My Russian Kindred Spirits

No, nothing related to politics or international relations here...just a video of Russian students and their teachers having some good old fashioned fun in the snow.

I love watching and listening to how much fun the kids are having, and I tip my hat to all of the teachers participating alongside their students.

This kind of activity would never fly in United States schools (not that we could partake in Texas anyway, seeing as we've received a 1/4 inch of snow total throughout our almost six years here), so my family plays in the snow on our own. We started the tradition of making snow angels when my sister and I were little, I shared it with my roommates in college, and now Will and Hallie and I experience this exhilaration every winter. We do, however, opt for swimsuits instead of underwear...

Our snow angel story is here, and some of my favorite posts about our swimsuit snow angels are here, here, and here.

High Five for Friday (10.14.16)

1. Last week's four day weekend - the kids had both Columbus Day and the following day off - was just what the doctor ordered midway through our crazy fall semester. We had at one point considered going out of town for a night or two, but in the end we decided we'd rather stay close to home and take care of a few things around the house, run errands, play with friends, and get a jump on everything we needed to do before this weekend. The extra two days of sleeping in until after sunrise weren't too shabby either!

2. If you want to feel poorly about yourself, come over to my house and challenge Will to a game of chess. Granted I only learned to play chess last year and haven't done much work on honing my craft, but last week Will beat me in four moves.

Ok, so this isn't exactly a high five for me. It certainly is a high five for Will though!

3. Last weekend, ESPN's College Gameday set up shop in College Station to highlight the football game between undefeated TAMU and also-undefeated Tennessee. We enjoyed "hanging with" Lee Corso and Reveille the last time Gameday visited College Station, so we were disappointed to this year miss the broadcast because of an out-of-town soccer game and Nutcracker rehearsal. We did, however, get a kick out of watching on television as Lee predicted - by releasing (a stand-in) Reveille from a dog house - and then the Aggies brought home a TAMU win. 6-0!

4. Though summer has since returned to Texas, a few days last week started out with a slight chill in the air. I opened the windows and aired out the house, and both Will and I rejoiced in finally being able to walk the two blocks to school without breaking a sweat. (Tom and Hallie, at the opposite end of the temperature tolerance spectrum, pulled out their jackets and sweatshirts and repeatedly complained about how cold it felt in the house.)

5. Happiness Highlights:

This girl keeps losing baby teeth and her mouth shows no signs of
filling the gaps with permanent teeth any time soon. I LOVE it.

Hallie's new 1980s moon dance boots. I'm oddly proud
she chose to replace her worn out pale pink boots with
blue boots even though all of her friends have hot pink.

My Lily's kindergarten picture!

Happy Friday, Chasing Roots!

Linking up with High Five for Friday here:

 

You Complete Me

Tomorrow morning, at least a full hour before the crack of dawn, I will board an airplane bound not for a specific destination, but for a season. Fall, here I come.

Ok, I have a specific destination, as well as plans to meet two of the women I love most in the world. And I'll arrive wearing my fall uniform: jeans, boots, and a sweater, along with a smile on my face and a Starbucks caramel apple spice in my hand.

I love you, fall. You complete me.

Feeling Free

Back in August I wrote about kicking off my New Year's Resolutions (because I now start my new year on or around the first day of school) and my plan to, for the first time in years, use a paper planner to help me simplify real life and make time for what matters most.

I had high hopes for my gorgeous, inspirational planner, but after two full months of managing my day-to-day schedule on paper, I found myself more stressed and less organized than ever before.

Because paper calendars can't automatically add regularly repeating and/or ongoing events on their own, I spent twice as much time updating my paper calendar as I did updating my online calendar. Because I still needed to maintain my online calendar (Tom and I share our schedules with one another online), I spent close to two hours a week just syncing my two calendars. Because my paper calendar didn't have a great deal of space to make lists, I repeatedly failed to write down all sorts of tasks and projects for which I was responsible and regularly forgot which errands I needed to run and what I needed to buy at the grocery store, Target, Walgreens, etc. Oh, and I never remembered to bring my planner with me anywhere. Not once.

Long story short (too late), my attempt to simplify had the opposite effect on my life. And rather than continue sliding downhill toward complete discombobulation, I decided to set what I saw as the culprit - that seemingly perfect paper planner - off to the side and go back to what works for me.

