Organization - Family Planner

I'm one of those people that set goals, Google the crap out of ways to achieve those goals and then make a 1/2 hearted attempt at following through. Lately, my goals have to do with organization - after all, I have 3 kids now and only 2 arms. It's chaos at its finest.

My latest attempt to get organized involves creating a family planner that will help me manage my work and cleaning. Hopefully I'll get organized enough to have time left over for a hobby... whatever that is!

I'm cutting this post short because I just got off the phone with the pediatrician. My (almost) 7 week old baby just threw up IN HIS EYEBALLS. I swear it was like a scene from the exorcist. I didn't know babies could puke that much. Sooo wrong on so many levels. They told me to "watch it" so I'll be spending some quality time snuggling my baby and making sure he's feeling OK.

If the family planner thing works out, I'll post PDF files of the pages for you all to print out.

I'm still here!

I know I haven't been posting regularly since baby #3 was born, but I'm hoping that will change as things settle down (and he starts eating less often). I've managed to get back into the work routine a little bit - I'm still on a lighter than normal load, which stinks because the bills are piling up and I need to make the money to pay them!

In the spirit of saving time to get a little work done while #3 naps, here's the latest:

I'm still breastfeeding!! Woo-hoo! 6 weeks and going strong! :-D I'm so happy that it has finally worked this time. It's empowering to know that your little one gets everything they need from you. Not to mention that as we head into the hurricane season (not that we get hit that often), I have everything he needs to be nourished and I don't have to hoard formula like it's going out of style.

Besides having all of the equipment on board, it's nice to not have to worry about washing bottles all the time, or sanitizing anything. It's just so much more convenient for me. When we go places I bring a bottle of water and some formula just in case, but the last couple times I've just popped on a nursing cover and done what needed to be done - no questions asked. I'm not sure how that would work in a store, but I'm sure we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

So that's the update, all is going well and I'm weirdly proud of making it about 6 weeks with breastfeeding. The nightly bottle he used to get went away about 2 weeks ago and it's only breastmilk now.

Product Review: Privacy Patches

Today I'm doing a quick product review of a new and super simple internet security device. It's called a Privacy Patch and it's basically a reusable vinyl sticker that goes over the camera on your device to prevent unauthorized users from looking at you.

Why is this of interest to me? Well, I saw a story on 60 minutes about how any hacker can basically access your computer to watch you in your own home. I don't know about you, but I don't want people watching me while I work! I also have 3 kids - I can't imagine what will happen when they're old enough to use the computer.

So, anyway, once you order your patches, here's what you get:

Note that you get 5 patches. I've put mine on my computer, my phone and my iPod. I've also taken them off the cameras a few times and put them back on without losing any stickiness. I'm not sure what I'll use the other 2 for, possibly just replacements. In any event, it seems like a pretty good deal because you get 5 of them. I chose the plain black ones because they're the most discreet (my phone is black), but they have other colors and shapes too like snowflakes, leaves, flowers, hearts and more. There's about a dozen color options to choose from including popular electronic colors - black, white and silver.

Here's what it looks like on a computer:

That little black dot in the center is all there is. It's hardly larger than the computer's camera, so it really doesn't stand out much at all. Of course, if you wanted it to stand out you could always choose another shape or color - that's totally up to you.

To test the patches, I turned on the Facetime application on my computer. All I saw was a solid black screen. Mission accomplished! If someone does decide to try to access my computer's camera (or if I turn it on by accident) they won't see anything. For just $5 this seems like the easiest and cheapest security measure I've ever seen. Go order some Privacy Patches for yourself too!

New Additions

As if having a newborn and 2 other kids wasn't enough, we decided to expand our family even further with 6 chicks. My husband has wanted to be one of those crazy backyard chicken farmers for a while, but I'd always come up with reasons why we couldn't do it. Then one day I found a coop for free on one of the Facebook sites and suddenly chickens became a possibility. My husband went on to find places we could get chicks and soon we were picking out breeds and researching brooders.

We wound up getting 2 Easter Eggers, 2 Barred Rocks and 2 Buff Orpingtons.

Here's a picture of the babies in their brooder:

There's a few of the babies. :-) I'll try to get another post up soon about how we built the (washable) brooder (including accessories in it) for under $50!