Work continues...

The kids are off at Grandma's and my aunt's...*wry smile*  Neither one felt up to BOTH kids overnight.  Ah, well, I guess that is the joy of being a "grand"...you have paid your dues and can now insist on YOUR way.  *smiles*

The basement is coming, but for the second weekend in a row, I am the injured one.  Really, all I ask is that *I* be the sacrificial kid and none of our awesome, wonderful, amazing volunteers get anything more than aches from over-exertion.  Today, the injury is from stepping on a nail.  *sigh*  It was in a board, lying point up...I stepped down, nail went through my boot sole and through my skin, puncture-wound style.  It really didn't bleed much.  I've washed, treated with tea tree, taken a mini-break to blog about it, and I'll be back to work.  wooo-hooo.

Other, more mommy news...Girl is teething again.  She's got her first lower left molar crowning, and I suspect the lower right is cutting too.  Poor kid...she's been just really miserable and crying at the drop of a pin.  She also took her very first independent steps this week!  She wants to do it herself so badly...she walked a whole 2 blocks using her Walk-n-Ride.

Boy is really loving school, but has gotten a little annoyed with one of the boys in class.  He is 3 1/2 and has a speech difficulty that makes him hard to understand.  He has also decided that Boy is HIS best friend and doesn't like it when Boy interacts with other kids.  *soft sigh*  I feel for both sides.  I'm proud of Boy in his attempts to be polite and friendly, and I hope that he can find a way to be inclusive and a supporter of this other child getting more involved with the group...but we will see.  On Thursday, after this child had said hello about 2 dozen times, Boy turned to him and said, "You only have to say it once."  *chuckles*  That is a line WE have used on him when he's asked repeatedly for something.  Funny how your kids will duplicate your words and mannerisms.

Alright...Beloved's sent someone looking for me, so it's back to work.  Enjoy your weekend!

Quiet here...

Because I've been up to my elbows in mortar!  And I have the lye burns to prove it!  Oiy. 

The good news is that the basement is coming along.  The front rooms are DONE, and about 1/2 of the rest of the basement is prepped for parging.  The bad news is the lye burns and all the work has kicked up a LOT of dust.  I spent all day cleaning, but Boy was still coughing and struggling to breathe.  Despite "just" watching television today, all that effort finally wore him out and he fell asleep before his regular bedtime.

*sad eyes*  Beloved wants me to push for a specialist referral.  I know he's right, but damn it...this is supposed to FIX it!  I don't want my little boy to be sick!  *deep breath*  I cannot imagine what parents do with major diagnoses.  When I stop to think about it, I am at a loss for words.

Back Basement room...DONE!

I wish I had taken a photo before I started so you had some idea of how packed this room was! I've gotten rid of so much!  And it's finally DONE!!!  Well, at least the empty, sort, and get rid of phase is done! Now it is into more of the construction phase...deal with the mold and reparge....then we can decide what we are going to do with it.

Lists, chores, and honey-dos, Oh My!

 I have lists...ones for groceries, ones for the-next-time-I-get-to-Home-Depot, ones for bills, ones for chores, ones for books I want to read, ones for gifts I need to pick up, ones for the STUFF I need to trek out to GoodWill...all kinds of lists.  I bet you do too. 

Some times it is easy to get overwhelmed by the lists.  I'll be trying to go to sleep, and a nagging voice in my head starts rattling off "stuff to add" to the lists.  I'll have five minutes, but I won't know where to start.  I'll get so caught up with the list that I forget to ask for help, and then the REAL trouble begins!

Beloved also works with lists.  He uses them at work as well as at home, and apparently he's done some research into "list managers"...or maybe task managers, or management tools.  He also decided to sign us up for one of these programs so we could help sync our lists and prioritize.  The one he chose is Remember The Milk.  I haven't explored it thoroughly, but it looks pretty simple.  It's a "joint" account, so I can put "honey-do" things on his list (like replacing the toilet seat) and he can added to mine (like sew up the ripped pillows).  It's kinda nice to see where each other's priorities are...and also nice to have something to check off.

