We are having friends over for dinner tonight. That means I should be cleaning house, but instead I’ve decided to procrastinate here at my laptop. Makes sense, right? I just stepped over a big pile of laundry to get to my desk in the bedroom, but thankfully we aren’t entertaining in this room!
My week hasn’t been creative in the usual way for this blog. I’ve been focusing my energy in the kitchen and at the gym. My photos are ones like this, not particularly lovely for the blog. But it shows me that I’m making important progress.
You’d think that with my days unoccupied by work (in the traditional, office, money-making sense), that balancing everything would be easier. I’m not very good at making the hours in my days all count, though.
Here’s what I’d like to accomplish with my days:
- Make breakfast for Matthew, and spend time with Taylor before school
- Get cleaned up and make myself look pretty
- Clean up the house
- Exercise at the gym while Jacob plays in the great daycare there
- Fix a healthy lunch
- Crafting time
- Home preschool with Jacob
- Pick up Taylor from school
- Homework time
- Cook a healthy dinner from scratch
- Eat all together, with everyone eating their veggies
- Spend quality time with the whole family
- Baths & bedtime
- Tidy house
- Blog & spend time with Matthew
In reality, I never manage anything close to that! I have been to the gym 5 out of the last 6 days, and cooked healthy low-carb meals from scratch. But I haven’t had the time or energy to blog. And the house is a wreck! (as our guests are soon going to find out if I don’t stop blogging and get to cleaning!) Oh, and Jacob has watched a million episodes of “My Big, Big Friend” on Netflix.
The house is a balancing act in itself. The front of the house where I’ve been decorating starts looking good, but the bedrooms start to become a huge mess. Or vice-versa. Or the kitchen suffers. I only have 1,200 square feet, and I can’t manage to get the whole thing clean at one time. I’m sure I’m not the only one who has this problem, having to scoot junk out of the way when I take photos for my blog. 
Does anyone else watch Downton Abbey and wish you had an entire staff to run your house too, despite all the problems?
I may add a few more recipes to this blog soon. Since posting that yummy 2 Minute Microwave Brownie in a Mug recipe, the scale and I agreed that I’d had enough brownies for a while. I’m almost through with week 2 of a low carb diet, loosely following South Beach. Whereas I had started convincing myself that ramen noodles counted as a real meal, I am now spending lots of time in the kitchen cooking from scratch again. It’s been fun. (If only it didn’t make such a mess!)
Weight loss this week has been slower than last, but I’m down a total of 4.5 lbs. With that plus the exercise, I’m hoping my doctor won’t have to bring up cholesterol medicine again. I’m 31, for goodness sakes! Also, diabetes is hereditary on my Dad’s side, so I worry when my love of sugar gets out of control. I’m back in the “normal” range for my BMI. Yay!
I’m boiling chickpeas in homemade chicken broth right now to make a wonderful chickpea curry dish for dinner tonight. I’m serving it over rice, with homemade flatbread on the side. And I’m not going to eat either of those last two things. But it should be yummy for those not dieting. I’m off to stir the pot, and straighten up a bit.
I’ll be back soon with something nice and crafty.
