I have a Facebook friend who often updates her status. She’s a homeschooling mom, and often her status will say things like, “Helping the older ones with a project on Mesopotamia” or something like that. However, it also says things like, “Thankful for the legos on the floor, the crayons on the wall, and all my blessings.” It seems like the days she writes those things are the days I most need to read them.

Is there someone in your life who helps you keep your perspective from becoming skewed?

With Thanksgiving coming up and having two children, I have started thinking again about traditions for our family. When I was younger, my family wasn’t huge on tradition other than getting together. THAT was our tradition. Spending time with family was the most important thing. That is still important to me. I still want our extended families to be a big part of our kids’ lives and our lives, too, of course. I also want something of our own though. What do other people do for family traditions? How do you start one? Do you just ask around and try something that sounds good? Do you just happen upon it and keep doing it once you decide you liked it?

A couple things I’ve heard of doing are to put the Christmas tree up on Thanksgiving as a family. Get a table cloth and use it every year at Thanksgiving (or Christmas or another holiday) and write one thing that you are thankful for on it. A friend of mine told me that she had 24 Christmas books. She wrapped them up, and starting December 1st, she read one of them each night with her kids while they all had hot chocolate. I think that’s a great idea, by the way. I just don’t have 24 Christmas books yet.

Are there any other great ideas floating around out there? Now that this is becoming more important to me, I’m actually feeling pressure to make my traditions great. I know that making them traditions is really what makes them great, but I just really want them to be meaningful.

Sorry, today’s post is lackluster. I have a mid-month rut to get myself past. Instead of a really interesting post, how about some semi-interesting facts about me and my life:

-I saw two of my super cute nephews today. I will miss them between now and Christmas.

-I have a great husband. While I was at a Mom’s Night Out, he did laundry, dishes, put the kids to bed, and cleaned the living room. Um, what else is there to say???

-I am not made for winter.

-There are too many good books in the world and too little time for reading.

-Mud pie and onion petals go surprisingly well together.

I’ve written a few times in the last month about my annoying, persistent cough. It usually comes on like a cold, and then it hangs on just about forever it seems. I often can’t sleep well. I feel tired during the day. I decided that it was time to do something about it. Yep, I wrote all this yesterday and probably a couple other times. What’s new, you’re wondering?

Nothing new, but I do have a reminder as to why I need to continue pursuing a cause and/or treatment. K. Poor guy is coughing tonight. Last night, he woke up a couple times coughing. As hard as it is for me to deal with the cough, it’s even harder for me to hear him dealing with it. I feel guilty, because I know that he coughs because I cough, and he has half of my chromosomes. I feel like I caused this problem for him. Right now, he’s barely 3, and he has had this cough way too many times in his life. It seems like his whatever-this-is is worse than mine was at his age. Is it allergies? Asthma? Something else? What causes this and who can help us figure this out???

The poor kid is only three, and he’s already had allergy testing done. He’s tried claritin and zyrtec. He’s currently trying an asthma inhaler. I just wish I could take it away for him, but I can’t. After dealing with the same sort of cough for the last three weeks (plus a couple days), it hurts my heart to hear him going through the same thing.

I’ve done a couple posts on what books I’m reading, but now I’m wondering what blogs you are reading.  I’m always looking for a few good blogs to read.

You can see my blogroll on the side of my blog.  I currently have 61 blogs in my reader ranging from recipe blogs to blogs about healthy eating to mothering to breastfeeding to regional blogs.  I’m really up for a little of anything as long as it’s interesting.

Here are a few blogs that I read:

5 Minutes for Special Needs

5 Minutes for Mom

A Life Less Sweet

Not a DIY Life

Post Secret

What are 5 blogs you read?

Today is K’s 3rd birthday!  He had a “mean car” party on Saturday with some of our family.  Today, we’re just relaxing and playing.  In fact, right now, he’s taking a nap after his big weekend.  I’m hoping that Jason will get some pictures off our camera from Saturday.  If he does, I’ll post some later tonight!  And, yes, he’s still nursing.

That is what someone told us that we should buy for K. He LOVES music. He likes to listen to music. He loves wedding dances. (Remember Michaela’s dance?) He often breaks out into song or requests that Jason or I sing to him. When he was younger, I found him one day dancing to a radio commercial that had no music only talking.

