In Which I Turn Into a Ball of Mush

This new year has ushered in a new awareness for me that my youngest child, Alex, will be starting Kindergarten in the fall. With an August birthday he'll probably be the youngest in the his class but likely the tallest anyway and he's ready so we aren't red-shirting him. He's been in daycare/preschool three full days a week for the past three years.

He has also been home with me on two days a week for the past three years. For at least the past year that has been very enjoyable time, one on one with my little man. Granted I do put him in childcare at the gym for a short workout those days, but we also hang out at our local coffee shop, hit the grocery store together and play games together. 

So one day earlier this month we were strolling through the grocery aisle on a Tuesday morning when it dawned on me that my little buddy wouldn't be with me to do that in a few short months. It made me surprisingly sad. 

My older kid had two years of Kindergarten, one private and one public. For whatever reason I remember no melancholy over his going five days a week, or even taking the big bus home from school every day. 

But Alex is my youngest and I admit he probably gets treated a bit differently than his brother. I notice how he's losing his baby belly and how he has peer to peer conversations with his brother. I hate that I can't pick him up and carry him, even though I used to hate how much that hurt my back. He still is in a big silly phase and uses made up language all the time that remind me that he's only four. 

A couple nights ago he crawled into our bed at 5am. I miss cuddling in bed with my babies so much that I'm inclined to let him stay but Mike was having none of it. It was becoming habitual and getting earlier and earlier in the morning. So when we told him he couldn't stay he burst into babyish tears and I totally melted. In my early morning haze I had no resolve in me and selfishly wanted him to stay so Mike took over and walked him back to bed. In the end we all got another couple hours of sleep we wouldn't have had. 

Kindergarten registration isn't till April in our district, but I'm dreading it. I'm not ready for my baby to grow up just yet. Is this why some women just seem to keep having babies? I suspect it is. 

My 2012 Word of the Year

My friend Alece has this thing...this community of people who choose one word to live by, focus on and define the year. I admit that I thought it was just a bit to simplistic for me. I prefer concrete goals with actionable steps and milestones along the way. Yeah, I'm an engineer.

But this year when buzz was spreading about people choosing their "one word" for 2012, I gave it a few minutes of thought. I'm already on a path of living very purposefully, very intentionally. That's what this whole blog is really about. I already feel mostly full of gratitude, joy and contentedness. So what would I want to change about my life to improve it?

The word "Hustle" popped into my head. I think mostly because of how freakin' much running I've been doing of late.

So why would I, someone who relishes being totally chill about everything, want to hustle? Miss Type B, plan lots of margin in the schedule, no need to get stressed out...that's me. Well the word "hustle" does not necessarily mean to do everything faster. But it does mean to do more...to do the work...to keep the effort level up...to not get lazy and not get too relaxed. I have a tendency to get a bit too relaxed, and then I wonder why my blog isn't growing as much or my clothes aren't fitting as well.

So in 2012 I have promised I will hustle. I have already started that with my intense running schedule and my analytically tracking of every calorie I put in my mouth. You may have noticed a sharp increase in blog posting as well. Hustling means staying on top of  things and putting a few more irons in the fire. It means pursuing my dreams a bit harder.

It does NOT mean working so much I start to get stressed out. It means pushing just a little more while still maintaining the balance I cherish.

So what's YOUR one word for 2012? 

Fashion Friday: Shoes with Bows

So one of my favorite boards on Pinterest is just for shoes. (If you don't follow me on Pinterest, you should!) Not necessarily shoes I actually want to buy, but more like fantasy shoes that catch my attention and are totally my style.

As an aside, curating my favorite fashion pins on Pinterest has absolutely helped me hone in on my personal style in a way I never expected. I highly recommend this if you want to find a way to shop more selectively. I thought my 15:30 project last year would help me narrow my style, but it really didn't. Pinterest, on the other hand, definitely HAS helped.

So I discovered that I have a major thing for bows. I find this fact a bit surprising, but the evidence is right there on my shoe board...half the shoes that caught my eye had some kind of bow. So I'm gonna show you a few of my favorites today!

Found on Pinterest via Laurie Turk from Lulu's

Found on Pinterest via Leslie Ma from Bakers

Found on Pinterest via Leslie Ma by Betsey Johnson

Found Pinterest via Ashley Mattocks on ebay

As you can tell, I really love stiletto heels. Unfortunately my knees do not love them, as proven this week when I wore them to host a Tex-Mex girls night at my house. My knee pain is likely patella-femeral syndrome from my running, but stilettos really seem to exacerbate it.

So I guess I really need to find more flats with bows :)

Check this out, as part of Fashion Friday this week, we're giving away a $75 SpaFinder gift certificate. Just link up your fashion post!

Tips for Great Landscape Photography

Landscape photography can be really fun and yield gorgeous results. It usually involves being outside and taking time to appreciate your natural surroundings. Unlike taking portraits of children, landscape photography can take a lot of time and be done slowly and very mindfully.

Last week I was fortunate enough to attend a presentation for my local photography group by Tom Haynes. The talk was called Listening to the Light and focused on his landscape photography, mostly taken around Big Bend park here in Texas. Today I thought I'd share a few highlights I took away from the presentation.

