Google Earth and my mom...

We were supposed to go to the zoo today, but the trip got cancelled. I decided to take the kids to eat lunch with Daddy because Savannah was bummed about the no zoo day. Tim stayed for his lunch hour and then left me to let the kids play in the play place for awhile longer. I decided while the kids were in the play place at Chick-Fil-A to take the golden opportunity to make a phone call without constant screaming of my children interruptions. I wanted to call the Rymarc Homes Office. When we visited it there in December of 2005, we found a home model that we loved. The week I found out I was laid off and we decided to move, I called the Rymarc office and found out the subdivision we wanted to build in was full. They still had other ones, but that one had half acre lots and the other ones near where we wanted to be only had quarter acre lots. It is not a huge deal, but one of the many things we have been tossing around. Yesterday, my sister-in-law, Karen, was kind enough to look at a house in her neighborhood for us. It is right next door to my brother-in-law's house and right across the street from her house. It is a big house and on an acre. It needed work even though it is only 6 years old. It is NOT the floor plan I would choose at all, but I was willing to consider it because it had an acre of land. For some reason most men seem to have some crazy infatuation with land. After I showed Tim the super pictures his sister took, he told me that as much as he would love an acre of land - he would rather have less land and the house I loved. How sweet, huh? So, that brings me to calling the Rymarc lady again today. She remembered me! I asked her if the prices had gone up... they had a little bit. Then I asked her about a new subdivision that was supposed to get started this year. She told me they were ready to build there now and they have half acre lots! Then she told me about where it was located and that seemed within 8 miles from our family. Another great thing. That brings me to my mom. I have written about my mom many, many times. She is a huge part of my life. Today, I called my mom on my way home from meeting Tim for lunch. I told her what the Rymarc lady said. If you haven't followed all the twists and turns of my life... my mom is selling her home and moving with us (along with my sister, Michelle, who lives with my mom). My mom has been to SC exactly once. That was 6 years ago. She spent about 24 hours at my brother-in-law's home before we headed to Charleston for a day. She really doesn't know much about SC except that is where Tim and I have decided to move. She takes that information and decides at 66 years old, she will move too. Is that a wonderful mother/grandmother or what? It reminds me of when she moved us to Florida 16 years ago. She took her very ill husband, a 20 something son, an 18 year old girl with her new husband and baby (that would be me, Tim, and Timmy), bought a large van, sold the house, packed us up and had her new 19 year old son-in-law (that would be Tim) drive from Illinois to Florida without looking back. She did not know what the exact plan would be when we got her. She knew her husband (that would be my dad! LOL!) was sick and wanted to spend his days in Florida. So, she went! Just like that! And now, she is doing it again. She knows her daughter (that would be me) doesn't want to leave her kids and she knows her son-in-law (that would be Tim) wants to change is career path. So, she goes! Just like that! Well, we chat on the phone until I get almost home. I tell her I got to go and get the kids out of the car. I come in and sit down to check my email. There my mom is im'ing me online. Yes, it really happened about that fast. She has Google Earth on her computer and she has found where she thinks this new Rymarc neighborhood should be. Then she has found a possible home for herself just minutes away. Or maybe I found it... I am not sure who found the home she is now in love with. How computer savvy is that for a grandma? We are taking her up there at the beginning of March. Just around her 67th birthday. She can hardly wait to go! I only can hope that I have an ounce of my mom's determination and faith. If I am that lucky, I am sure it will carry me anywhere!

Random things from the previous week...

As I said on Sunday, I had a few things I thought about blogging about... Here they are!

