New Year's Resolutions

1. Stability.  Now you all know that I have been talking about becoming a Math teacher.  The problem with that statement is the word becoming.  In a different world where bills didn't exist, I could spend my time daydreaming about what I could become and then take my time getting there.  I had a great plan to get myself to teaching, but I've run into some snags.  I haven't received a call back from any of the three school districts to get hired as a substitute teacher.  I did have one interview that I thought went well, but still no call back.  I have been doing a little high school math tutoring to make some extra dough this month and one of the parent's of a student is currently substitute teaching and he is a retired elementary teacher.  It seems that is who I am up against in that job market.  Anyway..I'm babbling.

For now I am going to get a full-time job and wend my way.  I don't see Daniel and I being able to lose my income for a year to do student teaching, but I know that this is a good thing.  Stability.

2. Gratitude.  I'm not an ungrateful person, but I could spend some more conscious effort in this area.  I am so much of a planner that I sometimes neglect to look back or even right in front of me to give thanks for all the blessings I have.  Maybe before dinner, we could come up with something we are grateful for, or I could add it to my morning routine. Gratitude.

3. Routine.  This one goes along with gratitude, but I am mostly thinking about exercising and putting more effort into my appearance.  I am signed up for online barre videos that cost me only $15/month but I have probably only done three videos this month.  I love barre.  It makes me feel strong and healthy.  I want to get up earlier in the morning and do barre.  Daniel and I could add some walking in as well.  We live in a cute little neighborhood.  Plus, our complex backs up against a hiking trail where a beautiful view is just a short hike away.

I have been a little lazy about putting on makeup or even doing my hair since we moved.  I haven't had a lot of days where I have something to do, so I haven't bothered.  But I don't want to spend 2013 a hot mess that no one wants to be with.  This year I want to step it up. Routine.

I have been giving 2013 a lot of thought and I think three resolutions is plenty.  I will keep these three words close by and take time each month to check up and see how I'm doing.  Hope everyone'e New Year's is amazing!

Best of 2012!

I'm grateful I have the chance tonight to reflect on 2012.  It will always be an infamous year in everyone's memory with all the hype about the end of the world.  But it didn't end, by our hands or mother nature's, so it's time to ramp up for 2013.  But not before taking a moment to reminisce.

March - Go Cavs!  This was epic.  And although Daniel's bro's team didn't win the last game, watching them win night after night and climb to the finals was more than amazing.  Hopefully they'll get a chance at it again.

June - Graduation and my mom coming to Portland.  First, graduating is the real deal folks.  Whatever you can do to get to that moment, do it.  After I graduated, circumstances led me back to the same job that I had during college and a friend of mine said to me, "So this is what a Math degree gets you huh?"  But that person doesn't understand the pride that I feel from passing Advanced Multivariate Calculus or the feeling in my soul when I turned in my VERY LAST FINAL.  I'm free!!  My degree will always serve me and I am stoked to pay back every penny that I borrowed to get my education.

My mom took this photo.  It is so rad.  There was too much traffic leading up to the Rose Garden Arena so I got out of the car and walked.


My mom came to Portland!  It was like a staycation for me and we had such a great time.  I got to show her so many of the things that I had grown to love in Oregon and she was so enthusiastic to see it all.  One of my favorite things is that she helped me pick out an iron and we had a walk through my neighborhood.  I can't wait until you come to Palm Desert Mom!

August:  A Kahn family trip to Maine for Daniel's cousin's wedding.  The hotel that we stayed at was not even a mile from George Bush Sr.'s home.  That was honestly the best vacation that I have been on.   We all had such a good time and I would love to go back there someday.

September:  Marrying my man.  I could get all gushy on this part but I'll try to restrain myself!  I love everything about being married.  I love having the same last name because it reminds me that we belong to each other.  I love putting a home together and dreaming about the future.  I truly feel that I married my soul mate.  That September day was the most beautiful day of my whole life and I will remember it forever.

November: Becoming Californians.  I do not highly recommend trying to graduate, get married, and move out-of-state in the same year, but somehow we were up for the challenge.  We love it here.  It has a new set of challenges, but it seems to be a place where we can grow both professionally, personally and as a couple.  It is surprising chilly right now, but from what I hear, I'll be begging for this weather come July.  Hopefully a trip to Utah is in the works when it is 115 degrees this summer.

Here are some pictures that I've taken with my phone since we've been here:

Proud Furniture Owners

I have to say it is a pretty exciting day in a person's life when new furniture arrives.  We have had such aching behinds from watching t.v. on our dining room chairs.  But now they're here!!  We had to buy the whole set from the furniture store in order to get a great deal and I wasn't crazy about all the pieces at first.  But now that I see them altogether in our living room, I love them!

My next project is to get some art on the walls.  I'm going to put up a ledge shelf above the sofa and I have started putting together this collection of art to go up on it.  

As promised, here is a look inside of the wedding chest that we got in Hanford.  Isn't it adorable?!

 

Furnished...sort of

Here are some pictures of our "furnished" apartment.  We bought a couch, loveseat and coffee table, but the delivery date got pushed back until 12/28 so we are not quite feeling settled.  But I love the kitchen and it's nice to have our bedroom and bathroom put together.  Blogger is acting up on me so sorry the pictures are haphazard but there is a story behind our new furniture pieces.

