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2011 Resolutions: Report Card

Posted on January 29, 2012 | 4 comments

I honestly meant to write this post before we left and schedule it to run at the beginning of the month but I also meant to do the same for my 2012 resolutions. Instead I spent most of January resolution-free, other than resolving to eat what I wanted in Australia and not feel guilty (I’m happy to report that there was zero weight gain on our trip, well, there was some but it’s all gone now so that’s a double bonus for me).

2011 Resolutions

Practice one random act of kindness per week. (??/52)
~~Send one “snail mail” letter a month.~~ (20/12)
Sell $500 worth of stuff on Craigslist. (125/500)
~~Make it to church twice a month (at least).~~ (12/12)
~~Clean/organize closets.~~ (4/4)
~~Read one book a month.~~ (16/12)
~~Drink more water, eat less bad food, exercise.~~
~~Get family photos taken.~~
Cut my husband some slack.
Use a calm, measured voice [with my kids] more often than a loud, short one.

I think I did pretty good when I look back at my list. There are a few things I can’t cross off but I know I worked on them and in other areas I surpassed my expectations for myself. Here are my thoughts on the above:

While I don’t know that I could say I did 52 random acts of kindness, I did try to be more intentional about doing nice, thoughtful things for people (strangers, family and friends); tried to be more generous with my time and resources.
Selling stuff on Craig’s list was really to help me purge things from the house, which I did by taking two carloads to Goodwill so while I didn’t sell the money value I wanted, I still got stuff out of the house.
Loved our old church but really love our new church because it’s small enough and our kids love it so much that we can’t get away with sleeping in as often as we did in the past and not going to church on Sunday morning. So, so glad to be back in a more regular routine and to give that example to our children.
I could not have known when I wrote that resolution that I would really get serious with getting healthier and that I would end up losing 50 pounds this year, but I did and wow does it feel great. There is still more to go, so I am by no means done but it’s amazing what a difference that change has made in my life – I am at a base level, so much happier (though I never would have said I wasn’t happy before).
Love, love, love our family photos
Still need to work on being a better person to those closest to me, but I think that might be something we all could say because those are also the people we know we can push against when we are frustrated and who get to see us at our worst (and best) because they are with us the most.

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Posted in Healthy Living, Resolutions

2011 Resolution #6: Read One Book a Month, Update Three

Posted on January 28, 2012 | Leave a comment

#6 on my 2011 list of resolutions was read one book a month and by June I’d accomplished reading my 12 books, but still read more. For reference: update one and update two.

A Clash of Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 2) by George R.R. Martin | This is the book that locked me into the series, no matter how long and intense they are (and if I read the reviews right, the third book is kind of a letdown), I will finish the series because I have to find out how this all turns out. Martin has finished five books in the series and has two more to write (he says) so perhaps I will make it through them by the time he publishes the next one. There was a chapter in this book that surprised, no shocked, me so much I woke Simon up after I read it because I exclaimed, “What!? What just happened?” I can’t say this has ever happened before when I was reading a book and that is most definitely the sign of a good novel, or at least good storytelling.
They Almost Always Come Home by Cynthia Ruchti | A free book that my friend, Dawn, lent me through Amazon/Kindle. It was probably not my favorite, but it wasn’t bad, just not my typical type of story and a bit predictable. But I needed a mindless book to cleanse my literary palate after the long, intense “A Clash of Kings…”
The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley | This was a cheap kindle book that I purchased shortly after I got my Kindle when I was getting “special offers” right and left. It turned out to be a thinking woman’s romance novel and I quite liked it with its back story and historical fiction added in. Definitely a good read and if I were looking for a beach read, I’d download more of her books.
Heat Wave (Nikki Heat 1) by Richard Castle | Simon and I are huge fans of the TV show Castle and Amazon was running a special on the Kindle edition of the book “written” by the main character in the show, Richard Castle. I read the favorable reviews and found it to be a quick read that was true to the TV characters. It certainly wasn’t high literature, but I think this is the year of mindless books for me – either that or the super intense.
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins | re-read on my weekend reality escape with my dear friend, Tracey. Cannot wait until the movie comes out.

So I accomplished that task of reading 12 books in 2011, though I probably could have done more had I not included the Ice and Fire series in my reading list for the year – those are each worth about three novels apiece. Alas.

