Random Catch-Up

I took the Swishy Challenge and failed. Swish told me she’s implementing a new writing program where she had to be responsible for writing one sentence a day for her work-in-progress (WIP). She suggested I could do this too!

One Sentence!

I did it the first day. In fact, I wrote more than one sentence. The second day, I failed. Couldn’t do it. Too much going on. Maybe I’ll start Monday. There seems to be a theme in my life of attempting to start things on Mondays and never following through.

On that note, I am starting a new life regimen, because, after all, it is the start of a new school year and I always try to better myself for the first week or so (and that’s usually about how long my new plans hold up!

So, I’m going to do the following things in an attempt to streamline my life…

Each morning, I will (and have, so far, but it’s only day three) unload the dishwasher and do a COMPLETE load of laundry. (This means, wash, dry, fold AND PUT AWAY!) Seems simple enough, right? Well, hell! So did ONE SENTENCE and look where that got me!

(Excuse me while I transfer clothes from the washer to the dryer cuz my ONE LOAD has just completed its wash cycle…)

OK, I’m back.

Another thing I’m doing to better my life is I’m GETTING OFF MY ANTI-DEPRESSANTS! Want to know why I’m ‘sooooo’ depressed? Cuz I’m fat. So, in an attempt to better myself, I am getting off these DEPENDENT drugs, which will make me scream a bit more I’m sure, but in the long run, I’ll be better off, right? And I’m going to keep exercising, but up it to 5 – 6 days a week. Summertime had me slacking.

I’m in the process of weaning myself from this drug and have Googled WEAN FROM EFFEXOR and some of the stuff I’ve read SCARES me. Please share any advice you have if you’ve had a similar experience.

Why am I into the capital words so much in this post?

Next up: My work-from-home gig. I have been very, very fortunate with the website editing work I do, and they are so awesome to me (I don’t think they read this blog so I’m not brown-nosing!). So it may not seem like a lot, but another goal of mine is to get in at least two hours of work a day. Hell, THAT is easier than writing one freaking sentence for my WIP! Ideally, I’d like to set aside the hours of 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. to focus on this work, but whenever it happens throughout the day is fine. The great thing is that I can do this work anytime. If I wake up at 3 a.m. and cannot sleep, I can come to the computer and do my work. It’s always there.

And, for the kids, I’ve created a cheesy excel grid to alleviate some of the yelling, fighting, arguing, back-talking (ooh, I make it sound like my children are less than perfect here!), messiness, etc. I’ve never been an allowance mom but they’re getting older, they can help out more, they can be responsible for their stuff, so they’re getting an allowance equivalent to their age. Every time they screw up, I ‘take away’ 50 cents. If they do something unexpected and exceptional, they may gain an extra 50 cents. We’ll see how this experiment flies.

So goals:

Work more.
Write more.
Exercise more.
Eat less (that’s always in the repertoire – ooh, big word, and YES I had to spellcheck it!)
No more anti-depressants.
Do more laundry.

A couple more things to cover--

Books on my nightstand:

I just read Revenge of the Homecoming Queen, written by my good friend Stephanie Hale. What a fun young adult novel! You can read my review here, along with other amazon reviews I posted.

I have also just read Bright Side of Disaster, also reviewed here, and I plan to write more about it later on the blog. GREAT BOOK FOR NEW MOMS!

Currently, I am reading this book, I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell, and while I simply HATE THE GUY and wonder how women could even be attracted to him, I’m enthralled by his writing and his stories. Even though he’s a sick bastard who should not be a best-selling author. Tucker Max. Ewww. Nasty. Gross. Hate him. But still, I read. And here’s the thing about the title of the book, I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell – HE SHOULD ALREADY KNOW CUZ HE’S THE FREAKING DEVIL!

Also in the "Manic Reading Wings":

Every Crooked Pot by Renee Rosen, who happens to live in Chicago, I believe.

Sister Salty, Sister Sweet, A Memoir of Sibling Rivalry, by Shannon Kring Biro and Natalie Kring. I have not started it yet, but I’m jealous as all hell that I didn’t think this up because my sister and I could have done a memoir, you know, because SHE MADE CHEERLEADING and I didn’t; SHE went to MY SENIOR PROM, and I didn’t. Yeah, I’ve got issues (love you Tse-Tse Fly – that’s her nickname!) Oh, and as a sidenote, having not read this book yet, I’m guessing the sister who is married, the Biro chick, is probably the one who thinks she’s better cuz she landed a husband. Don’t you think?

And this book:
The Rest of Her Life by Laura Moriarty. Looks good. Of course, I’ll let you know.

That’s it for the bookshelf for now; here’s the kid school update:

Tukey starts kindergarten today! In exactly three hours, that little guy will be traipsing his little body onto that big ole mean yellow school bus, while I stand there in a puddle, drenching myself in the sorrow that is motherhood. Oh, I think I need a Xanax. What? Those are taken as needed, NOT DAILY! Come on, I said I was weaning from the Effexor… Rome wasn’t built in a day, now was it?

I’m sure he’s going to have the best first day of kindergarten ever! There are seriously like 11 kids in our neighborhood who are all taking the bus together and will be in the same class. No worries here (I say that now, but if you see a weeping mama on the curb, you know it’s me!)

Diva: Remember this story about her tooth?

I never did update you, did I? Well, that’s because IT IS STILL IN HER MOUTH! Four months later! It’s NEVER coming out! And we have a dentist appointment tomorrow! I can’t even go there right now. That tooth is hanging by a … by a… let me think about this for a second… It’s hanging by a spider web thread! NO! Not a spider web thread… a QUARTER OF A SPIDER WEB THREAD!

I guess that’s about all for now. Sorry for the hodge-podge of mish-mashy crap. Reading suggestions, weaning suggestions, dental suggestions, life-management suggestions are all appreciated! And apparently, EXTREMELY NECESSARY! (There I go again with those capital words—must be a side-effect of the weaning process.)