September Bucket List

Hello Pals! Today I am enjoying a much needed day off - the first week of school really kills ya. Good news: the numbness in my toes is almost gone and my voice is back to full volume. Friday we hung with friends at a reception and got delicious tacos at Street 180 in Provo (go!!!), I spent Saturday up at Swiss Days with my sisters and MIL, Sunday at Church and lounging on the couch and today I'll be hiking with friends and family, getting caught up on laundry and cleaning, and working on my newly enrolled Masters program classes. I need to rest up, prep and recharge for a full and crazy month ahead!

September means the last few days of heat, school getting more regular and busy, The Beard starting his very intense program, his birthday and both of us speaking in church. Yikes and yay! My cute friend Aubry does her monthly to-do lists on her blog and I just love them. Not only am I a crazy list-maker, but I also want to make the most of my fall. Life is just better when we're making goals and seeing them through, rather than just chillin on the couch 7 nights a week.

So here it is. My September To-Dos.

• Go on a hike (checking this one off today! Bridal Veil Falls with my Holdaway girls!)
• Make homemade cinnamon rolls on a Saturday morning
• YogaYogaYoga - gonna try these at home and attend a few classes at Gold's
• Go to a football game
• Watch John Adams on HBO GO
• Finally use those rackets the Beard got me for our anniversary
• Finish 1 of my courses for my Masters program
• Wear my summer/warm weather clothes 1 last time before packing up
• Try a rich fall lip color
• Drink more water, less Diet Coke. 
• Soak up the remaining warm afternoons at the pool and in the park with Glen
• Wear a monochromatic look
• Throw a fun baseball-themed bachelorette party for my girl Kayla

Resistance is Futile. Pinterest is Inspirational.

Well here it is! I'm at school waiting for my kids to pour into my room for the first time. I love fresh starts. I love setting goals. I love To-Do lists. I've been spending a lot of time on Pinterest, listening to some of my favorite tunes, writing in my journal and making categorized lists of goals, ideas, worries and task items. I found several of these beauties on Pinterest that have stuck with me lately. I suppose this constitutes my list of goals for this school year.

My thoughts yesterday as I thought about meeting all 200 of my new "kids" Monday morning. Love them already. And I want to hold on to that love, rather than get sick of them, because my love for them DOES make a difference.

My thoughts today as I wake up early, meet 200 of my kids, go over my policies 6x in a row and come home with toes numb from pacing in heels all day.

For tomorrow and the next day and the next - when things get hard (TWSS) and I'm tired and sick and feel like I'm never gonna make a difference.

My Motto for this year - gonna pin this by my desk and on my mirror because it's what I want - to be a legend.

The best piece of overall life advice for school year multitasking/type-A/control freak me - leaving my phone in the car and appreciating nature as we camped with our best friends this weekend was a nice reminder of the beauty of just LIVING.

Basically I want to live my life in bold. Be a more tenacious and vivacious teacher. Expect more, do more. Be a more accomplished learner and student in grad school, my job and life in general. Have a life every day outside of school. Be healthier and have balance in my life. Have fun with my job every day! I only have 180 days with these kids and I want each of those to mean something to each of us. 

Alright, Sunset Ridge Middle School. Let's do this.

My Happiness Project: Week One

For the first week of my project (last week, July 1-7), I picked two things I wanted to create good habits with, then to continue them throughout the rest of my weeks. And forever, obviously.

I felt I kind of HAD to pick "Home," since I'd be moving, unpacking and settling into a new home. 

Naturally, I picked "Marriage" as my second area, because my marriage is my most valued possession. It's so easy to take it for granted, but I don't want to.

So here was my game plan/results:

Home

- Get COMPLETELY unpacked and settled (last time we moved I was still waiting to hang stuff and unpack some things when we moved out. Yikes.)
----> I don't have everything hung, and I'm still moving things around in my pantry and from cabinet to cabinet based on my mood, but I did pretty good!

- It's the little things: close cabinets & drawers, keep closet & pantry doors shut, keep clutter off the coffee table
----> Still working on this through the clutter, but I'm making a conscious effort to scan a room when I leave it and just tidy up a tiny bit - close the doors, turn off the lights, put things back. It makes a difference.

- Don't put anything off that takes less than a minute to do. I unabashedly stole this one from The Happiness Project because it just stuck with me so easily. It just makes sense and it's simple.
----> I actually wrapped up and put my curling iron away you guys. I'm serious.

Marriage

- Pray together before bed. I know. Pathetic that we didn't already do this. We had such different schedules for most of our marriage so far, that we didn't always go to bed at the same time. Now we do, and I wanted to make this a habit.
----> This has made the single biggest difference of anything I've ever tried to do to improve my marriage. Wow. We take turns praying aloud each night and it really is amazing. It means I'm not making to-do lists in my head mid-silent prayer, not falling asleep, not forgetting things I wanted to pray for/about. And it's really made me feel like we're on the same team after a crazy freaking 2 months of chaos.