In progress: A Storm of Swords (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 3) by George R.R. Martin (my goodness is this one taking me FOREVER to get through).

Waiting on my Kindle to be read (this doesn’t include the plethora of hard copies I have in my possession): A Feast for Crows (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 4) (George R.R. Martin), Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (Jane Austen & Seth Grahame-Smith), Half-Assed: A Weight-Loss Memoir (Jennette Fulda), Pictures of You (Caroline Leavitt), Life of Pi (Yann Martel); and The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven: A Remarkable Account of Miracles, Angels, and Life beyond This World (Kevin Malarkey)

** Please note, all links noted above are Amazon Associates links. If you make a purchase via these links, I will make a small commission from your purchase. Just thought you’d want to know.**

Five Question Friday

Posted on January 27, 2012 | Leave a comment

It feels like ages since I’ve participated in Five Question Friday – I know you’ve missed them, right?

1. Do you swim in the winter?
In Michigan, not so much. But in Australia, yes, but of course, if we are being technical, it’s summer in Australia. This boggled Liam’s little mind. He could not let go of it being January and hot. He asked multiples times in multiple ways how it was possible that it was warm in Australia, and did that mean it was warm in the United States or why wasn’t it August in Australia? This gave me a chance to explain the equator and hemispheres – learning opportunity! Ding! Still not ever going to home school (I’ll leave that to you, Jonna).

2. Do you love or hate winter?
I’m okay with winter, if I were to pick a season to love, it would be autumn. And if I were allowed to be picky and specific, I could also love a non-humid, mild summer. But winter is just fine to me, though as I get older, I like driving in the snow less and less. I cannot imagine ever being okay with my teenagers driving in the snow, I better start doing some breathing exercises now.

3. Do you put makeup/actual clothes on when you know you’re going to be home all day with just family?
Ummm… do I even put on makeup when I leave the house for work? Not usually. I do always put on actual clothes to go to work – this detail is much appreciated by everyone I encounter on the way to and at work, I’m quite certain. But if I’m just staying home all day, quite often I stay in my pajamas all day (I sleep in sweatshirts or t-shirts and yoga pants) though I do shower and change after I work out (I have standards). Confession: My kids stayed in their pajamas all day today, which were actually the tops they wore yesterday with comfy pants they changed into before bed last night; this was more because of Simon, who never changed them this morning or left the house but I left them as they were and put them in bed for the night (Thursday night). My mother is properly disgusted now… but if I can’t be honest on my blog then where can I be honest? Also, I might have made a similar confession in the past.

4. How old were you when you had your first alcoholic beverage?
Sometime in my mid-teens. It was a margarita prepared by my big brother while my parents and I were visiting his house in Houston one spring break. It was delicious and is still my favorite alcoholic beverage. Though as I type this, I think that might be a lie, the first alcohol I ever tasted was either a drink of my parent’s wine cooler at a pool party hosted by one of my dad’s co-workers OR a sip of one of my parent’s preferred out-to-dinner drinks: a bloody mary or a seven & seven – this is ironic because my parents really never drank but on rare occasions we’d go out for dinner and they’d order one of those drinks. For the record, I like wine coolers, but I DO NOT like bloody marys or seven & sevens – yucko. Has anyone else ever ordered their parents’ signature drinks at a bar in an attempt to be an adult?

5. How many ill calls in a 12 month period do you think are acceptable?
Let’s go with 1 every other month, so six a year. At my work we also get a half day off every other month to use however we want – we call it a mental health half day. I rarely take a day off because I feel like, mostly because I feel guilty and a little because going to work is more restful than staying home because most days the kids are here all day. Being a sick mom is hard people, so very hard. Thankfully (and knock on a million pieces of wood) my boys are pretty hearty and haven’t really gotten sick – we’ll give credit to daycare at an early age for building up the immunity and how we encourage them to lick the floor and the bottoms of their shoes (just kidding, mom). Liam had one ear infection as a child and we had no idea he even had it, the doctor noticed it at his routine checkup. So I can hang my parenting success on having healthy children; they may not behave perfectly in public and may also be super picky eaters who scream and yell randomly and sometimes shout curse words, but darn it, they are healthy. Winning = me!

Linking up with Mama M for Five Question Friday!

