Boom Da Da Boom

In past Cures, whenever I felt like I needed a boost, I would post a few of my accomplishments.

There really haven't been that many so far, this cure: and most of these my husband did for me. But it all counts.

#1. The biggest, by far, has been turning our sleeping schedules around and getting back to school. Last Saturday, I stayed up until it was time to take my husband to work--about 5 or 5:30 am. Then, when we got home, I went straight to bed. At that point, that was actually going to bed "early" for me. The day before I'd been up until 8:30, 9:00am and felt completely out of control. The kids were following my lead, of course, so they were almost as topsy turvey as I was.

Nonetheless, I had about a hundred dollars worth of returns to make that Saturday: so I made sure I was up at noon and out the door by 1pm. We did our errands, picked up my husband from work, ate and all of us were in bed early. The next day, after a really troubled night, I was up at 7:30 am. Except for yesterday, I've been up before 9am every morning this week--and doing a ton of planning until the kids get up. I love this new saner schedule.

#2. The image on the left, below, represents the half assed way we kept our clever beagle from opening the gate. (No, it was not enough to make sure the gate swung outwards. He would use his paws and bring it towards himself and open it.) We had to latch it closed. A loop of string on the banister holder and a loop through the gate. Connect the two with an "s" hook and we were in business.

However.

Somehow, the clever beagle managed to break the thin string with his paws. Somehow. More than once. And so we needed a more solid solution more. After much consultation and discussion in the aisles of the hardware store, we came up with this. You may recognize it.



What can I say?
It works.
(So far.)

#3. As expected, the metal sheet holding the swanky new spice jars fell off the wall. Apparently, it fell at something like One In The Morning. (I slept through it.) I had bought mirror clips as back up: but designed to hold a mirror 1/4" thick) they turned out not to work. As well, my husband discovered that we didn't have a drill bit sharp enough to go through whatever it is which is lining that chimney flue. So, we were restricted in the depth of the screws we could use.

The solution?



Washers.

#4. Washers are useful for many things. They feature in our next project, too.
Simply put, we replaced the string pull for the light fixture in the basement (which kept breaking) with a chain pull--and used washers for "handles."

#5. I purchased and put a new ironing board cover on the ironing board. Sometimes, it really is the little things!



#6. The next is more decorative.



Yes. I settled on the piece to hang in this space. Until Christmas decorations go up, of course.

Speaking of which....

In Christmas related planning I have:
--purchased the Gingerbread house complex for the kids to decorate. (You'll see what I mean when I post it).
--made sure we have enough Christmas cards
--updated and transferred Christmas Card address list to computer
--looked up and recorded mailing dates
--purchased paper for our newsletter
--jotted down a few ideas about what to cover in the newsletter (Huge. I hate writing it, actually)
--collected photographs from the hard drive to print for the annual calendar
--collected photographs I should have used in last year's calendar.
--dug out the lights, tested the strands and purchased replacement bulbs
--purchased scrap book paper for the calendar
--purchased scrap book paper to make paper ornaments
--planned our first two "Christmasy" events (one is this afternoon!)
--started Christmas gift list
--purchased several presents for my husband
--and MOST of ALL--I feel like I have a handle on what's going to happen when. It involved designing and printing my own planning sheets, of course, but I'm on my way. (whew)

boom dada boom!