Egads, it's Friday already! This week has been swamped with actual for money, work! I know..unbelievable. While I really enjoy the work that I do for kgb_, it has frustrated me a lot this week to not really get any unpacking done or anything organized and put away. I am really going to have to work on a much better routine for this coming month. I have to put in a minimum amount of hours for work each month and I got so into unpacking/organizing that I came up to the last week of the month still needing 18 hours. Eek! It's had its affect on everyone here and I've learned my lesson. I won't be doing that again next month!

I have someone coming out here tomorrow to pick up the lawnmower that was left in our garage. I'd love to have all of those things out of here by September. The owner of the house said anything that was left here can be gotten rid of, so I'll be slowly purging those things as well as anything of ours that doesn't have a use or need (ok, or is reallllly wanted) around here. So far, I havent found much but then again, I haven't tackled about half (or more) of our box pile. I'm thinking though that I need to purge my coffee mug collection. I had most of it in storage and realized while unpacking them that there has to be at least 20 coffee mugs. I think it's safe to purge those once I get the chance. I don't know how much I'll actually get out of here, but if it's not loved, it needs to go so that's going on my things to work on list. I'll do it bit by bit and before I know it, things will be much better.

So, what am I finishing today? Work for this month. I have 4 hours scheduled for today and then I'm done til August..wait, that's tomorrow. Well, I'm not working this weekend so that I can spend some time playing with the boys and catching up on a couple of other things that need doing. How about all of you? What are you finishing today? As always, leave me a comment. The poor blog gets lonely without people to talk to. ;)

Wow..it's Thursday. This week is flying by with all of the work hours that I've been putting in. It hasn't left me a lot of time for unpacking but it has given me some time to think about some new ideas and projects that I'd like to tackle. I'm not going to tell you about them quite yet, though.

I will, however, tell my scrapbooking/crafting lovers that there is a benefit crop event coming up on November 7th in Corunna, Michigan. All proceeds will benefit Operation Smile. It will start at 9am and run until 7pm. If you'd like any more information, please feel free to drop me a comment here and I'll see what I can find out. I'm helping to organize it, but I'm not running it. :)

So, what did I do for me today? I re-discovered the joys of smelling nice. Now, I know what you're thinking.."Does she go around smelling bad usually?" Nono, I promise that's not it. But, I've been feeling pretty tired this week and I realized that I needed to do something to give me a bit of a boost. So, after my shower, I pulled out some of my really nice lotion and rubbed it into my skin. Just catching that whiff of scent makes me smile..however, it makes my 8 year old ask me, "Mom, what is that weird smell on you?" Ahh well..I guess you can't please every nose. lol!

I'm off to do a couple of quick things before I start work. What are you doing to make you feel special today?

Ok, so I'm doing a two in one post today. Aren't y'all lucky? Ok, perhaps not but I love this blog and I'm so excited to be back and posting every day! So, let's start with the Works For Me Wednesday bit...you'll never believe what I have for you this week! hehe...Ready? No, seriously..are you ready?

Ok..here it is...how many of you still buy paper towels and end up with those tubes and don't know what to do with them? How many of you still get plastic shopping bags from the store? Do you have trash in your car and never seem to have a bag to toss it in? Did you answer yes to all three? Woo! Then, I have a great tip for you! I discovered that those paper towel tubes are perfect for holding plastic grocery sacks! Just decorate your tube anyway that you want, then feed the plastic bags up into it. I think I fit about 10 into the last one that I did. Then, just tuck the tube into your car and then whenever you need a new trash bag, just pull one out!

This week's never Wordless Wednesday is made up of three of my favorite pictures that I downloaded from my camera this week. I am loving this new house and loving that I am out of the basement dungeon that I was trapped in for two years. It amazes me just how much happier I am since being out in sunlight again. It's such an incredible feeling to look around and even though there are a million boxes in this house still, to know that it's all of my things and they are all in one location. Plus, having the flower beds is fantastic! I cannot wait until next summer when I have the time to really dig in and get them all gorgeous again. Enjoy this week's pictures, fresh from my camera!

I would love to be able to tell you that I am tackling something great, like organizing my kitchen, but I'm just not. I woke up this morning totally exhausted and feeling like this was going to be one long day. I did get my morning routine done, boxes hauled to the garage (only 6 or so today) and went and got the mail before all hell broke loose around here.

