New Years Day 2009

It just seems like yesterday that we were ringing in the year 2000 and now that was 9 years ago. Time seems to fly by faster and faster. Last night we celebrated New Years Eve by playing games with the kids. My husband fell asleep by 10:30 and my 6 yo boy fell asleep by 7 p.m. (he had a headache and fell asleep on the couch). The rest of us ate chips 'n dip and drank pop, played games and when it was 12 am walked out back and watched the fireworks. They were kind of far off but still neat for the kids and it sounded like thunder rolling across the sky. It was pretty cold last night, maybe around 24 degrees, but there was no wind. Still after standing outside for 10 minutes or so I had had enough. I let the kids camp out on my bedroom floor and they still weren't tired. So they laid around reading and I worked on knitting a scarf, while teaching my 10 yo how to knit. It was a fun evening, and we finally fell asleep sometime after 2 am.

Today we all slept in, got up and went to Quick Trip to get a cheap lunch while we road by a place in the country we are interested in buying. Before we left we put 2 chickens on in a smoker/roaster oven. I had 10 pounds of potatoes that needed used up so I made them all in to mashed potatoes, made quite a bit! Tonight we played a few more games and now the kids are in bed.

Tomorrow I am going to start going through each room to start my major rehaul of slimming down our possessions. We have too much stuff, its hard to keep stuff organized and clean. I admit I have the tendency of being a pack rat and can find 101 reasons why something is special or needed. I need to break that cycle. I know I'll be much happier because my house will be much more organized and easier to clean. I've read everything a person can read about it, now I need to put all that reading into practice.

One of my biggest problems is clothes. I always kept all the kids' clothes so that when I had the next one they could wear the last ones clothes. Well that worked out for the first 5 kids, then started becoming a major undertaking. Now I have given away a lot of clothes, but their rooms are so full of clothes that most of the time they are all over the floors. I might try keeping so many sets of outfits and give away the rest. The girls share a room and the boys share a room. So imagine 3 girls in one room and 4 boys in the other! I need to get more creative! My youngest stayed in my room until he was 3, now that he is in the boys' room I can never find an outfit for him. Hopefully this year will be the year that I really accomplish all the things I keep meaning to do :-)

My top priorities for this year that I hope to accomplish is to read through the Bible, organize my home and our school, loose weight, and hopefully buy a home and move!