Spring Cleaning

Can you call it Spring Cleaning if it's 105 degrees outside? I vacuumed every inch of my house and Quinn was not too happy with the lack of attention.

Conference Weekend

Can I just say that I love general conference? I feel so good after watching. Then between sessions I don't want the feeling to leave, so I avoid TV and actually get things done! I had a nice visit with my mother-in-law between sessions 1 and 2 (and I must say I am so lucky to have married into such a wonderful family) and after the second session I cleaned my car. The outside is still icky (it's been sprinkling so I don't feel guilty) but I armor-alled and vacuumed the inside. I still need to go use my mom-in-law's wet vac and tackle the spilled drink stains :( but at least the sand and grass are gone. Hooray!! And hooray for cool weather so I could finally work outside!!!!!!!!!!!! I don't think I can put enough exclamation points to fully express my elation!

Yes, yes, we're still alive

I know it's been a long time. I get kind of lazy and distracted during the school year. As an example of that fact , I will share that I am currently sitting at the computer with one side of my hair braided and the other sticking out everywhere. (I would post a picture but that's crossing the embarrassment line.)

If you want to know what we've been up to in the last month, I'll tell you: nothing. We work, watch football and sleep. Troy has become an internet superstar. See his handsome face and learn about PV's sad loss last week here. He kind of looks a little silly because he's tall and the cameraman is short, so if he has bats in the cave (catch my drift?) don't tease him about it. And don't worry, we won yesterday in a decisive victory over the Coachella Arabs; however, there's no video of that one because the newspaper man was MIA.

Although I've accomplished little in the last month, I haven't been completely fruitless. In an effort to get on the ball with food storage, I cleaned out closets to make room. I emptied 1.5 closets, but haven't filled them with anything besides the canned goods I stocked up on during my last visit to Wal-Mart (I was going to do an entire post on that, but suffice it to say that I will not pay $2.09 for 10.75 ounces of condensed soup at rip-off Albertsons when I can get it for $0.89 at Wal-Mart). During the purging adventure, Troy found some valentines from his students when he was student teaching. He thought it was funny that growing up we would leave the valentines on the porch, knock and run, so he told his kids that if they did that he would give them bonus points. What a crazy boy. Anyway, it was funny to find them.

Those Richfield kids are too funny.

Oh, and I have gotten back on the Guitar Hero wagon. However, I hate Joe Perry because I can't beat his battle song and I can't move on with my rocking ways until I have conquered the stupid thing!

A weekend I couldn't avoid any longer

I have tried very hard to be productive today. We cleaned out the inside of the car, vacuumed it and washed it. I still need to armor-all the inside, but it's only cool enough for that until about 9 a.m. so that will happened next weekend. Then we went up to check on Troy's parents house. No disasters there, but we decided we need to go up Monday night and pull weeds, sweep and squish cans people have dropped off. Coming back to the heat is hard for Connie, so the easier we can make it the happier we'll all be. They'll be back on Tuesday and I'm actually very excited. I hang out with my mother-in-law more than anyone else in town and I miss her when she's gone for the summer.

Once we got home I was tempted to be lazy, but forced myself to do the dishes and wipe the counters. Then I looked and my floors and decided I just had to do them. If there were ever floors that needed some TLC, they're mine. I mopped, but because we live in a rental, the grout was kinda grimy when we moved in. Then after two years of cooking and washing and walking and pasta sauce (for those who remember that incident--see my post in October of last year), the grout was brown instead of the light beige it's supposed to be. So I pulled out the pumice and went to work. It looks a lot better, but I'll have to keep working on it. I used a whole stick on the kitchen and still have the dining room and trouble spots to do. I took before and after pictures and although you can see a difference, it still looks icky close up, so just be proud of me because it's a major improvement.

After that I was in a slightly productive mood so I went to the store to get pectin for freezer jam. I had strawberries I needed to use and I LOVE freezer jam. I've never made it before and travelling to Utah to steal some from my mom just isn't practical, so I decided to give it a shot.

This is for you Linds. For those of you who pay attention to details, my jam is cheese-free, contrary to what the lid says.

It tastes good for now. Hopefully it will set up and still taste good.

So that has been my day so far. I do not plan for the rest of it to be as productive. I think I'll make dinner and that will be it. :)