Goals

I made a little progress on the goals this weekend. I am currently working on my Master Bedroom. The two nightstands arrived the weekend we went to the water park (where our friends were kind enough to haul them inside for us). Truly, had I known they would be shipped and arrive from Overstock within 2 days for $2.99 I would have put off the purchase!

(Ok, explain to me how Overstock can ship items of furniture for $2.99 and Ikea - owned by the richest man in the world - can't ship nearly anything for less than the price of the item. And in the case of a cute dresser? For nearly twice as much as the item.)

Anyways... the nightstands were assembled. One by me on Saturday afternoon while Skadi slept and AB and Leif were at a birthday party. Two hours and twenty minutes with the tools the instructions stated, a phillips screwdriver and a 4mm hex key. And I was sore afterwards! It was hard work!

AB laughed at me when he got home. Why didn't I use the drill? Because it said screwdriver, not drill. Though I do admit that a quarter of the way through I was wondering why it said screwdriver and not drill.

So he set to putting the other together today. With the drill. And logged in at 2 hours and 6 minutes. He wasn't laughing much then. Though his hand is probably nowhere near as sore as mine still is.

I finally ditched the decade old open top ugly hamper and bought a nice hamper at Target today. We organized the bedside tables (love them) and the bedroom is starting to look snazzy. Leif got my bedside table. It was headed to the garage for the eventual garage sale when it dawned on me how much he needs something to put a cup of water, his glasses and the current favorite books (Halloween books right now). I don't think he even noticed it appeared in there.

I have a fair amount more organizing and I really would like to go through AB's dresser. But then we need to at least think about painting.

Holding steady with the goals

I would like to say that the Master bathroom is finished. But we haven't gotten around to the touch-up painting. Of course this is mostly because my attempts at spray painting the cheap shelves I had hanging up in the bathroom failed. AB suggested I just buy new shelves - which is fine. Fine except that I have anchors and screws in the walls to hang these ones.

Anyways, what that means is that I need to yank out the anchors, patch the walls and paint over them. Not really a big deal, but time consuming enough that I haven't gotten to it yet. Might as well do all the touch up painting at once.

I had intended to be done with the Master Bath by the end of Labor Day, but I keep finding little things in the bathroom to work on. I need to recaulk the shower, work on one of the light switches and AB needs to reattach the trim.


So switching gears to my September goal - the Master Bedroom.


Our Master Bedroom needs serious attention. It is just a sorely neglected room as far as decorating and furniture. We don't like our dressers, but don't want to spend the money on a new bedroom set now.

What I did do was to buy new nightstands. We have never had nightstands and instead have some random small tables next to each of our sides of the bed. So I have ordered new nightstands and they should arrive next week!



They were inexpensive (though solid wood - AB might have strung me up by my toes if I bought anymore laminate particle board stuff) - Overstock.com stuff. But they should match the dressers reasonably well - at least in color if not hardware. They will work for now to help organize our bedside areas. Then after we buy a house, move and buy a new bedroom set (with a king sized bed), we can relegate these nightstands to the guest bedroom.

The things I still need for the Master bedroom are a new hamper system. Badly need this. Anyone see any nice, inexpensive hampers out there? And we could also use two matching bedside lamps or sconces. Probably lamps to put on our new nightstands since I have mounted shelves where sconces would go. AB hates the shelves for some reason... truly not sure why. He would trash them and put up lamps. But my shelves hold my huge stack of books to be read.

Since I am so good at plowing through books lately.


Not.


The last thing that needs to be done in the Master bedroom is a coat of paint. It isn't a must, but it would be really nice (and AB agrees in theory) to have the paint color in the bathroom extend into the bedroom.

No way am I finishing all this in September. My summer turned September goals have now become my October goals. Oh well. I am making progress!


I am really looking forward to the kitchen in November. Probably good I am procrastinating that though... because it is going to get pricey. (New floor, pull outs...)

Weekend Wrap Up

AB and I enjoyed four full days off. The poor kids only got three days off, but both were ready to get back by last night. I asked Skadi if she wanted to go to school this morning and she nodded her head wildly. Let's just hope her teacher isn't about ready to boot her by the end of the day - she is trying to push through her last two teeth (as opposed to molars - she still has four of those left to go for a full mouthful) and is a little bear. Her nights have been misery and AB and I have resigned ourselves to one of us just jumping in the extra queen sized bed (currently residing in her nursery) with her to get her back to bed. Sucky habit I know, but we all (including Leif) get more sleep that way. Oh and she IS a cuddler.

