Saying goodbye to BST :'(

I'm feeling rather emotional today.

This is my last week of teaching at Beyond Sports Taekwondo.

We'll be there for color belt testing next week, and the Leadership Retreat the following week. So there will be chances to say our goodbyes before we move on the 8th of July.

But this is my last week of teaching. I have been teaching at BST for nearly 6 years. I took over my first class as a head instructor in August 2009. Two other instructors were getting married and so weren't going to be teaching anymore, and there was one class that Master Sorenson didn't have anyone to teach--so she asked me. I was a first degree black belt, I had just come back from a 3+ year hiatus, and I had only ever assisted other instructors a handful of times. When I think of the trust that she displayed in me, I am so grateful.

Since then, teaching Taekwondo has become an integral part of my life. In addition to my own training, there were several years in the middle where I worked full time at the studio--teaching a lot, plus managing the office. I cut back when James and I started preparing for our family, and cut back a bit more when baby Joel arrived. But my heart has been invested at the studio, more than may be usual for a place of employment.

I have fallen in love again and again with my students. I have trained for them, cheered for them, studied for them, sweated for them, cried for them, prayed for them, and done everything in my power to help them become the best Black Belts--the best people--that they can be.

I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to work at BST. I am so grateful for the people I have worked with, and the students I have trained. Every year at Black Belt Testing, every quarter at Color Belt Testing, every tournament I attend with my students, I see their growth and achievements and I feel grateful all over again for the privilege of working with such amazing individuals.

This is definitely the end of an era, for me. While I know that there will be other studios and other students, the last 6 years have had an immeasurable impact on my life. I love this place, and I will miss my students dearly.

House hunting (and more) in Durham!

This weekend has been SUCH an adventure!

We flew out on Wednesday. The plan had been to explore Duke's campus on Wednesday evening, but the flight was a lot harder on me than expected (as I mentioned on fb, airplanes + pregnancy = swollen everything). So we just had some dinner and crashed at the hotel. Which meant lots of HGTV for me, and computer games for James.

(Side bar: Have I ever mentioned that I absolutely love HGTV? I never ever watch TV, except when I stay in hotels. For some reason, watching stupid TV shows is something that I equate with being on vacation. Like how when James and I went to NYC right after we were married, and our last night there we were tired from everything we'd been doing, so we spent the evening eating New York pizza and watching the Food Network? Yeah...)

Thursday morning starting at 9am we met with our real estate agent, Maggie Considine. Incidentally, we really really like Maggie. She had little booklets printed up for each of us with all the houses we were going to see, and a map showing where they all were located in relation to Duke. We soon got on the road to start looking at houses. As I'll talk about momentarily, we had some other appointments on Thursday, so we had to work around those.

We saw six houses on Thursday morning. James and I were pleasantly surprised to be presented with several pretty solid options. By the time Maggie dropped us off, we had eliminated three of the six, and as we drove over to Chapel Hill, we discussed through the three remaining choices. One had a gorgeous property, but so-so interior, plus was pretty far out from Duke. One had a stunning interior, but a crappy yard, and was pretty far out from conveniences like grocery stores and whatnot. The third was a middle ground--a decent yard, a good interior, and a reasonable location. We decided to go through our appointment, then return to the hotel and pray about the choice before making a decision.

Our other appointments on Thursday were at the two local birth centers. Home birth is essentially illegal in North Carolina, which was pretty heartbreaking to me when I first learned of it. But as I considered our situation--away from all family and support system, with James in school--I came to feel much more at peace with having Baby X at a birth center. So a major to-do item for this trip was to check out the two birth centers convenient to Durham to determine where I'll be giving birth this fall.

Post-birth center tour, we returned briefly to our hotel. After prayer and consideration, James and I decided to make an offer on the middle-ground, "Woodside Park" house. After meeting with our loan officer and then with Maggie, we decided to go back and look at it one more time.

From there, we drove down to Cary for our second birth center tour. I have to tell you, this second birth center was the most impersonal place! You don't really think of birth centers of being sterile and cold--especially the people! Fortunately, I had really liked the first place, so it made the decision easy!!

