February 2, 2015 by Stephanie

Talks with Tom #35

We like to talk about our someday house, or our dream home.

Tom loves to dream up what he is going to build and plan for different intricacies of our future place.

We would like to have a pool someday. And no dream home pool doesn’t come with a lazy river.

We ended up talking at length about this lazy river, and this was a comment Tom made about them.

It wouldn’t be a lazy river. It would be a “less matured” river, like a “stuck in the rut” kind of river.

Because a lazy river, can’t just be a lazy river.

And no matter what kind of river we have, Grace is not getting into it.

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Do you make plans for your dream home? Do you already live in your dream home? Who doesn’t love a good lazy river kind of day? (Is it summer yet?)

January 30, 2015 by Stephanie

Book Review: Restless

I read this book recently as part of a bible study I participate in with two friends.

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We would read a couple chapters each week and then meet via Google chat to discuss.

I thought this was a good book to do in a group setting. It is broken up into three different parts. There are worksheets throughout the book that provide you with reflection questions in a journaling format. I liked this set up because it gave you room to write how the topic applied to you and gave you guidance on things you should be thinking about or discussing.

I enjoyed this book, and it came at a time that I was still unsure of what my future held. We started reading it well before I had a job, and there were a lot of things still up in the air.

This book focuses on how each of us have different threads of our life that are woven together for God’s plan. We may not always see how they fit together initially and may seem random, but God has intentionally made you a certain way for HIS glory.

You talk about your gifts and your times of suffering. Everything is deliberate, even if we may not see the reason right now. This book was a good reminder for me that I needed to trust and know that everything happens for a reason. (Cliche but true.) If you take the questions seriously, you take a look at your fears and insecurities, and see how they have a purpose in molding you into a specific person.

I also really love the story of Joseph, and it was used as an example throughout this book. He suffered a lot, but always remained faithful to God’s plan for him.

Jennie Allen is a great writer too. She wrote with conviction and a realness. You could relate to her stories and comments, which I always find helpful when discussing my faith. I think all too often we put faith in these perfect boxes of how it should look and sometimes it is great to talk about the hard sides of it all. We aren’t always perfect especially in those times of trial, but all we can do is push forward.

Some of my favorite quotes from the book are:

“…you exist for specific purposes and no one else can live them like you.”

“God is quiet and completely wise in his timing of revealing his will.”

“Fires are lit in our lives, and they can burn to shine light or cause destruction. We get to decide which purpose they will serve.”

“We can do one of two things with suffering: we can absorb it and let it change us, or we can let it crush us.”

“God is accomplishing a thousand tiny purposes at any given moment around us.”

“We are scared that God’s dreams may not be as cool as the ones we create in our minds for ourselves.”

And some bible verses:

Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you must also forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. (Col. 3:12-15) (This was part of our wedding service, so I hold this one dear.)

Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. (Heb. 11.1)

This was a humbling book. And as Jennie put it, “This is a book about discovering ourselves and getting over ourselves all at the same time.”

I think we often get in our own way when we are struggling or succeeding. This was a reminder to always have faith and trust in HIS plans. It was a reminder that we do have a purpose even if it may not seem glamorous or grandiose. I need to let go of my preconceived notions and my control (when I didn’t really have it in the first place).

I recommend this for any small groups or even if you want to do some self reflection on your own. I do think it is geared towards women, but I think males would enjoy the concepts too.

This review sums up my own opinions. I was not contacted by anyone associated with these works or compensated for my review. My review has not been influenced by anything other than my love for entertainment and art.

Have you read any good devotional books lately?

January 28, 2015 by Stephanie

Fit for Me 4/52

I will be honest; this last week was a struggle. Sickness hit the Whitener household.

What I did last week:

Thursday-30 minutes on an elliptical.

Saturday-1 hour of BodyPump. I made it through every song! I had to do some of the modifications to do so, but I did it! Whoop Whoop!

Sunday-1 hour of BodyFlow, which is a combo of yoga and pilates. I am still up in the air if I will go again. The instruction was a little weak, and for this kind of class I need you to tell me when to do everything. Otherwise I end up in downward dog for entirely too long, or I forget to breath.

