I thought I would take a break from the routine series and give my friends a little update on our home.

Almost exactly one year ago, a wind storm (possibly a tornado) blew through

Estacada and knocked a tree over on our house. You can see it in the photo to the left. See window right under the tree? We were looking out of it when the tree fell!

We had insurance, and they were quite willing to pay, but then we discovered that there were serious issues with the foundation and other code violations that were not caused by the tree, and therefore would not be covered by insurance. Some of the foundation cracks were made worse by the tree, so we hired a lawyer to help us get as much as was fair from the insurance so that we could afford to fix or replace the home.

Eventually, it came down to replacing the home. It would cost more to fix than we could get from the insurance. That meant replacing the not-up-to-code septic system as well. So we’ve spent pretty much every penny the insurance has given us, and then some. But things are finally moving along.

Last Friday we went out to see our new home brought in. You can see it in the

Photo by Glenda Sandidge

picture here. It’s actually a little more yellow than it appears in the picture, because, as usual, it was cloudy and actually misting a little. It started raining harder in the afternoon. All the brown dirt was mud that stuck to our shoes and made them very heavy! This view is almost the same angle as the picture above (the tree in the foreground on the left is the same). Obviously, we are getting a much smaller home–about 1,000 square feet less. But that’s okay. I will miss the basement, but it can’t be helped. This home has four bedrooms, and we are going to install some kind of laminate flooring. I just emailed Pergo floors to find out which of their laminate floors put out the least emissions, so hopefully I will hear back from them on that soon.

Anyhow, they had a real time trying to get the home situated. It’s hard to see in the picture, but the property slopes down a hill. This angle is facing southeast, and the hill faces due south. The slab of concrete for the home is partly on a built-up surface that sticks out from the hill, and the yellow “crawler” that you can see in the picture wasn’t able to pull the halves into precise position. Hopefully they were able to figure something out today and get it properly situated so that it can be put together and tied down.

So once that’s done and it passes inspection, and once the sand filter for the septic is installed and the floors in, we will be able to move. Weather permitting, that should be in about 4 weeks. And I really hope it doesn’t take longer than that! Because insurance was very generous to give us an extra month in this home–since the original cut-off date was based on the time it would have taken to actually fix the house, but there were unavoidable delays, from the county taking time to inspect things to the record rainfall we’ve had this winter. Hopefully this extension will be enough to get all the last-minute things finished. I sure hope so!

I just hope we can get a garden in this year. We have not been able to do one every year since we moved to Oregon, because of moving or not knowing when we would move. Even if I have to grow lettuce in the flower bed or something, though, we really want to be able to grow some of our own food. Sprouts are nice, but more variety would be nicer. So yes, I’m really looking forward to moving!

Almost a week ago I discussed my early morning routine. Sorry it’s taken so long to get to this, but I have a good excuse. I’ve been sick. Again. This time it wasn’t quite so bad, just a major head cold, but it’s been some motivation to go to bed at a decent time, and I haven’t felt like writing much during the day.

But now I’m improving, the kids were in bed early, and I want to share with you about the after breakfast routine I have been establishing.

First of all, it is important to know that I am a S.H.E. all the way through. In case you aren’t familiar with that acronym, SHE stands for Sidetracked Home Executive, with an emphasis on the sidetracked part. And as a mother of young children, it is easy to get distracted! So I finish breakfast and just want to sit for a few minutes. Then I have to feed Manny (because his meal is different, and he often eats a little later than everyone else). Then I have to change a diaper. I also have to make sure Gislaine is getting her chores done (making her bed, collecting dirty laundry, etc). I have to referee any squabbles, answer the occasional phone call, and somewhere in there I need to brush my own teeth, make my bed, and get the kitchen cleaned up. It is so easy to get distracted!

In the past, I often would leave the dishes unwashed until almost time for lunch. Which, of course, would make me postpone lunch, because I didn’t want to do the dishes, and would wait until the last possible moment to start them. This made for more stress, of course. And I was always in a quandary about what to do first. Do I brush my teeth first? Do I make my bed first? Do I do the dishes first?

So finally I made a routine. I said, first thing after breakfast, I take my vitamins. Otherwise I will forget them, and they are supposed to be taken with food. My vitamins make such a difference in my energy and mood, but especially being pregnant now, I need my prenatals!

