Sick :(

Sorry I haven't been on in a few days. With all the office moving I haven't had much time, and then Monday night I came down with strep throat. Talk about bad timing! So yesterday I was home sick all day. Today I am exhausted and still don't feel good, but since I'm on antibiotics now I felt like I should come in to work. I felt so bad being gone during our big moving week! But, I will probably not be online much for the next couple days :(

I Survived

Whew! I survived last Thursday's being at 3 places at one time, and the busy Saturday. Thursday I ended up having Joe go one of the places I needed to be, then I had one of my part-time employees meet me at another place and I gave her instructions of what to do and the key to lock up. Then I rushed over to the third place. So, it all worked out.

Saturday was Brendan's 1st basketball game. Poor kid, he was so excited but once he got out there I think he realized that he had no clue what he was supposed to do. Too busy being silly at practices to really grasp an understanding of how to play an actual game. He did okay though. I don't think anyone expects a 1st grade team to play very well anyway. He kept sticking his hands in his pockets, which was the most frustrating part. How can you be ready for the ball if your hands are in your pockets. Never again will we take him to a game wearing pants or shorts with pockets! Although, now I'm worried that without pockets his hands will be down his pants instead! lol They were cute though. They don't keep official score with the 1st grade teams, but we're sure his team won 3-2 (although the coaches tell them they tied).

Here's a pic of Brendan trying to make a basket (he's the blur shooting the ball). He missed that one, but at practice he is able to make baskets a lot.

At one point, Brendan was upset that he wasn't playing so well, and Adam saw that he was upset and went over to him and gave him a hug. It was so sweet. I'm so glad I was behind them with the camera handy!

Later that day Brendan had a scout event, a rocket derby of some sort. I thought this was going to be outside, but I was wrong (thank goodness!). They had given us the rocket a few weeks ago. We thought it was just a little kit to put together real quick, we hadn't even opened the box. Come to find out it was just a block of wood and we were supposed to sand in down into the shape of a rocket and put the propeller and wings on, paint it, etc. Whoops! So, while others had been working on theirs for a long time, we started the night before. Joe got it sanded down into the right shape. And Brendan painted it...about an hour before he had to be there! Talk about last minute. It still looked fine though, and he got 2nd place in his heat.

We're still busy packing and moving our offices and such. The guys that have been helping us move the big stuff have been awesome. We are so thankful to have their help. It's also been fun having them around. We should be completely moved by the end of next week. Then the unpacking and trying to work out all the kinks of being in a new location begins.

I'm not complaining though, my office will now be only a block from where Adam goes to preschool. A BLOCK! I can walk there if I want. And the park that Brendan goes to day camp at over the summer is ACROSS THE STREET from my new office location. So this summer both boys will be within close walking distance to my office. Doesn't get any more convenient than that! And lucky Joe, he won't have to take or pick up either boy anymore.

More later on basement progress and such...

X-Box at 4:50am

Is it normal for a 3-year-old to get up at 4:50am asking to play the X-Box? Cuz that is what happened this morning. As soon as I got up, here comes Adam running out of his room asking to play the X-Box. Perhaps we have overdone the video games with the boys. lol They are obsessed with it. Joe's sister and brother-in-law gave them their X-Box for Christmas, along with a lot of games. Between that, the computer games, Brendan's Gameboy Advance SP and Adam's Leapster, plus the V.Smile in their room, I'd say we have more than our fill of video game options now. Although it's hard to tell them not to play it, when their daddy can sit for hours playing Spider Solitaire and Bookworm Adventures on the computer. *sigh* Okay, okay, yes I have been known to play the occassional Bejeweled 2 marathon now and then too, but not for very long or very often.

I still haven't had a chance to break out my new Dance, Dance Revolution & dance pad for the X-Box yet. I'm hoping this will be a fun way to get some more exercise in. Bet you didn't know I was a dancer, huh? I'm not, not really. I did use to dance on the poms squad in high school, and I even tried out for and made an All-Star Dance Team and performed at half-time of one of the bowl games, but that was about 15 years ago. I've done little or no dancing since then, except for when I've had a lot to drink at wedding receptions and such. lol So, it should be interesting to see if I can even begin to keep up.