Impressed by:

I actually made it through the whole BodyPump routine, even the planks and shoulders. I high-fived myself after the class.

Struggled with:

Unfortunately, I caught whatever bug Tom had last week. It hit me Monday afternoon, so I decided to not push it and took Monday and Tuesday off from working out. We’ll see if I get back at it tonight. I may be taking the afternoon off from work due to the urging of my boss, so exercising is probably unlikely. Let’s also hope that G doesn’t get this sinus crud.

Did I meet my goal from last week?

I made it through planks!!! Granted it was a modified plank, but I still didn’t drop to my stomach! Progress people.

What is my goal for next week?

To go to a Jazzercise class. Yep that is right. I am going to pull on my leotard and leggings and Jazzercise it up.

Fitness Thoughts:

It is really interesting to see people who go to different workout classes. I think each one definitely has it’s own culture.

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Do you work out while you are sick? I don’t attempt to because I am afraid it will make it worse.

January 26, 2015 by Stephanie

George-5 Months

How has it been 5 months?

Weight: 14 lbs and 24.25 inches. He is in the 7% for height, and 2% for weight. His head, however, is in the 58% at 42.25. (Which explains why we have a hard time getting his head through shirt neck holes. He also doesn’t fit into any hats except the one that I crocheted for him, and it stretches a lot.)

Health: He still has problems going #2, but the doctor said it was nothing to worry about at this point because there is no blood in it. She said he may just be a gassy baby. Other than that he is a happy drooly baby!

Diet: He is still mostly on breastmilk. We have a bottle of formula before bed. This month has been really hard breastfeeding wise. I know that I am not making enough. I am still barely making enough even with pumping during the formula feed. Most days I have one pumping session that I get less than an ounce, and most others are not much more. George eats at least 4 oz per feeding. Watching my supply basically start to dry out and having to pump/feed almost every 2 hours, I have decided that this will be our last month breastfeeding. Unless something drastically changes, I plan to start the weaning process once he is 6 months old. It has become more of a burden and it is taking too much time for what I am pumping. Or not pumping. I don’t feel like it is fair to keep pushing both of us to do this when it obviously is not working well. It just makes for one un-happy and guilty mommy. (George could care less as long as there is something in his belly! He is a mess otherwise.) I have tried all the tricks so believe me there really isn’t much more that I can do to increase my supply. Some women just aren’t able to breastfeed because of the supply, and their bodies never adjust to the demand. Despite my best efforts, I happen to be one of those women. I feel like there needs to be more out there for women who try but cannot make the supply. I feel that it is very polarized: either you formula feed or you are an expert breastfeeding with supply galore. It has been very stressful and hard to find material out there for those in the middle. I think there is also a lot of negativity for those who stop “early” too, so I want to say power to all moms for however long you try. Breastfeeding is not an easy journey, and I don’t want to feel guilty for stopping now. So we will happily make it to 6 months. We plan on starting our solids adventure around then any way, so we feel that it is the perfect timing to end our breastfeeding journey. There is a huge weight lifted off me now that I know there is an end in sight. While I am glad that I was able to do it, it is a struggle that I am happy to know will soon be over. I will say cutting holes into my sports bra has helped tremendously while pumping. It makes things much easier to do both at the same time hands free. So that was an improvement this month. We did try rice cereal this month, and he HATED it. We have tried both spoon fed and bottle fed, and he did NOT want to have anything to do with that rice stuff.

Clothes: We are still in 3 month clothes. I wouldn’t be surprised if we are still in them next month either. We are in size 1 diapers right now. By the end of this week, he will be in size 2. And that is mostly because I don’t want to go buy more size one since I know he has almost grown out of them, and we are down to our last stack this week. He also started wearing shoes when we go out on the weekend. It makes him look like such a big kid!