I'm also still peeking at FlyLady for tackling house cleaning.  I am not completely sold on her schedules, mostly because Beloved and I have agreed to spend 2 hours on Sundays to knock out the chores.  There's still the on-going stuff...laundry being the big one...and the once-in-a-while stuff that needs to be tackled...I think FlyLady lists might be helpful for those kinds of things...especially since she breaks them into 15 minute bits.  With the CHORES done, I can work on the other stuff through the week.

Another site that I considered was Chore Buster.  I think I might keep that one in my back pocket for now, but it might be a great tool once the kids can read and contribute more meaningfully to chores.  *smiles*  Boy does help with some things...he earns "tokens" immediately, and he can only use the computer or watch a show if he has a token to spend...but he isn't able to do real cleaning yet.  Pick-up and put-away are his big ones.

Do you use a program for your lists?  Opinions on the ones I mentioned?

Belated thank you...

I owe a big THANK YOU to my Beloved.  I was in a bad space and I couldn't get the words out in the moment, although tears did well up in my eyes.

He simply said that the house looks pretty dang good.  That of all of his friends, the only place that looks better is our friend Einhander, but he lives at home with his mom who works part-time and spends the rest of the time cleaning a practically-empty house.  That compared to our other friends, I do an amazing job keeping up with the kids and life and the yard.

The problem is the endless list in MY head of what isn't done.  The negatives that eat at me until I get up and run laundry and clean toilets at 12:30 am and gnaw on my self-esteem until I get overwhelmed, fall apart, and scream and cry.  It's driving me crazy, and it is starting to pull the world around me into the maelstrom.

*sniffles*  I know this kind of praise isn't a rarity...Friends of all kinds remind me that they love coming here for the sense of order, love, and comfort.  Beloved tells me often, and it is sincerely meant.  On the mirror on my dresser, there are more than a dozen notes, cards, and happy thoughts...little trinkets that he has given me to remind me that I AM DONG A GOOD JOB.

 Thank you for saying it.  Thank you for noticing.  Thank you for being a part of it.  Thank you.

FLYing and sickness

I have heard from a lot of people that FlyLady.net is amazing and helpful. I have resisted even checking out the site for months. I gave in yesterday.

I can't honestly say I have a solid opinion based on one day of perusal, but I will say that her Welcome Message made me tear up and nod my head in agreement. I promptly went and cleaned the sink and hung a note above it.

We will see how well this works.  Of course, I grew up with the policy that you don't leave dishes in the sink overnight (as teenagers, my father actually dumped dirty dishes in our beds if we left them for him to find, so we learned the hard but mercifully quick way!), so we have a good starting point.  

I don't think I will completely adopt lesson two, which is to dress to the shoes.  I appreciate the idea behind the shoes, but we try not to wear shoes in the house.  *shrug*  But getting dressed and ready for the day BEFORE entering the kitchen?  Yeah...I can do that. 

Beyond that?  Not much to say.  Boy was put on anitbiotics for bronchitis on 8/13; Beloved was in the doctor's office on Saturday and came home with a Z-pak.  Girl has developed a productive cough this weekend, and this morning I have a sore throat and raspy voice.  Oh joy.

Work continues on the basement...yesterday I dragged Beloved through a box of paperwork we had saved...it had Windows98 documents and sales slips from computers we build in college.  *laughs*  Things that were important once upon a time.  I saved 4 pamphlets for the 4 items we actually still own, but the rest went to the recycling bin.  We also sorted through the sports equipment and ditched the stuff that was no good anymore.  What we are saving needs some TLC...like removing and retaping the handles on the racquetball rackets...but I'm done to just a small pile of gardening stuff that I have to go through.  Then, the back room is empty and we can actually talk about re-parging!

Basement tackled me!

I was working on the basement when one of the wobbly shelves collapsed and I caught a crate of silver serving ware with my wrist and a box of "stuff" with my left arm. Beloved rescued me and the stuff, but now my right wrist is in a brace. It hurts like hell, but I can move it and it isn't horribly swollen, so I don't think it's more than a bad sprain. Still. GRRRRRR!

