UN-Procrastination Day

One evening earlier this week, while sitting in front of the fire trying to compile my to-do list for the next day, I spotted a magazine that I had brought home from the library.  "I'll just read for a bit," I thought as I picked up the magazine and started to read.  I read about how to make a good first impression, some yummy rice recipes, and how to shortcut my spring cleaning (yes, I know it's only January, but I'm still working on my spring cleaning from 2008).  Then I came to an article entitled:  "This Is Your Brain on Procrastination".  Yawning, I thought, "I'll read that tomorrow" -- yep, that was my immediate reaction!  After having a good laugh at myself, and deciding that I might be able to use a few pointers, I settled in to read the article right away.

It turns out that procrastination is a biological thing ... no wait, it's a chemical thing within the body ... hmm, I'm not sure I got that right either ... it's a science thing -- hey, I was an English major, what do I know?  Anyway, the article claimed that procrastinating is something that most people do, but that the trick to overcoming it is to outsmart your brain.  It then suggested 7 ways to curb your procrastinating habit.  The first suggestion was to do the most dreaded job first (a.k.a. eat your frog first).  Wow, this actually relates to what I am working on this week!  (Does that mean that I can call it research instead of procrastination -- that's logical, right?)  Suggestions 2 through 6 were equally interesting, but the 7th suggestion was to have an UN-procrastination day -- a day where you make a list of all the things that you have been putting off and plow through as many of them as possible.  "That's IT!"  I thought, "That's exactly what we need to do!"

So Saturday was named "UN-Procrastination Day" (by the way, I Googled "UN-procrastination Day" while writing this post and have read 3 articles -- just call it more research!).  In the hopes of covering the most ground, we made 2 lists; one for me and one for Paul.  The article talked about a list full of errand-type tasks (things outside the house) but our procrastination lists were very home based, so we decided to tweek the idea a little bit and tackle our house lists.

My list looked something like this:
Christmas Thank yous -- I don't know why, but I have been avoiding this like the plague!
De-Christmas-ify the house -- it's always such a sad day when the tree comes down
Make a blogging schedule for the week -- I need a way to get back on track
Pants and Socks -- I have a pile that is approaching mountain status that need fixing in some way

Paul's list looked like this:
New door for the shed
Bathroom -- patch
                -- sanding
                -- paint trim
Install baseboards in hall
Put down transition strips

The lists don't look lengthy, but once we took into account the time required for each job, plus the fact that we would have 4 little helpers around who would still require some attention and feeding (they are funny that way), we thought it better not to get over ambitious.

By the end of the day, we were very pleased with the results and although we didn't get to everything on the lists, it was a very productive day.  Projects completed:  Christmas thank yous, all Christmas decorations put away (I even fixed anything that needed it before putting it away and took out anything that I hadn't used in the last couple of years!).  The weather didn't co-operate for making a new shed door, but Paul got the bathroom patched and sanded, and we now have baseboards and transition strips in the hall.  I guess that the pants and socks will be my project for the week.

 All in all a great success!  It is such a great feeling to be able to cross chores off our list, but even better is that they were tasks that have been on there for way too long.  Now to celebrate, but first ... just kidding!

An Old Radio

We returned home after our last trip to my dad's house with an old radio -- his idea of downsizing is to "gift" things to his grandsons who love anything that came from Grampie's house!  We quickly determined that the tape player didn't work -- which was followed by an explanation of what a tape was -- and after fiddling with the radio, discovered that it didn't work very well either.  Hmmmm ... into the garbage it goes, unless ....

I recently came across a reference to a book entitled:  50 Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Children Do by Gever Tulley.  Well, that lead me to Tulley's TED talk entitled : 5 Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Children Do (to view the entire talk click here).  Wow, some of those things would really be pushing my comfort level, but I can see how they would be empowering to kids.  I wonder what the other 45 things are?  Anyway, one of the suggestions was to let your children take apart an appliance.  The example given was a dishwasher, but I am rather attached to my dishwasher and, although it could probably use a little tweaking, I am not ready to set my boys upon it yet.  But it did make me think of the old radio.  We were going to throw it out anyway ... what would be the harm, I thought, in letting them take it apart.

