30 Before 30

This post has been long in the works.  I started it in September of 2012 just before my beautiful daughter was born.  These are a few of the things I am planning to do by the time I'm 30.  Some of them are do-once-and-cross-off-the-list-types, and others are habits I would like to have firmly in place. Who knows where we'll even be living when I'm 30, but here's to the adventure.

30 Before 30

1. Continue a consistent morning routine, including Bible study and prayer, before the rest of the house wakes
2. Have an exercise routine in place for at least 3 days/wk (I HATE running, but I would love to conquer my hate and do it anyway.  It worked with broccoli.)
3. Be on my phone less
4. Make Thanksgiving dinner complete with a turkey, even if it's just for us, and even if it's not Thanksgiving
5. Plant and tend a garden
6. Make a first-year baby book for my daughter 
7. Be in the regular habit of reading for pleasure
8. Spend at least 30 minutes of undivided time with my children every day completing an activity of their choice
9. Eat at home every weeknight and serve a vegetable with every meal
10. Take more pictures
11. Continue to give to our church and other ministries and programs, becoming more generous every year
12. Finish my book :)
13. Be on the road to my goal weight (now that we are done having kids :)
14. Journal consistently
15. Continue to keep diligent track of my children's medical information using their ISNs
16. Do my daughter's hair each day that I get up with her
17. Be discipled by an older, mature, and more experienced follower of Jesus
18. Recycle EVERYTHING that is recyclable 
19. Compile all the video I have of my son's first, third, and fourth years of life and my daughter's first year of life, edit together, and make a DVD for each year
20. Read at least two books on parenting
21. Enroll my son in preschool
22. Build my husband up every day with my words and actions
23. Have built up our savings and emergency funds to our goal amounts
24. Have gone on a family vacation, or at least have one on the books
25. Continue to reuse and save money by purchasing used items instead of buying retail
26. Have a date night with my husband at least once a month - don't necessarily need to spend money, but just be alone together without the kids
27. Build up a new wardrobe
28. Re-draft and re-commit to our budget considering changes in our income
29. Get outside more
30. Be content to bloom (happily, not grudgingly) where God has placed me

Reasons My Baby Girl Is Awesome

WARNING: This is a pretty braggy post.  These that follow are in no particular order.

10.  She sleeps through the night and started doing it on her own.  No training.  Awesome.

9.  She is utterly adorable.  I mean, look at this pic from church this morning. Could she be any cuter?

8.  When she's tired, just swaddle her up or hold her tight, and poof!  She's asleep.  It's really like magic.

7.  She eats like a champ.  Never once have we had to work to get her to take a full feeding!

6.  She has started to smile and coo.  And wave her arms.

5.  You can stick her anywhere - her swing, her playmat, a bouncy chair (with or without the vibrations turned on), and even the exersaucer, which we got out over the weekend, and she's happy.

4.  She is getting fat.

3.  She likes to take baths!

2.  Now that she's getting a little older (almost 5 months!), she has really begun to notice her surroundings.  She's watching me, Daddy, or Brother all the time!

1.  She loves to be held, which is very convenient, as I love to hold her. :)

She is wonderful, and such a gift.  I seriously can't find a single thing to complain about.  Is that normal?  She did poop all over her outfit the other day, but she was so happy and cute about it that I didn't even mind that! Today was her first day "out."  She went to church for the first time, and it was so nice to show her off!  Everyone ooed and ahhed over her, and the nursery ladies had a verbal fight over who got to hold her first.  Then we went to Grandma and Papa's for lunch and to see some friends in Lawrence for dinner.  It was a big day, and she did great.

I am treasuring these moments I have with her, because I know that in the blink of an eye, just like her brother, she'll be crawling all over the place, then walking, then running, then walking, then running, then biking, and then driving.  Time seems to speed up when it comes to kids, and I want to savor these moments as much as I possibly can.

Snow (Day!) Ice Cream!

Super simple, fun, and delicious!  (Thanks Melissa for the recipe!)

