I'll start tomorrow, I swear

I spent the weekend figuring out the best plan of attack for the cleaning schedule and had great intentions for starting today. I was supposed to dust the whole house and clean the two bathrooms upstairs. What did I do? None of it.

But, I did make some progress on my project of the week. I got some fabric at Joanns for the storage closet "door". I also finished entering my list of weekly projects into this blog and then I updated the layout of the blog itself, moved some stuff around. Overall it think it looks much better, still basic, but that's fine.

My daughter had her first Junior Great Books meeting today. It's an optional lunch time book club that meets once a week for 8 weeks. They are assigned a little extra reading and some homework every week. The classes are taught by parents (sometimes former teachers, but also just parents who want to be involved somehow with the school). They read and discussed the Princess and the Frog (the original version not the Disnefied one). There are only 3 other kids in it, all from pm kindergarten so she didn't know them well but still had fun.

My son is still obsessed with the Lion King and insists that he is Kiara or Simba and my role changes from Nala and Rafiki. He likes to make me Rafiki so I can pick him up and "present" him to the rest of the animals like Rafiki does in the movie with baby Simba. He has taken to referring to our house as Pride Rock :) He even refers to his food as wildebeest (bananas), zebra (berry banana) and antelope (pear squash).

I love that he has such a great imagination, but I have to admit I am getting tired of him getting upset with me when I call him by his proper name and not whatever character he is playing.

Tomorrow an occupational therapist to evaluate our little man. We'll see how that goes. I'm kind of hoping that they say that he doesn't also need that kind of therapy. I know this stuff is all important but I miss my long days to do errands and other things (or even just stay home and play).

Sometimes procrastination works

And of course that's why I still do it even though most of the time I know better. I thought we were screwed financially and was ready to liquidate my IRA. Then today I realized that part of the problem was the new Chase website. I last checked my balance the day my husband was paid and I thought we had already spent the whole thing. Didn't really make sense, but there it was, or so I thought. Problem was their running balance wasn't reflecting that day's deposit even though it was there as a line item. Not sure why, but when I went to check my balance today, it was more in line with what I thought it should be.

Still not great, but certainly better. And even though yes I still need to have that financial chat with my husband, I can put it off while I get a better plan and hopefully by hunkering down after we pay off the expenses for this backyard project, my IRA can stay put and keep growing. It's not a large amount but enough that I want to keep it. Glad I checked again rather than liquidating the IRA and then realizing the mistake.

Seeing the Trees for the Forest

Everyone always talks about making sure to see the forest for the trees. I understand the sentiment and have no problem doing just that but sometimes to the detriment of the trees. In order to have a forest the trees need to be cared for too. Big picture thinking is great but if you don't take care of the little details you will never achieve the big picture. This was my little epiphany as I was standing in a cluttered kitchen with a dishwasher to empty, dirty dishes to fill it with and so many papers on the counter I couldn't find the keys that I knew I had just put there two minutes before.

I am a SAHM of 3 (ages 7, 5 and 2). My days like so many other parents are filled with the details of taking care of the kids, and I am a big believer in they are only young once so enjoy this time rather than stressing over the chores and cleaning. But the fact is there's a limit to how much that stuff can be ignored. Sure I'd much rather build a train track for my son than make dinner but the fact is we need to eat. And I could read a story to my daughter but if dirty dishes don't get put in the dishwasher we won't have any clean ones for the next meal. Now that's not to say I don't do those things, I do and enjoy the time with the kids, but sometimes at the expense of an organized house. Like the pile of bills/mail/kid stuff on the kitchen counter mentioned above. It has become a dumping ground and sadly I often know how deep in the pile something is, until the kids start digging through it, or dumping their own stuff. Or my husband starts dumping his stuff. So over the next few weeks I plan to get organized and I'm hoping that my handy new "it can do anything"/"there's an app for that" iPhone will help me in this task.

One of the main things I strive to do is keep better track of kid stuff. I don't mean homework and activities, I've got that covered. I mean writing down the cute things they say or do. The things I want to remember. I used to keep a journal until I got to college and was afraid my snoopy roommate would read it - probably because I was reading hers, until she started writing in Hebrew. I tried keeping one that I would write in at night after the kids were in bed. But it started to feel like a chore. At that point I was to tired, I just wanted to chill with a glass of wine.  So now it'll be more thoughts I need to get down and any random musings about the kids. No particular timetable and really for my purposes only but if anyone feels like reading it, by all means enjoy and comment if you have something to say.