If by "alarm" you mean ....

two small children who rise with the sun then, yes, I get up when the alarm goes off pretty much every day.

So I’ve accomplished this one without really even trying!

See more progress on: Get up when my alarm goes off

Ah, the value of a nice yard

The landscape crew is here right now, putting in a new pathway, stepping stones, and some raised beds. It’s not the major high-end redesign, but the yard will be nice for the summer and for the kids. And once they’ve done the heavy lifting, I can go out and play with flowers and pretty fun things!

See more progress on: landscape my yard

It's cleaned out, at least

Not a huge 1000% purge, because Husband refuses to let me get rid of anything he once wore, might wear, or spent more than $10 on fifteen years ago. But my side is clean, Baby’s clothes are organized, and I can go in there to find things and get dressed. I call it a win!

See more progress on: Purge my closet

Banned Books and other goodness ...

Last night I went up to the local library branch and picked up some books that had come in from my hold queue. Nothing earth shatteringly deep – my first pick from the pile is “Sweet Jesus, I Hate Bill O’Reilly”. Amusing.

I also picked up a book from the “Banned Books Week” display, “God’s Little Acre” by Erskine Caldwell.

I will never understand the fear that drives the desire to stop people from expressing ideas. It’s not the expression of multiple, even contradictory, thoughts that’s a danger to society. The real danger is conformity of thought and refusal to acknowledge that sometimes, just sometimes, new and different is beneficial to all of us.

See more progress on: Read more books

At this rate, it'll take me 40 hours to get it all done

I put in an hour last night sorting out Baby’s clothes – since our closet is the size of a small room and Baby sleeps in our room, we put a dresser in with out things. But it, of course, started overflowing and no one could find anything (except me, because, of course, Mom knows where everything is, all the time).

So, pulled out all the summer clothes, too-small sleepers, and other random crap that had ended up in there. Now Baby’s clothes are neat and sorted, and I can tell Husband where to find whatever it is he might be looking right at without actually seeing it.

One small corner of order in there, a lot more to go. Don’t let anyone tell you that a huge closet is easier – in our house, it has become a black hole!

See more progress on: Purge my closet

Totally dropped the ball on this one

Somehow getting two kids up, fed, dressed and moving for the day all on my own, now that Husband is leaving for work much earlier, has pushed bed-making to the bottom of my list.

I should get back to it, though. It really was nice going upstairs to a neat cozy bed every night.

See more progress on: Make my bed every day

Driving Stick

I didn’t really want to do this, but Husband has this thing about how manual is more fun to drive. And he’s getting a new car. And he wants another stick. And since the last two years of him driving a car I couldn’t drive sucked, I finally caved in on learning.

I don’t think I’ll be zipping up and down the hills around here anytime soon, but I know I can get to the grocery store or the ER if I must.

See more progress on: learn how to drive stick-shift