Organizing and Prioritizing

I wanted to call this post "Purging and Listing", but that made me think of a drunken sailor, so I changed it. Two weeks back (in my weekly Tribune column) I talked about a blog that I've come across that I really like - LivingWellSpendingLess.com, by Ruth Soukup. There is so much available to read - it can be a little overwhelming. Luckily, the blog is well thought out and well laid out, so it was pretty easy for me to find some good reading on cleaning and time management, which are the two topics that drew me in in the first place. 

Step 1: Purge. It's been a struggle sometimes to keep the toys cleaned up in our home. We work quite often with Micah on teaching him to put his toys away at the end of the day. For the most part, he's pretty good at it. However, two year olds have their limits, and when there are a million toys laying around, or he's in one of his two year old moods, the bulk (if not all) of the cleaning up gets left to mom and dad... and that comes after getting him into a clean pull-up, his pjs, his teeth brushed, his night light on his "blue light" on his fan on the fan outsidehisdooronbooksreadprayerssaidsnugglesandhugsand... you get the idea. And then Malie needs to be fed and changed and put to bed, dinner needs to be cleaned up after, and all of those other wonderful things that parents adults are supposed to do every day. All of which is to say that the toys, which generally need to go on shelves and in bins in very specific ways in order to all fit, haven't always made it back to their homes at the end of every day. Finally I decided that we were on toy overload, and that maybe some should get put away. After reading a post by Ruth on her taking the majority of toys away from her two girls and the wonderful change she saw, I knew it was the thing to do. Now Micah has about three sets of toys available at a given time, along with books and puzzles. My house looks better, and we're happier with the lack of clutter. 

My other purge area was my closet. How many of you (women) look into your closet full of clothes and think, "Ugh. I have nothing to wear..." Yeah, I do that, too. Ruth also wrote a post on her "40 Hanger Closet". In her house, her closet now has 40 nice hangers and the clothes that fit on them. If they didn't fit, they had to go. Those shirts that you really just don't wear anyway more, or that just don't quite fit right, or that you got because it was on sale... She said that when she cut her wardrobe down to the clothing she actually liked and wore on a regular basis, she suddenly felt like she always had something to wear. This weekend, I grabbed a bunch of stuff out of my closet and bagged it up. It really is a nice feeling to look into the closet and think, "Sure, I could wear any one of these shirts right now and be happy in it." Goodbye bulky sweaters and "perfectly good" button-ups that were given to me. 

Step 2: Organize I have been trying to get some organizing done, and I had a wonderful breakthrough recently. I'm one of those people who needs a place for everything, or everything goes all over the place. Case in point: our front hall closet. It's been slowly filling with shoes, until My once neat space had literally turned into a small mountain of foot coverings. A lot were shoes that are now too small for Micah, or shoes that got worn once for some particular occasion but which don't get worn regularly. However they got there, I knew they needed to go. We have a split-level entry, and both the closet by the door and the closet at the top of the stairs were offensive, though the one up top was the one with the mountain. I took the shoe rack out of the lower closet and put it in the upper closet, moving out any shoes that didn't belong there. Then I had to figure out the lower closet. I bought a shoe rack some time ago that expands, which would have been really great for the closet, except then I got it home and decided it was the stupidest shoe rack ever. It consists of parallel tubes that put shoes at an angle. Two smooth, round tubes that angle shoes downward. They just fell right off the moment the rack got bumped. And, of course, your shoes have to be big enough to reach from one bar to the other, which Micah's certainly aren't. Ridiculous! My solution? It's not exactly pretty, but it's functional: old jeans. I have a few pairs of old jeans that I keep around in case I come up with some genius use for the fabric (which I guess I did). I cut the legs off of two pairs and slid them onto the racks (the two tube for each level of the shoe rack fit into the pant leg and then re-attach to the other side of the rack). I clipped them fairly snugly, so now shoes can actually grip the rack, and Micah's shoes can sit on the fabric and not fall through. 

Step 3: Plan of Attack I also hinted at the "time jar" in that column two weeks ago. Each day we are given 24 hours - our jar. How we fill those 24 hours is up to us. If we fill it first with the little things (think sand), there is no room for the bigger, more important things (think rocks. Or maybe baseballs or golf balls if you're a sports person). If we want to make sure that we are creating space for the big things, intentionality is key. And, if you want to be intentional about the big things, you have to first define what those big things are for you. 

