I am totally baffled by how people do all the things we are supposed to get done.
For example, there are the obvious things, like every day we have to eat and sleep. And we are supposed to brush our teeth and shower and do our makeup (I guess now "we" mostly means girls). But, you really should also workout and read and do your "quiet time" and water the plants and apply sunscreen and pick up all the junk off the floor. And that's daily.
Then there's the stuff you're supposed to do once a week-- laundry, cleaning, bill paying, grocery shopping... And the bonus stuff-- deep conditioning, nails, meal planning... and that's not even counting all this other random stuff like changing the furnace filter and recycling and cleaning the humidifier and remembering to get an oil change and scraping the orange goo off the bottom of the fridge.
Plus if you have a pet you have to feed them, clean up after them, brush them, give them medicine when the need it, and make sure they have enough water.
And kids? Oh. my. goodness. Millions of tasks seem to be involved with keeping a child fed, dry and happy.
Are you overwhelmed yet? I'm so overwhelmed! And I feel like every day I read or hear about something else I'm supposed to be doing that I never knew I was supposed to do. Like pluck my eyebrows! I had no idea one was supposed to pluck their eyebrows until a few years ago! So now I'm periodically spending precious seconds I will never get back worrying about how my EYEBROWS look!
And simple tasks seem to be getting more and more complicated. Now instead of just brushing my teeth, I'm supposed to brush, floss, rinse and then apply floride-- TWICE a day!
Not to mention not all of these tasks come easily. So then I spend 30 minutes on the computer trying to figure out how I am supposed to get chocolate stains out of my sofa only to realize now I'm out of both time and energy to actually get chocolate stains out of my sofa...
Seriously I have no idea how people get everything done. Especially considering that in the midst of all this I have to work and sleep and drive places and stand in lines. And I really WANT to spend time with friends and my daughter and my husband. But it all takes time and there's only so much time.
I just keep telling myself that there is no way everyone does everything they are "supposed" to do because I definitely do not. In fact, I usually just give up and sit on the couch with a popsicle, telling myself I'll finish the laundry tomorrow. Which is probably why my clothes always smell like mildew.
So, any ideas for getting things done? How do you keep track of everything you "need" to do?
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Olivia's World
We had our baby girl--Olivia Rosalyn Nishi--on Monday, April 4th at 7:51pm! She was exactly 7 pounds and was 19.5 inches long. It was crazy because when I was thinking before she was born about how big I'd make her if I could choose, I was hoping for 7 pounds, 20 inches. With her hair standing up straight, she was right on target! She looks a lot like Mike in my opinion, except she has a pouty little girl mouth and my ears. I already get sad thinking about some boy wanting to kiss her lips because they are so adorable. I told Mike that I don't want to give her away to some stupid boy when she gets bigger! But he reassured me that we have plenty of time to worry about that...
The day she was born was my first day of maternity leave. I woke up early that morning, but decided to go back to sleep. I figured just in case I went into labor, I'd be glad for a few more hours (and I was). I got out of bed around 10:30 and went to take a shower. I felt completely fine and normal until around 11:00 when I got out of the shower and started feeling contractions. The contractions quickly got extremely intense and I texted Mike to come home. I still wasn't sure I was in labor, but I was in enough pain to at least need help moving around. I called the doctor and she told me to come to the office for a labor check at 1:30. Mike got home around 12:30. We finished packing our bags and I picked up the house between contractions because I didn't want her to come home to a messy house (evidently pain makes you crazy). The contractions had evened out by this point and actually were farther apart than they had been, so I started to worry this was a false alarm. We went to the doctor anyway and it was a good thing we did because she gasped when she checked me-- I was already 7 centimeters (out of 10). She told me to go to the hospital immediately-- do not pass go, do not stop!
When we got to the hospital, there were nurses waiting in the hallway for us, welcoming us by name. It was great! I must have looked pretty pathetic because three people tried to give me a wheelchair on the way to the OB wing, but I insisted on walking. When I got settled in I was at 8 centimeters and told them I was ready for an epidural. They got my IV in and the epidural was next. It wasn't as painful as expected (maybe just compared to the contractions) and once it was in, I was in heaven--other than being itchy from the narcotics. I still hadn't eaten since dinner the night before, but you can't eat in labor, so they gave me a Popsicle and I was an extremely happy camper. By now it was about 3pm and we decided to start calling/texting people. Everything was looking good so the nurses basically let us be and we hung out with Beth, Heather, Daniel, my mom and her husband. I didn't want the TV or anything, so we all just chatted and I made everyone listen to stories about when I was born.
