Company Girl Coffee Week 1

Company Girl Coffee...man, it has been awhile since I have participated in this weekly meet up!

There have been so many things lately that I could share with you all, but I am not sure where to even start.

December was an interesting month for my family. We had so many things happening all at once! For starters, the kids and I attended church services all but one Sunday, when a family Christmas coincided with services.

Jeriah, my little six year old Aspie (which is no longer an official diagnosis anymore), has been having a rough run at school since the beginning of November. He has been suspended once, has been in the Alternate Learning Environment room countless times, but December showed marked improvement for him at school.

We are pushing for Jeriah to get an IEP at school. His behavioral psychologist thinks he should have one also. The school has been extremely resistant to putting him on one, opting to exhaust every possible resource that they can. We'll see what happens though. Jeriah was in Special Education from the time he was a year and a half old until he was four and a half.

This year, at one of our meetings for Jeriah, the school recommemded that he be placed in the Differentiated Math class (which I recommended last year as he is able to do his sister's homework with ease and without instruction).

I have a feeling that by the end of this school year, he will be in both Differentiated Education and Special Education. He's just that kind of kid.

Earlier this month , when we were at church, Hubby had the day off of work and I had asked him to join us. He dropped us off at church with plans to come back after services were over to pick us up. I had a feeling, call it intuition, that he should stick around that day, but he really didn't want to and so I didn't press the issue.

Sacrament meeting went well enough. Jeriah kept his shoes (which are likely to be thrown at a moment's notice) to himself and behaved fairly well for the most part. Second hour came and it was time for our Sunday School classes. Jeriah ran off to his class and was ready before I had even gathered my bags from the meeting.

During Sunday School, Jeriah was escorted into my class by his teacher, who was holding Jeriah's hands over his head and steering him in the direction he needed to go. I excused myself from class and went out into the hall, hoping to get Jeriah back on track. It didn't work. As I struggled with him and desperately tried to reach my husband, I was quickly losing patience. It was heart-wrenching to experience. I have never had such a dificult time with any of the kids (him included) as I did that day.

When I finally got ahold of Hubby, I tearfully (partially sad, mostly angry) begged him to come back and get this child. Then I went out into the foyer to sit and wait for Hubby to show up.

The next Sunday was the one we missed for the family Christmas. By the following Sunday, I asked Hubby to please please please come to church with us. That way, I wouldn't have to miss any of my classes if Jeriah acted up. He agreed.

The plan was for Hubby to sit with us during Sacrament meeting and then to hang out in the foyer during second and third hour classes. I told him that he could bring the laptop to play on or surf the web while hewaiting for us, but that it was important that he remain there during that time so that I wouldn't miss my classes.

Jeriah didn't need to be removed that week (or the following week) so I think having Hubby there is having a positive kmpact on Jeriah.

The second week that Hubby was there, I actually did miss my Sunday School class. We sat in the foyer together and talked about a calling at church that we had been asked to consider accepting. We also discussed some activities that my church recommends that families do together each week and we went over the first lesson in the manual. I missed my class, but I felt that it was a very worthwhile cause for which to miss.

Also during the month, we had received some major acts of kindness from a church member that I barely knew by sight. Our hvac system in our home is rated for efficiency for half the square footage of our home. During the summer, our home gets very very hot and during the winter, it gets very very cold. We supplement our hvac system with either fans or space heaters.

During this month, our two best space heaters went out. They are meant for part-time, supplementary use, not the nearly full- time primary use we were needing from them. This gentleman was pulled out of his bed at 11pm to dig out two space heaters they had and bring them over with her. I had no clue that she might do that. I had posted on facebook my frustration about our hvac situation and she jumped to action.

When they dropped the heaters off, the husband said he could probably help take a look at our system and maybe come up with a partial, temporary fix. I figured, in all honesty, that it was an empty offer. But it wasn't. Within four days, he had recruited the missionaries from our ward and between the three of them, my husband and two of our boys, the hvac system was greatly improved. As it turned out, there were points in the system where the ductwork wasn't even attached to the vents that the air was supposed to be coming out of. So while the system itself still is too small, we no longer have cold air coming in through the vents.

As a result of that day, I asked the missionaries to stay for dinner, which Hubby was completely fine with. They agreed, even though I ended up stealing them away from my visiting teaching companion, who was supposed to feed them that night.

All that being said, there was a huge change in Hubby this past month. He went from not wanting to have anything to do with anyone from church (not even wanting them to come over) to not only having them over, but hosting them for dinner, attending church with us, accepting a calling at church, working to plan and implement the weekly family lessons that are recommended and being a huge encouragement to the kids and I in spiritual matters. He even attended a dinner and game night that a friend from church hosted, in which he was the only non-member present. The best part was that he really enjoyed himself. No pressure, just good family fun.

Wow. That ended up being quite the post! I have another lengthy topic, but I will save that one for next week. Have a wonderful day, ladies! It's so good to be back!

Sickliness

This week has been a week for the sickies. I got sick early on in the week, to the extent that had my Nursery co-leader already planned on not being at church, I would have stayed home. But, as it was the first day for Cephas to pass Sacrament and that my co-leader was absent, I decided that it would be best for me to push through and teach last Sunday. It was a great experience! I even met someone that is new(ish) to our ward, because our Nursery Presidency took pity on me with the babies and went to the Relief Society Presidency and asked them to offer a Sister from there to help me the third hour.

Then I came home and was sick, sick, sick on the couch for the next day and a half or so.  I didn't really get to feeling bad until after church on Sunday, so I'm praying that I didn't pass anything on. It was like a really bad cold, to the point that I thought maybe I had bronchitis. As it turns out, I didn't have bronchitis, but man, it was horrible!

