A Little January Potpourri…

A new year, new beginnings, starting anew…

Resolutions…

Each year I “resolve” to get organized – but that’s a whole different post! However, just taking down Christmas décor reminds me that I need to do a few things before I can put the house in order -

“Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing; and establish a house, even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God.”
(Doctrine & Covenants 88:119)

Order - that has been our goal this month…

I started off by taking pictures of my Nativity collection before I packed them away, cataloguing each one by date & a little history of where it was purchased or who gave it to me. It took me way longer than I thought it would, but I am happy to have that recorded. I have collected 45 precious Nativities through the years. I love each & everyone. It’s hard to choose favorites, but here are a few to illustrate the variety...

1994 Lladro from Bermuda.



1998 hand carved ebony from Tanzania.



2003 Fontanini from Rome, Italy.




2003 handpainted & fired plates by our daughter Cindi.



2005 hand crafted felt dolls from Helsinki,Finland.



2008 hand carved olive wood from Jerusalem.



Our next project was to clean & re-seal our tile & granite counter tops. That may not sound like much to you but we have about 3,000 square feet of tile in this house (including shower walls) & about 400 square feet of granite counter tops. I steamed & mopped all the tile clean, but Paul did the hard part of painting on the sealant carefully so not to get any on the baseboards or cabinets. It took us 2 days. (Glad we only have to do that every 3-5 years!) I wasn’t much in the picture taking mood during this project, but here is a rare moment…my laundry room (aka “crap room”) without all the crap on the counters.




Those of you who know Paul will understand that, to him, organizing = FUN! For me, organizing = STRESS! Here he is having “fun” in the pantry.



Nonetheless, we didn’t stop there…we went up to the attic. Yes, we went through & consolidated all the boxes & put away any random things so that our attic resembles our old garage on Hyde Park Drive…remember all those blue boxes? :)




Part of consolidating boxes was going through them, sorting, deciding what to keep, & what to toss. We tossed A LOT, but I managed to hang onto a few treasures, like the costumes & old prom dresses (great for g’kids to play in), & the Barbies! I did get rid of a lot of the Barbie furniture & unidentifiable things and I tossed all the headless Barbies & Barbie heads without bodies. (Seriously? Why were those in there?) Then I stripped them naked (which most of them were already naked, evidently a requirement when playing with Barbies) & tossed them all in the tub together. It looked like a Mattel nudist colony, but I disinfected them all & laid them out to dry…



Then I sorted the clothes by color (Oh, yes, I did!), washed the clothes & sorted them by item – (You know - fancy dresses, short dresses, long skirts, short skirts, pants, tops, jackets, etc – I have selective OCD.) & laid them out to dry…



Seriously, some of these Barbies & their clothes are almost as old as Jill & had NEVER been washed (except maybe when they found themselves in the bathtub with a little one that was supposed to be bathing instead of playing). Honestly, they were pretty disgusting. Now I can let the g’kids play Barbieville with a clean conscience knowing that they are playing with clean Barbies, too.

I don’t want you to think that we have just been slaving away over here. We have managed to play a little, too. We’ve taken advantage of some of the beautiful weather we’ve been having & taken some drives through the hills in this area. We took the Mosquito – Rock Creek loop ending at the Chili Bar Dam and another drive up Hwy 193 through Georgetown. The Sierra foothills are gorgeous! There were lots of little waterfalls from the recent rains we’ve had, too.



I also learned to knit on these cute little plastic looms. I find it very enjoyable & relaxing AND it’s something I can do in the car without getting headaches or car sick. I’ve made lots of hats & scarves already.




Of course we’ve celebrated a few birthdays already this year. In fact, we have 9 birthdays in the first 7 weeks of each year. It’s not even our busiest time of year for birthdays - that would be April & May when we will celebrate 12 birthdays & 5 wedding anniversaries!



Paul loves sharing his birthday with Kenyon (probably the best birthday present he’s ever received!). Amy invited us over for a little celebration…love the cupcakes!




Rochelle & da boyz joined us, too. It’s always a party when G’pa Paul is surrounded by grandchildren.



A few days later, we invited Brent & Rochelle out to dinner to celebrate their birthdays…



...then we invited ourselves over to their house for a sleepover with da boyz since we wanted to go watch their basketball games early the next day way out in Elk Grove.



I did have my camera with me at the games, but the battery died before I could get any good action shots. I did manage to catch this cute little guy watching his big brothers hoopin’ it up.



All in all, it’s been a great start for 2011. How are you doing on your Resolutions?