Appreciating Matt
09 Feb 2011 Leave a Comment
in Uncategorized Tags: appreciate, children, christianity, daddy, family, husband, MattMann, spouse
In my last post, I promised I would let know how I was doing with the task “deliberately appreciate Matt on a weekly basis.” Before I tell you what I have done to accomplish this the past 3 weeks. Let me tell you why he is so very worthy of my love, respect and appreciation.
Matt works several hours a week at 2 jobs so that I can stay home with the girls. He is well-respected at both jobs. After only 4 days working at the Boys and Girls Club, he got promoted and now runs his site. I wish that I could see him in action while he is there, but I get a glimpse of it when we teach children’s church together or when we see one of his B&G club kids at church or out in public.
He does such a great job working with those kids. He can get even the rowdiest ones to behave and kids are always having fun when he’s around. He’s such a goofball with them and I love it. He’ll ask a 5 year old if they have gotten married and had any kids since the last time he saw them. Haha. The look on their faces is priceless.
His other job is youth and outreach pastor at our church. He is so well-respected here too, and not just at our church alone, but all over the state of Missouri. When we took our youth to a state-wide youth conference a few weeks ago, everywhere we went, we heard ”MATT MANN!” One of our youth pointed out that he has an easy name to remember and a fun one too, because it sounds a lot like Batman. He hears the na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na MATTMANN theme song all the time.
But I don’t think that its just his name that makes him known by youth and their leaders throughout the state. If he was a real jerk, people would not want to have a conversation with him no matter what his name was. (A rose by any other name…) People like him and respect him because he is so relational, real and (hmmm… I can’t think of another good ‘R’ word).
Besides being a hard worker and good at his job, he is a wonderful husband. Here’s a story to demonstrate. Before Kennedy was born we had to go to the hospital 2 or 3 times for pre-term labor, and then of course when I was in real labor. Every single time, the nurses commented on how supportive and friendly he was. They told us a few stories about other dads being jerks and how often they see that. But they could not stop complimenting him on how well he was taking care of me. And it wasn’t only one nurse or only one time. Almost every nurse that came in our room gave him a compliment.
He’s also a good daddy: practical, fun, and caring. He has never been afraid to change a poopy diaper. Not even the biggest blow-outs (practical). And he is helpful with the girls in other ways too. For instance, he is watching both girls right now while I type this and I can hear Kaylynn laughing hysterically (fun). And here is one of my favorite stories. One night as he was putting Kaylynn to bed, he asked to hold her hand as they walked up the stairs to her bedroom. From the other room, I heard him whisper “I’m gonna cry the day you get engaged” (caring).
There’s so much more to Matt than what I can write in one sitting. He’s creative, visionary, encouraging, funny, sweet, attractive, wise, good at video games, a spiritual leader, a go-getter, talented, diligent, genuine, and I could go on and on.
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He does so much for our family and for others. That is why I want to make sure he knows just how much he means to me. So each week I plan on doing one thing (beyond the things I do on a daily basis) to show him my respect.
In week 3 my plan was to rub his feet for 45 minutes. This is a pretty big deal in our house because my hands usually get tired after about 5 or 10 minutes and he’s always asking for longer foot rubs. So we turned on a movie and I started rubbing his feet. 20 minutes later he was gone, asleep on the couch. I rubbed for another 5 minutes, but decided to stop because he wasn’t getting to enjoy the full effects anyway.
In week 4 my plan was to learn everything I possibly could about football so he could talk with me about it during the Superbowl on Sunday. I started doing my research and discovered that there is a lot of information about how its played, the rules, and then the actual teams that were going to be playing. The only thing I really picked up is that there is a guy named Troy that plays for the Steelers (I think) and his hair is insured for $1 million by Head and Shoulders. I decided to hold off on this one until I have more time to learn about the game. So instead, I sent him a text message with 3 reasons I’m thankful for him.
In week 5 I wrote a long post on my blog about how wonderful he is so the whole world could know. =)
What do you love about your significant other and how do you plan on letting them know this week?
Two-in-one: Weeks 3 & 4
07 Feb 2011 2 Comments
in Weekly Update Tags: appreciate, budget, children, coffee, family, goal, housekeeping, husband, mother, rewards, routine, sleep training, waking up, wife
Alright, I’m gonna jump right in and tell you what got done and what didn’t in weeks 3 & 4. Then I’ll share a little what I’ve learned from those weeks and what’s going to be different about week 5.
Week 3
Plan for February- done. But I realized that when I plan for the next month I should also budget for that month. So, I’m going to revisit this one sometime this week.
Add all daily tasks to routine- if you’ve been following along, then you should know that this refers to the chore planner I purchased here. I emailed The Project Girl (I think her name is Jen) to get permission to post a picture of each week’s page after the week is over. I haven’t heard back yet, so no pictures this week. Hopefully next week, you’ll get a glimpse of what I’ve been working off of.
Anyway… I added the tasks, but I have to be honest. They didn’t get done. More on this later.
