Day 235 - Nightly Roundup

Awoke to a very, very messy house and a very, very cranky mood;-). Greg and the kids went to church while I spent the next four hours cleaning and getting groceries and muttering and mumbling...to keep a clean house, we've GOT to have less clutter!!! So I went about and filled our large trash bags of donations and dropped them off on the way to the grocery store, allowing a path through the basement play area to the water softener for the plumber who is supposed to come tomorrow. As always, as the house became more tidy, my mood improved;-).

I also finalized the first play set, which will accompany the Revolutionary War series. It will have American and English soldiers, a big play mat that will show the first major battles - including Lexington and Concord, cannons, a fort, a bridge, horses, about 6 of the characters will be jointed and the rest still figures. The ones in the photo are models to give to the manufacturing consultant I meet for coffee tomorrow to get a first ball park estimate.

Marriage - check.
Parenting - Went to a park with the kids and Kirk's friend for some baseball and swing set fun.
Business - Finalized play set for initial cost estimates.
Books- Will read a book on the Revolution tonight. Going to the library later this week to get 10 kids books on the Revolutionary War and 10 on Lewis and Clark for my writers to study the pictures. I'm hoping this will aid them in adding more sensory details - sights, sounds, smells, touches -that the main characters experience.
Garden - Paid Kirk and his friend $2 each and some gummy bears to help pick up sticks and haul them to the brush pile. They did a good job.
Health - Kept reasonably good track of my calories today. I'd read an article where a famous singer, whose name I forget as I type, said she'd kept a food diary for three years and that more than anything helped her with maintaining her ideal weight.
Spirit- Seeing the daffodil foliage starting to sprout all over the yard - I easily have 5000 bulbs at this point - each one planted by moi, is a joy! Have been doing a better job calling my mom every few days. I know that she gets rather lonely as my dad still works a lot - now at his farming hobby.
FI - We've switched to mostly organic everything and this has added a lot to our grocery bill. Today, along with paper products and some odds and ends - mailing tape, our bill was $160. Need to further work on reducing waste. I couldn't help but notice some people were shopping with just a hand basket! They might go more than once a week, but my loaded down cart seemed ridiculously overdone in comparison.
House - Happy to have several large garbage bags less stuff!