Give and take

It's that dread time again: high school parent teacher conferences. In other words, that means two socially draining back-to-back 14 hour days for Jeff. Monday (yesterday) was day one of two. A brief caveat: I know that plenty of people regularly work 14+ hour days. I can't begin to understand that lifestyle. I'm not going to apologize for our regular sweet schedule during the off-season (no cross country or track to coach). Most days during the winter off-season, Jeff leaves home at 6:15am and returns home by 4pm--a solid 8 hour day, no more. It is rather idyllic, and it played a contributing factor to Jeff's choice of profession. All I can do is write about my own experiences, and when I'm used to having my husband home by 4pm, waiting four extra hours for his return is hard. (Track season is fast approaching and I'm not ready to give up that extra 2.5+ hours of husband-time yet!)

Touch life

This winter I have been doing most of my running around our driveway and in the field out back. It keeps me safe in the thick dark fog, removes the stroller-pushing difficulty, and Amber doesn't have to come outside in the cold if she doesn't want to. It works great for both of us.

Rubber gloves and a face mask

While I was peacefully eating my lunch at 11:30am today, Amber walked in. She had demanded and devoured a 10:45am sandwich and then trotted off to play while I ate. I heard her go into the bathroom, then she came out a little while later.

Three semi-profound musings and a walk

On Friday (January 18), I had three semi-profound musings, or at least they seemed profound to me when I was thinking them.

2018 Reading List

While looking back on 2018, I realized that I had kept stats of my three passions: reading, running, and writing. I wish I had kept track of hours spent practicing piano, but that is not necessarily a passion and recording my practice time ever day would have sucked dry what limited joy ever existed in that endeavor. Plus, I didn't think of it.

A January Sunday

After sleeping in till 6:45am and reveling in that much-needed decadence/silence on Sunday morning, I sat in bed in my quiet room and read my scriptures. I relish mornings where I can have a solid half hour or more of time to myself to wake up fully and meditate/study/ponder/prep myself for the day.

Baby heaven

At last, I have reached the last post about our Christmas trip to Denver. I saved the best for last. My brother Brad and his wife Dani have six month old twins named Connor and Christine. I was so excited to meet them at long last! It was so fun to have enough babies to go around. We all took turns holding and playing with them and soaking in their sweet smiles.

Runner's high

I.

One day over Christmas my siblings were gathered around the kitchen island talking about communication (sometimes we talk about communication better than we communicate--hah). During that conversation, my newest brother-in-law said something that really stuck with me. He said "I always try to compare feelings, not experiences. I may not know exactly how that situation feels, but I do know how that emotion feels." I have been reflecting on that over and over ever since our conversation.

Garden of the Gods

While we were in Denver over Christmas, we went on a Sunday afternoon excursion to see the Garden of the Gods. Jeff stayed home with a sick Amber, Brad stayed home with the twin babies, and some people had opted to go to afternoon church rather than morning church. So our numbers fit into two vehicles. We drove an hour and miraculously found parking spots in the crowded parking lot.

Christmas

We had the Christmasiest December of all time, opening presents every weekend all month, but Christmas Day in Denver was still joyful and memorable. Here are journal clips from Christmas Eve and Christmas Day:

Browns take Denver

We went to Denver for Christmas with my side of the family--the Brown Family. It was the first time all of my siblings plus their spouses plus all of our kids were together in one place, and we were quite the crowd! Twelve adults and eleven kids may not sound like too many, but eleven kids age eleven and under made the numbers seem a bit larger. My parents are in the process of moving from Seattle to a large house in Denver, so we did without cushy accessories like couches while we were there. Everyone had beds, though, and there were more than enough bathrooms to go around so it worked well. I love my family.

[another] blog crisis

Happy new year! I’m having a blog crisis! We went on a ten day trip to Denver over Christmas and got back two days ago. It’s a new year and after a long 36 hours of a mysterious WordPress outage, I began considering moving this blog back to my first love, Blogger.