lessons and resolutions

since i'm a goal oriented person, here are some things i've been learning in 2011, and what i want to learn this year:

1. on parenthood
1. lesson: parenthood does not suddenly make you an all-wise, perfect being.  i totally thought it did as a kid. (my parents seemed way more mature to me growing up than i feel right now, even though i'm the same age having mats as they were having me.)  it is, however an inately sanctifying experience.  it reminds me of our first year of marriage in that i'm suddenly seeing my own selfishness magnified against my abrupt closeness with this other person.
2. resolution: be more intentional about placing matson's wants above my own.  even if i have a really good want (like to finish the dishes before scott gets home), it's good to set that aside every once in a while if he is tugging at my leg wanting to play.  even better to let it go if it's a purely selfish want on my part - like hanging out for an hour on the couch browsing pinterest when mats wants attention.  i want him to know that he's more important to me than my laptop or a spotless sink.  (please don't read this to say that i think i should be spending all day doting on my baby ... i really do think independent play is good for both of us, but i think i could also be better about making sure we have simple fun together.)
2. on projects
1. lesson: i'm a big dreamer, and a little follow througher.  this has long been a stumbling block of mine, particularly with big projects, or house cleaning.  (my floor hasn't been mopped since before matson was born.)  i want to do what i say, though.  i've been working on vocalizing fewer project ideas so that i at least don't feel like i'm not following through on anything ... but i also really do want to work on finishing things!
2. resolution: follow through on projects!  i'm going to make a list of things that i have half-baked, and do them.  i'm going to have to get scott's input before finalizing this list, but it's going to include some things like setting up a college savings account for matsy, iras for us, staining our window sills, refinishing our coffee table, and finishing a picnic quilt.
3. on homemaking
1. lesson: for the last nine months, i've been telling myself that my house is messy and we still eat dinner at 8pm because i have a new baby ... but let's face it, he's nine months old now, generally naps well and is good about entertaining himself when he is up.  my house is messy and dinner is late because i choose other things like pinterest and errands and hanging out with friends and reading books.  i want a neat house and a non-rushed evening, though.
2. resolution: read the frugal girl's post about scheduling my time and do something with it!  possibly revisit flylady.net for inspiration.  plan one crock-pot meal per week.
4. on marriage
1. lesson: life is busy, and it's shockingly easy to not get quality time with my sweet husband now that he's added school to the mix and we have a baby.  lucky for him i'm exceedingly self-aware and will happily communicate when i feel like things aren't quite up to par with us.  which is why we're instituting ...
2. resolution: date night!  our date night has been things like take out and watching tv/movies for the last few years, and while that's not bad, it's also not good focused communication time.  since we don't have limitless hang out and communication time anymore, we need to work to get that communication time in there.  so, 1-2 times per month, we're going to do an outside-the-house, matsy-free date together.  could be dinner and a movie, could be a coffee date, could be a bike ride ... but something just the two of us to remember why we chose each other.
5. on cooking
1. lesson: we eat a lot of junk.  we also eat a fair bit of tasty, healthy food ... but my fallback is always things like macaroni and cheese, chicken nuggets, and potato anything.  as mats is getting closer to eating table food, i think i'm becoming more conscious of this - i feed him things daily which i enjoy but eat rarely.  (zucchini and sweet potato, for instance.)  i want him to enjoy healthful food, though, not just push it aside and want mommy and daddy's soda and cheese fries instead.  (we went to steak 'n shake last night - first one in the state!  and it was awesome.)
2. resolution: experiment with one healthy food at a time.  i go on new recipe kicks sometimes and get overwhelmed.  this year, i'll pick one new healthy food from time to time and go for it.  first up: quinoa!  i've been wanting to learn how to cook with it for a while and found some yummy recipes for it on pinterest, so we'll give it a shot.  easy dinners will remain, but i'll try to limit them in favor of quick healthy dinner options.  also, talk to scott about a soda ban in the house.  (i had started getting generic diet root beer at the grocery store as a treat for myself, which led to us always having soda in the house and drinking it on a pretty much daily basis.  diet so not terrible for us, but also not a good habit.  matsy loves the shiny cans.  hmm.)
6. on faith
1. lesson: i'm pretty bad about prioritizing bible reading time in day-to-day life.  prayer is definitely getting better, but bible time has definitely not been benefited by having a baby.  i joined a women's bible study at church this fall and loved it - totally loved it.  in the five months between having matsy and joining study, though, no time reading the bible (just being honest), and in the month since study ended, also nothing.
2. resolution: stay in bible study.  definitely worth it.  (there are studies offered every fall, spring, and i think even a short one in summer.)  during the off weeks between studies, make sure that i have a game plan for bible time before the break occurs ... and then follow through on it.
7. on finances
1. lesson: i had grand plans of a mostly-unchanged grocery budget once i was staying at home.  umm, yeah, that totally didn't happen!  i'm not sure just how much it didn't happen yet since i haven't done my final budget update of the year with comparisons of budgeted-to-actual spending and year-to-year changes and all that ... but my grocery spending was ridiculous.  my other plans of limiting food waste, eating leftovers, and doing cash for grocery also didn't pan out.  and, scott generally has no idea where we stand with our budget.
2. resolution: revisit my goals from a year ago.  we've switched most of our spending to credit card (which we pay off in full every month) to reap that lovely 1% cash back reward, but i think we really need to go back to cash for grocery for a while, to keep a better handle on where we are with our spending for the month.  i'm also toying with the idea of doing a weekly food waste photo (a la frugal girl) to motivate me on that front.  do my menu planning on tuesday evenings when the grocery ads come in the mail so i can shop produce sales better.  and do a monthly budget update for scott (also per fg).
8. on service
1. lesson: over the last few years, i've realized that my love language is acts of service, and one of my spiritual gifts is also service.  (makes sense.)  i love to help people.  i also want matsy to grow up wanting to help people.  i think it's good to live outside yourself.  for the past few years, i've tutored with whiz kids, but decided not to this year since mats needs to be my priority and scott's work/school schedule could interfere with that commitment with no notice, which isn't fair to the kid i'd tutor.  instead i committed to cooking a meal for the middle school whiz kids, but that happens maybe once a month.  i serve in the nursery at church two sundays a month, but i have lots of great time during the week with matsy, and i really want to be able to use it to help someone (in a way that matsy can do with me).
2. resolution: there's a great ministry in denver called open door ministries, which has a few residential houses to serve homeless men, women coming out of prostitution, and single moms.  i started an application a few weeks ago to babysit for the single moms so that they can do things like work and go to school, but i need to actually finish it.  as a new mom, i understand how totally overwhelming motherhood can be, and i have an awesome support network.  i want to help provide support for other moms, and it seems like it'd be something that i could easily do with matsy during the day or on nights when scott's at class.  also, i want to be open to other service opportunities that come up.

