New Phone!

So for the last 2 months I've essentially been up to 3 things: unpacking, deep cleaning and planning a friend of mine's baby shower.  It's been a busy past 2 months.  During that time I managed to lose my phone.  Twice.  The first time it dropped out of my pocket as I went to use the bathroom... sadly it died almost instantly.  I did have insurance on my phone so I got a replacement.  Well it took me 3 weeks to scrounge up the deductible for the phone ($150 :P). But it was worth it not to have to buy a new phone.  Or so I thought.  I lost the thing within 24 hours of getting it.  I'm not sure if the ringer ever worked.  After nearly a month of searching through EVERY box and ever shelf that I'd put stuff away on I discovered that the phone was in fact gone.  SO we ordered a new phone- on a payment plan so our phone bill will be a little higher until I can sell a piece of art to pay it off.  

The good news is that my new phone's camera is pretty amazing.  Both pictures below are taken from it.

This is my little Shamrock named Shane.  I thought I'd killed Shane... I got this plant back in march and moved it over to this little pot and it flourished.  Then it got really cold- and the plant started to freeze and die.  So I brought it inside.  I didn't have a really good place to put it and sadly a box fell on the plant one day and smashed the poor little guy.  It died shortly after that.  I put the pot back outside and decided when I had time I'd dig up the roots and mix in some fertilizer and plant some herbs.  One can never have to many  pots of herbs.  

So I noticed the other day some little shoots of green and moved the pot to a place in the yard where it could get watered and forgot about it.  Yesterday I checked on it and took these pictures.  I guess shamrocks are pretty tough little plants.  That or it's actually clover and I'm crazy. (I'm still new to the whole gardening thing) 

In any case- it's pretty.  I hope it's able to grow back to it's former glory.  

~Nikkie

Wednesday June 18- that is my title and I'm sticking to it

Today I'm NOT going to talk about unpacking, deep cleaning or organizing.  Wait; guess I just did... but

this is a random piece of fan art (painted by I don't know
who) that I'm putting on here just because.  It has nothing to
do with my post- but it's cute :D

now that you mention it...
I'm still not done- but will be soon.

MOVING ON

I've had a kinda rotten day- and yet; I'm in a really good mood.  Probably has something to do with spending several hours with one of my close friends from high school.

Ok- so my rotten day.

Woke up feeling like I had swallowed a ball of needles.  So I decided to stay in bed.  My husband was up getting ready for school/work and I kinda ignored him and tried to sleep as he went about his morning routine.  Weirdly enough I couldn't force myself back to sleep- which is strange for me...

Anyway- he comes in from the bathroom announcing that our toilette is acting up.  There appears to be some clog in the line that just isn't going away- so rose from the bed grumbling and growling like the beast I am first thing in the morning and went to plunge the toilette.

Why was I doing it instead of him? Well he had to finish getting ready and leave- so that left me with the unpleasant task of plunging the swill left in the toilette...  My stomach isn't very firm first thing in the morning so I almost threw up a few times.  Thankfully I'm not pregnant or I would've thrown up :P

After 30 minutes of plunging I went to the internet to see how to get rid of nasty clogs- one poster suggested pouring dish soap into the toilette and letting it sit for a little while.  The theory here is that the soap will break down any fats in the clog (like it does on greasy dishes) and that you will be able to plunge it away.

It didn't work...

BUT I'd plunged most of the nastiness out of site before putting in the soap- so it ended up just being a mass of bubbles- and smelled better than what I was plunging before.  So that was nice.

It's still clogged- so I'm going to have to work on it a bit more this evening.  I would've kept cleaning until it was clean this morning; but ran out of time.

I'm kind of at a standstill in unpacking- I need to get a LOT of laundry washed, dried and put away so that I can finish organizing everything that is in the kitchen/laundry room.  I cannot wait until that room is clean- it's going to look so cute.

I've had 7 loads of laundry to do for about 3 days.  Why so much for so long?  The washer has been acting up.  The basics of the problem are that it has been taking 3-5 hours to wash clothes and then they aren't spun dry.  It's a newer electrical washer.  After some research- I found a possible solution.  Apparently there is a 'crap trap' (no idea what the real name is so that is what I'm going with) that is in the drainage line of the washer; so I emptied that out (it was NASTY) and ran my Clorox washer cleaning solution through the machine.  I don't know if that fixed it (will know by tomorrow) because while the machine was running a 'clean' cycle I had to leave.

Off to the college because my husband had forgotten his calculator in his haste to get out the door.  Which sucks 'cause he has a huge math test and needed it to study.  So I brought that to him- this part of the day was good and relatively uneventful.

From there the kids and I went to the grocery store to grab food for lunch (it's about 2pm at this point) and I notice from the college to the grocery store that my car is making some funny noises.  Loud grinding noises... out of oil noises.  SO I spend the last bit of the route praying that my engine doesn't seize and that I can get to the grocery store.

I MADE IT!!

I checked the oil- and yes indeed it was empty.  Scary.  So we went in bought some groceries and some oil then went out to the car to put the oil into it.

My kids were fascinated by the process- so I narrated what I was doing and showed them the dipstick and what not.  Kids are great- really made a stressful situation more fun.

Luckily when we loaded into the car and started the engine the grinding noise was gone.

Things were good until I arrived at my friends house (to talk baby shower details) and awkwardly parallel parked- when I got out of the car I saw a lovely trail of drips on the ground.  So I laid down in the middle of the street to look under my car.  Sure enough oil is just dripping out.  Yay.

Fortunately enough for me I'm spoiled so when I got back to our little basement apartment this evening and told my Dad about it- he said he'd change the filter and something else.  Hopefully it is just that the filter isn't in there quite right.  We'll see- he's going to work on it on Friday.  In the meantime I've got an extra bottle of oil in my car so I can top off when I need to.

Really- it was a good day. Bad things happened- and it was more exciting than most days- but I also feel like I accomplished a lot. By tomorrow everything should be resolved for the best.

~Nikkie

STILL UNPACKING!!

I found this image online and since it is basically
what I was wanting to draw anyway
(minus like 10 other chores)
I figured I'd use it for today's post

I kinda dissipated from the internet for about 2 weeks... I've spent every minute from the time I get up until the time I go to sleep cleaning, sorting and unpacking... By the time I sit down to write a blog post my heart isn't in it.  So I've not been posting.  I've started a lot of posts- but they are just sitting as drafts waiting for me to finish them.  I've got some catch up to do; and I will- just not right now.

So I'm almost 2 weeks overdue for my goal of getting the house unpacked and cleaned by the 31st of May.  Turns out I grossly underestimated how much there was to be done.  Every night I'd be like- 'I just worked for 12+ hours straight; I should finish tomorrow' and then I'd get up and work and not be done again.  It's been kinda painful in a way.  At the same time I'm glad I made the goal I did because it's kept me working; even if I'm past my deadline.  The good news is this: Once I'm done I'll be completely unpacked for the first time in 6 years.  Yup- our entire married life we've never actually been 'unpacked' that is how often we've moved.  The only reason I'm unpacking now is because I know for sure we're staying here for 2 years.

So I've cleaned and re-cleaned every room in the house.  At this very moment I can say that the master bedroom, the kids room and the living room are done.  Completely done.  There are maintenance things I'll have to do daily- but as far as big re-arranging of furniture, deep cleaning and unpacking- I'm finished.  Of the other 4 rooms (if you call the hall a room): bathroom is 80% done, Kitchen/Laundry room is 75% done, my office is 50% done and the hallway... is hard to say because I'm storing stuff in it while I clean the other rooms.

I spent most of my time in the bathroom today.  I pulled everything out (including the mobile furniture I'd had in it) swept the floor clean (didn't mop though- I got lazy), emptied every box and resorted ALL of our bathroom stuff- threw away a bunch of stuff that was empty (I have no idea how many moves we've had empty shampoo and soap bottles end up in our boxes!!!) and put it all away again.  Everything is now packed in nice clear plastic shoe boxes in a set of shelves outside of the bathroom.  Everything that stayed in the bathroom is packed into nice baskets and high quality plastic bags.

The rest of the day was spent putting away dishes in the kitchen, re-deep cleaning the kids room (that kinda got away from me while I was unpacking the rest of the apartment) and general maintenance to the living room and the master bedroom.  I'm exhausted but I feel like I've made progress. Which is nice- until yesterday I kinda felt like I was just moving stuff around and nothing was getting clean... thankfully that isn't the case.

I really hope tomorrow I can post some pictures with a big 'I'M DONE' as the subject... I'm not holding my breath though- I'm sure there is more to do than it feels like there is.

~Nikkie