 

Snow Ice Cream:

• 1 bowl of snow
• 2 c milk
• 1 c powdered sugar
• 1 t vanilla

 Add it all, and mix.  It's best if a 3-year-old helps you.

 And it's also best if you eat it in place of breakfast. :)

 I LOVE SNOW DAYS!

Project: T-Shirt Scarves

So one of my students came into my classroom last week wearing this:

I LOVED it!  I immediately asked her where she got it and she said she made it out of old t-shirts.

Say what???

She then gave me some simple step-by-step instructions - so simple I didn't even have to write them down.  Here's how to do it:

Step 1: Find an old shirt.  Cut from right underneath the armpit straight across.  Also, remove the hem at the bottom.

 

Step 2:  Discard the top and fold the bottom in half hot-dog style.  Cut into strips 1 to 1 1/2 inches long.

Step 3: Stretch the strips out one by one.  The sides will curl in, giving the strips a rope-like effect.

Step 4: Assemble strands together.  Secure with the bottom hem, or leave loose.

I have made several! For the one above and the one below, which I made for a friend, I took three of the strands and braided them together.  I love how it turned out!

3rd Therapy Session!

I went painting. Again!

My first and second times I painted trees.  This time, though trees were tempting, I opted for this lovely picture of dandelions:

 I wanted to tweak the background color a bit to match the room I wanted to hang it in, and I ended up with this!

So I have painted three pictures so far:

 

AND I'm going again this weekend with my mom and sister-in-law.  It's official - I'm addicted to Paint Therapy :)

Kindle Book: Life of Pi

Life of Pi

by Yann Martel

Length: 326 pages

Format: Kindle book
Price: $8.63
Author Website: http://www.lifeofpi.co.uk/ (He doesn't appear to have a website...this is the best I could do!)

Basic Premise: Young Piscine (or Pi, as he prefers to be called) lives a quiet life as the son of a zookeeper in the small village of Podicherry in India.  When his parents decide to pack up their zoo an ship it across the ocean to Canada, a freak-accident that sinks the ship results in Pi finding himself on a lifeboat with a most unlikely host of animals - the most dangerous? A tiger.

My Take: 8.5 out of 10 (scale here)
This book was my first book on my new Kindle!  (Can I just say I LOVE LOVE LOVE MY KINDLE!) It was chosen by my book club and I was unsure of what to expect.  But it was wonderful.  It was interesting and very well-written.  I loved the style of the author, and the fact that he wove the back-story and the present story together.  The first part is all about Pi's exploration of spirituality.  He explores Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity, and believes that they are not mutually exclusive - in other words, you can be a Hindu, a Muslim, and a Christian all at once.  (He and I disagree on this point.) The second part is him on the lifeboat with a zebra, a hyena, an orangutan, and yes, a fully grown adult male tiger.  Having read Unbroken, I knew a bit of what to expect from someone lost at sea, but it was thrown into a whole new light with the presence of a tiger, whom Pi felt he must feed, because once the food stopped coming, where would the tiger look for his next meal?  It was endlessly interesting!

My one complaint about this book was the ending.  I wanted more from it.  It had what I call a "stop" ending.  I tell my students not to use a "stop" ending, because it's like the author slams on the breaks and gives you literary whip-lash.  You want a nice, slow, easy ending that causes no discomfort.  I was discomforted.  I wanted more answers than the author gave.  I had more questions, being someone who hates loose ends.

I watched the trailer the morning after I finished the book and am excited about the movie!  Hoping my book club girls want to all go watch it together before it leaves the theater!

New Thing: Hot Yoga

Earlier this week, I did Hot Yoga for the first time with some girls from work.

Oh. My. Goodness.

Have you heard of Hot Yoga?  I hadn't.  Basically it's doing yoga in a really hot room.  The idea is that you will sweat much more in a hot room, which will help rid your body of toxins, or something like that.  I'm not sure I buy that, but I used to take a yoga class in Lawrence (which I LOVED) and when we moved here, I checked into a few yoga classes but came up empty.

