Bye September

Something about the changing weather invigorates me. I find the energy that I knew I had once, several months ago, and my drive returns. September is always a good goal month for me. I did crank it out this month.

My one goal was to figure out something with photos. I have so many photos on my phone and I did recently sign up for Google Photos as another stop gap for the "what if I lost them" feeling. But that didn't fully cut it. One of my sister's and my favorite things when we were a kid was sitting down and flipping through our old sticky, magnetic photo albums. We loved flipping through the pages of memories. My parents had some old ones - paper ones with corners on the photos, that were there too from the time before we were born. But we rarely looked at those because WE - the center of attention in the house - were not in them.

This is a bit similar to our house. I have albums upon albums of 11 years of our joint lives before children. Every once in awhile one of them gets pulled out - our wedding, or look at the monkeys we saw in Costa Rica, or the bears at Katmai National Park, and it inevitably migrates to look how skinny dad was and how young mom was! We have an album of Leif as a baby I think. Back when we thought we were so busy. But apparently I wasn't busy enough not to do a photo album.

Then I did some photo books. That was always kind of nice because I could print off a few of those as gifts. But then life smacked us in the face and there was no longer time to organize the digital photos and caption them electronically either. I have managed an occasional album here and there - focused on single events - like Disneyworld trip #2 or Disney cruise and Disney trip #3. But the photos are slapped into a themed album and called good.

I have been using Instagram since Silas was about 4 weeks old. And I have used it pretty consistently, so I thought my easiest, low hanging fruit solution would be something that prints my feed. And Chatbooks is so far easy. An app on my phone that continuously uploads my Instagram feed into volumes. I go through the volumes and pull the dumb photos, the food photos (well most of them), and they print up 60 page hard bound small books. I have enough photos for 25 of the books so far... so it isn't an inexpensive deal. I am buying 5 volumes a month, which means in another 4 months or so I will have my last 4.5 years of important photos in hard bound books.

The quality is alright. I wasn't blown away, but he photos are there, available to be handled and loved and laughed at. And someday if I want, I can reprint or create custom books for each of the kids.

It works for now. I am inspired to continue posting to my Instagram. And my September goals is done.

And because it is fall now and my motivation has returned I also accomplished a boat load around the house this month. Because I feel better when I can document my accomplishments, well here they are:

• Cleaned, purged, and organized our linen closet.
• Cleaned, purged, and organized our medicine closet. 
• Cleaned, purged, and organized the linen closet in the boys' bathroom. 
• Cleaned, purged, and organized Silas' bathroom
• Cleaned, purged, and organized the laundry room. Ugh. You have no idea on that one. Apparently it has just been neglected since we moved in. But I organized and threw away a ton of stuff, scrubbed the floors and walls, relocated a bunch of stuff from my medicine closet (second linen closet in the master) that the kids and everyone comes to our room to retrieve (Kleenex, toilet paper, wet wipes, etc.) to the shelves in there. I am now very happy with that space. I dream of painting it... but I don't fantasize about making it happen yet. 
• Patched and painted a massively dinged up wall in my front stairway. Then relocated a few pictures there. 
• Patched and painted a messy, dinged up small hallway between my kitchen, pantry, and dining room. It needed it so badly. 
• And then since I had a nice clean freshly painted hallway, but measurements from 2 of my 3 kids were now gone, I pilfered a really nice board from AB's stash and made a giant ruler thing, then sealed it, hung it, and moved over all my kids' height measurements from their growth records and the walls. Now I have a beautiful board with a boatload of interesting data! I LOVE it. 
• And last today - I cleaned out my pantry. 

See - - really pretty amazing for one month. I also worked on my plans for my October - November - and probably December project. The playroom reno- which will be the next blog post.

Counting Down...

The signs of the weather changing are there. The evenings are cooler - in the mountains this weekend they were downright cold. School is starting (7th, 5th, and last year of preschool). My pumpkins in the garden are starting to turn orange. The garden is overflowing with yumminess. Fantasy football is spinning up.

My absolute favorite time of the year. I am pretty sure I say it every year - I used to despise summer the way many people around here complain about snow. I love snow. I want to live around it more. This last snowy year was fabulous in my book. But anyways, summer is my 4th favorite season - but despite that, I don't hate it anymore. I don't like the heat (neither does AB, probably even more so than me). But since moving to the Pacific Northwest 15 years ago I have found a summer I can go with. The days are longer, the super hot days are shorter lived. The summers in the Pacific Northwest are yummier than anywhere else I have lived (except for the RibFest in Reno, and Palisade Peaches and Corn in Colorado).