Then I put the food away and wash the dishes. Before I brush my teeth, make my bed, or do anything else. Granted, it doesn’t always work perfectly. My husband sometimes eats breakfast late, or Manny isn’t finished when I am, or there is some crisis that needs to be dealt with. But for the most part, if I do my best to stay focused, I can get the table cleared and the dishes done within 15-20 minutes. Of course, it helps that I emptied the dishwasher before starting breakfast, especially since the dishwasher is my dish drainer 6 days a week.

After breakfast, next thing I do is brush my teeth and make my bed. I list these two as one item, because the order varies, depending on whether the only bathroom in the house is occupied or not. Once we move and have a master bathroom, though, I think I will always brush my teeth first. I also remind Gislaine to brush hers and help Manny with his during this time, if he has finished breakfast. Sometimes my husband makes the bed before I get to it, and sometimes my daughter does it while I do dishes, but usually I have to do it. And remember, my excuse for not making the bed first thing upon rising is that I like to air it, and it is usually still occupied anyway.

The next thing on my list is laundry. That means sort laundry and start the first (and some days only) load. Now, Flylady starts the laundry as part of her before-breakfast routine, but I like my daughter to pick up the dirty laundry in the bedrooms and bring it out to the laundry room. That is her job. And before breakfast she doesn’t have time for that–if she’s even awake, she’s drinking her water or having her devotional time, and then she eats. So while I’m washing dishes, if she has finished eating, I have her pick up the laundry, make her bed, brush her teeth, etc. She is able to do those things on her own, and it keeps her out of trouble and out of my way so I can focus on getting through the routine.

After the laundry comes what I like to call my Fly Mission. This is actually a Flylady Zone mission. When I finish this series on routines, I will tell about how I have adapted the Zone idea for my new home–which, by the way, is on location but not put together yet. Anyhow, there are 5 zones, one for each week. This week is Zone 4, the Master Bedroom. An example of a mission would be to grab something like a long-handled duster or a broom and go after cobwebs, or to declutter under the bed for 15 minutes. Some zone missions I cannot do, because either the room isn’t cluttered, or we don’t have a dresser in the bedroom (the closet has shelves, so our clothes go on those), or some other good reason. But if the mission applies to my situation, I do it after starting the laundry.

Next on my list is decluttering. Now, I have almost no decluttering to do in this house. I have refused to collect unnecessary things, and most of what I did manage to collect has already been pitched. However, I can use this time to pack something for 15 minutes or less. We are moving in less than a month, after all. I have used this time to pack the kids’ clothes that they grew out of (the most recent ones were piled on a box), to organize my closet, to pack our warmest winter coats (probably a bad idea–it’s gotten cold again), to pack the few books we have here–one medium-small box full, and so on. Sometimes I skip this item, especially if we are running late, because lately we have been going to bed too late (we as in my husband and I), so we get a late start on the morning. I am working on reversing that at least for myself, but even the most organized mother can have delays sometimes.

Next on the list is school. That is, my daughter’s preschool. We don’t do it every day, but I am for 4 days a week. We go through workbooks I picked up at the dollar store, tracing letters and numbers and doing other preschool activities. And coloring. During this time, I keep Manny occupied with several things. First, he gets to color with a dry-erase marker on a special spiral-bound board thing that has letters, numbers, and a space to doodle. He tires of that in about 5-10 minutes, then he wants to play with the wooden tools that his uncle bought for him. I keep these tools out of reach so the pieces of bolts and nuts and such don’t get lost, and he only gets them during “school” time, which keeps them special. After 5-10 minutes he is done with those, and then I give him books to look at until his sister is finished with her school. This way, I know where he is (and that he isn’t making a mess or destroying something somewhere in the house).

After this is free time that I can use to do whatever I want or need to do until time to start my pre-lunch routine. How much time I actually have depends on how long this routine took to get finished. Sometimes I only have a few minutes. Often I will tackle things on my to-do list that I don’t do every day, like ironing, or one-time things like making a call to set appointments. I often check the laundry during this time, especially if I have to do more than one load that day.

Eventually I want to put a quick sweep of the kitchen and dining room into my morning routine, but I need to streamline this one more first.

To recap, here is my after-breakfast routine:

• Take vitamins
• Clear table, wash dishes
• Brush teeth, make bed
• Sort and start laundry
• Zone mission
• Declutter/pack
• School

This routine still has a lot of bumps in it, but I’m fairly happy with the order of it. Now I just need to become more efficient at it!

Next time I will share about my pre-lunch routine.

What routines have you established to make your life flow more smoothly?

