All posts by Nichole

Step by step (ooo baby), I’m gonna get to my goals

04/01/2011 Nichole 7 Comments

I’ve been sitting here for half an hour trying to write this in a more interesting way, but I’m not having much luck in the eloquence department this morning. So enough with that nonsense. Here’s what I was trying to say: I’m signing on with a goal-setting thing called “3 in 30.” The general idea is that you set three smallish goals, and you accomplish them in 30 days. Then the following month you set three more goals, and eventually all your dreams have come true. (Results may vary.)

Here are my goals for April.

Lose 5 pounds

I need to lose 5 pounds about 10 times over, but the point of this “3 in 30” thing is to attack your goals in small chunks (pun only sort of intended). So by May 1st, I’d like to weigh 5 pounds less than I do right now. This means more exercise and less cake. Which leads us to goal the second:

Exercise

I have a gym membership. I have that EA Sports game for the Wii. I have functional legs and a hideously steep hill I could be climbing. And yet? I so rarely take advantage of any of those things. April has 30 days, and I’m going to shoot for doing something exercisey on at least half of them.

Counting blessings

I was writing down things that made me happy every evening. It was a nice way to end the day, and I think it helped me have a more positive attitude when things weren’t so lovely. I’m not sure why I stopped doing it, but I’m going to take it back up this month.

menu plan Monday

Trying out a new stir-fry shortcut

03/28/2011 Nichole 1 Comment

Monday: Spicy orange pork stir-fry: Our grocery store sells roasted pork tenderloins in the roasted chicken area. I wondered if I might be able to use cooked pork in a stir-fry. We’ll find out this evening.
Tuesday: Thai curry chicken: I made this last weekend for my mother-in-law’s birthday, and Rockford requested it again this week. It wasn’t spicy enough last week, so this week I’ll be using the whole can of masaman.
Wednesday: Banh mi burgers: My dad is visiting this week, and he really liked these when I made them in meatball form. The burgers are easier to assemble, though, so I’m hoping he likes them just as much that way.
Thursday: Fish stick po’ boys: Not gourmet, but definitely simple and tasty.
Friday: Pizza: I think we might order pizza this week. In fact, I’m 99.9% sure of it.

Domestic Blitz

Reclaiming space via closet rehabilitation

03/24/2011 Nichole 2 Comments

Everyone has at least one area in their house that’s set aside for Unpacked Boxes. Right? OK, so that’s probably not true. But it’s been true in my house for years. We can attribute 10 percent of that to the fact that we’ve moved many, many times — sometimes in awfully quick succession. Ninety percent of it, though, is because some of us are pack rats.

Anyway, this week in Nichole and Jeni’s Carnival of Clutter, we’re tackling the Worst Closet in the House. And in our house? That’s Pete’s closet. It isn’t a huge closet, so there wasn’t all that much room for Stuff. But boy howdy, did we take every bit of available space with Unpacked Boxes and Other Ridiculous Things. I can’t show you what it looked like before, because Rockford emptied it out before I was able to take a picture of it. But I can show you some of the stuff that came out of it:

That, friends, is a lot for one small closet to hold. And that isn’t even all of it! I would’ve needed a wider frame to capture all of it. But we cleared it all out, and now Pete’s closet is actually holding his clothes! Cleaning out his closet also made room for me to try a toy-rotation system, which I’ve been wanting to do for quite awhile. I separated his toys into groups — dinosaurs, cars, different types of blocks, etc. — and put about half of them in boxes in the top of the closet. In a month or so, I’ll swap out something that’s been out and available and put something from storage back in the rotation — something along the lines of: dinos out, robots in. It’s been great for helping to keep his room clean, and I think not being faced with So Many Toys has also made it easier for him to play by himself in his room. Both of which are nice for me.

Also nice? Opening the closet door and seeing this:

As for the Worst Closet at Jeni’s house, she cast a Scourgify spell on it. Now she has the perfect place to store any boy wizards that might happen her way.

(Oh look! I’m giving away two Atlanta CityPASSes! You should enter!)