Day {Fourteen}

{Day 14 Something you could never get tired of doing}
Ok, in the literal sense, I could get tired of doing anything. I just don't have that long of an attention span. But these two things instantly popped into my mind when I read this question:

1. Gift wrapping. Because I could do it tirelessly, though, does not mean that I am a wrapping paper mastermind. In fact, I could research bow-tying a little more and improve the look of my gifts about 150%. Yesterday I got all of Sean's Christmas shopping done minus one gift I need to order online and one edible stocking stuffer I need to purchase closer to Christmas. All of my hidey-holes are filled with things I have no place else to store at the moment, so I had to come home and wrap all of his presents before he got home last night. It's a rough life. I love a beautifully wrapped gift with a handsome bow on top. It makes the gift that much more special - even if it is just socks. :)
2. Baking. And none of that gluten, sugar, fat free crap. The kind of baking that requires Crisco and (real) butter and lots of brown & granulated sugar. There is just no other way to bake. And if it weren't for all of the cleaning up, I would do it more often. I was trying to remember back to the last pie or cobbler I baked and I can't even remember. There have been lots of times that I have come home determined to make a batch of cookies, and then get distracted thinking of all those dishes I will have to wash afterwards. December 23rd I have dedicated the entire day to baking and making goodies with the niece and nephew. They have a blast and I have a blast being their favorite for a few hours. Afterwards comes the best part: distributing our goodies to our neighbors and family members. That will be most delightful. 

Day {Eleven}

{Day 11 A bad habit}




Thank goodness this is day 11. I have had 11 days (plus 2 weekends and a major holiday) to think about this question. And not because I don’t have any bad habits, but because I was having a difficult time picking just one bad habit that was also not so bad that I could still share with the great unknown.


I am a huge quitter. The very first time it dawned on me was actually when my father told me in the heat of a very intense argument we were having. It was mean and spoken out of anger but after much contemplation over the words, I do realize that this is a very big personal flaw of mine.


I went to college for 5 years. I couldn’t decide on a major and finally experienced some major burnout (combined with some enormous debt) so I quit.


Aside from my current position, I’ve never held a job more than 2 years. I get bored and move on. The only reason I’ve had this job for 4 years is because for the first 2 years I did one job role and then got a promotion into another role for the next 2 years. I just passed my second anniversary in this role and I am beginning to feel the burnout.


I begin Bible studies and quit around page 32. I start blogs and then don’t post anything for months. I create budgets and then ignore them by the second pay period. I start habits that would make excellent traditions but that don’t make it past the first year.


Reading back over what I’ve written, I feel the need to justify myself to myself. Just because I am a huge quitter doesn’t mean that while I’m at work I don’t give 126%. Just because I went to school for 5 years doesn’t mean that I am dumb – I did very well in school and continue to love to learn. Everything I have started has begun with the very best of intentions. I really mean to improve my life or the lives of those around me with my efforts. I just have a difficult time following through.


Ever since the night my dad said that to me, I have made it my mission to prove him wrong. At the beginning of the year I declared my word for the year to be {quality}. I have meditated over this word each time I begin to quit something or I feel the burnout begin. And I can see changes taking place. I have observed myself following through on things that I seriously considered quitting. A lot of the problem, I have realized, is my attitude. My burn out can easily be curbed by finding something to liven up the current situation. Work got incredibly overwhelming for a while, and then immediately got slow. I am finding tasks to do to improve work flow for not just myself, but my teammates as well (when I apply myself, I really am a smart cookie).


We put the Christmas tree up last night and it was very rushed because I usually do it on the weekend or when I have the entire day off. I only had a couple of hours so I had to work quite a bit faster. But going through our boxes I found several things that we have worked on making tradition over the last couple of years and I truly hope that we can continue to do them over the next several years.


This isn’t really a tradition, it just happens to be something that we’ve done each year. Our parents were wonderful about giving us and keeping meaningful ornaments throughout the years (Sean just has to look a little harder for his, there’s no telling where they’ve been stored!). For the last couple of years we’ve “borrowed” an ornament from our childhood to add to our tree. Sean has brought his set of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle ornaments from when he was a kid and a little Rudolph ornament had his brother’s name inscribed in it from 1985 (why doesn’t anyone do those tin type ornaments anymore?). I have several ornaments noting the first 5 years of my life so in about 18 more years I should have them all on my tree.


This tradition isn’t very original. When we put up our first Christmas tree we bought an ornament to commemorate our very first home. Last year we bought a silver bell and had it inscribed “Just Married” with the year. This year, we are very excited to receive in the mail (today) our 2011 ornament:

Finally, this is my very favorite tradition. I’ve sent Christmas cards out for each year we’ve been in the house. I’ve kept one of the Christmas cards and put our usual greeting that we’ve sent to everyone else (it’s usually the “oops” card that I’ve misspelled a word or have the very worst handwriting). On the back I write the year and put down 5 things that we have accomplished or the things we did for Christmas. The first year I was so excited to write that we bought a house! We also went to see Sherlock Holmes that Christmas night. The second year, we got married! We also put all of our money into improving the house and stayed home on Christmas night because Sean had to work. This year, Sean got into and began Radiology School! We were able to eliminate all car payments and will be having Christmas dinner at our house on Christmas Eve.

