Twice!

I actually went running twice this week. Monday, and today. Even if it was only about a mile, at least I went! Last summer and early fall, I was running 2-4 miles, about three times a week. I was feeling good too. Then we bought the house, and my evenings were spent painting, cleaning, sanding, drywalling, decorating, unpacking, and generally adjusting to a new place. So I barely ran at all. Since dad signed me up for the Air Force Half-marathon this fall, I figured that I should get started. While I have plenty of time to train, I just needed to get back into it anyways.

The thing is, I'm really not competitive when it comes to running. I just like running.... just because. I know that most people think I'm crazy, but running is my downtime, plus I just feel healthier too! It helps me think. But dad says we should do some training races, so I guess I'm going to do the 5K here in town in March. It's only 3 miles, but that sounds like a lot to me right now. But I have a month to get up to that, so I think I can do it. I'm going to try anyways. Still, I won't really have any time goals for the race except to finish. Finishing is good in my book!

A memoir in the works...

If you've been around me much, you know I have talked for awhile about writing a memoir about my first five years of teaching. The statistic is that about half of new teachers quit within the first five years. So I figured it might be interesting to write about my first five years. I made it through but not without a layoff and other issues along the way. (Only those closest to me know the worst of it!) I'm happy that I am in my 6th year and still enjoy it, although if I do stop, it will be to stay home when I have kids.

About writing the book: I started by going through my old journals, and anything I wrote about school, I would type that up. Therefore, the memoir is diary-style, with dates and entries on each date. Then I went through and added in notes from my lesson plan book about certain lessons or techniques, so there was a balance of emotional (in the journal) and actual teaching (from the lesson plans). Then there's the students. The pack rat that I am, I saved pretty much every note I ever confiscated, and typed them up to put in the book. Hehe... I did warn the students about this! (Of course all names will have to be changed). Beyond that, I looked through pictures, memorabilia, emails I'd saved, and my personal calendar to add other events. I'm still not done though, even with 55,000 words, which is over 200 pages. But the document is so big to scroll through, I am going to get it printed so that I can read through and add things that I forgot about. For example, I just finished with the 5th year of high school, but realized I didn't have anything about the EL tutoring where I worked with some very special students, or our C2G program. So I need to put that in.

One of the hardest things for me will be changing the names. Names of students are so personal. How do I replace that with another name? But of course I will have to. I also need some non-teacher people to read it to see if it makes sense to them, because I want to appeal to a wide audience.

Speaking of audience, my best friend asked my what my target audience was, and I'm not sure. Certainly other teachers might enjoy it. But I hope that it is broader than that. Maybe I want to show what public schools are really like- the very positive and also some of the negative. So what is that audience? Parents? Policymakers? I don't know. Maybe it's just anyone who likes a true story about someone who persevered. I hope that is the ultimate message.

Of course, it won't even be ready to send to a publisher to try to get them to publish it for at least a few months. But I am hoping that I can be happy with a draft before summer. We'll just see what God works out!

Cheap and Easy DIY Swag

I like decorating my house, now that we are starting to get settled in. I have several things already from our house in California, but every house is different, so I use pieces in different ways. I loved this oval white mirror, which I found for a few bucks at a thrift store in California, hanging about the mantle at Christmas. Then, I put a evergreen swag on it to tie in with the Christmas decorations. But now, I have a few pictures and some alpha art, and something didn't look finished. It was time to make a new swag.

To start, I went to Dollar Tree and picked up some long woodsy pieces in green, blue, and brown, my main colors. They also had some unique feathery stuff that I thought might be good in the swag. Raffia was there too. All in all, I think I spent $6.

After laying it all out on the table, I cut the pieces to about the length of my mirror, with some variation just to add texture. Then I started grouping them together, and wound the raffia around it several times before tying it all together. With a little more poking and prodding, I was pretty happy with it. I think it's kinda rustic, which fits with my older-house theme. I even had enough for the frame in my dining room too.

Here's what it looked like all together. What do you think of my DIY swag?

Nothing to Fear... The Fortune Cookie is Here!

When I opened the fortune, I couldn't believe it. Did FDR steal an old Chinese proverb....or the other way around? Whatever it was, I liked FRD's better: "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." Then, as I started to look it up, I found out the Henry David Thoreau actually wrote this quote in a journal entry in 1851. So it still begs the question, who did the fortune cookie writers take it from? And wouldn't the descendants of Thoreau sue by now for their credit to this quote? (LOL) Or maybe Thoreau studied the Chinese in the first place.... who knows?!

Sounds like a good research paper topic...

And for the sake of history, read FRD's speech here if you're curious: http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5057/

Great opinion column about the joys of marriage

Well, as I was perusing FoxNews, getting distracted from the task at hand (trying to write my memoir on teaching), I came across these two articles:

Waiting till the wedding night-getting married the right way

and

 A man's top 5 reasons to grow up and get married

It was so great to read from someone who realizes how important marriage is! Our culture has downplayed marriage so much, making it seem boring. It's not boring! It's a wonderful experience of learning and growing, with many benefits that I'll let you read the articles for. He also talked about waiting until marriage for sex, and he was so right! Our society is so sex-crazed, but obviously many aren't finding fulfillment. It's because God created sex for marriage. And in marriage it is blessed! I speak this as a happy wife who loves her husband, and we waited.

