college, organizing, weight

Migraine aura lethargy/exhaustion=relaxing blog time

 

 

2013-05-07 08.45.00

Had my post-stress migraine today but luckily not a huge headache with it – just a bit of achy eyes and exhaustion.  So seemed a good time for a well-overdue blog post!  I am too whipped to do anything else.

My last posts were mostly about weight, so my quick update about that is that I am STILL on a plateau and starting to doubt if I will ever lose more than ten pounds.  Well, not really, I have to have SOME hope since I have to lose 50 more pounds.  But either I have to change something or be patient – yep, those are the choices.  HA!  Being that what I have been doing WAS working I will just try a bit longer.  Perhaps I am just still building muscle….  The plateau will be 8 weeks tomorrow.  Still having about 1700-1900 calories and walking fairly regularly, and also count heavy cleaning my once a week as exercise, plus some of the cleaning at home.  Also just started Tai Chi but only once a week.

Big change that I didn’t post about – I found out through researching some online schools this college program:  http://www.wgu.edu/education/teacher_certification_special_education_bachelor_degree, and I decided to apply.  I have since taken their entrance test (yes, an entrance test! I was so nervous! but I passed) and transferred my credits in.  I am aiming for a September start.  I LOVED Kent but the drive was getting more difficult as I was going to have to drive 4 days a week including 1-2 nights in the fall semester.  So I am eagerly awaiting receiving a schedule for fall.

Took a look at my posts from last summer where I saw this one https://criscollrj.com/2012/07/23/2012-summersuper-hot-super-busy-flying-by/ where I have a list of what I wanted to accomplish.  Let’s see how it compares to now:

LAST SUMMER:

  • Finish all the filing in the office (it’s already sorted by drawer now – yay me! – and all recycling is ready to go across the street).  Clean out files if possible.   Did get this done sometime before school started.
  • Almost forgot this one – a big one – try and get 1/4 to 1/2 done with course on educational psych for fall that is already on line – that will put me so much ahead for fall where I’m also taking math for teachers, educational technology, and american sign language [only class on campus, rest online!] I did very poorly on this, and continued to procrastinate throughout fall semester too, finishing most of the courses in the last three weeks of the semester.  I did get an A but only by ignoring the whole world….  This is a bit scary with my new college being totally self-driven – I have to do better on self planning and WILL.
  • Prioritize all paperwork and put on the calendar and make sure it’s done on time.  For Chris, Colleen, Ryan, my college, Rog/Colleen’s college, and anything else I need to do… I actually have done fairly well with this.  I love syncing of gmail/calendar on phone and computer!! Open-mouthed smile
  • Sort all clothes in the three bedrooms and give away the tons we don’t need. Laughing hysterically.  Nope, not even close.
  • KEEP deleting emails I don’t need – in the last week I have gone from 18000 emails to 2,000 emails, and still deleting. Yes, did do this.  I actually told someone about this yesterday but thought it was 80,000 emails, guess in one year I quadrupled the number in my head!
  • Go through freezers again and plan more meals to use up what we have. I believe I did do this.
  • Complete the deep-cleaning of the kitchen by scrubbing out and sorting all cabinets. Nope.
  • Finish straightening basement, clean out the fridge bins that are down there for the downstairs freezer. Did first thing but not second.
  • Pass out Avon books again. I think so…
  • Finish painting living room? Nope.
  • Work with Colleen on sorting 4 years worth of school documents and organize them into bookcase and filing sorters. We did do about half of this but they’re still in a box.
  • Probably many more ………

THIS SUMMER:

  • Finish all the filing in the office (it’s already sorted by drawer now – yay me! – and all recycling is ready to go across the street).  Clean out files if possible. Yep, exactly the same amount has built up – plan to do this this coming weekend and next week.
  • Sort all clothes in the three bedrooms and give away the tons we don’t need. Bedrooms are supposed to come the end of May, to mid-June.
  • Clean out email again
  • Complete new paperwork projects – I do have a few right now for the next weeks/month.
  • Clean off Toshiba computer and prepare it for Rog’s back-up computer.  Buy new flash drive to store excess files on for backup.
  • Thoroughly scrub down both refrigerators and hopefully swap one for the other (the basement one is bigger and nicer!)
  • Complete the deep-cleaning of the kitchen by scrubbing out and sorting all cabinets.
  • Clean out basement.
  • Pass out Avon books again.
  • Finish painting living room?
  • Finish work with Colleen on sorting 4 years worth of school documents and organize them into bookcase and filing sorters.
  • Have some fun family outings – more than last year?  Hopefully it won’t be so HOT!

Some pictures from the last few months…

2013-04-27 15.37.27

Lake Erie’s double horizon phenomenon, seeing Canada!

 

 

 

2013-04-07 13.44.41

Picnic a month or so ago across the street – winter was finally over!

 

 

2013-04-09 09.24.16

Rog hard at work at Tionesta PA Smile

 

2013-04-30 08.51.45

Gallia County Ohio River glory.

 

 

P4040654

Ryan at Wendy’s before his haircut Smile

organizing

Schedule that mess!

 

 

Household Schedule

 

 

JANUARY

THOROUGHLY CLEAN LIVING ROOM:

  • Wipe woodwork, wash walls, wash windows
  • Wash furniture, vacuum furniture
  • Rotate cushions, clean coat closet

MONDAY

  • straighten, dust & vacuum bedrooms
  • work on 1 annual chore 1st week

EVERY DAY

morning:

  • wash dishes
  • wipe counters
  • plan dinner
  • make beds, straighten bedrooms and bathroom
  • straighten and vacuum living room

MY CLEANING SITE from about 1994

Yep, that’s a tiny example of that schedule, which I started in approximately 1994 on my word processor back then, to try and get organized with my housework.  I would follow it in tiny spurts, and I even for a while had a following on an organizing site on the internet, in approximately 1998, where people said it was an awesomely successful schedule (maybe not those EXACT words, LOL), but they liked it, and followed it.  I was temporarily famous. 

I would like to try it again.  It’s been about 5 years since I’ve attempted it, as I felt I would just be overwhelmed with it with work and school.  However, maybe if I make an amended version like

morning:

  • if you pick something up, put it back
  • if you dribble on the counter, wipe it up!
  • and (Dorene) when you open the mail, PUT IT AWAY!

I have to stop stacking things.  It’s driving me nuts.  I don’t know that I’ll ever stop Ryan from dumping toys, or get Colleen to scrub the floor (without bribery), but if I could just receive my electric bill, open it, throw the envelope in the recycle box, and put in the bill file, my life would be so much easier.

I did make a place for my coat as we really don’t have a coat closet. See my basket – and I’m putting my hat, gloves, etc., there without fail! This is a step forward.

Now to see about redoing that schedule Smile  But first, back to studying for algebra test and then transcription.

 

children, life, organizing, work, work at home, writing

Trivial and important often reside together

As a person who has always been not so good at multi-tasking, I have had to learn to become quite good at it!

The important things in my mind always are:

  • Taking care of our children and the family’s basic needs.
  • Roger and I getting our work done.
  • Us getting our schoolwork done when we’re in school (Rog from ‘99 to ‘01 and possibly going back next year, me since January of 10).
  • Colleen getting her homework done, trying to get some entertainment/learning activities for Chris, and supervising Ryan in his education pursuits (He’s rather like me where he’s obsessed with school items and loves his alphabet and learning to spell, so that helps – he creates his own educational hobbies!)
  • And just keeping enough clothes to wear to be clean and dishes washed to be sanitary!

So I would always try and do these things first – still am!

But it’s amazing how many other things pile up when you do this.  Things you feel you never have time for.  More dishes that you just can’t get to.  Filing (started that last week as far as cleaning out the file cabinet!).  Grass that needed cut that Rog had been too ill to do (he’s outside now finishing it, and our friends helped us with it last week (pictures coming). 

