Black Eye Update- End of Week 1

It was 1 week ago today that Sam decided to give Mommy a black eye. Here is an updated photo. Yuck!!

Wordless Wednesday- Me & Elmo

Another Milestone!!

For the past week, Sam has been put on the potty at daycare to get him used to the sensation and feeling of the potty. He has only sat on the potty at home with his shorts/pants on for the past month or so.

Yesterday, at daycare, he actually peed while he was on the potty twice! Of course he missed and got his shorts wet, but it totally counts.

We are so proud of you Sam!

Operation Minimize- Week 39

I know that I'm supposed to be getting items out of my house, not bringing them in, but my son continues to get older and he is always in need of new clothes.

My MIL went crazy at the local Just Between Friends Sale and she sucked me in (in a great way). I met her at the presale on Saturday night and she had already filled her trunk with tons of clothes for Sam. I went through them and they all looked really good. I wasn't sure if we even needed to go back inside to shop for more, but there were a few things that I grabbed that she hadn't purchased already.

• 2 Disney VHS movies
• 101 Dalmatians- live action with Glenn Close
• A Bug's Life
• Playschool Sit & Spin (We turn off the music. Sam won't sit on it if it's on)
• Home Depot Bucket of Tools
• Toddler Adidas navy blue backpack
• LL Bean hat and mittens
• Knitted striped hat with ears
• 2 Books

I'm not sure how much my MIL spent, but I purchased all of these items for $38.24. I'm very proud of myself.

Operation Minimize- Week 38 (1,674- 1,677)- Selling Gold

While we were cleaning out our basement, we came across a large amount of real and costume gold and decided that there really wasn't anything that we were going to do with it, so we decided to sell it. We weren't positive what was what, so we just brought it all.

Everyone has driven down the street and seen individuals standing on the corner, flipping around signs advertising "Cash For Gold." A few weeks ago, I drove around on a Sunday trying to find somewhere open, but their hours were only Monday-Saturday.

We used 2 hours today to go around and price some of these places. I can't believe the difference in pricing that we were told and the differing items that places were interested in purchasing.

Place #1- Offered us $220 for 6 items. That sounded okay, but we were definitely not taking the first offer.

Place #2- Wanted 4 items and offered $600. Sweet!

•  Brian was very surprised that they wanted a certain pinky ring. He thinks that he got it for $20, 20 years ago.

Place #3- Only wanted 2 items and offered us $35. Pitiful.

We probably could have driving around for another hour pricing the items, but we were happy with $600 and took it. Of the items that the 2nd place didn't take, I'm going to take the rest (including some diamond earrings that I forgot that I owned), and take them around. maybe we will get as lucky as we did before. I'm going to continue to go through our basement boxes and see if there is anything else that we can sell.

Have a great Saturday. Go Bucks!!

Then and Now

This first picture was taken about 3 hours after Sam decided that it was a good idea to head butt me (about 7pm last night).

 Here is what the same mark looked like at around 7am this morning.

Here is what the same mark looks like now (2:30 pm today).

I wonder what it will look like tomorrow?

Operation Minimize- Week 38 (1,665- 1,673)

More stuff went to ARC this morning. It's not much, but it's still more stuff out of my house.

• Pants
• 2 Onesies
• Infant washcloth
• Long sleeve shirt
• 2 Bibs
• Vegetable peeler
• Corkscrew

9 Items

Sam Wanted to Drink His Water With a Spoon Today

Silly boy!

Saturday's Photo Shoot Proofs

This afternoon, I received a link to a gallery of photos that were taken Saturday at Hudson Gardens. Because of the sheer number of photos, limited editing has been done. Please click on the link below to view, as I cannot download any to this blog.

It's my understanding that I will receive a CD for these proofs, so I should be able to send out (at least) e-mail quality photos once they are edited properly.

ENJOY!!

The Password is: Angela

Operation Minimize Update- Missing Items from Purge List (1,665-1,743)

I can't believe that I had a list of items that were donated that got misplaced. Well, at least I have it now. Here are more items that were donated to Goodwill and/or ARC.

Sam's Items

• 4 Infant towels
• 2 Vests
• 1 Swimsuit
• 7 Short sleeve shirts
• 4 Long sleeve shirts
• 10 Onesies
• 7 Pairs of socks
• 1 Dressing gown
• 7 Pairs of pants
• 2 Cloth diapers
• 4 Inserts for cloth diapers
• 4 Swaddling blankets
• 1 Pair of sweatpants
• 1 Sweatshirt
• 4 Jammies
• 2 Overalls
• 1 Hat
• 7 Medela bottles

Maternity Items

• 1 Short sleeve shirt
• 1 Nursing cover
• 2 Nursing bras
• 2 Pairs of pants
• 1 Pair of jeans

79 Items for Donation

Our Calendar

I have been trying to find a calendar that works with my family. Right now, with Sam being so small, the only real activities that we have planned are during the weekend.

Therefore, I have made a monthly calendar with only the weekend days listed, so that my husband knows what times are taken and can add things that he wants to do in the remaining time.

The spacing for these calendars may need to be changed to fit on a letter size, landscape oriented page. I haven't perfected Google Documents, yet.

September 2011 Weekend Calendar

October 2011 Weekend Calendar

November 2011 Weekend Calendar

December 2011 Weekend Calendar

Once Sam is in school and his activities are throughout the week, we will probably go back to a full calendar, but right now, this works for us.

