Day 13: Goals

When I graduated from high school, I just knew I wanted to be a music teacher; 7 years later I'm not so sure. I was so close, and technically I still am, but I don't know if that's my main goal anymore. 

Education in Texas is suffering - we're looking at huge budget cuts, like 1 teacher per grade level being fired. Unfortunately, one of the first things to get cut is always the arts - music in particular. So even if I did have a job in a school, I would most likely be looking at termination in the very near future. 

Maybe its a good thing I didn't achieve that goal. I'm still trying to decide what I really want to do for the rest of my life, but for now I'm content to continue on with the job I have - which happens to be teaching. But teaching preschoolers is different, and I learn something new from them every day. In the long run, I hope it makes me a better parent.

So, for the time being, these are my goals:

1. Live healthier and happier - going to sleep earlier, eating better, having more sex, being more active, being kinder in general to myself. 

2. Enjoy my life where its at. 

3. Keep learning.

Yeah, they're vague. I have specific ones, but this really covers a lot of them. 

Day 12: Something you don't leave the house without

I wish there was only one thing I couldn't leave the house without! I carry a purse so big its actually a reusable shopping bag.


But in general, the 2 things that I never leave behind are a book and my iPhone. You never know when you're going to need a book, and then you don't want to be without it, and the phone is just one of those ways that modern technology controls the way we live in. 

Day 11: Favorite tv shows

This seems pretty self-explanatory, so here we go: 


- How I Met Your Mother
- Pushing Daisies
- Firefly
- The Nanny
- Castle
- Mythbusters
- Modern Family
- Dancing With The Stars


There sure are a lot of shows on that list that aren't even on the air anymore...but I don't care. I still love them, and I still watch them.


And I'm caught up! Yay! I'm going to do my best to stay on track now....

Day 10: Something you're afraid of

I hate to admit it, but I carry around a lot of petty little fears.


- Heights
- Roaches
- Big scary dogs, the kind that could maybe eat my feet
- Not being able to help my friends when they need me
- Losing my parents
- Answering my phone to find out that someone I love is in the hospital
- Being in the hospital

- Getting pregnant 

- Not being able to get pregnant

- My kids turning out horribly

Most of my fears center around a lack of control - when I sense that I'm somehow not completely in control of a situation, I freak out. Its why I'm such a terribly nervous passenger in cars - its not that everyone I ride with drives horribly, its that I can't relinquish control.


And once again, this little blog helps me sort out my issues. 


Thanks little blog. You're the best.  

Day 9: A favorite picture of your best friend

I don't know if I have someone I would call my "best friend," but I am blessed with lots of close friends that I've known for a very long time, and people who I love very much.

I wouldn't say that I'm someone who has tons of friends - but the friends I do have I love and cherish, and they are all the best.

Day 8: A place you've traveled to

I wish I did actually travel! One of the things on my list of "Stuff Tommy and I Have To Do Before We Have Kids!" is going to visit Nessie (more on the list at a later date).


I spend a lot of time in Oklahoma, but that never really feels like travel to me - its just another home. 


How about NYC? 


Bright lights, big city?


(Let's forget that I was a senior in high school on that trip, and that it was a school trip.)


The lesson here is simple - I need to travel more! 


To Visit:
Scotland
England
France
Italy
Russia
Greece 

Day 7: Favorite movies

Crap. I have a lot of favorite movies. Top 7?

In no particular order, they are: 

1. Amelie - One of the most adorable movies ever made. Weird people fall in love too.

2. Beauty and the Beast - I was once a little girl who read books all the time. I am still that little girl, and this is her favorite movie.

3. Victor/Victoria - On what I hope remains the worst New Year's Eve of my life, I came home broken-hearted from a party (way before midnight) ready to crawl into bed and try not to think about it. Instead, my parents opened up 2 bottles of champagne and let me drink and we watched this movie. It fixed all the hurts.

4. Barefoot in the Park - Now that we're newlyweds, this movie is even more of a favorite. At least we're not sleeping in a closet in an apartment with no bathtub!

5. Howl's Moving Castle - I can't really explain what it is about this movie that appeals to me. Its a love story that really is fairly simple, but something about it really speaks to me. 

6. The Princess Bride - "...and wuv, Twue wuv...."

7. The Lord of the Rings - I married a nerd, and my ability to love these movies is one of many things that he loves about me. 

