The Henry Family Adventures

Hot Damn!

2012-02-07T21:41:00.000-05:00

Look ma!!

No more dish pan hands!

On Friday our new dishwasher was delivered.

I'd love to tell you the make, the model and all that jazz...

But, alas..... I really have no freakin' clue off the top of my head and I'm too lazy to get up and dig out the paperwork.

I CAN tell you that it's black, it's a GE, it's a tall tub, and it cleans like a mo-fo.

And we got a HELL of a deal on it.

This was definitely one of those "it's not what you know, it's who you know" times.

Seriously.

Someday I'll tell you all about it. But right now, let's look at what happened here this weekend!

Taking out old Faithful.

Good bye dear Maytag, circa 1995, who served us (and Judi & Ted) well.

Now, I should tell you that we have copper pipes. Copper pipes that tend to be very persnickety and like to get little pin holes in them if you look at them the wrong way.

Baxter - saying goodbye....

Brian was really nervous about taking the dishwasher out because, well, we just weren't sure how the pipes would react.

Would they rebel and spew everywhere to show their displeasure or would they be pleased to serve this new King?

(Damn - can you tell I'm reading Game of Thrones?)

We had a plumber on stand by - just in case.

Turns out, removal and installation went off without a hitch and within 2 hours I was loading that beautiful bad boy up and turning him on...

Hello Lover....

Most of my appliances are white. But, I chose black so that it wouldn't stand out like a sore thumb from our dark cabinets. It's actually not as noticeable as I thought it would be.

Score one for me.

And I have opened it in the middle of a cycle at least ten times - just to make sure it was actually running.

That's how quiet it is.

I pretty much love it.

Although I just looked at this picture and realized that I'm going to be constantly cleaning the front, so it stays nice and shiny.

RIP dear Dishwasher

2012-01-27T12:18:00.000-05:00

Our dishwasher went to appliance heaven this week.

We're all in mourning.

Me especially, since my delicate hands are not used to such manual labor as washing dishes.

It takes me back to my childhood when my parents reFUSED to get a dishwasher because they "already had two" - meaning my brother and I.

har. de. har. har.

Did I mention that as soon as I left home they went and purchased a top of the line dishwasher? Yeah. Story of my life. Kinda like the time they put in the in ground pool. Also after I had already left home. Did I mention my brother is 5 years younger than me and still lived at home and reaped the benefits of all this?

Well, now you know.

And, no. I'm not bitter. Much.

ANYWAY. We've found a new dishwasher and it will be ordered today. I had three criteria:

1. MUST be a tall tub. I can't stand not being able to put large things in the dishwasher. I'm spoiled.

2. No Stainless Steel. Sorry - I know it's the norm to want stainless steel appliances, but I find them cold and they attract fingerprints (not good with two kids). Plus I like to use magnets on my appliances to hang the girls art work, love notes etc. - mostly on the fridge but sometimes if it's been a particularly "arsty" week, we may overflow onto other appliances for a day or so. So no stainless.

3. It has to be cheap - but get good reviews.

Anything is going to be quieter than our old 1995 Maytag Dishwasher - God love him - who cleaned dishes like a champ but you could hear a mile away, so "noise level" isn't on the list.

It looks like we found what we needed and at a really good price. Now I just have to actually order it and then wait for it to be delivered so we can install it.

This, of course, means at least a week or two of dishpan hands.

So, the baby shower got me thinking....

2012-01-18T09:52:00.002-05:00

NO - not about having another baby - bite your tongue!!

I actually know quite a few pregnant gals right now, some of whom are my dearest friends and family.

Some are eager for advice.

Some are not.

(I wasn't, that's for sure)

But, after 2 dogs, 2 kids, 1 husband, a full time job, a graduate degree and 2 houses, I’ve learned a few things since becoming a mom.

Humor me while I share:

1. Pregnant women don’t always “glow”. I was a puking, fat, bloated, gassy, snotty mess. So if you are one of those pregnant women who don’t have a moment of nauseousness, only gain 10 pounds (which is “all baby”, I might add) and/or are working 80 hours a week and taking/teaching prenatal yoga classes up until five minutes before you deliver, the rest of us don’t want to hear it so keep it to yourself, k?

2. Don’t buy into the argument that “natural childbirth is the best thing”. Having a healthy baby and healthy mom is the best thing. You aren’t any better because you labored for 27 hours and pushed for 15 hours without any sleep or drugs, while standing on your head and playing World of Warcraft, while I was sliced open from one end to the other because my baby was breech. And anyway, C-Section babies don’t have cone heads and are prettier. So there.

3. Women who deliver babies vaginally, and without drugs, exaggerate.

4. If I had been able to deliver vaginally, and without drugs, I would have been one of them.

5. The second your baby is born, your entire world shifts in ways you never imagined and you can suddenly see yourself jumping in front of a train without hesitation to save this little human being you've know for exactly 30 seconds. And no one can ever explain that feeling - you just have to experience it yourself.

6. Not everyone bonds with their babies immediately. That's not something to be ashamed of - being a parent is scary as hell and regardless of what I said in number 5, I'd be lying if I said I was completely ready for the overwhelming responsibility of being a mother. Hell, it's been 12 years and I'm still not sure I'm ready - ha! I just wish more people would talk about it instead of being so scared of what others will think if they admit this stuff. It doesn't mean you love your kids any less - just that you can admit its not all sunshine and roses all the time, you know?

