Hey there!
How’s your day going? I slept in a bit late even though I had all intentions of getting up early. That didn’t quite happen as I did wake up several times but couldn’t manage to pull myself out of bed.
I am still very sore from our Father’s Day weekend, cleaning out the closet, and from yesterday. We did get up a bit early yesterday as Mr. Awesome had a surprise planned. I fixed some yummy pancakes for breakfast on our new griddle and after eating we loaded up in our van. (I am including a few links to previous posts as well as some affiliate/referral links that help to support our blog.)
I can never get everyone in the pictures. And if they are they won’t look the same way.
Our first stop was the movie theater. We got to see the new Jurassic Movie, ‘Jurassic World’, and it was pretty good. The kids, especially the boys, love these movies and I think we own all of them.
After the movie we went to meet a friend of his who had a couple of younger kids. They had a pool as well so our kids got to practice swimming some more and are getting much better at it. They want to swim without life vests but I’m not comfortable with that yet. (Sorry/Not Sorry kiddos. I’m planning a water safety post soon. By the way have I shown you the cute, but modest, little swimsuits I found for the girls? If not, check them out here and here.)
We also had a small cookout and it was very nice to meet some new people and spend the day with them. The kids were exhausted when we left and so was I. I was actually exhausted before but did my best to hang in there as everyone was having so much fun.
So that’s my excuse(s) for not getting up early today but I will try my best tomorrow. It shouldn’t be too hard to get up earlier than I did today … lol.
After getting dressed I decided I should go throw some clothes in the wash. I wanted t get my clothes washed as well as the wet stuff from yesterday. Getting up late isn’t going to ruin my day and I am determined to get this house sorted this week.
So I headed to the kitchen to get a glass of water and my Vitality Vitamins. (Yesterday was my first day taking them so I can’t really say how they work for me yet.) Mid gulp something outside the window catches my eye. I knew what I thought I saw but I thought maybe my imagination was a bit overworked.
It was kinda one of those Tweety Bird moments when he says:
Only it wasn’t a puddy tat I tawt I taw. I turned my head away and then looked back again for another peek. Sure enough my eyes were correct, it was a snake. I tried to get a picture of him climbing the outhouse but it was too blurry.
Ewww…. not the best way to start my morning. Granted it was just a black snake and they are usually a good snake to have around. Unless you are deathly terrified of snakes and he almost gives you a heart attack like he has done with the neighbor. I admit I have been terrified of snakes before and am not very fond of them but I will try to tolerate ‘good snakes’.
Nice, deep breath before I head outside to see where he was headed. Of course by this time Mr. Black Snake was headed down the path towards me. (Hehe… this sounds like a line from one of the kids readers ‘The Adventures of Mr Toad’, maybe?)
My puddy tat came to my rescue and walked right beside me the whole way. When Mr. Black Snake saw me and puddy tat he turned and went the other way. He is now somewhere under the outhouse. Out of sight out of mind? Maybe. This kind of reminds me of a story I just told Mr. Awesome about the ‘pet’ black snake we had when I was young. He was much bigger and lived in the outhouse and he scared me more than once.
I did get the laundry carried out and started. So I came back to the house to get breakfast ready and have a cup of coffee. I also realized that in my distractedness I had forgotten to carry out the laundry supplies that I had set in the kitchen over the weekend.
My first mishap came when I tried to make my coffee while pouring cereal for the kids. I set the mug under the spout and waited for it to fill. Then while waiting I went about pouring cereal in bowls and milk into cups.
When I went back to grab my coffee all I found was a mug of hot water. I hadn’t loaded a coffee pod. I did get it right the second time around though.
When it was finished I added a couple squirts of this French Vanilla Syrup I found at Sam’s club. (If you use this Sam’s referral link we both get a little something.)
Ahhhh…. much better. So, cup of coffee I hand I decided to write this quick post which has turned out to not be as quick as I thought it would be. (Another mishap was thinking that I had posted this earlier and then realizing that I hadn’t.)
Some of the kiddos are super grouchy and I’ve had to set the phone down several times to deal with issues and help find a missing shirt. Plus the boys keep forgetting that their clothes are now in the closet. I’m thinking I will go back to hanging up their outfits so they can just pick out something to wear instead of digging through all of the clothes every morning.
Then Ms. Isabella had misplaced her hair tie and was wreaking havoc on everyone instead of just asking for a new one. (Everyone thinks she is so sweet and innocent but she can be a little terror when the mood hits.) We were able to find a suitable replacement pretty quickly as the bathroom is still fairly well organized.
