Again

I know that I shouldn’t post about this two times in three days, but I’m so excited about the extra time I have these (couple) days that I can’t stop thinking about it. And therefore talking about it. And therefore writing about it. How did I get by before this week? How did I get myself ready and two kids ready and fed in 30 minutes? With a lot of arguments, I can tell you that. So the past three days? NO ARGUMENTS.

And! Spencer asked for eggs this morning for breakfast and I had time to COOK! For him! And made coffee, and cut up grapes for the teething monster (Henry) and everything else and was still reasonably on time. Spencer got to watch Thomas (gag) and got dressed and even decided to wear different shoes than I picked out for him without me freaking out because I was late. I’m definitely going to try to keep this up. I don’t so much mind the lack of evening time (I’ve been passing out at 9pm) because the kids are also going to bed early and I’m caught up on my DVR.

My one problem right now is dinner. Henry gets very hungry for dinner, and I’m not used to this because Spencer has never been a dinner eater. Henry has to eat by 6pm or he is a very cranky child. Before, there wasn’t much of a problem: I’d give him a snack and start making dinner and somewhere in the vicinity of 6pm, we would eat. NOW 6pm is 5pm, so he’s pretty much starving when we get home so he doesn’t even want to give me time to make dinner. What do I do? Is this why a lot of moms serve a lot of frozen processed food to their kids for dinner? And make two meals, one for the kids and one for the parents? I’ve never “judged” those parents, per se, but I’ve never been one of them because my kid didn’t eat much dinner. So I made our food and if he ate, great, and if not whatever. Now I find myself scrambling to feed Number Two’s hungry mouth all the time. A couple weekends ago I made a bunch of freezer food so I could feed him when I didn’t feel like cooking (homemade chicken nuggets, fish sticks, pigs in a blanket, English muffin pizzas) but I don’t really want to resort to that ALL THE TIME. Any recommendations?

While the extra time in the morning is great, on the drive to work I found myself thinking it was Thursday and then sadly realizing it was only Wednesday. I think I thought this because I was trying to remember how many pieces of bread I had at work for breakfast (two) and I have one a day, so I was thinking I only have two days left. But I only brought four this week. Bah. I’ve been extremely productive at work so I think I’ve done three days of work in two. Maybe I should take Friday off! Ha!

Oh! But then I got to work and got an email from athlinks.com showing that my time in Sunday’s race was a full minute faster than the gun time. 31:03! Still not beating my PR, but way way closer, and especially for a morning race that’s some kind of awesome.

Keeping it up this week!

TOT: A whole lotta random

Today's questions are just like I like 'em - random. Visit Chelsea for more!

1. What’s your favorite television show for each day of the week?
I watch too much TV. I can't promise I watch it on the appropriate day, but here are my favorites:
Monday: House, HIMYM (which isn't nearly as fun as it was, but still good)
Tuesday: The New Girl (LOVE)
Wednesday: CSI and Criminal Minds. Oh! And Suburgatory!
Thursday: Person of Interest. Is Bones on Thursdays?
Friday: ummm. We watch Fringe, CSI: NY and Chuck, but I'm not in love with any of them this season.
Nothing on the weekends except football and catching up for the week. We watch other shows (Prime Suspect, Big Bang Theory, and others that I can't think of right now) but I they aren't must-sees. Oh! And now that I'm caught up on Grey's, I could theoretically watch that in real time. I watch too much tv.

2. How many times do you wear your jeans before you watch them? As many times as possible, until the butt is saggy or someone (me) spills something on them.

3. What is your favorite pasta shape? shells or penne

4. Do you read newspapers? vaguely. I get most of my news through Facebook.

5. Do you sleep in socks? nope.

6. Favorite genre of movies? cheesy chick movies, and sports movies.

7. How do you feel about wrestling? umm ... I have no feelings about it whatsoever.

8. Should men pluck their eyebrows? I'm not into total manscaping or anything, but as they say in A League of Their Own "Eyebrows. There should be two of them."

9. Do you have dimples? no (sad face)

10. Do you like to camp? love it! Trying to get my hubby to believe the kids are old enough to start doing it again. We used to camp for 5-9 days all over the southern US and it was awesome. We had fantastic trips.

Christmas Lobster

I know as a mother of two small children, I should be one of those that complains about the time change and how my children don’t respect the hour of extra sleep that it affords. I know.

But I can’t, because my body doesn’t respect that extra hour either. Instead, I’m rejoicing because I! Can! Have! Time! In the mornings. And I know it won’t last, so for now I’m taking advantage of it.

Every morning is usually a fight: I wake up a little late, the kids want to wake up even later, and when they finally get out of bed we have 20 minutes to argue about getting clothes on and then get breakfast. And if they don’t have time to eat breakfast and have to eat it at daycare, the world might come to an end.

So this morning I woke up before my alarm (yes, I fell asleep at 8:30, but I’m okay with that). I made coffee, and sat for a few minutes with my coffee and my computer before the first woke up. I had time to get him breakfast, the second one got up and got dressed with very minimal fuss, had time for a waffle (and half of his brother’s) and played with his toy horsies. I made a cup of coffee to go with me, got my breakfast and lunch together and got out of the house and to work only 5 minutes late (I know I was still late, but it was almost early for my purposes – I’m nearly always 30 minutes late). I would have even been on time, but I wasn’t sure if today was picture day so I had to get a second set of “just in case” clothes together so they can be in cute clothes if it was so. Plus, I couldn’t find any diapers.

