Spring + busy + FLYlady = blog neglect

(c) 2009 Ms. Huis Herself at musenmutter.blogspot.com

Sorry I haven't been around much, folks. Looking over the last, well, quite a few posts, the photo-heavy ones much outweigh the wordy ones.
What can I say? It's spring!

Seriously, we've been outside a lot.

Now that it's nice, I'm walking Pumpkin the mile to school (each way) to drop her off and pick her up most of the time. Pros - Great exercise, less car use, and a chance to get outside and enjoy the spring. Cons - it can take a LOT longer, especially when we return from 4K with the little girl I'm watching after school. That mile home is with both girls (ages 4 1/2 & 5) walking with me pushing Penguin in the stroller (under protest sometimes as she thinks she should get to walk, too). So it usually takes 35-40 minutes instead of the 15 or so I take to get there (or the 7 minutes it'd take to drive back home, which includes strapping them all into their carseats!).

And hanging up the laundry outside on the clotheslines? WAY more time-consuming than just tossing it into the dryer. It smells nice though, and our energy use has dropped some, and as long as the birds don't poop on my stuff hardly ever (*shakes fist* Stupid birds!), I'll keep it up.


But hey, outside! Spring! :)

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This past weekend we got the garden put in. Over the past week or two, Mr. Kluges carted MOUNDS of compost from our huge inherited compost pile over to the garden (that he also tilled). I helped some with raking and such, but he did 99% of the garden readying. It's good we've got so much compost because it looks like there was a parking lot or driveway or something where we're going to try to garden - lots of similarly sized small rocks and a layer of packed gravel. So, we'll see how the root veggies & potatoes do. But hey, it's all planted! In fact, the sweet potatoes came today & then all we'll have left are the tomatoes and some basil we want to pick up as plants locally. Woo-hoo!

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TWO weekends ago, over Mother's Day, my parents & my aunt from TN came down to visit and to attend Pumpkin's first ever dance recital. ...Oh, my.... Imagine any preschool dance recital video you've ever seen, where the little kids are all adorably dressed alike, with matching hairdos and all, but they've not got a lick of an idea between 'em all exactly how their dance is supposed to go. But that's not stopping them, oh no! :) I think Pumpkin was more concerned with trying to stay on her tape mark than getting any of the steps right. And I'm glad none of them did the "oh, look at all the people I'm scaredletmeOFFTHISSTAGEWAAAAAHHHH!!!" In fact, Pumpkin was comfortable enough up there to stop during one of their two number and wave at her grandpa 'cuz she had spotted him in the audience. Ah, if laughter adds years to your life, the audience added at least a decade for each song her class did. Cute, all of 'em.

I asked Pumpkin how she thought her dance went, if she like doing the recital, etc. afterward, just to let her do a little reflecting on it all. She liked it; it was fun; "and I did my best and didn't even mess up one time!!!" :) Me: "Well, honey, I'm glad to hear you had fun and did your best; those are both important." Her favorite part: "Getting the real rose at the end!" Too bad it's looking pretty darn wilted by now...

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Since we had company here for Mother's Day weekend, I told Mr. Kluges I'd be happy enough to push my traditional breakfast in bed back a week. I got to enjoy it this Sunday instead. I told him I'd be happy with whatever, but that I wanted my coffee and the Sunday paper to read in bed while he and the girls did whatever cooking/prep was involved. It was wonderful. When I woke up, I made a point of making a little noise so that he'd know I'd arisen, and it wasn't long after that when early-rising Penguin came running down the hallway with my (empty) coffee cup, "Mommy! Toffee!" followed by Mr. Kluges with the juice of life. After a wonderful, quiet interlude of coffee and paper, I was treated to a breakfast of a wonderful omelet (Mr. K: "I made it Julia Child-style." Me: "What, lots of butter?" Mr. K: "Yup, and a really hot pan.), bacon, homemade toast, hashbrowns, and oj. Much of which ended up being shared with my two daughters who thought breakfast in bed was a grand idea and that they should partake as well. :) Definitely a "life is good" morning.

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Two of my resolutions this year involved decluttering/thinning our STUFF and getting better at tidying/cleaning. (We won't talk about the other one. Bad scale!) Syl mentioned FLYlady in the comments there and I'd heard about it through a few other people, so I figured I'd give it a try. Well, I've been babystepping a while now, taking on the things for which I felt ready, and it's helped TONS! The house is normally tidier and cleaner- and therefore more relaxing to be in! - than it ever was before. That FLYlady's so sneaky though! Just 15 minutes of this or a 5 minute room rescue or a 2 minute hot spot fire drill or a short mission of the day - they don't sound like much, (and they're well worth the time!), but I gotta admit they cut into my blogging/surfing time a bit! Anyway, I've found it to be very helpful in building simple, small habits that gradually build up and make life a lot simpler and easier and more relaxing. So there's my 2 cents about that!

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So there you go - a huge download from my brain to the page to make up a little bit for all the lack of regular posting we've been having around here. I'll try to say things more here at Musings & Mutterings besides just document our life with pics, but dang, outside sure has been looking nice!