Who Doesn't Love Halloween??

A Look Back At October

Well, October definitely started out on the wrong foot. After a lot of pain and many doctor's appointments (and one night in the emergency room!), I found out I have gall stones and need to have my gall bladder removed. On top of this, the hotel got much busier and we lost a staff member, so I've been working a little more than I expected. So those are my excuses for failing at some of my October goals! Here are the goals I had set for October and the results of each goal:

• Take Ellie to swimming lessons. We did this. We lasted for 3 lessons before we realized it was silly to keep going. They happen to coincide with nap time, so Ellie just wasn't a very happy camper for most of the lesson. We plan to go to public swim time with her in the future and then try lessons again when she's a little older.
• Continue to eat more veggies. We've been having green smoothies nearly everyday and dinners that consist of a ton of veggies since my gall bladder troubles have me on a very restricted diet.
• More tummy time for Ellie! Yup! Although we're also doing a lot of 'sitting' (while I support her a bit) time because she seems to prefer it.
• Get Ellie to nap without being held. I know this is possible because she's done it a few times and because she naps in the car seat or stroller sometimes too. Now I just need to get her used to napping in the crib. I've been avoiding it because I appreciate the cuddles, but it would be nice to also be able to nap or to get things done while she naps. Yes! She has napped in her crib a handful of days now. I need to be more consistent with it though.
• Apply for jobs. I am able to work at the hotel, with my husband, however, I would like to find some part time work where the pay is a little better. At the very least, I would like to pick up a few more hours at the hotel to supplement our income since I don't get any maternity leave pay. I have sent out some applications, but have also gotten more hours at the hotel. I had forgotten how much I like working with my husband!
• Encourage Adam to use the sauna or steam room a couple times a week to take better advantage of the perks of living here and to relax! I probably haven't done this as much as I intended, but we've been pretty swamped, so free time has been at a minimum this month. However, I did manage to send him off to use the sauna once and he also got treated to a 3 hour massage on one of his days off!
• Do something (anything!) once a week that contributes to my own overall health. Whether this is a yoga class, a session in the sauna, some time in the fitness room, etc. It doesn't matter what it is as long as it makes me feel good and is good for me! I like the sound of this goal already! :) Giant fail. It seems ironic that I wrote a goal about doing things that contribute to my health and then days later found myself in the emergency room. I spent most of October feeling sore, weak, tired and just plain crappy. Hopefully I can do better next month!

I also think I should give myself bonus points for fitting in an overnight road trip. I took Ellie (all by myself!) to visit my parents on their new farm. It was a quick, but successful, trip!

 
Now I'm going to take a couple days to think about what I want my November goals to be!
 

5 Months

Christmas Cookies

I realize Halloween hasn't even come and gone yet, but I'm already excited about this idea for packaging Christmas cookies. If you're a neighbour of mine, beware - your cookies are coming to you in much nicer packaging this year!

Babies Are Expensive

We have just started doing a bit of research on adoption. We are literally only a few days into what will probably be many months of research and I've already lost count of the number of times my jaw has dropped. I realize adoptions involve a ton of legal fees, paperwork, and other expenses, but holy crapoly I had no idea how crazy costly they can be. Adopting has always been one of my dreams, but it sure is hard to stay focused on the dream when you're reading an email describing one adoption route that can cost between $30,000 and $50,000!

Dreaming Big!

Inspired by my friend and fellow blogger, Sara, I decided to spend some time thinking about my big dreams. I really like to just scribble ideas on paper, so I grabbed some blank sheets of paper and a pen and just started writing all the things I've ever dreamed of doing as a career. I didn't let any details hold me back. For example, if I dreamed of being a doctor, I wrote it down. The fact that I would have to go back to university for many years and incur a lot more student debt would be irrelevant. At this stage, I was just brainstorming dreams. In the end (although there's never really an end to dreaming!) I found a business idea that fills me with excitement and eagerness every time I think about it! I wanted to apply the same process to my personal life as well. But I already knew what my big personal dream was, so I didn't even bother getting out the pen and paper.

At this point, I'm not quite ready to share my big professional goal with the internet world, as I'm still just getting a handle on how to go about pursuing it. As for my big personal goal, I want a big family. It sounds simple enough, but we would like to adopt, which is a bit of a process. Expanding our family through adoption will require a lot of planning, paperwork, time, etc.

Both of my goals are big, big dreams. But by taking each of them one tiny step at a time, I feel like they are goals I can definitely accomplish. And each day that I work a little bit on them, I feel completely energized! It's a wonderful feeling!

It's October Already?!

It seems like September passed in a blur of activity and we've somehow wound up several days into October without even realizing it. Yikes! I guess it's time to see how I did with my September goals and set some new ones for October. Here's how I did last month:

• Take an overnight family trip. Done! Major success ~ Ellie travels well! She actually started consistently sleeping through the night during our trip!
• Eat more veggies. Done! I found a yummy slow cooker meal that's nearly all veggies and I've also been having a green smoothie everyday for the past week or so.
• Continue to exercise regularly. Not so much. I've walked with Ellie, but not as much as I did in August when the weather was nicer. 
• Give Ellie even more tummy time and independent time. I still have to remind myself to do tummy time everyday (I often remember right after a feeding, which means we don't do it because it would only result in mass quantities of puke), however, she does get a decent amount of independent play time.
• Go to a mom and baby group with Ellie. Preparing for our overnight trip meant skipping these groups and now they overlap with swimming lessons so they might not happen until November!
• Take the car in for an oil change and to replace our cracked windshield. Done!
• Get my bloodwork done to check my thyroid. I "forgot"? Haha... who likes bloodwork anyhow?!

