30 by 30

I try to be intentional with my life.  I want to make it count and make the most of it.  One way I've been intentional lately is by setting goals, specifically, 30 goals to reach before I turn 30 years old!

I haven't compiled all 30 goals yet, but I thought I would share a few of the ones I have chosen so far.  Here there are:

1.  Have five articles published

     - Honesty in a Culture of Church Taboos (March 2014)

2.  Write 10 entries in my journal for my son

     - entry completed Feb 2014

     - entry completed March 2014

3.  Complete a 5K with my husband and my son

4.  Spend time alone at a monastery or retreat center

5.  Pay for a stranger's meal

6.  Complete another Whole30

     - We're starting one next week!  If we finish it, this goal will be completed in May 2014

7.  Take a writing class

8.  Read 50 books

     - I Am Hutterite (March 2014)

     - Cold Tangerines (April 2014)

9.  Write five guest posts for other bloggers

10. Learn to make my friend's amazing tostadas

11. Travel overseas as a family

12. Travel to two new states 

I have a few years to complete all these goals (and to finalize the rest of the list)!  You can see that I have a variety of goals - some health related, others personal, and others focused on writing.  I've also tried to quantify them as much as possible (e.g. 'Read 50 books' instead of 'Read more often').  

Would you ever consider doing 30 by 30?  Do you even make goals?  I'd love to hear which ones you've set (and ones you have reached!).

the nap time hustle

A few months ago, my afternoon routine went something like this:  After the baby's lunch I would take him upstairs and put him down for a nap.  Then I would race downstairs, clean up his high chair, bib, and other lunch things.  Most of his toys had disappeared under furniture and his books were spread across the room, so I would locate them all and put them back on the correct shelves.  Then I'd vacuum our two main rooms (has anyone else noticed that toddlers are basically crumb-machines?).  If I needed to do any work for my volunteer job as key spouse for our squadron, I'd try to do it during this time.  It usually involved making a couple phone calls or sending some quick emails.  After that was done, I'd make my own lunch and try to multitask as I ate.  I usually read one of the books I was reviewing, wrote (or journaled), or caught up on a TV show.  When I was done eating, I'd finish whatever other household chores needed to be done.

But it seemed like most days I was just finishing lunch when Hadden started crying and my alone time was gone.  I never accomplished as much as I wanted to during those fleeting minutes.  At that time I was reading a parenting book and I kept thinking, "If you would just sleep a little longer, you would probably wake up to a better parent!"  Basically, from the moment he went down for a nap, I was on a race against his internal clock.  I call it the nap time hustle.

Since then I've gotten much better at getting things done while he's awake.  I always eat lunch when he does and I'm teaching him to help pick up his toys so I don't have to do that.  Today I was cleaning out the refrigerator while simultaneously making a meal plan and grocery list in my head.  Hadden was right there "helping" me.  Additionally, I've had less to do during nap time because my husband has been encouraging me to take time alone in the evening or on the weekends to write, read, and reflect. Because while I can juggle the household tasks and parenting, good writing really comes from solitude.  I used to feel like I was gasping for breath when Hadden went down for a nap.  Like I just needed a few moments alone to put things back in order and just think.  But since I've been getting that time alone in the evenings, I haven't felt quite so desperate for nap time.

So even though I'm balancing more as Hadden naps, I still fantasize about all the things I would LIKE to get done during nap time.  Here are the some of the usual items on my nap time hustle list.

- Clean the fridge
- Vacuum
- Watch TV
- Read!
- Eat lunch
- Respond to emails
- Write?
- Plan meals for the week
- Make a grocery list
- Do our online shopping for the month (we almost always buy gifts online and ship them directly to the recipient and I have a few other items that we have shipped from Amazon, like our diaper liners)
- Catch up on Key Spouse work
- Laundry (especially folding!)
- Read the news
- Clean up the toys
And (for those days when I'm sick) - Take a quick nap??