We waited and waited on Thursday night to hear back on our offer...in vain. Maggie went ahead and set up appointments for us to see more houses on Friday morning, in the event of us needing a backup. We met at her office this morning, and she had news--the Woodside Park seller had countered our offer--he wanted us to pay all the closing costs. We countered back asking him to pay half, and then took off with Maggie to see more houses.

This morning, we looked at five more houses. The first one was small, but a decent prospect. The second and third were immediate rejects. The fourth house was interesting--it was enormous, with huge vaulted ceilings and some other nice features that we liked. But no yard to speak of, and over budget. So that was no.

The last house we looked at today--"Stoney Drive"--was darling. It's in a great neighborhood. It has a .22-acre lot, backed by trees. (Not fenced, unfortunately.) The interior was lovely. The kitchen wasn't super up-to-date, but it's in good shape and looks nice. The bedrooms were all decent, and the master was great. Besides the fence, there really wasn't anything we'd need to do, no painting or anything, which is super nice. We immediately declared it to be our back-up house.

At that point, we returned to Maggie's office and parted ways. James took me to Duke for my tour. PS guys--Duke University has the most gorgeous campus imaginable.

While there, we got a call from Maggie--the seller of the Woodside Park house had accepted another offer. James and I were both remarkably unruffled by this news. We told Maggie right then that we wanted to make an offer on the Stoney Drive house, while remaining a backup offer on Woodside Park. And then the waiting game began again!

We spent more time on campus, then returned to our hotel for awhile (I was pooped!) We couldn't bear it any longer, so texted Maggie, but she still hadn't heard anything. We went out to dinner, and had some quick back-and-forths between us, Maggie, and the seller's agent over little details of the offer. We decided to go to the movies, unable to deal with the pins and needles. But just as we were about to walk into the movie, we got good news--the seller was going to accept our offer! I was a bad movie-goer and left my phone on vibrate. Halfway through Pitch Perfect 2, we got the official signed contract back in our email. HUZZAH!

So tomorrow morning we're going to go walk through OUR HOUSE one more time, then we're headed home! It's been a whirlwind trip. I can't even tell you how relieved I am to have these things settled. Now time to get back to our Smush!

My Newest Hobby

A few weeks ago, a special package arrived at our house with my name on it. This newest arrival to the Holley household brought with it great excitement and anticipation:

My camera is a Canon Rebel SL1 Digital SLR. I currently have just the one 18-55mm lens, though I anticipate eventually getting more, when funds allow and my skill level has increased to the point where it would actually be worth spending said funds.

I have been taking an online class (which I got for half price--win! My sister-in-law ended up paying even less for it. The power of coupons!) and I have been thoroughly engrossed in learning how to use my DSLR. I'm still VERY new at this, but I am loving it.

It makes me a little nervous sharing my photos, which seems silly in a way, seeing as how I post photos I've taken all the time. However, there's something about having a "nice" camera that seems to raise people's expectations. I feel like my photos will be judged on a whole different level than when I was just snapping shots with my phone, despite the fact that this is my first genuine foray into photography. (I don't really count the one photography class I took in school, though I enjoyed it, because that was about 15 years ago!)

Still, this is an exciting new experience for me, and I don't want to keep it to myself. So, without further adieu, I present my earliest works with my Rebel SL1.

(Incidentally...none of the photos have been altered, cropped, or photoshopped in any way.)

One of my rosebushes started to bud last week, and when I walked out and saw the first blooms, I had to capture their fresh beauty.

This afternoon, Shadow was dozing on the couch wrapped up in one of our blankets. I just loved the way his head was poking out. The lighting was particularly nice for capturing his features.

I've had a lot of fun over the past couple of weeks practicing with my camera at taekwondo. This takes a whole different bunch of settings, to capture the high-speed motions of the students kicking and flipping.

Obviously I'm still working on it. But I feel like my ability to capture these moments is rapidly improving. These photos were all captured in the midst of regular classes, which makes it hard to get clear shots at the action without the background clutter. That too I will keep practicing.

 

Naturally, my favorite subject to photograph is my little Smush. I absolutely treasure these photos.

 

This has brought me so much joy just in the short couple of weeks I've had my camera. I can't wait to continue learning and experimenting! 


As always: all original images and original content on this site are the sole property of the blog author and may not be used, copied or transmitted without express consent.

1st Birthday!

