revising the resolutions

It was brought to my attention that some of my resolutions can’t really be mine because they are things others should be doing.

 

So with that said, I am revising a few:

 

1) No change – still not getting on facebook no matter how tempting

 

2) Ok –I do think the boys will work on being a little bit tidier. I toyed with the idea of creating one of those awards charts but I wonder if I can really maintain something like that all year. So I will ponder this one a little more but I promise that there will be few socks left around the house. For my part, I am going to work on making the bed, probably not every day but it is one of those weird things that makes me feel just a little bit better when it is done.

 

3) Projects – I admit, there isn’t much I do when it comes to putting in new floors. I helped Rick when we did the main part of the house but really it is all him. He does the hard work and I just lend a hand. I am leaving landscaping on the list primarily the front beds because I want to own that one since I am certain it only really bothers me. Projects that I think belong to me and therefore I am putting them on my resolution list:

 

• Closet clean out especially our master bath closet, ok really all of our closets. They all need to be organized and it is going to be all me. I will take suggestions from the rest of the house and truth be told if anything needs to be built, I will rely on Rick.
• Curtains – I picked up some curtains in the fall. I hung up one set but they need to be shortened (they are those fabulous curtains from Ikea where you get to set the length). So in that vein, I need to close out my curtain work, which also includes hanging curtains in the master bedroom and deciding whether I want to get new curtains in the dining room (which I am leaning towards so they match the living room). 
• Bench redo – back in October I bought a piano bench at Round Top. My intention is to sand, paint, and recover and find the perfect home. It currently lives at the end of our bed and still has the “Sold- Megan” sticker on it.  
• I am sure there are others but that is a good start for now.

4) Nothing really to change here but I do want to add that along with Meghan time, I need to work on less computer time. I need to get just a little better about figuring out this work at home thing. Some days I do it really well and others aren’t so great. I just need to learn to budget my time more wisely and maybe not expect to get 5000 things done in one day.

 

2011 is here and I think I am ready

I wish I could say that I stayed up until midnight saying good-bye to 2010 but I think I fell asleep by 11 PM. What I have been doing over the past few weeks is thinking about my resolutions. I tend to keep my resolutions to myself but this year I am opting to put them out there in the blog world as a way to help me stick with them.

Resolution #1 - No more facebook. I just deactivated my account. Sure - I have done this before but this time I am going to try and stick with it (for a whole year). I could spout off a my concerns about privacy or talk about the degradation of actual person to person interaction but truth be told, I find myself wasting too much time there. I loved that initially it helped me find people I haven't spoken to in years and I admit that I love looking at other people's photos but when I am done, I feel like I just lost brain cells. I will miss catching up with some people (aka the voyeurism) but I will now be freed up to waste my time on blogs (which may lead to a 2012 resolution). Sure I worry about missing out on something big or not being in touch with someone but the people that want to find me, will find me.

Resolution #2 - I believe I shared this worry before but I do worry that in 20 or so years, I will have daughters-in-laws that sit around, drinking wine, and complaining about all the damage I have done to their husbands. I worry that I have created two boys that expect their mom (and eventually their wives) to clean up after them. I swear that I have not consciously done this and truth be told they aren't that horrible but I feel like now is the time to ensure we don't go down the horrible path of messy men. I haven't quite mapped this one out but I need to get them working on picking up after themselves on a more consistent basis especially their socks and toys which are spread throughout the house. And I need little boys who focus on peeing in the toilet; we have had a few incidents here at the Flisakowski Manor and I am always fretting over the imagined (or real) odor in their bathroom. I realize I live with 3 boys and my expectations aren't going to be unrealistic.  I don't expect or want an immaculate house that doesn't look lived in but I think they can work on helping make a tidy house.

Resolution #3 - Projects, projects, projects. Mr. Lucas and I are usually fairly good about tackling home improvement projects but I think this year, I am going to put together a list and make more concrete plans about what we want to get done especially since I know that in just a few short months (or maybe just one month) our weeks are going to be consumed with baseball. These projects will require funding (just send me an email if you want to donate) but I think if we are smart we can get a few tackled. Here is the brief list:

• flooring in our bedroom - after one child spilled an entire bucket of dirty water (he was cleaning up messes around the bathroom toilets) in our bedroom, I told Mr. L I would rather live with the concrete floor then the grossness that was our carpet. We found some flooring at Home Depot that matches the rest of the house so this will be project #1. I would like to do the other two bedrooms as well but those may wait.
• counter tops - this one has been on our list for a long time but I think we just don't know what we want. Funding may be a roadblock on this project but I would like to at least get a good idea on what we want (new counter tops include a bit of a revamp to the layout too) so we can properly budget.
• backyard landscaping/patio - we have done a lot of work on our backyard including the much used, fabulous deck but I want to finish things off a little. Before July hits, we tend to spend a lot of time on the deck and I want to make it bit more inviting. I'd also like to invest in a sunshade to help make the deck a little more usable when it gets warmer.
• front yard landscaping - I hate our front bed an I really need to invest some time to figure out what would be the perfect solution for the space. I have tried various plants but it seems like I plant the wrong plants at the wrong time (right now we finally have a tree that provides shade and I have lantana planted and they want full sun - sounds like those will be moving those to the backyard). Again, I want to focus on making this space more inviting. I'd also love to create a pathway from the sidewalk since most visitors access from the street and not the small path by the driveway.

