Happy New Year!

So I kind of laugh when I look at my Goals list for December. Then I hang my head when I remember it was carryover from November.

1. Get rid of the purged stuff.

2. Master Closet

3. Leif’s closet

4. Skadi’s bedroom, closet and bathroom

5. Trailer.

In the past few years I have done a lot over breaks. But this break I have this toddler who is into everything, wants attention and can't really be left alone while I get my tasks done. Oh and he has NO interest whatsoever in cleaning my closet with me. Skadi likes to help. Leif is a tween now and would rather sit on the computer.

I spent the evenings that first week of break (that AB and the older kids were in the Living Nativity) wrapping presents - and wrapping presents - and boxing stuff up to ship - and baking. All that Christmas prep. During the day when the kids were home with me we would sleep in, get up slowly and go swimming or do a few errands. Then we would go home and put the toddler down for nap. Then I couldn't bring myself to start on my chores. Nope. We pulled out a few games and had games afternoons while Silas slept. One day we did Family Pictionary (Skadi rocks at this game), another the new Family Trivial Pursuit, and another day we played Wii together. And I kept reminding myself that the chores in the back of my head would get done when my kids aren't home or don't want to hang with me anymore.

Point by point -

1. About 30% success here. I dumped a bunch of baby stuff with friends and acquaintances in December. Sold a little. Gave some away. Didn't do bad. Where I didn't succeed was in putting the bags and bags of stuff to go to Goodwill IN the car and dropping them at the station that is a whole 4 blocks from my house. As of Saturday though, I am not terribly concerned about that since I just got the notice from our other donation company they will be in our area next week. And they will be picking it all up (plus more I accumulated this last weekend)! This also makes AB happy because he isn't a big fan of Goodwill as a corporation. But I keep going back to the "it's easy and I need easy, but you are welcome to do otherwise" excuse. (He doesn't do otherwise.)

2. Master Closet - well all the Christmas presents are out! (I hope. Hope not to find some hidden.) And actually yesterday, yes, Jan 4th, I went in and sorted my shoes and got everything off the traffic portion of my side. It actually did a ton for the closet and may let me put off the actual complete disassembly and reassembly for a few more months. Because at this point it just isn't happening.

3. Nope.

4. Yay! Closet and bathroom done. Bedroom floor is still covered in Legos. And because she is so obsessed about her Legos and spent a huge portion of the break doing Legos, I left it.

5. Trailer. Yes, it got vacuumed and cleaned. And when it is back from being repaired from our most difficult trip yet, it will need to be done all over. Yay me.

We did get back from our trip to Canada with a weekend left of break and I tackled a good portion of my list of things I wanted to do over the 2 weeks off. Because in the first 14 days, not much had gotten done. The closet (see above), the boys' linen closet (conveniently while Silas bathed yesterday), Christmas down and packed up. Leif made jerky. I swapped around some blinds (housecleaners had broken one that I used regularly) and I didn't want to buy a new (non-matchy-matchy) one, so I swapped it out with another from a similar window I nearly never open.

(Which brings me to a burning question of late - how to deal with housecleaners breaking items... I have had 3-4 items broken recently. I have spoken with the owner about a few of them mostly when I called to question if someone was actually INJURED, but haven't made claims to have them replaced. Maybe I should? What irritates me most isn't the breakage, it is not knowing it happened until later - and no, they aren't things my kids have broken. Ok, off my aside.)

We were going to do lefse, but AB and I decided that focusing on losing weight and getting healthier was of higher priority than potato, sugar, butter, gooeyness. Still working on accepting this...

Then I got to thinking about my January goals. I asked AB the burning question on my mind. What should I do for January??

I was thinking about prepping the Master Bedroom for painting and deciding on a color. He sighed.

Then he said the magic words, "how about the living room floor".

You see we have this hideous and seen-far-better-days carpet in the living room. For a few years we have debated on going with hardwood that we put in our office and dining room to unify a few rooms downstairs. But it is expensive (the room is huge) and back breaking work for AB. But it would look the best and be the best for resale. But we just couldn't trip that trigger on the actual purchase.

