From Chaos to Order...every 6 weeks or so...

What a week it's been...school started Wednesday for Emily and Anna Marie - of course Anna is at Troy so it was just Em going through the "back to school" traditions.  Charlie doesn't start for another week and a half.  Our traditions have always been to set the table the night before and make waffles for the kids the first day of school.  Then the night before (as hard as I try I never seem to get it done earlier!) I make each child a personal card about their school year and also find some keepsake item to surprise them with.  For many years they got a keepsake along with a beanie babies when they were all the rage.  This year for Em it was cute notepads and musical dvds including "A Chorus Line."  The other tradition is the pictures on the steps and then at the bus stop.  In this case though, Em got in the car and drove off today.  Times have certainly changed.  Both first days for Em and Anna went well...both seem to like their classes and so far so good...

Through all this I've been trying to find the time to go through several bags of paperwork, stacks here and there...it's overwhelming and I kick myself every time it gets to this point.  Then, as I was going through my calendar to figure out when my last haircut appointment was...it hit me...I go through this every 6 weeks around the same time I get my hair cut!  WEIRD...  It's also about the time I schedule Lucy's grooming appointment.  I wonder if she feels disorganized too?!!

Adding to this is the fact that the weather has been close to 100 every single day for several weeks.  It's really getting old.  I'm just SO over this heat...upstairs in the house it's hot - the second floor never seems to get cool enough and yet the new roof was supposed to help with this.  I'm not sure what the situation is with that but husby has a call in to the roofing company about that and a couple other things.  But we aren't holding our breath for a quick resolution.  I hate to stereotype but like most of these contractors they get your money and move on and the "little" things that they promised to do - like fix the screen they poked holes in - gets put WAY down on their "to do" list. 

Oh..and add one more change in scheduling too...I've decided to start walking at night with Lucy.  This is my second week and it's been going pretty good!  Despite the heat and humidity, Lucy and I really need this and we walked for 30-45 minutes most nights last week.  This week we even had an hour walk!  Tonight we walked earlier because I HAVE to switch to mornings and tomorrow morning is the first day to try this.  Getting this out of the way first thing in the morning will also free my evenings up for other things.  Of course, it means going to bed earlier and that's going to take some getting used to!

As an added incentive I've found an online website to track my food and exercise and help keep me accountable so I can lose some weight.  It's been liberating the past two nights sitting down at the laptop and typing everything in to this space.  I felt a complete shift in how I'm thinking about my weight and instead of looking at how much weight I want to lose, I'm looking at what my goal is and how much I'm chopping away at it!  Of course, from one day to the next it was just 1 pound but maybe tomorrow it will be one more and then one more the next day...  I can pull up a chart with this site and see my progress.  It's amazing what you can find online these days...

Part of what I wanted to do this year was get my health in order and I think this is a good and serious start - after the surgery I had.  Now I need to get that hair appointment tomorrow and all will be right with the world!  Lucy already had her grooming appointment on Wednesday.  She's a little ahead of me in this process!