2015 Resolutions: Mid-Year Check-In

I made me some resolutions (slash to-do list) way, way back 6 months ago. Let's see how they're panning out.


1. Have baby, name the baby!
Done, and done! I had said in January that naming was harder than birthing, but I got a stubborn one who had to be induced at nearly 2 weeks late. Named in about an hour after birth, little Audrey Francine has been a pretty awesome baby so far.

2. Still be pumping at work a year from today.
As much as I was dreading pumping, I'm doing great! And I don't dread it. I got my routine down and my supply is doing beautifully. I can pump out her full 4oz. feeding in less than 15 minutes usually (and in my first morning session, it's more like 6oz.) It's too early to say, but I think I'll make it the year.

3. Decorate Cora's room.
Done! The only thing missing is the curtains that I haven't made yet. B has contributed, too. Her room runs really hot in the summer and he bought these tinting decal sticker thingies for the window that have really helped!

4. Read 12 books.
Well, I thought I wasn't on track because my book club read the same book for 6 months (which did not help light any fires under my bum), but actually I've finished exactly 6!

My book list so far, and I'm currently reading another two:

1. Drop Dead Healthy by A.J. Jacobs
2. The Beginner's Photography Guide by Chris Gatcum
3. Marriage: Illustrated with Crappy Pictures by Amber Dusick
4. Shopaholic to the Stars by Sophie Kinsella
5. Bébé Day by Day: 100 Keys to French Parenting by Pamela Druckerman
6. Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World by Joanna Weaver

And yeah, 2 of those (numbers 3 and 5) are sorta what I call "throwaway books" that I read in like a day. Totally counting them.

5. Run ONE race.
I have gone running once so far since giving birth (one mile, and it was S L O W), so I'm sorta on track! I think my goal is to run the River City Rat Race in October.

6. Host 4 dinners at our house.
We've had one. And does Cora's birthday party count? Or hosting Book Club? (Things to ponder.) My sister and her family and my parents are coming in town this week and we're having a baptism party, so I think I'll count that somehow as another.

7. Learn how to use my fancy camera.
I read the photography book, sorta figured it out but still haven't invested the time or energy to do everything on manual. But I do know my other settings pretty well and have gotten decent shots.

Taken a few months back while Cora ate a snack and I messed around with manual settings.

8. Get that blasted passport already.
Still need a push on this. Maybe we just need to plan a trip to Canada so I get it done.

----------------

Basement Update:
And this was on last year's list, but it keeps evolving, so I thought I'd share. I had the goal to clean/fix up the basement back in 2014.

Before everything, here was what we were working with:





Yikes.

Mid-year check-in (a year ago from now) it looked like this:




Nice, right? Except then life happened.

End of the year, it looked like this:




And now, thanks to my wonderful husband, it looks like this!

I had no idea we had beanbag chairs until I took this picture. Where did they come from?

Yep, B's homework table is still there. And the beach chairs stay . . . We'll get a couch eventually.

So those are my goal updates. I think I have a good chance of hitting them all within the next 6 months. How are you doing with your goals?

A House Tour

I realize that we bought this house almost 2 years ago, and I never did a tour here on the blog. I was originally going to do it all in pictures, but how about a video instead? If you came to my house for the first time and wanted to see it, this is the tour I would give. Enjoy!


I'll leave you with a chalk drawing I did of the house yesterday.

How did I do?

For more posts about our house check out this House Updates one (you can see the former kitchen light fixtures and how the dining room used to look in that one) and the rest of them here.

2014 Resolutions Check-In

We're past the halfway point of the year. Hooray?! Again, I'm not one to think that time is passing too quickly/slowly, so insert your own comment here.


Here is an update on my resolution list 2014, and relevant comments:

1. Organize the basement. Make it functional. Make it awesome.
Not quite awesome yet, but it is functional now!

Here are some before pics. This place was a mess!

And now for some after:

Still need to do something or get rid of the blinds on the right

Decided to set up the table instead of letting it fall on someone.

I still have a few things to do down there, like get some pictures up on the wall. Buy a new shelf for games and books. So far, so good, though.

2. Start a toy rotation for Cora. Maybe once a month swap stuff out.
Being doing this on and off. We have 3 sets of toys, and a reminder in my phone goes off during her nap every other Monday. Sometimes I ignore it. The truth is that she mostly plays with the stuff we leave out all the time (toy kitchen and tea set, Lego duplos, books from the library). But when I change stuff out, she notices eventually. I should probably just sell/donate at least half of it at this point.

