Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Can I Have A Do-Over?

Oh boy. This week started off with a clang, bang, clatter... and not much sleep (thank you, pregnancy!). Yesterday, Monday, was a non-day in every way.

Long story short, we had to get some septic up-grades for the addition we are building.
Disaster A: The guy digging accidentally snagged the main sewer line from the house, ripping it off right underneath the toilet. What a racket that was! Thankfully Susannah and I were at MOPS all morning, so bathroom-ing wasn't an issue.
Disaster B: Said sewer pipe being ripped off the toilet meant no functioning toilet all day yesterday.
Disaster C: Miss Utility failed to mark the underground phone line (for internet) and that was dug up. I know it is so very wimpy that "no internet" equals "disaster" but I needed to do some online stuff that had a deadline of today.
Disaster D: To fix the toilet/sewer line situation, the guy was working in and under the bathroom, which is right next to Susannah's room, making lots of noise. So she woke up 45 min. into her nap. Then I knew I was going to have to "go" before the toilet was fixed, so we went to my in-laws for the rest of the afternoon, where Susannah took a little bit more of a nap and I wanted to but couldn't get comfortable on the bed enough to fall asleep.

On top of all that, I have been sleeping terribly the past several nights and just wanted to be by myself, alone, no housework, no cooking, nobody to entertain or feed or keep out of trouble, and SLEEP. I was so exhausted - mentally more than physically, I think - that by suppertime last night I just wanted to sit down and bawl.

So, needless to say, even though I spent some time on Sunday jotting down some menu ideas, I didn't really get a menu plan pulled together like I wanted. And my to-do list for this week looks like this:


I actually wrote the header for it just this morning. Before we trooped off to the in-laws again so I could get my online stuff done before the deadline. Right now I am in catch-up/salvage the week mode. I know that a bad Monday does not equal a bad week, but it sure doesn't help it get off to a good start, that's for sure. Especially when I got NOTHING housework-wise accomplished.

I did ok with my goals last week. I didn't get them all completed, but I did what I could and I'm not worrying about the rest. Last week's goals were:

*Bedtime - I really need to have more self-discipline and simply get my rear in bed at a decent hour, esp. if I'm going to take forever and ten days to fall asleep, or wake up for 3 hours in the middle of the night!

*Write a note to Daniel's Aunt & Uncle - This is really so easy, simple and fun to do. And only takes a couple of minutes!

*4 - 6 batches of cheesecake cupcakes
- I got all 6 batches made!! Woot!

*Susannah's Clothes
- Some progress?? I got through everything that was in her room, and have enough outfits to get through a week with a few pieces to spare (I do her laundry once a week). I have a tub of clothes from a friend I need to go through, and of course get all the too-small stuff sorted and packed up (from several sizes ago as well!)

*2 hours on wedding gift project - 1 hour. And not nearly as much progress in that 1 hour as I wanted. This may end up being a Christmas gift.

*1 hour bookwork
- I think I spent more than 1 hour, maybe 1 1/2, but I was able to make some good progress and rediscover the balance-the-checkbook groove I work in.

*1 hour working on Susannah's Baby Book - Didn't happen.

********

Thinking about it a bit, I do have some things I want to get done this week. I know this will be another short week as we have something on Saturday, so I am going to keep it short and sweet.

For this week, I would like to:

~Go to bed at 10pm, wake up at 6am. - I'm not stealing this from Alicia, I promise ;) I thought about it over the weekend, and I think if I crawl in bed earlier rather than later, I might be able to fall asleep better. And I really do want to get up early so I can get a good start to the day with having my quiet time in the mornings (leaving more time in the afternoon to work on other stuff). In an effort to help myself stay accountable, I have set an alarm on my phone for 9:45pm for each day this week. That will be my reminder to close up shop and go to bed.

~Get caught up with my Bible Study homework AND spend some "independent" time in the Word a little each day. - I fell behind on the homework since our last session and I need/want to get caught up before we meet again on Friday. And it's a really good study that I am benefiting from, so it would just be a good thing all around! (It is Beth Moore's Breaking Free study.)

~Iron tablecloths for Friday's Bible Study and choir robes. - We are both in the choir at church and over the summer break I brought our robes home to wash them. This Sunday is the first Sunday wearing them again and I need to get them ironed!

~Finish baking the Cheesecake Cupcakes for my sister's wedding. - I don't know off the top of my head how many batches I have left to do, but I know last week I hit the half-way point plus a batch.

~Do 1 hour of bookwork. - Hopefully since I got back into the groove last week it won't take me a whole hour to do one bank statement! (I said it had been a while, didn't I?)

~Work on Susannah's baby book for 1 hour. - This one is really aiming high because I don't think I'll get that far, but if I do, it will be nice :)

And with that, I am off to go throw some laundry in the dryer and camp out on the cough with my Bible Study for a bit. Supper stuff is thawing on the counter (Beef & Bean Burritos, though I have no idea how to make them...) and should be simple enough to put together.

