Irish dance hiatus is over

I've been slightly more busy on the other blogs, and definitely more busy in real life.  I do want to share the news that we've found an Irish dance school for both me and Teddy, after trying two in the area.

While going to sleep the past couple of nights, I've been thinking about Irish dancing.  I was so concentrated on going today (to see the second school) that I didn't even bring a book.  (My husband was impressed.)

Now I just have to get the rest of my body ready to enjoy this.  I'm so out of shape I was only able to put two steps together once, but VP said that I was probably dancing for about 20 minutes, which is longer than I thought I would be able to do ... and much shorter than it seemed!  I have about 20 pounds to lose to get back to my pre-baby weight, and then I'll have to see how much more I'd like to lose.

As a side note, doing lots of exercise and being a nursing mother?  I am so grateful my husband filled the water pitcher in the fridge before we left ... and after we came home, too.

Vespers and Liturgy tomorrow night, or I would go for two nights a week.  Ahh.

Meal Plan

While reading posts in Google Reader, I often pause on Mary @ Evlogia's posts, finding them relevant to my current life, or inspiring to some future project. (Most things are on hold, now that we are gearing up for a move this month. The assignment is still not official, so that's all I'll say.)

On the Thursday before last week, I read this post and fell head over heels in love with the idea of a seasonal* meal plan. Mary's meal plans repeat each week within the season, so her family eats the same week's meals (no, not like that) from the Sunday of St. Thomas through the Sunday of All Saints. Then, for the Apostles' Fast, they'll eat using a different meal plan—but one which stays the same week to week within that season.

*Liturgical seasons, that is, fasting for fasts, and feasting for festal seasons.

There are not enough superlatives to describe how awesomely wonderful this is to me. I am struggling with eating vegetables, eating nourishing food, eating varied food**, and preparing meals. I want Teddy to have these things be normal to him, but that means I have to work hard at it now. (Okay, I'd like for these things to be normal for me, too, but that's not as inspiring. Teddy is much cuter.)

**My first academic year at ND included about eight months of lunches and dinners based around chicken patties. And I'm not exaggerating.

So I wrote down all the things we like to eat (feasting-wise) which I could think of off the top of my head, and noticed that three of them (hamburgers, tasty Romanian soup, and seven-layer dip) last for more than one meal. Even with that, it was a bit of a struggle to stretch across to a full 14 lunch and dinner meals, with nothing but the main repeating entree ... well, repeating. Fr. Peter chose seven-layer dip because we'd just had a week of soup, and I don't know whether he will want to have seven-layer dip for weeks and weeks, but so far it is MARVELOUS. I made it on Saturday after the yard sale, and—guess what!—lunch was already made for Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday!

This past Sunday we were so exhausted from the yard sale that I didn't have time to sit down and grind out a meal plan—BUT I ALREADY KNEW WHAT WE WERE GOING TO EAT BECAUSE I REMEMBERED IT FROM LAST WEEK!

Okay, we have a PTO board meeting, paraklesis, and shopping tonight, and fish is on the menu (my one stretch, even though it's Costco fishsticks for me and salmon burgers with garlic for the more adventurous men), and it takes a while. I just wanted everyone to know how awesome this seasonal* thing is.

Thank you, Mary.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

I am currently reading Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle for our parish book club. (We have a choice between this and No Impact Man, but, since I suggested that one, I'd already read it.) The focus of this book is on eating locally, and the easiest way to do that is to grown one's own food.

I like the ideas in this book as well, and, as usual, they have made me think about how to make similar changes in my life. And this, understandable to those who know me and can join in, makes me laugh. First off, I don't like vegetables. I grew up a picky eater and am slowly attempting to try new foods. For instance, I turned 30 on March 21 this year, and today was my first taste (that I know of) of beets. (They are not quivering blobs of blood after all, but taste, unsurprisingly, like red tubers.) I even ate fish without turning a hair. (I only started admitting to the idea of liking fish less than three years ago, when we moved here and Presvytera Vasso made salmon for us.)

So I've made a rough plan of preparation for starting a vegetable garden (a long-term goal of mine).

Learn to:
• Eat vegetables.
• Cook vegetables.
• Store vegetables (freeze-dry, can, etc.).
• Harvest vegetables. (I don't actually know how to tell when things are *ready*, which is probably important.)
• Take care of plants (weeding, not killing from over-/under-watering, or bugs and disease, mulch, and plenty of things I'm sure I don't know yet).
• Plant things.

