Sandusky Vacation, Day One

Last Thursday we packed up the car and hit the road for Sandusky, Ohio...a little town on the edge of Lake Erie that is home to my favorite amusement park (so far), Cedar Point! In the past, I've stayed at the Cedar Point resorts because they have awesome park perks (such as getting in an hour early before the crowds!)...but this year, we were staying at the new Kalahari. My friend Adam runs an anime convention (Colossal Con) every year, and this year it was at the Kalahari - I'd never met Adam in person, having only played WoW with him previously, but he's a good friend of my friends Sarah and Eric AND he's an awesome guild member. (Yes, I realize I just delved quite severely into the world of nerddom. Sorry.) Originally we were hoping some other Chicago-based members of our Guild would be able to join us, but that didn't work out this year. (However, the con is there again next year and we're hoping to make it an annual event!) We'd never stayed at a Kalahari and were quite excited about the waterpark, as it is reputed to be pretty awesome.

So a good five hours later, we found ourselves checking into a very busy Kalahari. I stayed in the car and took pictures while OJ checked in.


Check out this dude's outfit; it's silver-spangley with some kind of funky fur coat over it! I don't know if the green boots go with that shirt or with something else, lol.

We settled into our room, which was one-half of the suite we would eventually have the next night (when our friends Tina and Ringo and their girls would be joining us). I was dismayed to note that it was an hour ahead there; I should have known that but it's been several years since I made it out to Cedar Point, so I'd forgotten. We freshened up and immediately headed out to hit the park on some Starlight tickets (cheaper evening tickets you can purchase after a certain time each day).

The kids were both JUST tall enough to ride all the kiddie rides, as well as quite a few of the mid-level rides. I LOVE spinny rides and carnival rides, but often can't get other adults to go on with me (seems a lot of people start to get sick of spinning by the time they hit my age!), so I'm thrilled that my kids are not only big enough to go on these rides, but that they are incredibly excited about doing so. We may not get to hit many roller coasters yet, but by golly I can spin to my heart's content!


Drake and I on the main carousel (it's one of three in the park!).


Drake thinks the carousel is awesome!


OJ and Oksana on the carousel.



The sky ride, which takes you up on a cable and deposits you in the middle of the park. It also gives you a lovely view of the park and of surrounding Lake Erie.


The sky ride is NOT OJ's favorite ride, and he did his best to avoid having us ride it a second time for the rest of our vacation. ;) (That's the Demon Drop in the background.)


Drake and I are having a great time on the Matterhorn; Oksana was too short to ride this one, even with an adult.


Pretty much every ride we went on, the kids wanted to go again! (and again! and again!). So Drake took a turn with OJ next.


heh heh. heh heh. Mermaid boobies. (This was on the Ocean Motion, a big ship that swings back and forth; Drake and I took a ride on it.)


The kids in Planet Snoopy, one of FOUR themed kids' areas in the park. This was my first visit there with kids, and I have to say they do a great job being incredibly child-friendly and accommodating!


Drake taking a spin on one of the rides in Planet Snoopy.


Totally oblivious to the rest of us, lol.


The kids on one of those rides where they can control how high they fly with a lever in the plane (or spaceship, as the case may be). Cedar Point had several different incarnations of this ride, all of them a hit.


Oksana on the kiddie train.


See, here's another incarnation of the flying ride, this time in the Kiddy Kingdom.


The kids on the kiddie-style bumper cars. I sound like a HUGE dork, but I thought it was particularly funny that Drake stopped in the middle of the ride and tried to get Oksana to share her necklace with him.


One of the new features at the park this year is this water fountain; it was a little chilly that night so we didn't let the kids run through (though, as you can see, it's practically irresistible). It's pretty neat though, and I imagine it'll be PACKED on hot summer days. In the background, you can see the Raptor (the green coaster), which is their inverted coaster (and it's a pretty sweet ride, though we didn't manage to hit it on this trip), and in the VERY back, you can see the hill of the Blue Streak, a wooden coaster - the oldest operating coaster in the park.

We had to cut our evening short because the park closed at 8pm, instead of 9 like I'd thought. We were going to eat dinner IN the park but it was a no-go, sadly. We lost TWO HOURS because of the time change and because I remembered the closing time wrong. :( But we had fun anyway!

I got my hairs cut. Yes, all of them.

I've been tossing around the idea of getting a haircut for, oh, months. If you don't already know, then you SHOULD know that I've never been much of a girly-girl. Sometimes I wonder if this would be a little different if I was thinner. Possibly a little, because it would be more fun...but overall, I don't think it's really in my nature. I don't pay much mind to fashion. I wear makeup only on special occasions. I don't color or cut my hair regularly - usually it only happens on a whim. I almost never wear jewelry.

It had been a LONG time since my last haircut. I had this fantasy going about having beautiful looooong hair, and believe me my hair had gotten pretty long. But not being very fashionable, especially where hair is concerned, I never did much with it. I was sporting the boring straight middle-part, no bangs, hair hanging in my face all the time hairdo. And usually the 'hanging in my face' part would get really old really quick, so most of the time it was up in a ponytail - or, more recently, a ponytail I never finished pulling through all the way; you could ALMOST call it a bun but I was too lazy to even do that.

So the dream of long hair was slowly wearing away. But I was reluctant to get a haircut because, being overweight, I never feel like I look good with shorter hair. And doing anything BUT going short just didn't seem to make sense to me. Seeing pictures of my vacation post-waterpark hair only furthered my resolve to do something about the mess on my head.



Yes, that shaggy, wet creature is me (walking with my son, who was "Batman, dressed as Spiderman, so the bad guys won't know me"). And down below, I'm the shaggy wet one on the left, taking a picture (of my daughter with a Furry. Or an okapi provided by the hotel. There was an anime convention going on so I'm not sure to which the suited creature belonged).



Yesterday, the pressure to CUT IT ALL OFF built up to a boiling point, and I turned to my trusty friend, Google. Imagine my surprise when I started typing in "short hair" and Google supplied me with choices such as "Short hairstyles for round faced women", "short hair on fat women", "short hairstyles for round fat faces", and the like. Either those searches are much more common than I would have previously believed, or Google is calling me fat. Either way, HEY, that was exactly what I was looking for!

So I poked around and, after reading the advice of various random hair professionals (or not) on the internet, it seems the graduated bob is the way to go. Just make sure it ends below your chin in front or your face will look even fatter.

Armed with this information and a picture of the ever-lovely Jenny McCarthy's graduated bob (because apparently SHE has a round, fat face? HA.), I headed off to Great Clips. Where I learned (from my hairdresser who, ironically, is a member of my TOPS club) that it had been 42 WEEKS since I last had a haircut. (I TOLD you I wasn't very good at hair maintenance!) Also, it seemed that if we went just a liiittle shorter than planned, I would have the ten inches of hair required to donate. (At least from the back.) Since it's for a good cause, I went for it; the back was ponytailed and SNIP! A huge wad of hair is now going off to make wigs for cancer patients. Now I actually feel good about waiting that 42 weeks. ;)

Juanita, my hairdresser, told me that I'd have to use a straight-iron on my hair if I wanted that super-sleek look. My hair isn't curly but it has a surprising amount of body for being so thick. I gave her this look like "it's been 42 WEEKS since I had my hair CUT and you think I'm going to straight-iron it every day?" and she said I could also scrunch it with some hair pomade. She got another look and said "or you could just get up and let it do its own thing" and I was all "BINGO!". Aaaand, here we are.

Pardon my facial expressions; I never did master the art of the MySpace pic.



Also, yes, it's probably going to eternally do that flippy-outy thing because, again, NOT STRAIGHT-IRONING MY HAIR EVERY DAY. Or, really, probably EVER. I don't even BLOW DRY it after the shower, people. Not even when it was long and would stay wet for five hours.

slump

I got back from vacation and hit this slump; the slump where I am sitting around feeling totally unmotivated to do ANYthing but daydream about how nice it would be if I was able to live the vacation-style life all the time.

(We all know that just daydreaming about it ain't gonna get me there, don't we?)

So I'm trying to claw myself out. Get back into the routines I was working so hard to set up for myself. I find that there are often times when I get dragged into these slumps for one reason or another and it's just hard to break out of it. It's not like depression, it's more like being lazy...I just want to sit around and read. And, lately, it's feeling like I can't wrap my head around everything that needs doing, so I do nothing at all. That feeling seems to happen most when my environment is disorderly, and if one thing can make your environment disorderly, it's VACATION. I evidently haven't mastered the art of packing and unpacking in a neat and organized fashion. Vacation threw up in my house and it's inviting other clutter and mess to grow around it.
So the first part of the solution is probably to finish unpacking, put everything away, and get the house back to company-ready status.