so there we have it!  play with matsy more, make and do a to-do list, schedule my time better, date nights with scott, find healthy new foods to play with, plan in bible reading time, lay the smack down on grocery spending, and babysit for some single moms.

overall our life is in a pretty awesome place, but in general i feel like you're either moving forward or backward, and goals keep me moving forward.  sink or swim!  and for the record, these are all mental goals i've been ruminating on and working toward anyway, i just decided to list them out for better processing and in honor of the new year.

six weeks in

i was just in for my 6 week postpartum doctor visit - wow!  (at which i got a $50 parking ticket because i didn't see the sign that it was a street sweeping day.  grrrrr.)  i've heard people say "the days are long but the years are short", and six weeks into the first year, i will wholeheartedly agree with that.

mats and i are happily settling into more of a rhythm together at home.  for the most part, at least.  he's at the tail end of his 6 week growth spurt, so for the past week he wasn't sleeping quite as long at night and was eating more often during the day - monday he ate every two hours all day!  it was a long day, especially since scott had to work late; he got home to me preparing dinner and mats crying upstairs (he was supposed to be napping, but hadn't wanted to nap all afternoon) and i just gave him a look that apparently said, "it's your turn now."  (i had intended it more to say, "do you see what i've been putting up with all day?"  same difference, really.)

the highlight of yesterday was that i got the bathrooms cleaned, dishes and laundry done, and house vacuumed!  (vacuum is one of the few words i almost never spell correctly on first attempt - i always want to spell it "vaccum" for some reason.)  i've realized that of the many things that change when you have a kid, sense of accomplishment is right up there at the top.  it really is amazing, though, how much more you can get done when you have to feed your kid only every 3 hours rather than every 2 hours.  (when it takes 30 minutes at a time.)

