bate's klog

our new kitten

2012-02-05T16:51:00.003-06:00

after our horrendous cat luck this last year you would think we would spare ourselves the heartache of loving another wee little kitty, but no, you would be wrong. when it comes to kittens, there's no such thing as wasted love, even if they desert you (mohinder), suddenly quit breathing & die (samwise) or even slowly get sick and languish a while before eventually also dying (hemingway)... all within a 6 month period of time.

after being a house of 4 cats (we still have maeby, she survived the 3 boy cats), it's been awfully lonely with just one lone cat to tend to. we could be imagining it, but she seemed kind of lonely, too. she's been doing strange things like galloping from one room to the next then standing stock still and looking around... in my fanciful imaginings, i think she hears her brother, samwise's, meow & goes running to find him, only to be confused when he's not there. she's also been getting a tad bit husky. emotional eating, you know.

so we thought it was time to get her a companion. after much perusing of the craigslist 'pets' section, we finally found the perfect wee little kitten.
doesn't he look like a little black teddy bear? he's so preciously cute!
i 'encouraged' some togetherness time (by putting maeby up by him & quickly snapping a picture) but they're still getting warmed up to each other. they may never be as best of buds as maeby & her brother were (they would lick each other's fur & cuddle up for naps together... so adorable), but i'm hoping our newest kitten will at least provide some small measure of company to ease maeby's grief & loneliness.

while i was typing this, maeby started grooming him a little but she did it while growling at him at the same time as if to say, 'i don't want you around, but you're dirty so if you're going to be around at least you'll be clean.'
i know one thing, when he curls up under my chin & falls asleep, he makes me pretty happy.

so far, he does funny things like 'talk' while he's eating - he sounds hilarious. and he does a lot of cute prancing & pouncing around, of course.

we've debated on several name options, but have settled with the most obvious choice - walter bishop, after our favorite character on our favorite tv show, fringe.

other name options were jesus the mexican cat, since he was born around christmas time and a reference to an iron & wine song about jesus the mexican boy. there were combinations discussed like jw for 'jesus walter' and 'jehovah's witness'... so many options! i won't expound on all the other ones. i'm sure those are plenty for your mulling pleasure.

i mean really, who needs a real baby when you've got a cute kitten baby?!

baby shower

2012-02-03T19:08:00.004-06:00

rob and erica are 35 weeks pregnant and just about ready to have their little boy. last weekend nick & i, the parrys, the rapinchuks (not pictured), and the marshals had a little baby shower that strangely involved a rousing game of poker. i'm usually not a poker lover, but my strategy did me well for one of the rounds anyway and it was fun while i lasted. my strategy is to divide my chips into three piles and bet each pile for each hand. if i lose, i lose big, but if i win, like in our second round, i win BIG! there was no actual money involved, but i ended up with a satisfyingly large pile of chips - oh, and a box of whoppers. then the 3rd round was back to unlucky land. but i had fun while i lasted.

not sure what poker has to do with babies, but we opened presents beforehand to make it a proper shower. next weekend is erica's shower with all the church ladies so that'll be more shower-like, i'm sure.

p.s. this picture cracks me up a little - the giants on the left, the midgets on the right. i think it was partially the angle since i don't think rob is really that much shorter than nick...

girls

2012-02-03T10:37:00.003-06:00

despite protestations that they had no makeup on and weren't ready for this, two of my girls got in the spirit of posing pretty darn fast:

and then i didn't tell them i was still taking pictures, but these are better anyways...

yesterday was a really crappy day. i thought i wanted to just be left alone. but when i was by myself, my brain was not a happy place. i think god knew i needed company so he sent me some.

michaela & haley make me smile when i'm not in a particularly smiley mood :-)

thanks, girls.

test results

2012-02-01T20:22:00.004-06:00

well, today i found out the results from my blood work on friday. turns out i have low thyroid and low progesterone. from the sounds of it, your thyroid helps your body make progesterone. so the doctor has prescribed a thyroid medication that she thinks will also fix my progesterone levels in the process. it also sounds like a low thyroid/progesterone keeps you from ovulating, so chances are pretty good that by getting my thyroid regulated we'll be taking a great step in the right direction.

after finding this out, i looked up symptoms of hypothyroidism and there were some definite things i could relate to... the most obvious ones were:

fatigue
depression
sensitivity to cold
trouble remembering things

the last two are actually something i get razzed about. it feels good to have a valid medical reason why! so there. quit giving me grief. i have hypothyroidism. :-)

but seriously, thanks for being such a great support system. it's comforting to have friends like you who read and comment and care.

robot buddies

2012-01-25T20:18:00.003-06:00

nick drove over to tulsa last weekend to help his buddy celebrate birthday #30. the party theme was robots & wizards so the boys spent all saturday building these robot arms.cardboard box arms, water bottles for fingers, plastic pivot for wrists... aren't they great?

robot arms & boys, both.

my friend, al

2012-01-25T17:27:00.004-06:00

one of my favorite things about the holidays was getting to spend some good old fashioned quality time with allison. for once, we actually photographed the quality time - hurray! (although the quality of the picture shall remain uncommented upon...)

moving to north carolina was not my most favorite of her life decisions, but if it means we get to have christmas break dates & heart to heart sunday phone chats, then i guess i'm okay with it.

i feel especially fond of this friend these days as she's having her ideas of the future shaken around a bit, but she's somehow managing to maintain poise & grace in the midst of the tumult. maybe a little of that will rub off on me if i keep her handy...

basket case syndrome

2012-01-22T10:26:00.006-06:00

a minute ago i thought about corn pops and wanted them. bad. then realized we don't have any and i literally almost started crying.

i've been a complete 'basket case' the last few days/week.

basket case here is code here for a word that starts with the same letter but isn't exactly 'blog-appropriate'...

i've been cranky, mean and selfish at the last 3 social events i've attended. i've been critical, judgmental and hypocritical toward some of my favorite friends. when i'm not around people, i'm still cranky but i have the freedom to wallow all i want. i've been self-absorbed & unloving to nick. i've laid in bed, under my electric blanket, watching stupid teen dramas on the laptop with every second of my free time, and have shirked duties i should be doing to free up even more free time. i'm lethargic and unmotivated. i'm irritable & easily annoyed with my classes, i don't connect with them, i just leave them alone and do my own thing while they're working on their art projects instead of reaching out to them like a good teacher is supposed to do. i'm typing this from that aforementioned bed on a sunday morning instead of going to church. i just couldn't bring myself to go. nick is teaching sunday school to the kiddies so i would've been sitting by myself anyways... and it's probably best for me to spare the good church folk the 'basket case' anyways. on top of all that, my neck has had something weird going on with it for the last 2 weeks. i finally got a new pillow and it seems to be helping but i'm still pining for a white foam neck brace. you know the type, like all the cool kids wear.

i suspect this spiral of demoralized discontent stems from a letter i got last week from the clinic. my doctor wrote (personally, i'm sure) to say i had an abnormal result on my recent female exam (i was going to type 'pap smear' but that's just a gross phrase... but i guess i typed it anyways to tell you why i didn't type it. hmph.)

even knowing it's not all that abnormal to get an abnormal result, and as my friend assured me, it's almost normal to be abnormal, it has still freaked me out. for two or three days, that's all i thought about. i visualized every one of the possible reasons and outcomes and what this means in any given scenario. basically i'd resigned myself to never having children, developing cervical cancer and dying by the age of 34, leaving my husband childless and alone.

that was my reaction to the letter.

nick's reaction was, 'hurray! that's probably what's kept us from conceiving so far, now they can fix it!!'.

both reactions are probably a bit skewed and on the extreme opposite ends of the spectrum of reality.

reality is probably somewhere in the middle - it's most likely a mild abnormality that's not cancerous but slightly concerning, i'll go back for a repeat test, they'll keep an eye on things but it has little to do with not conceiving, and it will eventually resolve itself. meanwhile, we get more blood tests to see if there are any obvious, unrelated reasons as to why we can't get pregnant.

this logical perspective sounds perfectly reasonable and appropriate.

my emotions are not along for the reasonable ride. they've decided to take me on a journey of self-inflicted misery and i've been going without much of a fuss. as little fun as a pity party is, there's something very attractive about it. i guess that's why they call it a 'party'. there's a subtle draw to wallowing. it takes strength of will to resist. it takes determination to say, 'i choose to not engage in this selfish-fest. i choose to trust that god is well aware of the state of my inner health, he's not taken aback by this, he knew all along that i'd have this result. and furthermore, he knows what my next appointment in march will reveal. he's not surprised. and he still loves me and he is still good.'

i haven't been making the conscious choice to focus on those true things. it's like i've been going up on the 'down' escalator. if i ever want to get to the top, i'm going to have to take big, giant, powerful steps up, against the flow of the metal steps to get to the top. if i don't, if i just stand there with my hand on the banister, i'll find myself down at the bottom, whether i like it or not.

sometimes the energy it takes to resist is exhausting.

i don't have it.

but i also hate being a basket case.

for today, facing up to these things is a good start. i may not have the strength for those giant, powerful steps, but maybe i can start taking little ones. it might keep me treading water (or 'treading escalator', if you're a stickler against mixed metaphors) for the time being. i have this intuitive feeling that i just need to give myself space and time to come around. if only all of you good people didn't have to suffer in the meantime.

for anyone i've been mean to lately, i'm sorry. please forgive me.

here's the good news:

i had the blood test on day 3 of my cycle that checks for ovarian reserve. basically, that means it shows if i have healthy and plentiful eggs. the nurse let me know that the results from that test look good, with nothing to be worried about! so check one thing off the list of possible reasons why we can't get pregnant.

next up, this friday, another blood test. this one is to see if my progesterone levels are normal.

then on march 1st i have the repeat exam to take a closer look at the possible cervical abnormalities. and by closer look, that's exactly what it is. the test is called a 'colposcopy', and it's the same as a regular female exam (stirrups, paper-covered table, etc.), but instead of taking a sample with a little brush, they have a microscope right there to look at your cervix up close and personal. if there are any obvious abnormalities, they might take a biopsy of them to send off for further testing.

on one hand, march 1st is a long ways away to find out if i'm dying of cancer. on the other hand, perhaps it's just as well to have a couple months in between appointments that involve having my body invaded by strangers.

doctor's visit #1

2012-01-07T09:15:00.008-06:00

so, i did it. i finally went to the doctor and it was a very positive experience all around! but i also think 50% of the reason it was so positive was because i was ready for it. back in october, i wasn't ready. i should've talked to nick about canceling first, but waiting until now was definitely much better.

so, now. here are some reasons why it was so positive:

#1 nick was with me and i didn't feel out there on a limb by myself. that made all the difference in the world. waiting in the different waiting rooms & exam room, he kept me entertained & laughing the whole time. more than ever, i felt like we're in this together.

#2 i really like the doctor. she's a tiny little thing, probably 5'4", 100 pounds, if that, and not much older than me, so i was all prepared to feel like a giant galoot talking to a peer. but when she first came in, she was all business, very serious with the questions & the note-taking. i was expecting more chit-chat, but she got right down to brass tacks. and as we progressed, i found myself liking that. she was serious about investigating what's going on with me, very knowledgeable, competent and current. i found myself trusting her as a doctor and feeling safe with her assessments and the direction she wants us to go in. i think she probably gets warmer & more personable as you get to know her, but it was nice to feel like my well-being was her #1 priority.

among other things, she explained the 3 main causes for infertility and the different tests that can help figure out which one is the problem. i'm going to have a few blood tests for hormone levels, that kind of thing, and then go from there.

#3 the exam table was heated!!! that almost completely cancels out the indelicacy of what has to happen in a routine female exam. a heated table somehow makes it more spa-like and you suddenly don't mind putting your feet up in the stirrups! well, as much, anyways.

#4 there are no female ob/gyn's in branson so we were 45 minutes away in springfield for this appointment. to make the drive seem worth it, nick and i made a day of it. we went thrift store shopping, had dinner at qdoba, nick had some errands for his school, it was a fun day all around. we thought about going to the $3 movie theater, but decided it would be too late. so we headed home in time to get cozy in my electric blanket & relax til bedtime.

the next step for us, getting a blood draw on the 2nd day of my next cycle, will be sometime this week, as soon as i find out when my next cycle is (if you catch my meanin'). so we'll be driving back up to springfield either sunday or monday, i would guess. having things to be done so quickly feels good, like we've set in motion some plans to get to the bottom of why we can't conceive. i feel hopeful that we'll figure it out. it's the first time that i've been WANTing my period to start so we can get the ball rolling already! but then again, if it doesn't, that's perfectly okay, too. wouldn't we feel sheepish - 'well, just kidding, we don't need those tests after all - we're pregnant!'... i don't mind feeling sheepish, if it comes down to that. i counted a total of 11 pregnant ladies in and around the doctor's office, so maybe all those pregnant hormones will help out in some way...

nothing like a little wishful thinking while we're at it.

the ball drop

2012-01-01T14:58:00.002-06:00

fancy pants new year's eve party

2012-01-01T13:27:00.008-06:00

last night was the party to end all parties, literally and metaphorically. literally, it was the last party of the year - and we all agreed, it was the best party OF the year!! we all had so much fun, the time just zipped by!

i started out the day by spending every waking minute in party-planning mode. this is the part i get truly excited about. i love, love, love planning for parties! the anticipation is the absolute best.

here are a couple of projects i did throughout the day:

i started by making a frame out of wire, then threading & wrapping a bazillion christmas lights around the frame to make a light ball.
here's what it looked like hanging from the tree at night. a little misshapen but in person it was amazing! it lit up the whole front yard! we dropped it with the countdown to midnight - it was so much fun!! new york's got nothin' on this light ball.

i kept going with the wire roll i was on and made some numbers for the new year then hot glued silver garland to the wire. i tell you what, i'm getting to be more and more fond of hot glue. i didn't used to love it as much, but it's so dang handy.
nick was working at the bookstore, so i spent the whole day getting ready. after setting up the light ball in a tree in the front yard with a lowering rope attached, then making my wire/garland numbers, the day also included making party hats (more hot glue magic!), printing off various entertainment options (new year's eve coloring pages, lyrics to 'auld lang syne' & truths & dares), blowing up balloons, cutting out letters for the sign, baking two different kinds of cookies (chocolate chip & raisin oatmeal), lining the front sidewalk with candles, tidying up the house, getting all the extra chairs set up, dashing to the store two different times, and finally getting myself all fancified.

the premise of the evening was to let the phrase 'fancy pants' be your guide & get as fancy as your heart led. then, so as not to waste all that fanciness, we went out to eat at the macaroni grill. sadly, i couldn't fit my camera into my fancy clutch (oh, the limitations of pretending to be rich and famous) so i don't have any pictures of dinner. i think erica just might share some of her's with me though.

after dinner we went back to the house & partied it up.

the sign i made became the prom photo op hot spot, which was super fun...

the flapping hands shot was a total accident but it cracked me up! this picture made sarah look like a baby chick, flapping her wings.
i found my dress at a thrift store and this picture really doesn't do it justice. the skirt is fringed, a la flapper-girl, there are tassels on the sleeves, the shoulder pads were giant, the front was VERY low-cut (i spent most of the evening with my fur tucked into my cleavage for modesty), the back was even more low-cut than the front!! it was 3 sizes too small but i squeezed myself in there anyways, it was too amazing of a dress to pass by.

here are all the single ladies with alec.

the coloring pages were a huge hit - i guess young adults just don't get enough opportunities to color after leaving grade school.
the boys spent a considerable amount of time on the front porch, doing boyish things. they kindly inducted casey into their group.
the party hats i made were much cooler than the picture allows for. there were bells, feathers & silver garland involved...
we played 'truth or dare', the clean version. no kissing your secret crush or drinking mustard.

here are some examples of the truths & dares:

What did you want to be when you grew up?
What did you look like in 5th grade? Describe you to us.
Are you now, or have you ever been a member of the Communist party?
Make up a short rap about the person on your left.
Give us your best snort!
Make up a new dance and teach it to the group for them to do with you.

and speaking of dancing, there was an impromptu dance party, of course...

then some sparkler fun!
we attempted to spell out '2012' but my camera doesn't have the fancy slow shutter speed option. it didn't get the memo about this being a fancy party.

here's the whole gang, 5 minutes before midnight! (notice the modesty fur.)

then, the best part, we went outside to the front yard & joined hands in a circle under the light ball. we counted down to midnight while nick lowered the ball. we all shouted 'happy new year!' to each other then toasted the year with champagne. after the toast, we sang 'auld lang syne' and on the chorus we tried the joined-hands-crossed-arms-twist-around thing they do in scotland. we probably weren't as graceful as the scots, but we had a blast giving it a try anyways. there were fireworks going off so we walked down the street & watched them for a few minutes. it was all in all, so, so much fun!!

i'll post a video snippet of the ball lowering so you can feel like you were there.

after properly ringing in the new year, we kept hanging out for a little while longer, which i was surprised by. i figured people would be out of there at 12:05! but nope, we kept talking & laughing & playing 'guess who', a party favorite...
i think people finally ambled there way out by 1 a.m., and nick & i put the house back in order.

then nick got the flu.

i didn't know it until 6:30 am when he called up to me to bring him some warm socks & sweatshirt. he'd been on the couch all night long, throwing up & shaking with chills & a fever - the poor guy! i vaguely remember hearing him throwing up once, but i figured it was from a little overindulgence with the alcohol... he hadn't felt too good when we were going to sleep but i thought a good night's sleep would be all he'd need.

but nope, it was the full-fledged flu. truly miserable way to spend the first day of a new year!

even so, we're both glad it waited until after the party!

we stayed home from church & he's been feeling better. no more throwing up, but still a fever. it's probably one of those 1-2 day flus and he'll be right as rain in no time. thankfully, he doesn't go back to school tomorrow like some people (me). he still has another week of break. i just hope i don't get his flu bug!

anyhow, happy new year, friends! i hope you have a year full of good surprises!

vegan experiment concluded

2011-12-27T08:34:00.004-06:00

after a week(ish) of exploring what it would mean to move toward a more vegan lifestyle, my conclusion is...