It hit hard for a good two days, but by Wednesday, I was at work (Monday was a holiday - no school or work on that day for us!) and by Thursday, I had three kids home sick. I sent them all to school on Friday, as I was subbing for someone else that day and Hubby was working as well. Plus, they seemed like they were well enough to be at school that day. We also skipped out on Scouts on Thursday night, even though it was the Pinewood Derby, because I just wasn't feeling well enough to do that.

On Friday, my mother-in-law took the kids overnight and I guess Jeriah had a rough time over there. He was just so miserable with his sinuses. My mother-in-law was worried that he had strep throat because Koren had that about a week and a half ago, but I assured her that he didn't have it. It was just a severe cold/sinus issue.

On Saturday, I worked on the house all morning long. I have had piles and piles and piles of clean laundry sitting in my room needing to be taken care of. I sorted through the clothes that I was working on and from that portion, I found 2 1/2 bags worth of clothes to donate. I reduced my clothing to sale/give away or consign to just one single tote and either folded or hung the rest. However, I didn't put it away. I was so excited because short of actually finishing the job on the portion of clothes that I had worked through, I felt like I had really accomplished a lot. Don't look in my closet at the six baskets waiting to be folded or hung in there. I sorted but didn't mate the socks and I sorted out the under clothes, but didn't do anything with them, other than put them all in their own basket.

My older boys (Cephas and Koren) worked really hard doing extra stuff here around the house, freeing me up some to take care of Jeriah and to do my own work that I need to get done won't let them do.

Saturday night, Jeriah had another rough night as this cold has really been hitting him hard. But we all got a decent night of sleep. I had forgotten that Hubby had to go to work in the morning for a meeting, so we ended up staying home from church today, which was just as well, being that Jeriah STILL hasn't been feeling 100% yet. And let me tell you, an autistic child during church services can already be a handful, an autistic child who sometimes still naps during church services can be even more of a handful. But an autistic child who sometimes still naps AND is sick? During church services? Forget about it. Often times, with Jeriah, I am exhausted by the time I hit the Nursery after Sacrament Meeting and I still have two hours to go! Add to it that I'm still not 100% myself and yeah, it's just out of my capability right now.

However, due to the fact that we stayed home, the older boys helped me out immensely today. They did their regular chores, then they did a little bit extra around the house, helped me out by cleaning up Oralee and Jeriah's room so that I could go in there, sort through and organize their toys and build them their toy storage and get it all set up and arranged and everything. Then, just because they wanted to be extra helpful, they did like six loads of laundry. Which means that I now have six.more.loads.of.laundry.to.fold. On top of the six baskets still in my closet. Don't get me wrong, I'm completely grateful for the help. But I'm feeling a little bit overwhelmed by the laundry situation. And yes, I know that we have too many clothes. I'm working on it. Truly, I am! The last round of laundry that I did, I got rid of nearly a third of the clothes that I went through. I figure if I can get rid of a third of the clothes each time I'm doing laundry this next month, we'll be down to a reasonable, doable amount of clothes. Koren doesn't really need 20 pairs of pants (jeans/windpants/slacks/etc), Oralee really doesn't need 50+ pairs of bottoms either (leggings, skirts, skorts, capris, jeans, etc.) And for the most part, all of her pieces are interchangable, so it really isn't necessary for her to have all of that. It's just not.

And just now as I am typing this, Koren came rushing out of his room to the bathroom due to an upset stomach and he didn't make it. Glad that Hubby is home tomorrow to take care of sick kids, since I have to work. Poor kiddos. Poor Hubby!

Back At It!

Things got pretty hectic there for a bit in our life and I took an unintentional bloggy break. It happens.

Since I have left off (last real blog post was Friday, January 13th, right?) a lot has happened. I am going to rely partially on my Facebook statuses and partially on my calendar and partially on my memory to update you all on what has been going on in my life - at home, at work and at play, so without further ado...


On Friday and Saturday (13th and 14th), I wasn't feeling well. I had a major headache/migraine that left me feeling absolutely horrible and pretty much confined to the couch. Thankfully, I have bigger kids that are huge helps when I need them to be. They knew that I had wanted to make some changes in their rooms and they did the heavy lifting work for me.

Cephas and Koren took apart Koren's bed and moved the pieces of it into the living room next to the bar, then slid Cephas' mattress under Koren's bed. You see, we have plans to get the three boys a new bunkbed with trundle drawer for another mattress. That way, all three boys can have a  bed with the "footprint" of all the beds taking up the same floor area of their room as just one twin bed. However, we needed more space right away.

I had also wanted to have the boys and Oralee change dressers. The boys had an eight drawer dresser that was constantly driving me nuts because I would fold their shirts and put them away and within a few days, every single shirt would be crumpled up in their drawer, no matter how I folded them and arranged them. It drove me NUTS! So I decided (after talking with them to see what would work best for them) to start hanging all of their shirts and pants. So they only needed a dresser for underclothes, pjs and shorts. Yes, shorts. Even though it is January and we do live in a climate that is generally colder this time of year, it has been a really warm winter and we have had days in 70s, so yes, shorts.

Anyhow, to get back to the subject matter at hand, the boys traded out their 8 drawer dresser for their sister's 5 drawer chest of drawers. It's the perfect amount of drawer space for the two boys but I was going to have to figure something else out for Jeriah's clothing.

Next item up on the busy agenda: Girl Scout cookies started selling on January 13th. We have been BUSY  with that! Oralee has made it to the 150-200 box mark without really even trying for sales and we have only done door-to-door sales for the distance of one block, going up one side of the street and down the other, skipping the houses that were unlikely to purchase. It's a block that we visit EVERY fundraiser, EVERY Halloween, EVERY...well, everything. They are good supporters of my children. They are also my inlaw's neighbors. That helps, I'm sure.

