January Reboot

I had planned on getting organized, deChristmasing etc last week, but then the polar vortex hit.  School and activities were cancelled Monday and Tuesday.  The usual short Wednesday was extended requiring piano lessons to be rescheduled.  Luckily the town decided to wait til this coming week to collect Christmas trees taking the pressure off there, but as much as I love Christmas I am looking forward to having my house back in order.  

This is the week I will get organized.  So to get on track here are my goals for the month

1. Finish decorating Little Man's room - rug, tieback hooks, organize closet

2. Finish exterior of dollhouse, and paint interior where needed, start wallpapering and floor

3. Top to bottom house cleaning (Super Bowl party prep)

4. Start redecorating Little Readers room - she's moved on from her space theme and has picked out a new tie dye pattern from PB Teen

5. Book spring break trip (Sequoia, Monterey and LA)

6. Update finances with new budget, get bank accounts in order

7. Run 30 miles (I haven't run yet this year, the roads have been too slick, and I figured the gym would be packed so I'm waiting for the New Years resolution people to fall off the wagon ;)

8. Transfer files off old computer - this is almost done, just need to have my husband go through his stuff

9. Complete goal list for the year.  This year I'm thinking of going more room by room as things are mostly organized it's more about making our house more homey

Seems like a lot, but I've already started a bunch of it, so it's all doable.

December Goals

I'm not going to go crazy with goals for this month as I want to enjoy the Christmas season.

But there are a few things that I do need to take care of, beyond the usual getting ready for Christmas stuff.

1. Sew curtain for laundry room
2. Work out. I know that as the weather gets colder I won't be motivated to run.  I haven't been in almost 3 weeks and my clothes is starting to feel a little tight. Not good. Luckily our local community center has a daytime membership for $200/year or $16/mth. Pretty good deal. I don't like running on treadmills but I do like the ellipticals and some of the other machines.
3. Start teaching the kids Danish. We're going this summer and while most of my family speaks English well, my cousins' kids don't speak it yet. They'll have more fun if they can communicate on a basic level. It's hard though cause I have yet to find any resources to use as teaching tools, so will just have to make it up as I go. 
4.  Go through my Pinterest Recipes To Try and Desserts and try to make a bunch of new things.  Some I have purposely been saving for this time of year, others I just haven't gotten around to. 

That's really it.  

My First Real Race

I did it!!  Got up at the ungodly hour of 5AM yesterday to head downtown before the sun had even risen to run 15k through the streets of Chicago.  It was chilly in the beginning but standing in a corral full of people actually helped keep me warm until the official start.

My overall time was 1:34:09 which means a pace of 10:07
I came in 8375 overall. 745 out of 1657 for my age group, and 4932 out of 11258 women.

I'm pleased with my time and happy that I beat my previous "training" time of the same distance.  I thought the crowds would slow me down, but actually I think they helped me stay on pace.  The course was fun running mostly along Michigan Avenue and Lake Shore Drive.  There were some brief parts where we were running under the bottom of McCormick Place which was a little dark, but when you're surrounded by other runners nothing's going to happen. 

Not too shabby for my first race.  My husband and my kids met me at the finish line holding the signs they had made at the expo and cheering for me.  Then we went and got our big mug of chocolate goodies.  Yes, I run for chocolate, and I'd do it again.

I'm still a little sore today so I'm taking a rest day, and after that I'll take the running day by day.  I hope to continue at least 2 times a week through the winter but since I really prefer running outside over treadmills, I'm not sure how realistic that is through the Chicago winters.

November Goals

1. Buy all advent calendar stuff.  24 days x 3 kids is a lot of stuff.  I like to have it all bought before Dec 1 so I can plan what to give when.  I may need to make a printable to keep it all straight ; )

2. Plan Christmas gift shopping and budget.  My Santa app is a big help, I just wish it had a bar code scanner.

3. Keep running.  3 miles 2-3 times a week should be doable. No more long runs, I'll start that up again when the weather gets better.

4. Give the house a good deep cleaning.  We have both sets of parents coming in over the holidays and ideally if I pick one task a day of deep cleaning, then the pre guest cleaning won't be so bad.  I've got a bunch of printables from other sites, just need to start using them.

5. Make curtain for laundry area.  The sliding doors have finally annoyed me so much that I removed them, which makes the space easier to access, but it's an eyesore.

6. Sew flannel duvet cover for Little Hugger.

7. Get passports for the kids

October Goals Wrapup

Ok, so I'm a little behind as we got busy around Halloween and are now coming down from the sugar high and time to get back on track before the holidays.  Yes, they are coming.  I was in Michaels this morning and while I was glad that most of the creepy spiders were gone, and I like that the stocking stuffers are coming out so I can start planning my advent calendar goodies, I was not ready to hear "Silver Bells" playing over the stereo system.

Anyway, here were my goals for October and my results

- Sew Comforter for Little Readers Build A Bear Bed - Done, and it was really easy as the piece of fabric I had just happened to be the perfect size for the bed.  

- Refinance Car - Done and we'll be saving about $300 a month, and get this month off as the paperwork is still being processed. Sweet
- Hot Chocolate Race Training - I'm ready.  Its going to be cold this weekend, but I know I can do the distance with brief intervals of walking between each mile of running.  I have my cold weather gear, I have my Bon Jovi playlist set with power songs in the appropriate spots, I'm going down to the expo today to get my packet and figure out the best place to park.  
- Finish putting photo albums together - I'm almost caught up.  All photos through August are in.  I do need to go to Archivers and get more stickers but have been too busy running to go over there.
- Start planning Christmas shopping - I found a great Santa app that lets you enter info (and pictures) about gifts for all the people on your list and helps you stay on track and on budget
- Organize and file away CDs. - I got most of them done.  Down to one bag.  My husband is slowly going through it. 
- Weatherproof Little Man's room - 95% done.  My husband filled in most of the gaps in the attic insulation, and I just got more today so he can finish up this weekend.  It's getting better, but I think the real fix would be new windows - not happening for a while.

