Is It Naptime Yet

Jon recently had his second annual physical. He’s in a lot better shape than last year. He’s lost 15 pounds, got his cholesterol in the good range and is basically a much healthier person.

He’s changed his diet, but has off days where he eats things that aren’t great for him, but that’s the point of off days. They’re days off from the normal healthy diet. He also exercises on our exercise bike pretty regularly. (Sometimes more regularly than others, but who am I to judge since I call bringing in the groceries exercise. Not really, but in reality that’s my biggest workout.)

I on the other hand do not get physicals, but I can tell you I don’t have breast cancer since my OBGYN is the only doctor I see once a year. Oh, I also don’t have glaucoma, well I may, but I’ll find out Thursday.
I have also gained 5 pounds since buying our scale earlier this year. Yuck.

In an effort to at least try to get healthier and happier I was glancing through some community classes at a rec center my girls will be taking dance at. (No more gymnastics. They want to do dance and we’re also changing rec centers. I’m using the dance class as potty training incentive and so far we’ve only had two accidents in two days.)

Back to the main topic. I was looking for a workout class to take but all the cardio kick and other classes were at night, or on Saturdays.  I didn’t want to take away from my evenings or Saturdays. I looked into the yoga classes and they had a morning class that wouldn’t cause me to need a babysitter since Jon would still be home getting ready for work. I knew my friend Sam took a yoga class at the rec center so I asked her about it. She wasn’t currently taking it but was wanting to sign up again for the session coming up. I decided to take the plunge and signed up for the class.

It’s not a quick weight loss class, like a cardio class would have been since I do zero exercising, but yoga does help with muscle strength and overall health.

The only problem, it’s at 6 am. Like, in the morning and I do not wake up before 7 am, and that’s only on very rare occasions.

I’ve been wanting to change my schedule. I’ve been wanting to wake up early and get my days started. I stay up late and sleep in to avoid house work and other things. I use sleeping as a escape mechanism from the things I don’t want to deal with.

So my new goal is to wake up early and begin my day so I’m ready for my children and they’re not occupying their time with TV or coloring while I catch up on sleep.

I hope to create a more harmonious home and happier place to be. I’m not crazy about housework, but I know I can keep a better home if I devote a little more time.   I often hit walls where I don’t know what to do with the papers that need to be filed or I can’t seem to find a place to store something.
I hate to throw away the girls artwork but I don’t have time to scan or take pictures of everything they draw, especially since we get anywhere from two to twelve pictures from them in a single day.  I get overwhelmed and bored with the gross monotonous jobs, like cleaning blinds and washing down walls that always look dirty.

I know if I successfully want to get up for my early Yoga class I’ll need to go to bed early and wake up early, even on the days I don’t have yoga. This will give me plenty of time to clean since there will be fewer television shows and blogs to take up my time. (I use TV and the computer as an escape mechanism also.) I may even venture to use our exercise bike or my pilates videos that are gathering dust. Waking up early will also give me more time with Jon and time to prepare for my days.

I admit I have a hard time waking up early because I also run out of things to do. I mean there are things to do, but I didn’t want to do them and if I get them done come the middle of the day I have no shows to distract me. I now feel I have more things to do and waking up early is the next solution so there is less rushing. I suppose I could try reading more. Now that I’ve been out of college for nearly two years I should be over my no more reading stage. I think I’ll begin with juvenile fictions that I never read in my youth.

I want to be happier, but sometimes a person doesn’t have the energy to take actions to be happier. It can be hard.
I’ve never had full blown depression, though I know I get down times.

As Fall approaches I want to begin anew. I want to have time to teach Lilah and Eden, rather then leave them to their own devices most of the time.

I don’t want to make excuses anymore. I want to lose weight and have a tidier home.

Most importantly I want to find more joy in my role as a mother. I have joy at times, but I know I can work on it.

I am happy, but I have my unhappy times and they overshadow the good. I want the good to overshadow the bad.

So here’s to waking up for a 6 am class three days a week. I have this next week to adjust to getting up early before the class begins, but I think I might sleep in a few more days. Afterall it’s my last week of sleep before I have to wake up because I’ve paid for a class.

I’ll probably give more trip details like Wednesday or tomorrow, since all I need to do is grocery shopping and laundry. Jon cleaned  the kitchen and allowed me to leave him with a  sink full of dishes even though I had time to do them before I left on Thursday. He’s the best husband ever.  Of course he just watched movies, scanned pictured for various projects and had one working engagement for a gentleman he’s worked for on and off since right after we were married.

