A Little Re-Evaluation

So I've been home & off-work for over a month now.  It's left me with a lot of time on my hands.  :)  I have always struggled with too much free time or too much alone time.  When I realized in March I was going to be home (& possibly on bed rest) for weeks or months I kinda freaked.  I was really scared what it was going to be like, what I was going to be like.
I have, however, come to realize quite a few things over the last month.


1) We have many more people in our lives that genuinely care for us than I realized before all this happened.  This realization has motivated me to put more effort & conscious thought into the important people around me.
2)I am not defined by my job.  This may sound like a silly epiphany to have, but I needed it.  I have always thrown myself 110% into whatever I'm doing at the time, University, volunteer work, teaching, etc.  I think it got to the point where I thought the majority of my identity & self-worth came from being a teacher.  While I still do (& always will) have a passionate devotion to teaching (& in particular teaching children with Special Needs), that is not all I am now.  
3) I can control more about myself & my day than I took responsibility for previously.  I can control my tendency to procrastinate.  I can control my outlook & attitude towards daily events & unforseen challenges.
4) I am stronger emotionally & physically than I thought I was.  I'm still shocked how calm I was when we rushed to the hospital a month ago now.  How well I coped with being confronted with so many of my fears at once (I am phobic about needles, I have never had to spend the night in a hospital before & no one knew what was wrong with me or what was going to happen to baby & me for almost 3 days).  I'm pretty proud of myself.  :)


So all in all I think I am genuinely grateful God knew better than I did.  I'm actually kind of glad all this happened, ending up in the hospital, going off work, all of it.  Yes, it was stressful for awhile, yes it was scary for awhile, no it wasn't easy for a few weeks there; but I am so thankful for what it taught me & for the experiences it opened me up to.

Baby Album

So with all this time on my hands I at least got the baby album finished ahead of time!  I got the idea of pre-making an album from the magazine Scrapbooks, Etc & I love how it turned out!  I got small a 4x6 photo album in green (gender neutral colour) & split it into sections with tabs to denote each month of baby's first year.  The last half of the album is split up into holidays & family events that will be taking place in baby's first year (family member birthdays, Easter, our anniversary, etc.)
Then I added embellishments on each page & will simply slip in 4x6 (or smaller) photos as the year goes along.  All I need to do once baby arrives is print off pics & fill in the journaling spots.  So excited!

This May Be Getting Out of Hand...

So this organizing/nesting things may be getting out of hand. ;)

Today I went through our deep freeze, threw out anything that had been in there over a year (yup, a year). Then I made a list of everything in the freezer, sat down at the computer & made a freezer tracking list. Do I need help?

I printed it out, put it in a page protector & will use a whiteboard pen to keep track of how much of each thing is in the freezer.

Really I'm doing this to try to save money by not letting things spoil & not overbuying (I had NINE pounds of butter in there!).

Here's a pic.

A Little Organization Makes Me Very Happy!

Well I've been off work for about 3 weeks now. I'm trying to balance resting & keeping busy/prepping for the baby. We've been renovating our house ever since we moved in but since we got pregnant we've kicked it into high gear. This meant finishing the basement so we can move the office/craft room downstairs & turn that room into the nursery. I finally have all my craft/office stuff moved downstairs now & nicely organized. So happy!

Storing my glitter &

embellishments.

Storing my paper & ribbons.

Not According to Plan!

I'm a planner. I always have been. I always will be. Few things in life make me as content & excited as sitting down a few days before the start of a new school year & organizing & labeling all my school supplies. This is part of me & I accept & embrace it. It helps make me a good teacher & hopefully a good wife & friend.

It is also something I struggle with. No plan = anxiety & panic for me. Not cool. Holidays & time-off work throw me, badly. My hubby dreads summer holidays because he knows that after a week of catching up on sleep, a week of reorganizing & cleaning house & a week of crafting I will go bonkers for the rest of holidays. When we go away for a few days I need stuff to do almost every minute of every day. He long ago decided one of his jobs in life is to teach me how to "do nothing". :)

So when we found out we were expecting I had it all planned. (stop laughing) I was going to be perfectly healthy, take great care of myself, work until 3 weeks before my due date & have everything organized, planned & prepped for my replacement to take over.

This brings us to the events of 3 weeks ago. I was hospitalized for 3 days, almost had a 29 week baby & then sent home on augmented bed rest for 2 weeks. Plan down the toilet. At the end of the two weeks I was taken off work completely until the baby comes, with the threat of further hospitalization hanging over me.

We had next to nothing ready for the baby, next to nothing planned & prepped for school & hadn't even attended our prenatal class or written our birth plan yet. (not that the birth plan matters too much anymore, it's probably going to have to be a c-section now)

So here I am. At home for the next 2 months. My activities are limited, my health is in constant question & I didn't even get to say goodbye to my coworkers & students.

So much for planning. Now for that crash course in "doing nothing" my hubby talks about. ;)