It’s a big week. This is going to be a big week for our country (regardless of which side you are on), a big week at the gym, a big week at school, and a big week for me. The country part is fairly obvious, and all I will say is I just hope people can start to Be Kind again, regardless of whether we agree or disagree. I miss when we could disagree on something and it was okay. I miss when the push wasn’t to be a keyboard warrior, but to be a good person. Politics aside, I sincerely hope we can start to heal and come together to celebrate our differences instead of fight about them. In fact, I will just say it. I refuse to not be kind.
It’s also a big week at the gym. This week we have our first seminar, and it is about setting goals. I am a huge goal setter, and I actually teach how to set goals in my classes, so I am super stoked about this event. I am also a little nervous about it. We haven’t done this before, and I am in charge of planning it. I put a lot of pressure on myself to do things well, and that can lead to being pretty down on myself if something doesn’t go exactly as planned. Let’s be clear, it isn’t because I think I am perfect that this bothers me, it is because I feel like I let someone down. Something will happen not according to plan, and that is how we can learn and do better for the next time. This week, I refuse to forget that flaws are how we learn and grow.
This week is also a big week at school. It’s the first (almost) full week of classes. Granted, we don’t have class on Monday because of MLK day, but it is the first time most classes will meet more than just the day 1 syllabus talk kind of day. I love the beginning of a new semester, but it is also a time that is a little nerve-wracking for teachers and students of all ages. For those of us in higher ed, each new semester or quarter is like starting a new academic year. There are huge hopes and dreams that are mired in expectations and standards, and those can be overwhelming. When you tack the normal stuff on top of a pandemic, a country at odds from within, pandemic fatigue, and lots of outside noise thinking about the beginning of this semester can be a little overwhelming. So this semester I refuse to get mired down in the constant stuff outside of my classroom so I can simply control what is happening within my classroom.
That gets us to it being a big week for me. Personally. Now, you may laugh about what I am getting ready to tell you, and that’s okay. I’m kind of laughing, too. It is still a big deal in my head for whatever reason. This week I turn 40. I don’t know why I am having a hard time with it. It is the first birthday where I can say that I finally feel like I am doing what I am supposed to be doing and have a career that I love. It’s also a little hard to look and realize that I came into that career really late. I’m 40, with one semester as a full-time faculty member under my belt. I’m 40 with a daughter that is going to college next year. Life is changing a lot this year, and maybe that is why I am dreading this big number. Why couldn’t it have been 39? Anyway, I really don’t like the way I am feeling about turning 40. I also don’t like that I am dreading my birthday. It could also have something to do with the fact that I am pretty sure the day before my birthday is going to be slightly nuts. Regardless, I am going to try to stop it now. In fact, I refuse to let myself dwell on getting older.
That seems like a lot of negativity for a space that I don’t normally let get negative. Maybe it isn’t negative, it is just me thinking about what lies ahead. In actuality, I am really trying to take a stand against the negativity that could typically find a way into my head to prevent it from getting in there and multiplying. One of the things I have found about myself is that it doesn’t take much for the negative thoughts to start and it takes even less for them to multiply exponentially. This is my way of drawing that line. It is the way that I am going to remind myself about growth when I feel overwhelmed or like things aren’t going right. It is how I’m going to remind myself to cut myself the same slack I cut others. It’s how I’m reminding myself that age is just a number. I refuse to let this week get the best of me.
Happy New Year!! It is once again that time of year where people set goals to be better, fitter, nicer, healthier, more intentional, more prayerful, calmer, more peaceful, etc. Every other advertisement I see or hear is chanting the words, “New Year, New You,” and showing beautiful people. I am not judging, in fact, I have been a person that said New Year, New Me multiple times. I have set the goals that sounded great and were right in line with what other people were doing, and I have even been picking a word for the year for the past few years.
This year, I am just not feeling it. I keep questioning why it has to be a “New” me or a “New” you. Why are we setting goals for the pretty? Are we actually reflecting and thinking about how we could improve? Are we actually thinking about whether the goal we are setting is attainable? I teach students how to set SMART goals in one of my classes, and the things that I continually have to help them revise are Specific, Measurable, and Attainable. It seems like some of this push to be New is actually also pushing to not appreciate where you are and where you started.
