departmental seminar, order lab supplies I'm about to run out of, make some phone calls for the Spring Biotechnology Symposium, wash a load of laundry so we have something to wear, pick up milk at the store...you get the idea. But I wouldn't be scheduling the exact use of the time, just the type of work I need to be doing in that block.

It seems like it could be extra work at first, but I've seen the vastly postive effect that deliberately and purposefully planning how to spend our money on paper can have, and I have to wonder if doing the same thing with my time would similarly decrease my stress levels and increase my productivity. It's worth a try, especially since I've recently taken a vow to abstain from mom-guilt.

Now I just need to figure out which quadrant "Three Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed" falls into. I know where my daughter would put it....

On Friday, look for a sample schedule for next week!

Efficiency: Overrated?

2009-03-31T14:01:00.000-07:00

For those of you who know me well and realize I have a very dominant Borg-esque love of efficiency: please don't let the title of this post give you a heart attack. I assure you, resistance is still futile.

This post is spawned by something my husband has recently begun praying every night before we go to bed, something along the lines of: "help us make the best possible use of every minute tomorrow."

I have begun growing increasingly agitated when I hear this. Honestly, I can't handle the stress of trying to make every minute be the best it can be. The only way to keep my sanity is to do something now, then do something else when that's done, and when I have any "down time" (waiting for the dryer to finish, or my experiment to incubate for example), fit in a few minutes for "leisure" activities. (Clearly, by the state of my blog, these down times have been far and few between lately.)

As much as I enjoy making lists and checking them off, I can't even force myself to use a day planner. If I were to try to schedule out each day, I would never be able to justify spending any time doing things I enjoy (and am even passionate about) just for their own sake. And I would quickly burn out. Well, I guess that's a kind of justification...

Anyway, I'm coming to realize that it's okay to ask God to help us make the best use of our time -- the pressure comes from my twisted thinking that asking for this means that I have to live up to it. So I suppose I'll have to stop elbowing Jon when I roll over to turn off the light. I'm also considering a different approach to time scheduling, which I'll post about tomorrow. See you then!

If you don't prepare for it, it will come...

2009-03-03T14:07:00.000-08:00

Well, we had a fantastic time up on the mountain last weekend. On Saturday all three of us floated around the awesome indoor river pictured above...about, oh, a hundred or so times. Aurelia even went down a little waterslide 3 times! She wasn't too sure how she felt about it, but she's a brave little one. And a toddler who plays hard all day is a toddler who sleeps hard all night. Which was a good thing, since we had to share a room and she normally doesn't like to sleep if there's another person in the room. (Yes, weird, I know.)

Normally I pack with the "must be prepared!" mindset. The unfortunate side effect is that we have to haul around a ton of stuff on trips, the vast majority of which doesn't get used. So I've been experimenting with a minimalist approach. For two nights, one pair of pajamas and one blankie should be sufficient. And why would I need to take more than one pair of jeans for myself? Haha. It turns out I was tempting Murphy beyond his limits.

The first night, the jammies and blanket were soaked. I don't know what on Earth happened to Aurelia's bladder (or her diaper!), but everything was wet. That's fine, I can improvise (and in comparison to the second night, the amount of "wet" was merely a trickle, which made for a very unhappy little girl at 6am).

My jeans didn't even last that long. On Friday night, they were subjected to smushed bananas and had a special concoction of drool and Oreo crumbs ground into them by adorable little hands. Oh well, at least I didn't have to leave the room much. The only time I really wore them in public was at our niece's 2nd birthday party on the way home on Sunday, and I assume none of the moms thought twice about my stained clothes. At least, that's what I'll keep telling myself.

Lesson learned: Okay, so I don't have to pack up the entire nursery for a weekend-long family vacation...but always pack two pairs of jammies and two blankets! Maybe I'll wrap up the spare set in an extra pair of jeans. Oh wait, I'd have to own a second pair of jeans first...

Fitness Friday: Summer Plans

2009-02-27T22:21:00.000-08:00

Back in the saddle again! So to speak.

I'm happy to say that I just finished up an ambitious project that has been taking up every spare moment of time for quite a while. I hope to be making an exciting announcement in that department in the near future, but for now I'm going to keep you in suspense!

What I can say is that I am greatly relieved, and I have every hope that the resulting reduction in stress and addition of time will help me on my road to fitness. I had to pare my schedule back to the bare minimum, which was actually an interesting exercise in prioritization. But it left me no time to keep up with my blog, as I'm sure you've noticed! What you don't know is that my house has received pretty much the same amount of attention. Eek.

This week Brenda asked us to talk about our plans to prepare for the summer. This is a great topic for me, as we're going to be heading to the white sands of Florida for a rare family get-together! My top "family" goal this year was to introduce Aurelia to her southern relatives, so we're really excited about this trip.

I'm not so excited about my post-baby body in a swimsuit. Actually, I'm shocked to realize that I haven't actually been in a swimsuit for over two years!! I used to be a waterdog, so I'm not sure how that happened.

Tomorrow that is going to change, for better or worse, haha. We're chaperoning a teen ski retreat. (And you're asking, how does a swimsuit come into this picture?!?).

Well, while the teens are up on the mountain tomorrow breaking their various appendages, Aurelia and I will be in the giant indoor waterpark. I won't tell you how long it took me to even find my swimsuit. And, no, I haven't tried it on yet.

Anyway, all of this reminded me that I should be thinking about setting some specific goals for physical fitness, using the Florida trip as a motivator. So I'll be doing that sometime this weekend, and (thank goodness), I can start working out again regularly on Monday. Between being sick and the big Project, I haven't been to the Rec Center in nearly a month. No wonder I haven't been feeling well, right?

Then comes the issue of clothes. A vacation is always a good excuse for a wardrobe update, in my book. Unfortunately, squeezing pennies out of our budget to pay for airplane tickets doesn't leave much room for the adult clothing category. So I'm going to be very selective, and pick a few high-quality, versatile pieces to "feminize" my summer wardrobe.

I'm starting with hautelook.com, which I learned about in Real Simple (I think...). The website has ongoing sales of designer clothes, which are still more pricey than my usual Ross fare, but the selections are very pretty and in my opinion generally more feminine and better fitted than off the rack items. Not that there aren't a few of those designer horrors that were clearly designed for an alien race. If you want to sign up, let me know and I'll "sponsor" you, which will give us each a $10 credit!

Okay, time to go spend some more mint Oreos to persuade the teens to behave. Have a great weekend!

If I had a spare $388

2009-02-13T14:30:00.000-08:00

...this is what would be in my closet. I have no idea when or where I would wear it, but I just adore this dress. It is absolute perfection. I feel like a queen just thinking about wearing it.

I felt the need to share that with the world.

Now, I guess I should say something more profound, and possibly even interesting.

Brenda over at The Family Revised has been writing a series of posts on women's fashion. I encourage you to go check out what she's written so far on the history of fashion and thoughts on how to be feminine today.

There's one issue, however, that Brenda hasn't discussed yet that my "dream dress" brings up. Once you're past proms and weddings, when do you get to wear beautiful feminine attire again? Maybe this is just a problem for those of us who live in small towns, but even when we make a trip up to the nearest city my husband and I have a hard time finding a place where we can dress up and not look entirely out of place.

A few years ago we had our anniversary dinner at a well-reviewed "romantic" Italian restaurant (I think it was the year after we had our anniversary dinner at Taco Bell...haha). I'm pretty sure I was the only person in a dress, and flannels and jeans predominated. Keep in mind that our anniversary is near the holidays, when people do seem to dress up more, so I was really surprised.

I sometimes find myself a tad jealous of my friends from India and Bangladesh, who wear gorgeous material on a daily basis. Then I'm shocked back to reality when I'm out throwing hay to my horse or gathering wood for our stove. I also think that a pair of nice jeans and a fitted t-shirt can be quite feminine as well as practical, so I'm not really complaining about daywear. I just find it frustrating that our cultural trends have become so utterly casual.

What do you think, ladies? Do you also wish you could show off your full beauty more frequently? Or does the thought of wearing satins and silks make you want to run for cover?

By the way, the dress is available here and I'm a size 8. In case my fairy godmother is reading.

Fitness Friday: A new day

2009-02-12T12:29:00.000-08:00

Relying on God has to begin all over again every day as if nothing had yet been done...

--C.S. Lewis

I love this quote. It's both a reminder and a promise to me. Yes, I have to start over every day - begin yet again to be a good mom, wife, daughter, friend, woman after God's own heart. I can't rely merely on what has gone before, or assume it will be any easier today.

But beginning again as if "nothing had yet been done" also means I can forgive myself...MUST forgive myself...for yesterday's mistakes and failures. I have a terrible habit of mentally beating myself up over events and choices long past my present ability to influence. What a waste of time, I know, but it's a trait I have to deal with.

So this post is just a reminder to myself, and anyone else with similar struggles, to greet each day with new hope and fresh resolve. I can't change what I did yesterday, but I can choose to let it go and make better choices today. Thank God that He gave us the gift of "days", right? A chance to begin again after resting our bodies and minds while the present becomes the past and the future waits with open arms.

Fitness Friday: Superwoman syndrome

2009-02-05T18:24:00.000-08:00

I have to say I'm at a bit of a loss with this week's assignment: Try something new. Honestly, I think I need to try something less. Does that count as "new"?

Keep in mind that I have had two weeks where it has been difficult to get anything done, and I'm still struggling with being sick...so I'm not my usual optimistic self. My husband is also out of town for research and I'm feeling the crunch of three big deadlines coming up in the not-to-distant future: I have to finish the first two parts of my research by the end of April, I'm almost single-handedly organizing the Biotechnology Spring Symposium and the book I've been editing for a friend has to go through a critique group and be delivered to the publishing house by March 1.

In my brilliant over-eagerness I also started an online critique group, signed up to review an advanced copy of a new book and committed to baking two pies for the upcoming missions dinner at church. Did I mention I have a house to run and a daughter who I want to play with? Forget trying to take care of myself or *gasp* taking time to rest.

I think I'm suffering from "super woman" syndrome.

So, while I haven't had the chance to try it this week (since I've mostly been stuck at home in bed, or at work when I should have been in bed), I think the something new I'm going to try again is saying "no".

Have a great Friday, and a joy-filled weekend.

For His glory

2009-02-05T12:04:00.000-08:00

I sat talking with a single mom yesterday. The meeting was arranged in order for her to interview me for the graduate school recruiting department, but talk of my daughter led naturally to talk of her daughter. Her story shares themes with the lives of many single parents - complicated choices and even more complicated consequences.

She shared that her fiance lives across the country. Philosophy degrees lead to restricted job opportunities, so he went where the door opened and now sees her only once a month. Naively, I pointed out that she should be finishing up her own degree soon and could join him before long. It turns out that although she has full custody, her daughter's biological father lives nearby and Idaho laws will not allow her to move with her daughter except under very strictly defined circumstances.

Jon and I talked about this for a while, because we can see both sides here. If I were the father, I would definitely want to be close to my daughter. But it seems to me that the mother is paying an unfair price for choosing to give life to her beautiful child. A price worth paying, but still unfair. I guess we all pay for our mistakes, even when we make the best choice for dealing with the consequences.

Maybe the right thing to do would be for the biological father, assuming the fiance is a good and decent man, to rescind his legal right and allow his daughter to move away. I don't really know, and that's not actually the point I want to discuss.

What I'd really like to talk about is what I told this young lady after she shared part of her story with me: "I will pray for you."

Why do we say this? I sometimes find it hard to say, because I don't want to sound like an insincere prat. Part of me imagines them sarcastically thinking, "Great, that'll be a huge help for me." Especially when I talk to someone who could really use financial help or time. It could seem like the easy way out, instead of giving them tangible aid.

But as I was thinking about this, I realized that it is extremely important to tell people we will pray for them, what we will pray for them and Who we will be praying to. What if God is waiting for us to share this, so that He can act and show the person His glory?

Sure, we could just offer a sympathetic smile or hug and then pray sincerely for the person without telling them so. But when God answers the prayer, will they know it was Him? And isn't it more important to know God loves you and acts for you than it is to have your prayer answered, whatever that prayer may be?

Think about it.

Need some more midnight oil

2009-02-04T15:56:00.000-08:00

Much to my chagrin, when I had been hoping to increase my blog posting, I've instead been cut off almost completely from the blogosphere these past couple of weeks. So I sit here asking myself, "how did that happen?"

The answer isn't pretty: it involved two colds, an ear infection, some looooong car drives, and a disaster of a house...in short, a distinct lack of energy and time.

But there were some highlights as well: Dad's birthday (including a great night playing Cranium), coffee and a chat with my dear friend Molly who I rarely see, a baby girl who discovered singing (sort of), and an unexpected completion of a project.