Milk, milk and more milk... I shop at Sam's club every two weeks. When I go, I buy 7 or 8 gallons of milk. This will last us for two weeks. I have mentioned before that Sebastian doesn't really eat. He does drink milk. Lots of it! He can only have skim milk, because for some reason milkfat causes him to be extremely crabby. If he could drink whole milk, I would not have to worry about how scrawny he is, but he can't, so I worry. Tim II also eats cereal about every meal he eats at home. This is NOT because there are no other options - he just chooses cereal. I used to buy 6 gallons at a time, until I found a way to fit 8 gallons in my fridge. When I bought 6 gallons, occasionally somebody would stop me in the store and ask me how many kids I had. Now that I buy 8 gallons, I ALWAYS get stopped. Not once a trip, but at least twice and in the case of last week, I was stopped 3 times by interested people. I had a not so nice older lady tell me the milk would go bad if I got it for two weeks. I nicely showed her the sell by date and told her that I had been doing this for 2 years and hadn't had a problem yet. Don't you love it when people try to tell you what your doing wrong, when they don't even know you and you didn't ask there opinion?

Sebastian's first hair cut. His bangs were getting in his eyes, so I cautiously let Tim trim them. I warned him if he cut off all his baby curls that I would be mad - I would be BEYOND FURIOUS and CRY FOR DAYS, MAYBE WEEKS!!! He knew he did not want to chance that and only cut his bangs. I have his agreement that he will wait until he is 3 before we cut the curls.

Here Sebastian is with his new look. By the way, does he look like a girl? A few strangers have called him a girl. Just yesterday, a realtor asked me if he was a boy or a girl. He was wearing dark navy blue sweats, a navy blue pooh and tigger shirt, and black tennis shoes. How girly could he look?


This is the finished closet. Well, almost finished. We have to put up a new hanging rack thingy and then we will move the clothes from where they are into the actual closet. It doesn't look like much, but you would have had to see how it used to have a door directly where you are looking at. He took that out, moved the plumbing, electric, drain, washer and dryer to get it back to being a closet. It really was a huge job and it looks so nice! The only way I am accepting that I had to live WITHOUT this big closet for the last 7 years is to think about the walk-in closet we will have in our new house! Otherwise, I would really be whining that I had to wait 7 years for him to do this closet. But, I am not whining... nope, not me!

Because my sister is having withdrawals from my blog...

I am soooooooooo SORRY Leann. I did not mean to cause you any withdrawals! I know I said I would post pictures yesterday. I even felt guilt last night when I realized I hadn't gotten to it. You see, we ended up going to more that two open houses. We went to 5 or 6 and if you know Tim... you know he is a talker. He talked a lot! It was fun though. If I was staying here and had more money, I found a house I would have loved to have. Oh, that's right - we weren't really house shopping! Silly me! What did see was promising. The houses were bigger than ours, but most without a pool and all but one without any serious upgrades. One woman even proudly told us that the house was a 1962 Ruttenberg and all the tile, tubs, sinks were ORIGINAL! They were in very, very good condition, but they were PINK and I think what you call Cornflower Blue. I am not talking a little bit of tile - the whole bathrooms were tiled in this awful color. That house was very large, but the good news - she was asking $20,000 more than we are hoping for ours and she didn't have a pool. Let's hope we are in the right line of thinking for price. All of the realtors said that their sales have picked up quite a bit in the last month. They told us that we will not see record breaking years like before for sales, but we should see a typical year and not to fret over the gloom and doom that we read. All in all, it was a good afternoon. Then when I got home, I had to get making the stuff to go with the turkey. Then we ate, then I HAD to watch my dvr'd You're The One - Grease show. You know that was a very high priority. Then I helped Tim with cleaning up the walk-in closet and stuff. Put the kids to bed and watched some tv with Tim. There is my excuse for not, not, not posting any pictures. I am truly very sorry. Please keep coming back! Oh, the pictures are NOT of the actual house - I found them on google to give you an idea of the lovely tile.

Has it been almost a week since I wrote???

