2012 Resolution Reflection

I stayed home today from church with sick kids, and was able to watch the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's broadcast on New Year's resolutions. It reminded me of the goals that I made last January. I think it's time to analyze how I did.

• Simplify my waistline. Completed this, not in June like I wanted, but in September. Good enough.
• Simplify my Saturdays. Didn't do well here. In fact, I think I made them more complicated by adding Kaylie's dance class Saturday mornings. With Nate also taking two classes per term for his master's degree, I haven't spent my time the best during the weekdays or weekend. Definitely have some more work to do here.
• Simplify my husband's waistline. Tough one. Some weeks were great, and others were awful. I did implement a new menu/shopping list guide. When I use it, dinners were great...which means that lunches were available for Nate to take to work.
• Simplify my school work. Check! Totally got is one. I implemented what I call "individual time" in each of my classes. Students must work completely independently for ten minutes--that includes NOT asking the teacher questions. I am able to record and enter that period's grades during the ten minutes. So the only papers I bring home are tests. (This has also been good for my students because they learn how to answer their own questions by checking their notes, book, or just waiting until the end of individual time and coming to me with an "educated" question.)
• Simplify my memory. Here's another goal I did well on. Kaylie's book for her first year is done, and I purchased a new book and some fun software for her next one. I got Carter's book and some software purchased and pages completed through 2 months. As for Nate and I, according to our book, we've almost had our first Christmas together in 2007.

So, you and I both can see that I made progress this year.  Not perfect (but then only one Man ever was), but not bad.  Look for a post later in the week for this year's goals.

Frustration

So, I'm trying to finish up scrapbooking the year 2007 and I only have 1 picture from that Christmas!  Really?  It's kind of sad and pathetic.  I mean, it was our first year married and we didn't document it.  Silly us.

So...did anyone happen to take pictures with us that year (2007)?

Already posted this on Facebook, but felt like I should post it again.

I like what Dave Ramsey said on Monday about the election. "The only person I would completely agree with is myself--and I'm not running. And if I did, none of you would like what I believe ought to be done with the country." (Jokingly, he also said that that the only perfect person was NOT running.)

He also said that allowing yourself to believe that ONE person can completely change a country for good or bad is raising that person up to godhood. Not a good thing to do to a man.

I know that some of you are happy about yesterday's results. Others of you are devastated. But either way--get over it. The sun still came up this morning. Life is still occurring. And, unfortunately, the mean-spirited political brew-ha-ha will be back in a couple of years...if not months.

Tired and Cold

I don't like how the temperature has decided to change.  I think I might have to adjust our thermostat.  I love the colors from Autumn, the cooler temperatures, and the start of school.  But I'm not a fan of the snow that can come, the shorter days, or the fact that I don't have enough sweaters.

Luckily, I can fix that last one.  :)

Love you, Grandma June

I needed to get some closure this evening after I heard the news that my grandmother passed away.  So, even with as much as I've complained about making videos for school, here's a little video that I made about my Grandma June.  It's not much, and I wish I had more than just the last five years--but I made due with what I had.

I love "Kid 2 Kid"

So, realizing that I was running short on sewing time, I stopped by Kid 2 Kid tonight looking for pieces that would work for Carter's costume. Success! I found the jacket and pants. Then stopped by Ross, Kohl's, and even Halloween City. Nothing. So, the costume is started and manageable. I'll try the DI tomorrow to see if I can finish up.

So, why is it that I feel the need to personally sew Kaylie's costume, but am totally fine with buying Carter's? I don't have an answer. Hmmmm....

A Nice Weekend

I missed posting yesterday. Oops. My excuse is that I ran out of time with finishing painting the woodwork in the living room, and getting the house clean, and having our neighbors over to watch "Young Frankenstein" and drink Baked Hot Chocolate. But, as I wrote last week, that's just an excuse. So, I'm sorry to the large blog-sphere if you were devastated by my lack of posting.

It has been a nice weekend. I did NOT accomplish everything on my to-do list, but I got the important things done. And I spent a lot of time with my family. And that's what matters most.

So, tomorrow it's back to work. I should be having an official evaluation done sometime this week, as well as one unofficial observation. I'm not worried about either, but it's always a change to the normal routine. The kids are never quite sure how to act. (That's one of the reasons to INCREASE the number of observations each year. The faculty isn't ready for that yet.) So, wish me luck. And I hope you have a pleasant week, too.

Costume

Progress was made on Kaylie's costume. Unfortunately, I think I'm getting a cold. After buying a zipper for her dress, I just wanted to lay on the couch and sleep.

Okay, the truth was that I wanted to watch the end of season one of "24". I was able to sew while listening to "South Pacific" (with Reba MacEntire, Alec Baldwin, and Brian Stokes Mitchell--lovely show, by the way, totally need to buy the soundtrack). But I just couldn't focus on sewing straight lines while trying to listen to "24".

While I'm on the note of musicals, I think that "South Pacific" might be getting close to the top of one of my favorites. I was reminded of how much I liked it last year when the local high school performed it. Brought back lots of memories from watching it in high school way back when. But today, while ironing the last scene was on. Nellie and the kids were singing, and then the kids stop, and Emilie sings, and she turns...and I started balling. They just don't write good stuff like that anymore!

That's a lot of wood

So, my goal today was to prime and paint all of the woodwork in our living room and hallways. That way we could finally put our house back together. (We painted everything over the Labor Day weekend.)

Well, it took 2 hours to tape everything and then another 3 hours to prime. Luckily, primer dries quickly. But not before the family got home.

