Garage Makeover

A week ago, out of frustration Mr. Sloth said, "You know what I want for my birthday? I want a usable garage."  Well that caught my attention. "Really? Do I have a budget? Like, can I hire someone?", I eagerly pressed.  I don't recall he actual response but to my intrigued ears he seemed to be saying  "Do what you need to do" playing out like a scene from the Wedding at Cana. A few days have passed as I brainstormed what to do, but no real plans. Then the kids and I came home from Rooster's  "Amazing Athletes" class and I parked the van perpendicular at the end of the driveway so the kids could ride bike and not be tempted to go in the street and I, I was going to use the leaf blower on the garage.

Have I ever used it? Nope. Did I know how to start it? Nope. Were the kids hungry and want lunch? Yep. I started the oven to reheat left over pizza from Demands birthday but gratefully the boys wanted theirs cold so they were content. While Demand and I waited for our pizza to heat up I emptied the garage of bikes and tried to figure out the leaf blower. After many texts to Obscure I still couldn't get it going. It would have to wait. Then Mr. Sloth came home for lunch and started it up for me. My word that is one fun tool.  Somehow tons of grass had gotten into our garage along with years of dust, dirt, sand, cobwebs and who knows what else. It was a good clean start. I'll do it a few more times before the project is done I'm sure but it was enough of a boost to really get me started on this project.

It was time for King and Rooster to nap. Rooster goes down easy if I'm in the room with him. Sometimes I nap too other times I read or do work online. I had my minimalist book and Pinterest as my friends. As I pinned away Obscure would shoot me an idea or two over text, most of which were beyond awesome.  Once Rooster was asleep I got back to work. This time I started emptying all the shelves I could and making piles across the garage including most of all, "Things to leave the house". Plans have become more solid the more I Pinterest and the more I clean and purge.  There are four stages.

1) Purge and Clean. You can't organize unless you know what you have so we're getting rid of what we can and then organizing according to categories and then I can't decide how to store things.

2) Paint. We're painting the walls and I'm renting a sprayer.  No question about it. Not 100% sure on the colors right now but we are mostly likely going to do white walls with black door and doorframe because that door gets disgusting.

3) Organize. Once we know what we need to store and the walls are painted we can arranged shelving accordingly and get better feel for what we need. (this will by far be the best part)

4) Paint. Once all the wall storage is up we are going to paint the floor. It will take two steps as I don't know what we're going to do with everything while the paint dries.

5)  Finally storage solutions and organizing.


Here is a starter list of projects

-paint walls
-paint floor
-screen for the garage door so Mr. Sloth can work without battling Minnesota Mosquitoes.
-shelving that will separate the garage into two areas.

We have a lot of organizing material all ready which is nice we just haven't had the time to purge and start over.

Here are some humbling before pictures. Keep in mind a lot of this is due to the extreme cold of the past winter keeping us from stepping foot in this garage.

This corner is supposed to be Mr. Sloths work area. I don't see why he thinks it's unusable.

This is where the bulk of our storage rests right now.  Things have just gotten thrown somewhere as needed instead of having a designated place.

Yard tool area, not bad but could be better.

Lifted the rug up to see how dirty it really is in there. Eww.

This is after I used the leaf blower, notice the difference?

Already looking better.

I have more pictures to take already as I've cleared most of the shelves and taking the shelving down off the wall. Next step is to finish clearing the walls and paint them.  

Eight is Great!

Occasionally this insomnia business comes in handy. I woke up at 4:30am this morning I can recognize the early signs of insomnia so instead  of trying to go back to sleep I just went with the flow and jumped right into my day. It's just as well today is Demand's 8th birthday.  In addition to getting a shower in before starting my day I was also able to decorate a bit before she woke up. I pulled out the "Happy Birthday" sign I made with my Cricut a few years ago for a different birthday.

I had a seen a cute idea on Pinterest to stuff balloons between a bedroom door and streamers but I feared she would wake up in the night and panic about the door being closed and then get scared to death when balloons came pouring out at her. So Just taped streamers all over the doorway to greet her when she opened the door. She loved it.

