Rambling Never ending to-do list

I keep telling myself my next post will be an update on everything about our lives, so I keep avoiding writing anything because I am not ready to sit down for a few hours and hash that out. Small quick update (I will eventually write something more comprehensive): We are going GREAT! George loves his job, Kylie and I are happy at home, my migraines stopped when I stopped breastfeeding, Kylie is growing up and can do lots of "big kid" things now, and I am starting to get the hang of the balance of playing with/teaching Kylie, cleaning/organizing, and having "me" time.

So here I am, writing not a true update, but something more for myself than anyone else. I felt like making it a blog post to maybe give people an insight into my world lately.

Things I try to do every day/ every other day (in approximate order of importance)

• Play with and teach Kylie! It's not something I keep on a to-do list, but it is the most important thing I do every day. I try to do at least one Kylie-centered crafty activity every day. Today we drew with markers on big paper for about 30 minutes. That was fun and creative and we worked on color names, grip (holding the marker to draw,) strength (opening markers,) and independence (she got to choose colors.) Anytime I want a break from physical labor and my brain is too full of French to learn more (this happens quite often) I play along with whatever Kylie is doing. Sometimes we put buttons in the button slot (I cut a button shaped hole in the lid of an old butter container,) sometimes we build with legos, sometimes we just play silly kiss-the-belly wrestling, etc.
• Learn French via Memrise. I currently have 6 different French courses I am working on, each with different time goals (through Memrise, I need to keep my streak!) If you want to know the exact names of any of them so you can join me, just ask.
• Sentences, 45 minutes. This basically goes like so- Learn "I," Learn "to like," Learn "I like," Learn "fruit," Learn the sentence "I like fruit." This is nice because just knowing words does not help with how the words go together. Not everything is a direct translation. Since it is not all learning new words, but rather how they go together, I can do a lot in a day. 
• Nouns/Adjectives, 15 minutes. The course says that it is the first 1000 words you need to know in French. Very useful, but trying to do too much a day makes me forget things.
• Infinitive Verbs, 5 minutes. The most common 450 verbs in French. Can't speak without verbs!
• Irregular verb conjugations, 5 minutes. This has the present, past, imperfect, future, and another future (?) for a LOT of irregular verbs. I am working my way through the present tenses in order of "I know that one!" or "That sounds useful." It ends up being one verb's present tense conjugations each day, and occasionally I need to water a bunch so no new learning happens that day. Once I do all the present tenses, I will tackle the other tenses.
• Foods, 5 minutes. I wanted to be able to name most things in a grocery store, so I added this one. 
• Toddler vocab, 15 minutes. A lot of this is stuff I already know, but in slightly different form, which is way more challenging than I would expect. Ex- "an orange" as opposed to the usual "the orange." It also has words that I use a lot, but are not "common" to everyone, such as diaper, stroller, teddy bear, etc. It's mostly easy stuff I know for now, so I have it set to 15 minutes until I get to the more brain-straining new stuff, and I will change it to 5 minutes.
• In total, that is 1.5 hours minimum per day learning French. I have also started filling out "verb cards" to help visualize all the tenses for verbs. I have many more to go, and then I need to use them to help me learn past tense, future tense, etc. There are 13 tenses for verbs in French (at least, I am learning 13 of them.) Most of them have multiple forms (I, you, s/he, we, y'all, they.) That is more of an ongoing project though, especially for out of the house since I have physical cards. 
• I do not usually sit down and do all of this each day at the same time, or my brain would want to melt. I do a little in the morning (particularly watering in the morning) then when I want to sit down/ when Kylie wants to sit on me when she is getting sleepy for naptime, I do some more. I usually end up dragging myself through whatever is left 10-11pm. I really need to play catch-up though, and learn as much as I can as fast as I can, so I can teach Kylie French while she is at the perfect age. I speak simple sentences to her in French during the day. =)
• Wash clothes or diapers/Put away clothes. If we do not have things to wear, that would cause lots of problems. If Kylie does not have any diapers... that would be very bad. I try to keep them put away, but some weeks it does not happen as soon as I might like. If Kylie is in a good mood, it works fine, if she is in a cranky mood, she ends up making it way harder.
• Have something for dinner. Lately I have been making freezer meals, which are AMAZING. It usually takes a whole afternoon to prepare 6 meals, we eat one that day, and I have 5 other days worth that I put in the freezer. That means sometimes when I think about what to do for dinner, I just put one on the counter to thaw and then pop in the oven. The afternoon of cooking is nowhere near as much time as I would spend making dinner over 6 days. At one point we had 15 meals in the freezer. So "have something for dinner" is just choosing what to make that day and putting it on the counter around noon.
• Wash dishes. This is more of a goal, because lately I have only been washing what I NEED to wash. I need to play catch-up with dishes very soon. I can sometimes get Zach to wash dishes instead.
• Pick up toys/trash in living room and vacuum. This happens every other day or so. Kylie is a "free-range" toddler, so she eats sitting on the floor, and ends up making messes a lot. Also, the toys make an extremely hard to navigate maze by Day 2. If I ever have to be on the phone for a while, I pick up the toys then. Multi-tasking! 
• Wipe kitchen counters, Sweep kitchen, and mop kitchen. This happens at least twice a week. Again, Kylie makes messes and it requires cleaning up after her.