I understand that moms of multiple children do this all the time and make it look easy.  I'm not there yet!  :)

Since January, I've been learning exactly what I can do when Hadden is awake.  For instance, he he loves to be next to me while I do household chores and tries his hardest to help with whatever I'm doing.  But also realizing that some of these things are much better left until I can have a little alone time (e.g. writing and anything else that requires an open computer - Hadden thinks it's an invitation for him to type).

I know I'm not the only mom who feels this way!  What types of things do you have on your nap time (or bed time) hustle list?

because life is full of twists and turns

Did you know that my blog has a subtitle?  Well, it does.  At least, it does in my head.  In my head, it reads like this:

this glorious maze: because life is full of twists and turns

I named this blog at a confusing, disappointing stage in life  My life looked nothing like it had just a year before.  And it certainly looked nothing like what I planned it would look like.

I thought I would be working part-time and going to grad school full time while my husband served in the Air Force.  We would be blissfully happy newly-weds, working hard to pay off student debt, yet enjoying every chance to just be together.  We would adventure together, through travel and living overseas.  My plan was glorious.

Instead, that year I became a stay-at-home-mom to a baby that I adored, but definitely hadn't planned on having.  Instead of my dreamy ambition to study, write important papers, and debate theology in seminary classes, my days were filled with diapers and spit-up.  We were exhausted and depleted, in every sense: physically, emotionally, and spiritually.  We were in the trenches in the war for joy.  I never would have planned this.  My life didn't feel so glorious at that moment.

This wasn't the first time my life has looked radically different than I had imagined.  And I can say with absolute certainty that it won't be the last.

Because life is full of twists and turns.

Isn't it though?

Stop right now, right where you are and picture what you thought life would look like.  Close your eyes, if it helps you.

Perhaps you imagined being married and instead find yourself single.  

Perhaps you planned on being done with diapers and potty training and thought you'd celebrate when the youngest child entered kindergarden.  But instead you welcomed a surprise baby and geared up for another 4,000 diaper changes (and, of course, innumerable joys).

Perhaps you planned on being overseas doing missions works, but finances or sickness held you back. 

Perhaps you thought that you'd still be at that Church or in the friendship or with that company.  But instead find yourself wounded and in shock and just trying to figure out what the hell happened that it could have ended like that.  

Or...perhaps you hadn't really thought too much about the future, but you certainly DIDN'T plan on it looking like this.

The thing is, sometimes (often?) we look back and see that that out of the surprises, out of the horrible, came something beautiful.  Or, at least, something worthy.

There's something wondrous about this maze of life, isn't there?

Somehow these life events, the good and the bad, mingle together.  Pretty soon you're not quite sure these good/bad categories are as exclusive as you thought they were.  Is it just the way life is, that we grow and learn from hard events?  Or is it God, with His nonsensical exchange rate of beauty for ashes?

This maze of life is beautiful.  And this maze is brutal.  (Author Glennon Melton mixes the two together, just as life does, and says that life is "brutiful".  The longer I live, the more I think that should be a real word.)

When we get to the end of this maze, or when we just get to a resting point along the trail, will we look back and see how the good and the bad mingled together and how the maze turned into something glorious?

I sure hope so.

What's ahead for you?  Does the path look straight?  Are you walking in a haze and unsure where you're going?  No matter where you find yourself, take a deep breath, and then keep trekking.  I hope you'll find that the maze ends up being glorious.

how to make a {base} house a home

When I rejoined Facebook last month I was kicking and screaming (figuratively, of course).  I've been able to connect with other military wives in our squadron, which was the only reason I joined.  My friend, Ashley, also told me about a FB group for families stationed at Offutt AFB so I joined that as well.  She explained that it was a good way to get information and connect with people and she was right!

One topic that gets revisited frequently on the thread is about base housing.  Choosing a home for your family is such a big decision so it's nice to see people giving information to newcomers and helping them make a good decision.  I've written about our experience with base housing here and here.

Today I thought I'd share a few ideas of how to turn your base house into a home.

