Ever since I returned from our summer internship I have never felt like I could "catch up." My TO DO list always seems a little too long. I don't like to live feeling too BUSY. I love to live--filling my time comfortably. I've been pushing through the weeks (and actually QUITE enjoying them) but also feeling like any week now it will slow down. It hasn't, so I am evaluating. What is it that I am doing?? Here are some of the randoms "extra" things that life has me busy with this past week or so.
Mail issues. We had someone getting our mail while we were gone, then she moved and we forgot to ask someone else to collect it and the mailbox filled up and I guess our mail starting getting sent back to people. The weird thing now is we get some mail, and other things have been sent back to friends and family. Who knows what all the "businesses" are thinking that have received our rejected mail. HEADACHE. I talked to the head postal carrier today and we are trouble shooting. This is a great chance for all of you to tell me how sorry you are that I didn't get that large package or thoughtful letter you sent me last month!
Changing the clothes out of our 72 hour "bin" and trying to eat all the snacks that are going to expire in the next month or have already :)
Rinsing out an Extra Large garbage bag full of laundry detergent containers from past tenants that have been collecting some major dust in our shared laundry room. Now I can send them off to be recycled...and now I won't have to wash dog hair and grimy dust off Owens hands every time he finds them while I'm busy washing :)
Working on food storage (this has been on ongoing 4 week project.) Someone had this great idea of making a week plan of meals--breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks. Then buying enough of these foods to last 3 months
Kurt needed a pair of pants hemmed...and almost went to the tailor (it was very inexpensive in Beijing and so convenient that he always did that). I decided it was time to pull out the sewing kit my amazingly talented friend Jena gave me back in high school--it has accompanied me through all my travels thus far in my life and embarrassingly I have never had to stock those cute little spools of thread she included for me! THANK YOU JENA. I watched a tutorial of how to hem a pair of pants on the internet and an hour and half later I was done :) :). Now my usual self would just do it sloppy and quick and poorly. But the better part of me won out that night and I was OBVIOUSLY very careful and my mom will be AMAZED to hear that when Kurt tried them back on he said the length is PERFECT! This is also not my usual standard. The mushy part of this post is that Kurt loved that I did that for him and he thought it was cute that I was sewing something. I liked that feeling even better than the praise of a perfect length!
HMMMMMMM. If you read about our camping trip you read that I found "last years" mouse nest in our camping chair. Turns out it was probably this years. Lucy's room got that stinky dead mouse smell in the walls that we enjoyed last year--sorry if this is so gross. So she slept with us for 3 days while we aired out her room and waited for the smell to go away. A while ago kurt laid out some poisen in the garage just in case...it has been disappearing very fast so it's great to know there are probably more fun days ahead! Then one morning Kurt puts his foot in his shoe and thinks " Owen must have left me a little toy" and then shakes out a dead (but twitching) mouse and screams and like a girl!! I wasn't right there so I don't know that for sure. He continues taking the kids out to the car (for a fun outing) and so I go get a plastic bag (only ziploc would do for this--no generic brand) and dispose of the mouse. I know they are so germy but he/she was little and actually cute. But I am still mad he/she was in my house.
Putting up our few meager halloween decorations with Lucy. Very carefully sorting them out of the garage in case I find another you know what.
Trying to choose a photographer, location, and outfits for our FIRST ever family picture. I really don't like shopping. I really don't know much how to coordinate things. AND looking at this snaphot I am REALLY hoping things work out a lot better for the real deal then they do here! Maybe I will panic and just go with white tops and blue jeans can you ever go wrong there?
Planning fun playgroups for the next 3 months such as this one at IRON KETTLE FARMS
Filling all the paper work out for renewing my passport--getting the pictures done and being very suprised when the worker (at the photo place) didn't know what to do because the pictures were kind of dark. So he said OH WELL and downloaded and printed them anyways. We have some friends getting married in Canada next month so I'm hoping i get this back in time!!
Dealing with a minor one of these (above) and using WAY too many of these (below) The nasty but short cold has gone through everyone in the family except for Kurt so far.
And hoping those colds don't get any worse because we have been collecting documents and having an interview to get these two rascals (below) insured again. We decided kind of last minute to switch there insurances. A good financial move...but only because I think we made it. At this point they are insured but just with out cards...so still hoping we don't have to see the doctor until we get those, unless of course they get sent back because of our mail issues.
Running out of ink several weeks ago...not wanting to buy it online SO EXPENSIVE, going to the store...they are out of our kind of printer cartridge--suggest another that will still work. Take it home, doesn't work, take it back, get a new one and print 5 or 6 alignment pages wasting a LOT of ink and still never getting it to work unless you scan and print instead of hit COPY. Next weeks to do list will have something like Call Dell representative to help me get this WORKING!
Taking 100 photos of things I've been doing so I could post them on my blog. I hope it was worth it.
Coleman and Lucy FINALLY getting along
Lucy "saving" Owen from the mean chickens
