Go to the dentist to get my TMJ splint adjusted
So, several (several) years ago, my last dentist recommended I get a TMJ splint, a night guard, that I could wear at night to keep my teeth from grinding together at night as well as relax my jaw to help with the popping pain I have on the right side. Unfortunately, my last dentist wasn't very good at these splints and it wasn't very comfortable to wear. It fit my teeth fine, but when I closed my mouth, I made me want to clench my jaw instead of having my jaw muscles relax. That didn't make me feel good. I tried and tried to wear it and finally, after awhile, I gave up. Lots of very good money, down the drain. Then I changed dentists (I never really liked the old one anyway...). I decided I should bring my splint in and have the new guy take a look at it. That was a year ago. But, since I am a Queen Procrastinator...well, you know how it goes. So, at my last cleaning, which, incidentally, was right before school was out, I made a special appointment to have my splint looked at. Interestingly, he took one look at it and agreed, he wouldn't have worn it either.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Monday, June 23, 2008
Item #7
Get a car seat clip from Honda
This was just one of those things that was so small, it was easy to put off until another day. Except another day never came. My toddler is big for her age. Okay, very big for her age. Big enough that, although she just turned two a couple weeks ago, she is very close to the 40lb weight cut off for convertible car seats. At 40lbs I have to remove the 5-point harness and put her in a belt-positioning booster, which our car seat does. I don't know about anyone else, but I just wasn't interested in having my 2-year-old in a belt-positioning booster. I still wanted her in a 5-point harness for awhile. So, Jim and I bit the bullet and bought one of the new Britax Regent seats that goes up to 80lbs in a 5-point harness. This makes me feel much better. And takes me back to the task at hand. In this seat, the children stay in the 5-point harness at 40 pounds but you are supposed to have a tether clip/bolt from the top of the car seat to the back of the car, right underneath the windshield. This did not come with the car, so I had to go down to Honda and buy one. $11.82 later, I am the proud owner of a car seat clip and Jim even installed it before the day was out. Will wonders never cease.
This was just one of those things that was so small, it was easy to put off until another day. Except another day never came. My toddler is big for her age. Okay, very big for her age. Big enough that, although she just turned two a couple weeks ago, she is very close to the 40lb weight cut off for convertible car seats. At 40lbs I have to remove the 5-point harness and put her in a belt-positioning booster, which our car seat does. I don't know about anyone else, but I just wasn't interested in having my 2-year-old in a belt-positioning booster. I still wanted her in a 5-point harness for awhile. So, Jim and I bit the bullet and bought one of the new Britax Regent seats that goes up to 80lbs in a 5-point harness. This makes me feel much better. And takes me back to the task at hand. In this seat, the children stay in the 5-point harness at 40 pounds but you are supposed to have a tether clip/bolt from the top of the car seat to the back of the car, right underneath the windshield. This did not come with the car, so I had to go down to Honda and buy one. $11.82 later, I am the proud owner of a car seat clip and Jim even installed it before the day was out. Will wonders never cease.
Friday, June 20, 2008
Items 4-6
A few other things that have already been done as I prepared for summer. Some were just completed, others a few weeks ago.
#4 Buy Mommy a new swimsuit
Okay, so the last swimsuit I owned I bought in Costa Rica. In 2003. My body is not made like Costa Rican women's bodies but, at the time, I found one that would work. I had to buy it there because I found out that I was going to Costa Rica in the late fall, much too late to buy a swimsuit here. I actually went in late February/early March and suits weren't out yet. Now, of course, my post baby, body, while not all that bad (actually below pre-pregnancy weight!) just doesn't work in a suit without any, shall we say...support. Since I now have a two-year-old that I want to take to the pool a lot, I needed a new swimsuit. Thanks to advice from friend with similar support issues, I now have a very nice (and even kind of stylish) swimsuit with all the necessary support. :) There might be pics later in the summer if I meet a different goal... ;-)
#5 Join a pool
We live near the YMCA so every builder who built in our area assumed that they didn't need to build a neighborhood pool, we'd all go to the Y. Unfortunately, the Y is expensive for a young family and incredibly busy. So, we found a pool that is about ten minutes away by car, and friends of ours already belong there. We've been twice already and we all love it. I expect a long, enjoyable summer at the pool.
