The Storage Room Part 1

This is very embarrassing, but I promised my sister that I was going to do this: pictures of my storage room as of this morning.  This room stores all of our tools, bikes, holiday stuff, extra clothes, camping stuff, food storage, craft/sewing stuff, outdoor toys, deep freezer, moving boxes, folding chairs and tables - basically all that used to be stored in our garage and attic of our old house (and anything I can't find a good place for in the rest of the house).  

To be fair, I haven't spent any time cleaning or organizing this room in a couple of months.  Our Christmas stuff is still piled up to be put away properly.  

Now why am I baring my unorganized soul here?  Well, this room makes me stressed out and even thinking about it makes me want to cry, and not in a good way.  I'm overwhelmed by it.  But I think that by getting it cleaned and orderly, I may be inspired to renew some projects.  So this blog will make me accountable for its progress.  It's already better since I took these pictures.  But here they are:

My work corner - the first thing you see when you come in the room 

Turning slightly to the right, my craft/office/sewing shelf, 

a corner of moving boxes and the camping shelf.

A little further to the right, the toy storage shelves, bins of I don't know what, and the last shelf has photos book, electronic/computer stuff, and files.

Turning all the way to the right, the back wall is lined with holiday boxes and extra clothes.  

Then the bikes, wagon, camping cots, etc.

And back to where we started - the door and deep freezer, covered in stuff.  

You can see the basement through the door.

So there you go.  I have a lot of work to do.  Seeing as how my mother-in-law is coming tomorrow, I may not be able to spend much more time in there for a little while, but I'll post my progress.  And, I don't plan on spending much if any money on this.  I'm not trying to turn this into a storage room from "Real Simple" magazine or anything - I don't plan on spending hundreds of dollars on color-coordinated boxes and fancy shelves.  This will be quite the challenge.

Better than nothing

This past week, I drove to Illinois to spend some time with my friends.  It reminded me how much I miss them and how much I miss our weekly chats.  I have found that reading/writing a blog post does one of a couple of things for me: 

-keeps me updated with friends/family that I don't see often

-inspires me to improve my life/home/self

-makes me feel guilty for one reason or another

-helps others reconnect with my family

I have not blogged lately because:

-I have been doing a crappy job keeping up with friends/family lately

-I feel that if I don't have something great to share, I don't share anything at all

-I'm lazy

-I'm too busy

Is it possible to be busy and lazy at the same time?  I think so, because I am.

A few pics from our trip to TX for New Year

Remember that funk I said I was in, months ago?  Well I'm still in it, but I am determined to get out.  I don't have a plan yet, but I'm going to start somewhere.  I'll let you know how it goes!  Something is better than nothing.

A little of everything

As this year winds up, we're just hunkering down and letting it wind.  I think in the past two weeks, I may have spent a total of two evenings at home (tonight being the 2nd).  Our lives have gone a little haywire lately and once I can get this ward Christmas party done with, I may finally be able to breath without a dark cloud hanging over my head.  I hope someone will enjoy this party because I certainly won't be!  

William has been home all week with a fever and will be home at least one more day.  Thankfully, Ryan will take the next two days off so I can finally finish our Christmas shopping kid/sick kid-free.  Rose is too observant to take shopping nowadays.  And about Christmas shopping, I'm breaking all of my Christmas gift giving rules this year.  I am not putting a single bow on any of the presents (they'll be lucky to get those stick-on gift tags), none of them are handmade, and there are several cheap plastic things purchased at Wal-Mart.  Nothing blog-worthy, for sure.

In the meantime, I'm listening to Christmas music with a vengeance, hoping it will drag us into the Christmas spirit.  We still have a few more days, so things could turn around.    

I think the two best Christmas presents of all will be having the Christmas party over, and if my neighbors would go a day without cooking a big pot of what smells like curried-onions.  The BEST present, I tell you.

Gotta love those 3M removable hooks

Fell asleep listing to Christmas music on the radio - I love the tassel between the toes. 

Happy

We had a lovely Thanksgiving day.  Hard to believe it was already a week ago; how the days fly by.  My parents were up for a visit.  It was fun to have more people to celebrate with.  While waiting for TJ (what William named our turkey) to cook, people played games, made butter, battled with lightsabers, etc.  Overall, a lovely day.  I think the only thing that could have made it perfect would have been a nap.  Maybe next year.

She's Four and She's Alive!!

Rose celebrated her fourth birthday a few weeks back.  Frankly, I'm amazed she made it.  This girl has been trying to kill herself since she could walk (I'm not talking suicide here people - just crazy baby antics).  She must have her own personal team of angels working around the clock.  But here she is, in all her 4-year-old glory: 

And if you know Rose, you understand this face.

Rose wanted a Doodle Bear for her birthday, which I found out AFTER I had already bought something else.  So I ended up returning her original gift, and we went out and bought this one on her birthday.  In this picture, Rose is pretending to be a Doodle Bear.  BYW, her bear's name came with the name "Rose".  Perfect.

Blowing out the candles after our root bear and pizza party.  We're cupcake people around here; and if you have seen any of my cakes, you know why.

Rose's birthday fell on Monday this year, so we had to do a family outing another day.  So the following Saturday, we went to the Butterfly House, which is right around the corner from our house.  We've been there a couple of times this past year, so while the kids liked it - it wasn't anything super new to them.

As much as I hate roaches, this exhibit really fascinates me.  It's just so gross; the pumpkins with roaches coming out the eyes and mouth was a nice touch.

Don't they look excited to be there?! 

"I'm wonderful. I'm perfect!" - Rose

Halloween

Happy Halloween!!

Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight 

(minus the black boots - they're hard to walk in long-distance)

Red Riding Hood

Ballerina (costume variation 3)

Trick or Treat!!

Pickle Creek

Last weekend was our church's General Conference.  On Sunday, we decided to go for a drive and listen to conference on our satellite radio in our car on BYU radio.  It worked out really well - it forced us to pay attention.  So we drove to a state park about an hour and a half away.  When we got there, we finished listening while we had a picnic lunch in the back of the car.  

Then for the two hour break, we went on a hike.  Our family loves to go on hikes and we do them quite often.  We try to find ones Rose can do too.  This one was about a mile each way alongside a creek.  It was awesomely beautiful, but involved quite a bit of climbing over rocks.  I'm sure if we went back now, the leaves would be even more incredible.  Rose did great there, but Ryan and I carried her back.  

We passed quite a few people on our way.  We got either smiles or strange looks as they went by.  I'm sure they thought we looked like novice hikers, seeing as how my girls were both wearing dresses (their choice entirely).  I'm sure people were thinking, "Oh how sweet, they have no idea what they're doing".  

But we're tougher than we look, dresses or not...we even had an encounter with a snake on the path! Pickle Creek is no match for us.

Some nice people hiking with their two dogs took this one for use.  William's got his game face on and I look pregnant, which I'm not.  I had about 3 layers on and 20 pounds worth of everyone's crap in my coat pockets.  I'm the designated pack mule for these events.

Then on the way home, we listened to the last conference session.  Perfect.  We'll be doing this again in April, and maybe in pants.