- Stop criticizing. I'm the worst. Even just little things like "You never take out the trash" said in passing. Where is that getting either of us? No where. So why do I do it? Because I'm the worst. If it helps, I'm also super mean-critical of myself pretty much every second of the day. Doesn't help? Ok.
----> I'm working on making requests, not criticisms or demands. Like "Hey could you please take the trash out after this inning? You are my favorite. Thank you."

- Learn our Love Languages. I'm a big believer in love languages, so I re-read the book this week. It was really interesting to see how different it was from when I read it 2 years ago when we were newly engaged.
----> The Beard is a big quality time language guy. He loves it when I make time to just watch a baseball game or a movie with him, no Pinterest, no books, just cuddles. As a chronic multi-tasker, it doesn't always come naturally. But I'm working on it!
----> I'm an Acts of Service girl. It really means the most to me when he does things that I know he doesn't want to do. He thinks this means what I really love is torturing him. So we're working on that. (GOING TO MOVIES ISN'T TORTURE, RYAN)

- Family Counsel. We sit down, talk about where we're at, how we're doing, what we're worried about, what we need to work on and make a plan. We used to do it a lot when we were first married, and it kind of trickled off, I guess. Welcome back, marriage DTR!!!!
----> We did it! We even took notes and made lists and goals with due dates! We also decided on a family motto - "Do More." Good, right?! We recognized that laziness is so tempting to us, we need to fight it actively.

Overall, I'm pretty pumped after week one. It was a good, doable week and I feel refreshed and happy. The tough part will be continuing with these resolutions as I add new ones each week.

MY Happiness Project

While I was in Hawaii, I read The Happiness Project. Well, I read most of it. It got super boring around her August chapter, so I skimmed from there. (But it's well worth a read, so go pick it up or check it out)

Its no secret to anyone reading my blog that the last few months have been really rough for me. Some of my worst ever, actually. This isn't a sob story - I'm happy! There were tons of great memories interspersed with those terrible days that made me want to run away. I'm not depressed. I'm not struggling. I, like any other person, just wanted to have a fresh start, and to just BE happier.

This book really spoke to me for that reason - she was happy, but she just wanted to be happier. Whether or not it actually worked was somewhat irrelevant. It's about effort. Desire. Attitude. The idea that we can improve our lives is one that I truly believe in.

Therefore, on my flight home from Philadelphia, exhausted, headache-y, anxious and unexcited for our move, I found myself thinking about The Happiness Project.

"Hey Danica."

"Whaaaaaaaat. Leave me alone."

"Let's do a Happiness Project! Let's be Happy!"

"No. Sounds like work. Sounds like something I'd get excited about and then never finish."

"C'mon it'll be fun! What do we have to lose? It literally can only help at this point."

"Uh. Fine. Let's make some lists."

I fight with my brain a lot, actually. My brain always wins.

One tiny cup of Diet Coke with cylindrical ice and a baby bag of hard pretzels later, I came up with this, My Happiness Project.

Week One (July 1-7): Home & Marriage
Week Two (July 8-14): Mindfulness & Learning
Week Three (July 15-21) Physical & Fun
Week Four (July 22-28) Spirituality & Finance
Week Five (July 29-Aug 4) Improvement & Beauty
Week Six (Aug 5-11) Motherhood (no I'm not pregnant) & Blog

Basically I just started listing areas in my life where I wanted to see more happiness and progress, then picked 2 per week for my 6 remaining weeks of summer before I have to start doing school stuff again.

Every week I'll share my goals and how it went (week one's post coming tomorrow), because why have a blog if I can't bore you all to death with my inner insecurities and marginal improvements?!!

Have any of you guys read this? What did you think? Are you going to try it? If so, lets talk.

Back to School

I haven't posted in 2 weeks, so you might have guessed that school is in full swing. Starting last week, I was at the school every day working on all kinds of stuff, going to meetings, and drinking lots and lots of caffeine. Turns out if you spend your whole summer sleeping as late as you want, being at school at 7:20 am is pretty rough.

This first week is sort of killing me. I'm out of "teacher shape." But it's so fun to be back! It's weird how quick you can fall back into teacher mode.

First day of school outfit! Yes I planned this days in advance, just like 2nd grade. I miss you Tweety Bird backpack.

I love my new heels, and wore them the entire first day. And by wore them I mean I stood, paced and ran all over the school in them. At the end of the day I didn't have blisters, but my dogs were barking and ONE OF MY TOES WAS NUMB. And it hasn't gone away! The interwebs says it's normal and it's just temporary nerve damage. So I guess I just get used to it for now? WTF

I came home to a clean house, warm delicious homemade dinner (by the Beard) and a beautiful new bamboo plant, which I talk about buying every time we go to Harmon's. Ryan's kindness healed my foot! He didn't even get mad when I fell asleep on him several times. What a guy.