last night goo and a friend came over to hang out with mats while scott and i went to see "thor" - fun movie!!  the theater just down the street from us has 1/2 price tickets on tuesdays, so i foresee a fair number of tuesday date nights in our future.  highly recommend "thor" for a fun movie night, and i'm sure i'll be recommending the sequel that the movie totally set itself up for.

goodbye spring

we had a very productive weekend if i do say so myself: we actually installed both of our new toilets ON OUR OWN relatively quickly and with no problems - wow!  we took scott's truck in to get the snow tires taken off and squeaky brakes checked out.  we got our outside water turned on so that our roof guy could come fix the masonry on top of our chimney (that was supposed to be monday, but it's on hold for now due to cold and rainy weather - not great for what he needed to do).  we installed my new bird feeder "kit" that i got with birthday money (thanks, mom and dad!) and hung up my also-newly-acquired seed feeder and hummingbird feeder.  we got another estimate for landscaping work, and while the whole project is going to be a little pricier than we initially realized, no better time for it than now, so i think we're going to go for it.  i spent yesterday examining the landscaping plan we had done last year and trying to figure out how much plants and trees cost.  we also enjoyed the lovely and sunny spring weather with a walk, grilling, and much relaxing and movie watching.  please note that as i write this, our lovely spring weekend has disappeared into a chilly and overcast week - complete with a snowstorm last night/today.

the drive-in on friday night was fun in my mind and a little disappointing in scott's.  it was chilly on friday night, so we took wally, laid down the seats, and camped out in the tailgate ... but unfortunately that means that we were looking through the rear window which has big black defrosting lines across it.  it didn't bother me at all, but scott wasn't thrilled with the situation.  scott thought the theater was dumpy and the radio quality staticky - i thought it was a normal drive-in.  combined with the 40 minute drive and our 1:15am return home, i don't think we'll be making the drive-in a weekly destination, but i relatively sure i'll be able to convince scott to take me back by next summer.  movie reviews: "how to train your dragon" was cute, well done, fun, and i highly recommend it!  "iron man 2" wasn't quite as amazing as the original, but it also started after 10pm and both of us were falling asleep by the end, so i don't know that i can give a realistic review.  (saturday night's movie-at-home - thanks to our blockbuster rewards card and a free old-movie monthly rental - was john grisham's "the firm" from 1993, back when tom cruise was successful and un-crazy, and 17 years later the movie is still pretty fabulous.)

drive-in date night

so excited that it is once again drive-in season!  there is only one drive-in movie theater left in the metro area, about 40 minutes away, but since we haven't been to a drive-in in two years (three?), we're going to brave the drive on friday night.  we were originally aiming for saturday night to go with friends, but everyone has other plans so we moved it up to be our regularly scheduled friday night date night entertainment.  on the docket is how to train your dragon and iron man 2 (both of which we were already excited about seeing, and make for a pretty rockin opening night at the drive-in if you ask me) and approximately 15 blankets and pillows in wally's tailgate.  even if it is mid-50s and rainy today, summer, here we come!

scott had originally wanted to do a full on 50's date night and go to sonic or culver's for hamburgers and custard before the movies, but in reading the drive-in's website, i saw that they ask you to eat at their snack bar because that's how they make a profit and stay in business.  since i'd like to not start having to drive 90 mintues each way to get to the next closest drive-in, i voted for giving the snack bar a shot at least.  i may still whip out my thick-rimmed-and-rhinestoned 50's cat-eye glasses that i wore to a costume party last halloween, though.  :)  yes we do have fun together, why do you ask?

sunshine!

we are having such a lovely sunshiney weekend!  we slept in this morning til 9 (ooh la la), finished picking our house colors, and went on a nice bike ride in the 55* sunshine for an hour or so.  so fun - i love lazy saturdays!  we also had leftover pizza for lunch, which i think is the 4th time this week that i've had pizza for a meal.  we had planned to hang out with friends tonight and bring over a pizza, which will make 5 meals.  i love pizza (truly, it's one of my favorite foods), but healthwise i think i might should take at least a week off of it.

