Operation "reclaim my life"

Since it's snowing sideways outside right now (a sight I don't see that often since moving from Wyoming), I figure I'm hunkered down in the house and can finally take a minute to pay some attention to my long-neglected blog.

I've been a tad bit side tracked these last few days by what I like to call "operation reclaim my life". It all began when I cleaned the laundry room last week. It may not sound like that big of a deal but if you have ever taken a gander into my laundry room you know what I am talking about. I have a little counter where I tend to pile up all my "to do later" things. And then if people are coming over on short notice or not so short notice, I pile the excess in there. It all becomes a laundry room cess pool- Christmas bows and wrapping paper, the kid's coloring stuff, expired gymbucks (grrrr...but my own darn fault), toys I have been collecting for the nursery at church, bags of unfinished craft projects purchased in October for me to complete for all the holidays- ha! Cesspool. No joke.

So with the laundry room all clean, I took one day and tackled all my laundry. It was awesome. I actually had a day at home where I washed and folded all the laundry in the same day. As it came out of the dryer, I folded it. I was beaming with pride and joy.

And then there's the girl's room. A project in the works for 3 months. A nightmare- not because it has been difficult, but because who has the time for projects? With season football tickets, birthdays, holidays, basement finishing (still in the process and will be forever, I'm sure), an 18 month old, and a big fat pregnancy, not a good time to start a project. Someone please remind me of that next time BEFORE I start a project in November. Right. My mom came over the other day to watch my kids so I could paint. I would have finished had I not blown the light socket out. Sparks. Smoke. Not pretty. Past 3:30 you really can't paint depending only on outside light. It just isn't bright enough. But hey, I AM ALMOST DONE! It's a darn miracle. All three of our kids have been sleeping in the same bedroom for 3 months so you can only imagine the joy I am feeling at the thought of them being separated and being able to reclaim just a tinsy bit of my sanity. Pictures later.

I actually finished one of my crafty holiday projects that I de-junked from my laundry room. I thought to myself, "I've missed Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas- I can get the Valentine project done. And I did. Two days before Valentine's Day but who's counting? It was the super easiest thing ever- it was just a matter of finding a child-less minute to do it. And no, I didn't find one of those. Livvy was touching the wet painted wood blocks and wiping the paint on the counter. Then she snapped one of the letters in half. As long as she was having a good time...

I finally bought a mirror to go above a piece of furniture in my entry way. I've had every intention of doing this since the furniture arrived in October but you know, in all my spare time, I wasn't looking too hard for a moment to ram all my screaming kids in the car and head to every overstuffed interior decorating store around. "Yes lady, I see the 'you break it, you buy it' sign, thank you very much." Yikes. Big mirror + Costco= awesome price. I love it!

And you should see the D.I. bags I have packed and ready to go...

Cleaning, painting, shopping, organizing, purging- all of these things have been coming together to make things good around here. We are finally recovering from the holidays and it's what- the middle of February? That's right. I'll take it when I can get it.