Hunt Family Connection

What a difference it makes...

....to be in my house for just one night and morning without my kids. Now I do love them and have no desire to trade them in - I really can't imagine a life without them. But with that said, one night and morning in my house without them can make all the difference in the world for my sanity, sleep, and self care.

Here are a few things that stood out when E and G spent the night with Pa-Paw and Grandma Chery on Monday night:

1. When I got home I put my things down and went to lay down for a few minutes before doing anything else - it was sooo quiet!
2. I went to Target all by myself, without having to check in with anyone about going and leaving kids or taking one and leaving the other to divide and conquer - I just went, got what I needed, and came back home to that same quiet house (and everything got put away right away 'cause I didn't have any other little people needs to attend to!)
3. I got two loads of laundry done - laundry is a pretty easy task, especially when you don't have a little person asking to "help" move the clothes from the washer to dryer or pull out clothes that are already folded and ready to go upstairs. It was nice to feel like I got something household-related done without feeling like I had to put forth too much effort.
4. I was able to set out some death traps to address the ant problem we've been having without worrying about poisoning our children in the process - thank you TERRO :)
5. When Wil got home we decided to go out for a drink and a bite to eat - just on a whim - because we could!
6. I watched How I Met Your Mother last night....from the very beginning because I didn't have to worry about doing anyone else's bedtime but my own and I had more than enough time to do a couple of chores before crawling in to bed to watch.
7. I can't say that I slept straight through the night, but when I woke up it was only long enough to remember that the kids weren't here and I didn't have to get up - yay!
8. I stayed in bed a bit longer than usual this morning - everything was so quiet and peaceful!
9. When I finally did get up I only had to get myself ready - what a luxury...I did miss my breakfast buddy a little bit though - Graham and I like to eat together in the morning :)
10. I finished up folding the laundry and got that all taken care of before heading to work - won't have to worry about it at all tonight.
11. I walked out to the car with only my stuff - it only took one trip! No one to carry out to the car, no one to buckle in, no daycare bag to pack and haul out to the car....I felt like I was forgetting something....

They may seem like small, silly things...but they all add up to a very refreshing evening and morning. I came to work feeling like I could take on the world and have been super-productive this morning. I wouldn't trade my mom-status for anything in the world, but it is awesome to have a little break from it every now and again. I know that I'm very lucky to have those breaks available to me - not everyone does...

Some updates

I have tons of pictures to edit and I'm having a hard time learning how to do so with my new 'puter. I tried to tackle just photos from today and think I have some ready to share....we'll see how I do :)

Wil left for a conference on the east coast this morning (EARLY this morning!) so I wanted to be sure and put together a post about what he missed today.

We had floors installed over the weekend while we were away at the coast and came home to a BIG mess. I spent most of the day trying to clean up the mess and put things back where they belong. We also had a number of deliveries today

First came the new furniture (at 7:30am!) - Sofa and loveseat for the living room...



...chair for the office

 

It's sooo soft and cozy, but a little stiff 'cause it's new - I'll have to put some time into breaking it in :)

Next came the guys from Sleep Country with Graham's new box spring - I didn't take a picture of the box spring, but here is a picture of the bed all put together.  Note the super cool airplane quilt that Mum-Mum made for G's big boy bed - he LOVES it!

 

Finally, the guys from Sears came with the dishwasher...

 

They only deliver, no installation. We thought Wil would install it, but didn't know at the time that he would be away. I attempted to set up installation for today but it didn't go well, so I've decided to just wait until Wil gets home to take care of it.

I fixed the playroom back up so that Graham would have somewhere to play when he got home from daycare - I think everything is pretty much back in its place...

 

I also spent a chunk of time in Graham's big boy room to get that ready to sleep in if he would want to tonight...

 

I haven't put too much in there yet - we'll concentrate on sleeping first :)  I did bring a box of his favorite books and an airplane night light. A little later I also brought in his CD player so he could listen to his nighttime music.

