kapachino

Category: personal

  • perfect weekend.

    I love – love – weekends where I don’t have plans. Most of the time plans are fun, but there’s nothing like free time. This weekend was good like that. If I could, I would start every Saturday this way:

    Wake up to a smiling baby ready to play. It’s early, but it’s okay because I went to bed early too.

    First things first. Have a cup of coffee and some breakfast while I read for a little while. Baby is playing happily on the ground.

    Get some laundry started. Meredith amuses herself – who needs a fancy water table when you have the toilet?

    Go for a run. It’s not too hot out yet and best not to put it off. :)

    Have some play time at home while I cool off – mirrors are loads of fun!

    Do the weekly chores. Quickly clean the kitchen and sweep the floors while Meredith chomps on some puffies. I can enjoy the weekend so much  more if I get this stuff done right away.

    Cook some blueberry & sausage pancake rollups. They don’t photograph well but sure are yummy!

    Later we visited a book sale and I got several board books for cheap, continued work on the bedside table I’m redoing with my dad, and had dinner with David’s parents at Steak ‘N’ Shake. Sunday we visited a new church, went shopping for household sundries, I got some craft time in, and we spent the evening at home together chatting and working on a puzzle.

    I’m recharged and ready for the week!

  • Currently

    Her first solo swinging experience produced mixed emotions of terror and exhilaration.

    ***

    Time // 3:51 p.m.
    Place // at work, about to leave for the day.
    Eating // nothing.
    Drinking // nothing.
    Watching // infusions.
    Reading // In Zanesville by Jo Ann Beard.
    Wanting // some ferns for my living room.
    Thinking // about how I can read 30 pages a day simply in the time between parking my car and getting to my unit at work.
    Creating // a simple sweet cross stitch project.
    Hoping // to have some down time this weekend.
    Needing // to get connected at a church we both love.
    Anticipating //the arrival of orders of washi tape and essential oils I recently placed.

    ***

    Last week when we were all sick I was really thrown out of my working-mom groove. The whole week I didn’t exercise or cook, and I spent all weekend trying to get things back into order. This week we are all healthy again, but one thing after another has prevented me from really hitting my routine. I’ve only run once and cooked once, and it’s so hard to get the momentum going again.

    I’ve also been terrible at taking pictures, which makes keeping a weekly scrapbook kind of difficult. I still really want to keep up though, so I don’t care if I have a couple bad weeks. And once I get caught up again (I hope very soon) I’ll share my progress.

    This weekend I have plans to continue working on refinishing a table with my dad, but other than that – nothing! I am really hoping to have some down time at home because I want to get some things cleaned, go for a run or two, and work on my own projects. In between lots of Mermaid cuddles, of course. :)

  • Good Things: April 2012

    At the end of each day I write down at least one GOOD thing that happened, then I share them all here monthly.

    ***

    1 – Lots of work on Project Life; getting all caught up on chores with Meredith in the Ergo.

    2 – Another day off with a mildly sick Meredith and visiting David at work.

    3 – Working a full day plus reading while Meredith napped, taking her for a run, doing chores for the next day, and cooking dinner & sitting down to eat it as a family. Feeling like I’m getting this working mom thing down.

    4 – Taking an evening nap with Meredith and totally relaxing. Being nominated for the ICARE award at work.

    5 – Nice evening with Meredith crawling & playing by herself while I cooked.

    6 – Waking up to a 2-page love note from David.

    7 – Spending time with David’s extended family.

    8 – Easter with both families; watching Meredith “egg hunt”.

    9 – Having so much energy at work since I could drink coffee again.

    10 – An evening nap with Meredith.

    11 – A long sit-down dinner chatting with David.

    12 – Getting a raise.

    13 – Making plans with Dad to refinish furniture, hugs from Meredith, and David being so excited about the dinner I cooked.

    14 – Unexpected refund check in the mail.

    15 – Planning new cross stitch projects, mirror note from David, and dinner with the fam.

    16 – Good mail day – a magazine, wedding invite, & mini book.

    17 – David bringing home dinner so I could relax after a busy day.

    18 – Hugs from Meredith and making her laugh by sucking on her fingers.

    19 – Progress planning Meredith’s first birthday party.

    20 – Meredith’s reaction to me when I picked her up after work – she cried because I had to go to the bathroom and didn’t pick her up right away.

    21 – My friend Sara’s Red Tent gathering – a bunch of women sharing birth stories.

    22 – Seeing The Hunger Games with Dad at Alamo Drafthouse theatre.

    23 – Off work again with a mildly sick baby.

    24 – David taking care of me and Meredith while I was sick with fever.

    25 – Another day home, David bringing me my favorite sandwich & treating me to a milkshake, and lots of time spent as a family in the evening.

    26 – Coming home to see Meredith sleeping on David’s chest.

