So, here we are one month in to the New Year… last month I resolved to achieve several things this year including: lose weight, pay off the credit cards and get the bathroom sorted. And I've made a good start, well… a start of sorts! I've signed myself up with MyFitnessPal (thanks to a member suggestion some time back!). It's a great little site that helps you track your calories and help you think twice about what you're eating. I don't know if I've actually lost any weight because we don't have any scales, but I have definitely being more controlled with my eating. Think I'll pop up to the doctor tomorrow and use their scales and see what the number is! I've also transferred my credit card debt onto a lower interest card (1.99%) and have budgeted to pay it off over the next six months. And as far as the bathroom goes, we've planned to buy what we need over the next two months and do the bulk of the work over Easter. So I guess all the planning is there… just need to make it all happen!
With just a few days until the kids are back at school, my youngest is preparing for her first day at intermediate - she's a bundle of nerves! I'm working hard to help her feel relaxed about it, but I guess it's just one of those things that she'll have to go through. I'm pretty sure she'll come home after her first day feeling happy. With any luck she'll have a few friends from primary school in her class and her teacher will be nice! Deep down, I'm just as nervous as she is! We were lucky to have a wonderful primary school that we loved, so it's a bit of an adjustment. I admit that I shed a few tears on her last day, I feel like we've entered into a new era as a family - we no longer have primary school-aged kids!
Meanwhile, Miss 14 has morphed into a fully-fledged teenager over the holidays. She now stays awake most of the night and sleeps all day. When she does emerge, she's either hungry, bored, grumpy or tired… or an unpleasant combination of all of the above! Just before Christmas, she was using my laptop when she 'accidentally' (read - carelessly!), walloped it into the wall while carrying it - decimating the delicate screen! She was extremely sorry and spent a few very anxious hours worrying about how I'd react when I got home. Needless to say, I wasn't thrilled - I use my computer for work every day, so it was a scary feeling not to be able to use it!
I had been considering upgrading, so I decided to take advantage of a very good deal at The Good Guys and got myself a newbie (my Christmas pressie to myself I guess!). She then paid to have the screen repaired on the broken one, and now has it for herself. The upside is that I no longer have to put up with her wanting to use mine all the time, the downside is that she now uses hers ALL the time! She's back at school in a week, so I've decided to start enforcing limits now so that she will be back into a good sleeping routine when school starts… this will be easier said than done!
So I have one child entering her intermediate years, one in the midst of teenage-dom and one who is becoming an adult - of sorts! My eldest turned 19 on Christmas Eve, it staggers me how quickly time goes by - everyone tells you when they are babies that they grow up fast, but you don't believe it until it happens before your very eyes! Mr 19 has been labouring for the past four or five months building fences, but he's just applied to join the Navy (after much deliberation over which one of the forces he'd go for). He has the prerequisites, so now it's just a matter of passing the intake tests. He's just waiting to hear back about the date, but he's as keen as mustard to get in so that's a good start!
I'm now off to do some internet searching for budget bathroomware, update MyFitnessPal and switch of madam's computer! For this month, I've chosen a quote that touches on the topic of kids growing up… seems to be on my mind a fair bit this month!
While we try to teach our children all about life, our children teach us what life is all about.
- Angela Schwindt
