Excuses, excuses

I have lots of them for why I haven't written in a month. Mainly this crazy baby won't give me a moment's peace! Long gone are the 30-45 minute nursing sessions where she would drift in and out of sleep. Now, she'll hang out for ten minutes or less, run off to grab something she's not supposed to have, and then I have to remind her to finish the other side, where she'll pop on and off for a few minutes before she's off again, chasing the dog or pulling cords out of the wall or trying to eat paper. Oy.

Another excuse is that I've been trying to prioritize Bible readings so I could at least accomplish ONE goal. And, today being the last day of March, I finished! Yay! I DID IT!!! This is the beginning of an annual tradition for me, and I'm very stoked that I finally read through the whole Bible.

And then there's the fact that life has been nutzo the past month. I haven't really had a normal week since before Grandma Sue passed away in mid-February. I won't go into details, but it has involved a school musical, a smoothie shop, three requests to rent the apartment, painting the living room, several beach and mountain trips, and my mother-in-law coming and going all month. Not to mention FOUR baby teeth in less than a month and the 12- month wonder week which we are currently dealing (ever so patiently) with, and, well, yeah. March has been wild.

The other excuse, which I am very ashamed to admit is ... Facebook. I spend just WAY too much of my spare time reading status updates, commenting on photos, and contributing my vast store of mommy-wisdom to a mommy support group. I really think Facebook gives me a falsely inflated sense of self-importance. I've got to stop.

And suddenly, I find myself staring April in the face. I love April, for the flowers and bees and green grass and rain and baby animals and all that, but April is also incredibly busy. We have six immediate-family birthdays in April which I need to prepare for. Baking cakes ... is not my favorite thing to do. But, this month I will get plenty of experience, so perhaps I will learn some tricks to make it more fun. I just have never really made a cake that I LIKE. My husband always says "It's really good!" but I just don't agree. To me, Whole Foods' cake is so much more appealing. Mostly because I don't have to make it. But, seriously, have you SEEN how expensive those suckers are? I don't think I can drop $20 every time we have a birthday this month, so I must.find.yummy.cake. Pinterest, get ready, I'm lookin' for some yum.

No promises to blog every day this week. We all saw how disastrous that was last time. I sure hope I can blog every day this week but I'll be satisfied with twice, not including this post.

Happy Resurrection Sunday, everyone, and Happy April!

Leaving home

I was born in the San Luis Valley of Colorado. Most people don't know where that is, which is fine by most of us who are from there. Part of its charm is its out-of-the-way-ness and its small population. The San Luis Valley is home to Great Sand Dunes National Park. It is bordered by snow-capped mountains on all sides. The Rio Grande River runs through it. It is a high dessert, with an elevation of about 7500 feet. Farmers grow winter wheat, alfalfa, and potatoes. Around this time of year, it's a migratory stop for majestic Sandhill Cranes. If you were to look at a satellite picture of Colorado, you would see a triangular flat spot on the south-central border. That is the San Luis Valley.

My family has called the SLV home for more than one hundred years. Many of our ancestors are buried in the Del Norte cemetery. My grandfather was buried there in 1964. His wife, my sweet, amazing Grandma Sue, was buried next to him three weeks ago.

I lived there for only six short years, but it is still very much home. My dad's oldest brother, my Uncle Bob, and his wife, Aunt Tina, built their house just outside of Alamosa more than 30 years ago. Their house is as much home to my sister and me, and even my mom, as any other place we've ever lived. We lived there for a while when we were little, and we spent nights and days and weeks when we lived elsewhere. They were part of the reason I wanted to go to college in Alamosa (I didn't end up going there). They are my favorite people in the world, for so many reasons.

I look forward to visiting the SLV whenever I can. Unfortunately, the last two visits were because of funerals, but it still is so great to get together with my family. But leaving is so, so difficult. I feel like a part of me stays behind every time we drive that long stretch of Highway 160 between Alamosa and Blanca. It's so lonely and desolate out there, and that sensation of loneliness follows  me up and over La Veta pass, all the way back to wherever I'm going. I haven't lived there in twenty five years, but it will always be home.

