A Week and a Half Later...

I really should be unpacking, sorting, organizing and cleaning at the moment, but for some reason the thought makes me really tired this afternoon, so here I am posting to my blog instead. Not that I've been unpacking, sorting, organizing or cleaning at all today -- in fact I haven't unpacked anything for a couple of days now, even though there are many boxes to still be unpacked. There have just been things like lots of laundry, grocery shopping, fixing meals, etc. that seem to interfere with big chunks of unpacking time.

So we've been here about a week and a half now and I can't believe we're halfway through June already. I feel like the summer is going to be gone before I turn around. Of course, I had grand plans for setting up summer homework and chores for the kids -- maybe in July. :-) I do have the kitchen unpacked, although it needs to be cleaned now, and the bathrooms are mostly done (and they need cleaning too). Our bedroom and closet are still a giant mess, and the family room still has stuff everywhere.

The biggest problem with the family room is that we have some big furniture (our entertainment center and our old couch) that we don't have anywhere to put on the main floor (there is a whole wall of built-ins so we don't really need our entertainment center). We were hoping to put them down in the basement, but they might just be too big and too hard to get down there. So for now they sit smack in the middle of the front room. Hopefully we will figure out something soon -- I think I will feel better once you can at least walk through that room instead of having to walk around the perimeter.

McKay is at Cub Scout Day Camp this week. He had a fun day yesterday although he came home tired and hungry. I am going up as a parent volunteer tomorrow, so I'll be sure to take some pictures to share. Family day/afternoon is Thursday, so we will all go up for some activities, dinner and awards.

Some observations from the last week:

* My kids have surprisingly not complained much about having no TV or kid's computer. Our TV still sits in the box in the middle of the floor where it was brought in off the truck (as do many other things -- goes along with entertainment center dilemma). I'll admit there have been a few times when I have wished we had TV -- sometimes when the kids just get a little too wild and crazy, it's nice to be able to sit them down and turn on a program for some "chill-out" time (is that a bad thing to admit as a mother?).

* I am still trying to figure out how to load this dishwasher most efficiently -- it's funny how you get used to loading a dishwasher a certain way.

* It's going to take me awhile to get the Wal-Mart layout down. Most Wal-Marts are similar, but this one is "flipped" from our old one and it's just throwing me off a little. I've already been there more times than I care to admit, so I'm sure I'll get it soon.

* I wish I knew more about gardening and plants. There are some nice native plants and landscaping around the front of the house and the back patio that seems to be suffering a little (probably because no one has lived here since December). I wish I knew more about how to prune out the dead stuff without hurting what's left of the living stuff. We also have a very large wild plant over by the shop that Brian said appears to be growing some type of small melons -- he thought they were maybe watermelons, although the plant doesn't really look like pictures of watermelon plans that I've seen. There is also a smaller patch growing by the end of our driveway -- anybody have a clue what this is?

* If we want to go for a little hike and get some exercise, all we need to do is go get the mail! Our mailbox is probably a half mile away down the dirt roads. We tried to take a family walk down there a few days ago, but the two little girls got tired so I turned back with them.

* We are still trying to get used to all the wind around here. Poor Hayley can't even open some of the outside doors by herself (and we have several outside doors!) when it is windy (plus it doesn't help that some of the doors stick a little). And it seems to be windy most of the time!

Okay, I should quit and try to get something productive done today. I'll end with a picture of one of our favorite treats this summer - snow cones!


Our awesome realtor, Dianne, gave the kids this snow cone machine as a reward for being members of her "Clean Kid's Club" while we were showing our house. It has been an easy, cool summer treat!