There was a woman that lived in Hanford who was like a grandmother to Daniel's family.  She owned an antique store on her property.  She owned some land close to Daniel's family home where she had her house, antique store, guest house, and some farmland.  Daniel's parent's lived in the guest house when they were first married.  She passed away just a few months before I met Daniel but she was over 100 years old.  A lot of furniture was left to the Kahn family, and it floats around from home to home whenever it's needed.  When we went to pick up our things from Hanford, we also took with us a few extra treasures.

The dresser, mirror, and jewelry box above and the night table below all came from the antique store.  They just needed a little lemon oil and they look so beautiful in our bedroom.

Our "new" bed frame, though not an antique, was Daniel's bed in high school.  Kinda funny, but it was sitting in the barn and I love it.  It has space in the headboard for books and I want to stain it to match the dresser.  The other night table was an antique that we found.

This is one of three hall closets that we have in our apartment.  So much space!  Plus there is a second bedroom (not pictured because it's full of the stuff I don't know what to do with yet).  I am going to put a bed in there though in case anyone would rather stay with us.  Pretty sure everyone will opt for the resort, but you never know.

We got this TV stand for $70 at target.  Probably won't last long but we needed to get our TV off the floor.  We didn't bring ours from Portland because it was heavy and not that attractive.

Loving our dining space right now.  I put the table and chairs on the truck with the thought that they would be temporary but they've turned out to be perfect for us right now.  Plus we can always get bar stools.  I wish I had a better picture of the details of the chairs and of this little wedding chest.  The wedding chest is another new found treasure and I put kitchen linens in it.  I will have to have another post devoted just to that little piece of furniture.  It has little drawers when you open the top compartment.

Only one picture on the wall but we're getting there!  Since we won't have a couch before Christmas I don't feel up to decorating.  Oh well.  A girl can only do so much!!

But Anyway...

Here are pics of our new apartment.  Like I said, I'm a little less than enthusiastic today, but here they are.  As soon as our new furniture is delivered I'll post pics of the furnished version. :)

Have to post to help me move on

I really wanted to post pictures of my new apartment today, but I am feeling a little less enthusiastic in light of the traumatic events this week.  I am sitting in a public library, knowing that others have entered public spaces this week and didn't make it out.  I just feel awful, sick and disgusted.  My "Republican"-whatever-that-means background has taught me that gun control was evil, but this week was evil.  I hate that I can picture the shooting space at the Clackamas mall that I have been to so many times.  Unfathomable thoughts are going through my mind as I embark on a career as a teacher.  This HAS to stop happening.  We have to get guns out of the hands of the mentally ill.

Anna Karenina

I went to see my movie tonight.  I am claiming rights only because I spent several months and 850 pages reading it.  It was lovely.  Everything I could have hoped for, but watching it made me realize that it wasn't the "story" that held my attention during the months I spent reading the book.  It was the psychological and spiritual insights.

For example, the first line of the book is:

'Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.'

I could think on this one line for ages.  It is so insightful and so utterly true.

And then there is the psychology of Anna.  I think the movie treated it very well, but the most powerful part of her downward spiral has to be read, because somewhere in her thoughts, you start recognizing your own voice in her irrationality which makes her tragic ending all the more shocking.

Lastly, I love the transformation of Levin.  I wish I could carry his final insights around with me like a pocket Bible.  Below is just a small passage from the end of the book which I think is Tolstoy's main point.  This is part of Levin's epiphany:

Then, for the first time, grasping that for every man, and
himself too, there was nothing in store but suffering, death, and
forgetfulness, he had made up his mind that life was impossible
like that, and that he must either interpret life so that it
would not present itself to him as the evil jest of some devil,
or shoot himself.

But he had not done either, but had gone on living, thinking, and
feeling, and had even at that very time married, and had had many
joys and had been happy, when he was not thinking of the meaning
of his life.

What did this mean?  It meant that he had been living rightly,
but thinking wrongly.

He had lived (without being aware of it) on those spiritual
truths that he had sucked in with his mother's milk, but he had
thought, not merely without recognition of these truths, but
studiously ignoring them.

Now it was clear to him that he could only live by virtue of the
beliefs in which he had been brought up.

"What should I have been, and how should I have spent my life, if
I had not had these beliefs, if I had not known that I must live
for God and not for my own desires?  I should have robbed and
lied and killed.  Nothing of what makes the chief happiness of my
life would have existed for me."  And with the utmost stretch of
imagination he could not conceive the brutal creature he would
have been himself, if he had not known what he was living for.

"I looked for an answer to my question.  And thought could not
give an answer to my question--it is incommensurable with my
question.  The answer has been given me by life itself, in my
knowledge of what is right and what is wrong.  And that knowledge
I did not arrive at in any way, it was given to me as to all
men, _given_, because I could not have got it from anywhere.'

So much good stuff!  I got this from Project Gutenberg online.  Daniel went to see it with me and he was wishing he understood the story better.  They director was so creative with the scenes so they could fit all 850 pages into 2 hours, but if you haven't read the book, it's easy to get confused.  I suggest reading the cliffnotes or something before watching.  Also, the R rating is for a little gore that couldn't be avoided in the storyline.