Random Goals: Update #2

A long while ago, I wrote down some goals that I wanted to achieve before Avery arrives.  It's probably a good time to go through that list and see if I've accomplished anything else. Blue font will mark the most recent changes.

• Nail down Baby names.  We find out gender in less than two weeks!  We found out gender (girl!) and decided on Avery Kate for her name. 
• Hang up the pictures that I’ve been stacking in the Master bedroom (either in the Master bedroom or Master bathroom or hallway)  One afternoon, I got motivated and hung up the majority of these pictures in our master bedroom.  For the ones that I didn't want to hang (or hung and then didn't like how/where they were hung), I was able to tuck away in the trunk at the foot of our bed, so we can hang them later when I figure out a place. 
• Having the dining room painted (either bright teal on the lower half of the chair rail, or a very neutral and very light beige) 
• Having kitchen painted a bright white.  Obviously, with this goal and the one above it, I’ve decided the rooms in my home are too brown.
• Get into a regular cleaning schedule at the house.  I’m pretty good with dishes and laundry and cleaning out the fridge.  But I could do better at cleaning the kitchen and the bathrooms and vacuuming all bedrooms.
• Clean the clutter around our bed.  This is mainly Aaron’s thing and he keeps mentioning it.  I’d like to have a very minimalist bedroom.  They say “The state of your bed is the state of your head” and I firmly believe that.  I make my bed each day. It helps me feel more pulled together. If all the clutter was cleared away and the extra items around our bed were put away, I’d feel so much better and would have more room for the pack-and-play for Baby.  Aaron got motivated the day before I hung the pictures, and he totally cleared out his side of the room.  So I cleared my side too and it's so nice to see the floor again!  
• Change the clothes in the boys’ dresser from winter items to summer items. I shopped at our Spring/Summer Consignment sale and got new clothing for the boys.  The winter things are set aside in our office to be put away in a bin in their closet. Update: the winter clothes are put away in bins ready to be sorted for the fall consignment sale.
• Get the wide bookshelf from my mom’s house to use as toy storage in the boys’ room rather than the basket we’re currently using now. Having their toys displayed in front of them would make it easier for them to be able to play with each toy, and will hopefully cause less of a mess instead of their current “dump everything out of the basket onto the closet floor” method for finding toys.  This will also make it easier for me to see what toys they’ve outgrown so I can either store them for Baby or consign them. The bookshelf is in place and displays their toys well.  The bookshelf obviously doesn't hold as many toys as their basket did, so that's really helped reduce the clutter in their room.  Their closet floor stays pretty much spotless and that's amazing!  We still have the basket in our office (although we've taken most of the toys out of it and put them in a bin).  The boys are allowed to look in the basket and they can exchange a current toy with a toy from the basket if they choose. The goal in a couple months is to take down the bin of toys and let them really exchange all pieces for the toys that have been stored away.  This will nearly feel like getting new toys!
• Gather up clothes I’m not consigning and take them to the thrift store (these include things with stains that won’t come out, and that the consignment sale won’t take). I have gathered up the clothes and they're in a box awaiting a trip to the thrift store which I'm hoping will happen this week.
• Sort through my shoes and add no-longer-worn pairs to the thrift store pile
• Inventory our pantry and freezer (refrigerator freezer and deep freezer) in order to throw out what’s expired and see what meals I can create based on what we have, so that I only have to buy basics (milk, eggs, bread, yogurt) at the grocery store and save money. I did do this, but I didn't get weeks of meals out of it like I was hoping.  I think I got a week to 10 days of suppers from things I could find in our pantry and freezer.  Now our pantry is stocked with up to date things, and we pretty much run out each week before we head to the store. I'm trying to only buy what we can use in a week. Update: I keep my fridge pretty bare these days.  We hardly make meals that have leftovers now-- which is good and bad at the same time.  (read: I hate packing lunches, so having leftovers really helps cut down the time it takes to pack a lunch, but having several containers of leftovers in the fridge looks cluttered which leads me to have fridge anxiety.)
• Drink 10 glasses of water each day. I think lack of enough water in my day might be the source of some of the headaches I’ve had.  I get pretty close to this amount every day.  Last week, one foot started to swell, so I have been really trying to hit the mark of 10 glasses of water to help my feet not swell (or at least not swell as much).
• Commit to either doing my pregnancy work-out DVD daily, or doing the 4-mile walking DVD that my mother-in-law is letting me borrow.  I alternate between doing the walking DVD as cardio (I most often choose one of the two 5-mile DVDs, but sometimes will do the 4-mile one), and the pregnancy DVDs (I have two different ones), as my weight training.  This week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday will be cardio and Tuesday and Thursday will be weight training.
• Restock Michael’s prize bag for CGM changes  I'm crossing this off because I did do it, but I'll have to do it again soon.  I found some toys in the clearance section of Target that I knew he'd like and I was able to get them into the cart and purchase them while he was shopping with me, and he didn't notice!  He was quite surprised to see a re-stocked prize bag.  I'll go shopping again this weekend to re-stock again. 
• Commit to potty-training Noah completely! Whatever needed to "click" for Noah to get potty-training has happened and he rarely has accidents at all!  He still wears a nighttime Pull-Up overnight, but he goes potty in the morning with his Pull-Up still dry!  In a couple weeks, I bet we won't have a use for nighttime Pull-Ups anymore.  If we're going to be out and about, we'll pull a Pull-Up over his underwear and knowing that he has underwear on keeps him from having accidents.  There's only been a few instances where he's had a little leak on the underwear, but he recognizes that he needs to go potty and we get him to the bathroom in time to keep it from being a full-blown accident.  At that point, we change his underwear and leave the Pull-Up off of him and he does great!  Update: Noah is totally potty trained. He sleeps in underwear at nighttime and rarely has an accident.  I put down an adhesive Goodnights sleeping pad on top of his sheet, so if he does have an accident, I can just pull off the adhesive pad and throw it away without having to wash the whole bedding set.  (Don't worry, I do really wash his sheets once a week-- and obviously more if he's leaked through the pad-- which never happens, or if he was slightly off the pad when he had the accident).  We do not put a Pull Up on Noah when we're out and about anymore.  He's brave enough to go with us to the potty at certain locations if needed.  He's been to the Publix potty,  the Target potty, the movie theater potty, and the McDonalds potty. He's also been to a gas station potty, but didn't actually go once we got in the bathroom, so I'm not counting that one.
• Replace windshields on both cars.  Both of them have several starbursts that are connecting rapidly. I only marked off half of this since I replaced the windshield on my car, but not Aaron's as of yet.  His windshield isn't nearly as bad as mine was, so he decided to hold off on fixing his for a while. 

Until Next Time,

Much love, Reba