The Snowball Effect

A few hours after my sister came home from a weekend away and I was called out for not posting. Fair enough (but in all fairness I am not as bad as DANIEL who hasn't posted in FOREVER!) I have explained before how I have a tendency to start one project only to interrupt myself with another project before the first is completed. With the new year beginning and moving over the hump of my pregnancy hitting about the week of Christmas, I decided we were going to do a major overhaul of our house. Tyler and I have often had the conversation about bigger homes vs. smaller homes; wants vs. needs; too much junk vs. too little space. We've come to the conclusion that we have a great home with plenty of space and it would FEEL more spacious if we got rid of some of our junk and utilized our space better. For example, that lovely, prerequisite 3-car garage we HAD to have when we bought this house DOES NOT fit either of our honkin' cars (trust me I tried and [remember from the previous post] scratched the back of my car), yet it's not used to the best of it's spacious capacity. Sure, it houses a butt-load (sorry for the crass-ness of the expression, but it's starting to feel like it's coming from every crevice!) of holiday crafts, camp equipment, out-grown clothes bins, bikes/wagons/scooters, and bulk paper products, but it has been a ground cover for long enough. SO, last Wednesday, as part of the overhaul last week I hired my brother to put together some garage shelving units and get some of the garage junk up off the floor, unstacked, and accessible. Well, that's where the snowball begins. Once we got the shelves, we needed space to put them together, so we had to move the section of the couch that had been hanging out in the garage BACK into the toyroom. Well, of course, to do that we had to move the computer out of the toyroom which meant we first had to unhook the plethora of cords and haul out all the equipment to shimmy the computer cabinet out of the toyroom. Once I realized that I had unhooked our internet AND phone service, I had to call Cox Communications to get them to come hook up a new cable outlet in the living room where we were going to relocate the computer. [So OBVIOUSLY I COULDN'T BLOG!] They were coming on Thursday afternoon, so I was feeling like the snowball was growing a little larger. Before the computer could be relocated, we had to move my sewing machine cabinet to my room and a big book shelf in its place. I have been SO annoyed with the little cabinet we had our computer in for some time, especially once I got my honkin' wide printer and I couldn't really access it to change ink, rear feed paper, etc. Imagine Tyler's eye-rolling when I explain the need for a new desk pronto in order for our computer to sit on something once the Cox guy showed up. But, like the great money machine he is (J/K) we stopped at Office Max Wednesday night and found a smokin' deal on a desk/hutch combo. So, we brought home two heavy boxes and then I was really feelin' the snowballin' anxiety to get it all put together. Luckily, I have another HANDY brother and he and his wonderful little family came over Thursday to put together my new desk. A HUGE THANK YOU to Nate, Stacy, and Zoee for spending the day with me and working on my snowball! The Cox guy came that afternoon and other than being a total pud and annoying the crap out of me with his smoker-smell, we were pleased to get the cable line hooked up. I was glad to have those two days over.

Anyhow, the snowball has yet to stop, but I did get back online (obviously). Of course, the rearranging has yet to be completed. I want to move some book shelves and food storage out of the boys' room to make room for a crib and another dresser. I've gotta move the food storage into the girls' closet THUS move another book shelf into the toyroom from their closet. With the full couch and two bookshelves in the toyroom, I want to move the toy shelves out into the garage. To move those, I need to continue to clean out the garage camping and clothing storage and put back all the Christmas. I also need to find THE perfect TV armoire that I can lock up when the kids lose their TV priviledges (it's pretty much THE worst punishment we can dole out.) OH! and because our ancient computer was starting to crash regularly when the kids wanted to play on it and the moniter is so big, Tyler ended up at Best Buy on Saturday with a new computer purchase. To say this overhaul has turned expensive would be a mild understatement, but I am confident that in a couple weeks the peace of mind will be worth it. Thank heavens my in-laws are having a garage sale on Saturday. We'll be de-junking FO SHO!

Have I mentioned that in the midst of all this stuff, I was taking down Christmas? and that I had another ultrasound (still a boy, by the way!)? and we changed phone services since I neglected to notice in my snowballing that we have no phone outlet in the living room? and I've been dealing with our home warranty company since our pool pump broke again!? and I've been trying to keep ScrapFest organized? and I've been working on my Christmas scrapbook?

So, yes, that's why I haven't blogged (and, like Dylan mentioned on his blog, I do feel like I have to explain WHY I've been so busy.) We're building rollin', honkin' snowballs over here! Happy January :)