Life in Chapters

It has been altogether too long since I’ve really blogged.  Time for another “Life in Chapters” post… because its going to be RANDOM!

Chapter 1: Cleaning Madness
I thought we had fleas.  Hudson woke up a couple weeks ago with like 6 bites around his legs along the diaper area.  And I have a couple random bites on my body and so does Ryan.  Porter doesn’t, however, but he’s been wearing jeans and long sleeve shirts all summer (more on that later).  We came back from camping and I kept feeling just… itchy.  I was reading a lot of posts on FB about a couple different people having fleas and stuff so I figured I was just getting the heebie jeebies (empathy scratches) from that.

So, yesterday I went and spent $120 at the pet store (vet was closed for holiday weekend) on Frontline and a flea bomb and a flea collar to put in my vacuum cleaner bag.  And then I set out to work.

I bathed Duncan and Ramsey.  Tore the sheets and blankets and pillowcases off all the beds, vacuumed all 4 bedrooms (area rugs and baseboards), vacuumed the living room and baseboards, and vacuumed the entire basement.  It is disgusting as I had just put on a brand new vacuum bag and it was FULL.  Disgustingly full.  I tossed it, just in case we had fleas and got it out of the house.

I folded 3 loads of laundry in addition to all the bedding.  It felt good that the house was SO clean.  I was exhausted and fell asleep with Porter around 8pm and slept till morning.  WHEW!

Chapter 2: Riding Lacey
Friday I took the boys to go ride Lacey.  They’d been bugging me to go riding since Cannen’s Open House the beginning of June.  I also wanted to start teaching Porter how to ride alone in hopes that someday soon we could go riding together (although I’d probably still lead him while riding Rocket or Lacey…?)  Hudson had a huge grin on his face when I rode with him but his fun was short lived.  He preferred to chase the cat around the yard.  Porter, however, had a blast.  He rode with me, and then let me lead him, and then I taught him a little bit of how to turn and stop Lacey and he rode all by himself!  He had so much fun and was so brave.  I’m so proud of him.  I took a video and he watched it about 10 times later that day and said “I’m so proud of myself!”  So cute.  I’m hoping to take the boys back once a week… if life busy-ness doesn’t get in the way.

Chapter 3: The Kitchen Remodel/Facelift
I guess you can’t call it an actual remodel b/c we used the original cabinets… but it was much more than a facelift as we knocked out the entire effing wall between the kitchen and dining room.

My countertops came on Tuesday.  I’m in love.  I love love love them.  They look so nice and I can not wait to have the backsplash, floor and the beam finished.  Its going to look so nice. Now if only I can replace the appliances with black or stainless steel.  We currently have a black dishwasher but white stove and fridge and microwave.  I would probably just buy from Craigslist, and I am considering putting our stuff on Craigslist (as well as the stove and fridge from the apartment above the garage) and taking the sale money from that stuff and buying a used black fridge and stove and microwave for the kitchen.  Just for the time being, and then eventually replace it with stainless steel.