Around the House

Kids Room Makeover

I’m giving the younger kids room a bit of a makeover because they had a bookshelf collapse under the weight of too many books (whee!) and because I stole their favorite chair (and am replacing it) and my parents gave them a sturdier table. But OH MY. I’m thinking I ought to have just gone in there with a rake and a giant bin to rake into. Who knew there was such a mess in there under all that furniture!?!? *sigh*

So, for those after pictures, here’s what happened: I used all of Nick’s fancy green grocery sacks and filled them with boy crap. Then I sat with them as they re-piled the piles into three categories: keep, toss, donate. Then we re-re-piled the piles into categories: pokemon, beyblade, my little pony, science kit, drawing stuff. Then we put them into cubbies and back on the shelves. Speaking of the shelves, I bought spray paint for that new shelf to make it match the old one and I was DENIED my spray paint joy altogether. Naughty children wanted to keep it black. So now I’m plotting to spray paint the red one black. (Must have my precious spray paint time. But what will I spray red now? Watch out.)

Around the House

A dog’s life is never dull

Rose is addicted to Greg’s green Monster’s Inc. socks. Just like a kid with a thousand toys, she carries ordinary things around and tries to play with them.

Around the House, Crafts, Family Time

Ben, Ben, Ben….

Ten minutes ago my kid announced he needed a Christmas shirt for school. Here’s what 10 minutes and some markers gets you.

Around the House, Family Time, Parenting

Scout Cake Baking

Our old scout pack used to do a Cake Auction this time of year, so we’re used to baking cakes by now. Our new pack, though, doesn’t sell the cakes off to raise money (they make plenty in popcorn sales apparently)…instead they EAT THEM ALL UP! The kids were so excited. They put ALL the frosting and ALL the sprinkles on them. Look:

Greg's Christmas themed cake of love and joy — G’s Christmas themed cake of love and joy

Ben's cake of randomness. — B’s cake of randomness.

Even after I took the pictures, they kept coming back and sprinkling on "just a little bit" more. — Even after I took the pictures, they kept coming back and sprinkling on “just a little bit” more.

And for those of you asking “Why all the blue and yellow?” Well, our old pack did scout themed cakes and so the original plan had been to make a Tiger Cub seal and a Webelos seal. Once we found out we could make whatever we wanted, those intricate design plans went way out the window. Whew! Was I ever a relieved Mama.

Around the House, Writing

My Crazy Week

So out of the last six days, I had kids (one, two, one) home three days, I worked two days, I had events going on five nights and parents in town the last one, it was the first anniversary of a friends murder, AND I started Nanowrimo. So you’ll forgive me for not following up on the Biscuit vs. Scone bake-off. Maybe I’ll do that tomorrow. Nothing’s happening tomorrow, right? (Don’t tell me. I like being blissfully unaware today.)

Kids are well now, they’ve all had haircuts, they’ve had a sleepover (either at church or at Nana & Pa’s), and they’ve already eaten most of their Halloween candy.

I’m something like 5600 words into my latest novel for Nanowrimo. It’s going pretty well. This year I have Beta Readers, too, which is different and fun. I’m awaiting feedback. I think it’ll be nifty having a braintrust behind my novel. I’ve got an artist, a photographer, and a librarian reading my stuff. WHEE!

My husband is being sweet about all this. He said “You choose what you do with your free time. I watch football and drink beer. You spend time with crazy people inside your own head.” It’s all good. I still think mine’s better. 🙂

Around the House, Crafts, Exercise, My Own Personal Weirdness, Television & Film

Now with Bonus Content!

