A lazy fall Saturday

What's this? A fall Saturday with no plans? Well, the thoughts of how to spend our free time are nearly intoxicating. Until I start to really think about the breakdown of the day. Bennett has his last soccer practice this morning and then I have to go have some blood drawn. Oh, there's the Auburn game coming on a little after noon and then we need to go to church tonight since I am helping to throw a baby shower for a friend tomorrow. Sometime today I need to go to take my coat in to have it dry cleaned for a trip to Utah next week and I also need to run to the craft store so I can finish up the favors I'm making for the baby shower. Not to mention all the pre-packing we have going on to get our house ready to go on the market.

At least the demands on my time are mostly my own. No play dates, birthday parties, soccer games, etc. That's our lazy Saturday, folks! :)

Putting it back together

Ever get that feeling that your child takes everything for granted? Ever think to yourself that maybe they've become too spoiled? I have the solution for you! Seal off their room for approximately FIVE WEEKS (gosh has it been that long??) so that they don't have access to their normal toys, clothes, or even books for a while. After the five weeks is over, clean up their room, put things back in order and let them in. You will be amazed by their pure joy as they reenter the room that once held things that were "boring" or didn't have enough room for their stuff. Gasps of pleasure. Words like "wow" and "I love it" came out of her small mouth as she walked around her room as if for the first time. She would open a drawer she hasn't seen in over a month and say something like "oh here's that horse, I love that little guy". She was so excited to actually put the things that she's had in the guest room upstairs back where they belong. Funny how that works.

It's been a LONG five weeks. I mean, it's hard for a man who works long days (gone approximately 12 hours a day during the week) and has busy weekends to get projects like this done, but my husband has managed to patch the ceiling in Morgan's room where there was a leak from upstairs, scrape the popcorn ceiling, run a ceiling light, and texture and paint the ceiling. It's all done now, thank goodness. When he tore down the patch the first time, I was starting to get worried. He and I both discussed, with amusement, Morgan's diagrams of the work. She took a lot of time to draw each step of the process. First picture was of her room with the water stain on the ceiling. Next picture was of the ceiling with the hole. Next picture was of the ceiling with the patch. Next picture was of the ceiling with a hole. At the time, she still had another picture to do. You got it, one with another patch. Once she got them done, she taped them together and taped them on the outside of her door. According to her, it was to warn people about what they might encounter in the room. She also asked me to write the following on a post-it note, which we also taped to the outside of her bedroom door.

"Under Construction. Please do not enter."

Lance wasn't quite sure what to make of all of this, but it certainly didn't inspire confidence in him when it was time to go repatch. But, he was able to get it done to his liking the second time and then after a few false starts, was able to get the ceiling sanded, primed, and textured.

Today was the day of finishing touches. The light was installed, the walls were wiped down and paint touched up. The floor was mopped and remopped. Furniture was put back into place and pictures and stuff re-hung. Today was moving in day. And it felt so good. Not just for her, but also for me. I now have access to the 5 cubby hanger in her closet, that I use to divvy out her clothes for the week every Sunday. I'm able to put her crayons, markers, and folders back on her desk. The books she's had access to that have been strewn about the house for over a month now have found their home again.

I feel as though a part of my life that has been living in chaos is now straight again. It feels great! Long live finished projects!

The quiet before the storm

It's quiet around here today. I was up earlier than I wanted this morning because I wasn't sleeping well. Bennett decided to wake up at 4:30 and was babbling and singing some unrecognizable song. I got up and got the upstairs bathroom cleaned and then came down to start breakfast for the kids. I unloaded the dishwasher and packed up the car with my gym back and diaper bag. After dropping Morgan off at school (and delivering her well-earned potted mini rose plant to her teacher!), I went to the gym. I did 30 minutes of weights and then took the first 30 minutes of the spin class. I felt obligated to tell the instructor that I had to leave early at the beginning of class so she wouldn't make a scene when the time came. So much for that! When I got off my bike and started stretching, she's all "BYE PAIGE! I WANT TO LEAVE NOW, TOO!" The class was packed (in fact, I got the last bike). So, I was a little embarrassed. But I'm still glad I went - it was a good way to spend 30 minutes! She is tough!

