cleaning out

This has been a very relaxed holiday in a lot of ways. We haven't had a schedule to keep to. We've stayed up way too late and gotten up way too late. Which for a short time, is so nice. And it's given us time to focus on other things.. things that get overlooked in the hustle of work/school days.

With all three of us home, we had time to tend to some things. We deep cleaned the Boo's room before we painted it. And were able to clean out and sort through and dust and rearrange and give away etc. It felt soo good. Every item of her bedding was deep cleaned. All her furniture was cleaned and dusted thoroughly. Even her window and blinds got the treatment. It's a very fresh start for her. Even she was excited about the changes.. and not just the color! Yay!

And we carried the cleaning out to the rest of the house. We had sooo many books and magazines etc just taking up valuable space and cluttering up our world. I was so glad to make stacks of things to get rid of. We took all of that to the book resale store today and made $14.. not a huge amount.. but hey.. that stuff's not in my way anymore.

One of the things I hope to do this year is buy less. I love to buy books and subscribe to magazines. And then I don't know what to do with them when I'm done. I feel like I have to hang onto them because I PAID FOR them, so I keep them and they just lay there in the way all the time. I've been trying to rediscover the library when I get a hankering for a book. My only problem is I tend to take forever to read one. But anyway, I hope to buy less this year. And have less clutter to move around later.

But for now, I'm just enjoying being able to put the things I DO want away.. and not stacked all over the place. Now that I have all these cleaned off surfaces, I need to dust!

it sounded like a good idea at the time

Every year for Christmas, Boo gets some cash. And now that she's old enough to decide for herself what she would like, she gets to make some of these bigger spending decisions for herself. With a little guidance, of course. Anyway... she's been talking about wanting lime green walls for a while now. I kept hoping thinking it would pass, but it never did. And with Christmas, she had money burning a hole in her wallet.

I am quite shocked she even wanted her walls to be lime green, since she LOVES pink. When she was 5 we painted her walls pink and she never looked back. She loved it. We loved it. It was perfect. And since pink is STILL her favorite color, I didn't think the lime thing would last.

But alas, it has.

So we made a deal with her. We told her that if she would buy herself some bedding, we would paint the walls. She said that sounded great. And we started hunting for bedding. We found some in two places. One is in hand. Cost a little more than I wanted to pay. Very similar one is on order. Much cheaper and from online reviews, seems to be of pretty decent quality even though it's not very expensive. (IMO, for a kids room, cheaper is always better since they aren't careful and 'live in' their space more than grown ups do)

So anyway.. we headed to Home Depot to look for paint chips. I just knew there would be loads of choices and I'd have to find the 'right' lime looking color. Nope! As it turns out, there were two paint chips that were specifically lime green only. What luck... she says with sarcasm! So we picked the lime-ier one and had some paint mixed. We started painting yesterday afternoon, and anticipated putting one more coat on this morning and being done. Weeeell... I neglected to read the back of the paint chip. Might take multiple coats to cover. Hmmm. Sorry I skipped that part! So here we are. Two coats down. And one more to go. Hopefully, just one!

I'm skeert. It's a pretty blinding color! But I think when all her pink stuff comes back in and her bedding arrives (and works and I can take the more expensive stuff back!), it will be really cute.

I hope! (she types with lime green paint under her nails!)

Merry Christmas to all!

Merry Christmas
to all!
I hope you're able to see beyond
the hustle and bustle of the
season and delight in the wonder
of our risen Savior!

Hugs to all of you and see you soon!

better late than never, I guess...

Everywhere I've turned lately in bloggyland, somebody's been showing off their Christmas tree. I have pics I took of it the other day... but they're still in the camera. I haven't mastered the lesson on getting it from the camera to the computer and then to the bloggy.. so... this is a pic from 2006. Not much has changed, except the couch, which you can see a corner of in the photo.

Anyway, we used to have a fat tree. And yes, we're all about the artificial tree, since I've got nasty allergies and asthma. Anyhoo.. I think we had a real one once early on, and it only took once to realize it was a pain in the neck. But the old timey fake trees aren't much easier.. I'm talking before pre-lits came along, that is.

Anyway, we always had artificial trees and they were always pretty big around. But we live in a very small house and we'd have to rearrange our whole little world for the tree every year and that drove me nuts. It's hard to get into the 'spirit of things' when everywhere I turned, was a misplaced piece of furniture that stuck out like a sore thumb. I'd had my 'eye' on those skinny trees for a long time. And of course, pre-lits were making their entrance too. So we decided to go for it and get one with both. I knew if my tree was gonna be skinny, then it had to be tall to make up for it. And it is. It's 7 and a half feet tall. And every year, including this one, my dear hubby, Mr Daddyman himself, has hoisted the Boo up to put the topper on. This might be the last year for that though. Ahem.

