Rising to the Challenge

Well, it’s long past time to clean up the yard and get more plants to murder.

Yesterday, I went to a home improvement store to get some plants for the front yard. I had spent the previous morning cleaning up the dead debris from the previous year, and needed some boosts of color. As usual, I gravitate towards petunias. I love petunias. They tend to do well in hot weather, and their velvety colors are rich and radiant. Who wouldn’t want such beautiful blooms??

Look at them!!! Aren’t they lush and gorgeous?

I have to admit, those plants tend to survive here quite well, but it does get rather boring after a while. The problem we have is choosing plants for the front stoop. That area acts like a magnifying glass in the afternoon. After consulting Hubby (and by that, I mean he pretty much said I couldn’t kill these), we settled on cacti.

There they are and there they’ll stay. Heat and Summer challenge: accepted. And if they do die, it will NOT be my fault this time.

I’ll take the blame for the other plants that do die off, though. This is me we are talking about 😉

Hole in the Wall

Would that I referred to a great little eaterie.

Unfortunately, today is the day for home repair. A while back, a certain fist flew and attacked a poor, defenseless wall, causing the wall to suffer a terrible loss of gypsum. A hasty bandage in the form of a calendar was applied until such time as surgery to replace the drywall could be performed.

Let this be a lesson to NEVER get me upset*.

Anyway, I was fortunate enough to find a gentleman who specializes in covering up drama driven fury general home repair. So today the hole will be patched, along with some dents around the house, and a few broken tiles. As a bonus, he will return once the weather is back to being Texan and do the mortar outside along the brick edge. Age is taking its toll on the house, I suppose. I’m just glad I hired someone to do the repairs. Because if it had been up to me, I would have used Lego™ bricks and E-6000™.

Of course, seeing the tile being replaced is giving me the urge to have it ripped out and have wood flooring done. And by “urge”, I mean “all consuming need”. But since this won’t be my retirement home (see what I did there??), I’ll probably just keep to repairing it and concentrate on saving up for the important stuff, like kids’ college and Le Creuset™ pots. And Lolita™ glasses. Drinking out of the bottle is so 80’s. That, and if I do drink out of the bottle people start calling me selfish. It’s a small sacrifice to make.

Have a great Wednesday, and remember to be kind to your walls 😀

* I didn’t actually punch the wall. A wayward ladder being carried clumsily by yours truly did. But being the bigger person, I take responsibility. I’m magnanimous that way.

Thursday Never List

As y’all know from yesterday, my mom is coming for a visit and I am in full panic mode. And by that I mean I am obviously sitting at my laptop wasting precious time.

If you wait until the last minute, it only takes a minute, right? RIGHT??

It doesn’t matter how often I tell myself, “Aggie, why not do this, or that, and get it out of the way before X comes over?” Usually when I do ask myself that, my other self retorts with, “HELLO?? Drama isn’t going to read itself, you know!” It’s a vicious cycle. At least it’s not viscous. That’s a whole other level my other other self would love to dissect.

I love my selfs. Heh!

Anyway, when it comes to cleaning, there are some things one should never skip. I mean it. Some things you can’t just ignore. It’s like giving Godzilla a key to Tokyo and a coupon for all-you-can-eat. Maybe that doesn’t make sense to y’all, but it sounded pretty awesome in my head.

Cleaning Jobs One Should Never Skip

#5– Refrigerator bins

Ignore it, and next thing you know the tomatoes are conspiring with the lemons to kill the lettuce and take over the fridge.

#4– Garbage disposer

Disposal… disposer… poh-tay-toh… poh-tah-toh. No matter what you call it, that little contraption hides all sorts of gunk and can really stink up the house.

#3– Towels

Any towel used for the express purpose of drying, be it a body or a dish, will start to smell of stagnant pond water.

#2– Stove pans

You know how you start cooking and suddenly the delish dish smells of dead rodent? Yeah, that’s why.

#1- Commode

Y’all should know this would be #1. If you didn’t then you have issues, and should call Molly Maid™ ASAP.

And those are my tips for today. Remember, the floor can be crunchy or sticky, as long as A) it’s not from bones or blood, 2) people wear shoes, and iii) Legos are safely stored away.

Those suckers can pierce leather 😉

Getting Dirty

Heh, fooled you with that title, didn’t I? Well, I am clearing the garden today, and relocating those white rocks in the flower beds, and whacking major shrubbery.

But not with a herring.

As low maintenance as our backyard is, the dogs tend to wreak their own special kind of havoc by running in the flower beds while barking at the dogs on the other side of the fences. Consequently, all the gravel and pretty pebbles get displaced. If it were up to me, I would have all that taken out and replaced with MOAR DURT!! But it’s too costly of a project to undertake at this time, so we stick to maintaining it. Hopefully one day we will set up a hammock for nice summer evenings. Along with fifteen bug zappers.

