Current Thoughts and Past Due Ones too

First: A dear Bloggy Friend could use all the good thoughts and warmth you have to send her this evening. Please take a moment to read Mommie Blogs post from this evening. I have linked to the tag for this topic so you can scroll down and read the whole story if you want to.


Second: I am declaring February "The Month in Arrears" - this month I am posting all my Belated posts, the ones that I Postponed over and over again in order to make room for current events (or random thoughts).

Don't worry, February is a short month and I don't 28 Past Due posts so there will be current events mixed in too - but by golly I plan to get the Held Up ones on this blog, day by day, if it takes every ounce of bloggy strength I have...

So tonight I start The Month in Arrears with this Delayed post:

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Try as I may, getting chores done around the house is never met without challenge.

Lauren has some very specific tasks and she usually (9 out of 10) does them without much prodding - she is the proud owner of the following tasks:
1. Wipe the remotes, light switches, telephones and door handles with a Clorox Wipe
2. Assist with or complete on her own the upstairs trash
3. Dust all that is dustable within her reach
4. Keep her room and desk in some sort of orderly fashion (not picky here just must look neat at first glance.)
5. Set table when asked

Hailey is the proud owner of the following tasks:

1. Spray Windex all over everything and wipe it down till her paper towel is dripping wet
2. Absolutely insist on wiping the same spot at least 1000 times because it could not possibly have gotten clean the first 999 times
3. Drag the swiffer vacuum full of dust and dog hair across every floor in the house dropping all the dirt as she goes
4. Take place on couch, get served some OJ and watch Toot and Puddle or another highly educational TV show.
5. Insist on using moms BIG vacuum even though it is twice her size (and weight) and successfully bump into every wall in the room while only moving about an inch or so.

The moral of this story? It is WAY PAST time to assign Hailey some real tasks and make sure accomplishes them in a somewhat orderly fashion, without making the house dirtier or somehow creating mom more work at the same time.

Oh, and did you notice the major use of the THESAURUS tonight. I love it!

DIY and major messes Part 1

The Incredible GROWING mess starts with a mess I made that refuses to shrink. This major mess going on is completely my fault. Shortly after New Years I decided to gut the playroom, rearrange, redo, clean out etc. As a result I piled everything we took out of the playroom in the middle of the basement floor. Unfortunately I did not get a picture of that mess before I cleaned it up but trust me you could not walk through it safely. The Playroom turned out great

Main view

The Built Ins - notice my computers are there (though I am in the family room right now ha ha)

The girls desks and computers near the windows...

The new Redneck Couch

The TV etc. that the Redneck couch faces

One of the bookshelves that got moved (actualy in the upstairs hall just outside the playroom)

My next step was to tackle the girls rooms and their clothes. You see having two girls 5 years apart means I have a lot of clothes to save for Hailey..they have taken up many shelves in our basement - tub after tub of shoes and clothes - I went through them and made them a new home in the empty trundle of Hailey's bed, this freed up a lot of storage space downstairs, so then I decided I better gut the girls closets and that just added to my mountain in the basement...But the girls rooms look great and they got a few of the toys removed from the playroom transplanted in their rooms

Laurens American Girl Tree House

Lauren's shelves full of books and doll stuff, oh and Phoenix the fish!

Hailey got my old doll cradle in her room

Along with another displaced bookshelf

Some of her American Girl Stuff

And the new CD player she had to have for Christmas

After that I was tasked with cleaning out the unfinished part of our basement, making room for new stuff to be stored. This included clearing a VERY messy floor, emptying tubs and deciding what stays and what goes, plugging in the Treadmil and pretending as though we may actually use it. This part of the basement rarely stays clean for long because it becomes the dumping ground for everything...however after this HUGE clean out I have freed up a lot of space and intend to keep it that way (for a while anyway)

Holiday stuff on the left, crafty cabinets in the center and all things that must be kept forever on the right hand side (notice one whole shelf is empty!).

Giant Cat in the hat. He is Lauren's - I HAD to have him when I was pregnant with her and now I find myself wondering what the heck am I gonna do with him?

The other side of the unfinished part...full of boxes, summer stuff, fans, paint and more (again 1 whole empty shelf and a parially empty one too)

But the Main part of the basement looks pretty good now. The wrapping paper is off the pool table, the gifts are gone from the air hockey table and some of it has been set up and ready for play time too

SO, in order to accomplish all the beauty you have seen above I had to go through the mountain I plopped on the basement floor from the playroom and the girls room, I had to clean out tubs, and floor space in the unfinished part and had to decide what stays and what goes. In doing this, the only way I knew how was to just kept throwing stuff in the spare room, kindly referred to as Grandma Mary's Room ...YEP- this is where I am shoving all the stuff I don't want to keep as I go through closets, shelves, tubs etc. I am now referring Mary's rom as "Mount Dumpall" you can't even tell there is a bed, television, quilt rack and nightstand in this room ..

