To Be Continued

I'm dusting off the old blog to post about my plans for this year.  I'm trying a new approach to New Years resolutions.  I'm going to try out quarterly goals.

I have two main goals for the year.  I want to pay off a good chunk of my debt, which with my new job, is already a work in progress.  I will have my car paid off by next Christmas which will also help in the no debt department.  My second main goal is make permanent lifestyle changes.  That's where the smaller, quarterly goals come in.

My lifestyle isn't crazy or bad or anything like that, it's just kind of boring.  It's the same thing week in and week out and I'm getting tired of it.  So I want to tackle certain areas and just try to make things more interesting.  The most important goals will be a fourth quarter achievement because it will probably take most of the year to accomplish them.  The ones that are more easily attainable will be the first quarter goals.  I figure doing something for at least three months (with consistency, that's the key) will help me develop better habits and not just, "here's something I did and now I'll go back to normal."  Who knows how this is going to turn out, but I don't really have much to show for 2012 (besides getting a good, stable, well-paying job, which is admittedly a really big deal) and I want more from this year. 

So here's what I have so far. 

First Quarter (January 1 - March 31)

• Except for a short list of necessary items, no clothes shopping. I plan on buying those things and then cutting myself off until my birthday.  I have plenty of things to wear, I don't need anything new.
• Read the new books currently sitting on my bookshelves before buying any new (non-audio) books.  
• Begin studying the Book of Mormon (this includes finding a schedule that works, following up with a friend weekly to keep each other on track, rewarding myself for milestones, etc.).  Once I find a reading schedule, I'll pick reading goals for each quarter so I'm done with the whole thing by the end of the year.
• Scale back on my iPhone usage.  Basically, scale back on the number of times I check Facebook and such, keep my phone put away during church, and just get back to being a normal, non-smart-phone addicted person. 
• Organize my room and clean it once a week.
• Scan all the old photos I found at my grandparents house and send copies to relatives.
• Attend at least two social activities (not including church, FHE or institute) a month.  
• Go to the gym twice a week.

Second Quarter (April 1 - June 30)

• Have one credit card paid off.
• Meet my second quarter Book of Mormon goal.
• Travel somewhere, preferably somewhere new.
• Spring clean my room - donate the good stuff, throw away the stuff I don't need.
• Use the yarn I have (oh my goodness, I have A LOT of yarn).  Make baby blankets, hats, animals, etc and donate, gift or sell the items.
• Go to two museums in DC
• Attend the temple once a month.
• Go to the gym three times a week.
• Attend at least three social activities a month.

Third Quarter (July 1 - September 30)

• Meet my third quarter Book of Mormon goal.
• Start planning and executing a home-made Christmas.  Making home-made Christmas gifts for my entire family. 
• Attend the temple twice a month.
• Go to the gym three times a week (take one new class). 
• Attend at least three social activities a month.
• Go through my storage boxes and clean and organize, donate, and throw away.

Fourth Quarter (October 1 - December 31)

• Lose weight
• Pay off my car and at least one more credit card.
• Finish reading the Book of Mormon.
• Send out Christmas cards.

Alright. Like I said, this is a work in progress, but I like the list as it stands at the moment.  I am really looking forward to getting things started for the first quarter.  I'm already behind because of this awesome sickness I've been dealing with since Christmas, but that's okay.  January doesn't really count, does it? 

Let me know what you think.  Are these attainable goals?  A realistic list?  Or am I setting myself up for failure?  I'm sure this list will change a bit - obviously I'll have to really look at each quarter and establish what I've completed and what I want to keep working on, so this will be an ever-changing list.  We'll see what happens!

Are you reading my tumblr? I'm actually posting there. Here's the link

http://lilifin.tumblr.com/

That should work and work with reader. Just FYI. :)

I'm experimenting with a tumblr.  I really want to blog more often - I need the outlet.  But the way social media (I kind of hate that phrase, but it's useful) works now and the amount of time I am on my phone, I would rather get my thoughts out there as I am thinking them.  Also, I post to Instagram all the time and it's so easy to use that to post and share photos.  I am rethinking it all, guys.  I'm tired of Facebook (yet can't pull myself away just in case something interesting pops up) and twitter sometimes feels like the same stuff over and over.  I'm tired of looking at the same designs and templates and posts and I'm generally bored by what I even have to say.

I bore myself.

That's lame.

