Watch this, Mommy!

The boys have enjoyed playing outside today!! They like to play "roller coaster" and Joseph pulls Eli around in the wagon. They begged me to get a video....

I was trying not to laugh! I am such a bad mommy!

I've Fallen Off the Wagon!

My "friend" told me about $2 grab bags at Michaels full of awesome stuff....and I thought she was supporting my decluttering efforts! (ha ha...just kidding! I love you, Donna!)

I bought 7 grab bags...my table was overflowing....

$14 worth of "treasures"

There were 168 round magnets!!!!
Some of these will be donated and I'm thinking of using some of them for a craft project.

We got LOTS of stamps. I will be selling some of these at the consignment sale. :)

 

I was so surprised to find a mug with a W on it!! How perfect!

Some of this will be donated, some will be sold, some will go in my Treasure Box at school, and some will be saved for next Christmas. The boys have helped me sort through all of it...I even created a small Treasure Box to keep at home and the boys are doing chores to earn a trip to the Treasure Box. :)

Where a Kid Can be a Kid!

Joseph celebrated his 7th birthday at Chuck E. Cheese! He and his friends had a great time!! I didn't include all the pictures....I will try to post the other pics in an album on Facebook.



Little by Little

I haven't been decluttering as much as I did while on Intersession. According to the decluttering calendar I've been using, I was supposed to go through a storage shelf or pile for 6 days. I decided to tackle my closet!! Even though it is not completely finished it is time to move on to another project before I burn out and give up on decluttering! There's still a lot to do, but I'm happy with the progress I've made so far! At least I can walk inside the closet without climbing over "stuff!"

Here are the before/after pics:



I know you are all admiring the cool "artwork" that I have on my wall! Once all of the decluttering is finished I think it will be time to repaint the whole house! :)

The next project on the calendar is to declutter candles. This will be hard for me because I have candles spread out all over the house. I love my Partylite candles (my dear friend Pennie is a consultant...check out her website: www.partylite.biz/pennieg .) As I have been decluttering I have been putting all of the candles I come across in one area.

The next project is to sort through pictures!! This is another project that I will need to skip for now. I have pictures in several different areas and need to declutter those areas before I can do a really good job of sorting them. I have already sorted a majority of my pictures because I love to scrapbook. I usually take my pictures to scrapbook retreats so I can sort them when I'm away from all of the chaos at home.

The next project is to "only keep your good, sharp knives." I am happy to say that all of my knives are sharp because I recently bought a complete set of Pampered Chef knives with the bamboo butcher block! I got a great deal on them because I hosted a show. My mom was happy to take my "old" knives because they were nicer than her "old" knives.

This next project is one that I can definitely work on.....go through plastic bag/foil area! This is an area of my pantry that really needs work!

What a Week!

After my pity party last week, I decided to start this week with a more positive attitude...I was somewhat successful.

On Monday, Joseph and I had the day off and I had lots planned for us to accomplish! I woke up late and decided to keep Eli home with us instead of taking him to preschool. Big mistake! My list of things to accomplish was changed drastically....sometimes the boys play nicely together, but lately I have felt like a referree! We ended up sending something to Jarrod by FedEx, getting the car inspected, having lunch at Cracker Barrell with a gift card from Christmas, and heading back to the house. Later in the afternoon a good friend called to ask if we had dinner plans. We met her family at Pizza Inn and had a lot of fun! Even though I didn't get a lot accomplished on my "To Do" list, I still had fun with my boys...well, most of it was fun.

On Tuesday, it was back to work. Nothing too exciting happened that day...except the FedEx package arrived over an hour late and I got a full refund of the $27 I spent!

On Wednesday, I had a late meeting and didn't leave school until almost 5:00. I wasn't feeling great (my energy is still low from being sick) and I was tempted to go home and crash! Instead, I took the boys to Awana at church and spent some much needed girl time with a friend!

On Thursday, the boys and I came home earlier than usual because I had a lot of work to do. I had paperwork to complete for a meeting and totally procrastinated! In the end, I got it all done and was prepared for Friday's meeting.

On Friday, our family celebrated Joseph's 7th birthday!! After school, Joseph and I headed to the movie theater and he was SO SURPRISED when Jarrod and Eli met us there! He had no idea that his Daddy had come home early and picked up Eli. We had a wonderful time at the theater and are enjoying some quiet time at home now....well, mostly quiet...Eli just came in the room crying because Joseph smacked his arm. Here we go again....

Here is one of my favorite pictures of Joseph when he was a baby....

Feeling Defeated

***Warning....this is a pity party! It is VERY long!  I just need to vent tonight....

After getting so much accomplished during my break from work, I am feeling so defeated tonight. I knew I wouldn't be able to continue decluttering at the same pace, but I wasn't expecting so many things to go wrong this week. Before I get into my venting, let me explain a little bit about how I grew up...

