Dear Miss Becky

Little did I know that last year at Open House when you gave me a gift of Scentsy, I would FALL in LOVE. I didn't at first. It sat on my desk. I wasn't quite sure what to do with it. But when we moved into our new house, I found a home for your sweet gift. I was hooked. Seriously hooked. Because now I have three large warmers and two small ones and one more on the way soon! And now...now I know the pure magic of Scensty. So today, you are at the top of my list of blessings because you alone introduced me to the power of Scentsy. The power to save my nose and home from the ultimate nasty smell of a house where last night's chicken skin and fat were left in the trash while the a/c was off all day. So...thank you Miss Becky and Mulberry Bush. You are both magic!

First Monsoon

Well, the storm I have been waiting for finally hit. Bigger than it was supposed to I might add. Sideways rain, hail, couldn't see the neighbor's house. Now that the dust has settled we have an overturned BBQ, a broken picnic table, rain puddles inside the front door, and water dripping down the windows in the play room. It seems to be over now, but there sure is a lot of lightning and thunder still. When it does pass I will be checking the stucco. I can see chunks missing from the house behind us. And apparently the roof tiles. Oops, spoke to soon...sideways rain is back!

Saga of a missing ac vent

12:05 That's right. My "scheduled" time of 9-12 has come and gone and I have not seen hide nor hair of my repairman. Should have gone to Wally World while I was waiting. Now it is too late because you know as soon as I pack up the kids said repairman will magically appear in my driveway.

1:17 The customer service rep called to let me know that my repairman was just around the corner. Hmm.... 2 hours ago she said he should be here in no time. If I knew she was going to call in advance I would have made the trek to Wally World and been done with it.

1:58 The repairman just showed up...maybe his watch was broken? Then he asked me which vent he was replacing. Not replacing my friend. Installing. That's right. No one installed the AC vent in our playroom. It has been hot hot hot! We'll see how much of a mess he leaves behind. Given the previous work in the playroom I am expecting the worst. It is after all my problem child room. I'll let you know how it goes.

2:12 The repairman just told me that he can't get to the playroom in the attic so he needs to cut an extra hole to figure out where to put the right hole for the vent. I am picturing a big mess. The super says they will send a drywaller tomorrow. Guess that means my playroom will have yet another unsightly unpainted patch.

2:49 The repairman just left. We have AC! It is, however, going to take a while to cool the room down...and we do have an extra hole in the roof. But by this time Wednesday the room should be all fixed up and ready for play time. Yippee!

3:23 Wally World here we come.

Cleaning Frenzy

There is nothing quite like the potential of a last minute road trip to send me into a white tornado of house cleaning. I can't leave a messy house. And though my house wasn't really messy, it also wasn't really clean. So far...I have attacked the dusting, vacuuming, cleaned two bathrooms, and have semi-organized our closet. On a side note, while I love many things about my new house, the master closet is not one of them. Even after dedicating a whole hour to it, I still walk away shaking my head. Unfortunately, there is much yet to do from laundry to cleaning out the fridge...when did I make those enchiladas? YUCK! And even with all that marvelous cleaning, I may be the only one to enjoy it as there is a chance that I couldn't possibly get to where I was going fast enough for it to matter. On another side note...after the past four days of being the sole keeper of the children I think that single parents are amazing and I pray that I never ever have to be one. Especially not one without a mini van.

Today's Score Sheet

Vacuuming: 0

Me: 1

Dishes: 1

Me: 0

Laundry: 1

Me: 0

Strange yellowish orange sticky substance under my bar: 0

Me: 1

Kids with a nap: 1

Me: 1 (well for at least 10 minutes)

Pantry: 0

Me: 1

Game closet: 0

Me: 1

Strange purple sticky substance in kids bath: 1

Me: 0

Marker on the craft table: 1

Me (and a magic eraser and Clorox wipes): 0

My Princess in Training's messy room: 1

Me: 0

Write Up a Storm: 1

Me: 0

Summary of my day...you win some, you lose some.

Okay, okay. My list of have-done's

That sweet husband of mine says I am being too hard on myself with my to-do list and should instead focus on what we have accomplished since moving in on December 20th. So here we go...

