Hey all. Just thought I'd start a separate chat thread away from the challenge thread or likely it will end up being super long.
A little bummed about gaining a couple of pounds these past few days but if I stick to my goals I'll soon see that disappear. I'm glad though that the holidays are over. It gets to be a bit too much by the end of it. I still have the next 3 days as vacation and then I am back to work Friday night. My new schedule starts on the 19th, I actually have a day shift and then 3 nights. I'm looking forward to my new schedule, I think it will help a lot with my outlook on things.
Took all my Christmas stuff down yesterday so the house looks a little bare without the decorations. In some ways it didn't feel like Christmas because of not having any snow. I hear that we are suppposed to get lots later on this month, not looking forward to that because of commuting to work. I like snow for Christmas but not afterward.
Don't be too bummed Jen, now is the time to start fresh!!! I hope you really like your new schedule! Thaks for getting us started this week!!!
I am whooped!!! Since we are getting new furniture on the 9th I have to clean my bedroom and hallway. Some how the delivery guys have to get all this furniture down my hall. My hall has this alcove kind of thing off to the side that leads into a narrow closet that runs along teh side of my bedroom. In the alcove I have two chairs and a couple of book shelves (somewhere under the piles)
DH TRASHED the hallway upstairs while redoing my office down stairs (hmmmm? Men!), plus when he put new windows in the kids' room he left all the junk in the hall. I use the closet in the hall to store all the baby stuff. I had pawed through all of that when I started babysitting looking for stuff to use with the baby and left it a huge mess spilling into the hall, but the baby is now 13 months and leaves me in 3 weeks so it's time to put it all away.
So I started in my room and found several piles of baby stuff, so I cleaned the hall closet and rearranged all the baby stuff, putting stuff back into original boxes and sorting through alot of it to find some kind of order. In doing that it created enough room in that closet for all my kids' old clothes (15 totes worth), which in turn cleared out thier room where the totes had been sitting. So then I hauled a bunch of the toys they play with only occasionally up to thier room and into thier closet. After rearranging thier furniture they have room to enjoy thier toys, and moving those toys upstairs made room in the play room.
Even though I took all the little people (5 boxes worth plus big stuff like the barn and castle), and all the rescue heros upstairs the play room is still FULL!!! So I am going to rearrange that this afternoon. It should allow me to keep my treadmill down all the time and NOT have toys piled on it!!! We got some hooks to hang on the wall that DD can hang her dress up dresses on, which will hopefully make clean up easier. She can grab one dress off a hook and not have to haul them all out of a box to find the one she wants.
But I am so tired. I must have gone up and down my stairs 40 times! And the LAUNDRY I hauled down!!!! There must be 40 loads, as I brought down alot of bedding and stuff that had fallen off my closet shelf and the dog slept on. My sister gave me 4 bags of clothes I have to wash and I had a pile of I don't know what on my glider that I threw down to wash and sort through...YIKES! But I can tell you I feel so much better. Once DS gets up from his nap I'll try to finish my room and maybe the hall.
IF I can get rid of the chiars in the alcove and clean out my junk room I might be able to put everything in the junk room into the alcove and then we can turn the junk room into a bedroom for my daughter! It's going to be alot of work and alot of purging, but it would be so great!!!! But I am getting ahead of myself!
OH and DH said I can still take my sculpture classes!!!! I feel so good right now! I have this week off from babysitting but have preschool as usual on Monday and Friday, then two weeks of working 5 days (between babysitting and preschool) and then I am done babysitting I think. It will be so nice to have Tuesdays and Thursdays to do stuff aorund the house. I had a big talk with DH this weekend and asked him for 1 weekend a month that we could focus on doing stuff around the house instead of running around and visiting people and stuff , and he said we could try. My office is 85-95% finsihed, the kids room is 85-95% finsihed and if we took just one day over a weekend we could finish them completley.
Well my break is up I need to go clean the playroom while DS naps!!!!
