The Calling

We've now been home from Costa Rica for a little over a month but I still find myself thinking about that trip a lot- laughing out loud at funny stories when I'm all by myself in the grocery store, remembering the beautiful sunsets, digesting even more lessons I learned.

This picture was taken on our canopy tour day. This is how I felt all trip! So fun!

Don't be jealous of the sexy helmet I got to wear.

So anyway, Lane was reading a book while we were there that got me thinking a lot, and I'm still thinking about it. It was called 'Handoff', and part of it talked about your calling versus your career.

Your calling is something that transcends everything; discovering your calling is so much bigger than just a job.

One year ago I would have said that my calling is something along the lines of

:: Educating teenagers in a relevant and loving way::

However, in the absence of a full-time teaching job, I found myself questioning my purpose and therefore my calling. And, in the future when I'm a mom, my calling will change again if I define it by the limited standards of simply what I do.

So right now I'm trying to listen to God and figure out what I my calling is. Who I am at my core. Then orient my life around that.

Educating people?

Informing them of my life through authentic living and instilling change through transparency?

Giving people a bigger picture of the world around them and helping discover their own ways to impact it for the good?

Is is something with using the creativity and power of words to change lives for the better?

Authentic, transparent living?

Loving others?

Living abundant life?

Hmmm. I'll be processing that a bit. Happy Wednesday to you all!

Dentists and Fires

Goodmorning everyone. It's Monday morning and I am getting ready to go to the dentist this morning. I've never been one to hate going to the dentist so I'm not too worried about it.

I do remember being traumatized maybe 5 years ago or so when one of the hygienists working on me told me that I have "Very active salivary glands."

She politely told me that I drool a lot.

Hello embarrassment. I am always a little worried about that when I'm sitting in the chair. So then when they try to be all chatty and talking to me while 8 instruments are in my mouth I mostly just grunt, not wanting to try to move my tongue around too much which activates my already active salivary glands even more.

The rest of the day will consist of heading over to the gym, grocery shopping, LOTS of laundry, and camping out with my beloved Mac and getting some writing done.

Laundry needs to happen stat because our house currently smells like a campfire. We went camping this weekend with my family: 2 grandparents, 1 7-month-pregnant sister + husband, 1 sister still recovering from Disneyland + husband, 5 nieces and nephews, 5 dogs, and Lane and I. It was interesting. There was a lot of barking. But actually it was really fun. I have a pretty awesome family. And they love me even when I smell like a campfire. What more could you ask?

10 in 10

I mentioned last week that Gina over at The Shabby Chic Cottage threw out a gauntlet of a challenge to complete 10 tasks in 10 days. I have a secret obsession with lists, so this is right up my alley!

Mission accepted. Operation 10 Tasks is officially in session. Want to join me? Go check it out!

1) Re-do our guest bedroom

2) Put desk (and hopefully sell!) on Craig's List

3) Repaint trunk

4) Clean out garage

5) Weed garden

6) Paint molding in kitchen

7) Reorganize closets

8) Create necklaces

9) Post office packages

10) Work out 10 times

Yay! Is it weird how excited I get about this?!

Tuesday ramblings

Tuesday morning thoughts:

Slowly but surely I am becoming addicted to The Bachelorette. I had never seen any of the show until the last Bachelor with Jake. I don't like that I like it, but I just can't turn it off! Addicting, I tell you. Casey was weird, Justin I don't love, not sure how I feel about Frank, but I really like Chris L. and Ty. I'm kind of embarrassed I know all of those names. Any other Bachelorette watchers out there?

I wanted to wake up before 6 am this morning and go running before it got too hot. After hitting the snooze button for 45 minutes I just gave into the fact that running isn't going to happen and I might have to to a P90x cardio workout because I don't think I'll have enough time to do a whole gym outting today. That's probably a good thing after my self-imposed 2-a-day yesterday of spinning and then GroupPower (weightlifting class). My body is a bit tired.

I'm getting my haircut today. Probably nothing dramatic, but I am thinking about bangs. Not sure if they'll work for me, but I'm intrigued.

I had weird dreams last night.

I am going to go paint my guest bedroom now which I am super excited about. The big reveal will be coming soon; it's going to be cute!

Hope you guys have a great day!

Unschooling?

I saw a news piece the other day (and by other day I, of course, mean 3 months ago... ) and it has got me thinking.

Have you guys heard of UnSchooling? It falls under Home Schooling, but is not at all the same thing. It is learning without boundaries, textbooks, classrooms, or formal education of any sort. It's about process, not content (unschooling.com if you want more). Unschooling parents believe that their kids will learn better by setting the rhythms of their own day and learning what they choose to learn rather than by what someone is telling them to learn. I can totally see benefits to Home Schooling... but this isn't that.

