I still can't quite figure out why I never find the time to post. Another two weeks have come and gone without a post. It must be due to my new TV habits. From 6:30am until 7pm, I entertain and care for a baby. His nap time is usually spent cleaning up from the morning and/or responding to a few emails or to-do items. After dinner and clean-up, we usually spend the rest of the night watching TV ... thank God LOST is almost over, that show has eaten away at far too much free time.
Anyway, a lot has been going on and I have a lot of things I want to post about, so hopefully I'll be able to catch up and fill you in soon. We've been daycare-searching, house-hunting and out-of-town guest-entertaining.
Timmy is positively delightful and I am enjoying every second I spend with him. Pretty soon, I'll be down to just 5 more months of my deferral period, so I have mentally written out my to-do list. I have a few goals for myself by the time I am back at work.
* Get Organized
There are a lot of things that could fall under this one. I switched computers in January to a Mac and I still haven't organized my pictures in a way that I find convenient. I have some in a folder, some in iPhoto and who knows where else. I want to have everything easy to find and access so that when I'm more pressed for time (i.e. once I am working), I don't waste time on this.
My recipes are similarly a mess. I have a ton of torn out pages from old cooking magazines with recipes I somehow want to catalog. I have cookbooks and printed recipes that I've made. I have some recipes I've emailed to myself so that I can find them when I search gmail. And some recipes may be lost forever. I want to make a system where I can store them all and find exactly what I'm looking for when I get the urge to make it.
Finally, our sad little file cabinet is overflowing with paper...most of which is probably unnecessarily cluttering our lives. I have student loan information, car information, health insurance forms and receipts, Firm correspondence and CA Bar documents, plus a million other pieces of paper. It's not very convenient to put stuff away as I get it because the file cabinet is too full. It's not very easy to find something when I need to because instead of being filed away, documents are piled high on top of the file cabinet. I want it all organized by October 18th. The idea being that it's easier to maintain a clean and organized system than create one from scratch.
* Learn how to operate my camera and use Photoshop
PJO got a "dad" camera over a year ago and I got the C3 suite with Photoshop from my brother a few months back, yet I still take the majority of my pictures with my iPhone and don't take the time to edit them. I would love to take advantage of having the equipment I do and start better documenting our life. I love looking back at old photos, but I always find it a hassle to take them!
* Improve my sewing and craft-making skills
A month ago, I took an intro to sewing class. PJO's birthday present to me was a sewing machine and I wanted to make sure I knew how to use it before messing around. I made a pillow and had so much fun. I want to be able to make fun things, like pillows and Halloween costumes, but more than that, I want to be able to repair clothing. A torn hem or a missing button should be an easy fix.
* Read my backlog of magazines and books plus watch my Netflix que
I usually find time to read Real Simple as soon as it arrives in my mailbox, but somehow I have 2 or 3 old issues right now. I have about 5 books that I've been wanting to read but never find the time. If now is not the time, when is?
* Take a vacation to enjoy some truly worry-free time with my boys while I can
Isn't it one of life's greatest paradoxes that when you have time, there is no money to enjoy time off; When you have money, there is no time? After October 18th, it's going to be much more difficult to take family vacations with balancing two work schedules. And I'm sure that even when I take time off, I'll be responding to work emails or phone calls throughout. Once Timmy is in school, that will be three schedules to balance. Now is the time to squeeze in a vacation, but it may have to be a stay-cation so our house fund isn't depleted.
If you lost count (or skimmed to the end of the bullet points), that is 5 goals in 5 months. I think that's doable, especially since we'll probably start Timmy in daycare in September to gradually adjust him. But that means I have to focus on this list now, which means I have to wrap my brain around the fact that this long, mysterious maternity leave will actually end someday.
