Happy Easter from our family to yours!
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Birthday Money
Alright, so this is going to be a very random post. A few weeks ago, I received an awesome birthday gift from my parents-birthday money! Money is always a great gift, but I am completely frozen with indecision about what to use it for!
Thankfully, we don't need it for groceries or anything, but every time I receive $ that is supposed to be 'just for me' it is SO hard to spend it on myself without thinking there is a 'right' way to spend the money. This is especially difficult when there are things you wind up needing as a family (new car seats for instance) that aren't necessarily budgeted for on a regular basis.
I do great coming up with ideas for what to use this gift for, it's just the making a final decision part that is tough. So here are the ideas I have come up with so far.
#1. Turning our guest bedroom into a playroom. A new coat of paint, new curtains, repainting some furniture would help me reserve my living room for more adult use and keep the toys out of sight and out of mind. :)
#2. New clothes. It has been a year since I had Melody and I am still not into those pre-pregnancy clothes. Maybe it is time for some new ones? Summer is coming up and I have very little that I can wear!
#3. Decorating the kitchen. Our kitchen is sad. White and off-white, nothing on the walls, clutter everywhere. Our kitchen could use some serious love in the color, decor and organization department. It is seriously depressing in there.
#4. New car seat. As I mentioned last week, car seat recommendations are changing. We are keeping the forward facing seat we already bought since it will fit Melody up to 100 lbs, in a 5 point harness for a long time and functions as a booster after that. But now she will likely have an interim where she won't fit the infant seat nor will she be ready to be forward facing. We are looking at this one.
#5. Registration for a conference for my business. It is an awesome training opportunity and very motivational. My business can obviously cover this expense, but if I went ahead and paid for it now with my birthday moo-lah, I wouldn't have to worry about making enough this month to cover it and I could focus on earning for the plane ticket, hotel cost, etc. (If you are interested, check out my business website here.)
So there are lots of options. Let me say that I know for many people these are difficult economic times, so I am thankful for this gift from my parents. Having extra money is definitely a good problem to have, and one that not many people get to enjoy right at the moment.
But just for the fun of it, here's my question this week.
If you had extra money this month, what would you spend it on?
Thanks for reading again this week!
Love, Rachel
Thankfully, we don't need it for groceries or anything, but every time I receive $ that is supposed to be 'just for me' it is SO hard to spend it on myself without thinking there is a 'right' way to spend the money. This is especially difficult when there are things you wind up needing as a family (new car seats for instance) that aren't necessarily budgeted for on a regular basis.
I do great coming up with ideas for what to use this gift for, it's just the making a final decision part that is tough. So here are the ideas I have come up with so far.
#1. Turning our guest bedroom into a playroom. A new coat of paint, new curtains, repainting some furniture would help me reserve my living room for more adult use and keep the toys out of sight and out of mind. :)
#2. New clothes. It has been a year since I had Melody and I am still not into those pre-pregnancy clothes. Maybe it is time for some new ones? Summer is coming up and I have very little that I can wear!
#3. Decorating the kitchen. Our kitchen is sad. White and off-white, nothing on the walls, clutter everywhere. Our kitchen could use some serious love in the color, decor and organization department. It is seriously depressing in there.
#4. New car seat. As I mentioned last week, car seat recommendations are changing. We are keeping the forward facing seat we already bought since it will fit Melody up to 100 lbs, in a 5 point harness for a long time and functions as a booster after that. But now she will likely have an interim where she won't fit the infant seat nor will she be ready to be forward facing.
#5. Registration for a conference for my business. It is an awesome training opportunity and very motivational. My business can obviously cover this expense, but if I went ahead and paid for it now with my birthday moo-lah, I wouldn't have to worry about making enough this month to cover it and I could focus on earning for the plane ticket, hotel cost, etc. (If you are interested, check out my business website here.)
So there are lots of options. Let me say that I know for many people these are difficult economic times, so I am thankful for this gift from my parents. Having extra money is definitely a good problem to have, and one that not many people get to enjoy right at the moment.
But just for the fun of it, here's my question this week.
If you had extra money this month, what would you spend it on?
