Have no fear, the Gatzke's are still here! It's been an absolutely crazy week and yours truly is still trying to figure out how to balance work, family, and our newly added fall activities.
Steve treated me to a "Mental Health Day" on Monday to relieve some of the added stress and busy-ness of our week. He was slow at work, so he came home around 10am to pick me up, but Amaya and I were gone. Fortunately, due to my obsession to make lists, he saw my "to-do list" at my desk and tracked us down at the playground in the mall. After I got over the inital shock of seeing Steve at the mall, we decided to head down to Lanesboro for lunch at the Pedal Pusher Cafe and did a little shopping. It was a much needed distraction and we even found a table for our entryway! A little retail shopping, yummy food, and time spent with Steve and Amaya did this girl wonders! (Besides, I didn't really want to fold the laundry and clean anyway!)
Amaya has already had two sessions of her Toddler Gym Class and has loved it! The teacher - Mrs. Anderson - is absolutely wonderful with the kids and I was surprised that the class was more structured than I thought it was going to be. She gives them a few minutes right away for "free time" where they can play with balls, walk on the balance beams, or crawl over the foam cushions. They also get "free time" for the last 10 minutes of class and generally Amaya has wanted to play with the balls, but this week she surprised me and wanted to crawl over the foam cushions again and again. This week she played with hula hoops, bean bags, and a parachute and worked on some skills that she learned the first week (trapping a tennis ball in a plastic juice jug and marching to the beat of a drum). Overall, she's able to follow directions pretty well (with some encouragement from me). It's a great chance for her to get some of her energy expended and I get a little bit of a work out too! On Thursday, she starts her Swim Class, so we'll see how that goes...
I started my weekly Bible Study this week and it feels so go to be back with this amazing group of women. We're doing the Precepts study of 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles and already I'm struggling to keep up with the lesson. Maybe I'm making it much harder than it really should be, but I've spent about 7 hours on the study and I'm still not done! One of the things I love about Precepts though is you really dig into the Word. There's a lot of highlighting key words and phrases, memorizing Scripture, obtaining historical background, creating charts and themes, etc. One of the things I don't like about Precepts is that it's difficult for me to find uninterrupted time to really focus on the study (and it's very CHALLENGING!). My other major stressor is that for some reason Amaya doesn't like the church nursery anymore. Maybe we've spoiled her by volunteering so much in the nursery this summer so she's gotten used to having us in there with her. Anyway, she lasted about an hour before they had to come and get me. (She also only lasted about a half an hour in church on Saturday night.) I can't quite figure it out because she does pretty well when we drop her off at the Healthy Living Center Daycare... maybe it'll just take her awhile to adjust to a new nursery. I remember going through this last fall, so hopefully it will get better. We'll see how tomorrow goes...
Speaking of the Healthy Living Center... WE LOVE IT! We've been going about 3-4 times a week - that's about as much as our schedule allows for. I was very sore after the first week when we did a Cable Class and a Cycling Class, so we've stuck to the machines - my favorite being the elliptical machine. The times flies by so quickly and we get a chance to watch TV! (We still don't have cable or rabbit ears and intend to keep it that way for awhile.)
But... we've started a tradition with Steve's mom and dad on Tuesday nights to watch Biggest Loser together! I still think the trainers are hard on the contestants and I'm definitely not a fan of the "game-playing" evidenced by last night's episode, but I still like watching the show. I started watching the show with my mom last year because Steve had school on Tuesdays and I was lonely, but since he has school on Thursdays this year, Steve and I can now watch it together. We also have a long standing tradition of going to my parents on Sunday afternoons - especially during football season and now that my parents have a HUGE TV! (See... we don't need TV when we've got family that we love spending time with!)
Steve continues to enjoy school, but he has quite a bit of reading and finding uninterrupted time is a challenge for him as well. He has a meeting coming up in the next month or so to discuss the third year of grad school in which he does an internship. His internship will be about 20 hours a week, so we're a little unsure if he will be able to cut back his hours at work or if he'll need to quit altogether. We're hoping he'll be able to get internship here in Rochester, but most likely it will be up in the cities. Still there's a lot of unknowns, but we can only plan so much and we leave the rest in God's hands.
October brings a very full month of birthdays and celebrations. Our nephew Miles turns 2, my mom has a birthday on the 16th, our niece Annika has a birthday on the 25th and we are also celebrating our engagement anniversary on the 6th. OH! And we're also heading down to Nebraska at the end of the month to visit my sister and celebrate our niece Hope's baptism. Busy, busy, busy!
With the crisp fall weather we're having, Steve and I have been trying to enjoy the weather before the snow flies. We've been able to get to the MN Zoo with Steve's mom and Aunt Janet, we've gone to Oxbow park with Steve's mom and this weekend were planning on going to the pumpkin patch with the Hulls. There are still so many things left on our "to-list" - go to the Zoo one more time with the Hulls, hit the apple orchard, plant my bulbs, play in the leaves (ours are just now beginning to fall), etc.
With our busy schedule, I'm often reminded to take one day at a time. It's just difficult to find balance... I need to devote time with God... time with Steve... time with Amaya... time with work... time with family... time to myself... I'm also reminded that a person is only as busy as they want to be. I set the schedule. I am (somewhat) in control of our calendar. I can say "no" or "maybe later." I can let the laundry sit for a day or two - it's not going anywhere, right?
So for now... we're still here...