30 Days of Thankful

So, I think it's a good idea to take the month of November to reflect on things you are thankful for. I always take a few minutes on Thanksgiving to make sure the important people in my life know how thankful I am for them, but why not take the time everyday to think about the things in your life for which you are thankful. In fact, it should be an everyday all year round thing...but let's not get ahead of ourselves. As you know, I like the short term goals. 30 days of thankful. Considering the fact that today is November 2nd, you get two today. Yesterday, I was thankful for Home Goods. The whole chain actually; Marshalls, TJ Maxx and Home Goods. These are probably my favorite stores ever. I can spend hours in them. Sometimes not even buying a thing, and sometimes literally going for therapy. Just to walk around and look at stuff and amaze myself at all the deals! Yesterday I went to Home Goods AND Marshalls. It was a good day. And I was thankful for them.

Today, I have a few things (who says it has to be only one thing per day?) This morning, I woke up to the snuggliest, softest, cutest little Tiger Face. He is usually more snuggly in the morning, but today he was extra snuggly. He laid down right next to my face and put his nose right on my nose. Then he gave me some little Tiger kisses. (I think he heard me talking about wanting a puppy, so he is getting in touch with his puppy side...he kinda thinks he's a dog anyway.) It was cute and I woke up thinking, "I am so thankful to have this little guy in my life."

I think a common theme throughout this month will be my husband...I am thankful for him for a million reasons. Tonight at dinner, the song he was supposed to dance with Ellen to at our wedding came on. I lost it. Cried into my pasta. Just looking at him across the table made me swell with thankfulness that he is not only in my life, but that I get to be his wife:)

So there's day one and two. Look for a blog or fb post everyday for thankfulness:)

L-Ain-guage

So, when Ainsley first began talking she had the absolute cutest way of saying things. All kinds of things, names and everything, including her own. This became a new way for all of the adults in Ainsley's life to speak to each other in Ainsley language (L-Ain-guage, get it?) Sometimes it was just the WAY she would say certain words, like DA-dd-Y, she would raise her tiny little voice at the DA part and the Y part. Then, she started saying aunts and uncles names. Jaime's sister, Carolyn, gets the gold here. She goes by Aunt DeeDee. Repetitive sounds are the easiest for children to say, like Mommy, Daddy, etc. So, Ainsley could say DeeDee before she got to the rest of the names. Which is fine because anything she said was adorable:) The K or hard C sounds are hard for kids to make right away too, so Keek became Teek and Uncle Cam became Tam. Amanda became just Manda or Manna for a while, we tried to make Oliver easy for her and since people call him O.D. we thought we'd try that. Which turned into Adu, again, adorable. Anyhow, most of these she has self-corrected by now as a four year old, and even though she can now say the isolated C/K sound, we are still Teek and Tam.

So, the point of all this is that we still speak like her. On a daily basis, Oliver and I speak to each other in Ainsley-talk. "Hewo?" comes in text form sometimes, but we answer the phone this way every time one calls the other. "What/how are you do-ning?" is how we greet one another, more often than not answering with "My fine." When we are getting ready to go somewhere we say, "Rea-y? Doh" (ready, without the 'd' sound and 'go' with a 'd') Need confirmation for something? "Otay!"

And our most favorite is our little baby Tida. Tiger came home to Fairfax with me for the summer once and pretty much spent the whole time hiding under the bed from Bailey and Bear. When Ainsley was visiting she squatted down next to the bed and called him, "Tidaaaa! Tidaaa! Tida aahh you?! Tum see me!!" and coaxed him out of his hiding spot to "tum see my new petty soos." (come see my new pretty shoes.) So we now call our baby Tida and we call him from the other room, "Tida!! Tum see us!" Oliver also calls me Teek.

Here is a sample convo:

"Hewo?" "Hello?"
"Hi Teek! How aah you? "Hi Keek! How are you?
"My do-ning fine. What you do-ning?" "I'm doing fine, what are you doing?"
"Oh, nussing, where's Tida?" "Oh, nothing, where's Tiger?"
"Tida busy seeping. I was donna take a picture of him tuz he's so toot right now."
"Tiger is busy sleeping. I was gonna take a picture of him 'cause he's so cute right now."


Any way we can keep our bug close to us on a daily basis:)

I Wonder Where I'd Be...

Sometimes I look back on things and wonder how my life would be different if I made different decisions. I think everyone wonders what might have been if another path was chosen. Not saying that this means I, or anyone else who wonders is regretting the choices made, but it is just something to think about. What made me think of this today? Well, I went to see Dolphin Tale (good movie, no need to see it in 3-D though...) and I thought about how much I would love to work with animals. This is different, maybe actually a step beyond my want to be a veterinarian. I have always loved animals, dolphins in particular. They fascinate me. Since I was little I always wanted to swim with them. That dream became a reality my senior year of college on spring break in Mexico. It was pretty cool. I don't want to say I was disappointed, but...I had always kind of hoped to actually swim with them, like swim around in the same pool. We got to pet them, have them kiss us and go to the middle of the pool, put our feet out and have them come up from behind and push the bottoms of our feet until we were practically air born! Now that part was awesome. However, I wanted to swim with them, spend time with them. I'm sure there's somewhere you can pay to do that, but this place was get in, meet and greet, get out.

