What the heck am I doing all day?

It's amazing how busy I seem to be now that I am not working. How could I possibly have time for a job? During the day I busily putter around the house making beds, wiping counters, doing laundry, or any other mundane tasks that catch my attention. On Fridays when the kids are home from school and on newly free weekends (since I get all the chores and errands done during the week), we do outings. This month we have gone to the beach, Travel Town, The Museum of Natural History, Noah's Ark at the Skirball Museum, and the Strawberry Festival. Not to mention, spent lots of time with family and friends.

I've nearly cleared the back patio of the mountain of boxes that remained unpacked over the last year. That has definitely been slow going as I need to find a specific place for everything, and can only continue until the sneezing starts. For any of you who don't know this, I HATE sneezing. It is as if my body has decided to interrupt whatever I am doing without the courtesy of even saying "excuse me." Really, I can't talk when I'm sneezing so all conversation needs to stop. I can't listen when I'm sneezing. I can't unpack boxes, put things away, drive safely, or sleep while I am sneezing. You can only imagine the sailor language in our bedroom when this insomniac is woken up sneezing!! So, emptying all the dusty boxes is quite the challenging mission since my allergies seem to be in full assault mode these days. The fun thing about unpacking things after a year is getting to see them again. Oh! I was wondering where those platters have been. Ooh! Look at all these picture albums. Wow! All my childhood schoolwork! Each box is like a little present and I need to stop (and sneeze) to look at each thing before finding the perfect spot for it. So, you can see how this would take some time.

Another project I completed is not as simple as it might seem. For some time I've wanted to decorate the boys' room and make it more personalized. I had bought unfinished wood letters to paint, but never took the time. Recently, it came to me that a couple bulletin boards for their art and school work would be perfect in there. My initial thought was cork boards, but pushpins would only turn into weapons in that room. When I saw magnetic boards and colorful magnets at IKEA, I realized that was perfect. So after painting the letters, I broke out the nails (several sizes), hammer, level, nail gun and air compressor, hooked that stuff all up myself, and voila!! Check out their room now! The valance and wall hanging are from their nursery bedding set, but I just love them anyway. Take a good look at the carpet, because anyone who comes to my house knows, it isn't often visible for all the toys!

So, as you can tell, I have been quite busy. Although I am actively job hunting, I am also enjoying this disguised blessing of being at home for a bit.

If These Walls Could Talk

We took possession of our very own home today. After weeks of haggling, stress over closing escow, some hives and tears..we signed the paperwork yesterday and it recorded today. Boy do we have a lot of work to do in the next couple weeks! We bought a house with a lot of great potential. In the next couple weeks we will reconfigure half the walls, redo all the electrical, repipe, replace all the windows, install central heat and airconditioning, remodel at least one bathroom, refinish floors and paint. We are hoping our budget supports remodeling the kitchen as well. Apparently, the kitchen is modular. It had a false ceiling and removable counters and cabinets.

Within an hour of getting the keys, we had a pizza picnic ina the living room. I opened a good bottle of wine, and Fillip and his dad began opening walls. Because they are mostly false walls, they came down quite easily. The house was full of great bangs, rumblings, piles of debris and a cloud of dust, but actually looked much better. We could see from one room to another and start to see our vision coming true. We were pretty surprised and very amused to find messages carved into the walls. The middle of the house felt like no man's land- too narrow to be a room, but wide to be a hallway. The hanging chandlier reminded me of a 19th century saloon. Well, someone else saw it differently and we found "Welcome to Hal's Galley" carved into the header beam along with other things I couldn't make out. Given the dark wood paneling, I can imagine sitting in there, rocking back and forth and hearing those old walls creak. I bet those walls have got some great stories.