Where'd it go?

May, that is. I'm sitting here staring at my calendar wondering what on earth I did with May, because it's almost gone. Time to revisit my goals and scramble around a bit trying to finish it all.

The pile of baby clothes has been sorted and organized and placed in to one purple bin with newborn size on top, all the way down to 9 months size on the bottom. I feel like I should have had more emotional stress over putting those baby clothes away, like I should have cried a little or something. But no dice, not one single tear. It's done and that's that.

Karlina's room is finally looking less chaotic. I moved her bookshelves out a little bit so they're not right in the corner, and I also moved the big bed all the way over to the far wall so she can get at her books and toys more easily. Which is a blessing and a curse, really, since she doesn't quite have the motor skills to put the books back on the shelf yet. She tries, though, and that's what counts. I also moved the tree decal to the other side of the room and the framed scrapbook paper to the window wall.

My closet is finally done! (Pictures to come tomorrow) Angel choirs are singing, let me tell you. I am so thrilled to have gotten rid of so many clothes and shoes and purses (I now have two. At one point I had like 20. Big improvement), and I love going into my room now. I haven't rearranged the furniture in there yet, but hopefully my Hubby will be back at work tomorrow after a mild respiratory infection he's been battling since Sunday, so I'll be able to rearrange a bit then.

The kitchen shelves have been painted thanks to my Mother-in-law. Sadly, though, they don't fit in the cabinet anymore, so they're going to need a good sand before I can put them back in, and Heaven knows when that's going to happen. The cabinets are still in desperate need of another coat or two of paint as well, and I'm definitely going to need some help with Karlina before I can even think about that. So, the kitchen will have to wait for June, I suppose. 

The bathroom still needs a good wipe-down and a quick sort-through to put things back where they're supposed to go. That I can do this week for sure.

So, barring any major disasters (please, Lord, don't let Karlina or me get sick), I should be able to check off a while bunch of May to-do's by Friday. And .... Go!

The Plan

99 degrees. Spring? Really? This is August weather, LA, come on, now. May needs fog and cool mornings and long-sleeved shirts for pajamas.

However, I have been waiting for some hot, dry weather to finish painting the pantry shelves, so here we go. I can certainly finish that today and perhaps finish (ahem ... Start) sorting baby clothes once it's too hot to be outside. Here's hoping for some stellar naps from baby girl today.

The rest of the week I'll be moving artwork, putting finishing touches on baby closet organization, perhaps starting in on my own closet disaster, and, once it's cool enough to open the windows during the day, put a couple more coats of paint on kitchen cabinets and drawers. Oh, wouldn't it be loverly to finish putting my kitchen back together this week?

Speaking of musicals, yesterday I was inspires to sing "The Sound of Music" as a celebration of my daughter's first "bagged" peak! I have no idea what mountain it even was, and have no photo evidence since we left the camera in the car, but it was very exciting. The top of this particular mountain was pretty magical in the sparkly fairy dust sense. The rocks up at the top were full of mica which glinted and sparkled every time we moved. And we found the top of this mountain not because we intended to bag a peak, but because we couldn't for the life of us find the Pacific Crest Trail. No one else found it either, apparently, as we spotted numerous parties of hikers and backpackers wandering aimlessly among the picnic tables and along the highway in search of the elusive trail. I'm thinking maybe they could use some better signage.

Anyway, here's to another week closer to my goal of having my whole house organized. I'm already hatching plans for reorganizing the living room again, though, so this may be an ongoing and never-ending project. Blame it on the Crazy.

May Flowers

Well, it's May 9 already and I never even posted my goals for April! April was very busy around here, and included a couple of weeks of painting the kitchen, which is still ongoing since my mom came to visit before we were really finished, and it's been raining and humid since she left. I will dedicate a post to the kitchen when it's all finished.

So my goals for May are not really new or exciting, just finishing a bunch of projects that I've already started.

Painting needs to be done as soon as it gets warm and dry again, which, according to NOAA should be Sunday. Yay, painting on Mother's Day! But, as my husband so generously states, "Every day is Mother's Day." Aww, how sweet, right? Or it's a lame excuse to not buy me cake and chocolate and flowers. Yeah, I'm on to you, buddy. And just to be passive aggressive, I'm going to go ALL OUT for Father's Day this year. ALL.OUT.

