Weekend Wrap Up

This was a busy, busy weekend. My mind was in super hyper over-drive trying to get done as much as possible on our house. Friday evening I rented a storage unit for us and then bought some boxes and other necessities.

One thing I bought was new moisturizers. Ever since the “generic moisturizer debacle”, my skin has been jacked up. It’s been dry and flaky and a struggle – even though I threw that bad one away and bought a new one! I did a Google search and found 2 recommendations: one was to try CeraVe which is extra nourishing without being greasy or too heavy. The other was to use extra virgin olive oil which can penetrate deep without clogging pores. Sounded weird to me but I was desperate. So I bought both. 

As soon as Isabella went to bed I washed my face and put on the olive oil. My first reaction – wow, this really smells like olives. Shocking I know. But seriously I was not expecting that! It took me some time to get used to. But it went on smooth and I felt confident it would work. I headed out to the living room and sat down on the ground to clean up Munchkin’s toys. Next thing I know there is a big Labrador tongue licking my face. He was like, sweet! Mom is now wearing food! Total score!

I had to fight him off for like 5 minutes until he finally gave up. I am not your own personal salad bar dude!

Then I started packing! Well, that’s not entirely true. First, I made a map of the house.

Cue OCD! I had to figure out a way to pack our house and keep some kind of system. Otherwise, when it came time to unpack, we would have no idea which boxes went where. Sooooo….I laid our house out on a diagram and gave each room a number (and I color coded it…hey I couldn’t resist!). I also gave letters to certain categories of items. Once a box was packed, I would write the room number and also the appropriate categories for the contents. For example, the dining room is room 6 and the first box had pictures and knick knacks in it so I wrote “6, A and C” on it.

When I told CJ the system he asked if he needed to memorize the map and then he gave me a look that said “when we vowed for better or worse, I thought the worse was the comfortable clothes/pajama thing. I didn’t realize it involved this craziness too.”  Hey, he’ll thank me when the move-in process is a snap!

So Friday night I got 3 boxes packed and the dining room essentially done. It felt good to get started.

Saturday was not a good day for Isabella and Samson. They just were not on the same page. He knocked her down twice with his big 90 pound butt. Then he tried to take a banana from her. She milked it every time too by throwing a big ole fit. She’s learning that if she cries or whines, she might get attention. Sometimes it’s for real, other times she’s working the system. Honey, I invented that trick. You have to get up pretty early to catch a worm like me (bonus point if you can name the movie that’s from). So the whole weekend has an undercurrent of toddler whining and crying fits in it. By the end I was, like, so over it to the point where I’d just let her cry while I changed her diaper/brushed her teeth/changed her clothes/washed her face/buckled her in the car seat. I know, I’m so evil.

Saturday afternoon was “me time”! I got  my hair cut/colored, then met some girlfriends for lunch and pedicures. We even stopped for frozen yogurt afterwards. Hey, you knew I would get sweets worked in there somewhere right?

It was very relaxing and just what I needed after a long week. On my drive home I checked my phone for messages and found a text from CJ that said the accountant had called and they had found a mistake with our taxes. Basically, instead of getting about $4000 in a refund, we had to pay $400. I blinked at it a couple times and then thought, I bet this is a late April Fool’s joke. That’s what I prayed for anyway.

Alas, it was not. I guess the software program the accountants use had a defect that caused 15 returns to be wrong. One of which was ours. Now I have to not only pay back the $900 from State that we’d already spent but write a new check for $400. Oh the humanity! And just when we’re trying to save money too.

Spent the rest of Saturday working around the house. We loaded up the car with boxes and took our first trip to the storage unit. Yippee! Isabella wasn’t as excited about it as we were. We drug some palettes in there, loaded in the boxes and then hit the road. On the way home we stopped at the park to let Isabella play. She had fun running up and down a big hill and digging in the sand. Then as a special treat we stopped by Dairy Queen for some ice cream. See how I worked sweets in there again? It’s a gift really.

Sunday I ran some errands with Munchkin while CJ worked at home. When I told her we were going shopping she said, “Shopping, yeah!” Start ‘em young, that’s what I say! Then all of us took advantage of the nice weather and worked out in the back yard pulling up weeds and dead plants. I love that Isabella is an outdoorsy girl. Makes it so much fun and gives us lots more ways for her to burn energy.

Now it’s on to another week – hopefully a productive one! We’ve made 3 trips to storage so far and will probably make one a day from now on, until everything that we need to get out of the house is gone. My car will be able to drive itself there before too long!

