Ta Da List 09.23.09

I took 2 days off of housework, and it's really showing! I know better than to skip my FlyLady routines. That's what maintains everything! But what I love about FlyLady is that you are never behind. You can always jump in where you are. That's what I'm going to do today. :)

Edit: I've decided to just completely scrap the Ta Da List for today. I'm listening to some FlyLady blogtalk radio shows and decluttering like a mad woman in the bedroom. Having lots of fun, too!

Our first ultrasound! & Doctor's appointments.

We had our first ultrasound yesterday, and baby's doing fine! Sorta looks like a guinnae pig, don't it? LOL!

We got down to the clinic about 15 minutes before the appointment. We saw an old friend of ours who was just completely ecstatic to see us and very excited for us. She was down there with her daughter, and they just found out they're having a little boy! Congrats, Pam!

We got our parking pass and signed in. I didn't even sit down for a minute before they called me to sign the HIPPA form and a paper giving permission to do the ultrasound. I signed them and sat down for about another 30 seconds and we were called back for the ultrasound. Josh had been saying how we were going to be sitting there all day, and he brought a book to read. He read maybe a paragraph before we got called, hehe.

We got to see our baby's heart beating! The doctor made the heart different colors so we could see it. It was simply amazing, and the baby was wiggling like crazy! Just watching it gave me peace of mind because aside from the occasional nauseousness and being a lot more tired than usual, I haven't "felt" pregnant. Mom said that's because I don't know what being pregnant feels like, and she has a point, but it still felt so, so good to see that the baby's being a little wiggle-worm and is growing normally. Josh's face while he watched the screen was so adorable. The look of wonder in his eyes amazed me. I think we both had a moment of, "Wow. This is our child!" I can't even begin to describe it.

The doctor told us that the head was to the left and the rump was to the right. I couldn't really see it until the whole guinnae pig idea came to mind, lol! I know it's a silly way of looking at it, but whatever works, right? My brother-in-law says there's another baby under there somewhere, lol. He had dreamed that I had triplets, and is very persistent about the idea, lol!

We had brought a DVD to hopefully record the ultrasound, but we needed a DVD-RW and all we had was a DVD-R, so we didn't get video, but the doctor put some jpeg's on there for us. Our next ultrasound is on November 24, and that's when we should find out the sex of the baby if he/she's acting right and lets us see, lol. We'll be sure to have the right DVD next time. Also, with this ultrasound, our due date changed from April 21 to April 23 (Terri's birthday!). Josh told me to wait 4 more days and have it on his dad's birthday like Kim did. I told him I'd do my best, lol!

All of this under 15 minutes, lol. We signed in at 8:45 and were walking out the door around 9:00. We had already cleared our entire morning, so we didn't really know what to do with ourselves, hehe.

I had another doctors appointment yesterday afternoon for my first (ever) pap smear. It wasn't as bad as everyone kept telling me it was, so I really don't know what the big deal was all about. It felt a little weird for a second and was done in about 30 seconds. No pain, no nothing, and the nurse was really, really nice and talked my ear off the entire time. That made me feel good because so far when I've been up there, I've been really nervous since all of this is so new to me, and everyone I've met so far has been absolutely amazing and friendly. It really puts my mind at ease to know that these people really care about what they're doing because you can see it while they're working. They care about their work and their patients. I love it.

So, that was our first ultrasound experience. I don't have anymore doctor's appointments until the end of October, so that's all the news I have for now on the baby front. Now it's time to get my Ta Da List together and get the house back in order. I took 2 days off from housework, and well, you can tell it, lol!

Ta Da List for 09.19.09

I wasn't even going to do a ta da list today, but my hubby got called in to work, which completely ruined our date night tonight. I can't really complain, though. I miss him bunches but they cut his hours this week, so I'm grateful for the extra hours he's getting. We were going to make homemade pizza tonight. I may still do it if I can find the recipe for the Bisquick dough, lol. How hard could it be? Anyway, on to the ta da list...

Bedroom
1. Make the bed.
2. Put away clothes.
3. Clean off desk.
4. Put away books.
5. File papers.
6. Sweep.

Bathroom
1. Swish and swipe.
2. Wash, dry, fold, put away colored clothes.
3. Fold and put away white clothes.
4. Sweep.

Mom's Room
1. Sweep.

Kitchen
1. Clear off the table.
2. Put away boxes we brought in the other day.
3. Wipe down/clear counters.
4. Sweep.

Living Room
1. Move all boxes we brought in to one corner, out of the way.
2. Sweep.

Baby's Room
1. Spend some time going through the dresser of soap supplies. (Actually do it this time!)
2. Sweep.

