Around The House

Anxious

October 31, 2011

Well, I sat down the other day and started pencilling in all of the girls’ basketball practices and games and realized November will be just as busy as every month in our lives. I like that its busy, because I want time to be moving quickly right now.

I’m ready for the holidays, and I ready for this next chapter of our lives to begin. We’re in the midst of something awesome, and I am waiting in joyful anticipation as I flip each day on the calendar. I think back to when we were counting down the months, weeks and days until we could start our adotion classes, and now we are already getting ready to complete our third class tomorrow night. We have 50 days left until our classes are completed. Tomorrow night, we will be scheduling our first of three homestudy appointments with our caseworker. I am so anxious and excited, I just am overwhelmed this is really happening to us.

We spent the weekend doing some much-needed deep cleaning around the house. Friday afternoon, I made a list of things we needed to get done around the house before we had our homestudy done. We got a lot accomplished.

We purchased a new fire extinguiser and outlet covers for the house. Mark also added a lock on our kitchen cabinet under the sink and is putting cabinet latches on the bathroom cabinets as well. We had to put all of our over-the-counter and prescription medications in a locked container, so we bought a toolbox and a padlock. It serves the purpose, but we have no idea where we will store it.

Tonight is Trick-or-Treat night in our small town, but its also football playoffs for our high school. We’re thinking we won’t have too many trick-or-treaters, since even our own kids will be at the football game tonight. We’re opting to stay home and continue plugging away on the getting into tip-top shape. Next on the list: Cleaning the carpet while watching 3 dogs and answering the doors for some (maybe) trick-or-treaters.

Filed Under: Around The House, Mission: Adoption

He could just sleep on the desk, right?

September 3, 2011

My side of the messy home office.

So one of our biggest and most important projects we have to get done before the end of the year is moving our home office back down to the basement, thereby freeing up a bedroom for our future child. As you can see from the pictures, we have a long ways to go before this room is a bedroom again. See the desk on the right hand side of this picture? I picked this up at a neighbor’s garage sale for 15 bucks and it will be probably the ONLY item that will stay in this room. The kid’s gotta have a desk, right?

Husband's side of the messy office.

And here is the other side of the office. We both have desks in there, computers, a bookshelf, file cabinets, and just plain old STUFF. It all has to be moved out so the room can be turned back into a bedroom by the end of October.

It’s a decent-sized room, and I know exactly what I want this room to look like for a little boy. The problem? WHERE IN THE HELL TO PUT ALL OF THIS STUFF. We still each need a space for our desks, so our only feasible option is the basement. The unfinished basement that is currently home to my laundry room and the exercise equipment that I keep telling myself we will use someday. Lastly, our basement is home to the cat litter box, which only gets cleaned out when there is either 1) a lunar eclipse or 2) Haley’s Comet makes an appearance—whichever happens first.

Bottom line,there just isn’t room for any more stuff in the basement. So we are left with either buying a bigger house (not gonna happen), getting rid of some of our crap, or finally, draw straws to see who will be the one sleeping in the garage from now on.

The closet that I already "cleaned out" a week ago. Don't judge me.

I already spent several hours last weekend going through all of my scrap-booking and rubber stamp stuff, and that has all been moved downstairs already. What’s left is a closet that is still full of STUFF. Stuff, people– the things in our home for which there is no other home other than to shove it in this room. Well, of course we might still need that Halloween costume I wore to a party three years ago!

I want to just snap my fingers and make it all go away. Close my eyes and when I wake up, the office will be a bedroom. The basement will be an office. And the litter box will be cleaned out.

Where do we even start?

Filed Under: Around The House, Family Matters

August Blog Challenge – Day 30

August 30, 2011

I am participating in the August Blog Challenge. Thanks to Belinda for the daily prompts!

Day 30: Make a list of things you want to accomplish by the week from now until the end of the year (your gameplan).

Didn’t I already answer this once before? Maybe not quite the exact same question, but pretty similar.

My to-do list is always a mile long, and I don’t see that ever changing. So here, in a nutshel, is a list of to-dos that I would like to accomplish before the end of the year.

My gameplan, so to speak.

1. Paint my living room and upstairs hallway.
2. Remodel home office back into a bedroom.
3. Clean out my basement and make room for our home office.
4. Finish out 10 weeks of PS-MAPP classes.
5. Have our adoption homestudy (all stages) completed.

For now, these are the only big goals I want to accomplish. I don’t want to take on more than I can handle.

Filed Under: Around The House, Family Matters, Mission: Adoption

August Blog Challenge – Day 24

August 24, 2011

I am participating in the August Blog Challenge. Thanks to Belinda for the daily prompts!

Day 24: Biggest project you’d like to do that can be completed by the end of the year.

We moved into our house in May 2008. When we moved in, we knew that “sometime in the next several months” we would need to paint almost of the rooms in our house.

Now I sit here in August of 2011… and the only rooms I’ve painted is the two bathrooms. The two smallest rooms in the house, but I got them done!

I keep putting off the painting because that would mean moving furniture and taping things off, and you know… I already explained that I have no ambition anymore. Living in a split level house means that there are not many stopping points between my living room, family room, hallways and stairways. And when I can’t see the end of a painting job in sight, it makes me not even want to start it.

So, here are my two biggest projects that I CAN complete by the end of the year:

1. Our home office needs to be turned into a bedroom sometime before our adoption homestudy is completed.

2. Living room and upstairs hallway needs to be painted.

Here goes nothin’.

Filed Under: Around The House

August Blog Challenge – Day 18

August 18, 2011

I am participating in the August Blog Challenge. Thanks to Belinda for the daily prompts!

Day 18: How do you prepare for the holidays?

To be honest, I don’t do much preparation until the last few weeks. I get my shopping done early, but as far as planning meals and stuff, I don’t much planning at all. We never seem to know from on year to the next where we will be spending the holidays, and so sometimes plans change quickly in the last couple weeks. I guess I always just try to be prepared for anything!