New Year's Goal

New year's goal this year is to have a cleaner and more organized home. I love having a clean home but for some reason it doesn't happen very often. It's like I go in spurts or something, one day the house is clean and then the next it's dirty and it stays that way and builds up until I am like "okay, it's time to clean this house". Why can't I clean my house and keep it clean? I always list off reasons in my head when my house is dirty to make myself feel better like how i have a two year old, or how I don't have a dishwasher, or if I clean it will make me neglect other important things that i need to do that day. So I came up with a plan to make a once a week, six hour house clean up into an hour to hour-and-a-half house clean up each day...

First I made a list of all the rooms in my house and listed under each room what needs to be done to make it deep-cleaned and spotless. I also created a list of "other" things that  would need to be done like laundry and grocery shopping. I then decided to do something each day of the week, a "chore." Some days of the week have multiple things for that day, so i combined easier things together. So each day, i now have a room or two as a daily chore but what about the rest of the house? I need to have time to clean up all the messes made through out the day. Oh - and what about dishes?

I will have two 30 minute clean up times - one in the middle of the day right before or during my son's nap and then a second one right before and after my son goes to bed. Now the "right-befores" would be if vacuuming needs to be done. I try and have Ollie help clean up his toys so i don't normally count that into my time. I will if i am doing it alone. So that gives me an hour of clean up time and a daily deep clean chore each day. Now to me that seems doable, that gives me time to clean but doesn't make me have to do it all in one day, each day!!

I have a second list that has all the things that I want to organize from the small to the big that I have also thrown in to do biweekly. I think once I get those all done, I will repeat the list because I am sure they will need it again and again and again.

I have been doing this for one week so far and I am loving it!!! I have had people stop by to give me back borrowed stuff or drop off late Christmas presents, and I have not felt embarrassed by how my house looks or just talked to them in the door way but invited them into my home. We had some friends over for dinner and I didn't have to spend hours getting my house clean. Or when I cook dinner, I don't have to make space on the counter or was a dish needed to make dinner. Like I said, I am loving it!!!

Oh Ollie!

Oh Oliver. How many times a day do I say that? He gives me a great big hug when he gets up, Oh Ollie, so cute I love you. He throws his breakfast onto the floor making a huge mess, Oh Oliver, really... It is so crazy how many things bring out those two little words.

Oliver is in the stage of being a picky eater and he can be very stubborn. Yesterday he came up to Corey with his cup asking for some juice. There was a bottle of un-opened grape juice on the table that he was pointing at, so Corey opened the fridge and pulled out a bottle of grape juice that had already been opened and filled his cup. Oliver started freaking out and threw his cup on the floor. Corey, being confused, asked me what was wrong. Figuring out that he wanted the one on the table, I pretended to pour some into his cup. Now satisfied, he drank his juice. Oh Oliver!  

This last week the weather has been so nice we have gone on lots of walks, as we are walking Oliver will say "slide" and "wee" which is his way of saying he wants to go to the park. So we go. He loves playing on the playground and going down the slide, he loves running around with all the other kids and doing what they are doing. It is so fun for me to watch him grow and interact with other children. When it's time to go Oliver climbs into the stroller and as we are walking away he starts waiving and says "bye slide" and "bye kids". Oh Oliver, your so cute!

After Oliver wakes up from his nap and has his snack, he has so much energy. He rides his toy truck, plays tag/hide and seek with mommy or dances to his singing farm toy. He also really loves to run around the house dragging a ribbon around behind him, with our cat Rex chasing it. Oliver loves playing with his Rexy. Sometimes when he plays with him he can get rough, he tries to pick him up, or he lays down and put his head on Rexy's belly or just lays down on him. I say "Oh Ollie, be soft" or "Oh Oliver, don't do that". That poor kitty, but he is so good with Oliver! Those two are so cute together and always have been!

Having Oliver has made our lives so busy and has made our home so full of life. The good and the bad, the fun and the frustrating. So the number of times that I say "Oh Oliver" add up to make a great day, sometimes frustrating but still great!

Cooking

Continuing with my challange to improve, I want to work on my cooking skills. I enjoy cooking and baking and would love to get better. This will require me to get out of my comfort zone and start making more then my 25ish dinner recipes that I make over and over again and stop making desserts that come in a box. 

Food just makes people more happy. For me cooking is relaxing and satisfying, especially when everyone loves the food and are vocal about it! :) The smell of something cooking brightens a home and makes it more of a welcoming and inviting place. Eating yummy food satisfies the hunger and the soul. 

Along with cooking, I love hosting. Having friends and family over, eating my cooking, playing games and laughing around the table. Eating together is a great way to bond, strengthen relationships and get to know new people. 

I want to strengthen relationships and make new friends eating yummy food and enjoying each others company. So I am on the look out for new recipes. I have a goal to make at least 5 new recipes a month, to grow my recipe book and better my cooking. 

If you have a great recipe that you would like to share, I would love that. 

A New Skill

So my last post I talked about needing more hobbies, to gain more skills and to better myself. So this post is about that. I want to have something I can do when Ollie is sleeping and the house is quiet. So this new skill is Sewing. I would love to be able to make curtains for my windows, Halloween costumes for my family, and other fun projects. I think this is a great new hobby for me. It will give me time for myself but it will also better my home and family. So I now have a sewing machine.

