Archive | thoughts

my goals for 2013

January 3, 2013 at 10:57 am

completely unrelated photo from a hike we took recently as a family

I wrote my 2013 goals down one morning when I couldn’t get back to sleep, and Elliott and I have been talking about them since then. He helped me make some of them more realistic and then encouraged me to add others, so… we’ll see what’s realistic in the end!

Love Elliott and Lena and our Baby Boy.

When I asked Elliott what his goals were for 2013, the first thing he said was, “Love you and Lena.” This was humbling to me, as I was going to start with War and Peace. Reality check. Loving my best friend and my dear daughter (and my new son in just a few weeks!) is at the top of my list.

Finish War and Peace!

I got 1/3 of the way through it this year and then never went back to it. This year I will finish it!

Read at least 10 of these books.

On another book-related note, I went through lists online of “the books to read before you die” and “the best 100 novels” and came up with this list of ones I haven’t read but have always wanted to. So my goal is to read at least 10 of these books:

100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
A Passage to India by E.M. Forester
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Confessions by St. Augustine
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Dracula by Bram Stoker
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
Kim by Rudyard Kipling
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
Middlemarch by George Eliot
Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Moviegoer by Walker Percy
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

Sell 50 handmade items either through craft fairs or through my Etsy shop.

Study Italian

Complete this Italian workbook as well as the two volumes of Pimsleur Italian audio series that we have owned since… oh, since we got here 18 months ago… Both Elliott and I thought that these goals were very manageable and would also seriously improve my Italian.

Learn more about and practice the manual settings on my camera.

I have got to do this. Where to even begin? Where to set goals? But at least this is a start.

Launch my blog on a new website.

I hinted at this development in my last post. This time my blog will be self-hosted, which means I will own all my own content and have more control than Blogger allows. Elliott has been encouraging me to do this for awhile and I just need to buckle down and get the website up and running! I am eager to share this with you sometime in the next few weeks. Wish me luck, as setting up and designing a blog is not my forte.

Publish a piece of writing (fiction or non-fiction) in a non-blog setting.

I have no idea what this will look like yet, so that’s why it’s a very vague goal! But it’s a step in the right direction to improve my writing.

And then I made a separate list of all the things I want/need to do around home before the baby comes! You know, things like…

Replace the burned-out lightbulbs in bathroom
Clear out guest room (which is covered in bags of baby clothing and organizational bins)
Replace the old shower curtain
Repair my jeans
Start a recipe binder
Get the car cleaned
Wash car seat cover and install the car seat in the car
~~Get new vacuum cleaner and sell/trash old ones~~ done!
Throw out unused/mismatched plastic containers in kitchen to make room for the new ones on their way from Amazon
Restack linens in the linen closet
And more… but I won’t bore you!

Some of these things will take me 10 minutes or less but they must be done for my sanity. Since Lena is napping, I have 10 minutes right now. Gonna go work on that list!

What are your goals for 2013? Inspire me!

19 :: in thoughts

my 2012 goals in review

January 2, 2013 at 12:31 pm

image from a guest post I did for The Book of Love

Thanks to publishing my 2012 goals on my blog last year, they were on my mind a lot this year. And how did they go? Let’s review. I wanted to:

Sell 100 things in my Etsy store.

This actually kind of happened, thanks to the craft fair in December! I didn’t really think I’d get anywhere near 100 items, but I at least got closer to it than I expected. I’ll update with an exact tally soon (my paperwork is in the same room where Lena is napping!) because I want to know the final number myself.

Update: I sold 58 items total… most of them fingerless gloves. I am excited to see that number but I still fell short of my goal. I’ve revised the number from 100 items to 50 items for 2013 and would like to surpass it this time!

Study Italian for 30 min each day.

Oh this was a total flop. I think I actually sat down and cracked open books for about 30 minutes total this year. Never fear, this goal will be revised and updated for 2013.

Do Bible study each day with Elliott.

Bible study happened almost every day. Elliott and I are days away from finishing the Read Through the Bible Program for Slackers and Shirkers for the second time in our marriage and are ready to move on to another Bible reading program for awhile. We’re thinking of using Tabletalk Magazine to guide our daily devotions together, but no decisions just yet.