Starting new, I just keep thinking of last year. I learned so much last year, and I keep making mental notes of all the things I would like to do differently. *Kind of long. Probs only teachers will fully understand this. But it applies to life.*

1. Be more serious. Last year it was hard to not feel like an intern. It was hard to take myself as a teacher seriously, because I felt that many people in the staff and administration weren't taking me seriously. Like I was just a cheap placeholder. As long as I wasn't causing problems or making waves, they could just forget about me. Teaching is a profession, and one we should take pride in. We get to change lives and be someone vitally important in these  teen's lives. It means dressing more professionally (even though I was overdressed compared to much of the staff last year), paying real attention in my meetings and stepping up to help where I can in the school.
2. Be on time. It's so easy to roll in a little late, especially as the year goes on. I don't clock in. No one is waiting at my door. Yet, the days when I am on time run much more smoothly. Not to mentions it is a measure of honesty and integrity that I can improve upon. 
3. Plan in advance. I hate to admit this, but I don't think I'm alone in "flying by the seat of my pants" many days. It wasn't uncommon to have no idea what we were doing next week, not to mention days that I didn't even read through the PowerPoint for the following day. I was so tired and overwhelmed sometimes, but in reality it only made me more stressed and exhausted to feel unprepared and naive. I've never been a formal lesson planner, but this year I'm thinking out my agenda for each day and outlining it briefly. I already feel more confident about it. 
4. Spend more time with my students. The best memories from last year were times that I was interacting with my students, even if it wasn't directly related to the curriculum. I want to meet my kids at the door - it makes a huge difference. I want to ask them about themselves and follow up with what's going on in their lives. I want them to feel comfortable with me (not in a friend way, don't misunderstand me), and to know that I value them.
5. Emphasize positivity. Last year I figured this out halfway through the year. I had the choice of spending another semester stressing about assignments, tests and notes, or I could have fun teaching. And I did! I reinforced my important rules, and then let everything else go. We started having a great time learning, and I think the kids appreciated it even more than I did. 
6. Be a better example. This school is very different than Mapleton Junior High. A large section of the staff and student body are nonmembers, and it really made me examine my conduct. Do I want to be one of those Mormons that reinforces their views of bigoted hypocrites? No! I want to be a good person, a great teacher and a fun friend that is also a Latter-day Saint. 
7. Take care of myself. Last year I would wait until I was sick to sufficiently hydrate and sleep. I wasn't super vigilant about hand sanitizer. I would veg on the couch when I was tired after school, instead of making myself exercise. I drank WAY too much DDP. I'm trying to set a healthier pattern. I've even gone to the gym on my way home after school! (It helps that I get off at 3:30 and the Beard works till 10)

To my new teacher and prospective teacher friends - don't get frustrated because your idealistic view isn't materializing. It won't for a while. And don't get bogged down in the administrative logistical details of daily teacher life. Take some time to remember why you are doing this and what you (and the kids) will remember in 5 years. I'm going to strive to remember our district motto:

Every child, everyday. 

Budge Gets a Budget

Being married means you have to be more responsible (boooooooo). So we budget, kind of. I use mint.com because it makes me feel super smart to see all the graphs and charts of my spending. And it's basically idiot-proof.

It's not secret how much I love to shop. I've never been very moderate with my shopping either. I'll go a couple months without hitting the mall, and then get sick of all my clothes and go buy 5 new outfits. Especially if it's a new season or I have something fun coming up, like a trip. I'm compulsive.

This month I decided to actually budget out the amount of money I could spend on clothes, track it and blog it. This is a feature I had planned for BYUStyle, but we no longer run that blog as we're not true BYU students anymore. :(

The idea behind a clothing budget is not just to make sure you don't overspend, but also to indicate the importance of clothing in your life, and making your closet and style a constant evolution that is growing ever-closer to your true, current taste. If you want to take your closet and style more seriously, which I suggest you should, check my older blog post about stepping up your style and creating a working closet.

This month (February), I allotted myself $100 for shopping. This includes anything for my personal style (clothes, jewelery, accessories) but excludes anything that I need to replace (my black tights, new socks, my wallet fell apart... etc).

My shopping goals (which I think everyone should have) are as follows:

1. Buy things I can wear at school and on the weekends
2. Buy things that stretch and expand my wardrobe. This means NO MORE BLACK, DANICA.
3. Transitional pieces into spring.
4. Buy things that I LOVE. My new rule, kind of going along with this budget, is that I don't buy anything impulsively. I sit on it for at least a day.

This is actually working really well for me. Having these goals and knowing I'm going to blog about it makes me more accountable. I've purchased a few things that I really love and feel great about. At the end of the month I'll post my purchases, so you can see how I budgeted for and accomplished these 4 goals. I plan to do the same for March.

The idea is to show you that fashion can be a priority and is do able, no matter your budget. Style should be a major part of your life, and you should approach it accordingly.

Anyone want to do this with me? Questions? Suggestions? I'm all ears.