I'm Back!

I cannot believe that I have let my blog sit unattended for so long! Two posts ago was my 2009 New Year's Resolutions post, and here it is again, time to make new year's resolutions once more.

First to review last year's successes and failures:

Successes
Learn how to do my new calling and try to do my best at it. (And now I am trying to learn two new ones!)
Plan something fun for our anniversary.
Help Emily earn her Faith in God Award.
Help Marvin get his Teacher Duty to God Award and advance in Scouts.
Teach Marvin to drive.
Restart preschool with Elsie. (And it is going beautifully this time!)
Learn how to better help Maddy with her specific needs.
Wean Cyrus (Can you imagine if I had failed to do that one!)
Make the raspberry jam, finally.
Restock freezer meals. (Done multiple times)
Pay off a significant portion of the student loans.
Plant everbearing strawberries. (Which the bunnies and chipmunks thought were delicious!)
Paint pantry closets.
Continue to work on our year's supply. (I need to rebuild on this again, but did make significant contributions.)
Downsize and organize. Simplify my material environment. (Still in progress!)
Train for and run a 5k.

Fails
Do better in my personal scripture study.
Keep up with the SS study plan.
And fully read the church magazines each month. (The usual spurts in these 3 areas)
Do the 14 days of Valentines for dh again
Potty train Cyrus.
Find one and one time with each kid. (I did do better, but still not where I want it.)
Finish the 72 hr kits.
Finish renovating the kitchen.
Finish redoing the kid's rooms.
Blog more regularly. Make a blog book. (Ha ha!)
Participate in Book Club.

The successes are slightly longer than the fails, so that is good, right?

So, for 2010, I will try to...

Religious
Have daily personal morning devotional.
Grow enough in my calling to do it well. Rely on lots of prayer to manage this.
Help get the temple work done for dh's grandmother.
Attend the temple at least every 3 months.

Family
Do a service as a family every month.
Have a meaningful fun family activity every month, even if that means skipping out
on other activities.
Go on a Church History Tour with my family and see the pageants. Watch church
history dvd's to prepare.
Go camping!
Go to Cape Cod
Have Pioneer Days again.
Start blogging again to record our family history.

Children
Work with kid's every week on scout, D2God, FinGod and PP.
Potty train Cyrus.
Complete preschool with Elsie before summer.
Start preschool with Cyrus in the fall.
Help Marvin accomplish his eagle.
Make sure Marvin prepares for and takes the ACT and SAT.

Physical
Eat healthier, and learn to cook healthier meals for my family.
Do P90x with the ward exercise group.
Run another 5k when we are done.
Then continue to exercise regularly.

Provident Living
Pay off even more student debt.
Figure out how to make my garden grow better and survive the wildlife.
Finish the 72 hr kits.

Home
Try to maintain a cleaner, more organized home.
Work on one room a month, doing painting and otherwise making it more beautiful
Seek fun meaningful moments, foods and activities to make our home a place of
memories.

Talents
Learn to draw better.
Complete one sewing project each month. (Including Christmas stockings!)

That is a lot to work on! I will be really happy if I get half of it done.

New Year's Resolutions- A Little Late

I can't believe it is almost February and I have yet to make my new year's resolutions! I'm usually great at MAKING them, not so good at ACCOMPLISHING them.

First a review of last years...

Successes:
-Teach kids a nature class.
-Take the kids swimming lots over the summer. (Well, the summer was too busy, but I did get them in swim lessons last fall and they greatly increased their swimming ability, which was the main goal anyways.)
-Learn more sign and teach Cyrus. (He knows and uses more sign than Elsie did. He is more language delayed, so he really could use even more.)
-Build food storage. (I did really good with this one. I have 174 cans worth of food that came in our stake bulk order this past week that I need to can. So, an ongoing project still.)
-Learn to bake better bread.
-Strive to stay on top of finances better.
-Redo kids rooms. (They got rearranged. One got painted.)
-Paint Kitchen. We also retiled, which wasn't a resolution but was a huge project, and painted the hall and retouched trim.
-Downsize and better organize house. (And it needs it again.)
-Be more diligent in my visiting teaching. (Better than last year. Still room for improvement.)
-Keep a Nature Journal. (Only for the first part of the year, though.)

