New House Updates

Well, I have LOTS and LOTS of updates for you all! Where to start? Hmm, maybe with my mom. She is living in her new place full-time and is loving it there. We still have a gazillion projects to do over there yet, but that will come this fall.

Our new place? Well, after a lot of meetings with loan officers and my inlaws and the sellers and such, an earnest deposit has finally been paid on it. I was originally hoping to have a closing date of mid-June, but at this point, it is mid-July. That doesn't leave us much time to get everything done at the current house and cleaned and repaired and such, but it will work - because it has to.

We took my mother-in-law and two of our closest friends to see the new place a few days ago. That was when the deposit was paid as well. I am so excited! And, some of the rooms are bigger than what I had remembered them being (such as the dining room) and there is a built-in storage cabinet that I hadn't noticed last time in the bathroom. And we found out that one of the garden sheds will be staying there after all. There were two of them and they were going to leave one and take the other one apart and move it with them, but have decided it would be more work than what it is worth and so will most likely be leaving it. So yay! I will definitely not turn down additional storage room when we are in the mode of downsizing!

And now, today, I am working on cleaning and packing our living room. I am being very ruthless when it comes to getting rid of things. I don't want to move a bunch of stuff with us. Plus, our financial situation will be much better once we move (to the point of having a few hundred dollars left over every month as opposed to not even being able to make ends meet where we currently live) and we will be able to afford to replace a few items here and there as time goes on. Not to mention the fact that we have enough of well, everything, to set up at least two full, separate households. It's ridiculous. The thrift stores around here are going to LOVE me by the time we are moved to our new place. Either that or they will HATE me, but I think I'll go with the love option instead. I like that one better.

Today's tackle is to get through the living room. So far, I have done one entire wall in here. I have sorted all the stuff that is on our front wall, cleaned off and cleaned out the chairs, flipped them over, cleaned out under them, cleared off my end table, put away paperwork that needed to be filed into the file box I keep under the table. I have a bag of toys that need to go up to the kids' rooms, I have a box of books that I need to sort through. I have a pile of clothes ready for consignment and I have a bag of dirty laundry (Really? In the living room? No idea.) and I have a bag of trash. Oh and a pile of dishes to go into the kitchen. And yep, I'm only 1/3 of the way done with the main part of the living room. It shouldn't take too long though.

The list for the rest of this room:
Fold clothing in totes next to my chair
Put clothing away or pack it
Clear off cedar chest
Pack items on cedar chest
Clear off entertainment center
Pack items on entertainment center
Sort through books on bookshelf
Pack books from bookshelf
Clear off couch
Flip couch over and clean under couch
Clear off Hubby's endtable
Pack items from endtables
Clear off Hubby's desk
Pack items from Hubby's desk
Clear out front closet
Pack items from front closet
Sort through shoes and outerwear
Make pile for consignment store
Vacuum
Carpet clean
Sweep
Mop
Take out trash

That will be my tackle for today. I had planned on doing it yesterday, but other things came up yesterday. I plan to enlist the help from my children and Hubby as well. If we just plug away at it, I think we could have the entire room sorted, packed and cleaned in a matter of just a few hours. Yeah!!!!

(Then on to the basement to deal with the laundry monster. UGH!)

This post is linked up to the following blogs:

Quite the Absence...

I hate not blogging. I feel guilty when I stop blogging and generally, it isn't intentional. Life happens and the longer that I am away from it, the harder it is to come back to it. But back I am. And hopefully, I won't have another unplanned hiatus for quite some time.

I thought I had some super exciting news to share with you guys, but I guess I don't really. You see, we recently found a new place to live. Our current place is MUCH  too big for our needs and we have a lot of wasted space (as in rooms that we don't even use) and way too much stuff. I hate stuff.

This new house that we found would be a wonderful thing for numerous reasons. For one thing, it is much smaller than our current place (like by half!). Two, it would force us to seriously declutter. Three, the monthly payments on it (plus ALL the utilities!) would be a couple of HUNDRED dollars less than our rent alone in our current place. That equates to more money to do more things and less stress about money in the first place! Four, we would own instead of renting. That part is the major deal for us!

So, we went in to two different banks today. My father-in-law had already said that they would help us out with this (and I tried not to get my hopes up...long history of getting excited about something only to be let down by it later) but he wanted us to go in and apply for the loan on our own. So, we did. We knew that we would be denied (though we haven't yet talked to the lady - but I'm just being realistic here). You see, the cost of the new place is so low that it doesn't qualify for a mortgage, but a large personal loan. Our credit is not favorable. I know that and so does my father-in-law. But whatever, he wanted us to go apply on our own and so that's what we did.

The one loan officer tried to call us back today, but apparently my mom took Hubby's phone home with her (and my phone - well, let's just say that it got dropped and the back and battery both were lost/trampled by a crowd in a small dark room on a Friday night by heavily intoxicated people a few weeks back...but that's another story for another day - or not) So Loan Officer tried to call Hubby but we missed the call b/c my mom had the phone so she called Father-in-Law because we had listed him as closest relative. I figured it made sense to list him because his original plan had been to co-sign with us on the loan or to just take out the loan himself and we just pay it off.

