My office

As promised (once upon a time), here are before and after pictures of my office. 

(Click to enlarge.)

Not a huge difference, I'll admit. But it feels heavenly. Basically, I sat down and actually went through all my scrapbooking stuff and weeded stuff out. I also realized that I was able to store everything much more efficiently once I stopped trying to keep things separated out as before...back in the day when I needed to be able to track where everything came from (which manufacturer or program I'd received the supplies from so that I could accurately credit them). So. Don't worry. I still have a good portion of the stuff...it's just better stored now. ;)

(Still, yes, whether or not we'll end up having a spring garage sale remains to be seen, lol, though I did already donate a few bags to a worthy cause, Kenna's Kards. Nathan and Noah met this lovely young lady not long ago at a local presentation featuring some young entrepreneurs. Nathan was impressed enough by her that he's helped her with her new website. Go check it out!)

We then took out the wire shelves and got new lovely IKEA shelves and, voila, I now have enough room to store all the homeschool related piles on the ground and desktops and can see the floor. It's awesome. As a treat, I even splurged on that cute clearance stool. ;) (You can't see it well in the "before" pictures, but I'd been using a cheap plastic stool that I found at Walmart years ago for a buck. Asher's now happily using it in his room.)

I still have a few more little tweaks I'm planning to make, but am mostly just so happy. It feels fabulous to be able to actually use my office...and it's always refreshing to purge. ;)

(says she who also tackled the kitchen last weekend with Nathan's help/reluctant agreement, lol, and weeded out a huge box of stuff that was just taking up space and making storing things difficult, lol)

Hacked.

Just wanted to say sorry to any who received a stupid spam email from me last night. (Don't click the link!) My account was hacked, but I was alerted almost immediately and have changed my password and all. Bleh.

Another Ten on Tuesday

It's not exciting or anything, but at least it helps me record what's going on around here. :)

1. Asher attended his first AmeriTowne Towne day yesterday down in Denver and had a blast. After listening to Noah rave about the program for three years, he was pretty excited to get to experience it himself. Here he is at the start of the day in front of the Warehouse...where he was the accountant:

2. Speaking of Asher, he's still not back to activities (karate and PE and just his normal running about) and it may drive him bonkers. I thought keeping the kid low key after breaking his arm was tough, but trying to keep him off his feet is just crazy. After consulting the doctor again and my baby brother (who's a physical therapist), we decided to let him start slowly to ease back into activity...as in, he's allowed this week to wear his normal shoes (instead of the sandal Nathan rigged with a metal bar to keep it from bending), though he's still been instructed that he can only *walk*...no running or jumping. We attempted, too, to walk in the house without any shoes but discovered fairly quickly that that still hurts. So. He's out of karate for at least this week still and potentially next. Poor kid's miserable.

3. I spent much of last week sorting and purging and reorganizing my office. It's looking pretty good and I'm happy. A few final details that I'm waiting on and then I'll post pictures. :)

4. Incidentally, thanks in part to that office project, we now have a guest room full of stuff again and are contemplating whether it's worth it to hold a garage sale this spring. It's not nearly the amount of stuff we had last summer (though I've not gone through the kitchen yet and that's next on my list, lol) but it seems that maybe we should make some effort to recoup some of the money invested in all this stuff. Hmm.

5. We've been reading through the Harry Potter books as a family lately and watching each movie in turn. I love that the boys want/beg to spend our evening time this way! (We've done this in spurts with different book series and also did finally get rid of our cable/digital tv a few months ago...haven't missed it!) I find it entertaining to see how very immersed Micah gets...he's sooooo mad at some of the characters right now, lol.

6. I saw this sign in a store last week and thought it was pretty apt:

7. I actually ran this morning. It's been a couple weeks (thanks mostly to snow and freezing temperatures and the fact that early mornings really are the only time to run that work in my schedule) and I'm pretty off my training plan for that half marathon in May. :) Time to really get back to it...

