The Sensible Mom

10 Goals for the Week

May 1, 2012 by Sandra 4 Comments

I’m going to jump right in, since dinner is in the oven, and I have limited time to write this post. 🙂

Family/Mothering Goals:

1. Spend more time talking with the kids and less time “doing” – even though we have lots to do

2. Cook with Breanna

Personal Goals:

3. Continue drinking at least one homemade juice a day. We purchased a Breville Juicer before we left Illinois and started using it a few days ago. It works fantastic! And the juices are delicious. We had carrot pear juice today – just carrots, pears, and a little water in the juicer. I also made fresh apple juice for Breanna, which she says is her favorite so far. It was just 3 green apples, juiced. Nothing else added.

4. Organize my desk

5. Start counting my calories again

Home Management Goals:

6. Where should I start? Okay, I think I’ll focus on organizing and getting our master bathroom unpacked.

7. Unpack the boxes and remove the clutter from the school room

Business Goals:

8. Post one blog post each day

9. Work on client project that I’m behind on

10. Create graphics for new topics I’ll be posting on

What are your goals for the week?

Our Georgia Home!

May 1, 2012 by Sandra 14 Comments

Hi guys!

We are here.

In Georgia, and 800 miles away from our home in Illinois in our new home.

We are still unpacking and working on getting settled, but I’m ready to get back to blogging. I didn’t intend to take such a long break, but this move ended up taking a whole lot more out of us than we thought. Our last week at home (in Illinois) was spent spending time with family & friends, and then after my dad left (you may remember he was visiting and staying at my house until about 3 days before we had to leave for Georgia), we had to kick things into high gear!

We started packing like crazy. And we never would have finished on time if it hadn’t been for family and friends taking turns watching the kids for us.

We purged a lot of stuff that didn’t fit into the truck. We made our neighbors and random people driving by very happy. Ruben put some of the things that didn’t fit into the moving truck by the curb with a huge sign that read, “FREE.” It went fast.

We gave away our groceries to my brother, who was more than happy to take them off of our hands….hungry college student, you know. Thank you, Jason!

We met with the landlord. We handed over the keys.

We said final goodbyes. We left later than we expected to….the packing and loading at the very end felt like it would never end. We started dumping stuff in garbage bags and shoving it in where we could.

Not kidding.

We drove around 18 hours including stops. We spent the night in two hotel rooms.

We closed on the house on Friday morning, April 20th.

We bought a house!

We are homeowners!

Praise the Lord!

We are unpacking…..ever so slowly. Who knew unpacking would take so long with a 3yr. old that never seems to stop and a 4-month-old baby girl? We’ve moved so many times in our marriage, and for some reason I looked backward and thought this move would be like the rest…..not thinking that we are moving – this time around – with more children, more stuff, and less time to transfer things between one house and the next.

Oh well. We are reassuring ourselves that things WILL get unpacked. We will be able to walk through the garage one day or, better yet, fit our car in there.

And we will get settled.

This is home. Georgia.

And here are some pictures of our new home!

I can't wait to use our new tub!

Nathan's & Breanna's homeschool area and desks - still lots of work to be done in this room.

Hallway - and our sweet 3yr. old, David. He is constantly going, going, going.

We learned VERY quickly that we had to install a child-friendly handrail & two gates (one for upstairs & one for downstairs) for David. He isn't used to stairs.

Elisabeth is adjusting very well. She practically lives attached to me in some form or another, which makes unpacking more difficult one-handed. 🙂

Our beautiful new kitchen! Loving it, but don't let this picture fool you....a large part of our house still has a lot of this....

Boxes and stuff all over.

All in all, though, we love our new home. 🙂

Blogging Schedule

April 12, 2012 by Sandra 11 Comments

It’s time.

It’s time for me to begin writing more seriously for this blog and creating a schedule for the topics I will post about each day. This will help me, as the author of this blog, to know in advance what-in-the-world I’m supposed to be posting about each day of the week. This will also help you, dear readers, to know what to expect each day that you visit The Sensible Mom.

I’m very excited about this!

I want The Sensible Mom to truly become a place where the content is fresh and relevant to your everyday lives. I want to share with you from my everyday life as a Christian, wife, and mom. I want to give you a peek into our lives as homeschoolers and share tips and curriculum with you that might work for your kids.

I also want to venture out of my comfort zone and start talking more publicly on my blog about a topic I’m very passionate about.

