Kitchen/ Dining room Floor Tile (cool pattern)

Ok so it isn't truly a before picture because you can see there's no wood paneling on the walls, and the house is covered in drywall dust. That's OK, though, because it isn't truly an after picture either because some of the edge tiles aren't done. Notice, though, how we took an ordinary looking tile (boring, plain, white) and made it extraordinary by staggering it in a diagonal pattern. The walls (it's an old house) aren't perfectly straight along the floor and putting the tiles at an angle helps disguise that. Also, by staggering them, we can avoid the criss crossing of grout that makes my head spin. We ended up using a very light cream colored grout and a spray-on sealer. The grout color is great, it looked wonderful for 2 whole weeks. The spray sealer sucks dirt, I do not recommend it. We took a shortcut & now we regret it because it loks like we used a dark grout, exactly the contrast I didn't want. whatever, we get compliments on it all the time, the pattern is really cool. Now we just need moulding. I think the entire project was around $800 for 600 sq ft.

We have a play room

Part of our basement remodel has been to create a little "kids living room" where they can sit down and read a book or watch TV and store their toys. When I was a kid our rooms were always such messes because we stored our toys there and policing the space was impossible. My goal is that no toys (save for a small shelf of sentimental items or recent gifts) be stored in their rooms. So this rec room space we've made is mostly a playroom. Their computer is down there, too. Reclaiming my living room has been nice.

Hidden Bookcase Door

OK so MrH is supposed to be remodeling our basement because we want to sell our house. And because we have 6 kids in a 1200 square foot house with another 1200 feet of unused basement space. You can see how far he's gotten with everything in the background. However, he's giving a lot of love to the door. Yes, that's right the door of my new bedroom. The one that was supposed to be finished before E2 was born.

You've gotta love a guy who makes the door a secret hidden bookshelf.


All you do is pull out a certain secret book and it opens up. This is what my husband does with a long weekend. I can't wait till the pretty new door blends in with the pretty new walls around it. I'll keep you posted.

I had a productive weekend, too. I trimmed the roses, pulled out last year's broccoli- all but one because it looks like it is growing back or something, it's my experiment. I emptied out all my kitchen cabinets and cleaned them out, even wiped down the bottles of stuff and mopped and swept. I removed everything dead from all of my outdoor planters and flowerbeds.

My Bathroom remodel

My bathroom is so ugly, I plan to remodel it before we sell the house (this spring or summer) Maybe I can make enough money blogging to finance the remodel.

Back in the old days (Um, like last week when my travel blog was rejected) you used to have to have 20 posts in a blog that was at least 90 days old. SO I decided to pay attention to that little blog, and make a few other ones, since my pagerank on my original blog sucks, I figured they could build off of each other and maybe one day, when google updates their pageranking system (which I hear is like very 90 days) then maybe my original blog will be worth something, and then maybe I can grow these other blogs, too and Mwa hahaaha rule the mom blogging world, like Dooce and Amalah.

But now, they have changed the rules, so that any blog that has ten posts and is 30 days old will qualify.

I think it's a stupid mistake. There's already too many of us scrambling like vultures to grab the few opportunities that are available for new bloggers. They pay $20 for posting when you sign up, just to announce that you've done it. So they'll have all these people signing up and getting paid for making their first post announcing that they've signed up and then their system will be overloaded because all these people will be trying to get paid posts all the time. It isn't easy hitting the refresh button ten thousand times a day hoping a new one will come up. And sometimes the verification words are long and complicated. Like "Renoir $285,837.20" and things like that. It's not a lifestyle everyone is cut out for. If you think you might be the one who can handle it, then click the purple image below and they will help you register for paid blogging. I don't think you can handle it, though. I am just warning you.

You should do it fast because I don't know if they'll stay in business like this for long. Hopefully you're someone with a blog that has a higher page rank than mine, so that you won't be taking opportunities that I could be using to feed my kids. My six kids. Seriously.

Sometimes you just need to be hassled

Hassle me is a silly new website where you program in how often you want to be reminded of something, and what that something is, and they automatically send you little notes, hassling you. Examples they give are- calling your mother every 7 days, going to the gym every 4 days, eating fruit, practice the piano, walk in the park... I think you get the picture. Neat service, funny service. No thanks.

It does remind me of flylady, though. Her program is for hardcore junk addicts, packrats, etc whose house gets thrashed in 5 minutes or something, they send you reminders all day constantly and you have to keep these detailed notebooks. It just always seemed like more work than actually just cleaning the house, though. Understanding her practices, though is a good idea for keeping things organized in your head.

The underlying wisdom of Flylady, though is "don't go to bed with a dirty sink." And it's so true, waking up to dirty dishes kind of makes the whole daya littl emore hectic, doesn't it.

De-cluttering in one day

This cool website helps you learn how to De-clutteryour house in ONE DAY. Imagine that. She's got a 56 day guarantee, too.

Helpful kids.

It's so hard to decide whether having kids help with chores is a parenting issue or a Home Care Issue. I have decided it is both. You can read about the wonderful new system I have devised for getting the kids to pull their weight around the house.