Resolution Check

Okay, here's the deal-e-o.  For some reason this go round is a lot tougher than last year.  Maybe my goals were extra attainable last year.  Maybe thinking resolutions through a little more got a little deeper for me than I thought they would.  Oh well, at this point these are the resolutions I set and I've got to make them work and make them a success.  I. WILL. SUCCEED.  if it kills me.

1. Make something and give it away once a month.  Cinnamon rolls.  A bunch.  For my friend's daughter that's going on a mission trip and is raising money.  If you have extra money you'd like to help out the most wonderful family I know, send me a message.  Seriously.

2. Learn to knit and/or crochet. Nope.
3. Work out 3 or 4 days a week. I will not fail at this.  Having said that, I have failed at this for almost 60 days.  March is a new month though.

4. Get our pictures into scrapbook/albums. I received a photo album as a gift.  Does that count?

5. Contact every immediate family member on their birthday. So far, yes.

6. Continue losing weight until I reach/go beyond my goal then maintain my goal for the remainder of the year. I took February off from counting WW points.  I know it's not the best strategy, but I just had to.  I got so sick of calculating fat, fiber, carbs, and protein I thought I was going to flit.  I'm back to counting and tomorrow will be my first day to weigh-in in a month.  We shall see how my decision affected my goal.  Honestly, I'm okay with a LITTLE BIT of a gain.

7. Enroll Faith in some kind of MDO. Faith is officially a MDO attendee.  More to come on that one.

8. Read more. I mean, I’m an adult and adults read, right? The Help was amazing!  I honestly would find myself continuing their story out in my mind in these elaborate scenarios weeks after I finished.  I'm reading Water for Elephants  right now and I'm just not sold yet.  Please comment any recommendations you might have.

9. Engage somehow (read Bible, journal, sing praise, etc.) with Christ on a daily basis. I've been working hard on doing this.  Trying to pray without ceasing- ya know, just trying to keep a conversation going during the day. Also, playing a lot on the guitar. 

10. Scout out and purchase some kickin’ furniture for our living room. A coffee table for $10 on Craigslist.  A rug named after my family!  Yippee!!!!

AND LASTLY, I am adding back an old resolution from 2010- drink more water than DDP.  I fell off the wagon. And it never tasted so good!!!

Retail Therapy Meets Destiny

We, all three of us, made it through our first day of Mother's Day Out.  I cried, Faith cried, and TJ DID NOT cry.  That is a shocker for anyone who really knows TJ.  He's a crybaby if I ever knew one.  (I will detail the first day later on sometime, it was not as crazy as I thought it would be.) 
After we left Faith I couldn't just go home and sit around and think about how she was doing.  We needed to get some screws for a dresser we were given so we set off for Lowe's.  We were walking around and both saw this rug we really liked.  I should've prefaced this with the fact that we don't agree on decorating at this house.  You saw the animals on the wall.  And TJ thinks you can just go to the store, buy something for each nook and cranny and decorate the house in a weekend.  I, on the other hand, think good things don't have to be new things necessarily and that when you wait around you find things you LOVE, not things that "will do."  At any rate, we both loved the rug at the same time.  We decided we were going to buy it and we deciding on the size of the rug we wanted since our living room is rather large and needs some sort of anchor to hold it together.  We didn't even realize that

the rug was named ARAGON!  Isn't that nifty?  When we saw it, we figured it was retail therapy meeitng destiny.  We grabbed it up, got a few more things, and were out the door. We finished our hours alone in Norman with a little thrifting that turned up NOTHING, and an amazing lunch at Coriander Cafe on Campus Corner.  Gosh, that place is good.  If someone could get me to eat daikon and jalapeno and love it, they must be amazing at what they do.

1 Resolution Down! 1000 Tears To Go!

Faith is officially enrolled in MDO.  She starts a week from tomorrow.  And I know it was one of my resolutions.  I know she needs to have more friends than her grandparents and a dog.  I know, I know. 

I also know I have cried everyday since we enrolled her.  I'm just having a really hard time with it.  It's like the end of an era, the beginning of a new unknown era.  (Like when she moved to her new bed.) A few (million) questions are running through my head:
1. What do you pack in a lunch for a 2-year-old?
2. What if they can't understand what she is saying?
3. What if she gets put in timeout?  She doesn't even know what timeout is.
4. What if she just cries the whole time and no one consoles her?
5. What about nap?  They take nap there after lunch and she doesn't even lay down for nap until 2:00.
6. Who are these people anyway?
7. What are there professional backgrounds?
8. Its inevitable that she's going to have an adjustment period, but what if all the friendships are established and she doesn't have a friend?
9. Who is going to know what she's talking bout when she asks for her cozy?
10.  What if she just HATES it?

I can't help but just BAWL about it.  These are the times when I wish our church was more traditional.  That she had a Sunday School class and a teacher and gazillion little friends she's known since birth.  These are also the times I feel like crap for choosing to work.  I can only take her the first time she goes (I am taking off) then after that she's being dropped off by TJ and my mom.  I won't even get to know the teachers at all.  I'll be like the mom that just sends snack and no one even really knows what she looks like.  I don't want to be that mom.

We've been trying to let Faith know she's going to get to go to school soon and all she does is say "I don't wanna go gool."  KILL. ME.  Seriously, you might at well just shoot me through the heart.  I'm going to try to muster everything I know about early child development that morning.  Let her know what's going to happen.  Walk in.  Establish routine.  Give kisses.  And leave. LEAVE.  Leave my baby with a complete and total stranger.  Not hang around and make it worse for her.  Not hang around to make me feel better about the whole situation.  Do what's best for Sis.  Because I'm definitely not doing this for me.  (If it was what I WANTED we would both be in our PJs every day together singing showtunes and eating s'mores.) It's for her social development.  Her communicative development.  Her cognitive development.    And her autonomy.  But I know when I get there I'm going to feel the burning in my nose.  The stinging in my eyes.  And I'm going to want to throw every theory of education I cling to out the window and hold my baby.  But I can't. 
Pray for me a week from tomorrow.  I just might die right outside the MDO.  If I do, prop me up beside the big toy. 

