you know the times you go to the salon and you leave with a style or color that you weren't planning on, and it just doesn't feel right? and you tell yourself, "it's only hair...it'll grow back, and the color will fade...."  well that's the experience i had with our dining room this past weekend.

i've had a "muted mustard" color in my mind for a few weeks now (it's been red or orange in the past for the dining room, but i wanted something that wouldn't be too similar to the living room, even though these rooms aren't next to each other). the problem with yellow is that it's hard to translate to a wall. the little color swatches don't look at all the same once you put a few coats of it on a wall. and after the walls were painted and the trim was started on saturday, i just couldn't take it anymore.

"i HATE it!" i yelled. kenny shrugged his shoulders and said, "that's fine, we'll go back to lowes and get another shade. or even another color." i wish i had his personality. to me, i just just wasted two perfectly good cans of paint, and a whole day of painting was wasted as well. my life was all but ruined.

why am i so dramatic?

so we spent some time looking through our farmhouse/victorian/colonial style books, did some online research and i found another color series to go with in the dining room. half of it is currently on the walls (the rest will go up tonight) and then we can finally start the floor work.

here are some before and during pictures of the dining room. before:

we started painting the living room this past saturday. we got about halfway down the top of the wooden mantle (above the fireplace) when we realized there was a strong possibility that we were painting over oil-based paint. and we were (of course) using latex paint. we called the son of the previous owner (who is a contractor), left him a message, cleaned off our paint brushes and sat and twiddled our thumbs until he called us back. he didn't call back until 9:40 that night, so we didn't get much more work done on saturday.

what we learned was that it was, indeed, oil-based paint that we were painting over, and we should strip the paint we put up already. the paint had already dried, so it was either use a paint stripper, or wash it all off (with elbow grease and hot water). we got a lot of the flat parts "washed" off, but kenny needed to use a paint stripper around the details of the posts and scrolls:


we will not be asking the paint guy at the lowes desk for any futher advice. the guy at the sherwin-williams store was more helfpul, but right now, we're not sure who to trust...as we keep getting differing information: "don't paint over oil-based paint with latex!" "of course you can paint over oil-based paint with latex. just don't paint over latex paint with oil-based paint!"  ARGH! 

we're finally making some progress. as of today, we've stripped the paint and primed the fireplace. i primed and put two coats of white on the window trim and doorway trim. we pulled up the carpet and carpet padding (or carpet "dust" as it's been completely worn down to a powdery dust in most spots), decided to pull up the lovely vinyl floor underneath and admired the sturdy subfloor already in place. we're keeping it. we went over it with a black light to make sure we got rid of the cat urine. (we did.)

here are a few "before" and "during" photos of our progress. the living room as we were living in it:

stripping the first coat of white paint off the oil based beige fireplace:




already a change in atmosphere in the room with some white up on the drab walls. i can't wait to see the white against some bolder color. kenny removing the carpet:

we are at my least favorite time in a home renovation process: the beginning.

we are planning a big task...it involves our two biggest rooms (living room and dining room) and a high-traffic area (hallway). i am very thankful that we have a back staircase to use. otherwise we'd have to move out of the house until we were done. and it might be taking us a few weeks.

we are tearing up some old, old carpet, and laying down hardwood floors. we're also painting some dark colors in each room, so that means several coats on the 9-foot ceilings. it's going to be a big project, and although i want the changes in the rooms, it's just so daunting to start it. i want it to happen overnight, and we all know that doesn't ever happen. i'm a bit high strung when it comes to neatness, and i know (from experience) that house renovations mean a big old messy house until it's done. at least it's temporary (i keep telling myself that!).

and

this past week has been a bit of a challenge in the eating department. i struggle with getting food (any food!) into their mouths on most days, or getting quality food, even if it's not much of it on others. it's a new challenge every morning. but it's a learning process, and all of our food choices won't change overnight, i'm well-aware of that fact!

some things that we did this past week:

