So, Christmas cards

I had my Christmas workshop at the church last night and it was a disaster in terms of attendance.

Even now, I'm still very disappointed in the turnout especially since it could have been awesome if we had more people.

Nevertheless, doing all the prep and updating the Christmas Planner I give to clients at this time of year has got me revved up and raring to go.

I learnt a couple of things at last night's session that surprised me:

1. nobody sends Christmas cards anymore (actually, I lie. I did know this because I send probably 3 - 4 times as much as I get. A friend and I are going to keep track this year, just for fun. Please don't change your normal behaviour for my benefit - you will skew the results :))

2. people are scared to tell their families they want to create their own traditions so they go along with the plans, but don't enjoy the rushing around and the stress

3. one guy told me I'm not the "homeschooling type. that's got nothing to do with Christmas but it made me laugh. I should have told him that I'm actually very crunchy and granola :)

4. people spend a lot more on gifts than we do (actually, I knew this too. One of the commenters over at Simple Mom said something like "we're being really frugal this Christmas and have limited ourselves to $1000. I thought, "R8000? I would never spend that!" I would probably not even spend R2500. Then again we plan carefully the whole year.)

Do you relate to any of these points? 

Agree, disagree? 

Onto the Christmas cards... I made my list of people to send cards to this year.

I know I should keep the list in excel or something but there's nothing quite like a handwritten list for me.

Last year I made a rule to not buy anymore Christmas cards til my stash was used up. It was hard, so very hard, because I love stationery and my drawer is always full of cards.

 

newly organised as of Saturday evening

Well, after counting up all the names and checking my stash, I still didn't need to buy any but I bought a set of 8 standard-sized cards to make it easier to post overseas.

I still have about 20 - 30 left, but they're all odd sizes. The photos are printed although I have to go get a bit more done.

I write all the addresses on the cards or just the names if I'm going to see the people and then I start the process.

At the moment I have 21 names - I'm sure I'll remember a couple more as I go along. So far exactly 1 is done.

The kids are helping by writing their own messages in the cards too. I'll take a picture when they do their next batch.

I've decided this is one of our traditions. I'm a card-writing person, big-time, and already the kids love to come "write their names" while sitting on my lap in the study.

yellow basket from Pep (about R22)

from the front - one overseas card addressed

from the side - excuse the flash. If I waited for daylight to get any photos done, we'd still be waiting two months later and I'm letting go of excuses and perfectionism!

So that's me for now. The aim is to get about a third done this week, some more on the weekend and finish them by end November.

Do you do Christmas cards? Only for overseas people or for locals too? Do you revise your list every year according to who gave you a card? ;)

PS Tomorrow is my performance appraisal, the last one (for now - look at me, all optimistic) with my boss.

Five on Friday

1. Just got a new-old coaching client. She coached with me for a long time, and then stopped for 5 months and is now back. Since she's trying to lose weight I told her I'd join her in trying to eat better and exercise more this week.

2. Two random acts of kindness for me this week - someone bought me a piece of sinfully delicious fudge and my boss bought me a box of popcorn today. May I add that the popcorn was salted just enough. I'm fussy about the salt - I don't like salty foods - and this was perfect.

3. I asked my old personal trainer, Sara, to do a programme for me and it's just come through on my email. Really, this girl is fantastic and so nice, you can't help loving her. PTA ladies - if you want her details, mail me.

4. I'm 100% done with Connor's clothes. He has MORE than enough shorts and t-shirts, and after a vest-buying spree, now has enough short vests too. We might have a pj problem soon though because those legs have grown.

5. I have to check if V sorted the last of Kendra's winter clothes properly. She tends to be less ruthless than I am in what is too small. Otherwise, I'll be posting some clothes to my sister and then donating the rest. I've labelled everything in sight (punched circles with my 2 inch circle punch and attached to plastic tubs with prestik)

And what did I do for me this week?

1. I went out with a friend for pasta on Tuesday night. It was LOVELY to catch up with her and we said we need to do this more often. Next month is her birthday so that will keep the momentum going.

2. Amazingly, I dragged my butt to gym on Wed despite my headache. I had to leave 10 minutes early when it got really bad but 40 minutes is better than nothing, right? (I was 10 minutes late too!)

I forgot this not-so-little reason I don't enjoy the heat - headaches! I've had headaches about 3 out of the 5 days this week.

