Finishing!

If there was an award for starting the most projects I'd win hands down! If there was an award for not finishing the most projects, I'd win that too. I am notorious for having great ideas and starting them, but I am not a great finisher. Jim's classic example of this is the stack of books with bookmarks (all usually less than 1 cm worth of pages away from the front cover) sitting on the top of the shelf next to my bed. I also have at least 5 unfinished scrapbooks (at one point in my life I did actually work on these), and organizing projects either begun or hatching in my brain in every room in our house. AUGH! No wonder I make myself stressed and frustrated, and no wonder I always feel like I haven't accomplished anything at the end of the day when I haven't even sat down. Can anyone else relate?

My mission for the summer is to simply finish. Finish a book before I start another, go through the stacks of paper I've piled in the office and kitchen to file "later," finish the hosta bed in the back, finish staining the fence...you get the picture. I know that I will never be able to finish all the things I've started or begin to tackle all the other things I'm itching to start, but I have actually managed to finish a few things things I set out to do! If you read a few weeks ago, I DID finish cleaning out ALL my kitchen cupboards and install a shelving system in our garage. Woohoo!!! Current projects to finish: cleaning out clothes, filing and wrapping up paperwork in more places than I can count, clean out the bathroom cupboards, deadhead and prune in the yard, and finish reading Inheritance. Think I can do all that in a week and a half? Wish me luck!!!

Lovely day!

Top 10 things that made today fabulous, even though I overslept this morning!

• Started my day with a mocha from Caribou
• Got to "work" today with 3 amazing teachers from WF. While working on our district curriculum for next year we shared a plethora of inspiring ideas and resources!!! Found some GREAT third grade blogs for inspiration / Pinspiration!!!
• A colleague shared an idea that will solve my classroom organization woes...1 small bookshelf for each student table, complete with book boxes, text books, math toolkits, and kleenex!
• Had a blast with Josiah at my school today while he "helped" me move things from my old room to my new room. He did make lots of messes, but for the first time he picked up each mess prior to making a new one without complaint! Ahhh...and he was in a great mood to top it off!!!
• Ate on the patio at the golf course with my two favorite boys. Had a delicious wrap and fries (so unhealthy, but so good!)
• Jim and Josiah made chocolate cookies...being a spectator for that was SO much fun.
• Eating homemade chocolate chip cookies.
• Two Pinterest projects --- extra special payment gift for Josiah's babysitter this week and snazzy thank you notes printed off to have on hand.
• My laundry is done and the house it quiet.
• Look what came today!!! I cannot wait to learn how to use this thing and combine my two favorite things...making things on my computer with cute fonts and being crafty! Hmmm...what to make first...labels for the pantry that I just reorganized or lettering for my classroom...

Ok...enough playing on my computer...it's 12:53...if I'm not mistaken one of my New Years Resolutions was to be in bed earlier so that I could read, rest, and be up earlier. Guess I'm not meeting that one this week...

I heart summer break!

So I survived a few days without Josiah...ok, I LOVED a few days without Josiah. He is totally my favorite little man and I love his energy, enthusiasm, and non-stop inquisitive mind, but having a few days to myself allowed me to do some of the things that just aren't possible when he's here. Jim and I went for dinner on the patio at Ushers without having to get a sitter, think about how he was doing, or rush home. It was so wonderful to have a date! I was able to run errands TWICE! Again, without rushing or consideration for any kind of schedule. I can't remember the last time I did that! Finally, I cleaned out and organized our kitchen cupboards and the garage. Woot woot!!! I'm pretty sure that neither of those have been accomplished since Josiah was born, and having two of the spaces in our house that are used most often and store the most "treasure" back into a temporary state of order makes life just seem to function again. Oh, and did I mention that I got to blare my Friends reruns, stay up way too late, and then sleep in since no one came crawling into my bed in the wee hours of the morning? 

We have so many fun things coming up in the next few weeks too that I can hardly stand it! 3 different trips in 3 weeks time!!! We get to spend a weekend + a week at the lake and head to the cities for at least a week too. After visiting the MN Zoo, several parks in the cities (including the one formerly known as Chutes & Ladders), seeing cousins & grandparents, and spending so much time at the lake Josiah is going to think Fargo is awfully boring. Hopefully he'll be ready for some down time at home. After so much excitement (and packing and unpacking) I'm going to be ready to just settle in and enjoy my too few weeks at home. Oh how I love warm weather, all day with Josiah, and getting to do things that the school year doesn't permit! 

I HEART SUMMER!!!!!

Kidless - What's a mom to do?