Have you heard of Flylady? No, the name has nothing whatsoever to do with flies. It’s a lady who enjoys fly fishing. What she is about is getting organized. And unless you are a BO (born organized), like my mom, that is probably not as easy as you wish it could be.

I inherited my dad’s and and his mother’s lack of organization–along with an “I don’t really care” attitude. At least, sometimes I don’t care. Other times I do, but then I’m overwhelmed and don’t know where to start, so I just don’t start.

That’s where Flylady comes in. She has a few rules to follow that make life much simpler and organization kind of fall into place. The first rule is to shine the kitchen sink and keep it that way. As simplistic as that sounds, it really helps keep the kitchen cleaner. Because who wants to just have a shiny sink with dishes piled around and filthy counters? So each time the sink is used, it should be wiped down–which takes all of one minute–and left clean for the next use.

Then there is the 15-minute rule. That is, “You can do anything for 15 minutes.” Whether it’s washing dishes, mopping the floor, cleaning the bathroom, or tackling an overwhelming filing project, if it seems like too much, just set a timer for 15 minutes, work like mad, and quit when the timer goes off.

The other thing she teaches is to establish routines. That is what I want to talk about over the next few posts. Even though I had routines established as a child, such as brushing my teeth after breakfast and making my bed before school started, I think Mom was the motivating factor behind them, and not any inward motivation, so I got out of them when I left home. I’ll admit that there are times when I would not make the bed all day, leave the breakfast dishes dirty until almost lunch time, and only brush my teeth when the feel of a dirty mouth became too disgusting (which was probably half way through the morning). Before I had kids, it wasn’t so bad, because I could just get things done whenever; but now with two kids and another on the way, I realized that I needed to help them establish routines too, especially since my daughter has a way of getting very distracted and forgetting what she is supposed to be doing.

So I am working on establishing basic routines for the daily tasks that need to be done. I find it easier than a schedule at this point. Because a schedule says that I need to have the dishes done by, say, 8:30. But if my husband and I were up late working on something and didn’t get up until 7:30, there is no way the breakfast dishes can be done by 8:30. That messes up my schedule, and then I feel overwhelmed. Instead, I have routines. When I finish breakfast, I start my after-breakfast routine, even if that happens to be at 10:00 in the morning.

The next post will detail my early morning routine, the one I do before devotions and breakfast. Then over the next few days I will go through the various routines I have established or am working on, just to share how I have modified Flylady’s methods to fit my home and lifestyle.

Do you have any routines that you have established? Please share them in the comments!

Life is kind of in upheaval at the moment. We have to be out of this house by the 20th. That’s a Monday. But  it’s also a holiday, so we scheduled pick-up for the furniture and other furnishings we were provided for the 17th. That means most of my kitchen supplies, the kids’ beds, most of our bedding, etc, will be gone just before the weekend. Not sure what’s going to happen after that.

Because they haven’t even laid the foundation yet! There have been delays of some kind. But we can’t afford delays! My son’s diet is very restricted and becoming more complicated as he gets tired of eating the same ol’ food over and over.

We have an open invitation to stay in a friend’s little camper about two miles from our property, but that’s not going to be easy. The fridge is minimal, and although our upright freezer is already in his shed, our refrigerator is in the back of the storage unit where all of our stuff is stored–completely inaccessible. So I’m not sure how we are going to be able to cook 2 meals and store food, even if I throw away all leftovers (not that there would be that many–I usually cook only what we will eat).

So here’s hoping they can get the foundation poured within the next week and the house installed. And the septic done. And hooked up. And final inspections made.

It’s really too bad we don’t have a second car. Because if we had, I could have gone over there a couple of times a week to keep tabs on things. My husband simply doesn’t have the time, between a full time job and college classes, though he still goes there at least once a week (usually on Sunday).

We may be able to get an extension on our stay here. If we do, that would be so much easier. In the mean time, I’m decluttering (not that I have a lot of clutter, but I do have a little) and tossing anything I don’t want to take. Or putting it in a pile to take to the Goodwill. And packing anything we don’t need between now and then.

