The War Wages On

Happy Friday everyone! This week has been quite a challenge as the girls & I have been sick the whole time. My youngest is finally almost better, but my oldest & I still have raging runny noses and coughing spells. Yuck! But, I'm trying not to let all that gloom bring me down, so here's the positive spin.

Today was the Week 19 weigh in for my biggest loser competition and I gained a fraction of a pound, but I'm still in the lead overall. Less than .5% separates me from my 2 closest competitors, so this week is crucial. Tonight is girls night out at a friend's house and we are affectionately referring to it as "Gorge-Fest". This is because starting tomorrow, for the next 6 days, I will be living at the YMCA and enjoying all varieties of green leafy vegetables (and not much else). I'm in this to win it, so desperate times call for desperate measures! Stay tuned next Friday for the final results.

I was talking with a friend recently about my perspective on why I've been heavy for so long. I think a lot of it has to do with my house being a constant source of clutter. The clutter has gone on for years, and not surprisingly, my weight has gone up exponentially right along with it. So, in my ongoing battle with the clutter, I have some wonderful news to report.

First, here is a pic of the computer cabinet that I said I was going to clean the other day. See, I really did it! I'll try not to break my arm patting myself on the back.


The next series is of my oldest daughter's room, which we now are referring to as "Stuffed Animal Sanctuary". You see, all those plush animals that you pass at retail stores, well, they have all somehow made it into my daughter's room...to stay. We knew that the animal population was a little out of control, but last night gave us a new perspective on the madness. While I was resting, hubby and his friend, installed new shelves in my daughter's room, which was to house all of these animals. Or so we thought. Here's the before pic of the madness.

And here's the after. Amazing difference! Wow, I had forgotten that she had a rug! The sad end to this story is that there are still animals floating around this house, which hubby has already decreed "Need to go to other little girls who are starting their own zoo".

Just to give a little more perspective on the magnitude of the animal invasion, here are more pics of the full shelves. Now, keep in mind, that these shelves line all 4 walls around her room. Crazy!

And a last pic of Ashlyn being cute. She had just finished doing a forward roll and was doing her "ta-da". She's so adorable.

So, to finish up today's entry, I have to add that I attacked the laundry room also today. It's amazing to me that this week I have managed to declutter my kitchen (the biggest room in my house), my laundry room, and most of Ashlyn's room. Sadly, the master bedroom is still being neglected. I think I'm saving the best for last! Oh, and I need to send a huge shout out to Freecycle. If you aren't aware of this website, go there now. It's a wonderful place to give stuff away and feel good about decluttering! So, for today: Angie 1, Clutter 0.

The Deck Project & Tomato Garden

Well, tonight was very productive in the home improvement arena! Actually, I guess this would classify as landscape improvement. Anyway, I got home late from work and was delighted to find that our deck is finished! Woo hoo!! Watch out neighbors, because the sun-bathing will now commence. Hubby is planning to add railing to this structure soon and we're going to stain it, but for my purposes, this project is done. Once it moves into the category of "safe for my kids to play on", then that's good enough for me.

The finished deck

Finished deck by the light of the moon

Hubby was so excited about his progress with the deck, that he was ready to move onto the next project. My original Mother's Day present was supposed to be my tomato garden. So, he decided to jump on this because it's supposed to rain here for the next several days and the window of opportunity was closing fast.

Tomato Garden space (8pm)

Finished tomato garden!! (11:30pm)

Hubby watering the new garden

He has worked so hard for the past several days and I'm really proud of him! We will be enjoying these new additions to our home for many years to come!

"The dream is dead" or "Fun with Dentistry"

Well, it's official gang. There will be no bathroom remodel home improvement project this year. Bummer.

I don't know if things work this way in your house, but here's a typical scenario in mine. We find out that we're going to get a tidy little sum of cash and we immediately start dreaming of all the wonderful ways we can spend it. Then the money arrives and we sit on it for a few days, because we know that doom is coming. And last night, doom arrived, right on schedule!

The deck project is well under way and I was beginning to plan the bathroom project when my tooth broke. Yes, I was enjoying a wonderful chocolate chip cookie and that blasted tooth broke in half. I know, I shouldn't have been eating the cookie, but stay on point here folks. Luckily, the tooth wasn't causing me excruciating pain, but I knew that an emergency trip to the dentist was in my future.