After four days off, AB and I were both ready to get back to work. AB started a new position within his same company today. He passed his EIT/FE exam awhile back, his manager braggardly opened his mouth to some of the other managers and shortly after AB was invited to float around a few other groups and find a place where he is happy (not that he isn't) and feels like he will fit long, long term. His manager is the meantime left regretting having bragged about him passing his exam.

Me? I am ready to have a day at work where I don't have 24 lbs hanging around my neck that screams wildly when put down. It's no wonder when I jump on my treadmill to run lately I surprise myself how far I can go before panting and dropping to the ground. She really has been giving me a workout.

So the big news of the weekend is finishing my Master Bath off. For the most part at least. Little details remain like recaulking the shower, sticking the trim back on, figuring out how awful my spray paint job on the shelves went and whether or not I am going to put them back on the wall or not (AB votes for not) and buying new rugs. My bathroom rugs are old and I want some pretty ones, but AB suggests that I wait until we are ready to list the house since my son's aim is pitiful.

I am starting to look towards my Master bedroom planning out my attack. Storage, I need lots of it. Ideally I want to sell our two dressers and put the money towards a new bedroom set. Realistically I need to purge the dresser contents, replace the hardware that has fallen off and deal with it until we move. The walls will need to be painted. It shouldn't (in theory) be a big job. Now October when I hit the kitchen? THAT will be a big job. Maybe I should save the money that would go towards a bedroom set for a new kitchen floor instead.

AB and I started our fall ritual of dealing with food. Leif and AB put what seemed like hundreds of tomatoes through our food mill (it was horribly entertaining for a four year old) and then AB cooked down the purree to about 3 gallons. Then froze it so we can tackle spaghetti sauce another weekend.

I cooked down our Merlot grapes to about 2 gallons of ridiculously sweet juice. Cabernet grapes will be in a few weeks - and I am scared. I took a look at the vine last night and I estimate that I have at least two to three times as many Cab grapes than I did Merlot. AB asked me what I am going to do with the juice other than take up valuable freezer space. Jelly maybe? Sorbet? Sherbet? Maybe all three. My MIL, however, was disappointed to hear that I have no plans to make wine. I don't know... maybe I should try? Maybe it would be a good experiment and a quick way to use up all the juice. Though I am with Andy on this one... why should I make wine when I have the stuff the pros make in my backyard?

I made a big double batch of pumpkin, chocolate chip bread. Recipe courtesy of VG... (who I really wish would start blogging again... she cracks me up and I could use the athletic motivation). Anyways, I ended up with two large loaves and four minis. Though it was good I got it into the freezer (yes another thing in the freezer) quickly. Both my kids will devour the stuff. (I am blaming them 100%, they aren't here to defend themselves or point fingers.)

I had every intention of making and freezing a few nectarine pies - but our freezer is full of grape and tomato stuff. And the kids were starting to look a little pale and neglected like they had seen one too many movie. So instead we jumped in the car with the dog and headed to the park for a play and a short hike in the foothills. It was good for us all as opposed to nectarine pie that only tastes really good.

Welcome to my sanctuary

For at least the next five hours before it is reinundated with kids bath toys, AB's clothes and little boy underwear.

Bathrooms are hard to photograph, so bear with me. And don't pay attention to any little blobs of paint, I am off to touch up after I post these, but I didn't want to wait.

Here is the entry to the Master Suite:

Look to the left and that's our Master bath. The closet is the archway to the right.

Ok, so one thing I am still not fond of is the maple cabinetry and trim. If *I* was planning to be in the house long term, then *I* would paint the trim antique white.



The shower area. AB still has to attach the new trim. He has it cut, but I insisted on painting before attaching trim. He will get to it after making spaghetti sauce, fertilizing the yard, dealing with hundreds of ripe nectarines and fixing dinner. (Yes, I am the one sitting here blogging...)


For posterity purposes... before it is littered with bath toys and various tints of bathwater and bubbles. It is calling my name... with a glass of wine... maybe the kids can bathe one more night in the small tub...

