Which End is Up?

Day 4-Nesting Mission-Family Room-Updated

I am so glad yesterday was an easy day of cleaning. With only 16 days left until my due date, I am not getting around as swiftly as I'd like to be. To say I look like a waddling duck is an understatement. So far I've managed to get through 4 rooms counting the family room, in 4 days, and the more I get done, the happier I am. I have been so worried that I was going to go into labor before I got at least the main rooms done. But the Lord has allowed me to get all of the main rooms with the exception of the main bathroom completed.

I don't have before pictures of my family room. Today, hubby took off and so we had a bit of a lazy morning, and then we all just quickly worked together to get the family room straightened. This is another room that I have been keeping pretty well maintained, with a few exceptions. So here's pictures of my family room....

Here's the view from one end of the family room. There's our main sitting area, the ugly yellow chair is mine, as is the foot stool. It was my grandpas and a treasured, and most comfy place to sit. I spend much of my time, when I get to sit down, in my old yellow chair rocking my babies, or working on whatever handiwork project I'm trying to get done. To the right is the door that leads into the kitchen, and past that you see my portable dishwasher which is serving a different purpose as tv stand until the insurance adjuster comes to look at our tv that "blew up" a couple weeks ago. Then the little tv will move into the tv cabinet, and my dishwasher, well....may be used as an end table, or if I'm really lucky, maybe a dishwasher. To the left, you can see a few boxes stacked, and I'm ashamed to say that all those boxes holds papers, yes, papers. Of all things in my life, the one thing I've never managed to gain control of is paper clutter. From bills, to important documents, to papers my children have drawn me or made during school, it's all there. I attempt to go through it about once a week or every couple of weeks, but no matter how much I go through and shred, trash, or file, there always seems to be twice as much there the following week. So if anyone has any ideas of a better, easier way for me to handle all the paper clutter, I'd love to hear it.

The door you see  past the tv cabinet leads to the hallway where the main bathroom, and the kids rooms are all at.

Here is the other end of my large family room. This is where our kitchen/homeschool table is at, our computer desk, and all of our homeschool junk necessities are at. You can't see them very well, but past the door that leads to the kitchen are a large set of cabinets that are perfect for storing all of our homeschool material. The bookshelf, which needs to be gone through again is at the end of the table. And the door you see at this end leads into the laundry room, which is where I'll be heading tomorrow.

As I said this room stays pretty clean, if I can just deal with all those papers, and do a bit more decluttering. This is the main hub of our home and the place we all spend the most of our time between meals, family games and tv watching, and homeschool, we practically never leave it most of the day. I would love to find another home for all of our papers until they can all be gone through, which is something I may be able to do as I work through the other rooms in the house. I may be able to find a space in the laundry room tomorrow.

We've been maintaining the other rooms very well, and the kids are gaining much more responsibility as we go along, and more than anything they've been learning to just pick up after themselves as they go along. This has been a great experience for all of us.

As I said tomorrow we'll be working on the laundry room. So we'll see you then, unless I have a baby before....we'll see.

Blessings, sara

Nesting Mission-Day 3-Master Bedroom/Bathroom-Updated

I'm so thankful to say that day 3 of my nesting mission is an easy one. The last couple of days, although so rewarding, have also been very tiring. I cleaned my master bedroom and bathroom up several weeks ago, and have managed to keep it pretty well maintained. I learned how nice it was to go to bed in such an inviting and clean room.

As I shared in my previous post, the newly cleaned living/dining room is such a blessing, and so is the kitchen, and my beloved rewarded me with taking me to my favorite resteraunt, which only spurred me on to do even more.

So on to today's goals. As I said, today will be an easy one, the bedroom only taking me at most 15 minutes to finish. The rest of the day will be spent resting and doing the regular every day stuff....

~Regular Routines

~Basic Homeschool with kids

~Maintain clean rooms-Kitchen, Living/Dining room

~Clean Master Bedroom/Bathroom from top to bottom

~Projects-today I'm going to do whatever I feel like I can get to. I may just work on the tea towel, and if I feel up to it, I will work on the girl's dresses.

~Since I got to eat out last night, we will be having the chicken potato chowder and a side salad for dinner tonight.

And here is the before pictures of my master bedroom/bathroom...

The view from the door that leads to the kitchen. To the left is the bathroom, to the right, hubby and my closet. All that needs doing from this view is putting shoes in the closet, making my bed, and picking up hubby's dirty laundry.

This is beside the bed looking towards the kitchen door. That is the baby's pack n play. I have a basket of laundry needing to be folded there on my dresser and just some general straightening.

