Getting Things Done

I work things out on paper to take much less time than they do.  Like yesterday, I had the afternoon set aside to purge the upstairs (three bedrooms and a bathroom) of clutter and mess.  I had the evening set aside for any possible overflow from that task, allotting an hour for dinner and clean up.

I got half of one room done.

The results are stellar, and I'm beyond motivated to get the other half (and rest of the house) underway, but it's going to take far more time than I realize.

Even still, I present the unveiling of the boys' closet and toy/book area:

The always hideous and shameful "before" picture, complete with 

surrounding flotsam in the bedroom itself, preventing me 

from even opening the doors all the way.

The "after," a sigh of relief and a picture of gleaming delight.

Half of that first picture is in donation bags and I couldn't be happier about it.

The "after" of the toy bins and bookshelf.  I didn't take a "before"

because I completely forgot that I could even take pictures.

Just imagine everything looking like it was throwing up, and everything

that was being thrown up was also throwing up.  Half of that is 

also in donation bags.  Sigh of relief!

The toys will likely have another gleaning today for donations.  We like the kids to have Legos and train tracks to sharpen engineering skills and spatial awareness, but I don't care to keep the rest of it.  I was unable to get rid of the rest of it because their 6th sense about Mommy getting rid of things kicked in and they descended on me like a plague of locusts, determined to crawl through the donation bags and insist that I  allow them to keep the toys they haven't even touched in years.  I bravely fought them off and won what is now an entire van load of donations ready to go to Goodwill and Birthright, but they did prevent me from being as thorough as I wanted.

As I finish each room, I'll post the progress.  Like I said, it's not for bragging rights, but more for posterity: "Look, kids, we don't HAVE to live in total squalor!  Less is more!  Mommy once had control over something."

Every Random Thought

Today, my brain has been hopelessly scattered across the spectrum of rather mundane issues.  I'm here to unload them if you care to peek into the bucket o' crazy that is my trainwreck of thoughts...

Maleficent: There is a movie coming out with Angelina Jolie as my favorite villain of all time.  I want to see it, but I don't want Jolie to ruin Maleficent for me.  I have a sneaking suspicion that she will.  Wah wah wah, poor little me.

Pizza: I bought a cheese pizza from our local Wegmans (I trust their ingredients and process) for the kids to eat on Friday.  I hate myself for it, but I'm also patting myself on the back.  I don't have my husband here to lean on in the evenings so that I can make my kids a decent dinner without completely stressing out and leaving the kitchen a disaster at bedtime.  I feel guilty for taking the easy way out of Friday's dinner, but justified in what the iota of spared peace of mind will bring to my evening.  I'm not sure the exchange was entirely worth it.

Baby-related illnesses: While I have felt nauseated for weeks now, I didn't actually vomit until today.  Immediately after the contents of my stomach vacated my body, I had the overwhelming craving for chips and salsa.  I indulged.  Gross.

Internal organs are a bear: I suspect my uterus is tilted.  I'm going to talk to my doctor about it tomorrow at my check-up, but all signs point to that being the case.  It's supposed to correct itself, but I'm not a patient person.  It should be good and darn corrected the minute it became difficult for me to pee.

Bills: The bills for Kid #4's teeth keep rolling in.  Yet another new charge has showed up in the mail.  AND it's marked as 30 days past due.  Guess who is getting a hormone-crazed, exhausted, angry call from me today?  They originally had him slated to get 6 crowns.  Only one of those crowns was necessary, but somehow it's $400 more than what I paid?  Medical billing is a complete racket.  I'm convinced of it.

Cleaning: My kitchen is getting a total overhaul today.  It has to happen.  I know the results will only be noticeable for about 20 seconds before the kids descend and turn the place upside down, but it must happen.

There's more, but I hear a kid playing in the sink.  Oh, to have a moment's peace!

Giddy Giddy Giddy!

My parents upgraded their phone plan.  I'm still on that plan, so my mom called me and told me to hit up the dealer and score a new phone.  It's an iPhone!

I'm a kid in a candy store.  It's depressing to see me, really.  I'm suddenly consumed by all the shiny new things I can do!  But if we're going to be totally honest, I'm stoked that it has a camera.  I've texted long overdue smoochy shots to my mom, recorded some of the shenanigans that my kids continually pull, and got some delicious shots of some finished projects that I have been dying to post on here.