I can't wait. I love the football season weather, the cool nights, the Indian summer warm days, the food, the Holidays and watching my kids anticipate the upcoming holidays. I'll take it.

So I always take a break from my goals in the summer. I didn't write about them much last spring - just no time. (Even right now I am sitting near a squealing 4yo, after I moved from a room where he was rough housing.) But I did work them and succeed in redecorating our bedroom.

So here it is.

September Goals:
1. Figure out my photos. Create a plan. I miss having photos in hand, but don't have time for sorting, printing, putting in albums, or photo books. I have recently come across some subscription services that print your Instagram feed monthly for a fee. That's where most of my "good" photos. This might meet my need.
2. Plan the "Playroom Transition". We are taking the kids' play space that Skadi no longer uses, filled with toys that no one plays with, and transitioning to a teen space. Skadi and I are doing this together and have been pinning many ideas. She even saw some chairs she liked recently at camp and went to the director and asked where she got the chairs. Then promptly forgot. But I loved that she is thinking about this and excited to make this transition.

October Goals:
1. Start the Playroom Transition. This may be a two month thing... and actually the completely finished date may be Christmas time since some of the upgrades (new TV, game system) will likely be gifts.

The newest goal

This goal blindsided me out of nowhere. Bam! Tonight it hit me though.

I will start by saying that I am not a people person. A friend recently told me that he built a cabin and (since he is single) spent 4 days there by himself. This friend is a social person, so it kind of made sense that he said he started to lose it four days disconnected. I admitted to him that I crave that. And AB and I fully plan to have a cabin in the woods to disappear to in the future. I look forward to experiencing that alone-ness. Of course, I have AB, so it would probably be easier than complete solo. Anyways, the fact that I find myself sitting there rolling my eyes half the time about people, doesn't surprise me. It's more the frequency with which I am feeling it lately. My lack of patience with people. And I am tired of feeling this.

I want to think it isn't just me. I had some level of validation last week that it wasn't just me. A high school friend posted about her frustration with social media. The feeling of never measuring up. And I nodded and thought about my life. The toddler who hits and pinches all.the.freaking.time. The dog who drives me insane. My kids ate Top Ramen for dinner. Not getting my daughter to her tutor on time (and yes, my daughter sees a tutor for her reading). The tween boy who is, well, behaving like a tween boy. The house that is never picked up. Feeling dead tired after a day of work. Not getting the exercise I want to get.

And everyone else is perfect. My friend challenged us to keep it real and post what it is really like under her hashtag. And I did. And it was fun and nice to see that someone else burnt the bacon. I like to think that I keep it real and that not all my posts are of perfection. But I am probably as annoying to others as many people on my Friends list are annoying me right now. But it isn't just people who are "friends". It is articles I see that challenge whether I am a good mom. It is the people shaming for dumb ass stuff like parking poorly, or disciplining a child in a store, or not disciplining a child in a store. The list goes on. I believe I am a good mom. But being inundated by it all is just taking a toll.

I thought about deactivating my Facebook account, but I am not quite there yet. I get a lot of information through there like what fruit French's has for picking, my kid's schools PTO, my school district. And even coworkers. I use Facebook messenger at work because I can't have my cell phone at my desk. So I can't cut the cord.

But I can cut my fingers off.

Ok. Seriously. I can't cut my fingers off. I can't even do that thing where you take a needle and put it through your first layer of skin and make it look like you have needles in your fingers. Eww. Can't do it.

But I can quit posting. Instagram I like. I follow a few organizations there (Smithsonian... you must do it) and I enjoy it. My close family members who care if I post the obligatory first day of school pictures are on there and they will get to see those pictures. I will post to Instagram. But I tend to be way more selective with what I post there and everything has to be associated with a picture. I like that.

I also have this page. My blog. The nice thing about a blog is that a person has to actively decide they want to see what you write and go there. Instead of passively showing up on everyone's feeds and annoying people.

I am not going to be absent on Facebook. You may see a Like from me or a stray response. But I need to silence myself before I go in to full on back up behavior on Facebook. I am an Amiable, I can feel my back up Driver emerging. And who all really likes a Driver on Facebook? Yeah, no.

