Home and Body Postpartum

It's been quite difficult for me to take care of both the home and my body since the arrival of our daughter (Rose, who is almost 8 weeks old now).  However, it's definitely getting better.  We haven't undertaken any major home improvement projects.  I feel like we are just now starting to be able to keep up with everyday house maintenance.  As for the body... I am quite pleased with my postpartum body.  I haven't done any official workouts, but I've done a few little things here or there.  Plus taking care of Rose is sometimes a workout (pacing, bouncing, lifting, etc).  I'm thinking it won't be too long before I again embark on a workout program/routine.

Nursery Update

Nursery Prep

Christmas Decor 2012

Here is a video of the Christmas decor that I did this year.  It doesn't show my snowman salt and pepper shakers, and I also have a banner that's hung up, but didn't make it into the video.  We didn't do any outdoor lights/decor this year, with the exception of a star in the living room window.

Day in the Life 11/7/12

A Day in the Life of Amber- Nov. 7, 2012

A Day in the Life of Amber

A Day in the Life of Amber- October 26, 2012

Latest House Tour

So... I filmed most of this video a week ago, but I added the kitchen today.  Enjoy!

House Tour 2

Actually "Working Out"

Body:  So lately I have considered my exercise to be any work I was doing packing & unpacking.  However, I decided to needed to be doing a bit more with regards to working out.  So, I started a new workout routine yesterday.  It's a 2nd trimester prenatal workout that I found on YouTube.  It was tough, in fact I only did half of it.  I want to make sure not to overdo it.  So, I say it was tough, but it wasn't tough compared to what I used to do, just compared with what I've been doing.

I have taken a few walks and done a few simple/easy prenatal workouts in the past few weeks, but I feel like they were a bit too easy for me at this point.  Let's see if I can stick to my new workout "schedule."

Home:  I have kicked things into higher gear with regards to getting unpacked and such at the house.  I had been sort of slacking on the unpacking and making excuses to put a lot of it off.  I set a date and invited people to our "House Party", so I now have until next Friday to get as much unpacking and settling in as I can before people come over to see the house.  I'll try to make an update video today or tomorrow, and then again next week (hopefully).

Initial House Tour

Our New Home

We mostly successfully moved into our new home on Sunday.  I haven't done much unpacking, primarily because we're still packing/cleaning at the apartment.  It will all be done by 2:00 p.m. tomorrow though, when we have our final inspection!  It will be so nice to be done with it.

It turns out that the kitchen is a lot smaller than I had originally anticipated.  Unfortunately, the market and our desire to find a house before our lease ended didn't leave us with a lot of time to mull over and inspect the potential homes before deciding to purchase.  So... I will have to get creative with this kitchen.  As it is, I don't really have enough room for all of our kitchen gear, let alone any food...

My thoughts are to buy something similar to the following:

Once we get a bit more settled in, or are at least finished at the apartment, I will post pictures and updates.

New Developments in the Home and Body

Well, considering that I think the only person who reads this blog (Mom) already knows this stuff I don't really need to state it, but oh well, haha.

New Developments in the Home:  We are buying a house!  I started packing today and we are moving in a little less than two weeks!  I am hoping to resume home blogs once we get internet, etc set up in the house.  These blogs will include progress of setting up the house and keeping it clean and organized.

New Developments in the Body:  I am housing a baby!  So... that's probably why I have let this and my other blog slide.  Talking about an energy zapper, haha.  Well I finally have some energy back!  I am updated my blogs, have been able to resume regular housework, etc.  While the recipes won't really be any different,  my workouts have been a lot (and I mean a lot) less strenuous.  After the move I hope to resume blogging about these things as well!  Perhaps I will also use this blog to write pregnancy blogs and updates.

No new program

So I still have not chosen a new workout program to do... perhaps I'll do that after I finish writing this blog.  However, I have been making it to the gym about 3 days a week for a cardio workout followed by stretching.  I have only been doing a very small amount of resistance workouts, and only 1-2 times a week.

