How is my year going thus far?...

Since I'm low on blog ideas at the moment (or I should say-they all flee my head as soon as I sit to type ;), I thought I'd update on my resolutions for the year, since we are now almost 1/4 of the way through it. Here are my resolutions for 2010.

1: Lose 20 lbs-I have 'officially' lost 5 lbs & have been weighing every Friday, so I am hoping that it will be a bit more than that by the end of the week (& before the Easter candy arrives ;)
I am okay with this amount, since it means that I am right on target for my end of the year goal & I know it is better to lose it slower & it makes it much more likely to stay off once it is gone! (I hope!)

2: Read 40 books-I am going to have A LOT of reading to do this summer if I even hope to make it to this goal. I'm not even sure what my current total is right now, but my guess is that it is only 3-5 books for the year. SAD!

3: Run 3 miles/5K-I was doing so well with this one last Jan & then the flu it me & took me down for a whole week. Then the next week volleyball started, meaning many late evenings & very little down time...all of these are excuses, yes I know, but I am not ashamed to use them :) I have recently started walking again & am hoping that the 3/4-1 mile I was running before the flu hit will come back to me easily!

4: Set good routines for household-Scott & I sat down & had a good talk about this one right after I set it. We discussed what things we could EACH do every morning/afternoon/evening that would make each of our days/routines go more smoothly. We started working on setting new habits, but unfortunately that flu hit me (yes I AM using that again ;) followed on its heels by volleyball (which meant a super crazy schedule for awhile) & I kind of fell away/forgot some of the ones I was doing. Bless his heart though, Scott has remembered each & almost every morning to sort & start a load of laundry like we planned & has picked up the slack with the drying (which I was going to do when I got home from work each day) & folding (which we were both going to do). He is a good husband! :) Over the past week & a half, I have been trying to find my way back into a "normal" routine & am starting to get there-now if only my house looked/felt the same! ;)

Well, that is it for now, but here is to (hopefully) improved results arriving just in time for the next update!

Out with the old & in with the new

The Old:

Last night was the end of our volleyball season...the 8th grade girls played there hearts out, but just couldn't quite pull out a victory in their regional game. It made for an exciting game though!
I am so proud of my 6th graders (whose season ended last Thursday)! They made so much progress this year & even learned some things that hopefully put them at a better starting point than where the 7th graders had to start from this year. If they continue to improve this much each year, they could be very good someday (& much better than our district's vball teams have been in the past. :)
I will miss it, but it's end does leave room now for...

The New:

Tonight, I (Scott & Luke too) got to go see my brand new niece, Lucy Ann! She was born early this morning, but due to work & travel distance, we didn't get to see her until just a few hours ago. She is beautiful (as are all of my nieces & let me tell you~that is getting to be quite a few these days! ;) I am so happy for my sis & her husband & can't wait to spend more time with their beautiful little girl. Luke was quite smitten as well & kept saying "HOLD LUCY! Lukey HOLD HER!"

Don't be such a 'baby hog' son! ;)
(Not sure where he gets that from...please don't look too closely at his mother or most definitely his grandmother!)

Actually, he did a great job with her & even smiled/posed for the camera :)

We are so happy to have you as part of our family, Lucy Ann, & wish all the best to Beth & Neil as they embark on this journey called parenthood!
Good Luck! ;) [insert evil laughter here~just kidding!]

#1 Coffee

Yep, there it is~let this celebration begin!

So I decided to start out with something that is a very important part of my day, yet hasn't been in my life for the majority of my (almost) 30 years.

I've always been a fan of those capuchinno machines that you can find in gas stations, but it was only on a rare occasion that I would drink one. I was NOT a coffee drinker, but that all changed just a few short years ago...

We received one of those "junk" mail advertisements for a 'free' coffee maker as long as you purchased a few of the company's coffees. Well we sent off for it, since Scott's family uses their coffee maker to brew tea-we thought this would be a good thing to do so that we could brew our tea too plus it would be 'free'. Little did we know our tea days were going to be coming to an end very soon...

We tried the "flavored" coffees that we had purchased & really liked them, but we limited ourselves to about once a week to actually drink the stuff. Sometime later, we went on vacation & stayed with my cousin & her husband & they introduced us to this whole "liquid" creamer thing, which was even better. You could buy plain coffee, but it tasted MUCH better with this stuff in it & it was much more cost effective too!

Sooo...we started buying 'amaretto' flavored liquid creamer & our coffee was SOOO good! :) And our coffee drinking habits increased to 2-3 times a week, but...

THEN I discovered 'chocolate caramel' flavored liquid creamer & I have been a coffee junkie ever since! Not only do I drink coffee every single morning now (except Sundays if we don't come home after church), but I drink 2-3 cups of the stuff every single morning. Speaking of which, I missed my cups this morning...maybe I'll go have a cup now!*

*But probably not because I really don't feel like being awake all night! ;)

"Who that guy is?"