I have Blogger on my phone and I will post here when I feel the need to share. I have been meaning to post more here because I have so much history recorded here. This new goal should serve to get me back here and maybe break that Facebook addiction.

Goals Update

I have been thinking a lot about my goals lately. First, that I need to wrap the ones up that are hanging out there flapping in the wind, but then also what I want to do going forward – i.e., the fall. There will be no real goals started in the summer. AB has dreams of taking the trailer out camping every possible weekend – and I usually push that back to every other or every third weekend. (Laundry has to get done sometime… yes, I know, big stick in the mud.)

 

So I still have the shelves and such to finish my little sewing/cross stitch nook thing in the playroom. They are painted and awaiting being hung. Once those are done I can do the fun part of sorting my sewing stuff and having a nice organized space for everything. 

 

And I did sort some stuff on the computer. Got rid of all those folders from old computers and consolidated folders. I have worked a little ways through the whole picture sorting thing, but haven’t gotten as far as I would like. The main driver right now is in space on the computer. We aren’t completely out of space anymore, so this has been idle. And I keep thinking we may need a new computer on the horizon and when we do then I will have space galore and won’t need to worry about trashing the crappy photos. I would love, love, love to do photo books for each year. But I just don’t have the time. Maybe when my kids (toddler) doesn’t suck up all my free time.

 

Then there was the back yard. AB did raised beds last year and I loved them so much I asked for three more for Mother’s Day. Then I decided I wanted the grass out from around them and pea gravel between and around them. So last weekend (instead of installing my sewing shelves), AB layed weed fabric and started dumping grass clippings on the weed fabric to kill back the grass. Eventually, maybe later this summer, we will pull back the grass clippings and fill the weed fabric area with pea gravel and have a raised bed area worthy of a Sunset cover. 

 

A girl can dream, can’t she?

 

So along with this I have an area that I want to put raspberries, blackberries, blueberry bushes and other things like that. For that area we are working on covering the grass with cardboard and then compost a few inches deep. It won’t be ready until next year, but then we can till it all in and plant the next phase of our edible yard.

 

This is the biggest thing I miss from our previous house. AB and I put in our yard and nearly every aspect of it provided food – a huge garden, fruit trees (which are a pain in the rear, I don’t want any fruit trees except maybe a nectarine tree), raspberries, blueberries, rhubarb. We want that in our current house and are moving towards having it. Now I need to just figure out how to get rid of all the ornamental bushes crap…

 

I am eyeing the fall for work on the Master Bedroom. I keep putting it off mostly because I am just not sure what I want or what the solutions are for the room’s issues. I want new paint. I would love new carpet (now that I have the taste for new carpet in the other areas of my house, but this probably won’t happen!), I need storage solutions and décor is completely lacking. It is the room in the house with the MOST potential for change. I want a refuge, a comfortable place without the toys, laundry baskets (full and not), clutter, crappy dressers, etc. This could be an easy, clean out the room and paint it thing… or it could be so so so much more. I mentioned our bedroom as the next target for my monthly goals and AB may have muttered something and rolled his eyes. Telling him it was for the fall didn’t change anything. 

 

Catching up

I keep having thoughts of “I should blog about this” and then the time just slips away. It is slipping away badly. Can you believe it is already mid-May?

 

I thought I would just do a recap/catch up post as a jumping off point.

 

The kids:

 

Silas – I did an update for his birthday a few weeks ago while I was in Hawaii. So his update will be shorter, lowest hanging fruit – he goes first.

 

·         Well child visit: 

o   Height – 36” and 80^thpercentile

o   Weight – 27 lbs 11 oz and 30^th percentile

-Concern about the weight loss. He was up to just about 30 lbs, but has suddenly dropped off. Some of this is probably due to his increased activity level – he runs everywhere. But we would have expected him to hold instead of lose weight. He was terribly sick while we were in Hawaii and I suspect it was being sick and the lack of nutrition going in that caused weight loss. I also think that his refusal to sit down and eat dinner is part of it too. Apparently he eats well and a variety of food at daycare. But he is playing mom and dad for something and refuses most dinner, will sit for about 5 minutes. Eat a little, then scream bloody murder to get out of his seat and “go play”. In the interest of a semi-peaceful dinner, we eventually give in to the little terrorist and release him from his confines. 

- Out of hopes that he will gain weight we have loosened our dietary reigns on him. Normally there would be no dessert when no dinner was eaten. But for the time being… “ice cream? Of course you can have ice cream.”

