Mi Vida

Figuring Out What I Don’t Like

January 13, 2014 by Vanessa Leave a Comment

This seems like a duh thing but I have to be very purposeful when figuring out my actual opinion of things. There are so many things influencing what I think and what I do that sometimes I think I love something because that’s what all people like me love when really, I hate it.

It seems elementary, but I spent most of last year trying to prioritize and figure out what things I really think are important and what things I do because I feel like I should do them.

Here are some things I found:

I hate sewing.
I hate exercising.
I hate drinking water.
I hate going to confession.

I made this list, now what? Well, why do I hate these things?:

I love crafts and I am pretty good at DIY projects. A long time ago I took this to mean that I should love to sew because that’s what crafty people do. But I don’t like to sew. Not even a little.

Kraft and I have been running with a group that is training for a half-marathon in February. I love the group runs on Saturday but I don’t like running during the week. What I realized is I don’t like running by myself. I like working out with other people. I need the accountability and the support.

Kraft and I have always loved drinking sodas. When we started running I bought us some Siggs to help us stay hydrated but I never really picked up the habit of drinking water. The cap on the Sigg is not the easiest thing in the world to drink out of. I promise I’m not a diva, but if I don’t enjoy drinking plain water that much, it’s gotta be really easy for me to do or I’m not going to do it.

As for confession, that’s not entirely true, I don’t hate confession. I love going to confession but I hate the actual confessing part. I hate going to a priest who doesn’t know me or my struggles and I hate using vague, sterile language to describe my own personal sins. I always feel like I did it wrong or like I cheated. I love being absolved. And sometimes we need a drive-thru kind of confession, but I want more.

I do believe that the good things in life are worth a little extra work, a little more forethought, a little more sacrifice. That being said, there are so many things that require us to be disciplined and so many things that are out of our control, why don’t we fix the things in our control. If we can make it easier for ourselves to keep up healthy habits or make good choices than we are so much more likely to choose to do the right thing.

Here are some things I plan on taking action on:

Stop agonizing over sewing projects. Yes, it would be neat to make clothes for the girls but not if I hate life while I’m at it. Instead, to flex my creative side, I’ll find some crafts I might actually enjoy like this or this. I will buy Halloween costumes for my kiddos.

After the half-marathon, I’m going to go to a lot more Zumba classes. There is a studio just down the street from our house and it is the most fun I’ve ever had exercising. It’s so energizing. Right now I’ve only been going once a week, but I hope to go a lot more. And at $3 a class, it’s a real find.

In terms of drinking more water, I scavenged around our kitchen to find some other water holding devices and I found a free cup we got from a bank. Apparently I love straws because I guzzle water from this all day. I’m pretty sure I refill this about 5 times a day.

Confession. That was a little trickier. I’ve thought about finding a spiritual director/confessor for a while. Well, more than a while. Like for the last 7 years. I’m finally so fed up with it that I emailed a priest I’ve worked with before and asked him if he has time to meet with me. We haven’t been able to work out a meeting time yet, but at least it is forward progress.

Forming habits, especially really good ones, is hard. There’s no need to make it harder on ourselves if we can help it. There are plenty of hard things that we have to deal with. (Like babies who refuse to sleep in past 5am.) So I’m going try and make better the things I can so I can be more patient with the things I can’t.

Forming Habits

January 7, 2014 by Vanessa Leave a Comment

Several months ago I wrote about a personal characteristic that makes my life hard. I have no idea how to develop a good habit. I have never in my whole life learned how to acquire a good and healthy habit. As a child I never made my bed, I never worked on my science project until the weekend before the fair, I never kept a planner. Now as an adult I don’t floss, I don’t exercise regularly, I don’t spend 15 minutes each night tidying up the house. I never work on anything little by little. I’ve always gotten away with starting and finishing projects in one night. I’ve learned to deal with sleep deprivation.

But I hate this and the only way to be a successful adult and especially a successful mother is to create healthy habits and work on things a little at a time. I don’t have the luxury of hours of uninterrupted time. I can’t starve feed my kids or leave them to their own devices for the day. But I also feel helpless looking at the pile of habits a highly efficient adult needs that I don’t have an ounce of.

One comment I got on that post was:

I feel like I have lived my life the same way. I am having trouble pulling myself out of this pit.

That’s exactly it. I feel like I’m in a pit. I am stuck. I don’t know how to build a habit and as I have come to find, building a habit is slow, nonlinear progress that involves a whole lot more regress than I’d like to admit.