My oldest has developed this really annoying habit of mimicking people and today he made the mistake of doing it to me when I told him to go do something. Let's his say his tone of voice was far from appropriate. He has a very quick temper and when I sent him to his room for doing it, he screamed and threw a fit and ended up getting grounded for tomorrow before he went in there. Then, it was him back and forth out of the room, screaming at me and him getting more days grounding...Can anyone see this coming to a peaceful conclusion that doesn't involve him grounded for the next 10 years? No, me either. Finally, that lightbulb went over my head and I sent Roger out of the room and Ben and I had a little heart to heart. I know that he doesn't really want to be here. He wants to be with his Dad. He's a Daddy's boy, always have been and while he loves me, my house isn't where he wants to be. Maybe a lot of special needs kids do that..form such an intense bond with one parent that they don't want to be apart from them. I don't know. I just know that having your 9 year old tell you that they don't belong with you, they belong with Daddy, hurts.

*sighs* I know that he loves me and that he's just a little boy. In the end, I told him that if not being here is really what he wants I'll call and have his Dad come get him. I won't force him to stay here. I told him how disappointed I was in how he's been treating me and I love him but I won't put up with him being so disrespectful to me. Then, I told him to go have some quiet time on his bed, hugging Grape Ape. Maybe after he takes a nap or at least rests, he'll feel better. That does sometime happen and quite often he will apologize on his own for how he acted. I know that this is hard for him. He's a good kid who's gotten a bit of a hard knock in life.

This wasn't what I had first intended on writing about, but sometimes life gets ya. For the rest of today, I have 4 hours of kgb work and a few odds and ends around the house..I'd love to get a nap in myself but there's no chance of that.

Ok, I know that it's Tuesday, but yesterday was a rough day round here. I actually got up early with all these good intentions and was doing pretty good with them. I was just finishing up measuring out the dough for my first loaf of bread (ever!) when I heard Roger calling me from the living room saying that Ben needed my help and that he was bleeding all over. Cue sigh from mom..life with boys. Well, this time he was bleeding all over. It seems that while they were practicing their golf swings, Roger told Ben to move because he was going to hit the ball and Ben did move..right behind Roger. Yep, you got it, Roger hit him in the head on his back swing. I swear that my Works for Me Wednesday post should be about keeping a dark red washclothe on hand for just this kind of thing. Kids! Luckily Ben was ok. He had a small goose egg and it had split the skin. He refused all medication and by last night the goose egg was almost gone and he said it didn't hurt.

Well, our first loaf of bread turned out gorgeous, if Roger and I say so. Ben wants me to go buy some store bread. He's the one who isn't so sure when Mom suddenly changes something, but this bread really was tasty and it's so much cheaper to make it than buying loaves at the store. I'm looking forward to trying out some of the other breads in this cookbook. This one was sooo easy. If anyone wants the recipe, just let me know and I'll either post it here or send you a copy via email.



Now, to the whole point of this post...This week's menu. Groceries are kind of tight around here so we're working our way through the things that I "know" the kids will eat before I start getting adventurous. So here we go:

Monday - Scrambled Eggs w/ Sausage
Tuesday - French Toast
Wednesday - Pasta w/ Tomato Sauce
Thursday - Hotdogs w/ Veggies
Friday - Homemade Pizza

Today's finish it project is actually really easy. Yesterday, I unpacked 7 boxes in the kitchen..yes, 7 and yes, there are still more in there. I see some decluttering appearing in my future. But, for today, the project is really simple. Three of the boxes that I unloaded yesterday contained all my glass stemware. Of course, after being in storage for 2 years, where sadly there were rats..(don't get me ranting about the place I lived for the past 2 years..heh)..well, clearly they all need to be washed. So, that's my Finish It Friday goal for today. I want to get all of them washed, dried and put away. There's a small cupboard above my fridge that should hold them perfectly, since I won't be needing to access them on a regular basis. I do think I'll leave a couple of the "cheaper" ones down though for me to use as a water glass or just something to help me feel pretty and special. A girl can never feel too pretty or special.

Now, what are all of you going to finish today? Drop me a comment and let me know!

I didn't forget, I swear! Ok, it did slip my mind. The boys and I got busy today and we unpacked 5 more boxes in the kitchen -- 2 boxes of cookbooks (all shelved) and 3 boxes of my wine glasses, crystal candle holders and such. They've been in storage for 2 years and desperately all need to be washed. Eewwww. Then, we took about a dozen boxes out to the garage and got them stored away. I made the mistake of telling the neighbor boy that him and his buddy could sweep out the "attic" portion of my garage/barn. Ugh! We went out there today and they swept all that mess down onto the floor of the garage. They also threw down anything they'd found up there which included a bunch of just garbge. Before the summer is out, I can tell we're going to have to have a garage cleaning day where we organize everything and put anything that's trash out for our trash man and freecycle/craigslist anything that might be worth anything. Yuck! As if we don't have enough work to do inside the house, eh?