3. And I finally coloured my hair. It was about two months overdue but the thought of Louisa seeing all that grey tomorrow moved me to do it :)

4. I've been dog-tired at night so reading only 15 - 20 minutes before falling asleep. That's not going to do so I've started reading an extra 20 minutes in the mornings BEFORE getting dressed for work. Do you know how decadent that feels?

How was your week?

What did you do for your self-care?

Anyone else's kid hate getting dressed?

Don't forget to enter the giveaway for the cute beach tote.


This morning I woke because Connor decided that I am a "horsey" (I don't know where he picks up "horsey" - I say "horse" - oh wait, I think it's MIL) and jumped on me to play.

We played a bit and then he told me he wants to "eat eat" and I went to make their Weetbix.

D dressed Kendra before breakfast so she was all fine. We normally do both kids and then eat but this boy is very impatient when he's hungry (like all boys?) so we feed asap.

So then the "fun" begins.

Connor announces that he's made a poo and so I told him that I'd change his nappy and dress him.

Well, it's like trying to contain an eel.

A very slippery eel who SCREAMS at the top of his voice for no reason other than the fact that he doesn't want to stay still for a minute to get dressed.

I'm scared that he'll hurt his head on the chest of drawers under the changing mat because of all the thrashing so I start screaming for D to help me.

We've now decided that kicking is not on (I joked the other day that it's a good thing I'm not pregnant because Connor kicked me so hard in the abs, thrashing around over a nappy) so I smack him on the leg if he kicks me.

It's so loud that Kendra comes running to check on her brother.

She gets nervous so she starts sympathy crying (yes, they still do it - very annoying and LOUD) so then we tell Connor, "please calm down. You're upsetting Kendra."

He listened to us and stopped, and so Kendra then stopped.

The minute she stopped crying, he picked up where he left off.

Aaaarghhh!

So this is our life.

D is much calmer than I am and took the boy and the clothes to the sun room to dress him once he'd had a change of scenery and stopped the crying.

But this is crazy.

We argue about whose turn it is to change Connor because no-one wants to deal with all that crying.

(Not even poo nappy arguing!)

The crazy thing is Connor isa ray of sunshine 98% of the time.

Does anyone else have this going on? Any tips/ suggestions?

(Kendra never fights with us about having her nappy changed or clothes put on)


In other news, here's a little something I did today with the binder rings. I don't save all Christmas cards, only ones where people write really nice messages or the ones with photos (it's always nice to see how the kids grow from year to year).

I was decluttering in the lounge (it is the worst organised place in this house!!!) and found the stash of 2010 Christmas cards.

I tossed most of them and kept 6.

I'm SO happy with how it turned out. I think I'll put the 2009 cards on here too.

Easy, contained, organised.

What's the least organised room in your home?

PS our friends on the cover are from Australia :) and there are also cards from Texas, South Dakota and Oregon, and of course, South Africa.

PPS 4 days til the babies are 2. I am so unproductive these days because they are so cute my heart hurts :)

Back to work

Last night I suddenly realised that I had ONE day before going back to work.

I made a list TWO pages long of things I wanted to do.

Somehow I got stuck into one of those items (sorting out my project 365 photos) and I'm nearly there.

Apologies for those of you who are friends with me on FB for the gazillion updates (my photo blog goes to FB automatically).


Tomorrow V is back from holiday (I hope!), that's if she arrived safely back from Zim.

My messages to her have been undelivering... so hopefully all is well.

D and I feel like rock stars because even to my very objective self, we've coped beautifully with not a stitch of help from anyone, and with sick babies. D is also sick and is going to the doctor tomorrow to get a sick note since he's also supposed to be back at work.

Oy!

Anyway, so we've been with the babies for 18 days on the trot.

The longest since my maternity leave for me, and he has never spent this much time with them.

The time with the babies and as a family has been so good - they are so, so cute, can communicate their needs and are generally 70% good, 30% spirited/ sassy. Which D constantly reminds me is what I prayed for as I said 100% good kids are boring.

Those words have come back to bite me...

The one thing I will not miss is feeding time. That's a post for another time but also the cleanup afterwards is just terrible. And I'm not lazy about cleaning.

Work it out - 18 days X 5 meals X 2 kids = way too much cleaning up

I have a confession - I've been skipping the afternoon snack for the last few days so that there's one less meal to clean up.

!

How V does it I don't know.

I guess you keep going because of the cuteness?

