And Up It Goes!

My two loyal readers (okay, there might be more of you) have both commented that there hasn't been any blog posting lately. So I feel I owe you all an explanation.

In 2004, Doug and I started our first fixer-upper. We loved it, talked compulsively about it, and worked on it all the time. Even with a newborn and two small children, and with both of us working. Okay, I was only part-time, but still.

We've been working on this house or the other ever since. I even had a brief stint as a professional stager, which was self-affirming and a lot of work. We've been working on our current house for three years, and it still has some major work to be done. Namely, bathrooms and a big basement room that is (still) not finished. A fence that is (still) not finished. And landscaping that probably will never be finished.

Which is all well and good when writing a blog like this, right? Lots of fodder for the writing mill. However...the kids are needing more of my attention. And I find that I'm simply not interested in "doing something" on the house when I'm constantly taking someone somewhere.

I know, whine, whine, whine. With a preschooler, two teens on traditional school schedules and two grade schoolers on a year-round schedule, I don't know if I'm coming or going.

Which is why this blog might be going. Sigh.

I want you all to know how much I appreciate your comments and readership and support. This has been a fun chapter in my life - one that is actually documented (woot!). Big, wet sloppy kisses and huge hugs to you all!

PS - the title is actually a reference to my stress level with kids...

What's Blooming

Now that the air has turned a little colder (emphasis on little), a few more flowers are starting to bloom!

My white asters...

The chrysanthemums...

Orange

And red

And one that has probably been in bloom awhile now, but I didn't notice it tucked in amongst my other plants. This is a Malva Zebrina, and it is an annual that reseeded itself. I haven't seen it for two years, so I was pleasantly surprised to see it again.

The flowers are so small!

 Here's the real tragedy: they were all over the flower bed where I found this one. I had already yanked out all the others, though, thinking they were weeds. There is a certain weed that has very similar leaves, in my defense. So I was a little bummed that I had thinned future volunteers. Hm, maybe I just need to plant something else!

Hope you have a great week!

And We Have the Last First Day!

Sadly, next week my boys are "off-track", making this the first and only full week of having all my kids in school until October.

But still! Here is Sophie ready for her first day at preschool:

Playing with a rubber band is much more exciting than a photo op

She did really well. I dropped her off in the drop-off line. That means a teacher opened my car door and escorted her to the front door of preschool. Pick up is the same - a teacher escorts her back to my car. It's very efficient. Sophia looked a little confused that she was walking into an establishment without anyone in her family next to her, but took it in stride.

She is so, so happy to be at school like all her brothers and sisters! I am so proud of her. I do think that preschool is Not Long Enough - at least for me. However, it is just perfect for her. Here's to a great school year, my little Soph!

Don't Fence Me In

Just kidding - I do actually want a fence. You know that, if you've been reading this blog very long...I am always going on about a fence. We have almost never had one - but when we have, I have LOVED it. Even if the kids can come in and out, they have a tangible boundary that says: "This is my back yard."

These days, Doug is the one going and going on about a fence...but he is a little more productive about it than I am. In just a few short week, he has finished the fence, minus the gates, on one side of the house.

From the front

From just behind the blue spruce in the above picture

And looking back at the entire expanse.

He has also started on the other side of the house, and made significant progress. The neighbors are hilarious - he gets one stopping about every 15 minutes to comment on his progress.

The other side of the house...

Continuing along the driveway

And the back side of that.

And I just keep thinking...having a dog is becoming more and more a possibility with every board.

Doug working hard

Enough about the dog. This fence also means that I can put together an arch over one (or more) of the gates. Here's the first one I'm going to work on:

A lilac arch would be lovely, don't you think? It will certainly take many years, since you can see how small my lilac is, on the far right. That's okay, though. It might be up sooner than the gates, which Doug has dubbed "a winter project." Yup.

This fence will eventually get a trimming, too, with additional rails on the outside top and bottom, and a cap on the top. That will be at least next year, though, to spread out the costs. I keep reminding Doug that the costs wouldn't be quite so much if we had a smaller piece of property...

Sigh. I keep trying. But Doug will never give up living on a large piece of land. So, back to yard work I go!

Another First Day

Getting tired of these yet? I'm not...every time another kid goes to school, my house gets just a little bit cleaner. And I get a little more organized again.