October Goals

I've recently adopted a habit of setting goals for myself for the month and I have to say it is helping me stay on task, especially for the bigger stuff.  I'd be lying if I said I accomplished everything, but I'm getting more done.

So time to set October's goals
- Sew Comforter for Little Readers Build A Bear Bed
- Refinance Car
- Hot Chocolate Race Training - So far I've just been running for fun, but I've signed up for a 15K on November 4th, so need to do a little research on training and make sure I'm doing what I'm supposed to.  Also need to get some cooler weather running gear.
- Finish putting photo albums together. Gotta get caught up before the onslaught of holiday photos begins.
- Start planning Christmas shopping. Planning a budget, keep track of things kids ask for, etc.
- Organize and file away CDs. All our music is on iPods at this point, but my husband refuses to let me get rid of the actual CDs.  I just need a better way to store them than my current shopping bags.
- Weatherproof Little Man's room.  Poor guy has the only room with two original windows and bad insulation, it get's really cold in the winter.

There are a few broader goals that I'll be including in my 31 days series but the above is the main stuff.  I also intend to stay on top of my weekly projects as none of them are that tough this month. 

September Goals & Catching Up

Today has been a totally lazy day as my husband is post call and tired after being called in at 430am. It's cloudy so the kids want to stay inside. Perfect day to catch up on projects and set my goals for September.

I've updated my photo albums and uploaded all our photos to Shutterfly
I finally made a basket for Little Hugger's baby doll stroller. She's been asking for ages.

So goals for this month are:
- Run 50 miles (total)
- Stick to a budget
- Stick to a cleaning routine
- Update project list

Some of the big to-dos are
- Figure out collages for blog
- Catch up on my Project list
- Sew a comforter for Little Readers Build A Bear Bed
- Tag clothes for Kids Sale

Tomorrow we will tackle the honey-do list. I'm giving my husband a pass today, which is taking advantage of to the fullest - watching golf and studying up on NFL in preparation for his fantasy football draft Tuesday night.

August Wrap-up

Overall a good month.  I had quite a few fun outings with the kids before school started. Now kids are all settled in and happy in their classrooms. We've got our morning routine pretty well set, just waiting for a couple more afternoon activities to start before we're going on all cylinders.

I logged 41 miles running and walking the kids to/from school adds another 4 miles of walking a week.

I'm hoping we manage to keep it up when it gets cold cause I enjoy our little walks - especially when the kids get a little ahead of me and talk about stuff completely forgetting I'm right behind them. My daughters would love to walk to school on their own, and the school would allow it.  Even though they're good about crossing the street safely, I'm not ready.

The end of summer vacation came upon us a little too quickly, but I'm grateful to get back into our usual routine.

Unfortunately I am waaaay off track with my weekly projects. I need to look at what still needs to be done and get back to it.

With the new school year I'm planning on setting new goals and routines for myself.  As great as routine is, if I don't set goals I'll just get caught up in the day to day stuff and never get any of the big stuff done.

August means....

Back to school. We have a couple of weeks left to hit the last few items on the summer fun to do list.

Make a Messterpiece - been holding off on this one as it is pretty pricey

Pirates Cove - just got a Groupon - Woohoo!!!!

Dupage Children's Museum - it's a bit of a haul but we got free passes for the kids from the summer reading club.

If An Elephant Can Paint - saving this one for a day when Little Man is in school and his sisters are still off. A 3 year old boy in a paint your own pottery studio is like a bull in a china shop.

Manis/pedis for the girls - again saving this for a day without Little Man

We haven't had a lemonade stand yet but still want to.

Ok so that's the fun stuff. Now for the less fun stuff - housekeeping/organizing stuff.
I printed out the DONE list out from cleanmama.com. I'm only putting a few things on to keep it manageable. The printable is free over at her site so click on the link above and get things done!

Running - with kids home and in-laws gone, staying in the running groove will be tough. Last month I ran 10 times. My goal is to do better than that. Once everyone's in school it'll be easy. My goal is 12 running days. Not a lot more but unless I get my butt out of bed before my husband leaves on work days, it'll never happen.


Running Goal #2 - Run a 5k race. There is one in our town the last weekend of August, cheap registration fee, start time of 9 am - very reasonable, so a good practice race.

All reachable goals I think, what are your goals for August?

July Wrapup

The kids all had fun at camp.

Little Man is making serious progress on the eating front.

Little Reader is swimming for real now. Early in the summer she could swim a few strokes before needing to put her feet down. Now she's confident and going further.

We had a good visit with the inlaws.

One of my goals for the month was to start running again. I started in the middle of the heat wave and have already reached a couple of my original goals - running 3 miles in under 30 min and running 5K in under 30 min. I need to set some new goals for August.

I am waaaay behind on my weekly projects but hopefully my lack of interest in the Olympics will give me some time to catch up. Also there are some organizing things that I need to buy stuff for to truly tackle the problem and I'm trying not to spend unnecessary money.

All in all, a good month with good outings and good family time. Time to gear up for August.