So I have not been a very faithful blogger. Man, too many things just take up my time. Namely a little gadget called a Kindle! Tehehe, I got one for Christmas, back in November and have thoroughly enjoyed it. What? You never heard of Christmas in November! ;P My dearest husband was trying to surprise me with this for Christmas and everything backfired on him. He ordered it from our US amazon account and forgot that the emails from that account come to MY email address and not his. So he realized this in time to tell me NOT to open any emails from Amazon, but when one arrived from a sender known as Amazon Kindle and the title of the email said something like "About your new Kindle..." it was a little hard not to notice. So when it arrived at our front door a couple days later here in Japan, he was gracious enough to go ahead and give it to me. And I LOVE the thing (Amazon is not paying me anything for this blog post, I promise!) But needless to say my life is filled with a lot more reading these days. LOVE IT!!!
In addition to this, I got SOOOOOOOOOOO lazy with my workouts, and until last week had officially gone 3 months without working out at all. After four years of really staying in shape, working out at least 3 times a week, and keeping off the 14 kilo (about 30 pounds?) I'd lost, those 3 months have finally started to catch up with me over the past few weeks. Not to mention because I wasn't working out I threw all caution to the wind with my diet as well. I am once again breaking the addiction to soda and carbs. WHY OH WHY did I ever let myself back slide like this?! Well, it is time to make a change. I started last week with Billy's Boot camp videos every night and as of today started Jillian Michael's 30 day shred! Let's see how this goes. I am addicted to the gym, but won't be joining again because it really sucks the time out of my evening. The gym always takes me at least two hours from the time I walk out the door till I get home because I have drive over there, park, go down to the locker room and put away my stuff, get back up to the weight room, wait on a machine to open up and then wait on another machine and then wait on another. so we are going to see how this video things works out. with my heart rate monitor on, I am making sure (for now) that I burn at least 300 calories per workout. So far that takes me between 30-45 minutes and then I am free to enjoy the rest of my evening on the computer or with my Kindle or with my hunny or whatever! I don't know if this will get me back in the shape I was in at this time last year. But that is my goal. I need to lose about 4 kilo and get the muscle mass back! I am tempted to take before and after pictures... should I? Shouldn't I? Hmmmm...
anyways, in other areas of my life all is WELL!!! I've been thinking a lot lately about contentment. I don't know if I have ever been as content as I am right now. I always had goals and big plans for the future and spent all my time day dreaming about getting to that and not living IN the place and time where the LORD had me. right now I feel like I'm living each day, doing what needs to be done for that day, not stressing about tomorrow or worrying too much about the future. REALLY trying to enjoying my sweet hubby and my amazing kiddos. Working hard on areas in my life that I know need attention. and just loving Jesus with each breath I take everyday! It's awesome. I downloaded a new CD this week. It is from an awesome Bible study I used to attend at Texas A&M University called Breakaway. One of the songs is called Ruin Me. these are the lyrics ( I can NOT get them out of my head )
Woe to me
I am unclean
A sinner found in your presence
I see you
Seated on your throne
Exalted your glory surrounds you
Now the plans that I have made
Fail to Compare
When I see your glory
Ruin my life
The plans that I've made
Ruin desires
For my own selfish gain
Destroy the idols
That have taken your place
Til it's you alone I live for
You alone I live for
I am unclean
A sinner found in your presence
I see you
Seated on your throne
Exalted your glory surrounds you
Now the plans that I have made
Fail to Compare
When I see your glory
Ruin my life
The plans that I've made
Ruin desires
For my own selfish gain
Destroy the idols
That have taken your place
Til it's you alone I live for
You alone I live for
LOVE this song right now.
Okay, well my eyelids are drooping and I have a few more things to get done so I am outta here.
Oh real quick, I have a meeting at Hana's elementary school tomorrow. gotta talk to someone over there about homeschool and tomorrow I will hopefully meet and set up a time with someone! NERVOUS! I gotta do all this in Japanese. Here comes the test. Can she do it? Really really praying that I start this all of on a really positive note, with some great relationships over at that school so we can work together. Our kiddos base schooling will be homeschool and we want to supplement that with some education in Japanese if the school will cooperate with us. We will see tomorrow, maybe!
2 comments:
How did it go,Marla?
Hi Kim! Thanks for asking about the meeting. It is hard to say how it went yet. They are going to "get back to me" on it. I think I did okay as far as expressing what homeschool is and what we do in Japanese. I did not "lay it all on the line" so to speak as far our thinking on homeschool and how it is going to be her main education. and because of that I walked away feeling like they think I am asking permission to homeschool. Rocky said this is fine. I think it is going to turn into the gentle Japanese back and forth kind of thing where neither party is really bold and straight forward, but they skirt around the real bottom line. Their bottom line is probably going to be "it's not possible" and mine will be "this IS what we are going to do". You know what I mean? I think they'll come back saying we can't do it, and I'll be doing the ol' Japanese suck air through my teeth and say, "demo~~~~" and we'll play some back and forth tennis for a while. I just want to do this as respectfully as possible, without barging in and being overbearing and えらそう so that we can try to maintain a good working relationship with them. At one point he said, "Well other parents send their child to English classes once or twice a week to learn English but they do that after school and it doesn't interrupt their school schedule." This shows me that he doesn't fully understand what homeschool is. LOL, Hana doesn't need to learn to speak English, she is already fluent. She needs to learn IN English. Something totally different.
However I was thoroughly entertained by how much authority they try to exert over your child before and after school hours. Right down to recommending training your child to poop once a day at a certain time of day so it doesn't interfere with their school work. Telling the parent to send the child to school in clean underwear and dictating when the child is to go to bed and get up in the morning. And that is just to name a few! I was not shocked of course, but just imagined how livid an American parent would be if they were instructed on what their home life should be like! Or maybe I am out of touch with the times, maybe this goes on in the states now too??? anyways, we will see how it goes. I will keep the blog updated as new episode unfold!
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