Things that don't bother me

I actually really don't like the kitchen in this rental.

1. Not closing the kitchen. 

I will often go to bed with a full sink and messy counter. I try to make sure the actual table is clean/clear/wiped but once in awhile that doesn't happen either. There is not a single wink of sleep lost over this. Dishes are the single easiest thing to remedy when I feel like it. When I'm working, it's actually relaxing to get up extra early and clean up the kitchen. When I'm not working, I don't get up early, but as long as there's space to make coffee and breakfast, the dishes get done eventually. 

2. My c-section scar.

I had a friend who got an infection in her scar because they did a poor job closing it. I worried about this a little, thinking maybe these army surgeons (the lowest in their medical school class, statistically) could've botched it. But it was just a c-section and every OB is trained to do one because they're pretty routine. I had no complications from it and it healed up really well and, looking back, a c-section is definitely easier in many ways (blinding pain for a few days and then I was good :). 

I do know moms who try to get rid of c-section scars. Honestly, it doesn't bother me at all. I always thought it would? It's not some "mark of pride" or whatever but instead it's just negligible to me. 

3. Piles of clothes everywhere.

Mostly this is because I do laundry and then I don't put it away. This doesn't bother me at all except that I often can't find things. However, I think we're all a little on the ADHD spectrum here because I feel like when our clothes are put in drawers, we forget about them? I hate sorting through drawers for a specific pair of, say, black leggings when I have 3 pairs and I can't find the ones I want. 

Anyway, the secret to 17 years of marriage is just making sure Scott has a stockpile of gym clothes and his uniform is clean and he can find it. Every other pile of clean clothes is fair game to be left wherever I feel like leaving it. (Scott will do laundry but I took it over 90% of it long ago because I don't like all my clothes going in the dryer and he doesn't know what is what.)

I do not leave dirty clothes on the floor though. There is one designated spot for dirty clothes and everything else lying around is clean. Believe it or not (Scott), I do have a system. 

One day in the last two weeks where there are not clothes everywhere. "Why don't I take pictures of my clothes?" Because I have to clean up the mess first.

What is something that does NOT bother you that drives everyone else around you crazy? I fit into the type A framework pretty easily in many regards and it's always shocking to others that I can let the dishes and the clothes go awry the way I do. 

Update on the library of lost things

I was cleaning out a filing cabinet last week and I found the small stack of papers I lost at school. Obviously 3+ months after I needed them. It legitimately didn't matter at that point and it honestly is the thing on this list that affected me the least but it really just made me feel like i was going slightly insane. Purely inconvenient, you know? I am also that teacher who swears that every year, every semester, every quarter, every week that they're going to be more organized and it never actually happens. High hopes for August I guess. 

I have never found the black skirt.  I did actually buy it in topiary green when I came across a sale, but the worst part(!) is that I can't remember what size the original was so I was just kind of guessing and so I hoped for the best. Talk about double frustration. It does fit but I haven't worn it yet. I think it'll be better over tights in the late fall/winter ...you know, which is why I was so desperately looking for the black skirt in the first place so I could wear it. 

I've definitely never found the Daniel Tiger toy. I'll probably come across it when Sutton is a teenager. Or at least as soon as she exits the Daniel Tiger phase (can we pray that's soon btw?). 

And I was looking for a piece of paperwork last week, regarding teaching, and that is probably buried in a box or tucked away somewhere or, more likely, thrown away but I don't know why I would throw it away but I also don't know why I wouldn't have it with the other paperwork. 

Your guess is as good as mine. 

I misplaced something else that will now drive me insane: I bought these name labels for Sutton last fall and I kept the sheet of extras in a drawer all year and then, at some point this spring, I cleaned out the drawer and, no doubt, put the labels somewhere "safe". 

I can't find them. 

Sutton doesn't exactly go to a big enough daycare operation where I even need to label everything but it's super frustrating to know I have these and I can't find them.

Anyway, as I move into the summer season of cleaning/purging/organizing, I thought an update was warranted on what's currently making me crazy. 

I (unapologetically) go to bed with a dirty kitchen

Guess when I have the most energy?

5:30am. 

I know my day is beginning whether I want it to or not. My alarm goes off at 5:00, I snooze it once usually. Then I put in the kcup, I put in my contacts, brush my teeth, and pop in an earbud. Lately I've been trying to make it through Exodus and Leviticus, and I'm always a few days behind on the plan. I need the most empty version of my head to listen to The Old Testament genealogies and laws and I'm only getting that at this time of day. 

Anyway. 

That's when I clean up the kitchen from the night before. 

Now, relax.

I put away leftovers after dinner and usually leave the pans to soak. Most times I wipe down all the counters too. But I don't touch anything in the sink. Instead, I load the dishwasher and run it at 5:30am, and I wash all the pots and pans. 

The internet is full of moms who swear that they cannot rest until the kitchen is clean and the house is "put to bed". That's nice. Seriously, great for them. But when I put in 60 minutes of putting the house to bed at 7 or 8pm, I'm so exhausted that I can barely take a shower, let alone enjoy even 15 minutes of tv or reading or whatever it is I feel like doing in that kid-free time before I pass out, counting down the hours of sleep I'll get if I go-to-sleep-RIGHT-NOW. 

In the summer, sure. Before I went back to work, absolutely. On the weekends, usually. But during the average school week, I do not clean the kitchen at night because my time to decompress is more important than the feeling of a clean kitchen. 

This is how I also know I'm Type B and not Type A: I don't get an ick feeling from leaving a dirty kitchen. It doesn't actually phase me or affect me at all. Sure, I feel better about myself and my time management if I clean the kitchen at night. But I don't get that creepy, crawly can't-sleep feeling so many of you seem to describe. I don't think about it at all. If anything, I sometimes feel disappointed that "ugh yeah time management got me again" if I get up in the middle of the night to get water or milk for Sutton or something. But otherwise...

