After the holidays

I beg your forgiveness. I know that I said I'd write more now that the cat's out of the bag about my pregnancy, but I really ought not to have promised that before Christmas. I had a spot of trouble with making my Sweet Pepper Jelly (it boiled over and basically exploded all over my kitchen - I salvaged most of it, but man that was hard to clean!) and then got a couple last minute migraines before the holidays. Then came Christmas which was drawn out over four days for our family. I spent alot of time last week trying to get the house cleaned up and making my plan of attack for reorganizing my life in January. New Year's Eve we spent at my parents' place with my sister and her family, New Year's Day we mostly just hung out and played games, and then the day after Matt and I were at the church at 7:30 to set up coffee, stayed until 11:30 so I could help out in the cafe and then were back at 5:30 to do it again.
I didn't really set resolutions this year - I just told myself I was going to make changes and that I had to do them... or else. First change was to Gabe's sleep schedule. Matt and I weren't able to be home before 10 every night so Gabe's bedtime was 10:00 and he woke up at 9 a.m. Now, you might not think that's such a bad deal, but it meant that we had no time for cleaning while Gabe was asleep because we try to be in bed between 10 and 11, and really, who wants to start cleaning at 10:00 at night? So now, Gabe's new bedtime is 8:00 p.m. and he wakes up between 7 and 8! So Matt and I have two hours every night before we even start thinking about sleep to fold laundry, do dishes or just watch TV (something we can't do around Gabe anymore thanks to his wonderful habit of repeating). The second change is to my meal planning. When I lived on my own in Calgary my first year out of high school, I spent about $100 a month on groceries and never wasted anything. The method to my madness? I meal planned before I went shopping! I'd have my meals planned out for a week or two in advance so that if I really wanted to make something with ginger in it on a Monday, I'd have to justify buying ginger-root by using it in other things that week so that nothing went to waste. Incidentally, that's how I came up with some recipes like my Peach Pepper Chicken and my Lime Ginger Pork. Now that I'm buying more food and cooking for more people it ought to be easier. The one thing that is hard is my morning sickness isn't quite gone so it's hard for me to predict a week in advance what I'll feel like eating on any given day. Ah well, at least Matt will be well fed.
Today's going to be a bit slower of a day than it ought to be. I had planned on a grocery trip, a trip to the mall, to Canadian Tire and to Walmart... but this morning Gabe woke us up at 5:30 because he was throwing up so I'll be staying home with my little guy. Not to mention I had a brutal migraine last night so maybe not pushing it is a good idea for me too!

Mrs. Vander Leek ;)