And here's a small view of my small bathroom. Everthing needs to be wiped down. All the clothes and towels in the tub need to be taken to the laundry room and that should take care of this room. I'll update when I'm all done, either tonight or tomorrow. Have a blessed day!

***Daily Update***

My room only took me a few minutes to get done and the rest of my day was spent just resting and maintaining the other rooms I've already cleaned. So here's my room after it was all cleaned up.

The stuff you see piled on the baby bed is my bag to take to the hospital and also my sweater. I straightened everything up, took care of the giant basket full of dirty clothes, and cleaned the bathroom, all of which took me about 15 minutes, except for the laundry, which I worked on throughout the day.

Now on to day 4....

Sara

Nesting Mission-Day 2-Living/Dining Room-Updated

Ok, so the kitchen is done, and tired as I am, I fully intend to keep on going with this mission. It brought such satisfaction to go to bed last night with a clean kitchen, knowing there wasn't a dirty dish left in the house, and not a single sticky spot left unwiped on my cabinets.

The kitchen got cleaned, a nice meal was cooked, and my husband was much appreciative of both. I also managed to get the fabric and one pattern prepared for the girl's dresses. I apparently misread the pattern thinking it had sizes from 2 to 8, but found out it was only up to size 5, thankfully though I have another similar, though not exactly the same, pattern to make for my oldest daughter. The tea towel was ironed and the iron on transfer was applied, and I started  working on it during the few moments I had to sit down last night.

So today's goals are as follows...

~Regular Routines

~Basic Homeschool with Kids

~Maintain Cleaned rooms-Kitchen

~Clean Living/Dining Room from top to bottom

~Laundry- I need to get at least 2-3 loads done up today

~Projects-Today I want to get the other pattern prepared and start cutting both dresses out. And work at least 15 minutes on the tea towl.

~Tonight's dinner is Chicken potato chowder and salad. We have some pumpkin muffins leftover for dessert.

So now onto the before photos of my living/dining room. I will tell you, I am not proud of this room. It's the first room you see when you walk in my house and it is such a mess. I've gotten into the habit of walking on past it and not even looking around. We spend no time in there, and since moving here in July, it has become a catch all for the yard sale stuff we've been gathering, the empty boxes, and other stuff I haven't taken the time to deal with. It's shameful really, but, like I said, I promised that I would share it, in all it's ugliness...so here it is....

Here is the view of my front door, taken from the door that leads into the kitchen.

And now the view from my front door. That door is the kitchen door, and to the right, which you can't see, there is a door that leads into the hallway. The only furniture we have for this room is the dining room table, a chair and a side table, my cedar chest, and the china hutch. The green chair you see is barber chair that we got for $5 at goodwill. I cut all my family's hair and then some, and this chair has made it a lot easier, if  I can only find a more permanent place for it, otherwise, it may have to go away. Not that a regular chair wouldn't work, but when you're cutting at least 9 heads of hair a month, it sure is nice to have a chair that goes up and down. I would like to get a small formal loveseat for this room, but won't buy one unless I can find it at a yard sale or for free, so for now, my goal is to just get the boxes cleaned up, the dining room table useable, and everything that has a place where it belongs. We intend on having a  yard sale first thing in the spring, but for now, I need to find a place for all of our junk, it may go to my parent's storage building for now if there is room, we'll see. I'll post my updated pictures this evening or first thing in the morning, for now, I'm off to get to work. Have a blessed day!

***Update***

Well, yesterday turned out to be quite productive. The living/dining room was a bit more work than I anticipated, but I still got it all cleaned up with the exception of a few boxes. I didn't get to any of my crafting projects, but I'll have more time and energy for that today. So without further ado, here is the completed pictures of my living/dining room...

Here's the view from my front door. My dining room table is all clean and we're going to enjoy our dinner their tonight.

Here's the view from the dining room table to my front door. The boxes there, sitting on top of my cedar chest are all yard sale things. I was going to take them over to my parents storage building, but I figured that I would find a lot more things on my way through the rest of the house, so they'll stay there until I've gone through all the other rooms.

Here's a nice little sitting nook where I can sit and read my bible in peace and watch the sun come up on my front porch.

And one of my favorite items, my old treadle machine, still in working condition. And now it isn't buried in the junk and I can actually practice using it.

Cleaning this room was another great blessing to my family and I. My husband was so shocked to walk in and find this. Now when people come over to see the baby or otherwise, I won't be so imbarassed to bring them in and let them walk through the living room and kitchen to get to the family room.

