Messy Messy Fail - Note to self - bring more than one cover-up on a beach vacation next time. I felt fun and glamorous for a couple of days, but then my beach cover-up became just plain old beachy and gross.
Tidy Victory - I had planned on making a few dinners and eating out a few times on our recent family vacation. I ALWAYS bring a crockpot so I can put dinner in before we leave in the morning and have it ready after our day's activities. I happened to run across this recipe I had on my Pinterest for Mississippi Roast, grabbed the 5 ingredients I needed from the local Stop & Shop and VOILA - a DELICIOUS dinner was served.
Messy Messy Fail - My husband and I still have our water shoes that we purchased from our honeymoon trip to Jamaica. I knew we would need them again, so I kept them safely tucked away in storage in the basement. Fast forward to now, going on our first family vacation to Cape Cod - perfect time to use our water shoes! I managed to bring both of mine, but only one of my poor husband's. No good.
Tidy Victory - In a desperate last minute attempt to find a bathing suit 12 hours before we were set to leave for our vacation, I ran into TJ Maxx to see what was available. Definitely a disappointingly small selection, although it is the end of July so I shouldn't have been surprised. There was a pretty heinous looking suit in my size - black with a multi-color flower pattern - that I figured it couldn't hurt to try it on. It was a long shot, but low and behold I was pleasantly surprised! Excellent shopping lesson - you can't judge clothing on the hanger!
Messy Messy Fail - Upon arriving at our vacation destination, I proceeded to unpack the clean sheets I brought and started making the beds. Our vacation house rooms had fans above the beds - something I am not used to. So with a flick of my wrists and a flourish of the linens, I threw the sheet over the bed only to have it get stuck in the fan. It only made a few trips around before I was able to safely retrieve it. Nothing like a simple household ceiling fan to make things a little more interesting.
Tidy Victory - Holy cow - our kids were beyond excellent on our nine hour car ride! I did bring a few sticker books and some movies to keep them occupied, but they didn't even really need them. Minimal complaining, a few questions but lots of laughs and even a little nap! Who knew we had nothing to worry about!
Messy Messy Fail - Perhaps you weren't up early enough to notice that I definitely forgot to set up this party post at the appointed time of 3 AM est. If I missed you I am so sorry - if I didn't and you had no idea I forgot, pretend like you didn't just read this and link up below :)
Tidy Victory - I finally went through and reogranized both of the kids' clothing drawers. It's amazing how fast they go through clothing. The UPKer, soon to be kindergartener, shot up over the winter a whole size that I had not anticipated. It's nice to have all their clothes put away - I kept having to make piles of clothes on the floor because they wouldn't fit in the drawer!
Messy Messy Fail - Do you remember this game? Perhaps you had this in your household like I did - "Let's Go Fishin'" is what it's called. You have to catch fish with little plastic fishing poles. But that's hard to do when the UPKer snaps off all the ends of the little plastic fishing poles.
Tidy Victory - Talk about amazing customer service - I called Pressman (the manufacturer) and they immediately sent me four brand new fishing poles. We can play the game again, hooray! The boys are NOT allowed to play the game without an adult, no more pole snapping for those two!
Messy Messy Fail - I have now successfully killed 3 Rheingold arborvitae bushes. The first was because I accidentally fed it fertilizer - my bad. The second I'm not quite sure why, it just seemed to die off on its own. The last was a replant between my large rhododendron and burning bush. The arborvitae was fine over the winter when the foliage was gone and the bush got plenty of sun, but as soon as the leaves of the surrounded plants grew in - bye bye. I planted a chunk of hosta where the arborvitae breathed its last breath - rest in peace my dear arborvitae.
Tidy Victory - I fixed Creaky Cranky!!!!!! Creaky Cranky is the cranky crane on the island of Sodor with Thomas the Train. He is a key character on the Thomas the Train show of which we watch daily. He is also a key feature of our Thomas the Train collection in our home. When Creaky doesn't crank, my CHILDREN are cranky. So when Creaky no longer cranked one day, I researched on YouTube quickly and found an amazing person who posted a how-to video for fixing Creaky. It wasn't exactly the same situation, but it gave me enough information to complete the surgery (with a special screwdriver I had to purchase!) and my children were no longer cranky. Just an FYI - I can't fix much so this was a miracle!
Messy Messy Fail - I have now successfully killed three arborvitae rheingold bushes. First time I fed one fertilizer and you are not supposed to do that with evergreens (you learn something new every day!). The second one I'm not quite sure, it just died. The third was because I transplanted it to a different part of the front yard (looked dumb where I originally planted it) but it did not get enough sunlight when the rhododendron and burning bush on either side of it grew in for the summer. My kind neighbor always reminds me that gardening is about trial and error. I seem to be having many errors lately.
Tidy Victory - I figured out what to do with all of the black bananas I have frozen in my freezer - smoothies! If I buy them and my boys just aren't feeling them, they just go brown and I hate to throw them away. I do like making banana bread with them, but you can only make so much of it. All you need is a handful of ice cubes, a cup of OJ, a brown banana and some strawberries in the blender - a cold, healthy option that helps eliminate waste (or at least in my house!).
