Getting my hands dirty . . .

We have been moving into our new home this week. We are not living there yet, we are still in our old home. We have been going in and cleaning out, and now Charles is prepping the living room for some fresh paint. He has been dying to paint, it has been awhile. :-) So, we are sort of in limbo right now, living in boxes, between two places. I am getting anxious to get into our new home and start setting up shop, and giving the kids a little more peace. They have been SO good though. However, William is really confused. :-)

The picture above is of our backyard. Before the sellers moved out we asked them to "remove all the junk" in the backyard. Well, they did remove the huge piles of wood, but they did not clean out the leaves/piles of random gunk and dirt. So, I have lots of dirt under my fingernails now. I have been "playing" in the dirt (working hard, sweating profusely, and getting blisters). It has been toasty too, in the high 90's -- HOT! Anyhow, I am discovering my inner pioneer woman and I have this great desire to till the land, and make it beautiful. So this is the before picture . . . I will post the after in a few days, probably weeks. :-) I will conquer this beast! So far I have 3 heavy duty garbage bags full -- I think I only have about 20 (literally) or so to go! Yikes!

I love how private the backyard is though. Our back neighbors are on a few acres and their house is way far away from our's -- really nice. It is so peaceful at the house in the morning. We have been living on a main road, with a pretty steady flow of traffic -- it is amazing how quiet it is on a side street! I love it!

Well, I am only writing this now because I am waiting for Charles to get home (it is about 11pm). He is still at the house prepping for paint. I should have done before and after pictures, I think I have some before pictures though. I will get some good after photos. It should be nice. :-)

Well, I am pretty sleepy. I was up at the crack of dawn raking my arms off, while the kids played in the house. Then I returned home and got a phone call from the landlord -- who wanted to show the house we are in now to someone (this has happened about 4 times now). Anyhow, my house was a HUGE mess, boxes everywhere, etc. So, I hauled all the boxes (of course they had to be Charles Law books boxes--HEAVY!) into one room, so at least part of the house looked decent. Anyhow, that was interesting, then they came to look through, then back to the new house to do more raking, and I sanded down the entire living room, to prep for Charles. Anyhow, blah, blah, blah . . . manual labor is great -- I love it. :-) I really do. We were in the backyard and Daniel was "helping" me rake. He said, "Mom, this is fun!" You know, he was right! :-) I do love working hard and seeing the results of the effort. However, it definitely makes it more interesting when there are 3 young children around! What fun!

Over and out!

Mari