I'm working in 15 minute intervals today with my timer, because I'm not really motivated to do, well, anything. I had a long shift at work this morning, and we did double the business we usually do, so I'm beat. But, I have nothing else to do today and this stuff really needs to get done, so I'll work 15 minutes, break 15 minutes, repeat.

Things to do before the baby gets here.

I know it's a little (ok, a lot) early to be coming up with this list, but there is literally soooo much stuff that needs to be done before the baby comes in April that it may just drive me crazy if I don't have it all written down somewhere. I'm hoping this will be an all-inclusive list, and it's not just stuff that needs to be done, but it's life organization in general that I want to get done. With the help of FlyLady and routines, I think we'll be able to get it all done and have time to relax before our little blessing makes his/her grand appearance. I'm going to link this in the sidebar so I can keep up with our progress. :) We've got 7 months to prepare. I think we'll be fine. :)

Baby's Room
1. Finish cleaning out the stuff and sort it/find homes for it.
2. Move all furniture out of it that isn't staying.
3. Clear out the closet and find homes for the stuff in it.
4. Paint the room.
5. Paint the closet.
6. Put up a border.
7. Set up for baby.
8. Install an air conditioner.

Shed
1. Finish decluttering.
2. Declutter Christmas decorations.
3. Move out old TV, bed frame, roll away bed, and table for charity pickup/trip to the dump.
4. Sweep it out, spray for bugs.
5. Clear the path of leaves to it.

Living Room
1. Find someone to take the piano and get it out of the way.
2. Unpack Josh's stuff to display like I've been promising to (maybe on the top shelf in our bedroom?)
3. Clean out the coat closet so we can use it for, what else? Coats! And blankets and space heaters, etc.
4. Move the stuff for charity out to the front porch.
5. Declutter the knick knacks that we don't love.
6. Purchase another recliner.
7. Arrange it a little better to accommodate baby stuff.

Our Room
1. Declutter! Clothes, those Stephen King books you won't read, stuff you've been ignoring for forever.
2. Move the queen size bed in here and take the full size bed out.
3. Purchase 2 tall bookshelves for our books.
4. Get rid of the bookshelf that is falling apart.
5. Rearrange the room to better get around the bed and to accommodate a bassinet.
6. Take out the litter box since the cats don't use ours that often and just stick to the one in the living room?

Our Car
1. Get heat/air fixed so we actually have heat/air.
2. Get a seat belt extender for me because it's already a snug fit.
3. Have idling problem checked.
4. Make sure back seat belts are all working.

Finances
1. Start saving up for maternity leave. (I'm hoping to take a month off.)
2. Save to have the tree leaning over the house cut down.

I'm sure more will come up as we go, but that's all I can think of off the top of my head. It's a lot, but I know we can get it done and I do love a challenge. If there's more to add, I'll add it as it comes up and mark off as we get things accomplished.

My first pre-natal appointment.

As you can see, I had my first pre-natal appointment this morning, and I feel so good! I was really nervous, but everyone at the clinic was so, so nice! That really helped to calm me down a lot.

This was basically a "meet and greet" appointment. They got my family history (that took a while: diabetes, cancer, heart disease, you name it, we got it *sigh*), and the nurse said it was too early to hear the baby's heart beat, but we were going to try anyway. :) I'm 9 weeks and 1 day today, and she said it's usually around the 11th or 12th week that they can hear it. But, I did get to hear the sounds of my own tummy plus the sounds of placental blood flow, which was just completely awesome.

Next Tuesday is going to be a long day. I've got my first ultrasound to determine the official due date at 9:00am downtown, then my doctor's appointment in Morris at 1:15, then WIC and Medicaid appointments after the doctors appointment. At least the place I'm getting my ultrasound at is right next to Burger King, so we can grab some lunch before we head to the other end of town, lol! They said if we want to, we can bring a blank DVD down there and they can record the ultrasound. We might just do that.

Despite getting blood drawn (I know, I know, get used to it), I had a really good visit and I'm kind of on cloud nine right now. After Tuesday, I won't have to go back to the doctor for 4 weeks. I asked her about my concerns about being so overweight and being pregnant, and the nurse told me not to worry, that it does not put me at any greater risk of anything going wrong. It just means that they won't want me to gain as much weight and I'll measure a little bigger. That was a load off my mind.

My appointment was at 8:00 this morning. Mom said that Joy called at 20 minutes til 8:00 to make sure I had gotten up and gone to the appointment, lol, so I called her and told her all about it. She's so excited to become an aunt!

