Fox Downs (Kitsunetachi)

Ah, life. What a fabulous jumble of absolutely chaotic experiences! Snapshot of this week:

• I put together a slideshow of pictures that the camera club took at the Cathedral. Turned out nicely. Was a great test of the monoslideshow flash driven photo slideshow. Wish I could share the slideshow - but the pictures aren’t all mine.
• Was voted in as Pres of the local camera club. Egads! The whole group must have all been thinking, “At least it’s not me!” (Actually, I’m looking forward to the next year ahead. It will be fun.)
• Caught a nasty bug that took me out for several days.
• Finished organizing daughter’s room. Will have post later on this.
• School is almost out. Have a fun summer planned for the kiddos and I.
• Resisted urges to rescue more orchids - even the one cruelly left un-potted in Walmart. (Sniff) Orchid care area is full for now - can’t properly take care of more. But VERY tough to say no.
• I haven’t taken many pictures for a while - NEED to take more! How can I get better at photography if I don’t practice!

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Christine’s challenge for Take 5 Friday got swapped out for me this week. Finally got around to donating the items from out of dear daughter’s room. Ran some to goodwill and posted some on Freecycle. The remaining items should be gone today. One room decluttering done! Yippee!

Up: Got calendar for summer done (camps, swimming lessons, classes - all planned and paid for)! Yipee!

Down: ALL I did this morning was the calendar. Will have to clean like mad tomorrow for company.

Up: Setting up an Etsy store. Easy and fun to do. Definitely recommend it.  Several of my friends (especially one) goaded me into trying it.  This kind of peer-pressure isn’t too bad for you. 

Down: Having to give away my kitty. (Youngest child can not be trained to leave cat alone and cat is biting harder and harder in the face and cat not getting it either. I tried so hard to work with both of them.)

Up: Having friends that want said kitty, so I’ll get to see him again.

Down: Having to book it to neighboring town ahead of storm. (Tornadoes reported. But got there JUST ahead of storm.)

Down: Kitty not like friends’ dogs and will hopefully not eat their fish before they can get aquarium lid.

Up: Kitty safe in basement by self for attuning to new house.

Up: Not have to enforce keeping oldest child’s door closed to keep hamster safe. (That was such a pain!)

Down: Was distracted by kitty leaving house, so didn’t get finances done. ARGH!

Up: Did figure out the best way to spend the most time (of the 7 days of vaction my hubby has until December 31) with my father-in-law this summer. He was totally flexible about getting together. We SOOOO wanted to go see him but time wise it’s a terrible crunch. So we found out he’s coming out over Independence Day weekend and we’ll maximize that time as best we can. He’s such a cool father-in-law!

Following I’m an Organizing Junkie’s roundup - I present work done on my bedroom! Didn’t feel like much until I started writing it down. My post also served as a plan (I started writing what I did about the middle of the month, then continued writing down what I wanted to do and working off the list.)

My Closet:

• put summer and spring clothes on most accessible shelves
• donated clothes I won’t wear any more (even found a few maternity items - thought I got rid of that stuff 2 years ago - egads!)
• Stored my wedding dress under the bed until I can figure out what I want to do with it. (Hubby didn’t like the idea of a wedding dress quilt. PFFBBBBBT!) This made room for a new dress that I hope to make.
• Donated a baby gift I never got to give.

Dresser

• Went through my drawer in the dresser (organized the boxes for jewelry that I wanted to keep, left room for my jewelry box).
• Ordered tie hangers for my necklaces to put in my closet (and my daughter’s). (I never think to look in the jewelry draw unless I have a visual reminder. My necklaces will be out of the way and a reminder of my other “treasures”.)

Nightstand

• Convinced hubby to take “math club” papers and catalog back to work. They can use it, he won’t need it.
• Donated clothes stashed there.

To do

• necklaces (new hanger solution on it’s way)
• nightstand - Hubby go through drawer? (rest is done)
• donate old bedspread

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I also continued in my kitchen/dining room.

• moved the fire extinguisher to a place I can easily get it if needed
• Ordered a replacement for my broken and jageddy finances box. Nice new canvas holder.
• Took down my icky old white board on the wall and replaced it with another hanging paper organizer and an easier to clean white board on the fridge.
• Glued magnets to clothes pins for holding the kiddo papers. Each kiddo gets one clothes pin. And the space is now limited to what can be put on the fridge! (I can SEE my fridge! I knew it was there, but it was always camouflaged under the papers.) Once a month I’ll scan or photograph the papers and store them in my Zenfolio account so the grandparents can see.

• 
• Chair recovering project postponed until summer. Can’t just recover chairs. Need to re-varnish chairs and table too. Argh. But will do it right.

To Do:

• Finances box/organizer (on it’s way)

Considering that I don’t feel well today (Thursday), I was lucky this week’s challenge was easy. Odd stuff I found for this challenge:

• Left over dry cereal (in moist climate doesn’t last for next day). Why did I think she’d finish this for the next snack?
• Scrapbooking bits that my son left. (Nice - will have to continue the work on getting him to pick up his stuff.)
• Elefun game net. (Just the net. Hoop for it is gone.)
• Photography catalog. (I never look at catalogs - I always look on the net. Why was it here?)
• Odd little containers my hubby brought me from his last job. (I love containers - but these had no purpose. There was no “some” containers from him. It was - have him bring home all empty containers they didn’t need and looked interesting to him or none at all. No in between.)
• Magazine page with picture of a dress I want to make for my daughter. (Easier to deal with digitally, so I photographed it and put it in OneNote.)
• Papertowel tube that we saved for the hamster, who doesn’t chew the darn things. (hmm…)

In addition:

• I managed to sort through the stuff I got at the rummage sales today. (Gotta love neighborhood rummage sales.)
• I ditched most of the old role playing notes and papers on my shelf (this was a take 5 project in itself - I did it while hubby read to me). I do miss role playing - but our group is just not getting together anymore. I couldn’t toss 1 shoe box of stuff quite yet. At least gaming stuff isn’t threatening to take over my whole entertainment center now. (And this post gives more evidence that I am truly a geek.)

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A side note: I am becoming a big fan of listening to stories on CD from the library or being read to by hubby while doing dishes and tasks like the Take 5 Challenges. I get engrossed in the story and don’t want to stop what I am working on until I HAVE to quit.

You know it’s bad when:

• you feel it in your bones when its time for an orchid shipment to Walmart and haunt the place until they arrive.
• you can’t decide and want to take them all home.
• you justify the space and time they take trying to combine them with your other hobbies. (I can take pictures of them too!)
• you find yourself pulling the plants out of the pots (in the store) to make sure you got one with good roots and you won’t buy plants where all the flowers have opened so you can enjoy the blooms longer. (4-6 weeks isn’t ever enough!)
• you feel bad for all the orchids that can’t come home with you - knowing they have a terrible drawn out death ahead of them. (My house is really a rescue center you see. Stores leave them in wet moss and drown the poor things.)
• the only thing you want for mother’s day is an orchid and you have to tell your hubby that he has to go get it a few weeks ahead of time because stores around here kill them and you want one with good roots. (I’m not too demanding am I?)

Luckily I only took 2 home this time. I KNEW Walmart would have another shipment in soon and so any excuse to see if they had arrived was welcomed. (My first hunch was 1 day off - not bad.)

One of my new plants has a 2nd spike just started - spiffy! It’s the one I photographed last night. So I’ll share a few photos - just to tempt you all…

And here’s the 2nd spike…

See it right in front of the left leaves?

Taking up the challenge at Organizational Enlightenment…

Be prepared for company with a clean booster seat.

My littlest one’s always nasty dirty booster seat has been an embarrassment for me every time we have company. I HATE scrubbing the thing (beyond just wiping it down) so I always procrastinate it. Yesterday I realized the dishwasher could scrub it! (Mu-ha-ha-ha! I never have to scrub the blasted thing again!)

Our booster seat (looks like this with out the tray) comes apart. The straps fit into a little dishwasher basket that I use to hold sippy cup lids. Wash on heavy duty cycle. And wah-lah! Clean seat! (Yes, there is a bit of water that sloshes around now. But I’ll take that over the grimy stuff I can’t get out of the cracks in the seat any day.)

This may not be so much an organization as a cleaning thing. But I think the two often go hand in hand in my self esteem about my house.

Thought I’d have these posted sooner, but I was tinkering with this photo to try out HDR. (It’s the first of my HDR attempts that I liked.)

Right next to Mt. Rushmore in the Black Hills. (I decided not to get George’s head in the shot - would have been just to the left of the hill here.) I was going for a photomatix dark sky effect in Photoshop. Hoping to get the technique into an action.

On to the photos…

(Arch to the old Storybook Island in Rapid City, SD)

(Mt. Rushmore in the Black Hills)

(Chandelier at the Alpine Inn at Hill City, SD)

“Hey buddy, how long have you been waiting?”

(Shot at local duck feeding area.)

Carrots, peaunut butter and cottage cheese.  Carrots are dipped in the mixture of the other two ingredients.  (Or so says my daughter.  Yes she really ate that combo today.)

It’s that time again over at I’m an Organizing Junkie…

Here’s what my family will be having…

Irish Beef Stew

Grilled Cheese and Leftover Soup

Chicken Quesadilla Sandwiches

Salmon with red beans and rice

Potato oyaki bento with cucumbers in vinegar

Cheesy Ham & Rice Bake (cook rice ahead)

Hamburgers

Panera Broccoli Cheese Soup (adding ham)

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On a different note, finished processing my pictures from the last trip and latest outings. Will post later.