Goals

I want to put my goals in writing, because when I do, I notice I am much more likely to acheive them. I am not a very flexible person, and when unexpected things come my way (husband's illness, pregnancy, etc.), I tend to give up altogether, rather than continuing to move in the right direction. Perfectionism is not a good thing when it comes to achieving goals because I tend to have an all or nothing perspective. Flexibility is something I definitely need to work towards.

Goal #1: Re-establish a meaningful daily quiet time, rather than the hit or miss and arrow prayers I tend to be doing currently. This is especially important since I am missing a lot of church, right now.

Goal #2: Make sure that I am drinking enough water. I am having trouble with dehydration, and with my history of pre-term labor, I must keep up my water intake.

Goal #3: Revamp school program. With me being so sick, I cannot do everything I was doing before, but I need to do more than I am doing now. I may use books on tape and educational videos to aid me.

Goal #4: Re-establish a daily routine of housework, schoolwork and relaxation/free time. Work on a MOTH schedule.

Goal #5: Declutter and organize master bedroom.

Goal #6: Work on training younger children to do assigned chores. Also work on training Eenie to do more advanced chores.

A Very Productive Day

Today, I feel like we've accomplished a lot of work around the house. We had a helper come today from our church. While I worked on bills, medical paperwork, coupons and general organization/decluttering, she cleaned the main bathroom, mopped the kitchen floor, organized/decluttered the bookshelves in the living room, set up our arts/crafts drawers, vacuumed, and cleaned the back patio window. The laundry is mostly caught up, and the house is mostly straightened except for the master bedroom. I have a lot of work to do in in there decluttering and organizing, but the arts/craft supplies got done today and that was a huge portion of the mess. My short-term goals are to maintain the laundry, pay bills, dust the living and dining areas, clean the back bathroom, vacuum the bedrooms and begin decluttering the master bedroom. The master bedroom will be a long term project since it needs a complete overhaul. I also want to go through our books and organize them a little better, donating some to the library. Spring cleaning makes me feel productive, but tired ;-)

O What a Beautiful Morning!

Today is going to be another beautiful day before the cold front comes in tomorrow. Yesterday, I made quite a dent on the laundry basket and finished all of the bedding in the kids room. "Eenie" got the kitchen totally cleaned and dishes caught up and all three of the kids got the living room, kitchen and hallway floors picked up and then vacuumed the front part of the house. I also made my hubby's favorite dinner of Taco Soup. We will probably not accomplish as much today, since I have a doctor's appointment this afternoon and will have to get everyone ready. Today, our goal is to maintain what we have accomplished and, if I feel like it, I may do one more load of laundry. If I am up to it later, I may work on the checkbook and bills.

The nausea is still very bad for me. I keep hoping and praying that it will be over soon, but historically, I have it the whole time :-( This is greatly interfering with my productivity, and I am really feeling compelled to get it all done in the next month or two. This afternoon I will be having a checkup for the baby. Hopefully, everything will be going well and we will hear the baby's heartbeat or get to see it on ultrasound.

My kids had another boot camp session yesterday. They are going to learn that I mean business and that they must obey immediately. This is a hard lesson, I know, especially when things got very lax here over the last few months. It's amazing how attitudes and actions can change when I administer a healthy dose of discipline ;-) As for me, I need to work on doing this in *love* and not *anger* which seems to be my reaction to everything which irritates me right now.

Happy Wednesday :-)

Today, the weather is beautiful and I am happy. I finally got out of the house last night to do something FUN! I had a Charlotte Mason meeting and enjoyed fellowship at IHOP afterwards with my book club group. It was nice to be able to do something just to relax. The house is slowly getting better--still have a long way to go, but we are making progress. The kids room is almost completely done. I just have a little bedding to wash and the floor to vacumn. I may also spend some time going through the toy boxes for misplaced items and yucky happy meal toys that need to disappear. I have inventoried clothing needs and they will all have to have some new shoes soon--especially the girls. We will be stopping by some consignment shops soon, I am sure.

My bedroom can now be walked through without knocking over piles of stuff. I do still have some piles to work on, but they are to the sides and corners of the room, so that they don't block my way to the bathroom in the night ;-) I have a plan for tackling some of the storage issues in the bedroom. I bought a small Rubbermaid three drawer dresser to organize our craft supplies, which are in a sad disaaray. The dresser has its place in my back bathroom, so all I have to do is gather and organize when I have the time.

The front part of the house still needs some decluttering work and just a good general cleaning. Right now, my highest priority is to catch up on laundry. It is stacked fairly high in the laundry basket and I want to get where I can just do a couple of loads every day or two and not have to do laundry from sunup to sundown.

These are my short-term goals. Hopefully, I can get things taken care of before I get too much sicker or further along in my pregnancy.

We are also working on some good habits for the children. I want them to each have their routines down with their own personal checklists that they can look at each day to remind them to do things such as change their underwear, brush their teeth, etc. For the little ones, I will be making checklists with pictures. Also, we are going to work on immediate and complete obedience. The kids have been struggling with this habit over the last few months, and we definitely need to get this one back.

Ups and Downs

Good news! Jason did well on his first day back at work. They are being really good to him and letting him do easy work. The bending over was difficult for him and made him sore (he is not used to wearing his work pants with a belt and they irritate his surgical site). Today, he got his evaluation and a raise!! I was very surprised and grateful that God is continuing to provide for us.