Then I had time to work on another Pinterest idea, but this one was part of her birthday presents.  I made a dresser for her American Girl Doll using a small tupperware drawer unit and some scrapbook paper. It took me maybe 10 minutes to make and it is SO cute! She'll love it.






Then I still had time since it was so early so I wrapped all her gifts, although by this time Rooster was by my side, and I set out the bunch of balloons and candy I bought from The Dollar Tree last night. Love, love,love that store. Balloons and giant boxes of candy for $1 each who can beat that price??




The day was fairly average we didn't have quite so much going on as we have been lately. No swimming today since it's a rather cold 70 degrees out so that cuts 3 hours out of my day. I had a chiropractor appointment in the morning then it was home for lunch and quiet hour.

Later I had a Pilates class at the gym. Demand was excited because you get a star on your name sticker in child care when it's your birthday.


She requested Papa John's Pizza for dinner and Rita's Ice Cream for dessert. I couldn't get pictures of her opening her gifts as my parents were FaceTimeing but  I got one of her eating her treasured ice cream with one of her gifts ( An American Girl travel bag....really it's the Target brand but she doesn't care) .

Thanks for Eight years Demand!

Reboot

The Sloths needed a reboot this summer.  Two weeks ago I had the priviledge of going on a retreat. I had written a long post about it but never finished nor published the piece.  (Piece? What am I a journalist now?) Anyway the retreat boiled down to a few bulletpoints. 

1) Silent, which was surprisingly wonderful and easy for me. 

2) Fruitful, at least I hope it is, time will tell. 

3) Penetential, not only did I not sleep while I was there,

 but I consumed some spoiled food. 

Don't get me wrong though, it was peaceful and intimate. The retreat was planned well because I returned home on Sunday night and Monday morning was the first day of Vacation Bible School. At first this made me nervous. The kids clothes would have to be set out the night before, we'd have to leave the house by 8am (which is gasp-worthy for homeschoolers like ourselves). Turns out it was a great way to ease back into the real world since I wouldn't have Things 1-3 for the mornings. Just me and the 'baby'. (Yep. He's a baby and I'm sticking to it.) 

The only downside to my retreat is, well, how do I say this delicately, Mr. Sloth put the house on survival mode. Actually, he put it on entertainment and survival mode. The night I left he had about twelve people over for a cookout including his brothers family who stayed at our house for the weekend.  I thought I would have time during the week to catch up with housework I was rather crunched for time.  I did get to take King to the little zoo for an hour or so and run some errands that aren't "Wow-are-they-all-yours" friendly.  Mr. Sloth on the other hand was having a horrible week. His stress was becoming quite visible so by Friday I made an emergency plea to Obscure to watch the kids while I take Mr. Sloth out to dinner. I realized half way through the day that it was a Friday and no longer during the Easter Season which means we don't eat meat. All I had was luxury fish sticks from Trader Joe's. Mr. Sloth hates fish. Mr. Sloth hates fish sticks. I don't know how he feels about Trader Joe's. When I told him we get to go out to eat his first words were, "Can I eat meat? "

Yep. 

I was able to convince him to head a favorite restaurant that is known for being an oyster bar. Mr. Sloth has been there many times for drinks but never really to eat. I reassured him that there was at the very least a burger on the menu (as well as duck, and pork, and lamb....) It was an ideal night for dining outside. It's a French Restaurant that even has the outdoor chairs you see all up and down Parisian Streets. At the last minute we both "settled" on steak. We had the Pommes Frites with Bearnaise sauce for an appetizer as we always do but I was pleasantly surprised to find out they came with my steak as well. More potatoes? More Bearnaise? Yes, please!! 

It was sometime during this week that we realized that we had completely forgotten to plan our vacation. Huh. Didn't make lodging reservations or even concrete plans. Huh. We decided to postpone our trip until later in the summer. Then all the kids sports will be over, we'll have more time to plan what we actually want to do and we'll be able to find affordable lodging. It wasn't long before we realized how providential this decision was. Some might be disappointed that they can't go on their vacation when planned but God's timing is perfect and I prefer to just go with the flow of the Holy Spirit. In my mind I thought, "Oh, well. We'll make it work sometime." 

