Quick Take #20

Number 20: Saturday (late for the game)

1. I had been thinking about posting a few times this week...
Guess that didn't happen. I was hoping that this blog would not turn into just Quick Takes, but that's where I've been headed. There's always hope, right? Right??

2. On Sunday I cooked for the first time in...a while.
I made lentil soup and some beer bread. Both were delicious. Actually, I planned on blogging about both recipes, sharing them, WITH PICTURES, but of course, that didn't happen. I have picture of the bread, but not the soup...and yes, we ate an entire (small) loaf of bread in an evening. It was that good. And so, so easy! Like, can make in less than an hour, start to pull-out-of-the-oven easy! Also, you can use non-alcoholic beer, since that's all we have in the house.

3. It's so dreary out today. 
What a great day to take down the Christmas decorations, huh? LOL Chris is still sleeping--he didn't sleep well last night, and then coyotes woke him up after midnight, so my poor husband was up til 3 am. This day just promotes itself to sleeping. I was in bed around 11:30 and woke up on my own around 7, but lazed around until 10. It's just that kind of day. The stay-in-your-PJs-do-whatever-you-want kind of day. Our plans are to take down the decorations and the tree (it's fake), make something for dinner (I'm thinking stuffed peppers), and watch Man of Steel which is overdue at the library, hahaha, whoops. Good thing my account is coded as "no fines." And I'm working tomorrow afternoon for a few hours, so it'll be returned.

4. Last week I wrote about being a full time student in a few weeks.
HAHAHAHA NO. Try "full time student starting on Monday." AHHHH! I'm taking three classes, which is full time. I'll be studying Reference, Cataloging, and Library Management. I'm excited because these are all required for the degree AND they are the real meat and bones type of classes. I'm especially excited about Library Management, because that is how I will learn to take over the world. Muahahaha.

Or so I think.

There are six core courses that are required, and then you can take six elective courses. I've taken 2 core courses already and am finishing up my second elective. Wow, I'm 1/3 of my way done with school as of tomorrow. After this semester, I'll be more than halfway done. 7/12 done, to be precise!

5. I know, I need to add pictures to these QTs to make them somewhat interesting.
I know, my wit and amazing prose just isn't enough ;-) I'm trying to find pictures, but I don't know if you would get why I think they are funny. I don't use my phone's camera enough and I'm not one to document EVERY.SINGLE.THING. that happens to me.

Here's one that could do with #4, and oh heyyyy, it's not just a PIC, it's a GIF!

I don't know if I'm THIS excited about school, but I can try...

6. It is OK to say no. 
Chris said no this week. He had applied for a job at an organization, was emailed about an interview, then accepted, but the more he thought about it, it just didn't sit right with him. Something about the place, the method of contact, the impersonal nature of everything did not make him excited about the position nor the interview. He cancelled the interview. It just felt right--to him, and to me. Some might say that is foolish, but just because he needs a job does not mean he has to waste his time and energy on something he doesn't feel strongly about in the first place.

7. Two updates of sorts:
A. Regarding the snow and the neighbor from last week: haven't seen him, didn't go over. Yay. :)

B. My thoughts on motherhood...well, I started something and wrote two long paragraphs and then I decided that it might be better for a separate entry. It's about why I don't beat myself up for waiting a long time anymore (or at least most of the time). I will say this: I just did not have the capacity to even begin to THINK about discerning the call. Yes, we're all called, as married people, but my circumstances are a bit different, especially as we started out our marriage on a different road than we're on now. The best analogy I can think of would be knowing you need to make a phone call to someone, you have their phone number, you know how to make a call, but you don't have a phone or don't know how to get to one. For whatever reason, no phones are available right now. I don't know if that even made sense.

Our minds can get very, very clogged by all sorts of STUFF, and even the best coping strategies, the best therapists, the most loving husbands and families, all the prayers, etc. still can't fix everything. Sometimes, life just has to happen in its own way, to make room for other things.

Now if that sounds kind of vague, stay tuned. I promise to write more about this. I still don't know what I'm trying to say, so it'll be a ramble of sorts, maybe?


Have a great weekend, and don't forget to visit Jen over at Conversion Diary for more Quick Takes! 

Quick Take #19

Number 19: The Happy New Year and 
"I should be doing school work but blogging after a two-month hiatus sounds so much better" Edition

1. I'll say it again, Happy New Year!
What a better way to start the new year, and the first Friday of said new year by blogging and hooking up with Jen's Quick Takes. I'm going to give her a shout up up here instead of at the very bottom: thank you for doing this and don't forget to visit her over at Conversion Diary for more Quick Takes!

Chris and I aren't really New Year's people--not being big drinkers/partiers is probably part of that reason--but this New Year's Eve we went to Trista and Bryan's house for a little party! It was good to get our lazy butts out of the rut of sitting around at home and go out and be social. Winter and cold weather has that effect on many people, and we are not safe from that peril.

2.  If you are observant, you might have noticed something in my title: school. 
Yes, I got in! Not to be an ass, but I knew I'd get in. It's not a very hard school and I'm a good student, soooo...I just needed the official confirmation. Over the past two weeks, I've been busy with a three-week intercession class. Ha. It's about multimedia in the library and interfaces and techie things like that. It's actually been very interesting, even for someone like me who doesn't consider herself very techie.

