Ben has lots of random crazy ideas that I frankly have to shut down at their conception. Several weeks ago, he characteristically had a new one:

“Hey, want to move to Cleveland?”

On our very first date he pre-screened me by asking me what I thought of his undying ambition to settle in the American West. And here we have been since 2011.

“Hey, want to ( Read more... )

Time feels like such a precious commodity that I don’t entirely want to write, as if it were a waste of time. But I can start thinking of it as an exercise; I find time to exercise. I can’t run a metaphorical marathon if I can’t run a 5k... and I can’t run a 5K unless I do the Couch 2 5K!

See how I transitioned there? ;)

The real Couch 2 5K that so ( Read more... )

I want to write a bit of general life updates and memories, so they're not gone forever.

Every Saturday night, my little family has "Family Movie Night," where we take turns choosing a movie (taking turns from tallest to shortest) and all gather to watch together. The tradition started over a year ago, perhaps even two years ago (none of us can ( Read more... )

Well! I finished some books. A lot of Diary of a Wimpy Kid books - so thankful that my son has moved on from Dog Man and that he wants to read books all the way through. His older sister had me read random excerpts, which meant I never knew quite all that was going on!

Hmm, that reminds me of reading bits and pieces of the Bible, or even entire ( Read more... )

It's been so interesting lately to reflect on differences between people. As a teacher I've had to learn a lot about cultural differences, both from textbooks and through sometimes awkward incidents of trial and error. But there are so many differences between people, too! That should be obvious. It is obvious. But I'm still surprised.

Like, Ben's ( Read more... )

Since church started being online-only back in mid-March (a week before the governor required it - I'm a little proud that my church was so considerate), I haven't watched many online services. Actually I watched exactly one. Or perhaps half of one. I have an intellectual bent, so I love that whenever the pastor opens his mouth one can tell that he ( Read more... )

Shortly after my previous post, I was horror-struck to discover that my LiveJournal password had expired. I was still logged in on the app on my phone (which I proceeded to drop in a toilet!), but I needed to retrieve a link to reset my LJ password via email.

Since my LJ was created in 2002, I went wayyyyy back to the email I used back then. For my ( Read more... )

I’ve begun reading Bob Goff’s new book, Dream Big.
( Read more... )

I've been surprised (to put it mildly) by how much my sense of well-being has improved overall since everything has shut down over the past week.

Here are some things I've been thankful for:

1. I usually spend a full hour every day just driving my kids to school and back, not including the multitude of after-school activities we allow our daughter ( Read more... )

I'm a teacher, but my school goes year-round. ;-)

So... my kids' elementary school had this thing where they locked all the gates but one on the first day, with a frank admission right in the flyer that parking is always tricky on the first day regardless - which led me to literally have at least one restless night filled with strange nightmares ( Read more... )