Must go to bed to get a nap before the kids come home, but I'm going to try to start using this journal again. My life is in a very different place now. I'm working full-time, my husband is back in school, but I really need a place to focus.


( So...Today I will... )

I hope I can do as well with my list today as I did yesterday. *gold stars*

The List

Showered, dressed, make-up, hair
Empty Dishwasher
Clean off kitchen table/counters, do dishes
Swish and swipe and sweep bathroom
Make bed
Eat Lunch
Bring up garbage cans
Shine sink
Replentish paper supplies
Sweep kitchen
Make grocery list/menu
Grocery shopping
1 load of laundry done (1/2 done!)
Hot spots x2
Book shelf (school) rescue x5 minutes
Paper patrol
Dust ceiling fans and light fixtures

I was sick this morning with my dear husband's cold (from hell!) and didn't sleep hardly at all last night, so I slept ALL MORNING LONG *cough*and into the afternoon*cough*. I feel better now, so I'm still going to try to salvage this day. :D


the list

make bed
empty dishwasher, reload
clean kitchen counters & table
shine sink
garbage out to curb
eat lunch
showered, dressed, make-up
swish and swipe bathroom
1 load of laundry (DD) (1/2 done!)
5 minute room rescue (bedroom)
5 minute room rescue (living room)
balance checkbook
hot spot clean-up

Christmas has come and gone. One of the best presents that I got was when I found out that I got straight A's this semester when I thought I had B's in two of my classes. Very exciting! I got all kinds of goodies...
( gift rambling and stuff going on our lives right now )

Unload dishwasher
Fill out and get ready rebates to send out (x3)
27 Fling Boogie the Living Room
Vacuum the living room
Sweep Kitchen
Call in prescription refills
Hot spots x2
Get cell phones/PDA listed on eBay
Balance checkbook
Do Dishes
2 loads laundry (washed, dried, folded, put away)
Feed/Water cats

The kids are on vacation right now and starting to drive me a little crazy. I get that they want to play all day, (don't we all?) but I can't stand when they won't even brush their teeth without a fight because it interrupts play time. They're old enough to understand why they need to do those things and I hate having to be a nag! Grrr! *deep breaths* Just needed to vent. I feel better now.

My exams are done. My dishes are all done. My laundry is all done. My bills are all mailed out and the checkbook balanced. My Christmas shopping is all done. I feel so liberated. I called my friends and went out to lunch with one of them today and just had fun! I hung out with the kids tonight and just enjoyed them. What an awesome feeling!

Studying like crazy. I feel like my brain is going to squish out of my ears if I try to shove any more boring information in there! :) On the bright side, only two more tests until I'm done with school for a whole month. Yay!

It's Christmas tree day. I love the place that we go to get our tree. They have a sleigh drawn by horses through the snow to where the trees are, then you get to cut down the tree you want so it's super fresh and good smelling. It's just a guy who grows trees on his large country lot, and he's super nice and always gives the kids a Christmas coloring book and crayons. They love it. I'm very excited.

But before we get the tree...

( Daily Do )

I really need to find my motivation. I lost it somewhere around March 2006 and haven't seen it since. Really.

So, in an effort to get my home and life back on track, I figure writing down some goals would be a good place to start. I'm thinking small for starters; I'll work my way up. It's gonna be a long climb.

( daily do )

I'm going to beat this dreary funk that I've been in. Christmas is coming, semester's almost done; happy thoughts, happy thoughts, happy thoughts! :D

I'm still enjoying my streak of motivation. I've gotten so much done in the last half a week. I swear, I'm starting to think this is a hormonal thing. My cleaning desire is almost directly linked to what time of the month it is. Does anyone else have this happen, or is it just me, or is this just entirely TMI? LOL.

