First 10k and Marathon!

I am so excited and thrilled for The White Knight and Chef! Last week we traveled to Ohio so they could run in the Air Force Marathon. Chef did his first 10k (finish time: 1:07), and TWK finished the full in 5:22 - that is an average pace time of 11-12 minutes! I am so impressed and happy for them both.

Maestro was going to run as well, but that was a Mom Fail. I had his race time and date wrong (his was the day before everyone else) and so we missed it because we were still driving out there.

At the starting line

The trip out we stopped briefly in Baltimore for a friend's retirement ceremony, and then had a sleep over night and a bit of walk around in Pittsburgh - but that is for another blog post. A little later on, I'll also do more update and put the whole marathon story, what essential oils were used (you know we used them!) on my Three Friends Fitness blog. This post is all about my two Guys sticking it out and pushing through to levels they had not reached before now. 

Way to go, Guys!

About 2 hours after Chef finished,
and 30 minutes after TWK

Be an Encouragement to One Another

Today we were able to give Bruiser hearty celebration after listening to him read a book entirely on his own. In fact, he read it quickly enough that even Buttercup was sufficiently engaged! Such moments are a true "win" in any home and should be wildly - and widely (hence the blog post!) - acknowledged as special.

Cleaning Up MY Act

Jeff's tidy little bedside table

When it comes to housekeeping, I have long been more of a "stasher" than one who puts. every. thing. in. its. place. A terrible habit and one I have so far (thankfully!) not passed on to my children irreparably. The past two weeks I have been very interested in following blogs that have cleaning schedules, ideas for organization, ideas for keeping areas straight, etc. On top of that, I am in a semi-annual phase of getting-rid and so am determined to declutter as much as I can while the mood lasts.

I would chalk more of this up to "nesting" and the whole pregnancy thing, being that I'm in my 29th or 30th week, but I really do go through this phase is truly something I go through at least a couple of times a year, regardless of whether or not I'm pregnant. On top of that, each time, a little more sticks and the house is getting easier and easier to keep clean with minimal efforts. Eventually I'll even hit the point where I can get into the deep-cleaning of the curtains, etc. and keeping dust off of everything!

Well... One step at a time, there, Tillie!

So about a week ago, I landed all over Smeagol and Bruiser for their room. It was a wreck - things stashed in the wrong drawers so they wouldn't even close, broken toys everywhere, papers in drawers instead of in school folders, a desk that was largely unused other than to... what else? ... stash things. SO they spent the morning "cleaning" it on their own; needless to say, they didn't get very far, otherwise I would not have had the idea for this post. I went up and helped them finish going through every toy drawer/cubby, their desk, desk drawers... all but their clothing drawers and their bookshelves, which we'll get to later. So far, they have kept it fairly well clean.

This got me to thinking... how come I can't crack that same whip on myself to get my desk straight and kept tidy, keep my "clutter areas" of my room clean, etc.? Here's what has happened in the last two weeks to that end:

• I started on the kitchen. It is now at a place where I don't struggle to keep it up and where I get the dishes done (hand-washed!), counter clean before 9:30 every night - a HUGE accomplishment for Midnight Mel.
• We get at least one load of laundry washed, dried, folded and put away each day as part of our bedtime routine.
• The dining room gets picked up and cleaned up after each meal and several times during our school day so it remains fairly tidy.
• The living room is similarly kept up, with toys being regularly policed and put away, broom being taken to problem areas for a quick sweep, etc.

My goal for each area is to be able to "fix" it in ten minutes or fewer, thereby making it easy to do housework and then get to let the kids go free, try new recipes, read a book or just relax and play games with the kids for a while.

So today I am tackling my second-biggest "problem" room: my own bedroom. (The biggest is the storage room. I am having to do some internal talking to get worked up to that one!) The pictures you see in this post are largely the "before" shots of problem areas in my bedroom - with one shot of my dear, sweet, fairly tidy Jeff's area beside the bed. He is more of a "natural-neatnik" than I am.

