A New Decade. A New Year. A New Blog...

Can you belive it's not just a new year but a new decade? Where were you when all the Y2K stuff was going on? Me? I was gong through a divorce and working constantly in order to bury all of the the horrible emotions I had. If I worked enough I didn't have to think abaout what was going on in my life. Sadly I also buried myself from realizing my life was falling apart and my kids were suffering. Oh to go back those 10 years even if it was only to make sure that I worked harder at helping my kiddos get through the rough time as their parents ended their marriage.

I'm thrilled that I have not only repaired the relationships with my children and my in-law family but have been wonderfully in love with my best friend for 9 years. This last decade has been life changing and wonderful in so many ways.

So in celebration of the New Year I've decided to also start a "New" blog. While it's not officially "New" since I don't have THAT much energy, it's going to be New in the sense that I'm actually going to post. Yes, the whole posting to the blog is New for sure! Before I logged on tonight I had decided that I would try to post photos once a month as well as a short update each week.

Tonight while browsing a few blogs I read on occassion I stumbled on Lorie's blog and loved her idea of setting goals each month instead of a bunch of "Resolutions" that go by the way side before the year is even close to being over. I will share them with you each month and hopefully you will hold me accountable in some way.

So, my goals for January are: Posting to my blog at least once a month but hopefully once a week. Following the monthly goals set by FLYLADY and sticking with them. Walking or exercising for 30 minutes each day for 30 days. January's FLYLADY goal is Shining my sink each night. This is simply making sure that all the dishes are done and the kitchen counter is clean and shiny for the next day. Simple yet effective for starting the day right.

What are your goals for January or for 2010? I hope you succeed in them. Until next time I hope you all have a wonderful January and an amazing 2010!

Mission Accomplished....Kinda

The living room is put back together. The carpet is as clean as its going to get and the big rug is on the back porch. I DON'T think it will be coming back in unless I can shampoo the lovely Bubby gift out of it. I feel like we have too much furniture in there, but I'm not willing to give up the recliners and where would I really put a sofa or love seat anywhere else in the house?

The office has been shampooed and so has the Master Bedroom. I need to move a few things back in to place and tidy up but the carpets are shampooed and vacuumed and look clean.

The floors are still uncleaned and the grout is unsealed. I have high hopes of Dear Husband helping me this weekend by operating the machine while I scrub the grout but I'm not going to push the issue. If it doesn't happen there is always next week or the next week. Babysteps.

I had really been wanting to take my table and buffet from the kitchen and put it into the dining room. I tried it and the room looked really good. Dear Daughter came up with some great decorating ideas to add to the room. I was SO EXCITED!!! Of course in order to keep it this way I had to put the dining room stuff into the kitchen. No problem right?! I mean it was in the kitchen when we first moved in here so we'll just move it back in.

I dragged the dining room furniture, which was really the "Old" kitchen furniture into the kitchen. Hmmm, the table doesn't look right horizonally against the wall. I moved it vertically against the wall. Hmmmm, maybe it was here at an angle? Hmmm. How in the heck did we EVER have this HUGE table in the kitchen nook let alone all 4 chairs?! There is NO WAY it's going to fit. Phooey!

I'm so sad. I really wanted to switch everything around. I call Honey. He actually laughed at me! He tells me he knew it wouldn't work. The table was always too big which is WHY we got a new one in the first place. Oh. I guess I forgot. Well I was hoping my memories were wrong anyway. Pooh.

So, tomorrow I'll put the house back together with all the furniture where it fits, even if I don't think it belongs there, so Dear Husband and Dear Son can relax when they come home for the weekend. Pooh!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to all! I've spent the day doing something I rarely do. Yep, I slept in, yammered on the phone with my step mom and now I'm laying in bed watching the replay of the parade on the Travel Channel.

I'll get up soon enough but for now, I'm enjoying the quietness of the "staying in bed til noon". There's plenty of time to do the things I need/want to do, which still includes shampooing the rest of the carpet, scrubbing the floors and packing for my weekend away to see Dear Husband. I figure I have until Friday night to make the house peaceful and I'm going to take advantage of the time instead of pushing myself so hard that I can't enjoy the process.

May your News Year Day be peaceful and calm. And may your New Year be wonderful and give you plenty to be thankful for.

So Much For My Big Plan!

My day started out fine. I did a little, and I do mean LITTLE, work in the office, made my list of where I needed to go, got my deposit ready, grabbed my stuff to take to good will, Kohls, My Sister in Love's (SIL)and headed to pick up material for our customer. This was going to be a busy busy day.