Thanks for reading again this week!
Love, Rachel
Monday, April 11, 2011
8 Hours Update
So here is a quick update to the "8 hours a week" post!
This past week I didn't manage to clean 8 hours- I only managed about 3! However, that has left me with a pretty clean kitchen and a fairly tidy dining room, also a clean bathtub. Other than that though, most things are still pretty crazy around my house. Thanks for all the tips though, and I will definitely be continuing to shoot for that goal of 8 hours a week! I will keep you updated next week about how it goes!
This past week I didn't manage to clean 8 hours- I only managed about 3! However, that has left me with a pretty clean kitchen and a fairly tidy dining room, also a clean bathtub. Other than that though, most things are still pretty crazy around my house. Thanks for all the tips though, and I will definitely be continuing to shoot for that goal of 8 hours a week! I will keep you updated next week about how it goes!
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Forgetting to Eat and New Car Seat Recommendations
One of my best friends (I won't say names, but it rhymes with Rikel Rak) is notorious for getting so busy that she forgets to eat. I can't tell you how many times as teenagers hanging out at her house or going shopping I would be thinking "When are we going to eat lunch? I don't want to be rude, but how can she possibly not be starving right now?" And I would wait without saying anything until she finally realized how hungry she was and confess, "Good! I'm starving too!"
Well, un-named friend (*wink*), I am right there with you these days! With a baby, a job, a house to clean, my own business and a church to volunteer for I am constantly forgetting to eat. But it looks a little different than my super-productive best friend. What happens to me is that I gradually start moving slower in the day and suddenly while Melody is napping I find myself sitting at the computer browsing and thinking "I should be doing something right now. I should wash dishes or fold laundry, but I just feel so tired... Why do I feel so tired? Oh yeah! I haven't eaten lunch!" Sometimes then I will get up and eat something, but sometimes I get distracted in my over-tired and hungry state and forget to eat again.
There is a lesson to be learned here. No lunch = tired, distracted mommy! :)
Now, on to the more serious stuff... For all my mommy friends out there, have your heard about the new car seat recommendations?
The AAP is now recommending that infants stay in rear facing car seats until 2 years old or until they outgrow the height and weight guidelines for the seat. They are encouraging parents to use rear facing seats (such as a convertible car seat) that will hold larger children up to 35 or 40lbs in the rear facing position.
Being unaware of these new guidelines, Christian installed and I excitedly watched as Melody got to ride for the first time in her new forward facing car seat last Saturday.
Isn't she adorable?!
Then my sister let me know about the new rules. (Thank you, Renee!) Luckily, our old car seat is approved for children up to 30 lbs which I chose knowing that I would probably have a larger baby. Melody is currently 21.6 lbs according to my digital scale at home and is now one year old. That puts her right on the cusp of being ready for a forward facing car seat by the old standards. We had made the decision to switch her since the straps on her old car seat were becoming so snug they were making her uncomfortable while riding in the car. After reading the new info though (which can be found here and here), Christian found a way to lengthen the straps on our current car seat, so that Melody can stay rear facing for several more months.
So I guess she will continue to look like this for awhile longer... only bigger of course!
So what about you? Do these new recommendations effect your child? Will you be following them?
Well, un-named friend (*wink*), I am right there with you these days! With a baby, a job, a house to clean, my own business and a church to volunteer for I am constantly forgetting to eat. But it looks a little different than my super-productive best friend. What happens to me is that I gradually start moving slower in the day and suddenly while Melody is napping I find myself sitting at the computer browsing and thinking "I should be doing something right now. I should wash dishes or fold laundry, but I just feel so tired... Why do I feel so tired? Oh yeah! I haven't eaten lunch!" Sometimes then I will get up and eat something, but sometimes I get distracted in my over-tired and hungry state and forget to eat again.
There is a lesson to be learned here. No lunch = tired, distracted mommy! :)
Now, on to the more serious stuff... For all my mommy friends out there, have your heard about the new car seat recommendations?
