Keeping Things Together ... Apart

Today included a variety of planning failure -- forgot to put on my watch, got buried under stupid stuff the moment I got out bed, Dave was especially needy and did not give me my counted-on 45 minutes of peace after breakfast.

Sigh.

And this is how life looks when the husband is gone. ... messy. Dave is particularly needy because he's missing his Daddy time -- right when I'm particularly busy because his Daddy is not around to help me. I'm trying so hard to give him the attention he needs and craves (if only to make-up for the Daddy Gap), but meanwhile feeling pressure from work, housekeeping, hauling heavy things that I usually leave sitting in a conspicuous place until someone else (ahem) takes care of them ... that sort of thing.

We ate lunch out. And then we ordered dinner out, too.

I feel only a little bit guilty about this, as you can tell. I'm going to blame Huck. What a bad child, making his mommy do bad things like eat really delicious, not healthy food. Bad!

But I DID manage to do everything on my to-do list today, INCLUDING blogging here! (TA-DA!) and reading to Dave. I am a MACHINE.

And now for facts that don't belong anywhere, but I shall share with you because the dog doesn't care:

- Dave may or may not think that the letter "A" is actually the letter "A Apple" and that the letter "Z" is not "Z" but "Zebra." He sees a "Z" he says "Zebra."
- Slightly related to the above. His overnight diapers, he informs me, have a picture of "poop" in the "bath" and a "zebra." Pretty much it's a picture of Pooh sleeping in a honey bowl -- the sleeping illustrated by "z"s. I can see how he got there.
- The other day at my OB appointment the doctor told me that Huck is "a good sized boy." Luke heard this as "he's a strapping man-child, like his dad!" and I took it as "OMG you are going to die giving birth to a FREAKING HUGE BABY." And that, folks, is the difference between men and women.
- Between the pilot of Burn Notice and episode three, the Fiona character basically lost an entire Irish accent.
- This day is coming up shortly. Wishing I was going to the Spouse Summit in D.C. so I could go by and say hello at Arlington on the day of. Tony -- I didn't know you at all, but I know your family now. You must've been a wonderful man to have such a fantastic group of people loving and supporting you.

How Many Days to a "Habit?"

I once read that it takes between two to three weeks to form a new habit.

I contend that this is only true for things we find unpleasant. For example: it would definitely take me three weeks of cleaning up dog-doo every day at the same time for it to be something that I do as a matter of course. But it took me approximately two days to form the "habit" of drinking a homemade latte every morning. And boy is that habit awesome.

There are a whole pile of things in my life that I would like to make habits of. Many of them are things that should already be habits but are not -- like wearing a watch so that we aren't constantly running just a tiny bit late. Or like spending at least 10 minutes a day reading to David and at least 10 minutes a day teaching him something.

You would not believe how much trouble I have making those happen.

You'd also be surprised by how much those two things - wearing a watch and working with David - go together. Every day I think "This morning we will sit down and talk about the letter "A" and then we will read a book!" And every day I get sucked into work or house keeping and then, before I know it, we are 15 minutes from having to leave for whatever appointment or play date or thing we have scheduled. The time always escapes me. And the person who suffers is always my sweet boy.

Today I made yet another attempt at starting those two habits. As soon as he got out of bed I put on my watch. I made sure that a good hour before we had to leave for his craft time at the post YMCA we were sitting at his little table, talking about the letters A, B and C. Then we colored some pictures, then we did some puzzles.

It was nice.

When we got home from craft time/a stop at the playground, we read some books before his nap.

And what do you know, I still managed to get done everything I would've done with that 40 extra minutes I dedicated to my little man.

(I feel like such a bad mommy).

Habit Day 1 - done.

Early Morning Trickery

... Or "how to trick myself into capturing productivity before 0800."

Most days I manage to get life started by 0600. That is, I am out of bed. I am wearing a shirt that is not what I slept in (but still in PJ pants). I am drinking my latte. I am pretending to do something productive.

And that's the key -- pretending. Because on most days, although I am awake and up doing something ... I am not being productive. I am cruising the internet, blowing time on Facebook, or really anything except something that actually needs to be done. And we wonder why a perfectly reasonable to-do list ends the day with some things still on it.

It's essential for me to immediately reign in my day the moment I get out of bed. To do so I've developed a few "personal best practices." Since you, obviously, are just itching to know what they are so that you can launch your morning into productivity overload, here we go:

- Get up at the same time almost every day. Once a week I let myself sleep-in to whenever Dave wakes-up. The rest of the time I thrive on the consistency of a 0530 wake-up. If I'm exhausted I take a 20 to 40 minute power nap in the afternoon.
- Get at least semi dressed as soon as I get-up. I don't want to waste precious, Dave-free moments in the shower (I can trick him into playing while I shower later). But I DO want to feel a little more ready for the day than I did when I was, for example, asleep. I wash my face, put on a clean shirt, that sort of thing.
- Make a to-do list before anything else (but after making coffee. Some things are just more important). If I do not make a to-do list and organize my thoughts and priorities right away, they get dumped by the wayside for several hours as I instead fruitlessly look at photos of bunnies taking baths.
- Focus on focusing. Working on that to-do list takes dedication. And every time my mouse wanders towards a Facebook link or an article on dresses made from recyclables I think ... is this on my list? Nope. DON'T DO IT.

I'm not saying these tricks keep me on track every day ... but they help.

What tricks have you found to getting your day off on the right track?

Blog Agan = Home Again

I miss blogging for myself.

It's been more than a year since I graced this page with my typed words -- a very busy year. Most of my writing time is spent over at SpouseBUZZ, where I am the brand-spanking-new Managing Editor. I worked hard for more than a year to make that happen, knowing that someday the opportunity would come and they would actually hire me to blog about military spouse issues.