I hit Starbucks on the way into town, hit goodwill and made it to pick up material. I was running a little later then I had hoped but the Starbucks by my house is SO SLOW! I swear I watched dude fill up the coffee grinder with beans, grind coffee and deliver coffee to inside customers and sweep etc while I was sitting at the window waiting for my simple little cup of Hot Chocolate. After atleast 7 minutes he finally brought me my drink and said "Sorry for the wait" WHATEVER! (Sorry had to rant).

Anyway, old friendly chattie guy at the parts place finally gets my Trailblazer loaded with material for 2 jobs/2 customers (bonus delivery) and I'm ready to go. I get in and start my car and throw it in reverse and it doesn't move. What the Heck!?!?! I put it in drive and it won't move. It's like somebody has me chained to the fence or like there are big tire chocks behind my tires. The engine roars but I'm barely moving. I could go into the many, many calls to my Honey, his best friend who I call my Spare Husband, Our Mechanic, AAA, Our Customer and the other folks that needed to be contacted but it would make your eyes bleed. I'll just say that I sat there for over 2 hours waiting for the tow truck to come get me and haul my sweet ride to the shop. I thought I could make it because while I was waiting for tow truck dude the car suddenly worked, but then after a few short blocks it literally ground to a hault with burning brake smell and squeeling. UGH. Dude gave me a ride in his freezing cold dirty truck and dropped me and my material off at home on the way to the shop.

Of course we have loaned my Dear Son's truck to my wonderful neice who is visiting from Michigan so the only thing I had to drive was a filthy, muddy service truck that needed diesel and air in the tires that really need to be replaced. NASTY. I think the inside was 10 times dirtier then the outside.

Dear Daughter (DD)to the rescue! She is anti-driving right now and so she offered her car to me. As soon as the sweet grandson woke from his name they drove over and picked me up. After dropping her off I drove to the customers and Sister in loves 45 minutes from home. Hit the bank and Costco and dealt with the tax advisor and the guy making some shirts for us while I was driving. I was told to spend some money and I LOVE spending money!!

By the time I dropped off DD's Costco needs and then dropped of a huge crate of oranges from SIL at a friends house and came home I was done. It's now nearly 6 pm! I am SO not in the mood to clean. Dear Son came home for his requested 2 days off for a trip and we went to dinner. We came home and the dog had marked on the ladder I had put in the nice freshly cleaned dining room. I like the dog but I seriously considered killing it when I saw it. WTF?!?!!? We've had the ladder longer then him, it's been in the house a million times and it's been in this time for atleast 3 days.

How can you dislike a face like this?? Normally he is referred to as Turbo the Wonder Dog or Bubby. Tonight he is "The Dog". That's all I'm sayin!

I need to go shop for office supplies and Honey is taking the "Spend Money" advice from the Tax Guy to heart and is trying to buy a new company vehicle in the next 24 hours. He also had me order a new office computer which we desperately need. Ours was bought used in 2001!

Big Sigh.... tomorrow is another day. I'll head to office depot in my little tiny borrowed Toyota and fill it with cases of paper, storage boxes and file folders for the new year. Hopefully my outing will NOT include driving to a car dealership and handling paperwork on a new service truck. That is SO not on my schedule of things to do! When I get home I'll dive into the new spot in the dining room, finish the living room and maybe do the office and master bedroom rugs. The floor can just wait. Hmmmm, maybe I'll have the heavy cases of paper delivered. That's a GREAT idea!!! :-)

Getting Ready for the New Year

I made a decision the other day. Since Honey and The Boy Child are both working out of town, and for the time being I don't have my sweet grandson, I'm going to shampoo every room in the house. I'm also going to super-duper clean the tile and grout in every room and then after it dries I'm going to seal it. Of course first I had to finish un-decorating Christmas.

So, this morning I packed all the Christmas stuff away and labeled each box. I put everything I really wanted into the garage to be loaded into the attic. Everything else went into the back of the car to go to Goodwill. Gotta get my tax credit!

When Christmas was put away I finished what I had started last night which was moving all of the furniture from the dining room and kitchen into the hall on The Boy's side of the house. Then I moved all the living room furniture to one side and vacuumed everything. I took a break to drop off payroll, meet my Baby Girl at Target for some Christmas returns, to pick up some cleaning supplies and to force feed her some lunch. I then did some banking, tanned my body and then came home to dive back in.

Accomplished tonight was shampooing the dining room and half of the living room. Not bad for an old lady!

The guys are totally gone until the January 10th and I'll drive South for a race with honey this weekend. I figure I can have all the floors done by New Years Eve so the grout can dry and I can seal it before leaving on Friday Morning. It can dry while me and the Puppy are gone.

Wish me luck!