I digress...the point I am getting at is that there have always been things I wanted to do, and lots of them. And most of them are a career. Which you can really only choose one of. I wanted to be a marine biologist. I wanted to be a veterinarian. I wanted to write screenplays. I wanted to be a teacher. The writing, I can do on the side thankfully, even if it would be nice to have as a full career. But the others? You can't really be a vet or a marine biologist "on the side." In high school, I applied to a school near the water in North Carolina because of their marine biology department and internship opportunities. I was wait listed...in the mean time, I accepted my early decision acceptance into Longwood. I liked the school, I liked the distance from home, the quaint town, the promise of an education where the professors actually know who you are instead of lectures of 500. As I have mentioned before, I went into Longwood as a Pre-Veterinary Med major. That changed pretty quickly (before classes even began) to Communication Studies. I thought I would get what I needed there to work behind the scenes in TV and/or film. While I learned a lot about the how and why people communicate, I got little in the department of actual broadcasting, film making, etc. I did, however, take every single creative writing class Longwood had to offer and was even given my own class, one-on-one with a professor my senior year for Advanced Screen Writing. That was pretty cool. One of my creative writing professors passed along one of the scenes I wrote to another professor who taught the advanced class. I had a scheduling conflict and wasn't able to enroll in her class. She loved my writing so much that she offered to meet with me twice a week for my own advanced class. It was an amazing opportunity and I learned a lot that semester.

Anyhow...off topic again? Weird. So, I just sometimes wonder if somewhere along the way, if my decisions were different or things worked out differently, where would I be today? If I had gotten into that school and gone for marine biology, what would I be doing now? That opens up a whole world I know nothing about, so who knows where I would be?! What if I had kept my pre-vet med major at Longwood and never known the wonderfulness of the Longwood Comm. Studies Department? What if I had stayed at Ascent Media, working "behind the scenes" in TV? What if I hadn't applied to grad school or spent that summer in Italy? Again, these aren't regrets, just questions. I know that parts of my life are solid, as solid and wonderful as they could be. I have an amazing husband (who, if I had not moved to CT would never have met) an amazing best friend (who Longwood brought me) an awesome group of friends who mean the world to me, a beyond amazing family. I just wonder about my career sometimes. I love teaching, but would I have been better at something else? Just feeling a bit reflective this evening.

Butterflies

I still get 'em. The night before the first day of school has always been a night for butterflies for me. I love everything that has to do with going back to school. The back-to-school mall shopping, new shoes, new backpack, new school supplies! I love it all and always have! I could spend hours at Staples, the back-to-school section at Walmart, Target, you name it- I'm there. There's just something about new notebooks, new pens, a box of newly sharpened pencils or crisp new crayons. And the brand new, blank calendar just waiting to be filled with important dates for the school year! Man I just get so excited even thinking about it!

This mild obsession with all things school supply could be a reason I went into the teaching profession. Now, my days leading up to the start of school are spent browsing at the Educational Warehouse, the dollar bins at Target and the same wonderful aisles of Staples and Walmart. And now I get to buy teacher things too, like a lesson plan book and books full of bulletin board ideas! I don't need a new backpack, but I browse through them anyway:) I get to decorate my classroom with bright colors and inviting posters. And I get to use my teacher handwriting, which I love doing. Perfecting each curve and line to form the perfect letter. Nerd, party of one.

I just thought that I would blog about this very exciting day. The first day of school is tomorrow for us, today was open house and my butterflies woke me up at 5:00 this morning. Those were more nervous butterflies because parents come to open house too. I'm not nervous about speaking in front of people (thanks COMM 101) but these people are entrusting me with the care and education of their children, their most prized possessions. So the "what if they don't like me?" question teeters in the back of my mind. The kids I am not afraid of. I love kids, I love teaching them and watching them soak everything up. The butterflies that will wake me up tomorrow will be pure excitement:) So whether your first day was yesterday, today, tomorrow, whenever, good luck to all my teacher friends! Have a wonderful year!!

Running.

Euphoria. A great workout. Runner's high. Cute running shorts. Lean muscle. Strong legs. Great cardio. A clear head. Weight loss. Time to think.

The above is a list of the way I wish I could see running.

Below is how it really is in my life.

Trouble breathing. Asthma. Neuroma. Shin splints. THREE sports bras. Running bottoms long enough to prevent chub rub. Ankle pain. Sore knees. Frustration.

I've always wanted to be a runner, to be able to feel that high people talk about. I have ran, and I have never been high from it. Endorphin's? I don't know about those. I have been advised by many a doctor not to run, that the benefits come nowhere near outweighing the harm. They say that even for healthy people, running is bad for your joints, takes a toll in the long run and puts you at risk for injury because the weight you bear down on your knees, ankles, feet every time you take a stride, hurts more than helps.

