Not Me! Monday, Stellan Style

As we are all aware, Not Me! Monday was started by MckMama.  "I created Not Me! Monday for the purpose of confessing our shortcomings and imperfections to each other since, after all, we are all only human!"  (MckMama's words)  Every Monday, you can find more "Not Me! Monday" at her site.  However, this week, in honor of her and Baby Stellan, we're doing "Not Me! Monday-Stellan Style!"

This week, it's our chance to HONOR MckMama and Stellan with our Not Me! Mondays.

To read more about Stellan and why thousands upon thousands of people, around the world, are praying for this little guy, click here.

To take a peek at Stellan's Name Gallery...click here. 

I did not take a whole week off of work to Spring Clean my house and then was not absolutely miffed that it snowed and was cold all week.  

I did not take lots of breaks, while not spring cleaning my house, to check up on baby Stellan.  When I found out things just kept getting worse, I did not stop and pray for him.  

I also have not prayed more in the last week than I have in the past year beause of Stellan.  Stellan has not given me a reason to pray, not given me a reason to hope and absolutely NOT brought me closer to the Lord.  Nope.  Not at all.  

Oh, and I did not talk to my husband about Stellan like he was our own son. 

I absolutely did not add Twitter to my blog and facebook just because I couldn't stand not keeping up with MckMama's twitters about Stellan.  There's also no way that I gave MckMama cyber hugs in one of my Twitterings either.  

What things did you not do to Honor Stellan and MckMama?

Twitter. Twitter. Twitter.

I have finally started Twittering.  

Like alot of bloggers, I don't have the time to post an entry every day, so I decided to join Twitter and I love it!  

I can hop on my cell phone or computer and post a tiny tid-bit of what I'm doing.  It's fabulous.  

Scroll down my sidebar until you find my twitters.  Underneath the updates you can click a link to follow me or you can just read them here.  It's up to you.  

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I'm back to Spring cleaning.  Wednesday night didn't go as planned, nor did Thursday day or evening, but I have a goal to finish several rooms today.

*Master Bedroom &  Bath

*Hallway

*Coat Closet

*Front Room

*Main Bathroom

*Kitchen

I should be able to get all of those rooms done today if I can just stay off the computer.

We have Casey's play tonight and then Rob will take the older boys to Spring Fling (a lock-in at a rec center).  I will be home with Caleb since Chloe will stay the night again at Gamma's. 

After dance tomorrow morning, Chloe will need my help doing her bedroom (she's living it up at Gamma's house. Lucky girl!) and if everything I hope to get done today actually gets done, I can head out to the garage and straighten up the left over's out there.  

I'm so excited at how much I am simplifying everything.  It's a great feeling.  

Spring Cleaning

Sorry I don't have pictures for this post.  I'll post some another day.  Promise.

Last week, for all of our Leprechaun stuff, we experienced 65-74 degree sunny days.  After several months of snow and cold sunny days, I had this fantabulous idea where I would take a week off of work and Spring clean my entire house. 

One thing you should know about me is that I try not to start something without making a list.  The list keeps me on track and helps me feel like I'm accomplishing something when I get to check off a little box.  If I wasn't too cheap to buy little gold stars, I would.  

On Monday morning I woke up to what felt and looked like the middle of winter.  I knew I would wake up to snow, but I figured it would be minor.  Not so.  It was a blizzard.  Hmmph!!  A far cry from last week's balmy 70 degrees, but no amount of snow was going to ruin my motivation.  I pulled out my lists, my new Method cleaning supplies and got to work.  

I decided to start on my basement since that is where the laundry room is and fifteen plus loads of dirty laundry waiting to be washed. 

Monday:

*Washed all the basement walls & baseboards

*Moved furniture around

*Vacuumed

*Finished several loads of laundry, fold/hang, put away

*Deep cleaned bathroom, shower.

