April Goals

When I lived in Colorado I was fond of saying that “April is one of the snowiest months”. And I loved that it was true.

Normally here, April is a beautiful month as the cherry trees bloom and the sun shines without baking us. But so far? April has been a horrid month weather-wise. I am beyond sick of the wind. I lived in Casper, Wyoming until I was 13, I get rights to complain about the wind. It has been like February here. Dreary, grey and windy. Blah. I can’t even seem to wrap my head around the fact that it is April and not February yet.

I suppose the advantage to it being April with crummy weather is that we have been inside more and my spring cleaning/organization goals have yielded great results.

For the month of April my goals were to organize the hall/entry closet. Done. Check. Finished. I bought fabric bins, one for each of us, and put them in the top of the closet and sorted the laundry basket that used to hold outdoor gear into the four baskets. I bought more hangers, cleaned out the bottom of the closet and hung coats up. It looks fabulous – if a coat closet has fabulous-ness to it.

My second goal was to clean out and organize the laundry room. Given the size of the house, I have a teeny, tiny laundry room. The washer and dryer fit in and I can stand in there holding a basket. I squish over to one side and wedge myself in between the utility sink and the washer to open the dryer and pull stuff out of the washer and into the dryer. Oh yeah, the cat fits too. He likes to help with laundry. Given the lack of floor space I somehow have a ton of storage space in there. The prior owners did a good job of utilizing the wall space for racks of shelves and cupboards above the washer and dryer.

Before tackling the laundry room I looked online for ideas for organization. Martha Stewart was timely in posting a laundry room redo that made me drool. But my biggest problem with all the neat things that they showed in the inspiration gallery was that I don’t use my laundry room, except for, well laundry. Ok, so I feed the cat there.

Anyways, the laundry room has been cleaned out, cleaning and laundry supplies separated. My fabric bins cleaned out (I ditched all the cables I was saving… coax cables, gone, phone cords, gond, power cords, gone, old cell phone chargers, gone. Yes, for some reason I save all that crap. I even do at work, I have a drawer of cords in my office AND in my lab. You just never know when you are going to need a random cord. Ok, well at home at least, I got over it. I don’t need random cords at home. Like ever.

After cleaning out and organizing I discovered a fair amount of storage space. Empty shelves and half empty cupboards. I have batteries, light bulbs, cleaning supplies, laundry supplies, cat food, a bin of extra odds and ends (rubber gloves, trash bags, etc) in there now. I have this need to fill the space… but I am trying to convince myself to simply embrace empty shelves for now.

The last thing on my April goal list is the quilt. I have everything I need to finish it, now I just need a good block of time to get everything laid out. It seems like lately I have had 1-2 hour blocks of time and I can’t justify laying everything out to just have to pick it all up. My coming weekend is blissfully empty and I am hoping to hit that third check mark with finishing off the quilt.

Next month… I really want something fun. A cool goal. A pretty painting goal… or something like that.

But no.

Alas, the garage really needs a thorough clean and organize. I love my husband, but cleaning and organizing is not his thing. He has started on the garage a few times this spring. But what really needs to happen is that we both get out there and clean. And then I go nuts with the organization.

And yes, this WILL take an entire month it is that bad.

April Goals Update

When I declared way back when what my goals were for the month of April, I had blinders on. I admit it. They are really, really big blinders and when I held my head exactly straight, they worked. They worked so that I could totally ignore my daughter's bedroom.

She has serious, serious bedroom issues. Mostly in that she has too much stuff. Then she has less organizational storage and third she is a little tornado. By the time pick up night comes on Wednesday, all her stuff tends to get stuffed in big plastic bins and shoved off to the side.

Then AB vigorously and ruthlessly whipped my blinders off when I happily announced I was going to orgnize the coat closet and laundry room.

"What really needs to be done is Skadi's room," he mumbled.

"But I was going to wait until an Ikea trip so that I could organize at the same time!" I argued truthfully. I had actually been browsing the Ikea website to get ahead of the game for the yet to be planned trip to an Ikea.

He then pointed out that a ton of stuff in her room could be thrown away, pulled out and donated or whatever. She doesn't need it, he said while referring mostly to the stacks upon stacks of books.

"But she likes the board books," I argued.

"She likes EVERY book. If the board books aren't there she will happily choose some of the others here that actually tell a story," he argued.

I sighed. Apparent that an Ikea trip was not in my immediate future and that my blinders were now broken. AB knows me well, once he breaks my blinders, I can no longer tell myself there is no problem.

So this weekend AFTER I took care of the coat closet, I started in one corner of Skadi's bedroom and worked through her room systematically through it and even tackled portions of her closet. We moved the big soft rocker out of her room, that we use to rock her to sleep in (before Skadi, it was Leif's, sigh... ). Well then it just served as the time out chair. Then it housed a mountain of stuffed animals. Not that the time outs went by the wayside of course...

