Better Planning For Our Pauses

Fall is my favorite season.  Waking up to crisp mornings that mellow into warmed sunshine afternoons, the golden light that illuminates the world in a sort of hazy glow as it eases toward sunset.

My inclination this time of year is to prepare the house for nesting over the winter.

It is a bit like a squirrel lining its den, I suppose, but I have this urge to straighten and tidy and fortify the pantry with delicious snacking and baking staples in case of a snow day somewhere in the distant future.

Do we have puzzles and games aplenty, all currently stored at the ready?  Including a vast supply of legos just waiting to be built into something awesome?  Check.  And check.

Is there plenty of popcorn and assorted tidbits that The Peanut finds deliciously munchable?  Check.

Can we make some snickerdoodles at the drop of a hat?  Yeppers!

One of the things I do is to make sure I've stashed away some activities -- new coloring books, a craft project or two, something to paint or assemble, a fresh drawing pad, a new-ish movie or two picked up from the $5 or less bin, you name it -- so that when the inevitable snow day strikes, we have a new and exciting something-or-other to do.

I have done this since The Peanut was small.

Clearing Out The Dross

It's been a weekend of cleaning and clearing at our house.

We're having the carpets shampooed downstairs this morning.  Which meant that all weekend long as well as this morning, I've been running around and straightening and clearing off flat surfaces and anything near the floor to facilitate a thorough shampooing.

The good news is that our downstairs looks wonderful at the moment.  So being thoroughly pooped is worth it, I'd say.

My goal?  Once the carpet is cleaned and dry, we sift through the remaining dross sprinkled here and there upstairs and down and do a wholesale purge of things we neither need nor use.

Know Not If It's Dark Outside Or Light

Woke up this morning to a steady, soft rain falling from a gray sky. It is the sort of day that only makes the robins on the lawn happy, while the rest of us try to come up with ways to stay indoors.

My perennials, though, are drinking it in, reaching up toward the heavens with their thirsty roots stretching out below.  If you listen closely, you can almost hear the sound of their "ahhhhhhh" as the liquid life seeps inward and up.

Meanwhile, Roxie, our westie, is laying with her belly toward the heater vent, disgusted by the wetness on her paws and refusing to look at me after her forced trip to the yard this morning.   I am momentarily persona non grata in pooch world.  (Until it is time for lunch, anyway, at which point I'll become the single most exciting person in the history of time.)

The house sits still and silent this morning.  Everyone has gone off into the world and left me sitting here alone with my coffee.

I love Monday mornings for just that reason.  They are an island of silence in an otherwise chaotic, noisy world.

This morning, I can hear the robins calling to one another outside my windows.  And the little song sparrow calling everyone to the morning's feast now that the bird feeder has, mercifully, gotten filled this weekend.  He's perched on the side of the feeder, trilling his little heart out this morning, just on the other side of the glass from me as I sit here typing.

Part of me wants to sit right here for the rest of the day, soaking in the life outside my windows.

Just Another Weekend

I don't know why it is that our weekends seems to disappear insanely fast, but they do.  It is as though time speeds up on the weekends, and whizzes by us as quickly as possible to get everyone back to work and school.

It is tough to savor the relaxation when there is just so much to get done.

And harder still when the window of time in which to accomplish the weekend "to do" list appears to be shrinking exponentially.

I've decided that better time management is my friend.  The trick is to figure out exactly what that means and make it work to my advantage.

Anyone have suggestions for ways to manage day to day tasks with more efficiency?  Or establish routines that help in that tremendously?

Finding Balance, Out of Africa Style

For me, one of the marks of a good film or a wonderful book is how much I want to spend time in or around its characters, how I want to somehow crawl out of my own world and into theirs each time I watch the film or pick up the book.

In terms of movies, for me that most often happens in period pieces where things are not overly romanticized, but where the visual tone is one of comfort and slightly declining splendor -- where the polished world begins to show a wee bit of tarnish, so to speak.

This was an unexpected find for me -- some deleted scenes from Out of Africa.  There is a second cache of deleted scenes available here as well.  Watching them this morning, I am in heaven, because these are scenes I never knew were available anywhere.

Out of Africa is as close to perfect as a film can be for me.  Yet I now have this irrational need to see an uncut version with the deleted scenes added so that I can see them directly in context within the whole of the film.  The acting, the cinematography, the sets...it is seamless and a perfect antidote to having a sick, wee girlie at home at the moment.

