Just playing

Photos from the weekend:

My shutter finger can be slow sometimes. Any idea how many of these pictures I have?

Way too many. I need to hit delete. But if I stop to hit delete, I might miss something.

Like this:

Ok, this is more what I was aiming for. (I promised Leif a quarter if he looked down.)

Ok, so it is cute. But not really what I was looking for.

This one cost me a treat sized bag of M&Ms. Wonder if I can cut Skadi's expression from the one above and put it over her shadowed face in this one?

Skadi finally decided that she had enough and came out of hiding thus ending my attempts to get the perfect picture. Probably saving my kids teeth too... I am not sure what I was going to offer next.

The patio

Seriously we love it. Everytime I walk out there I love it even more.

It feels so good to actually be happy about money spent on a home improvement!

Goals

So if you haven't been keeping up, my goal for 2008 is to not only get my house organized, but to get it ready to sell in 9 months to a year. My plan has been to address one room a month, every month. January was the library, February was Leif's room and the guest bathroom (since it is small), March was Skadi's room.

Skadi's room, for all intensive purposes is 95% done. My sewing table needs to be replaced by her crib, and we need to do something with the queen sized bed in that room.

But finishing her room has been put on hold. Meanwhile, Skadi's crib sits in our closet - where she sleeps so that we don't wake her up (me reading at night with the light on, AB snoring...). Our crib seems to be on its last legs and AB fears moving it very much. So given that my mom and stepdad are coming out in a few weeks, we have put off moving Skadi into her room for our own ease. So that also means that her room will remain at being 95% done beyond March (i.e., tomorrow).

So the next question became, which room is next? I was leaning pretty solidly to our Master Suite - to include the bathroom.

AB, despite all his whining about my goals that he thinks have become his goals, had another suggestion yesterday. We need to treat outside as "a room".

He is right. April is the perfect month to get our backyard in shape. As long as it quits snowing freak snow showers on us and warms up. In theory we will be able to plant the garden in a few weeks. Plus, I want my patio to be in good shape for when my mom and stepdad visit... sitting outside with a gin and tonic or glass of wine, eating BBQ, is always a favorite activity for us all when they visit.

The indoor rooms can wait until it is too hot and miserable to go outside and work. And it is a chance to switch things up a little. And when my husband starts whining about "my goals", I can remind him that this one, was his idea.

The "to do list" includes coating the patio with an epoxy resin so the two cement slabs become one that is much more appealing to the eye and to tender bare feet. Clean out the awful corner that is the bane of my existance. If I ever feel like I need to complain to my husband about something I just walk over to the west side of our house. Where my brow immediately furrows...

I need to clean out my flower beds front and back. I pruned my roses last weekend. And we need to plant the vegetable garden (broccoli, brussel sprouts, carrots, a tomato or two and mostly room for giant pumpkin rearing).

The goal is set!