Tangent over. As you were.

Next, my daughter's closet, which was so meticulously organized before she was born, is now full of unsorted piles of too-small baby clothes, which I of course am saving for friends who are expecting since we're pretty sure we're done having kids. And by We, I of course mean He. I'm not sure I'll ever be done, but I'm working on being okay with one. For now. Anyway, those clothes have two empty giant purple bins in the garage waiting for them and that's my next task. I may even get to that today ... We shall see.

I also need to move around some artwork in Karlina's room since I sort of rearranged a few things yesterday. That shouldn't take long.

Moving on to our bedroom, MY side of the closet has been in an embarrassing state since we re-wired a year ... and a half ago. Yes, my closet has been a disaster for eighteen months. There, I said it. There are books, clothes, shoes, musical instruments, toys, gifts for my nephews which I forgot to give them and are now too small, cards and letters from my old job, office supplies, and, oh yes, more clothes. So many clothes I could dress a high school marching band. An all-female high school marching band, but a high school marching band nevertheless. My husband undertook to clean his side of the closet one morning a few weeks ago. He finished in an hour. He saw me later that day looking for recipe ideas and thought I was looking for something to DO. He told me to clean my side of the closet. During Karlina's nap time. Which is an hour and a half, max. Oh, you poor, silly man. You really expect me and my Crazy to finish cleaning, purging, and organizing eighteen months worth of STUFF in an hour and a half? Oh no, darling, this will be at least a three-day job. If not a week. Maybe two. It's really bad in there ...

Then of course I'd like to rearrange our room a bit to make it flow more nicely. For instance, having our dressers next to the bed instead of facing off in opposite corners. Maybe some nice, soft curtains, or a homemade headboard. Artwork? Sure, why not! It sure is nice to dream, isn't it?

Then the bathroom. I'm not too worried about it except the walls and ceiling could use a good wipe-down. We also have a brand new (almost two years old?) lovely skylight which is giving us an amazing view of ... the attic. That needs to be connected to the lovely skylight in the roof, but that's a Honeydo for my Honey Bear and, as we ladies know but tend to ignore at times, nagging doesn't get us anywhere. All I can do is calmly ask him if he plans to do anything about it this weekend. As I have been calmly asking every weekend for nearly two years now. So yeah, I've been nagging him. I've only myself to blame for it not being done yet, I suppose.

After that, the last thing on my "Get this house in sellable condition whether we sell or not!" list is to paint the hallway cabinet. I'm thinking white, just to keep it simple. The baseboards could use a touch-up of paint too.

I honestly don't think May has enough days to get all this under my belt, but I may surprise myself and be REALLY motivated.

Maybe.

The Money Pit, Part Two

So there we were on a Sunday night, feeling like kids who'd played all day Friday and Saturday and now had no time to finish their homework. Robert had to take vacation time the next morning so we could have our kitchen sink back. We didn't want to connect the old nasty hoses to our brand new clean faucet, so while he went to Home Depot at 6:30 am to fetch the new hoses, my assignment was to turn off the water and drain the pipes. He showed me how to turn off the water and left.

I took my shower and got ready for the day and went to turn off the water just like he showed me. Except the water was still running. So I tried turning the nut the other way. Still had lots of water. I turned some more. Still water. Hmm. Well, I thought, I might as well eat some breakfast. I nibbled on a chocolate Santa and tried again. Still didn't work. Then the Man came home and asked why I hadn't turned off the water yet. He went outside to check it out and Lo! And Behold! The nut he told me to turn was the water pressure gauge. The handle to turn off the water was hidden and partially buried, but in the daylight it was quite obviously the water shut-off valve. But now we had no idea where the water pressure gauge was prior to my moving it. But, one thing at a time.

Robert had to go back to Home Depot after we ate because he had bought the wrong size adapter thingamajigger, so I put Karlina down for her nap and worked on cleaning and teflon-taping the pipes. So, so gross. There are so many deposits and grime and nastiness in our supposedly "clean" water, and they just collect in the pipes and hoses. Yummy.