Then all that week, I was feeling incredibly run-down. Not sick exactly, but just feeling absolutely tired and exhausted. I was ready to go back to bed for the day before I even got out of it. Man, that was a difficult week. Still, I did all my mommy-duty stuff. That was also the week that Hubby went full-time and started working six days a week, so it was definitely all on mom to get stuff done. I did too. Housework (although the standard for that week may have been lowered) and volunteering at school and bringing treats to school for Cephas' birthday and making special dinners for Cephas' birthday week and running kids to activities and going out for visiting teaching and helping kids with homework, and all that other mommy-duty stuff that I love doing. It was just hard to keep up with it all that week.

My inlaw's have also been getting a house ready to be put onto the market. They bought a house for my youngest brother-in-law to live in while he went to college. He is still in college but after living in the house for three years has decided that he wants to live in an apartment closer to campus, so he and his roommates moved out and now his parents are busy fixing the place up so that they can sell it.

They had offered it to Hubby and I last year, but we didn't want to renew our lease at the house where we were living and brother-in-law wouldn't have been moving out in a timeframe that would work with our timeframe, so instead we got the house where we live now.

After being in the other house, I figure that it could have worked well for us, but it isn't a huge loss to us. Besides, the payments for the house that we are buying and all the utilities are still less than just the house payment for the other place. It's a cute house though. If our finances were different and if it didn't require the kids to change schools again, it could be a top contender. Such a cute cute house!

Oh - the reason I mentioned the house was because the inlaw's have been cleaning it out and we were given some things from there that we had to go pick up and bring home. At this point, we have been given a large rug (berber style to go under our table in our dining room), a dresser (for the boys' room) and a clothing rack (for me to use when I'm ironing clothes). We have also been offered a nice blue leather couch that we are still deciding on.

I started feeling better the following week and did a thorough scrubbing down in my bathroom. And I mean THOROUGH! I cleaned the shower, the tub, the tub surround, the vanity and sink, the mirror, the toilet and the floor. Then I moved onto the chair rail, the bead board and the baseboards. I decluttered and organized and made it all nice and neat. Yeah, I kicked it into high gear in that room. It needed it big time and I was so happy when it was all done! Oh - and I also did like 8 loads of laundry that day too.

Little Oralee came down with a cold about a week ago that kept her up most of one night coughing and just feeling miserable. Jeriah had croup earlier in the month but the spacing wasn't right for that to be Oralee's issue. So anyhow, she had this cold that turned her high-pitch girly five year old voice into a husky, funny sounding voice for the first four or five days. It was ADORABLE! I loved hearing her talk when she was sick because it was just so different from her regular voice (her regular voice is adorable as well - this sick voice just had a different quality of adorable). She is much better now.

My status update from Thursday, January 26th pretty much sums up my life right now though. I'll post it here:
"Busy day so far! Hubby up and out of the door by 8 am, four kids up and out of the door by 8:20 am, dropped kids at school, went to Hubby's work to drop off Girl Scout cookies (and made a few more sales) and then off to our "home visit" with Jeriah's teacher. Came home, fed the boy, now time for some cleaning and then will get him ready for school, put him on the bus, head over to the school myself, do Thursday folder and then pick up kids, get them to do chores/homework, music practice, fix dinner and out the door for an activity this evening. Busy busy day it will be! This is my favorite job (being a mom)!

Of course, that night, Cephas had a homework assignment that I didn't understand AT ALL, even though we tried and tried and tried working at it, so I ended up meeting with his teacher the next morning before school. Then, when we ran into the same issue on Friday evening, I emailed her, per her suggestion. She emailed me back. On a Friday night. With an explanation and words of encouragement. Awesome teacher!

The neighbor girl that I had been taking care of quite a bit has been spending less time at our house lately. I did watch her this past Saturday while her mom ran an errand across town (about an hour and a half). We ran an errand as well but it was one that was close by our homes and of course, with her mom's permission. She and Koren were starting to bicker and I didn't feel like dealing with it so I just separated them and decided that was the PERFECT time to run the errand. She ended up mad at me though because I sent her home when her mom got home. She wanted to stay and eat dinner with us and watch a movie and stay the night. I told her that maybe she could do it this next weekend. We'll see what happens though.

Today I have to get some work done around the house. I have a LONG list of chores for Jeriah and I to do. The last Tuesday of the month, Jeriah doesn't have school and the other kids get out of school early so that teachers can meet and plan together. I wish that had happened yesterday though! It was 70* out. And today, the day that they get out early, the high is only supposed to be like 55*. That's just the way things happen sometimes though.

And tomorrow, one of my best friends is going to come over and spend the day with me. I have no idea what we are going to do but we are going to spend the day together at any rate. It should be lots of fun! Before that though, I really want to get the house to looking nice. It will be the first time she has come over here, so I'm a little bit nervous. I am always nervous the first time that someone comes over. I'm not sure why, I just always am.

I can't wait though! Big day of cleaning and projects today. Hubby has some plans to rearrange the furniture in the living room and front room (yes, again - even though we JUST did it and loved the way it was arranged!)  in a few weeks. Before that, I need to continue to declutter. I have been keeping tally marks on my dry-erase board of how many items I have gotten rid of so far this month and I am now up to:

For the year 2012, I am up to a grand total of: 56 items.
Which means I have 1956 items left to go and 48 weeks to do it in.

I have also been doing really well with my goals for this year that I wanted to do each week. I don't really feel motivated to keep tracking those though. I think I just bogged myself down with those. I will continue with the 2012 in 2012 though. I really really enjoy that particular challenge!

