Baa Baa Blacksheep...

Three bags full, three bags full!!  Ok, so it's NOT full of wool, but it is full of donations!  

This afternoon, in my declutter frenzy I sorted sheets & pillowcases & blankets & quilts & afghans.... oh, you get the drill.... Since we live in the backwoods of the frigid north we have summer sheets & winter sheets.  And we also have summer blankets/quilts & winter blankets/quilts. The children have finally decided that they would bring ALL of their winter bedding down.... THE WEEK BEFORE CAMP!!!  Hello?  What is wrong with these children?  Don't they know I have to get ALL of the laundry done before we go?   'Cause I'm the anal one about the laundry.... I don't want stinky, mildewy laundry when we get back from camp, on top of stinky, mildewy camp laundry!!  Gross!

So anyhow.... back to sorting.... I put all of the sets together (which I try to do normally, but it all went by the wayside this winter - I don't know why).  Then I put them in those Space Bags....  Again, something I thought was incredibly dorky... but it works like a charm.... I have an old camel-back trunk that came over from Scotland with my great-grandmother, when I was 16 my parents had it restored for me for Christmas... I sucked 6 bags flat & put them in there - you won't believe what's in there.... I've just gotta tell ya.... 1 King-sized polar-fleece blanket, 1 Queen-sized quilt, 1 Queen-sized, hand crocheted afghan, 1 Queen-sized set of flannel sheets, 3 Twin-sized sets of polar-fleece sheets, 3 Twin-sized sets of flannel sheets, 2 Twin-sized fitted flannel sheets, 1 Twin-sized flat flannel sheet and 5 random flannel pillowcases!!  ALL of that plus a zippered bag (I reuse the zippered bags sheets or bed sets come in) with 3 sets of my living room curtains and another zippered bag with linen memorabilia from when I was a foreign exchange student.   THAT people is ALOT of crap bedding AND it all fit in that old trunk! 

In the meantime, I had to declutter that trunk & get rid of some of the bedding we don't use anymore.  I got rid of doilies - I have no idea who made half of them or where they came from.  And lace curtains that I couldn't even remember putting on my windows.  But I must've, right?  Otherwise why would I have them.  Gone! Gone! Gone!  Three bags full!

The other thing I did today was to take all of my organizing baskets upstairs to my craft room.  Not that I really wanted them up there, but they were starting to pile up and get out of control.  I have enough trouble with clutter stuff getting out of control - I don't need containers to add to the problem - they're supposed to help.

So how many bags full are you getting rid of, sheep?

Bye! Love you! Have a good day, Dear!

A Whole Lot of Nuthin'

I have big plans for the summer.  I'm like one of those little kids who spend their whole school year plannin' what they'll be doin' the first day of summer... 'Swimmin' in the creek, ridin' bikes, buildin' that fort in the oak tree, fishin', playin' with their best friend, sleepin' under the stars, ice cream, watermelon & sweet corn, hot dogs & baseball games in the dust.... ahhhh the thrill of plannin' it all....

Then the first day of summer comes & you find them getting up at 10:00, eating Sugar Smaks in front of the boob-tube watchin' cartoons.....allllllllll day! 

Ok, so I didn't sleep until 10... but I did sleep in until 7:30.  My alarm is set for 7:00.  My excuse is that Bigfoot stopped by last night & stayed FOR-EVER!!!!  So I get my jammies on & tell him, I'm tired... you can lock up when you leave... the reply is 'I'm goin', Mom!.... I'm goin'!! 

The reason why he was here was because his car died & he parked it in our driveway (either a blown gasket or a cracked head)  It's an ancient old thing that was given to him for his graduation present last year from his Grandmother (on his father's side).  It's a 1990 Ford Crown Victoria - it's as old as him... lol  It was his grandfather's car before he passed away and had been sitting in the garage for the past 9+ years waiting for Bigfoot to get his license.  Anyhow, for the past couple of days it's back to being 'Mom's Taxi Service - Always reliable - Always Available - And Oh So Reasonably Priced!'

I took him to work (noon-8:30 p.m. shift) and I'll have to go back & pick him up tonight.  I'm downtown, so I might as well run some errands - the 1st Bank (in the grocery store), Staples, Drop Bigfoot off to work, Church Consignment Shop & 2nd Bank, WallyWorld, BJ's for gas, The Salvation Army, then home. 

Sooooo, all the stuff on my To Do List?..... I did 1 thing on it today.  ONE!!!  How is THAT going to get my house organized this summer?  Dang, today was a whole lot of nuthin'

Bye!  Love you!  Have a good day, Dear!

We're all together again...

