Reading through the New Testament
Last night I finished reading Matthew, and I want to finish the rest of the gospels by the end of February. I fell off the wagon mid-month, but have been picking up the slack on my reading and making sure I read at least one chapter of the Bible before bed. I want to be more deliberate with my time and what I use it for, and making reading through the Word a priority is important for me. I am also buying a Bible commentary so there is more context and information behind what I’m reading.

Read books sitting around my house
Check. Read World Without End. Still have 13 books on the list I came up with, but I’ll get them done.

Drink less soda.
Yikes, this one could be going better. As I sit here I’m drinking a Diet 7-UP. Baby steps, right?

Be healthier.
I am totally making much better decisions regarding my lifestyle. I started doing a 5K training program but it’s been halted temporarily because I have crazy shin splints and have to get a new pair of shoes with good insoles next week before I can run. However, instead of quitting entirely until then, I still sling on my running shoes and go walk at least as far as I had planned on running. It takes longer but I’m moving my body still and sweating and doing good things for my heart. Charisse has been coming with me sometimes, and we’re going out tonight, too. Steph and I are running a 5K in a few weeks, and even if I can’t run most of it (hopefully my new shoes will enable me to!), I’ll be able to walk most of it, and that’s my goal. I’m also really working on changing my food habits. I’ve been trying to eat a fruit and/or veggie with each meal as well as incorporate a good, healthy protein. I have been loving Greek yogurt with granola, but it gets so expensive so this weekend I’m going to try an experiment and make my own. It looks pretty easy, and only involves a quarter cup of regular yogurt, plus four cups of milk. It makes regular yogurt, and then you strain it using coffee filters and a colander to make it thicker for Greek-style yogurt.

I’m not getting paid or anything to say this, but I just started using Nike+ yesterday and I think it’s going to be a huge motivator for me. I love to keep list and track my records, and not only does their website do that, but it also lets you challenge your friends, and you can set up goals for yourself. I set up four goals for myself for the next four weeks:

• 16 runs (or more!)
• 40 miles (or more!)
• 14,000 calories (or more!)
• 3 (or more!) runs with an average of 15:30/mile

The website shows you progress on each goal. If I don’t make them, that’s okay. I just keep going and stick with me. It’s perfect for Type A people like myself.

Grow in God.
This one is going great. Like I said above, I’m working on being much more intentional about my time spent reading the Bible, and I’ve also made some changes to areas of my life that were possibly keeping me from God. For instance, I deactivated both of my facebooks last night because there’s stuff on there that is representative of my old life and right now, I need distance from that stuff. There’s some stuff at church I’m considering doing as well that I think would serve me well, and I’m working on getting more invested in Sundays and really applying what I’m learning to my life. I think it’s amazingly helpful to have my Thursday night home group to reflect back on the sermons (although last night we spent a LOT more time laughing about trolls and other weird, random stuff than talking about the sermon). I want to move forward and let go of the fear I have about what God is going to do in my life if I allow Him!

2. January is always a hard month for me. It’s okay, it’ll be over before I know it!

3. I’ve read two books already (one normal length, one short) and am working through a third one. It’s a 1,005 pages long, so it might take me a million years to finish it.

4. Charisse starts jujitsu today and I get to take her to her first class. I’m really excited to see this go down.

5. Charisse will be eight years old a month from Thursday and I kind of want to weep. She is growing up so fast. There are only a few months left in second grade. Where does the time go?!

6. I miss my Tommy dog. There’s a dog that plays at the park sometimes, named Holly, and for some reason she reminds me so much of my Thomas and whenever I see her, I miss him like crazy.

7. Charisse and I have been doing the Ease into 5K program. Week 1 was fantastic. Week 2 (we’ve only done the first day) sucked so hard. I think it’s because half of what I was doing was uphill, but I wanted to cry. I still managed 2.21 miles, though, so that is excellent. I’m hoping that it will be easier when we run tomorrow because I’m going to stretch more/better and run a route that isn’t asking for a world of pain.

8. The weather has been so windy. Thankfully it’s finally less windy today. It was so nice outside. I sat out in the sunshine at Starbucks today for an hour and just enjoyed the perfect temperature.