So, Father-in-Law shows up at our door at like 8:00 this evening and tells Hubby that the Loan Officer called him because she couldn't get ahold of us and that when he tried calling us, he got my mom instead. Oh and by the way, he isn't sure about the loan at the moment. (Mind you, he has been CERTAIN about it for the last week and a half since we first mentioned it all to him, even up to the point of being certain about it at 10:00 this morning.) So frustrating. And he goes out of town tomorrow and I work 12 hour shifts tomorrow, Thursday and Friday. He'll be back on Friday night though, so maybe we have a chance at the whole loan thing either Saturday or next Monday. We'll see. Right now though, I feel so defeated about it and disappointed in myself for allowing myself to be excited. :/

But anyhow, do you want to see the pictures of the house? Hear a little bit about it? If for nothing else, I will at least have it on here as a memory of what could have been and a reminder about getting excited about things...

It has two connected living areas, but one (the bottom right) would be used more like an office area. That is the area that you step into when you first walk in the door. The bottom left shows the room you see when you walk in (though that pic was taken from the corner of the kitchen) There is a sliding glass door on the wall behind the couch (it's actually between the back of the couch and the kitchen bar). And then there is the kitchen. It's beautiful. All the appliances stay. It has a newer (WORKING!) dishwasher and a large refrigerator and the stove is a glass flat top too. I have never had one of those. Hubby was super excited about it too because as he said, "It's flat. That means no more tilted pots or pans and unevenly cooked food!" I love that man! He so gets me!

The dining room is just off the kitchen and that front area that you first walk into. It's smaller and I think we might have to get a smaller table for that area or maybe just different chairs. We aren't exactly sure until we try it out. Initially though, we'd make what we have work in the space. And it even has cute little built-in cabinets in the corners. Love the little details in this space!

It has a large bathroom (only 1 compared to the 3 we currently have - most willing to give up 2 bathrooms though!) and the washer/dryer actually go in there - directly opposite of the tub. So when the kids get into the bath at night, their clothes from the day could go directly in and then be washed once all of the kids were bathed too. Talk about convenient (and no more excuses for laundry piled up!) It has a newer furnace and hot water heater too! They even offered to throw in the washer and dryer but since we already own a set ourselves, we passed on that. They will probably pass that on to her middle son instead, which works for us!

Then there are the bedrooms. The bedrooms are tiny, especially compared to the rooms that we all have now. Punky and Boo would still share, Natty and JoNo would go back to sharing. And Hubby and I, well, of course we share! Eventually, though, we'd really love to get a bunkbed for the boys that also has a pull-out trundle bed for Boo to sleep on. It would be the most space-saving option and the boys will have the biggest room anyhow (since there are three of them) and then Miss Punky would have the smallest room (since it would be just her) while Hubby and I would take the middle room (which has a ceiling fan and a custom closet system already in place....droool!) The kids' bedrooms have smallish walk-in closets that would be the perfect size for their clothing and they also have shelving in there too which would work out wonderfully for toy storage as well.

The front porch has a nice swing and the back deck, well, it's kinda plain, but it's bigger than the deck that we currently have and that is a bonus. Also, we could fence in the yard. There is a grove of trees behind the house which I love, but also scares me a little bit because of Boo's wandering. Because of his issues, he wanders a lot. We can pretty well redirect him into something else, but it can be a challenge. Also, because of his issues, there is a program here that would help out with certain things for him. One of which could be respite care for him. It's not a huge issue because we have a pretty decent support base of people already in place if we need that time. And besides, if we had respite for him, that doesn't cover the other three, so really, it would feel like we were singling him out and sending him away (when really he is probably the easiest child of the four to take care of) and it just doesn't feel right. Anyhow, our family coordinator suggested that as an option for him. But when we were talking today, I said, "Ooooh, a fenced-in yard!" because the form was talking about home modifications. I was joking, but she said that I should put it down because it would be a valid request for Boo.

Of course now, we don't even know if we are going to get the place and if I request a fenced-in yard and they grant it and we don't get it, I'm not sure what happens after that. It's kind of confusing. But anyhow, as much as I hate to remain hopeful, there is still a part of me that is. I will be devastated if we aren't able to get this place. We really need it so badly. We cannot afford to stay in the place we are living right now past our lease (which is up July 31st). The new place is just SO affordable. Even with the much smaller space, the fact that we would move to the other side of town, that the kids would have to change schools, that they would be moving away from some great friends that they had (FINALLY!) made in our neighborhood. All of those things are worth it to our WHOLE family (even the kids are supportive of it - though they will miss their friends but the power of the internet will allow them to remain in touch even after we move)

So, that's where that stands right now. Oh, and there's another house that I want to tell you about too. But that will have to wait til tomorrow my friends. Until then, think good thoughts for our family and our ability to get this place, please?

(EDITED to add: You can read Part Two and Part Three by clicking on their links.)

Tackle It Tuesday - Laundry

This week, my main tackle was keeping up the appearances of the front closet and my newly created workspace near my chair in the living room. The other thing that I worked on was the laundry situation.

