Things that have and have not changed...

May 17th was our 5 year anniversary!  : )  Cody and I took off that Friday to enjoy a 3 day weekend together.  But I'm going to save my rambling about our wonderful weekend together for my next post.  First I wanted to share a random list of things that have either changed, or not changed, throughout our marriage so far, comparing Year 1 to Year 5.

Things that have NOT changed from Year 1 to Year 5:

• We both still HATE cleaning and therefore typically don't.
• We both still have an unusually high tolerance for a dirty home. (See above)
• We both still love to be silly and goofy together. 
• We both still enjoy playing games together and cuddling to watch TV or movies.
• We both still find it entertaining to use TV and movie quotes as often as possible.
• We both still call each other the same nickname that started right around our wedding - "Loves".

Things that HAVE changed from Year 1 to Year 5:

• We used to sleep with a nightlight (yes, I was 'scared' of the dark at 21) but now I also prefer it to be pitch black.
• We used to Febreeze our clothes in order to rewear them, but now we do laundry more regularly. 
• We used to (at the beginning) argue over food/dinner/groceries due to a lot of differences between us, but now we have grown accustom to the food specifics of each other and it rarely bothers us.
• "We" used to be just us, but now "we" is us plus Callie.
• We were both still in school finishing up at A&M throughout Year 1, but now we are both working full-time (and are SO grateful to finally have started a real dual income!).
• We used to not have any sport activities in common, but now we both love the Spurs and wear matching jerseys to games. 

Obviously there are numerous other things that could be on either of these lists.  These are just some worth sharing.

It's a Love/Hate Thing

The Spurs.  Oh my goodness.  Sometimes I LOVE them; sometimes I HATE them.  Do you know what I mean?!

In general I am not a sports fan and know nothing about sports overall.  However, I have become a fan of the Spurs in the past couple years (in part due to a small initial crush on Tony Parker), and over time I have gained a decent knowledge base about basketball and the Spurs from the combination of Cody spewing various facts, stats, and opinions and my constant question asking during games.

Now being tied 2-2 in this series against the Warriors I am feeling a mixture of nervous, excited, and frustrated.  We need to get our act together to win game 5 and then finish the series.  Seriously.  They are called "free throws" because they are free points - assuming you make the stinking basket.  Spurs - Make your free throws!  And since I've started a little rant, pay attention and get a rebound!  Goodness gracious.  We were basically giving them numerous bonus tries on each possession.  Lastly, being professional players and all-stars and everything... you would think they could consistently make layups at least!  I think I could have made some of those layups and easy shots they missed throughout the game.

Don't get me wrong.  I still love my Spurs.  I love our combination of older-trio-history meshing with newer younger guys like Danny and Kawhi.  I love our simple slogan and cheesy Tim, Manu, and Tony local commercials.  I love the mix of nationalities on our team.  And I love (overall) being able to expect them to be a decent team year-to-year.

I love my Spurs.  I wear my (signed!) shirt or jersey to games and I cheer, clap, and yell -at times for them, other times at them.  But, I am TIRED of being annoyed and frustrated this series!  It is the playoffs.  These games are important.  Please, Spurs, drink a red bull, suck it up, or do something to come out, play, and win game 5 on Tuesday.  Followed by finishing and winning the series.  I would really appreciate it.

Go Spurs Go!!!

Priorities

Lately Cody has been crazy busy with both work and finishing homework assignments, projects, and finals for grad school.  We are SO glad that he is almost done and cannot wait for the relief it will bring to both Cody individually and to us as a couple.  We really are in no position to complain much though.  I cannot imagine having my husband be in the military and gone for months at a time or in an occupation where he is often gone for business trips or overnight requirements.  I felt bad enough last summer being so sad and complaining about Cody being gone for 10 weeks with his internship in Washington D.C. -yet realizing that is hardly anything compared to what some marriages endure apart.  

Nonetheless, Cody has been ridiculously overwhelmed and busy since mid-March when he started full time at Rackspace while finishing grad school to graduate this month.  It's weird how you can go from feeling like husband and wife to just roommates in a matter of weeks with hardly any time together (let alone quality time). Especially the last couple of weeks Cody has been apologizing to me so much for how we have had almost no time together and he has also a couple of times made comments about how he appreciates how I've been handling it.  I had a thought the other day that made me feel guilty after Cody had complimented how I'd been handling this period of time.  I realized that I really have not been gracious or forgiving or understanding much at all even though it might have appeared that way because I wasn't saying anything to him about our lack of time.  Honestly, I realized I have been extremely selfish and self-centered during this time.  It has recently occurred to me that I picked up running at the same time that Cody became so busy.  I have actually enjoyed running and looked forward to running more than I have enjoyed the little time Cody and I have had together.  There were actually a few evenings where I was glad when he was later then he expected to be, because I was able to go for my run and be back before he was done and therefore not feel guilty because I was choosing to run instead of spending some time with him or being ready and waiting at home for when he'd get in.

