Thank you Lauren!

Lauren is a student at my mom's school, who recently graduated and is moving up to our town's intermediate school. She'd been with my mom from Kindergarten to fourth grade, and was diagnosed with diabetes the summer before Kindergarten. Everyone was nervous, especially since Lauren was using a pump. My mom had dealt with other diabetic students before, but only ones who used insulin injections. (My mom is a school nurse, btw.) They had a great 5 years together, my mom took excellent care of Lauren and Lauren's diabetes is now almost an afterthought for her and her family. The family always gave my mom really super gifts for Nurse's Day, end of school, the holidays, etc. but this year's final gift really takes the cake.

To thank my mom for all of her hard work, patience and love over the past few years, Lauren's parents gave my mom a PANDORA BRACELET with three charms. There's a story behind all of them, I won't go into it here. What I'm most pleased about is that my mom's birthday is in a week, and I had no idea what to get her.

Hello jewelry store! Please show me your charms! Thank you Lauren and your parents! I now have birthday, Mother's Day and Christmas ideas for the next few years! (My mom would never buy the charms and accessories for herself, haha.)

I think I am the only person in the world...

Besides KC Jayhawk (hi!), who doesn't really care that Michael Jackson died. (and here I am blogging about it, haha)

Go ahead, flame me, smite me, I don't care.

I'm not surprised--I didn't think he was that stable of an individual to begin with, and I never imagined him getting old.

Yes, it is sad that a human being died relatively young, leaving behind three young kids. But that's all that I care about, really.

I was never a fan--oh sure, his music is catchy but I wasn't obsessed with him. I can't identify certain life moments with his songs. The only thing I do remember is being a little kid and not getting how a girl could be named "Billy Gene" (that's how I thought of it in my under 5 yr old mind) and why it mattered that "the kid is not my son."

Then again I didn't grow up in a super musical household--parents didn't buy records or tapes and weren't obsessed with music the way I am now.

Summer decor for the door...and for the house...

I need a new sign/greeting of some sort for our front door. I just realized it is now officially summer and I have a "happy spring" sign (given to me by Ms. M!) still hanging up.

Whoops.

Hmmm, what shall I put on my door? Can't do a wreath--the wreath hanger I have doesn't let you shut the door correctly and even bent the lock. Uh oh.

In other news, DH and I got a new couch. It's leather and beautiful (thank you tax refund!). We also got it on sale, so that helps. It didn't come with pillows thought, and we need them!

Here is the couch: http://www.raymourflanigan.com/catalog/details.asp?ID=13746

Our chair is sage green and all of our wood furniture is "medium" finish.

Here are some pillows that I like:
http://www.pier1.com/Catalog/RugsPillowsWindows/RugsPillowsWindows/tabid/514/CategoryID/144/List/0/catpageindex/2/Level/a/ProductID/4082/ProductName/Leaves-Woven-Pillow/Default.aspx And not badly priced!

http://www.pier1.com/Catalog/RugsPillowsWindows/RugsPillowsWindows/tabid/514/CategoryID/144/List/0/catpageindex/2/Level/a/ProductID/1734/ProductName/Crewel-Embroidered-Boxed-Pillow/Default.aspx Only if I can get it on sale...$35 no way!

http://www.pier1.com/Catalog/RugsPillowsWindows/RugsPillowsWindows/tabid/514/CategoryID/144/List/0/catpageindex/3/Level/a/ProductID/4069/ProductName/Floral-Dot-Embroidered-Pillow--Carafe-Brown/Default.aspx

My mom got some beautiful pillows at Target recently--she found them in the clearance area, and they would go SO well with our living room, buuuut they are hers. Of course I will not find others like that. Sigh.


Not much else is going on with us. Still poking along in my online class. Work is crazy/stressful busy. DH still keeps looking/interviewing for jobs.

really really irritated

and I can't even begin to explain why...

UGH.

Thanks A+ and Ms. M!

