Miscommunication...

Due to a little miscommunication, the people that are supposed to fix my septic lines will not be here until Wednesday! This upsets me on 2 fronts...

1) I am convinced that the reason behind my general illness lately is due to the fact that I have sewage backed up into my basement. UGH! The smell!

2) I allowed certain thing to go in order to try to let the ground dry out before they came to fix it. So now I'm going to spend today catching up on laundry and dishes that have gone undone since Wednesday night.

I have a few loads of laundry that need to be done, not very much, but enough to have to spend the day doing it. And there are enough dishes that it will take me at least 30 minutes to catch them up. And I need to get them done in order to get tonight's dinner started in the crockpot.

I also didn't get very much done in the bathrooms this past week. I really meant to, but between feeling sick and trying to use as little water as possible, it just didn't happen. The basics got done, such as picking things up and throwing things away. But I didn't get any DEEP cleaning done like I wanted to. That's okay, though. I'll catch it next month when we hit that zone again!

Well, DH is up now, so he will want to get on the computer! LOL More later!

Sick...

I've been "sick" for a few days. I say it that way, because of lack of a better word. I just haven't been feeling right. General body pains, fatigue, tummy upset, that sort of thing. So I haven't been doing much the last couple of days.

I have people coming to fix my septic lines today. It should have been done 2 weeks ago, but the bank wanted to give us a bad time about cashing the homeowner's insurance check that we got so that we COULD fix it. We had to wait 10 days for it to clear. So today is day 10, and they are going to cough up my money! LOL

Hopefully I'll be feeling better in a few days.

Crazy Storms...

Yesterday afternoon we were under tornado warnings/watches for about 5 hours. Both storm systems went right over my head. As far as I know, there were no tornados in my area. They *think* a funnel cloud was spotted to the south of us, but last I heard, it was still unconfirmed.

As soon as I heard the warnings, I filled up the tub so that we could flush the toilet if we lost power (we're on a well). DH started a fire in the fireplace, the 2 younger girls toted in as much firewood as they could, and I got dinner going. It was just leftovers, but I needed the power to reheat them, and didn't want to wait till our normal dinnertime, in case we lost power before then. So we were eating dinner when the first storm hit.

The first wave contained pea to marble sized hail. There was some that got as big as a quarter, but not much. That was probably the scarrier of the 2 systems that passed over us though, because it was still light enough to be able to see what was going on.

The second storm brought my neighbors up. They live in a mobile home, and didn't want to be in it in the storm. I live in a brick home with a full basement! This one is the one that gave us the softball sized hail for about 15 minutes. We never even took cover. LOL We stayed in the living room, chatting with the neighbor and her 4 kids. Trying to make it seem as normal as possible for the kids. We had the computer on, showing www.weather.com as well as www.11alive.com so that we could keep track of what the storm was doing. Got a few good laughs at folks we went to school with being interviewed on the news about the storm.

We have no damage at my place...not even from the hail. Although the yard looked like Noah would have been right at home! LOL Anyone want to come swim in my yard??? There's plenty of room! Hopefully most of it will either run off, saok in, or dry out today. The septic folks are supposed to come tomorrow to fix the field lines.

Today brings us a beautiful, cloud free morning. It's a little chilly, but not unbearable. I think it may be the perfect day to go out and plant my potatoes...

The Garden...

YEAH!!! DH finally got done getting the garden ready for me! That means I can start planting the things that need to go in the ground now. I will be putting English Peas in on the 25th & 26th of this month (going by the Farmer's Almanac) and will get my Carrots & Potatoes in the ground on March 12th-16th.



I'm going to be trying to plant potatoes in old tires. Sounds wierd, I know, but from what I hear, it's a great way to do them! You start out with one old tire. Fill it with your planting medium, and plant your seed potato. Once the plant has grown to about 12-18 inches above the soil, flip another tire on top of the first and fill with mulch. o this till you have 4 tires on top. Once the plant flowers, you should have some pretty decent "new" potatoes. If you want them to grow bigger, just leave them in longer. When you are ready to harvest, you just flip all the tires off. By using mulch instead of soil for the upper 3 tires, most of the potatoes will be clean of dirt. From what I hear, you can get about 30# of potatoes with just ONE of these setups! I can't wait to try it! I already have 2 old tires, and the guy I got them from told me to come back and get as many as I'd like.