• after my mom read this waldorf eating entry last week, she showed up at the door with bags of veggies and a bottle of Trader Joes Goddess salad dressing, and that has been the boys' snack of choice for the past week: raw carrots, broccoli, and grape tomatoes in the salad dressing.
• i made homemade granola with dried cherries. mmm. but it wasn't my favorite recipe. if you have a favorite recipe for granola, please share. i've yet to be blown away by my homemade granola. and i do like granola! fortunately the boys loved it. and ate it with milk and over yogurt, or by the handful.
• i made millet bars, from the waldorf kindergarten snack book and it was a total flop. i can't even bring myself to eat it, even smothered with honey! blech. i'm "x-ing" that one out in the book.

here's another recipe i can share with you that was a total hit. whenever we are out at a restaurant, the only thing the boys ask to eat is "macaroni and cheese and chicken fingers with dipping sauce." they're palates have yet to move beyond that. but it's quick and easy and fills their bellies. good thing we rarely eat out any more. so, i brought their favorite restaurant food home, and found a great recipe for it that doesn't include frying in oil! the best part is that all our plates were clean - even Adam's (which is rare!)

Seasame Chicken Fingers with Honey Mustard Dipping Sauce
(I served it with sticky rice and steamed endameme)

1/3 cup stone ground mustard
1/3 cup honey
2 T lime juice
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 black pepper
1 lb skinned, boned chicken breast cut into strips
1/2 cup sesame seeds, toasted
1/2 cup breadcrumbs
2 large egg whites, lightly beaten

Preheat oven to 350.
Mix together mustard and honey and set aside.
Season chicken with salt and pepper. Combine sesame seeds and breadcrumbs in a shallow dish. Dip chicken in egg whites, and dredge in sesame seed mixture.
Arrange chicken in a single layer on a baking sheet coated with cooking spray (or lightly coated with veg. oil). Bake 350 for 15 minutes.

*I also added some grated parmesan cheese and garlic powder to the sesame seed/bread crumb mixture.

Kenny: "Make it again!"
Liz: mmmmm.
Rowan: Empty plate with no bribing needed!
Sawyer: "Can I have some more please?"
Adam: He ate everything but the endameme. Because it was green.

last week, when serina and i were sitting in crawling traffic inside the liberty tubes (who knew that there was a wikipedia source for the liberty tubes?!), we chatted about the struggle of Everywoman in america today: the desire to raise goats and sheep.

fortunately, we are of one mind on this issue (well, she more than i, but i'm getting there), so we were able to talk up our dreams and encourage each other that it was within reach. and that's where my problem begins.

i don't know if it was the culture in which i was raised, or the culture in which i started to make my own adult decisions, but at one point along those lines, i realized that i love to consume. new things. bright, shiny things that make my life so much easier, faster, and stress-free. and then recently, since meeting kenny at least, i became aware that that isn't necessarily a good thing. especially when you are a professing follower of Christ.

so then kenny and i began daydreaming one day over our sunday morning fairly-traded coffee at the bagel warehouse about moving out to the country and raising not only a family, but animals. that can help us live more simply. fast foward 6 years, and here we are: acreage, 3 boys, chickens, honeybees, enough grass to pasture several more animals, and a barn (that needs a bit of a fixin') to house more animals. we are in the position to live an incredibly simple life, eating our own (chicken) eggs, drinking our own (cow or goat) milk, shearing our own sheep, and working good and hard to make this life possible. we have enough land to garden organically, put up jars and cans of fruit and vegetables, we even have a small orchard of fruit trees (that do need some pruning, but could probably produce fruit again some day). we have a huge laundry line out back and i only air-dry a fraction of our laundry in the spring and summer.

so why do i still feel the need (or desire?) to go to Target, Sams, Barnes and Noble, and Giant Eagle (local grocery chain) to provide almost everything that we can grow/provide ourselves? we have this simple life in reach, and yet i push it away and still want to buy, buy, buy!

and not only that, i want to look good doing it. not me, per say, because i've already landed the man of my dreams...but my home. i want a pristine home, bursting with spring flowers, summer bounty, autumn foliage, and serene scenes of winter. our current chickens are free-range and they've torn up the base around most of our trees, and they dig up all the flower beds, not to mention they leave their droppings everywhere, including the front porch.

this image makes me happy:

and serina asked about my cleaning schedule. fortunately for me, this schedule is extremely flexible and it still works when i don't get around to doing ti all, every day. because in reality, every day is full of surprises. like yesterday, i had three loads of laundry planned, but our pipe froze (it did last year in single digit temps, so i should have known!), so the first load resulted in a floor full of water. so here it is...

