Category: personal

fall goals

But first, a recap of my summer goals:

>Complete Whole30 and reintroduction plan: did it! And it was awesome.

>Finish Liam’s stocking: Check plus!

>Go to the beach: Nope, we didn’t make it happen. We are such homebodies. Sadness.

>Read a long book: Spent most of the summer reading Lonesome Dove, which I finished and loved.

>Meredith’s birthday party: We had a great family day at the park.

***

Now about my fall goals. Truth be told, I haven’t been in the best mindset for goal-setting. Things have been kind of chaotic and what I really want to achieve (a perfectly agreeable & compliant toddler, for example) doesn’t lend itself to measurable steps. So I did a little journaling and took some areas where I have felt stalled or disorganized and tried to figure out some steps to take in the right direction.

>Run a 10k: Well, this snuck up on me and I’m signed up to run one on Saturday! Because of issues at home (sick husband / crazy toddler) I haven’t been able to run as frequently in the past couple of weeks. So my goal is really to run the whole thing, even if it takes awhile.

>Finish quilt: For REALZ. This thing needs to get DONE. It’s been almost two years, and I want to move on to the next project!! I only have the second half of the binding left, anyway.

>Take the Grocery Savings Made Simple e-course: Finances are always a struggle since having a second child, and food is one of the biggest variable expenses. I love that this course focuses on real food without couponing or stalking the sales. It helps you set up a system tailored to your own family that you can set in motion. That’s the method that works best for me, I just need a little guidance.

>Christmas gifts done by the beginning of December: I’m always stressing about gifts all the way up until Christmas, and I don’t want that this year. I’m also intending on doing as many handmade gifts as possible, although I didn’t make that a goal because I’m not sure if it’s doable or not (especially for some people).

>Read a parenting book: Let’s face it, I don’t know what the heck I’m doing. As a very calm and compliant person all my life, I’m finding it quite difficult to deal with a strong-willed child. I think it’s time to do some research. Any recommendations?

So, those are my fall goals. There are a bunch of other things I hope to get done, but I want to prioritize this stuff to help me make progress in all different areas: fitness, personal projects, food/finance, holidays, and parenting. What are your current goals?

p.s. – three other goal setting projects I’ve got going on: the houston project, a baking challenge, and ten cross stitch

September 24, 2014
tgif : the i’m so tired edition

Taking a page out of Stephany’s book to recap my week. Contrary to the above picture (which was last weekend) it has been overcast and rainy the last several days, which is kind of appropriate. Even though it keeps me perpetually soggy, I am grateful for the relief from the intense heat.

The high of my week was a playdate at Chick-fil-a with my sister-in-law and one of our friends from church. It started out kind of rough, but eventually the kids calmed down and there was a solid 20-30 minutes where they were all playing happily and Liam was content in his high chair and we got to sit and have girl talk time.

The low of my week was an hour-long screaming meltdown by Meredith at bedtime…and all the other meltdowns (but that was the worst). She’s in one of those phases and it just might do me in – send chocolate.

The best money I spent was a medium cafe mocha at work the morning after the above meltdown.

A podcast episode I loved was “Decisive Blogging” on How They Blog with Kat Lee & Anne Bogel from Modern Mrs. Darcy. Thanks to Kerri for introducing me to this podcast! This was the first episode I listened to, and it was perfect for me in that Anne talked a lot about balancing her blog with her very full life.

My weekend plans include attending my second Houston Modern Quilt Guild meeting (I hope) and a huge family fun day for my company, as long as it isn’t pouring down rain. We are also hosting a dinner for our church life group. As far as personal projects go, I’d like to finish a book, get the tricky part of the binding done on my quilt, schedule some blog posts, and run 6 miles (the farthest I’ve ever run – yikes).

September 19, 2014
dutch apple bread (and a baking challenge)

As I was reading through my More-With-Less cookbook I was overwhelmed with the urge to do some baking. One day I’d love to master baking yeasted bread from scratch, but I’m not quite ready to tackle that yet. For now, I was very inspired by the quick bread section of this particular cookbook.

Quick bread is any bread leavened without yeast. Technically this could include cakes and brownies and such, but I want to branch out from that. I set myself the goal to try ten new quick bread recipes.

My first attempt – Dutch apple bread – was rushed and I realized too late that I used baking powder instead of baking soda (I am ALWAYS doing that; I know the difference but they just get mixed up in my mind) but after a quick web search I figured it would probably still turn out fine and thankfully it did! The end result is most likely a little denser and not as full as it should have been but it was still yummy.

Dutch apple bread
adapted from More-With-Less

1/2 cup margarine (I used butter)
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup sour milk or orange juice (I used buttermilk)
1 cup chopped apples
1/3 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream together butter and sugar. Add eggs and vanilla and beat well. Combine flour, baking soda, and salt separately. Add dry ingredients and buttermilk alternately to butter/sugar mix. Fold in apples and walnuts. Bake in greased 9×5 loaf pan for 55 minutes, or until bread tests done (mine needed a few extra minutes).

