YIKES!!!

GROSS
Finding a buried sippy cup with a half inch of curdled milk in the car on vacation in Florida and cleaning it out to put in the dishwasher.

GROSSER
Coming home from vacation, walking in the upstairs bathroom, and smelling something so rank that I was convinced something had died up there while we were gone. I braced myself, slowly opened the toilet lid, and discovered the smell was due to one of the kids going to the bathroom 8 days prior and forgetting to flush.

GROSSEST
Having my husband walk in our bathroom the other night as I was brushing my teeth, with the toothbrush I have used for the last six weeks, and saying "Why are you brushing your teeth with my toothbrush?"

It's Good To Be Back

The Wuertley family has arrived back to good ole Indiana, and I must say it's good to be back. The vacation was really such a nice break, and it was the perfect length - not so long that we were bored while we were there, but not so short that we dreaded coming back. I'm happy to report that we did not forget to pack any major item (I don't count Q-tips as major,) and just as importantly, all items made it back home. I hope to post later in the week about some observations during our vacation, but for tonight, in David Letterman style, I am posting Deb Wuertley's Top Ten Ways You Can Tell You Are Vacationing With Young Children (at least the two Wuertley young children.)

1. The most welcomed sign on the interstate on the way home is "MCDONALDS GIANT INDOOR PLAYPLACE NEXT EXIT." I've never been so excited to eat at a McDonalds. On the trip down (we went to Daytona Beach, Florida, by the way - 16 hour trip not counting stops) we tried to stop at a playplace for a much needed break out of the car, but the McDonalds at that exit did not deliver. We even drove a half mile the opposite direction to the Burger King, hoping they had a playplace, but we were out of luck. I actually had a pang of disappointment in my stomach...over McDonalds. It's hard enough to keep a three year old still in a restaurant when you've just driven 5 minutes to get there - much harder when you've driven 4 straight hours. So on the way home, when the trip seems twice as long, I actually did a little victory dance when we saw the sign, and our Plan A of going to Bob Evans for a decent meal was suddenly replaced with a quarter pounder and cheese and 20 minutes of adult conversation.

2. Seating arrangments at every restaurant are a major ordeal. "I'm sitting by Daddy." "No, it's my turn to sit by Daddy. You sat by him at Pizza Hut." The best places to eat are ones with the really long booths - that way Jason can sit in the middle, the two girls on either side, and I get a whole side to myself.

3. Sleeping arrangements at the hotels on the way down and back are a major ordeal. "I'm sleeping with Daddy." No, it's my turn, you slept with Daddy on the way down." Notice a trend in who is in all of the arguments. It can be very lonely being the mother in this family. Thankfully, the condo we stayed at in Florida was a two-bedroom, so I got to sleep with Daddy during the week. We could put Anna and Elizabeth in the same bed in the hotels on the way down and back, but out of courtesy to Elizabeth, Jason and I took turns sleeping with Anna. She likes to talk to herself and play around en route to sleep, and Elizabeth takes her sleep very seriously. Anna is also a bed hog and does not like covers, so it can be pretty miserable being cold on the edge of the bed.

4. During the road trip, your family starts singing all of the preschool cd songs in four part harmony. "Stone soup, we're making stone soup. And it will be delicious, nutritious..." This is even funnier when our family sings, because none of us can on key. But hey, it's fun all the same. Of course, it's really bad when Jason and I continue to sing the songs even after the kids have drifted off to sleep.

5. When preparing for a trip to a theme park, you stategically plan your toddler's wardrobe so she can make the height requirement for the rides. This actually worked for us when we went to Kings Island two weekends ago. The height requirement for many of the mid-range rides was 40 inches, and without shoes, Anna is somewhere around 38 or 38 1/2 inches. So for that trip, we borrowed cousin Elisha's thick soled boots, and her height with these boots increased her to right at 40 inches. We slid by at Kings Island after much scrutiny on the first ride (the Monster) earning Anna a 40 inch blue wristband and a passport to a day full of fun. However, since we originally weren't planning on a trip to Disney World for this vacation, I didn't even think about height requirements. Since the weather was pretty cool in Florida for this time of year, the beach wasn't an option for a few days, so to break up the time at the condo, we headed to Magic Kingdom for a day, with Anna just wearing her regular shoes. Apparently, these shoes did not have thick soles, and she missed the height cutoff by millimeters. Too bad for her, these Disney workers are sticklers. We tried to coach her to stand on her tip toes, but she didn't get it, and it's probably good that she didn't let us corrupt her.

