Um...yeah...THAT'S what I was supposed to do...

I have sort of dropped the ball on the 21 day challenge. I know I had promised myself that I WOULD do it. so... I am going to get caught up a bit tonight and organize the linen closet and clean out under the kitchen sink. It needs to be cleaned out...afterall, I HAVE MICE!!!!  I think I'll be putting a few mouse traps in that cupboard...

J.

Yikes!

I have mice in my house. In the kitchen. They MUST GO! That's all I have to say. Oh, and I did my wii step workout for 30 min last night.

That's all. Back to your regularly scheduled program...

J.

Oy vey...

These are NOT new years resolutions. They are things that I have been wanting to do for a while, but now seems to be an ideal time to start going for it.  I have put off a lot of my goals for so long because... well, when you are dealing with grief for a loved one, sometimes you don't always think of what the best things are for you to do for yourself.  You kind of get "stuck".  And I am very "stuck" right now.  Time to push myself out of my comfort zone.

My main goals:

1. I need to lose at least 60 pounds to be truly healthy. This is astronomical to me! It will get me close to the weight I was when I met Shawn almost 10 years ago.  I am thinking that smaller goals would work better, so here is the structure I am hoping to follow:
• 10 pounds within the first month
• 20 total pounds by end of month 3
• 30 total pounds by the end of month 6
• 40 total pounds by the end of month 8
• 50 pounds by the end of month 10
• 60 pounds by the end of the year. 
2. To get back into my wedding dress by the time of our 10th anniversary (I have a year and a half to do this). We'd like to renew our vows and it would be cool to be able to wear my special dress again.
3. To get back to playing ringette or hockey again. My big goal is to play in the student/teacher hockey game next Winter! It has been a goal of mine since I started teaching at OLL (9 years !) and I haven't worked too hard to get to this goal. THIS is the year!
4. To wear my wedding RING again. Yes, I have gained so much weight that my wedding ring no longer fits and actually cuts the circulation in my finger! I can still wear my engagement ring since it was a size larger. Yikes. This is embarrassing to admit.
5. To feel better, reduce my cholesterol and blood pressure, and to get back my energy and stamina so I can keep up with my children.  I am also scared of the possibility of getting diabetes if I continue on this path of weight gain!

That being said... TODAY I...

• worked out on wii fit - free step for 40 minutes. I am trying to get up to 10,000 steps a day. I managed to walk only 3124 steps from the time I got up until the time I picked Shawn up. That's not much! That means that I really do not do much walking while I am working (mainly sitting while marking, etc. and walking around during teaching). Trying to supplement with step on the wii board until Spring when I feel like getting outside! I managed to get in almost 4000 additional steps with my workout tonight. Yay! My goal is to ramp it up to 10,000 steps a day by next week. We will see how I feel tomorrow!!!! Oh vey!

• Watched the first episode of Village on a Diet while I did my wii step workout. It made the time go by so fast! I am totally rooting for all of the people of Taylor, B.C. and I am really hoping to see huge changes in them by the end of the 10 episodes! I will also be working out and trying to lose weight alongside the show for the next 10 weeks...and longer (I know I can keep this up!).

• Worked on my exam for my MEL4E class. It is due on Thursday and I still need to finish it! YIKES. I am just having such a hard time concentrating on it tonight and I think the exercising totally wore me out. I ...need...sleep (but am doing this log while I can still remember what I want to write).

I am off to bed, and then off to the schoolboard tomorrow for a day of professional learning.  God help the supply teacher that gets my bunch ;)  Ha!

Cheers!
J.

 

The Day 1 Junk Drawer is now organized.

Here are the before pics:


actually...not too bad, right? until...



you look a little closer and realize just WHAT is in each container...

for example...WHAT are all of these keys for ANYWAY???!!!



um...tape, batteries and a medicine syringe for the kids' antibiotics...right, THOSE should go
 together. Right???  And that nit comb??? What the HECK is THAT in there for?
Oh, right. Mom gave that to use even though we've NEVER had to use it. (knock on wood!)


 And here are the after pics!

I took everything out of the drawer and reorganized it in the bins.

I like to use the left-over cups from my kids' lunch fruitcups to organize smaller items.
One has camera cards, another small craft items such as buttons and my craft cutter blades,
another is for the little combs and hair elastics, and the last is for small toy parts. N-boy is always losing
 little pieces of lego around the house. I pick them up and put them in here.

batteries have their own basket. We have slowly been replacing all of our batteries with rechargeable ones.

Lightbulbs, household fasteners (picture hanging nails, hooks, etc) and another basket for staples, tape and twist-ties.