Breastfeeding.

I want to share my struggles, joys, and tips for nursing your babies. I’ve nursed each of my five children for different periods of time, anywhere from two weeks to two years, and I’d love to help and come alongside other nursing moms.

Other topics I’ll be blogging about:

:: Weight Loss – many of you already know I have a goal to lose 50 pounds this year

:: Blogging Tips – I know many of my readers are also bloggers and would love tips to make their blogging lives easier

:: Recipes – once a week, I’d like to share what I’ve been making in my kitchen

:: Great Posts to Read – I’m going to continue to highlight posts I think will benefit you and inspire you

:: Weekly Goals

And now for my Blogging Schedule….here is what I have planned:

Monday – Weekly Goals post

Tuesday – Weight Loss post

Wednesday – Homeschooling post

Thursday – Recipe post

Friday – Breastfeeding post

Saturday – Blogging Tips

Sunday – Around the Blogosphere post

There will be more posts sprinkled in with these, but this is the schedule you can expect to find on The Sensible Mom.com. 🙂

When will this blogging schedule begin?

Lord willing, this regular posting schedule will begin on May 1st. Many of you know that we are moving from Illinois to Georgia next week, and I want to give myself plenty of time (2 weeks) to move and unpack most of our things before I start implementing my blogging schedule.

Why should you believe that I’m actually going to follow through with this schedule?

Two reasons. One being God’s grace. The other reason being MY OWN OFFICE! I’m just a little bit excited about this! 😀 Well, technically, I will be sharing the office space with Ruben, my husband, but it will be a huge difference from how I get computer work done right now, which is in our living room – usually with our 5 kids around and lots of noise and interruptions.

What can you expect between now and May 1st, when I implement this schedule?

Until then, I will blog when I can. We’re kicking the packing into high gear and will be very busy over the next few days as we continue to work on the little details of this move and spend time with family and friends that we will be leaving here in Illinois. Your grace is very much appreciated during this time. I’d love your prayers for safe travels to Georgia, too.

Overall, I can’t wait to finally get a rhythm going with my posting.

How about you? Do you have a regular posting schedule?

Losing the Baby Fat Weight Loss Update

April 10, 2012 by Sandra 9 Comments

It’s almost midnight, so I’m going to cut right to the chase. I lost 1.5 lbs. this past week! 😀

I weighed 211.5 lbs. this morning.

As for counting my calories? I think I kept track maybe one day last week. My life is crazy right now.

If only you could see the dry erase board in our kitchen. It’s the place where we write down stuff that needs to get done. Last minute appointments and reminders are scribbled all over it. I do take joy in being able to erase things that I get accomplished. For instance, today I was able to erase eye appointments for Nathan and me. I also got to erase the scheduled webinar I attended virtually at 4pm. I locked myself in the bedroom with the baby, and we learned some advanced CSS. I enjoyed this very much! Geeky, I know.

My dad is visiting right now. I think I mentioned that before, but because he is visiting, I’m cooking more (which I’m sure my husband and kids appreciate), and I’m just not paying attention to how many calories I’m eating. I’m fine with this, but I know I’ll get back to counting my calories once my dad leaves on Saturday, and I don’t feel the need to cook as much. My dad is diabetic, plus he’s a guest, so I’m trying to make sure he’s eating when he needs to and that we don’t spend gobs of money eating out…..which he is fond of doing. My dad is very fond of restaurants, and he loves to eat.

Anyway, here’s what my weight loss progress looks like this week:

Beginning weight: 220 lbs.

Current Weight: 211.5 lbs.

Goal Weight: 170 lbs.

# of total pounds I want to lose in 2012: 50lbs.

# of pounds to go until I reach my goal: 41.5 lbs.

Total # of pounds lost to date: 8.5 lbs.

We officially move to Georgia next week! Aaaahhhh!

This also means that we’ll be traveling from April 18th to April 20th, when we close on the house, which in turn means, we’ll be eating out quite a bit. I’m going to take extra caution to be careful of what foods I consume during this time, especially since we’ll be riding in the car. A lot.

I don’t want to arrive to Georgia bloated and 5 pounds heavier. I’m going to follow my tips for eating healthy away from home and make wise choices.

Oh, and I will try to post an updated picture of myself for next week’s post. 🙂

How are you doing on your weight loss goals?

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