Is It Naptime Yet

Yesterday we went to Jon’s parent’s house. We decided to have his brother Rawlin help us get the exercise bike they gave us to our house. They don’t use it anymore due to Mom’s bad knee and Dad’s weakening heart. Jon wanted to use it so it’s now ours. We now have an exercise bike in my trying to get organized bedroom.
While there I sprained or did something to my left ring finger. (Eden had climbed on a small children’s chair backwards and it fell and I tried to catch her, or the chair, but instead I just hurt my finger.) My left ring finger, which looked like a sausage yesterday, is now buddy taped to my middle finger. So now Jon is in charge of dishes for a couple more days due to my injury. Luckily our new car is an automatic otherwise I would have trouble driving since the Subaru is a manual. It really bites, but it could have been on my right hand and that would have made life much more difficult.

I did lots or errands today. We went to the bank and put all the girls and my change in the sorter. We had $50 and some odd cents in change. Lots of it was from Jon’s dad who’s new favorite hobby is to give the girls his change. I think he gave us about $13 in quarters at one point. He gave me more quarters just yesterday but they’re still in my purse. We’re going to finally open some savings accounts for the girls, but we’re also going to let Lilah “waste” some of her money on Chuck E’ Cheese.
After the bank we stopped by the Goodwill, but it had another half hour before opening, so we went to my mom’s house and visited with her and had lunch. Then we went back to the Goodwill, since it was toddler Tuesday and clothes are $1.00 per item. I found two shirts for Eden and a maybe pair of pants, they’re 18 month but I think they’ll fit her still, and a shirt for Lilah. I figure I can add these to hanging around the house clothes so their nicer ones don’t get worn out as quickly. I hear every once in a while you can find Target brand clothes at the Goodwill with the tags still on them. So I may check out the Goodwill by my house also since it’s closer and would be easier to keep tabs on. After Goodwill I went to my sister Kristi’s house. She needed a sitter since Howard had an interview and she was scheduled to work. Howard didn’t get back until 3:30, so I came straight home and tried to have the girls take naps. Eden of course fell asleep on the way home, Lilah decided not to take one.

So there’s the last couple days. I can now be adventurous since I have a car, even with a hurt finger.

Well, I’ve already told you about us being inventive and using the top bunk as storage. This is what this girls room looks like now.

I asked my friend Anna’s opinion on putting a sheet over the stuff and she said it would just look strange. So here’s our stuff for anyone to see if they go into the girls room or read this blog. 🙂
I also thought I’d post pictures of our crowded closets. I still have to organize the top shelves so you get just the bottom half.

The girl’s closet.

Our closet.

We have soo much stuff. I’m proud of these closets because with organizing them I got my sewing machine, in the black, and the draw set, out of the living room in which they were nicely settled under the black table that was there. I know the girls closet looks chaotic, but it is actually organized, kinda. ( Oh, if anyone finds a light brown flip flop let me know. I am missing one and they were soo comfy. I can’t seem to find it anywhere.)
And for your viewing pleasure here’s my end table/ trunk.

Right now it just holds papers that need to be filed and tapes that I want Jon to look at and get rid of. (Really I just want them gone so I don’t care if he ever looks at them before they’re tossed, but I will allow him to do the tossing.)
I’m trying to not put anything in it until I get my filing under control, since that’s what’s in it and I don’t want to forget about it. I’d post a picture of that but how much junk do you really want to see?

So yesterday at lunch time I’m over a the computer and Eden, instead of eating her bread, was putting it up her nose. I got it out once, she did it twice and consequently went to time out twice and after the second time out I decided to just make lunch over. She wasn’t too happy about it.
UGH. I told her it would hurt if she got bread in her nose and she said “no not hurt.”
in my mind I thought “Yeah you think it doesn’t hurt but you will when I have to take you to the ER and have them use prongs to get the rest of the bread out of your nose.”

Andrea as a child once put foam from a couch or couch cushion up her nose. My mom didn’t know about it until Andrea started smelling funny. While looking her over she saw something up her nose. My mom took her to the ER and low and behold the foam had turned green and was getting funky after stopping up her nasal cavity for who knows how long.

