2011 Year in Review

Overall, what a great year! And maybe this is just a function of getting older, but WOW did it ever go by quickly!

I've been writing these end of the year reviews since 2001, and putting them on my blog since 2005 (I think--I'll have to go back and look). I am so happy that I've taken the time to note down our adventures.

One of the main reasons I started up this blog is so that I can remember things--believe it or not, I have a difficult time remembering what I've written. When people start talking to me about a particular post, it often takes me a few minutes to recall what it was about, and sometimes I can't remember having written it at all! Memory is a crazy thing, isn't it? So I'm glad I blogged in 2011, because I will be using the posts I wrote as a way to jog my memory about the other things that occurred.

The theme this year was CONFERENCES. I attended four, spoke at three of them, traveled out of town for three of them and helped arranged one. Really, that makes me sound kinda professional and fancy. :D 

2011: The Year of the Conferences

January

• Our New Year was pretty quiet, and then we got lots and lots of snow ALL OF A SUDDEN. It was a respectable snowstorm here in Georgia, finally, and deserving of all of the school and work cancellations. 

• Sadly, that was the weekend I'd intended to go up to the cabin to remove the holiday decorations. I didn't go, but somehow I thought I'd gone. Whoops.

• I did a lot of ranting about Tiger Moms. Good times.

• I gave myself two personal challenges for January: a burpee challenge and a declutter drawers challenge. I stuck with them pretty well, though toward the end of the month I skipped some days doing both and then had to play catch up--not fun. I think I'll give myself another challenge in January 2012 and I hope I heed the lessons of January 2011. Because 17+18+19+20 burpees in one day really sucks.

• We started planning for ATLOSCon 2011: This Year, We Kinda Know What We're Doing. And it felt good to, you know, kinda know what we were doing.

• I got to go to Shakespeare Tavern for the very first time and it was so much fun. Kelly and Aaron are the best! I really need to go again. Oh! I just checked the calendar--Canterbury Tales in May 2012!!!!

• I also saw Cake in concert and they were really good.

• I wrote a post praising the children's show Blue's Clues, and one of the producers of the show comment on it. That was really pretty awesome. I'm nearly famous!

• Our friend Earl was in town briefly, so we got to visit with him a bit.

• I kept going to CrossFit in the bitter cold. Still a nervous newbie. Wow, okay, that part feels like a long time ago.

• All in all, a very full January!

February

• Kelly and I wrote our joint CrossFit post, which got a lot of good response.

• I read The Hunger Games trilogy and enjoyed it thoroughly.

• Hah! I blogged a Day in the Life. Funny to read that again after all this time.

• My in-laws came for a visit, always good times.

• Kelly and I started working on our talk for SnowCon in March. We had a new take on some of the ideas we'd learned from Positive Discipline and were very excited about presenting these parenting ideas to people who weren't necessarily parents.

• I celebrated George's birthday with a blog post.

• I finished more knitting projects and learned how to follow simple patterns, hooray!

• I registered for my first ever 5K race in April. 

• Kind of a leisurely month after the crazy January--but I think I probably needed that.

March

• March began in a rough way, with Brendan losing a (young) aunt to cancer. :( He went up to Chicago that first weekend and I stayed home with the kids. 

• Except when I didn't stay home--I kept the babysitter I had lined up and went to a friend's 40th birthday party and did karaoke for the first time. Good stuff.

• The second weekend found me in Denver, all alone without my posse. It was fun, but I remember being stressed and somewhat lost without my kids up my ass every second hanging around me all the time.

• And the whole reason I went to Denver was to attend and speak at SnowCon! Kelly and I gave our joint presentation called "Effective Communication: How Objectivists Can Use Positive Discipline Ideas in their Adult Relationships." Which is a long title. Basically, it's about using the communication techniques I (usually) use with and teach my kids with well, everyone! Because we don't parent to teach our kids how to be good kids--we parent to teach them how to be good human beings. The talk went really well and I got a margarita afterward! I also learned that I am a Brand Name Intellectual, so there you go. :P Here, I wrote all about it. 

• ATLOS celebrated its official one year anniversary on March 16!

• Ha, reviewing my blog posts from March reveals several parenting and homeschool challenges that I dealt with, many of them which still plague challenge me today. Say it with me: Parenting is nothing if not repetitive. Parenting is nothing if not repetitive. 

• For the first time ever, I decided to write about my Perfectionism Monster on the blog because it needs some smacking down. I'm glad I did that, as it helped me make much progress on killing it this year.

• At some point this month, it turned into spring. And then I remembered to go up to the cabin and take down the Christmas decorations. Oops.

• It was somewhere during March that I started going to CrossFit three times a week on a regular basis, and also stopped being scared of hurting myself when lifting heavy things. And so commenceth Operation Turn Into A Badass.

• Miss Morgan turned six years old and that just seems unfair, especially because now she's that much closer to being seven.

April

• This was another really really full month, like January and March. 

• On April 2, I ran in a 5K, I really did! Apart from the fact that these things start REALLY early, I enjoyed the experience (a few friends from homeschool co-op were there, so that made it even more fun). The kids and Brendan--well, it wasn't quite so fun for them, but I was happy to see them clapping at the finish line.

• I remember working on ATLOSCon quite a bit.

