Year of Faith

Two posts in one day, this is insanity!  Just go with me here...

On the subject of new beginnings, Pope Benedict just kicked off the Year of Faith yesterday. The focus of the Church this year is to be helping its members grow in understanding of their faith.  Along those lines, I decided to sign up for a wonderful Flocknotes group that aims to Read the Catechism in a Year.  Each morning they send an e-mail to your inbox with a few sections of the catechism.  I'm a repeat Bible in a Year dropout, but I'm hoping to be more successful with this!  I'd love to have you join me.

Thank Goodness It's Spring, I Mean Fall

Wow, I didn't realize it's been two months since I posted.  I always struggle the last few weeks of summer, but it seemed worse this year.  Summer for us in AZ is like winter everywhere else.  The heat sucks the life out of you and makes you hide inside, running from air conditioned house to air conditioned car to air conditioned school/store/wherever.  The downside of all this inside is that like winter in the north, I get a little stir crazy and very unmotivated until it's finally below about 90.

This week it has cooled down somewhat and in a fit of downright pleasantness the high today is below 80.  Be still my beating heart.  I took this opportunity to crack open our gardening in the desert books and decided to clean out the garden and the sad little rosebush in the back yard.  Here our big vegetable growing season is winter, when the days are cool enough not to burn the plants, so I'm going to try carrots, broccoli, lettuce, and some herbs again.  I don't have any seeds yet, though, so I contented myself with cleaning out the old stuff, breaking up the baked soil, spreading the compost bin over top and watering and raking it all together.  Hopefully some of that compost goodness will leach into the surrounding soil before I get the seeds in a few days.

Here we have the before - with two helpful men adopting their best supervisory pose and a photobombing toddler trying to walk on the gravel without falling.

 

Our super-expensive compost setup.  Actually we wanted it to be pretty incognito since I'm sure it's against HOA bylaws to be composting in your backyard.  This bad boy was pretty much full.

 

The after, all cleaned up, composted, and watered.  It looks like I missed a piece of paper when I was cleaning up the compost - there's always a bit that doesn't get broken down well.

I also pruned, cleaned up, and fertilized my little rose.  I had put it under a tree next to the wall for the hottest part of summer when I saw it was burning badly.  I think the lack of sun made it go a bit dormant, but hopefully a nice feed and some clean-up pruning will perk it up.



{pretty, happy, funny, real} - End of Summer Edition

We've been hanging out around home more than usual lately.  While I was so excited (for me and them) for school to start, now that it's close, I think I'm going to miss them :-)  The up side of all this homebodiness is that I've actually taken pictures!

{pretty}

I cleaned the kitchen within an inch of its life yesterday.  That makes it pretty, or at least a lot prettier than it was.  Goo Gone is my friend.  It took care of a lot of the greasy mess on the microwave underside.

{happy}

After the pantry cleaning last week, I got out the easel for a long overdue (read: it's been many months) painting session.  Little E was not quite paint-eligible, but she was happy to color chalk on the other side.

{funny}

 It's funny, and maybe a little sad, but my kids are such desert rats that one good afternoon of thunderstorms produced some awesome puddles worthy of about 45 minutes of running and jumping in.

{real}

I suppose this is to be expected since she only has big brothers, but here is Elizabeth "peeing" in the potty.  She picks up her shirt and pushes on her belly button and is SURE she's going just like the big boys!  I've started putting her on the potty before bathtime in the hopes that we might not have too big a mess (or struggle to get her to sit down) when we actually start training her!

Quick Lego Manual

We have QUITE the collection of Legos since Christopher had his birthday a few weeks ago, and with all those legos comes a lot of little building manuals.  Many of ours were in really bad shape, having been lovingly touched and taken in the car to "read" more times than I can count.  So today I took an old binder and some page protectors that I was no longer using and made a little Lego manual. 

I put a few booklets in each (after extensively taping some back together) grouping by category - Cars, Ninjago, Lego City, etc. 

I think it will be much easier to handle and they'll stay in much better shape this way.  And anything that means less Lego mess on Christopher's bedroom floor is a good thing!

Simple Wallet

Christopher and Patrick have recently started doing "money jobs," which are little extra chores around the house to earn $0.50 or $1.00 depending on the job. Patrick has been asking for somewhere to put his vast stash of money, but I've been unable to find a small wallet at Target, etc. So the other day I decided we'd make him a little change purse-type pouch for his money.

He's one happy guy, always wanting to do work so he has money to add to his wallet. He looked through the fabric in the closet and homed in on a spaceship print...which is flannel. Yup, kid has a flannel wallet. Oh well, it makes him happy!

I drew out a simple pattern and we cut and stitched it on the machine. He learned how to put in and take out pins, how to line up and sew the seams, and how to press VERY CAREFULLY with a grown-up. The only thing I did myself was putting in the lining and topstitching (with very bad tension, judging from the mess on the inside). Then, of course, the piece de resistance, he got to pound on the snap. Oh happy day! Couture it is not, but it serves its purpose and was a great little learning project.

Pantry Cleanout - Round 2

I finally got around to cleaning the other side of my pantry today after I saw the great job my little sis did on her big boys room.  Maybe we can go back and forth, Cindy, and keep each other motivated?  Anyway, this side was more of a hot mess, mostly owing to the fact that I just mash stuff in there to keep it away from little fingers.  Here is the before, complete with toddler trying to get as much stuff as she can before I shoo her away:

Extra food at the top, on the fourth shelf, and on the floor. Art supplies on the 2nd and 5th shelves, of course?! The only thing that was working was the vase/casserole shelf. So I got to work and a two hours later, I had this.

Muuuch better.  All the food together and off the floor and all the art stuff together and accessible again.  The only area I didn't tackle is the coupon/office supply half of the fourth shelf (in the canning jar box), but I have big plans for that involving some scrap wood in the garage and my Kreg Jig, so watch this space :-)  Down in one corner I found this little gem. 

I think it is some sort of basket liner for food from back when Longaberger was the big thing (yes, I'm that old that I've been through housekeeping fads, yikes!), but it works great for markers and crayons.

Of course, it wouldn't be our house without a random box of unlabeled liquor :-)  I set this aside on the floor for my husband to identify and disposition.

So there you have it - again it didn't take nearly as long to do as I took putting it off.  Does anyone see a pattern forming here?

Food Pantry Cleanout

I started the great re-org of 2012 with a small project cleaning up the food side of my pantry.  It's a big double closet and I use the side closest the kitchen for food and the other side for art supplies, extra pantry goods, vases, canning jars, etc.  Here was the before:

It was in pretty good shape.  I just regrouped like with like, cleaned everything off, and tossed a few really old things.  I wiped the walls and shelves, pulling back the shelf liner and wiping both the underside and the shelf itself.  If anyone knows how to get rid of petrified shelf liner, let me know.  I hate the stuff, but the last owners had nasty blue liner on there from who knows when and I haven't been able to completely clean the shelves.  Now it looks like this:

Like I said, not a big change.  I had a pretty good system before and didn't need any new containers, although if you do, right now is a great time.  Everyone has their back-to-college stuff out so there are cheap but sturdy plastic crates in all colors and sizes.  Mine were from a few years ago and they do work better than old boxes for many things.  They have a little ventilation and they're easier to wipe.  Hopefully I'll get to the other side in a day or two, but for now I'll enjoy making dinner just a bit more!