Ruth has created a Goal Setting Workbook, which is pretty straight foward. What do you consider to be most important to you in life? How are you spending your time? Is the way you're spending your time in line with what's important to you? What are short and long term goals that you have etc. As annoying as those things can feel sometimes, I actually sat down and went through most of it. I classified my priorities, made some short and long term goals, and thought about how I wanted to achieve those goals in a measurable manner. 

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit." - Aristotle. If you want to be intentional, form habits. Habits free up brain space. In her post, "Filling the Time Jar {5 Steps that Will Change Your Life}", Ruth mentions the book The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg. She notes, "After reading this book, I realized that because my willpower in a given day is limited, the more good habits I create for myself, the more willpower and energy I will have leftover to use towards other things." As part of her Goal Setting Workbook, Ruth says to list five things you want to do every morning and every evening - those things you want to become habits. While I think it may change a little (and is slightly longer than five), I have created my list and will be framing it to put up somewhere to look at until I forget the need to see it every day. 

 Among my personal goals are keeping my house cleaner and having more "present" time with my family (which means trying to accomplish more work when I'm not with them. I do a lot of work from home, so even though I'm at home with my family, I'm often working, which means there, but not really there.) With this in mind, I created a weekly cleaning sheet for myself. Ruth has a number of really good ones on her site, based on your own personal cleaning style (see her post "How to Create a Cleaning Schedule That Works For You".) I liked her sheets, but as Neal puts it, I'm "particular" (read: anal retentive) sometimes, so I made my own. It's basically a lengthwise piece of paper divided into five long sections, with each section representing a week of the month. I listed all of the cleaning I'd like to accomplish in a given week in each space so I can cross things off as I go. The fifth space I used for cleaning items I want to try and hit once a month. I created a second sheet that's basically identical, except that fifth space is reserved for quarterly cleaning items - something I was happy Ruth brought up because I never would have thought about it otherwise (which is probably why the filter on our furnace has only been changed once since we moved in. That's now on my quarterly cleaning list).  

I'm finishing this week's column on Monday night, and the morning started out with an alarm clock (other than Micah) and a walk on the treadmill, which means so far, so good. While I didn't accomplish everything I wanted to this morning, it was a good start. Now to keep my eyes on the prize when that alarm clock continues to go off earlier than I'd like!

Two Years

Wow. I almost can't believe that I'm posting anything here right now. I think I want to journal, but it's too late and dark for that. It's been two years, a new job, new house, new town and new baby since I wrote anything last. My dad likes to give me a hard time about that. I tell him my blog comes out every Wednesday (aka my column in the paper :)

I've been thinking about posting my column here each week. Just tossing some piece of myself into the void that is cyberspace where friends or acquaintances could catch it if they wanted. We'll see.

I don't even really know why I'm writing tonight, except that it's late and I'm tire of working. And I'm crabby. And jealous. And it's dumb. And if you're part of my immediate family and you happen to somehow randomly check in on this page after more than two years and find this post,  I will not be fielding questions as to why. Love you.

I'm tired lately. I'm a little overwhelmed. My baby girl is amazing and I adore her, but life has sure been busier since she arrived. Add in the stress of first-time tax stuff, my bookkeeping software being absoultely useless for 2013 taxes, and Neal having 160 hours of training in 3 ish months for the fire department and, well... Like I said. I'm a little overwhelmed. It's been an excercise in grace when I don't feel like it lately, and I'm not always meeting the mark in that area.

I'm going to go to bed before I wake my little girl up.

Micah's Mama

Well, it's about time to announce it. Micah Neal Meyer arrived safely, though after some delay, on Friday December 16th weighing in at 7 lb. 11 oz (after taking three very big poops--two of them all over his mama) and measuring 20 inches long. He has beautiful eyes and skin like his daddy, and is the most beautiful thing in the world. I dare anyone to say anything different. :o)

My mother asked me recently if I was surprised at how much I could love him. I'm not sure that I am, though I am most certainly amazed at how beautiful he is to me. Maybe that's the same thing.

I've been working on this post in my head for a while. I wish I could have written it right after he was born, but that didn't work out. So here it is now the best I can recall it.

Becoming a mom wasn't what I thought it would be. I don't mean being a mom, but rather becoming one. My pregnancy was very disconnected from my labor and delivery, which were very disconnected from the child placed in my arms. I'll try to explain.