So I'll be thankful that my daughter is getting better, I'm going to feel better, and my mom is coming up to help while Jon is off doing research in Florida. And I'll forgive myself, because sometimes, you just have to let things go.

But if you have any midnight oil to spare, feel free to send it my way! And/or slap me if I mention one more project I'm thinking of taking on.

Fitness Friday: Goals, greater

2009-01-23T13:39:00.000-08:00

Warning: this is a long post. I didn't intend anything this ambitious when Brenda asked as to post expanded goals for this week's Fitness Friday. But it turned out to be something I thought I should spend some time on, so here you have it.

I used a worksheet from the website of Dan Miller, author of 48 Days to the Work You Love. If you'd like a copy of the full worksheet, let me know and I'll round up the link again. The text in blue is directly from the sheet.

1. FINANCIAL Income, Investments (If you can’t dream it, it won’t happen)

“Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.” Ps. 37:4

I’m going to skip this section for now, as I’ve already talked about my financial goals. To sum up, we’re on the Dave Ramsey Total Money Makeover and digging our way through “Babystep #2: Debt Snowball” with gazelle intensity.

2. PHYSICAL Health, Appearance, Exercise

“The feeling of being hurried is not usually the result of living a full life and having not enough time. It is, on the contrary, born of a vague fear that we are wasting our life. When we do not do the one thing we ought to do, we have no time for anything else – we are the busiest people in the world.” Eric Hoffer

Five-Year Goals

I have the energy to be able to hike, ride my horse and play with my children. I am wearing size 6/8 clothes, and I devote time to exercise at least 4 days a week. My family eats nutritious meals and healthy food choices are second nature.

One-Year Goals
(Unless I’m pregnant) I weigh 135 pounds. I’m strong enough to help my husband cut and collect firewood and I’m quick enough to compete with him in racquetball. I exercise every work day at the Rec Center. I ride my horse every weekend we are home, weather permitting.

Beginning TODAY!
I weigh myself once a week at the gym to track my progress. I get a minimum of 8 hours of sleep on most nights. I plan my meals so I’m not tempted to make unhealthy choices, but I also allow myself to enjoy food. Once the weather warms up, I take daily walks while dinner is cooking, with my family and dog.

3. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT Knowledge, Education, Self-Improvement

“Never rest on your achievements; always nurture your potential.” Denis Waitley

Five-Year Goals
· Learn how to play my piano to the point that I can play the songs in the books of sheet music that I own.
· Refresh my French
· Learn another language
· Design a homeschool curriculum

One-Year Goals
· Pick up ballroom dancing again – so we can enjoy dancing without thinking about feeling uncomfortably inept

Beginning TODAY!
· Read or listen to one non-fiction book for every two novels on my list

4. FAMILY Relationship to others, Development of children, Where do you want to live?

Five-Year Goals
· Have a yearly “honeymoon” with Jon, just the two of us on vacation
· Develop a group of close friends now that we’ve settled down in one area – positive people I can learn from and enjoy being around
· Continue the habit of discussing interesting things with my husband every day, even though we don’t commute together anymore

One-Year Goals
· Read three “Parenting” books
· Set aside at least two weekends of the month that are just for our family to spend time together, with no other obligations outside of church
· Visit my Southern relatives and introduce them to Aurelia

Beginning TODAY!
· Write two letters a week to friends/family
· Talk to each of my siblings on the phone at least once a month
· Finish the video of “Aurelia’s 1st year” to send to my grandma

5. SPIRITUAL Church involvement, Personal commitment, Theological understanding

“Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” Psalms 139: 23-34

Five-Year Goals
· Host a women’s book club
· Have a family from church over for dinner and fellowship at least once a month
· Teach my children to memorize large amounts of Scripture (and memorize with them)

One-Year Goals
· Read the Message paraphrase of the Bible
· Re-read Captivating and complete the workbook

Beginning TODAY!
· Journal every day for at least 5 minutes
· Devote time specifically for prayer – however long it takes to drink a cup of tea
· Start going to Sunday School again

6. SOCIAL Increased number of friends, Community involvement, etc.

“The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches, but to reveal to him his own.” Benjamin Disraeli

I pretty much covered my “social” goals under “Family.”

SIX WAYS TO MAKE PEOPLE LIKE YOU*
1. Become genuinely interested in other people.
2. Smile.
3. Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.
4. Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.
5. Talk in terms of the other person’s interests.
6. Make the other person feel important – and do it sincerely.
*How to Win Friends and Influence People – Dale Carnegie

7. CAREER Ambitions, Dreams, Hopes

“That every man find pleasure in his work – this is the gift of God.” Ecc. 3:13

Five-Year Goals
· Be an established editor
· Finish two novels to my satisfaction (and hopefully to a publisher’s)
· Write articles/adventures regularly for RPG publications

One-Year Goals
· Finish the research for my PhD and start writing my thesis
· Publish two articles on my research in peer-reviewed journals
· Submit to RPG Superstar 2010
· Have one adventure published by Paizo

Beginning TODAY!
· Submit a proposal for Pathfinder Society Scenario #23
· Finish editing Mark’s book (by February 1st)
· Complete the application for the Poncin Fellowship
· Run two Western blots a day, every workday

The "R" Word

2009-01-20T15:53:00.000-08:00

It turns out, I'm a wimp. Aside from a harrowing weekend of trying to finish editing a diamond-in-the-very-rough 110,000 word manuscript, all of my spare time in the past month or so has gone into an enthusiastic effort to break into RPG freelancing. In December I submitted what we geeks call a "wondrous item" to RPG Superstar. It was a cool idea: iconic but unlike any other item I've seen in the game. I had friends review it. I tweaked it until I was perfectly happy with it. I triple-checked the formatting. And I managed to get my neat idea across in 200 words or less.

Then I waited in eager anticipation for the Top 32 to be announced. At 2:00, today.

You can guess what happened. My name did not show up. Not even in the alternates.

Granted, there were hundreds of entries, and I know that I was competing with an immense amount of talent. Which is why I'm proud of the fact that I even took a chance on myself and entered the contest. But I was certain I would make it to the next round. Not arrogant. Just certain.

Have you ever seen the movie Gattaca? If you haven't, you should definitely pick it up at your earliest opportunity - it's a fantastic sci-fi movie that grows more relevant every day. But I digress. There's a scene in the movie where the main character, one of the last of his generation to be conceived naturally and thus considered "inferior", is asked how he beat his quality-controlled younger brother in a contest of endurance. By all measures of physiology and genetic expectation, the younger brother should have won. But twice when the brothers swam out in the ocean, as far as they could go, the superior brother called it quits first, and was hauled back safely to dry land by the brother who was supposed to die young of a feeble heart. Sputtering and beaten, he finally asks - how?

The answer: "I never saved anything for the swim back."

I thought about this scene when I realized that I had not braced myself for the possibility of rejection. I threw all of my hope and expectation into this contest. I didn't save any of myself back.

Now I'm paying the price. Although a $1 hot fudge sundae from McDonald's helped dry up the tears. (Yep, I'm that emotional. Call my silly or call me sad, that's the way I am.)

I'm not going to quit. My husband, who I admit may be partial and/or a survivalist, assures me I am creative and someday, somewhere, someone is going to realize that and fall in love with my writing. I hope he's right, because I've realized through this process that I really want this.

I'm reminded of the time I first took a pregnancy test after Jon and I started hoping for a family. I thought it was something that would be great if it happened, but it would also be fine if it didn't - at least for a while. Then the test came up negative. And I learned in that moment that, more than I had ever imagined, I wanted it to come up positive.

In the end, I'm going to be glad about this turn of events because I learned something important about myself. And as surely as Aurelia brightens up my life with her delightful smile and toddler talk, someday I'm going to see one of my adventures (and maybe even a novel?) in print. I'm going to make it back to shore. More important, I'm going to head out to sea again too.

Fitness Friday: Accessories and Attitude

2009-01-16T12:15:00.000-08:00

Our Fitness Friday assignment is more pro-active this week. We're supposed to "tweak our wardrobe", however we choose. I challenged myself to do something to improve my wardrobe every day of the week. Here's the run-down:

Sunday: Today I braved up and wore a dress that I just loved when I bought it, but later decided was too "fun" for me. I had my eye on the dress for some time at the mall, and snatched it up when the store was down to the last one, which happened to be my size and over 70% off. I wore it once in Paris, but haven't worn it since. Last week I read a quote from a famous fashion designer, who quipped that "The most important thing about a dress is the woman wearing it." So I asked myself this morning, do I want to be the kind of woman who wears this dress? The answer was yes, so out of the closet it came.

Monday: Okay, more of a challenge today. I don't have time to sort through clothes I should get rid of and I already spent my monthly clothing budget on some new support from my favorite Victoria. So what can I use that I don't normally use? Aha!

Perfume! I rarely wear perfume, although I have some lovely scents in my bathroom cabinet. Today I'm spritzing on some "Tribute", from Mary Kay. It may not be a huge change for my wardrobe, but maybe it will turn a few heads in my direction or make someone in the elevator smile. (Err...I mean the STAIRwell).

REPORT: Moments after getting home tonight, I breezed through the bathroom to "freshen up" before cooking dinner - lipstick, hairbrushing, and another puff of perfume. Jon immediately said, "You smell nice!"

Tuesday: Time to toss out the frumps. Again. I'm surprised I have any clothes to wear, since it seems like I'm always cleaning out my closet. Here's a picture of the discards:

Total discards: One holey and shapeless robe, one ill-fitting undershirt whose top has long gone missing, another shapeless shirt that looked cute up until about the fifth washing, and one winter coat that has spilled latte on it from over a year ago and a bajillion pill-beads. Buh-bye!

Wednesday: Okay, another challenge. Today I'm going to add some new items into the standard rotation. I received some lovely things for Christmas that I haven't started using yet, and I have several wardrobe pieces that I put away during my pregnancy that haven't seen the light of day since.

Thursday: Shopping time! I have $20 of credit at Ross and I'm meeting my MIL to pick up my daughter at the mall after work, so I'm going to leave a little early and see what I can get to spice things up. What I'll be looking for: headbands and skirts. (Now let's just see if I can stay out of the baby clothes section!)

RESULTS: Sadly, Ross only had two skirts in my size. One was lavender and polyester and the other was shapeless black. No luck on the headbands either. But I did find this shirt, which I was shocked to find that I liked.

Me, in animal print???

I only tried it on because it felt soft, said Jones New York, and was marked down to $2.99. Turns out that I like how it looks on me. Cha-ching!! (Oh yeah, and I left the tags on in the picture to show that it was new...'cause I'm sure you think I'm cheating...haha).

Friday: Okay, I'm using the picture above to demonstrate my wardrobe tweak today. Necklaces! Thanks to a best friend who makes and sells gorgeous jewelry (link to her creativity blog in my sidebar: A Bit O' Shine) and a judicious hint a few years ago to my husband, I have a lot of pretty necklaces that I stopped wearing after having Aurelia. She's old enough now that chewing on my jewelry isn't usually an issue, so I'm making a deliberate effort to accessorize with them.

OVERALL RESULTS: On the way to work today, Jon commented that I looked really nice, and specifically gave me an "A+" on everything from boots to hair.

That's my week of wardrobe tweaks! *Phew* Tough assignment, Brenda! But interesting.

Fitness Friday: Feelin' Good

2009-01-09T15:06:00.000-08:00

Our assignment for Fitness Friday this week is to talk about things that makes us feel good.

Here's my list off the top of my head:

1) Racquetball - this is the first thing I think of because I just finished an invigorating game with Jon. When we first got married, the little apartment complex we lived in had a racquetball court. So we picked up some rackets from Play-it-again Sports and a rules pamphlet from the student rec center and started bashing a little blue ball around the court. We've kept it up on and off, although I had to quit when I got pregnant. We just picked it up again last week, and so far I've won half the games! And Jon wasn't even using his left arm...haha.

2) Horseback riding - My first pony, Silver, came into my life when I was 9 years old. (Well, Bonnie was first, but due to the frequency of occasions she tried to kill me I tend not to count her). I've loved riding ever since, but my current horse gets to lounge around in the pasture eating hay far too often. Again, something I quit during my pregnancy...but I haven't really picked it back up yet. This summer! (Assuming baby #2 isn't cooking by then). Anyway, riding through the wheat fields on my horse is very refreshing to me, just watching for wildlife and galloping away to my heart's content (helmet firmly on head, Mom!).

3) Finishing something - I have a lot of great ideas. (I think). But I'm not so great on finishing through. This is something I'm definitely working on. Anyway, on those occasions I do finish something, I feel like I'm on top of the world. When I actually clicked the "submit" button on RPG Superstar, for example, I found I could live off that boost of confidence for quite some time. Even little things, like making it to the gym today despite the fullness of my schedule, make me feel good.

