ONE.
Maternity leave is over and I went back to work last week. I chose it because it was Thanksgiving week, and I knew it’d be a short three-day work week followed by a four-day weekend. My first day felt kind of surreal, to be honest. I was sad the whole week and missing the kids (and free time!). My second week back has been much smoother and easier, and I’m feeling back to normal for the most part. Still miss those crazy boys of mine, though.
TWO.
Jerry and I canceled our Y membership a few months ago. It was WAY too expensive and we couldn’t justify the cost based on how much we were (or rather WEREN’T) getting there. Having two kids makes it damn near impossible. To make up for that, we finally bought ourselves a treadmill and got it assembled last weekend! It was a big investment, but it’ll definitely pay for itself in a couple of years of not paying gym fees. Getting to / from the gym takes a lot of time: getting ready, driving to and from, etc. With our own treadmill, we just pop downstairs and do our workout from the comfort of home. We figured we have NO excuses now to not work out with the convenience factor. I’m starting with 30 minutes of walking for the time being, and plan on doing this almost every day. I’ll work my way up to longer work outs and eventually jogging and running again, but I’m pretty out of shape right now. I’m looking forward to FINALLY getting back into shape after the last 4+ years or being pregnant, having babies, etc.
THREE.
The plague (or what feels like it) has swept our house. Jerry, Holden, and I were all sick for over a week and are just now at the tail end of it. Somehow, Caleb managed to escape it this time, but everyone else was super miserable. Caleb’s the only one who has had a flu shot so far, so Jerry and I need to get our butts in gear and go for ours ASAP. We’re finally all feeling back to normal except for lingering coughs. Yuck.
FOUR.
I was killing it with the blog game all year until I had Holden, and now I’ve been majorly slacking. I need to re-assess things for the new year and will be setting some blog and reading goals at the end of December. I plan on definitely bringing back my monthly goal posts, personal essays, and occasional Five on Fridays, Financial Fridays, and Thankful Thursday posts. I may bring back my Debt Diaries series, but I’m not sure yet on that. Finances got a little rough during maternity leave and now we’re trying to recover from three months of out-of-whack finances. Oh, and my student loan payments are increasing by $120 next year. YAY!!! Kill me now. I also want to resume my Clutter Chronicles series at some point too. I’m actually almost done de-cluttering and organizing our biggest problem area (our laundry / storage room) but really didn’t photograph the process – whoops. I’m also thinking of bringing back weigh in / running progress posts that I did YEARS ago now that we’ve got a treadmill. I also had been blogging 2-3 times a week prior to having Holden, but may be cutting down to once a week. Any feedback? Please let me know if there are posts or series you definitely want to see again or if there are ones you wouldn’t miss if I dropped them. Also, if there are other topics you’d like to read from me, please let me know that, too! THANK YOU!
FIVE.
I’m starting to get into the Christmas spirit. Halloween has always been my favorite (duh), and Christmas was always just “meh” for me, but now that Caleb is beginning to grasp holidays a bit, I want to make it really special. I’ve done a lot of Christmas decorating, have started watching some Hallmark Christmas movies (I look forward to them every year), and am about halfway done with Christmas shopping. I’m also hoping to start some Christmas reading soon (my reading has been slow, along with the blogging). I read Richard Paul Evans and Debbie Macomber’s new Christmas offerings every year, and then some others when I have time.
That’s five for now — see you in the next chapter.
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