Who I want to be

It's complicated, being an adult (for quite a while now, admittedly) and really kind of already being who you are but still feeling like a teenager or twenty-something who's still trying to figure out who she wants to be, what kind of life she wants to live.

Today is the official end of my 101 in 1001 project. Many of the items on my 101 in 1001 list, particularly the incomplete items, indicate the person I wish I was.

For example, I did not complete this:

47. Learn how to use my camera better

As much as I adore photography, surround myself with excellent photographers, and truly admire the photo bloggers I read, I just cannot get myself to get started with photography - or, really, re-started since I did take a class back in high school and another in college. It remains a goal, though. I feel like when the time is right, when I have the mental space to devote to it, photography - good photography - will find its place in my life.

I didn't complete a lot of items about decorating my home and taking time for myself - two things I simply have not been able to create the balanced time for with work, school, and motherhood. I wish I was someone who preferred yoga over television as a means of relaxation, but that's not me right now. 

A lot of the items reflect me at the beginning of my marriage, thinking ahead about what kind of marriage I want to have. What I didn't understand is that I can't just simply wish that marriage into being. Just because I want us to be a couple that takes sweet road trips, prizes weekends away together and loves to sit and watch movies together doesn't mean that's who we are. It doesn't mean I don't think we can change and become more of what I want my marriage to be; it just means it's not innately who we are and having only half of us thinking about it won't change it. As they say, wishing it doesn't make it so.

Many items involve two key things we've been lacking the entire time we've been married: stable employment (for the hubby) and financial security. We're actually significantly worse off now than we were when I started this project. (This month, in particular, is quite trying.)  Without time and money, you can't take a road trip or a weekend away or a lengthier vacation - much less with an infant/baby/toddler, who demands his own concerns in regards to a vacation. My goal now is that next year we'll have our finances in order enough to actually take our first family vacation, which will be the first vacation for the two of us since our honeymoon in 2008 and, of course, Nate's first trip anywhere outside the local area and possibly his first overnight trip.

(For the record, my secondary goal is a trip to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter when Nate's old enough to enjoy it.)

The biggest change from the start of my list to now is that the things I thought would be easy, just simply weren't. Getting a promotion or a new job? Trust me, I've tried. It's just not easy these days. But I've done everything I can to make myself as attractive as possible if either option presents itself. Finding the time, money, and attendees to host a dinner party? Not as easy as it sounds (but a goal I am not giving up on).

There was just so much I didn't take into account. The things I want in life haven't changed - I want to find my truer self, build a better marriage and family, and make time to enjoy life and the opportunities it offers. The main thing this project has given me is a better understanding of the effort needed to achieve the things I want.

Tying up undone ends

In six days, my 101 in 1001 experiment comes to an end. When I began it, I truly, fully believed I would accomplish every single item on the list. In fact, I was pretty sure that I wasn't going to even need 1001 days to finish it up. I was thinking I'd be done in two years (that's 730 days for those folks not willing to do math).

But then...

I decided to go back to graduate school (while still maintaining my full-time job and sometimes an additional part-time job) AND

I got pregnant and had a baby (who is now Destructo-Toddler).

So... yeah. There went my ability to do things in my free time because there went all of my free time! So, somewhat sadly, I didn't get to finish my 101 items. But I want to close out the list so I'm going to wrap up the undone items.

Here are some items that really couldn't be wrapped up until this little to-do was near its end but that I now considered successfully completed:

30. Do not get coffee to go (i.e. Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts) more than once per workweek.
44. Blog at least three days a week. (I may have missed one or two here and there, especially lately, but I consider this definitely completed successfully.)
50. Maintain a blog that talks about the 101 in 1001 project through the end of the project.
52. Blog about each completed item.

Out of 101 items, I completed 41. As an academic, that means I have to fail myself. (Insert "wah-wah" fail noise here.) But I don't consider this experiment a failure by any means; quite the opposite, in fact - I have learned a lot through the process.

One lesson made clear by the effect of life circumstances (school, baby) is that we can't expect our plans to be static. You have to be ready to go with the flow and revise. Staying at a bed and breakfast with my husband would have been great... had he not had unsteady employment that left us without vacation time or money and had we not then had Nate, who would now cause more repair cost to our B&B stay than the actual night rate, probably. (Nate has a fondness for removing wallpaper from walls lately and wallpaper seems a de facto B&B thing.)

But this isn't to say I don't like where my life is now and that I lay around going, "But we NEVER got to GO to a B&B!" Okay, maybe I think it once in a while, but it doesn't negatively impact my outlook on life. I would give up a million B&Bs to have Nate instead.

So even though my goal here today is to tie up loose ends, I'm actually acknowledging that there will always be loose ends. I can't get everything tied up in the way that I used to when the only concern and affector in my life was myself. My whole way of moving through life has changed because life is an untied end, always.

An Object of Beauty

16. Read 30 books I haven’t read before (in addition to the above) and blog about them. (30/30)

Completed!