Come, it did. And here I am.

All work and only play in other places than on this blog (examples: racing, playing with Dave, etc.) has not left me a "dull boy." It has just left me with very little to say here.

Still, there's something cathartic about blogging my own thoughts about things that have nothing to do with (or less to do with) being a military spouse. In short, I've missed it.

Things that have happened since my post here last February:

-- Dave has become a giant.
-- We moved to Kentucky, a place that is windy and not nearly as pleasant as our last two duty stations. It is also a place that does not have lovely places to run near our house.
-- Luke got a desk job. I feel bored for him.
-- I grew 9 months worth of a new human ... one month to go and then he will be all cooked. And then you can all meet him.
-- I did three triathlons, a half marathon, a 15k, an Urban Adventure Race, the Army 10 Miler and a 5k. I was 12 weeks pregnant during my last triathlon. During the Army 10 Miler I was 17 weeks pregnant -- and I STILL managed to do it faster this time than in 2010. The 5k was done when I was 24 weeks pregnant -- the last "long" run I did was 7 miles at 22 weeks pregnant. Then my Achilles tendon started hurting. Then I stopped running. I blame the unborn child.
-- I traveled to D.C. and home at least three times (I kind of lost count, honestly) and visited Boise, California, North and South Carolina, Washington, Georgia, Florida, Ohio and possibly somewhere else I'm forgetting.
-- I went crazy for two weeks and we bought a dog.

I feel like I'm downplaying some sort of excitement - because that list makes things sound much more dull than they actually are.

What We're Eating

I don't usually post recipes here (heck, it seems like I don't "usually" post anything here anymore), but we've been eating such delicious things on the cheap recently that I just have to share. Here's a small sampling:

Spinach quiche

Mexican Shepherd's Pie

Black Bean with Chicken Salsa Soup

Butternut Squash Soup

Beef Nacho Casserole

Slow Cooker Beef and Veggie Soup

All soooo good.

Girl Power! (Brought to you by "Alias")

We don't do things half way in our house. Or rather, I don't do things half way and I drag everyone else along with me.

This applies to pretty much everything. When I decide I'm going to workout I DO IT ... because otherwise, why bother? And I don't just do it that day. It becomes a lifestyle (sometimes a short lived one, but whatever).

And when I watch a show on TV I am absolutely dedicated. We don't do week by week series (unless I can't avoid it. Case in point: Glee). We do TV on DVD.... and we do ALL of the episodes we can get our hands on before moving on.

This has a unique effect on how I operate because TV isn't really meant to be watched that way. When you sit and watch Jack Bauer once a week you probably escape unscathed. When you watch complete seasons of it for hours at a time (while obviously multitasking something else because no way am I just sitting and watching tv like that) all of the sudden you are on the look out for terrorist activity and speak in forceful sentences.

"24" attitude is the least of my concerns (mostly because I don't really like marathon watching that .. or you guys would be in trouble).

At the moment I'm watching "Alias," season 1. And boy do I have a lot of girl power to show for it. I would totally round house kick you in the face right now if you tried to shoot me in the head. AND I would look really hot while I did it. I also have the Jennifer Garner/Sydney pouty/intense/concerned look down to a science. That's what you'll see right before I kick you.

When I watch a lot of episodes of the "West Wing" I talk faster and I FEEL far more witty than normal. I also use a lot of cultural references that may or may not be accurate -- but you have no idea because I sound so smart!

If "Gilmore Girls" is on the menu I make about the same amount of witty remarks as when watching West Wing, but with a lot more sarcasm.

And, finally, the pièce de résistance: "Friends." This is, by far, the show I have watched the most and over and over and over again. ... and so much so that I no longer take on qualities of the characters. They are just built into my subconscious. (Wow, that's sad to say). I would like to say, for the record, that I just take on the wit and humor and NOT the slutty sleep-with-tons-of-people and porn-jokes aspects.

My overarching point: if I assault you with my intense girl power, blame J.J. Abrams.

Because There's Not Enough Drama ON the TV ...

... we need drama WITH the TV, too.

Remember how I ruined the TV by touching it? And then bought another one. And how that one was broken when it arrived?

Late last week another new TV arrived -- this one to our house (instead of, like the first one, to the store). Luke said he'd make sure it, too, was not broken before accepting the delivery. He took a quick peek in the box, and everything seemed to be in order.

It wasn't. When we took the TV all the way out of the box it was clear -- this one was broken too.

WHAT THE CRAP?!

What are the odds of both the original TV and the replacement TV being broken when they arrived? WHO is the person dropping our TVs?! And WHY does crap like this happen to me?

So here we were, after a month, still without a TV. Luke had even missed his most anticipated football game because the new broken one arrived the day afterward. And calling Walmart and canceling the whole thing wasn't really an option ... there's no way we'd be able now (AFTER the Christmas sales) to find a TV for that price and that size. No way at all.

But I was determined in the heat of the moment to never, ever deal with Walmart again, particularly on the subject of TVs. And since we couldn't order a replacement for the replacement anyway since they were out of stock, we went ahead and bought a 10 inch smaller TV for just under what we paid for the bigger one.

Uuuuugh.

Meanwhile, Luke doesn't feel like our new, much smaller TV is big enough. Since he is the sports watcher I can't blame him. Small TVs don't bother me. So we are going to hold on to the smaller TV with the plan of MAYBE returning it IF they get the bigger TV in stock and can send it not broken before the return time is up. Or something.

Maybe the third time is the charm?

*Groan*.