I just sorted and folded about six loads (give or take, I kind of lost count) of laundry. And I am happy to report that I have a small box to head to go to the donation drop-off tomorrow, added a few items to a box that I'm preparing for a friend's son, and added a number of items to both our spring/summer consignment box and to the fall/winter consignment box. Yay for getting rid of stuff! I still have a lot more to go though!

The other major thing that I worked on this past week was our garage. My mom came over again in the past week to spend some more time going through her things out there. We had our double driveway lined with things to go to the dump this morning when the garbage truck came by. It was great! But it was also highly addictive. Hubby had to convince me to come back into the house because I just wanted to keep going. I was so excited about the progress that we were making and I just wanted to keep going. The change out there is just astounding to me. We think that by next Tuesday, we  will be able to park both vehicles in the garage. It has been such a long time since we were able to park both vehicles in the garage that it will seem weird to actually use it. I think I could handle it though!

Tackle It Tuesday - Shaklee Style

This week, we did a number of tackles. We tackled our living room and re-arranged it while also going through a bunch of "stuff" that was in it. At the moment, it is slightly messy due to kids and well, living in the room, but it will be cleaned up as soon as I am done with this post.

Our living room is long and rectangular and has a bank of windows on one side that make it difficult for some arrangements. Also, we have three vents in the room, which we try to not to cover up with furniture. We have a dog that covers the vents enough as it is.

So, here is what the room looked like before:

The main problem with this layout is the corner where the chair is. Stuff would get stuck back there and it was difficult to get to without pulling the chair out. I was getting tired of having to do that. Plus both the dog and Boo loved to hang out behind the chair (next to the vent) so there were a myriad of issues with that there.

Another was the entertainment center. The couch sat in front of the bank of windows and we would get a horrible glare on the TV if we had the windows open, which we didn't very often because it made watching TV up here nearly impossible.

The area behind the other chair (closest to our entry way on bottom right) often was the spot where we would put things that needed to leave the house, which makes sense. But it also often made it look cluttered and messy and let's face it, you open the door and that is the FIRST thing you see, followed by the entertainment center.

So, we changed it. The couch went to where the entertainment center was, one of the tables went with it, the entertainment center went to where the small bookshelf was, the small bookshelf went next to the door, and the two chairs and one table scooted in towards the middle of the window bank to balance out that side of the room. The cedar chest also got transplanted next to the entertainment center, instead of being used as a coffee table.

So now it looks like this:

Personally, I'd prefer to have the tall bookshelf on the wall next to the entertainment center, but Hubby says no to that for now. Plus that bookshelf may soon end up in our bedroom anyhow, so it's kind of a non-issue anyways.

And now, the small bookshelf next to the entryway is for our shoe storage, instead of having the shoes on the rectangular linoleum area that you all have seen before here. And that was okay, but it just didn't stay neat. And I am not about to spend 5 minutes ten or so times each day, straightening up the shoes. It's just not my thang. Yes, I said thang. No, it was not a typo. So anyhow, that's why the small bookshelf is over by the door. It is called the small bookshelf because it's short. Lower shelf, upper shelf and then top of the set. Three levels total. Lower shelf is generally used for kiddo shoes. The shelf has an open back and allows the vent to shoot air through it. The upper shelf is for more of the overflow shoes. The top of the unit is used for the things that need to leave the house. It can still look messy, but it still looks better than having the stuff sit on the floor behind the chair. Much better!

Then this weekend, I traveled to Erin's house to try out some Shaklee products. So, as of now, she and I are no longer online friends. We are in real life friends! Yay! So, anyhow, I came home Saturday night to a mess that Hubby left for me from his preparation of the family's supper. (I ate at Erin's house that evening. Thanks again Erin and Dusty!) The house was empty when I got home. Hubby had arranged for the kiddos to spend the night at Grandma's house and he had gone to his friends' house for the evening, so there I was with a stove looking like this:

Yummy right? Inviting? Wanna come over for dinner right about this point? If that isn't bad enough for you, try removing the burner and the drip tray. Just for fun. However, if you have a queasy tummy, I'd suggest looking away right now. Because I removed the burner and the drip tray and this is an example of what was below.

Yeah, um, gross. Just sayin'. I have no idea what it is or how it gets down there, but I *do* know that I don't like it and I had an idea that my handy dandy bottle of Shaklee's H2 would clear that issue right up, so I decided it was time to give it a try. I sprayed a generous portion of the H2 into the areas below the drip trays. Yes, our style of stove can lift up, but it is screwed shut and one of the screws is stripped, so I can't do it the easy way.

I let it set for a few minutes, just so it could do its thang under there and then I got busy and cleaned all the gunk out. It took several swipes and a few paper towels (sorry, but my nice microfiber was NOT going in THERE!) and then it was done. The end result?

Okay, let's do the before and after thing now:

I also took the time to do my microwave (inside and out), my fridge (inside and out) and my freezer (inside and out). It was awesome! I love the H2! I also have a bottle of the Basic G to try out in the bathrooms, but I haven't made it in there just yet. I was more concerned about the kitchen at that point.

I am sold though! As soon as my check situation at work gets figured out and settled, I am DEFINITELY going to be ordering my own shaklee! And then you can sign up to become a member under me as well! Doesn't that sound AWESOME?! I think it does! And besides who wouldn't want to transform their icky yucky stove from the before picture to the after picture? Seriously? My stove SHINES now. It truly does!

And that was my main level tackle for this past week. Phew! I'm exhausted! Even if Hubby was the one that did all of the work, except the kitchen cleaning. But I am so happy with the results!

Tackle It Tuesday

This week for Tackle It Tuesday I tackled my lower level bathroom. I don't have a before picture, but let me describe it this way - I live with four males and one of them is potty training. And it seems that none of them can actually hit the target. Just sayin'.

So, I started with my shower. I sprayed some straight vinegar on my shower door to help tackle the hard water and soap scum build up and let it sit. Then I moved on to the mirror and used the same straight vinegar there and wiped it dry with a microfiber cloth.

Then, I moved down to the sink and sprayed an all-purpose cleaner into it and scrubbed it down really well. I used an old toothbrush to get between the faucet and the sink itself and really scrubbed it out well. Then I wiped it all out with a second microfiber cloth. After doing that, I used my first microfiber from the mirror and shined up the faucet and the knobs and the drain stopper thingie. Because that is what it is called, right? A drain stopper thingie? The vinegar and the microfiber together really makes it all shiny and nice.

Then I cleared off the toilet and picked everything up off of the floor. I think it was something like 6 bottles of shampoo and conditioner and other things, plus a large container of laundry detergent. Doesn't everyone keep a large bottle of laundry detergent in their bathroom? And then I cleared off the little shelf we have hanging above the toilet and straightened it up and made it look nice and neat.

Then it was time to tackle the toilet. I'm sure you all know how to clean a toilet, but bear with me. I sprayed the entire toilet down with the all-purpose spray, tank lid, tank sides, top of toilet lid, underside of toilet lid, top of toilet seat, underside of toilet seat, toilet rim, inside of the bowl (and then a little bit of powder in the bowl), then sprayed the outside of the toilet base, being sure to get the area by the bolts that hold the toilet to the floor. Then I started wiping it off with a large terry cloth towel. I like to use barmop towels personally because of their large size, but you could use a standard 12x12 terry cloth cleaning towel as well. But anyhow, I used my barmop towel and began wiping in the same order as I did the spraying, down to the toilet rim part, then I used my toilet brush and cleaned the inside really well. Then I finished up with the toilet rim and the outside of the bowl, all the way down to the floor.

The floor area in our bathroom is very small so it is more trouble than it is worth to try to use a mop in there, plus our toilet is not placed squarely in there either, so it's a very tight space between the side of the toilet and the wall anyhow. So, I just used my all-purpose spray and sprayed the floor on that side of the toilet and hand-wiped it while I was hanging over the toilet to get the area by the bolts cleaned on that side. I then worked my way from the wall behind the toilet to the wall in front of the toilet and then worked my way around the toilet. I used a thin line grout brush to get the area around the bottom of the toilet and let me assure you, it was DIS-GUST-ING. Blech! Then I continued hand wiping the remainder of the floor area. Oh - and in case it wasn't clear, I used the same rag for the toilet and the floor. Because honestly, the floor is much worse than the toilet 'round these parts. You could use a separate rag if you wanted to though.

For the finishing touches in the bathroom, I also shined up the handle of the toilet with my mirror microfiber cloth as well as the toilet paper holder and the switch plate. Then put things back into the bathroom neatly. The only thing left to do was to finish the shower.

Normally, I would have done the shower completely in one shot, but because of the hard water and soap scum, I wanted to give the vinegar some time to cut through it and break it all down. One warning though - when I opened the shower door to clean it, the vinegar smell assaulted my nostrils. It was a little bit overwhelming at first. It won't hurt you, but it is powerful.

I used a steel wool scratchy on my shower door - I don't think my shower door is glass, but it might be. But I used that scratchy on my shower door until it looked pretty decent. It always looks clearer when it is wet than it does when it is dry though. I then wiped the door with the mirror cloth. Then I sprayed down the inside of the shower itself and scrubbed it all really well and then dried it off with the same cloth I used for the sink, and then finished by shining the metal in the shower - the shower head, the shower knob, the shower door handle and the piece that holds the shower door on. Not sure what to call that piece though.

The one thing I realized that I missed when I was done was the window and blinds. I should have used a dry microfiber to dust the blinds before starting the toilet and then cleaned the window with the straight vinegar and mirror cloth and then dusted the window ledge with the dry cloth as well. But oh well, it's definitely in much better shape now than it was before I did it.

And that my friends, is how I clean our tiny bathroom.

Using this method, it took me all of maybe 15 minutes to clean the bathroom. Do you have 15 minutes available to kick your bathroom into tip top clean shape? I bet you do!

Also, I will be linking this up to Works For Me Wednesday at We Are THAT Family.

Tackle It Tuesday

Yesterday, I tackled the bottom portion of my front entry closet. It has been on my to-do list for quite some time and I am really happy with the way it turned out! I didn't get a before picture because it was really an impromtu thing to tackle.

So, I started by pulling everything out of there, from the rod down. Yes, the rod too but that was only because it fell down and it wasn't intended, but it also came out too, so therefore - I took everything out from the rod down.