 

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Pack ‘em up, Move ‘em out!

Resolutions Update 3 (March)

Shop

Pack ’em up, Move ’em out!

Well we did it. We took a deep breath, closed our eyes and stepped off the cliff.

And thank God our realtors were there to catch us.

I’ve been talking for months about needing to call our real estate agents to begin talks of selling our house. We finally called them and set an appointment for last night. I have never sold a house before and had all kinds of questions about how it would work, what we need to do to get the house prepared and when we should aim to have it ready. I feel very dumb when it comes to this kind of thing.

Our realtors, Michael and Kristin, are the ones who sold us our current house. That was a little over 5 years ago. We were so impressed with how they treated us and handled the process that we knew we wouldn’t want anyone else but them helping this time around.

They came over and walked through each room of the house and told us what needed to be done to get it ready. Mostly it’s just cleaning, decluttering and staging.

It’s a very personal thing to have someone analyze your home and tell you what makes it “unappealing” (which, they totally did NOT say, it’s just how I felt. They were super nice about it and had great suggestions). I understand they were looking at it with a critical eye, and from the perspective of a potential buyer, and that it wasn’t a personal reflection on us. But it’s hard not to feel that way. The knick-knacks I think are cute have to go. The photos that I love to look at every day must be taken down. We have to re-arrange some furniture so that it looks more inviting.

All of that to say that we really don’t have to do too much to the house.

We don’t have to repaint or fix anything broken or redo entire rooms. I guess that means we’ve done a pretty good job of maintaining it over the years. And they said our style is tasteful and will go a long ways. All good things.

You wanna know the best part? They suggested we get cracking and have it ready to go by the end of April.

I’ll give you a minute to look at the calendar. Ready? Ok. Yeah. That gives us 4 weeks to do the following:

  • Get a storage unit rented
  • Clean every room from top to bottom with a fine-tooth comb
  • Clean out all closets, drawers, cabinets to just the essentials
  • Pack up all knick knacks and “personal” family type items (photos, etc)
  • Re-arrange furniture in a few of the rooms
  • Take all boxes and various extra furniture to storage
  • Replace a sink or 2 and possibly a bathroom countertop
  • Clean up the yard and plant flowers, lay down mulch, etc
  • Put away all of Isabella’s toys and only keep out those that can fit in to a rubbermaid container
  • Paint or restain all baseboards and woodwork
  • Meet with a mortgage lender to see how much we can afford and how much of a loan we’ll get approved for
  • Start looking for a new house

4 weeks for all that? Pffftt…no problem!

I tell you this – I’m SO glad CJ painted the outside of the house last fall so we don’t have to worry about any of that now. Phew!

Now the new adventure begins! Op Dream Home just got kicked up to high gear!

Ready, set go!

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Op Dream Home Update

Samson’s Room

Master Bedroom

Master Bedroom

In my commitment to cleaning and organizing one room/closet each weekend, I tackled our master bedroom on Saturday. I thought it would be a piece of cake since I try to keep my closets and drawers pretty well organized to begin with. Well, it wasn’t as breezy as I thought. Turns out I was holding on to more items than I realized.

I started off with my night stand which basically is where I keep the book I am currently reading as well as the next ones to come. I also have some meditation books in the drawer and a journal, along with various other miscellaneous crap (sleep mask, pens, bookmarks, etc). This was an easy place to start as all I really had to do was straighten and dust (I admit to not dusting our room every week…I won’t admit to how long it’s been but let’s just say that the dust cloth was pretty black by the time I finished the room. *hanging head in shame*).

Then it was time for my dresser. I cleared off the top, which tends to be the spot in the room to catch all the junk that I’m too lazy to put away. Then I went through each drawer, pulling out items to toss, donate or keep. The kept pieces got put back in a more orderly fashion. Here is how my shorts drawer looked when I was done –

master drawer

I think it says something about me that I have more workout shorts (all the colored ones in front) than I do regular shorts. Oddly enough, I rarely wear shorts during the summer. At work I’m in pants and on the weekends we’re usually at the beach so I wear a swimsuit and workout shorts. Oh, and yes, they are arranged in color order. It just makes things easier to find that way! Winking smile

Here is how the dresser looked when all was said and done –

master dresser2

Yes I have a lot of jewelry. I would say 90% of it is lia sophia, which I bought from a good friend. If you’re looking for a rep, let me know and I’ll give you her info!

(Notice my perpetual journal at the end. I put it there as I reminder to jot something down every night. So far I’ve been keeping up and only forgot on 2 occasions!)