Sunday ended up being the most awkward Father's Day yet. It started out normal but on the way to Mass King started fussing in the van for what seemed like no reason. I turned around an noticed that he had spit up his Cheerios a little bit. That was odd, but he didn't have a fever and it didn't smell like vomit. I decided try and hold him myself all through Mass in case he did throw up, I didn't want him throwing up on Mr. Sloth. Half way through Mass I realized he wasn't drinking his milk which is NOT like him at all. Then I started to kind of smell vomit. At the Our Father King insisted that Mr. Sloth hold him instead of me. Two minutes after Mr. Sloth and I did the prisoner exchange of King for Rooster King burped and threw up ALL OVER Mr. Sloth. 

Hello fellow parishioners. That just happened. 

I don't know what the etiquette is for cleaning up vomit during the Consecration but I'm apparently a trail blazer for standards.  The good news is that it turns out it was just something he ate, probably too much popcorn the night before. He was feeling better by 11am just as the clouds were breaking. We thought it was going to be storming all afternoon and we'd have to miss German Fest. At the last second we packed up the family and head to the city for our beloved once-a-year family event. It was so much fun. Perfect weather! It was pouring rain last year but we went anyway so it was nice to have great weather. 

Monday I was finally able to get some good house cleaning done in the morning before we went to get groceries. Then it was lunch and naps before we drove to private swim lessons. The daughter of a friend of mine is a lifeguard and they have an in ground pool in their yard. Perfect set up for private swim lessons. Even though I have to drive 40 minutes I can get their lessons done at the same time, one on one and pay a really decent price. I would have taken pictures but King LOVES being in the water so my hands were rather full. Thunder rolled just as our lesson was wrapping up so we packed up and started the trek home in a storm. Being rush hour and having to make one slightly out of the way stop we took a bit longer getting home and had a quick dinner thanks to my crockpot that had chicken tacos waiting for us. 

Today the house was still nice and clean so I treated the kids to a day at the 'small' zoo and some early afternoon ice cream before heading home for late naps. It's already time to make dinner. Time flies when your having summertime fun! 

Here's some pics from the zoo & ice cream. 

King at the water table in the Children's Learning room. 

Rooster showing me what the tiger eats. 

Happy & King looking for koi in the conservatory (there were none) 

King looking adorable in the conservatory. 

King enjoying some Italian ice. 

Rooster enjoying his Sour Apple Italian Ice. 

Demand enjoying her Birthday Cake Italian Ice. 

Happy needed to try every single flavor in order to make a well informed decision which is why I don't have a picture of him by himself. He finally decided on mango. The kids are already plotting how to get back to the ice cream shop to try out some more flavors.

The Bounty

There are about ten days a year I look forward to with much anticipation.  The Catholic Homeschool Conference is two of them. This year I dragged brought Mr. Sloth along with me so he could get a feel for the conference in all it's paperback glory.  

I was proud of myself for sticking with my new minimalist goals and I didn't buy anything we didn't need or love.  I came with a decent list and stuck pretty close to that list aside from a few extra fillers and Christmas gifts. 

I suddenly feel like an old pro as I had my rolling suitcase to carry all my loads of book to and from the van, and I had my list prepared for each of my kids as to which curriculum I painstakingly picked out over months of thinking and weeks of research. 

The talks were pretty good. Dr. Meg Meeker was the keynote and the one breakout session I went to was Lacy from Catholic Icing. Not only was it nice to see her I got a few ideas for keeping the littles incorporated into the school day.  I'm sure you'll see more about that in another post. 

I was also wise enough, knowing that the second I walked in the door I'd be ambushed by the kids wanting to know what books I'd bought. Thankfully I thought ahead and had a fun book for each of them in my hand when I came home.  Not only were they completely excited and engrossed by their new books but I was able to sneak the rest of the materials in the house and sort them first and keep their little eyes from seeing some possible Christmas gifts. 

