Spring Cleaning Bonanza

Thank you to those of you who have checked in on me, to make sure I’m still out there! Sorry this blog has been abandoned this past week and a half. Things have been very busy in my household. The spring cleaning frenzy has set in. Spring cleaning does not really equal interesting blogging, so consider yourself warned!

It all started when I decided to clean out the hall closet. We had way too many towels and sheets jammed into such a small space… some things had to go. Next I reorganized the gift wrapping station in the laundry room. I like to buy gifts year-round when I see something (cheap) that reminds me of someone. It was overrun with presents, gift bags saved from previous presents, and tissue paper (yes, I save that too!). I’m glad to say that the chaos has been reined in. Speaking of gifts, I have done a little thrifting lately in my spare time (though there hasn’t been much of it!) The other day I found an OSU soft baseball and bat, still new in the packaging for five bucks. It was a little more than I normally like to spend at a thrift store, however I’m sure it still would have cost way more new. I’ve also found a little toy drill and jigsaw for fifty cents each. That got the brain ticking… I am going to sew my son a little tool belt whenever I finish finding some more play tools. That way I can tailor the tool belt pockets to the exact size of the tools. I think it will make a good toddler gift. I have a few years to get it done :)

Next up: the bathtub. I had Bathfitters come out last year to give us an estimate to put a shell over our existing bathtub… they wanted over $6000.

I just about fell out of my chair.

For that much money, I would expect to have a whirlpool tub! Needless to say, we passed. But we still have to do something because the grout has gotten really nasty. In our free time we’ve been removing the old grout and caulk so that we can put in new. As we only have one shower in the house, this means that we have to drive to Jason’s parents’ house to shower every evening after he gets home for work. Since we’re gone each night from about 6 until 10, that alone has seriously cut into my blogging time.

Last but not least, as if refinishing the grout and caulk wasn’t enough crap to deal with this week, three days ago we had an ant infestation in the kitchen. Great. Just what we needed. I couldn’t kill them at first. I tried to scoop them up on napkins to take them outside. That lasted for about the first three ants. Then I started killing them while apologizing to them. But by about the sixth or seventh ant, you could have called me the ANTi-Christ. I think I killed about fifty that first day. Then it hit me…. A long time ago corn syrup spilled in the kitchen cupboards and hardened. It was impossible to get off; it was as hard as glass. That’s the cupboard the ants were attracted to, so obviously I had to find a way to get the corn syrup up. I emptied the cabinet and tried prying it up with a screwdriver and hammer. That didn’t work. Eventually I figured out that pounding it with a hammer and turning it into dust did the trick. It was slow going, but at least I got it to come off. Jason also did some bug spraying; we didn’t see a single ant yesterday!

Then to top it off, I got my official RIF (reduction in force) letter in the mail the other day. The board of education approved over one hundred layoffs, and I am one of them. Music K-6 is being eliminated if the levy fails. So besides the fact that I have been busy cleaning and reorganizing, I really just have not been in a very bloggy mood. Please bear with me; I should be back to my old sewing/crafty self soon!