Speaking of drinking, lol, I actually got to kinda go out last Friday night. We met for drinks for a co-worker's retirement, and a lot of our department showed up. A few of us stayed for quite awhile, and ended up going over to another local place that is kind-of like Hooters, only not as classy. lol We had more drinks there and hung out. It was fun. I almost never get to do things like this anymore, it was a nice little break from the usual evening routine of dishes, laundry, making dinner, getting the boys ready for bed, cleaning up after the boys and hubby, etc. And I got to know a few co-workers better, so that's kinda nice too.

Tonight is a crazy night, have to be 3 different places at once, still haven't quite figured out how exactly to pull that off, but I'm working on it. Saturday is a crazy one too, basketball game, scouts event, and temps are supposed to be in the low teens. Did I mention the scout event is OUTSIDE and goes for 3 HOURS?! Ugh!

But oh how I'm looking forward to Monday. I am off work. Joe is off work. Brendan has school (snow make up day) and Adam has preschool. WOOHOO!!! This means several hours with no children at home that we can actually get some things done! I am super excited about this.

Tackling, Basketball, and More

I never did get my Tackle it Tuesday up yesterday. We didn't really make any progress on the basement this past week. I did do some little half "tackles" like getting my car cleaned (most of it) and menu plan for the rest of January written down. The biggest tackling has been at work this week. Lots of going through old files, storage and packing and such. I emptied a whole file cabinet that has been in my office for the last 10 years (as long as I've been there) and I threw away everything in there except 4 little files. Sad that I let it sit there taking up all that space for 10 years when 99.5% of the stuff could be thrown away!!!

So far this week Brendan had basketball practice Monday night, and then Tae Kwon Do Tuesday night. His team's first basketball game is this Saturday! I can't wait to see him play. They will be so cute, I'm sure. We also have a scout event (rocket derby) the same day.

Things are pretty busy at work and at home right now, so I don't know how much I'll be able to get around to blogs and update my own. Once mid-Feb gets here I'm hoping things will slow down a little.

Menu Plan Monday

MONDAY: Grab 'n Go whatever you can find (basketball practice night)

TUESDAY: Sloppy Joes

WEDNESDAY: Garlic Lime Chicken

THURSDAY: leftovers

FRIDAY: Pizza/family night

SATURDAY: Stir Fry

SUNDAY: Potato Soup

Rainy Thursday Blahs

Not a lot for me to write about today. We haven't done much more on the organizing front yet this week. I'm waiting for dh to finish building shelving in the garage so that we can move the rest of his stuff out of the basement. The area we are building the new laundry room is filled with all sorts of his stuff that needs to be out first.

Tonight Brendan has Tae Kwon Do, so I won't get much if anything done at home tonight. Friday we're meeting for drinks after work with a guy that is retiring from our department, that will be nice, I almost never get to do stuff like that anymore. After that I'll go home and have pizza and movie with the family (our Friday night tradition). I believe Nanny McPhee is the kid movie on it's way to us this week (we do the Blockbuster.com thing). I really didn't want to see this movie, and was not planning to put it in our Queue, but then I heard from so many other moms that their kids loved it. I decided maybe the boys would like it too, so I added it. I really have no desire to see it though. lol

Sunday I'm going to my sister's January Jumpstart scrapbooking crop. I really don't have anything ready for that, haven't even looked at my stuff for a few months.

Just feeling kinda blah today. There's so much that needs to be done around the house, and things I'd like to improve on, and so little time. We're also in the process of packing stuff up at work, as our offices are moving at the end of the month. When I'm at home I think about everything that needs to be done at work. When I'm at work I think about everything that needs to be done at home. lol It's so cold and rainy today, I just want to wrap up in a big fuzzy warm blanket and take a nap. Don't think my boss would allow that though. lol

Off to get more done...

Tackle it Tuesday: Basement Update

Okay, so I haven't been posting my "Tackle it Tuesday" lately, but I'm back to it now. And, since I'm focusing on getting organized big time this year and wanting to post my progress on that anyway, it just makes sense to update my progress on "Tackle It Tuesday" each week. So, here we go. If you've read my previous post below, you know that we are tackling our basement. This is a HUGE project that we were supposed to do LAST winter. We are in the cleaning it out phase and rearranging some things to prepare to build a couple of rooms down there.

