The Messiest room in the universe

So I'm going to let you in on a little secret (ok, so it's not really much of a secret if you know me, lol) I am a packrat and not that great of a housekeeper. :) It drives Alan NUTS! He calls me a stacker, because I stack stuff in every corner and on every flat surface. I come from a family of packrats, so I really think it has alot to do with this. I also read somewhere that you are either organized or creative, but rarely both. Something about that both of those use the same part of the brain, so the brain either uses that part to be creative, or it uses it to be organized. So I would rather be creative than organized anyways!! :) But then again, I always say that I am a walking contradiction, because sometimes I am soooo organized, I am a list-maker, a planner, I can focus and have some things organized to a T. Like my school work, and school stuff, I'd have my planner with each class color coded and highlited, lol. So I'm weird. But it amazes me that I can be so oblivious to the mess, like my room, it's like I can just not notice how crazy messy it is, I just go on with live oblivious, and one day I look around and think "wow, how did this happen?" lol, like I just notice or something. I have the talent of not noticing things, I don't know. But my room was the catch-all, for anything that didn't have a home. Plus all of my sewing, craft, scrapbook stuff, etc. Sadly, poor Alan doesn't have much of anything in our room, lol. His "closet" and dresser are in the utility room, and most of his stuff is in his "dungeon" in the garage. Our room is really a Florida room, it wasn't meant to be a bedroom, but to have 4 bedrooms, we use it as our room. So It doesn't have a closet. I bought us these fabric, plastic and metal closets from Fingerhut when we moved in, but my clothes were too heavy and broke it. So my clothes have been all over the room ever since. So I decided before school starts this semester I really needed to get the room clean and organized (ok, Alan had been asking me to do it for quite some time too!) So I got some stuff from Ikea, sent the kids away to my moms for the weekend, and we got to work.......


So this bookshelf was holding all of my scrapbook stuff, but not very well as you can see. Not only was it too small and the scrapbooks were hanging over the edges, but I had boxes and bags of more stuff that didn't even fit on the shelf that were just sitting on the floor. So the goal in tearing apart the room was organizing and finding a place for all the stuff just laying around!





Even though this pic was taken after we had started tearing the room apart (I should have taken true before pics, but didn't think of it until after we had started!) this is just about what it looked like on a daily basis anyways, lol. The chair served as a place to put all of my clothes, and my desk was just a flat surface to pile all of my school stuff and stray books that weren't on my book shelves in the living room.






So in order to clean, sometimes you gotta make a bigger mess. :) I started by taking EVERYTHING out of my bedroom and piling it into the livingroom, dining room and kitchn, lol. Hmmm, maybe I have too much stuff? (no comments from the peanut gallery Alan!)













All my clothes piled on the bed as I dismantled my broken "closet". The giant wall unit in the background came from Japan when my family lived there as a child, it has all of these wonderful japanese engravings all over it, and my parents gave it to me, and the matching china cabinet and wall shelves. My brother got the matching coffee table and end tables. But as awesome as it is, it wasn't working well for my needs in the room, so I had Alan take it apart and put it into storage so I could put up shelves for my scrapbook and craft stuff!






After a weekend of work......


It's getting better! The shelving system I bought from Ikea is going to be very helpful, but they told me I needed 13 shelves and I actually needed 15 to make it (it is a build-your-own system that you can add shelves to, not an all in one package, so you only get what you need) and then 2 of the shelves were missing the hardware needed to hold them in place. So I ordered 2 more shelves, which cost more in shipping than they cost, and after finding my reciept and waiting on hold forever, I finally got them to send me replacement hardware. So here in the pic you see 2 rows of shelves, and there will actually be 3 when I get my other stuff. So all the stuff in boxes and bags on the floor in front of it will be put on the shelf neatly at some point! And the desk just has everything piled on it, but I am going to go through it all and put it back in the drawers and organize. So it's getting there, even though it still looks like a big mess!!





