Category Archives: Reverb

Some of my absolute favorite ladies Sarah and her partner-in-crime, Meredith are leading a December blog series called Reverb.  I can’t explain it nearly so well as she does except to say that it involves reflecting on the life you’ve lead over the past year.  The highs, the lows, the changes and your hopes for the year to come.  I told her I would love to join in for a post or two when the prompt felt right.

Prompt for December 31:  Clean Slate.  Tomorrow is a new year.  What do you want to do with your clean slate?

2011 was a year of plans.  Of follow-through.  Of always having an end goal in mind.  Of keeping my eye on the prize.

2012 is a blank slate in the truest sense of the word.  Tabula rasa.  A new leaf.

I can see a few shadows in the fog, but that’s where it ends.

The outline of the picture frame, but not the details of the artwork it contains.

There are so many things I could try to force into that picture, but I’m not quite ready yet.

Instead, I’m going to live presently.

I’m going to act.

I’m not going to squirrel things away for the most convenient time or the ideal situation.

I’m going to cling to the idea of opportunity.  To the hope of possibility.

To the promise of dreams brought to life.

What are you going to do with your blank slate?

What are your New Year’s Eve plans?

Some of my absolute favorite ladies Sarah and her partner-in-crime, Meredith are leading a December blog series called Reverb.  I can’t explain it nearly so well as she does except to say that it involves reflecting on the life you’ve lead over the past year.  The highs, the lows, the changes and your hopes for the year to come.  I told her I would love to join in for a post or two when the prompt felt right.

Prompt for December 28: I wish.  What do you wish for in 2012?  How will you make it come true?

Even though most of the population won’t admit it, I’m more than happy to say that I have an extremely casual relationship with The Secret.  No, I’ve never actually read the book.  But I like the idea of visualizing what you want as a part of the process to actually getting it.

From that statement you might ascertain that I’m also into Vision Boards, but that’s actually quite the opposite.  Because Vision Boards are time-consuming, probably involve gluing your fingers together and require some sort of magazine Kismet in which The Perfect Pictures of your Ideal Life leap off of the page and onto your piece off tagboard.

This never happens for me.

Or maybe every Vision Board I’ve ever seen is just one colossal compromise after the other because The Perfect Pictures exist for no one.

I want no part of that.

So.  Wishing.

Here’s the thing about 2011.  I didn’t know for certain how everything was going to play out.  But I had a pretty good idea.  It looked something like the following:

1. Go on Vacation
2. Run
3. Get Married
4. Go on a Honeymoon
5. Run
6. Spend a Month Marrying-Off Friends
7. Look For a New Job
8. Keep My Current Job
9. Celebrate
10. Marathon
11. Drink Beer Recover
12. Run
13. Celebrate

There was lots of getting things done and making things happen.  But there wasn’t a lot of room for error wishing in there.

2012?  Is a big wide-open space.

There is nothing that I can list.  There is no order.

There are so many things that I could wish for.

So many stars to wish on.

But I’m afraid of wasting my hope on the small stuff.  Or the wrong things.  Completely missing It.  Whatever It is.

So for now, I’m wishing for the ability to Say Yes to opportunities.  To bravely do The Scary Things.  To make the right choice, even when it’s the inconvenient one.

And I’m wishing for health and happiness.

Because when you have those two things going for you, everything else starts to fall into place.

What are your wishes for 2012?

Some of my absolute favorite ladies Sarah and her partner-in-crime, Meredith are leading a December blog series called Reverb.  I can’t explain it nearly so well as she does except to say that it involves reflecting on the life you’ve lead over the past year.  The highs, the lows, the changes and your hopes for the year to come.  I told her I would love to join in for a post or two when the prompt felt right.

Prompt for December 19: Challenges.  What did you wrestle with in 2011?  What did you learn?  What challenges do you foresee in 2012?

2011.  The year of boundaries.

Setting them.

Finding them.

I spent more time than I ever could have anticipated, learning to acknowledge what it is that I Need To Function on a daily basis.

What you need to function.

Just let it marinate for a second.

It sounds deceptively easy.  Like knowing how to take care of a plant.  Like you can fit it into a specific formula. 

Oh, you know, you just give them water, some indirect sunlight, a bit of fresh air and they flourish. 

Though in the case of our now-defunct houseplants, they didn’t even really need the water.

Um.

I realized that saying yes is easy, it’s saying no that’s hard.  You’re not always saying no to a person, you’re saying no to a situation.  You’re saying no to an opportunity.

There are a lot of really great opportunities.  Incredible opportunities.  But that doesn’t always mean they are the right opportunities.  It’s not always so easy to distinguish between the three.

