There is a kitchen in here!

It seems to take about a year and a half after each kid was born to re-emerge. I recall it distinctly with Skadi. Like an awakening where I had to drop those extra 10 lbs that didn't fall off naturally after childbirth. And my house was no longer good enough. It was like the fog of "the baby" lifts. I suspect it is all hormone induced. I was lucky to never suffer post-partum depression - I know people who have - but I think for me it was a post-partum fog.


The fog lifted last month and I have gotten down to business. My wonderful Master bedroom emerged last month and this month I found that I do have a kitchen. In fact, I have a great kitchen!


The goal for the month of October was to deep clean, organize my kitchen. It needed it bad. Two weekends in now and I would put it at 75% complete. I have emptied out the cabinets and moved stuff! I am not a rearranger at all - once a piece of furniture is in place I will nearly never move it. Well only on a rare occasion to clean under it (dare I admit). My mom was a rearranger and to be honest, it drove me nuts growing up.


But I went against my gut, listened to my husband's very rational complaints about the cookbooks located in the far back of the pantry, and I moved them! And I love them now! So rearranging isn't awful!


Most of the rest of the kitchen was just emptied out (4 huge garbage bags just this weekend!) and cleaned and put back. Phew! My pantry is lovely, the cookbook shelf is fabulous. The cleaned off and actually purposed as a desk in the kitchen, is lovely too. The rolling cart of crap has been cleaned off, but purpose yet to be determined. The lazy Susan still needs to be tackled as does the very tip top shelf of my glass cabinet that holds stemware we never use (it has been there since we moved into the house - apparently I don't feel the need to put my martinis in a martini glass).


We are hosting a Halloween party in two weeks and panic set in this weekend. Two weeks to get ready! It is always a huge undertaking that is fun and always appreciated by our friends after the fact. But two weeks is NOT enough time! AB suggested that we quit the deep organizing stuff (as beneficial as it is) and start putting lipstick on the pig in the name of the party.


So yeah. Time to lipstick that pig.


Then the last weekend of the month will be spent recovering our kitchen from the madness and finalizing those last couple kitchen things.


And then there is November. I have two thoughts. Back to the Master Bedroom for Thanksgiving week painting and Master bath pick up (easy) and Master closet purge (ugh). OR - I finish Skadi's quilt. I need to finish her quilt.

Slowing down

I haven't been my normal avid blogging self the past few weeks. I was a little surprised to look at my blogging stats to see that I have a total of 9 posts for October so far and it is already the 20th. Somehow I managed 30 posts in September. I am running about half as many in October and additionally I have fallen behind on my newspaper blog. Must catch up!

There really is a reason for my slipping. Ok... maybe four or five reasons.

First this little girl here...

She is at that age where she is demanding a lot of attention lately.

Her list of choice people around the house goes something like this: Leif, Daddy, Winny, Mommy, Lucky. At least I beat the cat. One would think that given this list my time would be free right? Wrong. She does insist on her daddy putting her to bed instead of me - and the man so firmly wrapped around this little girl's pinky finger is only too happy to oblige her.

Skadi's big brother gets a lot of attention from her lately and we laugh at how hard she works to do things exactly as he does. Laying down on the floor to watch TV the other day she made sure to get her little body in the exact same configuration as Leif's and corrected it a few times when she noted she wasn't exactly parallel with him. Hmmm... analytical a little?

Whenever I sit down at the computer though I become Skadi's favorite person. She runs to me, crawls on my lap screaming, "Mahna Mahna Mahna Mahna"! And it doesn't work to play it only once and scootch her on her way. Nope, she will watch it and say "again" as long as you sit there. Removing her results in a tantrum of epic proportions. I don't get much done on the computer around her.

Skadi's first response to everything lately is an emphatic "NO!" even if she has to go back seconds later and change her mind. She gets that this is a woman's perogative and doesn't have a problem with admitting she is wrong.

She is baby obsessed. Seriously all dolls are "babies". My old Strawberry Shortcake dolls have found new life in her eyes - as well as her Cabbage Patch baby and her other baby dolls. She has even become a little obsessed about what they are wearing.

We are considering moving her crib into Leif's room potentially permanently in a few weeks. We have two houseguests coming to visit at different times over the next six weeks though this is NOT the main reason we are considering this move for her though.