The other toys in a corner of the basement. She does like to play with them when she's down there!
Also, the fish painting will be going on the wall.

3. Re-start Weekly Family Meetings!
Ugh, we were doing so well until recently. B joined a sports league that has games on Mondays, which was our meeting night. We just moved them to Wednesdays, but sometimes I go to a running club that night. We do like to do it while we give Cora a bath. All of us in the bathroom together. And Cora loves us reading from her kids' bible.

I just started a weekly chore chart now that B is home with me, so maybe we should just move it to Sunday night so we revise our chart as part of the meeting?

4. Potty train Cora. Goal is to be daytime-trained around age 2, no later than 27 months. 
She's now in undies all day except for naps and night (started right around 27 months!). But this child is a holder and refuses to use a public toilet. It was really bad on vacation--once or twice she held it for more than 12 hours. She often goes only twice a day and then in a diaper at night. She is self-initiating, though (finally!), so I'm gonna go ahead and say she is day-time trained!

5. Use time outs for Cora. She still doesn't quite understand it and won't sit in the chair.
Still working on this. She knows what it is and talks about it and sometimes puts herself in time-out for no reason. But when we give an actual timeout? I have to hold her down sometimes. And then she laughs. And then she kicks the wall. Then she laughs some more. I don't think she gets it. Anyone have tips for this? Should I use the high chair and face it toward the wall? Or is she too old for that?

6. Conquer Cora's picky eating.
We've had a few small short-lived breakthroughs, but we definitely can see that only serving her what's on the table is our best shot at this. Now we just need to follow through with it. She eats oatmeal and drinks milk at breakfast, and I like that but not her other meals. I just don't even know with this. I have to bring food to restaurants because she literally will not eat anything on the menu, not even your typical 'toddler food' like mac & cheese or hot dogs.

We went to Waffle House on our vacation, and all she ate was ketchup. (And yes, she just scrapes it off of whatever you put it on. No trickery gets by her.) She drank her milk, though.

7. Get new passport. This has been on my long to-do list for a while.
Has not happened. I currently cannot leave the country. Time to get the wheels a-movin'.

8. Make a home management binder. 
I've started a file on my computer, and as of now it has less than 10 documents in it (including blank chore chart, blank menu plan, doctor info, etc.). It's a start!

9. Keep up with the budget on YNAB. And in effect, tithe more.
I don't reconcile accounts as much as I should, but I'm doing quite well with this. I wish I could get my husband on-board with using the app and inputting purchases right after he makes them, but he won't do it. I do about 80% of the shopping, and he knows to give me receipts, so we're making it work. As for the second part, we have been tithing about 20% more this year. We're still tithing even through this period of unemployment, thanks to YNAB's way of budgeting for a month ahead.

10. Read 7 books. And actually finish them. I was really bad in 2013 in regards to reading about 80% of a book and then not finishing it. It kinda drives me nuts when I think about it. (Most of the books are back on the library shelves, so it's not like I'll be finishing them tonight.)
Done!

1. Unplanned by Abby Johnson
2. Pope Awesome by Cari Donaldson
3. Girl At the End of the World by Elizabeth Esther
4. Strange Gods by Elizabeth Scalia
5. Something Other Than God by Jennifer Fulwiler
6. New Rules of Lifting for Women by Lou Schuler (my first textbook-style read this year, and it went pretty quickly)
7. Saint John Paul the Great: His Five Loves by Jason Evert

Joining a book club has definitely helped with this one, so I'm upping my goal to 12 now.

11. Learn 5 new dinner recipes.

1. Sweet & Sour Meatballs in the crockpot (we love these!)
2. ATK Cooking School Hearty Vegetable Lasagna (this was a "labor of love" and was way too involved)
3. Gouda/Cheddar Mac n' Cheese (from Betty Crocker)

Shredding the cheese for the best macaroni ever

B has been learning some recipes from our ATK Cooking School book, too. I hope he makes the pasta with the fried egg on it again. Yum!

12. Get pregnant. (!!) And pray I don't have another miscarriage, will ya? Because that sucked.
I gave blood back on June 3rd, and you cannot do that while pregnant. I also drank way too much at a wedding on July 5th. You do the math.