Our Joel Riley turned 1 on Wednesday! It is incredible to look at the last year and realize how much our lives have changed. This little man brings us so much joy, even amidst the frustrations of parenthood.  We had a blast celebrating Joel's birthday.

 

The day started out not so birthday-like. Joel had his 12-month doctor's checkup, including his shots. My mom thought I was crazy to schedule his immunizations on his birthday, fearing he would be cranky and feeling unwell for his party. But, like all his past times getting his shots, he did totally fine. He cried monstrously when it happened, fell asleep in the car on the way home, slept for a couple of hours, and when he woke up, he was our happy birthday boy!

We invited our families over Wednesday evening. The weather conspired against us (we decided that Joel must have wished for snow for his birthday) and so out of necessity we held the party inside. It was a little crowded (James has lots of siblings!) but it worked all right. James and I were actually quite surprised by how many of our family members came. It was wonderful to see how loved our Joel-baby is by our family.

 I made a couple of ice cream cakes, as well as a pan of cupcakes. I wanted Joel to be able to have a cake smash, but a cupcake just seemed more reasonable to me! So, after everyone had arrived, we sang happy birthday to him, lit the candle (which he tried to touch) and Daddy helped him blow it out.

 He went after his cupcake with gusto, although his enjoyment of said cake was slightly more questionable...

 "Not sure about this, Mama..."

After everyone had cake, we settled down for present-opening. I have to confess, I was surprised at the number of gifts that Joel received. James and I only got him a couple of things, ourselves. Our goal is to always keep birthdays fairly low-key for our children. This birthday definitely did not fit that mold! But that was all right. This is probably the only birthday where we'll be near family, so it made us really happy.

  Joel loved going through the bags, although he seemed more interested in the tags than the presents at first! And of course, had to munch on some wrapping paper.

 He was pretty studious about examining each of the gifts. Joel's a very curious little boy, and he was fascinated by several of his presents.

Joel got totally spoiled! Yesterday, we got all his new things out of the boxes and left them in our living room. He had a blast playing with everything off and on all day. I suppose eventually I'll get it all put away, but right now it's fun to watch him explore and experiment.

Here's to the next year! Can't wait to see what adventures this little man has in store!

Selling our House, Part 1

We have known that we would be selling our house for several months now. That wasn't always the plan--for many years, James had been planning to attend law school at BYU. That was the plan when we bought our house, thinking we would be here for 5 years or more, for school and then possibly for the beginnings of a local career. Of course, that all changed when James decided to apply at the Top 10 schools, and our entire life plan shifted course.

It was only two and a half weeks ago that James officially declared his intent to attend Duke University. Duke has been our top choice all along, but it really came down to scholarships. Fortunately, Duke offered James a substantial scholarship, the best offer that he received. (Made the choice very easy!) Once we knew for sure where we would be going, we decided to proceed with plans for the house.

We met with our realtor, Amy Laster-Haynes, for the first time on March 24th, two weeks ago yesterday. She came highly recommended by our friend and loan officer, Brother James Sly, and we immediately liked her a great deal. She was professional and upfront with us, which we appreciated.

My greatest concern about the sale of our home was the timing. We don't plan to move until July, so I was worried about listing our home too soon, and being forced to move out early, and probably have to move twice. But on the other hand, we didn't want to still be trying to sell our home after moving to North Carolina, with the hassle and financial strain that would bring.

With all this in mind, Amy recommended listing sooner rather than later. Her reasoning was that we could probably work out a later closing or a rent-back situation with potential buyers, and furthermore, she believes that a lot more houses will be listed in the next several months, and having more competition on the market would make our house harder to sell. After considering the matter, James and I decided to proceed.

We spend the week preparing the house. James actually went to Durham that weekend, so my awesome parents came over and helped me clean and finish a couple of little fixes around the house that needed to be done before listing the house. To our surprise the For Sale sign went up Saturday afternoon--Amy apologized for that later, as it wasn't supposed to have gone up until Monday. We definitely got questioned at church on Sunday!

On Monday, Amy's professional photographer came and took pictures of the house. They turned out AMAZING. You can check them out here. I was so pleased--having spent quite of bit of time looking at houses for sale in Durham, I have come to appreciate what a difference good photos make in the desirability of a home.

Tuesday saw the actual listing of our house. Our house was officially for sale! We had our first showing scheduled that evening, though it later got postponed until Wednesday.