9. There was a robbery at the pizza place literally a tenth of a mile down the street from me. Well doesn’t that make me feel all kinds of warm and fuzzy?

10. I can’t wait to see Celine again in Vegas in mid-March. There are third row tickets available to one of her August shows for “only” $271 (including Ticketmaster’s dumb fees) and I’m seriously considering going!

Anyhow, I haven’t been blogging because… my life has been boring. And that’s totally fine by me. It was the first year in… um, a really long time I have no zero school, so that really freed up a lot of time. Basically I spent this year reading a ridiculous amount of book, stalking people on facebook, rewatching Grey’s Anatomy from the start, falling in love with Friday Night Lights, moving out of my parents’ house and then spending more time each week at their home than my apartment, making old friendships stronger and turning new friendships into old ones, and growing as a person. It has been a good year. I’m ready for what 2012 has to bring, though.

With that said, I’m going to list some of my new year’s goals. I read on the interwebz of a lady calling her “resolutions” goals instead because it seemed to make more sense, so hereunto, I present you with Krista’s New Year’s Goals.

1. Grow in God.
   I’ve been going to Calvary Chapel in Camarillo for about 15 months now and I love it. But lately I’ve been slacking in the church/God department. I know that God doesn’t dwell only or primarily in church, but it’s a good place to be built up and to learn. I really want to focus on learning about God this year and growing in my walk with Him. I have so much to learn, and I really want to approach learning about Him the way I have always done with school, and that is with full force and with excitement! He has become more real and special to me since I started going to church again, and I don’t feel like it’s right for me to profess to being a Christian but not living a lifestyle that really shows that. There are a million things I could write to be more specific, but I’d like to make it general because this is a really personal goal for me. There is a lot of work that needs to be done in me, and I’m thankful that I have some really fantastic friends in my life who will hold me accountable to this goal because they also understand its relevance to the lives we live. And I’m very thankful that these same people will have the hard conversations with me about my life when I’m not living it in a way that honors God.
2. Read through the New Testament.
   When I started going to church in 2010, I started reading through the Bible, beginning with the Old Testament. Mistake. Seriously, I lost interest not because it was boring (well… it was a little less interesting) but because it’s hard to relate to some of the OT because we live in a New Testament world. So while I’d love to read the entire Bible the whole way through at some point, I’m going to start just by saying I want to read the entire NT this year. I want to know what Jesus did and said, and I want to be more like Him. I think doing this will really help me with the first goal, to grow in God, because how can you not grow in God when you’re reading through the words His Son said???
3. Be healthier.
   Again, I could be a lot more specific with this one, but I don’t want to set any unrealistic goals for this one. I do have plans to do the Couch to 5K and follow that with the Bridge to 10K program, but other than that, I really just want to be intentional about putting healthy things into my body and to do things like moving more and using my body in the way God intended it to be used instead of sitting around, being lazy. Lazy is good but I always feel even better when I’ve been active and healthy!
4. Read books I have sitting around my house.
   There are so many books I have sitting on bookshelves that I’ve wanted to read and just haven’t. I’m so excited to get started with this goal tomorrow. I’ve picked 14 books I want to read throughout the year. Of course I’ll read more, but these are the 14 that I know I’ll read for sure:
   • Lacuna, Barbara Kingsolver
   • My Name is Memory, Ann Brashares
   • The First Hour I Believed, Wally Lamb
   • My Name is Mary Sutter, Robin Oliveria
   • Freedom, Johnathan Franzen
   • … And the Ladies of the Club, Helen Hoover Santmyer
   • World Without End, Ken Follett
   • Some Sing, some Cry, Ntozake Shange
   • Redeeming Love, Francine Rivers
   • Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
   • Sophie’s Choice, William Stryton
   • The Great American University
   • Getting In, Karen Stabiner
   • The Elegance of the Hedgehog, Muriel Barbery
5. Drink less soda/caffeine.
   We’ll see. This is more goal every year but I struggle with each time.

