Such a Short Week . . .

Ok, so I didn't have a chance to post yesterday (NOTE: started this on Monday, but finishing it Wednesday morning!) about my plans for this week but since today is a holiday (meaning the kids are home, so not really a holiday for me!), I have a few minutes to post a quick blog.

I have the girls home today, Tuesday I am tied up with Girl Scouts all day (having a small ceremony at our meeting and I have to pull it all together!), finally getting the grays covered on Wednesday (and yes, it takes all day), field trip to the local Fine Arts Museum with an Egyptian exhibit on Thursday morning and then hopefully our new dishwasher will be installed in the afternoon and Friday, the girls are off from school AGAIN! Oh vay! Craaaazaaay week!

So my few goals for this week are:
1. Start an exercise program. I am shooting for twice a week to start. Whether it is just to go out and walk or do an exercise DVD, it will count. The weather outside is perfect here in Florida so I SO need to take advantage of it! (Did a DVD on Monday and am still sore!! Planning on taking a walk before haircut.)

2. Start to organize the playroom/garage. Yes, I admit, during the holidays, we basically shoved, stuffed and hid junk, stuff and trash down there. Time to pay the piper and get it cleaned up!

3. Catch up on all the laundry and dishes (yes, I have to hand wash now that the dishwasher is on the fritz!).

4. Post 3 times this week. Gonna have to squeeze them in!

I think that is it. This week doesn't have a lot of hours to fit in any special projects but there is always next week, but that is for another post!

Not a Bad Week . . .

Ok, so here I am, Saturday night, squeezing in my last post for the week. Remember a previous post, I said I would do 3 a week? So here goes -

So, another "issue" I would like to tackle in our house is chores! Cleaning a house, not fun. I have a zillion other things I would rather be doing! However, I forget that I have children that could serve as Mini Molly Maids on any given weekend day (weekdays, between homework, after school activities and just the basic household chores, keep the girls, and me, busy)! These girls need to be trained and they need it right now!!

We seemed to have raised smart, caring, wonderful girls who do not believe chores are for them. TIME TO BREAK THEM!! They have been spoiled a bit on that part. So how do we fix this, what can we do so it is not a full-fledged, all-out-war each time we do chores? Going back to my all time favorite site Pinterest, here are some ideas we are going to implement.

I love this idea. My kids, and hubby, when they do chores, never do a thorough job, bless their cleaning-challenged hearts, so I think this is a great idea. I will (in the immediate future) create these for every room in the house. Whoever draws that room, (we are going to have everyone pick a card, pick any card) will know exactly what the jobs are to do and what the expectations are. They can then mark them off as completed. I saw this on Pinterest but the original idea came from another mommy blog.

I am thinking about making one of the above for each of my girls. If they had their own cleaning kit, might inspire a little more? Not sure about that but might be really good for their own rooms. They can easily clean their mirrors, wipe down their baseboards, and dust their shelves whenever the urge strikes! Here's hoping it strikes at least twice a month!

We have something like the above, but our system is slightly varied. We have done allowances in the past but decided to stop them. Chores weren't being done so we were basically, each week, paying our kids just for existing! WRONG!! My husband and I decided that to live in the Maselli house, have clean clothes, a roof over your head, food on the table, and just be, there are certain chores you have to do. To make money for the mall with friends, movies, etc . . . there are 2 things to do: 1 - your regular-because-you-live-in-this-house chores, 2 - pick extra chores that have been assigned a dollar amount. If said child, does their regular chores, they can pick a chore off the chore chart to earn cash in their pocket. These chores include, wash the cars, weed, wash windows, you get the idea.

So here's to getting our "chore" act together. It's very simple. Set the expectations, let the kids know what they need to do, and hold them to it! I will let you know how it all turns out, but that is for another post!

Where Do I Stand?

Ok, so here it is Thursday and I had to pull up my previous blog to look at my To Do list and see where I stand! Let's recap and see how I have done so far:

Here's this week's goals"
1. Stop drinking Coke Zero (or any soda) and switch to green tea. It's like that old saying goes, "quitting smoking is so easy, I have done it dozens of times." That holds true for me and my beloved Coke Zero. It's a special time for each day, twice a day, when I pop one open. I love to hear the fizz! I am currently out of my beloveds so I am going to start today with the green tea.
Yeah, on this one I have held strong!! I haven't had a soda since last Saturday. I have been moody, crabby, and irritable (so basically the same as always!!). I have had some Green Tea from Panera (the best!), an energy-booster smoothie from Smoothie King (SCAM!!), some hot teas and drank a lot more water. I am still not satisfied and will continue to look for something that gives me that same happiness as popping open a soda but won't make me question if it is 5 o'clock somewhere!


2. Plan our menu. One daughter has gone Vegetarian again so we will plan more veggie-based meals with meat only once or twice a week. We also plan to work more fish into the menu.