A big surprise came at 9:00am on Wednesday--our first offer! We hadn't even shown the house yet! But it turned out to be a lowball offer--Amy believed they were investors, probably planning to rent out the property. It was a cash offer, but that wasn't nearly enough of an enticement to accept $10,000 below what we had asked for. Amy said to wait to reject it until that evening--we had two showings lined up already, and she hoped to use this offer to put a little pressure on them.

We ended up having FOUR showings that first day. James and I spent the morning cleaning and preparing the house, and then vacated for the afternoon. Amy texted a few times, and she seemed very hopeful about the interest shown, and so we waited with great anticipation.

Amy called us at about 8:00 that evening--with TWO more offers. The first (and lower!) of the two was $5,000 over our asking price, although asked us to pay $7,000 in closing costs. However, the big thing with this offer was that the seller was willing to delay closing for 40 days, and then rent back to us for 60 more days, which gets us to the middle of July--about as good as we could have hoped for!

The second offer was a full $10,000 over our asking price, with the more typical $4,000 in closing costs. However, there were two major issues with this offer--first, they wanted to close and move in as soon as possible. Second, Amy expressed her concerns about our house appraising for anything near this high, a very valid concern.

Amy asked us to sleep on it, and let her know in the morning how we would like to proceed. We talked about it, but it was a pretty clear choice for us. We texted her in the morning with our intent to accept the first offer. Amy was really happy--she said that many sellers only look at the dollar signs, and she was glad that we had listened to her cautions and all. For me, the bigger dealbreaker was the timing. Being able to stay in our house until July makes all the difference in the world for me!

We went back and forth a couple more times with the buyer with some addendums, but later that day, we got a signed acceptance back--we were officially under contract!

Now we are in the midst of a three-week due diligence period, while the buyer has time to get a home inspection, the appraisal, etc. We've got our fingers crossed that all that goes smoothly, and that we get to closing without any major hiccoughs. Still, it's a pretty big relief to have reached this stage with as much ease as we did. Now we're just waiting with eager anticipation until our trip out to Durham in May, to search for our next home!

Mental Illnesses, Ignorance and Insensitivity

I was browsing Facebook today when I came across the following post and resultant comment, and I quote: 

Antidepressants are about as effective as a placebo and therapy is just as effective as talking to a friend. 
hahaha. amazing.  The problem with that is a lot of depressed people don't have friends to talk to and need to be re-socialized in order to help with their depression. 

You have GOT to be kidding me. Here we are in the year 2015, and people still act as though depression is something that doesn't often need life-saving medication, that it can be fixed simply by socializing with people, that you just need to cheer up and stop being so depressed, and if you don't cheer up, it's your own darn fault you're depressed! I would wager everything I own that this mindset, when inflicted on people suffering from depression, causes more suicide and self-destruction than any of us would like to see.

See, here's the thing: Depression in the medical sense does NOT refer to "the blues" or "feeling down." No, the mental illness named depression is largely rooted in the brain's biology. I must admit that I don't have the background necessary to understand exactly what goes into it all, but then again, neither does any one of the people who spew absolute garbage on the subject, so at least I'm not alone. Suffice it to say that there is a strong scientific consensus that clinical depression is largely due to chemical balances in the brain that are entirely out of any individual's control. Telling someone with depression to just "go do something fun" or "think about cheerful things" is effectively equivalent to telling a woman with terminal breast cancer that she can wish her cancer away by being optimistic, with the implication being that she basically deserves to die of the cancer if she doesn't fix it all by herself.

I know people very close to me that suffer/suffered from both clinical depression and postpartum depression, yet another form of depression that is very much dependent on chemicals outside our control. I know for a fact that at least one of these people did not ever take antidepressants because others convinced them that they didn't need pills, they just needed to have a better attitude about things. I honestly feel sometimes that people who say or think such things should get struck with such an illness so I can tell them to "just be happy."

