hi YA

Here we are, our first week of summer vacation over already.  Only 11 more to go!  :)  That seems crazy, actually...it goes so fast!

My Dad was here visiting last Sun-Tues and we were super busy having lots of fun.  On Sunday we spent some time in New Glarus and had a cook out here, Monday was Olbrich Gardens and The Great Dane (also my birthday!), Tuesday was the zoo.  On Wednesday the kids started summer school and our babysitter came for the first time.  Yesterday I went to a physical therapist about my back, I hurt it last week, and then we went to the pool and for a long walk.  The PT pushed on some joints and I am feeling slightly better, I think.  I had gotten hit just to the right of my spine with Ruby's bike wheel as it swung down off of the hook it was on in the garage.  OUCH. 

Today I am having a chill morning here with Nicky.  He pretended to clip my toe nails for a long time and we are heading out to the clothes line/patio next.  I was slightly worried about hanging laundry outside as I have the whole inside SYSTEM down so well.  Luckily, after much quiet pondering (not really) I came up with a solution.  I bring the laundry in from the line and carry it down to the basement to be sorted onto the appropriate piles.  Might seem silly but I don't want to mess up the SYSTEM.  :)

It seems there was much more to share, and many pictures to post, but I am drawing many blanks.  Let's see if a list helps:

1. Nicky started blinking a lot last week.  I asked his dr. at his 3 year check and she said to bring him to an eye dr. if it keeps up.  I googled it and it sounds like it can be common for kids (especially boys) his age to develop little tics with blinking.  It is already going away a lot but I have an appt. for next week just in case.
2. We got James a Trac Phone.  He can now call me while he's pedalling around our neighborhood between different parks and houses instead of coming home in between each stop or asking a parent to use their phone.  (which he was really good about.)  It only cost $15 but we told him it cost over $100 so he'd be very careful with it.  :)
3. I love mowing the lawn.  I have my play list set up so it times out exactly how long it takes me to mow and now I try to beat it a little.  I also burn about 360 calories (53 minutes) which is my biggest calorie burning workout of the week.  Love that!
4. Speaking of workouts, I haven't done any.  :(  I miss it sooooo much but want to heal properly before I do anything besides walk.  I might not even mow today in case the pushing is too hard on my back.  Tomorrow is a BIG day and I want to feel good.
5. Tomorrow my sister is picking me up at 6am and we are heading out for a weekend of FUN.  We are going to the farmer's market, breakfast, to get pedicures, shopping and shopping, staying at a hotel (in middleton) going to dinner, a movie...whatever we want!!  Can't wait!!!!  We've been planning it for 6 weeks and it's finally here.  :) 
6. On Sunday we are coming home in the afternoon to get our families and go to the peanut free Mallards game with an all you can eat & drink tent.  A little fun for the father's.  :)
7. James & Ruby each chose 3 summer school classes and they both have swimming lessons right afterwards.  The last 2 days, James picked Ruby up at her class and they walk down the grassy hill to the pool together and I meet them there.  I am very proud of them for doing this.  It is something so simple but it shows me they can be trusted a bit and that they're learning independence & responsibility.  James is actually really good with this stuff but it's new for Ruby and I'm proud of her and of James for looking out for her.
8. Nicky, on the other hand, can't be trusted at all.  Most evenings he is locked in his bedroom while I get dinner on the table.  No joke.  The kid will not stay in the backyard yet so I have no choice.  Little rat.  I'd rather have him screaming in his room for 15 minutes than hit by a car so no biggie.

Okay, gots to go.  xoxoxooxoxoxoxo  Have a good weekend!!!

wednesday weigh in

Good morning!  How's it going?  I am good.  I got lots of extra sleep yesterday which I think I needed.  I took a nap from 2-3 yesterday afternoon and then fell back to sleep after I checked the time.  I woke up at 3:39...my kids usually arrive at the front door at 3:40.  :)  How do our bodies do that??  They wanted to go to a movie and since there was no homework to do (yeah!) I said sure.  We saw Epic and it was really cute.  Nicky is not totally down with the whole "sit still for 2 hours" thing but the theatre was practically empty so it wasn't an issue.  Still, I won't be bringing him again for a while. 

