Home Tour

Created by Ben Becker

I've been wanting to do a virtual tour of our house for a while now (perhaps to help me feel like a bona fide blogger?). However, I never seemed to muster the motivation to do it, probably because I don't feel like our house is finished in terms of decor.

But then I got a request in the comments section of this post from WilderMiss to post a tour of my house. And then I got an e-mail from reader Emily letting me know that she's moving to Houston and would be interested in looking at our house (since we'll be moving to Austin soon).

After Matt and I organized and cleaned our house for Emily's visit, I asked my professional photographer friend, Ben, to snap a few shots for our MLS listing. He was coming over anyway with his wife Sarah and their daughter Ellie Cate to get a mini-lesson about how to do Montessori in the home.

Ben took our little request ("One shot of each room will be great, Ben.") and proceeded to inject it with growth hormones. We ended up with tons of photos and a video to boot!

By the way, what do you all think about trying to sell our home without a realtor? I know they did it over at Young House Love, but I'm still a little intimidated. Still, it would help us save a lot of money. Hmm...

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Thank You Cards

While reading The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, I had the idea that I should write thank-you notes at the end of every day. Don't get me wrong: I won't actually have people to thank every day, but if I intentionally make time for it, then I'll be more likely to write them more often.

To make it easier for myself to actually make thank-you writing a habit, I decided to create a little thank-you card station for myself. Previously, the thank-you cards were kept in the craft side of Henry's closet, in a box that was a little difficult to get to. The stamps were kept in a different place.

I wanted to keep my thank-you writing station simple (I am anti-clutter!), so I tried to find a place that would make the most sense. It occurred to me that I could simply add thank you cards and stamps to the back of our sticky note container. It makes a lot of sense because it's right above the desk where I can sit down to write the cards (I'll always have easy access to a pen from the drawer). Also, by adding everything to an existing container, I didn't create any additional clutter.

Now that I have everything in one place, I think I'll be more likely to make my thank-you writing a daily habit!

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Father's Day Brainstorming

Matt-n-Henry

Matt's first Father's Day is coming up. Well, we technically celebrated it last year, too, since I was pregnant at the time. I bought myself some lingerie (as a present to him) to say, "We're still going to have a good relationship, despite the added stress of a baby!"

I'd really like to give him something or to do something that comes from Henry (as much as possible, given the fact that Henry is only three months old). Is there something that I could help Henry make for his dad?

Hmmm...I was recently enamored with all of the colorful images of their daughter that John and Sherry put together over at Young House Love. I wonder if I could put a lot of smiling Henry pictures together to make something for Matt. Like a bumper sticker for his computer or for his water bottle? Perhaps I should search Snapfish to see what kind of photo products they are offering these days...

Ooh! Maybe a photo skin, since he's obsessed with technology. Perhaps I could get him one for his phone. It would have to be the perfect photo in order for him to actually want to use it. Perhaps something of Henry and Hoss--his two sons. I don't even know what kind of phone he has (he just got a new one through work). Let me sneak into the other room and see if I can figure it out...okay, it's an HTC Arrive.

Now to just take the perfect photo of the two H's!

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Home Organization

So I've been wanting to clean and organize our house for a while. I'm the kind of person who feels happier and more comfortable in a clean and organized environment (I actually wish I weren't so sensitive to my environment!). Lots of other things keep getting in the way (like my three-month-old, a lack of motivation, other more urgent deadlines, etc.).

And then I got a request in the comments section of this post from WilderMiss to post a tour of my house. I've been wanting to do it for a while, so her request was a little kick in the pants.

And then I got an e-mail from reader Emily letting me know that she's moving to Houston and would be interested in looking at our house. I let her know that I would be posting pictures soon, but then she responded with the fact that she would be in Houston the following day to look at houses.

So I invited her to stop by our house, and that was a huge kick in the pants to get the place clean and organized. Thank you, Emily!

I feel so, so fortunate that the love of my life, Matt, also happens to be an equal partner. We worked together to get everything put away and cleaned. After we were done, I realized that we simply must, must, must commit to keeping our place picked up and organized as much as possible. I seriously feel so much better.

