Goals

I have some new goals for this

• Post more often (won't be hard, I almost never post anymore)
• Keep my daily views at least above 10 (which means I will defiantly need to post more)
• Try to have more interactions with the people reading
• Encourage more comments on my blog
• Do more book reviews
• Edit some of the short stories I've already written and have been thinking about posting. 
• Start posting things that I worry might make people upset and so I've been putting off posting them. 

Now let's see if I can keep things going. 

Husband made me do it

With the help of both Husband and Papa, I've finished up my 'remade' book to use as a yearly planner using a tutorial that I found on Pinterest. I will try to add pictures later when I am able to as I am very proud and love showing it off.
I also updated my daily lists again. This time I asked Husband to make sure that I keep up with it, and he's doing a wonderful job *whine* now I can't just goof off after I get home from work, I actually have to do things (like update my blog for one.)
So hopefully there will start being more posts here. I think I would enjoy that as well.

As for now, I'm off. Got to get ready and open the bank this morning! (at least I get off really early, plus I have tomorrow off, although Friday will be twice as busy as normal then.)

Since things are relatively slower right now (especially since I finally got Odin down for a nap, that child goes through phases where he can't bear to be separated from me and refuses to even hang out in his bouncer.) I'm going to try to keep updating my blog fairly often, mostly because I miss writing a lot. Also because I'm going to be working on the computer a fair amount looking into freezer meals and preparation and lots of crock pot cooking and going over things with Husband in order to make cooking easier on him when I go back to work, and also making it easier on me as well. 

I've already started back up on my lists again, with Husband checking to make sure I'm getting my chores done. Plus this time around Husband has his own little 'honey do' list of things to start transitioning his thinking to house husband. So far he's doing wonderfully, I couldn't be prouder of him. I think he's going to do wonderful being a stay-at-home-dad. 

We had our first whole family grocery trip yesterday, didn't go to bad, Loki was fairly well behaved even if she insists on 'helping' to push the cart. I carried Odin around in my K'Tan wrap that Mom gave me at Loki's baby shower. I loved it with Loki, and I'm loving it still with Odin, I would definitely recommend it, or any form or wrap to moms. It was a fairly short trip, just getting some essentials we can't live without, we'll see how the long shopping trip goes later this week. 

But anywho, I'm off (while Odin's still asleep and Loki's behaving) to plot plan for some freezer meals next week. 

Motivation

If you have been following me for a while, you have seen me post about things like FlyLady, my lists, and just trying in general to be organized. Well, Husband and I had a good serious sit down talk on Sunday night after a day which wore both of us out. (You always have the best talks when you're worn out, because you're too tired to try and sugar coat anything, so it all ends up being a little blunt, but very honest.) We were able to figure out things that we both needed to work on in order to keep not only the home flowing smoothly, but also our marriage.

So back to my lists do I go! Husband is helping to make sure I keep on track (and also helping me to finish parts of them) but on Monday D let me know about this great website called ChoreWars. It came out in July 2007 and the Dungeon Master can set up Adventures for the party (normally you force your house members to make characters so they can play along and earn xp) These adventures tend to be along the lines of "loading the dishwasher' or 'folding and putting away laundry' so not your typical DnD type adventures, but it's so much fun getting experience for doing chores and from there you are able to level up your character, and if you get treasure drops from your adventures you can stack it and then turn it in for family rewards (if you decide to do it that way)
There is just so much you could do to help not only encourage kids (and husband's) to do their chores, but to help them get some enjoyment out of it. It's fun for me even. Creating the adventures is fun, and Husband loves coming up with the names of the monsters you could chance upon while completing your adventure.

All in all, it was a great find, and I hope that we can keep up with it, and hopefully keep the house up as well.

By the way, if you look to the right, you can see my Character for ChoreWars. I started as a 1st level Shaman, and as you level up (depending on the chores you complete and what skills are used) you can change classes and earn new skill points automatically.

Consistency and Change

Anyone who has gotten to know me, can very much agree with this fact about me: I hate change. I fight it with every fiber of my being. I like being set in my way, having my routine (thanks FlyLady) but with all the upheaval at work it's hard to keep everything in order. We are just having trouble keeping a full staff at work, which leads to more stress for everyone, and me having to schedule all sorts of arrangements for babysitting which is not always fun for my babysitters.
All in all I'm just hoping that the next person hired ends up working out and not being a flighty girl who says she'll show up and then never does, causing me to have to stay an extra THREE HOURS while my parents are waiting in my apartment for me to get home till 3am. It's just not an ideal situation.

