Solo Survival Success

This week Matt has been on the road.  He left Sunday afternoon.  Anticipated return home is Friday night.  Meaning: I’ve been on my own this week.  That in and of itself feels like it should be a success sometimes! 

But moving onto this week’s successes…..

1.  This week was super busy with lots of appointments.  I can honestly say that to-date, we’ve been on time (or early) for every.single.one.  We’ve met friends for coffee, had meetings, an ultrasound, a doctor appointment, speech therapy sessions and three gymnastics classes.  Phew!

2.  Despite Tuesday being our busiest day of the week – I managed to cook dinner at home.  (Let’s not talk about the rest of the week.  It’s been a week of eating on the go).  But Tuesday was a success.  I made Table for Two’s crockpot Beef and Broccoli.  Quite good!  The boys enjoyed it and it was the perfect amount for the three of us.

3.  I seem to have mastered the nap time battles (at least for the moment).  I’ve been allowing both boys to lay in mommy’s bed and watch one 30 minute TV show.  Then Nathan heads off to his bed on his own accord and John sleeps in my bed.  Sometimes I nap with John, sometimes I sneak out to get things accomplished around the house.

4.  I’ve continued our quest to clean out the basement.  Another two bags of trash and a giant pile of recycling at ready to depart the house on appropriate days.  I also have a large bag of items to donate and a few items that I need to sell.  Purging feels good!

So there you have it – a week of surviving on my own.  Complete with appointments, activities, and a little bit of crock pot cooking.

Accomplished

Small Successes – I come and I go!  But I really do LOVE the concept.  I love counting up those little things each week and celebrating the (sometimes) mundane.

This week is full of success!  So let’s cut to the chase….

1.  After spending a day in the basement rearranging, purging and organizing, I’m happy to say I feel like progress is being made.  Slow progress, but progress nonetheless.  Seriously, why do we still have three old mainframes that we haven’t used since at least 2008? (And that’s the most recent one…let’s not talk about the one I have from when I was in college)

2.  I have already taken a load to be donated and dropped it off.  Yay for clutter out of the house!  And double yay for my clutter blessing someone else.  That’s what it’s all about!

3.  The previously mentioned mainframes, an old printer, and a keyboard that still has an PS/2 connector are already loaded into the back of the van (Thanks Charles!).  Tomorrow is an electronics recycling day downtown so I’ll be headed there to drop off all that too! 

Pretty excited about the progress being made!  Getting rid of clutter makes me sooooo happy.

February…and the winds of change are blowing in

Ahhh…February….that time where you start to see tiny glimpses of spring in the future.  You know, that random 65 degree day or the fact that it’s not pitch black both when you wake up and tuck the kids in bed.  It’s amazing what those little “looks ahead” do for my mental state of mind.

Last night I found myself daydreaming of the garden plans for this year.  Marigolds by the lamp post again (last year’s attempt at something different didn’t do it for me).  We’ll certainly need basil, cilantro, strawberries, and maybe some cucumbers this year.  And I’m trying to figure out if we can transplant our surprise lilies to a different location this spring (preferably one where my husband won’t view them as weeds and run them over with the lawn mower).  Hmmm….is it too early to be thinking about such things?

Also in my daydreams are playroom storage, design, and functionality.  We’ve been in cleaning/decluttering mode around here recently – which I always seem to associate with spring.  We’re in the process of moving our playroom downstairs, Matt’s office to the other side of the basement and attempting to find a way to separate the two as best as possible.  This is a process.  I’m thinking it may take all spring and a chunk of early summer.  But slow and steady will win the race….AND – I can guarantee that it will be done by August.

Why? Well, because in August we’ll be needing the current playroom to serve as a nursery.    Yay!  Garcia baby #3 should arrive in mid to late August 2013. 

So there’s the big news!  Super excited!

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Back to My Successes!

I love Small Successes!  Sometimes they are enough to keep me blogging when I feel like I have nothing to report.  Sometimes (when I have a ton to report) they hold me back.  Sometimes I skipped them for months because I just don’t blog the way I dreamed I would when this blog started. 

That having been said – I’m back to the original point – I love Small Successes! It reminds me of what I’ve accomplished each week.  There’s simply nothing like celebrating the little things because those are the things most often overlooked.  So behold…here are my successes this week:

1.  I dug the “to-do” notebook out of the pile of “to-deal-with-later.” So I now have a list (albeit long) of things that need to get done.  Blogging was on this list.  I’ve written 4 (this is 5) posts today.  Check all five of those off the list.  Look! It’s getting shorter by the minute!  Now to tackle some of the more pressing issues like faxing papers to doctors’ offices, completing some sewing projects that have been looming forever, and knocking some gift-buying out. 

2.  We took John for allergy testing.  I was originally pretty apprehensive of doing it, but it has been recommended by John’s pediatrician, his speech therapist, his teacher and most recently an ER doctor following a 4AM ambulance ride to the hospital.  The results show he’s basically allergic to the great outdoors during the spring, summer and fall.  (Oh, and cats)  So we’re trying some meds first. In 8 weeks we’ll re-evaluate to see how he is responding.  Right now we’re trying to avoid allergy shots – although they may very well be in his future.