We have tons and tons and tons of shoes. And after going through the shoes that were on the floor of the closet, I have come to a conclusion. One, most of them are mine and two, I have no idea where to store them. But we'll get to that yet.

What was in there before I took everything out:

• tote full of shoes
• box full of other shoes
• huge round clock
• picture
• wooden boards left over from our old entertainment center (formerly were shelves on there)
• plastic drawers - set of six
• Natty's walking stick from Cub Scouts

Yikes! I just took some finished pics of the closet and didn't realize that the littlest one took this pic while I was working on the closet. You can see how much stuff was crammed in there! That grey tote full of shoes, the short box next to the dog - shoes. The big box behind the dog had shoes too. Hmm, thought there was only one box and one tote of shoes... guess I did more than I thought I did. Oh - and pretty much everything you see here was IN the closet. And excuse me in the middle of the pic. Not the most flattering pic of me ever, but the Boo child was just tryin' to keep it real, I suppose.

I brought up a set of two plastic drawers from our bedroom because I wasn't sure if they were the same size as the drawers that were in our closet. Turns out, they were! So, I put them all together and had them all stacked up on the front right side of the closet to free up more of the rod space. Before taking everything out, the six drawers were stacked on the back left side of the closet, which took up about a foot or so of our hanging space.

But after looking at it, I decided that I didn't like the drawers in that spot, so I took them all out again and started over. I put two stacks of three drawers side by side on the floor of the closet once I realized that doing so wouldn't hinder the hanging stuff at all. That left a small square-ish area in the back left corner. I took a chance and tried the stack of two drawers that came from our bedroom to see if they would fit and they did.

Once I saw that configuration, I loved it! Oh, it looks so neat and orderly! I decided that the two drawers in the back left would hold a few things that the stack had been holding before anyhow. The top drawer has some plastic bags that our new curtains came in that I plan to reuse for something else and our extra vacuum bags. The bottom drawer has extra light bulbs, a heavy duty extension cord that needs to go out to the garage yet and the casters that were on the bottom of the stack of drawers.

The next stack over has three drawers, from top to bottom, they belong to Hubby, Natty, and Punky. The stack on the right side of the closet from top to bottom belong to me, JoNo and Boo. It is really easy to remember whose drawer is whose because of two things. First, if you look at the two stacks, moving from left to right, top to bottom, it is in order of our ages, (Hubby, me, Natty, JoNo, Punky, Boo) and second, Natty and Punky's real names both start with the letter A, JoNo and Boo's real names start with the letter J. We have long joked that the "A" kids belong to Hubby (because their personalities are so much like Hubby's) and that the "J" kids are mine for the same reason.

I put Natty's walking stick back into the closet. It's on the left side, propped up against the front corner and is very much out of sight, unless you are specifically looking for it. On the right side, there is a tiny nook area and I put one of our air mattresses over there. It's all folded up and neat, as it has never been used before. (We have three of them.) I plan to put it out in the garage once we get the room for it made out there. But that's another process altogether.

I decided that with our current weather consisting of both warm and cold temperatures, the jackets and coats and backpacks and shoes in our launch pad were driving me a little bit insane. I don't mind the backpacks and either a coat or jacket on the hook. I don't even mind a pair of shoes for each person on the rug below. But multiple coats ans jackets, multiple pairs of shoes? Uh uh. It was too much and it was driving me bananas. So, I took all of the jackets and coats and hung them on hangers in the closet. I put all of the backpacks on their hooks and I removed all of the shoes.

Speaking of shoes, I went through the box and the tote of shoes and decided on a number of them to get rid of. I probably got rid of, oh, I'd say 15-20 pairs of shoes. Yeah. See why it was driving me insane? I still have quite a few pairs left to deal with as well, but it's much better than it was. I don't have room for them on the floor in the closet, I don't want them by the front door - it gets too cluttered too quickly there and just doesn't look appealing when you walk in. So, now I have to figure out what to do with them all. I have the idea of maybe having the kids store their shoes on the floor of their closets or just under their beds in their rooms, but I don't know. I think that they are more likely to get lost by doing that, so I will be looking for alternative ideas yet.

We have two other doors leading in from outside, one in our kitchen (no room there to store extra shoes) and one in the den. I actually could use that area for the extra shoes very easily. The other idea is actually to store them in an underbed bin in our bedroom. We have the room there and the shoes would stay neat and orderly and I wouldn't have to worry about them. It's worth giving it some thought. Oh - and we have underbed bins that we aren't using at the moment, so it's not like I would need to be spend anything on it. I think I like that idea quite a bit. So, that's where those shoes will be going later today. (Thanks for your help, y'all!)

Let's see, what else came out of that closet? Oh - the former shelves. Those will go down to our laundry room. We have a cupboard full of old wooden shelf  pieces. They were actually here when we moved here and since they were already here, we can't get rid of them because they don't belong to us. But we are welcome to use them anywhere in the house. I figure that I can put these boards in there with those ones (they are similar in style, wood tone and everything).

The huge clock we hung up in our den. I'm not sure I like it where it is though. We'll leave it for now and I'll see if it grows on me within the next week. It might be okay there if we just move it up another foot on the wall, because it is seriously a large diameter clock. Probably a good 2 feet in diameter. We're talking big.

