Paint Something to Display

I’ve been working on my painting skills for awhile, and while I’m nowhere near as good as most artists, I love creating and painting is a really fun challenge for me. Usually I’ll paint on Saturdays nights after the baby is in bed, and I’ve actually really impressed myself so far.

The painting I’ve chosen to display is meaningful to me. This is a representation of my husband and son on a fishing trip. While this scene never happened, per se, this is exactly the relationship these two have together. They assure each other and love to play and learn together. I know some day I’ll see this scene over and over as daddy shares his love of the outfits with his son.

I hung the painting in my son’s room above the changing table for a couple of reasons: first, it just fits really well with the “adventure” theme there already, and second because I want to see it all the time. Not because I think it’s the best painting in the world, but because I want to think about my husband and son like that and try to be the kind of mom he needs, just like my husband is the dad he needs. Plus I want to look at it to see how I can improve my next painting. I always want to be getting better!

New Hair Style or Color

I decided to go all-in on this goal - a new style AND color! Here's the skinny. I've worn my hair long for several years now, and usually I really like having it long enough to pull back or braid or curl or whatever I feel like, but this has changed in the last year or so since my son was born. I had always heard that pregnancy changes your hair, but I didn't really notice a difference until after I wasn't pregnant anymore. My pregnancy hair and post pregnancy hair were visibly different, the pregnancy hair being darker, thicker, and courser. I first noticed that definite line about 2 months after baby was born.

Sad moment with sick baby, but this shows just how long my hair got!

So now, here we are a year and a half later, and that line of distinction was now about to my shoulders, so I decided to just cut it off right there! So that's what I did! Or ... that's what I tried to do.
On President's Day, I went to a local discount hair salon and had a lady there cut my hair. I explained what I wanted and, when she finished, I thought it looked okay so I went home. But then once I got home and started to actually live with the hair, I realized that she hadn't taken off quite enough. Now not only was my hair obviously darker just at the ends, but I also couldn't bush through my hair without the new ends getting snagged together! So obnoxious and, I might add, more than a little distressing!
So I made an appointment with my cousin's wife, who happens to be a hairdresser, and asked if she would give me another hair cut and add in a lightening session as well. She agreed but due to her schedule and irregularity being in the salon, we had to schedule 2 weeks out.
La-de-da life goes on until the appointment, and I was getting used to the 6-less inches of hair that were already gone from my first haircut.
Appointment #2 - I got to the salon at 3:00 on Saturday March 7th, and the highlighting began.

The fabulousness of this look cannot be understated. 

Don't worry, the highlighting and haircut only took FIVE HOURS! I have a LOT of hair .... But the results turned out alright!

Work selfie!

And now here's the current haircut. My current complaint is that I have so much hair that it often goes "mushroom" on me. So I'm going back to my hairdresser tomorrow to get more layers. Hopefully at that point, I'll love it.

For now, I love the lightness

Have a 1-week Phone Break

Taking a break from the mobile phone is an almost-laughable prospect in our tech-saturated environment, and in making this goal, it was never my intention to completely step away from contact with my family and friends. The actual goal was to take a social media break as well as a wasted-time-on-useless-time-wasters break, namely Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook. My observations about these apps in particular are that they 1) waste my time, 2) don't make me feel better about myself, and 3) annoy me. You might think that since these are the dominating feelings I get when using these three apps, I would be smart enough to just stop using them all on my own. Clearly that is not the case and I am 100% addicted to these stupid socials. After my husband called me out on this (multiple times) I decided enough was enough and I needed a break.

So for one week in January, I took a break. I logged out of Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook on my phone and my computer, and told myself they were strictly off-limits. If I needed to look up a recipe, I could use my web browser, but otherwise, there was to be no scrolling!

For whatever reason, when I firmly tell myself "no" I'm really good at obeying. Guess I always have been an obedient child, I just didn't realize I could boss myself around ... good to know ...

