My blog name has never rung more true.

There have been many times over the last year that I have thought about blogging again.  But, I could never find the time.  Or, never make the time.  And even then, what would I write about?  Nothing interesting was happening.  Nothing exciting.  Nothing new.

Now, here I am blogging again.  What is different this time? Everything.  I am literally trying to get by just one mess at a time.  We moved apartments and nothing is set up right.  My marriage is on the rocks.  My 2.5 year old is going on 14 and tests me everyday.  And, my physical and emotional health has never been worse.

So, starting right now that is going to change.  I am going to change it.  There is so much that I want to do and so many times I have stopped myself with excuses and self doubt, but I will make a change.  I will make changes for myself, for my marriage, for my husband, for my daughter, and for our family.  I hope that blogging about these things will keep me focused, accountable, and proud of the things that I know I will accomplish.

One Mom's Sleep Journey

When I was pregnant, there was literally one thing I said I would never do.

"Penelope will never sleep in our bed"

Fast forward to our first night home from the hospital, and right away, I ate my words. Actually, the nurses had her sleeping in my hospital bed with me, so I didn't even make it home! I was a mess from labor and delivery, and working on getting a good milk supply. Plus, my tiny baby was so sweet and snuggly and attched to me that she didn't want to be put down and I didn't want to put her down! Just typing that sentence, and I swear I can smell her tiny newborn smell. So, for the first 8 weeks, I slept sitting up in bed either holding her in my arms, or with her laying on my chest. I wasn't ready for her to lay next to me yet...she was just too fragile to me!!

Then, one fateful day, my good friend Heather passed along a baby sleep miracle. The Fisher-Price Rock N Play Sleeper. That first night, we swaddled her and put her into the Rock N Play after she fell asleep nursing. She slept for 7 hours strait!! It was glorious and I was a new woman. For a while, we had some great nights sleep with her in the RnP next to our bed. She would sleep for hours at a time, and when she needed to nurse, I could put her down again and she would stay sleeping! I loved it, and she did, too.

Then, we hit the 4 month sleep regression. She did not want to sleep, or be put down. It took HOURS to get her to sleep, and then as soon as we put her down, she would wake up. She also began arching her back and sitting up around this time. So, moved from the RnP to the Pack N Play with a bassinet level next to our bed. At this point, she would sleep until midnight or one in there, and then would come to bed with me to nurse (while laying down so I could continue to sleep...it was the ONLY way).

Unfortunately, my snuggle monster decided she wanted to sleep with Mommy all night somewhere around 6 months. So, I began nursing her to sleep on our bed and then leaving to watch TV with Nick and get some baby free time. I would slide her over, and usually nurse her again since she would likely wake up in the moving process, and we would sleep. During the night, she was free to nurse whenever she needed and I hardly even woke up!

This brings us to now. She is nearly 11 months old, and getting bigger everyday. She likes to sleep with an arm or her legs up on me at all times and she gets super hot at night. While I love having her next to me in many ways, it is wearing on me. I have had to sleep on my right side nearly all night for 6 months. I am constantly monitoring Nick's snoring and movement so he doesn't wake her up, and I am getting less and less space in the bed. Plus, I am the only one that can do bedtimes, and I have to be home with her all night. So, for these reasons, we are switching Penny to the crib in her room. The goal is to get her to fall asleep and stay asleep on her own. Oh, and to sleep in our bed for as little of the night as possible.

We started last night, and I fully plan on writing another blog post all about our sleep training adventures. As for now, I am laying on my left side and sprawling out while Penny is in her crib! Did you sleep train? Did you ever co-bed with your baby?

9 Months Pregnant and Working Full Time.

I am tired.


And losing focus at work.


And thinking about all the things that I would be doing around our apartment if I were not at work.


And I think my coworkers are starting to resent the fact that I am still working.


3 more weeks.  Unless she decides to come early, which I am truly hoping she doesn't because I am still working full time and am tired.

A Little Behind on Blogging!

Hello to anyone who still checks in on my blog!  It's been a very busy month:)  Number one thing is that WE ARE FINALLY MARRIED!  It was a wonderful day, and I plan to write a full recap very soon!

Things got a little hectic between the wedding on Thanksgiving weekend, and Christmas but I fully expect to be able to get back to blogging soon!  Since we are into the second half of my pregnancy, I am sure that there will be lots of posts about preparing our apartment for a baby girl!

For now, here is a wedding picture to hold you over until the recaps!

