Home projects

Unemployment has allowed me the time to work on some projects that I've put off for a long time.

So far I've managed to clean out the garage and finally put the holiday decorations away. Take all of the cardboard and an old computer monitor to the recycling center. Donate 4 bags of clothes to the Red Cross. Thatch the front yard and fill in some bald spots with seed, cleaned up the front and side gardens. Cleaned up the side of my neighbors house because if I don't all her leaves blow in my yard and started another compost pile because mine is full.

Sounds like a lot but trust me there were a lot of naps thrown in there too.

Today I started on the basement.

I've been putting this off for a loooooong time now.

When my kids were younger this was the place to hang out. They could play pool, watch movies, play video games or play on the computer. Daughter C had many sleep overs down there.

I kind of liked when they were all here. I knew they were safe and having a good time.

Our basement isn't finished, but it's a nice big space. It's 13 courses high so you don't feel like you are in a basement. I think if we just painted the walls and installed a drop ceiling and new carpet that is all it really needs.

So now that my kids are grown up and they don't really entertain down there too much anymore I've decided to re-arrange things a bit.

We don't have the money to paint the walls or add the drop ceiling or get new carpets right now so I'll just move things around and throw things away and hopefully open up the space a little bit more.

I took some pictures and stitched them together to give you an idea of what it looks like now: (you'll have to click on it to make it bigger sorry)

The pool table will go (it's buried under a pile of "stuff at the moment) - we don't play it anymore. I am going to put an ad in the paper and hope to sell it fairly cheap.

My daughters desk is gone. I had fun taking that apart this afternoon.

Then it's a matter of moving things around and trying to open up the space again.

With lots of caffeine and loud music it should be a fairly simple project!

(M can tell you - I have a knack of taking something simple and making it more complicated than it needs to be.)

Organizing

I have tried to "relax" while I've been on vacation over the holidays. I have tried to just sit still and watch a movie and chillllllllllllllll.

I can't do it for long periods of time or I start to feel like I will jump right out of my skin.

M can sit and watch TV for hours. Yesterday she flipped between several college football games and the SciFi channel which was having a Twilight Zone marathon. My day was spent taking down the minimal Christmas decorations I finally put up on Christmas eve. Lugging all that up into the attic and then I started to tackle the basement.

The basement is: my office, my little painting studio, my napping place, the exercise room the entertainment room when my kids were younger complete with pool table, video games, board games and a popcorn machine! The basement is not finished, but it's not too bad the way it is. All that really needs would be to add a drop ceiling and paint the walls and would be a cool space. (I always had dreams of hiring some local graffiti artists to paint the walls for me. )

The basement is also "the dumping ground". If you don't know where to put something in my house it invariably ends up down here somewhere. Mostly on the un-used pool table.

When we first moved into this house - over 7 years ago, we loved this huge empty room! Never did we think we could junk it up so quickly!

But we did and now it's just gotten out of hand!

There are 8 different bookcases or shelving scattered about which some more of the other 'stuff" gets put. These are what I am trying to conquer now.

M is a book fanatic. She buys "boxes" of books on e-bay. We go to libraries when they are having their used book sales and she'll come out with bags and bags of books. We were at Walgreens the other day and they had a buy one get one free sale and she left with 4 new books.

She has a collection of Agatha Christie books up in the attic. All of the books she needed for her MBA and her CPA classes are scattered about between our bedroom her office, the attic and the basement.

M's big retirement dream is to read all of the books and watch all of the movies she's bought over the years.

Have I told you that I'm a bit anal retentive? Messes and piles drive me nuts. I like to be organized...it helps me find things better.

So my project now is to organize all of these books - Alphabetically - by author and then alpha by title.

I wish I could take a picture so you could see the mess I've made. (It's all part of the process - trust me). It looks like I'm having a used book sale in my basement. I have piles of books arranged all over my pool table and scattered in about to collapse piles all over the floor.

Now the iTunes will go on shuffle and it's time to get back to it and put all of these books onto a shelf somewhere. I see a trip to Big Lots to see if I can pick up another cheap bookshelf because I won't have enough room in the bookshelves that I have now - but that's part of the fun of all of this believe it or not.

Errand day

First we must fuel ourselves - M is in the mood for I-Hop pancakes so we'll start our day with breakfast out.

Next, the 4 legged canine companions need their exercise. They didn't 2 good walks last weekend because of the weather, so we are hoping to wear them out today because tomorrow isn't looking so promising either.

Then - the errands shall commence. Dry cleaning to be dropped off, books to be returned, new kitchen stuff to buy, a stop at the bank, gas up the cars etc. Once all that is done I have to start painting the laundry room, cleaning out the cabinets so we can finally put our dishes away and get our life back into some kind of order.

I want to fit in cleaning the carpet in the dining room somewhere because of the mess that has been made during this whole kitchen project.

Last but definitely not least - I want to decorate for Christmas!!!!

eeeks.

I'm tired just thinking about it.

Maybe I'll start all of this after I take a little nap! :)

Happy Weekend all!!!!