Now, to find the motivation...


oh, vacation, how I miss thee...

frog hopper

We have been on vacation for the past several days. A few things kept me from blogging while we were away. The hotel's internet connection was DREADFULLY slow. We were incredibly busy the entire time - having FUN, and boy was it exhausting to have such a good time! And we shared a suite with some good friends of ours, so even when we were back in the room, if we weren't sleeping, we were visiting. I had hoped to blog a bit while we were gone, but 'best laid plans' and all that.

So I'm back at work today and back to dreaming about living a life of leisure, with the millions of dollars I have in my head.

what do you do when you feel overwhelmed by the things you want to do?

As soon as I started talking about adding in exercise and meal planning in addition to my housecleaning project, I lost motivation for practically everything. More often than not, I find myself sitting around and wanting to do stuff but not knowing where to start, so I sit and stare at the mess around me, totally bewildered.

Am I overwhelmed at the thought of trying to tackle two projects at once, knowing I've failed there in the past?
Am I overwhelmed because exercise and eating right have always been such huge problems for me and it seems so overwhelming to even TRY again?
Or is there some other reason I'm struggling with the actuality of eating right and exercising in addition to decluttering?

These questions are sort of rhetorical; I don't know the answers. If I DID, I'd be working on the solution.

I think it's sort of a combination of the first and second though. Every time I sit down with a pad of paper and begin listmaking and thinking about all the pieces involved in the two projects, I get really overwhelmed.

For instance:
In the decluttering department, I am almost done sorting through the entire house. That feels REALLY good, and that is why I'm thinking about adding in another project while I finish up. Because after the house is done, the only other areas to declutter are the laundry room and the garage. And those are going to be HUGE, time consuming projects. I think I'll do much better if I take them in small chunks, say, a box a day on my days off. But that'll take WEEKS and I don't want to wait weeks or months before I start working on my health too.
Even though most of the stuff in the living areas of the house has been tackled and will be done shortly, I still have:

1. decluttering the laundry room
2. decluttering the garage
3. sorting through all the magazines I've saved (largely cooking magazines) that I still can't bring myself to throw away
4. sorting through the BOXES of paper that I've saved (and this is just what I've found in the house, not even what's stuffed in the laundry room and garage) because I couldn't handle decluttering STUFF and PAPER at the same time. (So I just boxed up papers separately and set them aside)
5. scanning all the papers I've decided to keep

Yes, I have a huge paper problem. This post isn't about that. I know it's an issue. I'm working on it.

That's all stuff that falls under the 'decluttering' project. That in and of itself is a fairly overwhelming list.

So when I sit down and try to think about tackling all that PLUS exercising every day AND planning out my meals AND changing my eating habits, I get a little freaked out. TOO MUCH CHANGE AT ONCE.

So what's the answer?

If it's too much, the answer is to cut back, right?

Now, despite the fact that my decluttering project list is still pretty hefty and overwhelming, I've been making huge progress in that area and I feel pretty comfortable with it. I'm confident I can keep working on it and tackle it all (in time) and CHANGE for good.

With the weight thing, I know that exercise AND healthy eating are both important. But I think I'm going to start by focusing on just ONE of those areas. I'm a little torn as to which one, but I believe I will start by focusing on my eating habits. Because I feel more emotionally resistant to exercise: eating is something I do every day anyway; exercise is another time-suck that is going to take away from my decluttering project. I know that's not how I SHOULD look at it, but it's how I feel about it right now. I feel like I'm already getting a decent amount of exercise with the decluttering I've been doing, and I want to continue doing it. (I will add in some extra walk breaks on the days I work though, because I really feel too sedentary those days.) My eating habits are a HUGE issue though, and I've also read in numerous places that a healthy diet is really the bulk of the weight-loss battle. Yes, exercise is hugely important, but if you don't have the diet in place you'll never succeed or maintain. So I'll start with diet and worry about structured exercise down the road.

So basically I live in a constant state of anxiety no matter what.

I haven't gotten very far in tackling two of my roadblocks at once yet. Indeed, whenever I think about starting to work an exercise / healthy meal plan into my life, I start to feel anxious. I am still fighting the clutter monster in my home quite fiercely, and it fills me with anxiety that I will not ever finish this particular project (as has happened in the past) if I start trying to work another project in.
On the other hand, I'm also very anxious about the fact that I'm only focusing on one project, a project that is taking much longer to complete than I had planned, and it is really bothering me that I'm not working on my weight / health issue.

I've also noticed that on days when I work, I get virtually nothing done at home. I just feel too tired. I suspect this is because I sit on my butt all day at the office and sort of fall into a no-energy stupor. I use my brain but not to a terribly challenging level (yet; there are some fun-sounding projects on the near horizon), and by the end of the day I just feel tired and mushy. If I worked more movement and challenge into my days, and if I was eating better-quality foods (or eating at all; sometimes I don't even feel motivated to go eat lunch at work...and that's not so good, especially for a diabetic), then I think I'd be more UP and motivated when I get home.

So all in all, I still think that it makes logical sense to start working on my Fat Breakup...but emotionally, I'm not quite there. I need to push past that.

Today I'm just cleaning, cleaning, cleaning for the next couple hours...then it's a shower and a birthday party (at my place!) for one of my friends. The downstairs is still a mess of boxes and detritus, though it's not nearly as bad as before. However, there's still a LOT to sort through. I'm just going to do whatever I can and we'll party around the rest. It's not like my friends haven't seen my house the way it was before, and they all know about my projects, so I'm not stressing about it. They come to see me, not my mess.
Would I love to have a totally clean house to show off? Sure. And that will come with time. But I'm already proud of everything I've managed to accomplish. Just showing off the closet full of garage sale boxes is a giant accomplishment!

Back to work!

the weight is over

I still have a long, hard road ahead of me in the decluttering department (Roadblock 1). The more I get done around here, the more I realize how very serious my hoarding issue was, and how much more work I still have ahead of me. I've been shoving boxes of STUFF in the laundry room and the garage for YEARS, people. I can't estimate on the laundry room side exactly how much is there, but it's more than was in the downstairs closet. And the garage? One half (of a TWO CAR garage) is PACKED to the gills.

Yeah, it's quite a project.

I'm not giving up, but I have decided I'm ready to try easing a second project in while I work on this one. Of course, easing a second project in is also like opening floodgates; all the other projects want to come rushing in and demand my attention. Fighting the urge to address them all is a legendary battle. But I think, I THINK, I have beaten them all back for now, and let through only one more. Roadblock 2: The Battle of the Bulge.

That's right, I'm ready to attack my weight issue.

Please wish me luck as I try to figure out how to focus on two, and only two, projects for a little while. And expect lots of updates.

today's pic

Me and the kids at the National Geographic BioBlitz held at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, May 15, 2009. A very, very WET day. :)

where it's all at

I know there are burning questions in everyone's mind today. Questions like, DID Kristi achieve her decluttering goal over the 5-day weekend?

The answer to that question, by the by, is NO. She did not.
And, I'm OK with that.
By Sunday morning I was pretty burned out. And reasonably so, I think. I had done a ton of work the three days prior; a lot more work than I had anticipated. I knew what those spaces looked like, obviously, but somehow I still didn't figure on the sheer amount of STUFF crammed in there.
Once again I liken it to being overweight; you know you're overweight, but you have those 'skinny blinders' on. You still think of yourself as being thinner or healthier than you actually are. Which leaves you heading for a very unpleasant reality check next time you see a recent photo of yourself, or catch yourself in the mirror at that horrible angle, or step on the scale.
So I knew my house was cluttered, and I knew I had a lot of stuff, but I didn't realize the magnitude of the problem until I dragged all that stuff out and attempted to sort through it.

Another very overwhelming factor is that my house is really small. The garage sale box pile, up to this weekend, was taking up a good corner of my dining room but it was...manageable. I was OK with living with it until the garage sale.
After I'd finished the bar area and emptied the downstairs closet, and after I'd managed to fill a few more large boxes and drag them up to the garage sale pile, I began to realize that I was starting to feel overwhelmed by the rest of my house again. That coupled with the physical exhaustion of moving so much stuff left me sitting around for a good amount of time. Sitting, staring at the piles and mounds I'd created in my family room. Re-arranging boxes in the dining room, Tetris-style, trying to make it work in a way that wouldn't leave me feeling overwhelmed and stressed. (Which turns me into MegaBitch; I'd like to evict her from the house permanently, and was getting really frustrated that she was trying to creep back in.) It wasn't working. I kept sorting halfheartedly, and managed to mostly clear the stuff out of the bar side again. I even made some progress in the family room.