7. You will be tired until 2030. Seriously.

8. I found breastfeeding to be a wonderful, relaxing, bonding experience. For about 8 weeks. Then it became ……not so great, very limiting, and one more thing I had to try and fit into a day that didn’t have enough hours already.

9. Doing a pump and dump while breastfeeding doesn’t mean you’re a bad mom. It means you are a sleep deprived, stressed out and overwhelmed mom who needs a glass of wine and doesn’t want her newborn seeing trails and getting the hiccups.

10. You will never be as good a mother as the woman down the street. But take comfort in the fact that you will always be a better mother than the woman two streets over, so it balances out. The point is, stop comparing yourself to other moms. You’ll drive yourself crazy and accomplish nothing. Trust me – your kids love YOU.

11. Once your baby is born you will be assailed with unexplained guilt over the fact that you weren’t excited enough over the pregnancy/birth of one of your friends a few years ago. You simply didn’t GET IT. Now you do – and you’re sorry you didn’t appreciate the magnitude of the event more and allow your friend to bask in the glory of motherhood, simply because you had a date with a margarita downtown and frankly, that was more important. Call your friend and explain this. I guarantee she’ll understand and you guys will become even greater friends, not to mention that she is a fount of information, having done this whole mommy thing already. Which leads me to….

12. Other moms. They can be invaluable and full of so much experience and information. They can also be extremely judgmental (it helps them feel better about themselves) and our biggest source of insecurity. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference until it’s too late. Choose wisely…

13. You will feel some form of guilt over your parenting skills every single day from now until the day you die. That’s OK. Just don’t let it consume you.

14. Unless of course, you happen to have a really crappy day when your kids are being particularly bratty and horrible and you scream at them to “GETOUTOFTHISHOUSERIGHTNOW!IDON’TCAREWHEREYOUGOJUSTGETOUTOFMYSIGHT!GETOUT!GETOUT!GETOUT!” while hyperventilating and crying. In that case, feel free to wallow in guilt for at least 24 hours. (They went next door to my mom’s by the way).

15. There are days that you are going to love being a mom. There are days that you are going to hate being a mom. There are days you are going to want to run away (see number 14). There are days you want to spend every second with your babies because time flies by so fast. This manic behavior is totally normal. Just go with it.

16. Something has to give if you want to have any semblance of a life - especially if you are a working mom and only have the weekends to get everything done. I choose cleaning the house.

17. If my house is a mess but my family is happy does all that dog hair on the floor and dust on the shelves matter?

18. Well, OK all that dust on the shelves and dog hair on the floor does matter - in fact it gives me anxiety the very SECOND I walk through the door. But that's why God made beer. And Xanax.

19. Never, never tell another mom “I told you so” about her parenting skills or her children or get high and mighty about your own “skills”. Comes back to bite you in the ass every.single.time. And really? It's just downright mean.

20. Throw every pre-conceived notion and expectation you have ever had about being a parent out the window, because the second you say “I will NEVER do that as a parent” or “My child will be raised to be like THIS” you have set yourself up for failure. Because inevitably you WILL do that that as a parent and your child will NOT be like this. And then what are you going to do???

21. Kids are resilient. They love you. You love them. Sometimes we have to remember that snuggling at night for 10 minutes before bed can do wonders for the soul. Both young and old.

22. Even with the bad days, the breakdowns, the stress, the lack of time - you'll get all misty eyed at the overwhelming love you feel for your children. Oh yes, it'll happen - at the most inconvenient times, like when you're standing in line at the grocery store on Thanksgiving eve with 200 other people and your 12 year old offers to run to the other side of the store to get you a bottle of your favorite soda because you forgot while your 9 year old offers to unload the cart so you can get out of there faster because you have so much to do when you get home. Little things like that make it all worth it. No lie.

23. Be sure to put away enough money to pay for their therapy at the doctor of your choice or they'll get some quack who blames all their issues on their mommy. And we don't want that.

24. If parenting is anything, it’s humbling. Expect the unexpected, sit back and enjoy the ride. And above all else - relax. It'll all work out.....

AND LASTLY....

25. All that unsolicited pregnancy and parenting advice that you didn't want/don't need/didn't ask for? You will now be giving it out as well. Not only to your friends, family and acquaintances, but to that pregnant stranger on the elevator.

Yes. You will. Trust me.

And you'll be a great mom :)

Babies, Babies, Everywhere!!!

2012-01-17T17:10:00.000-05:00

Saturday I was able to co-host a baby shower for my very dear friend Sharon, who is expecting a son in a matter of weeks.

The shower was at her mom's house and her sister and I hosted together. It was very casual - just a few neighborhood ladies that have known Sharon since, well, her own birth, and some friends.

I made a few things to munch one and we had drinks and cake.

I wanted to make something special for the baby's room, so I crafted one of those pennants you see all over the Internet. I added his name - Nicholas Michael.

This picture really sucks (cell phone picture alert) and the names are backwards, but you get the idea.

I actually LOVE how it turned out. (I wanna do another one)

I'm always in charge of shower games. Um, I don't know why. But I am.

