Hacks saving my life right now.

$37 worth of baby/toddler medicine. 

Which cost 5x as much as the mucinex I would give to Wells if he were sick. And it would actually work.

I had a moment this week again. It was I should really make sure I work out at night. I have been doing yoga a lot of mornings as it does help to set my day in the right direction. My routine is to listen to The Bible Recap while I clean up the kitchen at 5am and, then, once everyone is up and watching TV with their cups of milk, I do a 10 minute yoga video locked in my room before getting ready for school. 

But then, my complete lack of sleep has thrown this off, so it's been hit or miss. So my idea was Wow, if I would just exercise, I would feel more energetic. This, in a vacuum, is true. However, I'm kind of back in this place where I don't think I can ask one more thing of myself. It sounds dramatic but I can feel my body rebelling. I cannot ask it to do one more thing that gives energy instead of stores or replenishes it. 

Anyway. That's the state of things. 

There's not one thing anyone can actually do to help unless you want to be a live-in housekeeper. I have a friend who offers to take the kids after school (I would only take her up on it in case of an emergency but it's the offer that means the most). Sutton has the best people in the world taking care of her each day. Scott actually sleeps with Sutton on the couch most nights just to keep her quiet. I am the problem. If she sees me, she loses her mind and wants held and wants to cry and whine. He, on his own, can keep her quiet. She has been sick on and off for two weeks so the reasoning is it's just a phase. I hate that phrase more than anything. It doesn't feel like a phase while you are up 8-10 times a night for no discernible reason and this will go on for an indeterminate amount of time. 

Needless to say, I have strategies to cope. Here they are:

+Keurig + this giant box of kcups.

I found that taking the time to clean, refill, and set the coffeepot each day was stressing me out. Plus, sometimes on the weekends, I just want one cup of coffee. I don't want to make a full pot. For awhile now, I've just been setting the pot for 8 cups each night and it brews in the morning and that's it. Our pot is also five years old and has lived in PA, KS, and MO and I can't say that moving has been kind to it; it doesn't always work right. 

However, taking even a 10 minute task off my plate gives me some relief a lot of nights when I'm trying to clean up the kitchen (which meant the kitchen had to be cleaned up at night and not in the morning). 

The Keurig is super helpful in this way. It brews in 2 minutes while I brush my teeth and put my contacts in each morning and there's no prep and no clean up. 

It's the little things. 

I also got this giant box of kcups from Costco for about $30. Saves me remembering to buy them each week and much more cost-efficient. 

+This big bag.

All my stuff goes into this tote and it's very easy to transport a toddler back and forth to school if I'm not juggling 4 bags. I cannot recommend it enough. The toddler would probably fit into it too. 

+Walmart brand diapers and wipes.

Luckily, Sutton is not picky about her diapers and wipes. I buy the Walmart brand. They're the cheapest products I've found and the diapers don't leak. With Wells, I think I used mostly up&up because we lived practically next door to a Target. I really like the commissary's store brand too (Tippy Toes?). Also, very cheap. There is no need, in this economy, to be buying Huggies or Pampers. Like, the reason just doesn't exist. 

In addition, the Walmart grocery pick-up I mentioned last week. I would not survive without grocery pick-up. 

I'm sure there's more to mention, but those are the 3 at the top of my mind right now. 

What's saving your life right now?

Pro Tips

Here's some tips and tricks I've been using lately...

+Bioterra. My cousin was the only person I ever went to for haircuts and highlights before I moved to Alaska. She told me that Sally's Beauty Supply has a knock-off version of Biolage and I've been buying it ever since. I got away from it in Colorado because I don't even know where the nearest Sally's was, but we had one right near us in Alaska and now, here, there's one right next to our post office.
Bioterra is half the price of Biolage and, from trying both, it's identical.

+ Diaper boxes are perfect for storing/moving books. They're the best size because it's not so big that the box will be impossibly heavy if it's full. And they have built-in handles.

I have a ton more books to load up, but I'm just collecting more boxes at this point. I'll tape them up and stack them and they'll be ready to move again. In our last house, we had a ton of bookshelves so I really have nowhere to put the books we have but don't need/read right now. 