#6 Get rid of big chair
This took about 3 months to actually happen but it finally did a few weeks ago thanks to my husband and freecycle. We had a big chaise lounge chair that came with the den furniture 10 years ago. We had been keeping it in our bedroom but it really wasn't a piece that we ended up using very much and it was too big to go in the den. We decided to get rid of it when we did the aforementioned painting in the master bedroom. We posted it on Craigslist and someone bought it. They came to get it so we took it downstairs to the foyer. We tried to put it in their minivan but it DIDN'T FIT. They no longer wanted it. In fact, NO ONE wanted it because no one had a pickup to pick it up. But it was ALREADY in the foyer, where it sat for a veeeeery long time. Jim was busy and couldn't do much with it, I was too crazy trying to finish spring semester to deal with it either. Finally, we posted on freecycle (the Jim part of "we", at my urgent urging) and it was FINALLY taken away and we got back our foyer.
#4 Buy Mommy a new swimsuit
Okay, so the last swimsuit I owned I bought in Costa Rica. In 2003. My body is not made like Costa Rican women's bodies but, at the time, I found one that would work. I had to buy it there because I found out that I was going to Costa Rica in the late fall, much too late to buy a swimsuit here. I actually went in late February/early March and suits weren't out yet. Now, of course, my post baby, body, while not all that bad (actually below pre-pregnancy weight!) just doesn't work in a suit without any, shall we say...support. Since I now have a two-year-old that I want to take to the pool a lot, I needed a new swimsuit. Thanks to advice from friend with similar support issues, I now have a very nice (and even kind of stylish) swimsuit with all the necessary support. :) There might be pics later in the summer if I meet a different goal... ;-)
#5 Join a pool
We live near the YMCA so every builder who built in our area assumed that they didn't need to build a neighborhood pool, we'd all go to the Y. Unfortunately, the Y is expensive for a young family and incredibly busy. So, we found a pool that is about ten minutes away by car, and friends of ours already belong there. We've been twice already and we all love it. I expect a long, enjoyable summer at the pool.
#6 Get rid of big chair
This took about 3 months to actually happen but it finally did a few weeks ago thanks to my husband and freecycle. We had a big chaise lounge chair that came with the den furniture 10 years ago. We had been keeping it in our bedroom but it really wasn't a piece that we ended up using very much and it was too big to go in the den. We decided to get rid of it when we did the aforementioned painting in the master bedroom. We posted it on Craigslist and someone bought it. They came to get it so we took it downstairs to the foyer. We tried to put it in their minivan but it DIDN'T FIT. They no longer wanted it. In fact, NO ONE wanted it because no one had a pickup to pick it up. But it was ALREADY in the foyer, where it sat for a veeeeery long time. Jim was busy and couldn't do much with it, I was too crazy trying to finish spring semester to deal with it either. Finally, we posted on freecycle (the Jim part of "we", at my urgent urging) and it was FINALLY taken away and we got back our foyer.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Days 1 and 2
Well, my attempt to dive into my to-do list head-first has been slightly thwarted by coming down with a cold on my first big available day of summer. However, I will not be deterred! I have still accomplished quite a couple items in the last couple days as and I can report on the numerous items I actually managed to accomplish before summer officially began.
Items #1-3
In preparation for summer, I have been preparing this to-do list for months. Every time I got stressed over not having enough time to do something, I would add it to my summer list and remind myself that I will have time to deal with it later. It was a coping mechanism. :) Fortunately, a couple things fell into place before the summer began. Most notably, the master bedroom and our will.
For the entire 9 years we have lived in this house, our bedroom has been relocation beige. We managed to acquire some decent furniture a couple years ago but the walls continued to be bland and boring and, in fact, damaged in some places where we had bumped them and where water damage from an old chimney leak was evident. I am color challenged unless I have a really good plan or theme for the room and my husband is, well, he's a guy. The walls are standing and painted, right? I decided that we needed to enlist the services of an interior designer who could not only help us choose a paint color, but also help us with finding draperies. the draperies left by the last owners have been perfectly functional as heavy blackout drapes for the last 9 years, but were dreadfully ugly and definitely needed to be replaced if we were going to paint. Amazingly, despite our crazy schedule, #1 declutter the bedroom, and #2 paint the bedroom were both completed ahead of schedule. It was a huge undertaking on our part, however, and originally supposed to be done in the summer so I am going to count it as part of this list.
#3 complete a will
We've been planning on doing this for years, at least two to be exact since that is how old our daughter is. Jim and I started this in December, meeting with a lawyer and putting together what we needed. Wed then didn't find time to get together with the lawyer again to finish everything and sign all of the papers until about a month ago. Again, something that just needed to get done and we couldn't find time for, ever. We finally pulled it together and got it done, which makes me feel much better. It's still in the to be filed pile, but that is a task for another day. :)
Items #1-3
In preparation for summer, I have been preparing this to-do list for months. Every time I got stressed over not having enough time to do something, I would add it to my summer list and remind myself that I will have time to deal with it later. It was a coping mechanism. :) Fortunately, a couple things fell into place before the summer began. Most notably, the master bedroom and our will.