Last night, my husband came across me sitting at my computer, frustrated, looking up offsite storage places. He asked me what I was doing and I explained that I was trying to work out what to do with all the STUFF. Specifically, the garage sale stuff. I was looking up storage rates to determine if I thought it would be worth it to store that stuff for a month or two just to get it out of my way, or if it would just be worth it to chuck the garage sale idea completely and drag it all straight to Goodwill.
Bless his heart, I know he'd love nothing more than for me to give up on my garage sale dream and drag it straight to Goodwill, but he reigned in his impulse to fight for that option and instead discussed my feelings and needs. I have a really hard time giving up on the garage sale dream. It isn't even that I love garage sales, or that I think I'm going to get rich off my old stuff. I don't plan on trying to sell it at marked-up prices or anything. The trouble I have is that there's a goodly amount of stuff that I think will sell, even if it's only for a couple bucks, and I think we could get enough to maybe tackle one of the house projects we put off. I harbor a secret dream of finishing our laundry room area (the one 'unfinished' part of our home) so it can be a laundry AND craft area and not feel like a utility room. I'd like to make it a much nicer place, a place I'll feel good going in and working in. I'm having a hard time giving up that dream.
I don't want to try selling this stuff on ebay because I'm not really great about shipping stuff to people. I just sort of hate it.

So, I was struggling mightily last night as I was thinking that it would be better to give up the garage sale dream rather than spend the next several months overwhelmed. And I really do think it will take me several more months to finish off the house projects. For one thing, every weekend from now until SEPTEMBER 19 has something scheduled, which means my cleaning time will be drastically reduced this summer. For another, given the amount of time it took me to clear out the bar and closet...I'm really, really scared of the laundry room and the garage. You thought the areas I did this weekend were bad? You ain't seen nothin' yet.
Even though small storage spaces were relatively cheap, and I think I would make more at the garage sale than it would cost me to store the stuff, I'd still lose around $65 on storage for two months. It just didn't make sense to me to spend extra money on this STUFF. Better to just let it go and make peace with that. It was the 'making peace' option that I was struggling with when it hit me. THE DOWNSTAIRS CLOSET!

I had only put a few larger things away in the downstairs closet, and wasn't planning yet on using it for a ton of storage. I could easily take out those few things it was holding and leave THEM in the dining room for a couple of months without being too bothered. And that closet is at least the size of the storage space we would have rented; it might even be bigger. It could hold all the boxes I have already packed PLUS ones I will be packing in the future! It can even hold the odds and ends for the garage sale that were adding extra frustration. The four or five computer towers, the monitor, the blenders and the coffee maker and the bigelectronic thingie that I don't even know what it is, the speaker stands...all of that stuff can be packed out of sight. EUREKA!

So that's where we're at. I was feeling incredibly stymied and overcrowded and wasn't able to make much progress. but with this solution, which we will begin implementing tonight, I will soon feel as if I have space to work on the house again and I will be able to make a lot more progress soon.

Which is good, because we're having a party at my house this Saturday and we kind of need that space. :)

overwhelmed by the closet

The downstairs closet is empty! Unfortunately there is stuff EVERYWHERE downstairs now. There was so much in there; so many things I'd forgotten I had. Some of them loved, some of them searched for multiple times over the past year; but most of them? Stuff that doesn't need to be in this house!! Stuff that I look at and wonder WTF I was thinking when I bought it. Or stuff that makes me shake my head and sigh because I bought it several times over since the original purchase would get lost in the mess of my home.

I had a serious hoarding problem. It's taken me years to address it, years to really be able to let stuff go. It's no wonder, sorting through the detritus of my past, that I've been so overwhelmed for so long.

I used to try the Flylady method; I never managed to make it work for me, and I would stop and start constantly. One thing I remember her saying though is to not take out more than you can deal with / put back in one decluttering session. Looking at the mess I've made of the rest of my downstairs, I'm thinking that's one piece of Flylady advice I have totally ignored, heh. (Of course, she also says to just dump the clutter (donate or whatever) rather than have a garage sale, but I stubbornly keep ignoring that piece of advice too. I spent so much money on all this STUFF that it kills me to not at least attempt to get a little bit back.)

So. I am cleaning up mold in my closet, I've made a giant mess, I'm incredibly overwhelmed...AND, it's time to go pick up my kids from my parents' house.

the downstairs closet: before!

I'm tackling the downstairs closet right now. Here are two before videos for your enjoyment.

the bar area: before and after!

As I mentioned, I got the idea recently to do video 'before and afters' rather than photos; I don't know if it's the small size of our rooms or my lack of photography skills (or both), but I just don't feel like the pictures are really doing it all justice. Besides, one of my favorite shows is Clean House, and if Clean House was just in PICTURE form it wouldn't be as interesting, right? (Sorry, I don't have an entertaining team helping me out, and I can't honestly say I'm all that entertaining, but I give it my best shot!)

I don't have 'before' videos of the bar area because I had the idea after I'd started down here, of course, so here are the 'before' pictures:

This is the corner near the closet; the first thing people see when they come down the stairs.


From the bottom of the stairs; the view across the room towards OJ's desk.


My corner of the bar; that's my workstation. That's where the magic happens, folks.


The other side of the bar. As you can see, it's LOADED with stuff. That's fairly typical; it's a giant hot spot for us. It's going to be a real challenge keeping that surface clean. Also, all that stuff on the floor? That's the path we need to take to attempt to get behind the bar. Not that we could if we TRIED, because...


...this is what it looked like behind the bar! Stuff, stuff and more stuff.


And here is the payoff! The 'after' video! This was a monumental amount of work; there was SO MUCH to sort through. Also, it was terrifying because it had been so long ...
I'm watching my dog try to eat a June bug on the window screen (outside, thankfully, I hate those things) and it's like a car crash; it's totally grossing me out but I can't look away.
Anyway, it had been so long since we'd managed to get behind the bar that there were a LOT of cobwebs, spiderwebs, tiny bug carcasses, you name it. I have two huge phobias: spiders, and corpses. (Yes, even teeny tiny bug corpses.) Serious phobias too, not like girly issues. Working back there was horrible for me. With my husband's help handling the really hard / gross parts, it all got done. I'm ridiculously pleased.



So; feedback! Do you prefer the video before-and-afters, or did you like the photos better?

Also, are there any areas of my house that you want to see? I don't recall what I've posted so far. The rooms that are DONE are the two bedrooms, the upstairs bath and the hallway, the dining room and the kitchen (and now the bar area!) Still in progress are the downstairs closet, the family room, the downstairs bathroom, the laundry room and the garage (the dreaded garage). Those that are still in progress will get their own 'before and after' videos in time. (I will actually be posting the 'before' video for the downstairs closet next!) If you've missed anything on the finished list that you'd like to see, let me know! I'll do a video update.

everyone can learn.

Unclutterer.com has a great post today about how everyone can learn to be organized. As I said in my comment over there, sometimes I get really overwhelmed and think I’ll never manage to be organized. But this post reminded me to look at how much I HAVE learned over the years, and has given me a new dose of motivation. I think I may even hit my decluttering goal for this weekend now ;).

As far as how that is going...I'm 'behind' schedule on paper, but I still feel like I'm doing OK. I started tackling the second messiest of the four areas I've been trying to work on during my five days off. I've got it almost completely decluttered and am just starting the actual CLEANING part of the job. My arachnophobia has really been holding me back on this the past two days (but I've muscled through a lot anyway), but my husband is home today and is going to help me with the scary stuff. (Phobias are a BITCH, you guys. It's another roadblock, but it's one I'm not prepared to deal with right now.) Two of the areas shouldn't be TOO difficult to sort through...and the fourth, the big closet down here, is easily the worst in terms of clutter (we can't even open the door without boxes and bags of STUFF avalanching out), but a lot of that will probably be able to go straight to garage sale boxes, since we haven't even been IN there for easily a year. Which means we probably don't need much of it.

I'm thinking of doing 'before and after' video tours of my rooms from now on; I just think that'll lend itself better to getting an idea of the difference in the rooms the way pictures won't. What do you think?

island fantasy

We will be going to Miami next month to visit family, and while there we plan on taking a day to drive down and visit Key West. I have never been, but I've always wanted to go. We just decided this yesterday, and already my excitement level has become practically unbearable (almost surpassing my excitement for our Cedar Point trip, which is in TWO WEEKS!!). I've spent far more time than I should have reading about Key West, and salivating, and wishing we had MORE TIME and (most importantly) MORE MONEY.(Have I mentioned yet on this blog that I'm impatient? You should probably know that about me.)