There are days when you need a little dreamy otherworldly atmosphere to pull you out of your own doldrums, right?  Out of Africa does that for me.  The music, especially when coupled with the gorgeous wide-shot scenery in the opening scenes of the movie, are worth watching over and over again for that alone.

Making Our Home Our Castle

One of our goals this year is to get a better handle on our family budget.  As we hurtle toward retirement, being able to live comfortably when we are spending well below our income is a big goal.

Both of us have seen far too many people need to keep working well past when they would rather have retired because their expenses were too great to be able to stop and enjoy their lives.  We've also seen far too many people retire, and then have to find some other part-time employment or something else to cover rising medical or other expenses that weren't planned for earlier.

We're very blessed in that we have the means to live well, because we have both worked very hard to get us to this point and continue to do so.

But that doesn't mean we ought to just take it for granted that will always be the case, or that we shouldn't be more thoughtful about how we use our resources.  Using them more wisely is always a good goal. 

One way to enjoy what we already have more while spending less is to get our home where we want it to be -- comfortable, cozy, inviting, less cluttered -- so that spending time at home is preferable to going out, spending more money and buying crap you don't need.

I've been looking around our house lately with that sort of eye toward what is working for us and what is not.

For 2012? Choose More Joy

This year?  The New Year's resolutions have a different feel.

Gone are the days of nitpicky, little derogatory "what's wrong with me, let's make a list" kinds of resolutions.  Ticking off a list of what I don't like about myself or my house or whatever else has not produced the desired results, even after years of self-diagnosis and attempts to beat myself into resolution submission.

No more.

Usher out the old, enter the new.

This coming year, I choose more joy.  I vow to make better choices for myself and my family, one choice at a time.

When I come to a fork in the road, I'll try to choose the best one I can based on the facts I have.  And if it doesn't work out?  No self flogging, I'll just make a course correction toward a better direction and keep on going forward.

In 2012, when I have an opportunity for a good belly laugh, some hugs or play time with our 8 year old, some hand holding or a dance with my hubby?

I'm there.  With gusto.

Tackling The Dust Bunnies

Honestly, when you have begun your day by cleaning out the cat box, it really can only go up from there.  Right? 

This morning, after receiving some excellent advice from my friend T (waves to T), and after I'd gotten The Peanut off to school and Mr. ReddHedd out to the office so that the bustling morning of our household had settled into a peaceful silence, I sat down with a nice cuppa coffee, a notepad and a pen.  And made a long list of "to do" items that have been bugging me.

Per my pal's advice, I then went back through the list and crossed out the things that really did not need to be tackled immediately -- the nitpicky stuff that could wait for later.

Am now about to embark on morning of tidying, cleaning and generally straightening up so that my upcoming weekend can be more relaxing and less an annoying ride through "why is mom so crabby" land.  We'll all be happier for it, I'm sure.

After I get the bulk of my to do's done today (say that out loud 10 times really quickly -- I dare you!), I'm going to sit down again and come up with a working list of family chores so that we are all doing something on a regular basis.

It's my not-so-subtle plan for more order and less homefront chaos.

Reaching For Parental And Personal Sanity

Ever have one of those mornings where you look around and have no idea where the days have gone, what direction you are actually working toward, or how everything managed to get so rear end over tea kettle?

That is my morning today.

Our house was spotless and lovely last week.  No longer.

I could use the biopsy and exhaustion afterward as an excuse, but I won't.  We utterly and completely suck at keeping up with housework, even knowing that it needs to be done.

On top of that, I'm feeling woefully behind in planning for the library, especially for lesson plans and such, despite having all my reproducibles copied for tomorrow's classes and my topic and everything well in hand. 

It makes no sense.  I am a detail-oriented, utterly and completely into planning person when it comes to vacations.  Why can't I put the same effort into caring for my own home?  Or, for that matter, into getting my rear end off the couch to exercise more often? 

It's a conundrum.  And I'm wondering if part of my problem is that I'm not scheduling in the drudgery like I do the fun -- maybe I need to be more like Martha Stewart and put "weed the front flower beds" on my calendar for Thursday and then make myself do it so that I can cross it off. 

I wonder if that would work?  Better yet, do you think Martha might show up to weed my flower beds for me?

Under The Sea

Life has gotten away from me the last few days, and I am woefully behind in posting.  We have been at Mr. ReddHedd's firm retreat for the weekend, and before that dropping The Peanut off at grandma's where she will be all of this week for "Art Camp."

