Weekend Round Up

Saturday

• Football game was an hour late getting started and took two hours to complete. And it was hot. And I had to sit next to the woods. And I hate bugs. And bugs live in the woods and dive bomb people sitting nearby. Especially stinkbugs. LONGEST. GAME. EVER.
• Liv and I stopped and HomeGoods (yum) on the way home from the game in Columbia, browsed for an hour and then went and had a nice Mexican dinner - just the two of us. It was the highlight of the weekend.

Sunday

• Took the girls to get supplies for their science fair projects.
• Spent the rest of the afternoon making a paper mache' volcano, a la Peter Brady.
• In between volcano making, I cooked up a storm to prepare meals for most of the week (which is really the only way we actually eat Monday through Friday since we have cheer leading practice, gymnastics, etc. several nights a week. If I don't cook on Sunday, we eat sandwiches all week - if I remember to get bread).
• Received Olivia's individual cheer pictures, which were absolutely adorable! They even have her name across the bottom! Unfortunately Olivia isn't in the photo. Someone else is. Epic Fail picture taker person.

Rah - Rah

Here's what I'll be doing today .......

Liv is cheering again for the local travel team so today we travel an hour to Columbia.

This is our home field.

Yes - that's a brand new artificial turf football field.

A High School football field.

One of MANY in the county.

We take our football SER-I-OUS-LY.

Even pony football.

We're kinda like Texas.

Only not as hot.

And our kids read from outdated books and the teachers apparently need raises (again).

Psh -there's no money for that.

But we have some AWESOME artificial turf football fields.

It's all about priorities.

Reunion Weekend

Several weeks ago, we had a multi-year reunion for our high school. This was a great idea because some of friends graduated either before, or after me.

Me & Staci (We graduated together. Many moons ago….)

Me & Beth (Beth was a year ahead of me in school)



Me & Brian (He graduated from another school. *coughseveralyearsaftermecough*



Liv & I







Here’s my Meg – one of the best friends a girl could have (She graduated a year behind me)



My two best friends in the whole world.




We went out afterward and danced – coincidentally, it was an 80’s band – ROCK ON!!




Pretty sure Meg and I have posed for this same picture before (like, several times over the past 20 years….)

And here I am, apparently praying that I don’t visit the Porcelain God later.
(I didn’t)

The List, Revisited....

In January I posted a pretty ambitious list of things I wanted to accomplish this year.

Let's take a look and see how I've done so far, shall we? Alrighty then....

1. STOP being a slacker. OK, I'm actually still working on this one. (Actually, I'm pretty sure I've taken a step backwards here).


2. Get myself in shape. I'm not doing too bad here - Brian and I took a break from our P90X, simply because the evening activities with the kids, out of town guests, football games (both real and on TV) have interfered. BUT - we're starting back this week. I hope.


3. Get my house in shape. (Resolutions a through q). Ok, here's where it gets bit interesting - Hopefully I can cross some of these off!!


a. Lay new wood floors in the dining room, entry hall and sitting room. This would require money, which we don't have right now. Moving on....


b. Renovate the upstairs bathroom. YAY! This one is done! Woot!

c. Paint the downstairs study/bedroom. Holy crap - another one to mark off my list - Yahoo!


d. Add some decorative moldings to the bottom half of the dining room walls. This will be happening VERY soon....


e. Design and actually make wooden valances for the family room windows. This is my current project.


f. Add crown molding to the big family room to match what's there. I am holding off on this one until I get the valances up. I need to see them up before I decide what to do about the crown.


g. Talk my husband into moving our bedroom downstairs into the girls old playroom. I have him convinced that we should do it, which is a far cry from where we were last year. It'll take me another year or two to actually get him to do it....but he will. Trust me. He will.


h. Blow out the wall between the two guest rooms at the end of the hall upstairs. This will happen after item g.


i. Move Olivia into our Master Bedroom upstairs. Again, all dependent on item g.

j. Expand Olivia's old room to create a larger spare bedroom. I really need to get moving on item g.......

k. Reconfigure the kitchen. I am currently rolling on the floor with laughter at this. Not happening anytime soon.

