Archives for Decluttering category
Posted on May 19th, 10 at
4:28 pm under Family Life, weight
19
May
Right after I wrote my post last week about being discouraged, I went for a walk in a marsh near my home which is also a bird sanctuary. It was a beautiful day, so I got the kids ready and headed out…
I received my new Ergo recently also so it was a perfect opportunity to put Wilhelmina on my back and have my hands and front free for the camera.
I am ashamed to say that I had never been there before, it is a 15 minute drive so I have no excuse, but I will be going back often I hope…
The walk itself is not long at all,and if I didn’t have the boys I would have done it twice at least, but going at their pace and taking tons of pics was really nice.
I saw so many birds but wasn’t able to capture them all… Since coming back from Annie’s I have a new interest in birds, I used to love watching birds but now I want to identify them and learn their calls… and what an amazing place to do so!
(Tree Swallow and Yellow Warblers)
(Great Blue Heron)
It was a lot of fun being out with the kids and just enjoying the walk…
Of course getting a bit of exercise was also great, but because I didn’t feel challenged at all by the walk, I headed out to the pool in the afternoon… I am starting to see a lot of opportunities to help me get fit this summer and a lot of places to discover…
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Posted on May 13th, 10 at
1:50 pm under weight
13
May
If you have been reading my blog for a while then you know that I have been struggling with my weight for a long time now… I have always been overweight and I have always felt insecure with the way I look.
Now, is not different.
About ten years ago I was at my highest weight and decided that I would lose it. I went to Weight Watchers and over the course of about 6 months lost 50 lbs. I was feeling great and feeling more confidant and more healthy…
I still had weight to lose but I was on the right track. Of course, life got in the way and I got pregnant, something that I really wanted but of course was not the best for my weight loss. Then came Colin, then Khéna and again I lost a bit of weight but was still about 20 lbs from where I had been before my first pregnancy. I was swimming, I was feeling great bit the summer hit, I went on vacation and fell out of the routine and the weight crept up again.
Now, 3 months after having Wilhelmina, I step on the scale and feel like weeping. I am right back were I started all those years ago.
The more you weigh the less energy you have and the harder it is to get up and get going, and with 4 kids, including a small nursing baby, the timing never seems right.
I need to do it though. I need to do it for myself. I need to do it for my family…
Wilhelmina is most likely our last baby. This time, I am saying to myself that when I lose weight, there will no longer be a pregnancy to throw me off.
So, I making the vow to myself and here publicly. I am going to be using a food journal again… though I won’t go back to weight watchers, the journal I did when I was on it, helped me a lot. It was also what I did last time I lost weight. I am also going to start walking more and go back to swimming again. Hopefully doing those things will help me get back on track and feeling better.
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About 35 weeks now and things are starting to get done…
Last week I got the diapers out and placed them in the bathroom, all ready for the new baby… Seeing the small sized bummis covers and prefolds makes thing seem so much more real… in a few weeks we will have a new baby here, in my arms wearing those diapers!
Two weeks ago I found a new dresser for the boys at the “Recyclo-Centre” (Local donation centre that resells things and provides jobs)… I thought it looked not bad amidst all the clutter of all the other dressers etc, and we were really needing more place for the boys clothes so I bought it for 40$…
When it got to the house last week I realized that I found a great piece of furniture made from solid cherry and made in Canada and is worth a lot more used than I paid. Though I already had a great dresser in my room for my clothes, I decided to trade and use it for myself, which actually turns out well because my old dresser had 9 equal sized drawers while the new one has 6 thin and 3 long which fits all of our needs better. It also means that I now have a mirror in my room which is another nice thing.
The mirror should be in the middle but that would have blocked the window, but I find that putting it to the side worked out great…
So this weekend we switched the dressers and then placed the boys clothes and my own… Placing the boys clothes in their new dresser also liberated the dresser for the baby and we brought that in my room, which fits better than I would have thought it would.
Now to get all the baby clothes out, cleaned (in the washer as I type) and placed in the drawers… again, something that will make it feel so much more real..
My mom also came over on Sunday and gave us a hand in the house. Cleaning the bathroom, dusting and cleaning a few of the walls, the floors etc… It helped us get the upstairs cleaned while we worked more downstairs…
Another big thing we did was to take down the vertical blinds in the living room (which I have always hated!) and put up curtains… I wish I would have done so a long time ago, the blinds were ugly, always looked dirty and didn’t work well… and I already had everything I needed, the rod, the curtains (though I had to fix them to fit), I just needed to do it.. (nesting is good for that).. the curtains transform the space completely and it makes this house feel just a bit more like a home…
My living room now makes me smile a bit more when I see it… It lightens the whole place up…
Slowly but surely things are getting done in preparation… I still have a bit to do but knowing that I now have clothes and diapers and the carseat is not too far out of reach, I feel a lot better now…
Today I also received my new potty bowl… ready to EC… and so much smaller than I though it would be!
My next big (little) detail is to find or buy a new adaptor for the hose to fill up the birthing pool… after I do that I will feel really ready to give birth and welcome the new little one.. it’s all coming together now…
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Posted on Oct 7th, 09 at
8:40 am under Decluttering, Family Life, towards simple living
7
Oct
Last night I went to a parents meeting for the homeschooling group that is a bit farther away… the theme for the night was organization and for some that was more about homeschooling and how to organize time and priorities etc.. for others it was about other things like cleaning the house…
When we bought this place 5 years ago I thought it was big… I had only lived in apartments and small spaces before so in relation to what I was used to, it is big… but now our family is bigger and the space is definitely small and it is cluttered and it is just not working as well for our family as I would have hoped… If we could move one day, I hope it would be sooner than later but for now we just need to stay put and deal with it for a while more…
But going back to organization… a while back I had a great routine going for a bit, I would wake up, I would make breakfast and clean the kitchen, I would put things away and sweep and wash the floors and do a quick clean up of the bathroom etc and the house felt tidy and presentable with minimal work every day…I have a feeling that there are many people that do this with no problem but it took/takes a lot of effort for me to have that routine… then something happened and the routine went out the window and the house went back to being a mess and needing the weekend to clean up… I hate this though… I would love the weekend to be family time, not clean up time…
I hate cleaning, I have never been tidy, but I also know that I hate being in a messy house… and when things are tidy and clean it reflects on my mood and on my energy… it is like a vicious cycle and I see that I need to get back into that routine again…I need to start decluttering again so that we have less stuff and everything has a place. We are no where near that yet.
So please… tell me!
How do you do it? What is your routine? Where does your motivation come from? Do you care if housework is done or not? How do you deal with a smaller space where everything doesn’t have a place?
Give me your tips!
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Posted on Mar 9th, 09 at
7:30 pm under My Life, weight
9
Mar
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..
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Posted on Mar 2nd, 09 at
6:55 pm under weight
2
Mar
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…
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Posted on Mar 1st, 09 at
6:29 pm under weight
1
Mar
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…
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Posted on Jan 18th, 09 at
7:16 pm under Decluttering
18
Jan
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.
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