A day

AB convinced me to take the day off. Take the day off and drop the kids at daycare/preschool.

He did great at convincing me, I cleared my schedule. Then *I* dictated the task list.

Paint. We painted and painted.

AB went and picked up paint this morning after dropping the kids (while I ran on the treadmill - love that thing - and then started taping off the bathroom). After the drop off he went to Home Depot and came home with paint AND a power roller. Figuring that at minimum we have the Master Bath to paint, our hallway to the garage and *maybe* (if you talk to AB) but *certainly* (if you talk to me) the Master Bedroom, and more likely we will be painting the interior of a new home eventually.

We worked our tail off in the bathroom and got a good amount done, probably 2/3's done?

Leif thinks we just started destroying the room for some reason and hopes we might plan to put it back together someday so he can take a "Big Bath".

After we were completely sick of painting we cleaned up and AB kept his promise to take me out to lunch.

Lunch ended up being about 3:30pm and we were a touch crunched for time to get the kids. Tagaris has a freaky limited menu between lunch and dinner and so we ventured to Bookwalter and drank wine and ordered plates after plates of tapa style and antipasto plates.

We were starved.

And we never go out just the two of us anymore. We had to live it up.

And their wines were quite tastey.

It was a good day off, well worth my 8 hour expenditure.

The monthly goals

So back at the first of the year I decided that my "resolutions" would be monthly goals instead. I would tackle one room a month working my way around the house to get the house ready to sell, collect items for garage sale and also an attempt at organization.

Summers are horribly busy for us and so starting in May I decided I would have a summer goal to tackle my Master Suite.

Summer is all but over and weather is even starting to cool significantly here, but last weekend I spent a good portion of the day working in the Master bathroom.

AB has a substantial portion of this task as well as he has to replace some trim, do a little plaster work where we had a bit of water damage from a leaky shower and then the joint task is to paint.

When I told AB I wanted to get moving on my bathroom goal this last weekend I never expected him to actually start and that he would be the one prompting me to get out and buy paint on Sunday (while I was hoping for a day of quiet mulling around the house). He had afterall cut the trim for install on Friday and was chomping at the bit to get that in apparently.

We decided on colors in record time. A cocoa brown with an antique white. We went and bought quarts. Then I diverted us over to Target to pick up a few more organizational items for the bathroom.

Sunday afternoon AB suggested we "slap" some paint on the wall to confirm we like the colors. (Our routine after a near miss with orange in the kitchen that turned out to be carnation pink in the sunlight.) Leif got to help... which means I followed with a wet washcloth since we hadn't actually put down drop cloths yet. An hour later and the ceiling of the toilet/shower area as well as one wall was painted.

I am loving the colors. It matches our tile and ugly needs-to-be-replaced linoleum.

I even think AB has convinced me to take Friday off from work so that we can tackle the room together and finish it completely that day sans kiddos and get it done - still leaving us our 3-day Labor Day weekend. My caveat to taking that day is that he has to take me out to lunch somewhere fabulous.

In the meantime I am left wondering what has come over my husband.

Once the painting is done I need to spray paint a few shelves that are now cedar colored, white that I will return to the wall, return items to their places and my Master bathroom, closet and linen closet (that I finished on Sunday) will be complete! Pictures after next weekend

Master bedroom will be September... it's still warm in September... I am not that far behind schedule.

Catching up

Summers in this region really are fabulous. I can say this with enthusiasm right now since the number of 100+ degree days have been few (most so far were while we were in Alaska), making the weather very tolerable and our desire to get outside insatiable.

The entire family wants outside. Skadi is a grump? Take her outside, it cures her.

I was comparing this past weekend to prior colder months regarding progress on my monthly cleaning and organization goals. It has taken me nearly 6 weeks to get my Master bathroom and closet picked up and organized. And it wasn't *that* bad beforehand. Two weeks to do my linen closet? Really... it isn't that bad... it is that we are just never home anymore.

On Friday I picked Leif up from preschool (Skadi already being home sick with AB... I will avoid going into details of that day since in staying home for my four hours in the morning I came far too close to telling off a co-PI who decided to ask me that I "make sure my kids aren't sick on Tuesday". Because she either thought I was lying, would rather be home with a sick kid instead of working with her in the lab, or should find something else to do with my sick kid rather than stay home with her. Anyways...)

