Tuesday, March 31, 2009

So, thanks, TNGreatAunt, for the new kids' sweaters in the last pkg since they fit!

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

I'm not sure which is more annoying...
  • being horrendously sick of all the clothes in your own closet and wanting to move on to a new season so you can PUT AWAY THE DANG SWEATERS you have been wearing EVERY DAY for the past FOREVER!
or
  • looking at your children (both of 'em, in this case) and realizing they've just, in like the past week or two, outgrown most of this season's clothes (in our cases, length of pant legs and length of sleeves), and therefore SINCE IT'S STILL NOT SPRING, having the choice of digging out the "too big for this year" winter clothing and going through it looking for a few items that will now fit, or just pulling out the worst high-water/wrist-displaying offenders and dealing with a more limited wardrobe selection.

Either way, can I have spring now? For reals?

Monday, March 30, 2009

Bonus pix!

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


If you want to see more pictures from Nectarine & family's visit during their spring break, she's got some great ones up here. Looking at them reminded me again about how much fun we all had! Hooray!

Also, yay for the zoo and getting to feed a pregnant giraffe!

Saturday, March 28, 2009

10 Part Brain Dump

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


In no particular order, here are some things I thought about / meant to post about / were rattling around in my head lately... 'Cuz nothing says "Sorry I haven't posted much/much of substance lately" like dumping 10 somewhat random items into a post and calling it good. ;)

(Slight incoherence may be due to...)
1. Pumpkin throwing up at 3am last night. She'd not wanted to eat supper, then ended up eating a lot. Went to bed as usual, but woke up at 11 pm saying she felt "awful!" Fever of 102.5F, so we gave her kids' tylenol, set a bucket by her bedside, and Mr. Kluges sat with her a while. Then at 3 am she called for us, and I went to see how she was. Still hot, but not as much. Chatted a while, then I went back to bed. Next I heard - cough. 30 seconds later, that dreaded cough - splat. Fortunately she got most of it in the bucket, and, with Mr. Kluges's help, we got her and her room cleaned up and got her back to bed. I rested with her until 4ish, when she was asleep enough for me to return to my own bed. Of course, morning came too soon, but she did well today. We started off easy with simple foods, but she felt well enough for a regular supper tonight. Also, she actually took a nap today. (As did I.)

2. Hoping Penguin's not coming down with the same illness. She's got the runny nose Pumpkin had a few days ago, and was tired enough to take TWO naps today - something unheard of in half a year.

3. SO glad to hear that it looks like Kashka's house is still (knock on wood, fingers crossed, don't-jinx-it) above water in the Margo/Forehead area. It was touch-and-go there for a while, but hopefully the water's started to recede.

4. Mr. Kluges spent all day today working on repairing the many, many cracks in the office. The only swearing occured during naptime when some of the moisture from the new plaster was mucking up the old plaster/paint beneath it and causing failure and chunks to come off. I tell you, Mr. Kluges is going to be a plaster master by the time we're done with all the stuff in this house.

5. Yesterday, poor Pumpkin was playing outside while Mr. Kluges did outside work. She was running on the (needs re-laying) limestone path, tripped, fell, and ended up with a BIG goosebump and ugly bruise right at her hairline above her left eyebrow. Poor kid, yesterday was a tough one for her.

6. With the work in the office, all 6 bookshelves and all the toys have been removed to the sun room and the living room. Most of it is out of the way, but still, having all the edges of the room filled with toys is less than relaxing. It's more annoying than I thought it would be, in a minor, but gratingly irritating way like a single mosquito buzzing around inside your tent.

7. It's spring, dang it, and I'd swept off the brick patio under our clothesline on the last nice spell of days and wiped down the lines themselves. Though it was 33F outside yesterday, it was sunny and slightly breezy, so I hung our sheets out on the line! They were a bit... stiff and crinkly to start, but dried by late afternoon.

7b. It's currently snowing outside. No plans for additional clothesline use in the near future.

8. We had such a BLAST when Nectarine and family were here! It was a little crazy with 5 kids in the house, but so fun! We went to the children's museum and to the zoo (for the 1st time), played Wii (1st time for me), and just hung out and visited. Thanks so much for spending part of your spring break with us!

9. We had a RACCOON outside our house earlier this week! I was doing the pre-bedtime are-the-doors-all-locked check, and noticed the motion detector light on the garage was on. Glanced out, and instead of the neighbor's cat, saw a big ol' raccoon right by the front steps that are about 10 feet from the front door. By the time I got Mr. Kluges to see, Mr. Coon was gone. I know we're only about a block from the river, but still, we've had SO MUCH wildlife around here. Chatty owls, bald eagles in our oak tree this month (right... meant to post a pic... maybe for WW), the Cooper's hawks that were nesting at the neighbor's last summer, not to mention the rabbits and such that you'd expect. Now a raccoon?!

10. This FLYlady stuff seems to be sticking. It's getting easier to let some "stuff" go (see the 365 Less Things in the sidebar!!!), the evening and morning routines make my mornings run more smoothly, and the weekly jobs and missions and all help me focus on keepings things more clean and tidy with less stress.


Ok, there, that's well long enough! Happy rest-of-the-weekend to you all, and let's send nice dry thoughts Kashka's way, ok? ;)

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Monday, March 23, 2009

Why look, I can still type!