Without having ever been there, I've decided that we need to move to Key West. As a matter of fact, as I was searching Key West realty (yes, I really was), I found the perfect place for us to live:
http://www.trumanandcompany.com/1CouponKey.htm

In case that link stops working one of these days:
"Description
Own your own private islands! Coupon Keys - 4 offshore islands & 1 mainland lot for parking and launching - It's incomparable! 14.50 acre island off of MM 27.5 with 3 structures. An elegant resort home with 10 bedrooms & 8 baths, a caretakers 2 BR/2 BA home and a recreation house. Freshly renovated this exquisite getaway is like no other with electricity and Florida Keys Aqueduct Authority hook-up you'll have all the comforts of a true resort. All of the islands are situated between the mainland and Little Palm Island in Newfound Harbor. New impact windows throughout, gourmet kitchen with granite counters & all new bathrooms. Glorious 400 SF roof top sundeck with bar/entertainment room. Plenty of dock space for all of your yachts."

PLENTY OF DOCK SPACE FOR ALL OF YOUR YACHTS.
The fact that this phrase makes me laugh, rather than scratch my chin in contemplation, probably indicates to you that this sentence doesn't exactly apply to my lifestyle (THUS FAR).

The price tag of $18.5MIL, a mere drop in the bucket, is another thing that gives me pause.

But this blog is about dreams, right? And now I'll share another dream with you. I'VE ALWAYS WANTED TO OWN AN ISLAND. Well, 'always' being 'ever since I read about Richard Branson years ago and realized people actually COULD own a WHOLE ISLAND'.

Once I was asked the question, "How will you know when you've MADE IT?"
This is how I will know. When I OWN MY OWN ISLAND.

And when I do, y'all are invited to come and party there with me. Because what is the point of owning your own island if you can't fly all your friends in and have fabulous Margaritaville beach parties all the time??

(If you're wondering how in the world this ties in with my dream of owning a farm...well, there's chickens and cats roaming free all over Key West. And if I'm living on my own island in paradise, you know what? That's farm enough for me!!)

I'm about to directly contradict a very important part of my last post. I'm about to tell you about my new daily exercise plan and how I'm starting it up even though I'm still working on Roadblock 1: Declutter The House.

Yes, I realize this goes against my statement of 'finish one project before moving on to project two'. I gave this a lot of thought before I decided to do it though, and I think it's important.

Project 2, or Roadblock 2 (however you want to look at it), is to lose weight and gain health. This is another area I've struggled for years, and as time goes on it becomes more and more important to me to FIX this problem once and for all. I'm now a Type II diabetic. I'm tired all the time. I have aches and pains that a thirty-year-old shouldn't have. I can't keep up with my kids. I get sick incredibly easily (did I mention I'm sick NOW? And that I've had more colds this year already than I usually have in an ENTIRE year?). That's just the tip of the iceberg, really. But it's all important.

I am not throwing myself full-force into project 2, but I did decide that I can start doing 20 minutes of exercise a day in preparation for project 2. Since Project 1 is taking me a LOT longer than I expected it to, I need to make some modifications to my plan.

So that's my justification. It's a start, a boost, to keep me on the path to health at least a LITTLE while I work on Project 1. I'm building habits, and increasing my core strength.

Speaking of core strength...I have virtually none! But I'll get to that momentarily.

I don't exercise regularly. I have good intentions, don't get me wrong, but I start and stop the exercise train a LOT. I am approximately 80 pounds overweight and I am REALLY out of shape. Last year I started walk-running, and I entered the Shamrock Shuffle, which is a local 8K race (that's almost 5 miles!) that kicks off running season, and I ran it and COMPLETED it. I was incredibly proud of myself.
Then I didn't run, or walk-run, or even walk after that. I didn't set further training goals and I just dropped it.
So this year, when I signed up again, I started training early. I got off to a good start. Then I got sick. A lot. And had several weeks of blood-sugar issues. And breathing issues. And I wasn't able to do it. And I was really disappointed. And also, really SHOCKED at the difference in my overall health and fitness level in only a YEAR.

So I've set my sights on walking, and building my endurance that way.
I also have a friend on another forum (a friend who is in a MUCH better state of fitness than I!) who does these Crossfit workouts. She speaks very highly of them. Also, I am incredibly impressed at the videos and photos I see of non-athletes doing headstands and handstands and funky ring maneuvers and all sorts of crazy things that I've always dreamed of doing but have never thought I COULD do. I've been doing some reading on Crossfit and it's pretty crazy stuff. I'm sure I'll talk about it a lot more as Project 2 gets underway, but for now I've come to realize this: the Crossfitters do a lot of things that I cannot do, at this point. I don't even know what some of the exercises in their daily workouts ARE, let alone know if I could do them. (Luckily the main crossfit website has a WEALTH of resources!) So I'm spending some time studying up on crossfit while I work on stregnthening my core and getting used to doing some of their primary exercises.

One of the articles I read was about a man who went to (his first) Crossfit session with his wife. They did a 20 minute cycle of exercises: 20 situps, 20 pushups, 20 squats. You did those in one minute. If you finished before the minute was up, you could rest. If not, you jumped right in and repeated at minute two. Every minute, 20 of each, for 20 minutes.
Sounds pretty intense, right? Well, it's also exercises I KNOW, and that I could work up to. So that's where I'm starting.
Except I'm starting with one of each per minute for twenty minutes. And when I can do that, I'll do 2 of each for twenty minutes. Then 3 of each for twenty minutes, and so on.

I also want to include stretching and flexibility into my fitness routine, and to that end I'm incorporating yoga. I'm hoping this will also help me reduce stress a little, which is important to my health (and to my family, so I don't take my stress out on them!)

So, 20 minutes of exercise each day. One day walking, one day crossfit (or PRE-crossfit, really), one day yoga.

Yesterday was my first day of pre-crossfit. One situp, one pushup, one squat per minute. Should have been easy, right?
This is where my delusions about my level of fitness come into play. I COULDN'T EVEN DO A SITUP. I knew my abs were bad, but I didn't realize they were THAT bad. I struggled through for six minutes before giving up. And I'm actually SORE today. I never did a proper situp (I did that fat, unfit person flailing situp; you know the one, where your arms and legs kick and grab at the air as you desperately try to get yourself upright without using the floor). I never did a proper pushup (I did modified pushups, with bended knees). My squats, at least, were fine.
And I am SORE today! Not very sore, but I can feel it, and I'm surprised.

Part of me feels like a failure for not being able to keep up with even day one of my pre-crossfit training. I couldn't even go for 20 minutes! Even if I remind myself that I'm sick and I was exhausted, I'm still bummed about it.
But I keep telling myself that I DID it. I almost did the "eh, I'll do it tomorrow" thing, but I didn't let myself. I got down on that floor and I did it. That's somethign to be proud of.
ANd one day I will look back and see how far I've come.

a snail's pace

It's been a while since I did an update on the status of my decluttering. Despite my best intentions of giving you daily updates, I've given you...nearly none.

However, I am pleased to say that I am continuing to declutter, and I have been making progress. I am less pleased to admit that it's going much slower than I'd like, and that I am very frustrated because I feel like I spend most of my time on maintenance rather than on progress. This is probably why there haven't been many picture posts about it; I'm still working on the bar area of the basement, and I still have a lot of work to do there.

I am very pleased to tell you that the upstairs remains decluttered and clean, and we haven't let it get out of hand. It is what I consider 'company ready', and has been since I finished it some weeks back. This is outstanding, really, and I feel so much happier and less muddled. I actually spend most of my time upstairs now (where it was the opposite before), and I sort of view the basement as this evil, filthy dungeon. Which is sad, because my basement is really pretty awesome. But never fear, we'll get it back to 'awesome' soon.

Battling my frustrations on this project has been difficult. I am frustrated that it is taking so long; I keep telling myself it is like weight loss. I didn't pack on the clutter in a day, and I'm not going to dump it in a day either. This is at least a decade of clutter, if not more. Of course it's going to take time to sort through. But I am a very impatient person, so it's been rough. Sometimes I'm not very nice to my family because I'm frustrated, and that's something I need to work on as well. When you add in two frustrations; for example, the fact that I'm sick right now and not making much progress on top of the fact that progress is slow to BEGIN with...well, I sort of turn into a witch with a capital B.

The other thing that is a huge struggle for me is the fact that I am fighting to focus on this ONE project, and this one alone. My nature is to take on fifty projects at once, and then I never finish ANY of them, and I sort of live in a state of perpetual low-grade frustration. I'd like to break that cycle...I'd like to NOT be frustrated all the time, and I'd like to actually FINISH some of these projects of mine. So I'm trying something new. But trying to focus on one thing and one thing only, to completion, goes against my very nature, and this is making me a mite cranky too.

