Week 3 of 2016

1/11/16-1/17/16

I’m a day late and a dollar short this week. Sorry! It hasn’t been a super productive week, but you can’t be busy every week.  Robert is learning to make noises and has started “talking” to us quite a bit. It’s pretty adorable.  He’s also working on different cries.  He smiles when we say “ma ma ma” and “da da da”. Couple that with whistling and he seems to be a pretty happy little baby.

Here’s the brief rundown of my week:

• Monday – Work again. Good to be home after work. Tacos for dinner, Chicken tacos! Yum. Kendall and Allie came over to watch football.  Adam and I snuggled. Went to be super early. Straightened the top of the bookshelf in the living room, cleaned front windows of spray on snow.  Dennis took down the Christmas lights outside and I deleted a lot of email today.
• Tuesday – Work, class grind for Tuesdays. Forgot vitamins. Deleted over half of the emails in my work email.  I joined a website to get free environmentally-friendly items.  Deleted more emails from my exercise folder. Went to class. I’m excited about what I will be learning and sharing in class this session.  Watched a movie in class. Car is fixed so the rental goes back tomorrow.  Robert gave Dennis a really hard time tonight. Poor Daddy and baby.
• Wednesday – work again. It seems to be a theme in life. Ha ha ha! Got pulled over on the way to work. Guess I should stop doing the California roll through stop signs. Whoops! I received a warning since my driving record is impeccable! Work was uneventful and for that I am honestly thankful. I cannot imagine working at a place where every day is a new disaster.  Students make me giggle almost daily and I like that. I think that is a big reason why I like my job.
• Thursday – another day at work. Uneventful both at home and work.
• Friday – Went to work at the high school, came home to run some errands, went to work at the Y. Sadly its payday and we are beyond broke because unemployment screwed him over. Apparently a waiting week is now 10 days. I’m guessing that’s 10 business days since they don’t typically count weekends. That’s two business weeks, not one. Thanks, jerks. Now we’re screwed.  Thankfully some friends loaned us a little bit of money to help us through this rough time. Dennis and I have talked and we are going to start a savings account so we don’t run into this problem again next year.  It’s been beyond rough this season. Dennis got to participate in an improv show and had a good time.  He’s decided to take a break from performing because of our schedules right now. I hope he can return soon so he can get out of the house at least once a week.
• Saturday – it was a nice lazy morning at the Y. Basketball season is in full swing and parents (including myself) have had a difficult time reading the basketball game schedule.  Now that it’s figured out, perhaps I won’t be bombarded with calls in the morning.  I finished another letter in my filing project.  I was super lazy at work.  I got home, spent time with family, took a nap, picked up Amanda from work, and came home to spend more time with family. Kendall and Allie came over again for football. Kendall left very upset because his Chief’s didn’t pull off a win. Then again when you’re playing against the cheating Patriots, what can you expect?
• Sunday – Ahhh, lazy Sunday strikes again! We hung out at home together all day.  I watched Lie to Me and MasterChef Jr. before Dennis took over the TV for football. During the second game Adam, Dennis and I all played Life together.  It was a good time. The little one slept in his swing while we played.

I haven’t done too much with the 31 days to get organized since the bulk of the challenges are things I have already done or they don’t apply to me.  I did delete well over 100 emails this week, I did fill up my pinterest boards with some recipes and exercises.  Now to incorporate those into daily activities. Baby steps, right? Speaking of recipes, I tried a salmon recipe this week. It was delicious! Adam even enjoyed it. The recipe was a brown butter with garlic sauce glazed salmon. Yummo! We had that with couscous and peas. I really like that Adam is trying food that he thinks he won’t like and then ends up liking them.  I think that will help him later in life. 

Week 2 of 2016

1/4/16-1/10/16

This week was pretty uneventful. I returned to my job at the high school after a two week winter break, where the weather was anything but winter-like. It was good to see the students, but I was sad to leave my husband and youngest son at home during the day.  I was also sad to return to the world of pumping to bring home some nourishment for the little one.  Thankfully the pumping is going better now that I’ve resigned myself to realizing that I simply cannot produce enough milk for the little one, but giving him what I can is better for him than simply just giving him formula all of the time.  I had to have a bit of a mental breakdown while at home this weekend to realize that, but I realized it.  I need to be okay with letting someone/something help me every once in a while or I’ll get frustrated and lash out more than I should. 

Here’s the brief rundown of my week:

• Monday – no work. Last day of winter break. Clean kitchen and had my oldest vacuum the floor in little brothers room. Oldest was very excited to use the new vacuum before mom and was sure to tell me hints for my future use.
• Tuesday – back to work! I received a new schedule for one hour at work, which pleases me because I am now with one of my favored coworkers for two hours straight! It also means one less hour of math. Sadly, it also means that I have to suffer through Gatsby again. :( Oldest child had basketball practice, so I took him to the Y, checked the little one into child care and I worked out for almost an hour. It felt great to get some cardio and weight training done. I even wen 2.6 miles in 35 minutes on the treadmill! After that things went downhill though and I was a total grump while I was at home.
• Wednesday – another day at work. A pretty uneventful day at work, though I’m sure there was something that one (or more) students said that I should have written down so I can at least document the hilarity that I am witness to on a pretty much daily basis.  I went to the gym and did some cardio. Heck, I even ran stairs, which I hadn’t done since before I was pregnant with Robert. Being gone from the gym for almost a year is kind of depressing when you realize that working out helps make your day a little better and gives you some time to simply listen to music and tune out all of the responsibilities of life.
• Thursday – another typical day at work. The evening was uneventful.
• Friday – After work I rushed home so Dennis could go to donate plasma to get some cash to help us out until he gets unemployment and I get paid. He left, but found out that he arrived too late and had to turn around and come home.  I had to work, thankfully my younger sister came over after her counseling session to pick up some stuff and she was kind enough to stay at the house.  It was super helpful since the little one JUST fell asleep and I didn’t want to wake him up to go with me to work until Dennis got back into town.
• Saturday – a nice, slow morning at the Y. Just like I like it. I found out a co-worker is leaving us and that my husband will probably be helping coach Adam’s basketball league.  Their games are on Saturday and he was very frustrated at how it was being ran.  He spoke with the coach and they are talking about splitting up the kids and forming two teams as opposed to the one team they have now.  It’s a long complicated story, just know that my husband is probably going to be coaching basketball. : ) I got off work and Dennis headed off to Columbia to try and donate again, only to be met with another obstacle.  After his return home some friends came over and I got to watch my hubby enjoy himself while watching football and chatting with friends.  He even invented a new drinking game. It involved him taking a shot of the rum my sister bought him for Christmas every time he put pieces together in a puzzle.  It was a short-lived game! He was a little giggly afterward and went to bed after our friends left.
• Sunday – We were lazy and didn’t really do much today.  I finally finished up the dishes, which I had been promising to do for days.  Together we finished the puzzle on which we had been working.  Dennis watched football, I finished reading Cinder. Overall it was a good day.

Classes start on Tuesday, so I will be missing out on time with my boys, but in the end it will be worth it.  It will be one class closer to finishing my Master’s degree.  Hopefully I can find out how the who temporary certification business works out and possibly try and get a job somewhere close (or hopefully here, as I love where I work) and be a teacher. I am so frustrated with how long this process is taking because I feel that I was ill advised when I started the program and now I’m pretty much screwed in terms of finishing it.  Thankfully, I have a husband who is very understanding and supports me in my journey.  I am such a lucky girl to have him.

Week 1 of 2016

January 3, 2016

     It’s that time of year for the obligatory “new year, new me” postings.  I cannot say that I want a new me. I’ve become quite comfortable with who I am and where I am in life. There are days that are harder than others, but that is to be expected, as I am a human being.

     I did a couple of things last year that I found helpful in ushering about some changes to the way I run my life this year.  The first thing I did was the posts in November where I have to post one thing I am thankful each day for the month. There are times that it was a little more difficult than other times.  I persevered and posted 30 different things for which I am honestly thankful.  In December, I decided to ask questions each day and let my friends post their answers. I spent time to read each answer, liked each answer and replied to every person that commented quite a few days.  It was great to see how many friends read my status updates and answered the questions.  While I do not remember most of the answers, I was able to let my friends share a piece of themselves with me. I was also honored by having a few different friends pick up the idea and also participate! That was the best part, in my opinion. Here is my challenge for January, to become more organized and remove as much clutter as possible.  A friend of mine created a group to help her friends become more organized in 31 days and asked me to join.  There are different tasks to be completed each day.  On the first day, I ended the day with two trash bags of clothes and items to donate, two rooms that are much cleaner and a burden lifted off of my shoulders.

     I also completed a huge goal for the year of 2015. I read 36 books, three books per month all year long! That was quite the accomplishment, being that I traveled abroad for 3 weeks in July and gave birth to a bouncing baby boy in October.  I decided that for 2016 I will read 5 books that are considered classics. I think I will start with Peter Pan.  I began reading it years ago and I think I should complete it.  I am not a fan of re-reading books, so this challenge will open my eyes to a few “new” books.  That is my hope, at least.

Another challenge I have given myself is to try and blog once a week and not be so active on social media.  I have found that I am becoming a bit addicted to constantly checking facebook and that is taking time away from other tasks in which I could participate.  I think that giving brief updates once a week is better, as it is one chunk of time I am carving out to share with those, it gives me 52 blogs in a year, and it also helps me to remember what has happened through the year. 

Being that today is Sunday the 3^rd, I will give a brief recap of my past three days of the New Year.

• Friday the 1^st, I stayed at home and helped Dennis with the cranky baby while purging items and reorganizing the remaining items.
• Saturday the 2^nd, I worked at the Y in the morning, caught up with some coworkers and regulars that come in, worked on filing at work and came home to be pretty lazy. Nothing too exciting happened on Saturday, and that’s perfectly fine with me!
• Today, the 3^rd, I woke up with the baby early this morning and have been lazy ever since.  I will be moving some stuff around in the house and sweeping the floors. I really need to get back into the swing of preventing my house from looking like crap. I feel it looks like crap. : (  I had hopes of going to the gym, but I don’t think that will happen. I hope to return to my exercise regime soon, as I have greatly missed going to the gym and working out. It was my “me” time and I need to get it back. I find I’m a better person when I can exercise.

This year is a year I hope to accomplish many things so that in the future my family and I can travel. Going to England in July changed my life in ways that I never expected. I think I may have a small case of Wanderlust and I want my boys to realize how big the world is and what size role they can choose to have in it.

Here are my goals for 2016 in a nutshell:

• Post to my blog once a week
• Read 5 books that are considered classics
• Pay off medical bills, begin chipping away at student loan interest and make one extra house payment
• Build a savings account to help us survive better during Dennis’s slow season
• Be there for my children, husband, family and friends
• Make this the last full year I am in school. I hope to graduate in May of 2017 with my certification and Master’s. If not both, then just the Master’s and I’ll catch the final courses for my certification as they come.
• Post one compliment on the facebook page for each one of my facebook friends