But that's it from me for now. I didn't have anything planned to do today since I didn't know how long the doctor visit would take, but we were only there an hour, if that, so now I'm going to go figure out what to do with the rest of my day. A nap sounds fantastic. :)

Ta Da List for 09.17.09

I promise I will have something to post one day other than my ta da list, lol. Actually, that day may be tomorrow, since I have my first pre-natal doctor's appointment in the morning! But for now, you'll just have to deal with my cleaning. :) The hubby and I are both off today and tomorrow, so later we're planning on getting out in the shed if the rain will hold off and start clearing out some stuff. We did a lot of work in the baby's room the other day and now we need somewhere to store stuff, lol. The poor shed has been neglected for a very long time. We have no less than 15 rubbermaid totes full of Christmas decorations that I'm hoping mom and I will go through tonight. All this is, of course, if the rain holds off. I've got before pictures of the baby's room. Once everything is cleared out, I'll have afters, along with progress pics as we get it ready for baby's arrival. :) Anyway, I ramble. On to the ta da list!

Bedroom
1. Sweep.
2. Make the bed.
3. Put away clothes.
4. Tidy top of dresser.
5. Clean up the "computer corner."
6. Mop.

Bathroom
1. Sweep.
2. Mop.
3. Swish and swipe.
4. One load of laundry from start to finish.
5. Give the dog a bath and flea treatment.
6. Clean the mirror and window.

Kitchen
1. Wipe down counters.
2. Sweep.
3. Mop.
4. Clean off the table.

Living Room
1. Sweep.
2. Mop.

Mom's Room
1. Sweep.
2. Mop.

I think this is enough to keep me busy until hubby gets out of bed. Off to work I go!

Yay, done! Mom said there was no point in mopping today since it's supposed to rain later and mud will get tracked in anyway (and I really didn't feel like mopping anyway, so maybe tomorrow when we get home?). But, we're getting ready to head out to the shed. Pray for our souls as we enter the abyss...

Sleep is beautiful! & Today's Ta Da List

I came in from work yesterday and was just completely worn out. I layed down around 4pm, woke up at 3:00am this morning, then slept from 4:30 this morning til 10:30. I guess I was tired?

I was hoping to get an early start on the Ta Da list today, but oh well. I'll still get it done.

1. Shower.
2. Eat breakfast.
3. Wash dishes.
4. Clean up the kitchen.
5. Wash mom's bedding.
6. Remake mom's bed.
7. Wash our bedding.
8. Remake our bed.
9. Sweep the house.
10. Fold and put away colored clothes.
11. 5 minute room rescue in our bedroom.
12. Wash the baby bedding Janice brought us.
13. Spend some time cleaning out the baby's room. Finally! And we made a lot of progress, too!

09.10.09 Ta Da List

I'm not feeling very well today but I've got things to do, so I'm going to do them, lol. There's always time for a nap later.

(1) Fold and put away colored clothes.
(2) Wash, dry, fold, put away white clothes.
(3) Wash dishes.
(4) Sweep the house.
(5) Clean out the refrigerator.
(6) Spend 15 minutes on the baby's room. I decided to wait on this so Josh and I can do it together.
(7) 5 minute room rescue in the bedroom.
(8) Clean microwave.
(9) Clean toaster.
(10) Do Kelly's zone mission.
(11) Swish and swipe the bathroom.
(12) 5 minute room rescue in the living room.

*I layed down with the hubby at noon and the next thing I knew it was 4:00pm, lol. Guess I needed the nap. Now back to work!

Pregnant and loving it!

I've been away for a while, but with good reason! I recently found out that I'm pregnant!

I've taken some time away from the blog (and life, really, to be honest) just to reflect and think about what all needs to be done, etc. etc. That has gotten completely overwhelming, and I basically just kinda shut down for a few weeks.

This was both good and bad. It was good for my mind and body because when I feel under pressure, "shutting down" as I call it is my defense mechanism and it helps my mind "heal," if that makes any sense. Finding out that sometime in April next year I'm going to be a mother was quite a shock (an exciting shock, but a shock nevertheless) and I've just needed time to get in tune with me. It was bad because once I "shut down," I ignored many things that needed to be done like housework, as well as my relationships with my family and most importantly with my husband. Ignored may be the wrong word here. Distanced from, maybe. I don't know. I basically introverted myself for a while.

I've been slowly coming out of my little haze over this last week, and it's felt fantastic. I've started getting a few things done around the house and I've done some decluttering, as well as taken some time to do some little pampering things just for me. Now, my main focus is spending some real quality time with my hubby. You'd be surprised how much you can miss someone even when they sleep in the same bed.

But anyway, life so far is great. I'll have a more interesting update once I'm actually awake (I'm on my way to bed right now), but I hope everyone has a good night!