Updated Life Binder

New year, new life binder! Well, not entirely new; I needed a new binder and tabs, so I updated everything a little bit. Would you like a little tour? Here we go:

I use a 1-inch binder with a plastic cover, so I can insert old pages from my Nikki McClure calendar in there. I also need pockets on the inside to store random things (which I have to remind myself to clean out fairly frequently). My most organized friend ever recommends using a sturdy report cover instead of a binder.

Every time I open my binder, the first thing I see is my collage for the year. It's part of my New Year's Reflection Process. It visual represents the kind of year I want to create for myself.


On the back of my collage, I list out my intentions for the year, as well as my roles. Every month, when I do my Reflection & Rejuvenation posts and set my intentions for the upcoming month, I look at this list of yearly goals to figure out what I should tackle in the upcoming month. I also look at my list of roles to see if there's anything I should be doing as a mother, blogger, etc. The box on the right, bottom corner is actually a present from Matt. He gave me several coupons for things like massages, dates, etc. He said they are only valid when presented, so I have to be sure to keep them in a safe spot.

On the next page, I list out my goals for each month (the ones that come to mind at the beginning of the year). For example, I'm going to start working on my Christmas presents in October, so I'm not stressed at the last minute. I also reference this sheet when I sit down to create my goals for each month in the Reflection & Rejuvenation posts.

Under the "Lists" tab, I keep ongoing lists of important but not urgent things, broken down by the different roles in my life (and including a "Catch All") category. For example, I want to create a massive "Baby Guide" for this blog. Every week, when I'm sitting down to generate my weekly to-do list, I look back at these ideas to see if there's anything I want to tackle. These lists help me capture ideas without forgetting them or wasting energy re-remembering them all the time.

Under the "People" tab, I keep lists of things I want to talk about with people (instead of sending a gazillion separate e-mails, I can consolidate things into one meeting or one e-mail). For example, when I need to create an agenda for a Montessori For All board meeting, I can reference this page to see what we need to talk about. I also keep a list of gifts to buy and blog posts to write. I use sticky notes, since some of the categories fill up faster than others and I don't want to have to rewrite the whole sheet all the time.

Under the "Upcoming" tab, I keep things like agendas for upcoming meetings or admission tickets to conferences.

Behind that, I have my calendar pages.

I love reading about how others organize their lives, so I thought I would contribute to the dialogue with an update about my system!

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My Healthiest Version of Myself

I need to buy a new pair of jeans. I'm the kind of person who hangs onto clothing for as long as possible because 1) it's better for the budget 2) it's better for the environment and 3) I don't really enjoy shopping.

But my jeans have a hole in them, so it's time to invest in a new pair. I'm at a crossroads, though, because I'm not sure what size to get. The jeans with a hole are my pre-pregnancy jeans. I couldn't fit into them for a long, long time after Henry was born, so I bought a pair that was two sizes bigger, so I had something to wear while my body adjusted.

Eventually, those larger jeans started getting loose and I could finally squeeze into my original jeans. Then, the holidays hit, the stress of trying to sell our house and move to a new city hit, my 65-000-word book deadline hit, and traveling for two weeks with a 10 month-old hit. Suddenly I couldn't comfortably squeeze into my original jeans any more.

I'm back to wearing the two-sizes-bigger jeans (with a belt). Clearly, I'm currently at the size in-between the original and the post-partum jeans. Yes, I could buy that size for my new pair of jeans, but I don't want to. I want to get back to my normal size--the size I am when I'm eating a healthy amount.

The thing is, this post isn't even about my jean size. My jean size is a mere symptom of something larger. When I'm stressed or bored or sad or scared, I turn to food for comfort. When I eat unhealthy foods or quantities, then I feel even worse physically. Once I'm eating unhealthy things in unhealthy quantities, I feel defeated and convince myself that I might as well continue doing it since I already started.

I understand why I feel stressed and uncertain right now. 2012 is the year of making dreams happen. It's scary. The ground is shifting and I'm trying to secure my footing.

I forgive myself for feeling the way I do; I can't control that. But I can control my response to those feelings. I can remind myself of my healthy intentions and re-commit to them:

1. I am the kind of person who avoids drinking unnecessary calories. I save caloric drinks for special occasions and instead drink water on a daily basis (and lots of it!).
2. I avoid processed foods and artificial sweeteners and instead opt for whole foods.
3. I eat three smaller meals throughout the day and two healthy snacks. When I eat my snacks, I prepare a small serving--I don't eat something straight out of the bag.
   
