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.