i'm going to try to reduce dairy intake here and there, but there's no way i could ever go vegan!

it was fun while it lasted, i enjoyed the notion, but for all practical purposes, it ain't gonna happen. and i'm 100% mentally okay with that. it was good to have a week to experiment and get the idea out of my head & into reality to try it on for size. a week of break was perfect for that, since there was no outside stuff going on for the most part & i could focus solely on what it would mean from an internal perspective.

i definitely want to try to skip the butter on my toast & drink less chocolate milk & make fewer quesadillas. i've become more aware of how it feels when dairy is trying to be digested in the ole gut which makes me want to have that feeling less and less.

but i'm still going to have the occasional fettucini alfredo and will probably keep up the weekly friday night ben & jerry's treat. i might even still go for a pot of kraft macaroni if it's been a day that calls for classic comfort food...

because really, sometimes a little internal discomfort is a small price to pay for the emotional benefits of smooth, creamy goodness.

when we first tried the vegetarian experiment, my conclusion was that i really didn't miss meat so it's been easy to keep on eating that way. my conclusion from this experiment is that i really WOULD miss dairy, and to be perfectly honest, i don't have the self-control to choose something life-altering just for the health benefits.

whether that's bad or not, it is what it is, and we're moving on.

speaking of moving on, i'm having a hard time getting this week started! after the the week leading up to christmas and the weekend of fun christmassy stuff, yesterday was a day to decompress from it all. i spent about 90% of the day in my bed. we slept in, then took naps (can you call it a nap if you haven't gotten out of bed yet?) and slept some more... around 2 pm we had lunch, watched 'elf' and accomplished phase 2 on the gingerbread mansion (still at least 1 more phase to go!). then nick went to work at the bookstore (have i mentioned he's working part time at a discount christian bookstore? he is. he likes it.) and i climbed back in bed. to watch more of my latest obsession - 'the vampire diaries'. that's right, i like teen vampire shows. i'll admit it, but i'm not overly proud of it. nick mocks me mercilessly but i don't care. then after 3 shows, i dragged myself from my bed (possible bedsores could be developing soon from all this laying around) and straightened up the house - dishes, laundry, general straightening up. all that effort earned me a couple more episodes of 'the vampire diaries' until nick got home. then we went out to get ice cream. i had to change out of my pjs at 10 pm. we were going to get a movie since we'd done all that sleeping, but the store closed while we were getting ice cream. nick's had a cold the last week & he's been feeling pretty miserable, so he actually went ahead and went to sleep but i was wide awake. so what did i do until 1:3o am? you guessed it, i watched 3 more episodes of 'the vampire diaries'.

i'm going to name all my children (that we haven't been able to conceive yet, so don't get too worried) after all the people in this show. stefan & damon & elena... they're like old friends to me now.

i'm only on episode 15. i have 29 more to go before i run out of seasons.

guess what i'll be doing this week?

christmas 2011

2011-12-26T07:42:00.005-06:00

this christmas was lovely all around...

we went to harvest's candlelight christmas eve service & enjoyed seeing church family.

after the church service, nick & i hung out with erica's family for appetizers. it was fun to see them all - they're like extended family to me. i went home with erica for christmas 9 or 10 years ago and have seen them for different family gatherings from time to time ever since.

isn't it crazy how time flies?!

later that evening, nick & i went home & opened our stockings...
his family usually opens presents on christmas eve & opens stockings on christmas morning, but my family always opens presents christmas morning. it's strange how families come up with specific ways they do things and it becomes ingrained & traditional in you. when we go to one or the others' house for the holidays we go with that family's traditions of course. but this year we stayed home, so we had to discuss how we are going to do things when we're on our own. i wanted to wait & open everything christmas morning but nick wanted to open at least something the night before... so we compromised & opened stockings.

i'm still mulling over intrigued thoughts about traditions. it seems like a worthy topic of research. maybe that's what i'll write my book about.

then christmas morning we slept in til 8 or so, enjoyed a breakfast of biscuits & gravy & scrambled eggs then got down to the business of opening presents!!
we like to spread a blanket out in front of the christmas tree to open them on.
mom knitted me a hat...
and here we are with all the loot. it was a fun year! santa even gave us presents - i'd stopped believing in him, but he never stopped believing in me! he brought us a garmin gps last year but it got stolen out of our car. so he brought us another one this year! that santa, he's so nice.

then we got all gussied up for church. here's nick sporting his new suspenders & a distinctively hipster vibe:
i got him the suspenders and for some reason he was really surprised about them. i think they look gosh darn handsome on him.

before we left for church, we read 'an advent monologue' aloud. i love this little writing. it's beautiful. walter wangerin, jr, is one of my favorite authors. in this monologue, he does an excellent job of capturing a small piece of our father's love for us. and also subtly & skillfully combines the essence of god the father & god the son into one train of thought.
after church, we spent the afternoon napping (nick) and baking (me). i got bored kneading the dough for 9 minutes so i took a series of timer shots of myself kneading dough. it made the time go by faster.
i made fan-tan yeast rolls and while they didn't end up looking like the grandma type with perfect pull off squares, they tasted delicious! i doubled the recipe but then forgot to take that into account when dividing the dough, so the rolls were twice as big as they were supposed to be. but they still had pull off semi-squares. it's the second recipe i've tried out of my recently rediscovered 'complete book of breads' and i'm excited to work my way through it. i'll be like the girl in 'julie & julia' but with bread. mmmmhm.

i also baked molasses cookies & a new batch of icing so nick & i can finish our gingerbread mansion (still in progress - stay tuned). at the end of an afternoon of baking, my feet were tired! i came to the conclusion that i could never be a baker.

although a baker would have a whole kitchen designed exclusively to facilitate baking multiple things at once. he'd probably have more than one set of measuring cups & spoons so he wouldn't have to keep washing them in between recipes... and he'd have large vats of flour with scoops, giant counters, huge ovens, voluminous aprons and shiny pots hanging from the ceiling... this is sounding more appealing the more i think about it.

alright, i talked myself into it, i'll be a baker.

after the food was ready to go, we loaded up our goods & went to the bolgers for dinner & some karaoke. if you know the bolgers, imagine eric & janet singing karaoke - that's right, it was the most hilarious thing i've ever seen. i even have video documentation of eric bustin' a move or two, but i'll be kind & just show a picture of nick owning outkast's 'hey ya'.
karaoke at the bolgers was a definite highlight of this christmas season! mark & dan are quite the pros - dan has a surprisingly good voice & could probably make it big in the karaoke world with his skills. nick & i were atrocious, but we had fun anyways. there was only one song that induced me to make a fool of myself - kelly clarkson's 'since u been gone'. pretty sure i rocked it.

while christmas is over, the fun part is that i still have a week of break.

never mind that at some point in the week i have to go in to my classroom & grade 180 projects then enter semester grades. for now i'm going to let the week stretch before me in un-planned, relaxing bliss.

ahhh.

karaoke nick

2011-12-26T06:39:00.000-06:00

the evolution of the vegetarian experiment

2011-12-20T10:53:00.005-06:00

i'm really enjoying long blog post titles these days.

nick and i have been eating vegetarian for the last year or so. in case you don't remember, it was nick's idea when we were training for a half-marathon last spring. he thought it'd be something worth trying, to see if it made us more healthy while training. i had never even considered the notion before, and was actually quite shocked that nick considered it since he's always been a steak lover, hamburger lover, pretty much meat lover all around. but i figured if he wanted to give it a try, why not?

it's almost a year later, and i don't miss meat. not even a little bit. i don't feel tempted to go back, it feels perfectly natural and normal. in retrospect, it seemed like i always felt too full, stuffed, bloated, and meat was usually the culprit. there are all the side reasons that i've slowly added to my 'mental case for vegetarianism', but the #1 reason for me to keep skipping the meat is that it makes me feel better to eat vegetarian.

which brings me to the next logical step - taking it up a notch and going vegan. that means no food product that comes from an animal: milk, cheese, butter, eggs, honey, etc.

it reduces your food intake to grains, legumes, pasta, fruits, vegetables, etc.

the reason why i'm wanting to try it is because any time i've felt that same stuffed feeling i associate with eating meat, it is usually because i've had too much dairy. and granted, if you eat too much of anything, regardless of what it is, you're going to feel stuffed. but there's a specific kind of stuffed feeling that i get with dairy that makes me feel like i'm swelling from the inside out and i'm going to slowly explode.

i've toyed with the idea of trying a vegan diet for a while now, probably a couple months, but have felt hesitant about whether or not i'd be successful at it. we're talking ice cream, butter, cheese... all things i'm not sure if i can live without. and who wants to try something you know you'd fail at?!

so i'm giving it a week to see. it's a one-week vegan experiment.

it may seem like poor timing to choose the week before christmas, but really, i've had all the christmas treats i need for the year during the last week of school. good grief, i felt like the blueberry girl on willy wonka, but with sugar and chocolate. i felt like they were going to have to roll me out the door to get me home for the holidays.

it actually fits with my personality that i would go for it this pre-christmas week. after a huge binge of excesses, i usually tend to want something extreme, and i have the willpower to set it into motion mainly because of the recently encountered depths of despair. if it weren't for the binge, i'd keep frittering along, mediocrely wondering if i should try it or not... that food engorgement period works as a catalyst for change.

it'd be nice to be the kind of person who always did what was good and healthy, but i don't think there are many of those kind of people. i'm certainly not one of them.

but perhaps, if this week is a success, i'll at least get on a path of good and healthy eating that will help me avoid binges in the future... who knows.

yesterday was day 1 - i started out the day by trying a vegan banana bread muffin recipe which was delicious.

i don't really want to go in for all the stuff that substitutes for dairy (like soy milk or fake cheese), i want to find recipes that are made without them already, and just incorporate more of those meals in my diet. and i know, the main concern is to get all the proper nutrients & protein... that's part of the challenge. i'll be paying attention to that, don't worry.

if you have any suggestions for the experiment, i'm all ears!

date night at the shrine of the holy spirit

2011-12-19T09:38:00.003-06:00

yes, you read that right, branson has a shrine to the holy spirit. bizarre? i agree.

nick and i went on a date night last night to use up all the free stuff i had from the 12 days of christmas at school. we managed to go out on the town for the bargain price of $13.91!

$25 gift card to the olive garden - free dinner!

15% off dairy queen - dessert!

complimentary movie tickets to see 'sherlock homes: game of shadows' - REALLY good!!

and to top off the evening, we were going to enjoy the festival of lights, but turns out that costs $12 (what?!). nearby the over-priced christmas display, we happened upon something even better:

the shrine of the holy spirit! have you ever heard of such a thing?!
well, i have since i live in branson & they built it a few years back... but i'd never seen it because it's a little off the beaten path - i assumed it was an invisible shrine to go along with the invisible holy spirit. but no, it's a real place, replete with concrete, fluorescent lights, a bookstore, chapel, snack shop & tall slab verses about the holy spirit surrounding the circular enclosure. after a few minutes of perusing, i actually started getting a little spooked out since it was totally empty, with instrumental music piping out of the speakers full blast and all those fluorescent lights illuminating everything... it made me feel like at any turn, we were going to happen upon a murder victim or something, like in the opening scenes of 'bones'.

a fun-loving couple on a date, giggling & pointing at all the ridiculous facets of the tourist trap when bam! a decomposing body is propped up next the gift shop entrance! screaming ensues...

that didn't happen, thankfully. we did think for a second that we had found the holy spirit:
turns out it was just a moth.
this isn't the holy spirit, but it is a pint-size jesus, which is almost as good.

moral of the story, if you're in for a spooky, religiously touristy, slightly sacrilegious good time, check out the shrine of the holy spirit!

our ugly sweater gingerbread house christmas party for nick

2011-12-18T17:10:00.007-06:00

speaking of traditions, it's becoming a tradition to have a christmas party for nick, since i have so many (see previous posts... school parties, harvest ladies, cozy christmas...). so we have one for him where he gets to pick out everything we do, what kind of food, what movie, etc.

we already exchanged ornaments this year & here's the one i made him out of felt. he loves it, despite the stoic expression. he's just matching the ornament :-)

instead of decorating cookies, nick said we should decorate gingerbread houses. i've never had the chance to make one, so i was more than thrilled!

here's mark clarifying that we can't call them 'gingerbread houses' since we're using graham crackers. it's always good to be precise.

i felt like i was reclaiming a lost childhood memory - the whole time it was utterly delightful and exciting.

here's my end result:
i was veritably pleased.

i was just as pleased with everyone else's results - we had some serious skill at this party, let me tell you!
but ultimately allison was the grand prize winner with her little cottage.
and for the ugliest christmas ensemble, erica won the grand prize. check out those grand prizes i hand-crafted! they're a vase with every possible tiny christmas decor hot glued to them and sticking out of them. impressive, i know!
we had a rousing rendition of a white elephant game, with ashley getting the jesus plate i found at the thrift store. he's the reason for the season, after all! i really like that plate. i told her if she can't find a place for it in her home to bring him on back to me.
i was excited to get a banana hook holder thing - no more bruised bananas for us! and it's in the shape of a banana, so even if we're out of bananas, we'll have the illusion of them so our counter doesn't look bare!
ben stole the snuggy from me (i'm still not quite over the loss... it was so soft & fleecy...) and his first act of snuggy-wearing - to become the tallest wizard:
with nick's help:
impressively strong husband, i have! he sat on that step behind them while ben climbed on then he stood up with ben on his shoulders. that's over 200 pounds of dead weight on those muscly thighs! all that running is really paying off.

then we ended the evening with 'christmas vacation' which i had never seen. i liked it, despite the frustrating humor which i usually don't like. it's hard not to like chevy chase though. he's just so darn likable.
don't be fooled by the blah expressions & blurry photo - they were all engrossed in the movie.

and thus concludes this year's christmas party for nick.

until next year!

christmas festivities

2011-12-11T21:35:00.003-06:00

there have been a smorgasbord of christmas events in my life this week, as is probably true in all of your lives...

before the cozy christmas slumber party, on thursday evening, a group of ladies from church met at janet's to have the annual harvest ladies christmas party:
i don't know if it's the camera or our radiant beauty shining through, but i think we look absolutely stunning in this picture!

thanks to the entertaining antics of jennifer the game inventor, we played 2 games that she made up. we laughed really hard, a lot. and if i were to try to explain them, you would think we were insane. or at least jennifer was, and i would hate to give that impression, so i'll just say they were hilarious.

we also ate, a lot!! the most noteworthy item, in my estimation, was the blackberry cheesecake janet made. i'm looking forward with much excitement to christmas dinner that we're invited to eat with eric, janet & the boys, wherein there will most likely be more cheesecake. janet is pretty famous for her cheesecake, and you can tell why from bite #1.

we finished the evening with some pretty christmas carol singing.

then tonight, our church 'small' group (the reason for the quotations being evident when you see how many people are members of our small group!) enjoyed a progressive dinner that i thoroughly enjoyed. i've never actually attended a progressive dinner before, believe it or not, and this was a great one to be my first. we went to appetizers at the flores', salad & breadsticks at our place, lasagna at the rapinchuk's, & ice cream cake/christmas candies at dan & karen's.

each of the four houses in the progressive dinner were so different but each so equally festive with such delectable food. it felt like we went to 4 individual parties all in one evening! i'm now a big fan of progressive dinners. it only took 5 hours, but it was worth every minute.
we had an ornament exchange after dessert and nick was super pleased to get a green pickle ornament. he was all 'go for whichever one you want, honey!' until he heard there was a pickle involved. that was the end of his magnanimous offer.

and also the end of the progressive dinner since we all packed up & headed home after the ornaments. it was a very lovely time with friends who are like family.

now just one more week until school's out!!! i'm counting down the days. maybe even hours.

cozy christmas 2011

2011-12-10T22:12:00.009-06:00

last night was my favorite friend tradition of all time - our annual christmas slumber party! this is our third year of cozy friendly christmas cheer. we started with the inaugural slumber party in 2009 and carried on the tradition in 2010. this year, it continued to live up to all the anticipation, for sure!we began friday evening with dinner consisting of the traditional pulled pork sandwiches (drea made them the first year and we had to keep having them, they are so good!) (and yes, i ate meat for the first time in 6 months!! i compromised my convictions for this tradition. it was so worth it. it might just be my annual meat eating tradition - that's how good drea's pulled pork is.) dinner also included potato casserole & veggies (which may or may not have spent some unplanned time scattered about on the floorboard of my car...), culminating in the most delectable pumpkin cobbler you can imagine. topped with homemade whipped cream... oh, buddy. kristen concocted this heavenliness whilst battling off a sinus infection & consoling an ear-infect 9 month old. she wins the award.

after dinner, some of us ventured out for caroling. it was a whole lot of fun involving a neighbor who could not have been more affirming or enthusiastic. for a group of caroling newbies, we knew it wouldn't get any more encouraging than that so we called it a night with just one house under out belt. but we caroled at our own slumber party house... twice - before & after the neighbor. so that was kind of like a full night of caroling, right? the enthusiastic neighbor even gave us little rum raisin breads in tinfoil! nick and i just might move to that neighborhood so she can be our neighbor, too.

our caroling was so short-lived that i didn't even take pictures.

oh well.

then we moved on to the gift exchange portion of the evening. we played white elephant rules but not white elephant-style gifts - more quality, less prankster. it was funny how many items were so similar! we must be friends - we all have similar taste. there were three chalkboard type gifts and three cool platter/bowl type gifts. i ended up with a neat artsy print and paper bird ornament from susan.

i was #1, so i actually opened about 5 different gifts - i'd open one, then #2 would steal it, i'd open another, then #3 would steal it... i quit getting too attached after a while, figuring it wouldn't be mine for long.

casey brought a harry potter puzzle that was a great source of entertainment throughout the evening & morning. there's definitely something cozy about a puzzle.

then we had craft time making felt ornaments. i've been in a felt ornament phase lately & have been going to town.
all the stockings were surreptitiously filled throughout the evening by each of us...
the first cozy christmas in 2009 included handmade stockings for the 9 girls who attended - here's kristen's with each of the name tags from the last 3 years. they're like trading cards. wouldn't it be so fun if we had cozy christmas for the next 20 years?! if so, i might have to make new stockings at some point...
charity was the wonderful hostess for the weekend and she did a lovely job. part of the loveliness involved their movie projector on loan from in-laws! it was awesome.

