sleeping

Eva sleeps a LOT. Most parents say, "what a wonderful problem!" But I'm starting to hope that her sleeping/napping hours lessen soon. I miss being out in the sunshine and having longer stretches in the afternoons to be doing... well... anything. This is especially different because now she gets cranky and needs a nap but can't nap in the stroller (although sometimes I take her out during a nap anyway).

There are only so many quiet activities I can do in my house. Let me give you a ballpark... about 13 hours of sleep a night and at times as much as 3.5 hours of sleeping during the day. Wow! Surprisingly, I can still find ways to procrastinate the hard stuff like learning about my sewing machine, sending important emails, and getting my intern paperwork done. :)

Guess who just woke up? Her ears must have been burning!

cheating

I would like to sheepishly admit that I expanded my six items to ten. Funny that dressing up for Eva's baptism didn't end up being the thing that made me cheat. It was just a normal day. I was longing to wear a racerback tank top. How weird is that? Also, it's been rainy and some of my choices didn't foresee this awful May weather, which is turning out to be much more like winter than spring or summer in these parts.

In other news, my mother celebrated her birthday, our friends just got married, my childhood friend is turning 27, Mother's Day was lovely, and my colleague from Fuller is earning his very distinguished Psy D within a few weeks. My heart is full of pride for his hard work and love for my family during this time of celebration.

In the downtime I'm trying to not go completely crazy since Eva has been sleeping between 15-17 hours a day lately. Yes, this is really high for kids her age. They are expected to sleep around 12-13 hours around age 1. I try to be grateful for it. But being a stay at home mom can be repetitious. I'm looking forward to working part time again. I'm also hoping to do more running, sewing, and have another weekly ritual to see friends (starting this summer when our community group is on hiatus). Anyone else having a hard time being motivated this week? What do you do to get inspired?

crazy

I'm going crazy. Too few clothes and combination. I window shopped last night and I think it made me even crazier. A part of the challenge is not buying anything for yourself during the challenge.

The good news is, I've only done laundry twice in a week and hope to keep at that pace. It's actually not as much laundry as usual if you can believe it. Laundry is one of those things that multiplies with people and it makes me think that only having one child sounds like a good idea :)

update

Day 2: Rocking the pencil skirt, tank, and cardi. No sweat.

Day 3: Walking a baby in my red dress and feeling a bit over dressed but happy. Plus, Part 2, purple tee with skirt due to dress getting dirty from the baby and a nighttime counseling appointment.

So far I've done laundry once, spent $8 in quarters (coin machines), and already worked through all of my items. I think one tip for not going crazy is planning the next outfit a day ahead of time. Check out the official site if you haven't already:

sixitemsorless.com

I didn't just think this crazy thing up on my own, I promise!

six items or less

I read about an interesting project called Six Items or Less. I decided to do the challenge.

1. Pick 6 items of clothing to wear for 30 days (not including underwear, shoes, outerwear, or accessories). So my challenge will end May 30 2011.

2. Don't buy anything during the month.

3. Get creative, accessorize, mix and match.

It is an open ended experiment that hopes you will find some insight from the experiment although it doesn't push a certain agenda. I'm excited to do this and learn. I think I've convinced Donovan to join too.

Here's what I chose:

1. Purple v-neck tee
2. dark jeans
3. red dress
4. pencil skirt
5. stripe tank top
6. cardigan

After my first day of being on the project I think having a messy baby may be my biggest challenge in the next month. I'm going to be washing my clothes all the time! Other thoughts: last night I was a bit panicked. This morning although it was a bit unexciting to already know what I would be wearing it was also freeing and time saving to have few choices.

Here is a picture of me on Day 1

(I'm happy, I promise.)

Would you consider the challenge? Why or why not?

lent

We're taking some time for reflection and peace in our house this Lent season. No computers after 6:30pm. I love it! So far in our first day we have already done so much bonding! We had a really great dinner, talked over tea, watched an old film, and went through our pile of bills that had been long ignored.

Donovan made a note of how the space we have created is allowing us to look at what we had formally been putting off. It's funny how we used to say we "didn't have time" to do the bills. Sure we do! We just can't watch Hulu all night long, but that's something that's really not life giving (that's a term one of my friend's coined, I love it!).

What are you doing this Lent season?

fish girl

Still no walking yet, but Eva is sure a lively girl! She has a new habit of wiggling like a fish. It's so funny. Whoever picks her up grabs her around the torso only to realise that she's moving from top to bottom with all her wiggly might! What a character.