I plan to return with regular posting now. Yay! Hope to see you around here! Oh and a quick mention I want to make. You should check out Heather's blog. She has been doing the 2012 in 2012 as well! Way to go Heather!

Changes This Week

Good morning! Why don't you come on in and sit for a spell? I don't have any coffee on (though I could put some on, if you'd like) and visit for a bit. I'll try to keep this on the shorter side as I have a lot to do today.

It's been a semi-busy week and yesterday, I let things go. But I'll get back to that in a bit. This past weekend at Hubby's work, someone quit on the spot. Just up and quit. Hubby has taken over this guy's hours as well as his own. It'll be nice when the paycheck shows up for it. Unfortunately, that won't be til the first payday in February, but that's okay. We'll make it work.

The Neighbor Girl, My Kids and Family and Friendship
I have had the neighbor girl every day after school and it has been going REALLY well. She loves coming over to my house after school and I'm not quite sure why. On Tuesday, she was sick and her stepdad's mom came to stay with her for the day. (My phone was dead and by the time, I was able to call her mom back, she was busy and had her phone turned off so she didn't get my message in time that I could take her daughter.)

On Wednesday, the girl's mom didn't need me to take her before school because the mom didn't need to be at her appointment until 10am. However, on Tuesday, one of the ladies that teaches at church asked me to go over to the church on Wednesday and pick up a food order for someone, so that is where I spent a large portion of my Wednesday morning. Then, I stopped in at Hubby's work to grab a bite to eat (I have about $50 or so in gift cards to use there and I get a discount on top of it, so a really good deal) and to try to have lunch with him. But he was almost done and it wouldn't have made sense to have him take a break right at the end of his shift, so I ate without him.

When it was almost time to pick up kids, I called my neighbor to see if I needed to pick up her daughter as well. She said that her daughter was really upset that morning because she didn't get to come over to my house before school and that it would probably make her daughter pretty happy if I picked her up. So I did.

We had to stop at her house on the way home to drop off some stuff and I went in and talked to our neighbor for a little bit. Her daughter had a chance to come in at that point, but chose not to.

When we finally got home, I had the kids do their homework and gave them a snack (which is our regular routine for after school) then they played video games (we have puzzle-solving games on the wii so I figure at least it is something that they have to think about and work for, right?) then sent the girl home at dinnertime.

Yesterday, when I was walking up to the school to pick my kids up (I no longer needed to take the girl before and after school because her mom's need for that was temporary), the neighbor calls me and asks me to pick up the girl and I agreed to do it. It really isn't any extra work for me, I mean, I'm already there doing that exact thing. It's just using one more seat in my van and at my table. One more snack and one more kid to help with homework. No biggie.

We get back to our home and the kids come in and get started on their homework, then snack, then a game. I drove the girl home just before dinner (yes, she only lives a short distance from us but it was VERY VERY cold and I wasn't going to make her walk in it, I didn't want to walk to her house in it and I definitely didn't want to walk to her house AND back in it) and talked with her mom for about an hour. It was nice to have that time. I get the impression that her mom doesn't really have that many people to talk to in a grown-up conversation and to be able to REALLY talk, you know? It was really nice. I enjoyed it.

Time Management and A Bad Schedule
This week, I have also been battling a bad sleep schedule and really bad headaches most of the day that evolve into migraines shortly after dinner. This past week, I have been waking up around 4:30am and I have been getting tired (and going to sleep for the night) around 7:30pm. My kids' bedtime is 8:30pm. So Hubby has been left on his own for the evening and bedtime routine. Poor guy!

Yesterday morning, even though I had a ton of stuff to get done, I went back to bed for a couple of hours after Hubby went to work. I was hoping that by getting some additional sleep earlier in the day, it would afford me the ability to stay up until, oh, I don't know? 9:30pm, 10:00pm? Something more reasonable than 7:30pm, at least. So I did it, then I went to the school to do my normal Thursday afternoon volunteering session (stuffing Thursday folders in Cephas' fifth grade class and Koren's second grade class) then going home for a bit before going back to get him and the others. Needless to say, I didn't get a whole lot done around the house. In fact, I don't think I have done ANY housework since Wednesday. Yeah, that doesn't go so well. I mean, that's like 36 hours of no housework being done. Scary. Honestly, it doesn't look that bad, thanks to some changes we have made around here.

Volunteering and Work

After doing second grade's folders and before doing fifth grade's folders, I ran over to Hubby's work to see if he was done yet because we are sharing a vehicle right now while mine is in the shop being repaired. He wasn't done, but he was close. His head manager (the store's general manager) was sitting at a table across the room and he saw me and waved. I waved back and relaxed there for a bit, drinking a complimentary diet soda and eating on some complimentary french fries (told ya I get taken care of there!) and out of the blue, Hubby's GM stands up, points at me and says, "You're fired!" It's a running joke. He fires me nearly every day that we are both there. I don't work there, have never worked for him, yet he fires me all the time. :) Weird, I know. But he's a fun guy.

Hubby got off work and went with me to finish up fifth grade's folders and then I found out that he had been promoted to prep trainer. Yay! He makes an extra $3.00 an hour when he trains AND he gets a free meal (yes, I sometimes get free food and he still has to pay for his usually) so that is pretty cool. I keep telling him that he needs to take advantage of his free meal when he gets it but he usually passes on it. Oh well. Probably healthier that way, I suppose.