3.  (This is really Nathan’s success!)  Nathan peed in the potty!  Just once and after leaking on the floor….but it looks like we may be on the way to potty training.  I’m cautiously optimistic.  While I love the idea of not buying diapers, I’m trying to figure out how I’m going to potty train him while driving John all over town for different appointments, preschool, and practices.  I know other families do it so I’m sure I’ll figure it out.  But with John I just committed a week at home and we did it.  I’m thinking it may be a different story this time around.

4.  (And it should be noted that this is really John’s success!)  We had John’s parent/teacher conference early this morning.  He got an absolutely glowing review from his teacher.  Apparently he’s a great listener, rule follower, super smart, has excellent fine motor skills and is generally a hard worker (at least for 2 1/2 hours, 5 days a week).  On his writing skills tests he needs a little work on drawing a person and he called a ‘crescent’ a ‘moon’ on his shapes test.    Not bad if you ask me!  Top that off with a conference with his school speech therapist who claims he has met or surpassed all but one of his speech goals for the school year (and it’s only October!).

Yay for Small Successes!    I’m excited to get back on the bandwagon with them again.  Not to mention that I now have the aforementioned “to-do” notebook back in my arsenal…I’ll be getting so much more done!

Weddings, Weddings, Everywhere!

It’s been a long time since I’ve been on the blog!  I hate that.  But I always seem to lose track of the blog during the summer months.  What can I say – we get so busy playing, traveling, swimming, and generally spending time outside, that I just can’t find the time to sit in front of a computer.  Even in the evening – would you rather sit at the computer or enjoy a cold beer poolside with the neighbors?  Yeah, I’m gonna drink that beer!

So what did the summer look like for us?  Well, we’ve been in full on wedding mode around our house for the last few months.  My baby (ok – I acknowledge that she is 23 years old) sister got married to a great man who I’m happy to call my brother.  I had the privilege of being the Matron of Honor so with that came the work of bridal shower, bachelorette party, errand running and activity planning.  Despite the priest missing the rehearsal and dinner – everything worked out and in the end she had a great day and a wonderful wedding.  A big thanks to my in-laws who helped man-handle our boys while I was busy tending to wedding day obligations!

That was wedding #1 this year!  A few weeks ago we dressed up the whole family for Matt’s little sister’s wedding.  We packed the whole family up and spent a week in San Antonio.  It was a great day for the everyone.  Both boys managed to walk down the aisle without tears, Matt and I loved being part of the wedding party, and despite a missing mariachi band, the reception was a blast!  This time the thanks go to my family for taking time off to travel to TX for the purpose of babysitting children!  We are so blessed to have great family supporting us!!!!

Well, that completes the wedding post for this summer.  I’m going to try to back-date a few posts with important events like birthday parties, family vacations, John’s first soccer season, medical updates and more.  Hang in there – I’ll get everyone caught back up as quickly as I can!

First Official Family Vacation

Yay!  We had our first, official, family vacation!  No extra grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends, or the like….just our little family of four.  And it was a huge success!

First we spent a few days in Louisville.  I know it’s not necessarily a sought-after vacation destination….but it worked for us.  It was drivable, had stuff for kids to do, was reasonably priced, and most importantly, was close enough to Santa Claus, IN to justify spending the end of the vacation there!  Not that I think Santa Claus, IN is any more of a destination, but we wanted to take the boys to Holiday World for a few days.

Louisville’s first stop was the Churchill Downs.  We took a quick tour of the track, moseyed through the museum, (pretend) bet on old races without knowing the outcomes, and saw a retired racehorse. 

While in Louisville we also managed to fit in a horse and carriage ride around downtown and a trip to the Louisville Zoo.  Thanks to our STL Zoo membership we got into the Louisville Zoo for free courtesy of a reciprocal agreement.  The boys loved the zoo and their super cool zoo key that told the kids about each animal as they wandered the grounds (seriously – it was $4 well spent!).

Now – for Holiday World!  It’s a great amusement park complete with water park inside.  Admission prices are based on height (because that’s what determines how many of the rides you can ride!) and soft drinks, sunscreen and shows are all free once you’re inside the park.  Everything has a holiday theme – so you wander from Christmas to Halloween to Fourth of July to Thanksgiving as you enjoy the day.

Nathan just barely made the 36in mark (we’re talking cm to spare here!) so he could even ride a few of the big kid rides.  We got the boys on the log flume, two of the big water rides, and enough kiddie rides to last a lifetime.  The first day we arrived at opening and left 30 minutes before they closed.  Nathan actually fell asleep while cruising one of two lazy rivers – so we just carried him to a shady spot and made a bed out of beach towels for a few hours!

 

If you buy your “next day” ticket before you leave the park – it’s half price!  So back we went for day 2.  Although our second trip was much shorter – we had to drive home that evening – we did manage to fit in a visit with Santa Claus during one of his daily story times. 

We had a great time celebrating our little family!  No work had to be done, no speech therapy sessions to attend, no doctor appointments or the like.  Just some fun and relaxation for the four of us!  Priceless!