Operation Minimize- Week 37 (1,545-1,664)

This was just about how I was before this catharsis.

Sunday was another purge-fest for the Wilson household on its way to having a multi-functional basement.

We still had a lot of stuff piled up from our pathetic yard sale a few weeks ago, so (while Sam hung out with his grandparents on Grandparent's Day on Sunday), I went to work collecting up the garage and basement items that needed donated.

Brian had other priorities on his plate- making sure that his ATV worked for our big hunting trip next month.

Here is my listing of items that went to the local Goodwill and will be itemized on our taxes.

• Tape recorder
• Sleep Sack
• 3 Cloth diapers
• 38 CDs
• Crib rail cover
• 1 Jacket
• 3 Pairs of pants
• 2 Onesies
• 2 Shirt
• 7 Pairs of socks
• Printer/Fax/Scanner/Copier
• Computer keyboard
• Computer monitor
• Sofa table
• Set of speakers
• Painting
• Fondue pot
• Purse
• Bouncer
• Electric typewriter and ribbons
• Bathroom cabinet
• Silver dish
• Flower photo and frame
• Little kids photo and frame
• 2- 8x10 frames
• Hairdryer
• Lucky 7 license plate
• 3 Jammies
• Gold lamé table runner
• Block toy
• 3 Baskets
• Christmas water globe
• 13 Candles
• 4 Pairs of shoes
• 1 Hurricane vase from our wedding
• Red slippers
• 3 Coffee mugs
• Yellow Sony headphones
• 6 Christmas bowls
• Box of silver tins from our wedding
• Vase
• 2 Jewelry boxes
• Trash can

120 Items

If you looked in our garage now, you would see a ton of boxes laying about, but they are filled with garbage and recycling that will be put out on the curb Wednesday morning for Waste Management to come get.

Ladybug

It has been a while since I have seen a ladybug. I was cleaning out our computer desk and one was crawling on my husband's organizer that he hasn't touched in a few years.

 

I'm sorry I couldn't get it in focus.

Attack the Junk Drawer- Week 36 (1,519-1,544)

Our junk drawer held just that; JUNK! I decided that I would just take out everything and fix it on a moment's notice, therefore there aren't any before pictures.

I already had the plastic organizers in there, but things had just overrun it. I threw out probably15 perfectly good writing utensils, but how many do you actually need. Also, there were probably around 20-40 assorted paperclips and safety pins. I'll only count them at 10 things. I don't want to get super petty with my minimization. I know that I'm going to reach my goal of removing 2,011 items from my house this year.

Here is the "After" photo. Much better.

Operation Minimize- Week 36 (No Additions)

This week has been pretty busy, so I haven't had a chance to put stuff into my vehicle to be donated to charity. Our garage still has too much stuff in it that needs to be donated so that I can fit my SUV into it before the cold weather sets in.

Therefore, on Sunday, when Sam is hanging out with his grandparents (on Grandparent's Day), Brian and I are going to load up his truck and get all that stuff out of our garage. Yea!!!

I'll have the complete breakdown early next week.

Wordless Wednesday- Sam's Daycare Providers

These are two of the women who have been looking after Sam since he was 6 weeks old, Miss Jennie and Miss Margaret. Thank you ladies!!

Operation Minimize- Week 35 (1,360-1,518)

Even though all weeks (formally) start on Monday, I'm going to include things in this post that were completed on Saturday (8/27), since I'm going Saturday-Friday.


 Saturday was kind of busy for our family. We decided to go to the Chile Harvest Art Festival (total waste of $10 if you ask me). It should have been a free festival, but that's neither here nor there.


Before my 2pm eye appointment, I wanted to donate some electronics, cassette tapes and CDs, so after dropping Brian and Sam off, I headed back out.


My first stop was the Book Outlet to drop off the cassette tapes and CDs. I thought that the address put the store on the east side of the street, but I was mistaken. Oops!


Once I got the receipt, I headed to A-1 Electronic Recycling to recycle our microwave (broken), monitor and desktop computer that was severely outdated, but I didn't know that the store was closed that day for an event, so that was 5 miles of gas that I'll never get back.


So here are my weekend totals:
Donation- 35 Cassette tapes and 18 CDs


53 Items

Donations for the rest of the week.
Tuesday: 30 CDs and 1 CD carrying case- Donated to ARC


Wednesday: 14 Baseball hats, 2 winter scarfs, 2 winter hats, 15 shot glasses, 1 ironing board, 1 set of green curtains (super ugly!), 1- 6 ear corn griller- Donated to ARC


Thursday: 30 Shot glasses, 4 candle holders, 4 fancy coffee mugs and 1 funky, green, 70's plastic clock- Donated to Goodwill

Total for This Week- 158 Items

I will be donating more items this weekend.

Samuel Update

We had an appointment with Samuel's pulmonologist this morning and we have some news about his condition.

• Sam will be returning to nightly oxygen. Boo Hoo!!
• We need to make an appointment with an ENT to make sure that there aren't any upper obstructions to his lungs.
• Another pulse oximetry will be performed.
• Sam has been diagnosed with infantile asthma.
• Sam will continue his twice daily inhaler treatments using a spacer.
• Get a flu vaccine this Fall.
• If he has uncontrolled asthma episodes, Singulair will be added to his routine.

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