Spring Break

Sorry this is up later than I meant, it's been a LONG day. Between grocery shopping and cleaning, I feel like it's been a non-stop day. I was in shock when 7:30 hit because I was sure that it couldn't be that late. But it was!!!

So what's with the title (since it has very little to do with my long day)? Well, Beautiful G has spring break for the next two weeks and I plan on taking full advantage of it.

When I was a teenager, I was sure that I was going to home school my kids. It seemed like such a brilliant idea. No drama or ridicule (I wasn't liked much in high school, OK?), knowing exactly what my kids were learning and knowing they would be ahead of the curve. I also dreamed I'd be living in a house in the Middle of Nowhere Ohio. Fortunately, as I got older I got a bit wiser. I talked to home school parents and learned that many have fewer social interactions, making it harder to transition into the "real world". And being ahead of the curve really depended on how much you put into it. So we decided that our kids would go to regular old public school just like we did.

At the same time, I'm a huge proponent of the idea that the biggest teacher my girls have is Dave and I. Beautiful G's class for the first two weeks of school held 42 kids. Once they split in week three, she went down to 24. Even at 24 students, that is a lot of kindergarteners whom are all on different levels. While I do expect the school to teach her, I understand that I, as a parent, have to step up and help because there is no way her teacher can do it all.

Which leads us to Spring Break. I've decided to turn Spring Break (and summer, once we get there) into our own version of home school. It's kind of scary, because it means a level of organization that I'm not always known for. Which is probably why I'm over preparing. The more prepared I am, the better off she'll be. I'm also including stuff for Sunshine to do since otherwise Beautiful G will either not focus on her work (problems we already struggle with) or whine that Sunshine is playing and/or messing with her.

So what are we going to do? I'm still building an exact plan, but my first goal is exact times that things get done. If I know that at 10 we are supposed to read for a half an hour, then that's what we'll do. Since she's a little behind with her numbers, we'll give them special focus during spring break so she'll be more up to speed when she goes back. Mostly, I want to keep her on track and to keep going for when she does get back to school.

As for the blog, I promise I'll still be posting. I will still get the coupon match ups done. Times may be off a little bit, but you'll get it. I promise!

The Walk and the Tent

Today was the day away from home. I made plans with my friends Kate and William today (you'll hear more about them later.) The girls and I went down to their place and while we were hanging out, Kate and I decided to take all four kids (Beautiful G, at 5, was the oldest. The youngest was 9 months) and walk down to the store. We did take the double stroller (thank goodness!) but the walk, OH MY GOODNESS!

They lived farther from the store than I thought plus the sun finally made it's appearance while we were gone. We walked for 2 hours! By the time we got back, the only kid who hadn't ridden in the stroller was Beautiful G, mostly because she was too big. The good thing was that Kate and I got to talk during the walk. I haven't talked to her like that for awhile, mostly due to scheduling conflicts. Plus, I convinced her into using coupons (when you start using coupon math, it's hard for people not to be convinced, I've found)

After our very long walk, we headed down to my mom's house. A few weeks ago she bought a Gigatent Fantasy Palace Play Tent on woot (the link here is for Amazon, if you want to see what it looks like or buy one for your kids). It finally came earlier this week and we wanted to show it to the girls. Since the walk took longer than we thought and Dave got off work earlier than he planned, he and my mom got the tent up before we got there. They were sitting in the backyard, with the tent, when we got there and the girls took to it immediately. The girls went from exhausted to full blown run in no time flat!

They loved the tent and we learned just how sturdy it was when Beautiful G fell into it (popped right back up no problem.) Mom let the girls take some of the toys out to the tent too, so they were enjoying playing with their toys in it. The walkway in the middle was shorter than my girls, so we could watch the "wave" when Sunshine walked through it.

Eventually the weather started getting chilly and grey, so Dave put the tent away and the girls came inside to play and have Grandma read to them. Among other things, they read The Cat in the Hat Comes Back (Beginner Books(R)) and Beautiful G read several words from the book herself. While I understand she's supposed to learn to read, it's quite something to hear your child read words from a book you read as a child. Talk about a tear jerker!

Honestly, we had an awesome day, one I wouldn't trade for anything. It's days like this that make me so glad to be a mom.

No TV equals slower day?

I admit it, in the morning, the girls and I watch PBS. I don't turn on the TV until after breakfast/dressed and we only watch PBS or something educational on Netflix's Watch Instantly. I turn it off when it's time to get Beautiful G ready for school or on her days off, at lunch time. It equals a couple of hours, usually.

Today we haven't had the TV on at all. This is because Beautiful G and Sunshine currently have a disaster of a room and I refuse to turn on the TV for them until it's clean. While they aren't cleaning (they are playing. Supposedly, we'll clean it this afternoon before dinner. I say we'll see.) they are playing with lots of toys and I'm noticing something very interesting. The morning is going by about 10 times slower than normal. Normally I feel like I lost the entire morning and I don't know where it went. Today I'm sitting here thinking "Is it time to take Beautiful G to school yet?"

The other good news is that my kids aren't just staring at the TV or playing their Leapsters (educational video games. Also taken away until their room is clean.) They may not be exactly "learning anything" but they are using their vast imaginations which is just as important. They also aren't bugging me for something to do, which kinda surprises me since I usually have someone going "Momma, look at me! Mommy, help me with this! Mommy! Mom! Momma!"