By the way, about 10 minutes after we got home from using the in-laws computer this morning, the phone guy showed up and 45 minutes later had everything working again! That was a big sigh and "Praise the Lord!" because we were thinking they were going to have to come in and do some major under-ground work.

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Pregnancy Update - 20 Weeks

Yikes. I haven't posted anything about this pregnancy with "Baby Gus" since the announcement post! That was at 13 weeks, now I am almost 21 weeks. I had to take this picture fast and get it posted before Davene sends me those dreadful goggly-eyed glasses that I dared her to wear (and she said she would if I would!), haha!


Two weeks ago we had "the" ultrasound where we could have found out our baby's gender, but like we did with Susannah, we have chosen to wait and be surprised at the birth :) So, we do not know if we're having a boy or girl. The 19 week appointment went very well. So far it's another "perfect" pregnancy. On the ultrasound we could see our baby moving around some, looking cute, holding one of it's hands up to his or her face. I wonder if he or she was sucking a thumb? A few days ago I was feeling very excited to meet this little person growing inside me. Oh, I do hope he or she stays put for another 19 or 20 weeks, but that doesn't put a damper on my eagerness to see and hold our baby in my arms!

I am feeling fantastic most of the time! Aside from feeling the baby move and my baby-bump starting to get in the way sometimes (like when I'm standing at the counter), I usually forget I'm pregnant! I am more tired with this pregnancy, but I attribute that to not having the "freedom" to sleep as long as I want whenever I want since I do have to continue being a mama to our Susannah :) I have even taken up drinking the dreaded "coffee" some most mornings to give me the pep to get through the day. If I stay up too late at night, I usually end up dragging through the day or taking a nap, regardless. So sleep is a priority right now. (And I know sleep will go out the window for a while once the baby comes!)

The one pregnancy side-effect that is still cropping up occasionally is throwing up. It has certainly gotten better, but sometimes if I don't have enough food in my stomach and I drink water, within a couple minutes I start to feel sick and then it all comes back up. For a while I couldn't drink water between meals unless I ate a substantial snack a bit before. Now I can usually drink freely throughout the day, but if it's been a while since I've eaten, I drink slowly and munch on something. That has been the ONLY "sickness" I've experienced with this pregnancy since going off vitamins. I occasionally take a gummy-vitamin or drink some Emergen-C. I haven't tried more powerful vitamin pills yet because I don't want to feel awful. Gummy-vits finally don't make me feel bad anymore, and since they have all the important stuff in them (Folic Acid and DHA) I'm happy to eat a gummy bear once in a while and include lots of veggies, fruits and occasionally fish in our meals.

It is hard to believe that I am already 1/2 way through this pregnancy. Time has flown past! I am already thinking in my mind things like "ok, by this time I want to make sure and have my bag packed and ready to go." And I need to start thinking about freezer meals. At the same time... I'm starting to think about my garden next year :) I guess I am feeling rather well and ambitious at the moment! Haha!

Hopefully I will remember to post another update before another quarter of the pregnancy goes past :)

Monday, October 10, 2011

New Week, New Goals

Oh boy. My goal list from last week looks like a total flop. I should've taken much more into consideration than I did when planning them. The week started out well, but in all reality I only had Mon - Wed to really work on anything I was going to really get done above and beyond normal housework.

Thursday I had my 19 week appointment and ultrasound (another blog post later this week, hopefully :) ), which meant the visit took twice as long. Then after that I had an impromptu dentist appointment so he could remove a piece of something that had gotten jammed up beside one of my molars earlier that week and was not budging.

Friday I had Bible Study in the morning, and then the afternoon was spent getting the house straightened up and everyone packed for Daniel and I to leave Friday evening for our Sunday School's annual beach retreat (and for Susannah to spend the weekend with her Grandma and Papa).

All in all, I have ONE goal crossed off on my list:

Bedtime! I don't think I did too bad... except on the retreat, of course, where we were up past 1am both nights :0

Sort Through Susannah's Clothes I had made lots of progress in this department, seriously! I don't know that I would've gotten it ALL finished with everything else that was going on, but I had too small stuff pulled out of her drawers (and piles, a-hem), new boxes of clothes gone through and sorted into piles of sizes, outfits, etc. And I had a HUGE load of fits and doesn't fit laundry that needed washed. I washed it all Wednesday and Thursday, and piled it on the couch for my MIL to fold while Susannah napped on Thursday. What I forgot to tell Grandma was DON'T PUT IT AWAY!! When I got home from all my appointments Thursday, Grandma had folded all the laundry and put it back in Susannah's drawers. I know she was being helpful and it was my fault for leaving out that one tiny tidbit of crucial information. Now at least all the clothes are clean!

