My New Year's Resolutions for 2012...I love making lists and checking them off especially big year long goals. I have been thinking for over a month what I want to put on my list for this year. I have a very big imagination but I also know my limitations so I have made a challenging but doable list for 2012. Some are really hard and some are just time consuming...some are nuts and some are practical.
1. Become a runner! I have actually started on this one already meaning I bought cute clothes ;) I am signing up for my first 5K on February 11th with my dad and sister-in-law. My mother was suppose to do it with me as "our new thing", but she broke her leg...so sad! I'm hoping she can start training in February and we can do one in March together. This counts as learning one new thing.
2. Read the Bible in a year. This one will be a life changer if I can stick with it. I have a Bible my dad gave me last year that goes in chronological order and has everything you need to read each day to finish in one year.
3. Make my first quilt! I am determined to finish my ZTA t-shirt quilt. I cut up half the shirts and took a class but I quit after that so I need to figure out how to do a few more steps and get it done. I know I will love it once I finish it.
4. Make some more progress toward my little home business - upgrade my embroidery machine is the next step toward that and replacing my laptop.
5. Sell our house! We are putting it on the market hopefully by the first week in January if everything goes well. We took down Christmas decorations last night and I started clearing out areas and staging the rooms...I have a few more rooms to do and closets to thin out. I am taking it room by room and each day stopping by Goodwill to donate it....its like spring cleaning and getting a tax deduction at the same time :)
6. Join one more organization this year...not sure which one but I want to do one more this year. Plus get more involved in the eMerge Marketing Committee.
7. Read books to Bailey everyday. During the summer I am really good about it because it seems less busy and we participate in the Summer Reading Program, but I need to do more throughout the entire year.
8. Cook more meals and not eat fast food (try for less than 3 times a month). If I cooked more at night I could take leftovers to work for lunch...saving money and calories. I need to enrich our diets by making meals with vegetables and whole grains. This will be beneficial toward our "family time" as well. My goal is to cook 4 nights a week - eating out as a family once (Saturday or Friday) and lunch after church on Sunday.
9. Find something Blake and I can do together...maybe running could be our thing once I can keep up ;) I just really want to find something we enjoy doing together. We got the Kinect for Christmas and it is so fun to do as a family so hopefully we will make time to have more fun with each other this year.
10. Get an iPhone! We are eligible for upgrades in March :) I can finally get cool apps!
To sum it up... I want to loose weight by running, feed my family healthy meals, be debt free, become closer to God, become closer to Blake, get more involved, grow as a person, and be a better mom.
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Looking Back on 2011
Its feels unreal that the year 2011 is almost complete. I looked at my post from last year on goals/resolutions for 2011 and it's a little heartbreaking because we had hoped 2011 would be "THE YEAR" for us. I realize that when I wrote those "hopes" I was not being realistic. Every single card in the deck had to be aligned perfectly in order for that to have happened and well...our cards were a tad messy. One thing that I wrote for 2013 is that we would start on baby McArdle #2 and we were over achievers and did it in 2011 instead. What's funny is that I was pregnant every single day of 2011 until October 26th.
