40 trash bags for Lent

I have unofficially joined Simply Catholic with the 40 trash bag challenge, and it is going pretty well too. So far I have gotten rid of 16 bags of toys, and that was just the first run through all the toys we had in the basement. I can probably get rid of another 6 or so before the kids start to miss anything. We had way to many toys! I also have about 10 bags worth of junk and garbage that I cleaned out of the basement and garage, but I hope to not count that in the 40 bags. I should be able to come up with the remaining 24 bags just in baby and kids clothes that need to be gotten rid of. The challenge is to finish Ariana's room and go through clothes on top of classes and other routine cleaning and meetings in the next 2 1/2 weeks. I don't know for sure that it can be done, but I will try! Though, I do have other areas I can work on and appliances to get rid of to help get to 40 bags.

The best part of this challenge is how good it feels to get rid of stuff! I have a long way to go, but it is really nice to have open space where there used to be clutter.

If you want to read more about the 40 trash bag challenge below is the link:

http://simplycatholic.net/2009/02/11/40-bags-of-stuff-2/

The Grand Basement Plan moves along

We managed to get the room pretty well emptied a few weeks ago.





















Then we discovered the dry rot. You can kinda see it in the above picture all along the wall. It was also in the wall with the door, so we decided to remove that wall and rebuild it - we had to resize it anyway because the door being put in was larger than the openning. It was about as easy as I thought it would be to rebuild the partition wall, which is a nice change!






And here it is roughed in. We have the cripple studs cut and 2X4s in place between the joists so that the wall will be supported (before it wasn't even attached to the floor! All that was holding it in place was where it attached to the wall and doorframe). I'm sure that it will not be as well done as if a contractor did it, but it will work well enough for us and it is better than it was. Since this picture was taken, the wall has been attached to the floor and tacked in place and most of the wiring for the room has been set up. I did discover another little hiccup though with the wiring. The door I got from craigslist that was a great price opens the opposite way the original door did, so we have to move the light switch to the other side of the door. An advantage to this is the wiring for the swtich box is loose in the bathroom and by moving it, it will look better and more professional.

Today I hope to get the outlets in and the Romex stapled down.

Happy 1st Birthday Serenity!!!

My sweet little baby is growing so fast! I love you so much Baby Spaceship! Enjoy the sun that seems to have come out especially for your big day.

A Bunny Runs Around the Tree and Other Skills for Unstable Times

I have spent the last couple years studying ways to become more self-reliant, so I found this article very interesting. http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/4259/ I hadn't thought about the need to walk where we need to go. I would be in a lot of trouble if we couldn't drive, esp since every friend we have is at least 2 miles away (and many are more like 10+ miles away). I suppose public transit will still be around even if driving becomes too expensive, and we made sure that the house we bought is right off a main bus line (so we can still get to HR for Mass and homeschool get-togethers!). Then there is the whole thing about needing good walking shoes...I just got running shoes for Damien who is in CYO track this year, so he would be good, but the rest of us would be in trouble if we had to use our shoes instead of relying on the car!

I agree 100% with the need to revamp American industries (and home-making skills) necessary for survival such as farming, carpentry, cooking, food preservation, sewing and shoe-making. OK, so technically carpentry and shoe-making are not necessary for survival, but they are critical for sustaining anything close to our standard of living now. These kinds of skills are actually more important to me as homeschooling goals than many academic subjects, but I am a little odd in my homeschooling tactics. Something not mentioned in the article, but is just as important as the other skills is homeopathic medicine. It is really neat to be able to successfully relieve and treat things like sore throats, ear infections, bronchitis (mostly for my incredibly stubborn husband who hates going to the dr and waits until I drag him there), burns and sinus infections with things I have around the house and/or can grow (I don't mean ibprofen or acetaminophen either, though I have and use both when needed). A huge *nod* to God's wonderful design of the human body and its amazing ability to heal itself! I have been known to take my avoidance of the dr farther than most people...the last time Vivian fell and split open her ear I would have put the 3 stitches in myself if I had lidocaine to numb her (much better than the $525 ER visit!).

I think my favorite line in the article is when the little girl tells her mom “you are a living GPS!” after mom used a map to find where she needed to go. Yep, I may just be further along in my self-sufficiency goals than I thought.