Lava Yoga is a new place in town.  You sign up online and you can pay $15 a class (YIKES!) or you can pay $20 and have an unlimited pass for two weeks.  I opted for that one and signed up for Monday night, 7:00.  As I was reading, I discovered that the room used for Hot Yoga was intentionally heated to 99 degrees.  I started sweating just thinking about it.  Yoga is hard enough work as it is - but in 99 degree temps?  I didn't know if I would survive it, considering I am pretty sure I am in the worst physical shape I have ever been in.  I have had this blog for over a year now, but this is the first time I've used the "Fitness" label.  Check it out if you don't believe me - this is the only post under "Fitness."

Monday after school I started getting really nervous.  What had I gotten myself into?  Two of the girls had gone on Saturday and loved it, and they told me I needed four things:

• a yoga mat
• a beach towel (to put over the yoga mat and absorb all the sweat)
• a hand towel (to wipe off face sweat)
• a BIG jug of cold water

I left the house with these in tow, wearing only a tank top and yoga pants, even though it was 34 degrees outside.  I figured the colder I was beforehand, the better, and I guess it was true because the warmth in the room did feel nice...for about two seconds.

I have seriously never sweat more in my entire life.  Not being an athlete, I don't know that I've really ever had cause to, but sweat was literally pouring, flowing, gushing from every orifice on my body.  It was in my eyes, my ears, my mouth - it was disgusting.  But it was so awesome!  I was surprised at how many poses I could still do, and while I fell over plenty of times and wasn't quite able to do some of the poses, it was a great workout, and it didn't feel like an hour and fifteen minutes.

I got in my car and drove home feeling like I was on the yoga equivalent of a runner's high.  I felt great all night and have felt good (though a little sore) the last few days, too!

A few things:

• Next time (this weekend!), I am going to drink more water leading up to it.
• I'm also going to make sure I get a spot by the door.  The instructor opened the doors a few times and it was amazing.
• I should stretch more ahead of time.  I am sore.

Worth It

Teaching is hard.

The past few weeks have been rough.  I could get into all the details about kids, parents, grading, meetings, new units that need planning, and the fact that I've been at school past 4:00 for four out of five days last week.  I told my husband I was ready to throw in the towel.  Teaching has too many demands on my time - I just can't do it anymore.  My husband was wonderfully supportive, but in the end he very lovingly pointed out that it doesn't really matter how I feel - right now there is no other alternative.  He is, of course, right, and if I was honest with myself I supposed I could see that this is probably just a rough patch (which I tend to have at least a few times a year), and that if I really did decide to quit teaching, I would not make the decision after a week like this one.

Our life group was headed to the high school basketball game last night.  Obviously we couldn't take Lucy to something like that, but my mom called and said my dad was out for the night and would I like her to take the kids so Rick and I could have some alone-time.  Instead of alone-time, we opted for three-quarter time.  We dropped Lucy off and headed out to the high school.

Right off the bat, I started to feel better about teaching.  We parked right behind a former student of mine, and I watched him unfold his enormously-tall self out of his car.  Remembering him as a tiny, shy, seventh-grade boy and now seeing him as a junior in high school was heart-warming.  At the concession stand were two of my girls from a few years ago who ooed and ahhed over my son.  Behind us and to the right was a girl I had a few years ago who had struggled greatly with school and hadn't seemed to have many friends.  She said school was going well and a little later in the game I saw her with some friends.  I saw two of my former students tear it up on the basketball court - one of them had 24 points!  I used to baby-sit her when she was young and then I had her again in 7th grade.  Between the two games they were crowning King and Queen of Courts.  (Believe it or not, I was a Queen of Courts candidate in high school.  It was the only basketball game I went to in my entire high school career.)  Three of the six boys were mine, and so was the girl who got crowned queen.  I saw a student from my second year dressed in a grass skirt and coconut bra for "spirit."  I saw several of my boys - one of whom was extremely shy - playing basketball like nobody's business.  And at halftime, there was an incredibly entertaining dance from the dance team and boys they had "trained" to dance with them.

This was exactly what my heart needed this week - to see these squirrely, unfocused kids a few years later when they have begun to grow up and mature, and to think that I had a part (albeit, a small one) in their development as students and as people.