Remember that song?  We're all together again, we're here, we're here!  We're all together again, we're here, we're here.... etc.... For our immediate & extended families that's the song we seem to be singing all summer long.  In fact, King Turd says that he can't figure out why my family even has a family reunion..... we're going to see each other in the grocery store on Monday, anyhow! 

This past weekend we just went to a 'Pig-Out' at my BIL & SIL's house.  Last year two of my BILs got together & built this HUGE cooker on wheels.  It has big industrial size propane burners for cooking potatoes & beans & such.  Then behind that is a propane grill to cook smaller meats & veggies.  AND THEN BEHIND THAT is a huge smoker/grill that you can cook a whole pig in.  I have to tell you these boys (there are 5 in my husband's family) know how to cook.  YUMMY!  There was enough food for thrashers, at least 3 4'x8' plywood sheets on sawhorses filled, FILLED with salads, breads & jellos & meats & rolls & pickles.  Before that they had snacks and AFTER that they had it filled with desserts!! 

Anyhoot.... where was I?..... oh yeah, family..... Not only did we come (my BIL/husband's side of the family) but my SIL's family came.... both sides.... Her father's family - including, aunts, uncles & cousins AND her mother's family - also including aunts, uncles & cousins.  A gazillion kids!  They get together at least once a month, if not more.  MY family gets together only for bigger holidays (Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter) and once during the summer for our Family Reunion.

It amazes me about family.  How at times we can really do without them putting their noses in our business.  Then at other times we can't live without them & are so thankful they're here.  Take this weekend for example.  King Turd went out to start our camper (which he usually does at least once a week when we aren't camping) and it wouldn't start.  So while at the 'Pig-Out' he was talking to his brothers about why it wouldn't start.  They decided that it was the alternator (the thingy that recharges the battery as you use it) and that he could run it down to some auto parts place & have the diagnostics (hooking it up to some machine thingy that tells you what is messing up) checked.  Yep, they were right - it was the alternator.  Long story short.... BIL says bring it over I'll fix it....  THANK YOU FAMILY!!!

This afternoon, my mother is taking my SIL & niece to the airport to catch a plane for a 'girl trip'.  My nephew didn't want to go & decided to stay home.  Well.... this leaves him unsupervised for an hour until my brother gets home from work.  My mother asked that I check up on him & give him a call (we live just around the corner) to check up on him.  He's old enough to be left alone for short periods of time, but she's worried - so I'll call to check.... THANK YOU FAMILY!!!

Around noon today Bigfoot stopped over.... And he pulled his car around towards the back of the house.... He thinks he blew a head gasket or cracked the head (the gasket thingy is like a seal between the top of the engine - the head - and the middle part of the engine - the block)  So he asked if I could give him a ride to & from work.... THANK YOU FAMILY!!!

It's strange to watch how other families interact.  How things that are 'normal' to our family are not the same to others & vice versa.  Recently I attended a funeral & the oldest daughter did not attend.  Her father & siblings were fine with it.... She didn't want to come up with her young children in tow (she has 9) and she didn't want to leave them there.  It was odd to me.... but 'normal' to their family.... To each his own.... everyone supports (or doesn't support) family members in their own way..... THANK YOU FAMILY!!!

What are you doing this summer that will make you sing 'We're all together again, we're here, we're here......?

Bye! Love you! Have a good day, Dear!

The To-Do List

I have been working like a mad woman cleaning the living room.  It smelled doggy.... Ewwww!  I knew I wanted to steam clean the carpet & the couch.  That's why I've been MIA.  So, I've been busy... I've been focused... I've been sooooo exhausted by the end of the day! 

Here's my problem.  I get distracted.  I know that while I'm working on one thing, the rest of the house is going to hell in a handbasket!  Big Time!  I had a HUGE stack of dishes in the sink (King Turd's pet peeve is dirty dishes).  I've got a huge pile mountain of laundry to do.  I have odd pieces of living room furniture all over the place.  The kitchen table is piled high.  Not to mention all of the other places that were piled high before!  It's so out of control.  What was I saying?.... Oh yeah, the distracted thing.... well anyway... I know myself well enough that if I don't purposely focus on something I'll get distracted & it will never get completely finished.  So I'm bound and determined to finish the living room.  I told King Turd that the rest of the house was trashed (I really don't think he knew the meaning of trashed) and that the dishes were most definitely NOT done.  And he said don't worry about it because he knew I'd been working my butt off on the living room.

I made myself a list so I wouldn't forget to do something.  It had 14 things on it.... not including cleaning the carpet or the couch.  Tomorrow will be day 4 and I have 5 things left to do... almost 4.... but I forgot to dust the other side of this framey thing I have and I don't want to forget to do it so I didn't cross it off the list.  I'm going to try to clean/organize the rest of my house this way this summer.  If I stay focused on 1 room at a time & complete it fully I think I'll get more accomplished than running around & putting out fires all over the place.