Then things arise like 500pp of printing needed printed out for various agencies.  Like in one week (happened to me in April).  That means you run out of ink, and have to buy it.  Then you have massive phone calls on this, that and the other.  Every day is full of interruptions.  Necessary interruptions, unnecessary ones, and sometimes annoying ones!  Sometimes pleasant ones!  Sometimes a spontaneous trip to the park is a tremendous treat (hopefully soon!)!

All in all, I’m trying to learn, that it’s not always the important all the time.  Sure, I’m working on getting out my deadlines of the week for work, and do my homework, and cook dinner.  But I don’t want to be a once a year or once every six month blogger any more.  And I want to be spontaneous.  Enjoy Chris today who’s at the house as he didn’t get to go back to school yet after his hospital stay.  Enjoy the trivial.

 

Blessings!

 

college, organizing, transcription

A week off!

Mostly – ha ha.

To do —

  • Take transcription test for Allegis insurance today (step 5 of the application).  Trying to add another backup contract as my favorite backup contract lost their whole department last week and we all lost our contracts.  Don’t want to have less than three eggs in the basket . . .
  • Do just 40 minutes of audio by Thursday – yay, that is SO like a week off!
  • Spend a great day with Chris tomorrow – want to make him a great dinner!  Hope to have Rog visit too – he should be home VERY soon!!
  • Play with Ryan at the park today where I’m dropping off Colleen for her “Otaku Picnic” – it’s not one we go to a lot so Ryan should love it!
  • Clean office this weekend and finish going through files (haven’t gone through them since 2008).
  • Monday and Tuesday CLEAN MY BEDROOM THOROUGHLY.  It has been a long time since I did this – I won’t say how long (not even sure!)
  • Wed. Ryan goes to Cleveland for dentist – special needs clinic.
  • Thurs. Drs. appt with Chris

Things are going fairly well – enjoying the spring weather – hope it’s not immediately 90 degrees as I’m really enjoying 60s and 70s.  On my break from school this week too.  Should have my grade from Spring semesters (which was my first back) by next week — Enjoyed presenting on music and religion yesterday in class.  Did powerpoint and word document.

summer – first algebra class and computer class, both online.

 

college, health, organizing, transcription

Thanks, my Facebook Friends!

Since with new wonders of Facebook, my blog now appears in my profile when I update, I just wanted to thank you all for being on my friends list.  Many of you have joined recently and I haven’t been able to personally write you, but I thank you for being in my circle of friends and family.

I do have some prayer requests at this time.

