Oh man, it's early.

Thanks to everyone for your prayers yesterday. The surgery went amazingly well, and both Aunt Sue and Uncle Mark are recovering well. It will be a few days before we know more, but so far, so good! Thank you for all of your prayers... I know they played a part!

After a wonderful break from work over the holidays, I had to get back in the swing of things this week. I had to adjust my schedule last fall to fit my entire work week into 4 days, leaving Fridays free for my internship. That means getting to work each morning at 7 AM. Yeah, 7 AM. Some of you probably rise that early on your own accord, but not me.

                              

This is probably what I looked like when my alarm went off this morning. Picture courtesy of Google.

Here's what I've experienced since starting my early rising:

• The first day, you'll probably pop out of bed feeling great. Enjoy that - it won't happen again.
• It takes about two weeks before it feels routine and you don't want to cry when the alarm goes off.
• You'll need to adjust your bedtime. And not be embarrassed when you sometimes climb into bed at 9:30 PM.
• Pets will look at you confused when your alarm goes off so early. Spouses will just look half angry, half still asleep.
• Asking your husband to get up early with you to make you coffee will not go over well. Just trust me.

When I first switched to this schedule, I felt like I was missing out of hours in my day by going to bed so early. In reality, I have the same amount of time, it is just distributed differently. I don't need that extra hour and a half spent with my butt parked on the couch relaxing. Now I actually use that hour and a half for productive work.

And man... can you be productive. The hour between 7 AM and 8 AM seems like the longest one of the day. By the time anyone else arrives at work, I'm settled in, email is taken care of, and I'm already rolling on something else. And it's AWESOME.  So is leaving at 5 PM everyday because you've already put in work awesomeness.

                        

I know this is a joke -- but seriously. It's true and it's awesome.

One other perk? No one responds to the emails you send them at this time. So you can send lots of them without worrying about responses distracting you. Score.

I'm not saying it ever gets easy. Or that there aren't days that it's terribly painful to crawl out of my cozy bed where a sweet puppy face is snuggled into me and a cute husband is breathing peacefully. It's really hard. But it's worth it. And I should point out that Derby only sometimes gets to sleep with us. Don't judge. He's super warm and snuggly, which is what I look for in a sleeping partner, and Zac often isn't either!

Are you an early riser? Do you try to work during your peak productivity time? Am I the only one nerdy enough to care about these things?!?

Prayers needed today!

Today, my aunt will be donating part of her liver to my uncle. They are working with one of the best transplant teams in the country, but it's still a complicated and difficult surgery and recovery process.

If you have any extra prayers to spare, please send them their way today.



You can never have too many prayers, right?!? I love you, Aunt Sue and Uncle Mark!

What are you reading?

It's been awhile since I've share books with you... and the holiday break gave me a chance to check a few books off my to-read list.  Such as...

                                             

I pulled this book in our book club holiday book exchange, and I read it straight through in one sitting. It's the first book I've ever read where I've finished it, closed it, and immediately opened it up to start reading it again. I haven't met anyone who hasn't loved it... this is a great read!

                                          

This is our book club book for January, but I got a head start on it during the break. I really enjoyed it. I wouldn't call it a page turner, but it was good enough that I looked forward to getting into bed each night so I could read some of it. The story was good, and I love an ending that wraps up neatly, so all's well that ends well!

                             

If you haven't read this series, do yourself a favor and do it. Quickly. Schedule three solid days with nothing else to do and read them straight through. No, they aren't the best written books I've ever read, but they're good. Really, really good.

What have you been reading lately? Anything I should add to my list?

Oh the places you've been...

In order to fully appreciate this post, you need to know a few things about my family.  Specifically, you need to become familiar with all the places we've lived.

I was born in New York. We moved to Minnesota just before my second birthday. Both my sisters were born there, and when I was in Kindergarten, we moved to North Carolina. Nine months later (seriously), we moved to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, where we lived until I was in 8th grade. I started high school in Dayton, Ohio, which is where my parents still live.