·         Vocabulary: He still is powering ahead. Counting, speaking, expressing himself. This past weekend we bought a few containers of ladybugs and released them into our yard. The ladybugs would crawl on him and his response? “What the heck?” It was seriously the funniest thing. 

 

Skadi – My girl is 8 years old! Poor middle child. I didn’t blog about her birthday… and I really, really should. It was wonderful with a few weird things (not associated with her!). Ok, Skadi birthday blog post will come next. So this will be short about her. 

·         Well Child Visit: 

o   Height – 49.25" and 28^thpercentile. Probably still not tall enough to ride the water slide. She has gone up a bit and I am truly wondering if it is the stomach aches that have eased. About a year ago we started trying to pinpoint the cause of her constant tummy aches. Meeting with specialists in Seattle did little, we were given real pills, placebo pills, nothing worked. We finally (on our own) pulled her off gluten and dairy and eggs (mild egg allergy noted on her allergy panel) and then slowly let things back into her diet. We were trying to pinpoint something that was causing her distress – we became certain that it was lactose intolerance for a while. Nothing has really jumped out for us, but she is better. She is back to eating things with gluten, small amounts of dairy (cheese mostly, she used to drink a ton of milk and doesn’t anymore, she is a water kid now) and eggs don’t seem to bother her. It remains a mystery, but she isn’t writhing in pain anymore.

 

Leif – Finishing fourth grade. I remember 4^th grade well. Leif is definitely the brainy kid in class and chums around with the other brainy kids. He has a good friend who is overboard with technology. I always felt as though we were quite permissible with Leif given that he has his own Kindle and uses the computer regularly. Then I met his new best friend who carries an iPhone 6 that acts as his mobile hot spot. He informed me last weekend on his visit that he didn’t need my wifi code like other kids probably do. Yeah… most other 10 year old request my wifi password… NOT!

 

Leif’s big concern wherever we go (and it drives AB and I INSANE) has become “is there wifi there?” I suspect this will soon become a requirement for when we book something, “what, you have no wifi? GREAT!” We are constantly pulling a device (his, ours) out of his hands and working to get him to interact with the real world. He prides himself on his abilities too – he told us he “hacked” the typing test at school recently. Though the teacher became suspicious when he had a perfect result and made him redo it. It’s hard to admonish his actions when you are giggling (and the teacher caught on and took control…). Go ahead - call us bad parents. 

 

Leif was totally thrilled to be accepted as a part of the Safety Patrol Team at his new school next year. He will demand respect from the rest of the student body as he dons his safety vest and wields his flag.

 

AB – For the first time EVER, we left kids at home with AB’s sister and mom and he took off with me on travel. I had to go to Kona, Hawaii for 8 days. Yes, it was rough. We were running a short course on Sunday and then my presentation wasn’t until Friday, requiring me to spend a solid week hanging out in paradise. AB headed that way Tuesday and we stayed through Sunday, arriving home late Sunday night. It was nice to get away, but I was seriously missing the kids by Sunday. It was just a very long time to be away. I was talking with a colleague the other day who said she was so happy her family came and met her – she completely understood my feelings of missing the kids. In three years when we go back? We will take the kids then.

 

We had a super time though. I worked my tail end off the first few days that AB wasn’t there so that I could take a bit of time off with him. I let him sleep in Wednesday morning and I attended some conference. Then mid-morning we packed up and drove towards Kilauea. It was a must do for me. Nearly 25 years ago to the date I had stood and watched lava flow over the road in front of me, and into the ocean. Something I will never, ever forget. We took a leisurely trip towards Volcanoes National Park. Stopped at a black sand beach (it was a windy, stormy day, no snorkeling or swimming) and saw some nesting sea turtles! Once at Volcanoes we saw the crater rim before the weather moved in, hiked some lava tubes, drove to the coast to see the vast lava fields (and trip down memory lane for me). Then back up to the rim for nighttime crater viewing. Loved it all. Then the long trek back to the hotel that night.

 

Thursday and Friday we hung pretty close to the hotel, ate good food. Then Saturday we went out on a snorkel trip at the Captain Cook Memorial. I had a super time snorkeling and hanging out on the boat. AB had done a few snorkeling outings the days prior, so he wasn’t quite as impressed, but I was thrilled!