  • Roger continues to heal from his gall bladder surgery, but has hit some difficulty here and there along the way.  He had to have a more complicated surgery than normal due to a cyst he had, and I believe that is why it’s taken longer to heal.  The doctors have also been watching another cyst he had in another area of his pancreas, but it was not prudent to work on that at the same time as the surgery so they were waiting and watching.  He still had it as of last week at his CT scan, so they will be watching it another 6 weeks.  If it is not gone they most likely will have to do another surgery to drain it.  This also may explain why Roger has had a slower recup time and extra nausea and pain.  Lately, however, he has had more good days than bad so we are grateful to God for that.
  • We are in prayer that he can resume work slowly and get back to normal.  Whether he has to have a second surgery will determine how fast that will happen.  We would also like him to get home SOON (he’s at his mom and dad’s house) but with Ryan being rough in his affection for his daddy we were afraid to have him stay at home yet all the time.  Ryan talks to him every day on the phone and gets so excited when he gets to see him sometimes!
  • My paperwork load has been very heavy but I’m trying to get through one project at a time.  It has been harder to keep up on my paid transcription work with the hundreds of pages I’ve recently had to scan and fax and mail and drop off to various agencies lately with different updates the agencies had to do on our kids, etc.  They all came up at once, and multiplied with just trying to keep up on calls in regard to hospital bills and just keeping up the checkbook and filing and all the items one has to do, it has been a little overwhelming!!  I am now trying to get ahead of my transcription a little this week, and am hopeful the largest part of the paperwork elephant is now behind me.  There are still some things left to do though, and I’m trying to keep track of them.
  • Christopher’s placement.  We had a meeting at Christopher’s school Friday about how to help him progress more and learn more and learn to self-regulate with some aggressive behaviors and his not sleeping still, often.  We all agreed that we need to contact the autism school I mentioned in my last post, in Florida, and I will be doing that this weekend.  I pray the Lord’s will will be done in that area, and that we know the best thing to do for Christopher.
Thank you for prayers.  We are all just trying to get through all this the best we can, and still enjoy the spring with the blossoms, and enjoy the family when we can all get together and communicate as much as we can.  Rog and I had our first Facebook chat last night!  That was fun 🙂  And I’m going over there and visiting a few times a week – Friday after my school has become a tradition.
I only have 3 classes left of my first class in 23 years.  I still have 4 papers to write to catch up on my homework, but I will do it.  It’s a good thing I love to write.  Then I have a final paper to do along with a power point that I plan to do on music and religion (it’s a religion class).  Next semester I am taking two online classes, first summer session computer introduction, and second summer session my first remedial algebra class.  So I shall continue to be busy.

 

 

chris, colleen, life, organizing, Ryan

Graciously accepting help

childrenautism
I was just thinking this morning that this is one of the lessons I’ve had to learn. I’ve been thinking about, what are the things I’ve had to learn in this walk we’ve been on in life? Graciously accepting help, though I’ve not yet gotten very good as ASKING for help; accepting my limitations; and not being a perfectionist. There’s probably more, but that’s a start.

Years ago I made this web site: https://criscollrj.com/cleaning.html . Beth D. if you’re reading, I’m sure you remember helping me with this way back on Geocities in ’97!!! All the tables and everything for HTML coding. But I felt so guilty that I could not follow it. And I did not want to ask for help.
Continue reading “Graciously accepting help”

autism, children, Christmas, health, life, organizing, Weather

I never posted my 08 goals–

So thought I’d post here. I will then look over them over the next week and make up my 09 goals. I don’t even expect to reach some of these, it’s just good to have them all written down to have an awareness of them.

2008 GOALS (the year that will be over TOMORROW! wow)

HOMEWORK
• Every few weeks check Colleen’s progress on web site and follow through with teachers on items needed to be made up.
• Boys – try and get them to write their names, and spell extra, 1-2 times a week. Find computer games for them to play. Try and help Chris focus on academics a few times a week and show Doreen how to do it too.
CHORES
• Colleen to continue picking up her room and to start doing her dishes (soap squeegie!) and laundry.
• Get icon board up and done for boys’ chores.
• Try and get us in position where dishes and laundry and daily pickup gets done every day and figure out as a family HOW!
HEALTH
• Me – Weigh Down. Lose at least 20 pounds. no dieting at this stressful time.
Continue reading “I never posted my 08 goals–”

children, Christmas, organizing

Christmas 08

It’s a good thing I love Christmas, as it comes whether you want it to or not! Pics in flickr 😉

I’m going to order the kids presents today, and Colleen is having a little party for her friends this Friday night. Next Saturday the 20th is the family party. I look forward to that every year. We make special food like broccoli casserole with chicken in it and oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, and just relax. Chris will be here too that day! He was here for Thanksgiving and he had a good time. He really seems to love his new home too and is content as far as I know.

I just worked about 8 days straight and am taking today off. Have a huge to-do list – here’s some of it:

invoicing for work
Request work from E for tomorrow
order Christmas gifts
look over bills
make drs. appts for Rog and I (dentist, eye doctor, foot dr. for me, etc.)
laundry
finish decorating tree
take thanksgiving stuff to attic.
Dailies (5 minutes each room)
Plan dinner
Call about Chris’ guardianship
Begin to look at Christmas newsletter
Order printer ink, and stamps.