4) Getting a new "toy" - or new clothes, new books, etc. We're getting new phones soon, and even though I don't think I'll be able to get the one I want, I'm pretty excited about it. I even enjoy when friends or family get a new gadget.

5) Writing and editing - I'm surprised at how much I enjoy this, actually. Sitting with a mocha, a laptop and a manuscript to edit (or even better, an adventure proposal to submit) makes me feel great. Sometimes I dread the thought of working on a rough manuscript, but once I get going it's really quite fun.

6) Making someone smile/Helping someone - Doesn't this make everyone feel good?

7) Providing good meals for my family - I don't know how much I really enjoy cooking, but it makes me feel very good to have a decent menu planned every month, within budget and full of variety and good nutrition.

Time to head back up to the lab and check on my bacteria! I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!!

Hair...or not?

2009-01-08T19:11:00.000-08:00

This morning I decided to write a post about hair, as it seems to be a topic of great interest these days. (See these posts at The Family Revised and Breathing Grace). The problem is, I can't remember what exactly I was going to write about.

What happened to my memory??

Huh. I'm sure it was very interesting. Perhaps even life-altering.

Wait! I just remembered. Nope, not as profound as I thought.

Here's the thing about hair - like many wives, I have my hair long right now because that's what my husband likes. I actually like it either way, but my problem with keeping it long is that I am completely, absolutely, inept at styling my hair. When it's short-ish (shoulder-length), I can just dry it really quick and leave it be, and I think it looks okay. When it's long, not so much...

So, I realize that one service that I would willingly and gladly pay for is for someone to actually teach me how to style my hair. You know, kind of like how Mary Kay consultants teach you how to put your own makeup on and look nice, unlike the department store cosmetic counters that apply it for you. On those too infrequent occasions I have my hair cut and styled at a salon, it always looks so nice. Then a couple of days later we're back to straight blow dry or a wet braid after my morning shower.

Granted, I have been taking more time in the morning to dry my hair, and have even discovered that it looks good in a simple black headband (I've avoided headbands ever since 5th grade or so, when I had to use them to grow my bangs out). But anything else I try only looks good for about 10 minutes. When I see other women casually create a sophisticated bun with a pencil, I want to pull my poor, neglected hair out!

Every once in a while I'll break down and buy some new product or hair-styling device. Sometimes they even work! For the first use, that is.

Did I miss out completely on the hair-styling mojo gene? I assumed it was on the X chromosome, but maybe mine got cut out during meiosis or something. Is there any hope? Why doesn't anyone teach this??

Ftiness Friday: Add and Subtract

2009-01-02T20:04:00.000-08:00

Time to blog again! I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas, and I wish you all a Happy New Year!!

Our assignment for Fitness Friday this week is to talk about adding something and subtracting something. I've been thinking about this all week, and here's what I came up with:

I want to ADD calories to breakfast and SUBTRACT calories from dinner. I was at the library earlier this week and checked out a great issue of Good Housekeeping (July 2008), that has a ton of helpful fitness tips in it. One of the things I read is that people who consume between 22-50% of their daily calories at breakfast do a better job of maintaining or losing weight over time. I don't remember the exact details (and the magazine is in the car, which requires a cold trudge through a couple feet of snow...brrr), but I started eating larger breakfasts earlier this week. So far, I am less hungry throughout the day. I'll let you know how it goes.

I also want to ADD more gratitude, which should SUBTRACT stress. From the same issue of Good Housekeeping, I read that it's physically impossible to feel stressed when you're grateful. Wednesday I had several frustrating incidents involving technology, and I put this plan into action. Instead of being angry that I couldn't access my newly downloaded audiobook, I thought about how grateful I was that Jon bought me a present as thoughtful as audiobooks for my mp3 player. After our monthly budget meeting I also chose to be thankful that we have enough money to cover our necessary expenses, instead of worrying about how several new bills are going to stretch our resources. I have to say, so far it's helping.

The holidays were not good for my fitness goals, but I've been to the gym every day this week (except for yesterday, when it was closed). As an added bonus, I even got to play racquetball with my husband, which we used to do almost every day when we were first married. (un?)Fortunately, it's been so long since we played that we're both super rusty and I could actually compete with him! Haha...

Well, see you all next week!

Giving into the madness

2008-12-22T10:58:00.000-08:00

I did something last week that I never expected to do: I bought something organic.

Here's the tale of what happened that dark and stormy night. (Or day. Probably day). The stars were mal-aligned. Aurelia was switching to whole milk. And the forbidden thought snuck into my brain: she's going to be drinking a LOT of this...should I buy organic??

I believe that "natural" is not necessarily better than "synthetic", and sometimes it's actually a good deal worse. I'm quite certain that genetically modified foods are not of the devil. All of our food is genetically modified, but now we can modify it in a single generation instead of over centuries. But the fear of excessive hormones made me give in on the organic milk front.

There's a nagging suspicion in the back of my brain that I made this decision based on hype rather than scientific understanding. Did the massive propaganda campaign for going "green and organic" finally get through to me? Or are my fears founded in reality?

I'm not sure yet. I haven't actually done any research on the differences in chemical composition of organic vs. conventional milk. It's on my list.

But for now, we're a two-milk family. Organic whole for Aurelia and Standard 1% for the rest of us. There goes my mocha budget.

Negative = Real, Positive = Facade?

2008-12-20T11:11:00.000-08:00

My best friend used to get really...annoyed...at the use of the phrase "real world", as in "welcome to it". Her response: "What? Have I been living in a fake world this whole time?" (roughly paraphrased).

A variation on this troublesome saying has recently made its way under my skin. I've noticed in several of my favorite "mom" blogs and podcasts that it is common to refer to meltdowns and breakdowns and generally anything negative as "real life", or revealing the "real me". Why is it that women believe only their failures are "real", and anything positive about themselves is truly a facade??

I'll use myself as an example. As you may have judged from my recent posts, I had what might be called a stress breakdown last week. I felt like I couldn't do anything right, the house became a disaster, and I really wasn't of much use to anyone.

The week before that, I was obviously happy, pretty much stayed on top of the housecleaning, and felt like I did a good job supporting my husband and nurturing my daughter. Does my subsequent meltdown mean that everything that came before was just a show to deceive the viewing public?

I don't believe so. The "appears to have everything under control" part of me is just as real as the "I desperately need a break" part of me. If anything, the negative side was a failing of the real me, not the revealing of a truth beneath a facade.

Fitness Friday: Easy Edition

2008-12-20T09:50:00.000-08:00

1.This Christmas I am going to indulge in (meaning enjoy, without guilt, a reasonable amount of) hot chocolate with marshmallows and whipped cream. And endless hours of the Bing Crosby Christmas station on Sirius.

2. It is my goal to stay away from fudge. It's not my favorite thing anyway, so I should be able to meet this goal.

3. Over the holiday, I am changing my exercise goals to walking in the snow at least once a day, preferably towing Aurelia on a sled.

4. The way I will remind myself to make good choices over the holiday is keeping my husband close by, with instruction to gently remind me.

5. My favorite ornament on my tree is... Well, I'm not putting up a tree this year. But I love the Willow Tree nativity set I have out.

6. Of the progress I have made so far, my favorite thing is just having a plan, and feeling like I have some control over my fitness future.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all of the ladies participating in Fitness Friday!

Secrets and Stress

2008-12-15T06:00:00.000-08:00

Dealing with secrets is something that I'm not great at. Don't misunderstand me - I can keep a secret, and I appreciate having friends and family trust me enough to confide in me. I'm happy to offer an ear and a shoulder if you need it. But secrets that effect other people, especially people that I also interact with regularly, bring a huge amount of stress into my life.

I seriously dislike the dynamic of "You didn't hear it from me, but...". Especially when the news is something that I'd like to help with, even if it is only by offering a shoulder to cry on. Instead, I have to pretend that I don't know about what's going on in a friend/family member's life or risk losing another relationship that I care about.

Or the family secret that everyone guesses at but can't talk about because nobody's supposed to know. Then if it does get out, an "innocent bystander" often takes the blame. As in "me" this past week. Oh, but I still can't talk about that.

So what can I do? Well, crying and talking to my husband about it seems to have helped. Dodgeball is a good outlet (if only they didn't make us use soft "nerf"-style balls! Haha.). I really need to pray and journal. It's funny how both of those things can reduce the size of "the problem" - prayer because God holds you in His arms, and journaling because proper perspective is easier to grasp on paper. What's not funny is how hard it is to make those a priority.

Rationally, I know I need to do these things, but even thinking about fitting in dedicated time makes my "stress-alert" beacon turn red and start flashing. Kind of like the one night I took off for myself last week. I needed it. I know that I needed it. But it also added stress to my week.

So, let me know - how do you deal with secrets and stress?

Fitness Friday: Struggles with Stress

2008-12-13T09:49:00.000-08:00

Well, it fits in quite well with the rest of my week that Fitness Friday isn't happening until Saturday. This has been a week I absolutely don't want to repeat. If I learned anything (or had previous lessons enforced), it's that my husband and I do not do well if we aren't working together. I've always cherished our commute together, and we both make a deliberate effort to protect our evenings. But due to the "Perfect Storm" (and I don't mean the movie or the near-blizzard that's going on outside my window), we had to take two cars every day and saw each other for about 15 minutes.

Monday night I was gone for dodgeball (my one true bit of exercise this week...again). Tuesday night we had friends over until well past our usual bedtime. Wednesday night Jon was running a teen group fundraiser, and Thursday night was a church board meeting. All of this was nicely wrapped up by a huge cry fest from me when Jon asked what was stressing me out. And for a bow on top, I've got a nasty cold (yes, I know there's no other kind...but saying just "cold" doesn't convey my feelings about the buggerly little virus).

So I would have to say that my fitness this week, whether spiritual, physical, or emotional, ranks about a 4 on a 1-10 scale where 10 is "stellar!". I really feel like saying 1, but I know it could be a lot worse. It is just a cold after all. My eating habits were quite good. Social marks are probably up from usual, as we spent more time with friends. And after our long, tearful, discussion I feel a huge burden off my shoulders.

I'll talk more about what was going on with stress in a later post. Now I'm going to go cuddle up with a cup of Moroccan Mint Green tea, a blanket and my family and watch A White Christmas.

Thanks again to Brenda at The Family Revised for hosting Fitness Friday!

Keep singing - A Lesson from Ella Fitzgerald

2008-12-07T11:14:00.001-08:00

In celebration of our anniversary, my Superhero and I had a night on the town yesterday. After Jon finished playing movie star (due to an impromptu casting in the role of Phil the male store clerk) at the first shop we stopped at, we braved the crowds at Costco and later strolled around Fred Meyers. We know how to have a good time!

At Freddy's we magically transformed into our evening wear before heading to a sumptuous dinner followed by a Count Basie Christmas Concert. The special guest soloist was Carmen Bradford, who has a lovely "big band" voice. She should, because she was the last soloist hired by Count Basie himself to sing with his band - and her mother is currently touring with the Basie band!

Shortly after coming on stage, Carmen admitted that she was terribly nervous, especially because the audience was so "close and comfy! Is everything where it belongs?". Then she shared a story that I just love and knew immediately I had to pass along:

Some years ago, she was with the great Ella Fitzgerald before a concert at Carnegie Hall. Ella was wearing a glamorous white dress with bugle sequins and a matching pair of new shoes with 4-inch heels, as she was fond of wearing. The shoes kept slipping on the floor backstage, so Carmen offered to take the shoes out to the parking lot to scuff up the bottoms so Ella wouldn't fall. Ella's response? "Oh don't worry about that. I just hope they like me! Do you think they'll like me?"

So she headed out on stage, and got to singing and swingin'. In the middle of a song, swoosh she went down on stage, flat on her back with her dress up around her ears -- "the peekaboo of the night", as Carmen put it. And what did Ella do? She didn't miss a note and kept right on singing as she lay on the floor and flipped her dress back down.

Don't you just love that? There's a gutsy lady. I hope I remember that even someone who has "made it", by any standards, has to deal with self-doubt. Even more, I hope I can keep on singing when I hit the ground!

Oh, and here's some pictures of our "transformation" for the nightlife:

Fitness Friday: Love Your Body edition

2008-12-05T16:09:00.001-08:00

Time for Fitness Friday (graciously hosted by Brenda at The Family Revised)! This week we're supposed to share one thing we really like about our bodies. I thought about this for a while today, and my answer is...*dundundun*...my back. Wierd, right? But I like the curve of my back. I think there's something uniquely feminine about a gracefully curved back. I'm reminded of a scene from one of my favorite movies: As Good As It Gets, where the artist is re-inspired by seeing Helen Hunt's back as she's getting ready to bathe.

I also like my feet, but I'm a sock girl so nobody ever sees them. As Robert Jordan would put it in his Wheel of Time series, I have a "well-turned ankle". Don't ask me what that means.

