Category: Misc

Well it's was a very successful four-ish days off. We fit in a bit of rest, but mostly we had stuff to do and we did!

Wednesday: gym, hanging out, naps, cooking!
Thursday: Turkey Trot (4 mi in 48 min), dinner with family, kids crashed before 7 PM (for the night), got to hang out with hubby for a while
Friday: gym, zoo, lunch, naps, Matt & Ryan do demo work, Indian food
Saturday: gym, dance, drop kids off at Mom & Dad's, home for leftovers for lunch, naps, errands (Christmas shopping), excellent steak dinner @ home, picked up Ben, watched Tudors
Sunday: gym with good friends, errands, picked up Tabby, home for naps, picked up house, laundry, put up Christmas tree, made chicken parm for dinner, decked the halls, skyped with Auntie Theresa, bed for kids, computer time for me … soon to CRASH

Hope you had a lovely holiday weekend!

Jayesel posed an interesting question: “If you woke up and your house was spotless, your children were being cared for elsewhere, and your work was done, what would you do (besides faint)?”

Hmmmm. Just the thought of this scenario makes me almost giddy with glee … and yet, the fact that I started this post 3 or 4 days ago will let you know how utterly unlikely it is. Nonetheless, I feel I should be prepared for the possibility, right??

1. Catch up on my to-do list. This probably seems counter-intuitive, but over 60% of my to-do list at anytime is a bunch of stuff that I'd love to accomplish that would make my life easier but that I have trouble getting to, like putting new workout music on my mp3 player.
2. I would probably play a computer game … Sims 3 or Civ 4.
3. Craft a new theme for my blog … getting sick of this one and I think it's time for a change.
4. Go Shopping! – This is a fantasy, right? So in the fantasy my basement remodel is costing me 0 and I have $$ to go shopping and of course without the kids? Hell yes.
5. See a movie … in the theatre … that doesn't involve animation.
6. With lots of time, I'd probably hit the gym and get in a nice long run and training session … do exactly what I want, no time limits. I would also take the opportunity to use the steam room which I have yet to use in the months we've belonged to this gym.
7. Read (not listen to!) a book. There are about 3 on my shelf I can't get in audio form (at least for free).
8. Sleep. It has to be here … I am almost always deficient … but only after I'd had quite a lot of fun.
9. Make something! All my craft stuff is hidden away and hardly ever sees the light of day. Nooooo time!

Now the question is … what about YOU?

We had what I am very happy to call a nice weekend. I am not sure I even once felt rushed or frantic. That said, we did not sit around. We watched only one TV show all weekend (and I almost didn't stay awake through it!) and we worked very very hard.

The snow started Friday so we went to the pizza place just down the street and then trekked back home. Ben went to bed and Tabby and I worked on an art project and listened to Christmas carols. After she went to bed, Matt and I went back to work on our projects … me freelance and him the house.

After gym and dance and Taco Bell on Saturday morning, we spent an annoying amount of time and $$ at the Home Depot, getting everything ready to do the electrical in our basement. My dad came over and we worked on the wiring. My mom and sister showed up a bit later with dinner and the wiring fun went late into the night.

Sunday after gym + errands, it was back to wiring. My mom watched the kids and Matt and Dad and I wired things up, hung lighting kits, etc. etc. We now have three rooms with outlets (they even work – we checked!) and all of our recessed light boxes are installed and some have line run to them. Matt and I will continue to work on this stuff in the evenings after the kids go to bed.

For my final act of the weekend, I finished up the next stage in my freelance project, got myself ready for the week and dropped into bed already mostly asleep. The kids were absolute dolls all weekend and so cooperative it was uncanny. Like I said … a nice weekend.

