according.to.kim

Simple homework station

Here's the homework station we set up in a corner of our living room last week. We had removed (and disassembled) this desk from the girls' bedroom about six months ago as there wasn't enough space, so when I read Aby's Weekly Organizing Quick Tip: Get Organized for Homework, I knew just what to use for our homework station.

On top of the desk, we have a plastic drawer with supplies (pencils, erasers, sharpener, tape, ruler, stapler, hole-punch, glue stick, scissors, and new homework-only markers), a binder full of loose-leaf paper, and a couple French-English picture dictionaries we had kicking around. I put a red dot sticker on all of the supplies to denote they belong to the homework station; I hope we can manage to keep them here! Also, I plan to put a photo of our star students in the STAR picture holder on top of the drawer.

P.S. Thanks, Tracy, for your tip this morning about setting up a music mini-station for our new MYC students. I will do that! Glad to hear you like the program.

Linen closet, before and after

 

Here's a glimpse of my latest organizing project using the Simplify101 process: the linen closet at the end of our main floor hallway. This closet is near our bedrooms and the bathroom that's used mostly by the children. In addition to sheets and towels, we use this closet to store things like nail care items, hair styling tools, extra toothbrushes, etc. since the bathroom has little storage space.

I hesitated to post the 'before' image as it's rather embarrassing, but decided the 'after' image wouldn't be nearly as interesting (or effective, I suppose) without it! Besides, honesty is the best policy. And perhaps it will make someone feel better about their own stuff. I like to help people feel good!

I have to explain the large orange bag in the before photo. It's where I was stashing stuff to be donated whenever I came across something I didn't use, need, or love. All of that (and much more) is gone now and I'll replace the bag with a better-looking box or basket for ongoing collection of donations. Hmmm, there's also a frisbee in the before photo. I have no idea why we were storing a frisbee in our linen closet. Strange things happen around here -- especially while I'm at work!

P.S. My office drawer has stayed organized for five months! Here's the trick: it's very clear what belongs in the drawer and what doesn't. I like that.

What I've been working on

Clothes, clothes, and more clothes.

These are all the clothes I removed from the girls' closets this weekend. Sizes 2, 5, and 6x/7 for the most part (plus items that still fit, but they don't like). Madeline still wears size 5 pants and skirts, so they stayed put. If you can imagine, after removing all this, they still have completely full closets and dressers. Most of their 150 hangers (total) still have clothes on them. It's insane, I know. I decided not to introduce any "new" clothes from the hand-me-down bins at this time (half of the size 3s were already out, and lots of size 5/6 too). I will do more of a seasonal swap in a couple months.

I have to add that I really don't buy the girls a lot of clothes! They have many hand-me-downs from their cousin (who also gets hand-me-downs from a friend) and some gifts. It adds up.

Also, I brought up from the basement all of our baby clothes up to and including size 2, and shoes up to toddler size 8. Eleven bins. Uggh. (And we have already given away all of the gender-neutral things!) I put them here in the living room so they'd be difficult to ignore. These clothes simply have to leave our house this spring! I am just waiting to see if my cousin, due in March, has a girl. If so, they're welcome to have lots of clothes -- but I would not burden them with all of it. It really is too much.

If they have a girl, I will give them all the best stuff and donate the rest. If not, I may try to sell bundles, priced to move quickly; however, that is certainly more work than just donating everything. We'll see. I'm on the fence about it. I see so much value here, but at the same time, I want to move it out as quickly as possible. I have plenty of other things to work on. In any case, I need to go through the baby clothes and pull out a couple keepsake items out for each of my girls, and find out if my sister-in-law wants anything else back.

P.S. When I do finally donate some baby clothes, I will refer to all of the great comments I received on my September post, Donating baby clothing, to decide where to take them.

Office drawer, before & after

This is the first result (the first of many, I hope!) of my Organizing 101 workshop at Simplify 101. I'm very happy with it! Our office supply drawer has actually stayed organized for a full 10 days now. Even the kids are retrieving things from here and putting them away in the appropriate location. Also, I only spent $8 for all 16 containers! Dollarama, of course.

On tackling big jobs

Today was a day for doing things I tend to put off doing. For example, I had my hair trimmed (it had been over 13 months; best way to grow your hair out in my opinion!), made doctor appointments for all of us, and thoroughly cleaned the inside of our fridge.

