Happy Birthday House!

5 years ago today we moved into our house. That was a good day. It was exciting to put things away and know that they'd stay there forever.

These pictures are from the housewarming in January. In those first two months I made lots and lots of curtains. Last week I took them down and washed them. It may have been the first time I took them down. They were very dirty. It took FOREVER to iron them all, so it may well be another 5 years before I get up the gumption to do it again.

Here's the living room now. I knew the furniture was faded and crumpled, but boy! you can really tell when you put the two together like that.

And here you can see the two little schefflera that Mom air-layered for me from Grandma Madge's plants. I knew that they grew...but I didn't remember that they started out this small.

I feel pretty good about all that we've accomplished in the first five years. We have grass (though still weedy) and a shelter belt (started) and some shade trees planted (if they survive). We've painted our bedroom, both bathrooms, Anna's room, and the hallway. We painted the mudroom and put down flooring, and we built a whole room in the basement.

In thinking about all of this (and to pass the time as I ironed and ironed those silly curtains) I started to wonder what other things I ought to be doing in the house. Before this, I only lived in apartments, and moved out in fewer than five years, so the whole thing got a good cleaning then.

What all are you supposed to do when you stay in a place forever? Any help from the grown-ups out there?

Multiple Choice

I found this growing up out of the shower drain. It's wheat.

Is this...

a) evidence of extremely poor housekeeping?

b) a testament to my wonderfully green thumb?

c) a natural consequence of sharing a house with a farmer? (evidence required)

Accidental Gardening

We have a hole in the back yard from when they put the water line in to the house (which always brings to mind Matthew's explanation of the plot problems in The Lovely Bones, but that's another story) and I always just throw weeds and other organic stuff into the hole, figuring that someday it'll all become dirt and fill it in.


This fall I noticed something green growing out of the hole, and found a nice little surprise pumpkin. I think I must have tossed the teeny decorative pumpkins in there once we were done with them last year.


It's just the right size to go with my teeny pilgrims!

Bossy Love

On Labor Day Linda let me come over and help her organize her office. You know how sometimes there are spaces that just never get done when you move in, and then it's too hard to dig out? That's what happened.

The before picture is terrible and dark and blurry because I was just so excited to get started. I love organizing, I love being bossy, and I love spending time with people while being productive. It was my ideal vacation day. :)

And look what we did!

It makes me sigh with happiness.

Life dilemma

This week I've been pondering...

My trouble is that there are too many things in the world that I want to do, and so I get overwhelmed. I know that it's not a great idea to live by a list, with a million things to accomplish each day, but I can never figure out what to eliminate.

All of the advice that you read talks about eliminating the things that you don't really want to do, saying no to committees and people and all of that. That's not my problem. I hardly do anything like that.

It's just that there are too many things that I want to do. I want to spend more time with Anna, I want to hang out with Matthew, I want to work harder on school, I want to cook, I want to exercise, I want to have a reasonably tidy house, I want to hang out in town with Dad and Abby, I want to stay caught up with my classes, I want to make a zillion gillion (I always thought that was jillion) crafts, I want to only make gifts and not buy them. I want to refashion clothes from Goodwill instead of buying new, I want to read books, I want to talk on the phone with my friends, I'd like to make a friend in town, but who has time?

I've thought about not reading any more craft blogs or listening to podcasts, so that I wouldn't have so many ideas, but that seems awfully sad.

Any help?

Anna's Room (with too many pictures)

And it only took me three weeks longer than I anticipated! Why am I so crazy about time and projects?

Once I decided that we really needed to redo her room, I stopped being so strict about cleaning up. And we had several REALLY fun days with cousins. I sent her to take some "before pictures" Here's one:

I don't see how she could even sleep. She kept the door shut and would tell me "Mama, don't look in there!" (How did she know?)

Aunties Linda and Abby helped with the enormous task of sorting through toys and junk and deciding what to keep and what to give away. It was very very kind of them. That mess of toys is now contained to this bookcase with four boxes.

And a giant hamper of dress-up clothes in the closet. She wasn't willing to give up any dress-up, and I couldn't make her. She's rarely in her regular clothes when we're here anyway.

My parents bought this bunk bed about 15 years ago, I think. I spent lots of time looking at beds online, and looking at auctions, and looking (usually too late) at Garage Sale ads, when I finally remembered this bed sitting in storage.

I'm usually terrible about skipping steps, but this time we sanded, and then wiped it down, and then used primer, and then did lots of light coats of paint, just like they tell you to. Dad mentioned that I should be sanding lightly between coats, and so I did that too. Abby came out and helped and helped until her hands were cramped into little balls. Mine too.

I'm really happy with how it turned out. (Fingers crossed that it holds up for a while).

I covered the top bunk with a pink chenille blanket I had saved, it's so pretty up there. I made her move the giant pile of stuffed animals so I could take this lovely photo, but normally it's pretty crowded (and much more fun).

She's sleeping on the bottom bunk, under her quilt from Grammy Rita, with an afgan crocheted by Great-Grandma Anna Streit at the foot. That makes me really happy.

I think she likes it too.

January Rampage, III

I finally got all of the Christmas stuff put away. As I was carrying box after box into the basement, I thought about how a rational person would think that this was crazy, and would probably resolve not to do so much next year. I kept waiting to feel that way, but mostly I just felt excited to do it all again.

I moved into the kitchen and ran into two more messes: The freezer:

And the pantry:

And that was it for that day. I was tired.

January Rampage, continued

After the linen closet mess, I went back to folding clothes, and found myself straightening the closet. I didn't take pictures of that.

Then I started to put away the Christmas stuff, and tripped over something on the back porch, which looked like this:

Fast forward through the crazy...

It does make me happy, but I think days like this are hard on my family.

It didn't stop here...

January Rampage

We didn't make it to Streit Christmas Saturday in Salina, because little Anna had a bad cold. I had a big list of things I wanted to get done, but kept getting sidetracked by messes. This happens to me sometimes. Is it common?
I went to put a towel away and found this:The next thing I knew, everything was out in the hall, being sorted and tidied. This is not the best way to get a lot of things done.
But it is nice at the end. Once this starts, I know I'm in trouble for awhile. Stay tuned to see what else fell into my path...

Looky looky!

I have amazing sisters. I didn't even have to talk them into it, I just asked and they came, and we finished the mudroom together on Saturday. We hung a pegboard and laid laminate flooring. We used power tools and no one was injured. We did a wonderful job. I'm so proud of us and thankful for them.

Here's before, during, and after.


We also installed the new TV that Dad got Matthew and me for our Anniversary. We had a dickens of a time getting the old CD player out, but sweet Matthew worked on it when he got in from Harvest, and before bed last night, we got the new one put in. I'm excited. I can have Dad DVD me cooking shows, and then cook along with them! I can watch the music DVD's that came with my CD's that I've never gotten around to! I can watch TV on DVD while doing other things! Here's a picture--I cleaned the kitchen while watching Monchy and Alexandra!


Thanks Dad!