4. I avoid tempting (but disgusting) foods that pop up in social situations all the time (e.g., grocery store birthday cake, chips, candy, etc.).
5. I routinely avoid fried foods and instead opt for salads or fruit as my sides when we go out to eat (and make an exception no more than once a week). I limit my intake of unhealthy restaurant food, such as chips and bread before the meal.
   
6. I try to eat dessert only once or twice a week, and when I eat it, I eat a small portion, intentionally savoring each bite.
7. I take Henry and Hoss for an hour-long walk at least five times a week.
8. I go on one 3-mile jog and one 6-mile jog by myself every week.
9. I go to yoga once a week.

I just started running again for the first time in almost two years. I stopped running when I got pregnant, and I haven't started up again since the birth (since my midwife said it was hard on the joints for women who breastfeed). I'll need to work my way back up to six miles.

I need to find a new place to do yoga in Austin. I just changed my Groupon city, so hopefully I'll come across a good deal.

I need to get back into the routine of healthy eating (e.g., green smoothie for breakfast, protein bar for morning snack, cheese stick and fruit for afternoon snack), so that I'm giving my body what it needs to sustain itself. My hope is that the routine of eating healthy foods and exercising becomes the thing that comforts me, rather than junk food.

As part of making healthy eating and exercising a habit, I need to schedule it in. When we move to Austin (literally any day now) and we have new schedules, I need to figure out when to fit in grocery shopping every week, running, walking, and yoga.

In terms of accountability, I'm going to use Joe's Goals to track my progress. (Robyn suggested it in the Feeding the Soil health and wellness forum.) Or I might just record it on my calendar. Either way, I want to have a tangible place to track how well I'm doing on my intentions.

As Stephen Covey says, "Accountability breeds responsibility." I want to have a healthy relationship with food. I want to make time for preparing good food and exercising. I want to be my healthiest version of myself.

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Drinking from a Cup

When Henry started eating solid foods around four months, we immediately started giving him water from a real glass instead of a sippy cup. There are several reasons why this is common in a Montessori environment:

1. Children who use real glass learn from a very young age that they have to be careful. They can't throw their glass on the ground without real consequences (i.e., the glass breaking).
2. Children from 0-6 years-old are watching the world around them and trying to imitate it to the best of their abilities. They want to do what the adults around them are doing. If we drink from glasses, they want to drink from glasses, too.
   
3. Children build their confidence and their self-worth when they master challenging tasks.

In the beginning, we gave Henry a lot of support. We only filled the glass with the tiniest bit of water, and we helped hold it. For the first time the other day (at 10.5 months). He picked up the glass and drank independently.

We're still working on setting the glass back down...

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Childcare Changes

Henry Jones is about to turn one. Can you believe it? He is almost an entire year old.

Wow.

In the Montessori community, that means it's time for him to spend a couple hours a day in a community. By spending time with other children every day, Henry will learn how to contribute meaningful to a group (which will build his self-worth) and how to interact with others respectfully. He'll be inspired to continue to develop and grow by watching older children. And he'll have fun!

Although I am incredibly thankful that I was able to stay home with Henry for the first year of his life (mainly by tightening our spending) and wouldn't change that decision for anything, I have to say that I am elated to officially join the ranks of those who are employed outside the home. It's not that I haven't been working; I've actually been working a handful of jobs. It's just that all of my working has been squeezed into Henry's nap times, and it's basically been me, working alone on my bed (watching the video monitor for signs that my work time was about to come to an end).

Don't get me wrong: Henry and I get out of the house every day, and we connect with other moms and babies multiple times a week (through daily walks, baby time at the library, play dates, etc). But it doesn't leave me feeling sated and fully alive, which is why I'm looking forward to the next stage in Henry's development.

Once we move to Austin, Henry will start going to a former Montessori teacher's house three times a week for a couple hours. If Matt takes care of getting Henry ready and taking him there (just a few streets away!), then I can wake up at 5:30am and start working. Once Henry is weaned from his 7am feeding, then I can leave the house at 6am and be to the school where I'm working as the Director of Operations and Compliance at 6:30am. I can get in a full half-day of work before picking Henry up. Once we're home, I'm sure he'll need a nap, which means I'll have some time to blog. In the late afternoon/evening, Henry and I can make dinner together while Matt finishes up his work.

To cover the two days he won't be in childcare, I'm going to start looking for another parent with a child near Henry's age who is interested in a childcare swap. I could watch Henry + their child one morning and they could do it the other day. That would give me four solid days of working outside the home.

From my limited experience with this kind of stuff, this arrangement sounds ideal. Henry will get his developmental needs met, I will get to work part-time (which is good for my sanity/passion/bank account), and I'll still have quality time to be a good mom for Henry (every afternoon and evening).

