Blogging Funk

So, yeah, I'm in the worst blogging funk ever. Probably some of it has to do with the demands of my little one, the most important one. He hasn't been feeling well and has been cutting teeth. He loves his mommy, what I can I say? Well, he actually loves the keyboard more. Not the one he can actually play with, but the one that we use, it's more fun for some reason. All this is to say that my computer time has been limited because there just isn't enough time in the day. My first priority is my Monkey and he only likes to sit on the floor alone for so long. Sooner or later he has to learn that the world doesn't revolve around him :-) I guess I'll start that next week, right along with getting him to sleep through the night again. I've been fooling myself into believing that him only waking up once at 3am is sleeping through the night because he goes right back to sleep. It sure does throw my body for a loop.

Okay, so that was the most random post ever, but it's it's 11:30pm and I really should be in bed. Especially, since I'll be woken up 3 1/2 hours. Well, actually, Monkey decided to wake up right now...gotta run!

This is fun

You can put your own together, here. It's easy!

Shopping for Free

Have I mentioned how much I love shopping for free? I just wanted to share about the stuff I've bought in the last 2 weeks for practically free. For a total of .47 cents in the past two weeks I have bought been given:

Pantene Pro-v Hair Spray
Aquafresh toothbrush
Zantac Cool mint packages (x2)
Rimmel Make-up Foundation
Excedrin
Shout Stain Remover
Degree Deodorant
Post-it notes (x3)
Colgate Toothpaste
Mylanta
Imodium AD
Revlon Foundation
Back Aid
10 pack Bic pens (x2)

All of this I have been gotten for a total of $.47 cents. Count it, 47 cents! Since we don't have sales tax, I have paid just .47 cents for everything listed above by shopping at a combination of Walgreens, Riteaid and Target. Kyle and I aren't big medicine people but because the above medicine was free I picked it up any way and next time our church sends somebody to Africa we'll send it with them to the clinic our church partners with. The only downside is is that all of this is free after rebate, so I do have to front money. But, Riteaid lets you enter your receipts online and at the end of the month you request a check and they send it out and get it about 2-3 weeks later. Walgreens I just send out at the end of the month in one envelope. The stuff from Target was free after coupons. Any way, I guess you could call this my fun hobby, I love shopping, so shopping for free is way more fun! Plus, often times I'm able to pick up things that we use on a regular basis. I do this every single month. I'm guessing that in the last 5 months I've picked up like $200 worth of stuff absolutely for free.

Date Nights

Kyle and I had our first of many date nights to come. With TV viewing in a lull for the summer still, there just wasn't anything good on TV or on our DVR other than Star Trek, which isn't my favorite watch. But, we love playing games, so we pulled out a game from the archives which we haven't played since our dating days. I know it sounds funny, but it's a Start Wars trading card game. We don't actually trade cards or anything but you take all these random cards and you build a deck and then you battle; Light Side vs. Dark Side. I'm always the Light Side because I just can't stand to be evil. Any way, it's just a lot of fun.

So, we heated up our Red Baron 4 Cheese Pizza, hunkered down on the living room floor around the coffee table and played for hours. It was a great time to connect. We haven't played games together in a long time, so it was really fun! Last Comic Standing was on the background, but I think we're done watching that show because the final 3 people lack the "funnies".

There you have it, our first weekly date night. Since our financial situation doesn't allow us to go out every week on a date night without Monkey, we've decided to do one at home every week and then the last week of the month find a babysitter and go out just the two of us.

On a total side note, Kyle and I went to see Harry Potter, FINALLY! It was a great movie. We also finished reading the last and final book a few weeks ago and I give that book an A+ as well (except for the last chapter which I found SUPER corny).

Over and out, Monkey calls!

So Sorry

I'm sorry that I haven't written in forever. I'm having a hard time finding a purpose for my blog. I really don't know what to write about a lot of times. I don't think I'm a very good writer, either, so my blog isn't really compelling to read. Please bear with me as I try to figure all this out. In the mean time, life is good. Monkey is growing like a weed. I love being a Mom, it pretty much rocks. Kyle's on vacation this week, so we're just hanging out and relaxing, it's pretty great. We drove to Seattle for Mariners game yesterday, we got there and some guy outside the door gave us 2 tickets( we didn't have any), I think it was a God thing, it saved us about $30! Any way, that's just a quick update.

Crashing Computers

Ugh...technology is such a blessing and a curse. Our home computer crashed this afternoon. One of the hard drives went bad (one that I bought Kyle for Christmas in December!), thank the Lord it was the one without all of pictures and everything on it! In the past Kyle has built his own computers but this time we decided to buy one. We got a good deal on a computer that is an upgrade for us, so that was nice. Now, Kyle is trying to save everything off the old computer before it goes completely kaput. I'm thankful that we have Kyle's work laptop, too, so we can use that, too.

*Kitchen Update*

It's amazing how much easier it is to keep my kitchen clean now that it's nice and clean and organized. We had 12 people over for dinner tonight and after they all left it took me just 10 min. to unload the dishwasher and getting it spick and span again. How much easier is that then scraping off plates in a few days and spending hours instead of a few simple minutes. I like living in a clean house, it makes me happy!

Kitchen: Before and After

Okay, honestly what I'm about to show you is truly embarrassing. But, like sin, it's important to confess and in this case I feel like I need to be real and show you how I've been allowing us to live. Hold onto your seats because it's bad...


<--before after-->

<--before after-->

Not to sound arrogant or proud, I must say that I'm quite pleased with the results.

Now, the goal is to keep it this way!!!

Cleaning the Kitchen

We are having people over for dinner on Wednesday, so I have no choice but to clean, clean, clean. I've decided to take it one room at a time, one day at a time. Today, I'm tackling the kitchen. It's actually been fun! I've been moving from the right of my kitchen to the left. I took a before picture and then I'll take an after picture and post them later on. I'm not only cleaning (I could clean the kitchen in probably 15 min.), I'm DEEP cleaning the kitchen as well as organizing stuff. Since I'm now making baby food, I need to have my food processor and needed supplies on hand, so I'm working on rearranging some of my cupboards in order to make making baby food easier. Woohoo!

Back By Popular Demand: Cleaning Overhaul

Now that our trips are complete, I've been focusing in on getting the house cleaned and decluttered again. I've been really trying to focus on just doing lots of little things each day so that I don't feel so overwhelmed and so far it seems to be going really well. Aug. 1 was my "start again" date. I forgot to shine my sink yesterday, so I'm doing it right now.

For those of you just tuning in, I've been using www.flylady.net as a resource to get my tush in gear and get my house cleaned. Since becoming pregnant with Monkey things slowly went down hill around the Monkey household and I've been slowly but surely reclaiming it. It's a lot of work...

I think I forgot to mention in my last post that monkey is teething. I've been suspecting it for awhile (since around the first week of June, actually), but we just saw the first bit of tooth come up as of last Tuesday. I was hoping that the worst of it was over, but it appears that maybe he's getting his second bottom tooth because he's been chomping a lot on that side and has been extremely clingy and fussy the last few days. It makes it quite difficult to get anything done. But, he is my first priority, so I'm trying to fit in cleaning when he and time allows.

On the Baby Food front, I've almost read Super Baby Food. It had a lot of good content but definitely wasn't the best organized book ever. I need to return it to the library in 5 days, so I need to make sure I made enough notes before returning it. The author (can't remember her name) is kind of a health nut and is vegetarian, so there are something things I won't be following as closely as she would recommend. But, it had some very good overall tips and recipes that I will definitely be using.

Onward and happy cleaning to all and to all a good day!