You spend nearly nine months being pregnant, which has all sorts of stages, perks and drawbacks to it. You know there's a baby inside you, and that somewhere around 40 weeks later you'll get to meet that baby. You know it's the process by which you become a parent. You can feel the baby kicking and see him or her moving around inside you and it's very cool. It's a long, process that's both amazing and annoying (I'm not going to lie--I'm not one of those people who was completely in love with being pregnant. Don't get me wrong, I didn't dislike it, but I wasn't sad about it being over. I enjoyed it for what it was and was ready for it to be done when the time came).

During pregnancy, you know there's a living thing inside you. But you can't see him or her. You can't really visualize this small person waiting to be born. Everything you see is a cartoon drawing of a baby all curled up in a womb. Cartoons aren't real. So, you're waiting for this cartoon baby to arrive, and you know it's going to come when labor starts. So you begin anticipating labor once the final weeks arrive. Except you're not really sure you're going to immediately know when it starts, because it's different for every person. So you spend time thinking about your body and analyzing things and wondering how you will know. And in my case, you really hope your baby will arrive on a certain day so that he or she will share a birthday with both you and your grandpa, because that would be just cool. And even once that momentous day passes and there's no labor, you start thinking about how you're eating up your six weeks of maternity leave with waiting, and that's just not cool. So you start doing things to encourage labor to happen. And people keep asking when the baby is coming. You spend a good deal of time thinking about the whole labor thing.

Eventually, finally, you know. It's time. You're in labor. Now the process begins. You tell your husband. You call your doula (birthing assistant). You think about the books you've read and the classes you've attended and the way you've been hoping your labor and delivery will go. You've spent a lot of time thinking about and preparing for this big, long, difficult process. And now it's here. You breathe, you move, you rock your hips, you smile. You think about embracing the whole experience--everything you wanted to do so that you could say I brought my child into this world with strength and confidence and it was beautiful, not the horrible scream-fest they show in movies.

My labor was good, on the whole. But longer than anticipated. It started late on Wednesday night when the practice contractions I'd been having for well over a month were coming regularly for about two hours, and then suddenly changed into real ones. With a practice contraction, your whole belly tenses up and gets tight like when you flex your stomach muscles. With real contractions, they move downward like they have a goal. At least that's how it was for me. I managed to sleep through most of the night (after we packed up and drove home from our free hotel room in Tofte, courtesy of the Bluefin Christmas party), and in the morning Neal made us eggs benedict for breakfast. I had determined that I was not going to the hospital until it was really necessary. Around noon I went in to get checked out and was dilated to 3 cm. Around 2:00 or so my doula arrived at our house, and around 3:00 I finally consented to leave. That proved to be convenient timing because around 3:30, as we were waiting to get into our room, my contractions suddenly decided to get a little more serious then they had been.

During my labor I ate, took a shower, threw up, drank lots of fluids, threw up some more, ate some honey for energy, threw up some more, employed lots of pain management strategies, and did my best to embrace the pain as a productive process. Later in the evening when my child still wasn't arriving and the contractions were amazingly strong my asthma started acting up, I knew I was dehydrated and using up my stores of energy, and finally was willing to consider some pain medication. Haha. Too late. They expected a baby around midnight--right on the due date. After another four hours of non-stop contractions, I was finally panicking a bit. We were a 2+ hour ride from the nearest big hospital if something went wrong. What if I ran out of energy? What if I couldn't push? What if the baby went into distress? What if I needed a C-section? I couldn't even imagine the though of getting into a vehicle for 2 hours--I was in so much pain.

Fast forward (I'm skipping a lot of details here). The baby was a bit stuck, so the doctor decided to help get him or her out. That meant time to push. This part of the labor process is its own special process. After hours and hours of trying very hard to do nothing but let the contractions do what they are supposed to, it's finally time to do something, which was awesome. Apparently it's not uncommon to have a bit of a time figuring out exactly how to push. Fortunately, I had no trouble at all. I was real good at the pushing part. About an hour and a half later the baby was unstuck, which meant progress could be made, and about another half an hour after that, my son was born.

Speaking of son, I think mine is ready to eat, so I better stop here for now. The point of this post was supposed to be more about the becoming a mom part than the mechanics of having a baby part, but oh well. As hard as labor was, it was also good, and I would do it the same way all over again.

Still Not Dead

I'm writing this post from my new home. :oD The same house I mentioned in my last post. Long story short, we ended up buying a very cute two bedroom house. It's yellow. And it has a blue two car garage. I like yellow and blue. And I like the yard. A lot. Moving in is still going, but going well.

Neal figured out how to get the internet from his phone to my computer. When he lets me borrow it...like right now... it's pretty much awesome.

