2013 Coming to a Close

Well, the year has just flown by.  I am ready to start the new year.   I think my theme for 2014 is to downsize and refocus.

 I'm continuing to work on The New Leaf project.  I found it's been easier to sell our pre-owned clothes rather than new clothes on Ebay.  I still have plenty to go through, but I'll get there.  One bite at a time.

I'm also refocusing on my fitness goals.  I'm going to focus on gaining strength and continue my 5k runs.  I'm going to start eating in a deficit and see how that goes for a month or two.

I'm also going to focus on keeping the house in better shape.  I say this the day after Christmas while it looks like a toy store puked all over my floor.  Oh well, I'll get there.

Figuring out how to let them just go...`

I've come to a realization today.  I took both of my children to the local children's museum.  This is an activity I would normally cringe about.  Me, by myself, with both of my kids, at a museum.  I was prepped for it to be stressful.  So I did what should have been second nature.  I just let them play. You may be thinking, "Well, of course, why wouldn't you do that?"  The answer is that I don't know why I haven't thought of it before.

Let me explain.  When my daughter was an only child, we had pent up all our hopes and dreams on this one little human.  I had waited for her for so long and when she finally got here I wanted to show her the world.  We dragged that little 1-3 year old girl all over the place.  We took her hiking, to the zoo, to different museums, festivals, nice restaurants and out of state vacations.  We did this in an attempt to make her life as full as possible.  It sounds great, except when we went to these places we expected her to be on our schedule.  When we, the parents, decided that she had done an activity long enough, we would push her along with promises of bigger and better things to see.  We didn't do it to rush her really or to be mean.  We did it because we felt that if she didn't see absolutely everything to see that she would miss out.  We now realize she doesn't really remember any of it at all.

Here we are with kid #2.  We've not been to near as many places with my son as we have with my daughter. One reason is because he just doesn't have the same demeanor.  He gets loud and irritated easily. Also, we just don't have the money to do all those things.  I do feel like he's missing out.

Back to my point, today I took them to the children's museum...by myself.  We went for museum day so it was free for us to go.  I finally did the opposite of what I normally do.  I just let them play.  Since I wasn't paying I didn't care if they spent the entire time playing at one station.  I didn't care whether they knew there was a whole upstairs section or not.  We spent four hours at the museum.  Most of that time was at the water table then the Lego table. Both are things they can do at home.   But guess what?  It was the most relaxing time I could have had with both kids.  So, what did I learn?  For God's sake just let them play.  They don't have to see everything and it's more likely to be a fond memory than a disappointing one.

End of Summer

Well, here we are at the beginning of September.  The only goal I've achieved so far is listing all my stock on Ebay.  If you want to see what I have for sale you can check it out at http://stores.ebay.com/Blue-Star-Knick-Knacks.

So here is what we've been up to... Montana was involved with the community theater with their production of Seussical.  She was cast as Young Kangaroo.  She was awesome.  However, it did take up most of our summer.  Rehearsals were 4-5 days a week from 7-10pm.  That's makes life hard for a little girl who's bed time is 8pm.

As soon as she show was over it was time to start school.  We decided to go with and online K12 school.  As of right now, we really like the program.  We are just going through the assessments and seeing where she is at and what she needs to review at this point.

I've been doing The New Rules of Lifting for Women for a month.  I'm down 2.75 inches overall, but not much else in the way of improvement.

And there you have it, that's what I've been doing  lately.

Why the hate on the 'burbs?

Here is a random thought.  What I notice, is that there seems to be a lot of "hate" on the 'burbs.  In full disclosure, I live in suburbia.  There are things I like and things I don't like about it.  So, here is my list of what there is to like and dislike about living in the 'burbs.

What I like:

• Not a lot of traffic
• Neighborhood kids for my kids to play with
• Clean
• Fairly safe
• Neighbors notice if something is not quite right. 
• A great area for outdoor exercise

What I don't like:

• Not much diversity
• There seems to be an awful lot of rules and regulations.
• Busy bees
• I have to drive to most places
• It's really hard to "bond" with neighborhood folks, when you don't watch sports or drink.
• I would love to have goats or chickens or both and obviously that's not happening around here.

Ideally, I would like to be a bit more in the country.  It seems like the hate comes from city dwellers.  So tell me, what's so great about the city?  I would like to know if there's something that I'm not seeing that I may be missing out on.