What do you think?  How do you clean?  By room? By task?  By mess?

Bye!  Love you!  Have a good day, Dear!

Alice Cooper's Rockin' the House!!!

Schoooooool's OUT for SUMMMAH!!!  Can't you just hear Alice screaming it?  I had a really great year this year.  I was glancing at the kids yearbooks & realized that I helped teach Math to almost the whole 6th grade class.  There were only about 14 students that I didn't work with!  Sooooo  8 math classes times approximately 20 kids in each class = 160 kids!  It was nice to know all of them from all 3 teams.  I did find out that I DO have my job next year AND that I'll be doing Math again (yeah!).  The only thing I asked is that I be assigned ELA classes.  This year I let all the teacher's know personally & sent out notice to team leader's that I was available, but no one asked for me... so I stayed in one class - which I liked.... but I heard through the grapevine that others were not pleased.... so in order to avoid that, I asked the principal if he could assign me to classrooms - 4 weeks at a time.  Hopefully that will happen, or I'll have to just go around & do it myself.

The Princess has two Regents Exams this week & she's staying at one of the 'adopted daughters' this week so they can study.  And The Lego King has three more 1/2 days.  Thursday will be Moving Up Day for him and he'll be a big ol' 6th grader!  For the first time in 16 years I won't have a child in elementary school!  How weird is that?  How SAD is that?  Why oh why are they growing up?  *sniff, sniff*

Now the real work begins with decluttering & cleaning out.

The first day of summer vacation I woke up I went downtown to look for a job & I hung around the drugstore. to the kitchen & made myself some coffee & got busy clearing out the living room.  Today I'm cleaning the carpet in there.  Wish me luck!

Bye! Love you! Have a good day, Dear!

Bad Mom 101

Feelin' hot, hot, hot.... feelin' hot, hot, hot!!!  A scorcher today.....  I decided to be a bad mom, in terms of making dinner.....

Previous conversation with King Turd of Poop Mountain....

KT:  Strawberry shortcake isn't dinner!  It's dessert.
me:  No, it's not.  If you serve it for dinner it's dinner.
KT:  You can't feed them (ie. kids) that!  They need to have a good dinner.
me:  Strawberry shortcake is good!  Listen, I've raised Bigfoot & The Princess to this age & they're not dead yet!  And they've had strawberry shortcake and popcorn and ice cream for dinner!
KT:  You're a lost cause.  No sense in arguing with you, you're gonna do what you want anyway.

Yeah, yeah... the whiner!  He's just sad that HIS mother didn't give him strawberry shortcake for dinner.  Soooo, tonight, I will teach you Bad Mom 101!

1.  Buy all the ingredients for Banana Splits.
2.  Serve in big bowls for dinner.
3.  Bask in adoration from your children.

PS.  Children DO survive strawberry shortcake, popcorn & ice cream for dinner.  And no, I did not give this to them all at the same time. 

NOTE:  No children were harmed in the feeding of calorie filled junk food.

Bye! Love you!  Have a good day, Dear!

Tuesday

1. It was hot today.
2. It will be hotter tomorrow.
3. I ordered CDN Shellac Starter Kit tonight from Amazon & a nail dryer.
4. I need to go to bed earlier.
5. I washed & dried a load of towels.
6. I tried to plan in my head a Daily Schedule for me for the summer (any suggestions?)
7. I have to tell you about my flowers I found & an idea I have for the light pole in the yard.
8. That's it..... I'm boring... nite...

Bye! Love you! Have a good day, Dear!

Four Down, No more to go!

Last weekend I stopped by Goodwill & happened to find a brand new - in the box Havahart trap.  For those of you who don't know what it is, it's a live-catch animal trap.  You put some type of bait in it.... the critter goes in & ends up stepping on a little plate type thing and quick as a wink the door shuts behind it & it's stuck. 

Anyhoot, last fall I happened to see a little chipmunk (a.k.a. the 'Chippy') scooting down along the foundation of our house.  Now I have NO CLUE where this little guy/gal came from.  We live in the middle of frickin' no-where surrounded by farmland!!!  There are no woods nearby, there are no hedge woods that they could have traveled from a woods to get to our house.  If it had traveled along a phone wire like a squirrel, it would have had to go about 1/4 - 1/2 a mile on the darn thing if it came from a wooded area.  Well, I figured it had just gone someplace else or it had eaten the mouse poison we put in the cellar and died... in.. my... walls...... yuck.... It was not to be... The Lego King saw him/her this spring running across the patio.

