Gavin Walks

Gavin learned to walk at the beginning of November.  My sister was visiting for the weekend and out of nowhere he just stood up and walked over to her.  He's been walking ever since. 

A couple of weeks after that I finally got an opportunity to make a video of him walking...and a month after that I'm finally getting around to posting it!

Couch to 5k ~ Week Three

Week Three

1. 5 min. warm up walk
2. jog 90 seconds, walk 90 seconds
3. jog 3 min., walk 3 min.
4. Repeat Steps 2 & 3
5. Cool down

This week was a piece of cake despite the cold, wet weather.  I feel great!  Sometimes I find myself wanting to go out and run on "off" days...I must be crazy....

Next week could be a challenge since we'll be out of town for a chunk of it.  May the weather be good or a treadmill close by!

101 Goals

A few years ago this blogger introduced me to the 101 Goals in 1001 days project.  I made my list of 101 Goals and 1001 days later I had completed about 60+ of them, crossed off another 20 after deciding I no longer considered them important, and just didn't get around to doing the others. 

Now it is time to start a new list.  (Okay, actually I started this a month ago, but am just now getting around to sharing it.)  If you notice blank spots next to certain numbers it is not because I don't have a goal there, it is because it is a little to personal, a little to close to my heart, and I'm just not comfortable sharing it out loud with anyone just yet.  Maybe someday I will.  And then again, maybe I won't.  We'll see.

Anyway... here's the list...

101 Things to Do

Start Date:  November 22, 2011

End Date:  August 17, 2014

Health:

1. Weigh 130 lbs. 
2. Exercise 5 times a week for 1 month
3. Jog for 30 minutes straight
4. Run a 5k
5. Go on a bike ride on the Katy trail
6. Take Bram on a walk everyday for a month 
7. Find 10 new healthy recipes for dinner

Family:

8. Take a family vacation
9. Take a family camping trip
10. Do a fun activity as a family once a month for three months
11. Take the boys to the zoo in St Louis
12. Take the boys to the science center in St. Louis
13. Get a family photo taken
14. Read the boys at least one book every night for a month
15. Spend a half an hour each day playing with the boys – NO distractions!
16. Have a movie night once a month with Logan for three months
17. Buy a Christmas tree for the boys to decorate  Completed November 2011

Marriage:

19. Have one regular date night every month 
20. Read Love and Respect with Justin
21. Spend a weekend away with Justin
22. Make our next three anniversaries special
23. Read a book for fun with Justin
24. Spend one night a week just the two of us for a month

Friends:

25. Get together with Rae, Marcia, and Miranda
26. Continue sending monthly emails to Rae, Marcia, & Miranda
27. Get Rae a baby gift Completed December 2011
28. Get Miranda a baby gift
29. Plan a get together with Derek & Sarah at least twice a year

Spiritual:

30. Pray every night for thirty days
31. Pray as a family before dinner
33. Read a daily devotional every morning for a month
34. Read the entire Bible 
35. Have  God time for 30 minutes every day for 30 days
36. Do a personal book study
37. Do a second personal book study
38. Do a third personal book study

Financial:

39. Save money by spending more than $50 per month on eating out for 31 days 
40. Pay off our diagnostics bill
41. Pay off my Santa Fe
42. Pay off the Fusion
43. Pay off our credit card
44. Pay back April & Phil
45. Put away X amount in savings
46. Get Logan’s savings account to X amount
47. Get Gavin’s savings account to X amount
48. Purchase bunk beds for the boys
49. Purchase a new entertainment stand
50. Purchase a new TV
51. Buy new car seats for Logan

Household:

52. Landscape the front yard with stones
53. Learn how to plant a garden
54. Plant a summer garden
55. Put up a privacy fence in the backyard 
56. Start recycling
57. Learn how to compost
58. Learn how to coupon
59. Plan eight weeks of menus that can be rotated
60. Pack away all of the boys’ outgrown clothing
61. Pack away all of the infant toys
62. Paint (and decorate?) the laundry room
63. Repaint and redecorate the guest bathroom
64. Repaint and redecorate the master bathroom
65. Clean out and reorganize the hall closet
66. Clean out and reorganize kitchen cabinets
67. Replace the air filter in the heater every six months
68. Frame and hang collages of the boys
69. Re-hang Gavin’s birth announcement in his bedroom
70. Replace the filing cabinet
71. Replace the book shelf
72. Find a new, space-saving way to store DVDs
73. Re-organize and find space for all of our photo books
74. Create a weekly cleaning schedule
75. Stick to a weekly cleaning schedule for one month

Personal:

76. No TV for 30 days
77. Make an address/telephone book of all friends and family
78. Send out Christmas cards
79. Send birthday cards to all immediate family members and close friends for a year
80. Finish our Beach Vacation scrapbook
81. Finish Logan’s second year scrapbook
82. Make Logan’s third year scrapbook
83. Make a photo book for Logan’s fourth year pictures
84. Make a photo book for Logan’s fifth year pictures
85. Make a photo book for Gavin’s second year pictures
86. Finish updating Gavin’s baby book
87. Finish updating Logan’s baby book
88. Update Logan’s portrait book
89. Create a portrait book for Gavin
90. Blog every day for a month
91. Comment on each blog I read at least once a week for a month
92. Watch all of my seasons of One Tree Hill
93. Learn how to use the white balance on my camera
94. Learn how to use the different flash settings on my camera
95. Participate in You Capture every week for three months
96. Complete a 365 photo challenge
97. Learn how to use photoshop (take a class???)
98. Keep my car clutter free, vacuumed, and dusted for 3 months

Work:

99.  Re-organize and write units for Communications

100.                      Write lessons for Word Study 2

101.                      Find two new novel units that can be used in any class

Couch to 5k ~ Week Two

Week Two:

1. 5 minute warm up walk
2. alternate 90 seconds jogging with 2 minutes walking for 20 minutes
3. 5 minute cool down walk

I finished Week Two on Sunday.  My goal is to run Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, but the weather has required to me to be very flexible.  This week I ran on Tuesday and then had to wait until Friday to run again which pushed my Saturday run back to Sunday.  At least it all worked out.

