2013!

I'm always a bit taken by surprise when a month or year is suddenly gone and I'm left feeling totally unprepared for the next one.  Suddenly, it's 2013 and I haven't even evaluated the past year, let alone figured out new goals for the next year.  It isn't as though I didn't know it was coming, it's just that I get so busy, I lose sight of what day or year it is.  We ease into it in November; my husband's birthday and then Thanksgiving, my favorite holiday (food and family, what else is there?)  Then I remember that the advent is coming up, thank goodness we had an extra week this year.  Throw some college finals in for my husband with my late night sewing projects.  I cancelled several because I wanted to enjoy Christmas Eve this year.  I guess the kids will get super hero capes for Valentine's Day.  We don't get to relax after Christmas though, because my son has a birthday two days later.  Then, suddenly, it's a new year and I'm sitting here with blurry eyes and laundry piled all around me.  The kids are all fighting off various sicknesses and ailments that pop up when running with cousins, staying up late and getting up early, not to mention getting soaked in the snow at least twice a day, so it was early to bed tonight.

Now that the house is quiet and the dishes are done, I'm letting myself think a bit about what I would like to work on to make this year better than the last.  I saw this little quote on facebook and thought it fit me so well.

So far I've come up with 3 things:
1. Early to bed.  I am a natural night owl, just like my mom and my sisters.  I am energetic late at night and I can get so much done after the kids are down for the night, but the kids get up early, or at least too early for me to get enough sleep, so I drag myself through another morning, most likely resembling a grouchy bear coming out of hibernation.  I can't make the kids sleep longer (I've tried keeping them up later.  They still wake up at the same time, only grumpier.) but I can go to bed earlier, so I'm going to try.  Perhaps 2013 will be the year of cheerful mornings.

2. Meal plan.  I shouldn't need this as a goal, but I have fallen off the wagon and into the trap of throwing something together at the last minute.  It causes me stress and it causes us to eat the same meals over and over.  Tonight we again had hot ham and cheese sandwiches with tomato soup.  This is in rotation with spaghetti and homemade pizza.  Along with this goal, I want to bake bread more often.  I kind of stopped for a while when we discovered a cheap bread outlet, but when it closed down (keep your twinkie, I want my cheap bread back) bread became expensive again.

3. While my forgetful self will be writing 2012 for the next few months, my brain has a tendency to live in the future.  I have so many plans and hopes for my family, and we're getting closer to them, but I tend to spend too much time wishing I was in my "someday" instead of paying attention to now.  It's going to be a crazy year, with at least one move, but possibly more, depending on job situations.  I want to fully enjoy the area and friends that I have here and now before I move on to the next.  I'm sure when the stress mounts, you'll find me sketching out my dream homestead, but until I am living there I hope to keep it to a minimum.

I hope this year brings you optimism and happiness.  What goals or resolutions have you set this year?

Stranger Danger and Getting Organized

It was the other night, the door was locked, we checked on the kids, all was well as I lay down to sleep.  And then, a feeling of un-ease hit me.  A feeling that something bad could or would happen soon.  I knew that all was well in our little home, but I just couldn't shake the feeling.

Now, I'm an impressionable type.  Annoying commercial jingles, or songs from kid shows stick in my head for days.  My active imagination keeps books or shows playing in my head for hours after I watch or read.  I definitely can't watch horror shows, or I don't sleep at all.  I just lay in bed wishing that the bathroom wasn't so far down the hall.  I quit watching crime dramas a few years ago because I couldn't sleep just thinking about all the horrible things that could happen to me or my kids someday.

This wasn't like any of those things.  There was nothing specific on my mind.  I still don't know what it was all about, but as I lay there thinking, I realized that since moving to town, we haven't really emphasized safety to our kids, other than wearing helmets and looking both ways when crossing the street.  My kids are used to being surrounded by family and friends.  They don't know to fear strangers.  So, I decided to have a talk with them.  I hate painting such a horrible light on persons that we don't even know, but I know that my son will happily talk to anyone that will listen and my daughter is a sucker for candy.  They can be social with strangers when they are all grown up, but for now, I'd rather be safe than sorry.

I still don't know what that feeling was about, but I feel better knowing that my children know how to stay safe.  It was a good little chat. 

