Organize yourselves, Prepare every needful thing...

I've been pretty proud of myself this year: I've finally finished off two projects that have been nagging at me for years.

Project #1: 72 Hour Kits

I've been worrying over this ever since we got married. Sure, it took me almost 4 years, but they're DONE. Okay, almost done. We're just short a few important documents, some gloves, and a Scout Handbook. Now let's just pray we never actually have to use them, considering I can barely pick mine up...

Project #2: Three Month Food Storage

This ended up being easier than the 72 hour kits, so it got done first. We still have to tweak things every once in awhile, but that's to be expected. Next on the list of things I stress about getting done? Long term food storage. It would help if I could figure out where the local cannery is, but I can't (help, anyone?).

Along the same lines, we also tried growing some food in pots on our deck (no room for a garden in a town home). My chives are thriving. I'm throwing chives away because we can't eat them all. The tomato plant spit out a decent amount of smallish tomatoes before it succumbed to the cold weather. Or the fungus plague it got because we had two straight weeks of rain right after we planted it. Either way, it's sitting on our deck with about 20 tomatoes on it that will never ripen. And I was really looking forward to them, too. Next year: two tomato plants and some PEAS. Yum, yum.

Now, some projects that are a bit lower on the over-arching priority list, but were high on our "things we should probably get done around the house" list.

First, BLINDS. Now our neighbors won't have to avert their gazes every time they walk onto their deck. I can't believe the people before us lived here three years with no privacy in their kitchen. (Jon putting up the blinds with the assistance of Seth)

And, thinking way in advance, we bought a bunk bed at Ikea for when Seth gets out of the crib. The bottom is a full size, so it doubles as a guest bed. And yes, it definitely takes up almost the entire room.The baseball ceiling fan will be leaving soon. It's all yours, Sommer! Once we get that taken care of (and the blue bordering painted white), we'll have a little break from house projects until next summer. Hallelujah. Seth will be disappointed--he's been loving having all these power tools hanging around. 100% boy...