Musings by Melissa

For the past week or so every time I open my closet door a musty smell wafts out.  Ignoring the problem hasn’t caused it to disappear, so today is the day I decided to start dealing with it.

If your closet is anything like mine, it’s full of stuff…  slippers from college (you know, those great big dog ones), dresses I wore on special dates with my husband while we were still married (Handel’s Messiah was such fun), shoes dyed green to match the dress (I keep it for costume parties.  The last time I wore it was about ten years ago, but sheesh, I never know when I’ll have to pull it out next!), belts that would fit around my thigh (Do belts really shrink while they’re hanging in a closet?!?)

But one of the most memorable things I uncovered was a pair of tennis shoes with ribbon for laces.  Memories of our wedding day came flooding back, for I wore those shoes with my gown!  Oh, I should have had them boxed up with the dress after I had it professionally cleaned, but I didn’t.  Hindsight is 20/20, ya know. 

Those shoes were comfortable.  No sore feet for me!  No tripping down the aisle, skipping maybe, but not tripping!  When I walked down that aisle, all the planning was done.  The cake was beautiful, the flowers gorgeous, the bridesmaids and groomsmen gifts had been purchased, the guests were assembled, and I was ready to become a MRS!  ~smile~

Ah, it’s been 18 years since that day, and it’s still one of the happiest days of my life. 

Enough memory lane.  I’ve got a few more loads of laundry to do to get that musty smell out of my clothes.  And I might as well sort the clothes while I’m at it.  What a job!  Ugh!

Yup, we did it.  We signed on the dotted line, and we bought new windows for three of the rooms in our house.  We did a bunch of research online, and I think, hope and pray that we’ll be pleased with our purchase.  We spent a bit more than we had anticipated, but isn’t that always the case?

We went with a company that gets a good price on a good window because they buy wholesale lots of windows.  We are able to get the size we need and the color we want (the trim).  But the prices seem quite a bit cheaper than other comparable windows on the market.

And so, now we wait to hear from them to find out when their installer can come out and measure our windows exactly.  Then they’ll make the windows and install them.  Wayne’s happy because he won’t be doing the installing himself. 

I’m relieved to have the decision behind us.  Now it’s just a matter of getting them installed before the snow flies so we can stay a bit warmer this winter!

Well, let the research begin! Ugh! Purchasing new windows for our home is almost as hated a task as purchasing a new vehicle. Ugh! But, our house really could use new windows. Some of them are pretty bad. None of them clean easily. And only two of them are fairly air-tight.

The problem is that we have two dozen window in our house (including the two garage windows). That’s a lot of windows! We don’t have enough in savings to redo them all, so it’s a matter of picking where we want to start. Decisions… decisions…

Today we stopped by Lowes to see what they had and what their prices ran. As I walked by the Moen kitchen faucets I couldn’t help but think how much easier our kitchen project was in our old house.  First we did this, and then we’d do that.  Yes, it took awhile, but this window project seems daunting.  Terms like aluminum-clad, sash, jamb, and vinyl are running through my mind.  And I never did get a good answer as to what kind is best, let alone which brand.  ~sigh~

And so, let the research begin.  Have you ever replaced windows?  Were you happy with what you purchased?  We’d like to get these installed by the end of the year so we can qualify for the tax credit.  So, it’s a decision I’d like to make fairly soon so we can get them in by the time the snow flies!

Okay… I’ll admit it.  I’m tired of hot, humid weather.  My dear husband washed all the windows in our bedroom last week, but there’s so much “fog” in them that you’d never know he spent hours working on them.  ~sigh~  I suppose that’s a good sign because it means our window air-conditioner is working well enough to make a difference.  At least it’s keeping it nice in the basement.

But honestly, I don’t feel like I’m making any forward progress on my to-do list for today.  Every time I cross something off, I think of two things to add.  And while I’m tempted to call Royal Caribbean and try to forget my to-do list for awhile, I think the best thing to do is to just keep plugging away at it.

And so, on that note, I’m off to pull my 50 weeds for the day…

It finally happened!  We don’t need  to resort to testosterone cream or nest eggs (at least for now)!  Yesterday morning when I got back from my bike ride, I thought I’d check on the chickens and open their vent door.  I peeked into the nest boxes, just in case, and there was a nice, brown egg waiting for me!  Yahoo!  We must be doing something right!

