Lazy Me

I'm sorry I haven't been that communicative lately.  Needless to say things have been a bit hectic.  So here's what has kept me so busy:

1.  My parents visited for just over 2 weeks and we got all kinds of things done while they were here.  Among them, fixing a leak in our pool, cutting down and hauling away 6 or 7 trees, removing a couple sections of wooden fence that was starting to fall apart, preparing the area around the pool for my pineapple garden, and just doing some visiting (one of our favorite methods of relaxing was in the pool right after doing yard work - can you blame us?).

Dirty?  Nah!  Can you say pool time (after rinsing with the hose first)

2.  Starting my new career.  When my parents arrived, I was studying for and taking my real estate license test.  Since then I've been filling out paperwork and getting settled at the office.  I think I will be ready to take calls and emails the middle of next week.  Yay!

3.  I've been trying to organize the house more, so that it will run a little more smoothly in my absence.  I've also been showing hubby how to do some things that I usually do (like grocery shop using coupons).

4.  I made these poor man's curtains.  The blinds that were here before were cracked and would not open correctly, so I made these curtains out of table cloths found at the local ReStore.  I added mattress covers to the back to make them a little thicker.  With the thread, costs were less than $7.

5.  We had to move our business bank account (again), because the new bank started charging us fees (you know the reason we moved from the last bank).  I'm loving the new bank (a credit union actually) so we may move our personal accounts there soon too.

6.  We've also been busy shuttling the kittens around.  Saturday and Sunday they go to a pet store that is about 30 minutes away so that they can be seen and possibly adopted.  One of the kittens also got hurt and has required a couple trips to the vet.  None have been adopted yet, but a couple of them have gotten some attention so I think it's a matter of time.

Life Off Hold

The last week it's felt like my life was on hold.  I admit it was self-imposed.  You see I had set a goal for myself that I wanted to complete something before the end of the weekend (yesterday) so I did everything in my power to make sure I did what I needed to accomplish that task.  Unfortunately, it meant some other things have not been taken care of as well as I would have liked.  Today I got to work on all of that.

So far today I've:

• done laundry (lots of it), 
• swept the house (I love having tile and pergo - no need to get the vacuum out all the time)
• caught up on paying the bills
• sent in paperwork to change our address for voter registration
• made numerous phone calls I've been needing to make for a while
• moved stuff from the camper to the house (we all start sleeping in the house beginning tonight).  All the noise from the wind and rain last night meant I hardly slept at all so I just decided tonight I would not endure it again.
• listed to my daughter read to me (my favorite thing, I must admit)

On my list for the rest of today:

• spot mop the kitchen and dining areas
• get my grocery list together
• make dinner
• clean up some branches that fell on our driveway
• research how to prop up our poor banana tree (it didn't like the wind and rain either)
• and after the kids go to bed, I'm going to start working on my next big self-imposed, time-sucking goal.  It has a deadline of July 3 so it won't last too long.  It's completion will bring some definite changes for my family.  More to come on that soon  :-)

Now I'm off to work on my list.

Sinking In

What. did. we. just. do?

Yep.  It's starting to sink in that we just bought a house that needs some work.  Don't get me wrong, I like doing the work.  It's a bit of bonding time for hubby and me, and I'm finding that our kids like it too.  In fact, I had trouble finding things for them to do today while we were there (it was our first trip there since buying it and we still don't have many tools and such there).

I think what I'm finally realizing is the enormity of all we have to do.  I've worked up a list of things we want to get done (some before we move in and some at some point in the future).  I'm also realizing all that we have to do to get out of the house we're in too.

I'm definitely realizing how important it will be to spend the night on occasion.  That's why I just ordered our Internet service.  What computer guy can spend time away from the Internet for very long?  Doesn't hurt that it's FIOS (For those of you who know my hubby, you know how excited he was when he found out we could get FIOS).  We've also bit the bullet and gotten cable TV.  Among other things, we will be getting local channels (for me), Animal Planet (for daughter), and Science channel (for hubby and son). 

This is the first time we've paid for TV service in almost 2 years so it's definitely a treat.  What's amazing is that FAST Internet, cable, and phone at our new house is cheaper than just moderately fast Internet at our current house.  Gotta love competition's effect on pricing.  Now all we need is a good TV  :-)