A Blog About Green Livin' and Raisin' Chicks in Arizona

I have a garden that I’ve been trying to get up and going but have zero energy right now. I got garden boxes like…. 9 months ago.

I wanted to paint them, so they sat.  I finally painted them, but now I want to put down weed-screen and the rubber mallet for the stakes is in my husbands observatory which I HATE to go in. I also tend to blame the mosquitoes too because they’re just vicious this year and drawn to me like mad.

I think part of it is procrastination too, but I really need to get it setup before winter and we’re hitting the winter growing season (we’re in AZ, we have 2 growing seasons) but damned if I can find the energy or the time to get out there and get things moving!

My husband even fixed the old wheel barrel for me so I can haul compost over but so far, all I’ve used it for is hauling hay to the horses.

Someone kick me in the ass please!

I am so happy I could pee a little!  This weekend we tackled our front room which has been a make-shift office for me for the last couple of years.  It was a hodge-podge of furniture and crap that I accumulated when we moved here from Iowa and the whole room was beyond ugly.

My inspiration was my sisters office at DeNovo Alternative Marketing. My sister is amazing when it comes to decor and their office is gorgeous and bold in Red, Black and White.  I had seen the IKEA expedit desks on their website but didn’t realize their potential until I saw her office and realized how awesome they could work out.

So here’s the BEFORE: (Grumbles and groans accepted, I had nothing to do with the horrifying paneling in this room!)

EWWWWW!!!! and you can’t see the horrible carpeting in this one!

My favorite colors right now are white, black and teal (the blue color sitting on the chair above)

So this is how the office came out… so far… (There’s more to do)

TADA!!!

We ripped up the ugly old carpeting which was so gross and disgusting and Ray layed down wooden laminate boards. We got new trim boards and painted them in the highlight color and painted the old paneling and wall-board in a slightly off-white (called Vintage)

IKEA didn’t have Lekmen boxes in my favorite teal color, the blue they had was too dark so I went with cloth boxes from Target.  I still have stuff I have to put up on the wall and then my favorite part is we have one more desk to put together that will go on the opposite wall behind me and that will be my crafting/scrapbooking/sewing table and storage center!!!  I’m tickled pink at how it came out.  Plus, my husband and I can share this office which is nice, he finally has a place other than his observatory which is too hot in the summer, he can stop using the kitchen table.

AND… if I get annoyed with him, well I can just move one of the crates up and block him out of view. HA! (Yes, that’s a joke… kinda…..)

I’ll probably do one more post with the craft table once I’ve got it all setup.

Other than being up to my neck in baby bottles and poopy diapers, I figured I’d blog a little about life in general.

My husband is working on putting a new deck on the front porch for me. He’s got 1/2 of it laid in, and most of the screws down. I cannot begin to say how nice it is to not worry about walking out the door and wondering if my foot is going to go through. The previous owner laid down crappy plywood probably 20 years ago and it was rotting through. Luckily, he built the actual support structure amazingly strong so now that we have actual lumber down, it’s an amazing difference. I’ve got before pictures, just need to wait till it’s done and then I’ll post the pics.  Might be another week or so.

We’re getting ready for our 2nd annual star party and this year we’re doing a halloween party since it’s the weekend before Halloween. I have work to do outside in the barn, clearing out stalls and getting things ready. I’m hoping to do that this weekend.

The chickies are doing good, this will be their first winter outside. (They were babies when I got them last winter and were inside till spring).  They seem to be much happier with the cooler weather lately.

As for life as a new mom, things are awesome. I love being a mom, it’s even better than I ever dreamed it would be. Sure, we have our rough nights here and there but they pass and in general I have to say that she’s a really good baby… She’s developing her own specific crying sound now (which breaks my heart when I hear it) and other noises like short bursts of “ah- ah” when she’s looking around, exploring her world around her.

I try my best to sleep when she does (which obviously isn’t happening right now, I should have been in bed 2.5 hours ago when she went down, oops).  (If it counts, I used the time to clean off my desk and actually be productive)

On the home-front, I’ve realized that the methodical daily washing of baby bottles has done something kind of amazing for me mentally. I’m not sure why but the action of washing them brings a sense of relief and pleasure.

I am prone to two types of behavior, I either go completely OCD and run high energy, but it never lasts for long periods of time, (usually only 1-2 weeks, though I’ve had it last for a couple years before) or the opposite, when I find myself cluttered and often burned out in general.  Obviously, the high energy me is something I would prefer but it’s hard to trip it off and keep it going. The baby bottles are actually spurring it off and slowly building it up which is good, maybe it’ll last longer.

I find myself able to keep up on other things around the house. The sinks are almost always empty, the laundry is being kept up on, etc. There’s a few things I need to work out, like how the livingroom always seems to be ransacked with baby blankets, car carrier, diaper bag and other stuff, but only because I haven’t found proper places for them that make sense… It’s a work in progress.

I have to return to work in 6 weeks and I’m not looking forward to it to be honest. I want to be home with my little girl, but it’s just not feasible right now. I’ve got to find a way to balance full time work, full time little girl, and part time school. Starting in January, my life is going to go full on upside down and I have no idea how I’m going to deal with all of it. Take it day by day I suppose!

I have a love-hate relationship with my vacuum cleaner, cuz it sucks… (ba ba bum….)

Personally, I hate vacuuming, but with a little one, it’s something I’m going to have to start tackling every day, especially since I have a german shepherd dog who sheds an amazing amount of fur daily, and a long-haired russian blue cat.

The past two weeks, my vacuum has been clogged. Prior to Lilly, I didn’t have the energy to take it apart (which is a tedious time-wasting task) and post Lilly 1-week, I’ve been busy with Lilly and with being ill.

My carpet was over-run with dog/cat fur, totally DISGUSTING!!!

After getting some well needed rest last night and again this afternoon (thanks to Ray and Mom for letting me rest!), I had the energy to start tackling things.

Growing up, we had a kirby like this one, which I swear could have sucked a bowling ball through a garden hose, but alas, no, I have a crappy bag-type bissel that clogs every other time I use it…

So I set out tonight to get it unclogged. I took apart the short tube where every other time, the clog is always at. Yes, it was clogged but when I put it back together, it still wasn’t working right.  The hair had gotten clogged in the “long” tube… oh… crap….

So I pulled it apart and tried using a metal hanger (untwisted and pulled somewhat straight) and tried for 20 minutes to get the clog out… no…such…luck… mind you, I was attempting to do this outside, while it was raining, and with fire-ants biting my feet again…

I was on the verge of putting a hose down the tube and flushing it out, but I didn’t want to because then it would take forever to dry out, thus delaying my vacuuming and adding more hair to my poor carpet. Ray said I should try the shop-vac, and I tried suctioning it out, nothing… and then I remembered the unfortunate incident when I attempted to clean the bunny cage and had the shop-vac on reverse and shot nasty rabbit bedding across the room a few months ago… Hrmmm, wonder if I can “shoot” it out…

Flipped the shop-vac hose to the other side, hooked up the hose, and POOF! Out went a wad of compacted shepherd hair in like 2 seconds flat like I’d just shot it out of a tee-shirt canon!

It stayed compacted thankfully, or I would have been cleaning another mess in the bedroom.

So I think this will be a weekly adventure, shooting hairballs out of my vacuum. I wonder how much distance I can get on it….

Mom’s on an airplane on her way here and we’re going to be working on Lilly’s room this weekend. We have the paint colors picked out, and right now I’m using Kilz Primer on the walls (mandatory step unfortunately.)  I foresee my poor Home Depot card taking a hit this weekend!

We’re doing the room in a light green and light pink color.  I’ve got to find some cute wall decor as well that will help bring the room together.  Maybe hit some thrift stores to look for some storage accessories that I can paint to match the room too.

I’ve got before pics (and boy are they uggggggly), and I’ll take pictures as we work over the room to post on the blog. Gonna be a fun weekend!