Being a Mexican mother means being a perfectionist. A relentless, unswerving, not even slightly ashamed perfectionist. If you are depending on me to do something for you, I am awesome. I would love to have ten of me to work on things because it would be done on time and it would be awesome. But if you are actual me it sucks. I kill myself to produce perfect things and my poor family gets the brunt of it. Especially Brandon, he gets drill-sergeant-me screaming at him to help.

Anyway, back to the comment. I am right there with you. Hearing that someone else struggled with this, too, made it easier to move on. What can I do to change? What can I do to learn patience with progress?

Well, that’s what I am trying to figure out. I spent 2013 playing around with different systems, figuring out how many things I could try to change at one time. Which meant I pretty much spent a year failing. A lot. At stupid things, too. Like finding myself incapable of brushing my teeth at night. But I have learned that habits are hard and I have learned that I cannot change a million things at once.

So here’s to 2014. Here’s to clawing my nails into the dirt to pull myself out of this hole. To try and figure out how to motivate myself and not hate myself. Because this is a work in progress. Life is a work in progress. I am a work in progress.

Welcome to Living La Lupe

January 6, 2014 by Vanessa 2 Comments

Back in college I was staring at a blank screen real hard willing it to start writing my final paper for my Liturgy and Feasts class. Of course the paper was due in a few hours and I had yet to start it. Ok, think, Vanessa, what feast can you write about quickly and with authority? Man, I really wish I had kept up with the reading for this course. As I frantically pushed ideas around my head, I looked at the framed image of Our Lady of Guadalupe that La Lupe (my grandma) had gifted me before starting college. Ugh, I thought, I don’t even know anything about this image that sits on my desk. It was at this moment that the Holy Spirit hit me upside the head with this revelation I’ve written about on Busted Halo. That moment changed me. I wasn’t a snotty grandchild anymore that rolled her eyes when her grandma repeated the same story about “Lupita” (how La Lupe refers to Our Lady of Guadalupe). I wasn’t a theology major that pitied my grandma’s simple and superstitous faith anymore. Instead, I saw her as a person of great worth and great wisdom.

La Lupe, my abuelita, is the matriarch of our family who loves and admonishes with the same ferocity. While I naturally adopted some of her ways without noticing, I was not purposefully living the rich tradition she so desperately tries to pass on to us. I finally understood something one of my professors said:

Tradition is not wearing your grandmother’s hat, it‘s having a baby.

Carrying on my family’s tradition does not happen by merely paying it lip service. Tradition does not happen because I sometimes carry around La Lupe’s handkerchief when I feel sentimental. Tradition does not happen when I put it into a box to remain pristine and untouched. Tradition is living it, breathing it, stretching it, giving birth to it in my own life, in my own way. Just like my faith is so inherently part of me, I want what La Lupe has taught me to be such. Here’s my quest to learn and live what both Lupes try to teach me: the worth, the pain, and the beauty of our life as mothers. This is what I hope to chronicle in this blog — the long and slow, but usually funny road toward La Lupe and Lupita. In the words of La Lupe when she wants to settle in to conversation,

Venga, venga, siéntate, tráete tu cafesito.

Come, come, have a seat, bring your coffee.

Hi Ho Hi Ho

August 2, 2011 by Vanessa 2 Comments

Bakula vs. Schwartz: Trivia Challenge — Image by barrettmanor via Flickr

Started work this week. I love my job. I do. It is my dream job. Problem is, I still want to be home with the Squeaker and Chubs more than my dream job. But that’s life. Lots of people would prefer to be home with their kids and can’t be because of financial reasons. I understand that plight now. My job provides us a steady income. No commissions to mess with. And I get maternity care on their insurance should I need that again.

But on Monday I cried. A lot. I woke up and held Chubs and cried. I went and got the Squeaker out of her crib when she woke up and cried. I fed Chubs and put her down to nap and cried. I said goodbye to the Squeaker and cried. But I got it together put on my brave face and walked into work with not a shadow of a quivering lip.

Then I went upstairs to talk to the HR person about insurance and how much it would cost to put the fam on my insurance — you know, since the insurance was a big part of taking the job. $100 more than what we are paying now. Wait, what? It used to be much less. Oh, rates went up last year? Oh, my take home pay will be roughly equal to what Brandon was making? Oh, my husband just quit his job so I could take this one and we are pretty much in the exact same place? Oh, all those plans we made to use and save the extra money I was going to be making are now for nothing? One tear rolled down my cheek. Then another. I couldn’t stop them. I was proud that I stopped myself just short of blubbering. But I did it. I cried at work. And our HR person gently told me she understood and to go ahead and cry. So I did. For a good five minutes.