• Become a weatherman.
• Learn to read the light and predict how it will change with time.
• Don't use any artificial light. 
• At sunset, wait for the sun to drop below the clouds and light up the bottom of the clouds. 
• Some of the best color can come even after the sun drops below the horizon.
• Look for areas in the foreground that can reflect the light. 
• Slow down, think, take time. 
• Wide angle lens makes the mountains seem smaller. 
• He doesn't use a tripod because sunsets are dynamic. 
• Bracket your exposures. 
• Use aperture priority, usually around F/8.
• Break the rules sometimes.
• Long telephoto lenses can compress things together. 
• 100 mm macro lens is good sometimes.
• 12 mm ultrawide, he refers to it as his "cloud lens".
• 10.5 mm fisheye
• Black and white shows texture. 
• White balance is always set for daylight.
• "Fortune favors the prepared". 

Have you tried any landscape photography? Where was your favorite location to shoot?

Roadtrippin' to Austin

Last weekend I did something kind of crazy for a working mom my age, but it was fun and worth it. I took a roadtrip with my friends in the band, Forlorn Hope, to see them play a gig in Austin, TX. What's so crazy about that? The show was on Sunday night and we all had to drive back the same night to get up and go to work the next morning.

In case you didn't know, Austin is about 2.5 hours away from where I live. Mike stayed with the kids while I grabbed my camera and joined some of the wives in one vehicle while the guys piled into a truck hauling a trailer full of their gear. Because of the trailer the guys could only drive about 60 mph so our girls vehicle sailed past them and arrived in Austin much earlier. Some other friends of ours met us there later on too.

The drive to ATX was a scenic one. 

Riding with the girls was fun because we are all already in the same adoption focused life group and are good friends. I plugged in my iPod to share some good music and in between chatting we sang a few familiar worship songs together. We had dinner with my friend Trish's awesome brother-in-law and the world's smartest toddler who entertained the heck out of us.

The funniest part was when we arrived at the club and heard the opening "band", a bunch of white high schoolers rapping about drugs and bitches while their mom, dad and little sister sat listening.

Finally the guys played their set while I took photos and video. The big difference between this and previous gigs was that the sound guy at the Red Eyed Fly was excellent and the mix was great. Not mindblowingly loud as it was at Fitzgeralds. Forlorn Hope has two percussionists, Mark and Richard, and they did a great drum "solo" that I caught on video here.

Afterwards we hopped across the street to the weirdest little pizza joint ever and had a few more laughs before piling in our vehicles around 11 to head back to Katy. If you're ever in Austin, I do not recommend Hoboken Pie. Nope.

The drive back was incredibly tense because the thickest fog I've ever seen had settled over south east Texas. The ENTIRE trip home we had less than a quarter mile visibility and sometimes we had to slow to 20 mph because we couldn't see anything at all. I'm very grateful to Mark Ferow for driving me home so safely.

We rolled in around 1:30 am, unloaded the instruments and I went home and crashed. Of course Alex woke me up at 6 am and I worked all day with Nathan home sick. Then I had my first day of "hill training" with my running group. Boy was I tired.

But it was totally fun and worth it and I'd do it again. In fact you can do it with me again on March 4th. :)

Remembering Joe Paterno

I took these photos than 5 years ago.

Yesterday the world lost one of the most positively influential human beings it has ever seen, Joseph Vincent Paterno. You may think I'm crazy or exaggerating but that's probably because you simply aren't aware of the massive scope of his impact, as most people aren't. To say that this humble football coach impacted millions of lives would not be stretch if you consider the impact that Penn State University as a whole has had on the world in the past six decades.

You see, Penn State wouldn't be what it is today if not for Joe. When he arrived at the University in 1950 it was just a cow-town farm school. Today it is a top tier research university, churning out hundreds of thousands of exceptional graduates and dominating fields like engineering, meteorology and nursing. Those achievements might not have been possible if not for Joe Paterno and his emphasis on winning football games while educating boys and turning them into men of character.

Penn State consistently had the highest graduation rate of football players among all Division 1 championship level programs. Joe did not ever allow his players to even skip a single class, something I and all other students do routinely. If he caught a player in their room when they were supposed to be in class, they got benched. He made it clear that school was the first priority. Joe was grossly underpaid relative to his peers for decades and yet he poured millions of his own money into academics at Penn State, including building a massive library which bears his name. His "Success with Honor" mantra became the PSU brand and attracted millions, maybe even billions, in research money across numerous fields of study. There are currently more than half a million PSU alumni spread out across the US and the globe and every single one of them has been impacted, whether they acknowledge it or not, by Coach Paterno.

It would take me more time than I have to explain to you why this is true but ever Penn Stater knows it is. When I chose Penn State over several other excellent schools it wasn't because of the football team. My high school didn't have football, I had no interest in watching it, and I didn't even buy season tickets. I chose to come to State College for the globally recognized Scholars program and for their top five Chemical Engineering department, yes, but also for a certain family pride vibe I felt during my first campus visit. They called it being "Penn State proud" and I liked it.

I was fortunate enough to live in a building where I had breakfast with the football team every morning for three years. Joe didn't come to breakfast every day, but he did very frequently. There were many occasions when he'd be leaving the building around the same time I was, only to stop and chat with a handful of students including myself. His smile was infectious and in all seriousness he would usually tell us something like "Study hard." and "you'd better get to class, you're going to be late".

He was the one person besides my own father that consistently reminded me why I was there, to study and learn. Not for football games or parties or boyfriends.

"Believe deep down in your heart that you're destined to do great things."

My affection for Joe Paterno and his wife Sue run deep, as if he were my own grandfather. I even stopped by Joe's house just last summer on my short visit to State College. The last few months have only solidified the feeling of family that we as a deeply wounded Penn State community feel for one another. So together we mourn and together we celebrate the legacy of a man who encouraged us to be better. We Are Penn State.