13. Make 2 friends in this town. Like, actual friends that give me their phone numbers and call me to hang out.
I haz a running buddy! And went to the zoo with a different friend and her kids. (She invited us!) I have also brought meals to 2 friends who had babies. Feels good, man.

14. Run 2 races. Setting the bar low because I'm not sure how much I'll be able do if #12 happens (see: bad knee).
Ditched the knee brace this spring, and I've already done 3!

1. 5-Kilt
2. Frontier Run n' Fun
3. Nun Run

I just signed up for another one in July (and will hopefully be there with aforementioned running buddy!) and will be doing the one our church puts on in August.


Overall, I'd say it's good progress with my resolutions! Some of the Cora ones are slow-going, but when you think about it, I made goals for her, but I can't control everything about her so we can only expect so much here.

7 Quick Takes: Doorknobs, Cellphones, and a Cute Sous Chef

--- 1 ---

Well, I got the call I was fearing today. My childhood pet died. Frisky the cat lived a wonderful 20 years, roaming around the cul-de-sac I grew up on for all those years. I wrote a post about a month ago about my cat if you want to know more (like why he only has 3 legs).

--- 2 ---

Speaking of my family, they are all driving here for the holiday! My mom, dad, sister (pregnant with twins!), her husband, and 2 kids are all piling in a van tomorrow and making the trek from Georgia to Indiana. They'll be stopping overnight and getting here on Sunday. I'm so excited. I even have a list of fun stuff we can do--which was a harder list to make now than it would have been a few months ago, since a lot of things are just not doable or even open in the cold weather.

--- 3 ---

In a house update, we have been changing out the door knobs this week.

BEFORE

AFTER

It's definitely an improvement from the brassy gold thing (and that obnoxious handle thing which can't be childproofed and I kept getting my finger caught in). But I'm still not 100% sure about it. I feel like oil-rubbed bronze would have looked better with this wood, but I loved the kitchen knobs that were stainless on wood so everything just got based on that. I don't know, what do you think?

--- 4 ---

We also got a tile and grout cleaning done by Stanley Steemer today. I thought it would be more dramatic, but it turns out that our grout had long ago been sealed and painted. That's good, in a way (except for the grout paint that got on the tile), but I'm still glad we did the cleaning.

BEFORE

AFTER

Now if it's dirty, I can only blame myself! (Or, um, a certain toddler who throws food if she doesn't want it . . .)

--- 5 ---

I have spent the last month researching, and I think I'm ready to take the plunge. I will soon be a smartphone user! B decided to cancel his dumbphone with Verizon, since he has a company iPhone. He has barely used his dumbphone in the past year, but we kept paying for it every month. Well, that frees up just under $40 per month for us, and I can finally cut the apron strings from being on a family plan with my mom and dad (which was cheap, but, um, I've been married for 4 years! It's time!).

I have decided to go with a no-contract plan, since for a single user I am 100% positive it's a better deal than any of the big names. While Republic Wireless is probably the best deal out there with Virgin Mobile a close second, I have decided to go with Ting instead. I'm going to buy a Samsung Galaxy S3 off of Ebay for about $200. The good news is that if I hate the plan, I can just find something else. I'm purposely choosing a good phone that can be used with a lot of different no-contract plans, just in case this happens. But I'm excited about this. Hey, I might even join Instagram! I've been a dinosaur for wayyyy too long.

(Also, there is a referral program that can save you money so let me know if you want to join after I join. Some internet stranger gave me a link for a $25 credit!)

--- 6 ---

My husband B has his "weekend" mid-week for whatever reasons. This is good sometimes, like when I want to go to the gym while Cora naps. B confessed to me tonight that while I was out on Tuesday, he decided to watch Sleeping Beauty on his own while his daughter was asleep. He mostly did this because neither of us could even remember that movie. (I'm actually not sure I have ever even seen it.) Cora has some Disney princess board books that we read, and in the Sleeping Beauty one they call her Briar Rose just randomly, and it bugged him.

Well, over dinner tonight he gave me the entire synopsis of the movie and even threw in a critique of why it was sub-par to Snow White. It apparently needed more singing.

--- 7 ---

As much as I feel that Cora is a Daddy's girl, she is starting to get pretty clingy to me. Especially when I try to cook dinner. She clings to my legs and wants me to pick her up.