To summarize my "fitness" week...hmm...not so great. Not terrible, but hardly stellar. I only made it to the gym once. I'm not entirely sure why, which makes it even worse. It probably has something to do with why I haven't blogged all week: my intense concentration on a submission for RPG Superstar 2009. (By the way, wish me luck! I'm submitting my entry tonight.)

Have a wonderful weekend! I'll be back on Monday with some fun pictures and a summary of my anniversary out on the town.

Fitness Friday: Holiday Edition and Balanced Life Index

2008-11-28T10:18:00.000-08:00

Today is a free-for-all Fitness Friday, so I'm going to discuss two things. First, a recap of my fitness week: Monday I was all jazzed up, refilling my gym bag with workout clothes and filling my mp3 with fresh material. I arrived at the Rec Center at 9am sharp -- only to find out that due to Thanksgiving Break, the gym didn't open until 11am. *sigh*

So, no workout on Monday. But Tuesday I was able to plan ahead and walked in the gym doors as soon as they opened. I was pleased to discover that I had not, in fact, gained any weight during my hiatus from planned exercise. Now, for reshaping the weight and getting my energy levels up...To the elliptical!! I'm starting out with my old routine of 40 minutes on the elliptical and 20 minutes rowing. Mondays I'm going to add in playing racquetball with Jon, which is always challenging since he seems to stay a level ahead of me. So that will help with cardio.

Wednesday was full of cleaning and cooking. Foodwise, I kept things small and simple all week in preparation for the Thanksgiving feast on Thursday. I'm pretty happy with my choices at Thanksgiving -- of course, keeping my little one entertained was a good distraction from eating! I did indulge with dessert, but I did so deliberately so I don't really feel bad about it.

Okay, enough recap. On to topic #2. Listening to an episode of MommyCast from their archives, I learned about this website: Start Making Choices. I highly recommend that you check it out! The Balanced Life index is a nice tool to track how you are doing with overall "life fitness", and there are useful articles and a lot of good ideas on how to add in exercise and good eating to a busy life. Also, for those of you on facebook, you can track your friends' Balanced Life scores for encouragement (and a little fun competition?).

Thanks again to Brenda at The Family Revised for hosting Fitness Friday!

Wifey Wednesday: I'll be happy when...

2008-11-26T09:34:00.000-08:00

...my husband stays home to help his sore back recuperate and spends half the day cleaning the house for me so I'll have less to do in preparation for Thanksgiving. He even placed the couch pillows artfully. And cleaned the blades on the ceiling fan. Really!! A wife's dream come true. Surely it made me happy.

I would have been genuinely and ecstatically happy about all of this. If a deer hadn't been standing in the middle of the road on the way home. And hadn't decided to rearrange the hood of my car. It does make it more difficult to show appreciation for the loving gift of unexpected housework.

Still, I'm proud of the fact that no four-letter words were uttered. I'm glad that we sold our 2002 Passat earlier this year and I was driving a 1992 Subaru -- our "Dave Ramsey" car. Oh, and I'm relieved (but not surprised) that my husband was completely understanding and told me out loud that there was nothing I could have done differently. Eventually I was even able to fully appreciate everything he had done around the house.

Here's the thing. We can't control things like deer hitting the car (or vice versa, depending on how you want to phrase it...which depends on how recently you've been in a deer-car accident). Neither can we really control the circumstances that would supposedly "make me happy when...", since they generally involve someone else's actions and free will can be a bummer in that case.

As Sheila Wray Gregoire puts it, if we say we'll be happen "when...", we're really refusing to be happy now. We might even find that when the happy circumstances finally arrive, they've been negated by something else. So if you have a virtual deer in your headlights (or on your hood) right now, I encourage you to look past it and find something in this moment, this precious "present" time, to be happy about.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Head over to Sheila's blog To Love, Honor and Vacuum for more Wifey Wednesday goodness.

Loose threads

2008-11-21T13:12:00.000-08:00

I promised Birthday pictures earlier in the week, and then forget to put them up! So here you go.

First, proof that my daughter now has shoes (Yes, I am a good Mom!):

Of course, now I've learned that soft-soled shoes like Robeez are best for this age. I figure she only wears them to keep her socks on while traveling anyway, so I'm not losing too much sleep over her foot apparel.

Next up: Birthday cake!

The bakery did an amazing job, don't you think? I wasn't expecting anything near this lovely. I just handed them the card I used as an invitation and asked if they could try to make the cake to match. (By the way....$16!!! And there was a matching 8" round that had the Happy Birthday message on it.)

The birthday girl:

"What? Do I have something on my face?" We went with Daddy's favorite flavor, carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. Yum!

And, finally, a treat at the mall on the actual "Big Day":

Aurelia's great-grandma specifically asked us to buy her a treat and let her know who it was from. So we took a picture of "Bama" along for our birthday stroll and bought Aurelia's first chocolate chip cookie and a Strawberry Julius. She seemed to enjoy it!

Life out of the freezer

2008-11-21T12:41:00.001-08:00

I'd like to draw your attention to this amazing post: Embryo adoption. Wow. This has changed my viewpoint drastically. I've spent a considerable amount of time debating with myself about what should be done with leftover embryos from IVF. If IVF didn't exist, I would be 100% absolutely against any research using embryos, but the issue becomes more muddled by the existence of unused embryos that are either put in the deep-freeze or thrown out with the garbage. Wouldn't it be better, in that case, for something good to come out of their creation? It is very easy to view these leftovers with a "scientific" mindset and not see them as people. I will never be guilty of this again. I'd like you to meet one of the few who made it out of the freezer:

Thank you, Elisha. I'm so glad the world got to meet you.

Fitness Friday: Jumping on board

2008-11-21T12:15:00.000-08:00

I've been watching Brenda's Fitness Friday progress over at The Family Revised, and debating whether or not to join in. Well, this week is "The Excuses Edition", so it's only appropriate that I share why I hadn't jumped on board immediately!

Number 1 Reaso...Excuse: Nursing. This actually entails a few "sub-reasons". First, the time spent expressing milk led me to drop my usual exercise routine: a half-hour on the elliptical and a half-hour on the rowing machine at least 3 days a week. Even into my last month of pregnancy I had consistently kept up this schedule, usually going 5 days a week. But I simply wasn't making sufficient progress with my research and something had to go. Secondly, the energy. Making milk takes energy. Exercise burns calories. I do not have an infinite amount of energy. Thirdly (and this one feels most like an excuse), you're not supposed to diet while nursing. Err...yep, I know exercising and dieting are not the same thing... And, finally, I was losing extra pregnancy pounds just by eating well and nursing. 9 months after giving birth, I was back to my pre-pregnancy weight. Unfortunately, that weight is not exactly distributed as nicely as it was before.

Number 2: Like Brenda, I find myself using the excuse that "it's not that bad". Sure, I'd look and feel better if I shaped up a bit and dropped about 9 lbs, but I'm not trying to be a model or anything. Whose counting 9 lbs? The point I need to remember is, if I don't make a habit out of getting and staying fit now, it's going to get a lot worse and a lot harder down the road.

Number 3: I'm really stressed out and a glazed croissant with chocolate milk would make me happier. This is my biggest excuse in the food department. I never had a problem with a sweet tooth until I became a mom. It took me a while to figure out why I suddenly started craving treats....alll the time. I think I know: once you become a mom, about the only thing you have time to do just for yourself is eat something sweet! At least, that's what is going on in my case. I'd like to add here that I think we really should enjoy food. But a glazed croissant once a week is not the same as having a calorie-heavy treat every single day. And it's entirely possible to enjoy food that is good for you!

On the positive side, I just got the thumbs-up from our pediatrician to stop expressing milk and to cut back on nursing. So a lot of my excuses just evaporated! Monday morning, it's back to the gym.

Thankful Thursday: Unlikely thanks

2008-11-19T15:39:00.001-08:00

There are a lot of things in life that I take for granted that I should be thankful for. But there are also things that I'm simply surprised to be thankful for. Here are some of them from this past year:

1) Barney. Yes, the purple dinosaur. When Aurelia was sick last week, I learned to love the big guy, because he made her happy. You just wouldn't believe the look on her face when she sees the dvd cover with Barney on it.

2) AAA Plus membership. Particularly the towing service. I'm thankful that we didn't have to use the service at all this year, and thankful that we had the service when we used all 8 tows the previous year.

3) Cheerios. Like Barney, they make my little one happy.

4) Nutella and banana crepes. Had them the first time in Paris, and now I often make the quick and dirty version -- nutella and banana on wheat toast.

5) A husband who can fix the toilet using string from the weed whacker.

6) Facebook. I held out for a long time, but I'm glad that I finally decided to give it a look-see. I have reconnected with so many wonderful friends!

7) Tony Romo and Frank Gore. Without them, my poor fantasy football team wouldn't stand a chance. (By the way, ladies, I find that having a fantasy football team is a good way to connect with my husband during the NFL season!)

8) My vacuum cleaner. This almost falls into the category of "taken for granted", but not quite. I splurged and bought a Roomba last year. My back thanks me, my carpet thanks me, my crawling baby...will thank me someday...

9) The Diaper Genie. Yes, I mean the odor-controlling contraption in the nursery...but I also mean the wonderful man in my life who empties it for me!

That's all for now...have a wonderful day!

Choices: The Holiday edition

2008-11-19T14:17:00.000-08:00

I seem to be stuck on my recent post about choices ("When Yes means No"). But if you're getting bored, don't worry. I'll be moving on to new topics soon. Or going back to old ones, like budgeting...

Anyway, as the holiday season approaches (What's that you say? Thanksgiving is only a week away?!?), I've been thinking about the painful process of deciding who to spend the holidays with every year. When my husband and I were first married, we lived close to both sets of parents. At first we thought this was a boon, and in some ways it really was. But it also meant that we felt like we had to spend holidays with both of our families, which led to some pretty crazy days of running around in a mad dash to see everyone...and very little time to actually enjoy being with our loved ones. Saying "yes" to everyone really isn't the greatest idea.

Things changed when we moved 6 hours away. My in-laws also moved, putting them an hour away from us. Strangely enough, this freed us by forcing us to choose more decisively. In an effort at fairness, we decided to alternate holidays. Thanksgiving with one family, Christmas with the other, and then switch the next year. I think this has worked well, although I don't know if anyone is ever fully satisfied with holiday visits. It seems like they're always too short or rushed.

For example, our trips to visit my family still suffer from the strain of trying to spend time with too many people. I've tried going schedule-free to reduce the stress, and just go with the flow. That worked out about as poorly as you can imagine. I've tried scheduling precisely when I will visit with each person, but that wasn't much better. I'm really at a loss as to how to fully enjoy the experience of these trips home. Occasionally, I even agonize over what we're missing out on once we've made a choice. I think this is where the flip side of "yes means no" comes into play...once you do say yes to something, you have to stop thinking about what or who it is you've said "no" to and throw yourself wholly into whatever it is you're doing.

I was better at doing this in college, when I lived by my personal mantra of "Never be afraid. Never be ashamed. Never be in a hurry." Now...not so much. Of course, now that we're a family of three, holidays are probably going to be changing again. This is a new year, with a new chance to embrace the joy of the season, and new choices to make. Time to look forward.

EDIT: I just have to add that Sheila over at To Love, Honor and Vacuum has a great post up on gift giving. Check it out!

Softball, chat and Captivating

2008-11-18T19:03:00.001-08:00

(Not to be confused with Captivating softball chat, which is a common mistake). I seem to be in the mood for (asides) today, so I thought I'd start right off with one. On to the post...

In high school (oh so many years ago now), I was captain of the softball team. Before you start feeling impressed, I must point out that I went to a very small school and I literally forced the team into creation in the first place. I still think my greatest diplomatic achievement in life was getting my best friend Molly to join the team. Despite the fact that she "couldn't see the point in throwing oneself into the dirt" during sliding practice, in a desperate moment during a game she even slid into base. Once. She's a trooper. I digress.

My senior year, we ran into trouble with some cliques forming on the team. I struggled trying to break up the annoying little groups. We had never had issues like this in previous years, and no matter how much effort I put into "team building" exercises, we just couldn't gel as a group. Finally I realized that the best approach was to get the girls to refocus on God, and I instituted a team devotional before every practice. (Again, resist any lingering urges to be impressed...this was a private Christian school, so I wasn't exactly rocking the boat). I can't say that everything went smoothly after that, but it definitely helped. Getting my teammates to look "out" at God was the best way to help them get over their inner insecurities (the basis of most cliques, in my opinion). Or at least to forget about them long enough to pay attention to playing softball.