Graham was beyond excited to sleep in his big boy room tonight and wanted to go up there right after dinner. We went to check out the room and hang out there for a bit before his bath. After bath he got into pjs, we read a couple of books, and he crawled right into bed! He gathered up all of his favorite things, gave me hugs and kisses, asked me to turn on the music, then happily said goodnight as I left the room.....and that was it! He chatted to himself for awhile, then fell asleep.  I had to get one more picture of G on his first night in his big boy room...

 

Doesn't he look so little in there??  It's 10:00 and I've checked in on him a couple of times. He's sticking to the same general spot and is sleeping soundly - here's hoping the rest of the night is just as uneventful.

Wil called to tell us that he made it to his destination so we're happy he got there safely. Graham and I both miss him already, but hope he's having a good time.  I'm going to get back to work on figuring out how to use this computer - I'm still rather frustrated but am trying to read as much as possible to figure it all out.

And so it begins…

The first batch of flooring was dropped off at the house yesterday to begin “acclimating” – apparently not only are we acclimating to the house, but also to the little person that lives in the house :)

Graham found this to be a great place to sit and watch Jack’s Big Music Show.

We’re quickly learning that nothing is for certain or goes as planned with projects like this. We’ve already had the timelines and plans changes – right now they are hoping to be pretty much finished by August 4th (I will believe it when I see it!) Of course I’ve laid out the ultimate deadline  - this WILL all be done by the time September 5th and the new baby come around.

The contractor is also helping us finish the trim in Graham’s big boy room – that will hopefully get finished up next week sometime so we can start moving him in there.

I had a very nice breakfast, catching up with some friends this morning then went to a Dr. appointment – more pregnancy info HERE.  It’s going to be a HOT weekend here so we’ll be looking for ways to keep busy inside or out in the water somewhere – it all depends on how much energy I can find :)

Staying busy…

This week is flying by me – they seem to go faster the closer we get to the end of summer. Graham has been busy playing with his daycare friends and I went to work on Tuesday. Yesterday I had a long and relaxing lunch with friends and then made some progress on home improvement stuff.

We met with the contractor to finalize some details – I’m planning to meet him at Jerry’s this afternoon to pick out some window/door trim and some white paint (‘cause apparently there are many different shades of white!) He’s also planning to bring the boxes of wood laminate to the house to start acclimating them.  We also purchased a new dishwasher yesterday – it’s a Bosch, which is apparently a very well rated dishwasher.  Who knew?? I thought Bosch just made tools :)

We’ll be trying to time the delivery with the completion of the floors in the kitchen. The very hopeful estimate on that will be Tuesday, August 4th….we’ll see how that goes. 

Wil and I also started working on putting together the dresser for Graham’s room – there are a lot of pieces and we got stuck when we couldn’t find a hammer.

Finally, while Pa-Paw is on vacation we realize we provide a poor substitute for the fun times G has going to the airport with him…

This is a little ride area outside of Sears – G found that airplane and we couldn’t get him out of it :)  Now the great news is that he’s still completely and totally happy in the plane without us putting a single quarter in there to make it move.  Here’s hoping that lasts for a bit yet! 

Days 9 and 10 – Guest Bedroom and Linen Closet

In all I guess it took a couple of days to get these areas finished up. I’m starting to lose steam because I’m getting to rooms that I don’t spend a lot of time in and I’m just plain getting tired!

I don’t have a picture of the linen closet before decluttering, but it wasn’t really horrible to begin with. I do have a couple before pictures of the guest bedroom…

 

I think maybe some other things had been moved (or dumped) in there along the way in this decluttering process. I started by returning things that I knew belonged in other rooms to their home (mostly the clothes that were in there and a few other odds and ends. I then starting sorting through things and piled together the things that I knew we needed to get rid of.

I did part of the linen closet while working in the master bedroom, because all of the medicines and extra supplies went back in there. The rest of the linen closet kind of tied into the guest bedroom because I moved out a bunch of sheets from the closet and moved the sets that I was keeping for the guest bed into a drawer in the guest bedroom.