Wow Misty, sounds like you have been busy as heck. Good job though! Why are you keeping all the kids clothes? Are you guys planning on any more kids? If not why not get rid of them? I mean, 15 totes is a lot of room that you could use for other stuff. Anyway just my 2 cents.
Something else you said has me thinking of something dh and I have talked about before. Like you were saying on the weekends you spend time running around visiting...we don't do that at all. I'm tired of being the ones to run around and visit other people. We don't seem to be on the other end where people come to our house. Especially with my mom and in-laws. They have cars and more time than what I've got so why don't they come here? We visit very rarely and more likely I'll drive down to my mom's on a weekday when I'm not working but I'll be darned if I spend every weekend driving here and there to visit. Why is it the parents expect you to be the ones to visit? The past 2 Christmas have been at my house or at my SIL's house because we were sick and tired of going to MIL/FIL's house. They want to have a big dinner at a dining room table that sits 6, meanwhile there are 10 adults and 4 kids. Also everyone would be there for days it felt like and it was almost impossible to get away in a reasonable time.
Sorry just a little pet peeve there. Sounds like things are going good!
Yeah 15 totes is NUTS! I have 2 of just 0-3 montsh girl stuff, 3 of 6-9 month girl stuff. Plus we have one of each so we have boy stuff (less of that) AND girl stuff. We are debating trying for a third. But my two share a room, so before I would consider having another we need to finish a second bedroom for the kids. We litterally have no room for a baby...though DH figures he/she can sleep in our room for a year or two and buy us some time LOL
I could probably par down the clothes, even if I kept 20 outfits in each size we'd have more than enough and half the clothes I bet! I like having 2. But I've always wanted a big family. Then again I think about all this baby gear I am putting away and how nice it is to have the house clearing up and how nice it is to not be dealing with baby baby issues now that the kids I babysit are leaving and how DS is so close to potty triaing in the next year or so, and what a pain it would be to try to load three kids in the van and how there wouldn't be anyroom for groceries b/c right now we have the back row of seats down and we'd have to flip them up to fit three kids and I think about how we can each take one kid and get stuff done (we'd have to go from man to man coverage with 2 kids to zone coverage with 3 kids) and on and on and on.
But my whole house is stuffed like this, I have a room FILLED floor to celing with stuff, just stuff stuff we use once, twice a year stuff we NEVER use that I can't get rid of b/c my gramma gave it to me and I feel bad, stuff from highschool, stuff from college, it's NUTS and overwhelming and opressing.
I get what you mean about running around. I tend to run more b/c 1) I hate being here in this house and I am embarrassed to have people come over 2) there is nothing to do once they get here, when I visit my best friend we can shop, go to the zoo ect. Also, my Gramma will drive to my mom's and I will drive to my mom's and it is kind of a central place to meet. But it gets old. Plus where we liv ea trip to walmart is a half a day event, so by the time we get everyone up dressed and out teh door most of teh day is shot,.
Well DH annouced we'reall going to be dso I guess I have to go! LOL
I couldn't stand to have that much stuff in my house. Dh is the pack rat of the family, I guess I toss stuff just to keep up with his collecting. I have given away almost all of ds's clothes, what the heck, it is almost all cheap stuff and not a lot of it because I refuse to buy a ton of clothes for a kid who will outgrown them in 6 months. Right now he has got I think 3 pairs of pants that don't have patches in the knees, 4 sweaters, 4 long t-shirts, a nice dress shirt and vest (from picture days at school!), probably about a dozen t-shirts most of which were gifts and about 3 pairs of pj's. and of course underthings. So I don't have that clothes problem. By the time he outgrows his clothes they are ready for the rag bag or garbage. It was different when he was smaller, he grew through them faster but they weren't worn but still I didn't buy him a lot of stuff, most of his clothes were gifts. My dh can't seem to give anything away, he's got paycheque stubs from about 10 years ago, computer books that are completely outdated...I could go on for a zillion paragraphs and it isn't even stuff that he gets out once a year, maybe like once a decade. I have tossed stuff that he has never missed ever!
