Monday, Monday

Last post, I announced that my son had the flu and I had company arriving in 2 days. To bring you up to date: parents arrived, daughter also contracted flu, brother's family arrived, took their son to clinic due to high fever (ear infection), my brother & my husband both worked long hours due to conference, off to yet another clinic and discovered SIL had sinus infection, hubby's car died 30 miles from home (and AAA basically laughed at him when he called for assistance) - approx 5 hours later car arrived in our driveway via a not-really-road-legal trailer that had only 75% of its tires, I plopped our camera down into a pile of peanut butter, drove to 4 different auto parts stores before finding one that could get the necessary parts for us in less than a week, daughter now has pink eye.

I know that things could be *SO* much worse, but I'm just worn out and frankly rather whiny. My parents pulled out this morning to go visit my dad's aunt in San Antonio, and will be back tomorrow night, then fly out on Thursday morning. My hubby will be flying out on Sunday, and then back on Friday. Our niece and several of her friends will be arriving on Friday night to spend their spring break here... I'm just praying that we can all get and stay healthy!

I'm feeling really discouraged. I had been making great strides in my journey toward betterment - both personally with getting toward a healthier weight and home-wise with the purge and organize campaign. These past two weeks I've stalled completely and even regressed a bit. I know I'm in a better place than I was a few months ago, but it's still frustrating. At this point, I'm just focusing on making it through the week: meals, laundry, and basic cleaning. I will move forward, but I must be content with creeping for now, rather than running or even walking. Other changes: more time in the Word (not a book or study, but just reading God's letter to us) and journaling 5 things I'm thankful for each day in my gratitude journal.

Hello again...

Whew! So much going on (as always!) Hubby was gone for two weeks, and came home sick, which seriously stinks. We've all been fighting off slights colds, etc. and this morning I had to take our son to the doctor, where we discovered that he had the flu. You should have seen his eyes light up when the dr. told him that he couldn't go back to school until Monday!

We have family arriving tomorrow, and have already started the pool-heating process so we can all have some fun this weekend. The freezing days are already a distant memory, and our highs are back in the 80s. Ahhhhh... I admit, I'm getting spoiled by the South TX winters!

In other happy news, we went to Alegria on Saturday afternoon. Wow. I've always been amazed by Cirque du Soleil - the costumes, choreography, and music are all absolutely amazing, and when I found out they were actually coming here, buying tickets was a no-brainer. We really enjoyed it, and now I'm more determined than ever to see more of their shows.

Here are just a few more snapshots from the past couple days. For Valentine's Day, rather than going for candy and stuffed animals, we got our kiddos Legos and a (cheapo verison of American Girl) doll. Result: two happy kids! And me? Well, I did manage to get half of my kitchen cabinets painted. I went with a slightly lighter turquoise color, so I now have "cloudless" cupboards :) Love the result, and am looking forward to finishing the job up in March (once all of our company leaves)

Off to finish readying the house for the invasion!

Frozen Friday

It's been a crazy couple days in South Texas! I think we all know that virtually the entire US has been affected with the massive storm system and bone-chilling cold... and considering that normally it's in the high 60s here, it's major news when we get this kind of weather. We got some snow flurries yesterday (you can see a few flakes that accumulated on the palm tree in the first shot) as well as icing. They shut down the highway and almost all the bridges into Mexico. We just aren't prepared to handle this stuff down here! Schools were closed yesterday and today. Many homes don't have heat, most people don't have heavy winter clothing (I just see people wearing lots of layers), and obviously there's not much experience driving on ice, either. It never got above freezing yesterday, but thankfully we are supposed to reach the mid 30s today. Another hard freeze is forecast tonight, but then we start climbing back to "normal" tomorrow. You can see our poor frozen palms in the 2nd photo, and the next one just shows the icing. When I opened the door up this morning, the first thing I noticed was how strange it sounded - the wind whipping through the frozen palm fronds makes a very odd noise indeed. The last picture is of all the ice bits that have been blown out of the trees... kind of pretty, actually.

I will say that I love having a snow day that doesn't require shoveling anything ;)

February Check-In

Time for a new page on the calendar! You may recall that in January I set 2 goals for myself regarding health & home. Well, I didn't completely reach either goal. Am I a bit disappointed? Well, yes. The amazing thing is that I'm not discouraged - in fact, I'm pretty excited about the strides I've made. This next month is going to be pretty crazy due to hubby's business trips and an influx of company, so I'm not setting any new goals, but will finish up what I started in January. My kitchen already feels tons better, and one side was organized according to plan, so I just need to finish up the other half of the room... and I may even tackle the pantry area. My weight loss continues to be slow but steady (but hey, that's healthy, right?! ;) but I still need to get more active. My Jan goal was 30 minutes with Wii Plus 3x week - I'm still aiming for the same timing, but with whatever activity I choose.

Here's to moving forward!