Mondays

Always the hardest day of the week, trying to get back in to the swing of school, and picking up the house from all the weekend fun. Around here we like to play and have fun most weekends, which means my house gets horribly negelcted for 2 days.

For the last couple of weeks I have been re organizing my house a room at a time when I have extra time after chores. This weeks goal is to get the kitchen cleaned and re organized. My pantry is overrun by mess created by little hands looking for snacks. Plus my sink is over run with dishes that even though I have washed them it keeps getting higher...hmmm. So this is my goal to get the kitchen spic and span then it is so much easier to put it back that way in the mornings while my oldest does his seat work.

I am hoping having my house in order from top to bottom ( eventually) it will make my mondays less taxing since everything will be mostly clean to start with come Friday afternoon. There is hope for me not to hate Mondays so much in the future :)

Today I start week 5 of my 12 week work out challenge. I am adding an ab routine on Tuesdays and maybe Thursdays depending on how sore I am. Plus what I have been doing is changed slightly, I just got in a groove too. I will post more on how this challenge is going tomorrow.

The best cooking tool EVER

Well at least I think so. I just managed to cook chili for my family with only 2 tools my knife and my mix and chop. I just renewed my love for my mix and chop, it is a great tool for ground meat. You can just throw your meat in the pan and the mix and chop breaks it up effortlessly. The reason I am so excited about this handy dandy little tool is tonight I was looking over my recipe and I was supposed to hand squeeze or blend plum tomatoes ( I have made this meal before and usually go the route of the blender) then I thought I can just use my mix and chop, not only did it save me having to pull out the blender and then wash it it saved me time and worked like a dream.

It saved me so much time in fact that dinner is done, and I am still waiting on my family to get home from the Y so we can all eat. So I decided to share with you all ( if you don't already know) what a wonderful little tool this mix and chop is.

My favorite tool the Mix 'N Chop

You can get it through your pampered Chef consultant. A quick shout out to a friend of mine who is a consultant she is doing a Fundraiser for the Navy Seals Foundation now through Sept 4th.  20% of all sales go to the foundation to help the families of those who lost their family member in the devastating crash and families like them. 

http://www.pamperedchef.biz/gravygirl?page=products-detail&categoryId=96&productId=15658&itemId=2583 this is her site you can order through it for the fundraiser. 

Our Life as of late

So I am not very good at this whole updating my blog thing :p but I am trying and that is what counts.

We are starting week 4 of schooling and things are going well, there are the challenges, getting the toddler to color with out eating the crayons. Today I gave him dabber's he ate those too! But I got my house clean while my kindergartner worked on his seat work and the toddler was contained.  I have put a new system in place to help my kindergartner stay focused, he is thinking that most of his school work is beneath him so he will draw on his page or whatever. Today was rough since it was day 1 but things went so much better than last week, once the tears stopped. Here is to no more tears by the end of the week, (  I have such high hopes).

We joined a co-op and that was a lot of fun, it took my kindergartner a while to warm up. Which I expected, he has generalized Anxiety disorder so new situations are rough. The great thing was instead of him shutting me down and refusing to go back we came up with some great ideas together that might help him next time. Which is such a great improvement for him, we have been taking him to see a therapist since the beginning of the year and we are now starting to see the work we have all put in come around full circle. He still has a ways to go but it is so reassuring seeing him take these steps. 

I am on week 4 of my new work out regimen, it is going well, I am not dieing as much as I was in the beginning and I have increased my weight and my reps. Also I am doing much better on the treadmill. This is my last week of this section then on to the next, finally after I have gotten in a groove. I am loosing weight at a pretty decent rate. I am hoping to meet my first goal by the middle of November we will see how that goes. I am setting goals of losing 10% of my body weight every 3 months or so until I get down to my goal weight.

I am hoping to be able to get on her more and share my thoughts more often. We shall see how that works out :)

Foucus

This morning at church part of the sermon talk about Philippians 4 specifically the following verse:

Phl 4:8

¶

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things [are] honest, whatsoever things [are] just, whatsoever things [are] pure, whatsoever things [are] lovely, whatsoever things [are] of good report; if [there be] any virtue, and if [there be] any praise, think on these things.                                                                                                                               This verse challenged me, what is it that I am thinking about daily. My thoughts need to focus on the good, pure, honest, lovely. Not worry, fear, anger or resentment.  How can I be giving praise to God through out my day if my thoughts are focusing on everything bad that is happening. I am not in control of what is happening, my circumstances may not change, but I am in control of what I am thinking, and changing my out look.  The bible it says to   hold my thoughts captive, and by doing so I can change to only be thinking on things that are honest, true, pure, and lovely. As soon as I notice a thought that doesn't fit in to those categories stop it. This week I am going to make a more focused try to do this in my life and see how it can change things.   My challenge to you is what are you thinking about?

New start

Yesterday was a day of new starts :) It was my oldests first day of kindergarten and I started a new work out regimin with help of my hubby.

We homeschool and have been for a little while, but now he is offically school aged so it feels different you know? We have a great year planned and I am really excited about what we are going to be doing. The little one like to sit and listen to our stories so even he is joining us for bits at at time.  I look forward to sharing some of our adventures as we learn this year.

Then there is the work out  thing, I have been away from the gym for a few months and have never had some clear direction. So I looked up a toning and work out plan and my husband is helping me by MAKING me go to the gym and helping me figure out what these exercises are and how to do them. Also helping me figure out  how heavy my wieghts should be. This program is 12 weeks, it is to help me get back used to working out, we shall see how that goes, back at it again tomorrow!

So here is to new starts and I will share our journey as we make our way.