But we love the skinny tree. I can't say enough wonderful things about it. When we had a bigger tree, it always looked sparse, no matter how many things we put on it. And now with this skinny one, it looks full of ornaments even if we only put half of them on. And it's tucked into a corner and I don't have to rearrange a single thing to have it. I love that!

One row of lights near the bottom is on the fritz, so we may have to work something out next year to avoid that striped look we've got going on right now. But other than that, I heart my skinny tree!

blah day

Today has been such a ho-hum, blah sort of day. The hubby has a nasty cold and isn't feeling up to doing much. So we've vegged all day. Of course, being the mom, vegging for me included 4 or 5 loads of laundry. Where does it come from??? And working on a Christmas calendar and wrapping some things. I finished and wrapped a calendar and a photo of the Boo that we had made over the summer.

I also wrapped a white elephant gift for Boo's church party tomorrow night. Last year she took some of those controllers that you plug into the tv directly and then play video games. Since she's got a DS and we've got a Wii, those old games were collecting dust. It was one of those gifts that everybody fought over. It was her first white elephant exchange and she got a kick out of it. So how do you top that?? That's been the dilemma. So we scrounged around the house for something 'fun' yet pretty useless at the same time and decided on this little pop gun thing she's got that shoots out foam 'bullets' with little plastic nubs on the end of 'em. Since it's multiple pieces and it's bound to get passed around, I wrapped everything in a large, clear baggie and tied it together with curly ribbon and a tag...and placed that in a box and wrapped it. I printed out a little tag that says "Don't shoot your eye out!" which we all think is funny since we watch A Christmas Story evvvvvery year, multiple times since there is an annual marathon on one of the cable channels. It's sort of an icon, so I hope the phrase doesn't draw stares. WE think it's funny. We'll see.

While I did all my work today, the Travel Channel was running several shows on going to Disney World/Land over Christmas. It was fun to see things on TV that we just saw 'in real life'...the very photos I was scrapping on calendars while I was watching. It made us smile on a blah day that didn't have very much going for it.

the big debate

My daughter has a debate today. Can you believe it?! I don't think she even knew what a debate was before this assignment rolled around. And it's not just for the sake of debating. It's her semester final! Um.. yeah. She's confident in the info she knows, but a little freaked out at the thought of standing up in front of 'evvvverybody' and talking about her stuff.

I don't blame her. I would have thrown up if I had to get in front of people and talk at her age. Shoot, I would probably be sick to my stomach NOW if I had to do that. I've reminded her that she's prepared. She knows that. She's confident in what she's wearing today as they had to 'dress up'. Her primped and flattened hair is very pretty. She cracks me up. She wears her hair in a ponytail every single day. So today she decided to wear it 'down' and was just marveling at how pretty her hair looks. I was telling her she could see her hair more often if she'd leave it down every once in a while. (the hairdresser raves about her hair and tells her ladies pay big bucks to have the perfectly colored hair she was gifted with... blonde with auburn and brown highlights) But having said that, I'm thankful she doesn't care that much....that she's not one of those girls that spends forever in front of the mirror worrying about every little detail. Just slappin' it into a ponytail is much healthier, in my opinion.

I also reminded her that her team's debate only lasts nine minutes and it will be over. And then she can watch everybody else instead. Just today and tomorrow and then she's out for the break. We can't wait!

She wore a ponytail thing on her wrist though, just in case.

it's getting close!

This is the time of the Christmas season where I realize it's getting close and begin to make mental note of what's left to do and tie up any loose ends. And along the way, it brings to mind things that I do regularly that make the season a little easier.

Sometimes I have to send presents in the mail. And what happens when things get sent in the mail... the bows get squashed. (and yes, as I sit here, I realized I forgot to wrap a gift I put in the mail yesterday. DUH) Anyhoo... how do you send a pretty gift in the mail without a bow??? A friend of mine taught me this one and I think it's pretty cool. She (and I) use plain colored wrapping paper. It can be found, but sometimes it's harder. I stock up when I see it. And I buy cute Christmas stickers (I can get cheap ones from Current) and decorate my wrapped gifts with stickers instead of bows. It also looks very elegant under the tree. (hint hint.. I've used this same technique for other things like birthdays as well. Saves me from having to buy a little bit of 'birthday' paper) Love. IT.

Another thing I did this year is use some old Christmas cards as gift tags. I had some gift bags and since I try to be frugal with them and reuse them, I hate to put a sticker on them. So I cut out the pretty part of the card, punch a hole in it and tie it on with twine or ribbon and presto... a fancy gift tag. And it's cheap.. and it's kinda like recycling.. one more use before it hits the dumpster.

Anyway, those are a few easy things I do at Christmas to make things a little easier. For other tips, visit Works for Me Wednesday at Rocks in my Dryer.