I've been pondering how to keep one's house picked-up and organized, and I think it comes down to these things:

1. Purge, purge, purge: Matt, Henry, and I have things that we no longer use. Our shelves are overflowing with books we never reference. Henry's closet is full of clothes he's already outgrown. I think the first step to maintaining an orderly environment is getting rid of stuff. It doesn't make any sense to clean and organize stuff you don't really need/want.
2. Make purging a habit: It seems to me that purging has to be an ongoing habit. I wonder what's the best way to make it a habit? Is it to keep a constant eye out for things that could be donated or tossed out? I once read about someone who had a specific box that she used to collect things for donation. When the box got full, she donated it. How could that work for us? I seriously don't know where we could store a box. I wonder if Matt would be willing to keep it in his trunk (since he's the one who always takes our donations to the store)? Also, my trunk is already full with Henry's stroller, since we try to reduce baby clutter in our house.
3. Be intentional about what comes into the house: If we are more intentional about what we buy and bring into the house, then we will be able to spend less time purging it.
   
4. Make a place for everything: If everything has a place, then everything can be put away. But making a place for everything is easier said than done! I find that it's particular hard to find a place for phones and computers while they are charging.
   
5. Reduce the number of dumping sites: We have three main areas that collect stuff in our house: our dining room table, the other table against the wall in our dining room, and the bench in our bedroom. We leave hats, mail, boxes, laundry--the list goes on and on. Three dumping sites leads to a lot of clutter!
6. Make it a habit to organize the dumping sites: If something takes three minutes or less to process (e.g., mail, trash pick-up, putting away a hat, etc.), then we should do it right away, no matter how busy we feel. If something will take longer than that, then we should give ourselves permission to organize it later.
7. Put stuff away at a specified time each day: For our family, it would work best if we would do a final walk through of our house before going to bed each night and pick-up whatever needs to be returned to its place. That way, we could wake up to a clean house.

Of course, changing one's habits is never easy. For me to turn something into a habit, I have to be very clear about what the action looks like, and then I have to have a regular schedule for implementing the action.

So in terms of my next steps, here's what I'm thinking:

1. Go through our book shelves and purge the books we don't really need.
2. Ask Matt if he would be willing to keep an ongoing box or bag in his car for donations.
3. Process Henry's clothes as soon as he outgrows them. I've decided that I'm going to make him a quilt for his first birthday out of my favorite outfits from his first year, so I have a bag in his closet where I can collect them. The other outfits should be put in the donation bag or box right away.
4. I need to clean out and improve upon our filing system.
   
5. I need to process all of our papers that need to be filed.
6. Do a walk through and pick-up every night. When would be the best time? Perhaps after dinner? Right before bed isn't good for me because Henry will have just gone to sleep, and I don't want to be banging around the house.
7. I already went through Henry's toys and organized them into two separate categories. There are a couple toys out on his shelf. There are other toys in a basket that I can pull out and rotate onto his shelf every once in a while. Then there are toys in a plastic container that he's not ready for yet. When he's ready for them, I can rotate them into the basket to then be rotated onto the shelf (in a Montessori environment, we limit the number of toys that children can choose from at a given time, in order to keep the level of stimulation just right). I need to be good about keeping this system up.
8. Lastly, I want to read really good books about home organization. I'm feeling totally inspired and passionate about this topic, especially since we plan to move to Austin in the coming months and we'll be setting up a new home. Do you have any recommendations?
   

Any experience with Martha Stewart's book?

I was able to order this book from the library.

One final thought: I really need to clean out my e-mail inbox. It currently has 1,344 messages. That will be a good project while breast feeding!

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Book Club: Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

I first started reading The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People in 2004 or 2005. Even though the first few habits revolutionized my life, I never finished the book, which is why I wanted to read it again.

I thought I had only made it through the first three habits, since those are the ones that are deeply ingrained into my being. However, as I continue reading the book for our little book club, I keep seeing my notes in the margins. I figured I had only made it halfway through the last habit, but my notes kept going. And then I thought there was no way I had read this habit: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood. But lo and behold, my notes go all the way through that chapter, too.

So then I thought to myself, "Why in the heck don't I remember these latter habits?"