6. Swimming is a huge part of the trip. I'll touch a little more on this in my next post, but of all activities we do on trips, whether it's Florida or another destination, all the kids want to do is swim. They have both gotten to the stage where they aren't as concerned about us getting in the pool, which is great for Jason and me because we are both pretty much weenies when it comes to being cold in a pool. This trip was nice because the place we stayed was not very crowded with school aged kids, so the kids almost always had the pool to themselves.

7. Going to the bathroom in public is a huge ordeal. When it's just me out on the town, if I need to use the facilities, I excuse myself, do what I need to do, and return to the table in a few minutes time. When traveling with the kids, it takes a plan, especially in a crowded place. Elizabeth can at least now go in her own stall and take care of her own business, but in a crowded restroom, it's almost easier (and maybe more polite) to all go in one. So here's the drill - Elizabeth first, because she usually has to go the worst, so we layer the seat with two pieces of toilet paper (does toilet paper really seal us from the germs? I can't do the squat over, though, my leg muscles just can't hold up.) and she does her thing, we flush, get two more pieces of paper, I do my thing, then it's to Anna. By now I figure Elizabeth's toilet paper and behind and mine have washed away all germs, so we go without paper for Anna. The problem with Anna and the bathroom is she has a bladder of steel, and anyone who has watched her or knows her well knows I am not exaggerating. The girl can wake up in the morning with a dry pullup and then go until after lunch without going. It's amazing. So coaxing her to go is no easy fete. However, if sleep in the car is in the near future, it's paramount that she goes so we don't have a wet car seat. Well, enough about that topic...

8. If there is an arcade game/crane game/gumball machine/rubber ball machine/candy machine in sight, they will want to play. The problem with this is, our family has kind of gotten hooked on the crane game, so we indulge almost every time. What is the problem, you say, if we enjoy this? First, it's a money drain most of the time, second, we have won enough where our house is being overrun by cheap arcade toys (none of which the kids can live or sleep without) and third, when we don't win (which is more often than not) Anna looks at us like we are complete failures. She doesn't get that it's not an automatic win.

9. When you get home from the week long, intense family time vacation, you really just need a little vacation from the kids. And I mean this so lovingly toward them - I think they are great. But after unpacking and winding down from the trip, the last thing we want to do is play dolls or Sorry or whatever else we've just spent the last week doing. But they, so used to having our undivided attention now for a whole week, just cannot easily make the transistion back to reality (where we ignore them most of the time....just kidding, of course :).)

10. You realize how great your family really is and how important it is to get away from the day to day craziness and just enjoy each other's company.

I'm going to end this post with the quote of the week from our vacation:

On Monday morning, our family needed to go to the local grocery store to pick up some things for meals for the week. My dad belongs to a vacation club and so generously let us use his "points" to have a condo complete with kitchen, so it order to save money, we ate several meals in. Elizabeth was not excited about going to the store and was dragging her feet getting ready, so I jokingly said to her, "Well, Daddy and I will go to the store and you can stay here and watch Anna." Jason and I proceeded to walk out the door, not shutting it completely but enough to let them think we were leaving. Jason and I put our ears up to the door to listen. I braced myself for the two of them to bolt out the door, running to us and begging us not to leave, but instead I heard this from my three year old to her big sister who was now in charge. "So, what do you want to do first, Elizabeth?"

Trip Preparation

Some of the more stressful hours of my life are when I am preparing for a big trip. If I just had to pack my own things, it would be a piece of cake. But since I choose to take on the traditional matriarchal role of the family, I am responsible for packing everything BUT my husband's suitcase. And even then, if he forgets something, I should have reminded him or put it in my bag. So my trip preparation responsibilites are as follows: The basics - packing Elizabeth's suitcase of clothes(which gets harder each trip because her clothes are getting bigger. She has really grown out of the toddler type suitcase on wheels that only holds a couple of outfits, but it's all we have so we use it, so on her Christmas list is a bigger kid's duffel bag type suitcase,) packing Anna's suitcase of clothes, packing my suitcase of clothes, packing swimming suits and gear, packing the kids' Loreal kids shampoo, suave kids body wash, and Dora kids toothpaste (are these products really any different from ours except they say kids and are packaged differently?) and packing family personal hygiene items (I hope I don't forget the fingernail clippers this year.) These are the mainstays - we cannot survive without these items. Then there's the luxury items - our pillows, an umbrella stroller, the cooler packed full of food because I'm too cheap to eat out on vacation, the 24 pack of bottled water because water from outside of Grant County does things to my stomach, 24 pack of Coke for Jason, Jason's laptop, our old laptop for the kids to play games on, the camera and video camera, the girls' blankets and stuffed animals for night time, and probably 25 other things that I will accidentally leave behind. Then there's the all important entertainment items - DVD's for the trip down, VHS tapes for when we get there, backpacks full of coloring books, markers, puzzles, travel board games, travel electronic games (may I suggest yahtzee and 20 questions,) and books, family board games for when we get there, sand toys, one year we even took the play station and Dance Dance Revolution (this only works if you are on the ground level) and lots and lots of magazines.