After I got showered up, I picked Bennett up from the nursery and we headed upstairs to the Terrific Toddlers class. He definitely enjoyed it more this week than last week, but when "free play" time was almost over, he took my hand and showed me to the door. :)

Today was an early release day for Morgan, so I headed straight from the tennis club to pick her up. We came home and had lunch and then the kids played for a good hour and a half while I finished cleaning bathrooms, dusting, and vacuuming. I have a good head start on this week's chores already, that feels great!

I ended up wasting away nap time working on some favors for the in/out board dinner for the moms club. I finally have the design nailed down, now it's just the tough part of printing, cutting, gluing, etc. I can do that while I'm vegging out in front of the TV tonight, though.

Because now the kids are up and I need to run to Target to look for stuff for the class' door for Trick-A-Dooring. And I need to find the stuff for the scarecrow and schedule the time in the class for the kids to help make it. Oh, and I also need to find time to go solicit raffle prizes for the pumpkin patch party. Not to mention decorating my own house (Morgan is feeling jaded about the fact that EVERYBODY has their decorations up EXCEPT US. She's so deprived!) Seems like all this stuff is hitting all at once! :)

I guess it's a good thing today is quiet and I can get a head start. Because after tomorrow, the week's pace picks up drastically. And then next week my parents will be in town. We are so excited! :)

My default response is to sit on my butt!

As you may remember, I was warned about "cutting my husband out of my life" by taking on all the work around the house. I was advised to create a spreadsheet with all the week's tasks on it and ask everyone to pick the things they LOVE to do. So, I spent a good portion of time yesterday, taking everything out of my normal format and putting it into a new spreadsheet. I did this, because I guess I expected a response of joy and happiness over DOING CHORES! Because I apparently just met my husband yesterday.

Instead, I got a "oh, yeah, I read your blog" and some half hearted glances at the spreadsheet. After promising him that he didn't HAVE to pick any of the chores, he reluctantly selected his chores. Except the chores he picked (cleaning sinks and toilets in bathrooms, cleaning bathroom mirrors, replenishing toilet paper, and sorting through coupons and disposing of expired ones) are ones that I normally do on Mondays. And since he didn't do them this morning at 5am, before he left for work, I'm feeling a little bit like hmmmm. What do I do today? I do have a whole list of other stuff that needs to be done (that I would normally do on another day), but no. I'm stuck thinking about my normal Monday chores. I've solved the issue by deciding that I'll sit on my butt. Because that will get it done. :)

I dropped Morgan off at school this morning and headed to the tennis club. I got a decent workout in (my arms will be hating me later), got a shower, and then tried to figure out how to spend the $300+ credit I have at the tennis club before it expires on Wednesday. I decided to rent a locker and get Lance a massage. Still, have lots of money to spend. I'm about to buy some very overpriced athletic gear, but if I don't, I'll have nothing to show for the credit I have! I shouldn't have waited so long! After getting the locker and massage set up, I picked Bennett up from the nursery and we headed to the Terrific Toddlers class at the club. He normally LOVES this class, but he kept grabbing my fingers and leading me to the door. Wanting to leave. Or wanting to be held. With his fingers shoved in his mouth. I'm thinking he's working on some teeth? He's not usually that clingy in social situations like that. Not even "If you're happy and you know it" could get him to break away. Poor guy!

After the gym, I went home and cooked up some grilled cheese sandwiches for the kids and packed them up. We went to pick up Morgan from school and then hit the park for lunch and playtime after with some friends. Bennett lightened up with food and play and now the kids are napping. We didn't get home until 2pm, so they'll probably sleep until at least 4. Which gives me only a couple of hours to kill before Lance gets home. This just might turn out to be a good one! It's also the only night this week that I'll be home, so I need to make sure I take my turns with bath time, pajamas, teeth brushing and bedtime stories. My poor hubby - I have something every other night this week!

