Still here

I really am still here. 

It has been so busy, and I was still working on so many projects.  By the middle of last week, I finally felt like my head was a bit above water, and now I'm feeling good.  But blogging isn't at the top of my list...really nothing is.  I have been sitting and watching a lot of tv.  And that is really unusual for me.  But it was a long December, and the first part of January kind of wore me out too.

What was I doing? 

After family all left, I had to finish the calendars.  Those got done, ordered, and are now out to their owners.

We kept very detailed budget last year, so I took the first part of January to analyze it carefully and rework our budget for this year.  (I love that kind of stuff!)  I also decided to change all of our bills from one account to another, and apparently I don't save stuff well (which is also surprising).  It took a long time to track down some accounts, and then to set up and/or find accounts online.  (Sidenote:  Here's what drives me nuts...is a user name a name or an email?  And then, even worse, the password requirements!  One capital letter, a symbol, a number?  All letters?  What?!)  Point is, all of the accounts are settled, and I now am much more organized and have all the info together, and our budget is all set.  Now, to follow it...

My family (the 6 of us, Dad, Dena, Emily, and the 3 in Jenny's family) are going to go down to St. Petersburg this summer to see my grandparents (who live there full time).  Sooooo excited.  So we decided to rent a condo on the beach.  I took the job of finding one, since my family has the most specific needs.  That was a HUGE job!  We are not super familiar with the area, so had to find a general "beach" we wanted, then skim through the gazillions of rentals, email people, etc, etc.  We finally found a place and I am so pumped about it.  You will see more about that in about 7 months when we return...in the meantime, I will dream of white beaches and sunshine!

Then I wanted to do all the blogging about Christmas.  I think I did 8 posts?  And I still have one more Christmas to go, but I just didn't have it in me...it will get done. 

After I got those 4 big jobs done (the week after all the family left), I needed to get my house back to normal. I have gotten better at keeping my house up (you kind of have to with 4 kids!) and my schedule had hit the fan with all of our family in town.  So I took last week to get my house, chores, laundry, cleaning, etc back to normal.

Just this weekend, I have started feeling good, like I really am on top of stuff again.  I have a few projects still to work on (always), but nothing major.  My house is mostly clean.  I have meals planned and groceries in our house.  I am making plans to see friends and hang out with people I haven't seen in awhile. 

I will slowly come back to you, blog, and finish one last Christmas post, then start in on January.  There is a Magic House post.  A post on each of my boys.  Maybe even a bit of a "series" of how we do stuff here, so I will remember how my world ran with 4 small children.  The standard post of miscellaneous "life" pictures.  And those have to get done soon...February brings the boys birthdays...I will have a FIVE  year old and 3 TWO year olds!!!