• Then the Atlas Shrugged movie came to Atlanta at the last minute (with a two-week notice, for real) and I did a bunch of organizing and promotion of ATLOS stuff for that (with lots of help from awesome ATLOS peopleguys).

• We went to a Seder meal--the first time I've ever been to one. It was very interesting and fun. Ryan and Morgan helped read the readings and I remember feeling relieved that everyone knew how to read out loud pretty well.

• Ryan turned NINE, which meant that he is halfway done. (Boy that went fast, and yes, it's very unfair.) We celebrated with a laser tag birthday party. I suspect we'll be having laser tag birthday parties for years to come.

• We gave Sean peanuts for the first time and all was well, yay.

• We began to contemplate a move to a new home and spent lots of time looking at house on the internet and doing drive-bys. But we ended up staying put for the rest of the year (more on that later). 

May

• Busy busy busy. I need to schedule months like February more often.

• I ran in my second 5K on Mother's Day weekend and actually ran it (as opposed to chit-chatting and half-walking with everyone I knew for the first 15 minutes or so as I did in the first one). 

• Brendan performed in a charity concert with some friends. That was pretty cool and I wish we could have seen it in person.

• I got a snowman from Sean for Mother's Day. I got gifts from the others, too, but the snowman is what stands out because it was so stinking cute.

• I made videos for Food Allergy Awareness Week this year. Here's Ryan's. And here's Morgan's.

• Brendan's grandfather passed away and this time we all went up to Chicago. We all attended the wake, and then Morgan developed a surprise stomach bug (which, amazingly, nobody else ended up catching, and even more amazingly, didn't cause her to puke once during the long car trip home) the morning of the funeral, so the kids and I stayed home from the funeral. It was nice to see the family, though it was a sad occasion.

• Right after the funeral, we all started driving home, with Brendan's mom, stepfather, and brother in the car behind us. Because I'd had made huge arrangements to surprise Brendan for his 40th birthday with tons of friends in Atlanta, and if we left RIGHT AWAY, we'd have just enough time to make it back to Atlanta to go and do it. So we drove home as fast as we could, stopping in southern Indiana for a night, and got back home with about an hour to spare before the babysitter arrived. Brendan's OTHER brother had flown home to Florida from Chicago, and then back up here to attend, too. And the big surprise was going to The Hackensaw Boys concert! It was fun, but wow, what a crazy weekend--in both the fun and not-fun senses of the word crazy.

• And THEN ATLOSCon started! I gave three presentations (one solo and two with Kelly) and did some organizer stuff, too. And we had house guests and oh yeah, all the usual kid stuff, too. Fun weekend and I wrote about it here.

• Just reading about this month makes me tired. I can't believe I actually lived that.

June

• With ATLOSCon over, I think I took a couple of days off. Or ten. I don't remember what we did for the first half of the month other than hang out, go to the pool, go to CrossFit and playdates, etc. I think we all deserved some NOTHING after so many, many, many events all stacked up on top of each other.

• But! That was all nice and good, but now it was time for us to start up AGAIN. In mid-June we all drove up to Wisconsin (by way of Chicago) to begin this year's family vacation. 

• First, my brother got married and Ryan and Morgan were part of the show. It was a really fun wedding and weekend. I loved hanging out with our extended family at one of the bars in town (where kids can drink with parent's permission--go, Wisconsin!). The town is really cute and we all want to go back for a visit one day.

• I gave my grandma a scarf I knitted for her. She is one of my knitting inspirations. :D

• After the nice weekend with my family, we drove a bit north to spend some time with Brendan's mom and stepdad, who own a second home in the Dells. My parents and grandma joined us for a couple of days and we all . . .

• . . . helped Sean celebrate his third birthday! I have no more babies, weep (so unfair)! For his birthday, we took a ride on the Ducks and bought sweatshirts because it's freezing cold in the middle of June in Wisconsin. 

• Then Brendan flew home, only he got to spend the night in the Madison airport first. Fun!

• Then I drove back to Chicago with the kids and my mother-in-law, by way of Mineral Point, where I got to see Pendarvis, home of my Blewett ancestors who came over from Cornwall. (I'm drinking coffee from my Pendarvis coffee mug as I write this post.)

• Thus began my solo road trip home with the kids, stopping all the way home with various relations. We went to Purdue for a day and that was fun, too.

• I think I decided that we are never, ever doing another road trip ever (but that resolution only lasted a couple of months).

July

• The year was halfway over and I have to say, we'd really carpe-d the ever-loving crap out of it so far.

• I had a few days of rest and then I was off to Florida for OCON (conference #3)! Oh my goodness--I never really wrote about my OCON experience. Whoops.

• I'd never ever been and I'm glad I went. This time, I really didn't miss the kids much and I was able to enjoy myself much more. Maybe not having to give a talk had something to do with that level of stress, too. The only time I really missed my family deeply was during the fireworks show, but I got to spend it with another family with a child, so that helped ease my homesickness a bit. 

• I loved connecting with friends, new and old, at OCON, and I conquered a severe case of stage fright and walked myself up to the microphone to ask Yaron Brook a question in front of about 300 people. I wonder if anyone there guessed how close I was to fainting or puking. 

• And then, when I got back, we finally got to have some lazy summer. We went to the pool and hung out with friends and relaxed some. There were no kid activities, and the only thing I did was CrossFit and knit and wrote a few parenting posts. 

• I think this was the month I started going to CrossFit four times a week. God it was HOT in our CF gym (It's freezing cold nowadays and I'm not sure which is more uncomfortable). I got through the heat by imaging I was a badass Caroline Ingalls on the prairie with no air conditioning and a log cabin to help build. 

August

• Though we did not make it to the beach this year, August mostly felt like one long vacation for me. I hardly even remember what we did! 

• Homeschool co-op started back up, and Morgan began gymnastics. She enjoys it a lot and is freakishly flexible.

• She also created a Things I Want To Do and Learn list with me. (Still waiting on Ryan to fill his out.)

• We participated in Lemonade Freedom Day and it was lots of fun and a great learning experience.

• I'm pretty sure August is when we started watching Star Trek: TNG as a family, and Sean became obsessed with the Enterprise D. We are in the middle of Season 5 as of this writing.

• The kids REALLY missed going to the beach and have been bugging us about it ever since. As you'll see when I write up our goals for this year, we might not make it there in 2012 either, but we have promised that we can at least go to a Georgia beach for a long weekend or something.

• We still hadn't made up our minds about moving to a new home, so we put the decision on hold for a while. 

September

• We drove up to Chicago AGAIN, this time for the Chicago Objectivist Society MiniCon, the fourth and final conference of The Year of the Conferences. This time I was giving the Effective Communication talk solo, as Kelly chose to stay here and go to Dragon*Con (which, I believe, was a difficult and agonizing choice for her to have to make). The talk itself went well, I made my main points and didn't trip over myself or anything, but I only had an hour to present 2+ hours of material, so it felt rushed and crammed to me. Kelly and I have since decided not to whittle down talks to fit time frames any more. Next time, we'll simply create a new talk to fit the time frame!

• This conference (oh look, here's a blog post) felt like a mini-vacation to me because we left the kids with my in-laws all weekend (oh hooray hooray hooray for them!) and Brendan and I stayed in the city. It was a nice early anniversary celebration.

• When we got back home, we vowed never to drive anywhere again.

• We were crazybusy with kid activities and homeschool co-op and museum trips and visits with friends and our usual lives, too. I took time to write a general kid update, a snapshot in time of who they are and how they do so I can remember these days.

• Somehow, I'd made it a whole year at CrossFit, hooray! I am more badass than ever, and that's saying something. :D

• Ryan and I both survived our first experience with standardized testing. Not a small feat.

• Morgan got moved up a level in gymnastics and was invited to join a special class for kids who might end up on the team track at some point. So now she's going to gymnastics twice a week.

October

• We visited an apple orchard up in Ellijay with friends and it is totally worth going to see in person because it has the most unintentionally funny-in-a-horrific-way tour of nursery rhymes. It's hard to explain. But next time you visit, we will go see it. Because OMG.

• Having made lots of steady progress in the fitness/health front, I got to buy a whole new fall/winter wardrobe AGAIN.

• My mother-in-law and sister-in-law were visiting Asheville, NC, which is practically next door to Atlanta, as you know. So one day during their vacation, we all met up for an afternoon somewhere in North Georgia. It was fun.

• Brendan, Ryan and I took a shooting class. Now THAT was fun. 

• Oh yeah, Sean finished up potty training this month, and I have to say that (barring any regressions that may lie ahead) it was the easiest of the three. He is even dry most nights, which is quite an accomplishment at three, I think!

• After a summer-related hiatus from knitting (I know--summer is the best time to knit Christmas gifts, and yet I don't want to knit when it's hot out), I got my knitting mojo back in a big way. And wrote about my two favorite hobbies and why they're similar.

• We opted for a small Halloween extravaganza this year--just us and Kelly's daughter. Best. Decision. Ever.

November

• Even though it was only last month, I can't seem to remember what we did. Funny.

• ATLOS hosted a talk by Andy Bernstein, which we were able to do because our conference was so successful last summer.

• My parents came for a visit and we all went up to the cabin for a day to decorate it for Christmas. I'm optimistic about my chances for de-decorating before March of 2012.

• I turned 41! I have to say that so far, the 40s are AWESOME. The Decade of Awesome, I'm calling this.

• After a few months of not running in 5K races, I decided to run in one on Thanksgiving morning. I didn't PR, but only by about 45 seconds, and considering this one had lots of hills, I was pretty pumped with how I did.

• We had a lovely Thanksgiving, just us and a few friends over, and I made a yummy yummy dinner. 

• We watched all of the Lord of the Rings movies with the whole fam. It was a huge hit, and Morgan is as likely to draw you a picture of the Great Eye as she is a dog these days.

• The older kids discovered something called Minecraft, and haven't come up for air since.

• What else? Well, the "should we get a new house" conversation started up again in earnest, so that's something. And all of the usual kid activity, book reading, co-op, museum trips, hanging out, arguing, knitting, not cleaning the house, etc. 

December

• The first weekend of December was another travel weekend for me and Ryan. My cousin got married in Arizona, and Ryan was my date to the wedding. It was a fun wedding, and great to spend a lot of one-on-one special time with him. The other kids had a great time with Brendan, too. 

• I went for a run one morning in Arizona and didn't hate it. Yes, this is noteworthy.

• My brother-in-law came to visit during the second weekend and we all had a great time with him. As usual.

• ATLOS had a holiday party on the third weekend and it was awesome. I dressed up fancy (which is not something I tend to do) and was introduced to the wonderful cocktail that is a Manhattan. I've had them before, so I suppose it wasn't a true introduction, but somehow it never really stuck. This time, it did.

