September Updates + October Intentions.

[September Update]

Don’t buy anything except gas and groceries. Success. (Mostly. I bought the pacifiers and an app). I went into Target exactly ONCE (for peanut butter – they have the cheapest natural peanut butter. Did I really just admit that? My life is so exciting I can’t handle it), which is pretty amazing considering most months I’m there weekly. It’s so liberating and freeing to just not have the choice of purchasing things. It definitely helped me get started on a habit I want to develop – waiting at least a week before purchasing something I think I want or need. (Unless I really need it. Like we’re out of diapers or contact solution.)

Craft a morning routine. I realized I already had a routine, but writing it down on paper helped. (I also wrote down an evening routine. Nothing fancy, but having a routine written down helps me to be more intentional with what I’m doing.)

Run twice a week. Yep. Every week. And then I signed up for a 5K! And we’re doing a hiking spree so we’re hiking at least once a week. I freaking love being outside in the fall.

Find child care for Theo. YES! Hallelujah. I have a friend from high school coming two days a week for a few hours, then a college student I knew at my day job comes one or two days a week to watch both boys. It’s amazing. I cannot stress enough how awesome child care is. It really frees me to do what I need to do for a few hours, then I can come home and focus on home stuff. I’m able to fit a full-time work load into a part-time schedule because I don’t waste time when I have child care.

Don’t criticize Mike. I really made an effort to improve in this area and *most* days I did really well. I put it as a check list item in my Lift app, which really works because I’m the kind of person who does things just so I can check them off a list.

Create some social media rules to get my usage under control. YES! This is possibly my biggest triumph for the month. I wrote a list of 10 or so ideas and have been starting a new ‘rule’ each week. For example – no using my phone at night, no using my phone on Sundays, and so on. Not wasting time on social media or being distracted by my phone was one of my four big goals for the year, so it feels so amazing to finally get this under control.

[October Intentions]

Limit grocery budget to $215. I have a ton of food in the pantry and fridge – especially frozen veggies from our CSA. We already have prepaid $100 for the CSA this month (what’s a CSA?), so I think if I continue to meal plan and just buy a little tofu, soymilk, bread, eggs, and cream for our coffee, we should be good to go. I think.

Complete 4 UFYH challenges a day. This is the app I bought and I already LOVE it. It gives me random cleaning challenges in 5, 10, or 20 minute increments or by room. It’s perfect for when I’m like, “Theo is napping and I did some work but I’ll just do two random challenges to make a little headway on the apartment.” Between this and having a babysitter in our place 3-4 days a week, my apartment is staying quite clean for the first time in ages. There is a lot of swearing, so be warned if that sort of thing bothers you.

Reduce sugar by 50%. I have been tracking what I eat for about 7 weeks now in MyFitnessPal and while it’s helped me lose 7 pounds, it also made me realize that I eat way too much sugar. So I’m going to eat less sugar. Hopefully. I just love dessert. And I hear my metabolism slows down once I turn 30 (THIS MONTH OMG), so I kinda want to take advantage.

Update Little Leaf site. I haven’t really updated it much in a while and since it’s the face of my business, it’s important that it looks fresh and reflects all the awesome work I’ve done since I launched the site! I want to add testimonials, update the portfolio, and reconsider packages page, possibly simplifying it.

Get this baby a bedtime. Our nightly routine has looked like this: Gabe goes to bed at 7. Theo falls asleep wherever he is around 8. We hold him or he sleeps on the couch until we go to bed around 9, then he wakes up when we change his diaper and swaddle him. He nurses and then lies between us in bed while we watch an episode of West Wing. He falls asleep not nursing or being held, so that’s not too bad of a sleep habit, right? Heh. It’s been lovely, but I know he’d benefit from going to bed at a regular (earlier) time and we’d benefit from his naps having some sort of routine so we’d know what to expect.

Continue implementing social media guidelines. Like I said, I implemented one rule a week, but I want to continue easing into this change. Because it’s the best thing for my family and my own sanity. Not to be dramatic, but I feel almost free from the addiction that is the internet. Almost.