Basement Reorganization:
As I'm sure happens in most houses after the holidays, I seem to do a big closet and clutter purge every January. This year, I also decided that the family archive materials needed to be moved away from the outside wall and stored on an interior wall, to aid in the preservation. This meant a total reorganization of our storage area in the basement, which coincided with buying a new refrigerator for the basement. Now, I will not have to unplug it to defrost the freezer. And, I have a place to store my canning supplies and ice cream maker. Happy dance.
All of the scrapbook papers are now located in the middle shelving section, along with the girls' craft supplies. I did not have enough room there to put all the scrapbook supplies so there is a small unit in the corner with the Thickers and punches. It would be great to get it all consolidated, but I just don't have the right configuration of space. This current usage is close to ideal, though.
The family archive is all in the same place, now, which is nice. I moved everything out of plastic bins and into archival boxes. I jerry-rigged my filing cabinet so that I have some archival legal files now and can drop photos or documents into a file as I come across it.
I have several big boxes that still need to be sorted, organized, filed and possibly need some more protective measures taken but this is leaps and bounds better than it was a month ago. Not really pictured below are the 12 boxes of letters, which reside on the top shelf of the wall
Another thing I spent about 12 hours on in the last two weeks was fixing the archive scanner. I think I have it working properly now. I never knew I'd be my own I.T. person. I found it highly frustrating and isolating. But, I figured it out and now can get back to work scanning letters again.
One last thing that we got into a better system is the TV in the basement. Last week the girls and I made the trek to IKEA on Monday to buy a tv stand and Rick assembled it Monday night. Now, I can watch the giant tv in the basement without worrying that it's going to break the table it is sitting on.
Chores:
I do laundry on Mondays and Thursdays only. So, if someone has a dirty piece of clothing on a different day, they have to wait until laundry day for it to get clean. Psychologically, this has changed my life. I no longer feel like I should always be doing a load of laundry. It has dramatically cut back on the baskets of laundry that sit around waiting to be put away. Everything gets washed twice a week, except sheets. I try to do change those on Wednesdays the weeks the cleaning person is not here, so they can be washed on Thursday, but it doesn't always happen. In fact, it rarely happens, so they really get done twice a month. However, because of the days assigned for laundry it would make sense for me to get on the stick and wash them the week the cleaning person isn't here.
The laundry gets folded on Monday night and Thursday night and put away Tuesday morning and Friday morning. Nora will often put away hers and Clara's. Rick sometimes does as well, however, I find I prefer to do it myself because then I always know where a clothing item is in the pipeline of laundry.
Twice a day, I spend 30 minutes walking around the house and putting all the bullshit away. The polly pockets, loose socks, pencils, headbands, empty water glasses, headbands, brushes, drawings, markers, barbie shoes...you get the point. I typically do it around lunchtime and in the evening after they go to bed. There are two catchall baskets behind the couch where most of it goes. This dramatically reduces my overall stress level by minimizing the visual clutter. The girls put away things as they go, but inevitably things get missed. My rule is if I pick it up three times a day, I put it in the garbage or in a goodwill bag. If it's on the floor three times in one day, it doesn't really matter that much to you.
Meals:
Every weekend I organize the coming week's meals, extra curricular activities like play dates and my workout schedule and meetings. Once I know what is going on, for example if Rick will be gone or I will be at a meeting, or if we won't get home from an activity until 6pm, then I determine what we will eat that day for dinner. I use an app on my iPad to sketch out the week's activities, it looks like this.
I use the same app to write out my grocery lists. Typically, I shop at Dominick's and Trader Joes. There are a few things I go to other stores like Costco or Mariano's for, but normally only once a month. I belong to the loyalty program at Dominick's and spend about 10 minutes a week loading coupons on my card and special personalized prices. This usually saves me about $25-30 per big shopping trip. It's worth it to me. I have always been a brand loyal person, once I like something I pretty much stick with it. But, it makes it complicated because it always involves two stores.
I do the majority of the shopping on the weekend, so I can focus on working out and working during the school days. Inevitably, I will run out of something and have to go back to the store but it won't be for a big trip.
I watch five or six cooking shows regularly and one of our favorite activities is to make something we see on a cooking show. For example, on Saturday morning we watch Pioneer Woman, and she made chili stuffed yellow bell peppers. So, we are having that for dinner tonight. I also read a lot of blogs and magazines and get recipes from them. I like to try one or two new recipes each week. This coming week, we are eating pretty boring recipes because this past weekend I made three meals for a friend whose parent died. I doubled each recipe and put meals into the freezer for us. So, aside from the chili stuffed peppers, we are eating leftover pork in quesadillas, johnny marzetti and soup from the freezer.
The girls eat anything right now. They especially love "famous" soup (a minestrone like soup I made up), crispy kale chips, beef stew and lasagna.