Liz's Very Flexible Cleaning Schedule

Monday:
Launder sheets from all beds (guest room bed if overnight guests from the weekend)
Launder towels
Reorganize/straighten back porch, office and kitchen

Tuesday:
Launder boys' clothes
Clean upstairs bathroom (tub, floor, toilet, sink)
Reorganize/straighten upstairs

Wednesday:
Launder Liz and Kenny's clothes
Launder kitchen towels
Clean downstairs laundry room/bathroom

Thursday:
Vacuum downstairs
Dust upstairs

Friday:
Vacuum upstairs
Dust downstairs

Saturday:
NOTHING!

Sunday:
NOTHING!

On Sunday evenings, I look at our week and adjust the cleaning schedule as need, around the errands I need to run. For instance, this is how this week looks:

Monday:
Grocery shopping
Launder boys' sheets and guest room sheets (we had an overnight guest this weekend)
Launder all towels
Clean laundry room
(but Monday's schedule changed because of a frozen pipe in the laundry room. It thawed by early-afternoon, so I was only able to do the towels, so we readjust today's schedule to fit into the next few days).

Tuesday:
Launder Liz and Kenny's clothes (and boys' sheets)
Dust downstairs
Vacuum upstairs

Wednesday:
Library day! Return books-on-tape (the boys have been listening to the Frances books - or in their words, "Frahnces" because the narrator is British)
Launder guest room sheets
Dust upstairs
Vacuum downstairs

Thursday:
Catch up on cleaning (if I didn't get to any, this is the day I fill in)
Launder Liz and Kenny's sheets

Friday:
More catch-up!

This morning, I found Adam reorganizing my small pantry for me:

Now all the asian ingredients are in with the baking ingredients. i don't have the heart to re-reorganize. he WILL notice. :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

april from SALT for the spirit tagged me for a little meme. it was fun to stretch my mind around this one...thanks, april!

Love/ Hate Meme
I love to eat: meat (i'm a true carnivore...see above); death by chocolate (i'm a true addict).
I hate to eat: wet eggs. scramble the heck out of them for me, please!
I love to go: on vacation with my man. and the boys.
I hate to go: shopping between thanksgiving and christmas.
I love it when: all five of us are piled on the bed, reading, watching tv, chatting....
I hate it when: "The Office" is a rerun YET AGAIN.
I love to see: the older boys playing with adam, teaching him their games - they're great little teachers!
I hate to see: the weekly forecast in january and february; a snow storm in late-march;
I love to hear: adam's waking up words: "uh, oh mamamama! uh, oh dadadada!" (that's "hello!" not a true "uh oh!"); owls chatting at night;
I hate to hear: "mommy, i just don't feel so good"

i tag...stephanie for this one! and anyone else who wants to post it in their own blogs. let me know if you post it!

for several months now, i've been enjoying a perk of being a blogger: free books! i get a book in the mail quite frequently and i'm allowed to review it on my blog, or read it and keep it or give it away without ever blogging about it. i'm happy to report that after months and months and dozens of books sent to me...i just received two books that are KEEPERS and that i'm really excited about!

the first of these two books i'll review today. Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld (due out this weekend!) arrived on my doorstep last week and I dove into it immediately. the concept is simple: hide veggies in normal, kid-friendly foods, and they'll get their veggies whether they like them or not. the plan is a bit more complicated...you're not tossing broccoli in the bowl with lucky charms and soy milk (not that that would be hiding the veggies so much). you prepare vegetable and fruit purees, freeze them, and then use them in the recipes in the book.

it's been a while since i've pureed much of anything since adam has been on solid foods for months already, so if i want to follow any of these recipes, i'll have to get back into it. but i love the concept enough that i'm willing to give it a try again. besides, i love the veggies that she has listed to puree (and adam is NOT a veggie eater at all).