One of the games I always do is "Guess what's in the basket". Fill up the basket with a TON of little baby things and place it somewhere in plain sight so that everyone HAS to look at it (this one sat on the coffee table in the middle of the room). About 2/3 of the way through the shower, take it away. Then tell everyone to write down as many items as they can remember from the basket.

The cries of "Oh crap! I didn't know you were going to do that - I would have paid attention to it more!"

and

"Not fair! Bring it back - PLEEEEEEAAAZZZZEEEE?????"

are quite amusing.

My "Guess what's in the basket" basket.

But the funniest part is when everyone tries to remember what they saw.

The basket is then given to the mom-to be. It has all sorts of goodies!

The best game EVER though was one I call

"Who's your Daddy? (and yo' Mama!)"

You had to match the celebrity baby with the celebrity parents.

HY-STER-I-CAL!!

(Google weird celebrity Baby Names - you'll see. Or e-mail me and I'll send you the one I did)

90% of the shower guests kept the game to take home and try out on their families. Ha!

Seriously - fun game.

One of my poofs for the shower

Again, horrible picture. I had to turn on the overhead lights to get this. With my PHONE because I forgot my camera. Stupid old age memory loss.

I can't wait to hold all these little babies in my arms when they're born! it's been so long since mine were that little...*sniff sniff*

It's a good thing he's cute....

2012-01-13T22:53:00.003-05:00

Conversations with Brian while watching TV:

Brian: Who names their baby Blue Ivy? Ha ha ha ha ha

Deb: Jay-Z and Beyonce

Brian: Huh? They had BABY?? Wow. He's not attractive enough for Beyonce' to even sleep with....
Deb: Well, people get married and have babies, much like we did, so...
Brian: Wait - They're MARRIED?
Deb: ......Um..............................Do you live on this planet?

This is what happens when you channel surf ESPN and FOX.

Be jealous ladies.

Hi, have we met?

2012-01-08T22:55:00.000-05:00

My name is Deb and I suck at blogging over the holidays.

So, I'll bore you with this pictorial of the month of December and be back in a jiffy to tell you all about what we have coming up this month!

The girls and Brian requested colored lights.
I'm a white light kinda girl.
We compromised and used both.

My three wise guys - they're still up 'cuz I love them.
And I'm incredibly lazy.

Here's what the tree looked like after Santa came.
At, like, 2 o'clock in the morning.

And here it is six hours later.

By the way - in case you ever hear me complain about my kids, remind me that on Christmas morning I finally rolled out of bed at 7:30, jumped up and peeked into Olivia's room, and found my two girls sitting on her bed chatting and quietly waiting for mom and dad to get up.

They never came in to wake us up, they didn't go downstairs to peek (which is STRICTLY FORBIDDEN in our house) and they didn't make a sound.

They said they were going to let us sleep until 8 AM because we don't get to sleep in often.

Love. My. Kids.

We never had to worry about the kids waking us up at 5 AM and we never had to worry about them going downstairs without us.

But I guess they're growing up, because now they don't even come in to wake us up with shouts of

"Merry Christmas! C'mon let's GO mom! Get UP dad! It's present time!!"

It's a little sad.

We grabbed our stockings and ran to the tree!!

The boys grabbed their stocking too.

The girls in their Christmas socks.

I love the hats Misou got them.

And finally, Sydney performed in a Winter Concert at the high school with several other schools last week.

Notice my shy child - front and center - boogeying down, doing the dance moves....

As she walked off stage, she did a little curtsy and blew a kiss and winked at the audience.

I wasn't quick enough with the camera to catch it.

But the audience loved it - ha!

So, that basically sums up the last 3 weeks.

And, I've joined Weight Watchers again because I had to buy new pants.

Stupid stop smoking plan.

And I've been getting up an hour or two early and run-walking or P90X-ing.

It's NOT a New Years resolution.

It's a "Get back to the old ME" resolution.

The holiday rush

2011-12-14T10:22:00.000-05:00

Has it truly been two weeks since I posted?

I wish I could tell you about all the amazing things I did over the past two weeks that has kept me so busy that I couldn’t find the time to get on here, but……..
yeah, I got nothin’.

Still not smoking – seven weeks & counting – YAY!!!

Totally gained ten pounds – BOO.

Signed up for a half marathon in May – YAY!!

Haven’t found any time to train for it yet – BOO.

I got all the decorating done in the house – YAY!!!

I am nowhere near done shopping – BOO.

The next two weeks are a whirlwind of office parties, holiday get togethers, shopping, wrapping, dinners with friends, more shopping, more wrapping, cooking, baking and cleaning.

Ho Ho Ho!!!

You know it's Christmas when....

2011-11-28T21:50:00.000-05:00

The TREES arrive!!!!

Once again, the girls anxiously awaited their trees from Gamma & Mister (aka, Judi & Ted) and as usual, they were beautiful.

These trees mark the official start of the holiday season for the girls, as they have been getting these trees pretty much since birth from Judi & Ted.

Every year, I say..

"What's on the front porch?"

The girls look out the window and yell - "It's the trees!! From Gamma and Mister!!!"

They recognize the boxes :)

And then begins the annual...

"I wonder what mine looks like?"

"Do you think we'll have white lights or colored lights this year?"

"Remember last years tree and the pretty ribbon/ornaments/lights it had?"

(They have surprisingly amazing memories - they can tell you almost exactly what all of their trees have looked like since - pretty much - the first time they remember getting the trees. Ah - youth.)

