Spring Cleaning

So, I've been married for 9 years. We've been in this house for almost 3 years. Before that there were 6 other apartments (not to mention the in-between short stops at my in-laws and the 4 months after I got married that I still lived with my parents while my husband was deployed). And yet, I've never done spring cleaning. Shhh!!! Don't tell! Okay, I just effectively put it out there on the internet for all to see, so I'm pretty sure the secret's out. At least to all 10 of you who follow me. ;) But this year has been horrible! It's been a beautiful "winter" in Utah, if you can even call it that, but the kids and I have been sick almost non-stop! And by the time we got done being sick, allergies kicked in early! That's just mean! So I'm spring cleaning this year. I sat down last week and made myself a list, with little check-boxes and everything. I like lists...I just don't always like the work involved with checking things off a list. But I'm determined to do it. It helps that I'm counting calories and, in one hour-and-a-half cleaning session last week, I burned 340! That's worth it to me! That's two brownies...not that I would eat two brownies just because I cleaned. I would NEVER do that! ;)

 My list ended up being three pages long. Single spaced. With two columns. To be fair, it's not ALL cleaning stuff. I did add to it as I was making the list. I decided that I wanted a comprehensive list of my needs and wants for each room. For example, moving the shelf that my dad was kind enough to put up for me, but he didn't bother to even remotely look whether it was centered on the wall that it's on. It bugs me every time I look at the clock. You see, the shelf is only two feet wide, the clock is centered on the five foot stretch of wall above it and the shelf is only three inches from the edge of the wall on the right. Yep, there's THREE FEET of space to the left of this shelf and I haven't bothered to move it. At this point, I don't even need the shelf there anymore, so the plan is to just take it down and patch the holes in the wall. It's not even worth moving it. There's also bigger things like painting, which believe me is a big project when you've got a great room like mine with vaulted ceilings and no stopping place for different colors. Just PICKING a color for that space is a huge job for me.

I also just realized as I was looking over another blog that I left things off! Cleaning above the cabinets? Did I think of that? Definitely not. Despite looking over there as I made the list and seeing the cobwebs above them. Oops! So, I'm putting it out there. Today I'm going to get the great room done. At least picked up, vacuumed and swept and mopped wherever that needs to be done. I may call my sister-in-law to come entertain me while I clean. Is that wrong? ;) She told me to! I need something to keep me going, though! And I want to see her cute little baby. It's been too long! After the great room today, I'll work on the guest room and my baby's room tomorrow. My other sons' room will be on Thursday and hopefully the laundry room too. Then Friday, when my husband's home, we'll work on our bedroom. Saturday will be wrapped up with the bathrooms and working on the basement. Hopefully I can whip this all out this week and get it done! Next week's weather should be fairly nice so hopefully I'll be able to move outside next week, either to the yard or to the garage. (There really should be sound effects for blogs. I feel like that deserves a "dun-dun-dun!") Wish me luck everyone!

Clara Dress

Well, I decided to go ahead and post a picture of my cute little niece and the dress that I made for her. She's teeny tiny (6 lbs. 8 oz. at birth and this picture was taken only 3 days later!) so it's a bit big. But it's such a sweet-springy dress that I hope that she'll get to enjoy this spring/summer. She's such a little sweetheart and I'm so excited for a new niece close by! She's actually my 8th niece. We've got 13 grandkids on that side of the family total and of them, only 4 are boys. Of those 4, 3 are mine! I miss having little girls around, since mine is so old now, so I'm enjoying the visits with sweet little snugglers. Hopefully you'll enjoy the dress. It's called the Clara dress from Peek a Boo Pattern Shop and it's available on www.youcanmakethis.com.  I got to test it out and had to cut the pictures a little bit close since this baby was born so close to my dress's due date!

*This post is my entry into Sugar Bee Craft’s Celebrating Spring competition, sponsored by Appliances Online and Beko Fridge Freezers.