For the entire 9 years we have lived in this house, our bedroom has been relocation beige. We managed to acquire some decent furniture a couple years ago but the walls continued to be bland and boring and, in fact, damaged in some places where we had bumped them and where water damage from an old chimney leak was evident. I am color challenged unless I have a really good plan or theme for the room and my husband is, well, he's a guy. The walls are standing and painted, right? I decided that we needed to enlist the services of an interior designer who could not only help us choose a paint color, but also help us with finding draperies. the draperies left by the last owners have been perfectly functional as heavy blackout drapes for the last 9 years, but were dreadfully ugly and definitely needed to be replaced if we were going to paint. Amazingly, despite our crazy schedule, #1 declutter the bedroom, and #2 paint the bedroom were both completed ahead of schedule. It was a huge undertaking on our part, however, and originally supposed to be done in the summer so I am going to count it as part of this list.
#3 complete a will
We've been planning on doing this for years, at least two to be exact since that is how old our daughter is. Jim and I started this in December, meeting with a lawyer and putting together what we needed. Wed then didn't find time to get together with the lawyer again to finish everything and sign all of the papers until about a month ago. Again, something that just needed to get done and we couldn't find time for, ever. We finally pulled it together and got it done, which makes me feel much better. It's still in the to be filed pile, but that is a task for another day. :)
Friday, June 13, 2008
Welcome back summer!
Ah, it's nice to be home and have my first year of teaching behind me. Only hours ago I left my last conference of the year and a few days ago I packed up all of my stuff, put it in my car and moved it out of my school and back to my garage. For those of you who don't know, my position was eliminated at the high school I taught at this last year (and loved) but I was extremely blessed to secure a position at a fantastic middle school practically next door to my house within only a week and a half of being laid off. It does mean that all of my stuff had to come back home for awhile before it can be returned to school, however. :)
As anyone who has ever known a teacher, been a teacher, or lived with a teacher knows, teaching is not a neat 40 hour per week job. We don't put down our dry erase markers at 3:00 and go home to handle all of the regular home headaches that we all encounter in life. In fact, work rarely stays at school since we have our own "homework" which includes planning, writing tests, and, of course, creating (and grading) homework assignments. Add to this the fact that I am a Queen Procrastinator (and yes, they should be capitalized), and I never manage to find time to get all of the home stuff done that needs to get done.
Last summer, I was inspired by a friend of mine who challenged herself to accomplish 100 thing in 100 days. I only had about 45 days left before starting the school year and no childcare but I wrote myself a to-do list and joined the party! As I managed to fly through my list last summer with only a short time available, I saw how helpful the list was and how less stressful my year could be if I tried to fully utilize every summer in a similar fashion.
Don't get me wrong. I'm going to have fun this summer too! My list includes big projects that could never get done during the school year, little tasks that have fallen through the cracks, things for school to get me ahead for next fall, and fun things like taking my daughter to the pool, taking dance lessons with my husband, and going on dates with him! (Yes, that had to go on a list!)
Join me as I power through my list and see if this Queen Procrastinator can keep going for eight whole weeks and get it ALL done!
As anyone who has ever known a teacher, been a teacher, or lived with a teacher knows, teaching is not a neat 40 hour per week job. We don't put down our dry erase markers at 3:00 and go home to handle all of the regular home headaches that we all encounter in life. In fact, work rarely stays at school since we have our own "homework" which includes planning, writing tests, and, of course, creating (and grading) homework assignments. Add to this the fact that I am a Queen Procrastinator (and yes, they should be capitalized), and I never manage to find time to get all of the home stuff done that needs to get done.
Last summer, I was inspired by a friend of mine who challenged herself to accomplish 100 thing in 100 days. I only had about 45 days left before starting the school year and no childcare but I wrote myself a to-do list and joined the party! As I managed to fly through my list last summer with only a short time available, I saw how helpful the list was and how less stressful my year could be if I tried to fully utilize every summer in a similar fashion.
Don't get me wrong. I'm going to have fun this summer too! My list includes big projects that could never get done during the school year, little tasks that have fallen through the cracks, things for school to get me ahead for next fall, and fun things like taking my daughter to the pool, taking dance lessons with my husband, and going on dates with him! (Yes, that had to go on a list!)
Join me as I power through my list and see if this Queen Procrastinator can keep going for eight whole weeks and get it ALL done!
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