Read a book a week for a total of 52 books this year.

OK, I’ll be honest: I was very worried about whether or not I could accomplish this goal. For awhile there in July after Julia died I kind of stopped reading at all and so it seemed like there was no way I could finish it. However, a couple of quiet months at the end of the year allowed me to catch up, and as of Dec 31st I read 54 books this year! I am working on a post about my 5 favorites that I read in 2012. I’m going to fine-tune this goal for 2013, as I am definitely a big fan of setting book-reading goals now. Be my friend on GoodReads to keep up with your own reading and set a book goal for yourself!

Eat and grocery shop locally.

Yep, definitely ate and shopped locally in 2012, although this is mostly for fresh food (vegetables, fruits, and fish); I still do most of my non-perishable shopping at the commissary on base. I shop locally during my weekly market shopping trips and by visiting the old man’s general store in our town’s piazza. As for eating out, though, we eat most of our meals at home and only eat at restaurants perhaps once every two weeks or so. With another baby on the way, I think we won’t be dining out very often this coming year either! That’s okay; it’s a stage of life.

Take some cooking classes and learn several Sicilian dishes.

I took a grand total of one cooking class last year and it was all about Thai food! Oh well. I have learned some more Sicilian dishes, though, mostly by word of mouth and observation. My hands-down favorite so far is Sicilian Blood Orange Salad.

Travel around Italy and Europe.

We did travel a lot around Italy and Europe! We visited:

Rome and the Balkans in January
Agrigento, Sicily, in February
France for a ski trip in March
Malta in April
Northern Italy, San Marino, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, and Lietchenstein on an epic road trip in May
Virginia in June
Crete in July
Naples, the Amalfi Coast, and then later the Dolomite Mountains in August
Noto, Sicily, and back to Virginia in September
Mt Etna in October
Cinque Terre in November
… and IKEA in December (because that place is a country all of its own)

Be a more compassionate wife to Elliott.

Well, this deserves an individual post, but one big thing I have learned is to actually listen to my husband. He often throws out suggestions like, “I wish you would try different styles in Lena’s hair,” or “I read this article about Greek islanders who live to be 100 and how they eat vegetarian food four times a week, fish twice a week, and meat once a week; could we do that?” A lot of times I’ll hear these suggestions and say, “Hmm, that’s a good idea. Maybe I’ll do that.” And then what happens? I forget he ever said it. One thing I tried to do this year was listen to what he said and then do it. It’s revolutionary. And it makes for one very appreciative husband, too.

Teach and love Lena.

Teach and love Lena… that happened automatically because she needed to be taught and because she is so loveable! But I had a lot of fun this year watching her learn to walk, cooking with her every day, and now teaching her the alphabet.

Get better at this blogging thing!

Talk about subjective, right? But I have been encouraged by improvements in my blogging, both in my own knowledge of the online world and blog design as well as seeing a growing community of friends in the blogosphere. Next year holds some exciting improvements for this blog, the biggest of which I hope to be revealing this month!

Did you make any goals for 2012? Do you feel like you accomplished them? Looks like my successes were about on par with my flops.

I’ll be back tomorrow with my goals for 2013!

7 :: in thoughts

not ready to say goodbye yet

January 1, 2013 at 6:55 pm

on a hike near our home in Sicily in early January 2012

I’ve attempted to write this post several times and it just isn’t flowing out of me. “Goodbye 2012, you were great! Bring it on, 2013!” That is anything but what I feel right now. When you stare at your computer screen, attempting to write, and then end up sobbing in bed instead, you know there’s no joy in your heart about sweeping out the old and welcoming the new.

How do you say goodbye to a year in which your baby sister died? How do you make yourself look forward? How do you celebrate what a new year could bring when this last year brought such sadness and loss?

The tears were mostly caused by looking back through old photos and videos. I was trying to find a photo from a year ago that I could use in my post, but this search led me to albums of images from the trip my family and I took to the Balkans last year. I found a video of Dec 31, 2011, when we were exploring Zagreb, Croatia. It was just a simple clip on my iPhone, but it included a scene–such an ordinary scene!–with Elliott and Julia standing side-by-side and taking pictures of my parents with Zagreb behind them. At the end of the video, Julia walked forward to show my parents the picture she’d just taken on my dad’s phone. Everything about that moment was so ordinary, so familiar: the way she walked, the shape of her hands, the expression on her face as she glanced at me to see if I was done filming before she started talking. She was so real in those few seconds, so present, so alive.