My memory is not that good.

Then again, I'm old.

Moving on...

Olivia's Tree

Sydney's Tree

Every year, the girls get to choose where they put their trees.

This year they chose to each put a tree in one of the bay windows....

See them in the windows???

Now can you see them???

They look so pretty - and this way everyone gets to enjoy them.

I wish I could show you all of our beautiful Christmas decorations, but - well - you're pretty much looking at them.

And the only reason the outside lights are up?

I took Sydney to dance class and Brian was bored.

And he figured if he put up the lights while I was gone, it would be soooo much easier for him.

Not that I would tell him what to do or where to put the lights or anything...

I had four days off and while I did actually get the tree up and the lights on - it's a hot mess.

And I can't find the angel for the top.

And I was so NOT motivated to do any other decorating, even though - did I mention? - I had FOUR DAYS OFF and all the time in world to decorate the house.

Oh, I pulled all the decorations out.

They're just still sitting in the same spots. In boxes. Untouched.

In my defense, I did cook for 13 people on Thanksgiving Day.

And I did have to take Friday to recover from all the ~~wine~~ hard work.

Saturday, I......can't remember what I did on Saturday.

Seriously - what the hell did I do on Saturday???

And Sunday we we HAD to go see the Muppet movie. (LOVED IT)

Ooooh! And my brother came home from Vietnam so we had to have dinner with him.

So really, I was far too busy to decorate.

I promise I'll get to it this weekend.

I hope to anyway.

And hope springs eternal.

Let there be light.....

2011-11-26T08:44:00.001-05:00

Now that the hallway is almost done, I had one last thing to do...

Figure out what to do with the light.

I wanted to change out the light but when we investigated, we realized that due to circumstances beyond our control, we would only be able to convert the can light to a small pendant light.

That didn't work for me.

Enter the internet......

I saw several versions of faux capiz shell shades, but this was by far my favorite.

I figured I could do this.

Little did I know how big a project this would be.....

There are a ton of tutorials out there on how to do this so I'm just going to give a brief overview.

I found an old plant hanger in the garage and sprayed it a creamy white.

First thing I did was lay down three sheets of wax paper between two sheets of parchment paper and iron them.

It's quite possibly the only time I've used an iron in the past 10 years.

The wax paper then gets cut to make the "shells".

Since I was hanging this in the hallway I didn't want round shells.

I don't know why. I just wanted something angular.

I cut my "shells" into diamonds and then used a dot of hot glue to attach each shell to a length of fishing line.

This is where the phrase "shit ton of work" comes in....

I would love to be able to tell you how many shells I made, but I have no idea.

I can tell you that I began working on this in the beginning of October.

It didn't get finished until the day before Thanksgiving.

Once I FINALLY had the shade done, I sprayed all the shells with this to give it a little sparkle and depth.

I liked it, but I wanted it to be a little fancier, so like Miss Bee, I added a prism....

Once it was finally done, Brian simply screwed some hooks into the ceiling around the can light and we hung it up.

And now, some pictures.....

Before

After

The light is on a dimmer so I played with it at different settings....

Is it perfect?

No.

But, it definitely works.

And once it was it was done I wasn't sure what I was going to do with all my free time.

Until I saw the large pile of ironing Brian and the kids made for me.

(Excuse me while I go hide the iron for another ten years.)

THIRD PLACE BABY!!!!!

2011-11-14T09:03:00.000-05:00

The 2011 Annual Cheer Competition at Cole Field House at University of Maryland was yesterday.

It's an incredibly long day, after an incredibly long, intense few weeks of practice to prepare.

Olivia's squad practices 4 to 5 nights a week, 3 hours a night to get ready, so by the time competition rolls around everyone's exhausted and getting sick.

Thank God for adrenaline.

Waiting. And waiting. AND waiting....

We got there around 12:45, but the girls didn't perform until 4:00.

Here they are - finally on deck warming up and saying a prayer.

They performed about 4'th in their division.

I was really worried after watching the other squads - the competition definitely stepped it up this year.

Unfortunately, there were a lot of drops on the stunts (never something you want to see, no matter who's squad it is).

I knew our girls had struggled a bit with their stunts and all I could do was pray that they didn't drop anyone.

Apparently all the prayers from the parents and the girls helped, because they NAILED their stunts.

So Proud!

It was awesome!

Storming the floor

After all the teams perform, they clean up the floor while making the crowd compete for the Spirit Stick for their organization.

It's very loud and I always have a sore throat and headache by the time a winner is announced - ha!

(unfortunately, it's never our organization because we never have as many people as some of the others).

That's a lot of cheerleaders....

Once the floor is clear and the Spirit Stick awarded, they bring ALL the girls down to the floor and play music. The girls dance for a few songs to allow the judges and volunteers time to get ready for awards.

This is always everyone's favorite part of the night!

This picture is a little like Where's Waldo.....

Did you find her??

Finally - the girls are announced - THIRD PLACE!!!

Going to get their medal!

They were all VERY happy with that result, given the competition.

And we were so proud!

Cheer Bow

We drove home and went to get something to eat since we were all starving and it was about 9:00.

Olivia and her medal - she's collecting quite a few!!

We were all in bed, asleep, by 10:00.

It's now 9:00 Monday morning and the girls are still sleeping.