We also got a box in the mail that had some surprises for all of us. I do so love happy mail and there were comics inside for the boys which they loved. They're really getting into those kinds of things and I love it because it encourages their creativity and their reading.

Speaking of reading, that's my Just For Me thing today. Inside the box was a copy of the book 'Tis by Frank McCourt. I read Angela's Ashes a good year ago and had been wanting to read this one, but never really had the money to pick up a copy. So later on today, once the kids are bathed (Thursday is bath night round here much to their dismay.) and all tucked into bed, instead of spending time working on unpacking more, I'm going to curl up with something nummy to drink and what promises to be a great book.

What are you doing for you today?

Here we are, another Wednesday and I have such a fun picture this week. But first, I have to confess that yesterday totally got away from me and I didn't get hardly any of that laundry tackled. It was just one of those days around here. The kids were having one of their "needy" days, constantly wanting my attention and they were also feeling enterprising. They're trying to save money for a WII and they set up a diner in their bedroom...the food was free, but if I wanted water or soda (both of which we have in the fridge downstairs), it was going to cost me 50 cents! Very enterprising, I have to admit.
So, on to this week's picture. I snapped this in our backyard not long after we moved in. I call it creative gardening decor.


Have a great day all! I'm off to Charlotte to beat some people with some paperwork. I'm tired of these people not answering their phones, so we're going over to deal with them face to face. Wish me luck! We're gonna need it, I'm afraid.

I can hear it now..but you did laundry last week, all last week! Yep, I did and while I titled this laundry, it is slightly different. I'm not lugging baskets down to the laundry room and back up. All those baskets..and all their contents are in my bedroom. Well, that's not quite accurate. Most of the towels were put away and most of the boys' clothes as well. What's left are all of my clothes and all of the bedding. So, what's the challenge? Sorting it all and getting it put away. While folding all of these things, I realized I probably have more than I need in certain areas. Like, really, how many sets of sheets do you need for one bed? Me? I know that I folded at least 3 sets of flannels (I'm sorry, but a necessity if you live in the North) and there are 3 other sets folded and put away. So, do I need the probably 6-7 other sets of sheets? Probably not. I think the same probably goes for my clothes. I won't do a count but I swear there's at least 7-10 pairs of jeans. Umm..I only have one body, folks. I wish sometimes there were more of me..like 3-4, to tackle everything. Then again, sometimes I wish there were less of me..like 50-100 pounds less of me. Can't win, I s'pose..lol!

So, there you have it. That's today's challenge. Fold, sort, put away and/or give away all of the things I spent all of last week washing. It's a big task, but I'm willing to take it on. How about all of you?

I know today is s'posed to be Menu Planning Monday and I promise that I did plan our menu for this week, but I wanted to share with you some of the pictures from last week. Only some because I still need to finish downloading my camera. It's become a 10 step process so maybe later today if I have time.


These were taken in my backyard. I totally encourage you to click on them and view the full sized versions. These small ones don't do them justice.



The Laundry Room before we started tackling it. Ugh! What a mess!




This is the laundry room..in progress and almost done! The pictures of it totally done are on my camera still.




This is the bathroom cabinet that Roger and I assembled. He honestly did as much work as me. We couldn't find the hammer so the back still needs to properly tacked down. I got the 4 corners done using a candle and a screwdriver.

Thanks guys for checking in! Did you do your Menu for this week?

It's been a hectic, cleaning filled week but I am so proud to say that we got everything on our lists accomplished. The house may not look different to someone who hadn't been in it before, but my gosh, we can see the differences. In fact, the scrapbooker in me insists that I go around later today and take updated pictures of everything to mark the progress.

The boys are in their room right now, doing their weekly clean up of that and I'm getting ready to start a kgb shift, hoping to bring in a little bit more money. The boys amaze me. After not being around them constantly for two years, it's a total joy for me to have them back with me (even though they go back to their dad's for school) and to have them with me in a house that we can enjoy together. They're growing up so dang fast!