i fell asleep during the movie of course, but not before eating my body weight in peanut m&m's. then when i woke up at 1 a.m., drea was sitting on the couch by me with the bag so i started eating them again and they tasted SOO good!! i've decided to start setting my alarm for 1 a.m. every morning to wake up & eat peanut m&m's.

after the movie, we found ourselves some sleeping arrangements (for me, a couch), but then casey, drea & i ended up chatting until 3:30 a.m. drea had to work in the morning so she didn't spend the night, but wanted to get some quality time in before leaving.

then there was a debacle involving an air mattress pump - what a work out!! but we eventually all made it to sleep.

in the morning, we enjoyed a leisurely breakfast together. i loved the big windows at charity's house - the morning light was so beautiful.
and the girls finished their puzzle!
casey got this puzzle for christmas 10 years ago and this was the first time it had ever been opened. we may have to include it in the cozy christmas tradition from now on.

then we finished up the festivities by exchanging stockings...
and taking a series of timer shots (nope, we're not tired of them yet!)

hillary gave us slinkies (slinkys?) in our stockings which made for a fun little slinky war (nobody won)...
it's so natural and normal to have marcia back with us that i have to remind myself she doesn't live in branson anymore. then when she's gone i have to get used to it all over again. but i love that she drives the 2 1/2 hours to still be a part of our lives for big events. her birthday's coming up in february & we're going to have another splash country indoor water park party - it was such a fun time last year that she wants to do it again, and we wholeheartedly want to do it again with her!
marcia's snowman finger puppet was birthed from a slinky. almost as creepy as marcia's eye peering.

i love these girls. i don't have to tell you but i will anyways - we had an absolute blast!!

christmas traditions

2011-12-05T18:48:00.003-06:00

for some reason, this year i found myself starting out the holiday season thinking anxiously about how nick & i don't have christmas traditions. i was fretting that we might grow old and boring with nothing that we repeatedly do the exact same way every year (aka, the definition of old & boring... why exactly are traditions so desirable?! i'll never know. i just keep desiring them...)

turns out i was being silly.

as the 'getting-a-tree' evening progressed, i realized how many traditions we actually have and my heart was full of happiness.

not even that, but we started new traditions... or at least new things that i want to repeat each year from here on out.

like getting macdonald's hot chocolate on our way back from lowe's, on our already established tradition of getting a $20 live tree (see it in the back of the truck behind us?). i liked that.
i won't enumerate all the little traditions that i rediscovered... they're too precious to list out. and also, i want to rediscover them every year and be freshly surprised by their delightfulness. i want to keep them less public and more treasured, just between nick and i. they're not that interesting or complicated, but they're ours. and i like them.
after some fast and furious tree decorating (and tradition re-discovering), we took a nap on the floor (while also taking a picture of ourselves taking a nap on the floor...)

there will be much real kissing under this fake mistletoe, i'll warrant. and that's a tradition you probably could have guessed.

life decisions

2011-12-02T19:27:00.003-06:00

i've been making some pretty hefty mental statements lately and thought i'd share.

first let me discuss our impending craft fair for a moment - it leads up to a mental statement if you follow along a bit.

the high school art club is hosting a craft fair tomorrow for which we've been working away, getting prepared. it's been on my mind the last week or so especially, and has been one of those things that takes over your thoughts & makes you feel like you're constantly 2 steps behind and probably forgetting something.

now that it's tomorrow though, my mind can settle down a bit & realize everything's ready to go, there's nothing left to stress over. but part of the stress was deciding whether or not to have my own booth in the fair & sell my handmade goods. for a little while i thought i was going to. i was busy making stamped greeting cards (my new favorite craft) & brainstorming other possible things to include. but after a few days of trying to juggle getting ready for the craft fair in general along with my own booth in particular, i decided i didn't want the added hassle. and i've just about reached my crafting threshold - without even having made christmas presents for people yet! so i decided to use the already-made things i've done so far as christmas presents & not do the booth. this decision was very relieving, but not the main life decision i came to through it.

i've thought this before, but i am now thinking it with finality and will nevermore revisit going back.

here it is:

i doth pledge to never make stuff for profit.

this might sound like an extreme statement. life decisions are supposed to be extreme though, so it's okay.

here's my reasoning:

making stuff for people fills me with joy.

making stuff for money fills me with angst.

when commerce is introduced into the equation, i eventually start factoring in how much the materials cost, how long it took to make, how cool it turned out, and realizing the amount i end up charging in no way recompenses all the factors. then i start feeling resentful & stressed out.

there's also the identity factor - if people don't buy my stuff, do they not like it? do they not like ME?

so you see, i'm much happier making stuff for people who aren't paying for it. then there's no complicated spiral of anxiety. people are happy, and i'm happy.

i've thought this before, primarily because people are frequently suggesting that i sell stuff. and when someone suggests something, it has a way of sounding very valid. (taco bell, you say? why yes, that's exactly what i'm now craving! nothing else will do... oh the power of suggestion...)

but i do declare, in front of all 23 of you, my witnesses, that i will not sell out to the man with my handmade wares.

this is an individual decision that affects me alone - in no way do i think other people should follow my lead - then i wouldn't have stuff to buy from other people (which i fully intend to do tomorrow at the craft fair). and in no way do i judge you if you sell stuff. i'm merely recognizing what brings me joy, personally, & following that.

now about other life decisions.

not successfully conceiving a child in over 2 years inevitably invites the question, 'so what do you think of adoption?'

this is perfectly understandable, and one that i can't say i have a definitive answer on as of yet, but i thought i'd share my musings on the matter. i mean no disrespect with any of my opinions i'm about to express. they are all merely that - opinions.

3 years ago, i would have said i never want to adopt.

there's something about raising a child that you did not birth, in your family, that seems less than ideal. there are a bazillion pros to the idea, but also a bazillion cons. most notably, all the 'belonging' issues that an adopted child encounters. seeing as how i've never raised children at all, i feel very unequal to the task of not only raising a child well, but also helping him/her navigate the tricky waters of adoption identity issues.

fast forward 3 years to now... after all the beautiful stories i've heard of all the different varieties of adoption, i'm much more open to the possibility these days, especially as chances of us conceiving ourselves seem to fade. i truly admire people who undertake the task of adopting, with all that it entails, all for the love of one child. the heartache, trials, roller coasters & drama that are usually involved in an adoption story is overwhelming to even consider.

when i think about nick and i, our lives, i just can't imagine us in the role of adopting.

but we aren't as closed to the idea as we once were.

we've talked about a possible flowchart for the future. here it is, as plan-y as one can be with issues that are entirely out of one's control:

if (and hopefully when) nick gets a teaching job after graduation - he'll start teaching in the fall of 2013. whether or not we get pregnant in the meantime, i will keep teaching for at least one year along with him. if we've conceived, that'll be great, but i'll still keep teaching for the one year anyways. having a double income for a year will pay off nick's student loans, and we'll be out of debt (hurray!).

if we haven't conceived before that year is up, i'll teach an additional year & we'll put the money aside for adopting, while beginning the (long) process you go through to adopt. then i'll quit teaching & stay home, hopefully as a mom! if not, i'm just going to stay home. i'm not what you would call a career woman, and i've basically just been putting in the hours to get nick through school. the 4 years i've been his sugar momma will pay off in the next 30 years that he puts in returning the favor.

so there's the current plan. who knows what will actually happen, and i'm okay with the likelihood that it will change, but i also enjoy having something to look forward to. what can i say? i'm a planner.

i'm slowly taking to heart that plans are good to make but can't be counted on.

i would never have guessed that we'd be 26 months into trying to conceive with no success. that is definitely not something you plan on.

a couple months ago was the hardest of all the 26 months, but since then i've become pretty zen about it. possibly to the point of complacency, but i'd really like to camp out more in the 'it is what it is' realm & be okay there. not giving up by any means, but not obsessing. and not devastated each month. looking for ways to keep practicing patience & trust, but not turning infertility into my defining issue. i am more than just a person who wants to be a parent. that's part of who i am, but not all. when i read blogs or talk to people about the topic, it can seem so all-encompassing.

so here's my last life decision:

i want to trust that god's in control, still hold onto hope, but also enjoy the other parts of life.

more ambiguous than the first life decision, but that's okay. i tend to look for the black-and-white, but the tension of living is usually somewhere in the gray.

a simple thanksgiving dinner

2011-11-26T19:59:00.005-06:00

this year, nick and i were pretty indecisive about what we wanted to do for thanksgiving. we had already planned to stay in branson this year but didn't know if we wanted to join friends for thanksgiving dinner, have it at home, or just skip it all together...

after much angst-ridden deliberation, we finally ended up staying home & enjoying a super simple yet super delicious thanksgiving meal.

we combined nick's favorite part of thanksgiving dinner (the stuffing, mashed potatoes & gravy) with my favorite part (the canned cranberry sauce to accompany bites of each of the aforementioned foods). we also threw in a veggie (canned french-style green beans) and a protein (boca chik'n patty - tasty and bonus: no animals were harmed in the making of this option!). it didn't take hours & hours to make and yet, it was by far my favorite thanksgiving meal. hands down. of my life. it was so good! i think the simplicity had a lot to do with it.

nick has still not recovered from that stuffing - he's been raving about it for the last two days. i was going to grab a box of stovetop stuffing from walmart, but it turns out there's no vegetarian stuffing kind of stovetop stuffing. so we looked up a recipe & i made it from scratch. it's not as hard as i thought it would be and it tasted way better than stovetop!
this was also the first time i made gravy like this. it is now my new favorite way. it was so delicious and easy! all you do is bring vegetable broth to a boil (a can's worth), then whisk in a paste made from 2 tablespoons flour & 2 tablespoons butter. after about 15 minutes of whisking, it's the perfect consistency of gravy goodness.

loved it.

i had made a dessert for us - hot fudge sundae cake - so while it finished baking we played backgammon. we're not much of a game-playing couple, but every once in a while it's fun to pull a game out & give it a try. nick is not a cutthroat kind of player, so we both managed to get all of our pieces in their homes with a complete lack of sabotaging. totally contrary to the point of backgammon, but we were both okay with it. and nick won, so he was pleased :-)
i am of the homebody persuasion, so this thanksgiving was right up my alley.

it was blessedly devoid of:

football on tv
awkward social interactions (possibly with people you aren't invested in enough to make the awkwardness worth the effort)
meat
gluttonous over-eating
hours of preparing
hours of cleaning up

it was blessedly full of:

deliciousness
simple homey goodness
fun music
quality time with my favorite person
easy prep & clean-up
relaxation

this was from my perspective, of course. if you were to ask nick, he would most likely agree with every point, but would add that he would have liked some social interaction. awkward or otherwise.

and all being fair in love & war, next year we'll most likely do thanksgiving in a more traditional way, for his sake.

(that is, unless i can do some persuasive sweet-talking between now & then!)

our thanksgiving camping trip

2011-11-26T19:18:00.010-06:00

part of the reason why we had such a simple thanksgiving dinner was because we were mostly thinking about our camping trip. we had planned to go friday night, but nick recently started a job at a bookstore on fridays & saturdays, so that threw a kink in our plans.

we decided to still go ahead & go on thursday.

it was so perfect!

the weather was beautiful - sunny & 63 degrees or so. we drove down to the buffalo river & stayed at steel creek by the water. since it was just the two of us, getting ready to go was a breeze. we didn't take very much stuff & it hardly took any time at all to set up.

which left plenty of time to heat up our supper & enjoy time by the fire...

the funny part about camping with just the two of us, no technology or entertainment involved, we both were shocked at how slowly time went by!

we got to the campsite around 5 pm, set up camp, built a fire, got dinner ready, ate, sat around the campfire for a while, had hot chocolate, told stories, then turned in for the night.

after we got all snuggled into our mummy sleeping bags (it was going to be a cold night!) we checked what time it was... 6:15!

so we read for an hour, then got out of our warm cocoons and walked down the dirt road for a bit, looked at the stars, nick built the fire back up, we sat around the warmth some more, enjoying the great out of doors... and finally decided it was just going to have to be bedtime. we were definitely asleep before 9.

morning time, same story! we got up, i cooked breakfast (while nick went skinny dipping - crazy man!!), we drank more hot chocolate, went exploring a ways down the river bank collecting rocks, came back, broke down camp and even had some funny timer shot photo shoots... and pulled out of there by 9 a.m.

but we truly felt like every minute we were there was so full. jam packed full of crisp, clean air, nature sights, enjoyment, just resting.

nick washed the dishes both meals since i didn't want to get my hands wet and cold. isn't he sweet?

the water in the buffalo river is such a pretty blue-green color. being the dry season, there were a plenteous supply of river rocks to explore.

some of the rocks were too big to put in nick's pockets but i took pictures of their prettiness. nick even found a fossil! he was excited.

nick always wants to carry me on his back. i don't know why. it's just one of those things.
i'm no featherweight, but he still gets a kick out of it.

he also got a kick out of his idea to take a series of timer shots where he pretended to be a bear chasing me out of the forest.

i admit, it was pretty hilarious.

'lamberts: home of the throwed rolls'

2011-11-26T19:09:00.003-06:00

drea had a birthday - the big 2-7!!

we celebrated by going to lamberts where you get a free meal on your birthday... oh, and balloons and a 'special' birthday hat...
and a cinnamon roll the size of your head:
casey, erica, drea & i had quite a hilarious time of it. do you ever have times with friends where you're surprised by how much you enjoy each other? it should come as no surprise, i've loved these girls & loved being friends with them for many years, but sometimes it's easy to take friends for granted. and then it's so fun to suddenly be reminded why you love them so much by having a blast in unexpected places.

i was hoping to get the roll-throwing boy in action, but alas, it was not to be. maybe next birthday.

let the holiday madness begin!

2011-11-19T10:08:00.005-06:00

i don't know if i'm over-reacting, but i'm already starting to get stressed out about the holidays. and it's not even thanksgiving yet!

we're not traveling anywhere this year, for which i'm very grateful - i'm a major homebody and would love to stay home every year. but then we'd never see family! so i'm grateful for this one year of staying home anyways.

i think tv and radio sets us up for the holidays to be crazy. i don't know if you've noticed, but holiday commercials & whatnot are so frantic & hyper, they make me want to start racing around in a circle, trying to cram everything in that i need to accomplish... but wait! it's only mid-november! why are we cramming? one of the reasons i love not traveling anywhere is the idea that it will be so much more relaxing & low-key, but somehow our society highly encourages us to go a little nuts, no matter what our plans are. prime example - that target commercial with the lady in the red jumpsuit... does anyone else think she's inSANE? and not in a funny way.

we still don't really have any plans for thanksgiving - a few invitations to join families in their festivities. but i don't know that i want to be a part of someone else's family for a day... the main problem is, i don't know what i want.

some where i heard someone say that we should find a way to serve others on thanksgiving instead of focusing on serving yourself a giant plate of food - but that feels like pressure, too. how does one go about finding a way to serve others? and what does that even mean? does branson have soup kitchens? i don't know.

as for christmas - we're staying home for that, too, but i have this stressful feeling that i need to start making stuff RIGHT NOW! or else i'll not get everything done. but what am i even making? and for whom? i hadn't planned on sending family members christmas presents or anything, so i don't know why i'm psyching myself up for this massive craft session that possibly doesn't need to happen. i think part of the pressure is coming from all the people having birthdays & babies. i accidentally missed one or two birthdays & baby showers this last month so i'm catching up from those while others are looming in the near future. so just to keep up with those is making me feel stressed and while i'm 'making', i figure i should be making for christmas... but why?!

is it really necessary to go crazy around the holidays?

which then leads to the thought, if we don't make stuff & give people presents, will we then be bored & disappointed? will it just seem like empty days with nothing special?

i'm sure there's a middle ground.

another factor involved in the stress is school, of course. it's getting to that time where everyone just needs a break so everyone is cranky. and by everyone, i mostly mean me. and when i'm cranky, the world around me seems cranky, even if it's not.

the last two weeks i've not really been that fun to be around at school. i feel bad for my students. i have this permanent scowl etched on my face and i just can't shape it into a smile. when i try, it feels forced & fake. so i just settle back into my scowl. every once in a while, i've had a random good mood, but normally i'm the opposite - in a good mood with an every-once-in-a-while cranky day.

i'm not enjoying the reversal.

and finally, contributing factor #3 (or was that #10?), the high school art club is hosting a community-wide craft fair on dec. 3. there will be 20-30 vendors with booth space & we'll hang out all day, making sure it runs smoothly (come check it out!). since we'll be there all day, each of us art teachers figured we'd have a booth as well, so i've been making stuff for my booth. i've come up with some new designs for greeting cards with rubber stamps that i'm loving (one of which might be nick & i's christmas card this year), and it's been a highlight of the last couple of days - exploring the fun world of making stamps & printing cards... but i think the looming idea of having a booth to fill with handmade goods is adding to my feeling of frenetic chaos. my mind thinks, 'well, if i have cards, maybe i should also whip up some fabric flower bobby pins, and oh yeah, maybe some shoulder bags & scarves and hats...' and i can't stop!!

on the bright side, i've been thinking that whatever doesn't sell in my booth will make for great christmas presents for our upcoming cozy christmas slumber party (can't wait!) and any residual birthdays that are in the mix... i just won't tell them that they got the dregs.

if only i was independently wealthy & stayed home every day to just make stuff...

so... what are YOU doing for the holidays? do you find a way to remain calm & centered in this media-driven storm of frantic craziness? or do you join in with your own brand of insanity? i'd love to hear.

did i mention i got my hair cut?

2011-11-06T16:23:00.001-06:00

9 whole inches of hair, might i add!

before:

after:
i really love my hair long, and was conflicted about cutting it, but mostly i was bored with it and needed a change. i'm probably going to start missing my long locks sometime next week, but for now i'm loving the new look. it's like rearranging the living room - that fun feeling of excitement and newness!

too bad it takes so long to grow it back out when the newness wears off...

nick's first marathon!