I'm very happy that I got the fridge cleaned today; it was long overdue and now it's spotless! I learned a couple of important things in the process too.

First, that I can do a big job like this without doing a bunch of regular chores first -- which usually means I run out of time or energy for the big job. (Hence, big jobs rarely get done around here.) In this case, I really wanted to do the dishes and clean the counters before tackling the fridge, but I forced myself to disregard the rest of the kitchen and focus on the fridge. It wasn't easy but I did it!

Second, that I can break a big job like this into smaller chunks and still be satisfied. I always want to have enough time to tackle the entire job and finish it in one session (stopping only for short breaks); however, this isn't very realistic for me. I don't have a lot of large uninterrupted chunks of time in my schedule! (Hence, big jobs rarely get done around here. Hmmm, I'm starting to see a pattern...) Today, I ignored my preference and started cleaning the fridge when I knew I wouldn't have time to finish (about an hour before I had to leave for my hair appointment); and then went back and finished the job much later, after supper. I cleaned the fridge in two sessions and it didn't drive me crazy! Best of all, it's DONE. And it would not be done right now if I had insisted on cleaning the kitchen first and/or starting only when I knew I could finish in one session. Aha! (or should I say, duh!?)

Do you think this means I could now start tackling huge jobs like organizing our horrible storage room without tidying the main areas of our house first, or having an entire weekend set aside to devote to it? I really hope so.

***
Today I'm thankful for:

• sunshine
• a good large refrigerator
• the ability to learn and change

Looking forward to 2009

I don't recall ever being so eager to start a new year. Over the past month or so I've been thinking a lot about some things I want to accomplish in 2009. I've been making some plans for next year and I can't wait to get started! Most of my plans revolve around reducing clutter and chaos, getting organized, and maintaining a positive outlook on life. I look forward to:

• Taking A Life Well Crafted - Audio only (Jan 1-Dec 31) and learning all the good stuff this class has to offer. I'm sure I'd enjoy the craft projects in the full version, but I want to focus on some other things this year. The audio-only version will be great because I can listen on my iPod when I'm away from home and it won't be too time consuming for me.
• Taking Organizing 101 (Jan 13-Mar 3) and working on purging and organizing some seriously overcrowded and and disorganized spots in my home throughout 2009 and beyond. This will be a major focus for me. I NEED to reduce the amount of stuff in this house! I think taking this online class will help me stay motivated and provide some great ideas.
• Taking A Library of Memories (Feb 12 -Jun 3) for the second time (for free!) (which means I've already done a lot of the initial learning and set up) and continuing to manage and filter my digital and printed photos and memorabilia. This is such a great system. It has already helped me immensely and I'm nowhere near finished dealing with my backlog of photos, etc.
• Starting to learn hard shoe Irish dances beginning Jan 6. I was thinking I would start later than that, but I finally learned the Slip Jig "good enough" in December. My teacher is so eager to get me started on hard shoe, she made me agree to get hard shoes and start learning right away. I'm getting excited about it now. My classmates say hard shoe is FUN!
• Getting five weeks of vacation!!! I will mark fifteen years with my company in 2009 which means I get an extra week of vacation starting in January. I have been looking forward to this for a long time!

I have a couple of scrapbooking projects in mind for 2009 too. None of the online classes I listed above involve making scrapbook pages (except the last four weeks of LOM) -- which is great because there are a lot of other things I want to get done in 2009, but... I still love scrapbooking and I don't want to put it on hold completely.

I like doing things that have an element of routine or commitment to them. It helps me stick with it and I find it very satisfying to complete projects like these (e.g., my photo-a-day project in 2007, September 2008 daily album, any online class I have paid for). So here's what I have in mind for 2009 (either one or both; haven't decided yet!):

• Gratitude journal. This is a project that involves making one scrapbook page a week (or bi-weekly or monthly) featuring one photo and a little journaling about something I'm thankful for. I would use the same layout each time, so there would be no thinking involved in the layout itself. I got this idea from Cathy Zielske's Design Your Life workshop at BPS.
• Twelve of twelve. This is a project that involves taking 12 photos on the 12th day of each month and making one scrapbook layout using those photos and some journaling. This sounds like a good way to capture one year of "everyday life" in my family and I think it's pretty doable. I got this idea from Cathy Zielske and others. Again, I would use the same layout to reduce the thinking and time involved.