And then it hit me: The first three habits are the ones related to getting mastery over one's self and one's life. They are the keys to independence. The second three habits help one move from independence to interdependence. It occurred to me that I never internalized the last set of habits because I wasn't ready for them back in 2005. I needed to spend six years(!) working on the first three. Now I'm ready to move forward.

Sheesh, personal growth can be such a slow process!

Now onto Habit #5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood. I am so, so bad at this! Is it because I was an only child for 15 years and am very self-centered? Is it because I'm an INTJ on the Myers-Briggs personality assessment and I am very quick to collect data and make a judgement? Is it because I have a wounded little girl inside of me (since my father never wanted anything to do with me) and she's always too busy trying to get her need for attention satiated to really seek to understand others?

It's probably a combination of all three (Look! I'm already starting to break my habit of seeing things through a black-and-white lens!).

Regardless of the reason, it's something I desperately need to work on. Stat!

I was fascinated by the idea that we spend years learning how to read and write at school, but we don't learn how to really, really listen to another person. So true! I'm very eager to build this into my school's curriculum. Covey explains that "most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply. They're either speaking or preparing to speak. They're filtering everything through their own paradigms, reading their autobiography into other people's lives." (Um, I'm raising my sheepish hand.)

I also love the idea (going back to Covey's claim that real change has to happen from the inside-out) that to really influence another person, you must first understand them.

Once again, I very much appreciated the anecdote illustration of the conversation between the father and the son about how the son doesn't want to go to high school anymore. I liked reading the original version and then the reworked version with "empathetic listening." The idea is to rephrase content and reflect the feeling of what you hear. I need to say that again because I really want to internalize it: To empathetically listen to another person, I need to rephrase the content of what they are saying and reflect the feelings that I think I hear coming through.

I can't wait to work on this habit!

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New Wallet!

Image courtesy of Komono Art

So a long time ago--like, December of 2009--I read this post over at Superhero Journal. Andrea's quote really resonated with me:

"Someone told me once that if you want to draw a certain kind of abundance into your life, the type of wallet you carry is really important. At the time my wallet was used (by someone other than me first!) threadbare, and almost falling apart. As my friend would say, poverty wallet alert! Which I guess is like having bad feng shui of the wallet."

At the time, I loved my handmade wallet (from a laminated map and a Loteria game from the Dollar Store), but it was definitely not going to draw any abundance into my life, primarily because it was simply so old and breaking down. By that point, it had to have been at least three years old.

Flash forward to May 2011. I still have the same wallet.

Oy vey!

To my credit (pun acknowledged), I did try to rectify the situation by buying an adorable wallet off Etsy. But the wallet never came. And I e-mailed the seller and I e-mailed the seller again. And then I had to file a complaint. And then Etsy had to contact the seller. And then I e-mailed some more. Finally, Etsy had to shut down her site. Yikes!

So I never got a new wallet.

Here I am again, trying to proactively fix my wallet situation. I found another great maker on Etsy. Now I'm just waiting for my new wallet to come. Hooray! I could definitely use a little more financial abundance in my life (12 weeks of unpaid maternity leave is a bit rough), but really I'm looking for a different kind of abundance. A kind of confidence. A kind of professionalism.

I'm excited!

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June: Reflection & Rejuvenation

From the Nikki McClure Calendar

Another month has gone by. Whooosh!

Henry and I have been doing well. Thank goodness I formed so many strong friendships with the women from my prenatal yoga class. We all get together for a monthly brunch, and we plan other events throughout the month. Further, I get together with two women and their babies every single Tuesday for a walk, talk, and lunch. I think I might go insane if I were a stay-at-home-mom without that kind of outlet. Honestly, I am not much of a baby person (although I love you dearly, Henry, and you shouldn't take it personally!).

Since Henry was two weeks past his due date and I was able to work right up until the very end (I went to work on Friday and went into labor on Saturday), I only have to go back for the last three days of school. It's going to be very stressful to try and wrap everything up in such a short amount of time. I have to help the third graders put together their portfolios, supervise the children as they clean the entire classroom, get all the materials and shelves wrapped up for summer cleaning, pack all my stuff since I won't be returning next year, facilitate the children as they plan our end-of-year party, and put together all the cumulative folders for the office. Eeek!