I also went to bed at 10pm and let myself sleep in this morning until 6:50.  It felt really good.  I've been getting up between 5-5:30 to exercise but if I don't go to bed until 10:30-11...I'm not getting enough sleep.  I like 8 hours the best so I want to try and fit that in a little bit more often.  Also, I should say that my legs were tired yesterday!  That was good to realize!  :)  All those squats with a 15lb weight took their toll, in a good way.  Today I'm just in the mood for a walk.  It's kind of crappy out and we have a dr. appt and then 1st grade Graduation so it might be a walk inside later on with my pal Leslie.  Haven't seen her for a while!  I wonder how she's doing.  ;)

My weigh in was good this morning...only .5lb up.  :)  I was worried because I seemed to eat a lot of treats last week but I must have balanced it okay.  I'd like to stop messing around for a couple of weeks and lose 4 more pounds and then maintain that for the summer.  I wore some size 12 shorts last week but my yellow goal ones still feel a tiny bit snug to me in the waist.  oink oink.  I have 5 more days to get them to fit and reach my goal.  Actually, they totally fit now but I want them to be super comfortable which for me means a little loose.  I might not make it...we'll see.  Either way, I still feel good about what's been going on over here the last couple of months.

Nicky is waiting to sword fight me again.  He is wearing tiny little striped underwear and is pretty hard to resist.  I work tomorrow but will be back on Friday.  Have a good day!!

xoxox

It's June!

I wonder if I'll get back to regular blogging this summer?  I kind of miss it.  It makes me feel older...like another part of my "younger" life is ending.  Or maybe it's just that my birthday is next week.  :) 

How are you guys?  Anyone still out there?  Show of hands??  :) 

Last Tuesday Nicky and I went with my friend Carolyn and her son to the Children's Museum.  It was really fun even though Nicky leaned over a temporary chicken fence and crashed it over and all the teenage chickens got scared to death and scattered.  Thankfully, none of them got crushed.  whew.  Can you imagine??? 

Last Wednesday I watched baby Elijah while my sister and Ronan moved into their new house!  Yay!!  They live right down the road.  We can easily stop over at each others' houses!  Baby Eli is a doll and very easy to watch so it was a fun day.  (although tiring.  how does anyone get anything done with a baby around???  oh yeah, you don't.  :)  )  (but I did make some oatmeal sunbutter bars that were crumbly but good.)

Last Thursday was a work day.  I didn't thrift, I just listed.  Oh, and Thursday was Patrick's birthday so I went out in the afternoon and got his gifts and picked up Hubbard Ave. pies.  Thursday night was the end of year Girl Scout Fiesta (ha!) and then we came home and celebrated our Patrick.  (cake and pie in one day.  oof.) (oh, and I baked muffins.)

Friday was a work day and all I did was list all day.  I got around 25 listings done?  It was a productive day.  Friday night James went to an event at the school with his buddy and won some cheese & crackers.  This was funny because at the EMS open house the week before he won a tooth brush cleaner.  :)  Lucky kid.  Andrea & Ronan came over for tacos that night.

On Saturday I took Ruby for a hike at Picnic Point.  James went to a soccer game with a friend and Patrick and Nicky stayed home because Patrick and I were pissy with each other.  Saturday afternoon I made a Texas Sheet cake to bring to a bbq at Patrick's coworker's house and we went to that.  We were slightly less pissy with each other so it wasn't bad.  They don't have kids and there were no kids there and I was really impressed with all 3 of our kids and how well-behaved they were.  This doesn't happen all that often (all 3 of them at once!) so I want to remember it.  :)

On Sunday I mowed the lawn, did a little ebay work and took James to his end of year Boy Scout Crossover thing.  After that we stopped by my sister's house and then came home.

Yesterday I worked and shipped over 30 packages.  I had a lot of auctions end Sunday night so it was a busy morning!  It's good, though.  I am waiting on payment from around 10 more people so I hope they cough it up soon.  Yesterday afternoon I did 2 rounds of that kettlebell workout (so 20 minutes) and was flat out exhausted.  My 15lb bell felt super heavy at first but I found I can totally do the exercises with it.  Not sure if I can do all 3 rounds yet...won't attempt that for a couple days.  I am not sore today, though, even though I was WIPED out afterwards.  ??

Today.  Today I am home!!  With nothing to do and it feels lovely.  Here is Nick a little while ago, after just waking up:

That's all I want to do all day.  :)  I hope you have a lovely day.  xxoo

p.s.  did you catch all the baked goods I mentioned???  Not looking forward to tomorrow's weigh in.  Last Wednesday I was down 1lb.

p.s.s.  I also decided we are having cereal for dinner once a week this summer.  And a night of cold cuts & cheese & pickles & fruit & veggies once a week.  (thanks to Zoe for that idea!)  And a night of pizza and a night of pasta (hot or cold) and we will grill once and maybe eat out once so that leaves only one night of coming up with something else.  :)  Brilliant!

good morning

Good morning, friends.  How's it going??

I am deleting my Inbox and realized I still have emails in there from the summer of 2011.  WHAT??  I have just over 16,000 emails to delete.  :/  Only a handful are ones I want to keep so I am quickly scanning 100 at a time.  If I do a few hundred a day it will only take me...a month and a half to get it finished.  :)  Nice. 

