31 Days - Day 1

Day 1 - Clothes

Yesterday, I spent a crazy amount of time and energy on laundry. We have a cat, a male cat actually, who just recently hit the six month(ish) mark. And speaking of mark...well, let's just say that I had plenty of laundry to do BEFORE the cat added to it with the clean laundry I had already done.

Anyhow, after a ton of time spent yesterday on laundry, I decided that we had too many clothes. Well, actually, I had decided that a long, long, long time ago. But yesterday, I decided that I was going to do something more about it. I have already sent three HUGE totes full of clothes over to my best friend, Shea's house. But even still, I came up with this pile of clothes that needed to go to her house for the garage sale as well.

(Yes, those are all clothes that I am getting rid of. It's a huge pile and it's not even all of it that will be going over to her house!)

Recently, we needed to change out dressers between some kids due to space constraints in their rooms and our daughter ended up with a dresser that has three more drawers, but each drawer has much less space in it. Right now, her dresser is nearly at capacity and I still have probably ten loads to go yet. So I think we still have too many clothes. This is something that I will be working to whittle down even more over the course of this month.

But a realistic question. How many clothes does the average person have? We have had way too many clothes for such a long period of time that I don't even know what a normal amount of clothing should be.

Do you have too many clothes? If so, now might be the time to look around and see what you can come up with to get rid of. Take an honest look at what you really don't like and what is very clear that you won't wear. Those are the easy decisions. Get rid of those first. Then come back and tell me how you did. Did you get rid of a lot or just a few? Do you go through your wardrobes on a regular basis to alleviate this kind of problem?

31 Days - Intro

 

For my 31 Days series this year, I am going to do 31 days of decluttering. Bonus: I have been working on this like mad the past few weeks and still have a bit to go. This is the perfect time to get it all accomplished. My biggest challenge is in actually making a point to get rid of things each and every day. My desire is that this series will help me to stay focused and on track. On October 10th or 11th, you will get to see all of the things that I have gotten rid of so far over the past few weeks, as that is when my best friend, Shea, is having her yard sale. Most of her yard sale is of my stuff. However, I will be taking a planned vacation from the blog (and from internet and well, most of regular life) from the evening of the 11th through the evening of the 14th. We're heading out of town for the weekend and going up to the family lake house for a long weekend of family reconnection time. So needed! I may schedule a post for those days, but I might just miss them too. I guess we'll have to see what happens!

You can click on the following links to check out each day.

 

Day 1 - Clothing

Day 2 - Dishes

Day 3 -

Day 4 -

Day 5 -

Day 6 -

Day 7 -

Day 8 -

Day 9 -

Day 10 -

Day 11 -

Day 12 -

Day 13 -

Day 14 -

Day 15 -

Day 16 -

Day 17 -

Day 18 -

Day 19 -

Day 20 -

Day 21 -

Day 22 -

Day 23 -

Day 24 -

Day 25 -

Day 26 -

Day 27 -

Day 28 -

Day 29 -

Day 30 -

Day 31 -

Menu Planning: Week of 9/23

This week's menu is going to be:

Monday 9/23
B: at school / cold cereal, fruit
L: at school / leftovers
S: applesauce
D: chicken enchiladas, rice, refried beans

Tuesday 9/24
B: at school / cold cereal, fruit
L: at school / leftovers
S: yogurt and fruit
D:pizza casserole (in the crockpot), fruit

Wednesday 9/25
B: at school / cold cereal, fruit
L: at school / leftovers
S: cookies and milk
D: brunch for dinner, fruit

Thursday 9/26
B: at school / cold cereal, fruit
L: at school / leftovers
S: jello
D: chicken nuggets, french fries, fruit

Friday 9/27
B: at school / cold cereal, fruit
L: at school / leftovers
S: popcorn
D: pizza

Saturday 9/28
B: cold cereal, fruit
L: hoagie sandwiches
S: popcorn
D: chili with cinnamon rolls

Sunday 9/15
B/L: Brunch food - waffles, scrambled eggs, sausage, fruit
S: at Grandma and Grandpa's
D: at Grandma and Grandpa's / leftovers

