A night alone

Last night, I had a night alone.  This is a very rare occurrence for me and it was lovely.  There were so many useful things I could have been doing but I sat down and watched movies I wouldn't get to watch with the girls home...Pretty In Pink and Notting Hill.  At least I worked on my recipe binder and budget book a little while I watched the movies, as much as Romeo would let me.

Ironically, I slept like crap due to missing my nightly snuggle bug, the little girl.  I'll be so sad when she decides to sleep in her bed.

2015

We made it.  2014 was a long and sometimes difficult year.  Still, we made it through and are now relaxing away the first day of 2015.   I like new beginnings.  We had a new beginning in July when we came home but now we get a bigger one...starting the first new year in our rebuilt home.

Unfortunately, procrastination is my BFF and I still have A LOT of paperwork to do related to the fire.  I'm determined to get it done as soon as possible because I need the weight of all of it off my shoulders and mind.

I'm not one to make new years resolutions because I never keep them.  However, I do like to make goals.

My goals for the year include the following...

1. Finish all paperwork related to the fire by the end of February.
2. Get back to a strict budget.
3. Continue to help the little girl on her journey to emotional peace.
4. Support the big girl to continue the success she's achieved in the last part of 2014.
5. Figure out a way to regularly incorporate exercise into my daily routine (I can do it for short times before the little girl loses it do to such rushed and late evenings it creates for her).
6. Start a veggie garden and grow some of our own food.

I would also like to blog more regularly, which seems to be an ongoing, unmet goal.  For now, I'm setting the goal at once a week.  My goal for the blog will be to document our (my) journey to maintain a life of only what we need.  That is a challenge while living with a young hoarder but we'll do our best.  I will also chronicle just a little of our day-to-day lives to have a record for the girls.

Happy 2015 and wishing for a peaceful, healing, and healthy year for all!!!

Going crazy...must blog

I've got to get back into the habit of journaling or blogging.  I feel like I'm losing my mind and need to deal with life's craziness.

The house is getting better and better.  The girls' bedrooms are completely done.  My bedroom is mostly done.  I haven't found any artwork but there's no rush for that.  The kitchen is completely done.  The living room and dining room are mostly done.  I need a tv for occassional family movies and some artwork.  Also, 3 chairs for the dining table and get the artwork hung.  The sunroom is completely done.  There are a few things in the garage to put away still but very few.  All of this is so much easier when you don't have much stuff.

The girls are in school and it's going great and so-so, depending on the child in question. The little girl had a birthday recently and turned 8.  The big girl will be 14 soon.  We added a new family member at the beginning of September.  His name is Romeo and he's a 1-year-old chug.  I'm not thrilled with his presence currently and he's been much more work than the big girl expected but I know it will get better with time and we will love him to bits.  It has been weird having a dog who can hear!

As I try not to bring more stuff than we really need back into the house, how did we handle the little girl's birthday?  Well, we didn't have a party.  That was for reasons other than minimalism but it helps with that too.  From me and the big girl, she got a dress and a bracelet.  From the grandparents, she got two books and an Elsa hat with a long blond braid.  That's it!  These are all things that 1) don't take up much space, 2) that she will use, and 3) that she loves.

Now I must contemplate the big girl's birthday.  It's coming soon and she never asks for anything so she's much harder to shop for.

Another visit

We went over to the house again on Saturday.  As I've mentioned, the little girl is pretty scared of the house right now.  It came out that one of her big concerns is that she is going to fall through the floor into a great abyss.  I tried to explain to her that, while a crawl space is not somewhere I want to be, it's not deep and her head would still be above the floor even if she was standing on the floor of the crawl space.

Anyway, Saturday was a nice day so we went over there after the big girl's basket ball game.  The little girl did amazingly well.  We looked around and talked about the changes.  In the bathroom where the tub was, you can actually see through the floor to the crawl space.  I shined a flash light in there so the little girl could see just how not deep it was.  That made her feel slightly better.

After holding it together to tour the inside, we went out back.  The girls decided to put the trampoline to use for the first time since the day of the fire.  It was great to hear the little girl laugh so heartily in a place that brings up so much fear right now.

After we left the house, we rewarded ourselves with a trip to starbucks for coffee and chai lattes.  Yum!

Thoughts on 2013 and 2014

The best part of 2013

• Veggiemom - Seeing the big girl learn to love school again after a very difficult 2012-2013 school year and seeing the little girl learn to walk into school on her own
• The big girl - A trip to Dallas and Great Wolf Lodge
• The little girl - Great Wolf Lodge and a post-thanksgiving trip with Nana and Granny where she got to make a "wax hand"

The worst part of 2013

• The fire!!!

Goals/hopes/plans for 2014

• Veggiemom - 
• Get our home rebuilt and be wise about money in the process
• Exercise at least 4 times per week (I'd started doing this a couple of weeks before the fire but haven't since then)
• Blog about this transition
• Maintain our current minimalist lifestyle
• A pipedream...to have enough insurance money leftover to pay off our car

• The big girl -
• Have 1st babysitting job
• Get our house back
• Start playing more games together as a family
• More family activities in general
• Be really nice to enemies
• Get more info on first dad
• Sew more...or a lot!

• The little girl
• See first families, especially first dad
• Get more toys and have fun
• Get a prettier dress
• Learn to canter jumps

(Can you tell who makes it the hardest to maintain a minimalist lifestyle???)

We're spending this New Years Eve at home together.  We had a yummy dinner with sparkling cider.  We had ice cream.  We've watched movies.  We discussed the things listed above.  We'll probably go to bed long before midnight and hopefully we'll be in the mood to go see Frozen tomorrow.

As the big girl said, this house will never be home but at least we're getting settled into a new normal.