 

autism, chris, colleen, organizing, residency, Ryan

Almost time for my fall background change!


Ryan, my photographer.

Wow, it’s been a really long time since I updated. I’m not even sure what I wrote about exactly last (and don’t really feel like looking right now)

First, after taking tons of pics like this with my camera phone, Which he really wasn’t supposed to to do but got away with it as much as possible anyway , Ryan lost the battery to my camera phone. This explains why I’ve had no August pictures.

Continue reading “Almost time for my fall background change!”

life, organizing

Chris’ birthday

http://nablopomo.ning.com/profiles/blog/show?id=997435%3ABlogPost%3A120991

My regular criscollrj.com/Blog is down but having fun learning about nablopomo and posting there. SO many blogs, SO little time 🙂           (2020 – these sites are no longer there, but interesting!)

Yes, can’t believe my Chris will be 17 soon…

tired and busy as always… with two boys that will not go to sleep.

More about my day from my transcription board:

posting today as I thought you’d all be able to use a good belly laugh —

Here’s what I THOUGHT I was going to do today: (On my transcription vacation, DAY ONE!)

  • Do British QA at 5 a.m.
  • Take shower and do misc. things like eat breakfast after kids go to school and be ready to start cleaning by 9
  • 9-12 – clean all upstairs rooms and do some paperwork that’s been awaiting me (I did clean and organize office yesterday so it literally is organized and awaiting me)
  • 12-1 – clean kitchen thoroughly and wash the floor and start a crockpot dinner
  • 1-2 – clean basement and workshop and garage that Ryan thoroughly trashed over the weekend. Now you’ve never seen trashed like this. This is taking big gray storage bins and dumping them upside down, mixing up all the contents, of 10-12 bins and searching for flashcards in them. He did this quickly and silently and sneakily while I was up here yesterday cleaning the office. He also dumped containers of some kind of glassware that may have been here from the previous owners and it is now broken on the floor in the workshop in the corner – I pushed it over but need to get the broom and dustpan and get that thrown out. Yes, I thought I could clean ALL this in one hour.
  • 2-3:30 and also throughout all day – sort about 11-12 loads of laundry (much soaking wet from the boys repeatedly putting clean towels in the bathtub to purposely stop it up and then dumping the towels over the other dirty but dry clothes and making them wet.

Needless to say this did not happen.

Here’s what I did:

  • First of all British QA was not ready until 2. Therefore thinking I had no work I actually took a leisurely bath and wrote my friend this morning(instead of starting housework).
  • Somehow my breakfast and all that and finishing invoicing I didn’t finish Saturday, answering various work emails and researching different audio I had loaded and stuff for next week took me all the way until 12:00 How this happened I do not know. I also almost fell asleep in the tub….
  • At 12:00 I went downstairs and started cleaning basement and workshop, and sorted the laundry WHILE I watched Pretty in Pink movie — I really was diligent though – I did keep sorting and folding and putting in pause to change loads or bring more downstairs. I was a good girl.
  • Started dishes at 2 and then also went back down into workshop to clean more about 3:15.
  • Surprising got British QA at 2 – did 40 minutes.
  • Never started dinner – ended up making hot dogs and soup at 6
  • Still finishing dishes.
  • Never cleaned upstairs at all. It looks like there was a typhoon.
  • Left out various details about Ryan going No. 2 where he shouldn’t have — 

Ah well, tomorrow’s another day – with everything added above that I didn’t do today, plus grocery shopping for Thanksgiving, picking up the yard (I still have pool toys out there) (and moldy pumpkins carved for Halloween). I also planned to get my Christmas stuff down – at least 1/3 of it [including the tree]. Well, that’s on hold now until Friday—

And the bus driver this morning says, hang in there, only one more day of school. No —