Time for a plan

Enough is enough.

I'm tired when I wake up. I'm tired throughout the day. I have no energy. I'm tired in the evening. I fall asleep on the couch, but when I finally drag myself to bed, I'm wide awake. This has got to stop. So, I'm making a plan.

Currently, I go to bed around 1:30am and Ethan wakes up around 7am. I snooze around in bed for another 3 hours then stumble downstairs and head straight for the coffee maker. Of course when Andrew is not here, I get up out of bed when Ethan does, but this morning when I approached the coffee machine and realised to my horror that there was no coffee to be found in the house, something had to change.

I'm making some new rules for myself.

1. No coffee or caffinated beverages after 4pm

2. Set a regular bedtime and stick to it (my goal is 11:00. Every few days I will go to bed half an hour earlier until I make it to 11:00.

3. Establish a bedtime routine. Ethan has one. Rueben has one. I should have one. For those interested it will be this: load and turn on dishwasher @ 10:30. Make cup of decaf tea. PJ's and wash up. Read in bed until 11:00. Lights out.

4. Go outside and get some fresh air everyday.

5. Get some kind of physical activity everyday (even if all it is is carting laundry up and down the stairs.


Hopefully, with these new 'rules' I will be getting a full restful night's sleep and feel refreshed in the morning.

bloggings of a sleep deprived mother.

Well, it's 1:49am. I'm tired, but I'm not tired. 20 minutes ago I was falling asleep on the couch in the livingroom. The problem is now that I've dragged myself upstairs and into bed, I'm no longer sleepy.

BING, I'm wide awake.

I know I should be getting some shut eye. The boys and I decided that tomorrow we were going to spend the morning at the pier and beach in White Rock, so I know I'm gonna need to get up early. But I just can't convince myself to turn off the computer and the lights and get a good nights sleep.

I should... I should... I think I'm going to play some text twist to wind down... maybe...

Thought of the day

My Life List on SuperViva

Several years ago I compiled a life list: a list of things I wanted to accomplish in my lifetime. The list is a motley crew of travel destinations and personal achievements, with a hint of mundane life stuff on the side. One of my items is to read all the books on my bookshelf. If you know me, you'll know that I don't just have a colletion of books, I have a (self described) library of books. Yes, the two things which I can thank my father for are his love of books, and his love of keeping books. I can't help myself... The smell, the feel of the pages, cozying up on the couch with a hot cuppa, a blanket, fireplace on and a good book... what else could an Englsh lit major ask for?

So, I've decided it's time to read them all, from A to Z, and I'm not allowed to buy a new book until I'm finished. How's that for motivation! The plan is read all the books, even the ones I've already read, from the top left corner all the way over to the bottom right. From novels, through the plays and poetry and past the literary giants, to the self help, mom help and travel guides, then on to the mounting stack of magazines.




So far I've checked off:

Watership Down by Richard Adams
The Five People you Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom
Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson
The Cure for Death by Lightning by Gail Anderson Dargatz
A Recipe for Bees by Gail Anderson Dargatz
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

I've just pulled Jane Austen off the shelf. Time to get cracking.


Check out my life list here:

daiseechain's Life List on SuperViva - Make a Life List to Live Your Best Life - Achieve Your Goals

You Gotta Get Up To Get Down!

"I'm too much hungry, that's why I want a small pampake"

Saturday morning, and we're making pancakes. It's 11:30 and Rueben just woke up. That kid sure loves his sleep. Ethan has been busy mixing pancake batter with Andrew.

kate: Ethan, can you say pancakes?
Ethan: Pampakes. pam... pampakes.
kate: can you say regular?
Ethan: regaleger.

When Ethan was younger and expanding his vocabulary, Andrew suggested we make a list of all his misspronounced words. It all started with the word helicopter, or as Ethan used to say, Amodacher. Living room used to be rubaben, but I noticed the other day he actually said livingroom as if that's how he has been saying since day 1. Funny how fast your kids grow up and you don't really notice it until you turn and look back on how far they've come.

It's about time...

I didn't think this day would ever come! Right now, as we speak, (you know what I mean) I am happily blogging away while sitting on the couch in the livingroom. Yes, that's right folks. We finally have a fully functioning internet connection. And to make matters even better, I'm blogging on a brand new laptop computer.

This is big news in my books. I can't remember the last time I had my hands on a full size keyboard. Now I can blog, chat, check email, watch season 6 of LOST and facebook all from the comfort of my very own couch... or starbucks, if I so choose. And you know I'm gonna choose starbucks. This week alone I got 3 free cappuccinos and 1 venti drink for the price of a tall. Yet another perk from this week.

