Cleaning Lady Report

I'm going to get back into blogging full swing by offering you my report on a few things that have been going on recently. Hopefully I can think of something to write about every day this week! Stay tuned.

So a few months ago I reported on our new found decision to hire a cleaning service to come every other week. I have to admit that it's going well but it has it's positives and negatives. We'll start with the positives. (Note, because I hate blogs without pictures, I'm throwing some pictures on here from the Realtor photos from before we bought the house. This isn't what it looks like now.)

Positives:

• I am able to forget about thinking of the things I need to clean. When I have a spare moment I don't have to feel guilty that I'm not vacuuming or scrubbing toilets. Because that will be done within 2 weeks.
• The entire house is clean all at once. So at least twice a month I come home to a spotless house that has the toilet paper folded to a point and a nice little card saying "relax, it's done"
• Additionally, the house usually smells really nice when they're done too. They mix it up but lately it's smelled like cinnamon in our house!
• I don't have to worry about Nolan picking up little things in the carpet... and eating them.
• Regular vacuuming has kept the spiders at bay since there are fewer little bugs crawling around for them to eat. BARF.
• Since our house is cleaned regularly, we find it easier to keep up the cleanliness on a regular basis.
• We're giving someone a job. In any economy you can always feel good about being the source of income for a person!

Negatives:

• We clean for the cleaning lady. I cannot state this enough as a negative. Unfortunately we can't just leave the house in it's normal condition and let her have at it. We have to clean up our clutter so she can do the vacuuming and scrubbing. She'll organize toys and such but if we don't put it away ourselves we might notice that things are misplaced.
• It's expensive. I'm trying to get over this point because right now the cost is worth it. But if we're in a tight spot financially this will be the first thing to go as it's 100% a luxury.
• Sometimes the details of how I would like things cleaned aren't met - like there have been times when garbage bags aren't replaced or when a phone charger has been damaged (not to the point of it not working, but making the prong bent)

So overall, I feel like having a clean house is worth paying this rate. We initially started the cleaning service because I felt like the person doing everything at home. Since Brian works such long hours I've felt that the burden of cleaning always fell to me. This became a point of contention between the two of us from time to time and honestly I had enough of coming home to a dirty house after working a full day. 

And the way I figure it, I would LOVE to be a stay at home mom if I could afford it. If I were, I would do my very best to keep the house in order since I would be there most of the day. Because I'm a working mother and I bring home the benefits I feel like it's worth it. I offset my salary with the cost of a cleaning service and it doesn't sound as terrible that way. 

Ultimately, I love being able to do the bare minimum with my cleaning efforts. I recommend it if you can find something you can afford. 

[Posting these room photos makes me want to steal Kate's idea of doing a house tour... after cleaning lady comes tomorrow I'll take photos!]

Reddit Secret Santa Gift Exchange

I am participant number 29,320 out of over 200 THOUSAND people doing the 6th annual Reddit Secret Santa gift exchange.
So basically it's just like this... over 200,000 people are randomly matched up with people all around the world, given a few details about that person, and they can look at their reddit message history, and go from there to buy a gift for their giftee.

Here's what I know about my guy:

1. He's a college student
2. Among other things, he likes Star Wars and The Godfather movie franchise
3. On his bucket list, he wants to visit USA
4. He lives in GERMANY

I really wanted to give him something that has a personal touch, so I'm having all the things I buy for him delivered to me (because I'm an online shopaholic). So far this is my big ticket item for him:

Basically it's a map of the US that has a scratch off component so when he finally does visit he can mark off the states he's been to. (No one can hate on this gift idea even if you think it's stupid because I already ordered it and wrapped it in Justin Bieber wrapping paper)

It'll look like this when scratched:

So now I'm trying to come up with other little nifty gifties that I can wrap and put in the gift box before I ship. The deadline is December 19th for the ship date so any suggestions before then would be fab!

My only other thought is going to the comic book store and finding something Star Wars-y for him that would be unique. But I don't want to spend a fortune... Also, I don't want whatever I ship to be heavy, cuz you know... shipping internationally = $$$

Happy Friday!

Thankfully.

Hey everyone! Remember me? Sorry it's been quite some time since my last update... I blame work.

Anyways, how was your thanksgiving? Mine was awesome, spending time with my sisters, mom, brother in laws, and my niece/nephews. We went to my sister's place in Iowa City and there was a lot of card playing, drinking beers, and trying to get my little man to take a freaking nap already.

Nolan has been doing great! Honestly, I feel more and more thankful every day that he's mine and even more thankful that he was born healthy and that any health complications he has are easily remedied. Case and point, he just got his first ear infection.

It was actually last Monday night. Nolan woke up screaming bloody murder which, unfortunately, isn't uncommon for him. We usually bring him into bed with us and try to get some sleep that way. He hasn't responded well to sleep training when it comes to MOTN wakings. We deal with it and thankfully we have a king size bed so he fits in with us easily (it's a little more difficult to co-sleep on your nephew's full sized bed, just sayin').

But poor little man was screaming from about 11pm-4am which is THANKFULLY unusual. I figured it was an ear infection because nothing could console him. I called first nurse around midnight to see if they thought we needed to go to the ER and she said no. It wasn't until around 3:30 or 4am when I called again because Nolan had a solid fit of over an hour without the ability to be consoled. So when I called first nurse the 2nd time they said to take him to the ER.