I have been working on the house.  I got it cleaned up after all of the holiday gatherings and vacationings.  I was hoping to have a lot more organized by the time family comes next week, but I think it will mostly just be some rearranging.  I think I need to set some stricter goals, or goal dates rather, for completing a lot of the projects that I have in mind, and I need some way to be held accountable for them.

I'm back!

So... after our Christmas New Mexico vacation and our vacation to the UAE and India.  It has taken quite a while to get back into the swing of things.  I was able to do some mini workouts while in New Mexico, and the UAE and India were a workout in themselves.  Once I got back I had jet lag to deal with combined with a house that seemed to have literally exploded after our trips.

I have been working out a few times a week now, although not really doing a "program" just sort of doing my own thing.  Perhaps I will start a "program" in the next week or two.

I finally got the living room to a presentable condition.  Now to tackle all the other rooms and to move on to my organizational projects.

New Home

There are some things that I didn't talk about in the video that I will need to be organizing (such as office supplies), but at least you'll get an idea for how our apartment looks & is set up.  Hopefully it wasn't too long for you (9+ minutes).

New Home

We have recently relocated to Washington!  So... we have a new home to take care of.  I am still in the process of unpacking.  We were sort of homeless for like a month.  It was hard to eat right and exercise during that time, but I did manage to sneak a few workouts in there, and some hiking, dancing, etc.

I have unpacked all of the kitchen, living room, master bedroom, and bathroom boxes.  There is still a lot of stuff I haven't put away because I am waiting to unpack the guest bedroom stuff.  Once I do that I will begin figuring out the best places for all of our items.  I have a lot of possibilities in mind.  We were lucky enough to have a detached garage included in our apartment, and that currently has a lot of our tools and all of our yard care stuff.

We also have a fitness center & pool as a couple of the apartment amenities.  Carlos and I have been taking advantage of those for our workouts.  We started working out regularly last week.  This week I am starting a program called "3 Weeks to a Bikini-Worthy Body".  It's a 3 week program, and is 6-7 days a week (depending on what you choose).  So Mon, Wed, and Fri, I do cardio at the same time as Carlos is doing his workout in the fitness center.  Sun, Tue, and Thu, mornings I am doing the strength workouts.  Saturdays, Carlos and I plan on doing something active, such as going on a hike, walking, swimming, etc.

Now, that we're getting more settled, I hope to blog on a more regular basis again.  Ta ta for now!

Last week in photos

So the photo plan actually started out working quite well.  Each day before the photo we would straighten up a bit, since there wasn't too much to pick up.  I think Thursday was when I started to let it go a bit.  In my defense, I received some pretty huge news on Thu.  More on that later.  :)

I took photos of kitchen and living room.  However, I will only post living room, due to time & formatting constraints.  Here are the photos:

July 10

July 11



July 12

July 13

July 14

July 15

July 16

Housekeeping July 10-16

So... My housekeeping plan for this week is as follows. I took a picture of the state of our living room and kitchen this morning. I hope to keep these rooms in these states (or better) for at least a week. I will take photos each day to track the progress. Below are the starting photos.



No Good Excuses

Cleaning has not been going well this week.  Here are a few pics for your viewing pleasure displeasure.

MONDAY MORNING, JUNE 20

SATURDAY MORNING, JUNE 25

Housekeeping June 6-12

So... How did things go this past week? I will tell you.

Keeping things clean: This went very well. We did a fairly good job of keeping things clutter free. However, there were a couple of reasons that this went better than usual. There were a couple of days that we were expecting guests, so of course we wanted things tidy for them. And, a more unfortunate reason, is that our little ant problem somehow turned into a HUGE ant problem overnight. That is now under control, thank goodness.

Organization: We worked on the house organization for a while on Saturday. We went a lot our possessions in the small room (we still need to go through stuff under the bed). We gathered a lot of stuff to give away or throw away, therefore making more room (woot woot). We just need to continue doing this kind of work most weekends, and it won't be long before we'll have a place for everything.