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7 Quick Takes

  • Posted on May 18, 2012 at 7:55 am

— 1 —

You guys.  My life is crazy right now.  I mean, it’s crazy all the time, but it seems extra crazy right now – like the merry-go-round is spinning way too fast – and I can’t quite put my finger on why.

Brianna was sick this week.  A stomach bug, that cancelled her ear tube removal for the third time (first time was hand, foot, and mouth.  Second was scarlet fever).  But! She may not need it done after all, now that’s we;ve put it off so long, so we’ll know more about that later next week-ish.

I think I’m getting sick. Or maybe it’s from sleeping on the couch for two nights so I could hold a bucket out for Brianna to puke in.  Or maybe it’s just stress because, work, life, parenting, hello.

My house is in disarray, which stresses me out.  But all the puke laundry was done yesterday, and an extra load to boot, so I’m not that terribly far behind. I just *feel* behind. If I keep reminding myself I’m not, maybe it will stick.

Meanwhile, here’s some interesting diversions:

— 2 —

No really, my mother’s day was great.  I took a 6 hour nap(!) on Saturday, and an extra 2 hour nap on Sunday.  That’s like, as much sleep as I get in two days, people. Which is why I needed those naps, ha ha.

We went out for dinner Saturday, and Chad ordered take-out on Sunday, so I was super spoiled.  And the kids made me a paving stone with their hand prints, and Brianna’s design sense, and it looks awesome.  And Brianna signed her name, with all the letters in order, in my card, right above Benjamin’s crayon scribbles.

I love my kids.  Even when I’m stressed out.

— 3 —

I spend a lot of time worrying I’m not the right kind of mom. I mean, there’s a ton of stuff I don’t do.  All the time.  I haven’t had Brianna start Bible memory verses, even though she can quote Mother Goose like no tomorrow.  I had completely neglected to work with Benjamin on colors, which Chad helped fix this weekend.  I feel like I should be teaching more, working more with them on skills and emotions and chores and… and… and…

And I’m so often overwhelmed by it. So often. And especially this week, as my feelings of not being good enough tend to increase as my other stress does.  So this post came at just the right time for me.

My constant struggle is to be in the moment.  I just need to keep on – being in the moment.

— 4 —

So I was chatting with a friend this week, and mentioned reading the Bible on my phone.  No joke, the YouVersion app is what keeps me on a reading plan.  And I think that’s kind of awesome.

But my phone is fast becoming an integral part of my life.  I use it to schedule, connect, track, and maintain almost every aspect of what I do.  And that is kind of scary, and kind of awesome, all at the same time. Just a thought.

— 5 —

I buckled down on the diet today.  Seriously.  I went to the doctor last week, and while she had mixed news on what could be done on improving my health concerns in general (nothing serious), the most depressing part of the visit was stepping on the scale.  Looking into the possible things I’m having problems with – none of them are due to weight, but weight plays a factor in making them worse or more difficult to treat.

So.  Eating healthy(er), again.  Which means I have to curb the emotional eating, because yikes I have a lot of emotions, and they all seem to crave carbs. Wish me luck!  Also hope to step up the exercise again, when my xBox hard drive returns from the nether (where it’s being replaced).  And, we might get a Rec Center membership, if Chad and I can ever find the time to go.

— 6 —

This is old, but it still makes me lol: 100 Essential Skills For Geeks. I have an embarrassingly awesome number of these skills, which totally makes me a geek chick, which we already knew.

— 7 —

I totally read The Hunger Games in one sitting.  Due to my awesome cousin, I’ll be reading the second book this week, and probably the third shortly after.  I haven’t decided if I’ll review them all at once, or one at a time, but a review is definitely forthcoming.  I love reading, and I love that my Kindle (and my phone, lets be honest) help me work it into my everyday life – when I really don’t have time to read at all.

As a funny note, my requirements for a purse no longer include fitting a TI-89 (like in college), but now include fitting my Kindle (which is thinner, but wider).  My current purse (a 5 year gift from my company, and the only name brand purse I’ve ever owned) works wonderfully for this. If I ever get a MacBook Air, though, I will totally need to upgrade my purse.