It's a wonder my family hasn't deserted me yet, frankly.

Pictures will come, sometime soon. In the meantime, I am doing my best to keep moving forward, and to pat myself on the back because I'm maintaining the work I DID and still making progress. Even if it is slow like snail.

feeling muddled

It rained a LOT yesterday, and of course we went out in it (and had fun!)...and of course I woke up sick today. Since I don't feel up to the picture post about the day, I will instead share a nice rainy-day video.

tchotcke day

There is a Livejournal community called "Saucy Dwellings"; every Friday they host a 'saucy salon' and invite you to post pictures of a certain area / item(s) in your home. Since, as you've all seen, I'm in the process of heavy decluttering and erasing years of packrat behavior, I've never been able to participate because my home has always been less-than-saucy. But today! Today is "show us your tchotchke" day, and oh, the tchotchkes I can show. So I shared some favorites over there, and thought I'd also share them here, along with some stories. (Please feel free to share YOUR favorite tchotckes with me in the comments!)


This little mirror came along with my husband when I married him. I *think* he found it in a garage sale somewhere. I didn't love it at first simply because, stylistically, it does not appeal to me; I think it's kind of cheap looking and I don't love the way it's framed. However, I'm totally won over by the 'ideal boy' content, and its kitsch value has earned it a place in my heart. I still don't love the place we've chosen to display it, but I'm sure I'll figure out a better place for it once the decluttering is over and I can focus more on the decorating.


My in-laws, Ben and Gerri, got this kitschy rooster cookie jar for us a few years back, and I just adore it! When I first heard 'rooster cookie jar', I have to admit I was frightened; as much as I might want to run away to the country and live on a farm, I definitely don't employ a very 'country' style of decorating. Roosters in MY house? I figured it was going to be one of those in-law gifts that would be packed away somewhere and only come out when they visited, or maybe it would have an unfortunate 'accident'. So you can imagine how pleased I was when we received it and it was a delightful, colorful piece of kitschy goodness! It's cute as can be, and is a wonderful addition to our kitchen.


When OJ and I were on our honeymoon in Vegas, we bought a lot of stuff at the Coca-Cola store. I have always loved Coke, and Coke stuff, and have built up a small collection over the years. He was totally in line with that collection, and we agreed we'd have a Coke room in our house one day. We thought it would be the kitchen, until we found the Coke shower curtain (more on that later). So it's the bathroom. Except we hung this sign in the kitchen because, again, stylistically it fits perfectly, and also, it didn't fit in the bathroom.


This came with the house when we bought it and it just fits, stylistically, so perfectly in the kitchen that we've had to leave it. Not to mention, of course, that I'm really a 12 year old boy and I love potty humor, so I get a kick out of it every time I see it.


I love New Orleans. When I'm a famous writer with lots of money, I am SO buying a big southern mansion for my winter home. This is a souvenir I picked up back in 2003, and it hangs in my kitchen. Totally out of place with everything else in my kitchen, stylistically, but I don't really have a 'new orleans / mardi gras' room yet. YET. Perhaps when I have my Not House On The Rock house.


This is my cast-iron nun. I don't know where I picked her up, but she's been with me for many years...I don't have much kitschy religious art but I think it's FABULOUS. This particular piece needed to come home with me simply because she's not just art; she's USEFUL.

Yes, that's right; she's a bottle opener. And what makes it even better now is that we have a bar in our home, so she has the perfect place to live. She hangs out on the shelf behind the bar, and she's probably my favorite piece back there, BAR NUN. (Get it? BAR? NUN? HAHA!)


This lovely lady is Diamond. Diamond is another trash-find from my brother, and I love her! I think she may have been some kid's school project because there's a name, in childish writing, on the bottom. She hangs out with us in the family room when we watch movies.


This is the display that greets visitors when they come in our side door. The painting was a wedding present from my very talented friend Jon; it fits perfectly with my love of horror. I've had more than one person ask me "doesn't that give your kids NIGHTMARES?" Honestly? Not at all. It doesn't seem to bother them in the slightest.
On the shelf below, you've got a collection of family/friend photos and some more dragons. A dragon figurine I picked up at the Ren Faire years ago, and a woeful little Pocket Dragon gazing sadly at the scale. I think the Pocket Dragons are adorable anyway, but this little guy has special meaning for me since I've struggled with my weight for so many years.


These are my husband's wedding shoes; he's a huge Converse fan. Me? I'm a huge dragon fan. So when he saw these satin high-top Cons with the embroidered dragon design, he knew he'd found the perfect shoes for our wedding. And he wore them cheerfully along with his tux, much to his mother's dismay. But it was perfect. And now they hang on our wall.


Yes, there it is, the aforementioned Coke shower curtain. Purchased in Las Vegas on our honeymoon before we even had a home to hang it! I love it to death; it's five years old now and it's certainly seen better days but I can't bear to part with it.


And, yes, we even have Coke shower curtain HANGERS.


This one's actually a two-fer; you can see a bit more of our Coke decor in the bathroom, along with this simple but gorgeous soap bowl. I picked it up at, of all places, a SCRAPBOOKING convention last year. I saw it and fell in love. It probably helps that I also have a love of collecting pretty handmade soaps too. And it helps that our bathroom has this lovely display / storage shelf built in. It was a natural fit.


Coca-Cola drawer pulls; have you ever SEEN anything so cute?!


These gorgeous Japanese items were wedding presents from my cousins. The sake set came from my cousin Julie and her husband Scott; the plate and cups came from my cousin Mike and his wife (to be, at the time) Karen. I don't know what the intended purpose of the plate and cups are because I don't know much about Japanese culture, but I do know they're beautiful. And they're all actually FROM Japan, as in they were all in Japan when they bought them for us. And yes, I know the Japanese soda bottles are a little tacky, and the fairy mirror totally doesn't belong. My china cabinet is a little overcrowded right now!


This is the bookshelf in my bedroom, and there are a number of things on here I love. The black case is actually a jewelry box; it belonged to my mother, and she passed it on to me. The catch is broken but I love the old gothic-look of the case; inside, it is lined in red velveteen, and it's just FANTASTIC. Moving on, you can see my Nightmare Before Christmas tealight-holder, a bit of my black-and-white flower glasses case, and the goth-vinyl coffin case that really has no purpose than to just be fantastic. (I keep my watches inside.) And also, a bit of my asian-inspired Partylites tealight holder. There's a total mashup of styles here, I know; Mark Brunetz would be horrified. But I love it.


This a collection of old books, largely composed of old Nancy Drews and Hardy Boys, that sit up on my kids' shelf and wait until they're old enough to read them. These books were actually OJ's, but I grew up reading these as well, and had many of the old hardcovers too. (Which I believe still live at my mom's house.) I also grew up reading Trixie Belden and the Bobbsey Twins. I definitely have a book addiction, and I love these gorgeous old books.


Music boxes from my mom. My mom had a curio cabinet full of music boxes when I was growing up; these two were the pieces in the collection that I loved the most. The piano guy plays The Entertainer (also one of my favorite songs), the airport one plays the Air Force theme song. The airport one ALSO, when you open the hangar door, has a little plane that flies round and round. You have no idea how much I love this little music box. Unfortunately, it seems to have broken recently; sometimes the music plays incredibly fast and the plane flies round in a tizzy. If anyone knows of resources I can use to fix a broken music box, PLEASE share them with me - I'd love to get this repaired!
Also featured behind the beloved music boxes are a few of my Marshall Field's collector plates, which I bought shortly before they changed the name to Macy's. (For those that may not know, I'm a Chicagoan, and this was a Big Deal.) It will always be Field's in my mind, and I love the plates too.


This lovely piece of wall art is actually a SPEAKER. I love the design and the clean lines, and it sounds pretty good too. We have two of them in the living room; I featured this one since you can see part of the stereo with it. My husband could tell you all about the mechanics and the maker and sound quality, but I am not an audiophile so I can't. I can, however, tell you I'd never before seen such beautiful speakers, and I've never seen any since, and I think they're just the bee's knees.

That's all for now! Thanks for coming along on this kitschy little tour of some of my favorite things. Please do share some of yours with me!

Also, this has highlighted to me that I REALLY need to get back into photography. My skills are a bit lacking. Especially when it comes to taking good digital shots. I NEED HELP! So, if you know of any good photography resources on the web, please share those with me. :) It's a hobby I really enjoy, and I'd like to improve my skills!