I should sign off and go make some dinner. Oh, who am I kidding... I'm ordering in so I can sit on the couch and get caught up on LOST!!!

Walk this way

I'd forgotten how much it rains in Vancouver.  When people ask what's the one thing I miss most about living in Fort st John, my reply is the weather.  While it's true that I don't miss the -35 degrees of winter, I do miss the beautiful clear blue skies.  It never rained for days on end like it does down in Vancouver.  It never socked in, clouded over and rained and rained and rained.  Walking Lilly was no problem at all with endless numbered days of clear skies.  

So what's a gal to do?  While I'm all for getting daily exersize, I'm not really prepared to drag my two boys around in a plastic covered double stroller while my dog slowly begins to resembles a drowned rat.  Hello... Wet dog is not a desirable home fragrance.  Enter: Treadmill.  Yes, I get just as many strange looks when I tell people I exersize my dog on the treadmill as I do with the weather response.  But hey, it works for us.  Lilly actually loves the treadmill.  She'll hop on it and look at me as if to say 'ok, mom, time for my walk!'

So unless someone can find a way to stop the rain, I'm gonna keep up with the unconventional parenting.  If only I can find a way to keep Rueben from eating the dog kibble...

bad blogger! BAD Blogger!

I really thought I would hit the ground running with this whole blog thing.  I have so many instances throughout the day where I hear a poignant saying or something funny or silly or blog worthy happens and I think to myself "this would make for a good blog post."  But for some reason I never make the transition from 'kernel of thought' to 'published blogpost'.  I could blame it on the fact that I've got two kids under age four and have been single mom-ing it since Christmas, but that's not really fair.  If I can find time to take a weekly bhangra dance class, surely I can find 15 minutes a day to send some words into webspace.  

So, here I am with renewed spirits.

Baking Fiascos of 2009

This time last year, Andrew and I were indulging in delicious goodies from a Christmas cookie swap organized by a friend in Fort st John.  It was so simple.  15 people were involved so all I had to do was bake 15 dozen of one kind of cookie.  Then we all got together and swaped a dozen for a dozen.  We came away with bars, balls and cookies of all kinds.  

This year, I gotta say, I am really missing the cookie swap.  So I figured how hard could it be to become Martha Stewart for a day and do all my own Christmas baking?  Well... For those of you who are attempting this impossible feat, I offer you some tips - the result of my own baking misadventures.

1.  Read the recipe before you start.
  It sounds so simple but it helps you to avoid uttering things like " I guess we'll just omit cream of tartar.  I know we don't have it cause I don't even know what it is..." and "what?? The dough has to rest in the fridge for SIX HOURS?? Crap!".

2.  Have all your tools at the ready.
  Kate has just finished assembling all the ingredients and is ready to bake.  Now, picture this phone call:
Kate "hi mom, it's kate."
Josette "Hi.  How are you?"
Kate "I'm fine.  I'm just doing some Christmas baking."
Josette "oh yeah?  How's it going?"
Kate "um... Fine... Can I borrow your baking sheets?  Mine are still in Fort st John..."
Josette "Oh, Kate!"

3.  Don't trust a picture.
  After flipping through my books, I settled on baking some 'sugar cookie jam rollups'.  They looked so good in the picture, and looked easy enough to assemble.  Well... The dough was so crumbly that it didn't roll up very nicely, or slice very nicely, or bake very nicely, or taste very nicely...

4.  Keep cooling cookies out of kid reach.
  You won't think you're hallucinating when you walk into the kitchen and find an empty cooling rack.  "I was SURE I put a dozen cookies there to cool..."

 

Long time no blog

Wow, it has been a while since I last checked in on the daisee chain.  Let's see... What's new... Ah, yes.  We bought a house! We moved into the house.  We unpacked a couple of boxes and now we're living in a messy half unpacked house.  The frustrating part is realizing that we afe sorely lacking in furniture so I can't fully unpack cause I have nowhere to put anything.  The fun part though is that I get to go furniture shopping and can begin to dream about what my house could possibly look like.  I hope I can realize its fullest potential.

The best room in the house is my library.  Yes, people made fun of me for calling it a library.  A glorified den, they would say.  But now that the bookshelves are up spanning the entire length of the wall and my beauties are standing at categorical alphabetical attention, it most definitely is a library.