Sometimes the house to do list is almost overwhelming.

Ok it is overwhelming.

Sometimes at the end of the weekend I look back and thing “wow we got so much done” and other times its more like “omg we didn’t get nearly enough done” and usually those two thoughts are happening simultaneously, which is quite an oddity!

We had to take my mom to the airport on Saturday evening, so we stayed in town. The two previous we had scurried up to our cabin for a bit of relaxation, fishing, and archery. Its funny, we wake up much earlier on weekend days than on week days. Sometimes we wake up before the cat, and that is really saying something!

Saturday we met B’s Aunt & Uncle at the local farmer’s market. Its one of the largest farmer’s markets in the country, and it fills up quick. B and I don’t like crowds (shock!), and luckily for us, his Aunt & Uncle don’t either. We met them at 7:30am and were done by 8:15! I hadn’t been to that market in years, and its always impressive.

Right downtown, ringing the capital building on both sides of the sidewalk with fresh produce, meats, honey, and bakery items. Its a strict market, they don’t allow any “junk” peddlers. Those folks have their own market one street over! We picked up some yummy tomatoes, and were gifted half of a bunch of dill, parsley, and sorrel from the fam.

After the market, we headed over to our local Habitat for Humanity ReStore, which is a favorite but they didn’t have great hours so we can only make it over on Saturdays. We were there right when they opened, which totally lucked out. We were looking for a small ceiling fan for our kitchen, and found one that was ok, but I wasn’t crazy about the fake wood fan blades. We were going to buy it anyway at a whopping $15, but one of the workers in the fan/electrical area heard us talking and totally pimped our fan! We got to look through a basket of fan blades to find some perfect white ones with a basket weave detail, and then they let us swap out the ruffled globes for some simple white ones from the shelf. They even let us swap out the ugly fancy bulbs for some LED bulbs from their stock. All for no extra cost! We got a fully customized ceiling fan for $15, and I cant wait to install it!

We were on a roll after that, so we went home and decided it was high time to install the larger ceiling fan that had been living in the back of my Subaru for the last month. It took about an hour, but it was our first ever. There were no bad words said, in the end, we love love love our ceiling fan. B was on a step stool and I stood on the bed, pretending I was surfing. He did most the heavy lifting and tightening/untightening, and I put my old theatre electrical skills to work.

About that time my mom arrived and we took a lunch/show & tell break. Then there was a spot of yard work – B trimmed some low hanging branches off our sickly pine tree, and I planted the rhubarb plants my mom brought out. Shortly after that, we ended the evening with a round trip drive to the Chicago O’Hare Airport. Whew!

Sunday we popped right up again, this time to trek over to Blain’s Farm & Fleet. Best. Store. Ever. OMG. Amazing. We could have stayed there forever. $350 later, its a good thing we did finally leave! B stocked up on all the remaining things he’d need to do oil changes, we got a taller ladder, and a variety of little things that had been rolling around our shopping lists. He proceeded to spend the afternoon changing the oil in our cars (his first time doing so, and quite successful). I locked myself in the basement and finished emptying the last of our boxes (well, except for my “craft room” boxes, which are still dauntingly stacked to the ceiling in the soon-to-be craft room!).

It felt really good to get the rest of the boxes out of the basement. Now I’m starting to think about storage and shelving possibilities. I’m also starting to get designers anxiety about redesigning our kitchen. Where should the fridge go??? And paint colors – the stress of a whole house worth of paint colors! Lol.

Its stressful but fun.