On another note, one of our windows cracked during the night. While at Home Depot ordering a new window, Carter kept himself entertained (and many other customers) by pushing around a large orange bucket and walking behind it. Kaylie joined in the fun, and I reached for my camera. Unfortunately, I left it at home. However, I'm thinking I could save lovts of money on Christmas by just purchasing some paint buckets. :)

If You Knew What I Was Thinking...

Yay!  Day 2, I'm on a roll.  Or at least a chair.

I often have wished that I had a way to upload all of the random thoughts that I have in a day.  I'm sure that they'd be interesting to other people.  Sometimes my inner monologue even gets me to laugh out loud.  And apparently, I'm not alone in interesting inner monologues.  The following conversation really did happen last night.  (Well, not quite word-for-word.)

Jen:  (Driving home)  What are you thinking about?
Nate:  I don't think the police would like it if I had a installed a giant with a sword on top of the car.  But it would make it easier to move cars out of the way.
Jen: (opens mouth and tries to think of something to say)
Nate:  What?  You asked.

Silly, I know.  But it's not far from what I often think.  I love my husband.

Well, it's UEA and I don't have school.  Hurray!  I created my list of things that I want to do during this break, things that are important to do during the break, and things that should get done just because it's the weekend.  We'll see how much actually occurs.

Blogging

I recently watched the movie Julie/Julia for the umpteenth time, and thought "I should blog more."  Then today I wasted time looking at what other math teachers around the country blog about, and again I thought "I should blog more."  I already spend a lot of time thinking about math, and teaching, and my students, and the teachers at my school, and education, and the changes occurring in the district, and politics about education, and the common core, and ....

So why don't I blog more?  Well, the easy excuse is that I'm too busy doing all the above plus being a mom, and wife, and primary teacher, and piano teacher, and choir pianist, and....  And then I want to sew Halloween costumes, and finish painting the living room, and clean the refrigerator, and organize the craft room, and finish scrap-booking, and...

But in the end, those are just excuses--good ones--but excuses no the less.  I recently listened to a podcast on time management (while trying to multi-task...go figure), and the speaker mentioned that he always reserved the last 5-15 minutes of his work day to reflect on the day and organize things for the next day.  That way he could go home and say "this is what I did today" rather than "I was busy all day, but I don't know that I accomplished anything."  I already do something similar at work, but what if I used blogging to help decompress what I do at home?  I often wonder what I do once I get home from work.  I mean, I cook dinner, play with the kids, try to pick up the house, and spend time with my husband.  But one day often melts into another and I can't really say what made this day unique, special, or fulfilling.

I like this.  Even writing the couple of paragraphs that I have makes me realize how much I miss LiveJournal and how lacking Facebook is.  (Though it is cool that 1 BILLION people now have a Facebook account.  My husband has two.)  I miss being able to just write and think and vent and ramble.  Lots of rambling going on--and not very grammatically correct.  Oh well.  I guess this is what people once used journals and diaries for.  But I've never been good at that.  Writing in pen/pencil is too slow and I think always felt permanent.  Where as I can edit my typing quickly and delete what I don't link.  (This, of course, is ignoring the fact that nothing published online is ever private again.)

So, rather than just rambling, although rambling is fun, HERE'S my action plan.

*A*C*T*I*O*N* *P*L*A*N*  (The stars make it look cooler, right?)
After the kids have gone to bed, and Nate is working on school work, I will decompress on Blogger each night.  My goal is to accomplish this for ONE WEEK!  After a week, I'll reevaluate and decide if it's worth the effort.  I'll probably need some reinforcement, so comments, texts, phone calls, or even live interaction would all be appreciated.

Here we go!

Edited to Add:  After spending 30 minutes writing this post, I accidentally deleted it.  The action plan was almost already stumped before it began.  Luckily, brilliant people have posted strategies on recovering post.  Thank you much, random internet genius!

Bad Week

So in the last seven days, three of my "mommy" fears have actually occured.

1.  Saturday, Kaylie choked in the car while I was driving.  Not a whole lot I could do until I was able to pull over.  Scary for both of us, but we're okay.
2. Sunday, Kaylie was trying to get a shirt out of her dresser.  Unfortunately, two other drawers were already opened and the dressed tipped over.  Again, scary for both of us.  She had a small nose bleed, but we're both okay.
3. Today, while on the way to doctor to check out Kaylie's long-standing cough, she threw up in the car...over everything.  I was, again, driving and could do nothing until I pulled over.  And, of course, I had taken out her extra set of clothes from the diaper bag yesterday.  Luckily I had an extra sweater on, so she could wear something into the doctors office.

No one said that being a mom would have scary moments in it.

Simplifying - Week One

First week progress.
 -Exercised once on purpose, walked extra
 -House kind-of clean by Saturday
 -Dinner cooked every night but two :)  (Healthy choices made at one of two resturants)
 -School work kept up on!  :)
-In Nate & Jen's scrapbook, we've now been married for 3 whole days

Progress made - yay!  Lots to go.

Jen's New Year's Goals

It's that time again.  I think that I'd like to maintain most of my goals from the past couple of years and only add on a couple.

• Simplify my waistline.  Reach my target weight by June.
• Simplify my Saturdays.  Pick up one room each day.
• Simplify my husband's waistline.  (Cook dinner each night, so he doesn't have to buy lunch the following day.)
• Simplify my school work.  Grade one period per day.

And the new one.

• Simplify my memory.  Scrapbook each Sunday afternoon.  Complete Kaylie's First Year Book, create Carter's First Year Book, update 2nd-5th year book, start Nate & Jen's Years 1-5 book.