That, if nothing else, should cinch my geek girl cred. My purse size and shape is almost entirely dictated by the technology I feel I need to carry.

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

7 Quick Takes

  • Posted on May 11, 2012 at 9:35 am

— 1 —

My kids say some of the cutest things:

Brianna insists on calling polka-dots “poka-nuts”.  I love this, and hope she never grows out of it.

When Benjamin wants to be carried, he reaches his arms up and says “I carry you! I carry you!”

We put the kids in the bath the other night, and Brianna decided she needed to get back out and sit on the potty.  I went to lift her out, and she yelled “Stop!  My feet will leak on the floor!”.   After Chad and I stopped laughing, we got her a towel for her leaky feet.

Brianna was looking for something pink the other day, and kept saying “I can’t find the pink one!”  Benjamin very helpfully brought her a stuffed penguin, saying “Bran-na, here’s the pen-kwin!”  She had no idea what he was talking about.

Benjamin has decided he wants to go to the beach.  He has no idea what the beach is, I don’t think, but he keeps saying “I want to go the BEACH! I can’t see the BEACH” and pulling us to the door. So we might have to make a trip to the beach soon…

Apparently, Brianna was filmed at church for a mother’s day video to be shown to the congregation on Sunday.  I’m a little afraid at what might possibly come out of her mouth, on camera. It’s either going to be adorable, or mortifying.  Probably both.

— 2 —

I need this error code book:

— 3 —

Since I already geeked you out with xkcd, here’s an article that makes me laugh every time.  If a programming language was a boat.  The last picture is the one that kills me.

— 4 —

I actually bought Brianna a scissors workbook this week.  A whole book of paper – that’s designed to be cut up.  That makes me cringe for so many reasons, but she needs the scissor work (per her preschool teacher) and I don’t have time to hunt down 50 print-out sheets on the internet.  But! If you have an pointers for places to go to get print outs, or ways to work on scissor skills, I’m all ears!

— 5 —

This is how I feel at work sometimes.

Luckily, we have a couple of new people coming on board, which should lighten the workload and improve the standards of our apps across the board.  Yay!

— 6 —

I love this:

Actually, if I could fill my house with word art of witty/inspiring quotes, I probably would.  (Etsy will be my downfall, seriously). There are a ton of them that I love, and I don’t seem to have enough walls.

— 7 —

Tonight, courtesy of my neighbors who are trading babysitting with us, I am totally going on a date with my husband>  Not sure if we’ll make to dinner and a movie, or just dinner, but I am really looking forward to it.  It seems like out life is so busy, we seldom have time for just us… it’s nice to take an evening out and be able to eat a meal without cutting up someone else’s food or bringing a diaper bag every now and again.

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!  Actually, Betty Beguiles is guest hosting this week!

Family fun – and trying to be the “fun mom”

  • Posted on May 8, 2012 at 8:54 pm

Yesterday, after work, I had a ton of things to get done at home.  I had a long day at work, still had stuff on my mind, and  my usual “top three” chores for the night were all big, plus I had a bunch of non-negotiable’s (laundry and such) to finish before bed.

I cooked dinner.  I was short with Brianna, trying to help her with writing while I was cooking, and doing too many things at once.  And I felt bad.  I didn’t want to stick the kids in front of the TV for the evening again, but I looked outside, and the jumpy in the back yard was full of rain water and bugs and needed to be washed… so I had an idea.

Chad and I changed into clothes that could get wet.  I stripped the kids down to skin, right by the back door, and shimmied them into bathing suits.  And I gave them soap and rags and turned on the hose, so they could clean the jumpy.

AT first I thought it was a bust.  Brianna didn’t want water sprayed on her, and Benjamin was terrified of the whole ordeal.  But after a couple of minutes, they started to warm up to the idea… and in the end, they had a blast. And we cleaned the jumpy.  And part of the back of the house.  And the concrete.

And that’s the story of how a grumpy evening, turned into a happy family evening, with just a little water and soap.  And my chores?  Waited until today.

