I told you my house was dirty

Have I ever complained about my messy house? About the dust that you can write your name in?
That you can wipe off of the tables and then the next day

it is back? And you can write your name again?
This is the view while standing in my front door. The tractor is looking straight out and the barn is to the right.
Has anyone noticed the name of my blog?
Let me help you.

Husband,"Farm living is the life for me. Land spreading out so far and wide, keep Manhattan, Gimme that countryside!"

ME, "I get allergic smelling hay. I just adore a penthouse view. Darling I love you but give me Park Avenue."

Heck, I'd take a walk up in Brooklyn!

Today Adrian and I went and looked at houses.

Houses with yards. Houses on lots. NOT acreage. Houses that cost many hundreds of thousands of dollars. Houses that make me drool on his passenger window. And wonder why he didn't go to dental school.

And then something magical happened. He said," I love these houses. They were all great. You just need to work on your location. I was thinking if we bought a hundred acres and built one of these house right in the center."

And then I wanted to start humming and covering my ears and rocking back and forth. SO he took me to Applebees and plied me with Oriental Chicken Salad.

But i will not give up. Someday I will have a big house situated on a postage stamp sized yard.


It is the American Dream!!!!!!!!1

I like this house

This is a view of the front Here is the back

The foyer looking into the family room along the back

The master bedroom with a fireplace
The family room
The sun room
The view from the front of the house.

There is a good virtual tour if you click here. It also shows the GIANT living room and some more bedrooms and the kitchen. Why am I attracted to houses like this? I think I figured it out as I was loading these pics. It looks like my grandparents house. My grandparents had a ranch style house in Palm Springs when I was growing up and this is decorated like it was. It also looks like the inside of my other Grandmothers house that she had in Leisure World in Laguna Hills.

Why do I want a house like my Grandparents?

the drywall has been hung in the bathroom

so that means that the foyer looked like this for 2 days.


so here is the bathroom. the kids will have a little room that the toilet and shower are in and then two sinks so that they can all be doing their thang at once and no one is in each others way. Right? I sure hope so. Next year William, Lucy and Rachel will all leave at 6:10. Harrison will not even be up then, so just 3 of them have to negotiate bathroom time. Then the next year Harrison will be in High School also, so then all 4 of them will have to leave at 6:10. That may be a little hairy. but then the next year they lose William. ahh, the circle of life. Or maybe the circle of teenagers.in the picture below the vanities will be to the right and the door to the shower/potty is straight in front. to the left is the nook that the kids stackable washer and dryer just barely fits into. they have had their own washer and dryer for years, but it has taken the space of one of the bedroom closets that backed up to the bathroom. by taking out the bathtub and installing a shower stall we gave the bedroom back it closet and kept the w/d in the bathroom. yeah!

nice, don't you think?

The Laundry Chronicles

Edit* Adrian thought that I should mention that the 4 older kids have their own washer and dryer and do all their own laundry. So basically I get into this much laundry trouble doing the laundry of just 4 people!!


Go ahead and get a snack cause I have a long laundry story to tell you. And I am a really slow typist! So about a month ago I had a bad dryer experience. It is the first time I can remember this happening to me. I went to get the clothes out of the dryer on this particular day and noticed something disturbing. Pink smears, kinda in straight lines. ALL OVER EVERYTHING! And when I say everything let me tell you that this just happened to be a dryer full of Adrian appraisal shirts. The nice new ones. Okay, it's not like they were from Brooks Brothers or something like that , they are mostly from Wal-mart, Goody's and Old Navy. I probably spent $15 on the most expensive one. But, they were the sharp looking ones, and it takes Adrian all of ten minutes to wreck his clothes. They say watch out for a redneck when he says, "Hey guys, look at this," cause he is probably about to do something dumb. At my house I need to watch out when the redneck says, "I won't get dirty." He will get dirty! He always gets dirty! It is mostly because he is good natured, helpful , and not afraid of anything. But engine grease, mildew from rubbing against the side of a house when measuring it, or mud from helping pull someone out with the tractor still causes major stains no matter what the motivation.

