Thursday DECLUTTERING!

[JoelleH]

Hello all!

I'm enjoying my last day without kids home. Am I a terrible mom because I don't miss them like crazy? It will be good to see them and have them home again, but I am really enjoying the time alone.

So far today:

• Core exercises at gym
• Watered strawberries
• Read a Psalm
• General tidy
• Room focus on school room - looks ready to go!
• Sent several texts and emails re. upcoming events
• Swept dining/kitchen
• Pulled a few weeds
• Currently eating lunch

Still to do:

• Scrapbook for several hours - I'm trying to do a lot of this now, once school starts I won't get to it very much
• Marinate pork chops for dinner
• Pull more weeds
• Trash to curb
• Out for dessert with dh (decided to have dinner at home, but go out for dessert - because I'm never hungry enough for dessert after eating at a restaurant!)

Heather - both dorms look great! I love the character of the Cornell building!
** do you have a good marinade that doesn't use onions or garlic? My dh can't have either and it is in most marinade recipes. Thanks. **

Cindy - where will you be camping? Fun!

Robin - hope you make a lot of progress in the basement

Jen - glad your ds got into the Spanish class. Do you have regular chores for each day of the week? I just do whatever/whenever. No plan whatsoever.

Shelly - yum - canned peaches! Are they from your tree?

Angela - glad the trip went well. I agree with you on watching other people's kids. Not my favorite. So nice of you to help out your friend, though.

Have a wonderful day! I'm going up to scrapbook now!

[Heather W]

Joelle- The recipe is a pioneer woman recipe. I leave the garlic out and it's tasty.

AR- Crochet club must not have gone very well? You sound tired! I hope you can slow down some soon! Is your mother culture group the same as your CM book club group?

Robin- I hope the basement is going well!

Shelly- Isn't that the truth? How it seems like yesterday we were out and about and falconry. Sniff. I hope E is able to get back to it someday. Thankfully, it is a sport you can pick up any time not just when you are young.

I had a slowish morning. It wasn't without activity, but I was sitting too long trying to get work done at my computer. I finally got up and realized that I'd forgotten something active I was going to do- cubbies!

Update:

• worked on updating some instagram links- on my custom IG page on the blog. You get one clickable link in IG and mine goes to a special page on my blog.
• started a load of laundry
• folded a load of towels
• sorted dirty laundry
• cleaned some cubbies- pulled things out and dusted them/vacuumed them, ran a duster over the cubby, vacuumed out the cubby and the edges of things if they still needed it. Put cubby items back. I did four cubbies all the way and I cleaned another out, but I have to put everything back in it.
• picked up R from work- she was done out. This job is too much for her. Not entirely sure why, but it is.
• craft store- to pick up and item on sale and with a coupon
• got the mail
• prepped chicken to be grilled
• made marinade and got the chicken in it- back in the frig waiting for the grill master
• read through the parents materials from Cornell- next week will be fairly well exhausting. So many events in addition to moving these kids in. Two freshman the same year. At two schools ten hours apart. With the same move in week. Not for the faint of heart, friends.

Now I'm going to switch that load of laundry and hang up what I can on the line. I will probably finish the cubby and get some of the veggies cut up to fry in cast iron for the fajitas.

Tonight is the last night at the pool!

[CINDY LB OH]

• chatted with my two former college roommates in MI, and we will be meeting up at the campground!
• the breakfast cookies are packed and in the freezer
• the muffins were baked, and are also packed and in the freezer
• worked in ds11's room for longer than I wanted, but I started the top of the closet and then wanted to finish... gotta figure out what to do with Erica's theater stuff that was all up there
• laundry load #1 is in the dryer, load #2 is washing
• did a little school brain-work

HeatherW-- Cornell parent materials?? Like what? I'm curious. Wait.. your pool is closing already? It doesn't stay open through Labor Day?

[Jen in OK]

Jen - glad your ds got into the Spanish class. Do you have regular chores for each day of the week? I just do whatever/whenever. No plan whatsoever.

I do...Mondays I do two bathrooms and clean out the fridges, Wednesdays I clean the kids' bathroom, Fridays I clean our bathroom and change our sheets and try to get vacuuming done. That's been my routine since we moved into our old house almost 9 years ago because we were pretty much only out of the house on Tuesdays and Thursdays. This year we're going to be out pretty much all day Mondays and Tuesdays, Wednesday nights, Thursday afternoons, and hopefully on road trips most Fridays. Until I go nuts. But I'd like to try to get most of our traveling done in the fall before weather gets bad for winter or there's the threat of sever weather in the spring.

Back from our afternoon...
*mailed bills
*swim team
*socialized the cats!
*food pantry
*grocery pick up
*finished up laundry
*dinner is cooking

After we eat I'll take dd to gymnastics. So glad that's just a 5 minute drive. Still waiting to see if my nephew is coming with us tomorrow...if he is, I need to get him a ticket for the exhibit.

[Heather W]

Cindy- Oops! I meant LATE night at the pool. It's open through Labor Day!

Parent materials- we have a whole resource book about stuff at Cornell so that when our college kids lean on us, we have information for them. Surprising from this liberal institution. Also a whole booklet on the family schedule for orientation- library tours, botanic garden tours, convocation, college/department meet and greets (two of them), and a bunch of other stuff.

Ethan's move in day includes a convocation, but I think that's it. Well and a college meet and greet.

Ack! I forgot about the laundry. Just after I typed my update earlier, dh rolled up on his bike and the evening got under way.

We'll leave for the pool close to 8 so I have some time, but I wanted those clothes off the line to put up the pool stuff. Oh well!

[Heather W]

Checking in again-

• finished up the veggies for the fajitas
• KP kid emptied the dishwasher- and put food away
• switched the laundry
• hung some up outside
• worked on my blog post more- inserted more images
• started written notes on the post
• put items back into a cubby I cleaned
• cleaned two more cubbies
• rearranged books in the cubbies- as I could (could stand to do some more)
• sent two group related emails
• checked in with swimmers- we'll leave soon
• dh has been trimming and mowing- so much better looking out there!

Not sure who is going swimming with me tonight. R for sure now that she is rested and J always comes, but he's got a migraine. We just did a med adjustment and I don't think it's working well. If he has another bad night, I'm going to add a med back in. I'm waiting for the sun to go down a bit more and for his head and stomach to feel better before we leave. Or else he may not go after all.

I've cleaned 16 cubbies in the large IKEA set and I have 6 more to go. It was nice to run into some things that will be fun to pull out as school begins- like the Cuisinaire Rod puzzles. Those are great spatial activities. It will be especially nice to bring more of that out as summer screen time winds down.

I'm looking forward to adjusting storage as I go and removing some items to make room for others.

Hey! I sold a couple items last night and there's one more on the way out. I sold my original set of WriteShop I. I have a copy from this past year's review. My old one is an original in the binder that I bought used ages ago. Woot! It hasn't changed a bit, but the look is new.

Ok...I'm ready to head to the pool. Let's see how this turns out!

[Angela Rose]

HW - Good job on cleaning out!

Jen - I "know" that a cleaning schedule like that would help me, but something always throws me off before I really get in a groove.

Cindy - How fun that you get to meet up with your college roommates!

Joelle - Enjoy your dessert-date!

HW/ Crochet Club - This was fine, I suppose I am just grumpy. I am tired and made room for it mostly because the lady that runs it is a friend and asked me to come, and obviously I like crochet. There were only 3 of us and the other two are "besties" so I felt like I just listened in on their conversation. I could have inserted myself more, but just wasn't feeling up to it. I think she only is doing it for one more week anyway.

"Mother Culture" book club - This is not the group that discusses the actual CM volumes, that group isn't meeting over the summer. This group is discussing "The Read-Aloud Family." Tonight we just discussed the third part, which is all the book recommendations so it was a fun night. I almost didn't go because I am beat, but I am glad I did. This is a nice, fun, group of ladies and it was fun to talk about books. I haven't attended any of the events with kids yet.

I'm off to bed - good night ladies!