We have friends with children the same ages and genders who despite having a much larger house than we do, share a room. They prefer being together and they believe this has helped with their daughter sleeping through the night. When we asked Leif what he thought of this notion he responded excitedly about the prospect of Skadi sleeping in his room. I don't need to ask Skadi - she practically lives in his room as it is. We will give this a shot when my MIL visits in early November and depending on how it goes, she may just stay in there. Anyone with thoughts or experience in this vein please post or e-mail me. We wouldn't expect them to share for long, once Leif wants more privacy (I know, ha ha ha, Leif privacy? But he may someday...) we would seperate them.

Second reason why my blog has been less busy lately, as you can probably guess, is this not so little person here:

I am pretty sure he just went through a growth spurt and much to Leif's disappointment, I really have a difficult time carrying him anymore. When he gets out of the tub and wrapped up in his towel he wants to be carried and snuggled. Since AB is usually putting Skadi to bed at this time, it is up to me. Suffice to say that Leif has been walking himself to his bedroom the past few weeks.

Ok, truth be told though, he isn't needy like his sister and thus preventing me from blogging so much. In fact, it is the opposite. Leif has become very independent lately and if anything, has afforded me more time to myself. However, he has become pretty proficient at the computer - particularly the Curious George website (the caatapult game is his favorite) and... ok, I might as well just admit it... You Tube, which means *I* don't get my computer time - so that is why Leif made it to this list.

Yes, I see you. Look at me with scorn if you must, but Leif loves You Tube. Of course I have to keep a very close ear on what is playing, but once you pull up a video he will navigate the site to continue pulling up related videos he likes.

The Swedish Chef. Leif is obsessed with the Swedish Chef and isn't half bad at imitating him. I have been a little surprised how violent the Swedish Chef can be though! Lobsters toting guns and all. Leif will spend an hour in watching various Swedish Chef clips and will run back and forth to me to tell me which one he pulled up this time and what they did. Hilarious fun.

Moving onto number three... Christmas.

Yes, Christmas preparations are killing my blogging mojo right now. Mainly my determination to complete some Blurb books for Christmas. Whenever I sit down at the computer the Blurb icon stares me in the face and guilts me into opening my Alaska photo book project instead of blogging out of fear that Christmas is going to arrive and I am not going to have gifts. (We won't even talk about the fact that I haven't started Leif's 3-4 year birthday book.)

Number four... work.

Just this past week work has invaded my home life. I put out a concept paper for an upcoming proposal call and not only was it accepted, but it multiplied upon request of the sector manager. I am now submitting two proposals that are due Thursday. At least this is one of those short lived impediments and in a few days they will be sent off to oblivion where I will nearly forget about them.

Number five... my goals.

My goals for the year. I gave up on resolutions and instead decided I was going to work my way around my house in fixing things, organizing things, replacing things and keeping my husband busy telling him what to do.

I have one corner left in my Master Suite to organize. I have (in my head) postponed painting the Master bedroom for now. But I plan to finish up the bedroom this coming weekend, do the touch up paint in the bathroom and call it good. I really would like to repaint my bedroom, but right now it just isn't on my radar. I need to finish the Master Suite and move on to something else because I fear I could dawdle in here with things to do for ages. And if I don't call it good then the remainder of my rooms will continue to suffer.

So that's what has been going on here. How about everyone else?

October is over!

The doom and gloom month at work is gone. It is too bad it is October, because this is a month I normally really enjoy. But I suppose maybe it is good it is not a month that I really dislike... like February.

Things are looking up. Suddenly I am feeling more optimistic about my future at my company and those recent dips in my bobber I threw out into the pond seem a whole lot less lucrative. During last month one of the only things that kept me from telling AB we needed to throw in the towel here was first that he actually has a job he likes, second my 5 years of service with my company (which translates into 4 weeks vacation a year), third my flexibility with my job. Being able to take a morning off to chaperone a field trip, or run out early to get a sick kid without anyone questioning my motives, is huge. So while I am a cappy by nature, a goat that seeks to climb the ranks professionally, I also need to look at the needs of my family and the type of mother I strive to be and find balance.

And maybe this doesn't mean packing my family up, moving to the city to pursue life an industry career.

Anyways, this past week I had a number of proposal meetings. I had lunch with one of the higher up scientists who I really look up to both profesionally and on a personal level. It was an impromptu lunch where we discussed a proposal call and I also bounced off an idea on him and received an affirmative answer back on feasibility and desire to be involved. Which for a scientist his level means, "you can put my name on your proposal to add strength and viability".

Then on Friday I got word from my manager that one of my concepts was accepted for full proposal! Yay me!

November is at least starting out in a positive manner.