Don’t Just Talk About It, Do It; The Last Day!

It’s the last day of the challenge and today I’m supposed to work on my bathroom towel shelf.  I’d asked in advance for my dad to bring his power hammer up for me, but he thought it was already here so he didn’t bring it, and guess what?  It wasn’t here.  Still, I picked out the wood I want to use for the shelves, picked out the wood that I need for holding the shelves up, and have marked where I want the shelves to go.  I just have to wait on the drill, which won’t come until he does.

So since that’s not working out for me (and really, has anything this month?) I’m back to working on memory albums today in the short amount of time I have without meetings or volunteer work or eating (which really just amounts to an hour, sadly).

Today, whatever that is

I have no idea what day I’m supposed to be on at this point in the challenge.  I do know that I was supposed to work on the kids bathroom today, spiffying it up.  I don’t have anything to do in there, though.  I reorganized just as the challenge started, prompted by my husband who couldn’t find sheets (why was he looking for them?  I don’t know! I found several of his pairs of workout shorts in there, though, so he was really happy.).  My mom bought the kids new towels last week and I ironed tags on them so they know which one belongs to each of them (and I know which kid belongs to the one left on the floor, bwahaha).  So new towels ftw!  Other than that the bathroom needs some major love and there’s not energy or money to do it with right now.  I have made a list, however for future reference:

1. new light fixture above the vanity, something not ropy and not intricately detailed so less need to do such time intensive cleaning
2. vent in place in of the heat lamp so less mold sprouting and therefore less bleach use and therefore fewer migraines
3. new paint everywhere, preferably not in the weird green the walls are currently sporting (and also preferably not painted by us, as we are Not Good At Painting)

Also, at some point I skipped finishing the front hallway closet, so that’s what I am actually working on today.  (I tried a new photo system upload today, so you have to click a photo to get to the slideshow.  If you want texty details, click permalink and it’ll take you  to those.  I don’t think I’ll use this system again, but it was too much work to redo today.)

I am always trying to catch up on something

So here’s how the rest of the week went:

Wednesday my friend was sick, so our coffee date was cancelled yet again.  I despair of ever seeing her.  However it was a blessing in disguise, as Greg and I had much needed rest and relaxation time and a bit of putting away some memory stuff into binders (if you’d like to see how I do that, see this post here.  We’re in a much better starting place this time around, with most of the stuff to be put into the binders inside hanging files sorted by school year, then kid.  I’m down to about three milk crates of files left to go, which is a teeny tiny amount compare to where I was a year ago).  The kids love digging through their binders of old school and art work, so we did that in the evening before and after dinner.

Thursday we got up and got ready as quick as possible, as it was my big day: EEG test!  My parents picked us all up and we dropped the youngest two off with the friend that was taking them to their schools (she’s got kids at both places, too) and then we dropped David off for his violin lessons before school.  We got to the hospital parking lot before the crowds showed up, before anyone showed up, really.  We had to wait for the office to open, even though the paperwork said to show up a half hour before the appointment time (mine was the first of the day, so they weren’t open yet).  Eventually they opened up and called me back.  More about the testing on my health blog.  It was over very quickly and then my parents took me home to shower the goo out of my hair (and yes, I was careful – I had the phone on the floor next to the shower in case I passed out or something).  I felt fine for the next hour or two, but then I could feel something building up, something weird, so I called and cancelled my piano lesson and went to lie down for a while.  Eventually went with my parents to pick up the kids (they drove; I was quite spacey by that point).  I went to bed way early that night, not even stopping for dinner.

Friday I got up still feeling weird, but okay enough to get the kids to school, so off they went.  Then the smallest boy and I hung out with my mom for a while before having coffee with the neighbor and her kids.  Everybody was having a rough day, it seemed.  Greg’s friend M. was not feeling up to playing a whole lot and Greg was not interested in being the doctor, so he played with little C. who really isn’t that little any more.  Afterwards my parents offered to take me out for comfort food: Olive Garden, so we went out there and ate lots of yumminess.  Then the boychild and I came home and helped Nick get packed up for a last minute scout camping trip.  Got them packed up and off for that, then packed up the other kids and spent a couple nights with my parents, as I’m not feeling entirely confident in being alone lately with this weirdness that I have going on.  I mean, alone during the day, that’s a normal kind of alone, but alone at night being the only parent on duty?  That’s a stressful kind of alone I wasn’t ready for this weekend.  So we spent two nights “camping” at the grandparents house, watching cheesy movies and eating much in the way of Food That Should Be Eaten Only In Moderation (my dad and I had nachos at 1 a.m. one early morning.  I’m never up at that time these days).