How was your weekend?  Ours was good.  Patrick was a lawn super hero (he aerated it among other things) and is waging a hilarious battle against something burrowing in our yard.  He would fill a hole with compacted rocks and dirt, go into the back yard for a bit, come back to the front and the little creature would have started clearing out his old hole.  :)  Hee hee.  He must have been watching Patrick because it happened a bunch of times.  heehee. 

I was kind of bored on and off all weekend.  I got a lot done including quite a few ebay listings, watching 2 episodes of Nashville, housework, mowed the lawn, playdates, exercising, eye appt., etc but it all felt kind of blah.  Yesterday the big kids were awful until 2 hours in their bedrooms snapped them out of it.  James had had a sleepover Sunday night and they were all up late and SO crabby yesterday morning.  ugh.  That long break helped, though, and we had a nice evening.  They went to bed at 7pm and seemed back to normal today.  Thank God.

I fell in love last week.  With kettlebells.  I seriously LOVE them and LOVE how I burn the same calories as a Jillian Michaels workout without any specific "cardio" times.  I still really like Jillian but it is SO FUN to be doing something new.  I ordered my first kettlebell and it should be here tomorrow.  I started with just a 10lb dumbbell that I have and that works for the most part but I know an actual kettlebell, with the handle, will be much better to work with.  I guess their weight is off center or something, too.  ??  Anyone else love these?  So fun to do something totally new.  I used this workout on youtube my first time and really liked it.  (It's called Fitness Blender Beginner Kettlebell Workout if the link doesn't work.)  I bought another one on Amazon (Prime Video) this morning and can't wait to try it with my new bell!!  My obliques are aching which feels really good.  That beginner workout, while not easy at all, didn't leave me sore afterwards.  I ordered a 15lb kettlebell so hopefully that one will beat me up a little.  :)  I want to ache!!! 

I am at that awkward point where my pants (especially my few pairs of jeans) are all too loose but I don't want to quite go out and buy new ones yet.  My shorts seem to fit better, and I've taken a couple of them in, but our weather has been CRAP so I haven't been wearing shorts at all.  I will probably take my jeans in a bit in the waist to get me through but it will be so nice to get new ones.  soon. 

Nicky and I are going to the Children's Museum in a little bit so I should go get ready.  I hope you have a good Tuesday!  xoxo

I just wanna feel this moment

Hi peeps,

How are you?  I'm good.  I just finished an afternoon coffee and all of my kids are occupied.  WHAT COULD BE BETTER??

Today was a work day.  I did some listing stuff this morning and then hit the Dig and found a TON of stuff.  Practically everything was new and I stayed for a long time.  It was extra great because Heidi came and I hadn't seen her forever.  A while later she posted on facebook how excited she was to be doing laundry.  There's nothing quite like the load of laundry after a good day at the dig.  :)  I left there and got some groceries that were all over the table when Nicky got home.  Here is our conversation:

N: Whew did all dat stuff come from, mom?
S:  I got groceries today.
N: (incredulously) DAT'S what you do while you work?  (emphasis his)

HAHAHA.  Mind your own business, 3 year old.  I can do whatever I want.  :)  It was so funny.  He is such a little turkey.

There are only 2 weeks left of school!  That is crazy but I am totally ready for it.  I am also going to enjoy the heck out of these last two weeks.  :)  I did find a babysitter for the summer, though, one day a week, so I am happy about that.  It really helped me to have that break last summer.  I am hoping to keep going somewhat with ebay so I will use that time to shop or even list somewhere that I can get free WIFI.  I don't think anyone at the library would mind if I set up downstairs with my laptop, measuring tape and a bag full of clothes.  :)  (that actually sounds kind of nice...)

My weigh in yesterday was good.  I was down that last pound plus a little bit more.  Yay!  This morning's was even better but that is not official yet.  ;)  Tonight we are having hamburgers with fried eggs on top, though, so...?  :/  I just went and looked it up and it's not as bad as I thought.  The burger is 210, the egg 70.  Bun will be 100 plus a slice of cheese, 100=480.  That will bring me to 1400 for the day so I can still have either some carrots & hummus or an ice cream bar.  :)  I wonder what it will be???  HAHAHA. 

Speaking of laundry, I have been in a state of laundry nirvana for the last month or so.  We got our basement cleaned up and ever since I have been totally on top of the laundry.  I have a really good system down and have been so fearful of losing it that I haven't spoken of it.  I have always been good at doing laundry, it's the folding and putting away that dragged me down.  I now have a table down there so I fold it as I take it out of the drier (THE KEY!!) and sort it into piles for each of us.  I am responsible for bringing mine & Nicky's (and towels) upstairs but the others take care of their own!  It is so nice.  Everyone knows where to look and there is no hollering about socks or underwear in the morning.  :)  The kids don't always get their stuff put away but I don't really care about that.  They get to it on the weekend then when we make them clean up their rooms.  Laundry is kind of my happy place now.  I can go down there and just have a "moment", you know?  happy sigh.  I love those moments.  They are hard to describe but you know what I mean, right?  When something is just right and satisfying.