I know it’s not easy to see, but there are actually open spaces in the closet! I have an extra set of sheets for Graham’s big boy bed in there, and need to add an extra set for our king size bed (I’m thinking we definitely need a flannel set!)

I’m much happier with our medicines and things in there too – makes it much harder for little hands to get to.

And here is the guest bedroom now…

 
(Don’t worry mom – we’ll make sure the cat gets out before you and dad arrive AND I have a brand new blanket all put away and ready to break out…never touched by kitties!)

The totes are not a permanent fixture in the room, but are clothes that will be sorted through post-pregnancy. They bother me a little bit, but I’ll get to them eventually. Here’s the other side of the room…

I’d still like to get some curtains up on the window and maybe some sort of art on the wall, but that’s about all I’d do for now.  I have off-season coats/clothes and luggage/bags in the closet – there is also some room for guests’ hanging clothes.

And finally – the truck was loaded for another trip to Goodwill. This part feels GREAT!

So there are three rooms left upstairs – Graham’s big boy room, Sprout’s room, and the craft/catch-all room (mind you, the only “craft” I really do anymore is all contained on my computer…probably don’t need a room dedicated to craft supplies – lol) I know that a LOT of stuff has landed in there though as I’ve gone through other rooms.  I’m going to have to be feeling REALLY ambitious to take that one on. For now the door stays closed. 

We (and when i say we, I mean Wil) is going to be working in G’s big boy room this week – a second coat of paint and getting trim. I can’t really do much in Sprout’s room until G is into his new room…so for now, decluttering is on hold.

Mondays Are Special!

Mondays are very exciting for Graham… In the morning I ask G, “Guess who’s coming to get you from daycare today?” and he gets this sparkle in his eyes, a big smile on his face, and whispers excitedly, “Paaa-Pawwww!”

Grandma Chery took this picture over the weekend when they were playing outside and when I saw it, I thought it just perfectly illustrated how Graham feels about his Pa-Paw :)

Grandma Chery is out of town tonight, so it was just the boys – I’m told they had a great time. They played at a park and Graham helped make the hamburger patties they fixed for dinner.

Pa-Paw and Grandma Chery are awesome at taking pictures and documenting their time with Graham – I love that!  In fact, just got the hamburger picture a few minutes ago in my email :)

We feel so lucky to have family here to help care for Graham – they are a very important part of the village it takes to get it all done.

Wil and I took advantage of a little extra time together and went out for a late lunch together. We had a great talk and enjoyed a leisurely meal…a little different scene than when we take G with us. 

I didn’t plan on doing any major projects today, and instead concentrated on picking things up and putting them back where they belong. It was so easy to get stuff straightened up, and everything had a place to return to – yay! I filed away some things that were sitting on the desk and did a few loads of laundry. I also ran a couple of errands – Target for some stuff we need and Jerry’s to get some product information for the contractor’s estimate on the flooring (we’re planning to replace all of the different flooring downstairs with wood laminate and update the baseboard trim). The contractor came by today and took the measurements so now that he has the info about the materials we’ve chosen, he can give us an estimate.

This is a sample of the floor we picked. It looks much darker in this photo than it does in person – it’s called Burnished Cherry.

It will be installed throughout the entire downstairs and should make it all feel a little bigger without the divisions and different floor styles that are there right now.

I think this will also be a good surface to have with the cats – much easier on the allergies and to clean up.  We’re also looking at more pet friendly furniture – either a leather-like material or microfiber. I’m definitely looking forward to the updates….and to breathing a little easier.

I’ve been neglecting Sprout’s blog a little (the second child is getting cheated already!) so must go update that next. I believe the entry will be called Dance Party cause it looks like that’s what’s going on in my tummy right now!

Days 7 and 8 – Master Bedroom and Upstairs Bathroom

It took longer than I thought it would, but two more rooms are done :)

I started the master bedroom declutter on Monday – there are many areas to tackle, so I tried to break of the tasks down into nightstands/dresser tops, dresser drawers/closet, and bathroom/vanity.

Each area got emptied out onto the bed, sorted, and then reassembled (with far less stuff!)

