Hush

I pause on the stairs, one foot above the other.  I listen.  I hear the fridge kick on. A car passes outside.  Thunder rumbles (again still).

But nothing else.

For slightly more than 24 hours, I have been the only living thing in my house. (ok, to get technical, there are three houseplants, and probably some bugs hiding out, but you get the idea.)

A few weeks ago, my mother-in-law called.  In a nutshell, she told Hubby that she moved to our state to see her grandchildren, and she was going through withdrawals.  Seeing as how they had only closed on their house three days earlier, I was thinking they might want to get out of boxes a bit.

But with a marvelous long weekend in sight, we planned a mutually beneficial trip. She got to be  Grandma. I got time alone.

This is the first time in my married life that I've been alone in my house. 

(and the sky is now green outside my window!)

I've painted my entire living room (two coats). I've sewn something just for me.  I've watched non-animated movies. I've sang random songs at the top of my lungs. I've cleaned out our new freezer.  I've eaten random bad for me food.  I've seen how long I can sleep in.

And it's been awesome.  I would not want to do this all day every day. But for a chance to recharge, it's been one of the best times I've ever had.

Tomorrow Hubby comes home. And we'll have time, just the two of us.  Then, Sunday afternoon, we'll go see the kids.  And I'll be ready to be a Mommy again.

Ready

TO start this post off, I'd like to make it perfectly clear that I am NOT pregnant. Ok?  Just so there's no mix up here.


Since I've been married, the majority of my friends have been older than myself.  As I've thrilled with each aspect of being pregnant, they have sighed with relief that it wasn't them. They had their time, but now it was someone else's turn.   It's always taken me back a bit. I've been so excited to be pregnant, the concept of being happy to not be so has been light years off my radar.

But I'm closer to understanding it now.

Last fall, Hubby and I decided to not have a baby in 2011. So of course I got baby hungry the month after we changed our insurance, and have stressed every. single. month. about our choices.

But that deadline is just about up now.

And I'm ready.

I'm ready for my last pregnancy to start.  I thrill at the idea of the last stretch marks. I'm ready to know what color clothes I need to stock.  How happy I'll be for that last catheter!  I'm ready for the last round of "firsts". I'm ready to be done with car seats. To plan the last round of toilet training thrills my soul.  I'm ready to not have little people crawling all over me. I'm ready to start this last trip down babyhood.

I don't know how long this trip will take. Last time it wasn't so great. But I thrill at the idea of finally starting it.

I know that this will be the very last time I go down this road. Physically, I only get four pregnancies, and we plan on doing some permanent choices regarding that.  Waiting these last few months for the timing to be acceptable has been agonizing - I just want to start this path!

I don't know how much I'll talk about it. It will depend on how hard it is this time. I don't think it will be - I know my body and cycles so much more thoroughly now, that I don't expect too much hassle . 

So here's to a new adventure. One I'm very ready to begin!

Wish I had a good title to put here . . . !

But I don't.

Last Friday, I painted my kitchen. I'm in love with the color. But you don't get any pictures.

Nope. That would require cleaning my kitchen.  And I'm apparently incapable of doing so right now.

Actually, I kind of am. You see, I have this crazy cold. My head feels like the size of a watermelon, my nose is raw from blowing, and any physical exertion causes window shaking coughs to emerge from my scratchy throat and scare my children.

Not so fun around here.  But my kitchen is pretty - and I'll eventually show you. For now, just so you know I'm doing more than taking 3 hour naps (yes, I've been doing that also!), here's what I've been working on:

 

(See, sewing is not NEARLY as aerobic as sweeping or doing dishes. Much more my current speed!) 

Buddy's quilt is almost done! Now I just need to figure out what the back is going to be, do all the quilting, and binding, and all that jazz. Then he'll just start bugging me even more for when his room will be finished. Someday little guy. Some day!

ranting

Just typing at 300 words a minute, which means 12 billion mistakes, to relieve my stress and frustration that my Hubby updated our browser AGAIN and now it's completely different, and I can't find anything, and everything is moved around and stressing me out and I really don't want to bother learning a new system, but he insists that every single update is better, so we have to update as soon as it's announced.

I know there are real problems in the world. But the fact that I just spent TWICE as long to check my bank account because I can't find the tabs anymore is seriously BUGGING ME!!

AND my baby threw up tonight.

AND I've got a headache from having my pupils dilated all day long.

AND I got almost no sleep last night.

AND my alarm clock didn't' go off today.

AND . . . Ok, I'll shut up now. Complaining won't make it better!

More strange adventures of 'Lil

'Lil just gave herself a bloody nose.

By sticking a pen up her nose.










Now there's some fun days.

The door that just may save my sanity

Or at the very least my clothes!

My house has two bathrooms. Two small bathrooms. I've talked about the upstairs one before, but never really the downstairs bathroom.

MY bathroom.

