Organizing My Life

For the past several months - actually, approaching a year now - I've been trying to juggle many, many things. I'm doing the stay at home mama thing, I'm freelancing for a company, I'm attempting to be Betty Homemaker, I'm trying to find outlets for my creativity, I'm trying to raise a child and learn how to form him into an amazing human being...and I'm attempting to do all of that on too little sleep a lot of the time. What's new, am I right moms?

But a little while ago I reached a point where I felt like I was just running in circles, never really accomplishing much of anything. I knew something had to change. So I set out to organize my life.

First, I needed to define my priorities. Since I've got a million things to do but a limited amount of time, only a few things will actually get accomplished each day. Obviously taking care of Grayson is priority number one. Then we've got my freelancing job, which is a source of income, so it needs to be priority number two. Staying on top of keeping up the house is big, as is making time to cook my family healthy dinners. Then I try to fit in play dates and mom's night out whenever I can.

Next, I knew I needed a schedule to stick to. It's great to know what your priorities are, but if there isn't a plan of action things kind of fall apart. So I needed a way to stay on top of it all. Anytime I want inspiration for basically anything at this point in my life I turn to Pinterest. I found a few great printables that I filled out and hung up on a bulletin board in a little area in my laundry room. I have a whole Pinterest board dedicated to getting organized, and you'll find several printables if you check it out. I printed a weekly schedule that I fill out with my usual schedule (up at 7, or earlier if I try to go to the gym, breakfast at 7:30, work Tuesday-Thursday from 8-12, lunch at 12, Grayson's nap right after lunch, etc., etc.). I use my iPhone calendar to remind me of any thing out of the ordinary that comes up, like nights out with friends or doctor's appointments.

I also decided that in order to cut down our eating out expenses, which were absolutely shameful, I would start meal planning. I found yet another great printable, and I have been rocking this thing. I typically cook dinner five nights a week, and allow for two nights of eating out, usually on the weekend. We are seriously saving so much moolah this way. I set aside like 30 minutes to an hour on Sunday morning to plan and make my grocery list, then we grocery shop that afternoon.

I also made a weekly plan for cleaning house, and a monthly list of extra projects I'd like to accomplish and deep cleaning chores I tend to forget about. For example, on Sundays I do laundry, meal plan, and grocery shop. Mondays, I finish the laundry, sweep, and mop all the tile floors. Tuesdays I clean the bathrooms. And so on and so on. I don't stick to it every single week, but it's a nice guide for when I have the time.

Just this little bit of planning and effort has made a WORLD of difference in my life. I seriously feel like I've gained hours in my week. Of course I get off track every now and then, but it's nice to have an easy way to get back to where I want to be. Since becoming a mom, I've realized how easy it is to just let the days fly by without ever really accomplishing much of anything. I've never been super organized on my own, so this has been totally necessary, and worth it, for me.

Shortest Weekend/Longest Post Ever

Where oh where do the weekends go? Seriously, I feel like I just got off work Friday, and now it's already time to head to bed and start it all over again. But even though it was a quick weekend, it was a good one. 

I started things off by taking a nice little walk with Addie on Friday after work. I've really been trying to do more physical activity every day...so far it's not going to great, but at least I'm trying (kind of). I went to the doctor Friday morning for a little baby update, and it's official: I gained more in the last month than I did the entire first 20 weeks. Thankfully I'm still on track for the most part, but I definitely need to start putting in some kind of effort to not become huge. So since the weather was nice I decided a quick walk around the neighborhood would do us both some good.

Friday night Arsen and I went out for a date night. I'm hoping we can do quite a bit of that in the next few months, because I know once our little guy arrives date nights may be few and far between. We had a yummy little Mexican dinner at a new place right by our house, and then we went to the movies, which we haven't done in forever. We thought about seeing Django Unchained, but once we realized it was nearly three hours long we opted for something shorter. We decided on This Is 40, and it was actually quite hilarious. Knocked Up is one of my favorite movies ever so it was fun to see the same characters. If you like that type of flick, I definitely recommend it. 

Saturday I woke up all inspired to be super productive. I think the nesting thing is kicking in already, because I have been on an organizing kick lately. I went through all of my kitchen cabinets and re-organized them earlier this week, and Saturday I decided to tackle the pantry. We don't have a ton of pantry space, so fitting all of our food in is always a challenge. This is what I was working with. 

 After pulling every single thing out of the pantry, organizing them into groups on our kitchen counters, and then putting it all back in, this is how it looks. 

Still packed to the brim, but at least it's done in an organized fashion. I made groups for canned food, jar food, snacks, breakfast, sides, baking, teas/other drinks, and vitamins/meal replacements.  In my head it's what makes sense. Every time I've opened the pantry door since I got it all done it has given me a happy little feeling...and this is yet another way that I know I'm old. And slighly pathetic.

While I woke up inspired to organize, Arsen woke up inspired to have a real Armenian breakfast. He was craving blinchiki, which is a crepe type thing that his mom makes often. We googled a recipe and decided to give it a try. And I must say, I was impressed with the outcome. We even decided to set the table and have a little family breakfast. Hot tea, boiled eggs, blinchiki with sour cream or honey...Arsen is determined to turn me into an Armenian wife if it kills him! My mom got a picture of us in action. We look positively miserable, but it really wasn't that bad.

Saturday afternoon I went and got my first prenatal massage...umm, best thing a pregnant girl could do. After that I was so relaxed that I didn't get much else done. We rented a couple of movies and grabbed some fast food for dinner, and that was that.

Today my mom and I spent the day at Arsen's sisters house for a ladies luncheon that she hosted. January 6th is actually Armenian Christmas, so she decided to have her friends over to celebrate. Everything was put together so beautifully, and of course all of the food was delicious. My mom and I were the only ones there who didn't speak Russian or Armenian, which is always interesting, but several ladies were sweet enough to translate all of the toasts and everything for us.

I spent a lot of the day chatting with a sweet girl named Svetlana (no idea if I spelled that right). She's only been in the US for around a year, and her English is seriously incredible for that amount of time. Her husband has lived here in Texas since he was young but met her when he was visiting Armenia, so she moved here to be with him. She is pregnant and due just two days before me, so it was a lot of fun to spend some time talking with someone who is going through exactly the same thing as me.

(Side note: are those pictures of Arsen's nephew not the cutest thing you've ever seen? I'm hoping the baby resembles him in some way...)

Overall it was a really fun day. It's so funny to be sitting in a room surrounded by all of these sweet women who I would never have known if it wasn't for Arsen. It really is pretty incredible to be a part of something so different than what I'm used to. Although after more than four years I'm starting to feel pretty much at home.

So I would say this weekend was a big success. And just summing it all up has exhausted me. So now, I'm gonna sit here and watch a bit of Everybody Loves Raymond and then head to bed in about 30 minutes like the old preggo lady that I am.