HGP is on hold I guess

Well this week I have gotten nothing done toward organizing the bedroom or bathroom. I've been trying to find something for Miles to wear to the mysterious wedding. I say mysterious because I know nothing about it. I know that we are leaving on Friday to go to Mexico. I know that we are staying at the same hotel as the wedding party. I know the wedding is on Saturday (right at bed time for the boy). I also know that the bride and groom hired vans to take the guests to the wedding (so we won't be able to retreat at any time). Lastly I know that he'll sleep at least an hour during the weekend, so we'll be just GREAT!!

The main thing that I don't know is if the wedding is inside or outside!! Is it on the beach? What do you wear to a wedding on the beach? What do you have your toddler wear to a wedding on the beach? The only shoes that Miles has right now are a pair of sandals and a bright blue pair of crocs. Today I bought him the cutest pair of boots. I got him a nice pair of slacks too. Now I need to find him a shirt to go with them, and he'll be fine. I have more clothes than I can shake a stick at, so I know I have something to wear (I just have to figure out what it is). Hmm, and something for Jared too. Should be no problem?

One more thing I know is that there are lots of kiddos in the grooms family and he is absolutely in love with all children. I know that it will all work out!

Spices

As part of the HGP, I decided to undertake my spice cabinet. Whewh! It needed it, and still isn't perfect, but at least there is improvement. How many spices are too many? How do you keep them organized? How do you keep from buying spices that you already have, but can't find? In San Francisco, our pantry had a perfect little spice cabinet built into the door (I'll have to look and see if I have pics). I'd like to have that here too, but it would mean rebuilding the door to the pantry and for now that is not an option. I decided to put them all in matching bottles, get lazy susans for the cabinet and try that.
It seems to be working pretty well for now. I'm sure that I will not keep this solution forever, but it is ok. I may try one of the can riser solutions for one of the cabinets and see how that works.

Here are the spices (this is after I put a bunch aside to give away).



Here is the cabinet on the left of the stove. The bottom shelf has regular cooking spices. The middle shelf is for hot teas and my tea pot. The top shelf holds the tea that I use for iced tea (I have a stockpile because I couldn't find it in bulk in San Francisco so I bought a bunch).


Here is the cabinet on the right side of the stove. Again the bottom has spices, this time more baking style. The next shelf has coffee and the coffee pot; we have an electric water kettle and it is just below this cabinet. The top is for extra spices that don't fit in the bottles but I don't want to pitch. Extra pasta seasoning, more salt, and peppercorns, etc.

Looking Fine Week 2/HGP

I dropped again this week, but only 0.8 lbs. It is a little upsetting, but at least I'm dropping weight! I really haven't been doing any of the things that I should be doing. We had been very consistent on going on a walk almost daily, but that hasn't been happening either recently! I have got to start DOING something about my weight. It isn't enough right now to just coast. Even though I'm dropping (a little) that is all that I'm doing, coasting. I have 13 weeks until 2009, and I'd like to drop 9 more pounds. I need to lose 7/10ths of a pound a week until then. That isn't counting the vacationing and Christmas eating I'll be doing until then. So we'll just say I need to drop a pound a week for the next 13 weeks. I KNOW I can do that!

This week in the Holiday Grand Plan is for the Master Bedroom. I'm excited about this. I have a lot to throw out in my bedroom! Again, I'll be combining weeks and doing the Master Bathroom at the same time (master bath is next week). This weekend I bought some trays which hopefully will help with the bathroom. I still have a little to do in the kitchen. Mostly putting away things that were pulled out in the process of organizing. I'm going to have to be very careful about that in the bedroom. We leave at the end of the week for an extended weekend vacation, and I'm a little strange about leaving a clean house. I don't always do it, but it puts my mind at ease to the point I can really enjoy vacation if my house is clean. Otherwise, I dread returning home. You have the mess you left and the vacation mess too! There is nothing like starting out behind. Not only that, but a week and a half after we return, my sister will arrive and be staying for a week. That time will include at least one trip too. I guess all that is to say that not only do I need to organize the master bedroom and minuscule bathroom, but I need to at least have the rest of the house picked up too.

Pics from the weekend

We had a great weekend

Saturday found all three of us getting haircuts. Afterwords, Jared went out with his dad, and His sister, mother, and I went to the farmer's market. It was fun. There was a man there with a large Macaw named Oscar. He was beautiful! Miles loved seeing that large colorful bird so close! Here is a picture of my sister-in-law holding the bird. She loved it! There is an antique tractor out front, and Miles had a blast climbing all over it.










Miles loved pushing his stroller all over the inside of one of the buildings. He even chased his aunt with it!



Here are the remnants of a berry tart all over Miles! Yumm, fresh berries from the market!

Tip for you!

What do you do with your baby when you aren't using him?

