Your questions....answered!

So the other night, I asked YOU to ask ME questions, and I ended up getting quite a few so I figured that I'd just go ahead and answer some of them now. Some of them came from blog comments, from facebook comments, and a couple came from email. The ones that I don't answer tonight (and any more that come in) will be answered in the next few days.

I just had my third baby and am going crazy with the messiness what do you do to keep on top of it??.. Do you have a schedule or any tips??

This is something that I have worked on for a long time, and believe me, I struggle on a daily basis. I wrote a post on this a while back too. I make a lot of lists...very specific lists with everything that I need to do broken down into simple steps. I use a timer to keep me motivated. I'm also a member of a group of (mostly) local ladies on facebook and we keep each other accountable with our cleaning - we post before and after pictures when we're cleaning and things like that.

Also, when things got really out of hand - probably right after I separated from my second husband - I sat down and made a list of each area in the house that needed to be cleaned. I think I broke the house down into 10 areas, so I assigned each of those areas a day of the week (Monday through Friday) so each weekday, I had 2 areas to clean/straighten. I did the same with the laundry. There were 6 of us living there, plus towels, sheets, etc. I broke the laundry down and assigned 1-2 loads per day. I actually put this all on a calendar and forced myself to follow it. It really helped me to get into a routine and I got everything done. I don't follow that so much anymore, but I do try to do a couple of loads of laundry each day and at least keep the kitchen and the living room (the "visible" areas) neat.

What is the ONE thing you could not live without?

Well, the obvious answer would be my kids...

But, aside from them...that's a tough one. There's always my Diet Pepsi addiction, which I am not doing so well with fighting. Chocolate would be hard to get rid of completely too, but I think that I could survive without it....

Honestly, *right now* I think that the one thing that I couldn't live without would be my phone. Crazy, I know. But...I don't have cable, so I have limited access to TV to keep up on the happenings of the world. I don't have "real" internet - I still tether my phone to my computer to get internet access. And I don't have a landline phone, so if there was some sort of emergency, I have no other way to call for help. I use my phone to check the weather (and living in Tornado Alley, I kind of need to keep up with weather alerts), to check the news, to keep in contact with my friends and family, to do a lot of my banking, etc. Without my phone, I'm lost. It really is my only connection with the outside world when I am inside my house.

how do you stay chipper

Ha. I pretend!

Seriously, I don't think that I'm necessarily a super-chipper person. I have come a long way over the past few years, but I have my bad days (PMS, anyone?) when I am totally not chipper. But on those days, I try to just keep to myself and keep my negativity to myself as much as I can. It's not always possible, and I might snap at someone but I try not to as much as possible.

Something else that I have focused on over the few years is not worrying about things that I can't control. There are so many variables in life - so many things that could happen - but I don't have any sort of control over 90% of those. I can only control myself and what I do, and worrying about all of the "what if" scenarios isn't going to do anything except get me overly stressed and turn the rest of my hair gray. I have to consciously let go of things that I can't control, and not worry about the "what if" until it actually happens - and most of the time, it doesn't happen - so I saved myself some useless worrying!

When are you coming to PA? ..... Are you ever going to give up the "Dude's" name? Or just keep calling him the dude? Is it still for his privacy? Or because the Dude is just a cool nickname? (Because it is).... How about this one - are you done having kids? oh - and when are you coming to PA?

I love this one, from one of my blogging friends who happens to live in PA. So, to answer her questions:

We should be in PA the last week of June. I have a class reunion on June 23 and a family reunion on June 30 so the trip will be based around those two events. We may do a few things in between those two dates, but nothing is set in stone yet. I'm guessing that we'll have a firmer itinerary sometime in late April/early May, but those two dates will not change! And yes, we will get together while we're there! ;)

"The Dude" has actually been revealed through his comments - his name is Kerry. I still use "The Dude" in my blog posts just because it's fun, but when he comments he uses his name.

Am I done having kids? Uh, yeah. As I like to say "the factory has been turned into a playground". I had my tubes tied after I had Daniel. It was a hard decision, but at the time, my body (my hip in particular) could not have handled another pregnancy. Honestly, had I not had so much chaos in my life, I wouldn't have minded having more kids - I am one of those weird women who really didn't mind being pregnant, except for the pain in my hip. Now, if by some bizarre chance it happened again, after I got over the initial shock, I would be ok with it. But, the OB/GYN that did the surgery assured me that it would NOT happen again. I have tossed around the idea of doing foster care (when we live in a bigger house) and if I did that and had the opportunity to adopt a child (or children), I would do it. Crazy? Maybe.

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So, those are all of the questions that I'm going to answer for tonight. I still have one from The Dude and a couple that came in via email, and I have to think more about the answers for those. They asked me some of the tougher ones!