Okay, I guess that's enough thinking about 2009 -- for today anyway! We're hosting Christmas dinner tomorrow and I have lots of work to do!

Thirty-three dolls (updated)

Yes, the girls have 33 baby dolls and miscellaneous dolls (not including Barbie, Strawberry Shortcake, Polly Pocket, or Dora the Explorer)! A little excessive, non? Yesterday, I brought all of these dolls and their accessories upstairs, and the girls and I proceeded to match dolls with clothes. It took quite a long time to dress them all! Here they are, all together for the first and last time...

I told the girls they had to choose some of the dolls to give away to other children who don't have many toys. Quite a few tears were shed by all three girls, but in the end they willingly selected eleven of these dolls to give away. I had said ten and an extra one ended up in the give-away pile, so that's good! The girls wanted their photos taken with some of the dolls we're giving away and I obliged. I was a little surprised by how attached Sophia was to many of the dolls, even though she hasn't played with them for a long time.

I'm not sure where those eleven dolls are going yet. The Salvation Army perhaps. Any suggestions for used toys? Madeline suggested that we put them out on Christmas Eve with a note asking Santa to take them and give them to children who need more toys. There was some discussion among the girls about Santa taking them to Africa.

I'm glad this is done. I probably could have selected some and taken them away without anyone really noticing (although I might have selected the wrong ones!), but I want the girls to know we can't just keep getting more things without letting some things go. With Christmas and birthdays coming and the certain acquisition of more things over the next two months, it was a good time to have this discussion.

I really hope I can find the time to tackle a few more toy categories in the next little while (but it will be extra difficult to find time with Christmas and birthdays coming). It would be great to get some momentum going and continue convincing the girls that it's good to get rid of some things.

***

Added Dec 2: I learned today that I can donate our gently-used dolls to Transition House (I believe) through our Christmas Charity Challenge at work this week! Yay! Since they aren't new toys, they won't be given as Christmas gifts, but they will stored and then given to children who are settling into new residences. I'm happy they're wanted and will be used again. The dolls in our give-away pile are almost all gently-used since they weren't the ones being lugged around everywhere.

Sheralyn, thanks for reminding me that preschools like to get toy donations sometimes too. I don't think we're ready to part with Barbies yet, but I will keep that in mind for the future!

Donating baby clothing

It's time to move baby clothes and shoes out of this house. As you can imagine, we have a lot of stuff for baby girls. For example, I just got out the bin of size 2-7 shoes and boots and there are over 40 pairs. I have decided against the hassle of trying to sell privately or through consignment. I thought a bit about trying to give them to people I know, but I've decided I want to donate them to an organization that provides for people in need. Problem is, I don't know where to take them. So, blog readers, I'd like to get your knowledge and opinions. Here's a list of possibilities I've come up with; if you know of others in Regina, please share.

Note: I have already donated our tiniest sleepers and nightgowns to the NICU at RGH.

• Value Village/Community Living (I've made many donations here, but leaning away from it this time)
• Salvation Army
• Regina Open Door Society (does anyone know if they take/need baby clothes?)
• Safe shelters: Isabel Johnson, Regina Transition House, SOFIA House, WISH Safe House (does anyone know if these places take/need baby clothes?)
• Birthright
• Teen mother programs in high schools (does anyone have specifics? Karen?)
• Canadian Diabetes Association (not sure what they do with clothing donations)

Our sitter situation

I know I've mentioned this in passing a couple of times, but here's a more complete update (in case you were wondering) ...

Our sitter has always rented a house in which to live and run her daycare business. In February, the house she was living in was sold with a possession date of April 1; however, despite much searching, she was unable to find a house to rent in the busing or walking area for our children's school (she had also been hoping to buy a house over the past year, but the prices rose quickly out of her reach -- which really sucks! I so wish she could own a house and gain some equity). In fact, she hadn't found any place to live by March 31 and was forced to put her belongings into storage and stay with a friend, who, amazingly, was willing to have our kids in her home too.