Ugh, anyways, Husband has been helping out a lot around the house, and I have really been appreciating it. We've started to make a habit of not only cleaning the living room every night, but Husband vacuums it for me while I sweep the kitchen and take care of dinner dishes. He's really been stepping up lately, and it's been a big help to me, not to mention one less thing for me to worry or stress about.

One of those days

It's only 9:30 and I'm unable to concentrate, it's just going to be one of those days where I don't really get anything done in one sitting, which means everything will take over twice as long. Gotta love hormones.

Today I'm not cooking diner in the crock pot, however I am making something yummy and delicious and I can't wait to see how it turns out. Apple Crisp I am so excited. I've been craving something a little sweet, and I think this will hit the spot just right.
I haven't really had many cravings to be honest, I've been drinking a lot of orange juice, because I tend to be anemic while pregnant (also I had been donating plasma, but the last few times they had to turn me away because my iron was too low, which made us really believe I was pregnant) I've been wanting a lot of water, like having 4-6 of the 32 oz QT cups full of water every day. Peanut butter tastes excellent once again, but I don't want to make food specifically so I can put peanut butter on it like last time.

Next topic because I'm bored with the previous one.....I dislike my wandering mind.

I'm waiting for the server to be updated and back online for Neverwinter, it has fast become one of my favorite games. It's close enough to WoW that I really enjoy it like that, but has a lot that reminds me of Neverwinter Nights which I used to play all the freaking time. And the biggest awesomeness, is the game is free to play. The few things I don't really like are:
1) can only have 2 characters unless you buy slots for more (with real money) I dislike this because I tend to want to play different characters depending on my mood.
2) no ranger class yet. The only 'ranged' classes are the wizard and the cleric, and I have one of both of those right now.
See, not that many things I don't like about the game.

I've been browsing around the internet a lot lately, due to my mind not being able to settle on anything. And I somehow made it back to Etsy. I do have a shop there, but right now it has nothing for sale, and really needs an overhaul before I start posting again.
Which I do think I'm going to do, probably in the next few months. I have a bunch of scarves that are made and needing to find new homes, and that is what I always planned on my store mostly selling. And then when I get my reuseable plastic bags stocked

I'll go ahead and post those. I think they're pretty cool, mostly because I've finally found a use for all those tons of plastic bags you get from the grocery store. (aside from using them as small trash bags, which works well too)  I am very careful not to use the bags that carried meat or anything else that may have leaked, cause that's kind of gross.

Ugh! Random mind! Now I've just started rambling. I suppose I will finish my breakfast and drift from one project to another. Thank goodness for my list to keep track of what I need to do.

Disorginization and Lists

Yeah, I realize that is probably spelled wrong, but I don't really care right now.

My house is kind of a mess....I've been in a rut with cleaning and just have not been able to handle keeping everything caught up, even with the help of Husband and Sweetheart. My lists help somewhat, but I really need to focus on de-cluttering and making sure everything has it's own place and is kept out of the way. Especially now that Loki is starting to get into everything, and move all the drawer contents around. (We really need to find some drawer shutters, what we've done for now is just emptied the drawers she can reach and filled them with Tupperware that isn't dangerous for her to play with.)

So, my mission in life this week is to bug the manager at Old Mission until he gives me a job, get my list completed on the right days if not earlier, and work on getting the living room squared away and organized/de-cluttered.

Friday = DONE!

