Off topic...

...well, or completely on topic, I guess... What in the world do stay-at-home-moms DO all day? You guys, I hate that I'm even asking this because it makes me feel useless and stupid, but seriously. I am so bored. I mean, Luke and I have a riot all the time because that's all I have to do, and I love that. I really do. And don't get me wrong, there are plenty of things I could do to "use up" my time, even some useful things. But it's a year into the full-time at home gig and I'm running out of steam for the stuff that I've been doing to "keep busy." (Ugh, I always HATED women saying that, because for my working mom it was like a slap in the face.) I mean, I'm running out of desire to do any more crafts again ever, and I think if I spend another minute trying to perfect the art and science of homemaking that my head is going to implode.

I keep thinking about part-time jobs, but the time away from Luke wouldn't be worth the money to me (it's surprisingly difficult to find work that's less than, say, 10 hours a week that will pay you more than minimum wage--which means that after paying a babysitter, it would cost us more money for me to have a job). I don't think I'm skilled enough to teach piano lessons. I've thrown around the idea of babysitting or nannying, but stuff like that is regulated strangely around here and there's a glut of college students and low-income young women that will take the work for pennies on the dollar.

I'm looking into picking up old hobbies (like piano) and maybe starting up some new ones (like photography). But I feel like I'm just spinning my wheels. I feel like I'm an educated, motivated, ambitious person and it feels like I'm wasting so much precious time that I could spend doing something...I don't know. Meaningful. Not that raising a child isn't meaningful (!), but I guess I just feel like I could be doing more than I am. I've thought about it for hours and hours and talked about it with Scott over & over; he's not ready for another baby just yet, and I bet that boredom is a really, really bad reason to get pregnant anyway. Ha ha.

We're planning on getting a second car soon, so that will expand my horizons exponentially, but I have no idea what to expand said horizons into. We just moved into a new ward (with moving and vacations and everything, last week was our first Sunday there), and on the new-member sheet they have you fill out, I tried to hint as strongly as I could that I was very willing and able to help out a lot in the ward. I doubt that will come to much, though, because it's an enormous ward with about a quadrillion students that constantly come and go, and I don't think we'll escape that category since we're the same age as everyone else.

Man, I'm sorry, I don't mean to complain. I just feel bad...like I'm ungrateful or something. I feel like I should be more content. Maybe I'm just having a hard time downshifting after the craziness of school school school college college work work work, you know? But it's been a year and I still feel...itchy. Brain itchy. Or something. Help?

On Creating Habits

For Cathryn, first of all, these are my thoughts on habits, any habit really, and this is what I do to continue habits (note it's not 100% successful at everything, but I find that it works for me better than anything else).

1. Think about something (i.e. daily scripture study, or journal writing)
2. Decide you want it to be a habit (just decide, it's a very important step though, don't underestimate)
3. Decide that you care so much about making this thing a habit that it is worth going to bed 30 seconds later than you were going to, on a bad day. (Makes it a little less enormous of a thing to do.)
4. Now do that thing everyday.  (Hard part I know.)
1. Oh, but I'm so tired and I need to get up early and blah blah blah blah...my suggestion, read one verse, write one sentence, just do it, for the sake of creating a habit.
2. Hmmm...it's still pretty early and the thought just occurred to me that I haven't read yet and I should probably do that.  (Use willpower and just do.  This will make you so happy when you do.  When you don't, you find yourself in number 1 situations a lot and that just gets obnoxious.)
3. Oh no!  I forgot to read yesterday, my precious habit is destroyed!!!  (Don't fret, just read today.)
4. Make up other situations that I can't think of right now and decide what's appropriate.

So, maybe reading a verse a day isn't the most spiritual thing to do, but when you're starting to make a habit, you could have your 2 to 3 days of reading and 4 to 5 days of just 1 verse.  It will change eventually and it gets easier to remember and your stamina can change from read 1 verse to read 1 page to read 1 chapter or read 1 whatever you study.  You find that the time commitment of scripture study is actually quite minimal.  (It can still be a daily struggle though, it is often for me, especially on routine-free days.)

Other things that can help

• Ryan and I check up on each other's scripture study (and lots of other goals too).  We ask each other if we've read.  We kind of put that expectation on each other.  It works for us.  Might not work for you.
• Something else, couldn't think of anything.