Taking Charge ~ 2008

so little energy to do it!

Hi all! I hope you're off to a fine start this new year! I'm still in "holiday mode" as I don't go back to school until tomorrow...YIKES! I go back to school tomorrow! The stack of papers I brought home to grade over break are still NOT done. Shame on me!

Much going on around here that needs "taking charge," not the least of which is myself. I was doing so well with my healthy eating/weightloss until fall then just totaly got off track and gained 10 of the 15 pounds that I had lost back. I'll be joining Jo on the "New You" thread for that!

DD17 will graduate this May. She is finishing up her Girl Scout Gold award this winter, has a trip to Florida with the band in March the then will be going to Europe in June for 17 days. (Spain, France, Monaco, Italy!) I can't believe it's that time already! Our "little one" will turn 13 at the end of February, too. Gosh that happened fast!

Being at work full-time work has had much less negative impact on our family life than I had feared. I think my "part-time" transition last year helped. We've worked out most of the kinks for getting the basics handled. With everyone pitching in, most of what needs done gets done and we just work around the rest!

My first (next) official take-charge project will be undoing the holiday decor. That's planned for this week-end. I suppose I could have done it this past week, but it just felt "too soon." I like to leave things up until 12th Night. After that, I think we're going to take a long, hard look at what is still hiding in the dungeon (read: basement.) I certainly need an inventory of the food shelves and it's time to rotate through some of our water stores, too. I have grand visions of keeping an up-to-date and ongoing inventory of the food in storage, the pantry and the freezer....Yeah...like that's gonna happen!

Oops, there's the beeper for my chicken. I need to go finish up dinner.

Love to all,
Lenora

Hi Lenora! Thanks for starting this thread again!

There's a ton of stuff to do around here, too. We need to do a lot more babyproofing, and we need to clean and declutter. And organize! I desperately need more organization. My first task though, even before the holiday decorations, is to clear off my desk. There's at least a year's worth of junk sitting on and around it because my hands were too full of baby to do anything except pile more on top. Miri's finally big enough to entertain herself more of the time and I need to reclaim my desk!

One suggestion for the ongoing pantry/freezer inventory: Dry erase boards with lists. I haven't tried it for my pantry, but this works well for my freezers. I've got a magnetic dry erase board and pen stuck to each of my freezers, and I try to remember to update them when I add or remove things. Try--doesn't always happen! There's another one on my fridge for the grocery list, so an item can be added any time we happen to run out of it. It does help.

but I thought I should make the effort since Honey got me over here to see Zillah's news.

I'm procrastinating on taking down the dratted decorations. It always takes me all day, not because I have so many, but because I stop and procrastinate for hours at a time!! The tree's bare but not packed away. Everything's cleared from most rooms and the living room looks like an explosion in a tinsel factory. The wreath's still up on the front door, but since it'll be dark in less than an hour, my bet is that it will be gone soon!

I've been doing some major reworks for my spare bedroom (ex-office). On Boxing Day I gave up waiting for my plumber to get his act together, knock down my wall and fix my shower room, and started setting up the sofa bed that's been there since September. Had no choice really because we had a massive keyboard sitting in its box in my living room and my parents were coming to us on the 27th. Since then I've been to IKEA and bought the kids a desk each and a chest of drawers for the spare bedroom. The desks got built on New Year's Eve - I lead such an exciting life! - and the drawers on New Year's Day. The spare room is taking shape but I'll need a fold-up stand to really make use of the keyboard, and I need to sort the bottom of my wardrobe to get some large craft and stationery boxes out of the tiny space in the spare room. I've even managed to create space on my bookshelves so that I have a lot less piles of books hanging around without homes now - believe me that's a major triumph!

I think I've done more between Christmas Day and now than I've done the rest of the year in terms of making my home a bit more livable!! I don't really think it heralds any huge changes in my life since last year, but I'm not waiting on other people for now. Somehow I still have to get three bedrooms carpeted and my ensuite shower completely changed, even with all the additional furniture. At least I've got rid of a lot of stuff though. Continuous improvement I guess.

hi to everyone else... I doubt I'll be here very frequently, but I do think of you.

Kerri.

Kerri.

OK, I'm not behind, I'm just jumping in where I am, right?

I pulled out my long-neglected and never-habituated routines this weekend, revised them to fit my current life (new full-time teaching job after 6 years at home/writing), and I'm jumping back in!

One thing that struck me about my domestic struggles recently is that doing housework makes me feel so very lonely. I think this is why the house goes absolutely to pieces when DH travels (as he is doing now.) So one of my goals is to connect with community as part of my homemaking -- and even though I was involved here only briefly more than a year ago, I remembered it as a warm and welcoming place, and so I'm back. Hopefully to stay!

Here's my list for tonight. I teach 2 days a week this semester and so have alternating daily routines written up.

Check calendar for tomorrow
Transfer/sync work
Pack work bag
Walk dog
Prep DS's backpack
Lay out clothes for tomorrow
Shiny sink
Start a load of laundry
Breakfast prep
Floss & brush teeth
Mouthguard in
Alarm set? (6:30 a.m.)
Into bed by 10 p.m.
Lights out by 11 p.m.

Anyone want to join me with your routines list?

Hi all

No routines for me, though I could do with setting up some. Yet another one of my many failings!

One of my New Year Resolutions is to get rid of lots of stuff from house and loft (attic), try and get some sort of routines going, and decorate the rooms in the house that I haven't got to yet (despite living here four years already) I've given myself all year to do that so I'm not exactly rushed off my feet lol.