The other morning it was 9:30 and I hadn't had my coffee yet.  My sister asked how I could do that and I said I thought it was just because I enjoyed looking forward to it so much, that I put it off.  She laughed and said I've really always been like that and I realized she was right!  I love having things to look forward to whether it be a vacation or a cup of coffee.  Or a laundry moment.  :)

Hope you found some happy moments today.  xoxoo

miss me, miss me, now you have to kiss me!

Hi Stranger!  I hope you guys had a good week!  Mine was really good.  My little girl turned 7.  I went on a field trip with James.  We had family over.  Patrick helped Andrea & Ronan unload a moving truck.  We did a lot of yard work.  I may have gotten my ebay mojo back.  A really good week.

Now it is a new one!  I am so happy to be home with Nicky today.  We just got back from walking the kids to school.  Oh - you know what?  I totally avoided my neighbor kids today because I just wanted to walk alone with my kids.  :)  Isn't that awful??  They are nice kids but I really like that time with just my kids as everyone is normally pretty happy and it's a nice time.  So today we left earlier and I don't feel a bit bad.  :)

I am having coffee and thinking about our day.  I might make some more no-vita-muffins.  I'm going to call about an aerator for the lawn.  Patrick is going to aerate it this weekend...we have NEVER done that before and our lawn needs some attention.  He also said he'd rebuild the sandbox so that is cool.  That sandbox has gotten more play than anything else in our yard but it is 6-7 years old now and is rotting.  (The swing set that I got 5 years ago for $100 is a close second and thankfully that is not rotting but we did replace a few of the swingy type things a couple of years ago.)

I wasn't here last week for Weigh In Wednesday but I was -2lbs.  Remember I had been +3 the week before?  Well I lost 2 of those and I hope I am back to where I was by tomorrow.  I sure am POKEY about losing weight.  sigh.  BUT!  Those goal shorts & pants all fit me now.  I couldn't get them zipped before but now they totally zip up and everything!  :)  Yay!  They are still tighter than I wear my shorts but I am within a few pounds/inches of them being wearable.  My birthday is 20 days away...I hope I make it.  My tendency is to want to lose weight, on the scale, and to feel bad if I don't, or if it isn't very fast.  However, my body is changing, I can't deny that.  My hips and butt and waist are all smaller.  My arms are stronger.  I can do things with my arms above my head for longer than I could before.  :)  I can tell that I have more muscle and that is so encouraging to me.  I love doing the little bit of weight training that I do and am proud of myself that push ups and squats and lunges and planks don't seem as impossible as they did a couple of months ago.  Good stuff.  Don't get discouraged, self.

Not even when that nearly overwhelming urge to eat carbs hits in the afternoon.  :/  Man, it's strong.  My best solution is to get up, drink some water, chew some gum.  If I waffle (heh) I can sometimes get past it with just a little treat and a couple times (last week with the birthday cake) I've totally blown it.  It's kind of crazy when I see that so clearly...I am not one bit hungry and only want sweets, badly.  I know what's going on but I can't shut it off very easily.  Each time I get past it successfully I feel so good.

Anyways.  Here are some pictures of Ruby's birthday and James' field trip.  Enjoy!  xoxo

 I love gopicnic lunches.  They are so good and they have a sunbutter lunch!  cool.

 Old World Wisconsin is pretty cool.

xoxoxo

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Now it's Tuesday and I was up again and again with a coughing Nicky.  Then we finally fell asleep and he woke me up again by peeing all over my pillow. 

Being a mom is so glamorous.

He is lucky he has those soft little hands to pat my arm with.

I am lucky to be patted with them.  I am also lucky I have good dark coffee for this morning and that it's nice out and that I have some stuff to plant.  And that I get to make cupcakes for my little darling Ruby who is turning 7 tomorrow.  

I am praying this Columbian does the job and I will soon stop feeling like I need to crawl back into my bed.

I bought sunscreen yesterday and forgot to put it on my kids today. 

James can eat regular ice cream bars now.  Like a boss.

Teresa made me think outside the box for Under Armour apparel and I thought, "duh!  I should check ebay." and found 2 shirts for James for $12 each, shipped.  They arrived last Friday and he's worn a rotation of his now collection of 3 every day since.

Here are some pictures of Ruby's room:

 My vitatop knock offs turned out really good.  They were slightly smaller than real vitatops and had less fiber but were tasty and easy and gone in 2 days.  I'm going to make more today or tomorrow.  Let me know if you want the recipe and I'll post it!

 See what I mean about being underwater?  :)

xxooxxo