Waiting for diving practice

Last bit, hopefully.

This mess is almost done!

My Birthday present

From the girls.  I love it!  So pretty and perfect for my green tea.

Sewing station

Okay.  I have been working on this space for a while.  It was my desk, then it was 2 kids desks.  Finally I had my eureka moment.  It will be the sewing station.

Here are before pics.
And a pic of all the stuff I have to fit in this area.
And a pic of all the empty slots in the laundry room that used to be filled with sewing stuff.

Kitchen Duty Day

DONE! 1. process frozen bananas
DONE! 2. process grapes in fridge into freezer bags
3. make smoothie bags for freezer
DONE1 4. bag mangos
DONE! 5. bag strawberries
DONE! 6. bag decaf coffee
DONE!7. bag caf coffee
 8. refill jar meals
9. Reorg old fridge
DONE! 10. make iced coffee
DONE! 11. process lettuce
12. process peppers

emptied keurig containers of too bold coffee 

New room layout

 

Here is my proposal for the new layout for our front rooms.
The piano stays in here for now since it costs 125 to move it and I want to wait a month to do that.
Luckily the piano needs tuning anyway so I can get both done at once.

Lists for the Great Re-Org

I want this done before we begin CC on Aug 31 so I need to get started now.

--Clean off Dining table
--Clean out Containers buckets to make room
--Move comfy couch to adventure room (AR)
--Move comfy chair to AR
--Move armoire to family room behind couch
--Move hutch to entry way
--Put books in boxes
--move grandpa's couch across from piano\
--Move coffee table to AR
--Move bookshelves to new playroom
--Purge books
(only reading books and currently used HS books on bookshelves)
--Paint new family room (grey or tan)
--Paint new school room (redo yellow - already have paint)
--Touch up new playroom
--move toys to playroom bookshelves
--move TV armoire to AR
--set up whiteboard/ledge area in School Room
--move black dining table to school room

Thinking through the great Re-Org

Now that I have come to terms with the fact that the wall won't be knocked down for a year, I need to reorganize my spaces.  I am setting up my front rooms as the play room and the school room, and turning our current playroom into the family room.  Why?
1. I want the piano in the bigger room so we can all enjoy "concerts"
2. The new family room will still be where the guest kids play, but all of the school stuff I don't want touched will be in the front room.
3. I want the school room closer to the kitchen.
4. The current family room is so small it is hard for our family to enjoy the room together.

Playroom Facing East

Play room facing North.  The Bookshelves will be moving to the new play room.

Playroom facing west.  The piano, whiteboards and ledges will
move to the school room.

Current family room.  The hutch, comfy couch, chair, coffee table
and pictures will move to the new family room.

Current family room facing north-west.  The piano, tv, and
curtains will move to the family room.

Current family room looking into the "dining room." 
The dining room will become the play room.

Organizing my meals

Since I am finally feeling better I did some catchup on my jar meals.  I love to take a picture of what I did as an encouragement to myself when I'm tired.

-4 jars of whole wheat bread ingredients for the bread machine
-4 jars of pasta soup, family favorite
-3 jars of hamburger lentil soup, my favorite
-3 hats chicken noodle soup
-1 pea and lentil soup (new)
-1 hamburger soup (new)
-1 classic split pea soup (new)
-1 vegetable and beef soup (new)

Yes, again!

I am down to my last piles (except for my desk which is next). I gathered this stuff from all over the house.  I think I can do this and get it done today.

Clearance from the grocery store

They were selling already cut up apples, washed and ready to eat, for cheaper than regular apples! So I bought all they had.  They also had cute washed and peeled carrots on clearance too.

Iced coffee - cold brew

When we went on vacation to Big Bear (thanks again, Mom!) we stopped at a McDonalds to use the bathroom and since I always feel guilty using the facilities and not buying anything, I told the kids I would buy them drinks.  Cherry-Berry Chillers were only $1 each so the kids got those (they are soooo good!) and I got myself a mocha frappe.  Yum!  It was so good.  But now I am addicted!.  So I decided to figure out how to make them myself to save money.

Cold brew the coffee for 12-24 hours (8oz of grounds with 1 gallon of water)
Make "sweet cream" for flavoring with 1 can evap milk and 1 can condensed milk mixed.
Chocolate syryp
Pour over ice.

Not again!

I am still weeding through all the stuff my mom gave me when she moved out. I have got to get this table cleared off!

The weird lighting makes me think this is an old picture from the 1970s.

Pantry Organization DONE!

The pantry reorg is done!  Now everything has a place.  And I have a ton of food.  It took extra food money to fill up all of the rows, but now I am just replacing what we eat!  And I can tell what we need to get at a glance.  Thanks again for the awesome kitchen, Mom!

The pantry in the play room for bulk purchase items and baking items.

I love all the space I have in the still-feels-new kitchen!
Everything has a spot.  Putting food away is so easy now! 
Even the kids can do it!

I will never be out of ketchup again!

More empty spaces! 

Organizing my pantry

Hutch in the front room
across from piano

Since I got a hutch from my mom I moved all my tea things out of the cupboard.  So this prompted me to straighten up my pantry.  I am almost done which is often the hardest part for me.  So here is my goal for today. Finish it!








 The play room pantry is for
1. Bulk purchases that I repackage (azure co-op purchases like lentils, popcorn, quinoa)
2. Water bottles
3. Baking supplies, cookie cutters, sprinkles
4. Oils
5. Weird ingredients
6. Extra spices for filling the small jars in the kitchen

The kitchen pantry is for
1. Boxed food (pasta, rice, muffins)
2. Jar meals
3. Food in jars & cans (beans, soup, tomatoes, veggies, pasta sauce, jam, tuna)

General Requirements:
1. Nothing is stored in front of anything else so at a glance I can see what I need.
2. Every area labeled

What it currently looks like in the play room
: a messy mess that is messy.

The packaged goods that need to fit in the cupboard above.

Organizing the Girls' Desks

I used to have the girls' desks in the play room and they got messy and played on their computers too much.

So, I moved them out to the kitchen and I am much happier. 

Since the desks don't have drawers (I got them on clearance for 15 dollars each at office max so I didn't care about what they lacked) they need a basket on their desk to hold their misc. things so they can keep their desks looking neat. 

Now I need to decide which basket I like best.  I bought some white spray paint I will use to paint the wicker basket on the far right if I choose that one.

Ideas for Claire's birthday party

While I was searching for something else, I found a some cute ideas for Claire's birthday which is coming up soon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finger food fruit in waffle cones.  So cute!

Cookie dough in small glasses or covered in chocolate.

Here is the recipe from mycomputerismycanvas.com

1c butter
3/4c brown sugar
1 box instant vanilla pudding (3oz box)
 1/4c milk
1/2T vanilla 1 t baking soda
2.5c flour
2c chocolate chips
In large bowl, cream softened butter and sugar until fluffy.
Add pudding and stir well.
Add milk, vanilla, and baking soda.
Slowly mix in flour until smooth. Dough will be slightly ticky.
Stir in chocolate chips and chill. Do not bake.
To make truffles: form shilled dough into balls and freeze. Dip balls in melted chocolate and chill again to set. serve cold

How long does this take?

This took 31 min. My new idea for dishes is to hand wash them and let the dishwasher rinse them. I like the security of knowing that each dish is clean. And that they were rinced at very high temperature. It also saves wear and tear on my hands.

Moving furniture

I've been sick for the last 3 days. So I have been laying on the couch in the front room. All that time spent in that room made me realize I needed to rearrange. I should have taken a before picture. Here's my in process picture.
Our front room looks so crowded with 2 couches facing each other.  Plus the couches don't match. 

More hooks in the laundry room.

I have almost no wall space left!

Non-spinach greens for smoothie

We did a taste test of non-spinach greens for our smoothies and here are the results.

green chard - mild
lacinato kale - bitter
kale - slightly bitter
red boar - bitter
red chard - salty

So I need to remember to mix chard with kale and not all kale.

Phoenix childrens museum

The girls are having a great time exploring the metal tunnels

Phx childrens museum 1st floor

Next project: put away all my junk

Now that the dining table is cleared of books, I need to take care of the other stuff from the den: notebooks, papers, office supplies, misc. junk and buckets of stuff for good will. Since we have guests coming Sunday I want this done today so I can spend the rest of the time cleaning and painting.

All my mom books are organized!

I can't believe how few books I have when I put them on the shelf! This was 7 laundry baskets overflowing.  I love the way they look in the book shelf at the end of the hall. (Which is actually a linen closet with the doors taken off.)

Organizing my Ideas; Econtalk on SSDI

This week's Econtalk podcast (at econtalk.org) is "Autor on Disability".  David Autor explains the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI).  It was so enlightening!  If you want to learn about how SSDI works, and some ideas to make it work better, listen.  According to Autor, the SSDI will go bankrupt in 5 years.

Quotes from the transcript
"At present more than half of all awards are for mental disorders and musculoskeletal disorders."

"So, currently there are 8.6 million disabled adults receiving SSDI benefits, about 4.7% of all adults aged 25-64 in the United States  So, it's roughly 1 in 20, a substantial number."

"And the cost of the program is also very substantial. So, approximately $130 billion a year in cash payments are made through SSDI, and then the Medicare component adds another $70 billion to that."

"So if you even just divide that by the number of U.S. households, it's over $1500 in expenditure per U.S. household; if you think about it, that's ultimately coming from taxpayers."

"from 1999 to 2011 there was a more than doubling of applications"

"So in 1981, let's say, about 2.2%, 2.3% of adults ages 25-64 were receiving SSDI. So the fraction of the population receiving it has doubled."

"The SSA is bound by law--again, this is Congress's decision in 1984--to give sort of first weight to the evidence provided by the disability claimant's own medical counsel. So, if the SSA does contract with what's called a consultative examination for each applicant, it is required by law to take seriously the evidence provided by a claimant more than by its own consultants. And only in cases where it has reason to believe the applicant is distorting the information can it have the right to ignore it."

"So, there's a very powerful kind of for-profit advocacy component to getting people onto SSDI. So, there are many law firms that specialize just in this practice."

"And finally, they changed the rules regarding continuing disability reviews (CDR). So, previously a CDR was essentially a de novo evaluation of the case. In other words, you start from scratch and try to reach a new decision or not. Congress said: Well, now, CDR, to terminate someone based on a disability review you must prove that they have recovered from whatever state they were in at the time they were given benefits. So, if they were given benefits by mistake, that's not sufficient. They have to have recovered from whatever that state was to lose benefits."

Organizing my books

Due to reorganizing the storage in the den, I have had baskets of books all over the place.  Finally I am taking care of it.  I sorted them into categories.

Homeschool - they move to the play room
Mom's biographies & history
Mom's homeschool reference & kid training
Mom's philosophy/current events/economics
Mom's nutrition/health
Mom's fiction
Bible & Bible study

Today I will put them all away! And I'll show you what it looks like when it is done.

Finally, Curtains!

We have needed curtains on this window for 3 years since we took down the blinds.  Since I had jobs I didn't want to do, I finally had time to do it.  It took 1 hour and left over white sheets.

Before curtains and before doing dishes

After