Halloween Parties

I feel kind of lame and lonely this Halloween. Chris and I used to go to Halloween parties with our friends and family, and it was a lot of fun to get all dressed up and go out for the night. This year, Halloween is only 2 days away and we did not go to a single Halloween party. No getting dressed up, no hanging out with friends or family, no awesome parties...nothing. BOO.... :(

It makes me realize how secluded and alone we are all the way out here. Not that we're actually that far away...about an hour and a half or so. We actually haven't been down to visit the family in almost 2 months. I miss seeing everyone and I feel very alone being secluded from them. Its kind of a taste of that it's going to be like all the time in Arizona....the only family I'll have out there will be Mom, Carl and Alex, and Jade and Lorenzo. Hopefully when we get out there I'll be able to make friends with my new co-workers or Chris will be able to find us some friends at his new job.

Speaking of the move, I was thinking today that we might make an announcement of sorts on Christmas to tell the family we plan on being in Arizona next year. Everyone on my moms side (well, my grandparents and my aunt and her kids, and my uncle and his wife and 3 kids). It will be nice having EVERYONE together one last time and it would be a good time for everyone to really make a memory of the holiday. I still need to talk to Chris about it, so we will have to see for sure.

Random Thoughts

I've been doing good with me eating. Yesterday I made myself get a side salad for lunch. And I've been drinking mostly water. Its kept me at 122. But I haven't dropped lower than that yet. Which is fine by me since it has only been a couple days. I do expect to lose 10 lbs by christmas. I have been working more cardio activities into my routine throughout the day, and I try to do a squat or 2 at work when we are slow and no one is looking lol

The house is still looking nice, but I have to wash some pots and pans today. I have today off so hopefully we will be productive and get the plastic on the windows and the weather stripping around the front door. It has been getting pretty cold here lately, even at night. We got an adjustable thermostat to help regulate the temp during the day when we aren't home and at night when we're sleeping. Hopefully the combination of those things will help keep the house warm without raising our electric bill a huge amount.

I have been getting good hours at work, but I have to say I am somewhat disappointed with the way the schedule is being done. For like 3 weeks there was a nice weekend rotation going but now it's back to the way it used to be. Everyone is working basically every weekend but only 1 day or the other. I know most of the people I work with (there are 7 of us) would prefer to work a full weekend and get full weekends off. There are an odd number of us so we can't just all have 1 weekend on and 1 weekend off, but I have worked it out myself where in a 7 week period, everyone would work 4 weekends, and have 3 weekends off. I wish I could give the scheduling a try...it is way too unfair the way that it is right now. Oh well, I need the money and I'm just happy to be working full time. Maybe it will change soon, but probably not.

Landon has been having a hard time sleeping through the night lately . Every single night this week he has woken up at least once. For a couple nights I know he wasn't feeling well, but I think now it might just be because he is cold. He is just to stubborn and doesn't like using any other blankets except 'his blankie'. So hopefully once we winterize the house he will start sleeping better. His lack of sleep is really affecting his behavior :/

Working on my 'self control'

I want to start eating better and taking better care of myself. I am just so out of practice with it that I'm actually finding it rather difficult. I know I shouldn't fill up on candy, but when someone brings candy into work I end up snacking on it all night. When I go out for lunch i always tell myself I will just get a side salad (which would be healthy and cheep) but I usually end up getting a burger and fries. I have gotten better about not drinking pop as much, but that is about the only area where I have improved. If I could just stick to eating better that would be half my battle with my weight loss....

I am currently 125 lbs. I would like to be at 113 lbs. I am 5'2" so that is actually a healthy body weight. Losing the weight isn't the only thing I need to work on though. I have to tone my muscles also. I don't want to be skinny and flabby ;) The best way to help with weight loss will be a cardio workout of some sort. Ideally I would like to do 30 min of cardio 3 times a week. That would be a nice start I think. After I get into that habit, I would like to add 30 min of Pilates 2 times a week.

Today I did not eat breakfast ( I know, not a good habit. My husband reminds me of that often and I'm sort of trying to work on it). I had 1 sloppy joe sandwich for lunch and I plan on bringing the fixings for 1 sloppy joe sandwich to work tonight for my dinner. I am a little worried that I have so much bread in those meals. But its a good start anyhow I think. And its not something I have to purchase :)

I work another night shift tomorrow, so I will have eggs for breakfast, a sloppy joe sandwich for lunch, and a side salad for dinner. That will require me to purchase the salad, but that is only $1 compared to $3 for a meal   I would normally get. Then for some cardio I will start out small and easy...I will dance around the house with Landon to some music for 30 min. That will get my heart beating for sure! lol

I cleaned the house up a little this morning. Its still looking good! But well see if I can make this 'habit'. I have heard you have to do something routine for 30 days before it actually becomes a habit for you. I think I will make that a goal: Tidy up the house every morning...just a quick sweep-through of the house to put everything back where it belongs. It would be great if being neat were just a natural habit for me!