Tired yet? I've also since lived in Kentucky and Cincinnati, so I've got the most states of anyone, but we all have a lot! I should add that we were not military; my dad works for a paper company. Go figure.

Okay, so you already know that I'm completely addicted to Pinterest (follow me here!). I was browsing one day and came across this:

             

How cute is that? I love the visual representation of the different places you've lived, and it didn't seem that hard to make (thanks to the great tutorial).

It was really pretty simple. I used the font recommended in the tutorial and printed out the state outlines. I printed them directly onto card stock, and they looked great. I punched the holes directly with my sewing needle, and then used a full strand of embroidery floss to do the stitching.

One tip - don't punch your holes too close together, or pull your stitches too tightly. If you do, you might get halfway through a Michigan and have to start over when it rips!

Here's the version I made for my mom and dad for Christmas:

I couldn't find a five opening frame, but I found this six opening one at Michael's and thought the double matting was a nice touch. The house is just my addition to fill the space.

Here's a close up so you can see the stitching. I think it adds a nice dimension in real life. The tutorial says to use felt to make the hearts, but I found these babies at JoAnn's for $0.99 for a pack of three, and it was way easier than trying to cut out teeny tiny hearts. They were a lot sturdier too, and went on easily with my hot glue gun. With zero burns. Craft winning.

I also made this version for my brother-in-law and his wife. They're the world travelers, and at the end of their Grand Adventure they'll be moving to New York City. Their version has Kentucky, London, and New York.

Overall, I think they turned out really well. My mom, who is well known for her non-emotionness and inability to get teary eyed regardless of the situation, sure looks like she likes it!

Have any of you lived in as many states as we have? This is also a great conversation starter when someone comes over for dinner! 

Click HERE to see the blog parties where I'm linking!

My New Year's Resolutions

My resolutions for 2012 are a lot like last year - a mix of resolutions and goals. I did better than I thought in 2011, but I still have so many wishes and hopes for 2012 that it's hard to narrow it down to a manageable list. Am I the only person who has about a billion goals right now? As evidenced by your comments on this post, I'm not, so I'll console myself with that.

So, without further ado, my list of resolutions for this new year. Excuse the random pictures - this is a painful amount of words and I tried to make it more fun for you.

1. Try to "have it all," but don't go crazy when I can't. I can't stop my crazy quest for a perfect life - it would basically be against my (insane) nature. What I can do is let it roll off my back when things can't be perfect. Any suggestions for how to actually do this would be greatly appreciated by me (and my husband who will bear the brunt of it if I can't pull this one off). My mood/stress level affects our relationship so much, and I'm not going to let it do so negatively this year as much as I can help it.

2. Schedule a monthly date night. Zac and I have promised each other that we'll have a monthly date night in 2012. Since we're still kid-less, we get plenty of time alone together, but we tend to fall into a routine and forget to schedule "special" time. Zac's planning the odd months and I'll plan the even months. Doesn't have to be anything fancy, but it will be fun to focus on each other a little bit more in 2012.

Us at a restaurant. In Paris. Which is unlikely to be one of our monthly date nights this year.

3. Stick to an exercise routine. Like everyone else in the entire world, I have this goal for 2012. Derby and I are starting our third week of Couch to 5K this week, and so far, so good. It helps to have a (dog) accountability partner, and the exercise is as good for him as it is for me. I also found a cool app that speaks the intervals to you so you don't have to stalk your watch, and I stream NPR while I run. Don't knock it until you try it - it's like someone's telling you an interesting story the whole time you're running but you don't have to talk back. The real struggle here will be fitting it in when life gets busy again in January. But I'm going to do it - I have to do it.

                             

Damn, Pinterest. Why you gotta be so dead on right and mean sometimes?

