Life in Bullets

I've been a bad blogger the past month or so.  I blame it on the holidays, my laptop breaking and having to buy a new one, having verrry sick kids, and trying to adjust to Isaiah's sleep regression.  Which I think is semi-permanent... is it still considered a sleep regression then?  So here's life in bullets lately:

-Isaiah is still sick, but I expected this.  Noah took over 2 weeks before he seemed to not be sick anymore (although he still has a bit of a cough).  Tomorrow it'll be 2 weeks for Isaiah.

-Like I said, sleep regression central over here.  I was kind of expecting this.  Like Noah, Isaiah became a pro sleeper all on his own around 2 or 2.5 months.  Then at 3-3.5 months they both got sick, and sleep went to crap.  This blended with the 4 month sleep regression and with Noah it didn't go away until we let him CIO at 7 months.  I'm hoping to avoid that this time, and Isaiah is a different kid, so hopefully I can.  I might have to figure out how to sleep in the same room with him if this getting up every 3 hours all night long thing continues (oh how I wish I could cosleep!!).  I feel like a zombie in the middle of the night.

-(Okay, I've been writing this stupid post for 3 days and since then the sleeping has improved.  He;s even had an 8 hour stretch!  It's still all over the map, though, because he's also had stretches as short as 45 minutes)

-Last week I went to my husband's high school to visit the parenting class with Isaiah (my father in law babysat Noah).  I was the "parenting expert".  I think I gave them a completely different picture of parenting than they're used to.  Home water-birthing, babywearing, cloth diapering, breastfeeding (it did come up that Noah still nurses), wishful cosleeping, no bottles, etc. etc.  My husband is the teacher that all the girls are in love with, though, so they took me pretty seriously (haha).  I didn't really want to do it, but it ended up being fun!  They loved my rainbow wrap, by the way :)

-Again, I've been writing this post for several days, so now I know that my "parenting practices" have sparked much discussion in that parenting class.  Apparently the girls thought that even though they'd never considered a lot of the things I do, the way I talked about it made it all make sense and seem so totally normal (which really, it should be since I try to keep things as close to the "natural" state as possible).  I'm happy to have exposed them to some of the things I was exposed to as a teenager that totally helped shape the kind of parent I wanted to be.

-In the past week I have made about $250 selling stuff we don't use.  14 cloth diapers, a big desk, 2 end tables, a pack of disposable diapers still from when Noah was a baby, a bottle warmer/cooler that has never been used because my kids don't have bottles, paper towel holder, candy dishes, and a bunch of other stuff.  I also sent a huge bin of university books to our local library to be donated... they would only take one bin per week, so another one is going this week.  I am SO HAPPY to be getting rid of more stuff.  I had to take the last 4 months off of purging because I have been busy with a new baby, so it feels good to get back into it.

-I decided my goal in 2013 is to get rid of 2013 things, either through selling, donating, or throwing away (regular garbage does not count!).  I'm at about 300 right now with more things up for sale that are being picked up this week not included in that total.  2013 sounded very easy to me, but I have gotten rid of sooooo many things in the past year, it'll be interesting to see if I can actually make it to 2013.

-I haven't seen my parents since Christmas day because we've all been sick.  It's been 3 weeks!  I miss them!


I have to post this now... it shouldn't take 3 days to write a post!

Busy Weekend

This weekend my extended family on my Dad's side was getting together at my aunt's house.  We usually do this every summer.  Unfortunately, my aunt's house is over 2 hours away.  After hemming and hawing over this for a month, we decided not to go.  There were several reasons for this decision.

-At 33.5 weeks pregnant, with my sweet baby in a posterior position (second posterior baby... WHY do my children insist on this position?!), I decided I didn't want to spend 4.5 hours in the car in one day.
-We didn't really want to put Noah through the 4.5 hours in the car in one day if we didn't want to go really badly.
-We had a lot of things we needed to get done around the house that we can't really do during the week because Justin is training
-We still had a ton of things that I specifically wanted to get done before the baby comes, because after he gets here it will be many months before we start spending time on little house projects and organization tasks again.

As much as I wish I could have seen my extended family (since we already skipped out on cottage week with them this summer due to pregnancy and Justin's busy training schedule), I'm glad we stayed home.  On Saturday alone we got the following accomplished:

-Folded laundry
-Cleaned upstairs bathroom top to bottom
-Vacuumed upstairs
-Vacuumed downstairs
-Vacuumed laundry room and put it back together (everything was still the way the electrician left it back in April, because we were expecting an inspector... who never showed)
-Unloaded the dishwasher
-Assembled Noah's new dresser
-Exchanged Noah's dressers
-Cleaned off the top of the fridge
-Cleaned out the hallway closet
-Organized various craft supplies and toys into baskets and found new homes for them
-Installed the curtain tie backs in Noah's room (which we have had for probably two years)
-Went grocery shopping

I did most of those tasks alone, but I wouldn't have been able to do them all without Justin at home with Noah.  And there was no way I would have been able to do the dresser assembly without him.  It went a lot faster considering there were two of us this time and it was the third time we assembled the same dresser model.  It took about 2.5 hours to do all of the assembly - a lot faster than the 5 hours it took the first time!

Also, grocery shopping is now a family affair.  It's really far too much exertion for me now and causes me to have a lot of contractions and get really sore.  So we've all been going.  It's a win-win so far.  I get to keep an eye on what we're buying; Noah gets a trip out into public, which he loves; and Justin does all the lifting and a lot of the putting away.