The AAP is now recommending that infants stay in rear facing car seats until 2 years old or until they outgrow the height and weight guidelines for the seat. They are encouraging parents to use rear facing seats (such as a convertible car seat) that will hold larger children up to 35 or 40lbs in the rear facing position.
Being unaware of these new guidelines, Christian installed and I excitedly watched as Melody got to ride for the first time in her new forward facing car seat last Saturday.
Isn't she adorable?!
Then my sister let me know about the new rules. (Thank you, Renee!) Luckily, our old car seat is approved for children up to 30 lbs which I chose knowing that I would probably have a larger baby. Melody is currently 21.6 lbs according to my digital scale at home and is now one year old. That puts her right on the cusp of being ready for a forward facing car seat by the old standards. We had made the decision to switch her since the straps on her old car seat were becoming so snug they were making her uncomfortable while riding in the car. After reading the new info though (which can be found here and here), Christian found a way to lengthen the straps on our current car seat, so that Melody can stay rear facing for several more months.
So I guess she will continue to look like this for awhile longer... only bigger of course!
So what about you? Do these new recommendations effect your child? Will you be following them?
Thursday, March 31, 2011
8 Hours a Week
Dear Friends,
Since last week's post I have been a little more focused in the cleaning department. Thanks to the ladies for posting, your stories are inspiring to me! I've also been thinking about how I can be a little better in the cleaning/decluttering area. So this last week, I managed to get all my dishes in the kitchen clean, declutter a major spot that has been piled up for a LONG time and even get caught up on some laundry. But it has been building back again already, so I have been giving the topic of cleaning a little more thought. (I hope blogs posts on cleaning don't bore you!)
A friend of mine once mentioned to me that in the company she works for she has the flexibility to take something called "wife" hours. The impression I got was that as a wife, you could take up to 8 working hours per week and use them to take care of your home by cleaning, cooking, etc. When I heard this, I though it was an awesome idea! Especially since two people each working 40 + hours per week tend to get tired and housework is difficult to keep up with.
Christian and I both currently work and technically, he is in charge of the cooking and I am in charge of the cleaning. Realistically, there are often times we eat hot dogs in the microwave because he is exhausted from his job, and most of the time our dishes are dirty since I am tired from caring for babies and kiddos all day.
But a thought hit me tonight as I tried to get a little more motivated to accomplish more around the house. According to Gretchen Rubin, the author of The Happiness Project, success must be measurable. I typically don't usually measure my house cleaning in anything but results (ex: are the dishes done?), but what if I began to measure it in time? What if I worked to hit 8 hours of "wife" hours every week? How would my life/house change?
Now I realize that many of you could never clean that many hours each week, and to be honest I'm not even sure if I have that kind of time. But I do know that when I cleaned for 35 minutes one night last week it made a pretty big dent in my kitchen. I can only imagine if I spent a solid 8 hours on my house each week how it would begin to look!
So my goal this week is to spend 8 hours of cleaning before next Sunday night. I won't make myself clean at a specific time every day. I will just allow myself to do it whenever I have the energy but add up the hours.
I will track my time on the blog for you to see this week and let you know the results!
How much time do you think you spend cleaning? How has that changed since you've been married? Since you've had kids?
Thanks for reading and leaving your thoughts!
Love, Rachel
Since last week's post I have been a little more focused in the cleaning department. Thanks to the ladies for posting, your stories are inspiring to me! I've also been thinking about how I can be a little better in the cleaning/decluttering area. So this last week, I managed to get all my dishes in the kitchen clean, declutter a major spot that has been piled up for a LONG time and even get caught up on some laundry. But it has been building back again already, so I have been giving the topic of cleaning a little more thought. (I hope blogs posts on cleaning don't bore you!)
A friend of mine once mentioned to me that in the company she works for she has the flexibility to take something called "wife" hours. The impression I got was that as a wife, you could take up to 8 working hours per week and use them to take care of your home by cleaning, cooking, etc. When I heard this, I though it was an awesome idea! Especially since two people each working 40 + hours per week tend to get tired and housework is difficult to keep up with.
Christian and I both currently work and technically, he is in charge of the cooking and I am in charge of the cleaning. Realistically, there are often times we eat hot dogs in the microwave because he is exhausted from his job, and most of the time our dishes are dirty since I am tired from caring for babies and kiddos all day.