Did this. I made Panera Bread's Mac-n-Cheese. Really good but not as good as Panera's according to my little one. The rest of us loved it (much cheaper than Martha's fabulous mac) and served roasted broccoli on the side. I mixed the two together and am literally drooling for it right now! Also made a Baked Potato Soup with homemade French bread. The soup was really good but not great. It tasted a little "sour" according to one of my girls but I used 2% milk and reduced fat sour cream so that might be a factor. Fat just tastes better!! The bread was a mix from Williams-Sonoma made in my new bread maker. We ate that dinner on the porch over looking the water. The temperature was perfect. So my girls decided we would have a hearty soup and homemade bread every Sunday. It lead to really nice conversation and we talked about where we want to go on vacation this year (more to come about that later!). Making a salad for dinner tonight with homemade croutons and Friday night is eating all the leftovers!

3. Blog 3 times.
This is post number 2 for the week.


4. Learn Excel for my on-line business, www.toochicgifts.com. Start to gather end of the year documents.
I have been working on this last night and all this morning. It's not as easy as I thought it would be. All the tutorials I watched were for more advanced needs so this is going slowly. Up to March for the year (UGH!) but once I nail it down, will update monthly from here on out!


5. Finish organizing my closet. I will post about this but don't have Befores.
Bought perfect brown cloth containers from Target, nothing fancy, and have started the final organization. I need more of them, and a few more hooks for the necklaces I am hanging, but can't run to the store as my car is in the shop. Maybe can swing by after Girl Scout Leader meeting tonight so I can finish this tomorrow! Have made my way through all the clothes and have a pile to donate and a pile to throw away (yes, some of the clothes I have worn were that bad!!)


6. Clean & organize the playroom-now-turned-craft room.
Not gonna happen! Unless, there is another day added to this week or I find another smoothie shop with a truly powerful ENERGY drink, move this to next week. I am excited to finish this room as I want to finish the curtains, fill frames, make some pillows and add a few more organizational items to the walls. Plus, I want to clean out the drawers and filing cabinets. Believe it or not, I am so excited about finishing this project but am sticking to my guns about finishing some others first!


7. Register my daughter for high school!
Done! I had her sit down with me and make sure everything I keyed in was correct. I printed out the copy of the registration and stuck it on my bulletin board!


So all-in-all, not a bad week. I even managed to put my Valentine's Day decorations up (they are so pathetic, I now remember why I haven't put them up in 2 years!!) and finally decided what I am doing on the two large walls leading up the stairs. We dropped off some art to be framed at Jo-Ann's so I will show all of it, but that will be for another blog!

Holy Happy New Year!!

In the words of my oldest daughter, "OMG!" For the life of me, I totally can't imagine where all the time went. When December started, I had the best intentions to post regularly. I had this whole 12 Days of Christmas thing planned in my head. Then from my previous post, you can see that quickly changed to the 10 Days of Christmas. Then I never posted again until today. In all fairness to myself, I was super busy and had house guests for about eight of those days but you know, excuses, excuses!

So here's my plan for the new year. I am going to be the quintessential everything! I plan on planning like nobody's business! I feel like I have good intentions, always the best, but 90% of the time, I let things fall through the cracks because I am too lazy, too unmotivated, too whatever! So every week, shooting for Sundays, I am going to put in writing, on this blog, my plans/goals for the week. I am talking about everything - organizing/cleaning the house, losing weight, planning the menus (my kids ALWAYS complain there is nothing to eat!), our travels, etc. . . You get the idea.

2012 has a very simple goal - MISSION ORGANIZATION! If I get organized, in many different ways, then my life, our house, everything, becomes easier to manage. Nothing pleases me more than when my husband asks for something and I know exactly where it is! Of course, during the holidays, things have been "shoved" and we moved some rooms around, and more things have been shoved, stuffed, and smushed out of the way!

So here's a few goals:

Organize ALL those photos!

Come up with some sort of organization
for all that technology!

A great way to deal with all the
transient items in our house.

So my plan is simple, each week, I will list a couple of items I would like to cross off my To Do list. These will cover all aspects of my life.

Here's this week's goals"
1. Stop drinking Coke Zero (or any soda) and switch to green tea. It's like that old saying goes, "quitting smoking is so easy, I have done it dozens of times." That holds true for me and my beloved Coke Zero. It's a special time for each day, twice a day, when I pop one open. I love to hear the fizz! I am currently out of my beloveds so I am going to start today with the green tea.

2. Plan our menu. One daughter has gone Vegetarian again so we will plan more veggie-based meals with meat only once or twice a week. We also plan to work more fish into the menu.

3. Blog 3 times.

4. Learn Excel for my on-line business, www.toochicgifts.com. Start to gather end of the year documents.

5. Finish organizing my closet. I will post about this but don't have Befores.

6. Clean & organize the playroom-now-turned-craft room.

7. Register my daughter for high school!

That's my week - in addition to all the regular stay-at-home-motherly duties: waiting in car line for the carpool, dance classes, Girl Scouts, soccer registration, school volunteering, piano lessons, grocery shopping, laundry, cleaning the house, meeting with sea wall/dock repairmen, paying bills, you get the idea. I imagine you all are just as busy as I am. So I will keep you updated on my progress, but that's for another post!