Grains of Gratitude - The MOM Edition

My mom is apparently Super Woman.

When I get tired, she just keeps plugging away. When I'm complaining that my back hurts, or I've grown bored of whatever task we're on - she just keeps plugging away.

She's amazing. I've never met anyone with so much energy!

So she came to town to help me organize and clean up my basement. We did that on Saturday, plus laundry. Then today worked on my upstairs. We did all three bedrooms and the bathrooms. Plus more laundry. Between Goodwill, a second-hand kids' store, and the trash - I got rid of a ton of stuff!

Pictures tomorrow. It looks awesome!

Thanks mom - I am so grateful you came! What we accomplished in two days, I could not have done over weeks and weeks. Oh who am I kidding - I couldn't have done it without you!

I'm grateful for mom. She's just so cool.

Keeping House - The Unfinished Basement

The shelf that holds the kitchen overflow.

So, what are you doin' this weekend? Me? I'm hanging out at home. My mom is heading into town.

What else?

Clean Sweep!!!

Have you ever seen this show?

No, I'm not going on the show. My mom is coming to town and making me clean the crap out of my basement. I am showing you photos of the part of my house where no one is even allowed! But I show you because there will be fantastic after pictures in a few days.

Our basement is unfinished and slightly unused. We have one seating area where we watch a ginormous t.v. I do laundry. And we store lots of stuff.

You can see kitchen stuff. That is overflow from my tiny, tiny kitchen. There are holiday decorations. There is miscellany.

By tomorrow night, it will all be organized (or thrown out) and tidy.

I'm kind of excited!

Keep in mind, I am seriously showing you the basement where NO ONE is allowed! We'll see what it looks like once it's actually tidied. Maybe I won't feel such shame.

The "seating area", which consists of two old chairs and a treadmill.

The bedding storage, gift wrap, and my scrapbooking supplies

My "laundry room", with laundry in various forms of doneness.

WISH ME LUCK!!!

A Break From My Break

Must.blog.about.excitement.

Tonight after supper, Brenna was upstairs by herself, drawing pictures. They've started back to a preschool schedule at daycare and she's really into her "homework". She's also been focused on learning to write her name. We put zero pressure her about such things and I've often wondered if I should. But she seems to be pushing herself these days, talking a lot about learning to write her name. Well, she came running downstairs and that's exactly what she had done. By herself. Written her name for the very first time.

Big news at our house. She did it all by herself. And she's very proud.

So am I.

[note the incorrect date I wrote at the bottom! Oh my. I'm home sick today and have absolutely lost all track of time.]

Wordless Wednesday - Noodles

Wordless Wednesday.

Grains of Gratitude

I couldn't let a Sunday go by without posting my grains of gratitude, even if I am on a self-imposed blog-break.

Today was awesome. I met up with Jacque, Nikki, and Stacy for brunch at Mimi's. The quiche was delicious, but the conversation was even better! I love meeting up with my cousins and I love meeting up with my good friend Jacque. Having them all together was just great! We all have started blogging in the last year and it was fun to have the three of them meet.

This afternoon we went out to a water splash park (a city park with sprinkler/water features) for my nephew's birthday. It was so fun to watch my kid's laugh and play. I am so very aware of what great kids I have, even if I don't always feel that way. They are so energetic and full of life. They are independent spirits who look at a day at the park as an adventure and enjoy every minute of it. It's fun to have two fun kids!

I am grateful for what a good weekend we have. Mason is finally feeling better after a long virus/fever thing that had us juggling days off of work last week. I'm glad he's well again.

That's it for now.

I will be back to blogging regularly again next week...see you then!

Apparently not everyone shares my zeal for MTV's brand of trashy reality TV, judging from the 2 comments on my Monday night post (and one was from me!). Oh, that's okay. I totally get it. I don't watch any of the dance contests, Big Brother, or Lost. I realize Lost isn't reality TV, I just threw it in there. I wish you all the best of luck as you try to pick your own flavors of fall TV viewing.

As for me, I'm going to keep it to the few I mentioned before and that's about it. Trying to keep it to a minimum, since life is sort of taking over.

Which brings me to my next point. I'm going to take a little break. From the blogging thing. I'm not quitting altogether. Just taking a wee break, ala Mad Hatter circa summer of '07. Not a huge deal. Just a breather. I hope you'll stop back by when I get back.

It's more about need to fold socks and scrub toilets. And maybe do some actual correspondence with real stamps and an ink pen.

Life is trying to get the best of me. What with work 10+ hrs a day, having a hip that wants to ache and pop all day long, and trying to raise two young kids with one young husband and really be THERE while I'm doing it.

So I'll be back. In a couple of weeks. Just taking some time off. I've got some stuff I need to think on and a little bit more I need to act on.

And by the way, thank you for your super kind comments. About my face. I wasn't digging for compliments, but it sure was nice to get some. Me and my mom face have some work to do!

This weekend I'm having brunch with some real life blogging friends. Two cousins and a former co-worker. I've convinced them all to blog with me this year and I'm so glad for it. Now we'll all be brunching together!

I'll be back soon and I'll certainly see you then.

It's on MTV tonight. The Hills.

It is good, as in guilty pleasure good. As in bad reality TV good.

So maybe you should try it. Or maybe not.