2011-11-06T15:49:00.007-06:00

after many months of training, the final day of reckoning hath come!

before the propitious day, we had a preparatory pre-race pasta dinner...

nick & rob were training buddies and have gone through quite a few long runs together over the last few months. casey, kristen & i were running the 5K, so we thought it'd be fun to have a little pasta dinner two nights before to carb load with friends.
but really, who needs an excuse to eat pasta?
this morning we had to get up at 5 am since springfield is an hour away from us and since the race started at 7. luckily, it was 'fall back' so it was like we were getting up at 6. nick was awake around 3, though. he was so excited for the big day! don't he and rob look like buddies on the first day of kindergarten or something?there were 3,000 runners - a big crowd!

after we saw the guys off, we gals hung out by the huge fireplace inside bass pro for half an hour before our 5K started.

then we were off, too! that's me in the pink and casey with the crazy hands. kristen's in the blue on the other side of me.
right after this picture a small bird flew in my mouth.

just kidding. but i sure do enjoy kristen's enthusiastic expression!
this was kristen's first 5K and she was pleasantly pleased to find that she ran it in just under 41 minutes! there were plenty of post-race snacks - we loaded up.
we needed the fuel for the long haul of tracking down the guys at different rendezvous points to cheer them on. we found them 3-4 times & gave them snacks, vaseline & kisses for inspiration.
poor nick had a chafing problem. he solved it by taking his shirt off, which was brave since it was windy & cold.
he didn't mind, and they finished in exactly 4 hours!

i'm so proud of my husband! not only did he finish the race, but he met his goal, and he spent months of consistent perseverance to get there.
he was very excited to get a post-race massage.
we went out for lunch at qdoba with our handy coupons from the race.
it was a slightly exhausting way to spend a sunday morning, but we had so much fun in every aspect of it.

the folks visit

2011-11-02T11:47:00.002-05:00

nick and i were pleased to have my parents in town for the weekend... they have officially resigned from new tribes mission and are on their way to colorado to begin their retirement. two of my brothers plus their families live in colorado, so mom & dad are settling in with the family. on their way, with much cargo in tow, they stopped at our place.

the weather was so perfectly fall-ish that we had to venture out for some jogging/biking/hiking at stockstill park.

dad & nick jogged a bit together before nick took off for some fast mileage.

mom & i rode bikes...

and while nick did his speed work, dad hiked around a bit.

we met back up before it started getting dark. sunday was the perfect combination of sunshine & brisk, fresh, fall-like air. i like fall.

we went to fuddrucker's for dinner that night & enjoyed ourselves greatly...

they have very tasty garden burgers. and of course, milkshakes.

i'm a quality time sort of gal, so it was really nice to get undivided attention from my folks. i like being paid attention to. is that selfish?

nah. i'll answer my own question.

and now the folks have headed on over to cold colorado. i don't know how cold it is, but i'm sure colder than here! we actually got a little warm spell here yesterday... wonder if that will last.

nick's running his first marathon on sunday! hopefully it doesn't get too cold for that. i'm running the 5K portion of it with my friend kristen. then we'll find the marathon fellows (nick & rob have been training together) & cheer them on for 4 hours. exciting! i'm so impressed with my husband... he's been running some major miles these days in training. that guy.

new addiction

2011-10-26T19:37:00.004-05:00

if you know me even a little, you may know that i'm given to addictive behaviors and dramatic statements.

this won't surprise you then, when i say that i've found my newest favorite show EVER!!

it's called 'alphas', and i've been watching it online starting with season 1, episode 1. i've been loving every episode since.

now, objectively speaking, this show isn't really all that great. i'll be the first to admit it. but i've just gotten INto it! and it's like one of those guilty pleasure books that you can't put down (think 'twilight'). in fact, i haven't read a good book lately and i'm seriously missing being involved in a storyline so much that you think about it throughout the day and you wonder what's going to happen next. you even might go so far as to start thinking of the characters as real people and you might start problem solving their drama.

this show is definitely all of the above for me.

it's sci-fi, so each character has some sort of abnormal ability - being able to mentally 'push' people & make them do whatever you want, or being able to visually predict trajectories - you know, nifty stuff like that. they're called alphas, and there are good ones who aren't a danger to themselves or society, but there are also bad ones - people who use their abilities for evil. the team of people that the show follows are a group of alphas, headed up by a psychologist who 'therapys' them while they work on cases for the FBI, using their abilities to find bad guys.

favorite character - autistic gary (who also is on 'bones') - who can see all wireless communication signals in the air at the same time.

i'm not looking forward to watching the last available episode and having to wait a whole week until the next new one comes out. sigh. tv's tricks for ya. they suck you in then hold you captive forever.

breaking news! (amid other non-breaking news...)

2011-10-21T12:33:00.004-05:00

january 5th - new doctor's appointment!

after the fiasco of my strong-willed independence exerting itself in a non-helpful-to-my-marriage sort of way, nick & i have since conversed about my actions, explored the roots of them & come to a sense of peace together. and i've since worked my way through the space i needed to be okay with a new appointment.

it's officially been two years since we've been trying to get pregnant. 24 separate instances of disappointment. 24 emotional roller coasters, taking us up into hope then down into despair, then right back up again, over and over...

but if you think about it, i imagine similar roller coasters are embarked upon in the world of parenting. so even if we had succeeded in conceiving, we would probably have just as many, if not more, emotional roller coasters, but they'd be about different things. and in fact, pretty much anything in life takes you for a ride on a regular basis.

so we're no different than the rest of the world, blindly wandering our way through each new day, wondering what it will hold.

maybe on january 5th we'll start the process of finding a few answers and we won't be quite as blind...

on another topic, yesterday i had parent/teacher conferences at the high school. for 6 straight hours we teachers sat at tables in the huge gym, conferring with parents, one after another, repeating the same things with slight variations from time to time. i kept thinking it would be handy to have mailed home FAQs to try and avoid the repetition. the only problem with that idea is that i had no idea what the FAQs would be until they had been FA-ed. (er... 'frequently asked'.)

it was a pretty mild PT conference in general, but i was still drained enough to go to sleep at 8:30 last night.

then i woke up this morning with particularly nasty lady pains (nick and i have discovered that putting the word 'lady' in front of things makes it sound automatically hilarious and disgusting) and nick suggested i stay home from school. knowing a shot of ibuprofen would solve my problem in a mere half hour made me hesitate at first but then, upon remembering that it was just a 1/2 day of school and my lesson plans for the day were super easy & already set out - probably the easiest 1/2 day a sub ever would have - i agreed with the husband and stayed home.

i must have needed the extra rest because it's 12:40 and i'm just now starting to return to the land of the living. nick brought panera for breakfast a couple of hours ago which i gratefully ate but then i promptly fell back asleep. and even now, the house is an absolute disaster but i feel no motivation at all to get out of this bed and do something about it.

sometimes it's nice to just have a day to recuperate from life.

who are you people?

2011-10-19T22:41:00.000-05:00

so there's this nifty feature on the new blogger interface (i'm waaayy behind the times and am just now exploring it...) that shows you how many people view different posts on here. in casually glancing through this information, one glaring fact stood out to me. most of my posts have 6, 8, sometimes 12 readers who have clicked and (i'm assuming) read them. some posts, however, have an inordinate number of hits, like 26, 28... more hits than subscribed readers, in fact! (that's 23, in case you're wondering.)

here are some of the post titles with the large readership:

more emotional rambling
some ugly truth
insanity alert

so i'm asking myself, are these just catchy titles and you're intrigued by their content? or are you readers really as interested in dramatic & emotional ranting & raving (which is what these posts all have in common) as it would appear?

i'm genuinely curious if people are more drawn to reading things that are seemingly tmi (that stands for 'too much information', fyi...) or if it's just coincidental happenstance.
because by george, if the people want emotions, i can deliver! i've been keeping the honest-to-a-fault posts to a minimum so as to not overwhelm you with the inner dramatics that comprise my thoughts, but if that's what you're enjoying, i can bring it!

because what the people wants, the people gets. that's my motto. just say the word.

i couldn't agree more...

2011-10-18T20:22:00.002-05:00

setting my mind

2011-10-17T19:03:00.005-05:00

i spent the day peeved. i didn't know i was in that mood until i started talking to my 1st hour students who were asking me questions and the voice that came out of my mouth was sarcastic & cynical, cutting & rude. then i thought, 'well, gosh! i'm pretty ticked off today.'

the reason is as old as the hills for any of you readers who've been around a while. that's right, it's true, another month has gone by along with another failed attempt at conception. you're maybe starting to get tired of hearing about it. you're possibly even thinking you could write this post, you already know what i'm most likely going to say. and you're possibly right. but i'll go ahead & say it anyways.

it makes me angry to be denied what i want.

what's different about this particular month is that for a day there it was almost starting to look like this was it, like we were finally pregnant. for a fleeting 24 hours, i began to believe that after two long years of trying, we'd finally succeeded, we were going to have a baby! and in just that one day, my mind went all the way. i tried to keep my thoughts reasonably tied down, but really, it was a vain attempt. without even thinking, i was thinking. every stray thought during the day found itself in planning mode - what our lives would be like, what tomorrow would be like, next week, next month, next year. it was almost impossible to stay present in that one day of uncertainty without diving straight in to hope.

then when we were once again disappointed, i think i felt angry partially because my mind had been set on it being a reality, even though it was just one day. i felt cheated, like we had finally earned this. we'd put in our time, we'd paid our dues, now we're ready for what we deserve.

i'm beginning to learn how powerful thoughts truly are - running has taught me that more than anything else in my life. on the treadmill, when i'm convinced i can do something and i set my mind to do it, my body follows.

in smaller things, my mind is the same way - if i hear someone talk about taco bell and my mind decides i want taco bell, too, i'm really dissatisfied with anything less than taco bell.

i suspect there is more magic and mystery involved in the inner workings of our brains than anyone will ever know, but for this one day, i definitely had my mind set on the reality of being pregnant.

and when we weren't in fact pregnant, i think i was angry not only because i felt cheated, but also because i felt foolish. like i'd fallen for some trick and everyone saw how silly i was and they were all laughing at me. that's the fear that keeps me from hoping to begin with - that i'll be disappointed and i'll feel foolish for ever hoping.

i know it's not a foolish dream, to have a family, and i know hope is more beautiful than despair, even when it results in disappointment. it's hard to act on that knowledge though, and to keep hoping.

my first instinct today, after the initial sting of the letdown receded somewhat, was to start grabbing hold of things that i can get back to now. phewsh - what a relief, i can get back to my running goals, i don't have to think about slowing down, i can keep trying to get rid of those last 15 pounds. and gosh, now we can continue planning our road trip for next summer - no need to put that on hold!

ridiculous.

i would drop everything in a heartbeat if it meant we could finally have a child.

is it pride that makes it hard to admit that? why does admitting desire stick in my throat? is it shameful to want something so much? is it better to pretend we don't want it then if we finally do get pregnant and then we're all, 'gee! what a blessing! we weren't even planning that, but sure, we'll start a family, okay!'

i remember that same feeling of wanting to hide my longings from when i was single, like i was embarrassed to want a husband. and really anything that comes along in life, if it's something i truly desire, i don't want people to know how i feel for fear of looking silly if i don't get it. maybe it hearkens back to the olden days of superstition when people wouldn't want to tempt the fates. if they said out loud what they wanted, it was sure to not happen.

i don't know. all i know is, regardless of my anger & disillusionment, despite my paltry efforts to re-direct my wants into things i can have so i don't feel negative emotions, all of it is founded in one core issue: my deep-seated efforts to be in control.

and gosh, am i ever not.

when stumped, read something good

2011-10-16T07:20:00.004-05:00

"there was terror in him , & yet so resolved was his heart & so intent his will that the fear did not rule him, nor was he even very clearly aware of it. for in this love he now felt compassion: without which love is untempered, & is not whole, & does not last."

"there is a certain bleakness in finding hope where one expected certainty."

"what she had begun to learn was the weight of liberty. freedom is a heavy load, a great & strange burden for the spirit to undertake. it is not easy. it is not a gift given, but a choice made, & the choice may be a hard one. the road goes upward towards the light; but the laden traveler may never reach the end of it."

"love without marriage is still a sacred thing, & unlike wedlock, it is not dissolved by death."

excerpts from the earthsea trilogy by ursula k. le guin

crafternoon #2

2011-10-16T06:30:00.002-05:00

last night we had our second crafternoon (term coined by the one and only alec vanderboom) and it was a great success! there were 6-7 of us crafting away & talking up a storm.
ashley and i have been discussing her a nook cover design for at least a year - we finally got to do it! she embroidered for the first time and it turned out darling.

i started on a birthday hoop for a cute little girl that was born less than a month ago...

then we enjoyed a delightful dinner on the deck. it was perfect weather. this whole weekend has been gorgeous and i keep imagining nick having the time of his life down at the buffalo, camping with the fellas.

evidently we had very intense dinner conversation, if eric's face is anything to go by... (a note of congratulations - yesterday was eric's 52nd birthday & he had a doctor checkup where he found out his physical age is only 47! what a healthy guy!! he was very proud of himself, as well he should be. now i want to know my physical age...)

janet hosted our fun times & we both agreed that we'll be doing another one - perhaps with each season change, since crafternoon #1 was in the summer. fall crafternoon #2 has now been accomplished, next up, the winter session!

and about my last post - i'm beginning to feel less like i can do anything. evidently that's a very fleeting feeling. after a full day of thinking on what i would write a book about, i'm coming up blank. i know, i know, a whole day?! i think it's been longer than a day though. for years, i've had the thought in the way, way far back part of my brain. i've thought off and on that i want to write a book and i've toyed with different ideas. nothing's grabbed me.

here's a list of books i won't be writing:

a novel
this blog in book form
a self-help book
a christian book
my memoirs

so... what exactly does that leave? any ideas?

life goal #1 - check!

2011-10-14T22:24:00.006-05:00

almost a month has gone by since i made this goal for myself... and today i accomplished it! i ran 5 miles at a 9 minute/mile pace!! actually, a few seconds under, even! the official time i ran it in was 44 minutes & 53 seconds.

i have never run that fast for that long before in my life.

there are not that many things you can say, 'i've never ______________,' about. when it comes to living day to day, things are pretty routine, at least from my perspective. i do the same things over & over, i eat the same foods, i wear the same style, i tell the same jokes - i'm pretty predictable, when it comes right down to it.

being able to reach a goal this significant feels amazing.

and, predictably (because i'm predictable), it makes me think - what CAN'T i accomplish?!

so here's my first ever life list - things i have the power to accomplish:

run 5 miles in 40 minutes. (let's take it to the next level, shall we?)
get out of debt.
own a ford escape hybrid. (they're just perfect in every way.)
lose the last 15 pounds. (you almost forgot for a second there how predictable i am, didn't you?)
hike the grand canyon. (i just changed that from 'see' to 'hike' - we're shooting the moon here people!)
go to new york city.
write a book.

yikes.

of those, that last one caused a twinge of fear in me. so that's the one i should start on today. i'll let you know how it goes.

in between speed-challenge runs.

character city!

2011-10-14T19:36:00.005-05:00

we had our annual chili cook-off at school today... whereas last year we should have won (but didn't!), this year we should have won and DID! we were ecstatically pleased with ourselves.

the cook-off has two prize categories - most creative tablescape and best chili. crystal (in the glasses) came up with our theme of 'building character' which we all loved. so we had a construction site on one side of the table that extended over into the city with the skyscrapers, showcasing the 9 character traits on their top billboards.

our dump truck was full of chips to go along with our crockpot of chili there in the middle. here's our little construction site hill:

and here's the cityscape that i built out of cardboard:
isn't it so cute? if you can call skyscrapers cute, that is. one of the ladies on our team made a sign that said 'men at work' but with 'character ed' posted over it, and another one of the ladies turned the crime scene tape into 'do not cross - building character' tape... and we had some construction toys with little do-dads plus some brown paper for dirt.

we loved it and were convinced we were going to win and were mightily happy that we did. i didn't take pictures of the other tables because they really weren't all that impressive in comparison to our shining splendor.

we didn't win the chili prize, but that's okay. we're fine with sharing the victories, as long as our genius is recognized in some way.

too bad the cardboard city's in the recycling bin now. what else is there to do with a character city, after all?

insanity alert

2011-10-13T21:18:00.004-05:00

i feel a compulsion to share this incident. perhaps the compulsion is all part of the insanity... you be the judge.

tonight nick and i got a walmart cheese pizza for supper and added our favorite extra toppings - tomato, pineapple & bell pepper on my half, jalapeños on his, getting it all decked out for cooking. then, disaster struck. i went to put it in the oven but the cardboard buckled right before it got on the rack. all the toppings & loose cheese dumped into the bottom of the oven and my knuckles hit the hot oven door.

i felt instantly panicked, yelled out 'ahh!' (or some such sound of distress) & stood there staring in dismay - nick came running but then just stood there with me... after i started flapping my hands and yelling, 'do something! it's all melting into a big lump!' we both sprang into action but it was too much for my nerves. i burst out sobbing and literally couldn't stop crying for 15 straight minutes. at first nick came and was trying to console me but it was no use - i just needed to cry it out. he finally let me be and went back to scraping out the spilled mess with a metal spatula while i sat on the couch & made a lot of noise. it was the kind of emotion that created a constricted throat, a contorted face & a headache. the only way to relieve the pressure was to cry really loudly. for a long time. then, magically, mid-sob, i felt better and was done crying.

i still was sad about the damage, but it wasn't an insurmountable obstacle to our enjoyment of the evening & we got on with it.

but underneath the 'feeling better', i also felt like a certifiable loon. and still do. what kind of person is reduced to hysterics over spilled food? and what kind of person's emotions are instantly switched from one extreme to another at the drop of a hat?

i'll tell you -

a hormonal woman's.

i confess - sometimes i'm just a little bit jealous of men.

p.s. ben & jerry's new york super fudge chunk certainly helped the evening's enjoyment as well. nick's going camping friday through sunday so we had our traditional friday night pizza & ice cream dinner on thursday night... i'm gonna miss that feller. who else will clean up my disasters?