Oh and my plan of napping earlier in the day worked. I was able to stay awake until 10:30pm last night before crashing. And I slept through until my alarm woke me up at 6:00am. Do you know how long it has been since I have slept through until my alarm woke me up? (Okay, last Wednesday, but before that it had been quite awhile as well) It is wonderful to sleep until your alarm goes off. I felt so excited about it! I woke Hubby up to tell him how happy I was to wake up that early. He wasn't nearly as thrilled as I was though. Hmmm, wonder why? ;)

Plans
So that was my week in a nutshell. Today, I have a lot on my agenda. I need to tidy up the house from the last 36 hours and then I have some ideas that I want to put into action in the kids' bedrooms. Oralee received a new bed last week from a co-worker of mine and then this week, she received a new vanity from some friends of ours. Her room is getting considerably more girly by the minute, I tell you! And I LOVE it! I never thought I would drink in all this girly froo-froo stuff but it is so cool and wonderful! I have some changes to make in her room (remove her dresser and set up a different system for clothing storage) and then in the boys' room (make a trundle drawer for Cephas' mattress to go on and get rid of one of the bed frames, move Oralee's dresser into the boys' room for the boys to have more clothing storage for them and rearrange their room just a bit) plus, I have a clean home challenge and an organized home challenge that I am working on as well. So I have those things to do. One thing is for sure, it is never boring in this house! :)

I hope you are all having a wonderful week as well! And many wishes for you and your family to have a wonderful weekend and next week too! Thanks for dropping by for my (long-winded) update for this week!

2012 Resolutions

Yesterday, while the kids were working on their chores (and they did a very nice job on them for the most part) Cephas came up to me and was asking about resolutions. He said that he wants to make some for this year. Miss Lil Oralee already did make two, which she shared with me, and it got me to thinking that I should make some as well. I have my goals for Organizing My Life and a number of those goals actually directly correspond with some of my resolutions.

But without further ado, here are (some of) my resolutions:

1. Improve my health.
a. I plan to do this by getting into a consistent sleep schedule. I want to be able to have more energy to spend on the things that really matter and that requires me to get adequate sleep. It would also improve my health and wellness.
b. Another way that I plan to do improve my overall health is to start exercising on a more consistent basis. Sadly, I do not even walk on a daily basis.
c. I also plan to eat balanced meals, at home, at the right time of day, so that it has the best possible effects for my body.
d. I would like to lose 90 pounds by this time next year. I bought a scale yesterday. That is the first step. (Get it, step?! I crack myself up!)

2. Improve my spiritual life.
a. I plan to pray specifically and to journal those prayers and answers on a regular basis.
b. I plan to read my Scriptures daily and to continue to journal about the things that I am covering in my reading.
c. I have also accepted a teaching position at church and will be spending time once a month (at minimum) teaching others and being there for them.
d. Attend church every week.
e. Read the Bible with my children daily.

3. Improve my homemaking skills.
a. The kids have their regular chores and they are fairly good about doing them. I need to be better about doing my own personal chores though as well.
b. I need to be able to say no to things that would interfere with my own goals of what I want my house to be. My home needs to be a higher priority.
c. Continue to teach my children how to thoroughly clean a home so that they are able to do this when they become adults and don't have to struggle with it the way that Hubby had to.
d. I need to develop a regular cleaning schedule that works for me and for my house and my life.
e. I have a vision and a goal of what I want my house to look and feel like and I will know that this has been accomplished when my house feels and looks the way it does in my head.

4. Continue to build new relationships.
a. I have started building new relationships and have been rebuilding some current relationships. I have found this to be most pleasing overall and really want to be purposeful about this.

5. Improve my education.
a. Ideally, I would love to continue to work on a degree, but honestly, I don't foresee that happening at this stage in my life. I am okay with that though. Or mostly okay with that at least.
b. There is a plethora of online resources for learning and I plan to utilize these to increase my education this year.

6. Improve our financial well-being.
a. This is an interesting thing for me to list in here, as I have actually stopped working regular hours and am just on PRN status with two different families, but maybe that is also while it is even more important.
b. I want to get all of our bills caught up and current within the first 3 months of this year.
c. Beginning in March, I want to pay off every bill IN FULL that we receive every month.
d. Beginning now, I do not want to accumulate any additional debt this year.
e. I also want to start putting money aside every paycheck (maybe 10%) to begin building a nest egg for a rainy day.
f. I want to get rid of our storage unit by March as well. That is money that we are spending each and every month that serves no real purpose for our lives. I do need to go through it and make it work into the space that we have available for long-term storage or make some tough decisions.

7. Get rid of 2012 items in 2012.
a. I have seen this on people's blogs this year and I would like to do that this year. It goes along perfectly with Resolution #6, part F, don't you think? I love it when things work together like that!

I think that is it for this year. I may come back and add more or even do a new post in which I change them or add to them or whatever, but I feel good about this list. I expanded on general goals and clearly defined what I want to happen. I will check back in with you all and let you know how they are going.

Last Company Coffee of 2011

Today is the day for the last Company Coffee for the year and I am so excited about Rachel's Small Things coming up this year. And also for the big things that we will be doing as well! Yay! I haven't really tried to create as much Sanctuary here at our new place as I did the at old one. And we moved in July. Yeah. I think that pretty much sums it all up.

As it is right now, my house is in major need of a thorough deep clean, I have window treatments that need to go up. I finally did find some that are in our budget and much like the ones that were already here when we moved in, so that is exciting for me. Now I just have to wait til Hubby gets home after work today to show him.

Although the Sanctuary aspect of our home is missing lately, the kids have definitely enjoyed our little projects and work times together this semester break. We have made and decorated Rice Krispie treats (as opposed to cookies) and we have plans to make and decorate sugar cookies and gingerbread houses. These are projects that we work on while Hubby is at work because they stress him out and the kids and I would prefer to not stress him out.