I had decided on Saturday evening that we'd be skipping church on Sunday morning.  Saturday was crazy busy with all the projects around the house, and we still had more projects to accomplish this weekend.  Plus I wanted some time to spend out by the pool, since Saturday was a gorgeous, hot, sunny day and we were all cooped up inside the entire day (except while grocery shopping).  Going to church fills up the entire morning and into the afternoon, in large part because we live 25 minutes from our church, so I made the executive decision to use that time accomplishing more things we needed to do, and then playing outside as a family.

So, on Sunday I/we:

-Folded more laundry
-Cleaned out under the kitchen island
-Unloaded the dishwasher again
-Cleaned out the garage
-Mowed and whipper-snipped the lawns

-Weeded through all our gift bags, bows, and tissue paper and got rid of the ones I didn't like.  Unfortunately I still have way too many (WAY too many) left that I really like and are in good condition.
-Went through more of my clothes to take out stuff to donate.  I emptied 23 hangers and a bunch of stuff from drawers.  My wardrobe is at about 30% of what I had 10 months ago; I don't even love most of it, but I kept the stuff that I was actually wearing regularly prior to getting pregnant.  Once I'm done with maternity clothes in about 6 weeks, I am kind of screwed.  For shirts, not for bottoms.


I'm so glad we got so much done this weekend.  I really never know which weekend will be my "last."  Not that I think I'll be having this baby anytime in the next, say, 5 weeks.  But it gets harder to move around every week.  My back hurts more, my pubic bone hurts more and more, and I'm just a little bit worried about when I'll finally be unable to accomplish any of the tasks I want to accomplish before the baby comes.

We still have several organizing jobs to do before I'll feel really good about us being totally ready for the baby, but this weekend was a huge step in the right direction.  Don't you just love getting things done?  I especially love when I get to take things OUT of my house instead of IN to my house.  After this weekend I have two big garbage bags of garbage, and two big garbage bags of clothes and other items to donate (and we didn't even go through Justin's clothes!).

Getting Rid of Crap

(This is my 500th post... I thought I should mention that, even though I don't make much attention to that stuff.)

I think I'm becoming Minimalish.  Definitely not Minimalist, but maybe Minimalish.  I sick of having so much stuff, and I'm taking steps to get rid of it.

We live in a 2500 square foot house that has almost no storage.  There is a small crawl space under the stairs, and a small amount of storage space in the laundry room/furnace room.  There are, however, 5 bedrooms plus a large office.  We dedicated one bedroom to be used as storage, and the office has also gotten awfully storage-y. 

This arrangement has never been acceptable to me.  We would like to have three children, ultimately.  I don't want my 3 children to have to share bedrooms when we have a 5+1 bedroom house.  Plus we need to have a spare room with a queen bed for Justin to sleep in when I'm not sleeping and he's breathing loudly (can you say 'every night'?).  So between the 3 kids, Justin and I, and the spare room, we need all 5 bedrooms. 

This takes away our storage bedroom.  And leaves us nowhere to put the crap that dwells in there.

I know right now we only have one kid.  But I'm a planner.  I think ahead.  It's what I do.  So my goal is to fit all of our storage stuff in the laundry room, crawl space, and maybe a little bit in the office. 

If you saw how many boxes and bins we have, you would realize that is currently impossible.

I have realized that, really, we shouldn't need storage space.  Not much of it, anyway.  With the exception of baby stuff we are saving for the next child (which we have too much of), if we don't use this stuff, why do we even have it?  Why are we letting bins and bins of stuff take up space in our home?  It's weighing me down, mentally and physically.

So I'm getting rid of crap. 

I started with half my wardrobe.  That's right, I gave 50% of my clothing to goodwill.  I got rid of all my clothes that are nice, but don't fit.  I got rid of all my clothes that fit well and flatter my figure, but I never wear.  I got rid of all the stuff that I don't wear, but I might wear someday.  Because I finally got it through my head that even if I might wear it someday, that doesn't mean I need to wear it someday.  I have other clothes I can wear instead.

Everything left in my closet and drawers are clothes I have worn in the past year (allowing for seasonal changes, and minus my maternity wear which I haven't worn for 15 months but will be wearing again one day, hopefully).  It makes me feel free.  I want to get rid of more!  As someone who always had the hardest time parting with clothing, finally getting rid of stuff is addicting!  I'm forcing myself to take my time with some of the clothes, because I don't want to regret getting rid of something.  But I could really get rid of a lot more.  My ultimate goal in this area is to be able to fit both Justin's and my clothes in our walk-in closet, which currently only holds my clothes.  Justin has his own double closet in the upstairs spare room (yeah... we need to work on that).

I am also getting rid of other stuff we don't need.  Things I packed away when I was decluttering... what's the point in keeping it?  I don't need a box full of fun and fancy coffee mugs.  I never used them in the 3 years they sat in the cupboard, and I have 16 coffee mugs left that belong in my dishware set.  The stereos and CD players I haven't used in ages... why keep them?  The old TV taking up space in the office?  We will never use it, let someone else have it.

I have a plan in my head to go through the bins that were tranferred here from my parents house and be ruthless.  I have three bins filled with memorabilia.  I think I could whittle it down to one.  Two, at the most.

I'm not sure what to do with the $7000 worth of university books and texts.  I wish I had sold them to the used bookstore on campus after I was done with them.  I kept them out of pride.  I read every single word in every single one of those books!  And there are hundreds of books!  Most of them are in perfect condition, but as far as I know there's no market for these books at the second hand bookstore where I live.  I might be able to donate them to a library, but I really wish I could get some sort of profit from them.  Making some money on them would make it easier to part with them.

I need to convince Justin to get rid of some of his boxes, too.  I might just do it for him.  He doesn't even know what's down there, so what would it hurt?