Quick Before I Get Sidetrack'd

I’ve been out of the Tackle It Tuesday loop the last several weeks as we welcomed Boo and have been adjusting to a new routine.  We are also out of the house a lot these days enjoying summer fun with friends.  However, looking at my to-do list for the week, I think it’s time to jump back in and start tackling.

My big tackle for the past week was getting Cha-ching, my financial software, updated.  I was only a month behind.  Not only does this help me fulfill my need to play with numbers, but it allows me to see a little better where our money is going and how we might make budget adjustments for the future.

So, not very exciting for my first week back, but something that definitely needed to be done.  

For the upcoming week – create a schedule, write thank you notes, do some cleaning

Happy tackling!

This post is quite laden with pictures.  I apologize if it takes a while to load. 

Wow, we got quite a bit done this week (especially over the weekend)! I think I actually accomplished everything I intended to plus a few extras.

The big tackles for this week were Boo’s room, getting baby things from the attic, and finishing the burp cloth sewing project I started.

Let’s start with Boo’s room…

This is what the room looked like when we moved in two years ago:

During the two years we’ve lived here it has been used primarily for storage. When we found out we were expecting there were boxes piled everywhere, the closet was filled with miscellaneous stuff, and it was generally a pretty scary place (especially if you were looking for something specific). Over the last couple of months we’ve been hard at work cleaning out, decluttering (although we still have some to do), painting, and making it a bedroom again.

This weekend, Matt hung new closet doors, we moved the rest of the nursery furniture out of Little’s room and into Boo’s, and we put his shelf with his name letters on the wall. Over the last week I also got his clothes, the bedding, and all of the covers for carseat, swing, etc washed and dried.

Today it looks like this:

The burp cloth project…

Please do not look too closely at the pictures. I am a beginner teaching myself to sew, and this is my first start-to-finish completed project. I’m proud of the fact that I actually finished a project for once even though it is certainly far from perfect, and I’m pleased with the way the fabric/ribbon combinations turned out. When I got frustrated Matt kept reminding me that this was something that Boo was going to throw up on; he certainly won’t care if all the seams are perfect and the stitching straight.

I also finished my Spring cleaning and the cleaning I needed to do before company, wrote all of my Thank You’s (for birthday and baby gifts), and got my birth plan into my chart at the doctor’s office.

Up next – packing the hospital bag and installing the carseat. Nothing too strenuous this week, but definitely things that are important.

Good luck with your tackles!

Well, the tackles for this week didn’t go down exactly as planned; I forgot that Matt would have a nice long weekend (he was off a 1/2 day Thursday and all day Friday) due to my birthday and Good Friday.  I also didn’t think about Thursday being my birthday which meant I took the day off from household chores.  But we enjoyed Matt’s extra “stay-home” days and even managed to get a few things accomplished.

First tackle – a written birth plan.  I was storing a lot of information in my head regarding what I want and don’t want for Boo’s birth.  On Thursday I put those thoughts on paper and will take a draft copy to my doctor’s appointment to discuss.  There isn’t anything wild or crazy, but it is nice to know that my goals are written down so that others will be aware of them.

Around the house – On Friday, Matt washed both of our cars, vacuumed the interiors, and cleaned the windows.  This was a tackle that really needed to be done; our cars were pretty yucky as we emerge from winter.  It’s been wonderful to get into a clean car the last few days.

And on the baby Boo front – We bought some of the wall decor we will use in the nursery, a set of 3-D letters in brown paperboard that spell his name and a ledge shelf to display them.  Hopefully, we will get some work done in his room this week/weekend and I’ll have some pictures to post next week.

I also began a sewing project for the boy, a set of cute burp cloths from this tutorial.  Not really a difficult project, but quite time intensive for a novice, teaching-myself seamstress.  I am down to stitching everything together, so it shouldn’t take me too long to finish.

Up next – 36 week doctor’s appointment (today), dust house, do regular cleaning (bathrooms, kitchen, vacuum, etc) before company this weekend, finish Boo’s burp cloths, bake bread, get baby things from attic (Matt’s job), write Thank You notes, get to work putting Boo’s room together.  Sounds like a pretty busy week for me.

Happy tackling!

And as an aside – I’m hosting a book giveaway this week.  If you’re interested, check it out here.

This week it was back to Spring cleaning.  I finished up a couple of things that still needed to be done in the living room and moved on to the hallway. I wiped the fingerprints off the walls, cleaned the baseboards and door frames, cleared out the cobwebs, and scrubbed the air intake for our central heating/cooling system. And I got in trouble for standing on the step stool to reach the areas above my head (Matt doesn’t like me to stand on things while I’m this pregnant).Spring is in the air and Little is outgrowing her 12-18 month size clothes.  So, I tackled her closet on Friday.  I removed all of the outgrown (there were smaller sizes piled in the bottom of the closet and some of her winter stuff that is too little) and too wintery clothes, bagged them (I store all of her clothes in zipper baggies to help prevent storage yuckies), labeled the bags, and boxed them up.  Now they are ready to go in the attic when Matt goes up there to get the baby stuff.  I also pulled all of her Spring/Summer clothes out of her “to-grow-into” bag, washed them, and found homes for them in the closet.  It’s nice to have this taken care of since the temps are warming up and Boo’s arrival will make projects like this difficult for a while.Up next on the tackling agenda – a couple of projects for Boo and his room, some deep cleaning in the master bedroom, and writing up a birth plan.Happy Tuesday and happy tackling! 

Not much tackling happened around here this week. Little and I spent most of the week fighting and recovering from a yucky stomach bug. So, I tackled an unusually large amount of laundry and disinfecting the bathrooms. Sounds fun, huh? Sometimes you just have to do what is needed.

We’ll see what the next week holds in the Tackles department. Happy tackling!