We had a wonderful Christmas and I hope you all did as well. We have had three Christmas celebrations so far. One for Hubby's mom's side of the family, one for Hubby's dad's side of the family, and then our own little family. Tomorrow, we have one more with my mom and brother. I don't know yet if we are going to my mom's house or if they are coming over here but either way, it should be a great time as well.

We have a very full month. Four family Christmas celebrations, two violin performances, one piano performance, Wolf Scouts, Webelo Scouts, Daisy Scouts, working in the classrooms, field trips, illnesses, company in from out of town, you name it. And I love it!

So without further ado, I will turn you over to the other ladies at Company Coffee! Go check them all out and maybe link up yourself! It's a great chance to get to know some great ladies! Have a very Happy New Year!

Thirty Thankful Days - Days 11-15

Click to go to Day 11

Day 11: Today I am thankful for good friends. My best friend of 18 years came into town tonight and we had time to spend together. We were going to just go out the two of us, but at the last minute, we decided to bring our hubbies along as well. And I am so glad that we did! Shea and I had a great time hanging out, chatting and catching up and the guys had a good time as well. It ended up being a pretty late night by the time Hubby and I got home (around 3 am) because we ended up going shopping for a couple of things afterwards and then visiting with another friend at her work (she works 3rd shift) and then coming home. Hubby had to take my mom home along with my two oldest boys (who she allowed to stay up til 3am!) and I promptly fell asleep on the couch. That is why this post is so late in coming.

Click to go to Day 12

Day 12: On this day, we went over to my in-law's house to watch the college football game and even though my mother-in-law and I had a bit of a falling out earlier in the week, we had a nice visit and talked about house remodeling stuff and various things. In the afternoon, she and father-in-law went to watch a movie and allowed us to have a couple of friends come over to visit and play cards, so we did. When they got back from their movie, we all sat around and played a card came called Pitch. It was so much fun and I was thankful once again for friends and also for the kindness from my in-laws.

Click to go to Day 13

Day 13: I was tired. But tired doesn't even begin to cover it. I was exhausted. On Day 11, I had been up way too late (3am) and then ended up waking up around 4 and not being able to fall back to sleep until almost 6, then got up with kids around 7. So about two hours of sleep that night. Then I was awake ALL day on Day 12 - I even laid down with Jeriah to get him to nap and didn't fall asleep! So by the time we got home on Day 12, I was exhausted! The kids went to bed without too much fuss and I crashed hard. I woke up off and on about every two hours but was actually able to fall back to sleep. I woke up for the day around 7 on this day, but thanks to my Hubby was able to take a 2 hour nap. (I let him sleep in til noon.) That nap was so refreshing and necessary! It was fabulous!

Click to go to Day 14

Day 14: That was yesterday. I was thankful for my mother-in-law and her willingness to help me out with time crunches and kids' activities. You see, we live on the north end of town. The older boys, Cephas and Koren, have music lessons on the south side of town at 6:00pm. That's around 10 miles from where we live - or a 30 minute drive. But Oralee also had a Daisy meeting to go to at 6:30pm - the same time the boys get out of music lessons - close to our home. It is not even remotely possible to do both things unless Hubby is home and he wasn't. Because he had to work a closing shift. So my mother-in-law came to my house and picked up all three boys so that I could be with Oralee at her meeting without having to try to chase Jeriah down. She picked them up at 5:00 and then dropped them back off at 8:00. It was really nice that I had her to be able to do that for me. Otherwise, at least one child would have had to miss something and I didn't want for that to happen.

Click to go to Day 15

Day 15: That is today but I already know what I'm thankful for today. This morning when Hubby got home, he told me that his boss wants him to pick up more hours at work. Ideally, the boss would like Hubby to close 5 nights a week, which is good money for us because Hubby makes an additional 50 cents per hour on closing shifts. So today I am thankful for that - and the fact that if this happens, I can stay home full-time with the kids or at the very least, work part-time or even just PRN shifts. It is something that I am totally hopeful for but we will have to wait and see if that is something that will come to fruition.

Thirty Thankful Days - Day 7

Today I am thankful for my ability to be involved in my kids' education. I was supposed to be working in Oralee's classroom this morning and then in Cephas' classroom afterwards. But due to our illnesses, it didn't happen. Just the same, it is absolutely wonderful to be able to be fully involved in their classrooms and to be able to see my children during their school day. I have yet to be able to make arrangements to be in Koren or Jeriah's rooms but I plan to email to make those kind of arrangements to be in their classrooms once a week as well.

I am in Oralee's classroom every other Monday for an hour and a half and in Cephas' classroom every Monday for as long as his teacher needs me. I have days available to be in Jeriah and Koren's classrooms as well. I'm trying to decide if I should make it an all-day Monday thing. Help out in Jeriah's classroom from the start of his school day for an hour or so and then head on over to Koren's classroom and be there til the end of the school day? I can definitely see that working out well! I do know that Koren's teacher could use help on Thursdays stuffing the students' Thursday Folders. Maybe I could go in and do that for all three of the older kids' classes. But really, the bottom line is that I love being in the classroom and if I could, I would love to teach. Maybe that is something to look into though. I am still so undecided on what I want to do for my professional career. Someday, I will decide what I want to do. But until then, I am happy and thankful for this opportunity to be able to be with the kids.

Intentional Acts of Kindness - Days 1-6

I decided to list these acts of kindness out once a week on Sundays, so here goes:

Tuesday, November 1st, 2011
I went over to my mom's house and took her out to do some grocery shopping. It was later in the evening and I was tired, but I did it anyhow. I actually ended up having a pretty nice evening with her. She also asked me to check on a few things for her in her house, which I also did.