I don’t want to be a new person, I’ve worked to hard to get to the person I am
In all actuality, after doing this new year, new person thing for all of these years, I want off this ride. I have finally, this year, started liking who I am more and recognizing all the things I have done and worked through to get to this point. Maybe it is because I turn 40 in just a couple weeks; maybe it is because I am finally in the career that I want to be in and I am doing the things I want to do; maybe it is because I am afraid to set another goal about getting fit that falls flat because of injury; or maybe I am just scared to set a goal in this weird time in which we are living. I don’t really know, but I do know that New Year, New Me (or You) is really rubbing me the wrong way this year.
But, where does that leave me? Can I just not do the resolution thing? Spoiler alert: I have really bad FOMO, so that probably isn’t an option. Can I just ignore the ads and the people around me? Spoiler alert #2: I’m not great at ignoring things that irritate my soul. So, what do I do now? And why does this bother me so much? I think it bothers me because I want myself (and others) to want to grow without losing what makes them uniquely them. I don’t want to turn into a new person, I just want to be a better version of this person. Heck, there are even some things that I think I do pretty well and don’t want to change. I think I will just keep the trend I have done for the past few years and choose a word for the year, set some goals to enhance the person that already exists, and then put my nose to the grindstone. The word thing is something I found several years ago (2020 – Intentional, 2019 – Pause, 2018 – Grace) and it is the thing that has helped me conquer the FOMO and try to focus on bettering myself. I got the idea from a friend, then quickly went and researched on blogs and OneWord365. For me, the word is always something that just comes to me during the last couple of weeks of the year for the next year. It sticks around in my head until I admit that is the word, then I try to set mini goals for myself with that word in mind. By mini-goals, I really mean little ones. Sometimes it is as simple as a goal to make myself stop and breathe with no work or music for 5 minutes a day for the next 5 days (Pause) or to eat lunch away from my desk (Intentional). They aren’t necessarily large words, and they are not necessarily large goals, but they are always things that allow me to feel like I am moving forward to becoming a better _____________ (fill in the blank with whatever thing I am trying to accomplish at that moment) while still maintaining who I am at my core.
So, this year, the word that kept coming to me was Routine. To be totally honest, I hated it. It sounds boring and unimaginative, and I just couldn’t think of any way to jazz up routine. I also knew deep down that I really needed to work on establishing better routines in my life to keep me from being overwhelmed. I thought about it some more, then went to Facebook (because that’s what everyone does, right) and asked the OneWord365 community for suggestions on what to do when you don’t like your word. I got several suggestions, including a change to the word that makes it exactly what I wanted, and more importantly what I need.
Rhythm speaks to me on so many levels, and so that is how I am setting my goals this year. That is how I will enhance the person that I already am and grow towards being more than what I am currently. This year, I want to work on my rhythm. The rhythm of my life, the rhythm of my work, even the rests that make the rhythm mean more. So, if you are like me and hate New Year, New You, or just don’t get the resolution thing, try choosing a word. Maybe your word will be for the month. Sometimes I choose a word for a day (typically it is Breathe and happens when things are way out of rhythm). Whatever you do, do it for you. Do it to grow in who you are and who you want to be. Just don’t forget who you are now.
Well, Christmas has come and gone. It was different, which we knew was going to happen because of the pandemic, but it was also beautiful. For someone who thrives on tradition and control, this Christmas season has been unlike any other. It has been trying, frustrating, and even depressing at times but, as I sit here with all our Christmas celebrations completed, I see beauty, patience, and some self-realization that happened throughout this Christmas season. The snow may be melting, but the things that I learned this Christmas will be burned in my heart and mind for a long time.