Oh, well, I've run out of thoughts and need to rush out to Bridegroom service tonight. Have a blessed and profitable Holy Week, y'all!

Reading Method Journalism; or, Mindfulness

I have recently read Colin Beavan's No Impact Man and watched the movie, and this afternoon just finished reading Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project. The first was an attempt to reflect values in actions and daily life, and the second was an attempt to improve one's happiness (and overall life) by analysis and experimentation.

Starting with Teddy's pregnancy (I think; maybe I'm just not able to remember further back), I started enjoying something I never thought I would: reading non-fiction books. I especially like reading books which either tell me how to do something (like John Rosemond's books on disciplining children, where "discipline" means "make a disciple of") or relate the author's struggle to improve himself in a way which makes me think on how I could improve both myself and my life.

One of the things which impressed me about Ms. Rubin's book was the preparation time she spent in plotting out what she wanted to accomplish, the steps she needed to take, and the order in which to take them. She thought of this in April, and researched and read and took notes, and only started her year-long project in January. I also like that each month had a different emphasis, so there would be a refreshment of purpose throughout the year.

I'd like to try doing a Happiness Project myself, but I am afraid of failure. In Molly Sabourin's Close to Home (an awesome early birthday present from my husband, and my absolutely most favorite book right now—I've never had the urge to take notes inside a book before, usually being horrified by the idea of writing in books), she relates the story of a young monk who asks Abba Sisoes what to do when he falls. "Get up!" "I got up, and I fell again!" "Get up again!" "For how long should I get up when I fall?" "Until your death." I'm afraid of the failure of not getting up again, of not continuing to try, of despairing and turning away from God.

So, instead, I'm going to try, and I'm going to trust God.
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I was frustrated with my tendency to want to buy all the Orthodox children's books I could find, and then not to read them, or to find them only after the saint's day had passed. I've started putting together a personal synaxarion (or whatever book it should be) spreadsheet to list the icons, books (and board books), icon bookmarks (and pins and pendants), and podcasts for spiritual relevance for Teddy. A spreadsheet lets me sort by each category, although the most useful is "date."

Today's items are for the Third Thursday of Lent and for St. Gerasimos of the Jordan:

• Children's Bible Reader, p. 139: Wise Words of Solomon (Proverbs 10-16)
• Povestiri Pentru Copii, v. 5, p. 72: St. Gerasimos of the Jordan (Sfântul Gherasim și Leul)

I've also been having some success with keeping a menu plan, even though it's still not very good, it at least provides a back-up plan for what to eat, and helps me make the shopping list to make sure that we have everything that we need. I don't include breakfast, because we don't seem to eat that as a family, and I usually have cookies and cocoa and then wait to eat lunch. (We usually eat two dinners, though, before and after we go to the pool in the evening.)

Today's lunch was intended to be the soup made on Tuesday (tomato-rice soup from the Romanian cookbook), but yesterday it reminded me of worms/shrimp, so I went with toasted bagels and bruschetta, with potato chips on the side for extra crunch. The plan for dinner is mashed potatoes, but I might be able to scrounge up a salad, too, if my husband didn't use up all the tomatoes on his soup.
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On Saturday, Teddy and I returned from MN, where we were visiting my sister and her family (oh, the joy of cousins!) for ten days. The Sunday before this was our parish Greek festival, and the day when Teddy decided to go from four naps a day to one. ONE. We also got sick at my sister's house, and I am still a bit under the weather. However, I did take the plunge and went to a Zumba class on Tuesday evening, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I haven't sweat (sweated?) that much since giving birth to Teddy, and, of course, the one-hour class was much more enjoyable than that. It reminded me a bit of doing Mousercize in elementary P.E. class: everyone was excited to get to do fun exercising. The rhythms made it easy and enjoyable, and there were breaks just often enough. My only problem was a rhythm-challenged boy who gangled obtrusively right in front of me, so I'll see about getting into the room a little earlier for a better place. Another husband-assisted early birthday present was the Zumba DVD set, which looks fun and arrived yesterday. (Teddy already likes the rhythm sticks.)
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Reading Molly Sabourin's book and blog posts make me worry about my spiritual side. I struggle to pay attention and to be mindful, but I'm not sure I succeed very often if at all. Last night's Presanctified Liturgy was more of an exercise in keeping Teddy quiet and silently apologizing to the few parishioners who were probably all watching Teddy's antics than of any spiritual growth.