So Saturday I got tons done.

Really TONS.

I wish I could post pictures, but now that we’ve switch to Linux, or Xubuntu to be specific, Jon needs to do stuff to make it possible to upload pictures. Of course I could shut down the computer and restart it in Windows, but I’m too lazy and I’ll just do that tomorrow.

Well Jon and Dad bought plywood to place under the bunk bed mattresses on Saturday. The boards that we had underneath Lilah’s mattress did no make me comfortable and so we got some good ole plywood to put underneath. Opposed to the bunky boards or whatever. Anyways. They bought two boards, in which I was opposed to two because I like being able to sit up on Lilah’s bed. Jon thought they could just double them up under the bottom mattress but that wasn’t going to work because with all those layers the mattress would be likely to slide off. So we put the second board on the top bunk where it needed to go anyways. The girls loved running around up there with Jon and Lilah can’t wait until she’s five and can sleep up there. Anyways, I can no longer sit up on Lilah’s bed and now we’re using the top bunk as storage. It looks rather cheesy having our toilet paper, paper towels, suitcases and sleeping bag up there, but hey space is space and I don’t have much here in this house.

So Saturday I was able to get things organized. I was able to organize the bottom halves of the girl’s closet and mine. I cleaned out the dreadful corner in my living room where a dreadful metal black table was and my father hauled it away on Sunday after FHE. Now my lovely trunk/ end table sits there. My living room only has a few cheesy boxes in it now. in which one holds stuffed animals and the others are stacked upon my food storage shelves. I’d go buy wicker baskets if it weren’t for the fact that we’re way over budget this month but luckily the 1st car payment isn’t due until June 30th.

My house is slowly becoming mine. I have a goal of doing 10 minutes of filing or shredding each day, though I should probably do both. I did shredding today, along with cleaning the bathrooms.

Yesterday we went to the park, hence why I felt the urge to spend the whole morning cleaning. I think I need a housekeeper.

My dad came today and he just hauled away the old crib and the scrap wood from our back yard. YAY!!
Now I can organize the girls room, but Eden is taking her nap. 🙁
and then later today Lilah will take a nap also. 🙁
But Jon’s putting together my end table/ trunk that we bought for mothers day!! YAY!!
but the spot I want it still has lots of stuff with no where else to go just yet. 🙁
I’m hoping by the end of next week life will be more settled. 🙂
I do have a car to distract me though, YAY!!
But it may now take longer to organize our house now. 🙁
I’ve finished my lesson for Relief Society tomorrow. YAY!!!
But I received a new calling on Thursday so this will be my last time teaching Relief Society. 🙁
I really, really love teaching Relief Society. 🙂 🙁
Tomorrow is family home evening with my family. YAY!!
I’m teaching the lesson. We’re doing the Ten commandments this year and I have “Thou Shalt not kill” 🙁
Yeah what do you do with that. “Don’t kill your siblings, or you’ll go to hell. Amen.” 🙂

This past couple weeks have been crazy. I’ve been researching used cars, where to get them and how much. It’s been nuts. Well yesterday we bit the bullet and went and bought one.
Here’s my new-to-me 2004 Toyota Camry LE.

All the cars I wanted were sold and one had frame damage. This one we liked and our mechanic approved but said it had some rust, due to it being from Salt Lake City. We got it for a descent price and a really good warranty from Toyota. We were looking at going to an LDS guy who goes to the auctions and another one from Overton, but we decided that being able to see the car, test drive it and have our mechanic look at it were important, plus we got a really good warranty, in which had we purchased a similar warranty we probably would have spent the same amount. It was more than we wanted to spend overall. In some ways I think I was being too idealistic. We still bought within Jon’s income so any money I make will go to paying down debts and beefing up the savings that we just took from. I’m so happy to be able to go places! Though I’m going to try to stay close to home as to save money on gas. I love it! Lilah likes that she can see out the front window and it will fit three car seats! Yes an infant and two regular car seats. I love it. Jon says we can have a third, but I remind him that we do have a lot of bills right now so it might be better if we wait. Not that I would delay a child because of money but that is a factor in being able to afford one. We couldn’t have a third until we had a car to fit three and now that we have a car that can fit three we can’t afford it! Isn’t it ironic.