And the last thing was the picture. I took it out and I have plans to put it up in the little kids' bedroom. I also took some pictures down in our den that will go in kids' bedrooms too. So, there you have it. My tackle for this week.

I still need to clean off the top shelves, but believe me, I got a lot accomplished on just the lower half of the closet!

(edited to add in the pictures)

ALSO - please consider making a donation and sponsoring my boys by clicking on the links under my banner above. They would really appreciate it!

Tackle It Tuesday

If you know me, then you know that I'm a knitter. I love love love to knit! But my life is not always conducive to allowing me the time to knit, so I try to sneak it in when and where I can. Which means that my knitting supplies and my yarn both end up sometimes in disarray.

Today, I took the time to dig into the depths of my cedar chest where I keep my yarn, and to sort it all out. I separated my wool yarns (I didn't realize how much I still had on hand - that is GREAT news!) from my acrylics (and I only kept the acrylics that I actually loved - I have a real love/hate relationship with acrylic) from my cottons (once again - I had more than I realized, which once again, was GREAT news!)

Now, my cedar chest is well organized and I can find what I need quickly and easily! I also put a couple of WIPs (works in progress) into little plastic drawstring bags so that I could grab a project and go if I so desire. I still need to figure out a good system for my knitting supplies - extra needles, tapestry needles, scissors, measuring tape, row markers, stitch markers, pom pom makers, etc. etc. etc. but I'm taking it one step at a time. And right now, all those items are together - on top of a bookshelf so that the kids can't get to them. Maybe tomorrow I will have a chance to get to it.

ALSO - please consider making a donation and sponsoring my boys by clicking on the links under my banner above. They would really appreciate it!

Tackle It Tuesday

I have actually done quite a few tackles this past week. So, please forgive me if this is long, but I just really wanted to share all that I was able to accomplish!

First of all, I tackled the assembly of our new air glider workout machine. This was a gift from my mother-in-law. She loves to watch and shop from QVC. This particular item she got from QVC back in 2001. Into her basement it went (still in the original box - never opened, the tie straps were still in place) and remained there until she realized earlier this month that Boo had spilled something on the box. The box that it was shipped in, that never penetrated the box or in any way came into contact with the interior of the box, much less the machine itself. Anyhow, thanks to Boo for getting something onto the box because after that happened, Grandma decided she didn't want it anymore and asked us if we wanted it. And of course, we said yes!!!

It stayed in my trunk for a few days, but I eventually brought it in and it sat for another day or two before I decided to put it together. Eventually, Hubby helped me with the assembly, but really, it wasn't very difficult to do at all. So we now have two exercise machines in our possession. Yay for that!

Another thing that I tackled this past week was a chore chart and routine for the kids that is actually working! It has worked for a solid 8 days and is still going strong. You see, we were struggling with a few things with the kids. The first one being their self-centered attitudes, the second being their unwillingness to help out around the house, the third being their sense of entitlement to whatever they wanted or want to do, and the fourth, trying to figure out the perfect solution for allowance that wouldn't break the bank for us and yet still give them some monetary control. And I think we have found it.

The first step was breaking down their chores into three sections of the day: Before School (or by noon on weekends/non-school days), After School (or between noon and 6pm on weekends/non-school days), After Dinner (between 6pm and 8pm).

Then I listed out tasks, chores or responsibilities that they needed to complete. I'll use JoNo's tasks for this week as my example, which you can see right here:

As you can see, most of his before school chores are really just things that he needs to be responsible for anyhow. You will notice, however, that on his list is something that says, "Quick Clean", which is used as our way of saying that the room looks neat and tidy. It does not involve cleaners (unless there is a major mess to be cleaned up) or tools. It is simply to go into a room, look for anything that is out of place and take it to the place where it belongs and put it away. Very simple.

Then, for after school chores, he requested that for this current week, he be allowed to have two chores because he only had one last week (quick clean bathrooms - we have 3) and he was getting done with those long before NattyNu was getting done with his one (the den). So, this week, Natty asked if he could do the living room instead of the den and then JoNo asked if he could have the den, since Natty didn't want it anymore. But he also made sure to mention that he still wanted the bathrooms as well, so he got them.

After supper, he is to help with dishes. Dishes are Hubby's job (I cook, he does the dishes, it seems fair to me!) Natty clears the table. Actually, Natty clears the table of anything that is on it before supper and then clears the table afterwards. I often help him out with the clearing process, mainly so that I can make sure that the leftovers get put away properly. Then it's up to JoNo and Hubby to do the dishes. Keeps them both on track. And quite honestly, JoNo has loved doing the dishes since he was four. He's now seven. He can pretty much handle them on his own. But Hubby is there to supervise and to make sure that JoNo gets everything really clean and, of course, to wash any sharp knives (though JoNo can and will wash sharp knives with direct supervision).

The boys' thirty minutes of reading time is done right at bedtime. They go up to bed at 8:30 but they are allowed to read until 9:00. They can also go up earlier if they choose to, but 8:30 is the time that they have to be in bed by. If they are not reading like they are supposed to, then lights go out and they miss out on completing that responsibility.