As always, please keep me in your prayers.

September 5

At about five in the afternoon, I finished what I'd like to be my "morning routine." Of course, that doesn't usually include going swimming. (Forgot the camera again, dang it.)

Last night, Teddy slept through the night for the second time in a row since we had houseguests and went travelling and messed up his schedule. It was marvelous, and strange at the same time.

I worry that I spend too much time on the computer and in books. I'm not spending enough time doing the things around the house which need to get done, and I'm not spending enough time with my family. I haven't managed to plan meals in advance, so I've been mostly on a diet of hot dogs and pizzas. In addition to being really bad for me, health-wise, as well as for any weight loss, it's a horrible example to set for Teddy.

On the positive side of things, I did stick to my routine until I got it done, including exercises for my back. And, well, I'll keep trying tomorrow.

September 3

Today I managed to go to the family storytime at the library, even though we were late due to an unexpected poopy diaper.

I spent most of the afternoon on the computer working on presvyteres stuff. The article ("by Teddy") of the Atlanta Metropolis Clergy-Laity is still too large, so I will have to figure out how to reduce the filesize of each of the pictures, then resize them to what they currently are, and make sure everything works.

I decided not to go to the water aerobics thing tonight, but took about an hour to work in the yard some more. I didn't realize I was so long, since I started about an hour later than I usually do, and went until I couldn't tell dirt from leaves (and was trying not to think of bugs).

Still doing more cogitating than working on the presvyteres directory. I'm much better at looking things up than calling people I don't know. Oh, well. I'll see what I can do with a fresh start tomorrow.

Sisterly visitation

(Catching up is hard to do-ooh...)

My older-older sister visited during the first full week of July, driving down from Augusta, Georgia. Since I have two older sisters, to differentiate, the older of the two (who is also older than I) has hereby been designated as "older-older." In case you care.

I didn't realize that she came primarily to WORK. (This is usually the case in my family, but I'm more often the one pressed into labor. "Oh, you're here. You can start with the fridge and then there's some laundry ...") So o-o sis carted nursery furniture* from a parishioner's house in her giant beast of a car (not quite an SUV, but it made it with everything in just two trips). And she attacked the weeds in the car.** And I can find things in our hall closet. (Dang, we have a lot of light bulbs.) She inspired me to keep going on things around the house, too, after she'd gone, so the paperwork in the nursery is all in the filing cabinet (or in a pile of things "to be filed" which I am getting to, five items at a time), and the miscellany has been reduced to two smallish boxes. (I mean, really, how do you categorize pink bunny ears, old marching drill charts, and commemorative pins from the Atlanta Olympics which I visited with Papa?)

*It's a full suite of nursery furniture. White. Matching. All because their little girl got her "big girl" furniture. These people will be on our prayer list for years to come. The glider and nursing stool are set up right under the fan in front of the prayer corner, and Bunny just loves rocking throughout our home Parakleses.

**Update: My husband pointed out that she removed no weeds from the car, and did not use the car to attack the weeds in the yard. When do I get my brain back, did they say?

All in all, o-o sis and I had a much better visit than I had expected. Except that she liked buying me things. Edible things. I *kinda* went over my calories-per-day quite a bit. I did stabilize after she'd gone, though, being careful to not try to *lose* weight at this point. (I mean, there's Blue Bell in the house, so that would just be silly.)

Saturday: eleven more weeks

Today was fun. I got to sleep in. I succeeded in eating less (than everything, which is how much I usually want to eat, but still) and drinking more water. I played on orthodoxwiki which I hadn't in a while. I edited some of the ethics assignments which have been posted, made a couple of new pages for saints, and put some links between the Romanian and English pages, until the wiki broke, at least.

We also got out of the house today. The reason? To get soybeans. I asked Virgil what I should wear. He asked me whether I had any jeans that fit. So we went to Savers instead of getting soybeans. (Also, I tried on all my pants and skirts and packed up several items with the half-a-box of VHS tapes and took an entire box to Savers! One less to pack!) We bought wooden hangers (6), a picture frame, a sweater, a shirt, two dresses, and a pair of jeans. I didn't even need to look at the books because I had received a giant bagful from Emily last week, and I'm happily reading a historical fiction trilogy by Pamela Kaufman.

We had Fr. Kahaber over for dinner, and he played the guitar for us afterwards.

Happy.