I told the girls they could sleep in this morning - they both need it - especially our little cheer champion.

Olivia's not sure if she'll cheer next year and I'm on the fence about whether or not I want her to.

But I do love going to the competition and watching my girl shine!

The hallway, continued....

2011-11-13T08:58:00.001-05:00

Notice anything different?

I finally got around to hanging pictures in the front hallway.

I used only black and white pictures and black frames because I love that look against the grey wall.

Now, let's take a peek at the photos...

Left: My mom and Olivia when Olivia was about 5 months old.

Right: Sydney when she was a year - and one of my all time favorite pictures.

Bottom: The four of us last year from Misou's photo shoot.

Top: My dad and Olivia when she just a few weeks old.

Bottom: A picture I took in high school of my grandparents lake house in upstate New York.

Top & bottom: Two more photos from our photo shoot with Misou.

The other side of the wall has these two metal pieces that I found in the basement. My mother in law found them at a yard sale and thought I might like to have them. I'd forgotten all about them until I started searching for something to hang here, and stumbled across them. They're perfect for this spot.

The hallway is just about done. Here's hoping I'll have the final touches by Thanksgiving!

We're off to the annual cheer competition at University of Maryland today - Good Luck to Liv and all the JV Lancer girls!!

Oh -and as far as the non-smoking:

Deb: 8 days

Brian 14 days

In other news....

2011-11-08T11:03:00.000-05:00

Brian and I both quit smoking. We haven't killed each other yet so I'm calling it a success.

We installed a wood burning insert into our fireplace because my husband wouldn't let me convert it to gas because, you know, it could blow up. Hopefully this will keep our big rambling house a wee bit warmer this winter and keep our large massive electric bill a wee bit smaller. And keep us from blowing up.
I'll let you know how that works out.

We're hosting Thanksgiving and I don't have the final head count yet. But I have a shit ton of projects to get done before that and furniture to move so our carpets can get cleaned a few days prior.

And I'm a little cranky.

But it'll get better.

I hope.

Halloween Confessions....

2011-11-01T12:11:00.000-04:00

Every year Halloween comes around and I try to get excited.

I try to plan some fun craft with the kids, like our glowing ghosts last year...

and the stand up ghost this year.

I pull out the window decorations, throw a few things around, pull stuff together for the girls costumes, etc., etc.

But the truth is....

I'm not a Halloween fan.

At. All.

I don't like carving pumpkins (it's slimy and gross and I'm not very good at it).

I don't like stressing over the girls costumes - both for school and trick or treating.

I don't like having all that candy in my house.

I don't like haunted houses.

I don't like to be scared.

I don't have good memories from Halloween.

I don't have bad ones either.

It's just one of those holidays that was never really on my radar.

I enjoy standing at the door and giving out candy and maybe decorating for kids in the neighborhood. But since we don't have trick or treaters where we are, it's kind of pointless.

I know that the girls will be too grown up for trick or treating in a few years (or at the very least, too grown up for their mom to walk with them).

And while this makes me sad, I'm also secretly (or not so secretly now) relieved.

WHEW!!

Now that I have that off my chest, here's the 2011 Halloween rundown....

Last night we went to a friends neighborhood, where we've gone every year since we moved to this house. It's really a great place - lots of kids - lots of haunted "houses" (ie, garages and yards) lots of people and a ton of candy.

Sydney's costume caused her some embarrassment at school, but WOW was it a hit last night! Everyone in the neighborhood was talking about her and I'm pretty sure she got extra candy from some people.

We seriously almost had a last minute "find another costume" crisis, because she was NOT happy about wearing this again.

(Please note this costume was NOT my idea. Although I liked it - I thought it was cute and original. And free)

In the end she decided to just go with it and was pretty happy she did by the end of the night.

Olivia decided she was too old to dress up.

I kid, I kid. She was a nerd - with chicken pox. (Actually they were supposed to be pimples, but everyone thought they were chicken pox. She was a little heavy handed with the lipstick)

So there you have it.

Now you know how I really feel about Halloween.

(and no, my kids don't know how I feel - they think I love it - I don't want to take anything away from it for their sake).

I'm more of a family holiday kinda girl - BRING ON THANKSGIVING!!!

MOB SQUAD

2011-10-31T09:32:00.000-04:00

Sydney's Dance class did a flash mob at a local pumpkin patch on Sunday - Look for her all the way to the right as you are watching - the little ones come in on the second or third verse.

She's wearing a pink hoodie, light brown boots and her hair in a pony tail.

The girls had so much fun and it was funny to watch the all the people who had no idea what was going on at first!

Her studio does this once every few months - she had a blast!

(p.s., this isn't my video, I borrowed it from the Studio's facebook page)

Sno-tober

2011-10-30T12:17:00.000-04:00

This greeted me yesterday morning...

Now, I LOVE snow (as anyone who knows me will tell you).

Unfortunately, our trees haven't yet dropped all their leaves.

Resulting in some very scary cracking sounds, me running around with a broom, slipping (and falling), and beating the snow off the trees, trying to save what I could.

This big maple tree provides a lot of shade for our deck.

Well, it used to.

Olivia was watching from the kitchen window (!!) when several big branches snapped off, fell onto the deck, and bounced off....

That branch is about 12 feet long. And heavy.

I'm just sick about this.

And this wasn't the only tree, but the only one I could snap pictures of from the comfort of the house.

