OK, for those of you uncomfortable with issues of reproduction, now is your chance to clamp eyes shut, cover your ears, “LA-LA-LA-LA-LA!!”  For those of you with sturdier constitutions, here’s the deal:  I’ve about had it with all the hanky-panky!

Let me say, I am sickened.  It’s fornication, pure and simple. 

The Ziplocs are getting it on with the Lock & Lock’s!  They are reproducing with complete, total and wreckless abandon.  My plastic food storage containers are multiplying at such an alarming rate they are overflowing not only from their designated pot drawer but also from the large cupboard they have come to mysteriously inhabit all the way across the kitchen. It is nothing less than an infestation.  

We aren’t talking about the lowly used yogurt and sour cream containers.  Sadly, I suppose I’d expect it from them…. No, no, no.  We are talking about a certain class of plastics.  Containers that should have a heck-uv-alot of better things to do than illicit, wanton touchie-feelie in the dark recesses of my kitchen!  There was left over chicken last night, for crying out loud!!

This nasty business has got to end.  How are my boys supposed to go about their simple task of unloading the dishwasher when they could easily risk tarnishing their innocence in the inadvertent witness of this wild copulation?!? 

Perhaps worse:  the overcrowding becomes just so gross and these beastly critters become so desperate for their own space that they begin to devour their young.

Help!  How can I possibly, humanely, take back control of my kitchen?!?!

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Yes!  Kiss me, kiss me, little fishie!!

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Today we await the arrival of ‘The Americans’ (and one Brit, of course).  Beasley is up early in anticipation of seeing his favourite cousin today and possibly being picked up from school early (he and Guga-roo will take the rest of the week off, as this is not a holiday for us).  I’ve been incredibly organized and while all I had hoped to accomplish in these last couple of weeks didn’t quite get done, it’s good enough…  everybody has a comfy place to sleep and the toilets are clean!   While I had hoped to complete my ‘Autumn Purge’ by Thanksgiving, I made good headway and with a little more effort, we should be heading into the New Year with a few less pain-in-the-ass projects hanging overhead. 

I digress….. leading up to this much hallowed season, I have read many posts.  Most of the posts written this week, of course, have incorporated the sentiment of gratitude.  What has impressed me as I read, is that evident in the majority of these posts is how thankful many are every day of the year.  Yes, everyone appreciates the mood of this season and is sparked into articulating a feeling of gratitude, but in the many references to family, friends and experience the tone of fundamental thankfulness runs through.  Deeply.

What I have come to learn, and I will admit, only recently, is that despite all the excesses, the stress and the striving, who I love and what I love, to do and to be, are right here under my nose.  I don’t have to look very far to know what is right and good and perfect.  To move forward in this knowledge, is to move forward in contentment, in peace with what is and therefore what will be.

Inspiration abounds!

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I’m not typically an addictive personality, but this blogging thing is crazy fun!  I like the reading and I love the posting.  Strange in that it doesn’t really even matter if anyone is reading them! 

‘The Americans’ (and one Brit: sis-in-law) arrive the day after tomorrow and as yet have nowhere to rest heads comfortably- today’s task!  A day of emtying, organizing, rinse, repeat…..  I have to be done by tomorrow as I need to return my mother’s Dyson- a friggin’ dream, by the way!

We also have over a dozen old bananas to transform into banana bread.

If you are looking for neat prezzies- baby and otherwise, I just visited a great site right up my alley: product reviews by real moms!  Mamas Like offers great gift ideas, particularly given the season.  Be sure to check it out!

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One organizing disaster conquered!  Two more to go, however I am going to revel in this one with a little cheese fondue and maybe a Margarita or two!

The reorganization/clean/purge of the office is nearly complete.  By the time I settle my pretty little head down for the night I can rest in the knowing that one crucial area of my home has been transformed into an albeit small, but tidy and organized refuge where inspiration and creativity abound.  Money will be sure to follow, I’m certain!

OK.  Bottom line:  I can now see both my desk surface and the floor….