This guy watched me do the dishes the other day. 

Things I don't understand.

This made its rounds on Twitter the other day. I added to it this morning at 5am, as one does:

In addition to all that stuff I don't like, here are some things I don't understand...

I got my hair cut on May 5th. It is now September 11th. That is 4 months. It, I swear, has not grown a single centimeter. If we compare pictures, yes, it's grown, but I was expecting it to be a whole lot longer by now. Also, my hair is too thick to be cut short. Every 2-3 years, I learn this hard, hard lesson. 

We spent an enormous amount of energy taking care of a garden. Aside from a great tomato and pepper harvest, I'm not sure where all of that energy went? We got some zucchinis and a couple of pumpkins I'm hoping making it to the end of the month. I made marinara sauce last weekend and I need to do it again this week. I ran out of time to make more yesterday. 

Unpopular opinion: Gilmore Girls is the actual worst and the worst part of #fall is that women start talking about how they like to rewatch it. The correct GG is Gossip Girl, always. 

I never understand how women keep wearing sandals into the fall season. I cannot wait to pull out my fall shoes. But I'm also aware that winter lasts forever in these parts; just miserable wet or chilly days until May sometimes. So I'm trying to pace myself.

Breakfast. I don't understand how people eat breakfast. Maybe post-9am, I can consider food.

Also, toddlers. I don't understand how moms can present themselves as functioning human beings when they have a toddler. It's like a newborn phase but worse because people expect you to have it together by now. 

Finally: belt bags. I won't do it. I will cave and buy a Stanley before you find me with a belt bag. And I refuse to buy a Stanley. 

What do you just NOT understand?

**Here's a 9/11 post I wrote a few years ago. Today we're going to be reading The Man in the Red Bandana and doing an entire morning learning about 9/11. I do not take it lightly what an incredible privilege it is to be able to teach kids about a modern-day historical event. 

What are your superlatives? (a survey of sorts)

(Super coincidentally, we went to BWW last night.) 

I had to fill out a form the other day and it was the typical thing they give teachers...what's your favorite: drink, candy, snack, gum, place to eat, place to shop, etc...etc. etc....

I can't even remember everything on the list. 

And, honestly, when you're confronted with a list like that in real time and asked to fill it out, it's a struggle. It's like suddenly your mind goes blank. 

For example: favorite candy. 

I don't have one. So I look like some sort of weirdo not putting anything down. My favorite candy is candy corn but I'm not admitting that. I did it once on one of these forms and the counselor tracked down Valentine's Day candy corn to thank me for doing her a favor in February. 

Seriously awkward, but still one of the nicest things someone has ever done for me.  

I will eat candy if it's in front of me, but I don't seek it out and can't pick a favorite from the normie candy you see in the checkout line. 

Sorry. 

Drink from Sonic (yes, it's the midwest so this was definitely a question): Cherry Limeaide. That's easy.

Favorite Bath and Body Works Scent: WTH? Um...when confronted with this random question, the only words that pop into my head are "warm vanilla sugar" and "plumeria" but those are both scents I hate. How am I supposed to remember the running list of BBW scents? 

I put nothing, so as to also make myself look like a weirdo.

Dream school supply: mmmmmmmhmmmm Well, I don't have my own classroom, so it doesn't matter, but I like colorful Expos and I like colorful post-its. I should've put Mr. Sketch markers, though. Those are expensive. What I want is an Erin Condren teacher planner but that'll have to wait because I have no use for it yet.

Favorite cookie: Again...I don't have one? I like Oreos. But I spend a huge amount of time telling myself not to buy them, so I certainly don't need someone else buying them for me.

Favorite snack: Well. That depends on what I'm in the mood for. How am I supposed to just ...pick?

Favorite cake: Um. I don't know what this means. There's too many options out there. Any cake can be good! I don't have a ride-or-die preference. 

Favorite Starbucks drink: I put iced caramel latte because, yeah, that's a great one to break up a school day if someone is offering. I don't go to SB much anymore though. 

Favorite place to eat: Locally, my favorite is Buffalo Wild Wings because I'm pretty classy. I will always maintain that there's nothing like a plate of spicy boneless wings with a draft Coors Light. But, honestly, are they BUYING me a giftcard to a restaurant? Probably not. I also put "Thai food" because I love Thai food but haven't tried the local places. We've been too busy getting B-dubs takeout on Thursdays, I guess. 

Albuquerque, 2017

I think my issue with questionnaires like this is that I take my superlatives seriously. It's part of a reason why I have a blog. I like knowing what I like and I like talking about it. Specificity and knowing who you are is important. I can't randomly write down "anything chocolate!" (when I don't even like chocolate that much, btw) or something. 

Thoughts? What are your superlatives? 

Guilty pleasure song (a Shawn Mendes confession)

I climbed back onto the stationary bike for the first time in like three weeks. I'm really killing it with this Peloton app, guys. 

The only workouts I've done in a week and a half have been Pilates because I'm so tired at the end of the day and so stressed out in general. It's unfortunate. 

But I had all of Saturday to be around the house so I decided that 30 minutes on the bike wouldn't kill me. Normally I have to do this at night after Wells is asleep, so he's not trying to get out onto the sun porch where we keep the bike. But Wells was otherwise occupied with Scott, so I found a Cody Rigsby ride. 

I have exactly one Peloton friend and she's my friend from Colorado. (follow me; I'm obviously super active on there)

We love Cody Rigsby. He is so entertaining and refreshing. I don't mind some of the other instructors but instructor is one thing: I scan all of the music before I start the class. I can't do a spin/cycling class that has bad music. It infuriates me. In the same way, I can't abide by a song I don't like being on the radio. It's one of the odder things about me.

The point is: Cody had a ride that was Guilty Pleasure Songs last week. 

I scanned it and I saw Shawn Mendes and I was like:

Shawn Mendes is my guilty pleasure when it comes to music. 

