Friday Fragments

This is the first time I'm participating in this wonderful meme at half-past kissin' time.  (Click on the picture and you'll be taken to her site.)  I've got a lot of fragments running through my mind right now, so this is the perfect time for it.

• When I got out of my funk and started checking out my blog again late yesterday (yep, the mood from Wednesday kinda bubbled over into yesterday too), I found a wonderful surprise.  The wonderful people who host Thirsty for Comments Thursdays (and that would be Acting Balanced, Silver Faeries and Dragonflies, Thoughts 'n Such, Crazed Mama and Touristic) honored me my making Sanity's Overrated the featured blog for the day/week.  They even linked me up in the top link-up spot.  Thank you, guys.  You really helped turn my mood around with that!
  
• Yesterday, we got news that relieved a little of my stress.  University of Phoenix offered my husband another class.  He's been working for them as a second job for the last couple of years.  It's been pretty steady work, giving him a 5 week class or two to teach pretty close to constantly.  But for some reason, the last couple months have dried up.  He had one class through September, but nothing new seemed to be on the horizon.  Now it is.  And today, he got another class to start around the end of the time of the one from yesterday.  It's taking a HUGE weight off my mind.
• I had a DUH moment the other day.  I was coming into the living room where the boys were watching the pilot episode of Planet Sheen. There was a seen where Sheen was introducing the king of the planet he crash-landed on to the monkey (who is far more intelligent than Sheen, but then, who isn't?) that had crashed there many years before.  He said something like, "This is Nesmith.  He's a monkey, but we call him an ape."  And it was only then that I put together those two facts along with the fact that Nesmith wore a wool hat to realize the homage that was being paid (for those that may not catch it either, Mike Nesmith was a member of The Monkees and he wore a signature wool hat in the show).  And I could have slapped myself for it.  I've been a big fan of the Monkees since the mid-80s when they did their first reunion tour, and I missed this completely obvious reference.  And I don't have the excuse of it being the first time I watched the show.  No.  I've seen, in part or in whole, at least a dozen episodes where the info was right in front of my face.  Yeah.  Sometimes I'm a little slow.
• I took a big step last Sunday and played a few games of Pokemon with people that were NOT in my family.  It wasn't as scary as I thought it would be.  I may do the same on Sunday... or I may shop at Goodwill for Halloween Costumes.
• Speaking of Halloween, I wish my boys would make up their minds.  First Teddy wanted to be the Hulk.  Now he wants to be Ash from Pokemon.  I'm actually ok with him being Ash because I've got a lot of the things for that already.  Though now he's talking about being one of the gym leaders.  Pete keeps bouncing between Pikachu (which would be easiest because, unlike Teddy, he still fits in last year's costume), Panpour and Tepig. I told them they needs to make up their minds this weekend.  I'm going to Goodwill to look for things to make their costumes on Sunday.
• I'm catching another cold.  Or maybe the same one wasn't as dormant as I thought.  I'd gotten over the scratchy throat, the stuffy nose and the cough sometime in the middle of me getting the flu.  But last night, the stuffy nose came back and this morning, the scratchy throat is.  Time to start pounding the zinc!
• I'm so grateful that the boys have found a love for Pokemon.  While it does often get tiring to hear about Pokemon constantly, they've found a great community in our local league, with everyone being supportive of everyone else.  And they're also learning the right way to act when a game is over, with a handshake and a "good game".  It amazes me when I hear the two of them playing a game in the other room and then, without prompting, I heard, "Good game."  And not just from Teddy, but Peter too.  Now if I can get them to work that attitude into the rest of their lives....
• I'm thinking of starting a weekly meme.  Just a fun little thing to do and, hopefully, get others to join in the fun.  I was going to start it today (it will be called, tentatively "Friday Favorites") but I haven't had a chance to build a button for people to snag for the hopping.  So I'm hoping next week will be a little calmer, both in terms of stress levels and things I need to do.  But watch this space for a new meme!
• Finally, I had to buy a webcam today for something Rich needed it for,  It's the first one I've had in... probably 5 years or so.  It's so much smaller than I'm used to!  But I am hoping that, having it hooked up to the desktop, I may be able to start doing some vlogging once in awhile too.

Thanks for stopping by and reading the fragments of my mind.  If you're interested in more fragments, head on over!

Stressed, but not stressed

September is always a busy month for us.  Between the daily school grind, our anniversary (last Thursday, September 13), Pete's birthday (next Sunday, September 23), in-laws coming in for the birthday, teaching and tutoring (on Rich's part), car renewals being due, and just daily craziness, this is usually one of the most stressful months for me. And I'm not saying that this one isn't stressful - we've been in a money crunch the likes of which we haven't seen in a few years, thanks to classes being cancelled and poor planning on our part.  But I'm finding that I'm not as stressed as I would normally.

One of my biggest stresses is always getting my house cleaned for my in-law's visits.  We've had problems with cleanliness in the past and I never want to feel the embarrassment that the house being messy caused me again.  So I usually scrub and over-scrub for their visits, throwing my back out by pushing myself too far and then not being able to enjoy the time they're here.  But this time, I'm not finding this to be the case.

Some of it, I know, is because we've been more on top of keeping clean.  For the last month (at least), I've been keeping on top of the kitchen, the living room, the dining room and, though not as much as I would like, the bathrooms.  My bedroom got it's overhaul last week, and I've been doing my best to keep on top of it as well.  The boys' room... well, it's a boys' room.  What do you expect?  But we're working on that too.

Yesterday, I knew I needed to clean the living room.  I procrastina took care of necessary online chores instead of cleaning it during the day.  Then my friend came over with her kids and things got a bit more crazy.  When I finally put the boys' to bed (early, because they were talking back and refusing to help, though partly to make sure Teddy had a good night's sleep for his first day of the Stamford Achievement Test) I decided not to put it off any longer.  Rich was at tutoring and would be for another hour.  So now was as good of a time as any.

Not only did I finish up just as Rich was walking in the door, but I managed to schlep 3 bins upstairs, put away the things that I could (the toy bins are overflowing and need to be weeded out over the rest of the week), but I managed to get some of the organization things finished that I wanted to do.

At the front door, we all have hooks to hang our bags on.  Since Teddy's in school, his is empty.

Chore Charts for Teddy and Pete, hanging on the
back of the pantry door.  They're put
lower so they can each reach their own chart.

The family calendar with Teddy's school schedule beside it.

It's not all the organization I need to do, but it's a start.  I'm still trying to figure out the best way to make a few other things work - like a designated spot for the shoes, writing up detailed cleaning lists and keeping a Household Organization folder... but those are things for another day.  (Maybe today?)

Even now, I'm looking around my house thinking, "I've got to clean out the van, do the kitchen, bathrooms, pantry and vacuum.  And I've got 3 days to do it.  That's totally do-able." This time last year, I was stressing because I felt overwhelemed.

I think the other reason that I'm able to do more without feeling the stress I did before is that I'm in better shape than I was before.  I'm not actively dieting or exercising (though I should be), but I'm having to be more active with getting Teddy and Pete back to school, trying to keep organized and on top of things.  It's the same way I ended up losing weight in high school.  Not really "doing" anything, just making small changes I wasn't aware of.

So yeah... I'm stressed about money and how the boys are going to be doing in school, their fights and frustrations with each other.  But I've got one stress off my plate and it feels so good.