4. Make enough time for my hobbies. When I get busy, I get tired, and then I get stressed. I also tend to neglect the things that relax me when I need them the most, and I want to get away from that this year. Vegging out in front of the TV has its place, but I've wasted way too many hours doing that in 2011. Sewing and reading are my two biggest priorities here... and I'm setting a goal of doing both, for at least a little while, at least once a week. Nothing crazy, but I need to make this a priority. This also includes another quilting visit to my gramma in NY. 

                                        

This won't really be me. We have electricity. But you get the point.

5. Stick with our budget. Now that we've got our finances on track, sticking with our budget is a lot easier, because new clothes and an occasional Starbucks treat are built into it. The next stage for us is adding more cushion to our savings account and watching as things like new cars, vacations, and large home projects become a reality. This isn't a hard goal at all -- I freaking love this one!

                                                        

Me with all our budgeted money. Holla!!

6. Stay present. My new boss is a huge fan of meditation and mindfulness, and I'm so excited to learn more about this from her. I spend a lot of time thinking about things that have already happened, and an embarrassing amount of time worrying about things in the future. I need to focus on being present in the moment, not worrying about things unless they need to be worried about, and staying calm and un-frustrated. Easier said than done, but do-able.

                                                       

7. Stay organized. When I feel organized, I feel better. Period. I'm a pretty organized person, but there are always things I can do to help with this. Picking up a few things each night so our house stays clean, taking time at the beginning and end of each day to plan for the next, packing my lunch the night before, and re-evaluating each month to see what I can improve.

8. Take a vacation. We don't have the logistics of this one worked out completely yet, but I want us to take a real vacation (ie: not just visit family) sometime this year. I don't want the year to get away from us without ever making this a priority. And I desperately want to go back to our honeymoon spot. Not sure yet if that's do-able, but I'm willing to eat Ramen noodles for three months to make it so!

                               

9. Stick with my blog. This wasn't a great posting year for me, but re-discovering this blog over the past month has felt great. I really do love documenting our lives, and I love the community it brings me from all of you. So thank you for reading, and I'll do a better job this year of keeping this bad boy updated (who am I kidding? This blog is obviously a girl). If I don't follow your blog, leave me a comment so I can start!

That's my not-so-small list of things to focus on in 2012. This year, I'm going to actually remember to look at it more than once between now and the end of the year. Is there anything else I should include? 

Happy 2012!

Happy New Year! I hope you all had a fun and safe time celebrating the end of 2011 and the start of 2012.

Zac's brother and sister-in-law spent the night with us in Cincinnati, and we had a blast.  They left early this morning to start what we're calling their "Grand Adventure" - a 5 month trip through Russia, China, Mongolia, Thailand, Vietnam, and wherever else they feel like stopping. Crazy right? You can follow their adventures here if you're interested.

We went to a dueling piano bar, which was a lot of fun. It was mostly just fun spending time together... and commenting on the ridiculous outfits people had on. When did we get so old and snarky??

Last night as the ball was dropping I realized that I wasn't quite ready for 2011 to end. I only need a few more days, but I'd love a little bit more time to wrap up some loose ends and plan for the new year. There's something I just LOVE about the start of a new year. It feels fresh and so full of promise.

I need a little bit longer to finalize all of my resolutions and goals for the year. I'll be back tomorrow to share them with you, but in the meantime I'd love to hear some of yours! I'm the queen of, "Oh yeah, I want that one too," so you can make this process easier on me if you share!

Happy New Year!

2011 - The Highlights!

2011 was a BIG year for us. I feel like so much happened this year, most of which was so, so good. If 2012 is anything like 2011, we're in for a good year.

Here's a recap of my year:

Zac got a new job! He officially has 9-5 hours and gets to work from home a lot of the time. And it's been a very good thing for us! It took us a while to adjust, but I think we're finally in the swing of things.


                                               
Funny side note - the first weekend after he started there and didn't have to work, we just sat there looking at each other. We had no idea what married people did on weekends together. So we went to IKEA, which seemed appropriate. We've figured it out now, I think!