Sleeping: I think he is going through some sleep regression. We have a pretty good routine for bed time. I read him a story and lure him to slumber. Then he wakes up, and Tom has to take a crack at it. It usually takes us about 30-45 minutes to get him to actually be asleep. Unfortunately, he has started waking up around 4am, wide awake and hungry. It’s that awful timing that if I feed him and get him back to sleep I have about 30-45 minutes to sleep before I need to start getting ready for the day. So we end up just staying up. We tried switching his bedtime to 8 pm earlier this month and that just didn’t work for us. It took us even longer to get him to sleep and then he was getting up at 2 or 3. So his bedtime stays at 9pm for now. He is really funny about naps. He definitely gets cranky and will fight going to sleep. The only way we have gotten him to sleep for naps is by having him lay perpendicular to my stomach so his face his buried in my arm and then you have to pat his butt. Works every time. He also will only sleep on his back here at home, but at the babysitter will only sleep on his stomach. Weird kid.

Likes: He has really started playing with his feet this month. (This picture was the first time I saw him try to put it in his mouth though.) George is constantly holding them and trying to pull off his socks. He has started splashing during bath time. I am not sure if he likes it because he is always startled by it, but he will keep doing it. He likes to grab the hair at the nape of my neck and pull it like it is a handle. I never have a full ponytail anymore. He has to either have his hands or a pacy in his mouth. He loves to talk now, so he loves hearing you babble to him. He likes to stand more than sitting. I swear he will stand on his own before he actually crawls. His legs are so strong. He likes when I babywear him, so if nothing else works to soothe him in the carrier he goes. He still loves holding our hands. He LOVES Larry the parrot on VocabuLARRY. He will be screaming, and then when the show comes on, he stops and smiles in amazement.

Dislikes: Not being able to see you. He is more aware of his surroundings now, and knows when you have left him alone. He hates to burp and for feeding time to end. It is quite comical for us, but he acts like he is being tortured. If there is not a nipple (of any variety) in his mouth he screams this horrific scream. So we have to have a pacy ready for after feeding so we can calm him down from the feeding being over. I am not sure if he doesn’t like diaper changes, but he doesn’t want to sit still during them. He tries doing back bends when we change his diaper, or he has to monkey hang on my arm.

Milestones: We heard his first real laugh this month. He also rolled over for the first time. He looks like he wants to crawl; he pushes his butt up like an inchworm. He just doesn’t go anywhere forward, but he turns himself in circles. He can grab things now, but he doesn’t really know how to control it once he has it in his hands. He sort of can get his pacy back in his mouth if you count him chewing on the plastic part instead of the rubber part. He is trying to sit up. He looks like he is doing crunches trying to pull himself into a sitting position on his own.

Quirks: He hums himself to sleep. It is so cute. He attacks his pacy like a lion going after his prey. He will still lay newborn style when he is laying on your stomach. Never too big I guess to snuggle up tight.

We parents are: still trying to figure out a good schedule. Things are good, but Tom’s schedule isn’t the same from week to week, so that makes it somewhat difficult to have things consistent. It has been nice to get back in the gym consistently. om was sick this last week, so that was a little rough pulling double duty so George wouldn’t catch whatever Tom had.

The dogs are: loving him more and more. George has started noticing them a lot more. He laughs at them now and reaches out to them.

January 22, 2015 by Stephanie

It’s All in a Day’s Work

If I had a quarter for every time that someone asked me exactly what I do all day…

Well I would have a couple hundred bucks. Maybe. But it still feels like I get asked that all the time.

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I am a Student Success Advisor, which is an Academic Advisor of sorts.

I work at a small private liberal arts college, which means everyone is wearing a lot of hats. And that is no exception for my office of three people.

My office deals with everything. We have a focus on retention work, but that entails everything on the campus level. If you think about it, everything from the caliber of classes down to what is being served in the dining hall affects retention on some level. So naturally we deal with it all.

We have an early alert system where any staff or faculty can write a concern that they have for a student, and then our office either reaches out to that student ourselves or facilitates passing it along to the appropriate area. A huge chunk of our responsibility is managing these alerts and making sure the students who need assistance are receiving it. We do some manual alerts throughout the semester such as attendance, late payments, not meeting with advisor, just to name a few. We are not traditional Academic Advisors in the sense that students do not have to meet with us for registration, but we do assist in registration matters and four year plans.