That's where I shower, do my hair, keep my supplies. Of course other people use the facilities, but I'm the only one that showers there. (I can't find the pictures from when we moved in. But suffice it to say, it was the cutest room in the house.)

The worst part about my bathroom is the lack of counter space. As in - THERE FREAKIN ISN'T ANY!!!

The only place to put clothes for showers is the back of the toilet. I've dropped more than one shirt into the open toilet after showering.

My hand mirror is melted and twisted from being too close to my curling iron in the sink. Yes the sink. It's the only place to put brushes, mirrors, irons, and blow dryers - usually all at the same time.So I've been looking for a solution.

Happy Mom and I are trying to get together every 3 months or so and have a sister craft day. Our first one was Thursday (which was quite the adventure). We had several ideas for what to craft, but ultimately decided on making some shelves using this tutorial. The best part about it - Happy Mom did this a few years ago. Which meant she already had the doors (FREE!) and they were cut in half already (no scary table saw!) The worst part about this craft was not measuring right (GRRRR!), and I had nothing to show when I left her house. But it's all good!

We did change the instructions just a bit. Happy Mom's previous shelf tends to lean down in the front. So we added side cleats to help with some stability. On a door, there's a thick piece of wood at the top/bottom. Since I couldn't drill through that, I put one cleat out from the wall that it will just slide over (kind of like these plans)

How I assembled: I predrilled some holes in my cleats (the wood that goes on the wall). Then I put the wood on the wall and drilled the same holes again. I took the wood off and TADA!! now new where to put in my drywall anchors!

Then screw those puppies in!


You do need to dig out a bunch of cardboard from your door (did you know that's what is in there?)
Once your door is painted and dry, you can put it on the wall!*



I also screwed it to the cleats in the two corners (so no little people try to climb up and fall to their doom)

Then slap up some junk from around the house (which will never stay there!) to stage it


and you're done!

And look! it's even level!

My sink dilemma was even easier. I found a little shelf at a thrift store, and just nailed it to the bead board.(I'd been trying to come up with something to go between the chair rail and the mirror. This was a heck of a lot easier!)

Hooray for organization!

*Moment of honesty: I put my shelf too close to the chair rail. So it didn't fit. I had to unscrew everything, dig out the anchors, and move the whole thing 1/2 inch higher. Some days projects are just crazy!

LINKED HERE

Laree and the no good rotten very bad day

Some days disappearing to Australia really does sound rather nice.

To start off, 'Lil woke up twice screaming last night. To be fair, the first time she'd managed to soak clear through everything, but changing everything in the middle of the night doesn't make waking up in the morning any easier. And then she woke up for real at 6:30, which my body did not agree with. (apparently, it didn't agree with my alarm either. My alarm failed to go off at 5:51, so I didn't get to exercise today too).

Then I had a boy who could not cope with ANY trial today. There were 3 episodes of running away sobbing just before breakfast was over.

And it snowed today, which made everyone cranky.

And my Valspar paint sample - which I've been trying to get on Facebook for weeks now - finally came. And instead of the pretty soft green I thought I clicked on, I got neon grass green. Which after attempting to mix with other paint colors at my house, the best I was able to come up with was a dingy forest green.

So a trip to the store was in order. And while I got a better sample color mixed, I had a crazy hard time finding almost everything else on my list.

And then I forgot to go to the two other stores I've needed to go to for a week.

When we got home, everyone was starving. And my house looks like a giant picked it up, spun it around twelve times, and then tossed it back down.

But I finally got everyone settled and attempted to sample paint my kitchen. The color I love; the paint not so much. So I'm going to have to try to get a different brand of paint tinted to just the right color to match (yuck!)

And my baby has learned to sob whenever she can't get her own way, so my head has been pounding all day.

And then I tried to hang up my new shelf - which I somehow made yesterday at Happy Mom's house (in between helping her clean, cook 1495 things, and play with all the company she had). This super cool shelf . . . I measured wrong. And it's 1/4 and inch too big to fit on my wall.

So I finally FINALLY got a minute to myself to check emails. And kohls is having this great sale and I find this awesome bedding that I love to try for my new bed. (yup, I got a new bed. It's awesome, but I haven't blogged about it 'cause it looks really stupid with my deader-than-dead bedspread on it. And I tried to get a new one online, but when it came it looked really REALLY stupid, so I had to send it back and I haven't been able to find anything better until today that didn't cost an arm and a leg).

And instead of telling you everything I tried to do in the next 90 minutes, lets just say kohls didn't have it at their store, their charge cards are stupid, and since my house is 45 years old, I'm pretty sure my city and zip code are right, no matter what their data base says, and no I don't want to take a phone survey about it!

And I forgot AGAIN to go to those two stores I've needed to for a week.

And the bread I was making for dinner rose too long so it's going to taste funny.

And I seriously SERIOUSLY wish it was just bedtime right now so this no good rotten very bad day could just be done!!!!

2.5 hours and counting. Anyone know a good movie about Australia?