So, I'm not giving up on blogger...I still love this blog...I just want to see if the grass is green over at tumblr and if it could be the answer I'm looking for. That is, posting to all the places I love with as much ease as possible. (Lazy) My tumblr isn't even all that different than this blog - because it is just an extension...a kid sister tagging along for the fun in a way.

If you are interested you can pop over to http://www.tumblr.com/blog/lilifin and check out what I end up posting. If you aren't interested, it's all going to pop up by itself on Facebook so you can just ignore it there.

Here we go!

After I visited Mike and Jamie in California, I came home to a busy house.  Some family visited and my sister and the boys came to stay for six weeks.  I also got a job, which is still a temporary position, but it's a great job and close to home.  Then we had all sorts of stuff going on, family parties, visiting friends, and swimming.  Not to mention, end of summer sickness.  The boys were so very nice to share that with me (hence the title, Squish and I have pink eye and he's teething - we are sickness super heroes).  I was also without internet for about two months and, you guys, I almost died. haha. Not really. I just needed to be dramatic.  So I have a lot of catching up to do, and since Lauren and the boys are leaving this weekend (boo!), I will soon have all sorts of time on my hands.

I should be sleeping and trying to rest before a very long day at the airport tomorrow, but I'm waiting for the last of my photos to download - so blogging it is!

I just spent the last week hanging out with Mike and Jamie and their adorable baby boy in California.  I am so very lucky to have such awesome friends.  Well, first things first, Baby Z is probably the most easy going and smiley baby I have ever been around.  We were going non-stop pretty much all week and Baby Z was right there with us.  A quick list (and hopefully pictures and details later) includes seeing local sights around Sunnyvale and San Jose (art festival and the Tech Museum), a day in Santa Cruz (including my first time putting my feet in the Pacific and seeing California Sea Lions), a trip to Incline Village, NV and doing fun things around Lake Tahoe, Jamie and Z's first Ren Fair (with "hardcore jousting action!"), my first trip to the driving range (I can totally hit a golf ball!! I was not aware of this hidden talent!), catching up with Jeffy and spending the day in San Francisco.  This trip was filled with lots of firsts for all of us - all I expect of a vacation is to have new adventures and I think we were very successful.  Of course we also got to spend a day at the lake and relax and Jamie and I had a whole lot of time to catch up with each other.

Mostly, an unforeseen outcome, is that I'm going home with somewhat of a game plan.  Jamie really helped me feel better about a lot of things going on right now (in a way only best friends can) and I have a big list of things to do when I get home that will hopefully lead me to what I need to do so I can save money and go visit all my other besties.

Well, there you have it. Next post: pictures!

I've been busy, folks! Although the state of my parent's living room would suggest I'm a lazy bum.

I completely repainted the bathroom and bedroom (everything but the closet), including the ceilings.  The ceilings look nice because they are high ceilings. Painting the high ceilings was anything but nice - especially when navigating around the ceiling fan and the angled bits.  My awesome SIL helped with all of the painting and is the only reason I'm not currently sleeping in a half painted mess of a room. Pictures will come soon, I promise.

Once the painting was all done, I got to work putting together what furniture I needed to put together (from Ikea, of course) which consisted of a filing cabinet to match my desk, an expedit shelf turned into bed side table, and a new dresser.  I also had to hem all my curtains.  That literally took me 8 hours.  EIGHT HOURS.  That's condensed.  I hemmed 8 curtain panels.  This included ironing all of them because they were ridiculously wrinkled (the amount of wrinkled that will cause me to iron, which is pretty darn wrinkled).  So I stayed up to the wee hours of the morning hemming curtains thinking I would be able to finish them all!  I finished three.  So I spent the better part of the next day hemming five more curtains (and watching a Top Chef season I missed while living without TV). 

Now I'm finally to phase three of moving in.  Actual box unpacking, organizing, and repacking for storage.  This is where I try really hard to detach myself from the stuff that is actually junk.  I'm getting better at this process (ie, not getting so attached to pointless things for sentimental reasons), not because I watch Hoarders and am frightened for my future, but because I am tired of packing and unpacking all of this stuff.  So, other than my books, I'm trying to think minimalistically.  That's not a word, but you get the idea.

And this weekend I'm running away to spend time with my boys.  They all miss me terribly and the feeling is mutual.

I moved yesterday.  Obviously, it's not a huge move as I can go see the boys and my sister any time I want, but it is a huge change, especially for the boys.  I've been living in the same house as the boys since my Monkey was 1 (he's 6 now!) and have only lived away from JD for 3 months of his life.  That's a lot of time.  A lot of time that I am so grateful I was able to spend - but a lot of time to get REALLY attached.  They both told me not to go. JD thought I was moving downstairs and said, "but how will I get my Zizi cuddles when I need them?" Then I had to tell him all over again that I was moving to Grandma's house and that he could call me any time he wanted.  Monkey wouldn't stop hugging me (because when he stopped I'd have to leave) and JD refused to hug me (because if he didn't hug me, I couldn't leave).  Smart boys.


Of course we will all adjust, but I'm sad that we have to adjust. Or maybe I wish I had a better reason for this adjustment.  I really am not sure what to do with myself now.  I guess I'll start a count down to the end of June when they come to spend the summer at Grandma's house.

I quit my job three weeks ago.

Long story short (for the sake of my sanity and being professional), my situation turned from being very positive to being very stressful and a bit unhealthy. For various reasons, I stuck it out for as long as possible. Finally, my mom asked me to take some time to help her take care of my Grandmother, who needs a lot more attention these days, and my Grandad, who just needs a fun visit with someone from time to time.

So now I'm looking for something new, helping out with my family and moving back to my parent's house (which is closer to DC and better paying jobs). I'm totally freaked out. haha.

Most of all, I don't know what I'll do without my boys, not to mention my sister. It's been so long since I've gone without seeing them every single day. I am pretty much trying not to think about it.

My mom saw this giant elephant at Ikea and had to get it for Finn. It then spent two months riding around in the trunk of my car until Finn was born. I thought it would be a fun animal to take monthly (ish) photos with. So here we go...




And I also tried to get a cute photo of Finn with the baby bunting that my mom used to bring my brother home from the hospital. It looks so cute with his red outfit.





And this is just the best picture ever taken....

These one a day challenges seem to make me actually post something. I may just use instagram/twitter/facebook since that's one easy post from my iphone, but I will update here periodically. Should be fun!

find it here

As I'm sure most of you are aware, my sister had another baby boy (number 3) on January 5th (his daddy's birthday and a day before Monkey's 6th birthday). He was two and a half weeks early, 7 pounds 6 ounces and 19 inches long. And perfect. He's just perfect.

It's about time I posted some more confessions. So here we go.

• I love that my nephews walk around singing random Christmas songs. "The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear." That Elf is a genius, because listening to Monkey randomly blurt out, "There's no place like home for the holidays!!" and JD singing "It feels like Chriiiiistmasss!!" makes me so darn cheerful. I can't get enough.
  
• The other night we laid underneath the Christmas tree and read Christmas books and I'm hoping the boys will settle enough to do this again on Christmas Eve. With new Jim Jams, snuggled up with new Christmas books....I've got my fingers crossed.
• I started another round of steroids today - I have had this fluid in my ears since September causing random dizziness, then ear infections and sinus infections - not to mention my yearly case of bronchitis with a side of pneumonia - and since, more often than not, there's just fluid and no infection, the doctor puts me on prednazone - which can make me a crazy person. I don't sleep, I get reflux, I get super jumpy and moody, etc. I hate that I have to go through all that on Christmas, but I also hate being sick and coughing all the time (I have gone through almost ten bags of cough drops since Thanksgiving - big bags). My inhaler works about half the time, but I have high hopes that this last round of antibiotics and steroids will clear everything up and I can get healthy again.
  
• Lauren is getting super close to having Finn and I am so excited. Babies are exciting and I can't wait to cuddle him and smell his sweet baby smell and see how the boys take to him because I know they will be head over heels, even if they pretend not to be.
  

Okay. That's it for now. Due to my crazy schedule and the aforementioned drugs, I needed to go to bed two hours ago.

So, I went to my ten year high school reunion last Saturday. I went because Maya (my best friend since I was 10) said she was going. As most of you know, I skipped my senior year of high school. I have always been very honest about my dislike for the three years I spent in high school, but all the same, these were people I knew for the first 17 years of my life and I was totally and utterly curious to see them again up close after 10 years. Of course, Facebook makes things a little different since we all pretty much stalk each other, but it was actually a really fun night and after the initial, inevitable, awkwardness, I had a good time.

And now for pictures.