Crazy how the summer just throws me out of whack. So it's Bonnie's turn - eighth grade. How did that happen?!?

This is still how I see her:

I guess she's a little bigger now. And she takes all my texting minutes...sigh, she's a teenager. Well, here's to a great year!

And there's only one more to start school: Sophie. That'll be next week, and you know I'll keep you posted!

What's Blooming

The garden and orchard are tending towards harvest, while the flowers are looking a little spent. I weed and pull up exhausted blooms most of the week and hope that winter is on its way so I can plan instead of work on the landscape.

This week, the dill is in full bloom:

And the peach and nectarine trees are almost laying on the ground because they are so full of fruit. Sadly, they aren't fully ripe, so I find myself picking them - and throwing them away - just to relieve the tree a little.

Hope you have a great week!

Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall

Please don't tell me much of anything at all!

Collin's room is still on my project list. I picked up a series of small mirrors to put on his wall at IKEA a few months ago, and finally decided to put them on the wall. This required a level, a measuring stick, a hammer and a bunch of nails. When I was done pounding the nails in the wall...

You can barely see the grid in this picture, but trust me, it's there. You can see it better once the mirrors were hung on the wall...

This time, Collin decided he liked my work. Although he did spend the entire time I was putting them up asking, "Why do they have to be so perfect? Just put them up!"

Yup, I even got a thumbs-up. Life is good.

Aaaand...Another One's Off to School!

Malena has been dying to get back to school ever since the boys started almost a month ago. She has been to the school to set up her locker, has started stalking teachers, and has been planning her first day outfit for a long time.

But today is the day - seventh grade, here she comes!

Yes, she is wearing all black. Her current obsession is outer space, so she's showing how "into it" she is by wearing the lack of color that is out there. Whatever, as long as her smile is still sunny!

Hales Happenings

To keep you up to date, I thought I'd share some of the happenings around here.

Sophia is living in a Belle costume, sent to us by her aunt.

Jack and Collin are back in school. Collin was also just in a recital, where he and I got to play a duet. I wasn't able to record it (since I was playing, too), but I did get the last part of his other piece. Since it's only half a song, I'll spare you.

Collin is to the right of his teacher. It was a small recital.

Malena is bored out of her mind and super excited to be starting school this week.

Bonnie finally had a friend do her hair. I've been waiting for this moment for several years...since she won't let me near her hair. Perhaps too many memories of me putting her hair in ponytails when she was younger. Whatever, it was cute. But now she is cute in a different way...

And Doug is still working on the fence. He is looking forward to getting a power hole digger soon - he is going to borrow it from a friend. Digging holes is no fun, which is why I stay far away from that action.

More Musings on a Fence

Doug has finally tired of the entire neighborhood being able to see our backyard.

More specifically, he is tired of having to keep our backyard neat so that the Code Nazis from the city don't write us a ticket. Truly, our city is almost as bad as an HOA. Weeds are expensive, around here. Still better than San Diego, though: in the middle of a drought, they can't water their lawn, but they get fined for brown spots.

Anyway. Doug spent a long day marking the location of the fence, then starting to dig post holes. This is not easy in our yard. The ground is packed clay, difficult for even a tiller to break through. Doug got three holes dug and started on three more before he called it a day.

Here's what it looks like now.

Yup, looks fabulous. But all I care about is that there is progress being made. Actual, measurable progress. Woot to the wahoo!

Some Things Just Don't Work Out

Since painting Collin's room, I've been trying to lighten things up in there...so it looks less like a bloody cave. Here was one of my efforts:

Cute, right? I wanted to give him something graphic and colorful, while lightening up the space. Malena and I found this word map at WalMart while shopping for school supplies, and I thought it would be perfect. Then we spent a few minutes looking for a poster frame...and totally struck out.

Okay, so we were stuck just sticking it on the wall. Not a big deal. We went home, I leveled it and attached it to the wall, expecting Collin to be excited.

Nope. He ripped it off his wall. Argh. Sadly, it's not even in one piece anymore, because he wasn't gentle. He wanted to keep it for a treasure map, though, so I guess it won't be exactly wasted, but it still feels like a waste of good money to me.

Sigh. Better luck next time, I guess.

Chicken Updates!