I just want to say I am happy to be home because my daughters got pretty clingy this weekend and I am so looking forward to a girls night with Anna this Thursday. We’re going to the farmers market and they’ll have a Jazz band at the Cafe there at the Springs Preserve, both are free, except the produce you buy. I was thinking I might take the girls, but this weekend sealed the deal that Mama Bear needs time away from her cubs.

They travel fairly well, but towards the end of the trip they started shutting down to other people, or acting shy, in which they were very talkative and normal towards the same people at the beginning of the trip.  I am just happy to be home and able to hand them off to Jon. It’s not that my parents wouldn’t help, because they did very much so, but when the girls were needy I was the only one they wanted so it made things a little stressful.

Jon’s now getting them ready for bed, a little late, but he’s still getting them ready for bed and I’m here at the computer blogging.

He’s the best husband ever.

I feel like it’s Saturday, but since I’m just getting started on my lesson for Sunday I’m happy that it’s Thursday.

Jon’s home. He took two days off with only one to recover and tomorrow he goes back to work. He has to drive the Subaru, or our manual car, oppose to my nice automatic car, because of the parking permit he needs and I don’t have. You gotta love working on a campus where you have to pay for your own parking and they’re stickers that can’t be easily removed.

Today we went to a community pool with the mommy/ preschool group. It was the last hurray. The girls had lots of fun and it was a nice, clean and quiet pool. It’s kind of off the road and you don’t see the pool easily. My friend Emilie says it’s never been too busy during the week for her, but Saturdays can get busier.  It’s $3 for adults and $2 for children three and older so I will probably try to go one or two times before Eden officially turns three. I think I’ll also have to hit Sweet Tomatoe’s one more time till I have to pay for her.

It’s a nice pool with less stuff than the one we went to last summer with my sister in Henderson, which is good. My girls don’t like water in their eyes so to have less made it easier to avoid and thus better.  It had a slide that had water coming from different areas and just one mushroom with water. I don’t know how to describe it except as a mushroom with water coming out of the top to make a water wall around it. The girls really enjoyed it, though Eden had to warm up to it but once she was comfortable I couldn’t keep them with me. They wanted to go in different directions so I just sat and watched them at one point since it was open and not too busy. I did lose Eden when she tried to go onto the slide with her life jacket. (I thought she was just walking around it and waited a moment to see her come out from behind it, but she decided to climb up to the slide.)  The life guard got there right as I got there, so it wasn’t that long that I lost site of her, and she was sad that she had to get down, but she didn’t want the life jacket off or water in her eyes from the slide.

It was nice and we stayed for just two hours, which was definitely long enough. I have pink areas where I didn’t get a lot of sun screen on me, like the middle of my nose and my right shoulder, which faced the sun most of the time anyways.
I think the girls are OK and not too pink anywhere.

After coming home I got Eden down for a nap then me. Then while getting dinner started I totally thought it was Saturday. Luckily I have two more days till my lesson, even though I’m looking forward to next week. Monday will be cleaning day. Tuesday making cinnamon rolls day. Wednesday delivering cinnamon rolls to those I need to thank for letting us use their house for Lilah’s party day and lunch with Anna. It’s been over a month since I saw her and it will be nice to visit.

Plus I think we might go see Wall-E this or next Saturday and I can’t wait.

Eden today did not want to go to class. She told me she was shy.
I wonder if waking up at 6:30 am and going to bed late had anything to do with it?

I stayed in the nursery ’cause I had nothing else to do and I thought it would be easier for Eden. She stayed with me the first hour and sat on my lap.

The second hour we had Home and the Range, a RS activity that’s the first Thursday of the month for our ward, and she sat with me once more. She kept telling me she was tired, but she didn’t want to lay on the floor. There was a toy that another little girl had brought and she played with it until the little girl noticed and came and took some of the characters. It was a house with plastic Winnie the Pooh characters. Eden then got sad and didn’t want to play. I got one character back and that only cheered her up a little. Then the older kids came in and took over. There were three, besides Eden, and they all pushed and shoved their way to the toy and took the characters. Poor Eden was so sad.

Eventually she decided she wanted to play on the stairs with the other kids and cheered up.

She just hasn’t been herself lately.

Potty training has gotten harder. She hates going on in the morning  and she only goes once maybe twice in the potty when we’re home.
Whenever I ask her to go sit on the potty she gets really upset and it becomes a fight.

If I thought I could handle cleaning up the messes I would put her in panties and try to have lots of patience as she pees on my floors and towel covered couch or poops in the underwear on a daily base, but I know my shoulder can’t handle that.