So here are our big moments that did NOT happen in 2011:
- I absolutely quit playing guitar and sold it :) lol...it wasn't for me as much as I tried to be a rock star...I will stick with singing
- I absolutely organized my t-shirts for my quilt...and packed them away into a box
- Career Moves that will have to wait for next year
So here are our big moments that DID happen in 2011:
- The Embroidery Machine was well worth the purchased and used a lot this year
- We went to Disney World for Bailey's 4th birthday and she had fabulous outfits for each day :)
- We converted the craft room into a nursery
- I did a lot of de-cluttering! All of Bailey's baby things and pretty much everything we don't "need"
- Summer of Cupcakes
- Bailey was a beautiful flower girl in my sorority sister's wedding
- We had our 5 year anniversary <3
- I started a facebook page for my business (go like it!) and I've created some fabulous stuff Had a baby
- Blake spent 3 months of the year in Puerto Rico
- Our house was broken into
I feel like 2011 was a slow year for us because I was pregnant for 10 months and couldn't do that much...plus Blake was gone 3 months of it in the summer so it just felt uneventful. Looking back on this list it shows me how great of a year it truly was...even though our "hopes" didn't happen...there's always next year ;)
So here are our big moments that did NOT happen in 2011:
- I absolutely quit playing guitar and sold it :) lol...it wasn't for me as much as I tried to be a rock star...I will stick with singing
- I absolutely organized my t-shirts for my quilt...and packed them away into a box
- Career Moves that will have to wait for next year
So here are our big moments that DID happen in 2011:
- The Embroidery Machine was well worth the purchased and used a lot this year
- We went to Disney World for Bailey's 4th birthday and she had fabulous outfits for each day :)
- We converted the craft room into a nursery
- I did a lot of de-cluttering! All of Bailey's baby things and pretty much everything we don't "need"
- Summer of Cupcakes
- Bailey was a beautiful flower girl in my sorority sister's wedding
- We had our 5 year anniversary <3
- I started a facebook page for my business (go like it!) and I've created some fabulous stuff Had a baby
- Blake spent 3 months of the year in Puerto Rico
- Our house was broken into
I feel like 2011 was a slow year for us because I was pregnant for 10 months and couldn't do that much...plus Blake was gone 3 months of it in the summer so it just felt uneventful. Looking back on this list it shows me how great of a year it truly was...even though our "hopes" didn't happen...there's always next year ;)
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Hello Blog World!!!
Wow! My last post was on October 12th...that was 2 weeks before my little Brycen was born. There has been many things to happen in the last 2 months: #1: Brycen Conner McArdle was born and I had an AMAZING delivery #2 "Worst Week Ever" #3 Returning to work 4 weeks early #4 Parties, Parties, and Parties #5 Pinterest was born #6 Halloween & Thanksgiving Activities
Brycen's delivery was so awesome! I loved the nurses and my doctor was so great. No complications at all...much different than Bailey's delivery. One thing that did not go as planned was nursing. Day 4 I realized that I was making hardly anything and we had to start supplementing with formula because Brycen was dehydrated. I nursed for 30 minutes, fed the baby formula, pumped for 30 minutes every time...day 5, day 6, day 7, day 8...nothing. On day 8 I looked up Synthroid side effects and there it was - if your thyroid is really messed up while you are pregnant and they have to give you a lot of thyroid medication it can mess up your metabolism and cause the milk to never come in. So day 8 I washed up all the pump and packed it away and gave away all the stuff I bought for nursing. It was heart breaking. I think I cried from day 4 to day 10 constantly and it still hurts when people see the baby and ask "Are you nursing?". All I can say is "no" because I can't explain it. He is a healthy baby and is doing just great on formula so we are blessed. So one of my new year's resolutions is to find a new thyroid doctor. I wrote this out because it helped when I googled "nursing and thyroid" and found a girl that went through the same thing I did - it helps to know that it isn't your fault and you did everything you could.
So onto the "Worst Week EVER"...It all started the day Blake left for a 2 week trip to Puerto Rico - it was the same day as the Iron Bowl. Bama was beating Auburn by a huge margin and in the 4th quarter my mother went to take the Turkey leftovers to the outside frig and misstepped and landed on her leg causing it to BRAKE! Sheesh! What a nightmare! So dad and the neighbor help mom get into the van, turkey bones and grease are all over the ground, kids are crying, and mom is screaming from pain. Well her leg was definitely broken and she needed help during the day while dad was working. I thought this is so great that I'm on maternity leave because I can come over and help. I had lots of plans for us to do - I've wanted to help her go through all the pictures and categorize them as well as put them in albums and picture frames. Well on Friday I was on my way to pick up Bailey from school after spending the day with my mom and I received a phone call from my neighbor...our house had been burglarized. All I could think of was my dog, work laptop, and camera. She found Meiko locked up in the baby's room scared to death and they left my new camera on the kitchen counter, but everything else was gone. I had been working 5-10 hours a week from home on maternity leave so I had my work laptop on the kitchen table - it has everything on it but it also has a government issued password so there is no way in the world they will figure it out so my files will stay confidential. I miss those files so much and all the pictures I saved on it as well as the new picture CD we just got from having our family pictures done the week before...thank goodness I already uploaded them on facebook! They stole a few big things and went through our bedroom but in the end we are fine - it was overwhelming because I had no time to do anything and I wanted to be with my mom and I didn't have a computer to work on and to find quotes for. They stole my maternity leave from me because instead of being with my baby I had to deal with insurance stuff which was very time consuming. I was very mad that they took my security away, time from work, and time from my new baby...those things will never be replaced.