Notes from a Big Island, Part Two

Posted on January 26, 2012 | Leave a comment

On a much lighter note… the second half of our trip. for your viewing pleasure, another image gallery, please click to embiggen. Also shown are some photos from the beginning of our trip and our trip to Blackhead Beach with Sandra, Joel and Stuart (a great many were taken by our budding photographer, Liam).

Highlights from the second half of our trip:
– Dinner at the Forster Bowling Club (lawn bowling, that is) with the Donkins (Joel, Sandra and Jacob)
– Visiting with Aunt Monica and Uncle Jack (Monica is Simon’s dad’s 90+year-old sister – they are both amazing)
– Feeding the kookaburra family with Aunt Monica
– Going out for a double date with Sandra and Joel for Sandi’s birthday – scrumptious, authentic Thai food
– Seeing three dolphins (in the wild) jumping out of the water while driving over the bridge between Forster and Tuncurry
– Visits to the hospital to see Dorothy – the kids thought it was cool and loved playing in the family room
– Spending the morning walking around Forster, exploring the shops, jumping on the trampolines one last time and soaking up the sun
– Spending an afternoon at the beach by Dorothy’s house
– Celebrating Dorothy’s birthday with her and singing the quietest rendition of “Happy Birthday” ever sung
– Spending a great deal of our last day with Dorothy sans children thanks to a gracious Joel and Jacob keeping them entertained
– Dinner at Sandra and Joel’s house with Chinese food brought up from Sydney
– The boys would also include playing with waterguns and bubble wands and eating Paddle Pops outside at Grandma Dorothy’s house
– Borrowing Sandi’s new car to drive down to Sydney for the last three days in our trip – we didn’t even crash it, though I can tell you now that the carpark at the hotel was the tiniest underground parking structure I have ever been in – it was laughably small and we had to do multi-point turns to go up the ramps between levels (thankfully never meeting a car was coming the other direction)
– Visiting with Rod and his kids in Wollongong – great company + more good food + weather that turned out sunny rather than windy and rainy = fun times (not so fun was the sunburn I acquired that day – after nearly three weeks of carefully applying sunscreen, I did not bring any that day)
– Visiting with Kylie, Bobby, Julie, Jen and Mark in Campbelltown + all their kids (sadly no photos were taken by me) but we had a great evening catching up and Liam attempted to learn to play cricket (it is not his forte)
– Spending the day touring Sydney and seeing the sites by train, foot and ferry including: Manly Beach, Darling Harbour, Circular Quay, Sydney Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge, Royal Botanical Gardens
– Walking through the Royal Botanical Gardens and seeing a gigantic fig tree
– Taking the ferry to Manly for lunch (sushi and ice cream, though not at the same time)
– Not a highlight: Liam’s epic meltdown on the way back to the hotel after our day in the city. It was the worst one I have ever witnessed by my son and I applaud his vigor (that was, until his 6-hour cry fest at the end of our day of traveling – but I’m trying to block that out).
– Paddy’s Market – always a fun detour to check out the wares all the vendors are selling
– Brekkie at Macca’s with a saintly Joel, Jacob and Elena (who got up at an ungodly hour to drive down to Sydney and meet us) prior to our flight home

There were so many highlights, no list could do them justice, but this gives you a little sampling of our trip. We are especially grateful to Sandra, Joel and Jacob for all they did to make everything go smoothly.

In process

Posted on January 25, 2012 | 10 comments

Disclaimer: I realize many of my posts at the end of the year were about being busy and busy-ness… and I also realize we are all busy because that is pretty much how life goes. I am overall just a busy person as that is part and parcel with being a full-time mom and full-time business owner, I am not whining or complaining (and hopefully haven’t come across that way) but this space is also my outlet about what I am thinking, what is weighing on my mind and how I’m dealing with it. Also, in this post I’m going to talk about death, just so you know. </disclaimer>

I’m not normally one of those introspective, new agey people who needs time to process things that have happened. Normally, things happen and I feel what I feel about them and can (typically) recognize the impact and keep on moving. I’m a roll-with-the-punches sort of gal. The past 6 weeks (and perhaps the past 6 months) have really put me through the ringer with one thing after the other; and since we booked our tickets to Australia, I just kept thinking in the back of my mind, “I’ll deal with this, that and that other thing after we get back.” In the meantime, we made the decision to move our business before Christmas (good choice overall, just bad timing) which meant on top of normal life being off kilter, work was also out of whack and all sense of normalcy was out the window. The minute the holidays and the move were over, we boarded a plane to leave the country for three weeks which is a whole lot more off-kilterness (totally a word). And as I noted yesterday, while we were gone a third of our tree fell down and smashed our car and fence (thankfully not our house with its new roof), certainly a best case scenario thing for if that was going to happen since wonderful (times a million) friends took care of a bulk of the immediate problem with that incident. Perhaps God is trying to get my attention, or Simon’s, or both (that’s a post for another day).

