Surviving the everyday…

Sometimes Small Successes have to be more about surviving the everyday than about celebrating truly monumental occurrences.  This week shall be a little of both – but leaning a little heavier on the survival.

1.  When I absolutely didn’t feel like cooking because Matt was taking a client out to some fancy restaurant in downtown, I cooked anyway.  I’m talking – I was looking for every reason to NOT cook!  It was Papa John’s day for my mom’s elementary school (I could earn her classroom points if I ordered a pizza).  I forgot to get the chicken breasts out to thaw in the morning (so the planned dinner was out the door).  The boys were snacking all afternoon and probably not that hungry anyway (Halloween and Easter lead to abnormal amounts of snacking in our house).  But ultimately, I bucked up, boiled some pasta and cleaned the random veggies out of the fridge resulting in a rather delightful “Vegetarian Pasta a la Frigidaire” that both boys seemed to enjoy despite the fact that Nathan’s first bowl got dumped on the dining room floor.

2.  I let Nathan eat his yogurt all by himself this morning, even though I knew it would result in laundry and a need for a bath all before 8:15 this morning.  Despite it being a “whipped” yogurt (meaning it clings to the spoon even when turned upside down – Nathan still ended up wearing more of it than he ate.  Nonetheless, he enjoyed it since his favorite phrase right now is “I do it” and this mommy is using bath time as an excuse to blog. 

3.  This past week has been a lot about surviving without a reliable car.  Matt’s car was on it’s last leg and seemed to tip the bucket late last week.  I’ve been relegated to necessity driving (this isn’t really a bad thing) while Matt has been taking my car to work.  It’s the little things that never get done when you can’t depend on a car.  I didn’t NEED to get to the dry cleaners to drop off clothes.  I didn’t NEED to return the books to the library, I could just get online and renew them.  I didn’t NEED to pick up my Rx at the pharmacy across town – it’s maintenance meds and I had plenty to survive for the week.  I didn’t NEED to get blood work done right away – it’s maintenance too and I requested it, not the doctor.  I didn’t NEED to drop stuff off at my parents house as they could surely survive a few more days without the ovenproof soup bowls we borrowed.

4. OK – here’s my monumental one….I told you I had one!  We bought a new vehicle on Halloween.  We are now the proud (?) owners of a Chrysler Town and Country minivan.  The payments will tighten the budget (it was nice not having any car payments for the short while that it lasted), but the cost is worth it to be able to tote the kids around.  Plus, by buying the minivan now – it prevents needing to upgrade our car for space later on and having two car payments in the future.  Right now we’re liking the idea of only paying on one car at a time.  John and Nathan LOVE the minivan and think it’s a giant toy for them to play in.  We’ll see if they still think it’s cool when they are in junior high….

So that’s been our week – what have you been up to?  Head over and visit Sherry at Chocolate for Your Brain to share your successes with the blogger world!