 

AB’s work is going fine. His contract will end eventually (maybe soon, maybe not) and he is trying to figure out what he wants to do. Work in a similar area to what he is doing now (he should be a shoe in), find a job in town with a private industry with more reasonable hours and actual vacation and sick time, or make a play (again) to try and get on at my lab. We may have some leverage, but not going to count those chickens before they hatch.

 

Me (aka Nuclear Mom) – Things have been going gang busters at work. I can’t even describe it. A few years ago I took on a technical project again and that work has blossomed. I could fund myself fully on that project, but I try to keep it to 30% time because I have so many other things I want to do. The project has led to solicitations for me to speak at conferences and next week, at a University. I am thrilled about the resurgence of technical work in my daily portfolio over management duties. I enjoy that little boost I get when I get those cold e-mails that say, “I read your article…”, or recently “I cited your team’s publication in my proposal and the funding agent has asked us to see if we can work with you, interested?”

 

So the remaining 70% of my time I am trying to figure out how to split it. Right now I have about 150% work I am fitting into that 70% of time. I am trying not to drop things. I had the privilege of running two proposal calls this past quarter. One from behind the scenes and the other very much in front. I have been approached about taking a new position at the lab and yet another new office in a different building and I have accepted. It has yet to come to fruition, but the scuttle I hear is that it will once things settle down with the client reorganization and another key high level role has been filled internally, then we will transition me. I had hesitations with it – mainly the personalities I will be working with and the fact that I love my job currently, I was not clamoring for change. So frankly if they find some other poor sap or decide it isn’t the right job for me, I am totally fine with that. I have been encouraged by some colleagues recently to take it and run with it and very nice things said about my work, so I am willing to give it a shot. 

 

The main PI I have worked with over the past 4 years was just notified of his promotion to fellow yesterday. I am so happy for him. We have worked really, really hard over the last several years and he very much deserves this honor.

 

My travel schedule has been ridiculous over the past few months. Enough so that I am looking at achieving status on TWO airlines by the end of the year. Of course that says that if I would have focused all my efforts on utilizing just one airline that I could have a higher status… but I am a sucker for convenience and going with whoever can get me home fastest to see my family.

 

I like travel. I don’t like flying pretty much at all, but it is the means to the end. I like my work. But what I don’t like is missing the kids and being away from my family. I am not to that point where I feel as though I am missing major aspects of my kids’ lives, but I can see how that could happen – I have no less than 5 trips that have been proposed to me for the next couple months. (None that I have accepted.) I have one more trip next week and then I have committed to avoiding travel at least through the end of the school year (end of school year is a bugger for kids having stuff to do) and if possible, through the summer. My next non-negotiable trip on the books is scheduled for September 1-3. And so when I saw that is the first day of school (Sept 1), I started trying to weasel. I may have gained a reprieve for one day. My new position is going to require travel, so I need to figure out how to balance this all. (And part of the reason that AB is thinking about seeking a position where he might have more flexibility.)

 

Home life… after the month of April concluded I was able to come back to reality, escape the crashing waves of other people’s proposals and being gone more than I was actually home. I insisted we spend Mother’s Day at home – we normally take the trailer out. That was a good decision not only for my mental health, but physical health since I fell to some horrible cold/cough sickness that I am wondering if I am ever going to lose.

 

Goals status – 

·         January was carpet  and I am happy to report that after 4 months, the living room carpet has been installed. And it is gorgeous and soft and the entire family is in love. I am doubly thrilled to have that process behind us.

·         February was the sewing room. Shelves were cut and painted, then life happened. They still sit there ready to be hung and filled. It’s fine. I have had other things I wanted done that were on a more pressing timeline (garden).

·         March I had wanted to organize my photos on the computer. I would put that at about 40%. They have been organized, but I have just started on purging duplicates, bad photos, etc. I need to do it when the kids aren’t around and hovering since they want to know why I am deleting THAT picture. Typical response is “because we have three others that are better”. But it goes so much faster if *I* just do it.

·         I didn’t even attempt April, and I didn’t blog about May – but May was the garden. At minimum I wanted to get my three raised bed planted. But AB raised me one and built three more raised beds that I wanted and filled them with raised bed dirt. I have the first three planted, but planting the last three is on the docket for this weekend. Eventually I want the grass surrounding the raised beds to be gone and pea gravel to occupy that space. Maybe it will be my June goal…

 

Then comes Memorial Day. I travel Monday through Wednesday of next week. I am happily taking the Thursday off to hang with my kids since their teachers are walking out (I am very supportive of their positions, they need to be paid more, the administrator’s pay raises are ridiculous and I want my schools to comply with the new WA state law that says there shouldn’t be more than 26 kids per classroom… my district gets nearly every bond voted in that they ask for, come on!). I am going to get us ready to go camping on Thursday and then Friday we are out of here for some much needed forest/mountain time. I need that outdoors time, kick off the summer, snuggle with the kids in the trailer time in a bad, bad way.

