Looking Forward to 2007

As I get older, I realize that time - the weeks, the months, the years - are just whizzing by. The childen are growing like weeds...just yesterday, it seems, I had a newborn, a six month old, and a 6 year old. Now I have an almost 6 year old, a 7 year old, and this month, a 12 year old. You'd think that by now I'd start to feel like a grown up, hehe.

I have so much that I need to work on- things that have always been a battle for me. Getting and staying organized, for instance. I'm not sure why it's such a struggle. I hate clutter - it really blocks me mentally and creatively and is a real emotional downer. Every so often I just go through the house and purge, purge, purge- getting rid of everything that is useless and just taking up space. I majorly need to do that right now and will be working on that this month. It's mostly spaces like closets and the laundry room, our "catch all" areas.

One thing that I really look forward to this year is pursuing my goal of having my own little cottage business from home. My youngest child goes to school this fall, so I'll have some extra time to devote to things other than solely the house and family. Like many of you, I love thrifting and fixing up items with "good bones", turning them into sweet little cottage treasures if they aren't already. I also love the idea of making crafty cottage accessories and I have a few ideas of the kinds of things I'd like to make. I'm actually working on some "protocols" right now, which I'm really excited about. I haven't decided yet if I want to sell online, or just at flea markets and craft shows, or both. I first need to work on building up an inventory, so it's going to be fun thrifting and coming up with ideas on how to "cottage up" different items.

Another major thing that I want to do this year is to learn a time-honored craft. I've collected different books on rug-making and other types of crafts, but one thing that has interested me for a long time is soap making. I'm talking about making handmade soap made from lye and oils and fragrances. (Don't worry, Mom, I promise I'll use rubber gloves and goggles:) ) The whole process fascinates me, so this year, I'm going to become soap student, reading and learning all I can about the process and slowly collecting the supplies I'll need to make my own soap. I've already found a wonderful site, the Soap Dish Forum, that has so much information about the craft. I'm really excited about it! Hubs, though, is less than thrilled because he says "Why make your own soap when you can buy it much cheaper at the store?" To that, dear, I say, "Why make a delicious homemade meal when I can just pop this frozen TV dinner in the microwave?"


On the home front, I'm not really sure what all we'll accomplish this year. Here is what is what I'd like to get completed:
-Finish kitchen ceiling (beams, finishing trim, paint)
-Remove door from dining room to laundry room/ replace with drywall
-Add lighting to kitchen/dining
-Replace countertop/add brick paver backsplash
-Raise hallway ceiling from 7 feet to 8, add pine ceiling, install new lighting
-Redo drywall mud in hallway
-Replace all the cheap, hollow, core doors in hallway solid pine doors
-Install door trim around all doors in kitchen and hallway
-Add beadboard halfway up the wall in kitchen, dining room, back wall of living room, and down the hallway
-Remove living room coat closet to make way for a built in cabinet down the road
-Paint the kitchen, dining and hallway
-Build a raised landscaping bed and plant impatiens in the area at the side of our house, try to improve the appearance of that general area (it's where we and our friends enter the house and it sure is sad looking now...)
-Buy hardwood for the girls rooms and (if I beg, maybe for our bedroom...hubs like carpet in the bedroom, I prefer hardwood with an area rug - we have two dogs and a cat and three kids!)
-Buy and install new washer and dryer. Ours still work and have been wonderful over the years, but they are so old now. The washer just kind of loudly and aimlessly walks around the laundry room when in use - I think it's time to retire him, lol. We have a bachelor friend who needs a washer and I'm sure he won't have as much laundry as this family five has!
-Hire an AC guy to come and reroute our air ducts so that the heat and air circulates efficiently, especially in the summer. This house gets hot and our electric bill gets expensive!

So those are things that I *think* we can for sure accomplish in 2007. Here is my late 2007 but probably 2008 wish list.
-Remove old lino from laundry room and replace with "cottage" type flooring. Aged brick pavers, maybe?
-Install our hardwood FLOORS!
-Hire pros to do the tilework in the gutted bathroom. We attempted. We failed. We attempted again. We failed again. There comes a time when it just makes more sense to save time and aggravation and pay someone else to do the dirty work. We will be saving throughout 2007 to do this and I think it will be well worth the wait.
-Remud the walls and add new window trim in the girls' rooms

So that's the long and short of it. It really helps to have a plan in place and hopefully we'll be able to get alot accomplished this year with the house.