By now, you have probably already noticed the weekend chores as well - the "Perfect Clean"s. It is essentially a deep clean of a room - the same room that they are responsible for all week long, except this is when the cleaners and vacuum or broom and dustpan get busted out. The easiest way to explain this to them and to avoid any confusion about what an acceptable level of cleanliness is for these rooms is to say that the rooms need to be perfectly cleaned (to the best of their abilities and skills). We also use the phrase "perfect behavior" for public situations where they need to behave really well. Most people that I know use the phrase "best behavior" but a short while back, Natty had complained that they "can't be perfect all the time" to which I replied, "I know you can't. But you all can behave well most of the time and you can actually behave perfectly for a short time," and thus began the use of limited "perfect" in our household.

Okay, so that takes care of the chore part of that, now for the other parts. The boys each have a Nintendo dsi, which I am sure that I have written about before. And they both like to play an online game together as well. But they got to be too much. The minute they got home from school, they'd drop their backpacks and coats by the front door and start their gaming session right away. Then it was extremely difficult to get them focused on what needed to be done. So, we told them that they were limited to one hour of screen time (which they choose to use for gaming) during the week and three hours on the weekend days. The one stipulation is that they have to have everything completed before they can play. This means that all before and after school chores have to be done and checked off. And there are no video games after supper, so they have a real motivation to get it done in a timely manner so that they have earned their right to play games.

When they come home from school, they are now eager to get their chores done, they will ask where their list is and just start working on it. When they are done, they will bring me their list and I will ask them if they did each item (going through each one) and they will respond. Then I will randomly choose to check the items. I don't check to make sure that every item is done every day. But I will check to make sure things got done. If the child outright lied about doing a chore, he is not allowed to play games that day and he has to do the chore he lied about, plus do an extra chore. I think it has happened once in 8 days and that was early on - as a test, I am sure. Not a bad track record though. Their only reward for chores is a job well done and praise and the screen time.

We decided that we will give them a dollar per year of age once a month to spend as they see fit. If they want to save it up, they can. Or they can choose to spend it. It is their money and they can do what they want with it, within reason.

I am also somewhat forgiving on things that don't get done every day. The boys don't quite realize this yet, but for instance, tonight, Hubby was working on something else and so JoNo got a pass on the dishes. It wasn't his fault that they didn't get done. I could have stayed in to help him with it, but I have my own chores that I work on after dinner, so tonight, JoNo got a freebie there. And with the weather being poor here lately, I didn't have either of the boys take our dog (Freddy) out for a walk today. Instead, we simply let him out the back door and waited for him to do his business and then let him back in.

Hmmm, I am trying to decide if I want to go on to another item that we tackled this week or to "save" it for next week. I think I am going to save the rest of them. This is really long already and it was mostly about the chore chart. So, I think that is what we will go with here. Expect more things next week! And stop back in, I love visitors!

Tackle It Tuesday

Today's tackle has been working on attacking Mt. Washmore (laundry anyone? I have plenty to spare!), getting our bedroom ready for our new bedroom set that comes some time tomorrow, and trying to get the adhesive and some black covering thing pulled up out of our basement and take it back to the cement floor. Oh and we also pulled up the carpet that was in the basement and took that and an old couch out. Both will be on the curb next week for trash collection day. Unless I get motivated to take it to the landfill before then. Highly doubtful as I have lots of other projects going on first.

Things that I have tackled and accomplished this past week, include rearranging furniture, moving bookshelves to our living room and unpacking multiple boxes of books to stock the shelves with. Going through the boxes and weeding out the books that I don't want to keep. Let's see, we also cleared out our den, moved in our couch and loveseat, took down vertical blinds from all of our bigger windows and sliding doors, put up curtains instead, put together an exercise bike, created chore lists for the kiddos that seem to actually be working! (yay for that one!), cleaned out my front closet, yeah...I think that's it. Or mostly it? I'm so exhausted. But I'm trying to get a number of things done before this weekend. I want my house to be in nearly perfect order before this weekend. I know that truly perfect order is not attainable, but I want the entire house to be company-ready. I don't care that no one ever goes into my basement, I want it to be done so that if a person ever were to need to go down there, they wouldn't be frightened. :)

I may go around and take pictures later on today, but for now, I want to get the post up. You can check back later for some pictures of the dones and the to-dos. It'll be fun, I promise!

Tackle It Tuesday

My tackle this past week was the kitchen pantry. Oh my word. I could not believe how junked out it was! I had no idea what I had on hand, I was buying products that I already had on hand, while not buying the products that I was low on. It was pantry disorder at it's finest. Absolute craziness!

So I started off by taking EVERYTHING out of the pantry. And I mean EVERYTHING. I grouped all the like items together. After doing that, I then decided to pull out everything from our overflow cupboard as well. And our spice cupboard too. It was a big ordeal! Unfortunately, I only got pictures of the pantry before - not the spice or overflow cupboards, because I didn't intend to get them done too. But it was necessary. Items in there belonged in the pantry and vice versa.

So, pantry before pictures:

Things were grouped together in there but there were some duplicate items in different areas and it just needed a good overall clean out. It also needed to be organized in a way that made more sense.

