Starting over, yet again.

Today, time for some brain-dump. I’ve been toying with the idea of starting a blog for 5 years. And I have, and totally failed. So many things have held me back! When I was wedding planning I told myself I would document all of my experiences for posterity – didn’t happen! My last year of pharmacy school got in the way. I briefly started writing about my first pregnancy – didn’t keep it up! A full time job, a full time husband, moving, buying a house…there was always an excuse! I don’t think I have any more time now than I did five years ago, but I do regret not having some thoughts written down for myself to be able to look back on my thoughts and experiences.

So where am I at in life right now? I’ve been a stay at home mom for a year. Sometimes, it’s still hard for me to say that out loud. Granted, I still work as a pharmacist several times a month, but nothing compared to the 50+ hours a week I was working when my son was first born. I quickly had a realization that my dream was always to be home with my children and I had been really trying to ignore those feelings for such a long time! Luckily I am blessed with a hardworking husband who was on the same page and saw the same vision for our family. So, a year has passed of me trying to figure out the whole parenting thing, the whole housekeeping thing, the whole making meals thing. I am still quite frankly, totally bombing at most of this list. It’s a learning process, right?

Where I will start here, with this new little experiment of mine, is some goals I have for the next year. I did in fact just turn 30, so maybe it is high time I attempt to master or at least grow in some of these areas, eh?

• Meal planning. I’m constantly trying some new way to try to get myself to stick to a meal plan, buy groceries wisely and cook with a purpose. I have made improvements but I really want to be in a good place by the start of the year! I hope to document some ways I like to plan and comment on how successful they have been for me.
• Cleaning schedules. I must admit, our house is a disaster more often than not. I also had a cleaning lady for the majority of the past year, so *hi* totally guilty that I didn’t even know where we kept the mop. I feel much better when the house is clean and tidy and I experience 100% less mom guilt when my kid is licking the kitchen floor when I know it’s been cleaned recently.
• Decluttering/minimalism. All the rage now, I know. But I think there is totally something to be said for why this is currently trending. Especially after a toddler has taken over every room in your house, its so easy to feel completely overwhelmed with all your stuff. This is going to be a multi-stage effort to try to pare down what we have in the house and really start to appreciate all the things we have and not be so obsessed with what else we need or want. Leading nicely into…
• My wardrobe. It needs an overhaul. I used to have, dare I say it, style? At the very least I had a point of view! Currently it’s leggings and black tunics and pretending I am not hating my body. Really my goal here is to weed out my wardrobe of the items that don’t make me feel good and slowly invest in some pieces that do. Reminding myself to use the awesome accessories I do have to create some joy in my daily outfits.
• Budget. The husband and I have tried rather unsuccessfully to begin a Dave Ramsey-esque budgeting style to try to get our spending under control. The problem? Dave Ramsey’s plan doesn’t work unless you fully commit to it and don’t take any shortcuts. So here we go. Hopefully documenting some ways I’ll be budgeting and saving.
• Little Man Rocco. My baby! Who is quickly morphing into a grown man at the speed of light. Rocco is currently 18 months old and being home with him almost every day, I have really started to try to plan some “learning” activities when we are home. He participates in a lot of classes through the park district, as well as swimming and music classes so I feel like our weeks fill up pretty quickly with places to go and enrichment for him. Coming into winter and snow season, I would like to plan some fun activities for us to do at home and to show them here as a way to keep track and to hold myself accountable.

Whew. Wordy, huh? Good thing I am expecting no one to read this! Really though, I want to see if I can commit to spending some time writing out my thoughts, taking some fun photos and holding myself accountable to all the goals I’ve made this year. So, lets see where this takes us!