At least he gets to DO CHORES! :)

It's not all about me

This morning, after dropping Morgan and her friend Colin off at school, I ran home to whip up a fruit salad and then headed over to my MOPS meeting. This time, instead of a craft, we had a speaker. Since the theme of MOPS this year is "Adventures in Mothering", the topic of today's discussion was "A Three Ring Circus".

The speaker did an excellent job talking about balance and what that means. She talked about how people typically fall into one of two categories - "people" people or "task" people. She talked about how you'll know the "task" people because they have all their cereals and pastas in Tupperware containers. Neatly organized. Alphabetically. And lined up properly. To "task" people, these types of activities bring them happiness. The "people" people would rather do activities with other people and their cereal and pastas are in the cabinet in the general vicinity of the grains. :) While I believe that I have a talent for organization, I'm very much a people person. I love hanging out with my family and friends.

The speaker talked about balancing your life by adding more of the things you LOVE to do to your daily life. Yeah, we all have things we don't want to do, but we have to be responsible adults. They need to get done, but does everything have to get done every day? She suggested picking three things. And making at least two of them things you LOVE to do. She said to not add anything else to your plate until the three are done. And then, when they are done? Add just one more. If you have to put that one off until tomorrow because you can't do it, that's okay, too. Also, there are things that maybe you don't LOVE to do, but that you do well. For me, that's organization. I do it well, but it's not what drives me. So, it's something that I would just naturally do.

Does it all have to be done by us (meaning us moms)? This was a point that really struck me. Because since I've been staying at home, I've been trying very hard to "do it all". To do all the things that I couldn't do because I was working. Couldn't organize my house. Couldn't even keep it clean. Couldn't spend time with my kids doing their activities. Couldn't take them to the park every day. Couldn't spend much time with my friends. Couldn't enjoy every weekend with my family because there was always something that I had to do because I couldn't get to it during the week. So, now? I'm trying to do it all. And I'm not letting anyone else help. I have taken sole responsibility for the house, the food, the activities, the financial planning and tracking, the yard, etc., etc.

The speaker pointed out that by trying to do it all ourselves, we are doing a disservice to the other people in our family. When we do it all, where does that leave everyone else? It's true that maybe the kids can't mop the floor the right way, but why not let them try if that's what they want to do? Why not let them contribute? And with our husbands, why not hand some of it over to them? What makes us think that they WANT us to do it all? Maybe they feel cut out.

This really hit home with me. My husband is wonderfully indecisive. I say wonderfully because I'm not at all indecisive. And this has worked for ME. But, maybe this isn't the best thing for us. We need to continue to live our lives as a couple, even when sometimes it's easier for me to just do it myself. Because that's not fair to him.

Here was her idea. Make a big spreadsheet of all the stuff you have to do. Each week, let every member of the family pick the things they LOVE to do. Then let every member pick the things that they do well, but maybe don't love. What you'll be left with are the things nobody wants to do. And then, do them together and make them fun.

I'm going to have a discussion with my hubby on this and see what he thinks. Because you know what, this isn't just about me. It's about my family too. And if there's a way to make everyone happier, then I'm all about that. Just wait until I spring this one on Lance. Honey! I'm going to make you soooo happy! You can do laundry again!! :)

Now what?

Blame it on hormones or whatever you will, but by some stroke of happenstance, my entire house is clean and all my laundry is done. I had a burst of energy, starting Sunday morning and I've managed to get almost my entire week's worth of chores done in just a few days. Now what??

Bennett and I enjoyed a nice quiet morning at home. Just me and him. Giggling. Talking about animals, him making me taco and baking powder soup for lunch (play kitchen). Then, me chasing him around the house as he went from one thing he wasn't supposed to get into to another. We did manage to squeeze in a trip to the grocery store, where he really charmed everyone. Starting with the Fed Ex driver we saw on the way in. He has this thing about waving to the workers. Don't know how he knows it, but when he sees someone doing their job, he waves and says hi. Not to the other shoppers in the store. Nope. The Fed Ex guy in his truck. The butcher putting out meat. The cashier in line or the mail person in their truck. Never to anyone else. Ever. Kind of reminds me of Sesame Street for some reason! :)

Morgan has ballet this afternoon and while she's dancing, I'll be strolling around with Bennett, getting my exercise in. Since I managed to miss my 5pm class yesterday due to the kids oversleeping their naps, I ended up walking on the treadmill after the kids went to bed (but before the new Heroes!) I'm walking tonight and then I'll be meeting my kindergarten mom friends in the morning to walk before playgroup. My poor arms are going to feel neglected! But, you squeeze in what you can, right? Maybe I'll do some push-ups and sit-ups before the kids wake up from their naps.

