Jennerosity

Entwined by Heather Dixon

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Wonderful fairy story! The plot was compelling and I liked all of the various character arcs. The romances were good but didn’t steal center stage. I especially liked the father character and the balance between king and father that was there. Definitely one I’d recommend to others. Also one I’d love to see done right with a film adaptation!

View all my reviews

One of the ways to overcome some of my fears of motherhood is to scope out the places I’m afraid of going to. Basically to go there with the intention of seeing how child friendly they are and then going home. Then when you do take the next step, you know what to expect.

So I’m making a list of places that I should check out. This was difficult because I enjoy doing a lot of things at home and don’t go out much to begin with. But here’s the list I stretched out as much as possible:

• Costco
• The library
• Michael’s
• The mall
• Westminster Quay
• Granville Island
• The pool

As a first time mama, things can be exhilarating but also terrifying. Inspired by the Fearless Friday post on Rookie Moms, I’ve decided to share a post on some of my fears of motherhood. Hopefully I’ll also be sharing as I conquer each fear too. For now just the process of writing out the list is therapeutic.

(Please note that comments are disabled on this post simply so I don’t get a lot of ‘don’t feel bad . . . ,’ ‘I can totally relate . . . ,’ or ‘you should try . . .’ type of comments. If you really have something to say that falls outside of these comment categories then you can email me directly.)

These are the things I’m scared to do:

• Changing him in a public location
• Breastfeeding in a public location
• Taking him solo on a major shopping outing (groceries that require a buggy or any shopping location that isn’t within walking distance)
• Generally being alone out in public with him
• Having his grandparents over at my house
• Travelling by public transit
• Travelling by airplane
• Letting him be diaper free
• Leaving him with anyone
• Bringing him to the garage/gym with me while I workout

I enjoyed it so much last year that I’ve decided to do it again this year. Yup, the reading challenges are back. We’re starting with Cait’s Reading Challenge Extravaganza part II. Which is basically just my way of buying time until I have to decide what my next challenge should be. I’ve already set some reading goals, but I enjoy how the challenges make me focus on one particular area. I’m already hoping that Cait’s Reading Challenge will help me take care of some of the books on my to-read shelf goal. Here are some of the possibilities for the challenges this year . . .

Non-fiction

• Finance/money/business/leadership/organization
• Parenting
• Creativity
• Spirituality

Fiction

• Arthurian
• Part 2 (because I’ve read quite a few books that were the first of a series lately)
• Favourites re-read
• Wheel of Time (the final book of the series is due out this year)

So people . . . now’s your chance . . . what should I read next?

I’ve decided to re-activate my Facebook account. I’m really hoping it doesn’t make me all crazy like it did last time! In an attempt to minimize it’s annoyance and intrusion into my enjoyment of life, there are some specific guidelines I’m using.

1. Family only – What convinced me to return was learning that one of our cousins was engaged to be married at a Christmas gathering. Apparently the news had come up on Facebook. That’s also how invites went out for the party. I’ve wanted the family to get involved in a central online scheduling and news aggregator for years and it turns out I was too dumb to notice that this is exactly how they’re using Facebook now.
2. Longer more meaningful updates – Since I know my audience, I’m going to cater to them more and give better updates. This will help eliminate duplication of content between twitter and Facebook.
3. Filter, filter, filter – Because my account will have a much more narrow focus, I’ll be filtering the content that I see as well. This will mean making good use of contact lists. Plus, if there are any family related apps, I’ll probably limit myself to those.

Even though I’m only using it for family, I’m not changing my stance on photos (eg. That we don’t want photos of Locutus on Facebook). However I will probably announce to Facebook when I upload to Flickr, so people can request guest passes then.

One of my past annoyances about Facebook was that family could see everything I updated. I’m really just reframing it so that this is used to my advantage instead of my annoyance. Isn’t it nice when we figure out stuff like that!

Goals . . . resolutions . . . whatever you want to call them, I make them. One of my favourite things about the New Year’s Eve holiday is this part. I started doing quarterly goals last year, and I think that works even better. Helps to take some of the pressure off this time of year and sets up a review period so you can see how you’re doing. I always try to work on goals from the same general categories. Last year I did them each as separate posts (reading, fitness, money & random), but this year I think I’ll do one overview¹, but do less detail about each goal.

