Googly eyes

Today I made the 45-minutes trek out to Honey Grove, to hang out with my friends Renee and Jenny. It was so great to just chill, chat, and chang out (haha, hang out). I miss this girl time, so we're going to make it a recurring event. All three of us love photography, so we played around with our cameras a bit. Somehow I became the subject of Renee photography, so that'll be great to have some good pictures of myself. (she's still editing them, as we speak).

She's awesome. Jenny also gave me an upgraded version of photoshop, so I had fun playing around with a photo of Renee. I promised not to post it though, so I'll have to do photoshop some other ones to post. This new version has so many features that my old (at least 9 year old) photoshop program didn't have. Like the googly eye feature! Haha. poor cat

Social interactions

It's been so long since I have been to church in our own ward, that I felt a little like a stranger there. There were some new faces, and even the "old" faces seemed somewhat foreign to me. It's my calling right now to conduct the music in sacrament meeting. That gives me the chance to scope out who's all there (and who's not). Many times I'm not able to see, or chat with a lot of people, because everyone just runs off to class (which is good), and are anxious to head back home afterwards. In Holland people often stay for at least 30-45 minutes after church is over. Back in Boise, I spent a lot of time with people from church during playgroups, activities, and just hanging out. Not so much in this ward. Of course distance has a lot to do with it too. For example, I would do a lot more with my friend Renee, if she didn't live 45 minutes away. Since we are kind of on one side of the ward boundaries, I miss out on a lot of social gatherings happening in Bonham and Honey Grove. It's okay though, at least I have plenty of time at home for cleaning, reading, exercising, and internetting (is that a word?) So I'm excited about tomorrow's plan to get together with Renee and Jenny Parten, for a little photography session. Both of them also enjoy photography, so we can share tips and tricks with each other.

Shiny windows

So far, so good. The past 3 days have been hard, but successful. I've stuck to my workout, and eating schedule. And I stuck mostly to my reading and cleaning schedule. My house sure looks a lot better than it did when I got home on Sunday (no offense, Joe). I have made it a point to include deep cleaning such as blinds, windows, and dusting (yeah, that's deep cleaning for me), whenever I clean a room. So far I've been able to tackle about 1 room per day. I still have a hard time with the crucial moments, especially putting on exercise clothes in the morning. But once I have them on, I will exercise. I usually start grumpily, looking at the clock every 2 mintues, but usually I get into it pretty well.

Today I had been kind of unproductive/lazy, and I was feeling bored/cabin fever after dinner. So I asked Joe what would be a good 2-hour project we could do. We have so many projects around here, it's not even funny. All the home-improvement stuff takes longer than 2 hours, so he settled on trimming the bushes. Our house has boxwood bushes all the way around the house. Not my favorite kind of shrub, but I'm not about to rip out perfectly fine landscaping either. Since trimming the bushes really is a one-person job, I settled on washing outside windows. The weather was pleasant, even with a breeze.

I am not a fan of washing windows. Of course you would know that, if you had ever visited my house, and witnessed all the cobwebs. It really was disgusting though, and I'm glad I got ..... drumroll please.... 5 whole windows done (yeah, it took 2 hours!). So, that means I "only" have 15 more to go. Argghh. Stupid spiders! (and wasps, and dirt) I did decide that washing outside windows is easier than from the inside. You can use a ton of water, spray guns, and soapy water. The windows that are clean from the outside, now have more spiderwebs on the inside than out. Natural light is great in a home, but they sure have their drawbacks. You know, high electricity bill, glare, and Work.

Crucial Moments

Turns out that while I might take a vacation, the dust, spiders, dirt, and grime don't. I really want to get back on top of things, so I followed the advice of one of my education week teachers, and made a schedule. See, if you first plan the important things, you'll still have time left over for the little un-important things. He gave the analogy of have a bucket, some big stones, and a whole bunch of sand. If you put the sand in the bucket first, there won't be enough space for all of the stones. However, if you place the stones in the bucket first, the sand will fill in all around the stones, and it will all fit.

The past few months I have struggled to get my important stones in my bucket. I haven't hardly touched the harp. I haven't been reading with Ginger. My scriptures have been stored, neglected in a drawer. My workout videos have been wondering why I bought them, and my ab muscles forgot they were supposed to exist. All the windows are housing plenty of spiders (inside and out), dust has long since settled on the light fixtures, etc, etc.