We have been good for one another that way - he is less sticky about everything being exactly in place, and I am less of a stasher. As suggested on several of the other blogs I mentioned earlier (Clean Mama, Angel Navy Wife, A Heart Like Water) I have made it a "rule" to finish each area of a room entirely before moving on to clean the next. Sort of a FlyLady thing I guess but I can't keep up with all of the stuff she does just yet!

Tally for the Day

So for today, I got half my bedroom done, but my dining room, living room, kitchen, bathrooms and den are largely in order before Maestro has a friend over to spend the night. Oh yeah - and I broke the "rule": I did take time out to organize the boys' bookshelf. I got in there to put a couple of books away... and couldn't figure out where they were supposed to go so I had to fix it.

Right then.

I'm happy with the day and ready to make pizza crust for dinner tonight while Buttercup takes a (unfortunately) late nap.

My newly-tidied bedside table

Ending 2010 Feeling Blessed

I saw a friend's post on Facebook the other day and she was (seemingly) stunned, excited, and feeling blessed all in one shot. She and her hard-working husband had found out that one of their bigger bills had been paid in full by an anonymous benefactor as a "Secret Santa" gift. I am totally thrilled for them!

Their family and ours have been concurrently working through the Dave Ramsey Total Money Makeover system this past year and I can think of no better gift to give than to help someone come one step closer to Freedom. Freedom from being indebted to "someone" (whether a large corporation or an individual person) else. Freedom from worrying at night over what bills might not be paid; Freedom from having to delay vacations, get-togethers, and nights out because the money is needed for something else.

Along those lines, I also am excited for our family! We started 2010 with about $17,000 in debts, not including our house, but including my student loan from years back. My goal is to have everything paid off in the next two years so that when Jeff retires in four years we have about two years of savings built up and don't have to worry while we move on to "what's next." I have been working towards this goal all through the year, and will continue to for the next two years as planned.

The bill I received in the mail today is for a now-cancelled credit card that I used when starting up my business. At the beginning of 2010, I owed $3,000 on the card. It is now down to $345 - something I can even conceive of paying off in one month! Jeff is sleeping, after pulling an all-nighter as he completed a final paper for a class he's in, so I get to share the news here first.

In looking back over the events of any given year, I am always amazed at how much we've achieved in spite of spending so much time feeling like I am trudging from day to day to day, spinning my wheels, getting "no where." Our three biggest this year are:

• This year, I completed my Bachelor's Degree in Social Science - something I started eighteen years ago before I was even out of high school!
• Jeff is finally re-enrolled in college classes and working toward his degree. He has been planning, hoping, and wanting this for sixteen years, but has been thwarted for many reasons over the years. Again, I am thrilled for him!
• We are closer to being debt-free than we were at the beginning of the year.

So often it is easy to feel like we have let ourselves down in not achieving every single "New Year's Resolution" that we set at the beginning of each year. I don't put goals like weight loss, etc. in stone, but I do write them down, along with my intended path for getting there. I always end the year closer than I was when the year started, even if I didn't achieve the exact goal. In that, I am able to feel continually blessed as I come to Christmas and to the New Year. I hope, as you look at your achievements - not the ones you feel like you missed (the "should have's") but the ones you really managed to ring the bell on - that you feel as much confidence and blessing as I do entering into 2011. If you're not quite there yet, you have two weeks left to really look at what you've done, and realize it's always more than you thought!

Embracing Your Purpose - II

So now that I'm almost another year older, and far wiser, what goals have I for myself? Where am I going next? How am I getting there? I am determined to be debt free (except for the house) by my 36th birthday in 2012 - for that, we have started following Dave Ramsey's program and advice (again, there is another blog post in that, but that is for another time!) As a side note, his program has helped I don't know how many thousands of people and can be found here: www.daveramsey.com - it is worth every penny.