• The fourth weekend of December brought Christmas, and I got a lamp so I can see while I knit, a Glock (oh yes!), and the complete AbFab series on DVD. 

• We also decided to really really buy a house and this last week of December, including the very last day of the year, has been full of home research and driving by properties and looking at properties with a realtor. I'm ready to move forward with this and now is a great time to buy. We are hoping to get into a comparable or larger home on more land and out of an HOA (not that ours is terrible, but we have some restrictions that we no longer want to deal with). I'm nervous about the whole thing, but this is a good decision for us right now. So probably I'll be bitching writing about this on the blog a whole lot next year.

And whew! That about wraps up 2011. I don't really expect anyone to read this kind of post thoroughly, but if you did and made it to the end, great! And hello from me! And thanks!

Stay tuned for a post soon about my goals for 2012. Hint: there will be a new house (I hope) and even: A DOG.

Happy New Year to everyone! I hope your 2011 has been as awesome as mine, and I wish you an even more spectacular 2012 full of love and laughter and hard work and accomplishment.

Merry Christmas!

Because I never got organized enough to get Christmas cards together, I figure I can at least put some pictures of our Christmas (so far) up.

The Battle of Christmas Town

A beautiful sibling moment. Beautiful because it was genuine and because this is somewhat rare.

Night vision goggles. He also got a lie detector kit. We are in big trouble.

He has been playing with this for hours. Literally. He still has about 20 gifts yet to unwrap as of this writing. The best part is that he sings the song and makes the bird noises. I got it on video. :D

Guitar lesson on her shiny new blue guitar!

I may add more pictures throughout the day.

Merry Christmas to you and yours! Hope your day is as awesome as ours has been.

Objectivist Round Up #232

Welcome to the December 22, 2011 edition of the Objectivist Round Up!

It's almost Christmas! Are you getting excited? I tell you, my kids are about to EXPLODE with excitement (and cuteness) all over the place.

I used to be kind of a Bah Humbug about the holidays, but now it's one of my favorite times of the year. I love the lights and the decorations and Good Will Toward Men and the food and, of course, presents! And it's lots of fun to celebrate the holidays with kids, because let's face it--they get all the cool stuff. I'm very much looking forward to playing with their toys on Christmas morning. :D

So here's a relevant quotation from Ayn Rand on the holiday season (via the online Ayn Rand Lexicon). And yes, Jason quoted this last week, but it's so good it bears repetition, I think (emphasis is mine):

[In answer to the question of whether it is appropriate for an atheist to celebrate Christmas:] 

Yes, of course. A national holiday, in this country, cannot have an exclusively religious meaning. The secular meaning of the Christmas holiday is wider than the tenets of any particular religion: it is good will toward men—a frame of mind which is not the exclusive property (though it is supposed to be part, but is a largely unobserved part) of the Christian religion. 

The charming aspect of Christmas is the fact that it expresses good will in a cheerful, happy, benevolent, non-sacrificial way. One says: “Merry Christmas”—not “Weep and Repent.” And the good will is expressed in a material, earthly form—by giving presents to one’s friends, or by sending them cards in token of remembrance . . . . 

The best aspect of Christmas is the aspect usually decried by the mystics: the fact that Christmas has been commercialized. The gift-buying . . . stimulates an enormous outpouring of ingenuity in the creation of products devoted to a single purpose: to give men pleasure. And the street decorations put up by department stores and other institutions—the Christmas trees, the winking lights, the glittering colors—provide the city with a spectacular display, which only “commercial greed” could afford to give us. One would have to be terribly depressed to resist the wonderful gaiety of that spectacle. 

The Objectivist Calendar, Dec. 1976

I hope you have a very Merry Christmas or Happy Hanukkah with your loved ones! And I really hope you get lots of cool stuff.

And now, on to the rest of the carnival:


Ross England presents My (Atheist) Wedding Ceremony posted at Think Twice, saying, "I describe the path my fiancee and I took to figuring out a very satisfactory plan for our wedding ceremony."



Jenn Casey presents Perfectionism and Homeschooling posted at Rational Jenn, saying, "On homeschooling a perfectionist kid, and the value of letting kids make their own decisions about their values."



Santiago and Kelly Valenzuela presents US Builds Sea Fence to Keep Out Migrant Workers from the South posted at Mother of Exiles, saying, "US builds a multi-million dollar sea fence to keep out job seekers."



Gene Palmisano presents A Christmas Anecdote From the Tipi Wind Ranch posted at The Metaphysical Lunch, saying, "From ou ranch to yours, Merry Christmas, or Happy Holiday or Happy Pagan Ritual day."



Diana Hsieh presents Noodlecast #111: Testimony on Campaign Finance posted at NoodleFood, saying, "Here's a podcast of the oral testimony on Colorado's campaign finance rules from Ari Armstrong, Paul Hsieh, and me."



Jason Stotts presents Letters posted at Erosophia, saying, "One reader's remarkable story of a marriage gone awry and it's recovery."



Rachel Miner presents Nurturing Self At This Time of Year posted at The Playful Spirit, saying, "I share some thoughts about my Getting Things Done system and how it helps me reconnect with the goal of nurturing self. I'm interested in others' actions too that help them feel nurtured during this cheery time of year."