And She Was

Sometimes I dream about taking my family and running away to a big farm in the country and opening my own farmstand, living off the land, and of course, taking my friends with me. On warm days like today, as I drive around town and smell the fresh spring air, eyeing lush green lawns crazy-spotted with bright yellow dandelions...it's easy to dream about laying out in a huge field and picking out animal-shapes in the clouds all day, every day. Listening to my kids run and play and scream with laughter. Watching the dogs romp and run and bark all they want. In this fantasy even the dog poop is a beautiful thing, and the corn and beans and pumpkins plant themselves, and the house is paid for, and we can live a life beholden to no one.

Just picture it: a huge, rambling farmhouse; something like the aunts' house in Practical Magic, except in farm country. Your best friends are your closest neighbors, just a walk down the road. You all help each other with cooking and cleaning and housework and errands and child-rearing, but there's plenty of space for everyone. You share fields, and together you plant and raise corn, and pumpkins, and grapes, and apples, and beans, and whatever other crops you like. You grow more than enough to feed your families, with a little extra you can sell at your farmstand down the road. In the fall, people come from miles around to pick apples and pumpkins. Year-round, they come to purchase fresh produce and the crafts you all make; they come to show their kids the variety of friendly animals you raise - chickens and horses and goats (especially FAINTING GOATS) and bunnies and kitties and puppies and who knows what else. At night, you work on your current novel, or you craft some new items for the store. Oh, and of course you and your girlfriends get together on the weekends and drink the wine you made from the grapes you're growing in your own tiny vineyard (which you also sell). And you bake fresh goods for the store too.

Then, as always, my dreams start to get a little too big for their britches, and I start working in my haunted bed and breakfast (it could be another house on the property!) and my Not House On The Rock house...plus a haunted house (or maybe a haunted hayride trail, since we're a farm and all) every Halloween and a number of other attractions for the families that come to visit us.

We're going to need a lot of land. But it sounds completely blissful to me. Who's with me?!

she's a little bit OCD; she's a little bit ADHD. Or something.

One of the most frustrating things I deal with, internally, is balancing my focus. Striking a balance between focusing primarily on fixing/doing/achieving ONE thing and achieving many things all at once is intensely difficult for me. I find myself being a very 'all or nothing' person. (And then I wonder if I don't have some sort of mental illness. But we won't go there.)

Take this housecleaning bit I'm focused on right now...I really, truly feel that if I don't bite the bullet and spend almost all of my at-home time focusing on it until it is completed, it will never get done and I will be roadblocked by it forever. But it is a VERY big project and is taking a long time...and as time goes by I start to feel very antsy that I am not focusing on other things too. I'm not focusing on losing weight, on meal planning; I'm not focusing on Heritage Makers. I'm not focusing on training the dogs. I'm not focusing on my writing. I'm not focusing on exercise or running or finding / signing up for local races. Any number of things I want to be doing (yes, there's more than that, believe me). Determining what my true priorities are at any given time, and staying focused on them, is excruciating. Inevitably I find that if I start letting other things creep in, if I tell myself "oh, ok, I'll split the day between cleaning the house and Heritage Makers", for instance - I start feeling guilty because I'm not also focusing on exercise / weight loss. So I tell myself "Oh, OK, I'll split the day between cleaning the house and Heritage Makers and meal planning. And I'll set regulated times to eat and make appointments with myself to go to the gym every day. Oh, and every time I switch activities I'll spend ten minutes training with the dogs. And I need to make sure I get quality time with the kids in too..." and before you know it, I've squeezed in way too many activities again and my day looks something like this:

9:00 wake, get dressed
9:30 breakfast
10:00 go to gym
11:00 shower
11:30 clean house
11:45 make lunch
12:00 eat lunch
12:30 take Drake to Playskool
12:45 quality time with Oksana
1:00 train dogs
1:15 ...

you get the picture. Every activity in my life getting a tiny sliver of time every day, and me getting stressed out beyond belief when I inevitably fall OFF SCHEDULE, and getting nothing done because spending 15 minutes a day decluttering the house gets me nowhere fast.

But it is HARD for me to stop chronically overscheduling myself. And I feel like I'm doing something wrong by focusing primarily on one thing (IE decluttering the house). It feels unnatural to me, and I worry that I am becoming obsessive, that my inability to focus on anything else is a problem...but if I crack it open, then I focus on TOO MUCH. So I tell myself this is actually a form of therapy for me; that by forcing myself to focus on this ONE thing, and by accomplishing this ONE thing, I will be better able to accomplish other things in my life. And once the decluttering is done I can put a simple housecleaning schedule into place that the whole family can help with, and we can KEEP it clean, and I can move on to the next project when this becomes routine. It's therapy, right? I'm not crazy, right?

I would like to note that I am not totally obsessive about the ONE thing. My children aren't languishing around unfed and untended; I do spend some time being social; I do spend some time maintaining my current Heritage Makers relationships each day...that sort of thing. But I try to keep it to a minimum while I focus on this one goal. It's just...really damn hard for me to DO that.

Some Great Heritage Makers Specials

There are a few really great specials going on with Heritage Makers right now, and it would be a crime if I didn't share the news with everyone. If you're new to Heritage Makers, this is a great time to grab up some credits for a great price. AND, if you were thinking about sending a personalized Mother's Day card to that special lady in your life...THIS IS THE WEEK TO DO IT. Heritage Makers has an an address book feature that will even let you mail the card directly from the website! Now you have no excuse to ever be late with a card again! :)

As you probably know if you're a reader here, I'm running a contest on this blog. April is National Pet Month and if you stop by and leave a comment on my contest post, you will have a chance to win 1 of 3 12X12 pages or maybe even a free 5X5 brag book! (PS - you don't HAVE to use these items to make projects about your pets, by the way!)
The contest entry is here.
This contest ends April 30th so please stop by today! (And yes, you CAN enter more than once!)

Also, Heritage Makers will be featuring a "Pick Of The Month" moving forward; a popular product at a fantastic price. Well, this month it's our 8X8 storybook...normally $49.95; in April you can get them for $39.95 (limit 3)! This is a fantastic deal and is probably our most popular storybook. If you are going to be working on any 8X8 projects this year, now is the time to stock up on credits! More information here.
If you'd like to place an order, just call or email me and I will make sure you get this great deal.

And of course, don't forget that Club Premier is still only $100 for a full year of a premier studio account, through the end of May. That's $8 a month for premier for a whole year!

Finally, Mother's Day is coming up soon..if you haven't already made a personalized card for that special lady in your life, now is the time! Do it this week! Don't forget you can even use our address book feature to mail that card directly to Mom. And we still have our great Mother's / Father's Day special (a free greeting card when you buy a 7X5 or 7X10 storybook).

Please contact me to take advantage of any / all of these great specials. Happy storybooking!

Pic Of The Day

Oksana pulling Piper, a friend's daughter, in our wagon while we visited the zoo last week.

Accountability

I've decided to hold myself accountable for cleaning up those roadblocks in my life, and to that end, I'm publishing before, during, and after photos as I work on it. Starting, as I mentioned yesterday, with decluttering my house.

I have been working room by room, and following a basic method as I work. First I do a general pick-up, make the room somewhat liveable. Then I work around the room and declutter, pulling out stuff that can be sold or given away or packed up or otherwise moved elsewhere. I'm trying to get rid of a lot of stuff. This is really hard for me. More on that later, I'm sure. I'm getting better though. Once everything is decluttered, I've been giving the room a thorough cleaning...something my house hasn't seen in far too long. Dusting, cleaning ceiling fans, windows, walls, mopping, vacuuming, peeling stickers off walls (hey, I have two toddlers; stickers are everywhere!), etc. This process takes a lot longer per room than I had initially imagined; even in the rooms that were in pretty good shape, it takes a long time. I thought I'd at least be working downstairs by now. But I digress.

So far, I've finished four rooms: the master bedroom, the kids' room, the upstairs bathroom, and the upstairs hallway. Sadly, I don't have any before pictures of those areas, though perhaps in the future I will provide some 'afters' just for references' sake. And to make sure they don't get messed up again.

Right now I am actively working in our dining room, which is full of piles of clutters (mainly clothes and papers) that I pulled out of the four rooms I tackled previously.

Without further ado, here is the dining room, from all four corners:


Before

After


Before, with a bonus shot of our dog Pepper.

After. Obviously not a lot of work was done on this side of the room.


Before (yes, this is the room people see when they come to our front door. The horror! I know!)

After. Again, not much work was done to this side of the house. Hey, anybody in need of a crib mattress?



