Journeyer’s Chronicles

As I was eating breakfast this morning I was thinking about what I could write for a Smiley Saturday post. Then I read this from an entrant in Lightening’s traveling t-shirt’s series. I had tears rolling down my cheeks, especially from the new mother story. My husband didn’t believe anyone would do that, but those of us who have been paranoid, sleep deprived, frantic new mums know different.

Fortunately, about the worst thing I ever did was locking us out of the house and having to scale the fence to break in through a window.

I’m smiling for a lot of similar reasons to Lightening this week. Although we don’t have a new caravan arriving (I wish) this weekend we are starting to get ready for our two week trip. We all love to get away in the caravan and the kids are even excited to be putting it up this weekend to check everything out. I finally got some things sorted this week that might have stopped us going away, so that definitely put a smile on my face.

We’re trying something different to our usual beach holidays and are heading to south western NSW this time. If anyone has some must see’s or do’s I’d love to hear them.

Enjoy your weekends everyone

There are even more laughs over at Lightening Online this morning.

It’s an innocent enough question from a three year old and one that I would expect to be able to answer with enough detail to satisfy, but vaguely enough so as not to encourage more difficult questions at this stage. So far our older kids (7 & 5) have been happy with the “you grew in mummy’s tummy and when you were big enough, you were born” sort of answer.

Last night Cinderella (5) was getting a bit concerned about the birth process. I thought that one was a bit curly, but handled it in my vague/detailed way to her satisfaction. But that got Little Mermaid (3) thinking. Dangerous.

Little Mermaid: I know I grew in your tummy and then I got born.

Me: Yes, that’s right.

Little Mermaid: But how did I get in your tummy?

Me: You grew there.

Little Mermaid: Yes, but how did I get in your tummy?

At this stage my husband is just about wetting himself and being of no help whatsoever. The Engineer and Cinderella are listening intently.

Me (getting the giggles now): You started off sooo tiny that we couldn’t even see you and then you grew in my tummy.

Little Mermaid: But how did I get in your tummy?

Me: You grew from a tiny little egg.

She let it go then. But I know she wasn’t satisfied. It’s only a matter of time before she asks again, and I’d better have a good response ready. This one doesn’t give up easily.

How would you explain where babies come from to a three year old?

We all know how disastrously I went in achieving my July goals. The question remains - did I do any better in August?

Blogging

• Write two posts to schedule if I am away. I have the topics ready to go. I’ve been doing a bit of reading about producing articles/posts in a reasonable amount of time (instead of my usual mulling over them forever). I plan to implement what I have learnt to get a good head start on writing posts.
• Continue to grow the Journeyer’s Chronicles community. What a failure that was last month. It was more like a case study in how not to grow a blog community. Two or three posts for the whole month - not good.
• Complete the 30 Day Challenge. I’m quite proud of myself for this one. I stuck it out, did what I was supposed to do (rather than going off on my own course) and finished the training. I even made a little bit of money - very, very, very little bit. But you’ve got to start somewhere, right?

September goals

• Blog three times a week here.
• Continue writing scheduled posts.
• Continue working on niche websites.

Family

• Do something fun with the kids during the week. Now that the weather’s been improving we’ve been taking advantage of the parkland near our home a lot more. The kids love going for a walk to try and see the baby Cape Barren Geese or down to the swings. We’ve also been spending more time in the backyard.
• Establish teamwork in regard to household tasks - keep upstairs tidy. Upstairs has been tidy, but I don’t know that it’s due to teamwork. Cinderella tends to be doing the cleaning up after the other two kids. And The Engineer’s bedroom - let’s just say there’s plenty of room for improvement…

September goals

• Plan our caravan trip for the school holidays.
• Continue to establish teamwork for household tasks.

Finances

• Monitor our budget. We’ve been doing pretty well sticking to our budget. It’s sometimes hard not to buy impulsively, and in fact The Thinker and I had a “discussion” about it just yesterday. I think I need to remember that we deserve a reward for our good work to take some of the sting out of saying no all the time.

September goals

• Make sure we reward ourselves for a job well done
• Stick to our spending budget.

Health

• Use the exercise bike twice each week. I haven’t been on the bike twice a week, but I have been on it. A bit more focus is required. I may just aim for once a week, as the weather is on the improve and we have been walking much more.
• Set aside some me time each day. Again, the frequency has been difficult for me. I have started talking “mummy walks”, much to the kids’ horror.
• Write regularly in My Happy Pages. Another big fat 0. As is my habit, I’ve been making this job bigger than it was intended to be and so I have been putting it off. When I started, it was supposed to be a couple of lines each day or so. I need to go back to basics.

September goals

• Use exercise bike once a week
• Walk three times a week (includes me time)
• Regularly write in My Happy Pages
• Investigate the best way to improve the health of my back

Productivity

• Organise a housework schedule. I’m probably about half way there. It all seems like such a big job and again I need to break it down. During the month SimpleMom released her first ebook, called “Spring Cleaning for Normal People”. The way she suggests working seems quite doable and a spring clean will get everything in order for me to maintain, so I’m going to give it a go. I’ll also do a post about the ebook in the near future (after I’ve tried it out).
• Listen to/read two books. I’ve tried hard to do this one. Really I have. I’m opting to listen to books as I can do it while I do other household tasks and don’t nod off after a few pages that way. I’m being thwarted in my efforts though. The kids keep playing games on my iPod and every time I go to use it the battery is flat. Note to self: Hide iPod from kids.
• Continue trialling Todoodlist. This is such a simple system and works quite well for me (Click here to view more details). Another review is in the wings for this one.

September goals

• Spring clean
• Listen to two books

Simple Living

• Keep the vegie garden coming along. I planted carrot and lettuce seeds during August. We have a row of tiny lettuces poking up, but the carrots seem to be a bit slow. All in all, the vegie garden has been very successful.
• Make some yoghurt and bread. Well, I’ve decided that making bread is going to be a novelty for me. For the amount of bread we go through and the price I can get it for at Aldi makes it a bit senseless to try and bake our own. One day perhaps. As for the yoghurt, I’m still keen to give it another try. It just needs to make it to the front of my attention

September goals

• Work out how on earth we are going to use the rabini/broccoletti from our vegie garden.
• Start a craft project and work on it regularly

How was your month goal wise? Oh, and if you know what to use rabini for please let me know!

Photos: Carrots .Carota - Wortels - Geze - 胡萝卜, Zen Water, Playmobil Pocketmod - Miniture GTD (9/365)