Tonight I made Annie’s vegetable Korma… it was amazing!!!

I ate and then debated with myself for about a min about going to the pool or not (swimming after eating spicy food with cauliflower etc. is not always the best plan)… but I got my things and left…

When I got there I saw a friendly face who gave me a few words of encouragement to get back into things and somehow while we were waiting the conversation turned to homschooling and I found myself needing to explain what it is all about… (he was one of those who had never even heard of it… I have to admit that I was really not in the mood tonight to do that because he was trying to debate me on it…

Anyway… got in the pool and there were two lanes open for laps and it was a bit crowded with about 6 people per lane… but I put my music on, and got into whatever rythm I could with the others and just kept swimming…  and after about 20 min some people left and at the 35 min mark I was the only one left in my lane… so I was able to do the last 20 min at a good rythm…

I didn’t do as many laps as I was doing before I broke my routine, and I took a few 1-2 min breaks than I usually did…  but I did a lot more than I thought I would be able to do… I really think the music has a lot to do with it… when I am a but tired I tell myself to just finish the song… or I get a song that has a faster beat and I follow that beat for a few laps…

My muscles are a bit sore but I really feel great… I am debating on whether I am going to go again tomorrow (I don’t want to hurt myself) but I won’t be able to go wednesday or thursday…

I’ll see…

It really does feel great though… I need this to be a routine again and knowing that it won’t be to hard to catch up to where I was is encouraging..

So I got ready to go to the pool by getting everything together… made supper so it was ready when Simon got home… ate and then got dressed and left…

Got to the pool to discover that it is March break and there are no lanes for laps…

I really hate this pool sometimes… I know that I haven’t been going much so I shouldn’t complain… but the hours are terrible, the water is cold and often cloudy… there is too much chlorine and and there is always something that catches your eye at the bottom of the pool (how do people lose a tampon???)

If I could go somewhere else I would but this is the only pool in the region (and is 5 min away from me) and the closest pool after is a 45 min drive…

Anyway… I guess I’ll start back next week…

I feel pretty disappointed in myself at the moment..

Last year I was swimming on a regular basis… making sure that I went at least 2-3 times a week…

I felt great, had more energy and was losing weight… then the summer came and the hours of the pool changed and then I had our wonderful and long trip to BC and the routine went out the window… when I got back form BC I made an effort to go and did for a few weeks and then we got sick and it started to get cold and since the routine was already lost I just haven’t been back…

I feel awful…. really… not just mad at myself for not going back but I have less energy and I feel like I am gaining weight…

Anyway… Tomorrow I am going back…

I am writing it here so that I feel the obligation and I told Simon to order me to go tomorrow…

I have to get back into this routine… for my own sake…

So, we did quite a few hours of changing things around today and I think that we are done for the night… or at least the big stuff…

Though we might have to sell the bed with the house we were barely able to  squeeze our bed down the stairs and into our new room, the computer desk has been brought up and computer is now upstairs and working…

We still have to bring the bookcases and books upstairs but that could be done slowly over the course of the next week, and then it will be my dresser which probably is the heaviest piece of furniture and we might wait until next weekend when we could have a bit of help, needs to be brought into our new room…

Besides that we have to transfer things that are in the closets and rearrange the rooms the way that we want them…

To date though, I love the changes… All of our rooms will be more spacious (except for the playroom and office) but we are thinking about not having as much stuff in there anyway… Having more open space will meant that the rooms will be more inviting, easier to keep clean and just help with the flow of the house…

So we still have a lot to do but it will be worth it!

(and Simon added when I was up from the computer)… And tomorrow Simon will go rest at work.