So I was way bummed when several shirts were totally ruined for wearing out on inspections. They are still get for farm work, but he has PLENTY of shirts suitable for that! The culprit appears to be a tube of chap stick.

Fast forward to yesterday.

I went to wash a white load. When I got to the basement Rachel had taken my white load that was in the dryer and put it in a basket and then put my dark load into the dryer. She had a load in the washer. I moved everything around and turned on the washer. I put the soap and bleach in it. Then I put the white load in. As I was putting the stuff in I was looking for a particular shirt that I want to pre-treat. I got the whole load in. Where was that shirt? DUH. I had just put the CLEAN load into the washer. The dirty load was sitting by my feet. UGH. All I could do at this point was let the washer finish its thing. So this morning I run down before I need to runt to Cookeville and finally get the other white load washed. I pull the load out of the dryer and WHOA, what the heck? Black ink. Yep, more ruined clothes. Not the whole load at least like last time. A couple of Ella's stuff was wrecked but miraculously Adrian's 2 BRAND NEW shirts are untouched. (Say AMEN!!)

AM I aggravated? Yes. So I at least am going to get this other load washed. I throw the doubly washed white load into the dryer and then I get a good look at the inside of the dryer. Wow, there sure is a lot of ink staining the inside of that dryer...oh no...surely......it.....is....dry.....













NO, it is not dry. I touch an ink spot and my finger comes back black. And I just threw a white load in there. A white load with Adrian;s good white church shirt. Are you noticing the theme here? How many ways can I find to ruin my husbands nice clothes. I never injure the manure and blood and oil stained stuff. Oh no. It comes out looking great. Just stained. But his nice clothes have a death wish.

Like a mad woman I grab all the clothes out of the washer and throw them directly into the dryer. All the while screaming and gnashing my teeth. And yes, his nice shirt was the first thing that I put into the dryer. It has ink on it.

I put soap into the washer, turned it on left for Cookeville. I have not been back downstairs to survey the carnage of that load. Tomorrow I am going to get several dark towels and put them in the dryer until the ink is just a black stain in the dryer. It feels more like a black stain on my laundry loving soul. I have always enjoyed doing laundry. It is warm and smells good. and watching the washer go swish swish brings me great joy. I think I blogged about it once but I am way too tired to try and find that post. I am not enjoying my laundry lately. If I quit liking laundry there will be nothing left. There are no other chores that I like.

I am so blue. Well, more of a bluish black. The color of the pens that Adrian uses. And leaves in his pocket.

Clean house

I know I am not the only one that struggles to have a clean house. I love having a clean house, but it is a full time job. Unfortunately I am not employed as a full time housekeeper here at the Hale Hole, um, I mean Hale House! I spend about 2 hours a day driving to and from school. That is if there are no extra activities. Yesterday was music so I had to run 2 kids to music lessons and then pick them up an hour later. Then 2 other kids stayed late for band and had to be picked up at 5:00. Plus we took a pie to our Bishop's house after FHE evening last night. Always something else to do, right?

SO what are the time savers out there? I have had my eye on that bathtub cleaning thing that you hang from the shower head and you press the button once a day and it sends a mega shot of cleaner in every direction and cleans the bath/shower. And I don't have to. Does anyone have this thingy? I keep seeing $5 off coupons in the paper and Wal-Mart has it for $25. If It works it would be well worth it, but if it doesn't it would be an0other junky waste of money and plastic. And Crunchy wants us to not buy anything this month. Well, I am not a big consumer, but I am in the middle of a big bathroom remodel and it is not going to wait till next month.

Anyway, I want your secrets for housecleaning. And your opinion on the bathroom thingumabob. Wish I could remember the name of it...

And I have been given 2 awards and I promise I will get those posts up soon.