Girls night at the movies is tonight. We are going to see The Women. I heard that there's not a single man in the entire movie. Which, I understand it's about women, but c'mon. Can't they throw a Brad Pitt or a Johnny Depp in there for us? We have needs, people! :)

Oh, and for those wondering how things are going on the babysitting front, I had no choice but to suck it up and call one of the girls from the tennis club. On Thursday night, I have my new bible study and Lance is going to a Giants game with his coworkers. Bible study is during bedtime, so I didn't feel right about bringing them to the childcare at the church when they would rather be in their bed. So, I called one of the girls from the list and she'll be here on Thursday! I figure it's a good trial run to see how she does and if all goes well, maybe we can see about getting a once or twice a month date night into her rotation. Wouldn't that be heaven?

A nap does a world of good

It wasn't a long nap, but it was still a good solid 25 minutes of sleep. I woke up happy and feeling rested and that's always a good sign. When Bennett woke up, we hung out and had graham crackers and snuggled on the couch. When Morgan woke up, Bennett and I hugged on her and scratched her back (this is her favorite thing) and then I got some toys out for them. Morgan had some snack and then asked Bennett if he wanted to play in the playroom. He said "yeah" and they've been playing in their nicely since. Before I know it, Lance will be home and our weekend will have started.

Leftovers for dinner, so no cooking required. At some point, I'll have to catch up on all the chores I've put off over the past few days, but they'll wait. For now, I'm enjoying a restful afternoon!

Feeling good

I went to bed at a respectable hour last night after suffering through another one of Lance's blockbuster picks. This one was Meet Bill, which wasn't TERRIBLE like other movies such as Drawing Flies. But needless to say, it sucked all the life out of me, so when it was over, I was ready to go to bed. And then the kids slept until almost 8am this morning.

With no solid plans this weekend, I have all kinds of things swarming through my head for us to do. After eating breakfast, I took the kids with me to the tennis club to give Lance some time to himself at home. I took cardio kickboxing and the kids colored pictures. The kickboxing class was really good and we did way more kicks than we normally do. I'm feeling great! I picked up the kids from the nursery and then we came back home after to find Lance staining our back deck (this has needed to be done for over a year!). Maybe I'll have to do this every Saturday! That lengthy to-do list might see some traction as I work out and have someone else watch the kids. Not sure why I didn't consider this before. Heck, I'd even be willing to take a bullet and stay at the club for another hour after the class! I could hang out in the steam room or sauna and then go pick up the kids. Imagine the things that will get done!

It's nice and crisp out this morning. Mid 60s. It's feeling more like fall and with football on today, I'm feeling really good. I love this time of year. Plan for the rest of the day is to get my housework done during nap time and get everything ready for dinner before the game starts. I think I'm going to roast a chicken for us tonight.

Our summer days are counting down...

This weekend was great, don't get me wrong, but I'm a bit run down after too much fun. Seems like as much as I love the weekends, I also love getting back into my groove of the week on Mondays. And knowing that we are only three more Mondays away from Morgan's first day of Kindergarten makes it even more special. Special because I can't wait to GET HER OUT OF MY HAIR and special because, well, it's her first day of big kid school. *sob*

We got up this morning and I got half of my chores done while also getting the kids dressed, fed and all sun screened up. We walked the mile to the community center where we splashed and played in the pool, had snack, and then played a little more before it was time to come home. We walked the mile home and it was lunchtime when we walked in. I got the kids settled down at the table with their corn dogs while I finished cleaning the bathrooms and then ate my lunch myself. There was only one "oh crap" moment during the whole thing and that was when Morgan somehow flung her glass of milk off the table and onto the floor. Glass shards everywhere, Bennett looked confused and a little scared and she was nearly in tears telling me that she didn't mean to and that it was an accident. I told her that it was okay. No big deal. Let's not cry over spilt milk, after all. Once lunch was over, I knew Morgan had a too-busy weekend when she informed me that she was going to go wash her hands and face, go into her room and turn her music on and crawl into bed. I could come in there whenever I was ready to read her her story. So, I read Bennett his story, put him down for his nap and found Morgan all cuddled up inside her comforter, laying on "If you give a moose a muffin". I read her her story and then she quickly went to sleep.