So now I get to empty this very scary bedroom and decide for sure what goes and what stays, who gets what (good will, ebay, garage sale, consignment who knows...) Are you coming to help?

In the meantime - I have a lot of STUFF to do so....hopefully the end result Will be worth it. OH - and we can't forget the trash pile we lugged up the stairs and out to the curb tonight (sorry mother earth)


Still Coming:
DIY and major messes part 2
You know who you are
Lost and Found

Books books...everywhere books

Amending the previous post:

Imagine my dismay when my friend Bonnie mentioned this in her comment "I thought maybe you were going to tell about her "organizing" her books." OH MAN, I totally meant to and I totally didn't. Do I have a brain?

Then, to top it off another blogger commented that she liked our bookshelves because her books are EVERYWHERE...

Well, now it is time to Share the story of Lauren "Organizing the bookshelf" and time for me to come clean about books at our house...

It starts like this: When I clean up the books I arrange them Left to Right, Tallest to Shortest taking great care to make sure they line up width, height etc...so...when Lauren cleaned the playroom she also "organized" the bookshelf. I went to put a book on the shelf and was SHOCKED to see this

As you can see...they are not organized by height or size at all. I stood there silent for a moment and Lauren very proudly announced "I organized the by Alphabetizing them, well only by first letter not all the letters but the A's are together and the B's are together you know what I mean mom"

Mom takes a deep breath and beams a BIG smile and says "That is GREAT Lauren, wow that was a lot of work" I find a place for my book, leave, turn off the light and start to contemplate how long I have to wait before I redo it! Oh Lauren, I love you dear! I love you I love you I love you but...I can't do alphabetized bookshelves for long!


Now for the confession. Books, neatly on the shelf, Well yes...but you have to see it all...

In the play room we have the above now "alphabetized" book shelf as well as these two very cluttered shelves:

This shelf is mostly for Holiday books but also stores some "to do" books!

This shelf is mostly EDU Books (homework helpers!) - Oh shoot I forgot to get a picture of the shelf with the encyclopedias from the 1970's on it...oh well..if you look at the previous post they are at the top of the built in shelves!

In Lauren's Room we also have these shelves with books on them:

Junie B Jones, Beverly Cleary, Box Car Children, Heidi and more

American Girl, Russian Ballet Diaries

Shell Silverstein, Charlottes Web, Giant book of Madeline and more...

Just books, I have no idea - one looks like it is American girl though!

Right across the hall in Hailey's room you will also find these books:

IN A BASKET ON THE FLOOR

IN A BASKET ON THE DRESSER

(ok, think bah bah blacksheep now...)

Ma Ma Dear-est have you anymore? Yes Sir, Yes Sir, Three bags full:

Three big bags stuffed full, tucked in the corner of Hailey's closet

because I can't find anyplace to put them...

Down the hall a little further you can find a some books in my closet (and under the bed but it is too dark down there for pictures:

I think this shelf was meant for Sweaters or some other wonderful item of clothing but instead it houses books, some of my books!

Now, for the grand FINALE - My favorite place in the whole house to keep books. I can't believe I lived 35 years without this awesome book storage spot...

I LOVE MY Kindle 2: Amazon's New Wireless Reading Device (Latest Generation)
! I have read 27 books on it since June and look how much space they take up! You just can't beat that. There are books that I will still buy for me because I want to have hard copies but NOT MANY!

OK - so that is it...for now. Lauren IS amazing - cleaning, organizing, whining, picking fights with her sister, helping mom in her times of need!

My Books are not that organized no matter what my 8 year does...we have books EVERYWHERE and probably always will!

Thanks for reading!

Would someone please...

CLEAN THE PLAYROOM?

For those familiar with "Where's Waldo" lets play a game of "Where's Lauren and Hailey?"







Did you find them? UGH! What a mess!

Welcome back Uncle Albert! - for those of you that don't know, Uncle Albert is actually my Great Uncle - he lives in Michigan and has been without computer for a while! I got an email from him last night that he was up and running again and of course, immediately invited him to the blog! Anyway, This is for you Uncle Albert..."So Glad your back online...some bunny in Colorado Loves you!!!"

Also Welcome Grandma Mary as an official reader! Hope this keeps us chatting more!

And finally...some have asked if they could invite their friends and family to read...I am happy to oblige just email me their email addresses and I will send them an invite!

Happy Sunday to all!