My schedule has all those stones on it, as well as some extras. I made it a point to print it out, laminated it, and hang it on the fridge. That way, it stays in the front of my mind. I have even scheduled eating times in. Tiffani is on a plan where she eats small meals every 2-3 hours. Since we spent all of last week together, she got me on that plan too. At first, I never felt satisfied after any of the meals. My stomach was used to getting stuffed to the max about 3 times a day, instead of 80% filled 6 times a day. It took some adjusting, but it's gotten a lot easier already. I also clearly noticed my withdrawal symptoms when I cut back the amount of sugar I was eating. Don't get me wrong, put me with a bag of chocolate, and I'll still be tempted to eat the whole bag. However, while doing something else, I won't stop, and wish I was eating sweets.

Another thing I learned at education week, is that we all have a hard time changing behaviors because of our crucial moments. A crucial moment is the moment that defines whether or not you will succeed. For me, it's putting my workout clothes on as soon as the kids get on the bus. I don't put them on, and I probably won't exercise that day. I dont' exercise, and I will probably be less conscious of the food I eat. See, by just putting on those clothes, I set myself up for success. Oh, another crucial moment: 10.3o pm. That is my bedtime. If I don't get to bed on time, I'll be too tired to workout in the morning, etc.

New Teachers

It's hard to believe that Winter is starting her 3rd year at Leonard Elementary, and Sterling is a first grader. Somehow we were never informed of the kids' new teachers, so the kids didn't get to ride the bus. It was fun for me to take them in though, and meet their teachers. I was pleasantly surprised with Winter's 2nd grade class size; only 15 students. I didn't count Sterlings', but it seemed to be closer to 20.

Winter's 2nd grade teacher Ms Garner

Sterling's 1st grade teacher Ms Knight

Poor Ginger, with her October birthday, has to stay home for another 2 years. She'll probably go to a little preschool next year, but that's just not the same. No cool school bus. Only one or two days a week, and shorter days as well.
School brings a lot of freedom for me. I have much more time to get stuff done around the house, which I really need right now to catch up. I feel behind on my cleaning, gardening, pool care, and feel totally out of touch with my chicken family. Somehow I have to keep remember that it will take longer than 1 day to catch up, after a month of vacation.

Grown Woman

My parents also flew in on Thursday, for a quick visit. We spent all day yesterday at education week together, and after dessert, I went with them to stay at their friends', the Landwards, house. I snuggled with my little sister Emma, who is now a grown woman! Crazy! We haven't spent nearly enough time together over the past 11 years. Yep, it's been 11 years, since I moved to the United States. Again, crazy! My mom really loves the Parade of Homes, so we spent this afternoon looking at some fun houses. We saw a bunch of really modern homes, which just reminded me of my home land. I do miss Holland occasionally, and Joe and I would love to move there for a few years. My parents and I were talking about all the thing Joe and I would like to do in the future. Like, living in Holland, getting an MBA, moving to Colorado, buy rental houses etc. This is where they gave me this great idea, that we could combine some of these. What if we move to Holland, Joe gets his MBA there, we buy rental houses for extra income, and move to Colorado as soon as we come back from Europe. Sounds good to me! Now we just have to work out logistics. You know... like sell our house, get accepted to school, find a job, buy some houses, and a whole lot more. But the idea gets me really excited!

Talk to the Chef

I finished out Education week, my brain full of useful information. It's been over 2 years since we moved out of Idaho, and since I've seen most of my friends from there. Challis is one of my friends that I really miss. She just happened to be in Utah this weekend too, so we got together for dinner. Tamara Wasden also came (who lived just down the street in our subdivision). We ate in a fancy restaurant. Tiffani and I were sharing a meal, and there was a little hick-up in the food. We ordered Salmon with au gratin potatoes. The potatoes were a huge disappointment, and the sauce that came with the salmon was just gross. So we actually sent it back. If I'm going to spend over $20 on a meal, I expect it to be good!! We switched to another dish, and had the most wonderful steaks. The most amazing part: the chef actually came out to talk to us about the food we didn't like.

After dinner we were on a mission to find some nice/fattening desert. We found a cool ice-cream shop (sub-zero). They poor some cream and whatever flavoring you want into a bowl. Then they spray liquid ice (or whatever that's called) from a big tank to actually freeze the cream. Fresh ice cream! It was awesome!