Monday, May 31, 2010

Today I...

...woke at 6:30 to feed my dollie.  She spent the next 45 minutes coughing and sputtering, but since she was fed, and since it was my morning to do my "long run", I gently woke Graeme at 7:15 and told him I was headed out the door and that Meaghan was fed, so if he could please take care of her...

...and then she fell back asleep.  For over 2 hours.  And the boys?  Yeah, they slept till 8:20 themselves.

Soooo... while I'm out enjoying my 13K run, the rest of my family is sleeping.  There's a part of me that is bitter - I'm not getting enough sleep these days, and I couldn't believe Graeme actually got to sleep until 8:20 while the house remained silent.

However, I really, really enjoyed my run.  It was not a blistering pace, I took a few really short walk breaks, stretched at the traffic lights a couple of times... but I got it done, and I felt great.

I am pretty sure I would not have felt this great if I'd stayed in bed... as nice as that would've been.

Tomorrow is my "easy" run... or is it "strength & stretch"?  I can't remember.  I did up a really in-depth training schedule on Graeme's laptop while we were on our way to the camp banquet the other night (in the snow!), and I was pretty pleased with myself.  I did up the "novice" and "intermediate" training schedules side-by-side, and thought i'd try to go middle of the road.  That way, I'm not letting myself down if I can't do the "intermediate" sessions, but I know what my bare minimum would be anyway.  Today, I could've done anywhere between a 10 & 12.87 km run.  I was pretty happy with a solid 13.  :)

I need to get Graeme to e-mail my training schedule to me (he took his laptop to work)!! I even made provisions for holidays, doing a long run on a non-driving day, making room for the Canada Day 15K, etc.

Today I... feel great.

I've also realized anew that I am a much better mother and wife when I have exercised... and spent time in God's Word and praying.  So I also decided that I would be *perfect* if I could exercise and read & pray all day.

But then, if I did that, I wouldn't be a wife and mother at all.

It's all about the balance.

Saturday, May 29, 2010

What I'm up to today...

I took the boys to gymnastics.
I came home to find my dishes done and the house half cleaned.
I made lunch while the boys played on starfall.com.
Graeme vacuumed the house after the boys tidied up.
I slept for 11 1/2 hours last night... not straight, but pretty close (only two little feeding interruptions).  I must've been tired to actually sleep that long!
I am about to shower.
In a little less than an hour, I will wake Meaghan up, and we'll all go out to the summer camp I'm involved with for a dinner & program... and the boys will probably not eat (they don't like turkey dinners), but hopefully the rain will abate long enough that they can do some playing outside.
My back is killing me.
I'm not exercising enough any more, which is part of the reason my back is so sore.
That needs to change.
I need to get serious.

I need that "resolve" that Tama talked about in her blog post... I had that resolve, but it went away.  I need it back.  I'm going to get it back.

On Monday.  Really.  I have a plan!  :)

Monday, May 24, 2010

I got them already!

So last night I'd uploaded my chore charts for the boys and me to the Staples Online Print & Copy Centre...

...and they were ready for pick-up today!

They look better in real life than they do in the jpg, too.  :)

A friend came over last night to swipe some pictures from my computer of her kids (wow, I can't talk tonight - sorry this is terrible sentence structure, but my lone brain cell is not functioning at 100%...)... and she saw my chore charts and was so impressed (?? really?) that I offered to make one for her little guy... just by replacing Dustin's name with Hudson's.  So now Huddy has an identical chart to Dustin's... won't they be surprised to find they're chore-chart twins?

Anyway...