We did it. I pulled out a huge stack of board books. I hauled off a full garbage bag full of c.r.a.p. We now have a plastic bucket overflowing with stuffed animals, a new small toybox from Target that will double as a bench and a treasure chest of dress up clothes.

Phew! Two for one weekend. My house is well on its way to an organized bliss!

Goals update

AB suggested that his cleaning the carpets in the playroom should count as a monthly goal.

Ok, sure, I can add steam cleaning to the list.

Yes, I AM one of those people that will add something to a list just so I can cross it off.

March is only about half way through and I have accomplished my goals. Mostly. Pillowcase dresses are made. Cross stitch is started. Spice cabinet needs to be remeasured and ordered. Then done! (OH and the steam cleaning is done!)

This has of course, raised the question of what's next.

In an ideal, money laden world, AB wants to start an outdoor living area. We have ideas kicking around. But alas... I just don't see it happening.

So AB has relented.

Office? Playroom? Master Bedroom? Downstairs bathroom? All good options, but the one screaming for attention. The one where boxes have recently landed.

The office.

The big need for that room is book storage. Or book purge.

And file cabinet purge.

And maybe a spash of paint...

February Goals - Nearing the End

As February winds down I am looking back on my goals progress. The primary goal to get a pull out for the spice cabinet is not completed only because we decided before ordering online we should really make a pass at Home Depot. They might also have some alternate suggestions to consider and can offer advice on fitting a pull out for our extra tall top cabinets. (Height of the cabinet hadn't really dawned on me until it came to measuring twice.)

We did however get the cupboard reorg completed and are very happy with the outcome of that. Someday I expect I will relearn where my measuring cups are now.

The wine closet wasn’t one we planned to tackle, but as luck would have it we obtained a great wine rack and put it to use. Now I can tell exactly when we are getting low on white wines (like we are now).

So the spice cabinet pull out will extend into March, which is fine. March is going to be a bit of a relaxing month for me with goals. I have two things planned…

See this dress? It is a pillowcase dress.


And it is $89.

See this one? It is $98. It is lined and has an M on it, so it is $9 more.



I am POSITIVE I can make one in two hours. I just know it.

March goal is to find an adorable pillowcase and make Skadi a dress.

My second goal is The Orange Tree. I special ordered the fabric I wanted – black 18 ct Aida – could not believe you can’t just find this stuff at craft stores… And the black 14 ct Aida isn’t sold in a large enough sheet at my local craft stores. So it was going to be a special order either way.

Ordered two weeks ago…

Apparently all cross stitchers are procrastinators?

Or maybe they had to weave it from cotton fibers?

Whatever the reason it is on its way here and should arrive before March 1 in time for the new goal!

I won’t finish it… I will be lucky to get one tenth of it done during the month of March. But getting started is often half the battle.

I am leaning towards an April goal of the library. I have boxes stacked randomly, a lamp to hang and I just discovered the perfect under the window shelf/seat combo unit that will go perfect. Paint? Just maybe...

This month's goals

Easy peasy.

My wonderful husband suggested that we address the yards for the month of April goal. I took him up on that. Afterall my mom and stepdad arrive in a couple days and we like to spend time in the backyard while they are here. Not to mention that it was all stuff that just really needed to be done anyways.

My role in all this has been to clean out the front garden beds and keep the kids inside when necessary. Yep. There's my month's goal. Oh and to keep bugging AB about talking to the guy he works with who latex seals concrete as a side job.

Had the weather been warmer I would have done more, but it has been prohibitavely cool here. Seriously it was snowing when I walked to my car at lunchtime. So no new annuals or veggie plants for me yet.

One of the first things I do when I have moved someplace new is inquire as to when the planting date is. In Colorado it was Mother's Day. In Reno it was when the snow melted off of Slide Mountain (end of April). Here I was told it was tax day.

Being a Colorado girl and understanding the importance of these dates and the number of freak snow storms that tend to happen I always adhere strongly to these dates. Though in recent years I have had to restrain myself.

"Yes, I know honey it is 75F, but it might freeze."

My restraint... yeah, that's what we will call it... restraint... paid off. (Restraint, laziness... whatever.)

My annuals and veggies - providing we see some heat here soon, will go in the first weekend in May.

Oh and you might wonder about the corner of the yard that makes me grimace, right? I mentioned that before.

Well AB was fishing wood out of back there to start cleaning it up (aka build a work table for the garage) when he found a nest of quail eggs and quail expectant parents. He claims that we cannot disturb the nesting quail to clean up the... umm... looking for a nice word to use... stuff back there.

Ok, well I will buy that. One corner of my yard will remain a disaster area because of the endangered species act.

There haven't been any jokes at all about quail egg omelets.

Really... baby quail will be good... they are the cutest little hooters running around on their tiny legs.

Let's hope they are faster than Belgian Sheepdogs.