The branch came from up there - about 20 feet in the air.

Unfortunately, we didn't get the cover to our pergola down in time.

You can imagine what happened.

By the time we realized it, it was too late.

And we never thought we would get such a heavy wet snow this early in the season.

Totally pissed about that.

Anyway.....

While all of that was happening outside, and in between dodging falling branches while trying to get snow off the trees, I made these for a neighborhood Halloween bash.

Ghost Strawberries!

I found this on Pinterest and knew I had to try it!

Mine aren't quite as pretty, but you get the idea....

I also made some plain, chocolate covered strawberries for those who don't like white chocolate (my mother).

They were a hit and I made a TON, and came home with none.

Brian and I aren't really Halloween kinda people, so we threw together our costumes at the last minute.

I recycled my bridesmaid dress, threw on a crown, a sash and a velvet cape.

I was going to be Miss America, but in honor of the snow I went as Queen Sno-tober.

Brian hates to dress up so I threw my old graduation robes on him, hot glued a construction paper shield with a "G" and a lion that I whipped up, drew a scar on his head and tossed him a broom.

It took all of five minutes to throw it together.

Some pictures Beth took since she was spending the night here - her power was out for about 24 hours and her house was COLD!

Unfortunately, the weather kept most people away and it ended up being just a few brave people from the neighborhood who made it to the party.

We still had a great time.

But now I have to go clean up branches.

Sad face :(

2011-10-28T20:31:00.000-04:00

Sydney didn't win.

She's devastated :(

She'll get over it I'm sure. This is the part of parenting I struggle with...seeing my kids heartbroken when they've worked so hard makes me want to cry.

I want to fix it.

But I can't and let's face it - this is a "life lesson".

Otherwise known as "Things sometimes SUCK and there's nothing you can do about it".

She did VERY well, got a great grade, and got a shout out from a representative from the BOE about her project.

But, there were some awe inspiring projects there, and while I was hopeful she'd move on to the County Science Fair, I can see that there were other projects that deserved to go.

So, we consoled her, told her how proud we were, we told her it didn't matter if she won, she did her best and had a great project and we told her that next year we'd do something EVEN BETTER.

I just wish I could convince her that even though she didn't WIN, she did an amazing job.

Her thinking is that she didn't win, therefore she didn't do a good job.

How do you counteract that?

And when did she get so competitive?

And why are my girls so hyper about getting A+'s and 100%?

I can honestly say that we have always told them to do their best - if it's a B and they worked for it, we'd be proud.

It's about the work and the effort, not the grade.

Who's going to remember when they're an adult that they got a B in Math in the third grade????

(Well OK, I do, but I digress...although I'm still a little pissed off about it.)

On another note - to all my east coast/north east and mid-Atlantic peeps - stay safe and warm in the SNOW!!!

(Seriously? October snow? Who'd have thought???)

She's OVER it.

2011-10-27T10:19:00.001-04:00

Sydney presented her project to the judges Tuesday. I asked her how it went.

"Sydney - how did your presentation go for your project?"

"Fine. They just asked questions about the project."

"What did they ask?"

"I just told you mommy (eye roll) - questions about my project."

"Oh - well I was looking for more specific questions...."

"The judge got done asking me questions and was writing stuff down. But he forgot to ask me about the Conclusion. So, you know, I reminded him."

"Really? What did you say?"

"I just told you mommy - I reminded him to ask me about the conclusion."

"Ah. I see."

This morning I reminded her for the ten thousandth time that Parents Night for the Science Fair was tonight.

"So, as soon as daddy and I get home and take Olivia to practice, we'll load up Mimi and Poppy and we'll all go to the school for the Science Fair! Are you excited??"

"Uh-huh."

"Oh. Good. Cuz you sure sound excited."

"Mom, let's remember - the project is done. It's over. So don't start asking me a bunch of questions about a green roof, K? It's done."

"Well, OK. I guess............But you know Poppy's going to grill you."

"Darn. I forgot about that. He's totally going to do that. *sigh* OK. But after THAT it's over. No more questions about green roofs. Ever."

"Deal."

I'm anxious to see what the judges had to say.
We get to read their comments tonight - wish my girl luck!!

Science Fair Project

2011-10-24T13:37:00.000-04:00

Since I told you all about Olivia's Science Fair project last year, I thought it only fair to show Sydney's entry this year. Since she's in third grade now, this is a REQUIREMENT and is graded (which is a bit much, if you ask me, but moving on....)

Since Poppy is a scientist, I suggested she ask him for input since I avoided science in every way possible and quite frankly have no interest in it whatsoever.

They came up with the idea of a green roof.

Being in real estate and a LEED AP, I loved the idea (even if it was "science").

First, they made a box - it has two sides separated by a board inside to make two "rooms"

One side had sod on top, the other side had shingles.

Holes were drilled into the rooms and meat thermometers placed in the holes to measure the temp.

The middle thermometer read the air temp (it was from Brian's shop - can you tell he's a car geek?)

Sydney measured all three temps every half hour, for five hours. It was a long day.

The difference in the temperatures was actually quite amazing.

The other side of the box had holes drilled with tubing attached to measure the amount of run off from each roof type.

The glass beaker measured the amount of "Rain" (aka, Poppy standing over the box watering it with a hose with a special sprinkler attached so each side got an equal amount of water).