This is stuff that no longer needs to be in the drawer.  Some went downstairs to the craft room, some upstairs to the bathroom (see the eye-drops, syringe, and toothbrush. Yeah, that stuff. WHAT was it doing in the junk drawer???)

As well as cleaning out this drawers, I managed to get a lot of stuff accomplished today even though I woke up close to lunch time. Ha!  The dishes are done, supper is made, some clothes are washed, walls and trim are cleaner, a bit more of Katie's mitt is knit, and the drawer is clean. Ahhhh...can I sit down and relax now?

Tomorrow:

• Taking Dad to the airport (whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!)
• A stop at IKEA on the way home to get a bookshelf  or two for Em's room (must...organize...her...books...and...toys...)
• A stop at Solutions to pick up 2 more lego boxes for N-boy.
• Day 2 of the 21 day challenge
• Preping for back to school (more whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!)
• Make banana bread. Something I had planned to do today but didn't.

 Now...time for bed. Not looking forward to my 5am wakeup call.

J.

P.S.  Oh! Almost forgot!!!!  I think this wall colour will work so nicely in our livingroom that I am going to Home Depot tomorrow to find a very close match. I found these pics in the 2010  Christmas Ideas magazine from BH&Gardens:



And I love this wreath too! I need to find a wool sweater that I can felt and cut into these petals. Gorgeous!



Day 1

As scary as it is, this is my craftroom/basement right now. I will spare you the remaining pictures of the scary basement (I have a few under the table piles as well) and the furnace room/laundry area. That's pretty scary too (but getting better as I finish each load of laundry this week!).  I really need to sort, purge and reorganize this space! It's something that has been wanting attention for a loooooooooooooooong time. I just never seem to get to it because teaching and regular family life gets in the way. I was hoping to start tackling it over the Christmas holidays, but like the best of intentions, I never quite got the chance.



I DID, however, wash the toothpaste off of the walls upstairs, wash all of the doors/doorjams and trim of the bedrooms and had the kids wash dirty fingerprints off of the walls in Em's room.  I also cut and put baseboard in Emily's closet and Shawn put in the flooring and the rest of the baseboards in her room. The FLOORING IN THE BEDROOMS IS NOW DONE! Woohoo!!!!  We've been putting it in room-by-room as we could afford it. It has taken us a little over a year I believe. 

Now...on to the stairs. The carpet is gone and what remains is staring at us. Well, glaring really.  And the walls in the front entrance and hallways need to be repainted, as well as the livingroom. Shawn went around putting drywall filler on all holes and scrapes on the walls yesterday and now I feel as if I am living in a construction zone. All of those little patches on the walls are making me itch to paint - but when? I go back to school/work on Monday and WHEN will be have time to do these things to make our house inviting? What colour do I choose? As much as I love art and colour, I HATE choosing wall colors and usually defer to beige/off-white to delay making a true colour choice. Anyone else like that???!!!

I am close to getting the junk drawer cleaned out, and all of the "stuff" is now all over the counter in little piles and it makes me anxious to see my kitchen counters covered in clutter again. I kind of don't want to organize that stuff, but I know I need to push through. If I can't organize a DRAWER, how can I expect to clean a whole basement? Whoa. I am feeling a bit overwhelmed.

J.

P.S. @ 7:16pm :   I finished cleaning out the drawer! Pictures to come soon!!!! (sorry, making supper). OH! and I found a paint colour for my livingroom! I was looking in a Christmas Ideas magazine and fell in love with one room because of its...COLOUR! Yay! Not as difficult as I thought it would be.

On today's agenda...

On today's agenda:


1. take down the Christmas tree (I took off the ornaments and lights last night so I just have to take apart and box the tree. Yes, it's a fake.

2. hem pants (something I have been putting off since June!). I could be WEARING my new pants!

3. make banana bread with new mixer. Yay for Kitchenaid! (mine is RED!!!)

4. more baseboards. I was a mitre-saw virgin. Shawn showed me how to use it yesterday. Had fun finishing Em's closet and I did a fine job if I do say so myself! Look: (still needs to be nailed in)

 

5. finish one of Katie's mitts:   (I am using the fiddlehead mittens pattern I purchased off of Ravelry)

6. more laundry

7. Clean up the kitchen, especially the floor.

 

 

Before all of this (while I drink my first coffee of the day), I will be cleaning out the junk drawer as per the instructions on A Bowl Full of Lemons! My drawer is already pretty good, but it could definitely use a slight overhaul.  Shawn and the kids keep shoving stuff in there and a lot of stuff is NOT where it should be.  I hate it when others don't adopt your "system".  Grr...  And believe me, I am NOT a very organized person. When you are dealing with a family, it's even more difficult because everyone seems to want to do things their own way. 