Sometimes saying no means saying yes to your time.  To working through things on your own terms.  To cultivating the space where you can be at your best.

But saying yes to your time?  Can feel really selfish.

I spent the entirety of our Honeymoon, hoping and praying that I would have some sort of epiphany as to what I’m really meant to be doing with this life I have been given.

Yes, that snap was meant to portray some level of introspection.

Beyond loving the ones I’m with, the light bulb moment never really  materialized.

Even after a few glasses of Prosecco.

Instead I came to terms with the fact that sometimes you have to love the one thing you’re stuck with.  Which isn’t to say that if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.  But that there are times where you have to be the active player in your own life.

I mean, not everything was so Big Picture.  I was challenged to confront mundane realities.

Like flying on an airplane by myself for the first time.

Yes, I realize how ridiculous it is that it took me 23 years to get to that point.  But there was a point when I was younger, where I very truly thought I would never set foot on an airplane again.  The anxiety was just too much to handle.

I started to learn what it actually looks like to maintain a 60 pound weight-loss on a daily basis.

It’s not glamorous.  You already know what works.  So there are no fireworks that go off when you experiment with a new way of eating.  No pats on the back for discovering a new way of moving your body.

Truth: Most of the time it’s extremely boring.  With a little bit of vigilance tossed in on the side for good measure.

Boring, as it turns out is not such a terrible starting point.

What were your challenges this year?

What do you see as being challenges in 2012?

Some of my absolute favorite ladies Sarah and her partner-in-crime, Meredith are leading a December blog series called Reverb.  I can’t explain it nearly so well as she does except to say that it involves reflecting on the life you’ve lead over the past year.  The highs, the lows, the changes and your hopes for the year to come.  I told her I would love to join in for a post or two when the prompt felt right.

Prompt for December 14: Ordinary time.  Tell us about an ordinary week in your 2011 life; describe your routine.  Do you hope that your day-to-day, week-to-week life remains much the same in the coming year, or are you trying to shake things up?  How will you do that?

I spent the first eight months of this year in chaos.  Planning a wedding.  Going on a honeymoon.  Trying to figure out what I wanted from my job in the short-term and a career in the long-term.  Finally starting to tackle all of the projects that we had been saving for after the wedding.

In the middle of August, things finally started to come together.

Life in Ordinary Time.  Our new normal.

My regular work schedule is 7:30 – 2:30, Monday through Friday.

It is the product of an epic string of events that culminated with The Universe basically roaring that my life needed to stow all electronic items and return my seat and tray table to their upright and locked positions.  Please and thank you very much.

It’s also a really good example of what happens when you are completely up-front and honest with people about what your needs are, and avoid asking for ridiculous things that make it seem like you see your current employer as some sort of employment-with-benefits Santa Claus.

So, what does a day in Ordinary Time look like for Kat?

Well, it’s really ordinary.

I roll out of bed at 5:05 AM to do 25 minutes of yoga.  In the past two years, I’ve come to terms with the fact that if I don’t do it then, it never gets done.  I’m not an evening yoga-praticer.  Plus, if I don’t wake up to do the yoga, Marcus is still waking up at that time.  So either way, I’m getting woken up.  I like to think that this “practice” of mine spares me a half-hour of tossing and counterproductive dozing.

For all that I sometimes have to force myself into it, there has never been a day where I’ve wrapped up my yoga practice and thought to myself, Man, getting out of bed and focusing my effort and attention on that was a mistake.  So I take it as a sign that I should just keep moving.  Even on the really cold mornings where staying in bed really seems like the only reasonable option.

Can I just take a moment to say that I love the morning?

Because I do.

I am a complete and utter morning person.  I love showering.  I love making coffee.  I especially love deciding on, making and eating breakfast while reading a good book or magazine.  I love blowing-out my hair and putting on make-up.

Simply put, it is the best.

I leave the house, double-check that the garage door is shut and I’m off to work.  Which is the place where I spend 30-32 of my waking hours on a weekly basis.  After two years of dreading going to work (graduating and joining-up with the real world is a rough transition), I can truthfully say that the cloud has lifted.

Going to work is a fine thing to do.  I do some interesting things there.  I get to see people who I would never see if I stayed in the house all day.  I don’t have to spend more than an hour (total!) in the car commuting.

It feels normal.  It feels manageable.

The first thing I do when I get home is put on my running gear.  If I do not complete that task when I walk in the door, then the run isn’t going to happen.  Because even the slightest hesitation will give me enough time to talk myself out of it or to find something else that needs to be done.