Other news...I found a cute Japanese bridge for the garden and Beloved "haggled" the price down to $50. I'm very excited!

Eventually, I'd like to put in a "stone lake" in the front yard, surrounded by native prairie plants, the bridge crossing the stones, and a sun dial. I have grand ideas...not a lot of cash. So...piece by piece, I'm finding and buying. I'm hoping to do the stone for free via craigslist people who want to get rid of their landscaping stones, but we will see.

I also just treated the backyard this evening with a weed killer. It did a nice job on the dandelions a few years ago. Now the problem is crab grass and creeping Charlie. *sigh* Here's hoping!

I also found CHEAP shoe hanging storage thingies at Target for $2.50. I bought two of them in black and stapled them into the chest. I'll see if I can get an updated photo soon.

Beloved wryly commented that he could have made dividers out of wood, but my retort was that I would have had to wait on that while I'd already purchased the shoe dividers. *sigh* Our lack of time is a very sore subject right now.

But the projects are marching along, although the pace is slower now that I'm injured.

Tackling the basement...slowly

The basement was a problem.

Over a year ago, Beloved knocked out one of the two walls on the cistern. In May, the second wall got torn apart to provide more stones for the backyard walkway. While that is a great re-purposing of the rock, it left a pile of rubble, dirt, crud, and dust in the southwest corner of the basement. A pile that was being tracked through every time someone went down there. A pile that the cat recently decided was better than the catbox. *grimaces* Not cool!

Last weekend, Beloved spent a day sweeping the mess into a single pile and then covered it with a tarp to keep the cats out. It was a huge improvement! He then walked around and measured the space with thoughts of actually making it a usable play space where we could stay cool.

But that got me looking at the rest of the space. There were boxes of stuff I kept meaning to donate, empty grocery bags from the GoodWill clothes purchases that I'd brought home and washed, but left the bags. Leftover bits from house projects.

This week, I dragged FOUR contractor bags of garbage out to the curb, Freecycled a gigantic box the stuff I'd been intending to donate, and actually swept the corners out. Now, you can almost think the space is organized! WOW!!!

That doesn't include the little back room, however...the room that is "mine". It's in desperate need of sorting, gleaning, donations, re-purposeding, and trashing. Maybe next week?

For anything worth having....

For anything worth having one must pay the price; and the price is always work, patience, love, self-sacrifice... ~ John Burroughs

Unfortunately, Mr. Burroughs is all too correct. I feel like a woman obsessed or addicted; every where I look, there is MORE CRAP and I want it GONE. Piles of books that I want to read someday or might use as reference someday. Drawers of clothing that I might wear someday when I {lose weight, don't have technicolored hair, need to dress up}. Boxes of recycling stuff that we may someday use for craft projects. Bins of things that caught my eye for gifts to give *somebody* someday. I'm working...slowly, painfully, FRUSTRATINGLY working towards parring down, organizing, sorting.

The headache is there is good reason and good intention behind all of it. If I have it when I need it, I won't have to go out and spend a ton of money for that moment. In theory. If I can find it. If I remember I have it. *sigh*

I've spent the last couple of days wandering from "project space" to "project space", gleaning through the stuff, making piles...but then I get distracted by {the kids, meal needs, the phone, sleep} and the space is left midway, looking far worse than when I started.

GAH!!! Patience has never been a strong suit for me. I guess it's part of being the "instant gratification generation". I didn't put in a garden for years because I couldn't afford big beautiful plants, and I finally bit the bullet and put in the tiny plugs I could afford this year. Next year, they will fill out, flower, and I'll have something that looks like a garden that I can add more plugs to. The house is like that. A little bit now, a little tomorrow, a little the next day, and everything will have a place.

I need a plan of attack...something better than what I have been doing. I love collecting stuff, and that has been my own undoing. Now I have to swallow my pride and sacrifice stuff that still has Goodwill stickers on it because it hasn't been used in the year(s) since I bought it. It's HARD. *wry smile* It sounds so stupid to put it so honestly, but there it is.

*deep breath* This too will be conquered the way you climb a mountain. One step, one day at a time.