Around 5pm, they came to check me again and said I was at 10 centimeters! They said I could start pushing or I could wait for the doctor. My water still hadn't broken and I figured it would make pushing quicker to give the baby more time to drop lower, so I decided to wait. At 7pm the doctor came in and broke my water and then we started pushing about 30 minutes later. Luckily this easy baby wanted out ASAP. I only pushed five times, for about 20 minutes, and she was born! Labor had lasted about eight hours. Unfortunately, there was quite a bit of thick meconium (baby poo) in the amniotic fluid, so they had to take her to the warmer right away and pump it all out of her. I have a phobia of choking and I couldn't believe she was already choking the minute she was born! Everything turned out okay, though. They got her suctioned and then brought her to me. I was so scared I couldn't stop shaking. I felt like she was going to break! Soon, family and friends came in for a "meet and greet." There were lots of pictures and everyone passed her around for about 15 minutes before we said goodbye so we could start feeding. Feeding went well, we transferred to our new room and got settled in for the next two nights.
The nurses at the hospital were amazing and I would definitely recommend Exempla Good Samaritan. There was so much support and they were all like friends. Two nurses told us to have another kid right away so they could see us again and a third nurse came in to see me at the end of her shift because she wanted to give me a goodbye hug. Everyone was also gaga over Olivia. Our nurse brought in another nurse from the department so she could see the adorable baby her coworkers had been talking about and another couldn't believe she wasn't a c-section baby because of her perfect little head. Turns out you can subsist on a diet of mexican food and pizza for your entire pregnancy and still have a kid that turns out okay. Who knew! Speaking of food, the hospital had great food and sent us home with a full lasagna meal when we left. Ahh... I miss the hospital...
Since then, things have been going pretty well, though. We got home on Wednesday night and tried to get settled in with a new set up. We've had some trouble with feedings and a lot of things about the whole process have been very very painful, so I'm trying to work through that. Today I'm feeling better, though, and am trying to feel human again by getting up and around the house a bit. I've probably only slept about six hours since Sunday night, mostly because Olivia's been "cluster feeding," which means she wants to eat about every hour. Since eating takes about 30-45 minutes from start to finish, that doesn't leave much time for anything else.
Anyway, that's Olivia's story so far! Overall, the pain and difficulty has been completely worth it to have such a beautiful, adorable, healthy girl. We feel incredibly blessed by God!
Monday, January 31, 2011
Busy, Busy, Busy…
From Mike:
As usual, Kelly and I closed out 2010 and began 2011 with a myriad of fun social activities. Here’s a recap of events that occurred after my brother’s wedding last month:
Keeping with our Christmas tradition, we attended the Milburn’s annual Christmas Movie Marathon the weekend before Christmas. Although it’s been sad to see the attendance at the marathon slowly decline over the years, I never get tired of watching those holiday classics…with the exception of flops like Jingle All the Way. Sorry Ah-nold fans, he and Sinbad just don’t get it done in that one.
Of course, no Christmas season would be complete without our annual Ugly Christmas Sweater Party! Several out-of-town friends were home for the holidays, so the house was packed, but that didn’t stop the hideousness from enduring late into the night. Beth managed to take 1st prize in the “found” sweater category with a tasteful, yet busy little number that looked like it came straight out of a catalog of grandma’s creations. She was also sporting an oversized-Flava-Flav-esque-clock-ornament-medallion…thing. Emily took home 1st prize in the “created” sweater category by sticking what seemed like hundreds of holiday-related stickers to her outfit. Well done, ladies! Although I will forever believe that my sweater was, by far, the ugliest one at the party.
We celebrated Christmas Eve with the Murphys by getting brunch at Mimi’s Café, followed by a movie. We saw The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which was actually quite good! After attending our church’s Christmas Eve service, we returned home for a quiet evening. Christmas day was spent at my parent’s house. The whole family was there to eat breakfast, open gifts, and enjoy each other’s company. Overall, it was a wonderful, relaxing day.
On New Years Eve, we drove to the Highlands in Denver for dinner at the Coral Room with a few close friends, took a quick, icy walk to Three Dog’s Tavern down the street, where we spent the remainder of the evening. The Tavern turned out to be a perfect place to celebrate with drinks, pool, shuffleboard, a little Buck Hunter arcade action, and a midnight champagne toast!
New Years Day was spent in our usual fashion at my Cousin Deb’s house in Berthoud. We stuffed ourselves, played games, watched football, and relaxed for a few hours before calling it quits and heading home for a long, and much-needed, winter’s nap.
The following weekend, a bunch of us headed up to Frisco for a ski trip. We rented a huge 5-bedroom house for the weekend and thoroughly enjoyed every minute we were there; whether it was playing pool, ping-pong, watching movies, or soaking in the hot tub, everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. On Saturday, people scattered all over Summit County to spend the day at their favorite ski resort. A few people stayed behind and went shopping and relaxed at the house. We all headed home on Sunday morning, but not before stopping in Idaho Springs for some delicious Beau Jo’s Pizza!
The following weekend we began attending a new church in Denver called Eikon. Our close friends, Alex and Katey started the church and asked Kelly and me to be part of their core group, intended to help get it off the ground. We gladly accepted the invitation and have enjoyed being a part of such an amazing group of people! We’re excited about what Eikon is doing, and invite all of you to visit the website and see what it’s all about: http://denver.eikoncommunity.org. We’d love for each and every one of you to join us!