I hope these are the types of days Brianna and Benjamin remember.  The days we laughed and had fun and did something silly.  Not the days  I was grumpy and mean trying to get the chores done…

Menu Plan Monday: Fluttering is still Flying

  • Posted on May 7, 2012 at 9:26 am

Be not afraid of going slowly; be afraid only of standing still.
~Chinese Proverb

So I have been a Flylady person off and on over the years – I don’t follow the system exactly (or at all sometimes), but I’ve found most of her principles are right on – things like setting a timer and workign for 15 minutes (so helpful), jumping in where we are, and using routines. So I incorporate those things into my own system as much as possible.

One thing she tells her followers, when they mention that they aren’t really “flying” (following the system), but only “fluttering” (trying) – is that fluttering is still flying.  In other words, don’t give up just because you aren’t doing it exactly right.  Keep going, and you’ll get there eventually.

So that’s my motto for this week, because last week was kind of a meal planning fail.  Some of it was stuff  I didn’t know in time to plan for, and some of it was just fail on my part.  Here’s what last week looked like:

Monday: I actually have no idea what we ate.  Not what was planned, probably sandwiches.

Tuesday: Put bread in the oven to go with Chicken Alfredo – and then the neighbors invited us out for a picnic lunch with their church at the park.  So I took the bread out and we went and joined them, and the kids had a blast.

Wednesday: Ate Long John Silvers. Sort of the plan, dinner out at least.

Thursday: Was going to cook tacos, realized at the very last minute that we had no ground beef and I hadn’t been to the store.  Had a good cry, because it was that kind of week, and fixed tuna helper instead.

Friday: Soft tacos.  Finally.

Saturday: Homemade hamburgers.  Since we had bought fresh hamburger the night before, haha.

Sunday: Frozen pizza (huzzah! on plan!)

This week, I’m hoping to be a little more on target.  I looked through the pantry and freezer this time, to see what we had on hand, and we already went out and did the shopping (yesterday).  So, here’s the plan!

Menu Plan Monday at OrgJunkie.comMonday: Manwich (to use up the hamburger buns)

Tuesday: Chicken Alfredo, French Bread, salad

Wednesday: Dinner out.

Thursday: Homemade pizza (to use up some tomato sauce)

Friday: Pork chops, rice, veggies

Saturday: Chicken noodle soup in the crock pot, homemade biscuits

Sunday: Free day – because it’s mother’s day, we’re not locked into the Daddy-cooks-frozen-pizza-while-everyone-is-at-Awana plan, so we’ll do something else. Maybe go out – or not, I’m sure the lines will be long, lol.

For more Menu Plan Monday posts, head over to OrgJunkie!

Hello Mornings!

  • Posted on May 2, 2012 at 8:11 am

So I’ve done this Hello Mornings thing a couple of times, and done well some of the time, and fell off the wagon some of the time (welcome to my life, yo).   But it’s back!  For summer!  And my mornings are awful right now.  So I’m jumping back on the wagon, and hoping to get-er-done this time :-)

Here’s the link to register if you want more.  It’s geared towards moms, but who doesn’t need a good motivation to get up a little earlier, have a good morning, and spend some time with God?

Personal Blogging

  • Posted on April 26, 2012 at 1:30 pm

So the personal blogging has been a little… sparse… lately.  I’m trying to balance how much I want to write, and how much I have time to write, and how public I want my writing to be.

To be honest, I’m struggling.  Time is my biggest issue, and balance in just about every area of my life.  I have more work to do than I can get done in the time allotted, and leaving things undone stresses me out.  I’m trying to prioritize things, and streamline the non-negotiable tasks, but it’s hard.  Work is stressful. Trying to keep the house in order and running smoothly is stressful. Parenting is fun, but stressful. Second-guessing every decision a billion times, very stressful.

I have had a few successes – I mean, the laundry is fairly caught up (less than two loads dirty in the house) – Chad’s helped a lot, and there’s often clothes in a basket or on the table to be folded, but no one has had to scrounge for underwear or socks anytime recently.  So that’s a win.