So how did it start? What was the first lesson learned this year? It started back in November with the realization that I am not superwoman. I am one of those people that wants the trees up the day after Halloween. I have memories of the Christmas when I got 10 trees up and had everything bought and wrapped by Thanksgiving. I had decided that this would be the year that I would have everything done by the weekend of Thanksgiving, and I was going to start with surprising my kids when they got home. I worked it out with my mom that the kids were going to her house to spend the night after school on a Friday night so I could have all day on Friday and the beginning of Saturday to get everything decorated and the tree ready for ornaments. David was going to bring everything over from the storage building that Friday morning and we could get it all ready for the ornaments when the kids got home. The best laid plans … In actuality what happened was that he didn’t get home until after I had picked up B from school and Alyssa was home. They came home because Alyssa was ticked that I was asking them to go to mom’s and wouldn’t tell her why. That resulted in about 15 different reasons why she couldn’t go, then finally one more reason she had to come home. I finally just gave it up and told them they were coming home and to never mind. And that was how the Christmas season began. Plans that didn’t work out due to circumstances beyond my control. Not a great way to begin for a self-professed control freak. Lesson #1 – I am not as in control as I like to think I am.
With such an auspicious beginning, it then took me over a week to get motivated to get everything decorated, and it was not everything that I remembered decorating that wonderful year that I keep remembering as the perfect Christmas. Lesson #2 had to do with traditions. I have a ton of Christmas decorations, in actuality I probably have too many for my little house, and they each have a specific place they go. When I finally got motivated to start decorating, I realized/remembered that we had gotten rid of 2 big pieces of furniture this year. Those 2 big pieces of furniture typically house my villages and my dancing snowmen and cookie jars. I sat among the boxes of stuff for 2 days trying to figure out how to get these things out and where to put them once I got them out. Snowman central ended up on top of my kitchen cabinets, which I think looks even better than it did in the big piece of furniture. My villages ended up split into a residential and business district. I didn’t light the villages up this year, but I have already figured out how to do that for next year, so I am looking forward to that. Lesson # 2 – It is okay to make changes to what has worked before. Sometimes it will even turn out better with the changes.
Snowman Central and both districts of the Villages
The next lesson I learned happened on Black Friday. I always go Black Friday shopping, and typically get almost all my shopping finished when I am shopping that day. I don’t do that crazy overnight shopping, but I typically pick up mom or Lindsay around 5:30 and we hit the road. That was the plan this year, and we took off for Knoxville. I altered the route we normally take and started in West Knoxville hoping to beat the crowds. We definitely beat the crowds. In fact, most of the stores weren’t open, and we ended up waiting on Panera to open to go get breakfast before we ever got started. It was almost eerie how few people were out shopping. The ones who were out were pretty much all wearing masks. The longest line we saw all morning was the line of people waiting to get in a huge wine store. I’m not sure what they had on sale, but I definitely feel like I need to go back and investigate that store. It must be an amazing place to go because the line to get in was down the sidewalk, turned a corner, and blocked a few other stores. It was crazy. Mom and I shopped until I had totally worn her down (she’s not really a shopping fan) and I had almost everyone’s gift bought. The Tahoe was full, and we decided to stop at Target on the way home. I mean Target has Starbucks, and why would you go to Knoxville and not hit Target on the way home? This is where Lesson #3 was firmly cemented in my brain. Before we ever went into Target, I said something funny and we both ended up laughing until we cried. Lesson #3 – A good laugh should happen more often because it is absolutely energizing.
Lesson #4 goes back to planning things out. David and I decided we wanted to redo the office to make it more conducive to working from home because we are both thinking that we will be working from home again at some point in the future. We went and ordered a countertop to become our desks and it was supposed to be here on 11/24. We had already torn the office mostly apart in anticipation of this, and we knew that I was coming home to work after Thanksgiving because my school was going online after Thanksgiving break. The hope was that they could do the install really quickly after the countertop arrived and I would be able to work from home in the office for the month of December. Back to that best laid plans thing… The countertop didn’t arrive until December 11th, and they weren’t able to install it until December 21st. That meant our Christmas wonderland had an extra table in the living room for me to work from plus the decorations for the office that I had left on a part of the couch so I could decorate it as soon as the countertop was finished. Needless to say, the delay put my controlling tendencies into a tailspin and the extra stuff in my living room really got under my skin and left me not super focused. It was hard to finish the semester, and I ended up going into the office to do some of it because I couldn’t get in a good rhythm at home. Lesson #4 – Delays are inevitable, don’t let them totally ruin your plans.