+I clean the bathroom while Wells is in the tub. Not every day, but it's 10 minutes of time where he likes to splash around and I don't leave the room, so I usually wipe down the fixtures, clean the toilet, wipe the walls/shelves of the shower, and wipe down and organize the sink.

+Give your stuffed animals to your kids.
Most of my stuffed animals I had as a child are still at my parents' house. However, apparently, as late as my early 20s, I was fond of buying stuffed animals at gift shops. I had a few in a box that has moved with us for the last 10 years. Since I'm using this time in Pittsburgh to sort through every single thing we own...I pulled them out, cut all the tags off, and gave them to Wells. What exactly was I planning on doing with a stuffed penguin from the St. Louis Zoo anyway? Stuffed animals are meant to be played with and storing them away is a waste of space.

These are just some tips I've gathered in the last month or so. "Life hacks", if you will, but "Pro Tips" sounds less millenial, right?

Why a Yoga Challenge Stressed Me Out

I was hoping to finish the 30 day Yoga Challenge with Sarah Beth this month.

I'm completely used to keeping up with a Pilates calendar, adding in workouts, subtracting workouts, and following a schedule. Throwing in 30 days of yoga threw me off, but it threw me off because it consisted of 30 minute yoga videos for 2-3 weeks. That's a huge chunk out of the day for me and, while Pilates is conducive to being broken up into chunks (half a video in the morning, half at night, etc), yoga seems to flow better (literally) if you do it all at once.

So I ended up, in true upholder fashion, getting really stressed out and started tightening behaviors and started thinking about how I could incorporate yoga in a more long-term way. I always feel better when I do yoga but I don't do yoga nearly often enough. Immersing myself in 30 minutes a day was not the way to go though.

Could I have done 30 minutes of yoga each day? I guess. It would've left no time for my beloved Pilates and other things wouldn't have gotten done though. Maybe that was the point?

Here's why I gave up:

1. I don't have 30 minutes in the morning. I mean, I could. But then blogging, paperwork for work, and daily upkeep won't get done. I get up extra early to be able to fit things into my day. By replacing them with yoga (which I did try to do for a few days), I was constantly running behind. That isn't something I deal with well.

2. I don't have 30 minutes every evening.  My muscles are more conducive to yoga at night because they're already warm. But by the time I showered, got things ready for the next day, etc, I was too tired to do yoga. 30 minutes is a long time when you're truly, truly tired. I thought about doing the workout earlier in the evening, and sometimes I did. But the relaxed state I needed to be in for that to happen wasn't happening at 6pm.

3. I fell behind on Pilates and realized how conducive my Pilates calendar really is to a busy life. The schedule I pay $9 for every month gives 3 short workouts and 2 long workouts a week. I usually change this to 3-4 long workouts plus the 3 short ones. Typically I break the long ones into two pieces and do 15-20 minutes a day, on average. Because the weekends are left open, I do anything I didn't get to M-F, on the weekend. It's a system that works for me.

4. I couldn't catch up on the weekends. With a 30 minute workout coming out every day (straight to my inbox, no less) there was no time to catch up. It was infuriating to my upholder nature, so I just had to stop.

I will absolutely finish these workouts/videos but I'll probably just do one a week for February. I like the way yoga makes me feel and I like the benefits of relaxation and flexibility I get from it. I believe in it. I just think this was a lesson in knowing myself and my current schedule and knowing what works for me and what doesn't. I think about all the days when I used to drive to a gym to work out and that certainly took chunks of time out of my day. I wasn't doing that every day though (unless it was summer). It was three days a week tops, not every day.

What do you think? Do you have 30 minutes every day for yoga? 

A terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day

Last Wednesday was not a good day.  The army has not been kind to us lately.  I've been feeling very out of control.  I'm not quite ashamed to say that there were tears when my alarm went off on this day because it "all" just sucks my energy and time and goodwill and sometimes showing up at work is all I can manage.  Let alone putting on an entertaining show for students.

By 6am, the day was already in a downward spiral.  Disappointing.  I was frustrated about all these things that I wanted to be able to control.  My health, Scott's job, what the future holds, etc.