Things were just tossed in here and while they were grouped together, it wasn't exactly the best plan. Plus there were many outdated items in there. Also, do you see the bag of potatoes? Down there at the bottom? Let's just say that potatoes do not belong in the back of the pantry at all.

And here, there were many outdated boxed goods. And I had too many items that I don't use on a regular basis down low while the items that I was using was up high on the upper shelves.

So, I decided to use the upper shelves for the overflow and store extra of the items that I already had down below. Instead of trying to keep it all completely grouped together, it meant that keeping an amount down below on the shelves that I would typically go through in a certain amount of time, and keeping the extras of those items up on the shelf. Rather than having 30 cans of peaches down on the shelves, I have room for six. The other 24 cans of peaches would have to go up on the overflow shelf. I can just replace what I need from my overflow shelf first.

The area behind the pull out on the left is my baking good center. I have cake and muffin mixes on the top shelf. The second shelf holds crisco bars, powdered sugar and brown sugar. Shelf three is home to flour and sugar, while the fourth row has a container with butterscotch chips, a can of evaporated milk and a cookie mix on it. There's an empty shelf and then on the bottom, there are three jugs of cran-apple juice.

The right side of the pantry behind the pull out shelf has all of the pasta and sauces and helpers. Top shelf is boxed pasta. Lasagna noodles, manicotti noodles. Second shelf is more boxed pasta. Elbow macaroni, penne pasta, mac n cheese. Bagged spaghetti calls the third shelf home, while the fourth shelf holds pasta sauces and a can of yams (may seem odd unless you know that you can use yams to stretch the pasta sauce).  Fifth shelf is refried beans and taco shells. And the bottom shelf is Hamburger Helper boxes.





This is the shelf and cabinet above our stove. On the right side of cupboard area, we have our overflow or less commonly used spices. On the right, soup bases. The shelf has my Tupperware containers on the left that hold powdered milk, instant potato flakes, splenda packets, pink lemonade mix and two empty containers. On the right, our more commonly used spices. So handy to have all of this stuff right here above the stove.

Before, this was our spice and overflow cupboard. I hated it. It was cluttered, there were so many things in here that didn't belong in here and it just wasn't nearly as convenient. Now, it holds only what it needs to. Top shelf is for currently unused items on the top left, and cooking oils on the right. Middle shelf has a sandwich section on the left (peanut butter - SIX jars - no kidding!), honey and strawberry preserves. The right side has two 24 packs of microwave popcorn. Extra butter and light butter. Bottom left is more baking supplies - baking soda, baking powder, cornstarch, and yeast. In the middle, there's the citrus juices - lemon, lime, and key lime and then a can of french fried onions. On the right is a drink mix center. We have hot chocolate mix, coffee, cappuccino mixes, malted milkshake mix, apple cider packet, crystal light packets, and tea packets.

So there you have it. That was the tackle that I did this past week. And once again, I apologize for the poor quality of the photos. At that point, I was still taking pictures with my phone. I have since gotten a new power cord for my camera. Well, sort of. I bought Hubby a camera that was similar to my own, that I was pretty sure would have the same power cord as mine (it did), and so I am using his until I actually locate my own.

Tackle It Tuesday

Tackle It Tuesday originated with 5 Minutes for Mom and then Katie put her own spin on it and is doing assignments, so this post will be linked up both places. Oh - and please excuse the poor quality photos. They are taken with my phone because I STILL have not found my camera cord and I'm too cheap frugal to buy a new one.

For starters, Katie suggested we clear off our entertainment centers. For me, this is a huge necessity because I use it as a dumping ground all of the time. It's the highest place in the room and the Punky and Boo children do not have access to the top of it.

I bought these three crosses at Christmas time that I figured would be nice to have on display year round, so I have placed them up here, but it's all the junky clutter that piles up there that drives me mad. Also, the little DVD player that is up here. We rarely use it now (since we got cable installed again) and I have a mind to tuck it away, but I think it is something that is still used often enough that we should keep it there. It does need to be kept up though, because Boo is just a little too, um, investigative, with this item.

And actually, while I am at it, I should clear off these shelves too. They are a fright! I had attempted to make them nice and neat and sort like items into similar containers, etc. etc. but it just doesn't work for me like this. Plus, when you pull out the containers, you can see the other stuff that has gotten mixed in with it. Yeah, definitely does not work for me!

So, that was the challenge. And here are the results:
Top of entertainment center before:

Top of entertainment center cleared off, leaving only the three crosses, the DVD player and some (old!) pics of the kids:

First shelf of the entertainment center before:

And after:

Second shelf of the entertainment center before:

And after:

Third shelf of the entertainment center before:

And after:

Bottom shelf of the entertainment center before:

And after:

And the area under the television before:

And after:

The whole entertainment center before again:

And the whole entertainment center after:

Looks so much neater now, doesn't it? And in reality, it only took about an hour to clear it all off and make it neat and presentable again. Yay for quick projects! And here I thought I didn't have time for any projects right now. But in reality, if you make your mind up to make time for something, you can do it. It also helped that I had a couple of nights off from work due to having bronchitis.