    27 – Watching Meredith play with her cousin Lucas.

    28 – Seeing Meredith play in the kiddie pool and stand up by herself and an afternoon with my dad learning to refinish furniture.

    29 – My nephew’s 3rd birthday party with the family.

    30 – A good run after not exercising for a week due to being sick.

  • =]]] <--meredith typed that.

    1. This post is going to be random so I figured the title could be too. I’m sitting on the floor with Meredith playing around me, and she put her hands on the keyboard and that weird smiley came up. I’m rolling with it.

    2. I’m home sick today. It’s weird though. The past two nights I’ve had fever, and it makes me feel terrible – aches, chills, lethargy, etc. But it’s gone by morning so I go to work. Well last night it was worse so I figured I’d get checked out. The only other symptoms I can possibly think of is the mild congestion I’ve had for a month, and an intermittent headache that’s more like pressure. I’m thinking maybe sinus infection? Anyway it’s weird to be home right now because I feel okay, but I’m seeing the doctor this afternoon and who knows if my fever will come back.

    3. Meredith is teething, I’m almost positive. She’s drooling 1000% more than usual and keeps sticking out her tongue. So far she’s still sleeping fine and in a good mood most of the time though.

    4. Shout out to The Hairbow Co. for this adorable outfit:

    5. I’ve been slacking on taking photos lately. My Project Life has had to include a lot more filler than usual. Need to get back on top of that.

    6. Back to this fever business: I almost feel like I want it to come back today so that a visit to the doctor is actually warranted. I know it would be better if it didn’t come back, but I don’t want to go and him be like what are you doing here, you’re fine. But I mean, I rarely get a fever, and I had it for two days in a row, and I work with immunosuppressed cancer patients, so I’m doing the right thing, right? Even though I feel fine right now?

  • Wish List

    I keep a fairly extensive universal wish list on Amazon. Anything I see or think of that I want I add to the list, and then periodically I’ll go through it to see if my desires or needs have changed, and I’ll do some deleting. This process works really well to help me save money and buy less stuff that I don’t need. Plus it’s kind of fun – like online shopping without actually spending money.

    But…it’s not exactly like shopping, because I don’t get the stuff. And we’re on a tight budget these days, so lately my wish list has been growing. If we had the funds, here are some things I would be buying right away.

    1. Adobe Photoshop Elements. My old copy of PSE isn’t compatible with my new computer, and I’d really love an updated version so I can do different stuff with my photos for Project Life. Right now I’m using pixlr.com as a free online alternative, but the quality is nowhere near as good.

    2. New Balance Minimus running shoes. I’ve been running consistently for a month now, and I’m discovering that my body is much different than it was pre-pregnancy. I wouldn’t say I have a lot of pain, but I do notice stiff and creaky joints when I run now, and I never felt that before. I’ve heard amazing things about these shoes, and I’m dying to give them a try. I think I’ll complete C25k, sign up for and run a race, and then reward myself with these.

    3. Sheet set. We have one set of sheets that fits our bed, and the fitted has a big tear in the middle of it. I would love to get a pretty set like this, but in reality we’ll probably end up settling for something much cheaper. And in reality reality we will probably just tolerate our torn set for a lot longer.

    4. Coffee syrups. We’ve already talked about how addicted to coffee I am. I can’t drink it straight though, I unfortunately need some cream and sugar. I have a serious distaste for manufactured creamers so I usually use milk. I really want to branch out into delicious, flavored syrups to take it up a notch.

    5. Timex Weekender watch. I could really stand to wear a watch at work because there are no clocks in the patient rooms (so annoying), but I don’t because the only one I have is a loose fancy silver one. This pink one is casual, fun, and will fit snugly on my arm.

    1.. Instax mini. Oh my goodness, this would be so cool to have for Project Life.

    2. Essential oils. I’m totally sold on using these for health reasons. They’re expensive, but a little goes a loooong way. I actually have some money set aside right now and am hopefully going to make the purchase sometime next month.

    3. Project Life page protectors. I could really use this design of page protectors for my inserts.

    4. Scrubs. I’m still wearing the sets that I bought at my higher weight after I had the baby, and they are looking pretty baggy and frumpy. I just hate spending money on scrubs though.

    5. Printer. Our printer technically works, but only if someone pushes down very hard on one corner due to some hardware being broken. If you don’t push down it won’t engage. Printing is a two person job and way too annoying to bother with.

    So, what’s on your wish list? How do you go about making discretionary purchases? These are all things that would be really useful to me, but not essential. My plan is to focus on one purchase at a time. I’ll put the money for that item in savings (or pull out the cash and hide it away) and keep it there until the beginning of the next month when we get paid again. If we don’t need the money before then, I’ll know we can afford the purchase and I’ll take the plunge. I think it’ll work!