Wednesday, November 2nd, 2011
We had our home visit with Jeriah's teacher today and Hubby was SO tired. I had been up much of the night helping my mom with things and getting other things ready for the kids for school, so I was tired as well. Regardless, once we got home, I had him go lay down and I stayed up to get Jeriah off to school before laying down and taking a nap myself. That was extremely hard to do.

Thursday, November 3rd, 2011
On this particular evening, we went out to the mall for a little bit and while there, I picked up a few items to put into a box for a donation to our local mission.

Friday, November 4th, 2011
I was home taking care of a sick child most of this particular day. I did let kids watch a movie on this day after they had their homework and chores done.

Saturday, November 5th, 2011
I was battling the sickness that Oralee had on this day and as such, I let the kids do a minimum amount of chores and they also had more screen time than they normally would have. I know that this doesn't particularly count, but we didn't go anywhere or do anything and I barely made it off the couch this day, so I think it counts. Plus, kindness begins at home, right?

Sunday, November 6, 2011
Well, this one is honestly tied to Saturday as well, but here it is. Even though, I was battling the sickness that I inherited from Oralee (who was better by the way), I encouraged Hubby to stick with his plans to spend time with his friends. They have standing plans to get together on Saturday evenings. Generally speaking, they get done around midnight and Hubby is almost always home by 1am. On this particular night/morning, Hubby didn't get home until around 3am, which would have been 4am had it not been for the time change. Anyhow, even though he was out three hours later than I expected him to be, I didn't get mad at him for it. I knew that he had missed seeing his friends and was enjoying himself. He hadn't seen them the last few weeks because of his work schedule.

Also, while he was gone, I was able to talk to an old friend of ours. As it turns out, this particular friend really needed someone to just listen to him, which I did. This friend of ours is really facing some personal challenges right now and I hope that by being there for him to talk to and lean on, I was able to help him in some small way.

Some things I want to do this coming week:
(MON) Take my mom out to run errands
(TUE) Take a load of donation items to the local mission
(WED) Check on the possibility of serving the community somehow
(THU) Taking part in a volunteer advisory committee for our school system
(FRI) Volunteer at the kids' school (outside of my normal hours)
(SAT) Take the kids out to a park to pick up litter
(SUN) Volunteer in the church nursery

You can click the picture above to be taken to the linky where all these Intentional Acts of Kindness are taking place!

Halloween Day and Evening

What a great day all around! Hubby didn't get home until almost 2 am from work but he was willing to get up and get the kids off to school this morning, which was great for me because I had fallen asleep for about 20 minutes earlier in the night and could not fall back to sleep until close to 5 am. Since he let me continue to lay and rest/sleep while he took the kids to school, I was able to get some additional much needed rest. Then I got up and took care of Jeriah and we played and watched TV and did housework together while Hubby went and laid down. I let him sleep through until almost 4 pm.

I got Jeriah ready for school and onto the school bus and then I took myself out for Chinese food. There is this place close to my work that I absolutely love but haven't had much lately and I have really been wanting to get something from there and I decided that today would be the perfect day for it.

After getting my food from there, I went over to the kids' school and helped out in the classroom for a couple of hours. All I needed to do for the first hour and a half or so was assemble the fifth graders' academic skills testing packets. There are four booklets and their scantrons that needed to go into folders. I took care of them for one teacher (Cephas' teacher) and then moved on to another fifth grade teacher's packets. I got those almost done but was not able to get them completely finished because I ran out of folders and sticky labels. I marked my spot though so that I could pick back up where I left off. I plan to go back in later this week to finish those up for that teacher. That teacher is currently out of school right now. She has a new grandbaby and is taking a few days off from teaching to help the new mama. I think that's really sweet and I'm glad to hear that she was able to do that.

Then we had the fifth grade class party. It was a low-key affair. The teacher, Mrs. P, and her practicum student, Mr. H, another parent and I just kind of oversaw the festivities. Mrs. P bought sugar cookies, frosting and sprinkles and let the kids come up to a central table to decorate the cookies and they also had chips and water and were able to sit and watch some movies she had projected onto the white board from her laptop. Then they played hangman. It was nice and the kids enjoyed it immensely.

Mr. H had been having a hard time getting some of the kids to listen in his math group and I so wanted to be able to help him out. But I didn't. I have been there and done that with students and while I knew that I could get them to listen and follow along, he really needs to develop those skills himself. I think he will be a great teacher. One of the hardest parts though, honestly, is getting the kids to respect you as a teacher when you aren't confident about your abilities.

For the first time ever today, I let the older boys walk home from school. At our old house, they had walked to and from school every day, but with living in a new neighborhood and being so close to such a major arterial street, I have been reluctant to let them walk home. But today was absolutely gorgeous, I knew I had the time and the patience to allow them to do it and so I did. I also circled the route twice checking up on them (but couldn't find them!). They ended up walking home with our next door neighbors (who walk to and from school EVERY day of the week!) so it worked out pretty well. And, as it turns out, those two kids know a path that keeps them off of the main arterial street. One of these days, I am going to have to get the boys to show me this route so that I know where it is. If I'm comfortable with it, there is a good chance that I will let them walk home from school in the spring. Maybe. It seems kind of pointless though, because we still have to go to the school to pick up Oralee. But the boys have been wanting to walk home from school so badly that I agreed to it today. We'll figure it all out eventually.

Once home, they buckled down and got right to work on their chores and then decided on some last minute changes to their Halloween costumes. I ended up waking Hubby so that he could be up with the kids and awake to get Jeriah from the school bus and I ran over to our friends' house to pick up an bright orange vest and hat for Koren, who decided that instead of being a pirate wanted to be a hunter. It worked out. He had a camouflage turtle neck and a NERF gun. That plus the oversized (to him) hunting vest and stocking cap, made for a decent hunting outfit.

