Operation Clean-Out the Closet

Is a HUGE success! And it only took me two days...well, one day for the actual closet and a couple of hours of another day for the dresser drawers that are not inside my closet. Either way, a resounding success.

Would you like to see some pictures? Oh yeah, I was proud of myself so you know that I remembered to take some! Here's the overall picture...

Don't worry, I did go back and clean off the top of that dresser there in front of the window...even though those were NOT my clothes!

You think that it doesn't look that different??? Here, let's take a closer look, shall we? We can do some Before and After shots, ok? Here's the overall look Before...

Here's After...

A closer look at the Before pile o' shoes...

And After...

Was there a top shelf Before picture? Hmmm, nope, don't see one. Oh well, here's the after! And check out how much SPACE there is on my hanging clothes now...

Can you tell that I'm proud of myself or what?!?! I worked HARD! You can see the floor on my side of the closet...I got rid of clothes that I haven't worn since I moved in here, and those that I will never fit into again after two children...I neatly organized all of my PWA stuff, and like I said before all of this doesn't even cover what I did on my dresser drawers!

Mentioning getting rid of clothes, check out this mountain of clothes that I have set aside to donate!

Those stacks filled up two garbage bags. And here's a whole other stack of just maternity clothes!

They're in a different bag, because they're NOT going to the charity that's coming around collecting clothes next week. I also threw away 5 or 6 pairs of nasty shoes, and finally purged all my purses that I've been hanging onto like we women tend to do...I did shed a small tear over one of two of them!

But check out how many hangers I know have available to me...

Now, maybe I won't feel bad about doing that post-baby shopping, since I have somewhere to put it all!

I'm SO glad that it's done. So check that one off of my list of things-to-do with what's left of my maternity leave...on to the next challenge!

Eating Myself Out of House and Home

I know that I've talked about one of the GREAT and FANTASTIC side effects, or positive aspects, of breastfeeding - the weight loss factor. You've probably heard all of the statistics somewhere else before so I won't bore you all with them again, I'll just emphasize again that they're ALL true!

You really can burn calories like a mad-woman who works out at the gym two or three times a day. Or like that woman who only eats salad and yogurt and is actually satisfied having a handful of almonds for a snack at 2pm and loses an amazing 20 pounds in 2 months. It really can happen from doing something so simple as letting your body do what comes naturally after giving birth - make milk.

And I'll also reiterate here, just so you don't think that I've gone the breastfeeding route solely because of the weight loss factor that I do truly enjoy breastfeeding my son. I have enjoyed almost every single minute of it. No, it's not really fun when they tug and pull at your nipple. And I'm sure that it's no fun if you experience sore/cracked/bleeding nipples, which (knock on wood) I've somehow been lucky enough to manage to avoid thus far. It's not really a lot of fun wondering if something that you ate is causing his tummy troubles, and it's certainly not fun going more than 4 days without pizza...don't laugh, we all have our Achille's heel...

But despite all of that, it's been totally worth the experience. I'm glad that the choice was made for me and that this is something that I did this time around. I don't regret not doing it the first time around, but I'm glad that I was lucky enough to get to experience it this time around. I know that there are a lot of women out there who really, really want to breastfeed and for one reason or another are not able to realize that dream. I still feel strongly that this is a VERY personal decision, one each woman should make for herself, and either way your decision goes you will have a healthy and well-fed baby.

So do you want to hear my latest breastfeeding craziness? I'm starving hungry all the time. Like not just a bit hungry, but having hunger pains in the middle of the night so that I can't sleep even though I'm exhausted and should be sleeping fine type of hunger. That's nuts to me! I haven't experienced this since the first week or two of breastfeeding, when my body was adjusting to the process and I was pumping in between feedings in order to increase my milk supply. And it's just been in the last two days that this has happened so I'm not really sure what's causing this, but it's got to be linked to the breastfeeding.

I can eat a full plate of food and be hungry again in an hour or two. I need a snack before going to sleep, and I'm learning that it might be wise to bring two of whatever that snack is and leave it on my nightstand for a middle of the night snack! I eat breakfast, have a mid-morning snack and am still ready for lunch around 11am. Then there's my early afternoon snack, my late afternoon snack, all to be followed by dinner. And the bedtime snack. It's like I'm eating all day long.

It's the craziest thing ever!!!

Did any of you other breastfeeding Moms go through periods of intense hunger while you breastfed? Does it come and go for you too? Because I will swear on a stack of Bibles that it wasn't like this two weeks ago for me...I was fine eating like a normal person back then, even if I could eat more candy and ice cream without worrying about the calories. It wasn't the sheer volume of food that I seem to be consuming this week!

What To Do???