Ari Armstrong presents Rand's 'We the Living' Opposes Tyranny posted at Free Colorado, saying, "Hannah Krening delivered a short talk about the themes of Ayn Rand's 'We the Living.'"



Paul Hsieh presents Gingrich and Personhood posted at We Stand FIRM, saying, "In my latest PJM Oped, I argue that if Newt Gingrich wins the 2012 GOP nomination, it would introduce the controversial "fetal personhood" issue into the presidential race and potentially tip the election to Obama."



Martin Lindeskog presents Morris the Cat: Requiescat in Pace posted at EGO. [I'm sorry to hear of your loss, Martin.]



That concludes this week's edition. Thank you all for participating, reading, and passing this around the internets (hint, hint)!

Stay tuned for the Best of the Year 2011 edition next week at Parenting Is. . . !  To participatie, submit your blog article using our carnival submission form.

Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

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Perfectionism and Homeschooling

Last week, I had an interesting (and by "interesting," I mean "difficult and heartwrenching") experience with Morgan. It turned out to be a learning experience for me, though I'm still not sure if I handled it well or not.

She's a perfectionist, see, and so am I (well, I'm in recovery). And this is challenging in itself, not because I can't relate, but because part of the perfectionism deal is that you don't really actually care what other people say about it when you're going over the top. At least in mine and Morgan's cases. Getting control over one's control issues needs to come from inside, so no amount of reasonableness from someone else is going to make a huge difference until you're actually ready to listen. (Again, for me--maybe other people are more reasonable than I am/was.)

So she had these assignments for her co-op classes and absolutely lost her mind over one of them. Now, homework in and of itself is a thing we rarely encounter here. She's very self-directed at home, so I don't really give her assignments on a regular basis. And thank goodness, because if I had to battle people frequently over homework . . . well, it would be ugly. (This homework advantage balances out the couple of disadvantages of homeschooling, namely, the fact that they are HERE all the time so it's hard for me to get a break from them and of course the house is always a mess.)

But I digress.

One of these assignments was pretty much done and there were no problems. The other one, though, wow. She was taking a class called Classical Book Club and one of the things they were supposed to do was have a book journal where they wrote about the book they all read for the session (Robin Hood) as well as listed other books they've read. Each time I talked to her about this project during the session, she was hesitant and evasive. I see this now as some sort of Sign.

And honestly, I couldn't really work up a lot of caring about whether she completed this assignment. It's not that I don't see the value in doing this kind of work, but in the grand scheme of things, I wasn't too concerned about her reluctance to do it. For one thing, this is an optional co-op class. And I know the teacher (hello, if you're reading this!) and I knew that the teacher wouldn't be upset if Morgan chose not to do the assignment.

For another thing, Morgan is 6.5 years old. Yes, she is academically gifted, and was probably the youngest kid in the class. But I think what she is capable of reading and comprehending and enjoying far outpaces her capability to produce the kind of assignments that are more appropriate for kids a few years older.  I was aware that this class might be a bit beyond her when we signed up for it, but she really wanted to take it, and I figured it would be a good experience. And so it was--just not the experience I'd had in mind!

But Morgan wanted to do this assignment. REALLY REALLY REALLY wanted to do this assignment. So I pledged to help her. And thus began a two-hour roller coaster of emotions.

She couldn't figure out where to begin. I gave her suggestions. They were rejected. I gave her better suggestions (ha!). Rejected. I gave her "one small step" she could do to get started (my own personal strategy for when I'm stuck on how to begin something).

She cried, she pounded her fists on her notebook, she yelled "It's not good enough!"

I told her many times that she didn't need to complete the assignment, that it was fine with me if she chose not to do it. Didn't matter. I told her it would probably be fine with her teacher (and it would have been) if she chose not to do it. Didn't matter.

She wanted a ribbon for doing the journal (each kid received a participation certificate, so I don't know where she got the idea she'd get a ribbon). She kept asking me if she'd still get a ribbon if she didn't do the assignment. I had to answer honestly--if that was the deal with the class, then no, she probably wouldn't get a ribbon. Tears. I even told her we could get ribbons at a craft store, if ribbon-having was the thing she was really after. But she wanted that ribbon for doing the assignment, so no deal.

She tried and screamed and tried. And everything she tried was NOT GOOD ENOUGH. Oh it was heartbreaking to watch.

Out of ideas, I finally just gave her some space. And got myself some space, too, because I was getting all keyed up, mostly because I was feeling frustrated that she wasn't even listening to my brilliant ideas, and that she was unable to accept my reassurances. That frustration was creeping into my tone of voice as I was talking to her, and I know that wasn't helping things. And it only took me a little over an hour of this to realize that "giving her some space" was an option! (Sheesh.)

After a while, she came to me, and serenely told me that she'd thought it over and come to a decision. She said "I don't really want a ribbon that badly. I'm choosing to skip the assignment." And all was puppies and rainbows after that.

So what did I learn?

• I learned that there may be some early signs she is feeling worried/frustrated/or perfectionist-y about projects or homework assignments. I'll look out for these in the future. What I can do about it, I'm not at all sure, but at least I can prepare myself for the oncoming storm.

• I learned to ask about what she thinks she'll get out of assignments. Once the ribbon idea came out, I was able to understand a bit more about why it was more difficult for her to make the decision to skip the assignment.