3. I don't do resolutions, do you? 
I don't even know if I'm going to do big goals like I've done in the past. Life is always changing, and sometimes it changes in ways that we don't want it to, so we must adjust our goals accordingly. Over the past few years, my goals have been undermined by events out of my control, so I'm finally accepting that I really can't plan too much anymore. Not to talk out of both sides of my mouth, but I really only have three things I'd like to accomplish this year:

1. Finish school (I actually MUST finish this year, since I started my MLS so long ago and the school limits you on how long you can take to complete a degree)
2. Get to my goal weight (or very close to it), so that I can...
3. Get pregnant (I could get a positive test on December 31, 2014 for all I care, ha, but earlier would be good, too)

And a not-so-small family goal: for Chris to find a job. Please keep us in your prayers!

4. Back to the goal weight...
Someone gained about 10 pounds between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Oops. I know people talk about how they gain weight over the holidays, but I've never done this before, at least not to my knowledge. This was pretty bad, especially in just three weeks, but I'm trying not to beat up myself too much. I haven't been going to the gym or working out as much as I used to, no thanks to school and cold weather, so I know what I need to do. Also, I had WAAAYYYYYYYY too much fun with ALL THE JUNK, instead of limiting myself. So I'm sure that some of the weight will magically disappear now that there isn't any junk in the house and I'm eating less just because there is less around. Amazing how that all works, huh? When I get back to my Thanksgiving weight, I have about 20 to 30 pounds left to go until I get to my goal weight.

5. Goal weight != TTC
Just in case you think that as soon as the scale hits the right number that we'll be officially TTC. Not so, friends, but that would be nice. Chris needs to be working. I wish that life were "easy" for us, the way it is for many of you out there, that our family planning decisions can be as simple as looking at a chart and deciding to go for it or not. I do get a little envious of those couples who've been married not long who can just "go with it" or even couples who have been married longer that we have and have many, many children (hello family at our church who just had baby #8). There are people who I really admire who can just accept what they are given, no matter if their husband has a job or if they have health issues. I keep trying to tell myself that God does have a reason for all of this, that there is a lesson to be learned for having to wait so long. Maybe we needed to grow up more, maybe we needed to figure some (a lot??) of things out about ourselves and each other. It's not as simple as saying "we've been trying, just haven't been successful." Not that I think infertility is simple--not at all, especially as someone who could be given that label. I think that it's more acceptable in some circles to have an actual medical impediment to pregnancy versus things that are subjective and dependent on circumstance and tolerance of risk. I'm sure people have had their thoughts about us, have judged us, but we don't walk around with signs that say "we don't have kids because we've had to deal with multiple job losses, job insecurity, health issues, not to mention a few other things." In some ways, maybe life would be easier if we all could do that? Wear those signs, I mean. I just hope that we didn't wait too long and that God didn't think we could handle it sooner and we were ignoring Him, so now we'll be punished. I haven't felt the call to motherhood before, like I have over the past year or so, so maybe God wasn't talking to me about that issue until then.

 

6. I'm going to be a full time student starting in a few weeks.
I've realized that I have this problem of procrastinating with school work, or the reverse: I put school ahead of almost everything else and let those things slide. This is not a good balance, and I wasn't like this back when I was "only" a student. Being a wife, an employee, a homeowner, a cat wrangler, (a human?) are all hard to juggle when you're in school. I think part of the problem is that so many of the classes are being offered solely online, so I don't have to make sure that the reading is done by Tuesday because it's not like I have to participate in a class at a set time and date, I just have to post by the end of each week. Yes, I've tried giving myself deadlines... Maybe now when I have more than one class at a time, it'll be easier to get everything done because there is more to actually do.

7. Spouses and neighbors and snow, oh my!
Last night/this morning, we had a snowstorm, as you may have seen on the news. I didn't have to work today, and we didn't get too much snow (not as much as had been forecasted), but we didn't have to worry about shoveling or snow-blowing the driveway. While we were sleeping, one of our neighbors plowed our driveway (and everyone else on our street), so we thought that all we'd have to do is go clean up the end of the driveway since the town loves to put a bunch of snow right where our driveway meets the road. Our driveway is not very long and we both have good hearing, but we missed whoever came later to clean up where the town messed up. All we ended up having to do is shovel our front porch, back deck, in front of our garage doors, firewood piles, and the walkways around the house. We don't know who did it, Chris thinks it was our across-the-street neighbor, L. And now he wants me to go say thank you to L. I HATE DOING THAT. I am shy when it comes to people I don't know very well, like our neighbors. I HAAAAATE it. I feel so uncomfortable. Of course, Chris thinks it is no big deal and that I need to "suck it up" and "stop being a snob" or that I'm ungrateful. It's NOT that. I am grateful, very much so. It's not just Chris who thinks I'm weird about this--my family (parents, aunts) does too. I can't explain why I feel like this about my neighbors; I'm just very intimidated/uncomfortable around them. Forcing me to go over there isn't going to help matters. In some ways, I am very much an introvert. If I ran into him on the street, no problem, I'd say "Hey, L, did you plow us out??? Thanks so much for doing that!" But to go OVER to the HOUSE??? No. thank. you.