I spent a weekend with Chad in Denver – and no kids.  Also a win, as it’s the first time we’ve been able to do that!  My house was clean enough that I didn’t mind my mother-in-law and father-in-law staying there with the kids, and I worked hard on not stressing over it being perfect (It wasn’t.  They didn’t mind).  In fact, they arrived about 5 hours earlier than I expected them – and I was ok with it, even though I hadn’t finished all the chores I was going to before they arrived.  I didn’t stress about the kids while we were gone, and we had a great time with friends, living it up, staying up late, and sleeping most of the day.Exactly what i needed for a getaway.

But the day to day management of home, work, and kids – now there’s my struggle.  And probably something I’ll hash out more than once here, as I try and figure it out. And as I have time to write.

 

 

WFMW: Sick Child Edition

  • Posted on April 25, 2012 at 11:21 am

So I spent Monday & Tuesday home with Brianna, because she had a fever (and it turns out, strep & scarlet fever.  Go us!).  I was technically “working”, because that’s what we do in my office, but it was a challenge to keep Brianna entertained and feeling not-neglected while I tried to make icons and update UI sketches and what was I supposed to be doing again?  Here’s what worked for us, to some extent:

  1. Disney movies. Thanks to my husband, who started collecting them before we got married, we have almost all the Disney full-length animated films on DVD and/or BluRay.  So I let Brianna pick a movie, and then another, and then another… the first day, when she was really sick, she was mostly content to snuggle me and watch the movies while I worked around her.
  2. A pow-er stick.  This was totally needed for my sweet, empathic child, who has more than her share of feelings on a good day, but on a sick day has even more.  When the scary bad guys came out (some of the classic Disney stuff is pretty scary, yo) she pointed her stick at the TV and yelled POW! It made her feel better, and less scared.  When the sad parts of the movies happened, she snuggled me even more, and might have shed a tear or two because it was so sad.
  3. Scissors and magazines.  Y’all, I have way too many magazines.  Food magazines and family magazines and parenting magazines – lots of pretty pictures!  So when Brianna wanted to do “homework” at the table? I busted out the magazine stash and scissors, and sent her on a scavenger hunt. “Can you find five things that start with B?  How about three red things?”  Much fun was had cutting, and the magazines were thrown away after (double win).
  4. Bubbles. I opened the back door, and sent Brianna into the yard with a bottle of bubble solution.  When that ran out, I made her more using dish soap and water.  She was entertained for at least an hour – and the weather was nice enough that other than letting every bug in the county into the house, it wasn’t a problem for me to leave the door open and work at the kitchen table, where I could both see and hear her, and she could run in and out at will.
  5. Mommy’s helper.  Brianna “helped” me do a bunch of stuff.  Including looking for icons on a page, trying to draw something on the computer, and various chores around the house (but nothing involving touching clean laundry or clean dishes, because yikes! germs).  She felt good about helping, and I was patient enough to realize that work done slowly and not-perfectly was better than no work at all :-)
  6. Dry erase markers. Brianna loves them, and loves erasing them.  So we played with the white board a fair amount. I have a ton of markers I got free/cheap when school started, so she had many colors to choose from.
  7. No dress code.  Brianna has now declared that she loves being sick, because it means she doesn’t have to wear pants. True story.  Normally, once the kids are dressed I make sure they stay that way (other than shoes and socks) – but since we were home sick, I relaxed the rules.  Being three, and not having a great sense of social norms yet, Brianna was very content to run around in a t-shirt and underwear.  But was super-sad to have to wear pants today, to go back to school.
  8. Snuggles.  Yep, this is most of what we did.  I didn’t get as much done as I had hoped, work-wise, but we made the best of our couple of days at home, and spent a lot of time snuggling. Hopefully, that’s what she’ll remember :-)

You can find more Works For Me Wednesday post over at We Are THAT Family.

30 things to do in my 30′s

  • Posted on April 19, 2012 at 12:24 pm

So after I posted all the stuff I did in my 20′s, I started thinking about what I want to do in the next ten years.  A little more definite that a bucket list, here’s 30 things I’d like to accomplish in my 30′s.