Anyway, my deadline is 10 pm tonight so off I go to get my beauty sleep :)

Have you made your menu plan for the week?

P.S. I write quite a popular blog on organising - if you're interested in following that one, leave a comment and I'll send you the link.

How do you stay on top of the photos?

Last night I spent almost two hours organising photos from months 8 – 11 and making photo CDs for the family.

It is exhausting and is probably the least organised part of my life.

I must confess that it was worse when we were taking pics from two cameras.

Now we’ve restricted ourselves to one camera so that at least when I download, it’s all there in one place.

I am so behind with my Project 365 blog, I fear I may never catch up again.

I don’t know how some of you do it – up to date all the time and up on blogs/ Facebook on time, not weeks or months later!

I do know I make too big a thing of it in my head and if I actually just sat down and downloaded and organized and copied to my “to blog” folder (do you have a “to blog” folder?) once a week, it would take 15 – 20 minutes.

But that’s me. I download only every 2 – 3 weeks or so unless I desperately want a pic from the camera.

I keep thinking, “cool, I’m up to date” and then 3 months pass and I’m back to square one.

So this time I want to fix it before it gets to that state again. I’ll have to trick myself and play games with my timer to get me moving.

Please share your tips. Do you live with that cable in your handbag or what?

P.S. I read this FANTASTIC post yesterday – I became a mom and lost myself – go read and no prizes for seeing which comment’s mine! LOL

P.P.S. This is my newest lazy organising trick - photo collages :)

Accepting and organising help with babies

The lovely laidback PJ (sooooo not like me which is why I love reading her blog LOL) is expecting twin girls and asked a question on her blog:

what helped you the most when family came to "help". Did they do dishes, diapers, feedings? Some of everything? and... how did you schedule it? Was it one parent at a time? Did you stagger them? Did it add to the stress of newborns, or did it help to alleviate stress?

It is infinitely more frustrating for me to have people around not doing anything (this is a big weakness of mine in that under stress I often see people as resources and not as people) than to be alone and do it all myself.

This is why some of my friends might remember me saying, "rather pay for a nanny/ maid so that you can boss them around without any guilt" LOL

I felt more frustrated in that first month alone with the babies because my mother was there but also I had to ask for help (another one of my big weaknesses).

Once the nanny started in September (babies were 8 weeks old), things calmed down a lot. She knew she was there to do x, y and z, and I didn't feel the slightest bit guilty about telling her what to do.

There are already some GREAT comments on her blog.

This is what I wrote:

Oh wow - what great comments.

My advice is to discuss with your hubby what kind of help you need and then clarify that with all your visitors right now.

This will change once the babies are there and you actually know what it's like (LOL) but at least the discussion has been opened.

This whole thing was a complete disaster for us which is why I speak from experience.

We ASSUMED my mother would know what to do - well, I moaned at my sister that she was doing nothing and my sister said she probably didn't want to interfere! So then we started saying, can you give K her bottle or please hold C while I do x.

For the next visit, I resorted to my normal bossy self. I did my menu plan and said I'll cook on these days, will you cook on these days?

And so on...

D's job was to boss his mother. She stays in the city but he would say, if you want to visit you have to do everything so had her changing, feeding, bathing, playing with babies. Even I *blushed* at the bolshiness!

All that to say this:

1. clarify expectations upfront
2. farm out things you're comfortable with (I did all their bottles myself because I'm a control freak) - like laundry and cooking
3. keep communicating
4. for other visitors, tell them to bring a meal or pick up muffins/ croissants on the way - then you don't have to worry about feeding them. Schedule visits around feeding time (if you're bottle feeding) so a visitor can feed a baby - they take forever in the beginning, not a 5-minute job like it is now

and above all else, they are YOUR babies. You're allowed to ask for what you need (sleep, etc) so that you enjoy them better.

I ended up making bottles up to 10 am (I still do so today) so that D and my mother could do the early morning and I could sleep in.

Email me for more specific things - I have TONS more but am already hogging comments.

Like have less clothes because it means less laundry! Forces you to not procrastinate and useful for "Oh, the babies are nearly out of babygrows, can you do a load?" LOL

P.S. What is your motherstyle? (my blog from Friday)

My question to all of you is similar but I want to know this -

What did you do that had the best results and what would you absolutely never, ever, ever do again?

Mine? I would definitely not assume that what we were thinking and what the visitor was thinking was the same thing with regards to "helping out with the babies".