 

Progress - but it's slow!

So January was carpet for the living room. I thought we were progressing hugely when I spontaneously painted the living room.

Carpet though, has stalled. It is crawling forward at a snails pace and it isn't really my fault! Nope, I can't take the blame on the January goal.

First off Home Depot took forever to get here for our quote. Then AB signed us up for a Costco quote - and then they showed up at the wrong time and begrudgingly rescheduled us. Unfairly begrudgingly so, IMO, because I would have not scheduled the appointment during one of my recurring weekly meetings at 11am. In fact, I specifically recall talking to the scheduler and saying "oh how nice it will be to be home at 2pm, a full hour and a half before my kids get home!"

So then Home Depot gave us our quote and AB balked. Ok, so I balked too. Way higher than we thought - and when you look at the quote we kind of wonder exactly how much waste they were planning on having? Our room is 18.5 x 19.5. And they wanted to order 49 linear feet of 12' wide carpet. WTF? Why do they need 13 feet extra? To make up for the free install deal? Shadey much?

So yesterday AB decided to sign us up for quote #3 that came in about $800 cheaper than the Home Depot for the highest end "can't possibly ever stain this carpet". So anyways, getting the last two measures and final quotes this coming week and then the carpet is special order. We will be lucky to have it done by the end of February, early March more likely. I guess that's ok. Gives us a few more weeks to trash the current carpet.

My current February goal is my sewing "nook". Shelves just need to be cut (AB...) and installed (AB...) and then I can put all my sewing stuff in. Looking at a ribbon rod (where did I get all that ribbon?) and a thread rack. AND AB is talking about adding onto one of the shelves a custom flip up sewing table. Really!!

Unless I want my February goals to suffer a similar delay fate as January I need to figure out how to dangle the carrot. I was thinking if I moved all the fabric into our bedroom - and put it on AB's side of the bed... I keep telling him it's no big deal, just show me how to use the multitude of saws in our garage. I can do it!

So I am already thinking about March. And I have a March must do that came to me today as I plugged my phone in and tried to back it up to the computer.

I succeeded about 5 hrs later after deleting random programs and crap my son has put on the computer. But truly, the vast majority of the space on the computer is from photos. My photos file is out of control.

I am not sure how to tackle it, but I need to sit down and organize the computer. Remove photos that suck. Create a file to save my favorites. (For eventual insertion into a photo book... when the kids are grown, I expect.)

So there, March goal is on deck. Organize and reduce the memory of the computer that I really, really do not want to replace right now.

Mid-Month Progress

So my January goal was to deal with the flooring in the living room. Hideous. Awful. Bad. Nasty. Icky. We have carpet, it is just old and falling apart. You can hardly vacuum in there without pulling out long threads of loops. That conveniently wind themselves around the roller of the vacuum and then require you to sit and pick them out. So much fun.

We have honed in on carpet. Low hanging fruit. Truly "we" (AB) would probably (really) rather have hardwood. But we lack time, money and the desire to install it. And honestly I favor, for that room, carpet. It's the room where we roll around with the kids.

We have decided on style and composition and now just need to make a decision between the Home Depot "free install" (but carpet costs more) and the Cost Less Carpet, less expensive carpet but pay per square foot to a third party installer. I am leaning towards the Home Depot install only because when we were selling our other house and replaced the linoleum we went with one of Cost Less Carpet's recommended installers and he did a crap job, then refused to come back and fix it. Just not something I want to deal with.

So now we are doing the waiting and measuring and scheduling.

One of the Home Depot guys asked about paint on the wall. Yes, there is paint on the wall. No, he asked, fresh paint? Because it needs to cure a week before we install.

No, the paint isn't fresh, we told him and went about our business.

Then it dawned on me. HALF the room was painted a year ago or so. HALF the room hasn't been painted since we moved in.

And it doesn't look bad half painted. And in fact, I had only kind of given thought to someday it would be nice to paint that other half of the room and even knew what color it would be - the same neutral we used throughout the rest of the first floor.