she lists a lot of breakfast recipes - which is great because i'm at a loss for healthy breakfast choices some mornings. rowan doesn't like eggs, but sawyer and adam love them. kenny loves eggs and toast...i prefer a bowl of cereal or oatmeal. we all love pancakes. i love her recipes for applesauce muffins, peanut butter and banana muffins, blueberry lemon muffins and coffee cake.

there are so many meals listed that i don't know where to start: beef stew, spaghetti with meatballs, quesadillas, or sloppy joes? twice-baked potatoes, waffle sandwiches, or pita pizzas?

and the desserts? brownies (with carrot and spinach puree), hot cocoa, chocolate cupcakes, or chocolate chip muffins? the amounts of puree in each recipe is impressive, so you're getting a good amount of veggies in each bite (especially in kid-sized portions).

the book itself is lovely - it's ring binder style, so it'll stay open on your counter. the pictures are cute, and the recipes are easy to follow (with the veggie/fruit puree listed under the recipe title as well as the amount listed in the recipe). i'm excited to give the recipes a try. when i do, i'll be sure to review them again, along with the responses from each of the boys, and my husband (who doesn't have any trouble eating veggies) and let you know if this is just a pretty book to look at, or a worth-while, useful cookbook.

and yes, she is the wife of jerry seinfeld.

back in july, i wrote about our day at the beekeepers association annual picnic. while we were there, we met a couple who we discovered were our neighbors (meaning: they live 4.5 miles from us). Buzz and Aleda keep several hives in their back yard - their house is near a busier intersection, so this proves that if you have a little bit of land, keeping bees isn't all that difficult. they gave us their card (they sell their award-winning "BuzzAleda Honey") and told us to come over anytime we wanted to "hang out with the bees."

tuesday was the perfect day. it wasn't humid, nor raining. kenny gave them a call and of course, Buzz was excited to have an excuse to open up the hives up and show a new beekeeper the ins and outs of the honeybee hive. Buzz and Aleda are grandparents, so the boys were entertained by lots of running around and jungle-gym climbing, and sand-digging (and two popsicles EACH!) while kenny met a few thousand bees.

i was able to grab a few photos of kenny suited-up with bees in-hand, but you'll have to excuse the window screen in the picture. i was holding adam and taking the shots (while the boys played about 3/4 of an acre behind the hives), and we weren't suited up. and although kenny said they were the most docile bees he's ever "met," we weren't chancing it to take a photo without a screen in between!

before you open a hive, you "smoke" the bees with a smoker. the idea behind a smoker is to make the bees easy to manage. when they sense smoke entering the hive, they engorge themselves on honey thinking that they need to stock up on honey, leave the hive and survive until the "fire" is gone. a bee engorged on honey is a very relaxed, docile bee, so it's easier to manage the open hive with friendly bees. kenny holding one of the frames:

if you look closely, in the center of the cluster of bees you'll see a yellowish dot on the back of the queen. Beekeepers sometimes put the dots on the queen so they can identify them quickly. there is one queen per hive of up to 50,000 bees! the queen lays all the eggs in the hive which produce either a drone (male) or a worker bee (female). the honeybee lives for up to 3 or 4 weeks while the queen lives for however long the workers deem necessary.


the setting sun on a hive of bees and their honey combs.

i never would have thought beekeeping was fascinating until kenny mentioned he wanted to keep bees one day. even then i wasn't interested. i kept referring to it as "his hobby." but now i am just as excited to receive and keep a hive ourselves.

you can't get a hive until spring, and if you order it through a catalog, you have to order in the dead of winter (january). you can also get a swarm from another beekeepers, but you still have to order a queen to keep the hive a-hummin'.

there is so much to know and learn about (and benefit from!) the honeybee. if you need or want proof of the One True Creator, study the intricacies of the intelligent honeybee. Intricacy and intelligence are God's specialty.

i just can't get enough of the sewing machine! rowan's $.25 pants:

sawyer's pants are already cut out...i'll sew them up tonight!

it started so innocently. i never owned a sewing machine until i married kenny. kenny built amazing costumes for a few shows and actors in his theatre day, so it was only natural that he owned a machine. it began collecting dust when he met me since i took up all of his time. then a dear friend of mine in our previous church gave me her portable (not built-into-a-table) sewing machine when her eyesight started going. we are owners of two really cool, really old machines.