So then we thought about replacing the carpet with carpet. But where do we stop with carpet? Do we just do that room or do we replace the carpet on both staircases and in the hallway upstairs? (My dream.) And when? Kind of hated for awhile to get new carpet when we have a toddler. But then it is getting to the point where we kind of hate not getting new carpet while we have a toddler. And then there is the whole "it is embarrassing to have people over this carpet is so hideous".

We are biting the bullet this month. Carpet for the living room. And probably just there and not the stairs and hallway upstairs. But it will be an easy neutral, always in stock pattern that we can do the staircases and hall at another point.

Moving on, nothing to see here...

I did a pretty half ass job at my Decluttering November goals. It just became a November that wouldn’t let up. I ended up home a few days with a sick kid, but even then, just couldn’t get it all done. I think my list was ambitious:

• Master Closet (didn’t organize)
• My clothes – purge (DONE – and ongoing, I threw another sweater in the Goodwill stack this morning)
• Skadi’s bedroom, closet and bathroom (ignored completely)
• My bathroom and the boys’ bathroom (didn’t really tackle with veracity, more like picked at it
• Purge Silas’ clothes (DONE)
• Get rid of the stuff I have purged (FAIL, nothing has sold that I listed, so it needs to go to Goodwill or get given away. But it is ready to get out of the house – if Odin would leave.it.alone.)
• Bonus – Leif’s bedroom. Because Grandpa came and stayed in Leif’s room, his room did get a good once over. But not the closet.

So for December I am going to continue on the organize path and hit the below items I failed at in November.

• Get rid of the purged stuff.
• Master Closet
• Leif’s closet (it isn’t abysmal yet, so if we get on top of it now, it won’t be a huge job.
• Skadi’s bedroom, closet and bathroom (Gag.)

Then the last one is the trailer. It isn’t something that I really WANT to do, but on our Thanksgiving tree cutting two night trip I made a huge restock list, I found loads of stuff that just needs to come inside or be thrown away. And there are some modifications I want – I want shelves in my “closet”. Stupidest thing ever, a closet that is useless (typical RV closet...) and I don’t need things hung up on that stupid hard to use rack. I want shelves in there. Of course I will need AB for that. I would love shelves in the cupboard where I keep plates and bowls and cups. And the trailer needs a good cleaning. Especially if we plan to be in it for nearly a week in December.

November

It's my most favorite time of the year. Living here has taught me to enjoy spring and summer. But I still get that special happiness that fills me when the weather starts cooling off, my favorite clothes are appropriate again and I look forward to the holidays.


Halloween has passed now, Thanksgiving - my favorite - is just around the corner and then my other favorite - Christmas.


It's also that time of year when the kids start having loads of days off again. We have conference week coming up, which means we have 6 days of half days. Then the week after that is Thanksgiving. And my tradition is that I take the whole week off and staycation it. The kids actually have school most of Thanksgiving week, but I will keep Silas home and we will have some special time.


I was called for Federal jury duty for Thanksgiving week (and the week after). But I think I will defer out of fear that I would end up sequestered over my favorite holiday. Which would just suck.


Goals. I had initially thought about painting our bedroom during November. But I haven't decided on the color and the desire just isn't there. So instead I am going to work a few decluttering things.


Our closet is hideous. You know one thing falls on the floor and doesn't get picked up - then another item does. And then before you know it you can't even get in the closet. Ok, maybe it isn't that bad... But it is nearing that.


And the other issue in my closet is that there is a load of clothes I don't or can't wear. I need to purge. And AB needs to purge too.


Skadi's bedroom, closet and bathroom. I don't even want to linger on this topic because it kind of makes me gag.


Oh and my bathroom and the boys' bathroom. Just general pick up and declutter.


Silas's room. I just need to purge all those 12-18 month clothes. Tired of pulling out clothes that doesn't fit him - or coming home on Friday and wondering how AB possibly squeezed him into those clothes.


The last thing is the stacks of everything I have been decluttering over the last few months. They need to go to Goodwill, get listed on Craigslist, be passed on as hand me downs, etc. Just general dispositioning is needed. I have stacks of stuff that I have pulled out of the depths that just needs togo go somewhere. Anywhere.


So there it is - November. The month when I have a little more time to go run around - will be the month of finishing up the clutter issues.


And maybe December will be the month of painting.

