5 Things I Didn't Know I Could Do - But Totally Nailed!

Wow! What a weekend! I mean, I've accomplished a lot. Though you probably can't tell by walking into my house and seeing the view from my front door. It's pretty bad. Shoes and flip-flops scattered. Clean laundry stacked on the couch. Dining room table covered in mail and coffee cups and yes, crumbs from the breakfast toast. Sad, but oh so typical for our home.

So this weekend... yeah. Totally kicked butt! It's going on 7 p.m., Sunday evening, and we are still wrapping up a few things like getting the garbage and recycling gathered and out to the curb, getting dinner ready and on the table, taking the baths and showers and packing backpacks for school tomorrow, etc... And I may have another load of laundry yet to wash; and at least two more to dry.

And while this is typical for a lot of households, I wanted to also brag about a few other out-of-the-ordinary things that I/we accomplished this weekend:

1. I went in to the office on Saturday morning and put in a few hours to get a tiny bit caught up. It's sad that the summer has snuck by and it sure didn't feel like summer-time at the office. Meaning: usually there is some kind of slow period between year-ends where I can relax a bit more. Maybe clean out the file cabinets and desk drawers. Take an inventory of what we have and what we need for the upcoming "Year End Season" (which lasts from about mid-October to mid-April). But this little trip to the office was pleasant and productive. It was quiet. I made myself a large, fresh pot of coffee. My wee one came with and played on the tablet quietly (surprise!) and I actually got some stuff done!

2. I single-handedly googled the instructions and then dismantled a casement window crank operator. Oh. Yeah. (This ties in with #3) I watched two YouTube videos and then dismantled that puppy. I owned it! In fact, I was so pleased with myself that I didn't mind...

3. Going to Lowe's with hubby. This is something that I don't necessarily like to do. Shopping with the spouse is really just a whole other post. Very possibly a four part mini-series, if you know what I mean. Let's just say that one time we went to Home Depot to get something and he decides to get an extension ladder, which he proceeded to carry around the entire Home Depot until we were finished shopping. There was simply no telling him that maybe he should put it down and come back for it when we were done. That was out of the question! That being said, you'll understand why the preface to our Lowe's trip consisted of a very short demand that Lowe's was the only place we would be going today. He complied. Though I was extremely disappointed that they did not carry any crank operator assemblies at all, we still ended up with a cart-full of various items.

4. I was also very pleased that I was able to find out the difference between a 15 amp outlet and a 20 amp outlet - because I wired them myself! Oh yeah! I also wired a new light switch. The story is thus: we have just seen our oldest daughter move out and our son has been re-located to the basement bedroom. Therefore children #3 and #4 no longer have to share a room. Actually, hey are still sharing while we are re-doing the two upstairs bedrooms. We have sucessfully repainted one room and have realized that the old outlets and switches are just plain ugly. So we bought some new crisp white ones at Lowe's today. I wired the switch sucessfully and then tried to wire the outlets, but had the feeling that something wasn't quite right. After some more Googling, I discovered that the new outlets were 15 amp outlets and the outlets I was trying to re-wire were 20 amp outlets. Then I remembered: The bedroom used to be the main-floor laundry room for the older couple that lived here previously. Though I was able to re-wire two of the outlets in the room, the other two will have to wait until we've purchased outlets with the correct ampage. And the look mighty fine!

5. I took down wallpaper border. Now that we have one bedroom pretty much done (except for those two outlets and finishing up the casement window crank assembly), we are starting work on the second bedroom. We've pulled the bunk bed into the middle of the room and have draped it with plastic and have begun the process of puttying all of the dings and dents. We have also taken down the old wallpaper border. I wonder if my sister remembers helping me put it up 12 years ago? It was such a cute Cinderella-themed border. All pastel pinks and blues. I loved it! Though I'm not sure if the kids ever did. I knew this task was coming eventually, and I absolutely dreaded it! BUT... we have discovered a product that I absolutely love: Piranha Wallpaper & Paste Remover Liquid Spray. The border came off sooo easy. We were done - completely done taking off the border - all of it - in less than 30 minutes (and that included a break for toast and coffee)!! I've had to take down wallpaper before, which consisted of a process of scoring, soaking, steaming, scraping miniscule pieces of wallpaper along with not so miniscule pieces of drywall off the wall, shedding some tears and then doing some more scoring, soaking and steaming.... I hated it!! But alas! That is done, with pics to prove how long it was on the wall.

I must say again, that I'm feeling pretty accomplished. Keep in mind that these things that I've listed are simply things that I had not planned on doing this weekend. I did also do a whole lot of other stuff that are my weekend chore list staples: groceries, laundry, banking, etc. You know. All the stuff us moms just do. It's ingrained in us. What else could we possible do? Sit by a sun-shiny pool and sip Chardonnay all weekend with a stack of our favorite novels at hand? Psh! Yeah right!

What did you do this weekend?