HGP Check-in

We are sick, how are you?
I could give you the whole disgusting story, but let's just say that Miles threw up on me yesterday, and woke up this morning with a fever of 103.2! Yuck!

Miles in the sand box at a friend's house

Back to the HGP check-in. The week of September first was for the front porch. I'd planned to focus my efforts on the front garden. This has been a problem area since we bought the house 8 years ago. I didn't do the windows when I cleaned out there, and I only got 1/2 of the front garden cleaned out. This weekend Jared decided to buy a tree for the front and bushes for the half of the garden that I had cleaned out. I was ecstatic! That meant that I'd have Jared's help pulling up the roots of the volunteer trees that were growing right at the foundation of the house! It was slow going, and I cracked the sprinkler line which of course set us back. We did finish though. There are now 4 lovely holly bushes growing in front of my house!

The tree we bought for the front yard. It will be planted for us next week.

The next week was the office. I convinced Jared to work on the office with me that week because he had it off. We traveled and some other things that took a lot of time away from working in the office, but we got a good start. We even emptied out the closet and bought a wire shelving unit and put things back in. Before I get Jared's help with other rooms, we are going to have to finish the office. I'm fine with that, but I wish he would be a bit more motivated!

Gymboree had free sample classes at the PTA kickoff party

Last week was entry way/foyer/hall closet. I don't have much of an entry way, but my china cabinet is there. In the hallway, I have two closets; a coat closet, and a linen closet. I had intended to clean out the coat closet and the china cabinet and the regular cleaning of the spaces too. I ended up doing the medicine part of the linen closet, and the other spaces too. I didn't do a great job in the coat closet. I pulled out the boxes in there and decided I didn't need to keep many of them, but between Miles getting into everything, and Jared coming home I just put them back in the closet.

Mom & Dad's new den. They've had so much work done.

This week is the master bedroom. Yesterday, Miles got into his closet and pulled some things down on his head. This prompted an immediate clean out of his closet. I guess that means that this week I'll be doing his room. There isn't too much more to it, and it'll be a nice break while everyone is sick. With some luck this weekend we can finish up bits a peices of the things we have started and not finished, and I'll be able to get back on track next week!

Overall I'm pleased with my progress, how are you doing?

Chemo has begun

Riding a small guage train in Austin last weekend.

My mom had her first round of chemotherapy yesterday. They told her that she probably won't begin feeling the effects for a couple of days. She says that she still feels pretty well. In fact, she's looking forward to getting out for a little while today, so Miles and I are going to head over there in a little bit. One of the chemo drugs is supposed to make her lose her hair. I'm really sad about that. I'm not looking forward to seeing my mother with no hair, but I've realized that dwelling on it too much is not helping and it is really a selfish standpoint anyway. At this point I'm not looking forward to it, but prepared that it will come.

Riding a small guage train in Austin last weekend.

It's still raining here. We had a good part of one day with no rain, I think it was the day before yesterday, but other than that it's still very wet.

Also, I'm trying to enter a contest to win a gallery wrap canvas. It's being hosted by Tidy Mom. I'm really excited. Come join in, and good luck!

Fantastically Wet Morning

It's been raining since at least last Friday and off and on for about a week before that. Jared was off all last week which was very nice, but we knew it would be a little rough getting everyone back in the swing of things. This morning Jared is finally ready for work, and heads out to the car. He asks me if it smells. I did think it smelled a bit, and he decided that a drain under the hood must be plugged. He said that it happens sometimes and in this particular car it can overflow and leak on the transmission computer. This, of course, fries the computer. So, he pulls some stuff under the hood (stuff I believe is the technical word for it) then pulls the battery! He looks at the drain and it is clear. He's also parked uphill, so pulling the drain wouldn't help anyway. We take a second look at the car and realize that a water bottle had been left in the car on it's side and leaked. Well, at this point, he's about 40 minutes late to leave for work, and the battery is out of the car.

Miles playing in light rain with bubbles a week ago.

I told him that he could take my car so that he could leave and we'd vacuum the car tonight. He agreed, and I pulled the car seat so that I could do something today if someone was willing to drive. I called mom, but her car is full of flooring that they are having put in this week. Now, we are here, no chance of getting out, and Miles is a little stir crazy. We are watching Veggie Tales at 10 in the morning, and I'm not sure what we will do next. I hope today goes quickly!