l. Talk my hubby into converting the wood burning fireplace in the morning room/breakfast area into a gas fireplace. Again, I have him thinking about it, which is light years ahead of last year......

m. Remodel the sitting room into the room I want it to be, which includes the refinishing and reupholstering of a couch which belonged to my grams. This is my next big project. It will be done by spring. I think.

n. Talk my hubby into installing several rain barrels. Nope. didn't happen.

o. Talk hubby into FINALLY allowing me to have a real vegetable garden rather than just growing peppers and tomatoes in pots on the deck for the chipmunks enjoyment. We WILL have a garden next year. He agreed. And I have witnesses.

p. Paint the trim. All of it. In every room of the house. Yeah, I hate painting trim so it's a safe bet that this won't get done anytime soon....

q. When I get my crap together I will post a full picture breakdown of the house as it exists, and what the plan is. Um, was I supposed to do this?


4. Finish that pesky little thing called "Grad School". DONE DONE DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

5. Spend more time with my kids. I definitely have been able to do more things with them now that I'm not distracted with homework. and they like to help me on all my projects, which is fun.


6. Spend more time with my hubby. Eh - we haven't really been able to carve out too much time just for us, but we're still working on it.


7. Start reading. I just read three books in a week. I'm BACK BABY!


8. Plant a money tree in the backyard to fund Resolutions 1 through 7. I can't seem to find one of these anywhere....


9. FINALLY quit smoking for good. Still working on this one, but I hope to be able to say that I have officially quit smoking within the next few weeks.

Not too good, but not too bad either. I still have time, so I can knock some of these off this list before the end of the year, right?
RIGHT?

Elephants and Donkeys

Brian and I had a "discussion" last evening.


They usually begin as some random statement about the news....

"You won't BELIEVE what I saw/read/heard on the news today..."

...gradually escalate to a heated discussion...

"Wait, what???? I can't BELIEVE that you are OK with that!"

... and soon turn into full blown, talking LOUDLY, hands flying, eye rolling argument that really has nothing to do with the statement that started the whole thing to begin with.....

"OH MY GOD!!! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT THE HELL YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT?????? I DON'T KNOW WHO YOU ARE ANYMORE!!!"

I play Devil's Advocate.

Brian makes it personal.

Funny that we rarely raise our voices when discussing personal issues.

But these "discussions" inevitably end with one - or both - of our children saying...

"Can you PLEASE keep it down???

You think a Catholic marrying a Jewish person is bad?

Try a Republican and a Democrat.

November can't get here soon enough.

Google Translator please....

Somehow my dresser redo ended up on a blog in Turkey (which is fine - from what I could translate through Google, they said nice things. But um - how can they read my website? Interesting.....) but NOW I'm getting all kinds of CR-A-ZY anonymous comments in languages that, not only can't I read - but I don't even recognize. Clearly a lot of them are spam.

Google translator is now my best friend.

And the delete button.

Another Year...

Happy Twelfth Anniversary Baby....you definitely made all my dreams come true.

Love you!

Better After

My Dresser redo was featured on Better After (one of my ALL TIME favorite sites....I'm addicted to before and after pictures!)

Thank you for the honor and for those of you that haven't been there? Go get yourselves some inspiration and see some AWESOME redos!

Thank you God

I will forever be grateful for the two words I saw in an e-mail that finally arrived from New York the afternoon of September 11'th 2001, after hours of worry and anguish .....

"I'm OK"

Amazing how two words can change your life.

I love you baby brother.

I think I can

I have been wanting something similar to these for some time now, to go in my family room.


photo from HGTV

The room has four windows - two double windows, and two single windows in the built-in (much like in the guest room). I have no pictures of the family room (how is that possible???) so I'll have to take some.

This leads to my next thought - I want to build things.

We have all these awesome power tools, and I want to use them.

So, I found some patterns and instructions on line for several different wooden valances, but I haven't found a "favorite" design yet. Maybe I just need to make my OWN design?


I confess, I'm a little chicken to try this myself, but you don't learn if you don't try.