Then, we organized!  My awesome husband was still out of school this week, so we've actually been getting things done.  He single handed-ly tackled the main storage closet that held the most mystery boxes and was the biggest mess.  There is now room in there to store the annoying tubs of baby stuff that have been on our closet floor, and still more room for my sewing machine.  There's still room to spare! 

While he did that, I worked on the boxes in our room and it's almost done.  I confess that there is still one box hidden behind my rocking chair that holds those papers I was working on and a few other things that I just didn't have the patience to go through, but it's down to one box!  Okay... I still have stacks of books to find a home for.  If only we had a book shelf... If only we had room for a bookshelf.  So far, their  home is on the shelves where a normal person would store their shoes.  Thankfully, I'm not a shoe person.

Next up is the pantry!

A New Organized Year?

"Cleaning the house while the children are growing is like shoveling snow while it is still snowing."

I thing that's how that saying goes and it captures my feelings pretty well.   I feel like I've been trying to swim upstream for the last few days, and I can't swim. -Really, I  can't.  Dead-man's float is my specialty.  I think we finally got our house back into tolerable order.  It always takes me about a week to completely recover from a long trip.  I feel like I've done nothing but laundry for four days.  Our Christmas was not huge, but it's been challenging to find homes for everything, which has lead me to my goal for this week, month, or year.  I'm not sure how long it will take me. 

I like order.  I want things to be organized because I function so much better that way.  Unfortunately, I am also a pack-rat.  I come by it honestly, just stop by my mom's basement.  I decided, after pulling everything out of that basement due to last spring's flood, that I would de-clutter and organize my things.

Then, we moved, and things were stuffed into boxes and baskets to be gone through later.  These things were stuffed into closets when we moved in to get them out of the way.  Now, we have no storage for the important things and the house feels small and cluttered.   My children are picking up on my ways.  They seem to think that cleaning means to redistribute the mess to different places.  Their room keeps getting smaller due to the cluttered corners growing larger. 

So, I decided that my main goal for 2011 will be to find a home for everything in this house.  That means I have to get tough and go through things and possibly get rid of a lot of things.   Mostly, though,  I just need to actually go through boxes and consolidate things together.  All my craft stuff can have one shelf, while my husbands tools can have another. 

I know this sounds so simple, but trying to do this with my kids at home makes things tough.  I finally started sorting through the piles of papers that have been stashed in various places yesterday.  I had a full head of steam and I was determined to get this one thing done.  Then, with piles of papers spread all over the living room floor, the baby woke up from her nap, so I had to hurry and put things away before she disorganized my newly organized piles.  Maybe today, I'll finish it all the way.  I also organized my notebook and my desk.  Just those things make me breath a bit easier.

Other steps to accomplish this goal include:

Print recipes from computer and organize recipe notebook

Go through pantry and pull out mystery boxes stashed in there

     -empty boxes, get rid of unwanted stuff, find homes for keepers

Go through storage closet and pull out mystery boxes

     -sort, organize things, then organize closet

Find a place to store extra hats and gloves, etc, where we can use them

Go through mystery boxes in my bedroom, sort, organize, etc.

Same for the water softener closet, pull everything out, sort, organize

Help kids find homes for all their things.  Maybe take pictures, so they can remember how things should go?

Sort through baby clothes, get too small put away, get out next size.

Help older kids sort through drawers and get out too small and summer clothes.

Okay that list doesn't look all that long, but it's probably going to take me forever.  I'd better go get started!

Finally!

I finally transplanted everything into the garden! I'm way behind schedule, but at least it's done. I think everything is finally planted. If things goes well from now on, we will probably be buried in summer squash before long. That's okay with me, we didn't get any last year. Those poor pumpkin seedlings were miserable in their tiny pots. Hopefully now they will be able to stretch out and take off. This is basically my third year as a serious gardener and I am addicted, I think. I think I may have bitten off more than I can chew this year though.
I really miscalculated how much I would be able to do with a new baby. Granted, she's four months now, not exactly new, but she just doesn't enjoy the out of doors like I do. The slightest breeze takes her breath away, and when she catches her breath, she lets me know how irritated she is. The only time I can get in the garden is early morning, when everyone is still sleeping, but I have a very hard time getting up. That is a goal of mine-- to get up early and have some time for my little projects, scripture study, and just some peace and quiet for day-dreaming. Maybe tomorrow...