snow and ice again

I seriously hope they have school tomorrow, because after spending most of last week home and today home I'm not sure what else to do with them to entertain them!

Last week started as a rainy, freezing rainy, sleety mess...it was pretty, but it wasn't fun to play in and the roads were nasty!

P thought it was the greatest thing ever to stick her tongue out to catch whatever freezing precipitation was falling, I have at least 4 pictures of her doing it, two of them were accidents as she just started doing it as I was taking pictures and it was too cute to pass up.  As you can see here she doesn't seem to be as effected by the cold as everyone else.

They tried desperately to get a little ice man to stay together in the first round of ice pellets...it didn't really work, and once the snow came on day 3, we did manage to build a snowman, but the dogs knocked it over before I could snag a picture of it.

A just liked the snow in her hair...thought she was too cool to play much in it.

I haven't really researched why this happened, but there was a big puddle outside that I thought would just freeze into a solid sheet.  Apparently I was wrong.  There grew in it's place strange, yet beautiful, muddy ice crystals, some straight and some curved...a whole tiny forest of them!

 Snow/ice angels were fun, especially since they don't remember ever making them, they do remember making "leaf" angels in November when the oak dropped all it's leaves in the front yard.

And, while B was ok for a few minutes with heavy coat and ski bibs on, P didn't care how she was dressed as long as she was outside playing in it.

Ice driving, even for the kids was nearly impossible, if you went to fast you spun your tires or ran into something, but if you slowed too much or stopped you got stuck.  They also found climbing the fort a difficult task as the climbing wall and the stairs were slick.

 Like I said, the roads were nuts, but we did take a walk through the neighborhood and it was really neat to see all the changes the snow brought about.  A very different perspective indeed.

Now, yesterday was a most entertaining day.  The below photo on the left is from Tuesday, our high was 75 at 5pm that day.  The comparison next to it is from yesterday, a high of 80 at 1pm, by 3 it was only down to 78, but it was down to 56 by the time I got everyone started on homework at 345.

 I pray that today we are well entertained by kinetic sand, board games and crafts, because otherwise there's liable to be a war between B and P today

How do you sell?

In the process of cleaning up, I'm cleaning out.  Out, Out, OUT! There is no reason to have STUFF here that we don't wear, can't wear, or in my 5 year old's case won't wear!

So, I've tried listing things on our swap boards and I've learned something (you'd think I'd already know it since I have a business degree).  If  I list large lots of clothing people always want something smaller and cheaper, but if I list things in smaller groups for higher prices per item people are willing to buy all your lots if you'll make them a "deal" on the whole set.

So lets say I list the above for $10

and the one above this for $15

and this one for $6

Then people don't want to pay $31 for them individually, but they are willing to buy them for $25 all together thinking they are getting a "deal" but really when I originally listed them I listed them for $20 so it's not a "deal" at all, though they perceive it to be.  I guess I should just run with this since it's making me more money and getting rid of all the junk too!

Getting healthy.

For many years I've struggled with my weight.  I don't know why I can't stick with the healthy lifestyle, but I lose and gain, The constant yoyo like so many others.  I really want to be healthy though, so this time I working towards small goals, in small increments.  About 4 weeks ago I downloaded WW Diary (app for Android) and compared it to the actual WW program.

It's now 6 weeks after I started the WWDiary app and 2 weeks since I started this post but got side-tracked (as usual)...however, I am down 17lbs, feeling better not hungry, but not doing exercise as I should either.  This will be a journey, a life-time journey.

Getting rid of the CHAOS (per FlyLady)

I must confess to those who don't know me (those who know me know this already), but I live in chaos. Also know as Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome per the FlyLady.

Today I'm doing a modified Crisis cleaning.  Instead of 45 minutes with a 15 minute break, I'm doing 15 minutes on and 15 off to play with my daughter, fix snacks, and sell stuff on the swaps (I need to hold a big garage sale and be done with anything that's left...it all needs to leave my house)  So while I started this new post at 9:15 a.m. it's now 10:55a.m. and I'm still not even close to done with my post.

I'm multi-tasking and eating lunch with this paragraph and I must say that even though I've only worked 45 minutes this morning, I have made progress and I'm thankful that my hubby will be home for part of tomorrow to help me some more.  I don't have anyone coming this weekend, but I do want to get back into the FlyLady habits and this can be a good way to start.  My dishwasher has been run, my sink is clean and my cabinets have been started on the clearing off as well as the laundry that was on the couch folded and put away while I worked in the living room.  Next is a cursory sweep of the bathroom that my kids call home and most visiting rumps use at some point.

And...therapy called to reschedule so I'll have more time to work before the kiddos get home.  Let me explain that with 3 kids, 2 cats and 2 dogs, not to mention a husband things go kind of haywire and since I'm not programmed to be neat and organized if I don't actually set reminders to do things in my calendar app I wouldn't ever remember at all.  Thankfully FlyLady has partnered with Cozi for a free calendar that you can sync to ALL your devices!