*Mopped floors

*Washed stair walls, baseboards & handrail

*vacummed stairs

*Directed the twins with their room (they washed walls, baseboards, cleaned out drawers, dusted and vacuumed)

Tuesday:

*Rob took a personal day to help get the worst room in the house organized. Muscleman!!

*We went to Starbuck's for coffee, registered the twins in High School and went to Great Harvest Bread Co. to pick up a loaf and get a free loaf.  YUM!

*Rob and I moved everything out of the craft/office room.  

*Decided we needed to buy a storage unit from IKEA

*Went to IKEA to buy the unit and a table top desk that attaches to it.

*Went to Sweet Tomatoes for lunch

*Came home to put it together

* I washed the walls and baseboards in the room

*Had the boys bring up a bookcase from the basement

*Had the boys bring in all the heavy plastic tubs full of books from the garage

*Organized books

*Went through the many boxes that were once in the craft/office room.

*Did more laundry

*I went to sleep very easily.  I think I even fell asleep before Rob did!  

Wednesday:

*Made my younger two Cinnamon Burst french toast with the GHB we bought yeserday.

*My back is hurting today.  It feels tight and now that the boys are home they can walk on me.  

*Currently I have 1 more load of laundry (whites) to wash and 3 more to dry.

*Finished sorting DVD's and VCR tapes

*Mopped the dance floor, washed the dance room walls & baseboards.

*Went to Panda for lunch 

*Organized all the little stuff in the basement.  

*Simplifying!!!!!!!!!!  

*Went through more boxes from the craft/office room

*I need to take the boys to youth when the elementary kids get home from school.

*I might stop at IKEA to pick up 2 boxes.  I got an idea from the STORAGE magazine I was thumbing through last night. 

Currently we are organizing all the big boxes into little boxes. 

*Bathroom articles

*Office supplies

*To be filed

*Irish Dance

*Tools

Once we finish all of that it will be easy to take the box where it needs to go and begin organizing it from there.  

Later this evening I will be finishing up the craft/office room and hopefully clean the bathroom and maybe the front room (where I am sitting right now).  

Thursday the kids have half day off school, so I am going to start bright and early with the kitchen.  It should go pretty fast because I just cleaned it a few weeks ago (even the fridge).  I'll have to pull it out to sweep and mop behind it, but it's been done twice already since August 2008.  Easy-peasy!!  I'll let the oven self clean while I empty all the drawers onto the *covered* kitchen table and organize from there.  The pantry was cleaned out a few weeks ago, too, but I'll go back over it.   Once I'm done with the kitchen I will finish the front room and move on to the Master Bedroom and closet.  If you've been reading my blog for any amount of time you'll remember that I just cleaned and organized this bedroom & closet not too long ago.  Again...this will be Easy-Peasy!!  

To Be Continued.......

Pray for Stellan!!!

Click on Stellan's (aka. MckMuffin) picture below for more information on this little guy.

He's in the hospital with a very serious heart condition. He needs his heartrate to slow down. Please pray for him, his MckMama, MckDaddy & MckSiblings.

St. Patrick's Day

St. Patrick's Day has come and gone. I finally have a moment to post some cute pictures for you all to enjoy.
I could never get a face photo of Casey...so here he is making all the girls swoon.  That's my boy!

Chloe with P.C & A.F waiting for the parade to start.  Chloe looks so excited, doesn't she?  I think she was just hoping I didn't move so the sun wouldn't shine in her eyes.  

You can't get any better than Amy's dog, Suzie, all dressed up for St. Patrick's Day.  Woof!

Caleb being a goof-ball around all the Pee-Wee girls.  Such a ladies man.

Joe T., Rob D. (my sexy kilted man), Mark K. and little A.T. all sporting their kilts.  
Just a quarter of our parade...the rest had already turned the corner.  We are a big school with lots of fabulous dancers!!

A sign that was made by one of the talented Feismama's.  