Put him in a very absorbent box, of course!

Still organizing

I haven't done as much this week as I'd like in the kitchen. In the morning I'm going to try to organize the spice cabinet, and swap it with the coffee/tea cabinet. After that I'll need to do the pots and pans cabinet, the Tupperware cabinet, and I should go through my drawers, but if I don't get that done it isn't the end of the world. It sounds like a lot but it isn't. The two cabinets just need to be put back in order. No real organizational breakthroughs. I go through them pretty often as they tend to get messy quickly. I'd like to get a lazy susan for the spice cabinet, but it hasn't happened yet.

Next week is supposed to be the Master Bedroom the the week after that the Master Bath. I think I'll combine them into one week because our bath is TINY! The biggest thing to do in the bedroom is the closet! Yuck!

101 Days Until Christmas

I mentioned that I was going to participate in the Holiday Grand Plan this year. This is the week for the Entry/Foyer. I don't have much of an entry hall, and my kitchen needs help badly. So, I have decided that I'm going to organize the kitchen this week. Actually, the kitchen, pantry, and laundry room.

Yesterday we left at around 11, to run two errands, and go to a friend's house that is an hour away. Before we left, I cleaned the kitchen counters really well. I hadn't done this in a bit, and they needed it badly. In my house, as in most others, things tend to accumulate in the kitchen. I cleared them off, and scrubbed them with baking soda. I also cleaned out the sink and loaded the dish washer. Sure enough when we unloaded the car Jared put stuff on the counter and told me he would clean it off in the morning. Grr. I didn't say anything and moved it to the dining room table when he left the room. It was so nice to wake to a clean kitchen and clean dishes in the washer ready to be put away!

So far this morning, I have reorganized the shelves in the laundry room. I then unloaded the pantry, cleaned off the shelves, cut and installed shelf liner, and organized the contents. Now it's closer to what it was 7 months ago when I first organized it. I swept the cuttings of the shelf paper off the floor too. I had to clean off the top of the refrigerator this weekend too because we were working on the ice maker.

Now I need to do the cabinets and drawers in the actual kitchen. The good news is, I still have all week!

Fine by 2009 - End of Week 1

Go here for more on Looking Fine by 2009.

So, this week was not too great. I did pretty well with eating, but didn't really do anything else. I'm going to work on that this week. I did, however, drop 0.3 lbs and made it to an even number (but I'm not going to tell you which one). I'm feeling a bit better too. Last week I didn't weigh myself in the morning, and today I did it after breakfast. I should try harder to do it first thing in the morning on Mondays to get a better record. Tomorrow I'm going to try to go to the workout class at the recreation center. I should go today, but I think I can come up with too many excuses. Hmm. Maybe I'll try for today too. Three times this week would be good.

Sweet Dreams!

I mentioned in the last post that we were trying something different with Miles' bedtime routine. We had bounced him to sleep for every night and nap time.

I knew that he was ready to fall asleep on his own for bed time, but he was not ready for nap time. I was talking to my sister, and told her that I think the reason we have not switched at bed time is because of me. I didn't know how to switch him for naps, and
I (selfishly) didn't want to be the only one to have to bounce him. I told her that I realized what I was doing and we were switching bed time. I also hoped that in switching bedtime, he would become ready to switch for naps. She helped me realize that I was dragging the process out. So, Tuesday for nap time I told Miles what we were doing and that he was going to fall asleep like a big boy. We talked about it, did our nap time routine, and I put him in his crib. It was terrible! But it didn't last. He did fall asleep on his own, and slept pretty well. Today he fell asleep even more quickly at nap time and there was no crying at all for bed time. This is fantastic, and quite a relief. I'm not sure how it will translate on our vacation coming up in less than two and a half weeks, but we'll see!

Upcoming Activities

Last night we tried something different with Miles' bedtime. We are working on changing his routine to something easier for us, and hoping that it will bleed over to making nap time much easier! When he was much smaller we breastfed and that was always the easiest way to get him to sleep. Then as babies do, he stopped falling asleep that way. We found that another way to get him to sleep was to put him in our sling, and bounce him on the yoga ball. This is like rocking him to sleep, but it was much faster. Anyway, we are very ready to move on to another way of getting him to sleep. He has been ready at night, but I have resisted the change in large part because I still have to bounce him during nap time and that takes longer. Tonight we did our normal routine except when it came time to bounce, we hugged him, told him we loved him and put him down. He cried for less than 5 minutes. Hopefully this will cure both bed time and nap time pains!

This is so like me. I want to get involved in the Holiday Grand Plan, but all I can think about is that I'm a week late and I don't have the forms printed. Of course I want them printed in color and not boooooring black and white. If I printed them in boring black and white, I could probably have printed them by now. Maybe not though as I ran the printer out of ink the other day and haven't purchased more. Anyway, I have gotten a bit done.

