It's Working!

My last blog post seems like it was forever and a day ago. I don’t think anyone really reads this, so it’s all good! There are tons of George stories to tell. He amazes me daily. He has started trying to convince us that his “granpader” has told him it is okay to do something when we tell him he cannot. His “granpader” is different than grampa (Eric’s dad). Grampa reads to him and grampa takes him to see trains and grampa goes for walks with him. Granpader is a bit different. We get all kinds of granpader stories…he apparently lives in a house between daycare and home (when his home isn’t in the living room, as it was when granpader first appeared!) and, as of last night, he has a dog named Asoopitoots. He also sits by the wall with George when he is in trouble. And, apparently, Granpader feels that candy and gummies are okay to have before dinner and watching TV after dinner is also acceptable. We get the one hand on the hip and one finger a-going (just like great-grandma Addie used to do…the same way of holding the fingers and the same shake/twist motion…amazing to see something so familiar in a different person) and the head tipped to the side nodding up and down saying very seriously, “My Granpader told me that we could have gummies before dinner.” (Head nod, head nod) Those blue eyes make me want to believe him!


The weather has been great and we are spending a lot of time at the park. Sometimes we take the wagon and sometimes we walk. There is a walking trail behind our house that goes to the park and meanders along a little river...we see ducks and squirrels and birds and cats and lots of puppies! We play at the park and then run across the bridge a couple of times before we head home for dinner. The walk back is longer than the walk there. :)  Last night he wanted to be carried, but I just can’t…he’s getting to big and my hip and shoulder have been bothering me. So we sat on the walking path for a little bit and looked at the water and watched the ducks until we could finish our walk home.

On the home front, things are looking up. I *finally* have a system in place that is working for me! It’s pretty simple and I won’t bore you with details…but my house is CLEAN! Half of it was just the realization that I just have to do it. So, I did some research and figured out what needs to be done and how often (according to various cleaning experts). Then I used that as a guideline to set a schedule. It’s still in the tweaking stages, but I have been doing this for a week now and I really love waking up to my clean house and walking in to a calm and welcoming environment after work. George’s messes really aren’t that big and those get cleaned up at the end of the day in the 15 minute pick up. The rest of it is just me doing set tasks as I get to them. So, while dinner is cooking, I mop the kitchen, downstairs bathroom and foyer floors

I’m still trying to get a handle on my sewing room and the guest room…which I was using as kind of a staging area for organizing the sewing room. I need to finish those two rooms and have a goal of having them done by the end of this month. I don’t know how that is going to happen, really, but I figure it will all work out without too much difficulty.

Mom is planning on coming in June and I am starting now on a list of things I want to do with her when she is here. Last time we didn’t have much time to do fun stuff. I know I want to tackle organizing the garage (which Mom is really good at doing) and I want to refinish Grandma Donner’s buffet. I have a couple of other projects I’d like to do…like build a garage work bench and install/build some better storage options in the garage…but I might be a bit ahead of myself with those! The yard and gardens will also need some help…but it will be June and potentially too hot to do much yard work. We shall see.