I’m feeling list-y at the moment. Some things I’ve done/am doing lately:

Finished the CD uploads to iTunes. Put the CD’s in boxes. Put the boxes in the garage. Nick is taking one to his mom and I’m taking the other to Goodwill. Then I put all the little games into the newly emptied drawers and I’m not tripping over them any more. Yay!
Finished reading the Albert Campion series and the extra short story books. Now am looking for new things to read. Nothing seems good enough.
Listening to The Dead Tossed Waves while I’m at the gym on the recumbent exercise bike. I figured this would keep me going to the gym, but I am finding the narrator so annoying that I skipped a couple of gym days last week. I’d borrow another audio book, but I’m awaiting email from the library telling me what’s gone wrong with my digital account that it tells me I’m no longer entitled to check-outs. Oh well. Back to the gym I go. Must get in shape so I don’t die walking everywhere in Ireland in July.
Trying to put together my PTA board for next year. Yes, I got talked into being President. You may laugh now. Only two people showed up to the meeting and one decided not to join us. Yay. I’m trying to be all Bright Side about it; we’ll have a kick-ass Parliamentarian. 🙂
Bought new pretty things for my backyard with money from sale of backyard things we no longer used: a new table umbrella, some pretty chimes, a cushion for my bench, pillows for the bench, vinyl tablecloths for the tables. Also pretty things for the front yard: 3 spinny-flower-things and a set of tiny chimes and a new bright red watering-can.
Greg bought seeds, potting soil, tiny plastic pots, and some tiny fences and started planting a garden. We need to transplant those little plants today. Must Not Forget!!
We also put a bunch of those seeds in the front garden, but I can’t tell the little flowers from weeds at this point and don’t know what to pull up and what to leave. We did a variety pack and I have no idea what those flowers look like as babies.
I worked at the kids old MDO last week. Super fun! Love being with the little kids. Getting money is just bonus!
I’ve been watching the last season of Doctor Who over again as I fold laundry the last week or so. Whee!
We did another Spring Recital at church. Nick MC’d, his mom and Ben and David all performed, and I made the programs and decided the playing order. It went really well. 🙂 Ben played two beautiful piano pieces. David played one march-type piano piece and another march-style trumpet piece. They both did really well.
We also did a clothing exchange at church. I gave away a couple of bags of our clothes and got more than a couple of bags of clothes back. I’m passing some on to my sister-in-law who is similarly sized, but has different tastes in clothes than I do (colored pants freak me out and she seems to love them). I also got a bunch of shoes! Little cute flat shoes! And one pair of platform sandals that are evenly platformed, if you know what I mean. No slope. I can wear them, look taller, and not fall. Must find more of these kind of shoes.
Now I’m washing all these new-to-me clothes and watching videos on how to tailor some of them to fit me better. I’ve never done that before. Should be interesting. If I’m not working tomorrow, it will be sewing day! I haven’t been crafty in more than a week now, so it’s definitely time!
Photos will appear in the sidebar at some point today or tomorrow. Apparently I haven’t updated them since February?! Aie!

There we go: content unlocked. 🙂

Lisa

Around the House, Everywhere But Home, health, My Own Personal Weirdness

Stuff and Nonsense

I never feel like posting anymore. I’ve been cleaning house and going to church and cleaning house and doing PTA stuff and more of the cleaning house. I haven’t been subbing, because there is apparently a three-strike’s-you’re-out policy behind the scenes at the elementary school and I said no three times last month (one doctor appointment for me, two days of sick kids). My friend M has a brain aneurysm and had to have surgery, one of our parents (I can’t say who; I’m not allowed) turned up positive for a kind of cancer. All three of my kids have had Fifth Disease this month at various times. I saw my doctor for my annual physical and the answer to most of my questions was “weight loss would help with that.”

So… yeah. I’ve started several little projects: I’m uploading all my CD’s to iTunes. I’m taking advantage of Library Things free month thingie and uploading my library again and trying to update that. I’m letting Picasa identify all the people in all the photos left on my hard drive and tag them. I’m back to some scrapbooking again, trying to use up all of the already pre-printed photos before I start just putting together photo books online in the future. I’m selling stuff on local sales sites on facebook and using the money to spruce up the house, since I’m not getting substituting jobs.