Can’t take chances with insects around here. Not when they can carry you off 😀

Irons in the Fire

Holy cow, do I have a lot of crap going on.

Tomorrow we shall enjoy the Independence Day parade, in which Son is taking part. But today, we have to get in gear. Have to clean the rooms, do loads of laundry, get uniforms ready, finish storing stuff in the (nicely organized) garage, trim the Barbados trees, re-do the gravel beds, and clean the cabinets.

Oh, and have a repairman fix the upstairs A/C unit.

Because it’s Texas. In the summer.

Ain’t nobody got time for that.

Hopefully after all is done, I will have time to finish a few projects I have going on, like the book sculpture, the light fixture (still figuring out how to even out the ornaments), a scrapbook layout for a challenge (almost done) and some DIY cupcake stands for a party (they will be the party favors).

It’s not that I got tired of making stuff. It’s just that I didn’t want to ruin my nails before our trip last weekend. It was moot anyway, seeing as I broke three of them while at the lake. I may not have a lot of vanities, but I want my hands to be somewhat presentable.

Because no one wants to shake hands with dried up gobs of E-6000 😀

Is It Spring Yet???

Nope, not complaining of the weather at all. For once. But for some reason I find myself itching to get home improvements started.

This is highly unusual. So much so that Hubby still can’t picture my vision. And it’s a GRAND one. This is my To-Do List for next weekend:

• Paint the main bathroom.
• Frame bathroom mirrors with stone tiles.
• Hang antique mirror in foyer.
• Update light fixtures with paint.
• Finish making light fixture for Little One’s room.

This does not include cleaning out and reorganizing the garage, which is a constant battle, truth be told. But I am making progress slowly. I took several garbage bagfuls to Goodwill, and thrown out crap that had been boxed up since North Carolina.

That was before Germany, which was ten years ago.

I am NOT a hoarder!!

Anyway, this week I will be prepping rooms and light fixtures and even wall decor. Hopefully things will be ready by next Saturday. But if I know Hubby, he’s hoping the majority will be done before then 😉

Overstuffed

I have come to a conclusion: there is no room for anything in this house.

After days of clearing out the upstairs scrapbooking stuff from the storage closet, only to organize what I kept back in it, it just seems like I still have no room for anything. Add to that the full SUV I took to Goodwill drop-off this past Saturday, and I still have a cluttered garage. Every shelf and bookcase and cabinet is completely full.

I thought of turning to Craigslist or some similar way of advertising all the stuff I want to set fire to banish from the premises. But I am a bit *ahem* leery of doing that. Maybe I’ll just set it all on the sidewalk with a sign that says “FREE STUFF”. All I know is I have plans for this house, and that entails getting rid of a LOT of crap:

• I want to set up a dart board and a fridge in the garage.
• I want to have my own scrapping area.
• I want to put all the books in shelf units.
• I want to organize all the power tools into ONE place.
• And finally, I want to set up my stained-glass art area.

I have PLANS, people. I just need the oomph to get going.

That, and more shelves, apparently 😉

 

Ahhhh, Sunday

I love Sundays. Not to be confused with The Sundays, which I also love. Sundays tend to be very slow around here. That’s a good thing, because I am still getting rid of stuff upstairs.

I think I defied some law of physics, getting all that crap to fit in one closet.

Anyway, off I go to try and finish closing the gate to Hades which I have opened. In the meantime, enjoy a Sunday earworm.

Hey, it could have been worse. It could have been Rebecca Black 😉

Have a great Sunday!

Funny Findings

So, I am still plodding along, cleaning out the storage closet upstairs. I did say this would be a week long project. If I didn’t say it, I was A) too busy crying or 2) I was trying to figure out why I had bought a bag of rocks when I have a yard full of them.

Anyway, as I kept digging out crap and boxes and bags of forgotten loot I found treasure!!

How cool is that?? I had no idea that was in there. Probably a good thing, too, considering how my kids think outside the box. No telling where they would have “grown” them. Like in the toilet tank.

I also found a huge latte mug with the words “Chocolate Lover” on it (have no idea why I own such a thing…), a battery-operated piggy bank (Son had two and kept one in the box), and a weird glass vase that belongs to Eldest. Oh, and I also found three Coach™ handbags. Hand-me-downs from my sister. I love it when she cleans out her closet. I wish she would do it more often.

So far that is from two shelves thus cleared out. I have…. *mentally straining to count*…. six more shelves to go. And the floor. Can’t forget the floor.

Something tells me a match would have been a better choice 😉

Tuesday Sithy

I’m still plodding along upstairs, trying to get all of my supplies and books organized. The upstairs looks like it exploded.

Twice.

Then threw up.

In my opinion, best zombie EVER!!!

Ok, back to the grind. Have a great day, and hope y’all stay warm!! 😀