Then I had a revelation! (AB loves my revelations.)

WE HAVE TO PAINT THE REST OF THE LIVING ROOM BEFORE THEY INSTALL THE CARPET!

We are going to spend a small fortune on super high end carpet, I am NOT going to want to paint that room for the next several years and risk (even with drop clothes - I am messy) a drop of paint on our beautiful carpet!

So January has become carpet and really quick finish painting the living room.

Today (and yesterday) I am hope with the kids as they have days off from school. Today, I tape and prep. Friday, we buy the paint. Saturday, I paint while AB takes Leif to his chess tournament. And hopefully the toddler naps better that day then he is today.

I really did get a lot of stuff done around the house today though. I picked up the play room. A small feat in itself. Days is how long I expect it to stay picked up. But while I was doing that I had another REVELATION!

My February goal. It's a revelation because AB is involved.

They always tell you at work that your goals shouldn't involve other people because that is out of your control. Yeah, yeah. I get it.

So here it is. My sewing stuff is in a bunch of bins and plastic drawers and stuff like that. I need a place to put it all and I have identified the perfect place! I just need a bunch of shelves installed. See that little inset area? It is a perfect nook for some "built ins". And I could even have a shelf dedicated to my sewing machine. And oh oh oh - imagine a table that folds down to CREATE a sewing table!

Ok, I know. Crazy talk. I just need the shelves. Then I can use that folding table over yonder...

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!

The October Goal - Finished!

Ok, so it is nearly the end of November, but I am happy to exclaim that the October goal to paint a portion of the living room is done! Finished! Yay!

I am really, really happy with it.

I messed around with some brownish-tan colors. I wanted a shade darker than the "brown teepee" that we have settled on for the neutral throughout the first floor. But they all seemed icky and weird. Or not darker. I needed something that would go with the neutral but compliment the grey in the dining room (diagonal and not directly attached the living room), the remaining "white" in the living room/kitchen, the green in the foyer (that is growing on me - AB likes it - I was iffy for awhile). I didn't want to pull the grey into the living room, but that was starting to look like an option.

I finally went and bought some browns that were so way darker than everything else and then we had the difficult task of narrowing down the choice because we - surprisingly - liked them all.

So it is dark. It is chocolate-esque.

And I love it.

The area over the couch still needs something - it is a very large brown space. But that is the fun part! Getting to look for art on our future trips to fill in the space. I don't have a burning desire to fill it in now. I can wait - and I often do wait - until I find the PERFECT pieces for us.

Happy happy!

December Goal? Survive and make Christmas.

August 2013 Goals Wrap Up and Sept 2013 Goals

I hit it out of the park for August!

Of course I did set the bar pretty low - organize the school stuff drawer, the desk in the kitchen, and get the kids' school stuff together. Then organize a calendar that is easy to use and that I don't have to spend time rewriting each month.

And the chair bags. Sew two chair bags for my kids school stuff. I wanted bags to hang on the back of their chairs, in fabric they would each like (and therefore use). No more "mom, where did my homework go?" Nope, because when the table needs to be cleared, the unfinished homework could go in the chair bag. And there are pencils and scissors and erasers and crayons there ready access!

Ok, so it wasn't hit OUT of the park. But I hit a homerun at least.

Got the stuff organized, kids got their school supplies with 18 hours to spare, and I built an Excel color coded calendar that is super easy to update. (I love Excel.)

I thought I wasn't going to make it, then Silas had pink eye and needed to stay home. And then the internet went down preventing me from working from home during the afternoon nap. And that fabric stood there staring at me.

So I whipped them out.

I may have whipped too hard. I should have gone slower and actually measured, made a pattern or found one online.

They are done and functional. But don't look too closely at them!

What I would change? I would use some contrasting fabric. And I would measure. I didn't like the way they ended up hanging from the top of the chair, so I flipped the ties around to the side, even though they weren't really made for that. I used corduroy for Skadi's bag. Nice and durable and stiff. For Leif's I used regular cotton stuff. It's a bit flimsy.

But hey! They are done and functional and I didn't really make them as a style piece more than a functional piece. And functional they are!

August done!

I think maybe I wanted to embark on the Master Bedroom for September? Anyways, I can't remember. But I don't have it in me to do the Master Bedroom for September, both from a monetary perspective (stupid car and trailer repairs) and time.