Resolution #4 - It has been a long time coming but I had to admit to myself, like many other women, I think I wear too many hats. I relish and love each role (mom, worker bee, wife, volunteer) but I tend to loose myself under all these hats. So in an attempt to get me spending a little more time on me I want to focus on two main things.

• Exercise - after running the half I had all sorts of plans for running more but then I hurt my foot and then I just lost motivation all together. Lucky for me I gained extra pounds. So despite the cliche, I am going to commit myself to working out. Specifically I want to get back in to running and focus on getting myself ready for another half. I also really want to get back to the Y and the Body Pump class and honestly this one is the hardest because I realized how much I loathe going to the gym alone. It might be cheating but I may wait and work up to the Y for a February goal in hopes that by then the crowd of other "exercise as my resolution" folks have dropped out.
• Craft time - I am linking up with Chandra on this one and we are going to start a craft night. We are ironing out details but I loved working on the quilt I made for Judes and I think (or rather I know) I need the outlet and sharing it with a friend will make it that much more fun. Of course we will have to make some very strict rules on wine drinking.

Well congratulations on making it through that long, long list of things I want to do in 2011. I am sure that there are more but this is a good start. I'll do my best to keep you posted (I know you desperately want that) and hopefully making this public will help me stick with it.

Quilt Redux

I swear I posted a year ago or maybe it was two about my failed Christmas present quilt to Judes but alas I can't seem to locate it. So here is a rough breakdown: I found a "simple" pattern online, bought supplies, waited way too long to get started on project, panicked and tried to get it done quickly, ended up making husband pack sewing machine in car for road trip to NC so I could work on it there, and finally failed to actually create a quilt. To this day, I like to blame the fuzzy, chenille blanket I bought as the backing (per instructions that said it was a quick and easy way to avoid using binding - I will confess they didn't suggest using chenille blanket but they also didn't tell me not to).
A good year passed and often I would think about that failure and have dreams of my poor mother freezing to death under a quilt that wasn't even a complete shape but it was the only one she had (yes, that last part is made up but play along).
So fast forward to a rainy night in maybe March when I left husband and children at home and risked my life at JoAnn's. I was not going to let that quilt haunt me anymore. I painstakingly (aka wished I had made someone go with me) selected fabrics based on new "simple" directions from Amy Butler (I am certain she will befriend me when she hears of my success even if I didn't use her fabrics). So I bought the fabric and as is par for the course it sat in my office for a long period of time. At first I planned on this being a Mom's Day gift, then I moved to a birthday present (June), then I moved to an Anniversary gift (August), and then I forced myself to acknowledge that this was going to be a Christmas present.
I worked on and off since about September (sad but true) but then got serious about two weeks before we were going to leave and this is where things got dicey and I made the decision to order a backup gift.  Call it Murphy's Law or call me a rock star but despite my one major set back (I managed to sew the entire quilt so the batting was on the outside), I was able to complete my first quilt. The only outstanding question is whether I need to put little ties in it to hold it together.

Riding on this success, I am mapping out some big plans for 2011.

one last time

They are predicting some remarkably warm weather over the next few days (you can read that to be 40 degrees), which means the snow is going to melt (and Rick may thaw out a little). The boys are sad about the loss of snow so we decided to go out for one last spin.  The snow is in that weird melting and then refreeze, hard stage which means it is good for two things: making the sledding hill super fast and snowballs.

Lake Ontario

We bundled up today and ran around town for a little bit. We drove by the lake at two different spots so we could see what it looks like in the winter.

I took both photos with this fun little app I loaded on my phone (Vignette).  This second one looks much more ominous than it actually was.

Christmas in New York

It has been a busy but quiet Christmas week full of some Flisakowski traditions and a few other activities some that may be repeated.

Most of the week has been spent outside playing in the snow with one break to take a trip in town to visit the Children's Science and Technology Museum. Nana and I stayed back from the museum visit but the boys had a fabulous time and managed to get a trip in to Dinosaur BBQ, which we think may have been the reason Grandpa Pete and Rick were so eager to make the voyage in to Syracuse.

The boys have been asking since Thanksgiving to make a gingerbread house and Nana came through with a gingerbread kit. The boys had a blast but Nana and I didn't have our own houses and we both felt the need to decorate so I think next  year we will add this activity to our Christmas traditions but perhaps expand it. I will definitely be doing gingerbread house research as the day draws near for Christmas 2011.

We broke with the traditional cookies this year and opted to make cupcakes because Zachy got an early Christmas present. I am not sure we will have these every year but Zach enjoyed the change in tradition.

And of course it wouldn't be a Flisakowski Christmas if we didn't make pierogis. It went a bit faster this year because we had the whole family helping out. Zachy definitely had to be monitored as every now and again he would try to get creative with his technique but all in all it was a success. 

And finally, Christmas morning. We had a rough go of it Christmas night. Zach and JT were so excited that they had a hard time getting to sleep. About 3 AM Zach woke up crying about not being able to sleep so we rearranged sleeping partners only to have me wake up at 4 AM to find JT crying that he couldn't sleep because he had been out to the tree and knew that Santa had already stopped by. We ended up getting everyone to sleep until 7.

We all had a fabulous and relaxing day filled with legos, a few rounds of scrabble and some web chatting with Lauren.  We hope that you enjoyed your Christmas.

it only took 8 years

or 5 years if you are Zach but the boys have finally gotten to experience snow.

JT absolutely loves being out in the snow. Zach goes out but isn't nearly as eager to stay out as JT is. I've been out once but Rick has yet to venture outside.