Saturday we actually got to see Nick and David at church for a while (they took a break from the camping for church).  I’m not on hospitality duty this month, so I didn’t have to do any of that.  We had a meeting for special music and I volunteered to do a piano solo, as well as a piano duet with my mother-in-law again, to play clarinet with the ensemble whenever they meet, and to be part of the choir should they ever find someone willing to lead one again.  Nick ushered, then did his job making copies of sermons for people, then lead the older kids through their practice for Bible Baseball (which is coming up in a couple weeks at our big Regional Weekend event).  Ben had another tooth starting to go all wiggly, so he showed it to everyone, leading to him being chased around by several people (including adults) who wanted to help him pull it out.  He was quite amused.

Today we helped my parents clean up from our visit, then came home and cleaned up at our own house. I took the kids out around the block a few times for bike rides. Once Nick and David returned from camping, we helped sort and put away/and or clean equipment from that (I checked their camera and they took zero pictures this weekend.  I didn’t either, for that matter).  Nick took Ben out to collect trash along the roadsides in our neighborhood for his scout project.  Then they all worked in the garden planting our late winter vegetables: garlic, collards, arugula, beets, bib lettuce.  I stayed inside and folded all the laundry in the universe while watching men’s figure skating.  :)

Now while I’m typing it’s pitch black outside and I can just barely see the ghostly forms of my kids jumping on the trampoline.  They have on no jackets and no shoes and they are not cold at all.  I’m indoors, in jeans and a sweater and covered in a blanket and hothothot computer and shivering.  Ah, youth.

Trip to Dallas

Yesterday the bookend kids and I made the trip to Dallas to Cook’s Children’s Outpatient Clinic to have David checked for scoliosis. We started out super early, just in case we got lost. Hehehe. We left around 8:30am for a 12:30pm appointment. Stopped around 10am for gas and a snack, then again at 11am for lunch at Denny’s (there were no other restaurants around in the area just before the construction). We were back on the road by 11:30 and were, according to our GoogleMaps directions, less than 10 minutes from our destination.

But GoogleMaps does not keep up with CONSTRUCTION. And there was A LOT. I was able to get off at the right exit, but not allowed to make a left turn. I could see up ahead where people were using the road, but had no way to get there. I turned right and hoped for a work around. No such luck. Got shunted onto another highway. Ended up pulling over and calling the lovely ladies at the front desk of our doctor’s office. They weren’t familiar with the area I was in (they come in from the opposite direction), but pulled up maps and tried to figure out how to get us there. They were so very sweet and helpful. We finally got to the building with one minute to spare for our “please come in 30 minutes in advance to fill out paperwork” time. Paper work turned out to be two signatures and two dates.

If you ever get asked if you want to go to Cook’s Children’s Hospital or would you rather go to the South Lake clinic, here’s my answer, in picture form (mouse over them for descriptions):

Other bonuses: Keurig coffee maker with many flavor options, no parking confusion, no wandering lost through a large hospital, no giant hordes of people to wade through.

We saw his old pediatric orthopedic surgeon, the one Cigna said they weren’t covering last year, but now are. He got x-rays taken, measured on blocks,etc, and found out that he’s just fine. His hemihypertrophy is what caused the nurse to think scoliosis and it’s not gotten any worse this last year. We’ll recheck again next year and re-evaluate then.

We were out of there by 2pm and managed only one bathroom/Frosty stop on the way home:

We got to Tyler by 5pm, picked up Ben (who was hanging out with his friends Amy & Matthew), dropped by the house to get our piano stuff, and headed over to piano lessons, only slightly late. All in all a very nice day.

(As long as you’re not thinking about the fact that I was within 20 minutes of my best friend for a large portion of the day and didn’t get to see her. And this trip kept me from making a trip this weekend. Not thinking about that at all.)

RA Guy’s Book Club: “How To Be Sick”

Book 4 of 2012:

In case you haven’t seen it, there’s a discussion over at

RA Guy’s Book Club on the book: “How To Be Sick” by Toni Bernhard.