OR

"What's that guy's name?" are currently Luke's two favorite questions.

We go to church-he points at "all the people" & asks these questions.

We go to the store-he points at the people & the people on the signs & asks these questions.

We go to a restaurant-he points at all of the waiters/waitresses & people sitting around us & asks these questions.

So, my apologies go out to the whole wide world because 'yes' my child will be pointing at you if/when we ever run into each other & asking me about who you are. Unfortunately, he isn't quite old enough yet to grasp the idea that mommy & daddy do NOT in fact know who everyone is & that it is rude to point. Lucky for him, he is only 2 1/2 so it is still considered cute by our & "those peoples" standards. :)

*All quotes are Luke's words-not ours ;)

The Year(s) of 30

My turn is coming, but luckily I still have 6 more months until it does. 30 is right around the corner my friends! I don't really concern myself about my age too much, in fact, oftentimes I can't actually remember exactly how old I am :) My brain has kind of become stuck on 28 for some reason.

30, though, seems a bit different. I'm glad to be living yet another year in this world, but not so much about getting older. I'm excited about watching Luke grow each day, but then worry about not getting to see my (hopefully someday) grandchildren/great nieces & nephews and their kids & grandkids grow up. Isn't that what we're all afraid of when it comes right down to it-never having had enough time with those we love?

Anway, last night as we were attending our 2nd "3oth Birthday Party" in recent months for one of my friends, a discussion started up about the reasons we should be glad to be turning 30. One of my friends mentioned that her car insurance dropped in December after her birthday. I mentioned that we still had a good 30-35 years to enjoy that before our rates would start increasing again ;) Some other benefits that were discussed-looking forward to senior discounts, early bird suppers & bedtimes, getting together & not caring what others would think of us :) It made for a good round of laughter & looking forward to getting older. ;)

I was thinking about all of that this morning as I was enjoying a lazy morning at home (Kudos to mom & dad for keeping Luke overnight! Sorry for the early a.m. wake up though!) I decided that I would start something special here at Faith, Hope & Poop? to honor this upcoming event. A few months back, my sis-in-law was telling me about a blogger she had seen that was doing a post a day for a year about people who had influenced his/her life & how that might be a good idea for 'turning 30' posts. I've decided to 'swipe' this idea, but am going to make it much smaller by calling it "30 to celebrate 30". This means that coming soon I will begin a series of 30 posts about 30 people/things/places that have been very important to me over the last (almost) 30 years. I will be starting sometime in the near future & will hopefully be wrapping it up sometime close to my actual birthday in September. They will appear sporadically (they will be in no particular order of importance either) & if you happen to miss one-you can always click over there on the side & catch up :)

I look forward to sharing these things with you & hope that you will enjoy reading them as well! If anyone else out there is reaching this milestone over the next year or so too & wants to play along, I'd love to read your posts as well-just tell me where to go :)

Randomosity

You like that word...I just made it up :) Anyway, right now headed your way is one completely random post due to my long absense~many thoughts have been storing up inside my brain & you my lucky readers get to share in it!

*It's March-my least favorite month. Why? (I know you were all just thinking that, right?) It has to be the looonnnggggeeeesssttt month of the whole year-you know we teachers hardly ever get a day off in March (my sis the nurse loves to hear me complain about this ;) This year in my school we get a whopping 1 hour early dismissal on the last day of March this year-it might be a long 23 school days this month, especially once spring fever officially sets in over the next few weeks.

*Also, March can be such a tease-it's late enough into the winter season that everyone is hoping for spring, but if it turns nice in March-watch out for April! So just give me a nice cold March, if it means that spring can officially start in April & then stick around until summer.

*I have yet to suffer from 'spring fever' this year. I have heard many of my family & friends' complaints/wishes for winter to be over, but I haven't really felt that way until maybe the last 2-3 days. Up until this point I have actually been hoping for maybe one more good snowfall, now not so sure, unless it will get us a few snow days right in the middle of the week in the middle fo March... ;)

*My 6th graders won their first game last week & we're hoping for a repeat tomorrow evening.

*We only have a few weeks left to this volleyball season (& it feels like it only just started!)-I think I'm "hooked" & have actually been surprised by how much I have enjoyed it!

*It's Lent, which means Fridays=fish/no meat & our "Pizza Fridays" have gone by the wayside here at our house-I really miss them...

*I have had several great blog post ideas, but have not written any of the down or typed any of them to be posted-now I can't remember what they were...

*I realized that if you spell the word "chidren" backwards, the first half of what it spells is the word "nerd"...it makes me wonder if this means anything...

Could that thought have been any more random for all of you? :) Until next time...