last night was my birthday date, and it was super fun.  we had another 5280 dinner at the melting pot which was soooooo good.  i love fondue.  we had fondue once at geja's in chicago and loved it, and i have been wanting fondue again ever since (wow, just realized that our geja's date was six years ago).  i decided that if the melting pot participates in 5280 every year, i will happily make it my annual birthday dinner.  in keeping with our tradition of doing a cultural date activity for my birthday each year, we got tickets to guys and dolls at the littleton town hall arts center, conveniently located three blocks from the melting pot.  also very fun!  the theater is small, maybe six or seven rows deep, but they do seating in the round, sort of a semi-circle shape around the stage so there really aren't any bad seats in the house.  the musical was funny, engaging, and well acted.  had i known at the time that the melting pot extended their 5280 special through the whole month of march (it was supposed to end last night) i think we would have done dinner and the show on a saturday night rather than after work on a friday, but still, very fun birthday date night!

suspense

so apparently i was wrong in my assumption that the present scott is going to get me was for valentine's day.  i asked, and whatever it is is not for my birthday either - or for any other occasion.  so i'm hanging in suspense until the right rainy day comes along!  i'll keep you posted.  (valentine's date was lovely, btw.  we both really enjoyed "emma", i enjoyed my chianti while scott had a nice glass of mountain dew, and our pizza was heart shaped and covered in pepperoni.  incidentally, i do not recommend papa john's heart pizza - it's thin crust, which is great with some toppings, but just doesn't cut it with pepperoni.  mental note to stick to papa murphy's shaped pizzas.)

we had our roof adjustor out yesterday morning, finally.  since scott and i both had to work and just had the roofer there on our behalf, the adjustor called me post-appointment with good news for us: he agreed that the roof was very hail damaged and worthy of full replacement!  i believe that his full replacement price was $10,5xx - but they'll take our $1000 deductible and $28xx for depreciation out of that total, so we'll get a check for about $6700.

BUT, if we replace the roof with a comparable roofing material, we can send in proof (after the job is done, of course) to the insurance company and get the $28xx depreciation money refunded to us, so that we only have to pay our deductible out of pocket.  i'm not sure if "comparable" means using a certain grade of asphalt shingles, or if it refers more to us not upgrading from asphalt shingles to, say, copper roofing or something, but trust me, we'll be making sure we use comparable materials.  (try to picture our suburban 1970s trilevel in the midst of a jungle of asphalt roofs with a glowing copper roof - pretty funny!)  anyway, his price was right on par with the estimate we got from our roofing company, which is good.  also good is that, while i need to finalize our '09 taxes still, i think that our refund should cover the new roof and new gutters!  now i just need to figure out what color i want everything to be ...

late night and future fun

poor scott worked 15.5 hours yesterday.  8am to 11:30pm.  not fun.  he's actually been working long hours for the past few weeks, but i've been trying to adapt my schedule to it and hang out with girlfriends in the evenings so i'm not sitting alone at home.  it has been nice - i got together with girls a few times last week, and had goo and miranda over to watch "post grad" (which was awful, but really so bad it's funny) and have dinner on tuesday.  last night was my first night with scott working super late and no outside plans for myself, so after watching tv and sitting on my butt for a while, i actually managed to motivate myself to do the dishes, clean the kitchen, put away laundry, and wipe down the bathroom vanity.  i was pretty proud of myself, not going to lie.

not sure what his night tonight will look like, so i'm trying to brainstorm more semi-productive activities for myself.  maybe i'll finally get around to cutting the fabric for my picnic quilt.  speaking of, how cute is this quilt?  i love the circles on the edges of the squares.  all those round edges seem like they'd be a bit of a challenge, though, so i'm trying to limit myself to straight edges for now - i can work up to round.  and i guess i do have some jeans that need to be shortened too ... cutting fabric sounds more fun, though.  we'll see.