Bad news! I have to take my kids to the dentist this morning and I am not holding down food :-( I took some medicine to help, but it has some unpleasant side effects so I can't take it continuously. I was hoping that the nausea would subside for me now that I have hit twelve weeks, although I am usually sick the entire time. Please pray for me.

Also, I was a very grouchy mommy yesterday. My house has been turned upside down over the last three months and, of course, I want to get everything back all in one day. I am so nauseous and exhausted that I drove myself way harder than I should have. Well, things were not happening the way I had envisioned. My kids have become undisciplined and not used to working hard and staying on task. I told them we were having baby bootcamp, and no drill seargeant could have been sterner. I know it might be better to take things slowly, but I am wanting to get things back in case I am put on bedrest and just simply because things are driving me nuts :-0 Also, with Jason, I never know when the next emergency is going to hit, and I want to be ready.

Happy Monday :-)

Jason went back to work this morning. I have no report from him, as of yet. We are expecting him to come home pretty sore and tired these first few weeks until he finds his groove again. The rest of us at home will need to find our groove again too :-) Daddy is not a schedule and routine person, so the last few months have been hectic, to say the least. The children and I will need to spend time recovering the house and getting back on schedule. I think the kids are happier and more well-behaved on a schedule and with me being so sick from the baby, I *really* need them to be happy and well behaved and for things to get back to a more manageable state around here. My house looks like a train wreck :-0

Resurrection Sunday

Resurrection Sunday will be here tomorrow! Normally, we have certain family traditions surrounding our holidays. Our children have felt a little short-changed this year, as many of our family traditions have gone by the wayside over the last three months (we never have finished our Advent story from Christmas and the Valentines are still in boxes that have never been opened). They have been asking about the usual things we do for Easter such as the resurrection story eggs, coloring wooden eggs (because of our egg allergies), and, of course, the candy. Our current plan is to do an abbreviated version of the celebration by hiding the wooden eggs we colored last year instead of coloring new ones and limiting the amount of candy, etc. that we distribute. There will be no new clothes or haircuts (we are all looking very shaggy). In light of Christ's sacrifice for our sins, none of these things are really very important, but I realize that they still mean something to my children. We are hoping to go to church tomorrow (this will be the first time in over two months that we have been), so, hopefully, everyone will be feeling well and energetic enough to attend.

Going Back to Work Monday :-)

Jason got his release to go back to work on Monday, March 24th. He thought about going back tomorrow, but has decided to do some work on his van instead. It has been having problems, and now that we need two vehicles again, it is time to get it running smoothly. Please pray for him as he heads back to work. While he is doing much better, he still isn't back to where he was before all of this happened.

Hope all of you have a blessed Resurrection Day!

Doctor's Appointment Today

Jason has a doctor's apointment at 3:15pm. His goal is to go back to work tomorrow. I will update later with the doctor's report.

A Goal in Mind

This coming Thursday (March 20), Jason will be going back to the doctor to try and get his release for work. He was planning to see the surgeon again, but Dr. Hemric is back in the hospital with heart trouble. Please keep praying for him. He will be seeing the internal medicine doctor instead.

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

We have all been suffering with the flu over the last week or so. Jason seems to have been hit particularly hard. He has run a fever for several days now. He was doing better about getting up and moving around, but since getting the flu, he is now back to being in bed almost constantly. The kids are finally getting over it, although they seem to have a cough hanging on that I would like to see gone.

One funny: The night "Miney" (age 3 1/2) came down with the flu, her neck started aching very badly. I guess she didn't know how to tell us, so she stood in the middle of the living room floor and just burst out sobbing. We asked her what was wrong, and she replied, "My neck has diarrhea!" :-)

Blessings to all of you.

It Is With Great Sadness. . .

that I share with you news of a dear friend's passing. Mrs. Glenna Conley passed away today after being removed from her ventilator. Mrs. Conley was preceeded in death by her only child, Carla Gambill, who died in 1997 of breast cancer. She is survived by her faithful and loving husband and two grandsons who live in Louisiana.

My heart is broken at the loss of such a wonderful woman. Her husband has stood faithfully by her side since the onset of her illness in October. Medicare simply wouldn't pay for any more time in the facility which allowed her to remain on her ventilator. Please pray for her husband. He is weak and exhausted and obviously very distraught.

March 4th

The last few days have been rough. "Eenie" is recovering from the flu, which "Meanie" has caught now. So far, no one else is showing obvious signs. My nausea is getting so bad that I am forced to spend much of the day lying down. It is frustrating. Jason has been more active this week, but it is still causing him quite a bit of pain. He has decided he is going to have to get up and work through the pain if he is going to stand any chance of going back to work in a few weeks.

Our best friends are in town from Kansas City. We had hoped to spend more time with them, but with our illness, we were only able to spend a couple of hours with them this evening. Maybe the next time we try to get together it won't be cold and flu season :-0

Thank you for your continued prayers. Please keep praying for Jason's recovery and strength, strength and health for me and baby, and health and strength for our children.

ETA: Please pray for a dear couple that we know. She has been on a ventilator since Oct after several health issues. She is not doing well, and they haven't been able to wean her from the vent. They have run out of days that Medicare will pay for her care and are looking at having to shut off the ventilator. She is 83 and her husband is 79. Their only child (my aunt) died 10 years ago, and they have no close family here to support them during this trial.