 

At any rate, HAPPY NEW YEAR!  It's been a great 2 weeks of holidays, and I am a bit sad to be heading back to work on Monday.   It will definitely be a shock to my system to be back in the classroom again after 2 weeks without chatty teens.  I think I can...I think I can....I think I can....

 

My father leaves on a jetplane tomorrow to go back home and I will be sad to see him go. I don't spend enough time with him, and being so far away makes it harder.  I won't see him until the summer now and that is just...too...long.

 

Well, I am off to clean a drawer and box a tree.  Hope that tree brought its boxing gloves ;)

Julie

I'm taking the 21 day challenge.

Check it out:  http://abowlfulloflemons.blogspot.com/

I have decided to try her 21 day challenge for organization (something I OBVIOUSLY need to do around my house and in my professional teaching life). I figure that this is a good time to start getting rid of certain things around here (can you say TOO MUCH scrapbooking and craft stuff! Yikes!).

It's time for a new update on what the basement looks like. It's scary how much craft stuff I own. The even scarier thing is that I don't really know what I should or shouldn't get rid of! I like too much stuff, yet I probably won't use all of it in my lifetime. I am putting some of it aside in order to sell it either in a local scrapbook second hand sale, or at a yardsale this summer.

I am also putting other household items aside to sell. I have a cuisinart coffee maker and coffee grinder that is in excellent condition, but I got Shawn a Keurig machine for Christmas and he likes it much better. The old system will be going up for sale as well as numerous other items. 

Question for you:  Do you keep your child's valentine cards from school? I have some of my children's cards in ziploc bags but I am thinking perhaps I should toss them. I can't keep everything, right? Your thoughts?

J.

The middle finger and raising our children well...

I confess that I once, as a teenager, gave "the finger" to a man after he cut off my father in traffic.

You see, my father, a careful driver, had to put on the brakes so we didn't hit this person who had suddenly cut into our lane.  When we caught up to the man at a light, and knowing that my father was upset (and apparently so was I), I gave the man a dirty look out the window and out came my one-finger salute. I think I was 16.

The man followed my father to the gas station where he confronted me and my father. He told my father how he should teach me better manners than that. Of course, my father was appalled because he had always tried to keep me from doing the wrong thing (I admit that I was slightly scared of my father while growing up). I was slightly embarrased (but still felt justified in my actions as teenagers often do) and admitted to my infraction, but felt I had to tell him WHY I had done what I did.  I remember this story because it is probably one of the few times in my teen-dom that I ever swore or used any other way of expressing foul language.

So why am I telling this story?

As parents, we hope to teach our children well, and having two small children, I want to shelter them from the rampant swearing that I feel surrounded by. Being a high school teacher, I hear the F-bomb and other offensive language around the halls of my employment ... daily. Probably more like hourly or by the minute if it's lunch time or just before classes start.  It almost seems to be accepted as a general form of daily conversation with some people. It's on TV, the radio, in magazines, spray painted on stop signs and sides of buildings. It's on the bus, in the supermarket, Walmart... it just seems like it is EVERYWHERE. It's been in my classroom, and it's driving me crazy!

Last year, near the end of grade one, my daughter point-blank asked me what F_ _ K meant.

                                      MY. SEVEN .YEAR .OLD!!!!!

 Where had she heard THAT! I demanded to know. She saw I was upset, and being a super good and moral kid, she got upset at my reaction and was nearly in tears.

                         "From a kid in my class, Mommy. He wrote it on his paper."

This kid has an older brother. That older brother is one of my students.  *biting hand now*  YIKES.
My husband and I didn't explain what the word meant (goodness gracious! We haven't approached the birds and bees with her yet!) and simply told her that it was one of the worst of the "bad words" out there and that under NO circumstances should she use THAT word!

Fast forward to yesterday morning after swimming lessons:

"Mommy, one of the gems came off of my nails"  (I had put nailpolish and gems on her nails the night before). I turn my head to look at her and I was greeted by that ONE FINGER SALUTE!

ACK!!!!

My mind drifted back to that time in the car with my father so long ago...

Of course we had to explain to her that certain hand gestures are not appropriate in our society, but it also sparked a great discussion with my husband about naughty hand gestures in other cultures.  (Interesting how a hand signal such as the hitchhiking thumbs-up can mean ...*ahem* ..."up yours"  in Iran and other countries.)

So...I am trying.
Trying to teach my children well.
Trying to keep my children from hearing those words until they are older.
Trying to teach my children to express their distaste, frustration, etc. using less offensive language.
Trying to teach my children a moral code even when it sometimes feels like the world's moral code is breaking down.