Total Lack of Inspiration

There hasn't been much in my life to inspire me to blog lately.  Honestly, there have been things going on that are downright depressing.  But, I am certainly not going to get into them here and I am trying not to let them get me down.

So, what have I been doing lately?  Working.  Working and finishing school.  Working and finishing school and playing part-time agent/webmaster for my shark hunter Husband-to-be.  So, what have I gotten done?  School.  I am officially done with my bachelor's degree.  There was certainly a lot of stress during my last semester, but I overcame it and passed all of my remaining classes.  Now, I just get the joy of finishing my state teaching tests and getting a preliminary licence to teach.  I may wait on that a while, since I really like where I am working.  Although, I do have a job in a education company, and I think that a teaching licence would really only help me.  Time will tell I guess.

Back to the shark hunter thing.  My bad-ass fiance was on Shark Week.  Any of you catch "Jaws Comes Home" on the Discovery Channel?  That was my fiance and future father-in-law on the boat, tagging the sharks.  The 18 foot long great white sharks.  Friends of mine think that I am insane for not worrying furiously when he is out being "shark bait".  I say, he knows what he is doing.  Anyway, which Shark Week comes lots of new possibilities for him and for us!  Hopefully it will all lead to a little bit of money and a wedding soon!

Speaking of weddings...no, I don't have any planning news to share about ours.  It's been halted for now.  We need to figure out a savings plan before we can actually start planning a wedding.  I did get the chance to be in a good friends wedding about a month ago!!  It was a beautiful, but HOT, July day and perfect for a backyard wedding.  I could not be happier for my friend and her husband and their new family (there are 4 children between the two of them!).  Being a part of their wedding day was beautiful and something I won't soon forget.

I will leave you with a picture of said wedding, and a promise to blog more often.  Now that I have my weekends back (after being in school for 3 YEARS!), I will be taking on some cleaning/organizing projects.  Be on the lookout for them!

I'm in the pink dress on the left!! The super tall one, with the dress that might have been a liiiiitle too short:) 

Day 27 - My Worst Habit

I don't think this is a secret (judging by the title of my blog and my previous posts), but I am messy. My worst habit is not picking up after myself and ignoring my (and Nick's) messes! I have been really trying to keep up with the housework, but even Nick said that our kitchen seems to repel being clean, and I am bad about keeping our bedroom clean. I know the bedroom will be the hardest habit to kick. No one ever really comes into our room, and I can always close the door. I need to change that thinking!!

Lately, I have been spending a lot of time at Marshalls, TJ Maxx, HomeGoods, and Christmas Tree Shops buying little things to make our apartment feel more home-y. I think if our house is decorated in a way that I like, I will want to make sure our house is inviting and presentable!

Where Did June Go?!?

Wow. This month completely flew by! Today, I looked back and said to myself "What have I even done this month?". I am feeling frustrated and discouraged that I have not done nearly as many things as I wanted to these last couple of weeks.

I am still fired up about getting rid of clothes, I just haven't actually done it. Granted, my best friend was having a baby the weekend of the 12th, so I was away that whole weekend, and last Sunday was father's day, so Nick and I were with our families all day. I have also been in the process on buying a car for the last couple of weeks, which was stressful and consumed much of my thoughts. I now have that car, and am so excited!

Also, my parents, Step-Dad, little brother and sister will all be moving away at the beginning of July. This is an added stress, and honestly makes me quite overwhelmed. I have never lived so far way from my family. It will be weird to be the only one still "home". I need to make room in my apartment for the couple of things that I plan on keeping from their house (mainly 2 vintage school desks, that are AT LEAST 50 years old, but probably much older).

This weekend, I have a plan. Granted, it's not much of a plan, but I am done trying to get everything done at one time. It's too disappointing when I don't accomplish what I wanted. So, this weekend (Sunday in particular), before I go help my parents move some, I will go through the clothes that are already in my bedroom and organize them. This is an easy one because most of my clothes are still packed away. I will be happy if I can get this done. Here's hoping.

Discouraged...

I didn't get any cleaning done this weekend. And, that is frustrating and discouraging. Of course I had school all day on Saturday, and Sunday was Mother's Day, so those could be excuses. But that's all they are. There is no reason why I couldn't have squeezed a 30-minute clean up in there! I watched Manny, my 5 year old brother, for my Mom yesterday at my house. He was perfectly fine just watching Scooby-Doo. I could have easily been in the next room straitening up, but I just sat on the couch with him. School is starting to pick up, and I have a lot of work due in the next few weeks. If I don't get in the habit of making a little time to clean everyday, then I will just get even more overwhelmed.