Today I went for a workout with a friend.  She wanted to borrow my 30-Day Shred DVD to try, so we actually met at the church and worked out together.  It was a great workout - she was thoroughly impressed with Jillian, and even though she was tired & sore, she wanted to go ahead and try level 2, too.  We made it all the way through - what a trooper Monica is!  She may feel it tomorrow... this was her first time ever Shredding.  :)

Came home, made lunch, hosed off the driveway from the big pile of dirt we'd had on there before the weekend, showered, made lunch, put Dollie to bed, ran errands (including picking up chore charts and dropping Hudson's off to him), came home, woke up children to go swimming... swam with them for 1 1/2 hours, came home, made dinner for us and the Engbers family, had said Engbers family over, ate dinner, watched their 16-month old daughter puke all over the floor (wow, she ate a lot of dinner!), cleaned up, put kids to bed, cleaned up some more, and now... Graeme is watching a movie and I'm cleaning up our picture files.  And blogging.  Barely awake... so now, going to bed.

And there's my last 24 hours.  Full, very busy, but very fun.  We are blessed.

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Melissa's Daily To-Do

Okay, okay, here it is!  :)  I couldn't resist attempting one of my own... it's not necessarily the be-all and end-all to my own personal chore chart, but it's *a* design.  I'm trying to be a little more girly... *sigh*... oh well, at least the boys won't mistake my chart for theirs!

Chore Charts

I've been having fun with my MemoryMixer software, as you can tell.  Blog layouts, birthday thank-you cards, and chore charts!!  I've just uploaded these to the Staples Copy & Print centre... and was even able to order "laminating" on them online... so I can write on them and wipe off as chores change. The kids (well, maybe not Dustin) have been begging me for something like this.  I hope my hours of design will pay off and the boys will be as excited about this as I am!!  :)

(I'm so excited, I might even make one for myself...!)


Friday, May 21, 2010

Meggie's first bubble-head ride

Last Friday, I biked to pick up Dustin from his Kids Klub program at Millennium.  I put Meaghan in the Chariot, and 17 minutes later I'd picked up Dustin.

I rearranged the straps so that both of them could go in... and then I took this pic with my cell phone...

Dustin was thrilled.  So was Meaghan, so long as I kept moving.  :)  Oddly, it took me almost twice as long to get home as it did to get to Millennium in the first place... something about that extra 40+ lbs and going home uphill...

I'm looking forward to a lot more of these!

clean house

I nabbed this from the Women Living Well blog... this could explain a few things!

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Some random day-to-day thoughts...

I am cold.  Crazy freezing.  I could wear three sweaters and crank the heat, and I'd still be frozen.  Dumb hormones...?  I was frozen like this constantly when I started losing weight, but it levelled out a bit... my hair is also starting to fall out in handfuls again.  I think my thyroid is out of whack again and might need to be readjusted.  I dunno.

My Bible school roommate had her first baby yesterday!  Welcome to the world, baby Katerina Joy!  Such a teeny little thing at 5 lbs 15 oz, and overdue, too, I think?  Maybe by a couple days?  Not sure, exactly.  But a teensy baby is better for my petite roomie than a big munchkin like my boys!!

We are doing some landscaping.  The grade in our yard was not done properly when the previous owners built... they didn't wait for the ground to settle before putting in their sod.  As a result, a few places in the yard have sunken quite handily... and so we've got some filling and grading to do to fix it.  So we're taking out some sod to flesh out the garden plot a bit and add some flower beds.  I should go take some 'before' pictures, but it's raining right now.  Tomorrow I might do it.

Today was a fun day!  I went to a Volunteer Appreciation Tea at Joshua's school, and then I had a few minutes before picking up the kids (it was "no kids allowed"), so I went to buy some shampoo and deodorant, as well as a "running" jacket.  Not the kind with reflective strips on it, just a lightweight jacket with a mesh liner.  Mostly for wind resistance, but still breathable.  If that makes sense.  :)  I want to go try it out!  But as I said, it's raining... and I'm a bit of a fair-weather runner still.

