In all seriousness...

I'm warning you that this is a serious blog. At least, that is my intention writing it. We shall see what develops. I have a hard time sustaining seriousness.

I recently "facebooked" an old friend. I think I knew him 4 years of my college 'experience.' He is finishing his PHD and working in DC to save the world. Ok. I realized I always thought I would do similar things. I would teach English in Yemen or help immigrants become naturalized in Chicago or California. In other words, I would be working for the 'greater good.'

Instead, I am a stay at home mom. This transition has been more difficult than I care to imagine. I am not a mom with a career; I am a stay at home mom. Occasionally I write, but mostly I clean up urine. I am not helping 100's of people; I am helping 4. It took this last week at education week at BYU to realize I need to focus on this.

The whole time I have been a mom, I have wanted a career. I think I finally learned I have to figure out how to be a mom before I can do both. This is what my organizational goal is about. I will know where the paper is. I will know my kids are fed and healthy. I will have things as much under control is possible with humans in perpetual motion.

Then I am hoping I will learn the lessons I need so I can have more. I need to learn how to use a zipper before I purchase the leather jacket with the 35 zippers. (the analogy is there, I swear) I am really, really hoping that once I learn this, my reward will be to have the time to have the career I have always wanted: Sports agent.

House of Order

Ok. 2 major things have inspired this blog.
1. I saw Julie and Julia and thought of something I needed to be accountable for through my blog.
2. I went to education week and took classes from Marie Ricks, professional organizer.

So here is my goal. I will spend form today to January 1st becoming organized. I will do daily cleaning jobs. I will create a master menu of 28 meals and rotate them and only them. I will create a master grocery list and stick to it. I will get control of my paper. I will calendar and get ahead instead of behind. I will add more time to my day by being organized and stop stressing about the household stuff not getting done because it will be done. I will be proactive and take this whole "in charge of the household" thing seriously. I will therefore be able to finish my book because I will open up time.

I will find a new husband who is not a worse procrastinator than I am.

I figure I will give it until January. I may not be completely organized by then, but I should be converted. If I am not converted, I figure my new year's resolution will be to deal with the fact I am unorganized.

And you dear readers will go along with me. You will hear of my wonderful times being organized and figuring out how to do this. I am still confused how I will do it with 2 homes, but I will. I will just have to alter a few things. Who knows, perhaps I will be a writer/professional organizer soon. Or I will take valium and achieve inner peace with how life is.

Estate Jewelry

I was just at my parents' house and I realized they have a lot of stuff. They have a lot of useless stuff. It made me ponder as I thought about a friend who just helped her mom sell her house and go through all her useless stuff. It inevitably comes down to the children to go through all of this stuff. Now I'm not saying that my parents are close to kicking the bucket (unless you ask them and then they may tell you the bucket is already tipping and doesn't need to be kicked, a good nudge should get them to the other side just fine) but watching my brother help my mom put full-size Louis L'Amour books back on the shelf made me ponder. Who is going to want any of this? My husband loves L'Amour but only in paperback. My parents have their VHS library still. Even though they no longer have video players. It is a confusing situation.

I just think my parents should stop buying things. They are spending my inheritance on things I don't want. I think they should ask me from now on what they should buy. I think that would be nice.

This is why I buy lots of expensive jewelry. I figure Katherine will like to wear it when she is older or she can hawk it and can get money for it. I guess I could ebay L'Amour, but it isn't as easy as jewelry. I think instead of buying leather books, my dad should start buying L'Amour inspired jewelry - takes up less room and easier to get money back. Cuz there is no way I would wear it.

New House

I am in love with a house. It is gorgeous. It is open and bright and the basement is bright and has a fridge and it is beautiful.

Except...

The basement and the kitchen have wine racks. What do I do with these?

It is in Montana City and that is 15 minutes away. I would be 20 minutes late to everything instead of 5. I couldn't dash home during dance, either. I would be staying.