1 hour bookwork I did get 45 minutes done :)

De-clutter dining room table and china hutch Didn't happen

2 hours on wedding gift project Didn't happen

Make 3 batches of cheesecake cupcakes (sister's wedding) I did make FOUR batches! But only 2 of them turned out because I made the mistake of freezing most of the cream cheese (which I do all the time when I stockpile cream cheese)... and frozen cream cheese has a different consistency that I learned makes terrible cheesecakes. Oops.

1 handwritten note Woot! THIS is my "one straight line" for last week :) I wrote it while in the waiting room on Thursday.

1 hour on Susannah's babybook Didn't happen. I'd hoped to squeeze it in one evening, but that just never worked out.

******

So new week, new goals, right? Yup :) And hopefully this week will be more tame, normal and successful.

*Bedtime - still just a visual reminder to get my rear in the bed at a decent hour.

*Write a note to Daniel's Aunt & Uncle

*4 - 6 batches of cheesecake cupcakes
- I'm meeting my sister Tuesday morning to pick up more cream cheese - that I will NOT freeze - and reimburse her for the stuff I froze. I won't need to stock up on cream cheese this winter like I usually do :)

*Susannah's Clothes

*2 hours on wedding gift project

*1 hour bookwork
- last week in my working on this, I discovered the last time I balanced the checkbook was... way, way, way too long ago.

*1 hour working on Susannah's Baby Book

There is much, much more I want to put on my list, but the reality is that I don't want to make a lengthy list that is unreasonable. I hope you all have a wonderful, successful, productive week! I know I'm looking forward to one :)

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

{Mostly} Wordless Wednesday

I'm not sure how this linking to youtube will work... I couldn't load the video from the computer to my blog, so I had to load it to youtube then put the link in my blog. I hope it works for everyone!


One of Susannah's favorite things to do lately is to unload the utensils from the dishwasher. She figured this out on her own (children are so observant!) and did it twice on Saturday. No, not all of the utensils go in THAT drawer, but I didn't mind :)





*Please excuse my allergy-caused sniffing and stuffy-nosed voice :)

Monday, October 3, 2011

Allergies and Goals

Two things I'm working on lately. One because it happens and one because I have decided to, want to or need to.

Springtime finds Daniel sneezing and blowing his nose. And every spring I'm thankful that my allergies are very mild. Then THIS time of year rolls around when ragweed is in full bloom and the leaves are starting to drop from trees. I groan and think "ugh, I DO have allergies. Now it's MY turn" to sneeze my head off and blow my brains out. Seriously, some days I come this close to stuffing a cotton-ball up each tickling, drizzling nose-hole and calling it a day. My fall allergies weren't this bad until I started living in this area of the state. I think I should buy stock in Puffs Plus tissues.

My goals for last week, well, I need to improve on some of them. This past weekend was my sister's bridal shower and I had some extra busy-ness preparing some food for that. My goals were:

*BE in bed by 10:30 - 10:45 each night. *ahem* Yeah... that didn't happen very many nights. Waiting for biscotti to finish baking is partially to blame ;) I'm taking it off the "blogged list" but it is still at the top of my list hanging on the frige for visual reminder.

*Declutter the dining room table and china hutch. I did work on the table for 1 chunk of time. One day. And made a small dent.

*Write 1 hand-written note. So easy and fun to do!

Spend 1 hour on bookwork.

Spend 1 hour on Susannah's baby book.
I spent alot of my 1 hour this past week looking for bits of information I'd recorded and writing it in the book.

Order my birthday present from Daniel. And it came :) I hope to do a blog post soon :) I can now cross one more thing off my "Goals for 2011" list!


Now for my goals this week:

*Sort through Susannah's clothes. My biggest and highest priority goal for this week. Wow. Friday we were wearing shorts and short-sleeves. Saturday morning it was chilly outside and I had to dig out warm clothes for her. I need to go through the clothes, get them organized and see how we're fit for the winter season.

*1 hour of bookwork. I know this has been on my list each week now, but seeing it on the list helps me stay accountable (hmm, pun anyone? ;) ).

*De-clutter dining room table and china hutch. And hopefully be able to cross this off this week!!

*2 hours on a special project. Wedding gift for my sister, so I can't post what it is in case she reads this ;)

*Make 3 batches of cheesecake cupcakes. I'm making these for my sister's wedding and need to have 300 made by the end of the month. I'd better get started so I don't have to put life on hold for a big chunk of time to get them all made in the nick of time!

*Write 1 hand-written note.

*Spend 1 hour working on Susannah's baby book. It is coming along nicely and I think I will be able to have it filled out up-to-date by the end of the year. Hopefully much sooner than that, really. This week I'll probably pick out and order pictures to paste on the different pages I've written on.

And those are my goals for this week! Do you enjoy or benefit from reading these? I enjoy reading Alicia's posts each week about her goals and get inspiration from them. I almost didn't post this week... but after reading her post, I came back to finish and and press "publish".