• I learned that I should step out of her perfectionism/frustration/persistence cycle EARLY ON, as early as I realize it's happening, maybe, and certainly when I've reached the frustration point myself. I want to be there and be helpful and supportive, but I think my suggestions and questions were making it worse. It was only when we took a break that she was able to come to her decision. I think maybe what she wants or needs from me is merely a shoulder to cry on. I could be wrong about this--we'll see how this plays out next time. And I'm confident there will be a next time.

• I learned that maybe we should start assignments a bit earlier than three days before it's due. Usually we do the assignments pretty close to the due date because sometimes if they do them early, they forget all about it. But maybe that's a Ryan thing. Maybe Morgan needs more time.

• I'm glad the decision to complete the assignment was hers and hers alone. I think that part went well. And even though I can't get excited about ribbons per se, that ribbon was really important to her, and she was wrestling with values and the actions she must take to earn those values. In the end, she decided that the ribbon was not a value that was worth this struggle over how to complete this assignment. I think it's okay that it took her a while to figure this out, but I'm glad I stayed completely out of that decision and that it was hers completely. Always good to practice weighing values and making decisions about that, even when it's hard to struggle through in the moment.

• I'm glad she took the class. In her calmer moments while the fit was happening, she was able to tell me large chunks of the Robin Hood story. She'd been paying attention and listening and reading her book. She liked the story and enjoyed the class. And that's all that really matters at this point. 

So overall, this was good experience for both of us. It's funny how different she and Ryan are from each other. Whatever my struggles with Ryan have been, he is very confident that whatever he produces for his class assignments are nothing short of brilliant and awesome.

And also, I'm glad we're on a break from classes for the holidays! So so so so so so glad.

So How Much Money WAS in Our Coin Jar Anyway?

So the kids and I visited a Coinstar machine this afternoon, with our enormous coin jar filled with coins. Thank you to everyone who took a guess, and to those of you who suggested I get reimbursed via an Amazon gift certificate as opposed to cash. We went that route and saved the 9.8% fee (YOWZA).

The guesses ranged from "eleventy" to "the median of everyone else's guesses" (I'll be happy to provide you a list, John, if you'd like to calculate that out!) to $7.31 all the way up to $1 Million Dollars (that was Sean's guess and I like to imagine him saying "$1 Million Dollars" ala Dr. Evil).

Okay, so who won? That honor goes to Jeff Yoak, who wrote this on my Google Plus page:

$438.05 . If that turns out to be super-close, I'll provide the statistics that go into the computation. :-) If you threw all change in the bucket and never spent coins (e.q. quarters because they're useful and pennies to round off change that you're getting) that number should be very, very close. I used an estimate of 4.6 pounds for the glass jar empty which is another source of noise, but the rest is computable with the assumptions above. You asked. :-)

I thought that by giving some basic information about our coin jar, there would certainly be someone geeky enough (I mean that as a compliment, Jeff!) to calculate out a guess. If you recall, we had filled up a one gallon glass jar with a probably fairly randomly distributed mix of American coins (as far as I know), and the jar weighed 38.4 pounds all filled up with coins. (I never thought to weigh the jar empty, but I can do that now if anyone wants me to.)

So I hope Jeff decides to share his calculations with us (here, or on OGeeks perhaps?) because here is the exact value of the change in our jar:

$437.92

Jeff was off by 13 CENTS!!!!!

Honorable Mentions go to Sam Kennedy for guessing $412.47, a guy called "bringoutyoudead" on reddit who guessed $458.56, and my brother-in-law for getting $475.17. Not bad at all!

Here's a picture of our receipt showing the amount and the coin distribution, too:

So yeah, I'm pretty amazed that Jeff's guess was so super close! I was more than a little surprised to see that we had SO many quarters, too. I suppose there's a way to figure out if these ratios are representative of the coin population (as it were) in general.

At a Family Conference about a year ago, we all agreed to use the coin jar to fund future family vacations, so that's $437.92 toward our next excursion (likely in the spring). We also have an envelope for bills we find laying around the house that goes toward the vacation fund, too. I'll take an equivalent amount of cash and put it in the envelope so we are all balanced out in that account.

The kids had a GRAND time feeding the Coinstar machine and it was a fun homeschool project, too. Sure, possibly a more valuable homeschool project might have been to run my own little coin-rolling sweat shop have them help me roll the coins by hand, but this was still fun and it took a whole lot less time!

Thanks for playing, everyone! I guess we'll do this again in about a year--only next time I expect LOTS and LOTS of really close guesses if Jeff chooses to share his secret. And if he decides to keep his secret and become a professional coin-guesser, then I'll just be happy to take a cut, since without me he probably never would have taken the time to figure this out, right?

Don't worry, Jeff, my fee is less than Coinstar's. :D

Fitness Progress and Goals

(This is one of those "for posterity and my own memory" posts. Feel free to move on by, especially because it turned out to be WAY longer and more boring than even I imagined!)

Last night at CrossFit, I was showing someone the iPhone app I use to track my workouts and progress, and I realized it's been a while since I've taken a look at where I am and where I'd like to go.

So last time, I recorded some benchmark lifts:

• Power clean : 100 pounds (6/5/2011)
• Bench press : 85 pounds (6/11/2011)
• Deadlift : 185 pounds (7/5/2011)
• Push press : 110 pounds (7/20/2011)
• Front squat : 120 pounds (7/25/2011)

And here's where I am now:

Power clean : No change -- I haven't tried for a 1RM on this since June! So hopefully I can try for one soon. I have done lots of power cleans lately, usually around the 75-85 pounds mark, and I'm pretty sure I could surpass 100 now.

