Weekend Craze

As you can see from my Friday post, I had a lot in store for the weekend.  I'm proud to announce that MOST of it got done.  

Saturday

Saturday I made the long drive over to Gainesville to see my sisters and nieces.  I'll I can say is Thank G*D for books on CD.  It totally makes the drive bearable.  Some of the drive I don't mind. For example, Switzerland (yes that's the name of the town) to Green Cove Springs is a pretty drive.  It's pretty much a wooded strip with mansions on the river.  Green Cove to Penney Farms is pretty.  I love LOVE LOVE how the trees make a canopy over the road in Penney Farms.  However, Green Cove to Starke...not so much.  It can seem like a never ending strip of nothingness since you basically drive through a military base.  I guess Starke is a fitting name ... barren and desolate!  Sorry I forgot, they have a Super Walmart now...YEE HAW!  

So I made a stop at Debra's house first.  She was having a Gator party.  Not really my cup of tea.  I mean yes...I am an alumni of the University of Florida and sure I want the Gators to win...but I don't need or want to hang out with a bunch of Debra's high school friends who didn't go to UF and sit around talking about "we".  Um no, not "we" just because you live near Gainesville doesn't make you a "we".  "We" requires student loan debt.  

Kaelyn was sleeping when I got there but I decided to wait around for a bit for Kaelyn to wake up.  She woke up about 20 mins after I got there.  We played outside for awhile.  She went in her playhouse and I pulled her around in her wagon.  

I then made my way over to Nicole's house where I spent pretty much the remainder of my day.  Let me just start off by saying that when Marissa was like a minute old I thought about what she would be like when she was 4 or 5 and believe me it's way better than I ever imagined.  This kid should have her own show on Disney or Nickelodeon.  She is absolutely hilarious.  On my way over, I stopped at the gas station to get a drink and buy Marissa her fave....Reese Cups.  I put it in my purse and when I went inside she apparently had seen them and said....Circle is that mine or yours?  I said, who's do you think it is?  She said, MINE!  She then proceeded to show me how she has learned her entire dance recital video.  The entire 2 hour plus video.  She can do all the dances.  And she has props.  The funniest part was when one of the older groups were dancing with these masquerade masks and she ran down the hall to her room and came back with these sunglasses.  I was cracking up.  She was holding them to her face and doing the dance moves.  Nicole later informed me that they were 3D glasses from the movies.  After the dance recital was over.  We just goofed around.  Let me just say that there is no greater sound to me than Marissa laughing.  She cracks up and cracks me up in the process.  I helped her clean her room.  (Really...I cleaned it while she watched.)  We watched Wall-E.  At one point, when I was cleaning her room she said....Circle you are beautiful.  Awe!  Also, she told me before I left that she had to tell me a secret and she whispered in my ear...Circle you're my best friend!  It was too sweet!  I of course whispered in her ear...you're my best friend, too.  Believe me when I left that girl really knows how to lay on the guilt trip.  She wanted to come home with me, which believe me I wanted her to come but the reality is...she will become a little too much for Auntie Circle to handle at bed time.  She of coursed promised that she would be good and said....but I want to see Uncle Paul.  She then wouldn't give me a hug because she said that she was mad at me.  In the end, we worked it out.  I really try to just talk to her and explain why sometimes you're told no.  (Believe me there was once this whole fiasco when Paul screeched NOOOOOOO as she almost wiped her jacket across our tv....and she cried and cried.  I just explained to her that Uncle Paul isn't mad that she just scared him and that the jacket might scratch the tv...he shouldn't have screamed but sometimes no is just no.  Thanks Paul...lol)  So anyways, after I felt the guilt of leaving subside...I left.  Okay okay, giving her some money helped win her back over.  I know it's wrong, but I NEVER want to be that grown-up that disappoints her in saying that they will do something and not doing it.  

Leah was awake while I was there unlike last time when she slept the entire time.  She's gotten pretty big.  Nicole made jokes ... like hopefully she's the opposite of Marissa and that she would be okay if Leah never talked.  She is a pretty calm baby but I really think she'll run around just like Marissa...besides Marissa won't let her not have fun.  Believe me, there's no resting in Marissa's day she wants to play play play!  NOW NOW NOW!  LOL

So on the way home, I stopped back over at Debra's house.  Kaelyn has a bunch of teeth now and I guess they play this game with her where she goes to bite their nose I guess I missed where Debra pulled away because when Kaelyn did it to me...she bit my nose.  HARD!  Debra starts cracking up...you let her do it?  I guess I didn't understand the rules of that game.  Kaelyn played with my car key.  Something about the whole key popping out on the VW key just amuses kids.  After a little while, I had to make that long drive home to make it home in time to make dinner for Paul and I before he got home from work.  

