Home Alone.

This is the first time I've been home alone all day on a weekday in months! I really didn't know what to do with myself this morning. I had great plans to be all super productive but the sun was out and it's really hard for me to be inside by myself when the sun is out. I wanted to bundle up and go to the Kirkland waterfront and drink tea and go for a walk but I stayed home and got a few smallish things accomplished. Our big project right now is organizing the garage (not a lot in there but VERY limited storage space) and turning the glorified hallway that is our "bonus room" into a craft room of sorts for me. It's amazing how the mess always gets bigger before it gets better. I did get all of the Christmas stuff packed away nicely in three large tubs and managed to go through a ton of paperwork in our file folders. Lots to be recycled and plenty of shredding to be done.

The dangerous part about me being home alone is that it is the absolute perfect time for me to bake. I could have done a lot more than I did so it's a good thing I got a late start. I still had an unopened container of eggnog in the fridge so I made a batch of baked eggnog french toast from the brunch cookbook that Tara gave me. It was the easiest thing ever and so tasty! I think the hardest part of the recipe would be the cranberry apple glaze that I decided was unnecessary since I was cooking only for myself. I just sliced a small baguette, placed the slices in a dish, poured 2.5 cups of egg nog over them, and allowed them to sit in the fridge all day, then baked 3 of the small slices in the toaster oven for about ten minutes. Yum! I also made two loaves of oatmeal molasses bread. I made this recipe sometime last winter and absolutely love it. It was just as amazing tonight (plus, I love it when the house smells like yeast) and I've eaten three slices. With butter.

And here's a picture of the scones I made while Chad and Whit were there the other day:

Hopefully I'll be more productive tomorrow when Steven is home with me but I kind of doubt it as I usually want to take advantage of our time together at home to just hang out. I guess we'll find out.

Fresh Start!

There is something truly wonderful about the first day of a new year and I know for a fact that 2013 is going to be a good one, which makes today even better!! I dropped Chad and Whitney off at the airport at 5:30 this morning and was back under the covers with Steven by 5:45, where I slept cozily until nearly 10 o'clock! It was amazing! And when I woke up I could see blue sky outside and there was an excessive amount of lovely, bright, warm sunlight flowing into my room. I was instantly excited about a sunny day and could hardly wait to shower and clean the kitchen and get outside. I was hoping for a walk along the Kirkland waterfront and a nice little stop at the Starbucks at Carillon Point. I figured it would be a fun outing with Mom and Tara and we could take some pretty sunny pictures with Lake Washington and the snowy Olympic Mountains in the background. We didn't quite make it to the beach though. We spent the afternoon and evening organizing Tara's bedroom -- it was entirely my idea and turned out to be a pretty good (and fun!) use of our time.

It's amazing how motivating a sunny day in the new year can be. I was tempted to stay home and organize my own house but couldn't stand to be alone on such a nice day. We got a lot done and it felt good to be so productive. You can now see her carpet once more and her clothes have found their way onto hangers and into drawers. We solved her storage issue but recycling lots of old school papers and adding a few basket drawers in her closet. We also took the door off of her closet and found a pretty curtain at Target that we are going to hang over the closet tomorrow. It looks great and I'm hoping she feels good about it too.

Today was Steven's first day back to work since the 18th -- I miss him! It's so weird to not get to see him all day long. He is also working this Thursday and then we have the weekend together before I have to go back to work on Monday. I can hardly bare the thought. I don't want to go! I feel like I should be done. I worked almost  four full months, isn't that enough? Sigh, only five more months until summer, I guess I'll make it to the end of the school year. Having the fresh start of 2013 and taking time to get organized around the house and starting to get excited about travel plans and fun things that will happen in the next year, all just make me wish even more that I could have a fresh start in the job department of my life right now. I just want to enjoy my job -- is that so much to ask? Anybody want to pay me to bake? Or just to stay home with my husband all day? Because I would really like that. I don't think that's a very likely scenario at this point, so my goal over the next few months is just to try to make more time for things that I do enjoy. Zumba. Baking. Cooking. Sewing. Letter writing. Blogging. Reading. And other fun things that allow me to forget how much I dislike my job. Like I said, there's lots to look forward to (especially the last day of school!!) and I think the year is already off to a pretty good start.

2012.

I knew 2012 was going to be a good year! I would have to say that it definitely exceeded my expectations. I started out the year at a job that I absolutely hated and spent the first couple months of the year moping, and relieving my stress through baking and zumba. Fortunately, I got to skip a week of that awful job when we had one of the worst snow/ice storms I've ever seen. We lost power for three days! Steven, of course, still had to go to work where there was a furnace and a hot shower, and I almost froze under layers of blankets on our couch. A couple of weeks later we had the joy of celebrating with our dear friends Tim & Annika at their beautiful wedding. Then came the month of March, when my moping and complaining about work and our difficult schedules reached a depressing low and my sweet and amazingly thoughtful husband surprised me with a ticket to Disneyland for a weekend with my mom and Tara! It rained - sideways - the entire time we were there but it was still Disneyland it was still a vacation and it was still one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me. Steven was one of the highest achieving participants at the Stairclimb -- He improved his time by 2.5 minutes (15 minutes 20 seconds), placing himself 92nd out of 1500+ participants, and he raised over $2,000!! I was the most proud! Still am, of course. The week after my Disneyland trip, I interviewed for and was offered a position as a longterm substitute teacher in a 5th/6th grade classroom at a small Lutheran school -- I didn't even hesitate and was pleased as punch to say goodbye to my terrible-awful-no-good-very-bad part time job as an aftercare program director. The new job was an excellent change of pace, much better commute, and fantastic experience, but it kicked my butt in terms of curriculum development and lesson planning (they didn't tell me that I would have to create my own curriculum...). We spent spring break on a California road trip (much needed vacation!!) with the first night spent at our time share resort in Sun River, OR -- beautiful! Then a stop in Visalia, Mariposa (we love the Solanos!), and San Francisco (to see Paigey of course!). Steven's 26th birthday was a blast and we kicked off his 27th year with a trip down to Portland for dinner with friends and another incredible Cirque show. I finished my temporary teaching job with a bang and a rockin' awesome unit on Ancient China -- the kids loved it! Steven completed his first full year as a career firefighter, wahoo! And the biggest news of all: We bought our first house!! It's bigger and more beautiful than we could have hoped it would be and we are so happy here! I turned 25 (say what?!?) and we celebrated with the party of the year at Eastlake: drinks4drinks. A week later Steven was in Cle Elum fighting his first wildfire and I was in our new home making blackberry ice cream and maple pecan scones trying not to worry. While Steven was fighting fires in Cle Elum, we celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary and I received the news that I had been offered my very first full time teaching job - wow! We started the school year off with 3 straight weeks of 80+ degree sunny weather (most beautiful late summer and fall I have ever seen!) and I quickly learned that my job was kicking my tush and maybe I'm not meant to be a teacher after all. And here we are in 2013 -- I will finish my job strong (only 5 more months!), and Steven and I are planning an amazing vacation for the end of the summer. We have another marvelous year ahead of us and I can't wait to see what surprises 2013 holds for us!