I resolve to...

**in no particular order**

Lose weight! My goal is 40 lbs but I'll really be happy with half of that. I plan to keep a food journal and get in some exercise every day.

Take better care of myself. This one is actually a combination of a bunch of little goals/resolutions. I have put off my yearly pap for 3 years now so that has to get done. I'm going to stop cutting my own hair and actually pay to get myself 'prettified' on a regular basis. Every now and then I'm going to go shopping and buy things for ME! This will work out much better if the whole weightloss thing goes well.

Have a permanent layaway at a local furniture store. I'm sick of thrift store and hand me down furniture buy dont want to finance any large purchases soooo...I'll just layaway stuff and pay on it like a bill.

Speaking of bills. I resolve to take over all bill payments! Hubby, God love him, is not great in this department. The money is always there but he just forgets. He also has no concept of time so when a cut of notice comes in the mail because a bill hasnt been paid for 3 months, he really believes that he just paid that 'last month'.

Get my kids on some sort of schedule. The past few months have been hectic because of my work hours. I wont be change those but can get hubby to help me out with things. They are getting more chores, scheduled homework times and less computer/playstation and tv time. I dont think they'll notice the latter too much...they'll be too busy doing chores! ha. Just kidding.

Spend more time with hubby. We rarely see each other right now. He works days, I work evenings. He usually gets home just as I'm walking out the door. On my days off, we are usually too busy doing other things to take time for each other. The kids have lessons and homework, plus we want to spend time with them while we arent rushed, then there is housework and a seemingly endless pile of 'to do's' to do. So, I'm making a date night. One night a month isnt too much to ask for and shouldnt be hard to do. Dinner out, or a movie and dinner in, hell, even just sitting for more than 10 minutes to talk about something other than children would be fantasic.

I think thats about it. There are a million other things that need to be done but they'll get done anyway. The above are goals that I am going to make a conscious effort to achieve. We'll see how it all goes.

Happy New Year!!!

I'm done!

I am finally done Christmas shopping. About time huh? The house is mostly clean...decorated the tree and the rest of the house today...picked up the last few things I needed on my way to work and now I have no need to go into a store until well after the holidays. I dont however, have anything wrapped, nothing, not one freaking thing. I may have to barricade myself in a room tomorrow to get it done. I also have a little Christmas baking to do but thats not considered work as I actually enjoy baking and its ok to do that on Christmas eve....the house will smell good for company.

To anyone who reads this blog, Merry Christmas! I hope you have a wonderful, family filled, safe, chock full of food holiday!

My neighbors gift

Really, what do you think? I havent printed any yet...except the test page, because the labels are friggin' pricey! If you look closely, you can see Abby near the front door. I was going to put wine types on the labels but he makes so many different kinds and I'd like him to be able to use them all...do the 2 lines look dumb? It's 3.5x5 and one line doesnt seem like enough room to write those long names or to add any notes. Any suggestions or anything that should be added, taken off???

Spending Money

Wow! It is so easy to overspend when you arent paying attention. I went out this morning and got some great deals on gifts for Emma. This evening, Jerry and I hit Canadian Tire to buy a new vaccuum (badly needed and NOT a Christmas gift). Lights were on sale. This means, to my husband, the Clark Griswold wannabe, that he has to buy some. Lots. He declared last week that he wasnt doing lights this year....the sale however, was a sign from God and who is he to ignore God? lol.
After that, we hit walmart, where I spent more than I should have on clothes for the kids, movies, toys and the one thing that I hated to buy...the ipod video. $300 f***ing dollars! It's so small! She wanted one that was half the price but I couldnt find it anywhere so lest she have neither one, I caved.
Jerry grumbled all the way home about how much we spent. Odd, he never said a word about what we spent at Canadian tire. Men. Apparently its ok to spend his hard earned money on flashy lights but not on clothes that keep his children warm? When it gets cold, they can huddle around his multicoloured glowing orbs for warmth.

It's Me!

This is probably the only picture of me (not counting warped whore pics from Halloween) that has been taken in the last 5 years at least. We spent the day in Bowring Park last month and I got in a pic! Some day we'll get a nice, colour coordinated family picture done but until then, this is it.

Time

It's December already!?! Remember when you were a kid and Christmas took FOREVER to get here? Now that I'm a grown up, it seems like we just freakin' had Christmas and now its almost here again. These next few weeks will just fly and I'll be rushing around at the last minute trying to get everything done...and this is the first year that I started shopping early. I'm so glad I did.
The kids are getting so excited that its hard to grumble about it all. I love how happy they get at the littlest things. I let Eric take a cd player and some xmas cds to his room the other day and he sat quietly and listened to music for hours. Abby has been playing with all of my little snowman ornaments and Emma has been writing down every fudge recipe she can find for our fudge making day.
Hubby is off playing poker right now. I think first prize is $1000. Keeping my fingers crossed. A few extra bucks right now would be sweet.