Where did the time go? I have at least 3 things I have thought about putting on my blog this week. I have to actually go look at my pictures to remember though! I am getting ready to go to two open houses today. Yes, we are being NOSY and seeing how nice the other houses are and what they are asking. We also want to talk to some realtors and see what they think. I will write more on that when we get back. I also have a turkey cooking for dinner and it is not even a holiday! Imagine that? Seriously, you can get great deals on turkeys after the holidays. I only wish I had a deep freeze - I would have picked up a few and stuck them away. Yes, the deep freezer is on my want list for when we move. That and about a 100 other things. See why we need to see how much we can sell our house for? LOL! I have a whole big long want list! When we get back, I am hoping the baseboards will go in the walk-in closet and living room. If that happens, I will have pictures to post of the oh, so exciting walk-in closet. I know you have been just waing on those and checking in here every single day, right? It is sorta a busy day, I I do really plan to put some of those pictures and things on here this afternoon as soon as Sebastian goes down for his nap. So, please come back and take a look!

Goodbye ABC's...

As I have been writing, I am in the process of cleaning out, decluttering and packing. Today, I started packing books. I ran out of boxes and decided to move on to taking the ABC pictures of the wall. Savannah made these when she was about 4 years old. The actual sheets come from
Sing, Spell, Read and Write. The book is the Off We Go book. I had purchased the whole set to use with Savannah, but ended up only using this book before moving on to The Reading Lesson and Explode the Code. I liked the songs from Sing, Spell, Read and Write and I liked the letter pages, but the program was way too much to do without getting lost. We would listen to the songs, work on coloring in the letter page and then work on the Get Set for the Code books A, B, C. A friend of mine had told me to post the letter pictures on the wall. At first I was horrified! Put pictures all over my walls! I had just decorated my rooms, why would I want things that didn't match??? Yes, I really used to feel that way. I soon changed my mind and now can't seem to imagine ever thinking that way. My mom had bought me a Xyron Laminator from Michaels. Tip - use a 40% off coupon to purchase anything at Michaels. After Savannah finished each page, she got to run it through the laminator. She loved this part! Then we would put it up on the wall. I cannot begin to tell you how much she referred to these letters over the years as she was learning to read. Even Timmy was a little stunned that I was taking them down today. I told him that soon enough we would be putting Mr. Sebastian's letters up one by one in our new home. When somebody asks me what my favorite program is for teaching reading, my answer is that it isn't ONE program. After a lot of trial and error, I found that Savannah needed a little bit from several programs. She learned a lot of the sounds part form the Sing, Spell, Read and Write cd. Really, just the main song that goes aaaaa - apple, bbbbb - ball, etc. I think the letter pages were wonderful to go along with that song and cement the sounds in. Then the Get Set for the Code books leading into the Explode the Code series were great for teaching rule. The Reading Lesson was great for putting those rules to use and finally she loves Pathway Readers. These are very plain readers written by the Amish, but there is something about them that holds kids attention. She did almost all of K-1 in one year and is about halfway through 3rd grade right now. I don't really understand the draw of these books, but I have heard it over and over again about them. So, today, marked a day where I realized Savannah really didn't need her letters on the wall so much anymore and it was time to clean up and declutter to move on. Where did that time go? I carefully put the pages away and will store them will all of her other work. Someday, we will get to look through them and remember the fun we had when she was 4 years old!

My Life Monday is back...

This weeks topic is "Where I live and how I got there."

I live "somewhere" in Florida. I moved here when I was 18. It was September of 1990, just a few months after Tim and I got married. My parents had vacationed here 4 times, I think. My dad got sick in 1989 and by January of 1990, they had decided they would retire in Florida. Ummm... did you see the part about me being 18? Yes, I was pretty mature for my age and yes, I was married and had a child. No, I was NOT ready to live away from my parents in any way. Nope! We decided to move along with them and my older brother. My parents bought the house I currently own. It had a converted in-law apartment complete with living room, kitchen, bath and bedroom. We paid them a whopping $100 a month to live here while we went to college. Timmy had a bedroom on what we called their side of the house. It is all really one house, so it was not like he was far away! We went to school, paid off debt and eventually moved about a mile away to our very own 2 bedroom, 1 bath house. It took a lot of searching for that house. We would tell realtors that we NEEDED to be within a few minutes from my parents house. My dad was disabled and alone when my mom went to work. My mom doesn't drive. We are a FAMILY that takes care of each other. Spending a lot of time in traffic back and forth would not work for us. Realtors could never grasp that concept and always tried to show us houses further out. I gave up and became my own realtor. I would drive up and down the few places we would want to live until we found the house we bought. I loved that house. It was perfect for our small family of 3, but then we had Savannah. We had estimates done on adding on, but were told that it would be bad to add on to a "small house neighborhood". My dad passed away right before Savannah was born. My sisters assumed I would buy my mom's house. I didn't think we could afford it. It took us a full year to decide to buy my mom's house. Looking back... I am not sure why! In the end it all worked out. We bought her house, she bought a smaller place 8/10's of a mile away. That is what brought us to Florida. Now our adventure continues with our next move. Unless something really changes in the next 3 months, we will be moving to South Carolina. Life sure is interesting!

