Surprise!

Yesterday, I got a phone call from Kelly, and Surprise! I'm getting a visit from her today! She and her friend Kait are going with their boyfriends to the Arcade Fire concert in Georgia, but Colton and Bryce (the boyfriends) will be at the lake today. So Kelly and Kait are coming here to hang with me while they wait for the boys to get back. Yay!!

That also means that I really need to get out of my bed and clean my house. Because it's a disaster, and I've never met Kait before, and while Kelly can handle my messiness, I'm not sure if that's the kind of first impression I want to put out there to Kelly's friends. Motivation? I've got some.

Time to get a move on!

Tuesday!

Goals for today (before Mark gets home around 4:30):

-clean my house. the whole thing. i'm over the mess.
-choose pictures of the cruise to scrapbook. yes, i'm miserably behind.
-get an enormous amount of laundry done.
-finish my current roll of film, and take two rolls to be developed.

It's 9:30 now. And I still need to shower. I think these goals might be a tad bit lofty. We'll see.

Oh, the joys of part-time homemaking. But honestly - if we were rich, and I could just do this all the time, I would love it.

25, and grown up

I think I'm finally starting to feel like a grown-up.

I don't really know why it's taken me this long... Well, I do know part of it. During the 2 years in which I worked nights, I didn't feel like a grown-up. I didn't feel like much of anything, actually, except a zombie.

But now that Mark is working daily, and I'm making breakfast and sending him off and have a pretty sweet morning routine ... I like it. Working on the weekends gives me the best of both worlds. I'm a housewife during the week, and I've gotten into a really great routine of cleaning and cooking (we haven't been out to eat for dinner since Kelly came to visit), and I love it. I feel like a real person. With a real life. And I still get to do what I love on Saturday and Sunday as well. It's a pretty sweet deal.

I've discovered some interesting things about myself during this process...

I actually like washing the dishes (which has always been my least favorite chore)  - but only if I do it in the morning. And with my iPod playing.

Cooking makes me incredibly happy. Eating, even more so :)

I like it when my house is clean. Therefore, I clean it. I know, very basic concept ... but it's taken me years to figure this out. (More like years to actually get up the motivation to DO the cleaning...) I've probably still got years to go before it's always the way I want it. Actually, let's be honest. That will probably never happen.

Speaking of, I need to go and conquer some of that cleaning. And dish-washing. And cooking. I'm making Mark a pie today, and the kitchen needs to be cleaned (first, before I start the pie, and then again after the pie ... why oh why can't they invent a self-cleaning kitchen??)

What are your favorite/least favorite household chores?

Hurray!!

My 21-year-old (not-so) baby sister is coming today!!!

Seriously, does she not look like a model/movie star?

So, in preparation of this lovely event, I kind of have a lot to do. I need to go to the grocery store (2, actually, Publix AND Whole Foods) and buy a LOT of food, and I need to vacuum the house since Mark couldn't get our vacuum back from Andy and Suzie until later last night, and I need to do some general tidying. Mark cleaned the kitchen and dusted (!!) yesterday, and cleaned his half of the office, so that was a large help. Thanks baby!

I need to make myself a timeline-to-do-list, and get crackin'. I can't wait for Kelly to get here!

Busy Bee!

The last couple of days have been wonderfully productive for me. I've been such a busy little bee around the house - it's nice, actually. Now that Mark is doing his internships (he has 2 this summer), he's getting up at 8 every morning, which is extra incentive for me to get out of the bed. I always wake up around 6:30 or 7, but tend to waste lots and lots of time on the interwebs before actually rolling out of bed and getting something accomplished.

But not lately! The last two days have been a whirlwind of cleaning and scurrying around - I've ironed a TON, I'm nearly caught up completely with the laundry (amazing!), the menu and grocery list for next week are complete, the kitchen is clean, our bedroom is clean, the office is nearly clean. Checked off Kelly's birthday present today, and ran some other errands.

On tomorrow's agenda: mop the floors and clean the bathrooms. Fun times.