So now we are back and while life should be back to normal, I’m still feeling a little lost, like I don’t know where to begin or pick things up. The three weeks in Australia were a bit of a whirlwind, though we stayed primarily in one place and didn’t have an overload of plans, they were still full.

Outside of the last time we were there and had to say goodbye to Simon’s dad, I don’t know that I’ve ever had to say goodbye to someone, knowing with great certainty it would be the last time I would ever see that person this side of heaven, certainly not someone I love, respect and cherish. There is not an easy way to do that, but I think we did it the best we could, despite what anyone else may think or how they would have done it (we all have our ways). There is no exact formula or right way to say goodbye but I have great comfort in knowing that we all know God and have Jesus in our hearts so it truly is a “see you later” scenario. It still doesn’t make it easy and it still hurts my heart for my husband and his mom, and for my kids and myself, along with Simon’s family as a whole. It’s impossible to be the people leaving as well as the ones left “behind.” Death and dying are pretty sucktastic if you ask me, but being sick and suffering are not great alternatives.

I’m sensitive to not making this about me because I am “just” the daughter-in-law and in reality have only met my mother-in-law in person a few times, but I think in being sensitive to that, I’ve pushed back some of my feelings on the matter and held back, thinking that I am not entitled to be overly upset or emotional about it. Plus, it’s less painful to be slightly detached and to be the stoic one – but I’m going to allow myself a moment here.

I dearly love Dorothy and feel so blessed to have been given the time with her that I’ve had, the chats and insights into her life. I love that the boys have had time with her and have loved on her as much as they have (they were wonderful with that, btw). We are lucky that we were able to go there. My heart breaks for them, anticipating the day I have to tell them they won’t be seeing their grandma again and while Jack won’t understand, I know that Liam will and he’s going to be so very sad. My heart breaks for my husband because while he says he’s at peace with it, because he is after all pragmatic and straight-forward with how he approaches things, it’s still his mother, his one constant for his entire life and she will be gone. My heart breaks for Simon’s family, especially my sister-in-law, who is left behind dealing with everything after the flurry and excitement of all the visiting family. See, it’s sucktastic.

I have a hard time calling our trip a vacation because that was not its purpose. I wish we could have been somewhere that wasn’t a place everyone wants to go, because that aspect of the trip was so small compared to the bigness of everything else. Which is not to say that we didn’t have fun or loads of awesome experiences, we totally did and tomorrow I’ll talk about those.

So bear with me, I’m still processing it all and trying to find normal again. But I thought you should know, I need a little gentleness and understanding. Don’t we all?

And as long as I’m laying it all out there… two other things weighing on me are:
1. Acutely feeling the loss of having my husband around after a month of his not working. After two years of his working second shift, and our tag-team parenting, this month of togetherness has sort of ruined me for our “normal” and I anticipate a little depression in relation to that detail.
2. Feeling out of touch with my friends – my sounding boards and often my sanity – this is very normal for this time of year, as each winter, after the holidays are over, I feel this way. The snow often comes and keeps everyone inside, and people are recovering from the holidays and school breaks, and we all take time to regroup and it often feels like forever until we can reconnect again. The timing of our trip magnified this feeling for me because I missed seeing friends in general along with a MOPS meeting (thanks to a school delay, I only missed one, I might be the only person in MOPS who was glad for it to be cancelled). But the good news is, I have some gatherings to look forward to – plus a Friday date with Sandy at my house! And I promise not to be a needy mental case when I see my friends, scouts honor.

And just so I don’t leave you with all gloom… a photo from our seeing Rod in Wollongong, I ran ahead to get a photo of the guys with the brood of children. I love the disapproving look on the woman’s face behind them – total photobomb. And would like to note that Rod’s children were bundled in heavy jumpers while my kids were complaining of being too hot in long-sleeved t-shirts. And, God bless Rod and Leann because they have three-and-a-half-year-old twins!