Deliberately appreciate Matt on a weekly basis- I’m going to have a special post on this in a couple of days. But for now, I’ll tell you that this did get completed, sort of.
Week 4
Make bath nights for girls part of weekly routine- I picked out bath nights and will be implementing them this week.
Evaluate goals and make changes as needed- done and done. Which leads us into…
Changes for week 5 and beyond
When I evaluated my goals, I realized that on the days I managed to wake up earlier, I got so much more accomplished. And as you know from this post, waking up early has not been going very well. Last week I had a discussion with my dad about sleep cycles and how to make sure that I’m getting enough good sleep in so that waking up is easier.
He helped me come up with a plan on what time to go to bed and what to do in the morning to help get out of bed. It all sounded good and made perfect sense to me, until Matt pointed out later, that my sleep cycles are totally messed up because I get up a few times a night to feed Kennedy.
So we are trying 2 new things to combat my sleeping-in problem. First, we started sleep-training Kennedy last week. I promise that we didn’t start doing this for my benefit only. We could tell that Kennedy was really needing to start working on her sleep habits. She isn’t able to sleep through anything like she used to be, she’s too big for her bassinet, and she started getting very fussy without her sleep. Also, she was making it a habit to wake up every couple of hours and not go back to sleep without nursing. I won’t go into detail about how we are doing this because I don’t want to bore you or get into a heated debate about sleep-training. But if you let me know that this is something you are truly interested in, I’ll write a post on the topic later.
The second thing I’m going to start trying is rewards. I know a lot of sources suggest using rewards to help you accomplish your goals, but I’ve been trying to avoid them. First, I always have trouble thinking of good rewards that are free. And second, I would rather my rewards be intrinsic: the feeling accomplishment, knowing that I’m setting a good example for my girls, peace of mind, being able to relax with my husband at the end of the day.
But in this case, intrinsic rewards aren’t working. So here’s the plan: every other morning I’m going to get a coffee from McDonald’s if I have gotten up at 7:00 am both days. That’s 3 coffee’s a week. The first one will be a regular small coffee, the second a medium iced coffee, and the third will be a medium or large McCafe drink (I need to look at the cost of these drinks to make sure it fits in the budget before I pick a size).
I’m hoping that after a while, my body will naturally wake up at 7 and I can start weaning myself off my McDonald coffee runs. We’ll see how it all goes.
Is this journey going to be all bumpy roads?
If you have been following my blog from the beginning, I hope you aren’t too depressed. It seems like my journey so far has been more bumpy roads than smooth. I’ve had 3 not-so-great weeks and only 1 good week (2 if you count week 0) since I started again. But I am determined to keep on truckin’. I could give up at any moment and declare, “this just isn’t me. I will never be the woman with her life in order.” But I refuse. Part of this journey I’m taking is about learning what works and what doesn’t. Unfortunately, in the beginning, its more about what doesn’t. I haven’t given up yet, so don’t you give up on me either!
How I was awarded the “NOT Mom of the Year” Award (& Week #2)
03 Feb 2011 6 Comments
in Weekly Update Tags: appreciate, children, cleaning, confession, earn money, family, goal, housekeeping, husband, mommy, mother, wife, worst mother
So I felt really good about week #1, and I was ready to go with week 2. I knew it was going to be a tough week because Tuesday was my birthday and Saturday we were gone for a youth retreat. But I was pumped and ready!
When Tuesday came around, I decided to take the day easy (remember it was my birthday). So I didn’t get too much done on my daily cleaning list. Then I decided that I didn’t want to cook dinner (and why should I, again, it’s my birthday). So I loaded up the girls before Matt got home, went to the post office to see if I had any birthday money in the mail to pay for this birthday meal, and this is where it gets bad…
When I got to the post office, I decided to leave the van running. It was cold out and I wanted to give the van a chance to warm up. I got out of the car, closed my door, went to open the side door to get the girls out, and found that I had somehow managed to lock the car! The keys AND THE GIRLS were locked inside.
I was very grateful that the car was still running (although, if it wasn’t I probably would have had my keys and thus not been locked out) and the girls weren’t freezing (the way I was in my flip-flops). But I was still freaking out!
I tried Matt first, hoping he could keep me thinking rationally and maybe help me find the right number to call. But no answer. Next I tried the Rockaway Beach police, but the only number I found for them sent me straight to an answering machine that said I wouldn’t get a call back till the next day. Tried Matt again. No answer. Started crying. Sent him a desperate 911 text. Called 911 (don’t know if this counts as an emergency, but I sure felt like it did). They informed me that if they did anything, it would include breaking a window. But they gave me the number for a locksmith. Tried it. Didn’t work. Looked it up myself. Frantically explained to the lady what was going on. Got a condescending “What? You locked your babies in your car?!?!” (aka YOU ARE A HORRIBLE MOTHER!!!). Gave directions to where I was. Hung up. Cried. Took a deep breath. Cried some more, and waited for the locksmith to arrive.
The girls were fine; Kaylynn was laughing the whole time and even though Kennedy was upset, she was physically okay. Once Matt got home he took us to Arby’s (he doesn’t like Arby’s so he didn’t get anything).