Enjoy!

September 15, 2014
app review : kids academy

Hey, this is a sponsored post – I am being paid to provide a review of these three (free) kids’ apps, but I promise to always give you my honest opinion!

So recently I tried out the free versions of these three apps by Kids Academy, and I wanted to share some quick reviews of them.

Kids Puzzle

This is a straightforward game to teach your child about numbers. It has them tracing the number in order to collect fireflies and fill a jar. You can also create a little profile for your child including a picture which is kind of fun.

What I thought: It’s a really cute concept. I thought it would be way too hard for Meredith, and it is still a bit beyond her, but she definitely improved over the last couple weeks of using it. However, I’m not sure if the tracing with her finger on the touch screen will translate to actually writing the numbers.

With the free version, you only get numbers 1 to 3. It costs $3.99 to access all the numbers with an in-app purchase. The parent area is appropriately difficult to access, but when Meredith clicked on it she couldn’t get back to the game which was frustrating for her.

What Meredith thought: To my surprise she kept coming back to it, despite not being very good! She did ask me to do it for her a lot, but that is also how she learns – by observing. As I said, she got better and now she can do the 2 sometimes. :)

Find it here.

Learn to Read & Write

This app has a few different activities. There are easy mazes, mazes to help teach rhyming words, and uppercase letter tracing. A paid in-app purchase gets you access to activities on lowercase letters, vowels, and writing words.

What I thought: The mazes are a cute idea. However, your child has to know what the picture actually is to be successful, and some of the pictures even I didn’t know what they were supposed to be. The letter tracing is pretty straightforward, and again I don’t know if it translates to actual writing. This part was kind of beyond Meredith’s ability at barely 3 years old.

What Meredith thought: This was the most frustrating app for her, so I actually ended up deleting it for now because it would just upset her when she tried it. I think it would be worth retrying in a year or two for sure.

Find it here.

Preschool & Kindergarten Learning

This app has a bunch of different activities within it. It actually includes the numbers tracing to collect fireflies and the letter tracing. Then there is also a game that has an animated scene with pictures of things that start with each letter, and as the child touches them they do cute things and light up. It appears that the paid in-app purchase gets you the rest of the letters & numbers for all games (only three are included for each) along with tracing shapes.

What I thought: This is my favorite for Meredith for now. It has the number tracing, which she likes, and the letters, which are fine for her, and the animated scenes are the most appropriate for her age and I think they are super cute. I am actually tempted to buy this one, but it’s $9.99 so…I probably won’t. :)

What Meredith thought: As I mentioned, she really enjoys the tracing even though she’s not too good at it. And she likes that she can do the scenes on her own. She keeps coming back to this app!

Find it here.

Do you have any toddler apps to recommend?

September 13, 2014
currently

Genius: Meredith goes through phases where she has these daily screaming meltdowns, and we were in one this week. I am never sure what is the answer to these, because sometimes she’s done something that needs punishing, and other times she just flips out. One day this week we were trying to get out the door to head to daycare/work and she was screaming and crying. Thank God for the extra dose of patience and optimism that I had prayed for that morning, because I picked her up and started singing “This is the day the Lord has made…” and she immediately calmed down and asked me to sing it several more times. She even asked what it meant and we talked about having a happy day. Now this might never work again, but for that morning I felt pretty awesome.

Fail: two money-wasting incidents that were completely my fault here. 1) I had a doctor’s appointment in the medical center where parking is super expensive. I got my smart chip when I entered the parking garage and put it in my pocket to keep it safe. When I got back to my car I couldn’t find the chip anywhere so I had to pay $20 to get out. The next day, I found the chip in my pocket. Ugh.

2) I’m scrambling to complete all my continuing education hours to renew my oncology certification by Monday, and I needed about 75 (which is a LOT). So I paid $35 for unlimited courses at nurse.com, only to realize once I signed up that the courses offered are the exact same ones that my hospital offers for free. Double ugh.

Currently:

planning my autumn goals, including lots of ideas from the Ultimate Healthy Living Bundle (I really want to get serious about natural health remedies one of these days)

stressing about all those CEU’s

trying not to let this week get the best of me

struggling with how to discipline (the worst part of parenting, am I right?)

concerned about my dwindling freezer stash of breastmilk

drinking more cafe mochas than I should

attending a van tour with this organization tomorrow

running on the treadmill most days, since it’s been breaking 100 degrees here lately

loving my new craft room – the smaller, more organized space is so inspiring

almost halfway through the binding on my quilt

looking forward to finishing for so many reasons

missing cross stitch lately

relieved that the weekend is here

September 12, 2014