But a thought hit me tonight as I tried to get a little more motivated to accomplish more around the house. According to Gretchen Rubin, the author of The Happiness Project, success must be measurable. I typically don't usually measure my house cleaning in anything but results (ex: are the dishes done?), but what if I began to measure it in time? What if I worked to hit 8 hours of "wife" hours every week? How would my life/house change?
Now I realize that many of you could never clean that many hours each week, and to be honest I'm not even sure if I have that kind of time. But I do know that when I cleaned for 35 minutes one night last week it made a pretty big dent in my kitchen. I can only imagine if I spent a solid 8 hours on my house each week how it would begin to look!
So my goal this week is to spend 8 hours of cleaning before next Sunday night. I won't make myself clean at a specific time every day. I will just allow myself to do it whenever I have the energy but add up the hours.
I will track my time on the blog for you to see this week and let you know the results!
How much time do you think you spend cleaning? How has that changed since you've been married? Since you've had kids?
Thanks for reading and leaving your thoughts!
Love, Rachel
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Squeaky Clean? Not so much...
If you know me or have talked to me long, you know that I am a pretty messy person. I tend to leave a trail of messiness in my wake, especially in my home! I am definitely aware that this is not okay and try desperately to change this about myself. While I was pregnant before Melody was born, I was finally getting the hang of keeping my home under control. But then cue becoming a mom and with it the chaos!
Currently my system is... well... I don't really have a system. Daily do what I can if I have the energy and try to keep the chaos from taking over?!
I did recently try to clean all the rooms in my house for company for this past week end and realized that even after I cleaned them (picked up floors, vacuumed, put things away), they still weren't cleaned! I discovered that I have CLUTTER with a capital C-L-U-T-T-E-R!
It is lurking in frustrating places: My bedroom vanity, my TV stand, my entry way dresser, my shoe box/give-to-good-will/return-it-from-being-borrowed/coat-hanging section of my entryway, to the futon in my office, to a little pile underneath the highchair, to the food on top of the fridge, to the basket of toiletry items I seldom use on the back of our toilet! It's everywhere!!!
And I want to CRUSH it! It makes my house look messy. I want to demolish those places, fling them all out of my house and be rid of them! I hate that after I cleaned up I still need to keep cleaning!!!
So I have two questions. The first: When do you clean? How do you clean? What is your system?
And this is the big question: What is the one thing you have learned in your life that is the most pivotal thing for helping your home be in order?
P.S. Today is my Birthday!!! I'm 27 and Melody turned one last Thursday. Do the birthday dance, do the birthday dance! :)
Currently my system is... well... I don't really have a system. Daily do what I can if I have the energy and try to keep the chaos from taking over?!
I did recently try to clean all the rooms in my house for company for this past week end and realized that even after I cleaned them (picked up floors, vacuumed, put things away), they still weren't cleaned! I discovered that I have CLUTTER with a capital C-L-U-T-T-E-R!
It is lurking in frustrating places: My bedroom vanity, my TV stand, my entry way dresser, my shoe box/give-to-good-will/return-it-from-being-borrowed/coat-hanging section of my entryway, to the futon in my office, to a little pile underneath the highchair, to the food on top of the fridge, to the basket of toiletry items I seldom use on the back of our toilet! It's everywhere!!!
And I want to CRUSH it! It makes my house look messy. I want to demolish those places, fling them all out of my house and be rid of them! I hate that after I cleaned up I still need to keep cleaning!!!
So I have two questions. The first: When do you clean? How do you clean? What is your system?
And this is the big question: What is the one thing you have learned in your life that is the most pivotal thing for helping your home be in order?
P.S. Today is my Birthday!!! I'm 27 and Melody turned one last Thursday. Do the birthday dance, do the birthday dance! :)
Monday, March 21, 2011
Now I lay me down to...