We made a quick run by the fire station to check out the details a second time before the birthday party the next morning. Then we grabbed dinner from the Korean place and ran home.

Saturday morning Leif had his birthday party at the fire station. I was quite pleased with how it went and how well we were able to keep things flowing. The kids and parents seemed to enjoy the tour and I, for one, learned a lot. (Did you know that 80% of the calls are medical?) After the tour we had pizza on the back lawn, a pinata and then cake (ice cream was forgotten in the cooler). The kids ran and played. Leif only had a few turkey moments. I will post pictures later.

We went home and put Skadi down for a nap and hoped Leif would nap. It was silly to think that he maybe would I suppose. Not like AB and I weren't near complete exhaustion ourselves.

Once Skadi woke up we headed out to the Art in the Park festival. This is one of my favorites every year. And every year I think about in 2004 how very pregnant I was and how very hot it was. We wandered through the artisans booths. Had dinner with a guy I work with and his "5 3/4 year old" daughter (who took Leif under her wing) and just had a plain good time. AB took Leif to play on the playground equipment while I wandered the last 1/3 of the show with Skadi. We did, however, get stuck at one booth. "Me and Mom's Hats".

After painstacking decisions, Skadi has two hats for this fall and winter. I loved the brown beanie with the big pink flower, but also fell for the bluebell hat as well. Skadi could care less of the bluebell hat, but loves her brown beanie with the floppy pink flower. If I put the bluebell hat on her she rips it off and puts her beanie on. She was a kick at the booth and the artist told me she hadn't had such good advertisement all day, as Skadi tore through her hats, pulling them randomly (and sometimes two at a time) onto her head and oogling, "ooooh!"

We left the park as the show was closing and managed to keep the sleepy kids awake in the car so they would fall asleep in their beds at home.

On Sunday we let Leif open his presents from grandma, Bompa and my sister over the webcam. He was thrilled with the fishing pole. Skadi was thrilled with the tackle box once she got all the tackle out and could replace it with her Little People and AB and I were thrilled with the huge box of Lincoln Logs. I also hope Leif will come to love the Richard Scarry's Greatest Storybook Ever as much as I did - many thanks to my sister.

After the present unwrapping we loaded into the car and headed to the orchard to pick donut peaches. Unfortunately they were still a week or so away from prime picking, but AB (being his normal inquisitive self) did manage to purvey a bunch of cherry and apple wood for his smoker. Since we had packed a lunch we didn't see any reason to head home.

Instead we drove around looking for open houses (not many on this boat race weekend) and houses and lots for sale while stuffing food into the kids in the car.

We found two houses that if we actually got the guts to call an agent we are very interested in seeing. Very interested.

But I am just scared of heading down that path again when we aren't completely ready. I am afraid of falling in love with a house. Our intention is to go out and get ideas for eventually building our own since we had pretty much decided on buying a lot at the end of the year and then building. The one that really has me stopping though is seeing a newly for sale house in the small development containing the lots we like. It is the style we like, 4 bedrooms and TWO pantries. And affordable. Reasonably. At least it is within the range we are eyeing.

AB is waiting for me (I think) to say I want to look at it. I do, I really do. And then I don't out of fear. So I am trying to ignore it exists for now.

Trying.

So we realized that no good could come from house hunting and headed home to put Beaner down for a nap. While she napped it dawned on me how many times I have declared needing an external hard drive to back up my photos. Suddenly while I was printing up pictures for Leif's birthday day at school, I was overwhelmed with a fear that my hard drive was going to crash any second and lose every single photo I had ever taken. As soon as I mentioned wanting a hard drive, AB jumped on the opportunity to go to Costco.

We ended our Sunday outtings with the trip to Costco (also examining the treadmills there) then AB and Leif went to fly a kite at the park since it was awfully cold for swimming, while Skadi and I got groceries.

And after writing this, I think I am dead tired all over again.

Getting back to the goals

So back about the New Year I decided that my goal for the year was to go through every room in my house and purge, organize, repair and replace. To make this daunting task not so unbearable, I decided to tackle one room a month. For the first two months this went quite well. The library was organized and still looks halfway decent. Leif's room has the storage options it needs and the guest bath (small and so lumped into the other rooms) is still organized as well.