Last weekend, I had the opportunity to take a beginner’s photography class in Boulder. We met at Chatauqua Park, and the instructor taught us the basics of how to utilize our camera’s shutter speed, aperture, ISO, and several other features to help us take our DSLR cameras off the “Auto” setting and onto the “Manual” setting. It was very informative and I’m excited to begin taking pictures and actually know what I’m doing, and how to utilize the often unused features of this expensive piece of equipment we own. :)
On Tuesday, we met up with Amy, Beth, Todd, and Carter at Civic Center Park for the Denver Big Air event. The event brought professional skiers from around the world to compete in a ski-jump contest in the middle of downtown Denver. It was incredible! They built a huge multi-story ski jump right in front of the City and County building in Denver and brought in snow makers to cover the jump and landing area. Switchfoot played during the event and at the end of the night, it started snowing. Even though I couldn’t feel my toes at the end, it was awesome!
So that’s what’s been happening at the Nishi household. I ask the Lord’s blessing on each of you and pray that your 2011 is off to a great start! Until next time, keep us in your prayers, as we will keep each of you in ours.
As usual, Kelly and I closed out 2010 and began 2011 with a myriad of fun social activities. Here’s a recap of events that occurred after my brother’s wedding last month:
Keeping with our Christmas tradition, we attended the Milburn’s annual Christmas Movie Marathon the weekend before Christmas. Although it’s been sad to see the attendance at the marathon slowly decline over the years, I never get tired of watching those holiday classics…with the exception of flops like Jingle All the Way. Sorry Ah-nold fans, he and Sinbad just don’t get it done in that one.
Of course, no Christmas season would be complete without our annual Ugly Christmas Sweater Party! Several out-of-town friends were home for the holidays, so the house was packed, but that didn’t stop the hideousness from enduring late into the night. Beth managed to take 1st prize in the “found” sweater category with a tasteful, yet busy little number that looked like it came straight out of a catalog of grandma’s creations. She was also sporting an oversized-Flava-Flav-esque-clock-ornament-medallion…thing. Emily took home 1st prize in the “created” sweater category by sticking what seemed like hundreds of holiday-related stickers to her outfit. Well done, ladies! Although I will forever believe that my sweater was, by far, the ugliest one at the party.
We celebrated Christmas Eve with the Murphys by getting brunch at Mimi’s Café, followed by a movie. We saw The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which was actually quite good! After attending our church’s Christmas Eve service, we returned home for a quiet evening. Christmas day was spent at my parent’s house. The whole family was there to eat breakfast, open gifts, and enjoy each other’s company. Overall, it was a wonderful, relaxing day.
On New Years Eve, we drove to the Highlands in Denver for dinner at the Coral Room with a few close friends, took a quick, icy walk to Three Dog’s Tavern down the street, where we spent the remainder of the evening. The Tavern turned out to be a perfect place to celebrate with drinks, pool, shuffleboard, a little Buck Hunter arcade action, and a midnight champagne toast!
New Years Day was spent in our usual fashion at my Cousin Deb’s house in Berthoud. We stuffed ourselves, played games, watched football, and relaxed for a few hours before calling it quits and heading home for a long, and much-needed, winter’s nap.
The following weekend, a bunch of us headed up to Frisco for a ski trip. We rented a huge 5-bedroom house for the weekend and thoroughly enjoyed every minute we were there; whether it was playing pool, ping-pong, watching movies, or soaking in the hot tub, everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. On Saturday, people scattered all over Summit County to spend the day at their favorite ski resort. A few people stayed behind and went shopping and relaxed at the house. We all headed home on Sunday morning, but not before stopping in Idaho Springs for some delicious Beau Jo’s Pizza!
The following weekend we began attending a new church in Denver called Eikon. Our close friends, Alex and Katey started the church and asked Kelly and me to be part of their core group, intended to help get it off the ground. We gladly accepted the invitation and have enjoyed being a part of such an amazing group of people! We’re excited about what Eikon is doing, and invite all of you to visit the website and see what it’s all about: http://denver.eikoncommunity.org. We’d love for each and every one of you to join us!
Last weekend, I had the opportunity to take a beginner’s photography class in Boulder. We met at Chatauqua Park, and the instructor taught us the basics of how to utilize our camera’s shutter speed, aperture, ISO, and several other features to help us take our DSLR cameras off the “Auto” setting and onto the “Manual” setting. It was very informative and I’m excited to begin taking pictures and actually know what I’m doing, and how to utilize the often unused features of this expensive piece of equipment we own. :)
On Tuesday, we met up with Amy, Beth, Todd, and Carter at Civic Center Park for the Denver Big Air event. The event brought professional skiers from around the world to compete in a ski-jump contest in the middle of downtown Denver. It was incredible! They built a huge multi-story ski jump right in front of the City and County building in Denver and brought in snow makers to cover the jump and landing area. Switchfoot played during the event and at the end of the night, it started snowing. Even though I couldn’t feel my toes at the end, it was awesome!
So that’s what’s been happening at the Nishi household. I ask the Lord’s blessing on each of you and pray that your 2011 is off to a great start! Until next time, keep us in your prayers, as we will keep each of you in ours.
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