It's Been a While!

I can't believe I haven't posted since November! Needless to say, it's because I've been very busy. While I'm still busy now, I'm happy to say I've made some important changes. All that "busy-ness" was getting to me. I was running my portrait business from home, but felt like it was running me. I decided I wanted to really focus on Chip and Miles and the rest of my family more. Chip and I discussed it and decided I needed a long, indefinite break from my photography business. I've done a few sessions so far this year, and will have a few more later this year that were already scheduled, but other than that, I'm done for now!

This has been such a relief to me. I'm exporing areas of my life now that I didn't have time for before, like reading for pleasure, cooking, eating healthier, gardening, and most importantly, focusing my mind and my time on Chip and Miles. I hope now that things are not so chaotic that I'll be able to write more on my blog too.

This past Monday I registered Miles for kindergarten! I had posted several months ago that we had decided on public school, but the closer it got, the more I didn't feel comfortable with that decision. Instead, he'll be going to a private school at a local church. Their program goes from infants to kindergarten, so next year he'll be at a different school for first grade, a "University-Model" school, which is Christian-based and is kind of a combination of private school and homeschooling. I'll talk more about that school later. But for now, I'm so excited about Miles starting kindergarten! I'm thrilled that his school is a half-day program, Monday through Friday. He'll go from 8:45-12:45, and when I pick him up everyday, we'll go home and have lunch together, and have the rest of the day to spend together. I love that! I also love that one of Miles's teachers is a photography client of mine, and I feel really good about leaving him in her care. His other teacher seems wonderful too.

I have recently gotten interested in what I'm calling "real food" based on a book by that title that I'm reading. It's all about reducing or eliminating processed food from our diets and instead eating fresh foods like vegetables, fruit, nuts, etc., as well as meat, milk and eggs. The author, Nina Planck, says she believes that as far as milk goes, raw, unpasteurized milk, fresh from the cow is best, and I've found a local dairy that provides it. I plan to replace at least half of the milk we drink with this if we can afford it. I've never tasted fresh milk and can't wait to! I'm buying fresh eggs from a sister at church, and they are wonderful! I love opening up the carton and seeing different shades of brown and all different sizes. And the best part is seeing that rich, golden yoke inside, so different from the pale yellow from store-bought eggs. I'm planning on going on a tour soon to see the dairy and get my first taste of fresh milk and I'll post about how it goes.

We're making progress on the adoption. You can read about it at http://ourjourneytohannahclaire.blogspot.com/.

Chip is doing great. We got the Wii Fit game last month and doing that, along with changing his eating habits, he's already lost 4 pounds! I'm working on my weight too; recently I gained 3 pounds, then lost it, so I'm back where I started, but I plan to lose about 13 pounds. Supposedly it is easy to lose weight eating more natural foods and staying active, so we'll see!