Slow progress is better than no progress, correct!

I have a ways to go to get back in order, however, I feel better about where I am today.  I have a focus and I need to keep it.  So...in order to that, I'm going to try blogging more about my CHAOS, my kids, everything.

Re-purposed crib!

OK, so summer is approaching and as it does, well, that means more gardening.  We planted a small garden, but it's hard to ever get enough organic matter into it to start our plants well, so--we decided it was time to start our own composting bins.

This is our tiny garden, we have tomatoes, peppers of all sorts, brocolli, chard, lettuce, eggplant and onions...I guess we'll see how it all turns out.  This picture is from about 3 weeks ago, everything is much bigger now.

 

But, in an effort to not have to buy pre-made fertilizers and organic materials from elsewhere, we used an old drop-side crib to create our own composting bin at the back of our property (behind the fence where the dogs won't mess with it).  So, if we do this right (trial and error at this point) then we should have some good rich compost to till into the soil before we replant for the fall!  I'm totally excited to do this--we started about 3 weeks ago and it already smells so rich and is starting to get darker and has all sorts of worms in it!

Should be doing other things

Some days just crave you being lazy...I mean, I KNOW I should be doing other things (like getting ready for our Spring Break trip and cleaning my kitchen) but I just want to do nothing.  So, I sit here typing while the washer and dryer run and the little girls play with new Minnie Mouse toys from B's birthday party Saturday.

Saturday leads me to the kitchen needing to be cleaned.  Last week I baked a cake, two large cookies to make a double decker cookie cake (with butter cream icing in the middle and a Mickey head on the top), 3 batches of icing, and 7 dozen cookies (2 dozen for A's Pi Day celebration at school Thursday and the rest for B's bday party)

B's cookies in Walt Disney Parks Script font (well, as closely as I could match it)

There are Pi Day cookie pictures somewhere, but I can't seem to find them right now.  I can find the picture of the Pi Day shirt A and hubby made with the Bedazzler though.  It was quite interesting to be baking while they were working decorating a shirt together.

I think they did quite well coming up with a pattern and doing it themselves.

While Sunday I did manage to do 5 loads of laundry, the kitchen still has some work, we ran 3 loads of dishes yesterday and got most of that done, but all my supplies are still bunched on the counter and the mixer needs to be put away as well. 

Also on Sunday, we started our garden.  It's tiny, but is serves our needs for the most part, if everything does pretty well this year we'll like can salsa (a first for us) and pickle onions as well (would be our second try at that--first try was OK, but I need a different recipe)

We added some carrot seeds after I took this picture, we may add a few other things too.

So I'll post some stuff from B's party later, I don't have those pictures here, they are elsewhere on other cameras. She had a blast, she's a big 2 now, and I really should get to work.

Disney (from mama's point of view)

So, our family vacation was to Disney World in Florida this year.

We had a blast...it was Mark and the little girls first time ever going, and I think he was pleasantly surprised at the number of things that he and the girls could ride (he's a chicken and doesn't ride coasters--though he did ride Soarin', Star Tours and Mission Space--green)

Day 1--half-day at Epcot

This was our day of arrival, we drove in from an overnight in Tallahassee, FL about 12:30pm, checked in to the hotel, got our Keys to the World (KTTW) which acted as meal plan credit card, room key and park ticket, our refillable mugs (which I filled with cokes), put our ice chest in the room and headed out to Epcot.

Here are some photos of our room, it was a "Royal Room" at the Port Orleans - Riverside resort, it's decorated to show that princess Tiana and her princess friends stay in this resort and have good times (photos on the walls and fireworks in the head boards) and they leave gifts too!

 

Now, let me say this: our kids did remarkably well for having been in car seats for a 12 hour drive at this point.  They were ready to be out of the car, but had slept enough in the car that they weren't overly cranky.  This is good, because almost immediately upon arriving we met our first characters (I was afraid Paige would be scared to death)

After we met these guys it was out to the park we went.  We headed on into Spaceship Earth as our first attraction.  Paige, we discovered, didn't like anything that was going slow AND made her turn sideways or backwards to travel along the track...she wasn't horrible, but she would say "I want to go home" a lot.

Then we headed on over to Mission Space to ride, we got a rider swap pass for this.  Rider swap works like this, if you have small children who are too small for the ride, then one group goes in, and either another group or one person stays outside the ride and waits while the others ride.  When the first group comes out, then the person waiting gets to take their rider swap pass and up to 3 people with them into the fast-pass line to by-pass the stand-by line wait and go ride the attraction while the first person/group waits.

After that we headed to the jumping fountains to play around for a bit (it was like 2:30 when we got to the park, so still a little early for dinner).

On our way to supper we stopped and played around.

We saw Marie and Aurora (pics of Aurora are on my photopass CD and not here yet) in France.

 

And Jasmine and Aladin in Morocco.