Next it was time for my main closet. I have it organized as such:

  • top shelf = maternity clothes I am saving for the next baby (no this is not an announcement)
  • second shelf = sweater and p.j.s
  • rods = left side is winter, middle is belts and right side is summer
  • floor = left side is casual shoes, middle is tall boots and right is dress shoes

I started on the left, at the top, and worked my way down, then over. The shelves pretty much just needed straightening. When it came time to work on the hanging clothes, I pulled out the shirts I wanted to give away and  implemented the backward hanger system for the rest of them.

Here’s how it works: you turn all the hangers backward, so that the hook faces out (instead of in like normal). As you take out clothes to wear, you turn that hanger the right way. In 6 months to a year, look at any hangers that are still backwards and chances are, those can be donated because you didn’t wear them during that time!

master closet

Such a pretty rainbow of colors!

Next came the shoes. This is an area I definitely get lazy with. It’s soooo much easier to just kick them off into the closet (or around the room) then put them back in their proper place. But, I do have to admit they’re easier to find when they are in their spot. I’ll be the first to admit that the floor of the closet won’t stay this neat. It’s a work in progress.

master shoes2 master shoes 3

I then tackled the chest of drawers, which is mostly CJ’s stuff. I have only the bottom 2 drawers so that was easy peasy. Finally I knocked out my secondary closet. It’s just a half size and is home to long stuff like dresses and pants. We also keep extra blankets and pillows in there.

The last area of the bedroom is the master bath, which is all mine (CJ gets the other main bathroom as his own). I just did a quick cleaning job of that (I was low on energy by this point) and called it good.

And there you have it – another room done! By the end I had 2 big bags of stuff to take for donations. Like I said at the beginning, it wasn’t as easy as I had originally thought it would be and by the end of the day, my back and feet were aching from standing, bending, reaching, lifting, etc. I could literally feel my back muscles throbbing through dinner. Ugh. But it was worth it (and I know Jillian will get my back stronger and ready for the real back-breaking work to come when we move)!

My other project this weekend was to shoot pics of the artwork I’m going to sell. I was sort of dreading this because I knew it would be a lot of work and that I didn’t have the proper set up needed to really take good pics. But I got through it and they turned out pretty well. Then on top of that, I got all the pics downloaded on the computer and edited. I also cataloged each item, noting it’s title, medium, size and any other important info (like framed or unframed). Now all I have to do is get it put up on TTM and I’ll be in business. Hurray!! I’m really excited for you all to see my work and I hope you like it (maybe even enough to buy a piece or two!).

master notebook

Next weekend: Isabella’s room!

P.S. We took all the CDs we don’t want anymore to Half Price Books yesterday and got $20 for them! Suh-weet!

 

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Samson’s Room

Op Dream Home Update

Obligatory Resolutions Post

Samson’s Room

As mentioned in previous posts, we are planning to sell our home this summer and move to a bigger place. In order to get our current house ready, we need to go through and really clean out the rooms/closets and also do some small maintenance work. I have slacked lately but with spring approaching, it has reminded me that we need to get crackin’! Summer will be here before we know it!

So, I’ve decided to tackle one room/closet each weekend  until we’re done. I’m going to start at the back of the house and move my way up, which meant that this last weekend I knocked out Samson’s room.

Yes, Samson, our dog, has his own room. I thought all dogs got their own rooms, just like all chocolate is good for you. No? Huh.

Ok, so he only has his own room because his kennel is so massive, it practically takes up a whole room. When If he gets to the point that he can be trusted without a kennel and/or we have another child, he will lose his prime real estate. But for now, we let him live under the illusion that he’s high enough in the pack to earn a room of his own.

This was a good place to start because there is not that much in his room and so I knew it would be a quick job (and thus instant gratification). Saturday I tackled the visible surfaces (shelves, top of his kennel which we totally use as a giant table) and storage cabinet. Sunday I cleaned out the closet.

I started with the storage cabinet. It’s basically divided in half with the left side open from top to bottom, with a shelf on top and a rod for hanging stuff. The right side is split into a cabinet on top (with 3 shelves) and 2 drawers down below. The shelves I use to store all my cameras (I have 5), miscellaneous scrapbook stuff, and board games. The drawers contain candles and candle accessories and the left open side is for gift wrapping.  