My solution: making her my sous chef. I even put an apron on her today. (I think Santa needs to bring her one in her own size. Hint hint, big guy.)

My phone started ringing right as I was taking the picture.
She immediately went from "cheese!" and smiling to this.

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

House Updates

I think you can tell how much sleep I have or haven't been getting by how often I post. These past few weeks have been a trial. I have 30 posts in draft mode but none complete enough for me to hit the "publish" button. (Perfectionist's curse?) I haven't slept well because Cora hasn't slept well. I'm basically re-sleep-training her, and that kinda sucks.

But here are some moving and house updates, since that's what's up.

Our big move was on Sunday, Oct. 27th.


We hired some local college football players to just do the heavy lifting, and B drove the Uhaul.

The whole move took less than 3 hours! Hooray for Big Guys. (No, seriously, that's the name of their company.)

Our kitchen used to look like this:

Then it looked like this for almost a week:

And now it looks like this:

We need to figure out the 'command center' table situation (on the left), since that's actually my sewing table. My in-laws have a skinnier table that is going to go there when they can bring it up. I'm also going to get a bulletin board and some desk organizing things. The island is still a mess and we're still finding 'homes' for stuff. (My purse actually has a new home, as we put some hooks up in the hallway.)

We will be changing out the lighting fixtures soon. I'll have a 'totally finished' after picture one of these days.

We did, however, switch out all the knobs already.
Before picture:

In the words of Galinda: "Hidee-oh-dee-ous!"

And after:

Rectangles are fun!

Now for some other rooms.
As much as I'm still not a fan that our master bedroom faces the street (almost didn't look at this house because of it), I'm in love with the accent wall we did in there. (And by "we," I mean the guy we paid to do it, along with the other tall areas of the house.)

I decided this will also be the color of our dining room, and luckily we had enough leftover paint to do it.

The dining room is the only room in the house trimmed out in white, and it was previously a dark maroonish red. For whatever wacky reason, it was done in a matte paint, and I think it was sprayed on. It was in bad shape, and it definitely needed actual primer and not that combo stuff we used in the other rooms.

This was after we took down the ugly floral draperies.

The air vent in the top left corner was definitely sprayed, and it is still red behind it. We got a new white one because who paints air vents??

After picture, mostly. Still needs a new light fixture and maybe some new curtains.

Oh, it also needs furniture, since we have no big dining table or whatever.

Lastly, it turns out that even though there were a gabillion and one cables going into this house, they were all for various satellite dishes and crap we don't want, and none for Comcast cable internet. So they came and laid a cable. It is bright orange and goes diagonally across our whole backyard, into our garage somehow, then up to the attic, and then it somehow does something down in the basement. I don't know; I just live here. They said it would be dug and buried within 2-3 weeks, but it's already been 2 and I think they'll be getting another piece of my mind next week.

So far, this house is a constant (expensive) project. I want it to just be "done" but that involves buying a lot of furniture and having more offspring or something.

I don't know a good way to end this post so here is a picture of our porch when it a few days ago. I don't think I've witnessed snow this early in the season before, but it is only my second year in Indiana. I have much to learn.

5 Favorites: Moving House Edition

So remember that house we bought way, way, way back in August? Yeah, it feels like a lifetime ago. Especially because we haven't even moved in yet! But soon! Very soon! As in, this Sunday soon!

And here are some themed 5 Favorites for this couple of weeks.

1.

Wardrobe boxes

Full disclosure: we saved all our boxes and supplies from last year's move. (Hey, the Navy paid for it!)

These suckers are the greatest things ever! Just put a bar on the top, hang your clothes, and then you are all packed. Genius!

Only drawback: doesn't fit much. But whatever.

2. 

Tons of packing paper

Yeah, we saved this too. And holy smokes, what a mountain! I've been keeping most of it in a closet in hopes that it doesn't sprout legs and attack us in our sleep.

3.

This Picture

Even though she kept peering into the box, she did NOT want to be IN the box

4. 

New Carpet at the House!

I almost wrote a whole entire post about the carpet. See, the house we bought had carpet, but it was NAS-TAY. The previous owners had let their dogs and cats use the whole house as a litter box, it seems. Pee stains everywhere. The place disgusted me to the point where I didn't even want to change Cora's diaper on that floor, even with a mat. We ripped the carpet out ourselves, and every single little roll made had a pet stain on it. It was on the pads, and there were spots all over the floorboards. There was that lovely urine smell in the air at the house, and I hated being there.

