Breaking the Silence

Since I print my blog into books I've decided to allow myself to blog once a week.  I don't want a month long chunk not in my blog book so here I go...breaking my blog silence.  I'm not facebooking though.  I'm being strong!

September 6th 2010 – Labor Day
Yesterday, Jonathan and I along with Rachel and Erik, and my friend Megan from college and her BF went to see John Mayer play. He was fantastic and played several of my favorite songs so I was pretty excited about that. He may be just a little full of himself but he does play very well. We went to the concert at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion and we had lawn seats. The weather was perfect and the lawn seats were fun…besides sitting on the ground for a few hours with no chair really does a number on your back.

Obviously we're facing the sun in this picture.  That was a good idea...

Rachel, I didn't know which picture you liked best since you hated them both.  Also, some of the pictures are cropped funny to get the "interesting" people out of the background...

Sorry for not cropping the hair out on the left...

Today is Labor Day so we plan on doing a whole lot of nothing! As I’m writing this Jonathan is actually still asleep! When he has to go to work he wakes up at 5:10 every morning! That is SO early! We’re meeting Jonathan’s parents later and that’s about all that’s on the agenda.

Since I’ve decided to take a blog/facebook break I am not blogging/facebooking for a month but I still need to write. I’m in a bad mood currently (I’ve been very moody lately) so I’m hoping that writing some will get it out of my system. I think my bloggy break may increase my TV watching. That’s a negative effect in my book. I never get bored and think, “hey, let’s watch TV!” I get bored watching TV (although I have my favorite shows).

On a slightly different note… I am trying to focus on God’s plan for my life with Jonathan. While reading my current favorite book, “Holy Available” by Gary Thomas these are a few of the things I read.

• “In all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen. 1 Peter 4:11

• “Through it all, God knew. He had a plan, and he worked out that plan”

• “God knew what lay ahead. When I thought I was wasting my time, God knew otherwise. He had mapped out my life and marked this day on the calendar, and somehow – through all my tantrums, doubts, and accusations – he had brought me to it…he made it happen.”

• “Have you ever realized that God purposely sets up our lives to reveal His glory?”

• “God has a purpose for you, and he’s working to make his purpose come true. And because it is His purpose and because He is doing it, it’s never in doubt. It’s going to happen. God knows that is so. When you see things through that lens, life becomes an exciting adventure of anticipating what God is going to do next rather than participation in a spiritless and desperate rat race in which we try to make something happen”

The last bulleted quote to me is just perfect. It was the exact thing I needed to read at that exact moment and I am so thankful God lead me to that passage.

I read these things after I decided to take a break from blogging and I felt it was confirmation that I need to take a break, take blogging back to documenting, and that’s it. Sometimes the Internet just makes me “tired”.

September 7th 2010 – Day TWO!
Its day 2 of my NO BLOGGING – NO FACEBOOK strike and things are going well. (Let me first say that I am writing all of this in Microsoft Word NOT blogger. I don’t want to tempt myself when I would have to log into blogger to keep editing a post.) For me it’s easier to not read blogs but a lot of my family has Facebook and I love seeing all the new pictures of my nieces and nephews. I’ll just have to see them more in person to make up for no Facebook (duh!) I know once I go to work today I won’t be tempted by all of my online friends!

Speaking of work, here is my day to day routine:
• I get up at 7:30
• I do my daily devotional and blessing journal
• Feed the dogs and let them outside
• I eat breakfast around 8:00
• I do anything that needs to be done around the house – make the bed, clean, or do the dishes.
• I watch some TV and peruse the Internet for awhile
• Around 9:45 I’ll make my lunch to take to work
• I leave for work around 10:30. My first class comes at 11:35 but I get there about 30 minutes early to set up.
• I teach from 11:35 to 3:05. Depending on the day I’ll have either a 30 minute break or an hour break
• I get home anywhere from 3:30 to 4.
• When I get home I unload all of my school stuff
• I usually do any kind of food prep I can do without actually doing any cooking…marinating the meat, chopping the vegetables…etc.
• Jonathan gets home around 6, he cooks, and we eat dinner
• After we clean up the kitchen we generally go on a bike ride around the neighborhood
• When we come home we clean ourselves up and watch some TV and hang out.
• We go to bed usually around 9:30. I require a lot of sleep and Jonathan wakes up around 5!

Reasons I’m trying to blog less!
1. I hear Jonathan say this all the time, “get off the computer and come hang out with me!”
2. I want to read more novels (I have at least 3 ready to go)
3. I wonder if I’m blogging for me or my followers…
4. I need to ride my bike more and spend more time outside
5. When I’m doing my morning devotional I sometimes want to “hurry” so I can blog
6. I read blogs at work (gasp!)
7. Trying to focus on some goals that I have posted on my “goals” tab

September 8th 2010
Things are going pretty well. I’ll admit I still visit Young House Love and The Nameberry Blog. I like those blogs just for ideas so I think they’re ok!

Jonathan and I rode our bikes last night in between down pours and I came home with 2 mosquito bites! Boo! The amount it is raining here is ridiculous especially, when you have 2 dogs who love to play outside. I don’t trust them outside for long periods though. Even if it’s not raining the ground is so nasty they will come in covered in mud and grass. Lovely.

I have been SO lazy today. Not necessarily tired just lazy. Once I got to work I got SO HOT and dizzy. My kids were complaining that is was so cold in my room and I was nearly sweating!

September 9, 2010
Today I don’t feel as lazy but I still have things I need to do. Before I leave for work I still need to:
- fold laundry (check)
- do my toe nails (check)
- have my morning devotional (check)
- make the bed (check)
- make my lunch (check)
- vacuum (will not happen)

Right now I am watch HGTV and I can’t seem to turn it off. It’s addicting really!

I’m in a pretty good mood today which is uncharacteristic of me this week. I’ve been very moody for some reason…

(I would like to mention that I am now typing this from our super cute new desk nook near the kitchen. Loving it!)

I’m so glad this is only a 4 day work week. I’m so glad tomorrow is Friday and I can’t wait for the weekend!

September 11, 2010
Yesterday was such a fantastic day. Probably THE best day of my life.

Tonight on the way home from the store Jonathan and I both saw a shooting star while we were at a stop sign. It was the first shooting star Jonathan had seen and the 3rd I had seen. It was so cool and really bright. I can’t tell you what we wished for because it won’t come true ;) We both wished for the same thing though.

September 13, 2010
What a fabulous weekend. Jonathan and I got so much done and I felt such a great sense of accomplishment. First of all I just REALLY wanted to get both of our dogs out of our bedroom at night. Both of them are crate trained so when we’re asleep or not home they stay in their cages and they are both fine with that but 2 cages take up a lot of space and are really UGLY! So, I put their cages in our closet. This is what we did with Perry when we lived in an apartment and now they LOVE their cages even more. They’ve always liked hanging out in our closet (strange?) so it worked out great!

Paxton's cage used to be behind our bedroom door.

Perry's cage used to be to the right of our dresser.

I had to slightly reorganize our closet and the closet in the front bedroom but I couldn’t be happier with the way it all worked out. Now, I feel the need to redo my craft closet…

I’ve also been thinking of ways to add storage to our house since we don’t have a lot of built in storage.

I've been trying to add baskets where I can...

And I turned the front bedroom dresser into "decor drawers"!

Other than organizing Jonathan did a ton of yard work and vacuumed to whole house for me. I swiffered the tile areas.

Also, the best husband in the world bought me two pillows when he went out to run errands. They are outdoor pillows but I think they look good in the front bedroom.  (he got me the brown ones)

So, that has been the past week or so for me in a nutshell!  See ya' next week!