2 hours later, Matt and I were both crawling to the toilet sick. And that is how we spent Wednesday as well. In the time we have been married neither one of us has ever been that sick and definitely not at the same time. Needless to say, I didn’t even look at my list for Wednesday. So now I’m two days behind and I don’t have my normal Saturday catch-up day.
Those are my excuses. Here’s how the goals for week 2 looked:
Add daily bathroom cleaning tasks- I only did this 2 days of the week.
Add tidy up the living spaces daily- this got done once
Create list for ways to appreciate Matt- Thank you for your help!
Start re-learning calculus- I’m gonna update you to the present on this one, but first let me back up a little. I’m sure you are thinking to yourself, why in the world is she doing this! Well, I have always been a math geek. I know, strange, but its true. I took calculus in both high school and as a freshman in college and really enjoyed it. (Okay seriously, I know you are looking at me like I’m crazy. Please stop. I’m sure you have some weird quirks too.)
Anyway, I found a website where I can sign up to be an online tutor and start out getting paid around $9/hr. Everything I read about it sounds legit, but right now they are only hiring for calculus, statistics, and physics. I’ve never had statistics and I’m okay at science but I don’t think I could tutor someone in it. Since its been 8 or 9 years since I took calculus, I’m trying to refresh my memory before I sign up.
My plans to start relearning it was to 1) print off class notes that a university professor has posted online (he has them there so that anyone can learn calculus without having to sit in the classroom) and 2) study for 30 minutes every day.
Well we ran out of ink for our printer, so I couldn’t print it. Last week I got more ink, but when I got the notes ready to print I discovered it was 584 pages! I wasn’t about to use up that much paper and ink, and started looking for other options. I thought about having Fedex or Office Depot print it for me but that would still cost me $35-50. So this week I went to Books A Million and bought the Calculus for Dummies Book and Workbook for $30. And now I have two sources to refer to. If I get stuck in the For Dummies book, I can check out Paul’s Notes for more help.
I started looking at it last night and got through the first 3 chapters. I’m hoping to be ready to take the test at tutor.com in 2 weeks. This will put me a little behind schedule on this goal, but at least I’m still getting it done.
In conclusion…
I had a pretty bad week. But I’m not letting that discourage me. Some weeks are going to be great and some weeks aren’t. I just have to keep going and remember why I’m doing all this. In 6 months, when I look back at this part of my journey, I know that I will be grateful for the lessons learned. Even the moms and wives that I look up to the most have bad weeks and I have to keep this in perspective.
Alright, now I’m dying to know… If you were to be awarded the “NOT mom or wife of the year” award what would it be for?
6 Months to a New Mann
16 Jan 2011 1 Comment
in Weekly Update Tags: budget, children, christianity, clean, family, Goals, home, housekeeping, mommy, mother, motivation, New Year, organize, time management, wife
Ahhh!!! Its been almost a month and a half since my last post. Sorry guys. If all goes as planned, this won’t happen again. I’ve set some goals for the new year and one of them is to write at least one new blog post each week, starting now.
And that leads into the topic of this post… my new year’s goals. If you have been following my blog, you know that I made a list of goals that I wanted to accomplish before Kennedy was born. Kennedy was born, and the goals were not accomplished. I got off track, but now I’m back at it!
The Christmas season is over and life is back to normal, whatever that means. Instead of setting New Year’s Resolutions (which generally come without a plan and thus fail) I made New Year’s Goals. The first week of January was spent writing down my goals and mapping out how I was going to achieve them. When I started, I thought I was going to spend the whole year working on them, but as I mapped it out, I think it can be done in 6 months. Woo-hoo! It won’t be easy by any means, and I hope that I’m not being too ambitious.
Most of these goals are the same ones I had before, but now they are written differently, with more specifics and with the smaller tasks needed to achieve them. Click here (or on the “My Goals” tab up top) to see what I came up with. You can also click here to see how I’m going to reach my goals.
If you are taking this journey with me (as opposed to reading from the sidelines, which is okay too), then my challenge to you is to…
1. Sit down with pen and paper and write out your goals
2. Break your goals down into smaller achievable tasks
3. Make a week by week plan on how you are going to achieve your goals
4. Answer these questions: what will you do if you get behind? get ahead? who will keep you accountable? what’s your plan if you get discouraged?
I’m going to try to add a new post every Saturday, so stay tuned. Topics to be discussed in the coming weeks: my new Household Management Notebook and how you can have one too AND week #2 (this was week #1 by the way).
My first few blogs…
23 Apr 2010 2 Comments
in Uncategorized Tags: child, children, husband, mom, mommy, money, mother, parenting, spouse, wife
I will be posting my first few blogs in the form of pages. Please click the tabs above to read what I have written. I currently have the first page completed About the Blog. Still to come: About Me, My Goals, and The Ultimate Goal. You will not be able to comment on these pages, but please feel free to come back here to leave any comments you have.
And don’t forget to go ahead and subscribe to my blog through RSS feed or email so you never miss a post!