Your comments on my last school post helped immensely. I also took some quiet time one morning and just walked myself through everything the professor wanted. I think I'm in the midst of the swing of things now. At least I hope so.

Now to work on what I need to APPLY to the program...ugh.

Another great book blog

I wanted to share this with you all...
http://www.booksonthenightstand.com/

The two people who run this blog were sales reps at the bookstore where I used to work. I ran into one of them at BookExpo America and I figured I'd give a little shoutout to their blog. Oh, and they have podcasts, too.

Enjoy!

Has anyone ever taken an online class?

Can you help me? How do you keep it all together, the readings, the assignments, the postings?

This professor wants us to join all of these list serves, read posts, post things to our Blackboard page for the class AND to our Yahoo group.

I know this is grad school, but this is ridiculous. I've been in grad school 2 other times, and it's never been like this. I don't know how I can work full time and just take ONE class!

Great weekend!

I need to have more of these. DH and I decided that we'd try and do all errands/chores during the week after dinner, so that we could relax on the weekends. So nice to just sit around and listen to the birds after a great dinner on the grill tonight. All weekends should be like this, is what DH said earlier...and I agree.

Here's to hoping that we can get on this new "plan" and enjoy more time together, doing fun stuff (or even nothing at all really) instead of running from Target to the grocery store to home doing chores and cleaning. Not fun at all.

Real quick, something about school

So I'm taking an online class this summer. Supposed to start June 1. I kept logging in to the school's site that said "My Courses" (as there was a discussion board, places to post files and messages etc). I thought that was the place where we'd be "having" our class.

Yesterday, while checking my school email, I see the link to Blackboard which I've seen every time I log into school email, and on a hunch I decide to click it. Good thing I did! THAT is where my class is being "held." AND we had an assignment due by today! Just a quick introduction of ourselves, so I did that and was done. Also ordered my book from Amazon to come Monday (yay $17 for shipping) because we have a reading/discussing assignment due soon.

Shaking my head...

Almost FAIL. Diverted FAIL. Not quite WIN though.

Productivity WIN!

Taking a quick break while I let my water heat up for oatmeal, but I've been up for a little over an hour and have done the following:

• changed the shower curtain liner
• cleaned both bathrooms (just toilets and sinks/mirrors)
• cleaned both litter boxes
• emptied and reloaded the dishwasher
• hand washed two frying pans
• pulled out the empty soda/beer cans/bottles from our storage closet and put them into bigger bags. I was going to take them to the grocery store to get my 5 cents back, but oh yeah, DH does the shopping and HATES the cans. I'll bring them to a drop-off box that a local charity has later on today.
• swept the kitchen floor
• washed the kitchen and bathroom windows and wiped out the sills
• fed/watered the cats
  

OK, breakfast and coffee time! It is amazing what you can do when you just STICK to your projects and not screw off...

Feeling slightly overwhelmed...

The eternal question: is it possible to do it all?

I'm not asking this question as a lot of women do, trying to balance career and family (primarily children, but for some it now includes aging parents!). I'm asking this question as ME.

Who am I? A 29 year old, who:

• works full time
• needs to take care of her physical health by eating as well as possible and getting to the gym
• would like to have a neat/tidy home and clean clothes
• wants to relax with her husband, friends, and family
• would love to enjoy hobbies, activities, and even try new things

How can I do this? I always feel like SOMETHING "loses" or, in a worse case scenario, everything loses and I get nothing done because I'm too stressed and don't know where to begin so I shut down and screw off on the internet or something. (Note: I'm waiting for my laundry to be done, so I'm not screwing off, I'm taking a break!)

Maybe I am just not looking at things clearly. DH does help, thank God...if he was working, we'd probably both be scrambling to get things done. For now, he does do a LOT more than me.