Sleep! I hope the hint makes sense now. A picture of Audrey Hepburn in a sleeping mask = a post about sleep. :)
Some of those who have lived with me can tell you that I used to have no trouble falling asleep. In fact, I had trouble getting into my pajamas BEFORE I fell asleep. There was one particular night in college that I fell asleep as soon as I sat down on my bed. Apparently I left the bedroom light on, sat down on top of my bed, kicked one shoe off and fell over in sleep without even letting go of my bag. I awoke to find my oh-so-kind roommates standing over me giggling, with a camera, about to immortalize this proud moment in my life. Luckily, I woke up before they could take any pictures, but they have never forgotten how I fell asleep mid- sitting down on my bed.
Maybe I lived in a state of over-exhaustion in college that enabled me to fall asleep so easily, but since then, falling asleep has not been so easy! Thanks to some disturbances outside our house while I was pregnant with Melody, I began to worry when I laid in bed at night. What would happen if our neighbors had a party after the baby was born while the baby was sleeping? Would it wake her up? How would we react if someone broke into our house when the baby is born? Do we let them take everything and hope they are not interested in the baby? Or try to phone the police? Or cry in desperation 'You can have anything, just don't hurt my baby!' The scenarios I could come up with were endless- crime, natural disasters, domestic disasters (home fires, etc) and they began to come to life in my thoughts as I lay still and pregnant trying to find sleep.
There have been other times in my life where things like excitement about a new job or a new phase in life, or even stress has kept me from sleep. But this is different. Fast forward one year after Melody has been here and I still often find myself having difficulty turning off the flow of paranoid and crazy thoughts at night! Before you go thinking I am a truly insane person, know that during the day these things don't bother me. They also didn't bother me before I had a daughter. It seems that having a sweet, wonderful, helpless little creature (a baby) attached to my life and my heart has brought out a bit of an over-protective monster. :) My mother has always said she has difficulty sleeping when kids are in the house and now I truly understand her. However, I am fairly determined not to live out my life raising children in a paranoid, sleep deprived way.
I have tried thinking about many things to get myself to fall asleep: prayer, journaling, going to bed earlier, going to bed later. Still I am not able to lay down for long without thinking that every sound I hear must be someone in the house or a fire from our dated heating system. While going to bed earlier rather than later helps, there are only two things that seem to really work for me.
First, I have to check my attitude. This may seem strange because the desire to protect my daughter and my family is a good thing. However, the only thing that brings me peace deep in my heart is to remember that all of us are only here on Earth for a short time and none of us is immune to death- so why am I acting like we can be? No matter what happens, whether we live or die (whether we are robbed or not), God will be with us every step of the way. He will guide my actions in a crisis and He will protect my daughter whether she is alive on Earth or lives with Christ in heaven. Even just typing that seems like a downer, but really it's not. It is a peace-giving truth. One that makes my blood pressure lower just a little. :)
Second, I have been reading a book right before falling asleep. In the past I have tried to read other things before I go to bed- my Bible, a spiritual help or self-help type book, Jane Austen or other fiction. None of these things help me wind down before I sleep. My Bible and other spiritual guidance books tend to make me start thinking about deep, big picture ideas about life while fictional books are just too hard to put down. I wind up staying up all night trying to finish a book because I love to read!
Finally though, I have found the perfect book to help me fall asleep. It is a book called Through Painted Deserts by Donald Miller. (He is also the author of Blue Like Jazz... Someday I will learn how to post a link to the books I am talking about.) This book for some reason is the perfect aid to help me sleep. Something about the descriptions of the cross country journey he takes and the mild mannered tone in his humor and thoughts about God has a calming effect. After reading a chapter or two, I feel very peaceful. I might have a smile on my face. And I can put the book down, cozy up to my pillow, turn the light off and fall thoughtlessly into sleep.
But soon I will be finished with the book, and what then?
So here is my question:
If you are a mom: Did it get more difficult for you to sleep once you had a child? Did worries about your child keep you up at night? If so, have you moved past that? How?
If you are not a mom: What kinds of things are keeping you up at night these days? What helps you to fall asleep at night? A certain genre of book? Prayer? Benadryl? Something else?
I'm looking forward to hearing your replies! Can't wait to discuss this throughout the week!
Love, Rachel
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