An Object of Beauty
by Steve Martin (yes, the Steve Martin)

I finally finished reading Steve Martin's An Object of Beauty. I started it ages ago but it kept falling by the wayside due to Nate and grad school and, oh, that job thing I have.

The length of time it took me to finish this book does not speak to how much I adore Steve Martin's writing, however. His novella Shopgirl continues to be one of my very favorite contemporary books. (The film is also really good and it's very interesting to compare the two. I always recommend reading the book first.)

Not everyone knows this, but Steve Martin is an avid art collector and incredibly knowledgeable about the art world, so when I read that he wrote a new novel and it centered around the art world, I knew it would be something special. The story is beautiful written with incredibly well developed characters and an adequate amount of sideways movement to the plot, by which I mean that the plot continually seems to take these small trips aside from the main point. This plot construction is so well written that I kept forgetting that the side details weren't the main point of the story (although they're always key parts of the main point of the story).

This book is a beautiful ride through two decades of the art world, full of interesting characters and details about great (or even not great) works of art.

If you've read any of Steve Martin's writing before and you haven't read this one, you should. If you haven't read any of Steve Martin's writing before, start with Shopgirl... then read this.

A Bedtime Accomplishment

16. Read 30 books I haven’t read before and blog about them. (28-29/30)

When I made my 101 in 1001 list, I really did not believe I'd be reading parenting books at any point during the process. Ha. Not only have I read/skimmed/perused a ton, I have a little man who's about to turn a year old in less than two weeks.

As I've mentioned before, Nate is not a perfect sleeper. Now, no baby is perfect, but the key here is that the issues he's having don't work for us. We need him to go to bed earlier at night and sleep more soundly through his daytime naps. If in the process he also stops waking up in the middle of the night, that's great too, but it's not my primary concern.

After doing a lot of research, I decided to pick up two books: Elizabeth Pantley's The No-Cry Sleep Solution and The No-Cry Nap Solution.

I chose these books because the snippets I perused really, really spoke to me. Pantley is all about doing what works for you and what feels right to you. This was important to me because the hubby and I parents a lot based on what we feel is right. Obviously we (okay, I) read a lot about what we should be doing, what Nate should be up to, and so on - but we also like to trust our gut. For example, crying. I do not believe in leaving Nate to cry in his crib alone. Ever. (Unless there's an emergency in the house and we need to just put him somewhere secure for a few minutes. Even then, I'd prefer to put him in the playpen so his crib remains a place of rest.)

That said, I am incredibly envious of the parents who can plop their kid in their crib, say "Night night!" and walk out. This has never, ever happened for us. Nate would be screaming before the door to his room shut. So I needed to find a way to ease him into this process because I wasn't willing to let him scream and I needed a plan so that I didn't feel exasperated, angry, and like this would all never end.

Enter the No-Cry books. I've read them both now and we're going a little out of order with them, but that's mainly because the hubby and I don't have time to even discuss these books. What we need to do is start keeping track of his sleep schedule. At his age, he should be getting 11 1/2 - 12 hrs of sleep at night and 2-3 hours of napping in over the course of two naps. In the past week, his naps have gotten better and he's getting 1 hour in one nap and 2 hours in the other on most days. But nighttime? He's getting closer to 10 hours - not enough. We have to move his bedtime back, but haven't been successful at that yet.

Last night, though, I decided to try something. Every night, I sit in the glider with him and we glide and sing until he falls asleep. He starts out sitting on my lap and then at some point, flips himself over so he's lying on me with his head on my shoulder. Last night I decided to put him in the crib at the moment he flipped himself over, because that's his cue that he's truly falling asleep.

For the next 45 minutes, he alternated between lying down, rolling around, standing and shaking the crib rail, talking to his toys, standing and chewing the crib rail, and lying back down. All the while, I stood by his crib, rubbing his back in the beginning, but I eventually stopped when I realized that just me being there was enough. He wasn't complaining about being in his crib, he was just simply fighting sleep. This was already a step forward because in the past, he have been standing in there crying, even if I was right there. Last night he would stand at the crib rail, then put his face down on it as his eyelids drooped. He even fell over in tiredness a few times (which made me seriously have to hold in a giggle). All the while, I sat there on the glider's ottoman, just hanging out - not talking, not singing, not reacting to anything he did - just there as a presence.

And it took an hour from start (getting in the glider and reading three stories) to finish (quietly leaving his room) but he did put himself to sleep in the crib. I walked out feeling like I wanted to throw myself a parade.

I know, it's silly. Before I was a parent, I would have rolled my eyes at all of this. (Hell, I wouldn't even have read this blog post.) But now I feel like helping Nate learn to fall asleep on his own is a serious responsibility I have - one that we haven't done well enough yet.

The No-Cry Nap Solution had a great point that I believe is part of our issue with Nate. We all learn how to soothe ourselves back to sleep when we wake up in the middle of the night. You get in bed, you fall asleep, your rustle awake but go back to sleep. Now imagine you went to sleep in your bed, comfy with your blanket and pillow, but when you woke up in the middle of the night, you were on the kitchen floor with no blanket or pillow. You wouldn't roll over and go back to sleep, right? You'd be confused and upset.

