5 for Five

Good Monday Morning, everyone!

It's actually a good Monday around these parts, at least so far. M. begins his new job today at a new Prison. More responsibility, slight pay raise. New title. And the best part? Better hours. All weekends off. And paid holidays ON the actual holiday! Life as an average American family should begin! We're all pretty excited. We had a lowkey weekend, getting everything ready that M. needs for today -- haircut, pressed uniform, shined boots. And we took him out to dinner to celebrate. Hopefully, he has a great first day!!

Last week's goals:

1. Finish getting EVERYTHING together in one location for the consignment sale. Find enough clothes hangers for all the clothes that are being sold. Print off the sale tags. And buy more cable ties to attach them.:  I found everything I want to sell. Got all the clothes together, a few toys, and some other odds and ends. Nothing really big this time around, but still hoping to make some decent money. I need to get the tags printed and cut out, though. And everything hung up. I'll count this, though.

2. Spend another evening with M. technology-free: Tehcnically, it was an early morning. While we watched End of Watch with Jake Gyllenhaal. Great movie. Haven't seen it? You should. They spend the whole movie busting each others' balls -- we couldnt stop laughing. Even though there was a serious undernote to the film, there was a lot of other humor mixed in.

3. Start a new book: I still haven't put 50 Shades into the bathroom to read from time to time. But I did pick up a light read. And am halfway through it. Its re-igniting my joy of leisure reading. Why Why WHY cant the 50 Shades books do that for me!?

4. Look at a new laptop. Fill out the deferment form for my student loans. Have M. call about trash pick up. Check out the thrift store in Smithfield: We bought a new laptop [I still havent gotten used to Windows 8 but figured out if I use Google Chrome, it looks like it always did ... so that's my plan of attack!!] And *I* finally broke down and called about trash pick up. They delivered the can Friday and our first pick up is tomorrow morning. It will be so nice to not have to hear S. ask us every day if the cats are in our garbage whenever we drive in the driveway! :  ]

5. Wean L. from his middle of the night feedings: Solid fail!!!!!! Although I have gotten a little better over the last few nights about not nursing him every single time he wakes up, I have been slipping and just resorting to giving him milk. Its the easier option -- stay awake for ten minutes to nurse and lay him happy and half asleep, or hug him and immediately put him back on his pillow, pissed off and crying. And have to sit in the living room until he stops -- just in case I need to go back in to calm him down? Its a no-brainer. I already have myself getting almost no sleep -- bedtime around 9 or 10pm. Up each morning between 4 and 5am. I'd rather not spend half my sleeping time awake on the couch just listening to a crying baby. But I need to get tougher. Although it will suck for me, it will be a lot easier than having him go complete cold turkey in April when we go away for a week.

I'll say 3 out of 5. Sadly, even though it looks like I did a decent amount of what needed to get done, I feel slightly ... unaccomplished? I'm not where I want to be on the sale stuff. I have to drop things off a week from today ... and I'm exactly where I was last time. Waiting until the last minute to get everything finished. Ugh -- I hate last minute work. Looks like it will be a long week.


Now, to this week's goals:

1. Get everything for the sale finished!! This means printing and cutting tags. Buying cable ties to attach them. Hanging everything on hangars and attaching price tags. Organizing everything by size so its easier to set out when we get there next week. WORK WORK WORK!  

2. Call the Cable Company -- I am tired of S. wanting to do nothing but sit in the playroom with the tv on some cartoons. Really, thats all that tv gets used for. We don't use the room when the kids aren't awake for any reason. So why do we really need a cable box in there? The plan is to return that box and only have the one tv hooked up. It should lower our bill almost $10/month. $100 a year. Doesn't seem like a lot ... but its better than nothing. I'll hook up the oldskool VCR and a dvd player and they can occasionally watch a movie in there. But otherwise, the room is for PLAY!

3. Spray Paint our Easter Trees -- I bought a couple small Easter trees in the Dollar Bins at Target not too long ago. My thought, though, isnt to keep them JUST for Easter. I was to use them for multiple holidays out on the kids bookshelf as a decoration in the hall. So instead of leaving them the pastel pink and green that they are, I am going to paint them both brown.

4. Finish Organizing the Top Shelf in the Pantry -- I only have one section to go. The cooking and baking section. And it looks like a disaster, compared to everything else.

5.  Strip ALL the Towels -- We've had these same bath towels since we got married ... which is fine. But they need to be striped. After awhile they just start to get a little stale feeling and smelling. Clean ... but still stale. So I'm going to use this idea I found on Pinterest and hopefully get them back to good fluffy clean towels!

What are your goals this week? And remember to head over and link up with Jessica and Jenn!