Taking a break from homework and housework to blog for a bit. I've been trying to be more "green" lately. We recycle just about everything we can possibly recycle and I've been making a conscious effort to use less harsh chemicals to clean. Today while I was putting off doing my homework I cleaned my bathroom with a mix of vinegar and water. That's it. A bottle of half vinegar and half water and a bunch of paper towels. OK, so the paper towels are not very "green" of me but at least I'm trying! :)

Ew! Our bathroom was NAS-TY! I'd say when you can't remember the last time it was cleaned it has been way too long! I will NOT go that long between times again. Blech! But you know, the vinegar cleaned better than my usual cleaner. I didn't get to the tub and shower yet but did wipe down the counters, walls and floor with it. Now it's all sparkling clean but smells like sauerkraut. EWW! Oh well. It looks pretty anyway. Hopefully it will air out overnight and will just look pretty and not be stinky. Tomorrow I'll have to finish the rest.

Now I've got a week's worth of homework to do in 2 days. Not from procrastinating, just poor planning on my part. I planned a mini-vacation to New York to see my friend Katy right during the busiest time of my class. Final paper week! So I've got to hustle to get it done early so I don't have to mess with it while we're away from home.

I'm really looking forward to going to NY though. Katy lives in Brooklyn and we haven't seen her in way too long so we're going to drive about 4 hours (or 6 or 8 depending on how well the kids do in the car) to see her. We'll leave Saturday morning and come home on Tuesday. I've got a TON of stuff to do in the meantime so I'd better get busy! I hope to post about our trip when we get back. Check Facebook for pics and status updates from NYC.

Eww, yuck! I should not leave such a "feeling sorry for myself" post up for so long without adding something new! Sorry! Some days are just like that. When I wrote that post I was exhausted. Nothing like a good night's sleep to make you see things from a new perspective. I'm feeling much better now. I'm in the last week of one of my classes and that means it's final paper time. 8-10 pages due tonight and I'm only halfway done. But I'm fine. Thanks for the emails and phone calls. Just crazy busy right now. After this paper is done, I'll be working on some projects for upcoming birthdays and starting to plan Audrey's birthday party. I can't believe how fast this year has flown by! I'll have more time to blog after this paper is submitted but for now I've got to get to work!

We're rededicating ourselves to getting into shape. I HATE getting up early but we can't seem to work it in any other time so we're gonna try getting up at 5:15 tomorrow so we can get in 30 minutes or so before breakfast and getting our day started. We're also starting a 30 minutes a day of cleaning in the evenings. We set the timer on the microwave and clean for 30 minutes. We do as much as we can within that time and then when the timer goes off we're done. It's amazing how much you can get done in that short amount of time and how much of a difference it makes in making your house look better. An hour a day to a better life. he he That sounds like a great idea for a book. :)

Boy, it is really feeling more like WINTER than Fall here lately! I'm glad I get to wear my red wool coat but not at all glad that it's cold. That makes no sense but I do love that red coat. :) I'm freezing. We're supposed to get our first freeze tonight. Down to around 31!!! Holy cow, that's cold! My hands are like icicles as I'm trying to type this. I think I need some hot tea and a warm bath to warm up.

In other news, it's apple butter time around here. I've already made (and blogged about????) one batch of apple butter. I'm proud I (mostly) got over my fear of canning. All that hot water and glass and boiling apple butter...yikes!!! But I did it and it turned out great so I'm going to get together with two of my friends and make about a bushel's worth of apples into apple buttter. Should be an all day deal but I'm really looking forward to it.

I got an A in my Nutrition for Education class. I got the maximum amount of points on my final Power Poing presentation and got a 99% in the class! Do I wish I'd gotten that one extra point so I could have had 100? Heck, no! I was just thrilled to get what I did! Only 10 more classes to go til graduation!!! Hmmm...maybe I could get a new car for graduation! Our Malibu will be paid off around then and we DO need a bigger car now that we've got 2 little ones. What do you say, honey? :)

Today Easton decided to take the straw out of a cup of water he was drinking out of and play with it. He ended up scratching his eye with the straw. Now it's really red and irritated and he keeps blinking his eyes and rubbing at it. I'm easily grossed out about eye things because of all the gross eye stuff I've been through so I could barely look at it without feeling like I was gonna throw up. Poor baby! Audrey's got a check up tomorrow and I might call ahead and ask if the doctor can take a look at E's eye just to be safe.