Even as I type this list I can feel my blood pressure rising, and I'm getting a headache. What am I forgetting? There must be something I'm forgetting. I always forget something. Here are some of the more memorable items I have forgotten on previous trips:

When I was 12, I had saved my yard sale and birthday money for vacation. I had it in a nice sealed envelope all ready to go. We pulled out of the driveway, headed to the highway, and then I remembered I had forgotten my envelope of money at home. This was before the day of whipping out the credit card. My parents only had the travelers checks to cover the vacation costs - they couldn't front me a hundred bucks. Do people use travelers checks anymore?

Then there's the time we were heading on vacation when Jason asked for a Coke. I reached for the cooler packed full of food to get him one when I realized...the cooler had not been packed. We called my parents, who went over to our house to fiind our cooler still sitting in our driveway. At least they were able to salvage the food.

A few years ago we went to Kings Island with my brother and his family. We were a good hour into the trip when we realized...oops, we forgot our Kings Island tickets. This was decision making time. Do we go back and get the tickets and lose two hours or do we keep going and lose $50.00 and buy new tickets. We went back.

Three summers ago we went to Florida with Jason' s parents. This time we forgot Anna's breathing treatment machine and medicine. At this time she was to be on 2 treatments a day. She hadn't had a flare up in awhile; we were sure she would be fine. We left for Florida on a Saturday. On Monday night we were in the Daytona Beach hospital emergency room with a year old baby that couldn't breathe. That was a costly item forgotten - the hospital made us buy another machine before they would dismiss Anna.

Then there was the time we took a big family trip to Paris, and we forgot Elizabeth. No wait, that wasn't us, that was Macaulay Culkin's family.

My two least favorite time spans on vacation - the drive back (yuck!!!) and the first hour into the trip when Jason and I have this back and forth conversation: "Did you remember to lock the door? Yes. How about the camera? Got it. Did you stop the mail? Shoot. Let me call my dad and see if he can pick it up for us. Oh, you know what we forgot, the_____________(fill in the blank with one of the many items that we realize we have forgotten.)

So with our family's past history of forgetting crucial items, it's no wonder that after we arrive at our destination, I spend the next 24 hours fighting a major headache due to the stress and worry. Oh yeah, last trip I forgot Tylenol but remembered the Children's Liquid Advil, so I had to down the maximum child amount to combat the pain.

The Saga of the File Cabinets

Ever have a simple project turn into a big ordeal? For example, before we moved into our current house, I told Jason I wanted to repaint the dining room. Seemed like an easy enough project - the room was empty, four square walls, not a lot of trim. Shouldn't take more than a couple of hours per coat. I headed to Lowes, bought the supplies, got all set up and went to work. I like rolling the best - trim is a lot of time with little progress, while rolling covers a lot of ground in little time. Plus, I get so anxious to see what the wall is going to look like with the new color that I can't help but to roll first. So I was rolling away, pleased with my speedy painting, when something awful started happening - seems like former owners of the house had painted over several layers of wallpaper. I thought I was painting just over paint, but I was mistaken. And as my thick paint soaked into the wall/wallpaper, the wallpaper started peeling off. I had two major realizations at this point: first, my work up to this point was for nothing, and now I had a mess on my hands as I had to deal with painted wallpaper falling off the walls. Second, before I could continue painting, I had to strip all of the remaining wallpaper off. A few hour project turned into a few labor intensive days - what started out so simple turned into a big project.

