Lent

For those of you that don't know, yes, I am Catholic. I was married in a Catholic church and both of my children have been baptized, but, yes, I attend Inneract at a Baptist church and Garrett goes to Cubbies at the same Baptist church and both kids will most likely attend MDO and Preschool there next year. That being said, I am still Catholic and try to stay true to my religion. More of our friends are Baptist and so we seem to be attending more and more things at Central Baptist, or at least I do, Matt doesn't really like Central, he feels too many people go there because it's "the" place to go and not for the right reasons.

But, I digress, yesterday was Ash Wednesday, the beginning of lent, which ends on Easter Sunday. Catholics do not eat any beef, chicken or turkey on Ash Wednesday or Friday's during lent, we also do not snack on those days, to remember the sacrifice that God made for us. We also usually give something up. This always seemed hard for me, I don't have any true "bad" habits, I don't smoke or drink soda, or any caffeine for that matter, I'm not a huge sweets eater. I'm kind of boring in that way. I remember my mom saying the whole point is to try and better yourself, or make a sacrifice for God.

It took my a while, but this morning, as I was playing with the kids, I decided to do a journal, and everyday I am going to jot down 3 things I am thankful for. Why 3? I felt one was just too easy, the sunshine, my kids, my health, etc. 2 seemed a bit harder, but 3 seemed like I'd really have to think and that's kind of the point. So, starting today, I am doing a journal on the things I am thankful for. Wish me luck!

Office

This room might have been the worst in the house! It was just a dumping ground for everything that had no home and after 2 birthday parties, it had gotten really bad!

It's still a work in progress, it probably will be for a while and I haven't even started on the closet yet, but it does look a LOT better, at least I think so!

I spend a lot of time in here, especially since we started this business, so it needs to be kind of kid friendly too. It is a lot more organized now and I don't dread coming in here to get some work done.

Pantry

These pictures don't show how bad the pantry was, it was getting pretty bad!!

Here is my medicine "box", this started out as two, messy shelves. I did throw out some expired stuff, but it was amazing how nicely it all fit into this one little bin.

This is the after of the pantry, again, i don't think the picture does it justice. I use quite a few bins in here, one for cake decorating supplies, and one for party supplies (leftover table clothes, napkins, etc), and one for leftover plastic silverware. I also had a basic system going in there, but I just cleaned it all up and put everything back where it belonged and cleaned up everything that was just thrown in on the floor.

Laundry Room

About 2 weeks ago, I decided it was time to organize the house, I was gung ho for about a week, then ran out of steam, lol! But, here's the before of the laundry room:

And here's the after:

It didn't take me long to fix this room, it was pretty horrible, but it's not big, so it was fairly easy. And, I"m happy to say, it's stayed clean since I finished it.

day 2

I don't plan on posting an update on my weight daily, but I did want to say that yesterday went SO much better then my first day. I ate really good and even managed to get a 45 minute walk in, and it showed, I lost 2.1 pounds! I normally gain weight when I start working out, so this was completely unexpected, but a nice surprise!

Today, uhm, probably not that great. The food at Inneract is always good and I'm not good at eating enough beforehand, but I only had one, small sweet, and filled up on fruit. Then lunch at McDonald's, again not a great place to eat lunch, but I had just a cheeseburger, a couple fries and water, so not as bad as it could have been.......we'll see if the scale agrees tomorrow!

Weight Loss Challenge

I am bound and determined to lose the last of the weight I gained when I had Garrett. I've lost all the weight I gained with Payton and a few more. I think I just get complacent, it's an easy weight to maintain, so I just hang out here, but I'm never truly happy when I look in the mirror. I decided that I push myself to do a lot of things, why not push to lose a little more weight, or at the very least, tighten up. See, there I go, I always have an alternative, no I want to lose more weight. Am I overweight, no, would a lot of people be happy with my weight, probably, but that doesn't make my a bad person for wanting to better myself, does it??

Ultimately, I want to lose 12 pounds (well, 13, I hate horribly all weekend and it shows), but I'd like to get to 125, yes, I put it out there, that's how much I'd like to weigh. Maybe it'll keep me more accountable if anyone who reads this knows how much I weigh and how much I want to weigh!

so, yesterday was day one, I weighed in at exactly 137.0 pounds, I did not exercise and I had a homemade sausage, egg, cheese and hash brown taco, I had some misc leftovers for lunch, potato chips and french onion dip for lunch, a small, homemade, cheese taco for dinner before Cubbies and then white, chicken chili for dinner at 7. Not a bit of it was good. Well, the chick chili actually is not bad, but I ate it way too late.

today I weighed 137.3. Yep, going the wrong way. Today, I am purely exhausted, Matt worked ALL weekend so I single mommed it for the weekend and it was an extremely busy weekend, at least for us. So, my plan today was to lay around and rest, that may still happen, but I'm hoping the warm weather will kick my butt in gear and I will take my 3 mile walk with Payton after we eat lunch.

Underpaid

Do you ever feel just SO underpaid, well, lately, I've been feeling severely underpaid, and since I get paid NOTHING, in some ways I'm justified in my thinking.......

I take care of the kids from 6:30am to 8:30pm. Matt is often just purely exhausted when he gets home, so he's not much into "chasing" Payton around the house or giving baths, etc, he does like to read stories to Garrett though and that is a huge help.

I do some minor chauffeuring, not enough to complain about though.

I am also the cleaning lady, chef and laundromat. I do about half of the grocery shopping, I will admit that I hate grocery shopping and Matt seems to like it, so he does do that often, and for that I'm very thankful.

I also handle all the books for the business, I make estimates and invoices and email those out, I do the payroll, I do all the banking and I do run around town (and outside of town)collecting checks.

I also do our taxes (well, this year I did them, and then took them to a friend at H&R Block, because i didn't want to mess them up). Next year I will definitely have an accountant do them, I do not want to take any chances now that we have an actual business with real employees.

I fight my way through Quickbooks, that alone is worth about $100,000 in a yearly salary, lol!

I do not get paid with anything but love, I am usually awakened at 6:30 by a kiss from Garrett. When I go in to get Payton from her crib, she is SO excited to see me, she just about bursts, so I do too. I know that my husband truly appreciates not having to worry about paying the bills or going to the bank (a task he loathes for some reason). I hope that the business is going to be better off because I do struggle and try to understand Quickbooks and that running around all over the place to pick up checks allows Matt to focus more on making money. And all day long, I get to hear "mommy" and "mama", and isn't that a huge payment in and of itself. And of course, bedtime, when Payton finally snuggles into my shoulder (even if it's for only 1 second and no longer), and I lay in Garrett's bed and we read stories & sing songs and he wants to hold my hand and kiss me, that's all the payment I need. (Now, if only I could bottle up all that love and take it to the bank so it would help pay the bills)