Another week down.

I would rate this past weekend about mid-range on the scale. There was plenty of room for improvement, but it wasn't bad either.

Saturday morning was swimming lessons. It is about all we can do to contain Skadi during Leif's 9:30am swim lessons. At 10am her lesson starts. She is our water baby. She does so much better in the water at this age then Leif did. I don't know if it is spending the last year nearly solid at the pool on Saturday mornings watching the routine, or if it is just in her nature. She loves the pool.

Finally her slot came and she was so excited to be in the pool. Her little body was just so tense from the excitement bubbling up in her.

Of course that also meant that only 20 minutes into her 30 minute lesson she had exhausted herself and was no longer interested in participating.

Leif and I dropped daddy and a sleeping Skadi off at the house and we headed to Costco where we spent way too much money. I loaded up on Carter's outfits for Skadi for the summer (must relish the last few months that I can put her in the uber-cute Carter's baby stuff) as well as pajamas for both kids.

Leif seems to have zoomed straight by 3T. Just a few weeks ago his 3T's were all still baggy and long. But starting last week we noticed they are suddenly appearing short. He was wearing 2T for what seemed like forever. I was starting to wonder if he and Skadi would both be in 2T at the same time despite being 2 years and 8 months apart.

But alas, the growth spurt happened and appears to be done. Leif's diet has returned to "would rather eat next to nothing".

The weekend took a turn for the worse on Sunday when AB and I both woke with headaches. (If I am going to wake with a headache I would have liked to have had fun the night before, thank you very much.) Skadi got up with daddy while I slept a little longer. Lucky daddy was the first to find out that Skadi had apparently picked up a stomach bug.

I woke and kept asking, "are you sure she is vomiting, or just spitting up?" I got my answer about 10 minutes later when she threw up the breast milk she had just consumed.

Leif insisted shortly thereafter that he too, had a stomach ache. Three year olds are tough to figure out. Is it that he wants medicine? Is it that he wants the attention being lavished on his sister? Or is this the reason he hasn't eaten so far today? Does he really have a stomach ache?

We may never know.

I erred on the side of caution and cancelled our playdate.

Skadi was up and down most of the day. Leif and I did get one good stint where Skadi was sleeping and we went into the front yard and cleaned out the front flower beds. I also pruned the juniper bush that had dreams of living on the other side of the sidewalk. I need a few cubic feet of soil for the flower bed since my giant bearded irises are working their way out of the dirt, but aside from that I am well on my way with our April goal. At least MY portion of the April goal.

I had talked up the anticipated "movie night" slated for Saturday night, only to be disappointed when The Bee Movie did not appear in our mailbox Saturday as promised. Star Wars was a worthy substitute.

I know. I can feel you looking at me sideways.

Star Wars? Guns, violence, Star Wars?

Yep, Leif's selections of shows he will watch on TV has expanded from Curious George to Curious George, The Forte Giant Little Einstein's episode OR any one of six Star Wars movies.

Blame AB.

At least the language is clean.

Leif sits and tells us who is the bad guy and who isn't. He squeals "here comes 'Darth Mater'" when Vadar comes on. He thinks the ewoks are cute, Jar Jar Binks is cool (just shoot me now), and Obi Kenobi looks just like daddy (AB beams at knowing his son would easily mistake him for Ewan MacGregor).

I keep telling myself he really isn't *that* young for Star Wars. I saw the first one in the theater when I was 5 years old. Only a year and a half older than Leif.

Today Leif had a dental check-up. I picked him up from school and we headed that way. Leif nearly bouncing out of his seat with excitement for the visit. (Weird child.)

Leif inherited my klutziness. AB has recently said that no matter the place, we are guaranteed that Leif will be the first one to fall and bang himself up or be in tears.

We were called back to the chairs, Leif hops into the big chair. I walk over to put my coat and purse on the bench when I hear the collective parent gasp around me. Reflexes said it was my kid.

Sure enough I whipped around just in time to see my son cartwheeling off the chair. Seems he stood up in the chair, lost his balance, caught his legs on the armrest and flipped over the side. Onto his head.

Yep, that's my kid.

The dentist was over within minutes checking him for breaks and checking his pupils. He gave me all the instructions on what to watch for in the case of a concussion. I have the list memorized at this point, but I just nodded my head and held my screaming preschooler.

The sweet and very concerned 8 year old boy in the chair next to him asked if he was going to be ok? He would be, I told him.

As typical Leif behavior, a few minutes later and he was as good as had it never happened. The assistant was able to get two good x-rays and clean his top teeth well.

When she got finished rinsing the top Leif insisted, "no thank you, you don't need to do more, I don't like it". The bottoms then proved to be a little more difficult.

No cavities (thank goodness).

And even better for me? Finding out we have a zero balance after fighting for 6 months with insurance on covering his work back in September done under general.

Phew.