So what brings up my streak of nostalgia? There's been a lot of chatter lately on my favorite blogs (see my blogroll in the sidebar...I'm on dial-up at the moment and am consequently too lazy to link them up here) about unrealistic expectations in the blog world vs. the real world. It is terribly easy on a blog to 1) make it sound like you have everything figured out for everyone, and 2) come across as judgemental concerning anyone who makes different choices than you. Sadly, sometimes this is intentional. I've read blog posts that made it sound like you were going to the hot place if you used birth control. Or let your kids go to public school. Or died your hair red. You get the idea. But I don't think I'm being overly optimistic in believing that most of the time it's a side effect of the medium used to communicate. Regardless, we Christian women need to remember that we stand on the same ground in loving God and striving to do His will. Let's not beat each other up when that looks different in someone else's journey than it does in ours.

This recent set of discussions reminds me of why I can't stand most "How to be a good Christian woman"-type books. Like Stasi Eldredge, author of Captivating, one of the Three Books that Changed My Life (besides the Bible), I feel like throwing them out the window on about the second sentence. There is no one picture of what a good Christian woman looks like. And if we try to fit into a single mold, all we'll get is frustration and guilt and shame at having failed.

Well, that was my version of mental Stone Soup. Now I'm off to relax with my husband, ignore the pile of laundry, and remember that a year ago today I first held our daughter in my arms. Birthday pictures tomorrow!

Girl Talk: Milking machine of doom

2008-11-17T14:41:00.000-08:00

Men, you've been warned. Your brain may not be able to process some of the following information. Turn back now. (Sorry Dad).

Last Friday I talked about the fact that good choices sometimes get in the way of great choices...or at the very least, other good choices. I'm trying to decide if I'm facing one of those situations in my life right now, and what I should do about it.

It was important to me from the beginning to give my daughter breastmilk. I couldn't stay home with her, but I could at least make sure she had "nature's best food for babies". (I don't want this to devolve into a breastfeeding vs. formula debate...I have no issue with anyone who chooses to use formula or must use formula. When I went on vacation, my daughter drank formula for over a week, and she was just fine when I got back. It is not evil. There, that's out of the way). Personal preferences aside, have you seen the price of formula lately??? I'm a grad student, for crying out loud, not a corporate executive.

After I got past the whole "mastitis" incident, nursing has truly been a joy. Pumping, on the other hand...oh my, am I ready to be done with that. I am very fortunate that pumping has been physically easy for me. A fellow researcher I trade off with in the dark corner of a bathroom that is allotted to breastpumping mothers has to pump for an hour to get 4 oz. of milk. In comparison, I could win a blue ribbon at the county fair for "prodigious producer". As long as I've been drinking enough water and leave out the mint tea, I can get 12+ oz. in about 45 minutes. I have a decent pump -- the Medela pump-in-style double electric model. If assembling a breastpump were a timed Olympic event, I could probably win gold. But I'd rather borrow a rifle from the sharp-shooting event and blow the thing to pieces.

I have to spend anywhere from 2 to 3 hours pumping on weekdays, and on weekends I still have to pump before going to bed. Granted, I get to read a lot of books while I pump, but that's a huge chunk of my time. Recently I had to stop going to the gym every day. I just can't get enough done with my research if I pump and exercise. And frankly, after pumping at night I am not even remotely interested in getting cozy with my husband. As the ever-wise Sheila Wray Gregoire points out,this puts a strain on the marital relationship, but I can't help it. It takes a lot of energy (500 extra calories a day to maintain milk production) and I feel less than beautiful after disconnecting from the Machine. Nursing bras don't help. (Yes, I know you can get pretty ones, but they're quite expensive and I can't see how they'd hold up against milk stains). I'm beginning to think I should reconsider what I'm saying "no" to in order to provide breastmilk for my daughter.

Of course, Aurelia's first birthday is tomorrow, and her 12-month checkup is on Thursday. Hopefully her pediatrician will tell me I'm off the hook now. And give me a gold medal and a million dollars...haha. So this may soon be a non-issue. In the meantime, here's a clip of another Machine of Doom. Westley knows exactly how I feel.

When Yes means No

2008-11-14T17:01:00.000-08:00

I'm sure we all know that "No means no!" But did you know that sometimes "Yes" means "no"? I learned this when I was listening to a podcast I recently discovered (Mommycast - check it out here). The specific episode was about Mommy Meltdowns, and how to avoid them. There was one bit of advice that jumped out at me so much that I had to immediately pull over and scrounge through my purse so I could write it down. It basically went like this: "Everytime you say 'yes' to doing something this week, stop and ask yourself what you're saying 'no' to."

Exactly!!!

If we did every good thing that came our way, we'd miss out on a lot of great things. Not to mention be exhausted, irritable, and spread too thin. Trust me, I know! Our family schedule gets packed so quickly that sometimes I have to look out several months ahead to find an empty weekend. Some weeks my husband is so busy doing good things in the evenings that he's hardly home. Fortunately, we've both come to realize this is a problem and we're working together to make sure it doesn't happen as often. I bought a big calendar for next year, and the first thing I did was mark out one "family" weekend a month -- it is absolutely, completely, non-negotiably off limits. Jon is learning that he doesn't have to be at every church board meeting, and the teens will know that he loves them even if he isn't at every fundraiser -- or even if he misses a regular teen group every once in a while to be at home with us.

Okay, that's all I'm going to say on the matter for now. I don't want the point to get lost in details. Just remember: every yes means a "no", to something or someone.

Wifey Wednesday: Untamed men and Conquered mountains

2008-11-12T14:14:00.000-08:00

Yesterday Sheila Wray Gregoire was wondering who will take up the torch to fight for what is right. At the same time, Mrs. Anna T asked her readers if women want to be treated badly, because many seem to not want "nice" men. I agree that it is unhealthy to want or to continue a relationship with someone who has a "destructive" personality. When choosing a mate, it is important both to seek someone with a loving heart and to acknowledge that it is highly improbable that you will make someone change -- so choose carefully and choose practically. However, I believe the two problems Sheila and Anna bring up are related. On the one hand, we cry out for strong leaders, and on the other we ask for our men to be "nice." I think in many cases, the root of the often detrimental desire for men who aren't nice is born from a twisting of a deep and good longing for real men, men with backbone and untamed hearts. Men who, like the great lion Aslan, are dangerous.

"Then he isn't safe?" asked Lucy.

"Safe?" said Mr. Beaver. "Don't you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good."

It is not easy to forget that men are not like us, right ladies? It is easy to forget that they aren't supposed to be like us. Sometimes we have to quell our instincts and fears and let our men be men. We have to let them take risks and spend time doing things we don't necessarily understand. In my favorite version of the King Arthur legend (the Pendragon Cycle by Stephen Lawhead), the boy Arthur is riding with his guardian and entourage and remarks on a huge, majestic mountain they are passing by. When he learns that no one has ever climbed the mountain, he immediately decides that he must try. Ectorius, who raised him from a babe, is obviously quite hesitant to allow Arthur and his lame cousin to try such a dangerous feat alone. Merlin, the wise bard and adviser, talks him into letting the boys try.

"No," replied Merlin, "it is foolishness itself to let them go."

"Then why?"

Merlin smiled, lifting a hand to the mountain. "Because if we prevent them now, they would never again risk the impossible with a whole and open heart."

"Is that so important?"

"For ordinary men, no." Merlin shook his head, watching the boys ride away. "But, Ector, we are not about making ordinary men."

"...This is a needless hazard." Ectorius showed his contempt for such an idea.

"...Better to have lived while alive, yes? Besides, if they achieve this they will have conquered a giant; they will be invincible!"

"If they do not?"

"Then they will learn something about the limitations of men."

"A costly lesson, it seems to me," muttered Ectorius.

"Then it will be valued all the more. Come, be of good cheer, my friend," coaxed Merlin. "If God and his angels stand ready to uphold them, can we do less?"

Another book that helped me understand this concept is Wild at Heart, by Jon Eldredge. I highly recommend that every wife (or lady who would like to become a wife) take the time to read this. Even better, read it with your husband. As my husband put it, this book helped him realize that "Christian men don't have to be Ned Flanders." (And there's my Simpsons reference for the day).

My week in pictures (and incomplete sentences)

2008-11-07T09:39:00.000-08:00

This week has been a rollercoaster, with Time laughing in the face of any attempts at scheduling...or accomplishing anything beyond reflexive reactions. At least I had a full bottle of Ibuprofen in my purse. To start with.

Friday: Jon's sister brings Aurelia home from grandma-care, and we have a lazy night of eating pizza and brownies and watching old movies. Ahhh...this is the life.

Saturday: Jon heads over to his parent's house first thing in the morning to help work on building a barn before Old Man Winter comes to visit. Aurelia and I pile into the car with all of our baby gear to go to a class reunion. A Childbirth class reunion, that is:

This is the first time Aurelia has been around other babies her age. Turns out she's the toy thief and class clown of the group. Do you notice her pointing at her bare feet?? "Mom!! Everyone else has adorable clothes on, including socks and shoes! Don't you love me?" In my defense, the boogie monster stole all of her clothes sometime last week, and this was the only outfit I had in the house for her.

Sunday: After church, the three of us head to the mall for some strolling and family-time. Oh, and to get some shoes...

Monday: Game time!! After Aurelia goes to sleep, I head back into town to play some dodgeball on an intramural team. (I'm the second from the left). Turns out that using an elliptical at the gym does not prepare you for ducking and weaving... But I think that we might have set a record for shortest time to lose three games in a row. How could we rickety old grad students hope to stand up to the Tri-Delta sorority girls?

Tuesday: Migraine time. 5-hour nap. Let's not dwell.

Wednesday: Experiments a bust. I might have said recently that everything that could go wrong with my Western blots had gone wrong. I would have been wrong.

Spend three hours editing a friend's novel. Forty more pages down. 460 left to go. Next time I'm charging for this.
On the bright side, I had an epiphany when it came to cooking mashed potatoes. Slow cooker!! Lots of leftovers this week.

Thursday: Another hodge-podge of a day, in and out of the lab, running errands, working on Mark's book. I tell Jon that if Mark ever asks him how he can compensate me for the work, Starbucks gift cards (for some reason I can only do editing work in a coffee shop) and Housecleaning services are at the top of the list. The highlight of the day: lunch at Wingers with Jon, and sitting drinking coffee together while working on our various projects. This I can handle.

Friday: Morning miscommunication completely overthrows planned schedule. Friends coming over tonight, house less than organized, Jon flying out at dawn tomorrow. Time to go take a shower and turn into superwoman!

Fairness - not the best goal

2008-11-02T08:53:00.000-08:00

Every spring for the past five or six years, I've faced the same dilemma. One of my husband's high school buddies has gotten married each summer, and it became a tradition for the guys to get together for a 4-day long bachelor's vacation. Since they're all married now, the trip has morphed into a "spring retreat". I'm glad that they've managed to stay so close despite the different paths they've taken and being spread out across two states. The problem is that this vacation always falls very close to my birthday. In the past this has resulted in my husband not being around on my birthday. To give credit where it's due, last year he persuaded everyone to change the date so there won't be any direct conflict. But every year I've been rather jealous, wondering when I'll get my turn.

Last week I decided, and even told Jon, that this year I want to commit to renting a place for myself for a couple of nights and inviting a few friends. He agreed completely that it was a good idea. Here's the rub: regardless of what's fair, our finances and budgeting needs haven't changed. On top of that, it is absolutely a must that we make a trip down South to see my grandmother this year. I want her to meet our little one and visit with her while we still have the opportunity. It's going to take every little bit we can save up of what's left over from our "debt snowball" to manage the airplane tickets. So the only way left to be "fair" this spring is for Jon to miss out on the spring retreat. I don't want him to miss out on that, and even if I did, I think it could lead to resentment. But how do I protect myself from feeling resentful when the spring trip rolls around?

I have a similar problem with everyday "division of the housework". We're both full time graduate students, so it seems like splitting housework 50/50 when we get home is an obvious and fair answer (factoring in, of course, the non-housework things that Jon does for our family, like changing the oil in the car and splitting wood). But it just doesn't work out that way. Fair or no, things simply have to get done around the house. With youth group events and board meetings and helping out around his parents' place, a lot of it gets left on my plate. Again, he has my full blessing for all of these things. They're important, and I believe God has called him to each of them.

So I think I really have to let this whole idea of "fairness" go. I do what I can, he does what he can, and we'll get around to the rest when we get there. Aiming for fairness is bound to lead to frustration and resentment. If, on the other hand, I remember that we're working as a team toward the same goals, I don't have to feel so alone or overwhelmed.

"Don't talk like that in public"

2008-11-01T16:13:00.001-07:00

(No, I'm not referring to foul language or teaching children courteous communication.)

Jon and I were discussing politics and talk radio the other night at the dinner table. We agreed that while there can be some useful information on talk radio shows, as well as some very interesting interviews, sometimes it's not worth gleaning. And sometimes, it's even embarrassing to listen.