Montana City is known for trees and views and it doesn't have much of either. I can see the intersection and the refinery among trees.

I am not sure I want to go to the Montana City LDS congregation. I get the feeling they take themselves more seriously than is prudent.

I would be changing counties and the post office is really far away... which isn't a big deal unless most of your shopping comes from the internet.

James would change schools and I would have to kiss up to a new administration.

We would live too far away for our kids to every walk to school. And I would have to petition to get them into a Helena high school instead of the Boulder scary high school.

There are even more problems.

So why am I seriously considering this?

$876.43 + $50= kitchen faucet

So our condo was built in the '80's and everything in the kitchen is from that time. My faucet was falling apart. The handle on the faucet would just spin and spin around and you would have to figure out where the hot water might be. The sprayer was in need of severe help and would come out of the sink in an unhelpful way. So while at Costco, I saw a kitchen faucet for $50. It said, "EASY to install." I bought it. It stayed in my kitchen for two months.

I had a week of visitors to look forward to so I thought it would be a perfect time to fix my sink. Now, I have replaced bathroom fixtures this year and only one toilet paper holder doesn't work. I replaced a closet door, but stained it a totally different color than the other closet door and I hated staining... Two hours after I stained the door, a bird left a deposit on it and it took Kevin a week to help me put it in and now it looks horrible...

So I have had a few warnings to not do things myself. But the faucet was supposed to be easy. As I took the old faucet off, I threw away the pieces so there would be no turning back. When I went to take the main part of the faucet off, I tried to unscrew it under the sink. I tried three different tools. I finally called our all knowing friend Alan and he came over. He took the sink out of the cabinet to get a better view. It was rusted solidly on. And the sink was rusted. And the metal fasteners holding the sink in were rusted and many were broken. So now I needed a new sink.

But we had to take the garbage disposal off the sink and it's fasteners fell apart. And when unhooked, it just stunk.

I went to Home Depot. I decided to get a beautiful deep sink and a really nice disposal and a new faucet... the $50 one didn't seem nice enough now. Well the plumbing for the sink was too high for a deep sink so I had to go back and buy a different sink and then the plumbing expert looked at the pipes I was buying on my third trip and told me my garbage disposal would hook to my dishwasher and I could get rid of one of the pipes so I could use my original deep sink so now I had two sinks and new pipes and a garbage disposal and two faucets. It had been 12 hours and 5 Home Depot trips later. I had Alan come back over. He was figuring out the pipes while I put the sink and faucet in. So I did that part all by myself and you can tell. There is caulk all over the place and the faucet isn't centered. Alan did the pipes and I had to get an electrician over to hook up the garbage disposal.

So I bought a $50 faucet that was to be put in within an hour. $876.43 and 48 hours later, I had a new sink, faucet, and disposal. Of course the disposal makes a funny sound, but I'll worry about that next summer.
(I was able to return one of the sinks so I kept the bill under $1000. I win)

Watching Television With Seth

Dora:
Say Map!
Seth: No
Dora: Will you help Boots go up the mountain?
Seth: No
Dora: Are you strong?
Seth: No

Mickey Mouse Club
Mickey: Can you help Minnie find the yellow daisies?
Seth: No
Mickey: Can you clap your hands?
Seth: No

Yo Gabba Gabba:
Do you love your family too?
Seth: No
Can you get up and dance?
Seth: No

I'm sensing a theme...

Katherine's 4th Birthday

There once was a girl
With a girl
In the middle of her forehead
When she was good
She was very very good
But when she was Bad
She was horrid.





When people arrived, she was sitting in her pink chair watching the people walk past with her gifts. She spent 1/2 of the party in the neighbors house watching tv. She spent 1/4 crying because we were singing happy birthday, because people wanted to watch her open her gifts, and because she picked the pinata Dora the Explorer and didn't want to beat her open because she had been talking to her for 2 days. The last 1/4 she had "changed her attitude." The guests had fun. Happy Birthday.