So instead of thinking about it more and feeling terrible, I’m going to compile a list. Because I can control lists. This list is 10 things that are worse than having to leave your kids at home because you have to work:

10) Having to sleep train your kid.
9) Having to watch episodes of Star Trek with Scott Bakula.
8) Having to get through mile 18 of a marathon.
7) Having to watch a Katie Perry interview.
6) Having to watch the Bachelorette.
5) Having to deal with your kid who decides to put her hand down her diaper that is full of poo.
4) Getting a sunburn and your nose being the only part the peels.
3) Accidentally eating the tripe in menudo.
2) Having no way to support your family.
1) Having no Squeaker or Chubs to support.

Ah luh u

July 27, 2011 by Vanessa Leave a Comment

Today was the first day that Olivia told me “I love you”. Unprompted. She has said I love you before but in response to us telling her to say it.

But today, we were both sitting around on a bunch of pillows half watching Martha Speaks and half playing around and she stopped and looked at me and said “Ah luh u”. She can’t pronounce her Ls so she says N instead. But she can say the L in love. Funny.

Ah luh u, too, mija.

Non-Alcoholic Drinks

July 16, 2011 by Vanessa 2 Comments

Empty can of Arizona Green Tea littering a fie... — Image via Wikipedia

But first, a quick aside – isn’t this new site so pretty? B is amazing and worked super hard to get the way I wanted it. And I’m really picky. Um, hun, could you just left justify that word but leave the rest centered? Um, could you make that the same color as the rest? Actually, no, can you change the color? Um, can you pick another graphic? No, I don’t like that, go back to the first. Poor guy. But he loved every second of it. He talked to me endlessly about all the different coding and other things I did not even begin to grasp. I imagine this is what he feels like when I talk about clothes or fabric and stuff.

So, welcome to my new site. I hope you like it. I love it! It’s just so pretty 🙂

Ok, back to the drinks. Since January of 2009 I have only been able to drink beer or other alcoholic beverages with no concern of its effects on my babies for 2 months. If that. I weaned Olivia and then got pregnant pretty soon after so it actually may have only been a few weeks. Now, if you know me, you know I love beer. Even more than margaritas or mojitos or wine. So having to go without for so long, I decided to do something about it this summer. I decided to find non-alcoholic drinks that I liked more than beer that don’t contain high fructose corn syrup. Thing is these drinks are expensive and hard to find. So I decided to make my own. And they are amazingly deee-licious.

Here are the recipes if you want to try them. Seriously when I’m drinking this stuff I don’t envy Kraft who is downing a Bud Light Lime one little bit.

Basil Lemonade: This is a Giada recipe. Honestly I don’t have much luck with her recipes. Every time I cook something of hers, it doesn’t come out well but I had so much basil from our CSA box that I had to find something that used a lot of it fastbefore it turned brown and gross. I will warn you, though, for sure water this puppy down A LOT. I only use about half the sugar that the recipe calls for and use about 2-3 cups more of water. Oh, and if you want to feel fancy, which I usually do if I’m trying to not think of beer, use sparkling water.

Orange Mint Tea: This is from my Mennonite cookbook. Again, I needed something that used a lot of mint quickly, although it does hold up better than basil. Obviously, this recipe is not on the web so I’m going to give it to you from the book – Bring 3 cups of water to a boil. Put in bunch of mint, turn off burner, and cover. Let steep for 20+ minutes. Stir in 1/3 cup of sugar. Add 2 cups of orange juice (no pulp makes it better). Add 1/2 cup lemon juice (I add more). Stir, then add water until it’s no longer strong for you.

Knockoff Arizona Green Tea with Honey and Ginseng: The last drink I found was really more for my dad. My dad gets swept up in fad diets and fad exercising equipment all the time. The latest diet he was reading about said that he should drink lots of green tea. Now my dad does not take to structure at all so he ignored the rest of the diet but decided that he would stick to the green tea thing. So what has he been guzzling down? Arizona Green Tea. Yuck. Might as well be a Coke. So I asked him if I could make a tea that tastes better, would he drink that instead of the Arizona stuff? Sure. Ok, so I embarked on a quest to find something he liked better. Apparently a lot of people have set out on this quest. So it was actually no quest at all, I just googled Arizona green tea with ginseng and there was the recipe. Although I would suggest using 2-3 tea bags instead of just one. I like my tea strong. Oh, and I left out the ginseng. We just didn’t have it. Nor do I even know what it is.

So if you are pregnant, nursing, or don’t have the same affinity for beer that I have, try these recipes out.

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