Day 6: A picture of something that makes you happy

How about a collection of things that make me happy?

 Full Circle Books in OKC, the best bookstore in the whole entire world. This is the bookstore so perfect you lost all hope of finding anything like it. When I drive through OKC, I might not have time to see everyone I want to see, but I have time to visit Full Circle.

Alstromeria, my very favorite flower. They just make me smile.

The husband and the little monkey we keep twice a week. They're best buds, and they crack me up. It gives me the warm fuzzies to watch them play and laugh.

Day 5: A song to match your mood

Houston, Texas is not the kind of town with what I would call good weather. Its usually miserably hot and humid, but today is a rare day indeed - it is a beautiful, perfect spring day. A day for picnics and cloud watching, for running and swinging, for kisses and bare feet. 


We had a really fantastic dress rehearsal for the Schutz St. John Passion this morning, which is good since the performance is tomorrow morning. I really wasn't confident in this all coming together, so it was amazing to watch it all fall into place. We also rehearsed music for Maundy Thursday, and I'm singing this solo that used to be way out of reach for me. Standing up in the balcony and singing it, I felt all the training that I've had my whole life click. This - this is what it means. This sound, this feeling. 


The way this all makes me feel sounds like "Sigh No More" by Mumford and Sons, by my favorite band (for the moment). Especially this: "Love that will not betray you, dismay or enslave you - it will set you free, be more like the man you were made to be. There is a design, an alignment, a cry of my heart to see the beauty of love as it was made to be."

Day 4: Your parents

Where did my week go?!?! Its been a long, rough week, and I'm so glad the weekend is here.

My parents are Janet and Pete. They were high school sweethearts and they've been married for (I think) 34 years. 

If I were to take a really hard look at myself and the choices I've made, I would have to say that the fact that my parents are high school sweethearts definitely impacted my own faith in young love. My poor brother got a double dose of this with me and my parents. 

My parents are wonderful, hilarious, frustrating, inspiring people. So much of who I am was formed by them, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Day 3: Your first love

Ahhh, first love. 


I'm not going to insist that Tommy was my first love - but he was and is my first adult love. The first person I loved while accepting and understanding who he is, and who I am, and who we are together. Real adult love involves a certain amount of selflessness, but first love....


Well, that's all about how someone makes you, as an individual, feel: the agony and the ecstasy, the drama, the joy, the inevitable heartbreak.


My first love was a boy named Jonathan, and he was almost exactly like Chandler from Friends. No, really. Sarcastic, hilarious, but more mean than nice, and completely wrong for me in every way. (Isn't it always that way?) I'm an intense personality - when I'm happy, I'm really happy, and its the end of the world when I'm sad, etc, etc. He brought out the more...unattractive aspects of that in me. It was a big mess of hormones and hurt feelings. I'm sure we both walked out of it thinking that this was the worst thing that could have happened to us. 


If I could go back and talk to my 15 year old, brokenhearted self, I would tell her that this too shall pass. When you're young you think that every hurt you get will leave a scar a mile wide, that nothing will ever be the same, and that this was the pinnacle of your life. Best 2 out of 3 little Kendra - nothing will ever be the same because you've learned a lot about yourself, and that has a ripple effect; and this was the best your life has been so far. Things change. And that huge scar? The initial hurt might be huge, but the healing process shrinks it down, and the scar looks small and dim compared to what it once was. 


I think that our life experiences build on themselves and make us who we're going to be. My first love was over dramatic, hormone-fueled, and to my adult eyes a little silly. But I can't discount the very real feelings I felt then - they've made me the woman I am now. 

Day 2: Meaning behind your blog name

(I'm sure I already explained it, but I'm all about following instructions.)


I'm still a newlywed, something that almost everyone in my life comments on at some point, usually because we've just done something adorable. But I also think this is a time of change and growth, when both of us can feel free to operate with the safety net of the other person, like starting a new job because your spouse supports your decision, or trying new things together. 


Sometimes people will see us doing something sweet, like holding hands and bumping into each other on purpose to get a laugh, and they'll make a mildly sarcastic comment about us still being newlyweds. I hope that the rest of our lives, we hold on to that fresh feeling of happiness that we're sleeping in the same bed and drive each other nuts. 


There's a sense of fun in being a newlywed, and I hope we never lose it.