(NOTE: I am totally OCD when it comes to how I organize my gift wrapping stuff. I have gift bags grouped from largest to smallest and split out between Christmas and all other occasions. I have a container for rolls of wrapping paper, boxes to house ribbons and bows, and then keep extra boxes on the top shelf for wrapping the gifts in. Finally, and this is the piece de resistance, I have all tissue paper neatly folded and hung on hangers, organized by color and pattern. What’s that noise? Was that the sound of my readers mouths hitting the floor in total awe of my mad organizational skills? Oh, wait, no, it was the sound of everyone laughing at my crazy nerdiness. Eh, same same.)

When cleaning out the cabinet, I pretty much just tossed extra boxes, bags and papers that aren’t needed anymore and then shuffled other things around to look neater. I also went through the candles and accessories, getting rid of a lot of them (do I really need 8 votive holders and 5 blue candles? I think not). This freed up one of the drawers completely and left the other one looking much better.

Here’s the result:

Nice, huh?

Next I tacked the top of Samson’s kennel. Most of this was just stuff that got thrown there at one time or other because we were too lazy busy to put it in the right spot. So it was just a matter of taking the items and putting them in their rightful home. Done and done.

From there I tackled the CDs. We have one whole bookcase full of CDs. We also have one full of DVDs but I culled through those last fall so I didn’t spend any time there. Some of the CDs were duplicates, some were just old or ones we didn’t want anymore. I put all those in a shoebox and plan to take them to Half Price Books or CD Warehouse and sell them. I don’t think I’ll get all that much money but hey, a couple bucks is better than nothing!

With that, I was done on Saturday.

Sunday came and it was time to dig in to the closet. Here’s the deal – this closet is CJ’s. He keeps all his clothes in here and I keep all mine in the 2 closets we have in the master bedroom. So what that he has one closet and I have 2? I mean, one of mine is only a half closet so really we’re practically equal. Anyway so most of this closet was going to be CJ’s job to go through. I was not about to decide which of his clothes to keep and which ones he should toss. .

However, in the back of the closet was a whole bunch of my old artwork that I totally forgot I had. It was stuff going all the way back to Jr. High and High School. I spent a lot of time just looking through the pieces and remembering when I created them. It really brought a lot of memories and emotions flooding back. But, I can’t keep it all so I set up 3 piles: Keep, Toss and Sell. I figure, while I may not want to keep them all, some are too good to throw away so I might as well try to sell them. If no one buys, fine, at least I tried.

To be honest, it was hard to decide. For any of you who are artists, you know how personal your work can be. A lot of blood, sweat and tears went in to making these. To throw them away seems heartless and to put them out there for sale really makes me feel vulnerable. But it was a step that was time to take. So I filled one bag with paper for recycling and my portfolio file got filled with items for the trash. Most of those were paintings I’d created during a really dark time about 10 years ago. They are VERY depressing images and it was actually kind of healing to throw those away. It was like closing a chapter on that part of my life.

Now I’m left with items to keep and items to sell. The keepers are few and they will tuck back in the closet nicely without taking up much room. The items to sell create a bit more work for me. Now I have to take pics of each one and post them on this blog (which will come when I have time!). Again, this really makes me nervous but in a good way. I just hope people like them and I can sell at least a couple.

The only other items in this closet were some extra pillows and comforters, which we put in space saver bags (you know, the ones that you use a vacuum to suck the air out of. It’s so fun to do that and watch them shrink down to a fraction of their size. Love it!). Now the 2 comforters and 3 pillows we had, which took up a massive amount of space, are flat and easily slide under the bed or on a top shelf. Woot!

That’s it for Samson’s room. It’s all done and organized (except for the stack of artwork I have to shoot). Feels good to cross one room off the list. Next weekend will be the master bedroom!

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Resolutions Update 1

Resolutions Update 2

Op Dream Home Update

Resolutions Update, 1

1 month down, 11 to go.

Since we have one month of the New Year under our belt, I thought it would be a good time to check in with how my resolutions are going. This helps to keep me accountable!

Here’s where I stand on my 3 resolutions:

Project T&T

Goal: To lose the 3 pounds I’d gained over the holidays and basically tone and tighten all over.

Update: Well I lost the 3 lbs. but not the way I intended to nor in a way that will provide lasting results. Case in point, I’ve put 2 of them back on. I was feeling pretty down and being hard on myself this weekend as I realized I haven’t made much progress here. The problem is that though I work out regularly and hard, I don’t eat that healthy. Let’s just say I have a hard time saying “no.”

