Oh, me too! Can I jump on the âÂÂoverwhelmedâ bandwagon? This weekend was my busiest weekend of the year because IâÂÂm the music director at my church & there was a celebration every day - Thursday, Friday, Saturday & Sunday! So, of course, my family decided that Easter supper should be at my house! I still hadnâÂÂt gotten all the kitchen cabinet doors back up from the repainting, the dining room was a mess from re-varnishing to of the room doors (drop cloths & saw horse) and the whole house needed cleaning because like Calamity J, I was sick for 2 weeks. So it was a mad scramble to get everything presentable for the big supper yesterday. The one good thing about having people coming is that itâÂÂs motivation that I wouldnâÂÂt normally have when itâÂÂs just me having to look at it - haha! But the darned quack grass has been busy outside while IâÂÂve been busy inside & it all looks a mess. I had piled whole newspaper sections (not just a few sheets) covered by literally 10 inches of wood chips & still the quack grass comes up. And you canâÂÂt buy Grass-B-Gone in Canada, so after a lot of internet & Gardenweb forum searching, I have decided my only option is to go with the aluminum flashing underground around all the beds, because I just canâÂÂt keep up with all the weeding. And like Kokszta Kid, I didnâÂÂt cut anything down last year, but at least the house it tidied up, so as soon as the good weather comes back, I can get out there & get started. The problem is I also have gadd like Thyme2dig (gardener attention deficit disorder - or is it gardener add because IâÂÂm always add-ing projects to my list!!). So I want to get started on lining those beds, but then there are the window boxes I want to add, and I have vowed that I will not have a single unsown seed this year! So I might alternate - do one bed, then build a window box, so a couple packetsâ¦

Skaterio and Cube, I was thinking the same thing--FLYDADY. It's a great Web site for getting your house to seem more homey. Yes it's bizzare and out there, but you don't have to do all the things on the Web site, pick and choose what works for you. Once you free your home from CHAOS (Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome) then you can invite people over. I have about one dinner party per season and invite people who make me feel warm and fuzzy inside. It's a great pick me up, the whole process--getting the house ready, cooking, etc. Also, it might be helpful to find a spiritual community to join if you haven't already. I mean I should talk since I don't belong to one, but the idea is that a spiritual community can help people fee loved and appreciated and connected to a higher power. I was speaking with a pastor last year and he told me that your complaint is one of the prime one he hears from everyone. A couple of years ago I got a book called "Minyan" by Rami Shapiro which is about developing a spriritual practice. Minyan is a term in Judiasm which refers to a group of ten men, which is how many people you need to start a worship group. Anyway, the rabbi who wrote the book developed ten spiritual practices which, according to the review on Amazon, "ground a person in divine reality and balance external and internal affairs." Anyway, the book isn't pie in the sky, it is very practical and accessible to people of any religion or even agnostics. One of the practices is to read inspirational books every night. Like a devotion, read a couple of pages as your before bed reading. That's how I found the "Art of Happiness" book. Two other books I have especially enjoyed are: "Attitudes of Gratitude" by M.J. Ryan, and "The Simple Living Guide" by Janet Luhrs. There are bound to be other books out there, just find a few you like and then look them up on Amazon.com. They always tell you other books you might like or other books that other people who bought your book also bought, which gives you some ideas to try. Right now I'm reading "The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari" which as a novel pretty much sucks, but as a guide to meditation practices is quite good. By putting the ideas in the form of a novel I guess the author is making them more accessible. But it's not really a novel, just a fable. Also, MJ is right, the TV is very damaging to one's self esteem, the world portrayed there is not even close to reality. The whole medium is designed to get us to feel that our life is inadequate. That way we will buy things to fill the void.