Personally, while I enjoy listening to a certain extent, I can't stand having it on in my house (with very few exceptions) -- if I were to take my daughter into a room where men were yelling angrily at each other, I'd quickly leave. It makes it pretty hard to maintain a "sanctuary"-like home. Fortunately, my husband also came to that conclusion recently and now tunes in music in the morning instead. (The evenings still belong to the Dave Ramsey show, of course!)

Here's how Jon came to change his perspective a bit. He does a good deal of his research in a "tank room" in the basement of his work building. For a while, he was listening to talk radio while he set up the experiments, and he had to turn it up rather loudly to hear it over the hum of the water tanks. With the door propped open to the hallway, he realized anyone walking by could hear what he was listening to. And he caught himself thinking to the talk show host, "Don't talk like that in public!"

I had to laugh when he confessed this to me. Don't worry, he was laughing with me. We still listen in on a few shows, but we're a bit pickier than we were before. With tempers rising higher as the election approaches, we'll probably cut it out completely until things settle down again. What I would truly enjoy, however, is for someone (with more time than I have) to thoroughly research current political issues and events and then sit back with a cup of coffee and calmly lay out the details for me on air, with some good interviews to break things up. I almost wrote "cup of tea", but that brings up images of NPR, which is a topic for another day.

My blind date

2008-10-30T20:30:00.000-07:00

What you would have heard if you'd listened to my phone conversation earlier this week: "I had a great morning, thanks! I had a blind date at Starbucks... Actually, I did meet this person online...They listed something for sale, it wasn't a chat room or anything...No, don't worry, it was perfectly safe...We met in a public space, and I suggested the meeting...Don't be silly, we just had some coffee...Mom, she had her one-year old son, "Mr. Wriggles", with her for Pete's sake."

Yes, it's true. I finally found a local mom willing to take me up on one of my frequent invitations to take a coffee break together. And when we found time to meet up at the itsy-bitsy local mall for Starbucks, it really did feel like a first date! Many of the same thoughts went through my head - "What should I wear? What if she doesn't like me? Should I bring [fill in the blank] up, or should that wait until we know each other better?" Silly, but there you have it.

Now, my "blind date" might seem a little desperate for those of you have a full quiver of mom friends, but out here in the rolling wheat fields finding someone close to your age with similar interests and young children is like finding a needle in a...you know the rest. I think it's safe to say that most of my graduate student colleagues still think I'm insane to not only be married, but to have had a child. There are some wonderful ladies in my church, but none close to my age or with a baby in the house. We don't have anything like "stroller striders" or "Mommy and me" playgroups around here (although after seeing how much they cost - yikes! - I'm not sure I'd join anyway). So I'll just about pass out my phone number or e-mail address to anyone wearing jeans or sweats, with hair hastily tied back, and lugging an overflowing diaperbag. Or in this case, a nice, normal-sounding mother who listed some toddler clothes on Craigslist. Let's hope it's the start of a beautiful thing.

Letting go of expectations

2008-10-29T13:28:00.000-07:00

My dear friend Ruth at a messy life wrote last week about being unhappy. She had recently come to a place where she realized, as we SG-1 fans might put it, that she is never going to be Colonel Samantha Carter. I think we all reach a point (perhaps several times) in life when acceptance dawns us, willing or no, that this may be as good as it gets, and we have to let go of some of the dreams we had for a time. Fortunately, God generally has better things planned for us than we did. As Ruth discovered in a moment of epiphany, she is the most important person in the world to her beautiful children -- in her family's eyes, Colonel Carter could never come close to filling her shoes!

In considering Ruth's words and reflecting on my own periods of unhappiness, I've come to believe that a large portion of the unhappiness we run into in life is due to expectations we embrace that we perhaps shouldn't have. I can spend so much time trying to figure out what life is about or what I'm "supposed" to be doing (scientist, stay-at-homemaker, editor, writer, entrepeneur???) that I lose sight of the fact that God loves me just because I am His daughter. There's nothing I can do to make Him love me more or less. As Dave Ramsey put it on his radio show the other day (when questioned by a new Christian about tithing), God lays out what we should do to have a good life, but even if we completely mess up He still loves us just as much as his other children -- we're just one of the "dumb" ones! I like that. It's liberating.

There's a blog I recently discovered that has some wonderful homemaking advice. Skimming through the topics that interested me, I ran across one of many posts encouraging wives to stay at home. Well, that's putting it mildly and politely. You can read the full post here, but all I could think of after reading it was, "Oh my! God's going to pop down here for a surprise visit and discover that my secondary bathroom is sorely neglected and my bedroom is a disaster! How disappointed He'll be that I wasn't a better caretaker of my home!" You know what? We (humans, women, mothers, Christians) need to stop being so hard on each other, and especially stop being so hard on ourselves, as if life is some great big test.

Oswald Chambers had something to say along these lines in Tuesday's "My Utmost for His Highest":

The impregnable safety of justification and sanctification is God Himself. We have not to work out these things ourselves; they have been worked out by the Atonement. The supernatural becomes natural by the miracle of God; there is a realization of what Jesus Christ has already done -- "It is finished."

Just rest in your Daddy's arms and enjoy the beauty He's given us (trusting He will take care of us through the ugly).

Get out the novocaine - it's election time

2008-10-28T13:50:00.000-07:00

Without further ado, here it is: my first political post. I am extremely hesitant about bringing politics into this blog, because there are so many things that are more important to me than a person's political beliefs or affiliations, and I don't want anyone to close their ears to what I have to say just because we disagree on politics. But the election is only a week away, and I find myself compelled to write this post. I will do my utmost to keep my statements simple, civil and friendly.

I am not a huge supporter of either of the two big presidential candidates. I do, however, have great respect, admiration, and (perhaps most importantly) trust for Sarah Palin. Senator McCain's choice of Sarah as VP secured my vote, despite my many disagreements with the Senator's policies. In her personal life and as governor of Alaska, she has demonstrated good judgment, a strong spine, and tremendous respect for the sanctity of individual life. I can relate to her in a way I've never been able to relate to a politician, man or woman. So that's what I have on the positive side.

Now here is why I cannot vote for Senator Obama, and there is one reason that trumps all other considerations. I won't need to go into his economic plan, foreign policy, or social values, because they don't matter in comparison. I could agree with him on all other points and still not be able to vote for him. The reason is simple: it is clear from his actions and words that he does not value the sanctity of life. I was first troubled along these lines when he uttered the (in)famous statement that he would not want his daughters "punished" with a baby if they were to make a mistake. Yet I will not judge someone based on a single statement, which can be so easily taken out of context or may represent poor communication of an idea. So I kept listening and watching.

When I read about his statements on the floor of the Illinois senate, I was even more troubled. SB1095 stated that a baby alive after “complete expulsion or extraction from its mother” would be considered a "person, human being, child and individual." In other words, it would be not only wrong but illegal to leave such an entity in a linen closet until it finished dying. Here is what Senator Obama had to say about the bill (March 31, 2001):

"...whenever we define a pre-viable fetus as a person that is protected by the equal protection clause or other elements of the Constitution, what we’re really saying is, in fact, that they are persons that are entitled to the kinds of protections that would be provided to a—a child, a nine-month-old—child that was delivered to term.”

In other words, a delivered 22-week term child would have the same rights as a full 40-week term child.

“I mean, it—it would essentially bar abortions,” said Obama, “because the equal protection clause does not allow somebody to kill a child, and if this is a child, then this would be an antiabortion statute.”

This statement unambiguously demonstrates that Senator Obama is willing to ignore the moral logic of any bill that might oppose abortion statutes. It doesn't matter to him whether or not a baby surviving an abortion deserves the rights due any person, accorded by our Constitution. What matters to him is whether or not the right to "choice" is violated by such a baby's right to life. Or, from another angle, he didn't care whether or not "this" is a child, because if it was an antiabortion statute he wouldn't vote for it.

One commentator summed this up elegantly:

For Senator Obama, whether or not a temporarily-alive-outside-the-womb little girl is a “person” entitled to constitutional rights is not determined by her humanity, her age or even her place in space relative to her mother’s uterus. It is determined by a whether a doctor has been trying to kill her.

I cannot in good conscience vote for someone who holds such a blatant disregard for human life.

Okay, that's all for politics. We'll be returning to my regular blog shortly...

More on budgeting

2008-10-23T13:56:00.000-07:00

Let me start out with a sidenote. Yesterday I posted a little bit about how we started having monthly budget meetings in my household. I want to stress the importance of doing this on a monthly (or more frequently!) basis. One of the reasons a budget never really worked for us before is that we couldn't account for the usual variations in spending needs using just a general budget outline. By spending every dollar on paper, on purpose, before the month begins, we've done a much better job of sticking to the plan. Now on to the main event...

I recently read a "Moneywise" article in Real Simple magazine, which I normally enjoy and has some wonderful tips, offering advice to a lady on how to trim her monthly budget. This woman's household is very similar to mine: two adults and one young child. They bring home approximately $4000/month. The financial adviser recommended that 1) they get rid of their storage unit ($88), Tivo ($12), and Netflix ($15), 2) swap babysitting duties to lower child-care costs ($610, Mom works part-time), and 3) apply for a credit card so they can build a solid credit history to get a mortgage (they just finished paying off all of their credit card debt).

Here's why I freaked out over the article. Cutting back unnecessary expenses is clearly a good idea if you're running a tight budget, so #1 should be acceptable to me. However...the adviser did not even mention the $600 monthly budget for groceries (for 2 adults!), or the $220 for "self care and incidentals" or the $150 for "Gifts". Maybe I've adopted a miserly mindset, but that seems over the top. I feed our family for $250 a month, and that includes cooking once a week for a needy family at church and trying to make sure we have a lot of fresh veggies and fruit. And if I had student loans to pay off and childcare expenses, I would slash that gift category back a bit until we were totally debt-free with a full emergency fund.

To be fair, I have no complaints with the second bit of advice. I'm fortunate to have "Grandma care" for our little one while I'm at work. I have no idea how anyone affords childcare.

#3 makes my blood boil and constitutes a challenge to my communication makeover. Let me take a deep breath so I can try to explain my position with grace and thoughtfulness. This couple just recently dug themselves out of credit card debt, and apparently closed all of their accounts and cut up the cards. This was wise. Aside from student loan debt ($350/month), they are financially free. Why would they give that up? Or even tempt themselves by having another card around? On top of that, did you know that studies have shown that people spend 20% more on average when they use "plastic" instead of cash? The financial adviser, as well intentioned as she seems to be, simply could not be more wrong on this account. If a person has zero debt and a steady income with a solid history of work, he/she does not need a good credit score to get a good mortgage. All they need to do is ask for "manual underwriting" when they go to the bank or credit union. There is absolutely no reason to have a credit card, and a multitude of reasons to refuse to touch one even if with a ten foot pole.

Okay, my freak out is now over. Here's a humorous "plasectomy" for your enjoyment:

Budget Meeting - Oh my!

2008-10-22T13:58:00.000-07:00

Six months ago my husband asked me when I'd like to get together and have a "budget meeting". You can guess what my response was... "Say what?! Are we a corporation now?". That's not what I said out loud, of course. Or maybe it was. I don't remember. Anyway, I was quick to agree when he told me that he would take me out to lunch once a month to a place of my choosing. In fact, my hesitation instantly evaporated.

Curious as to why we were suddenly having formal meetings to plan our spending, I decided to check out the book that kicked it all off: The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey. In less than a day I finished it, and my eyes were opened. How could we have been so blind about our personal finances? We had used budgets before, and neither of us would even remotely be considered big spenders. For the first few years of our marriage we had been entirely debt free without really thinking about it. It was just natural to pay off our credit cards every month. Somehow, when we moved to our current home, we started carrying a balance here and a balance there, until we took stock last April and realized things had gotten out of control. By normal standards, we were doing fine -- we had a nice house, a nice car, and we could make all of our payments every month. We could make all of our payments every month?! What kind of standard is that?? Ridiculous.

Since that fateful day last spring, when we wholeheartedly accepted the idea that we should tell our money where to go (and we didn't want all of it to keep going to Bank of America or AmEx or Citibank or Wachovia...), we've met on the 25th of each month to write a monthly cash flow plan. We sold the car that we had purchased on the grounds that we could afford the monthly payments (regardless of the total price tag), even though we were considerably "upside down" on it, and scraped together the cash for a 1992 Subaru wagon with 200,000 miles on it. We will never get another car loan. I'm giddy at the thought that in 6 months we've kept faithfully to our budget, and when emergencies arose we could use our "emergency fund" to take care of it. So far, we've paid off over $16,000 in debt. We bring home $3000/month. We have a long way to go, but we're excited about living like no one else today, so later we can live like no one else. And I don't mean just having nice, fancy things. Neither of us really cares much about that. But we'll be able to make decisions for our family without worrying about whether or not we can pay our creditors or afford food. Just think of the good we can do with the money that's currently going towards debt!