I’m also cleaning bits and pieces of the home. Like last week I washed all the windows inside. Two weeks ago, I cleaned the ceiling fans. I’ve cleaned baseboards in some of the rooms, and I will be working on those room by room until they are all clean. I also need to clean the rental furniture before they pick it up. Some is just a matter of dusting, such as the coffee tables. But the kitchen chairs have padded fabric seats, and the ones around the table have gotten spilled on a lot. I know I can get them clean, though. A few months ago, we dispensed with Gislaine’s booster seat, which had been on one of the chairs. Where the booster seat had been was very clean, while where it had not been was very dirty–quite a contrast. But with several of my Melaleuca cleaners and a bit of elbow grease, I got it so you couldn’t tell what had been covered and what hadn’t. Which means it got really clean. But that’s not something I want to do until just a day or two before they are to be picked up, obviously! However, I could vacuum under the couch cushions anytime between now and the move. Maybe I’ll do that tomorrow. It’s not like the vacuum we were brought has been used all that much–being an upright, and not having carpet, about all it’s gotten to do is clean out the car a couple of times!

But you can be sure I’ll be glad to get back to 100% wood chairs! And not just because they are easier to clean. Lately my hips haven’t been in the best shape, and sitting on cushions seems to make them worse. Sitting on a hard surface is better. Don’t ask me why. But that happened last pregnancy too. I actually put a book on the seat of the computer chair (which is rather padded) so that my hip doesn’t pop out every time I sit here!

So we wait. I can’t wait to move and get settled. I’m so tired of the stress. It’s been especially hard on my husband, especially since my morning sickness the two previous months rather incapacitated me.

But for now, the kitchen is clean. I put away several things that didn’t belong there today and cleaned the counters with an herbal disinfectant. I made sure all the kids’ things were picked up in the living and family rooms. And I made the bed after changing the sheets.

Which reminds me, I need to fold those sheets we took off the bed. I kind of forgot about them earlier, but they are dry now. I’ll bet I can have them folded in about 7 minutes and put away and then I wouldn’t have to face them tomorrow.

Okay, this is going to be a random post full of random details about my life.

Unless you haven’t read anything on my blog lately, I am pregnant. Working on month 4 now. I’ve been bad and haven’t had any prenatal check-ups yet. But I figure at this point, I’m not too worried. It will be easier to deal with that after we move next month. That, and I’m procrastinating trying to find someone who is covered by my insurance who will do the prenatal care knowing that I am planning a home birth with a midwife. The one place I tried said they wouldn’t do it. They referred me to a birth center, and I haven’t asked my insurance if they cover that. But I’ll do it. Soon. I promise.

Morning sickness is almost gone. I still get queasy moments, but I don’t have to eat before breakfast anymore, and I haven’t thrown up for at least a week, so I know the queasiness will disappear soon.

I bought some wheat grass recently. It was on sale, and I figured that it would be good for the baby and me. I need all the nutrition I can get. (Speaking of which, did I take my second dose of prenatal vitamins today? I don’t remember.) For two days, my son loved it. I’d put it in his milk, and he would drink it as if it were chocolate milk! Then he decided he didn’t like it anymore. And I haven’t found a way to disguise it yet. His meals are too plain for that. Oh well… It was nice while it lasted! I, on the other hand, love the stuff. In juice or a smoothie. Especially a smoothie. Tonight I had it with a banana and blueberries. Mmmmm! That was bliss!

I wish it would stop raining. We are supposed to be out of this house by February 20. Since that’s a Monday and a holiday, we are having things picked up from here on the 17th. They have done some work, but it’s been raining so much that the contractor hasn’t been able to get as much done as would be ideal. That, and the other contractor who said he could do the septic, well, it turns out he isn’t licensed to do septic systems, and he didn’t know what he was doing, which meant he stalled and wasted two weeks. Because he isn’t licensed, we were able to void the contract, and Rafael got his money back last night. Thankfully the guy has an account at the same bank we do, so he was able to verify that there were funds for the check and the money was transferred instantly. This is good, because he needs to write a check tomorrow to the new contractor!

The long and short of it is that we may end up taking a neighbor of ours up on his offer to sleep in his tiny camp trailer. We spent a couple of weekends there this last summer. Rafael will take the bus to work (it’s cheaper than gas and will give him time to study that isn’t being interrupted by noisy children) and I will have the kids and the car. We have our freezer at his place already, but I hope we don’t have to stay there long, because the fridge in the camper is super tiny and Manny’s special diet requires that we cook double. But it will be nice to be back in the country, where the kids can run wild and explore and play outside. They are tired of our back yard here. It’s just grass, nothing else, unless you count the puddles from all the rain, and they just don’t seem interested in it anymore.

