The transition...

And so begins day two of the great transitional vacation. Not much of a vacation if you consider doing nothing but housework a vacation. I'm so jealous of the people who stay at home all day. Well, sort of.

The problem with housework is that I have ADD. I have a hard time finishing one project before noticing that something else needs to be done and leaving to go do it. Make sense? No, doesn't to me either. Let me explain. I had every intention of making a list of things that needed to be taken care of and I didn't even get around to making a list. I went outside to water the garden (15 min. tops). It was then that I noticed some vines sticking out of my hedges. I was only going to trim a few vines! What ended up happening was a 30 minute knock-down, drag-out with some overgrown weeds that needed to be put in their place. Anyway...while putting up the hedge trimmers, I was grossed out by walking into a spider web (nobody looks cool after walking in a spider web) and decided that all them had to die. This led me to my front porch (eventually) where the exterior of my house grossed me out even more. Cannot believe I let it get that dirty.

After making the problem worse (and more apparent) by trying to sweep the dirt off the wall with the broom I was using to exterminate spider webs, I was forced to get the scrub brush, dish detergent, and hose. Two hours later, the front of my house is incredibly clean and oddly enough, lemon-y fresh!

It was around this time that I realized I hadn't done ANYTHING to clean the interior of the house. Sucks because that was my initial intention. Sooooo, after Jeremy got home, we took a break then he mowed the back yard while I tackled the mildew-breeding ground that is my bathroom. It may not be lemon-y fresh, but I'm a pretty big fan of clorox scent too.

All this stuff obviously needed to be done at some point anyway. It's all accelerated by the fact that my friends, Mike and Steph, are coming down from Virginia today.

Aren't they adorable? They're from Vegas, but Mike has some sort of military contract job in VA and Steph is visiting, so they're going to visit us. I'm so excited. We had soooo much fun when Mike and Brian came down in January, but it's going to be even better with a little more estrogen in the house. And since I don't want them to think we're icky slobs, major cleaning needs to be done. Wow...that makes it sound like I'm an icky slob when I don't have people over. That came out wrong...You know what I mean though. I have a level of controlled chaos in my home. This doesn't mean I have to subject anyone else to my chaos. People could get hurt :)

Well, back to cleaning. Interior this time, Jewel. INTERIOR.

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Well, it's Monday....again....

It's hard to believe how productive I was this weekend. Don't ask my husband though because he'll say that I wasn't since the house still needs to be cleaned. Cleaning aside, a lot of other things got accomplished.

Saturday morning I got up bright and early (at the crack of 9:00) and headed over to Neuseway Park to help a co-worker with a community project. Several churches worked on improving some of the public sites in Kinston. Our assignment was to paint the inside of the train tunnel and give it a faux rock look by sponge painting it and applying some fake moss. I had to leave around 1:00, but when I left, it was looking pretty good.

On the way home I decided to stop by hell, I mean Walmart, to get some supplies for my little crochet bed buddies. In my head I'm thinking that I'll do a little cleaning around the house and then relax, put on some Lost, and crochet for the rest of the day. Alas, this was not my destiny. Just outside of LA, my SIL called and asked if I was ready to pick up the plants for my (non-existent) garden. Why not? I was already in the car and driving an extra 40 minutes just gives me more time to listen to the iPod. They end up giving us one of everything they have along with a giant bag of compost. Bear in mind that while I have tended a garden in the past, I've never started my own. So no high hopes for this first annual Owens garden. It was such a pain to even get it started. I won't bore you with the details, just understand that this was as much as I could physically do without needing a trip to the hospital. The result is that my plants are way too close together (oops). It's not pretty, but maybe it'll grow something. They'll probably end up needing to be transplanted somewhere else. We'll see how it goes (or grows <---bahahaha, garden humor).

Ignore the disgustingly large amount of grass that is seeping through the fence posts. Our yard is like a jungle right now. Our goal for yesterday was to get an old riding lawnmower from the parentals. Unfortunately, that lawnmower still hasn't been fixed yet. Not sure what our plans are, but Jeremy comes close to death every time he gets out there with the push mower to tackle our football field sized yard (well, it's probably not that big, but it certainly feels like it sometimes).

Anyway, there was a little time to crochet in between laundry and having a massive headache that knocked me out for about 5 hours. Luckily, I've discovered that I can proofread at work and crochet at the same time. Hopefully my employers won't discover my discovery, but that's a different story. My MIL did come up with a fabulous idea while we were having dinner with them Saturday night. She's going to crochet baby blankets while I crochet stuffed animals and we'll sell them as matching pieces. Pretty genius I thought. Can't wait to have enough for Etsy!

Happy Monday All!

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It's all coming together...

