Swirly Saturday

I have a "friend" who has a Swirly Saturday feature on her blog every Saturday to wrap up her week. Just for today I'm stealing her title! :) I haven't given my blog entry today much thought (though I do have PICTURES to incorporate), so I have no nice, neat theme or anything in particular I want to write about - I just want to write because I've committed to try to write every day.

I hope you got some rest today, if you needed it. We had a near-perfect day. I didn't have to get up or get dressed for anything. Basketball season is over; there were no obligations looming except our kids' piano recital, which didn't take place until the afternoon. Both the kids did well on their songs, and I'm especially seeing (or should I say HEARING!!?) progress in Andrew! Finally. Maybe we WILL keep shelling out the money for piano lessons after all. So for, the kids aren't complaining about piano lessons, so we won't mention that we've recently considered giving them up!

I have found that now that I blog, I tend to think of my life in potential postings. For example, women have been spring cleaning their homes for hundreds - maybe thousands - of years now; but I have this persistent urge to WRITE about it. You all know how to clean your house; I know how to clean my house - but I'm thinking maybe if I put it out there on the Internet, I'll actually do it, maybe even better than I would have had I not committed myself publicly. So, I'm gearing up! And I'm going to WRITE about it...and I'm going to post pictures about it...and hopefully I'll be inspired to clean!! I have one friend who has committed to do this with me - I hope SHE will write about it and post pictures about it (of course, she has a BEAUTIFUL, new home so I'd love it if she posted more pictures of it anyway!!).

Here's the Plan:

I plan to start on Tuesday, if I get the day off. In a notebook, I have listed each room in the house and all the things I hope to accomplish in that room. I'm not setting a time limit on myself, I just want to make one "sweep" through my whole house in the next few weeks. I want to clean out the corners, get rid of that hidden dust that lurks behind things, and freshen up everything! Besides that, I want to organize and clean out clutter. I'm tired of having STUFF everywhere because it really doesn't have a home. I work hard on training my kids to put things back right away after using something. Andrew, like me, comes by that naturally; Anna, well, like someone else in this house (herewith remaining nameless), doesn't. Remember when I said something about my Miss Mess converting into I-want-to-make-my-bed girl here (<-- LOOK! I might have learned how to "link" using just a word instead of the whole URL!! Thank you, Sandra, my bloggy mentor!!), things aren't so nice and neat up there any more!!

Isn't she pitiful!!? ;)

And this is the disaster area (it's also a HIDDEN PICTURE feature - can you find the cat in the midst of the mess?!):

THAT SAID, I will also air my disaster area for everyone to see too - the living room before I picked up today:

I am a "stacker" and a "piler". When I don't know what to do with something, I pile it on the nearest surface - or stack it on like-stacks I already have. I still haven't figured out what to do with Anna's Valentine's box from school. I hate to throw it away (we worked HARD on that thing - I made "stained glass window" hearts out of wax paper, glue, and tissue paper for it!!). This stuff has either GOT TO GO or needs to find a home:
STACKS, PILES, and MORE STACKS....The Valentine's Day in March theme carries over to the dining room where the left-over feather rose Anna got from a classmate & gave to me is still waiting to find a HOME. For now, it sits there in its vase among a few piles of more homeless stuff.

So, I can't wait to get started cleaning, sorting, organizing!! My hope is to touch an item only ONCE - and then either put them in a bin for give-away, trash, or put them in a new, permanent place. I'm tired of carrying my stacks and piles from one room to the next.

I've been bad about meal planning and cooking too lately. :( Today we had canned soup for lunch. Bleck. My kids, however, love it - probably because their mama so seldom cooks REAL soup that they don't know any better. Sad. My husband added a can of green beans to the canned soup "to make it go further" - and then he says, "Add that tip to your Frugal Friday blog." (which is funny that he even knows that one of the blogs I follow does have a Frugal Friday feature). I told him he needed to start his own blog called "Growing Up Poor" where he can give out all the tips he learned to make food go further (like adding vegetables to your hamburger meat before you grill it so it makes more, 1000 ways to use powdered milk, etc.) and how to NOT waste food (his pet peeve). I personally am not even a good cook, let alone a cook who can make something out of nothing. I need a good recipe and preferably a reference from someone who has made the entree before - or a demonstration, which is why I soak in Food Network! And as far as wasting food, well, thank goodness we got a dog. Dan would get so mad when I'd throw "good food" out, so now I've started giving those left-over pork chops (that have been in the fridge for a WEEK) to the dog. She loves it, and I can honestly say SOMEONE ate the left overs! :)

Well, there are more swirling thoughts in my head - but I will stop here before I embarrass myself further. ;) Have a blessed Sunday.