fast forward to 2004, when i start to blog and read blogs. the bloggers that i read tend to be crafters, into earth-keeping, getting-back-to-simplicity, homemakers, and foodies. i've been inspired over the years to do more of what i love: cook, mend, grow (plants and humans!), and use my hands to make things. by choice, i like needlework. then i remembered these two old machines in our basement: untouched, except for a santa costume at christmas for a "pagaent-with-a-santa" we did at church. on monday, i brought up the portable one after finally realizing i could possibly throw together a pair of pants from an old tshirt...like this pattern that serina posted at her blog. except we donated all of our old tshirts when we moved.

then i remembered that old, ugly t-shirt that kenny will not get rid of. i had to beg (BEG!) my husband for his favorite old t-shirt. it's one that has sentimental value to both of us, but it's just so ugly. he was wearing it the first time i laid eyes on him:
i asked him yesterday, "did you think you were all hot and hip in that tie-dyed, striped shirt?" and he answered, "did you think i was?" i just laughed and walked away. look at those holes! i was relieved when he told me i could use it, and it brought me much joy tearing into it with scissors.

our lovely machine:

a view of the (CUTE!) back:

our garden continues to be munched on by a particular small, grey rodent of sorts...some things are surviving, but i'm afraid that our pole beans will not produce beans this year. the lima bean plants look really good, however, as do the green pepper, celery, and one lone cucumber plant. and our tomatoes? they're going crazy. i'm afriad all the green globes that are forming will turn red on the same day and i'm going to have to can and make salsa within a 24-hour time slot. yikes! at least the boys will eat the cherry tomatoes off the plants.

i've been following (but not participating in, sadly) a great project/blog called One Local Summer. the jist of the project is to make one meal a week of all local ingredients. if you haven't already done so, go to your farmer's markets and get some locally grown fruit and vegetables. you may even be able to find baked goods made from locally grown flours/grains. the other night, we had steamed green beans from the garden of kenny's colleague. they were so sweet and delicious, i'm sure they would have been great raw. i'm afraid it's what we're missing in our own garden, thanks to mr. groundhog (did you notice, in that list of groundhog characteristics that a groundhog is "is a herbivore, or vegetarian, eating a wide variety of wild plants, clover and alfalfa, and garden vegetables if available.)

tonight's dinner is the closest i've come yet:
grilled chicken with homamde BBQ sauce (made with local honey)
corn on the cob (grown in slippery rock)
green beans (grown in slippery rock)

the only thing not "local" is the chicken. hopefully by next year, we'll be eating locally-grown, preferably pasture-raised, chicken and beef. and pork. and the occasional lamb. and turkey.

"we set our hopes high so that we can grow wings and learn to fly."
 - i have no idea who coined that phrase

april 18th of this year was our one year anniversary of moving into the home of our dreams, on the lot of our dreams, at a fairly early age. we couldn't be more thankful for such a fun thing to celebrate without an actual party-celebration (we were brand new chicken parents on april 18th, having picked them up at the hatchery just two days previous!).

when we first moved here, i was sad a lot. i cried a lot. it probably had something to do with the fact that i was 33 weeks pregnant, had a baby, and went through my third bout of the "baby blues" post adam's birth. i thought it was because we had made the wrong decision moving to the country. away from the city. away from people we loved. away from people in general! i was given the "it takes you about a year to settle in properly" advice from several people and i found comfort in that. i knew that in a year, i'd feel more settled. i'd feel more like this was my home, and not just a place we were "trying out" for a few years.

after a year, i feel settled...and not so settled. i think it's because i will always have a bit of "the city" pulsing through my veins. i'll miss the city-smog smell when i have nothing but fresh air to breathe. i'll long for sidewalks and "block parties" when i can't even see my neighbors' house from my front yard. i speak only for myself because the boys don't know any difference (rowan can recognize a picture of our old house, but he wouldn't recognize it if we drove past it), and kenny is totally at home here (i won't go past the garage once it's dark out. we've got woods all around us, and bigger-critters still make me nervous).

and it's not that i don't consider this to be my home...it's just i think it's going to take me a lot longer than a year to truly feel settled. because i get giddy when we have a trip planned into "the city."

