2014 Goals Update

It is time to do a quarterly update of my goals for this year. I have been reading over them and thinking to myself, 'Wow, I had no idea what this third trimester was going to hold.'

Lets just get right into it.

One: Enjoy the last trimester of this pregnancy

Well, that was ambitious of me! My body feels like I am falling apart and my left leg has started to drag. Isn't pregnancy glamorous! I have read some from others about how much they love these nine months, to watch their body change, bond with the baby, on and on. I feel bad every time I read one of these because I can not wait for it to be over. I would rather sleep in my own bed, instead of the recliner, and be sleep deprived, changing diapers then be pregnant for another 3 1/2 weeks. I was, however, able to make an afghan for Lady #2 and am super excited to wrap her up in it. Another thing I have loved to think about is that Lady A will soon be a big sister and that she will have a sister. My sister and I could not be more different but I love that I had her to talk to while we were growing up and now that we are older our bond is stronger. I recently saw a quote that went something like 'Because I have a sister I will always have a friend.' I could not agree more and am so excited for our little girls to have each other.

Two: Develop a routine

We have a pretty good routine going. We live in a small community but there are a lot of families and a lot of activities centered around toddlers and family. There is the library, we live between two so we are able to visit both some times, the community center, a group of women from church and a day to do grocery shopping when dad can come with us in the mornings. Right now we are really enjoying having so many places to go so Lady A can play with other kids and I can supervise. The thought of getting down on the floor makes my hips shiver in pain, so this schedule is a win-win!!

Three: Date Nights with Paul

I feel like I am eating my words a little on this one. I really wanted to start doing a regular date night and you know from my original post that Paul's idea of date night is renting a movie and half of the time falling asleep on the sofa. Well, that has now turned into my date night idea during this third trimester. In February when his show opened I took the time to get ready, the whole nine yards, by the time I was done I was worn out and ready for bed, not to go out for hours and mingle. I am glad I did, his design was awesome and it was great to visit with the cast and crew.

We will continue to work on date night but for now, I am feeling fine with a movie night for our dates.

Four: Be mostly packed and ready to move before Little Sister comes in April

Maybe I was feeling a little ambitious when I wrote out my goals for this year. With Lady A the third trimester was the best. I finally got over the morning sickness and did not need any pills to help. That has not been the case this time. I have slowly been packing up boxes but am not as far as I would like to be since I can not lift too much, bend or hunch and run out of energy so fast. Once I get a box packed it sits right where I had it until Paul has time to move them for us.

Five: Family History

This one is mostly for myself right now. I love looking into where my family came from and it has been even more meaningful now that I have two girls to pass it all onto. I have a family member who has a bit of a rough past {we have have ancestors or even family now like that} but I am finding that the older generations do not like to talk about those things and a lot is lost when people pass away. Once I was putting together a video for my Grandpa and Grandma's 80th birthdays, they are just weeks apart, and so I needed to get photos. My Grandpa is a private man and I really thought I had seen all the photos he had {there were about 12} but I felt like I should ask him again. I can not stress to you how nervous I was because I did not want to offend him but I live by my moms motto 'If you never ask, you'll never know.!' Turns out he had an old chest full of photos and not just photos, there were letters, other papers and a hand written journal from my dads Great-Grandma. My dad Loved his Gram and was so excited to see and read a journal written in her own hand. 

I have slowly been keeping up on my family history and sharing it with those in my family who are interested. It will be a few months until I can fully spread out and delve deep into it but for now I am happy with the progress I have made this year in organizing everything and getting copies to those who want it.

Review

It looks like I have some work to do still and luckily there are nine months left in this year. These next few months are going to be super busy with all of the changes coming up for our family but I am sure I can keep up on my personal goals, this could only help this time go smoothly. Right!?!

2014 Goals

This past year has been great! Nothing too major in the way of good or bad but just a simple and quiet year. This year we will have a lot of changes coming our way: baby sister comes in April, Paul will graduate in May, and one or two moves {depending on how work goes for the summer}. With one chapter of our lives closing and the next one opening there is a lot that I need to prepare and things that I want to do to help strengthen our little family.

