The Downside

The downside to not having a homeschool room?

This.

And I'm sorry to say our dining room table looks just like that this morning. Yep, we ate on trays in the living room last night for supper. The good news? We're all set for school this afternoon!

Little Bit has been very whiny about school, but she's doing well. Her pleas do not affect my emotions one way or the other. Sorry darlin'. School IS happening. Only 39 more days to go. We can do it.

But now if you'd like to hear me whine about the kitchen or the laundry...we can arrange that. And I can whine because there IS no end in sight for those things.

Things Are Changing Around Here

I didn't get much done on my to do list this weekend, but we did accomplish a lot. S and the kids both remarked about how our house is changing a lot lately.

New curtains in Little Bit's room. Well, re-decorated ones anyway.

A "new" rocker from Sister for our living room. 

Another new piece of furniture in the living room. It was WAY back in the attic because, of course, we weren't ever going to need it again, right? 

More "new" things for baby. Sweet little baby socks.

"New" accessories in the bedroom. 

Pink baby blankets in the blanket box. 

OK so maybe NONE of that is new. We have been very blessed by others giving us things.

The one thing I did get done this weekend from my big list 'o fun was planning the next 8 weeks of school. We will be shy of finishing our Sonlight curriculum by about 2 or 3 weeks, but we can wrap things up over the summer. I printed out calendars from Donna Young and filled in what I'd like to get done before baby comes. I really like marking things off. Makes me feel accomplished. And "accomplished" is not really a word I would use to describe school lately. My new plan is much more ambitious. We'll see how much we get done each day. We can only do what we can do, right?

Now, today I MUST finish the list 'o fun, which is all office type stuff. Updating the checkbook, paying bills, blah blah blah. Ug.

Double ug.

Wanna Know Why I Didn't Post Yesterday?

Because I was very near comatose. I was so exhausted after 2 nights of waking up at 3am for the day that I fell asleep last night the minute we walked in the door from church. I literally walked to the bedroom, changed clothes, and crawled in bed. It was 8:30pm. So sad. I was so tired I actually felt kind of sick.

But, after 9 hours of sleep---I am a new woman!

Good thing too because this house is falling down around my ears. It's picked up. At least we've kept up with that end. But we have NO groceries, precious few clean clothes, and it's getting old. Today: must actually switch the laundry and get it all the way clean and dry and delivered and must procure food for my family. You know, the basics?

But I have another reason I am glad I slept. Sweetheart and I have a shopping date today. Girlfriend has outgrown just about everything but specifically she needs dresses to wear to church. I've been looking up size charts for various stores and she's all over the place. Best I can tell, it's going to be a toss up between sizes 14-18 in the girls' department and sizes 0-1 in the juniors department. There's really no way to know until we try stuff on.

My main concern is finding dresses that are an appropriate length. Can I get an Amen? Sigh. My other concern is not spending an arm and a leg. The plan is to start at Goodwill and work our way up (Wal-Mart,  Old Navy, Kohl's...). We'll see what we can find for cheap and then move on if we have to.

Oh yeah, and we have some school to do too. But I think food and clothing is more important today.

Signed,

Still not adjusted to Daylight Savings Time

Nest Progress

I've been checking things off my list right and left!

First of all, since S painted the bedroom and bathroom in January, I hadn't done much else to those rooms. Not a lot was needed for the bathroom.

Some new curtains... (just replaced the middle fabric and with a coupon that fabric was $7)

And some wall art...(which is totally covering bad places in the wall!) The plaques were about $3 each from Wal-Mart and the BEACH sign was free thanks to a scrap of wood from husband's wood shop and some paint.

Then, I just needed to sew some matching embellishment on Sweetheart's curtains. I found pink and green rick rack that fit the bill. "New" curtains for around $7! (Actually less as the leftover rick rack will show up on a different project soon!)

One expense that wasn't all that cheap was a new dresser for Little Bit's room. Her old dresser was part of the nursery furniture we bought for Sweetheart and doubles as a changing table. Little Bit needed more drawers anyway. We got this one at IKEA.

She can only reach the bottom 3 drawers right now, but she'll grow. :)

The old dresser got moved to our room. It will have a changing pad on top. The rug we got from IKEA for $20.

It's already loaded with sweet Little Girl clothes from a friend. Sure hope that doctor was right!

We have some blurry toys ready to go over by my closet. I know they won't be needed for a while, but they are ready!

And the co-sleeper is set up by my bed. I pushed it over for this picture, but we haven't attached it yet. I don't want to have to crawl around that thing until necessary!

The embroidery hoops in the bed are for the wall above the baby bed. That purple and green quilt was made by my grandmother when I was a teen. She wanted to make all of us a baby quilt before she died--and she did!

Here's a shot of the whole "nursery" a.k.a. "my side of the bed." I certainly won't have far to walk in the night!

I also got some pictures hung in Little Bit's room. We are doing her room in birds. This is a puzzle we framed. The puzzle was from the dollar store and the frame I already had--just painted it white.

And on the other side of the room--which will one day be baby's side--an owl picture from a calendar. Again--in a frame we already owned.

That's about it. I will get Little Bit's curtains hung back up today. Sweetheart has several projects for her room but I'm making her help with them so they may take longer. She's really proud of her grown up room so far.

Only 2 months to go--and I have a lot more projects to tackle!!

Redeeming Alexander's Day

You know that one, right? The terrible, horrible, no good, very bad kind? Mine started off like that.

BUT...I was determined that the morning need not set the tone for the whole rest of the day.

I didn't sleep last night. No reason---just because I woke wide awake at 3:00 and couldn't go back to sleep. I finally got up and ate some cereal. I could have washed the dishes or balanced the checkbook or any number of things at that hour I was so awake. But I chose to go back to bed. I finally, finally drifted off to sleep a few minutes before husband's alarm went off. Sigh.

I weighed all the courses of action I could take. Get up and make his coffee and breakfast and lunch like usual? (He was getting up an hour earlier than he usually does ON TOP of losing that hour of sleep this weekend). Or lay here and try to get back to sleep? Hmm. He's getting up early. He can make the coffee and grab some toast. I think he has enough cash in his wallet for lunch.

I guess you know what I chose. But it was 7:00 before I went back to sleep. And then I woke up at 8:30. (which, really, is 7:30--you know?) Great start to the day. The girls got up before me and were playing on the Wii. The kitchen was a mess and I didn't know what we had for breakfast.

(On a side note, we cleaned house this weekend, but the kitchen didn't seem to make the cut.)

So I sent them to get dressed and I took a shower. Now it was 9:30. I'll make pancakes. Shoot. No baking powder. I have a tiny bit of "just add water" mix they can have and I'll find something else. Not enough. Oh look! Just enough Bisquick! Add milk. Add eggs. Huh? Oh man. Little bugs in the mix. I hate those little things. Wonder what else they are in?

So, I had to pay for breakfast while we ran our errands. Not what we needed to do. But I'm still determined to make this day good.

Errands are run. We have lunch and supper for today and breakfast and lunch for tomorrow. Picked up medicine for S. Back home. It's 11:15. There is still time for this day to turn around.

After lunch we will do school. We will START with Bible. There hasn't been enough Bible around here lately. Then we will clean the kitchen. And update that checkbook. And do some chores around the house. I will have the girls sweep off the back porch and tidy up before Daddy gets home. We will watch a show together tonight and maybe eat popcorn.

Just because the morning started off poorly doesn't mean the day is going to go downhill. I mean, sometimes it does. But today is NOT one of those days.

Because I say so.


And this picture makes me happy. Little Bit, nearly 2 years ago, helping Daddy in his wood shop. See all her Handy Manny tools in her tool belt. Cutie.