Let's get to it, shall we?

Kid #1 is less than thrilled that Mommy has a camera.

Hammy McHam is totally ok with Mommy being a camera-wielding psycho.

Kid #2 was pretending to wake up while we were figuring out ringtones.

Obviously, I switched to the camera and snapped away.

The girl, being ever so coy about posing with her toy.

This was after we figured that the camera is on BOTH sides of the phone for optimal selfies.

And then...  then there are projects!!!  WHEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

This is a peek at the downstairs bathroom.  It'll be a post unto itself in the coming days.

Also, I got one of the girl's Christmas presents cranked out in two evenings.

Step 1: Rejoice that I have bright pink yarn that I can use!  Money saved!

Step 2: Run out of the pink yarn before the hat is big enough, but pat self on the back for having a ball of white yarn that makes for a cute accompaniment to the Hello Kitty crocheted embellishment.

Time to cozy up with the vacuum cleaner and get this place whipped into shape so I can spend the evening working on someone else's gift.  Don't worry, you'll get pictures of that, too. :-)

Handmade Christmas

I've been meaning to do handmade Christmas gifts for years.  Once in a while, I will crank out one or two handmade gifts, but this year has made it more of a necessity than past years.  

I'll admit it: I'm totally stoked about it!

I have a soap making class with some friends that will cost me $20 and make enough soap to gift out to family and neighbors, as well as enough to cover us for the next 6 months.  I have ornaments for various Godparents, cotton kitchen towels to crochet for John's coworkers, winter gear for the kids (hats and scarves) to crochet as well, and a few dress shirts to sew for John. 

I revisited my Pinterest page for gifts and found a few more things that I'm excited to make:

1. Constellation cards for Kid #1, a major lover of all things galactic.

2. Animal wall busts for the kids, likely in various forms (shark, dinosaur, unicorn, bear).

3. Cute slippers for the whole family.

4. A little something for myself. :-)

I'm also excited to be getting rid of all of this yarn that's been hanging around here.  Decluttering and giving gifts... awesome!

There Are Many Pregnancies Like It, But This One Is Mine.

Food.  I'm obsessed with it lately.

I mean, you'd look at my rather rotund self and think that it's a given, but I'm on a whole different plane of obsession.  Rather than eating because everything tastes good, I'm eating to see if anything tastes good.

Thanks, pregnancy.  You're a real pal.

A high school friend of mine confided in me that she is also pregnant (her first) and the only saving grace to her lack of appetite is sriracha.  I gave that a shot, drowning my morning eggs in it.  It made it passable, but that was good enough for me.

Sriracha: 1 point

A college friend announced her second pregnancy just a few days ago.  Her go-to food is homemade milkshakes with a pickle chaser.  I gave those a try, only to want to murder cows for their contribution of milk and ice cream.  Pickles, however, tasted like pure joy.

Pickles: 1 point

John brought home a bag of pretzels for football on Sunday.  I ate a small handful, so long as each was smothered with cream cheese.  Cream cheese saved the cows on my hit list.

Pretzels and cream cheese: 1 point

While chicken is on deck for dinner, I'm convinced that a steak would hit the spot.  Alas, I'm not taking the kids shopping.  I will spare myself the anxiety of their public antics.

Inconvenience: 1 point

I suffer the nausea with a martyr complex because crackers taste like ash and I can't force myself to touch them.  Soup smells like sewage, no matter the kind and source.  Bagels are tolerable, as long as the cream cheese to bagel ratio is inhumanly enormous.  Bacon almost makes the cut.  How fair is that?!  I can't go within 20 feet of the deli and seafood sections of the grocery store, lest I leave the meager contents of my stomach all over the displays.

And the kicker: all of my calories are consumed before 3 p.m.  Anything after that makes me want to curl up in a ball and disown my husband and children vocally, and with great volume.

Oh, and my prenatal vitamins make my nausea all the worse.

10 weeks down.  34 weeks to go.
(If you know how my children heed the EDD, you'd find this accurate, if not amusing.)

I know, I am becoming fluent in speaking "Whinese."  Truth be told, I'm actually very excited about this baby.  It took a couple of weeks, which is not normal for me.  I typically lose my face and am instantly in love with the baby, but it took some time this time around.  Either way, I'm excited. :-)