very exciting on the planning front - denver has an event called 5280 restaurant week every year.  (5280 being denver's official elevation in feet: 5280 feet = 1 mile.)  technically it's two weeks (feb 20-march 5), but a bunch of restaurants across the metro participate with a pre-fixed menu, usually three+ courses for $52.80/couple (or $26.40/individual).  some of the restaurants, you have to wonder who goes during 5280 since you'd likely spend less there on an average visit (like the overpriced gourmet pizza place we went to on saturday - each got a little pizza and a beverage and spent $30).  some of the restaurants, however, are smokin deals.  last year we went to a place called rodizio, which is a brazilian steakhouse, so they come around with giant skewers of fresh meats and cut a little bit of whatever you'd like off for you, all you can eat.  so we spent $52.80 on that, whereas normally it was like $35/person + $5/ea for salad bar (although i just checked their website and i think they've lowered their costs, as it's now only $33/person including salad bar).  this year, our small group is getting together and going to the restaurant kevin taylor, which is the only four star restaurant in denver, and as such is supposed to be absolutely amazing.  two of my coworkers have gone there with their spouses, one ended up hitting it at the tail end of 5280 last year and said it was amazing, the other went during a normal time and said they spent close to $200 on dinner, with just a glass of wine each.  crazy!  (just checked the menu, and the appetizer and entree together are about $49/person, plus a dessert ... all of which we will be enjoying for $52.80 total!)  anyway, we're doing that opening weekend of 5280, and since my birthday happens to fall the monday after the closing weekend of 5280, i managed to swing a second fancy dinner from it this year.  as we typically celebrate my birthday with some sort of cultural event (since we've been married: symphony, ballet, underwhelming lifehouse concert, and art museum/night out downtown), i was looking around to see if anything struck my fancy in the local theaters - no ballets or operas, and the denver theater company downtown was doing mary poppins which i don't think i'd be able to drag scott to if i tried.  then i remembered that littleton has a theater company downtown, and it turns out that they're doing "guys and dolls" that weekend - perfect!  not to mention, there's a fondue place a few blocks away that i've been wanting to go to since we moved here, and it's a part of 5280!

actually, now that i think about it, we actually have quite a bit of fun stuff coming up on our calendar: night skiing with friends next weekend, suns v. nuggets game with goo and the guy she's dating the week after that, a baby shower for a friend from grad school (fun for me, and fun for scott in that he doesn't have to go), restaurant kevin taylor, kinley's 2nd birthday party, another nuggets game on my boss's tickets, and then my birthday date!  whew.  i'm feeling much more content with staying home and cutting fabric now.  (although i do still feel bad for scott having to work such late nights.)

comfy cozy

wow, so denver has now had it's official first snow of the year! official in my terms, at least - ie, i could see flakes of snow falling from the window of my office. weather people probably require accumulation or something, which we didn't get - i think it turned to rain by the time it got to the ground. a friend just south of the metro area posted picture on facebook of a good 1/2 inch of snow on her deck, though. i wore a sweater and close-toed shoes today (which is worth noting as i've work flip flops for everything except hiking since, like, april) but didn't think to bring a jacket to work, so i really hope i don't have to spend much time outside.

even though it was quite lovely out this weekend, i more or less spent all weekend in the same outfit - tshirt i got from target for $8 on friday and am smitten with, tank top because the v-neck is a little low cut for me, and yoga pants. i think i changed into that friday night as soon as i got home from target, wore real clothes to have coffee with a friend on saturday morning, but changed back into my comfy clothes to hang out with mike and maura saturday night, and back into it again after church on sunday. i've officially become "that person". and i'm okay with that. we went to coldstone to use our 2-for-1 coupon around 8pm friday night, both in our comfies, and the teenaged kid working the register was trying to make conversation, like, "oh, how's your night going, anything exciting?" we just kind of looked at each other and said, "mm, not much" - meaning, we reheated leftovers for dinner, were getting ready to watch wolverine from redbox, and using a coupon at coldstone. that's married life, and i like it.

anniversary recap

anniversary celebration was fun! i got home at 6 to find scott cooking up a storm in the kitchen - he had made me dinner! and not just any dinner, but the dinner that he made almost five years ago when he proposed - artichoke and curry appetizer, lobster tails, cream puffs. yummy. and he bought me a beautiful bouquet of flowers (which included a blue hydrangea - our wedding flower), AND he got us a nice bottle of wine! when scott told me earlier in the week that he had plans for us for dinner, i had had a fleeting thought that it'd be wonderful if he made me a fancy dinner, but realistically thought we'd likely be going out somewhere, so it was a perfect surprise. he said that he had thought about doing a restaurant, but he didn't think that really indicated any sacrifice or thought on his part. say it with me - awwwwww.