So life is getting back to normal now that I am back at work but one thing that is very different is that Blake is a stay at home dad. He is off orders with no orders in sight which means he is looking for a civilian job at the moment and the job pool is very shallow at the moment :( Life takes some really weird turns sometimes and hopefully he will find something in January.
Have a fabulous Christmas and I hope to update back soon with new projects!! My next post will be my New Year's Resolution List for 2012!! I love NY's resolutions.
Brycen's delivery was so awesome! I loved the nurses and my doctor was so great. No complications at all...much different than Bailey's delivery. One thing that did not go as planned was nursing. Day 4 I realized that I was making hardly anything and we had to start supplementing with formula because Brycen was dehydrated. I nursed for 30 minutes, fed the baby formula, pumped for 30 minutes every time...day 5, day 6, day 7, day 8...nothing. On day 8 I looked up Synthroid side effects and there it was - if your thyroid is really messed up while you are pregnant and they have to give you a lot of thyroid medication it can mess up your metabolism and cause the milk to never come in. So day 8 I washed up all the pump and packed it away and gave away all the stuff I bought for nursing. It was heart breaking. I think I cried from day 4 to day 10 constantly and it still hurts when people see the baby and ask "Are you nursing?". All I can say is "no" because I can't explain it. He is a healthy baby and is doing just great on formula so we are blessed. So one of my new year's resolutions is to find a new thyroid doctor. I wrote this out because it helped when I googled "nursing and thyroid" and found a girl that went through the same thing I did - it helps to know that it isn't your fault and you did everything you could.
So onto the "Worst Week EVER"...It all started the day Blake left for a 2 week trip to Puerto Rico - it was the same day as the Iron Bowl. Bama was beating Auburn by a huge margin and in the 4th quarter my mother went to take the Turkey leftovers to the outside frig and misstepped and landed on her leg causing it to BRAKE! Sheesh! What a nightmare! So dad and the neighbor help mom get into the van, turkey bones and grease are all over the ground, kids are crying, and mom is screaming from pain. Well her leg was definitely broken and she needed help during the day while dad was working. I thought this is so great that I'm on maternity leave because I can come over and help. I had lots of plans for us to do - I've wanted to help her go through all the pictures and categorize them as well as put them in albums and picture frames. Well on Friday I was on my way to pick up Bailey from school after spending the day with my mom and I received a phone call from my neighbor...our house had been burglarized. All I could think of was my dog, work laptop, and camera. She found Meiko locked up in the baby's room scared to death and they left my new camera on the kitchen counter, but everything else was gone. I had been working 5-10 hours a week from home on maternity leave so I had my work laptop on the kitchen table - it has everything on it but it also has a government issued password so there is no way in the world they will figure it out so my files will stay confidential. I miss those files so much and all the pictures I saved on it as well as the new picture CD we just got from having our family pictures done the week before...thank goodness I already uploaded them on facebook! They stole a few big things and went through our bedroom but in the end we are fine - it was overwhelming because I had no time to do anything and I wanted to be with my mom and I didn't have a computer to work on and to find quotes for. They stole my maternity leave from me because instead of being with my baby I had to deal with insurance stuff which was very time consuming. I was very mad that they took my security away, time from work, and time from my new baby...those things will never be replaced.
So life is getting back to normal now that I am back at work but one thing that is very different is that Blake is a stay at home dad. He is off orders with no orders in sight which means he is looking for a civilian job at the moment and the job pool is very shallow at the moment :( Life takes some really weird turns sometimes and hopefully he will find something in January.
Have a fabulous Christmas and I hope to update back soon with new projects!! My next post will be my New Year's Resolution List for 2012!! I love NY's resolutions.
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