So today, with rain pouring down outside, was the day.  They seemed a little taken aback by my idea -- shocked even.  "What?! You want us to use these tools to take the radio apart?"  Hmm, I must need to work on my communication skills because I thought that my instructions were pretty clear.  But once they got over their initial shock and got into it -- it didn't take too long -- they had a great time.  I had to bit my tongue a few times, so as not to make too many suggestions to "their" project, but I did get the old "righty, tighty; lefty, loosey" lesson in -- now if only they could consistently tell their right from their left.  Oh well, they figured it out.

 They spent hours at the table taking things apart, looking them all over and in some cases putting them back together.  Their biggest discovery was that there are magnets in the speakers!  They were so excited that they began to stick everything that they could to the speaker and then proceeded to stick it to the fridge, the washing machine and anything else that they could find that was metal.

It turned out to be one of the best rainy day activities that we have done in a long time.  Aidan has declared himself an expert and would now like to build his own radio!

Tomorrow's lesson:  Don't take things apart without permission!

James and the Giant Peach

I remember the day I first heard about Roald Dahl.  Well, that might be a little bit of an exaggeration.  When you're 8 it's not the author that you remember, it's the story.  My friend and I were walking home from school one day and she told me all about her new favourite book:  Charlie And The Chocolate Factory.  I was so captivated by her retelling of the story, that when the next Scholastic book order came out and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was on the front page, I went straight home to count my money.  I still have that well loved, well read, old book (well, ... not that old -- I'm still quite young you know!) and it is still one of my favourites.

The boys and I have enjoyed many Dahl books over the years, so when we learned that 2011 marks the 50th year since James And The Giant Peach was published, we needed no other excuse to enjoy it again. We also joined the "Follow that Peach" celebration by helping to send peaches around the world.  Sound's messy, I know, but ours are paper peaches complete with names so that they can be tracked -- yes tracked!  Very exciting!  Check out the "Follow that Peach" website for more information and to download your own peach to send around the world.  Don't forget to join us in reading the book too!

Our peaches -- Bubbles, Dude, and The peach is not in his bed (can you tell that the boys named them themselves?) -- will be on their way soon.  We are hoping that they get to visit some far away places.  Have a "scrumdiddlyumptious" day!

My Finishing Project -- continued

Okay, so I'm still not officially done all my finishing projects -- the spring cold lingers on and has found new victims -- but there are still things to celebrate.  The garden is looking pretty good with wee little sprouts starting to pop up out of the ground and the strawberries continuing to look great -- I even finished putting the grass clippings around and got to check that off my list!  I also finished the hand print frame and am so pleased with the results, I just had to share!  It is hanging in it's new home and it make me smile every time I see it!

Looking forward to hearing how you made out last week.

My Finishing Project -- Day 3?

Well, a round of spring colds has hit our house, putting a serious halt on any of my projects.  I thought that I would be able to work through it, but long nights and testy tots is really slowing me down.  So, I'm postponing my finishing for a bit -- not long, I promise -- just until people get a little healthier around here.

We have finished two boxes of tissues, does that count?

I hope that you will all keep working.  I'm looking forward to seeing some of those projects!

My Finishing Project -- Day 2

Window Frame Hand Prints

This window frame was one of the main reasons behind My Finishing Project week.  It has been sitting around without a purpose for way too long, and now I can finally say that I have done something with it!  I'm not quite finished -- I still want to add the names somehow -- but I am quite pleased with the results so far.  So, a fairly successful day 2!

25 years ago when my Mom and Dad replaced the windows, in what was then our new house, they saved all the old windows -- I come from a family of savers, what can I say?  It has been over a year since this project-to-be has enter our house, but I was never quite sure what I wanted to do with it.  I love the weathered look and was struck by the parallelism (I got this word from the thesaurus -- isn't it great?) of four openings & four children.

I got to work this morning taking out the three remaining panes of glass -- there is a  reason that this is called my finishing project!  Laurel's nap was just about long enough for this messy and potentially dangerous job -- fixing the ugly kitchen floor is a project for another week.

The next step was to cut the black form board (which I already had) to fit in the openings -- all a slightly different size, of course!  I also decided to add a strip of paper (which I had in my stash) to each section as a background for the kid's names.

Now the fun part ... the paint!  Well ... Laurel didn't think that this part was very fun.  In fact, by the way she was screaming, you would have thought that it was some kind of torture!  I had done a couple of practice prints for each of the boys, but knowing that we only had one shot with Laurel, we (it took 3 of us!) had to be fast.  I turned out pretty good all things considered.

Yeah, almost done!  Just working out the best way to add their names.  I'll have it worked out by the end of the week, so that I can claim this as a totally finished project!

Hope your projects are going well!

My Finishing Project -- Day 1

The Garden

For more information on My Finishing Project, click here.

 

I had hoped to have something more exciting for you on day 1 -- not that the garden isn't exciting, because it certainly is (I'll tell you what we planted in a minute), but it is a little predictable for this time of year, isn't it?  Anyway, today was the only day this week that there was no rain in the forcast, so (as my dad says) you gotta make hay while the sun shines.

First, I'm happy to report that the strawberries are all doing well.  I put some grass clippings (what I could wrestle away from the boys) around the plants to keep the weeds down .  After a couple more mowings, I should have enough to cover the whole bed.  All of the plants have little green leaves on them (although the grass clippings makes it harder to see, but the nice red berries should stand out nicely!), so I guess that I can now add strawberry planter to my resume!

Now for the new stuff.  Today we (me and my rotating staff -- vegetables are only interesting for so long, I guess) planted spinach, beans, peas, broccoli (a new adventure for us), and tatsoi -- an oriental vegetable that we discovered last year in our weekly CSA box from TapRoot Farms.  I've left spaces for the tomatoes and peppers that are not yet ready to move outside --they seem to be growing ever so slowly this year.  Is anyone else having this challenge?

We are also trying some flowers this year -- not something that we usually do with 3 boys running around the yard.  But when it comes time to sell the house, some colour around the yard will be nice, so we are starting now.  We ordered a butterfly collection of flowers in the hopes of attracting the little guys to our yard this summer.  I'm also hoping that the promise of having butterflies will be enough to convince little feet to stay out of the garden -- that will work, right?  So I dug up around the tree in our backyard and started planting butterfly flowers, cone flowers, joe pye weed, blazing stars, and blue sea holly.  Oh yes, and a butterfly bush which I had to find a different place for because it will supposedly grow to be 6 feet high -- too tall for under the tree.  The crab apple tree is beautiful right now, but that's about all you can see.  I'll take another picture later this summer when the flowers are all in bloom!

This is the butterfly bush which has already been sat on once (sigh!).  Flowers in my yard ... what was I thinking?

Well, I made it through day 1!  A tiring but productive day, now off to prepare for day 2.

How is (are) your project(s) going?

My Finishing Project

"There are two kinds of people, those who finish what they start and so on."  Robert Byrne

If your house is anything like mine, you have half done projects scattered around the house -- I'm not the only one, right?  I even have projects that I want to do that I've gathered supplies for, just waiting for "the right time".  The problem is that "the right time" never seems to find me.  There are always other things that seem to be more important, or there is not enough time to start something new, because you know that you will get called away to some emergency.  You know ... a missing piece of Lego (gasp!), or a zipper that just won't zip, or (my personal favourite) somebody did something to somebody else for absolutely no reason -- they were just standing there minding their own business -- and an impartial witness is required to pass judgement ... you know how it goes.  Before you know it, it's time to get supper ready and you need to clean the table off again because eating on the floor would be uncivilized (sigh!).

My point? ... um, I've lost it -- I've already been interrupted three times while writing this.  Right, My Finishing Project -- that's what I'm calling this.  My goal is to finish 4 projects this week that have been sitting around the house mocking me every time I walk by them.  I'm not going to tell you what there are yet (just in case regular life gets in the way), but I hope to have something to share with you everyday this week starting on Monday, with Friday reserved for "happiness".

I would love to have some company on this journey.  So pull out a project that you've been putting off and join me!  There are no rules, guidelines or even suggestions -- it's whatever you want it to be.  Please be sure to post a comment or send me a picture so that we can all celebrate our accomplishments!

Happy Finishing!

"He who begins many things finishes but few."   Italian Proverb

(I think that I'm in trouble!)

The House List -- Bathroom 1

Another room to be crossed off the list!  This little bathroom has been painted for awhile, but has been waiting for a few finishing touches and a minor plumbing repair.

**Attention all parental units!**  

Put down the wrench, take off your rubber boots and sit down again!  I said a minor  plumbing repair -- more like tiny -- and please notice the use of the past tense in the above sentence.  It has been fixed, but thank you for your concern.

Again we used a dark colour in a very small room -- it's becoming a thing with us -- but I really like it.  The colour was chosen to match (actually, more like camouflage) the counter as much as possible because we were not going to change it.  The flooring is the same (after much debate) as is the hardware (which got a new coat of paint), but a new curtain, mirror, faucet and some plants and it's like a new room! 

All in all, another easy room done.  What do you think?

By the way, it's very difficult to takes pictures of such a small room.  It's even harder to keep out of the pictures when there is a mirror in the room!

Owen's Room

After months of telling Owen that we would paint his room, I can finally say that it's done!  The old paint showed off every mark perfectly -- not a very good quality for a little boy's room -- and somewhere along the way, someone had tried to jazz it up with some pencil markings ... hmmm, so it really needed a new coat of paint.  Also, this is the first room to be checked off the "getting ready to move" list.  Yes, we've run out of space in our little house, so soon the search will be on for a new place to call home.  Hopefully it will have more space outside, as well as inside, as we hope to eventually add some chickens (along with some other animals of the farm variety, the specifics of which are still being debated) and a bigger garden  - do you think that I'll look good in a cowboy hat, driving a tractor with a blade of straw in my mouth?  Yee Haw!

Anyway, back to the project at hand.  Owen's room -- which he inherited from Aidan -- badly needed a coat of paint, so we started with his room to give him the most time possible to enjoy his new room.  It's also a very small room and therefore an easy place to start.  This was Owen's room before ...

Owen loves anything Toy Story.  He has a Buzz Lightyear comforter (which was handed down from an older cousin, so it's at least 10 years old -- remember when the first Toy Story movie came out?) so we decided to go with a space theme.  I was a little nervous about painting the walls of such a small room in a darker colour, but it wouldn't look like space otherwise, right?  So, we decided to go all out and paint the walls and the ceiling the same "liberty blue".  The trim would be a shade lighter as would the stencilled on stars -- not too many, but enough so that you get the idea.  FYI cardboard does not make the best stencil.  I had planned to put the glow in the dark stars that were on his walls and ceiling back up, but changed my mind as I'll only have to take them down again when we move.  Now if only I had thought of using glow in the dark paint for the stars, that would have been something, oh well, for his next room!

After the painting, the rest was easy.  I put up a cork board (which we had in the basement) for all his Toy Story pictures, printed off some photos of him with people he loves, sized and put up a chalk board (which was part of an easel that never fit in our house, so was retired to the basement), and got him a new (to him -- Kijiji to the rescue!) dresser.  The old dresser was fine, but I couldn't bring myself to paint over the little sheep that I had stencilled on it for Isaac before he was born -- call me sentimental -- and who ever heard of sheep in space?

So, this is what Owen's room looks like now.  Drum roll please ....

I love the way this room came together with bits and pieces from all over.  And I definitely don't regret painting the walls and the ceiling the same colour.  It might be my favourite room in the house right now but, of course, it won't stay this clean for very long.  Oh well, it looks good right now, tomorrow, on to another project.

Things That Make Me Happy #2

Strolling around the Internet one day, I came across a blog post entitled "100 Things That Make Me Happy". What a great idea, I thought as I scanned the list, so Fridays are now dedicated to things that make me happy!

Things That Make Me Happy!

#2 The Indoor Clothesline

Yes, I know, I'm crazy, but this really does make me happy. On a very basic level, it solved a challenge we were having -- too many wet mittens etc. on the hearth. They were getting in the way, not drying very well and if ashes fell on them, they got holes in them. The laundry rack didn't seem to work much better. It got in the way and the smaller mittens and things didn't stay on very well. So, a couple of nails, a piece of yarn and a few clothes pins later (all things that I already had, so it didn't cost me a cent -- another reason it makes me happy!) we found a solution and it has been working really well for us!

On another level, seeing all those mittens, hats and scarves hanging up reminds me of the kids. They love playing outside and the fact that they are happy and healthy enough to do all those things is something to be thankful for.

Many times (not so much today, as I see by the picture) the line is full of homemade knits. Hats and mittens knit lovingly by Grandma and Nannie. We are thankful to have / had such women in our lives.
 

So it is more than just a piece yarn that spans our living room, it is a reminder of some of the good things that we have in our lives. See, I'm not that crazy!