So I have planned and measured and we have started the change in the house…

We started late today, after I got home from grocery shopping and lunch so we didn’t get much done as I would have liked so at the moment it is looking like a total mess which is a bit discouraging to say the least…

Khéna’s new bed is in their new room, his dresser is down stairs and his clothes are in the closet. He will have the double bed that was in the guest room.. I put it so that the pillows are on the long side so the bed is 6 foot across and all the boys can snuggle together if they want…he is really excited…

Most of the toys have been transferred into the new playroom and for their room to be finished we just need to bring down their bed…

So though I don’t think we will be able to do it all tomorrow here is my plan…

• bring their bed downstairs
• put our room furniture aside (in the boys old room)
• transfer the office by bringing everything upstairs (in our old room)
• Bring our room furniture downstairs (in the old office)
• Bring the sewing room upstairs (in the boys old room)

After those things are done then it will be the “little things”… the closets, the stuff on the wall etc… but those are things that will be a bit easier…

It feel really weird at the moment to have started it… I have been thinking about it for so long…

wish us luck, if we can get most of it done… maybe by tomorrow we will be sleeping in our new room!

update 12pm: this morning it took longer than expected to bring their bunk bed down stairs. It needed to be dismantled almost completely… and then put back together…  but their bedroom is now downstairs!

I am facing the fact that we won’t be moving in the near future… Where I want to go is just too expensive, jobs are scarce and things are just not timed very right with finances etc…

So if I can’t move, I need to make the most of what we have now.Which means in our homeschooling life and our home life…

We have been living in this house for almost 5 years now and sadly it still doesn’t feel like a home.  So I have been thinking about what would help and I think that changing rooms around would help with the flow of the house.

We have a split level with 3 closed rooms on the basement level (office, guest room and large Playroom plus the laundry room) and 2 bedrooms upstairs (our rooms) with the living room and kitchen.

Right now the boys are in a room that is 10 X 11… with a very small closet (in their room are two overflowing dressers, a bunk bed and a toddler bed)… and our bedroom is slightly smaller though we have a larger closet…

My idea would be to have the boys room where the playroom is now which would have the advantage of having space for their bunkbeds, their dressers, a large closet and I would put the guest bed in there which would become Khéna’s bed… and there is alread some shelves up for books etc…  and they would still have room for some toys if we decided to have it like that…

Our room would go in the office space downstairs which is the second largest room in the house so that we would be near the boys room and because the room is bigger, Simon could have his clothes in our room also (right now his clothes are in the guest room) and we would be on the same floor as the laundry.

The other advantage is that all of our daytime living space would be on the same floor… I would have my sewing room upstairs and easier to access, and because it wouldn’t double as the guest room we could put our other table in there which we could use for crafts, puzzles, games etc and it would give me extra room for cutting fabric etc…

I am still debating on whether to keep the office downstairs and have the playroom upstairs or vice-versa….

Anyway… those are my plans and I really want to do it and soon but it is hard to even imagine where to start. It would be a great oppurtunity though to declutter even more and do a deep clean of the house…

Has anyone done something like that? any tips on where to start?

Well… the TV went off last week and the boys took it perfectly well…

I mean so perfectly they haven’t asked for it, they haven’t had the reflex of turning it on, they haven’t said a thing about it… it is like we never had it for them…

and they were completely addicted to that thing before…

It was really surprising…

There are still a few shows that I would like to continue watching so I download them… but there are not many and because I have to chose the shows that I would like to download I choose the ones that I really enjoy and it feels better for me knowing that I am watching something because I choose to watch it and not just because it is on…

I decluttered the playroom more last week and got two garbage bags worth of toys out of there and Simon cleaned it even more over the weekend and got our wooden trains back out and the boys are playing a lot more and that is really a good thing…

The saddest thing I find is how hard it was to actually do it… but I am so happy that we did…

eta: after reading this post… Simon called me to say that he saw Khéna turn on the TV as a reflex in the morning when he got up… of course it opens to a black screen though… he should lose that reflex soon though…

Soon… we will have no more cable…

Though I watch a few shows…I more often use it at background noise in the evenings while on the computer.. however, the boys watch pretty much everyday… it isn’t really a struggle in general but I have to admit that since the boys interests are changing and they want to watch shows that I don’t like very much on channels with tons of commercials directed toward kids I have been feeling more uncomfortable about their watching habits…

We also have decided that we are buying a Wii for a family gift, so the money that we save in about 6 months will pay for that expense…

I do think that it will be weird not having TV, but I also think that it will be a good thing for the family… what I find scary though is realizing that it was a bit of a hard decision to make.. we are so used to having TV and having cable that even of we don’t really watch it, it has become such a habit that we keep paying for it….

So on Dec 4th we will be TV free…