Audrey's getting shots tomorrow. I HATE taking my kids to get shots!!! I made Jason go with me and hold Easton down one time just to see how awful it is. Not very nice of me I know but should I get to have all the fun? He was coming with me to the appointment already anyways so I just thought I'd share. You're welcome, honey. Now he knows why I am all teary-eyed when I come home from the doctor's appointments. Ugh! I hate that!

Today we did about 5 loads of laundry. Who knew it could take so stinkin long to fold a load of kid's clothes?!?!

That's about it for us. Nothing too exciting. Gotta get off of here and make some tea. I'm FREEZING!!!

(Santa, if you read my blog I could sure use some soft, fuzzy socks and a new pair of warm houseshoes, OK? All my fuzzy socks are really getting worn out and I had to trash my slippers because I'd worn a hole right through the bottom of both of them. Thanks! P.S. Sorry I didn't keep my house as clean as I wanted to but I'm sure with all those elves you understand, right?)

Busy all day today! I did laundry, got the kids dressed, gave Easton a bath after lunch (he had spaghetti-o's...the boy REALLY needed a bath!), did more laundry, made apple butter, did dishes, canned the apple butter, played with Audrey, put E down for a nap, did more dishes, played with Audrey some more. All of that and I am still in my pajamas. How is it that I can get all that done but can't find time to take a shower? :)

It's gonna be THAT kind of day! Easton is into everything these days. I totally get that he's trying to figure out how things work and that everything is fascinating for him and he's not doing any of this to get on my nerves or cause trouble. I get that. I promise! But when you've cleaned up raspberry preserves out of the carpet, vacuumed up crushed Kix cereal off of the floor, scrubbed the carpet where someone has watched the milk drip out of their (supposedly leakproof) sippy cup, changed the sheets in the crib because someone decided to throw a poopy diaper in his bed before I could get it rolled up and into the trashcan (GROSS!), picked up the papers that needed to be filed because someone pulled them off in of the table, stepped on squished bananas on the linoleum, put the alarm system sensor back on the window where little hands pulled it off for the millionth time, cleaned up the basket of books someone dumped all over the floor and didn't put away and all of this is before 9:00 am...you know it's gonna be THAT kind of day! This is the kind of day when I'd usually put E in the car and go run errands just to get out of the house. Unfortunately, Jason's got the car today and I've got to finish up my final paper for one of my classes so no running around for us!

Boy, have we been busy around here! My mom left today and we got more done in the time she was here than Jason and I could have done in a month! We got the office moved to one end of our living room, painted the baby's room (mom did the painting), organized my scrapbook stuff, sorted through lots of books and got a big box ready to donate to the library and some to send home with my mom, shopped for baby stuff, put together the nursery (crib, changing table and storage cube organizer). We also did some organizing in the kitchen, put up a shelf above our new office area, added some storage above the washer and dryer and in the attic above the garage (Jason did that). We finally got our master bathroom cleaned (thanks, Mom!), moved a bookshelf into some of the extra room in our walk-in closet, cleaned out our coat closet, and vacuumed and steam-cleaned some of the carpets. We also got lots of little projects done that had been on my "to do" list for months. Boy, that feels great!

Thanks Mom! You just left today but I already miss you! I know you're ready
to get back to your own house and routine and work but we sure miss you here!
Glad you're coming back in 2 months. We can't wait!

P.S. Thanks so much for the new bread machine!!! I'll use that baby more than any other kitchen gadget I have and you know that's saying a lot! :)

I cooked a lot of my favorite recipes while mom was here. I figured it was a good chance to do one of my favorite things...cook for someone I love. Over the course of her visit I made:

the Tyler Florence chicken enchiladas w/rice and beans

a glazed lemon cake

several loaves of country style white bread

BBQ ribs in the crockpot, mashed potatoes and veggies

quiche

pancakes

meatloaf, mashed potatoes and veggies

artichoke chicken pasta

my favorite cake - Yellow cake with milk chocolate icing

grilled chicken

BBQ chicken pizza and pepperoni pizza w/mushrooms and olives

Club ranch paninis with ranch dip and veggies

spicy broiled shrimp, spinach salad with warm bacon dressing and parmesan bowls

It might sound like all we did was work and eat while she was here and that's partly true. By the end of the day we were all so tired from all that work that it was a struggle to stay awake to a respectable bedtime. By the time 9:00 rolled around, we were all thinking "Good. Now's not too early to go to bed. I'm exhausted!"

