Five Question Friday

1. What have you done recently that you are proud of?
Recently… hmmm… I guess I’ll go with getting Jack dedicated at church. This was something we meant to do when he was a baby but our old church only scheduled these services three times a year and you had to sign up online and if you didn’t do it in time, it was usually filled up and well, we never did it in time. But it was easy-peasy at our new church. I called the office, asked if we could do it a certain Sunday so my parents could be there and it was no problem. I miss things about our old church but I don’t miss that aspect, where everything was so difficult to get done. But I am glad we finally did it and that Jack didn’t scream or freak out on stage… we won’t talk about the fact that Liam hid behind us the whole time.

2. What is your favorite way to work out? Or if you don’t workout, what are you wanting to try?
Walking with someone, especially Sandy! It’s just nice to have a companion to distract you from what you are doing and to keep you moving when you might stop. And really, it’s just nice to be with other people when so much of my working out is down in our basement.

3. If you knew you best friend was cheating on spouse would you tell?
I don’t know about that, but I would make it clear that I would not be friends with that person until THEY told their spouse. But then I think about it and if someone knew that about my marriage, I would want them to tell me. I guess I would give them the option of telling them first and then I would tell them because people deserve to know when that happens, no matter what the consequences are.

4. If you could afford a live-in maid or nanny, would you have one?
How about a part-time maid, part-time nanny? Really, I’d rather have a personal assistant who took care of all the day-to-day stuff and errands and once a week watched the kids all day and sometimes did the dishes and laundry. If I could afford it and felt good about where I was spending my money and my time, then I feel like I could totally justify it. But I’d imagine I’d have to have a LOT of money to feel like I could afford it, in which case, this will never be happening. But it’s nice to dream.

5. Do you stress out about birthdays (specifically the age) or do you enjoy them?
Birthdays don’t bother me at all. In general, I love my birthday and have never had a moment’s hesitation about getting older or telling someone my age. It’s just a number and if someone has s preconceived notion about be because of my age, well, that’s their problem. I don’t always like getting older as a general rule, but you can’t really stop it from happening. I feel like I just get better with age and life gets better. Sure there are moments I’d go back to for a time, but I think after a few weeks back in college or my early 20s, I’d really start to miss the life I have now, my kids, my husband and my friends. So no stress for me. Though once last year while we were grocery shopping, Liam was chattering at every person we went by, telling them his age, his brother’s age and then my age… I had to stop him because we really didn’t need to go out of our way to broadcast it to the entire store, but it did make people laugh.


Linking up with Mama M for Five Question Friday!

Never work with children…

I was going through the photos on my camera and ran across the photos I took while attempting to get a nice shot of the boys dressed up for Christmas Eve. Key word being attempting.

Little did I know the first picture was going to be the best one of the evening.

 
 

I should have known better than to take the photo AFTER all the excitement of present-opening, but I was a little preoccupied getting everything ready for the night, alas…

Almost a good one… and then not so much.

  
 

And now we’ve lost one… better luck next year!

2012 Resolutions

Happy February 1 everyone – time to make some resolutions! [What? It’s perfectly normal to make resolutions the first day of the second month of the year… everyone should have a resolution-free January.]

Last year was the first year I really thought about my resolutions and actually tried to stick to them for the whole year* and I feel like I did a pretty good job of being realistic with my resolutions and following through on them (see my report card). I’ve been thinking about what I’d like to accomplish in this coming year and there are quite a few things that are on my 35 before 35 list that I’d like to check off so I don’t know that I’ll include those as resolutions since they are already covered there, but there are a few general thoughts/themes/topics I’d like to write down as resolutions and hope that you’ll join me in praying over them and holding me accountable. And as you’ll soon discover, I’m not averse to reusing resolutions.

2012 Resolutions
1. Be the kind of mom who says “yes” more than “no” when it comes to things I’d prefer not to do [not things the kids should not be doing – I’m all about setting boundaries and expectations]
2. Make it to church over 50% of the Sundays in a year.
3. Read one book per month (–/12)
4. Continue my exercise and healthy eating habits; adding at least one new-to-me exercise to my “circuit” [I’m thinking punching bag in the basement]
5. Make a concerted effort to teach my kids the value of money (this might be lost on Jack at the moment); rewarding them for tasks accomplished and helping them start tithing.
6. Go out of my way to do random acts of kindness whenever possible.
7. Go away for a weekend with my husband.
8. Do not take anything more into my life without first getting “rid” of something (physical things, my time, etc…)
9. Make macaroons, crumpets and/or english muffins from scratch.

Source: google.com via Michelle on Pinterest

What do you resolve to do this year?