and then my gift to scott was an anniversary book! let me elaborate: a few years ago, scott's dad suggested that we write down what we do to celebrate our anniversary every year so that we can remember down the line what we did. and one of our traditions on our anniversary date is that we sort of recap the last year and talk about what we did, and what our favorite memories were, etc. so i've been looking for a book that's set up to write down both of those, and while i did find a few options, most were super cheesy, or only set up for 10 years, or had fill-in-the-blank questions ... they just weren't perfect. not to mention that i have told scott that i expect at least 75 years of marriage out of him, since we got married young-ish and people are living longer these days. an anniversary memory book shouldn't stop at 25 years, or go to every five years at that point - every year is important! anyway, i decided to take matters into my own hands and make one! this week has been super slow at work, so i got to spend a fair bit of time playing with fonts and formats and printed out a few options for us so that we can decide on the final product together. just to show you how on the same page we are, scott said he'd had a thought of doing something similar, except more as a recap rather than something to continue doing going forward - but he didn't have the extra time to work on it. so he really liked my present! i'll get some pictures of it on here when we have the final product done.

stalking and celebrating

oh my, so i was catching up on my blog reading this morning, and in the last picture in one of the pioneer woman's blogs, her sister-in-law was wearing a hat that said "drummond ranches". since she had said just earlier in that same blog that drummond was their last name, i figured she was basically asking me to google it. (ahem.) i googled around, and found: a) a listing for drummond east ranch for sale for $6m - apparently they live nearish tulsa, which i assumed - although from the history section on the listing, it looks like that ranch is from a different branch of the family, b) this very interesting article that interviews her brother-in-law about day to day operations on their ranch (in which i learned that pw's husband's real name is ladd - ick), and c) that their family is the 77th largest land owner in the country.

fascinating. i don't know what the world did before google. i was reading an article online yesterday about school librarianship (which is my current dream job), and this one librarian was talking about how part of the new library job is to teach kids how to use computers in research, and how they have encyclopedias on cd-rom and every once in a while get to use the web for research. i was shocked. i mean, i get that there's some risque stuff on the web, but get some filtering software or something - nobody uses cd-rom encyclopedias anymore! with wiki, google, and online journals and newspapers and encyclopedias, there's no need to use something that's outdated the moment it's burned.

anyway, today's our 4-year wedding anniversary! yay! i told scott last week that he had permission to plan a date for us, which might sound controlling, but it wasn't meant to be - it was more like, "i know i'm a stickler on the budget, but it's our anniversary which is important so we should make the effort to do something, and i'm willing to plan something, but i feel like i plan everything and i know you like planning fun dates for us, so go for it if you want to and i promise not to interfere." anyway, scott's taking me out tonight, but i don't know what we're doing yet - he told me i need more surprises in my life. haha. yay for us! i've been working on a present for scott all week, but he gets to find out about it before everyone else in my life this time, so i'll post about it tomorrow. you can hold your horses. it's pretty fabulous, though, in my humble opinion.

(p.s. - scott really looks forward to things like birthdays and anniversaries, which i enjoy. i think it's super cute, though, because on, say, the day before his birthday, he'll say, "it's my birthday-eve, what are we going to do today?!" as though everyone of course celebrates the day before their birthday. two days ago, we woke up bright and early before work and the first words out of his mouth were, "happy anniversary eve-eve!" you know, as in the eve of the anniversary-eve? it makes me laugh.)

putting off cleaning

walden it is! in thinking of names for the forester, i had been circling around trying to find something naturey, or foresty ... i was trying to think of famous forests and thought of the schwarzenwald (black forest) in germany, but felt it too multisyllabic, thought of the word wald (pronounced "vald" auf deutsch) which means "forest" but it was too foreign, thought of thoreau and walden pond in passing through the walt whitman thing, but nothing was sticking. then my dad (i assume the steve is you, dad? i don't think i know any other steves who would read my blog and comment) left the comment: "For a name, how about Walden? Brings to mind Thoreau, Walden Pond, and quiet contemplation. A forest can also be quiet and contemplative. Hmm, isn't "wald" the German word for forest?" yes! perfect! thank you for bringing it all together for me. so, walden it is, wally for short.

other highlights of the weekend ... on friday night we watched "fireproof"! it was actually really good - it certainly had a fair amount of cheesiness, but i thought the story it told made up for that. if nothing else, it did a great job portraying real marriage and how necessary faith is for true reconciliation and growth. scott liked it too, and afterward thanked me for making him watch it. (we watched "the wrestler" a few weeks ago, which i just found very depressing and lacking hope, so scott told me i could pick whatever movie i liked next time around - i said "fireproof", and scott groaned.) i can't guarantee you'll like "fireproof", but if nothing else, i think it gives a good perspective and food for thought. (christianity today has a good review of it here.)

