Whidbey Island, WA

Kolby has arrived safely home after spending nearly two weeks at Whidbey Island, just a hop skip and a jump from Seattle, WA. It was for the winter residency for his grad program, and he had a wonderful time and sent me pictures all throughout his trip to prove it.

Maya and I are VERY happy to have him home again. I wouldn't say I'm totally cut out for being home alone for extended periods of time. Kolby made me promise that I wouldn't just eat cereal for dinner every single night. So one night I took a break from the Frosted Mini Wheats and made myself cinnamon toast and chocolate milk. Not sure that's what he had in mind.

As much as I missed him, I'm so glad he got to go spend time with his writer friends and I love how much he enjoys grad school!

Uncertainty

About this time last year, our lives were full to the brim with uncertainty. Kolby had applied to 4 graduate programs (all with VERY low acceptance rates, as low as 3%) and I had applied to 12 or so jobs (prospects were looking slim on that front as well). Neither of us had heard anything yet. The schools Kolby applied to and the jobs I applied for weren't in the same states. We didn't have a plan in the event that Kolby got accepted to and chose Univ. of Missouri or Vanderbilt and I was offered a job in D.C. or Dallas. We just both shot for the moon and prayed that God would take care of us just as He always has.

There was a lot of anxious waiting. Months, in fact. Then Kolby got an acceptance letter from Seattle Pacific, which was the program he'd had his eye on for several years. It follows a low-residency model, which meant we could live anywhere. I interviewed for a great job in **** shortly after he chose the SPU program. My patience was tested as more than 6 weeks passed without hearing anything. Then I heard something, and it was VERY good news.

We now live a fun, simple life that could not be more perfect for us. We have a small, beautiful home that is full of love, laughs, and tumbleweeds of dog hair. Kolby spends his days writing poetry and enriching the minds (and lives) of high school students. I spend my (week)days at a job that I love. We live a stone's throw away from both of our parents, my brother and SIL, and a handful of great friends. We attend a wonderful church where we feel at home. We're happy. We're grateful. Our life together fell into place better than I could ever have imagined.

Embracing the uncertainty of last year went against every fiber of my being. Everyone told us that "things will all work out" and I believed them, but I couldn't logically see how they were right. Obviously logic can't always be trusted. God took care of us once again.

We are now entering a new phase of (milder) uncertainty, with Kolby seeking full-time employment to couple with continuing his grad program, and some other decisions here and there. Seems like life will always carry a level of uncertainty. I know things will not always work out the way we want them to, but so far we have no reason to fear the unknown!

Food

I’m not exactly a health nut, to say the least.

But, I’m trying to be a little more conscious of what I eat. Kolby and I both are. We decided a good first step would be to limit our consumption of processed foods. We’ll see how this goes!

We’ve switched from our usual grocery store to Sprouts Farmers Market--- they have a larger selection of fresh produce and meats, plus they sell dry goods (beans, oats, rice, etc.) by the pound. Everything is quite a bit cheaper, mostly because the produce is local and in season and the dry foods aren’t processed or packaged. We recently bought some new canisters that help us store the foods we buy at Sprouts, and they help keep our pantry clean and organized.

For breakfast, I've had to say goodbye to some personal favorites: Pops, Chex, Frosted Flakes, Honey Comb, Kix, Rice Krispies, and Special K. We now stick to cereals made with whole grain and little added sugar. Oh how I miss my Pops :)!

We cook dinner together every weeknight and we use fresh meat/chicken, fresh veggies, and sometimes either wheat pasta or whole grain rice. Kolby is in charge of dinner most of the time, and he’s gotten really good at coming up with some good healthy concoctions.

Lunch is a tough meal to ditch the processed foods. Mostly because I am head-over-heels in love with my Baked Cheetos and BBQ Baked Lays. Kolby packs my lunch most mornings, and I usually get a PB&H sandwich (wheat bread, natural peanut butter, local honey), some type of baked chips, and fruit. I feel like that’s a fairly healthy lunch, and I just can’t think of anything better. I'm always open to new lunch ideas if you have any! Because although natural peanut butter is really healthy, it is very high in fat. And I eat a lot of peanut butter.

A lot.

So, that's our first step towards healthier eating. We still order whatever we want when we eat out on the weekends, though. Everything in moderation, right? :) Whether it's going out to eat Mexican food and inhaling chips & queso to my heart’s content, inviting friends over and ordering pizza, drinking coke, or going to Rudy’s BBQ and eating 4 slices of that heavenly white bread along with my brisket... it keeps me going!

The Good, The Bad and the Ugly

The good.