We finally got the office finished (not decorated for Christmas, but finished), all the presents were wrapped, some plans for Christmas were different but everything was going along smoothly. I finally felt like we had hit the Christmas groove. Then the meteorologists started calling for snow on Christmas Eve. I live in the south, we don’t do snow. In fact, the past several Christmases have been about 70 degrees. They call for snow, but it is rare that we get more than just a dusting if we get anything. We all got excited about the possibility of any snow on Christmas, but knew that this was probably going to turn out the same way it has in the past and we were going to be snow disappointed. Christmas Eve got here, we had plans for that night, and it was raining. Then the rain turned to snow, and it started sticking, and it was a ton of snow, and this is the south where we don’t know what to do with that kind of snow. My aunt got stuck coming home from work, plans changed again, and we ended up loading the truck and heading to mom’s to spend the night (with the dog, another change in plans). The snow happened, and then it happened some more, and then it happened some more, and we had the first truly white Christmas I can remember. This was wonderful, but started changing plans again. Instead of going to my grandfather’s for Christmas dinner, we came home after opening presents and having breakfast at mom’s house. That sounds great, right? A low-key Christmas night at home. That would all ring true except for 2 things. When we got up on Christmas Eve, the lower half of the Christmas tree lights were out. That brought tons of tears from me. Problem number 1 with a calm Christmas evening at home was that I didn’t even want to look at my Christmas tree because it looked so horrible to me without half the lights. Problem number 2 was a little more of an issue. I had not planned to eat Christmas dinner at home, so I hadn’t gone to the grocery store. Luckily, we bought part of a cow this summer and still had some meat in the deep freeze. Christmas dinner became cubed steak, mashed potatoes, and deviled eggs. Did we end up having a nice night? Absolutely. Did I end up seeing some beauty in this old tree with half the lights out? Yes. Lesson #5 – Sometimes, when we think there is nothing there, we can put together a whole thing. We just have to think outside the box. Lesson #6 – There is beauty in everything, even when we have to struggle to find it.
Snowy Christmas Eve and Christmas morning and the half-lit tree
This has been a crazy year. It is not getting any less crazy as time has gone on, and it doesn’t appear that it will get any less crazy in the next few days. There are so many more things than this that I learned this year, but I think 6 life lessons in a month and a half is quite a bit. By the way, that snow is still hanging around on the grass, and we ended up with between 5 and 6 inches of snow. That’s a ton for where I live. We did end up rescheduling Christmas at my grandfather’s, and David’s mom was able to come down for brunch yesterday morning. This Christmas has not been what we expected, but if has been an amazing Christmas season. The normal things that have marked Christmas in the past looked different or didn’t happen at all this year, but it was still an amazing experience. I have a feeling, once everything is said and done, we will look back on this year in much the same way I am looking back at Christmas. Things were different, and not everything happened the way we wanted, but we grew from it and became better people because of it.
For roughly 2 months, I have been talking about redoing our home office. I’ve been dreaming about redoing it for years. We actually took the big step and ordered countertops to create a desk over a month ago. I bought the paint a month and a half ago. Today, it finally happened. When we decided what we were going to do, David started cleaning out the old office. That turned things slightly upside down. Little did we know how long it would remain turned upside down. I even left Christmas decorations out to put in there when we put up all the decorations everywhere else in the house. As a reminder, here are a few pics from the beginning of this craziness (September 27th was when I took these pictures).