I know I never actually posted about it, because I was trying to tell some people "in person" instead of via my blog, but we're only 2-3 weeks out on baby Meyer arriving. Pretty exciting for this very pregnant mama.

I like my new job a lot. It's going well, and I get to work with awesome people.

That's about all I have in me tonight.

Not Dead

Diagnosis: Not dead yet. (I know, you were starting to wonder)

So it's been 4 months since my last post, almost to the day I think. Tons has happened since then, of course, but I can't imagine there's much worth noting that most people don't know already. I've been planning this post for a while, but it requires me getting my pictures from my camera to my computer, then getting my computer to the internet. I have the day off today (hurray!), so maybe I'll try and put that toward the top of my To Do list today. After I transplant my green peppers, but maybe before cleaning out the guinea pig's cage. We'll see.

For now I'll keep this pretty short and sweet. We're house hunting, which is the latest big development in our lives. Neal and I both have jobs in Grand Marais now--he at a credit union and me as a paraprofessional in a little charter school, which I'm getting more and more excited about. I'll get to work with an amazing teacher in a 4th-5th grade classroom, and the school is very alternative in ways that I think are pretty good. They pick a lot of their lunch food from their green house. I mean, how awesome is that? "I think a salad sounds good for lunch." "Ok, to the green house we go. " Sigh! It makes me excited for the garden I'd like to have next year.

We're looking at a few different houses right now, though one stands far above the rest in my mind. The woman who owns it is selling it herself and is very motivated to move, which is awesome in an already buyer-friendly market. We put an initial offer in last Sunday, which was too low for her, but I think we're going to go back again tomorrow during her open house and negotiate a little further after we give the house another thorough inspection. No matter what happens, I can honestly say it's a fantastic time for Neal to be working at a financial institution. The woman who would  be doing our mortgage is amazing too--she just seems to know stuff about nearly every house on the market, which = awesome insider information. For example, "Oh, that house? No, you don't want that one. The whole place stinks like cat pee. You'd have to rip everything out to try and get rid of the smell." Hmm... thank you very much for that tip.

Whenever we make it up there, you can bet that internet is going to be a priority for me. I'm hoping that I can tether my computer to Neal's phone and get it that way, which would be awesome! And then... well, let's just say my crappy phone won't be around much longer either. The style is fine and all, but now it likes to just push random buttons all the time, which mean my text messages st9armt to3 lmook l2ikeg thizs. Or suddenly it starts opening applications I don't want it too. Or I can't read my messages because it keeps sending me from my inbox to my sent box to my out box to somewhere else. Ok, enough complaining. In my fantasy world, I'll either go on a Mary Kay spree, or work a few extra Saturday mornings at Bluefin until I have specific phone money saved it (at which point I can justify an iphone. mwahaha).

Well, so much for short and sweet. It's now time for me to go and be productive doing something else. I left my coffee creamer at work yesterday, so I walked down for a cup of coffee this morning, at which point my crazy husband treated me to breakfast (he's working here this morning). It was pretty much great. So now I'm in the office, typing away, sipping on juice. It's really nice. But like I said, time to get back to reality.

Bye for now.

Dial an(d) Answer

Well, it's big news folks. I'm writing this post from my house. Wow. The internet has finally come to 51 Tofte Homestead Rd. Well, dial up has anyway. Which is painful, true. But it's affordable, and it works in a pinch--an answer to prayer. Hoo-cha!

Neal and I also had another big answer to prayer today, but I'll wait a bit to share that one. No, I'm not pregnant, just in case you were wondering.

Our truck decided to spew green all over the ground yesterday, apparently in honor of St. Patrick's Day. The water we poured in leaked right back out, so it's not just a hose. Apparently you can see a decent crack, and the previous owner had poured some leak-stop stuff in there, so I guess it's been brewing for a bit. Great. We got it towed up to Grand Marais this evening, so we're praying that won't be a massive bill.

I started an online college class this week--a Human Relations/Multicultural Education class that I need to get my MN teaching license. It's a 15 week class crammed into 8 weeks, which is fine by me. I just need to work at being on the internet and getting all of my reading done when I need to.

One of Neal's high school friends and groomsman from our wedding is coming up tonight to propose to the love of his life, so that should be exciting. And on that note, I have to work soon, so I should probably get going. Hopefully they'll come in and share the story--it sounds like it's going to be epic. Rope ladders and balconies are involved. Wow.

Pray for me and my preschool class too, if you think of it. I have a few new kids, and I've been getting really worn out in general lately. I love my jobs, but seven 4 year old children who want all of your attention ALL DAY get to be a bit much by the end when you're trying to raise them as much as teach them.