You can do this. It will be all right. But you need to plan, not just let this happen to you. I find lists and folders help. The thing about organizing is that you have to do it, not just wish it (VERY BIG GRIN). That means, somewhere between the health and safety of your children, and the next most important thing you do, you have to make organizing a priority, if you're going to maintain organization. The folders method is great because if you keep up with it, it only takes seconds at a time, and half an hour once in awhile. Making a few seconds to put away a paper a high priority isn't so hard, even with the demands on your attention that you have. Here's one way to deal with the papers: You can start by color coding the world. Find a filing area that's not in the zone where the remodel will take place, but is easily accessible from where you spend most of your days. Get a file box or drawer for kids and family, one for kitchen, one for mudroom/powder room/pantry/laundry room, and one for the upstairs bedroom and bathrooms. If the boxes/drawers don't come in different colors, use big, colored stickers or paint so that you an tell them apart at a quick glance. Oh! And if you need to stack them you really want drawers, whether it's a filing cabinet or drawer style units. If they're going to be horizontal on the floor or a low table or shelf, top opening is usually easier. It helps to get the pendaflex kind that sit on rails or channels. They're easier to take in and out, and to keep from falling over. Invest in both file folders and pocket folders in 10 colors (you can put a pocket folder, or a standard file folder, inside a pendaflex folder in the box/drawer for ease of access). Have a color for each family member. Use the three most distinctive colors for the kitchen, other downstairs, and upstairs, and match them to the boxes. Every time you get a piece of paper put it in the appropriate folder. Like the baby's immunization papers. Just slip them in the baby pink folder, and you'll have them to hand. A few times a year you can go through the folders and reorganize them. Like have a plain color (manila) immunizations folder that all the kids' records get filed into eventually, and your and your husband's last tentanus boosters and flu shots too. Within your kitchen box, make folders for each kind of inspiration: Color, cabinetry, light fixtures, etc., and have a big one for general "I like this kitchen". Go through your computer bookmarks and print the pictures that you want to show your husband and architect and file them appropriately. Make sure the name of the website and/or bookmark is on each page. Stick them in your folders. Make a budget. Do your research and figure out the absolute least each thing will cost you to get what you need and write it down. Find the absolute most you think you'd be willing to spend on the same thing to get the look or whatever that you want. Write it down. Put these numbers on the covers of your folders so that you can just chuck out the pictures of specific things that you know you can't afford, or write "something with this kind of look" across them. This is a big investment of time to get started, and some money as well, but as things get going it'll really really help if you have all this organized. Really. I needed to find a piece of paper from my tile setter last night, and I couldn't find my tile folder. I was starting to panic a little because I knew I took it to the tile store. I knew I brought it back. I knew it wasn't in the car. I kept thinking and thinking about where it could have gone. Finally I remembered the laundry basket full of clean clothes which I'd done at my mother's house, which I'd carried upstairs the day before with birthday presents to wrap in it, etc., and hadn't touched. If I hadn't buried the folder under bags and mail, etc., and put it away when I got home, I would have saved myself half an hour and a lot of worry. The thing is, if you have your folders set up well, you don't really have to organize within them. Highly organized people do, but if you just can get the right paper in the right folder, and keep the blue folder in the blue box, you can find anything you want or need. If you get more than 20-30 pages in a single folder, it's probably time to split it into more specific topics, however. BTW, receipts and invoices should go in their own folder, rather than with their topics. Makes it much easier to figure out how much you're spending and on what. A few more things stand out in your initial post: Your husband works crazy hours, your children (lovely as I'm sure they are) have maxed out the number allowable for one adult to care for in a day care setting, so I'm sure they're a full time handful. So, first off, that overwhelmed feeling is a good thing--it's you telling you that this very large project is pushing you to the limits. But you can manage it. Before you pay large deposits and start tearing open your house, you and your husband should make plans for exactly how much time he can spend working on the house without going crazy. The realistic answer may be five hours a week, tops. Maybe ten. So make a list of the things that can be done in that amount of time--without little helpers--including set-up and clean-up time and see what tasks you can realistically assign to him. Also, well before the remodelling begins, figure out how you're going to handle the children in a construction zone. Start teaching them the rules, like never touch a tool with a cord on it, or we go up to this line and no farther. Find some friends with remodelling going on and see if you can, with several adults supervising, take the kids to see what it's going to be like, hear the loud noises, and start to learn the rules. Budget for a $10,000-$20,000 (minimum) repair that you didn't know you'd need until they open up the walls. If it doesn't happen, you'll have that much more for some of the nicer wishlist things, or that much more to send your kids to college, or whatever. The real budget killers, however, are the things that are only a little more than you've allotted. This tile is prettier, and costs $12.50/sq.ft. instead of $10. That cabinetry is only $1000 more. A glaze is only $600. Etc., etc. All those onlys add up to a huge amount!!! That's why I suggested to label each item with the most you're willing to spend on it, as well as what you really expect to spend. When you're doing trade-offs, as you make your decisions, it's easier to stick to that, than to juggle numbers in your head about how much you're sort of saving here that you can indulge there. As to the rest, it sounds like you have a handle on your budget and a good idea of what you want. That really helps!! A lot of people just want magic. :-) Keep posting here. You'll get lots of good, practical advice on what works and what doesn't, how to improve your layout, and all the little details.

Wow, last year's garden is beautiful and you are much further ahead than I am this year. I got an attack of the lazies. Agree with suggestion to use chains. My husband built a simple two shelf rack with a top. Nails in the side hold 4' lights. I adjust one chain at a time so I don't think there's a possibility of dropping since there are still 3 other chains holding each light. I agree the lights needed to be closer to your plants. Mine are so close some leaves almost touch the bulbs. Last year was my first year growing "exotic" peppers. I put a single seed in each cell so wasted space when some didn't germinate. Took a seed starting class where we put a pinch of seeds into something similar to a 3" pot then transplanted when first true leaves appeared. I transplanted to Solo cups with holes drilled for drainage. This allowed me to leave plants indoors under lights for longer periods. I started the longest days to maturity pepper on 2/09/16 so many were blossoming and trying to bear fruit by the time they went outdoors for hardening off mid-May (I'm in NH). I've accumulated a few plastic pot trays from visits to different nurseries (although most have switched to putting your plants in cardboard boxes). The plastic trays for seed starting fit in these so provide some extra strength. I bottom water. I gave plants away to two friends. One really deserved extra plants (his pepper plants were puny due to lack of watering) for past trades/favors. Also turns out he plants some community gardens as a volunteer. I originally planned to try selling or Craigslist. I have a high tunnel where I planted sugar snap peas on April 9 last year. I've been keeping a basic journal for several years. This is handy for record of start dates and "first harvest". I'm basically only feeding 2 people so a 6-pack of broccoli seedlings is enough. I think most of us try for early but I think aiming for extending the season as long as possible is even more important. Around here, a lot of people stop gardening after labor day. Two years ago I got wonderful seedlings 4th of July week in a northern tourist town. Around here, seedlings were already very overgrown and pot bound but these were grown for summer home owners who were just starting their gardens. I have also found a portable low tunnel can provide enough frost protection for bush beans so I can get a late crop. Around here we get just enough of an early frost about 9/18 to kills plants that are just blossoming but if I can protect them for one or two nights, the nights turn warm again and there's time to get that last crop in late September. I think it's hard to keep the enthusiasm for plant starting when you also have the outdoor garden going. You didn't mention garlic. I plant garlic in late October. It's harvested in late July so I can use the space for fall broccoli or ? You also didn't mention potatoes. I would plant fingerling potatoes instead of a row of corn. Around here many places sell corn stalks. I wouldn't waste my garden space. We still have potatoes and winter squash in basement storage (although not for much longer).