Recently in Life Category

• Snow, ice & cold.  Let's all say it together: winter sucks and I am officially tired of it. How many weeks until spring?
• Vaguely thinking about next summer's garden... as in, should I even bother since last year was kind of a bust.  But I guess a 15 month old might be a little more interested in it than a 3 month old, so maybe I shouldn't write it off completely.
• Obsessing over working out but not actually doing anything.  I blame the weather, which has had me completely cooped up, along with a lack of time in the evenings to go to a gym (so I canceled my membership), but I have been a major sloth during the past month.  Compare that with my stalking of summer race calendars and training plans, which has been at an all time high.  Clearly I need to get off my duff and DO SOMETHING, but I need all this snow to go away so I can do that.
• Knitting.  This probably goes along with that whole cooped-up thing, but I have found some time here and there to make some progress on Matt's birthday (umm... shall we call that Spring Break) sweater and even start a new fun project.  I really don't have a ton of time to knit these days so I'm going to try to knit down and/or give away all my old stash yarns so if I want to buy something new for a project I don't feel bad about all the yarn I already have.
• Health Month.  How to describe this... a healthy living online game, where you're competing against others and winning points for your team?  It sounds really nerdy, but its actually pretty fun and surprisingly motivating to follow your "rules" when you know you're going to have to report your failings on the Game Wall.  I'm on Team Eating Rules, so our goal is to not eat high fructose corn syrup, fried foods, or refined grains.  It sounds simple but its amazing how one of those three things seems to creep into almost everything I eat.  

At long last (seriously - a year and 7 months!) my enormous king-sized quilt is done. I sent it out to be quilted, and the binding is really not done well (crooked sewing lines and such), but at this point I don't care - it's DONE!

As you can see, the quilt is quite colorful, and the rest of my bedroom is... not. We have dark wood furniture and basic greyish/beigeish walls. I am totally clueless when it comes to decorating - can you help? Matt and I agree that we're not up for painting right now, with the baby and all, but we can definitely handle some accessorizing, maybe some new lamps? We do not have a single picture or anything hanging on the walls. We used to have a fairly large picture over the headboard, but we moved it to the guest bedroom where it fit better.

Just to give you an idea of the layout, this picture is taking facing the door, which you can barely see on the far left edge of the photo. on the right side of the photo is a large dresser with mirror, and on the right side of that dresser we have a chair in the corner. Straight in front of the bed is a sliding glass door which is the only window in the room.

I welcome your ideas...

Once upon a time, I was a runner. Heack, I'll go as far as to say triathlete, although I'm not very good at biking or swimming. (I even ran races, see? And apparently I was too fast for the camera to catch me.)

Now I have a baby and I'm slowly but surely easing back into work. (12 hours last week, 16 hours this week.) Do any mamas out there have advice on how to fit in some exercise along with taking care of baby and work?

Last year, instead of making traditional resolutions like "get in shape," "keep the house cleaner," etc., I selected a theme for the year. I am a goal-oriented person, so I did end up coming up with some goals that fit within the theme, but I really liked the idea of coming up with a theme for the year and trying to focus on that, rather than tracking exact details of a resolution. Plus, when I get off track, it's a lot easier for me to think about veering back towards my theme for the year rather than admitting defeat in my resolution and starting over.

This year is shaping up to be quite different than last year, with a baby on the way in March, so I'm trying to keep my expectations low as far as self-improvement goes. Still, I really enjoyed having a theme to center me during the year last year, and I have a feeling I'm going to need something like that as I prepare for and tackle first-time motherhood this year. With that in mind, I hereby declare 2010 the year of Nurturing Calm.

Last year's theme (Cultivating Joy) was really all about being true to myself, but this year's goal is a lot more of a stretch. I think that's appropriate though, since I've never really thought of myself as a mothering, nurturing type of person. I guess I'm going to be in for a rude, awakening, huh? But that's where the "calm" part of my theme comes in. I really want to approach this new chapter of my life with patience and calm. These qualities are not always my default settings, so I hope to come up with some more concrete ideas about how to bring more calm into my life.

Stay tuned for more New Year's navel-gazing... I have to do it soon, before my belly button flattens out and disappears completely!

This Thanksgiving, what are you thankful for? (I stole this list of questions from Organizing Your Way - I'd love to hear your answers, too!)

What small blessings?

A knitting group that has formed among my co-workers at lunch time.

Vanilla steamers.

Borrowed maternity clothes from my much-more-stylish sister.

The wonder of technology to help keep in touch with the daily lives of faraway friends and family.

What big blessings?

A baby on the way! I'm not one to talk about this much, but this baby is something that I've hoping for for a long time. I am so happy that we have been blessed in this way.

And even though it didn't seem like it during the construction process, I know this new kitchen will be something that I will be happy about for many years to come.

What surprise blessings?

Sunday night dinners, knitting (and solving the world's problems, of course!) with my favorite knitting friend. 

An endless supply of home-cooked meals from friends as we lived without our kitchen for 10 weeks! 

What trials and hardships?

It sounds crazy to complain about getting a new kitchen, but finding out you have crazy water damage that requires you to gut your kitchen THREE DAYS after finding out you're pregnant is pretty stressful. I just took things day to day, but seriously, there were times that I thought I was going to lose my mind.  However, I know that my husband and I learned to work together to get through all the little (and big) problems that inevitably come up during construction.  He just didn't have to deal with morning sickness at the same time, the lucky dog!