Titles are not my forte - Another day?

Okay yesterday I was very sick, running a low grade temp, falling asleep everywhere it just wasn't pretty. I skipped the cleaning task for the '4 Weeks to a More Organized Home' on Money Saving Mom. Seeing how I cleaned the oven and the microwave just before Thanksgiving I didn't feel too badly about it. The day before that I did the task of cleaning out the silverware drawer nothing really of note but when I was scrubbing out the silverware container it struck me that the poor randomly cracked thing I think we got used god knows how many years ago at least 10 if not closer to 13. People act like Peter and I have money... no I just choose not to spend it. If something works or can be made to work without having to replace it I've found that duct tape and hot glue are my friends. It's like when I made ham bone soup I just grabbed food I already had around the house, can of tomatoes, random can of tomato paste I've had for god knows how long, a bit of rice and a can of veggies. Wasn't the best soup in the world but guess what it was dinner for a night and I bagged the rest up and have lunches for a week. It's called making every single penny count and learning to live with discomfort.

In any case I bit the bullet and I arranged Brielle's appointment with the dentist to have those baby teeth extracted. I've waited off about as long as I could but I want to get this done so we can start treatment with the orthodontist. I was able to get an appointment on what is suppose to be a Snow Make-Up day so hopefully between now and then it doesn't snow. I also went and wrote a letter to the school board asking on how I should go about petitioning for a change in their policies because right now if I take Brielle out of school for an appointment even with a note from the doctor than she still loses her participation points which hurts her grades and she receives a tardy for the day. I think it is a ridiculous policy and this is the e-mail I sent.

Is there a web site or some general information on how to petition a re-evaluation of the school districts policy on tardies and participation points in classes. Until this year I didn't realize how bad our current policy is and I feel badly for every parent that has had to go through this. My oldest child is in Burns Middle school and she has serious problems with her mouth and teeth which is going to take 5 years of constant work. This isn't just an appearance procedure but it is affecting her eating and her speech and must be corrected. I did not realize that a note from the doctor was about as useful as blowing my nose in a tissue and handing it in because no matter what my daughters grades would be effected by the fact that I have no choice but to take her out of school for these appointments as I cannot get them set later (I've been trying and I do try when possible to get them set up for days school is already planned to be out of session). She's a good child in more advance class placement, straight A's and in Jr. Beta. I don't feel that the punishment of her having to work so much harder to try and keep her grades up because of these lost points should be levied against her or any other student for that matter. I'd like to know the proper procedure to go about trying to get this changed because it's hurting the students and putting undue strain onto the parents.

Thank you,

Elizabeth

When I hear anything back I already know several parents that want to know what they say because they are effected by this policy too. Parents and doctors a like would like to see this changed and I hope we can push to see something done about it.

Back from Thanksgiving Break

Thanksgiving break... that's about a joke isn't it?
Welcome back people.

We had a very busy Thanksgiving and as always things were served late. I was shooting for 1 and it was 2:30 by time I had food ready but I swear it's not my fault!  

This ham my husband is cutting... yes it is the fault of this monstrous thing! One of our normal guests for Thanksgiving showed up with this the night before and while I figured out when to fit it into the oven I forgot to adjust the cooking time for everything else.

Just last night (Sunday night) I used the ham bone to make a stew that apparently Brielle and I like but not so much Peter and definitely not Katherine. It was an experiment with food and it stretched it out and gave me a weeks worth of lunches.

Our little side table and I should have taken better pictures of my pumpkin pies. This year I actually had one of the crust rings that I got from my grandfather when we went and visited (sadly he doesn't have use for those things as they were my grandmother's). So this year my pies looked wonderful and no blackened crust!

Oh and here is a couple pictures of our lefse day Wednesday. (I'm like time traveling backwards aren't I).
Here's Katherine rolling out some lefse. I didn't let the girls do very many it was a lot of work and a lot of time but I was definately trying to involve the girl and I hope next year I won't be so tired so I can get them in on more of the process so that it is a tradition I got from my great-grandmother and hopefully it'll stay within the family passed through my girls because I'm the last person making it in my family.

 Brielle rolling out her lefse she tried MUCH too hard to make it too thin LOL we were trying to clean dough out of the cotton covers after that.

And this year's lefse day produced nearly 10 lbs of lefse.