If you’re too lazy to click the link (and I wish you weren’t, because her telling of her story is way more amazing than my telling of it), here’s her story in a nutshell: on her 38th birthday, the woman of the blog (whose name I can’t find!) celebrated by doing 38 Random Acts of Kindness, in varying degrees of “bigness.” She took back people’s carts in the shopping center, paid tolls at toll roads, and bought gift cards for strangers. It blows me away. I wish that there world were full of more people who were willing to do something like this, even something small. It doesn’t take your birthday to do a random act of kindness; it is something you can do on a large or small scale every day.

So from December 1 until December 25, I’m going to celebrate each day by doing at least one random act of kindness. More if I’m lead that way, but at least one. I dare you to join me!

2. I downloaded The Christmas Sessions by MercyMe on iTunes and let me just say, I love it. It might be my favorite Christmas CD ever, followed very closely by Faith Hill’s Joy to the World. And I used to say “Silent Night” was my favorite Christmas carol, and I still love it, but I think my new favorite is “Little Drummer Boy.” The message of the Little Drummer Boy is so powerful me — what do I bring to honor God, even when I think I have nothing?

3. November is a month of many breaks. This week is over, next week is a short week, then it’s a full week, and then it’s Thanksgiving week and I only work three days. (And I get to put up a Christmas tree and get all giddy…)

4. I really need to step it up with the Christmas shopping. So far, I have one present for Gwen. That’s it. And I bought that months ago. I know what I’m getting most of my giftees. Tonight I’m going to Michaels to buy part of Charisse’s gift so I’ll feel better about that soon.

5. I wrote this on November 4th. It’s now November 18th. Whoops. Since then, it’s now become the full week at work, and I’m only working two days next week, and one of those days I’ll be at the district all day sitting on an interview panel. Also, I bought Noah a Christmas present that is great.

6. I’ve been looking at the rest of the people on my Christmas list and I’m getting pretty excited for payday so I can just sit down and pay. I’m disappointed that I didn’t do it like I did last year, two presents a month for several months, because it’s definitely more stressful this year than it was last time, but oh well. I haven’t finished Charisse’s gift but I know exactly what to get…

7. The reason I’m excited about all of this Christmas present buying is because we’re putting the tree up next week on Thanksgiving! Ryan works so Mel, Charisse, and I will put on the tree and decorate the house for the holidays, and every good Christmas tree needs some wrapped presents under it! They’re going to the Duston’s for dinner and I’m going to my grandma’s for a little bit, and then we’ll probably come back to the house and decorate some more. Gah I’m excited. Then it’s acceptable to actually like Christmas things!

8. All I want for Thanksgiving day is maybe some cool weather and overcast skies so we can stay inside and drink hot cocoa and wine with the fire roaring while we decorate. Too much to ask? I think not.

9. That’s where I am. There’s more but it’s just too much to type right now.

(HUGE thanks to Kim for doing the storyboards — that was the hard work!)

2. i leave for vacation in less than 24 hours. at this time tomorrow, i’ll be soaring through the skies. if all goes as planned, i’m be over northern california after leaving from oakland at 9:00 am. it’s weird getting to idaho so early. when i’ve gone to alabama, i always picked an early flight but between five hours of air travel, usually a one- or two-hour layover, and travel from the airport, it’s six or seven by the time i arrive. my flight lands in boise at 11:30 so if all goes as planned, i should be at kim and cory’s house by lunch time! and it’s only an hour time difference so it isn’t too bad. my flights are 90 minutes or less — barely enough time to reach cruising altitude, get a snack, and then begin the descent again.

3. i’m looking forward to fall weather. it’s cold in ventura right now, but it isn’t what i would call fall. it’s more like early winter: dreary and cloudy. the weather changes a little bit each time i look at the forecast, but as of right now, there are no days “hotter” than 69, and the lowest low is 33. one day is supposed to rain. all days are going to be great.

4. kim and i have compiled a list of fun traditions to do while i visit (since my october visit has become a tradition itself!). some of these include: making homemade paula dean cinnamon rolls. making an apple pie (maybe this year will be the first time we can actually do it!). going to the pumpkin patch. watching a movie on a rainy night. getting addicted to a game on the iPad (easier this year since i actually own an iPad and don’t have to use hers when she’s not using it or using my iPhone). kim, add anything i’ve forgotten.

