Poof! I'm BACK

No it hasn't been almost a year since I wrote last...I've actually gone back in time to restart a year....by adding a year? errr....

Okay that sounded way better in my head then on the screen!

What can I say? 2009 was one heck of a year for little 'ole me. To sum up very fast...lots of our stuff broke, I was hospitalized for 4 days due to a severe asthma attack (no didn't know i had asthma, but it did get me to stop smoking GO ME), Dear Hubbs had three surgeries...two for back prob and one for getting his tonsils out.

Bleh.

Oh but it's a new year! Which started out on the 31st with a huge BANG! Okay, okay-it was more of a sputter as my van stopped working on the road and we had to blow on the windshield to get to the side of the road.

It's now 20 days later and the van is just about (FINALLY) ready to be back on the road. Another long (and terribly oily-garagey-and utterly confusing) story made short....the transmission stuff got mised with the radiator stuff cause something broke.

Anywho..it's almost fixed thanks to the wonderful hubs. I really am quite thrilled, proud and amused that he's been able to fix it! Well...at least it appears that it's fixed, we've yet to do a test. (cross your fingers)

Okay, so my point is that I was gone, and now i'm back. To what end or what purpose i do not know! But please stay tuned for tomorrows "Wednesday Wow"....Not sure what I'll be WOWing, but there's enough to do around here!

My strange dog

Jake the Dog....Is about a year and half old. Black lab and Aussie Cattle Dog mix. And he's weird.

Before I came into the room, he was laying in his corner, snoozing. He had his chew-toy between his paws, and looked quite happy and peacefull. Then I walked in. He jumped up and started running around the room. Ran to the door, looked out, ran around the room....etc. So I opened the door. He than ran around the room, searching for something to take outside WITH him.

I stepped on the chew-toy, and he found a pair of kid scissors (hey I was looking for those!) and tried to slip out the door.

Yup, my dog tries to find toys to take outside with him. Which he then throws into the air, catches, runs around with and looses. Oh, and chews into teeny pieces.

He also brings toys IN from the great outdoors. Yesterday he tried to bring in a stick, a rock and something brown and frozen. (ewww)

I'm sure we'll find at least most of his toys outside once the snow melts. At least I hope we do! There's at least 8 toys out there somewhere.

In other news...all four kids are home sick today. High fevers and a couple have reported abnormal freqency of trips to the bathroom. Okay, so this is rather normal....except it's Monkey Man's BIRTHDAY! Poor kid.

Wednesday WOW...part 2

I did it! I'm done! Wheeeee!

It wasn't too bad, not even as gross as I thought it would be! No yuckiness to share on this WOW. Sorry...maybe next week's!

As I said...most of the mess was school paperwork. I was diligent and looked at it all as my hand was heading over to the recycle box. No, I don't save all the kids' school work...the house would be filled to the rafters if I did that!

And...to prove that I do more than sit & read blogs of people I've never met....

Voila!

Located the blanket that's supposed to be somewhat covering the really stained couch! Found the floor & couch! Moved the couch forward just a tad to semi-cover the paint splatter on the floor (that happened when the paint fell OFF the couch...um yeah)

I also cleaned off the 'chifferobe' (it's a free-standing old type closet), and make it purty! But I'm not sure about it. What say you?

Wednesday Wow

Here's the very first installment of something I made up...called Wednesday Wow! At least I think I made it up! Every Wednesday, I'll undertake a huge mission in my house, and post before/after pictures. Along with and gross/funny moments that happen in the midst of cleaning.

This is a two-part post. Part one being me posting how much I don't wanna...which area I'm going to do and a pic to prove it's gunna be a WOW! Part two will be the story and the amazing after pictures.

And now on to the post...


Ever have one of those days in which you just want to clean, clean, clean? Naw, me either.





I do want my house to be clean, though. Would I be a 'bad mommy' if I kept the children home today to do it all for me (er, I mean help me...)?





Now, today is Wednesday...my long day. Which means that Monkey Man stays at Kindergarten all day and rides the bus home (as opposed to every other day, I have to pick him up at 2). Which also means that if I budget my time wisely, I will be able to get a lot of cleaning done, alot of WWW surfing done, and alot of me time done. Maybe even workout some....maybe not.





Okay, okay...I vow to clean at least the Den (aka office, junk room, part-time entry, dog room, disaster) today. Along with the 'normal' chores of the day...being dishes, picking up the bath mess in the bathroom, and general pickup of the living room.





WHY must I vow to clean the Den? Here's why....




The children got home yesterday and their backpacks spewed all this paper-type stuff! Where does it all come from?

Okay...you will also notice table legs, a can of paint (or two) and various other things...I cannot say with certainty that these things were there before yesterday afternoon...

But, MOST of this wasn't here before they got home yesterday!

*notice the empty laundry basket? yea, doesn't get used much*


Yes, I'll post an 'after' picture. Just so I can redeem myself! The paint splatter on the floor will still be there, though.