So, I've just returned from the dentist...less $500 in my bank account. Ouch! (That hurt worse than the tooth) And I get to return to see them next week to offer them my right arm in exchange for a lovely root canal and permanent crown. Woo hoo, it's my lucky day!

Hope your day is going better than my Toothache Tuesday!

The Deck Project - Day 3

So, we're in day 3 of this little project and major headway was made today. Yippee!! Hubby wasn't able to concrete the footers last night before bedtime, so that was first on the agenda this morning. This picture kind of shows the footers supporting the framework. This was around 10am this morning. Concrete took a while to dry, so he couldn't start laying the deck boards until after lunch. This didn't make him particularly happy.

Right after the girls went down for nap time, he was back outside working on laying the deck boards. This is really the most exciting part of this project because this is when you see the final product really coming to fruition. It's all very exciting!!


After leaving for a few hours for the kids show and dinner, we came back home and hubby immediately ran outside to start working again. He was determined to get as much done as he could, before the neighbors started complaining about hammering noise after 10pm. He got about half of the boards nailed down before he threw in the towel.

Before he called me outside to document today's progress, he went ahead and laid the remaining boards down, so I could get a feel for what the finished project is going to look like. I almost had a heart attack when I saw it. I can't wait for this to be done because this is going to be such a wonderful space for us all to enjoy this summer! Hubby is hoping to get the remaining boards nailed in tomorrow after work and then we're going to look at the railing part of this adventure. Stay tuned for more pics tomorrow!

The Deck Project - Day 2

So, hubby worked until about 11pm last night doing the really not fun stuff. Nobody in the house got much sleep last night (I guess because we're all too excited about this deck project). So, an early start happened this morning.

The supervisor, Chloe, clocks in for work at 8:30am. She wants to know where her laborer is.

Hubby makes it out a few minutes later, assessing his handywork from last night and hoping that the light of the moon didn't mislead him. Everything appears to be in order.

So, the kids & I were gone for the better part of the day and then naptime ascended upon us. I tackled the master bedroom declutter again while the kiddos slept and before I knew it, the time was almost 5pm. I slipped outside to check on the progress and he had the framing well under way. He's doing the project 100% solo, so I'm impressed with how quickly he's moving.

My parents wanted to take us out to dinner for Mother's Day, but hubby wanted to stay and keep working. This deck has pretty much turned into my present for tomorrow, so he's really motivated to try and get it done. How sweet! The girls & I left for dinner and when we returned 2 hours later, hubby had made TREMENDOUS progress! The framing is about 90% complete. He's out there right now putting the last support posts in and concreting all of them.

He says he's going to wait until tomorrow to do the actual decking across, but knowing him, I have a feeling I'll be going to sleep to the hum of a hammer in the backyard.

The Deck Project - Day 1

Technically, yesterday was Day 1, so I'm going to backtrack a bit here. Hubby worked late into last night doing the "pre-work" work. I'm not very handy, so of course, nothing is ever as easy as I would have it be. I just thought he basically would nail some boards together and voila...instant deck! Ok, so I didn't think it would be quite THAT easy.

The scene in our garage as some of the lumber assembled here. The white boards are part of the shelving project for the kids rooms. I told him those had to be painted before anything was even started on the deck. The shelving project is something I've been asking for months to be done.

This is part of our backyard. Hubby is working hard to repair some water damaged wood under the french doors. The concrete slab that he's sitting on has been there forever and manages to trap water against the house every time it rains. Lucky us. Here's the rest of the lumber.

My little tomato plants. I'm so proud! I picked them out all by myself, but that's where my contribution to all this ends. That's the best for everyone involved. I got 6 Big Boy plants and 1 Cherry plant. I can taste those wonderful red fruits already!!

Fabulous Friday

Wow, I hope you all are having as great a friday as I'm having today! Let's see if I can recap without writing a novel here.