After I picked up the kids, I zipped home to grab Meaghan's ergo and grab a few snacks (it was 11:45 a.m.)... then I hopped over to McD's (gross, I know, but the cheeseburgers are yum and not terrible for you like the Big Mac) to buy some cheeseburgers to go with the rest of the stuff I grabbed from home.  We ate in the parking lot (Meaghan ate HALF a cheeseburger!) and then headed to the greenhouse!

I figured, I was itching to go to the greenhouse, we're probably doing some landscaping this weekend, and the boys like plants and really need to get out of the house... and we had such  good time!!  People kept looking at me - pushing a garden cart, wearing my girlie, and herding two little boys - and telling me how full I have my hands... and I'm thinking, "Honestly, this is one of the best days we've had in a while!"  So we kept enjoying it. We picked out some impatiens and begonias, some mini petunias that don't require deadheading, a whole bunch of pansies... the boys loved helping choose the colors.  We also picked out some tomatoes, 3 raspberry bushes, some strawberry plants, and seeds for the veggie-garden part of things.  There might've been a couple other types of flowers in there....?

Came home, had quiet time, Graeme came home with the sod cutter he'd rented from this place in town, I made supper, etc, etc, etc.  And here I sit.

Meaghan has been practicing her standing.  I lay on the floor, she crawls over to me, uses my legs or tummy as her starting point, hoists herself up, and lets go.  She puts her hands in the air and gives the biggest smile... and then we all yell "yayyyy!", and she claps, and then plops down on her bum.  Repeat 24 times.  She's loving it.  She's much slower than the boys in this department (they were doing this very well by a year for SURE), but I'm OK with her slower mobility.  :)

The other thing that's been going on today is the launch of "Our Summer in HD", "HD" being healthy decisions.  I figured the "HD" would appeal to the men in the crowd.  :)  There are over 20 participants, and in reading some of the stories, I actually welled up a bit.  The need is pretty intense... and I wish all of them could win the big prize at the end.  My prayer is that every single one of them will push as hard as they can - not just for these 15 weeks, but beyond - to regain their health and reclaim the life that God intends for them... a life of fulness and abundance even if they're still carrying a few extra pounds.  I am humbled and honored that they'd allow me to facilitate them in this journey.

I need to go do some work.  Graeme needs his hair cut.  I got some of my office taken care of last night.  The kitchen needs to be cleaned up.  And I need to go to bed early tonight.  I am desperate to go for a run tomorrow.

I am blessed.  God is good.

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Pretty Piggies

Meaghan was a bear tonight when I tried to clip her toenails.  Normally she does really well for the first 7 toes, but tonight, all ten of them were an ordeal!

However, when I brought out the nail polish, she got verrrry happy.  She talked to her toes.  She giggled at her toes.  She tried to touch her toes, and folded herself in half in an attempt to taste her toes.  (Of course I wouldn't let her actually touch or eat them while still wet!)



She became a girly-girl tonight with her pretty piggies.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Newest Biggest Loser

OK.  I promised you "no more BLAH updates"...

...but this isn't a BLAH update.

It's a "Summer in HD" update.  :)

I am facilitating another round - I'm not competing this time, but just facilitating.  It's actually taken a lot more effort than I expected to get the blog set up, however, that's mostly because I got ambitious and made my own template.  I went through about 4 designs before I settled on this one:



Obviously you can't see the blog itself... but this is the background.  On the sides (because the image doesn't take up the entire screen), there is a red "background" to sort of match the red in the image I created.  I am really happy with how it turned out!

This is the header I made for it - and it posts in the top centre of the design above:



I am looking forward to the summer.  It can be a fantastic time to lose weight and/or get healthy in other ways - probably the most fun time of year since you can do soooo many things outdoors.  That being said, the endless supply of bbq's work hard to counteract the physical efforts put out to exercise...

I got out for a run yesterday morning, and a bike ride this morning... I love the sunshine...

(P.S. - my new template for my honeybeebuzzings blog is also me-made... it was my 2nd design for Summer in HD, but I didn't like it for the challenge blog.  So I put it here instead - don't want to waste it!!  I don't totally *love* it, but it's a step up from green, I think!)