Girl Scout Cookie Time

Yep! It is that time of year again! You can almost feel the sugar rush and calories flowing into your body, huh? Above is my favorite - the Samoa - ahhh... is there a better cookie? Next is Tim's favorite. I have to be desperate for chocolate to eat a thin mint. I secretly think that is why they are his favorite - because they actually stick around because I don't really like them. Last is the Cafe Cookie. I think this was new last year and I never got around to trying it. I was reading the description and it sounds like it could quite possible taste like those cookies you sometimes get on an airplane. Yes, I am odd, I really like those airline cookies. They are sweet and caramelized. I am going to try some of the Cafe ones this year. Savannah has her cookie list below. In the bottom right corner it has a place where she is supposed to put her goal. Can you see that she wrote in 1800 boxes of cookies! Oh my! Do I have an overachiever or what? I had to rain on her parade and tell her that wasn't even in the realm of possibilities. She took it as well as could be expected! Seriously, I was considering scaling back our cookies sales this year. Last year we sold somewhere around 235 boxes. There is a really good reason behind this - I found that Sebastian loved walking around the neighborhood. He was particularly crabby at this time last year and it was a fluke. I had taken them out to sell to our immediate neighbors. He was so happy, we kept walking and then we did it again the next day. We sold a ton of cookies! He was happy and ready to go to bed when we arrived home. See, I had a good reason to sell those cookies. It wasn't until afterward that I found out that there is a better reason for selling them. I was a girl scout for I think 7 years and always sold cookies. Savannah has been a girl scout for 4 years. This is her 3rd year selling cookies. I knew that the cookies made money for girl scouts, but I never really knew how much. Last year, our leader told us and I pulled up the info on the web this year. I found that your local area girl scouts get 70% of the cost of each box of cookies. Of that 70%, about 17% goes directly to our troop. Then I did the math... If Savannah sold 235 boxes last year, she made $822.50 total. Of that $822.50, $139.83 went directly to her troop and the balance of $682.67 went to support the girl scout council in our area. That means it paid for all the wonderful camps she has gotten to travel to or it covered office expenses or field trip expenses, etc. That is pretty amazing that by selling cookies, we were able to help contribute that much. And they are pretty easy to sell because everyone wants them. So, like I said, I was pondering whether we would try to sell very much this year. I have a lot on my plate right now with trying to move and stay sane all at the same time. My wonderful husband asked me not to take on a bunch of cookie sales because he knows I am a wee bit stressed. So far we have sold about 90 boxes by not doing a whole lot of work and I was wondering if I should walk the neighborhood a little more with her and sell some more cookies. I even thought that we most likely won't be here next year, so why should we sell? Then I remembered that she has been to camp 3 times and enjoyed every minute of it. I remembered that her wonderful leader has put many hours and lots of her own money into this troop. I guess it came down to that if walking around the neighborhood selling some cookies gives back to the camps and her troop, then it is something I think we should be doing. And as a bonus Sebastian will be so happy! When we walked up one side of the street on Sunday evening, he wanted to hug and kiss every person as we left! What a silly and loving boy! I only let him hug this one sweet older lady and I think it made her day. I would love for him to be able to share his sweetness, but I am so afraid he will get the flu!

Painting the pantry...

