Archive for the Category » Tackle It Tuesday «

09
Jun

Tackle It Tuesday – June 9th, 2009…

With all of the busyness that we’ve experienced lately, my house is suffering. Even more than my blog if y’all can believe that? (I’ll be most of you are asking yourselves what I’m doing blogging two days in a row – if that’s not proof miracles happen, then I’m not sure what is).

We have 2 ball games tonight. At the same time. Thankfully our two are on teams with friends kids, so we’re splitting the difference tonight for ball games. The guys are going to the boys game. The girls are going to the girls game. And then we’re all meeting back up here for dinner after the game. (I think that’s still the plan. Guess I should put checking on that on my list of things to do today).

I’m so glad that these are people who will be coming to spend time with us and not to see our house. Because I have a *lot* to do today and I’m not sure it can all be done before we have to be out the door at 5pm!

Living Room

  • General pick up
  • Sweeping
  • Swiffering (giggle away ladies – I’ll be doing this in ALL the downstairs rooms today. Told you I’d be busy. ;) ).
  • Dusting
  • Organize the video games/videos
  • Wash front window
  • Vacuum couch
  • Wash, dry, put on couch covers

Dining Room

  • General pick up
  • Clean off the dining room table
  • Get books on table ready for the mail  and off the table
  • Clean up bookshelf
  • Return books to the library to be counted for reading program
  • Sweep
  • Swiffer
  • Dust

Kitchen

  • Clear and wipe down counters and stove
  • Give haircuts (Chip and Noah)
  • Sweep
  • Swiffer
  • Make Crockpot Pizza, cut up bread, etc… for dinner tonight

Office

  • Have kids pick up their toys
  • Sort through miscellaneous papers that have appeared on the desk
  • Sweep
  • Swiffer
  • Fold laundry that has invaded the dining room and will have been  moved to the office by this point in the list
  • Turn futon back into a couch instead of a bed

Bathroom

  • Get Chip to clean bathroom (I think this is my favorite room on the list)
  • Carry laundry to the basement

So, that’s it. But I think it’s enough, don’t you? And the good news is that the older three kids will all be at camp next week, so if I can make it through this week and keep it all clean, that means it will actually STAY clean for more than 4-5 days! WOOT!

What’s on YOUR agenda for today?

Category: family, food, friends, fun, home improvement, kids, life, Tackle It Tuesday  3 Comments
24
Feb

Tackle It Tuesday…

Do y’all have any idea at all what happens when your right-hand man is down for a week? When you’re busy taking care of 4 kids and a VERY sick husband? When you don’t want to make too much noise because someone is sleeping or just needs his rest? Do y’all know what happens when you’re insides tumble with turmoil? Do y’all have any idea what happens to THE HOUSE?!

And do y’all have any idea the amount of PANIC that sets in when you realize that your mom, sister and her nephews will be here in TWO DAYS? TWO DAY!!

Y’all – this is NOT good. Not good at all.

To say that I have a LOT of work to do would be the understatement of the  year thus far. (I don’t want to limit myself at this point yet, the year is still fairly new and hardly broken in).

So, I’m going to break it down room by room. I’ve got other items that should be on this list, but I’m hoping that if I can just get all of the cleaning done today, then I can do the rest of it tomorrow.

Living Room

  • General pick-up
  • Dust
  • Sweep/Mop floors
  • Wash couch covers/sheets
  • Move/clean under furniture
  • Clean out coat/shoe closet (I sooo wish I could put all the winter coats away. How long until spring?)

Dining Room

  • Clean off table
  • Clean hamster cage (did I tell y’all that Noah got a new hamster?)
  • Straighten bookshelf
  • Dust
  • Sweep/mop floor

Kitchen

  • Clean off top of refrigerator
  • Clean counters
  • Clean “catch all” table under the white board
  • Update info on white board
  • Sweep/SCRUB the floors
  • Figure out how to use the “auto clean” feature on the oven

Office

  • Clean off desk area — decided this doesn’t really need doing
  • File papers
  • Make kids pick up the toys all over the floor
  • Clean off mantle
  • Dust
  • Sweep/mop floors

Downstairs Bathroom

  • Laundry – oh, the laundry y’all. I have to tackle Mt. Washmore and the folding pile that results.
  • Clean mirror/sink
  • Scrub toilet (my least favorite job in the entire world)
  • Scrub bathtub
  • Scrub floors

Vacuum Steps that lead upstairs and the upstairs hallway

Master Bedroom

  • General tidying
  • Empty trash
  • Clean off desk/side tables
  • vacuum

Upstairs bathroom

  • Clean sink
  • Make Kait clean up all of her clothes/shoes that have invaded the bathroom
  • Sort through shoes in the closet – set aside good ones for Barefoot Sunday in June, throw nasty ones away
  • Sweep/mop floor

And the impossible task at hand – get the kids to get their rooms CLEAN. And by clean, I mean C-L-E-A-N!