But, just before I bought this trap a Chippy got smushed in the road... which I found ironic.  1. What are the chances we'd have a Chippy living at our house.  2.  What are the chances that THAT Chippy would get smushed in the road at our house?  .... Yeah, I know!  If we'd played them odds we'd be gazillion-aires!!!..  So really when I saw this trap I thought about NOT getting it.... but you know... when you go to Goodwill OR Big Lots, you pick it up & put it in your cart (especially if it's the last one or only one of something) because if you don't, when you decide you want it & go back down that aisle.... it's gone..... So... I puts it in my cart and wheels around with it..... thinkin' 'bouts it..... 

Then I'm thinking about what they say about mice... if you see one, you probably have more... and I'm wondering if it applies to Chippy's..... And if that theory is true, then, I'm thinking we can use this trap to catch it!  And besides, it was only $3.99 ..... OH, and the other dilemma that was going through my brain was... 'Is it going to be clutter?  Am I really going to use it or just think it'd be cool to have?'  'Cause I'm really trying to get out of the buy it 'cause ya want it mentality.  I don't need more clutter & crap....  So... as you must know already, I got it....

Well, the Lego King was so excited.  He had seen where the Chippy had taken up residence.  In a small hole in our patio!! It goes between 2 sections & the little stinker was in there.  So the Lego King kept bugging me about how to set it & what bait to use.  Finally I got fed up & said.  I'm not telling you.  YOU need to look it up on YouTube.  So, he did!  Then we discussed that maybe peanut butter on bread would be good bait.  It was!

It took three days for the non-smushed Chippy to venture into the trap & sure enough.  On Friday we caught our Chippy!!!  Yeah!  We took it about 2 miles up the road & released it in the woods up there.  Then we decided that we would re-bait it last night, you know, just in case.  When we woke up this morning... Another one!  Then while we were checking it out through the window, out of the hole pops another one!!!  They were smaller than the first one we caught, so we figured these were young ones & the first one had to be a mama or daddy.  We released that one right near where we had released the mama.  Then re-baited & caught baby number two.... After baby number two, we checked on-line to see how many babies Chippy's usually have at a time .... they can have as few as 1.... to as many as 8!!!  But the average is 3-5.  So we decided to try again.... you know... just in case..... And we kept peeking out the window to see if the trap had been tripped.  We happened to see baby #3 out & sniffing around.  The Lego King & I stood very still & watched & saw him get caught.  Boy did that boy hoot & holler.... lol  We quickly gathered that caged baby up & took him up the road to be with his mama & brothers &/or sisters.

We set & baited the trap again.... you know.... just in case....

Bye!  Love you!  Have a good day, Dear!

To diet or not to diet, that is the question...

Ugghhh!  I don't want to diet.... it's sooooo restrictive...even though I know it's not.... I know I'm whining.  It's that sitting down & planning that I'm having a problem with..... oh wait, isn't that that commitment thing?  That thing that I've also had a problem about joining Organizing Junkie?  And that exercise thing?  

Does that mean I'm lazy or I just can't commit? 

Hmmmm.... which one?  I don't know, I can't seem to decide!

Bye! Love you!  Have a good day, Dear!

Rats & Richard Simmons

Remember last week when I had a doctor's appointment?  Then I had some blood work to go done to go along with it?  Well the blood work was to check my thyroid level & my sugar levels.... guess what!  They came back normal!  Which is a good thing.... reeeeeally, It. Is. A. Good. Thing...... but now that means, I have another problem..... I'm fat..... coooome oooonnnn...... I don't wanna be fat!!!  Not that I want to be unhealthy and have to take more medicine.... but, wahhhhhhh..... RATS!!!!  Dang it!!!  Now, I've got to really sit down & figure out this plan & how I'm going to lose weight.  What a stinkin' bummer! 

The only thing I know that has ever worked for me is Richard Simmons' Deal-A-Meal..... Now, I know that some people think he's a dork.... but I've met him in person.... and he's really wonderful.  My friend & I met him in a local, out-of-the-way mall, where he was promoting the Deal-A-Meal program.  I can remember that his PR people were pushing him to leave.  And finally he just stopped and looked at them & said, very firmly, 'I am NOT leaving!  I am not leaving until I meet every one of these people.  They have stood in line to see me & they ARE going to see me!'  I remember saying to him that I'd 'been bad' and cheated by eating a candy bar, he laughed and said 'Honey, cheating is eating a WHOLE BAG of candy bars!  One does NOT make you bad!'  And he autographed a couple of my Richard Simmons cookbooks.

So, actually.... I just have to get off my butt and start working on it..... *sigh*

What diets work for you?

Bye! Love you! Have a good day, Dear!