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Green Smoothies!

I am so happy to be back in my green smoothie routine. I drank them every day of my 2nd and 3rd trimester, since I was trying to build up my iron stores without having to take an iron supplement (trying to avoid constipation...).
After the birth, Matt continued to make one for me every day (spinach/kale + frozen mango + 1/2 banana + 1 c yogurt) until Henry was diagnosed with a dairy sensitivity. Henry still seems to have a bit of a sensitivity (he has really dry skin, which has a 50% chance of coming from a food sensitivity), but we are getting back into the green smoothie routine. Drinking green smoothies is such an amazing way for someone like me (i.e., a person who doesn't like to cook greens for dinner) to get a daily dose of leafy greens. Well, Matt and I do eat a salad nearly every night, but we usually use spring mix.

It's highly likely that Henry will get pickier and pickier with his eating as he gets older, so I'm hopeful that green smoothies will continue to be a tasty way to fill him up with fruits and vegetables. It's better than drinking juice because it's the whole fruit (fiber and all). And even though I still haven't been able to splurge on the coveted Vitamix, I don't really have any problems making smoothies in a regular blender. In fact, after Henry broke our blender, I invested in a super-cheap, single serving blender (you twist off the blender from the base and it becomes a travel cup!) and it works fine, too.

This week I'm going to try to pair different fruits and veggies for variety...

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Thoughts on Dreaming Big and Making It Happen

I don't normally do Q&A on this blog, but I received a really thoughtful set of questions that I think has wide relevance. Here's what she shared:

I'm not proud to admit it, but I often feel that I don't live up to my potential. For example, I got my master's degree in social work at considerable emotional, intellectual, and financial difficulty. My plan was to become a psychotherapist and yet four years later, I am still working in a psychiatric hospital doing case management. I don't really like where my career is right now but am not sure how to change it. I love to read and write but often find myself surfing the net or watching TV to zone out after a stressful day or during down time. I find it difficult to find the internal drive/motivation that you seem to possess in great quantity to be more productive and live up to my true potential. I'm wondering what drives you to push yourself and reach extremely challenging goals like creating a school, creating a community, writing a book and how you have the energy to do it when you are also putting so much of yourself into raising your son. Secondly, I would also love to see a post on how you arrived at your specific goals. Being home with my daughter, I've had a lot of time to think about where I want my career, personal life, family, etc. to be in the future and am having a lot of trouble figuring out what I want out of life and articulating specific goals to strive towards. How did you come to your specific aspirations/life goals? Especially, is there anything that has inspired your to dream so big for yourself and your family? For example, how did you go from being a Montessori teacher and having an interest in the Montessori philosophy/way of life to wanting to open up your own Montessori charter school? Also, I would love to hear more about how you have handled the emotional aspect of all you have taken on. You have talked about the fear and anxiety you have experienced, but I would like to learn more about where you find the strength to manage these difficult emotions and whether you ever get time for yourself!

What challenging questions! Let me take them one by one:

What drives me? Several things. First of all, my biological father never wanted to have anything to do with me (he was older, he already had another family), and so I think he left a deep hole inside of me. From a very young age, I became an achiever to prove to myself and others that I am worthy of love, attention, and respect. If I couldn't get it from my father, then I tried to get it from everyone else through achievement. Further, either because of nurture or nature, achievement is ingrained into the fiber of my being. I actually get pleasure from planning things and then doing them. Finally, this Mary Oliver quote resonates with me so deeply: "What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" I'm driven to live my best possible life, while I'm here for this very short time. I am so thankful to all the people who came before me and positively impacted the world that I now live in, and I am eager to do the same for future generations.

How do I have the energy to do it while also raising my son? This answer is two-pronged: Doing things I love (i.e., pursuing my passion related to educational equity, building community, etc.) gives me energy. Most of the time. Sometimes it scares me. And sometimes I don't have the energy. On those days, I just take a nap or go to bed early.

How did I arrive at my big goals? That's such an important question. My college courses inspired me to actively want to make the world better. But I had several different passions that ignited my commitment to social justice: sex education, gay rights, and education. I started doing things in those areas: applying for a grant to study sex education, starting a gay rights group on campus, working in education as an AmeriCorps member. I tried to pay close attention to what made my heart sing. I continued to apply for opportunities that interested me (my mom has always told me that you should apply to everything and then make a decision about what you want to do rather than making the decision before you even apply). I applied for a Fullbright to study sexuality education in the Netherlands and I applied for Teach For America. I didn't get the Fullbright, and then I thought long and hard about whether I wanted to teach. I even applied for an extension on the deadline to matriculate (and then still replied late!). In that moment, I knew that choosing TFA would mean that I would be choosing education, and I wasn't ready to make that commitment.

