so much to post

so little time.
there is the lily big girl bed.
there is the playroom redo.
our day trip to the cabin.
our day trip to the apple orchard.
and some other ideas that have been brewing, but haven't had the time.
maybe tomorrow, today I have two sick kids and I am recovering from a nasty cold.

the little things

It's the little things that are easy to do, but also the hardest.  The little things as in, the little chores that keep the house clean and neat so you don't have to have a trashed house that requires hours of cleaning.  I have noticed a cycle: the house get a little out of control from a day or two of not doing a few things, I get it back in control by cleaning for hours,  I vow I will maintain and I maintain for a few days, but then one evening I just don't feel like cleaning the entire kitchen (I just do the dishwasher items) or not folding the laundry as soon as it comes out of the dryer so it sits for a week in a basket, the kids clothes don't get put in the dirty clothes basket, and the list goes on, but the little things don't get done and before I know the house looks like a mess.  I realized this week that the simple things don't take very long and don't require a lot of energy and I need to just do them because one load of laundry is a heck of a lot easier to fold and put away then 4 or 5.  I can't figure out why though I put off the little things, why I don't remember that little things compound into big things that take a lot of time.  So this week I am focusing on taking the five minutes and picking up/cleaning up/folding/whatever and hopefully this will keep the house neater.   I think that sometimes I don't do the little things because I get tired of being the only one doing anything so I think I may leave something for Jeff to do, but since he doesn't do the little things or the big things it is a very dumb counter-productive thing to do.  So this week I hope to get the little things done and I asked Jeff to do the same, hopefully he will be on board because it will only work with his help, it will keep me from being resentful and irritated.  So week 1 of focusing on the little things begins today.

a real adult

I feel like a real adult now. 
I received some inheritance money from my grandmother, it was a nice chunk of change so we invested in our future.
I set up a Virginia 529- an education investment account for the kids college tuition.  It is only $5,000, but it is set up to withdraw $50 quarterly starting in January so hopefully we can have some money saved away for their education expenses when the time comes. I also hope that we can add more money than just $50 quarterly too!
I also set up a Roth IRA account, it too is only $5,000 (the max you can put in in a year), but I plan to add additional money into it so we can have money for retirement.  We have no money currently for retirement, I had cashed out my Virginia Retirement when I quite teaching since I didn't know if I would return to teaching and it was very little ($2,000), now I wish we had kept it, but at 27, retirement doesn't seem necessary.
And finally we have $15,000 in mutual funds that will hopefully grow in 5-10 years so we can have money for a car or house or what it is needed. 
It feels good having money set aside for the future, to have money in case the worst happens.
We also used some money we also used the money pay off our car so both of our vehicles are paid for, it feels good and I hope I won't have a car loan again (or at least one with interest).
I feel like a real adult now, a real responsible adult, a grown up.

so much to say so little time

I have had many posts floating around in my head, I just haven't stopped to create them.
Today is Monday, I don't have class thanks to fall break, but I have big plans, I want to get this house looking good, every room needs a thorough scrub down, lately I haven't had a lot of motivation and things are picked up, but not scrubbed down, so today is my day.  I work best when I start in the morning so today is my day, at least I hope so.

 We had a very busy weekend.  Saturday we went to a railroad festival and watched the parade associated with it, but I must say the parade had nothing to do with trains or the railroad at all, but the kids had fun, Lance had a theory that if you waved to the people they would throw candy at you, he was kind of right and now we have a large bag as treats for pooping in the potty (sadly both kids earn rewards, but that is a post for another day). 

 After the parade we did walk around a bit and looked at the Norfolk Southern train exhibit and a model train exhibit then found something to eat.  It was quite crowded and at one point poor Lily became a lily pancake when someone walking with a funnel cake ran right into her and knocked her to the ground. After lunch we headed home for rest time. As luck would have it, Lily fell asleep in the car, but woke up shortly after returning thanks to lance yelling, he then fell asleep and Lily was awake the rest of the afternoon, I would have loved for both of them to have napped, I could have gotten a lot done, oh well.

 Sunday was another beautiful warm day so we went to church, had lunch at Panera, and then headed out to Layman's Family Farm.  We walked through the entire corn maze.

 We got a little confused/ lost only once.

 After walking in circles for a few minutes we found the scarecrow we were looking for.

 The kids got to jump on the jumping pillow/blob, and we all took a turn on the cow train/dust train.

 The kids stopped for a swing.

And we took a hayride down to the pumpkin patch, it was a lot of fun and I am so thankful the weather was perfect.  One the way home we stopped at an outdoor skatepark, Jeff enjoyed the park, I enjoyed a book in the car while the kids napped, a nice pit stop before home.  So by last night we were all exhausted, but we enjoyed the last bit of our Indian summer.