I remember, like 5 years ago, all the little girls in my class listening to Stitches (radio edit only, please) and me having the song stuck in my head for weeks at a time. This, it must be said, was still 193948303894x better than having Two Princes stuck in my head.

But, truly, my favorite Shawn Mendes song is There's Nothing Holding Me Back. It's, like, my ride-or-die guilty pleasure song if I had to pick one. 

-------------------------------------------------

Lately, something about springtime must be doing this to me, I've been listening to music in the car with Wells. The podcasts are just too depressing at 7am right now. 

So...I hope he likes my Pandora channels. 

This has come up many times already this week and it's also a favorite of mine and the video is the most adorable of all time. If it doesn't make you smile, I don't know what to tell you. 

I want to tell Wells that I saw Maroon 5 in concert back in the Songs About Jane days (when tickets were $30 to see Adam Levine in 2005...can you imagine?). But he probably doesn't care yet. I'll tell him in a few years. 

What's your guilty pleasure song? Tell me I'm not alone in the Shawn Mendes thing (please).

In which Google sends me a warning

I'm embarrassed to admit how reliant I am on Google when it comes to storage. I keep all my photos, all my old teaching materials, everything...in that particular drive. It's just easy. I'm not held hostage to a device or the Cloud. Everything is tied to my emails (plural) instead.

I got an email last weekend saying that I was coming up on the max capacity of my free storage. Since I went to Google to avoid iCloud storage fees, I didn't want to start paying if I didn't have to.

Every photo I've taken since 2012 is loaded into my Photos. Periodically, I go in and clean out screenshots and whatnot. I do get lazy about it, obviously. 

So, I randomly picked a year in the sidebar timeline and went in to start deleting. 

I got 2015. 

I noticed I had a ton of recipe photos with like 15 pictures for one food item, when one had already been published on the blog long ago. Delete. I had lots...LOTS...of skincare selfies from when I was selling Rodan and Fields. DELETE. Lots of pictures that were doubles from Instagram or collages. D-E-L-E-T-E. 

It's embarrassing, really, how much time I had to spend doing this the other day. 

After spending time glancing through 2015, all I really came away with was that it wasn't a great year. 

Do not recommend.

It left a bad taste in my mouth.

I can't even explain what was terrible about it? I didn't love the school I was working at...it was a stark contrast to the previous 4 years I'd spent teaching. Scott was gone for large chunks of time, including February-July and then October and November. I felt very unsure of myself in Colorado Springs. I never quite felt like I belonged there. Living on a 35 acre plot, I felt like we were constantly battling against nature too. Snakes, tumbleweeds, hail, floods. There were no fires that year, but those would come later on. 

And there were the fertility treatments. We did four cycles of Clomid between the end of 2014 and the end of 2015. Many people complain of Clomid making them sick. For me, it just made food taste bad. It took everything I had to put recipes on the blog that year, but I kept at it because it gave me a goal to achieve. I look at the food photos now and gag a little bit, remembering how things just did not taste good (to me...there was nothing wrong with the recipes I shared LOL).

Anyway, it's weird the way some years just kind of aren't great from beginning to end. They weren't all bad moments, obviously. Just overall, it falls onto the end of the spectrum as being a year that I just couldn't love. 

I think, truly, this is because 2014 was a really regrettable year (It wasn't all bad, it was just hard..I made a good friend, had some fun in Colorado, and learned a lot about remodeling a house that year. We also got Jett in 2014.) and I was determined to make 2015 look how I wanted it to look. It was basically the year I learned I had no control. 2016 was a full-deployment year so I just made do and was in survival mode. 2017 was the year *almost* everything went wrong and 2018 was stressful as could be but incredibly humbling and a gift, overall. 2019 was...whatever. 

2020 wasn't that bad! And unless you lost a loved one or a livelihood, it wasn't bad for you either.

2021 is fine so far. 

2012 and 2013 were my years of enormous personal growth, if you want to backtrack that far. 

My point is: I spent an hour scanning, curating, and deleting photos from 2015 last weekend and I really think it kind of ruined the whole week that followed. There's a legitimate reason why looking back into our own digital footprint or, don't even go there: looking through someone else's archives, is a terrible comparison trap that really should be avoided. 

Maybe I'll start deleting from 2016 next? I like to go to the pre-Wells days because I can't bear to delete even the outtakes of him. 

Tell Me 3 Things...You "can't" live without.

Dinner last night. It was okay. 

I just finished the book Tell Me Three Things (it was also just okay).

But it made me think about a few things we've bought in the last year that have been life-changing in terms of oh-my-gosh-how-did-i-live-without-this. 

"Can't live without" is incredibly subjective, by the way. It's not a hard and fast rule and this list is not necessary for survival. These are just three items that make life EASY. 

This isn't like "my phone'. This is 3 random things that I use multiple times each day that I can't believe I made it this far in life without:

1. AirPods. These are the best invention ever. I use them to listen to podcasts around the house. I use one when I walk the dogs. I use one while I do yard work and Wells and the dogs play. I use one while I cook or clean or do any of those random things that used to not-quite-bore me but weren't stimulating enough to keep my attention. Previously, I'd just keep my phone nearby, but now I don't need to worry about trying to hear what I may have missed before, because of a child shrieking randomly (This wasn't an issue when he was a baby). 

Also, I connect to my computer when I do Pilates or barre so I don't need to try and hear the computer over the TV (because I almost always watch TV while I work out). I also can play a yoga video on my computer and listen on one AirPod while I do the workout in another room; I don't need to move the laptop. Same with my iPad. They connect to everything so easily! 

I'm finally realizing that I just seem to have the ability to listen to so many multiple sources at once. I can never not be visually, audibly, and kinetically engaged. I need all of that mental stimulation at the same time. It's very strange. 

