Chaos

The fun starts today. At least that's what I keep telling myself. Later this afternoon, the workers are coming over to assess the damage and get started on repair work for our wall. It will all go smoothly and I'll have my house back to normal, complete with new tile, new carpet, new paint within a week.



Okay, I know it will take longer than that. I'm actually estimating April so if they finish before that I'll be pleasantly surprised.

Engineer and I boxed up our room and have most of it moved out into other parts of the house. My friend Becky said, "So it's like you're camping at home?"

I think that's an excellent way to put it. Camping...only not as fun.


I'm sorry I don't have anything new to show you just yet. The only crafty thing I've been able to do lately is sneak on the computer and have short surfing sessions on a couple of blogs here and there.

I'm actually supposed to be working right now...but I needed a break from the house. Don't tell Engineer!

Order

I'm usually happy to start a new year. I use January as a "practice month" to get the rest of the year organized and get everyone back on a good school schedule. I even told the boys (including Engineer) that the word for the year was ORDER. That meant this year we would focus on getting the house in order (decluttering the closets, giving things away, etc.), getting our finances in order (can see the light at the end of the debt tunnel), getting ourselves in order (each of us getting our work done so we can have more time together as a family). Doesn't that sound nice? Even the first lesson of Joy School this semester for Knock-Out was The Joy of Order!

Of course his teacher for those lessons had to call and tell me when she asked the class what order meant, Knock-Out raised his hand and said, "When you call the pizza man!"

So where was I...oh, yeah. Order. Do you all know the old adage, "Life is what happens while you're making other plans?" I would like to meet the person that coined that phrase and give him a piece of my mind. On second thought, I could use all the pieces I have left.

Our house has been upside down for the past couple of weeks and I'm just about to go crazy from it. It has been raining quite a bit over here and we found some water damage on the baseboards behind our bed. Oh joy. So we've moved our bed frames to the hall, our mattress is taking up all the floor space in the boys' toy room, the boys have been using the living room and dining table as a play room for all their Lego sets. Thank goodness the bathrooms are still the bathrooms.

All this chaos is the reason I haven't been very crafty lately. But I have swap deadlines to meet and projects that have to get started. So every once in a while I've been able to push stuff to the side and get a card made here or there.

In the Copic Crafter group (see that neat little blue button on the left side? I made that!) we have a Birthday swap for the year. All those that signed up have a month to shower the birthday girl (or boy) with cards. I was super hesitant to sign up because my resolution last year was to get my own family their birthday cards to them on time. And what happened?

That resolution died about September.

But I caved to the peer pressure and here I am trying to meet birthday deadlines again. Our group has also "adopted" a soldier through one of the members and her birthday was the first to come up. She loves purple and I dug through all my paper until I found something that would work. I kept the embellishments to a minimum...actually, I didn't use any at all now that I look at it. Hmmm. A nice simple card. Who knew I could to that? Mom?


Stamps: My Favorite Things: You Take The Cake
Inks: Memento Tuxedo Black
Papers: CTMH Bella Reflections Kit


So I'm not sure when I'll get the table cleared of Lego pirates and space police to get crafty again. But it will have to be soon or I may loose that one piece of my mind that's left.