We also bought the car from a UNLV quarterback.(That was an old picture.) Well, we didn’t know who he was, even though Jon works at UNLV and I went there, but Jon researched his name after he told us he played. I hope he wasn’t too insulted. He was very nice, it was the manager that had the very typical cars sales man attitude. Yuck.

I’ve been doing a lot lately. Well it seems like a lot. I finished my bedroom drapes! I now don’t have to adjust the blanket that was in the window each night before bed.

I’ve also been trying to get things organized. I’ve been going through all the old piles of papers and tossing things into a shred box and a to be filed box. Our first couple years of marriage are very unorganized so I have a lot of things to file and get ready to scan once we get a scanner. (I read a recommendation on scanning documents, such as tax paperers or medical statements, and filing things electronically. This was you don’t need to hold on to the actual papers past a year.) We keep everything so it’s nice to see the box of stuff I didn’t know what to do with get smaller. Like pay stubs and rent receipts from our first apartment. Those are getting shredded, not filed. I even found our actually wedding license from the State of Nevada. Good thing we never needed it in the past two years, because it was in a to be filed box from the move. That would have driven us nuts if we needed it.
I’m hoping to have the house organized to the way I want it by the end of the month. That way we’ll have less clutter and hopefully everything will have a place. I hope it will make my life a little easier. It seems hard to have the energy to do chores when I’m constantly trying to lessen the clutter, or I feel depressed about how much there is to do and don’t do anything. I’m seeing the light though. Next Saturday my dad and Jon will be getting rid of the crib and I am looking forward to organizing the closets more.
I’m enjoying organizing, even when I’m overwhelmed because I can see it slowly paying off. The one bad thing is I’m buying things to organize with. Like a new DVD shelf,which came yesterday, and hopefully the end table/ trunk will be here on Tuesday. They’ll hold the blankets I don’t have room for in my hall closet.
I’m also looking to buy some wicker baskets to put CD’s in and stuff animals.
Those can wait until June though.
Organize, organize, organize.
It’s only taking me two years to find a spot for everything, but now I have the time and the motivation.

Eden in front of the curtains

Jon being bored

This photo gives a better idea of the texture and colors of the fabric. We plan on painting the room a lighter shade of the blue in the curtain. I’m also trying to find sheets in the light seagreenish color, but I may just do blue.

Here’s one of my mother’s day gifts. Now instead of DVD’s in my entertainment center I have CD’s. At least they’re finally unpacked, it’s just been nearly two years.

I was looking online at booster seats and I came across this one.

In the discription is has :

• 2 retractable extra-large cup holders and convenient storage space for snacks / Gameboy and/or MP3 players.

Yeah it’s for kids up to 100 lbs, but I think it’s funny that my toddler can store her M3 player, if she had one.

Anyways.

I read a lot of blogs and think wow, I wish I could be that clever on a regular basis.
Now that I’m out of school I feel a little lost. I think it’s sunk in that my life is pretty uneventful. Once I get a car maybe I’ll be able to tell horror story’s of going out in public with two girls by myself. right now if I have both girls in public I also Have Jon, so we’ll see how the first trip to the library goes or to the park alone.

