36 Week Bump Picture

I got my hair cut today and I wanted to capture it while I can before I wash it and it's all curly again.  I figured we might as well get a picture of my 36 week bump while we're at it, so here it is.  Please excuse the mess!  What do you think?

Menu Plan Monday - Valentine's Day 2011

This is my first time joining the Menu Plan Monday linkup at I'm An Organizing Junkie!  Here is my menu plan for the week.  We'll see how well we stick to it:

Monday:
B - Cereal
L - Tuna Sandwiches
D - Out to celebrate Valentine's Day

Tuesday:
B - Green Smoothie
L - Leftovers
D - Middle Eastern Rice with Black Beans and Chickpeas, Spaghetti Squash, Yogurt, Pitas

Wednesday:
B - Yogurt
L - Grilled Cheese & Tomato Soup
D - Church

Thursday:
B - Oatmeal
L - Leftovers
D - Egg Pie, Salad

Friday:
B - Green Smoothie
L - Hummus & Veggies
D - Chicken-Broccoli Bake (Batch cooking)

Saturday:
B - Breakfast Burrito (Batch cooking)
L - Out
D - Leftovers

What is your family eating this week?

Cleaning Schedule

After all the recent changes in our lives, the cleaning schedule has gone out the window (not that I really kept up with it in the first place).  Time to reclaim it!  In the past, I've made pretty spreadsheets and charts and fantasized about having a Martha Stewart home.  And you know what?  It never worked.  Why?  Because I was trying to establish way too many habits all at once and I wound up overwhelmed.  So this time, I'm going to focus on adding one or two chores to my list at a time.  What am I focusing on first?

1. Make the bed every day
2. Do a load of laundry every day

Sounds simple, right?  I hope so, because that was the point.  If other chores get done in addition to these, that's great, but my goal is to do these two things every day for two weeks.  By then, they should be a habit.  The other key is to not beat myself up if one (or both) of these don't happen sometimes.  No one is perfect, not even me (though my brain thinks otherwise).  Life happens and you move on.  Tomorrow is a new day.

What are your every day chores?

Vermicomposting Update

I'm not sure the wormies survived the move.  Last time I added kitchen scraps to the bin, I saw no movement.  I added more wet shredded paper, hoping it would revive them, but I've been afraid to check on their progress.  I know, I'm a big chicken, but I just feel so bad.  I may have killed 500 of God's creatures!

I promise to get up the courage to check on them soon.  Maybe we'll be building a new compost bin outdoors (sans worms) now that we live in a real house instead of a third story apartment!

Anyone else having composting woes?

Our December Travels

For the last three weeks, Spencer and I have been traveling:

We spent a week in Honolulu, HI for the Pacifichem 2010 conference.  While I was presenting and sitting through symposium sessions, Spencer got to check out Waikiki beach and downtown Honolulu.  Our last two days we spent sight-seeing.  We went up to the Polynesian Cultural Center (amazing!), visited Pearl Harbor, and stopped briefly at the Dole Plantation (pineapples) and a macadamia nut farm.

We were home for barely 24 hours before heading off to Virginia to visit our families for Christmas, but we had a few hiccups first.  At 10pm the night before we were supposed to leave, Spencer started having chest pains.  We called an on-call nurse at the university who told us to call 911.  We did, and the EMTs showed up shortly after.  Although an EKG of his heart looked normal, they still recommended a trip to the ER, so I drove Spencer there myself instead of letting the ambulance take him.  Another EKG and blood tests came back normal enough, so we left with a list of symptoms to look out for.

After a few hours of sleep, we were off to VA, or so we thought.  Not 5 miles from the house, Spencer's car broke down.  At least we were close, right?  A good friend (who we are very indebted to) came to pick me and the cats up while Spencer waited for the tow truck.  We had the car towed back to our house, repacked everything in my car, and finally got on the road.

We had a very nice Christmas Eve day with my parents, my brother, and his girlfriend ending at church.  All day Christmas was spent with Spencer's family.  It was the first time I started dating him that all the siblings were home for Christmas.  Nine (and a half) people plus seven cats makes for a full household, but it was a lot of fun.  On the way back home, we made a short stop in KY to see my grandparents, cousins, aunt, and uncle.

We made it back home just in time to spend New Year's eve with our friends, then zonked out for a good 10 hours or so.  Yesterday we spent doing nothing, which was nice, but today we need to get back with the program!  I'm trying not to stress and worry about everything that needs to be done, and remembering my therapist's advice to keep it to four things or less per day.  So, here are my TODO's for today:

1. Go to church
2. Go to Hypnobabies class
3. Meal planning
4. Grocery shopping

I'm hoping much more gets done today, but that defeats the purpose of this whole exercise. 

TODO: Day 1

My list of things to do today:

1. Cloth Diaper 101 Class
2. Work on Pacifichem presentation for 1 hour
3. Spend 15 minutes unpacking
4. Write blog post

The Cloth Diaper 101 Class was amazing and has me really excited about cloth diapering our child.  Spencer went with me and is also on board :)  We even started our stash:

• 1 bum genius 4.0 one-size pocket diaper + 2 inserts
• 2 FuzziBunz one-size pocket diapers + 4 inserts
• 1 flip cover + organic insert
• 18 disposable flip inserts

Do any of you cloth diaper and have any suggestions for us newbies?

I'm alive!

I know it's been a long time since I posted, but I promise I'm alive!  A lot has happened since May.  First of all, I'm pregnant with our first child, due March 2011.  We are really excited, but have also been dealing with a lot of stress.  In August I took my comprehensive exams, but I failed 2 of them and it's taken a while to figure out the next course of action.  A few months later, Spencer lost his job.  Shortly thereafter, I was diagnosed with depression.  Oh, and we've moved!  Because of all this, I've decided to take next semester off from school to focus on myself.

This week my therapist gave me some homework.  Part of what's perpetuating my depression is the extremely high expectations I have of myself.  Each morning, he wants me to write down a list of things to accomplish that day.  My only goal is to complete those items.  I'm supposed to start with about four items and evaluate from there.  If I can't get four things done, the next day I'm only supposed to write down three things to do, etc.  Even if I only have one thing on my list for the day, if I accomplish it, I'm supposed to be proud of myself, and not dwell on what else I could have, should have, done that day.  That will be hard for me.

I'm going to try to post my lists here on my blog and comment on how I feel about my progress.  Feel free to play along!