On a somewhat similar note, I want to talk about plain old insensitivity regarding mental illnesses. Most of you don't know this, but I was diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) shortly after returning home from my mission. It is something that I have severely struggled with for some time, and it just drives me mad that people joke and giggle about how "OCD" they are and how quirky "OCD" people are. For people that wash their hands so frequently that they turn bloody, for people that are always late because they MUST quadruple check every door, for people that are driven to panic if they don't touch things in a specific order, I'm fairly certain that such jokes are about as funny as AIDS jokes are to those dying of complications from said disease. They certainly aren't funny to me; I suffer from the obsessive side of OCD and not the compulsive, which means in my case that I don't have any such debilitating rituals. What I do have, however, are exceptionally persistent intrusive thoughts of an extremely violent nature. I've had countless occasions where I struggle for literal hours or days with horrifyingly violent thoughts towards those around me. 

Would I ever act on such violent thoughts? Of course not. Do I know for a fact they're irrational? Absolutely. Do I do everything in my power NOT to think or dwell on them? Definitely. Do such struggles ever actually drive away such thoughts? Almost never. Most people don't know about this side of OCD, and quite frankly, I'm not sure many people will care even after discovering it.

I hope this post at least causes some people to pause and think about their "advice" to people with depression, or to not deliver a "joke" that may hurt the feelings of those around them. Honestly, just treat mental illnesses the same as physical illnesses; they're just as real, just as harmful, and require just as much loving support from the family and friends of those who suffer from them.

Adventures in Motherhood: Eating out with my son

Joel is an active little boy. Unless he is unconscious, he is constantly exploring, babbling, and getting into things. While this sometimes can be exhausting, for the most part, it is a trait that I adore.

Over the past couple of weeks, I've had what I would call an adventure in motherhood. Another way to phrase it might be "experiences you didn't know you'd be having until you became a parent."

Last week, James and I went to Oteo in Lindon for dinner. It's a little family-owned Mexican place right next to our taekwondo studio; we've eaten there once before, and both times, I've been impressed by the unique qualities of their food. It's a pretty small place, probably a dozen or so tables all told, and fairly quiet.

James and I got seated, and Joel settled in a high chair. Needless to say, Joel is not really a quiet diner. He babbles, and his current form of asking for more food is to shriek. (We sometimes refer to him as "Veloci-baby.") He enjoyed sharing my empanada, even the peppers!

Still, I could not help but notice the looks garnered by our vocal baby. There was a woman seated behind James (so, directly in front of me) that craned her neck around a couple of times to glance at Joel. Kitty-corner from them, there was a young couple that outright stared at Joel multiple times, and "whispered" behind their hands afterward--loud enough that I could catch at least a few of the words, including "baby" and something that sounded a lot like "I would never."

Yesterday, James and I went out to lunch for Valentine's Day to our new favorite sushi place, Sakura in Orem. I have been sick, so this was about all we did to celebrate Valentine's Day. Again, we had Joel. (Actually, I'd been looking forward to letting him try sushi...he wasn't a fan!) And, of course, he was his usual self. While the reaction wasn't as bad as when we were at Oteo's, he still got a number of sideways glances and clearly some comments from the couple across the way.

I'll admit, I was embarrassed, both times. I would hate to sour anyone else's dining experiences, especially if, as it was for us yesterday, they were celebrating a special occasion.

That said, I was also a little upset to be at the brunt end of such rudeness, especially at Oteo. James and I love to eat out; it's one of our favorite ways to spend date night. We love to enjoy different foods, different atmospheres, and each other's company and conversation. Even if we ate out less (and we don't eat out an unreasonable amount as it is), I still don't think it would be reasonable to ask us to leave our son behind every time. We simply cannot afford, in either money or favors, to get a babysitter every time we want to go out.

If your suggestion would be, "just don't eat out," I have one thing to say to you: Get. Real. I am not going to spend the next X years stuck inside because I am a parent. Besides, adults can be just as obnoxious as kids. Have you ever met my brother? He's louder than any 10 babies. (Love you, Kyle!) 

Babies are not like adults. They don't have social skills yet. Joel doesn't understand that he shouldn't shriek or throw food on the ground, much as we try to prevent him doing so. I may know that he is annoying you, but that won't stop him from doing his thing. Giving me the stinkeye and whispering behind your hand about how you would never be "that parent" does nothing except sour the experience for me AND for you.

So, for future reference, if you're at a restaurant and there's a shrieking baby, how about instead of acting annoyed, you instead give those parents an encouraging smile, letting them know, "you got this!" You'll probably feel better about the experience than you would otherwise, and I know that I, as the parent, certainly would as well.