2. Amazon Fire Stick, connected to the TV. To have allll of Netfix and alllll of Hulu and allll of Prime and the access to anything and everything if we want to purchase it...it's an amazing invention and I will happily be in Amazon's pocket for that first-world luxury. To think: we used to have to check a TV Guide or miss a show forever if we weren't at home, in front of the TV. And there used to be commercials. That's funny, right?

3. Black paper blinds for Wells' room. This is very subjective based on your season of life, but if you have a baby or small child, these are priceless. $23 for a pack and really are black-out blinds. If we were in a permanent home, I'd put curtain rods and curtains over the top to make it look nicer, but slapping these up has meant I don't need to worry about unwanted light this spring/summer and I don't have to use a towel like I did last summer. He has thick, white Venetian blinds on his bedroom window, but they definitely don't block out the light. 


So, tell me three things that you "can't" live without right now.

Unpopular Opinions II

Bonus unpopular opinion: Spending time/energy/money each year to get multiple sets of family photos done is completely overrated when you have little kids. They don't cooperate anyway.

I know I'd done other unpopular opinions posts in the last few years, but the most recent one was the only one I'd really considered when I wrote these ones out recently...

1. I don't get the trend of ordering all your clothes from Amazon.
#1 It's usually fast fashion, cheaply made, with little to nothing in the way of tags and the sizing is pretty random.
#2 I really like feeling a material (or knowing what a material will feel like from a trusted retailer) before I buy.
#3 It seems really wasteful? To have multiples of the same item, just because you want more than one color?

2. I don't like Taylor Swift. Her music jumped the shark around 2014 and I get that she's this supposed pop culture icon but she's not that good at...anything? I liked her a lot back in the day.

3. I play with the TV volume constantly so I'm pretty unpopular in this house. Since Scott generally stays up later than I do, he'll watch TV sometimes after I force myself to bed, but if I can even hear a snippet of sound from the living room, it keeps me up.  So we're constantly at odds over TV volume. It is a problem we've never in the world had until we moved into this shoebox. (It's also why, with all the problems stairs create, I want a two-story house very soon.)
But even when we're watching together or I'm watching by myself, I need the remote in my hand. I feel like the volume changes within a show multiple times and don't get me started on commercials. I classify myself as a HSP when it comes to loud noises and bright lights so this explains some of it, I think.

4. Hard seltzer is awful. I always think it will taste good. I always want to enjoy it. I want to be #extrabasic too, I suppose. But half of a hard seltzer will land me with a 3 day hangover.

5. I don't like buying snacks at Trader Joe's. I find the flavors to be off, even if they are a fun novelty. Most of the chips/crackers are way too salty, and I'm not someone who is picky about salt. (In fact, I once contemplated breaking up with someone because he complained that the chips at a restaurant were too salty...I added that to my reasons to break up with him, later on.)

6. I'm 97% sure that the moms who insist they do "no screen time" and wear it as a badge of honor are moms who either work full-time or have live-in help. Because if we weren't home all day without a schedule I had to keep, not just one I attempt to create, Wells would probably never watch TV.

7. Do not refer to me as "mama". This is a huuuuuuge pet peeve. Unless you are my child or talking to my child about me, I have a name. In fact, I've been listening to this podcast and I like it but I cringe and consider turning it off during the opening every week when they refer to the listener as "mama". I don't understand how THEY don't understand that they're alienating people this way.

What's your current unpopular opinion? 

The last decade post

This is that post that everyone else wrote a month ago. Or, rather, posted on Instagram or Facebook. But some wrote really insightful last decade posts.

The idea being that this is the last month of the decade, it's time to reflect on what the last 10 years have meant.

For me, the last 10 years have basically been my adult life.

The last 10 years was: 3.5 years in Alaska, 1 year in Missouri, 4 years in Colorado overlapping with 18 months in Wyoming, and now 1 year in Pittsburgh.

5 states, 7 houses, 3 army bases.

5 schools, 8 years of full-time teaching.

2 dogs.

4 years of fertility treatments + testing and, now, 1 baby

5 deployments.

Meeting so many friends, coworkers, neighbors, and students.

I actually thought about all of this when I put together 

this featured photos, uh, feature on Facebook.

Basically, if I were to recap my last ten years, it'd look a lot like this blog, which I started 9.5 years.

I remember, last Thanksgiving morning, driving from Laramie to Colorado Springs with a 4 month old. I remember driving through Denver and I was heading to the Colorado house to meet Scott and my brother (who was stationed in Co Springs as well) for Thanksgiving. Scott had gone down earlier in the week to get some work done on his time off from UW.

I told my brother that day that if you'd told me 11 or 12 years ago that THAT'S what I'd be doing on Thanksgiving 2018, I wouldn't have believed you.

I could put picture after picture on here recapping the decade, but when I started seeing the "last 10 years! it's the last month of the decade!!1!1!" posts, all I could think about was how the last 10 years was literally my life. It seems really silly, and I would never say it to a student because they'd get all kinds of defensive and emotional, but your life doesn't really begin until you're out of school and doing whatever it is you set out to do. This, apparently, is what I set out to do. And I would not have believed you if you'd told me 12 years ago that this is what I would have done in the next decade or so.

What's in my bag? {September 2019}

I always like to see what's in other peoples' totes.

Not just purses, but why is it necessary to carry a tote bag if you're not going to use that bag for necessities?

Longchamps and Neverfulls particularly interest me (though I will *never* have a *never*full unless I walk into a lot of disposable income with no better purpose). I always like to see what people deem important; many use Longchamps for travel, for work, for day-to-day, etc. I never could quite get behind using an expensive bag to tote around germy school papers/supplies, and I don't often travel...so day-to-day it is. I bought this organizer last winter. It has a zipper pocket in the middle and most organizers don't. The "medium" size fits a Large Le Pilage Tote.

