10 Things I Need To Remember

Sometimes I need to remember....

1. This will be the only summer they are 6, 5, and 3.
2. 97 cents is an amazing deal on a beach ball that entertains them for hours.
2a. They will play with those expensive toys again soon.
3. Mud washes off with a little bit of soap and water.
4. Sand vacuums out of carpets when tracked in by little feet.
5. Catching bugs that creep me out is a good way to show how God gives us strength to face those fears...
5a. and learn about nature in a real hands-on way.
6. Oobleck is messy but not near as grossly messy as gak.
7. Those stained clothes will soon be outgrown.
8. Summer is definitely a shorter season than winter.
9. Late bedtimes just mean more memories
9a. and less time to wake me up at night!
10. This messy family is a dream come true during good times and bad!

The Bargain Bathroom

I told you about our medicine cabinet bargain. Due to a gift card from a generous friend, we were able to replace the wooden bathroom fixtures with ones that are more our style. Ttal cost to us $5. The curtain was bought by my mother for a single window we had in our second house. It desperately needs to be hemmed for this window, and will be as soon as the second set of curtains and Easter clothes are created! We also need to paint, but for now - here is our bargain bathroom!

This house is clean.

You will notice a suspicious lack of bedrooms in our IA house. This is because they are not clean, nor are some of them fully unpacked. But Tuesday, while Mr. Curly was out of town, I "finished" unpacking.

Our living room from the front door.

This is my music/crafting corner. It still needs some work. But if I remove Mr. Curly's light box from the table (great for taking pictures of small projects!), then the pile is material for curtains and Easter outfits and my sewing machine fits perfectly. To the left of the front door, our office area. A few more boxes here, but nothing horrible.

Dining room. And the bookshelves.

Kitchen (The laundry room is just beyond the kitchen - the pile there is clean laundry I folded after taking pictures, and the shop vac will most likely be taken out to the garage once it is cleaned out). Right side of kitchen. We plan on covering the deep freeze in louann (a thin veneer wood) to make it match the cabinet there and dress it up a bit. The hallway and bathroom!

Title Post from "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective"

We have gads of books! Mountains of books!

About 6 years ago for Mr. Curly's birthday I bought him a set of office furniture. Now, not expensive office furniture, but still, instead of working off of an old chair in the guest room, he had a desk, filing cabinets, bookshelves.... And, if I don't say so myself, he enjoyed it. It was helpful as he worked his way through a master's degree and began his preaching career.

And with the exception of the desk (which was an armour style desk and went to my parents when we cut the old entertainment center into a desk), we are still using that office furniture.


When I bought the bookshelves, I imagined there would be plenty of room for all of our books. For 6 years I've been wrong. For 6 years they have been absolutely packed and overflowing with theology, divinity and other religious books.


But now, well, now he has an office, in a different building, with built in bookshelves.

So now these bookshelves are in my dining room, and look like this:



Please ignore the unpacking mess. We're working on it. And honestly, I thought they would be more full than that once I unpacked all my books that have been sitting in tubs in the attic for 3 years now (before that they were under our bed).


Though I have realized I have, maybe, a slight obsession. In the first picture, the bookshelf on the right has a shelf and a half of history books. No big surprise, I was a history major, I should have nonfiction history books. But out of that shelf and a half, three-quarters of a shelf is civil war and gilded era books. And of those books, three-quarters of them are on gunfighters, specifically Doc Holliday (this will come to no surprise to those who know me).


But I suppose it's good to have a theme. Just in case I ever really do start that master's program.


Post title from Beauty and the Beast.

Dust in the Wind....

I'm from Kansas. Not originally, it isn't where I was born, but from the time I was 8, until I was 25, my family lived in various parts of the state. Kansas is home. When travelling to visit family, all we have to do is cross over the state border and I breathe easier.

I spent my last half of grade school and most of middle school living in a small town in central Kansas. This is the co-op at the end of main street.

Source

After that, we moved way out to the Outback. We lived there during high school and my first year of college. And since I was horribly homesick that first year of college, I would drive home every 3 weeks, an 8 hour trip one-way across the state. And on my way home, I would stop and peer through the wooden fence at this:

Source

I can't even tell you how many pictures of Kansas sunsets I have. Or how many times I marvelled at the flat, treeless beauty of the state once you get past Kinsley on Highway 50.

And though I spent college just a few blocks from an AMC 30, I still pine for the old, one-screen theater where I saw most my movies in the summer on Tuesday nights for half price tickets, and 50 cent popcorn and pop! I know, it would sound much more romantic to say "where I saw my first movie" but I saw my first move 1.5 hrs from home, in the city, on a friend's birthday. 7 Years In Tibet. Yep, I never went to a theater until that movie was released.

And I was so hooked. The movies were magical for me. They still are. Which is why I love that my first date with Mr. Curly was to see American Outlaws. It was a great date. After the movie he told me about his grandpa, and we talked about John Wayne. Coincidentally, my last date with Mr. Curly was to see True Grit and afterwards we talked about his grandpa and John Wayne....

Somethings never change, and I'm glad they don't.

But, still, no matter how much I enjoyed my dates with Mr. Curly at the AMC, this theater will always hold a special place in my heart. Just like Kansas does.

Source

Oh - and if you're looking for a great book on Kansas, read Flyover People by Cheryl Unruh (a childhood friend of my mom's!)

Post title from Kansas.

Little houses, little houses, little houses made of ticky-tack

Our house is officially on the market!

It opened to realtors at 10:00 a.m. on Tuesday, and to the public at 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday. At 5:30 Tuesday night we had our first showing.

According to our realtor, it went really well. They did notice we have a cat (who wasn't present, but they detected an odor). We expected this. Non-cat people will smell it every time, no matter how much you clean. Though if Mr. Curly hadn't had to rush out last minute, a candle would've been lit and that would have helped. That's Curly Girl for you though. You're in a hurry and she dawdles and takes her time.... You think we'd know better by now!

Anyway, we have a few more tweaks to make on the electrical service we updated last fall and then our inspector will sign off on it and the house will be good to go.

Here's praying for more awesome showings and a bidding war! :)

Still they go and shuffle, shuffle off to Buffalo

The second weekend of communting went MUCH better.

We had food AND cookware. We remembered to turn the gas water heater from pilot to on. We took a TV and DVD player. Now, this is not really essential, but on Saturday nights when the kids are in bed, Mr. Curly is at the church going over his sermon, and I have no library card, well USA and my collection of movies are my best friends those nights!

Saturday morning I took the kids to the nearest mall, only 25 minutes away!!! This is a vast improvment over the 1 hour 15 minutes I usually have to drive. And this mall is a real mall. That whole area of town is like heaven! The shops I love, the restaurants I love! All within an easy drive of our new home.

Saturday night, before the kids's bedtime, we went for a walk around the block. We live on a LONG block due to the high school and middle school being right by the church. Curly Boy insisted on walking the entire thing himself, so it took us about an hour. But an hours walk, never crossing the street, enjoying the beautifully still warm weather? Completely marvelous.

Sunday we were invited to a hay ride and hot dog roast. Curly Girl LOVED cooking hot dogs over the fire (with Mr. Curly's help of course), but refused to eat them!

All in all, a fabulous weekend. We wish we could just live there full time right now!

On a scary note - the door of our gas oven (how awesome is that? I learned to cook on a gas oven & stove and am thrilled to have one again), gets super super burnable hot when cooking. Any ideas on why that might be?

Post title from 42nd Street

I know the upside to downsizing and the downside to upgrading....

Things are going to get a little odd come October. See, in October, Mr. Curly begins his new pastoral position at a church in Iowa.

Only, we can't officially move there until we sell our house here. It's only 2.5 hours away from where we currently call home, and the church has provided us with a house here.

That's where things get kind of sticky. Currently, we live in a 2-story 4 bedroom, 2 bath, with a laundry room, family room and formal room 1912 farmhouse dreamhome. I LOVE this house. And I say HOUSE on purpose, because since we've moved in, it has been in a constant state of remodeling, so it never really became home. Curly Boy's room was a storage room until 2 months before he arrived. We never have used the formal sitting room, and my piano, tucked into the entryway, has been covered with remodeling tools and dust 75% of the time. There has never been a night where Mr. Curly and I sit and say "Wow, it's finally fully ours."

So leaving it, selling it, isn't too horrible. It's just the DOWNSIZING that scares me.

The parsonage (pastor's home owned by the church) is nice. It's a three bedroom, 1 bath home built sometime between 1910 and 1920. What was once probably a formal parlor (it has pocket doors) has been converted into a front bedroom (thus the three bedrooms). The front room is HUGE, as they took a covered porch and made it an official part of the interior home.

The bedrooms for the kids will be bigger, and yet seem somehow smaller than what they are in currently, but I think that is a shape issue. And really, I've only been in this parsonage twice very briefly.

I think the downsizing will be good. Yes, Mr. Curly (and subsequently I) will lose a home office, but Mr. Curly will have an office in the church. It will be good for him to get out of the house. And with such a huge front room, I can partion a corner for my desk and files.

I think downsizing will be good. It will ensure that we stay organized and clean. That all files are put away at the end of the day, that toys are regularly sorted for what really needs to be kept, and what hasn't been played with for ages.

I think downsizing will be good. The kitchen is much smaller, but that means less counters to gather clutter (a problem for me, I'm a piler). There is a great pantry with cabinets and shelves that I am actually very excited about organizing.

I think downsizing will be good. Except, I'm losing an awesome laundry room. My laundry room currently holds my washer/dryer, a dresser full of sewing supplies, a crafting table, shelves full of games, scrapbooking supplies, memory boxes and toys of "when I'm older" for my kids. I do lament the loss of my laundry room.

I think downsizing will be good. We will have a gorgeous dining room, and a bathroom that is actually normal sized instead of a bedroom that was converted to a bathroom when indoor plumbing became big. The parsonage bathroom, like our current bathroom, has the door to the walk up attic in it. Only, they've added shelves and towel racks in the stairwell for more storage.

I think downsizing will be good. I just have to have a discerning and editorial eye while packing and sorting and deciding what we absolutely need.

I think downsizing will be good. I think downsizing will be good. I think downsizing will be good. I think downsizing will be good. I think downsizing will be good. Won't it?



Post Title from "George Carlin: Life is Worth Losing."