I guess I haven’t watched any videos of her since she died; maybe that’s what shook me up so much. Or maybe I am so busy a lot of the time that I just don’t think about it. Unexpected moments like this take me back to Square 1 of grief again.

And so… I don’t know. Sometimes I think I’m still in the denial stage of grief. (Actually, what I really think is that you go through all the stages multiple times… probably for the rest of your life.) And so, on this New Year’s Day, I hold many different emotions in my heart. Sadness as well as joy. Sorrow as well as hope. Disappointment as well as thankfulness. Anguish as well as peace.

I often go back and read this letter from my dad, which reminds me of truths I confess, truths about Julia, truths about life even when the night is very dark. Truths that give me joy, hope, thankfulness, and peace, even in the midst of sorrow.

This will be, I do hope, a beautiful year for our family. We will be welcoming a new baby in about 4 weeks! We will be making important decisions about Elliott’s career, our life after Sicily, and the future for our family. I also have a lot of personal goals and hopes, which I’m eager to share with you soon. Even this blog will see some exciting changes. We have good reason to be hopeful, thankful, and faithful.

And yet… there is this fear that instead of respite from turmoil and sadness, I may in fact experience more turmoil and sadness, or worse. I wonder if I was just living in a happy bubble before Julia died and now I really know “the truth.” The truth that most of life is sorrow, that the peaceful times are the exception, and that sadness and suffering is the rule. It’s a rather bleak picture, but perhaps it’s a more accurate way to view this life. What do you think?

11 :: in Balkans, grief, Julia, my faith, thoughts

three for thursday {and some thoughts}

December 6, 2012 at 12:02 pm

From our walk this morning: persimmons for Elliott (he loves them), Lena enjoying her red Christmas ball from the grocer, and the colors of our Italian neighborhood that make me happy.

Currently reading: Blog, Inc.by Joy of the blog Oh Joy! She’s giving me so much to think about for my blog. I am trying to read quickly, though, as I have less than four weeks to finish my book goal (read a book a week in 2012) and six books to go (yikes!).

Currently listening to: Ordinary Time. Elliott and I bought their Christmas CD (< you can listen to the whole CD there) when we heard them perform at our church in Cambridge, MA, back in our courtin' days. It's one of my favorite Christmas CDs. Any other good suggestions? Currently thinking about: How I really need to sweep the floors. Honestly… our floors. I have to sweep them at least twice a week to keep on top of all the dust and grime. How often do you have to clean your floors??

Currently planning: Pretty much nothing. I’m so glad that Night of Noel and the craft fair are over and I can just relax a bit! I am getting excited about making these cinnamon rolls for breakfast for the single sailors in the barracks this Saturday, though.

Currently making me happy: The sweetness of life during this holiday season. Elliott and I are so happy these days and are having so much fun together in the evenings as we work on our projects side by side. Lena is cheerful and responsive and sweet, a delight to be around as she learns and grows each day. We all pat my growing stomach with thankfulness and awe. These are precious days before our family expands in less than two months! After many years of waking up in the morning and often dreading what the day held (I hated math in high school, I was stressed by exams in college, I feared the chaos of work, etc.), it is so wonderful to wake up each morning and be thrilled to start the day. To kiss my husband (who is actually beside me instead of deployed) and go get my baby girl from her crib to snuggle with us in bed for awhile, to make warm oatmeal for breakfast to give us a toasty start for the day, to go on walks with Lena around our lovely neighborhood, to spend Lena’s naptimes cleaning and writing and reading and creating, to cook a meal for dinner every night and welcome Elliott home with peace and joy…

… oh, I am so blessed!

10 :: in husband, Lena, Sicily, thoughts

Night of Noel

December 4, 2012 at 4:24 pm

Lemme just say… Night of Noel… around here, it’s a big deal.

(OK, it’s a big deal for the group of Christian women connected to a rather small Naval Air Station on a rather small island in a rather small sea.)