Chaos definitely describes it, but it certainly wasn’t perfect. In fact, I couldn’t even work in here because it was so chaotic. It wasn’t always like this, but it quickly became like this when David and I, and the kids, all got sent home to do work and school in March. As fall semester rolled along, I kept having this really bad feeling that we would end up being sent home again. Luckily, that did not happen, but it made me want to get the office in shape to where we could function if we were all sent home. This particular room has served as an office, the first bedroom for both kids, and then back to an office. It is a long, skinny room, and it is hard to use as a bedroom because of that. Luckily, my husband is pretty much a saint and goes along with my crazy ideas of doing stuff with the house. Here are some pictures of the office as it looks right now, and some pictures of the process.
If I said I am loving the new office, it would be an understatement. We finally have a space that works for both of us. We will be able to work in here together, record our podcast in here (anchor.fm/perfect-chaos), have a nice place to meet with people if we need to do that (hence the blue chair), and make plans together. I am absolutely over the moon with our new setup. I know there are some things we still need to get or do, and it will get changed a little as we start using it more, but I am actually motivated to do some work again. Here’s hoping that it will provide a great place for us to work when we need to work from home.
December is finally here. I feel like I have been waiting on it since March. One of the things that I am really good at is making a list. I love lists. I love to check things off the list. I love to color code my lists. You get the idea. However, as much as I like making lists, I have struggled for years during the month of November. You see, a lot of the people on social media that I am friends with or follow take the month of November to express their gratitude. I have tried this in the past, but always felt like I was falling short of the goal. My friends always had these beautiful things that they were saying and that they were grateful for and I was always feeling like I could come up with a few things that I could write those beautiful words about, then I was grateful for things like coffee and twinkly lights. I just didn’t feel like I could write about being grateful for the little things because it would look petty next to the others.
Make a list to get it done
I then decided that I just wouldn’t do it. I just wouldn’t participate in Gratitude Month (November) because I didn’t want people to think I wasn’t grateful and I didn’t want to leave anyone out. Last year, I just skipped it all. I was grateful for things, I just didn’t post them. Then we got to 2020. It just didn’t feel right to skip listing the things I was grateful for with everything that has been going on in the world. I stewed about it for a little while, and then I received the answer one day while I was reading a book by one of my favorite authors, Bob Goff.
When I did one of the readings in early November, he talked about a friend of his that started each day by writing the 10 things he was grateful for on that day. I took this idea and ran with it. It made perfect sense because if I was listing 10 things each day, I felt like I was ok having a few of them be the little things. I also thought about how hard this semester has been on myself and all other educators and students. I decided to challenge my students that are currently teachers to write a list of 10 things they are grateful for each day when they got into their classrooms. I also set a goal for myself to do the same thing and to put my list on Instagram by doing a live video every morning when I made my list. For the most part, I have managed to do this almost every day, and it has certainly made a difference. In the reading, one of the things was trying to change the way we think. One example is instead of lamenting how much work we have to do, being grateful that we have a job. I have tried very hard to be grateful for at least one thing per day that I am typically unhappy or complaining about. I can safely say that now, after a couple of weeks of doing this, I am starting to think of things differently.
I have preached to my children and my students for years to choose joy, and while I try to do that there has just been a piece missing. I was still getting upset way too often about things that really didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. By trying to flip my thinking, I have found myself finally able to choose joy and mean it. The glass isn’t half empty, I’m just happy to have a glass with something in it. I know that sounds super Suzy Sunshine, and I am definitely not Suzy Sunshine, but I truly mean it. Trying to change the framework in which I think about the things that bother me has been something that continues to bless me.
This semester, and really this year, have been so trying for so many people. It is an easy time for us all to think on the negative side of things. In fact, it is what we have seen happening increasingly all over social media and the news. We are all tired. We are all over being scared of this pandemic. Everybody wants life to go back to normal. I personally just want people to start being kind to each other again. Try making yourself a gratitude list. Not a big one with the big things, but a small one done each morning. Allow yourself to be really grateful for the silly stuff along with the big stuff.
Stop working so hard! Have I gotten your attention yet? Before anyone comments that I am promoting laziness, please know that I am definitely not doing that. I am just telling you to make sure you are taking a break every now and then. With the movement of so many people to working from home due to the pandemic, a lot of the lines between work and home got blurred, if not erased all together. If you are leaving work every single day and you are feeling like your gas tank is permanently running on fumes, there is something wrong.