I can't wait for next week though - it will be so fun! I'm having 2 bigger birthday meals for Kelly - one will be nice, elegant, with candles and a tablecloth and my new china and we'll dress pretty and let her try wine. And the other will be fun and casual, with Mexican food and mojitos! I think it will be a really, really fun week :)

P.S. We haven't eaten out at all again this week! So proud of us!

P.S.S. (do you remember back in middle school when you just kept adding S's to your post scripts? Well I'm doing it now.) In 12 days, this blog will celebrate it's one-year anniversary! I can't believe how much time has passed, and how much life has changed (mainly for the better!)

Domestic Goddess (and Blogger addict)

Lately, I have been addicted to this blog. And finding new people to follow. Maybe it's because I've been off four days in a row now? (Crazy, I know... I love it!!)

Current update (rather than just posting 2 and a half year old wedding pics...):

-My new love:
This!
Which matches PERFECTLY with my current bedding:
This!
(Even though it doesn't look like they match in the pictures...)
Now I just need some new shams, because all we really have is the matching pillowcases, plus some off-white ones, and our bedding will (finally) be complete.
I also got a new ottoman for upstairs, and some new pillows during that shopping trip. It was a good day :)

Also! Today was SO productive for me!! We opened a savings account (again, finally), because we have a decent bit of extra cash from me working extra, and Mark's refund check, etc. etc. That brings me a lot of peace of mind. We're also going to get a pretty nice tax return, so that (or part of it, at least) can go into savings as well. For the first time in quite a while, I feel like we're getting a handle on things, financially. It's a nice feeling. We're definitely not where I'd like to be, but we're definitely not doing too shabby, with only me working, especially.

I also cleaned the entire house. Well - the entire house minus the office. But the bathrooms are scrubbed and clean, the bedroom looks AMAZING, laundry is FINALLY getting under control. Downstairs is vaccuumed. The table is clean. Yay!!! What prompted me to do all this, you might ask? Well, everything needed to be cleaned for one thing, but I had a Mary Kay facial scheduled for tonight, and there is no motivator like a stranger coming into your house! I even made cookies and had smelly-good candles on the table. Aren't I just Miss Hospitality?

As if all that cleaning wasn't domestic enough, I came up with a new little decorating idea for our bedroom! It's practical, too. Several months ago (around Thanksgiving, maybe?), I bought this little gem on sale at Hobby Lobby for like $10:


This picture doesn't do it justice (probably because I took it with PhotoBooth on my Mac), but it is SUCH a precious basket! It also matches perfectly with all the colors in our bedroom and bathroom. But I didn't really know what I was going to do with it. It's just sort of been sitting up there on the dresser, catching lonely socks and being hidden under massive piles of clothes. Until today...







It's my new book-keeper! Sadly, I will have to get up and get out of the bed to get a book in the mornings, but what I like is that it will keep all the books I'm currently reading sort of together in one place rather than being strewn about the floor (where most things usually end up.) Things I'm reading now (since my Mac takes pictures backwards...):

Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan
Food Rules by Michael Pollan
Cure: Unknown by Pamela Wientraub
The Complete Works of Jane Austen (I got a bit bogged down in this one)

And I'm about to start The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver (my very most favorite author ever!)

So excited! (About the books, and my book basket!)

To do tomorrow:
-Iron like crazy.
-More laundry. Even though I've made a dent, it never ends.
-Make Mark a grocery list for this weekend.
-Get my passport? (For our cruise!!! We leave in 94 days!!!)
-Figure out how to cook a new chicken recipe.
-Clean the kitchen AGAIN. Honestly. I don't know why it can't figure out how to clean itself...

And on that note, I think I will go wash my face, put on my pjs, crawl into my comfy, comfy bed (I LOVE our bed), and read my new book. I'm such an old lady...

"you're being a busy bee..."

What Mark said to me after he got up yesterday (at 11:00). I actually got some stuff done.

My most major accomplishment, though, was cleaning the bathtub - it had this nasty gray-looking soap-scummy stuff on the bottom, and scrubbin' bubbles never even touched it. I'd clean it and clean it and get absolutely nowhere. So yesterday, I decided to try something new.



This stuff is incredible. I use it on my stainless steel cookware when it has nasty stainy smudges on it, and it'll take everything off. So, in a small stroke of genius, I realized you could use it in the bathroom too. And now my tub is white. WHITE. Whiter than it's ever been, even when we first moved in. There are a few spots around the edges that my arms were too tired to scrub (and scrub, you have to do for it to work on soap scum that thick), but the difference is absolutely incredible. I HIGHLY recommend this product. It's amazing.

In other news, things that I am excited about:

-After another 2 days of work tom. and sunday, we are headed to Nashville (again!) to celebrate Lissa's birthday! It will be a lovely time, as always. And extra exciting: we're going on a triple-date with Mark and I, Matthew and Lissa, and Price and Mel! Yay!!
-Two more days of work, and then it's Christmas Week! 2 and a half days with my family, plus 2 and a half days with Mark's family = lots of fun! (And lots of mileage on my car...) Which reminds me, I need to get my oil changed...
-Two more days of work, and then Kelly comes! She's staying the week of New Year's, and I'm not quite sure what we're doing, but it will be a fun time with her here :)
-Then THREE days of work (yay for $$$!) and we'll be off to Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg for a 3-night vacation with Andy and Suzie. We're staying here and I am so excited and it will be just lovely :) Can't wait!!

And now, I'm off to my job as editor/proof-reader for my hubby - who got an A in his first class! Woo!! He's such a smart-y :)

Squeaky Clean!

Today has been an exceptionally productive sort of day, despite the fact that I've been fighting a killer (allergy-related?) headache on and off for about 6 hours. Normally when I clean, I start with the downstairs - kitchen, dining area, living room - and then head to both bathrooms, and by the end, I'm just too tired to get to our bedroom. Not so today! Our room was where I started, and man, I cleaned it from top to bottom. It started out with laundry baskets everywhere, clothes in them AND on the floor, papers and other trash-type things strewn about, our bed was in shambles...

And now, clean, tidy bliss :) Clothes are organized by color in baskets, and I've made a rather large dent in the amount needing to be washed (although, if I could use OUR washer and dryer rather than the apartment's tiny stackable ones, I would've been done already...). Washed the sheets, remade the bed, picked up and threw away all trash, put away shoes, and vaccuumed :) Bathroom is also clean. And thanks to the hubby-extraordinaire, the kitchen is too! Tomorrow after church and lunch, I plan to break out my vaccuum again and finish that mess, and then mop. These next couple of weeks are going to be rather busy, so getting the major stuff done now will be a big help :)

After all that cleaning, I'm a bit tired. It's a quiet night tonight - cold weather always comes and makes me quiet and introspective. Fall calms me down. In the spring, I'm bursting at the seams with excitement, energy, cabin-fever from the winter season - the second the weather hits about 70 degrees, and new green blades of grass are starting to poke out from the earth, my t-shirts are on, my flip-flops are out, and I HAVE TO GET OUTSIDE. I have to GO and DO and BE EVERYTHING and life is lived and felt in ALL CAPS, ALL THE TIME. I'm giddy, every time the sun comes out. It's like a big OD on Vitamin D or something, I don't know. But in the fall, all that is subdued. It's not that I'm depressed or anything - just calmer. I go slower. I tend to savor things more. I get nest-y. And now, fall has officially returned. My sweaters have come out, and a chill is hanging in the air. It makes me want to carve a pumpkin, go on a hayride, make crafty things with leaves and gourds. Mark loves this kind of weather. He said yesterday that he wanted to move somewhere where the weather is like this about 70% of the time. With the other 30 being much, much colder. I'm not too sure about that idea, but we'll see if we can't work out some sort of compromise... (I told him I'd live in a cold place if he bought me lots and lots of nice, cute, very very warm things. Like parkas. and Everest-ready garb.) But for now, I'm content with the 40's-50's, and will break out the flannel and drink hot chocolate, and use my kitty (who likes to sit in my lap while I'm trying to type on my laptop) as a blanket.

And once again, I can't reiterate enough, I am so content here. Where we are, where I am... I am so very, very glad that we moved when and where we did. And I'm so thankful that we have what we do. We're blessed, for sure :)

scrub-a-dub-dub...

Only not three men in a tub, but my house and clothes...

It's been cleaning day at the Skinners' house. I'm taking a short break before the ironing begins...

I've done laundry like a maniac today. My fall/winter clothes are now organized in my closet, and my summer stuff is almost all packed away - just the things that need to be washed are left (and things I wear year-round for layering, which won't be put away...) Getting out the next season's clothes is always a happy time for me. It's like revisiting old friends, and old memories, and it makes me look forward to what is to come.

Off the subject, but...
I just have to say - I'm so happy here. Best decision we ever made, moving here. Life is so good. I really, really miss my family, and my old unit... but this is the right place for us. I am so thankful for everything that's been happening lately :)

A day in the life...

Housewife-ing it again today. I don't know what has come over me, but I vacuumed the entire house today. We are not having houseguests. We are not moving. (These are typically the reasons that I vacuum.) Those of you who know me probably think I'm off my rocker. I may very well be. But in the last two days, I've cleaned the upstairs bathroom (including the shower), cleaned the kitchen (twice) including the floor (once), vacuumed the house, did 3 loads of laundry (granted, they were tiny loads, as the inside of our washer is about the size of a large pumpkin), generally straightened things up...

Have I gone mad?

I think it's a combination of several things. 1)I'm getting old. Yes, I know what you're thinking - I'm only 24. That isn't old. But I feel old. And what else can you call a person who gets abnormally excited about getting a brand new vacuum cleaner for her birthday but old?? (I still LOVE my vacuum, btw. It makes vacuuming that much more fun. Why do I love it so much? It works.) I like to cook. I'm beginning to sort of tolerate cleaning. (Which is saying a lot for me.) Yesterday, I, much to my dismay, found a shirt that I am decidedly too old to wear. I look dumb in it. So ... yeah. I'm old.
2) I actually really like this place. It's the first time that I've really been proud of where we've lived - the first place was ehh, mediocre. The second, we VASTLY improved the aesthetics of, but that's not saying much. Mark's dad called it "Mark and April's Bait and Tackle shop." Not a good thing, when it's your place of residence. At least we didn't own it, and therefore didn't really have to claim it. But here - I love. It's bright, and feels roomy, particularly for an apartment (townhouse, actually.) It has these precious little wooden rails between the dining room and living room. (Those rails totally SOLD me on the place. I. Love. Them.) We have nice decorations and furnishings (aside from our OLD OLD couches, which don't even look too bad.) The lighting is good, particularly with the help of our lamps. The kitchen is small, but functional. The painting we've done, and it wasn't nearly as much as the last place, really completed the look we were going for. It's comfortable, it's quiet, it's spacious, and just... nice. Not to say that it doesn't have problems - I hate hate hate the washer/dryer, and I'm not fond of the dishwasher, and the oven is teensy and we only have one oven rack. (Ridiculous!) But ... all that is not so bad, considering what we have. So I like to keep it looking nice. Which ... makes cleaning tolerable.
3) I wanna be a housewife. Plain and simple. And the desire is growing - so therefore, so are my efforts.
4) I'm not working at all while I'm in the 'ham, as of right now. I do all my work in Chattanooga, and then I come here, and I get to play housewife for a week. So what else am I going to do besides keep things looking nice and baking? We have NO MONEY to shop with (so sad. Cause I could go nuts.) We have NO MONEY to go out to eat with (also sad, since we have friends here). So ... I cook. And I clean. And ... I like it :)

In other news, I'm still farming obsessively (particularly when I should be studying for my NRP test, which is Thursday.) I'm still (obvioulsy) blogging. I'm making a list of things to ask my potential new manager when I touch base with her tomorrow or Tuesday. And I really, really am not excited about going back to Chattanooga to work on Wednesday :(