Reading

• Read at least 50 books
• Complete at least 1 non-fiction reading challenge
• Read at least 12 books that are currently on my to-read shelf

Fitness

• Be able to run for 30 minutes straight by the end of the year
• Establish a daily walking habit

Travel

• Plan a trip to Japan in 2013
• Research a trip to either France or Hawaii

With Locutus around I don’t want to push myself too hard to achieve things. Instead I’m just focused on building a strong family foundation. The older Locutus gets I’ll be able to re-asses my progress and add more goals as I’m able.

1. With the exception of the money goals, which get their own post with more details [↩]

This is part of annual Blogging series called Reverb. The intention is to reflect on the past and manifest your best intentions for the future. To read my intro post (updated with links as I publish them & time allows) see my post on The Prompts.

Celebrate – What types of things do you enjoy celebrating the most? Holidays? Milestones? Achievements? How can you make more of these celebrations in the coming year? How will you be celebrating the end of 2011?

My answer to this one kind of caught me by surprise. I thought that I should say that I enjoy celebrating achievements. The problem with that is that I’m very bad at celebrating them or rewarding myself. Same thing goes for my own milestones. So, oddly enough, even with all the hype and stress, I think I enjoy celebrating holidays the most.

The nice part about holidays is that you don’t need to decide when to celebrate. That can be a bit of a drawback as well, especially since that also makes it tough to incorporate more of them.

The other unfortunate thing is that Benevolance and I both dislike following societal expectations. Plus, Benevolance doesn’t like most holidays in general.

First I should decide how and what I want to celebrate. Without reference to anyone else. I can’t expect my family to be on board or get as excited as I do. Then it’s up to me to make those things happen.

This year we’re having a small low-key celebration. I’ll be having sparkling juice instead of champagne (which I really don’t mind) and we’ll be playing a bunch of games.

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I’m keeping these posts brief on purpose. If you have questions or want me to go deeper into any of these thoughts, please leave a comment below.

This is part of annual Blogging series called Reverb. The intention is to reflect on the past and manifest your best intentions for the future. To read my intro post (updated with links as I publish them & time allows) see my post on The Prompts.

Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened. -Dr. Seuss

Ending – What things came to an end this year? 

One of the most challenging things of parenthood is letting go of your previous lifestyle. Our existence as a DINK¹ family ended and now we’re … well, no catchy acronyms exist when you start your own family.

For the most part, nothing much has changed. We still entertain & host things and we still game.

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I’m keeping these posts brief on purpose. If you have questions or want me to go deeper into any of these thoughts, please leave a comment below.

1. dual income, no kids [↩]

This is part of annual Blogging series called Reverb. The intention is to reflect on the past and manifest your best intentions for the future. To read my intro post (updated with links as I publish them & time allows) see my post on The Prompts.

Numbers – 2011 by the numbers…

Number of …

1. blog posts written: 99
2. blog comments: 88
3. views since July¹: 2,077
4. tweets (total): Over 10,000
5. starred google reader items (total): 353733((I knew that my original counting seemed way to low! And then I realized the silly mistake I made. This is why some of them I’ll be tackling in the google reader files on this blog))
6. starred google reader items (this year): 252
7. books read: 46
8. tasks completed from Remember The Milk: 1055 (and counting)
9. airplane rides: 2
10. times across the border: 2
11. hours in labour: 25
12. hours pushing: 2.5

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I’m keeping these posts brief on purpose. If you have questions or want me to go deeper into any of these thoughts, please leave a comment below.

1. At some point in my blog tinkering I wrote over the file that had my google analytics code in it without noticing. But in July I started using a plugin called Jetpack that also does site statistics, so I’m using that data. [↩]

This is part of annual Blogging series called Reverb. The intention is to reflect on the past and manifest your best intentions for the future. To read my intro post (updated with links as I publish them & time allows) see my post on The Prompts.

Style – Were you happy with your style in 2011? If you could pick, would you choose to be reinvented in 2012? Or continue evolving on your current path?

The older I get the more I’m refining my tastes into a definite sense of style. However one thing I’m realizing is that much of my current wardrobe is incompatible with the lifestyle of a breastfeeding mom. I’d like to carry on with my current path but get some clothing that’s better suited to my current lifestyle as a mom.

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I’m keeping these posts brief on purpose. If you have questions or want me to go deeper into any of these thoughts, please leave a comment below.