I'm not going to post a list today because I finally got my control journal done! I have a page with all my routines to print out for every day of the week. It works for me cuz I like to start out the day with a checklist and I can see my progress. The only thing left to do is put it in a binder which I will do today. :D

I used Freecycle for the first time today. I'm a bit nervous about it, so wish me luck! I have a huge antique upright piano that I just don't love. It's a pain to dust all the time and it doesn't match my living room, it's too big for me to move so I can't clean behind it, and it's just rather ugly. So that's my major fling for today in my Living Room since I really don't have knick-knacks or much clutter there. I should post those pounds at the flylady site once I get rid of it (hopefully I'm not counting my chickens before they hatch!). It's got to be at least 300 pounds!

Oh, and I uploaded a Queer as Folk moodtheme made by raelala today as well! teh_del showed me instructions on how to make one so that it's free! So, yay for that!

Well, time to start lunch! I'm hoping that everyone's doing well!

[Mood| Accomplished ]

I'm going to be online only long enough to post this entry today, because I'm feeling strangely motivated today, and I plan on taking full advantage of it.

( to do )

And as a reward, my DH and I are going out on a date tonight. Dinner and a Movie. We haven't decided on a movie yet, it'll probably be Fantastic Four or Mr. & Mrs. Smith. Hope everyone has a good weekend!

I'm finding myself with a dilemma. See, my regular babysitter recently quit, due to getting a part-time job so I found this other girl as her replacement. We'll call her Suzy. Suzy is well liked by my children and has always shown up when she has said she would, however, she is horrible about returning phone calls, seems busy a lot, has a hard time comitting to a job immediately (like when I ask, 'can you come over Saturday night at 7?' She'll say 'I'm not sure right now. Can I call you back?'), and waits until the very last minute to show up when babysitting.
So anyway, the problem is that Suzy went away for 2 months this summer, recommending a friend of hers to me for while she was gone. Well, of course her friend is wonderful. She's always available, eager for the job, shows up early, my kids like her as well, she even painted my daughter a picture for her birthday on a canvas after only sitting for us twice.
The problem is that Suzy is coming back soon from vacation, and although I hired her as my sitter, I really like her friend better. With them being friends, I don't want to create an animosity between them. I don't really know what to do. Should I just use Suzy when she's available and continue to use her friend as a back -up? Should I use Suzy's friend exclusively? If so, how do I break this to them?

( today's to-do )

Hopefully I'll be able to catch up a little today, now that I've finished Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I'm reading it again with my daughter, but of course not with the same hurried, determination as the first time through. :D This time's for savoring.

Yay! I just taught my son how to ride his bike without training wheels. :D And now I think I have heat stroke from running up and down my street for a half and hour in 90 degree humid weather with full-length jeans on, but Yay! Bike! Oh, and I pulled weeds for about 15 minutes too! My goal was 5 minutes, but as usual once I got going, I had to just finish the area that I was working on. My entire front yard is weeded.

I'm seriously shaking and beet red. I'm going to go drink some water and sit in front of the fan for awhile.

Ugh, I've been so incredibly lazy lately. I got back on track yesterday and I'm hoping today I can stick by the routines. It's so hard in the summer to stay motivated!

( Yay for yesterday! )

( today )

I will get the list all done today! Yesterday's thunderstorms left the house feeling reasonably cool and refreshing for once and I want to feel that accomplishment that I felt yesterday, not the lazy, guilty feeling I felt the days before that. I think I'm gonna try the camp thing next week with the kids and see how it goes. I was in lazy/depressed mode on Monday and Tuesday when the whole thing started. I think it would be good for the kids as well as myself though. They're getting bored with summer too! Well, off to get dressed and ready for the day. Wish me luck!

I feel kinda stupid posting this, but I'm looking for constructive criticism so I figured here would be a good place to start. I'm too scared to post this on any of the cooking/food LJs; I don't know which ones are newbie friendly and I'm not ready to be eaten alive just yet. If anyone knows of any communities where I could get relatively constuctive feedback, feel free to let me know.