8. Speaking of stepping things up, Micah informed me yesterday that it's time for him to (in his own words) really step up his education. This came from out of nowhere (and after I'd just increased his independent schoolwork by adding a new supplemental math program to try to add more challenge), and the boy has now decided to read most of the books in the house on his own time. If you have any book recommendations for a precocious seven year old, let me know. :) He finished this one this morning (and is determined to finish the rest of the series in the coming week or two).

9. Relatedly, Micah's been teaching himself to type using a free program called Type Fu. He seems to really enjoy it. (The other two are supposed to be using the program as well, but haven't invested nearly as much time as Micah has yet.) He's also enjoying a new app called 4 Pics, 1 Word that my pal Molly introduced him to over the weekend. :) 

10. I can't think of a tenth thing. ;)

Well played.

Attention, Universe. Yes. I get it. I know it's my own fault that my twelve year old is driving me insane with his anal tendencies. I understand that it's my own doing that he required my help to make a template in order to make all of the arches on the Roman Coliseum identical...and even proceeded to ask for a template for a miniscule square (I refused)...and that we had to dig out the light box so that he could trace a map because free-handing anything is apparently wrong. Never mind that this is a simple little timeline assignment for a class in which the grade doesn't matter in the least...wherein some of his fellow students are blatantly making stuff up and drawing modern clothing on Roman people and such. Sigh.

Well played, Universe. Well played. ;)

Ten on Tuesday (brain dump edition)

1. Backtracking to before the karate tournament...back on Feb 16, Nathan and I treated ourselves to a lovely lunch and musical out at the Candlelight Theater just south of here. (Thanks again, Deanna, for watching the boys!) We saw "The Unsinkable Molly Brown" and very much enjoyed ourselves. Incidentally, if you ever need a boost and want to feel young, go hang out there, lol. 

2. Also the previous weekend (Feb 17), Noah and Micah had another JOAD tournament. I have no pictures but Micah took third (having managed to pull his composure together after a pretty bad first round, so we were all happy with that outcome) and Noah finally broke 500 over the two rounds, a personal goal of his. 

3. Also last week before the karate tournament, Noah had another swim meet (Feb 21) and achieved new personal bests in all three of the events he competed in...50 yard backstroke, 50 yard freestyle and 100 yard IM (all four strokes). Again, no pictures...since my phone camera can't handle the low light and high speed and since my good camera would get soaked since it's an indoor pool and spectators are about 2-4 feet away from the pool deck. 

4. Yes, I'm really slacking on the photo taking lately. I know this and know that I tend to have few photos for the first couple months of every year. I'll work on it. :)

5. For the record, hats off to all mothers of scouts. I hate sewing on badges/patches and can't imagine having that many to handle. The little stars and such for karate uniforms (which I managed to finish just before the karate tournament) are more than enough for me. ;)

6. Do you remember Carmen Sandiego? On a whim, I ordered the complete dvd collection of the Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego series. The boys have almost finished the entire series now (having started only a couple weeks ago). While they're not the most educational thing out there or anything, I've enjoyed watching the boys glean a bit of geography here and there. 

7. Our taxes are done! Actually, they were done a few weeks ago but we're waiting on approval to file or some such thing...should be official in a week or two. Feels good to be done. :)

8. Went to the orthodontist today for the younger two. Yup, still definitely on track to need braces but she's still pretty sure we can wait a bit longer for both of them. Whew. (Course, she also did order two more extractions for Micah. Lovely. That's gonna be fun, lol.)

9. I have a bunch of homeschooling updates as I've been shifting things around but will cover that in a later post. ;)

10. For those who so kindly responded to my post about purging my scrapbook stuff, don't worry...I'm not swearing off scrapbooking or anything. :) I did go ahead and purge some supplies and reorganize my office (finishing a few things...photos to come), which feels fabulous. Honestly, though, I had way, way more supplies than any one person needs, lol. Also, I'm likely to cover more of the recent stuff in digital scrapbooking...so it will still get documented, just don't need quite so many embellishments and such on hand to do so. ;)

And that was my brain dump for the day. ;) Will try to get back with my homeschooling updates soon!