So we are back to our regularly scheduled program which means today I get to go grocery shopping (and probably take a nap since I stayed up til 12:30 am folding laundry before getting up at 6 this morning). Lots of little things to do and at some point I need to fit in taking Brielle clothing shopping. I wonder if I can fit that in later. I wish she got home from school sooner than 4 pm. We will see I'm starting this day pretty loosely and just praying I don't get called into work since there was a possibility. 

Tuesday 'To Do List' Deadline

Well today is the deadline I set for myself on my 'To Do List' but sadly it did not get done. I did give the dog a bath but then noticed the had matted himself up in a couple areas (I need to get him down to a professional groomer it is that time again) so I ended up with a pair of scissors and my hair trimmers for him and we had a little scuffle as I tried to make him understand I just wanted to give him a trim and that it would be fine. I could see it in his eyes though, "Yeah just a trim.. with that buzzy thing and those big sharp pointy things." In the end he ended up coming out to look very funny but at least he doesn't have enough hair on his legs to mat up until I can get him an appointment down at the groomers. 

Needless to say dropping off that PC, cleaning the bathroom and windows and the kids room  and cleaning off those random items from flat surfaces did not get done. The kids did work on their bedroom this evening though I made sure that Peter got them on to it when I was gone for my dance class. 

I came home and started working on lefse. The family sat down together and I had a couple huge bowls and we watched some TV while I peeled 10 lbs of potatoes (no I'm not exaggerating). I got the potatoes riced and just the perfect 16 cups of riced potatoes. I mixed in everything but the flour and I'm looking at my bowl wondering how every year I mix in all the flour I will need to tomorrow. 

I've got a lot of cooking to do between the lefse and pies and was told that I'm having a ham dropped off so I will need to adjust my cooking schedule for Thursday to accommodate that. The gentleman dropping it off is joining us for Thanksgiving and he was like, "Well it's precooked and presliced." I had to explain it to him that I think everyone would like it if it was warmed up at the very least. I will go down (or send Peter down) to the store tomorrow for some frozen OJ and I'll make my normal honey orange glaze for it. 

I've been pretty stressed out and look forward to when Thanksgiving dinner is cooked and I can look around at all the faces and think to myself, "I survived again." 

Return to the 'To Do List'

So I swear some stuff has been done just this weekend it was a pretty much off time and I didn't accomplish much other than spending some down time with the hubby. 

Here is the list I started with:
Goals before Next Tuesday

• Make Menu for next week
• Grocery Shopping
• Clean Coffee Maker
• Clean Stove Grates
• Plan Thanksgiving Food Cook Times
• Keep up on laundry & dishes - continuous
• Clean Fronts of Kitchen Cabinets
• Clean Oven
• Clean Bathroom
• Dust Living room (also listed vacuum but that will be an on going thing it is Fall after all)
• Clean off random items from flat surfaces (vague but if you are disorganized like me it'll make perfect sense) 
• Put up Thanksgiving decor 
• Clean doors & hallway walls (one of these days I will get the time to paint the hallway, primer just attracts every type of grime)
• Return Kara's PC (For those that don't know my husband is the resident computer guru so we constantly have computers coming in and out of here - it's also what he does for a living outside the home)
• Clean Kids' Rooms
• Plan Crafts for kids (The girls are getting to the ages I can start teaching them how to cook some but mommy might rattle a few screws loose if they are underfoot the whole time)
• Fix Screen Door
• Rake up leaves
• Clean Window bases (need more coffee you know that wood part at the bottom of the window)
• Clean off side porch
• Clean microwave
• Give Blacky (our dog) a bath

I was able to accomplish some more things over the weekend and today but not as much as I wanted. I got side tracked and went into the playroom and the kids had just thrown things into random buckets and containers. I'm sure it's been like this for a little bit because the girls have had company over which normally means a mess but I've really avoided looking to avoid getting my blood pressure up. I wanted to start with organization but there was just so much that I knew it wasn't all going to get done. I got my youngest daughter, Katherine, started on organizing some items and on her own she decided to start a donation pile (oh thank goodness). We didn't get very far though because wanted to shampoo the carpet. Well come to find out I was out of shampooing liquid so I looked online and saw windex so I tried it... not very good results so I looked some more and found vinegar so then the room was stinky and still not good results and I noticed my shampooer wasn't sucking up all the water! Well come to find out part of it broke so my husband went out tonight and bought me a new one. I really hated spending the money on one but I really couldn't go the whole Fall/Winter without the ability to clean my carpets. After 3 containers of water and soap I got the floor looking presentable again. I'll never look new it's a high traffic area because it's where the back door is located and we've lived in this house for 6 years and undergone several different construction things and always used the back door but at least it wasn't noticeable stains everywhere and it got close back to the correct color. 