An unanticipated side effect of getting our rears in gear financially is that our marriage is stronger than ever. We have a goal we can work towards together, and there are no fights, regrets, secrets, or fears about money in our house. Read that last line again. When I pull cash out of one of my marked envelopes to pay for something, I know it's okay to spend the money. That's what it's been designated for. We have enough.

Oh, and lunch is good too.

Daily acts of kindness

2008-10-22T12:57:00.000-07:00

Terry at Ornaments of Grace has a wonderful post up today about being thankful for husbands instead of counting up things they should be doing. You can read the post here: Tales of a Stay At Home Feminist.

I have a different perspective than Terry, since my husband and I both work outside the home. Nevertheless, I agree completely that, as a wife, I need to spend more time concentrating on how to show my husband love and support than I do making mental notes of what he owes me. As much as it pains me to admit it, I find myself actually using that phrase ("he owes...") both in my head and out loud. And it's true. Really. Why should my husband get to spend one weekend hanging out with his brother and the next weekend with friends visiting from out of town, while I'm at home desperately trying to keep my house in order and wondering if I'll ever have time to even make a friend in the area, much less go do something fun with her? By any definition, he owes me a day "off".

What's wrong with this thinking? Am I selfish to want a day to myself? No. In fact, for the sake of my marriage and my daughter, I need to have a break, and not just every once in a while. Sheila has some great insight into this in her post today at To Love, Honor and Vacuum . What's wrong is that the thought is envious and thus, unloving. Jon was just discussing envy with me the other day. He read recently that the difference between jealousy and envy is that jealousy means you want what someone else has, while envy means you don't think you can have what someone else has so you don't want them to have it either. I know I need a break when I feel envy that my husband goes to the bathroom whenever he feels the urge (only moms understand what I'm talking about here!).

If I step back and consider for a minute, I realize that I want my husband to have time to enjoy being with friends, time to have a leisurely bath in the evening, without feeling like he is stealing some precious treasure from me. And I know that he wants me to feel loved and refreshed and rested. I have to trust that if I give him my full support and love, he's going to do the same for me. I also have to be careful to recognize that I'm running on fumes and ask, with kindness and love, for a break.

To help me keep this perspective, I've made a list of specific things I can do to show my husband I love him. Little things that serve not only to remind him of my love, but also to remind me that I want the best for him. Yesterday I gave him a pack of gum. This was a special pack of gum. I unwrapped each piece and wrapped a note around it, then replaced all the sticks in the package, so he would have 14 "Reasons you're my hero". While I was doing this, I couldn't help but smile as I chose which memories to use. Now I can't wait until he opens each piece (even though his gum chewing usually bugs me).

I hesitated to share this, because it was a special gift and memory. I'm not trying to pat myself on the back here. I just thought the example might help someone else out with ideas, so there it is. I plan on including a "daily act of kindness" to try out at home in each of my posts. Let's see what happens when we stop carefully measuring the love we hand out to make sure it's in proportion to the love we receive (as beloved Lottie from Enchanted April puts it).

Golden Silence: an update on my communication makeover

2008-10-20T13:48:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I posted about some changes I wanted to make in how I communicate (you can read that post here). I'm doing a lot better with saying what I mean, but I've found that sarcasm has deep roots and puts out a lot of "suckers". Every time I think I've eradicated it, somehow it pops up again. So the struggle continues.

In the meantime, I've discovered a new tool in my quest to make over my speech: silence. Simply holding my tongue, although definitely not easy, has proven extremely useful. Sometimes I just need to stay silent until I've sorted out my feelings -- in place of my previous non-strategy of spilling out whatever I'm thinking and then sorting it out later, usually after tears have been involved. If I stop first and put myself in the other person's shoes, or give the other person a chance to clarify what they really mean, a lot of unnecessary hurt and tension can be avoided. I've found that if I give it enough time, the other person may realize their own mistake and come to me to resolve it, without my saying anything about how they've hurt me. Even if they don't, a little bit of time and distance are a wonderful aid to gaining perspective and regaining calm. I just need to be sure that I'm not choosing to be silent as a means of punishment, or cutting myself off.

I've also been thinking a lot about gossip. I'm not really a gossiper by nature, and I've always tried to be very careful about watching my tongue in this department. But it's not always clear what the difference is between gossip and simply "catching up" or sharing news about friends. Strangely enough, a comment by Dave Ramsey (the financial adviser) helped clarify this for me. In his company, the employees are told "Postive Up, Negative Down" when it comes to communication at work. For example, if an employee doesn't like how the network functions, they are only allowed to tell someone who can actually do something about it -- otherwise it's just negative gossip. If they're talking to someone below them in the hierarchy of authority, they need to use positive comments and praises. So I'm trying to apply a similar policy to my life: before I pass on anything negative, I ask myself if the person I'm talking to can help the situation at all. If they can't, I'd better not pass it along. On the flip side, when I am with my officemates, who have strong negative tendencies, I only talk about positive things -- like our dodgeball tournament that's coming up!

I've already felt the strain of not sharing burdens of "negative" knowledge. Generally, the one exception I make to the rule is my husband. We both strongly agree that spouses should openly share everything together, being "one flesh". But there are occasions where knowledge given in confidence can't even be shared with a spouse, at least for a period of time. In this case, the only place to send the burden is "up" -- to God. Learning to leave it there...that's going to take more practice.

Leaving the nest (more college musings)

2008-10-15T08:42:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I wrote a little bit about why fresh, brand-new adults shouldn't just rush off to college because that's what they're expected to do. Today I'm going to take a different tack and discuss why young adults should leave home and go far, far away for a time (even if it's not to college). My departure from home to head across the country was once described by someone who had no idea what they were talking about as "getting away as soon as she could." It's true that I was eager to head off to college, but I was running towards something new, not away from what I had known. And while I am very glad that I live closer to my family again (and hope to be much closer someday), I cherish the time I had to find myself, away from anyone with preconceived notions about me.

Please forgive me for being cliche, but I belive I gained much from leaving the nest that would have been difficult to achieve if I had remained in my comfort zone, surrounded by my beloved friends and family. My abilities, my confidence, and my beliefs were tested -- and held true. Of course, support was only a phone call or IM away (remember when you learned how to IM, Mom? You were a pro!). But I knew that how I responded to "life tests" truly reflected me and my choices, because nobody around me had any idea what to expect. So I learned a lot about myself, my strengths and my weaknesses. I learned that sometimes it was better to skip a movie and study my notes, and sometimes it was better to skip class and sit with my back to a tree, thinking. There was a level of freedom from expectations and outside obligations that is somewhat unique to that phase of life, and should be embraced. Any dream was possible, and no one would crush it simply because they thought they knew who I was.

Maybe a lot of these lessons could be learned just as easily from moving somewhere not quite so "far, far" away. I have friends who remained closer to home and I don't think they have an identity crisis or anything like that. I can only relate my experience, and I know that I will encourage my children to test their wings somewhere "new" for at least a year when their time comes -- all the while fervently hoping they will return and stay close for the rest of their lives!

Unnecessary college

2008-10-14T15:40:00.000-07:00

I am coming to believe that far too many people go to college. I almost feel like I was lied to as I finished high school and college (I am sure it was unintentional). I remember getting the message from many sources that if you just finish high school, you can get a better job...and then, if you just finish college, you can get the job of your dreams... You know what, I'm now on the other side of high school, college, and hopefully before long, graduate school -- and it's not true.

Don't get me wrong. I think a college education can be a valuable and wonderful thing. I do not even remotely regret the years I've spent in "higher" education. But I believe you should absolutely not go unless 1) you can do it debt-free, and 2) it can help you fulfill your passionate purpose in life in a direct and deliberate manner. I no longer believe that an "undeclared" major is acceptable, and while I must concede that I was undeclared for the first year, it was only because I couldn't choose between Physics and Biology. If you don't know what you're doing in college, get a job where you can meet people (preferably related to something you enjoy doing) and read, read, read until you find out what makes you come alive. If you can't stand reading, then get out and learn everything you can, hands-on, about something you love doing (and find a way to enjoy reading, while you're at it, but that's a post for another day).

Do you know what I did for the first year after obtaining my 3.99 GPA B.Sc. in Biology? I managed a Subway. This was a, shall we say, character-building experience, but it was hardly the dream job I had been promised if only I did well in college. The problem was, I didn't need a piece of paper that proved I could store and regurgitate a massive amount of information about immunology, ecology, evolution, microbiology, and molecular and cellular biology. I needed to know what I wanted to do with that information. A vision for your life is vastly more important than a college education, and cannot be replaced by a degree, no matter how fancy the scrollwork or heavy the paper. Some goals in life do require a college-level understanding and vocabulary, but it is a mistake to expect that simply having the degree will get you anywhere.

Tune in later this week for more college thoughts and reflections...(if my cold doesn't continue to beat me into a pulp, that is!)

Problem? Or Adventure?

2008-10-08T12:40:00.000-07:00

Last night Aurelia had her first candlelit dinner at the table. Now, at 10 months and 2 weeks of age, I'm not sure how much she appreciated the experience. But considering the electricity was out when we walked in the door at 6:15, we didn't have many options! Fortunately I had cooked some hearty chicken and rice soup the night before, and my husband's quick thinking made it possible for us to heat up leftovers on our campstove. I chopped up some frozen avocado slices for Aurelia, warmed them in my hands, and we were ready to dine in style! We even lit the candle sconces on the wall that I haven't done anything with in ages (except dust them).

Shortly before baby's bedtime, the lights came back on -- so Jon and I were able to wind down and eat some brownies while watching an episode of Stargate: Atlantis on dvd instead of breaking out the cards. But it reminded me of the excitement of electricity going out when I was a child -- everyone getting together to play games around candles and oil lamps, wondering how long the dark would last, turning it all into a grand adventure. Or even in college, sitting in the dorm watching an unexpected snowstorm coming down outside the windows and hoping for an unplanned day of freedom from classes. Of course, in that last instance, my roommates and I ended up staying up until the wee hours eating delivered pepperoni pizza paid for with $5 of scrounged up laundry change and watching the news to see if campus was closed...only to fall asleep of exhaustion during Calculus 3 the next morning (okay, that last part was just me).

One of the greatest joys of my marriage is that Jon and I still turn "problems" into adventures. I trust that when our trailer tire blows out in the middle of nowhere (and trust me, Kahlotus is the middle of nowhere) and our 5-hour drive turns into a 24-hour journey involving an old gentleman who has had 5 heart attacks, his blind wife, an angle grinder, a second near-blow-out, and sleeping under the stars in the back of our 1974 truck...I trust that my husband can find a solution. I know that together, working as a team, we'll make it through whatever Murphy throws our way. And won't it be more interesting to tell this story to our grandchildren than if we had just had a simple drive to my parent's house? Of course! (Although we always check our tires diligently before heading out on the road now).

The point is, all of our "adventures" together as husband and wife could have been horrible memories. But mutual trust and respect allowed us to meet each problem head-on as a team, and now we cherish those times together. Were we frustrated? You betcha. But we were frustrated together and could lean on each other and say "well, what are we going to do about it?". So next time you find yourself facing a curveball from Mister Murphy, stop for a moment and take a deep breath and know you're going to make it through -- and it may even turn into a fond recollection. You have a choice: allow the problem to tear down your relationship, or allow the adventure to build your marriage up.

Why I want to have (several) children

2008-10-07T11:55:00.000-07:00

I considered titling this post "Why Christian couples should want to have children", but I don't want to make it sound like I have it all figured out for everyone. Because I surely do not. Yet I've been thinking about this topic a lot, as I've come across so many women lately who say they've decided not to have children (while I'm standing there holding my wonderful, beloved daughter). So I decided to figure out exactly why I want children, and I've come to the conclusion that a desire for children is a natural result of being in a loving relationship with God. There, that didn't sound law-like, right? Let me explain.

My "epiphany" came, strangely enough, when I was reading The Shack. I had a hard time getting past the first few chapters of this book. Actually, I had decided to quit and put it off for another time because I couldn't handle the pain of Mack's loss -- at least not so close to the birth of my own daughter. But my mom told me it was worthwhile to continue, so I picked it up again. Without giving too much away, I'll say that one of the main themes of the story is the importance of relationship to God. Why did He create us, after all? Because He wants to live in relationship with us. His desire for this relationship with free-willed beings is so great that He allows sin and pain (consequences of bad choices) in the world. And for us humans, the greatest, deepest, most satisfying joy in life is to love God. I want to bring new life into this world because each child is one more person who will have the opportunity to know the wonder of that relationship, to know that God is good and marvelous and beautiful.

