Well Hello, 2012

So my winter break was last week, and I really could have used that time off to update here a little more, but it flew by. So here I am with my 'resolutions' for 2012.

First and foremost I hope 2012 brings the birth of a healthy, happy baby. Everything else takes a backseat to this. I have seen too many struggles with pregnancy/ birth complications and sickness to not be worried about my own little one.

I also want to get back into attending church regularly. We have a great church community, and I want our child to grow up with a strong faith. Unfortunately the location is not entirely convenient and Adam's side work keeps him pretty busy. I volunteered in the children's ministry last year but with starting a new grade level/learning a new curriculum, and becoming pregnant I didn't feel the same level of commitment. I'm really hoping to renew my own faith and (at least) listen to the sermons online weekly.

Being pregnant has made me lazy tired. It has been way too easy to go out and pick up dinner or order food in. I plan to cook at home at least 4 nights a week (We go for dinner with my parents every Monday, weekends, when Adam is busy or away, can be used for left overs or a special/cheap dinner). We used to meal plan, but then we wouldn't follow the plan. So instead I went through a few cookbooks and just pulled out some recipes that sounded good. I chose three for this week and can be flexible with the day I cook them. It seems to be a much better solution for us.

Along with the other baby resolutions, I really want to control my spending. Adam and I have been tracking our expenses in a google docs spreadsheet since November and I can clearly see where I am spending my money (aka swiping my credit card). Not good. We need to save money for babyStybs and Target appears way too many times on the sheet. We have talked about only using cash for our spending, but we haven't tried that yet.

And finally, I plan to keep the house (mostly) cleaned. I know once the baby comes this resolution may be over and done with pretty quickly, but for the next three months at least I can keep my school stuff/mail/ dishes/ clothes picked up and organized. This one is going to be hard, it's just so easy to ignore all the stuff around here, but I did successfully organize the coat closet.

I hope your New Year has started off on the right foot.

Busy Bee

So some of my students officially started today, and it actually went well for a first day. Last week I went on home visits to meet the students and their parents. There are 20 students in my class, 1 is still in Guatemala and isn't coming back until the 20th, 1 had babysitter issues and we didn't even know if she would still be enrolled until Friday afternoon, and she missed the bus today, 1 has Deaf parents and is having a hard time following rules and directions (like 'sit down like everyone else'), 1 has spina bifida- he has braces on his legs and needs his catheter changed every 3 hrs, and 1 came today but is being transferred to another school. This year should be interesting.

Needles to say I have been busy these past 2 weeks. Which is why I haven't gone to the gym and have gained back 1 lb... sad...

But to make my busy schedule even busier- I have signed up to help in the children's ministry every other week, starting on Sunday, and my grad classes have started back up this week. BTW I have the same professor as last class and she used their instead of there today... should I send her a message or would that be wrong?

Any way, just a little update on my busy life. Oh how I miss Summer Vacation!

Just Another Manic Monday

Lots of things going on.

Adam and I went shopping Saturday and picked up some pillows for our couches upstairs. We found great gold-is brown ones on clearance for $10 at Bed Bath & Beyond. Then at Target (where we could look at colors next to the slipcover) we picked up a few blue (gasp!) options.

After another great service at church yesterday, the youth pastor spoke and asked for volunteers for youth ministry (working with the children during the service) which is something I had been thinking about for a long time. So I filled out the information card and will hopefully get involved with the infants/toddlers/preschoolers.

I got up today at my normal (school year) time 5:45 with really no problems. I made my coffee, weighed myself on the WiiFit, had breakfast, and went to the gym. I left for the gym at 7 which is when I would normally leave for work, so I'm not sure I'll be able to go to the gym in the morning before work. I'd have to get up earlier, and only have time for 30 minutes instead of the 45-60 I've been doing for the past 2 weeks. So I'm going to see what it's like in the afternoon some day this week, and see if that is the option I go with.

It has been 1 week since joining MFP and tracking my food and exercise. I am happy to say that I have lost 1.8lbs! I have been slacking on drinking a lot of water, ate dinner out Fri, Sat, and Sun, and I'm sure about a half pound lost was due to cutting my hair. But all in all, pretty good progress.

I went into my classroom this morning. The hall and room had been waxed so I was free to start moving stuff around, but I wasn't really ready for what I walked into. The room was a disaster. The welcome/ sign in paper had been scribbled on (I don't know how that happened in 1 month of summer school when it lasted 10 months while I was teaching...) and the furniture was everywhere. I was there for an hour, and the only things I got done were setting up the computers, placing the housekeeping furniture in its new location, and unrolling the rug... out of which crawled out a HUGE cockroach! Ugh! It was gross. Cockroaches are always an issue in our school, but I didn't expect that.

I guess that's the update of my life. I'll put up pictures (which would have made this post easier to read) of the living room/ pillows and my classroom later.

It's been over a year since...

It seems like it has been more than a year since I have done a lot of things. First it was going to the gym, Tuesday it will be getting a haircut, today it was going to church. When Adam first moved down here from PA I wanted to find a church we could both attend, with the hope that we would find a place to go regularly as well as find someone to marry us. The first church we tried, Cedar Ridge, felt right. It is a multi-denominational church that accepts everyone no matter what situation you are in or what religious background you come from. We really like the experience and began attending regularly and joining a discipleship group. We also love the senior pastor, Matthew, who ended up officiating our wedding ceremony. For some reason or another, Adam and I took a break from the discipleship group (everyone in the group went on to join new groups) and then we were so busy almost every weekend that we just stopped going...

For a while now something felt like it was missing and I have really had a desire to go back to CRCC. It was a bunch of mixed emotions, though, as I didn't know how it would be going back after over a year. Would there still be the same people greeting and sitting in the same area? Would we see people from our old discipleship group?

So we went today, not at 9 like before but instead at the 11am service. Those we saw who we remembered did recognize us and seemed genuinely happy that we are back. It was a good feeling. On top of that the service today was very meaningful too. It came from Ephesians and was about living in the light or the way of God. Matthew broke it down into basically a list of things to 'watch out for' and think about, and ways to live for God. It just seemed to fit that this message was given on the day we decide to return and I looking forward to feeling whole again in the coming weeks.