Will and Hallie asked why I went back to using my phone as a calendar and a notebook. I explained that it's important to try new things, to commit to them wholeheartedly and make every effort to succeed. But I went on to add that it's also important to recognize when something isn't working and take a step back, regroup, and try again.

Last Wednesday I stepped back and regrouped, and when I did so, I - at the risk of sounding cliche - felt a weight lift off of my shoulders. I cruised through lengthy work and home to-do lists during the school day, organized all of the kids winter clothes in the afternoon, let the kids have friends over, made dinner for the family, and had the kids in bed 15 minutes early for the first time since...well, since school started seven weeks ago.

No, scrapping that New Year's Resolution and getting rid of my planner didn't suddenly make me spectacularly productive. But it did make me feel free.

I intended to include just that one picture of my free spirited girl, but while searching for this photo, I came across at least 20 others that also show her feeling as free as I felt when I packed away the planner organizational system. So here are a few more, both because she's beautiful and because sadly, I think her days of feeling this sense of uninhibited freedom are waning.

Do something freeing today. 

High Five for Friday (10.7.16)

1. Will had a great birthday on Tuesday, and he extends his thanks to everyone who called, emailed, texted, and wished him a happy day in person throughout the week!

Tux didn't move from that spot the entire time
Tom and I were filling up Will's room with balloons.

Birthday donuts = the breakfast of champions!

Will took soccer ball cookies to his classmates, teachers,
teammates, and coaches. That's A LOT of cookies!

Soccer field/ball cupcakes for home.

He wanted all 10 candles on one cupcake.

We start the day with "Happy Birthday" and candles
and end the day with "Happy Birthday" and candles.

2. I don't usually eat breakfast, but on occasion - as in once every five or so years - I enjoy brunch. Last Sunday morning I joined two friends and indulged in a slice of spinach, mushroom, and feta quiche, roasted red potatoes, a cinnamon roll, and a strawberry lemonade mimosa at a local brunch hotspot. The company and the food were both good enough that I might consider brunching again before five years from now!

3. Every summer I eat (far too much of) this particular Wisconsin cheese:

And now, thanks to my fellow Wisconsinite and friend Casey, I can eat too much of it here in Texas as well as in Wisconsin. She found it at one of our local grocery stores, and after sharing this information with me one week, went above and beyond the next when she brought me my own tub. I tried to ration it...I failed. But oh, my failure tasted divine.

4. Do you watch Saturday Night Live? I usually catch the first 30 minutes once or twice a month, but every fourth fall I watch every minute of every episode. I can't stand actual politics, but during presidential election "season" I live for Saturday Night Live politics. If you missed last Saturday's episode, I highly recommend catching the opening skit as well as the sinkhole skit and Weekend Update.

5. (A) Hilarious Highlight (replacing Happiness Highlights this week):

My sister found this tin of lip balm on the floor of her room. On the floor of her classroom. On the floor of her elementary school classroom. I guess her second grade students' parents haven't heard of Chapstick...

Happy Friday, Chasing Roots!

Linking up with High Five for Friday here:

 

Makeover Mission Accomplished

It's done!

After two weeks of cleaning out and reorganizing, a month of shopping for the larger furniture pieces, and another week of sewing curtains, shopping for the smaller furniture pieces and accessories, and pulling everything together with my mom, our playroom has officially become our family room! Or our music room. Or our famusic - as Tom suggested - room. We haven't landed on a name for the room quite yet.

To refresh your memory, this is what the room looked like shortly after we moved in:

Aspects of the room changed every year or so, based on the kids' ages and interests. Hallie's art center grew, Tux joined the family (many of his supplies have to live in that room), we acquired the giant beanbag, and the kids and Tom started playing first the keyboard and then the drums.

The room remained a playroom though, until one day I realized that very little traditional playing - other than an occasional board game on the coffee table - was actually going on in the space. Instead, Hallie created at her (too small for her seven-year-old legs) art table and Tom and the kids jammed and played video games. We just weren't maximizing the room's potential, or perhaps better put, the room no longer met our needs as a family.