I've spent the better part of their nap time catching up on stuff I normally do on Sundays - meal planning, planning out the classes I'm taking at the club this week, planning my to-do lists, shopping lists, and errands lists. I was too busy and too into MOI yesterday that I did none of this. So, now I'm fully organized again to start my week. Ahhh, love it. I'm debating putting some "bigger" organizational stuff on my to-do list, but part of me wants to put this off until after school starts. I guess I'm planning out the last of the summer and that stuff just doesn't seem to fit the category.

I was reading a book yesterday about preparing for the start of school. It gave lots of practical advice about it, such as having an "end of summer" celebration dinner and starting to get the kids to bed earlier, 10-15 minutes a night. Given the kids were up at least 2 hours past their bedtime each night this weekend, I think I need to get a grip on this. Because next week? I have to start WAKING THEM UP EARLY (I know!!). Just to be prepared because the following week? I have to have Morgan to school by 8. Eeek! So, tonight we'll have our "end of summer" celebration dinner. Morgan has requested pasta, so I'm going to come up with some sort of semi-healthy concoction. And we'll celebrate the end of the summer and start working our way towards being responsible citizens again. You know, getting to bed at a decent time and even trying to get up on a regular schedule. Phooey.

Less than blissful

I'm not feeling the domestic bliss today. It's really just a series of minor irritations, but I'm just not feeling it. I know, I know. You are saying to yourself, "But she's always so cheerful and upbeat and always LOVES being around those two kids of hers, how can this be?" *yeah right* But trust me, if given the option TODAY, I just might opt to go back to work, where I fondly recall having a lunch hour. Yes, an HOUR. Devoted entirely to ME and EATING. I also recall being able to have a discussion on the phone without someone nagging me to play with them or screaming at me that they want more water. Yeah, I know most of the people who I worked with were children in their own right; but at least I could look at them, tell them they needed to figure it out, and not worry about whether or not they would cry or hit each other. (most of the time).

Here are just a few of the reasons why I'm feeling less than blissful today.

1. After dinner last night, I still had not gotten any exercise in and so instead of cleaning the kitchen, I went for a run. I came home and Lance had cleaned up the kitchen EXCEPT the pots and pans that needed to be washed by hand. I was actually surprised to find that the food wasn't just sitting out, since I didn't put it away myself, so I was totally prepared to wash those dishes. Except that when I thanked him for cleaning up the kitchen, he told me that he hadn't washed the pots and pans, but he would. How nice of him! Except as of this morning, they were not washed. Not even soaked. And I cooked pan seared steaks last night - and the whole "pan-searing" can do quite a number on a pan. So, I got to get up and immediately start washing dishes this morning. Lucky me! Oh, and we'll just tack this one on to here as well. I'm not sure how he didn't notice when he was cleaning up the kitchen last night, but the dishwasher was totally full when I got up this morning. And totally dirty. It had not been run. I know, it's so unbelievable that someone could actually FILL a dishwasher to the BRIM and not run it, but it happened to me. I swear it! So, now I have to run it and wait for it to be done and dry before I can put any dirty dishes in there. Yeah, not happy about this.

2. I was informed last night that we were "running low on dog food". So, I put it on my shopping list and thought that was that. Except this morning? Barely half a bowl of food for the dog. Now, I guess I should have some sort of "sense" for when we are running low, but honestly this is not MY thing. This is Lance's thing. So, the shopping trip got bumped up in priority since the poor dog can't starve. And who knows how much Bennett is going to feed her.