Right now, with feeling so blah from this pregnancy, there are a lot of things I have let slip: myself, bills, play time with Lady A, chores...just to name a few. This year there are a few goals I want to work on that will help myself individually, strengthen our family and make our home a haven. I have come up with a list of goals that will help. This will also make our lives so much easier as we prepare for some major changes that will all be happening almost at the same time.

One: Enjoy the last trimester of this pregnancy

I get really sick with being pregnant. With Lady A I lost quite a bit of weight and it wasn't until the third trimester that I was able to start putting it back on. My Dr.'s were not too worried about my health or the health of the baby because I started with some extra weight. This time there is a new pill out that I have been using because the Zofran was not doing much other then giving me a bunch of side effects that I was having to deal with and take more pills for. This new Rx is have been great, not perfect but much better. The only down side is the one side effect that seems to be hitting me......drowsiness. There have been a number of days that I will sleep 14 hours or more. To help me enjoy the third trimester more I want to take time to bond with Baby #2 and something that helped me with Lady A was I spent time making her baby quilt. Getting out more and being more active {on those few warmer days during the winter} will help me appreciate my body and miracle #2, that took so long to get, otherwise I'll spend all my time inside just waiting for these nine months to pass.

Two: Develop a routine

One of the things I have noticed about my sister with her older kids and my sister-in-law with her toddler and baby is that they all have a routine, a good schedule. I know a routine is not for everyone but I think that is a big key to what can help in our home right now. My main problem is that I look at something that needs to get done and think, 'I have all day to do that' or ' I can do that this weekend.' There is no real schedule or time table that is being demanded of me, like school or going to work.

Well, it is time to fix all of that,  I need to demand it from myself.

I love having Paul home for the winter break especially because now I can take naps in the middle of the day and not have to worry because he is here and able to spend time with Lady A. It has been great to be able to spend more time with him, his semesters are so demanding and there will be weeks that Lady A won't see him. Having him around so much has made us a bit lazy especially when it comes to nap time and bedtime. We need to get a daily and weekly routine set up. This will include nap time and bedtime, bills, cleaning and a little me time. I love being a mom but I still need time to do a something for myself, whether it is just getting ready for the day {this will help with enjoying the 3rd trimester too}, working on a project or simply taking some time to read.

Three: Date Nights with Paul

As I have said, Paul's semesters are pretty demanding and he is gone a lot at night. This final semester is not going to get an easier. He has his thesis show that opens the end of February and then has to put his thesis paper together, we will be moving after baby number two arrives and he graduates. But it is important that we work on our relationship too so now he is going to have to squeez in date night....and I told him that just renting a movie doesn't count, we have to interact, but I know great things will come from it. There are a lot of girls in the theatre department who love to babysit for us so there is no reason to not get out of the house. Now to come up with some fun date nights!!!

Four: Be mostly packed and ready to move before Little Sister comes in April

This one is going to take some work, a good schedule and focus. I don't really want to count how many times we have moved since we have been married, if anything it helps with clutter because if I collect it I have to move it and I would rather not. The hard part is that I also love to have my "stuff" available to me if the mood should strike and I want to sew, paint, crotchet, etc. In a previous post you can see that I have already come up with my packing and labeling system. I have also started working on ways to get the apartment ready for when we leave. Check out how I have prepared the stove for easy cleaning when the end comes.

Five: Family History

One hobby that I love to do is family History. Growing up I loved doing puzzles, and geneology is a huge family puzzle. It is more than just putting names down and going back as far as you can, my real love comes from the stories and photos, getting to know my ancestors. It has been some time scence I have really delved into this, partly because of moving so often and not having a place to set it up and leave it so I can come back to it, even when I might only have 10 minutes or so. I have to take the time now and ask my Grandpas all my questions before it is too late.

There it is. Organize. Routine. Family.

Here is to a great 2014!!!

What goals or resolutions do you have for this year? Do you have any tips on what could help with my goals? I would love to hear them.