Randomness

'Cause I can...and 'cause I can't think of anything else to write. I'm 'stealing' this list idea from Lemony Sarah, and my Aunt on Facebook...even though she didn't tag me & this isn't going on facebook...

Random Facts about me...

1. When I tell people I grew up in Arizona, they always assume desert. I grew up at about 7500 feet elevation. Yeah, we got snow!

2. When I tell people I live in Alaska, they always ask if it's always dark, or if there really are igloos

3. I remember playing with weeds and sticks more often than toys as a kid.

4. I started kindergarten a few days before my 5th birthday...right after lunch time...without having had lunch

5. There were 4 children in my kindergarten class

6. There were 12 kids in my 6th grade class...the biggest class to date for the school

7. I am a VERY messy painter. Paint all over myself, but never on the floor

8. I was pregnant or breastfeeding for a total of 86 months. That's about 7 years.

9. I used to collect lighthouses, but got bored with it

10. I was the first girl in my family (dad's side) to be born with a dimple on my chin

11. I'd never pulled into or out of a garage until about a month ago

12. I do not like Starbucks coffee! I prefer any of the coffee 'shacks' that can be found on almost every street corner up here. 20-oz, 4-shot White chocolate mocha. Starbucks uses syrup chocolate...yuck!

13. My first car was a 1975 Chevy Nova. I want it back

14. I do not watch or listen to the news.

15. I just took a 30 minute "break" to wash the dishes, cause I was stuck

16. I'd drink rum, vodka, tequila, scotch, burbon...etc. or even beer before wine...

17. I used to clean with a baby boa (yes snake) wrapped around in my hair.

18. I don't really know any of my cousins, or Aunts & Uncles. Have only met them a few times. We lived in Arizona, while they all lived in Michigan or Florida.

19. I love spicey food!

20. I think Dr. Pepper really does taste like pepper

21. I used to hate sleeping with socks on. Now I can't sleep without them on

22. I can only drink distilled water...after the water guy distilled our "GOOD" well water and showed us what is left-over...BLEH!

23. Yes, I recycle the bottles for all the water!

24. I want either a HUGE dog or a teeny-tiny dog...or both

25. I attended a different high school's classes as a visitor while ditching MY classes

It's the thought that counts

I started the day's chores taking pictures. Before and after...messy and ordered...dirty and clean. I got a lot of stuff done in our living room. Which is the large room that holds the living room, dining room and kitchen. And I do mean LOTS! Every surface was decluttered, wiped and beautified. Every piece of purties on surfaces and walls was dusted, shined and leveled (there was quite a lot of pictures that were not straight).

Then, I sat down and looked through all the store fliers and made my plan for grocery shopping today. Which I NEVER do...I usually just goto one store and get what's on my list. I took a picture of all the adds on the table, my list and menu.

Somewhere between helping Bone Head with his English homework and Captain coming home...I lost it all. Lost the reason behind doing what I'd began. Lost the motivation to do a picture post about all that I accomplished in the day. Lost the nerve to post pictures of my really messy house. Lost the idea I had for what to write with those wonderful pictures.

But the most important one....I lost the damn pictures!

Monkey Man "borrowed" my camera. There's a lovely picture of the fish tank (at least I think it's the fish tank), some of the dogs and the ferret. And a really GREAT one of my butt.

But really, my house is really, really clean! Well...at least part of it.

You believe me, right?

Web Cleaning

I spent much of yesterday and some of this morning cleaning up my favorites files. But that's not the fun part! I cleaned up, sprused up, and freshened HERE!

This is the awesome shot I got from my front porch yesterday morning...while it was -12 degrees F.

Isn't that just too cool? I love it! I just happened to glance out the door when I walked by after getting my 3rd cup of coffee. Thrilled that this actually came out, since I had had 2 cups already, and I had zoomed to 12X on the camera and the little icon alerting me to "shaking" was going nuts.

Back to the task at hand for today. No, I didn't manage to clean out the fridge yesterday. I lost my nerve! Plus my momma was online all day, so I talked to her! HA!

Today the kids are home. Right now the boys are playing Wii, the girls are playing with the ferret, and I'm playing with my computer. The state of the house is, well...not good.

I keep telling myself...ONE more blog, one more page, one more cuppa...one more anything! Cause I'm sure I'll find some motivation somewhere...just gotta search hard enough for it!

Please do check out any and all of my friends' (yes they are my friends, even if they don't know it....) blogs over on the sidebar. They are great! Don't forget to READ all the way to the bottom (if you haven't yet) and see the new TWLOHA thingy down there (which may be moved soon). And don't forget to VOTE on your least-favorite cleaning chore!

I'm off to ruin my children's day off by making them do their chores. Muahahahaa. Well, maybe we'll play the game I made up (see below), they seem to like it...somewhat!

Cleaning Game

1. On small scraps of paper, write down as many house-hold chores that you would allow your children to do. Eg. wash window, sweep, clean toilet, mop, wash chairs, pick up toys, trash pickup (5 items), put away dishes....etc. The list can be as big or as small as you want! Put doubles in to get more of the same thing done!