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


Sorry for the lack of substantial posting lately. A picture may be worth 1000 words, but I suppose I do need to, you know, actually write sometimes!

Between the three performances of my community ed dance recital this past weekend, plus dress rehearsal one evening, plus Pumpkin had TWO birthday parties this week, plus we're trying to move everything out of the office, scrape where needed, repair/replaster cracks, and prep for painting it (well, Mr. Kluges is doing most of the office work)... there just hasn't been much time to sit down in front of the computer. And when I do, it's usually just a quick check of Bloglines and pop around to see who has posted what.

Now Pumpkin's come down with a bit of a spring cold. She's not too bad - mostly just a nose that manages to be both stuffy and runny at the same time with maybe a little cough now and again. But she was up some in the night last night, and really hard to wake up this morning, so I let her sleep in. Since I can, I'm keeping her home today to rest. She's not so sick that I wouldn't send her if I was working, too, and had to make special arrangements for her to stay home, But since I have the luxury of being able to just decide to keep her home, I'm going to do so today. (And working parents, I do realize what a hassle it is to arrange care for a sick kid! "Huh, I guess I'll keep her home today" and really no other arrangements to make? Luxury.)

So she'll get to watch a little more telly than usual, plus have "quiet time" in her room in the morning as well as the afternoon, and I'll get her to drink lots of liquids, and hopefully she'll be right as rain* in no time.


*Which, coincidentally, is what's forecast for 9 of the next 10 days. I love spring... but not the mud and the mess!

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

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




And a special "CONGRATULATIONS!" goes out to my youngest brother & his wife on the birth of their first child, my parents' first grandson! And we hear he's even got red hair! Congrats!

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Friday, March 06, 2009

Thoughts on decluttering a bookshelf

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


You know, one of the hardest thing about decluttering is not so much getting rid of the items themselves.

It's getting rid of the idea of them, or their potential, or what they meant to you.

I say this as I work on (gradually, a crate at a time, a few crates a day) taking all the books off the bookshelves in our office, in preparation of repainting the room. Since they were shelved all willy-nilly, I've been pulling them in groups so that when we REshelve them (reshelf? reshelve? bwah?) it'll be easier.

(Can I just mention now, for the record, that we've got a REALLY LARGE number of house design books, garden design books, and gardening books... 90% of which I've never (yet) read?)

(Also, "Practical Beekeeping." Pusher, you start with your chickens and we'll follow with bees!)

As I go through, I'm seeing college textbooks from my theatre minor, or Mr. Kluges's German major, or random cool college classes. I'll probably never ever look at "Stages of Drama" again, but the thought of getting rid of it makes me nostalgic for the dusty smell of the Black Box curtains and the bustle of the scene shop.

No, actually, that's not true.

It's makes me lonely for the person I was then.

(Not that I don't enjoy my life now, and the person I've become, you know, mostly and in general... it's just different. Two forks diverged and all that, you know?)

I guess that's really it. By getting rid of the books, it almost feels like I'm discarding that life experience (though that's obviously impossible). Or that I'm finally forever closing the door on following any dreams I may have had tied up with it all. Not that I've GOT any dreams of the theatrical life, but it was such an interesting, cool part of my life for a while.

(Also, writing introspective posts is just NOT enhanced by periodic interruptions from the wee ones or annoying scrape-scrape-saw of my husband, who is apparently cutting some sort of metal pipe in the basement exactly 4 feet to my right and just below the floor. *sigh*)

Not to imply it's only college and/or theatre books I'm torn over. There are books I read when I was younger, or that were useful at a different time, or that I've always MEANT to read, but just haven't yet. They sit on the bookshelves, mute, but with potential or guilt or dreams or memories permeating the pages.

I'm thinking (hoping) that thinking it through out loud, so to speak, will help me look at them a little more dispassionately. To consider each one on its own merits. Because we've got a heck of a lot of books, and I'd love to reclaim some space on the shelf for books in more active use.

But why does it sometimes feel like thinning down my books is casting them off adrift as orphans?

Wednesday, March 04, 2009

WW - The "hop hop" Penguin found

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


Monday, March 02, 2009

The Kluges/Huis B&B has begun its spring season!

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


In a fit of "isn't winter over YET?" - "the weather won't be so bad" - "spring fever" - "cabin fever" - "we miss the grandkids," we've had several of our MN friends and relatives contact us about coming out for visits. This past weekend, my BIL, SIL, and their two middle-school-aged daughters came to visit. (What a blast! The little girls especially loved playing with their cousins!) The weekend before, my parents had been up. Next weekend, Mr. Kluges has to work Saturday afternoon/evening/night, so no visitors then, but the following week will bring our friends Nectarine, Doughnut, and their kids. The weekend after THAT, I've got my community ed dance class recitals (Sat afternoon & evening & Sun afternoon). Plus, I think Mr. Kluges's parents are coming out one of those last two weekends in March.

The plus side to having so many visitors so close together is that the guest room doesn't get cluttery with stuff in between. Well, that's in addition to all the fun we get to have with all of them, of course. Yay!

One very small downside is that I'm a little busier with getting ready for, and then cleaning up after, our guests, so I might be posting a little less this month with all that. Plus, of course, keeping up my Flylady tasks so that the house stays (mostly) company-ready! In fact, I'm jotting this down quickly as I take a break from my Weekly Home Blessing! Off I go to vacuum. Toodle-oo!