Our Moving Binder

After first getting married Paul and I stayed in the same place for 4 1/2 years. It was just a little Town Home but it was perfect for us. After Paul graduated we started moving and haven't stopped. We are moving again at the end of the month, this will be our 5th move in 2 years. Our biggest move was in my third trimester, from Utah to Connecticut, and the last three moves have been with our baby.

I have come up with a couple of tools to help me stay organized during my moves. Here is my moving binder and box labeling tabs.

Here are the sections for my binder:

Home 4 Sale {Out with the Old...}

Home 2 Buy {In with the New...}

Moving Costs

Moving Checklist {Out with the Old...}

Moving Checklist {In with the New...}

New Area Info

Contact List

Receipts

 

Every section has a opening page and a few more blank pages for all my notes. I have filled in a few spots for the basics but left plenty of room for you to fill in your own list of "To Do." The Moving Checklist has one page of suggestions and a completely blank one, this way you can print off as many as you need and fill it in with your own list.

For the receipts section I included a pencil pouch to hold my receipts.

There are a few things that are necessities when moving into a new place and having to search through a bunch of boxes looking for those few items can get a little frustrating. So I have developed a list of things that we need to have 'First on the Scene' when we get to our new place. There are also box labels included. These can simply be printed out on a sheet and cut out using the trim marks or printed onto label sheets. They have an assigned room and space to include a description of what is in the box. We all have different spaces and places so there is a blank sheet of labels as well so you can print out as many as you need for what ever the size of your move. If you choose to print and cut out the labels you can place them in the pencil pouch to hold them until you are ready to tape them to the boxes.

If you want to download my pdf's simply click here. In short there are 9 binder pages with 2 blank 'To Do' lists, 5 box labels sheets with rooms listed and 1 blank box labels sheet.

UPDATE: The moving binder and pages worked out great!! Everything was kept together and right where I needed them. I must say my favorite part was the boxing labels. For every box I put a label on top of the box, back left corner and another on the front of the box, top right corner. This way, however the box was packed in the truck, one of the corners would be visible so we could now what was in it and where it needed to be put in the new place. LOVED IT!!! This will be used every time we move from now on.

***UPDATE***

{4 June 2013}

I am really feeling the love. This has been my most popular post and a huge number of you have downloaded my Moving Binder pages. {I didn't think it would be this big of a hit.} 

I went back over the box labels and added some color, so now your boxes will be color coded as well. YEA!! There are even separate colors for three different bedrooms and bathrooms and two blank colors. Here is the link for the new labels and pages. If you want the original, click on the link further up the page.

Happy Move!!

Here are some of my other binder printables

Our Budget Binder

Start a Yearly Savings Plan with this printable

Here is my Checklist for Weathering the Storms 

Hanging a Frame ~ Right Where You Want It!

Over the first four and half years of our marriage we stayed in the same place but the last year and half, we have moved a handful of times. From all of this experience there are a few things that, I have become pretty good at, I think anyways.

One of these things is hanging frames. I love to have stuff up on the walls, family photos, frames, shelves, vacation memories, etc. My husband does not love this so much because I am a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to making sure everything is right where I want it and that it is hanging straight on the wall, this usually means we have more nail holes in the wall than actual nails.

Here is a great, fast way to make sure I get the nails in the right spot the first time.

What you'll need:

Hammer, Nails, Level, Tape, Thumb tacks, Frame {or other item to hang}.

First lay your thumb tacks so that the needle part is up. Take a piece of tape, sticky part down, and press over the point of the thumb tack so the point pokes through and press the tape firmly against the back part of the tack to make sure it sticks.

Then you will tape the thumb tack on the back of the frame right where the nail will go to hang it.

If your frame requires two nails, {like mine} put the second thumb tack in place.

Now with the level {you might have someone help you with this part} place the frame in the desired location and use the level to make sure that the frame is straight.

With a little bit of pressure you will push the frame where the thumb tacks are so that they will mark the wall. You can have them leave a superficial mark or push hard enough that they will push into the wall. {I pushed into the wall so I could get a photo and show you.}

You can always double check your work to make sure you didn't slip when you were marking the wall.

 

All that is left to do is hammer the nails in place and hang the frame.

Perfect!! Two nails and only two holes. My husband is so pleased.