  1. Travel across the Atlantic.
  2. Enroll my kids in (public) school.
  3. Vacation without my kids (got this one covered, took a weekend earlier this month to go to Denver!)
  4. Get back in shape – not a number on the scale, but to a point I feel healthy.
  5. Learn to eat healthy.
  6. Teach my kids to like veggies (ha!)
  7. Buy new couches.
  8. Store/get rid of the last of the baby furniture.
  9. Get my hormones under control.
  10. Hang more art on my walls.
  11. Make more handmade gifts.
  12. Teach my kids to do chores.
  13. Finish learning how to keep up with the housework.
  14. Get promoted.
  15. Scuba dive.
  16. Visit the Wizarding World of Harry Potter (totally got this one in the bag, to – in September!).
  17. Find a good sleep schedule and stick to it.
  18. Be consistent with my skin care.
  19. Learn to bake real bread (the kind that requires yeast).
  20. Wear makeup to work more often – even if it’s just lipstick.
  21. Seek out at least one fun activity for the kids every month.
  22. Take blue bonnet pictures of my kids every year, like a real Texan.
  23. Crochet something that’s not square.
  24. Make my house the “fun” house for my kids and their friends.
  25. Take at least one trip a year to see friends or family not in our hometowns.
  26. Finally make it to Homecoming or Super Bulldog Weekend, with the kids.
  27. Take the kids on a road trip (or several).
  28. Go camping.
  29. Run a 5k.
  30. Run a 10k.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll start over

  • Posted on March 30, 2012 at 10:08 am

— 1 —

I missed an entire day of work yesterday, because I went in for what was supposed to be a consult to see if I needed a root canal done on a specific tooth… and ended up with an actual root canal.  After which I did not feel like going in to the office and doing work, and instead went home, took a bunch of medicine and went to bed for the afternoon. But at least they let me “watch” a movie while I was being worked on (and also, Nitrous.  I loves it).

— 2 —

I am totally turning 30 in a few days.  Which everyone kind of expects me to freak out about, and I’m all like, meh. 30. I don’t feel old yet.  I feel out of shape, overweight, and tired all the time.  But not hair-buns-and-pencil-skirts-all-the-time old, ha ha.  I don wonder, though, what things I have missed out on learning in the last 20 years.  For instance – I’m pretty sure that most 30-year-olds, do not need instructions from their dental hygienist to figure out how to brush effectively – I apparently do.  I have this perception that most 30-year-old-moms-of-two-kids know how to keep a reasonably clean house, and don’t do things like, say, forget the laundry in the washer for two days.

— 3 —

Chad keeps asking me what I want for my birthday, and I have no idea. I mean… as per the usual, all of my ideas are intangible or unobtainable. Like – I’d like an extra couple hours in the day.  Every day.  Or maybe once a week. I’d like the house to stay clean for more than one minute while the kids are awake. I’d like to be the “fun mom”, if only for a few minutes at a time.  Sadly, Chad is not impressed by this wish list, and would rather I tell him something tangible and within budget to go get. Ha!  I told him we’re taking a trip to Denver in a couple weeks, that’s probably my present. He disagrees.

— 4 —

I have managed to stay caught up on laundry for a record amount of time now.  And it’s amazing how being caught up on laundry transforms something that would have been a crisis – Brianna wetting the bed two nights in a row after staying dry almost two weeks – into a mere inconvenience.  We have clean sheets, the washer is empty, no problem getting the sheets washed and dried before bedtime so we can go to bed with the spares ready – just in case.  Makes for a much nicer mommy in the middle of the night, and much less stress on everyone.  Chad has been an awesome help with the laundry, too, even washing an extra load when he was working from home yesterday.  So yay us!  The house might be a disaster, but we have clean laundry. It’s the little things.