The list is dwindling down and yet there's still so much to do! Next on the agenda is clearing out the junk. Among the items that are getting sold: 2 paintings, foosball table, camera (getting a new one), Taylor guitar, hotdog cart, clothes, and a lot more! I'm not even sure why we keep some of this stuff around.

Whenever I sell these items, the money will just go to purchase more stuff to replace them. The front porch has been pretty bare ever since we moved in. I envision ferns, rocking chairs, and a cozy swing to make it like another room that we can go to in order to enjoy the beautiful (and sometimes non-existent) spring weather. Hopefully, I'll make this happen this year. Keep your fingers crossed. My penny pinching hubby will have to approve first. Thank goodness he's around because I would go in debt just to make my house look nice...lol. He keeps me in check.

Tonight is reserved for cleaning out the old office, working on art for the living room, and/or rearranging/cleaning the bedroom. After that.......time to RELAX!!!!

By the way, enjoy this little gem of a video I found about Glenn Beck. Absolutely worth watching...quite disturbing actually. Here it is.

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Spring (cleaning) is upon us...

Hope everyone had a nice LONG Easter break. Somehow, I spent most of mine cleaning and realizing that I have way too much junk. But before that, I did find the time to finish the bunny I was working on for my niece's birthday:

Not sure how well it will hold up (seeing how I'm not the world's best seamstress), but the end result is pretty close to what I had intended.

Back to the hellacious amount of work on what was meant to be my day off. It was long over due, so finally my hardwood floors were mopped and polished yesterday. I couldn't cover it up after all that hard work, so the large rug that went in front of the refrigerator is being tossed out and I plan on purchasing a smaller one to put in its place.

Some of the other little chores that were accomplished yesterday include: scrubing the sides of the house and back porch, mowing the lawn, laundry, cleaned appliances, washed cars, vacuumed, and prepared the bathroom to be painted. There's still so much left to be done though. I am seriously considering having a yard sale. There's no reason to keep all the artwork, clothes, rugs, etc. that I hate and know I don't really even want. An added plus is that if I sell them, there might be a little extra money to buy the stuff I really want to have. I do have the luxury today of going to pick out some new accessories for the house. The time has finally come to take down the laundry door and replace it with curtains. May sound cheesy to some of you, but the door that's there now is pretty, but polish a turd and it's still a turd. The bottom section where the hinges are is completely busted out and I would rather just take it down and make that area a little more accessible. In addition to the new curtains, a new paint color for the bathroom has to be picked out. Now I've gone through a long list of paint colors that I would love to have and I think this is the one:

The floors won't look nearly this good since there is a vintage basketweave black & white tile in there now, and I won't have that gorgeous sink, but I think this color will turn my little "hole in the wall" into a sootheing oasis. Ok, that might be a stretch...but at least it will look good! If the paint bug is still biting when the bathroom is finished, I might even paint the hallway, bedroom, and exercise room as well. Either way, wish me luck. There's a lot of work to do.

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Falling Behind

Ok, I'm really tired of working double shifts at work. It's for a good cause, however. The girl I work with is dealing with her husband being deployed, so I understand. BUT, I'm still getting tired of it. One of the main reasons is that I don't have enough time to do everything I want to do at home. The main thing being CLEAN! I'm having to prioritize things. For instance, my kitchen is clean, but there's a pile of clothes that have been washed and I still haven't hung them up. I'm sure there are people who disagree with me, but I feel like it is much more important to go outside to exercise and socialize with Topher rather than hang up a pair of jeans. I'll be so glad when it's over in a couple of weeks. 

There's also something I kind of want to vent about. I'm so angry with my husband's employer. Jeremy is an extremely dedicated worker and I think that he gets taken advantage of sometimes because of this. He had an opportunity recently to take a different position in the company that would include a higher salary and switching to a daytime work shift. His supervisor wanted to keep him on nights though, so he told him that if he stayed where he is, he would get a raise and they would create a "leadership" position for him. In order for any of this to take place, they needed to find someone to take over his current job first. The BIGGEST problem with this is that they're not advertising for his spot. Not only that, but after being told that he would definitely get a pay raise, they told him that probably wasn't going to happen. So, basically what is left when you combine all these elements is one irritable Jeremy. One thing that really bothers him is that his supervisor is a friend and now Jeremy feels like he's been lied to. Now, my husband is extremely non-confrontational. However, I'm not. I have a feeling that my red-headed temper might flare up should I come in contact with this particular person in the near future. I still like this guy on a personal level, but I get so frustrated seeing Jeremy work so hard and still get the shaft. Hopefully, he will find something that suits him and makes him content soon so he doesn't come home at 11:00 each night having had a terrible day. Keeping our fingers crossed.

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