So, last Friday, I decided to paint the pantry. I told Tim that THIS would be what sold the house. Say somebody goes to 5 very similar houses - then they come to ours. They open the pantry and go WOW! They painted the pantry! We must take this house over all the others. I told him that it wouldn't be the new kitchen or bathrooms he installed - nope it would be the nice and clean pantry! Shhhhh... please don't tell me I have lost my mind. I am already suspecting that, but I can's bear to here it from anyone else. While it sounded like a good idea, once I took all the stuff out, it LOOKED less like a good idea. How did I cram that much stuff in that pantry? I am happy to say it got finished pretty quickly. I even packed up all my Christmas dishes and got them stored out in the shed. I am not sure I want to think about cleaning the craft closet at this point. The pantry was scary enough!

This is the BEFORE shot of the pantry. Well it is after I took the stuff out, of course!

This is all the STUFF from the pantry! I told you it was a lot! How come everyone says we have nothing to eat?

I forgot to take a picture of it painted without stuff in it... this is the AFTER with stuff in there.

And here is the door I hadn't painted since it was installed 2 years ago! It looks so much nicer now!

Friday Feast (late)

Feast One Hundred & Twenty Six

Appetizer
What comes to mind when you see the color orange?

An orange as in the fruit... I know - boring, but that is what comes to mind.

Soup
Did you ever get in trouble while you were in school? If so, what was it for?

The very first time I ever got in trouble, I was in first grade. I should say WE got in trouble. My best friend, Patty (who now goes by Tricia) and I always walked to school together. We lived just down the street from school. It was not far at all. When the freezing cold of an Illinois winter set in, her mom insisted on driving us to school. Her mom had an older car - read junker car. You know the kind where you have to go out and start it and leave it running while you get ready to go? That was part of the problem. The other part of the problem was Kristi. This is Patty's younger sister. She was about 2 at the time. She was a pain! She wouldn't eat her breakfast or get her hair brushed or anything. We used to crawl under the table and struggle to get her shoes on. When we finally would get out to the car (that had been warming up forever) it would die! This made us late for school A LOT! After so many times, we were sent to Mr. Krawl's office (the principal). He gave us a stern look and immediately went into the "You absolutely cannot keep dawdling on your way to school" speech. We immediately began to cry big buckets of tears. I am talking like hysterical crying. Give us a break - we were like 6 years old. We finally did manage to tell him it was because of her mom's car and he sort of chuckled at us and sent us back to class. That was the end of it. I am happy to say I didn't get in trouble in school until high school and that is a whole other story for a whole other day.

Salad
Which topping(s) make up your perfect pizza?

Extra Cheese, Italian Sausage, and MUSHROOM - much to many people's dismay - I love mushrooms!

Main Course
Do you believe in UFOs/aliens/etc.? Why or why not?

I really don't know. I guess I don't if I don't have a strong opinion, but then I think that I really do believe that anything could be possible. So, it is back to I don't know.

Dessert
What color is your bedspread/comforter/quilt?

It is white with pale purple blocks and slight floral here and there. Of course, there is a story behind it. I had a quilt that I loved, but it wore out. Tim knew he was getting a small bonus from work and decided to surprise me with shopping for a new bedset with it. We went out shopping and I was so lucky to find this queen comforter on clearance for something like $12! It was a crazy price. And one aisle over were the perfect lavender sheets to go with it. They were like $90 sheets on clearance for $30. We were way under budget and got a set I love!