That is the end of the "things that actually possibly get done regularly" list. My day goes something like this: Wake up around 9:30am to Kylie waking me up (not crying, she just sits up and starts smooshing my face with her hands usually.) We either hang out in the bedroom/her room for 10 minutes or so, or take a shower. The hanging out is so she does her morning pee before getting a fresh diaper. For a while, she would pee in the potty in the mornings, but lately if she starts to pee in the potty, she gets scared and will hold the rest until she gets a diaper on, so we just let her pee in the diaper for now and change after. Kylie gets a diaper change and picks out a shirt to wear that day, and we head downstairs. We stop by the kitchen and get Kylie breakfast (raisin bread and water lately) and me some avitae from the fridge (caffeinated water!) I sit at my computer and check my e-mail, messages from various sites, etc while drinking my avitae and Kylie eats. Once I wake up a little, I do some Memrise (maybe 30 minutes?) 11am or so, Kylie usually starts wanting to get into my lap, which is code for "I need mommy attention." I choose something on my list above (minus dishes) and we go work on it together. After that we have lunch together on the floor (leftovers most days.) Then Kylie is good with "mommy time" and will usually play a bit on her own, so I try to work on things that are less Kylie-friendly, like dishes or clearing off my desk. I usually get tired of cleaning 2-2:30pm or so, and play with Kylie. This is usually where the craft time is, or going to the pool. Kylie gets sleepy 3:30-4pm. Sometimes she will just go lay on her bed and sleep, and other times she wants some cuddles while she gets drowsy, and then I put her on her bed. When Kylie is doing her "circling the drain" sleepy mode, I cannot be doing anything "interesting" or she will perk up and refuse to nap. The computer is deemed not interesting to Kylie, but dishes, cleaning living room, and folding laundry, are super interesting. Therefore, I usually do more Memrise when Kylie is sleepy. Once she falls asleep and my brain hurts again, I go work more on non-Kylie-friendly things. Calling places (so Kylie is not trying to steal the phone to talk in it, or screaming in the background,) sorting mail, washing dishes, starting on dinner if I am cooking that day, etc. Kylie usually wakes up from her nap, we play, go to the park, or do a chore together, and then George gets home and we have dinner. George and I usually play a game together on weeknights if Kylie is being in a decent mood. She will generally play on her own in the evening, and come over to me periodically to get in my lap for 5 minutes at a time. I think of it as recharging "mommy time" for her. She starts getting cranky 10pm or so, and starts winding down and wanting more lap time. This is around when I do whatever is left (if any) in my daily Memrise regimen. When Kylie eventually falls asleep I put her on her bed in the living room until one of us is heading to bed upstairs. We take her upstairs, change her diaper, put on PJs, and tuck her into her toddler bed. The toddler bed is touching our bed, so I can cuddle her in the night if she wants, but she is on her OWN bed with her own blanket. If she is semi-awake after changing at night, she will go lay in her bed and cuddle with Owliver (her stuffed animal she picked out.) Then the whole thing starts over the next day.

Obviously that is an ideal day, and there are MANY non-ideal days. Last week I was not feeling well, and this week Kylie is teething, which is part of why our dishes situation got so bad.

The things I should get to in a somewhat timely manner list. I am going to start trying harder to do at least one small thing from this list each day. I was pretty good about that for 2 about weeks, then I dropped the ball last week when I was not feeling well.

• Empty a box. We still have boxes from when we moved in 4.5 months ago stashed around.
• Take everything out of something (drawer, etc) and put back in neatly/organized. My desk drawers are getting crazy because I store random things in them to keep stuff away from Kylie.
• Call a place. I need to set up appointments/pay bills/ask questions, etc. I hate calling places though.
• Open some mail. I am maybe bad about that...
• Sort papers on the table into the filing box. 
• Put upstairs objects upstairs where they go, and downstairs objects downstairs where they go. It's mostly only an issue for upstairs things. They get left downstairs and then put on the table/my desk and just sit there for a long time. I might take it to the top of the stairs, but I don't actually put things where they go often enough when it is on a different floor. Mostly because Kylie likes to be on the same floor as me and that task involves a lot of back-and-forth.
• Do super important paperwork. I have been avoiding a few things that I should really do.
• Put things on freecycle or a selling site. Cake tins I will never use, our old stroller (we got a new one,) spinning wheel, I am sure there are more things...
• Build Kylie's new toddler table. 
• Blog more often.

I feel like there is more I should add, but I don't know what. My life is exhausting, and I am only able to chip away at the non-daily stuff that needs to be done. It IS going though, just super slow. If I get help (if people visit and want to play with Kylie) I can get things done faster, but even at the current rate things will eventually all get done. We just joined the YMCA, and I hope to go to some Zumba and Yoga classes on weekday mornings. It will take away time from my already busy schedule, but I think I will feel better and so can get more done in the long run. Kylie already started her swim lessons on Sunday and she loves them!

I am really not sure what the take-away is from this post to anyone. It was more of a thinking-in-text for me, and maybe a reference for later. I will do a better update blog post soon hopefully. =)

Rachael