Look at the difference - with a half inch of rain, the green roof has 4 ounces of run off. The shingle side had 24 ounces of run off.

And then it was time to make her poster - it speaks for itself....

Hypothesis #1

How she made her project

A little ditty about green roofs

Hypothesis #2

It was REALLY hard not to take over the project (i'm a tad competitive, ahem), but she did such a great job with only minimal help from me (and a lot of help from Poppy - he's was the idea man, the builder and the overseer of this project).

If she doesn't win, I fear there will be severe temper tantrums in our future.

Judging is tomorrow and Parent's Night is Thursday - wish her luck!!

We Go Peanut Sugar

2011-10-22T19:24:00.000-04:00

My brother and his amazing girlfriend, Misou, have taken off for a five week journey through Japan and Vietnam.

They are documenting their travels on the blog We Go Peanut Sugar.

What's with the name? It's a Vietnamese thing. Misou explains on the blog.

Misou is from Vietnam. Brandon is... not. It's going to be very interesting to see how he integrates into this culture for a month, being a round eye and all that.

(Misou jokingly calls him that all the time, so I feel safe in saying I didn't commit some unforgivable faux pas :)

Between Brandon's writing, Misou's photos, their sense of humor and the inevitable cultural gaffes that are bound to happen, it should an interesting month!

Check it out and follow along! I've posted it in my blog roll.

BOO!

2011-10-16T22:19:00.000-04:00

I love Pinterest....

Where else can you find this to make with your kids with little to no effort?

http://www.everydayisacraftingday.com/2010/09/floating-ghost.html

Now, I have to say we didn't follow directions EXACTLY...

First, we put together our form:

Styrofoam ball

Hanger bent all to hell

2-liter bottle

I screwed the styrofoam ball onto the topless bottle.

Then I bent a hanger for the arms and shoved it over the bottle.

It was very scientific.

Then we gathered our next items:

Cheesecloth

Plastic sandwich bag

Fabric stiffener or liquid starch

**I could NOT find liquid starch so I picked up a bottle of fabric stiffener from JoAnne's

I cut a piece of cheese cloth and folded it in half to make it thicker (two layers thick). Make sure that it covers the form enough that it drapes on the ground, so your ghost will stand on his own.

Since I used fabric stiffener - which is THICK - I added some water to thin it a bit and mixed it in a bowl. Then we folded up the cheesecloth and put it in the bowl, saturating it.

After it was nice and sticky and wet, we unfolded it and draped it over the form.

I had to add the plastic sandwich bag around the styrofoam head after the first ghost because I had to RIP the cheesecloth off the first head. It wasn't pretty.

But the cheesecloth slips right off when the plastic bag is on there.

Set it in the sun to dry. Or use a hairdryer. Whatever floats your boat.

We put our wet ghost on a plastic grocery bag on the front steps.

Once ours dried, I sprayed it with a bit of Krylon white paint.

Add felt eyes with your handy dandy hot glue gun and.....

VOILA!

We put them in our bay windows next to the light up pumpkins.

Here's a view from outside...

And here's a view from inside...

My kids had a BLAST doing this.

It's not often I tell them to stick their hands in a bowl of glue to make sure that every inch of the fabric is covered in goo.

They looked at me like I was crazy.

The reason I don't discuss sports.....especially with my husband

2011-10-13T22:51:00.000-04:00

Brian: Oh look – they did win.

Deb: Who?

B: The Capitals.

D: Who’d they play and where?

B: They played in Pittsburgh.

D: Really??? They Won? In Pittsburgh???

B: Well, they won in the regular season….

D: So it’s the playoffs?

B: It’s only been three games, honey…

D: But you just said “They won in regular season", so WTF?

B: You didn't let me finish – what I was saying was, they consistently won against Pittsburgh in the regular season… It was the playoffs when...

D: Well, you didn't clarify so I wasn't sure what you were saying. So what about the playoffs? They lost against Pittsburgh in the playoffs?

B: Honey, they won the Stanley Cup.

D: The Caps won the Stanley Cup? When? I thought the season just started? So is it playoffs and they lost? But you said the Caps won...

B: Oh my God.

D: I’m so confused….

B: Me too.

B: Baseball season starts tomorrow. You should start following baseball too.

Shut the front door!!

2011-10-11T10:49:00.001-04:00

If you remember, after we knocked down the wall, the front door looked like this:

I know what you were/are thinking - DUUUUUUDE!! That door doesn't match! Break out the paint girlfriend!

Well, I would have but I had another plan.

A NEW front door.

Once with a glass insert to let the light in.

But, um, have you priced new front doors?

Yeah, I actually like my first born, so I wasn't willing to give her up for one.

Taking down the wall really brightened the space up, but I wanted MORE.

I had resigned myself to living with the door "as is" for awhile.

*sigh*

And then, mom and dad decided to replace their perfectly good front door with a brand new one.

Cuz, you know, they felt like it.

Who am I to argue that they really didn't NEED a new gorgeous wood grain mac daddy front door?

Mom and dad making unnecessary purchases is how I get awesome hand me downs.

So, I snagged that perfectly good, glass paneled, old front door faster than you can say

"CanIhavethat?Thankyouverymuch"

It needed a little work - there were dents that needed to be filled, a few holes from something mom had attached to the door that needed to be filled and a good sanding and painting.