Here are the before and after photos of each area…

This shows the main part of the bedroom, including our nightstands – I also emptied a lot of junk out of the drawers and on the shelves below. I’m happy to report there was nothing to clean up under the bed :)

Some things that still need attention here:
**I want some sort of headboard – I need to get creative and just put something together.
**The bed needs a dust ruffle – you can’t see it in these pictures, but it looks silly :)
**I need a throw for the end of the bed – something for the cats to lay on.

Next is the before and after shots of the vanity area. This clean up also included cleaning out all of the drawers (which meant sorting through the medicine drawer – LOTS of outdated stuff in there) and there were also a couple of shelves in the linen closet that had bathroom stuff that got sorted. The other thing I found WAY too much of was hair do-dads. Since my hair is pretty short now and I don’t see that changing any time soon, I let a lot of stuff go…

I’m still keeping some things in the linen closet in the hallway (like the medicine stuff – seemed safer as Graham is getting into anything and everything these days) but I purged a LOT of stuff in these areas.

The closet and dresser draws were tough. There were a lot of things in there that I haven’t worn in awhile, but that’s because I’m pregnant. Instead of trying to figure out what I might want to keep or what will fit after the pregnancy, I decided to just store the things that I think I will want when this is all over. Any further purging will have to happen at a later date. Getting it all out of the room was a big help because then I had plenty of room for the things that do fit me right now. Eventually all of that will go away and the “regular” clothes will come back.

So here is the closet before…

And a much more empty after…

I even let 7 pairs of shoes go – it’s not very easy to part with shoes!
Cleaning out the closet also meant going through my jewelry box. The jewelry box, perfumes, and makeup are all inside the closet, on top of my shoe cubbies.

So here’s what ended up leaving the room…
 
 
I can’t tell you how awesome it feels to get all of this out of the house.

I worked on this all day and into the evening on Monday, and then again on Wednesday. Since I still had time after finishing the bedroom on Wednesday, I moved on to the upstairs bathroom.  Not a lot to do in there, mostly just tidying and getting rid of any junk in the cupboards.

I did make a run to Ross midday and found a new rug for the bathroom (I can’t believe how well it matches the shower curtain we already had! I also picked up some new guest bedroom towels/washcloths and a very fun towel rack so there would be room for all of the kid stuff I anticipate will start cluttering the bathroom soon.
 
I just love the little hot and cold knobs on the rack – very fun find :)

As a bonus, I mentioned to Wil that the boxes of books we had been “storing'” in the hallway upstairs were really stressing me out and he sooo kindly moved them all to the garage. He’s planning to take many of them to work so that was a move in the right direction. It’s so nice to see the hallway all clear again!

I feel like I’m making good progress upstairs – just a few projects left, but they are big ones! Graham is at daycare again on Friday, so I’ll be working to finish the linen closet and will start in on the guest bedroom.

Tomorrow will be a fun day at home with Graham and a tv date with my friend Leila to see the beginning of this summer’s Big Brother – YAY!

Days 5 and 6 – The Office and More

The office has been a source of stress for some time now.  Stuff just kept piling up there as I attempted to keep surfaces clean in the kitchen and dining room.  So I embarrassingly give you a couple shots of the office before I began:

 

Yikes, right?!

I did my best to clear off surfaces – though a couple of shelves on the bookshelves on the left side of the room stayed just as they were.

 

Putting things back was a bit more difficult than it had been in other rooms. Wil put up a couple of shelves so that we could get things off of the desks. I would really like to get some smaller desks – what we have now are way too large for the space and need to be replaced. Since that’s farther down our list of priorities at the moment, the old desks stay and I settle for getting them cleaned off and clutter-free.

So this is a picture of most everything emptied out of the office:

And these are a lot of the items that didn’t go back into the office:

There was also another box of goodies to take to Goodwill. Oh – and that green couch left the room too (yay!)

So one more reminder of what the office looked like BEFORE:

And my favorite part – the AFTER shots :)

Ahhhh – feels much better doesn’t it? I don’t mind sitting out there now – in fact I kind of like it! I still need to finish going through the file cabinet and throw out old and unnecessary paperwork, but the bulk of the work is done.