Tomorrow is really my last day to accomplish anything on the house and items like laundry are never going to be fully done but I have kept the fold pile to just a basket which isn't bad for me. 

Tomorrow's agenda is to go to work, come home and clean, pick of the kids from school, make dinner and then go to the last dance class for this year and then back home to start the process of making lefse which should take me well into the night. 

To Do List - Day 3

Day 3 of trying to tackle this 'To Do List' no additions to the list today but boy did I think about it.

I've got a rough idea of food cook times but not crossing it off my list til I have it set it stone. I also went grocery shopping and got the rest of the food for Thanksgiving but again not crossing it off my list because I still need food for meals that aren't Thanksgiving next week.

Items done:

• Clean microwave
• Clean doors (though not perfect I found out some were only primed and until all this construction lately I hadn't had a reason to give them a good scrub so I know one of my tasks for this Summer now)
• Clean Hallway Walls

I attempted the Money Saving Mom task of taking down and cleaning all the ceiling light covers and ceiling fan blades but after nearly cracking my head open I barely got 2 more done before my nerves were shot standing on that step stool so perhaps some other time but for now I'm going to guess no one is going to be looking up and inspecting my lights.

While trying to take care of this list I'm noticing little things fall behind in my general cleaning which is bad! Tomorrow the children are going over to a friend's house for a play date and I'm going to try and get some more done around the house after perhaps some running around with my husband since we never get out together without the kids. I'm thinking Target I want a new potato ricer and they have a Starbucks in there.

It's not sounding very impressive and I'm disappointed with myself but I need to remind myself I lose a good chunk of my day going to work and this morning it was even more hectic because Katherine forgot part of her homework at home so I had to run it out to the school.

10 Min Drawer Challenge

So here's my Facebook posting no reason to retype it:

Okay THIS will be funny I'm going to do the 10 min challenge from the other day from Money Saving Mom and going to pick out the messiest dresser drawer in the house (and trust me it was a hard decision!) Yeah I see this turning BAD since I already know that after losing my laundry room I lost all sense of organization as it's a just a huge PILE O'STUFF it was relatively organized before the room got tossed so yeah I'm predicting an epic fail with my house being a giant mess that I will have to pile all back into the drawer LOL


So I picked out the messiest drawer in my house which happens to be in the dresser in the kitchen where things get sweeped into when trying to quickly clear off surfaces for company (I'm bad like that). It was suppose to be a 10 min challenge but I ended up doing 15 because I was giving my youngest daughter a spelling test at the same time. If I don't multitask I'd never get things done. 

So here's the drawer before: 

Scary hu... It's very random.

So here's after 15 min. Needless to say it's NOT done.

To Do List - Day ?

I can't remember what day this is I'm exhausted we'll call it two? Two sounds good.

I put some Cheesy Chicken in the crock pot this morning before heading off to work so thankfully other than making pasta dinner is already done.

Work was... Stressful. Lots of requests, walking around checking equipment and research. It got to such a point I had to skip my 10 min. break which is when I normally eat something for lunch real quick so I didn't get to eat til I got home this afternoon. I had the shakes pretty bad by time I got home.

Moving on...

From my To Do List posted the other day.

• Rake yard (I only did the front yard but that was all was really worried about at the moment)
• Clean off side porch (I decided to not shoot for perfection because I wasn't going to get it with some of Peter's computer cases out there and no good place to store them so I got them into a corner and positioned a chair in front of them LOL)

I then proceeded to add two new tasks to the list

• Clean microwave
• Give Blacky (our dog) a bath

If I don't stop adding things then I'm going to never finish this list!

Well off to go do Day 9 of Money Saving Mom of 4 Weeks To A More Organized Home. I don't think it's organizing a thing for because I skip all the days that would tackles some sort of organization! :) I'm bad I know it!

I'm so not in the mood for Christmas music yet but I've been bombarded for the past week with it as Brielle practices her violin for an upcoming concert. I think I should invest in ear plugs or some sort of holster for my cellphone so I can listen to something else for a while. 

Anyways why am I still jabbering I need to clean and find out where my little Katherine has slipped off to while I wasn't looking, she needs to study for a spelling test. She's probably hiding somewhere with a book.