Routine

My husband always jokes that I am like an infant. I am eat, poop and sleep. Infants thrive on routine. Something that is predictable, where all their needs are being met.

I am just now beginning to understand the importance of routines. When I was in school, it was easy to have a routine and I never gave it much thought. Now that I've been working for more than 2 years, I find myself longing for a routine. I have to consciously think about it. My schedule at work is not consistent. As a nurse, I could be scheduled for any day of the week. The only constant, is that I need to work every 3rd weekend. When Nathan's grandma lost her driver's license, I requested to have every Tuesday off so that I can plan to do things with her. When she needs to make plans or appointments, she knows that I will be available to help her on Tuesdays. This is what sparked my curiosity in routines.

I've discovered that even the most basic of routines can be very calming and refreshing. Since I am pretty much worthless around the house the days I work, I have developed a routine for my days off. I get up and walk for an hour in the morning, come back and wake up Nathan for work, shower, eat breakfast, empty the dishwasher, throw in a load of laundry, tidy-up around the house and by 9:00, I am free to complete whatever I have on my agenda for the day. Those few little things that I do in the morning, get me started and allow me to calmly accomplish everything else that day. There is something "destressing" about accomplishing those very basic and overlooked tasks before I can really relax and enjoy my day off.

Perfectionism

I am realizing how my need for perfection can easily get in the way of me accomplishing anything at all. Ironically, causing me to be far from perfect. It is the fear of not being (or doing something) perfect that paralyzes me from starting or finishing anything. For example, last weekend we went to Oak Glen and bought some apples, apple cider, pumpkins, etc. I made one apple pie, making the crust from scratch and everything. Mmmm, it was delicious! Then, I had a ton of apples left over and I wanted more apple pie and I wanted to give them to a few people as thank yous. I was not excited to make the crusts again, so the apples just sat there for a few more days.

As the apples are sitting there, I kept telling myself "you need to make the crusts so you can make apple pies" But I didn't want to make the crusts. So I kept putting it off. Finally, yesterday, I told myself it was o.k. to buy frozen crusts and just make the apple pies. What is better? Letting the apples sit and rot and not making the pies at all? Or...making the pies with frozen crusts and having a 75% delicious pie? After all, I was planning to make French Apple Pies. Everyone knows that the best part about a french apple pie is the streusel on top. Not the crust on the bottom! So...to make this story short, I decided to use the Marie Calendar brand crust (she makes good pies in the store, how can the frozen be any different? ) And you know what? I made 4 pies. One is in the freezer. We ate one and the other two are being given away. They are delicious! The streusel is everything I had hoped for and the apples are a perfect texture.

So here's my question: Since the pie is 75% delicious, does that make me 75% perfect?

Ellen

I love Ellen! I may not agree with her lifestyle, but I still feel that she is a great person that genuinely cares about everyone. There is something about having her show on while I'm on my day off waiting for Nathan to come home. I find myself laughing out loud at the things she does. Silly things that I think lighten a person's mood. She always starts her show out with a mini monologue that always makes me chuckle. Then, she breaks into dancing and has her entire audience up on their feet. One of the things that makes me laugh the most is how she is always bringing things that are HUGE onto her stage. For example, in today's show, she went through the audience and picked up someone's purse, took it up on stage and starts to look through it making jokes. Then, she says, "how about if I trade you for what's in your purse for what's in my purse?" In comes one of her assistants with a HUGE purse, she opens it up and pulls out a flat screen tv. One of my favorites is during Hurricane Katrina, she was collecting money for the relief. Companies would come by and give the huge checks, you know what I'm talking about. She would pull out a HUGE pen and endorse the HUGE check. Then, she would put it into a HUGE envelope and take it over to a HUGE ATM, she would push the buttons and deposit the check all the way down to receiving a HUGE receipt. It made me laugh... the other thing that makes her so enjoyable is that she is always giving gifts to her audience and to her guests. She even had HIllary Clinton on the show today. I think famous people enjoy coming to her show knowing that they are going to be able to laugh. They can relax and be casual. I love it.

Bathrooms

Nathan and I are very open about our bodily functions and bowel movements, etc. So, it shouldn't be any surprise that I would include a picture of an "eastern toilet." The one here was one of the worst. I myself went in one WAY worse, but didn't have the camera with me. But...when nature calls, it calls. You take what you can get. The idea with the toilet is to squat over the opening. The other thing about the bathrooms in China was that you needed to always carry your own tissue to wipe. Even in some of the nicest places there wasn't any toilet paper in the stalls. I learned that the hard way;)

Terra-Cotta Soldiers

These are the Terra-Cotta Soldiers that were discovered in the 70's.

Pictures from China

This picture is of the Great Wall of China with our friend, Miriam. She met us in Beijing for a few days before we went to visit her city.