I had a similar experience at work over the last month. From last school to this school year, we had some major changes in our program. Our office moved buildings, and we had some turnover in staff. In the midst of the move and staff changes, some file cabinet keys were lost. Since our student files are mandated to remain in locked file cabinets, this presented a big problem, because we are utilizing all of our file cabinets to maximum capacity. However, some of our other files don't have to be locked; unfortunately, as I unpacked boxes this summer and moved files into a file cabinet, I picked a file cabinet that did not have a key. And since I needed a deep drawer file cabinet to hang our files in, I couldn't transfer the files to other file cabinets with keys because those file cabinet drawers weren't deep enough to hang files from the side. We kept the classroom door locked at night, but really the file cabinet needed to be locked. So when school started in August, the directive was given to me to get the situation fixed however I could and to call whomever I needed to call. I thought I would go the route of least resistance first. I called maintenance, and they tried to swap out the drawers - the shallow drawers to the unlocked cabinet and the deep drawers to the locked cabinets. Unfortunately, the shallow drawers fit in the unlocked cabinet but the deep drawers did not fit in the locked one. So we went to Plan B - let's switch out the locks. So we called back maintenance, and they jiggled and pulled and shoved, but the locks would not come out. Plan C - I got a box of wire file hangers - the kind that you have to manually put together with a screwdriver. That was an exciting afternoon for my social work intern - she really felt like she was diving into the social work field. We put together four of them, switched all 168 files out of the unlocked cabinet into the locked cabinet and hung them on our newly assembled wire hangers. This solution only lasted a day, though, because between the weight of the files and the number of times those files went in and out of the cabinet throughout the course of the day, our wire hanges collapsed, and now all of the files were laying on their side in a mess in the drawers. So I had to resort to Plan D - I called Peerless and ordered two new keys to two of our unlocked file cabinets. No problem, the lady from Peerless said, should only take a few days. "We can stand a few days of these files being a mess," I thought. The date was September 12. A couple of weeks pass, and no new keys. I'm getting dirty looks as people get into our file cabinet to find their files. "I haven't heard from them," I say in my defense. Finally, I call. The lady says the keys shipped out on Friday, it's now Wednedsay, she expects them any day. This past Tuesday comes, I call again. Yes, the keys are in, she's sending them over tomorrow (yesterday, October 11.) Wednesday comes, the keys arrive. I eagerly open the envelope, excited to organize the files, and I take the two keys to their respective cabinets. Yep, the one works. I put in the second key in the second file cabinet, the one I had reserved for student files - and nothing. The key won't turn. I look at the number on the lock. 103R. I look at the number on the key. 103E. You've got to be kidding me, I must have ordered the wrong key. I look at the invoice - nope, it says 103R on the invoice. I guess the company messed up. I called Peerless, explained the problem, and they said they would overnight a new key. I went to lunch. When I came back, there was a message from Peerless saying that 103R and 103E are interchangeable. I'm feeling key inadequate at this point, so I grab the key and try it again in the lock. I jiggle it around a little and can get it to move slightly, but then I realize the problem. When maintenance was trying to swap out the locks, they knocked it loose, so neither 103E nor 103R is going to work in this lock. I called Peerless back, explained the situation. Sorry, the key has already been overnighted. But now here's a new solution - Plan E. They can send over someone to look at the lock. But he couldn't come on that day, maybe tomorrow (today.) He didn't come today. The saga continues...

Grocery Store Rules

I am an avid coupon shopper, and I take my grocery shopping pretty seriously. I am also a very organized shopper, so when I go into a store, I know exactly what I am getting and I have already pulled the coupons I will be using. Every now and then I will stumble upon a surprise good deal, but for the most part, I am on a mission to purchase the items on my list and I am focused as soon as I enter the store.

I've noticed, however, that not everyone in the store is as focused as me - this includes other shoppers, stockers, cashiers, and customer service people. I have had quite a few frustrating shopping experiences the last few times I went shopping, and because of these experiences, I am going to share with the blog world some of my unwritten grocery store rules.

1. Obey the express lane item limit. I get really frustrated when I am trying to fit a quick coupon trip in during my lunch break, I purchase one or two coupon items, and when I get to the express lane, someone in front of me who apparently doesn't think the item limit pertains to them is in front of me. Why don't the cashiers say anything to these people? I will admit, I may have a time or two gone in the 10 item and under express lane with 11 items. But I always ask the cashier first if it is okay.

2. An extension from rule number one - DO NOT exceed the item limit in U-Scan. I was at Meijer last week, and Meijer is notorious for not having enough lanes open. All of the regular lanes had people lined up in the aisle, so I headed to the U-Scan. The U-Scans were full, too, so I parked my cart behind a lady who was checking herself out. I surveyed the situation - sure does seem like more than 15 items to me at first glance. So I started counting. She had already scanned two bags worth, I watched her scan 8 items, and then she started in on the items in her cart. I would guess she had at least 30 items in all. And it always takes the general public a lot longer to scan items than the cashiers. The gall of some people.