5. i packed last night but i have to repack tonight because a) i had to sit on my suitcase to close it, b) i need to do some reorganization after i do laundry, and c) i just got to the point where i was throwing stuff in there for the sake of making sure it got in there.

6. i’m bringing my camera but i can’t find my camera usb cord so the only vacation pictures i’ll post until i get home will be via my iPhone. #firstworldproblems

7. i’m so excited to see peyton and noah! peyton is like a mini-charisse, except that she looks like kim. and the last time i saw noah, he was still really little (it was in april, which was six months ago, so he was only around seven months old).

8. this morning is draaaaaging. so slow. painfully slow.

9. have you heard of spotify? it’s like pandora but way, way, way better.

10. that’s all i’ve got.

I kept seeing this cool gray and yellow twisty-braidy scarf on Pinterest but I never repinned it. Then I saw that a lady, Keight, whose blog I read (and whose name I love so much I’ve shortlisted it on my list of baby names!), wrote an entire tutorial post about how she and her husband figured out how to recreate the scarf, which was selling for $40ish bucks, for less than seven.

Well okay then. I was ready to make it.

Also, she created an awesome tutorial completed with very detailed, clear instructions, pictures, and there’s even the bonus Price Is Right hand gestures in a video if you so wish. As soon as I read the tutorial, I was like, “Even I, who am really stupid when it comes to visualizing this kind of stuff, get this.” And I even got the hardest part, which is sewing the seam on the inside of the scarf. So I decided to do this before I go to Idaho in a few weeks, but there’s only one problem.

I don’t own a sewing machine.

A few people offered to let me come hang out at their homes and do it, but I just hate creating a mess at others’ houses. Fast forward to this weekend, when I was in San Diego with my friend Lindsay. (Amtrak and I were not friends on Friday night. It took me six and a half hours to get from Ventura to San Diego on train — a whole lot more than the planned five hours and two minutes! I could have walked there faster.) Lindsay and I had the brilliant plan to buy some clearance jersey sheets from Target and use her mom’s sewing machine to get some stuff sewn and scarves made. She is doing a craft sale in a few weeks, while I’m in Alabama, and I was gung-ho. So after we got back to Ventura tonight, we left her kids with her parents, hopped in my car, and perused the aisles at Target.

There wasn’t that great of a selection, but we decided on some plain gray and red jersey sheets (both in size cal king, because it’s go big or go home for us, and also because they were the same price as the twin sheets and I’m a firm believer in the biggest bang for your buck), plus two body pillowcases and a regular pillowcase (none of which I can find on the Target website. Fail, Target.) As we were leaving, we saw the clearance bedding and they happened to have a set of bright pink jersey sheets and pillowcases on clearance for $6.24. I didn’t really want to spend that much more, but I would have regretted not getting them, so I did. We both spent about $50 on stuff and then headed to her parents’ house to get started.

It took us about three hours to make the first scarf, but not because we’re stupid. (Well… that’s debatable.) Lindsay had to deal with her kids, and I helped her, and there was dinner involved, and bathtime, and bedtime. It was really an eventful night.

Anyhow, here’s Lindsay about to sew for the first time tonight. This is also mere seconds before she temporarily broke the sewing machine. (You think I’m kidding but at one point the bobbin hated our guts and we wanted to weep. Lesson learned? Looser stitches and less thread tension. Also. Don’t let Lindsay thread the needle because she misses a few steps!)

The first tube I made! I was so, so proud. (What you can’t really see here is just how HORRIBLE my measuring/cutting was. Seriously. It was so bad.)

Both of the tubes on mine ready to be braided, but dinner calls. (You can see that in the background of this shot.)

Some of the aftermath. We’d already cleaned up a little here.

My scarf! (This is the second shot after I fiddled with the braiding a little bit. Still needs a little more adjustment to perfect it.)

Lindsay and I with our finished projects! We’re making some more tomorrow for a craft fair in two weeks, but we needed to do a few trials runs so we could figure out what the h— we were doing. There were some stitches that we were nervous about (actually just one — the part where we turned the fabric into a long tube) but overall I think they turned out awesome, considering we haven’t used sewing machines in 13 and 14 years, respectively! (Please excuse my diiirty hair, sweaty face, glasses, tired eyes, and horribly “supportive” sports bra!)