After gathering all the kidlets together (thankfully they were all here for this big occassion!), we ventured out to the “Coop d’ Poop” together to gather the egg!  They were thrilled.

And then last night when I went out to tuck the chickens in for the night, I peeked into the nest boxes again, and lo and behold… another beautiful brown egg!

Yahoo!

Well, we’ve had four chickens for about five months now, and we keep waiting and hoping for that first egg.  I know we didn’t get chickens that are constant egg layers.  So, I have to be a little patient, but we are anxiously awaiting that first little egg… lopsided and tiny though it may be!

We’ve heard that using a nest egg may help.  But I’m not sure where to go to get one of those.  Personally I’ve been wondering about some natural testosterone or something.  Hmmm….  On second thought maybe it’s not testosterone I need.  Isn’t that for boys?!?

And so, we wait.  The appear to be full grown to me.  The last three that we got still aren’t full grown, but they’re getting close.  They all seem to get along, yet we can tell we got them in two different groups.  Each group tends to have around itself rather than mingle with the other group, but they are better at that than they used to be.

All in all, keeping chickens has been a delightful experience.  But stay posted for news about our first egg!

I really need to clean the bathroom.  Not just the once-a-week cleaning, but the bi-annual cleaning.  Basically, it’s just the shower that’s really bad.  It needs some good scrubbing and some new caulk around the edges.  I’ve never mastered caulking.  So, I’ll leave that up to my husband.  But scrubbing is somthing I’m pretty good at.  So, I guess I’ll mix up a bit of my bathroom cleaner this morning and go to work.  I’d much rather go and pick sweet cherries.  Cleaning the bathroom ranks right up there with reading lipofuze reviews, but sometimes things just have to be done.  Enjoy your holiday weekend!  And hopefully, by the fourth, my shower will be sparkling again!

One of the things that really surprised me when I got home from Kenya was how much our baby chickens have grown!  They are much bigger than when I left.  For those of you who don’t know, we have two “batches” of chickens.  We got the first four a month or two before we got the last three.  While they get along, the two groups are separate by day.  But they roost together at night, so I have hopes that they will become one big happy flock as time goes on and as they get to be closer in size.

We are eagerly looking forward to our first eggs!  I expect them in the next month or so, but it could be any time.  It will be nice to have eggs that aren’t filled with hormones and testosterone boosters.  I know Justin is eager to be the egg collector.  So, stay tuned, and hopefully we’ll get our first eggs soon!

One of my goals for this summer, and I have many, is to re-do our bedroom.  That that we’ve ever “done” our bedroom the first time around!  We just moved all our stuff in when we moved into this home, and there are still a few boxes in there that need permanant homes.  So, one of my goals for this summer is to make our room more inviting.

Here is the list of things I need to accomplish to attain this goal:

a bigger desk for my “office” area
paint the far wall
new winter bedspread
new summer bedspread
clean up my office area
catch up on the mending pile  (ugh!)
hang those faux wood blinds at the last window that needs them
wash windows (or better yet, new windows!)
build wall between our bedroom and the bathroom

If I get those things done, our bedroom will definitely be more inviting, and one of my goals for this summer will be filled!

Okay, okay…  I know “hate” is a strong word.  But there are a few things that I really dislike doing, and shopping for new furniture is one of them.  Most of the furniture we have is either a garage sale special or a hand-me-down.  Actually, I think there’s only one piece of furniture in our house that we bought new, and that was a Mother’s Day present to me when I was pregnant with our oldest.  It’s a glider rocker.  Oh yes, our kitchen table we bought new, too.

But some of our furniture is beginning to show its age.  There are spots where the cushion is showing, and the dust ruffle is half missing.  ~sigh~  I’ve been debating whether to start scanning Craigslist for some “new-to-us” stuff or to invest in some slipcovers.  The pictures on the slipcover packages always look so nice, but when I’ve seen them in other people’s homes, they never look as nice as what’s on the package.

 And so, that is one of my goals for this summer.  Finding some decent looking furniture to replace our tired stuff.

Wish me luck!