While I would really enjoy the idea of using one of my favorite crossbody bags right now, it's just not practical. Wells goes everywhere I go, so it's nice to just stuff any necessities in one bag and not worry about whether I have a diaper bag with me at all times. I usually still keep the diaper bag in the car and just reload it once a week or so if we've been out and about a lot. It also gets reloaded after every playgroup (toys get washed, snacks get replenished, etc).

But, day to day, it's nice that I can just grab one bag and go out the door. I needed to clean this bag out after a few weeks anyway, so I figured I'd take a couple of pictures.

From the top, clockwise:

Wells' snacks, dog bag(?), stuck-in-traffic snacks, lots of change that I put in the change jar, cheap sunglasses, water bottle, toddler jacket and extra pair of socks (?), wallet (Fossil, < $50), pouch with chapstick, hand sanitizer, etc; receipts to be thrown away, multiple shopping lists to be thrown away, trash...to be thrown away.

In the middle is the anniversary band Scott got me for our 10 year anniversary this year (I think I forgot to share it here)...it was in the side pocket because jewelry bothers me if there's anything messy happening and I took it off for some reason or another. Whoops. 

Rose gold, right hand ring. 

And I refilled the snack container. I haven't gotten a fancy one (the non-spilling kind) because baby dishes/supplies can quickly take over your kitchen, and he does pretty well with just this. Also, he drinks really well out of my water bottle so I generally only take this one with us, and not his own cup, when we go on short trips out of the house. I haven't made use of the cupholder on his carseat yet. 

Other posts filed under "Purse" can be found here. There's a lot of them. 

How did you transition in your "purse life" after a baby? It's slightly more complicated for me than it used to be!

Unpopular opinions

In this house, this is my unpopular opinion:

I know it's unpopular because I was being not-so-silently judged from the couch:

Here's a few more:

+I hate mid-century furniture.

+Drive-thrus should be reserved for people who truly cannot get out of the car easily. By this, I mean people with kids*. I almost never utilized a drive-thru before Wells. I always walked into Starbucks because it was actually quicker! But the physical act of carrying him and paying for and carrying out a drink or a bag of food and a drink: it's impossible. Like, actually impossible.

*Also pets, if it's a hot day.

+Marvel movies are dumb.

+I have no desire to lay in bed in the morning and look at my phone. In fact, I keep the phone on the other side of the room. I don't understand why people complain about this being such a timesuck. Just stop doing it.

+Sheetz isn't that great. Sheetz is a (mostly) Pennsylvania convenience store with made-to-order food, touch screen menus, etc. It doesn't really taste good. I don't know if I've just grown up, or if I've been exposed to too much great food all over the country, but Sheetz has no flavor to me anymore. (The hashbrowns were DELIGHTFUL when I was pregnant though.) And don't get me started on the coffee: it's worse than going to a DD. It's all sugar water if you attempt to get a flavored latte.
People who've moved from PA to other places always say how they miss Sheetz: I legitimately don't understand why. There's a lot better out there.

+After flying this past week, I have a proposal: I think you should have to pass a physical fitness test of sorts to be able to carry on and stow that bag in the overhead bins. Or you should have someone there, arranged by you to help you. Like, if you can't get it up in the bin or down out of the bin in a timely manner, you lose your privilege and have to check your bag.
I've noticed in the last few months that you either pay extra to carry on OR you pay extra to check a bag. WHY NOT JUST CHECK THE BAG????? It's easier for everyone involved. Scott always makes me check a bag when we're traveling for more than a day or two because there was the issue in 2011 where we actually had to buy another suitcase to take back with us to Alaska because I bought so much stuff on the east coast. His theory is that we need to have extra space even if we feel we don't need it. So this is a mentality others should adopt instead of trying to hoist up a bag that they can't even lift for fear of paying $10 more or waiting for 10 minutes at a baggage claim or something. Seriously.

What's YOUR unpopular opinion??? I'm all ears. 

All About Books

What book has been on your shelf the longest?
I generally don't keep books on my shelves. I have one shelf that I dedicate to my favorite books, and I also put meaningful books on it, like Scott's Bible that he's had forever, the Milepost, and a book about my family history. The books I own that I've had the longest are probably Little House on the Prairie books but they're likely in a box in the basement because they're packed up with my teaching supplies/books. I have 3 or 4 sets of the Little House Series.

What is your current read, your last read, and the book you'll read next?

Currently I'm reading I Am Watching You:

The last book I read was the latest Rose Gardner:

And the next book I've been wanting to read The Right Side of History but I'm not in the mood for non-fiction these days. I read the first chapter but it's been on my nightstand for awhile.

What books did everyone like, but you hated?
All the Light We Cannot See. This is the easiest answer because everyone talked about how wonderful it was but I was bored to tears. I remember listening as we drove to Denver on New Year's Day in 2015 and I almost fell asleep.
Also, I'm generally realllllly picky about my romantic fiction or chick lit-ish type books.
I also was never able to get into the Louise Penny series the way everyone and their sister, aunt, and mother were.

What book do you keep telling yourself you'll read, but you probably won't?
I bought a Love and Logic parenting book because the pediatrician recommended its strategies. I like what it says so far, but considering that I've only ever read one pregnancy/baby/kid book (a 60 page ebook on self-soothing), I don't see myself reading a lot of them now, when I have less time to read than ever before!

What book are you saving for retirement?
I don't know why you'd save a book for that amount of time when time isn't guaranteed.

Last page: read it first, or wait for the end?
I definitely don't read it first, but if I really am not enjoying a book and don't want to finish it, I'll go to the last page and read it or the last chapter and read it to see what happened. I did this with How To Walk Away. I went to the epilogue just to see what happened.

Acknowledgement: waste of paper and ink or an interesting aside?
An absolute waste.

Which book character would you switch places with?
I always thought it'd be interesting to be Becky Bloomwood for a few days. Maybe Rose Gardner.