Then March hit.

March was supposed to be Skadi's room.

And it was about 75% done. The remaining percentage was a consequence of her not living in her bedroom. Her dresser was in there, but her crib, changing pad, and pajamas were in our bedroom. Her toys were scattered between the living room and Leif's bedroom. She loves Leif's room and he doesn't mind her playing in there (yet). In fact, so far he prefers she play in there. There was this problem of the queen sized guest bed being in this room and no real place to put it other than to get rid of it.

Really, truth be told we are growing out of this house in a way. If my formal dining room could somehow be relocated and turned into a guest room... it would make a difference for our longevity in this house. But it can't be relocated and more storage won't just appear when I twitch my nose (I tried) and a real walk in pantry is for now just a dream. The kitchen that six years ago I thought I couldn't fill has reached its max. Oh and those looming apartment buildings won't just go away either.

Anyways, I ended up stopping short of finishing March and went straight to April which was to organize and clean up the yards. This was done to my satisfaction about 80% of the way. The remaining 20% I will just not say one word about because it will launch me into this little fit of sorts. Our yards have been well maintained since then due mostly in part to our hiring a lawn service to mow and trim.

May was going to be my Master Suite.

Then May was going to be my Master Closet and Master Bath.

Then "the summer" was finally deemed to be the Master Suite "month".

I have settled on this.

We finally had a weekend with no real major plans. We had friends cancel on a dinner party thanks to puking kids (on their end) - which I wanted absolutely no part of given our fragile nature this spring with viral crud. So instead of tackling food prep and guest readiness I worked on my goals.

My March goal is 95% complete. Skadi's crib is in her room. I have resigned myself to leaving the queen bed there. It makes her bedroom tiny, but truth be told, she doesn't spend time in there. And I would rather have the guest bed for that day when we do buy a new house and have a guest room (everyone I know tells me how comfortable this bed is and how well they sleep in it).

To finish off her room, I need to put up the foam flowers and ladybugs I bought to "girlify" the blue and green room. But that won't happen until she learns not to peel them off and eat them. And I need to go through the stack of outgrown clothes in the closet and box them up. I should also put the breastpump up and since I bought a nice, new ,sleek, travel oriented, "wasabi" colored, umbrella stroller (that should arrive any day now) put the big honking, broken latch Zooper either in the garage or the attic for storage. Once I get those things done, my March goal is finished (hopefully in June).

Since the crib was moved out of the Master Suite it gave me room to get things organized. It feels really good to return our bedroom to a room occupied by adults. Really good actually. As much as I love having my kids in our bedroom for their first year of life and I do believe it adds something to their security and well being, it is always nice to move back to having our own space and giving our children spaces of their own. It is a bittersweet step.

I cleaned out my closet and nearly every time I walk past it I have to stop and pat myself on the back. I have a list of organizational things to get in the next week to really make me happy about my closet. I am going to get some sweater boxes for the top shelf, some hooks to hold belts, purses and bags. I used the hanging sweater organizers I bought last November (and never installed) as shoe organizers for AB's shoes. I had tried to use normal sized hanging shoe organizers, but his shoes were too big. When I was trying to figure out where to hang the sweater organizers it hit me - they are the perfect size for his big honkin' shoes! I also need to buy a storage bench type thing for in there. AB suggested something with cubbies he can "stuff" his sweaters into. Well I have other plans. I can live with his desire to not hang up his jeans and to have them folded on a small table - but "stuffing" things in cubbies isn't going to work. Nice decorative boxes instead.

The one thing that I haven't done and I may or may not get to is purging clothes. While looking for hangers I did pull off a few things that I knew I would never wear ever again. And things that AB should not wear ever again. And put them in a stack for Goodwill. But I didn't go in depth down this path.

I also started on the Master bath and cleaning out the vanity. There I did purge. Old makeup, creams, gels, lotions... gone. And plans for new organizing bins for my counter tops. My house cleaner will love me.

My organizing bug didn't stop in the Master Suite... I did a couple drawers (the bottles and breast pump stuff ones), the fridge and my spice rack in the kitchen. Things that were bugging me.

Maybe the real accomplishment this weekend was getting AB to agree that my monthly goals are a good thing and even suggest that each room should be revisited every year.

Sunday evening I felt quite accomplished with myself.