Personal challenge & banana bread

So I woke up after a decent night of sleep, thanks to my precious girl, with an idea. Because I'm a stay-at-home-mom now, I find it difficult to maintain my identity as "woman," as opposed to "mom," and this kind of bothers me.

I love being a mom, but I also love being my separate, woman self and I think it's important to maintain that as well. I am a woman first and foremost, after all.

My personal challenge is to try something new each week...I've already made the plan to try new recipes each week and I'll continue with that. However, I want to add other things to that. I think this will add some interest to otherwise pretty predictable days.

Some ideas I have:

1. Get a pedicure...have never indulged.
2. Try some new yoga moves.
3. Check out new places in the city (once my car is taken care of)
4. Try new projects and document my progress (or the lack thereof) here. Could be interesting. lol
5. Start a fitness challenge and document my progress (or the lack thereof) here. Ditto on the interesting thing...
6. Try a new workout

Wow, my daughter is very noisily filling her diaper right this second!!! Yowsers!

Those are just a few ideas I have. Nothing too challenging and I don't want anything that would be practically impossible to do with the baby...I don't want to feel like I'm failing. What mom wants to set herself up for that. We have enough on our plates as it is!

Today's Challenge:

1. Make banana bread...we have PERFECT bananas right now...the way-too-ripe-to-consider-eating brown bananas that make delicious bread.
2. Make the cookie dough to freeze for Christmas cookies.

The banana bread turned out fantastic. I followed the recipe exactly as written. It's not the same as the recipe I had from my ex-husband's grandma, but it's damned good. 

Katydid and I had a little photo shoot today. 

She has gotten so big! 

 My little Chunky Monkey!

She's checking out her feet in this shot. I love her little chubby belly.

She is fast asleep in her swing right now. She fell asleep nursing, as she often does. I put her in the swing and of course, she fussed a bit...she yells! She doesn't cry...she yells. It only lasted for about 3 minutes max and she's out. Yay. 

Now I have time to make my bed, vacuum the upstairs, and maybe even get started on the cookie dough. My plan is to have the dough ready so I can more easily prepare for the dessert gathering we're having on Christmas Eve with K's family. 

Step-by-step...that's the trick. Don't try to do it all at once when you have a baby. Just do it step-by-step and if you can make things ahead, by all means do it!