Do you have a book that reminds you of something specific in your life?
Going back to The Shopaholic books...I remember the first time I read them: In 2009, I was spending the summer living in a hotel with Scott at Ft. Leonard-Wood. He was going to his officer basic courses and we'd just gotten married so I was doing all of the in-processing (for lack of a better word) that I needed to do in order to be on the paperwork to go "overseas" to our Alaska duty station in the fall. I had NOTHING to do with all of my days and it was so hot there that summer in Missouri. So I watched a lot of Jon and Kate Plus 8 and I walked across the street to the library often to check out books with my new military ID. I read everything I could find by Sophie Kinsella that summer. Two years later, I bought all of her books at the used bookstore in Anchorage and I have generally re-read a few every summer since.

Name a book that you acquired in an interesting way.
I bought these really pretty hardcover editions at the book fair last year while I was pregnant. I was thinking if I had a girl, they'd be perfect for a bookshelf in her room. But seriously now, Wells will be steeped in Little House knowledge before he enters elementary school.

Which book has been with you to the most places?
I'd say most of my children's book collection to be honest. Most of my books in general are currently packed up in the basement or in storage. But they've traveled with me from Alaska to Missouri to Colorado to Wyoming to Pennsylvania. They've been read/enjoyed by students in Alaska, Missouri, and Colorado. Even if I don't teach again, I'll always keep my school library collection.

Any 'required' reading that you hated in high school that wasn't so bad two years later?
I think books like Animal Farm are important and we should all read them right now, but I don't find them enjoyable. I liked Catcher in the Rye in high school, though. My only memories of "reading" in high school involve my English teachers reading the books to us and it was so boring. Gatsby, Mockingbird, etc...all read aloud to teenagers because I'm convinced (still) that there were kids I went to school with who never did figure out how to read.  English class was repetitive and ridiculous.

Used or brand new?
I liked used bookstores because they're cheap. Buying brand-new is a rip-off unless it's a favorite author or series you're trying to add to your collection.

Have you ever read a Dan Brown book?
I really enjoyed The Da Vinci Code (the movie was awful). I liked Angels and Demons but not enough to keep going with Robert Langdon's adventures.

Have you ever seen a movie that you liked better than the book?
Pride and Prejudice with Keira Knightley is delightful. I've never made it far in the book and I've tried multiple times. I like the story, I hate the writing.

Have you ever read a book that's made you hungry, cookbooks included?
Julie and Julia made me want to cook. Ruth Reichl's Delicious! was the same way.

Is there a book out of your comfort zone that you ended up loving?
Eh, I had to look through my "Read" list on Goodreads and I can't find anything that really jumps out. A book I have on my shelf is The Snow Child, which I bought at a local bookstore and read in Alaska, while we lived in Alaska. I generally stayed away from as much "Alaska" as I could while we lived there. But I really did like the story.

I borrowed this survey from Rebecca and saw it a few other places too...I think it's fun to read everyone's answers, so feel free to grab it and write your own!

Re-Introductions (and things)

(I absolutely meant to take a picture yesterday and add it to this post. Then we were running late and I didn't get to it.)

Where do you call home?
ha ha ha.

If you've followed me for any amount of time, you know that we basically have a home everywhere at this point.

I have an Alaska driver's license, with a Colorado address on it, and I live in Pennsylvania. We could start with that.

The short version: I grew up in Pennsylvania, married into the military, moved to Alaska for 4 years, moved to Missouri for one year, moved to Colorado for 4 years, moved to Wyoming for 7 months, and moved to Pennsylvania in December. We'll be in Pittsburgh for about 18 months and then it will be onto the next location.

We just sold a house in Colorado, we own a home that we're renting out to tenants in Wyoming, we're currently renting a house to live in while we're in Pittsburgh, and we also own a house in Pennsylvania that we're trying to flip and sell.

One of our dogs is from Kentucky, the other is from Minnesota, and our 8 month old baby was born in Wyoming.

I think that may cover it?

What jobs have you held and what do you do now?

I did the usually smattering of jobs while in high school and college (baby-sitting, waitressing, etc).
I was a substitute teacher for 2 years, one year in Pennsylvania and one year in Anchorage.
I was a 4th grade teacher for 3 years in Alaska.
I was a 2nd grade teacher for 1 year in Missouri.
I was a 4th grade teacher for 4 years in Colorado.
I quit my job last May, had a baby in July, and now I'm staying at home with him. Quitting teaching, having a baby, and moving twice in one year made for a verrrrrry tough 2018.

What secret (or not so secret) talent do you have?
I have a near-photographic memory. It's a pain at times because I will stew over something that happened years ago, but it's helpful when Scott asks where something is and I can randomly remember a glance I gave an object in a box in the basement weeks ago.

What accomplishment are you most proud of from the past year?
Making it to 2019 feeling okay, after all the changes in 2018.  I mean, surviving with my mental health in tact and, while I feel very different than I did a year ago, I feel okay. It's becoming annoyingly repetitive in my own mind, but the whole I moved twice and lived in 3 different states in 7 months+had a baby thing is getting old as my narrative. But I don't know what else to say about the last year.

What is one concert or show you'd like to see?
I wouldn't.
I've been to concerts, I've been to shows, etc. I just don't care?
I do love The Nutcracker and would really enjoy going to see a production of it every Christmas season.

If you could eat one meal for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Some type of Asian noodle dish. Like a pad Thai or a bun bowl, with a side of crab rangoon. The best pad thai I ever had was in Missouri and the best bun bowl was in Colorado Springs.

Favorite place to go on vacation?
I like to vacation in warm places or during warm times of year. Packing up cold weather clothes is counterproductive, I think. We went on a cruise and while we got horribly sick, it was nice and warm in Central America.

What's something that is calming to you?
Cleaning. Organizing. Throwing things away. Also, Pilates and reading.