Day {Ten}

{Day 10 A photo of the item you last purchased.

Just before the food poisoning kicked in that would knock us flat on our backs for an entire day, we did a little shopping. We were actually looking for some bath towels (Sean just wasn’t a big fan of my hot pink and white towels from college) when I happened upon this little snowman. I have told myself that we have plenty of decorations for the small area I have to decorate so we don't need to be purchasing anymore. But he was so cute and was less than $10 so I went for it. Since Saturday was the day we had intended on putting up our tree but were unable, this guy is the only decoration we have up right now! However, my dad came by our house last night to pick up the sewing desk. We followed him back to my parent's house to unload it and, since we were there, to eat dinner as well. Tonight I have big plans for White Christmas on the TV, apple pie and cinnamon candles throughout the house, hot chocolate with big fat marshmallows in my mug and putting up our TREE!

Day {Eight}

{Day 8 A song to match your mood}


We had a horrible weekend at the Sekscinski house this weekend. For “date night” on Friday night, we had a ferocious craving for some hibachi & sushi (well, Sean had the craving for sushi). There is a little place that we had been wanting to try for months because according to the menu posted online it was cheaper than other Japanese restaurants in the area and because it didn’t appear to have the huge hibachi grills with the big show you have to watch with 8 of your nearest and dearest strangers. Perfect, right? Wrong! I was up from 1 AM until noon and he was up from 8 AM until 8 PM. We’re about 99.999% sure it was food poisoning and about 99.9999999999% sure it was from that restaurant. Suck. We both called in to work on Saturday and suffered through Sunday. He seems to be fine now but my stomach is still a little shy…

Not an awesome way to spend the weekend we were supposed to put the Christmas tree up. In fact, the only decorating I got done was to cut the tags off of a little snowman I purchased from TJ Maxx and put on one of our end tables. However, I don’t work at all this week at my after school job so I should have plenty of time to work on it. Before I can put anything up, though we have to figure out how to get my grandmother’s sewing table from our living room to my parent’s house. It’s a heavy piece of furniture! We have a few projects lined up over the next year that will involve moving furniture around and that desk is so precious to me that I would rather move it back to Mom & Dad’s house once as opposed to moving it around several times at my house and risk damaging it in any way.

I searched my iPod for the perfect sickly song because that would match my mood, but couldn’t find anything. I have been listening to Casting Crowns “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” a lot already this season. I love this version – it’s very somber but ends in faithful anticipation. The song conveys the feeling of doubt and then reaffirms the need for hope, particularly when all conditions aren’t necessarily ideal.

Day {Seven}

{Day 7 What’s in your makeup bag?}


I am one of those people that really needs to wear make-up. I look like an entirely different person without it (and not in a beautiful, natural way. Like an "I thought Halloween was over?” kind of way). Furthermore, I have my father’s complexion so if I so much as scratch an itch on my nose, I will have a big, fat pimple in the exact spot the very next day.


I have looked up to my cousin my entire life (she’s always been taller than me). So when she introduced me to Bare Escentuals a few years ago, I of course had to jump on that bandwagon as well. Now? I can’t live without it.

I was skeptical at first because I have incredibly oily skin (I could put the middle east out of business if you could figure out how to run cars off of it) but this stuff is awesome. It controls the oil slick without totally drying me out. As sad as it is to say, it has been one of the hardest things to budget for with our income while Sean is in school. It seems more than a little ridiculous trying to justify spending $20 on make-up, so when I do need to get it I’ll restrict myself to PB&Js until I don’t feel bad about buying it anymore! This stuff truly is amazing, though, and I will forfeit birthday presents and Christmas gifts just to have more.

We had a great Thanksgiving but no photos were taken to capture the day. We spent the morning being lazy. Sean slept until 11 and I laid around watching movies did laundry all morning. Our first Thanksgiving was at my aunt and uncles. Not even half of our family was there and I hate to say this considering the small group but it was one of the more fun holidays I can remember in quite a while. It was so much fun to sit around the table and chat. A big secret was revealed and I love that I was in on it before the big announcement. I love it even more that Grandma was the one that revealed it! She never knows about anything before anyone else!

We left Nixa and headed back to Billings for the second Thanksgiving of the day. It was very nice as well but I had to leave early to head to work (but not before I got a good 20 minute nap in). Work was incredibly slow but the pay wasn't too shabby... Sean & I are both off of work tonight. I will be disassembling my sewing table and cleaning out the drawers to move it back to my mom & dad's house. There is NO room to sew where it currently sits and the sewing machine really needs to be maintenanced which I cannot currently afford. More importantly, though, we have NO WHERE to put the CHRISTMAS TREE! I don't have much time to put the tree up this year but I'm going to take every opportunity I can to get it up this weekend. There's nothing nicer to come home to than a home decorated for Christmas. :D

Happy decorating!