For the past couple of years, Night of Noel has been ah-may-zing. My friend Joy (creator of Peppermint Bark Chocolate Chip cookies) transformed our chapel fellowship hall into a land touched by elves with twinkle lights. Unfortunately two things happened between last year and this year: Joy moved away this summer, and I volunteered to be the Hospitality Chair for my Bible study this fall. Unconnected, right? I thought so… until I found out that part of my new job included all the decorating for Night of Noel.

For those of you who don’t know me that well, I’m not much of a decorator, or even that creative. Sure, I like making things, like Peppermint Bark Chocolate Chip cookies and felt baby shoes, but generally I follow recipes or adapt patterns… or take a little jaunt around Pinterest.

Well, it was too late to turn back now. Recreating the magic of Night of Noel was up to me. Or so I thought.

What I found out, however, was that even though Night of Noel’s beauty was up to me in theory… whereas in reality I had a small army around me of dedicated, creative, and profoundly hardworking women. I showed up on Friday for an evening of decorating the hall and couldn’t believe it when about 10 other women showed up too. On Sunday afternoon even the guests who showed up early were happy to put the batteries in the last set of twinkle lights or take pictures of my table when I didn’t have time.

And my table that I was hostessing? It was a collaborative effort between my dear friend Becca and me (Becca Squared was at it again) and pretty much every idea was hers. Don’t you love the pine branches with the little place cards and the burlap straps that make the table look like a rustically wrapped gift? I added gilded pine cones that I’d collected on our latest Mt. Etna hike and spray painted gold, and then sprinkled greenery and cranberries around some of the candles on the table.

Christmas trees decorated with simple white lights were an easy solution to my decorating woes for the rest of the hall. Next year (did I just say that?) I might elevate the smaller trees onto tables so that the whole room could see them. There are at least five trees that are invisible in this picture:

The delicious meal was perfectly prepared by one of Lena’s favorite Italian babysitters, Maria. We started with bruschetta and Maria’s famous campanada, a Sicilian specialty. Later the main course included a chicken cutlets and the local classic: pasta alla Norma (eggplant, tomato, and ricotta pasta).

And then, just as I was beginning to breathe a sigh of relief, disaster struck.

We hostesses were responsible for our table’s dessert, and I thought chocolate fondue would be an easy and elegant option. Unfortunately I had no idea how many things were wrong with this plan.

I have never made fondue before in my life.
The commissary (grocery store) didn’t have the right kind of chocolate, but I didn’t know that so I just bought baking chocolate. (Gag.)
I made it in a crock pot over the course of several hours while I furiously finished decorating and then began hostessing my table.

When I hurried into the kitchen to supervise the serving of my dessert, the fondue was not fondue. As one friend aptly put it later, it looked like coffee grounds. Coffee grounds!!! The chocolate had formed large, grainy clumps and separated from the oil. I swirled a spoon around the pot with horrified despair.

Meanwhile my guests in the hall sipped their hot cider by candlelight and waited for dessert. The waiters around me were quickly plating white chocolate raspberry cheesecake and individual dark chocolate mousse that other table hostesses had brought.

In the end, Maria saved the day. She had made a huge Italian cake just because… because she’s Maria and she does unexpectedly sweet things like that. I asked the waiters to plate slices of her cake with the best of our fondue dippers: oranges and coconut cookies. It was a meager offering compared to my dreams, and I ate it like humble pie.

For the first time in my life that evening I received a public thank you and a gift for decorating the event. I have always wondered what it feels like to be one of those extraordinary, capable women who gets a gift bag and a big thank you in front of a room of applauding people enjoying her handiwork. Now I know how it feels.

It feels undeserved, because there are probably 15 other people who deserve this applause more than you do, 15 people who worked just as hard as you did but with no job description to egg them on.

It feels false, because “Becca’s beautiful vision” was all from those 15 other women. And Pinterest.

And it feels so sweet, because the people applauding are grateful and appreciative even when they eat oranges for dessert instead of chocolate and when they can’t see the miniature Christmas trees on the floor.

There is no Pleasure like that of receiving Praise from the Praiseworthy.

-Richard Steele-