Tuesday's run was a piece of cake.  I thought I had it made for the week it was so easy.  And then came Friday.  Five minutes in I had a rotten side ache and wondered if I would even make it through to the end.  I kept pushing though and in the last five minutes of running I finally found my groove...just in time to be done.  Then Sunday's temperature was in the high fifties - perfect for running in just pants and a long sleeve T-shirt.  I found my stride right from the start and cruised through.  I felt amazing when I had finished!

I'm looking forward to this week.  And, one of my co-workers just brought in a treadmill to put in our building so now I'll be able to run regardless of the weather!

(If you care about how Week One went click here.)

the one where I dress my cat up

A while back I realized that our cat Lucius and Gavin were about the same size.  I wondered if Gavin's clothes would fit Lucius.  Then I decided to find out...he was not amused...

I think the ultimate humiliation was the fact that I purposely chose a shirt with a picture of a dog to dress Lucius in...he really, really hates dogs.

After Justin put him down he spent quite awhile walking around backwards trying to get the shirt off.  It didn't work...

Our other two cats chased him around the house sniffing him and trying to figure out what was wrong with him...

I did finally remove the humiliating shirt though he didn't thank me for it.  Instead he just yowled at me and glared a lot.  Go figure. 

I did make sure to get one last picture though...

Such a happy kitty don't you think?

Couch to 5k ~ Week 1

Have you heard about Couch to 5k?  My sister is the first person that told me about it sometime last spring.  Then one of my favorite bloggers started writing about her experience doing the program.  So, back in July - you know when it was really too hot to be doing any kind of outdoor exercise - I decided to start my own Couch to 5k adventure.  And I did really well...for awhile.  I got to the second to last week of the program and could run 25 minutes straight, and then I just stopped running.

I had a lot of reasons to stop running...all of them no good and all of them too personal for me to feel comfortable sharing at this point.

But, here I am.  Ready to start again.  Of course, now it is not too hot.  It's just too cold.  I have to stop choosing times of extreme weather to start these outdoor excersize programs!

Week One looks like this:

• five minute warm up walk
• alternate 60 seconds of jogging with 90 seconds of walking for twenty minutes
• five minute cool down walk

I actually did this last week starting on Tuesday.  I went to the park after work and ran on the trail there...despite the fact that it was only like 30 degrees out and it was spitting snow.  Then I was supposed to run again on Thursday, but I had a cold (maybe from running outside in the snow???) and took the day off.  But I picked it up again on Saturday, and it felt great!

So I'm officially done with Week One and ready to start on Week Two tomorrow afternoon.  My plan is to keep a log of sorts on how I'm doing.  Hopefully it will keep me motivated!  Then come spring maybe Justin and I will finally run a 5k (my first!) together like we've been talking about doing!

So, here I go...cold weather or not!

my blog

So blogger keeps track of stuff like how many page views you've had and where the people come from and so on.  I hardly ever look at the "Stats" page on dashboard.  But this morning I was bored so I did.  Guess what I found intersting?

1. I have exactly 2,000 page views at this moment.
2. Somebody from Russia (and a few other countries) has been visiting my blog.  I have no idea why, but it is still cool right?
3. And I have like 127 posts written.

All of this since April when I started this little blog!

Now, I'm not naive.  I know that there are people out there in the land of blogging that get 2,000 page views a day!  And I know there are bloggers out there with huge followings from around the world making my two page views from Russia seem pretty insignificant.  And I know there are bloggers out there who have made thousands of posts over there multiple year long blogging history.

But still...

This is my blog in my little corner of the blogging world, and I'm pretty pround of it.

Now I'm going to go back to hardly ever looking at my stats page.

Oh, and I'm going to go back to work, because working is what I'm really supposed to be doing right now...

A Christmas Tour

I guess this post could also be titled "A Belated Thanksgiving ~ Part III" since we did all of our Christmas decorating over Thanksgiving break.  But, since I'm a lazy blogger who is just getting around to doing this post I'll just call it what it is:  a tour of our house filled with Christmas decorations.

First there is the boys' tree which I've mentioned already:

Then there is our big tree.  Normally we put this one in front of our big living room window, but we decided to change things up a bit this year and put it against a wall next to our living room.

Of course there is the nativity (I actually put that up before Thanksgiving):

And then there are the little odds and ends in the area:

Then there is the second nativity along with a few snowmen in the dinning room:

Then with the exception of the angels which are out all year long there are some odds and ends on top of the entertainment stand:

And I just realized there's another itty bitty tree in our bedroom that I don't have a picture of and all of the Christmas stuffed animals that are now under the boys' tree which I don't have a picture of...so I guess this makes this tour slightly incomplete....

Oh well...Merry Christmas anyway!