Rescue Me

I am a "change the radio station" junkie. Seriously, my mom says I "key" the radio buttons like I key a computer. I do have some cds, but not an overwhelming amount. I don't usually like to listen to the sames song over and over again. I prefer flipping through the stations to see what is on. There are a FEW exceptions - I still love my Faith Hill Fireflies cd very much. I guess when I get a new cd I like, I do play it over and over for quite awhile. Then it goes into my cd case in the side pocket of my door. Very occasionally, I will open it up and take out an older cd. And THAT is what brings me to my post - Rescue Me. I love Wynonna Judd. I have for years and years. Unfortunately Country Music radio never seems to play her cds. I don't know the reasons why - maybe since she is just one Judd and not with her mom. Who knows! So, I have bought many of her cds or I would never hear her. I happened to pop this one in last night and remembered just how much I liked this cd. I bought it in 2003. Shortly after I bought it, two things happened. We took our family including my mom, sister and 18 year old niece on a vacation to the Florida Keys. If you are familiar with National Lampoon's Vacation, you will understand why we refer to this as our "Griswald Vacation". It was absolutely miserable! Tim ended up in the hospital with kidney stones. This could seriously be the topic of another blog entry some day. Anyway, after Tim had a minor surgery to help with kidney stones, he decided we could stay one more day. He stayed at the condo with Timmy and sent all of the girls down to Key West. I love Key West! I love the shops, I love Mallory Square, I just love it. My wonderful husband knew my love for it and suffered for an extra day. What the heck does this have to do with this song? I know... I am getting there... As we drove over the Seven Mile Bridge, this song was playing on my cd. It was just beautiful. The second thing that happened was that my very best from since I was a kid, lost her two baby girl twins prematurely. It was so hard to understand and help her when I was so far away. I would listen to this song and think about her. I ended up sending her the cd for Christmas that year. Well, all of a sudden, I realized how much I missed listening to this cd and I found it at a perfect time. I have been slightly down and worried and stressed this week. Nothing new to put me in that state, just thinking about the seriously huge things that need to happen in the next few months. It makes me tired and worn out. Then I listened to this song and it helped me to remember ONCE AGAIN (how many times have I posted something like this) to put into
God's hands. I hope you enjoy the song even if you are ONE OF THOSE that says they DO NOT like country music. Oh and there is NO VIDEO - just music. I couldn't find any video. Sorry.

Monopoly

You know how there are families that have a game night each week or at least every so often? Well... we are NOT that family. We do have quite a few games, but for the most part we never, ever play them. Sure - there has been the occasion where we got into gameplaying for a short time, but never anything like a routine. When Savannah was learning her numbers, she loved to play Harry Potter Uno. She actually got quite good at it. This was an excellent way to get her to recognize her numbers. Over the years, I have purchased educational games like any "good" homeschool parent should. Junior Scrabble, Somebody, Cash Flow for Kids, and some Misc. Math games kit - just to name a few. Of those I just listed, we have never played them! Not once! I kid you not - I spent something like $20 on that Somebody game because we were going to learn about the human body in 1st or 2nd grade. I still can't believe I never once got the darn game out. Oh well, you win some and you lose some - ha! Just like in games! This brings me to yesterday. It was a pretty typical Sunday afternoon. Tim was working on cutting tile for the closet. Sebastian was napping. Timmy came home from a friend's. Savannah asked me to play Monopoly or Sorry. At first, my gut instinct was to say NO. Then I was like - why not? I am not doing anything, anyway. I told her I would play Sorry. She asked why not Monopoly. It is not secret that you either love or hate Monopoly. I happen to be in the haters camp. Okay, I will admit I have only played a few times. Those few times, I would think I was ahead and may possibly beat Tim - only to lose so miserably that I decided I hated the game. Don't get me wrong, I don't have to win to like a game - but hours and hours of Monopoly and never even CLOSE to a win - that is just too much! We did end up playing a very nice game of Sorry. When Timmy arrived home, he told Savannah he would play a game of Monopoly. This caused her pure excitement! They began their game and Tim eventually ended up at the table. It was too late to start his own piece, but he coached Savannah along. Sebastian was there "helping" the whole time. If you notice in the picture, I tried giving him puzzles to keep him happy. Eventually, he settled on Reeses Pieces for his joy. I think the game took about 2 hours. I watched some things on my DVR while they played on. Then it occurred to me that MY FAMILY WAS PLAYING A GAME! They were all right there and peaceful. They were enjoying a simple game together. Such a small thing, but so very nice to look over at and see them all together. When things have been stressful the way they have been around here, when you have days where you are feeling a little overwhelmed, when you are just plain tired - this is a wonderful way of SEEING all the blessings right before your very eyes! I was so glad for the reminder, but I still don't see us being one of those families with a weekly game night!