Thursday, May 13, 2010

When do you stop trying?

When do you say, "enough is enough"?
When do you decide that your efforts, being completely unreciprocated, are no longer worth giving?
When do you downgrade your efforts?
How much of your heart do you pour into a relationship that returns absolutely nothing (and by that, I do mean *nothing* - not returned phone calls or e-mails)?

My human nature says one thing... but then God says, "My Son died for you; He never gave up on you even when you didn't return My affection... even when you ignored Me..."

I'm so confused.  I'm beyond *hurt* and maybe even just a little bit peeved.  I wish I knew what God would have me do... how far I should go... how aggressive or passive I should be... I just don't know what else to do.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

My Treasures

My goofy and most charming eldest boy....



My even goofier and just as charming little boy...




My sweet hunny-bunny of a little girl...




Yup.  This is us.  I am blessed.









Tuesday, May 11, 2010

I fell in love

One year ago...

...in this moment...

...my life changed.

I'd spent much of the pregnancy unattached, perhaps in denial, feeling very overwhelmed and even afraid.

God changed all of that *in this moment*.

One moment, I was a woman writhing in pain, yet unable to move, desperately unsure of what the future would hold.... and the next moment...

"It's a girl!"

Tears.

At first, it was a bit mechanical.  I tried to latch you (you just screamed)... I cuddled you... looked at you... wondered how I would *do life* in my brokenness, with three children.




















And then within about an hour, you stole my heart.  I fell in love.
















And you held my heart ~ and still hold it ~ in the palm of your sweet little hand.















Little Miss Meaghan... how I love you and thank Jesus for the gift of you.  The richness you bring to my life cannot be expressed by mere words....

Happy birthday, baby Dollie.

Monday, May 10, 2010

Blogging Vacation

It's been over a week since I've blogged.

To be honest, I've been taking a huge step back from the computer in general.  Part of it is my own need for a break - less facebook, so much time spent blogging on the BLAH blogs, so tired and having other things that needed to take priority... part of it is that I was on a bit of a let-down after BLAH and didn't feel like I had much to blog about any more.... but part of it is that I can't just stick Meaghan on the floor any more beside me to play while I play, too.

She finds crayons and colors the floor.  Or the walls.
She leaves the office and is up the stairs in a flash.
She finds the garbage can and shreds every piece of kleenex imaginable.
She finds cords and yanks on them.
She gets her fingers stuck under the wheels of my chair.  Thankfully I wasn't actually sitting on the chair at the time.
If she's in my lap... she grabs the kleenex box and empties it.
She bangs on the keyboard and puts characters where I definitely don't want them.
She grabs the mouse and pushes the little ball in the middle so that my weather panel comes up.
She tries to grab my garmin... the phone... the stapler... the paperclips...

Anything.

But she IS my honey.  And I wouldn't trade her busy-ness for more computer time... ever.  I'll take my computer/blogging/facebook snippets when I can.  And I'll call myself blessed that I have two busy boys who need direction and nurturing, and one wee girlie whose world is much bigger than she is... a world that she is eager to explore and conquer!

For now, here is a video of my little dollie from our family Mother's Day/Meaghan's birthday party last night:

Saturday, May 1, 2010

Ever notice how...

...one thing leads to another?

Meaghan has not been settling well.  I just finished nursing her back to bed again, and decided to come downstairs to grab a notebook.

That was half an hour ago.

I still don't have the notebook in my hands.

On my way, I labelled a whole bunch of wall folders, wrote a letter to my compassion child, paid about 6 bills online, and opened the stack of mail.

It's 12:59 a.m.  I'm going to find my notebook, take it back upstairs with me with the Hal Higdon books I borrowed from the library, and go straight to bed.  No more reading tonight.  I've borrowed too much sleep time as it is!