theories about sleep

2011-10-07T20:51:00.005-05:00

the last three days i've been sooo incredibly sleepy. wednesday night i fell asleep at 6:30 pm & only came back to consciousness occasionally & unwillingly. i woke up two or three times feeling guilty that i was sleeping so i'd try to read or do something less comatose, but i kept failing. finally i just gave in & slept through the night. 12 hours of sleep is just a tad excessive in anyone's book, i'm thinking.

last night my body totally wanted to do the same thing again - i had this heavy, weighted feeling, dragging me down into sleepy land but i resisted until 9:15. i was proud of myself.

tonight, same story. i could easily have fallen asleep at 6:30 again, but this compulsion to be productive as a meaningful person in the land of the living kept me doing boring things, trying to stay awake.

and here i am, writing a post, hoping that i'll at least make it til 9.

here are my theories on why this sudden onset of sleepiness is occurring:

theory #1:

the whirlwind of birthday events last weekend exhausted me to the point of needing a 3 day coma.

this is a very plausible theory as my personality is especially susceptible to social over-stimulation. and from the road trip with casey, carolyn & nick to spending the night with micah & marcia to the all-day-long renaissance festival & late night dinner, then manning the kitchen to make sure 150 people were fed on sunday morning, to culminating in a last-minute birthday dinner on monday night with 12 friends at our house...

all of it was an absolute blast, mind you, but over-stimulation for sure. all the whole time i had been musing to myself how strange it was that i didn't seem to be exhibiting any classic signs of meltdown - i was upbeat & engaged the whole time - i was perhaps storing up for a good and proper rejuvenating sleep-fest.

theory #2:

the extra social time resulted in less exercising (2 skipped runs!!) and more junk-food eating than anyone ever needs to know the particulars about. that's been hard to break out of. once the taste for bottomless ice cream bowls is acquired, it's hard to go back to occasional treats. and of course, extra sugar is energy-sapping. nick also chimed in with thinking the more sleepy or tired someone is, the more they should go out & expend energy. it makes sense, but how to find the energy to go get more energy when one has no energy?

theory #3:

i'm in one of those hormonal times of the month that is de-energizing to the extreme.

this is also a very plausible theory - any major shift in hormones can wreak havoc on a person, in a myriad of ways.

theory #4:

the first three theories are all 100% plausible and likely. it's not really all that strange though that i'm fixated on theory #4 - the least likely & in fact, most improbable. this 2 year anniversary of trying to get pregnant, this cycle of having ovulated on nick's birthday, this season when a dear friend affirmed her faith in our conceiving someday by sending me a cute little owl onesie in the mail, i'm just keeping my fingers crossed that we're pregnant. never mind that i'm still weeks away from realistically feeling exhaustion as a pregnancy symptom (should that be the case), never mind that all odds are stacked up against us...

hope really does spring eternal. regardless of all signs pointing elsewhere, regardless of despair calling out in dulcet tones, it's still so much easier to hope. isn't it amazing how elastic the heart is?

and in other news, nick worked his first day as a construction worker's helper today!

and he shot himself in the hand with the nail gun.

nada bueno.

another cat bites the dust

2011-10-06T18:18:00.003-05:00

we started this year off with 4 cats. not because we strongly believe people should have lots & lots of cats - they just kind of came along into our lives & we said, 'okay'.

as of today, we have only 1 cat.

i posted about when samwise died.

sad day.

sometime last summer, my favorite of the 4 cats, mohinder, decided to start hanging out with the unofficial animal preserve two houses down. that house feeds 5-8 cats, no joke. mohinder gradually spent less & less time with us & more time down there. for being such a skittish, unsocial cat, i don't know why he wants to go where all the cats are. i must confess, i'm wounded that he's rejected us. but what can you do, he's a cat. we've seen him from a distance a couple of times but if we go nearer or call him, he darts off into the woods. my main concern is that he isn't getting his tick medicine. he doesn't have claws on any of his 4 paws and he has sensitive skin, so tick bites swell up & turn into awful sores on him.

but oh well. if he doesn't want his tick medicine and he doesn't want our love, he can just keep hanging out with the cat posse.

today nick followed his nose to find hemingway. he had been really sick for a couple of weeks with a high fever. the vet thought maybe he had gotten in a fight and a wound somewhere had been infected. we were giving him medicine and he seemed to be getting better, but he was so weak. he was acting so strangely that i thought he might have suffered brain damage from his high fever and that we'd have to tend to our invalid special needs cat for the rest of his days. even though he was gaining strength, he wasn't all better by any means, but we would let him outside if he wanted to go do his business. last week sometime he didn't come back & after a few days we figured he had gone off somewhere to find a cozy place to curl up & die in. or maybe he just wasn't strong enough to come back, who knows.

nick had to get him out of where he was wedged between the furnace & the wall & it was not a pretty job. suffice it to say, he'd been there a while.

but now he's buried next to samwise in our pet cemetery section of the backyard.

poor six-toed fellow.

and then there was one.

maeby is still with us but with our cat luck, who's to say for how long...

nick's b-day, part 1: renaissance festival 2011

2011-10-04T18:59:00.009-05:00

this year, we attended the pirate-themed weekend of the renaissance festival. it also happened to be the robin hood theme as well - not sure how those two themes went together, but no one seemed to mind. especially not the birthday boy. we decided to repeat last year's birthday celebrating by going to the renaissance festival - it was that much fun.
we make pretty fierce pirates.

just kidding, we're nice.

in keeping with the robin hood theme, we shot some arrows. i was very pleased with my crossbow success - i hit the alien smack dab in the stomach & the head. very satisfying.
drea & i met this fellow last year. isn't he a fine specimen?
we got to the joust seating area just in time to snag seats in the shade but then had a while to pose for couples shots.
it's been so sad getting used to marcia being gone from branson! we were glad to have some renaissance bonding time with her & micah.
carolyn & casey were a couple for this outing.

we entered the fairy tent together. it was tight quarters, but that made it all the more fairy-like and fun.

speaking of fun, casey introduced us to crystal sticks! i was promptly addicted. in case you've never heard of them before (like me), you hold two sticks then try to keep a third stick up in the air by bouncing it between the first two sticks. after you get the hang of bouncing it, you can eventually start doing flips & spins - i learned two tricks and was quite hooked. casey bought a set, so i'll be going over to her condo for some practice time.
we had 3 sets of 10-in-a-row timer shots - that's how much these guys like them! check out marcia's hand extension. impressive.

stay tuned for more particulars from the day...

nick's b-day, part 2: as seen at the festival...

2011-10-04T18:50:00.005-05:00

my favorite entertainer of the day:jason the fire juggler. not only was he talented with his fire juggling, he was also really funny in a sarcastic, quick-witted sort of way. he also reminded me a lot of aladdin.
this trio was even more hilarious in person. they had very affected, foppish accents and told some story about being newlyweds - the king had just married the queen and her grown son was along for the ride.

it was also funnier in person.

henna body tattooing.

a texting renaissance lass taking a shaded break by the brook.

a very well-defined executioner. be thankful this was his only side photographed...

not sure if this is blog appropriate - but holy moly!! we were shocked. such a brazen hussy!

isn't that a handsome mustache?

i photographed this lady last year also but she's so epic! couldn't pass it up.

little john needed bigger tights. what's with all the men in tights? don't they know there was no such thing as elastic back in the renaissance days?
all ready for a dull-knife battle of some sort.

casey enjoyed this fellow immensely.
this lady told me a little bit about wet felting, the method used to make her hat, which was so cool, by the way! i would love to learn more someday. i wish i could go to one of those craft villages where you go live & work with the people & they teach you their craft... ever heard of those?

the angel of death passed us by. we were thankful to be spared.
wonder how much a suit like this costs...
breastfeeding lady with her husband. how old is too old for those child carrier things?

and who wrote the memo to women declaring an all-clear on breast activity?!

if only i'd gotten the memo... who knows what could've happened!

nick's b-day, part 3: buca di beppo

2011-10-04T18:44:00.005-05:00

after a long day amongst the dusty streets of ye olden days, we rejoined the modern world & went to eat dinner on the plaza in kansas city...

we had to traverse the modern day streets, which were complete with talking cross-walk monitors. micah & nick starting turning the automated message into a beatbox rhythm. odd.
this girl was playing the most beautiful cello music - i loved it. it reminded me of how gorgeous the cello sounds.
our restaurant of choice - buca di beppo! soooo good. italian family style.
look, we're not pirates anymore!
even though it wasn't the actual day of nick's birthday, they still sang him a rousing rendition of 'happy birthday' and presented him with the 5-candle candelabra to blow out. he accomplished all 5 & earned his 5 italian wishes. he used the first to wish for never-ending wishes.
what with the renaissance festival & the buca, you may be thinking the birthday festivities are drawing to a close...

but nope.

still more fun times ahead!

nick's b-day, part 4: and the celebrating continues!

2011-10-04T18:40:00.002-05:00

an impromptu dinner party was the culmination of the multiple days of birthday celebrating...

all the friends came over for homemade pizza, salad, cherry pie, brownies & ice cream. we've been eating like we're bottomless pits over here! (what was that about losing weight...? i can't seem to recall...)

we have such lovely friends to hang out with. we can't get enough of these people. here's zach & ann-victoria with lily hiding in the pouch somewhere...
zach, seth, ben, nick & rob...
asher, kristen & casey...
charity, drea & erica... and carolyn & ashley had to leave early so i didn't get them in a picture. ashley's been absent from our lives lately so it was great to catch up with her a little!
we finished off the evening with some relaxing firepit time. asher was utterly enthralled with the fire.
soon thereafter, all the excitement tuckered him out.

and let me tell you, i know the feeling. the whirlwind of birthday activities plus a couple extra things going on at school have made me feel like i'm spinning out of control! add to that an entire week of not having time to run & you have one sugar-bloated, un-exercised, over-socialized crazy person.

tonight nick went to guy's group & i'm reveling in the alone time with nothing to do but write posts.

next up: a hot bath. the first one of the cool weather season, no less.

i absolutely can't wait.

warning: snob alert

2011-09-28T20:30:00.012-05:00

nick & i have been doing some individual & corporate reflection on a topic lately that's been on our minds... the fact that we're both hopeless snobs. and we both don't like it one bit.

it started with the realization that we don't really like certain individuals who will remain nameless. these certain individuals were put in a situation with us but we had no desire to get to know them. after being around these certain individuals in this situation, it was clear to both of us that our lack of desire to get to know them stemmed from the uncomfortable reality that we think they're not 'cool' enough for us. which then means we're the 'cool' ones. and they're obviously 'not'.

at first i was okay in my lack of effort towards these individuals because i figured not everyone has to like everyone all the time - it's okay to not click with some people, right? but after this particular get-together, nick & i have realized that it's really not okay when the motivation is out of a snobbish superiority complex.

the uncomfortable part is when we realize that we're responding to someone out of vanity & selfishness instead of love. and really, coolness is so relative anyway - people are people, with equal parts interesting & boring, nerdy & hipster, serious & funny. all of those parts are just as valid & important in making each of us who we are.

this point was further driven home by that staged dinner the other night i told you about that alec put together for the upcoming kinfolk issue. the people he invited to be his 'guests' were all exceptionally beautiful & let's just say it, very cool. much more so than nick & i. in that group of people, we were the uncool ones. we both felt totally not ourselves & completely awkward during the whole entire evening. i watched nick & thought, 'who is this guy?!' all the while i, myself, was acting unrecognizably as well. after the 'guests' left and nick & i were discussing the evening, we both affirmed the fact that yes, we had just acted as little like our true selves as we ever had. being around beautiful people is intimidating. but it also made me notice how much i long for deeper connections. the very fact that it was a staged dinner with fake toasts and contrived laughter & smiles aimed at the camera emphasized how surface-y appearances can be, and how unfulfilling. i ended the evening feeling very dissatisfied, like i'd missed out on an integral connection element. we talked to the 6 beautiful people at great lengths & they even were eager to help clean up after the dinner - they were all perfectly lovely, inside & out, not snobbish at all (unlike ourselves in other situations), but having the whole focus be on the appearance of it all left me wanting...

wanting genuine conversation, wanting to know & be known, wanting sincere connections. those kinds of things are fulfilled when people choose to get to know each other regardless of what they look like or how they come across, when they choose to initiate with a person out of respect for their unique personhood, when they choose to affirm the innate value of an individual.

i want to be that person that makes connections, regardless of the other person's cool factor. i don't want to be a snob. if it's true what they say, that owning up to a fault is 90% of the battle, that means i only have 10% left to go before leaving my snobbish ways behind me.

here's hoping.

fall has arrived in the form of a chili

2011-09-27T20:47:00.004-05:00

it's official folks. fall is here.

never mind that tomorrow's forecast is calling for a high of 83, never mind that the leaves haven't starting changing yet... with this single dish, i've officially entered the fall season in my heart.

if only pictures could convey aromas. about 98% of the magic of this sweet potato lentil chili is in the smell. it was like a little bit of autumnal heaven, steaming from the bowl. and then the taste... oh my stars. it was surprisingly delightful with sweet, savory & spicy happening all at the same time.you have to try this recipe. i'm not usually one to include recipes on here but this one is worth it, believe you me. i didn't have celery, but it was still double-d-licious.

found via pinterest:

Sweet Potato Lentil Chili (Serves 6)
Published in the January 2009 issue of Alive magazine, this recipe is from Eat, Drink and Be Vegan.

Ingredients
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 onion, diced
1 cup celery, diced
2 to 2 1/2 cups yams, sweet potatoes or a combo, peeled and cut into bite sizes
3 garlic cloves, minced
salt, pepper to taste
2 teaspoons chili powder
1 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1 1/4 cups dry lentils
2 1/2 cups water
28 oz can tomatoes (puree before adding)
14 oz can black beans
1 bay leaf
3 tablespoons lime juice

Directions
In a large pot over medium heat, add oil, onions, celery, sweet potatoes, garlic, salt, pepper and spices, and stir thoroughly. Cover and cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Rinse lentils. Add to pot with water, pureed tomatoes, beans and bay leaf, and stir to combine. Increase the heat to low, cover and simmer for 25-30 minutes until the potatoes are tender and lentils are softened, stirring occasionally. Stir in lime juice, serve and enjoy.

something fun

2011-09-26T20:09:00.005-05:00

have you ever heard of kinfolk?

i love their manifesto...

Kinfolk is a growing community of artists with a shared interest in small gatherings. We recognize that there is something about a table shared by friends, not just a wedding or once-a-year holiday extravaganza, that anchors our relationships and energizes us. We have come together to create Kinfolk as our collaborate way of advocating the natural approach to entertaining that we love. Every element of Kinfolk - the features, photography, and general aesthetics - are consistent with the way we feel entertaining should be: simple, uncomplicated, and less contrived. Kinfolk is the marriage of our appreciation for art and design and our love for spending time with family and friends.

i wholeheartedly agree with and love their philosophy.

if you haven't already checked it out, you definitely should!

here are two reasons why:

reason #1: it's really super cool. it's a cross between a magazine & a book but i've only seen the online version - someday i aspire to owning a copy of the first issue.

reason #2: our house may be featured in the second issue!! our friend, alec vanderboom has photographs in the first issue of Kinfolk on pages 160-163. he's doing another set for an article in the second issue and he asked if he could use our house to stage the dinner! he brought over pots of steaming, homey, wintery foods, lit a bunch of candles, invited some friends over, then took a billion pictures of them. i made apple cake. i'm hoping it makes the cut.

there's alec in the corner. pretty sure his photographs will be about 8 million times more interesting than this one... i can't wait to see the magic! i'll let you know if/when our house becomes famous so you can buy a copy of kinfolk, episode 2.

a run & some clarity

2011-09-25T13:35:00.005-05:00

yesterday was an absolutely beautiful and gorgeous day! the weather was of the variety that makes you want to cavort. and maybe even frolic.so i did. i cavorted so much that i added a whole extra mile to my run! the first half of the run was not as pleasant as the weather was, what with double side ache frustrations. but then about halfway through, some 'air pressure' was released (if you catch my meaning), my side aches instantly disappeared and i was so filled with jubilation that the second half of the run was a joy to behold! i felt over-the-top thankfulness for good health & sound body. it's truly a wonder when our bodies do what they're supposed to. i hope i never take it for granted.
i passed this house & had to take a picture of the gargantuan flower pods. they don't look as huge in the picture as they did in real life, but as i was jogging past i was almost afraid they were going to come alive! they win the 'biggest flower pod' award, hands down.

i can't say it's been one thing in particular that's contributed to a sense of clarity in my thoughts... perhaps the running, or perhaps the verbal processing from my last post, or perhaps the encouraging comments from you kind & supportive readers, or perhaps the holy spirit...

lest you weary of the word 'perhaps', i'll just use it once more: perhaps a combination of all of the above... but i'm starting to get a clearer picture of the state of my heart.

i think the thing holding me back from wanting to make another ob/gyn appointment has to do with needing a little time to grieve the loss of an ideal. as i think i mentioned, i had in my mind that when nick graduates college & finds a teaching job, then i can quit my job & be a stay-at-home wife and hopefully mother. realistically speaking, we've agreed that i need to work at least an additional 2 more years so we can have a double income to pay off student loans & debt as quickly as possible. that sounds like wisdom, that's what a grown adult would choose, the smart thing to do. but it's not the ideal hope i'd been looking forward to, and it's going to be hard.

i think i just need a little time to grieve that loss. and to get used to it being the new normal expectation for our future.

after i've acclimated to that huge shift in expectations, then i'll be ready to add in there the idea of moving forward with problem solving why we haven't been able to get pregnant. but until i'm used to the paradigm shift of our future, it feels too overwhelming to add in there the babies element.

it just comes down to the fact that i can only process one thing at a time. this is stressing nick out because it feels final to him, like i've decided i don't want to have kids anymore. last night we had a long conversation, and i think we're starting to be on the same page about our individual needs & emotions in it all. i didn't help things by canceling the appointment without talking to him about it first. i think that action right there has been the cause of a good portion of our disagreements & anxieties. it's made him feel like he has no say in the matter & we're not a team, that i'm just doing what i want on my own.