I also managed to maintain the kitchen as well, and it still is so nice to wake up to a clean kitchen, and I'm finding it so much easier to keep up with on a daily basis. My hubby was so pleased, he even took me out to eat at my favorite resteraunt. So the chicken potato chowder is on the menu for tonight's dinner instead.

sara

Nesting Mission-Day 1-Kitchen-Updated

This is my second attempt at the same post today. I had it all typed out earlier today and then poof it was gone. So yes, my ticker says 19 days left, but for some reason, this baby being my 4th, my body has been especially in tune with the moon's cycles. And on last Thursday, you would have thought that this baby was coming any moment. I was in what I thought was real labor from 7pm Thursday night until 4am Friday morning. We readied ourselves for the trip to the hospital awaiting that moment that told us this was indeed it, but it never came. The contractions, although steady, painful and quite regular, never got any stronger or closer together. So, with that said, I am still very much pregnant, and awaiting the next new moon, for which my midwife has said I will most likely have this baby. The next new moon happens to be Thanksgiving night, so I guess we'll see.

Lots of things have been going on around the home. Lots of preperations made, craft projects being completed, and teeth being knocked out. If you're wondering about that last part, I'm speaking of my middle daughter. She and my son got a little rough playing in the house, after many reminders from me to settle down, when my son raised his head and hit her smack in the mouth, knocking her two front teeth loose. Thankfully, the teeth that were knocked loose were next in line to come out any ways, but probably not at the same time, and probably not with so much pain being inflicted.

Later on I will post on the many projects I have been working at completeing, but for today and the next several days, (or at least until this little one makes his arrival,) I am on a nesting mission. Although I work steadily on getting things done, I regret to say that I am mercilessly behind on getting my home in order for this baby. So, starting today, I am going to be posting a list of my daily goals, which will include one room a day to tackle, and whatever other projects I intend to work on. I will also post a picture of the before picture (in all it's ugliness), and will update the same post later in the day with the after. So for today...

~Clean the kitchen from top to bottom

~Basic Homeschool with the kids

~Regular routines

~Projects- Today I would like to prepare the fabric and pattern for the two dresses that I am making my girls for Christmas. I would also like to prepare the tea towel (#3 in a set I am giving as a gift) to be embroidered.

~For dinner, we are having roast chicken, baked potatoes, and salad. Dessert is pumpkin muffins.

So if you can bare to look, here is the before picture of my kitchen, dishes piled up and all....

My kitchen is inevitably small, but it works well for me. Basically what you see, is what you get. It actually has a lot of storage space and room to work. I usually have 1 kitchen helper and myself working in there and it works out quite well. On the other side of the stove is another small cabinet, and then the door to our bedroom. On the left side of the sink is a hole where my dishwasher may eventually go, but for now they are done by hand. Beside me is the pantry cabinet, which is also quite small, and bare right now. I'm standing in the door that leads to the dining room, and to my right, beside the icebox is the door that leads into the family room. After it's clean, I'll post some more detailed pictures of the whole room and all it's components.

As I said, this is my second attempt at this post, so many of the things are already done. The kitchen is on it's way to clean, the chicken is roasting in the crockpot, the pumpkin muffins are done and cooling, school is an ongoing process at the moment, and the fabric for the dresses has been washed and is awaiting pressing. I will work on the pattern after the kids are in bed, because I want it to be a surprise for the girls for Christmas. So if you're keeping up with me here. Later on today or first thing in the morning, I will post the completed photos of my kitchen and update on what I got done. The title will say "Nesting Mission-Day 1-Kitchen-Updated". For now, I'm off to finish what needs doing! Have a blessed day!

***Daily Update***

So here is the updated pictures of my kitchen, which will give you a better idea of the size and layout of my kitchen.

Here is the same view as above, only no dishes piled up and the stove is all clean.

Here is the view from the family room. That is our pantry area. I keep a lot of stuff in there, although right now it needs restocking. I have had to get creative with food storage because I try to keep stocked up, so we have storage in several other areas in our home.  The hanging cabinets and microwave are something we just added when we moved in here, that wall was bare before.

Here's my sink, dishrack, and hole in the wall. I still have a portable dishwasher that my eventually go in that hole, but for now, it serves no purpose, other than making me realize how much I wish I had a dishwasher there. lol.

Here is the view of my biggest cabinet area. My main work space. The little window there leads into the family room, and makes a good pass through to the kitchen table at meal time. Those are my favorite canisters that my mom gave me for Christmas last year, and my prized Bosch mixer that I found at goodwill for $15.