Now the bookcase that held my scrapbook stuff is dedicated to all of my teacher prep stuff, teacher books, lesson plans, etc. This stuff was all piled on my desk or in boxes before, so this makes it easier to see what I have when I need it! The desk in the corner is going to be my sewing table, but I still need to find something that will hold all of my material in an organized way that I can find it. Currently it is in the 3 plastic tubs under the desk, which doesn't work very well. The trashbags are full of Starla's clothes from 6 months to 12 months that I am handing over to a friend since they aren't doing much good in my shed as we try to decide if we want another kid someday!






I now have a wardrobe to put my clothes in, woo hoo! It's starting to get more organized....



I bought this bed in 1999 when Bourbon was 1, right before I met Alan. The canopy had NEVER been put up since I bought it, I've been asking Alan to do it since 2000, lol, and it FINALLY got done on our clean-up weekend! Woo hoo!! Now I need to find some fun material to drape on it!



So, yes I am a packrat, yes I have lots of stuff. :) But I'm trying!!!

waterslides, legos, drive-ins & more!

So see our adventures with waterslides, the lego store, the drive-in theater and more, go to:




http://ourlittlefamily-tonya.blogspot.com/2009/07/summer-fun.html

Sleepy day...

Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Sleepy day....
Current mood: sleepy
I am so sleepy today. I think it is the combination of the rain and the fact that we went to teh drive-in last night and stayed up late. Although Starla & I slept for a bit in the back of the van while Transformers 2 was on. It was fun though.

I should be cleaning, or writing, or doing something productive to meet my goals, but I just don't have it in me right now. I don't feel like doing much of anything.

I'm excited about student teaching starting soon, but I am so not ready for summer to end!! I have less than 2 weeks, and I have all of these things I still want to fit in. Sigh. I really want to make it to the Jenks Aquarium and to The Jasmin Moran Children's museum, so we shall see if we can't at least get those in. I was going to host a sock monkey end of summer party, but I just don't think I can pull it off, so I guess it will have to wait. I have all of this really cute monkey party stuff though that I just need an excuse to use! All of these plans I keep making seem to fall through, so I may just stop planning and see what I feel like doing when I wake up in the morning! Ha, that's so not me. I can't do that. I'm such a planner.

We have done a ton of stuff this summer, which is good. But there is a ton of stuff I haven't done which makes me feel guilty! My grandma asked me to come visit so I could help her with a project she wants to do, and that was a couple months ago and I still haven't figured out a day to go! My aunt Theresa moved to Norman several months ago and we haven't even been by to see her place or visit! My nephew Kyan was born in June and I haven't even really spent much time at all with him. My friend Sheila had a baby in July that I said I was going to bring food over for (that's what I do when babies are born!) and not only have I not made food, I haven't even seen the baby!! My cousin got put in jail months ago and I was going to go find paperbacks of the harry potter series to send to him, and I haven't done that. The guy in Japan that sent me all the really cool stuff for my social studies project 2 semesters ago asked if I could send some stuff for his wife to make cookies back in May, and I JUST sent the box off yesterday, lol. I don't know what is wrong with me. I'm usually sooooo dependable. I just think I'm pulled in too many directions and I can't keep up!! So if in the process, you are one of the people that have gotten left out or forgotten about in my chaotic life, I apologize, don't take it personally!!!

I have 2 weekends left until school starts, and both of them have a fun festival going on! This saturday, which is August 1st, which is my friend Melissa's birthday (HAPPY BIRTHDAY MELISSA!), is also the Midsummer Fairy Festival at the Paseo arts! Yeah! Starla & I will be sporting fairy wings and having fun. Then next saturday, which is the 8th, which is my birthday (HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!) is the Watermelon Festival in Rush Springs, which I have been talking about going to for several years now but never have! So we are going this year. I want to spend my birthday there with family and friends, and make some homemade banana ice cream that day, and that's all I really want for my birthday! It will be perfect.

Oy vey, I am so sleepy.........(but not Jewish, hee hee)

Camping

We always go camping at this resort in Kansas, Oklahoma called FLint Ridge. I guess I've been going there since I was about 12 I think. My dad's family; grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins would all go with us, they all owned land out there (you can only use Flint Ridge if you are a landowner there). But slowely through the years, everyone sold off their land and started going other places. Soon when I was an older teenager, I was the only one in my family that still went. I would just pack up friends and go each year. My parents wanted to sell their land, they decided they liked Eufaula better, but I begged them not to. Finally when I was 21 they signed over and gave me the land for my birthday. So I have been taking my kids there every since, all of them went in utero, and all of them went as babies! I love that I have so many memories there. It is such an awesome place.

Alan got to take vacation last week and we went tues-thurs.

Its so beautiful too, here are a few shots of just the scenery. It's so nice to be surrounded by lush greenery!













It was just amazing. The weather was in the 80's the entire time, it was beautiful! It's so nice just to get away from everything! I took over 200 pictures, so this blog will be long, lol. I do my best to edit sometimes, but I just feel like I've got to show it all (although I promise I didn't show all 200 pics in this blog)!! And these activities are in no particular order to when we did them, just all thrown on here!














My friend Lori from UCO and her family (husband Gary, kids Sam & Mariah) joined us on the second day. She is the sweetest person I have ever met! She has been in at least one of my classes each semester since I have been at UCO and she is student teaching this next semester too. I am so lucky to have met her, she is an amazing friend. We had such a good time camping with her and her family!!





Roman just belongs in the outdoors, I swear he just thrives on it! He had so much fun with his frogs, and crawdads and minnows and perch, and whatever other critters he coulr get his hands on!











Starla's favorite activity while we were there was throwing rocks into the river. She would do this for like half an hour sometimes, just over & over, happy as can be! Sometimes she counted the rocks, sometimes she said teh ABC's with each rock she threw, sometimes she just zoned out and threw them. I bet she threw over a hundred rocks! We spent a lot of time playing at the river. It is really close to our camp site, we just walk down to it whenever we want!

This is the illinois river. They do canoe trips down the river during the weekend, but not the week, so we didn't get to go.

















From the river, if you look up you can see the 'round house' (it's actually called the club house, but I've been calling it the round house since I was a little girl!).




And here it is right up on it!



It has the most beautiful view when you are up there looking down! There are hiking trails near it too, which make it neat!





Of course camping food is always so much fun too! We like cooking on our little stove and in the campfire!

















Lori & Gary made us the BEST meal on the second night, it was sooo yummy! They were so nice, serving us first and making sure we had everything. I felt like we were the guests when they were out guests!





Alan took all the kids (and when I say all the kids, I mean all the kids from the neighboring campsites came too!) down by the river and shot off a bunch of fireworks that we brought.

Sam was cracking me up with his sparkler dance!





The best part I think were the 12 little tanks we got, and the bags of army men. They set all the men up, half on each side, put 6 tanks against eachother, and started war!












There is soooo much to do there. They have parks, mini putt-putt, baskeball courts, tennis courts, a rec room with ping-pong, fooseball & pool, a golf course,......





















If you look in almost the center of the pic, towards the left a bit, there is what I believe to be a beaver (it had a flat tail anyways!). Everytime Starla and I went to the little park, it would scurry out!! I think he must like playing on the swings....





We rode paddleboats on Clear Lake









Starla threw a giant 2 year old fit when I wouldn't let her ride in the back of the boat by herself (although as you can tell from the pics, she eventually got to!) and Lori saved the day by giving Starla a cute pair of sunglasses her daughter had outgrown and some oreos!





There are 2 pools at Flint Ridge, so we spent time at each of them while we were there! Starla turned into a regular waterbaby, not wanting me to hold onto her at all, and jumping in and going underwater!!













Alan brought the BB gun and taught Bourbon how to shoot it, Bourbon thought that was the coolest thing ever.




Roman's favoite activity, and where he could be found anytime we were at the campsite, was catching crawdads in the creek. The little creek runs next to the entire camp site, so there'a lots of area to play in. It ends at the cute little waterfall/pool area though, which was my favorite place to play as a child when we went there.













We had such a great time, I can't wait to go back again!