I'm determined to get the many schedules that run my life into a working order that can be synchronized and followed. I don't have a program for that (many use flylady.com though, if that is something you're struggling with but it didn't work so well for me about ten years ago; perhaps I should try it again...) Right now, I see many parallels between the house/clutter-freedom and the budget/debt-freedom. I'm working from that point - but there is one other very important thing that goes with these two goals:

I have learned that, in my own life, to make these two goals happen, I need to stop worrying about working outside of my home at everyone else's projects, at every other volunteer opportunity that comes up that may - or may not - be edifying to my family and me, at every piece that I think I "should" be doing to take some of the financial-breadwinner burden off of Jeff's shoulders.

He has never - ever - said a sideways word about my staying home or about being our primary source of income. The pressure I feel in that comes entirely from within me. The pressure is there, nonetheless, and I am learning that my first job is house and family - there is plenty to do there. My second job is Heritage Transcriptions, in which I get to write memorial books for the families of the fallen members of our military. That is a labor of love. I feel more fulfilled in my life by doing them.

Otherwise, I must be content with "just" being a stay-at-home-mom. I must ignore the looks, the questions, the ugliness that we SAHMs get when we are out and about, especially the looks that see four children and inquire, "Don't you know when to stop??"

For the record, we do know when to stop, but we've decided to love and enjoy all that we're given. Though I am religious and a Christian, I'm not a "quiverful," Bible-thumper type of person: each family has to make its own choices. This is what works for our family, but here is the irony about our having children and choosing to have - or not have - those children with which we are blessed:

Indulge me for a minute in a side-rambling, please: Is it "irony?" I am a little nervous about using the word because of the song by Alanis Morrisette - Ironic - I read an article by a professor after it came out in which the professor said that nothing in the song was ironic; that everything she mentioned in the song was just bad luck! ... isn't it ironic? Don't'cha' think?? So anyway... end side-rambling now. Read on and weigh in...

Here is my sister working with Buttercup in our garden earlier this year. She doesn't plan to have children right now, and I am content to let her be the great-aunt-type to mine! She does a great job!

So here is the possible irony in our having children: when I was sixteen, like many girls, I declared my intention to adopt many children - a busload of them - and never have any of my own. Why would I want to have children of my own when there are so many out there already who need help?? Then I met Jeff and he wanted children - at least one or two - and so we compromised. We would have a couple few bio-babies, then we would adopt at some point in our lives together.

Well, we're up four children and I love them all and wouldn't trade them for anything. They are part of my super-blessed life and to those who would say that I am helping with the "overpopulation" of the world, I say this: which child would you want put back? Which human being would you get rid of? Ponder that, then talk to me. And adoption is still on the table and something we plan to do in our lives.

So what does all of this have to do with "embracing your purpose?" Only this: sometimes, our purpose in life is not really what we might have thought it was. Maybe, just maybe what I want/ed was not what was best for me or where I was really heading in my life and I just didn't know it. Learning to pray, learning to listen for the answer, learning to wait and knowing that what is coming is ultimately leading me to where I need to go to fulfill my purpose in life, gives me peace and makes every step of the way count.

If my purpose is to be a great stay-at-home-mom, who bakes, sews/crochets and does the domestic goddess thing, and on the side, I get to support military folks and their families by writing memorial books, I am at peace with that. It is not what I envisioned when I joined the Navy all those years ago - and it is still on my heart to one day learn to fly, just not F-16s (for the reference to that, go to Embracing Your Purpose - I), but it is where I am now and what I truly believe I have been led to do. In the future, when my children leave home, who knows what my purpose will become? But every moment of what is happening now is leading me to that purpose, whatever "it" is.

Each of us needs to ask similar questions, determine our purposes and learn to embrace who we are. If you don't feel like you're in the right place, make changes to become who you're supposed to be. But consider whether your purpose might not be very different than what you once envisioned and that attitude makes a huge difference in our happiness within that purpose.

As my mother used to say when we asked (whined!), "Do I have to?"

Pause for the big smile, "You get to."