This was all pretty much done by lunchtime of Day 6, so I spent the rest of the afternoon finishing the downstairs by cleaning out the bathroom (emptied out the magazine/book basket, emptied out all of the drawers, tidied up under the sink, and got unnecessary things off the counter) and the entry way. I don’t have pictures of the bathroom, but I do have a before and after of the entryway:

We had some MAJOR shoe clutter that got picked up and I thinned out the coats – we won’t be needing those winter coats for awhile now.

And that pretty much finished up the downstairs! What an AMAZING feeling it is to walk around and feel like everything is in its place and most everything that is there is important and/or useful to us in some way. I find that when everything is all in order like this, I’m much more motivated to keep on top of it.  I hope I continue to feel this motivation, even when we’re busy with that new baby or are back at work.

The upstairs will be next, but I’ve decided not to start in on that until next week. The rest of the week will be spent hanging out with Graham and at some point rewarding myself with some “fun/relaxing” time like going to a movie.

Day 4 – The Kitchen

Luckily I had a bit of a head start on the kitchen. When mom was here in April, she helped clean out the fridge and freezer so I didn’t have to do much there (THANKS MOM!). I had also cleaned out a bunch of stuff on Day 1 that had already gone to Goodwill, so there was a little extra space to work with. And I have to say, my kitchen was fairly well organized to start with – at least the cupboards were. The biggest problem was all of the clutter on the countertop.

So my approach was a little bit different for this task – I was already happy with the contents of some of my cupboards and drawers, so I didn’t need to empty everything out. I also didn’t have room to empty everything out at the same time.  I started by emptying out some of the drawers and cupboards – mostly food/pantry items and decorative schtuff. All of that filled up the counter and dining room table.

 
 
 
I tried to then group things together in ‘like’ piles – breakfast items, sides, vegetables, baking stuff, etc. And then I just started putting things back into the cupboards in those groupings. I weeded out things that I hadn’t or wouldn’t use to donate, threw away things that were no good anymore, and recycled what I could.

After putting some things back into the cupboards I was able to put away or get rid of some things on the counter.  I moved a couple of appliances that aren’t used on a regular basis into a cupboard and moved the basket of Graham’s dishes and silverware into a cupboard and drawer. I also moved our silverware caddy into a drawer to see how that works out.

That all left me with a couple of clean surfaces – the longest part of the counter, and I also cleaned off everything that was hanging from the fridge.

As everything always is, it was more work and took longer than I had anticipated, but by 3:00pm, I was pretty much finished and very ready to sit down and relax for a bit before Graham came home from daycare.

So first let me show you a couple ‘before’ pictures of the kitchen:

 

and my favorite part – the ‘after’ pictures of the kitchen:

I’m very happy to have eliminated a lot of the counter clutter – I didn’t put everything back on the fridge either. Graham’s artwork will be displayed in the play room (though I did leave one piece on his side of the fridge along with his letter/number magnets and truck/digger magnets. The pantry is much better organized, and look – there are even a couple of empty shelves all ready and waiting for any new baby gear we might need to have a place for.

And this is most of what left the kitchen:
 
from left to right – a bag of recycling, a bag of food/items to donate, and a bag of garbage

Extra food and supplies went into the cupboards in the laundry room – works great for pantry overflow!  If I was SUPER-organized, I would put together some inventory lists of what’s in each cupboard so that I don’t overbuy (I found 4 cans of spaghetti o’s, 3 boxes of shake-n-bake, and 3 bottles of vinegar!) Perhaps a task for another day.  Another task for another day is recipe organization – would like to get them all in one organized and accessible place.

I have slowly but steadily worked my way through the downstairs this week, but there are still some things left.  The biggest project will be the office – I’m setting aside Monday and Tuesday for that. A few other areas that will need attention before I can say the downstairs is done – the laundry room, the bathroom, the cleaning closet, and the entryway. Graham was kind enough to point out our shoe clutter the other day – he pointed at the collection by the front door and said, “Look at ‘em all!”  Even my 2-year-old can see the chaos/clutter! 