Today, as soon as I get home, I will go directly into the bedroom, put on the 30-minute cleaning mix, and clean until it stops playing. I need to do this for my own sanity today, because it is truly the last thing that I want to do...I think that's why it's so important that I really do it.

Time: How Do I Get More?!?

I had a wonderful weekend. It was my little sister's 12th birthday, and opening weekend for the musical that she is starring in ("The Secret Garden" put on by The Falmouth Theatre Guild). She was great, and it was also wonderful to have family up visiting from North Carolina (specifically my sister, cousin, aunt and uncle). It's weekends like this where I find it extra hard to make time to clean.

And that's another big problem for me; time. I am busy, it feels like all the time. Yet, I find it hard to get everything I need to done! I commute to work and school, so Monday - Saturday I am in my car for at least 2.5 hours. That sucks. When I do get home I just want to eat dinner, spend some time with Nick, and go to bed. Then on Sunday, my one free day, I want to go shopping, see a movie, visit with friends and family, drive around the beautiful place I call home, lay in bed, basically do whatever I want. But that's the problem. There will always be something I would rather be doing, but cleaning is something I will always have to do.

Remember that nice, clean and organized dorm room I talked about in my last post? Yeah, this is what happened to it when I stopped making the time to clean it!


And that's where I'm at today. Prioritizing my time. Nick and I got some cleaning done yesterday after visiting with family and friends, and it felt good. The living room suddenly feels so much more relaxing when it's been vacuumed! Here is my test for the next couple of days. Nick will be away for work until Thursday, so my plan is to use these couple of nights when I will literally have nothing else to do to clean. I will maintain where it is clean-wise now, and I hope to at least tackle the bathroom while he's gone! Wish me luck!

I've Had My Moments

There have been times in my life where having a clean room was not so out of reach. What is has really come down to for me is the amount of stuff that's in that room. In college, when I only brought what I needed with me, I was able to designate a place for everyyyyyything. I had bins and shelfs, storage towers and pant hangers, even desk organizers! I had a system.


And (if you can imagine!) I got by with only those things! That is the key here. Get.rid.of.some.stuff. That's easier said than done. For a normal person, donating the clothes that fit two sizes ago should be a no brainer. But for me, I feel the need to keep that skirt I got at J. Crew in 2004; the one that is a size 6 (keep dreaming), salmon colored, corduroy, and has embroidered geese on it. Why? I don't know, maybe because I wore it on Thanksgiving that year and actually thought is was classic ("a skirt with embroidered geese on it, yes, that's totally something I will wear often and for years to come!"). And to be honest, I have put that goose skirt in a "give-away" bin more than once...just never got around to take the clothes out of my house!

So for me, the first mess that I really need to get a handle on is the stuff. The stuff I will never use/wear/look at again. While I work on cleaning (room by room is the plan), I will need to really cut back on my stuff. Lord help me, because this will be a challenge.

Well here I am...

...and I guess this will be an introduction of sorts. I am 24 (almost 25...eeeeek), I work full time and attend school full time. My boyfriend, Nick, and I have been dating for over 5 years and live together in a rented 2 bedroom apartment on Cape Cod.

I love my mom, but she had 3 babies in 5 years, and it was hard enough keeping up with us, let alone keeping up the cleaning. I never thought that our house was unclean, it just always felt lived in. There may have been toys on the floor and dishes in the sink, but we were generally happy. And, since I am my mother's daughter, I do not have the super-clean gene.

Probably around age 14, it started getting bad. That's when clothes became problem #1. I was six feet all, and a size 2, and when companies began making "tall" clothes more available, I began collecting them. I would buy the same pair of jeans multiple times and hang onto them until I had worn through them. My room always looked like my dresser and closet threw up; clothes everywhere. Case in point, the picture at the beginning of this post, taken when I was about 16. It's been a constant struggle for me to keep things clean since then.

Now that I am an adult, with an even busier life, I am finding it harder and harder to make the time to clean and keep clean. My friends don't quite understand why I can't just do it, Nick can't believe I don't have the thought process to just put the dishes in the dishwasher, but hey, admitting you have a problem is half the battle, right? I am hoping that this blog will keep me accountable, and as I journey to cleanliness, it will keep you all entertained!