My week began with many, uncountable instances of habitually trying to open the Instagram or Pinterest app - most of the time it was completely unconsciously done! I was bored, so I picked up my phone and my fingers knew exactly where to tap. Ugh, that autopilot got so annoying! Finally, I semi-broke the impulse and, wouldn't you know it, when I wasn't compulsively reaching for the phone all the time, I actually didn't even remember that I wasn't holding it. I left it in the other room as I went to play with my son or watch TV with my husband or work in the yard. There were even 2 days when I didn't even unplug the phone from the charger (probably bad for the battery ... oops.)

The real kicker of all of this is that, for me, I would log on to Facebook or Instagram all the time because I was afraid of missing out on something, but as far as I could tell, in the one week that I didn't check my feed, I didn't miss a single thing that I truly care about. Once my week was up and I allowed myself to log on again, I looked at the posts my friends (you know, my actual friends) had made, wrote meaningful responses to the things I truly cared about, then then (holy smokes!) I logged off and put it away.

I don't know about anybody else, but I know that my life is more relaxed, less competitive, and generally happier when I'm not worrying about something else in the back of my mind.

Yes, I'm back on my socials now, but I'm consciously choosing not to let it rule me. If I'm going to watch TV or play with my son or work in the yard, I leave my phone on the kitchen counter. Because I don't need it.

Just yesterday, I logged off of Facebook again on my phone. Turns out, most of the stuff that's on there, I 100% do not care about. If you haven't tried cutting the cord, you might just try it sometime, you may find, like I did, that separating yourself from shallow, worldly, and addictive things is unbelievably liberating, and taking control of your time, your thoughts, and your habits, it empowering. And I hope you find, like I did, you'll feel like a new person at the end of it!

Try a New Recipe

Sometimes I look at my list of 20 goals for 2020 and think, "Why did I make that a goal? I do that all the time!" That's particularly true for this goal: "Try a New Recipe." Being a wife and mom and living human being that enjoys good food, I cook a lot. That said, my cooking isn't always 5-star, and there has been more than one occasion where I've been "kicked out of the tent" or "Chopped." So I'm not an amazing chef, but I do want to improve. I guess that's where this goal came in. The writing between the lines on this one was a desire to not only find a new recipe, but find a new recipe that I can pull off multiple times in a row AND love. Well, I found one pretty quickly!

Copycat Longhorn Parmesan Crusted Chicken

by Stephanie (The Cozy Cook) 

https://thecozycook.com/parmesan-crusted-chicken/

This recipe takes some ahead of time prep that I'm not usually a fan of (i.e. marinating - ain't nobody got time for that!) But when I actually make a week-long meal plan, it's easy to put my chicken in the simple marinade the night before.

Simply put, this chicken is amazing, and my family loves it too! Definitely a keeper, and I'm definitely adding it to the rotation. And hopefully, tackling this recipe will give me further motivation and confidence to try more delicious-looking things that I might initially think are outside my wheelhouse. I'll just keep moving and keep improving!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year and new decade!

As the new year approaches (practically at my doorstep!) I decided that instead of making New Year's Resolutions that are always comically short-lived or even a categorized list of goals like I usually do, I'm going to just have one checklist. I'm calling it my 20 in 2020!

I've carefully thought through and selected attainable items that will help me grow as a person, develop my talents, and help me live my life the way I want to. These are quantifiable things that can have a definitive DONE spot. Basically, instead of setting a goal like "Lose Weight" I'm instead saying "Lose baby weight." That way, once I lose that specific amount of weight, I can check it off the list.

I know that we often heard that progression is not a checklist, but can I help it if I really like checklists? They are motivating and help me stay inspired. Plus, I don't plan to stop doing good things just because the item is checked off. It's more of a launching point.

Now, enough rambling! I now proudly present, Kim's 20 in 2020!

So there you have it! My tailored-specifically-for-my-growth list of goals to achieve in the coming year. I plan to post about each item (hopefully with pictures and fun stories, if I remember!).

Feel free to join me on my adventure. What 20 things would you like to do this year?