If you followed that at all and sort of see what I'm trying to say, I truly feel guilty and bad about how selfish I realize I've been.  I have put more energy and more of myself into running during the busiest and most stressed Cody has been in a long time, instead of trying to somehow help him or do things at home to make it easier for him.

With this little realization recently I've had follow-up thoughts like "What kind of a wife makes running a priority instead of cooking dinner for her super busy and stressed husband?" and "Why would you have chosen to go for a run instead of doing some laundry or making a lunch to help him out?"  

With those thoughts spinning around in my mind, I've had the song From the Inside Out come to mind by Hillsong United.  

A thousand times I've failed
Still Your mercy remains
And should I stumble again
I'm caught in Your grace
Everlasting, Your light will shine when all else fades
Never ending, Your glory goes beyond all fame

In my heart and my soul
Lord I give You control
Consume me from the inside out,
Lord, let justice and praise
Become my embrace
To love you from the inside out.

Your will above all else
My purpose remains
The art of losing myself
In bringing You praise
Everlasting, Your light will shine when all else fades
Never ending, Your glory goes beyond all fame

In my heart and my soul
Lord I give You control
Consume me from the inside out,
Lord, let justice and praise
Become my embrace
To love You from the inside out.

Everlasting
Your light will shine when all else fades
Never ending
Your glory goes beyond all fame
And the cry of my heart
Is to bring You praise
From the inside out
Lord my soul cries out

In my heart and my soul
Lord I give you control
Consume me from the inside out,
Lord, let justice and praise
Become my embrace
To love You from the inside out.

Everlasting
Your light will shine when all else fades
Never ending
Your glory goes beyond all fame
And the cry of my heart
Is to bring You praise
From the inside out
Lord my soul cries out.
   
   

I love that first verse that reminds me no matter how many times I mess up or fail, God still loves me completely.  I cannot mess up enough that His love for me and His grace and mercy will ever stop.  Truly remembering that gives me such peace.  

I hope that next time Cody is so overwhelmed (and for the next week until his last grad. work is completed), I am able to put him ahead of myself. 

Is this a phase? -Or will it stick?

Honestly I was (and still am) a little hesitant to write and publish this post.  Typically what seems to happen with new things for me, is that right about the time I start to feel good about it and share whatever it is with others, is about the time that my new phase finds an abrupt ending.  Then I have friends and family asking me how the new thing is going... and I always regret having talked about it since it so quickly died out.

(If you look back at my older posts tagged with 'exercise', you can see proof of this!)

In this case at least, I am pretty sure this is the longest period of time that a new phase for me has stuck around.  So, that's a plus that hasn't happened before (at least as far as I can remember).  Also I have a goal that I'm working toward and am genuinely curious if I can do it or not, so that is also something I've never had before helping to keep it going.

For the last six weeks I have been running and trying to exercise on a consistent basis.  Let me clarify to  you what I mean by running though... it started as almost all walking with a bit of S-L-O-W jogging (which, well, is my running) and I have been very gradually increasing the amount of jogging time while decreasing the walking time.

I'm sure that for a lot of people this is really nothing to talk about.  However for me it is huge.  I have not done anything really active or athletic since... about middle school.  In middle school I played basketball (yes I was on the 7th grade C team and played in 1 game -and cried!) and ran track and field doing the long jump, hurdles (which I hated), and the shorter sprint races and relays.  I was not by any means great -probably not even good- but well, I guess that's middle school for you.  Anyways.  At the end of middle school I magically seemed to develop asthma overnight.  The beginning of the year I was fine and then one day running during track I thought I was going to die and couldn't breath and started seeing weird colors and was sure I was going to pass out.  I was told to walk it off.  Turns out I had exercise induced asthma and it pretty much completely changed the game for me.  With my new inhaler I could still run somewhat but it was really different and difficult.  Since then, I have allowed that to prevent me from trying any sort of real athletic activity for the last 13 years since eighth grade.