Bench press: 90 pounds (12/14/2011) -- this wasn't a test for a maximum (it was part of a 10X2 and I did 90 pounds for the last four rounds) and I'm confident I could go higher, at least one time.

Deadlift : 1RM 200 pounds (8/10/2011) and 5 RM 195 pounds (11/21/2011) -- lots of improvement there. I wonder what my new 1RM would be, since it's been so long since I tried for one.

Push Press : No change -- haven't lifted heavy push presses since that day in July.

Front Squat : No change -- again, haven't revisited these in a while outside of a workout where I'm using lower weights due to more reps.


I have some new lifts to track now, too.

Press : 65 pounds (9/21/2011) for 3 reps. Presses are HARD for me to do. I bet I could get 75 pounds at least now.

Back Squat : Finally got around to doing some recently, 5 rounds of 3. I started too light and only got to 135 pounds, which was a PR. They were relatively easy--I wasn't completely struggling, but I stopped, having hit my five rounds and a PR. (Wasn't that responsible and mature of me?) I'm confident I could get at least 150 or higher on a try for a maximum.

Box Jumps : 20" And that's where I'll stay, as that is not an insignificant percentage of my height and since box jumps freak me out a bit.

Overhead Squat : 75 pounds (9/17/2011) And by the way, those are HARD.

Power Snatch : 75 pounds (9/7/2011) As part of a WOD with lots of repetition, so I bet I could do more if I was going for a max.


I have a couple of benchmark workouts I've done, too.

Fran (all of the "girl" workouts can be found here): Last time, I mentioned I'd done Fran, with the thrusters at the prescribed weight for women (65 pounds) and using the green (second widest) band. I did that back in July in 11:08. I revisited Fran again in November. I did the 65 pound thrusters again (god, they suck) and used red (the thinnest) and blue (the second thinnest) bands on the pull ups (hooray for pull up progress!). My new time: 7:48. So I consider that some good improvement!

Grace: I first encountered Grace (30 clean and jerks for time) in October as part of the Barbells for Boobs fundraiser. I used 65 pounds and my time was 4:02. Grace came up again about a month later and the second time I upgraded to 75 pounds and my time was 3:42.

Cindy: In October, I did Cindy for the first time. My score wasn't all that wonderfully great--11 rounds + thirteen reps. HOWEVER I did not modify the push ups at all. Yep, that's 118 Man Push Ups. So I was pretty proud of that accomplishment.

Diane: In October, I also did a modified Diane (125 pound dead lifts and handstand push ups from a chair) for 4:21. I need to practice HSPUs against the wall. I can do it but I just need more practice.

Running: Apart from upper body stuff in general, running is the thing I really suck at the most. But I did run 400m in 1:57 one time, which for me is pretty much flying. I'll take it.


Goals

Honestly, I look at those numbers up there and can't quite believe that I've really done these things. But I have! It's good to review this progress because I get really frustrated sometimes on the weight loss front. I have recently broken through a plateau (I think). Those stalls are awful, and sometimes last for months. And then it's easy to get discouraged and all why-bother-y. But during all those plateau months, I was lifting and running and doing awesome stuff, yay!

I have a general goal to work up to the prescribed weights for women in most of the CrossFit workouts. I don't know how long it will take me--a year? two? No clue. But I think many of the goals are within my reach, especially if I can get pull ups.

Speaking of pull ups, I'm very close, but I've had to lay off the pull ups lately because I was practicing a lot on my own and my elbow doth protested. It's much better now, but that experience was a reminder that, while still awesomely badass, I'm not 25 any more, and also, REST is an important component to making fitness progress. Duh. I mean, I KNOW this, but I was getting carried away because I'm very close to an actual pull up and that's exciting, you know?

More goals: I'd like to do a CrossFit Total workout as a benchmark. And just today I found this website with weightlifting standards based on body weight and experience level. VERY interesting stuff. Comparing my achievements with these benchmarks puts me firmly in the Novice category overall, and I'm edging up into Intermediate. Granted, this may not be the end-all-be-all, but it's a place to start when figuring out where I want to go and what might be possible.

I'm planning to run in most (if not all) of the Kennesaw Grand Prix 5K races next year. I may have, may have mind you, had a running breatkthrough of sorts and actually enjoyed a run recently. Also, while I haven't been doing chronic cardio by any stretch of the imagination, I have done a couple of runs recently and I'm wonder if that has something to do with my breaking through the latest weight loss plateau. Maybe my body just got confused or something. Also, I have plans with a friend to do a trail run (or two?) soon. I've always wanted to try that because it sounds fun in a hellacious way. Oh! And speaking of hellacious running--I'm hoping to do Run For Your Lives in March! It just sounds too crazy to miss. Who's with me?