Now, go and clean your houses!

Here is a link to the automatic shower cleaner

Where art thou, Cynthia?

Have I fallen off the face of the earth?

Am I stuck in an elevator? (Oh my heck, I shudder even typing that idea!)

Am I protesting Blog 365? Err... How about Blog 265?

No. It all started when I was having some problems getting my pics to load onto blogger. Then I discovered something that I hadn't noticed in a while.


MY HOUSE



MY BASEBOARDS



MY LAUNDRY



MY CEILING FANS



THE BATHROOM GROUT



I discovered that even thou my children are big and basically self sufficient, my 46 year old house is still in the toddler stage. It is quite shocking, I know! So I have had to clean up all of my houses toddler messes.

dust
dirt
grime
urine splatters on bathroom wall(?)
general untidiness

And guess what? I have less of a desire to find a new house. This one is pretty nice. When I clean it. And guess what else? I found time to completely clean out the pantry, move the old microwave cart/unused craft junk out and buy, put together(by myself), and then fill up new shelves. I moved all the board games out of the top of Lucy's closet and into plain sight. So now we can easily play them. I also rearranged the living room furniture. And SCRUBBED the bathroom edges. You know where I mean? It is all shiny white again. Like when it was new. I don't think it has been shiny white since it was installed. I really need to do this more than once every 3 years!

So in conclusion I just want to let you know that I have missed you all, but I am so freakin' happy in my clean house that I plan on cleaning more. and more. and more.


Please send help...

Little House of my Dreams!

I want to live in this house. Very, Very much. I will probably never spend the money to have it built. We are not money spenders. We are money savers. Not that we have a lot of money, there is not a lot to save after 8 people get through living each month. I have this bizarre desire to live like Jane Austen. Or Nellie Olson. Notice I didn't say Laura Ingalls. I don't actually want my life to be hard. Just a little more simple. I wish there was a way to raise normal kids while never leaving the house. I know some of you out there are trying to do this. I have my fingers crossed for you. BUT... I don't think it will work very well. I guess I would like to leave the house to go to the library. I can't get every book that I want through the online library.



I think a lot of the problem with wanting this house is that I don't need a different house. I am a big one for only getting things when you need them. This is not because I have a strong desire to save the environment or anything like that. It is just my environment. When I have more, I have more to take care of. More clothes=more laundry. More bathrooms=more bathrooms to be cleaned. I really try to follow the advice of this bloggers mom. "When you start to buy something first decide where you will store it. And how much time it will take to clean it. And will it improve your families time together or take away from it?" I may have expanded her advice, but I think about this a lot. My possessions do not bring me happiness, my family does. So I get a little cranky with things that pull my family apart. That is one of the reasons we left Girl Scouts, but that is a story for another day.



Now that I have rambled on in no particular direction I will get back to my point. This house is beautiful and so "me". And it doesn't hurt to sit and think about sitting in the keeping room of this house with my grandkids around me (I am hoping I will have 36 grandkids!) while I read them a story.



Just an idea...

I am now a fancy house blog, for a post or two

This is the bathroom that had the "OUT OF ORDER" sign on it. Have I mentioned it before? It is a little scary. We have a pretty bathroom. This one is NOT pretty. I won't go into the details of why this bathroom looks the way it does. But the time has come to make a change. So it looked like this.

Pretty light. Is that an antique? Me thinks, NO! It is out of here.

How do we feel about mildew? Really? You think it is not an attractive look? What kind of house snob are you?

How about fake tile and wall heaters. Taped up outlets? G.R.O.S.S. So let's tear this puppy out! Sledgehammer, Please!

Oh look, the vanity and toilet are sitting in the hallway.Those drawers are still holding the useful things that the kids use in the morning. Easy access in the hall. We hope no one decides to, umm, use the toilet there in the hallway! Oh, and if you want to use the old bathtub...It is sitting on the FRONT PORCH!

You gotta love life in the country!