I know my posting has been a bit more spaced out than usual lately.  I was surprised when I looked at my blog this morning and realized I hadn’t posted since Thursday.  Since this is my second post today I am hoping that helps to make up for my lack of posting.

Anyhoo- my tackle for today is this:

We are starting to do a little room re-arranging at our house to meet our needs a little bit better.  Moving the furniture won’t be all that hard- it will finding homes for things that need to be moved that will be a bit harder.  So, I am going to tackle it a little bit at a time.  For this week I am simply going to tackle these cubes.  All of the stuff on these cubes needs new homes.  And some of the stuff should probably go into my garage sale box.  Then I am probably going to use those cubes in our downstairs as a place to organize all of the art supplies I have for Hailey.

Stop by 5 Minutes for Mom to see what everyone else is tackling.

And- make sure you check out my fabulous giveaway this week- it’s for a $50 gift certificate!

I have a small part of counter top in my kitchen that is in a bad place and not really usable for preparing food.  Since I don’t really use it I have started keeping a craft basket there.  The basket has items in it for Hailey to use when we’re in the kitchen.  I keep things in it like playdough, construction paper, markers, stamps, stickers, colored pencils, crayons, etc.  When I need to cook dinner or occupy her for a few minutes I pull something out for her to do.  We also do a craft every evening after dinner (I post them on Our Crafts ~N~ Things if you’d like to see what we do) so there are some craft supplies in there too like paint, glue, and other things I need when we make our projects.  Most of her stuff is kept downstairs in her playroom or in my storage area but it’s just easier to keep a few things in our kitchen.  The problem is that right now it looks like this:

It looks incredibly messy and it drives me crazy.  So, today I’m tackling this basket.

Stop by 5 Minutes for Mom to see what everyone else is tackling.

Before I had Hailey my car was spotless.  Occasionally there was a bit of dog hair from Dottie, but for the most part my car was very clean.  There were never any stray papers, water bottles or food in my car.  Even my trunk was spotless except for the snow related supplies that were necessary for the winter.

I am certainly not blaming Hailey because except for the few goldfish that she has thrown, most of the mess in my car is my own fault.  It has more to do with a lack of time then anything else but lately my car has become very messy.

Anyhoo, here is my messy car:

This is the front- which isn’t too bad.  You can’t actually see the entire mess- there is stuff on the passenger side floor that you can’t see.  And the door on the drivers side has all sorts of stuff in it.

This is the back.  And at first glance it might not seem that bad- as I have seen much worse.  (Rich’s car, for example.)  But it is worse than it looks as you can’t see everything in the pictures.  There’s all sorts of things stuffed into the doors little storage area things and well as more stuff on the seat on the other side of the car seat.

So, today I am tackling my car- I am going to clean out all of the garbage, including at least 9 half empty water bottles (it’s an illness of mine) and all of our old church bulletins that get stuffed into the pockets of the seats.  And then if I’m still in the cleaning mood I might even vacuum it out.

Stop by 5 Minutes for Mom to see what everyone else is tackling.

Also- be sure to enter my giveaway on my Livin’ With Me blog for a chance to win $45 in school supplies.

The other day I heard a loud crash. So I asked Rich if he had any idea what the noise was. He said, “Oh probably our neighbor doing something in his garage.” And that was that.

Later on I needed to print something and the printer was out of paper. So I went into my storage area where I keep all of my stuff from when I was teaching as well as the paper. And all of my stuff that used to be up on shelves was no longer on shelves. The shelves had collapsed and my stuff was all over the floor.

Ahhh… so that’s what that noise was.

Rich screwed my shelves back into the wall. And blamed the previous owner for not using long enough screws to keep the shelves up. I think it had more to do with all of the stuff I had piled on those shelves.

All of the stuff was on those two shelves.

And also, all of this stuff was on those shelves. I had to move this stuff to my family room and put it on Rich’s Foosball table so I could have room to walk in the storage area.

My teaching stuff needed a good re-organization anyways, so this kind of forced me to get it done.

So here is one of the after shots.

And here is another view.

I forgot to take a picture of the Foosball table too, but it is completely cleared off.

Stop by 5 Minutes for Mom to see what everyone else is tackling.

And be sure to check out my latest giveaway on my Livin’ With Me blog.

On Saturday we are going to be leaving to head out of town for a little while.  We will be going to my parents house first.  On Sunday I am going to be meeting my bloggy friend Pam for the first time and I am soooooo excited.  If you had told me a year ago that I would be meeting someone I met through the Internet I would have told you that you were absolutely crazy.  But, now I can’t wait to meet her.  Woo Hoo! 

Then we will be spending a few days at my parents house.  We hope to get to spend some time visiting Rich’s parents too.  Then on Wednesday we will be heading out of town with my parents to go visit my brothers and my sister-in-law.  We will stay with them for several days before heading back to my parents house and then back home.  So, I have a lot of preparing to do for our trip.  I am going to make a list of everything I want to get done and then come back and cross things off as I finish them.

• Lose 30 pounds before meeting Pam.
• Dust upstairs
• Dust downstairs
• Clean upstairs bathroom
• Clean downstairs bathroom
• Clean kitchen
• Vacuum upstairs
• Vacuum downstairs
• Mop kitchen
• Make sure all bills are on auto pay
• Make arrangements for mail
• Make arragements for newspaper
• Buy adapter for DVD player to plug in in the car
• Buy new little toys for the car
• Pack Dottie’s stuff
• Pack Hailey’s clothes
• Pack toys for Hailey
• Bring nebulizer machine and meds for Hailey
• Pack my stuff
• Hope that Rich packs his own stuff.

Stop by 5 Minutes for Mom to see what everyone else is tackling.