I've realised since that what most people mean about "helping out" is holding a baby but STILL expecting us to "entertain" them (offer food and drinks and have us make it all).

What I now tell people is to be upfront and say, "please help yourself to tea/ coffee and muffins. I really need to get started with the laundry" or similar.

The best thing I did was make a list of meals and who cooks what, when. Eventually after about two weeks, my mother and I fell into a routine of me putting on the laundry and her hanging it out.

It happened because she thought using the tumble dryer was wasteful (true - but I was just trying to survive, not trying to be green or save money, and the tumble dryer was the quickest thing with the least amount of effort).

What did you do with close family visitors that had the best results and what would you absolutely never, ever, ever do again?

P.S. I loved a commenter's suggestion about getting grocery gift cards and handing out shopping lists with a gift card to people who offered help! BRILLIANT and gets them out the house for an hour or so :)

And the winner is...

Doesn't it sound like the Oscars? LOL



The winner of the Organise your Home ecourse, valued at $47, is comment number 5 -

Donna!

who said...

Hi! I'm a newbie! So nice to "meet" you!

What a COOL prize! My biggest challenge is CLOTHES - we have too much! for me, hubby, the twins, the other grown sons - too much and it's all a clutter!

Donna, send me the email address you want to use for the e-course and I'll sign you up right away.

But wait!

I'm giving all my readers a 20% off discount voucher if you use code WELCOME at the checkout :)

Have fun and happy organising!

Happy Easter!

he loves playing on our bed

we can't get her to stay still for a second - literally - look at that determination

I've been lazy, lazy, lazy and am going to bunk church this whole weekend.

I'm not a fan of the Good Friday service anyway (I just can't think of Jesus going through all that pain) so I never go.

My MIL is babysitting again (she actually sent us an email to ask us if we'd ever let her babysit again because she felt so bad about Connor's arm ... OF COURSE we will. It didn't even OCCUR to us to not let her babysit!) while we go see "Valentine's Day" and do some baby shopping. Then we'll be home and all 5 of us will go to Gillooly's Farm (gorgeous park with a lake and ducks near our home).

So, I see on the US blogs Easter is a big holiday and you guys buy gifts for the kids, decorate and what-not.

First I've ever heard of this.

It may be in my social/ church circle (South African readers - please correct me if I'm wrong) but on Easter Sunday here in SA, you go to church (if you're the church going type) and then you eat your stash of chocolate Easter eggs. That's it - no gifts and Easter decor :)

So I have three questions for you:

1. Does EVERYONE do this? (Would you be the freak for not doing Easter gifts and decorating?)
2. Is it a religious thing or a cultural thing?
3. What kind of gifts do you do?
   

Bonus question about decorating

I also noticed that the decorating is a big thing - Valentine's, St Patrick's Day, Easter, etc, etc.

Where oh where do you STORE all that stuff? (seriously, I want to know. I only have one shelf of Christmas decorations. One small shelf :))


Top Mommy Blogger?

Help - what do I do with all the old baby bottles?

As you know, our babies are formula-fed.

They are now using big bottles so I have a stash of little ones (125 ml) and I have no idea what to do with them.

And no, I really don't want to just throw them away.... I really like re-using stuff. Even though they weren't expensive.

I've only had two ideas to recycle them so far:

1. I filled one with tiny sweets, tied a bow around the neck and gave it to a friend with a "congratulations on your pregnancy" tag. It looked very cute - I should have taken a pic. Strangely I don't mind if OTHER people throw them away :)
2. Home-made toys - got this idea from Andrea's blog - will fill some with pasta shapes, lentils, etc.

What else? Mandy P? Anyone?

**************************************

I saw a cute utensil holder that I was sure I could put to use somewhere but as I couldn't think of it in the store I started to leave.

I have a "rule" that if we don't know where something will go, we don't buy it. It doesn't always work but I will say that in 95% of cases I do actually follow my own rules :)

Anyway, I was about to leave when I got it - it can hold their bath toys! I don't like those mesh things you attach to the bathroom tiles - to me it feels messy. No offence if you use them.

So I went back to buy it. And here's what it looks like:


It's actually perfect because

• the water can drain easily
• it takes up very little space because it's tall and thin
• it's cheap (R14,99 at Pep stores/ $2)
• when the container gets too full some of the toys must go (another one of my rules - if it doesn't fit in the container, we declutter until it does)

What do you do with the bath toys?