Thursday, March 31, 2011

Jobs of the Day

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So, I don't have to work today, and what does it do? Rain and snow.  So much for cleaning out the van and maybe finally washing it after 6 months.

Instead, I will finish banishing Winter from the front entrance.


I'm going to attempt to sew the plastic of one of the pockets that got ripped over the winter season. Worst thing happens, it won't work and it will still be ripped.

Also, while in the basement (getting distracted and delayed by other pending projects) I found a bag full of stuff from my mom that she saved from my childhood.  Today is the day to purge it out.  Close  your eyes Mom!


It's full of such treasures as the first skirt I ever made in 4-H, my old autograph book, and other fascinating stuff such as a scrapbook filled with cut-outs of anytime I ever made the paper.


Should be an interesting browse through history, but that's all.  After I waste more time reading instead of cleaning, go through it all, it's headed for the garbage.  Like I said, you might wanna close your eyes Mom.

Let there be light.

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This is our closet.


That is our wonkily placed light.  Who the heck puts a light behind the door?? Where it does absolutely NO good unless you go in and shut the door behind you.  It matched the heat duct in the floor.  Why yes, don't you have a heat duct in your 7' by 3' closet as well??  Mmhmm.  Excellent planning former owners, excellent planning.

I've cursed that light since we moved in here *ahem* over 6 years ago.  This year I wrote it on the list though.

While Storm and I did this on Sunday:


Ryan made more than a few trips up the ladder into the crawl space and a trip to the hardware store to sort out this:


And eventually we ended up with this:


We just decided to put a plate over the old light box.  There are still wires running from it to a plug so we couldn't remove it totally without excessive head scratching on which wire went where.  The new light is on the ceiling, where it should have been to begin with. D'uh.  If you look closely, and really, I wish you wouldn't, you'd see that it could use a paint job now around the plate. 

Remember how much I hate painting bathrooms??  Well, a closet is a lot like a bathroom, minus the toilet!  Full of corners and moulding.  Boo.  I just wouldn't hold your breath about me painting in there before we sell.  After all, the plate is behind the door....

And this lovely sight is all you see when you go in my closet now.


Well, that and my mess of necklaces hanging off the end of the shelving organizers.   That's on the list though too!

Monday, March 28, 2011

What was I thinking?

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A couple of years ago, before all my ambition deserted me, I took all of Ryan's newspaper clippings, certificates and ribbons from his running days and scrapbooked them.


Only one problem.  In my defense, at the time, I think it was the only scrapbook I could find.  Or I settled.  One or the other.  I scrapbooked all his manly running achievements into a lovely yellow flowery book....


Ahem.  Not sure what I was thinking.

I went trolling through Michael's the other day, hoping to find a non-flowery box the right size to store the papers in.  Just as I was about to give up, I spied this on the top shelf.


Score! And it was even on sale 50% off.  Even better.

Too bad I only guesstimated the size of box I needed.  I had to cut some of the papers quite close to the scrapbooked part, in some cases cutting parts off.  But I'd rather have them in a manly case partially cut down, than in a flowery book!

I also had room in the box for my Grandpa's cigar box full of his momentos.

I figure it's a good place to store his stuff until I make a shadow box for them.

Win-win!

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Oops

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So when I was making up my photo boxes, I managed to do something that made me curse just a little.

So much so, that I didn't even show or point it out to anyone.  One of those things that you do, and then you just think, ah crap! 

I was dutifully writing on the back of my pictures, trying to figure out dates and years for them.  I was holding the pen tip out and reaching for another photo when I managed to get just a wee bit too close for comfort with the white photo box.  Why the white one? Why? Damn it.

Lovely isn't it?

Grr.

Anyways, my little shitshitf*ck moment left me wondering what I could do to 'fix' it.  I tried ignoring it, but I knew it was there.  Ignoring wasn't going to work.  So I figured I'd eventually grab some decals or something and put it strategically over the pen marks.  Enter Michael's.  Hello stickers.  Goodbye money.  Too bad I didn't think about cutting out a 40% off coupon this week, as they weren't cheap. (but then is anything cheap at Michael's??!)


They are cute though.

Unfortunately, due to where I got the pen mark, and the shape/size of the stickers, I couldn't put them on there symmetrically, but I'm attempting to embrace them, especially as they cover my ink marks!

I bought silver ones for the black boxes too.


Too bad I didn't remember I had 7 boxes, not 4.  Now I'll have to go back and buy some more stickers.  This time I'll remember my 40% off coupon though!!

Friday, March 25, 2011

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Family 411

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I'm patiently waiting for Spring.  Okay, patient may not be the right word.

In the meantime I've been finding a few things to do, besides lamenting the dirty step and brown grass that is slowly being exposed. Such as this:

Look! It looks like presents, and it looks like it could just be something fantastic inside too!  My mom gave me this nice little parcel.  Too bad all they contain are MORE pictures! Gah!  Thanks Mom.  On the upside she also gave me the most fabulous set of measuring spoons.  Probably to soften the blow of all those damn pictures she pawned off on me that need organizing and sorting into the kid's photo boxes.

Aren't they pretty!?  I said they were almost too pretty to use, but I quickly got disabused of that notion and was told to use them no matter what.  So the teaspoon one has found it's new home in my sugar bowl for my coffee.  Yes, I'm back on the crack.  I didn't miss the coffee, but I did miss the coffee ritual with Ryan.  Still off the pop though, so that's a big yay my way.

These kids:
have been doing extremely well with the meal planning and cooking of supper.  We've tried a few new recipes, some good ones, some meh, and now I just need to convince them that we should use up all the frozen meat I have in the freezer instead of thinking of fabulously interesting recipes that need to be made but of which we have none of the ingredients on hand!

Hunter went for his eye exam yesterday, and although the eye doctor says he still technically has 20/20 vision in both eyes, since the board at school is blurry and getting worse, he is getting glasses.  I'll update a picture for the family when they come in.

I just registered Clayton for driving lessons.  Whew, better them than me, that's all I have to say about that!  He doesn't start until next month, just in time for spring and hopefully he will get his driver's licence right after he takes the lessons.  In any event, this way I get to keep my hair gray-free and the floorboard of the van doesn't have my shoe permanently imprinted into it after trying to step on the brake on the passenger side!

I know spring is in the air though, because I'm back at the potato farm next week sorting seed potatoes for shipment to the states.  Which is a good thing, because there's glasses and lessons to be paid for!

Friday, March 11, 2011

Status Update

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I've banished Winter.

I've had enough.

All these:


have left there standard Winter spot of my front door;


and have been banished to the basement.  Go away Winter, and take your power bill with you!

Now to actually convince Mother Nature of this fact, and maybe, just maybe get a start on the rest of my list, including, washing these filthy windows!

Perhaps I should just start with washing that little section of floor....

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Son of a ......

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I was done. I even took a picture of my lovely boxes, all labeled and everything.


I finished the kid's pictures today and printed up some sweet little labels for the boxes.

How cute is that!

And then, oh yes there is an "and then" to this story, I went upstairs to find the scrapbook I had done a few years ago of Ryan's running awards and photos.

Well, I found it, right where I left it. I also found the rest of the photos!

Damn it.  See, I knew I had four stacks of photos left to put into the albums.  But I thought those photos were the stack of photos I found in the filing cabinet....


Um, no.  I still have another 200 photos to go!! AHHHHH.

I'm going to name this the project that just won't die.

And then I have to deal with that scrapbook, which is really well done, if I say so myself, but why oh why did I put it in a flowery yellow book???!

Gah.