Christmas Gifts

Have you started shopping for Christmas gifts yet? I just started last month. I've already purchased something for my sister, gave my mom an idea for my other sister, something for my son, and stocking stuffers for all the kids, and maybe the boys too (depending on distribution). If you are doing the Holiday Grand Plan then you are beginning to think about it. They have you divide up purchases between now and Christmas. One of the things I don't really like about this plan is that they have you make your Christmas gift list now. I have a terrible time making Christmas gift lists. I really have to come across some thing that makes me think of the person and purchase that. The only way I can make a list is to have something running all year, and just jot down things they mention. I do have that going, but haven't updated it very much this year. However, I do have an idea already for my mother-in-law's birthday (on Christmas eve) and for my mother & father-in-law. Their Christmas gift is a shared gift and I know they will love it! Now I have to think of the hard one...Jared!

A New Month, A New Me?

As you can probably tell by by blog attendance, and my goals for this year, I'm not great at following through on whim goals. Here is what is going on:

1) Today is my 8 year anniversary! Yay me! My parents were married for 32 years this year. My grandparents (both sides) were married from a young age until my grandfathers died. I've been married eight years today, and I have so many more to look forward to! It's a beautiful thing to be married to your best friend and know that he will be there forever! This weekend his parents came over to watch Nicholas and let us go out for a while. I love times like that. I love Nicholas, but I love spending time with my husband alone too!

2) I'm a nail biter! It's a terrible habit and disgusting. I've wanted to quit for a very long time. Before I went to CT, I decided that for mom's birthday I'd take her to get a pedicure. While we were gone she got the cancer diagnosis. When we returned I took her out the first weekend (I think that is when it was). We got the pedicures and decided to go for manicures too! I haven't bitten them since. I'm really hoping that I can keep it up. I've stopped biting a couple of times for a week or a couple of weeks at a time. This is the longest that I've ever gone without biting. My fingers an finger nails are still in my mouth more than I'd like, but I'm working on that. I just run my nail over my teeth or chip at nail polish, I don't bite.

3) My face has been looking terrible for some reason lately. I've heard great things about Mary Kay's Timewise system. I bought some recently and just started using it yesterday. I've never found something that really works for my acne, I'm hoping that this will work.

4) Today starts the Holiday Grand Plan. I've tried to participate in this a time or two, and haven't been successful. I'm hoping to do well this time. We'll see. I'd been hoping to get mom to do it with me, but that isn't going to happen now.

5) Two weeks ago I posted about it being 14 weeks until December. I also emailed my sisters and asked if they wanted to do anything with me. I thought the three of us could challenge each other and the two who lost could buy the winner a pedicure. Something small but none of us spend the money on it for ourselves. One of them replied and said she wanted to take it bigger. She wanted to charge an entry fee for the competition thereby creating a real "pot" for the winner. This would also open it up to the men in the family to join.

I'm including our rules if anyone is interested in starting their own competition. The prizes are going up, because we have another person participating. If you do make your own competiton, I'd love to hear about it. Of course I'll tell you how this goes. Wish me luck, I'm gonna win!

Rules:
1. Entrance fee for the challenge is $25 per person. I have a paypal account I don’t use, but is set up to receive money. We’ll just have everyone paypal in their entrance fee to xxx@gmail.com. If you don’t know how to do this or don’t have a paypal account, let me know, we’ll work it out.
2. The contest will run from September 1 to November 30, 2009 (three months).
3. We will each create a goal for ourselves over this three month challenge. This way the challenge is personalized for each. We’ll then do prizes off of percentage of goal reached. The goals will be public (to the group) and need to be stated by September 1.
4. We’ll do mandatory weigh ins at the end of September, and the end of October. The challenge will end with a mandatory weigh in at the end of November (right after Thanksgiving, yikes).
5. This one might be confusing, but I think it would be good to allow one goal change, on September 30 (the first weigh in will be judged off of initial goal). This allows us to modify our goals if they seem to not be as realistic once we’ve started. The modified goals will need to be announced by October 1.
6. For each of the first two mandatory weigh ins we’ll have smallish prizes (of $20 depending on how many people enter). The prizes will be based off of percentage of the goal reached.
7. For the final weigh in on November 30 we’ll have three prizes.
Prize for most inches lost from waist (boys, let me know if that doesn’t seem fair I’m not sure)
Grand Prize for percentage of goal reached.
Second prize for percentage of goal reached.

Prizes:
We have the following people currently considering joining the challenge:
Dad, Sister1, Sister2, Sister's Husband, Sharon, Jared, Mother-In-Law

At $25 per person that is a total of $175. I’m thinking the prizes will be as follows:
September 30 $20 for percentage of goal lost
October 31 $20 for percentage of goal lost
November 30 $30 for inches lost
$40 for second prize percentage of goal lost
$65 grand prize for percentage of goal lost
The final prize amounts will be changed based on the total number of participants and amount received.