I had so hoped to get to take mom to D.C. while she was here. I am very disappointed that we didn't get to go. The first part of her visit we were so busy getting stuff checked off our list of things to do that we didn't do much of anything else. By the second part of her visit, I was having lots of back pain and some Braxton-Hicks contractions and was kinda afraid to get that far from home and do that much walking. I didn't do any heavy lifting or climbing ladders or anything like that. (Well, OK except for that one brief minute I climbed the ladder with Jason right behind me so I could peek at all his hard work in the attic. But that was only for a split second to admire the flooring he put up there...I was very safe I promise and I won't do it again, OK?) I'm still having a lot of back pain but I am taking it easy and sitting down a whole lot more than before and the Braxton-Hicks have stopped for now.

Only 9 more days until we find out if Baby2 is a boy or a girl. We've got boxes of Easton's outgrown clothes stacked up in the newly painted yellow room all ready to be washed and hung up if we're having a boy. Or we'll wash much less of them (just the yellow and green unisex stuff) if it's a girl. Either way, we'll be thrilled. I just really want to know who's in there!!!

Did I finally get my closet cleaned out? YES! It looks gorgeous! I got rid of three huge 55 gallon trash bags of clothes (1 was garbage and two I will donate to Goodwill) and put three huge plastic totes of clothes in storage. Before, you couldn't even WALK in our walk-in closet. We had tons of plastic totes full of clothes I needed to go through, shoes everywhere. It was a nightmare! I even took before and after pictures but I can't find the cord for the camera! But it looks good enough that I had a friend come look at all my hard work when she came over. She was less than impressed but trust me...it was a MAJOR difference! Wow! Now it looks like I have nothing to wear. Guess it's time to go shopping. NOT!

What am I doing today? Trying to get up the nerve to face the mountain of clothes that is waiting for me in my bedroom. No, not dirty laundry. Clothes that are hanging in my closet that I can no longer fit into. Some I haven't been able to wear in over 2 years. I really, REALLY want these clothes to be boxed up, labeled and put somewhere I can't see them every single day. But do I want to do that myself? Uh, NO! I want the clean-out-the-closet fairy to swoop down, wave her pink, sparkly magic wand and POOF! It's done. (Didn't know her wand was pink and sparkly? Me neither til just now.)

Seriously. I have at least 3 sizes of regular clothes and probably two or three sizes of maternity clothes that don't fit right now. I'm glad to have been given so many maternity clothes but most of them are too small or the wrong season. UGH!!! Anybody want to help me? I think I could muster up enough willpower to dive right on in if this ordeal did not involve me trying on many, many clothes just to find that they DON'T FIT!

Now what to do? Keep these clothes and hope I'll eventually fit into the smallest sizes? (Probably not very good for my iffy self-esteem/body image right now.) Donate all but a very small portion to Goodwill? (Oooh, think of the tax-write off and all that extra space in my closet!)

It's hard being pregnant! Nothing fits right!!! Even the maternity clothes that "fit" don't exactly fit right and if they do, it's not for long!

But now's a good time to do it...Easton and Jason are taking a nap and the house is quiet. What I really want to do is go find somewhere to get my hair done but it's FREEZING outside and I don't want to get out. Maybe getting my hair done will be my reward for getting this closet cleaned out. And my homework done. And the dishes done. And the laundry. Bleh!

So much to do! Where do I even start? I've decided to go through my many cookbooks and combine all of my cookbooks and recipes to make one cookbook with all our favorite recipes. I have all of these recipes and really only use a couple out of each of these books. (If you've given me any of these cookbooks...Thank you! But I've really got to consolidate!) Oh boy! This means I have to flip through every magazine, cookbook, or cut out recipe I've saved. And I have a TON!
There's these:





And these:





And also these:




Normally, they're all hidden out of sight under my baker's rack until I need a recipe. Then I have to try to remember which book it's in, shuffle through all of these until I find that book, flip through the pages until I find it and then I can make the recipe. That takes forever!


Plus, THIS is my to-do pile. The plastic container is where I put coupons to file, stuff to put in file cabinet, wedding announcements I've saved to remind me to buy wedding gifts, a magazine with an article I wanted to save. Just a bunch of miscelaneous stuff that I need to do.

Like I said, where do I start? I guess I'll just try to do 1 or 2 maybe even 3 small things a day until I'm done. At that rate though, I just might be done by Christmas. :) But boy, won't it be nice to have all my recipes in one big fat book?!

All of this to do plus laundry, dishes and getting my scrapbook stuff organized so I can finally go to my friend's and scrapbook. Whew! I'd better get busy!

