My friend Carrie posted this on her blog the other day a long time ago and I thought it was fun.

7 Things I Don’t Do

1. Knit – regardless of how many times I want to or I am interested or I look at classes in town, I’ve never just done it. Completely lack of motivation to take another step tells me it just isn’t happening. Then I see beautiful pictures of yarn and I want to use it!

photo credit: orchidgalore

2. Deep cleaning – When the kids and I lived with Mom not too long ago, she remembered that I’m not the tidiest person around so we split the cost of a housekeeper. When the kids and I moved out, I kept using the service. I’ve never loved cleaning, I mean I do it because it has to be done, but that’s it. I am happy to turn this over to another person!

3. Drink coffee regularly – I was lucky enough to grow up living next door to my Grandma. For kids in my family, that meant meeting there before school and having breakfast (or just a snack) and coffee. This only lasted until we had to ride the bus, so from kindergarten until 6th grade, I had a cup of coffee just about every day. That coffee’d me out and now I just enjoy how good it smells.

photo credit: subsetsum

4. Iron clothes – While I like ironing fabric and even don’t mind ironing while I am quilting, ironing clothes is not appealing to me at all. I try to fold clothes as soon as they are out of the dryer.

5. Escape the clutter – I don’t know how I can be organized and know where everything is and still have a messy table! I know it is a matter of not having a place for everything, and this is an issue as long as we continue to move and move since every house is different and the storage opportunities at each house are different as well. This house is the smallest we’ve been in lately and the mess can drive me crazy. I’ve been getting rid of a lot of stuff as a result.

6. Scrapbook – this, like knitting, is something that I want to be able to do. I tried in the past – I have an album with probably eight pages finished – but it just doesn’t stick. I keep memories in a box which is so much less pressure then cutting them up to fit on a page! I have seen this cool page system over at Wendolonia and wonder if that will work for me? I got a Smash Journal and can’t wait to do something with it! I feel like if I find something that works, I’ll be more inclined to do it. Maybe this isn’t true though. Maybe I have to be satisfied with my photo boxes and other boxes of memorabilia.

7. Meal Planning – I have a calendar that has a space for meals, I have a notepad on the fridge for keeping track of a list for when we run out of food, but nothing works to help me meal plan. I have even tried cooking food and freezing it – that actually works really well – and having my kids help. I can plan for a few weeks and then lose the motivation or will or whatever it is. For example, last week – we did great with meal planning! Over the weekend I cooked a few things and froze them too. This is something I need to improve because once my classes start again, I am going to appreciate the planning. And I can plan and organize every other area of my life, why not this! Maybe it’s my changing mind during the day of what I am interested in eating. I wonder what can overcome that.

 

To put a spin on things, here are 4 Things I Do

1. Let my kids help – sometimes it is hard to let your kids do things because they won’t do it right (meaning your way). Of course this gets easier as they get older but I start early. I’ve let JW help quilt, he loves to sew. He asks “help sew?” and sits on my lap. I go slower and he is thrilled. He is fascinated to sit on my lap and touch the quilt, to help move it.

2. Make birthday cakes – so far I’ve made Dora, Elmo, a drum, a gumball machine (two or three times!), a strawberry and I’m not sure what else. I like having birthday parties at home, a throwback to how things have always been done in my family. I try to keep this tradition alive even though we move all the time.

3. Have a library – books are expensive and we use the library all the time. But I have a lot of books and love having them. I love that JW “reads” and that Alice and Jake read at any chance they get. Jake almost reads more then Alice does, which kind of surprises me. We have enough books for at least three, maybe four, bookcases. Most of the books are packed up as the house we are in is too small and there isn’t room for our bookcases. The important thing is to love the books that we have, so I do go through them and make sure we are getting rid of text books or pass along books to friends that we are done with.

4. Cook – I love to bake and cook. I don’t mind making a big dinner, even if it takes 20 minutes to eat after I cooked for two hours. I will try new things and cross my fingers it is delicious. And even better, if you see number two I don’t like cleaning (okay that says deep cleaning) so I have trained myself to clean up as I go when I cook. I put dishes in to soak or in the dishwasher and put ingredients/food away while I’m making it. The kitchen is rarely a huge mess after I am done. I may not be able to plan a meal, but I can cook.

Feel free to play along, and also enjoy Carrie’s 9 Things I Don’t Do.

Talk about a let down.

photo credit: coÉ´á´…oá´™maá´Žâ„¢

I mentioned how crazy busy I am, how I am taking a total of five classes this semester and then I will be done with my undergrad studies. Well I got a phone call yesterday that said the two classes I was going to take from NWIC will not be accepted because they are not exactly the equivalent to the classes at UMUC. I was also told that I was wrong in thinking I only needed five classes to graduate, I actually need ten more total classes. That is partially my fault because I read my degree progress report wrong, but I also blame my advisor because I have been speaking with a couple of different people regularly and I kept telling them I could finish this semester. Why didn’t either of them say anything?