This past week, they've learned how to do laundry and in fact, other than me doing things like putting in the soap and the dryer sheets and actually setting the settings, they've done all the laundry. We've worked as a team getting it washed and dried. Roger has even helped haul baskets upstairs for me to fold. Let's see, they've also been cooking with me. We've made homemade pizza and pasta salad and other things. Roger is my official let's refill the bottles helper. We're taking snapple bottles and instead of recycling them, we're reusing them. We fill them back up with water and then add the individual crystal lite type packets to them. That way the kids almost always have something to drink in a size they can handle.

Well, I should go to work so that I can then get on with the rest of my chore list. I finally managed to get my camera downloaded so if all goes well, tomorrow I'll do a photo filled post showing off my new house.

*hugs*

Take out garbage - kitchen & bathroom

Tears may seem like such an odd thing to have for a Time for Me Thursday, but today they're just what I need. Ever since Mid-April, I've had all this emotion that I've been bottling up inside of me so that I could get things accomplished. Last night, I realized that the dam was about to break. It was starting to leak and we all know that when an emotional dam breaks, it's a very messy thing and it affects everyone around us. So, today, I gave my permission to pick up my teddy bear, to climb back into bed and for one hour, to just cry, to grieve, to let some of that go. For those who don't know, I've had some major upsets in my personal life and in the past 6 months, I've had 2 friends and the wife of a good friend die. The move was incredibly stressful and I'm back to stressing about money and how I'm going to pay all the bills until I find a job in the fall. So, today..tears are what I'm giving myself. I'm giving myself permission to just open the floodgates and let as much of it out as I can before it's time to go back to tackling Mt. Washmore and my two amazing little boys.

Wednesday is here and each week I'll have to decide if I want to do a Wordless Wednesday or Works For Me Wednesday. This week, I've decided to do a Wordless Wednesday because I can't think of a darned single tip that might be useful to anyone..lol. On top of that, I have two boys who dessssperately need to eat right now and laundry waiting for me. I feel like I'm being stalked by socks and underwear. Does anyone else ever get that feeling? So, now..before they eat each other instead of the bologna sandwiches that are waiting downstairs for them....This week's Wordless Wednesday:

Wow, my blogging skills are rusty! I'm still not sure that I got this image in correctly. I might have to go back and tweak it. It is tough though to focus when one of your children is on your bed growling at the other one. Geez! It's no wonder it sometimes takes me ages to get anything done. Right now, I'm trying to write this post, play War with the youngest and make sure he and his brother don't kill one another. Talk about multi-tasking!

So welcome back to Tackle It Tuesday! I'm going to be focusing on laundry this week. Oh my gosh, I have so much laundry to do! That apartment was mold and mildew city and I'm trying to save what I can. I can't show pictures yet because my "good" laptop is bluescreening and that's how I download my camera. I am taking pictures though and will post them as soon as I unpack my camera cable. What are you doing? I can't wait to hear! Post me a comment and/or head over to 5minutesformom.com and post to their Mr Linky there!

So, did you miss me? Well, I certainly missed everyone and I very much missed blogging. The last month or so has been insane. The move ended up taking two trips and I just keep wondering how it is that I own all this/had this much in that apartment. Truth be told, a good chunk of it was in storage so sometimes opening a box is like opening a present. That part, I like. The part I don't like is that there are so many darned boxes. Okie, well let's try an update...

We moved. Yep, in case you missed it, we are now back in Michigan. The boys are here with me during the week and with their Dad every other weekend. It's an adjustment for them. Ben has a hard time leaving his Dad and Roger is a momma's boy, but we're figuring it all out. We love the new house and after searching for mattresses that we could afford I'm thrilled to say that both boys now have a mattress. I just need to get Ben's bed put together. Sadly, the lady who gave the beds to us was wrong about the hardware and we only had enough to get Roger's bed put together. It' so great that they have their own room now. It's a bit on the small side but we're turning the landing into a playroom/reading room.

Let's see. I'm working for kgb.com now. It's a fun job, even though it doesn't pay much. I'm absolutely going to have to find something to supplement it. Wow..ok, after being gone 6 weeks I thought I'd have a lot more to say, but truth is that life around here is boxes, boxes and mom, do you know where a spoon is? lol..The big news is though that I'm going to be blogging every day again now, if everything goes as planned. In fact, watch out for a Tackle It Tuesday post to immediately follow this one. My sweet friend, Nickle, has discovered my blog (ok, I told her where it was..) and wants me to blog, so I am. Hopefully, some of my former challenge friends will spot this and jump back in with us!

*hugs to all...it's so great to be back....