***Update***Easton took a long nap so I was able to get through 20 (yes, TWENTY!) of my cookbooks and copy my favorites and put them into my "favorites" binder. YAY! That's a good start! Too bad I still have about 3 or 4 times that many recipes to look through! Now the question remains...what am I going to do with all those cookbooks after I've gotten all of my favorite recipes out of them? Any ideas???

Hmmm...I could give them away to people who comment on this blog. Leave me a comment if you want a free gently used cookbook.

Boy, see what happens when I don't blog for a week? I end up w/3-4 posts in one day. Just wanted to share some very cool news with you. Well, I think it's cool anyway. At work, we started working with the babies and teaching them baby signs. Most of them are WAY too little to understand what we're doing, much less actually use the signs themselves but it makes me feel good to try. Well, persistance paid off this week. One of the older girls (almost a year old) used the sign for "more" while she was eating. YAY! I've been watching her to see if she just did the sign randomly or if she was using it intentionally to get "more" of whatever. I haven't really been able to tell but I do make sure I give her more of whatever she's asking for and I do the sign and say "Oh, you want more?" I think if we continue this she will gradually (if she doesn't already) understand that using that sign = more. And the parents are VERY excited about the fact that we're using baby signs with their babies.

Note to anyone who works with babies:
Babies need sensory activities too and they are NOT too young to do art projects! Just because they can't hold a crayon or a paintbrush does not mean they are not capable of producing art. Let them fingerpaint with pudding or Cool Whip, take their handprints and footprints for their parents, anything!

One mom told me about a daycare where her daughter went. The little girl was too young to sit up so they laid her on the floor, taped a piece of paper to the wall and put paint on the baby's feet so that she could kick against the paper and paint. How cool is that?! See, totally do-able. Messy and requires a little (or a lot of) extra work, but SO worth it! That's the kind of thing I want to see in the infant room on a daily basis. Too bad I'm leaving! But you can bet my little munchkin will be taking lots of baths because his mama will have him kick-painting as soon as he's old enough. Kids are supposed to get messy! That's the fun part about being a kid!

2 more weeks of work...and counting! Boy it is sure getting hard to work 10 hour days. Well, technically I work 8 hours with a 2 hour lunch break. Most of you are probably thinking "Wow! I'd LOVE a 2 hour lunch break!" but trust me, it's not all it's cracked up to be. If I could go home for lunch it would be great but with traffic there's just not much time left. Usually I either go upstairs to the high school sunday school room where they have couches set up and I can take a nap (NICE!) or if I have the energy I go run errands, which usually equals spending money so I try not to do this too often. By the end of the day it is all I can do to make dinner and collapse on the couch for an hour or so before I go to bed. I'm going to miss my job but it is going to be SOOO nice to sleep past 5:30 for the short time I have left. Mostly I am going to catch up on my sleep while I can, clean the house and make some meals to freeze so I won't have to worry about cooking for a while after the baby's born. I'm really looking forward to some time off! :)

I think I must be one of the few people I know without a MySpace page. If you've seen that I have a MySpace account, you're right. I do. But I NEVER get on there except when people I know send me links to their page. I don't know why but I just never have taken the time to get into the whole MySpace craze. I guess because I have Blogger and it's easy to use. I already know how to use it and am too lazy to figure out another thing. :) Don't be offended if you never see me on your page. I can't even figure out how to read my MySpace messages people send. (I know, I know. Go ahead and laugh.) So that's what's up with me and MySpace. Just FYI.

We did get the bedroom painted this weekend. Well it's almost done. We still need to put a few more coats of brown on one wall. I LOVE the way it looks so far! Can't wait to get the headboard done and everything put back together like it should be. I'll take a picture when we're all finished.

I start my new job tomorrow. I think I'm really going to enjoy working in the infant room. It will give me an idea of what I'm in for when I have my own little one to take care of all day. :) I have a checkup tomorrow and then an ultrasound and follow up visit with the dr on the 29th. Wish they'd just do everything tomorrow so I could just make one trip. And so I could finally find out if we need to be thinking of a boy name. I've thought of several girl names. (Not telling just yet.) But we can't seem to think of any boy names we like. We're open to suggestions (for boys OR girls) if anyone has any names to suggest.

Now I think it's time for a popsicle and then it will be time to put on another coat of brown paint.

P.S. Happy Father's Day, honey! Isn't painting an exciting way to spend your first Father's Day?! :) But at least we'll cook out and sit on the deck and relax when we're done. Love you!