Yeah the clothes thing bugs me. Most of the clothes I buy are from yard sales, but I don't buy many at all b/c my family buys most of it. It's a blessing that they do, but a waste of money my daughter got at least 15 new dresses for Christmas. She is in a dress phase and refuses to wear pants, but still 15? Granted we have several sides of the family where my kids are the only grand and great grandkids so it's not like one person is buying all of it...even though my gramma buys the vast majority.
I am a pack rat and so is DH. My biggest problem is stuff my gramma buys and gives us. I feel bad for getting rid of it. But I need to. Now that we have cleaned out the hallway we'll work on the junk room. I need to stop being so sentimental and be practical!
15 dresses, wow that is crazy!! I'll bet I didn't wear 15 dresses my entire childhood, not one for wearing a dress even as a kid. Have you seen the tv show called Clean Sweep? It was on TLC. They aren't making any new ones but repeats are still on a couple of times a week usually on the weekend I think. Anyway it features someone who has a couple of rooms in the house just packed with junk and they move everything out onto the lawn. The homeowners work with an organizer to figure out what they are going to toss, keep or sell and they have a yard sale on the second day and what doesn't sell goes to charity. Meanwhile a decorator and carpenter are renovating the 2 rooms. It's a cute show and the advice the organizer gives is good. I imagine you are getting stuff from your grandma that is completely inappropriate. We had the same thing with my husband's family. They would buy us useless stuff at Xmas and birthdays just for the sake of giving a present which to my mind was a complete waste of money. 4 years ago we asked everyone not to buy us gifts anymore and we weren't going to buy gifts. I think as adults we get to a point where it is impossible to give someone a gift. Honestly I haven't gotten a really good present in a long time. I have to make my husband a list and my mom pretty much buys me practical gifts ie kitchen stuff. Not that I don't appreciate it but it isn't what gift giving means to me so I'd just as soon skip the whole thing. So I don't know if there is a good way to tell your grandma to save her money, sounds like you could use the money to work on the house but is usually next to impossible to tell people stuff like that.
Well anyway have a good day everyone, check in again later!
My gramma means well but she does buy alot of useless stuff. She can't get out and shop like she used to so she buys alot of junk toys for my kids at the local dollar store. There is nothing wrong with a toy or two from there but she buys ALOT and I can't return them b/c we don't have that store here. And some of the clothes she buys there are serisouly UGLY and I won't put them on my kids. She doesn't get the fact that even if it only cost $1 or $2 if it's ugly or impractical we won't use it therefore it is a waste.
But shopping for us is her hobby and it makes her happy and I feel like I am hurting her feelings by saying STOP! But I HATE that she wastes her money, when I do tell her no she thinks I am just trying to be polite or something or I come off sounding ungreatful.
My gramma isn't just buying us stuff she's giving us stuff from her house. For example, my grandfather, who passed away awhile ago, made this duck picture from scarpes of wood and stuff left over from a project. It's really ugly, but my grandfather made it, I feel so bad burning it with the trash. I don't really have anything else of his.
Well I am making some progress in the toy area. DD outgrew her big wheel. My aprents bought her this really small "big wheel" tricycle for her first birthday, by the time she figured out how to pedal it she was too big. So she agreed to give it to daycare. Also we chose one of the three toy vacuums and a few other things that they rarley play with or have two of to give to daycare. I have a assortment of baby toys I'll donate as well.
But stuffed animals, what do you do with them??? We have, I am guessing 3-4 BIG trash bags full of them. My kids have a handful of favorites. But daycares don't want them, b/c they are hard to clean. We don't have a children's hospital or anything...and they probably don't want them either for the same reason. Maybe a good will store or something. It's weird but I have a hard time parting with them. My toys were kind of my only friends in an abusive home growing up and I have a hard time letting even my kids stuffed toys go. Weird! I need therapy LOL Three years ago when DD was a baby we had a laundry basket of toys, we now have a ROOM of toys!
Oh well. On a happy note today was my last day with the chair throwing crazy child at work. He is moving! Even the kids have been counting down the days until he is gone!
