The Two Best Photos I Will Take All Week

7 Quick Takes

Good Morning! The sun is shining! The tank is clean!

THE TANK IS CLEAN.

Whoops, sorry for that little diversion into Finding Nemo but the sun has FINALLY come out to play, the weather is warming, and spring may finally be upon us. THANK GOD. With that, a quick look at our goings-on.

1. Jamie is now four and it’s really, really amazing and fun. Now, don’t get me wrong, he still backslides into wretched behavior, but he’s reached the age of rational reasoning (mostly!) and it’s great. He’s doing fantastic at pre-school. He’s made a lot of strides since the fall and he’s ready to move up to the 4 year program next year (his last year of preschool! WHOA). The teachers are really impressed with his progress and so am I.

He’s also gotten more independent. I don’t have to have my eyes on him at all times, I don’t have BE IN THE ROOM ALWAYS, MOM. He still likes it sometimes but his growing independence means MY growing independence and I freaking love it. He’s also starting to go outside to play with his brother without my supervision and let me just tell you how life changing THAT is. HUGE.

2. Liam is 3 weeks from taking his black belt test in TKD. He knows his patterns and his sparring has come so far in the last 6 months that it bears little resemblance to his old style. He earned an “Excellent” from Grand Master Kong last week during sparring and he was so excited. He’s ready for this.

He’s kicking butt and taking names at school, too. He consistently brings home A’s and he continues to be a math whiz.  Report cards should be coming home soon and I expect he’ll bring in all A’s for the third quarter in a row.

3. As for me, I have become something of a clean freak. I don’t know how it happened (well, I do. Zoloft.) but it’s fantastic. I was never a very good or strict housekeeper and well, my house showed it. Now? I have tackled a number of projects around the house and, um, well, here’s the proof.

My bedroom. This level of clean is unheard of.

L: my cleaned and organized pantry. R: the cleaned and organized cleaning closet.

This next one takes a little explanation. It’s my kitchen. It has a breakfast nook but for the last *mumblenumber* years the table has been covered with all of my dishes. Why? Because the cabinet was pulling off the wall. So, the breakfast nook became a dumping ground because we couldn’t use it for actual eating. Well, I *finally* got someone in to fix the cabinet issue and now I have my kitchen back!

CLEAN KITCHEN

Last, I cleaned the exterior of the kitchen cabinets. We’ve lived here 6 years and had two toddlers in this house yet I’ve never done it. You can imagine how gross they were. I finally noticed and couldn’t take it so I bought some Old English lemon oil spray to clean and condition them with.

L: Before. R: After.

I sit typing this at my kitchen table in a room that is CLEAN. It. Is. Awesome.

4. Ellie is growing like a weed and turning into a little minx. Invisible fence is coming out next week to start training her to the fence. It’s time. With the weather warming up she wants to be outside sniffing around and dinking about but not actually going to the bathroom. Since I have to stand out there with her during all this dilly-dallying, it gets tiresome. Training her to the fence means she can go out the door without supervision and stay out until she wants to come in. But she is going to have a rude awakening when she finds out where the fence line is. YIPE!

5. I am ridiculously happy with this spring weather. The depths of winter were starting to really eat at me. Now it’s sunny and warm and smells AMAZING out. Windows: open!

6. The amount of yardwork I have to do this spring is … daunting. I have a lot of clean up to do that I did not get to last fall. Is this the year I finally have a yard that isn’t embarrassing? Only time will tell.

7. Life is good, folks, and I’m happy to be here. It’s been a very long time since I’ve been able to say that and mean it. I’m still honestly astonished that I’ve gotten here.