This is mainly to organize my goals in my mind and also to keep myself accountable to accomplishing those goals.
(Read: Probably will not interest you in the least.)
But feel free to read along anyway!
This year I want to:
- Lose the mommy muffin.
- Develop a daily schedule.
- STICK TO SAID DAILY SCHEDULE.
- Develop a weekly schedule that has me staying home more and CLEANING THE BATHROOM more.
- (Because seriously. It’s been cleaned TWICE since Benjamin was born.)
- (And one of those times was just last night.)
- Start teaching Olivia! (You know, stuff besides obedience and how to lick spilt sugar off the counter while baking cookies). Stuff like the alphabet! Numbers! Counting! Now that she can talk, I’m really getting EXCITED about the possibilities.
- Get Benjamin on a regular schedule. Gently, gradually, but by golly, sometime this year it WILL HAPPEN.
- Once the “regular schedule” starts working well for us, we want to start getting Benjamin used to sleeping in his own crib at night. This scares me. He’s just a leeeettle attached. Which I half-love, and am half-tired-of-already.
- Write more What I Believe posts. What, you thought I was done? No, I just got a little busy, what, with the mobile Benjamin trying to eat wires and all. But I want to write on co-sleeping (ironic, I know, as I just mentioned I want to move Benjamin to his own bed), breastfeeding, nutrition, and *drumroll* being the parent God wants you to be.
- Either find a bigger apartment, find an affordable house, or convince Josh we CAN have three children in a two bedroom apartment. 😉
Well, speaking of motivating myself to do things… that pile of dishes will not move itself into the dishwasher… so off I go!
(Oh, and any help on any of the goals, from the muffin to the alphabet to the co-sleeping, is GREATLY APPRECIATED. Thanks much!)
Three. Posts. One. Day. give me a minute to pull myself up off the floor.
So, I will tell you there are houses out there that are cheaper to buy than an apartment rent. I promise! It’s the boat I’m in right now!
We found the same thing as Stephani- that there are houses that are cheaper or about the same as renting, when looking at the mortgage payment.
The catches:
1) You have to get approved for a mortgage, and standards are tightening because of the current mortgage crisis
2)Once you take into account insurance, taxes, mortgage, mortgage insurance, maintenance, purchases like a lawn mower, etc, a house WILL be more expensive.
3) You have to (or, rather, probably should) have a down payment when buying but not renting,
4) Many places in the country, buying is practically always more expensive than renting, period. Where you & I live, it’s a toss up.
5) Buying’s “break-even point” is 5-7 years, so if you’re not going to be living in a place very long, buying may not be worth it.
That all said, now’s a great time to buy, if you can get approved for a mortgage. House prices are low (and dropping, so if you’re going to sell quickly, you could lose money.) and it’s a “buyer’s market”
There are lots of forclosures and HUD homes out there that are greatly reduced in price. You don’t need a down payment to buy a house, there are programs out there that can help with this. We never put a down payment on our house, and we won’t be for the next house we buy.
As for daily schedule for cleaning, have you tried Flylady? She has some good concepts if you stick with them.
Flylady is great. Even if the 500 daily emails drive you batty and you cancel, you might still pick up one or two great tips that can change your life in those itty bitty life changing ways.
My ABC tip is this: the Leap Frog Letter Factory DVD is freakishly effective. Freakishly.
I think you would love my friend Megan’s blog, if you have never seen it:
http://sortacruchy.blogspot.com/
Re: the muffin
I have no idea what you look like, but I’m sure God made you beautiful. You’ve had two children with no interruption, so expecting to look like you did before that is *unrealistic.* If you have any history of an eating disorder or body hatred in general, ask someone else’s opinion who you trust before trying to lose any weight.
That said, these are my suggestions, in no particular order:
1. Stop reading any fashion/ beauty magazines or watching TV. It’s hard to be happy with yourself when surrounded by plastic, fake people.
2. Read “The Obesity Myth.” Great book.
3. Stop drinking anything but water most of the time (even diet pop makes you fat, they say).. I dropped 5 lb when I stopped drinking cranberry juice cocktail all day long
4. Cook from scratch with real food (I think you do that a lot already)
5. Find something you like to do that’s active. Doesn’t have to be at a gym, going for a walk with the kids is good enough as long as you do it a lot.
If you do those things, regardless of what the scale says, you’ll probably be a fairly healthy individual. I think our society makes WAY too much of a big deal about numbers on the scale.
Hee hee, I may have been a motivation for you to convince your hubby you can have 3 kids in a two bedroom 🙂
But, we’re moving—into a 3 bedroom and I’m so excited!
It’s a leetle stressful to pack everyone into the itty bitty living space.
By the way, I liked that last commenter. I’ve seen pictures of you and you seem really thin. Our proportions do change with the childbearing, but it doesn’t look like you should lose any weight. Just my opinion!
Do you have Barbara Curtis’s “Mommy Teach Me”? It’s amazing. You’ll love it for teaching Olivia!