I will start this weekend by organising, um....something....I will get back to you when I decide what

Honey x

Fortunately for me my current home doesn't really have any usable attic space, and my previous home was a flat, so this forces me to keep reasonably on top of my clutter. Now I have a garage (and no hope of putting any cars in there) and it's definitely cluttered already. My parents have been attacking their attic in the last couple of months - it all started with me doing a primary blitz on one cupboard and they sort of took over from there. I know how bad it has been, although I know other family members are far worse with no hope of recovery.

Attics are large pits to put things out of sight and out of mind so you can ignore them till you move. If you don't move for 20yrs or more you end up with a LOT of clutter insulating your house!! On this one and only point I can be a little virtuous, simply because I've been trained without one.

Routines however are a totally different matter as Honey knows. I think working outside the home probably helps to impose some more sensible routines, but there are many other things which I would do better if they were routine. With one child starting back at school on Monday and the other starting tomorrow I'm hoping to see some return to normality by next Monday.

I January. The after-Christmas chaos, letdown, lack of routine, yucky weather with nothing to look forward to, lack of light.... It makes me feel seriously restless and irritable. Just as well we're off to Singapore for CNY - week today - HA!!! A week or so of sunshine might just be enough to get me through till Easter.

Meantime I'll just have to survive by moving some furniture and annoying all the people around me. Just as well I now pay people to get annoyed by me!!!

Kerri.

...well, we have one (two actually) but we don't use them.

Routines: we have those...but don't actually use them either!

Hi Songbh! I'm a newly full-time teacher, too: high school in Ohio. My kiddos are pretty self sufficient (they're 17 and almost 13) and extremely helpful in keeping the house running. DH pretty much keeps the laundry pile to a manageable level which leaves me primarily in the roles of meal planning/preparation and family logistics!

I'm up and out of the house by 6:15am right now...I'll have to change that mid-January because I have early hall-duty and will probably leave by 6:00am. DH covers the mornings when he's not out-of-town, and when he is, the girls just get themselves off to school.

Hi Honey....."new" beau?

Good to see you Kerri! I think of you often, too. Have a wonderful holiday and "safe journey" into the New Year!

I have to pop over and wish blessings on Zillah and her newest addition, too.

I did get the holiday decor all down and mostly put away. The last of the kitchen "stuff" came out of the dishwasher and washing machine/dryer this afternoon and those boxes still need carried to the basement. DH is out-of-town so that won't happen until probably Thursday. I also got my upstairs pantry shelves organized and inventoried. I haven't made it to the basement yet. It won't happen this week-end either, our older scouts are handling the lunch stand for a regional canine agility club competition and that will pretty much take up the week-end. (we've done one competition already last November) They're earning money for the "last" camp out (FEBRUARY 29! Brrrrrrrr!) and for their Gold Award Ceremony this spring.

Well, it's almost 10:00 pm and I still have a project rubric to develop for Child Development class' last presentation...they need it tomorrow! (Can you say "procrastination?")

Love to all!
Lenora

The routine of the mother of a 1 week old baby

wake, feed, nappy change, feed, nappy change, nappy change (how do they know to wait until there's a lovely clean nappy to explode into?), feed, hastily stuff food into self and DD3 and selves into clothes, feed, nappy change . . . . .

Not that I mind, we're having a lovely babymoon here. DH has two weeks of paternity leave and DD1week is a remarkably peaceable and stress-free baby so far, so it's a kind of holiday at home.

Fairly soon I'll have to work out some routine to get us all out of the house in one piece on the days on which DD3 goes to nursery school, but that can wait a while.

Lovely to read everyone's news.

Zillah

are generally much easier on everyone, because you're much less uptight and you've realised that some things are just unrealistic, like clean clothes and food on the table at mealtimes!! That said, DS was anything but an easy baby, but they should be easier if they don't have a personality disorder that stops them from sleeping for 3yrs like DS.

I'm trying to get a few things done that have been on hold for a while. My father's just informed that I can expect to source everything for our revamped ensuite shower, not just hand over cash and expect it to magically appear (with lots of dust, muck and noise of course). That's a pain, but the January sale I need is lasting till the end of January so I didn't have to spend a lot of money today and find I'd made loads of mistakes. The plumber's been and made some notes for his estimate. He called me yesterday so I have to get back to him.

Kerri.

Or, as our health visitor said 'with second babies you know what you're meant to do, but you know what works for you, so everything's much more straightforward.'

DH and I are working on routines this week, with the idea that the shock won't be too terrible next week when he goes back to work. Central to this is getting to bed by 10. It was 10.30 last night, so not too bad for a first attempt. Other than that the flat is in chaos as we try to redesign the large built-in cupboard in the girl's room to give more storage space. Of course everything has had to come out of it first . . .

Zillah

we didn't even make it to the end of January before giving in to our various realities. How sad.

I'm not even sure I'm with it enough to give you an update. The shower room has been postponed for financial reasons, but... and you'll love this... I've instead spent an obscene amount of money on 4 tickets for the new Eagles tour in March!!! Some of you may remember my deep regret at not being able to watch them in Singapore about 4yrs ago - the regret stayed so this time I declined to be put off by the cost of the tickets. Of course they were over double the cost of the Singapore concerts, but I didn't need a new shower room anyway!!!

that's my lot for now. Anyone else care to contribute - all stories of failings very much welcome!

Kerri.

Well, I have some very few triumphs, which are enormous when you have a four week old baby Yesterday I cleaned the loo! On Saturday I moved the wardrobe which I built the weekend before out of the sitting room and into the bedroom! We've eaten proper food almost every day! We will not drown in laundry for at least two days!

On the down side the dust bunnies may soon take over the asylum, the space to eat at on our kitchen table gets smaller and smaller as the mess expands, and our sitting room is still uninhabitable due to boxes, piles of stuff and a bicycle!

Bad luck on the shower room, Kerri, at least you get a concert to look forward to

Zillah