Last year, she came home having made several sculptures, paintings, collages, a mobile, prints, you name it.  And loved every minute of it.

This year, I expect she'll return having done something in the style of Vincent van Gogh, who is her current favorite artist ever thanks to Dr. Who. (YouTube)

I have a lot to catch up on here at the house and at the school library. But honestly?  It feels like I'm going to be a bit of a sloth today, as I am achy, tired and not in the mood for an enormous amount of exertion today.

This is what comes from drinking into the wee hours with lawyers you haven't seen in ages and basically acting as though you are still in your 20s by staying up all hours dancing the night away for an entire weekend.  The dancing was awfully fun, though, as was the chitchat, so there will be no complaints from me about the achy payment on the other side for a couple of days.

But the morning could have been better without my crazy coffee mishap, that's for sure.

Spring Cleaning Begins

Coming home from the Artist's Way seminar meant a long drive on a day when I was already tired.  It was a long haul from Massachusetts to West Virginia, but well worth it given how desperately I was missing my family.

It has taken me a couple of days to get over the exhaustion, both physical from the drive and mental from everything Julia Cameron dredged out of me at the seminar.

What I wasn't prepared for upon my return was how much clutter could breed in my absence.  And, more importantly, how much that would really matter to me at a gut level after I got home from several days on my own.

Because it does.  The cluttered chaos matters a lot.  Turns out it drives me absolutely nutso right now.

And so?  I have spent the day tackling the worst of the clutter offenders downstairs, in preparation for Stanley Steamer to show up in the morning and give our carpets a thorough cleaning.   Because, believe me, they need it right now.

Our dachshund, PJ, will be 15 years old this coming June, and her bladder control just ain't what it used to be.  We try to keep up with clean-up as accidents occur, but we don't always find them immediately and as the weather warms up and the humidity begins to rise?  It's is becoming unbearable in here.

If anyone has suggestions on dealing with an old pooch and her disaster of a bladder, we'd love it.

Odds And Ends

Today is errand day for me -- lots to do, drop off, sort out and such that I put off over the weekend while we were doing family stuff together.  Funny how things pile up when you aren't actively tending them, isn't it?

In any case, here are a few odds and ends that have been occupying me of late:

-- New favorite breakfast:  a whole wheat bagel thin (Have you discovered these yet?  I love them!), toasted and topped with a 1 oz., single-serving container of Weight Watchers lowfat cream cheese and some smoked salmon.  Delicious, easy and not so calorie-filled and awful that I feel sluggish after eating it.  Yay!

--  Funds for school lunch programs for the poor are getting cut here, there and everywhere.  As I've said before many times, childhood nutrition is essential to developing brains and these kids did not ask to be born into poor and struggling families.  If they aren't being fed at school, most of them are going hungry, and where does that leave them in the long run?  Even further behind.  Desperation is not exactly an excellent start for a lifetime, now is it?

-- I do not understand these Real Housewives people.  Superficiality mystifies me, always has.  But what I really don't understand?  Is why anyone would watch them and want to be like them. Plasticity and shallowness?  Not something to aspire to in my book, but maybe that's just me. 

-- Oooh, Tosca Reno has a couple of new books coming out this year -- yay, more yummy, healthy recipes!

The Eat-Clean Diet Stripped: Peel Off Those Last 10 Pounds!, and

The Eat-Clean Diet Cookbook 2: More Great-Tasting Recipes That Keep You Lean

Can't wait!

Sunday-Go-Round

This morning dawned a little cooler and a bit more gray.  Guess our warm snap is ending, but not unexpectedly given that it is still February.

It sure was nice while it lasted, though.

Thought we could do with a few interesting links here, there and everywhere for your perusal:

-- Last night, we watched The Kids Are All Right. Good movie, although much less of a comedy than they had slotted it for marketing purposes -- more of a human drama with comic moments interspersed. But still, worth a watch, if only for the superb acting of Annette Bening and Julianne Moore throughout because both were amazing.

