Update on 3 Months of Life

What's this? A new post? I know my many readers probably thought I've dropped off the face of the earth with this blog, but I'm back after a 3 month hiatus. I've been meaning to write, but good intentions don't count for much without any action behind them. As the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Not that I think I'm on my way to hell by any means, but I do believe that good intentions don't always amount to much. Actions speak louder than words and all that. And that's enough cliches for this post.

Even after 3 months I don't have much to update or write about. I think it's because I wait so long that I forget all the things I want to write about before I get around to doing it. Of course, if I wait 3 months before I get around to it I'm forgetting 3 months of stuff. It's not even like I've been that busy--my summer was actually really relaxing and enjoyable. I had a full 2 weeks off from my job at the end of June/beginning of July, and for most of the summer I was home 2-3 days a week with Charlotte, so I can't even use the excuse of being busy. Just lazy. Seriously though, it was great to have a semi-lazy summer after my first year at my job. Charlotte and I went to the pool and the beach a lot during the days, and with Eric some evenings and weekends. It was the perfect summer to have a pool pass.

We have been a little busy getting used to be home owners and everything that that entails. We took out a few of our hideous bushes (if you don't know, I am not a shrubbery person overall, I prefer either flowers/vegetable gardens or trees, most bushes/shrubs I think are pretty ugly, and the previous homeowners let a lot of them get out of control which made them worse). It's amazing how much more open our yard looks with some of them gone. There are a few more we want to take out but they are more similar to trees in that their roots are more like trunks and impossible to just pull out so we need to look into that more. This past weekend we painted 3 rooms in one day, which was a ton of work and a very long day, but now we finally have color on the walls! That was one of the things I was looking forward to most about having our own house, after living in apartments for 5 years with white/beige walls. Yuck. Our living room and dining room have accent walls painted so we just left those. We painted the kitchen, which previously was a weird bold yellow/almost gold color that just didn't fit and we really didn't like it. The new color is "crisp celery" and it's a lighter green color. It feels very natural and comfortable and light in there now which I love. I'm really happy with it, especially since it was very difficult to pick a color for that room. Eric and I struggled with that room and the bedroom, but we easily picked a bathroom color which is a very pretty blue and goes well with our "under the sea" theme. Really, I just put my many killer whale figurines in there and it all looks great. My favorite room is actually the one that I felt like I was really compromising on, our bedroom. Eric loved the color purple we picked, and I liked a different color, and there was a different blue we both felt like we could compromise on, but I figured if I was going to compromise either way we might as well go with the one that he at least liked, so we went with purple and I love it! I can't believe how happy I am with it, every time I go in there I just feel happy. It looks amazing.

Of course, this painting coincided with Charlotte's 2 year birthday party (do I really have a 2 year old?) so we were even busier on Saturday than just with the painting. It was our own fault since we are poor planners and planned to buy our paint over Labor Day weekend when they had a good sale, so we put paint samples all over the walls to pick what we wanted and then realized we were having people over. So we just committed to the kitchen and then had enough help to do the rest. Thanks again to my family for being so awesome and helping out! For the party on Sunday, we had about 40 people over so it was a little crazy but super fun. She was just adorable as usual and was so excited about her gifts and her cake and ice cream. We just made the cake but just the fact that she got cake and ice cream was a dream come true to her. Eric and I got her a cozy coupe. It was a joy to watch her as she saw it and realized it was for her. She saw it and immediately jumped out of her chair to go play with it. Made my day, which was amazing to start with. Even after 2 years I'm continually amazed by her and the things she does. She can sing the abc's, count to 7, talks like a child much older than she is, repeats everything we say, is very affectionate, and a little mischievous. We have a lot of fun with her.

Other than that, work has been going well, it's really starting to pick up now that school has started again. I spent a ton of time this summer preparing for the year so I hope I'm ready! I feel like I still have a lot of work to do but I have a good chunk of time at work the next couple of weeks so I'm hoping I can finish up with any of my "summer" projects that I have left. Some of them are really ongoing throughout the year but I want to be as prepared as I can. I'm really excited about the year and I hope my passion and excitement are contagious to the youth and my leaders.

 It's a little bit funny that the past few weeks have been so busy and I'm finally writing a new post. I guess I really just was lazy this summer. It was a great summer, but now it's time to get back into the swing of things!

We Bought a House

For anybody who isn't friends with me on Facebook or isn't related to me and yet somehow still reads my blog,  Eric and I bought a house. We closed almost 2 weeks ago now (wow) and moved in just over one week ago (wow again). It is a huge adjustment moving into a house. We've lived in 3 different apartments during our marriage, with 2 years being the longest apartment stay, and yet I feel like I transitioned into those changes a lot more easily than I have with a house. Maybe it's because we have more that we are responsible for and so much that we have to buy and get done and combine that with everything else in our life including a child which we didn't have before we last moved, it's a lot different. We've barely had time to unpack, and actually there are still boxes in our extra bedroom that need to get taken care of. Fortunately, the only thing that is really left is getting pictures on the walls and home decor unpacked and set up so that our house looks more homey. I can't wait until our house looks and feels more like a home.