That is just for normal people. I, however, am not normal when it comes to body type. I have a rod and six pins and screws in my left ankle. Keeps it sturdy in there, but definitely makes it sore when I pound down on it by running. I have multiple neuroma's (tiny little nerve tissue collected into a benign tumor inside your foot that causes excruciating shooting pain on the ball of the foot.) I have bad knees, which we found out started from growing pains when I was about 13 (Osgood-Schlatter-rapid growth and pulling of the tendons around the growth plate of the knee.) Painful then and never quite went away from the teen years. I also get shin splints. I always have, used to even have to be iced by a trainer before and after soccer and lacrosse games in high school. Those are just annoying and I try to work through the pain. I have exercise induced asthma. My lungs burn, feel like they are closing up and I can't take a deep breath. I have an inhaler for prevention and emergencies. If I take it as a preventative, it makes me shake and I hate the way it makes me feel. And I don't ALWAYS trigger the asthma when I work out, so I only use it when I can feel an attack coming.

So, those are the medical conditions which keep me from enjoying a nice run. Otherwise, the fact that I have to wear three sports bras to keep these ladies in place and out of pain, is just annoying. The fact that there are adorable running outfits out there that I can't wear is a little disheartening as well. Running shorts tend to be super short, which is great if your thighs don't touch...I, however do not have that luxury. This part is mostly just vanity, but still, buying new workout clothes always makes you feel excited about working out, right? Maybe that's just me.

Either way, I still get to a point every once in a while where I just want to run. Just to try it one more time and see if I can push through and make it to that euphoria. It hasn't happened yet, but I haven't given up completely:)

Time is Treasure

It is always sad to lose someone. Even more so when you have things you wished you could have said or done with that someone and suddenly they are just no longer there.

Ellen asked me a long time ago if I knew how to iron. I said, "Well, I think so...I kind of just put the clothes out and iron them, no real plan of action."

She proceeded to tell me that there is a specific way to iron, that her mother-in-law taught her how to do so and that she would love to show me. I told her I would love that and we should plan a time for me to come over with some of Oliver's clothes.

Time went by, we continued our weekly dinners with Oliver's parents, and saw them often, but never quite planned that ironing lesson. I always thought to myself, "we'll figure it out, we'll find a time."

Ellen began to get sicker and as she began to get even more weak, I remember thinking, maybe I could set up an iron in the hang-out room where Ellen was in her bed. She might not be able to show me, but if I were right there she could guide and direct me.

It seems simple, an ironing lesson. Ironing is ironing, you get the wrinkles out, you're good, right? But it was more than that. It meant something that my mother-in-law-to-be wanted to pass something on to me that her mother-in-law passed to her. It was just really a moment to share. And I wanted that moment. And as time went on and her sickness quickly began to completely take over, I lost my chance. I lost my chance to spend the time and make the memory. Like I said, it seems simple, but it tears me up inside that I missed out on that moment. I was lucky enough to marry into the most amazing family, have the most amazing in-laws. Even if I technically only had a mother-in-law for three days.

I miss Ellen everyday. I'm not really sure I will ever forgive myself for letting that moment pass. I am extremely blessed that I got the chance to say everything I could ever want to say to her, to thank her for her son, for making him who he is, for loving him the way she had his whole life, for teaching him how to love and for welcoming me with open arms into their family. The most amazing woman, the pride of the family, the elegant matriarch. I learned a lot from my mother-in-law and I am thankful for that. This lesson, instead of teaching me how to iron, has taught me to treasure all moments and never take time for granted because you are not always guaranteed to have it.

31 Days

So, it seems to me that whenever I give myself a challenge, I seem to get more accomplished. Kind of like making short-term goals instead of big, long-term ones. For example, when I started boot camp this year, I signed up for one month and told myself that I would do this boot camp for the whole month, no excuses, no skipping out, and I did it. The whole month of January I woke up at 5:00 a.m., went to boot camp for an hour, went to the gym to shower and then continued on with my regular workday. I didn't miss one day and it felt really good to keep that promise to myself. I also give something (usually multiple somethings) up every year during Lent. I have never, not once "cheated" during Lent. If I say I will not eat fast food or order out for a month, I wont do it (even when it isn't the Lenten season.)

What I am getting at is my next challenge. Tomorrow begins a new month and my challenge, however small it may seem to others, is to do some type of physical activity everyday for 31 days. When I do things like this, it isn't just for the month, it is to jump start a healthy way of living, so that next month, I will be used to the everyday activity, know what I am capable of and be able to continue.

And since I decided to blog about it and this is a dual blog...Hollee and I will be doing this together. Whatever it may be; a walk around the block, a trip to the gym, swimming at the beach or pool, a bike ride...anything. Everyday. All month long. We will both be doing it (we tend to do better when we do things together, even from a distance.) We will also be taking suggestions of what type of activity to do so we don't get burnt out. So, keep the ideas coming! (Or really, just START them coming...no one ever responds to our blogs, we really do want suggestions!!)

We'll be blogging about our progress; how things are going, what types of activities we are doing, how we feel, etc. So, there you go. 31 days. Starting tomorrow. Wish us luck!