So she stayed there for a few days the first week of April, but then on the weekend was told that her friend's teenage daughters didn't want her there anymore. She had no choice but to go stay with her mother in a small apartment where she could not have our kids. Coincidentally, she had also hurt her leg and was unable to babysit during that second week of April. So the girls (including our niece) stayed with Neil and he took them to and from school (and also took Madeline and Georgia with him to do lunch supervision at school) during that week. Then, on the weekend, our sitter informed us that she finally found a place to live, but could not move in until May 1, and it's in Windsor Park. Certainly not a convenient location for us and not in the busing area for the girls' school.

At this point, you might think we would, or should, give up on her altogether, but no; we just couldn't. Not now anyway. We had already paid for April and could not ask for the money back; not under these circumstances. Plus, she has taken good care of our girls for six years, since Sophia was 14 months old (and since B was 9 months), and we are basically her only source of income right now. We could not pull the pin. Instead, we arranged for her to come to our house for the remaining two and a half weeks of April. It was the obvious thing to do, but not something we were terribly eager to do.

It's just that our house is not in a state where I'm happy having someone there all day (especially someone so neat and tidy as our sitter), and it's awkward for Neil as he tries to get stuff done. It's just weird; and I'm embarrassed that I don't have a tidy house. Not even close, and I just don't have the inclination to work on that right now. Perhaps it would be different if I was home all day (but then the kids wouldn't have a babysitter either). In the evenings after the kids go to bed, there are so many other things I want to do (you know what I'm talking about) or need to do (like paperwork) -- and frankly, by that time, I just don't have it in me to do a bunch of physical housework. Anyway, I'm just living with it. My embarrassment, that is. Because I'm not willing to stay up all night picking up stuff and vacuuming! But I digress...

The arrangement we made is that Laurel takes B to our sitter's mom's place in the morning (because it's close to her work) and then our sitter brings B to our house at 8:00 a.m. She takes the girls to school, including Madeline to preschool three mornings a week. The rest of the time she has Georgia and Madeline either at our house or elsewhere, such as the library, museum, or park. She also picks the girls up from school (they walk -- which the girls love), and then she stays at our house with the kids until Laurel and/or I get there. Sometimes Neil picks me up from work and sometimes Laurel does.

The real bonus of this arrangement is that we don't have to get everybody ready and out the door before 8:00 a.m. I just get myself ready, help the kids with a few things like breakfast, and then catch the bus at 7:38 a.m. This is just SO relaxing compared to the alternative. Today, the kids were just rolling out of bed at 7:20 a.m. It was great! No need to rush them. I could really get used to this. And I know Laurel enjoys cutting 15 minutes off her morning drive time too.

Okay, but what about after May 1? Well, it will be fairly similar to the current arrangement, but our sitter will bring B from her place on the east side (her new place is not far from L&B) and she will take Georgia and Madeline back to her place during the school day (except when Madeline is in preschool, she'll do something with Georgia in this part of town). She'll continue to pick up the girls after school, but instead of going to her place, they'll come to our house or go to the park or something -- because it makes no sense for our girls to go over to the east side at 3:30 p.m. And that's how it will go until the end of the school year. I guess they'll go to her place full time in July but Neil will have to take them over there and pick them up. Then we're going on vacation in August and I think that will be the end of it. It would not make sense to continue this into the fall. She needs to be able to get other children (i.e., more income!) and she would not be able to do that and continue hauling our kids across the city (and I'm not thrilled with that arrangement anyway). I understand she'll be living very close to a school, so I'm sure -- I hope -- there will be plenty of opportunities.

Ugh. What craziness. I truly wish everything had been easier and better for our sitter. It's really been much more difficult for her than for us. We'll manage. We're lucky because we have our built-in flexibility (a.k.a. Neil).

Backtracking on...

Sophia's hair cut... Heather had asked if it was her choice or mine. I'd say both. Sophia had said "four inches" and when the hairdresser held her fingers at four inches on Sophia's hair and looked to me for approval, I silently motioned to move her hand up (i.e., cut off more). I'm glad I did. I love Sophia's hair at this length! It suits her very well. She seems to like it too.

