one more down...finally

Gray's room as been on the verge of being done for weeks now. All I needed to do was sew some pillow covers for some old couch pillows. (We sold the couch at a garage sale years and years ago, but saved the pillows to use as floor pillows.) Since Gray's room has cement floors, I figured he deserved to have them in his room...but being so ugly, I figured it was time to finally make them some covers. Anyway, *finally* sewing them up yesterday allows me to say that his room is done for now.

Before shot:

And after:

(Over the winter, we're hoping to put down carpet squares throughout the main part of the basement, and I hope to sew a room divider to hang between Gray's room and my scrapbook area. And next summer, hopefully we'll get his room painted.)

And just for the heck of it--pillow covers are born:

Yep--he loves them! :D

a neglected garden, but another room done

 (Many thanks to Heather at Capricious Reader for hosting Saturday Farmer's Market!)

We actually missed the farmer's market altogether this morning...trying to get some chores done and then remembered we had to take Max to a birthday party...and well, it just didn't happen this week. :(

Our garden was a tad neglected this week as well. Just so dang busy with projects around the house. We did eat some more kohlrabi...sooooo good! And we ate our first green pepper diced up in scrambled egg burritos (thank you farmer's market for our ethical eggs). Annie's cherry/grape/whatever tomatoes have started ripening, too...and others have been enjoying them (I don't like tomatoes unless they're in something--I know, silly me). Anyway, here's a few pictures of what's going on in there as of this morning.

We've got lots of tomatoes hidden away amongst the plants, though none are starting yet to ripen.

 Our pole beans are finally flowering. :)

The cucumbers have oodles and oodles and oodles of flowers (the picture shows just a fraction of them), but we've yet to see any baby cukes at all.

And Annie's tomatoes.

And in the flower garden, I've no idea where this beautiful sunflower came from, but it is very welcome to stay as long as it would like. :D

And hooray! My black-eyed Susans are blooming! My favorite flower. Well, tied with daisies anyway.

*****
So, what kept us out of the garden this week. Lots of projects actually. But my biggie was the library...and I am just giddy as hell this evening because I finally finished in there. (Well, finished with what I had hoped to accomplish this summer, that is.)

The before shot (yes, it was a complete disaster...and this photo only shows part of it):

And the after shots (wish the pictures were better, but it was the best I could do):

 I'm so in love with the bookcases Rich built so it all now frames the window. That wall houses non-fiction...history, bios/memoirs, travel, the kids' non-fiction, general science, environmental issues, social issues, animals, natural history...and maybe some other stuff I'm forgetting.

Okay, this picture really sucks. :(  But this wall houses mostly Rich's science books. Everything on top of the side-by-side bookcases, as well as the top shelf of each of those bookcases, holds his evolution books. Science geek. He also has an entire shelf of brain books and an entire shelf of genetics. Science geek. A shelf of dinosaurs and other prehistoric beasts. A shelf of ecology. Science geek. A shelf of earth science. And a shelf of animal behavior. Science geek. :D

And behind the chair on the left are some small bookcases which house collections by some of his favorite science/natural history authors...E.O. Wilson, David Attenborough, Carl Zimmer, Oliver Sacks, Richard Dawkins, and a few more I'm forgetting at the moment.

And finally, not showing in this picture (but I think it might show up in the next one), is another new bookcase Rich built. This one holds our house and garden type books.

The closet houses a sagging shelf of National Geographics, our reference books, two shelves of Annie's books (she has most of hers in her room), and Rich's fiction.

The big bookcase in the middle holds Gray's books (though he has a smaller bookcase in his room as well). The little bookcase on the top is also a new addition Rich built.

And finally, the skinny dark brown shelves hold some of Max's books. Our reluctant reader also has a bookcase in his room.

And the final wall...well, it holds my fiction. As well as a few of my favorite other possessions--my Poppets, my beautiful handmade Calpurnia (thank you again, Jason!), and my homemade folk artsy coyote (thank you again, Annie!).

Someday we will get the room painted and add molding and a few other things, but for now I'm just happy to be able to hang out comfortably in there again. :D

what is so hard about this

This is not meant to be whining. But I must say that I am feeling an overwhelming amount of frustration. Not so much the kind of frustration that is laced with anger, but more the type that is infused with sadness.

The things I dreamed of accomplishing this summer just aren't coming about. It's not like they're big dreams. Just many small, simple things. For my small, simple life. (And I mean that in the most positive way.)

It seems like no matter how much I plan, no matter how hard I try to keep things organized, everything just comes apart at the seams anyway. Nearly three weeks into summer and the house is nowhere near where I'd dreamed it would be at this time. Our summer education plans have been haphazard at best. I've barely made a dent in next year's school work. And I've done no crafting at all. Truly, this just leaves me feeling depressed.

I feel like I need to regroup. But really, I'm not sure how. I'm not sure where exactly it is that things are falling apart. No, it *definitely* didn't help that I was dreadfully sick for the past five days. No, it didn't help that we had to attend a family reunion for three days. And the kids' activities--track camp, book club, soccer four nights a week--yeah, that kind of stuff takes up time, too. I don't know, maybe now's not the time to worry about it. I'm still not really functioning right because of this damn virus...and maybe when I'm really feeling better, my brain and body will be raring to go and things won't look so pathetic.