Through the magic of Kindle I went from the panic of ACK!  I need to go to the bookstore!  to  AHHHH…. book in hand.  I do so love my Kindle.  I’ve read the first couple chapters already, keep tissues close by if you are easily emotional, as I am lately.  I’ve gone over and answered the discussion questions already as well, but you’ll have to go over there to read my answers.  :)

(And I know some of you may flinch at “A Buddhist-inspired Guide” but I’ve found Buddhist inspired guides to be some of the least offensive things in the universe and usually some of the most helpful.  So I’m going with it.)

Don’t Just Talk About It, Days 13,14, & 15

When I first made my list earlier this month, I had no idea that I’d end up having the kind of week I have scheduled ahead of me.  Monday I have a two-hour webinar for scouts, Tuesday I’m going to spend all day driving to and from Dallas with David, getting his back checked for scoliosis, Wednesday I have a half day playdate (planned for two weeks ago, then rescheduled) to catch up with a friend that I haven’t seen since my birthday last April, Thursday I’m going in to the hospital to have an EEG done to see if I’m having mini seizures, and Friday I’m having another catch-up playdate with a different friend (also rescheduled) who I thought I’d seen this month, but apparently haven’t yet.

Fortunately I’ve already done days 16 & 17.  YAY.  So today I’m going to try to get 13, 14, & 15 all done.  Watch for updates.  There should be some.  You know, unless I fall over and hit my head or something. *sigh*

Update 1:

 

BEFORE:

Two hours later, I have emptied the entire desk-that-was-my-grandmothers (now referred to as the craft desk because that’s a less unwieldy phrase), taken stuff out, looked at it, pitched some of it in the trash, designated other bits -one entire drawer actually- for sale on ebay  (anyone interested in some Stampin’ Up?), and moved another whole drawer over to another area, where I feel like I might feel more compelled to write notes & cards (since I won’t have to dig through the scary deep drawer to find them).  I have also dug through the entire cart, following the same process as above, a drawer in the other cart, and the small three drawered cubby as well.  I watched episode 1 & 2 of the first season of the UK version of Being Human while doing so.  I say “watched” but listened was more like it.  I wanted to see it because I liked the werewolf from when he was on Little Dorrit.  I liked him here, too, which was unfortunate because the show is too bloody for me.  :(

Now the children are home, it’s lunch time, and we’re digging through drawer 2 of the second cart.  We may have to stop to do tie-dye before we move on, since it takes up a lot of space and the children would rather we tie-dye today than throw it out unused.  I agree with them.  If only we had some white t-shirts.  Off to check for shirt availability.

Update 2:

An hour later, Nick has gone off to work and I have finished emptying the second cart.  Another trash can has been added, as the first one is FULL.  The tie-dye did not pan out, as only one kid has a shirt available for  it.  The top of the desk is left to do, as is finding a home off the floor for all the paper products (which do not fit into the desk).

 

MIDWAY:

 

However, the day is still rain-free, the kids are awake and at liberty, so they are being drafted into “Day 15″ and will help me carry heavy stuff in the garage.  I can hear them discussing it amongst themselves right now.  ”We have to help her because she’s TIRED.”  ”We’ll carry the heavy stuff and then she’ll be happy and let us have screen time later.”  They are SO RIGHT on both counts. (In other news, my bff read my earlier update & called & excused me from coming to her house this weekend, which was a relief because I was fairly certain I’d be dead by then.  Two trips to DFW in one week do not make for a happy Lisa.  On the other hand, I had wanted to see the Harry Potter party leftovers and love on her and her kids.  Ah well, there will be time for that next month.)

Update 3:

Another hour later, because I’m about to pass out and this may be the last update of the day.  The two younger kids have been very good helpers, as evidenced by the quotes above (you all knew that was Ben & Greg, right?).  David got mad about 3 minutes in because I wouldn’t let him keep his large supply of sticks in the garage any longer.  He left to take a giant bag of Lego bricks inside (why was it in the garage?  no idea) and never came back out again.  Greg and Ben helped me break down boxes, sort things into recycling bins (certain things can go in the one that goes out to the street that can’t go directly to the recycle center and vice versa) and the dumpster, and sort other things into whose room in the house they belonged to for once they go back inside.  Now we have a couple bins of things that go back in the house, which worries me a bit.  But the garage has been tidied up a reasonable amount, my trunk is full of more stuff for Goodwill, and in a few minutes it’ll also have been swept.  And then I’m going to go lie down on the couch and watch The Secret of Moonacre again with Greg because it is a delightful movie and I am exhausted.

 

Update 4:

(Are you shocked?)