-- The movie watching was a sort of "date night" for Mr. ReddHedd and I.  We've had really bad luck finding anyone who can consistently babysit, so we often don't get a chance to watch a grown-up movie until months after it is out of theaters and on to pay-per-view on our cable.  Except for the moments when the dogs want to sit in the middle, it's kind of nice to have an "at home theater" moment, especially if you want a glass of wine or some other not usually stocked at the local movies kind of snack.  (Plus the only other people who get a thrill when you are making out are the neighbors, and only if they are peeking in your windows, right?)  Just wanted to take a moment to recommend a date night for yourself -- even if it is only you, a nice assortment of cheeses, crackers, grapes and a bottle of good chenin blanc, you deserve it.

-- For a solo movie-watching night, I can personally recommend the movies I've watched thus far in The Romance Collection. I picked up a copy of this recently with my tiny-but-large-enough-for-this blog earnings, and it is marvelous: the Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy, plus Emma, Jane Eyre, The Scarlet Pimpernel, and several others.  Boo yah!

-- Speaking of Julianne Moore, this color is gorgeous on her.  Love, love, love it.

-- Is it wrong of me to covet this carved wooden t-rex?

Digging For Zen

We're doing a bit of household cleaning today, basically because I am losing my mind that we haven't fully decluttered yet and the piles of random crapola on our flat surfaces are making me a mental health hazard for the other inhabitants of Casa Smith.

Yes, it is one of those days here.

What I want? Is to wake up in the morning and have my world be ordered instead of feeling the need to immediately straighten things from dawn until dusk.

And so, we're attempting to work on that -- together -- today, which is a huge deal in this household considering we generally use weekends to avoid doing just this.  And you know what?  It is making a hugely positive impact on my own, personal psyche not feeling like I am in the clutter-busting mode alone.

Monday Clear The Clutter Club Check-In

It's early Monday.  And it feels like it here.

Not enough coffee in the entire world to wake me up this morning, I'm afraid.  I blame it on too many episodes of Battlestar Galactica last night.  (No idea how we missed this show the first time around, but it's addictive.)

This week?  The health eating has continued, and we are moving away from Phase One of the South Beach Diet to a quasi-Phase 2 eating style that I hope will become just the way we eat from now on:  healthy whole foods, whole grains, lots of veggies, some fruit, lean proteins, and even more veggies.

Spent part of the weekend going back through some of my healthier cookbook faves:

-- The Eat-Clean Diet Cookbook: Great-Tasting Recipes That Keep You Lean

-- The Best of Clean Eating: Over 200 Mouthwatering Recipes to Keep You Lean and Healthy

-- Eating For Life

-- Mediterranean Light: Delicious Recipes from the World's Healthiest Cuisine

-- Cooking Light Fresh Food Fast: Over 280 Incredibly Flavorful 5-Ingredient 15-Minute Recipes

I have several more that I like as well, but you get the idea:  healthy, whole foods in correct portion sizes that I cook from scratch.

Clear The Clutter Club Check-In

It's Thursday -- time for a check-in for folks trying to clear their own clutter.

How is everyone doing on goal setting -- have you set things up so that you can measure progress?  Having trouble narrowing your goals down to a manageable list (a perennial problem of mine, I always try to tackle way more than I can sanely handle all at once)?

Have you taken any steps toward your goals this week?  Or do you feel like you are moving backward instead?

Share a little with everyone.  How are things going?

At our house, we've definitely gotten back on the right track in terms of diet, and Mr. ReddHedd is managing to exercise regularly as well.  (I am, alas, still as yet unable to do much beyond stretching because my ginormous burn is still healing.  But soon, I hope, I'll be back on the exercise wagon as well.)

Even without the exercise?  Just by eating healthy food in moderate portions, I've already lost about 6 pounds.  Woo hoo!

It's Time To Start Clearing The Clutter!

The little hitch in my resolution giddy-up from my leg burn has finally healed enough that I can confidently say this:  it's time to start clearing the clutter at our house.

Today, we start on Phase 1 of the South Beach Diet.

For breakfast, we'll be having a veggie omelet, loaded with peppers, onions, and for Mr. ReddHedd some mushrooms (not for me, though), a little reduced-fat sharp cheddar, and a bit of salsa on top.  Plus a glass of V-8 juice and copious amounts of coffee, no doubt.  Lunch will be a chef's salad, with some cubed leftover chicken, diced ham, sliced boiled egg, chopped cucumber, tomato, celery, and lettuce topped with a homemade Dijon vinaigrette.  And dinner will be turkey burgers and oven-roasted green beans, cherry tomatoes, and onion. 