You know, in fact, I'm not going to hit that publish button tonight. I'm going to wait until morning, when hopefully I will be able to look a little more clearly at what has gone right so far. And maybe I'll even have some fresh ideas for getting back on track.

Goodnight self. Sleep well, would you?

*****
Okay. Well, I wrote the above two days ago. I'm still feeling like somewhat of a failure...but I've decided that letting that get me down will get me nowhere. Instead, I'm just going to hop back on board with my original plans. Tweaking here and there. No, this entire house will not have been through its thorough cleaning before mid-August. This was my goal, because this is when my dear friend Chris arrives. But I've got to stop stressing about deadlines. And I know for a fact that Chris is not coming to see our house, he's coming to see our home--and that is always in business, tidy or messy. :D

If things had gone according to plan, Max's, Gray's, and Annie's bedrooms, as well as the library, would have been through their super-weedings/super-cleanings. While progress has been made in every one of these rooms, Max's is the only one that is actually finished.

His before photo:

His after photos:

--finish sorting through every little thing in room (to trash? to recycle? to give away? to keep?)
--decide what kind of containers we still need for organizing and put everything away "in its place!" (and I didn't even need to buy any new containers--found a way to make everything work with what we had :D)
--build bookcase
--get lamp
--wash all bedding
--wipe down walls
--wash window
--dust
--vacuum


By next weekend, I do hope that I'll have "after shots" of the other rooms. Gray's room really is close to completion. (Well, the "completion" I envisioned for this summer anyway.) And both Annie's room and the library have dents made in them, but both still have a ways to go.

Heather at Capricious Reader has started a new feature--Saturday Farmer's Market! So fun--a look at what everyone's growing in their gardens, buying at their Farmer's Markets, cooking up with all their fresh produce. Mmmmmm...

(Thank you, Heather! And thank you, Chris, for telling me about it!)

And if I'm looking at the bright side, I should mention that the garden is growing like crazy!!! We've munched down all the radishes, we've been eating lettuce like crazy, we've had raspberries to munch, and Rich ate his first jalapeno last evening. And soon we'll be eating Annie's cherry tomatoes, and green peppers, and kohlrabi, too! :D

And here's Annie standing in front of the garden...finally wearing the dress I made her! (And now that she's finally put it on, she's decided she absolutely loves it. Thank goodness! And Kara, she loves the socks, too!)

time to get down to business

Yeah, so I made those lists of goals for the coming year over there in the sidebar. And it's not that I've been ignoring them exactly. I even got one checked off the list. And swirling in my head, I have ideas of what I want to accomplish in the next week and a half. So this post is to organize those thoughts a bit:

*Finish putting Max's room back together and super clean it.
*Finish putting Gray's room together and super clean it.
*Help Annie go through and weed out everything in her room and super clean it.
*Reorganize and clean the library.

I'm likely biting off more than I can chew as we'll be gone for three days in the middle for my family reunion. But as I'm having a hard time gauging just how long these goals will actually take me, I figured I'd err on the ambitious side.

*****
The before shots, and detailed lists of what needs done:

 *Max's room (And yes, it's as bad as it looks! Or maybe even worse)

--finish sorting through every little thing in room (to trash? to recycle? to give away? to keep?)
--decide what kind of containers we still need for organizing and put everything away "in its place!" (and I didn't even need to buy any new containers--found a way to make everything work with what we had :D)
--build bookcase
--get lamp
--wash all bedding
--wipe down walls
--wash window
--dust
--vacuum

*Gray's room (And yes, it's as bad as it looks, too! Reason being, that the boys had been sharing a bedroom--now just Max's. And the "room" that is now Gray's bedroom had been their playroom. So we've been in the process of moving half the stuff from each room to the other.)

--finish sorting through every little thing in room (to trash? to recycle? to give away? to keep?)
--decide what kind of containers we still need for organizing and put everything away "in its place"
--wash all bedding
--wipe down walls
--vacuum out ceiling
--dust
--vacuum

(Projects for the future:
--paint walls
--install carpet tiles
--make curtain divider for between this area and my scrapping area)

 *Annie's room

--weed out clothes
--weed out books
--weed out crafts, etc. in tubs under bed
--weed out stuff in and on desk
--weed out miscellaneous
--wash bedding
--wipe down walls
--wash window
--dust
--vacuum

 *Library

--weed out and reorganize Max's fiction
--weed out and reorganize Rich's fiction
--build bookcase for under front window
--weed out and reorganize Rich's evolution books
--weed out and reorganize Rich's brain, etc. books
--week out and reorganize family science and natural history books
--build bookcase to span bookcases-window on end wall
--weed out and reorganize family social issues books
--weed out and reorganize family history books
--weed out and reorganize family memoirs/biographies
--weed out and reorganize family travelogue type books
--weed out and reorganize true crime
--weed out and reorganize miscellaneous non-fiction
--clean out coffee table
--wash windows
--vacuum
--get lamp

(Projects for the future:
--find perfect bean bag chair
--find perfect rug
--add quarter round around ceiling
--paint walls
--"wallpaper" ceiling with book jackets)

*****
Well, crap. Now that I wrote that all out, I think that may be just a little more than a little too ambitious. But I'll see how it goes...