Mondays is usually when I show you a flower or two. Sadly, there isn't anything new blooming this week. I spend quite a bit of time trimming back the spent flowers these days. Perhaps I need to look into something that blooms in August? Ah, maybe next year. In the meantime...

It's been awhile since I've shown you our new chickens (the last ones were eaten by some predator roaming the neighborhood). So, I thought I'd show you a picture. It's difficult to get any picture of them, since they do not stand still. But what do you want - they are chickens.

They are just beautiful, no?

Doug can sit for hours and just watch them roam their little pen. For me, watching him is much more fascinating than watching the chickens. However, they're all pretty adorable.

Taking Back Control

This week, I feel like my life is spinning out of control.

My boys are back in school, which means homework fights every night. Sophia is finally getting the hang of using the toilet, but that requires hourly reminders. The older girls are bored stiff because I'm back in "school mode": the day has a defined shape again, with available time for "fun" at a minimum. Bummer for them. Bummer for me, too, since I have to listen to the whining (when I'm not hiding from it). And that's just the tip of the iceburg.

So I've been imposing order on this chaos. This tends to make me feel like I'm doing something to make things better. Even though the things I really want to solve are the kids. Kids don't typically have a "solution," so I'm stuck with organizing closets.

Seriously. I organized my closet - donating three bags of clothes that I never wear in the process - and also Doug's bookshelves. He had all his books just thrown in there, and it was driving me nuts.

Doug's cowboy hat still has a place on his shelves

Sorry for the picture quality...my camera officially gave up the ghost. Having order in one corner of my life truly does make me feel more in control...and less stressed.

What's Blooming

Last week, nothing was blooming. So I just skipped the blooming post about it.

So there.

This week, there's not much going on, either. More glads...

And my sedum gave me a few pink buds...

But that's about it. I spend a lot of my gardening time these days cutting back flowers that are spent. I could leave them for the birds, but then I'd have lots and lots of volunteer flowers next year. That's what happened last year, and there are cosmos all over the yard. Some of them look great, but some just look like weeds.

The cosmos are the pink flowers just waving in the wind.

This year, I'm cutting them back. Hope you have a great week!

Can We Do a Re-Do?

We've been here for three years, so it is definitely time to repaint some of the rooms.

Well, one room in particular. The "Garden Room", now officially known as the "Library Room" is now also Collin's bedroom. It has been for a while, actually, but he doesn't like to sleep there. First, there were the fairies. He hated those.

Then there was the lack of curtains. Although there were blinds, so I'm not sure why this freaked him out.

Then he also hated the paint job.

Personally, I think he just doesn't want to sleep downstairs. This is true of all of the kids, though...and since there are only two bedrooms upstairs, some of them just have to deal and sleep downstairs.

In an effort to get him to sleep downstairs, we finally repainted. It took several days for me to clean out his room (Legos are a pain to pick up...and where am I going to put all these books with the living room still unfinished?). Then we took a day or two to hash out a color for the walls.

I wanted purple (dark, like eggplant). Collin wanted yellow (when doesn't he want yellow?). We compromised with red. I had just primed with white, so I just painted over that. This is breaking one of the cardinal rules (get it?) of painting with red, but so be it.  It actually turned out just fine, so maybe using a tinted primer is overrated.

Now my challenge is to use light-colored items to decorate, so he doesn't feel like he's in a blood-covered cave. Although I think that might be what he likes about his room now. Luckily, we already have a few things, like the hooks and the clock.

There is still a long list of to-do's for this room (a door without holes in it, anyone?), but hopefully he'll move back in soon.

What You Never Want to See

So I decided to take apart Collin's room downstairs and ready it for painting. He doesn't sleep down there at all. It is pretty far away from the rest of us, and I think that's his primary reason for not sleeping in there. He says he doesn't like sleeping there because it's such a mess.

And that mess is always Jack's fault. Not.

Oh, Collin also hated the fairies on the wall, left over from when Malena had a fairy garden room. I took those off when I realized they were causing a problem. However, taking them off did not make him want to return to his room.

So I'm redecorating. Anyway, we cleared everything out. And found...

A mouse hole. This is actually the picture after we stuffed it full of steel wool.

EEEK! Doug says, "We live in a concrete house, there should never be mice!"