Menu Planning: Week of 9/16

This week's menu is going to be:

Monday 9/16
B: at school / cold cereal, fruit
L: at school / leftovers
S: applesauce
D: sausage, egg and cheese casserole, fruit

Tuesday 9/17
B: at school / cold cereal, fruit
L: at school / leftovers
S: yogurt and fruit
D: reuben sandwiches, fruit

Wednesday 9/18
B: at school / cold cereal, fruit
L: at school / leftovers
S: cookies and milk
D: runza casserole, fruit

Thursday 9/19
B: at school / cold cereal, fruit
L: at school / leftovers
S: jello
D: slow-cooker beef stew, fruit

Friday 9/20
B: at school / cold cereal, fruit
L: at school / leftovers
S: popcorn
D: pizza

Saturday 9/21
B: cold cereal, fruit
L: ramen noodles (I have to include this for at least one meal a month for Oralee who LOVES the stuff)
S: popcorn
D: ham and bean soup

Sunday 9/22
B/L: Brunch food - waffles, scrambled eggs, sausage, fruit
S: at Grandma and Grandpa's
D: at Grandma and Grandpa's / Hubby and I date night

Menu Planning: Week of 9/9

This week's menu is going to be:

Monday 9/9
B: at school / cold cereal, fruit
L: at school / leftovers
S: applesauce
D: tacos, beans and rice

Tuesday 9/10
B: at school / cold cereal, fruit
L: at school / leftovers
S: yogurt and fruit
D: lasagna, green beans, fruit

Wednesday 9/11
B: at school / cold cereal, fruit
L: at school / leftovers
S: cookies and milk
D: shepherd's pie, fruit

Thursday 9/12
B: at school / cold cereal, fruit
L: at school / leftovers
S: jello
D: beef noodle casserole, peas, fruit

Friday 9/13
B: at school / cold cereal, fruit
L: at school / leftovers
S: popcorn
D: pizza

Saturday 9/14
B: cold cereal, fruit
L: grilled cheese sandwiches, tomato soup
S: popcorn
D: chicken noodle soup

Sunday 9/15
B/L: Brunch food - waffles, scrambled eggs, sausage, fruit
S: at Grandma and Grandpa's
D: at Grandma and Grandpa's / leftovers

Payroll...almost complete

Hubby had the day off today and asked me if I would take the kids to school for him. He usually does both sets of school drop offs in the morning and quite often, he does the school pick ups in the afternoon as well. But today, I took the kids to school. Then, I came home and went back to bed. I planned to miss my first class of the day at 11:00am because I turned in the assignment that was due for today over a week ago and it was just a work day in the classroom.

My friend, Melma, often joins me out at the college after that first class, so I called and left her a message, asking her to swing by my house on her way out to the college around noon. Then I fell back to sleep.

About an hour later (and two hours before I was expecting Melma to come over) Hubby came into the bedroom to tell me that Melma was here. I grumbled about getting up and may have said something about people actually listening to their messages yada yada. Well, after I got out to the living room and told Melma that I had left her a message about what time to come over, she informed me that she didn't yet know how to check her voicemail on her new phone. She just switched from an iphone to an android last week. So I showed her how to and she then got my message.

While she was here, I did the prep work for tonight's dinner and got it into the crockpot and divided up a 10lb. roll of ground beef that I got for a great price on sale (93/7 for 2.98/lb). After I was done with that, we left for the college, grabbing food on our way.

We spent the next nearly eight hours working on our end-of-the-quarter payroll project. I love this project. I had messed up on one part so I ended up spending a bunch of time trying to make all of the changes necessary for that one. I still ended up missing a few of the changes. But I did get to the point where I am ready to just work on the year-end forms for this project. There is a light at the end of the tunnel.