I decided to fight to get the Native American Art Appreciation class to transfer as Art Appreciation. The woman I spoke with from UMUC said it was too specific since it was Native art, and not art in general. Well, it is from a tribal college so I guess you can say there is a focus, but isn’t that the same as art from a mainstream university focusing on western art for their art appreciation class? What if I took that class to begin with and then transferred to UMUC, would they deny the class at that point? Who knows, but I am going to try to go higher and get the class accepted. I do not see why it wouldn’t be but we’ll see the response I get.

I am going to take a DANTES test to take the place of one of the classes I would have transferred from NWIC. So that takes care of the two NWIC courses. I am still registered for three classes online.

photo credit: elxedder

That still leaves me with six classes to take. Ugh. I am so not interested anymore. I was practically bouncing off the wall excited that I could finish this semester. Now I feel like it is a never ending thing, that I just keep taking classes and am not getting closer. I am trying not to feel discouraged, I am still very close. It may just take me a few days to feel completely motivated and excited again.

I guess I could look at it as though I will still be done this year, but that feels so far off compared to this summer. I need to play with a cute baby and sew, maybe after that I’ll be motivated again.

I think I started out the year in a good way. My Grandma used to say that whatever you were doing on New Year’s Eve would be how you spend the year. That has always encouraged me to do a few things all day long – sewing, spending time with my kids, other family, visiting, reading, exercising, etc. This NYE was a good day, spent with family, full of sewing and visiting. It was a struggle to stay up though! I mean for myself, my kids were somehow full of energy and ready to stay up even later.

I am currently working on quilting a small quilt that I volunteered to make. I plan on having it completed tomorrow so it can be mailed on Tuesday. I also have a couple of pot holders that I made that need the binding put on them.

I also registered for two classes today. I have five to go until I complete my undergraduate degree. This is HUGE. So huge I almost can’t process it just yet. I am hoping I can get all five classes done this semester, I know that sacrifices have to be made in order to get what you want and I am willing to sacrifice things so I can graduate sooner then later. Of course later would be this summer, which isn’t too much longer I know.

I look forward to another busy semester! I am going to rewrite my priority list and get to work.

Happy Holidays and here is to a great 2012!

What are your two favorite pictures of yourself?

I almost forgot about this week’s 2 on Tuesday, which is surprising because I’ve actually been able to keep up! I promise I’ll share some crafty and this is what I’ve been doing posts. I’ve been crazy busy! I’m heading to Portland on Thursday for the NIKE N7 Conference and other then being excited for that, I am beyond excited to see one of my BFF’s Holly! It’s been way too long since we’ve seen each other, almost six years! That’s the military for you. She is flying to Portland to watch JW for me so I can attend the N7 Summit. Yay!

On to my pictures…

I like this picture so much it is my icon on several websites. Twitter for one, despite the picture being about three and a half years old. Yes I have a camera and even a phone with a decent camera – you would think I could take a new pic for my profile! But no. I like to have makeup and my hair look decent and I never feel like I have time to take those few minutes to take a new one. Showing this just proves it is so time to do so! Anyway, this picture was taken when Chris was in OCS.

Sure my hair is a hot mess and the craft room behind me is messy, but what a great shot of Jake and I. He was holding the camera and I remember he and Alice had been playing with it, taking pictures of whatever. He came in the office/craft room and wanted to take a picture with me, so I grabbed him and this is what he got. I love it because we are both so happy.

What are your two favorite restaurants?

I’ve become picky about my restaurants. I really try not to have fast food anymore and I don’t like going to the typical chain restaurants – though I do love Outback! As far as I’m concerned, Outback is awesome. Maybe that is one of my favorites. Another is Phad Thai, which is a local restaurant that changed the name to Asian 1 this summer. I don’t understand why, maybe they have new owners, but the food is the same so that makes me happy. The restaurant is has a relaxing atmosphere and the wait staff doesn’t try to rush us out when we are done eating. I found my favorites there so I don’t stray too far outside of that, but they have a huge selection you can choose from.

photo credit: Mark Faviell Photos

The other local favorite I have is CJ’s Beach House (I just found out they don’t have a website!). It is a bit pricier then what I like to spend on a meal out so we don’t go very often. They have a great outside seating area, and since it’s on the beach it can be the perfect evening out. The food is good and most of the time the wait staff is great. If they are really busy, the wait staff seem to be flustered, but that’s only happened once or twice when we’ve been there. That isn’t a picture of Birch Bay from CJ’s, but the entire area looks that way so it could be.