We got married! I was definitely looking forward to this, but never in my wildest dreams did I think it would be as much fun as it was! It was one of the best days - just magical from start to finish. Just looking at how happy we are in the pictures makes me all teary. I wish we could bottle that feeling and just sip a little bit of it from time to time!





We went on the best vacation (honeymoon!) of all time! We're scheming hard about how we can get back there as our last hurrah before we think about kiddos...Oh how I wish I was there RIGHT NOW.






I survived the craziest semester of my life thus far. Full time job + volunteer activities + two classes + a 20 hour a week internship nearly kicked my butt. Thank goodness for a supportive husband who picked up all the slack at home and hardly ever complained. Only one more to go until I'm finished!!



We tackled some house projects, some of which I've shown you and others I haven't blogged about yet. We're about halfway to making it totally ours.

We adopted this sweet little puppy...

Who has since grown up to be this guy.

I am NOT a dog person. I don't just love all dogs, just because they are dogs. But oh my goodness, I could not love this ball of fur any more. He has the sweetest temperament, is SUCH a good listener, and is a general joy to have around (most of the time!). I get this whole why-people-have-dogs-thing now. For sure. 

We made a budget - and we stuck to it. Even in a year of so many awesome things, this might be what I'm most proud of. It wasn't easy, and it involved about 6 months of buying nothing we didn't absolutely need. But... we've established an emergency fund (that made a $600 car repair bill last week not a huge deal), we bought everyone Christmas gifts with pre-saved moolah, we're saving for a vacation that is actually a possibility, and I no longer flinch when I check our bank account balance. We worked hard to get here, and it was worth every sacrifice along the way. I don't know if there's any better feeling (at least to anxiety ridden people like myself) than feeling financially secure.

The wrapping up of an old year and start of a new year is always so exciting for me. I just love new beginnings I guess. Here's hoping that 2011 was as wonderful of a year for you as it was for us. I'm so excited to see what 2012 brings!!

We Wish You a Merry Christmas...

Today officially starts our Christmas festivities, and I cannot wait!! We'll have a busy but fun next few days. We start out at my parent's house for Christmas Eve and part of Christmas Day. Late afternoon, we'll head to my in-law's house for Christmas, Part II. It sounds like a lot of traveling, but it's really not too bad. They only live about 2 hours apart, so it's nice to see all of our family on Christmas.

I won't be posting for a few days, so here's our 2011 Christmas Card. I hope you like it!



Here's wishing that Santa remembers to visit your house, and that you spend the holiday surrounded by people you love. I hope all of you have the happiest of holidays and the merriest of Christmases!!

One of Our Favorite Holiday Traditions!

I don't remember exactly when this tradition started, but we've been visiting the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Gardens to see the Festival of Lights at least since I was in high school. The highlight of the trip is always a yummy dinner at Benihana, which is a hibachi grill.

This year was no exception! The weather ended up being unseasonably warm (close to 50 degrees), which made a big difference in our zoo experience. Usually we feel like we have too much time because we're absolutely freezing. This year, it felt like we didn't have enough time because we weren't so cold!

The zoo does a really nice job with the light displays, and you can ride a little train and a carousel. Tons of fun!
We didn't get any great pictures of the lights. It was drizzley, and we didn't want to take our good camera with us in the rain. So, instead, you can see shots of my pretty family!

Zac and my mom waiting to ride the train

Beth, Nick (Beth's boyfriend), and Emily ready for a really fun 7 minute, 7 mile an hour train ride!

Mom and I playing around in the Lollipop Forest

Dad and Emily

Zac missed a UK game for this, which is a HUGE sacrifice for him. Hence our picture in front of the blue UK lights!

My mom and sisters

The cutest picture of my parents ever!

Ours isn't quite as cute, but I love Zac's face in this one. He looks so happy! Don't be fooled though - sticking his head in a wreath for a picture is not his idea of a great time. This is likely his "wedding face," which is a smile he can turn on and off. He's crazy.

And what visit would be complete without a merry-go-round ride??