i have a list in my mind of what i miss the most, or what i don't like about country-living and one of what i love about living here, and what i don't miss at all of city/suburb-life. ironically, the "pros" of living here outweigh anything negative.

what i miss

• taking walks. tonight, we took a walk through our yard, and through a 6-acre field near us, up a steep, country road (speed limit is 35? 40?). we didn't pass one person. i miss our old neighborhood for walking and chatting with neighbors; spending time in the playground behind our house, talking to neighbors, other parents, new neighbors. being able to push the stroller without "four-wheeling" it.
• a sense of community. mabye it's because we had great neighbors in the city. or maybe it's because all our friends and family were within a 15 minute drive. we had and incredible church family (who won't let us go, thank goodness!) that we got to see weekly.
  
• good food. we always joked about how we had the pick of the best indian and thai restaurants a few minutes' drive from our old house. we're saving a lot of money not eating there, but i'm missing them. AND...good grocery stores with decent hours of operation. organic, whole foods? gotta drive into the city for those.

what i love

• the space. i know it's ironic, but i love the space we have here. the rolling hills and valleys we see and run along every day. i love seeing the boys run and run...chasing fireflies, chickens, rabbits. and i don't have to yell constantly to keep them from running into the road.
  
• our house. it's a dream to be living in a house big enough to house your entire family for holidays. we had 17 here for a few days over christmas. i love to be able to offer hospitality to friends by offering a guest room, a meal. we did this in our old house, but we have room to do it more here. i love that this house has been sitting here on this land for over a hundred years.
  
• the quiet. it's so quiet here, that when a car drives by, it actually wakes you up. which makes it hard to sleep with the windows open.
• our chickens. i love those 15 cluckers running around our yard, free-range.
• our future. we have so many great conversations, kenny and i, about what we want to do here. what we want our boys to be able to do, to learn, to experience. it's not that we couldn't do that in our old place, it's just a different way of letting them experience the same things. we have the best of both worlds...living in the peaceful, quiet, big, starry sky boonies, and able to get into the culture of the city in under an hour.

i'm almost embarrassed to admit the things i miss, which make me feel unsettled. but as i look at the above lists, i know that my "pro" list will overcome the "cons" list in no time. maybe i'll include a blog post a year from now and i'll laugh that it ever took me so long to be settled into what is our home.

and maybe i'll be walking farther than the garage once nightfall hits.

(the beginning of the "moving" series starts in april, 2006)

yesterday started out innocently enough. and then kenny decided it was demo-day. but this is a good thing as it means our deck will be up and ready to offer hospitality on by way of mojitos or coffees (or sippy cups with milk) in no time at all.

for today, i'll post a few "before" pictures. tomorrow perhaps some "during" pictures...and hopefully within the next few weeks, some "after" pictures.

the current "stoop/deck" that doesn't work so well for more than one person to sit on:

we must be bored, because we are undertaking yet another project.

just off of our enclosed back porch is a 3.5"x8 foot stoop made of wood (a mini-deck, really) with 4 steps down to the yard. underneath the current deck is a railroad-tie holding wall, collapsing and pulling the current deck down with it.

well okay, it's not that bad...we still use that door to get in and out of the house especially in the summer, but it needs some propping up, and/or tearing down, and our preference is toward the latter. especially when it involves putting up a deck that can hold more than one folding chair.

so...we've been pouring over books on building decks from the library...looking through magazines and web sites for inspiration.

you need to help us...because i want to do something like this and this. and THIS! but we only have the space, time, and resources for a more standard, rectangular deck.

but it's a deck, nonetheless, and we've been talking about it since moving in (after we painting all the rooms in the house, which hasn't happened except for the bathroom which is a lovely dark blue but because of its shade and need for 4 coats, it is the sole reason i'm not painting for a long, long time).

but still, we need your help. do you have a deck? i want to see pictures of them! either send them to me in email (you can find my email address on the right, under the categories list), or give me a link to pictures of your very own deck in the comments.

i'm dreaming of the day we can have a deck party with 257 of our closest friends, so send me some inspiration!

a month ago, i signed up at OrgJunkie's blog for a whole room organization challenge. today we have pictures to show the final product - and even a bonus area where "organization happened."

i love that this project happened during spring. it was a great way to spring clean clutter from these areas and other areas in the house!

without further ado, here are before and after pictures of our very high-traffic areas: the enclosed backporch (playroom) and the office.

