Hodie...

*ahem* Sorry, I just got done teaching Latin.

Today, I was going to blog (by that I mean brag) about my awesome multi-multi-tasking skills. You know, the ability to do not one, but ten things all at the same time. But then I realized, due to my multi-multi-tasking I have no time to blog.

Seriously, it was going to have picture and everything. You'll just have to take my word for it!

Happy Monday everyone.

Oh crap, it's Halloween isn't it?

Everyone has a weakness, here's mine...

So, I guess I've been living under a rock lately. (I'd like to call that rock "being a stay-at-home-mom-homeschool mom and wife to a husband who is way overloaded this semester") But I just now have become aware of the whole "Pinterest" phenomenon. Like a lot of things that become popular, I'm the last to know. (What is this whole iPhone thing I keep hearing about?) Well, because I'm a sucker for peer-pressure, I decided to check it out.

Now, from what I've been hearing from friends, Pinterest has a lot to do with decorating ideas and craft ideas. Um, well, not much decorating going on here. My couches were hand-me-downs from my parents (well, you all know one of my couches currently resides in my front hallway!), my curtains are also hand-me-downs from my parents. The only things hanging on our walls are wedding photos (because in my head I'm still 20 and gorgeous as I was that day) a cheap skyline print of NYC from Target...and a clock. Yep, decorated! Also, I had a cutesy little painted sign that I fell in love with that read "...and they lived happily ever after" but it went missing after we moved. I suspect Matthew had something to do with this. I loved that sign!

Anyway, like I was saying, I'm not overly into decorating or crafts. I was leery of Pinterest just because I was afraid it would be just the kind of thing to make someone like me feel not content in their life. After all, I don't even really have a house to decorate, or money to decorate with. And for the past six years I've done a pretty good job with being content regarding my place in life...ahem, as a moderately poor person. So I try hard to stay away from things that might screw that up for me...like Pinterest. And I was doing a pretty good job of it. Until today, I decided to see what all the fuss was about. Hellooo Achilles heel, guess what I found on there??

Homeschool rooms! Ahhhh. Omigosh. MUST.HAVE.SCHOOL.ROOM! Tidy little organized desks, blackboards on the wall, cute little cubby holes with school supplies, maps on the wall. Did I mention ORGANIZED!?!ah, currently our school room situation is like this: Elijah has a little desk in the living room and I have half a shelf on the bottom bookshelf that I literally STOLE from Matthew. Do you know what I'd give to have a school room like some of the ones shown on Pinterest? Well, let's just say it wouldn't be legal.

Weakness, major weakness. And so there you go. Must walk away and go back to being content with my situation in life, which currently does not include a schoolroom, sadly. Put it on the list of things like "second bathroom" and "kitchen with actual counter tops". Someday perhaps. In the meantime, I guess there's no actual harm in looking at these dream school rooms. Or is there?

I just realized...

that no where in my music collection (CDs and iTunes combined) can I find Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody"....this is a travesty!

How am I supposed to teach my kids Rock Music 101 without it? I will have to go so if it is available on iTunes ASAP. Seriously.

Monday Randomness...

I've sort of been lagging on the blogging front lately. As usual, not from lack of things to blog about, but from lack of time to blog. And even if I do have time it seems like something else crops up to slow me down, computer issues or just plain feeling lazy.

So here I am....

• Speaking of time restraints I'm still trying to keep up with my two big goals for the year. Finish my book, completely. And to meet my workout goal. Ehhh can I just say the workout one is probably not going to happen. But I will come close, which is good enough for me. I'm generally happy with my weight and body right now, so it's not that big of a deal to me. However, I'd like to try and stick to the goal just to make sure I'm still working out at least a few days a week. As for the book, well, we're getting there...


• And speaking of the book. I had to have a "conference call" with my editor, Laura, last night to discuss the ending of my book. *Cue dramatic music, dun dun DUN. Basically, like I was afraid of, my ending is slow and draggy, compared with the rest of the book which is fairly fast-paced and exciting. (Or so I've been told) So I still have a lot of work to do with it. Writing the ending has been so hard for me, mainly because I've never written the ending of a book before! Right now I'm just in the stages of thinking it through again, hopefully I'll get it figured out. My goal is to finished by early December and get Matthew to read it over his Christmas break. This will be his first time reading anything I've ever written, so it's more than a little nerve wracking!


• I had waaaaaay too much coffee this morning, just saying. Not a good thing, I'm a little stabby today...crabby...stabby...whatever.


• You know how they say your sense of smell is directly connected with your memories sometimes. This is the weirdest thing. But I got this dish soap and whenever I smell it I get this bad feeling. Like the smell reminds me of something really unpleasant. I must have used this particular soap during a particularly bad, stressful time in my life. It's apple or something, blech! I know that sounds totally weird and crazy, but it's totally true! I just need to throw it away and get some happy-smelling soap!


• Put that on my list...happy smelling soap...what does happy smell like exactly?


• The kids and I have a lot of fun fall activities this week. We're making caramel apples, painting their little pumpkin. Friday night we're going to have our annual pumpkin carving Halloween party. Saturday morning we're going Trick or Treating at the mall. So exciting!


• I made the mistake of dressing up like a pirate and playing with Elijah last week. Now he's asking me to dress up like a pirate and go to the mall with them like that. I tried to explain that that would make me a total dork, but he remained unconvinced...


• Elijah played his last flag-football game on Sunday morning. He was a little sad that the season was over. Matthew and I on the other, weren't so sad. I look forward to not having to be at the field at 7:30 every Saturday morning, especially now that it's really getting cold out.


• And speaking of cold...we're supposed to be getting our oil tank filled today for our heat. Oh yeah. Toasty and warm...soon anyway.


• Anyway, Elijah is done with his spelling words so I've got to cut this short. I'm going to try and blog more than once a week this week, but I can't promise anything. By that I mean I can't promise anything interesting, but lots of mindless rambles. You know what they say, "write what you know!"

PS...I like it when my spelling errors are so bad even spellcheck doesn't know what I was trying to say!

Resolved...

Or at least I was this morning, to kick it up a notch so as to meet my work out goal for the year. I'm at 90 hours and some change, which means I have 35 hours to go. Seems impossible right? Probably is. I had just decided that my best bet would probably be to get outside and do lots of walking. Not a problem since we live a few blocks from a lovely seaside walking path. Elijah loves to ride his bike, Sophia loves her stroller and I love walking. Also, it's a really good workout to keep up with an exuberant five year old on his bike. I swear, if I had a jogging stroller I could easily jog behind him to keep up. But alas, I do not. So I keep it to a fast walk, periodically yelling from far behind for him to slow down and wait!

So yeah, that was all part of the plan. Until I woke up and looked out the window. To my dismay it was rainy, dreary and downright dismal. They don't call it New England for nothing! So Jillian Michaels it is for today, then maybe some yoga.

Maybe I'll hit the pavement tomorrow...

In other news...

Clearly I've been a little busy the past few weeks. Thus my lack of blogging. I usually try to do at least two posts per blog a week. But even that has been a challenge. Not for lack of blogging fodder, but from like of time. As usual! I even considered briefly shutting down this blog since I didn't have much time to write. But today I realized I kind of like having my own little outlet, even if it's just to ramble to myself for a little while.

What have we been so busy with? Well, as I mentioned we had company this past weekend. We were supposed to be expecting my grandparents for the weekend (this afternoon actually) but as you've probably heard by now, my grandpa was in a biking accident last Saturday. He was released form the hospital yesterday and is doing much better. He still has three broken ribs, so I think it will be awhile before he's up to travelling again.

The kids and I took a much-needed Fall break these past few days. I took Friday off so I could finish up with all my cooking and cleaning I needed to do before Matthew's parents arrived. We also took of Monday and Tuesday of this week, which ended up being a great plan. This is the firs time we'd taken off from school since the beginning of the year nine weeks ago and we all really enjoyed it. Sometimes you just need a few days to take a deep breath in, you know?

But, now we're back on track and back to school as of yesterday. The only problem with a little vacation time is that it's always hard to get back into the swing of things.

I for one am having a hard time getting back to my writing after about a week and half off. I'm so so close to being finished with my first edits that it's not even funny. But I can't seem to hammer out these last few chapters, no matter how hard I try. I'm just lacking the focus it takes to edit right now. And that's more than a little frustrating to me. That's the problem with writing, it takes so much more than you can just muster up inside of you sometimes. You've actually got to have a little inspiration and a little heart to make it work out perfectly. There's just so much more to it than sitting down and making yourself do it. You have to feel it too. And right now I can't make myself feel it.

*sigh*

Though, fortunately, this isn't something new. And I know I'll snap out of it soon. Probably when I have a little more time on my hands. Which will probably be....never. Oops. Still I've made it this far.

Anyway, so that's a general update on things around here...

The company clean...

Ever heard of it? It's when you have incoming house guests and you completely panic and clean the house from top to bottom like you do only for company. You know, the proverbial "illusion of perfection". *sigh*

I love having company of course. Especially since we live so far away from all our family. We don't get company but a few times a year. Our last house guest was in March. So it's been awhile since my last company clean.

And I like cleaning really, I'm weird. Or maybe I just like the end result. I'm a big fan of an insanely clean house. At least, for the five minutes it lasts. My problem would be my tendency to procrastinate, until I only have 48+ hours until my company arrives and suddenly have to do a huge amount of cleaning. It sort of makes sense, since it will just get dirty again before they arrive, inevitably.

So, I've got my lovely little anal-retentive list written up with all the things I have to do. Least favorite, take down the shower curtain and wash it. Why? Because I'm short and it's hard to do,a and because I have these stupid shower curtain rings that take Herculean strength to pop open. So yay.

(Yes I'm writing an entire post about cleaning my house. Because I'm boring like that.)

My other plan is to go ahead and make a few meals so that I don't have to spend my entire weekend in the kitchen. Which means I will spend the entire day in the kitchen Friday, but oh well. It's for a good cause right?

At least I'm having back to back company. My in-laws will leave next Monday and my grandparents will arrive on Thursday. So I guess it's a two for one company clean.