I am sailing through uncharted water in my world. For the first time since December 5, 2008, I am home alone without my son for the next 3 days. Yikes! Over the past year Josiah has slept over with his buddy R across the street probably 2-3x when we've taken turns going on dates, but that's been the extent of our separation. Alright, yes...we are probably WAY overdue for this, but without grandparents or other family nearby we've never had the option. My parents graciously offered to take Josiah to the lake for a few days, and OMG was he excited!!! Watching the sparkle in his eyes as he ran around collecting his whiffle balls, butterfly net, baseball glove, golf club, bike...was so much fun. And I only cried for less than 5 minutes after I got him in his carseat in my mom's car (yes, I'm clearly inexperienced in being home alone)!

So, what am I doing all by myself? Well, since Jim was already sleeping by the time Josiah left, I did the only logical thing a mom can do...start cleaning out our kitchen cupboards! I'm pretty sure that some of them haven't been cleaned since we moved in 6 years ago, and even those that have been cleaned more recently have become a gigantic cluttered mess over the last 3 1/2 years. Now, those of you who know me well are probably thinking...Laura is one of the most organized people I know (or so it may seem), so her cupboards can't possibly be that bad. Well, they were! I cannot believe some of the things that I've put up with (like about 200 random lids in our tupperware collection). The kitchen has been on my list for at least a year, but I knew it would require a great deal of time and deliberate planning to actually get everything situated how it needs to be. Now that I've discovered Pinterest and an AMAZING blog devoted to organizing totally my style I've been dying to get our little abode whipped back into shape. If you haven't already been here, check out... http://iheartorganizing.blogspot.com/ I'm pretty sure Jen and I would be great friends if we lived closer together!

So far I've gone through all our dishes and created a "kid zone" cupboard, downsized our tupperware from two gigantic drawers to half of one, and emptied everything out of the pantry to our kitchen table. Here are a few pix of what's done!

Previously a baking cupboard...
What I hated: everything was hard to pull out, the vitamins were taking over the bottom shelf, there were cds, scissors, and candy shoved in random places, and it just looks like a jumble of randomness.

Now, it's our cupboard for all things kid-related! (Inspiration from blog sited above) What I love: everything for Josiah is in one place and not mixed in with adult dishes, Josiah's vitamins and medications are corralled in one container, and the two cups I found at Target for his utensils are super cute!

Forgot to take before shots, but all my baking gear needed to find a new home in another cupboard, and since I don't typically grab those items on a daily basis I decided to move all our dishes to the bottom two shelves in these two side-by-side cupboards and store mixing bowls above. What I love: now that I adjusted the shelf heights all our tall coffee mugs can stand up and not lay on their side (what a concept!), I can reach the cereal bowls without Jim or standing on a stool, and there is no longer coffee or snacks for Josiah mixed in with dishes!

Tomorrow will be my first full day on my own, and I can't wait to finish! I will be on a mission to pick up a few more organizers for our kitchen utensils and pantry, clean out the spice cupboard, and replace all the empty yogurt containers in my tupperware drawer with quality BPA-free plastic and glass containers. Woot woot!

Disclaimer - yes, cleaning out and organizing makes me more excited than the average person, and doing it at 2:00 am only intensifies that. But since I don't have anyone waking me up in the morning for the first time since Josiah was born, I can stay up as late as I want and be able to recover!!! See y'all tomorrow for phase 2!

Almost summer!

Occasionally in life there are events or periods that cause you to doubt everything you know to be true, reevaluate your vision for your life, and begin to recreate many of the habits and routines you run as you move forward. These last few months have started one of those cycles in my life. Despite a challenging year at school and a few personal struggles that have spurred my chain of thoughts, I am grateful for the opportunity to refocus my life and become a better wife, mother, friend, and teacher to everyone close.

Learning that…

·      We need a weekly routine

·      We need a clearly defined budget and a way to track it

·    We need a 5-year and 10-year plan so that we know how to get from now til then

·      I need to take time for me

·      There are non-negotiables in life…I just need to figure out what they are

·      We need more active time

·      We need to spend more time with friends

·      Life is too short to try to be someone I’m not

  ·    Blogging is strangely therapeutic, even if no one reads it! :)

   I am SO looking forward to summer break. More than any other year I need to clean, sort, purge, and organize both at home and at school so that next fall I can feel that I'm stepping forward with a fresh start. There are SO many things I'm excited to begin, especially now that I've found Pinterest and many inspirational blogs. I may be crazy, but I'm going to clean out half our basement (I'd do the whole thing, but Jim's shop is on one side), finish organizing our office, spring clean every other room in our house one at a time, finish the last flower bed in the backyard, and move and "zone" everything in my classroom to another room while getting all these crazy good ideas I've found online ready to put to use. I'm praying that I can actually get through all that and maybe even throw in a few "pinteresty" projects, turn 2 years of pictures into Shutterfly books, learn how to take full advantage of everything my new laptop has to offer, read a few books, and spend all kinds of long-awaited summer bonding time with Josiah. Basically, I just need to spend my summer doing things that I enjoy (yes, I'm type A and all that organizing makes me happy) and regaining control of the things I've let go. Even though I already know I won't get to everything I'd like to, the next few months will still be amazing! Wish me luck!!!