I’ll be back to cross stuff off as it comes along today. What are you tackling today?

Category: family, goals, life, Tackle It Tuesday  4 Comments
03
Dec

I am a survivor…

The closet it clean! There is room left over – including an ENTIRELY empty shelf! Oh yeah – and did I mention? Those shelves? I built them myself! Ok, not really, but I did *hang* them my self! I remember that Chip came home rather impressed by my skills.

I’ll be back after another cup? pot? of coffee. Right now I’m in a benedryl induced stupor of sorts. Extremely tired, but benedryl was a *must* after dealing with all that dust that go stirred up yesterday. I might even have some pictures of a much younger me to put online. 

The AFTER - 

 

You can see the before pictures here.

Category: goals, home improvement, life, Tackle It Tuesday  2 Comments
02
Dec

Tackle It Tuesday – The closet monster…

If I’m not back with pictures by sometime tomorrow – someone send help!

Because today? I’m cleaning out the office closet. And it’s is a BEAST of a closet…

Oh, it doesn’t stop there. Those shelves you see? They reach to the ceiling…

And off to the sides? Well, that’s full of shelves too. DEEP shelves…

 

And it’s ALL coming out today!

This is the closet where things go to die. It’s the office supply/homeschooling/craft/empty-boxes-I-feel-it-necessary-to-keep/empty-boxes-I-might-someday-possibly-use/stuff-I-have-nowhere-else-to-put/companys-coming-cram-it-somewhere closet.

It’s gives the term “closet monster” a whole new meaning! In a way that strikes fear to the very core of my soul.

But fears are meant to be conquered! And I will arise victorious!

And have pictures to prove it. So stay tuned…

See AFTER pictures here.

Tackle It Tuesday Meme

Category: goals, home improvement, life, Tackle It Tuesday  9 Comments
11
Nov

Feeling like I was the one who was tackled…

Today. I tackled. Kait’s room.

Or more realistically, it tackled me!

I didn’t think to take pictures right away. It really didn’t look half bad at first. Until I looked in the drawers. And under the bed. And behind open doors. And in the closet. I threw the majority of it into the middle of the room.

And this is the result…

I wanted to cry when I saw it all. Seriously wanted to cry. But, I rolled up my sleeves, informed my lovely daughter that if she wanted my help that we would be doing this *my* way and getting rid of anything that *I* thought needed getting rid of and we dove in.

I got rid of THREE – count them… one. two. THREE. – kitchen garbage bag size bags of trash from her room. Oh the paper! I promise y’all. More than one tree was harmed in the making of that mess she called her room!

We got rid of 1.5 kitchen sized garbage bags full of toys. I’ve told her to enjoy them now because we will be getting rid of more before Christmas.

I will say that it was a bit bittersweet though as she got rid of things that she’d played with for oh so long. She kept the “firsts” – first baby doll, first stuffed animal, favorite baby blanket – but a lot of the toys that she held onto for so long, she just wanted to get rid of because *sniff* my little girl is growing up.

So, four hours of back-breaking labor later, her room now looks like this…

 

And she says she loves it and is going to keep it that way. And I just shake my head because I know she will. For at least a week, y’all. For at least a week.

Tackle It Tuesday Meme

Category: kids, life, Tackle It Tuesday  5 Comments
21
Oct

Tackle It Tuesday…

I was woken up by a text message this morning at 6am! Fortunately, it was a “you don’t have to get up at 6:30″ message telling me to sleep in. So, I really didn’t mind much! Because after the night I had last night, y’all I really, really needed the sleep!

And since I’ve only got my own little monkeys under foot today, I’ve got plans. Oh, yes I do!

I’m going to take care of this mess first…

  

Which is relatively small given the overwhelming amounts of laundry that I normally have in the house. This is what’s left of the great clothing swap. Those of you with closets large enough that you don’t have to swap summer and winter clothing should count your blessings. Because OH. MY. WORD. with the amount of clothing 4 kids can have with overzealous, rummage-sale-ing grannys! Then I have to start the whole laundry thing all over again!

After the couch (which will mean the kiddos are out of the kitchen because lunch is done), I plan to turn these…

…into pumpkin puree. I’ve never done this before, but I figure it can’t be much harder than cooking squash in the oven. And Pioneer Woman has provided step-by-step instructions. How hard can it be? (I’ll be back to let y’all know).

