With December comes change

I’ve seen a few other blogs where people put goals for the month and I thought it was a good idea. So yes here I am being a follower…sheesh Liz…you should be original right?  Well I find the more I say I will do things and the more people I tell the better chance I have of doing them, and I could use some accountability for December because this will be a tough month unless I keep it together.  Why a tough month you say, it’s the holidays it should be fun and happy right?  Well I’ve barely thought about Christmas because of the changes ahead. You see my hubby got laid off just about the time I came back to work after maternity leave. I think our munchkin only spent 20 hours total in day care.  Well now Kris has a new job…yey! But since I’m back full time too, this means our son will be in daycare full time after spending the first 6 ½ months happily at home with either mom or dad, so a big adjustment for all.  I’m grateful that we are so blessed as to have our wonderful friends be providing his care while we work, that takes an enormous load off my shoulders because I know he will be loved and cared for and treated as their own.  I can’t help but worry though of how he’ll handle the transition and I even worry how nuts he’ll drive them with his nap skipping and fussyness that is usually a result of a new routine.  The other factor that will make things hard is that neither of us will be home to keep up the chores. I guess you could say we won’t be there to make a mess…but trust me I make bigger messes the less time I have because I’m rushing around like a ninny.  Then there are the poor pets…poor furry kids who already took a back seat to Alexander and now they are going to get even less attention. It doesn’t help its winter so taking walks in the cold dark rarely happens… so any way I see recipe for disaster.

So any way here are my goals for the month to see if I can make this new busy life possible:

Get up earlier.  It’s the only way I’ll get myself together in the morning and have time for munchkin and dogs. I’m thinking 5:30-6:00 at the very latest.  This means I need to go to bed earlier…ug.  So probably 9:30 would be ideal, in by 10:00 at the latest.

I need need need to meal plan.  Plan at least a week in advance what dinners we’ll have.  To make things easier I should make up things for lunches and dinners. Such as washing lettuce for the week so we can have side salads.  I could start packing up baggies for the week with crackers, fruit, etc for lunches although I usually use the same bags over and over or tupperwear so I’m not wasteful, but I guess if I just used the same batch over and over again it might be ok. 

Then I should at least get the dishwasher loaded and unloaded daily so we don’t get a massive pile up. I will have to recruit Kris to help with this.

I could say I should sweep during the week and clean the bathroom, but I hate to load myself down so much that I’m miserable because all I do is work and chores…ah finding balance…always a challenge. 

I need to switch bill paying night too, probably to the weekend; it’s too much of a pain during the week. Sunday might be a good day for this. Then I can enter the receipts that we spend during the weekend.  I should get in the habit of opening our mail daily too so it doesn’t make a huge stack to go through. 

I need to work in exercise.  On sunny or at least dry days I should walk on my lunch break.  I’m sure I can squeeze in 20-30 mins of a pilates video or time on the stair master in the works 3 days a week on the rainy days, just something so I’m not totally sedentary.

Ok my goals are already feeling daunting and a lot like work. So I will set aside a little time to surf the web or make my scrapbook recipe book that I’ve said I’d do forever now!!! 

Some how we will make this work, I just need to keep my butt of the couch and stop watching so much TV.  It’s going to busy and crazy, but we’ll make it work

Other goals include

Writing up a resume….would be helpful since I don’t want to work full where I’m at forever.

Try to go shampooless… I’ve never found the perfect shampoo and I hate having to shower all the time in the winter when I don’t do anything to get dirty, so if I could get my hair balanced out and save $$ it’d be great.

I’m growing my hair out, so no visits to the salon. I like a little pampering and I like my stylist so it’s hard to stay away but I want long hair again.

Find a night time cloth diaper solution for Xander. I’m tired of using disposables at night, feel like I’m cheating.

Phew! I’m exhausted just writing this out… I may be a grumpy monster by the end of the month. But hey maybe I can learn to be more efficient while I’m at it!

Thanks!