BIG THANKS to anyone and everyone that has commented on my efforts this week – it has really encouraged me and kept me going. The project seems rather overwhelming at times, and I’ve been writing about this partly to document the process, but also to have some sort of accountability built into the project. Knowing that people are checking in and watching for the progress is a great motivator to keep going :) 

Day 3 – The Play Room

As an extension of our living room, we’ve turned what I imagine was intended to be a formal dining room into a playroom. My intention was to keep most of the toys out of the living room, but still have a space for them nearby. I had recently done some work in the playroom, so there wasn’t a lot to remove, but as always it did end up being more work than I had anticipated and I started to lose steam by afternoon.

So here is the before picture of the playroom:
 
and here are some things that I wanted to address with my decluttering…

• I wanted to take out some of the toys to put into a rotation of sorts so that sometimes there can be something “new” and exciting to play with
• I wanted to sort through our books that remain on the shelves and make sure we have ones there that are books we plan to keep and may read over again
• I wanted to clean out the bottom part of the shelving that is in the bottom right corner of his picture – it was filled with old magazines that I wasn’t ready to throw out yet

So I set out to empty the room – here is all of the stuff on the kitchen counter and dining room table:
 
 
and here is the playroom with clean surfaces:

I started by putting back books on the top two shelves of each bookcase – mostly our “series” kinds of books like Harry Potter, Twilight, Wil’s Robert Jordan books, etc. I also included a few books that I like to regularly recommend to others or that I just can’t part with – but limited to only what would fit on those two shelves. Graham also got two shelves for his books – the bottom two on the left side of the photo. You can’t see it very well in the after picture, but something I did to make it more organized and just fit better, was to put all of the smaller board books into plastic shoebox containers. In addition to being able to get more on the shelf, it’s much easier for him to flip through and see what’s there. Finally I started putting toys back into the room, but not all of them.  I filled up a plastic bin with toys and then put what was left back into the room. Some things will always stay in the room – legos, blocks, the ride-on truck, etc. but it will also be nice to be able to rotate some items. I also gathered up Graham’s coloring supplies and put them all together in a box on a shelf he can’t reach – coloring still needs to be a well-supervised activity :) I found the supplies for the pack-n-play to turn it into a downstairs crib/changing table for the new baby so for the time being it will be in the play room too. Once we move an extra loveseat out of the office it may end up going there instead…not sure yet.

So I give you the finished product:
 
A little less cluttered and a little more organized – all ready for play!  Something I would still like to do in the room is to hang some corkboard to display art projects – I have 8 12x12 pieces ready to hang on that wall on the left. Some other things for the all would be good, but not sure what yet.

This is the stuff that didn’t make it back into the room – the blue box of toys to rotate in, a box of things for the new baby, and a box of books for storage.

Also leaving the room was a stack of books to add to the Goodwill pile in my car, a box of books that Wil wants to take to his classroom, and a bag of magazines that I need to go through before recycling (I like to pull out anything I want to keep – recipes, articles, etc. and put them in a binder for future reference)

In between all of this I had a wonderfully relaxing lunch with friends at Agate Alley Bistro – YUM! It was so relaxing and filling that it was hard to stay on track when I got back home again. I also had a hair appointment scheduled for 4pm so I got a little sloppy in the end.

Next up is the kitchen and that seems like a fairly big task. I’m feeling a bit wheezy from all the dust and think it might be a good time to take a day off from the big projects and just hang out with Graham at home :)

It’s not over though!! I’m feeling like things are getting accomplished, but it’s a lot of work. I want to keep tackling a room or section at a time until I get through the whole house. The ultimate goal is to get it all done before the baby arrives.  The plan right now is to save the kitchen for Friday when I’m feeling a little more refreshed and re-energized. In the meantime I might try to take on an organization project that’s a little less labor intensive – catching up on editing and back-up of photos. Sounds like a great nap-time project…