Then I did a reality check. First of all, the number on the scale means nothing. What matters is how I feel and how healthy I am. I have a clean bill of health so that’s not an issue. What is the issue is how I feel about my looks. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m hard on myself. I won’t accept anything less than perfection (just ask Team Trader – last week at volleyball I got disgusted with the mistakes I was making and stopped talking. Real grown up,  I know.). But I also know that perfection isn’t possible. Heck, even supermodels and celebrities have cellulite!

To that end, here’s what I can say with pride:

  • Thanks to the one hundred pushups program, my arms are getting toned. Look out Michelle Obama, here comes Sarah Trader!
  • I have long, lean, and muscular legs. They really got toned up this summer while I trained for a 5k and I’m happy to report that I’ve been able to keep them sculpted.
  • C-Sections wreak havoc on your abs. They cut ‘em right open and it’s really hard to get them toned again. So while my stomach isn’t flat anymore, my abs are strong thanks in part to the two hundred sit ups program.  I still have some extra fat to take off the top so that my six pack can make an appearance, and I’ll keep working on that, but I’ll gladly pay the price of not having flat abs to have my beautiful daughter.

I will continue to push myself in my workouts and try my best with my eating. But I think that for all intents and purposes, I will call this resolution reached and stop being so freaky about it!

Mission Debt Diet

Goal: To pay off our credit card debt and pay down our mortgage and car loans, all the while socking money away in savings.

Update: This one has been good and bad. On the one hand, I’ve managed to pay off almost half of our credit card debt thanks to a nice rebate check from our FSA and regular committed “over payments.” I’ve also been able to consistently put away a dedicated amount of money into savings. I’m really happy about both of those accomplishments.

What we haven’t done so well on is sticking to our budget. We overspent in many categories, including groceries, retail, eating out and entertainment. So it’s time to re-evaluate. Either our budget wasn’t realistic to begin with or we need to work even harder at reigning in the spending. I know for certain that there are some fast food runs that could have been skipped, shopping purchases that I didn’t need and extra groceries that weren’t necessary. I think we’ll stick with the budget as is and try again to be more frugal. If it still doesn’t work then we’ll see if the numbers need to change.

[Update 2/1/11: OK so I was totally wrong. I actually went in and added up our spending from  January today and it turns out we were UNDER budget by $73! Go us!] 

Operation Dream Home

Goal:  Clean, de-clutter, and organize our house, in preparation for putting it on the market this Summer.

Update:  I started out really gung-ho on this and have faded a bit. I got some projects done right off the bat and was really excited. But then I got busy, and I was seeing us going over budget, so I stopped. I haven’t done any more projects but what we have done is maintain the organization that I put in place already. The play corner has really helped keep the living room in order and we removed the coffee table (because I always worried that Munchkin would hit her head on the edge) which gives us even more room. Our new filing system in the kitchen has been awesome. And I’ve even kept up with my Perpetual Journal, writing in it every day.

Proof!

IMG_20110131_070004-sm

I still need to go through closets and other rooms in the house, but that will come. We also need to ID other more “major” projects to be done and get going on those. Last night we CJ steam cleaned the carpets so that was good. They look sooooo much better!

Other

I didn’t talk about any other resolutions in my original post but there are some things I’ve thought of over the weeks that I want to do on a more regular basis. Here they are:

  • Reach out and call friends to chat. I’ll admit that I’m not a phone person. I’d rather meet and hang out in person or IM or email. I don’t like talking on the phone. But it is important to contact some friends, especially those I don’t see much, and stay in touch.
  • Floss every night. I know, I know. I used to be a real stickler about this. In fact I’d floss twice a day, every day. But then I got braces (for the third time) when I was in my late 20’s and ended up with 2 permanent retainers (one behind my top teeth and one behind my bottom teeth). So in order to floss, I have to use a special tool and it’s time consuming so I don’t do it every day. But I need to get back to that because, well, it’s gross not to.
  • Plan date nights. It may seem like CJ and I get a lot of date nights but we really don’t. It just so happens that we’ve had a couple in January. Usually though we get too busy to plan them. Well, not anymore. We need to put them on the calendar like any other appointment and just do it!
  • Drink more water. This one is a constant struggle for me but still something to work on.
  • Spend more time with my sister. We both live in Omaha. We’re both moms. You’d think we would hang out more but we don’t. As with everything, life gets in the way. But whenever we do have Sister Nights, it’s really enjoyable. It needs to happen more often.

That’s probably enough. Too much more and I’ll get overwhelmed.

Well, I hear my family playing upstairs so I’m going to close this up and join them for fun! Ta ta!

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Sweatin’ to the Oldies

135 and 135 are not the same