Yes, I also want to share this gospel, this good news, with the people who already exist around me. But there is a special joy in the creation of a brand new life to share this knowledge with, and I personally can't imagine deliberately choosing a life without children. Does God sometimes call people to a life without marriage or children? Yes. At least, I believe so. Are those couples who are physically incapable of bearing children doomed to a life that is somehow less fulfilling? I believe not -- God has special graces for each of us. Or as Papa says in The Shack, He is "especially fond" of each of His children. Each life is entirely unique, and in a reflection of God's nature, I look forward to getting to know each of my children, even through the pain and sorrow that are bound to come along with the joys.

Get out of context

2008-10-05T15:02:00.001-07:00

I've always loved reading books. Even before I could read, I loved reading books. I'm told that one early birthday I had a pile of beautifully wrapped presents and a new (to me) little school desk with a short stack of books tied with a ribbon -- I ignored the presents completely and sat and turned the pages of my new books. So it's an affair that goes way back.

In middle school I discovered the small classic book section at my local library. Dumas' gallant heroes quickly became some of my favorite old friends. When I came to Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights, however, I was greatly disappointed. I have never been able to get past my severe annoyance with the main characters. I felt that 1) they needed a good spanking, and 2) they needed to get out of the house! If Hindley, Heathcliff and Catherine just got away from Yorkshire for a few weeks and sat in the sun for a while, I'm convinced all would have ended well. And the book would have been vastly improved.

If you don't believe me, read The Enchanted April. (Or watch the movie, it's also wonderful!) One of the many lessons I'm drawing from the story this time through is that sometimes we need to take ourselves "out of context". The first morning after arriving at San Salvatore (an old Italian castle with wisteria and sunshine), Lottie remembers not wanting Lady Caroline to come because she thought she might be shy of her, or Mrs. Fisher because she seemed "lofty"...once she refreshed her perspective, she thought "what an odd reason to want to shut someone out of heaven! So funny to worry about such little things, making them important."

I don't know about you, but I catch myself making mountains out of molehills on a daily basis. Okay, make that an hourly basis. Sometimes I recognize my over-reaction before it gets out of hand (or even better, out of my mouth). Sometimes I don't. But I think that it's easier to give things their proper perspective when you take a vacation from your normal routine (even if the only vacation you can rustle up involves ten minutes closed up in a room with a vase of flowers and a cup of tea). Again in Lottie's words -- "...just think how much nicer we'll be when we come back!"

Of course, sometimes we put too little importance on the small things of life. Here's an excerpt from one of my favorite scenes from the same chapter of The Enchanted April:

She noticed things she had not noticed in years. When she was doing her hair in front of the mirror, she noticed it - and thought, "why, what pretty stuff!" For years she had forgotten she had such a thing as hair.

When was the last time you noticed your hair?

Just 15 minutes

2008-10-02T10:33:00.000-07:00

I think today must be "Moms Feel (especially) Overwhelmed Day". I noticed several of my friends have set their facebook status to something along the lines of "needing a vacation", and many of the moms whose blogs I follow have been discussing how tired or overwhelmed they are - Brenda at The Family Revised described it well in her post earlier today. Being a mother involves quite the juggling act.

I know that while I was growing up, my mother was definitely the glue that held the family together (for that matter, she still is). When someone commented on that to her, it made her feel happy and appreciated -- and rightly so. I wish I had told her that more often. The problem with being glue, however, is that sometimes you get pulled and stretched in too many directions! And as Brenda mentioned in her post, while it's important to spend time doing things other than housework there are things that simply have to get done.

During the week, I leave the house at 7:45am (if we're not running behind...so about 10% of the time) and don't get home until 6:15 or so in the evening. Even those who are mathematically challenged can see that there's not much time left in the day to manage my home (especially after you factor in the time I spend expressing milk). Just the everyday maintenance -- laundry, dishes, vacuuming, picking up -- can be overwhelming! But something strange happens when you finally realize and accept that you can't get everything done. There's freedom in understanding that you just do what you can at the moment and then forget about the rest.

So here's how I approach housework: I have a magnetic dry erase board with a slot for each day of the week except Sunday. I made a magnet for each room in the house, plus a few miscellaneous house chores (like "meal prep"). At the beginning of each week, I write major events on the board, set up my meal schedule (I cook once every other night and have leftovers the next night), and then place the magnets on the days that have the most open space left. After dinner, dishes and laundry are done for the evening (often with my husband's invaluable help), I have to spend 15 minutes in each room listed on the schedule before I can relax. If for some reason I'm not done by 8:30pm, the magnet gets moved to the next open slot.

Oh, and Sundays are left off the board for a reason! All you can do is all you can do...and you can't give everything you have every day of the week. Sunday is for rest.

Wisdom for women, through the decades

2008-10-01T11:06:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I broke down and spent $50 on an mp3 player for myself. I've been wanting one for a while, and not simply so I could have a cool new gadget (although that's fun too). I'm finishing up the first half of my research project at work/school right now, and unfortunately this is the most tedious portion of my work -- it involves a few hours every day of sitting and diluting cattle sera into about 100 little tubes and cutting tiny little strips out of the blot paper that has my protein in it. I honestly get so bored doing this that I forget to breathe. And even though there's no other way to get the data I need, and the end results will be interesting, it feels like wasted time to me. I've tried and tried to have a good attitude about this, to find a new perspective that will help me enjoy the work, because I believe we choose joy. But I haven't found a way to do that...until I got the mp3 player. (Note: This is in no way meant as an advertisement for mp3 players. Just wanted to clarify.)

I resisted the urge to immediately subscribe to audible.com and instead searched for free recordings of audiobooks and found librivox.org. I now have several classic books on my Sansa, along with the Dave Ramsey Show podcast, Sheila's new podcast at To Love, Honor and Vacuum, and perhaps the best find of all - the 1938 Good Housekeeping Marriage Book. I downloaded this recording partly out of curiosity and partly out of an expectation that it would be humorously out of date. Instead I found that it was shockingly relevant for the modern wife. Admittedly, there are some amusing ideas and references in the book, but in just a day of listening to the recording my marriage has improved. Seriously. The advice offered in these 70-year-old articles is frank, specific, useful and wise.

I skipped the first few chapters, as they were for the courtship and engagement period, and started with a chapter written by Eleanor Roosevelt, entitled "Should Wives Work?". Of course, the first thing Eleanor stated was that the real question she was addressing was "should wives work outside the home," since being a wife is work! It's interesting to note that this was a question of interest even in the early part of the last century, as I tend to think this is a modern issue, and it is a pretty hot topic on "mom" blogs. There is much wisdom in the answer Eleanor offers, and I suggest you listen to the chapter yourself. I would like to note my reaction to her statement that a wife who works outside the home has two careers.

First, I felt...relief. Relief at the outside recogntion that what I am attempting to do as a mom, wife, and graduate student, is hard. If I feel overwhelmed at times, it is not because I'm not good enough or energetic enough or efficient enough...it's because I'm really working two careers at the same time. Sometimes I just need someone to acknowledge that for me.

Secondly, viewing "wife" as a career position altered my overall perspective of marriage. I hadn't really considered it in that light before. Motherhood, even homemaking in general, I had seen as fully satisfying (and demanding) career choices before, but not so for simply being a wife. How amazing might my marriage be if I put as much study and effort into it as I did for my PhD preliminary examination? What if I deliberately put time aside to study my husband -- his motivations, desires, weaknesses, strengths? And then acted on what I learned to support him in reaching his goals and dreams?

Not that I want to view my marriage as a test to study for. I've had more than enough exams in my life and I can't tell you how happy I was when I finally finished my last formal class. But I think I've taken my wife career too casually. And the truth is, just like any other career where work and proper devotion will lead to promotions and greater benefits, so will being a better wife lead to greater joy and fulfillment in marriage -- for both of us.

Mercy and Justice - best when served together

2008-09-26T15:03:00.000-07:00

Sheila over at To Love Honor and Vacuum was talking about mercy and justice earlier this week. She mentioned a personality test where you have to answer whether you like mercy or justice better. I've been thinking about this because I couldn't decide which way I would answer. After much consideration, I've come to the realization that I can't choose only one because either one without the other is unloving.

I tend to see the best in people and like giving them second (and third and fourth...) chances. And mercy is, at first glance, the more loving choice. So it should be an easy choice.

The quality of mercy is not strain'd,

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:

It blesseth him that gives and him that takes. --Shakespeare

However, as C.S. Lewis put it, "Mercy, detached from Justice, grows unmerciful."

Injustice really aggravates my spirit, even when it does not harm or even affect me in any direct way. Why is that? God is Just. God is Merciful. So the two are not mutually exclusive. In fact, I believe they are inextricably linked. Here's what George MacDonald has to say about it:

Such is the mercy of God that he will hold his children in the consuming fire of his distance until they pay the utmost farthing, until they drop the purse of selfishness with all the dross that is in it, and rush home to the Father and to the Son and the brethren—rush inside the life-giving Fire whose outer circle burns.

Justice without mercy is severe and cold and leaves no room for hope. But mercy without justice is equally...wrong. If mercy alone was enough, there was no point for Jesus to die on the cross.

This was a rather rambling post, and I'm still thinking about this subject. But my blogging time is up for the day, so have a great weekend! And let me know what you think.

Say what you mean

2008-09-26T12:25:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you just have to be flexible! I had hoped to post to this blog about once a day, but I had a curveball thrown at my schedule on Wednesday. But that's okay -- it meant I got to spend some time at the park with my daughter, and the weather even cooperated!

Speaking of "got", when I was in high school I read somewhere that the word "got" is over-used, and I took up a challenge to try not to use the word or it's variations at all for one month (Molly may remember this endeavor). To this day, I can't use the word without thinking about it and considering whether there might be a better word to use. This week I've decided to work on my speech patterns again, but my goals are a bit more ambitious this time around.

First, I'm trying to cut back on sarcasm. The first web definition I found for "sarcasm" is: A cutting, often ironic remark intended to wound. Wow, when you put it like that...it brings shame to my heart for how much I fall back on sarcasm. I definitely never intend to hurt anyone with my words, but I know that it happens because of my carelessness. So even when it's obvious that I'm joking and the sarcasm isn't directed at a particular person, I've decided that it has no place in my life. With Jon's help (and the help of any other family/friends reading this blog), I hope I'll be sarcasm-free within a month! Maybe I should start a jar...

On a broader scale, I am making a deliberate effort to say exactly what I mean and mean what I say. What do I really mean by that? I don't think I'm the only one in our society who has grown lazy with speech -- generalizations and broad, sweeping statements seem to be the order of the day in communication. So terms such as "always", "never", and "everyone" are out the window along with sarcasm for the next month. It's like nobody very few people have the time to be bothered with expounding their thoughts beyond a casual sentence or two.

Finally, among my communication makeover goals, I want to remember to ask my husband to do specific things around the house before I get upset about them not getting done (or having to do them myself). I'm married to a great guy, and I know and trust that he loves me and does not see me as a "pick-up fairy". But sometimes that's exactly what I feel like. Why exactly should I have to put his shoes where they belong? Or pick up the glasses he frequently leaves around the house? I'm not his mother! These kinds of thoughts sneak into my mind pretty regularly when I'm tired and trying to keep the house in order at the end of a long day. (Okay, they're not as wordy as that and probably not as kind, but you get the gist). But it is not the sign of disrespect that I think it is. It's just a sign that he has bigger things on his mind than whether or not his sneakers are under the bench. Maybe I should to.

Stepping boldly into the blogging world

2008-09-23T15:30:00.000-07:00

Here I am, for better or worse! When I finally made the decision to join the burgeoning "blogosphere" (inspired by my recently rediscovered friend, Ruth), I thought I might go conservative and create a site just to keep up-to-date with family and friends. But whether you want it or not, I'm going to give something more than that -- in short, my thoughts on Life, the Universe, and Everything. I hope you find something interesting and/or encouraging in my words.

So why "A Sanctuary Sought"? One of my greatest goals in life is for my home to be a sanctuary for those who enter it, and especially to my husband and child(ren). I enjoy hosting people for dinners and barbeques, even though it's a bit of a drive for most of our friends to get out to our home in the wheat fields. And it brings great satisfaction when someone comments that they feel peaceful and relaxed when they visit.

Of course, with a 10-month old baby girl and a tightly packed schedule, the "sanctuary" isn't always easy to create. When I first returned to work after becoming a mom, I struggled to find any peace in our home, and despair and frustration stole my joy and contentment. I spoke with my pastor's wife, who encouraged me greatly -- but the real break came when I found a little book called "To Love, Honor, and Vacuum: When you feel more like a maid than a wife and a mother" (Sheila Wray Gregoire). I highly recommend this book to any woman who is or hopes to be married one day. I won't try to summarize it here (just go read it! really!). I will say that God used it to help me bring balance back to my life. It still takes determination and perseverance (with a strong dose of organization!) each day, but I have learned that choosing to do something with joy can make all the difference in the world -- even laundry and dishes.