So tonight, I went through five big diaper boxes filled with bills, kids artwork, notes from school and daycare, and junk mail (courtesy of a particularly rough April and May). Kids artwork is now in the pretty IKEA boxes. I put two 5-gallon garbage cans of junk mail into the recycling bin. What’s left is two diaper boxes – one with bills etc which need to be sorted and filed, and one with kid mementos which need to be put in their memory boxes. Guess what I will be doing for the next couple nights :-)

I did manage to finish sorting kids’ toys (at least the ones I was able to find – our basement is a scary place, filled with a multitude of mysterious boxes). For some reason, I have absolutely no emotional reaction to the “older” toys – it’s only the infant ones (mr. star, an octopus, the bug, the mirror, mr. banana who disappeared one day (I blame Damien) and is still missed) that make me tear up. Maybe because we have relatively few infant toys, and LOTS of other toys. Maybe because the rest weren’t Baby’s First Toys. Maybe because I really enjoyed my kids during the first year of their lives, before my shortcomings as a parent became evident to the kids. And probably because it’s the hormonal time of the month, too.

Public service announcement: it is not a good idea to sort things with sentimental value while having your period. Stick to brain-numbing things like sorting bills and ironing curtains instead.

And now it’s off to bed to finish reading “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo,” which is due back at the library tomorrow.

However, no rest for the wicked, and some things did get done:

1. Made pot roast for dinner. Got a whole new level of hate going for our slow cooker (Rival Smart crock pot). Whose bright idea was it to couple power level and timer together? Apparently, Smart means a choice of 4 hours on High, 6 hours on High, 8 hours on Low, or 10 hours on Low. If you want, say, 4 hours on Low, you are SoL. To add insult to injury, the Low temperature is actually pretty high, and if the cover is on tight (which is not as easy to accomplish as you think), whatever it is you are cooking starts bubbling. I felt like I had a cauldron, not a crock pot. The only solution to this is to carefully position the cover so that it is open a sliver, thus letting the extra heat escape. I am amazed the pot roast turned out at all. So, any suggestions for a better slow cooker?
2. Just in case, figured out what I wanted to buy at IKEA, and how to get there from O’Hare (Google maps totally suck at giving good directions to it, we know that from bitter experience, so the figuring out took a while).
3. Drove to Chicago to pick up Bill.
4. Bill was feeling up to it, so we stopped at IKEA on the way back – made it there 15 minutes before the store closed. After some mad dashing around, got all the items we wanted to buy: a shelving unit and some boxes for the entrance, two packs of cups for the kids, hand rings to add to the collection of things which hang from the ceiling in the family room, and two sets of paper boxes to store kids’ artwork and other mementos (in “blue” and “flower”). Good thing we didn’t have a lot of time to spend there, because there is so much stuff in IKEA that we would like to have….
5. Drove back to the Falls.
6. Unpacked Bill’s suitcases and took them to the basement.
7. Decided to do some laundry (not my brightest idea).
8. While waiting for the laundry to get done, wrote another book review, for N.K. Jemisin’s “The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms.”.

And now laundry is all done, and it is time to go snuggle up to my husband and fall asleep :-)

1. Mowed the lawn. It’s been dry most of the week, so the grass hasn’t exactly achieved new and exciting heights. Was not so much mowing as walking back and forth and wondering if I already did that spot before. The brush-filled trailer is in the side parking spot now, courtesy of neighbor Ron.
2. Talked to my family for three hours.
3. Annoyed a lot of spiders by destroying their webs in the great room, kitchen, and laundry room.
4. Took down and washed the great room’s curtains. Strongly suspect that they will need to be ironed tomorrow.
5. Gave one last cleaning to the great room windows, and put back the screens.
6. Went to Pick’n'Save and stocked up on dry goods, plus picked up more Diet Coke. Got a new Pick’n'Save card too. Apparently, it comes with fuel perks. Realized that Pick’n'Save and Copps are owned by the same company. No longer have to feel bad about all the deals Erica finds at Copps, since I should be getting very similar ones at Pick’n'Save.
7. Made another attempt at washing the windows on the Jetta. No matter what I do, they seem filmy. As long as I was at it, sprayed more WD40 on the squeaking passenger door. It still squeaks, but in a slightly quieter tone of voice.
8. Cleaned the upstairs guest/kids bathroom. Got ambitious and put down some liner inside the drawers. Then got even more ambitious and cleaned the kids’ step stools, as long as I was in the area.
9. Cleaned the master bathroom (always the dirtiest and the dustiest). Made note to self that it is festooned with spider webs. Must remember to piss off more spiders tomorrow.

And this brings us to 2 am. Considering I need to get up at 7 am, I am feeling slightly doomed :P

Today

1. Planted the daylilies I picked up yesterday and today. Got some bonus decorative grass, too!
2. Loaded the brush into the trailer. Neighbor Ron is going to help me move it into the side parking spot tomorrow morning.
3. Got gas for the lawn mower.
4. Did some grocery shopping.
5. Paid a couple medical bills.
6. Wrote a book review for “The Poisoner’s Handbook.” Took me over an hour, and still turned out kinda lame.

Time to go to bed. Need to get a lot done tomorrow!

Our friend Andrew dropped off his trailer this afternoon, so now we can get rid of all the brush that’s been sitting around. Yay. Also, my iPod cover arrived, so it’s been encased. And I got to go have dinner and a walk with Shannon, which is always a good thing (even if today I almost got into an accident trying to make a “blind” left turn; well, at least we learned that my breaks did indeed work when I slam on them). Other than that, an “off” day today – woke up groggy and out of it, and pretty much stayed that way.

Despite that, a few things did get done:

1. Picked up some free daylilies on Milwaukee’s north side.
2. Went to Target and got some supplies I needed (WD-40 for the squeaky car door, OxyClean spray, scrub sponges, Centrum vitamins, calcium supplements, disposable gloves, Finish dishwasher gel packs, body wash, bath sponge) and a couple things for the kids from the dollar isles (“How to Catch Your Dragon” coloring books and alphabet stickers). It’s amazing how things add up.

Need to go to bed early today, have to plant daylilies tomorrow morning before going to work!

The few things that DID get done:

1. Water utility man did whatever it was that he had to do with the water meter. I felt so bad for him – the previous owner of our house enclosed the water meter in a small closet-like area, and the poor guy had broad shoulders and had the hardest time reaching in to do things. It took him 40 minutes instead of 20 to get everything accomplished.
2. Dropped off the Jetta for timing belt change, water pump replacement, and tire rotation. (As usual, forgot to ask them to spray something on the passenger door to stop the squeaking noise.) Total damage to the wallet – $750. I am spending Bill’s first couple paychecks before he had a chance to earn them.
3. Deposited some checks.
4. Attempted to dig up a flower bed for the free daylilies I am picking up tomorrow on the way to dinner with Shannon. (I *heart* Craigslist.) Time will tell if I did an adequate job on the flower bed. The way today went, strongly suspect that it is not going to be good enough.
5. Cleaned over racks.
6. Washed the glass front door, and windows and sliding door in the great room. Will see how they look in daylight. Expect that I will have to redo them.

On the positive side, we are having gorgeous weather – low 70s and sunny. Of course, it will go back up to 80+ come the weekend. Good thing I have a ton of indoor projects to do!