Now back to life.
My schedule has changed, kinda for the good, but I my sleep habits don’t think so. I’m going to bed regularly at 11 or 11:30pm. This helps because I was often all over the place on what time I went to bed, including sometimes not going until 12:30 am. One reason I’m going to bed earlier is because Jon’s been on the couch. We both find that we sleep better separately. We’re planning on getting a larger bed sometime, we’re going to upgrade to a queen, and get something like a temperpedic or maybe a sleep number bed where we can each choose the firmness we want. There was also an article Jon sent me at one point about men and women’s sleep habits. Men’s sleep is disturbed when they sleep with someone, as is women’s, but it affects men’s IQ and test taking type skills, where as it woman are not affected cognitively. This is why Jon went to the couch so he could have better sleep and hopefully be more productive.
I’ve needed better sleep because Eden is consistently waking up at 6:30 am. This really stinks. I don’t like it because one I am sleepy still, two I have 2 more hours with her than I’m use to. It sounds strange but I just don’t know what to do with her for that long. We get stir crazy a lot lately so this just perpetuates it.
Yesterday Eden fell asleep in the high chair for a second time because of her early hours.
I like getting the day started around 8. It makes it go faster. When I’m up from 7 it goes by so slow and then I have so much time to do the things that I like procrastinating and hiding from.

Overall I think I’m keeping my house presentable. Jon will be dropping off three boxes and one bag of DI stuff after work. We’ll also be getting rid of our glider chair and the baby swing. Though once the glider is gone it will be replaced with an exercise bike from Jon’s parents. Sigh. This weekend was productive though. I got Jon to go through a few boxes and and we condensed and threw away. It feels good to let go of things. We have such a small place that I’m very willing to give away things that are cluttering the place, though we still have plenty of clutter.
Today I’ve been organizing the book shelves and I was able to unpack one box of books. The problem being this box was used as part of an end table type thing in our bed room, so now instead of a three foot high stack of boxes it’s 2 feet. ( I had it covered with some fabric so it wasn’t totally cheesy looking.) I might take our CD box and used it in it’s place. It’s just siting in our entertainment center right now. We need to buy some media shelf to go who knows where, but who knows when we’ll get it. Anyone want any CD’s? Just kidding Jon would be upset because most of them are his.
As soon as we get rid of the old crib I’ll have all that storage space under Lilah’s bed. The problem being the crib parts are too big to set out for the trash men, though I’m very temped to do because they did take away a tall shelf that had been in the back yard. So we’re thinking what might be easier is getting someone with a truck and take the crib and wood from our back yard to the dump. It’s getting someone with a truck. We have my dad, but we’ve use him so much lately that we feel bad. We’re getting rid of the crib that Lilah used as a toddler bed because we’ve lost some parts that are not replaceable and it’s the most confusing crib ever. The directions are very vague, which we didn’t realize until we got it out and looked at it this weekend to see if we could give it to someone. I guess if someone wants to try to figure it out they can, but I don’t think it’s worth it, plus since it’s so vague you don’t know if you’d be compromising the safety of the baby. So we just want to get rid of it.
Life is crazy and very messy. Why can’t everything stay clean and organized and just disappear when you don’t need it anymore.

I’m so excited!!!
A while back I applied online for a nanny/ babysitting job. Well their online application process is a little screwy and didn’t work so I was needing to go pick up an application and apply in person. Life got busy and I never got around to doing it. I was just wanting to do it for extra income and I also felt guilty because I can be away quite often during the week and Jon gets lonely not seeing me.
Well now the opportunity has arised that I’ll be watching a friends baby girl twice a week during the day starting June and I’ll be able to gain that extra income I’ve desired. I’ve known her for around 12-14 years, however long her and my sister Carolyn have been friends. She had a daughter in February and is now wanting to return to work part time. She works in the real estate business so she can make her own hours.
We’ve agreed on an hourly rate and a minimum monthly amount. Since I’ll be watching her daughter on Thursday’s, the day of Lilah’s class we’re going to be getting a second car!!! I’m more excited about that than anything else! We had recently decided that we would save and get a car this June/ July before our road trips, but this just means we are able to get one sooner. I’m wanting a Toyota Camry, around 2004, or a similar car. I’m hoping it can fit a booster, a car seat and an infant seat, or that we can find a car that can. I’m really not ready for a minivan yet.
We’re planning on staying within our income, so whatever I make will go to saving for house projects or paying down debts. This job just makes decisions easier. I hope the babysitting goes well and shows to be a blessing in our life.
I’m just so excited! Now I can stop car dreaming/ lusting and get one!!