Cephas had planned to go as a robot but was having some difficulties with his costume design so we changed it up at the last minute and he wore a set of my scrubs (too big for him) and some gloves and a mask and we called him a doctor/surgeon/whatever.

Once they were set, we had to dash over to the other side of town for their music lessons, only to realize that we had not had them practice this past week AT ALL. It's been crazy busy/hectic, what can I say? Ooops. We'll do better this week, I promise!

I dropped the boys off at the studio and ran over to the inlaw's house to do some last minute things that I hadn't gotten around to yet. Cleaning out my mother-in-law's car, putting some camping gear back in the basement, starting a load of laundry in the washing machine, general tidying up and also trying to get Oralee and Jeriah's costumes together. Oralee was on the fence about what she wanted to be. MIL has a stash of dress up clothes and Oralee couldn't decide between a cat (all black clothing, plus ears, tail and collar to match), the water fairy (complete with tiara and wand) or a different fairy (forgot which one - but without the extra accessories). Oralee couldn't find the water fairy outfit or the cat outfit and had settled on the other fairy outfit when I found the water fairy outfit and she ended up going with that option.

Jeriah wanted to be a painter. I had planned to make him a little painter's palette out of cardboard but I couldn't find any over there (and I was in such a mad dash to get over to that side of town that I didn't grab cardboard from our house) so I just took some sheets of computer paper and glue stick-ed them together and then used a marker to draw in the paint circles. We got a brush from the garage and a washcloth to tuck into his waistband and he was good to go. He wouldn't dress up any further than that.

At one point I had even tried to persuade him to be a cowboy (MIL has a cowboy hat and a vest - it actually goes to a pirate costume but looks really cute with the cowboy hat) but he was adamant about not changing his clothing.

We had to run back to the studio to pick up the boys and then head back to MIL's house to park the van so we could hit up the neighborhood over there. We did it and ended when pretty much all four kids were ready to quit. I cannot believe that it happened around the same time for all of them! How awesome was that!

We then packed up and left. At this point, it was 8:30, the kids still hadn't eaten (so busy getting ready for music lessons and trick or treating and then actually doing those things) and while we were out, I had gotten a message from the restaurant where Hubby works saying that for a Halloween special, kids could eat free with an adult purchase. That sounded like a winner to me so that's what we did. We did not go to Hubby's work though. We went to a different location for our favorite server.

Our server, Jay, was dressed up as Charlie Sheen. My kids totally missed the reference (because they are really too young to know the difference) and there was karaoke going on. Let me slow this down for you. Favorite restaurant + favorite server + cheap food + karaoke. My kids were in HEAVEN!

My kids sang karaoke. Oh yes, they did! I finally pulled them away from the restaurant around 10:30. Our normal bedtime on a school night is 8:00 (ideally asleep by 8:30). But. It was a special occasion, the kids were being unbelievably well-behaved, they were enjoying themselves and quite honestly, I lost track of time.

Oralee started the karaoke singing for our family tonight by singing the ABC's. Yes, the karaoke guy had that. Then Oralee and Jeriah and some random kid (one of our server's regular customer's kid - didja follow that one?) sang Twinkle Twinkle Little Star together. And then Cephas and Koren got up and sang More (by Usher - yes, they know the words. They are HUGE Usher fans!). They were going to do a few more songs after that but that was when I realized how late it was and had them go up and pull their requests. I had joked around with Jay, telling him that I was pretty sure if left to their own devices my kids would close the restaurant. But the restaurant doesn't close til like, 1 am? (I should know this actually!) and there was NO WAY my kids were going to be up THAT late on a school night. It was bad enough that we wouldn't be home til 11 pm as it was.

Before we left though, we had to get a picture of the kids and Jay in their costumes. It was so cute! Jay was sitting on a chair, Koren and Jeriah to his right, Cephas and Oralee to his left. It was quite cute and cheesy. I, of course, promptly posted it to facebook and tagged Jay as well.

We drove home and I warned the kids that it was time to go STRAIGHT to bed when we got there. Bathroom stuff then bed. I wanted them in bed within 15 minutes of getting home and asleep as soon as possible after that. They promptly obeyed. Well, all but Jeriah. He was up til 1:30 am. And he was the one who was the MOST tired at the restaurant. Guess the boy hit his second wind or something. He literally fell asleep when Hubby was walking across our front porch to come inside. Stinker!

And that, my friends, was our Halloween. What did your family do?

I just saw a link for this over at Absentminded Mother and had to click on over to I Can Teach My Child to check it out and see what it was all about.

I must say, I like the idea! I am also going to present it to my kiddos and suggest it as a family activity. It will also give us something to share about each night at dinner. It's also not a bad idea since the boys are in Scouts and one of the things that they are supposed to put into practice is to "Do A Good Turn" each day.

Some things I would like to do include:

volunteer at our homeless shelter
donate food to local charities
serve meals at one of the senior centers here
take a meal to a family
host a Thanksgiving meal for those who might otherwise not have a Thanksgiving
offer to babysit for a family for free
create a craft project of some sort to be given away

Plus, I really like all of the ideas that Absentminded Mother had as well! I look forward to seeing some of the ideas from the other participants so that it can spur on additional ideas for our family! I love to serve others. I do so with a (generally) grateful and happy heart. I long for my children to acquire that as well. I think they are on their way there. Koren most definitely. He wanted do a yard job for free just to be nice. I suggested that if he wanted to, he could do it for the money and then donate the money to a charity of his choice. That job ended up being cancelled, but I do believe that Koren's heart is in the right place.

So anyhow, I just wanted to let you all know about this great idea going on for this month. What do you think? Are you going to join up as well?