Regretfully, I don’t have any before pics of today’s tackle. I just didn’t think about it before I started. Today, I’m tackling my kitchen. There isn’t much to tackle, really, since it’s merely a corner (literally!) of our townhouse. But I’m putting some things in closets on shelves to get them off the counter and give us more space there. It looks a bit more open. I just wish I could get the microwave off the counter! That, however, won’t happen.

Anyway, here’s my after picture:

It doesn’t look like much, but I’ll describe the before picture. Next to the paper towel holder was the iced tea maker, then the coffee maker, then a bread maker (and a big one, too!). The canisters (just down a bit further toward the stove) were next to a FoodSaver (again, a large one) and then there was the bucket of utensils. I had zilch for counter space and now I have quite a bit. This is all considering the counter space you see in the picture is pretty much my kitchen. All you don’t see is the sink and the microwave.

My next tackle, though I’m not waiting for Tuesday, is the cabinets underneath. I can never seem to find anything!

Not much new around here lately. Just the same old work-home routine. We finally got a computer set up for the boys after theirs crashed awhile back. We’re trying out the kid browser Kidzui. So far, I think it looks pretty neat. The kids haven’t been on it yet, so we’ll see how easy it is for them to use. It looks pretty easy. We tested it out by typing in some non-kid friendly search terms and found that no websites came up, which we really liked. It’s loaded with something like a million websites approved for kids by teachers and parents. There area TON of websites for just about every topic a kid could want. I’m excited to try it out. If we like it, we may pay for the membership, which is really, really reasonable.

Anyway, Here’s a Manic Monday meme for today.

Do you screen your phone calls?
Yes, I do.

When was the last time you lost your temper? If we’re talking the last time I really blew my top, as opposed to the last time I got mad at the kids, it’s been awhile. I’m not easily ruffled, I guess, because I’m so laid back.

When you’re lost, do you ask for directions? I usually look at a map and try to figure it out myself first (if I’m alone). If I can’t, then I’ll ask for directions. I’m directionally challenged, so I usually always take hand-written directions with me so I don’t end up getting lost in the first place!

Today’s tackle is actually kind of a silly one. Well, not silly to me or my kids, but silly to think of it as something I needed to “tackle.” It is, however, something I’ve needed to do for several weeks and just keep putting off for some reason or another. It required major surgery.

The boys have these stuffed reindeer. I don’t know who gave them to the boys or where they got them. We have looked everywhere online to try to find replacements but have not had any luck. The best I can do is patch them up until they are too decrepit to do anything with. We tried to take Ryan’s away (his is red) because it looked awful; nasty, dirty, etc. He cried and cried and cried. I took a chance, washed it, and (luckily) it turned out fine.

So today, I finally fixed Zach and Alex’s reindeer. Both are missing legs, but Zach’s is legless. Here are pics of my tackle:

Before:

After:

(No before picture of Brownie, but you wouldn’t have seen the hole on him, anyway)

So, there’s my Tackle It Tuesday tackle for the week!

1. Please don’t tell me when the weekend is over. I like the weekends! Let me keep living in the weekend, even when it’s not.

2. Can you fast forward through the morning?

3. The color of sand makes me want to go on vacation to Hawaii!

4. I have a craving for sleep.

5. If my life had a pause button, I’d pause it all the time.

6. Eyes are the window to the soul. Cliche, I know. But I think you can tell a lot about a person by looking into their eyes.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to watching Monk & Psych, tomorrow my plans include work and possible a basketball game with some friends and Sunday, I want to go to church and relax with the family!

Alex can be such a goober sometimes. I snapped this this morning while he was “supposed” to be watching the Berenstain Bears….

Sadly, this came in a while ago. I just have been so busy with school and work I haven’t had a chance to participate yet! I was tagged by Melissa over atMultitasking Mama to list 6 random things about me that you all may not know. So, here goes!

1. I have a fear of public restrooms. I’ll use them if I have to, I just don’t like to. They completely gross me out.
2. I am not a very good housekeeper. The house isn’t dirty, per se, it just is a bit cluttered. I guess that could be attributed to the lack of storage space, but I’ll take responsibility for it.
3. I love books. Ok, probably not that random, but I really do. I just love the look and feel of them. Even if I don’t read them. Although, I’m an avid reader, too.
4. I am dreading turning 29 in January. It’s far too close to 30, and that scares me to death!
5. I am not an organized person by nature. It drives dh CRAZY because he is organized by nature. I try, and may stay organized for a couple of weeks, but I can’t make it stick for good. I’m trying, though.
6. I love to cook and bake. I am much more likely to bake a treat or birthday cake, for the kids or anyone, than I am to buy it.

Here are the people I’m tagging. I’m supposed to tag 6 people, but sadly, I don’t have that many people in my blog arsenal…So, I did 2 instead : Heather and LeeAndra.

Ugh. I don’t like Monday’s. They’ve never been a favorite day of mine. Usually it’s a day to go back to work or school, though it doesn’t mean either of those two things for me for another month. I just don’t like getting up on Monday morning. I mean, it isn’t like I have partied hard over the weekend and am regretting it Monday morning or anything. I just don’t like Mondays. “Back to the grind.” Oh, well.

Anyway, today is full of things to do. I’m making the boys’ new chore charts for next week…well, for next month, but they’ll start on Monday. I’ve also got some menu planning to do so that when school starts for me, the rest of the family isn’t left to starve at night, lol. Not that dh can’t cook. He can. It’ll just be easier for him if I have stuff already done and he just needs to warm it up.

In the spirit of getting into the week, here’s my Manic Monday post.

Every person you have ever slept with is invited to a banquet where you are the guest of honor. No one will be in attendance except you, the collection of your former lovers, and the catering service. After the meal, you are asked to give a fifteen-minute speech to the assembly.
What do you talk about? Ok, This one’s easy. I don’t! There is no assembly. Just dh.

What’s your favorite thing to do on a rainy day? Read a book

Are you a window person or an aisle person? Why? Window person. I love seeing the outdoors and I’ve only been on a plane a couple of times so being by the window and looking out at God’s beautiful landscape is always breathtaking to me.

I have no picture of the “before” for today’s tackle. It was sort of an impromptu thing. A few months ago, we bought a big potted plant with 6 different herbs and a tomato plant. In my kitchen window a basil plant has been sitting and so has Zach’s pea plant that he planted at school. All of these things have needed re-potting in bigger (or separate) pots for quite some time. The poor little kitchen basil plant looked all but dead, or dying, anyway. And Zach’s pea plant had nearly overtaken the basil plant and had grown up my window! There are even 2 little pea pods on it!

So, tonight while at WalMart, we picked up a couple of pots and some potting soil and decided to replant our herb garden appropriately. Here is the end result:

The kitchen window planter has (from l to r) rosemary, sage, oregano and dill

The left planter has the 2 basil plants together (the one from the kitchen window and the one from the big planter). The right planter has the tomato plant (with 3 little tomatoes!) and the parsley, which really took off and nearly took over the whole pot!

This last little pot is Zach’s pea plant from school. I really never expected a school plant to do so well! He’s so happy about it. As you can see, we had to rig some thin dowel rods and loosely tie the pea plant up. Maybe we’ll have a bunch of pods by the weekend?

Today is the first day of summer vaction here. After some quick calculating, it’s been determined that the twins had been in school 4 1/2 weeks longer than the rest of their classmates by the time school ended yesterday. They didn’t, of course, realize this, thank goodness. I mean, they understood that they had been in school a LONG time, but not that they had been in school any longer than their classmates. They are just glad to be done for the year. They’ve been waiting to stay up late (so to speak). It also might help with them actually going to sleep, since it’s still quite light out at 8:30 and they weren’t too into going to sleep when it appeared to still be “daytime” outside.

In honor of school being out, today’s Thursday Thirteen is all the fun things to do on summer vacation (some of these Ryan brought home from school from his teacher).

Thirteen Things to do during summer vacation 1. Take a walk 2. Read a book (or two, or three…) 3. Have a picnic lunch 4. Visit grandparents 5. Go to the library 6. Go to the zoo 7. Go to the Children’s Museum 8. Go to the Science Museum 9. Have a backyard carnival 10. Go swimming 10. Build sandcastles at the beach or park 11. Go stargazing 12. Make a lemonade stand 13. Go on a hike

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

I approached today’s tackle a bit differently. I didn’t tackle something that had to be cleaned, but rather something that needed to be “set up” in anticipation of school starting in the fall. Yes, I know, I’m 2 months early. There’s just so much that’s going to change when we all (myself included) start back to school in the fall that I want to start now so that I’m not scrambling to get it all done in the last couple of weeks of summer. So, here’s the first of my “getting ready for school” tackles

This will be our staging area, where book bags and coats are kept in anticipation for the next school day. I also hung a white board so that I can write down the kids’ monthly schedules. I have a weekly one on the fridge, but the month-in-review will be helpful, too. It’ll give me a better picture of what’s going on that month. I think it will also help dh, since he’ll be the one home with them in the afternoons while I’m at school and will need to know, also.