Before

the coat and shoe "area":


bookcase in the office:


After



all the toys put away!


a shelf and cloth bins for the boys' books:


their "craft" table with toy bins on each side:


their "thinking chairs" (if you watch Blues Clues, you'll understand why Rowan and Sawyer named them that) in their little "book nook area." they enjoy a good book and a cup of milk and snack in these chairs:


this is my favorite change to the room. i brought a hardly-used bookshelf down and put it in the corner with a reading lamp, and the magazine rack. kenny and i spend a lot of time in these chairs while the boys play, or while we all read. so now there is an "grown-up" area for books, magazines and a table nearby for a cup of coffee:


the new coat, shoes, and "muck boots" area:


each shelf in the office has a purpose: reference shelf, cookbooks, bibles (between the two of us, we have a lot of bibles), and learning-type books:


And...  as an added bonus, and through inspiration from this organizational challenge, i organized my cleaning closet from store-bought chemical-laden products...



...to all natural (mostly homemade) cleaning products:


1. What was the hardest part of the challenge for you and were you able to overcome it?
it took me a while to wrap my head around what to do with the stuff, and the piles and the unused, old and broken toys in the playroom. i finally just started chucking everything into piles of "keep," "give away," or "storage." fortunately the winter coats and boots went away to their proper bin in the attic.

2. Tell us what kind of changes/habits you have put into place in order for your area/room to maintain its new order?
two rules:
(1) we have a LOT less stuff in the playroom. there is only enough toys that will fit in the toy bins with the lid on (that is a hard and fast rule. if we can't close the lid, then something has to go). we don't store piles of old mail and old papers on the table in the playroom anymore.
(2) there is a place for everything...so if it doesn't have a "home" in the playroom, it doesn't belong there. clean-up is so easy now that we can put toys and diapers and books in their proper places.

3. What did you do with the "stuff" you were able to purge out of your newly organized space?
we took a trip to Goodwill where i unloaded a lot of winter clothes, coats, toys, and books that we don't use any more. i found an empty bin in the attic where all the winter boots went, and i stored away the winter coats.

4. What was the biggest lesson you learned from this experience?
less is so. much. more.

5. Now that you have completed the PROCESS, do you think having and keeping your space organized will make a difference in your life?
i tend to get really antsy when our house is a mess. and since we spend the majority of our time on the back porch in any season, i would prefer it to be clean and orderly. i'm much less stressed when our house is clean. and that's a big job. so keeping at least the few rooms that we use the most ordered will make me so much less-stressed out.

i'm a neat-freak. and i've lost the OCD side of that since marrying and having kids. because other things take priority - like reading and playing with the boys, making meals, and spending quality time with each other as a family. 

Menu-planning Monday has been left in the dust recently as life as become well, very unstructured. Illness and chickens seem to throw off the balance. I planned our month of meals over the weekend and Kenny and I spent a very romantic date at the grocery store Saturday evening (really...it was great to stroll the aisles and take our time). So we're set for the month!

We have a very international-inspired menu this week. It was all by accident, I promise. I guess I subconsciously threw in the American standard meatloaf and potatoes because we'd need some sort of break from the spices. Fortunately, we love 'em all.

We are having company for dinner on Tuesday. I hope they like Indian! (Does anyone call dinner guests "company" anymore? Or is that so "yesterday?")

Monday, April 30 - Aloo Gobi over rice
Tuesday, May 1 - Chicken Tikka Masala with leftover Aloo Gobi
Wednesday, May 2 - Meatloaf, potatoes, peas
Thrusday, May 3 - Asian Noodles Satay with vegetable
Friday, May 4 - Teriyaki chicken and salad
Saturday, May 5 - Peanut Ginger Beef
Sunday, May 6 - BBQ porkchops and salad

Lots more menus over at Laura's place.

before you go snickering about how earth day is just a way for tree-huggers to get their own (recycled-only, please) hallmark holiday, i'd like to point out that there is a lot of good that comes out of observing good earth-stewardship practices.

