Welcome to 2013

ok, its 2013.  I am going to try and get back on this blogging bandwagon.  Spent the winter break doing house projects.  LOTS of house projects.  First, we had most of the downstairs painted.  That meant moving lots of junk and clearing spaces..with 48 hours notice.  It was a little nuts, but looks great!!!!  Love my new gray dining room and sage kitchen. 

Next we began the great kid bedroom switcheroo.  Big Man's bedroom was first.  We sold his awesome car bed on Craigslist.  We also sold his dresser.  We removed all the stickers from the walls (more on that later), and brought in an awesome loft tent bed with a SLIDE!  I know.  He loves it.  We moved another dresser into his closet, so all that is in the room is the bed and his train table.  We added Superman and Spiderman wall stickers, and he was good to go.  One down, not too bad.

Next we started in on K's room - a much bigger project.  We had to paint all the walls (in her choice of lime, tangerine and sky blue), and remove lots of stuff.  This had been their baby room, but for the last three years was a guest room/storage room.  Full of holiday decorations and a giant queen bed.  We moved the bed down to the other guest room (still need to get rid of the bed that was in there!), moved all the holiday stuff, removed the treadmill (to the basement), and started painting.  The small tangerine wall was pretty easy.  the lime was tricky as we needed 3 coats in some places to cover the characters I had painted on the walls when they were babies.  Weirdly, the blue was awesome! I got that paint that has the primer in it, and it covered all the paintings in one coat! SCORE!  Then we moved her furniture in, and added her accessories (LOTS Of pillows).  This picture is before drapes, that are now in.

 B's room is up next.  We moved all the furniture around and got her room staged on New Years' day, but we still have to paint it.  That will be a challenge.  the walls are currently a dark blue with paintings of princesses on two walls.  She wants light purple and bubblegum pink.  Praying the primer-colored paint will work wonders again, but imagine we will need MANY coats.  Bought the regular primer too, just in case.  Hope to get to that this weekend.

So, that is the project update from here. 

Cleaning Frenzy

Every once in a while I get a cleaning/organizing bug. I had finally had it with my pantry. Unfortunately I don't have any "before" pictures, but I promise you - it was a disaster. The doors did not close all the way, and when you opened it, stuff would fall out. EVERY SINGLE TIME. It was impossible to find things, and people we scared to open it.

Last Friday I went to nirvana the Container Store and got some great bins for less than $3 each!!! I know!!! Anyway, they fit my pantry perfectly. So we went home and the kids' activity was helping me empty the pantry and sort all the crap into piles by type - sauces, canned fruit/veggies, soups, snacks, etc. Fun for the whole family (actually the liked it). We put it back into the storage bins, and back in the pantry - tada - an organized pantry with doors that actually close!!!


After that success in the kitchen - I moved into other rooms. I started to deal with the hazardous waste site disaster we call our old bedroom, the closet in Big Man's room (which held all my too small clothes that I have now moved into my own spare closet), and the dvd's in our living room. I am still feeling the bug, so who knows what might be next!

Spring Cleaning

So, with the advent of Spring, I've decided my house is just too disgusting for me to bear. So I have started trying to get it cleaned up. Once I do I am hoping I can finally find a replacement house cleaner! Anyway, on Saturday I tackled the playroom - the worst room in the house. I spent about 3 hours, 4 trash bags and a box, and 3 goodwill bags, but I got it mostly done. Work still needs to happen on the shelves and the like, but you can see the floor and it is vacuumed. Yay! The kids could barely believe it. Even after having 8 kids play in there on Sunday night, it is still pretty clean.

Next up - our old bedroom (currently the waiting room for the attic and general dumping ground).

Making Life Easier

We all need things to make our lives a little easier. I have a few.

1) laundry - I have someone who comes in every two weeks and does 6-8 loads of laundry, folds, and puts the kids stuff away. I know this sounds totally frivolous. I mean, I can do laundry. And I did (and do). But putting it away just never seemed to happen. When we got home from work, we had catching up, homework, playing, dinner, baths to do. After that the kids were asleep and I didn't want to wake them putting their stuff away. This REALLY helps. 2) Dinner Done. This is a dinner-prep place, and I love it. The food is great, and I LOVE not having to think about dinner. Now I just look at my list of foods from my freezer, and on Sunday nights, plan it out on my calendar. Which leads me to

3) My weekly calendar. This is a BIG calendar that hangs in my kitchen. Everything goes on it - meal plans, school events, classes, work commitments, ticketed events, etc. Helps me see what is going on in one glance. 4) house cleaner. Normally, we have someone that comes in 2x month and takes care of general cleaning - bathrooms, kitchen, vacuuming, dusting, changing sheets on beds, etc. Our most recent one moved away a month ago, and we are still without one. This I must get on soon! These are what Work for Me!

What kinds of things do you to make your life easier?

Time with Kids Increasing, Along with Guilt?

Every working mom can relate. You never spend enough time with the kids. Well. A new study by the University of Maryland posits that mothers actually spend MORE time with their kids now than in the 60s. The study was cited in today's Washington Post.

The most interesting part to me was the distinction between primary time (time spent wholly focused on the child (reading, playing games, etc)), secondary time (time spent with the child, but while doing something else), and time spent available to the child but not engaged. It is the primary time that has increased, and I agree with the argument that since many of us have less overall time with our kids the time we have is "quality" time -- ie, time we really engage with our kids.

The article also talks about less time spent on housework. I think this is really true. As there are more two-parent working families, we have more money and less time. So things that aren't critical can be subcontracted out. We subcontract out our house cleaning and our laundry. This is a BIG help. Especially the laundry. We have someone who comes in every two weeks, washes up to 7 loads of laundry, folds it, and puts the kids away (ours she leaves on the bed). This is SUCH a help. The cleaning is key for the bathrooms and kitchen, but just so/so for everything else. We probably need it either more often, or perhaps we need a different cleaning service.

Anyway, interesting article, and I have to say I agree with much of it. I know I work hard to try and plan activities and things to do with my kids when I am home (either after work on or weekends). In fact, when my Dad visited recently for a day, he said he wondered what we did on the weekends. And says he now sees that weekends are "all about the kids". Thankfully, we work to keep it that way.