This is what happens when babies are used to falling asleep in someone's arms, like Nate is. They go to sleep with someone there but then wake up alone. No wonder he's unhappy when he stirs; I would be, too. So last night's "experiment" was my first move in trying to get him to fall asleep on his own.

Truthfully, the hubby has the harder part: daytime naps. But we're going to try two solutions to start off with. 1 - Room darkening curtains. Nate's room has southern exposure, so it gets light all day long. I think this helps disrupt his naps and wakes him up early in the morning. 2 - Pantley suggests keeping track of when your baby wakes up from his nap (say after 45 minutes instead of the hour and a half you hope for), then going in to check on him five minutes before you expect him to wake, proactively soothing him to sleep when he stirs between sleep cycles. I have my doubts about how that'll work with Nate (especially since we don't have the darkening curtains yet) but we'll see. Maybe as part of the whole sleep revision package, it will be effective.

I think we also need to revise his whole eating schedule and bedtime, but I'm going to wait until his one year doctor's appointment for any big moves on that so we can see what she says about what he needs to eat since he'll be making the switch from formula to milk. (Hooray!)

I feel really hopeful about the plans based on these two books. Even though the whole bedtime routine took an hour last night (and meant that I didn't get to eat dinner until 10:30pm), the success of it made me really happy and I'm excited to try it again tonight.

Black Heels to Tractor Wheels - and chocolate chip cookies

Even though I had already read two-thirds of The Pioneer Woman's love story as it was published on her website, I was thoroughly excited about the publication of this book.

Not only did she promise some new material in the first two-thirds, there was also that final third that she added, which she promised would include the story of her honeymoon and the first year of her marriage to Marlboro Man.

While I have always absolutely loved reading her love story on her website (and I say "have always loved" because I've read it several times), at times it makes me jealous because in some ways she has led a very fortunate life.  She clearly didn't grow up wanting for anything and while she claims to have many of the same image issues that many women do, she's obviously very pretty and was adequately aware of that throughout her youth.  She attended college in southern California and enjoyed everything Los Angeles had to offer.  When she returned home between L.A. and her plan to move to Chicago, she very easily dated several men and enjoyed life before randomly meeting Marlboro Man one night.

And now - now she has an amazing website, is clearly a great cook, a very good photographer, maintains a beautiful home, homeschools her four gorgeous children, and still wants for very little (except DSL).  And she's still amazingly beautiful (absolutely stunning in person).  So I find a lot to be jealous of.

So I always find it interesting when she talks about something she struggles with, which she does in the newly added material in her book.  Not to be too spoiler-y, but the ranch had some struggles that first year, she didn't have a necessarily easy pregnancy with her first child (yes, she was pregnant in their first year of marriage) and she didn't immediately take to motherhood, which is something I found particularly comforting to read as I felt many of the same emotions she did (although without the circle of support she describes as having - I wish someone came over and cooked and cleaned for me).

I found that the writing style shifted a bit with the third section, which I would guess is because she wrote it separately from the first two parts and also because the subject matter was far less light than it was as she described falling in love with her husband.  If you want to fall in love with your partner all over again, definitely read this book, though.  That's why I've read the online version a few times; I always come away from it feeling happy to have found love and to be married.

This book isn't for everyone, of course, just like her website isn't necessarily interesting to everyone.  But if you like her website even just a little, you will probably like this book (and you can read the online parts of it first to see how much you like it).

And, naturally, she adds some recipes at the end of her book.  Most of them are ones readers of her site and owners of her cookbook will recognize, though - nothing new worth noting...

Except the recipe for chocolate chip cookies.  This recipe is available on her site but something about it at the end of her book called out to me.

And then, after I made them, they continued to call out to me, like an ex you've dumped who just won't take a hint.  (Not that that's ever happened to me, but I read about stuff like that.)  I told myself I can't ever make these again, by which I mean I must now make them every week for the rest of my life.  I might, in fact, make them tonight.  Last night I was craving them because I ran out of them the day before, but I was too lazy to start baking at 9:30pm so instead I ate apple slices with peanut butter and chocolate chips (which, by the way, is a totally awesome snack).

For the cookies, I did not use half butter and half margarine like PW does because I just couldn't bring myself to buy margarine.  It reminds me of all the bad parts of the 80s, like shoulder pads and Aqua Net and stirrup pants.  So I used all butter; tonight I'll probably use half butter and half shortening to see how that affects the texture.

I did, however, include two tablespoons of flax seeds, as she recommends - and I honestly do think they made a difference.  The little nutty crunch they add just tips these cookies over from good to obsessively irresistable.  And the ratio of semisweet to milk chocolate chips is just right.  Yumsa.  If you like chocolate chip cookies, go make these tonight.  Or don't, because then you'll eat them all and blame me for the five pounds you may gain.  But I dare say they're worth the risk.

16. Read 30 books I haven’t read before (in addition to the above) and blog about them. (27/30)