2. Get two containers

3. Put all scraps in one.

4. Get kids...sometimes they hide under the bed...look there first! *

5. Each kid draws out one piece of paper, then does the chore.

6. When the chore is done, put the scrap in the 2nd container.

7. You can also make this a race, if you have competitive children. Have a container for each kid! Whoever gets the most done in a certain ammount of time WINS!

Check back (maybe monday) for another fun game that allows you to make your children do your chores!

* Really, I PROMISE that my kids do like this game! Once they get into it, they have a blast and it takes them about 45 minutes to get all the way through...and POOF the house is pretty clean!

Whistle while you work

So the kids have learned a new song at school. It goes "I'm a geek, geek, geek. But I don't care, care, care. Cause you're a dork, dork, dork. Wha!"

I think I've heard this 30 times this morning...and they have only been awake for 45 minutes. So, between 3 kids and 45 minutes...that's um...alot. Princess Pout even sang it to the dog.

This leads me to wonder what other gems of crudeness my children are learning in school. There's been a few things that I go "Hey, that's not how it goes...it goes like this"....course, I can't remember what that was now...lol But somewhere in the 20 years since I was in 4th grade...the actual song/saying/thingy has gotten transmutted and they got it all wrong now.

Okay, after that little diversion...it's back to the topic on hand...yup, you guessed it...CLEANING! It's been a few posts since I've actually gotten down and dirty, and it's tiiiime!!!

Recently, I've been dealing with hair...dog hair. It's everywhere! It doesn't help that there's 4 dogs in the house (one of which is mine), and they all do have hair! But the main problem is my dog. For some reason, he's shedding like it just turned 1000 degrees.

I'm no dog phsycologist...but if I had to guess, I'd say it's stress. He wasn't shedding before the other dogs got here. He's in his kennel* for the least ammount of time I can manage...with rotating the dogs' "out time" throughout the day, while I'm home.

So, on to the cleaning of dog hair. I've got a pretty great vacuum cleaner. It sucks good (ha). But I have to vacuum his kennel and around it at least 2 times a day, or the hair finds it's way into the whole house. It's easy, no big...a few seconds time. But it's doing a number on the ammount of vacuum bags I have to use! LOL

Ugh, is this post lame, or is it just me? Um...wait a minute-dont' answer that.

Today's to-do list!!!
Besides the normal day-to-day cleaning, that is!

The FRIDGE! Yup, just that. It's a huge job, believe me. If I'm brave, I'll take pics to post. But I'm not sure....I don't know if I'll want to remember this adventure forever captured in photographs AND in the blogosphere...

Snow removal

If you are as fortunate as I to live in a place where you just might wake up to see oh....8 inches of fluffy white stuff outside-You are familar with snow removal. Here's my take on it all.

If you want to do it the old-fashioned, back-breaking way...

This little beauty, while cheap, aint easy to use. Bend, scoop, lift and toss. It's a device that should only be used to punish children. By making THEM use it...

If you prefer the only slightly less back-breaking and way more noisey way...

This dandy invention must be the wet-dream of nearly every testosterone-driven man in the world. It's not nice, it's the evil dragon of winter. It will eat you up and spit you out, figuretivly & literally..ouch! *check out the last photo* haha

Then of course there's the sane way...

First you use one of these....

To call one of these.....

Then sit back in the comfort of your wam house with your choice of this....

I, on the other hand, am apparently not sane...So I used a combination of the first two to clear out my driveway.

I am, however, going to use some of this once I can move again to get to my favorite store.

Goes great in Hot chocolate...and I'm sure will help me recover my sanity.

*If you are curious just what a snowblower can do to a tin coffee can....

~*~ And I didn't ONCE use the 'c' word! HA!!! ~*~

Tag you're it

Manic Mom tagged everyone (and I do mean everyone) for this meme. And since I consider myself part of "everyone"...here goes.

You answer the questions, but you can only use ONE word to do so.

1. Where is your cell phone? purse
2. Where is your significant other? arkansas
3. Your hair color? natural
4. Your mother? teacher
5. Your father? funny
6. Your favorite thing? books
7. Your dream last night? absent
8. Your dream/goal? security
9. The room your in? Den
10. Your hobby? reading
11. Your fear? falling
12. Where do you want to be in six years? warm
13. Where were you last night? home
14. What you’re not? awake
15. One of your wish list items? babysitters
16. Where you grew up? Arizona
17. The last thing you did? eat
18. What are you wearing? pajamas
19. Your TV? on
20. Your pet? some
21. Your computer? running
22. Your mood? lonely
23. Missing someone? honey
24. Your car? frosted
25. Something you’re not wearing? brace (yeah i should be though...bad me)
26. Favorite store? none
27. Your summer? rainy
28. Love someone? many
29. Your favorite color? blue
30. When is the last time you laughed? earlier
31. Last time you cried? saturday

All done...how informative and yet so criptic! Love it. And yes...IF you're reading this, you are tagged! Lucky you!