At church, he adores our worship leader. Z is a younger man. He is a bit older than college-aged, and K loves him. One time, we went to church out of town with my in-laws, and before church started, K stood up on my lap and looked around. “Where Z go? Music???” He wanted to know how in the world a church could have music without Z. K generally comes to the church service with us for either the beginning or closing worship. Last week, he came, and as I was holding him, he started singing along with one of the songs. He was singing different words than everyone else in the sanctuary, but it didn’t matter to him, to us, or to God. It was adorable.

Getting back to the title of the post, guitar, drums, and a piano. Well, we have 2/3 of those, and what we don’t have K is taking care of on his own. I have a piano from my years of piano lessons as an elementary, junior high, and high schooler. A couple years ago, Jason showed some interest in learning to play guitar, so I bought him one for Christmas. K has taken the drums into his own hands. This is a video I took on my phone earlier today.

I’ve been counting down in my head to my 100th post for a while now. Then, I realized that I missed it! Whoops. So, for my 101st post on this blog, I decided to do a list of 101 things about me (and my family). Here it is:

1. My mom and I shared a hospital room with my high school best friend and her mom when we were born (2 days apart).
2. We didn’t find out about that until we were 17 years old, because we weren’t from the same town until her family moved at age 14.
3. When I was younger, I thought I would become a nurse, a teacher, and a pet store employee when I grew up.
4. When I was around 7 or 8 years old, I started putting the same 3 items on my Christmas list every year: a phone in my room, a pet, and another brother or sister.
5. I have one sibling.
6. I never got any of those things.
7. Before I could read (well), my parents used to give me the mail addressed to “Current Resident” and tell me it was for me.
8. They gave me mailings from Byron Dorgan and told me he was sending me mail.
9. I believed them until I was far too old to believe that sort of thing.
10. I had a great childhood.
11. I have great parents.
12. Most of my childhood memories revolve around playing at the neighbor hood park, playing with friends in my yard, or being with my extended family.
13. I learned to read before kindergarten.
14. I have loved to read for as long as I can remember.
15. When my brother had bowling league, I spent the time at the library
16. I’m not sure he’d appreciate me reminding people he was in a bowling league.
17. Fourth grade was my favorite year of elementary school. Thanks, Mrs. Becker!
18. By 6th grade, I had read nearly all the children/youth books in our library and checked out a Stephen King novel.
19. My sixth grade teacher called my parents to see what they thought about me having that book.
20. I didn’t actually read it. It was a little too creepy for my age.
21. When I was in seventh grade, I had my first sort-of-real boyfriend.
22. We didn’t date or call each other or anything, but we were “together.”
23. When I was a junior in high school, I had two teachers tell me that he still “had the hots” for me.
24. I doubt the truth of #22.
25. I have been a North Dakota resident my entire life.
26. I flew on an airplane for the first time when I was 16. I went to St. Louis, Missouri with 3 classmates and a teacher from my school.
27. FHA (now known as FCCLA) was responsible for most of my travel prior to turning 18.
28. Because of FCCLA, I was able to go to St. Louis, MO, New Orleans, LA, and Tokyo, Japan.
29. I spent 6 weeks in Japan with a host family the summer I was 17.
30. I climbed (part of) Mt. Fuji.
31. I lived in central Tokyo when I was in Japan.
32. My Japanese family drove a Ford minivan.
33. When I was in Tokyo, I felt like I could not breathe because there were so many people and buildings all around.
34. When I came home from Japan, I remember what North Dakota air smelled like as I stepped off the airplane.
35. The only reason I needed to attend 4 years of high school was for my senior english and my senior social studies class. I had enough classes/credits to graduate after 3 years.
36. I wanted to be a marine biologist when I was in high school.
37. That is not very likely when you live in North Dakota.
38. When I wrote my senior english paper about my future career, I chose civil engineering.
39. I was an engineering major for 3 days in college.
40. I also majored in speech language pathology.
41. and athletic training
42. and elementary education
43. and middle school education.
44. I stuck with the last two.
45. I have a dual major in elementary and middle level education.
46. I have a masters in special education.
47. I met my husband, Jason, in my first semester of college.
48. I knew who he was in a class of 150ish people.
49. He didn’t know me, but it all worked out in the end.
50. We officially met at a Campus Crusade for Christ Christmas Conference.
51. We dated for 10 months
52. and broke up for a year and a half.
53. Then, we dated for 8 months,
54. were engaged for 8 moths,
55. and got married in June of 2002.
56. Jason says that he knew we would get married the night we first met.
57. It took me another 3 years to figure that out.
58. I don’t like the ends of chicken strips.
59. I don’t really like most meat at all.
60. If I had my choice, I would be vegetarian.
61. I have two sons.
62. I had two unmedicated labors.
63. I am breastfeeding both my 15 month old and my almost 3 year old (will be 3 on Nov 3).
64. I am married to an early adopter (someone who jumps onto new trends early).
65. I am not an early adopter.
66. Jason has introduced me to blogging,
67. NPR/MPR,
68. and being politically moderate.
69. I’m no good at moderation. I like all or nothing.
70. I used to teach special education before I had K.
71. When I tell people that, they say, “you must be really patient.”
72. I laugh when they say that.
73. I am a very emotional person.
74. I am easily moved to cry.
75. There is a CVS commercial that makes me cry.
76. I like the Pixar movie Cars more than my son, I think.
77. I am planning to run a half marathon in May of 2009.
78. I used to think that I wanted to have six children.
79. Now, I’m not sure how many I want.
80. For the first two years of our marriage, I did almost no cooking.
81. We had a rotation of about 4 meals that we used to space out meals in restaurants.
82. In the summer of 2004, I decided to start trying one new meal a week.
83. Now we usually eat 2-4 new meals a week.
84. I am trying to get rid of high fructose corn syrup in our house.
85. I love cinnamon rolls.
86. I love caramel rolls.
87. I once found (what I think was) a cockroach in the basement of the apartment building/house we were living it.
88. I put it in a sandwich bag and left it on the kitchen table to show to Jason when he got home from work.
89. Thinking about that now still gives me the creeps.
90. I sometimes get the urge to move somewhere far away from North Dakota.
91. I will probably never move all that far from North Dakota…maybe Moorhead or East Grand Forks?
92. I am passionate about breastfeeding and the benefits of breastmilk for moms and babies.
93. I am becoming more and more interested and passionate about conservation, green living, fair trade, and organic food.
94. I want to learn to knit
95. I have started playing the piano again, but our piano badly needs to be tuned.
96. I am pleased with where my life is 10 years after high school graduation.
97. I miss my brother and sister-in-law and wish they lived closer.
98. I love to watch football
99. and hockey.
100. Having kids has significantly reduced my sports watching time.
101. Ideally, if I have more children, I would love to give birth to them at The Farm.

