40 Things to do before I'm 40...

So I mentioned last night that I had a "bucket list" of sorts.  Well, here it is.  I officially started this on June 1st, which happens to be approx. 40 weeks until my birthday.  So it looks like I'm going to have to be very productive!!  I guess I look at this way, even if I do half of these things I've been successful.  So check back time after time and you'll see my progress.

Start Date - June 1, 2012
End Date - March 12, 2013

1.   Lose 40 pounds (3/40).
2.   Complete Katelyn's kindergarten scrapbook pages.
3.   Finish our will FINALLY!!
4.   Reduce Debt Snowball by 25% (1.2/25).
5.   Pay off Mom and Dad (0/1,600).
6.   Paint our master bedroom.
7.   Tackle our paper clutter.
8.   Fully embrace the Flylady process.
9.   Take a trip to the apple orchard.
10.  Go to Chicago for Christmas time.
11.  Spend one dedicated day with each of my children.
12.  Take Luke to his first movie.
13.  Go on a romantic getaway with Dennis.
14.  Go camping for the first time.
15.  Bake cookies with the girls.
16.  Mend relationship with a family member.
17.  Send a hand-written letter to a long lost friend.
18.  Go on a girls' weekend get-away.
19.  Read 5 new books.
20.  Take Luke on his first real zoo trip.
21.  Spend a day with my mom.
22.  Organize our basement into a spare bedroom and play room for the kids.
23.  Go on a spontaneous, unplanned weekend with my family.
24.  Play in the snow with the girls.
25.  Save money for a new car.
26.  Complete our first Relay for Life.
27.  Make at least 5 of our Christmas gifts this year.
28.  Set-up family fun night.
29.  Help my Girl Scouts earn all their petal badges.
30.  Clean my office at work.
31.  Add a $1,000 to our emergency savings.
32.  De-clutter our house by selling stuff on eBay, garage sale, Half Price books, etc.
33.  Host a dinner party.
34.  Teach Katelyn how to crochet.
35.  Set-up monthly date night with Dennis.
36.  Get Elizabeth to go to bed right away at night.
37.  Go to church every weekend (3/41).
38.  Start a scrapbook for Luke.
39.  Do my income taxes by Feb 28th.
40.  Send out Christmas cards at Christmas time!!

TGIF...

I am so glad for this week to be done.  Yesterday we had an appraiser coming to see the how so we can refinance our mortgage.  Well, the Hamers aren't the best at staying on top of housework so we were doing a lot of crisis cleaning to get ready. Dennis ended up having to do the lion's share as I couldn't take time off.  It was a good teaching moment for the girls though because at least Katelyn seems to recognize we need to do better at keeping the house clean.  She's been making her bed in the morning and she tells Elizabeth to pick-up after herself. 

The classic moment of all this was on Wednesday, I came home and the girls said Daddy had a surprise for me.  I even had to be lead to our room with my eyes closed for my surprise.  What was it -- a clean bedroom!!  You see our bedroom seemed to always be the last place that would be clean.  So a lot of times it was a rush to get everything done for company and the bedroom door was closed!!  Now we have a clean room.  There's still some things I need to sort through and find a home for but we can walk in and sleep with some peace!  Here's hoping we can keep the house looking like this.

In addition, to the mad rush to cleaning the house, some good and bad things happened this week.  So let's talk about the good, last night Katelyn and I went to Coral Ridge Mall to for a Girl Scout Build a Bear Party.  You see on top of everything I have going on, I volunteered to be the girl scout leader!!  This was a fun trip.  The girls had a blast and all the parents that went thanked me for coordinating so for the girls.  I look forward to doing more fun things like this in the future.

Now for the bad, brother and his family has been dealing with medical issues for a while now.  My sister-in-law, was diagnosed with breast cancer last March.  She ended up having a double mastectomy in April.  In November, she got sick and they found out that the cancer had spread to her lungs.  She's been on three different kind of chemo and this week found out the tumors have spread to her brain.  I can't even imagine what Diane, Pat and their kids are going through. 

This whole situation has really made me think about my own mortality.  Am I being the best mom and wife possible?  What would I do in her same situation?  Have I told people how much I love and care for them?  How selfish I am for worrying about things like a clean house when Diane is fighting for her life?  I guess it's made me realize you have to be thankful for what you have and cherish the times together.  I have another post I will be putting out here soon.  It's my "40 things before I'm 40" list.  I'm still fine tuning my list because I want to make sure my list was focusing on the right things -- my family, health and happiness. 

So today I leave you with this -- Hug your little ones a little tighter tonight and make sure they know how much you love them!  Bye for now. 

Welcome to my blog...

So here's my first blog!!  My sister, Sam, was kind enough to help me get started and then she told me -- well write your first blog.  Of course, I realized I didn't know what to write about.  So I decided to wait a bit.  I guess the 1st thing to write about -- why did I decide to set-up a blog?  I'm not 100% sure.  Maybe it's because I'm awful about keeping track of significant events in my children's lives.  I'm not even sure I know where their baby books are at this time.  Maybe it's because I tend to stress myself out and need to use this blog as "therapy".  Maybe it's because I want yet another excuse to sit on my butt and mess with the computer!  It's probably a little bit of all of these. 

The first item is probably the best thing to document.  I really am terrible at tracking important things.  Which is ironic considering for years I've teased my parents and family that I've blocked out my childhood.  To be honest, my 5 year-old Katelyn will remind of things we did just last year and I won't remember.  Forget blocking out my childhood, I think I just have a terrible memory altogether.  So as long as I remember to blog, maybe this will serve as a guide to my life.

Question # 2 - why did I decide to go with Working Mom...Seeking Sanity! as a name.  Well, let me tell you a bit about my life.  My husband, Dennis, and I live in a small town in Eastern Iowa.  We've lived here for the last 8 years and have become more and more involved in the community.  In addition, we now are raising a 1st grader, Katelyn, soon to be preschooler, Elizabeth and a one year old, Luke.  It's amazing how have a child in school exploded our activity calendar, I'm not sure I have a large enough calendar for three school age children!  Along with all of this, I recently was promoted to Financial Analyst Manager with 3 people reporting to me.  I can tell that as much as I wish I had it altogether all the time.  This crazy life is stressful for me.  I will admit that for some reason, I'm very particular about things.  My husband thinks I'm goofy because I need to make a list to clean the house -- and a very specific list!!!  So as I continue to adjust to life with school age children and more work responsibilities, I figured it would be good to have a way to express myself.

Well, this tired mama better wrap things up for tonight.  It's time to sign-off for now.  Good night!!