Wish me luck!

I need a pirate name...

Because apparently low Vitamin D + low calcium = Potentially having rickets.

And REALLY???

Rickets???

Seriously??

Who GETS that????

Since I don't live in a third world country and I'm NOT a breast fed infant, this could be a problem.

But, apparently, if you were a pirate?

Totally, could have it.


(I have to go get my calcium levels redrawn since the doc thinks there's no WAY my levels can be so low and the lab must have made a mistake - being that I don't live in third world country and I'm NOT currently being breast fed)

BUT! In the mean time?


I thought it would be fun to take a poll on what you think my Pirate name should be.


Leave a comment with your suggestion.

Maybe I'll send you an eye patch if yours wins :)

And dude - Halloween is coming!!!

Think of the possibilities....

And the reason that I dread those first few weeks of school???

Now I'm sick.

Natch.

Luckily I'm not oinking.

If you need me I'll be laying on the couch, wrapped in my sicky sweater, coughing up a lung.

Or two.

And watching Glee.
(Why hasn't anyone told me how cool this show is???)

Send tissues.

(And brandy)

The reason my blog has tumbleweeds.....

I feel I owe an explanation.....

Thursday - Get up and go through our normal morning routine, work a full day, rush home, get Liv to cheer practice, get Sydney to gymnastics, watch Sydney flip and tumble for an hour, get Liv from cheer practice, get home, argue with the kids about baths, check back packs and review the bazillion pieces of paper that were sent home, read about how the school wants to "go green" by using e-mail notices rather than paper, promptly fill out the e-mail notice form and throw the remaining bazillion pieces of paper in the recycling bin, do laundry, and fall into bed.

Friday - Our normal Morning Routine, full day of work, make something resembling food for dinner, clean the house to get ready for company the next day, fall into bed.

Saturday - More cleaning, STACI ARRIVES (!!), get ready for the big multi-year class reunion, fret about how my dress looks and whether or not I look fat, fret about my hair (which lately has looked like a rat's nest - I am soooooo getting it cut off this weekend), attend said reunion, have a fabulous time, leave the reunion to continue the party at a local bar, dance, imbibe a bit too much, stop at Sheetz on the way home for some really nasty nachos with Staci (for old times sake), get home at a very unreasonable hour and fall into bed.

Sunday - Get up, make very strong coffee, debriefing of the prior evening in the guest bedroom with Staci while drinking said coffee, try to decide if I should try to eat something, Staci leaves, Beth comes over, Beth leaves, one of her children stays, spend the rest of the day on the couch watching episodes of Charmed all day that I dvr'd, wait for Brian to get home from golf to figure out what we're doing for dinner, order dinner and fall into bed.

Monday - Morning routine, miss the bus, get very annoyed that we missed the bus, go completely in the opposite direction of work to take the girls to school, go to work late, work all day, home from work, homework, arguments about homework, arguments about baths, make something resembling food for dinner, bedtime routine with two very cranky girls, fall into bed.

Tuesday - Morning routine, catch the bus (go me!), work all day, go to Back to School night, cheerleading for Liv, homework, etc., etc., eat the food Brian made for dinner (I should really let him cook more often. Like, every night for instance.), stay up too late watching some show on the catastrophic impacts of the eruption of Yellowstone, go to bed dog tired and then have nightmares about being caught in the lava flows from the catastrophic eruption of Yellowstone (because, living on the East Coast it's so entirely possible. Not.)

Today - Morning routine, made a thousand times worse by a screaming ten year old who freaked out that she couldn't find a headband for her hair because I apparently moved it (even though I hadn't seen it) and now her hair would be frizzy and she wasn't going to school, and she'd be completely embarrassed, yell at her to get in the car NOW or she'd be grounded for a MONTH, pull up just as the bus is stopping (whew!) work a half day, routine doctor visit, and home for the evening routine!

We still have cheer practice, gymnastics, a great thrift sale on Saturday, Liv's first game on Saturday - in BALTIMORE - and a very low key Labor Day get together on Sunday to discuss more fundraisers for Ciana.

And there you have it.