If I really want to take better care of myself, I should take my multivitamin daily. That is something that I am horrible at remembering to do. So taking a daily multivitamin, working out 3 times a week (minimum), eating better and eating 3 meals a day, and creating a better routine for myself are my 'goals' for the next few weeks. Lets see how I do and where I will still need to improve. Wish me luck!!

No. Motivation.

Chris helped me get the clothes folded and put away last night. He actually folded most of it before I even got home from work. That was nice and helped a lot. So I put away most of the clothes (there is a pile of hoodies that wont fit into my dresser right now. I have kept onto a lot of clothes that I haven't worn in years!! So I need to go through my dresser later today). The bedroom is already looking much better. I also have to do 2-3 more loads of laundry today still. Ugh...this seems like a never ending process!

The kitchen is still clean, which isn't really much to be bragging about since it has only been less than a day. I left some dishes out yesterday in the strainer to dry off. So I will have to put those away soon too. Then a few dishes have been added to the sink since I did dishes. So I plan on taking care of all of that in the kitchen today.

I have had a hard time getting motivated today. Landon had a rough night and I ended up sleeping on the couch so I didn't have to walk so far to his room when he cried. He was back up around 8 this morning. Then I realized that is was raining out and has been all day. Its really gray and gloomy out. That just makes me tired and want to sleep the day away. But of course, as soon as I got Landon down for a nap, I was unable to fall asleep. So now I'm kind of just wasting time and putting off doing homework or housework. I intend to do both, but I have ALL night to do it. Chris works until 5 and then has school from 6-10. He has to go straight to school from work so I wont get to see him until tonight. So procrastinating with my homework and housework gives me something to do later this evening. I will probably wait to do the dishes until after i make dinner...

Mission Accomplished!!

Yay! I got the dishes done! And I wiped down the counters and the stove. The kitchen is looking nice :) I also wiped down the air conditioner so Chris can take that out to the shed when he gets a chance. He probably wont be able to get to that until Thursday at the earliest because of his work and school schedule.

I have tomorrow off so I am going to have to work on the bedrooms and the bathrooms. And the laundry, but I tend to clump that with cleaning the bedrooms. There are about 5 loads of laundry that need to be folded and put away, as well as about another 2-3 loads that needs to be washed. So I will take care of all the laundry tomorrow.  I need to change the sheets and pillow cases on our bed too. We shall see how much I actually get done.

On top of housework, I have to get started on my schoolwork for the week. I want to get everything done and submitted by Thursday. I get out of work at 8pm on Friday and I have Saturday off so it would be nice to be able to just relax with the family during that time instead of having to cram all my schoolwork in. And if I can keep up on the housework I wont have to worry about spending a ton of time cleaning either. So my main goal is to get all of that taken care of by Thursday so I can actually 'enjoy' my time at home. That would make for a nice day off :)

 

Making the house a home

Chris has been wanting me to clean the house up and KEEP it clean for some time now. And I think I should do it too. I  am kind of old fashion and feel it is the job of the woman of the house. My problem is I lack the motivation. My biggest pitfall is the dishes. I HATE doing dishes. I'm not really sure why. If  I would just clean them up after cooking dinner every night it they wouldn't pile up and it wouldn't seem so daunting. But every night after dinner I just want to relax. I say I'll do them in a little bit or I'll do them first thing in the morning, but I never do. I'm really just lazy I think.
Well tonight, I'm working really hard to get the house all in order. And what I don't finish tonight I will do tomorrow before I go to work. I need to get into some type of routine to make sure I keep up with the house. Really I have a routine written down, I just need to kick it into gear and stick with the routine. Housework would seem like nothing if I just follow the 'weekly chore list'. I think my husband deserves to come home to a clean house after working all day and going to school. It is hard to focus on homework when there is 'junk' laying all around you. I know this would mean a lot to him if I could carry this out. I think the way you present your house is what makes your house your home.
Another thing I have been really lazy about recently is my weight loss. I want to lose the weight, I just don't want to do the work involved. I only want to lose about 10 lbs. And i'm sure making simple changes to my diet would help a lot. I work 5 days a week, and on the days I work I go out to fast food for lunch. Maybe instead of ordering a burger and fries I could order a side salad and bring my own drink. That would help save money too. I just need to work on my self control and actually DO that.
I know there are changes that I want to make. I just really need to focus on motivation and self control. I'm not really sure how just yet, but I need to figure something out...

What am I doing?

I have decided to create a blog for myself just to organize my thoughts. I have followed a couple blogs in the past but have never had my own. I feel this will be a good way for me to get my thoughts out and organized. I live with my husband and our 2 year old son about 2 hours away from any family. We both work full time and go to school so it's hard to make new friends or have a social life (not that I need much of a social life...I have a child to take care of). It gets lonely sometimes. Maybe creating a blog will help keep me from going insane! ;)