My Nice Clean Desk!

For weeks I have been trying to clean off the top of my desk. You wouldn't think it would need cleaning, since we just moved in here a little over 4 months ago. But flat spaces seem to accumulate stuff in my house, with myself as the chief offender. It's a lifelong work in progress, keeping flat spaces clean. Any, all I seemed to accomplish was moving piles, or parts of piles, from one side of the desk to another, but never really making a dent in the total massed accumulation.

Then earlier this week I read an article over at Zen Habits titled "Simple Living Simplified: 10 Things You Can Do Today to Simplify Your Life." Item #7 was "Clear your desk" and I immediately saw that the process it outlined might just work for me. It said to remove everything from the top of the desk, putting everything either in a pile on the floor in into a box. By doing this, I could actually get my organization plans in place and then deal with the items one at a time.

So this morning I found a box and put everything in it. Now I had room to set up my nice color-coded manila folders and envelopes I had purchased and get organized! Hopefully now I have a place for everything. Of course, I still have the box to work through, but at least I can see my desk top and I feel like I have a method in place to deal with everything in that box. So the goal for the rest of this week is to tackle that box, dealing with each item one at a time, until the box is empty. And I think I have until Thursday to accomplish that, since it sounds like Miss Munchkin is coming to visit Grandma again!

See how nice it looks? I should have taken a "before" picture, but believe me, you could not see any desk top and it was piled almost as high as the bottom of the monitors.

While I was working on my desk, the men were installing a wall mount and hanging our flat-screened TV over the fireplace in the living room. Again, I wish I had taken a before picture. The TV was sitting in front of the fireplace on top of an unfinished wooden chest. This looks so much better!

We are not quite done with the project. Now we have to find some sort of component unit that will hold the receiver, DVD player, etc. and also somewhat contain and conceal all the cords that seem to accompany all these wonderful electronic gadgets. Hopefully we can find what we want this next week and be able to finish this project up by next weekend. Then the old kitchen table can go into storage or be used elsewhere. And we'll have a nice orderly living room!

It feels good to be working on some of the projects we've left undone from our move. I still have a few things I want to finish:

• Hang my seashore quilt in the living room behind the couch
• Hang curtains over the window I bought for the dining room
• Get some matching picture frames to hang family pictures in a couple of spots (living room and dining room)

And here is a pic of Bill as he "watches" the Busch race.

I usually try to wake him if there were any exciting parts so he can watch the replay!

I Won!

Whoooeeeee! I won a blog contest! Amy held a blog contest for all her readers to celebrate her first full year of blogging. And I won one of her awards! I will be getting some Rhode Island chocolate (from The Chocolate Delicacy in East Greenwich, RI), Newport Coffee Traders coffee, and a Beachcombers Guide to the North Atlantic Seashore. Maybe I'll have to take a trip to New England beaches now! Well, not NOW, but sometime in the future. Thanks so much, Amy!!

Pirate Day!

Today is International Talk Like A Pirate Day!

Thanks to Molly for this one! Get your very own Pirate Name.

I'm Filthy Shannon Drake. What's your pirate name?

Pictures, As Promised

She loves to talk on the phone!

Wearing Grandpa's shoes and socks!

Poor Penelope

Penelope was involved in a traffic accident Sunday afternoon. No humans were injured (other than maybe some self-esteem damage), but Penelope suffered major cosmetic damage and is going to need extensive work done at the body shop. The estimate I received today was for just slightly over $3800. I think that is likely the most expensive pizza run we have sent a child on! (For those of you who don't remember who Penelope is, check the October 2006 blog archives for pics. I won't post pics here of how she looks now. She would be too embarrassed!)

So we are down to one car to use to get everyone to work and college and karate. David is learning how the local bus system works. It looks like we might be without the van for most of two weeks, so we'll have to decide whether we can continue the "car shuffle" or if we need to rent something to drive for the duration.

This weekend was a good one, even with the accident. Miss Munchkin stayed with Grandma and Grandpa from this past Thursday till Sunday. She is getting to that fun stage where she can somewhat entertain herself for a short while. She especially likes going "outside" (one of the few words you can understand) and on Saturday Grandma let her "discover" our balcony. She spent most of the rest of Saturday afternoon and all day Sunday going in and out, taking her cars and her ball and playing "outside."

Grandma and Grandpa learned some new signs this weekend, like butterfly and watermelon. Signing helps the communication issues, since Miss Munchkin is not saying very many words yet that you can really understand. She's funny ... When she wants to sign something and has her pacifier in her mouth, she takes the "passy" out of her mouth, either giving it to you or throwing it down, and then she signs and speaks at the same time. She does not seem to realize that you can sign without speaking.

I took some pictures of Miss Munchkin while she was here, so hopefully I will get a chance tomorrow to get them off the camera and upload a couple here! So watch for pics tomorrow!

American Sign Language

A couple of months ago we were discussing toddlers and temper tantrums on my Friday morning homeschool chat. One chatter mentioned that using the Signing Time series with her pre-speaking toddler had brought about good results in reducing temper tantrums. Since Miss Munchkin seemed to be just entering the temper tantrum stage, I sent away for the Baby Signing DVDs without even telling Kat about them! Was she ever surprised!

I just posted up an article telling about Miss Munchkin's experiences with sign language. It has been fun watching pure unschooling in action. When you have teens, you miss seeing the joy and excitement that little ones express when they learn something brand new.

Come on over and read American Sign Language (ASL) for Toddlers and Children.

Still Hot?

While I write about a hint of fall weather (the forecast mentions night time temps below 70 later this week), my daughter seems to be suffering from an overdose of heat and humidity. Read The Rebel Cause for a unique perspective on the effects of a Southern summer.