All in all...Saturday was great.  I loved hanging out with Marissa!  I would have liked to see Kaelyn more but there was just so much action going on over a Marissa's house.  She just keep going and going!  I was EXHAUSTED when I got home.

Sunday

Lazy day...slept in and watched some movies.  Took a nap.  Watched some more movies.  Yep unproductive, but great!

Monday

Out of sure fear that I would get nothing done and have nothing to report on my weekend progress.  I got a TON done yesterday.  First, my day started out kinda slow.  Did some grocery shopping and then geared up to tackle the downstairs closet.  

Okay just when you thought my walk-in upstairs was horrible...feast your eyes on this chaos....

YIKES!

Okay what you can barely see peeking out is a purple container holding stuff and behind it is a red and green container holding Christmas stuff...so it's just a bunch of crap thrown on top of these containers.

MESSY! Under the AC unit!

The sad part...this is like only HALF of my shoes.  

The other half used to reside in my closet upstairs.

This downstairs closet is where we're basically just shoved everything as you can see that didn't really have a home and where most of our kitchen stuff resides while Paul takes his sweet time remodeling our kitchen.  So behind all that mess is books that Paul needs to study for his medical boards so two reasons to clean...1) the mess just needed to GO and 2) he needs to get to those books.  

So Friday, I had this brilliant idea at work.  I would take some boxes home to make a book shelf for the books so I wouldn't have to buy something and put it together.

I found the books...YAY!!!  

They were literally stacked just like this in the back of the closet.  

Okay so this is what I envisioned the books would be like...however, that purple container was the exact length of the back of the closet and I didn't want to pile these books on top because that would make the purple container impossible to get into. So I had to make some compromises. 1) This closet is truly for storage and therefore doesn't need to be cute like my walk-in upstairs 2) As soon as I make stuff impossible to get into I will need it. i.e. last year with the Christmas container...buried in the back so Shia did no decorating last year...lol. 3) There is a lot residing in this closet from the kitchen so it has to go back. 

Okay so this is how it wound up. Looks can be deceiving....first in the back purple container which now holds things that we do not need and will not need at the present moment. Some small appliances from the kitchen...blender, food processor, etc. So it is in the back of the closet on the bottom. The Christmas container is on top of the purple container which I went through and eliminated some junk so all Christmas stuff fits in that container now. Next to it, on top of the purple container are two boxes holding stuff that used to be in the purple container, glasses, extra kitchen stuff that we need but not at the present moment but "might"...(both boxes neatly labeled). In between the wall and the purple container yielded enough space for all my wrapping paper and a few pictures Paul and I intend on hanging ... one day. So the books are in the front easily obtainable but wait what is that on top? An obstacle? Blocking all that great back organization...making it impossible to reach that stuff in the back. Nah! It's our AC air filters. That box is big but it is as light a feather so if I gotta get something it can be moved easily. That was the whole point of the stacking. Put stuff I need where I can get it but maximize that space for all the stuff.

Drum roll!  This is ALL of my shoes.  

I went through the mess that was here and the stuff I had upstairs and got rid of all the old worn out shoes and organized them all.  Oh yeah and that shoe in the middle of the tennis shoes...if I don't find the mate upstairs (I'm thinking it just didn't make it in the bin to come downstairs) it's getting tossed!

I forgot to take pics of under the AC unit.  Basically I just stacked all the home improvement stuff under there and put our old computer under there.  Paul wants to recycle it but hasn't so that is it home for the meantime and it is out of the way. 

YAY THERE IS FLOOR!!!  

Which I might add that I vacuumed before putting all this stuff back in.  There was some cat nip spillage going on and don't even get me started as to why I owned (threw it all away) catnip...LOL

After tackling the closet, which really didn't take that long, maybe an hour and a half to two hours, I did some laundry and organized my drawer in the upstairs bathroom.  Cleaned all my makeup brushes and wiped down my makeup.  Bareminerals can get pretty messy since it's all a powder so all my makeup containers were covered with a makeup film.  So it's all neat and clean.  While I was cleaning this stuff I thought....soon I will be out of stuff to organize and I actually got kinda disappointed...lol.