So I got him loaded up in the car (which I got a new car btw, I'll have to take some glamour shots when I think of it next) and before I knew it he was asleep in his car seat. I figured since he was able to finally get some rest it didn't do either of us any good to take him to the ER so I drove around for about 20 minutes to make sure he was really sleeping.

I was able to get him to sleep until about 7am that morning (lucky me) and I called in sick - actually I emailed in sick. Does anyone actually "call" in sick anymore? I just sent in an email... whatever.

So I called the pediatrician and she was able to see him at 10. Thankfully we were able to get him in before too long. I didn't have to wait for an afternoon appointment. She identified him having an ear infection immediately after he tugged at his poor little ear for her. Such a smart boy, knowing how to show the doctor what hurts!

Tonight is his last dose of amoxicillin - HOORAY! And next week we have a follow up to ensure that his ear infection is truly cleared up.

I'm truly thankful for modern medicine.

I once again am just so thankful that Nolan has been an extremely healthy and happy baby... ugh toddler (he'll always be my baby).

I draw a lot of my thanks for his health from a friend/former roommate of mine who's son was born prematurely at 24 weeks. They've made a private facebook group detailing the struggle and triumphs of their little boy and he's growing bigger and bigger. Just recently he hit 8 pounds after being born at 1 pound and a few ounces. My heart goes out to them every single update because I don't know that struggle and I'm so thankful for it. I know that might come across as heartless in a way but really I'm just trying to say that I'm so glad that Nolan was born full term (and even a few days late thankyouverymuch) and that we were able to take him home after the standard stay in the hospital. I don't have to worry about the struggle of having a premature baby and I just wish that no one ever did have to worry about it. I'm glad to see that their little boy is well on his way to getting out of the NICU and going HOME! It's a long time coming and I certainly can't wait until that little man gets to see what his room looks like and to sleep in his own crib without tubes attached to him. Until then, I hope everyone keeps their little man in their thoughts and that he gets to go home soon!

This post was brought to you by the word "thanks"

Until next time, here's my boy playing with toilet paper...

I need a break!

Hellooooo everyone!

Goodness gracious. It's been a long time, yes? 

It seems hard to come up with a blog post after so long especially when I've been so busy, but I feel like it's always good to give a few updates here and there, even if they're short ones.

Nolan is just growing and growing and it hardly seems possible to put all the big moments into a milestone, but here are some of my favorite things as of late:

• Giving him a balloon last month - what a cheap toy and the fun reactions were so worth it! I bought it because I do event planning for my job and I had to go to a party store to talk about a big event we've got coming up. As something fun, I figured I'd bring Nolan home a balloon. It really was an afterthought that Brian told me that earlier that day Nolan had said "Up" for the first time! 

• We went pumpkin picking the other day! I had no idea we'd have so much fun. We went on a whim knowing that we didn't have anything planned that day so it just made sense to go pick up a pumpkin. We did a TON while we were there including "swimming" in a corn pool (which is just a big space with literally tons of corn that you can play in - think a ball pit but with hard corn kernels)

Corn Pool - a lot of corn ended up in the diaper!

A fun tunnel!

Wind blowing in his face on the hay ride - despite appearances, he LOVED being on the hay ride!

We found our pumpkin! Yes, it's effing HUGE!

• I still love those little feet!!! Sorry, but I just feel like sharing this... 

• And finally, Nolan will eat just about any fruit you put in front of him! Jamie at daycare said that she gave them fruit pizzas (essentially a cookie with fruit on it) and he just ate the fruit off of it and leaving the cookie. HE IS NOT MY SON! (Soooo kidding, but seriously the kid looks nothing like me... if I didn't give birth to him you probably couldn't prove that he's mine LOL... at least Brian is confident)

Above everything else, it's been really fun buying clothes for Nolan. Getting winter stuff is kind of exciting! This year we'll have boots and mittens and coats and more! I'm trying to pull back and not buy more stuff for him even though all the outfits are so cute and fun. To try to be economical I bought 2T sized clothes which actually fit him but are really baggy. I just didn't want to buy 18 month sizes for winter stuff AND then to buy 2T stuff to get him through winter. So yeah, that's what I did.

We still have the cleaning service which we're kind of becoming less than pleased with. We're paying a lot to have her come in but we have to essentially clean the place up for her... I don't mind tidying stuff up but for what we're paying I kind of wish she'd organize my stuff. It's for this reason I wish I could afford a housekeeper. Maybe when I win the lottery.

Ok, peace out!

Sorry In Advance

Sometimes my job can be really, really, excruciatingly slow. Like in the summer. But I love it. I know it sounds terrible but if I'm forced to sit at my desk for 8 hours when I don't have any immediate events to plan it gives me a lot of... time to kill. 

That's all I'm going to say there. 

But then there's the next 2ish months where my life is going to be busy as all get out. 

Basically I get little windows of time where I'm in the wait part of "hurry up and wait" or I'm writing this on my lunch hour (truth) to just post a blog and keep people updated on my life.

Truth is it's been really busy at work and my head is a fog. I sometimes don't know how I'm going to keep up this whole working and being a mom kind of thing. I mean that in the "I have to work late some nights but I need to get Nolan to a babysitter and I can't find the time to do it" kind of way. 

I guess the point of this post is to say that I'm sorry for what very well be a long stretch without any updates. 

But what I do have going on in the next few months I am excited about. I'm especially excited to see my cousins this weekend at what I hope will become an annual tailgate event for us. See you soon!