3. In another Best-Mother-Award moment, I called this morning to see about taking Morgan back in for her TB test. You see, I totally FORGOT to go back in the 2-3 days after the first test to have the test read. Yeah, I know. I suck. I had called when I realized, but it was too late to be read and they told me to call back another day to see about doing a drop-in for her TB test. So, I thought this morning would be perfect since it's right on the way to Morgan's soccer practice. So I call to see about the drop-in appointment and they tell me that she can't have the test performed again until SIX WEEKS after her previous vaccinations. What??? I'm totally thrown off by this, so I ask to speak to a nurse and they have to take a message. When she does get around to returning my call, she has to explain to me (several times, slowly so that I understand, and probably answering too many of my questions) why she can't have the TB test done now. The upside is that they had already prepared the paperwork and so it looks like she has complied with all the necessary vaccinations for kindergarten. Plus, they don't view her as a "high risk" person for TB. While I thank them for trying to work with me here and realize that I am ultimately to blame for this entire situation, I'm also a person who typically plays by the rules, so this really bothers me. I ask for the date that I can bring her back in and am told by the nurse that it's 4 weeks after her previous vaccination, so Aug 16. So, I can still have this done before she starts school, which is good. But this is all just another minor irritation to my not-so-blissful morning.

4. So, now with no TB test to go have done before soccer practice, I decide to go ahead and do my daily chores (laundry, cleaning out the diaper bag, my purse and wallet, cleaning the toaster, cleaning the bathroom mirrors and the computer screens). I actually break one of the mirror panels in our downstairs bathroom and can only think of seven years bad luck as I'm finishing the rest of my chores. As I'm doing this, Morgan pulls out Bennett's Mega Blocks and starts playing with them and then getting mad when he wants to play with them. I remind her that they *are* his, but that's neither here nor there to her. So, I go get *her* wooden blocks from the playroom for him to play with. I bet you can see where this is going. Now she wants NOTHING to do with his blocks and he only wants to throw her blocks at the wall, at her, at the TV, whatever. So, FIVE TIMEOUTS IN A ROW later, I'm counting down the minutes to leaving for soccer practice.

5. The phone rings and it's the people in charge of soccer and they're having to cancel soccer practice today because the coach is having car trouble. They will make up the session by adding another day to the end of the "season". Except that that is during school. She tells me that she's been hearing that a lot from the calls she's making this morning, so they might have to refund some of our money. Okay, whatever. And now we are here at home with no plans of leaving whatsoever.

6. Next up? Shopping. I decide that since I have the extra time and now have to go to the grocery store today, I will look at next week's ads to see if I should hold off on buying anything I was planning on buying until they are on sale. So, essentially all the planning I did on Sunday had to be redone. And as I'm doing this, I get a text message from the other co-director of the Moms club. She wants me to call her. Only a few people have RSVP'd that they will be at the board meeting. So, I call and unload on her all the issues I'm having right now with lack of participation of *different* people doing stuff for the club. I'm almost to the point where I just don't care anymore because I honestly cannot keep asking the SAME people to do the stuff that needs to be done. And I certainly don't want to have to do everything myself. As I'm on the phone with her, I walk outside into our courtyard for some privacy so I can speak freely. Except Morgan, with her ever so keen "Mom is on the phone" senses, follows me out there and stands, with the door cracked ever so slightly, trying to listen to what I'm saying. I'm doing all the hand motions for "GET YOUR ASS BACK INSIDE", but she acts like she doesn't know what I'm saying. I finally have to interrupt the person I'm talking to to ask her to get back inside. I told her that I came outside so I could talk on the phone in privacy. Want to know what she asks me? "Can I just play with the sand table?" The one that's outside? In the courtyard? Two feet from where I'm standing? Are you freaking serious??

7. Am I on number seven? I can't even keep count! We'll make that minor annoyance number seven.

8. So after getting off the phone, I finish up the grocery list and once the kids have been sufficiently "snacked", we head off to the store. The shopping trip itself is only your typical level of irritation - with Morgan jumping around from square to square at the store (note to self: see if we can't find a different store WITHOUT varying colored squares) and with Bennett yelling MAMA at the top of his lungs. I get to the dog food aisle and there's NO WAY I can get that size bag INTO the cart. You know why it needs to go INSIDE the cart?? Because there is no bottom rack on this cart. (I'm using the term cart since I am apparently the only person on the face of the planet that uses the word buggy for a shopping cart. I want you guys to understand me) SO GLAD I DECIDED I HAD TO SHOP TODAY FOR DOG FOOD!! But whatever. There was plenty of other things we needed, so it wasn't totally wasted.

9. They are running a promotion where for every $25 you spend, you get something for free. I spent $75, so I got some free bread, lunch meat and CINNAMON ROLLS. Like freshly baked cinnamon rolls. Cream cheese or vanilla, the cashier wants to know. Cream cheese, of course. This is irritation number nine. I don't NEED those freaking cinnamon rolls staring me down. But how can I turn them down?? They were FREE! I know you aren't going to believe me, but they actually called my name in the car on the way home. I know I heard it.

10. Staying strong, I have my EVERY DAY lunch of light bread, with fat free mayo, and 2% cheese and 98% fat free lunch meat (with pickles!), a side of baby carrots and 1 oz of Ruffles Light chips. And the kids got to eat a cinnamon roll after their lunch. Only they didn't finish it. So there was about 1/4 of a cinnamon roll left on Morgan's plate. And then, it practically DARED me to eat it. I don't know about you, but I'm always up for a dare. So, I ate it. And you know what?? It sucked!! It was dry and not at all delicious. It soooo wasn't worth putting those calories in my body.

11. Even though I got all my chores done this morning, know what I had to spend the first part of nap time doing? Unloading the freaking dishwasher, so I could put the dirty dishes in the dishwasher. Yeah, not happy about this.

And they day isn't even half over. What other blissful things await me today?? I can hardly wait to find out!

The tale of the water heater

One of the things on my to-do list for the past month or so was to drain the water heater. It is something that is apparently supposed to be done once or twice a year and that we've never done. Like at all. In the eight years we've lived in this house. I looked it up online and found some great instructions and thought maybe I could do it myself, but wanted to wait until my husband was home to help just in case something went wrong. Now, I have to admit that I don't think my husband was totally on board until I sent him the link to the website that said it needed to be done every 6-12 months and why. I'm pretty sure he chalked it up to one of my hair brain "chores" in his never ending honey-do list.

So, yesterday, I gave him advance warning that it was going to go down that night. He's much like the kids in that he needs "transitional warnings" for things he doesn't want to do. Once the kids were tucked in bed, we reviewed the instructions online and said it seemed pretty straight forward and then proceeded to drain the water heater.

I have to give a little background here and tell you that things of this nature nearly NEVER go according to plan. Like, about two months ago, as I was washing dishes and the kitchen sink handle broke off? Yeah, that involved a sander, a blow torch and various other saws and tools I can't even recall. Hubby had to take a day off of work to deal with it. It's not HIM, he's not Tim "The Tool Man" Taylor, honestly. It's this ancient house we own. Honestly!

Anyway - back to the tale at hand. So, the first obstacle was shutting off the water source to the water heater. It would not turn off until we found the appropriate wrench to loosen it from it's corroded state. So, it was no surprise that when it came time to open up the drain, it also took a wrench to do that. Out flows the water and we're all golden, right? Well, not exactly. You see, after HOURS of draining the water heater (which, we found out later, was because the water cut off from the house didn't shut all the way off), Lance decides to finally call it a night and goes to close the drain. Except it won't close. He tightens it all the way and water is still flowing out. This is not good.

Because he can't take another day off of work for something like this (this is a short week already, after all), we decide that he's going to get up and be at Home Depot when they open at 6am and get the parts we need. He gets up this morning and water is STILL FLOWING out of the hose coming from the water heater. He turns off all the water to the house and it finally stops. Because Home Depot didn't have the exact part we need, he had to fashion something that threaded onto the drain out that had a handle that we could turn off to get it shut off. But he finally did. We then were able to fill the hot water heater, but couldn't turn the thermostat back up to heat the water until it was full. Meanwhile, Lance needs to get ready to work. Cold shower for him (yikes) and then he turns the thermostat up and by the time he leaves for work, we have hot water again. Hallelujah!