Storage solutions... Thanks for all the advice! I do use a lot of plastic containers and sometimes Ziplock bags (I have since put all of the girls' hair bands into a large Ziplock bag), but my problem is more about finding the right place to put those containers and bags. There's just not a lot of free space in my house. And convenience is important. It's like retail -- location, location, location! Frequently-used things need to be accessible and handy, especially when it's time to put things away -- or else they won't get put away. That's what bothers me most about our play room; its too far from where we spend most of our time. Toys brought out of the play room won't make it back there for a month (at least). I would prefer to store things closer to where we use them, and not just wherever they fit. For example, I don't really like having the hair brushes and accessories in the linen closet but that's where they live because there's no where else to put them right now. The Container Store, mentioned by Sally, is practically a fantasy world for me. (I think I had heard of it before, but had not seen the goods.) I would love to outfit all of my space- challenged rooms and closets with ultra- efficient, functional, and attractive storage solutions! I will definitely peruse that website more in the future. Whether I purchase items from there or not, I can get some good ideas.

Vacuuming itty-bitty toys... I would certainly make that threat more often if the vacuuming occurred when the children were available to run and pick up their prized possessions ahead of the nozzle! However, it seems most of our vacuuming occurs when the kids are in bed or not home. I guess we haven't figured out how to make them pick up their stuff before we head out the door or put them to bed. There's rarely a moment to spare at those times!

Eliminating naps at the sitter's... We don't want to make a big deal of it with our babysitter. We've been down this path before (with Sophia), and it's just not worth it. I guess our babysitter feels that if a child falls asleep in the afternoon during "quiet time", then she must need the rest. And we are happy with the care she provides otherwise. At least Madeline doesn't nap every single day (we're pleasantly surprised that she didn't nap Monday or today). I always remind myself: it's only temporary.

Watching Lost... Since we learned that Season 3 isn't available and the writers' strike may be over, we lost our enthusiasm for taping the current season and then trying to watch previous seasons first. We may watch it someday, but I don't think we're going to make the effort right now.

Random stuff

I need storage solutions for hair bands, play jewellery, and teeny tiny doll accessories -- among a gazillion other things.

I have a new appreciation for Webkinz since the girls' birthday parties. Webkinz have NO packaging, other than one little tag (most toy packages are like Fort Knox, and so wasteful); and they are ONE piece; i.e., they don't come with a bunch of things that are easily lost or scattered all over my house.

I miss my big camera. It's been gone for four weeks now. The little one is good, but it's just not the same.

I need to create something. I need a project. I was much too busy in January, but I hope to find time in the near future. I still want to do some sort of regular feature on my blog.

I'm dreading income tax time. I wish I could just do it myself and get it overwith, but 2007 was much too complicated (esp. re: farm partnership wrap-up; I don't know the implications). I hate gathering the info, handing it over to accountants and then having no idea what's going on or how long it'll take.

I should get cracking on the business of school Valentines so we're not doing it the night before.

I want to know what you think of the show "Lost". Neil mentioned it as something we might try to watch during the writers' strike. Thanks to friends' blogs, I know there are many other good ones we could try too (e.g., Damages, Dexter).

I'm half-way through my temporary position and I'm having a career crisis. I may write more about that sometime.

I have come up with a pretty good solution to help me consume more water -- at work anyway. I have purchased four 700ml bottles (four for the price of one, I might add), so I always have a clean one to take to work. I fill it up at the beginning of the day and I must drink it all before I leave. (I know that's not a lot, but it's more than I used to drink!)

I'm looking forward to summer. Actually, any temperature above zero will do. (For those not already intimately familiar with our current weather in Saskatchewan, it feels like -52 Celsius outside today.)

Daily pic: 30 Dec 07

This is our play room in the basement. No one has actually played in here for a long time though because it was a total disaster area. Neil and I have worked hard the past few days to get this room organized, as well as the adjoining room in the basement which was overflowing with items displaced from our main floor when we removed shelving in Georgia's room and had our hardwood floor refinished in June.

For the play room, we bought these chrome shelving units from Costco and put them up yesterday. That made a huge difference. It may not look like it, but I did remove quite a few things from this room. Some toys will be donated to a charitable organization and some are destined to live at the Irish dance school to entertain siblings during class time. I'm still uncertain about what to do about the box of junky little toys I collected this weekend. You know the stuff -- mostly from fast food restaurants and Kinder surprise eggs. I know they will not see the light of day in this house again, but what should I do with them? Garbage?