Well, another hour has gone by and I haven’t passed out yet.  The kids didn’t want to watch a movie just yet.  ”It’s a lovely day, Mama!”  And it is.  Breezy, warm.  Non-standard January weather.  They wanted to ride bikes in front of the house.  Sure, why not.  Well, here’s why: we tidied the bikes into a figurative corner and couldn’t get them out without getting the van out of the garage.  As long as the van was out and there was more space to move around in, why not reconfigure the garage so the bikes are easy to get to and the van seats (which rarely leave the garage these days) are less open to the elements?  So the kids got their bikes out, I shifted the other stuff while they were riding, et voila!  Now they can get to their bikes & helmets & padding on their own and I, thanks to some hooks hung on the wall to contain their never-used golf sets, have comfy seats inside the garage to watch the festivities from, out of the sun and elements.  Wahoo!

BEFORE:

messy, hard to get around stuff

AFTER:

stuff we like to use front and center by the door, tidied up & purged of extras (except that small desk, which is destined for my in-laws house once their remodeling is complete, which will be soon)

How is this week already over?

ARGH.

I had just finished typing this post and it disappeared.  So forgive the brevity this time ’round, but I am tired of typing already.

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were fairly regular days except that Greg had his first drop-off playdate Wednesday morning (well, I came in for coffee & a chat, but then I left & he stayed for a couple hours).

Thursday was scout night.  We were re-upping for the year, so someone came in and taught Knot Work while the parents were filling out forms & writing checks.

Nick helped out with it a bit.

Afterwards, for fun, turkey bowling!

Friday morning Ben had a Jump Rope Competition during the Pep Rally at school.  (Photos forthcoming.  Another mom took photos for me, as I’d left my camera at home.) It was really neat seeing him compete, and also seeing David lead the whole school in the Pledge of Allegiance (he’s on the News Team at school, so he makes announcements every day, but I’m never there during them).  Then Greg and I hit Wal-Mart for a few necessities.  Then it was time for Greg to have another playdate, this time at the park.  After all that running around I was exhausted and not going to take him, but K’s mom came to the rescue again (she’s my angel this week) and took Greg with them.  Instead of working on more challenge stuff I declared myself free from trying to sort through all the small toys and puzzles and mess and just threw it all into the dumpster.  It was quite freeing.

Nick called after lunch and had to be rescued from Kilgore, where he’d locked his keys in the car with the car running.  So Greg and I were late for our afternoon meeting at Dairy Queen with a friend that we hadn’t seen in quiet a while (we had her cupcake carrier).  But it was okay.  The kids had fun playing, I managed not to take a single photo at all, and I got free ice cream.  It was lovely!

Got home and tidied up with the kids (it’s not all we do, it just seems like it lately), and then waited for their cousins to show up.  Mandy and Mark were going on an Anniversary-of-their-first-date Date and we got to watch the girls.  :)

*more to come, like photos of the girls.  :)

Don’t Just Talk About It, Do It; Day 12

Day Twelve on the schedule had me cleaning something messy somewhere in the house.  Very vague.  Sometimes I like vague.  Today was a good day for vague.  Here’s how it went: I did some stuff in each room of the house, tidying up here and there various messes that had gone untidied earlier in the week.  No before and after photos, no drastic changes.  Just a bit here and a bit there.  The only big things I did was gather up all the trash and put it in the dumpster, gather up all the Goodwill donations and drive them out to the drop off, and have the kids finish tidying up their rooms.  David took down everything I put on his display shelf and put it on the desk “to play with.” Ben rearranged some of the bins in his room.  Greg showed off all the changes to his cousins when they came over this evening.  And that was it, end of week 3.  Wahoo!

Don’t Just Talk About It, Day 11

For Day 11 I tackled the biggest boys bedroom.

 

BEFORE:

oh my (he assures me that he was trying to find something, which led to this mess.  I love how that happens.)

the closet full of mostly my stuff and/or empty containers

I don’t have any DURING photos.  I was too busy being busy.  And now for an explanation of my process.  A real life friend asked today how I manage to do all that I do.  Here’s how:  when I move furniture I take everything out of it.  Then I take it as far apart as it goes, unscrewing screws, taking off drawers, legs, anything to make it lighter.  Yes, this is time consuming.  Yes, it’s tedious.  Yes, I probably ought to ask my husband to move stuff for me.  But then he’d have to stand around while I internally debated all the pros and cons of where I wanted the item to end up and move the parts back and forth and back and forth while I decided and let’s face it: that would make him insane.  I’m trying to avoid insane Nick.  Also of note, I didn’t do this room in an hour or even two.  I started on it right after I dropped big kids off at school around 7:30am and worked on it off and on, with frequent rest breaks and time off to take Greg to school and to eat meals, until 1:30pm.