1) Today was week 18 weigh in for the biggest loser competition that I'm in and I lost 2.4 lbs this week!!! Woo hoo!!! I'm back in a decent lead overall, so I have 2 more weeks to keep that lead and win this contest. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

2) I took the girls for their first visit to Chuck E. Cheese today. Boy, what a trip down memory lane it was for me. I had my only birthday party as a child at this venue (when it was Showbiz Pizza Place) and although the interior was drastically different, I still felt that excitement when we walked in the door. I bought tons of tokens and then proceeded to show my girls as good a time as their little hearts could stand. They were over it after about 40 minutes. I could have stayed for hours playing skee-ball and eating greasy pizza. Ah, memories!

3) The IRS bestowed our "rebate" today, so with it burning a hole in our pocket, we rushed on a pilgrimage to the Hell Depot. Oh, I mean the Home Depot. After an hour of misery, a huge scratch on my leg, and giving them our first born, we had our car and a friend's truck full of wonderful home improvement items! We're really very excited about this new chapter of projects that will begin this evening and last the entire weekend (if not much longer). Slated for this weekend are shelving in the kids rooms (for the stuffed animal overpopulation), building the tomato garden (my mother's day gift) and beginning on the back deck (the thing I'm most excited about). I'll have pics and posts all weekend I'm sure, to document the madness, er, I mean progress.

The Thirteenth Month

We've all grown up learning that there are 12 months in the calendar. Well, in my house, we've invented a 13th month...Home Improvement. I designate it as a month unto itself because no project in this house has ever lasted less than 4 weeks. Much to my horror, most of them have lasted way longer than that!

With the wonderful "economic stimulus rebate" due to arrive this week, hubby & I have been anguishing over how to spend this tiny fortune that our generous legislatures have seen fit to return to us. We've easily spent (in our minds) 10 times what we're getting back, so it was finally time to nail down just what we're going to use this money for.

Hubby let the cat out of the bag yesterday and spoiled my mother's day surprise. He is building me a tomato garden! This is VERY exciting for 2 reasons. First, I LOVE TOMATOES! Anyone who has known me since I was a kid, knows that I'm not kidding around when I say I LOVE TOMATOES! Second, I kill plants. Not out of frustration or malice, but because I was born with a black thumb. When it comes to all things vegetation related, keep it away from me unless you want it to die. It's sad, but true. So, not only is hubby building me a tomato garden, but he's agreed to take care of it. I literally get to enjoy the fruits (ha, ha) of his labor! I'm very excited.

Well, after lots of discussion, I made my case for building a simple deck on the back of our house. This is something we've talked about doing for a few years and now it's finally going to happen. I'm excited and terrified all at once. In addition to the tomato garden and deck projects, we've also talked about finishing the guest bathroom. Yes, we tend to take on several projects at once, that cultivate a lot of anger and frustration until they are complete, at which point we sit back and enjoy the fact that we accomplished something. That is until that feeling passes and we have to start another fun project!

Stay tuned for pics of the fun that will begin in the next couple of days!

Decluttering Sunday (Updated)

As I've mentioned already, one of my big goals for this year is to declutter my house. I've attempted this project so many times and just can't quite seem to get the results that I so desire. So, I'm hoping that by providing some photographic evidence to the world, it will help to inspire me to get moving a little quicker, due to my embarrassment mostly. At the moment, I'm taking a quick break from doing the spring/summer kids clothes purge. I finished Ailey's on Friday and am almost done with Ashlyn's stuff. This is the tax-free shopping weekend in Tennessee, so I'm trying to get to the stores to take advantage of this sale for anything the girls might need for warmer weather ahead. I've quickly discovered that they don't need nearly as much as I anticipated. That's good and bad. Good that my wallet won't be quite as empty later today, but bad that I had no clue that we had so much stuff packed in those closets. Yikes. Anyway, during naptime today, I'm going to start tackling the master bedroom, otherwise known as the "catch-all zone". Here are some pics to see what the mess looks like before I start working on it. I'll update this entry later this evening to show the (hopefully) amazing progress that transpires!

My bedroom as you walk in from the hallway (Before)

Looking in from the master bathroom (Before)

Another shot from the master bathroom (Before)

**UPDATE**

Ok, so things didn't quite work out today as I had hoped. It's now 7:45pm and the kids are in bed and I'm beat. The clothing purge project took way longer than I anticipated and then I got sidetracked with other things, which is the story of my life. Anyway, I plan to pick this bedroom project back up tomorrow and hopefully have a "Marvelous Monday" post to show my fab results. Stay tuned!