*I should probably note, that I just remembered I did make one other resolution that I stuck to for a whole year. During our second or third year of marriage, I resolved to not flip Simon the bird more than one time a day – I thought this was rather generous of me. I’m happy to say I stuck to that resolution and happier to say that I don’t really have to give him the middle finger any longer – I’ve moved on to simply the stink eye and sometimes pinching the skin on the back of his upper arm. I’m nice like that.

Top Ten Things I Love About Australia

1. Hands down the people are the thing I love the most, specifically our family and friends in Australia. I could miss out on everything else on this list and just see the people and be a happy person.
2. The food, which I’ve already outlined here, but aside from missing genuine Mexican food we love the food options down under. Highlights include: spinach rolls, fish and chips, sushi, Peppermint Magnum bars, kebabs (at the mall!), Thai and Indian food in Forster/Tuncurry, flat white coffees and Christmas pudding.
3. Chocolate – yes, technically a food but this needs its own line item – the chocolate in Australia is just delicious, mostly because it’s not filled with wax and is made with copious amounts of cream. Plus it comes in fun flavors like honeycomb, cherry/coconut and caramel/nougat.
4. Use of electric teapots and having a cuppa – anytime you go to someone’s house, you can expect to have tea (or coffee) with them. Everyone has an electric teapot on their counter and in five minutes you’ll be having tea and maybe a snack. The instant coffee is delicious and convenient. I wish this was something we did more in the States, it’s just a nice aspect to any evening to sit down and have a cuppa with people (of course we do it our own way with pod coffee brewers and Diet Coke).
5. Road signs and billboards that provided me with endless amusement. Admittedly these can be amusing in the States as well, but since I was a passenger for all of this trip and we did quite a bit of driving, I got to pay more attention to them as we passed. I’ve already mentioned how I love to make fun of the warning signs in Australia in a previous post so I’ll leave that as it is but this time I noticed more billboards, my favorites were those warning against things: [to paraphrase] “Being five minutes late or paralyzed – you decide” or a series talking about skin cancer (which is very serious and prevalent in Australia) but the signs were EVERYWHERE and some would show a woman in a bikini with the tagline “A perfect spot for melanoma” or “There’s nothing healthy about a tan” something along those lines – totally Debbie downer billboards. But the best was a series of three billboards along a 1km stretch that were promoting regular pap smears all with cheeky taglines “Pap tests. A little bit of awkward for a whole lot of peace of mind.” This again, is for an important thing, but these billboards are so frequent and intense something about it struck me as amusing, probably because most of our billboards related to healthcare are advertising hospitals and insurance companies rather than specific problems.
6. The shops close up at 5:30 (the grocery stores are open later) but the mall areas just close up and at first I found this off-putting but really, it shows a general prioritization that Australias have in putting living life AHEAD of working. In the US, we’re all about convenience and getting things when we want them but realistically, nothing is so important that I can’t wait until a later time to pick up. Instead of running errands all over town in the evenings, we should just be home with our families or out doing things together. I like that idea.
7. Being about to see kangaroos and wallabies in the wild – so cool.
8. The gorgeous scenery that is found everywhere – I love driving around New South Wales (the state we were in) – it’s like driving around up north, more towns and way less cities. It’s hilly and lush with the ocean never far away (at least where we were).
9. Their money is just way cooler than ours – isn’t it so pretty? Plus they use $1 and $2 coins. Now if only the American dollar was stronger because the cost of living in Australia is way higher but our dollars are about equal so to us, everything seemed to cost so much more. For example, we’d pay $2.22 for two 20-oz. bottles of Diet Coke here in the States but in Australia we’d pay $3.50 for ONE half liter of Diet Coke and $24 for a 24-pack of cans.
australian money

10. The general laid back attitude of the people. “No worries, mate.”


Top Ten {Tuesday}This post is linked to Oh Amanda’s Top Ten Tuesday.

Music Monday

So it’s been a while, but I’ve got some new music up my sleeve (or on my computer as it may be) that I’ve been enjoying…

I’m still loving Shake It Out by Florence and the Machine (I linked to it here) but another songs I also love on that album; though let’s be honest, the whole album rocks, one of the few I’ve downloaded in its entirety this past year (see also: Coldplay’s Mylo Xyloto, Boyce Avenue’s All We Have Left and Adele’s 21)

Heartlines

Only If for a Night


Windows are Rolled Down | Amos Lee


Pumped Up Kicks | Foster the People


Barton Hollow | The Civil Wars


Offering | Third Day (not new, but this was playing as we left Forster)


Hurts Like Heaven | Coldplay