We worked on it New Year's Day, and then this past weekend, so far. This is what one corner of the unfinished part of our basement looked like part-way through the clearing. I forgot to take a true "before" picture until I had already cleared a lot of shelving off, etc. That empty shelving was packed full of stuff originally, and there was a whole pile of stuff on the floor in front of all that shelving too.

We eventually got it all cleared out...

And then I painted the walls to try to brighten things up. We're not really finishing this part with drywall or anything, but I wanted it to be something other than just grey concrete basement walls. So, I painted it yellow. Doesn't look all that good, there are many indents/pocks in the concrete, so it is not a smooth finish, but at least it is brighter.

I bought some of those foam square floor mats that fit together and put that down on the floor. Then we moved some of our exercise equipment in last night. There will be a wall on one side that's not there yet, because we'll be building the laundry room next to it. So, I can't really finish covering the floor yet, and we haven't moved our treadmill in this area yet, but at least we are well on our way to getting this corner of the basement organized. Yea!

Getting Organized in 2008

As I mentioned in my previous post, my goals for 2008 are focused around ORGANIZATION!!! Organization in many areas and ways...House, car, office, scrapping, time, activities w/ the family, meals, thoughts, plans, visits w/ friends & family, and so on. Just taking one thing at a time and figuring out how to best organize it and make it work with my life. Some organization are of "things" others are more abstract.

I'm not setting any strict time table for these, nor am I setting specific things that will be done, I'm just going to be focused on taking things a little at a time. Just so long as things are better at the end of the year than they started, that will be success in my mind.

First thing is the basement and getting it prepared for the remodel. We made pretty good progress on New Year's Day considering the limited time we've had. We got a double set of shelving moved out of the basement to the garage, and another double set (these are huge wood shelving sets that were packed full with all sorts of miscellaneous junk collected over the years) emptied and moved to another part of the basement and re-loaded with tubs of our camping stuff (all together and neat, not strung all over the basement in various places where we never know where things are like they were). We also emptied a third set of double shelving that was built in the middle of the room and we tore that shelving apart and removed it completely (since a wall will need to go there when we make the laundry room). We went through a LOT of boxes of stuff we haven't even looked at in years, and we threw out a lot of stuff, set stuff aside to freecycle, and organized the things we did want to keep into plastic tubs & bins and everything will be put with like items grouped together on the shelving like they should have been in the first place.

We have a very long way to go, but it's a start at least. I am going to be keep track of our progress on things throughout the year here on my blog. I think that will help keep me motivated to keep going, even if things seem to go slow. I have to keep enough motivation to not only keep myself going, but to keep lighting that fire under Joe to get busy too. That's the difficult part. He would put all of this off another 5 years if I'd let him. lol

So, if you're interested in watching our progress on all sorts of organization, keep checking back for updates :) I'll even have embarrassing "before" pictures- ugh!

So, what are your goals for 2008?

2007 Goal Results

Looking back, here's what I had set as goals for this past year, and how I did...

1) To lose 15-20 lbs and eat healthier in general
YES!!! I lost 24 lbs between May and December.

2) Continue to declutter and organize the house
Ummm, this is a forever on-going thing that I still do not have a handle on.

3) Get our basement remodeling done & everything moved into the new rooms once they are built
NO! The garage is basically done, but we have yet to even start onthe basement remodel. *sigh* This will be on the 2008 list again.

4) Make menu planning a habit (and other FLYlady routines too)
Sorta, I am better about menu planning than I was, but still go through phases of not doing it.

5) Find a church and start attending
No, can't say this happened :(

6) Scrapbooking goal: finish the 2006 album, and try to keep up with2007 as it happens.
YES!! I did finish the 2006 album, and I did stay fairly caught upwith 2007, sorta, I think I'm on fall 2007 now.

7) Think of something really fun to do for my b-day in March, since hubby decided to cancel our Texas trip that we were going to take that week!
KINDA did this, we ended up taking the boys to Silver Dollar City inBranson for part of that week.

So, I didn't do too bad with 2007 goals. Now on to 2008. This year my focus is going to be on all kinds of ORGANIZATION!!! I will post more details later.