Monday, January 22, 2007

By golly, we have a breakthrough!

Hold on to your chairs, girls, I have exciting news to report. No, I'm not pregnant...

Saturday evening, January 20, at approximately 7:20 p.m., my husband actually PICKED UP A BABY! Of his own free will! Without being asked! Grabbed him right out of the Johnny Jump-up and snuggled with him for a good 10 minutes. Yes, I'm sure it probably had something to do with the fact that Garrick was screaming his fool head off because he knew somehow that I was feeding Gunnar and not him, even though he couldn't see us.

I was amazed. That was a night for the history books!

Now, we just have to get him to feed, burp, and change diapers, and we'll be all set for kids of our own! :-)

Friday, January 19, 2007

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Snow day

Well...at 5:00 this morning, there was NO SNOW on the ground (except the stuff on the patio that never melted over the weekend, because it's always in the shade). In fact, I thought it was raining. When hubby left for work at 5:30, it was just starting to snow heavily. When I left for work shortly before 7:00, there was about an inch and a half on the ground.

Got to work a couple of minutes after 8:00, to find that the office wasn't opening till 10:00. Then, at 9:00 or so, they decided to close it all together. So, I headed home to find this:

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

We have about four inches on the ground. It's still flurrying occasionally, but nothing like it was this morning, when the flakes were bigger than silver dollars.

And the dogs are quite excited to be back inside where it's warm and cozy!

Happy snow day, everyone!

Sunday, January 14, 2007

If you have 8 minutes and 19 seconds to kill...

Watch this video. It's awesome!

Jerome Murat

I feel like a parent

Ringo woke us up at 5:00 this morning with the tell-tale sign of an impending hurl. So, we got up (in a hurry), and I got him outside while hubby cleaned up the carpet (I can tell already that he's going to be the vomit parent when we have kids). Hubby got up with him and I tried to go back to sleep, but gave up about half an hour later with hurl #2.

This, of course, was after Puck hurled last night while we were eating dinner.

Two sick kids in less than 12 hours. Hershey-girl - it's your turn, sweetie! Don't miss out on all the fun!

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

P.S.

Looks like there will be no "Ha! I told you so!" for the Kaiser nurses' faces this month... Have no fear - there's always next month!

Today's task

Filing.

There's a HUGE pile of stuff to be filed, sitting on top of my filing cabinet (what? You mean getting in ONTO the file cabinet doesn't make it filed? Sheesh! Picky picky!). I'm about to set the timer for 15 minutes, during which time I will file, file, file. Have to find some receipts and a set of check carbons so I'm ready to go at tax time!

Monday, January 08, 2007

A new month...

A new budget. Our budget month runs on my pay schedule since hubby gets paid weekly and that has the potential to screw me all up.

December was a nightmare - I wasn't allowed to look at the bank account for about three weeks, so I wouldn't ruin any Christmas surprises (yeah, because everything was SUCH a surprise by the time hubby got done with it!). So I gave up, and we spent WAAAAAAAAY too much money.

So, in anticipation of having a really good budget month this time, I went out and spent what felt like a bazillion dollars at Winco on Saturday. At a regular grocery store, I'm sure it would have been an actual bazillion dollars! I love Winco...

Bugs me to no end that the only way I can keep on top of the budget is to update it every day. Or sometimes every other day, if I'm careful. You'd think we'd have "no spend" days, but for some reason it just doesn't happen. I have to track everything by category in an Excel spreadsheet. I don't even use Microsoft Money anymore, since just about everything goes on our Visa card and we pay it off every week. I just download the bank statements and save them in case there's ever a problem.

Tonight's task is to transfer all the monthly savings pots into their respective ING accounts (clothes, doctor bills, pets, home improvement).

I guess it's worth it in the long run, though, because, while we never stay exactly in budget (though we would I'm sure if I could just restrain myself at the grocery store and not be so freaking lazy when it comes to cooking), it does help us considerably in our quest to save a large chunk of change every month. With hubby's uncertain job situation, and all the projects we want to do around here (like actually putting some landscaping in the front yard, or fixing the Blazer YET AGAIN), it's a big goal of ours to sock away as much as we can. Hubby's raise should help with that, too - I'd like to up the savings amounts in certain categories, plus overall.

Another pay period, another budget! Happy payday!

Sunday, January 07, 2007

Today's task

Seems like I'm better at doing big weekend chunks of housecleaning, rather than little daily chunks. I guess as long as it gets done it's ok, huh?

Today I cleaned the kitchen (we messed it up pretty bad yesterday, with my baking and hubby's ice cream making). And took down the Christmas stuff. Now hubby just needs to haul it all up to the attic!

In a bit (as soon as I can convince him to get off the computer!) we're going to go buy some kind of baskets or something to organize the freezer over the fridge better. stuff just slides all over the place in there so it's hard to keep it organized...

Saturday, January 06, 2007

Ch-ch-changes, part deux

Well...apparently hubby's current employer has decided he's too valuable a temp to let get away. When they found out he'd been offered the other job, they gave him a serious pay increase (like, 23%), and so he's staying!

Of course, selfish witch that I am, allI could think was "damn! I still have to make sandwiches at 5 am!"

Some people are simply never satisfied... :-)

Friday, January 05, 2007

Ch-ch-changes

That song just popped into my head for no particular reason at all.

Hubby's former manager at his last temp job before this one called him out of the blue last night and offered him another year at his old job. We discussed it, and he accepted. The schedule sucks beyond sucky (I think it's 4 p.m. to 2:30 a.m., Wednesday through Saturday), but the money's better and he likes the work better. So, we'll be back to not seeing much of each other.

Of course, selfish witch that I am, my first thought was how the hell am I going to get pregnant if we don't see each other for half the week??? We basically won't see each other three days a week, and only for a brief time on Saturdays. But, we'll figure something out.

He'll call the temp agency when he gets home today (yes, this is the same temp agency that tried to screw him over for unemployment last time), and then we'll see what happens...

You know you've worked...

...in fundraising too long when you have dreams about gift processing.

That is all.

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Finding a healthy me

I purposely decided not to set a weight loss resolution this year. They just frustrate me anyway. I did, however, set three goals for healthier living, which hopefully will result in my losing 25 pounds over the course of the year.

1. Drink a minimum of 12 8-ounce glasses of water a day (I already do this on 99% of weekdays, but weekends are a little trickier).

2. Eat at least five servings of fruits and/or veggies a day

3. Exercise at least 30 minutes, three days a week.

So there you go. In 2006 I did manage to lose 15 pounds (well, actually I lost 16 but I gained one of them back). So this year I just have to lose 10 more than that! Should be perfectly doable...

Monday, January 01, 2007

Today's task

Well...

Today I tackled the kitchen. I didn't take pictures, but let's just say it looked a little worse than it did when I took this - http://mamapicturethis.blogspot.com/2006/08/feeling-little-better.html

I think every pan I own was dirty, and most of the dishes too. Lots of cooking over the holidays with not a lot of cleanup time in between will do that to you! It's clean now (well, not the floors, and not one small section at the end of the counter that has all the stuff that needs to go elsewhere). The appliances are all lined up in a neat little row, the knives are hanging on their handy-dandy magnet strip that hubby just installed, and the kitchen is finally at peace.

Until I go start to make dinner tonight. New recipe - cheesy chicken crepes. Which will probably involve at least three pots! I guess the trick is to learn to clean up after myself...