Today was a good day

The Coo Bucket was remarkably cute and adorable (even for him) all day today. He took nice long naps and was generally sweet and lovey. I'm fairly confident that I have succeeded in at least one aspect of parenting, thus far: namely I believe that he is very securely attached. I mean this is the psychological sense. Basically the experiment goes: Mommy leaves the room, you watch the kids reaction, after a while Mommy comes back in the room, you watch the kid's reaction. You want the reactions to be roughly: kid is distressed but settles after a bit when Mommy leaves, when Mommy comes back, child should be happy and excited to get to Mommy. If kid FREAKS and will NOT calm down when mom leaves, or is HAPPY to see her go, or is unhappy/indifferent to Mommy's return its generally not so much a good thing.

Generally, if I have him distracted well enough he might fuss for a few seconds when I leave the room, but then he'll play okay when I'm gone. I have to peek in on him repeatedly when doing dishes or what not to make sure he's not getting into anything but I have to make sure I'm not seen b/c if I am and I don't come in and pick him up, it is not okay. And when I do come back in the room, he notices and gets very excited and comes cooing and laughing as quickly as his little self can get there and then he'll grab my pants to pull himself up if I don't pick him up fast enough to suit him.

Its REALLY REALLY cute. It makes me feel VERY loved.

I took a nap during his first nap and then for his long afternoon nap I took the baby monitor with me and went and worked on the yard. I have hopes that maybe just maybe I won't have the ugliest yard on the block forever. Although daily I discover that I wish I had MORE TOOLS. I need a leaf rake, and a flat edged shovel, and a hand trowel and a wheel barrow. Man oh man, what I wouldn't give for a wheel barrow. And while this might sound odd - a snow shovel would be handy. Mostly b/c of all the wild little cactus parts under the chain fruit cholla in the front. I could also use a pair of pruning shears. I've got lopers, and hedge trimmers now but I need fine detail pruning shears.

I could also do with a dump truck load of top soil, a load of rocks (like stones the size of a bread boule), and a couple dump trucks of gravel for the front and sides. An automatic watering system could be good too.

A girl can dream right?

I even managed to get some work done on business card layouts (mostly found a bunch of designs that don't quite work...) and I did some cleaning and reorganizing on the office and hall closet. Slowly but surely we shall conquer the filth and then it won't forever be threatening to take over my house. Or at least it will be easier to beat into submission when it does threaten.

The older I get the more of a believer I become in the "a place for everything and everything in its place" philosophy. Its just SO much easier to clean things when they have a place to go. I mean really this shouldn't be this novel a concept but theres just so much stuff and it just sort of accumulates and then when you want to clean and declutter, all the Stuff has to go some where so you just sort of shove it or stack it, or pile it or stash it away "to deal with later". And somehow later almost never comes and you're left with Stuff overflowing and oozing out from under and over and around. So basically the new laws are thus:

1. A place for EVERYTHING and everything IN ITS PLACE.

2. If It doesn't have a Place, It may NOT continue its existence in my universe. It may be donated, sold, recycled or thrown out but it MAY NOT STAY.

I think the biggest slow down to my progress in this matter at the moment is that I can't seem to visualize how its all going to fit in the office once I've actually got it done. I can see most of the living room and practically ALL of the dining room/kitchen/bedroom/bathroom etc. But I'm having trouble seeing the final organization scheme for the office. Its sort of vexing. Maybe sketching would help.... or perhaps I need to just sit in there and visualize for a bit... I dunno. We'll ponder. But we do kinda need to get the pondering rear in gear if we're gonna get this done some time this ice age.

And I really wanna get it done this ice age, b/c I'm not allowed to paint until I get the office put together. Once the office is together then we can start painting. But we're not going to open that can of worms until the current monster is laid to rest. So Office, THEN paint!! And I wanna paint REAL bad. :)