I Want to Know

How do you all you lovely moms and ladies keep your houses clean?  I mean, really.  Do you have a list you go by every day?  does it just bug you so bad when it's messy that you must clean it OR ELSE?
  I struggle.  The days that the house is clean, I haven't accomplished anything else.  When I've accomplished other things, the house is a mess.  If I work in the yard, the house suffers.  If I work in the house, the yard suffers.  I can't seem to find that happy medium.
  I know it's not the most important thing in the world and that spending the time with my kids, teaching them, playing with them, is by far more important.  But I love it clean.  You would think it would be enough to motivate me.  Right now, this picture would look very different.  There is a beehive (empty of course) in the middle of the room, flowers that were picked from outside on the floor, books on every cushion of the couch and it's dusty.  I need to just go do it. But really, if you have a way that works for you, tell me about it.  I want to see if it works for me.  Not just cleaning either; organizing, cleaning, keeping it clean, whatever.

Hello??

Soooo, I'm just wondering if anybody really looks at this blog??  Not offended if nobody does, but thinking about deleting it...

I Love this part of Me...

I love being a member of this church.  It is amazing.  I love the ways that it makes me grow and think.  I love that I have a different perspective of life.  I love knowing what is waiting for us on the other side, what happened before we came here.  I have had this brought to my attention this last week with the passing of a friend.  I feel so blessed to have a part of this church.  I need to stop complaining about what I've been asked to do, or thinking of excuses to not to those things, and just be grateful.  What a blessing it is in my life.

One Step Closer...Hopefully

    One thing that I cannot say about myself at the moment is that I'm organized.  It's been a while since I've been able to say such a thing.  And I don't like it.  Before I got married, I thought myself very organized.  I would clean my room, organize, then reorganize my closet until I thought it was the most functional.  I don't know that my husband would ever believe it.  Because, I have turned into a pile-maker.  The mail, is always in one giant pile.  Our office is...piles of....lots of stuff.  The laundry...sometimes piles of clean clothes, sometimes not.  But, I know where everything is, most of the time.  But, I am tired of sifting through the piles to find something.  I came to this realization, I think, last August.  And that's when it started.  I started in our back closet.  De-junked it and put things in containers and boxes.  Moved through the upstairs and had it pretty well done.  I don't always do so well at keeping it up, but I feel better about it than I did before.  I think we did the playroom right after Christmas, which was awesome.  But then, it was time for the office.  I'm still on it.  I've been reading websites, blogs, books, everything, to see what people say about organizing and decluttering your life.  This, I feel has become quite necessary this year.  Two kids really threw me off last year and I just felt it reeling out of control.   Then Phil got called to be the ward clerk, then I got called to be the relief society secretary. So, organization has become really important to me recently and I've got to get a handle on it.
    I realized that I have too much, stuff, and it's everywhere.  So, I've gone through and cleaned out our filing systems, thrown a whole bunch of stuff out, and you'd never know it.  So, I'm putting my 'stuff' in one binder.  And I'm calling it my 'command center.'  It's going to be where I keep track of losing weight, projects that I want to finish, educational stuff I do with the kids, a bill payment schedule and tracker, a to-do list, goals, things to do for my calling, and everything and anything else that I try to keep track of, but all in ONE place!  I'm excited about it.  Still consolidating everything, but I think it's coming along nicely.

And so I've decided to make a 'Family Command Center'.  This is where the laminated weekly menu and grocery list is, a cleaning schedule, our family calendar, a Family Home Evening Schedule, a Babysitters Central folder, and it's still being worked on.  Eventually it will also have our family emergency plan and a few other things in it.  Hopefully this will help.  It's making me feel a little more organized, and loving it!

And she turns One...

Where did it go?  Seriously, I don't remember a ton of it.  But I think it was OK fun.  What I do remember....
Her delivery was awesome.  Truly painful with no meds, but I'm totally going to do it again.  I think it was better for both of us.  I was honestly surprised that she was a whole pound smaller than Ella was.  I don't think I'll ever forget when Phil told me that she didn't have a hand and holding her and crying with Phil as we thought about what might lay ahead for her, the doctor telling me it was OK, she was still perfect, then crying some more until my parents came.  Bless them.  They came when they heard me in pieces over the phone.  It was like, ten at night.  I can still feel her soft, new-baby skin and smell her sweet breath.  She was such a sweet, pleasant baby.  I do remember wondering if I could truly handle another kid when Ella went nuts on me for a few weeks.  Lots of nights crying when Phil got home and the girls were sleeping.  Still sad about her hand, and nervous I wasn't doing enough for both of them.  Afraid, that my husband would think I had completely lost it.  Bless his big heart for being so patient with me and just holding me while we stood in the kitchen and I cried, more than once.
     And now, she is the most busy, curious, happy, sweet, gives the best hugs in the world, 8-toothed one year old.  Man I love my kids.  Some days, I still wonder if I really want another one.  But there are those blessed glimpses of this blue-eyed, funny, spunky little girl that makes me want five more, just like her.

She's now 3...

She's three.  Two was nothing.  I struggle with her newfound sass, some days.  Others, I laugh at it, which is probably not in my best interest, but if I don't laugh, I'll get mad.  What can I say, she's funny.

Something I could Never Do:

The Military.  I recently have been watching The Guardian.  It came out in like, 2006, I think.  I think I watched it once when it came out on video, but I despised the ending so much that I didn't watch it again and said it was a horrible movie.
I borrowed it from my family just to give it another shot.  Phil was working late nights and I was tired of our movies and nothing on TV.  Still don't like the ending.  Phil would tell you that I must be obsessed with this movie.  I think it has stayed in our VCR for like, two week now.  Truth be told, I'm too lazy to find something else to watch.  But I do suddenly enjoy this movie now.  There are other movies similar that have made me feel the same, but I have a tremendous support for the people who actually do this!  Not just Coast Guard swimmers, but ARMY, Navy, all of them.  This is something I could never do.  And I'm so glad that there are men and women out there who are willing to do it, choose to do it.  I'm pretty sure boot camp would put me six feet under.