Making Progress

Yesterday my wonderful husband said he'd go with me to Home Depot to get some supplies to put up shelves in my closet and hang my classroom curtains (the window is too large for a standard curtain rod, or at least one that costs less than $50). Not one to turn down help, even if it is only a half hour before dinner time, we loaded up the girls (ages 4 and 2) and took off with my list.

We made, what I thought would be a quick trip, before dinner but shortly after arriving at Home Depot I realized it was going to take much longer than expected. I wasn't totally sure what I wanted to use the hang the curtains (one of the reasons I brought Justin along) and it took us quite a while before we decided a smaller copper pipe would work best. We eventually ended up finding everything we needed and at that point our car was packed with boards, pipes, and supplies so we decided to just take everything to school and start working for a bit. We picked up some teriyaki chicken for a classroom picnic dinner and headed to school.

All was well for the first hour or so. The girls were content to color and use stickers while they ate their dinner and we worked. Justin got the curtain rods hung while I cleared out the closet and then we got to work on the shelves.

In the mean time my 2-year-old decided it would be fun to dump out everything she could find and hide it in new baskets. We had math manipulatives, art supplies and toys everywhere!  For a solid hour I spent most of my time keeping the 2-year-old out of trouble while trying to help Justin as much as I could. I finally started a movie so we could finish up for the night and for the most part the girls watched that while we worked on the last of the bigger shelves. After a few set backs and one additional trip to Home Depot (thankfully Justin went on his own this time), we ended up leaving school around 9:45 pm with half my shelves up, all the curtain rods installed, and two tired girls who were both ready for bed.

I went back this afternoon with my 4-year-old and we installed the last two shelves ourselves and did some organizing. I now have four new shelves and curtains on all my windows and it cost me just over $100. I still have a long way to go, but things are starting to come together a bit.