busy busy busy

I have spring cleaning fever! I finally freed the kitchen blinds from their dusty dirty grimy greasy home and gave them a thorough cleaning! That means that ALL of the blinds in my house are currently CLEAN! Woohoo! I spent a couple of hours scrubbing my kitchen today. Now that the grease and dirt are off the walls and cupboards, it looks worse! lol! You can see that the walls desperately need to be painted. Let's just say that if we were going to be here longer than another year, we would be PAINTING this place. Maybe we should anyway. Whaddya think, Tommy? Up for a little painting? Just the kitchen, bathroom, living room & our bedroom. I would even do it exactly the same colors. There is so much wood trim in this house, it would be a NIGHTMARE to paint it! I scrubbed the bathroom down, too. I really need to mop the walls. They look awful, but I am afraid I'll mop the paint right off!

Tomorrow is errands and laundry! We have to run to Costco & to pay bills. Not my favorite errands, but totally necessary. I have about five loads of laundry to fold & put away, plus about four more loads to wash! I have been so swamped with my album creation the last week that I haven't had a chance to do anything around the house. I have about a million projects that I want to do, but haven't had time. Wanna hear my list? Well, it's my blog, so I am going to tell you anyway!

INSIDE:

*Empty the hutch of my books, sort my craft supplies & put the supplies in pretty containers to put in the hutch. I am determined to use my paper & craft supplies!

*Use my craft supplies! lol! I have a very cool new sewing machine and I intend to put it to good use! I really want to learn to quilt. I may have to have my aunt give me lessons.

*Make wall hangings for my kitchen. I have some really cute ideas for these, but I don't want to share until I get them done and can post photos.

*Print my scrapbook pages. And trim them and put them in albums. Subnote - BUY albums and protectors!

*Stay current on my scrapbooks, both scrapping & printing.

*Pack up all the winter clothes, and unpack the summer ones. We are in transition right now. One day it's summer and the next it is snowing!!! CRAZY weather!

*Clean out the basement. It is a huge disaster right now. I really need to go through bins and boxes and see what we can get rid of. Most of it is baby clothes. And while we are not planning to add any more kids to our little family, we aren't ready to get rid of them just yet.

*Do more crafts with Hannah. She has recently found a passion for "kids' scissors". She loves to cut anything and everything! Including Ruthie's, her baby doll, hair. Or even better, HER HAIR! I was cleaning the kitchen today, and I moved a set of plastic drawers and found a long thick lock of curly hair! I asked Hannah where it came from and she said, "Oh. Right back here with these other curls. I just cut it off the other day when I was creating my crafts. More will grow in, Mom. It's okay. Are you mad at me, Mom?" I couldn't help it, I started LAUGHING! Why, oh why, does she make me laugh when she does something she shouldn't??? Side story - we were in the car the other day and she said, "Oh, dangit! (but she said the "other" word) It's 6:30 and I had to be home at 10:30" I about lost it! First, she has no concept of time. It was about 2:00. Second, where did she hear that??? I do NOT say that. She is just too smart. She hears a word or a phrase and she knows when/where/how to say it. I just about died laughing! Thomas had to explain to her that we don't say that phrase and it makes Heavenly Father sad when we say things like that. Tonight, we were reading a book that my mom used to read to her last summer. We have read it maybe once or twice since then. She could recite the first half of the book! I wish I had a memory like that. Okay, back to my list...

OUTSIDE:

*Plant the rest of my garden. My sugar snap peas just broke through the ground! They're so cute! They got snowed on today though! :) Hannah LOVES gardening with me. She goes outside with me every evening to check on the plants and water them. She loves to hold the water hose and shake it up and down to make it "rain" on the plants. She likes to dig in the dirt with her little trowel and rake. So cute!!! The other day, we went out and spent about an hour in the garden digging and planting and watering. When we were done Hannah said, "It sure was nice of Daddy to give us some girl time alone!" What a crazy kid! Me thinks Daddy just didn't want to get dirty! She says this every single time we go out to garden! She is VERY excited to plant our green beans, zucchini, tomatoes, watermelons & pumpkins. She wants to get some sunflower seeds as well. They would look really cute by our back fence, so we probably will. It will cover up the ugly fence that backs up to an engine repair shop. :)

*Get a grill & patio furniture. Nothing expensive. It is so blasted hot in the house already. I can't even imagine how hot it is going to be this summer. There is no way that we are going to be able to cook in the house. And hopefully we can find some cheap patio furniture on KSL or Craigslist. Anyone have any that they want to get rid of???

*Clean off my front porch and get some curb appeal. Our little house is soooo cute. But we have no sunlight on the front of our house at all. That means no flowers. I got some wildflower seeds and flower boxes to hang over the side of the porch. I got home and tried to hang the flower boxes and the porch rail is too thick, so the boxes won't hang. So, I get to return those.

OTHER:
*Measure Hannah's bedroom and take a trip to IKEA. We are thinking about getting her a loft bunkbed system so that we can put Ainsley's port-a-crib in their room. BUT there is a very good chance that Hannah's room isn't quite big enough! We can't turn the bed against the long wall because the windows in Hannah's room open in and the bunkbed would block it. And since we don't have air conditioning, we have to keep that window accessible. Maybe we'll make Grandma go with us next week. I hate braving IKEA alone.

*Make a chore chart organizing all of the household duties and how often they need to be done and by whom. Hannah loves lists and she gets excited about doing chores. And when she can check them off her list, she is even happier! Might as well go with it and get her to do even more!

DESIGN STUFF:
*Organize my supplies. The program I currently use lost about half of my design tags. Imagine a three year old getting loose in a craft room FILLED with scrapbook & craft supplies. That's about what it feels like right now!

*Create blogs for Angie & Chrissy. I haven't forgotten you guys!

*Market myself. I need to register a domain name and get some traffic generated.

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I am sure that there is more that I need to do, but that's all I can think of off the top of my head! I'm sure Thomas could add another 10+ items to my list! So, I need to get off my behind and go to sleep so that I can get started bright and early tomorrow! I'll post pictures of my projects as I finish them! :)