PS. AA, thanks for the response to my frantic IM the other day. Sorry I haven't gotten back to you. My kids were putting me on the verge of a nervous break down. They all fell asleep at rest time, so I let rest time linger an extra 15...30 minutes. :o)

MK

I don't think I've posted before that at the end of last year I decided to become a Mary Kay consultant. I love the products and I really like with the company stands for. The founder--Mary Kay Ash, was a Christian woman who began her "dream company" after she retired. She wanted good products and a way for women who needed to support their families to be able to do so with some flexibility (she watched her mother support her and her constantly sick father, and her own husband died not long after they retired). Today, the company has independent consultants in about 30 markets world wide, it runs several charities for children in need in several countries and survivors of domestic abuse here in the US, it does not support animal testing, and is very environmentally-minded when it comes to product packaging and shipping. I like that.

Why am I blogging about this? I'm not really sure. I didn't have much else to say right now. But I'm sure I'll have a post about Sunday School before too long. I'm reading a lot of stuff right now. It's intersting. There's a battle building in my mind. But enough about that until I have a more complete plan.

Back home to the dog.

Matters of the Heart

My heart has been wrestling with many things lately. It's taken me a while and a few frustrating conversations, but tonight I think I've finally figured it out, and that's a pretty big deal. I have to say, I'm usually really good at figuring things out. Underlying motivations and factors aren't always easily seen--I guess that's why we call them underlying. But in myself, I tend to be pretty good at spotting them and naming them. I haven't been able to do that lately, and my poor husband has had to hear about it. Of course he wants to help, but he can't help me with something if the problem us unknown. Well, anyway, here is a semi-short version.

My heat has been unsettled. I told Neal I thought maybe we should be giving more money to our church. He said, "What do you mean? We've been giving more money every month that we've been married. It's not all going in the offering plate, but I feel really good about what we're giving." I thought it over. He was right.

I told Neal, I want to know what it is that we're going to do together for the church. He said, "What do you mean? We're teaching Sunday School, we helped lead worship last week, we're doing treats for this coming month, and we do international student ministry during the summer. If you want to do something more, then you need to tell me what you'd like to do." I thought it over. He was right.

I told Neal that I felt like we have these four "life goals" that we want to accomplish, but I want a plan for how we're going to accomplish them. He said, "What do you mean? I think we're doing a really good job of being spouses, which is something we've talked about a lot. We're not parents yet, so I'm not sure how do a good job of that. It seems as though God hasn't told us where or how to travel yet, so I'm not sure how to make a plan for that. And I think that we are doing good, as discussed in blog point number two." (Ok, I may have edited the last part a bit). I thought it over. He was right.

I told Neal that I want, I want...  ...  .........   *sigh*  I don't know what I want, and that's a problem. Neal said, "I think you miss Dubai. I think you miss people your age. I think you miss having a goal to reach." I thought it over. I told him I thought he was wrong and right. I know I've mentioned "permanent" before. I'm at the first "permanent" place I've ever been in my life. No high school to finish. No college to graduate. No two-year contact to complete. No more finish line, just a long road of marathon. It's weird. So that part was right. But no. No, I wasn't missing Dubai too badly otherwise.

Except maybe a few little things.

Well, except maybe a lot of things. Sort of.

What I think I'm missing most right now is God. When I was in Dubai, I tended to my heat very carefully. I attended a growing and vibrant church with lots of learning and growth opportunities. I met after church each week with other young adults to enjoy fantastic fellowship. I took the time to read for a while in my Bible every day, and I listened to sermons during my 2 1/2 hours of commute that I had 6 days a week. I made God my utmost priority, and took great care of the growth of my soul. Since I've been back in the states, I've neglected it and let it wither. I finally realized that today as I was preparing for tomorrow's Sunday School lesson. Whatever else may be going on with me right now, I think it's all stemming from this lack of devotion.

So, problem identified, and now it's time to work on solving it. Let the repairing begin.

Preschool Promotion

Hello again, after my months of silence. Where to begin? Preschool has been treating me well. I like my kids, and while they do frustrate me at times, I'm really enjoying preschool. The age and the workload suit me quite well. I get my Fridays off, but I'm still putting in almost 40 hours a week. I haven't worked at Bluefin for the last... 3 weeks or so. I'm not complaining. It's not bad, but if I don't have to, well... I'm enjoying investing myself other places. At the end of December I decided to become a Mary Kay consultant (friends and family get a discount!), so now I'm trying to partner with a few local resorts to offer them my services as a way to enhance their guests' experience. Apparently that's the buzzword right now. But, essentially, that is what I want to do--give them a fun experience that's particular to the resort they're staying at while also growing my business.

