{7 QT 24} - Resolutions!

Happy New Year!

I'm one of those unfortunate people who loves making New Year's Resolutions, and usually gets carried away in the process.

Inevitably, I make resolutions that are unrealistic - being either too big, or requiring too many little pieces and parts. And I may have done this again this year, but at least I'm trying to make an improvement in how I make resolutions.

These are designed to encompass only those things that are the most important for me to do, and everything else... I'm willing to not worry about.

I don't know if you're familiar with Leigh Ann Dutton @ Intentional By Grace, but she has a lot of right ideas about life. The biggest ones being that being a good mother, a good wife, a good friend, a good daughter, a good employee... a good whatever... those things aren't going to happen by accident. They're going to happen because you are intentional about them, and by the grace of God.

So... resolutions this year boil down to being intentional about the things that are most important. This year, I've made twelve and managed to number them 1-7! (I'm a nerd, remember?)

{7 QT 23} - More Life Lately

So... life has been pretty busy for me this last month! Here's a little about what's been going on with me lately.

Quick Prayer Request first: sometime during the month, I misplaced my Bible and haven't been able to find it. It's the Bible I got when I was Confirmed, and so it's very special to me.  I use it for pretty much everything I do. Please pray that I'm able to find it.

{7 QT 22} - Life, Lately (Now with 50% more good news!)

Just a few more update in how things are going, lately.

{7 QT 21} - NaNoWriMo!

A who to the what, now?
National Novel Writing Month - is 100% without a doubt my favorite secular celebration of anything. Way, way cooler than Talk Like a Pirate Day.

NaNoWriMo is a month-long novel writing event that takes place during the month of November. The object is to write 50,000 words worth of first draft, that you can later revise into a novel.

I have been a (very) long-time participant in NaNoWriMo. Eleven years is the figure I keep quoting on the forums, but having done a little napkin math, I am able to rattle off novel titles for eleven previous years, so this may, in fact, be my twelfth year!

And I didn't get "in" on NaNoWriMo until it had already been going strong for five years.

Here are seven quick takes about NaNoWriMo for me, this year, and why it's a red letter year.

{7 QT 18} - Glove Boxes, Duggars, House, and Kids

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So, we bought a new-to-us used car last week, and it wasn't until we were leaving for our road trip on Friday that we discovered that one thing that we missed when we were looking at the car.

The handle on the glove box is completely unusable. We can't open it, but we're hoping that our car guy can rig something up.

As undiscovered problems with cars go... it's not so bad. It jut means we don't have a good place to put all of the napkins we get from fast food places!

{7 QT 15} - Baby Updates

So... I lied about doing a post this week about the party. I just didn't manage it, but I'll try again next week. I wanted to do some pregnancy updates instead.

{7 QT 14} - Good Times

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So... last week was REALLY busy for me. I hosted a birthday party for my beautiful little girl, who insisted on eating her cake daintily instead of squishing it like she did last year.

See how dainty?

{7 QT 13} - Diet Updates, a "Small" Announcement, and Insomnia

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So... you don't have to have been reading my blog very long to know about my "condition". Nothing serious, just a couple of major diet modification.

There are a few things I've discovered in the process of looking for eligible substitutes, but the most important thing on the list is this:

{7 QT 12} - Eating with Hashimoto's Disease

So, I was diagnosed this week with Hashimoto's Disease. It's an autoimmune disease (like diabetes) that affects the thyroid. Now, it's not horribly serious; I've evidently had it for a very long time - my thyroid problem has always been caused by this disease, but until now, no doctor has ever thought to check me for antibodies.

According to my sources on the internet and my doctor, there's no "treatment" or "cure" for this, just like there's no cure for diabetes (yet - but I'm sure someone's working on it!)

There are some things you can do to make it better, and I'm starting to work on at least some of it. There's a diet. Apparently, cutting all gluten and (this is the part that stinks...) all dairy really helps most people's thyroid function.

So... here are seven things I've learned about cooking and eating with this disease.

(I'm trying to stay positive about this, so please don't take this as "complaining.")

{7 QT 11} - Tell Me Some Good News

I've had a bit of insomnia lately, and Pitter Patter brought home a bug from somewhere and we're all sick ... and we have a plumbing problem... and we were without power for over 3 hours yesterday when I wanted to be doing blog stuff... so... I'm in need of some good news.

So, here's my 7 quick takes of good news.

{7 QT 10} - NPR Dreams and Potty Fire Drills

 

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As promised on Monday, I spent some time trying to take pictures of the decorations we put up for Mother's Day, and here are a few of the good pictures:

These are the same decorations that I put up for Pitter Patter's birthday last year. I thought they were just too pretty to only see use the one time!

(7QT 8} - What I (Evidently) do When I'm Stressed

 

So, I didn't write all of my quick takes all at once. I've been writing them, kind of one at a time.

I've realized as I've been putting them in order that I've been really stressed out over like the last week and a half or two, about a few things I can't really do anything about in the immediate sense. I've apparently been really working hard to keep my mind off things while still managing to be lazy about housework.

I had so many things to talk about, I think I have like nine or ten quick takes, but I numbered 1 to 7, honest!

{7QT 7} - Baby Blogger Says What?

 

You know that blogger that obsessively tracks their stats? Yes. I am that blogger. I have an awesome spreadsheet with cool graphs that helps me keep track of my "real" daily stats.

Blogger and Google Analytics both do a little bit of double-counting that I do my best to remove, and there were a couple of HUGE spikes in views that I'm pretty certain were bots and not real visitors. I removed all of those. Yes. I know I'm a big nerd.

I partly do this spreadsheet stuff to help me keep track of the blog stuff, but I also do it in part to help me stay sharp on my mighty Excel mastery. You should see some of the epic spreadsheets I was responsible for when I was still working. They were pretty awesome, if I do say so myself!

Here are some things that poring over my spreadsheet has let me in on:

{7QT 6} - Splenda: The Lesson I Forgot I Learned

 

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In case you weren't already aware of it, this coming week is National Infertility Week. Please remember in your prayers all couples who are struggling with fertility problems.

{7 QT 5} - Convalescent Super Powers and a Baby Whisperer

 

I've been kind of sick since Easter. Traveling is not usually nice to my system, and we did a lot of it. Something like 14 hours of driving, total, and I while I got a lot of posts for November and December written on the long car ride, I came back sick.

{7QT 4} - Ducks in a Row

 

 

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Happy Good Friday! Today is the day to begin the Divine Mercy Novena, if you plan to participate. (I've never been totally sure about that until this year!!)

{7QT 3} - Baby stories, Everywhere!

Had an alarming number of "cute kid" things happen thing this week. Enjoy.

{7QT 2} - Mixed Bag of News and Hilarity

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Earlier this week, a still, small voice told me to Pray the Rosary for Peace in the Middle East.

I'd like you to join me, just whenever you have a chance, as often as you can.

More about my experience in this post.

7 Quick Takes - My Life, Recently

I’ve been seeing this 7 Quick Takes thing around the Catholic blogosphere, and I thought it might be fun to join in, so here goes.

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Epic (The Church History Study from Ascension Press) is EPIC!  My local parish is about five weeks into it, and I am loving it!

It is really nice to be taking a look at the story of our Catholic family, as told by us, instead of the world. For example, Did you know that England's Virgin Queen (Good Queen Bess) was responsible for as bloody a persecution against Catholics as "Bloody Mary" was against Protestants? One of those things that's kind of glossed over in history classes nowadays...

Seriously, a good course in Church History ought to be required for everybody getting Confirmed!