Cover the Walls
When we first walked into our home, all we saw was beige.  The walls, doors and moldings were all the exact same shade of flat paint.  And the carpet was only a shade or two different.  It reminded me of an old, ugly hospital ward.

I was disappointed that our housing office doesn't allow painting, so instead we've covered the walls with other things.  Downstairs I have family pictures hanging.  And in our son's nursery I hung a pennant that my mom made.  In our dining room, I hung twine between two nails and used clothespins to hang 4x6 pictures.  If you're decorating on a tight budget, try looking for cheap frames at Goodwill and spray painting them to match.

We have two tall bookshelves (and will need another soon) that add height to the room.  And yes, putting up bookshelves definitely count as decorating.  :)

I love walking into a home and seeing lots of family pictures and a tasteful amount of decorations.  Decorations are tricky though because they often look cheap/tacky or they're expensive.

If you are lucky enough to live in a base house that allows painting, I would paint accent walls.  That way you get the pop of color, but when you move out, you only have to repaint one wall of each room!  Livia from All Things Life and Air Force Wife talks more about that here.


Keep It Clean
Magic Erasers are THE BEST for our walls.  Since our paint is so flat, it shows dirt very quickly and is a pain to keep clean.  I use Magic Erasers regularly and am amazed at how much better my walls and baseboard each time.  (fyi, I am not being paid to say this...it's my honest opinion)

The same is true of our carpets - they show everything!  We vacuum regularly, but let's be honest: having a toddler in the house means that we have many spills on our carpet.  Several of our friends own their own carpet cleaner and use it on a regular basis.  Since we're planning to live in base housing for awhile, I'd love to own one as well to keep the carpets from getting stained.

Decorate The Outside
Since our houses all look similar, you really need to add your touch to the outside to make it your own.  When we first moved into our home, we didn't have a lot of extra money so we focused all of our decorating on the inside where we would enjoy it.  I'll never forget the time that we saw neighborhood kids in our backyard using our water spigot because they thought our house was empty!  This was after we'd lived there for several months!  We're trying to do better about decorating outside our home and making it look lived in, but our neighborhood puts us to shame!  So many people put up elaborate decorations for holidays and take meticulous care of their yard during the summer.  We love taking walks and seeing how the exact same house can look different depending on the owners' personal style.


What suggestions do you have about turning a house into a home?

day 614

dear mr. mays,

Happy day 614 of marriage!  :)  Most people write letters like this on anniversaries or birthdays, but I decided that EVERY day with you is worth celebrating.  So why not write you a letter today?

Marrying you was the best decision of my life.  That is NOT saying that the last 614 days have been perfect.  There have definitely been days when we've argued, when we miscommunicated and when we've hurt each other.  There have been days when we question why life seems so hard or why certain things have happened to us.  But even through the hard times, I'm glad that we're on the same team.

My love, I so appreciate you.  You come home at the end of the day and listen to a rundown of all the blogs, articles and books I've read that day and you actually engage in conversations about them.  Thank you for encouraging me and enabling me to get involved as a Key Spouse in the Air Force including helping me make and deliver the meals.  You are gracious and kind and you are an example of selflessness.  Sometimes you surprise me at how well you know me - it shows that you care to see me thrive, not simply survive.  You're a wonderful father to baby Hadden too and watching you two together makes me exceedingly happy.

can't wait to see what the next 614 days together hold!

love,
  miss glorioso (-mays)

six quirks of military life

When my husband first commissioned into the Air Force, we had a bit of adjusting to do.  There is a big learning curve the first few months, but after awhile, things seem second nature.  Here are a few of those quirks that we've gotten used to in the past year and a half.  :)


1.  Hearing the "Giant Voice" announcements  

There is a speaker system throughout the base and in base housing that is mostly used for emergencies.  For instance, two nights ago we were woken up at 1am to crazy sirens and soon after a booming voice spoke to us:  "This...is...the command...post...a tornado...warning...has been...issued...seek...shelter...immediately."  For some reason, hearing the Giant Voice always makes me feel like I'm in a scene from Harry Potter.