 

Here, for instance, those plastic drawers: mostly empty.  Also: lightweight.  They’re living in the garage awaiting a trip to another home.  There was a little plastic cart in the corner you can’t see that just wheeled on out (also mostly empty, oddly enough).  That all got moved the first 15 minutes, then a fifteen minute break.

The file cabinets got emptied out (each one had one empty drawer already).  The top one had drawers that came all the way out, the bottom one did not, but I already knew that (that’s how they came to be stacked that way).  I only moved them a few feet across the room to hold up the desktop (which, don’t tell David, was the bottom of his crib) of D’s new desk area.  I moved those one at a time, with a rest break in between and afterward.

 

Since the closet was then nearly empty (I still have a stack of file boxes of old high school & college memory stuff in there that needs tending, but that’s another day entirely), I slid the dresser (particleboard, also sans drawers) in there.  After that another break, this time for lunch.  (See the pattern here?)

 

The only heavy thing to move at all was the former TV stand – also oddly particle board – but it was much lighter after removing the drawer.  (The family that took our old TV is coming to pick it up later this week)

 

Also in between everything was the ever-present picking up of Lego bricks.  They’re EVERYWHERE (they were even, mind-bogglingly, under my bed).

 

 

AFTER:

A nice, neat desk area for David, with drawers in the file cabinets for his Scout stuff & papery goodness and the hope chest for Lego brick storage. (Not shown: his display shelves: they’re to the left of the frame)

The closet of joy and emptiness.  Or NOT.  I found 12 belts in there.  12.  He can’t ever complain about a lack of belts again.

(Notice that I’m not showing the beds in these pictures.  Yeah.  That’s where I dump all the stuff I no longer have any interest in picking up.  I put away the stuff that’s big and in the way, but the nitty-gritty stuff that needs a kid who knows where it goes to put it away?  Well, that’s what beds are for.  And kids.)

Don’t Just Talk About It, Days 9 & 10

I’ve spent the last couple days ( #’s 9 & 10 on the challenge) working on the smaller kids room.

 

BEFORE:

Ben’s closet before (at least the top half of it; no idea why I took just the top half, but look, so many clothes, so many piled games, the bottom half was piled clothes and piled toys)

 

Mysteriously there’s no photo of Greg’s closet before.  Imagine a closet with 6 items hung up top, a few empty hangers, then below: a chest covered with 2 blankets, 8 pairs of shoes, a dozen outfits, dirty socks galore, and a dozen or so books.

 

DURING:

The weeding out stage, which we actually did over the weekend when Ben was available for consultation.  Most of these clothes were lovely, but we had nowhere to wear them.  At home we’re t-shirts and jeans casual and at school & scouts there’s the uniform (which is also worn to lessons), so no need for these cute collared, stripy shirts.

 

Greg’s closet turned out not to be as bad as I thought in that the costume chest held nothing but costumes, much to my delight. He does have a lot of shoes, though.

 

AFTER:

 

BONUS:

Since I’m doing crazy organizational things, I decided to do a bit in the actual room as well as the closets.  The kids haven’t been playing in there at all since we added the nook, which ended up being the place they tossed all the stuff they didn’t toss into Greg’s closet.  They couldn’t find any of their toys and so they were being lazy and just playing their DS’s all the day long.  Well, I’m not going to let that go on forever.  So I took out the Nook O’ Messiness (they still have the hiding nook in the bathroom – have I featured that here yet?) and moved Greg’s bed back to be even with Ben’s again.  I took out the tiny desk that no one uses and moved the shelves over there.

Then I pulled in a folding table from the garage, one that is long enough to accommodate two boys sitting at it, hung a peg board above it, and hung all their card games, lego bricks, nerf stuff, & a box of their creatures above it.  I’m envisioning this as a space that Ben can work at Scout stuff at and Greg can build things at and they can play games together just the two of them.  It’s still a work in progress (I’d like matching chairs and the board to be a color they choose, but hey this is a big change and it was FREE), but here’s how it looks right now:

 

Special thanks goes out to my friend J.P. who watched Greg for several hours yesterday and my friend S.C. who watched Greg & David for an hour and a half while I worked on all this.