Silly Goals...

I always have to laugh at myself when I say things like, "I plan to write a post five days a week," and then I don't even maintain that for the first week.

I know that I still need to put up pictures of the dining room.  I will, promise.

I'm coming up from the craziness that is parent-teacher conference week and feeling really good and really inspired by teaching and life in general.  (Oh yeah, my job is safe for next year.)

Last night over drinks I discussed some aspects of education with some wise teachers who have been at this for a while, and I have some interesting ideas for some new pieces to write, which will question the adversary between teachers and administration, how it got that way, and how it continues to impact kids negatively while neither side will budge.  I'm very curious about this and interested in exploring it.  I'll try to share along the way.

How clearly you see everything...

I've been thinking along these lines, from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, one of my favorite books:

"The last time of anything has the poignancy of death itself. This that I see now, she thought, to see no more this way. Oh, the last time how clearly you see everything; as though a magnifying light had been turned on it. And you grieve because you hadn't held it tighter when you had it every day. What had Gramma Mary Rommely said? "To look at everything always as though you were seeing it for the first or last time: Thus is your time on Earth filled with glory."

There are more significant clues this week that my job might change or be eliminated for next year.  Sad.  It's quite interesting how knowing time is/might be limited can make any circumstance more beautiful, including eighth graders right before Spring Break.  Lessons to learn from Gramma Mary Rommely.

"Helix" by Banana Yoshimoto

We were assigned this story for class this week.

This story is about a writer with a hangover who seems ambivalent and disconnected from his life, primarily his girlfriend, until she tells him she's considering going to a seminar with a friend that promises to clean out your bad memories.  This seems to wake him up and make him think about the possibility that he could be erased from her life, despite the fact that she reassures him otherwise: "I promise that I'll be able to recover all my memories of you...Even when I have crushes on other men, I always see you in the curve of their eyebrows" (654, Art of the Story, Edited by Halpern).

Oh, literature.  I've always said that I love teaching reading and writing because they are ways to get at the bigger picture of life, and this story is yet another example of the way a great text can provide a little life lesson.  Reading this story reminded me a lot of the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.  When I saw that movie for the first time, I bawled through the entire thing because it made me think about all the things I was taking for granted in my various relationships.  This story is a nice wake up call for that same reason.  Also, some gems of language, as listed above.  I'll be happy to lend out my copy of the anthology at the end of the semester. 

Seasonal Meal Plans

I read about this idea somewhere (probably a blog, if it's you, I'd love to give you credit) and thought it was basically ingenius:

The idea is that you lay out basically a month's worth of meals that you know your family likes, create shopping list for each week, and then you can just print off (or create in a cool iPod app) that week's list when it's time to go shopping.  It eases weekly shopping and planning.  We just switched from our winter plan to our spring plan, and it was an exciting change.

Because we only ate each meal in the grid once a month, I didn't really get sick of them.  I did notice, though, which ones weren't actually my favorites.  I made a note on them to sub them out for something different next year.  I also modified this grid by adding more room for trying new recipes, and left space at the bottom to log recipes we wanted to try and the locations of those recipes, so they'd be easy to find when it was time to make that week's list.

I have been really pleased with this system and how much it has automated an area of my life where I used to spend quite a bit of time on a weekly basis.  I know that once we have a year's worth of meals and we are just tweaking and adding new recipes, it will work even better.  Now, if I could only make myself follow this same sort of plan for cleaning...

Coming out of Hibernation

I feel rejuvenated by the semblance of spring that's made it our way this week.  I stop wearing my coat in March whether or not it makes sense (this means that sometimes I am a walking marshmallow from all of my layers), but this week it actually felt right.  The sun was out for most of the week.  Temperatures were in the 30s and 40s during the day.  Birds are coming back. 

I know that I'm a person affected by weather (slightly), but I think I try to ignore it in the dead of winter.  It seems counter-intuitive to me that I wouldn't want to work on "inside" projects when it's awful outside, so I make lofty goals for myself about what I'll write and read, etc.  The truth is that I rarely want to accomplish much of anything.  I think this is the first time I've been able to fully acknowledge this about myself.  Hopefully next year I can set some different, more relaxing, fun goals to coincide with this time.

I was looking at my New Year's goals post and reflecting this morning.  I've done well on a couple goals I set out to try in January:  sending birthday cards and thank you notes promptly, though I have missed my nephew Logan's 5th birthday and need to remedy this soon.  My novel's first draft is nearly complete (I actually hope to finish it today so it is no longer hanging over my head), and we are taking steps to make our house more home-like.  I'm feeling better about my teaching than I was in January.  So baby steps have been made. 

We were having a conversation the other night with friends about how easy it is to get in an "adult rut" of going to work, watching TV, going to bed, and doing it all over again.  J. and I naturally combat this by not having a TV hooked up to cable (though we did move it into a different room so we could watch the Olympics).  I find that I can spend just as much time mindlessly wasting time on the Internet, though, so I'm not sure my habits are all that different than that pattern on my worst days.  J. is really good at pushing himself to do more with his time, and that is one of the best things he does for me as a partner--he pushes me to do the same. 

I'm excited for what the spring has in store.  As I look back over my 2010 goals and think about which ones I'd like to focus on in March, writing still takes the forefront.  I feel like my birthday card habit is up and running, and my teaching is back in a better place.  I haven't done anything with goal #3, automating my money more and giving more to charity.  But I also know that March will be a big month for home improvement, as we tackle our first wall-painting project. 

My new plan of action/goal on this blog/in life is to set aside time to consider these ideas and write five posts per week--one on each of the categories reflected in the title of the blog.  I have a whole slew of ideas, so we'll see if I can follow through this time. 

Is spring doing anything to shift your mental perspective?

I'm loving this story.

I'm writing a paper about this story, Adam Haslett's "City Visit."

I might be sharing it because I need a little break from writing my paper.  But I think it's worth a read, so I thought I'd share in case you need a distraction too.

Greek Yogurt is Yummy.

Confession:  I didn't make it a whole month.

J.'s family Christmas celebration was January 24th and 25th, and the cheesy potatoes and sugar cookies did me in.  I did have smaller portions (only 1 cookie, if you can believe that!) because I was concerned about how my body would react to the dairy fat after so long without.  After that weekend, I started using butter and cheese in recipes again.  I also imbibed in some adult beverages last weekend, though again, very moderately.

I have to say that the detox was a good experience overall, even though the main benefit was different than the one I anticipated.  I anticipated that I would feel better and feel good about readjusting to better habits than I had in January.  That certainly happened.

I didn't anticipate how delicious everything would be once I started consuming it again.  It had only been 3 weeks, people!  Cheese is so rich and salty.  Wine is so fragrant and warming and complex.  Because I had deprived myself of the things I love, I genuinely appreciated them so much.  I feel like I still have that attitude today, even though I've settled into my pre-December eating habits.   I don't think I'll need to experience such a formal deprivation period again for a long time, but it was a great experiment for mindful eating and gratitude for food that I love.

Speaking of which...  my new obsession:

This obsession just started yesterday.  I'd only had Greek yogurt in small spoonfuls on sample day at the grocery store, but I must be reading about it on blogs or something, because I decided to splurge on some in celebration of dairy being back in my life full force.  I bought honey-flavored because they were out of plain, and some frozen berries because fresh were too expensive, and my oh my.  So delicious.  Thank you, cows.