She just hasn’t been her usual cheerful self, but a stubborn 2 year old who goes to time out two or three times in a row because she refuses to listen or do what she’s been asked.It’s just not like her. Usually one time in time out and she’s ready to do what she’s been asked.

Evenings are the hardest but thankfully I usually have Jon home to help me deal with her, but it’s still frustrating.

So I have lots of things to blog about.

Kinda.

Like going to the Springs Preserve for Jon’s birthday, Mother’s Day and my almost finished, final set of curtains.

I just don’t feel like giving details, or I write details and they’re just not what I want to post.

I think I’m in a little blog/ everything funk. So pardon me while I don’t blog.

Right now my house consist of a lot of little messes, with a few big ones here and there.

I have tons of organizing I need to do. Like putting away the girls and my winter clothes, weeding out clothing we don’t wear and in general getting my pile of DI to DI or to my sister for their charity yard sale for her work.

I have papers to file, things to dust, a kitchen to clean, not to mention mopping the floors.

I did get our bathrooms cleaned, but not much else, today.

Thankfully Jon is supportive of my strange cleaning habits. Like I cleaned our food storage cabinets and microwave area and inside the microwave earlier this week, even though it wasn’t to bad but had been cluttered and needing some attention for months, while the rest of my house was a disaster.

He tells me to not get overwhelmed and be happy in my accomplishments. If I feel like cleaning the microwave, when there is clutter everywhere else and only we see inside our microwave, be happy it got done.

I cleaned that area because I felt the urge but more importantly felt that I could get it done in one day. Where as everything else that needs to be done will take a few days to a week, but that’s after I get everything done.

I suppose I just feel a little overwhelmed in our house. We have a lot of things in a small space plus four human beings who make new messes everyday. Everything kinda has a place, even if it looks like it’s not suppose to be there. I put it there because I have no idea what to do with it.

I also get overwhelmed with cleaning and getting rid of things. I get rid of stuff and then I get rid of more stuff and I find it amazing that I can always find something we don’t need, even though I just went through that exact stuff 6 months earlier.

I have some things I should get rid of but don’t, so those 6 months help me see how dumb it is to hold onto things I don’t use.

Spring cleaning.
Ain’t it grand.

This week has been really busy, like I already blogged about.
In fact I was thinking of beginning to potty train Eden this week since Jon would be home but, since we had something to do every day except Friday, it was postponed.

Plus since we had something to do everyday but Friday the girls have been terrible, and I haven’t been the happiest mom.

It may sound weird but if they’re misbehaving I am usually grumpy and not wanting to give them attention, but sometimes they misbehave because attention, or time, is just what they need.

It’s kinda a vicious cycle.

They get attention or Mommy time and they’re fine -> They’re fine so Mommy finds things that need to be done and spends less time with them -> They get less time and start acting up -> Mommy gets mad that they’re acting up and wants to have alone time, or doesn’t have the energy to give them time because she’s too busy and they’re just acting up and she doesn’t want to reward bad behavior -> Mommy cools off and finally starts giving them more time and things get better, even if it took a day or two for her to be a happy mom again. -> All is well in the house and the girls get Mommy time. -> cycle begins again.

Thursday was just a bad day for me.

The girls started the day bickering. I got grumpy. We had a good class but right after we got home Eden got upset because she needed too eat her leftovers from the night before. I send her to timeout for not doing what I asked and afterwards she decides to take a nap and skip lunch. (She had woken up at 6:30 am and her allergies were bothering her this day. )
Lilah was okay during Eden’s nap, but I was already stressed because of  the chaotic house and feelings of being over whelmed, plus ornery children.

Lilah went outside and after Eden’s nap Eden joined her. They were playing fine but right before I was going to start dinner I go out and see that they’ve turned on the water. They’re muddy and Lilah’s shirt, which was mostly white, now had brown cuffs, since it was long sleeved. The shed got water in it, because that’s where the hose was, not on the grass, but running off onto our dirty, now muddy concrete and I lost it.

I was fed up with the back yard and water and swore that if they did it again they wouldn’t play outside for a week. Lilah’s feelings were hurt because she wasn’t listening and I pulled her into the house to clean her off. Eden gave Lilah hugs because I was too angry at them.

The backyard really gets to me because of how dirty the girls can get and how dirty our patio gets. The neighbor girls like to play back there with mine and about a week ago they had turned on the water and made a big mess.

Since the back yard is so crazy because of the sand box, in which it’s more of a dirt box and it just gets dirt onto our patio,  today we bought bricks to line it and play box sand to put in with the silt the girls now play with. We hope this will keep the dirt in the sandbox rather than our patio, and that the dirt will be less clingy to the girls and easier to dust off of clothing. ( If they play outside they have to change their clothes and get wiped down or given a bath because otherwise it gets everywhere. ) We also hope that it will make letting them play outside less of a stress on me.