I don't want any crap about how it's too early for Christmas music. Honestly, if it were a normal year, I might agree with you. But it isn't. It is the first year Tabby is old enough to really GET Christmas and (more importantly, in my book) sing Christmas carols! Wheee!! Tabby loves to sing and so I am taking advantage of this and teaching her Christmas carols. I started off with Jingle Bells and that is going great! She knows the whole chorus and some of the first verse (she loves to chime in with hahahaha!). We have also started learning “Must Be Santa” and “Deck the Halls.” I am trying for “Silent Night” but since it doesn't have a lot of repetition and isn't so jazzy, she doesn't really care for it as much. To recap: she's 2.

I am also starting to figure out gifts for everyone. Money is especially tight right now what with the whole remodel thing, but I have an automatic savings plan thru ING where we deposit a certain amount of $$ each month into a Christmas account, so it is all there when we need it. It's the second year I've done this and I am so glad for it!

Anyhow, Matt and I are obviously not getting each other gifts (we gave the pricey gift of nice-looking-bathroom already), save the ultra-sexy gifts of Smart Wool (for him) and Oral-B electric toothbrush (for me). With the kids being the ages that they are we get lots of bang for the buck as far as toys go. I don't want to get Ben too many toys since he has access to a TON from Tabby and our friend's little ones, but I do want to get him one or two little things and probably a cute outfit. Tabby will be getting a set of Playmobil from us (Santa?) … I'm thinking this one since it's got a house, animals AND a treehouse! She discovered our old Playmobil at my parents' house this past weekend and was a *huge* fan.

I also want to start doing a couple of gifts for them that we will give every year. I want to get them each a book or two for their “permanent collection.” And I also want to make a donation upon their behalf to Heifer International of some sort of animal. I like Heifer because it's something they can easily understand, concrete and Tabby at least can select what we give and we can read about it together. I hope that as they get older, they can figure out where they want to donate money to. I view it as the beginning of lessons in gratitude and perspective.

And of course I have a few crafty projects up my sleeve … I want to do new ornaments for the family with the kids' photos on them, but I'm trying to come up with something new and different and I may fail miserably. If you know of any cute photo-ornament projects, let me know!

It's been a bit crazy around our house. Our contractor is in pretty much every day (including Saturday), working. This varies from mouse-like quiet to distracting din. I am pretty glad we're generally not at home for naptime. Matt and I have been racing to get our fixtures, etc. chosen and ordered. Mom and Dad took the kiddos all day Saturday so Matt and I could spend all day fixture-hunting. And we did! The money end of it kills me. I know it costs to do this sort of thing, but kissing $800 away to tile here and $400 away to bath fixtures there, kills little bits of my good-German-saver soul. I know how hard it is to get that $$ back into savings.

Friday we went to Ben's doctor's appointment. He is getting longer and leaner, which is nice to hear. He's up near 65th percentile for height (was 46 last time) and 80th percentile for weight (was around 90th last time). He hated his shots, but otherwise was not much hindered by the experience. We went to the zoo with my mom afterward which both kids loved … Tabby for the animals, Ben for being outdoors.

Sunday I went for a looong run with some friends from my mom's group. I was the weakest link, which doesn't feel good, but it reminded me to keep upping the ante on my running. I am trying to run a half marathon in April and I need to focus on getting some more distance and some more actual road runs. Time is so limited though that it is hard!

Yesterday Matt got his wisdom teeth out. It was no picnic, but he's through it now and over the worst of the recovery process. I took the day off to hang with him and drive him around and such, so I am a bit behind at work.

And in my free time (which has been scant hours), I am working madly on my freelance project. I'm enjoying the development process all over again and pleased with the product I'm putting out.

Last, but not least, I am going nuts because my Tivo broke (we're pretty sure). The input from the cable box (which shows up fine when going direct to the TV), will no longer show up on the Tivo. If it is broken, this will be the second one we've replaced and I am getting mighty sick of it. A friend mentioned that Direct TV has a protection plan under which they replace for free … and I am now trying to figure out if we can switch off cable (just the TV portion) which we also use for phone and internet and come out too much worse for it. But you know how it is … you've only got so much time to devote to customer service reps and musical hold.