The Perfect Day

Yesterday, just might have been the perfect day. I had nothing scheduled all day long, and the weather was sunny and warm. So the pups and I headed outside around 9:00 and never looked back. We cleaned out all the dead stuff and leaves from all of the gardens, picked up sticks, swept the porch, and just enjoyed the sunshine. It felt so good to just be outside, completely relaxed, getting a lot of work done, and being able to see a noticeable difference when we were done. The yard looked great, we were all tired, and we were all very happy.
The dogs would take turns keeping me company, Midas laying behind me while I worked in the front yard, Lucy coming up to nose me and enjoy some pets in the sunshine. Then they would get distracted - a truck or motorcycle would drive by, the hawk would fly overhead, or some kids would walk by on the road. They'd trot off to make sure everyone was aware they were outside patrolling, and then wander back to join me or to stretch out in the grass and soak up some sun.
Last night Lucy was so tired she couldn't keep her eyes open to look at you, and Midas slept in extra late this morning. And today, it's cold and rainy - I guess that's good so that I have to stay inside today and work in here instead of heading back out to the dirt :)

Second coat...check!

Yesterday, I took the day and did the second coat on the half of the room I was working on. I came desperately close to running out of paint before finishing, but got everything painted a second time, all the tape down, and the room put back together. That was the goal. That way, even if I don't get started on the second half this weekend, at least the room isn't all in pieces. I really like how things turned out...even if it's not a real noticeable change. The holes that got patched look great after painting - you can't tell that the holes were ever there. And the weird green/blue/tan circle around the thermostat is gone as well. All welcome changes :)
I'm thinking about starting the other half of the room over the weekend. However, with all of my projects this week I haven't really done much house cleaning, so that should probably come first. So if after vacuuming, laundry, and bathroom cleaning there is still time, I'll buy some more paint and continue.

Patching...check!

I didn't have time this morning to get out everything and do a second coat of paint on the room. (That will come tomorrow.) So in the mean time I pulled out all the screws and anchors that were left in the walls from our attempt at curtains. Of the eight original anchors, two had fallen out on their own/gotten pulled out by the dogs. So will all of my strength I pulled out the other six. Some of these had left some pretty large holes in the wall as our old plaster is pretty crumbly. So I set to work trying to make the holes look pretty. Since the plaster is textured, the patches really didn't need to be very smooth so that they would just kind of blend in. So we're all set on hole repair and ready to get back to painting.
The giant holes in the walls from the curtains were one of the things that really bothered me in this room...so getting rid of the holes and getting rid of the last of the blue paint is fantastic :)

First coat...check!

Well this morning I got the first coat on half of the room. (The room seemed to big to tackle at once, so I just was trying to get half of it...from the front door to the door upstairs.) I was hoping to only have to do one coat, but looking at it tonight it definitely seems like a second coat will be needed. It is textured plaster, so there are some places where the paint didn't get into all the little holes. It took me four hours to do the first coat on that half of the room, so hopefully the second coat will go a little quicker tomorrow morning.
It looks nice...clean and fresh, but I will admit it really doesn't look a whole lot different. Not that I expected it to look drastically different. I mean, white to cream isn't a big change. It is a little more noticeable at night than it was earlier. But I am still pleased so far :)

Now the REAL beginning of break

It is really hard for me to enjoy time off if I know I have work that needs to be done. I have that problem on breaks and even on the weekends. Since I don't know exactly how much time needs to be budgeted to get the work done, I just keep thinking about it. So I decided I would just do the work I had first this spring break, and be done with it. I had four sets of tests to grade (yikes!). So I graded for a couple hours on Saturday, a couple more on Sunday, and then some this morning. I was through three and a half of the sets, so after I took Christin to the airport I went in to work for a few hours. I finished grading the last set of tests, printed out grade sheets for all of them, updated my gradebook, posted grades online, and did my attendance rosters. So now I feel like I can stop thinking about work - I didn't even bring any work back home with me. So the rest of the week is mine :)
I have a few things already planned for the week - lunch with my mom, some babysitting for a friend from church, a haircut. And with the rest of the time I decided my project will be painting the family room. It's the one room of the house that I haven't painted. So it's still white from when the random guy came and painted our whole house accidentally. So I figured I would paint it the same color as the hallway upstairs - it's called "cream in my coffee", and as you may have guessed it's just a nice creamy color. Not a lot of color, but a little warmer than just white. And I can cover up some of the random blue spots that never got painted. So I went to Menard's tonight to pick up some paint and some supplies. I taped half of the room so the goal is to paint half of it tomorrow morning. The other half is a little trickier, with needing to work around the sofa and entertainment center. I love painting - it's such a quick and cheap way to make things look new and fresh :)

A Walking We Will Go

Last week, Midas had an ear infection so we had to make a morning trip to the vet on Tuesday. I didn't have time to take him home before I needed to teach at noon, so I dropped him off at my parents for a couple hours. When I got back, Midas and my dad were missing - on their third walk of the day! Needless to say, Midas loved it at mom and dad's house...and he had pegged dad as a softie :)
So to try to make our house seem as fun as theirs, and to enjoy all of this nice weather we've been having, the dogs and I have been going on lots of walks. I've been trying to get home at 4:00 most days so we can get in a nice long walk before it's time to make dinner (and before it gets to dark). I think we've been on like 6 walks in 8 days...which compared to no walks for several months over the winter, that's pretty good! It's been so nice to have some time outside, and it's a nice way to relax after work. Once the days get a little longer, we'll snag Brad to come along with us, but right now there's not a whole lot of day light after he gets home...but we're getting close, spring here we come!

So yeah, about that....

When others start bringing it to your attention that you've been neglecting your blog, perhaps it has been awhile since you've shared any thoughts. Since January 29th to be exact. It's not that I have anything against the month of February, nor was it a boring month with nothing to share, it just kind of slipped my mind that I had decided I wanted to share anything :) And sorry, but I have no intentions of catching you up on what you've missed, you're just going to have to accept that you missed out on everything cool and exciting in the month of February. Now where were we...
This past Sunday was our second BIG memory verse check for the sunday school kids. We did on the first week of December over the verses for A-G and this time checked verses H-M. Last time, I didn't think to keep track of how many verses the kids memorized. This time, by my tally, there were 20 kids that participated and they said a total of 84 verses!! Way to go kiddos! It is so fun to hear especially those little tiny kids sharing with you what they have been memorizing. Those two and three year olds can just blow you away with what they can learn! And man can a little toy from the dollar store be great motivation :) I also have learned all of the verses for A-M...though I need some work on my references.
Next week is spring break for us (yay!) so I'll try to keep up with this. I just got back from a wonderful walk with the dogs outside. Sixty five degrees feels amazing after a long winter. I think I am way more thankful for spring because of winter...if I lived somewhere where it didn't get cold, I don't know if 65 would seem as fantastic as it did today.