 It's getting harder and harder to shelter and keep them from the world's evils.

But I try.

Because my parents tried with me and I think they did a rockin' great job ;)

Because I don't want MY KID to be the one I have to listen to outside my classroom every morning while they tell a story to their BFF that half-consists of the F-bomb.

Because I owe it to my Dad.

Dad, you were right when you said this would come back to haunt me ;)


xoxo,

J.

In hindsight...

...if I had today to do over again, I would have:

1.  Gone to bed earlier. Trying to find long-lost relatives on Facebook and the internet at 1am is really not that productive (although I did find two people that I now KNOW I am related to through my Grampa McClean's side).

2.  I would have brushed my teeth long before 8pm!  YUCK.  I have to remember that being super busy should not mean lack of teeth cleaning. Oh, and that people really don't want to smell my coffee breath. THAT's why I carry gum in my purse. Perhaps I should remember that it's there. Duh.

3.  I would have worn socks (if I could find any in this house!). I have really bad foot odor and it probably isn't something that other's want me to share with them. Ugg.

Today I was slightly "hygienically challenged". Yeah, today I was "that woman".

Other than those 3 things, today was wonderful and busy (although more relaxed than the past 2 weeks).  The morning started out with swimming lessons for the kids up in Sutton, then back home to put on some laundry and to work on this:

I KNOW you want to know what these cubes are for, don't you? LOL!!!!
It's for my math classes at school. I am working on a geometry unit with them.
I will post the final product and an explanation tomorrow when they are done...

THEN...

A trip down to Toronto for the Beach Design Studio Sketches class with Lisa Kisch (more on that later! It was WONDERFUL!!!) and a much welcomed and deserved Swiss Chalet dinner with my family.

Shawn watched the kids at work for the afternoon while I headed down to Toronto...

Up on the new mezzanine...

looking down from mezzanine...

checking out Dad's new office space upstairs...

Flightdeck Solutions added another level to their shop this weekend. It's a much needed change as they are growing by leaps and bounds and everyone was trying to work around one another but always seemed to be running into one another.  The guys were in today to move stuff around and get things in order for work tomorrow. It's a little chaotic at the moment.  I LOVE the new look and Shawn will have a view of the upstairs and also be able to see what is happening on the production floor...from above!  (so sorry for the horrible pics. Didn't edit them 'cause I am too lazy and tired to tonight. Ha!)

I also finished working on a free printout in preparation for December Daily!  It is a series of date tags that you can print and cut out.  I will be posting them tomorrow with a little video showing how to cut them once they are printed.

Lots and lots of stuff going on and I must get my butt to bed. Tomorrow is a new and exciting day :)

J.

It's been a while...again.

What have I been up to lately? Hmmm...teaching, teaching and more teaching. I am enjoying it and yet it also exhausts me.  I put all of me into it. By the evening I am jello. My brain is jello. But I like jello.  And I want to do things that help me to relax, unwind (lol) and manage any anxiety that I may have from the day.

So, I have also been doing a bit of this:

Yes, it's a sock. But not JUST a sock. It's a sock that I knit MYSELF! Yes, I am officially a sock knitter. Emily chose the yarn, I bought it and some teeny tiny knitting needles and I am now so very close to finishing the second sock! I have also knit a cabled scarf, started a second pair of socks (for me), started a scarf for my sister, completed half of a circular shrug for me, started a cardigan for Em, and purchased yarn for a vest for Noah. CRAZY! I am totally addicted to knitting and I stalk ravelry for new ideas daily.  There are so many things that I want to make, but I think I have so many projects and hobbies on the go, that I need to prioritize the projects that I already have on the go! YIKES. I am my mother's daughter after all... Still need to finish the pinwheel quilt and the granny square quilt too. BWAHAHAAAAAAAA! Totally laughing at myself if you aren't yet.

The local yarn shop I love to frequent is called Unwind and is located in Newmarket, Ontario. Wendy, the owner, is super helpful and friendly and her store is just brimming with color and soft, gorgeous yarns. So much to choose from! Here are some pics from the day she opened the new location:

yummy silk/mulberry yarns

my girl looking at a book

what I bought...



Wendy!



 Can't wait to go back again! 

Anyone else out there addicted to knitting? Just learning? Crochet? Fave products?

Emily is also learning to knit. I have taught her the knit stitch (no easy feat for me since I knit left-handed and she is right) and I think I will send her to Wendy's store for a class to learn the rest.  LOVE this pic of my girl and I :

Have a good one!

J.