Simplify

It's about to be 2006. I really like the idea of starting the New Year with a clean slate. I would love to pare down to the bare essentials every New Year and simplify my life. The problem is that I have many pack rat tendencies. I can't seem to part with my stuff. I have reason to believe this year may be different though. Our house has been on the market for 3 months and there is finally some real interest. If either of these interested parties works out we'll probably be moving into our new project in January or February. Moving is a great time to clean things out and start fresh. Moving at the beginning of the year may just allow me the opportunity to put my money where my mouth is. And that diet starts tomorrow too....

Gift list

Coming up with a Christmas gift list at my age is a real pain. I rarely have appropriately priced gift items that others can get for me. I don't really have hobbies. I don't golf, or collect Hummels or anything. If I go too generic (ex. sweater) I never know what I'll get. Gift cards are great but not a whole lot of fun to watch someone open. Same goes for magazine subscriptions. The things I want are either big ticket items (HDTV would look good in my living room) or so obscure that I wouldn't know how to direct a family member to it (so the last time I was in Chinatown I saw this cookie jar...) or else they are tasks that I would love to have someone else do. So I thought I'd jot down what I would want for Christmas in a perfect world. The second list wouldn't cost anyone a thing.

1.) Buy me a new kitchen from Ikea (about $3,000 in cabinets should do it)
2.) Fix my vintage motorcycle (find a repair man, transport it, pay for it, thanx)
3.) Sell/buy my house (my house has been on the market for nearly 3 months now with no offers)
4.) Pay off my credit card (I'll do it myself when my house sells, but see #3)
5.) Finish my rehab project (c'mon, you know you want to)

Or if you are short on cash...
1.) pull my weeds for the summer
2.) do my taxes
3.) teach my neighbor how to parallel park so he doesn't screw up the street for everyone everytime
4.) organize my life (just give me a system that works for me)
5.) help me move

This is not easy!

I underestimated how hard having a baby would be. I've heard a million times from parents that it's difficult, but I kind of thought they were exaggerating. In retrospect I think they were probably lowballing the amount of effort in an attempt to trick the childless into their group. Either that or they lost their minds and had forgotten how much effort it takes. I thought it was simply a matter of maintenance (feed, change, wash, repeat). You get a good schedule going and it practically takes care of itself. Effortless.

What people don't express is all the stress involved. It's not just the feeding but worrying about when they are going to eat, are they getting enough, too much, are they going to spew it out this time, etc. Changing is much easier, unless of course you start changing them before they are done. That can get messy. I think certain aspects get easier as the child grows. There is more decision making that needs to be done (Can they spend the night at a friends house that you've never met?), but at a certain point they can do a lot of things for themselves. They become less fragile.

One thing this experience has done is made me more sympathetic to single parent families. I think Jen and are doing a pretty good job of working together and sharing the load. She's up with him more often at night during the week since I have to work, but I'm up with him 3 nights a week (Wednesday, Friday and Saturday). I can't imagine how you could do it on your own. I guess that's why people bring their extended families into the mix. Share the burden or go insane seems to be the 2 choices.

We do love him. How could you not? But we are anxious for him to grow up a little. Talking and walking are going to be really fun. Or am I being overly optimistic again?