Instead Skadi has been begging for her quilt. And she is tired of her Dora comforter. So my September goal is to at least start on her quilt. I am so pleased with the horribly expensive professional quilt job on our bed quilt, that I am even thinking about forking out the dough for long arm service on her quilt.

There, September goal set!

Goals?

Phew! Goodbye 2011. It wasn't a bad year here. As all years tend to go, it just went fast. Wasn't 2011 just starting?

One nice thing about working where I do is that learning to write 2012 isn't hard. I have been writing it for three whole months now.

Every year I sent out to do monthly goals. And in the first few months of the year, usually January through May, I really kick butt. Then I either take the summer off, or we tackle a larger project. Then a few more monthly goals in the fall before the Holidays take over. It works for me.

But honestly, I haven't given my monthly goals much thought.

I had a huge list of goals for my just over two weeks off in December and managed to hit all of them (make chicken pot pies, make lefse, make chili, make latkes, make bolognese sauce, clean and organize Leif's closet and room, clean and organize Skadi's room, help AB install the dining room floor) except three. And the three I didn't hit aren't major - I didn't get the trailer cleaned like I had planned. And I didn't get the two planned playdates done with other kids we don't normally have playdates with. Maybe if I got return e-mails from the two other parents, the playdates would have worked out...

So with any luck we will have our dining room completely done on January 1.

My list of things to do during 2012 is long, but not really organized in a monthly fashion...

Empty the office.
Finish painting the office.
Rip up the carpet in the office.
Enable AB to do the floors by fielding the kids for 2-3 days.
Come up with plans for the outdoor kitchen.
Start execution of outdoor kitchen/patio area.
Start purging the baby stuff out of the house (sigh)

Part of my problem is that I am just so blinded by my long list of other stuff...

January:
My birthday weekend
AB's birthday weekend, skiing?
Ski weekend?

February:
Potential travel to Florida and Connecticut
Ski weekend for President's Day

March:
Anniversary weekend
Travel to DC

April:
Leif's Spring Break - Yellowstone in the trailer?
Travel to Tennessee (oh yeah)

May:
Travel to Pittsburgh.

And now it's summer.

Where do I fit in all my to do stuff?

Flooring selections

This fall we plan to replace our office and dining room crap carpet with hardwood. We went and picked out five options and once home immediately narrowed it down to three.

Going from three to one has proven to be more difficult. We love them all for various reasons. Here is where you come in.

Vote! I am posting the three options below. Please post in my comments picking your favorite selection and stating why.

A few details about our house. It is a very traditional style house. Lots of windows, two stories. We only plan to use this flooring in the two front rooms of the house - the formal dining room and office. There are two - yes two - different types of tile off the formal dining room.

The builders/original owners of this house were spastic with flooring. We have about five different carpets and three different tiles throughout the house. I need some consistency. The office and dining room are separated by a dark clay/terra cotta colored smooth tile. Off the formal dining room on the other side is pale cream rough tile.

We have maple trim.

The first is tiger bamboo. It is a solid hardwood, two toned bamboo. Bamboo is of an advantage because it is also the hardest material out there - and we have dogs.

Close up of the bamboo.

 The second choice is a tobacco teak, handscraped hardwood. It has a rough finish and will successfully hide little dings and dents.

Australian Cypress. The light color matches our trim very well. Disadvantage is that it is light and shiny and will show many different dings and dents.

So... what are your thoughts?

That time of the month... Goals!

I think the last time I talked about monthly goals was the end of July/first part of August. I am trying to remember (while being lazy and not scrolling back too far) what I put? I am pretty sure that it was August to select colors for the dining room/office/foyer and that in September I would paint.

For this being a late summer goal, I didn't do too bad!

We got the colors picked and I have so far, spent two afternoons painting to total one hallway in the foyer and one wall painted and two in the dining room. We need to double check our second accent color against the new taupe color of the dining room, purchase it and then paint.

We decided on a taupe neutral to use throughout the three rooms and I am thrilled with it. The second accent color will be a slate-ish grey.

Today we went and picked out new floors - or at least picked out 6 options which once home were quickly narrowed down to three.

Tiger Bamboo

Tobacco Road Teak

Australian (or was it Austrian?) Cypress

So that is the goal for this and next month - get the new floors decided on and in.

I seem to have a bit more flexibility with time lately and so my goals can be more than "clean out Leif's closet" because in theory WE can do that one day after school.

My stretch goal is that by Thanksgiving, I have a newly painted foyer and new paint and floors in the office and dining room.