I'm afraid to look ...

The worst part for me of making lists is looking back at them ....

it's not that I don't work on them ...

but I rarely get anything to the "cross off the list" point.

deep breath ... yesterday's list ... I'm afraid to look ...

here's the key:
worked on but not done
done enough to call done

...

at least 2 loads of laundry, washed, dried, folded, and put AWAY!
    - I washed and dried 3 loads, but didn't fold any of them

folded backlog all put away
    - I put away towels, kitchens, and ours ... but just put the kids' laundry near their rooms ... did not follow up to see if it was put away ...

shovel out and organize the boys' room with them
    - they got it well cleared out, so the room is ready to be vacuumed and put back together. But all the *stuff* is semi-sorted into piles, baskets, and boxes in the hallway and needs to be gone through ... today being park morning and shopping afternoon, I'm not sure if I'll get it done today or not.

    - I did by a storage 3x3 cube thingie and some cute totes which hopefully will help with the *keeping* the room clean and organized. I'll try to get that set up later today.

shovel out and delete blog spam backlog
    - I did some but there's yet more. I need to get to installing the whatever thingie The Grand Lunar told me about ...

* feed family several meals
   - as long as ordering pizza (well, asking the Grand Lunar to) for dinner counts

* remember to eat, dress, and shower

not on the list, but I also:
went shopping for some clothes, organizing stuff, and groceries, and put most of those things away ... that took more time than I thought ...
chatted with the real life living person neighbor

hm.
I think I'm really a half-done sort of person.

I hope I'm not boring you with these lists. Is it better to babble about my productivity efforts than not blog at all? I added some bold and italic text to spice it up a little.

Oh well, today is a park day, I better get moving. Park in the morning, returning ill-fitting items to Target in the afternoon.

What do you have on the agenda for Tuesday?

Have a good day!

On Today's Agenda

Good morning, blog family

I apologize, yet again, for my bad blogger etiquette, both in not posting and in not reading/commenting. I am taking steps to rectify the situation.

However, I have some things to attend to first.

On the agenda today:

* at least 2 loads of laundry, washed, dried, folded, and put AWAY!
* folded backlog all put away
* shovel out and organize the boys' room with them
* shovel out and delete blog spam backlog
* feed family several meals
* remember to eat, dress, and shower

possibly more. We'll see.

I'm off to start on #1 and #3

Busy Morning Nothing Done

Gah, do you ever have mornings where you feel like you've been busy but you don't feel like you got anything done?

I think the key is clothing. Even if you do a lot before noon, if for some reason you're still in your jammies, it feels like all is for naught.

Why am I not dressed? Because I planned to exercise before I showered.

But I timed breakfast and baking bread badly, so I didn't have a good exericse window. And then when I had one, redirecting children to chores and cleaning up cat poodoo redirected ME. And now it's almost noon, I still haven't showered and dressed, and I feel like I haven't done a thing.

So in a futile exercise in making myself feel better, here are some things I HAVE done ...

drank coffee and wasted time
changed diapers twice
nursed several (bazillion) times
got all the kids dressed in matching orange shirts with the idea of going blueberry picking
found a new recipe for peanut butter pancakes and made it
made pumpernickel bread
washed the dishes from baking
cleared the table after breakfast
directed kids in chores (some still in progress)
cleaned up cat poodoo
took first load of bedding to wash
refrained from putting cat in washer with bedding

I'm blogging now because needy buzz is nursing yet again. I don't know why.

After this I'll scoop and mop the basement, and then shower and start lunch and maybe then I'll feel like I did something.

Sigh.

here's the pancakes, though ... the kids liked them. The bread is pretty, too, but no pix yet.

The Morning After

Monday morning!

The tent adventure went well. No one bailed out to sleep in their bed, although rumor has it the night got a bit chilly. They are requesting to do it again tonight, although permission is somewhat pending based on behavior and attitude in light of the lesser sleep some obtained.

The harder part was, perhaps, mine. I didn't feel comfortable going to the bedroom at the other end of the house with the white noise and the comfy beds. I didn't think I'd hear kids even come in if I did that. So I opted for the futon with the back door open a crack, to listen. Since I didn't sleep deeply, I was up and down a few times, played some games online, and the like. While I'm all for the kids getting the camping out of their system this way, I'm not sure I want to spend too many nights away from my comfy bed and the Grand Lunar. Maybe I'll rig up some monitors so I can keep an ear out for the kids ... I don't know. Or maybe we'll just do two tent nights and call it good.

Perhaps due to the lack of sleep and infusion of extra caffeine, I have a LOT of energy today and am feeling good. Probably that pre-crash sort of good. So I got off my rear and walked 3 miles with Leslie this morning, as well as doing a modified upper body weight training thing. I still use the Joyce Vedral videos for the direction/exercises but am using closer to the Power-of-Ten guy's method to actually execute them.

It's almost the end of July. I am thinking of aiming to lose 10 lbs by the end of August. I'm again kicking myself for not having been more serious about this weight-loss-window. I see summer coming to a close and the slow progress I've made as mostly wasted opportunity and overly-claimed indulgences. I wonder if that's reasonable? Seems like it is.

For lunch I'm having an asian-style somen noodle and cabbage salad, McDougall compliant. It's good. I was hungry.