The Crawford School of Irish Dance/An Daire Academy performed March 14 at the Siamsa in downtown Salt Lake City.  This was the Novice, Prizewinner and Champ levels doing the Double Reel.  I must say, our dancers are quite amazing!!  

Way to go, Crawford dancers!!

Casey is the only boy, so he's not hard to spot. Chloe is in the front row in a bright pink and black dress with a celtic cross on the front.

Apple Store Birthday Fun

Chloe and I took some time out to take a picture on a sweet MacBook Pro at the Apple Store in downtown Salt Lake City this evening.  

Casey was getting his very first iPod Nano....the tilting one for his birthday. He's stoked! 

Casey says, "Thanks Gamma, Dad & Mom!!!!!"

Happy 13th Birthday Casey!!!

Talk About Men in Kilts

Maybe it's just me, but I think kilts are sexy. Extremely sexy!

My husband has been wearing a kilt for over a year now. It has become his choice of clothing when we need to dress up or to just go somewhere that invloves Irish Dance. He also wears his kilt when he is participating in the Scottish Heavy Games.

In February, he took Chloe to her first Daddy/Daughter dance and he proudly wore a kilt.  Our daughter, whom I dream of doing an Irish wedding for someday, was not the least bit embarassed by her dad's attire.  She loved it.  That's her daddy...the one she watches throw heavy things over bars.  For fun.  He's also the one that brings a little more depth to the Irish & Scottish heritage our family will never let die.   

Last Saturday Crawford Irish Dance put on their annual recital and several of the dads were comfortable enough with their manliness forced into putting on a little performance.  When most people see this, they see the humor of it or how cute it is.  I see men who embrace their own heritage with passion and fathers who would do anything to support their very talented children.  Even if it means dancing in a kilt.  

The Kilt Daddies

Rob is wearing the sunglasses and dances with Casey & Chloe.  Caleb did not want to go out there with them, so he's missing from this very cute performance.  

  For more Talk About Tuesday posts visit The Lazy Organizer by clicking on the button above. 

Cead mile failte -A hundred thousand welcomes

sick

I haven't been blogging lately because it's all I can do to be a mom, work part-time and get the minimal amount of stuff done.  Some grotesque germ invaded my body and has taken over.  It's mean and vile and doesn't seem to respond to any drugs or garlic.  Believe me, I've tried.  Nyquil has been my friend at night.  It's good to have a friend. 

I have a raging sinus infection that will not go away.  I spend most of my nights hacking up a lung, nursing my sore throat and oh yeah...playing a dozen or more rounds of SLINGO on my son's Nintendo DS while I lay in bed trying to forget how I much I hate to be sick.  Now that was a major run-on sentence.

I did, however, manage to make the best pot roast ever on Tuesday.  I found a picnic roast for $1.99 a lb, which was fabulous. Usually I use Lipton's Onion Soup mix, but decided to try those new Slow Cooker mixes I've seen lately.  Oh my, it really gave my slow-cooked pot roast amazing flavor.  The meat came out so tender and yummy!!

 

While I've been sick, I've managed to clean out my kitchen pantry.  As we've been using more stuff in there, and buying less, the space wasn't being utilized in the best way.  Half filled bags of cereal, boxes with only a couple granola bars in them and various other things that were driving me nuts.  I figured it was about time the pantry was cleaned out and reorganized.  I dumped the half bags of the same cereal into larger pourable containers and put the granola bars into a container.  I even managed to fill a large container with instant oatmeal packets.  All the boxes and bags went into the recycling bin and gave me a TON of space for more food.  Gotta love that!!  Unfortunately, I don't have a picture because, well, that would just take way too much energy on my part.  

I've also been spending any extra computer time making sure everything is ready to go for this month's Irish madness.  This includes about 20 or more performances, a parade, siamsa and a recital.  I love doing all of that, so it's not a big deal, but it does take up a huge part of my time. We Irish know that March is hectic and this crazy mama LOVES it!

Gotta go watch some reel's and jig's.  You want my life, I just know it!  ;)