Progress

Well, we've made a lot of progress, though not quite as much as I'd hoped (against hope) to make by this point.
Yesterday, we moved a ton of stuff out of the living & dining rooms. There's still a pile of ads on the couch & some random stuff on the coffee table w/my computer. There's a pile of receipts & random stuff on one end table & a few misc. things & old newspapers that need shredded for composting on the dining room table. Some progress was made on the kitchen counters & the basket of randomness was sorted out. We need to sort through our growing collection of incomplete sippy cups & decide whether to pitch or hold on to them and get them off the counter.
We've had a rather crazy day so far, but I think I prefer it that way... it's kept me from dwelling on the fact that, had he not passed away over 5yrs ago, today would have been my dad's 60th birthday.
not a day goes by that I don't think about him & what everything from May 23rd, 2007 onward would have been like had he not passed. Our wedding, where we'd live (we were able to buy the house because of my inheritance), what education & career decisions I/we might have made differently, our kids. I had been really looking forward to seeing him as a grandpa. -Ok, I need to think about other things before I break down...

So, what's happened so far today?
I clogged & overflowed a toilet. Go me. BUT! I also unclogged it & dried up the floor in the bathroom and even managed to get most everything that could be water-damaged out of there before it happened & it wasn't the nasty stuff that overflowed... So, yay for small victories.
Right after I got done dealing with that, I was trying to get dressed when the carpet cleaners showed up. I just yelled out my window "Just a minute!" and finished getting myself dressed before I went down. Then we had the fun of moving the rest of the furniture and getting the carpets cleaned on the main floor. They're almost all dry now & look SO much better! Hope we can keep them this way at least until Thursday!
While we were waiting for them to dry, I took Amber for a walk down to the park & watched her play for a while there. Met a nice lady & her 19mo old son there. Noticed he had on a cloth diaper, so I asked her a bit about that. Still have to win Paul over on that one.
On the way back, we collected some leaves & I did some art projects with Amber (pics later, if I remember) with them. We did crayon rubbings of the leaves & then painted over those with water-colors. She didn't quite get the idea of creating a washed out background with the paint. She just wanted to paint a picture, so we did one big one together & then I did a couple little ones on my own while she did three paintings of her own.
Edit: In the middle of writing this, my friend who helps clean my house came over, so I went & did some more work trying to find the kitchen counters & table for her, so the art proj. stuff is all cleaned up now.
After the art projects we took a little down time & I let her watch her new favorite show, Poppy Cat. Then we ran to meet up with this lady who sold me her used Mei Tei baby carrier. :D I went in Target & got myself some more eggnog & some fruit snacks so I could get cash back (& those items, of course) & pay her cash. I wanted to get the half-gallon eggnog, but they only had two & they both expire on Friday! Not a chance I want to take while pregnant TYVM. :P
Then we went to Gordman's. I'd gone on Saturday with my friends & had found a 20% off one item coupon that I let my friend use. So, I went to print another one today & the entire Gordman's website was down. I'd noticed you could also get a coupon like that by signing up for their e-mails, but that wouldn't work either. So, when I got to the store I asked about it & was basically told the first one was a fraud (It sure didn't look like it & it worked fine for my friend!!) and that the e-mail one only gets you 15% off one item. Ugh... so they had me fill out the paper form for the e-mail & wrote on it that I could get 15% off one item. Amber got her stuffed monkey she was pitching a fit over on Saturday (with her money - earned for accident-free days) and I found the maternity clearance section & was able to get a couple more tank-tops for layering! :)
We got back over an hour later than Amber's usual nap time, but she did fine & is sleeping soundly now. As I mentioned above, my friend came to help clean the house & has been working on the bathrooms. She gets an extra hour tonight to help us get everything in order. :D