Holiday Spirit

Since today is a Holy Day of Obligation, my mother didn’t have to work and she choose today to start getting all the Christmas Decorations out.  We spent about an hour searching through the attic, finding all kinds of holiday items.  Sometime this week we will need to go out and find a tree.  We usually tag one earlier in the year, but with the wedding and all the other goings on, we didn’t have the time.  It looks like this year we will be picking one up from the Lion’s Club Tree Lot.

My mother and grandmother both collect Jim Shore Pieces.  Here are a couple of photos of his work.  You can find more information about him and his pieces at his website here.

Mississippi Author

Last night I had the opportunity to meet an old friend at a book signing at Main Street Books in Hattiesburg.  Joe Lee and I have been friends since we met in RCIA class where I sponsered him to become Catholic.  I look forward to visiting with him again and really look forward to bouncing some ideas I have off of him.   Joe is a great guy and has a new book out.  I actually helped him with some research(as in I answered a few of his questions:)) and am thanked in the opening pages.(How cool is that!)  I haven’t read this book , but have really enjoyed his other titles.  You can check out the homepage for Dogwood Press here.  You can also check out his Amazon Author page here. You can also buy his books online at Amazon here.  His latest book, The Magnolia Triangle sounds like it is going to be great.

Project 35

In the past couple of years, I have put on about 35-40 pounds of pure fat.  I pretty much stopped working out when I arrived back in Korea in 2007.  I had done so well in 2005 and 2006 but the last two years were pretty lazy as far as exercise goes.  I am starting my New Year’s resolution early.  I intend to lose 35 pounds of fat this year. I am about a size 37 in the waist and would love to get down to 34.   I started today by doing 40 mintues on the treadmill and look forward to joining a gym as soon as we get settled back into Hattiesburg after our trip to Kentucky.  Some of the things that I am doing:

1. No Fried Food(Not an easy task in Mississippi)
2. No Sweets
3. Starting to eat Breakfest
4. Drinking 8 glasses of water a day
5. Exercising 4-5 times a week
6. Portion Control
7. Eating more fruits and vegetable
8. Allowing myself one “rules free meal” per week

Korean Studies

My Korean while pretty good is not where it should be.  I got my books in one of our boxes from Korea that arrived yesterday.  I am busy trying to devise a study plan.  I know that I have already forgotten so much.  I have started back with Sogang’s 2A student and workbook.  I will go out today and buy some note-cards to start my note card system once again.  I really want to be able to converse more with the in-laws and they are beginning to want to speak more and more to me when JJ calls home.

I also have been following Amanda’s blog (Amanda Takes Off) for awhile now and her studying and Korean level drives me to study more.  I also regulary plug “foreigners speaking Korean” into You Tube’s search engine to find even more inspiration.

JJ and I do have plans to return to Korean after 5-6 years and I really want to be able to rely less on her to help with translating.  There are no Korean classes offered in my area, but I figure that I will pick up a tutor from the University.  I can probably find a University student who wants to earn a little pocket money to meet me a couple times a week.  JJ will continue to help me, but I would really like to be forced to study outside of our house.