in retrospect, i really wish i had talked to him first because it makes total sense that it would communicate that to him.

so we're learning in this whole process. it's not easy, by any means, but it's good.

and maybe in a couple of weeks, after i've thoroughly accustomed myself to the way our next 3-4 years will probably look, then i'll be ready to start entertaining the idea of adding in kids to those 3-4 years. it might be a moot point since we haven't been able to conceive for the last 23 months anyhow, but pursuing answers hopefully means finding solutions.

isn't it interesting how much of a journey life is? no matter what stage you're in, it's never the last stage, there's always something ahead waiting around the corner. it's kind of exciting on one hand, never knowing what to expect... and kind of exasperating on the other hand. why is change & transition so hard for us when it's the only thing in life that we can always count on?

contentment

2011-09-24T20:44:00.002-05:00

"contentment comes as we wait on god's timetable and as we trust that what he provides in the midst of our lack is really all we need until he provides something else."

lydia brownback

more emotional rambling

2011-09-22T15:48:00.004-05:00

lest you think the lack of emotionally-charged posts on here are a sign of health & wealth, let me just negate that notion right off the bat.

i've been a basket case this week.

and i just recently had the thought that i wish there were someone else who felt as angry & depressed & emotional as i feel - that somehow things would be better if someone else would join me in my misery. but then i realized that's probably how terrorists or mass murderers feel which is why they lash out at others - to try & get people to join them in their hellishness.

i don't want to be a mass murderer, so i'll just share my feelings on this blog & not force anyone to stoop to these lows with me.

earlier this week i spent a few days feeling really low & depressed - another month of no baby. we're one month shy of it being two years of trying to get pregnant.

i had made an appointment with a ob/gyn to at least get the ball rolling & see if there are some answers to the question of why we can't get pregnant. nick dutifully went to his own appointment this summer & was given a good report - all his little swimmers are swimming merrily & healthily. so now it was my turn - but i cancelled the appointment.

we've had a couple of 'discussions' about that, revolving around nick thinking i should have gone and me thinking i shouldn't have...

here's the deal. after taking a good hard look at our financial situation, we both agreed that even after nick graduates in 3 semesters, i'll need to keep working at least 2 more years after that. with a double income for 2 years, we're hoping to pay off student loans & get out of debt. the alternative - nick working & me quitting, results in us probably paying off loans & debt for somewhere around 30 years. hmm... let's see, 2 years... 30 years... it's kind of a no-brainer.

but it's also depressing to me.

as far as jobs go, being a high school art teacher is my absolute favorite. but i don't know if i've mentioned this on here before or not - i just really don't like being a career woman. i don't feel like it fits my personality & temperament very well, and my heart's deepest longing is to stay home & raise a family. since we haven't been able to have kids so far anyways, it hasn't been much of a sacrifice to keep working - especially since it's getting nick graduated & well on his way to being an elementary teacher. but should the day come that we do get pregnant, it's depressing to think i still have to work for 4 more years before i could stay home. and the thought of going back to work full time with our baby in someone else's care makes me incredibly sad.

so i think i'm partially withdrawing from the idea of pursuing anything that gets us on the path to figuring out why we're not getting pregnant. it seems like it would be majorly emotionally painful to have kids and also be working full time.

then on top of those emotional undercurrents, we have the obvious financial constraints. going to an ob/gyn once isn't that big of a deal, but it will most likely lead to ultrasounds, blood draws & hormone level checks (or whatever they might be called). lots more money involved. i have health insurance of course, but even the deductible is not something in the budget by any means.

i know these seem like surmountable obstacles if our #1 priority is having a family. people always say it's never the right time to have kids but if it's what you want, you make it work and it's worth it.

and believe me, it's what we want. so, so much.

but then there's the whole spiritual aspect. what if god is working his timing into this scenario by not letting us be pregnant right now for a reason? what if his lack of intervention in our fertility is on purpose and not just one of those mysteries of life like world hunger or cancer, bad things that happen for who knows why?

i have serious issues with working towards making things happen that seem like they aren't being allowed to happen.

case in point - my husband. we didn't even meet until i was 28, but was i ever ready to get married before then! and am i ever glad i didn't! i can not imagine myself married to anyone else.

but on the other hand, if we followed that logic of accepting every condition or situation as from god's specific design and if we did nothing to move in any direction, we'd have no need of doctors or scientists or anyone who figures things out & makes the world better.

i'm talking myself in circles. which is how i feel right now, confused & emotional & uncertain of what to do. which is why i cancelled the appointment. i feel stuck.

wouldn't it be nice to just be told what to do?

a treadmill run

2011-09-19T18:40:00.005-05:00

mile 1: (6.1 mph)

totally disjointed, flailing, out of rhythm, out of sync, body missed the memo that said, 'we're going for a run'.

mile 2: (6.2 mph)

getting in a rhythm, finding the groove, feeling energy, feeling GOOD! legs swinging with bounce, arms pumping, feeling like this is fun!

mile 3: (6.3 mph)

getting just a tad bored... need a challenge, speed up, start focusing on the end...

mile 4: (6.4 mph)

definitely starting to feel a little fatigued, focus on the challenge, speed up, go harder, push through the side ache, breathe deep.

mile 5: (6.5-6.7 mph)

instead of focusing on the countdown to the end, create a new challenge, sprint sets! last energy all focused on finishing as strong as possible with speed and determination!

and... done! walking with hands on hips, breathing deep, feeling accomplished and invigorated.

new resolution:

i will achieve a 9 minute mile pace (6.6) for an entire 5 mile run.

that's unheard of for me! i've never run that fast for that long before in my life!

but you all are my witnesses to this pledge, i will do it.

afterword

2011-09-14T21:42:00.000-05:00

it is true what they say, confession is indeed good for the soul. i wasn't entirely sure what kind of reception that last post would get, but ya'll are so encouraging! each of your comments felt like a buoy of support, floating me up & up.
not only that, but the verbal processing from writing out my thoughts, while seemingly ending in a cliffhanger with no neat synopsis of closure, actually ended up leaving me with a sense of the power of my weaknesses being lessened somewhat through the telling. isn't that contradictory-sounding? the 'power of weakness'.
weaknesses can oftentimes feel like the most true & real thing. but then a little self-awareness, a little verbal processing, and suddenly those vices are not holding such a tight grip on my inner spirit.
through typing out that last post & mulling for a while, i actually felt a slight lifting of the bondage. another buoy-esque feeling.
and i'm sure the holy spirit has something to do with that as well. if i know god at all (and i do, just a little...) then i'm willing to bet he likes it when we confess our sins. it's good to know that he is faithful & just to forgive us and cleanse us.
and buoy us with community.

some ugly truth

2011-09-13T15:38:00.005-05:00

do you ever have days where you just don't like yourself?

lest that sound harsh, let me explain.

lately, i keep finding myself saying things to friends that come out sounding horrible. but my dilemma is, i have virtually no mental filter, so if i have a thought, i almost have to say it. part of me is beginning to wonder if i have a mental disorder or something.

case in point: at church on sunday, i had in my head that i wanted to apologize to a friend for a conversation we'd had the day before in which i felt like maybe i had hurt her feelings. only problem was, said friend was talking to someone else at the time i was wanting to talk to her. so, in an effort to be patient, i stood next to them, joined their conversation, waiting for the other person to fade into another group or walk away... it wasn't happening.

so, like the complete lack-of-mental-filter person that i am, i just went ahead and said what i was wanting to say - in front of the other person, too.

it was awkward. i watched myself from outside of myself having the conversation and knew that i was in the middle of creating an awkward situation, but that didn't stop me, i just kept going. the other person even said, 'gosh, i feel like i shouldn't be a part of this conversation', to which i responded, 'no, no! you're fine!', so they obviously felt out of place.

(now i need to go apologize to that person for making her feel bad by apologizing to the first person for making HER feel bad in front of the second person - but i'll have to do it in front of a third person so i can keep the cycle going...)

back to the point, even the original conversation i was apologizing for is an example of this same lack of mental filter - i had something on my mind and i spit it out, regardless of the other person's opinions on the topic. it's like i think my strong opinion takes precedence over everyone else, regardless of their opinions.

i know it's a core issue of self-control.

we had a cookout/baptism sunday night at the lake with our church.

i ate 6 desserts.

i was partially proud of myself for such a huge accomplishment - it takes dedication to 'enjoy' 6 different desserts, but i did it, by golly! - and partially disgusted with myself at the same time.

if we have a food item in the house that i have a weakness for, i will literally throw all caution to the wind & just eat it.

all of it.

a gallon of ice cream will be gone in 2 days. maybe less.

these are not likable aspects of myself to be pondering.

and i know there's a whole section of the bible dedicated to the fruits of the spirit, one of which includes self-control, but what's frustrating is that it's a lifelong struggle. no matter how much the spirit grows in me, ever since i can remember, self-control has been a problem. is there never a point where the spirit fully grows that fruit? it's tiring just being half grown.

i've gotten really good at going to the grocery store with a list and only buying food that i know i don't have a weakness for so we don't even have it in the house to be a temptation. if nick & i are having an ice cream treat, we get a ben & jerry's container & share it, then it's all gone with nothing left in the freezer to keep beckoning me mercilessly. but doesn't that just skirt the issue? when i'm at a party or a friend's house, all self-governance flies out the window.

sigh.

what's the most troublesome of all is this vague feeing of discontent with myself. because if i'm totally honest with you, i'm not as saddened by my depravity as i am insecure about people's perception of me. i'm a little worried that i will turn people off with my strong opinions & inability to control myself and i'll be left friendless & despised.

that inner motivation is an even uglier thing, to care more about popularity than about spiritual transformation.

double sigh.

here's the part in the post where i segue to the glorious hope we have in christ who redeems us from ourselves.

and that's totally true.

but for now, i'm mulling.

thoughts on character

2011-09-11T16:25:00.006-05:00

as i may have mentioned previously, i was assigned to lead the character education action team at school which so far is turning out to be pretty fun.

and by fun, i mean two things. #1 it's given me something to make many, many lists about and i LOVE lists! and #2 it's been keeping my brain engaged. teaching art is definitely my first priority of course, but for the weeks on end that i have to give my students time to finish their projects whilst i amble around the room watching them work, i'm not really all that mentally stimulated. if i have something to think about and work on during these teaching lulls, it makes the days go by so much more quickly and i feel energized at the end of the day instead of sluggish & listless.

so here are the things i've been thinking about in this whole character program realm...

#1: why do character programs fizzle out at the high school level?

#2: at what age should we stop rewarding good character with prizes & start teaching that making good choices should be for the intrinsic value involved, not the reward? having good character for good character's sake, if that makes sense...

#3: by recognizing individual students for good character, does that set them up to be ostracized by other students?

#4: does individual recognition of good character have any positive impact whatsoever on the 'bad kids' or is it just to reward the 'good kids'?

and here's where i expound:

#1: why do character programs fizzle out at the high school level?

i've been thinking about this a lot and wondering how to change it in our high school, at least. the elementary & intermediate schools make a huge production of their character assemblies & the character students that are selected... but that leads me into...

#2: at what age should we stop rewarding good character with prizes & start teaching that making good choices should be for the intrinsic value involved, not the reward?

as adults, we don't attend huge conventions where we're singled out with prizes and applause for our acts of kindness toward each other. we act kindly for the intrinsic reward of feeling connected to humankind, among other various motivations. we don't get a bag full of goodies when we jump someone's car in the grocery store parking lot. instead, we feel moved to compassion while we feel connected to a fellow human in need. and that's reward enough. but as children, those rewards teach them that adults encourage that kind of positive behavior and as they grow & mature, they learn about the intrinsic value little by little... but at what age should the concrete reward be switched out for the 'spiritual'? (and by spiritual, i mean what your spirit responds to and how it feels toward people & situations, not so much the religious aspect, although that's definitely part of it as well.)

perhaps more to the point of my specific focus group - the entire student body of high schoolers - it's different than it would be with one teacher interacting with one student on the issue of good character. to have a character program that rewards positive choices in front of 1,300 students sends the message that, yes, good choices are what we, as an educational institution, promote. perhaps the one-on-one teacher/student interaction is where the conversation happens about how the student made that good choice, let's talk about the spiritual rewards involved, let's teach him/her an adult mindset about good character as they gradually grow into adulthood...i'm sure there are vast tomes of research on the psychological ramifications of reward/punishment and other child psychology. i don't intend to read them all. or any, actually, if i'm being honest here.

#3: by recognizing individual students for good character, does that set them up to be ostracized?

this is probably a question that is addressed in at least one of those vast tomes...but it does make me wonder if...

#4: individual recognition has any positive impact whatsoever on the 'bad kids' or is it just to reward the 'good kids'?

if we're teaching good character on the high school level, how can we reach ALL students, not just make the good kids gooder? is it a case of the public recognition only seemingy affecting the good kids while there are subtle, under-the-radar effects rippling out to all students? will we hear stories in 20 years from kids whose lives were turned around because they were inspired by sally jo so-and-so getting selected as the character student of the month?

i'm beginning to think i SHOULD read some of those vast tomes! there are just too many questions that i don't know the answers to. there are several wise people who read this blog, i'm sure - what are your thoughts on all of this? or just one of this? i'd love to hear other perspectives.

as the leader of this character education action team, i'm just one lowly person, but i'm having a lot of fun thinking about how to make our school better. through being on this team i've felt a lot more plugged in. this (giant!) school has been tough to feel connected to over the last 3 years, but being a part of this action team is giving me a sense of belonging like i haven't felt here before. so much so that i've written my own version of a vast tome! if you made it to the end of this post, you are indeed commendable. i commend you.

have a great weekend, friends :-)

labor day!

2011-09-05T10:04:00.003-05:00

really, that phrase 'labor day' is entirely meaningless to me in any capacity except for the blessed fact that i don't have to go to work!

last night we celebrated the fact by staying up until midnight, sitting around the fire pit with casey & erica. it was glorious. the weather took a turn for the chilly yesterday. perfect for sitting around a campfire, snuggled in blankets, drinking hot chocolate & talking up a storm. it reminded me of all the fun times we've had and made me contented inside, realizing we're still having those fun times & we'll keep on having more fun times indefinitely. that's nice to know.

on saturday, i was planning on helping kristen paint at their new house but then thought it might be more help to her if i just watched asher while she & her other helpers painted. she agreed that it would be, so asher got to spend the better part of the afternoon & evening with us! it was great.
this kid is great. i love his dimpled hands. and i love that he's more entertained by a spoon than by any of the baby toys. it makes me think if we ever do have kids that we'll just skip the toys & stick with spoons. and wipes containers. asher loves his wipes container.

asher did so well with us this time! we've watched him a couple of times and he's been a little anxious-seeming before, but this time he took a great nap & was so much more relaxed. i think he's getting used to us. we played with the cat, made 'music' on the piano, went for a stroll around the neighborhood... it was quite a full day of fun, let me tell you.

speaking of babies, i've made some self-observations about how being around them affects me. here are the different scenarios:

scenario #1: lots of babies all in a room

equals...

have to get out of there! all i can think is, i'm supposed to have a baby to add to this baby group, i'm behind the times, i have nothing to contribute to the conversation revolving around baby-related topics. most likely a mild mental nervous breakdown will ensue.

scenario #2: at church with babies swarming around & pregnant ladies abounding (in case i haven't mentioned it before, our church is in a perpetual state of baby booming)

equals...

focus on singing, set my mind to paying attention to the sermon, try not to focus on all things baby. most likely some version of emotional hormonalness will ensue.

scenario #3: holding or playing with one single baby

equals...

absolutely love it. it makes me feel vaguely longing to having one of our own someday, but 1,000 times more delighted in the preciousness that is this individual baby and hugely entertained by trying to figure out which parent he or she looks the most like. also by imagining what kind of person he/she will turn out like but laughing at the preposterous notion that they'll ever grow up or change from the utterly precious bundle of cuteness that they currently are.

i like scenario #3. and keeping asher for half a day reminded me of wishing we could have our own sooner rather than later, but also reminded me of how blessed we are to have this time with each other. nick and i are pretty good together, i'm not going to lie. i like us. and i have a sneaking suspicion that i'll like us even more with kids, but it's good to enjoy these years of just the two of us.

case in point - this lazy labor day, windows open, lounging in bed... it's after 10 am right now & we're pretty happy being together with nothing to do.

well, nothing we HAVE to do.

as for what we WANT to do... this delightful weather makes me want to go out for a jog... maybe i'll embroider on my big project a bit... i'm thinking of trying my hand at sewing a dress...

yesterday i made this shirt & was enormously pleased with myself:
it's the adult version of that cute pillowcase dress all the little girls have been wearing for decades, but i added a sash & i absolutely love it.

the fabric is actually from india - a friend's sister brought it back for her then she passed it on to me after realizing she was never going to sew anything from it. i tucked it away in my fabric collection 3 years ago with no thoughts about its potential usage until this project. and it's perfect!

have i mentioned i love this shirt?

the jubilant success i feel makes me want to go again, but with a dress this time. we'll see if it's as successful, but here's hoping!

happy labor day!!

a fall list

2011-09-02T11:55:00.001-05:00

as illogical as this may sound since september is still bringing the heat in a big way (back up to 102 yesterday!), the word 'september' still gets me excited for fall.

and since i also get excited about lists, i thought i'd combine those two excitements here.

things i'm looking forward to this fall:

hiking
firepit hangouts
pumpkin patches (i've never been to one, but i intend to go this year!)
running in cool weather
nick's ridiculous idea for halloween costumes (has anyone else never heard of steampunk or is it just me?)
sweaters
going camping for thanksgiving
looking forward to winter! (after a summer like this one, i can't wait for winter!)
enjoying hot baths

nine seems an odd number for a list, but that's all i got, folks. although now that i think about it, nine and september go together since it's the ninth month... yes! of course i did that on purpose...

so hello september! i welcome you with open arms as the harbinger of impending fallish delights.

on becoming a runner

2011-09-01T14:34:00.005-05:00

i don't know when it happened, but at some point in this last year, i made a big mental transition.

i used to be someone who jogged, sometimes consistently, sometimes not so much. ever since high school soccer, jogging has been the route i've taken to physical fitness. granted, i haven't always been on that jogging route (or any route), but if i'm going to be on one, that's the preferred mode of calorie-burning i will most likely choose.

but then, in just the last year, i've made a pretty significant shift. i've gone from 'being a jogger' to 'becoming a runner'. i feel differently in my mind about the topic. it's not a question of 'if' i'm going for a run but 'when'. and when i'm jogging, i think of myself more as a 'runner' than a 'jogger'. it may seem like semantics, but to me, 'jogging' implies that i'm interested in how fast i'm going (or not going) and what physical gain will come from it. it brings to mind feelings of obligation, guilt (if i don't jog), discomfort, & a whole list of other negative sounding words. 'running' implies that i like how it feels to move my body and be alive and enjoy the scenery and breathe in the experience while breathing out stress & worry & trivial mental hangups. while it's still challenging, it's enjoyable.

so it's happened. i actually enjoy running.

one of the definite perks from the transition has been losing weight - i've lost 16 pounds since july and i have 12 more pounds to go before i reach my goal weight. right now, i'm seeing a number on the scale that i've never seen before in all of my adult days! i don't remember what i weighed in high school but i'm 11 pounds less than i was the year after i graduated! that's remarkable. however, while it's empowering to lose weight, i'm starting to learn that just focusing on the physical is not very rewarding.

i have this dress, see. it makes me look pretty darn hot. and other people agree. when i curl my hair and put that dress on, it's all i can do to not stare at myself in the mirror. that may sound egotistical, but i'm just telling it like it is. i become pretty self-absorbed & conceited in that dress. when i wear it, my students shower me with compliments, i've been told i look like a celebrity and should be a model... it's a magical dress.

but the other day when i wore it to school, by the end of the day i was actually exhausted of myself. staying on the surface, stopping at skin-deep, there's nothing interesting there. it made me realize how important it is to function from a deeper place than mere appearance.

i'll still be wearing that dress from time to time, don't get me wrong. but maybe not too often.

and i'm sure i'll have days when i stay on the surface of the exercise world as well. there will be days when i'm just a 'jogger' - when i'm going through the motions so i can eat a wendy's frosty later on, or so i can see the numbers go down on the scale. but i'm hoping those days are gradually eclipsed more and more by days of being a 'runner'... 0f wanting to run for running's sake regardless of how fast or slow i go, of enjoying the journey, of reveling in the rewards of breezes and beauty and healthy muscles doing their job well, of finding that relaxed, mental, zen state that comes through the repetitive treadmill swooshing and feet thudding.

it'll be nice to enjoy the physical rewards, but it's so much nicer to want to run anyways, regardless of what comes out of it.

p.s.