Other things that will be going in this year are corn, squash, cukes, sunflowers, pumpkin, green beans, blackeyed peas, sweet potatoes, and of course my tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants that are already started in the house.

I'm really looking forward to this year's gardening season!

It's A Good Thing...

I'm glad that I managed to at least do a little work in MY bathroom today, because I won't get a chance to work in the other bathroom or the girls' bedroom today!

I went to order (and prepay) for a new gasket seal for my fridge. While I was waiting for one fella to look it up, I got to talking to another one. He asked me some questions and according to my answers, my biggest problem isn't my gasket. He said it sounded like it might be either my fan (which I happen to know is working), or the heating element inside the back of the freezer (it takes care of the automatic defroster on frost free models) is froze up.

So my work in the kitchen isn't done by a long shot. He told me how to check several things, and depending on what I find when I follow his directions, I may wind up with a new fridge. Not that we can afford one at the moment, but I'd rather know that I need a new one than to throw money at an old one that isn't going to do any good. I may just go out and find a decent used one if I can.

This wonderful young guy also gave me a tip on how to plug the hole that was melted into the bottom of my dishwasher. I will look at taking care of THAT issue as soon as we have the septic system straightened out. DH doesn't want to worry about it until then, anyway. But at least I have an idea of what wil work to make it not leak anymore. Then I can use it for it's intended purpose, instaed of an extra large dish drainer! LOL

Well, I'm off to transfer all my cold items to the fridge in the basement.

ZONE 3...

The Bathroom and One Other Room

I have 2 bathrooms. One belongs to the kids, and one to DH and I. Currently, the kids are having to take baths/showers in my bathroom because the faucet was broken off in their tub when the 2 little ones were playing aorund one night. Maybe I need to put that on my "Anti-Procrastination" list for this week. I'll have to see if I have the supplies to fix it, and if not, find out how much I'll need to get it fixed. Shouldn't be too hard of a fix though. Anyway, instead of grouping my bathroom with the Master Bedroom next week, I'm going to take care of it this week. But my "other" room is going to be the bedroom shared by my 2 younger girls.

Already this morning I have tidied up in my bathroom. It's probably the easiest one to keep picked up, but I always forget to get the trash for some reason! LOL So the trash got taken out this morning. I picked up the dirty clothes that DH can't seem to put in the hamper, and picked up wet towels out of the floor. I also put away spare thing that got left on the counter. I'm going to tidy up in the kids' bathroom today, and try to get something done in the girls' bedroom.

I would like to finish up the touch up painting that needs to be done in my bathroom and start painting in the kids' bathroom this week. I don't know if I will actually get that far, but it's a thought to keep me focused and going. I think I'm going to change the shower curtain out of their bathroom and put it in mine. As long as it isn't getting used in theirs, I may as well put it in a room that I'm in all the time! LOL It has lighthouses on it, which I collect.

Well, time to take another stab at it!

A Suprise Visitor...

I am so proud of myself!

When DD15's friend dropped her off at home last night, the friend's dad came in to talk to me. Now, in the past, this would have been the most embarrassing situation for me! But as I looked around, I realized there was nothing for me to be embarrassed about. There were a couple of things laying around the living room from the younger 2 girls playing, but it was tidy for the most part. The kitchen was clean, except for the floor and the dishes that were used to cook dinner. We had just sat down to eat when they got here, so a pan needing washed wasn't a big issue for me. He could see that we were eating, so I wasn't worried about the kitchen.

DH remarked about it later when we went to bed. He said something about being so proud that I had been working so hard to get the house cleaned up, and how he wasn't as stressed about someone coming into the house anymore.

Makes me feel pretty good that he's noticing!