"It's a pyro thing..."

"It's a pyro thing..." This is what my husband told me when he felt the need to light some piece of trash on fire inside our grill, yesterday. I was busy sweeping and cleaning the porch only to smell this horrible burning scent. I turn around to see what my wonderful husband has done to cause this. Then I told him in my *most nice* voice that I was TRYING to clean and really didn't want to inhale nasty smoke. I asked him why he felt the need to burn something. To this he replied, "It's a pyro thing..." Sebastian was hanging out with us on the porch. He goes running off to the backyard, pulls up a weed or vine or something dying and a little bit green from the grass. He comes racing back towards the grill and throws his "prize" into the grill. I frantically tell him, "NO! NO! WHAT ARE YOU DOING???" To this question my little two year old boy responds, "pyro ting..." AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! UGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

Yet another new format...

Update: My mom just interpreted the meaning of the caption for me. Makes perfect sense now and seems to fit me so well. She says is means that no matter how bad things get you always know they will get better. I guess I flunked poetry!

I found this one when I was looking for a Christmas format, but didn't really think it was Christmas - y. I thought it was so pretty though. I don't really get the caption, "In the depth of winter I finally realized in me lay an invincible summer." I didn't pick it for that... I just thought the horses were soooooo incredibly pretty. They reminded me of Savannah since she is so horse crazy at the moment. This may not be exciting to some, but I get so excited when I mess around with the html on these blogs. Sometimes I can find a blog that I sorta like, but maybe I don't like the color of the letters or the size etc. Sometimes they don't have the comments section at the end of the post. It is not really rocket science, but it took me a little while figure it out initially. I could take a blog template I liked and cut the code from there and add it back into mine. On this one I just did... I didn't like how small the letters were, so I found where that was in the html. I also changed the color while I was there. Next, it was missing the archives on the sidebar. I grabbed that code from my last template and put the archives back. Next, I didn't like the color of the archives and links... no problem I just put at different color code in. Finally, my comments were missing from this new format. Again, I just took the comments section from my other html code and put it back. Clear as mud, huh? Somehow, I think this makes me believe I do actually have a tiny, little bit of brainpower left after having children!

