Morning! I hope you all slept better than I did last night. I don’t know what kept me up because I didn’t feel too uncomfortable for once. I just couldn’t sleep. Thank goodness for things like this to greet me in the morning.

A sample of caramel cream coffee I received on my retreat a couple weekends ago. I wish you all could smell the fabulousness!

I needed that coffee because I had a lot to get done this morning. My parents and sister will arrive this afternoon to stay the night and spend the first half of Thanksgiving together…before we leave for dinner with Peter’s family. Oh, yes. We do two Thanksgivings in one day.

I may have extra time during the day now that I go to the gym in the afternoon, but lately I have spent it doing this…

Still cleaning, organizing, sorting, storing a ton of stuff to set up the kiddo’s stuff before baby B arrives. That’s all fine and dandy, but it means regular upkeep and cleaning has been slacking. You all know how it goes – before company arrives, complete a quick and massive cleaning. Yep. That was my morning!

And yep, I loathe our tile. I vacuumed, mopped, dusted, cleaned bathrooms, organized random things on the counters, scrubbed, windexed, laundered, and so on all morning long. That was my workout for the day! Whew. It reminded me why I prefer little bursts of cleaning, which I haven’t done in so long. I would much rather complete one task a day to make cleaning more manageable. Yet, I always forget that and end up running around doing too much at once.

Maybe once I finish with all the baby stuff I can use that time to get back into a better routine. Who am I kidding? I will probably end up distracting myself some other way to cherish any spare time I have before he arrives. Like with making a Faith Fitness Fun Facebook page.

I have toyed with the idea for a long time and actually even have the bones of one started. I always chicken out though on finishing it - wondering would it really be worth it and would people actually be interested? I guess at the very least it would stop bombarding all of my personal account friends with posts from the blog since I update them there for the handful who use that as their way to subscribe. And it could also reach out to those who don’t use Twitter or prefer Facebook over their Readers. Decisions decisions affected by my love of social media.

• Which way do you like getting updates from blogs? Do you rely solely on Reader? Do you like things like Twitter or Facebook? Do you just check your favorite blogs by memory when you have time?
• How do you handle your household cleaning? Do you do one big clean less often, or lots of smaller jobs regularly?

You know what I realized? I don’t have to pick one or two posts per day. Sometimes I have more to say and writing two posts comes easier to me, and actually takes less time, than trying to organize it all in one post. Other times I don’t have an extra topic to write about and I shouldn’t force myself to find something to fit a two post/day schedule. In other words, I’m throwing out posting schedules and just going with the blogging flow.

You know what I realized? A lot of stuff can fit inside shoe boxes.

We had our last small group session for this round on Wednesday night. Instead of the regular discussion of the sermon, we decided to use our time towards a service project. We all contributed items such as t-shirts, socks, toothbrushes, toothpaste, toys, hard candies, etc to pack into shoe boxes for children in need across the world. Hopefully these gifts will brighten their holiday season! It brightened my night to consider how we may help a few young children.

You know what I realized? Makenzie has a fear of tee-pees.

We went to a nature preserve trail with our friends from the mom’s group yesterday morning. My little M was a bit uncertain about that tee-pee and did not want to go inside with the rest of us. She didn’t mind other parts of the excursion though – like playing with the stone monkeys and seeing her beloved again.

You know what I realized? I'm ready for baby B to come but not ready enough to feel pains like last night that felt like real contractions. They thankfully went away after an hour and I'm not 100% certain they were more than Braxton Hicks, but they hurt BAD and in the "right place". No no no no no.

You know what I realized? Organizing takes a LOT longer than expected.

I’ve spent a few hours already going through this mass of baby stuff. I think I made a dent of maybe 10%. I have a long month ahead of me. I am determined to finish it all before Christmas.

You know what I realized? I have a giveaway coming up for you all later today! Stay tuned. 😀

• What is something you recently realized?
• What is a service project you have enjoyed participating in before?