And the last picture, this is from standing at the sink. I have two coffee pots in view here, one electric drip, and one percolater. I'm in a controversy here over my coffee pots. You see, I love the convenience of having my coffee ready when I wake up in the morning with the drip, but after having percolated coffee, the taste is so much better. So for now, I have both. I have a feeling the percolater will win, but time with a newborn will soon tell.

It is such a blessing to have a clean kitchen. That's why I chose to tackle this room first. It makes cooking such a joyful task for me, and my husband appreciates it so much. I'm learning to do the dishes as I go, and take care of them directly after meals so that they don't sit there and get all yucky and harder to clean. I've also enlisted each of my children, even my 3 year old to help me on a daily basis in the task of drying. Right now, all they can do is dry and stack them on the cabinet, but it makes the task of putting them away so much easier, plus it is teaching them some good habits, and hopefully before long, they can help mom out by taking turns washing the dishes as well. I've also gotten in the habit of sweeping the floor every night before I go to bed. So now, tired as I may be, it's time to move on to day 2 of my nesting mission. Be prepared, this may get ugly! lol.

sara

Menu for this week

M- Homemade pizza tonight, cucumber salad

T- Shrimp alfredo, toast, and salad

W- Thanksgiving at church.... :)

Th- Chicken and noodle soup, grilled cheese sandwiches

F- the boys and girls are on the road.

Monday Blessing the Home Day

  This morning its Brrrr cold in Alabama at 28.  I've got daughter snuggled in our old antique bed where it was piled with quilts, her room has so many windows its cooler on days like this, so when Daddy left for work, in she trodded at 12 to snuggle in.

  This morning I am up for cleaning out our Master closet. This is stage two, where more ruthless sacking up is needed, giving away that which isn't used and needed to those who can use it.  I dislike a crowded closet and grew up with hooks on the wall in an antebellum home, so I do not see use for more than five or so outfits if they are chosen well.  Currently there are still too many.

   Dh and I had some difficult talks this weekend.  It culminated in a family meeting before church and the teens were given a chance for input on the stress causers. It was a good family meeting and we all left in better shape.

    This week I am packaging Christmas for Oklahoma family so that Dh can take it when he leaves Friday. We did a shop yesterday to finish 4 presents we didn't have yet and had a wonderful experience with 50% off sales and then additional coupons to get each gift for $6.99 or so.  I was so thrilled. The teen boys 3 piece Joe Boxer flannel sets (shirt, boxers, pajama pants) were 5.99, usually 29.99 and our boys love them so that was very good. We have $200  budgeted for individual gifts for all ($200 total for 6 of us) and then we are buying one family gift for $300.  We also have 8 extended family that will come out of that budget. Some of it is homemade (like Christmas dresses) and other things are purchased carefully. One purchase yesterday gave us a $25 gift card as a bonus, so that became a present purchaser.  Another store had a free $25 card, so we found a $30 item and the $5 difference was our cost. That kind of thing.  We're almost done, two more things we have to find for son1 on the list at the price we want then its done. Christmas is 3 items or less per child at our home and usually one per mom and dad. Its about the gathering, food and fellowship of celebrating God, not anything else here.

    We are changing our plans for Thanksgiving. Friday through Wednesday the boys and girls will be at their natural dad's in Arkansas hunting with family there, and Dh will be in Oklahoma then we will all meet at my dad's for Thanksgiving lunch on Thursday.  Chase will most likely return to his dad's through the weekend to hunt, but my dad has cancer, and we felt we all need to go, Dh needs to be at his Grandad's as well, but he is in the hospital, so Dh will spend Fri- Wed in his town.  A busy week to be sure...I hope Fri through Wed I get alot accomplished at home alone and at least a little down time as well.

     I am planning, since our Christmas buying is over, that the weeks in December I can take advantage of holiday sales and stock up food supplies. Coupons have been great combined with sales.  Yesterday libby cans were 50 cents, and I had a coupon for 3/50cents, so that got them down to 33 cents apiece.  Aldi had a $10 off coupon, everything helps, then we have the cupboard to share as we find folks who need help.

God is good, I am thankful and that closet is waiting!

Sweetie

Thursday

   Yesterday I thought I was being clever and trying a new mexican chicken recipe....low carb even....but the joke was on me....it was not work eating.  Today I will continue on my journey falling back to a tried and true recipe for tonights dinner..I felt badly that Dh came home to a dinner not worth eating....he just chuckled and headed to a rare treat of Sonic for he and DD, mainly because she was sick and he wanted to treat her, but he had much fun with it...