Ronda is running on empty
We are all guilty of it. We work just a little longer to finish up the day’s tasks. I hate having things on my to do list that don’t get checked off by the end of the day. I have a need for there to be no notifications on my phone or iPad because that signifies that something needs my attention. I will repeat: Quit working so hard!! I have to say it to myself (and I’m a horrible listener when I tell myself something). I am writing tonight, from my office, because I just finished teaching and wanted to finish up a couple of things. Writing a blog post has been on there for several days, so I decided to mark it off the list tonight.
Why are some of us so driven? I know the reasons for motivation and drive. I get intrinsic and extrinsic value. But what makes us push beyond normal limits? Is it a fight against perception? Sometimes I really think it is. Maybe it is that we don’t want to be perceived as lazy or expendable. Maybe it is because we like to feel important and needed. If we just work a few more minutes, or maybe another hour, we prove how helpful we can be. When we prove ourselves, people need us more. Or at least that’s a theory.
Motivation
I have another theory for the push to keep moving. I think sometimes we are afraid of what will happen if we stop. I do realize that could go with what I just wrote as well, and there is some fear of being not needed if we don’t keep proving our worth. Think about it though, how many times have you heard the saying, “I will rest when I’m dead,” and how do you relate that to your life? Is the motivation to keep going synonymous with a fear of what happens when we stop?
How does that fall in with this pandemic? Does that add another layer of if I keep moving, it means I am healthy? Are we turning our homes into this?
Where is the work/life balance?
Who suffers the most when we lose the boundaries between our work time and our home time? The argument could be made that it is our children, and it is a very good argument. The argument could be made that it is our relationships with our family members or the ways in which we deal with stress when stress is present in every aspect of our life. I think it is changing us in ways we don’t even think about. For instance, have you emailed someone over the weekend and gotten irritated that they didn’t respond? Does everything seem like an urgent situation to you? I have heard the term surge capacity several times over the past couple of weeks. At first I thought it was a crazy term being used to make excuses. I’ve done a little more research (just a little, don’t have time to do much), and I am a believer. I think most of us have hit or exceeded our surge capacity limits. The world feels upside down and topsy turvy, and it seems to be getting crazier by the day.
Somebody put us back to right side up.
I don’t know how to solve the problems, and I’m really not even certain I know what all the problems are at this point. I do know this, we have got to take a break and get off the merry go round every now and then. We have got to start reestablishing the lines between work and home life.
There are some great resources out there to help you re-establish those boundaries. I found the graphic above, along with some really great ideas for both work and home, at https://themostefficient.com/50-ways-to-take-a-break-infographic-brain-breaks-for-adults/. There are a ton of things that I don’t understand, and what is going on in the world is right up there near the top. I do know one thing for certain; if we all keep working this hard, we are all going to end up broken.
So give yourself some grace, set some boundaries, and look up from your work. These things can only help you feel better.
Do you ever wonder how you are supposed to make your mark? Recently, my job changed from being the Graduate Advising Coordinator to being a full-time tenure track Assistant Professor of Education and the Coordinator of the Job-Embedded Practitioner Program. I am so excited, and this is a position I have been working towards for several years. It is so strange to me to think of myself as finally being where I have worked to be for all of this time. All of a sudden, I have new professional options for how I can make my mark on education. I have ideas that previously seemed unattainable that now do not look so far away, and a renewal and validation of the thoughts that I have had regarding education, relational teaching, educational technology, and the roles we should take as professors and teachers. So many ideas and goals, and not a clue how to start.
The easy answer is, “You made it into academia, now you need to start researching and publishing if you want your voice to be heard.” What does that look like? How do you even get started down that road? I have always been someone that would rather teach or present than write. So how do I get started with this need to publish that exists in academia? How do I fill the need to publish and balance it with my personality trait of needing/wanting to teach?
Today is International Dot Day. If you have never heard of Dot Day, I strongly urge you to visit http://www.thedotclub.org/dotday/ and learn more about this fun day and different ways to celebrate it. You may look and think that most of the celebrations are for young children. I thought so initially, but I ordered the book (I actually ordered the creatrilogy on Amazon) and decided I would read about it to see if there was any way it could apply to my students. I quickly discovered that it not only applies to my students, but also to me. You see, I realized through reading the book that I am now both Vashti and Vashti’s teacher. I have realized my role of Vashti’s teacher for years. Encouraging students to make their mark; helping build their confidence; and celebrating their accomplishments, no matter how small, are things that I have been doing for a long time, even before I was an adjunct faculty member or teacher. Those are the things that come naturally to me, and the things I love to do. I now find myself in the role of Vashti, at a loss of how to proceed.
I read The Dot to my class of graduate students last night, and plan to read it in all 3 classes I teach today. As I have planned my lessons to incorporate this children’s book, I have thought about what that book means to the different groups of students I teach and that has also forced me to think about what it means to me. Sometimes, we just have to make a mark. Once we get our mark made, then it is time to sign it and keep making marks. I can remember writing papers in graduate school that were easy to write once I could finally get started. That is how The Dot works. It is getting started. It is encouraging our students to start somewhere, even if it is just a dot.
So, I am getting started. I have started my dots. Some of them will be frameworthy, and some will need to be thrown away. Regardless, today I will celebrate International Dot Day with my students, even though they are not the typical students who would be celebrating this, and we will make our mark. Go out today, do something that may seem a little unusual, make your mark, and sign it.
So, after an extremely long few weeks at work, I am finally on Fall Break, and I had a realization this morning. It is right at 16 months before I turn 40. I was sitting here, trying to decide what to do with my day, and I thought about going to get a book to read. That, of course, led me down a rabbit hole on Pinterest trying to figure out what book I wanted to go get, which eventually led to me figuring out how long it is until I turn 40.
16 Months. Just 16 months. I don’t feel almost 40. I mean, I guess my knees definitely feel over 40, but in my mind I don’t feel like I have been alive that long. Since I realized how close I am to getting there (after David did since he hit 40 this year), I decided I want to do something special, set a goal to reach between now and then. I am actually going to set 2 goals.
Goal 1
Starting this month, I want to read 40 books before I turn 40, but to do that I need your help…
I have no clue what I want to read. I have spent so much time reading for education or reading to/with my kids that I don’t even know what to read anymore. Leave me a comment with your top books so I can make my list.
Goal 2
I am going to do 40 hero/memorial workouts in the next 16 months. I will probably have to scale them (see the over 40 year old knees comment), but I really want to do something cool between now and then. Leave me your favorite hero/memorial WOD in the comments, too. Get ready Mossy Creek Fitness, I am ready to come back from this stupid mono thing with a vengeance!
My plan is to blog about each book and workout as I finish it, but I really need help finding all the books and workouts. Let’s see if I can hit this goal!
I feel like I am constantly talking about this, but I also think it is one of the most important things we can do as people.
This week starts the CrossFit Open, for the second time this year. The Open is changing format, and that has created a second Open in just a few short months. For the past 3 years, I have diligently signed up and participated in the Open, and I am actually a little sad that I can’t this year.
I am not what most would consider the typical CrossFitter, and while I will never find myself sitting on top of the leaderboards, that isn’t really what the Open is all about. You see, for 5 short weeks, the whole CrossFit world makes wild guesses about the workouts, watches announcements with baited breath to see what the next thing they will have to do is, and then gathers en masse in the local CrossFit box (looking at you, Mossy Creek Fitness) to workout and cheer on friends that feel more like family as we all push through whatever torture Dave Castro has come up with for that week.
You see, the Open is the time when CrossFit shows what it really is that makes it special and different from other types of fitness. It is the time when we come together as a community, regardless of anything else going on, and spend our time encouraging each other and pushing beyond the limits that we have envisioned ourselves as having. Sometimes it is just a physical limitation we thought we had, sometimes it is the thought of stepping out and working out in front of people instead of in the back of the room, sometimes it is even the fear of being the one that looks like they don’t belong. I know this because I have personally experienced all of these, but the Open is the time when we are able to move beyond those limitations that we have imposed upon ourselves and come together as a community.
So, while I can’t participate in the Open this time because of illness (stupid mono), I will be there cheering on my friends as they push past the limits to become even better versions of themselves. If you haven’t signed up, get signed up this week at games.crossfit.com, and for a few short weeks experience people putting everything aside to come together as a community. Break your own record, do something you’ve never done, step outside of your own fears. If you have never experienced CrossFit, find your local box and try it out. If you’re in my area, I have a great one you should check out.
If you know me, you know I am a slight control freak. By slight, I actually mean living in a constant state of having a totally over the top need to know exactly what is going on, how it is happening, when it is happening, what the next step is, who is going to be there, etc. I don’t really like when plans change (shocker), and I am not a huge fan of the unknown. Somehow, all of those things that I hate managed to happen this week. B was invited to a huge Jr. Young Leaders Conference this summer, which is great. The not great part of it is that it is almost 9 hours away form home. I decided, about a month and a half ago, that instead of driving back and forth so much, I would get an apartment on AirBnB and David, Alyssa and I could come up and spend the week. Of course, plans didn’t work out the way I had them set up. David had meetings he couldn’t move, Alyssa got her wisdom teeth out, and when they released the schedule for B, he had to be there earlier than we thought. After thinking through all of that, I ended up in an apartment 9 hours away from home by myself.
As much as I enjoy having some time to myself, this, plus a few other things seems to have thrown me into a tailspin this week. I never really thought of myself as having anxiety, but last weekend it has practically paralyzed me. I cried all weekend. I managed to be ok for most of the drive, but then we hit traffic. It was at the point that we hit nasty traffic that I truly began to realize how much anxiety I was having. I got B dropped off, then made my way back to the apartment I had rented for the week. Keeping in mind that I was tired, and starving, the actuality of bursting into tears when I even thought of having to go find some food happened quickly. I finally got it together enough to go to a grocery store about a block and a half away, and managed to get food to last me through the week. That was Sunday night, and I didn’t leave the apartment again (other than to go downstairs to the Starbucks on Monday morning) until Wednesday.
So why am I telling all this on my blog? First off, to dispel the myth that I have it all together. For the past few years, I have had people say things like, “I don’t know how you do it all” and “You manage to balance everything, how do you keep everything together,” but in actuality, I don’t have it all together.
It’s also been hard to navigate being off my normal schedule while I am also trying to deal with the anxiety. Without workouts with my Mossy Creek Fitness family to burn off steam, and without my family around to distract me, I have actually had to face the anxiety as it hit. Thankfully, I had some great help. With lots of talks with my husband, lots of soul-searching and journaling, and a great visit with my cousin, I managed to get out of the apartment yesterday. We went to Arlington, and had a great time!!
So, while it hasn’t quite been the week I had planned, it has definitely been a week that I will end up celebrating. I managed to work through some things, and figured out some ways that I can work through things in the future. I also learned a lot about myself.
I am definitely a small town, southern girl.
Big cities are nice for vacation, but I miss my mountains and cows.
I like to go on vacation, but not by myself.
I like alone time, but not this much alone time. I love the time I have been spending on my back deck this summer, but I also love being able to go inside and spend time with my family.
I do not do well when I skip devotions. I have never been someone that set aside my time for God. In fact, I have tried to do that in the past few years, only to get bored, or feel like I am not doing it correctly (that’s a topic for a whole other blog post). Since I have been setting aside time for devotions this summer, I have really begun to look forward to that time each day. I missed my time on Saturday, and on Sunday, but when I made time on Monday, it made a huge difference in my day.
I am definitely ready to be home, and I can’t wait to hit the road tomorrow. I am even more excited that I get to spend the next week on vacation with David, the kids, and my parents! There might even be some mountains involved.
Beautiful Minds Inspire Others 