Happy New Year

It’s 6:18 am.  I have gotten about 5ish hours of sleep.  I can usually cope with that.  Unfortunately, it has been about two weeks since my last 8 hour night.  Which might almost be OK….. except that routine has been gone since Dad got really sick.

At this point I am so chronically sleep deprived only people with newborns can truly understand how I am sliding into madness.

AND!  I don’t even have the cutie baby cuddles to make up for it.  Nope!  I have ClinChem 199.

This year….  I wish I could say it will be better, but my next class starts Jan 7th.

BUT we have a plan….  A big part of the lack of sleep has to do with Little Girl’s room being all the way across the house from the master bedroom.  I have been stalking the MLS for months looking for a better floor plan with four bedrooms fairly close together that we could afford and that would still leave us in the same school zone.  Then I kept looking for that house and expanded the search to any four bedroom that would suit.  After months of no sleep and semiweekly internet searches, I realized that even if I completely won the lotto and had more money that I can imagine… there just isn’t such a house on the market.

I’m sure if I had $25 million, I could pick the house I like and just through money at it until the owners left…. but that is only a pretend option.  In reality, it is a lost cause around here.

So, if we can’t move, now what?  T and I and the Big Girls sat down and had a big discussion about Now What?  We actually came up with a solution…. It involves another rework of our basement.  We need a contractor.  It is a fairly small project, but it will take a few months to save up for and a significant amount of effort to find a builder for such a small project.

None the less, I am looking forward to re-arranging our house to make it work better.

New Year’s Resolutions

I want to knit a pair of sock every month this year.  I recognize that this might be possible if we don’t have any more family emergencies and impossible if Mom needs lots of help to move.  I am giving myself a bit of a break because I will consider this a success if I complete 10 new pairs.

Aside from re-organizing the living space and moving “who sleeps in what bedroom” around,  I also want to reorganize my kitchen and see if I can’t make better use of my three cupboards. Yes, I only have three cupboards.  And an island from Ikea.

I want to save up (since I have gotten some lovely wool for Christmas) and buy new pots.  I am completely converted to using my cast iron, but the coating on my dutch ovens had significantly deteriorated in the last month.  I recognize that this is because I have stepped up soup production, but I like the new soup Wednesdays plan. It has also cut our grocery budget, so it only seems fair to put that savings back into new pots.

I am going to participate in the 365 Photo Challenge on Flickr.

I wish I could make a resolution to get more sleep, but at this moment that seems like such a lost cause….  Instead I am going to resolve to have better sleep habits.  I want to be in bed by 10pm.  I know I won’t get to stay there if Little Girl gets up (like she has been) but at least I will have gotten an extra hour or hour and a half compared to my current sleep patterns.