I borrowed this from Rebecca! (who borrowed it from someone else :)

3 Things (because other bloggers provide the best inspiration always)

Because if we can't get good ideas from other bloggers about what to read, eat, buy, and write, what can we get? Aside from friendship :) 
This came from both Jana and Rebecca. 

^^They're supposed to be hunting. Instead, they took a nap. 

3 foods I hate & refuse to eat
1. Salmon
2. Meatloaf
3. Hardboiled eggs and/or pickled eggs/beets

3 foods I love & eat more than I should
1. Chips. They've always been my favorite food. I have my favorites, of course, but generally just chips (not plain ones though).
2. Cereal. 
3. Pepsi. I've gone through phases where I've been able to cut out soda altogether. This is not one of those times. I just crave a good Pepsi all too often. 

3 chores I avoid until absolutely necessary
1. Cleaning the basement
2. Hanging up clothes in my closet
3. Mowing the field

3 chores I always do
1. Dishes. There's always so many dishes.
2. Vacuuming
3. Wiping off the counters. I can't function if the counters aren't spotless.

3 wardrobe staples
1. Leggings. 
2. Vests
3. Brown boots.

3 things I don't spend money on.
1. Salon haircuts #greatclipsforever
2. Anything on FB boutique sites/Craigslist/etc. I don't browse for things I don't need online.
3. I generally don't buy a lot of books. 

3 things I do spend money on
1. Pedicures
2. Purses
3. Good pens/planners

3 TV shows I frequently watch in reruns
1. The Office
2. Friday Night Lights (before they took it off of Netflix :(
3. Weeds

3 movies I love that might surprise you
1. Inglorious Bastards
2. 27 Dresses
3. Forgetting Sarah Marshall

3 genres I generally don't read
1. Sci-Fi
2. Dystopia YA
3. Romance

3 things I'm looking forward to this year
1. Re-doing parts of the Wyoming house. 
2. Cleaning out and packing up my classroom (I'm just ready to condense my career into boxes and move on for now.)
3. Selling this house and condensing our life into one town. This year, I think, is all about prioritizing and condensing. 

Feel free to take this for your own post! Hope you had a relaxing weekend!

Things about Me. For my birthday.

1. I rarely paint my nails. If I do, it's in the winter. My toenails are always kept up from May to October though #becausesandals.

2. Unless I'm feeling really motivated in the morning, I make the bed at night, before I get back into it.

3. The last two times I've thrown up have been in my own car. Talk about a confession. Three times on the way back from a Mexican restaurant after too much tequila (Scott thought it was hilarious) and then three times on the way home from surgery I had last spring, because anesthesia always makes me throw up. Again, talk about a confession...and there's some vast difference in circumstances as well.

4. I don't watch The Walking Dead anymore because it's dumb now, but my favorite character will always be Shane. He was the best.

5. I don't see myself ever getting a tattoo.

6. I don't own an ironing board. I put a thick towel on a counter if I need to iron something (which is like 3 times a year).

7. I usually have to be forced to watch an animated movie. I find so little about them appealing.

8. It took me almost 32 years but I managed to watch (and enjoy!) every Star Wars movie in the past year.

9. When I return home from a trip, whether it is midnight, 2am, or 2pm, I must unpack because I can do anything else. I realized this about myself when we lived in Alaska. I would stay up all night putting things back where they belonged before I could go to sleep. The time difference helped with that as well.

10. Today is the first day back for students after winter break.
I decided, many months ago actually, that this will be my last year in the classroom for the foreseeable future. I'll be done after this spring, as of now. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't looking forward to a break to just live for a little bit without this outside focus on school. Being a teacher is not a job; it's a lifestyle.  I've taught for 8 solid years, in 3 states, and in 4 schools. It's been an interesting career so far and I have no idea where I'll go from here or what I'll do next. The reasons for me taking a break are many but the long and short of it is that we are relocating in early 2019 and me being tied down to a teaching job for only half a year next year isn't ideal.

I don't have big plans for today...it's a Wednesday, after all...but I have a 3-day weekend ahead and I might experiment with a cake and we'll go out to eat. I haven't even bought myself a present yet...I'm still trying to decide what I want. I bought Uggs for Christmas (though, ironically, it's too warm to wear them in Colorado..maybe next year in Wyoming) so I was thinking of investing in a Pilates program.

Anyway. Here's to 32.

What worked and what didn't.

With a new school year, comes new routines and changes. This isn't work related, but is a round-up of what's been working for me over the last two weeks.

1. I attempted to really get back into a solid routine last week. I didn't drink nearly as much caffeine, so that was good. I still ate a lot of candy so that was a pitfall but it's candy corn season and so there's not much I can do about that.

2. I have some sort of sinus infection that has settled in my ears. I'm taking a cocktail of whatever medicine I can find around the house and I will likely call to see if I can get an appointment this week. Trying to pop my ears isn't working, I've bought more Sudafed than Jesse Pinkman, and sleeping is becoming a challenge.

3. In terms of breakfast...I actually attempted to drink protein powder/milk again this week...thinking that if I left out of the peanut butter and the banana I'd be able to stomach it. Barely. I came to the conclusion that I would rather starve than have a chocolate protein drink. Like, being hungry and weak is preferable.
I'm thinking that I would be able to do vanilla with fruit/spinach at some point, but we have a ton of chocolate powder and I don't feel like spending $60 on vanilla. I found that I can eat a Clif bar in the morning and be okay until about lunch time (or at least snacktime at 10:30). This has, clearly, been a very traumatic process. Regular Clif bars don't have a ton of protein (9-11 grams) but they make protein bars that have 14 or 15 grams and those ones taste pretty good.

4. Before these last two weeks, I'd been going to classes at the gym...toning, lifting, cardio, kickboxing...and I really do want to incorporate those things back into my life. However, I also knew that I had to keep doing what I know works for me and shows results, especially during busy seasons. I kept at 20-30 minutes of Pilates a day for the last week and that felt good. I've been trying to do some yoga every Sunday too.

