Oh, hello there...

It's been a week.  Oops.  But in fairness to me, it's been a crazy busy week.  I've been organizing(a lot) and packing(a little) and cleaning and cleaning and cleaning.  Hubby left on Thursday.  He should be at his new office at this very moment, starting his new job. 

And I'm stuck with all the real work.  Oh, and my air conditioner died.  In Texas.  In July.  With three kids.  And a buttload of work to do.  At this moment, I am sitting in front of a giant fan that I bought yesterday on the way to church, and trying not to sweat too much.  My neighbor's air conditioner guy is on his way, and I don't want to greet him at the door drenched in sweat...even though it might make him sympathetic so that he'll charge me less...

Anyway, back to the update on what I've been doing(besides sweating).  On Saturday, some guys from the local thrift shop(love that thrift shop, and really really going to miss it) came by to pick up some large furniture that I couldn't bring to them.  They left with a large dresser with a mirror, a chest of drawers, three bedside tables, a queen-size mattress set, an entertainment center, a glider-rocker and a wingback chair.  Whew. 

After that, I was able to get one room upstairs completely emptied, vacuumed, shampooed, and the walls touched up.  And now I'm organizing stuff in that nice clean room.  Anything that we're going to need right away when we move(and that isn't enormous furniture) is going in there.  Most of our stuff is going to be stored in South Dakota until the house is finished.  We're not going to need much while we stay with Hubby's dad.  Or at least that's what I thought...that room is getting filled up quickly.  Anyway, I'm putting that stuff in there so it won't get packed in with the to-be-stored stuff.  In theory, it sounds like it'll work.  We'll see how well it works in reality. 

Counting today, there are 12 days before the movers arrive.  Damn.  I better get back to work.

Editing to add: The AC guy came, saw and conquered.  $165 later, I have a working air conditioner!  It's cooled down to 80 in my house, and it feels much better!

TA-DA!

I have a clean kitchen!

I decided to work together with the girls instead of having them do it themselves.  It took us about 2 1/2 hours, but it's done!  It's so nice and clean.  And now I have a picture for the realtor, in case it's not still spic&span when they come tomorrow.

I need to go find some more energy somewhere so I can tackle the family room and dining room and entry next...

Painting...

I'm organizing and painting and cleaning...all in preparation to move.  Hubby got a new job, near his family.  So we will be moving to North Dakota in a few months.  I'm not thrilled about it, to be honest.  But I will probably be more excited as it gets closer.

We are going on vacation in a week and a half, and Hubby wants to try to get the house on the market by then.  So I've got my work cut out for me.  He'll help with what he can, when he can...which means not much, and after work.  Oh, well.  I'm used to doing everything around the house.  So anyway, I started with the master bathroom, since it's a small room.  Got it organized and cleaned up, and painted.  It was a dark green before.  Now it's a light, almost flesh-toned beige.  It really brightened up the room a lot.  I took these pictures this morning, right after I finished painting.  Now that there's not as much light coming in the window, the color looks a little pinkish, but I don't really care.  We won't be here much longer anyway.  I just wanted it to be a better color for selling.

Now I'm sorting and organizing books.  We have a lot of books, some that we haven't read in years.  I'm planning on donating a bunch to the thrift shop.

Back to work!

Cleaning, organizing and planning, oh my!

I was all ready to go to the gym...I was about to tell the girls to get their shoes on so we could go...and I twisted my ankle.  Heard it go "crunch" and everything.  Ouch.  So I'm not going to the gym today after all.  Hopefully tomorrow it'll be healed enough.  I was pleasantly surprised when I weighed myself this morning, though.  I'd lost two pounds since the beginning of the week!

Instead I'm cleaning, and doing laundry.  We're washing sheets and blankets today.  And cleaning the trash heaps ... pig styes ...um.... oh, yeah, they're called bedrooms.  Or at least they will be when we get them done... I am so sick and tired of the constant mess.  I guess we (all of us, but especially the kids) still have too much stuff.  Time to purge again!  We'll call it spring cleaning, since spring weather has arrived.

And I'm getting ready for my next project.  Hubby is going to be traveling next month, one week in New York and one week in London.  A long time ago, I used to take advantage of his travels to do a home decorating project, and surprise him when he got home.  I haven't done that in a long time, partly because he doesn't travel much these days.  So I've decided that this time, I will.  It's "sooper-seekrit" so I won't be posting on Facebook about it until he sees it, but I'll post here since he doesn't read my blog.  I'm going to paint the kitchen and make new curtains.  It doesn't sound like much, but I'm totally changing the color scheme in there.  We recently got a new loveseat and chairs for the family room, which is open to the kitchen.  So I want to coordinate the two rooms.  I want to have the family room painted blue(I'd do it myself, but it's a really tall room) to set off the chocolate brown in the furniture.  The kitchen is going to be opposite: chocolate brown on the walls, and blue for the curtains.  I'm doing the kitchen first, so Hubby will see what a nice color combination it is, and be convinced that we should use it in the family room too.  I'm considering glazing the kitchen cabinets to make them darker, but not as dark as the walls; right now they're oak-color, builders'-grade cabinets with no hardware.  I'd love for them to be darker and have some nice handles and pulls, but new cabinets aren't in the budget this year, so I have to work with what we have. 

Oh, I almost forgot to mention what I'm going to do for "art"... I have a bunch of antique crocheted doilies made by Hubby's great-grandma, grandma, and great aunts(most are over a hundred years old!) and I'm going to frame them, with some of the curtain fabric as a background, and hang them on the walls.  Since they are so old and delicate, I've been afraid to use them, lest they get stained or torn.  This way, they'll be seen, but not destroyed.  I'll put some in the kitchen and some in the family room, to tie the two rooms together.  The tricky part will be finding frames large enough without breaking the bank...

Organizing...

I'm not knitting much today. I'm trying to get a little Spring Cleaning done. This lovely Spring weather is inspiring me to organize, declutter and clean. I've done a little destashing of yarn recently, and now I'm reorganizing what's left. My acrylics fit in one bin now, instead of three. (I was uneducated on the wonders of natural fibers when I started knitting) I have a lot more cotton than anything else, so I'm going to have to find a way to get that all organized....maybe by color...

♥

I printed off a bunch of pretty sock patterns this morning. My friend Mara was destashing, too, but she had the good stuff. Thanks to my recent destashing, I had the funds to snatch three skeins of her gorgeous hand-dyed merino sock yarn, and it should arrive in the mail later this week or next. So I wanted to have patterns picked and ready by the time the yarns get here.

♥

And since I hate to blog without at least one picture....here's what I knitted this past weekend. I used a tiny bit of Malabrigo sock yarn, which I had leftover from Cathie's scarf.

And now Princess's porcelain doll has nice warm feet...and I have a new pattern to write up. One of my friends pointed out that these might fit a micro-preemie, an idea that hadn't occurred to me, but that I like.