2011-09-01T09:27:00.003-05:00

i totally jinxed it - today i'm not hilarious, timing's totally off, my jokes are not funny in the least. a surefire way to ruin the popularity wave: talk about it. if i'd just kept pretending it wasn't happening i would've been safe. alas, it was fun while it lasted.

year 8, and we're having a blast!!

2011-09-01T07:26:00.000-05:00

i'm super excited to tell you guys, this is going to be the best year of my teaching career.
i'm not sure what's going to happen, or when, or why, but something epic will occur, of that i have no doubt.
you may be wondering why i'm so convinced... well, it's simple really. eight is my lucky number. it rhymes with kate, i was born on 8/8/78, i was married on 6/28/08... and this is my 8th year of teaching. at this point you're agreeing with me wholeheartedly and excitedly anticipating what the miraculously marvelous thing might be... we'll just have to go on this year-long ride together, folks!
i'm hoping it's not something as innocuous as a great school picture. that would be anticlimactic in the extreme. but while we're on the topic, this is definitely my favorite school picture of the 8. i've kept all of my school id's for the last 7 years and it's so funny to line them up and see the differences. for someone in their 30's who's supposed to be an adult, set in stone, arrived at the final resting place of how you're supposed to look, i sure do look different every year. maybe it's a commonly held misconception that adults stop changing. maybe it's in comparison to the obvious and dramatic changes that happen in a person from age 0 to 16... whatever the reason behind the myth, it most certainly is a myth.
and speaking of school pictures, i received a free packet of wallet-sized, so if you're longing to fill up your wallets with pictures of people in their 30's just drop me a line.

so about this school year. up to this point i have my students convinced that i'm hilarious and the coolest teacher ever. i don't know why but i've been on a role this year. the jokes are flowing, the timing is on... it'll probably last another month at best then it'll be business as usual. (or maybe this is part of the year 8 magic?)

so far i haven't figured out which kids will be the 'challenges' yet and they're all seemingly delightful, every single one of them. this is the best time of a school year.

i'm going in a little bit of a different direction in the extracurricular arena, though. let me tell you about it.

i was 'volunteered' to be the new leader for my action team that i've been on for the last 2 years (every teacher in our high school is assigned to an action team that meets once a month & is basically a sub-committee of school-related topics) . i'm the new leader of the Character Education action team. the previous leader stepped down & went to a different action team whilst recommending me to take her place. after getting over my slightly miffed feeling at not being consulted in the matter, i felt complimented at being selected and now i'm in full-swing excitement mode for the great new things we've already started setting into motion.
basically, branson high school hasn't had a character program to speak of. and by character program, i mean the recognizing of students for showing good character, usually at an assembly of some sort, with reward incentives to boost character morale... it's always quite a big deal on the elementary level but somehow, around the teenage years, it fizzles out. or it has at our school anyways. when i taught at blue eye high school they had a very active character program. they also only had 200 high schoolers as compared to branson's 1,200... but the principle still remains applicable. reinforcing good character is always a good idea.
so basically, this year we're going to make a character program at branson high school.
our action team has a lot of great ideas and we're all very into the brainstorming aspect. i think what makes me enjoy this action team so much isn't necessarily that it's about character education (which is wonderful, of course), but because each one of the ladies on the team are super cool and i enjoy them a whole lot. in getting to know them over the last 2 years, i've actually started looking forward to our monthly meeting since i rarely see them any other time. our school is so huge that i never see more than a handful of teachers in any given day. our action team has become a group of friends who all really like each other. my first order of business as the new leader was to establish a snack sign-up sheet. so we're going to bond even more, now that food will be involved.
anyways, one of the ideas we had from our action team that i'm most involved in is to begin a student-written character newspaper where students, teachers, clubs, activities, etc. who show good character in one way or another are interviewed, photographed & featured in our Character Chronicles. we had the first meeting on monday to gauge student interest and there were 7 kids who showed up, each one as excited as the next, raring to go and seemingly committed to the idea 100%! i was a little nervous that no kids would show interest and our idea would be dead in the water, but an absolutely perfect amount of kids showed up! ten would have been too many, five too few. seven is just right.
here's hoping we figure out what we're doing so we can make something meaningful. i've never printed a newspaper before so i'll be learning along the way.

these two new ventures - leading the action team & sponsoring the Chronicles - are relatively time-consuming (probably less so as i figure out what i'm doing). because of the added time commitments, i've decided to not sponsor the environmental club or the craft club this year. to be honest, neither one of them had very committed or passionately interested members, so i'm truly looking forward to being a part of something with people who are energized & eager to dive right in. it's so much more motivating to be involved when everyone is interested.

i think that basic idea is also what's helping my class's attitudes so far this year. i've been keeping up a pretty high enthusiasm level with my students and playing the 'this is going to be a blast!' card pretty much every day with everything i have them do. so far, i think they're all buying it. because when you think it's a blast, whether it is or not to begin with, it becomes a blast.
that should be cross-stitched on a pillow as one of life's important lessons.

and really, there's no better way to end this post than with that inspiring thought, so i'll quit my school-related ramblings for now. but ne'er fear, i'll let you know how my 'fake it til you make it' philosophy plays out throughout the year along with our character adventures! if you have any great ideas of how to make a character program cool for high schoolers, by all means, share! i'd love to hear your thoughts.

another indian food post

2011-08-31T09:08:00.004-05:00

i went back for more. i mean, look at this food! i'm hooked. this time nick and i joined the visiting-for-the-weekend micah & marcia for a double date. we had lovely food and even lovelier chats.

and the loveliest of all shared mango yogurt drink...

don't we look cute? it took some finnagling to get this picture, but we persevered despite askance looks from other restaurant patrons.

if only we were rolling in mula - i'd eat out at the india clay oven & grille at least once a week. those indians, they know how to cook.

community

2011-08-27T18:52:00.000-05:00

within the last few months, two very loved friends have moved far, far away.

marcia got married to her e-harmony sweetheart and moved 2 1/2 hours away to the air force base where he's stationed. allison took the seminary plunge and is now entrenched in north carolina, exploring new horizons.

both of these girls are truly wonderful friends who i'm incredibly sad to be missing. i'm a little bit in denial that they're actually gone and keep getting a jolt of reality every once in a while when i realize i can't have a friend date with them or invite them to the next 'thing'. well, i could invite them but they most likely won't be coming.

because i'm in denial, i haven't really fully explored my emotions on the topic. i mean really, how can i be in despair about something i refuse to fully acknowledge?

but i have allowed myself at least to mentally explore the topic of this community nick and i live in. we were talking about it yesterday and he summed it up nicely. simply put, we're blessed. this group of friends we have, this church we go to, it's remarkable. you can't find this kind of community just anywhere. it's full of people who put in the time and energy to build relationships that last.

i've been a nomadic person all my life, moving here and there and yonder. it takes a toll on a person and i would say i've had a tendency to shy away from trusting that people are going to be long-term relationships in my life. when it comes to friends, i confess that i have this wary watchfulness in the recesses of my mind, waiting for our relationship to lose steam and for us to drift apart. and granted, from time to time, that happens. but what i'm finding more and more is that there are people in my life right now who are in it for the long haul. and when it comes right down to it, location doesn't really affect that kind of commitment.

i'm going to quote a little bit from allison's birthday card she gave me because she says it very nicely. she was talking about taking a trip down memory lane by re-reading old cards and looking at old pictures from the past years of our friendship. she said, 'i was so grateful to be able to relive some of those seasons & stages of our friendship, especially now, because it was a reminder to me of all the change and distance that it's already weathered.'

it's easy to be fearful of change and to wonder if a friendship is strong enough to survive new circumstances... but it's so good to be reminded that the past can be hope for the future. allison and i have come a long way together as friends and i can trust that we'll continue to be friends for many years. what's a few hundred miles, in the grand scheme of things?

iphoto booth classics

2011-08-24T19:31:00.002-05:00

the first thing to do when getting a new mac? check out all the fun features on the iphoto booth, of course!

hope that was as fun for you as it was for us :-)

and i'm happy to report that i'm getting used to the new computer. it was a good reminder of what my students possibly feel from time to time when learning a new concept. that stressed-out frustrated feeling that makes your head feel like it's going to explode... but then you go back the next day & do the same thing you just thought you weren't getting the day before and it makes perfect sense. also a good reminder to always review new concepts again & again with my classes.

a new baby! & misc. crafts...

2011-08-24T18:48:00.008-05:00

baby lily ann was born last week to zach & ann-victoria! isn't she sweet?
i think she looks just like her daddy, but she also has some of her mama in there, too - a perfect combination of cuteness. i can't wait to see her again and hold her tiny little self! it's fun when good friends have babies and those babies become instant little nieces & nephews. i claim them, whether they want me to or not.

on the way out of the maternity ward, there were various baby pictures lining the hallway in various poses of babyhood... this particular one caught my eye:
it raises the question, is there a naked firefighter somewhere? or did he shrink into baby form and doesn't fit in his clothes anymore so he decided to take a nap?... so many options.

in other news, i made this birthday hoop for susan's birthday - did you know that 'susan' mean's 'lily'?
it was nice practice for lily ann being born - i whipped out another birthday hoop for her with the same flower, but it said lily ann with her birth date across the top. i didn't take a picture though since i finished it in the car on the way up to the hospital to see her. but i'm sure you can imagine it well enough.

speaking of birthdays, i had another little boy present to make so i went for my second ever cape/mask combo and i have to say, this one turned out even better than the first.
for some reason the color is weird in this picture but imagine that as a bright red with dark gray & light gray behind the yellow. the way i did the ties was much better than the first attempt. pretty soon i'll be whipping them out for every little boy i know, whether they have a birthday or not!

the next embroidery project i've started is quite ambitious - a 3 hoop design intended to be submitted to our high school gallery next month. if you remember, we converted a back hallway into an art gallery & our first exhibit this year is a faculty/staff show that everyone's invited to participate in. we'll see if i finish my design by the 9th. if so, it may be the coolest thing i've embroidered thus far. i'll keep you posted.

the man of the month...

2011-08-24T18:46:00.005-05:00

these two pictures do not even begin to describe the amount of manual labor my husband has put in with this summer's edition of home renovations. and he'd be honest with you if you asked - he has not enjoyed every minute of it. in fact, we had several conversations that started with some version of the phrase, 'you're never painting another room in our house again!'. what it boils down to is the fact that we did not plan or budget for this spontaneous burst of renovations and for a guy who likes to know what's coming and likes to be mentally prepared for things, this was not his preferred m.o. i got it in my head that i should use the last 3 weeks of summer to 'freshen up' the walls and it was a steady digression from there. and while i thought we were talking through each decision and agreeing as we went along, a lot of his tendencies to want to make me happy got in the way of what he was really wanting. and my single-track-mindedness blinded me to the needs of my husband. in other words, i have a problem with selfishness and getting my own way. what we've learned though, is to keep communicating. we've seen ugly sides of each other but we've also seen relational resolutions. we've worked our way through our share of emotional renovations along with the home renovations.

this picture says a lot if you know what to look for. this is his look that says, 'i love you but i really, really hate re-working pipes that leak no matter how many times i re-work them. and i may not feel very loving right now, but i still love you...'

and let me tell you, do i ever feel loved! all the jobs he's done to make our house more homey, i couldn't have found a more perfect guy. perfect for me, that is.

but more than the jobs he's done and sweat & dirt he's slogged through, i feel loved that he's willing to stick with me and do the hard work of being married.

a story about painting some walls

2011-08-24T17:47:00.011-05:00

after much ado (and not about nothing, i'll have you know!), here are the before & after shots of our summer renovations...

nick has decreed that i'm not allowed to get any ideas about painting any walls in our house ever again!

here's what the kitchen looked like a couple of years ago:

we have since painted over that yellow living room color also, but it's the general idea of things. the floor was red, the ceiling was brown bead board, the cupboards were natural oak, the walls were green...

i started with the idea to 'freshen up' the walls by painting them white but then realized that would look horrible with the other colors in there - so i thought i should paint the cupboards pale green but that would look horrible with the tiled countertops & floor... and so on. suffice it to say, we renovated all the colors!

here's the after:

it was early evening so there's not much light but i seized the opportunity of having everything picked up & moderately clean since we'd had small group meet at our house the night before...i painted pretty much every available surface. ceiling, walls, cabinets, floor, the fridge... i even painted a chair & some wooden spoons while i was at it.
the stencils are still in progress but here are a batch of finished ones. you probably wouldn't notice the parts that have to be fixed on the unfinished ones, but i would. after i'm done touching up then it'll get a coat or two of polyurethane and it'll be done!
nick built the countertops out of wood flooring. isn't it gorgeous?! we love them. of all the improvements, it's hard to pick a favorite but the countertops are definitely way up there.

that white curtain is one of the first projects i did at the very beginning of the renovations. it was like the foreshadowing of things to come...

allison gave me bob the owl for a birthday present. isn't he the cutest kitchen mascot ever?i've always wanted my skillets to hang over the stove, so nick installed a pipe under the cupboard, i made some hooks out of coat hangers and presto! so handy! (both my husband and the hanging skillets, that is...)
and the best craigslist purchase ever - $35 cast iron koehler sink. the perfect thing to go with the new countertops! i was thrilled.

and now on to the dining room! not a huge transformation, but the subtle color changes make it feel a little more modern, crisp & clean to me.

before:

and after:

this orange lamp was down in my craft room but it has officially found a new home in the dining room. i think it's the perfect pop of color to go with the gray walls.

i even recovered my dining room chair cushions! there were times when i was waiting for nick to finish a certain project before i could proceed with mine, so i made these during one of those lulls. i think i was waiting for him to finish the plumbing under the sink so i could do the caulking or something like that.
i didn't have enough of that fabric on the left to do all the cushions with, which would have been my preference, but the gray & white matches the kitchen floor almost too well! there are also two reddish/orange ones that aren't my favorite, but they suffice. i'm going to keep my eye out for fabric to re-do them at least.

now let's move on to the piano room. this room has always been a little awkward, partially because of that random big white box/shelf under the 3 book shelves. and also because those bookshelves had so much space in between them.

before:

so we took out the awkward box/shelf, scooched the shelves closer together, tucked the piano under the shelves, and then had room for the true highlight of the room, my new blanket cabinet!

after:nick started making it last year for my birthday but never got around to finishing it. our blankets have been in random stacks around the house, patiently awaiting their very own cabinet.

i had those windows in my craft room with no real purpose in mind. when nick saw them, he finally had a vision for the cabinet & he got to work. i absolutely love it. the blankets are a collection of comforters i've made in the past, my first (and only) quilt which i made when i was 16, my first (but not only) crocheted afghan, a mexican blanket, two quilts my grandma made, blankets of nick's (one of which his mom made for his birthday out of his old jeans), one of laura's old comforters from when we were roommates, and even a couple of my baby blankets. i've often thought we have way too many blankets for our blanket needs, but how can you get rid of any one of those? i'm too sentimental.
what better thing to go on top of a blanket collection than another collection? i'm beginning to develop quite a fondness for owls.

nothing special about this corner except that i finally hung up my shadow box & also doesn't that baseboard just look sharp? crisp white baseboards are a joy to behold.

and thus concludes the tour of our renovations. we still have several things left to do, mostly in the laundry room, but we've taken an informal break as nick starts his first week of school. something about having it all cleaned & pretty makes us both loathe to start in again with the working & the sawdust & the paint & the mess. maybe next week...