What he does:

• most of the laundry
• the grocery shopping
• the cooking (and he's a very good, very INVOLVED cook, so it takes time)
  
• some of the cleaning (or at least he THINKS he does--I believe in a "man" clean and a "woman" clean...)
• takes out the trash
• feeds/waters/plays with the cats ;-)

What I do:

• the rest of the laundry (mostly my "good" clothes that don't go in the dryer)
• the dishes (most go in the dishwasher, so I fill it, empty it and put stuff away)
  
• the after-dinner clean up
• pulling out stuff from the freezer for future dinners
• the litter boxes (oh lucky me, haha)
• the rest of the cleaning (like the drawers in the fridge, scrubbing out the tub, etc.)
• the banking and bill-paying

It might look like I do more, but my jobs take less time. Litter box--5 mins per box. Dishes--10 mins each night, etc.

Sometimes I'm jealous of DH because he is staying home, although he haaaates it. I have this theory that the less money you have, the more stressed you are. Not only because you have less money and life is expensive...it's MORE stressful because the less money you have, the more things you have to do for yourself. No money for cleaning people. No money for laundry service. No money to have the car washed/cleaned. The list goes on. Then you spend all of your free time doing THOSE chores...and very little time for yourself.

I can only imagine what my life will be like once we get a bigger place, and a dog, and a few kids. I think I'll have a nervous breakdown! j/k ;-)

I need a balance...and I think that's what's missing. I'll slack off on something, let's say, cleaning the house. And then one day, I'll get it in me to clean and I'll spend an entire day (or weekend) totally scouring the house...wearing myself out and not enjoying my time off. That sucks. Or I'll spend an entire weekend totally slacking off and getting NOTHING done and then being mad at myself for not even doing a few chores!

I keep trying to figure out ways to balance my time and I'm not doing so well.

OK, so I can't up and quit my job yet and be a stay at home wife, so work has to stay. Here's an example of what my "typical" day should be like:

Usual workday for me = 8 hrs
Commute, round trip = 1.5 hrs (on average)
Getting ready in AM = 1 hr
Gym (plus travel time) = 1 hr
Sleep (in a dream world) = 8 hrs
Before gym (eat/dress) = 0.5 hrs
20 hrs

That leaves 4 hours in the day to eat dinner, see/talk with my husband, prep for the next day (setting out gym and work clothes, making lunch, etc), do stuff around the house like dishes, watering the garden each night, cleaning the litter boxes...oh and relax too. Yeah right. And God forbid I oversleep, don't get to the gym, and get to work late...everything is effed.

Weekends usually consist of me sleeping in way too long (probably b/c I don't get that full 8 hours during the week) and then trying to just chill, which is really a time-waster, going to church which including travel time to/from is about 3-4 hrs on Saturday afternoon/evening, doing any random errands.

I think I'm just not using my time efficiently b/c I'm too stressed out with what I have to do, and don't know where to begin. I know this happens at work ALL of the time.

So for chores this weekend...the downstairs is pretty clean. I vacuumed the living room early last week, and DH mopped/vacuumed the kitchen. I also dusted the entire house last weekend (or maybe 2 weeks ago) and everything still looks pretty good. The stairs and the upstairs need to be vacuumed badly (yay shedding cats) and the bathrooms probably could use what I call a "quick clean." That seems managable. Oh, and I also need to vacuum out the window sills and wash the windows, but there aren't many at this place, so it won't take too long. Those chores don't seem TOO bad, but some how I make them take longer than they should. I do get distracted by DH, the cats, the phone, the TV...you name it. Ugh.

I think I'll report back and see how productive I was this weekend. I really just want to be efficient, because if I can do that, I'll be healthier, a better worker, a happier wife, more relaxed, etc.

This is a great post.

In light of some things I've thought about myself in the past, and some things I've learned over the weekend...

http://www.blogher.com/childless-women-do-not-lack-essential-humanity

In short, you can't judge a group of people.

ETA: For clarification's sake, I don't agree with the original article, not at all. I agree with the author of the blogher post.