Things with Neal and I have been good. We're closing in on the 7 month mark. I fully believe that this "newly wed" bliss will fade, but I really am so thankful for the work that we put in before we got married. We made a solid base that we've continued to grow on and, by God's grace and His grace alone, I think we're doing extremely well. It's really in my heart for us to do everything possible to make our marriage God-honoring, and hopefully the same for our parenting, whenever that time comes around (no, this is not an online announcement).

Well, speaking of husbands, and my very sore neck, which has been bugging me for months--nothing really seems to help much, I'm going to stop slouching in this uncomfortable chair (I forgot my lapdesk...) and go see if my husband is done working for the night.

Motivation

December has made a graceful entrance into my life. I've known for the past month and a half or so that my job at Birch Grove would be finished once Christmas rolled around, and that left a very unsettling feeling in my stomach, especially in a time and area where jobs are so scarce, and when we already keep the house somewhere are half a degree above freezing (Ok, I may be exaggerating slightly there. But I'm still trying to get used to the 66ish range when the wind is howling outside and my nose looks like Rudolph is a cousin of mine. You'd think I'd be lining myself with some extra body fat right now, but in fact, my body has decided to do the exact opposite and shed virtually all extra padding it ever had. I don't complain too loudly about that though. :o) Well,  December rolled around and the preschool teacher put her notice in--she got a job that's more in her field of environmental education. That meant that one afternoon, just after I had gone home for the day, I got a phone call offering me the position. It's nearly full-time work, with Friday's off, and between one and seven children on a given day. The pay won't exactly leave me snacking on bon-bons while I lounge around in my roasty-toasty house, but it certainly leaves Neal and I in a much better spot than we would otherwise be in.

So now I have a direction to head in and a place in which to invest myself. And until January rolls around and I officially start, I have and get to continue pouring myself into our upcoming Music Program--December in Our Town. Panic time initially set in with the coming of the month, but the last week and a half my kids have really been putting some energy in, and we're getting excited to see this undertaking pulling itself together, hemming those ragged edges and turning out to be something quite lovely indeed. I certainly bit off more than I intended to--a fashion that is not uncommon for me--making this production probably larger than any in the past, but I don't usually like to do things half-way, and this is no exception. I'm really excited to see the final product, though.  I'll try and take some pictures and get them posted at some point. Check back in February??? March???   : )

Besides school, my grandpa and I just had a birthday on the 7th. It was a really good birthday. Neal worked hard to get the annual Bluefin employee Christmas party to be hosted on that particular Tuesday, so we had an excuse to get a little dressed up and go out to a Fiesta! Free Mexican food, free drinks, karaoke, a free, beautiful three-bedroom unit, plus presents, champagne and cheesecake for me. I got to take Wednesday off work, so we took full advantage of sleeping in and not leaving the unit until 1:00 the next afternoon. Add in the many email, voicemail, text message, and facebook messages and it equals a really nice day.

Sunday school has also been good this month. We're doing a short, three week series on the book The Five Love Languages, which Neal and I both really like and have benefited from in our marriage. I'm really glad Neal and I invested the time in reading some good books before we got married, and it's nice to be able to teach on a topic we're both familiar with and that we both like so well. If you've never read it, I highly recommend it--it's an easy read and well worth it.

Lastly, we got our first Christmas tree up this week and have started decorating it. I love our blue and white snowflake lights, and the blue lights Neal put out on the deck. It's so nice to be back where I can have a white Christmas again, and to be able to look forward to it and spend it with people I love. I'm also excited to be able to put some really great presents under the tree. Hurray for an awesome, and first-ever, Black Friday shopping experience (go to Rhinlander!!! We spent Thanksgiving at Neal's parent's house, and after seeing his brother glancing through the adds, I got interested. Neal then offered to get up and chauffeur me around for the day. What a husband! We had such a good day that we were back in Eagle River for a 1:00 movie, and we didn't even leave his parent's house until 7:45 ish!)   (In all fairness, Neal did get about $80 of Wisconsin cheese out of the deal, as well as some really good tea, which isn't a bad deal at all... in my opinion)

Well, I'm going to finally leave the school and go home to my sick husband. Hope everyone is enjoying or at least making the best of the snow they got. In anticipation and enjoyment of the next few weeks, MERRY CHRISTMAS!!