So after an hour or so of cleaning pipe threads, Robert returned with the correct thingamajigger, I taped up the threads, and he attached the hoses. Still leaking.I think we're going to have to call a plumber. I told Robert, "You know, they're probably going to take one look and tell us we need to re-plumb the whole house." He said, "That's what I'm afraid of ..."

That night the water pressure was so high that our water heater was feeling the strain, and it started pounding and banging. I was nursing baby K and thinking "Geez, man, those neighbors! Pounding the walls at 9:00 at night when I have a baby trying to go to sleep ..." Robert suggested it was probably the water heater buckling under the strain of too much water pressure. He went outside to adjust it a bit and the banging and pounding stopped. Disaster averted.

On the plus side, our new faucet is eye-catching and quite functional. Before and after photos below.

Yeah, this post is kinda lame 'cause we still haven't really resolved anything, but this house has been a constant drain of our bank accounts since we bought it. I have no doubt that this little project will escalate, just like our $7000 roof that turned in to $11,000, and our $5,000 re-wire that turned in to $10,000. Home ownership is NOT all it's cracked up to be.

The Money Pit, Part One

We have had a leaky kitchen faucet for weeks. I've also been nagging Robert for the past five and a half years to fix it because it wasn't installed properly to begin with. When we turned on the water, the whole assembly would move, exposing the sink holes on either side, and a lot of times the faucet would drip into the sink holes and make a mess in the cabinet underneath. Anyway, it started leaking in earnest at the beginning of December. By Christmas, I was hearing water spraying under there after I turned it on. By the next Saturday, my kitchen floor was wet, and finally Robert decided to do something about it. He did a quick diagnostic and decided we needed a new faucet. So he went to Lowe's after receiving strict instructions to buy something other than chrome, something higher than the one we had, and not to take three hours finding it. He returned two and a half hours later. With nothing.

(Side note: Robert takes forever to make decisions. He'll stand in the aisle at Lowe's and look, ask the clerk, check reviews online, check for better prices online, and then wander around while he considers whether it's a good deal. Then he'll reconsider, and repeat the whole process five or six times. It's exhausting.)

So upon his return he told me the same old story ... "I found one that was a good price, but then someone told me that they bought one last year and it's already broken, then I found another one but the guy working there said people return that one all the time and so I looked for high reviews on Amazon and I found one but Lowe's only has it in chrome and we have to order the stainless steel one and you know they just don't make things like they used to  because the one we have has been there for at least twenty years and we never had a problem with it and ..."

"Honey."

"What?"

"Did you order it?"

"No."

 *sigh*

After a little more nagging, he finally ordered it a couple of days later. We got it in the mail Friday. Awesome, we have all weekend to work on it! But let's go hiking this afternoon, we can do it on Sunday. So, Sunday morning dawned. I took my shower before anyone else was up and cooked a big breakfast. As we sat enjoying our breakfast, I casually asked Robert what he would like me to do to help with the faucet. He said, let's go to the beach! And, stupidly, I agreed. It rained, so we came home. When we got home, Robert told me to warm up the food.

You know that word that starts with a P and ends with a rocracstination?

He finally got his stuff together, and just as he was about to pull the faucet out, a wingnut got stuck. The bolt was rusted so bad it had corroded the threads. We pushed, we pulled, we chiselled at it with a screwdriver, we even got out the hacksaw. Finally, Robert tried his skilsaw (yay, power tools!) and we scratched the finish off the sink, but the faucet was finally out. We got the new one in, tightened it down, had to readjust it because I put it on crooked, and as Robert was about to connect the hoses, he happened to look at the hot water hose. It. Was. Gross. By this point, poor baby K's whimpers had turned into shouts and finally sobs. Robert said he was going to buy new hoses while I fed K and put her to sleep. As he was about to walk out the door, he realized that Home Depot closed at 8 on Sundays. It was 8:15.

I was suddenly reliving that panicky Sunday night in sixth grade when our Eskimo dioramas were due the next day and I hadn't even started and all the stores were closed early because it was Sunday night and we had no sugar cubes in the house and everyone knows you can't build an igloo without sugar cubes.

To be continued ...