So then we spent a lot of money on nice, beautiful new carpet. It is heavenly. I gave it a hug after it was installed. Then I just laid on the floor and promised it I would take care of it. With Resolve or Folex or whatever I need to do.

This was basically the whole reason we couldn't move in straightaway, but there was a ton of other stuff to clean at that place as well. (People who don't clean up after their pets mostly don't clean their kitchens or bathrooms either.)

5.

My Husband

That needs to be in a darker shade of bold. He has done soooo much work both on the house and moving stuff. He and his mom were actually the ones to cut up and rip out all the old carpet (not "we" as I previously said). B then used this stuff (or something like it) to paint over the pet stains and kill the odors on the floorboards. (I honestly thought they needed replacing, but it turns out we didn't!) For moving, B has been taking stuff in his car for the past month (throwing it in the basement before the carpet came). He actually took all the pictures and put them in towels and blankets, so I didn't have to wrap them in paper! He hates having packed boxes in our small apartment, so he has been carrying them down the stairs to our apartment garage and parking his car in the lot (and it just got cold with frost and such, so that is quite the sacrifice). B is my moving hero.

Taking a well-deserved Candy Crush break

7 Quick Takes

--- 1 ---

I'm kinda sick. I'm sneezing, stuffy-nosed, my throat hurts, and I'm a little achy. Actually, I went running on Wednesday morning and I had this wacky pain/soreness shooting through my quad and into my glutes. It stopped the second I stopped running and started walking. Yet I just pushed through it and ended up running 2.5 miles. My goal was 4 miles, but it just didn't happen. It sucked, and I probably shouldn't have done it. I'm praying that it's related to my minor cold and not anything major. Fingers crossed.

--- 2 ---

Last week I had the first night(s) without my baby in her entire life. B had to go to Indy for Drill weekend, and he took Cora with him (he stays with his parents there). She spent the whole weekend with Grandma while I slept in(!), painted, and did other things in our house. I also managed to shop for a dress for my BIL's upcoming wedding (Cora is the flower girl!), but came up empty-handed. I've never bought a dress online, but I think that may be what's about to happen. Or I can just wear my 'nice' LBD, but who wears black to a wedding? (Guilty.)

--- 3 ---

After a quick search through the past 8 years of tagged Facebook photos, I wore this black dress to at least 4 weddings between the years of 2006 and 2009.

Here is when I caught the bouquet a few months before my own wedding:

(It was my first time ever catching the bouquet, and obviously the last time I could attempt it.)

Nice dress, I should probably try it on again just in case.

--- 4 ---

We bought a refrigerator! It's being delivered to the new house tomorrow.

After listening to quite a bit of pros and cons about fridges from various people and looking at our budget, we decided to go with a side-by-side in satina steel. This looks like stainless but it's magnetic and it doesn't get finger prints. (Feel free to tell me how awesome your french door with bottom freezer is, but only if you hand me the extra thousand bucks to buy it.) We got this Whirlpool model:

One of the gripes I heard was that you couldn't fit a frozen pizza in a side-by-side so I made sure we got a model that has adjustable shelves in both the fridge part and the freezer. (B's original solution: "Just don't buy frozen pizza." You could probably see the glare I gave him from the moon.) It also has a child lock on the ice/water maker and the ice maker is in the door.

--- 5 ---

We also got a suh-weet deal at Lowe's with 10% off with our military discount AND we're getting another $120 back from a rebate they have going. So all of the locals here who keep telling me Menards has lower prices (no military discount, no rebates, fridge was the same price to start with) can just hush for a bit.

--- 6 ---

The fridge is being delivered at 7:30am tomorrow. We still don't live at the house yet. It's 30 minutes away, and I am not a morning person. Argh. (I also have to tote the tot, her breakfast and lunch, toys, and naptime stuff, since we're just gonna make a day of it.)

--- 7 ---

My car turns 6 years old tomorrow! She had 2 miles on her when I got her, and now has been titled in 4 states (GA, VA, FL, IN).

Here is a picture of its backside:

Corollas are roomier than they appear!

p.s. This is my mommy car. For now.

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!