Laundry 101

Can we talk about laundry for a moment? I know it is dirty stuff, but somebody has to do it, right? I don't remember when, exactly, I first started doing laundry. I suspect it was about the time I started buying my own clothes with my VERY OWN babysitting money. I distinctly remember my sister, Michelle, taking said clothes - wearing them and then throwing them onto her floor never to be found again. It infuriated me! Fast forward about 5 years and I got married and had a family. I remember I was not particularly good about getting laundry put away. I would wash it, throw it into a basket, pull it out of the basket for one of us to wear, throw it back into the laundry. It was a vicious cycle. Then one day I was introduced to
Flylady. Now this was quite a long time ago and I have not been back to this site in like 7 years. If you know anything about Flylady, you know that the emails she will send you can get really annoying. If you don't know anything about Flylady, here is your ten second tutorial. Basically, this site helps you get organized, keep your house clean and declutter your life. She really does have some great tips. I really am glad I stumbled upon the site. BUT... I couldn't stand the nine million emails she would send to see if you had done a zillion and one things. So, I tweaked her. I took what I wanted and left the rest. What does this have to do with laundry? Well, I am getting there, really, I am! One of her "rules" is that you must put your laundry away when it comes out of the dryer. Sounds like a no-brainer, right? Hey - I know that it sounds simple, but I am sure that I can't be the only one that didn't quite ever do that until I read her rule. I suddenly made this distinct effort to put the clothes away as soon as they were dry. I folded towels and hung up clothes AS SOON AS THEY WERE DRY! It was amazing! Literally, it changed my life! I still had to tweak it though. Previously, I just did laundry whenever. I quickly figured out that I was not good at stopping to put clothes away if I was busy doing something else. This got me thinking that if I had a laundry day, a day where I knew I had to put my clothes away or I was not going to be able to sleep in my bed that night - then maybe I would stick to this. That is what I did - I made a laundry day. For me the last several years it has been Tuesday. It is just a good day for laundry. I don't usually have to go anywhere on Tuesday - so I can stay in sweats and wash everything. Now, don't get me wrong, I still have to do laundry on other days. Things like bedding or at present time - clothing that Sebastian has wet through to for the hundredth time. For the most part though, all clothing and towels are done in one day and put away. Since I am writing a novel about my dirty laundry, I think I should tell you that I stink at the other rules of laundry. I don't really care for sorting much. I am not really into lots of different soaps, softeners, rinse cycles, etc. I am sure I could probably do better, but I really don't care. Tim's grandma used to have a whole card table in the basement with lots of different detergents. It just overwhelmed me, but her laundry did really smell amazing! Wow! I can't believe how much I have written about this. I never intended it to get this long. I am not done though... You see Tim was off of work for two weeks. During that time, he made lots and lots of campfires. He also did lots of work around the house including moving our laundry room and installing a new washer and dryer. Several times during this vacation, he did a load of laundry. Either his favorite jacket smelled like campfire smoke or his favorite jeans were dusty from drywalling. That is really great, right? In some ways, it is really great. Here is the thing though... he does the laundry, but he does NOT PUT IT AWAY AS SOON AS IT IS DRY! I know really, really nit-picky! I can hear you all saying I am being a *bleep*! Really, I am not. I just got to today - my normal - laundry day and found the basket of clothes and towels he had washed stacked way high. Remember the overwhelmed thing I told you about - yes that was exactly what I was overwhelmed! I am happy to say that I conquered my demons, I not only did all my usual laundry and put it away - I got all of the UNSCHEDULED laundry put away too! Whew! I can breathe again!

Happy New Year!

I have pondered what I should write in a Happy New Year post. I am not really one to make resolutions. I guess I have tried in the past, but normally I fail at them. I *think* I have only managed to keep one New Year's Resolution in my entire life. C'mon, you know you are asking - "Kari, what resolution did you actually keep?" Okay, if you aren't asking - then skip ahead and don't read the next part! The ONLY resolution I have ever kept was my 2005 New Year's Resolution. It wasn't earth shattering and had nothing to do with losing weight. I decided I wanted to scrapbook 300 pages that year. Why? Three reasons - the first is my reason for getting into scrapbooking in the first place - I want to pass something on to my kids. My second reason is sorta similar to the first - I have like thousands of pictures to get into scrapbooks. The third reason is probably what really drove me to get those 300 pages done in 2005. My sister-in-law, Debi, that I talk about all the time - got me into scrapbooking. She had done I don't even know how many books in her lifetime. When she died, I went to her home. I sat at her kitchen table and I looked through her books. I saw her handwriting and I saw her kids growing up through her eyes. It was so comforting to me. But that was at the end of 2003, why did it take until the end of 2004 for me to make my decision to plow into scrapbooking? A year after she died, we went back to her house. This time I was sitting in her basement nursing Sebastian. Her books line the parameter of the basement. I grabbed one, placed Sebastian in my lap, covered him up and began to look through the books. I, once again, felt so at peace being able to feel her through her books. When I came home, I kept thinking about it. It was on my mind so much. I told Tim I wanted a folding table to set up my scrapbooking stuff as my Christmas present. There began my only New Year's Resolution to be kept. I wish I could say that I scrapped another 300 pages this past year. It didn't happen. I am not foolish enough to believe that with finishing this house, trying to sell it and moving, that I will manage to scrapbook 300 pages in 2007. So, I guess I don't have a resolution this year. I intend to keep working with my Sparkpeople program to take off the rest of this weight, but that isn't really a New Year's thing. I think, for this year, I will resolution - less and just take each day as it comes. What about you? Do you have any big plans for the year ahead?