So ya total fail on the thankful posts. I will just have to do my best to write a few things here.  Working full time with a 6 month old makes it hard to get the extra time I need to write.  However at work I have nothing to do all day…yes quite infuriating when I have so much to do at home, but it pays the bills for now, its amazing what we can put up with when we need the money.  Any way we aren’t supposed to use blogs at work, but I figure I can write my blog in a blank work email, then copy and paste into gmail and save it as a draft that I can put into a blog later.  We are only supposed to use personal email on breaks so that is why I don’t just write it there first because I don’t want to leave it open that long…well there, now my secrets are out if my bosses ever want to find my blog…I guess I’m busted..haha.

Ok back to things I’m thankful for.  I’m thankful that I have food in my freezer and more than enough to eat every day, so many people go with out.  I’m thankful that I only have 2 more days of work left this week. I’m thankful that last week was vacation and that I went to California to see my family and friends.  I’m thankful to have a family that loves me enough to fly us out there to visit. I’m thankful for my wonderful neighbors/ friends that watched the dogs and kitties so that we could go.  I’m thankful for our wonderful friends (Sue & Sharon) that are going to be Alexander’s day care when Kris goes back to work. It’ll be so nice to know he’ll be loved and get all the attention he needs, instead of sharing on provider with 10 kids.  I’m thankful that I can at least work on my blog while I’m bored at work. I’m thankful that while I don’t like my job, it’s not super stressful with bosses yelling at me or anything like that.  I’m thankful that I discovered the coffee place next to work makes a super yummy vanilla chai latte. I could mention that I’m thankful for things like fresh air, pretty scenery, good music, tasty food because I am! 

Ok so I wrote this a while back and never posted it, so I tried to edit it and add a few things, if this reads funny sorry!

Cheers to all, I’m thankful for you!

more thanks

Ok it's the 4th, so now I owe 2 more thanks... I did realize this would be really hard to do daily. Maybe I should do a weekly one...haha.

I'm super thankful it is Friday. I look forward to the weekends so much more now that I have a baby to come home to.

I'm thankful for my wonderful husband that puts up with my craziness, mood swings, impulsiveness, tendencies to panic...he is my balance, the calm to my insanity.   He is a wonderful father and great friend!

Thankful

So a lot of people do Facebook posts for the month of November with a daily note of what they are thankful for.  I'm not really into that much info on FB, not sure why just not.  I do think its a good idea to be grateful though, so let me attempt to be thankful on my blog...so much better than Facebook right? Ok maybe I'm just sleep deprived...
Here it goes, its' the 2nd already so I owe you two.

1. I am super thankful for my friends that put up with me emailing/texting all day from work because I'm bored beyond belief.  You always manage to write back and cheer me up, you rock!!
2. Ok the obvious...I'm thankful for my wonderful little boy who has brought a whole new level of happiness and love to me.

cool gifts

My friend Vanessa made some really cool baby gifts. Some blocks and some hats for Xander, some toys for the kitties, and some book covers and eye pillows for mom. I love home made gifts. We have 3 quilts and some home made burp rags that we were given too, these are my favorite baby gifts because of their uniqueness and the fact that some one spent the time to make them for Xander.  Thanks!!!

horrible blogger

I'm a horrible blogger. I love to read other peoples blogs. I feel inspired to cook, decorate, love bigger and better, become more green, craft, no-poo, make my own cosmetics and of course to write my own blog, yet I never seem to do any of these things.  I mostly fly under the excuse of working full time and being a mommy, but really honestly I think I could do more of these things if I managed my time better...but darn it facebook and the TV are such time sucks.
So lets see what's going on...Xander my wonderful boy is 5 1/2 months old now.  He's growing like a weed. He's had his first ear infection, an eye infection, and I think he may now have a cold.  He can roll belly to back but is reluctant to go the other way. We are trying to start solid foods but he really isn't that interested.  Out of the foods we've tried Avocado would be his "favorite".  He likes his exersaucer, swinging instead of bouncing in his Johnny jump up, he's drooling like a st. bernard, and likes to put his mouth on your cheek and hum.
I'm still working full time and not really enjoying it. My job is very slow and boring most days, it drags on the time I'm away from home and I feel its dulling my ability to work when I have it to do.  Things may be changing in the next few months I sure hope that I won't have to do this grind for long.
My parents visited last weekend, it was nice to see them interact with Xander. Next month we'll be headed to San Diego for Thanksgiving and a week long visit.