3. If you are going to use a coupon, make sure you are using it correctly. It's people who use coupons incorrectly that give us coupon shoppers a bad name. I was in Lances Tuesday, and this was the scene. Once again, there were very few lanes open, so I headed to a lane where I was the third person back. The person ahead of me only had a few items, and the first person in line only needed to have 3 or 4 more items scanned. I was in a hurry because the kids were at gymnastics, and when the class is over, there is no supervision to make sure kids get with their parents, so I wanted to make sure I was back in plenty of time. The cashier finished scanning the other products and then went to scan the coupons. Coupon number one - Dentyne gum buy one get one free. It beeped. Oh, the lady had forgotten to get her gum. So she went and picked it out. Coupon number 2 - beeped. Oh, she had forgotten to get that item. The cashier gave the coupon back to the customer. Coupon number 3 - a produce coupon. The problem was, she was trying to use it on some tomatoes that she decided she no longer wanted. So not only did they have to void the coupon, they had to reweigh the tomatoes to see how much to take off (not sure why they couldn't just see the price it had scanned at.) Of course the cashier didn't know the code for the tomatoes, the manager had to come over, and by now I was getting mad. Finally, the coupon disaster was over, and it's time for her to pay. Oh wait, she needed two packs of cigarettes. The cigarettes at Lances aren't at the check out, so someone had to run and get them for her. Total time to check out - 15 minutes. I'm glad I didn't audibly say anything because the lady's mother was the one in front of me. They both thought it was kind of cute how this lady was causing all these mishaps. I was struggling with my Christianity at this point, and I managed to hold my tongue, although I wasn't as pleasant with them as I normally would have been. In fact, the mother turned and said something about "You never know what she's going to do. I just turn my head." I avoided eye contact and said "Yeah." My ice cream was melting. She said, "Don't worry, I don't have any coupons." I wanted to say, "I do, but I, unlike your daughter, know how to use them."

4. Aisles at Wal-Mart by the non-grocery side are one way. When you enter the store and go left, the aisle closest to the paper, folders, seasonal items goes one way to the back of the store, and the aisle by the personal hygiene products goes back to the front of the store. Please, people, two carts can barely fit side by side on an aisle, so if someone is coming the opposite way, it just can't happen. With the displays that divide the two aisles, there just isn't room to do it any other way.

5. Aisles at Wal-Mart are not the appropriate place to have a conversation. I already mentioned above that the aisles are barely wide enough to pass. If two people and two carts are stopped to have a conversation, there is no getting through. Can't you see me standing there, behind you, with an annoyed look on my face trying to keep a Christian attitude. I inch closer and closer until I'm part of the conversation, yet you still don't get the hint.

6. Baggers - please put my refrigerated and frozen stuff together and separate from non-refrigerated items. When we travel to Ft. Wayne, we take a cooler. I don't like my deodorant frozen, and I don't like my ice cream melted. It's hard to tell what all is in a bag when it's all shoved in together.

7. If you aren't going to be decisive about which product to buy, please move close to the shelf so I can get through. However, if I need to purchase what you are looking at, please move away so I can get to it. And know the difference without me having to tell you.

8. Control your kids. When I was at Lances this week (same trip mentioned above) there were two kids running down the cereal aisle. They had a couple packages of play money in their hands. The boy tripped and the money went flying, almost hitting me. The girl laughed loudly and ran towards me after it. I gave them the evil eye (really, I've never stared like that at a kid I didn't know) but they didn't care. I would have found my mom and cried if someone would have done that to me, but not these kids.

9. Please open more lanes. When we go to Kroger, we will be done shopping in 15 minutes and then stand in line for 20. It's ridiculous. It's even more frustrating when there are five baggers for two lanes, or 3 people in customer service. Can't we spread out the duties a little more?

10. If stores are going to put promoted items on the end caps or on a center display, thus clearing out the section they normally are, they need to put a sign where that item should be stating where it actually is. I almost missed out on a great Dole fruit-gel deal because the product had been moved. It was a great deal - 1.00 each (4 pack), the coupon was for 1.00 of 3, dollar coupon doubled, total price - 1.00 for 3 4 packs.

I feel better already after venting about the above situations. Some people have road rage - I guess I have Marsh Madness.