All three girls have really enjoyed the play room yesterday and today. They rediscovered many toys they had forgotten about. They can actually find things now, and have been fairly good about putting toys away when they're done. It helps to have a home for everything!

Unfortunately, it still feels a bit crowded in this room because it continues to serve as a storage area for infant clothing (in the left corner) and children's clothing and shoes (overflowing from the closet in the right corner). The infant clothing will go soon enough; perhaps this year...

On that note, today was a big day in that we gave almost all of our baby things (except the crib and clothing) to cousins on Neil's side who are expecting in March. It was quite a bit of stuff and its removal certainly made some much-needed space in our house. I have also sold our crib to one of my dance class mates and it will likely leave our house in January. Wow, it's almost hard to believe we've reached this milestone already. Georgia is almost two and those baby years are behind us.

Well, I'd better get to bed; I have to work tomorrow. Wish I had more days off! I wasn't finished with the basement overhaul and there were many more things I wanted to do.

Daily pic: 07 Dec 07

Our stockings and Advent calendar.

Last weekend, I looked for a way to hang our stockings and found these simple wreath hangars at Walmart for only $2 each. I think they work well and certainly fit our budget better than the mediocre $13 ea. stocking hangars at Walmart, or the beautiful pewter $23 ea. stocking hangars from Lands' End. Do most people hang their stockings for the season or only put them out on Christmas Eve? I like to put them out early because I don't have a lot of decorations otherwise. The little snowman ornaments hanging from the hooks have our names on them so we know whose stocking is whose (is that correct?) on Christmas morning. Santa also needs to know!

We've had the Advent calendar for a few years. I really like it because we can stock it with our own candy each year. The only challenge is that the little pockets are a bit small for three items. This year, we opted for lollipops and the girls are eager to have theirs in the morning along with their breakfast. Georgia usually sucks on it for just a few minutes and then says "done!" while handing it to me. I promptly throw it out.

In case you noticed, we do store some colouring and craft supplies right there on the china cabinet. I used to think I could display picture frames there, but now I know better.

I took the afternoon off work today and did some Christmas shopping. We now have everything for our own family (including all the girls' birthdays, except one little thing and I know what it is and where to get it). Yay! Still have nieces and nephews to buy for, but that's fine. Later, we're off to my work Christmas party and I'm looking forward to it!

Ahhhh, that's better

(Just taking a break for lunch.) I'm finished scrubbing our two bathrooms -- from the light fixtures to the baseboard and absolutely everything in between (and the floor, of course). They look good! I'll admit I was not looking forward to this task, but it wasn't that bad. I discovered that doing a big job isn't so terrible when you can crank up some music and go hard -- and not have to stop 28 times to fetch a snack for someone or change the DVD or enter a password for Webkinz or find a certain toy or keep the baby away from the toilet brush... Even without interruptions it took me three hours! When we're all home, no matter how hard Neil tries, he cannot keep the kids away from me for very long. I think of it as Mommy Orbit (a fitting label provided by one of Jodi's readers awhile ago).

Daily pic: 12 Nov 07

We bought a used bunk bed for Sophia and Madeline through the online classifieds at my work place, and Neil picked it up Saturday morning. It was custom-made by Futon Plus for a small bedroom and it came with the mattresses and desk too. Great deal! The bottom bed can be flat or in a seat position.

Neil and I spent a good chunk of today on this project. We rearranged Georgia's room to make space for the 48" bed that Sophia and Madeline were sharing. We decided to move Georgia straight from the crib to that bed (without the frame, so it's lower), rather than using the toddler bed that both Sophia and Madeline used. We left the crib in her room though, as we're not sure we want to move Georgia to a big bed just yet... Okay, scratch that. Neil just told me Georgia wants to sleep in the big bed tonight, so he's going to let her.

Back to Sophia and Madeline's room. We assembled the beds and desk this morning. They're nice and solid. Later, we went out to get sheets and waterproof mattress covers. The futon mattresses were both in really good shape and accidents can and do happen around here. I don't want to take any chances. We washed the sheets, made the beds, and added a desk lamp. Sophia and Madeline are all set to sleep in their new beds tonight -- Sophia on the top bunk, of course.

Okay, Georgia came running out of her room after Neil put her to bed, so I think she'll have to sleep in her crib tonight!