Confession. I didn't ride the horses on the merry-go-round that go up and down until I was 10. Because I was too scared. I am the world's biggest scaredy cat. You couldn't pay me $1 million to ride a roller coaster. Seriously.But look! Here I'm riding with no hands!! Though I'm obviously wearing the seat belt, because while I'm not scared, I'm also not a risk taking crazy person like some of my family members.

Emmy rode some sort of gazelle like thing that no one could name.

And now - the best part! We've been to a hibachi grill quite a few times, but this was the best trip. Our chef was just adorable, and so so funny. He even had some new tricks we'd never seen before!

"No way Jose" in action

My mom can make friends with anyone, so Kayla and Brandon, who sat at our table, even got included in our family picture! 

It was SUCH a fun trip! I think this was one of the best years ever. This is such a fun family tradition that lets us spend time together before the holidays officially start. What about you - do you have any similar traditions?

2011 Resolutions -- How I did!

I made a list of resolutions last January that I shared here. I remembered that I made this list today, and checked it for the first time. Oops. I might have done a better job if I'd checked it more often.

Oh well - water under the bridge now. Here's the list I made last year and what I managed to unconsciously accomplish:

• Get married! Check! We are super duper married. Read about that here, here, here, here, here, and here!
  
  
  
  
• Organize all of my craft ideas into a binder, so I can actually create! Uncheck. Though ironically, I had written this down on my I'm-not-working-next-week-and-want-to-be-productive list a few days before reading this!
  
• Donate a quilt to a local fundraiser Done!
  
  
  
• Start an exercise routine (about 3x/week)  About halfway done (get it?). I did a lot more exercising this year than I've done in the past, but didn't get on a permanent 3x/week schedule. I have big plans for this year, though! Oh, don't we all...
  
• Re-connect with old friends with whom I've lost touch This is an ongoing goal, but I'm happy to report reconnecting with a few old friends and also purposely staying in better touch with current friends. I think this will re-make it onto my 2012 list.
  
• Visit my grandma in New York for a sewing weekend Done!! And so much fun!
  
• Make an album of all of our pictures from 2010. Not even close. But I added it to my list for this week!
  
• Pack my lunch / eat lunch at home as much as possible.  We did a great job with this one. We did a better job creating menus, and I've eaten a lot of leftovers for lunch (yum!). Packing my lunch the night before was the biggest helper here.
  
• Make time to read. Sort of! I've read more than I was able to last year, but there were still a few book club months that got away from me. Re-adding this to the 2012 list.
  
• Make smarter food choices like wheat bread over white. This has become pretty standard for us now. Whole wheat bread, cutting calories where possible. Always room for improvement, of course, but definitely a step in the right direction!
  
• Stick to a cleaning schedule The biggest help here was that we gave in earlier this year and hired a cleaning lady. She is such a blessing to us, and worth every penny. We just had to accept that we aren't good at keeping our house clean, and with my crazy schedule this year, it wasn't worth using our little bit of time together to clean. Add to that how cranky I get when the house is messy and yeah, worth the money! Our end of the bargain is keeping our house picked up between cleaning sessions. We've made leaps and bounds in this area - hoping it's become a habit at this point!
  
• Stop worrying about what other people think and whether I'm doing things the "right way." I can't imagine I'll ever be able to really check this one off, but I've definitely made substantial progress here. Maybe it's just part of growing older, but I've spent a lot less time this year worrying about what I should be doing or stressing about what other people will think. That doesn't mean I haven't done it at all, of course, but less often counts as progress!
  
• Make the most of my wardrobe. I tend to be a lazy dresser - I have great clothes, but I usually can't be bothered to put an actual outfit together. Another halfer. I haven't bought a single new piece of clothing since April, and I've still gotten dressed every day. This is another one I want to continue to focus on in the new year, but I think I've done a better job with it this year.

So there you have it - a sort of productive 2011! Of course, I did a lot of other things this year as well, but it's fun to check back and see what I accomplished. Have you re-visited your resolutions from this year? Were you more successful than I was?