I grew up around sewers, my sister Jenessa is very crafty and is pretty amazing! If I ever need help with my projects it is her that I call (she has already helped me in getting started with my first project). I took some sewing classes in high school and learned to do the basics and how to read a pattern, so I have some basic knowledge on this topic. It's been about 7 years since I have done any sewing and don't really remember much, but I am hopeful that once I start it will all come back to me pretty quick.

I have a few fun projects that I think will be great starters for me and I really hope that I can pick it up. I am most nervous with reading the patterns and getting it right. I remember struggling with patterns when I was learning and now I am not sure that I really remember anything about it. This is the one I picked to do first, it's a sewing machine cover and organize pockets. I thought that if I did this first, then I would have them for the other projects that I do.

So wish me luck and hope that I don't ruin the lots of fabric needed for this project. I will keep you in the loop on how this all turns out and show you the finished works.

Balance

Okay so I have been thinking, I need to do something that will better myself, something that helps me feel like I am accomplishing something. I feel that through getting married and having a baby I do less things for myself, spending my time on everyone else or wasting it by doing a lot of nothings. 

In high school I was involved in sports and have always found ways to continue playing them, but I have relized I haven't played much sense being pregnant and having Ollie. I worked and now I stay home. I stayed up late hanging out with friends, reading or doing whatever and now I am lucky to make it to 11. I love being a stay at home mom, I love watching my 1 year old grow. It is one of the most amazing things to be a mom and I would never want anything different. 

I am a wife and a mother, but I am so much more. I need to take more time for myself, to find things that make me a better person. I compare myself to what I used to do, to what I do now and feel as though I am not fulfilling my full potential. 

So basically I am saying that I want to push myself to do more. To play sports, to cook more, to exercise, to keep up on cleaning the house, to gain more hobbies, making more friends and being more social, to get involved in the world around me and still be a great stay at home mom. 

I am not sure how I am going to do this yet but I am determined to find ways to make my life feel more balanced. Are there ways that you have found that help you feel more balanced? Well wish me luck!

Acceptance

Wow it has been a while sense I have been on here! With it being winter we just haven't done much that I have wanted to write about.  I have been feeling like what I do with my time is lame. No one wants to read about the lame day to day, same old boring things that a stay at home mom does. What I wanted to do with this blog is to just write about anything and everything, the same old boring day to day things. So it seems that I am just being to critical with wanting my posts to be awesome, I did this for me and not for who reads it. So no more being critical and judging myself to harshly. I will be better! 

So on the note of being better I am going to write about the thing I am struggling with the most, My body! When we got married in December 2010 I weighed 130, at my last Doctors appointment when I was pregnant June 2012 I weighed 209, and now March 2014 I weigh 155. I have lost about 60 of the 80 lbs that I gained and would really love to lose the rest of it. But the weight is only part of it. 

The weight I gained while being pregnant was a quick gain which of course gave me stretch marks everywhere. And my stomach was pretty much stretched to the max so now I have a lot of stretched out skin. The birth ended up needing to be a c-section giving me a scar and a pouch that will probably never go away. 

So I am struggling with these feelings of not being pretty or sexy. I have a pretty bad muffin top, which is hard for me to find a shirt that looks good on me. So I put on shirt after shirt, getting more discouraged and having more negative feelings about myself. Some days I feel great, self accepting and I look pretty.  On these days I think it is more, state of mind then my actual appearance. 

So on being less harsh and judgemental on myself, I want to be more accepting on me as a whole. To like me as a person and view myself as whole and not fat, ugly and broken. To accept myself on who I am and not how I look, to find talents and hobbies that better myself, to eat healthy and exercise, to be HAPPY!

Cabin Fever

Being a stay at home mom during the winter is a hard thing to be. I have found myself wasting my day with doing a whole lot of nothings. Heating our 150 year old house is kind of hard to do and pricey too, so some days Ollie and I stay in our warm Pajamas, sweats or on the couch under blankets. So those days turn into lazy days reading books, doing puzzles, coloring or watching TV.

The TV doesn't really work for Ollie because he only watches a few movies and for only a few minutes and it is not a good thing for me because I tend to watch too much of it. Once it's turned on it's hard to turn it off. I have this thing that if I start watching movies that have sequels or a TV show, I want to watch the whole series. But I turn it on because I hate my house too quiet or I am bored. It's a hard, deep rut for me to fall into, and it's harder and deeper in the winter.

Being outside is a great way to destract Oliver and me, to get fresh air and to exercise. It motivates me to be better and to fill my day with somethings rather then nothings. When it is winter it is hard to be outside with sicknesses, bad weather and being just plain cold! And a lot of the indoor places to go to cost money, so we find ourselves at home most of the time.

My husband and I only have one car and so we share. During the summer this is quite easy because we usually walk when we can and drive only when we need to, making the car available more often. Corey works about a mile from our home and a park and the library are just a few blocks away. But these close places seem much much farther away when it's 20 degrees outside or worse. So driving the car is done for all needs, big or small. 

Our cabin fevers are burning quite hot and our activities are dwindling fast. I have found myself being affected by a depression that is brought on by doing too much of nothing but have no ideas of what I should do. My poor Ollie has a lot of energy and is getting sick of the same old things. Please share what you do during these winter months that keep you sane and your children happy!