We are also filing suit against some of the people involved in the purchase of our home. I won’t go into details now, because the suit is just about to be filed, but let’s just say, I hope we win at least part of it, because we really need the money. Extra, unexpected costs, such as a more expensive septic system, have drained every last bit of money we have, except our $1,000 emergency fund (which is almost nothing for a family of almost 5). We even had to use the money we got to replace damaged goods like furniture and clothing to pay contractors. Which means we won’t have anything to replace those things with. Which means we can’t afford to buy them. Which means we lose the depreciation. We have lost so much money on this place, because we didn’t know a few things that we just didn’t know about knowing, being first-time home buyers. If we had known even one or two of them, we wouldn’t have made an offer! And I haven’t even begun to talk about how the stress has affected our family, and especially my husband…

But on the bright side, we do have a good lawyer. Honest lawyers are hard to find, but this one really seems to be. She bent over backwards to help us on the first part of things, getting a reasonable amount from the insurance company, for less than pretty much any lawyer would accept. So even if not for us, I hope we win something out of this lawsuit! I mean, 3 or 4 times she came to our home on her way home from work (she lives near us) to discuss details of this or that related to what we were doing, thus saving us the trouble of finding a babysitter and making a trip to her office (about 20 minutes away). And she’s always been on top of things, very prompt and assertive in dealing with each aspect of things. I can’t recommend Sandy Webb enough!

Something else I’ve been trying to do lately is be a bit more organized. Flylady has been helping me with that. If you’ve never heard of her, you should go check her out.

Which reminds me… it’s late and I need to go shine my sink and then go to bed. Manny was congested last night and didn’t sleep well, resulting in Mom and Dad not sleeping enough. So I need to go to bed earlier than I did last night and pray he sleeps peacefully all night!

Good night!

So I am just ending the first trimester of pregnancy, and with it goes the misery of morning sickness. And this time around, I have found some unconventional things that helped it.

You’ve probably heard of the typical soda crackers and eating frequent, small meals, especially immediately upon rising or before even getting out of bed. Well, soda crackers never helped with my first two pregnancies, and since I’m allergic to wheat, I didn’t feel like getting any. I tried rye crackers, but found them too bland.

Then the secretary at the chiropractor’s office mentioned that she had a friend who found that protein helped her more than anything else. After some trial and error, I discovered that if I nibbled on almonds while I sipped my morning glass of water right after getting up, I’d be able to get breakfast and eat it without any problems–or at least, get away with keeping my breakfast in my stomach, even if I was plagued by a little nausea after eating. Sometimes a cheese sandwich would help, or a little tofu.

There were times when I couldn’t think of anything I wanted to eat, and lunch or supper was almost ready. Juice wouldn’t really help, but I discovered to my great surprise that Melaleuca’s Sustain Sport electrolyte drink would actually help calm my stomach for 15-30 minutes. One might expect this would be from the sugar, temporarily bringing the blood sugar up (because when blood sugar drops, then the nausea tends to get worse), but it is sweetened with sucralose, not sugar, so I think it really was the electrolytes. I am not sure how Gator-aid would compare, since Sustain Sport has twice the electrolytes and is naturally flavored. Not to mention, it tastes good–not salty.

Every pregnancy has been different so far. The first time, that first trimester is rather fuzzy–I don’t remember much of it. I do remember not knowing when or if I might lose a meal and have to eat again. I also remember that eating fruit would help–I’d eat a little container of applesauce or fruit–those individually wrapped ones–before getting out of bed. Second time, anything sweet nauseated me. Apples would make me throw up about an hour after eating them. Bananas were instantaneous–I didn’t even have to swallow them! Cake lost its appeal (and I have a huge sweet tooth). This time, the worst trigger has been water. If I drink more than 2 or 3 swallows at a time, I’d better be in the bathroom! So I’ve gotten rather dehydrated. Thankfully, that is going away with the disappearing morning sickness, so I plan on drinking as much as I can soon!

So I don’t have a ton of ideas, but add them to the ideas of others, and something is bound to help. And don’t be afraid to throw up–you’ll most likely feel better afterwards.

What have you found helps you during morning sickness? Please share!

If you are familiar with the Flylady, you are probably familiar with the phrase, “You can do anything for 15 minutes.” Obviously, there are limits to that. I mean, unless you’re single, you probably can’t–and wouldn’t want to–limit your shopping to 15 minutes per store. But the idea is that if you don’t think you can do something, or simply don’t want to, you can make yourself do it for 15 minutes.

That’s how it was with me this evening. I had an orthodontist appointment in the late morning, but it’s an hour’s drive away and my husband needed to go somewhere else, so he dropped me off half an hour early. So we ate breakfast, packed a lunch for my son, and didn’t clean anything before we left. I ate lunch after the appointment (before the soreness set in) and took the train & bus back home–about a two-hour trip. It was 3:00 pm when we got home. And I was tired.

So instead of tackling the dishes and the laundry and such things, I sat down in a recliner and tried to nap. When my son decided to join me (but wouldn’t sit still), I put in a nice video for him to watch, turned the volume way down, and went to bed.

I got out of bed a little before 5:00, and was feeling rather groggy. Morning sickness had been mostly nil all day, and I still didn’t notice any, but I was tired and sluggish. Then my husband got home about 10 minutes later, and brought a whole bunch of fruit that he had gotten either free or cheap on the way home. I ate one of the oranges, feeling that I needed to eat something, and almost instantly my tummy began to complain. I moved away and sat down, hoping the feeling would go away like it sometimes did, but it just got worse. So I browsed facebook and tried to ignore my stomach for an hour or so, until I just couldn’t ignore it anymore.

I’ll spare you what happened next, but once I did what I needed to do and was feeling better, I ate a granola bar and decided that happy tummy or no (I was still not feeling 100%), I needed to do some shopping or we wouldn’t be able to eat cooked cereal in the morning (I’m hoping it will be gentle on my sore teeth–the orthodontist really tightened things up this time). So off I went to the store around 7:30.

When I got home at 8:30, I was feeling better, but I was also tired and didn’t want to face the kitchen. My husband had been very busy with things related to our house, so he wasn’t able to clean up–at least he had fed Manny while I was feeling so sick, so I didn’t feel it right to complain. But I didn’t want to clean up either. It looked like about a half hour of work to get the kitchen in order.

Then I remembered the Flylady and her favorite saying: “You can do anything for 15 minutes.” Yes, I told myself, I can clean the kitchen for 15 minutes. I’ll set a timer, and whatever is left when it goes off can wait until morning. After all, if we’re just having cooked cereal with nuts and fruit, there won’t be a lot of dishes after breakfast, so adding in a few from the day before won’t be a problem. And having some clean counters and a cleared-off stove will make breakfast so much less stressful.

So I put a cup of water in the microwave, set a timer for 15 minutes, and got busy. When the water was hot, I added a tea bag and left it to steep while I worked (I like to steep my tea a long time).

In 10 minutes, I was well over half way done. I stopped washing and rinsing  to clear and wipe the counters and stove, then washed a few more. When the timer went off, I took and extra 15 seconds to rinse the soapy silverware, and then took a look around. All that was left was my pressure cooker and a frying pan, neither of which I will need first thing in the morning. Everything else was done and the counters cleared and wiped.

And my reward? A nice cup of raspberry zinger tea. Mmmm!

Okay, it’s time to make the announcement official: I am pregnant. Due sometime in late July–I don’t have an official date yet.

I’ll admit it: I’m procrastinating the whole prenatal check-up thing because most days I don’t feel like even cooking and doing dishes, much less getting out and going somewhere. That, and I want a home birth, but I need to see if I can convince my insurance company to cover it. Otherwise we’ll have to pay the midwife out-of-pocket or do it unassisted–and the latter isn’t really something I want to do. I know I could do it, but I don’t really want to be without a professional, and I know my husband would feel the same way.

But that’s not why I started writing this. I just need to get some thoughts down on “paper.” A conversation I had with my brother brought this up, and I just wanted to get it out.

First off, this will be our third child. We had more or less planned on having more children. We just didn’t intend to have one quite yet. We are still living in the rental house, waiting for our place to be fixed up. The deadline for that is the end of February. So hopefully we will make that deadline, or pretty close to it. But after discussing it, we realized that a summer baby, while my husband is not in school (he’s going after his master’s in social work–just finished his first quarter) would be perfect. We could get into the routine of a new baby before school starts again, and he plans on taking paternity leave for a while to help the transition. We realized that waiting until he was doing his internship would not be a good time to have a baby, and if we had waited much longer, the age gap would be larger than we want. Manny will be 3 1/2 when the new baby is born. I’m 3 years older than my brother, and we always wished we could have been closer. So my husband and I are happy with this surprise pregnancy.

But my mother is not. She thought we should have stopped at two. Of course, because this one was unplanned, there wasn’t a whole lot she could say, other than that she hoped we were done. And honestly, I don’t think we could have timed it better if we had planned. Seems God knows best and overrules sometimes, in spite of what we may do. But she sure ranted and raved about it to my brother.