Well, it's just about quiet time and it sounds like the children can use one. So I'm off to get them ready so I can enjoy the quiet part of the afternoon.

Have a good day!

Weekend Rambles

Here's a little report from our weekend ...

Saturday The Grand Lunar (that's Particle Man to some of you lurkers - feel free to say hi) and I went down to Ann Arbor to pet the new iPhones at the grand opening of the newest Michigan Apple store. It was a fun date-day, we listened to 80's tunes and sang and laughed all the way down. The iPhones were fun, although it would've been nice to play with them longer ... we also petted several of the other sleek Apple products, such as the very nice 30" monitor. Ooooooh.

Here's the pix we took of each other with the iPhone cameras ... I forgot to do my cheesy camera smile, and am not fond the the pic, but oh well. I was listening to Particle 'splain stuff. I'm showing you because I thought the quality of the pix was great for a phone! Even at the full size 640x480 they looked very good, I was quite impressed. We took them and emailed them from the iPhone to ourselves from the store, that was fun. Notice I'm wearing blue. ;-) It was a nice date day.

Today the kids wanted to camp out in the back yard. They didn't seem to want or need parents actually camping, which is good. So my contribution was to put up the tent and photograph the event:

Here's a dorky pic of putting it up ... not my weekend for pix. Also, here's Buzz watching: He wanted to be nearby but not stay IN the tent. Not that he had that chance, overnight. He went down in his own bed nicely. :

Eminoodle and Tobi-Wan trying out the tent before bedtime:

The big kids peeking out:

It is now 11:30 and we've only had one tearful temporary visit from a camper who was scared, but not scared enough to be the only one to come in. I'm guessing they must be asleep now. And, although I'm not sleeping out there with them, I'm still staying closeby, I'll sleep on the futon by the back door with the screen door open, just in case.

Hope your weekend was as fun!

Vanity, thy name is Kim

I'm sure you all woke this morning wondering, "How is Kim doing in the vanity department?"

Well, to satisfy your curiosity, I have two tidbits to offer:

1.) weight ~ thanks to being sick (yay, sick!) I'm down to 25# off my highest, as of today. The best news about that is I've kept off what I lost when sick and another 1/2 lb on top of that. That leaves me with 11 lbs more to hit the top end of the "healthy" rating on the BMI, and I'd like to see at least 19-24 more off (including that 11) to be at a better place in my zone. I'm not sure. As short as I am, it seems like I should lose even more than that, but I never have been much below that.

2.) hair ~ okay, I know I said I wasn't going to color it ... but I was at target and I found this product, and it was on sale. It's John Frieda's color glaze, and you put it on in the shower, when your hair is wet, and leave it on for 3 minutes, then rinse. It's supposed to slowly build up some blended color, plus and shine and stuff ... I've been using it not quite a week. Not sure if I see any difference yet. And I only got the glaze portion, not the coordinating shampoo and conditioner. So maybe that's part of why ... But if it's not an abrupt change, and if I could taper off slowly without a clear growing-out line, I'm willing to try it. I'll keep you posted.

I need to go get lunch for the munchkins now. Hope you all have a good weekend!

My Absence has been noted

Turns out I've been missing

we're not still sick. Or at least mostly not. Took longer to shake the bug than I thought.

Today's a park day. It's not even 60 degrees at the moment. I sure hope it warms up fast.

Why is it that the kids sleep late on days I have something to get ready for, but are up as early as possible when there's nothing going on?

Which makes me sing that song, in my head, "I know there's something going on ... "

who sings that? I can't remember right now. You know the song, right?

"There something going on (on on on on) there's something going on (on on on on) ..."

anyway, I'm off to wake the kids and scrounge for a picnic lunch. I really should plan to shop before running out of food on a park day. We're going to be eating dry pasta and hot sauce at the park.

anyway, the point of this being? For those of you who asked: no, I'm not dead.

hopefully more blogs to follow - maybe even with pictures.

I need a better spam killer.

love,
kim

sick days

This time I have an excuse for not posting

I've been sick

Yes me, the "I don't get sick" mom

Caught a variation on the bug going through the family. Came home early from church Sunday because I felt wrong. Felt like I was cheating, since I wasn't throwing up and didn't have clear signs of being sick. But I think I maybe had a fever. Spent all day Sunday and Monday in bed, more or less.

Today I'm feeling maybe 75% better. Still have some symptoms. But I am better by default because Buzz is sick. When a 2 year old is sick, Mom has to kick it into gear whether she feels like it or not. 2 year olds are not compliant in the bucket grabbing. In fact, he sees the bucket as a sign of being sick and will not let it be near him. Stupid Bucket!

So anyway. I'm a little oogey, a little light headed, and facing 3 days of laundry to catch up on.

But still. Nice to be feeling a little better.

Only bad part? Seems not fair to only lose 2-3 lbs after not eating for 2+ days. Not that I'd get sick to lose weight. But if you ARE sick and can't eat for a few days, seems like you ought to get a little more bonus in the weight loss department, is all I'm saying.

I'd really like to be down 2 more pounds. That would put me in another zone I haven't been in, in a long time.

As for the walking ... I can see it slowly drifting out the window. Summer and walking just don't go well together. I don't know why.