So I head out the door or hop on the treadmill for 70 minutes.  Sometimes it’s for a slow run, sometimes it’s for speed training.  On the days that I power walk, the first 10 minutes are to preserve my run streak.  On the days that I run, the last 10 minutes are reserved for a cool-down walk.

Marcus gets home anywhere between 3:30 and 5:30.  Once I wrap my workout up, he commandeers the basement.  That’s all there really is to say about that.

I go upstairs and fix myself what I like to think of as my version of an “after-school” snack.  An apple paired with cheddar cheese or some almond butter has been my favorite as of late.  I catch-up on blogs.  Make myself some tea.  Look over the recipes for the meal we’ll be preparing that night.  Pull on a pair of leggings and a sweatshirt.  Return to my closet 10 minutes later to add leg warmers because I’m now freezing to death.  It’s so predictable and yet so surprising to me.  Every single time.

Once Marcus is done working out and showering, we start preparing dinner.  He turns on the radio.  It’s always tuned to a station that showcases a variety of bad and totally arbitrary of rock music.  Sometimes I suspect they’re trying to be ironic.

A quiet kitchen is good for no one.

Cooking is something that we love to share.  It gives us an activity to do with one another.  It gives us the opportunity to try new things, without leaving the house.  It gives us something to focus on.  It gives us something to complete together.

After dinner, I pack up the leftovers and separate them into lunches while Marcus does the dishes.  It’s at this point in the night where we debate whether or not we’d like to drink wine or beer.

The answer is usually wine.

So we grab the bottle of the moment and head downstairs with glasses in-hand to enjoy a sip and to catch up on whatever happens to be on our DVR.

Sometimes we measure in hours, sometimes we measure in episodes.

In all of this, there comes a point on the couch where exhaustion finally sets in.  Where I am able to acknowledge the fact that I’ve been constantly moving, a ball of frenetic energy, for the entire day.  That the most delightful of all possible outcomes in our world involves a hot pack, a few fleece blankets and a King-sized bed.

It is Ordinary Time.  All is well.

What do you cherish the most about your Ordinary Time? 

What would you change?

p.s. Be a Good Cookie Week continues with Megan’s German Chocolate Cookies!  They look absolutely unreal.

p.s.s. Head on over to enter Kirsten’s giveaway and Jeanne’s giveaway!

Some of my absolute favorite ladies Sarah and her partner-in-crime, Meredith are leading a December blog series called Reverb.  I can’t explain it nearly so well as she does except to say that it involves reflecting on the life you’ve lead over the past year.  The highs, the lows, the changes and your hopes for the year to come.  I told her I would love to join in for a post or two when the prompt felt right.

Prompt for December 12: Future self.  Write a letter to your future self, telling the future you about what you hope for you.

Future Kat,

There’s so much to say and not nearly enough time or space.  So the only thing that I can hope for is that what I share with you today is enough.  That when you look back on this someday, it will make sense.  That it will be the right thing at the right time.

Remember to choose joy.  You are an extraordinarily optimistic person.  But there are a lot of people in your life who don’t see the world in that same glass half-full sort of way.

It’s your job to be patient with them, but that doesn’t mean you have to enable them or let them bring you down.  It’s not your job to save them, even if sometimes you think it might be.  If they want to choose misery, that’s their thing.  Let’s face it, you already know that it’s a whole hell of a lot easier to face the world on the bad days with a smile on your face.

On that note, people will always criticize your taste in clothing/decor/friends/food/reading material.  If you can name it, there’s probably someone out there who doesn’t like it.

It doesn’t matter.  They are not you.  They don’t wake up in your bed, do your job, feed your family or dream your dreams.  A polite Thank You will be enough.

You will always be painfully practical.  That’s just part of the job description when you’re the oldest child.  But since you and Marcus are both oldest children, make sure to give it a rest every once in a while and LIVE.  You’re still learning how to live a life of no regrets.  In the meantime, just keep on saying Yes to every opportunity.

Speaking of that husband of yours, do not ever lose sight of the fact that he is your person and the one human who makes you want to be a better person.  I hope you still think of him as My Patience When I Have None.

And, just like Mom always told you, make sure to treat him like he is your treasure.  Because he is.  I could write thousands of words on that topic alone, but I really don’t need to.   You already understand this in every fiber of your being.

While I’ve got your attention, let’s take a moment to confront the harsh realities of our world.  Even though you managed to zap off 60 pounds through two years of hard work, there is going to be a point where you will have to deal with the issue of baby weight.

Do not be disheartened.

Do not even think twice.

Just slam into it head-on, like the defensive line at the start of a play.  Remember how you were so thankful that you lost the weight when you did the first time around?  This is going to be exactly the same.  Get it off and put it behind you.  There will never be a Better Time.  It is non-negotiable.