Now, I'll take a short exception to the author calling single people lazy, like they are avoiding marriage on purpose. I have several single friends who would love to be married, but haven't met anyone yet in their circle of work and church. They would love to find someone, but want to be careful and make sure they marry someone they can share their life and faith with. Are they supposed to go on a Christian dating site to find their spouse? So I wouldn't be so harsh on the singles, while I would definitely call out people who live together.

Another very good article called Searching for God, Settling for Sex address the 50 Shades of Grey book. I have not read them myself, and probably won't based on the weird content I have heard is included. It scares me that my students are reading this stuff. But read the article for the author's take that our society is looking for intimacy, but settling for intensity. I agree.

Easy Venison Meatballs

Over the weekend, I had some gravy leftover from venison stew, and was trying to think of a new way to use it. Since I have a plentiful stock of venison burger from my brother Zach's mad hunting skills, I thought I would try venison meatballs. Growing up on deer meat is what I know, and I use venison just like I would beef. In fact, the last five years that I was without deer meat in California, I tried to avoid beef, opting for turkey or chicken burger. Even the lean beef looked questionable, and I just didn't like not knowing where it was from. With venison, Zach or dad shoot the deer right on my grandpa's 40 acre farm in southwest Ohio. Then we package it ourselves, without preservatives, and it goes straight to the freezer. It doesn't get much more natural than that!

Back to the venison meatballs though, I looked up a few recipes and combined a few to make my own. Here it is:

Venison Meatballs
1 pound venison burger, thawed
1 cup crushed wheat saltines
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
3/4 cup milk
2 eggs
2 teaspoons parsley
1 teaspoon garlic
salt and pepper to taste

Directions: Combine all ingredients in the Kitchenaid, or mix in a large bowl thoroughly. Use a cookie scoop to portion the meatballs, roll if needed, and fry in a skillet until done (no pink). I used just a few tablespoons of oil and a cup of beef broth to cook the meatballs in, so they wouldn't be completely bathed in oil. It yielded about three dozen meatballs.

Note: You could vary the spices, adding more and various varieties to your taste, as you would with beef. Leave the onions out if that's not appealing to you. Also, next time I won't use as much milk, but I didn't try it with less, so I left in the recipe above what I used. Furthermore, if you use a nonstick skillet, you probably don't need to use oil or broth to cook the meatballs in.

I used a dozen meatballs for dinner with the leftover gravy, over white rice. The rest I froze for an easy meal later on with spaghetti. They were pretty tasty, I thought!  If you try the recipe, leave me a comment and let me know if you like it!

Bathroom: Before and After

Our front bathroom has come a long way. When we first came in the house, there was a mildew problem. The shower, sink and toilet plumbing were on three different walls.  All the fixtures were outdated, and the tub must have been the original cast iron. It was super heavy. So heavy, in fact, that it is still sitting on the side of the house, waiting for someone to be interested in its posting on Craigslist. But I digress...

To fix it, Justin and dad tore everything down to the studs. It sounds easy to say but it took several days! The flooring came up too. When Brentwood came in, they put up new walls and placed the plumbing all on one wall. That was my plan, because it just makes so much more sense! Then, in one night, I painted the walls Bracing Blue (Sherwin Williams) and ceiling and trim Creamy (also Sherwin-Williams). They came in after that and officially hooked up all the fixtures.

Wait, I thought that sounded too easy.... how could I forget? Before they could finish the plumbing, Justin had to dig in the crawlspace to find a good section of pipe to hook into, because the old pipe literally had holes in it. This stopped up the process for at least week. Still, I'm glad that we figured it out at this point.

Once the fixtures were in, I was able to start making finishing touches. I found a shower curtain at HomeGoods  that was pretty close to the color of the tub. If you remember, I spent a few precious hours this summer restoring that old tub that we found on Craigslist for $225.   Xenia Glass and Lock put a mirror in an old frame that I bought at a garage sale. The mirror was $10, the frame about a dollar. (By the way, Xenia Glass and Lock had great service and were so reasonable in price. I'll be going back to replace some glass in a frame soon.) Our awesome neighbor Bert once again helped us with some shelving, and then I painted the shelves. I hung a few other decorations, and it was finished! It's one of my favorite rooms in the house now!

Before:                                                              After:

 



Christmas & Catch-Up

It was really nice to be back in town for Christmas this year. Bethany, Mike, and their kids came down, and grandma and grandpa M. came up. Zach was even around most days! We cooked way too much, and ate way too much too. Still, we had such a great time hanging out and just spending time together. Beth and Mike and grandma and grandpa hadn't seen the house yet, they'd only been reading about it. We we quite happy to actually walk them through it and show everything we've done.