Something at the end of February and beginning of March got into my mind about trying to run.  For the life of me I cannot figure out what it was that I got the idea and curiosity from.  It was like suddenly out of nowhere I wanted to see if I could run again.  I got an up-to-date inhaler from my doctor and some medication for both my asthma and allergies and then felt like I was ready to at least try.  I read various articles online about running for an absolute beginner and everything seemed to agree about doing a walk-run system that started with mostly walking and little running and gradually shifts to more running and little walking.  I decided to create a system to try based on 5 minute intervals for 30 total minutes of time.  My system is SUPER gradual.  Most things I saw online had much bigger increases in running each week than I am doing, but honestly I think going this slow is the only way I'll be able to hopefully do it.  I started with 4 minutes walking and BARELY tried to do 1 minute of jogging.  Each week I am shifting 30 seconds of walk time over to run time.  My end goal is to be able to run 30 minutes without dying.  I'm still not sure if I'll actually be able to do that with my breathing, but I am genuinely curious if I work towards it slowly and carefully if maybe I can.

Currently I just finished my sixth week of running!  For my last interval of running each time, I keep running as long as I feel like I can.  This past week made me really excited because on the last running interval I crossed over the 5 minute mark and added a super brief sprint at the very end.  Also my total run time is now greater than total walk time during the whole 30 minutes.  Small things to be excited about, but I am.

So now my big question is will this last?  Is it just a phase, or will it stick?  I hope it sticks.  I am actually really enjoying it, but I guess we'll have to wait and see.

I like keeping a record of what all I've done.  This is what I've done so far.

We're HIRED!

I am beyond excited to say that today was Cody's first official day as a full-time employee at Rackspace!  Finally after being married almost 5 years, we are entering our first period of real dual income.  I don't think I've ever been so excited to earn money that we plan on saving and not spending.

We have been so blessed during this journey and now even more with Cody's job.  Somehow during our first year of marriage while both of us were still in school we managed to make it through financially.  That in and of itself was provision from the Lord.  There were a couple of times when we literally gathered up textbooks and things to go sell!  The next two years while Cody taught in Alamo Heights and I subbed, I never really understood how we always had at least a little money left over each month.  It just didn't make sense.  Whenever we would try to analyze our earning and spending, we should have been in the hole each month, or so we would predict.  But we never were -what an amazing blessing.

Now during this period we have been blessed with the ability to let Cody go back to school to get his master's degree while I teach in NEISD.  At this point there are only 7 and a half weeks left until Cody graduates in May!  And most recently we have been immensely blessed with Cody's job.  Being hired before graduation and not having to go through a crazy and stressful period of job hunting and interviews is an amazing blessing and provision.  Not only that, but Cody was actually offered two jobs at great companies, and so he had a choice about what offer to take.  I hope we never diminish or forget how God has blessed and provided for us during these different periods.

The next couple months until graduation will be stressful with Cody working full-time and finishing his classes at night.  I am so proud of him for his focus and hard work both at school and at work with the Census Bureau last summer and his internship at Rackspace that have now led to this full-time position.

Congrats, Loves, on your awesome job and your (almost) master's degree! I love you and am extremely proud of you.

Battlefield of the Mind

A few weeks ago I had coffee with a friend from our small group.  It was one of the few times I felt I was truly able to relate to someone else with some issues we talked about.  At one point she recommended looking into a book, Battlefield of the Mind, by Joyce Meyer.  I didn't immediately run home and Google it, but when the thought about the book was still sitting with me a few days later I finally did.  The more I read about it online and read reviews about it, the more I thought that yes, this sounds like a good read that could benefit me in some areas, but even more than that it made me think about my mom.  From things her and I have talked about, it sounded like a perfect fit for her as well. I ended up shipping the book to her and plan on reading it whenever she is done.  I did find a mini-devotional in an app on my phone that is about the book with excerpts and topics from it, so I have enjoyed reading through that and getting a preview of it.

The book is basically about how your mind is a "battlefield" where you constantly have to be aware of your thoughts and fight to keep a positive focus in your life instead of allowing negativity to creep in and slowly overtake you.  It's amazing within the two weeks that I've been doing the mini-devotional, how much I have already truly noticed this for myself.  Even just with trivial things, I noticed how I was allowing negative thoughts to start to form in my mind, and sometimes I would choose to let them grow and soon after I found myself in a terrible woe-is-me frame of mind, and other times I would deliberately stop those thoughts and turn my focus to positive things and truths that I know.

Along these lines, tonight was my third night in a six week session/study on "The Theology of Suffering" put on by my church.  Someone in our group tonight said a quote that really struck me with all the things I've been thinking about and trying to process lately.  I don't remember who the quote was supposedly from, but it was:  No one steals your happiness more than you do.   In my mind that completely ties together with how we can choose to focus on the positive or choose to allow ourselves to be swallowed up by our own negativity.

Maybe I'm reaching and maybe this doesn't make sense or connect with anyone else, but tonight I felt like so many things were coming together in this grand picture and realization for me.  One of the ladies leading our study on suffering described an image tonight about what suffering could look like if it were a picture.  You would laugh if you saw my sketch in my journal, but I connected with it, so I attempted to draw it to remember how it made me view all of this.

She said that we rarely know our suffering is coming.  It usually hits us out of nowhere -or at least that's how it appears to us.  She described it like we're just walking along in our lives, and all of a sudden we are sucker punched in the gut.  It can be crippling and cause you to hunch over clutching your stomach.  After realizing the blow, you have a choice in how to react to it.  You can choose to crumple into the punch and allow yourself to be enveloped by it and wallow it in entirely.  Or you can choose to slowly open yourself back up, look around, and work through a process to get to a point where you can stand up straight again and eventually begin to walk forward. A third choice is to remain neutral about it and do nothing.  After the blow hits you and you hunch over grabbing your gut, you neither fold into it nor start to stand again, you pretty much try to ignore it and pretend it didn't happen.  Allowing yourself to do nothing and simply stay in the hunched over position is a choice you make.  Often times doing nothing seems like a safe option, but just like crumpling into the blow, it does not allow you to open up and heal so you can one day begin to move forward again.

I can't change how I have reacted to things in the past, but I do hope and pray that in whatever suffering may enter my life in the future, that after catching my breath, I choose to turn to God and slowly begin to stand and walk again, and even though I don't like it or understand it, to fully have faith and trust that God is there in the midst of it and using it all for his glory.

Am I tan yet?!

Obviously the main reason I love teaching is the kids.  And moments where you see them for the innocent-ridiculous-goofy kids that they truly are, always brighten my day.  This short story happened recently and I seriously needed it.  Just a good laugh and a moment to remember they are little kiddos and not actually people bound and determined to break all the rules in my classroom and drive me up a wall.  They don't mean to (always...).  They just can't help themselves yet.

Anyways.  To the funniness...

So as everyone is aware, winter isn't really feeling much like winter anymore.  At least not currently.  The kids at school are running around in t-shirts at recess and complaining it's already too hot.  So the other day at recess, I saw one of my boys laying on the ground in the play area.  -Part of our playground where the equipment is has the ground covered in gravel.  So he was basically laying in the rocks.  I thought he was hurt - had fallen and was crying or something.  So I go over to him and ask "What happened? Are you alright?"  He replies that he's fine and says something that I couldn't really hear.  So I ask what he's doing - if he's playing.  Again he replies with something I don't really understand.  So now I'm confused and still not sure what's going on.  I mean really -no other kid is laying in the rocks anywhere else that I can see, and it isn't THAT often that you see this at recess.  So I lean over and he definitely seems fine. He is smiling.  I ask him one more time "If you're not hurt and not playing, what are you doing?"  He starts laughing (he has tried to answer me three times and I just haven't heard or understood him) and says more loudly "I'm tanning!"  And as he touches his hand to his cheek he adds "Getting the sun!" A huge smile immediately spread across my face and I quickly walked off as I started laughing.  He -a 7 year old 2nd grader- was tanning, in February, by laying in the rocks fully clothed at recess. - Right in the middle of where all the other kids are running and they have to avoid him. 

The even better part of this story is that this boy has proceeded to tan EVERY day at recess this week!  I think it is amazing and it just cheers me up at the end of the day outside when I see him doing this.  Same spot on the rocks.  Same smile on his face.  Laying there - getting the sun.  

Today when our class was lining up at the end of recess, I overhead him ask another boy, one of his friends in our class, if his cheeks were tan yet. 

The kids are seriously the best part of my job.  I hope by the time I'm done teaching one day that I remember these stories just as much -if not more, than the more common ones about problem kids and classroom issues and disruptions and the extreme bad situations that instantly ruin not just your day but your entire week at school.  These stories about things like tanning are much nicer to think about.  I hope I have more like these to remember and that they eventually drown out the other ones.