Plus the neighbor girls have been coming over more regularly so my girls have been going through clothes and getting dirty on a regular basis and it’s just too much for this kinda neat freak mom when it comes to dirt, though I have plenty of dust in my house.

Things have just been weighing me down and that was my breaking point.

I’ve also realized that potty training was not the starting point to Lilah’s and mine battle of the wills. I was just potty training her at the age children begin being stubborn and hard to handle, or 2 1/2.  Eden has been this way half the week and it’s because she’s 2 1/2 nearly 3 and not because I’m potty training her and she’s stubborn, but just because she’s stubborn.

Writing about it brings back a lot of the stress I’ve felt, but I am doing better today and I’m going to start potty training Eden on Monday because we have little planned this week and I run out of diapers and will only have pull-ups.

Now I just have to get up at 6:30 am with her. 🙁
She did go potty in the toilet once on our trip. It was in the morning and since her diaper was dry I put her on the toilet. It’s kinda a hit and miss in the morning whether she has a dry diaper, but I’m hoping we can get some sort of recognition going since she  says she has to go potty but never does.

Wish me luck, but mostly wish me patience.

So I have lots of pictures on my camera, some of caterpillars, some if a wedding, some of butterflies, but I’ve been to busy to do anything with them.

I’ll recap on our trip when I do that post, maybe by the end of the week, but for now I’ll tell you why I’ve been busy, or not at home.

Monday Lilah had a birthday party. It was for one of her classmates, Isaak, and the girls had a blast. I took Eden along because one, she loves birthday parties two, she’s too little to understand why she can’t go to her sister’s friends parties and three, she was invited and had Jon not been home she would have been there anyways. Jon had until today, or Wednesday, off so I almost left Eden with him, but since I had to babysit for Kristi so she could take her scouts to the recycling pant Monday afternoon, I thought I’d give some time to my hubby for him to be by himself.

So it was a birthday party in the morning and then babysitting for 4 hours in the afternoon.

Tuesday we took Jon’s car in to the mechanic. His brakes were making bad grinding noises and it turns out were metal to metal, why they didn’t catch this two months ago I’m not sure and makes me a little suspicious, but we still like our mechanic or at least the owner.

After the car was dropped off we headed to my parents to drop off a couple things to be shipped to Andrea because I forgot them this weekend. (I do have the Wonder Woman cake pan now Shauntae so you mush visit me within the next year at least. 🙂 ) We ate lunch and then dropped my dad off at Kristi’s so he could get his truck back. Then off to Kohl’s, my favorite store to shop at for me. We found Jon some shirts to beef up his wardrobe and a belt. It’s been over a year since we’ve bought him clothes, so he badly needed some new shirts to help out his depleting wardrobe. It was fun for me and the girls were OK.

Then we went to JoAnn’s because it’s sale time! I found a pattern I liked for a skirt, $.99, and the pattern I wanted for the girls was gone. 🙁 So I bought my pattern and went to look for Jon and the girls at Petco which is next door, since I thought that might be a fun distraction. They didn’t have any dogs or cats, but plenty of birds, lizards and other things.

Jon is softening to the girls plea for a pet. I’m still a firm no. A hermit crab and gold fish are much as I’ll allow because I can’t stand smelly pets, like, birds, rats, dogs, cats and practically any animal. Plus some caged animals are high maintenance, like iguana’s, which can get huge, and I’m against that also.

I’m just not a pet person.
If we had a spot to put a litter box I might say yes to a cat that doesn’t shed too much, but that’s even a hard sell for me.
I liked my SIL’s Yorkie, but they spent $800 to buy her and that was at half the normal price, so I think even a small dog that doesn’t shed is out since I’d rather have certain home improvements than a pet.

We came home after JoAnn’s but I was still to tired to do pictures. Not to mention I had things around the house that needed to be done and Lilah’s gymnastics class that evening.

Today, or Wednesday, I watched Britta while Sam taught her dance classes this morning. We had to pick up Jon’s car so Sam left the car seat and we piled the three girls in the back of mine. They all fit wonderfully and had fun “giving” each other different flavored ice creams. It started out nice, like peppermint and chocolate and then progressively got worst, like feet and dirty trashcan gum.

Mmm, mmm good.

After paying a lot for four new brakes Jon took Eden to Sunflower Market and I got gas in my car and went to the JoAnn’s by me that is less traveled since it’s so small. ( I was not going to go with three girls.)