2.  Planes overhead all the time.

This one is pretty self-explanatory.  It's like living next to an airport.


3.  Having our IDs out and ready at the gate.

Or the commissary.  Or the BX.  Or the doctor's office.  Or the library.  :)  Basically, always have your ID with you because you'll need it to do almost anything on base.  It's like the grown up version of a college ID.


4.  Stopping your car while the National Anthem plays at 4:30pm.

You also avoid walking outside at 4:30pm because when the music starts you stop what you're doing to face the closest flag and put your hand over your heart until the music is done.


5.  Tipping your baggers at the commissary

Always remember to have a few dollars on hand!  Your groceries get taken to the car and loaded by a bagger and you need to have a tip ready.


6.  Having low expectations for parking spots

In addition to handicapped parking and "stork parking" (for pregnant women), the front few parking spots of main buildings are reserved for the important people.  Like generals and colonels and chiefs.  There were a couple times when we got excited about scoring an awesome parking spot, only to realize that it was reserved.  It was a bit of a disappointment, but now we're used to it.  Although, let's be honest, how often do generals honestly do their own grocery shopping??


What did I miss?  :)

repost: bathtub of emotions

**this was originally posted on august 17th, 2011 but it's been on my mind lately as I've been thinking more about dealing with chronic pain in the midst of other general life stressors.  hope you enjoy the read!


This has been one of the most helpful communication tools in my life so I thought I would share.  I think it's especially good on those days when I am in deep pain and working with people who don't understand what that's like.  I've explained this over and over again when I was an RA and working with girls.  Mr. Mays uses this a lot to understand what I'm thinking and why I'm responding a certain way.

Imagine that you have a bathtub for your emotions and for stress.  Each time something is stressful or upsetting, it adds to the tub.  When the bathtub is full, the reaction comes.  That's your personal limit and you response in anger, frustration, tears, or shutting down.

Each situation of life adds a different amount (and each person can handle different amount of stress).  For instance, if you lost your keys and were late to an appointment, that might have only filled up your bathtub 1/10 of the way.  Another day, your car may have been stolen and that is especially stressful to you, so your tub is half filled by that situation.

Here's the key:  Life piles up.  Stress piles up.

When you lose your keys and you suddenly melt into a puddle of tears, it might be hard for you (and others!!) to understand why that small situation was so upsetting.  After all, it only filled up your bathtub 10% of the way!   But what you've forgotten is that it's not just the lost keys....  Before that happened your emotional bathtub was already filled to 95% with other issues so that last 10% pushed you over the edge and your bathtub was overflowing.

Caleb knows when I'm upset about something to ask how full my bathtub is.  It sounds silly, but it really has helped us!  When my pain levels are up, my bathtub is already filled to about 80%!!!!!  So when something that is seemingly small happens, I can get upset quickly.  It has helped our relationship a lot for him to understand how many "little" issues are filling up that bathtub.
It's a very simple word picture.  But it's proven to be really helpful for me.  Hope that this can help others (especially those dealing with pain).  Chronic pain is debilitating.  When others can't understand, it is isolating.  And it's even worse when you can't even understand yourself.

air force life: key spouse program

My husband and I started dating in college and, since he was in ROTC, I knew that if things got serious, I'd end up as an Air Force wife.  We had many conversations about the military. Would he just fill his commitment or he make it a career?  How did I feel about potentially moving every few years and putting our future children though that?  How would we balance my educational/career dreams with Air Force life?

One thing we agree on though:  if we were going to be in, we were going to be all in.  Many people talk about the military community and we knew that we wanted to participate in that.

Well...we had some disappointments.  Sometime maybe I'll share those stories, but for now I'll just say that people were not as welcoming or friendly as we had hoped.  It was discouraging, but we also knew that we could be a small difference.  In other words, instead of complaining about how people weren't welcoming to us, we could be welcoming to others and be a very tiny catalyst for change.

