home "improvement"

we have a laundry room that is larger than a closet, but not huge. maybe 8 feet deep by 6 feet wide. well, there is a wall about a foot to the right of the door that cuts into some of the entry width, and that is where i normally lean my brooms, mop and dustpan. for the past several months, i've become increasingly irritated when one of the said items would fall over across my path to the washer and dryer, or worse- block the door from opening all the way. we went to superstore today, and found a simple metal bar with spring-clips to hold broom handles. unfortunately, the width of the holes did not line up with the wall studs, so hubby had to get creative and drill another hole in the bar. but for less than $4 in the home improvement deparment (not by brooms, that holder was more expensive and only held 4 handles), we got 5 things out of the way, hanging decently and in order. and i can check one of my items off my Finding Focus list! he hung them high enough so we can set the vacuum underneath them and still get to the brooms... i also proceeded to sweep and mop the kitchen floor, something which it desperately needed.

during another leg of our errand run, hubby bought something in which he can conveniently yet safely store his "personal security system" with some of his Christmas gift cards and money. baby bear watched him program the passcode, and had fun trying to figure out how to get cookie monster out. (she didn't succeed). now it's successfully mounted in an undisclosed location, and hubby is quite proud of himself for being a handyman this evening. i am, too. plus, when monarch, purple princess, or any other kids are playing hide and seek, they will not accidentally stumble upon certain dangerous items.

oh, and at our first stop, he used another gift card to buy a new shredder, since our old one died. so now he is shredding papers with sensitive personal info on them during commercial breaks. (he used to burn such paper, when we lived with tech mom and tech dad. but our gas-log fireplace is not so equipped, as it has no chimney.) we have a box full of junk that needs to be shredded, so this could take weeks.