Losing it probably won’t be easy and apparently your body will never be the same, but you WILL run marathons again.  Just think – plenty of people don’t even try running one until after they’ve had children, so don’t you dare lose sleep thinking that you’re behind the eight ball on that one.

Take an hour for yourself every day.  You’re a perfectionist, Type-A and a compulsive list maker.  As much as you love crossing things off of your To-Do list, that also means there’s always room to add more.  So you add more.

All the time.

Because you know you can handle it.

Which is great.  Really, it is.  But sweeping the kitchen is not going to soothe you in the same way that doing your mitts and paws, sipping a glass of wine, reading a book, or taking a nap will.

And taking care of other people because that’s what happens to be making you happy at the moment doesn’t count either.  I just KNOW you’re going to try to find loopholes in this, so please do yourself a favor and stop trying.  There aren’t any.

Last, but not least, tell your children every day that they are your most precious resource.

In those exact words.

And tell them that they’re your favorite only daughter and your favorite only son.  Be proud of them.  Show up at all of their activities and events even when they know and you know that you don’t really need you to do this anymore.

They will remember this forever.

I’ll love you forever and always,

Kat

What would you like to tell your future self?

p.s. Cookie Week starts today – check out Kirsten’s Savory Parmesan Cheese Bites.

p.s.s. Don’t forget to click here to enter Kirsten’s Be A Good Cookie Giveaway!

One of my absolute favorite ladies Sarah and her partner-in-crime, Meredith are leading a December blog series called Reverb.  I can’t explain it nearly so well as she does except to say that it involves reflecting on the life you’ve lead over the past year.  The highs, the lows, the changes and your hopes for the year to come.  I told her I would love to join in for a post or two when the prompt felt right.

Prompt for December 6: Money.  Where did you spend your money this year?  Did you save it instead?  What, if anything, would you like to do with your finances this year?

Marcus and I are fairly quiet about our financial situation.

I should like to think that our parents are fairly informed about how we manage our money.  Beyond that, as a rule we try to avoid having conversations about money with other people.

Even though it’s not something to be tucked away or embarrassed about,  I do think that it’s a very personal topic.

But sometimes you should talk about things that get hidden beneath the surface.  Because the things that people don’t talk about end up being the things you need to learn the most about.

This year, we’re blessed to have enough.  Enough to live.  Enough to spend.  Enough to save.

We try to be frugal when we can, and especially when it’s obvious.

What does that look like?

• It’s why we visit three grocery stores on Sunday mornings.
• It’s why I (to varying degrees of success) cook dinner at home three times a week.
• It’s why I choose functional running gear from Target over more well-known brands.
• It’s why I talked Marcus in to re-finishing a solid oak bed frame when the options were $300 and god-only-knows how many hours of work, or $1000 for something made of particle board.
• It’s why I refuse to pay full price for any article of clothing.

Sometimes I’ll see something that another blogger has purchased or that another person is wearing and I’ll ask myself, Why can’t I have that? 

I get envious.  I feel like what I have is less-than.  And the feeling doesn’t always pass right away.

I have to take a step back to remind myself that not only is money a tool, but that everyone gets to make their own choices with it.

So what did we choose to spend our money on?

We traveled.

Oh my god how we traveled.

We went on a cruise in January.  I visited Lindsey in Washington D.C.  Twice.  Marcus went to Las Vegas.  We stole away to the cabin.  I spent a weekend in Madison.  Marcus had a guys’ weekend in the Brainerd Lakes.  We took off on the honeymoon of a lifetime and spent 10 days cruising around the Mediterranean and three more days in Paris.

It didn’t seem like very much until I started to type it out, but WOW.

And though our traveling is done until 2012, we’re in the middle of nailing down some specifics for our next trip.  Because our goal is to travel as much as humanly possible before we start a family.  But that is neither here nor there.

When I think about our financial picture for the next year and into the future, what I see is saving.  Saving for retirement.  Saving for the home we hope to purchase five years from now.

For the home we have now, I see improvements.  Buying nightstands.  Finally re-doing the bathroom vanity.  Updating our light fixtures.  Making the office a useable workspace.  Finishing the cabinets in our kitchen to match the island beneath the cut-out window.

And I see giving.  To support friends in their efforts to raise awareness.  To support causes that we are passionate about.  To create positive change in our community.

Will any of this happen overnight?  Of course not.  But it points us in the direction we want to go.

What do you do to save money?

What financial goals do you have for the next year?

Tomorrow: The super-scientific results of The Survey.  Prepare Yourselves Emotionally.