The typical American family has 2.5 children, supposedly. So congratulations are always in order on a second or third pregnancy. But after that, a lot of people will start asking questions like, “Was this one planned?” “How many are you planning on having, anyway?” And any American family that has a lot of kids gets discussed quite a bit behind their backs. Of course, the Duggars are on the extreme end of things, but I remember how my mom talked about the lady who moved to our town and came to church that had 5 kids. “She shouldn’t have so many. How can she take care of them all?” Hey, she ran a daycare! She knew what she was doing. At least in one sense. And she wanted more. What right did we have to say she shouldn’t?

I am not officially quiver full; I believe God has given us the responsibility to be sensitive to issues such as finances, the health of the mother, etc. But I think there is a lot of truth in the quiver-full philosophy. Children are a blessing. And if my husband and I end up having 5 or 6 or more of them, that should not be an issue that affects my relationship with my family.

Now, I know my dad’s family would be fine with it. My dad’s only sister had 5 kids, and now has at least 8 grandchildren and counting. My dad himself had 6 siblings, and he wanted lots of kids. My husband had 4 siblings, and his parents both came from even larger families. My mom, on the other hand, had two brothers, and I think she was unplanned, considering the age gap between her and her older brothers. It’s fine for her to look at the smaller family and say, “It’s so much easier on the mother, easier on the finances, and we are so close to the end of time, etc,” but she’s done having children. This is our family. We don’t know if we are done or not. I figure we’ll know when we get there. But that’s not something I’ll be able to know for at least two years, if then.

I was reading a post on one of the few blogs I still keep up with called Childrearing As Our Profession. As a young adult, my goal was to be a wife and mother. I’m a wife for as long as we both shall live. But I’m a mother in the profession sense only as long as I have children in the home. Of course, I’ll always be their mother, but I can’t really mother them once they grow up. The more kids I have, the more I’ll have the chance to practice that profession.

And I’ve made some mistakes along the way. I’ve let things slide. I’ve lost my vision of motherhood at times. But this pregnancy has been a wake-up call. Once the morning sickness wears off and I can focus on life again, I need to get my home and children in order. I can’t focus on that right now, because I’m in survival mode, but I know that I must soon. Because having another child won’t make it any easier, but being more organized and in control before that child comes will.

So there you have it. My thoughts on having more children. My brother asked me if we still are planning on 10 (I used to joke we would have 10 kids). I told him that we don’t know. We’re going to take them one at a time, and when we’re done, we’ll know. And honestly, I don’t care what my mother thinks. If we have 5 and she can’t afford to come to every birthday party, she won’t hurt my feelings. But she’s the only grandmother my children will ever have–my husband’s mother died a few months after Gislaine was born–so I hope she just accepts that this is our family and we are going to decide between us and God what to do with increasing it or not.

There, I’ve said my piece. It’s late and I’m going to bed. Thanks for “listening,” if you got this far.

A few weeks ago I told you that I was going to get P90X and do it. I may not have mentioned it since then, but I have certainly been thinking about it, almost every day, in fact. I’ve also been working hard to get ready for it. Every week I have increased my average workout time by 10-15 minutes, so that this week I am doing 50-60 minute workouts.

There has not been a day in the last 2 1/2 weeks that I have not been sore somewhere. Near the beginning of the month, I got so sore from a half-hour cardio workout that I could barely walk up and down the stairs at church two days later! I haven’t been that sore anywhere since. However, I have been mildly sore in various places–legs, abs, arms, shoulders… the soreness just moves, never leaves. And I’m sure it’s only going to get worse starting next Sunday! LOL!

I’ve been watching some of the P90X videos to get an idea of what they will be doing, and I have learned some things from them and also from the videos I have been using on ExerciseTV.tv. I noticed that the trainers would do circuits. They would pick 3 or more sets of exercises, and do either so many reps or so many seconds (30, 45, 60, etc) depending on the exercise, and whether it were strength training or aerobic. Well, I decided to apply that to my strength training at the gym.

Something else I learned was about working to failure, meaning you lift a weight heavy enough that at either 8-10 reps or 12-15 (depending on whether you want to build bulk or lean muscle respectively), you cannot life it one more time. Then you rest that muscle by doing other exercises, then come back and do it again.

This is the machine I was using.

So I took those two things to the gym last week. The first exercise I did was the machine bench press . I picked that and two other machines and did 1 set on each machine 3 times. Then I picked 3 more machines and did the same thing, for a total of 9 machines last Thursday. I was able to benchpress only 22 pounds with that machine.