Hair bows, shirts, and clothes found they were able to sit down for breakfast. I enjoyed tried to enjoy the few minutes of quiet and tried to think of what all I need to do today. This list includes:
- Grocery shopping
- Make the grocery list (preferably before the shopping)
- Make tea (after the grocery shopping as we need more sugar)
- Weekly Home blessing
- Daily chores
- Hang up the boys’ clothes
- Get outfits ready for tonight
- Club Newsletters, emails, and updates
As usual the sight of me sitting down means that chaos will start. (This also happens frequently when I enter the bathroom or make a phone call.) Someone got more cereal than someone else, someone has more milk than someone else, someone is wearing someone else’s shirt, or someone looked at someone wrong, etc, etc… you get the point. The joys of motherhood, right?
Needless to say I feel a headache coming on so we are going to need to find a way to change some attitudes, real quick.
Getting back to my plans. The FlyLady missions for the week are in the Living Room and include:
- Sofa Diving
- Decluttering/Dusting Knick Knacks
- Dusting door jambs, pictures, moldings, corners, etc.
- Cleaning baseboards
- Cleaning under and behind the furniture
- Hot Spot Fire Drill!
If you read my Kleaning Missions in the Living Room you know that we tackled a lot of these areas last month. This means it shouldn’t take us long at all to knock these out which will leave us more time to focus on other areas that need our attention.
I am determined to get these homeschool cabinets organized as I have a ton of empty boxes sitting in the living room. We also have more and more new items for next year coming in on a daily basis. I am keeping these in a small tote in my bedroom so they don’t get misplaced or accidentally given away. Be sure to keep following along as I will be revealing our new curriculum soon and I might have a sneak peek later this week!
I also plan to get back in the family closet and go through my dresses and maybe… please not that I’m saying maybe… go through my petticoats again. I would really like to make enough room so I can have all of my clothes, maybe even my shoes?, in the closet as there isn’t room in the bedroom for all of them.
Note: We didn’t put William’s clothes in the family closet because he doesn’t like other people messing with his stuff. I do have his dress clothes in there but I get them out for him when he needs them as he likes to mess with everything. He is getting better about learning to respect boundaries but this is a work in progress. So, if a family closet is on your list just remember to take into account everyone’s needs. This has really helped out a lot since the weekend though. No more running from room to room looking for clothes or looking under the bed for shoes. It is going to take us a little getting used to though.
We also really need to get to that top shelf in the closet and the bookcase that I took out of the closet as it is in the living room right now. The bookcase is holding the stuff that didn’t go back in the closet. The top shelf is just a cluttered mess but I am resisting the urge to tear everything out because I don’t know where to put it.
After seeing how we rearranged Mr. Awesome is also looking into getting some actual doors for the closet…. whoo hoo! Maybe I can talk him into a set of doors for the bedroom too? I think the folding doors will work better in our small space and I’ve got several ideas pinned. Here I go getting sidetracked as doors are not my main focus … my mind seems to be as cluttered and disorganized as my house right now.
The family closet and the homeschool cabinets are both big projects but I’d love to have them finished this week. We have a couple of more big projects on the schedule. There is on in particular that I’m hoping we can start on one of them within the next couple of weeks. This one will help out a lot as I’ve been having a really hard time dealing with the clutter here lately. Some of the clutter has come from areas that I’ve been working on but some of it has been brought in recently by guess who? I’ll let you guess on that one.
While I have been taking things we don’t want/need to donate we do have some stuff that just needs or is waiting for a new home. However Mr. Awesome keeps bringing in more projects like the corn hole boards and we don’t have a place to put the overflow, yet. As a result we now have a pile of stuff sitting in front of the computer cabinet and half a bag of corn sitting by the front door.
I could possibly put some of it in my storage area on the porch but after seeing Mr. Black Snake so close I don’t think I want to put anything else out there. I really don’t think Mr. Awesome realizes how much I dislike clutter! I know he doesn’t see it as clutter but if it’s piled up and doesn’t have a home then it’s clutter in my eyes. I don’t think I’m OCD but maybe I am because this is overwhelming at times.
I do know that once this is all said and done it will all be worth the frustration, craziness, and insanity that we are currently dealing with. This little house will function so much better for everyone living here. This is my motivation for getting this done.
Well, there goes my timer for the wash. I better run out and grab the clothes now. While I’m headed that way I’ll grab the laundry stuff that needs to go out too… now where did I put my shoes?
Pollywog's Place Blog 