I say, "There's the hole, honey. It tunnels from underneath the house. Go figure that out." I personally think that the foundation wasn't properly sealed to the outer walls. When there is a lot of water around the perimeter of the house (the ground was not properly graded away from the house), it leaks into the house. From the bottom of the wall.

At any rate, I stuffed some steel wool into the hole and put some D-Con in there for good measure. Hopefully that will be the end of the mouse tales.

I did take the opportunity to line the kids up and harangue them on the dangers of eating downstairs, though. All while pointing to that little mouse hole.

Again. EEK!

First Day of School: Jack

Yes, it's time for first graders to go to school. Jack is so excited.

Don't you love the socks-and-sandals action? Yup, that boy takes after his mama.

He got to meet his teacher yesterday, and she gave us a "tour" of their daily walks...to the playground, back in, how to stand in line. Very informative and Jack was just hanging on every word. Even better: she gave him a little baggie of fishes, because he is "of-fish-ially" in first grade.

Cute!

Back to School in July: Collin

Having school start in July is a little like going surfing in December. It can be done, but it just feels a little...out of season.

This is our first year on year-round school, so we're just rolling with the punches. Collin is back to school today, and Jack will be back to school tomorrow (pictures tomorrow to follow, of course)!

He is not wearing a backpack because his shoulders were burned  this weekend while swimming (what do you mean, did I put on sunscreen?). And, in case you're wondering, the shirt says, "Always be yourself / Unless you can be Batman / Then be Batman."

Have a great week!

What's Blooming

This week, there is only one new bloomer: the gladiolus.

The best part about this is that these are the bulbs I refused to dig up last fall. Remember that? If they died, I was going to be sad...but not sad enough to buy bulbs that I have to dig up and overwinter in the garage every year!

Happily, they survived. Somehow, I even ended up with a different color - the original glads were pink and purple, and I had some red this year. Freaky.

Or maybe one of my neighbors gave it to me. Happens on a regular basis, so I can't rule it out.

Anyway, hope you have a very happy week!

California! There We Went!

As kids, we always sang the song "California, Here I Come!" on our way back to California. Obviously we lived in California at the time.

Yes, I am "one of those" Californians. Hopefully someday I'll outlive that epithet, but whatever.

So we returned to California for a week of family, friends and the beach. Family first...I got to spend time with my dad, his wife, two of my sisters (woot!) and several nieces and nephews. Even a great-niece or two. And to prove it, we have pictures:

This is me, my niece Danja and my sister Dustie. My niece-in-law was having her baby shower and we just laughed and laughed...then we did an encore dinner the next night and did our nails. So awesome.

Doug went to his grandma's birthday party - we had to divide and conquer with two family events scheduled on the same night! - and the kids got to hang out with Omi (Doug's mom) and their great-aunts and great-uncles. Here's Bonnie with Omi:

And the boys getting into a wrestling match with their Great-Uncle Bob (Doug's uncle - I also have an Uncle Bob):

The kids also got to go to Papa's work (Doug's dad). The two youngest climbed on the sign and made funny faces:

Jack is doing a karate chop on the left. No idea what Sophia is doing, honestly. The kids also got to go to the beach with their great-grandma:

Apparently, Bonnie had it in her head that we were going to the beach every day. Doug did a good job of making it happen, with the exception of the 4th and 5th of July, when it was going to be packed. We stayed home those days. Here's a few more fun pics from the beach. It is tradition that someone always has to be buried in the sand, right?

This vacation, it was Jack.

He actually begged to have this done more than once, so don't feel sorry for him.

See? Super proud of being covered in sand. So is his sister...

She even had sand on her tongue. Yuck.

Doug also found a fun park for the kids to play in. And all my kids are climbers. Evidence?

There ya go. That's Malena on the apex of that curve.

My favorite moment of the trip, though, was at the beach. The two older girls found a long piece of seaweed that they attempted to jump rope with - it was so long!

Doug and I just got to sit and watch and absorb the peace of the waves. Ahhhh. Then it was back home to a hot house (Doug had turned off the air conditioner completely in our absence) and weeds. Our poor yard was invaded while we were gone.

Between the heat and the weeds, we've been seriously hung over from the vacation. We loved seeing family, though, so that made it worth it. Totally.