There is a kitchen in here!

It seems to take about a year and a half after each kid was born to re-emerge. I recall it distinctly with Skadi. Like an awakening where I had to drop those extra 10 lbs that didn't fall off naturally after childbirth. And my house was no longer good enough. It was like the fog of "the baby" lifts. I suspect it is all hormone induced. I was lucky to never suffer post-partum depression - I know people who have - but I think for me it was a post-partum fog.


The fog lifted last month and I have gotten down to business. My wonderful Master bedroom emerged last month and this month I found that I do have a kitchen. In fact, I have a great kitchen!


The goal for the month of October was to deep clean, organize my kitchen. It needed it bad. Two weekends in now and I would put it at 75% complete. I have emptied out the cabinets and moved stuff! I am not a rearranger at all - once a piece of furniture is in place I will nearly never move it. Well only on a rare occasion to clean under it (dare I admit). My mom was a rearranger and to be honest, it drove me nuts growing up.


But I went against my gut, listened to my husband's very rational complaints about the cookbooks located in the far back of the pantry, and I moved them! And I love them now! So rearranging isn't awful!


Most of the rest of the kitchen was just emptied out (4 huge garbage bags just this weekend!) and cleaned and put back. Phew! My pantry is lovely, the cookbook shelf is fabulous. The cleaned off and actually purposed as a desk in the kitchen, is lovely too. The rolling cart of crap has been cleaned off, but purpose yet to be determined. The lazy Susan still needs to be tackled as does the very tip top shelf of my glass cabinet that holds stemware we never use (it has been there since we moved into the house - apparently I don't feel the need to put my martinis in a martini glass).


We are hosting a Halloween party in two weeks and panic set in this weekend. Two weeks to get ready! It is always a huge undertaking that is fun and always appreciated by our friends after the fact. But two weeks is NOT enough time! AB suggested that we quit the deep organizing stuff (as beneficial as it is) and start putting lipstick on the pig in the name of the party.


So yeah. Time to lipstick that pig.


Then the last weekend of the month will be spent recovering our kitchen from the madness and finalizing those last couple kitchen things.


And then there is November. I have two thoughts. Back to the Master Bedroom for Thanksgiving week painting and Master bath pick up (easy) and Master closet purge (ugh). OR - I finish Skadi's quilt. I need to finish her quilt.

September - 80% Done

It always feels so good when the goals start coming together. A bit addictive! I love seeing progress. I have to try to avoid tunnel vision though. I get this at work too. The “Got.To.Finish.It.Even.If.It.Kills.Me”mentality. Baby is crying and clinging, but got to finish this room! No. Stop. Go pick up the baby and sit down with him, feed him. At work it is, stop typing, stand up, grab bag, go and meet the bus so that kids aren’t standing alone in the house, eating. Eating chocolate and everything bad for them.

 

Last weekend I pounded on the Master bedroom hard. I scraped crap out of the corners. I started on one side – mine – and worked my way around the room. Huge bag of trash generated. A box and two bags of stuff for Goodwill. Laundry done. AB helped me empty out under the bed and we put the frame back under our mattress which elevates it about 8” higher than it was. (And got the frame out of storage under the bed.) AB built our bed and I wanted it tall. He made it tall. Then I birthed Silas and freaked out – our bed can’t be that tall! And logistics with the cosleeper made it next to impossible to have the bed that tall. So we took the frame out and it was normal height. But now it is tall again! And I love it!

 

The Master Bedroom is 80% complete now. It doesn’t include the Master bath, which has minor issues. Or the closet – which has bigger issues. I may be able to do the final 20% and tackle the Master Bath this weekend. Except Skadi has her final acting class for the month, which includes a presentation. Then her cousin is coming over to play. (Hey yeah, so she has a COUSIN who lives in the same town as we do and is her same age. Ok, so cousin like three times removed or something like that and that she just met for the first time over Labor Day, but cool!) I want to go to Michael’s, and PetSmart and Target and get groceries and then Skadi could use shoes (boots) other than her Keen sandals for the fall. Then Leif has soccer. And then I have this crazy idea of surprising the kids and going to Shakey’s after soccer because I love their pizza and the kids love the game room and Silas can scream and hardly anyone will notice and I wouldn’t have to pick up.

 

I will at least get the last 20% done, hopefully convince AB to rent a Rug Doctor and clean the carpet in there. And I maybe will get to the bathroom, maybe not. I got home today and AB had started on the garage. And not just a clean of the garage but like massive reorganization. And I am excited. So I may abandon the Master Bath pick up for the garage.

 

Next month my goal is the kitchen. Now reason would state that my Master bedroom is all cleaned and organized that I should paint it. Because I want the Master bedroom painted. But the issue is that I don’t feel like doing it. I don’t feel like taping it off, draping everything and painting and doing all the edges. And I don’t really feel as though the month of October is the time to be stuffing myself inside a smelly room. And I haven’t convinced my husband of paint colors.

 

So hello kitchen!

 

Actually I need that bad before fall baking/cooking fun and our annual Halloween party. So starting next weekend, the first weekend in October, my kitchen is going to undergo a massive dumping and re-orging so as to confuse everyone in my house about where things will go.

 

Return to Goals!

Our summer camping trips are winding down now. Back to school. The kids activities are all swinging up and our weekends are back to being spent at the soccer field. A new one for us, Skadi has decided that she is interested in acting and she now has Saturday classes at the local children's theater. I hate to admit how well this new activity appears to fit her and I hope that she might find her niche.

I am very much looking forward to the cooler weather, to fall arriving and to weekends in the home where I can get things accomplished. I have high hopes for the house, but also realize I should scale back my expectations. Silas is at that stage where he is keeping us exceptionally busy and isn't terribly interested in organizing.

To this end, I have decided it is time to return to my Goals! Monthly Goals should suit me fine for the next 4 months. And conveniently it is the first weekend in September now. It's GO time!

September Goal - Declutter and purge the Master Bedroom and the Playroom. Come up with a plan for the Master Bedroom.

It is a perfect opportunity to purge because I have gone through my daughter's closet and drawers and we have two big bags of hand me downs. I have a friend who invited me to toss some baby items in with her stuff for a Church baby gear sale and another friend who is having a garage sale and I can toss a few items in there without the big huge scary obligation of a garage sale at my house. All this does mean that I have to get a move on.

Master: This weekend all the crap that has accumulated in the Master bedroom needs to be purged. I have clothes that don't fit in one stack, a box of baby stuff for Goodwill, baskets of camping clothes... the list goes on and is embarrassingly long. In the long term I would like to come up with a plan for the Master bedroom. Ideally we would rip out the nasty carpet - reality is that it will just be cleaned well. I would love to start thinking about colors and have some ideas in mind. Something for the walls? Well I never just go and buy things for my walls, they have to speak to me. Apparently nothing has ever spoken to me about my Master. And last - storage. I need somewhere to put the stacks of stuff. I am thinking shelves or something at the foot of our bed. Ideally, I would have a fabulous storage bench with seats on top for under our big window. But alas, I think it is a dream.

Playroom: Oh my goodness I need something that works in this room. I also would love doors right about now. And my kids need a change in attitude about picking up after themselves in there. And I need to break the new dog (Odin) of stealing stuffed animals from this wide open room, hauling them downstairs and chewing on them. And I need to break the cat of doing nasty stinky things to the Barbie dolls. I was the lucky one who put about what seemed like 830 Barbies and their clothes into the washing machine two night ago and ran it twice. The cat is "Lucky" he has 9 lives. He may have used one up Wednesday night.

So the playroom just needs to be picked up. The set of shelves and fabric bins I bought needs to be assembled. And I have stacks and stacks of my sewing and cross stitch stuff in bins and buckets. While that system is keeping that stuff away from the wrath of Lucky's rear end, it is an ugly stack. I have a perfect little alcove in there that needs shelves. I could have a built in shelving unit with not too much investment...

That's it. That's my September goal! I need to think about October still. It may involve ripping these crazy shrubs out in my backyard. The ornamental ones that are ultra-ugly unless trimmed. And they are never trimmed. And I will be da____ if I am going to pay someone to come in and prune bushes that I don't even like. So... how do I kill and remove bushes anyways?

