Flooring

Good news:
We're finally putting some durable, beautiful, and sweepable flooring in the dining room and master bedroom.

Bad news:
No one will deliver it to us. We get to move over a thousand pounds of material ourselves.

Good news:
While working on the master bedroom, we get to stay in our guest room instead of our living room floor.

Bad news:
We're not accustomed to a queen-sized bed. The last few nights have been, well, painfully sleepless for both of us. Today, we independently confessed that we would rather sleep on the couch than share the guest bed again. Ha ha ha! Why did NONE of our guests mention that before?

Good news:
We have a trusted friend installing the floor for us.

Really good news:
This same friend happened to have a coupon that saved us hundreds of dollars (on top of a pretty good sale price) AFTER we had already paid for the materials. The store actually took the coupon retroactively! I'm tossing around ideas to put that rescued money towards making the guest room more comfortable. Or taking this friend out to dinner. Or investing it in some farm/garden equipment. Or simply putting it back into the pool from whence it came. Trying not to be too selfish about it all...

Popcorn!

I prefer the stove top stuff, but I have to admit the microwave popcorn version makes for a pretty exciting show:

Not ready, but taking a peek anyway

It's too early to be thinking about this year's garden...

it's gray and cold...

and yet...and so...

I'm dreaming of these things to add this spring...

Hibiscus

Honeyberry

Poppies

Some Pictures from Christmas Break

"The Baby" and "Little Mom": accurate and completely inaccurate nicknames for both kids.

The fresh new look of our dining room! We have since replaced the chandelier, too, and have a new floor coming sometime soon.

My boys. When I see them smiling like this together, they look identical.

Grandma Evans took a couple hours to teach the older kids how to weave a little bag. They LOVED it. Totally loved it. And now they notice woven fabrics all over the place.

Matthew admiring his own baby's eyes for the first time. He's such a sweet Daddy. 

Here's Alice shrieking over her first batch of homemade ice cream that she made with her brand new ice cream machine. We've since made strawberry sorbet, egg nog ice cream, and Martinelli's sparkling apple cider slushy.

Reconnect With Self

Whoosh! Christmas and New Year are gone.

Just me, now, chillin' with the fam for one more day before everything starts again on Tuesday. Part of me is clawing to return to my comfortable routine. The other part is stuck in a loop...looking for a new routine...looking for another project to fill the holiday planning void...

• I researched what it would take to train for a marathon.

• I contacted the Student Sustainable Farm project about volunteering in the greenhouses this winter/spring.

• I took on an extra shift at the local Family History Center.

• I finally worked through a family history trouble spot that's been bugging me for years. It opened up a whole new family to explore and research, but they have the unfortunate circumstance of a very, very common surname (Johnson) and I'm finding it difficult to make much headway in the snippets of screen time I can steal throughout the day. It's going to take some serious study to parse out this bit of my clan.

• I briefly considered researching/purchasing airfare for our family reunion in California next summer.

None of those projects are driving me right now. Especially the marathon thing. That's completely out of the question.

Maybe I could think about some resolutions for the year. Or I could let you know about the goals/projects I'm already spending my energy on.

I spend a lot of time planning, shopping for, preparing, and cleaning up after food.
I spend a lot of time planning, acquiring, preparing, and cleaning up stuff.
I think about my personal health and fitness every day.
I weigh myself and record basic dietary info (food groups and # of servings) for myself every day.
I exercise 3 hours a week, with 2 specific cardiovascular fitness targets in mind.
I spend a little time 6 days a week sitting with Robert while he practices the piano.
I devise tests to measure whether Matthew is color blind.
I think about each of my kid's needs in this moment.
I try to serve in my church, whatever I have been asked to do. Diligently. Genuinely.
I practice speaking Spanish 10 minutes every day.
Sometimes I blog :)

Another topic/project on the horizon this year:

Alice has been asking more questions about growing up and all the physical/emotional changes that come with it. Especially the very earliest changes. She seems much more aware of it at this age than I ever was. There's a lot I never thought about as a kid. Anyway, I've got some more reading to do. A friend recommended a book published by the American Girl Doll folks (yeah, I rolled my eyes, too, but it's actually pretty good!) that we've been reading together. That's helped a lot. We are in the "tweens" with both feet now. Last night at our dinner party, she was the oldest kid and didn't have a friend, so she wanted to be counted with the adults. I said "sure" and completely forgot about it. When Alice reached for an adult plate, I hastily reminded her that kids were supposed to take the small plates. She firmly replied, without attitude, but with complete confidence, "I'm not a kid."

Oh, right.

9 years old.

This is my official public request for thoughts/suggestions on this whole raising a daughter through puberty thing. Holy Cow!