Spring Cleaning & Stuff I Love

Even though it is still nearly a month until the official start of 'spring,' I have spring fever. I know I am not the only one, as evidenced by the fact that I have seen folks in public wearing shorts-who, by the way, would be my children if I would allow it, which I won't. (My grandmother always said you shouldn't wear shorts in a month with an 'r' in it. Lucky for my turkeys, I let that go in April and September.) While I have NO urge to wear shorts just yet, I am itching to open my windows and let in some fresh air, to change the bed linens from flannel to cotton, and to hide the coats and gloves that are still scattered all over the place.

So, I am going to start my spring cleaning before spring gets here.

In my heart I am a neat freak. Or maybe that is in my dreams. Either way, I know I have it in me somewhere to be that person who always has a tidy house. If you've been to my house, that might be hard to believe, but it is true. It is the goal.

Happily, right now my house is pretty tidy because I had company yesterday and we were out of the house most of today. I love having company. And I love having clean sheets on all the beds. And I love making lists.

Just for fun, here is a list things that I love:

I love pictures of my family.

I love dishes.
I love quilts (and all kinds of linens).
I love old glassware.

 

I love my kid's artwork.

And she's not a 'thing' but I love my dog. (and I am buying her some "Critter Repel" handmade soap!)

Okay, enough of this. Off to do what must be done- laundry. NOT on my list!

February, the beach, and Valentine's Day

So much for January being unpredictable. February just set some new records! Actually, February is our usual month for snow around here, but NEVER EVER have I seen anything like the snow we've had this year! In particular, last week's snow. I went to bed expecting a few inches and woke up to nearly 2 feet! It was beautiful and amazing and really wonderful. During the previous week at home due to only 6", I felt  frustrated and trapped. (I knew Target was probably open, but I couldn't get there.) But with 18"  of snow covering ALL of  Northwest Arkansas, I knew we were ALL in the same boat- nobody's going anywhere. Somehow, that made me happy. Maybe because I didn't feel like I was missing the fun somewhere else. (Am I totally selfish?) So, what to do with kids at home for days on end? We made our own fun. With four kids, you can pretend it's a party without even calling anyone to come over! We played Phase 10 (a lot), made  popcorn everyday, snow ice cream several times, and brownies and homemade pizza and and and...you get the idea! We fed the birds and we fed ourselves. I decided I would cook my way through the Pioneer Woman cookbook. Until last week, I had only looked at the pictures, though I have had it awhile. Anyway, Ree (the PW) seems like a kindred spirit to me and I like to eat, so...pot roast, chicken pot pie, soup, muffins- all good. The turkeys (my kids) are really hard to impress. (I only get 'Mom, this is really good!' when we have Hamburger Helper.) But they ate it! I also did quite a bit of on-line shopping. And, at some point during the week, I booked our family a house at the beach for a week in June.

Obviously, the idea that I had to wear a swimsuit to the beach was not really on my mind. Oh, but it is now! Just in time for Valentine's Day- the holiday of love and chocolate. :) I will eat chocolate, I'm sure ( I have never turned it down), but this year I am getting my kids wax lips. They are so fun and funny and I can't resist.


Well, it is Saturday night and nearly bedtime at our house. I will be in the store on Monday. The romantic in me hopes you all buy your love a Valentine. And the mother in me hopes it doesn't snow again till next February.

January is NOT my favorite month. In fact, I somewhat dislike it. It is cold and unpredictable and usually has nothing to look forward to in it. This year, however, January was actually kind of exciting: Cari and I, along with Cari's sister Cristie, went to Dallas to the buyer's market for the first time ever! It was really lots of fun. (Cristie is a buyer for a department store and has been many times. We begged her to go with us and help us- thank you Cristie! If we were dorks, it was not her fault.) As I said, we had lots of fun. The mart is HUGE

 and the whole experience was rather overwhelming. We concluded that we felt like we were at the world's biggest shopping mall, but unable to buy anything (at least, not immediately). Or like we were at a party we weren't sure we were invited to-in other words, slightly intimidated. Everyone was nice, but it was difficult to appear confident while trying to make so many simultaneous decisions: Is this something we like? Would it fit in our shop? Could we sell it? Can we afford it/ keep it affordable for the customer? Along the way, we were distracted by the popcorn, ice cream bars, dips, candies, and coookies. Honestly, I had no idea so much food was involved in these events! While we snacked, we were able to snag a few items cash and carry and ordered several items that will be coming in over the next month or so.

I'm completely satisfied with what we did buy, and I think RedHill customers will like it. Our shop is still so new, we are still working out exactly what we want it to be. Of course, we know what we want it to be, but a shop changes almost daily, and we want to make sure we keep it moving in the right direction. Overall I think we accomplished a lot- and learned a lot- and laughed a lot, mostly at each other. We will definately go again, and next time, we will go confidently and we will wear our comfortable shoes!