"Steady Days"

We moved again and are in Logan, Utah now. Logan is an amazing city. Before we moved we heard comments like, "Logan? I used to live there, you will love it!" No one explained why we would love it, just we would. After a month we do love it, and I can't seem to explain why either. It is a lot of little things. Everything is so close. We can walk to the store, the library, the church, the transit center where we can hop on and ride somewhere further for free. Running errands takes 15 minutes total instead of 15 minutes just in travel time. I am sure there are other reasons I love Logan, but this cozy feeling is one attribute I just can't get over!

Cam's started school (the actual Computer Science coursework, yahoo!) and we are settling in at home. We started going to the library since the cold and wet weather of January made going out to play difficult most weeks. By chance I looked up some parenting books and stumbled on "Steady Days" by Jamie C. Martin. It is a small, thin book so I figured I had a fighting chance of actually finishing and applying the book.

The subtitle is "A Journey Towards Intentional, Professional Motherhood." Intentional and professional mothering is something I have struggled with since having Dallas.

Up until Dallas was born I was constantly in school or working, usually a combination of the two. I had something other than myself telling me where I needed to be, what I needed to do and my sense of hard work and responsibility (I felt guilty if I didn't do assignments to the best of my ability, I couldn't even fathom intentionally skipping class or sloughing off assignments) took care of the rest. After he was born I was suddenly at home ALL THE TIME and no one telling my what to do. I had no idea what to do with myself. I had intentions of setting specific days to clean, of always having dinner of the table when Cam got home and other "homemaker" duties. Unfortunately, I didn't. There were times it got very bad (we won't go into details, but I never left the house so I wouldn't shower until Cam told me I smelled... yeah I guess that was too much detail, huh?). However my work ethic was still there making me feel incredibly guilty, but I didn't know what exactly what I was feeling guilty for.

I only felt accomplished when I was working outside the home so I found a job and kept working. I felt I needed that something telling me what to do! After working part-time in the tutoring, para-educating, and substitute teaching realm; I finally landed a full-time teaching job! If that wasn't going to make me feel accomplished I didn't know what would! However, even while teaching full-time and being told how much I was benefiting the 150 students in my classes; I felt guilt for what my children (and, to a lesser degree, the house) weren't getting.

So what gives? I realized "doing" work didn't fulfill that guilt for sloughing off my responsibility to my children. I was a good professional educator, why couldn't I figure out how to be a good professional mother? That is why this book really caught my eye: "Intentional, Professional Motherhood."

The book has been an eye-opener. It isn't full of ground-breaking thoughts or techniques, but has given me clear ideas and methods to make being at home with my children productive and meaningful. Along with creating a "Steady Routine" the book suggests finding one thing to improve upon at a time. It is so easy to tackle things one at a time.

If I sound like you, or you sound like me, I would recommend giving this book a gander. You'll take some, you'll leave some, but I believe it will be a good experience :)

Carrie Stroud Photography

Now I REALLY don't want to post about this because I want to win this, but I get an extra entry if I do mention it... so I am torn.

Carrie Stroud did some family pics for my parents and siblings back in July and I LOVE them. Unfortunately only me and Dallas were in Washington for the shoot because I would have LOVED to have gotten family pics with Cam as well. Now she is giving away a FREE photo shoot and I am determined to win it (or at least be able to schedule a photo shoot the next time she is in Washington and we actually have jobs and money, etc.). You can see some very talented photos on her blog and I will also post some right now! (If you look close on her blog you can see a picture of my pregnant belly and of my niece, Nyah).




Also my little signature picture thing is a Carrie Stroud picture.

Sanctity of Human Life Day

I meant to do this post on Sunday or even before to give everyone a heads up, sorry I didn't get to it! I don't know how many people heard about President Bush proclaiming this past Sunday as "Sanctity of Human Life Day" but he did. He made, what I feel, was a very moving yet short talk with his announcment. It use to be on the Whitehouse press release page but since Obama moved in it has been moved or deleted. Luckily I found his full text on another page. As you could guess it has gotten pro-choice people up in a huff and proclaiming that Bush has "waged a war against women" during his presidency.

As a woman I don't feel threated by Bush, in fact women that don't exercise enough self control to not have unprotexcted sex and decide they can fix their "mistake" by killing a human, disgust me. Twisting it and saying a human fetus isn't a human and given that "inalienable right" to life until it is out of the womb or wanted is ridiculous. Of course there are exceptions: rape and the mother being endangered by the pregnancy, are the most prominent in my mind. There are so many adoption agencies and other provisions to allow mothers to give up their babies after birth, why is there a need to destroy them instead?

I know this is quibbling about opinions and I don't mean to offend anyone, this is something I feel strongly about. I think Sanctity of Life Day is a worthy cause and look forward to see if it is honored in the future (probably not though, huh?).