On the weight loss front, now that I'm getting close to the end of the weight loss phase of my health improvement plan, I've discovered that I have a problem: I can't figure out what I'm supposed to weigh (and BMI is pretty much useless). So I think I will do the body fat measurement when the water tank dude comes to my CrossFit gym next time. Probably aiming for a reasonable body fat percentage is a better way to think about this than weight anyway. It's just that it's much more convenient to weigh oneself than find a body fat water tank peopleguy. :) I think I'm about 20-30 pounds away from what I should weigh, I think, but I really have no idea. I could be a lot closer, especially because I think I will be on the heavy side of the ideal range because of all of my kick ass muscles. :)

And I guess that's about it for now! I'm pretty much feeling the Most Awesome I Have Ever Felt, and still enjoy doing CrossFit a whole bunch (because why else would I endure a wall ball ladder if I didn't like it at least a little?). It's been nearly two years since I started my health turnaround in earnest, and wow, am I ever glad I did! Two years sounds like a long time, maybe, when you're contemplating such goals, but really, it goes by pretty fast. And now I'm eagerly anticipating what the next two years and beyond will bring!

Enjoy Life Seeds & Fruit Mixes

A while back, Enjoy Life Foods sent us samples of their two seed and fruit mixes: Beach Bash and Mountain Mambo, and asked us to try them in exchange for an honest blog review. As usual, we were happy to oblige!

It's taken a while to get this review up in part because of the holidays, and also because we videoed our reactions again--and then I lost part of the video. I think one of the kids accidentally deleted something. So this will be a blog-only review, no video this time. :( Thankfully, I took notes!

Let me preface this by saying that my kids have very limited experience with trail mix or any sort of similar snack food. We just don't eat that kind of stuff, mostly due to the peanut allergy. I was interested to try an alternative to traditional trail mix.

First, we tried Beach Bash, which has dried pineapple, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, dried cranberries and dried apricots. It was pretty good, though the kids weren't such a fan of the seeds, and in fact, expressed shock and dismay that the mix is just riddled with them! Basically, they picked out the fruit, especially the pineapple, and ate that. Which, I have to admit, is EXACTLY what I used to do with trail mix when I was a kid.

So Beach Bash has a tropical kind of thing going on, and can I just say HOORAY! Because it's been sooooo long since I've tasted any kind of trail mix ever! Good Stuff.

The next kind we tried was Mountain Mambo, which has sunflower and pumpkin seeds as the base, like Beach Bash, and also has raisins, dried apples, CHOCOLATE CHIPS, and cranberries.

Okay, Mountain Mambo was definitely the favorite at my house. Can you guess why? There's a hint in the previous paragraph. :)

Again, the kids mainly picked around the seeds and went for the sweet stuff. I liked this combination of flavors pretty well, although I can't decide which trail mix I prefer. On one hand, Mountain Mambo has CHOCOLATE CHIPS! On the other, Beach Bash has the yummy pineapple. Personally, I think you should get a bag of each and test it for yourselves.

I think these seed and fruit mixes were our least favorite Enjoy Life product, though, but I suspect that mostly has to do with the fact that there aren't any cookie pieces in the ingredients. Having never eaten anything like trail mix before (try finding peanut-free trail mix on the shelf at a grocery store--impossible!), they had no idea such healthier alternatives to cookies existed. And were understandably confused and disappointed. :)

But for those of us who might want something a little less cookie-ish, and are avoiding the Top 8 allergens as well as gluten (yes, these are gluten-free!), these trail mixes are a good choice. They taste great and would make a yummy snack on a hike.

Just make sure you explain to your kids what trail mix is and that it doesn't actually contain cookies BEFORE you give it to them. :)

How Much?

Check out our coin jar!

We've been throwing spare change in there for about 13 months or so and it is finally overflowing. So just for fun, I thought I'd ask for your guesses about how much money is in there.

Some specifics: It's a gallon-sized glass jar (I think it's a gallon--see the comparison picture below) and with all the coins in it, it now weighs 38.4 pounds. That's more than Sean weighs!

All of the coins in there are American (maybe a few Canadian snuck in there), including a few Madison dollars, too, because once I went to the Post Office by mistake. (Which is redundant--I think going to the Post Office can generally be considered a mistake.)

I can't say for sure, but I imagine the distribution of coins is pretty typical--what I mean is, we didn't consciously try to hold quarters out of the mixture, or only tried to dump pennies into it.

I'm going to take it to one of those coin machines at the grocery store this weekend some time (I know, it lops a percentage off of what I receive, but my hourly billing rate is much higher than what I'll pay, so it's totally worth it). I will let you know the official numbers very soon!

I wish I could say you'd win a huge prize or something for guessing correctly or even really closely, but I can't. It's all just for fun and bragging rights.

So let's have it--how much money is in that jar?

Howdy!

No, really, I'm still around.

Ryan and I had a lovely weekend in Arizona. He is a great traveling companion, and it was so nice to spend some time with him, just the two of us. Though for some reason I'd forgotten that events like family weddings require sustained amounts of behaving--he mostly did fine, but we had our moments. Thank Jobs for iPads!

The highlight of the trip was snuggling in bed after the wedding/party, watching Harry Potter movies on tv until we both drifted off to sleep. Somehow, we don't quite do that often enough in every day life.

Brendan and the rest of the gang had lots of fun without us, too. From what I can tell, they left home each morning and had adventure after adventure, and then came home and crashed in a tumble of blankets and pillows on the floor of the family room. Good times.

And now I am struggling to get back into the routine of things. The kids have homework for co-op, the house is a wreck, there's an OMG level of laundry, the playroom needs its annual decluttering, etc.

And all I want to do is knit hats like this one:






If blogging is light this week, blame it on the knitting.