I'd say this is about 50-60% of what we need for next year. Some things we have as certain textbooks can be passed down. I still have most of their math and some history books to purchase online yet. No rush though. 

I put the books in order of subjects. Aren't they purdy?  On the left, Teaching Writing and Structure and then Student Writing and Structure for Demand and myself. Then All About Spelling 3 below (still finishing up 2) then for Happy we have Primary Arts of Reading including the Phonetic Farm and Phonetic Games. However once I got home I realized that they forgot my Phonetic Games, DVD, and Teacher's Manual.  And then for Rooster we have the first three books of "Explode the Code" which is a fun phonetic activity book.  Below that we have New American Cursive. Demand and Happy will both be working through workbooks A & B this year.

Since our normal Science has an age range in place of  an grade style of curriculum we only us it every other year. We used it this year for Physics so next year we'll do some fun physics activities here and there but mostly do Art & Music this year which we haven't done in a while so Demand is excited!  I also found this great Dictionary at my friends Usborne table and Demand and Happy are already obsessed with it. Demand keeps not-so-casually finding a word she needs to look up and it's only been four hours since I've been home.

The next table is the bulk of our History program. While the kids love "Story of the World" and it is easy to use and very classical and in depth it's also written by Protestants. I was planning on getting the "Catholic Version" this year but I ended up being kind of disappointed with the structure or lack there of. There's basically a very rough overview of a teachers guide but then a great number of books to read. All the books are great but it seemed a great deal, 50% were based on Catholicism and I want a REAL study of ALL History in all the cultures of the world, not just the fun stuff. Because it's all important. So we decided to merge the two programs. We'll take out conflicting chapters of Story of the World (for the time being) and then read all the great books recommended from the Catholic History program according to the time period we will be studying at the time.

More History material and then a tiny bit of Math. I'm going to half to buy the bulk of our Math curriculum online, but thankfully I just have to buy workbooks for John as we already have the textbooks and then to be honest I'm not sure what I'm doing with Rooster. He's got his preschool material down so I guess it wouldn't hurt to try Kindergarten with him and just go at his pace.  

Aside from the Math and History books I need to purchase I plan on getting "Classically Catholic Memory" . It's classical in that it promotes memorization which is so important in the younger years and it's also Catholic (apparently there was a protestant version out there first) so you would buy the book that coordinated with the time period you are studying. This year we are studying late-medieval through early settler. Each week the family memorizes facts/quotes, etc from eight different subjects. I'm pretty excited about this supplemental curriculum.

Also, being a history major (yep I have an actual degree in something) I have been finding the history curriculums out there lacking for my taste. To me if you know History and know it well so many more pieces of information will fit into place. This also goes for Geography.  So inspired by this, and I've been wanting to do it for a few years now, our family is starting a permanent timeline on our playroom wall. (It's the largest wall in the house. )As we study subjects and topics we'll add them to the list according to time and country so that we can get a grasp as to what was happening across the world at any given time. For example, our kids were confused as to why the children in Narnia had to 'go live somewhere' out of London for a while. If we were to place the Chronicles of Narnia (either the date it was published or when it takes place) on a map would could see when we study WWI WHY the children had to leave. Or what was going on when Hemingway wrote his famous works, or Shakespeare or when Picasso or Michelangelo were creating great works of art.  And did you know the pyramids existed when the Holy Family fled to Egypt? Jesus, Mary, and Joseph mostly likely saw the VERY SAME pyramids that we can see today, isn't that awesome??  What was it like for the Creator to see one of the worlds greatest creations one that his enslaved people built! The timeline will also be a great work of art on our walls and something to talk about with guests.  So if we study and invention, a poem, a discovery, a war, artwork, music, literature,saints, sinners,  etc it will go on the timeline for whatever country produced them.  We can't wait to get started! In fact we might now wait too long at all, the kids are anxious to get going with their new books! I can't blame them they all look like so much fun!