Checking In

I've been off the grid (but really back on the grid as I am home with my folks on the mainland) for a few months. I traveled back to my hometown in October and have been here through the holidays. I think I'll head back to the island late February or early March. After the cabin fever and blues of last winter I felt it was in everyone's best interest I winter in the tropical mid-western USA. It has been great!

Right after coming home I fell into a new product line making baby shoes from leather and luxury fabrics. Also, baby leg warmers from recycled sweaters and ear flap hats from recycled sweaters. My part time job picked up exponentially, allowing me to pay down huge payments towards my student loan. I think I will be 100% debt free in the next few months!!! AMAZING! Thank you Dave Ramsey and my dear friend that referred me to your method!

My folks have been grateful to have me around. My retired father enjoys the company and the project assistance. My mother has been managing a team at work short staffed for too many months and needs the domestic help at home - I cook, clean, help with household projects. When I came home my parents had just finished resurfacing their wood floors so the entire main floor was empty. I spent several days moving furniture and stuff back into the space.

It's been nice seeing friends and having a *gulp* social life. Albeit occasional, I get invited to do things with friends and sometimes even convince them to do things with me. Shocking! I even took a road trip to Orlando with my good friend and we went to Universal Studios for the first time in my life - fun! And I will tell you I was still able to throw $700 at my student loan last month and this month and go on a trip! No credit cards and all bills/food/needs are being paid for/met.

Checking in...after a LOONGG Hiatus

Well folks, I survived the never ending winter. The trees did not leaf out until very late June/early July...eek. Very late spring for my taste and compared to what I am accustomed to. Summer is finally here, the weather has been perfect, my parents came to visit, I picked up some part-time internet based work and I have finally had enough with my excess cushioning and am trying a new fitness routine.

A horrible bout of the blues kept me from...everything for too many months. I have been wanting to run away from my life. Many days I have searched for the cheapest airline fares from this city to any other city in the world that sparked my interest in that moment. I don't have the money to purchase one of those tickets, but I can dream.

The 20-minute walk project fizzled out very quickly once I realized winter refused to end. From there I did nothing. I tried to rollerblade once the snow melted, an activity I used to love, but found I have lost so much muscle I felt too unstable on the rollerblades and was afraid I would hurt myself. So then I did nothing for a while again.

In the last month or so I have been extremely lucky to pick up some part-time, work from home computer work. After each block of time I complete I am doing a session on my yoga videos. It helps the posture and pain issues I am feeling from sitting at the laptop for several hours, and it is helping build muscle...with the goal of burning off some of this squish I and my pants disdain.

So new goal is to maintain the daily yoga practice, contribute to this blog more regularly and generally feel like I am accomplishing more than I had been before. Game on!

20 Minute Walk Challenge - Progress Report

Well...I am not succeeding at the daily 20 minute walks right now. I hit a blue patch, the weather has been up and down and colder, and frankly cabin fever has been winning. I'm conquering it a bit indoors by working in my jewelry studio as much as possible and trying to structure my days. But that too is not as successful as I'd like it to be, many days the last few weeks I go back to bed after driving my husband to work and sleep until lunch...oh winter, you are winning.

I am headed home to visit family and attend one of our friend's weddings in March and will use the treadmill in my bedroom there to hopefully jump start my desire to move and feel physically better. Hopefully upon returning here I will be in a more motivated space with the whole "daily movement" mindset. Wish me luck!

In related news, I think I will keep my eyes peeled on the classified sites for an inexpensive treadmill or exercise bike. Winter and I are just not jiving. Also, I did catch a performance of an African dance troupe this weekend, a casual group of varying ages that is looking for more people to join in. I studied West African dance a few semesters in college so contacted them about joining. That will be a fun sweat fest and hopefully takes off!

Trying an Oldie but Goodie...

In an attempt to have healthy snacks on hand, I have come to realize that I will have to cook occasionally.  Though, I dislike cooking, over the years, I have come to find easy to make recipes that don't take too much effort or time.  This morning, while I am home alone with my son, who is playing with toys with Cat in the Hat Knows Alot About That and Dinosaur Train on in the background, I am going to make "Vegetable Quiche Cups to Go" which is a recipe I got from the South Beach Diet book.

Recipe ingredients and instructions are:

1 package (10 oz) frozen chopped spinach
3/4 cup liquid egg substitute (or 6 eggs)
3/4 cup shredded reduced-fat cheese
1/4 cup diced green bell peppers
1/4 cup diced onions
3 drops hot-pepper sauce (optional)

Microwave the spinach for 2 1/2 minutes on high.  Drain the excess liquid.
Line a 12-cup muffin pan with foil baking cups.  Spray the cups with cooking spray.
Combine the egg substitute (eggs), cheese, peppers, onions, and spinach in a bowl.  Mix well.
Divide evenly among the muffin cups.
Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes, until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean

Quiche cups can be frozen and reheated in the microwave.  Any combination of appropriate vegetables and reduced-fat cheese may be used

Serves 6

Nutrition at a Glance (Per serving):  77 calories, 9 g protein, 3 g Carbs, 3 g Fat, 2 g saturated fats, 160 mg sodium, 10 mg cholesterol, 2 g fiber

So while my kid is hopefully occupying himself, I will be making this for healthy snacks to eat for a few days.  Here's a picture of the completed product.

Once Preston goes down for his nap, I will be cleaning the house from top to bottom because my in-laws will be coming to stay with us for a while starting tomorrow, Sunday.

It's just Preston and I for most of the day.  I'm hoping it is not too windy out today so we can go for a nice walk around town.  The roads might still be slushy, but we'll brave them anyway.  And I'll remember to bring my small camera this time so I can take a picture of something I find interesting or inspirational.  The whole point in buying the heavy duty stroller was because we knew the roads are crappy here.  Better put it to good use.

This is what most of the street corners look like throughout Fairfield

My picture of something interesting and inspirational.  I was inspired to get creative while taking my kid for a walk, since most of the roads are like the picture above.

My 20 Minute Walk..."Chronicle"

Still not on a daily routine with 20 minute walks. Missed most days this week. I guess I need to ease into this. Drove to a beach again today, did a little walk, tried jumping over a stream and ended up with one foot in it and ended up catching some cool icicles.

___
Having a hard time getting out every day. I missed walking again yesterday. My husband, despite having done manual labor all day, went for a walk with me this evening in the fresh snow. I would like to find some tools to keep motivating myself. Any tips? Any tricks you use?

___
Missed a day again (working on getting my life into more of a routine...hate routine but right now am finding I might need it). Walked to the post office yesterday (no photo sorry...balancing package, purse and myself on ice was plenty...adding a camera to the mix...not happening).
___
After nearly a week of not walking and a bout of blues and sleeping all day, I had a craving to beach comb. So I finally got a walk in, found 50 or so mermaid purses (the casing that shark eggs are housed in...these were all hatched...lots of sharks in those waters *gulp) and did my biannual barefeet in North Atlantic in the middle of winter stunt.

---

Update: I seem to have lost the momentum. Have missed most days this week. Urgh. This is what happens to most of my ambitious excercise plans. Any tips for getting back into it?
---

I missed a day. And then made it up by walking 40 minutes yesterday and a long walk today. These walks were much more interesting as they took place not in my ugly neighborhood. We got hockey tickets from my husband's boss for x-mas so we had to park 20 minutes away from the game. (We were in the front row and the home team beat the league ranked #1 team. A fun game to watch up close!)

---
And we drove to do some errands today and decided to take the car up the big hill overlooking the city and caught both some amazing fog layers and a bright pink winter sunset.

Going forward I will be adding my walk write up to this post I think. If it gets intolerably long I will start a new one.
---
My husband is helping me motivate for walks and encouraging us going beyond the neighborhood. Today we drove to a nearby farmstand (on the hunt for whole chickens that cost less than $15 for a small bird...the grocery store caused a meltdown today (normal) they did not have chickens), on the way home we stopped by a nice park, walked to the playground, played with a weird musical instrument and enjoyed the teeter totters.

You Know, That Dirty Gray You Only Find in Winter

Day 2 of my walking challenge. 20 minutes in an ugly neighborhood surrounded by busy streets is hard to do. Circled my cul-de-sac just to fill the 20 minutes after having gone right out the door then back up a hill, then up another. We have reached the point in winter in which everything is dirty gray. You know, that dirty gray you only find in winter. I do, however, like the color combo between the fluorescent green and the shades of gray. 

Fluorescent Green Walkers.

A Move and Cabin Fever

I've, luckily for my sanity's sake, had the fortune to move into the largest urban area on this island. Population 106,172. I am still coping with staying at home and not having work outside the home or regular income. And this city has been dumped on with so much snow this winter they are taking it out in dump trucks daily just to sort of have some poor control over the roadways. To top this off we have had rolling power outages on the coldest days of winter so far. Awesome! I thought I was living in a first world nation...

Needless to say, I have wanted to punch holes in the wall, have put on some undesired weight and am generally irritable and stir crazy. I am trying to cope by building routine into my life. I have always been resistant to routine; a free spirit, routine is for normal people. But am finding that designing some routine is helping not feel like the whole day has been wasted on facebook.

My new routine is still under development. I have been at it a little over a week now and I like this aspect of it. I drive my husband to work every morning. Not being a morning person, waking is always painful. I start the day in a deliriously, miserable state. My eyes hurt, my body hurts, my brain often hurts. I resent being a chauffeur. Once I get back from the 30-40 minute round trip, I make a cup of tea, set a timer for 30 minutes and allow myself uninterrupted access to facebook and whatever else I "need" to look at on the computer. I try to find some interesting articles to read later from what my worldly friends share.

So far I found a link to 24 invaluable things to learn for free online of which I have started the French lessons. Having majored in Spanish, I will tell you this free software is well designed, however I can't get the microphone part where I speak to work...so I am skipping that for now. There is also an interesting link to the art of negotiation I would like to take some time with as well as a link to learning about investing.

On the topic of money, one of my biggest sources of anxiety, I have taken major steps to conquer this anxiety and control the little money we have in our life at this time. We are working with the Dave Ramsey model of spending down to zero - allocating every dollar to a line item in a budget. During some of the days we had rolling power outages, my husband and I marathoned our way through his book The Total Money Makeover (tip you can find this used for pretty cheap at used bookstores and on amazon) and the accompanying budget workbook. I feel like we are better off than we realized and we are on the right step towards progress. We are already on Baby Step 2 and well into it as I have been working on my debt snowball for 4 years now. I have paid off $15,000 in credit card debt (and now owe $0!), paid off a car loan, paid off 2/3's of new car loan in less than a year and have brought my student loan down to $10,000. My outstanding debt is about $16,000 and my husband and I expect to have this gone in two years on one lower middle class income! Woot!!!

Disclaimer: Ramsey is an Evangelical Christian. For those sensitive to too much biblical reference (like myself) I will tell you it is 95% good (*read easy to understand) financial advice and a very tolerable 5% biblical reference. This method and book was recommended to me by my friend Derrin, who is successfully living the life I hope to live (thank you a million times! and I do thank her often for this advice). It holds true to his radio show too, I have been streaming his daily podcasts online. I am finding my brain is more engaged and as they say knowledge is power, I am learning more about money which I think is aiding in suppressing my anxiety.

I am now trying to motivate myself to add a 20 minute daily walk to my new routine. I am putting a lot of time into my jewelry business, a fantastic distraction to the fact that we are in month two of the never ending winter season. But I need some air and some movement. I was too late to the game to join a hockey league (as far as I can tell) and am truly awful at exercising alone. I have yoga tapes and have used them once all winter. So...as I don't have much social interaction (still...grrr), I polled facebook for tips on motivating myself to take a 20 minute walk in my boring, 1970's construction, shopping mall neighborhood (P.S....walking around the mall no longer an option as they got damaged by their sprinkler system during the rolling outages...*insert expletive here).

So...long winded today it seems...an excellent piece of advice received is as follows "Have a goal to take one interesting photo during your walk - since your neighborhood is not inspiring in the macro, look for micro things to make a good photo as you walk: an oddly shaped branch, closeup of peeling paint or a brick wall, a weird chimney, whatever." Brilliant! I enjoy taking photos. I like being inspired by everything and this may even inspire some jewelry projects. Multiple birds with one stone...*semi horn blow*. I am going to strap on my boots and stuff myself into my coat, mittens and hat and go for a short stroll...with a camera.

Surviving Winter in a Small Town

So this winter has been off the charts crazy here in small town Montana.  One week we are in the single digits and below zero, the next week we have 40 degree temps with 60+ mph winds.  That's what we are facing here today in Fairfield, MT.  The air temperature is warm, but we can't go outside and enjoy it or we'll get blown away in the wind.

This winter has been especially hard because I have a now 17 month old to try and keep entertained daily.  I often find myself praying that he takes a long afternoon nap, so I can brainstorm ideas of how to keep him entertained in the evenings when my husband is busy at church with meetings, Confirmation or Bible study.  I've figured it out so far and way too much tv and netflix streaming is involved, but it's worked.  I started reading Preston the first Harry Potter book, mostly for my own entertainment, but he's actually starting to pay attention when I'm reading too which is fun to see.

As far as outside the home activities:  Preston goes over to the office with day most days in the morning so he has a larger space to play and run around.  I continue to take him to MOPS the 1st and 3rd Thursdays of the month, except if the weather is really really bad.  I belong to a book club which meets monthly that I love and participate in an evening Bible study which I also love.  The rest of the month, I find things to do as I long for spring and warmer weather to come.

For my own entertainment during this craptastical winter, I am reading a lot, brainstorming ideas for my creative space that I'm making for myself down in the basement, once the new carpet is put in, watching movies, and working on getting physically and emotionally healthier.  I've taken up crocheting again while Preston is napping and I marathon episodes of Ugly Betty on netflix.  Yup, I'm surviving, but I'll tell you this:  I am so looking forward to the warmer part of spring, a nice warm summer and a lovely autumn.  F*&% this winter!  We'll all make it through, just like every year and be grateful for warmer weather when it comes.

How I entertained a 15 month old by myself for 48 hours.....

It is getting colder outside and snowing at least once a week for the past two weeks in Fairfield, MT. There are not many places to take my son Preston for long periods of time that he can run around in, except the church where Jason's office is. So most mornings, Jason takes Preston with him to coffee time at the local restaurant called Cozy Corner Cafe and then takes Preston to the office with him. Preston runs around the open fellowship hall and then either takes a nap or doesn't before the guys come home for lunch. This does not happen every morning, but most mornings.

It gives me time to get things done around the house, like cleaning or some laundry, or work out and read a bit of the book for book club for a while. Sometimes I work out and then work on one of my many crocheting projects that I'm trying to finish. So what I'm saying is that most days, I get some form of time to myself.

Last night, today and part of tomorrow, it is just Preston and I, while Jason finishes up his last stint at 1st Call Theological Education, which is required for 1st call Pastors in the ELCA. So I am trying to come up with ideas and then implement them to keep Preston occupied this morning and this evening. Luckily this afternoon there is a break for Jason so Preston and I are going to meet up with him and some of our friends for a little bit, so I don't have to worry too much about entertaining him then. I have to run some errands too before and after we hang out with friends this afternoon, so that will burn some time too.

That is the background for the next couple of days...

This morning, in order to take a shower in peace, I put on one of Preston's favorite tv shows, "Super Why". I was able to take a shower and get dressed without him banging on the bathroom and bedroom doors. 30 minutes of quiet so I could get ready for the day. It was amazing. I am now updating this post as he watches a little more tv. Many people would chastise me for using the tv as entertainment so I can get things done around the house and for myself. I say to those people, "Hey, I just got to take 30 minutes for myself with no distractions. I win!"

Okay, free time over. Now time to find something else to entertain the munchkin. I'll report back later today on how things turn out.

Later on yesterday....

I distracted Preston with some more of his favorite shows and then got him ready to head to Great Falls after feeding him lunch. Lunch consisted of a peanut butter sandwich, beets and some pineapple with milk to drink. Then we headed to Great Falls where I proceeded to drag him around all over town. First to Barnes & Noble, then to hang out with friends for a bit at Starbucks. We went to Michaels, ate a Subway for dinner, went to Target and then to Sam's Club. We left the house around 1pm yesterday afternoon. We got home around 8pm last night. Needless to say, we both had a pretty busy day, so Preston basically passed out from exhaustion when we got home and I had the rest of the night to myself to do whatever I wanted.

That is how I entertain my 15 month old on rare occasions. Today is another story. Today he has been entertained with reading books, playing with toys and watching his television programming simultaneously. He is also a bit more needy today, so no putting on his favorite show and having 30 minutes to myself to get ready for the day. Today, I'll probably have to wait for Jason to get home before I'll be able to take a shower, or I can have a screaming, temper tantrum throwing kid bang on the door of the bathroom while I take a shower. No thanks. I'll wait for Jason to get home. Preston and I might go for a quick walk outside today to get out of the house for a few minutes, but it is going to be a more low-key day today.

Entertaining a 15 month old changes everyday. Some days are easy, some days are hard. But everyday is worth it.