Day 374: New Goals

Some of you may recall me stating that I would run a marathon this May.  That was during the second trimester of my pregnancy.  The two or three week window where I didn't feel exhausted or nauseous.  And I think I spoke out of turn.  So, the marathon goal is on hold for now.  Not crossed off, just postponed.

But I've decided to run a half marathon in April.  I'll be training with a friend (hopefully, more friends will be joining in as well!) who is training for a full marathon in June.  And I'll keep my options open.  If I feel up to it, I suppose I could do the marathon in June, as well.

At any rate, my Joyful Moment was when I ran with two lovely ladies this morning.  And thus, discovered the one redeeming quality of treadmills:  You can run with your friends and everyone can go at their own pace.  And there's plenty of chatter to distract you from the fact that you've been away from running for too long and your body doesn't appreciate the return just yet.

I am excited about the half marathon, though.  I've been contemplating a race of sorts and, for a variety of reasons, this one seems perfect.

Wishing you all Joyful Moments where you can go at your own pace, but still have friends to talk with!

Day 373: Panininini

Today's Joyful Moment was concocting paninis that seriously tasted restaurant quality.  They were sooooo delish.  Start with two slices of sourdough.  Butter both.  With REAL butter.  Then top with Provolone, sun-dried tomato turkey, avocado slices, baby portabella mushroom slices, and sprinkle with love.  So simple, yet so tasty.

A little voice in the back of my head tried to ruin the moment by pondering just how much fat was involved in this little sandwich.

Good thing I have lots of experience with ignoring those voices in my head.

Wishing you all Joyful Moments that are delish and better than eating out (and an HH to do all the clean up after)!

Day 372: I'm A Hoover Loover

HH has been fantasizing about owning our very own steam vac for a few years now.  Ever since we borrowed one from a friend back in New England.  So, we finally got one shortly before Christmas.  And then it's been one thing after another taking up our time.  But, finally, today we made time to break it out.  We did the two largest rooms in the house.  And I LOOVE it!  The water we dumped out after the cleaning was SO GROSS!  Since Baby B is on the verge of crawling (he actually took his first crawl step (?) today!), I'm that much more grateful to have clean carpets again.

So, clean carpets were a Joyful Moment today.  Along with that first crawl step, too.

And swimming with the kids.

And finally realizing that it makes so much more sense to put the kids art supplies in that drawer in the kitchen where I've been storing all the table cloths and place mats that we never use.  Which means that that corner of my counter top will no longer be permanent home to all of their papers and markers and such.  And I.  CANNOT.  DESCRIBE.  HOW.  DELIRIOUSLY.  HAPPY.  THAT.  MAKES.  ME.

I just feel like a bird, free and flying.  It's fabulous.

Wishing you all Joyful Moments that make you deliriously happy!

Day 371: Competent

Is feeling competent at my life grounds for a Joyful Moment?  For me, today, it was.  Is.  We just went about our usual routine.  Nothing extraordinary happened.  But it was good.  I was patient with my family. I visited with a few different friends at different times and locations.  I worked out.  I got in a shower.  I made a healthy and delicious meal for my family and for a friend's family because she had a bit of a rough day today.  And I enjoyed the process and effort of all of it.

And I made this pile grow even bigger.  Three+ more bags from just my side of the closet.  A lot of shoes and clothes added to the donate bag.  There was one pair of jeans that wasn't remotely salvageable and had to go into the garbage bag (still working on just the first one of those)--why did I have a pair of jeans in such bad condition that I can't even donate it still in my closet?!  And (my side of) the closet looks so great!

And this is kind of a random Joyful Moment, but do you remember that I'm also not making any purchases during my 40 Days?  Well, today I went to ShopKo to do a return, and would you believe it was a Joyful Moment to just do the return and then turn and walk out the door?  It totally was!  No money or time spent!  Just $40 back in my bank account!  I'm so proud of myself.

Wishing you all Joyful Moments that are kind of random!

Day 370: Bragging Rights

I'm pretty sure this is a duplicate post, but I can't help myself.

Tonight we had Sweet P's second Parent/Teacher Conference.  The teacher had rave reviews for our little sweetie.  She's doing great!  Joyful Moment!  And Teacher showed us an example of Sweet P's most recent writings.  A three-part story, as follows (at least, as well as I can remember and minus the cute pictures, sorry!):

"A haws is being bilt neckst dor."
"The billders making a haws."
"Win will it be finisht?  Win win win?"

I know how to read Sweet P-ese.  And reading this made me chuckle, but was also another Joyful Moment for me.  See how well you do at translating!

And as I visited with Teacher, I had another Joyful Moment as I realized how grateful I am that Sweet P was blessed to have this wonderful woman as her first experience with public school!

Wishing you all Joyful Moments that require a three-part story to re-tell!

Day 369: Parental

Today is my papa's birthday.  So, I had a Joyful Moment Skyping with my mom to find out when would be a good time to Skype with him (not today, apparently) and then another Joyful Moment talking to the man himself briefly before putting the kids to bed.

My dad is the awesomest.

Oh, and I also made some more excellent progress on my 40 Bags project.  Three or four more bags, plus all of our old baby/kids clothes are organized in a functional manner.

Wishing you all Joyful Moments that are the awesomest!

P.S.  And now I'm getting to Skype with another friend who is also celebrating a birthday.  Another excellent Joyful Moment!

Day 368: Bag Lady

On Sunday evening HH informed me that he'd invited 3 missionaries and one other gentleman for dinner tonight at 6 PM.  They called at 5 PM to tell us that they couldn't come because of the storm going on outside.  Awesome.  Tell that to the lasagna baking in the oven and the double batch of bread sticks I was in the process of kneading.  At least we had a yummy dinner and there was plenty of food to go around...

So, a while ago a friend told me about this "40 Bags in 40 Days" thing.  Basically, you have 40 days to fill 40 bags with stuff to get rid of.

I've been increasingly overwhelmed by the amount of "stuff" overflowing our every room of our house.  So, last week I remembered the 40 bags idea and decided to go with it.  And I'm adding another feature:  No accumulating of more "stuff" during the 40 days.  Besides food, of course.  But food is all I'm allowing myself to buy for the next forty days.

Today was Day 1.

This photo doesn't do it all justice.  There are a couple large baby toys hiding behind those boxes.  I'm counting each of them as one.  And then some big shelves, too.  Plus, those two boxes.  That is all my Craigslist pile.  And then in another room, I have another huge box full of recycling, a box full of items to donate, and a bag with garbage.  I'm pleased to say that the garbage bag is filling up the slowest.  So, if you count boxes as bags, then I am at 8.  And it's only my first day!

In the process, my kids' toys became more accessible (because there aren't so many crowding for the space) and my storage room is like a dream come true--again.  It's not perfect, but at least this time the boxes that I need access to are in the front and not in the back corner.

And that was my Joyful Moment.  Whew!

Wishing you all Joyful Moments that free up some space!