Enter the Key Spouse Program.  :)

A very, very basic description of a key spouse is that they are a liaison between the spouses and the squadron leadership, especially focused on families who have a deployed service member. 

My husband's squadron is supposed to have several key spouses, but when we came it just so happened that no one was filling that role, so I decided/was asked to take it over.  The link above provides good information about the key spouse program, so you can read that if you're interested in more.  I'll just give a summary here of what I do.

First I had to be "appointed" by the commander of my husband's squadron and then I had a meeting with him and the First Sergeant to make sure we were all on the same page.  Then I went through training (provided by the base) and learned about the job and learned about all the different agencies on base that provide support for families.  Let me tell you, there are SO many programs!  It was a little overwhelming, but awesome to hear about all the ways that military families can get help.  There are a variety of counseling options, a support program for new parents, free childcare if someone is deployed to name just a few.

While I've been a Key Spouse, here's what I've been doing (right now I'm just working with the families who have a deployed spouse/parent).

• every other week we deliver homemade meals to give the parents a night off from cooking
• relay information about squadron/base events 
• check in to see if they need anything (like driveways plowed after a snowstorm)
• delivered Christmas cookies in December
• give updates to the First Sergeant

Each squadron is different depending on their key spouses and their leadership, but I've loved working with our squadron.  Delivering meals every other week has been a tangible way to help and it means that I've gotten to be friends with several of them as well!  Overall, the Key Spouse program has been an interesting way for me to meet people, get involved and volunteer. 

life currently

October seems to always be a high pain month, probably because it's when the weather turns cold.  It was three years ago this month that I first got sick.  At that point I knew that something was wrong with my body, but I didn't know it would be forever.  Every day for the last three years I have been in pain (to one degree or another).  Of course, by now it has become "normal".  Whereas I struggled every day in the beginning, I manage fine most of the time and it's only the really bad days that knock me off my feet.

Unfortunately these last few weeks has been full of hard days.  It's been high stress all around lately and the fact that we haven't slept through the night in two and a half months doesn't necessarily help.  Life just feels hard.  

These days enveloped in pain remind me that this earth isn't my final home; that this wasn't God's original plan for the world.  Why am I so quick to forget this?  God intended for us to live in a Genesis 2 world, free from sin and pain.  Instead we feel the weight that the Genesis 3 curse has left.  While we train our eyes to look for beauty and find joy in every day, we can't help but recognize that the world is still broken.

I am left searching and unsatisfied by this world.  But I have hope in a life yet to come where 'my faith will be my eyes' and I will be whole and healed.

community life

Lately I've been thinking a lot about community, specifically about the Church.  Living in communion with other people means that you share in their lives.  In other words, if you are truly involved and invested in a community, your happiness may be tinged with sorrow and your sorrows with happiness.


Pregnancy is so visible at this stage - it is obvious to everyone that a baby is on the way.  It is the springboard for many conversations about babies, pregnancies, due dates, names and more.  Yet as I get further along in pregnancy, I cannot help but think about women who are longing to be mothers.  The women who ache because they have been waiting for so long to carry a baby.  I can simply be going about my business buying groceries or walking into church, yet it is a reminder to a woman of an unfilled dream.  So even in our happiness, I want to be sensitive to those who are waiting and hurting.


At the same time, I was remember a couple stories of people I know who have carried babies to full-term even when they have been told that the baby is "incompatible with life."  We are thankful that (as far as we can tell) everything is going well with our baby.  But we also think of those families for whom pregnancy is a time of turbulent emotions.  I must trust that God has a plan in each individual situation so I cannot live in guilt or deny happiness over our baby.  But I want to be a friend who can walk with people through their sorrows and who truly empathized with those who are hurting.  After all, I have been the one who is hurting and, no doubt, it is only a matter of time before I am the one who is hurting again.