There you have it! Those are my 101 things. If you got all the way to the end, I’m impressed!

I think over the course of the next several months, I will probably be changing my blog topics up a little. When I was breastfeeding K frequently or when A was born and I was feeding both boys frequently, I felt like I had a lot more to say about nursing specifically. Now that they’re getting older, it’s just something that’s an every day part of our lives. It just is. I don’t think or worry about it too much. We’ve gotten over most of the hurdles and pitfalls. A is sleeping better, and K has kept up his 2 a day nursing routine for the past few weeks.

Some of the topics that I have become more interested in lately are healthy eating, green living, cooking, exercise, and expanding my reading repertoire. Maybe I’ll finish a book (without reading the ending ahead of time) and do a review of it. Who knows?

A while ago, I wrote about our new compost bin that Jason and his dad had made. I was a little skeptical that we would be able to fill it all up. Who throws that much food? Well, it’s pretty much full. We have some of our lawn clippings in there and some food with it, too. Jason goes out once in a while, and he moves it around and turns it. I guess he waters it, too.

When we first started the project, I thought it was just something fun to do. I also thought it would be nice to eventually have the compost for our garden. I didn’t realize until today when I was reading on 5 Minutes for Going Green (a fabulous blog, by the way), that composting has another benefit. Food that is thrown away is the largest component of landfill waste. When food is thrown away, it does not become compost. The conditions in the landfill are anaerobic (oxygen-free), and instead of becoming fabulous fertilizer, it breaks down to become methane gas. Methane gas is a greenhouse gas, and it is three times more potent than carbon dioxide. In an era where global warming has become an everyday conversation, it seems like composting is one small thing that the average person can do with little extra effort and expense.