for instance, and i'm not saying i'm a big fan or anything, but OPRAH dedicated an entire show this week to environmental issues, and how the average household/person can make small changes in their daily lives to make a big impact. Oprah is watched by millions of people. Surely more people will begin recycling and reusing, now?

there are also earth day celebrations in many cities and towns across the country making people aware of the need for change in how we live. so how did you ring in spring by observing earth day this year?

we were so excited to be outdoors (on saturday) where it was sunny and warm. i spent the morning washing and line-drying all of our bedsheets (our room smells lovely - i can't wait to crawl into bed!). the boys helped kenny clear out the area around the firepit at the base of our yard (old dead leaves and lots of weeds. we plan to plant grass, have a few big rocks to sit on, and plant wildflowers and other indigenous plants). we planted a few plants that may or may not live (easter hydraneas and lilys...probably hothouse flowers, but it's worth a try), and picked up sticks that fell throughout the winter all over the yard (hundreds and hundreds of sticks and small- to medium-sized branches). 

kenny and i walked around the yard with the boys making plans for the flower beds (the previous owner had HUGE flower beds with just about every flower imaginable. i'm incredibly intimidated by these overgrown and weedy beds. but they need help), the shrub garden (yes, a garden of shrubs. it's becoming an eye-sore and i've never really liked it. we're getting rid of it by replanting the shrubs elsewhere in the yard and planting grass) and the vegetable garden. (kenny is currently starting heirloom vegetable seeds that we received as a thank you gift from our friend serina to plant out in the garden by the end of may). i also began the change-over to completely natural cleaning products and cleaned our laundry room bathroom with water, baking soda, and vinegar.

but we did spend a good part of the day frustrated at the lack of recycling recepticles in our county. in fact, we spent a good part of the day looking at neighboring counties and admiring their recycling programs. i am planning on calling the recycling department monday morning to get the skinny on the lack of recycling in or area. goodness knows, we don't need everyone burning their plastic containers every saturday this spring and summer (since everyone in the country seems to burn their garbage).

if anyone reading this knows anything about starting a recycling "system" in small-town america, please give me your best advice. not that i'll be doing it, but i can at least make a lot of noise.

we ended saturday by cleaning out the chickens brooder's bedding. we've done this a few times already since monday and we are just shocked at how quickly these little chicks are growing. their wings are starting to get bigger and they stretch them out and mock-fly around the brooder. rowan begs to pick them up about 400 times a day.

tomorrow is a picnic lunch at moraine state park after church!
enjoy the sunshine!

the past two days have been in the mid to high 70s, sunny skies, and just plain gorgeous. adam is even addicted to the sunshine. he's fussy until we step outside and then all he wants to do is swing, walk, romp, play with grass/dirt and definitely NOT go inside.

there is so much to do in our yard it's amazing we'll even be indoors this summer at all...but i sense a pattern here. weather is gorgeous=less blogging from me.

i'm going to try to fight the urge to NOT blog because i love doing it, but the great outdoors calls loudly when it's warm, especially when you have three boys who love running and climbing and hanging in the garage (man-garage/tool shed/tractor storage) with their dad. even adam loves the garage.

BUT...i saw a challenge over at OrgJunkie's blog (the blog that hosts menu planning monday) that i need to be a part of. It's a 30-day organizing challenge, and have we got the perfect two rooms for the challenge. I can't wait to get started...especially since it's now going to be in the 30s and SNOW for the next week or more (i'm trying hard to ignore that).

our office and enclosed backporch are the highest traffic area of the house. the office has the desktop computer, built-in shelves, and all our files. the playroom has all the toys (the ones that aren't in the boys' room). we don't have a ton of toys because we like to go through them a few times a year and give away some, put some away for the baby, etc. but the disorganization of the rooms make it seem like we have a paper problem in the office, and too many toys for our fairly large enclosed back porch/playroom.

my challenge is to organize frugally. i want to "install" organization systems that aren't going to cost me much at all, and that the boys can help me put into place. afterall, the playroom is theirs.
my dream is to replace the paneling in the office (it's much too dark in there!) and make new window valances for the porch windows.

playroom:

office: