tackle it Tuesday

You can see what other jobs are being tackled here!





Here's another area that was "abandoned" when we moved downstairs. I used to have my computer and crafting stuff here.

It has become Emily's room without walls. Sometime this summer we'll punch a hole in that wall to give her access to our second bathroom and a closet. We'll put up walls and new carpet and she'll finally have a real room of her own. Needless to say, my sweet little nine-year old is tickled pink with this so at least we don't have to put a rush on finishing! :)

Last week we set up a temporary grow room. We've already rearranged the space to add more shelves. The hubby is installing the lights.

Olivia loves to be my little helper with the dirt and water.

My petunia wave order arrived from Harris Seeds.

I was so excited! Isn't that such a cute little plastic vial?!

I am already three weeks behind in planting. I couldn't make up my mind which seeds to order because I'm just so indecisive about stuff like that.

Yesterday, I worked on getting some planted. I had Lucas (2) and Olivia (4) helping. That was fun for about ten minutes. Needless to say I didn't get enough done!

This is what I have so far:

26 Easy Wave Red

27 Easy Wave White

29 Easy Wave Purple

27 Easy Wave Pink

25 Easy Wave Blue

That's 134 petunias down and another 230 or so to go. (Plus, hundreds of other plants). I ran out of the solid black trays to hold the pots. I went to three stores with no luck. The fourth stop was a greenhouse that carries them, but they are out. When you are isolated thousands of miles where everything is manufactured and shipped by barges and then trucked to your town, you are constantly out of things. They tell me I can pick some up Thursday so my already late planting is delayed even more!

I should have been more on the ball a month ago. We have to get everything going by mid-March since we have such a short growing season. I won't plant outside until after June 7th. Then it will all start freezing a few months later (all the beds will be cleaned out in September). Maybe next year....

What job are you tackling?

tackle it Tuesday

There's a lot going on around the White House these days. If I could do even more, I would!

This is not a functional mess (yes, I do have messes that are functional). I can't scrapbook because everything is in a huge pile, and I can't get anything out of the freezer.


My dear husband put up some shelves and voila! The freezer is still in the way, but it will be moved outside shortly.

This is the livingroom we abandoned when moving downstairs. It's been out-of-sight-out-of-mind as I only had to look at the mess when I went up to bed or went down in the morning. I got pretty good at not turning my head that direction!

Planting season is upon us (should have started two weeks ago!) so Mr. Wonderful put up some shelves for me. This is going to be my grow room for this year. Next he'll hang the lights on the shelves and I'll get to planting.

tackle it Tuesday

(Click the photo to see more great Tackle jobs!)

This is our garage that I've cleaned many, many times. I have children (and a husband) who like to make messes. (It's MY blog...I can blame whomever I want!)



We moved into this house four years ago with intention of immediately remodeling to suit our needs (lots of kids). We made part of the living room upstairs into a fourth bedroom. That was it. Construction was delayed by hockey season. If you don't know anything about competitive hockey let me just tell you that last year three boys played on three different teams. The monthly "cash call" was $600. That doesn't include $400 skates (times 3), all that gear (times 3), $100+ sticks (times more than three), replacing the two full sets of gear stolen out of the truck, something like six trips to Anchorage (700 mile RT, 12 hotel nights, eating out), flights to Detroit for one, Minnesota for one, California for four, Arizona for two and Vernon, Canada for two...you get the idea. Construction on hold for hockey!



If you follow my blog you'll know that for the first time in ten years football replaced hockey. It is much, much, much (did I say much?) cheaper. Now back to remodeling. Yea!

So on November 25th I took these photos of my messy garage, and then set to cleaning it.

(BTW this area is now cleaned and under it all we found the air hockey table! I should have taken stock in rubbermaid totes...do you think I have enough crap?!).


Here's the boiler Mr. White installed. He's handy like that.

The grand plan is to build a "temporary" kitchen in the first stall of the garage that is next to the living room we are also finishing. We will then be able to turn the kitchen and rest of the living room upstairs into 3 more bedrooms. That will give us 1600 square feet with seven bedrooms, a laundry room and two full baths upstairs. Soon we will be using the 1600 square feet downstairs that we are currently living without (it will have a 1/2 bath). What will we do with all that space?!

We'll eventually add on a kitchen and turn this stall back into garage. Someday. Mr. White says that the staircase will add another 200 square feet and then the kitchen will add another 900 square feet (or so). He figures we'll have to take stock in BP in order to pay the fuel bill. Can you run a Bed & Breakfast without the breakfast? (remember: I hate to cook).

Here I am smashed in between pipes finishing the painting. (Yes, I would suggest painting before installing a boiler!).

This is Mr. White building a wall around the boiler and water pump. The white water softener you see in the front of the photo will also go in there.

Cody helped hang the sheet rock, and then they sprayed a little texture on it.

That wall is actually painted and ready for the cabinets which you can see a little on the left of the photo. There's a new dishwasher sitting there, too! :) Yahoo! Yesterday, Mr. White had to fly to Prudhoe Bay so we didn't do anything last night. Maybe tonight we'll put the lower cabinets in place and I'll paint the floor. Then all that will be left is the ceiling, upper cabinets, stove (we have to order it) and then bringing the fridge downstairs.

Not too bad for a weeks work!

tackle it Tuesday

Halloween is fast approaching. I tried so hard to plan ahead, but the children wouldn't cooperate. First, they didn't know what they wanted to dress-up as. Then they knew, but they just wanted to buy a costume rather than have me make it. We went shopping and nothing! Emily decided she wanted me to sew....Sunday night! So we went shopping 15 minutes before the store closed and got what we needed. Yesterday, I sat down to sew...

It wasn't long before these hands were killing me. In fact, I'm having a lot of pain typing this morning. After checking the weather it all makes sense. It's -9 degrees this morning! My hands always tell me the weather, I just don't always listen!

I kept plugging along. I was striving to finish last night. I knew this morning I would not want to sew.

I finished up last night and Emily tried it on this morning. I'm not sure it is what was in my mind at the store, but since she picked the fabric is must be what was in her mind! :) What a pretty little fairy, don't you think?! Granted, it will all be covered up except the wings on Halloween night (have you ever gone trick-or-treating when it's this cold?), but we are used to that. We make the costumes for the Fall Festival at school. All that work for a one hour party. She'll be fabulous!

Did you tackle any projects this week or are you planning on tackling something today? Head over to tackle it Tuesday and join the fun!

As a bonus for making it to the end of this post I have a challenge. If you can tell me the significance 54/365 I'll send you some coffee from the North Pole. (If there is more than one correct answer I'll draw a winner although I don't think I have enough readers for one right answer!). :) Happy TT!

tackle it Tuesday

Today's tackle is this frozen yard....

If the battery hadn't frozen and the minute hand would move you could see that it was 18 degrees this morning. Note the small spot I thawed with my thumb to get the photo!

I have to pump out the little pool that now has ice on it! (I also have to do the 30,000 gallons in the big pool sometime this week).

I need to pull the rest of the flowers that weren't dead yesterday, but sure are today!

The one positive...I don't have to mow this anymore! :)

Another job is to take my things out of this frozen monster....

and put them in the new ride Mr. White got for me last night!

Side note....I am well aware of the rising costs of EVERYTHING, and while it isn't eco-friendly to "go bigger" when the rest of the world is downsizing, things are a bit different in my corner of the world. I spend a good portion of my day in my vehicle running kids here and there. I live where it is below freezing six months of the year, the roads are ice pretty much most of that time and unlike the Flatlanders, I drive up and down 1000 feet several times a day. Although I have done well with the 2-wheel drive top-heavy tippy van, Mr. White saw an opportunity to make his family safer and took it. I am so lucky!

See more great tackles at 5 minutes for mom!

tackle it Tuesday

Yesterday was my tackle it Tuesday day. Here's what happened....

Filter canister for the pool.

Twelve filters to clean. (I wash them a couple times before replacing to save money).

The water is flowing again!

Mother Nature is filling the pool with leaves!

Got it most cleaned out (to get filled back up!)

Sand on the bottom. You'll have to trust me that I

vacummed this out as I forgot the after shot.

The rocks are full of leaves. I vacummed them with the Shop Vac. This took forever since leaves were down in the rocks from people walking on them. If we stay off of them it should be easy to keep cleaner.

Time to clean out the pea vines.

All gone!

This is what is left of the peas.

More rocks to wash and put around the pond.

All but the really heavy ones are done!

My day started at 6:00am getting kids to school and basketball practice. My day of work started at 9:00am after taking the babies to the sitter. I stopped at 8:00pm last night to pick them up from the sitters. It was a long day! Had to do dishes and homework with the kids when I got back so I was too tired to post last night.