Hot Baths are Waaaaaay Underrated

As I rock my fussy baby & type with one hand, I am thinking about how wonderful it was to get a nice hot bath with epsom salts earlier this evening.  Never mind that I never made it to the shower earlier in the day & had enough spit up on me today that I could have used 3 showers.  Seriously, why is it that I don't use that jacuzzi tub more?  I even got to shave my legs.  God only knows the last time I did that.  Hey it's winter.  I'm wearing pants.  It's not like I let people see my legs like that.  After soaking a bit, shaving, washing & conditioning my hair, the sounds of stomping tennis shoes (from Mr. Flash, my 8 year old) and dog nails on the tile outside the bathroom door told me my 20 minutes of bliss were over.  I jumped out, threw on a robe & hollered to Mr. Cool, my 12 year old, to see if he was dressed & ready for his basketball practice.  Mr. Wonderful, yes thats my husband, did the taxi job to & from practice tonight.  I love that man.

Well, the baby is not so fussy now, but he's wide awake.  I think I'll go text Mr. Tall, my 18 year old step-son, to see how his 1st semester finals week is coming along.  Yikes!  One one semester, then he's off to college.  Funny how it just hits you at times how fast the time is going.  We should all slow down long enough for hot baths because they're waaaaaay underrated.

Why I'm Starting to Blog...

I've jumped onto this bloggin' bandwagon & while I'm not going to commit to writing x times a week, I hope to catch some glances of what it's like to raise men in America before it slips by so fast that I forget what it was like to have my baby drifting of to sleep in my lap as I'm on the computer (yep he's almost a goner) or what it was like to juggle baseball tryouts, basketball games, church & family time on the weekend (like our upcoming weekend).  I'm a pretty busy mom raising a pack of boys here, so why am I blogging?  Well, I haven't found the time to journal, scrapbook, or even videotape the way I'd like to...and well, writing a blog is a sign of the times, along with joining twitter & facebook.  I've been on facebook for quite a while now, but I've just signed up with twitter & blogger as allboymama.  So if I ever have a girl I'll have to change that name....Now that's funny & scary!

I seriously have a sign hanging on a wall in the living room that reads "DUDE RANCH".  Currently our oldest, my step-son, is 18 years old, next we have our 12 year old, 8 year old, and the baby will be 6 months old on January 15th.  My dog is also male.  I'm "not allowed" to get a cat, but if I did get one I would rather have a male cat too.  Everyone of our boys is such a blessing & I can't imagine life without them.  They have a pretty cool Dad too.  I am so thankful for the way their daddy works so hard and proud of the father that he has become over the years.

Please be patient if you follow my blog from the get go.  I will be learning as I'm doing here.  If you have any tips for me I'm all ears.  I wanted to learn more before jumping into the blog scene, but upon entering a few online giveaways recently I noticed that I would get more entries for tweeting & grabbing blog buttons.  Soooo, I figure I might as well win a few things while I'm learning, right?

2011 things I'd like to do...

I'm not really going to post 2011 things I'd like to do...well not in this one post anyway.  You see, I always have these ideas swimming in my head about things I'd like to do and somehow I don't get around to doing them all or I don't start all I've been wanting to start, but mostly I don't finish all I've set out to do.  Maybe I do too much...but I like being busy.  Maybe I need to simplify my life...but that sounds boring.  There are just so many things I'd like to do, would like to learn, and would like to do better.  So I've decided I'm going to put some things into writing here that I'd like to do in 2011.

This year, I will attempt reading through the Bible.  I've attempted this before, but have never completely read through the entire Bible.  I'm not going to beat myself up over it if I don't make it again, but I'm going to try harder.  I've uploaded the Bible unto my son's itouch using youversion.com and will be using the NLT 1year Chronological Bible reading plan.

I am gearing up to lose the rest of the baby weight & get fit again.  I will aim to eat healthier & get regular exercise.  I want to be cooking more this year, trying more easy crock pot recipes so that the drive thru window doesn't need to be visited regularly during baseball season.  I would love to get back to doing 3 cardio days & 3 strength training days.  I would be happy with a minimum of 3 hard workouts or even 30 minutes of daily exercise.  Losing 30 more pounds would really be lovely.

I am going to take sewing lessons!  I have been wanting to learn how to sew for too long & am sick of putting it off.  Now that I have a new baby again I keep seeing all these things I'd love to make, but I've been intimidated by the needle.

I want to keep a natural, healthy home.  I intend to learn how to start making & using natural cleaners in my home.  Yes that also means I need to get off my butt & pick up a bit more around here.  I want to get better about delegating chores to the boys as well.  

I want to do some major purging!  While the garage seems like an overwhelming place to start, I sure hope I get to weeding through the garage.  I need to start small with zones or rooms in the house before tackling the garage.  Once the baby weight falls off, my closet will be a fun thing to purge :-)

I want to read more - books & blogs.  One of these days I'm going to bite the bullet & take a speed reading class.  For now I will focus on keeping up on my Bible reading plan, but I need to make the time to read all of the wonderful things I come across.

One of the many things I've been wanting to do for a while now is start a blog.  I guess I can check that off now.  I decided instead of reading more about how to start up a blog that I would just learn by doing.  Whether I keep it up or not will be another matter haha

Happy 2011!