In redoing the room I hoped to create a space that looked a little more "grown up" and in which the activities above (art, music, video games) could comfortably take place. I wanted a small but cozy and comfortable oasis where the four of us - me included, as previously I only entered the playroom to clean it - could rest, relax, and have fun together.

I think I came close!

This is the hardest room in our house to photograph because every wall has a window or doorway that lets in light. Hopefully I've edited the photos enough to show off the space's true colors!

The front half of the room is designed for movie watching,
sports viewing, video game playing, and couch lounging.

The boys are thrilled about their new television. Me? Not
so much. It's all about compromise, right? (Try to ignore the
litter box...I'm not thrilled about that "design element" either.)

The newly-painted bookcase now holds guitar, drum,
and keytar accessories; small musical instruments; music
books; movies; and Tom's Casio keyboard from the 1980s.

The back half of the room is designed for music. The drums,
along with Tom's acoustic and electric guitars and the kids'
new three-quarter size guitar, are ready for business. As
soon as the keytar has a stand it'll be displayed as well.

We bought Hallie a new desk at which to create. (Lest you think I
got rid of her "fun" craft supplies, Hallie's paints, yarn, stamps, ink, etc.
are in bins in the closet.) Her corner is simple, but she and I both love it...
so much so that I may consider working here myself while she's at school.

As I type this post on a Saturday morning, Tom is playing the keytar, Hallie is singing into a microphone, and Will is playing Mario Kart on the Wii. And last night the four of us - plus Tux, on and off - watched a football game cuddled up together on the couch. Dare I say Mission Accomplished?

Two Whole Hands

It seems that just yesterday I wrote a birthday post for Will titled, "One Whole Hand". And now today, I find myself penning a birthday post for Will titled "Two Whole Hands" and weeping unapologetically into my own.

The tears flow not because Will has aged another year. I recognize that every circle made 'round the sun is a gift, our time on earth is finite, and growing older is a privilege not afforded to everyone. Instead, I cry because as of today, we are beyond the midpoint.

Childhood and parenthood do not suddenly cease to exist when children turn 18. But both, at least as we know them, come to an end around the time our "babies" graduate from high school and move out on their own. As a 10-year-old fourth grader, Will is now closer to the end than he is to the beginning of childhood. And I, as his mother, am closer to the end than I am to the beginning of mothering him within the safety of my home.

Halfway...come and gone in the blink of an eye.

Spotting the "little" in my boy has become incredibly difficult, not just because he can make his own meals, vacuum his own room, and stay home alone for short periods of time, but because he doesn't look little anymore. His haircut, his face shape, his leg and arm and stomach muscles - none of them belong on a little boy.

All of those muscles are the result of playing soccer four days a week; Will loves the sport, and sharing this passion with him brings me tremendous joy. I can think of nothing I'd rather do than sit on the sidelines - with my lips zipped tightly shut and my hands stuffed in my pockets so I don't say or do anything I shouldn't - and watch him play. He also enjoys running (definitely not something we have in common), Tae Kwon Do, swimming, disc golf, chess, math puzzles, drumming, and video games.

I don't know when young people officially reach the rank of "tween", but my guess is that it's somewhere around age 10. Will has begun to respectfully but firmly question my decision-making and look for loopholes in my reasoning. He listens to me a little less, and to the voices around him - those belonging to his teachers, his coaches, his friends, and the media - a little bit more. He feels the emotions associated with this stage of life deeply, and when they layer on top of homework, tests, sports, and family dynamics (ahem, sibling relationships), they occasionally get the best of him. As I expected from him at this age, Will is pushing the boundaries and spreading his wings and then - thankfully - swooping back around for a comforting hug and a few words of encouragement and reassurance.

I have loved every stage of parenting my boy more than the last. So now, as we transition from little boy to tween and the end of elementary school looms ominously in the not-so-distance future, I hope that the best really is yet to come...and that "the best" helps me forget that two whole hands means we've inched one year closer to the finish line.

Happy 10th birthday, Will. I love you to the moon and back plus infinity times a million with a cherry on top.

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Will's birthday is actually tomorrow - October 4th (though he should have been born before/on October 3rd given the fact that I went into labor at 11am on October 2nd) - but I wanted his post to go up a day early. He deserves an extra day of love and attention this year.