Week 11: The grand kitchen finale

As in, I've been working on the same room for 10 weeks and it's almost done but still.not.quite.

Last week I emptied the pantry and cleaned and reorganized everything. So now instead of several shelves full of randomness (whatever I could stuff in there and still be able to close the door) and a bunch of glass containers at baby-level, I have a bin each for snacks, camping food, pasta, grains and cereals, sweeteners, flours, baking supplies, and cooking supplies. Plus, my bottom baby-accessible cabinet is completely safe, stocked with plastic bulk bins of nuts, oats, rice, etc, and two burlap sacks full of potatoes and onions and garlic. It's now so nice and organized that I actually was inspired to bake a chocolate cake Friday night. More on that later.

I also baby-proofed the bottom large cabinet, though it's far from organized. The top large cabinet has two newly lined shelves, one of which is organized. The other one was my catch-all for the breakable things which were previously on the bottom shelves.

So, this week, I have four more shelves to finish lining, cleaning, organizing, and purging of unnecessary and unused items. And that's ambitious enough for this week, sadly, since I'm helping out at the school this week with their Spring program.

Oh yeah, I was supposed to come up with monthly goals for March. Okay, here goes a brainstorm ... {Organize women's prayer group, finish crochet project, bake something every week, walk a certain distance every day, plan K's birthday trip, menu plan for K's birthday, cook new recipe} I don't know, nothing's really inspiring me. I think I'll take the first one, organizing a women's prayer group. Since March is already almost halfway over, I'll need to work diligently on this one. Research, contacts, mission statement, vision statement, agendas, scheduling ... Maybe I should modify that goal to "START organizing women's prayer group." Yeah, that's a little less intimidating.

Okay, quarterly goals are still to finish spring cleaning and finish reading the Bible. I'm WAY behind on the first, but right on track for the second. Though I still have two days worth of readings to finish today, and since we're currently driving through the mountains with no internet (obviously), I'll have to skip Pinterest later this afternoon in order to finish. Sorry, Pinterest.

Also, I hope to post every day this week. I was a horrible slacker last week, but I just didn't feel much inspiration to write after taking such a long break. This morning, though, as I was making pakcakes, I thought of about a hundred ideas for blog posts. Of course I didn't write any of them down, but hopefully I'll remember at least a few just to get me through the week.

So, here we go again. I have to constantly remind myself that all this work is going to drastically improve my life. Optimism, happiness, flowers and rainbows.

Week 10: Swing

Returning to our regularly scheduled programming.

My Grandma Sue died two and a half weeks ago, February 15. Since then, I've been getting ready to fly home to Colorado, visiting Colorado, coming back to Los Angeles, and attempting to put my life back in order. It's been crazy.

I'm picking back up where I left off, but with new vigor and some new ideas. This week I plan to empty, clean, organize, and restock the remaining kitchen cabinets, including baby-proofing the lower cabinets. It's kind of a lot to manage with an almost-toddler, but if it doesn't get done this week, it will get done next week, barring any further disasters.

It took a few days to get caught back up on Bible readings after our whirlwind trip home, but now I'm caught up and even a few days ahead of my March 31 goal.

I haven't decided what my March goals will be, but I welcome ideas and will have some nailed down by Friday.

My weekly goal is to be happy. It's been difficult the past few weeks,to be anything but a pitiful mess, so this goal is a big leap to strive towards.

Today is house cleaning day, which is truly exciting for me since the only room that I've even tried to clean the past three weeks was the bathroom. As of posting time, I still need to vacuum the living room and mop the rest of the house, then clean the bathroom again. I love having a clean house. Just wish it would stay that way.

So, here's to March, here's to happiness, here's to life and family and teething babies. And here.we.go.