Here's the first project I tackled:

Before (roses, rocks, a few dying tulips, and our little tree)...

Add these beautiful flowers from Baker (my favorite nursery in town)...

Haul my grandparents birdbath from the back yard to the front and you get...

A better balanced flower bed that will be much fuller after a few months of sun and TLC (minus the dog, who stepped in just in time to block my pots)!

My Spring Break "Trip"

While many of my coworkers and students were off to Mexico, Hawaii, the Bahamas, etc, the Clarey family stayed home all week long. While we might not have a tan, we did love every minute of just being home and spending time together. Josiah and his Mama have decided that they could use another week, in fact! Here's a look at what we did!

Family shopping trip for new kitchen appliances! Woohoo!!! We now have a new microwave OVER our range (loving more counter space), complete with working light and vent. We've only needed that for the last 5 1/2 years!!! Still to be delivered...flat top range, dishwasher, and 3 new light fixtures!!! Now if we could just decide what we're going to do with our atrocious kitchen floor...

Lots of projects!!!

Planted sunflowers and herbs - he is SO excited to see the plants sprout! Our next planting projects are going to be a terrarium and a fairy garden for the backyard...go check them out at Baker if you are in Fargo!!!

Josiah also graduated to a larger carseat, picked out new shoes for spring and summer, played outside in our new gigantic snow pile, went sledding... What a week for him! He's going to need to go to daycare to recover from spring break!

I even went on my own organizational "trip" and tackled all those neglected piles of paper that I despise sorting to file, shred, or throw (invoices, bills, coupons, magazine articles, you name it...).  I should have taken a before picture of our office so that you can truly understand the magnitude of neglected filing. It doesn't help that in addition to being our personal office, the same room houses Jim's company office and my Mary Kay office and inventory (and it's only about 8x10 feet). For all the organizing I seem to do, we certainly were nowhere near functional. My mission included going through and relabeling every file in alphabetical order, going through stacks of unfiled documents, making a coupon binder, and getting a Home Management Binder set up (not done, but ready to start). I have almost touched every paper in our office, and I've determined that I need to have a deliberate plan for how to manage this (hence the binders). So excited to be rid of messes and on a mission to make sure it doesn't happen again!!! I realize this may not be the most impressive accomplishment to most people, but for us it was huge!

Here's my lovely coupon binder (my couponing friends will be so proud)!

Now I just need a second week off so that I can do my spring cleaning!!!

How to Stay Awake & Drive Your Parents Crazy (by Josiah)

Apparently our son has adopted our night owl tendencies. This is GREAT in the summer when we all stay up til the sun goes down, and then he can sleep in until 8:30 everyday. This is NOT great during the school year when after bedtime is the only quiet time I have to accomplish anything work or fun-related, and we have to be up and out the door LONG before he'd like to crawl out of bed. 

Here are just a few of the lines I hear coming from his dimly lit (with 3 night lights, bedside lamp fading on a timer, and occasionally a flashlight illuminating one wall) bedroom:

• Mom, can you flip my pillow? (he likes to sleep on the cool side)
• Can you make this warm? (one night his comforter had come right out of the dryer, and now he regularly requests to pair his cool pillow with a warm blanket...ironic?)
• Need to go potties.
• Need to go poopy.
• Can you turn the red light on? (the one that fades after half hour)
• Can you snuggle a little bit?
• Can you flip my pillow?
• Need to go potties.
• Can you snuggle me in?
• I need my friends. (stuffed animals)
• Can you put my friends in the living room?
• Can you flip my pillow?
• Wanna rock a little bit.
• Can we read a book?
• Can you cover me up?
• I'm hot.
• I'm cold.
• Can you flip my pillow?
• Need to go potties. 
• Can you sleep a little bit?
• Can you turn the red light on? (usually 3 times since most nights it takes at least an hour and a half to fall asleep)
• Can I sleep in your bed?
• I don't like sleeping by myself.
• Can't sleep in my bed.
• Can you flip my pillow?

AUGH!!! At least I still get to rock with him occasionally (as long as he asks before he's in bed), we both love to snuggle with books, and I have one sweetheart to love. Maybe one day we'll get back to falling asleep peacefully and I'll regain my quiet "me time" at night...