Now, not only is 22 pounds a very small amount, but considering that when I started in late May, almost exactly 4 months ago, I started out at barely being able to do the 20-pound minimum, that’s really bad. I mean, gaining only 2 pounds in 4 months… But all summer whenever I would use that machine, I would do as many reps as I could, then rest for a minute, then do as many as I could again (usually about 12-14).

Tonight I went again. I started out at 22 pounds, but it was too easy. I got all the way to 15. So on the second round, I put it up to 24. That was still too easy, so I put it up to 26. I should have put it up to 28, because I still got up to 15 reps! So that’s a 4-6 pound gain in just 5 days! I worked the muscle to the max, let it rest, then did it again, and sure enough, I improved!

I also improved how much I could do with the bicep curl machine by a couple of pounds, so I was very happy.

That’s what P90X seems to be about. Only much more intense!

I can’t wait to get started. I’ll keep you all posted, probably with video posts. And I’ll post my modest before and after pictures (no guys except my husband will ever get to see the immodest ones I took yesterday) once I get them taken. And I’ll try to talk about other things on this blog other than just exercise. It’s just on my mind right now. Including my recipe for a homemade recovery drink. I need to actually make it first, though, and see how it turns out, before I post the recipe!

So are you planning a workout to get ready for the holidays? Why not share it?

I feel like blogging tonight, but I don’t know what to blog about. I think my friends are getting tired of hearing about me working out. I’ve posted about that a lot lately. I’m just getting over being sore from a rather intense workout I did Thursday. Going to try it again tomorrow. I’ve got to be ready for P90X next month!!

But enough of that. My husband went to the Goodwill Outlet today. That is such an amazing place if you have time to hunt. He found this set of CD’s for anxiety and depression and paid all of $1! It’s worth $400 brand new–and it was brand new! So he’s going to listen to it–since he’s going to be studying for a degree in social work, it will be helpful for him–and then we might sell it for a nice fat profit on eBay or Amazon.

He also came back with almost 25 pounds of clothes. He bought 3 pairs of jeans for himself, but one of them turned out to be a size 12 (ie, not men’s jeans!) and they fit me perfectly. Not to mention that they come to the actual waistline, which I like (makes the belly look flatter, unlike those awful low-rise jeans!). I’m going to use them for before and after pictures with my workout, since they fit ever so slightly snug, but by the end they should be nice and comfy (I don’t like jeans or skirts or anything digging into my waist, especially when I am sitting down).

He found a bunch of other stuff too. One was a shirt that he thought would be for Gislaine. Problem is, it’s an XL… I told him it would fit her in 10 years. We decided to give it to the 7-year-old neighbor girl who is big for her age. Maybe it will fit her in 3 years. Or just be an oversized shirt now.

He also picked up a bunch of shirts for himself. Pens in pockets have ruined a number of his shirts lately. Some he’ll use now, and others we packed for later when other shirts wear out or get pen marks.

He also found 5 or 6 pairs of training pants for Manny. They are a size 2T, and he’s growing out of that size, but if I get serious about potty training, maybe we can actually use them to help him learn, and then get some size 4T underpants once he’s potty trained.

If…

The weather has been hot here. I can’t really complain too much, because while the rest of the country sweltered, we were blessed with 70-degree days most of the summer. But we don’t have air conditioning, unlike most people, and I’m not really fond of sweating when I’m not working out, so we made do with opening windows at night and closing them in the morning, and avoiding baking during the day (I put the bread machine in the garage and made granola after 5:00 pm, so all the heat would go out during the night). Thankfully it gets cold here at night (high 50′s to low 60′s), and the humidity has been low, so it was bearable. I don’t know what the high was inside the house, but I suspect high 80′s. Which means that tomorrow the high outside will probably be lower than the high today inside. Note to self: After we move, be sure to buy a big fan to sit in the window.

We took Manny for a visit to the doctor last Friday. Which reminds me, I should have been blogging about that on my eczema blog. But I didn’t think of that until just now, and now I don’t have time. It’s almost bedtime.

Today is September 11. I shouldn’t let this day pass without a mention of what happened 10 years ago. I have mixed feelings on the whole thing (probably because I think there is something to at least some of the conspiracy theories out there), but the innocent victims’ families have all my sympathy! And then there are those who should have died but didn’t. The guy who forgot his briefcase, or the lady who got stuck in traffic. Or the pilot who should have been on Flight 11. Watch this–all of it:

[If you are viewing in Facebook or email, please click here to see the video.]