Delirity

Jesse and I had a great Thanksgiving weekend together. We drove up to Timberline (where there was a bunch of snow!) and had the most amazing hot chocolate. A 1.5 mile drive down a dirt road led us to an amazing place to find a Christmas tree (which is now up and decorated). My wonderful husband took me to see New Moon (and even finally broke down and started reading the Twilight books… though I think it’s partially so  he can tease me about it in more in depth ways). And I managed to rip the left side view mirror off my car.

All of it was good. I can’t believe I damaged my car (there’s $350 in stupid tax!)… but I was thankful that it didn’t faze either of us and we just moved along with our weekend together. Despite certain things in my life that I get annoyed with, there is so much to be thankful for. I’m trying to focus on all the incredible things in my life so that those annoying things fade into the background.

I’ve been reading The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families recently. It’s great. I’m learning a lot about things I want to do and don’t want to do and need to change or focus on.

One of the most staggering things that I’ve read so far were the estimates of time spent watching tv. 6 hours per day per kid. 15 hours per week per adult. Dang. That’s just not right. Thankfully I don’t watch that much tv. I only watch 11 1/2 hours per week (assuming all the shows I watch are on).

How the heck did that happen? (I know, I started watching new things and old shows didn’t go away.) Thankfully I watch things after they air for the most part, so the 11 1/2 hour estimate is sans commercial. If I were to watch them on tv… it’d be right at 15 hours per week. Ugh. Apparently I need to work on removing some tv from my life… or consider getting exercise equipment that I stick in front of it.

This past week I’ve had some of the nastiest headaches I’ve had in years. I’ve stretched. I’ve chiropracted (yea, I know it isn’t really a word). I’ve exercised. I’ve cooled. I’ve heated. And yet, I still hurt.

Today was my regularly schedule acupuncture appointment (yea, I go regularly now… that’s how I actually am able to sleep like a normal person most of the time). I was hoping that Andrea, my really awesome acupuncturist, would be able to help loosen up the muscles in my back and neck so I can go back to being a normal human being. After the needles, Andrea suggested we do some cupping. She told me I’d probably wind up with some bruises, but that the suction from the cups works sort of like what would happen if she did a whole bunch of needles – except I wouldn’t feel like a human pin cushion. So far (an hour later), I’m feeling better – we’ll see if it really makes my headaches stop. It was definitely an interesting experience and I sure do have the marks to prove it!

I’m starting early on planning some really useful goals for next year. One is going to keep me on the straight and narrow of reading books that will keep me growing as a person. I’ve got a bunch of great recommendations courtesy of Dave Ramsey, but I’d love to hear what other non-fiction books people have been enjoying and think might be of benefit to read!

I’m thinking I’d like to have a list of things ready that I’d like to read, and then I’ll pick one per month. That should still leave me plenty of time for all my fiction reading. This year I’ve been reading along with the Sound Mind, Sound Mom book club where Tsh picked out some really great books for the year. It’s been good, though quite frequently I read the books too far in advance or I get behind because I get busy reading other things (for the book club you usually read only a chapter or two per week – and I just don’t read that way!).

It’s amazing. Since Jesse and I have living in separate states, I’ve notice that when we are together two things happen 1) it doesn’t matter what we do, we just need to be together 2) anything that needs to get done with both of us gets done very efficiently. We tend to have our serious life planning discussions when we’re together.

This weekend’s decisions:

• We’re definitely going to work as hard as we can to save up to open Jesse’s practice with cash
• Our lovely Italy trip is still a go for when he’s done at his current job
• We’re going to do everything within our power to be out of debt by the time we’re 30 (that’s 3 years and a few months)… or hopefully before we turn 31 if we can’t quite meet our goal that fast
• Paying off all our debt means delaying purchasing a home until all the student loans are gone… but that’s ok. We want a home to be a blessing, not a burden.

Whew. I’m tired just thinking about it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go paint my nails… since I no longer have money to go get them done