one hour

I’m a terrible housekeeper. I admit it. Not proudly. But I’ve never really, really tried to change.

Tonight I cleaned for one hour, starting as soon as I put Mary to bed. I set the timer on the oven, and just started doing whatever: a load of clothes, the dishes, swept the floor, picked up random items all over the place, put away laundry, etc.

I really need to keep this up. At least on the nights Mark works. So four nights a week, I can surely devote one hour of alone time to working on the house, right?

And on the days we’re both around a little more, we should make an effort to get stuff done. Even if that means one of us keeps Mary happily playing while the other scrubs a toilet….

 

I sure hope so.

friday night miscellany

A few times this week I’ve thought about making a quick post on my phone, but my WordPress app isn’t working currently.

So now, it’s nearing ten o’clock on a Friday night…Mary’s asleep in her room, Mark’s at work, and the dog is somewhere. Think I’ll just share some quick things.

-I thought about doing a Project 366. Meaning I’d take a post a photo for each day of this leap year. I take photos so often with my phone, so the majority will probably be from that, but I also really hope to break out our nice DSLR more often. Anyways. Here’s the first installment that I just posted tonight. Not sure if I’ll always do that format. I’m not going to be too strict or anything. I just want to document more in photos, and not just use Facebook as my outlet to share.

- Mary has been like the superest, bestest, most amazingest sleeper the past week or so. Except a couple mornings ago (in the midst of some fever issues) when she woke at 5 a.m., I can count on her to sleep from roughly 8 or 9 pm to 7 or 8 am. And that is so awesome.

- We still haven’t completely packed away Christmas decorations. Hmmm.

- We expanded from super basic cable this month so we could watch the Cowboys play in their bowl game. I am really going to miss HGTV when we get rid of all the channels again. It’s motivating me to at least think about how pretty and de-cluttered our house could be. Having the energy and time to carry out that motivation is a different story…

Okay. Now I’m getting tired and can’t remember what else I wanted to share. Guess I’ll go plug in some of our spending into my fancy Google docs spreadsheet, and see how we’re financially sitting for the month.

 

Happy Weekend!

 

 

$$

Checking our accounts tonight, plugging expenses into our monthly spreadsheet…

I’m excited about the possibilities we have this year financially. I mean, I know I’m quitting in not-so-many weeks, and that severely cuts into our income, but I really think we’ll focus on what’s important to us when it comes to spending. And fast food isn’t important. My iPhone might not be either. Who knows?

 

I’m still feeling all new-yearsy and want to make resolutions about money. I’m not going to post details on here, of course, but it’s just been something on my mind lately.

 

If you’re interested in any personal finance blogs… here are a couple that I like:

http://www.budgetsaresexy.com/

http://www.freemoneyfinance.com/

 

meatloaf

Mark bought me a Perfect Meatloaf pan for my birthday. It was meant partly as a gag, partly as a serious gift. I’ve never made a meatloaf (tried some mini turkey things in a muffin pan once…turned out pretty bland), so I tried my hand at one tonight.

It was a Bacon Cheeseburger Meatloaf recipe that came with the pan. I accidentally started making the classic recipe first, so I didn’t follow the directions to a T, but it was close enough.

The only issue we had was that even after following the cooking temp & time, it was pink in the middle, so in it went for another 20 minutes. That caused the cheese on top to be a bit overdone, but it wasn’t terrible.

Overall, not bad…for meatloaf. Now we have leftovers of lasagna, enchiladas, and meatloaf! And a new menu item for tomorrow night. I think we’ll be eating leftovers all weekend!

P.S. I had frozen Granny Smith applesauce for dessert. YUMMMM.

babymoon

Mark and I just booked a night at a local B&B for later this month. We’d bought a Living Social Escape deal awhile back, so it wasn’t a huge expense.

I’m pretty excited about. I’m not nervous about leaving Mary. I’m just nervous my mother-in-law might not have the best night of sleep. Although, last night MB slept from 9pm – 8am with only one quick whimper around six. We’ll most likely come back to our house after eating dinner to put her to bed, so it may work out just fine. My only other fear is that I won’t be able to sleep in! Pregnancy has weird side effects like that.

She loves those boots. Even more often than regular shoes, she insists I put them on her!

two-seven

seven-twenty: woke up all on my own, Mark still asleep beside me (I sure love his nights off), and Mary still in her room, the only sounds on the monitor were her lullabies

seven-fifty-five: lying in bed still, reading on my phone, when Mary wakes up, vocal, but not too unpleasant

eight-thirty: breakfast with my girl

eleven-ish: lunch of champions, DiGiorno and Dr Pepper

one-twenty: Mary is napping on me while I’m watching “Revenge” on Hulu. We’ve said we’re working on independent napping, but it’s my birthday and I choose snuggling!

three-fifteen: After Mary napped, Mark & Padfoot went for a run and cleaned up, and after my own super long, super lovely shower we headed to the zoo. The weather was PERFECT. Almost seventy degrees. Ah. I posted a bunch of pics to a Facebook photo album, but here’s a few…

five-fifteen: We headed to our favorite grocery store (which isn’t the closest to our house or the cheapest) and picked up a few things for dinner & dessert. Mary was the happiest camper in her police cart.

six-thirty: Mark made me one of my favorite meals (taco potatoes), and we ate on our china.

seven-thirty: Dessert time. And dang it, we forgot about the candles! I actually found a two, seven, and maybe six, in our pantry the other day. You know, the candles shaped like digits. Not sure who we forgot to use them on before me…

Now it’s just about eight, and I’m putting Mary down for the night. She’s chewing on her toothbrush while I’m typing on my phone. Mark is getting ready for work. Soon I’ll be in bed myself, finishing up the latest episode of “Parenthood”.

It’s been a FANTASTIC day.

birthday eve

I’m turning twenty-seven tomorrow. Gulp.

the first

Well, Mary tried to hold up our bargain, I think. She woke at five, I rocked her for ten minutes and put her back in her crib. Then she woke a bit before Daddy got home, so I let her fuss. He got her, and her milk, and we all cuddled and slept until 8:30. I am thankful every day for our king-size bed.

It’s now a bit after ten a.m. Mark’s still sleeping of course, and Mary and I are playing back in her room.

Today should be a fun, productive day. Mark took tonight off, so he’ll wake a bit earlier than normal. We have plans to pick up, finish up some small projects around here, maybe run to a store or two, and mass is at 6.

Time to get started on the fun, I guess…I can smell Mary’s diaper!

champ

Mary slept like a champ last night. Must’ve read my last blog post like my sister joked. She slept straight through from about 8:30 to 7:08. And I only briefly woke at 3ish to decide my bladder wasn’t full enough to get up out of bed.

Tonight, I’m okay if she wakes up. She can wake up twice…IF she’ll let me sleep, in my own bed, without her, until 8. Think it’ll happen??

current want

I’d love to have an uninterrupted night of sleep. It’s already pretty late (11:15), and I know I’ll read a bit before falling asleep (The Pioneer Woman’s book), plus Mark tends to wake me up before seven in the morning…but if Mary could break her current trend and sleep all night…that’d be GREAT.

Mary during her nap today: