Finishing up March and Kick Starting April

Okay... well March month certainly threw me for a major loop! Here is what I got accomplished this month...
1) Continue Progress on Clothing - So I did fabulously well on my consignment sale.  I went through all of the summer clothing and sorted out what will fit this year, tagged what was in sell able condition and donated what wasn't.  I left with an SUV full of stuff and came home with one small bin. 
My washer was broken for a week and a half and when it was fixed, I was unable to lift for the remaining 2 weeks of the month.  My mother-in-law really stepped in and saved the day, taking wash to her house to keep me on track.  I still can't carry the wash up and down, but as long as Jim takes it down for me I am able to keep up for the most part. 
Still no under control, but I'm making progress!
2) Cook at least 3 nights per week - Um... a big, fat NO.  Towards the end of the month, I had many wonderful people bringing me meals as I recovered from my surgery, but for the rest of the month... NO.
3) Read a book - Well... I finished the book that I've been working on for awhile.  I kind of thought I would have plenty of time while recovering to read a lot.  Well I didn't anticipate being so extremely tired... I'm talking almost comatose for most of the first week.

April Goals...
1) Organize my pantry, linen closet & play room.  I've never been a neat freak, but I'm trying to get better. 
Playroom: I'm slightly cheating because my mother-in-law and I started the play room last Thursday.  We sorted out every single toy (which had been amassed into huge buckets of mishmosh) into small categorized bins.  I still have to sort through the clothing down there as to what needs to be purged and what needs to be washed and find a home.  I also have some boxes of stuff that were stored from the first floor renovations to find homes.  And some other odd jobs.  I should have taken before pictures, but quite frankly I'm not willing to post how bad it looked.  I will however post pictures if I get it completely this month.
Pantry: I actually did the entire inside of the closet today (which counts since it is April 1st!).  I still have the shoe organizer that I have hanging inside the door for miscellaneous junk drawer items to go through and organize, but looking good so far.  I can actually see everything in it, instead of having things thrown all over!
Linen Closet: This is kind of in the state that the pantry started today.  Things thrown all about.  I hope to empty, purge, organize by the end of the month. 
2) Stick to my diet plan -  I've never been one to diet much, but since my recent gallbladder issues began have been toying with seeing a nutritionist.  One had been advertised in my general practitioners office so I decided to call last week. After having your gallbladder removed, although some have no dietary restrictions, your body can have problems processing too much fat in your diet.  Your liver takes over this job for the gallbladder, but can have trouble breaking down large amounts.  I am having this problem, and I was needing some help with figuring out the right amounts.  I made an appointment and really loved her!  She was extremely helpful and has put me on a plan.  I'm hoping to stick with the plan (90% of the time).  It's going to be tough, so I'm giving myself some leeway.
3) Create a new morning routine - I am happy to announce that beginning next Monday, my husband will be working 8:30-5pm for the first time since we've known each other.  I am so excited that he will actually be home 2-2.5 hours earlier EVERY night!  The only complicating factor to this (which I am not complaining about) is that we need to adjust our morning routine.  Jim didn't have to leave until 9am in the morning, so this gave us a little flexibility with getting the kids ready and dropping them at daycare.  We also have gotten severely off of our normal schedule since I've been off of work for 2 weeks.  The kids have actually be sleeping in until 7:30-8am which is later than we will need to be leaving the house. 
Wish me luck!

Allergy Update

Summer's head is still doing so much better since we removed dairy from her diet completely.  I decided to change our allergist appointment to the other doctor in the practice.  He was recommended quite highly from some members of my multiples club.  We saw him last month and he was quite impressed with her progress and that I stuck with my gut and cut out the dairy when the prescription shampoo didn't work. He agreed to allergy test her so we did on Wednesday while I was out of work recovering from my surgery.  He tested her for several other common allergens while we were going through the test.  She had to be off of her Zyrtec for 5 days prior, so her nose was deliciously goopy by the day of her test!
It turns out that she did not react to the milk or anything else that they tested except for a dog... which we DON'T have.  This of course does not disprove that she has a milk allergy.  Our course of action now is to start reintroducing milk products and seeing if the reaction recurs.  We are starting to allow foods that have milk ingredients cooked into them (ex: waffles, crackers, baked goods).  She is a bit confused by this right now, but the first thing she requested when I told her she could have things with some milk in them, (but still no actual milk or cheese) was chocolate!  That's my girl!
More updates to come I'm sure

As a side note, I must tell you what happened while we waited for an hour in the waiting room to be seen.  There was a small play room in the waiting room and Summer had I sat inside because she could not be away from me.  She gets very shy in crowded places.  She was nicely playing by herself with a set of nesting boxes.  Stacking a tower as she figured out the proper size order.  A girl that I would estimate to be 1-2 years older than Summer came right in and grabbed the boxes out of Summer's hand in an effort to "play" with her I guess. Summer attempted to continue playing with her, but the girl continued to be rough and Summer came back to sit by me.  The little girl undeterred, came and attempted to pull Summer by the arm back to the nesting blocks. Summer was not very happy about this, but remained calm.  I nicely let the little girl know that it isn't nice to be pulling Summer and that she didn't want to play.  And then finally her mother wondered in from the rest room.  I did feel bad for the mother as she was expected and seemed to have quite the cold, but not sure that excuses the behavior or that you left your child alone and did not take her to the rest room with you.  However, I admit that I'm kind of of freak about this and would never had left them unattended in the waiting room. 
Anyway to the point of this story.... if you've followed the Summer saga at all you will not the lack of reaction here.  For whatever reason, she did not lose her temper and did not bite, scratch or pull this girl's hair! I was so proud of her that I could barely contain myself.  I made sure to let her know and later that night made a huge deal to tell Daddy in front of her so that he could also show her how proud he was. 

Checking in ... 3 in 30

This month of course is not going according to plan!  In the course of one week, I had to finish preparing for my HUGE consignment sale and prepare to be out of work for 2 weeks and prepare to have an internal organ removed and be on the mend with 2 small children.  This was quite enough for me to contend with. 

The came the devastating phone call that a beloved uncle had passed suddenly and much too soon, which meant traveling to the services in an already busy week.  But well worth the travels to be with my family that unfortunately I don't get to see often enough.  Then my breaking point came when my less than 1 year old washing machine started leaking buckets due to a rip on the seal (luckily it was still under warranty and was fixed a week and a half later). 

I am finally feeling somewhat human again after my gallbladder was removed on Monday and here is my progress for the month. 

1) Continue Progress on Clothing - I completed preparing for my consignment sale.  I left with my in-laws CRV full of items and returned with this 1/2 a bin of clothing!  Success! 

Still loving my laundry schedule but with the broken washer and me healing that currently means that my fabulously wonderful mother-in-law has been helping with the laundry.  I have sorted through the hand me down bins and my purchases for both children and have an XL Ziploc (seriously love these bags) of spring/summer size appropriate clothing for each of them. Not perfect, but am happy that I am still progressing thanks to some help from the MIL. 

2) Cook at least 3 nights per week - This has just taken a back seat to all that has been going on.  Getting read for my consignment sale and traveling out of state and being stressed has just not left me in the cooking mood.  This week however there has been a home cooked meal each night, does it count if I didn't cook it??
3) Read a book - DONE!  I have finished the book that I've been picking up and putting down for quite a while.  Then Came You by Jennifer Weiner and am hoping to read another book over my next week at home. 

The best of friends...

My dear sweet Coley Boley...  Cole has long been my cuddle buddy, but he's had a tough relationship with his sister.  I don't half blame him as she does think that she is his mother and coddles him incessantly.  He allows this when she is feeding him, but shoves it away when she is trying to wipe his hiney.  I am so excited to see that he has recently asserted himself as her BIG brother!  He is constantly now watching out for her and helps encourage her when she is frustrated.  Summer recently had her first field trip at school, while it was Cole's second.  (We decided to separate the kids in daycare last year and it was a wonderful decision for everyone.) All of the kids have to wear a BLUE school shirt to the field trips.  If you know Summer, you know this is a problem as the only colors that she will allow in her wardrobe are pink & purple.  I began preparing her for the color of her attire for the field trip a week in advance.  We were in discussions about it and Cole spoke right up.  He said, "Summer, I need to tell you something.  You can pretend it is purple."  I was so proud of my boy for coming up with something so clever to encourage his sister.  Each day as I reminded her of the blue shirt coming up, he would remind her that she was going to pretend it was purple.  When it came time to wear the blue shirt, it was no problem at all!

I have recently seen my two absolute opposite twinnies become close friends and I'm so happy that this has been the long term outcome of us deciding to separate them at school.  I'm not going to proclaim that it is sunshine and roses all of the time, but we've come a far, far way from last. year. 

3-in-30 March Goals

So I am seriously excited by this challenge... the first month was a bit rocky, but I am so happy with my accomplishments so far this year.  Granted they are major baby steps on what I really want to get done, but by breaking them into small realistic pieces I don't give up as easily and actually feel like I am getting somewhere.  Even if it is very slowly!

I have to pull back in the reigns a little bit on this month's goals as I will be having my gallbladder removed on March 19th and out of work recovering for 2 weeks. 
1) Continue Progress on Clothing - this means finishing preparation for my consignment sale, sticking with my laundry schedule and figuring out what clothing is needed for the upcoming season (I have hand-me-downs as well as some newly purchased and consigned clothing to organize). 
2) Cook at least 3 nights per week - I LOVE to cook!  I really do.  However, working 40 hours a week, driving 70 miles a day, 3 1/2 year old twins who would rather eat breakfast for dinner, a husband who does not arrive home until 8pm and numerous other excuses... I do not cook as often as I would like or as I used to.  With my new low-fat diet requirements (not sure what my restrictions after surgery will be yet) and my Summie Lou's dairy free diet, oh and did I mention my extremely picky husband... I've begun exploring some new menu options.  My goal is to plan a menu for the week on the weekend, so that I can do the necessary shopping for the week.
3) Read a book - I have not read a full book for quite some time and I was most likely on vacation when this was accomplished!  Since I will be spending 2 weeks home from work recovering from my surgery mostly by myself... I figure I should be able to read AT LEAST one book!  That's it folks... wish me LUCK!

February 3-in-30 Final Update

Here is how I did on my February goals!
1) Create and stick to a weekly laundry schedule.  I will consider this a partial success! I have the laundry schedule completed and I think I'm pretty much happy with it.  I will likely tweak it here and there.  For the last 2 weeks I will say that I roughly stuck to it.  Definitely not every night, but enough of the time.  I really like that the schedule give me something to focus on instead of just procrastinating until it is out of control.  I plan to continue and expand on this goal in March.
2) Organize, sort & tag for my March consignment sale.  I have a good amount completely, but really wanted to be finished by the end of February.  That did not happen, but I do have about 2 1/2 weeks left before my sale so we're down to crunch time.  
3) Try some fun new menu options for me & Summer.  This was definitely my favorite goal and once I got my new oven, I really did try some great things for both of us.  For Summer, I made oven fried corn chip chicken with a homemade honey mustard and invited over my in-laws for dinner.  Verdict = delicious!  She has also been enjoying her special grilled "cheese" made with daiya shreds (looks like shredded cheese but is vegan, so no dairy!).  And this past weekend, I got a donut maker and made dairy free vanilla frosted donuts. We've also been bringing healthier snack options into the house, like more fruit, etc. which by default is dairy free.  I have been a little lax on this lately because I hate constantly going to the food store, etc., so I'm really happy that I'm getting back into this.  For me... I've been eating a lot more fruits and vegetables and experimenting with some new ways to make them.  I'm really trying to cut out a lot of the fatty foods, especially meat because I'm in far less pain with my gallbladder issues when I watch what I'm eating.  Good news in it is coming out on March 19th, but I would really like to stick with my diet changes. 

Overall, I would rate this month much more successful than last... hopefully March will be even better (although my goals will have to be a little different since I'll be recooperating from surgery for 2 weeks). 

February is chugging along...

Well this week was certainly interesting in the haztwins family...  Jim had the week off for home renovations.  Don't worry for those of you who know him very well, he was not actually performing the renovations just supervising.  We got new doors, new floors and a new oven!  Pictures to come soon.  Anyway this week was a bit challenging for accomplishing my goals, but I think I did pretty well. 

1) Create and stick to a weekly laundry schedule. - The laundry schedule has been created and a lot of laundry has been done.  This week I'm hoping to actually stick to the schedule and do a little bit of laundry each night. 
2) Organize, sort & tag for my March consignment sale. - I have not done this at all this week, but next weekend is pretty much blocked out for this purpose.  My husband is even planning to take the kids on an excursion on his own to assist. 
3) Try some fun new menu options for me & Summer. - Slightly challenging since I got my new oven on Tuesday and then had my dining room table and entertainment center packed into my kitchen for my new floors to be done... so I could not exactly get to it.  However, I was determined.  I found a recipe online from a mom that created a dairy-free and gluten-free cookbook for her children.  I wanted to try one of the recipes before I decide to buy the cookbook.  One of Summie's favorite things is chicken nuggets and since most breadcrumbs have milk as an ingredient this is a difficulty.  So we made oven fried fritos chicken with homemade honey mustard sauce.  The kids were so excited to help me crush up the corn chips and watch me make the chicken.  We invited over my in-laws who had watched the kids most of the day so we could put the furniture back.  And everyone agreed that it was delicious!  Now that I have a functional oven after 3 weeks, I'm so excited to try more new things. 
http://blogs.babble.com/family-kitchen/2010/09/30/silvana-nardones-gluten-dairy-free-oven-fried-frito-chicken-fingers/