Anyway, I've never tried to make a big deal out of food presentation before, but tonight I tried just for the hell of it. So, I made up a crazy chicken and bell pepper recipe (which needs tweaking), but I was hoping that anyone who wanted to give their opinions on the presentation could do so here.



( 2 more pics of same dish with different presentations )

So what I'm wondering is...
* Which one do you like best?
* Would you have done anything differently?
* In your opinion, how could this be improved?

Any feedback is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Anti-Procrastination Day indeed. Oh how I loathe paperwork and phone calls.

( daily do )

My head is still achy. I think it's time to break out the cold and sinus medication.

I had a bunch of bananas that were getting kinda ripe. Usually I just make banana bread or something like that to use them up, but in this heat, who wants to turn on the oven for that long?

So I found this recipe for bananas. It is absolutely delicious, and the best part...served over ice cream! Perfect for summer. Plus ultra fun, cuz flambe!

( Bananas Foster )


Recipe taken, and altered slightly, from Allrecipes.com. It was so fabulous the first day. Although slightly less fabulous as leftovers. We had it as a pancake topping as well as an ice cream topping. Yummy on both. Let me know how it went over if you use it! I plan on posting more recipes this month and would like some feedback on what people enjoy. :D

I love it when the weekly zone is the kitchen. I love cleaning the kitchen. Except for doing dishes, ick! To me, it is just so noticeable when I've really cleaned the kitchen and not so much the other rooms. Maybe it's because I spend so much time in my kitchen. I don't know. It's the first room I clean at work too, beginning with shining the sink. People think I'm so neurotic. Okay, so they're kinda right.

I'm trying not to feel really behind after a week of VBS, and general slacking off due to the extreme heat wave. I'm really trying.

Since the new habit for June is to get to bed on time, I think I'm going to make my own new habit. Realistically, going to bed on time is never going to work for me. I work 3rd shift 2 days a week. During the school year, I have exams and homework that needs done whether or not I get enough sleep. So I think my habit I want to adopt this month is to read to my kids every day. (or some actvity that involves learning) My son is beginning Kindergarten in the fall and still really doesn't care for books, so I'd love to spend some time trying to spark his interest in them. Perhaps even trying to get him to recognize a few basic words and spend some time practicing letter sounds. (since he already writes and recognizes letters) Hopefully, he's willing to give this a shot.

I have a sinus infection which sucks. I'm trying to nurse myself better without a trip to the doctor. So far, I'm using mega doses of Zinc (because I feel like I'm also coming down with a cold), lots and lots of water, allergy meds to reduce some of the "drainage", and advil and heat compresses for the throbbing pain. Does anyone have any other methods or at home remedies? I don't believe in using antibiotics unless it becomes absolutely necessary.


( anyhoo...da list )

I'm teaching VBS this week. I think that next year I'm taking the year off, because honestly my pastor is driving me NUTS! He makes me look like Organizer of the Year, which is entirely sad. He didn't even get me the music until 2 days ago, and I'm the music director. Grrrr. Sorry. Had to rant. I'm running out the door.

( to do )

Do ya ever get so hungry for something completely random, and you know you just won't be able to forget about it until you've had some? I am sooooo hungry for TGI Friday's Spinach Artichoke Dip! ...and Rice Crispy Bars for some reason. I found a recipe for the Spinach Artichoke Dip that sounds pretty similar and I think I'm going to make it tomorrow after I go grocery shopping using lower fat/calorie versions of the ingredients. Yum! Wish me luck! If it turns out, I'll be sure to share the recipe.

( daily do )

I did well on my diet yesterday. I ate pretty healthy, 'cept for the ice cream sundae I had when DH took us all out for ice cream. But other than that I had Special K for breakfast, French onion soup for lunch, baked boneless skinless chicken breasts in white wine, steamed broccoli, and wild rice for supper. Hopefully I can keep it up today, along with the exercise.

My DD friend is coming over in a half an hour so I better go get working on #1 on my to do list!

P.S. Remind me NEVER to use the Rich Text Mode again!