I'm wanting to get a lot done because there is a lot coming up! We are going to Mexico in two and a half weeks. I'm so excited. A dear friend is getting married there and I can not wait. She was at our wedding and loves our son. She is marrying the greatest guy! She totally deserves that too. We'll be there for three nights.

About a week after we return, my sister and her two children will be coming! They will be here for a week, and have about three weeks worth of activities planned. She wants to visit the grandparents who live about 2 hours south of here. She wants to go to
The State Fair of Texas. I haven't been in a long time, so I'm very excited that we can go together. If you are close, you should go too. It is a lot of fun. I've never paid too much attention to children's activities, but it looks like they have a
lot. They have "Little Hands on the Farm" where kids get to see what happens on a farm. They even get to gather crops and sell them for fake money and buy things at a market. A "Pee Wee Stampede" where kids get to try to rope a bale of hay and ride a stick horse. Pig races, birds, a carousel, and of course the Ferris Wheel!



She also wants to drive to New Mexico and go to the
Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta. I'm also very excited about this! We went together with our parents when we were little, and it was so much fun. My dad is very much an early morning person and so we got to the fair grounds well before the morning mass ascension. We got to see them filling the balloons and the balloons laying all over the ground being prepaired. It was a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to going again. However, it is roughly a 650 mile drive and about 10 hours one way. With two babies? Is my sister crazy? At least we'll have so many people we'll have to have 2 cars, so one baby in each car I guess!

All this comes together to make it 1) a bad time for sleep training, and, 2) a bad time to watch my weight. It wouldn't be any fun if it was a good time, now would it?

Monday Morning Mastery

Ok, here it is...
When I got pregnant I was at about the highest weight I've been. I don't think it quite qualified as overweight, but really close. Obviously, I got pregnant and gained even more. I was pretty nervous about losing it. My mother, father, and one of my two sisters are overweight. That is not something I have ever wanted to have to deal with. Well, after I had Miles I lost the weight pretty quickly. I kept nursing for a long time (over a year) and the weight kept coming off. It was great, but I fell into the trap of thinking I could eat what I wanted. I've always been a nervous eater, and when Miles cries, I eat. We have had a LOT of sleep problems (especially nap time when I'm here by myself). Well, now I weigh about 5 pounds more than I did when I got pregnant. Bad times! I have to do something NOW!!!!

We had been running and doing push ups and that seemed to be controlling the problem, but then both of us started having mystery pains, especially our feet. So, we stopped running, and then ended up stopping the push ups and most all other activity. I'm going to try to do something about it. I just feel bad. When Jared gains weight he sleeps badly and has other problems. I'm not having those problems, but I hate seeing my reflection, and looking at a scale (even when I'm not on it). I don't want to feel like this.

I'm going to start the push up program again. I had been working out at the local rec center. I haven't gone since Miles had swim classes this summer. I may try to hit that a few times a week again. I really don't feel like I can run again, but walking is still in.


Now for being responsible. I'm going to start posting on Wednesdays about my activity, eating, and a weigh in. I'm not daring enough to post an actual number right now. I've weighed myself today, and I wrote the number and date on a note card and put that in the bathroom. I'm going to do a weekly + and - system for the blog. This week, being the first, I'll start with a 0.

So, join me for a Monday Morning Mastery. I can Master my weight, you can too. Jen at AmazingTrips started this on Wednesdays and used it to train for a triathlon. I'm not going that far, yet. But we'll see.

Books

Books...







Books...

Books Everywhere!







I'm so thankful Miles loves books! He loves to have us read to him and when he his 18 months he began to sit still and listen to a couple of short books. He loves to take his book and babble while turning the pages like he is reading. He loves to play with the books too. He is a little to rough and tears pages, but at least he has the exposure to them. He has the bottom shelf on a couple of bookshelves around the house and a basket of books in his room, and he loves them!

Christmas in September??

There are 112 days until Christmas. Will you be ready?

This week is the first week of the Holiday Grand Plan. This is a great way to break holiday prep work into bite sized chunks. Making you easy for the holidays, with a clean and organized home!

Just because it started this week does not make it too late to begin. Week one is lists and the Front Porch. I'm going to try to catch up and keep up. My front garden is a MESS though, so we'll see.

Seven Fabulous Years

The other day Jared and I celebrated our seven year anniversary. It was lovely. We spent the weekend with my grandparents, and came home on Sunday. Our anniversary was on Monday. We had a beautiful day, and mostly just hung around the house. We went kayaking in the morning and came home for a late breakfast. We skipped lunch so that we would have plenty of room for the dinner we were cooking ourselves. We made muscles on the grill for an appetizer, and lamb with potatoes and a salad for our early dinner. After that it was playing with Miles for a while, then a walk and we put him to bed. It really was a great day, and fun was had by all.