1. Blinds in kids bedroom's, living room, and playroom. With some speedy help from a guy named Pete!
2. Paint in sitting room, on island, and in kitchen.
3. New coat of paint on kid's playroom bookshelf. It is now a stunning shade of green!
4. Ceiling fans in playroom, Sugar and Spice's room, My Little Reader's room, living room, and our room.
5. Fancy-dancy chandelier in Princess in Training's room.
6. Curtains on two of the three windows in my room, and cafe curtains in the kitchen
7. Fancy-shmancy back splash in the kitchen that doubles as the biggest Christmas present Ben has given me (with Jeff's help of course!) Which he is sealing as we speak!
8. Two new bookshelves in the sitting room.
9. New cover on the loveseat.
10. Assembled beds for both girls purchased from IKEA
11. Assembled desk for My Little Reader
12. Assembled three bar chairs
13. Assembled two white chairs-one for each girl
14. 11 loads of laundry, folded and put away! [But I have tons more to do :( ]
15. One very organized pantry and one sorta organized kitchen. I do have a fancy sprinkle cupboard as promised in a previous post that I will be showing off soon!
16. Frosted covering over bathroom window
17. New firehouse bookshelf for Sugar and Spice
18. Christmas decorations throughout and a birthday tree to boot!
19. Hosted Christmas for both sides of the family and had My Little Reader's Birthday party two days later.
20. Assembled storage unit for playroom. Even better, bought closing totes to hold all the toys!
21. Hung hooks for dress up clothes
22. Key rack hung
23. Coat rack hung
24. Shelf for wireless installed.
25. Filled the free dumpster three times before they hauled it away in the middle of the night :(
26. Pendant lights hung in kitchen.
27. New dining room light hung.
28. Hung flower picture in hallway
29. Assembled our bed and topped it with a beautiful new comforter set
30. Laundry sign hung
31. Emptied more boxes than I can count...but know there are many more still waiting their turn.
32. Put my trusty computer together so that I could get back to blogging!
33. Completely emptied the big storage unit! Hooray!
34. Changed the faucet in the kitchen
35. Took down all the Christmas things in my classroom and put up the winter/snow theme-complete with an igloo tent!
36. Vacuumed the dining room at least three times a day.
37. Read one entire book that had a very disappointing ending
38. Hung bow holder in kids bathroom.
39. Decorated My Little Reader's bed, chair, and desk with cute spots that turned out to be permanent. Hope she likes them for the new 5-7 years!
40. Set up patio furniture

A list of to-do's

So... I shouldn't be blogging. I should be working on my to-do list. I am avoiding it. But then I realized I can do both. So here we go... (Bold items---DONE!)

1. Move hope chest, dresser, and random items from Mom and Dad's
2. Lesson Plans
3. Laundry Well...sorta. There is always more laundry to do. We have more than enough clean stuff to last the week...so I am calling it done!
4. Clean the toys out of Princess in Training's room to make way for her clothes.
5. Grocery Shopping
6. Birthday treat for My Little Reader to take on Monday
7. Hang snowflakes in classroom
8. Buy new sea animals for classroom tables
9. Blog about Christmas and My Little Reader's Birthday
10. Target-buy three more curtains and two shoe racks.
11. Bath and Body Works-bubble bath. It must be a crime to have lived with a garden tub for nearly three weeks and not yet used it particularly with a sprained ankle! Does Mr. Bubble from the grocery store count?
12. Payless-new shoes for My Little Reader. Needs both Church and school shoes. Go back to Target and also buy some Church tights.
13. Pick paint color for my bathroom.
14. Get curtains up in my room and Princess in Training's room.
15. Put away Christmas decorations
16. Order pictures to put in hallway frames
17. New York and Company- need new pants.
18. While at mall check on freezers at Sears. Too late. Missed the sale. :(
19. Take books to Bookmans
20. Decide where to put hope chest and unload the four boxes of stuff that goes in it!
21. Clean off kitchen counters
22. Move huge lights out of our room.
23. Encourage Ben to buy a printer so that I can print this list and feel satisfaction as I cross items off!
24. Move train table to Sugar and Spice's bedroom.
25. Buy another bookshelf for the sitting room. Found two more boxes of books today with nowhere to put them.

Somewhere in there I also need to be a mommy to three small kiddos that never actually made it out of their pajama's today. Here's hoping for an early and cooperative start tomorrow.

We signed the papers!

At long last we signed the papers yesterday for our house!

We will get the keys next week.
Which will give us 15 days until Christmas to put it altogether.
I have a feeling that we are going to be very busy little elves!

Where we are now and where we hope to be soon!

This is what it will look like when it is done!

This is what it looks like now!

Still not 100% sure if I like the exterior paint colors.
Thoughts anyone?

Can you just see my happy dance?

The kids look pretty happy too!

just for reference...this is our future front door. Sugar and Spice is almost in the playroom.

We have concrete... and about living in limbo

I did a big yippee yesterday when after many days of looking at zero progress on our house we finally had concrete! Unfortunately, the good ol' Arizona sun baked it solid before we could put the kids hands in it. Maybe we will have better luck when they pour the driveway. At least now we can move on to the weekly drive-bys instead of the daily ones. Thank goodness! That will shave a good 40 minutes off the time we spend in the car!

About living in limbo...

I can remember when I was growing up that our religion teachers would talk about living in limbo if when we died we weren't quite ready for heaven but were not going to the other place either. I never understood why limbo was a "bad" thing. After all, it wasn't the other place. However, now I think I am beginning to understand. I feel like my life has been in a bit of limbo for the past year. The year between when I paid to give my home away (still one of my all time least favorite experiences) and the impending completion of our new house. Limbo isn't really a bad place. We have been very blessed to have family that loves us enough to make daily sacrifices by welcoming us into their home, three kids and a cat and all the stuff that goes with it! But Limbo is also not perfect- it is not a long term solution, it is not where I long to be. So, while I am tremendously grateful to have some place to stay while in this period of limbo, I am exceedingly excited about the dream home that waits on the other side!