New Leaf.. or Leaves....

Most people make New Years Resolutions. I make New Summer Resolutions. My reasoning behind this is that January to April is the busiest time of the year for me, working 70 hours a week, I'm lucky I have time to swipe the dust cloth over the TV! Then, it takes me about 2 months to get the energy back after April 15th to want to do anything. I know.. sounds really bad, but when you do as much work in 3 months as the average person does all year, it takes quite a toll on you!
So.. Now it's time for me to think about my resolutions:
Resolution 1:
The biggest one is I need to loose this baby weight. Raistlin is a totally breastfed baby, so I have to watch the food thing very closely. So, it's all up to that bad word, exercise. Last night I'd finally had it, and broke out the fitness video I bought in April when I was eating fast food everyday and just generally felt blah. I do have to say, it was the best workout I've had in a long time! It's called The Firm. They take things in small segments, and change it up after about 6 reps. It was a challenge though. Both Aryanna and Julian decided that they had to do it too. That was fine, except Julian decided his exercising when he got bored was to hang onto my legs when I was doing lunges, or climbing onto my back during push ups. I guess this means I do Baby and Me exercising class now :) My resolution is to keep this up and form a nice routine where I exercise 4 to 5 days a week.
Resolution 2: Organization
My house is cluttered to the rafters! About a week ago I got sick of looking at the spice cabinet, and spent about an hour cleaning it out. So far this has stuck, so now I'm thinking I need to do this with more than that one cabinet. that brings me to resolution #2, spending a hour on a day off cleaning something. Anything! I figure if I take it one piece at a time, it won't be so overwhelming to me. I do have to get this done before the end of next month, however, because Mom just might be visiting us.
Resolution 3: Spending more time in, less out
Let's face it. The world SUCKS right now. Everything is going sky high in prices. We usually spend one day out of our weekends doing something away from home. Everywhere we go takes anywhere from 1 to 3 hours to get there. I'm thinking these will be cut down to once a month. I'm also combining trips to the grocery store with coming home from work.
That's it for my resolutions now. I only do 3 at a time, so I don't feel too overwhelmed with them, and these are doosies!

Playing with pictures

I have recently taken my wonderful camera out of it's comfy bag to start playing and finding out the wonders a $700 camera can do. First off,I have 3 pictures of Raistlin I would like my family members to choose from for their "baby pic" of him. These are rough photos that I have yet to edit to remove the little bits of arms you can see, but I think they are really good. You can let me know in the comments which one you want, and I'll get it printed up in the size you want.




The next few are some pictures from our trip to Disney over spring break in March.



As you can tell, I like this new program I found!!!
There will be more pictures to come, as Aryanna dances for Relay For Life tonight. I'm becoming one of those shutterbug Mom's I hated when I was a kid!!

Tax season: In review

I have to say that this season has been more interesting than most. It started with Raistlin and 30 hours of labor, and ended in a drunken stupor at Stephaine's Mississippi Queen's new house. And we haven't even hit Vegas yet! In between we had constant drama between Trae and Erin that ultimately got him fired, saw a marriage rebuilt, learned Cindy is a key kleptomaniac, went on strike from doing laundry at home, made new friends (hiya Kelly!), and did a few tax returns.
We had our share of irate clients because the government "kept" their refunds, and of course it was ALL our faults. That government hasn't made our jobs any easier this year either with this rebate thing. Don't get me wrong, I'm very great full for it, but the number of phone calls about it is nearing the 500 mark!
Now it's time to get the house back in order, finish those craft projects that are just calling out to me, and of course, reconnect with my children.