Like I said, it's a huge adjustment, but we're getting there. What's going to make it rough is the fact that I have my youth group mission trip next week so I've been really busy with that, and since I won't be here for a week there is a lot that I won't be able to help with. Since Eric will be responsible for Charlotte by himself for the week, he probably won't get too much done while she's awake either! I hope to get some things done during the days I am at home, especially weeding our 2 small garden areas. And I mean small. Somehow they each have more weeds than plants in them though, and unfortunately we have absolutely no gardening tools to speak of.

Eventually we want to have a house-warming party, hopefully we can do that before Charlotte's 2nd birthday! It will be really nice to be able to celebrate her birthday in our own home. It was great that we had family willing to let us use their house for her baptism and birthday, but it will be great to start having our own family celebrations in our family home!

Writer's Block

I have had the worst writer's block recently. It's not that I don't have anything to write about, because I do. There has been so much going on in my life and in the world that would make for some great blogging material. It's more that I haven't had the desire, energy, or motivation to write. The thoughts are there, but they just refuse to come out and onto the computer screen. The longer I go without writing something, though, the harder it seems to write. So here I am, sitting in front of my computer, trying to think of something to write which is worth reading. I don't think I'm succeeding.

Holier Than Thou

I recently finished a book called Holier Than Thou, by Mark Hart and Greg Iwinski. It's from LifeTeen and geared mostly towards teens, but it's still a decent book giving the amazing stories of some of the canonized saints, quite a few of which I've never even heard of before. But then again, when it comes to the saints, I'm not very well versed at all.

I do have a favorite saint, however: St. Anthony of Padua. If you're Catholic and have ever lost something, chances are someone has told you to pray to St. Anthony. Despite my intense organization, I somehow still manage to lose stuff with alarming regularity. Thank God (quite literally) for St. Anthony. He even gets his own little prayer. It goes something like this: Tony, Tony, please look around, (insert lost item here) is lost and can't be found. Quite simple, yet very effective. I usually add my own little desperate prayer too. And St. Anthony has always come through for me. He even helped me find my car key when I lost it a little while back. And while I consider him my own personal saint (wish I would have picked him for my confirmation name!), he's just one of many, many holy people up in heaven who are watching out for their brothers and sisters still on earth trying to live a life in Christ.

As a Catholic, I greatly appreciate having numerous saints who have gone before me and who are praying for me and looking out for me up in heaven. Of course, everything good comes from God, but saints are our family in the faith who have been there, done that, and can give us guidance and help and encouragement in addition to already being in heaven and closer to God than we are and therefore helping our prayers get answered. If you're not Catholic, you probably don't really "do" the saint thing, and that's a little bit too bad, because there are definitely saints up there, praying for you and for me and asking them for help can be quite effective.

Cutting Back

If you are a regular reader (do I even have any of those) you may have noticed I've cut out my Theological Thoughts and Book Remarks pages. I just don't write on them enough, and when I do I was often taking away from things that I could write about as a regular post. So I cut them. Now hopefully I will have more ideas to write about on a regular basis...yeah sure, we'll see how that works out. Although I do have a "book remarks" like thing to write about. I'm putting together a 2012 book list to hopefully help me keep on track with my resolution. So far I have The Brothers Karamazov, Tinker Tailor Solider Spy, Wild at Heart, and some general ideas of types of books I'd like to read. Clearly, I'm off to a good start.

New Year's Again

Does a New Year's resolution count if it's a repeat from the previous year? Or if it's one that wasn't successful, does that not matter? Most of my resolutions are copycats from 2011, but since I wasn't fully successful with one of them (and completely unsuccessful with another) I don't really care.

My resolutions aren't as numerous or challenging (in some ways) as last year, but I don't care. I made them based on what I need to improve on in 2012. So, I'm going to exercise at least 3 times I week. I completely failed with exercising last year. In fact, I think I exercised the least amount I've ever exercised in my whole entire life. Unless you count chasing after my daughter as exercise. In which case, I didn't do so bad. My second resolution is an exact replica from last year: read one new fiction and one non-fiction book each month. I was almost successful with this but failed around November. Ah well, another year, another chance. And this year I'm going to get through The Brothers Karamazov. And maybe City of God, if only I can find a good copy.

Finally, I have another spiritual resolution too but that is simply to pray for a certain amount of time each day. I did really well with reading the Bible and Catechism but I think I need to set aside a certain, more specific amount of time each day to pray. I'm not disclosing how much because I don't want anyone to judge me by the amount of time I'm praying.

Well, there they are. My 3 resolutions to being a better me in 2012.

My Pages

I'm thinking about deleting a couple of my pages. Mostly Book Remarks and Theological Thoughts. Eric says to keep the Theological Thoughts one, but says maybe get rid of the other one. The book remarks one actually has some comments which mean people have read it and liked it (or hated it) enough to comment at one point. I feel like I hardly ever update them and therefore they might not be worth it to keep. Anybody have an opinion? Does anybody actually read those parts of my blog, and if so, do you like them? Should I keep up with them? I'm definitely keeping up with Parenting Shenanigans because I always have stuff to say about that. Usually I just forget to write and by the time I find time to update it I've already forgotten a million things that I wanted to write. The other two pages though, I'm unsure about. Post a comment with your opinion, if you have one.