birthday 2011

2011-08-24T17:19:00.005-05:00

turns out my birthday wasn't a total photographic failure after all! despite our hard drive crashing and taking my birthday pictures along for the ride, carissa snapped a couple at brunch. at least i can include those for you to feast your eyes on while i tell you about my day...a group of friends met at the sugar leaf treats for brunch on my birthday for a perfectly delightful get-together. these ladies are such lovely friends! i really do feel blessed by the people in my life. some i've known years, some i've just recently met, but each one of them is so dear to me.
don't you just love the new curly look carissa's sporting? she was finally convinced to own her natural curly-headedness and i think it looks fantastic!

not only did the ladies bless me with their presence, they also blessed me with presents! lots of them!! it was so fun to open thoughtful gifts from people who know me well.

marcia followed me back to the house after brunch to see the progress on the house and i was glad to have the extra time to catch up with her. you may remember that she got married a couple months ago and subsequently moved 2 1/2 hours away. i'll have more to say on that topic later, mark my words. in the meantime i'll just say it was lovely to chat with her for a bit.

that afternoon, nick & i went thrift store shopping, one of our favorite things to do. we didn't find anything monumental but it was nice to peruse & spend time together.

later, we went to a nail salon - both of us! and got a pedicure together.
imagine my utter delight when i realized i took these pictures on my phone! turns out i have more pictures from my birthday than i thought. i'll just try to forget the ones i don't have and enjoy the ones i do.

nick didn't relish the experience as much as i did, but him being with me was half the fun. when thinking about what i wanted to do for my birthday, getting a pedicure with nick was on the top of my list but we eventually decided not to spend that much money after all. then one of my gifts that morning was a pedicure gift certificate! how perfect was that?! thanks, erica :-)

the nail salon was just a short walk away from the macaroni grill where we went for dinner. the highlight of that meal was definitely the dessert! dark chocolate fudge cake with gelato, mmhmm. their pre-dinner bread was also very tasty. the alfredo was so-so. not too amazing, but not bad.

after we got home nick gave me a beautiful locket that he'd found at an antique store. we're both horrible at surprising each other with gifts. we usually end up giving it away ahead of time or guessing what the other got us. but this year i was genuinely surprised! which is a big part of the fun and excitement. when it comes to gifts you could wrap up a stone and i would love opening it and would be utterly delighted by the thoughtfulness involved.

so without further ado, i officially turned 33. i have to say, it feels about the same as 32, but more symmetrical.

india clay oven grill

2011-08-24T16:57:00.004-05:00

my freaking out over all the change and newness was wildly out of proportion with reality. look, i even found my food pictures! i'm getting seriously hungry looking at these pictures and they're not that great, as pictures go. let me draw your attention to the beautiful silver dishes everything was served in - we felt so fancy! we each had our own mini-serving dishes and plate so we could scoop out how much we wanted onto our plate.

i brought a takeout menu home with me so here's the descriptions of the food i enjoyed:

malai kofta:

vegetable balls in a cream sauce with fresh herbs and mild spices served with basmati rice
garlic nan:

topped with garlic and herbs, baked in our clay oven
mango ice cream and

gulab jamun:

deep fried wheat and milk balls soaked in syrup

i was less impressed with the dessert than with everything else, but look at the beautiful dishes! that makes up for it entirely. for 'deep fried wheat balls' read 'doughnut holes'. and the mango ice cream was super sweet. i'm usually not one to complain about sweetness, i have several sweet teeth, but there's a fine line between tasty and too much.

other than that, i can't wait to go back! if you live in the branson area, give the india clay oven & grill a try. i'm sincerely hoping they stay around for a long time.

p.s. here's a classic example of under-photographing. this was my last dinner date with allison and we didn't even take a picture together! granted, the lighting was not ideal but we could've made it work... now i'll forever wonder, who did i go with to the indian restaurant...?

ack.

2011-08-24T10:42:00.003-05:00

well, we've had a series of events around here, some unfortunate, some only seemingly so...

i've been absent on here for a while, first of all, because our computer hard drive crashed. the sad news with that is, well, obviously, that our hard drive crashed, but also that i had just uploaded the pictures off my camera from my birthday and of course, deleted them off my camera. nick had backed up our computer at the beginning of the summer so all our other data was on our external hard drive, but my birthday pictures were not.

now, let's talk about pictures for a moment, shall we?

i love pictures.

but i'm also getting a little overwhelmed with the pictures in our possession. it's nigh impossible to keep up with a physical photo album or scrapbook these days unless that's your full time job. which leaves either the option of printing off the good/important ones or just not printing any off and leaving them in albums on the computer to peruse from time to time and enjoy. for want of time, i've gone with the latter option, thinking i'll eventually go through and find the good/important ones and print them off. someday...

what that's done, however, is made me feel inundated with the vast quantity of pictures on our computer and made me feel like i don't really want to keep adding to the stockpile. so i've hardly been taking any at all these days. i keep finding myself not taking pictures and wishing i'd remembered but then shrugging it off and thinking it would just add to my vast horde anyhow.

but when it comes to special days or events, half the fun is still in photgraphically documenting it. so even though it wasn't a milestone of a birthday and even though we didn't do anything inordinately unique, it was an all around exceptional day. i loved every part of it. and i took pictures. that are now lost forever. i'm still really sad about it. almost like part of the joy of the day is missing along with the pictures. it's possible that they can be retrieved if we took our laptop to someone, but i keep wondering if a few pictures are really worth the expense... the more that time goes by and i'm still not over it the more i think that maybe it is worth it to me emotionally.

that sounds really sappy to attach so much meaning to pictures, but there's just something about looking back at the images of an event and reliving it that i can't do with just memories. shutterbugs talk about needing to put down their camera and be in the moment because they feel disconnected from the present reality if they're always taking pictures - i'm the opposite. i almost feel like i'm more connected to reality if i'm photographing it. if there's not tangible evidence of that person or that event it seems to be less real in my mind.

so anyhow, after that sad happening, it took us a couple weeks to work ourselves around to getting a new one. and with that one has come a whole new set of issues. for me, anyhow. nick is LOVING it! it's a mac. nick is a mac lover. me, not so much. or so i'm discovering. i think if it were the middle of a long summer and i had no big projects going on, i would enjoy delving into the nifty depths of the mac world. but as it is, school just started, i have so much i was waiting to blog about but couldn't until we goy a computer so i'm behind on that already, we're still in the middle of working on the laundry room & other finishing renovation touches, and on top of that all, i'm having some major time management adjustment issues. last night i wanted to upload pictures of the house and i literally took an hour trying to even find them after uploading them. i was so frustrated with our new computer that i almost started crying. i got that stressed out feeling welling up in my head and i just wanted to either throw the computer across the room or eat ice cream. i didn't do either, you'll be surprised to hear, but one of them sure would've been nice.

but it's not mac's fault. i seriously feel like an old person who doesn't want to learn new technological tricks. i just want my old computer back. i know how to do everything, it's easy, i don't have to strain my brain over simple tasks. nick's going to look into finding a new hard drive for the trusty old dell so i could have that one & he could have the mac, but who knows how much that'll cost.

the real issue though is not my refusal to give in to the advancements of technology, it's time management.

this is probably the hardest transition i've had in my 8 years as a teacher of getting used to a new school schedule. i've been continuing to plan the same kinds of things i would plan during the summer, dinner dates, coffee dates, small group meetings, exercising, birthdays parties & making birthday presents for those parties, movie marathons, working on the house, but now there's only half the time to do them in. the other half the time i'm at school, earning a wage. it seems like it should be an obvious transition - mentally, it makes sense that i should scale back the activities since work has started. but emotionally, i really like doing all those things and i don't want to scale back! i love being more connected with people individually but it takes time & effort to maintain relationships and time is not what i have an abundance of. and then throw in there making 180 new relationships at school with my new students and putting in the energy to get those rolling... i feel myself heading full steam ahead towards a brick wall.

but maybe it does have something to do with my refusal to adjust, now that i think about it. (and this blog for me is all about the external processing...)

another topic i wanted to blog about (and i even have pictures to go along with it! somewhere on the mac... i couldn't find them, of course) was the new restaurant allison and i went to for our last dinner date before she moved far, far away (and yes, that's another blog topic... i'm so behind!). we went to the india clay oven & grill and i absolutely adored it. i've never felt so passionate about a restaurant before! it was delicious, it was an experience, i loved it!

but it definitely got me thinking about cultures and how strange it is to be in one that you have absolutely no knowledge of. granted, it was a restaurant, not the entire country of india, but i literally felt myself adrift in a foreign culture with no resources to help me figure out the rules. i've never really felt that before. growing up in mexico, i've naturally assumed that i'd be great in foreign countries, no big deal, i've been raised to adapt. the truth of the matter is, i grew up in mexico. it wasn't foreign to me. moving to the states when i was 17 years old was more foreign than mexico ever was to me but even nebraska wasn't really all that different from what i was used to since my family is american. to be in an environment where i don't know any of the ways they do things, it was unsettling! watching 'slumdog millionare' or a bollywood routine on 'so you think you can dance' doesn't make me as much of an expert on india as i thought it did.

and while i thoroughly enjoyed the food (so, so much!), i would be terrified to go to india. or any country where i don't know the language & culture.

we went to eat dinner but i came away realizing something new about myself - i'm not as worldly wise and culture savvy as i imagined. i'm pretty set in my ways and have mild anxiety attacks when things shift even the slightest.

so maybe this particular season of my life can be useful in helping me grow, if i don't resist too much. if i try to expand and learn instead of stay stuck in the same ruts i've comfortably made for myself up until now. it's pretty terrifying but i suppose there's worse things to could be getting used to than a brand new computer and too many friends.

so enough of the whining... off to explore the terrifying world of mac! wish me luck.

meanwhile...

2011-08-07T21:32:00.004-05:00

one of life's great mysteries in the fried household is how we can go from 'just painting the walls' to 'installing new countertops'. don't ask me. i don't know.
but i'm sure ecstatic!!!
we're very hopeful that the end of this week will see all the renovations drawing to a final close. especially since school starts one week from tomorrow!!

we took a break from the never-ending kitchen projects to go to a friend's wedding in springfield.

we ran into this guy on the way to the reception. don't know who he is, but he sure has a dapper tie on, not to mention those glasses.

at least he wasn't dressed in purple. (if you like purple, my apologies, but that wedding was purple overload!) i'm learning to keep my strong opinions to myself though. it's a skill i've yet to master, but i'm a work in progress.

next up for this week:

monday (that's tomorrow) - my birthday! the big 3-3. the age jesus was when he died. i don't know why that's relevant, but i just keep thinking it's symbolic somehow. perhaps i'll have to make a sacrifice of some sort... or die. but hopefully not on a cross. we'll just have to wait and see!

tomorrow will start with a birthday brunch with the ladies - i'm excited! i even bought a new dress. after brunch, nick & i are going to peruse some thrift stores and end the day by going out for pasta, my favorite. then i'll try to talk nick into watching the last two cranford discs with me. he doesn't know that part yet. i'll let you know if i succeed.

one thing we will NOT be doing on my birthday - working on the kitchen!

or going to the gym.

it shall be a day like none other.

tuesday - help with registration at the high school in the morning, then back to the kitchen!

wednesday - kitchen!

thursday - kitchen!!

friday - kitchen!!!

saturday - kitchen!!!!

sunday - small group at our house, so we better be done with the kitchen!

we have yet to finish:

one more layer of polyurethane on the countertops & steel wool action afterwards;

install sink and counter backsplash trim piece (nick);
whilst nick then moves on to patch the back room floor, i'll touch up all the painting around the kitchen & dining room (cupboards, walls & trim), paint the kitchen floor & stencil the kitchen floor;

at which point nick will hopefully be done with the back room floor patching and i will paint the back room walls, shelves, & floor along with the laundry room walls & floor.

then all the furniture and decorations will get replaced to their rightful spots and we'll have a giant jubilant celebration!!!

or just small group, which will be the same thing, really.

a cranford tea party

2011-08-07T21:08:00.001-05:00

last night, ann-victoria hosted a cranford tea party. (the title of this post probably gave that away...) if you are like me and have never heard of cranford, well let me just tell you! it's a pbs masterpiece austen-esque mini-series that is full of pure delightfulness. i absolutely loved it!

there were 8 of us ladies in attendance, each bringing something to contribute to the english tea smorgasborg - we had crumpets, english toffee, scones, cucumber sandwiches, lemon bars, trifle (made by a real englishwoman!) and much more... it was an abundance of deliciousness that saw us well through the whole long evening. we only watched 3 of the 5 discs but we couldn't stay awake - it was 1 am, after all, so i borrowed the last 2 discs to watch later. i love this show so much, i even wrote down quotes!

the basic story is about life in a small town containing a large handful of ladies and very few bachelors. my favorite character is played by dame judi dench as miss matilda jenkyns. she is just precious.

at one point she is talking to mary smith (below) who says, "haste has never been our hallmark. we will be unshaped if we begin to move with speed."

these two ladies on the other hand, do nothing but run around helter-skelter, hoping to be the first to tell the latest bit of gossip. (the one in the foreground also played dolores umbridge in harry potter!) they are an absolute hoot. the lady bringing up the rear said during the garden party, "it's all such a sequence of continuous delights," which echoes my sentiments exactly about this show.

if you haven't seen this series, i highly recommend it! come watch it with me, even! it's the type that i'd be pleased to watch over and over again. it has that fast british dialogue chock full of zingers of which i only processed a portion.

and speaking of zingers, i can't tell you how many times this show makes you laugh! sincerely funny, but also full of tragedy. i suppose that's why it's so compelling - it has a balance of humor and hardship that are what life is made of, no matter what century.

phases

2011-07-29T07:07:00.002-05:00

our house is a wreck.

and there's no hope of getting it put to rights any time soon. i'm entering the 'i'm going insane' phase which happens right after the 'inspirational new vision for the kitchen' phase. pretty sure the next phase will be the 'mindless drudgery' phase, involving slogging away, hour after hour, putting in the time to make the vision a reality. and we will eventually be done but the 'done' phase is so far off that i have a hard time believing it even exists.

if it weren't for having repeated this same process in the living room and again in the bathroom, i would doubt that the end would ever come. but no! i believe! it will come!

in the mean time, we're still painting.

i've currently finished the ceiling (sigh!!) and the cupboards, the doors of which still have 2 days of drying wherein they must be spread out on every horizontal surface. then we'll install the new hardware & re-hang the doors on the cupboards. today i did the first coat of paint on the walls and had that panic-stricken feeling of hating the new colors. (we'll call it the 'what was i thinking?!' phase) panic is a bad feeling to have after 3 days of laborious cupboard-painting. but i also had the exact same reaction after painting the living room and i ended up getting used to it and even loving it in the long run. so i just have to hold out hope that i'm in the adjustment period and like all the other phases, it will also pass.

we've been at it for 5 days straight so tomorrow we're taking a much-needed break from our house to help kristen & seth (and asher!) move all their belongings & clean their old apartment. they're in the process of buying a new house, the paperwork for which has not gone through completely. but now their lease on their current apartment is up so they're moving in with zach & ann-victoria (and lily!) until the paperwork goes through. yucky for them, having to move twice, but happy for them to have friends with enough room.

speaking of friends, today i had a new thought.

let me preface by saying, everyone i know is pregnant. that may seem like an exaggeration (and perhaps it is) but it's not too far off the mark. i've struggled with feeling angry & bitter from time to time around these people just because they're pregnant and we're not. this seems like the dumbest response to have toward beautiful new life, but it's what i'm struggling with. today i was told something happy by a pregnant friend about her unborn baby that felt like a fresh bit of salt on the wound and i had that ever-present bubble well up in my heart that pushes against the back of my eyes and is usually followed by uncontrollable emotions. but right around that time, welling up with the emotions, a new thought came into my head.

i thought, 'god has a different plan for us.'

it may be that the holy spirit gave me that thought because it's not my first inclination by any means.

i felt instantly comforted and a little excited. i wonder what that plan is...!?

with so many people (seriously a lot of people) pregnant, it's so hard to not compare and wonder how we've messed up or what we've done to deserve our current lot in life. i know there's no magical way of living that will get us what we want, but it sure would make things easier, wouldn't it?

this shift in focus is basic but it feels huge to me. instead of seeing god's plans for other people and wanting those for us, it feels restful to realize that he has a specific, good, loving plan for us. to bring it full circle, like in anything, there are phases. we're currently in the waiting phase. it seems like it's lasting forever but really it's been less than two years. that's not that long, in the grand scheme of things. and while it has been miserable at times, there are so many great things about this phase. so, so many. i love my husband so much more than i did and don't doubt that i'll love him even more as we go along. whether or not we have kids, he is the best gift i've ever been given.

and this waiting phase, i doubt we'll be here forever. someday we'll be at the end looking back and relishing the beauty of god's perfect timing with whatever it is he has up his sleeve.

mind you, i still felt (and feel) flares of bitterness and anger. but for a little while there, thinking about that thought, 'god has a different plan for us,' and the joy & excitement that accompanied that thought, it got me to mulling over how much i dislike bitterness and how i wish i could be rejoicing with my friend instead of planting myself firmly in my own pain. perhaps part of the solution to bitterness is turning my thoughts outward, away from my hurt and toward the true character of god.

he is good.

and he loves me.

what a relief.

my cute husband

2011-07-23T09:18:00.002-05:00

the other day kristen & i went on a coffee date and nick babysat baby asher. when we got back he was rocking asher and they looked so sweet that i just had to take their picture. aren't these guys the cutest? in this picture asher was suddenly aware that his mother had entered the room but before he had realized it, he was all cuddled up on nick's shoulder. it was precious.
nick is going to be such a good daddy.

color schemes...

2011-07-22T20:00:00.004-05:00

a visual aid's always helpful, right? here's the current color of the tiles on our island. not too hideous but not too up-to-date either. but then combine it with my vision of the kitchen's future color scheme:

okay, officially hideous combination! i may not be able to bear it leaving the 80's colors with the new color scheme. and speaking of which, that pale green may or may not be the right shade... i haven't picked out paint yet. the gray floral would be similar to what the floor will have stenciled, with dark background & light floral but probably not so detailed.

we'll see what happens.