While the pumpkins are baking, I plan to clean this mess…

I know it’s just the top of the refrigerator, but for some reason it just bothers the stuffing out of me when it gets all cluttered. So, I’ll get it cleaned off today.

Once I’m done cooking and handling all of the food stuffs, I’ll clean the bathroom. Which isn’t too bad…

And thanks to 5 Minutes for Mom – I have a new bottle of CLR Kitchen and Bathroom cleaner to clean it with. I’m normally an organic girl when it comes to cleaning. We have 3 people with asthma in our house, so harsh cleaning chemicals tend to bother at least one of us. We’ll see how it goes and I’ll be back with after pictures!

By that time, school will be done for the day and the kiddos will all head outside. So, I’m going to clean the office. It’s more toys than anything really…

Yes, I’m feeling ambitious today. After all is said and done, I plan to turn the pumpkin puree into pumpkin cookies with cream cheese frosting sandwiched between two cookies. And possibly make chocolate chip too. All in the next 6 hours or so!

And then at 7pm CST, I’ll be back to draw a winner for the book churched by Matthew Paul Turner that I’m giving away! There is still time to register to win!

So, what are you up to today?

Tackle It Tuesday Meme

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

After Pictures -

Couch

Top of the refrigerator…

Bathroom – the CLR is going to be a no go. The smell gets to me after a while. Especially in our tiny downstairs bathroom. But it is getting the hard water spot off our shower wall. So I’ll likely use up the rest of it on the shower over the next month or so. But for everything else, I’ll stick with my organic cleaners. But if fumes and chemicals don’t bother you, I’d highly recommend CLR Kitchen & Bath!

Pumpkins turned out GREAT! The texture is amazing (which is saying something with my palate issues) and the taste is wonderful! Looking forward to turning this into cookies later tonight! Two small pie pumpkins gave me a pan of sunflowers seeds (which I’ll bake tomorrow at lunchtime) and four cups of pumpkin puree.

Category: books, family, food, fun, goals, healthy living, kids, life, photos, Tackle It Tuesday  One Comment
30
Sep

Tackle it Tuesday – The Office/Playroom…

I’ll be the first to admit. The office/playroom is more of a playroom after the introduction of a laptop to our household. Chip and I are both much more content to sit in the living room and tour the web than to venture into the office and use the desktop.

Because of this, the office is much more playroom these days and it’s not getting cleaned up nearly as often as it should.

Right now, it looks like this…

And I’ve got my work cut out for me today! So, I’ve sent the littles outside with Kait to collect leaves for a fall book we’re going to make for school (we’ll press them later this afternoon) while I post about how I’m about to get started. (Blogging really can be an excuse for procrastinating just about anything, can’t it?).

But I’m looking forward to being able to walk through the office again without stepping on Little People or tripping over Shake and Go cars (those things can send you skidding across the floor, y’all. I speak from experience). Because that playroom is getting downright dangerous.

I’ll be back later with the after pictures. Because maybe knowing I should post the “after” will be incentive enough to actually get it done!

What are you working to accomplish today?

Tackle It Tuesday Meme

Category: goals, home improvement, Tackle It Tuesday  4 Comments
26
Aug

I should have taken pictures…

I’m cleaning and rearranging. The first day of school WORE ME OUT!!!  Kait’s computer was set up in the dining room. Elijah’s computer in the office. Noah’s “desk” of choice is the floor in the living room. I spent the entire first day of school running from one room to the next. I seriously ranked up 5000 steps on my pedometer JUST DURING SCHOOL!!! I’m pretty sure that’s like 2.5 miles or something.

Today wasn’t quite as bad as Elijah doesn’t have an official curriculum yet so he was doing “life skills” types of things like dishes and cleaning his room. But Noah was doing some work on the computer in the office and Kait was still in the dining room and it was all just too chaotic for me.

Especially the bellowing that coursed through the house. At one point I’m pretty sure I threw my hands up in the air and screamed, “I’M JUST ONE PERSON!!!”

If you think *parenting* 4 kids is busy, try homeschooling 4 all at different age and grade levels. Oh. my. weary. word.

So, today after school, I set to work. My plan is to move Kait’s computer into the office. Which means getting the extra desk out of her bedroom and into the office. But in order to do that, I had to make a space for said desk. Amongst the myriad of other pieces of really big furniture – computer desk, two huge bookcases, treadmill (which I fixed in the process), and a HUGE wood futon (this is *not* one of those cheap, dorm room futons).

And I realized, there was no possible way it was all going to fit.

So rearranging one room became rearranging two. Which is my Seth’s most favorite thing in the world.