— 5 —

One of our neighbors is having a party for her daughter, C., on Sunday – C. is Brianna’s age, and she is having a cowgirl themed party.  These neighbors throw the most elaborately themed kids parties I’ve been to – for their son’s one year party, the theme was fishing, and they had cupcakes with fishing poles and gummy fish on them, and served goldfish crackers, and sailboat cookies, and gave all the kids homemade toy magnetic fishing pole pets, and it was really cool.  The mom sews the kids an outfit that matches the theme, and the party generally looks like Pinterest exploded with great ideas everywhere.  And she works!  I am sadly almost out of place – my idea of a theme party for Brianna is to let her pick out matching plates and napkins. And maybe match the cake to that. Ha.  Anyway, Brianna is excited about wearing her boots and cowgirl hat, and we’re all looking forward to it.  But the day Brianna asks me if I can throw her as cool a party as C.’s mom does, I’m moving :-) [Edit: I'm not the only one! Look what I got in my mailbox about 2 minutes after I posted this! Kat, you are amazing - and just what I needed today.]

— 6 —

I started running a couple of weeks ago (literally, this is my second week).  I’m doing Couch to 5K, not because I really like running (I kind of hate it a little), but because I NEED to do SOMETHING. Let me tell you, internets, it is totally kicking my butt.  But I’m DOING it. So.  My new goal is to run in the Pear Run in May.  Anyone want to join so I don’t chicken out?

— 7 —

I have so many weekend projects lined up, but no idea when I’m going to be able to fit them into my weekends. For example, I need to strip & re-caulk our shower in the master bathroom, the kids both need haircuts, I need to weed out all the winter clothes from their drawers, I need to finish Brianna’s quiet book I started, and I need to finish my steampunk goggles. Those are just a few, but this weekend is my birthday (more or less), next weekend is Easter, and the weekend after I’ll be in Denver, dancing & hanging out with Manda.  So I have no idea when I’ll tackle these crazy things, but I would like it to be soonish…  This goes back to needing extra hours in my day.

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

7 Quick Takes

  • Posted on March 16, 2012 at 12:26 pm

— 1 —

My children are amazing, and also drive me crazy on a regular basis.  But its the growing up part that getting to me this week – preparing for a yard sale, and going through all the baby things we don’t need anymore with a 19-month-old and a three-year-old.  I cried at the idea of selling the crib bedding, even though we’re set to pack up the crib (for good) here pretty soon.  It’ll be the first time in 3 years with no baby in the house, and that makes me a little sad.

But no sad enough to seek out another :-) This mama knows she has all she can handle at the moment (and sometimes more).

— 2 —

Speaking of growing up, Brianna spent her first diaper-and-pullup-free overnight last night.  And woke up with dry sheets.  I know there will be accidents along the way, but there is light at the end of the diaper tunnel and I can see it! Another year or two and we’ll be done for good! And yes, I might cry a little over that one, too.

— 3 —

I need more sleep. Which might explain the crying, lol.  But no, seriously, the sleep. I think I’ve averaged less than 6 hours a night this week and it’s not working for me.  Only tremendous amounts of caffeine is keeping me upright and functioning. Which is not good for a variety of reasons.

— 4 —

Like my weight.  My caffeine of choice is Mt. Dew. Not diet. I started tracking calories again, and like a third of what I’m taking in is SODA. Which is unacceptable. And probably why I can’t seem to lose this baby weight (is it still baby weight after a year and a half?).

— 5 —

So I’m guessing my goal for next week will be to make getting a good amount of sleep a priority.  Somehow without dropping the ball on housecleaning, spending time with my kids, work, or spending time with my husband. (It seems like I can only maintain 1 or 2 of these things at a time…)  Not sure how I’m oging to manage this, but I guess starting with a firm 10pm bedtime would be a start.

— 6 —

Exercise.  I can’t even begin where to fit this in, and yet I NEED to.  My weight it stupid crazy, and I feel tired and weak and lazy.  The Xbox is down, so no Zumba for me – and I don’t want to pay for it, so no gym.  I need to either fire up my dance workout dvds, start couch25k, or buy a bike (um, more money).  And yet.  The time thing.  I am so frustrated by this – again, I’m not sure what to sacrifice to find this time. Sleep is not an option, per takes 3 and 5, so what else has room to give?

— 7 —

And I supose that is the plight of the modern working mommy. If anyone knows any great ways to sleep and/or workout while cooking dinner or cleaning house, apparently I need them :-)

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!