Well I have to go get my walk in. I am feeling pretty good so far. DH brought home Texas Hots hot dogs for dinner. DS doesn't eat the bun, so I nuked a 94% fat free hotdog and stole his bun with just a teensy bit of Texas Hots sauce on it, so I cut it down from like 11 points to 5! I was happy b/c when I saw that DH ahd brought that home I was kind of upset that I couldn't enjoy it.
Way to go with paring the points down on you hot dog, misty!!
I am so tired, babysitting all day, and she is cutting teeth, and took NO NAP!! She was so tired and whiney by the time 5:30 rolled around, and so am I, lol!! I get to go shopping Friday and will fill my house with lots of good, healthy, low points foods!!! Well, gotta run, need to check my Ebay and then go lay down.
Misty, I still have a few of my own stuffed toys from my childhood so I know what you mean. Ds has a zillion of them but not too long ago I made him sort through them and put a few of them in the give away bag. I have 2 garbage bags in the basement of old toys that are for charity. Tough situation with your grandma, I guess you can only do what you are doing. Good job with the hot dog!
I have a TON to do today and no motivation. I am plugging away at laundry, I still have some work upstairs to do, and my office is trashed. I have to redo all the files and stuff getting ready for the new year. I think I'll tackle some work stuff today and save the hosue stuff for the weekend.
So far this week I have succeeded at not eating after 8, but man is that HARD! Last night was rough, I felt like a junky in withdrawl. Ok I am sure it's not that bad, but still it was rough! But I am glad I found this walking program on MSN. It's super easy, but forces me to commit to the act of exercise. It starts out very slow, so far I did 10 minutes Mon, and Tues, and Wed was two 10 minute sessions. Today it's a 15 minute session.
Well the natives are restless and I have to get busy. Have a great day!!!!
Ughhhhhh! I want icecream! I ate a big lunch (thanks to one left over texas hot), so I have enough points for a nice dinner, but not enough for icecream. Stupid icecream.
I went to the kitchen grabbed a bowl opened the drawer for the scoop, slammed the drawer shut, threw the bowl back in the cupboard and had a glass of water. I hung out for 20 minutes or so had another galss of wate rand I still want that stupid icecream! Maybe I'll have a sucker, they are only 1 point.
My sister who had WLS in September is down to 289. She's only 49 pounds away from my current weight! That might keep me out of the icecream box!! LOL I know I can't compete with WLS, but I just can't be fatter than her, I've always been thinner...even at 240!
Maybe I'll go take a nap...better than icecream anyway right?
Misty, keep away from the evil ice cream, lol!!
Angel took a 2 hour nap this am, and a 1 hour one this afternoon, yay!! Hopefully tomorrow won't be bad, she is going shopping with me in the AM, so she probably won't get her nap, but I bet she takes a good one tomorrow afternoon. I am getting used to the whole chasing her aorund thing after not babysitting for a while, it's a good way to burn calories, lol.
Hey everyone. I am so hungry right now but I am not eating anything!! I may go and chug down some water but I refuse to eat. I am doing horribly with the challenge and here it is only the 4th. ARGH! I think next week will be better because ds will be back to his usual daycare/school routine and I'll be back to work tomorrow night. I'll be getting back my almost 3 hours in the afternoon when he is at school when I can exercise. I am a bit weird about exercising around other people. Like when I am on the exercise bike I like to put on my headphones and close my eyes and sort of zone out and that is pretty impossible with a 5 year old around the house. He's not really one to just go for a walk, he wants to go to the park to play and there is nothing for me to do there, I've gone and walked around the perimeter and yes it is exercise but it is also boring!!! Anyway I'm not stressing about that right now, I really need to get my eating under control. I think today has been one of the best days so far so I'm not going to blow it by scarfing down a cookie or whatever. Also I ordered a Biggest Loser DVD so it will be interesting to see what that is all about. I'm planning on dragging all my old exercise DVD's and videos out and do them when ds is at school.
Hope everyone had a good day and see you tomorrow!
Week of January 2, 2007