“OH! We’re decorating!” he exclaimed while clapping his hands with his eyes sparkling. His plans were much grander than my own, but he was happy to settle for my way when he realized he’s not big enough or strong enough to move furniture by himself.

We moved the futon in front of  the big picture window. We moved the treadmill over where the futon was. And the bookcase that was in the way of where I wanted to put the desk, moved to the dining room.

So, the bookcase moved into the dining room to where the cedar chest was. The cedar chest moved across the room. And the rocking horse (I should post a picture of our rocking horse – it’s wonderful. Chip’s dad had it built for Elijah. But that’s another story for another time) over in front of the double windows in the dining room.

The desk is still upstairs in Kait’s room at this point. I do ok moving furniture up the stairs. Not so much coming down. So the computer is sitting on the Little Tykes table in the middle of my doorway between the living room and dining room. I see no point in moving it any farther until I can move it onto the desk.

Now I’ve got to get myself off of the computer and go pick up the little piles of stuff that managed to get underneath all of the stuff that I moved. How does that all migrate underneath there anyway? And I assume there must be some great stuff because I keep hearing choruses of “I’ve been looking for that!” ring from the office.

Oh! And we are *so* going out for dinner tonight!
Tackle It Tuesday Meme

Category: books, family, fun, home improvement, kids, life, Tackle It Tuesday  4 Comments
15
Jul

Tackle It Tuesday – The Home Office edition…

So, we’ve got a couple weeks off for the summer and we’ve decided we’re going to do more of a stay-cation and do some work around the house. Not my idea of vacation, but it needs to be done.

Today, I’m tackling the home office. Our office is a mess. The closet is full to the brim with empty boxes, out-dated homeschooling books and Little People. The futon is PILED with needing to be folded laundry. Clothes my kids obviously don’t need because those same clothes haven’t been touched in two weeks. And my desk? The one with the broken computer? Well, the piles are winning since we haven’t used the desk in almost 2 months. Which means I haven’t had to look at the mess, so it hasn’t bothered me enough to put it all away. Did I mention that unless the kids are actually playing in there, the door stays closed?

Because we all know that if you can’t see a mess, there really must not be a mess, right?

RIGHT?!?

Yeah, I’m past the point of self-denial. And my list keeps growing everytime I look into the room.

  • Fold the laundry
  • Clean out the closet
    • Decide which empty boxes really must be kept.
    • Get rid of the rest of them
    • List all of the unused/out-dated homeschooling stuff online
    • List all the tchokes (pronounced choch-keys) on either freecycle or craigslist. Ever realize those tchokes include the word choke? My closet it simply choked with them!
  • Go through my paperback books. List them on paperbackswap.com and request some new ones.
  • Clean off the desk
    • Sort papers
    • File papers that need to be kept
    • Sort computer games. List unwanted ones on craigslist or freecycle
  • Sand the patched hole in the wall.
  • Fill other small holes that have appeared. You’ve got to love 80 year old plaster walls!
  • Box up borrowed homeschooling resources and give them back to Tammy.
  • Box up last years school work. Yes, I *know* school ended 2 months ago.

And I’m really hoping that I can convince Chip to help me work on all of it later this afternoon. Which will probably be the hardest thing on the list to tackle!

So, what are you tackling today?

Tackle It Tuesday Meme

Category: goals, home improvement, life, meme, Tackle It Tuesday  7 Comments
08
Jul

Tackle It Tuesday – July 8, 2008…

So I’ve decided that Tuesday is the PERFECT day for going through things. Because Wednesday is garbage day. So that means, I don’t get a chance to rethink thing. Items get tossed in the trash and taken to the dump before I can miss them. Which is a great thing. I’m not a big collector. I’m definitely not a hoarder. But I am a stasher. And it’s easier for me to stick stuff into the closet and hope the closet monster gobbles it up instead of figuring out if I really need it or not.

So, today, I’m tackling the closet in the office. I’ll try and get some pictures to add to this post to show the before and after. Because the task is daunting. I’ve got a problem with boxes. I don’t like to throw them away. When we have to pack thing ups, or if I think there might be even the slightest possibility that something might need to be returned, I’m going to need that box, right?

Someone tell me I’m not alone in this!? Please?

So basically, my closet has oodles of boxes of absolutely nothing in it. I’ve got the boxes from gameboy games. I’ve got boxes for my Willow Tree figurines (those I’ll keep – but I’ll pack away). I’ve got the box for our toaster and the coffee grinder. It’s a sickness, y’all. A sickness. And today, I’m going to find a cure!

So, what’s hiding in your closets?

Tackle It Tuesday Meme

Category: home improvement, life, Tackle It Tuesday  6 Comments