With all this FREE time?!?!?

All of a sudden getting some paid vacation time without having to take any actual vacation time...overlooking the part where we're paying for day care that we didn't need yet...is sort of awesome! It gives me some time each day to myself to do...whatever I want!

Last week, looking forward to this week was just a fantasy, and I spent countless hours (that might have been in the middle of the night) thinking about what I would do. All the things that I could get done. All the naps that I could take!!!

And here I am, two days into it and I'm realizing that maybe it's not as cool as I was thinking. You see, dreaming big and then facing reality leads to a short, fast course in the school of hard knocks. Taking him to day care for half a day doesn't really leave me THAT much time...at least not as much as I had originally thought it would. Twice now this week I've laid down to take a nap (a much shorter nap than I had intended on having) just to frustratingly find that I can't shut down.

Can't stop the lists going through my head. Things I want to get done. Things that I could do. And then, there's the dreaded things that I SHOULD do...

Here's what little old me came up with last week:

• Clean the house - really good from top to bottom, taking like one room each day and doing it well
• Clean out my closet and dresser drawers - I literally can't find space to put all of my clothes in. Making some room by packing up/getting rid of the maternity clothes would help...
• Work on some PWA stuff - do you remember my Project Whores Anonymous group? Yeah, I've still got things rambling about in my head on that front
• Go to the gym and start working on working off that last layer of let's call it "fluff" before going back to work
• Resting? Naps every day...and possibly a bubble bath each day...during the MIDDLE of the day
• Shopping for some new post-baby work clothes, because a pregnant woman hasn't shopped for normal clothes in over 9 months...and I'm feeling the need. But once again, where would I put it all (see bullet point above)

That's just the start of the list that went on and on in my head. But in reality, I feel sort of guilty leaving him for more than 4-6 hours in day care. I know, it's silly, but I can't help the way that I feel. Maybe next week will be better.

So I took my list yesterday and did some "revising" to it. Here's my real goals of these next two weeks:

On the matter of resting...I can take or leave this. Yes, if it's been a really bad night, then I might opt for a nap but otherwise I'm going to try to not actually lay down during the day and sleep. My thinking on this is that resting now won't really prepare me for going back to work full time and dealing with baby for half the night. Right? Or do you disagree? Maybe I'll take one day towards the end of next week to just relax and wallow in myself...but until then, I think that I'd rather be more productive.

As far as cleaning the house goes? It's really not that dirty. I keep up with the main things daily - dishes, laundry and floors (not that I sweep/mop/vacuum daily, but close!) so it's not that every single room needs to be cleaned. Maybe just that I need to take one chore each day and do it - like bathrooms one day, dusting another day, floors the next. You get the idea. So it would be halfwy to "fall cleaning."

On the organizational front...this is a MUST for me. I literally have NO where to put up my clean laundry anymore. You think that I'm joking? Clean clothes are currently being placed on top of my PWA tupperware bin that's sitting in the middle of our closet. That's how bad it is. Don't believe me? Well, here's proof:

I'm so embarassed! I don't plan on doing anything with the left side of the closet - that's Brent's mess to deal with if it bothers him, but the right side? That's all mine! Just look at the shoes! So sad... So it's a definite must to do something about my side of the closet. There's a charity coming around on Friday the 17th doing clothing and household item pick ups in our neighborhood and my goal is to provide SEVERAL bags of items for them to haul off! (I actually started on this one yesterday and managed to clean out all of my dresser drawers already - WooHoo! But alas, they were NOT part of the sad picture montage above...they were extra!)

I'd like to maybe tackle doing the same thing to our kitchen pantry? Taking just one shelf a day shouldn't be too hard, right?

What else was there? Oh yeah, working out. Probably not gonna happen. I have a gym membership...and sometimes I utilize it. But it probably won't be this week. Maybe I can find a workout video that I can do while at the house...I just hate the thought of getting into a routine at the gym for these next ten days and then having to quit because once I'm working full time again trips to the gym might be few and far between during the next few months. Just trying to be honest. But if I had a video or something that I could do three or four nights a week...something in the 30 minute long range...that might work. And I stress the word might. A lot.

As for my projects? I'd really like to have some time left to work on those things too...but I'm honest enough to say that beyond the cleaning, the organizing and a little bit of "me" time that I have planned it probably won't happen. And that's ok. For now, possibly even the next little bit of time in fact, projects need to take a back burner to keeping up with the little guy. And I'm ok with that. I'll just store them all up and keep them under lock and key until I have the time (and energy) to deal with them.

Does that sound doable? Or do you think that I'm out of my freakin' mind? Are you in the "rest and relax" or the "make the most of your remaining time off" camp? I'm curious to know...