You might be wondering "what the hell is THAT?" That, my friends, is a leprechaun. A life-size stuffed leprechaun with a terrifying rubber face. A leprechaun that was gifted to us this past St. Patrick's Day by my brother, who works for the Village I live in as, yes, a garbageman (amongst other things). Yes, this filthy, frightening leprechaun came from the garbage. And yes, he's sitting in my dining room and greeting people when they come to the front door. I'm not sure WHAT I'm going to do with him. I'm thinking about repurposing him for Halloween somehow, or possibly gifting him to my friends at the Raven's Grin Inn, if they have a use for him. But I remain undecided, as it is dreadfully difficult for me to give up THINGS, especially unique things that I MIGHT have a use for some day, especially if they will possibly fit into my Halloween display or my Not House On The Rock House. Therein lies my problem.


Before

After. This is where the bulk of the work happened yesterday, so naturally it's the darkest / worst photo of them all! At least you can see that the tower of stuff has shrunk drastically. I culled a lot of the pile that you can see in the 'before' photo; a lot of that was stuff that migrated out of the bedrooms. It is now in boxes for the garage sale. I just need to decide where to store those boxes!

Pic Of The Day

The kids are excited to help me bake the lamb cake for Easter.

roadblocks

I have a lot of dreams; a lot of things I'd like to accomplish in my (hopefully) long life. I am also chronically impatient. Part of the reason I struggle so often to complete my goals is because I tend to try tackling them all at once; it's like I can't help myself. I get these great ideas, and they just flow and build upon each other, and before you know it I'm trying to build an ark and be a hairstylist and open my own spa and gaming center at the same time. All while being the best wife and mother and housekeeper and financial officer possible for my family.

I started this blog as a way to chronicle my dreams. I also started it because for a long time I felt like I was the only person out there that behaved this way. I've come to learn in recent years that I am not alone, and it is one of my dreams that this blog will help bring the chronic dreamers together so we can connect with each other, encourage each other, and nourish each other's souls.

But another reason I started this blog is to help me work out ways to simplify my life; to tackle these dreams one at a time and to teach myself to SLOW DOWN. It's not a race, and if I just take my time and build habits and try to do it one at a time (and unless you've got a personality like mine, you truly won't be able to appreciate just HOW difficult that is!).

For a while now, I've felt like there are a number of major roadblocks on my path to success. I've tried to tackle these roadblocks for a long time...but, again, usually I am trying to tackle them all at once with a bunch of other stuff too, and then I get frustrated and give up on EVERYTHING. So I'm trying to identify my major roadblocks and break them down, one at a time.

The first roadblock is clutter. My environment. Lack of organization. When my house is cluttered, then my brain is cluttered, and my mood is cluttered, and it becomes intensely difficult to accomplish ANYTHING. This, I think, is the biggest roadblock in my life; the one that is keeping me from getting to any of my other projects. So this is number one.

Next is body clutter. Fat. Obesity. Something I've dragged around with me for years. Something that, in recent years, has started causing me a lot of health problems. Something I desperately need to fix.

Third is finances. I used to have some really messed up finances. I've come a long way towards remedying that, but it's still a hot-button issue for me (and within my marriage), and I have a lot of improvements I'd like to make in this area.

Those are my major roadblocks to all the other things I want to accomplish in my life. Those are the first projects I aim to tackle. And so...expect to hear a lot of chatter about cleaning and decluttering and organizing for a while, since that's up first.

My first request for help? Share with me some of your favorite blogs and websites devoted to cleaning, decluttering, and organizing. (And yes, I already know about Flylady!)

happy anniversary

I just updated my profile to reflect that OJ and I have been married for five years as of...today. Five years. There have been times I didn't think we'd make it this long. Then again, there have been times where I've envisioned our whole lives together stretching out before us, and five years seems like nothing. It's all a matter of perspective.

It's been a rough five years; one thing I do not recommend to new couples just starting out is to have children immediately. On the one hand, I am thrilled that we had children relatively young and am really looking forward to spending my 'mature' years with grown children. On the other hand, having children changes the dynamic of your relationship, and so much of your daily life, so drastically that I think it's really advisable to spend some time enjoying each other before taking that step, if possible. We didn't do that; I can't say I regret our choices because there has been so much joy in my life in the last five years. But I can say I had no idea, really, what I was getting myself into. I can also say that I think my relationship with my husband is much different than it would have been if we had waited to have children. In many ways, I think it would have been easier. OJ likens marriage to a rock tumbler; we are the rocks, and when we come together at first we scrape each other quite a bit with our sharp edges. Over time, we smooth things out and create grooves for each other and we come to fit together perfectly. Having kids added a couple extra rocks to the tumbler; there were definitely a number of sharp edges and scrapes for a while.

Nowadays? Well, I happen to think OJ and I both started as a couple of really spiny rocks. A lot of those edges are worn smooth, but we still scrape each other occasionally. We've really gotten into the rhythm of the rock tumbler though, and I have really come to appreciate our grooves. And those two little rocks we added so early? Are really beautiful gems.

I've never done things the easy way. I don't know why I would expect my marriage to be any different. But while I can look back and see how it might have BEEN easier...I wouldn't have it any other way. I am really looking forward to what the next five years will bring.

The kids with the Easter Bunny this year. Oksana is barely tolerating it and Drake is showing off his extra-cheesy face.

Dr Grant, how the mighty have fallen.

It is a quiet night on the homefront. Oksana is asleep in her bed; Drake and OJ are having a sleepover in the basement. Nights like these, I get to sit in my room and pretend that I am single. I watch crap TV (tonight's current flick: Jurassic Park III, in all its tacky glory) and peck out blog entries on the laptop. The cat sleeps sprawled out at the foot of the bed, reveling in the fact that there is atually ROOM for her in the bed. We are both pretending we're single tonight.

Except that doesn't really work so well for me, because I can't go more than a couple minutes without thinking of my husband and son snuggled up together downstairs and getting a smile on my face. I can't go more than a few minutes without thinking about my daughter sleeping peacefully across the hall and wanting to climb silently into her bed and snuggle her.

The noise level in my house was insane today. It was chilly and rainy and everyone, from the dogs to the kids to the cat to the husband, went a little stir-crazy. At one point I attempted to hide in the bathroom, and even that didn't work because once you're a mom, you don't GET 'private time'. And don't even THINK about trying to lock that door.

As grateful as I am for the peace of this evening, as much as it was needed; I would never want to give any of this up. I would never want to be single again. Sometimes it's just nice to pretend, is all. ;) If I wasn't able to pretend from time to time, I could never indulge my love of truly terrible flicks. (How DID this crapfest get such a good cast, anyway?) I would never be able to sit back and twitter random updates as I watch.

And I love having the best of both worlds. A gorgeous, fabulous family that I love dearly...AND quiet time to enjoy my trash.

Pic of the Day

Oksana playing in the park district gym as we wait to visit the Easter Bunny.

Pic of the Day

Oksana during the local park district's Easter Egg Hunt.

Pic of the Day

Getting ready for the Easter Egg Hunt (Oksana's first ever, that she's been able to participate in, anyway! She was old enough last year but it was WAY too cold).

Givin' Props (to my ho 'cause he's fly)

My husband takes a lot of abuse from me. Not least of which is when I stubbornly refuse to accept his suggestions. Which he insists is because I'm part mule; I maintain that I always have a good reason for it. However, the fact remains that I am frequently initially resistant to change, even when it's good for me.

And this time, oh yes, it was definitely good for me. My husband, after about a year of trying, has finally brought me over to using Google Reader. He's been telling me to use it for a long time, and even sharing content with me; content I've been missing because I HAVEN'T BEEN USING GOOGLE READER. Over the weekend, he finally caught me on my computer and forced me to watch him add subscriptions to blogs I like to Google Reader...and HOLY CRAP. There they all were in a neat and organized format! In date and post order! And I could read them together, instead of emailing myself links and then surfing all over the web to find people's blogs and see if they've updated! (Yeah, THAT was efficient. I know. I KNOW.)

The problem in this case was that I just didn't 'have' (ie MAKE) the time to learn something new. And of course, the time to learn this was all of five minutes, IF that.

So I am now using, and loving, Google Reader. Too much, in fact; I have already added more blogs and sites than I will probably be able to keep up with. (But that doesn't mean I am not open to adding more, so share with me some of your favorite blogs please!)

Another thing my long-suffering husband often laments is the fact that when I finally DO start following one of his suggestions, I never give him credit or thanks, and just go on to adopt that thing as my own. Well, we'll be married five years this month, so I figured it was high time that he got a little credit.

MY HUSBAND, OJ DORSON, INTRODUCED ME TO GOOGLE READER AND I LOVE IT. AND HIM.