Day 1: Introduce, recent picture of yourself, 15 interesting facts

Hi internet! My name is Kendra Michelle Galyean Alves. Not legally, mostly because I can't bear to give up any of those names. I'll figure it out.


This is me:

I'm 25 years old, and I'm an Aquarius with a Leo rising sign. Now, I'm sure you don't really believe in astrology, because I'm pretty sure that most people really don't, but this does explain a lot about me. It explains the fact that while I want to help other people and save the world, I'd really like to be a hero and the center of attention while that's going on. It also explains the fact that I'm a free-spirit (code for really big nerd) and a people pleaser at the same time. 

I am a preschool teacher, but I'm not really sure if this is what I would like the continue doing. Education in Texas is kind of taking a nose-dive because we elected a governor too stupid to plan ahead for things like teaching our kids to read, so that's not exactly the best field to be working in right now. When I grow up, I'll decide what I want to be. 

I'm married to a wonderful, weird man, and when we're not cleaning our apartment we're very happy. He tolerates my weird quirks and I try very, very hard not to change his. I tend to be melodramatic and neurotic, and he's not either of those things - we balance each other out. 

I'm going to assume these 15 facts should be about me....

1. I can't wink. No, really.

2. I love the poetry of Pablo Neruda, e.e. cummings, and Margaret Atwood.

3. I also love dirty romance novels by Jillian Hunter, and pretty much only her. 

4. Harry Potter is so much a part of my childhood that I sometimes wonder if I would be the same person if I hadn't read those books.

5. I just noticed that this challenge doesn't include a day about favorite books, and for the bookworm I am this sucks. So, I also love John Irving, Christopher Moore, and Jacqueline Carey. They write books that have nothing in common, and I regularly recommend all three.

6. I have weird waffle toes - they look like regular toes that were squished. I don't care, I still wear sandals.

7. I am much shorter than you think I am.

8. My favorite colors are green, purple, teal, and pink. 

9. I play WoW. I don't care if you think its stupid, I kind of love it - its my opportunity to shoot stuff, have a pet lion, and be a total badass. 

10. I didn't get my driver's license until I was 18. That's how much of a procrastinator I am. I also had to learn to drive in Houston, and that can scare you off driving.

11. I didn't go on antibiotics of any kind until I was 11 years old. I was my pediatricians pride and joy - he used to brag about me to visiting interns. The last time he did that, I was there for bronchitis - oops.

12. I'm such a people pleaser that most of the people in my life have no idea what I really think about them. The only people who hear about it are Tommy and my mom, and Tommy gets to hear how I feel about him too. Did I mention he's practically a saint? 

13. I miss having voice lessons.

14. I'm near-sighted. 

15. Thursdays are my least favorite days.

The Challenge

Erin has inadvertently challenged me to do this. I hadn't read her blog in a while and when I did, I saw that she was doing this 30 Day Blog Challenge, and I'm a kind of follower when it comes to blogging. 


Day 0: The 30 Day Challenge Explanation and Description
Day 1: Introduce, recent picture of yourself, 15 interesting facts
Day 2: Meaning behind your blog name
Day 3: Your first love
Day 4: Your parents
Day 5: A song to match your mood
Day 6: A picture of something that makes you happy
Day 7: Favorite movies
Day 8: A place you've traveled to
Day 9: A favorite picture of your best friend
Day 10: Something you're afraid of
Day 11: Favorite tv shows
Day 12: Something you don't leave the house without
Day 13: Goals
Day 14: A picture of you last year - how have you changed?
Day 15: Bible verse
Day 16: Dream house
Day 17: Something you're looking forward to
Day 18: Favorite Place to Eat
Day 19: Something you miss
Day 20: Nicknames
Day 21: Favorite Picture of yourself - ALL TIME
Day 22: What's in your purse?
Day 23: Favorite Movie
Day 24: Something you've learned
Day 25: Put your iPod on shuffle, first 10 songs
Day 26: Your Dream Wedding
Day 27: Original Photo of the city you live in
Day 28: Something that stresses you out
Day 29: 3 Wishes
Day 30: a picture of yourself this day and 5 good things that happened since you started the challenge

I originally started this blog because I've missed writing and I needed a way to vent that didn't involve sitting on a couch and crying to a stranger that I paid. This will give me something happy to do!