5. I had to stop the Wal-Mart grocery pre-ordering. The reason is actually really simple: I hate the produce at Wal-Mart. I feel like it's so inferior to what I can get elsewhere. Maybe this is just a Colorado thing? The commissary, and even Safeway, has produce that tastes and looks good and lasts too. Plus, I love buying salad mixes and the Great Value brand is awful. I'm saving on the actual trip through the store, but I'm ending up with things I don't want to eat, so what's the point? Wal-Mart isn't really cheaper...just not having to block out two hours to grocery shop was nice.

6. I almost threw away my Erin Condren planner. I even bought a new little $7 one from Target because I was all FRESH START!!! and then I realized I actually kind of liked my EC planner and, even though fresh starts in January aren't really my thing, I'm going to keep getting EC planners in January because I really do love them. There's a reason I came back to the brand after trying a few others over the last few years. They are SO sturdy and that paper quality can't be matched by anything else I've tried.

7. I've been trying the charcoal bar from Beauty Counter and then using my clarifying toner and dual intensive treatment over top of it. I LOVE the charcoal bar. I don't have dry skin on my face (only on my hands) and it leaves my face squeaky clean and ready for toner. It's completely worth every penny.

That's kind of the overview of what I've been trying lately and how it's been working. It's been a super weird summer in many ways and this next year will look different than the last few for us but we've got some changes on the horizon and that, I think, is a good thing.

(I can provide links for anything above that you may be interested in.)

See the Good

I've been not posting on Wednesdays for the last two months but I feel like there's a lack of substance lately on this blog, so I'm going to add in a post here or there as necessary. 

It was a rough spring. I didn't get the jobs I was interviewing for and we weren't sure if Scott would stay active duty, Scott left for a month on short notice, and we went through a failed IVF cycle.

That being said, there are always good things that come with the arrival of August and September. It's always been my favorite time of year.

I was listening to a podcast about a former teacher who was in the classroom for 5 or 6 years and then quit to pursue something else. Her story is the story of many, many people. And she had a really rough start to her career. Over the last few years, I've met many first year teachers and some of them never came back, simply because things started rough for them and, with no positive prior experience, they had to move on. They knew no different.

I had the best start to my teaching career. The best start possible. It was more than I could've ever imagined for myself during all those months of desperately trying to get a job in Pennsylvania (see: proof that God knew what He was doing). I worked in a wonderful school in Alaska with a very veteran staff. There was almost no turnover there. I got LUCKY. That position was made just for me. That's where I learned how to teach and I will be FOREVER grateful to those teachers and principals. There were rough patches (there's always rough patches) but I took away an infinite amount of positive when we left Alaska.

What has kept me doing this year after year and what has kept me going back to the classroom is that I remember how ABSOLUTELY WONDERFUL my first job was. I remember how magical it felt. I even remember how much I loved every second of my student-teaching. Those are the reasons I keep going back. I know how much I love teaching kids and I love working with other teachers and I can't imagine what my adult life would be like without the relationships I've established with families and educators across the country. I mean, seriously, what a blessing.

In fact...not trying to act like I'm doing some act of piety or godliness each day, but my teammate told me that she applauds me for just showing up each day after the year I had last year. It makes me feel good to know that I can take that love for teaching that I had 8 years ago and still show it to people today.

Allllll that being said...there are some very good things about going back to the same school and the same classroom this fall.

1. I already know a lot of the kids and families in the building.

2. I know what to expect. There won't be big surprises when it comes to what is expected of me and my teaching.

3. I get to continue working with a great team. Part of what made me realize I had to go back was that I get a lot of support from the teachers I work with. Going through IVF, I had a lot of help and support from other teachers...my teammate helped close out my classroom for me, for example, because I was out sick for the last week. That's dirty work and that kind of support is priceless. Other teachers covered my class for 15 or 20 minutes in the mornings while I was at appointments. Teachers just do these things for each other, no questions asked, and I'm so grateful to be in a profession where no one is ever really out for themselves. It's not about us.

4. I know what I'm doing. If I count student-teaching, this is my 8th year in 4th grade. After many years at the grade level, I look at each new one as an opportunity to expand, tweak, and perfect what I'm doing. It's not guesswork, it's finishing-work.

5. I'm grateful to have the opportunity (period) to teach another year. With this military life and with this profession, at times, another school year isn't always guaranteed. When Scott asked me why I wanted to go back, my only response is that I love teaching too much not to. He has always left me working up to me, which I appreciate.

I bought this on Etsy as a d.a.i.l.y reminder that just because things aren't how I imagined, things aren't bad either:

And, trust me, I'm not normally the optimistic type. We have a WHOLE LOT of things up in the air right now and, out of all the things I can stress out my pessimistic side over, teaching isn't one of them right now. This is the aspect of life I can feel settled with, so I'll take it.

Awesome and Not Awesome

I've been terrible at taking pictures of anything in the last few days. I've also been more terrible at answering text messages than usual (and I'm usually pretty terrible).

However, here's some awesome and not awesome things:

Awesome. Starbucks' Mango Black Tea Lemonade.

Not awesome. I got a terrible tan line from my canvas shoes.

Don't mind the toes...I'm dealing with that this afternoon. 

Awesome. It's supposed to cool down this weekend.

Not awesome. It's getting up near 100 degrees today and I'll be outside all day. Like, it says 94 but it's always hotter than what it says.

Awesome.  This bag from Old Navy. It feels and looks like it costs 5x as much as I paid for it. I got it for school after my friend bought it for a vacation and raved about it.

Not awesome. I don't know what to do about Facebook. I scroll it, but I don't use it.

Awesome. Scott is back and we're plotting out what the next year will look like.

Not awesome. Sometimes it's really hard to make decisions. This helps.