My main responsibility though is meeting with all the students who are on probation. These are students whose cumulative GPA fell below a 2.0. They are required to meet with me three times during the semester, but most choose to meet more. I have a couple students who are meeting with me every week. We discuss old habits and make goals for new ones. We take a pretty close look at what brought them here to probation and the best plan to get them off. I take a look at them as a whole person. We don’t just talk about classes, but we also take a look at their jobs, families, basically any out of class experience to see how it is impacting them. Usually there is a lot going on with these students that make a difference on their success in the classroom. I also have to have some conversations that getting off of probation is not realistic and advise the student through the next steps. A lot of these students are also raking up loans, so we often discuss that as well. (The financial piece is the most nerve-wracking part of my job.)

You would be surprised by how many students do not come to college prepared AT ALL. They need help to stay. And I feel that my job is to have stark conversations with these individuals and provide them with resources and tools to be successful. I tell them that I am their coach, but ultimately they are the play-makers. I want to leave them in a position where they can do this on their own. I am here to help, but they have to do the work. It’s my job to make suggestions, but it is their job to make the changes. Some choose to, and some don’t. I find though that a lot of these students want to do well, they just have never been taught how to utilize their strengths to make things work for them.

I really do love this approach of coaching students on their academic success. If you think about an athletic coach, the way we approach our advising is the same way. They come in for regular practice and warm-ups, and we facilitate that training. Than they go and perform. It can be an intrusive approach, but generally we see that it helps keep more students on track for graduation who would have given up without the guidance. Our office has become a liaison for students to all things college. It is really amazing the buckets we have our hands in. I think I asked every day last semester, “Is that really our scope?” To which the reply was, “It is now.” I am ok being a catch-all department though because it keeps things interesting. It is also pushing me professionally to delve into areas I have never had experience in (i.e. financial aid).

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In the first two weeks of classes this is what my schedule has looked like:

21 individual hour long meetings with probation students
Spent at least 10 hours prepping for those meetings (going over transcripts, configuring GPAs for repeated coursework, gathering general knowledge about the student, and creating their coaching folders)
Met 3 times with two other staff members about a workshop we were designing for Student Success
Put on said workshop
Had 3 campus meetings that either pertained to academic advising or retention efforts
2 office staff meetings
1 student staff meeting
Assisted with training three new staff members
Spent 3 hours working on an online advising certification course I am taking (chapter reading, discussion posts-entry and response)
A couple hours working on our second year experience initiative (brainstorming and researching)
I am running a pilot mentoring program through our office, so I spent a couple hours working on this. I collected names for mentoring opportunities and contacted those students to set up meetings. I also created a meeting outline for the semester off of things I have used at other institutions-no need to recreate the wheel my friends.
Ran attendance alerts and contacted students who missed classes in the first week to remind them of the “withdraw without penalty” deadline
Checking in (several times) with probation students who have yet to schedule their appointment with me
Every day I update our Retention Alert system with any notes I have from the meetings that day (this can take me anywhere from 5 minutes to an hour depending on the day)
Helped organize all the books for our book scholarship that our office does each semester
Double checked a colleague’s report on un-used scholarship funds
I had a few student walk-in concerns ranging from their schedule being dropped to losing a scholarship. A lot of problem solving time with emails, phone calls, and calming of fears.
Handling concerns from our front desk area-the first couple days of classes were particularly nutty
And of course email management and other random administrative tasks like data collection happen on a daily basis-some days are slower than others.

I also serve on a couple committees that meet randomly throughout the month. Again most of them pertain to prevention strategies or retention efforts.

So that is what I do in a nutshell!

I really love my job. The only thing missing from my job description to make this THE perfect job is doing something with learning communities. I enjoy getting to work with the at-risk population or those students who are considered in the middle. Helping them be successful gets me jazzed. Academic Coaching is really where my heart is. I love teaching in this individual manner. Giving these students attention sometimes makes all the difference in their success.

And then this is my life. Yes to every.single.statement.

What do you do at your job?