yesterday was some errands in the morning, followed by a lot of yardwork - doing little bits and pieces at a time, it's easy to forget in the meantime quite how much work there is to do ... but there's a lot. especially since i think we'll just have to pull out all of the river rock in the front, pull up the 40 year old weedbarrier, get the area cleaned out, and just start over. we're still debating mulch vs. washing out and reusing the existing rock. i like the look of mulch, but we already have the rock, and if you use wood mulch, you have to remulch every year, which gets pricey. we'll see. i decided yesterday that while the landscape designer gave us a 5-year plan, it'll probably be more like a 10 year plan. also, i decided that we can never move since we will have things here exactly as we like them ... and i'm never doing this much work on a house again. if we have more than 2 kids, they'll just have to share rooms. sorry, future children.

last night, we headed up to boulder to meet scott's good college friend loren and his wife jess for dinner and hanging out. they're full time missionaries with campus crusade in central asia, in ft. collins for the summer to help with some training; it was really fun getting to catch up with them and hear all about life and ministry over there. then this morning was the ground breaking for our church's new building, so the service beforehand was a lot of vision for the church and new people at mission hills sharing what god's been doing in their lives. it was really neat, and very encouraging. we stuck around for the lunch/hang out time after the ground breaking, which ended up being really fun - a lot of our friends were out of town or just left early, so we ended up getting to catch up with several couples that we know but don't see often. it was a good time!

i really need to go work on getting the house cleaned up a little bit ... scott's dad's flying in thursday night for them to start their roadtrip out to omaha (for the college world series) on friday, and i don't think he'd appreciate the current mildewy state of our bathtub. also, our entryway somehow invariably becomes a magnet for stuff, so we probably have 10 pair of shoes scattered around there, plus a few bags, some books, paper towels, and tools from putting in our new wireless doorbell. yikes.

to boldly go

just one more teensy car comment, then i promise i'll move on. i was looking up specs on my current car ('99 saturn sl2 that goes by the name of erma), and found a roadtest review on consumer reports. technically, it's for the '00 model, but it's totally spot on:

The Saturn provides the worst driving experience of the group. Its ride feels unsettled, with sharp bumps sending harsh vibrations through the car's body. A full load only makes the ride less settled. The car is also noisy. The engine growls when accelerating, pronounced wind noise intrudes at speed, and gear whine adds an air of crudeness.

Although it's the sporty version of the S-Series sedans, the SL2 lacks the handling agility of many other small cars. It corners with fairly pronounced body roll, and the tires squeal prematurely. The steering isn't very responsive, with ordinary turns requiring more steering-wheel input than in other cars. Plus, a wide 40-foot turning circle makes parking clumsy.

we especially laughed at the knock on the turning radius - it's so true. scott usually equates erma to rosie o'donnell when he's trying to pull a u-turn.

anyway, we decided to do our date night on thursday night rather than friday this week, because we are getting old. literally, scott suggested going out on thursday, i said, "or we could just do friday like normal," and he said it might be better to do thursday so we don't have to deal with all of the teenagers at the movies on friday night - and i quickly agreed. plus we based our going out on what coupons we had available. for dinner, we used our 50% off coupon at this colorado chain called c.b. & potts, which was surprisingly good. we figured it'd be sort of like another applebee's (which isn't bad - we like applebee's), but while they had a good burger selection, they also had really tasty "real" entrees. (and the feel of the place was a little bit nicer, but still casual.) i had chicken tenderloins in a porter/mushroom sauce with mashed potatoes and green beans. then, we used our movie theater coupon ($6.50/ea rather than $10/ea) and went to see star trek which was AWESOME! i totally grew up watching star trek: the next generation (and even a little bit of deep space 9 and voyager), but other than the movies, didn't have a whole lot of exposure to the original star trek. they did a great job of making it accessible to non-trekkies, but i think still keeping the feel of the original ... plus they had some amazing action scenes. i had wanted to see it from the first preview we saw, while scott was very skeptical - he changed his tune quickly once it got 95% good reviews on rottentomatoes. seriously, it was fabulous, and you should definitely go see it.