Sorry I’m full of the grump today. I think this year is getting to me. Or maybe it’s all the beginning trumpet music from the next room. Who knows. I am just so tired.

Around the House, Music, My Own Personal Weirdness, Writing

Little rituals

On mornings where I don’t have a substituting job or volunteer work to go do, I come back home and turn on the Soundscapes channel on Music Choice, make a pot of hot water, and start making tea.

I have a little teapot that I make chai tea in, filling it half full of hothot water with honey and half with milk and then the loose chai I got in Gatlinburg last year. While that’s steeping, I use the bottom half of the pot (which is a giant cup) to make quicker-steeping tea. Then on colder days I go sit in my corner chair with the owl-pillow-of-love and stare out at the trees and birds. This time of year there are tons of black birds and robins out in the yard fighting for worms. I love hearing them fly off in an enormous whoosh when something scares them.

On warmer days I take my tea outside onto the back patio and sit on my rocker-bench and feel the breeze in my hair. I think about things I’d like to do in my yard later in the year when the kids are home for the summer and better ways to store all our outdoor stuff (I’d love it if my brain would turn off organizing things during my restful times, but it never does.).

Inevitably the phone rings and it’s back to regular life, but during these quiet moments all is right with the world and everything seems hopeful and lovely.

Listening to: “And I’ll Fly Away” by Anne Trenning

Around the House, My Own Personal Weirdness, Organizing, Saving Money

Little things

David stayed home Friday, so we stayed home and I did some little things I’d been meaning to get to (photo editing, making appointments, etc.) 🙂

Greg helped Nick make dinner that night, which was super cute.

:)Then later Nick and I had a wine & cheese night. 🙂 It was lovely.

Yesterday was a church day, but today I got back to my little projects. I cleaned the front hallway closet, took out the hanging shoe rack thing since we haven’t been using it since we no longer exit out the front door in the mornings. I moved those items into bins on the floor of the closet (mostly spare hats & gloves, sunscreen & bug spray, and miscellaneous fun things we use mostly in the summer.) and threw out most of the junk that was in those bins previously.

Next up I’m going to cut the shoe rack into fewer columns of cubbies since the outer rows are broken. I’m going to move those into the garage for wrapping supply storage. Then I moved my purse rack into the hall closet because it was messing with the calmness of my bedroom.

After all that I put away my stamps & ink from last week and gave Greg the leftover bin for his science supplies.

While I was doing all that, my menfolk were getting the garden started for the spring.

Last week I was thinking that I’d love some kind of jewelry rack that hid my jewelry a bit more than what my current system did. By some miracle, I found just what I was looking for in the Family Dollar store:

I bought two, because I have a lot of jewelry. (I also got a cute rug for my garage entryway/laundry room, but I forgot to take a photo of that.) I haven’t filled them with photos yet, but I’ve been digging through Flickr looking through 2009 photos (because they were lost in the Great Hard Drive Failure of 2009) and I’ll have those printed tomorrow while I’m getting things ready for a Secret Project.

Speaking of projects, I also helped Ben with his Solar System project this weekend. He decided to make a mobile, so we made balls from Sculpey, baked them, & painted them today.

Now we’re having dinner and games with my parents. All in all a productive weekend.

Around the House, Music

Back to normal, sort of

This week I spent a day lounging around with a bad sinus infection & visiting the doctor. I also spent a day cleaning the garage and doing this:

(organizing the garage & making a pegboard full of tools)

And

(Organizing the food related magazines & putting them into labeled holders)

I also spent two days subbing, once in kindergarten and once in first grade. Both are fun, but first grade is less exhausting.

Tonight my Girls Night Out got cancelled, but I’m actually kind of glad because it’s the first time in nearly a month that I’m not required somewhere. Wheeeee!!! I’m in comfy clothes & barefoot & drinking tea & listening to happy music. 🙂

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I’m feeling list-y at the moment. Some things I’ve done/am doing lately:

There we go: content unlocked. 🙂

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