I love my grandmother dearly. I grew up with her and have a very close relationship with her now. When I was young, especially during my teenage years, when I would complain she would say, "So many people have it worse off than you." My response...."Yeah, but so many people have it a lot better than me, too!" (Remember, I was a teenager!) As an adult, when I get overwhelmed or stressed, I constantly think about all of the people who have it worse than me. Sometimes this is good, but sometimes it is bad...I start putting unreasonable expectations on myself...

• If she can work 2 jobs, take her 3 kids to dance and soccer, volunteer at the school, and teach Sunday School, I should be able to handle _________.
• If she can take care of 5 kids after her husband left her, work full time, and never complain, I shouldn't complain about Jarrod working out of town during the week.
• If she can drop off her kids at 3 different schools and always get to work on time looking like she stepped out of a magazine, then I should not be late almost every morning!

There are many problems with this way of thinking. First, it makes you start to envy and resent other people, a lot of times these people are your friends. It damages relationships and does nothing to ease any of the stress that you are feeling. Second, sometimes it is therapeutic to let yourself have a pity party, without comparing yourself to anyone else. It can help to let go of everything you have bottled up inside...especially if you have friends and family that you can trust not to judge you or put you down. Third, it is also important to remember that these people that you are comparing yourself to are all dealing with their own issues. I sometimes negatively compare myself to one particular "Super Mom" who seems to always "have it all together." Sadly I recently learned about some serious issues she is dealing with in her life.

I am now going to have my own pity party....I need to stop thinking that I should be able to handle everything on my own and keep it bottled up. I am only sharing these things so my friends will be able to support me and pray for me. This is not meant to make anyone feel sorry for me, because I do realize how SUPER BLESSED my life is!

Lately I have been feeling like a total failure as a wife, mother, teacher, friend, home owner, dog owner, church member, etc...  I don't feel successful in any of these areas. I constantly feel overwhelmed and "barely hanging on."

As a wife, I know when my husband comes home on the weekends it is stressful for him to walk into a house in chaos. I made so much progress on decluttering, but this past week I went back to work, got sick, had a sick dog that woke me up almost every 2 hours, etc. The house was truly a wreck when he got home. I feel really bad for not making our home a more welcoming environment.

As a mother, I constantly feel guilty because I don't have the boys signed up for sports, scouts, lessons, etc. The only extracurricular thing they are doing right now is Awana at church. I have promised Joseph that I will sign him up for guitar lessons, but I haven't done that yet. I think Eli would love to get involved with sports, but I keep missing the deadlines to sign him up.

As a teacher, I feel pulled in so many different directions....teaching, testing, paperwork, meetings. There is never enough time in the day. This is my 15th year teaching and I LOVE my school and LOVE my students; however, I don't love the direction that our public schools are heading. More and more expectations on teachers with less staff to get it all accomplished.

As a friend, I have been feeling very guilty for not doing a better job staying connected and finding time to get together. On the weekends, my time is usually devoted to Jarrod since I don't see him during the week. During the week, if I want to have a Girls Night Out, I have to find someone to watch the boys. I've recently been feeling like I may have hurt a friend's feelings because she hasn't been talking to me as much as usual...maybe I'm just paranoid and she's just super busy like me.

I am not going to continue going through each area of my life....I think the blog has a limit on how long your posts can be! :) I would like to thank you all for the encouragement you've been giving me as I declutter. Today I stayed in my pajamas and napped on the couch while trying to recover from this bad cold (I think it's just a cold.) I hope to get back to my projects soon!

Thanks for letting me have my pity party! Now it's time to get back to work!!

More Progress

Even though I am not posting to my blog every day, I am still working on the decluttering challenges. I decluttered and organized our medicine shelf. I was shocked by how many of the medicines were expired! :(  Here are before/after pictures:

It feels really nice having this cabinet cleaned out. I am excited that I am starting to see progress in so many different areas. Slowly, but surely my house is getting less chaotic!

The projects on the decluttering calendar for the next 3 days said to go through one bathroom drawer or shelf. I decided to focus on 3 shelves in the linen closet. Even though it isn't technically in the bathroom, it stores all of our towels and some of our extra toiletries. I couldn't wait to tell Jarrod that I found one of the attachments for the vacuum cleaner. He has been asking me about it for a long time!

Here are those before/after pictures:

I am NOT good at folding sheets (obviously!) When Jarrod gets home I will ask him to help me fold them again.

The decluttering calendar now has 6 days in a row to go through a storage shelf or pile. This is going to be a big challenge for me....I have LOTS of "piles" of stuff to sort through!! Stay tuned for more updates!!