You don't know how much you need things like a kitchen sink and hot water until you are without them.

Reason 1027 why my husband ROCKS!

We had planned to have my mother-in-law in town today, but she came down with strep throat and cancelled at the last minute. Suddenly, we were presented with not only an ENTIRE weekend free, but a three day weekend at that!

A few nights ago, I was lamenting the lack of options that I had seen in stores around here for my CD/DVD organization project. I told Lance that I really wanted to go to The Container Store, which was roughly 30 minutes from home. When we realized we had today free, he suggested that we load the kids up and go. This is like telling a five year old that we are going to Toys R Us, since I'm somewhat of an organization junkie. I even jokingly told Morgan that we were going to a toy store for Momma. When we got there, she was a wee bit disappointed. I'll be really glad when she starts to pick up on sarcasm. But I digress. We went to The Container store and we got these cool CD file boxes (which hold 100 CD's each) and then went out for lunch after.

During lunch, we started to discuss our plan of attack for organizing the CD's. We have, easily, 600 CDs and probably 100 DVDs. The CD file boxes have a sheet in the front where you list the CDs in each CD envelope, by number. It leaves little room for additions. UNLESS YOU COMPUTERIZE IT. This is where my hubby comes in.

You see, he happens to have a bar code scanner. Umm, yep. That's right. And, oh by the way, he also happens to have created an application that parses the data from the barcode and does a lookup to an internet database that pulls down the item's information automatically. Hello holy grail! Since we got home, he's been busy scanning bar codes. He plans to dump the information into Excel and then format it for the size of the cards that go into the boxes and then printing them out.

I'm in love.

Time for new glasses

I've always been a person who sees through "what needs improvement" type of glasses. I guess you could say that it was how I was brought up and that my father is very much like that, and me very much like my father. But I feel like I'm breaking free from that little, by little. At least externally anyway. I still have the dialog going on inside my head, but I've gotten better about just leaving it there.

I'm bringing this up because I had some friends of mine over for a "playdate" today. No, not a playdate for us, but for the kids. It came up a couple of weeks ago that my one friend, Elizabeth, was in the market for a house, but she wasn't interested in the cookie cutter type of houses. Oh man! Do I have the house for you! It occurred to me that she and my friend Carrie had never been to my house. So, we worked it out via email that they would come this morning, with kids in tow to check out my insanely unique house.

My house was built in the 60s. It has garage doors that look like a wine cellar and a big stone wall with wrought iron fencing that encloses our courtyard. When we moved in, the first thing we had to have done was have all the SHAG CARPETING removed. And paint over the paneling, and remove the "parquet" flooring (err...vinyl) and about a million other things that if I didn't have the "before" pictures, I would never remember. Because, now? Looking at my house just makes me feel like we haven't done anything at all.

So, I give them both the tour and they are impressed mostly by the bathrooms, which is no surprise because these are some of the last rooms to remain "untouched". Our downstairs bathroom is lovingly dubbed the "Liberace" bathroom due to it's not one but TWO chandeliers. They are my least favorite parts of the house, but definitely will be the most time consuming and expensive areas to remodel (hence their pristine state). I'm always embarrassed by them. I mean, they are clean, but they are just godawful ugly. My friends remind me though that it's all the lens with which you view things through. Carrie agreed with me on how difficult those types of projects are and Elizabeth used words like vintage, "making a come back", and awesome. I know she isn't going to beat down the doors to Home Depot for some crystal chandeliers of her own, but it made me realize that my house has something a lot of houses don't have...a personality!

Now, my house will definitely be getting a new personality over the next year (now that I'm staying at home with the kids and this is my "job", I want to redo everything!). But, for now, I will try harder to appreciate what I have and see the good in it all. After all, we have plenty of room for my family. Our stuff fits nicely and neatly into our spaces and we are happy here. Plus, those gold flecked mirrors in the downstairs Liberace bathroom? They EASILY drop 5 pounds off of you instantly. How can I get rid of those??