I got in trouble because I let Britta and Lilah run around but, I found the pattern I wanted to make dresses for the girls and an apron pattern I liked, both were for $.99 each. I also found fabric the other JoAnn’s didn’t have and got a great deal on everything. Now I just need to finish my drapes so I can make the cute summer dresses for the girls before the summer is over.

Sam got Britta and we had lunch and then I had a stomach ache all afternoon. Literally all afternoon and into the evening. Thankfully Jon was here so I could refer the girls to him, but sadly he goes back to work tomorrow.

I really want to post pictures but the thought of editing is too daunting of a task, especially since I still have travel laundry to do, receipts to check from February, so I also have March and April receipts, and house cleaning to do.

I think they should make one of those vacuum robots that just goes around your house, but one that sweeps and mops for you and instantly dries your floor at the same time.

I’d totally buy one of those.

So I finished my last batch of truffles last night. I made around 350, but I learned that there will be couple from each batch that crack or don’t turn out so they have 330.

I am so relieved.

Here are some close ups of the truffles though, I plan on taking some nice pictures of them individually packaged also.

But first I have to explain that the silver accent was so frustrating and on accident I found a way to use it and like it completely. I just wasn’t feeling what I thought would look nice. So I say if you want a silver accent beware that it’s frustrating unless you have time to figure out the design. I should have tried it a couple different designs but I didn’t have time, and the two ways I did the silver look OK but I found the way I loved it on the last batch on the tenth from the last truffle and completely on accident.

The first design. I think it looks better in the picture than it did in real light. I also did lighter silver accents which you see in the one with lots of truffles.

What my counter looked liked for four nights, with a brief pause for Sunday.

The accidental truffle is on the left, the second design is on the right. (I also want to say these are also examples of the largest truffles I would make an the smallest. Most of my truffles were in between these two sizes. )

I was going for contrast so I never thought to have the silver in line with the Z. It looks so obvious now that it would look better, but I’m not a creative person.

I made three batches the first day and then four batches for the other three days , or around 80- 100 truffles depending on the size. I got pretty good at getting exactly 25 per batch by the third day. I was going for slow and steady since I had other things to do in the mornings and couldn’t devote the my whole day to truffle making.

In fact I had other things to do like grocery shopping, but I didn’t have time to put the groceries away, except the frozen and cold items.

My house while making truffles. It was only like this one day though.

I wasn’t sure if I enjoyed making these truffles at first.

To tell the truth I think the fact that they’re weren’t turning out as nice as I liked made the task harder and less rewarding. To see one truffle that I was completely happy with was a big relief and actually made me say ‘I wonder if I could market these’. The one problem being is they are so time intensive and I’d have to sell them for at least $1 a truffle and to me that’s a little steep if you’re wanting to buy 300 for a wedding and I’m not sure I want to do small orders, like boxes of truffles.

1. It’s easier to shape them when the truffle centers are harder, or more set. If they’re too soft they’re even more lopsided, but it hurts your hand to scope the harder center over and over and over and over again.

2. Chocolate that has had coloring added looks funny after it’s hardened and been remelted, but not funny enough to not keep the chocolates that had it drizzled on them from being used.

3. Adding a silver accent is so hard and frustrating. It runs second time melted colored chocolate, though not enough to still not use the chocolates. (It’s not too noticeable but to me it’s annoying.) (My silver accent is silver dust for fondant frosting applied with clear vanilla, opposed to the also recommended lemon juice or vodka.)

4. Making truffles for nearly 4 days straight is tiring even when you take Sunday to rest and have only done it for three of the four days.

5. Bagging each truffle individually and tying small bows is very tiring and adds like 2 hours to every 100 truffles, if not more time

6. To get a nice looking base trim the chocolate off by turning the truffle while you hold the knife stationary. That way you’re not doing chops or straight lines because you’re trying not to touch the navy blue drizzles.

7. Drizzled colored chocolate melts when touched with anything that has warm blood and then leaves colored spots on your white truffles when you touch them.

8. Trim the excess chocolate when they are plain truffles.

9. Truffles are fun to make and go all out on one day, maybe twice a year.

10. I don’t want to make truffles on a large scale to sell. It’s too much work.

I’ll post pictures later. I’m just to tired. On an up note I bought a new outfit today and it makes me happy.

Also we got caterpillars last Monday and four out of the five went into the pupa stage today, or made their chrysalis’ and it is so cool to watch. I think the 5th caterpillar is about 2 days behind in growth and will soon join the crowd. I’m also planning on posting pictures of that later.