I had the same conflation of feelings at my wedding.  So, so happy to be marrying Mr. Mays...yet aware of the fact that some people wanted to be married and were still waiting.  And also aware that marriage isn't for everyone - some people are really happy being single and perhaps they get tired of the idea that marriage is the ultimate goal for all people.


This comes through in many other areas of life too.  Just because my grad school plans have been put on hold because of the baby, I still want to rejoice with those friends who have are getting their advanced degrees (lucky ducks! ;).  I remember being so sick in college and struggling to rejoice with friends over things when I kept thinking about the fact that I could barely walk back and forth to classes.  Everything that other people were happy about seemed so frivolous in the moments when I was waiting for a call from a doctor that could potentially change my life forever.

Ultimately, our motivation for living this way should be our desire to be like Christ.  He commanded this lifestyle and He modeled this lifestyle.  While on earth, He empathized with the people around him (think of his weeping over Lazarus' death, his care for the woman at the well, taking the time to talk to the women who was bleeding).  He could have been focused on His impending death and pain, yet He took the time to engage in life with those around Him and to be present in their sorrows and joys.

The best example I've heard of this style of living comes from a professor at Cedarville.  We were studying Psalms and I was struggling with the fact that we (as Christians) sometimes ignore the lament psalms.  My life at that stage definitely fit the psalms of lament more than the psalms of joyful praise and I was so incredibly annoyed with Christians who pretended that everything was perfect in life.  The professor said that living in community meant that we embraced both of these.  And then he shared a story from his life of a couple who very unexpectedly lost their adult daughter.  The entire church showed up to the funeral, mourning with them and surrounding them in love and support.  The very next day, there was a wedding at the church.  No one expected the couple to show up.  No one would have been offended in the slightest if they had stayed home in their grief.  Yet there they were.  When asked about it, they said (paraphrased), "Yesterday the entire Church mourned with us in our sorrow.  Now it is our chance to rejoice with the Church and show them the same love that they showed us."

May we all strive to have a similar attitude.

on blogging and marriage

**written sometime last month

I lay here in the dark thinking of the wonderful parts of marriage.  His hand caresses my bare shoulder and he softly plants a kiss on my cheek.  I am filled with gratitude for this man who loves me dearly even in the moments when we drive each other crazy.

I hesitate to write these things because I know that we are only in the beginning of this journey.  I know that there will be days when marriage is so frustrating and difficult and we look at each other and think "Where in the world is the person I married?"

But I write all the same.

In college, my professors said that when a couple was having marital problems, one technique to help is to get them to remember how they fell in love.  

I write so that Mr. Mays and I can retrace our steps if we get lost.

One day the inevitable will happen and Mr. Mays will be called away into the wild, blue yonder to serve our country for months on end while I hold down things at home.  From all accounts, deployments are one of the hardest time for a married couple.

 I write so that we will remember our connection when we are far apart.

It is easy to let each day slip by unnoticed and unappreciated.  I must work to keep my heart pondering and keep my actions intentional.

I write to keep a record of the fleeting days and, hopefully, to keep myself accountable to live them fully.

While we say that we have a lifetime together, the truth is that neither of us knows how long "a lifetime" really is.  It could be that we spend sixty years together that are both good and hard.  It could be that one of us is taken tomorrow without warning and that these days together were shorter than we ever imagined.

I write so that we will have a memorial.

We're bringing a baby into this crazy world in just a few months.  Life is unpredictable.  In all likelihood, the little man will grow up with both of us there.  But what if he doesn't?  Will he know us? How can we leave a mark on the little life we created if something happens to us and he is raised by someone else?  Even if we are there through his entire childhood and into his teenage/adult years, he won't remember what we were like at this stage.

I write so that one day he will have a glimpse into our lives and will have a chance to know us in a different way.

Mostly, though, I write so that I will remember God's faithfulness.  So that I can look back and see how He has gotten me through and how He promises to get me through the next hurdle in life.

I write because I have spiritual amnesia for which the best cure is reading my history and acknowledging His perfect faithfulness.