Somewhere Between Roadkill and Anthro

I would say that my style has been lost in the day to day of my life.  Point and case- my mantle.  I had this super cute idea for a jumbled up anthroplogie, shabby chic-y mantle and I threw all my ideas up on the mantle.  I was going to leave them up there for a day, then mess around with the ideas that came to me.  But then people that have much better taste than me kept coming over telling me that it looked so cute.  Score.  I left it and I really like it.  But there is one. little. problem.  I'll just let you take a look and see if you can find it.

Yep.  You're quick.  You got it.  It's the deer head.  How in the name of all that is holy am I supposed to fit that into my style?  Especially when my style is already hanging on a thread, people.  And I bet I can hear you now.  Amanda, it's just a deer head.  Oh, dear friends.  If only that were the case. Take a gander at the adjacent wall.

And the play room. 

And the freezer in the garage that has TWO dead ducks in it, feathers and all, waiting to be stuffed and displayed somewhere in my house.

So you see my dilemna.  They're everywhere, people.  EVERYWHERE!!!  And I try, Lord knows I try, to incorporate them, but it's near impossible.  The minute you hang one you go from Pottery Barn to actual barn.  I'm debating on just doing it, scrapping my whole entire plan for the living room. I'll just get a Cabela's catalog and order all the camoflauge furniture they have and call it a day.  Not really, of course.  But if just one of you will come to my house and decorate it in a style I love and include the stuffed animals, I will pay you money.  Real money. 

And just so you know I'm not knocking the country life.  Really, I'm not.  I understand it, embrace it, even.  I love eating food that has never, ever been frozen.  And in some ways I feel bad for people that believe grocery stores offer "fresh meat."  But why, oh why, must we hang the dead animals on our walls? 

Oh, and feel free to comment about anything in this post.  Come on, you know you wanna...

RESOLUTION CHECK 2011

Well folks, here it is.  My first resolution check of 2011.  You can see I slipped up a little on the first month, but I have 11 more to go so I'm not worried one little bit.

1. Make something and give it away once a month.   I finished up some Christmas presents in early January and made some amazing (thank you Neely family) banana nut bread for the fire station.   For February I'm going to try to make something for someone other than the fire station.  That's too easy of an out- they like anything food related.  And since the whole point was to not be so self absorbed and think of others, taking the easy way out bugs me.


2. Learn to knit and/or crochet.  Hmm.. I didn't do this one at all.  Maybe if I made several items throughout the warmer months, I could prepare for the winter months. 

3. Work out 3 or 4 days a week. I started C25K and promptly quite a week in.  I suck at this.

4. Get our pictures into scrapbook/albums. Nope.

5. Contact every immediate family member on their birthday. Yes, but January was just TJ.

6. Continue losing weight until I reach/go beyond my goal then maintain my goal for the remainder of the year. I hit a MAJOR goal of mine.  Reunited (with a certain #) and it feels so good.

7. Enroll Faith in some kind of MDO. She's on the waiting list.  And we're putting her in gymnastics in the mean time so she can learn to take direction from other adults, play with kiddos, and get some different kinds of exercise in.

8. Read more. I mean, I’m an adult and adults read, right? Read The Hunger Games trio and LOVED them all!  I'm working on a book for a bible study I'm going to be a part of.

9. Engage somehow (read Bible, journal, sing praise, etc.) with Christ on a daily basis. There's really no way to gauge this, to see how well I'm really doing.  I'm trying though.  And I believe God honors that.

10. Scout out and purchase some kickin’ furniture for our living room. My couponing endeavors are supposed to be yielding the money for furniture and they are, but I'm wondering about this one.  Maybe I shouldn't worry about furniture so much.  Maybe I should spend the money on more important things.  Or maybe I should just give myself a little leeway and go shopping around for something things I love.  I'm not sure. 

Okay, that's the run down.  Not particularly exciting, but a good way for me to document my journey.

Too old...

TJ and I went up to Tulsa this past weekend for the Eric Church and Jason Aldean concert.  We knew we might be too old for the crowd when:

- I wore sensible boots instead of stilettos.
- I wasn't updating my FB status with every song Eric Church or Jason Aldean sang.
- No one in my group was drunk.
- There were times when I wanted to take the young girl in front of us and counsel her like a youth at church camp.
- I passed up the mixed drink line because it was too long and too overcome with cackling girls.
- I swear I saw the dad, but not the old dad, from Pawn Stars.
- My husband threatened to kill the DJ with his 308 because he kept putting beats over Johnny Cash songs between bands.
- I didn't take my own beer to the bar like 2/3 of the patrons.
- At one point, I sat down.
- When we left the concert we had no idea where the "cool place" to go was. 
- My husband went down to the lobby and came back to report "it looked like Sodom down there."

We had a great time, really.  Eric Church was a blast to watch, so hott in his glasses and hat, and is super country like us.  Jason Aldean is a crowd pleaser perfect for a Okie crowd and sang Bryan Adams and Bon Jovi and killed it.  The opening act- a duo called the Janedear Girls- well, they were an opening act.  And left me wishing my girlfriends and I were a size 2 because we could have AT LEAST done as good as they did.  I'm just sayin'.