Daily pic: 26 Oct 07

The nerve centre of our home. Our island office between the kitchen and living room. I like this place, but it's usually a terrible mess (not so crazy about that). I worked hard today to clean it up so I had to take a picture of it in this rare state of tidiness. You may notice the big pink bowl on the bar top...

That's the "basket" of chocolate I won at work this week! It also came with a chocolate fondue set (on the left). That pink bowl is stuffed FULL of chocolate and it is heavy. No filler in there! There's some good stuff too -- Bernard Callebaut, Harden & Huyse, Lindt, Laura Secord... Wanna closer look? Here's a better view of the chocolate.

The draw for five baskets of chocolate (one included an LG "Chocolate" cell phone, but I didn't win that one) was to raise money for the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation. Our Customer Relationship Centre (CRC) in Saskatoon put this fundraiser together. Not only did they raise $2900 in one week by selling raffle tickets, but five women from the CRC -- one for each $500 raised -- had their heads shaved yesterday afternoon! I'm impressed with their commitment.

Daily pic: 19 Oct 07

Too. Many. Shoes. I had the girls gather their current shoes and boots and put them all in a pile in the living room today. What a ridiculously huge pile! I was able to get rid of (move to storage) at least half of them due to size or season. Guess I need to stay on top of the shoe situation a little better.

P.S. My eyes are feeling quite a bit better today. (Thanks for your messages!) I had the day off and stayed home all day, so I was able to put drops in quite frequently. Plus, I went to bed early last night, so that may have helped too.

What's on the agenda?

I'm very lucky to have today off work so I have a three-day weekend. And the calendar squares are empty. Totally free of commitment -- it's a beautiful thing! I cherish these days because I know that once school starts again, free days will be rare. So, what should we do with three free days?

For one thing, I'm determined to create an online album of photos from our trip to South Dakota. I may even get photos printed. I know that if I don't get it done now, it may never happen. Case in point: our trip to Texas in December '06 -- I have yet to go through the photos.

I need to do some paint touch-ups. Last weekend, I painted the trim and casing around the window, closet door, and door in our bedroom. (What a pain in the arse that was!) Now I need to touch up a bunch of places where the tape (blue painters' tape) took the wall paint off. I'm SO annoyed by that because every place that happened is where there was primer over drywall compound (where I patched holes or cracks). The primer simply did not stick to the drywall compound, so what's the point? I will never prime repaired spots again.

How about yard work? Our back yard needs a LOT of work. We've neglected it all summer. It would be so good to get that done and it looks like we may actually have some time to work on it this weekend.

Finally, we should try to do something fun! Perhaps we'll venture down to Folk Fest one afternoon. Or maybe the farmer's market on Saturday morning. I was also thinking about the IPSCO pool. We've never been there. Is it good?

Daily pic: 14 Jul 07

Mom asked me how I like the green wall and I wanted to include a photo with my answer... but I needed to put everything into the pottery cabinet first, so it took a few days to say... I love it!

The kids are a bit blurry in the photo because the light was so low by the time I was ready to take the picture (after 6:00 p.m.), I had to use a slow shutter speed. I didn't want to use the flash because it alters the colour. I used the tripod as well because I would not be able to hand-hold the camera at that speed (2/5 of a second).

I regret that you can see a bit of my stuffed pantry on the left. For years I've been wanting to install a roll-up bamboo blind or something like that to cover it, but have never really looked for one. We also have some wall patching to finish up in the kitchen and you can see some of that on the brown door opening. We will finish fixing this house. Eventually.

Daily pic: 08 Jul 07

Georgia decided to get into the paddling pool this morning with her pajamas on, so she was disrobed in the front yard for a brief time. (The older two kept calling her "baby nudist" and giggling. Where'd they hear that?!) Then this evening, already bathed and dressed in pajamas for the night, Georgia climbed/ fell into the tub where Sophia was bathing. What a turkey! (Or, perhaps "duck" would be more appropriate!)

P.S. We got quite a bit done today but not quite as much as I had hoped. When I was thinking we'd get in a "solid" day of work today, I had forgotten that our productive hours would be truncated by a 5:00 pm home Rider game. (Who won?) I haven't had time to put the game dates on my calendar yet.

P.P.S. 10:45 p.m. No need to tell me. Neil just got home and now I know the Riders won 49-8. I was about to look it up when he came home. Really!