Seven Quick Takes

 

Go check in with Jen to see more Quick Takes.

 

 

~1~

 

This is one of my favorite things in my kitchen. It's just a bottle that I used to use for olive oil, but awhile ago I bought a new one that fit in my cabinet better. So my old olive oil bottle became a dish soap dispenser. It makes me happy every time I see it and I like to think it contributes to my attitude about the cleanliness of my kitchen. The recent challenge I've issued myself is to get every last dish taken care of before heading to bed just because I feel better about my day when I come downstairs to an empty sink in the morning. When it's full it's just one more thing I have to take care of and I resent it.

 

Pretty soap bottle?

 

Totally helps.

 

 

 

 

~2~

I've been working all kinds of late the last few weeks. One more week of this insanity then we're off to the lake for a long weekend, I'm off work for a week and my brother is getting married on May 30th. Then summer- short work days, lots of time at the pool and in the mud, and best of all lots of time in the kitchen and at the sewing machine!

 

~3~

Speaking of crazy work stuff, I've apparently been playing too much music lately. The pain started in my wrist, migrated to my elbow and now I'm having a lot of shoulder pain. I've struggled with tendonitis in my left arm since high school- back then I was practicing violin 4 hours a day. Now I'm getting minimal practice time but all the demonstrating for lessons and chord work I've been doing lately for piano has brought it back. The shoulder pain is new though. I'm sure that's a great sign.

 

~4~

Superman and I are adding a new step to our diet change in a few weeks.  We've already worked on eliminating caffeine, eating more homemade and not  bringing  things home that we shouldn't eat- after all if it's not even in the house you're less likely to eat it, right? Well, our next step forward is to eat less meat. Neither of us think there is anything wrong with meat, it's just expensive and we're trying to cut back our budget without changing the kinds of foods we eat. So we're going to try to have meals centered on beans or rice twice a week instead of meat. This was actually Superman's idea and that totally surprised me- he's a meat and potatoes kind of guy. We'll see how it goes.

 

~5~

Wanna know what happens when your toddler wakes up at 5 a.m. you settle him back in and he's completely quiet? I can tell you for sure that he didn't go back to sleep! Instead he did this:



 That would be his train border that he systematically peeled off until he cried for me to get him up a little after 6.

 

It's like that on the other wall along his crib too. *sigh* Fortunately it's only ripped in on place so I'm going to attempt to salvage it this weekend.

 

And move his crib to the middle of the room.

 

~6~

I finally managed to get all the way through the boys clothing and pack up their winter stuff. Now it's on to the closets- I need to pack up the winter jackets, hats, mittens, boots, etc. so we can exchange them for ball caps and beach towels. I should probably do something about the disaster zone we currently call the closet in our master bedroom. It has become the collection point for all the bags and boxes of stuff we intend to donate, but it's stuffed to the point that it's getting difficult to get to the clothes we actually do wear. I suppose I should actually make that trip to Goodwill.

 

~7~

If you don't hear from me again that will be because I had a nervous breakdown. As you read this I'm probably at the car place getting the oil changed and a car inspection for our van while my 1 and 3-year-old boys are with me. Then after that I'm supposed to hit the DMV and renew the tags. All in one morning.  Hopefully I'll have brought enough games, snacks and books so that we won't even notice the passage of time, but there's no way to be sure.