Well, today was Friday, and for my weekly chores that means grocery shopping! And since Husband worked in the afternoon/evening I got to go by myself. (so was not looking forward to that) With the awesome Cozi app I already have my grocery list ready (although still adding things to it and organizing and what not. But anyways, I get Munchkin in her car seat and off we go! It was a fairly un-eventful trip, although WIC gives you so much baby food! Seriously, I have no clue how we're going to go through all of it. 16 jars of baby food minimum a week, it's crazy! Since we moved I've been shopping at a new Dillons, just as nice, but things are in a different place, so it sometimes takes a little extra time to find things. Munchkin was pretty happy during the shopping so the extra time wasn't really stressful. There was a surprising lack of people there, honestly, I think there were as many people at 4 on a Friday as there are at 10 at night, for someone with social anxiety, it was quite relaxing.
We're all done, going to check out, and we have a very nice young guy clerk, who has only done the WIC checks once before (poor thing) So he struggled through it, but was very nice, we got everything taken care of, and I'm going to walk out to the car, and I can't find my handy dandy WIC folder thingy. So I look in the diaper bag, on the counter, everywhere, finally find it in the cart. Disaster averted I head to the car. Everything's in the trunk, baby buckled in the back, and I can't find my phone. Let the freak out begin, I looked all through the diaper bag, the back seat, took the grocery bags out of the trunk looking for it, couldn't find it. So as I'm loading the bags back into the trunk I feel something odd in my shirt, I had my stupid phone all along, it had just fallen down and was playing hid and seek, evidently on a much higher level that I was. Oh, so much fun.

But in much better news, I got all but two things on my daily list done, and everything done for my Friday list! I'm so proud of myself. Now, I'm going to take the last 20 minutes of my time before bed and goof off.

Night!

Productive Day!!

Dishes:
*fill
*run
*empty
Laundry:
*fold
*put away
Trim Munchkin's nails
Make bread
Banana Bread
Call about new house

Finally Friday

Balance Checkbook
Dishes
*fill
*run
*empty
Kitchen
*clean counters
*sweep floor
Dinner with Friends @ 4p
Crafting (10 rows for knitting, 5 rows for crochet) - minimum

Laundry day!

Go to Mother's in AfternoonLaundry
* gather
* wash
* fold
* put away
Dishes
* load
* run
* empty
Start Organizing Bookshelves


Didn't do the best today, but I was also gone a lot of the day. Munchkin has been quite fussy lately, which is wearing me down a little bit, thankfully Husband helps out a lot, especially when I'm getting really tired. Speaking of tired, I know everyone says "sleep when the baby's sleeping" do you have any idea how hard that is to do? Seriously...I would like to hit the person who invented that phrase with a book...a really big book, like Dances With Dragons or something....(good lord it's taking me forever to read that book, I'm kinda of ashamed of myself for that) but back to sleep, I am never tired when I put Munchkin down for the night, normally before midnight, tonight was a little later than normal, but still before one -so much nicer than those three am fussy nights- and I am just not tired, seriously, it's driving me crazy!
But because it's almost two in the morning I can't really get anything productive done because I'll wake up Husband, Munchkin or Roommate...so I goof off on the computer, watch Hulu, get some knitting/crocheting done.

Ugh, anyways, I'm gonna go lay in bed till I fall asleep.


I'm horrible about putting away the laundry...seriously, I'm really bad about it.

Productive today

Laundry
* fold
* put away
Dishes
* put away
* fill
Get Mail
Clear Table
Roommate to Doc in AM

New Ideas

Well, due to parts of my life changing, my blog is going to change as well. (especially since I can update this from my phone also, so hopefully that will help with these changes)

Husband assigns me a list (that I get to help assign my tasks) that I get done while he's at work and I take care of Munchkin. It's helping center me while dealing with the new stress and completely new routine taking care of Munchkin. I am a horrible creature of habit, and with the new baby it's completely disrupted that. So my lists are helping center me for the day, and also reminding me that I am serving my Husband.

What my goal is going to be is to put my list up every morning, well, morning as in when Munchkin decides it's time to get up. And cross things off as I go, along with little things of what has happened. I think it will be a nice way to me to get more used to writing again, and also working on getting more little routines going so I feel a lot more normal and settled. Cause evidently when I don't feel normal and settled I'm kind of a bitch, and I really don't like that, so it needs to change.

And it will!

Yay for lists!

I do so love lists...and it's how I get things done, so here is it for today: (and I will check off as I go)

doctor appointment
gather laundry
wash laundry
put away last weeks laundry
put away this weeks laundry
empty dishwasher
have a resting period
drop off rent check
get mail

Yesterday I didn't get anything done before Husband got home. But I did get my car cleaned out and re-filled the fluids that were low. So I was quite proud of everything I got done yesterday.

But anyways...off to do laundry!