One hour and 45 minutes. That's how long I got to sleep last night. Whew! To say that I'm tired would be a gross understatement. But we sure had fun! The concert was GREAT! The opening band was Sons of Bill and none of us had ever heard of them but they were really good. Then Ragweed came on and put on a great show like they always do. My ears are ringing and my head hurts...but it was worth it!
What am I doing right after work today? Taking a nap! Then I think I'll get up and eat dinner and go back to sleep until tomorrow. :)

I'm getting a new job! A position has come open in the infant room at our center and I asked if I could work there. I need all the practice I can get! I should start sometime very soon and I am so excited! I get away from a crazy co-teacher, (some of the) temper tantrums, and (most of the) lesson planning. I will really miss the kids in the 3 year old room, but I will NOT miss some parts of it. I will miss the lesson planning...sort of. I have a love/hate relationship with lesson planning. I love researching new ideas and planning out fun new activities for the kids, but I hate the hours it takes away from my time with J and the $ it costs to really do things the way I think they need to be done. I do get reimbursed for stuff I buy, but it sometimes takes a lot of time to shop for all that stuff. All in all I think I am really ready for a new challenge. I will feel so much more relaxed (I think) after taking care of babies 9 hours a day for 4 months.

4 months? Yep. Today I told my boss I won't be coming back to work after I have the baby. That was a hard decision and it took a lot of soul-searching on my part but I am confident that I made the right decision. Plus, if it turns out that I want to go back to working there, my director said she'd love to have me back any time I'd like to start working again. (Provided they have a position, of course. )

And in other (completely unrelated) news...we're going to see Cross Canadian Ragweed tomorrow night! I am really looking forward to it. Even though it means I will be dead tired at work on Friday. It will be worth it. Plus, it's not like we do that kind of thing that often anymore and at least I'll have the weekend to rest up.

By the way...dad-if you read this, I owe you a phone call! :) I didn't forget, it just got too late and I fell asleep on the couch Sunday without calling. I'm fine and have no news to report (other than what you just read here). I'll be sure to call you this weekend. I love you! Hope you're having fun on that new motorcycle!

Gotta go spend some couch time with my hubby. Goodnight!

Work was interesting yesterday. My co-teacher was off and we had a new substitute come in. Yesterday was her first day in my room and her first day of work for our center. Yesterday was also the most chaotic day I can remember in my class (with the exception of "Christmas Party 2006", which will not mention because after that day, I was VERY close to swearing off holiday parties forever).

Why was it so crazy yesterday? It was show and tell day. We are trying to phase out show and tell. Why? Because show and tell Fridays have somehow turned into free for all Fridays where all the kids want to do all day is play with their fantastically annoying toys they bring for show and tell. And you know what? Show and tell may work with older kids. It might actually be fun and entertaining and do-able with kids older than 3. But have you ever actually witnessed the attention span of a 3 year old? Let me tell you...it is not long. And to expect them to be able to sit with their very favorite toy in their lap and wait their turn to show it to their friends and pay attention to whomever is talking is utterly ridiculous. But, enough of me on my soapbox.

Basically, yesterday was crazy and in the middle of it all, I had to try to train our new sub. She's a sweet girl and very enthusiastic about her job. She's great with the kids and it was really nice to have her there. I am betting she'll be offered a full time job in the very near future because 2 people quit at work yesterday. I'm not going to comment on why (because I really don't know for sure and it would be total speculation and gossip on my part and I'm not going to go there) but I am really hoping we can find some good people to work. People who will actually stay longer than a few months and will show up when they're supposed to be there and not be calling in all the time, leaving those of us who are always at work to scramble to pick up the slack.

We're closed today! I just got the call that our daycare center is closed and that means I can go back to bed! Woohoo! Now I can take a nap and still have enough time to work on my mile-long To-Do list. Yay for snow days!

Baking, baking, baking, and cooking today. I got up this morning and went to Walmart (UGH! Just the name sends shivers of disgust down my back, but it's a must here in this town.) Wore myself out there, came home, unloaded the groceries, etc. Had some Laughing Cow cheese w/my honey and got to work. Today is his 26th b-day and his friends are having BBQ for us. I was asked to bring potato salad (for a crowd), and snickerdoodles. I made the salad, some jambalaya, a mandarin orange cake, and some blueberry muffins to take to the folks at my work tomorrow A.M. They love when I get in the Martha Stewart frame of mind. And Jason does too. Geez, I've already done 2 loads of dishes in the dishwasher today and still haven't made the snickerdoodles. Guess I'll get back to baking...my timer just went off. Gotta check the muffins.
Geez, my feet hurt!
I think I deserve some kind of award today. :)
AmyE
P.S. 18 days until my wedding! Woohoo!!!!!