But making that commitment has allowed me to focus. I get to infuse gay rights and sex education into the work I do with educational equity, but choosing a focus has allowed me to streamline my efforts.

I constantly apply the process of assess, analyze, act. I collect data about how it's going, reflect on my findings, generate "next steps," implement those next steps, and then start collecting data all over again. In other words, I'm constantly striving and seeking to improve myself and my situation. (Of course this approach has its downsides, as well. It's difficult for me to celebrate the positive sometimes, and I struggle to live in the moment.) Journaling helps me a lot, although I don't make nearly enough time for it. When I journal, I promise myself that absolutely no one else is allowed to read it. That way, it's just me talking to me. I find myself saying shockingly honest things. It's a great place to sort out what I really want versus what I think would impress other people. Making time for introspection has allowed me to craft a trajectory toward my goals. My work in college led me to AmeriCorps, which led me to KIPP, which led me to observe at a Montessori school, which led me to get trained in Montessori, which led me to teach, which led me to want to start a school that blends the best of all my experiences. In each experience, I paid attention to what was working and what wasn't and then made my next step accordingly.

As far as fear and anxiety go and where I find the strength to manage those emotions, I just make myself do it. It's really as simple (and as difficult) as that. I just take something scary (like "start a charter school") and break it down into the smallest chunks possible and write them on my to-do list. If anything on my to-do list is scary, I just give myself a little pep talk and remind myself that it's okay to be nervous on the inside, but I need to project confidence on the outside. If that doesn't work, I turn to my best friend or husband for help.

And, yes, I get time for myself! I'm with Henry 10 hours a day. He sleeps for about three of those hours. I use those three hours as strategically as possible. When Matt gets home, we share Henry-duty. Most of the time that means we co-parent. Sometimes, if I've had a really stressful day, Matt volunteers to take Henry somewhere so I can be alone (or lets me go off by myself). Henry goes to bed between 7 and 7:30, so I have several more hours every evening. Then on weekends, Matt and I divide the day up. He takes Henry for a shift, I take Henry for a shift, and then the rest of the time is Family Time. That way, both of us get free time.

Since bulleted lists are my friend, I'll try to extrapolate some of the things I've done over the years to find and pursue my passions and keep my energy levels up:

• Find what you really want to do, not what other people want you to do or what you think other people want you to do. When I was in high school, I read a memoir called An Unknown Woman. I haven't read it in about 15 years, so I don't remember it clearly. But I do remember realizing that we absolutely must live our lives for ourselves. We owe it to ourselves and the world to live our most authentic life possible.
• Expose yourself to as many possibilities as possible (through blogs, magazines, TV, etc.). Think big. Think creatively.
  
• Try out different things (new classes, new opportunities, etc.) to see what resonates with you
  
• Eat a healthy diet, exercise, stay hydrated, and get enough sleep! These things impact our energy levels and our happiness.
  
• Be really strategic about time management
  
• Avoid piddling away time on Facebook, TV, internet surfing, etc. (of course it make sense to use those things intentionally for down time, but they can be major time-sucks if you let them fill up all your waking moments)
• Put a process in place for helping yourself reflect (such as journaling every night, drinking tea on the back porch while staring into space, etc.)

There are also life coaching books and websites that can help with the process of introspection.

Wishing you the very best!

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Today on 2000 Dollar Wedding: Sebrina's plan for making over a 1980s wedding dress.

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Birthday Planning

My birthday's coming up on February 9! (Just in case you're curious, I'm turning 34.)

It's time to start planning my birthday party. This year, I want to be one-step ahead in the planning department (hello Halloween costume designing in August...). Besides, before I know it, it's going to be time to start planning Henry's birthday (February 28).

So, this year poses a bit of a challenge. We are probably moving to Austin at the end of January. I have a couple friends in Austin, but the thought of throwing myself a birthday party and inviting a couple friends doesn't sound appealing (mainly because that's what I did last year).

We could plan a weekend getaway, but we're in money-conservation mode as we save up to build our dream house.

Hm...maybe we could all go to Portland so I could attend professional development for Montessori administrators? (Thanks for telling me about it, Carrie!) Perhaps I could convince Matt to let me use the revenue from the most recent Purposeful Conception class (which started yesterday, so you're welcome to join us!) to shlep everyone to Oregon (instead of putting the money into our general fund like I usually do).

Does anyone have a guest room in Portland for my little family of three so we could save on hotel costs?

Hmm...I'm thinking, thinking.

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