New Year

Well we are home! We had a great week in DC with Devin's family, and then a fun New Year's with my parents. Well New Year's Eve was sort of sad. I've always been the "let's go do something fun" person in my family, but this year I just didn't seem to care too much. We all fell asleep before midnight. My mom fell asleep reading a book to Addison, my dad fell asleep on one couch, Devin fell asleep on the floor, and I fell asleep next to the dog on the short couch. I couldn't even bring myself to wake up to say Happy New Year to everyone. I vaguely remember Devin giving me a kiss, but that's about it. Maybe next year we'll do something exciting. One can only hope.

You know what totally sucks about coming home from a week pampered by relatives? Being at home with a spoiled 2 and a half year old who is seriously missing out on all that attention. These past couple of days have been miserable for me (and probably her). Devin and I agreed that we took one kid with us to DC and came home with a completely different child/monster. I know it's been weird for Addison. She had someone to play with, read to her, change her diaper, give her a bath, take her to the park, fix her a snack (and think all of those things are really fun) for a whole week and now it's just boring old mom during the day and a slightly more patient/enthusiastic dad in the evening.

Oh, and P.S. She's all about dad these days! Am I the slightest bit jealous? NO WAY! Hearing her cry "DAAAAADY!" in the middle of the night instead of "MAAAAMAAA!" is like music to my ears. Sweet bliss. I knew this day would come and it's finally here. Thank you Lord!

Anyway, I have been thinking about some things I would like to work on this year and here they are in no particular order:

1. Be on time. I've been working on this for the past couple of months and I'm actually doing really, really well. I've had a few hangups, but for the most part I think I have become more realistic about how much time things really take, instead of telling myself I can do something in a ridiculously short amount of time. ie: thinking I can take a shower, get dressed, eat something, get Addison dressed and out the door in 20 minutes. Um no!

2. Put my cell phone in the cell phone pocket of my purse so that I don't miss all of my calls! Sounds so simple right? You'd think, but my brain doesn't work that way. I am constantly thinking ahead to the next thing I have to do, so I usually just end up flopping it down somewhere and then frantically searching for it. Same goes for my keys. I'm a mess, but I really want to get better at this. For the past three days I have been successful. I'm trying.

3. Be generally more organized. For the past several months I have literally had to ask my husband when I work next at Baby Gap because I forward the emails to him! This is ridiculous. I am a big girl. I should keep track of when I work. I have this awesome new PDA phone with a calendar so I think it will help. I also want to do better at remembering birthdays and appointments. I was so happy that I remembered to call my grandpa for his bday today.

4. Be more aware of when I am nagging my husband to death. Devin and I are a pretty laid back couple. We don't fight too often and I generally am not a total control freak about things, but there are some times when I just cringe at my own behavior. Like today we fought in the rubbermaid bin aisle at Target over which kind of plastic bins to get for our Christmas stuff and for Addison's room. Then I totally jumped on him about leaving these stupid water bottles on the table when there were about a billion coupons piled up that I had not dealt with. I don't want to be "that kind of wife". Ever. I actually asked him to say "Nag Alert!" or "Crazy Hormone Alert!" when I am being like that, but he said he was too afraid of making me upset. I am going to be praying for God to help me out in this area. God's not afraid of making the truth clear!

5. I want to continue to keep God first in my life. That sounds like such a generic, goody-two shoes Christian thing to say, but I honestly haven't been lately and it's shown in my lack of patience and forgiveness for people. I have good intentions of sitting down to work on my bible study, only to think of other things that I should do instead. So, like Amanda, I want to get up earlier during the week so I can start my day feeling renewed.

6. Drink. more. water. blagh. I hate water, but it makes me feel so much better when I drink it. If you look at some of those pictures of me in the hospital with Addison, my face is literally blown up to 5x its size and I know it's because I wasn't drinking enough water.

7. Maybe, JUST MAYBE, we'll be able to get out of debt this year. I think in all actuality it's going to take into Feb. of 2010 (especially since I'm going to be losing my nanny income) but we are planning on paying off the car in the next two to three months (yes our overpriced yuppy car that we should have never bought!). There are only two things left after that: a loan to Devin's parents and our 20K student loan. I know that student loan is huge, but honestly, we had a billion things to pay off. I can't believe there are only two (and a half) things left! The light at the end of the tunnel is getting brighter. I hope that gives you all a little bit of hope. If we can do it, you can do it.

Anyway, I'm determined to stick to our gazelle intense (had to say it!) budget and am really going to work together with Devin to make it happen. It's been sort of hard lately because the nesting instinct is really kicking in, and there's this little voice inside of me saying "Marie your baby is going to come out COLD! You better buy some clothes and blankets! STAT!" Instead of trusting God to provide, I've been feeling this urge to buy a bunch of stuff right this minute and take care of it myself.

I'm sure there are a lot more things I need to work on, but I'm going to focus on these for now. What are yours?