Exercise:
Right now I am exercising 5-6 days per week. I try to avoid the gym on Monday mornings and go in the afternoon instead. It's too crowded on Mondays. A word on my workouts. They are no joke, and they aren't for fun. They are central to my well being and that of my family, because if Mommy is happy then so is everyone.
I'm working on getting fitter. My regular runs are about about 7 miles at an 8.30 minute pace. My goal for this year is to be running regularly at a 7.30 minute pace. I've increased all the weights that I use to about 5-10 pounds heavier and have incorporated hot yoga into my routine. I'd love to get some swimming going as well, but at this point I don't see where it fits. I'll have to see.
My current schedule looks like this:
Monday: Speed work on treadmill, cross training, and strength
Tuesday: Longer run, 6-8 miles, cross training
Wednesday: Hot yoga
Thursday: longer run, 5-7 miles, cross training
Friday: Speed work on treadmill, cross training, and strength
Saturday: shorter run of 5 miles, cross training - if needed
I've started to incorporate a snack into the middle of my workouts, usually a banana or cheese stick. It's kept me from starving and gives me a boost of energy to finish out the day's work. I make my own gatorade at home now, and drink that during the first half of the workout and drink a big sigg bottle during the second half of the workout. I guess during hot yoga a person is supposed to drink double the water, so I will have to get bigger bottles I guess.
Activities:
Mondays: we try to stay at school to visit with friends a few minutes, but Nora likes to get home and get all of her spelling done for the week and the rest of her homework. They've started to love having "muffin tin snacks" after homework while they enjoy a tv show. That is pretty much daily.
Clara has ballet at 6pm, so the three of us eat around 5:15 and I help her get ready for dance. Rick comes and drives her there and then will eat his dinner. We carpool with another family, so every other week someone drops Clara off or we drive her friend home.
While Clara is gone, Nora and I enjoy some time alone and either read or play a game together.
Tuesday: again, if it's warm, we'll stay at school to visit. Homework, snack, and early dinner because Nora has dance at 6:15. While NOra is gone, I get Clara ready for bed and she has to be asleep before Nora returns at 7:15. Nora enjoys a late night alone, and reads until 8.
Wednesday: free day after school. Often one or both girls will have a play date either here or at a friends house. I try to make a nicer dinner and give myself the gift of cooking something that takes a little longer on Wednesdays. We typically wait and eat with Rick.
Thursday: we hightail it to the gym for swimming. This week we are trying separate lessons, one at 3:15 and one at 3:45. Often, the girls shower at the gym and that gives us extra time at home in the evening. After swimming, we try to stop at Dominicks for a snack and homework. But, this week we will try to have Nora finish her homework while Clara is in the pool. NOra's guitar lesson is at 5:15. Clara and I drop her off and head home for her homework and dinner prep. Rick picks up Nora at 5:45 and brings her back.
Friday: another free day, sometimes we'll run an errand after school or they will watch a movie, or perhaps a play date. It's nice to build in some free days. I like to take a short nap on those days and crack into the chardonnay about 4:30.
Project Life:
I started this method of documentation around Thanksgiving. I love it. This system enables me to put all the bits and pieces of life directly into the album. I'm not sure what this will mean for regular layouts going forward. I'll have to see how things go. I feel like most of our stories are getting told in this weekly format.
When there is a special drawing or a piece of schoolwork, a note from a teacher, or menu from where we ate lunch, I put it in a page protector with that week's photos. I use an app on my iPhone to record memories from each day and the app rolls in my Facebook feed and Instagram feed, so any photos or status updates are stored with that dates notes. It helps me make sure that I'm remembering everything for that week's layout. I normally spend a little time, usually about an hour on Sundays doing that week's layout. It's a nice way to review the week, think about things to work on the following week and catch those little things that would probably be forgotten. Since 98% of the photos I take now are from my phone and 95% of those are in Instagram, I normally print most of the photos at home. I will get enlargements done at Costco for the week.
Upgrading my Mac to the new operating system has allowed me to use Photo Stream. Any photo I take on my iPhone or iPad now automatically shows up in iPhoto, without me synching it with a cord. Changed. My. Life. On the scale of how getting a TiVo changed my life. I take way more photos now, I use them in more ways. It rocks. One of my favorite things to do is take a screen shot of the weather or the headlines in FlipBoard.
Every week I include a screen shot of the weather, and will try to include the headlines from FlipBoard once in a while as well. It's a snippet of what's going on in the world, which is part of what Project Life is about.
Night routines:
As mentioned above, I like to enjoy a glass of chardonnay now and again. Well, pretty much daily. It's good for you. I have a glass while I cook and a glass at dinner. Then, I'm done. After dinner, I drink a ton of water and every night I enjoy a bowl of popcorn larger than my head. Every. Night. My day is incomplete without it. Seriously.
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