I think I can, I think I can.....

well, I am making SOME progress. Not as much as I would like, of course, but I'm getting there. I hear that clock ticking LOUDLY that I only have about 8 weeks left before my focus shifts completely! The little ones are begging to do school, but I just don't have the time, energy, or space to start on that yet! I really wanted to teach Z to read this summer, but time got away from me. I've decided all this extra stuff in my house is sucking my time and life away from me and my kids, and it's all got to go! I've sold a few books and a couple of other items. Hopefully I can sell some more, at least enough to purchase a new laptop to replace the two year old one that just died on us. I don't "need" a laptop, but I prefer having the kids use that for their homework. so I guess we are going to try having a garage sale next weekend. I've never had much luck with those, barely making back what I spent on the ad (which used to be $5-$10, but are now a whopping $22 bucks) I hate spending that much money only to make a few dollars and all that work setting the stuff up, then having to repack it when we are done. Plus there is all that time you spend sitting out there watching your stuff, waiting for customers. Hmm, maybe I'll set up a little table with my sewing machine and sew some baby diapers while I'm out there! Sounds good to me! So as far as the two challenges go, the simplify for fall, and the 40 bags/40 days: well, the first three days were good. the first I got rid of 2 bags, the second was clothes and laundry - I did get all the laundry washed, but I just couldn't get into going through the clothes, so I worked on the livingroom instead and got rid of 2 more bags from that room. the third day was kitchen and menu day - I cleaned out 2 upper cabinets and condensed all the "two or three of the same kind of opened spice jars" and ended up with a whole shelf and a half completely empty!! All of that junk filled up a bag! the fourth day was my regular "errand" day, so I didn't get much done for the challenges. I woke up and went to check my emails and the internet box wasn't lit up. luckily they have a store in town and I took it in saying I needed a new one. they decided to check first to see if it was the electrical cable that was bad, and it was! GOOD DEAL! the box would have cost $100, but the cord was only $10! So I went on with my grocery shopping and regular Wednesday stuff. Afterwards we put together 2 cubbie shelf units to put our books on in the livingroom. I cleaned in there as much as I could but it was already 9pm by the time we finished putting the shelves together (they didn't take long, we just started late!) so I only ended up with getting rid of half a bag of stuff. Today I had an appointment out of town in the morning. We made it back home by early afternoon, but the 3 hour round trip wore me out! So, I took a nap! Then we worked on some of the routine chores and ate dinner. I've been working on going through stuff in our schoolroom and had the kids try to finish the living room for me. Again, I only got half a bag, but I'm still ahead from the days I got two bags! Tomorrow should be a "stay-at-home" day, so hopefully we will get some things done. Friday is our bathroom cleaning day, so I'll have to do that first before I get to working on more of the challenge. I really want to get this school room done, so we can try to start school and get into somewhat of a routine that hopefully they will carry on and do even if I'm resting with the baby (we've been working on that with chores for the last few weeks.) Once I finish the school room I want to do the playroom - which for now has turned into my clothes sorting area, so the kids cannot get to their toys and they have no where to play! Once that is done I need to get my room cleaned up and ready for baby! And somewhere in there I need to make a bunch of newborn diapers because right now I think I only have TWO!! I don't think it will work to wash one while he wears the other! Gee, I'd better get off this computer and get busy!!

Quest to Declutter!

I ran across this blog that is doing a Simplify for Fall challenge which starts tomorrow! I'm definitely going to give it a go! I'm going to combine it with another challenge I ran across at Clover Lane which is a 40 bags in 40 days challenge. I figure I have around 56 days before my baby comes, so this should be a do-able project, and around the time baby is due, our homeschool group is having a free Swap that I can unload all my stuff I collect to get rid of. Basically, we all take our unused items (mainly clothes, books, and toys) to a church which has graciously offered to let us use their space, lay out all our stuff, garage sale style, but everybody's stuff is altogether sorted by size and gender, and then we "shop!" FOR FREE! There's usually a ton of really nice stuff and it's great to swap out what you no longer use for what you can use. We have been doing it once a year in the spring, but thankfully, this year we are having a second one in the fall! I already have 3 tote bins and 6 large cardboard boxes full of stuff to take. That's not counting the 6 boxes of books! So, while I am doing the "simplify for fall" I will be trying to gather up at least a bag of stuff each day to get rid of. I'm starting the 40 bags today. I got rid of 1 grocery bag of half used coloring books and threw them in the recycling! 39 more bags to go!

Making progress (a little anyway!)

So, while I didn't complete my goal of totally removing everything from the "old" school room, MOST of it is out! We could have had all of it out, but then I wouldn't have room to move in the "new" school room! It's hard enough moving around with this 29 week pregnant belly without having to climb over things! So I had to tell the kids to stop hauling stuff down until I can put some of it away. Hubby moved the small wall shelf down there last night after I had quit for the evening, so I guess that's where I will start today. I'm hoping today to get at least enough put away down there so we can move the rest of the stuff down. As long as we are able to get the room painted by this weekend, I'll be happy! I'm sure Nicole will be happy, too, because then next week she can start moving her stuff into her new room and start setting up her baby stuff. Hard to believe she only has a month left! I guess before I get started on the moving and putting away today, I should get the kids out of bed, eat breakfast, and have them help me make another batch of apple butter out of the box of apples MIL brought over last night. They said this is the last batch of apples for the season. I'd much rather do up the apples than tomatoes - they are so much easier, quicker, cleaner, and smell so much better! Oh well, the tomatoes do TASTE good when we put them in the chili and lasagna!

Time flys!!

I can't believe it's been almost 3 weeks since I got on here! I need to put it in my schedule time to do this at least once a week! I would love to have a schedule. I think the kids would too. They told me they thought they would do better at getting their homework done if I had a schedule for them!! Ha! I have a schedule posted for them on the board, it's been there for about 2 years, so I asked "if you want to follow a schedule, why haven't you been following that one?" the reply "well, you haven't enforced it!" Oh, so now I have to be the schedule police? Actually, maybe I do, at least until it becomes a habit with everyone. Having a set schedule would mean I wouldn't keep waking up at 3am wondering "what should we do today? I WANT to do this, but I NEED to do that, and that, and that, and that. But that is too much to do in one day, so which do I pick for today. Plus I have all the other stuff I normally do in a day. bah!! But everytime I try to make a schedule, things pop up and make it so I can't even follow it anyway. How do people work on a schedule? They just don't seem to work for me and it usually ends up hardly anything actually gets done because I don't have a schedule. Maybe the kids are right, I just need to be the enforcer for a while until it becomes a habit for us. and why is it when I tell myself before bed "tomorrow I will be up before 7am and get this and this done, then wake the kids by 8" I will usually have a terrible nights sleep and maybe I didn't start sleeping well until 5am and when I wake up my back hurts and my arms are asleep and I just can't get out of bed? Well, I guess we'll try again, tomorrow!