Our house has had a tiny water leak since before we bought it, but we were told by a plumber that it was too small to detect so we'd have to just wait until it got worse. The flooded flowerbed/yard allowed us to figure out where the leak was and get it fixed, so we no longer have a water leak!

The bad.

After a lot of digging around and futilely replacing spigots and valves, the plumber determined the leak was must be in the main waterline. It's a copper pipe and apparently the leak was a result of a bad soldering job. The area was such a mucky mess that it took the plumbers all day to replace the leaky section and solder the new pipe, racking up a $585 bill.

The ugly.Our yard may never recover!

Today I was at work, mourning the loss of the $585 and thinking about all the things that we could have used that money for instead. Then I realized that me getting really bent out of shape about having to spend money on something that is out of our control really goes against our life philosophy of not putting much value in money or the material things that can be bought with it. We're really careful with how we spend our money, mostly because we don't want to waste it on things that aren't important to us, but sometimes I get so caught up in it that frugality almost becomes an object to me. Sometimes things come up that you have no choice but to spend money on, and I finally came to the realization that there's no reason to get grumpy about it. It's probably a good perspective for me to have--- seems like homeownership is full of costly surprises!

***Complete side note: I am watching TV as I write this and a KFC commercial just came on that advertised chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes with gravy, fresh cole slaw and a biscuit for $1.99. I don't even want to know how that is possible.

And the Winner Is...

...a busted waterline underground.

A plumber is coming out tomorrow to see what he can do (and how much it will cost). Bummer!

But, I'm not too concerned about it because Kolby only works for one hour tonight and he made taco ring for dinner! Doesn't get much better than that!

Spring Planting

We took advantage of the beautiful spring weekend to do some landscaping around our yard. Our house had quite a bit of landscaping already, but there wasn't any color at all so we tried to fill in some places and plant some things that will bloom.

Here is the before and after of one side of the front flower bed.

Before:

After: The green hedge bush in the middle is from the backyard; hopefully it will survive the transplant! We planted one new bush and we planted several perennials (columbine, lenten rose) behind the monkey grass that will bloom later this spring.

Monkey grass is a personal favorite of hers.

Here is a before shot of the flower bed at the back of our house. We moved the two living bushes to the beds in the front and pulled out the dead stuff. We planted three double knock-out rose bushes in that area-- two red and one pink.

One of our new rosebushes: We have a row of crape myrtles along our side fence in the backyard and we wanted to plant some colorful shrubs in the space in between. We went with azaleas and camellias. The bushes are small now, but they should grow to be 4' wide by 5' tall.
Camellias bloom in the winter, and here's a picture of the last flower that remains.

The azaleas bloom spring, summer and fall, and here's a picture of the first bloom that has appeared.

It was a lot of work to prepare the beds, till the soil, dig the holes, and plant everything--- probably a lot more work than it looks like it would be judging from these pictures. Everything looks really good, though, and we're crossing our fingers that we can keep everything alive! We're looking forward to a few years from now when the things that we've planted have grown and filled out.

Unfortunately, we ran into some trouble when we went to work on the flowerbed on the left side of the front of our house. We had noticed that area hadn't been draining well but as we started stepping in and raking that side, it became clear that we had a bit of a water problem. The flowerbed is the consistency of mulch soup and there is an expansive puddle in the grass.

There are a few things that could be responsible. It could be a clogged gutter that caused too much of the recent rains to dump on that spot, a leak/brake in the sprinkler system, or a busted waterline underground. Hopefully it's not the latter. We peeked into the crawl space and there isn't any water under the house, thank goodness. Kolby is going to check things out tomorrow and probably call out a sprinkler repairman or plumber. If anyone has any ideas of what may be going on here... we're always open to the idea of not having to pay someone to come out and fix something!

So that's our weekend in a nutshell. Kolby and I have been working opposite schedules lately-- he's been teaching SAT classes from 4-9ish so we only see each other for 1-2 waking hours on any given day-- so it was really nice to spend some time doing something together!

"Are you our sub?"

Here's a glimpse of a typical day of substitute teaching for Kolby.

"Are you our sub?"

"How tall are you?"

"How old are you?"

"21?"

"Do you play basketball?"

"6'5"?"

"Are you married?"

"Is Ms. Schmidt sick?"

"Are you still in college?"

"What are we doing today?"

"What's your first name?"

"36?"

"Is it Kobe like Kobe Bryant?"

"Is your wife hot?"

"Are you on Facebook?"

"6'7"?"

"What do we do when we're finished?"

"How hot on a scale of 1-10?"

"Do you have kids?"

"Can I get a drink of water?"

"45?"

"Do you have a picture of her?"

"How much do you get paid?"

"Do you want kids?"

"27?"

"Can you help me?"

"How much longer til lunch?"

"Do you want to be a real teacher?"