Not so great
-The self education plan. (I somehow failed to manage to fit this activity in my life. It was too much, I got overwhelmed, and quit.)
-Stockings never got made.
-Family scripture study still eludes us.
-Elsie did not seem ready for preschool activities when we tried, so I dropped it.
-The Book of Mormon class didn't work out, either. One class a summer seems to be the most I can handle.
-Finish 72 hr kits. (Although I did keep them updated, they still need some stuff.)
-Can applesauce and apple butter, as well as the usual strawberry and raspberry jams. (The raspberries are still in my freezer, waiting to be made into jam. And I didn't get the apples or strawberries I had hoped for.)
-Paint 2 of the kid's rooms.


Okay and for 2009 I want to TRY to do:

RELIGIOUS
Learn how to do my new calling and try to do my best at it.
Do better in my personal scripture study. Keep up with the SS study plan.
Fully read the church magazines each month.

SPOUSE
Do the 14 days of Valentines for dh again.
Plan something fun for our anniversary.

KIDS
Help Emily earn her Faith in God Award.
Help Marvin get his Teacher Duty to God Award and advance in Scouts.
Teach Marvin to drive.
Retry preschool with Elsie.
Learn how to better help Maddy with her specific needs.
Wean and potty train Cyrus.
Find one and one time with each kid.

PROVIDENT LIVING
Continue to work on our year's supply.
Make the raspberry jam, finally.
Finish the 72 hr kits.
Restock freezer meals.
Pay off a significant portion of the student loans.
Plant everbearing strawberries.

HOUSE
Finish renovating the kitchen.
Finish redoing the kid's rooms.
Paint pantry closets.
Downsize and organize. Simplify my material environment.

OTHER
Blog more regularly. Make a blog book.
Train for and run a 5k.
Participate in Book Club.

Way too ambitious, as usual. It seems to be a tradition I can't break!

Christmas Eve Dinner

I decided to try a new tradition this year for Christmas Eve. We tried to have a meal that would have been similar to what Jesus would have eaten. After doing some research I came up with the following menu:

Dried dates and apricots
cheese
Dried meat (beef jerky)
olives
apples, grapes, pomegranate
rustic bread
Pita bread
olive spread

It sounded kind of funny, but it was amazing how well all the flavors went together. The kids really enjoyed trying some new foods, too. And since it was an easy meal to prepare, that helped us think about the Savior, I think I will make it again next year.

Gingerbread House

We finally got around to making a gingerbread house. And by finally, I mean finally. Just so you know, gingerbread house pieces can successfully be frozen for a year.



I had attended a gingerbread workshop given by this wonderfully creative person. We had a great time decorating a house there and I learned a new couple of tricks, like how to make glass looking windows out of candy and put a string of lights inside to make it look lit up. Loving Architectural history, I decided I wanted to create a classically styled house. Believe it or not, Bob Villa has a few different home style gingerbread house plans posted on the web. I swear, you can find anything on the internet! So, I made all the pieces for a classic colonial last year, only to not have the time to put it together. So, after a year in the freezer, I thawed out the pieces and we made it this year.


Notice Cyrus using chopsticks to help hold up the walls.



The kids had a great time, even Marv joined in at the end.




Unfortunately, our decorative pay load on the roof was too much, and shortly after finding a home out of Cyrus reach for our finished creation, the roof caved in. We were able to patch it all back together, but I think it would have been better if the house assembly had occurred at least a day before the decorating part began. Just writing that here so that so I will remember the next time we make one, in about 10 years.

I never got a picture of it with the lights on. It made a nice cozy glow, especially when all the lights in the room came from it, the tree and the fireplace. And the best part was the gingerbread smell it made!