Thanks, hon. I'll try not to make you wait for five more years before I give you props again.

what's the definition of insanity again?

I am that scatterbrained mom who tries SO HARD to be organized, and yet I still fail. Not all the time...I would say I do a fair job of keeping things under control, but it's a huge amount of effort for me. I write lists of routines that I constantly have to revamp because they're overambitious. So I write a new one and basically just change the order of things, but I have difficulty paring back, so the routines REMAIN overambitious...just in a different order. I maintain multiple calendars and try to keep them with me at all times. I make grand plans that hardly ever come to fruition because I try to do too many things at once. I have REALLY GREAT ideas (no, trust me, they're FABULOUS) all the time, but hardly ever manage to act on them because I never manage to make the time, or plan the steps I need to take; if they go anywhere at all, it's on scraps of paper with a basic outline, and then I lose those scraps in the mountains of paper that live in my house.

Today I failed on a small scale. I took my son to Playskool. The problem with that is IT'S GOOD FRIDAY. There IS no Playskool today. So I got there and the parking lot is empty; at that moment the lightbulb went on. Normally I'd just feel a little silly, except that my son loves Playskool, so instead I felt terrible because he was incredibly disappointed. It's also his turn next for Show And Tell, so naturally he was extra excited. "Can't we just make them have Playskool Mommy? PLEASE?"

The glorious thing about Playskool is that it's right across the street from a big park, so even though it's 40 degrees and cloudy and incredibly windy, I took them to the park for half an hour to make up for it. And the glorious thing about kids is they easily forgive and forget.

But me? I'm left feeling like I dropped the ball again. Of the many balls I juggle, this is a small one, true; nevertheless, I live with a constant underlying sense of frustration at the lack of order in my life. I don't know how to get to 'organized'. I think there's a roadblock on that path for me. I haven't figured out how to bust through it yet. I watch shows like Clean House and wish they would come over, or I wish I could take a week's vacation from my job and my kids and my dogs (maybe just during working hours, not necessarily overnights) and get everything in my house decluttered and in order. Maybe if I could achieve it in my house, I could achieve it in my brain and then in my actions.

But that's how I feel about weight loss too...if I could just get to my goal weight, everything would be magically fixed, right?

The picture of me and my life I hold in my head is often drastically different from my reality. I KNOW this and yet I still try to make everything fit the picture far too often.

Deception

I just did one of the (many) things I said I would never do as a parent.

I just bought a replacement stuffed animal in secret, that I intend to pass off as the beloved stuffed monkey my son lost.
My husband and I have reason to believe that "Baby" disappeared at Navy Pier a couple weeks ago; Drake has been asking about him and getting progressively more upset (Baby goes with him everywhere), but has thus far been consoled by reassurances that he's probably just hiding somewhere in our messy house, we're sure he'll turn up, why don't you sleep with this buddy instead tonight, and so on.

Tonight as I was tucking him in, he asked me very seriously "Mommy, would you please look for Baby again? PLEASE? Please find him. I'm really (and here a little sob escaped, just the tiniest of little sobs) getting worried about him".

And my heart BROKE. And all of the lectures I planned before I became a parent, the lectures of 'you need to take better care of your toys', went straight out the window. And I marched straight downstairs to talk to OJ, who agreed that we needed to procure a replacement Baby.
Thankfully Baby is a Beanie Baby, and thus was easily findable on eBay. New, even, it seems. I just hope he looks and feels the same when he arrives. I reminded OJ, "you're going to have to cut a little hole in his armpit and then stitch it up with orange thread when he arrives," because our Baby had an accident, and a little 'hospital' trip, and Drake is very proud of showing off Baby's stitches.

And I know we've become THOSE parents, where we have anthropomorphized our children's stuffed animals. Yes, we have.

If we are wrong and the real Baby turns up somewhere, then I will tuck the replacement Baby away on a shelf in my closet and keep him as a backup in case Baby ever goes missing again.

I told myself I would never be This Parent. That disappointment is a part of life and that my kids would know it's 'just a stuffed animal' and if they don't take care of their toys, they're gone.

But I guess the truth is, I've become a little attached to Baby too. Or perhaps, attached to my son's attachment to Baby. He's too young to lose his friends...even if they are stuffed.

Stranger Danger and Sarcasm

We had a bit of a plumbing problem this morning, so the kids and I were trapped downstairs all morning (and well into the afternoon) while the plumber replaced some pipes in the kitchen.

When he finally finished up at close to 3pm, we were all going stir-crazy. Since it's a beautiful day, I headed to the local park with the kids. (It's nice to finally get some nice weather; it was in the 30's and snowing just a couple days ago. I grumbled about it and my son informed me "Nature's rhythms can be very unpredictable, Mommy.")

The first thing you should know about my kids is: they are NOT shy. In fact, they are incredibly forward. Something I worry about constantly as I try to instill the concept of 'stranger danger' without completely killing their joy in life and other people. So before I've even got Oksana out of her car seat, Drake is on the playground, running up to everyone and telling them "that's my Mommy, Kristi Dorson, and my sister, Oksana Dorson; I'm Drake Owen Dorson. The plumber was at our house ALL MORNING so we're here to play at the park." Don't forget to give them our address, my social, and my mother's maiden name while you're at it, Drake.

Then he runs up to me and tells me "I just told all those people hello and that the plumber was over today. Don't worry, they're all nice." I remind him that you can't TELL if people are nice or not and that he's not allowed to talk to strangers unless Mommy or Daddy are with him. "But Mommy, ALL the people at the park ARE nice!" I remind him that you can't assume that people are nice just because they're at the park; that bad people would come to the park if they wanted to hurt kids because there are lots of kids at the park. "But Mommy, I KNOW they were all nice; they all SMILED!" And I remind him that you can't tell if people are nice just because they're smiling at you; bad people will try to trick you into thinking they are nice.

It kills me, KILLS me, to constantly have to tell my kid things like that. It kills me that we live in a world where kids have to be cautious about talking to people at the park. But it kills me more to think of someone doing something to hurt my child.

Of course everyone at the park WAS nice, and he played with some great kids and we had a great time. He also played with his imaginary friends for a while; and I love that he has no issues telling older kids "my imaginary friend Ginny is swinging on this swing, so please don't swing on it". And that my daughter has no issues with bossing those same older kids around; "come and play wit me! this way! no, let's go this way! come ON!" Though I imagine working on having better 'friend' manners is going to be a struggle with that feisty little one.

On the way out of the park, Drake picks something up in the dirt. "A bottle cap! I'm going to bring this home for you, Mommy, because Daddy told me you like to collect them." (I do, under some misguided belief that I will one day create some sort of art or craft with them.) "I'll take it home and wash it off for you." The bottle cap is, naturally, pretty filthy. "Thank you," I say drily.
Drake looks at me suspiciously. "Is that the OPPOSITE of thank you?" Ah, Drake, your first lesson in sarcasm. I soften it up a bit. "No, honey, I really mean 'thank you'".
"OK," he says happily. "Then you're welcome. And I spit on it to help clean it off for you."

Thank you, Drake.

National Pet Month

April is National Pet Month! Pets have always been a huge part of my life; indeed, our pets are a part of our family. I know that is true for many of you as well.

This month I would like to help everyone focus on those special, furry members of their families. Let's all share the stories of our treasured pets and also help raise some money for pets in need.

So...A GIVEAWAY! Share your precious memories, help some furry friends, and you too can benefit. On April 30th, I will be giving away:

3 -12X12 pages to 3 lucky winners!

1 - 5X5 brag book to 1 lucky winner!

With these projects, you will be able to create beautiful prints, wall art, and books about your beloved pet(s). (Of course I am here to help you with any questions you might have during the process!)

How do you win? You have 4 (or more) chances to enter!

1) leave a comment on this post and share one of your favorite memories of a pet.

2) spread the word about this contest on your own blog - comment here with a link to your public post mentioning this contest

3) send me your email address (kristi at thedorsons dot com) and sign up for my Heritage Makers email newsletter (or if you are already on my email list, comment and let me know you would like to enter that way)

4) I will be collecting donations via paypal for Tree House Humane Society. For every five dollars you donate, you will get receive another entry in the contest.

Tree House Humane Society is a cageless, no-kill cat shelter in Chicago; they are dedicated to the rescue and rehabilitation of sick, injured and abused stray cats. I lived near them a few years back and they really do a wonderful job. Every little bit you can donate will be put to good use!

In addition to your collected donations, I will also be donating a portion of April's profits to Tree House.

I will announce the contest winners on May 1st! Good luck, everyone!