I personally just don't get it. My apologies to anyone reading this if they are an Unschooler... maybe you could give me your perspective and the benefits of it. As an educator though, obviously I deeply believe in the purpose, advantages, and transforming power of formal education. The social skills as well as the ABC's. The problem solving abilities as well as the deductive reasoning. The conflict management as well as the memorization. Discipline, work ethic, and yes, fun!

The extra crazy thing to me is that the radical Unschooling parents let their philosophy merge into their parenting style. Laissez Faire to the extreme. The mom in the piece said that there is no judgement in their home. They don't punish because they don't have rules. There are no chores. The kids eat whatever they want, go to bed when they want, do what they want. The kids are responsible for setting the rhythms of their own days.

Really?

Now, I know I'm not a parent yet or anything, but it seems to me that that is the whole role of the parent. Instruct your child in the way they should go... because you're the PARENT. You just might know what they need more than they do. Discipline, mold, teach, instruct, guide. Let there be consequences if they are needed. Set them up for success for the rest of their life. Do what you can to turn your child into a loving, responsible, aware, compassionate individual.

Okay. I'm going to stop now. This whole movement just doesn't make much sense to me. There are over 150,000 families in the U.S. who it does make sense to though. Pretty interesting stuff.

Here is a link to the news piece I saw if you want to check it out yourself.

http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/unschooling-homeschooling-books-tests-rules/story?id=10796507

Happy Friday!

It will be a good weekend on my home front. As opposed to last weekend, which was pretty much a tsunami All Weekend Long, this weekend is supposed to be gorgeous. So you know what that means: Garage Sales!!!

I'm spending my Friday morning assisting my sister do her garage sale and I'm going to keep her two little ones occupied while she is busy making Boku Bucks. Maybe having a garage sale isn't the best way to get rich, so maybe we should define success by the amount of junk we get rid of.

Then. Saturday equals community garage sale galore. It will be epic.

Two fun things I want to share with you today.

1) Do you guys know The Shabby Chic Cottage? She's just the greatest. She put up a post saying that starting on the 23rd she's giving her readers a challenge: The 10 tasks in 10 days Challenge. Hers is a decorating blog so she might be going more for things around the house, but the way I'm defining it for me is that it could be home related, work related, organizing, working out... anything I've been procrastinating on that I might need a little shove and motivation to get it going. If you need the same, this is it! Go check her out and read what the challenge is all about to see if you want to join me in getting things done!

2) Kelly over at Between the Lines has been doing something fun she calls Fabulous Food Fridays where she highlights different bloggers and recipes they've created and this week she's featuring me! She's an awesome momma, a writer, and a great girl so you should jump on over and check out her blog and see the recipe of mine she put up! :)

Enjoy your Friday!

Feeling excited and slightly guilty

I wasn't going to do a post today because... well, no reason. I just wasn't feeling brilliant.

BUT, one of the to-do's on my list today was take my big ol' box of clothes that has been sitting in our bedroom since the day we moved in (8 months ago!) over to Goodwill.

Let me rewind a little bit.

Anytime before Lane leaves for time away we ask each other what is something that we're most looking forward to about this next {enter time frame here} apart and something we're not excited about. For this 3 week stint. For 2 week trainings he used to have to do at Fort Campbell. For a weekend trip. And yes, even for deployments we would ask what is something good you anticipate and something that might not be so fun.

It might seem like a nerdy little exercise for any who are not external processors like myself, but it helps us (read: me) to process what's coming up, but also for us to acknowledge that we're going to miss each other like crazy but to recognize that life does go on without the other. I can't sit here pining away for him otherwise my days would be miserable and go so slowly, and he can't be moping around missing his wife otherwise he might not perform his job as well as he should. So we ask about sunshine/rainclouds aka highs/lows aka rose/thorns. I like it.

Anyway. The point of this post.

I couldn't admit this to Lane when we were talking, so it is still my little secret, but one of the main things that I was excited about doing while he's gone right now is going through his closet and getting rid of t-shirts that he has had for 10+ YEARS. Seriously. He's still wearing shirts he wore in high school. And he wears them with pride. Despite the faded colors. Despite the gaping holes. It kills me.

I've threatened to do this before but I never could just pull the trigger when he's been gone in the past.

Back to the Goodwill trip today.

I spent last night going through our closet one final time and added quite a few of his t-shirts. Don't feel too sorry for the boy. His t-shirt collection has now gone from 2,572 to 2,540. He has so many t-shirts. FROM HIGH SCHOOL. Any other husbands out there do this or just mine?

I was so excited pulling up to the Goodwill today. I felt lighter already. But then, when I put the bag containing his clothes in I felt this huge stab of guilt. It was done. I actually started laughing out loud at what I just did and probably looked pretty weird to anyone driving by. Crazy lady donating clothes again! Irreversible. I couldn't take them back; they had gone into the abyss of the huge clothing donation window.

Hmmm. I don't know if I'll tell him. Maybe I'll just let him figure it out on his own.

I do feel slightly guiltly.

But it was WORTH IT.