Running

We like to take the whole family to the XC meets. I think its good to have siblings support each other in their activities when they can. Plus, I am hoping they all want to follow each others examples and become runners. So far, it is working, with Emily doing XC after Marvin did. Maddy loves to run the races, too. Even though she has to stay behind the last person, and often the ATV who follows the last runner. Elsie seems to be expressing interest already, too:



In fact, I got inspired and decided I wanted to try running, too. Actually, I had already tried it once, back in 9th grade I ran the mile on the track team. But, after admiring so many of my friends who are runners, I decided I would try it again as an adult. I started a Couch to 5k program and got several weeks into it before cold weather and crazy busyness undermined my efforts. I actually got to the point of running 20 minutes at a time. Impressive, I know. Ha ha! I have to be honest, though, I didn't like it. Running just wasn't fun. I half suspect that it could be, sometimes, if I put enough into it so that I actually was fit enough to be doing it. Not sure I am willing to do that, though.


(By the way, that is me in the middle of the picture. Click on the picture and you can catch a glimpse of my very amateur running form.)

While running itself basically sucked, doing it outside where I could enjoy nature was actually quite nice. I found a gorgeous trail to run near my home, around this open field area, bordered by woods. It's the same place where we took our fall family portraits. I wasn't able to get there for all my runs, but if I could have and the weather had stayed nice, I might still be running. I'm thinking that I might start again when things thaw out a bit. Staying fit for the warm portion of the year is better than not ever being fit, right? Still, I'd probably much rather be sitting on a rock, sketching sights like these, rather than catching quick glimpses as I whiz wheeze past.




And just for fun:

The Changing Bloggy World

I was blog browsing tonight and discovered more blogs by people that I know in real life. It is amazing to me how blogging as a hobby has suddenly surged in popularity. And the blogs are different than when I first started. Everyone seems to post their full names now. They are family blogs, with full disclosure of where they live and what they are up to.

I remember when I discovered the fun of blogging over 2 years ago and mentioned it to a couple of in real life friends. They looked like I was speaking a foreign language, so I stopped mentioning it. My readers and the blogs I read were all either family or friends I had met through their blogs. And name and city mentioning? No way. Too dangerous putting private information like that on the internet. Nobody did that! I guess blogs are now so common, that its no different than having your name in the phone book. And do people make friends through blogs now? When you know no one who blogs, you naturally reach out to those who do, even if they are strangers. Now that there are so many blogs, perhaps that need no longer exists.

My blogging has changed, too. I don't post as frequently, nor do I feel the need to post memes or fillers. I care much less about writing for a specific audience and just write about what I am excited about or thinking about. Maybe, because my potential audience was far more varied than I had expected. Maybe because I worry less about what other people think about me and my blog. I wanted my blog to be special in the eyes of my readers, and now I just want it to be special to me. I've even had a couple of bloggy awards that I haven't posted yet, not that I don't appreciate the nominations (thanks guys!), but I just don't worry about that stuff anymore.

I don't visit blogs as much, either. I have been a bad bloggy friend! My time seems to be full of other things now. For good or bad. I keep a monthly to do list on my computer, just in a basic word document. As I worked on planning November, I went back and read my to do list from Nov 2006. I was amazed at how much more I was expecting to get done now than I did then. Maybe I expected a lot more back then than actually happened. Maybe life is just getting busier with another child, and kids that are getting older and having more intense activities and homework.

But, change is good. It shows we are growing, progressing. Just hopefully in the right direction! It will be interesting to see how both my blogging, and blogging in general progress in the next couple years. Which will fly by much faster than I am ready for!

(And in case you were wondering, I'm not going to full disclosure on my blog. Call me paranoid, but I feel like I have pretty valid reasoning not to.)

It's Here!

Guess what arrived...


Thank you everyone for your suggestions! I've owned a hand crank mill for several years now. Even though I have had almost no wheat stored. That one would be great if we ever were to be without electricity. But, I think this one will be perfect for my everyday use! It is much bigger than I expected it to be, but it still fits where I planned on storing it. Is it weird to be excited about grinding flour? I just need my wheat shipment to arrive!