When It All Seems So Overwhelming...

Well, I've set my goals annnnnnnnnnd...I've not even started on them.  I feel like I have so much to do that I'm having a hard time setting aside the time to start my journey into minimalism.  How do I get over the hump?

Another thing I'm struggling with is my son.  He's very strong willed.  When he does something wrong and we try to discipline him he just laughs and thinks it's a game.  We've tried to put him in the corner...he leaves or he laughs when we try to keep him there.  We've tried just telling him "NO"...he doesn't listen.  We've tried slapping his hand...he laughs.  The only time he does listen is when my husband yells at him in his "briar voice".  Basically, he yells at him loudly with a deep voice.  I don't want my house to be full of yelling all the time and besides my husband isn't home all day to yell at him.

Do you have a strong willed child that's around two?  How do you discipline them?

New Leaf Project

As I said before, I'm a project person.  I'm getting ready to immerse myself into a new project.  I'm calling it the New Leaf Project.  What is it?  Well, I've decided to explore the world of minimalism.  The first thing I need to do is get rid of my crap.  I'm not going all extremist (though the temptation is there).  I'm going to start small.  I'm going to post my minimalism and health (totally different topic) goals on here.  I'm going to do this in small and hopefully attainable chunks.  It may not seem like a lot at first, since I did become inadvertently busy this summer.

Why do I want to do this?  Well, we have a large amount of debt right now.   My husband and I both feel the stress from it and we feel we never have any time.  The list of things to clean, shred, repair keep piling up and not getting done.    My hope is by having less material things we will reduce our debt, get more time and have less stress.

I'm also going to work on my fitness goals as well.  My boy is 17 months old now and I've been struggling in the "being healthy" department.  My lower back has been hurting and I recently dislocated a rib.  This has demoralized me quite a bit.  I feel if I exercise and eat smarter then I will feel better.  So here are my short term goals:

New Leaf Project:

In the next two weeks (by 7/14) I will have all of my old business stock posted for sale.

By August 1st, I will have all of our old clothes that we don't wear or it doesn't fit either for sale, sold or donated.

By September 1st, business stock should be all sold.

Fitness Me:

My goal is to lose 10 lbs by August 1st.
I will do progress pictures and measurements monthly.

What's going on?

Well, it's been about four months since I last posted.  As always, we have a lot going on.  We celebrated Montana's birthday in February with a Hello Kitty themed party.  She had a lot of little friends come and it was crazy around here.

We've been finishing up on "school box".  I would say that we are behind, but we're really only behind on the lessons that came with the curriculum.  I've relaxed quite a bit, since I've noticed that Montana already knows the stuff the curriculum is teaching.  I'm not quite sure how she jumped ahead, but it seems like a switch just flipped from "struggling" to "I got it".  We registered with our local K12 public school for her "official" kindergarten, next year.  I suspect we'll go through it pretty fast.  I think it will be nice to have some extra support.  I'm sure I'll post on how the program is working out for us.

April started morel mushroom hunting.  It was a terrible season for me.  I think part of it, is that I have a very limited amount of time that I get to go out without the kids.  Montana wouldn't be so bad, (except the whining).  However, Gibson has just started walking and I have to take him in the hiking stroller which means that I have to stay on the trails.

The first weekend in April, I took my first backpacking trip.  It was just local and beginner's trip through our local metroparks.  It was really a treat and I loved every minute of it.

I hope to get to go again soon.

Well, I'm off until next time.  Hopefully, it won't be long.

Gibson's First Birthday!

Well, today my boy turned one.  It's amazing how fast time flies.  I'm glad he's starting to get his own little personality and starting to do all those cool things, like walk, talk and feed himself.  However, it makes me be a bit sad as well.  I feel like post-partum anxiety (PPA) robbed me of his first 7 months.  He's my last baby.  I'll never have another one, and I can only really remember these last 5-6 months.  I'll never get that cuddle time back.  That breaks my heart.  At the same time, I'm so very glad that we've finally bonded.  He's so different from his sister, he's loud, rough and Daddy is his favorite.  But it just melts my heart to no end, when I walk into a room and he gives me the biggest, sweetest smile.

Happy Birthday Gibson!  You are so wonderful and we all love you so much.  You make our family complete.

Here are some pictures.