Erica’s Blog

We had counted on going to Aunt Lila’s cottage for our anniversary next weekend, but we found out that she’s got it rented to some people she knows until May.  Ooooops!  Small detail.

So, we’ve been racking our brains to figure out where we’re going to go.  First, hubby wanted to go to Catalina Island.  Then he was thinking about Denver (my original idea that he had nixed!), then Portland, etc.  Well, tonight hubby finally decided.  We’re going to The Resort at Squaw Creek.  We had lunch there with Rob and MEY about seven and a half years ago on a work snow trip (thanks again, Bill & Cynthia!), and it’s a really nice place.  I’m hoping there’s snow, but I doubt it b/c we’ve had an unusually warm year this year.  This is the kind of room we’re staying in (the king version).  We’ll be going from Thursday night to Sunday, and Grandma will be staying with the Things and Jenna.  10 years.  Woo hoo!

For those who care about such things, there are 12 days till my birthday.  This is kind of a weird one b/c I’m turning 41.  That’s a weird age.  I don’t feel bad about turning older, but 41 just sounds strange to me.

My goal is to be down into the next size smaller pants by then.  Not sure if I’ll make it, but at the least, I’ll be a lot closer, and I’ll be down from what I weighed at my birthday last year….

Hit a few milestones this week in some very different areas:

1. Monday, the owner of the Curves I go to happened to walk behind me and said, “Erica, your butt’s getting smaller!”
2. Wednesday, when I did the monthly weighing-in and getting my measurements taken, I found out that my body fat % had gone down 3.3% in the last month.  Even if the pounds aren’t coming off as fast as I’d like (do they ever?), the body fat lost and the inches lost is at least as important, if not more.
3. Thursday, I held Julie’s daughter Kai.  This was the first time I’d held a baby since Paul died.
4. Today, I was able to clean the floors in my house myself.  For over a year and a half, I haven’t been able to do this for myself b/c after only 15 minutes, my back would be in a LOT of pain, and I’d have to go lie down.  Today, I did the kitchen, dining room, living room, hallway, and master bedroom all myself!  (Hey wait!  Now I don’t have an excuse to get someone else to do it.  Uh, oh…)

Yesterday being Veterans Day and, therefore, a “no school” day, the Things and I had a jammie day.  Since Grandma was arriving today, we needed to use a bunch of our time to clean the house (plus, it just really, really, really needed it!).

Well, not a lot of cleaning happened, but the ongoing purge advanced to their bedroom.

We spent TWO HOURS purging their bedroom.  We pulled all the crud out from under the bed and went through it.  Stuff either got PUT away, GIVEN away, or THROWN away.  We went through the closet and all the toys & dress-up clothes in there and did the same thing.  We went through the piles of who-knows-what on their dressers and did the same thing. 

Finally, we opened up THE SACRED BARBIE BOX.  First, we went through and examined every piece of Barbie clothing.  If it was torn, it went into the trash.  If we found any broken stuff in the box, it went in the trash.  As we were doing this, the Barbies all got piled up off to the side.  I wasn’t thinking much about the dolls, but when we had put the “good” clothes back in the box, Thing One said that it was now time to go through the Barbies.  I wasn’t about to argue with that!  We went through one by one, with me holding each one up and asking “Keep or give away?”  In the end, NINE Barbies ended up in the “give away” box, along with SEVEN of the smaller, Kelly-type dolls. 

When all was said and done, the room looked SO much better!  The only stuff under Thing Two’s bed (she calls that area her “garage”) is a box with all the puzzles in it, and the Barbie Box.  We filled up two whole boxes of trash, and two whole boxes of stuff for Goodwill.  I was really proud of them.

Next stop in the purge?  The attic; it’s getting out of control.