    Today I've been working on our budget through January 09 so that I can make sure nothing bushwacks our budget between here and there.  Court changes from last week means that we probably won't see child support until January and while I am unused to seeing it regularly, I had hoped it would be here by December to help with Christmas....but it will be good when ever it arrives and we will be thankful.  They tell me it takes 6-8 weeks for the AL system to be in place even though the order states Nov 1.

     Today is a dreary day and I am so thankful to be home.  Its not that I'm caught up on chores or blessing this home, but the very fact that my husband has sacrificed to allow me to be home and it is his goal for me just simply makes me feel loved......it was his little boy dream and at 42 he was able to do so....now at 45 we're spoiled to me working and living full time from home, homeschooling our youngest and being available to the others.

God is good!

Sweetie

Give a Welcome

Hey, head over to http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/JesusFreak16/

and give a nice welcome to my son, JesusFreak16.

Thanks,

Candy

25 days and counting and other rambling on

The last few days I have not been my usual peppy self, ofcourse I don't know if I can ever say I have been peppy. The baby I am carrying makes my daily work doubly hard. My visit to the midwife bear no news of anything except that he could come at any time or wait on until his due date. Not very helpful, but true.

I've been spending the last several days getting things done, always praying that I'll be able to accomplish more the next day as my list is ever growing. We have only 8 days of school left until we begin our break from regular schooling, and admittedly I will likely jump for joy that day (possibly starting my impending labor, lol). Not that teaching the children hasn't been a joy, but it will be nice to have a bit more time for other preperations and some much needed rest.

Even though the next couple of months will be filled with a new baby and holidays, my mind can't help but wonder ahead to what the new year holds. So many things in our lives that need to change and do better at, some things not needing to wait until then, like some much needed discipline with my children. In my mind I know what needs doing, it's a matter of putting my thoughts into action. Things like following our daily routines, keeping the kids busy with things besides television and computer. Making sure that they have enough responsibility, but most importantly not letting that guilt seep in to my thoughts, when I hear from others how hard I am on my children, when I just began thinking I wasn't hard enough. Ofcourse these are the same people who's children are running a muck through the grocery stores and who's kids have cell phones at the tender age of 8 or 9, or even younger. Insanity....

In other areas, we are trying our best to prepare ourselves for my husband to possibly lose his job. Rumors are flying around that the doors will shut down after the first of the year. And although I know rumors do not always hold true, I'd like the chance to be prepared all the same, besides, most generally the rumors had to have gotten their start from somewhere.

Some of the things we're doing right now is making all of our Christmas gifts, cutting back on grocery expenses, keeping our thermostat turned down, and preparing our backyard for a garden, along with many other smaller things. I'm working on a list of seeds that I would like to begin in next year's garden, and will soon start stocking up on the needed seeds. I'm back and forth on how I would like my garden to be layed out. It seems that a raised square foot garden would be ideal, but at the same time more expensive than I want to spend on lumber and the building of boxes. All the same I am working on building up my compost and learning as much as I can about gardening in this hard, red Oklahoma dirt.

Well, I've rambled on enough. Lots to do today, and not enough time to do it all in. I pray you all are blessed in whatever you do today!

Blessings,

sara

Wednesday...

We had a quiet Veterans day, my husband has seen action in four war theatres in his career, so it is a meaningful  day to both of us. We are so thankful he has come through his Navy and DoD time without the costly price so many have paid.  I know personally what it is like for a cell line to have bombings in the background and then for the line to go dead....I am thankful he is home and we live in our country.

Daughter is very sick this morning with a deep cough in her lungs and trouble with her asthma.  Upper respiratory things are never good with an asthma child. This is day three and we're not better.

Today will be a comfort the child and casual laundry/kitchen day. I am thankful for food in the fridge so I don't have to go out today. Its a rainy cool day and it'll be better to just stay in.

Things have been smooth after court last week.  We are so thankful that things did go smoothly and it hardly seems real that it is all over now.....custody is so much more than a legal thing, it is such a heart case when your children are torn between parents. We're working it out for son to go with his natural dad hunting Thanksgiving week since Les needs to be in OK anyway.  We have never wanted him seperated from his Dad, but try to work together to get him there as often as possible....its just not where he needs to live...the children don't need to be seperated and he's doing well where he is.

Who can believe that November is half way through?

God is good, I am so thankful he is a God that answers and advises each one!

Sweetie