However, I really really love doing this. It is such a blast! Like ridiculously fun for me. The girl who sits in front of us, Shy, doesn't seem as enthused with the whole project as I am though. Poor dear. :) She and I had a great discussion about meals and menu planning. She actually plans her menus TWO months a time. I am in awe. I struggle at times to just do a month at a time. She is newly engaged and yeah, she just has the domestic thing down! I think she may come over sometime to work on payroll with Melma and I. Or maybe we could meet somewhere else, since my house is quite often, rather insane. Particularly in the evening.

I am feeling more and more confident about my college major. I love doing accounting work!

Shy asked me today what I was going to do when I am done with my major, if I was going to go to work full-time. Probably because we were also talking about Paytin at that point. And I really don't know. I mean, I guess that is the reason that I am going to school - to be able to get a solid career. But at the same time, I only want to work while the kids are in school. Or as close as possible to that time frame. I'll have to look into the job options more as I get closer to finishing my schooling - which should be sometime in the middle of next year.

I just cannot wait until next quarter! I only have one in-person class and it is two nights a week from 7:30-9:30. It will allow me to be home during the day to take care of Paytin, in the afternoons to get the kids from school, oversee homework and chores, make and clean up dinner and then get the kids TO their evening activities. Someone else (probably Hubby) will have to be in charge of getting them home from said activities, but I know he can do it just fine. Then he will have them all in bed and hopefully asleep by the time I get home around ten at night. If there is one thing that he is really motivated to do when it comes to the house/kids, it is to get them to bed. So, it really does seem like the perfect situation!

But it has been a long day. A very long day. And I am beat. The kitchen still needs cleaning, the laundry still needs folding and hanging and putting away. I am not sure that I'm going to be the one to make it happen though. At least, not tonight. I'm ready for bedtime!

Paytin

Hubby and I are not having any more children. He made that decision just a few months after I had Jeriah. It's been a solid five and a half years since he has had his vasectomy, so it comes at no surprise to him or anyone else who knows us, just how excited I get every time I get to watch little Paytin.

As of today, she is now 43 days old and just a doll. I could just hold her for hours! I so badly miss this newborn baby stage. Of course, that being said, she is a much easier baby than any of mine were. With Cephas, I was high-strung and very sick shortly after he was born. With Jeriah, he had torticollis and I had an emergency appendectomy a month after he was born. He also had really bad GERD but it took us months to determine that is what his issue was. With Oralee, she was a pretty easy baby but Hubby and I were going through some major marital issues and I was just EXHAUSTED! With Jeriah, it was good but he had MSPI and was intolerant to nearly everything under the sun and it took up so much time and energy trying to figure out all that was going on with him. Everything I ate made him cry. It was so hard.

Comparatively speaking, Paytin is a breeze. She burps and then pukes everything up if you don't burp her after each and every ounce of formula that she eats. She has even settled in to a regular schedule here. She arrives at nine o'clock and is awake and alert. She usually needs one or two diaper changes by ten o'clock, then she'll doze for about half an hour, decide she is hungry, wake up and eat a bottle, then she'll get a new diaper and fall back asleep for real between eleven and eleven-thirty. Most of the time, she'll sleep through until one or two. Her dad picks her up just after two, so I almost feel bad for charging him for babysitting, but I still do. It's not much money, but it does help with small extra things. I am even able to get stuff around the house or homework done. My friend, Melma, comes over around twelve-thirty and we do homework while Paytin sleeps. It's such a perfect scenario!

I seriously love my baby snuggles time! I know that there are no more babies in the picture for Hubby and I, but sometimes it really makes me sad. Especially when at least ten of our friends have had babies just this summer alone! Watching Paytin is great though. I get my "baby fix" without actually having to have a baby and all that goes with it.

Only another fifteen years until Cephas is allowed to have children. He'll be almost twenty-eight. I think that's a good age for him to have kids. Probably will happen before that, when he is like twenty-three or twenty-four, but still that's only ten years away. I am going to be the grandma who loves to have her grandkids/grandbabies over!

Okay, that got really weird. Apparently, stream of conscious typing gets a little bit weird when I'm tired. It's 1:30 in the morning, but I'm going to set this to post around 8:30 in the morning instead. For now, though, I hope you are having as much fun today as I am going to have!