Instead of getting stressed about what's coming up, let me start by reflecting on this past month and the intentions I set for myself:

• Be the best mother and teacher I can be for my son, Henry: I'm doing my best, day in and day out!
  
• Maintain consistent posting on my two blogs: Yes!
  
• Advertise for the next Purposeful Conception Course: Preparing Your Mind, Body, and Life for Pregnancy: Yep!
  
• Send printed photos to the grandparents, like I promised to do every month for their Christmas presents last year: Yep!
  
• Study Spanish for 20 minutes every weekday (I do this while breast feeding): I've been kind of spotty, but I am trying.
  
• Attend a Montessori class twice a week with Henry and learn as much as I can: Yep!
  
• Plan a fun potluck picnic for the next silent film at Discovery Green: Yep!
• Plan a reunion for my childbirth class: Check!
  
• Pump and store enough breast milk for a night away with Matt (while my bonus mom and bonus brother stay with Henry): I've decided that I don't want to pump. I know, I know, it might seem kind of crazy to commit myself to being by my son every three to four hours for an entire year. But, for me, I would rather make that commitment (with the knowledge that we may have to resort to formula if some kind of emergency arises) than pump. Seriously, I do not like pumping. I feel like I would need to do it regularly, so that it doesn't mess with my milk supply (I am very susceptible to plugged ducts), but I don't need that much milk on reserve, since I am staying at home with my son. I don't want to commit to regularly getting out the pump, getting myself all set up, devoting even more time to having a sucking sensation on my nipples, and then getting everything cleaned up. And since you pretty much have to pump every time the baby is sucking on a bottle, I would rather just cut out all the middle steps and feed my baby from my breast. It means that Matt and I will just have to settle for date nights instead of date getaways for the year. But we're okay with that. Plus, once Henry has an earlier bed time and sleeps longer between feedings, we'll be able to extend our date nights if we want. It will get tricky if I decide to take on some educational consulting work to supplement our income, but I'll just have to get creative and make it work. I would rather do that than pump (but that's just me!--all my friends are fine with pumping).
  
• Send birthday cards to my friends/family: Yes!
  
• Walk frequently and go to yoga once a week: I went to yoga two weeks in a row and didn't go after that. No good excuses. I just wanted to be at home. At least I've been walking pretty much every day with Henry and Hoss.
  
• Finish my book outline!: Oy vey. I am going to start falling seriously behind on my personal schedule for finishing my book if I don't get my act together. However, this goal took a back seat this month, due to the next bullet point.
  
• Finish evaluating the charter applications for the state: Yes!
  
• Be patient and forgiving with myself: I'm working on it.
  

In addition to that list, I also consistently read a self-development book (for our little book club). I also took care of some of the house beautification items that were on this list. I put away the birthing ball, got new dishes and glasses from IKEA, replaced two of our dying plants, got a new rug for the living room, used a lot of our gift cards, and asked my friend to store the comfy/cozy chair we're not using. But looking at that lists reminds me that I still have a lot to do!

Here are my intentions for the upcoming month:

• Be the best mother and teacher I can be for my son, Henry. I have to remember that all the time and energy I put into parenting now is an investment in our future together. Specifically, I want to help Henry learn how to take naps on a bed instead of in a carrier or wrap. I also want to practice asking open-ended questions (e.g., "What did you think about that book?) instead of closed-ended questions (e.g., "Did you like the book?").
  
• Maintain consistent posting on my two blogs
  
• Actively participate in Purposeful Conception: Preparing Your Mind, Body, and Life for Pregnancy
  
• Send printed photos to the grandparents, like I promised to do every month for their Christmas presents last year
  
• Study Spanish for 20 minutes every weekday (I do this while breast feeding)
  
• Attend a Montessori class with Henry and learn as much as I can
  
• Plan a fun potluck picnic for the next silent film at Discovery Green
• Make a video about implementing Montessori in the home
• Go on a date with Matt
• Write the first chapter of my book
• Travel to Florida with Henry for my brother's graduation
• Wrap up the end of the school year with my students
• Read a self-development book and a parenting book
• Create a new header for my Feeding the Soil blog
• Declutter our house
• Plan a fun Father's Day surprise
  

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