story telling

Recommit to the Fitbit

Posted by on 2 Comments

image

When I first got my Fitbit, I was motivated and inspired and active. I loved it and I reached my goal every single day. I would always get my wrist party (when you reach your goal the Fitbit vibrates and lights up – a party on your wrist).

But then I got lazy. I had a few days without getting the wrist party. I have up. My weekly total hovered around 60,000.  Not great.

Then my Rector posted that he had reached a summertime goal of getting 100,000 steps in one week.

Following his example – because we always ought to follow the example of our religious leaders, right – I set a goal. 
I only had about a week off summer left, and my step total was abysmal, but I went for it.

Hattie and I have been using the time that Alma is in school to walk. The school is a fifteen minute drive from home, so it makes more sense to me to just park at the school and walk to all our errands, or to just walk to walk.

I love the neighborhood around get school, like love it. Like dream crazy dreams of owning a house and having a gardener. It’s also close to campus, and I love walking in circles on campus.  Wrist parties come early on these days.

Side story: today must be Greek week because the campus was just a gaggle of girls. Hattie was walking around the quad when about 200 girls walked by. They all waved and oohed and aahed and loved my little girl. And Hattie loved the attention. She waved back and cracked up and tried to join their group.  Not yet, little one. But, it was amazing and adorable.

Anyhow… My goal. Last Wednesday I took over 21,000 steps. Last Thursday it took over 16,000 and hit my goal.

Since Thursday, my total has always been over 100,000. I’m sure it will drop off eventually, but maybe I can keep it up.

No matter what, I am recommitted and loving our morning walks.

image

From My Journal

Posted by on Leave a Comment

IMG_5308March 17th, 2008

I’m on a train at it’s still light at the first stop.  It’s a beginning of a journey I’ve been on for a long time already.  We stay at the first station until dark – the train daring my new found light and inspiration to get off in Hajigabul, and stay stunted and frozen like the village itself.  We start moving again, the light still sitting in the seat next to me.

Are we going backwards?  No.  It is just an illusion in the darkness outside the train.  I begin this journey of discovery on a strange ride across Azerbaijan.  Other trains go by backwards, making me blink, dizzy.

IMG_4808There are times in life where the inspiration strikes.  It is lightning.  It flashes.  It burns.  It is gone, but it leaves a scar.

There was a time, on a train, at night, in Azerbaijan.  I was sick and didn’t know it, but felt it.  I was living in a country far from home.

I felt the greatness of being.

The greatness of my being.

I can still feel that greatness.  The feeling of flying backwards on the train.  The feeling of time-traveling as we passed villages so old and dark that they were in the past.  The dizzy feeling of passing lights and smooth turns.  The feeling that I was put here, on this earth, with a purpose.

There was another time, in the day, on my way to the mailbox.  The lightning struck, and the ordinary moment of my life is permanently scarred in my memory.

There are more moments like this.  Moments where the lightning strikes, leaves a scar, a reminder of the greatness I can have.  The greatness I can be.

IMG_5298And, so.

I am in the mundane moments of my life, trying to find the sublime.

I make choices every day to ignore the scars from these life giving moments.

I am here.  I resolve to feel those scars, live in those scars, give thanks for those scars.  Be those scars.  Those fingerprints of inspiration left in my mind.  The light in the seat next to mine.  The memories of promise.IMG_4730

 

Hattie’s Weekly Photos

Posted by on 4 Comments

Back when Alma was born, I was inspired by Clara’s Photo Project to create a photo project of my own.  We took a photo a week of Alma, and I photoshopped the number into each photo.  I loved how it turned out, and knew I wanted to do it again for Hattie.

I love to see how Hattie changed during the year.  The tiny, sleepy baby stage is so sweet and short-lived.

I have my favorite weeks, but to be honest, those are always changing.

One thing I have loved about both projects has been the amazing amount of fabric I’ve been able to collect.  It’s fun to use the fabric for a quilt, or a dress, or something else.  Then when I see the photo, or the dress, I have all these lovely memories of the girls as babies.

This is also something that I offer in my Etsy Shop – H&A Baby.  If you bought this for yourself (or someone else!  Great baby shower gift, don’t you think?), you would provide me with the photos, and I would edit the images and add the numbers and weeks.

I offer this in both weekly and monthly versions.

Once you have the images, they are yours to do whatever you’d like.  I used Picassa to make the collages.  I had both of these printed in poster sizes and hung them in the dining room.

Another thing I’ve done for both girls is make photo books on Shutterfly.  We gave copies to all the grandparents and kept one for us.  In our copy, I wrote down milestones for each week – so it’s kind of like a baby book.

After I finished Hattie’s, I also made a book of both girls with their weekly photos side by side.  This is my favorite thing ever.  I put both girls in the same pose each week, so it’s fun to see that.  I also used the same fabrics when I had them.  Seriously my favorite thing ever.

Telling Our Story – Record Keeping

Posted by on 1 Comment

I’ve become a little bit obsessed with keeping a record of how we live our days.

It all started when Alma was a baby, and I got a keepsake calendar (affiliate link) like this one where I wrote down everything we did each day.  This calendar is great because it comes with milestone stickers that say things like 1st tooth, crawling, and waves bye-bye.  It’s great to have a record of when Alma reached these milestones.  It also helped a lot when I forgot to write these things down in her baby book!  I could just go check the calendar!

Of course, I had to get a calendar like this when Harriet was born.  These calendars are for the girls.  I write in second person, telling them what they did, how they were growing.  I’m sure they won’t be interested in reading these until they are a lot older, but I love knowing that their first years are recorded for them.

One way I like to keep track of my days is on index cards.  I’m sure I saw this on Pinterest or something, but the idea is you have an index card for each date, and over the years, you fill in what you do on each date.

I started doing this in January, but since I had kept track of every day in 2012 (Alma’s first year), I went back and filled in that year.  I also used my wall calendar (where I write down all our appointments, trips, sub jobs, etc) to fill in 2013 as well as I could.

I used a different color ink pad for the edges of each month.  I just grabbed the stack of cards for each month, and rubbed it along the stamp pad.

I love looking back and seeing what we were doing on this date last year, and the year before.  It’s always fun to see that I subbed at the same school, or that we went to the same park.  I love those little coincidences of the rhythm of our lives.

The last thing I do to record our lives is connected to my One Little Word of 2014.  My friend Katrina gave me this for Christmas.  It is just a blank for each day of the year.  Since I already use the index cards to record what we do, I wanted to find another way to use this gift.  I decided to write down what I’m grateful for each day. [I wrote a little more about this here]  I have really loved recording this bit of goodness each day.

I also really love when I see patterns develop.  I tend to be grateful for people, rather than things – I think that is lovely.

This brings us to how I do all this record keeping.  Here are my tips:

  • Keep everything out in the open.  If I see it everyday, I’m much more likely to actually write down what we’ve done.
  • Try to keep up.  If I do it each night, it makes my life much easier.
  • If you miss days, don’t sweat it.  I usually can remember what we’ve done, or I can check with Jesse and he can help.  I have gotten about a week behind a couple times, and that’s difficult.  Sometimes I’m sure I’m not remembering everything we did, but I’m okay with that.