It was then that my precious Macbook slid from its perch on the back of the couch and fell facedown on the hardwood with a thud.  It was shut, but landed screen-side down.  While I was horrified, I didn't expect total ruination. I opened it up and my first thought was How did all that dog hair get on the screen? because it looked like dog hairs were sticking to the glass.  Turns out that they were cracks because then I saw the shards of glass all over the keyboard.

It was just kind of an Oh reaction.  Like Oh, I effed that one up.  Oh, perfect.  Oh, ugh....
But there were no tears.  There was no crying to the heavens about my rotten luck.  And I knew I couldn't fix it, so I didn't try.  I didn't fret about what went wrong.  Or how I could make it better.  It was shattered and that was that.  It was beyond my power.  Ah, beyond. my. power.  This was bad luck, yes. But I think it was also a sign that I needed to stop my train of thought and redirect it somewhere else.

It was an expensive sign, though.  The thing worked well enough for me to Google "macbook repair colorado springs".  The Apple website told me it was unfixable, but Apple could review my case and decide if they would/could fix it.  It would be between $500-700. For a minute, I thought, I could make this work.  People deal with cracked iPhone screens all the time.  Nothing wrong with that.  But every time I closed it and opened it, more shards of glass would break loose.  That's not healthy for human nor animal.  Plus, it was just the glass at this point and I didn't want to damage it further.  I googled Best Buy to see what a replacement would cost (because Apple told me it was irreparable).  $1,100.  So, no.

I called The Mac Corner in Colorado Springs the second they opened and I spoke with Quentin.  I was hesitant about the whole thing, but Quentin said, "Oh yeah. I can fix it. If you bring it in now, I'll have it done by the end of the day."  What?! Efficient customer service in the Springs?  Unheard of.  Because of the job thing, I couldn't do that, so I dropped it off at 4:00.  There was also an issue with the hard drive (I knew this previously but had been avoiding it), and Quentin said it'd be done in the morning.  I told him there'd be no hurry because I was going to be at work anyway.  He called by 1pm on Thursday to say I could pick it up.  It was as good as new.  I seriously couldn't believe it.  It was $175 plus tax for the screen replacement.  The hard drive fix was a bit extra and it did involve me reinstalling some programs, but nothing I couldn't do (which meant it had to be easy).  There was a 10% military discount also, which I appreciated.

Lesson learned.  Stop carrying my computer from room to room.  It will drop and break eventually. Also, that kind of behavior damages the hard drive.

Habits

Sweater:  Target // Skirt:  Old Navy // Boots:  Report

Jett's favorite thing to do is to jump on me when I get home from school.

Lately, I've done a lot of reflecting and thought about the things I used to do that I don't anymore.  Or things I never would've done in the past that are daily habit now.  For instance, I used to wear this skirt a lot when we lived in Alaska.  I barely wore it last year.  I started thinking about how a year or two can change things because on Saturday I went for a massage at Aveda Salon and Spa.  I had a gift card, but it's kind of telling that I spent that gift card on a massage instead of hoarding it for a haircut a few months down the road.  I also would've gotten a pedicure, but it's almost November so I don't know if there's a point to that.

Things I do these days…

Get massages.  

Clean.  I dusted on Saturday.  

Talk to dogs. All the time.

Avoid schoolwork.  I go back and forth on this one.  Sometimes I don't mind grading papers.  Lately, I've minded.

Pilates workouts and foam rolling and Pinterest workouts at home.  

Things I don't do.

Practice intense cardio.

It's too time-consuming when you have a remodel and a full-time job to worry about.  Plus, it can get repetitive.  And let's not talk about the fact that the only cardio classes I can find on the weekends involve a bike.  Ugh.  Not worth it.  

Order 300 calorie drinks from Starbucks. 

Eat oatmeal and drink green smoothies.  My taste for these two things has all but disappeared.  In fact, I used to eat oatmeal every single day because I truly loved it.  Now it makes me gag.  The exception is pre-packaged gluten-free oatmeal.  A GF friend introduced it to me and it has the best flavor, for some odd reason.  Obviously I despise people who go gluten-free when they don't need to, so I try to buy this oatmeal without actually looking anyone in the eye.

Any habits that you've changed lately?  It's interesting to look back through a blog and see how a person can evolve…