A short list of things I learned tonight:

1. Jersey is nice to touch, but terrible to cut. Especially if you’re me. Then you cut “straight” lines like a drunk sailor.
2. Sewing is so much harder than it looks if it’s been a while since you last did it.
3. Awesome tutorials rock!
4. This scarf is easy and fun and actually very simple once you get done with a sample one.

My dogs are technically my parents’ pets but I consider them mine, too. Minus the parts where I have to buy them food and pay for their vet bills. Then they’re entirely owned my them. I’m going to talk about the order in which we got them.

Baytor Nerrise, "Rottador" mix (rottie/lab),8 years old

Baytor, who is named after a Star Trek character (my parents get the blame for that one), is truly a marshmallow of a dog. In fact, we often call her Marshmallow. She is 100 pounds of dumb dog. We got her from the pound about six and a half years ago. She loves all of us (me, little sister, and parents), but Dad is her person. She’s slow and doesn’t like to take long walks or anything, but we’ve started taking her to the neighborhood park and she likes it. Her idea of playing catch is to lie in the grass and when we throw the ball to her, if she can catch it sitting down — great. If not, we have to get the ball and throw it again. It’s called Lazy Catch, and she’s a pro at it. It makes me sad to think we don’t have very many years left with her (life expetencies for rotts and labs 9 and 12 years), but she’s already showing signs of aging. She’s much slower than she used to be, and over the last few years she’s had constant eye, skin, and ear infections. It is going to be a heart-breaking day for all of us when she dies or has to be put down. For now, we just enjoy out “So Big” (as we affectionately call her, and she responds!) and appreciate the fact that she is still here.

Tommy Dog, Rhodesian Ridgeback, 13 years old

Tommy was an awesome dog. We had to put him down on July 1 of this year after he developed a rapidly-growing cancer in his leg, and it is honestly one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. My mom and I stayed with him through the entire euthanasia, and while I will say that I will be there for any dog I have until the end, it was terribly hard. He lived a good life, though, because the average Ridgeback has a life expectancy of 9 years, and he was almost 14 when he died. We had him for three years and he was such a good boy (our family’s only boy dog, actually!). He loved walks and playing with tennis balls. You can read more about him in the doggie obituary I wrote for him. (Awww, I just read this again for the first time in a while and it makes me miss him. He really was such a good, good boy!)

Chloe, Chihuahua, 4 years old

Chloe is also another one of our pound puppies. My sister, who was four when Chloe came to our family, really wanted a dog of her size, since we had two big dogs. My parents said, “Sure!” (actually, I think it was my mom who said sure and my dad just went along for the ride) and Chloe came to be part of the family. She is named after Chloe from Beverly Hills Chihuahua and has the same initials as my sister (yes, all of our dogs of middle names). Chloe was a really ugly, malnourished dog when we got her, but now she weighs a whopping 11 pounds (she is a larger chihuahua; she’s n0t one of those gross fat ones!) and is a very pretty girl. Her back legs are longer than her front ones, so she stands at a slant, and when she runs the back of her body drifts to the side, so she never runs in a truly straight line. She needs a lot of walking and running. She plays hilarious games with us, and puts up with a lot of crap (like when I dress her in my sister’s Build-A-Bear clothes). She is a good girl, and we’re stuck with her for a long time because chihuahuas basically live forever.

Her Halloween costume (my dad is a police officer)

Working on her lazy

She has fun ears

It might seem crazy, but when I have kids, if I have the opportunity to homeschool them and I think it would work well for them, I wouldn’t hesitate. Not one bit. There are so many negatives said about homeschooling: that the kids are less socialized. Their curriculum isn’t as good as a teacher’s because it isn’t taught the same way. They don’t go to college. They won’t learn as much as in a traditional school. All homeschooled kids do is sit around all day. And the thing is, all of these things are wrong. Many homeschooled kids end up more articulate, well-spoken, well-rounded, and academically prepared for life and for higher education, and I think a big, huge reason for this is because homeschooling a child gives parents the opportunity to teach the way his or her child needs to learn.