Trying to find the positive...

The Struggle to Stay Positive.

I want to be happy, I have so much in my life to be thankful for, I am truly blessed, but I’m finding it hard the past couple weeks to keep my spirit up.  My husband was laid off from his job as an aircraft mechanic in Salem.  So now he is home with out work and I made the tough decision to return to work full time to make sure we can make ends meet with his unemployment.  I must now leave my beautiful 4 ½ month old son for 10hours a day to come to work at a job that is not the most fulfilling or rewarding.  It literally causes me physical pain to walk away from that beautiful smiling face in the morning. To leave the warm comforts of our beautiful home we have created with love, and enter a cold world of rushing cars, cold florescent lights, impersonal computer screens, deadlines and ringing phones.  I can’t help but wonder what the other drivers are feeling this morning.  Did they leave behind their treasures of sweet little faces, maybe a furry friend or warm kisses behind to enter the day too? Did they want to? Maybe they find passion out in this world of work that I have not, or maybe like me they hurt too- with a longing to crawl on to the couch with blankets, footie pj’s and slobbery kisses. How can something so “normal” as going to work, feel like life’s biggest challenge, every morning?

I must remember that I do this for my family, so that we may eat healthy foods and continue to snuggle on the warm comfy couch.   So that we can keep a phone and internet access to stay in contact with our families and friends far away I will go to work.  I will remember that as I struggle with the bone crushing tiredness of interrupted sleep, that I was the lucky one that got to steal those quiet minutes in the early morning hours holding my sons hand and getting to stroke his fuzzy little head. Getting up early and going to work, means I get the first smile of the day-how lucky!  As I grumble about using the “pump” at work, I will remind myself that God blessed me with the ability to provide my son with the food he needs to grow big and strong.  I will ask for God’s patience as I struggle to relate to people in my office who have different values than mine.  Maybe the customer who is unhappy had to leave his/her beautiful children behind today too. 

I am still so lucky in this world. My son gets to be home with his loving father each day, he doesn’t have to go to day care with some one he doesn’t know.  I’m lucky to have a wonderful husband who even though he doesn’t know much about cooking lets me call him and walk him through getting dinner on the table.  I’m lucky that I have 4 legged kiddos too, that love me so much that it drives me nuts! I do wish I had more patience with them, they don’t know better and I have so much to learn from their love for life, each day is a new and exciting adventure to them.  I could learn a lot about enjoying life from my cat, who thinks the best thing is to sit together and purr.

I feel lucky to have my faith. To know that God must have a plan for our family and that if we trust him and follow his path, we will feel the rewards.  His plans aren’t always what I think they should be, but I know that they are far greater than anything I could have come up with.  My son’s life is a testament to that.  After 5 years of thinking we may never have children God gave us Alexander. The best blessing ever. 

So for now I will try to remember my blessings when I want to give up. I know it is ok to be sad, but I must not fall into resentment.  I will look at this as a temporary situation and a blessing that I never thought of, a chance for a father and son to bond. A chance for me to learn to let go over things such as house cleaning and child rearing. At the end of the day it won’t matter if the floor didn’t get swept, or if my son didn’t take his naps on a set schedule. What will stay with me and I will want to know 5 years from now is that I loved my family with all my heart. That I did my best to enjoy every day, that time was not wasted on pointless anger or worrying about things I could not change.  As some one said the other day, there are always flowers from the rain, spring always comes after winter. So if this time of life is my rainy winter I will look toward my spring. A time when life calms down again and I will spend more time at home and less in this cold world of racing cars and computer screens.