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Here’s a tip for those of you in need of an adhesive to end all adhesives. It’s been about a year since I have owned and seriously put to use a lovely IKEA coat hook/shelf. I also bought the matching bench/cubby unit. Love it!

Several months ago the hooks, which hang down from underneath the shelf of cubbies, started to become loose. By and large they can simply be tightened again, except for two of them. Two of the hooks are placed directly beneath the upright cubby dividers and the entire thing would have to be dismantled to get at them.

In comes the handy dandy PL400. It’s a construction adhesive and comes in the big missiles that have to be used with a caulk gun. The great thing is that the tip seals with the goop all by itself and can be used again and again without drying out. Anyways, a good dollop on the screw ends of the hooks and screw ‘em right back in. Let ‘em dry.

One of the hooks had literally come out and being that it’s nut is inaccessible in the piece, I just PL’d the damn thing right to the wood, itself. Works like a hot damn!

It will also stick pretty readily to fingers so best to wear gloves and keep a paper towel to wipe excess immediately.

It’s really to be used on big things.  It’s goopy.  Any large household repair job.  Works like a charm.

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I dug out the office today.  It is a link in the chain of room by room purge.  Everything is sitting in our dining room waiting to be organized and replaced tomorrow after the other desk is hauled up, through nothing less than a freaking labyrinth, from the spare room in the basement.  I can feel the free flow of ideas and creativity already!  No more trying to make their way through piles of papers, magazines, files, tangles of wires and cords.  I will now inhale freely the clean fragrance of uninhibited inspiration rather than the strange smell of misplaced mandarin orange parts (thx kids!).  I conquered first stage cull of junk today and will do a secondary go-thru as we organize and edit what gets returned.  I love progress…

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I suppose I am getting carried away with getting this house in order.  With this American Thanksgiving celebration fast approaching I am getting into a bit of a panic (remember rule #1, mum!).  I have to take a step back and take things as they come.  Filipes did great hauling that big arse hide-a-bed (note to self:  business idea:  design, build- patent, sell thousands, make millions- a light weight freakin’ sofa bed!), so I shouldn’t be so hard on him with his bad back. 

Everything that must get done, will get done.  It always works that way.  Perhaps reconstructing kitchen island will wait until after this holiday (will be done for Christmas?!?!?).  Must get a little perspective.  Besides putting all this pressure on to get all of these big jobs done makes me cranky.

I love mi filipes… and his bum back…

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Well, the purge has come to a standstill for the moment.  In assisting me moving a heavy hide-a-bed to the playroom from upstairs, Filipes is now completely out of commission with a sore back, sipping coffee through a straw….  Playroom looks great, I might add.  A space we can all enjoy, free of the toxic blue/green…

Anyways, our office was on the list today, as it is an integral step to getting spare room in order downstairs.  I need the big, old teacher desk from down there moved up here.  In order to do so, it must be navigated through downstairs hall out the door and over all of the bumpy landscape up on to the deck, through the foyer and living room and to its final resting place- the office.  Today, not going to happen.  I will however, be gutting (and purging) the office in preparation for my lovely, big desk.  It looks like I will be doing it around his sad, sorry self as he tries to get work done in this sad, sorry state.

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OK, I admit it. I freaked out on the family…

After emerging from a day of trying to conquer the turmoil of the basement I came upstairs to find, while not an equivalent disaster, a disaster, nonetheless. I had a total cow! I had kittens! I had a bird! Name an animal, I had it! Oh my goodness. The kids were fleeing the scene. After I had recovered from my brief and surprisingly enjoyable episode, we all came together to clean up. Boys took on the kitchen, while Miss May helped me take care of the clothes, books, CD’s and toys in the living room. New sofa remained safely untouched, it appeared. Good kids! Hugs and kisses all around followed by a perfect, comfort inducing supper of bacon and eggs!

This is why the short time frame to finish this project. Other than the fact that I have company arriving in a little more than a week, any more time spent on something like this would drive me and everyone else completely mad!

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