Dani is getting big- talking so much like a big girl. She's 21 months now-wow! She loves her books and knows the words for so many things! It is really cool to see. Jackson is still little, just 6 weeks at the time, and pretty much just sleeps. But he's fun to have around too. Makes me want my own sometime in the future.

New Years, Justin's parents were able to come up to and help us with some projects. Tony and Justin were about the re-wire for the dryer downstairs and put in an exhaust vent for the dryer too. It's so nice to have the washer and dryer on the same level now! It was just no fun dragging those heavy wet clothes upstairs in the basket to put them in the dryer. So that was a major improvement.

Over break, I was able to decorate some in the family room, putting up memorabilia and pictures. In the middle bedroom, I was finally able to retexture the room. (More on that later with pictures) Last week we even found a rug, so that room is all painted and finished too! On the main level then, we just have a few major unfinished things: carpet in the family room, vinyl in the utility room, and converting the half-bath to a full bath. The bath conversion won't happen until later this year though. We do have the vinyl already for the utility, but need to do some prep work. As far as the carpet goes, we just keep checking the remnants. I'm sure we'll find something eventually!

With the house settling down, I actually sorted out all the bills and paperwork that had been stacking up since the move. (which was quite a bit) While I haven't put them away yet, there separately (neatly?) across the dining room table. I'll have to get them put away soon though; we've got company coming Saturday! The other thing I'd really like to work on is my book. Of my first five years of teaching that I'm writing about, I'm pretty close to being done with year four. Then just one left. My goal is to be done in a month or so, then I can send it to friends and family for some feedback. Though I am pretty scared about that, I know it needs to happen before I would seriously consider sending it to a publisher. And trust me, I'm sending it to a publisher! My goal is to make enough on it to build a house. Maybe that's a lofty goal, but I guess that's just my personality.

I suppose that's enough updates for now. Soon I'll try too do some more before & after pictures of different rooms of the house. That'll be nice!

Updating Fireplace Tile

The bland, red-ish, dirty tiles in front of the fireplace had been bothering me for some time. We had already updated the brick with paint, which helped A LOT! But, the tile in front still looked pretty crappy. So finally, over the last few days, we had some extra time. Justin started the process by ripping up the old tile. Then we went to Lowes to get some tile. We got some tile for .58 cents for 6x6 pieces. The 3x12 was around $3. All together, we spent about $30 on the tile and $25 on the grouting materials.

That morning, I had played around with the tile pattern by cutting out paper patterns. While this wasn't exact, it really helped me know how many tiles I needed and how we needed to cut it.

After Justin mixed up the adhesive, I had to try to level out the surface because it definitely slanted down from the fireplace. Placing the tiles was a little tricky, because I had more spacing on the outside border than on the inside diagonal pattern. (Maybe we should have gotten the spacers). I went and cleaned up in the kitchen while it dried for a a little time. Next, I used a large sponge to start wiping off the excess grout and clean up. After the first round, it dries and then I was able to just use a towel to wipe off the final layer. I must say, I'm pretty proud of myself with this tile job. I think it looks pretty darn good!

Kitchen: Before and After

Finally, I am starting to feel like things are coming together. The kitchen isn't all decorated yet, but it's getting there. Here's a quick recap of the process- when we first toured the house, there was weeks-old litter boxes and feces around the floor. It smelled of dung too... A horrible blue-checkered pattern was on the damaged linoleum floor, and the cabinets were probably the originals. The kitchen had an arch in the middle, but it couldn't be seen because it was coved in the cabinets. A awkward layout was also an issue from the placement of the appliances, half-bathroom door, and many entrances.

To remedy this, we had family come help us tear out the cabinets. What a task! Some were completely unscrewed but still on the wall from the layers of paint!! They were heavy too, once we actually yanked them off. This left a lot of patchwork, which I did, and Justin sanded. We also cut a door into the master bedroom, and closed the door to the bath off the kitchen. Justin ripped up the old floor. We painted the walls with White Raisin from the Rustic Refined selection at Sherwin-Williams. Then, we stepped back and Brentwood Builders did the rest. Yay!!

Brentwood put down the new vinyl flooring, which looks like tile even though it's not. They installed the cabinets, which was quite a task since the floor sloped. Evening it out was a pain, I'm sure. They dropped the sink in, put in the electric and new gas line, and finished.

At this point, in mid-November, my kitchen already looked loads better, and I unpacked my kitchen stuff, went grocery shopping, and settled in. But I will wanted some open shelves, so our neighbor Bert (who is amazing!!) made some custom shelves that fit perfectly with the style. We showed him pictures, bought the wood, and then he made them for us. And they look great. We got these in just a week or so ago, and that's why I've been waiting to post, though many people have been asking for pictures. We still have more decorating to do, but this is where we are at now. I'm so pleased!!

BEFORE:

AFTER: