To do or not to do?

So another full week and a half have gone by without a post. No excuses just that we have finally had some consecutive days of absolutely beautiful weather and I am finally trying to work out the summer routine. As always, I am trying to balance the activities, "at home" time and the to-do list. But that is no different than normal, I guess, only that I also want the moments to just sit out and enjoy the warm sun. Perhaps now that it does not appear that it will be raining/storming/wind blowing 90 miles an hour everyday, maybe it will be easier to get the routine down and work in a few projects as well.

Speaking of projects, BooMama is hosting a "before and after" bloggy extravaganza and I am considering participating. Because I for one could use a little accountability and might actually accomplish one of the projects that way. But then The List. The List is so long. Where to start? And how much can I reasonably expect to accomplish with Princess Pigtails and The Little Man here with me?

But the project I am considering tackling is this: The basement bathroom. Because it houses our only real shower (so really it is the equivalent to the main bath even though it is in the basement) I think that the impact would be significant. And quite honestly it is ugly. It was ugly long before we bought this old house. I've tried to tone it down by painting the upper part of the wall blue and accessorizing with blues and tans, but really how successful are my efforts going to be when the tile that goes half way up the wall all the way around is green. Like celery green. And the towel bars and toilet paper holder? Made of the same tile and tiled to the tiled wall. It is really quite lovely if you are obsessed with celery green in the tile form. And the floor? Varying shades of green in 1" tile. The ceiling also needs to be finished from a dry wall patch job that DH had to do when he replaced the vent/fan.

Possible solutions: Ideally, I would like to gut the whole thing and start over. However, I do not believe that is realistic. So, other options? I read recently that you can paint tile. I could just paint it. I mean what's the worst that can happen? Other than it looks horrible, I hate it and tear it down any way? The other possibility is just to take the leap and pray that the dry wall will be in decent shape and pull the tile off? But what condition can I expect the drywall to be in? Anyone know?
And the floor? Can I just vinyl over top of it? Also, I would like to paint the cabinets. But not sure--black? Paint the walls a warm brown? The towels currently in this bathroom are a light blue, navy blue and tan. The toilet and sink are white and the shower surround is tan. I am open to suggestions. Anyone have ideas?

It's Not Easy Being Green

This is the year that spring wasn't. At least here in the upper Midwest. But this weekend was finally chock-full of awesome weather. It was a great weekend to work on our "list" and had a very productive weekend.

Saturday morning, I whipped up a batch of oven pancakes (a favorite of mine from childhood) and we discussed the plan for the day. After breakfast, I headed out to our local garden center and got the plants for the pots and baskets around here as well the plants and seeds for the garden.

While I was gone, sans kiddos--BTW!, DH tackled replacing the first of three screen doors at our house that have long surpassed their useful life and just need to go. This is the first time he has replaced screen doors and let me say that I am so proud of him for sticking to it! It definitely took longer than either of us expected and a few "golf words" were used but the completed product looks oh so nice!

Upon my return from the center de gardening, I worked on cleaning out my flower beds and getting things ready to go. To be honest, I always do a very poor job of winterizing my flower beds and consequently have lots of work to do come spring when I am anxious to get the plants in the ground. Anywhoo, got most everything cleaned up and the beds, pots, baskets all planted. Wahoo. And ouch, because Sunday morning my body reminded me of the self-inflicted "manual labor" that had occurred.

Last on the list Saturday afternoon was to get the garden going. For the record, I very much enjoy garden fresh produce. I like the idea of a garden. Having spent so much time at my grandparents' in the summer, I am not unaware of the amount of work that it is to keep a garden up. And yet, somehow in the spring, a garden always sounds like fun. However, in actuality, I do not find gardening to be "fun". There is very little about gardening that I enjoy. It's really not so much the picking of the produce that I dislike. Okay, it is the picking. And the weeding of the plants-which I guess is basically the whole concept of gardening, huh? Possible reasons to explain my lack of fondness for gardening:

• Tending a garden demands working OUTSIDE regardless of weather conditions--simply not a fan of extreme heat and humidity. Give me 75, sunny and zero humidity and I'd be happy...
  
• There are bugs, lots and lots of bugs. The thought that the mosquito should be classified as the Minnesota state bird isn't too far fetched.
  
• Did I mention, working outside in the heat and humidity? And the bugs? Enough said.

Typically, we start out each spring with great intentions and then by the middle of June I am done with it. I sit back and hope that enough Miracle-Gro has been used that our plants will out grow the weeds! I do a little better job with my pots, baskets and beds--but I think that is because the whole prospect is less overwhelming. I can do one bed this morning, another tonight, etc. I always feel like I need to take on the entire garden in one setting and that, my friends, is a lot of work.

At some point, DH usually steps in, goes to battle and cleans up the garden. So, this year he shared with me that he had read that you can lay newspaper down around your plants and between the rows in your garden to prevent the growth and spread of weeds. Similar to the black landscaping tarp, only this will degrade and eventually just dissolve into the ground. I guess it would be a "green" weed control option. I'm not much of any expert on any of it, but the thought that it would help cut down the amount of weeding to be done--you can imagine my enthusiasm! DH sent me to one of our barns to grab some old newspapers out of the "burn" pile. Never mind, that as I was spreading the papers on the garden I noticed that the first stack was dated September 18, 2005. Ahh, the weekend that Princess Pigtails was born. Sweet memories... Please no criticism about the fact that we had 2 1/2 year old newspapers laying around. In a barn. That's not the point. So, we laid newspapers out and watered them down. We lost a couple on Saturday night when the wind came up. DH ran out and retrieved them. Sunday--not so much wind, so I guess that's why it wasn't a problem yesterday. But this morning? Another issue.

This was the view out my dining room window:
Here let me zoom in. Does this help?

This was after Princess Pigtails and I had already been out once and collected a ton of papers. Let me just say, where the papers are blown up against the prairie grass? Not right next to our garden. In fact, the grass and the lilac bushes are the only things keeping the newspapers from continuing to blow to Fargo! But Princess seemed to thoroughly enjoy the game of running after the papers and "catching" them. I think perhaps we will play another round when she gets up from her nap!

In retrospect, perhaps we should have placed some straw on top of the papers after they were watered down. Because we totally have some straw around here. In a barn. Thank you very much.

We are so in the Zone

Occassionally, around casa de Mama we have a rare couple of days where things are just going smoothly and things are getting crossed off The List. I don't mean to brag, but more to say that if it can happen around here, then there are still miracles done in our midst!
Perhaps it was spurred on by the "predictions"/"threats" of local meterologists that this was going to be our last decent weekend until June. Maybe it was the inspiration brought on by a very "exciting" (I use that term loosely) Friday night trip to the Home Depot. Or maybe there was some type of planentary line up--I'm not sure, but while I was at a meeting on Saturday morning, Hubs and DD made lunch and started dinner. (Which eliminated at least a solid hour of discussion on what sounded good--what can I say? I'm indecivise at best when it comes to meal planning.) Saturday afternoon, Hubs put up the plastic on the back porch windows--because yes, we are klassy like that and we live in an old drafty house. I have a fancy new dimmer switch on the bathroom light. Sunday afternoon was cleaning out the gutter across the back of the house and check it--putting up the outside Christmas lights! It's the little things.
As of last night, ALL of the laundry was done, FOLDED and put away. Clean sheets on every bed and everything vaccumed! DD and I baked chocolate chip cookies in the afternoon. I made chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes (thanks to Hubs for help on the gravvy), and green beans for dinner. Our fun family activity was to defrost both of the big freezers last night.
Needless to say, I'm feeling the inspiration beginning to drain. And I need a nap and ideas for supper. And if there is still time in the day--possibly search for a life.