Not so bad ~ although I'm noticing a trend where the things that are least likely to get accomplished are the things that relate to my own overall health. Not good. I need to try to rectify the habit of placing my well being on the back burner!

Now here are some October goals:

• Take Ellie to swimming lessons.
• Continue to eat more veggies.
• More tummy time for Ellie!
• Get Ellie to nap without being held. I know this is possible because she's done it a few times and because she naps in the car seat or stroller sometimes too. Now I just need to get her used to napping in the crib. I've been avoiding it because I appreciate the cuddles, but it would be nice to also be able to nap or to get things done while she naps.
• Apply for jobs. I am able to work at the hotel, with my husband, however, I would like to find some part time work where the pay is a little better. At the very least, I would like to pick up a few more hours at the hotel to supplement our income since I don't get any maternity leave pay.
• Encourage Adam to use the sauna or steam room a couple times a week to take better advantage of the perks of living here and to relax!

Hmm... Other than eating more veggies, I seem to have a lack of goals related to my own well being, again! So maybe I'll top the list off with one more:

• Do something (anything!) once a week that contributes to my own overall health. Whether this is a yoga class, a session in the sauna, some time in the fitness room, etc. It doesn't matter what it is as long as it makes me feel good and is good for me! I like the sound of this goal already! :)

4 months!

I'm about 10 days late on bringing you this one... but here it is anyhow:

September Goals

I'm pretty happy with how I did on my August goals even if I didn't achieve all of them. Now it's time to set some goals for September and get started making them happen!

• Take an overnight family trip. We have this planned already, so fingers crossed it goes well! It will actually be a 4 hour trip in the car and two nights away from home - yikes!
• Eat more veggies. My August goal about eating more salads and green smoothies didn't work out. I think it was too specific. I'd like to get more veggies in my diet, but it doesn't have to be through salads or smoothies.
• Continue to exercise regularly. This may only be a walk with Ellie in the stroller, or it may be a half hour stint in the fitness room. I'm okay with either!
• Give Ellie even more tummy time and independent time. We threw caution to the wind and ignored absolutely everyone's parenting advice for the first three months and just did what worked for Ellie. Now, I'm ready to wean her off of always wanting to be in someone's arms. In the next couple months we'll start to work on getting her to fall asleep on her own for naps!
• Go to a mom and baby group with Ellie. There is one very close to our house, so hopefully that will help me get over the trauma of driving alone with Ellie.
• Take the car in for an oil change and to replace our cracked windshield. We've been meaning to do this for a while now, but it requires 'giving up' almost a whole day off, so I've been postponing it inevitably. I'm hoping that posting this here will force me to book it and get it done. I also would really like it done before our road trip!
• Get my bloodwork done to check my thyroid. I had crazy weird thyroid issues early on in my pregnancy with Ellie and was supposed to have it checked again shortly after her birth. Well, I've been putting this off strictly because it's not fun and I often have 'more important' things to do. It's time to get it over with! 

I could keep going, but I think this is a manageable number of goals. I also need to get started on some of them as soon as possible because otherwise there is potential for a lot of these things to all happen within a week of one another. That doesn't sound fun!

August Goal Review

Early in the month, I set some goals for myself and now the time has come to see how well I've done. Here are the goals I had set, and, in bold text, the results!

• Shower while home alone with Ellie. I have now done this about half a dozen times. It totally depends on her mood, but if she's happy in the bouncy chair I get a very enjoyable 3 minute shower! 
• Take Ellie somewhere in the car without Adam. I did manage to drive a couple minutes down the road to meet a friend and her kids at the beach. This was a few weeks ago, and slightly traumatized me (Ellie cried, I got distracted, I ran a stop sign!!!), so I haven't done it since.
• Go back to work part time. I've been working a few shifts here and there, but after much consideration, we decided it was too soon. Because Adam's shift would end at the very minute mine would begin, it required this difficult baby-shuffling routine in addition to the challenge of getting ready for work while entertaining a baby. I have my last shift this Saturday, and then we're going to wait a month or so and try again.
• Take an overnight family trip. Our work schedule made this impossible, however, we have one planned for September!
• Make time for regular exercise at least 2-3 times per week. I haven't made it over to the fitness room once this past month. But I did get out for walks with Ellie in the stroller nearly everyday for the past few weeks. It's a start!
• Eat more salads and/or green smoothies. Ha! I totally bailed on this goal.
• Do more tummy time, diaper-free time and outside in the shade time with Ellie. Success!
• Open an RESP for Ellie. Done! 

Not too shabby! Now I'm going to go think about what I want my September goals to be and hopefully I will get around to posting them in the next few days.