My point here isn’t that everyone should homeschool their children; I think that’s a big stretch to say that. Homeschooling isn’t right for every kid, and it’s not right for every parent. But I think the key to education lies in what I said earlier about the possibility of homeschooling: if it’s right for my kid. Education in the United States falls, for the most part, into a one-size-fits-all box, and clearly it’s broken. The US average high school graduation rate from public high schools is 70.1% and in California it’s only 68.17% (source). That means for every thousand California students, 32 of them don’t graduate high school. It blows my mind. But at the same time, if I’m being honest, I have to admit it doesn’t really surprise me all that much. Kids get funneled from traditional elementary schools to traditional middle/junior high schools to traditional high schools, and somewhere along the way many of them are getting lost. And the saddest part is, we are losing smart, talented kids because we have such a linear education system that assumes all students will make it to college and all students will be proficient at state testing (thank you, No Child Left Behind). We’re missing something here. Something major.

What about the kids who have good mechanical abilities, and want to work with cars or be electricians or work as craftsman?

What about students who are gifted in the arts (whether it’s singing or dancing or painting or writing)?

What about the students who are incredibly smart, but their learning styles don’t mesh with the 8 – 3 classroom?

We leave them all behind by expecting them to fit into a single mold. And that’s why, if I were able to wave my magic education wand, I’d make sure every parent knows that there are options for students, options that are so much broader in scope than a typical classroom, and I’d make sure that we give parents the opportunity to send their kids to the schools that would best suit them.

In grad school I learned about open classrooms. What! They’re amazing. I wish this kind of classroom had been around and accessible when I was in elementary school, because I think it would have made learning so much easier for me, especially in areas where I am weak, such as math and science. What I really think is powerful about these kinds of classrooms are that they allow students to be the experts in subject matter in which they excel. Have a child who’s great at English or creative writing? Let him or her help the rest of the students in the class. The same goes for math, and science, and history. Even bigger than student experts is that these kinds of classes allow teachers to teach the curriculum without separating everything into pieces. In my seven-year-old sister’s class, they have specific times each day for spelling, social science, math, and reading. Imagine how much more effective it would be to combine history and writing into a single lesson, or math and writing, or science and spelling… the list is endless. You do, of course, have to get more creative with your assessments, but I like that teachers have to work a little bit more outside the box in open classrooms.

Another tool I think is under utilized is the concept of a virtual classroom. For students who like a more traditional approach to academics, this would work well but give them flexibility by allowing them to do their work online. Most programs are state funded and provide a computer and printer as well as a subsidy for internet access to families who need it. Um, hello? This would have been AMAZING for me in high school. Amazing. Especially in those cases where the classes are self-paced. That was a big struggle for me: there were classes in high school that were just too easy for me, and sometimes I felt stifled by having to hold myself back so the rest of the class could catch up. (And the converse is true as well — there were classes that were insanely difficult for me, and I needed extra help, but couldn’t always get it the way I wanted and needed because we needed to keep on a certain schedule).

A third idea? Ix-nay the concept of “college is for everyone.” It’s not, and that’s okay. I say this as someone who works at a college and studied college student personnel in graduate school. Let’s take our cue from other countries, like Germany, and break our educational system into chunks. Everyone gets the basics as a kid, whether it’s in a traditional classroom, homeschooling, or something like an open classroom. As you progress, you move into different types of schools, like schools that lead to university or schools that lead to a trade. There’s nothing wrong with going to a trade high school and learning there. Seriously, I know a lot of tradesmen and women who are way more set than I am, and their jobs are in less danger than mine! It all goes back to the concept of one size doesn’t fit all, and how can a student who wants to fix cars or build things care about politics and mathematics the  same way a university-bound student can? Neither of these students is better or more important than the other — the reality is, we need them both — yet we as a society (sadly) prize one over the other.

These are just three of countless ways to educate kids that don’t fall into mainstream education ideals, but they’re three ways that might be successful at netting more kinds in areas that they’re interested in, not to mention catching the kids who fall through the cracks because they’re not best served by a traditional college prep curriculum.

Commence the magic wand waving.