UPDATE:  Forgot to say that dessert tonight will be 1/2 cup each of part skim ricotta mixed with cocoa powder, a little vanilla, some natural peanut butter, and a couple of packets of Splenda, and topped with a Tbsp. sugar free whipped topping. 

Phase 1 is the most restrictive part of the diet -- it's designed to clear out the excess ick in your system so that your body can start with a clean slate to eat healthier foods.  It's a bit carbohydrate restricted, but unlike Atkins you have to watch saturated fats and only eat leaner meats and veggies -- it's not a bacon free-for-all, in other words.  We'll stick to this for a couple of weeks to clear out all the holiday sugar rush and then will broaden back out to include whole grains, fruits and other healthy carb choices.

And our hope is that this will not be a "diet" for us for a short period of time, but will instead become the way we eat as a lifestyle for the rest of our lives.

We need this.  The Peanut needs to see us do this and, more importantly, she needs to adopt healthier food choices and understand why it is important for her as well.

My plan?  We go from the first couple of weeks of Phase 1 on South Beach to a broader, liveable and far healthier lifestyle and diet.  I'll be pulling recipes and ideas from the following after this first couple of weeks:

-- The Eat-Clean Diet Cookbook: Great-Tasting Recipes That Keep You Lean

-- Eating For Life

-- The New Sonoma Diet: Trimmer Waist, More Energy in Just 10 Days

-- Mediterranean Light: Delicious Recipes from the World's Healthiest Cuisine

-- The Mediterranean Diabetes Cookbook (ADA)

-- The South Beach Diet Quick and Easy Cookbook: 200 Delicious Recipes Ready in 30 Minutes or Less

There are more, but you get the idea: healthy, whole foods, mostly veggies on the plate, leaner meats, and lots of fiber from beans and grains as well.  The way we ought to have been eating all along.

Case Of The Winter Blahs

It's snowing here...again...this morning, and the landscape matches the gray and dreary sky.

Isn't it amazing how things can get so out of whack so quickly when you get thrown out of your day to day routines?  I know that's true with our house. 

Since I burned my leg, the whole house has gotten out of hand.  Toys and books and magazines are everywhere, and so?

It's a straightening day for me today.

I think I am the only person in the house that really notices, but the clutter has begun to make me bonkers.  It may not be anywhere close to perfect when I get done with whatever I have the energy to do today, but it will at least be better than when I started.

It's the little victories, sometimes, isn't it?

But before I go to tackle the chaos, I wanted to leave all of you with something of beauty.  I loved this picture -- the colors are so vivid and full of life, just the antidote I needed for a case of the winter blahs.  Just gorgeous.

And a nice reminder of the days of sunshine just around the corner...

More Snow Days? More Garden Planning Dreams

It has been cold and snowy here all weekend, with more fluffy snow falling on the remnants from the day before since Thursday evening.

Today finally dawned fairly sunny, but still icy cold.  The birdies are taking full advantage of the well-filled feeders...which as of this afternoon are more like emptying-quickly feeders, to be honest.

I've been huddling inside, trying not to scratch at my healing burn (why oh why does this have to itch so badly, even with copious amounts of ointment and my guzzling water?!?) and busying my mind with gardening books and plans for next spring. 

After making pancakes and sausage for everyone for breakfast here, I feel like I've earned a little bit of lazy Sunday.  Hope you are having a good day wherever you are, too.

You Say You Want A Resolution?

'Tis the season for resolutions at year's end. Which, if you are like me, have already been broken and stomped into the dust by mid-February.

This year, though?  I'm vowing to do things differently.  And as I said last week, I'd love it if you all joined in as well because I think there is definite strength in numbers on something like this.

I've been working on an actual, definable plan, with realistic goals that can be worked toward on a week by week basis instead of coming up with meaningless, blobby goals that only sound good in the abstract.  It's the difference between:

"lose some weight"

and

"lose at least 1 pound per week through exercise -- 5 days per week at a minimum -- and following a diet plan that is akin to South Beach diet's good carbs in moderation/healthy proteins/lots of veggies and Clean Eating and Eating For Life's healthier lifestyle choices at every meal, until I reach my goal weight of 140 pounds,"

which is to say there is a huge difference in planning, accountability and execution.  I'm including a requirement for blocking off time each week for meal planning, for going over what worked and what didn't, and for planning my workouts as well.

Because for me?  Having a roadmap to success makes the whole thing easier.  But forcing myself to be accountable for following it?  Makes a world of difference.