Happy New Year

I am not a huge fan of New Years. I am usually still trying to let go of recover from Christmas. Then there is that pending birthday that arrives a mere week later. Not to mention that as a government employee I am kind of left pondering ‘haven’t we already started 2014, like 3 months ago?’ Oh and then AB and I have a long history of crappy New Year’s Eve celebrations too – at least back when those NYE celebrations seemed to actually matter. When we cared about going out and not staying in. A thing of the past now.

 

Now, we would rather stay in.

 

This year we hauled the trailer out for a winter camping trip and had a great time. Hanging with the kids in the trailer on New Year’s Eve – exactly what I wanted and needed. It won’t be long before they will be off running to hang with their friends for the holiday. I need to gobble up the ones now where they actually want to be with us. With Leif approaching 10 I see only a handful of family New Year’s Eves left.

 

I told the kids they could stay up until midnight. And so we all set about around the tiny trailer table with snacks and board games. Then we started Monopoly. And then AB and I started getting tired. We knew exactly what needed to be done – a movie. Then at 10:20 pm AB was transporting sleeping kids to their bunks. And we headed off to bed. There was some mumbling to the kids about “yes, it is midnight”.

 

It was perfect.

 

I don’t like resolutions – I am doomed to fail at resolutions. I like the idea of setting goals. I guess they seem less rigid and doomed to failure for some reason. I haven’t even introduced the kids to the idea of resolutions yet either. I kind of find myself hmm’ing and covering my ears when I hear about “resolution time”. Oh and I am also reminded of how dreadful it will be in getting three kids into the health club for swimming lessons…

 

My goals this year:

 

This year I would like to work on the Master Bedroom – get it painted and organized. Figure out some furniture that will solve problems in that room. Refocus on a place for us. Silas is moved out and into his bedroom (except for the changing station, which is still there as a matter of convenience). I also want to boot the older kids out of the Master bath. If I boot their toys that litter my shower, will they follow? They each have a bathroom with a bathtub and shower. (Yes, spoiled kids.) I think they should use them instead of the soaking tub / swimming pool and the falling apart standalone shower that I keep eyeing as a reno project.

 

I also need to lose the baby weight and get back to exercising. “They” say that there is always time for exercise, that you should make time. I would challenge someone to look at my schedule and current situation and help me figure out where that time is and what should suffer for that time slot. It is my goal for the year – it isn’t going to happen immediately. But maybe once Silas is sleeping through the night I can consistently get up 40 mins early to exercise like I used to and not feel totally sleep deprived. Those blanket statements that come from people that are something like “if you really wanted it, you would find time for it” really piss me off. As a working mom of three children ranging in age from 9 months to nearly 10 years old I will be the first to tell you that everyone has different needs and priorities. I do want to work out, and it is my goal to find time in 2014, but I also need to keep my head above water.

 

The other day at church one of the guest speakers was talking about goals and planning for the year – keeping organized in your life and finding passion. A lot of what he said struck me and I walked away with a lot of tidbits. One of my favorites though is that to add something new in your life that most of us need to say goodbye to something else. I don’t have spare time. I don’t get bored. I don’t do a lot of mundane tasks. The 3-4 hours of TV I watch a week are on Friday and Saturday evenings when AB and I can sit together on the couch. It doesn't happen any other time. I can’t just fill time with things I want to do. Something needs to give in order for me to add anything in.

 

Traditions:

 

One tradition I had with my mom was shopping after Christmas sales. I had intended to haul Skadi out with me after Christmas this year to shop. She likes to shop. But then I started looking at the store options here and figured I would hit Target for the stuff I actually needed and forego the actual going to the mall shopping mindlessly event. And she is a good shopper, but not THAT good yet. Not good enough for endurance shopping.

 

But then I started to miss shopping. And even moreso I started despising my clothes. And seeing big gaps in my uber tightly packed closet – go figure. I needed new clothes. The tradition that my mom and I had ate a hole into me that needs filled. I finally gave in and went online and shopped. New clothes!! Yay! I love winter clothes, but I really love winter clothes on sale…

 

So that is about it for my New Years celebration…

 

Spent it with my bickering kids, couldn’t have been better. A few goals for 2014, they aren’t resolutions. And some new clothes. Now back to the regularly scheduled 2014!

 

Oh - and Happy New Year!