It's Twilight Zone day and I think I like it.

Yesterday

I do love that song. Of course, I'm a Beatlemaniac, just born 19 years too late. Anyway, this isn't about the song "Yesterday" it's about my actual yesterday!

First, I want to say OWWW! Which is to say that I did my exercise and I used my new workout DVD. I picked up Jillian Michaels "Blast Fat and Boost Your Metabolism" and OH MY GOSH THAT WAS HARD!! I didn't finish. I did the warm up and 2.5 of the 7 circuits she has. Today, my thighs, especially the back of my thighs, hurt! Unlike when my calves hurt, at least I can walk without pain. It's just squatting or doing anything that includes bending my knees deep that hurts.

So I did my exercise. One marker toward my goal.

I also filled up my bookshelf. I am renowned for procrastinating, even on things I want to do, so doing this right away is a big thing for me. I also found a bunch of books I had either forgotten I had or thought I got rid of. One of those is a book on SEO that I got for free at the L.A. Times Festival of Books last year. The guy gave it to me, telling me it was about online writing. I just started working for Demand and thought this could help me do more. Then I saw it and thought "this doesn't matter for what I do". Well that was only sort of true! I was still of the mind that it was fairly useless when we moved last June, but something caused me to keep the book and now I'm glad I did! I have a new book to read, one that hopefully will help me here.

Another thing I found was my control journal from the FlyLady. It's mostly filled out, but I need to update it to fit our new schedule. Still, it was exciting to find it so that I don't have to redo it all.

I did my work for Demand that I should have gotten done yesterday, but not my work for Suite 101 or my own writing. Since Demand pays quickly, they have priority and yesterday priority won.

Beautiful G signed up for basketball in early November and we still hadn't heard anything. I've called a couple times to be told "you'll hear soon". Well I remembered and called again yesterday. I finally talked to the person in charge (the first time in all my calls) and found out that it was supposed to start yesterday at 5! Nobody had called me prior to this, so I started planning my day around that, including not making french bread (AGAIN!). Then I got a call at 3:30, since the coach couldn't reach most of the parents, she moved it to next Monday.

So I got one goal completely done, I am on track for one and behind on everything else. And today is questionable on what I'll get done, since Sunshine and I have to drive about 45 minutes (one way, so 1.5 hours round trip) while Beautiful G is in school just to get a piece of paper copied since my scanner won't work without a USB cable and we seem to only own mini-USBs now. How did we get rid of all of our USB cables when we got rid of our desktop??? Am I nuts??? Well, here's to getting as much done as possible!

New Year, New Blog

I am a Stay At Home Mom. Yes, I said it. The thing is, though, that I'm not very good at it. In fact, I'm very bad at it. I'm a good mom. I'm not so good at taking care of the rest of it. If you walked into my house right now, you'd find that my kitchen is cluttered with stuff (again). My dining room is clean, but only cause I swept it this morning in frustration. The girls have laundry that's been in the basket for almost a week but still hasn't been put away. And don't even glance in my bedroom!

To be honest, I'm not very domestic. I'm just not. But I want to change that. So I'm going to. And while I'm at it, I'm going to blog about it. One thing we've done as a family is set some goals and I want to focus on meeting them. So we're going to. And I'm going to blog about them.

So what are our goals? Well I'm glad you asked!

My personal goals:

1. Blog here (Mrs. Undomestic) and HERE (my baking blog) daily. This one is simple. Get on here and blog! This will also include promoting the blog.

2. Make enough money every month from various work projects to cover both car payments and the car insurance. Right now I work for a couple of content mills along with monetizing the blog. I have calculated how much I need to make daily to cover the expenses, not counting weekends. The new goal is to actually get it done!

3. Keep my house clean, not just halfway, almost clean like it is now. I'm a fan of the FlyLady system (which I don't follow well). I even own her book! I'm going to follow this to keep my house clean.

4. Complete a novel. I love to write and I have always wanted to write a novel. My goal is to actually get it done this year and find an agent to sell it.

5. Lose 60 lbs. I need to get down to about 155 to be a happy camper with myself and with what is considered healthy. This includes eating well and exercising daily!

6. Read my Bible daily.

Family Goals:

1. Become healthier. Dave, my husband, needs to lose weight too. He won't "Go on a Diet" (yeah for being male!) but he will do a lifestyle change with me, so we're doing this as a family.

2. Read a story to our girls every day. We often read, but I really want to get a book read to them every day.

3. Work on preschool stuff with Sunshine (my 3-year-old) and homework/school stuff with Beautiful G (my 5-year-old). Beautiful G is in half-day kindergarten right now but by the end of the year she'll be in first grade. I really need to get Sunshine more prepared for kindergarten than Beautiful G was (although she was fine, I felt like she could have been more prepared).

4. Save up for the down payment of a house and buy it! Dave and I am finally to a point where our credit will allow us to buy a house and we are sick of living in apartments where we can't do things like send our kids to play in the yard. We're Americans. We have the American dream of a home. And we're going to do it!

Yup, that's it. 10 things I really need to do this year (well, 9. Two are more cross-overs of each other). This blog will keep me accountable and give you a chance to see how I'm doing. I'll be posting how we do and other stuff that relates to home (like coupons, great deals, and other fun stuff that you could use in your home and family life).