De-clutter

When you enter our house from the back door, the door that everyone uses except the door-to-door politicians, Jehovah Witnesses, and UPS, the first room you come into is the back porch. After walking through the back porch, you come into the dining room. When we first bought the house, we thought it would be neat to utilize a pool table as our dining room table instead of a traditional table. So we bought a rather large pool table, and then we purchased a ping pong table top to go over the pool table. This gave us a multifunctioning apparatus - a pool table, a ping pong table, a dining room table, and a dumping ground for everything in our house that doesn't have its own place. I am ashamed to say that in the six years we have lived in this house, the apparatus functioned as a pool table or ping pong table for the first year, and for the last five years, except for a couple of parties where the table was actually used as a dining room table, it has been a dumping ground. When I come home from work, I drop my keys on the table. When Jason comes home from work, he puts his keys, wallet, and the mail on the table. When the kids come home from school, their backpacks go on the table. After I dig out the papers from the backpacks, I put them into piles - things to be returned to school, homework, and papers for Jason to look over. After Jason goes through the mail, it goes into piles - bills for him, magazines for me, family mail such as wedding or party invitations. The newspaper ends up on the table, and so forth. Even though the table looks much more attractive without the ping pong table top on, we keep the top on so we can dump our junk on it without messing up the pool table felt. After many days of "dumping," either Jason or I cannot stand it anymore, and we de-clutter the table. However, negative things can happen when this occurs. Last week, Jason threw away a stack of magazines my mom had given me to look through for Christmas presents for the girls because it just looked like more junk. Where else was I supposed to store those magazines? At times, I will find invitations to birthday parties, weddings, or home parties that were two weeks prior - I had them in the very important stack, but that stack keeps growing, too. Yesterday, when I walked in the house after work, I could not stand the atrocity on the table anymore, and I made a commitment to not only de-clutter the table, but to clear it. So I began. I couldn't believe what all I found - Elizabeth's report card from last year. Doves from the inside of a silver dollar that were stored in a butter containter. Elizabeth's basketball evaluation from summer basketball camp. A wedding invitation (whew, that hasn't happened yet,) a printout from the computer with some Christmas ideas for my mom (that I printed out last summer,) lots and lots of hair ties, the Magic Bullet box with some attachments still inside, a VCR that doesn't work, a ton of artwork created by the kids (had to throw that away at the bottom of the trash can,) McDonald's toys, gymnastics pictures, my library card, a wallet sized family picture with Jason's side of the family taken over a year ago, last year's dance pictures, a half written story by Elizabeth about learning how to play tennis, snapshots, snapshots, and more snapshots, an invitation to a toy party (I had already told the hostess I couldn't make it,) Family Camp crafts from our cottage at the campgrounds that we had to clear out because we sold the cottage, and lots of other odds and ends. Yes, all of this stuff was on the table - the first piece of furniture someone sees when they walk in our house. What a first impression.

Well, after clearing the table, I got inspired. If I can de-clutter the dining room, I can de-clutter the whole house. The rest of my house wasn't nearly as bad as the table - I do like to have things in order. But there were things laying around the house that didn't belong where they were - three drawings Elizabeth had done for Jason to take to his office that were still at the top of the stairs, 2 Junie B. Jones books on the end table in the living room, scotch tape on top of the microwave, canning jars and pint containers on the countertop, once full of garden goodies but now washed and waiting to be stored until next summer, a popcorn tin full of popcorn from Christmas 2004, receipts on my dresser from last Christmas (I don't think at this point anyone will be returning anything.) I reorganized our shoe rack - I discarded of several pairs of kids shoes and designated each of us a shelf. (Jason has to have one and a half, but he shares a shelf with Anna.) Some things I just left - like the energy saver Reindeer that sits in front of our never used front door to keep out the cold air. He's been there for two Christmas's in a row - and he stays even during the summer even though he's also a Christmas decoration. Hey, it's less than three months now until Christmas. At least I took down the "Congratulations Daddy Mommy Elizabeth and Anna" sign that Elizabeth made six months ago and hung in our kitchen. No, we aren't having another baby, she was just congratulating all of us on being a happy family. It hung right below a golden foot of Elizabeth that was made in preschool. I know, not your typical kitchen decor, but she wanted it displayed, and there was an empty hook in the kitchen. We only meant for it to stay up that night, not for 2 years.

By the end of the night, I felt pretty proud of myself. My house looked pretty good. However, all that clutter had to go somewhere...you should see my closets. That will be another project for when I have another inspiration.

Confidential to new blogger T.T. - I was able to get on your site last week and I left a comment, but I can't access it any more. It says I have to be invited. Suggestions?