And still! Nearly on time to work, had plenty of time this morning to do what needed to be done without feeling rushed at all. And the hubby was the same way – he took a shower and had time to sit down for breakfast and coffee before he left. Amazing.

I perused the terrestrial and satellite stations this morning and was sad to see that Christmas music is not available, but I’m staying positive. We’re going B-52’s Rock Lobster instead.

Third Quarter books

I meant to post this in October, but nothing seems to have gone exactly as planned. Here are the books read third quarter.

July

Something Borrowed - Emily Giffin

Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro

Smokin' Seventeen - Janet Evanovich

Cocktails for Three - Madeleine Wickham

The Hunt - Jan Neuharth

(re-read HP and Deathly Hallows - JK Rowling)

(re-read One Day - David Nicholls)*

Black Echo - Michael Connelly

The Blue Light Project - Timothy Taylor

August

Faithful Place - Tana French

Mort - Terry Pratchett

Iron Crowned - Richelle Mead

The Lost Hours - Karen White*

The Boyfriend of the Month Club - Maria Geraci

Last Train from Liguria - Christine Dwyer Hickey

Heart of the Matter - Emily Giffin

Beguiled - Deeanne Gist & J Mark Bertrand

Please Ignore Vera Dietz - A.S.King

Angel Falls - Kristin Hannah

Ruby Red - Kristin Gier

Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman

September

Run - Ann Pratchett

The Scorch Trials - James Dashner

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children - Ransom Riggs *

Heaven is For Real - Todd Burpo

Bloodlines - Richelle Mead

Succubus Revealed - Richelle Mead

Bright Young Things - Anna Godberson

Glass Houses - Rachel Caine

Dead Girls Dance - Rachel Caine

Midnight Alley - Rachel Caine

Friday List o' Random

-- It's Thursday evening right now, and I'm sitting on the back deck while Spencer plays with his new Hot Wheels. He turned his candy in to a local dentist for a Halloween candy buy back, and got $2 so he picked two new cars. This is what they are saying:
(first car, in a deep voice) I'm from Target.
(second car, in a deeper voice) I'm from Target TOO!
(first) I'm fast, I'm a race car!
(second) I'm faster!
Then they both get lobbed into the grass.
(first) I'm going to run you over!
(second, with a high girly scream) Ahh!
(Frank, the combiner from Cars comes by) heh heh heh, I'm going to get you all.

-- I've completely caught up on Grey's Anatomy, including this season. My husband says it's time to start on Mad Men now. I think it's time to start reading.

-- Spencer can still fit into an 18 month pant, but all his pants are capris. I had to go buy 3T pants, and I know they aren't going to fit on his itty bitty waist and butt.

-- Same with Henry and his 12 months pants.

-- I'm *this close* to deciding to decorate for Christmas. Yes, before Thanksgiving. I'm not ignoring Thanksgiving - I love it. But I think wrapping it all up together will make me enjoy things more. And besides, I have a nine foot tree in my attic, just begging to come out.

-- I've got nothing else today.

Reading, a two-week update

I was disappointed in myself regarding my reading for the past couple weeks, until I finally reminded myself that sometimes life gets in the way. Life takes priority - my KIDS and HUSBAND take priority. My running sometimes takes priority. Sometimes, my DVR takes priority.

So here's what I was thinking about on my last run. I love to read. And this year, while I read a lot, was also my time to prove to myself that it was okay to love cheesy chick lit and YA. Which I did. A lot. In between though, I've read some really GOOD books. And so while I complete my goals for Fall Into Reading, I'm also working on what my reading goals for next year will be.

But here's what I've been reading:

-- I didn't get back to Untouchable. I still need to finish this, and I want to. I have books from the library that are due and can't be re-upped, so it's been on hold.

-- The Sword-Edged Blonde - Alex Bledsoe. I was getting bored listening to Pandora while I ran, so I downloaded my library's app to listen to audiobooks on my phone. This was my first listen, and while it's not at all my usual read I really enjoyed it. And I REALLY enjoyed running while listening to a book.

-- Feast of Fools - Rachel Caine. Another in the Morganville vampire line.

-- Forever - Maggie Stiefvater. I enjoyed this. I didn't hear good things about it, and while No, it was not as good as the other two, I still enjoyed it.

-- Season to Taste: How I Lost my Sense of Smell and Found My Way - Molly Birnbaum. I'm 60 pages in, and it's due back at the library today. It's excellent, so guess what I'm going to be doing in my "spare" time today.

So I'm up to 94 books, and of those I still need to finish 2. Six full books and two halves left to go!

Here comes Santa Claus ...

It’s officially after Halloween, and you know what that means, especially for those of us with children:

It’s almost Christmas.

Sure, now holiday decorations have been up in stores nearly since Easter passed, but if you are like me you refused to acknowledge it until at least you have a few dozen pumpkin spice coffees in you (I’m drinking one as I type this). I picked up a hoodie for my oldest and some books for both children at a book fair a couple months ago, but generally I’ve shied away from thinking too hard about holidays (except to plan for my new dishwasher that I’m GETTING on Black Friday. But that is my own holiday. Ha!)

One thing I need to start thinking of is holiday cards. Have you seen the cards at Tiny Prints? I spent the better part of several evenings perusing the options, and I’m in love with their cards.

Like this one? ‘Tis wonderful.

And this one? ‘Tis marvelous.

And this one? This might actually be the one.

This of course means I have find my battery charger for the camera and to take some decent photos. I think I need some more pumpkin coffee for that.

(Bloggers! Visit Tiny Prints for a great promotion!)