Half Years Resolution.

I meant to post this at the beginning of June, but since I forgot, I waited until the end.  A FULL 6 months since I posted my goals for 2011


So how am I doing and what are my new goals? 

1. Smile more (I don't do this nearly enough, for how happy I really am), adding to be more thankful for what I have
2. Take my dogs (and daughter) on more walks. fail.  Going to commit to one walk a week!
3. Create more works of art, painting, ceramics and such  took a ceramics class, not as creative as I wanted but I am creating more than I was right after my little Cupcake was born!
4. Be a better teacher, be more prepared, more knowledgeable, more engaging. Well it's summer now, so I don't have to worry about this one. But I do think I was successful with my students this year.
5. Continue on my coffee-less lifestyle until at least march 2011.  I am now drinking my coffee again, and I'm adding lots of home brewed tea to my daily routine. My new goal is to drink one ball jar of tea a day.
6. Make my Etsy store a success.  Well what does success mean? I sold a few items!  so now I just need to keep it up.
7. Post more D.I.Y. projects on this blog. This is a constant goal.
8. Nurture our garden into edible food. DONE!
9. Practice my self defense techniques, shooting, knife skills and hand to hand.  Need to do this!
10. Continue saving $$ for summer (paycheck-less) and for traveling.  Ugh, I hate money.
11. Eat Better, MORE veggies/complete proteins/organic produce and LESS sugar/sucanat.  Still working on this, it's a lifestyle change so I'm not sure it will ever get crossed off.
12. Go to Yoga at least once a week. In Progress, although it's been more like once every other week.
13. Practice languages; Spanish, Russian, German, Italian. Working on the others...
14. Be a better mom (including holding Sonja Sweetness more, teach her more, stop being lazy) I think I'm doing good with this one.  We're still breastfeeding, I hold her a lot, I am not as lazy as I was when I wrote this, so cross it off?  yes. Stop working on it? no.
15. Be a better wife (including cooking more, cleaning more, say thank you more and the such) I just got done folding ALL the clothes in my home, and balancing the checkbook.  I think I'm doing pretty good, but I'll attempt to be better at it always!


NEW GOALS
1. Balance teaching, working from home and crafting while being a mom.
2. Cook dinner once a week, to give Husband a break and for my own mental health, I miss cooking since he took over.
3. Line dry my clothes again!  I got lazy when Cupcake arrived and reverted back to the dryer, but I'm going to utilize this Arizona sun for something if it kills me!
4. Finish my various refurb. projects I've invested in by the end of the summer!
5. Complete the party planning and decor. revolving around Cupcake's 1st birthday. September 24th will be here before I know it!

Vintage Family Photos

It's taken me over 9 months to finally sit down and scan these images.  Husband's Grandmother shared her photo albums with us and I've wanted to document and save them for some time, but being a mom is busy work and sitting down to scan images was at the bottom of my list, but the good thing about a list is eventually you check everything off.  So, without further adieu;

San Diego. {Traveling with a Baby and Photo Dump}

When Traveling with a nine month old, plan realistic distances and allow for reasonable breaks for both diapering, feeding and mental sanity.

We drove a 6 hour drive, allowing for her sleep schedule of about 2 hours sleep, 1 hour awake, BREAK, 1 or less hour awake, 2-3 more hours sleep.  Knowing what your child’s normal sleep schedule allows for you to plan optimal sleep to drive ratios. 

Feeding.  Make sure to bring food (weather that means homemade purees, pre-pumped breast milk or the real thing, make sure to have it!)  I leaned into her car seat in order to feed her, although if she was used to a bottle I would have gladly chose that option, as it would have saved my rib cage unnecessary trauma. 

Diapering.  On this trip I packed 18 cloth diapers. We use gpants so I brought 4 shells and the rest pads.  But she ended up going through her diapers much faster on the first 2 days and I had to do laundry in a rush on the 2^nd day.  We decided that disposable was a better option as the laundry cost $2.25 in the beach condo’s laundry room.  We purchased her some gdiapers disposable liners since we brought the shells and they’re biodegradable.  I strongly recommend using a combination of E.C. and cloth when possible, biodegradable/flushable when not. 

Toys and Entertainment.  I sat in the back the majority of our trip and read books, played with rattles and joked with Cupcake while on the drive.  Make sure to pack a variety of books and toys because they will get sick of them rather quickly when confined to a tiny chair.

Sleeping.  If you co-sleep, this is a simple arrangement. Get a king bed.  Sleep like normal.  We actually had to sleep in a Queen size bed two of the nights, and although it was a bit tight we are used to having our Little Miss in bed with us so we adjusted fine.  If you’re not co-sleeping, bring a pack and play, even though our hotel had one, I don’t trust the safety protocols and recalls that a non parent might follow.  Make sure you have your own, which you KNOW is clean and safe.

{Photos on DSLR}

{Photos from Phone}

...and there's a few more on my tumblr.