The door isn't as fancy as some and the glass panel has that brass in it (I can deal with it).

But it is my favorite door EVER.

Cuz it was free.

The outside got painted the same color as the old front door - Red, Red Wine by Behr.

Here it is, in bad lighting, with one coat of paint. Yeah - it looks bad.

But I promise it's not.

I still need to do touch up on the outside, so you'll have to wait for pictures of the door from the outside.

We used the same hardware from the old door, thereby saving ourselves another $100+.

(Seriously - why does everything cost a bazillion dollars????)

And finally got it installed....

Yup, I painted it black.

(gratuitous Rolling Stone reference)

And I love it.

I mean LOVE IT.

You can see the back side of my fall door decoration. It adds a little color and blocks a lot of the clear glass (the panel is a mix of frosted/bubbly/clear glass).

I actually walked through the kitchen the first few days and was SURE someone left the front door open because so much light was coming in.

At night:

In the morning:

Love the little prisms it throws on the hallway walls. I still have a few things to do in the hall (a few pictures to hang and new rugs) but the door just changes the whole look.

The only downside?

I have to be careful running downstairs to the laundry room to grab clothes in the morning.

Probably not a sight my neighbors want to see at 7:00 a.m.

And that is the story of our new FREE front door.

In a corner

2011-09-25T21:33:00.002-04:00

Many, many years ago, my in-laws gave me a corner cabinet. It sat in the eating area of our old house and when we moved here, I hurriedly shoved it in a corner in the family room.

I love the look of built in corner cabinets in the dining rooms of old houses, but I knew I'd never get Brian to build me one.

*SIGH*

So, I used what I had to try to get a similar look.

I took the corner cabinet and sanded that sucker down like my life depended on it.

I was a little sad because 10 years ago I had refinished it in a cherry stain to match the old house and it really was pretty.

C'est la vie....

I painted it the same color as the bottom of the walls and dresser/buffet - Camembert (Behr).

The I painted the hinges (oil rubbed bronze) and got some plain oil rubbed bronze knobs for it.

I just put some of my transferware in there (for now) and I'd love to get some lights in there - I have an idea but Brian cringes every time I say "Honey, I've been thinking, and ......" because he knows it's just going to be more work for him and I've had him doing some other projects lately.

I'll give him a break for a few ~~days~~ weeks.

So, there you have it. It's not a perfect look, but it gives me storage and fits in there nicely.

And we installed the new front door this weekend - YAY!!!!!

Pictures soon!

Dresser Feature !!

2011-09-25T21:02:00.000-04:00

So, without my computer I've been going through a backlog of e-mails....

And I TOTALLY missed the e-mail from Cassity over at Remodelaholic, telling me she'd be featuring my dresser - ACK!!!

I actually just saw it come up in my feed....

Cassity, forgive me - and THANK YOU!!!

Check out the site - she always features the coolest things and I'm on there everyday getting ideas.

Look Ma! No Smart Phone!

2011-09-20T14:07:00.000-04:00

FINALLY!!!

The black death screen has been repaired.

Not having a computer has been horrible. And wonderful.

Horrible because I'm an Internet junkie - Facebook, my blog reading, Pinterest, emails - and I was going through withdrawals.

Wonderful because I didn't have any distractions - Facebook, my blog reading, Pinterest, emails - and I read like, 10 books and got to bed early every night.

But now I'm back baby!!

And I have been a pinning FOOL on Pinterest - I guess that lost week and a half has kicked my be-hind into high gear and I am MOTIVATED people!

MO-TI-VAT-ED!!!

Thirteen Years and counting

2011-09-12T09:38:00.000-04:00

My laptop may be toast, but I couldn't let the day go by without telling my wonderful husband how much I love him and need him and look forward to spending the rest of my life with him.

I never thought that after thirteen years I would still feel like a Newlywed.

Brian you are my heart, my soul and the love of my life.

Thirteen years later I don't just love you - I really, really like you.

I like being with you, I like talking to you and I like laughing with you.

I like everything about you (well, the stinky feet I could do without but I'm willing to sacrifice my olfactory system for you)

Happy Anniversary Baby.

I love you.

Black screen of death

2011-09-09T09:34:00.000-04:00

Yup. That's what my laptop gave me earlier this week.

Along with a message:

"YOUR HARD DRIVE IS GOING TO DIE ANY SECOND AND YOU NEVER BOUGHT THAT EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE TO STORE THE TEN YEARS WORTH OF DIGITAL PICTURES BECAUSE YOU ARE THE BIGGEST PROCRASTINATOR IN THE WORLD. IDIOT."

The black screen of death.

So, I'll be out of commission for a few days while we try to salvage what we can.

I'm absolutely sick about it - especially since the stupid thing is ONLY TWO YEARS OLD!

Although I have to say, for the first time in months, we have no plans this weekend other than a football game Liv is cheering for and with no computer to distract me, I should be able to get a lot done.

Although, as you can see, I am the world's biggest procrastinator.....so I might just read a few books instead.

Wedding Pics

2011-09-05T21:57:00.000-04:00

It's been a VERY long couple of days between rehearsal dinners, bridal lunches, an all day wedding and a Sunday get together with the family and out of town guests of the bride and groom, my wonderful friends Sharon and Justin. So, I'll try to make this somewhat coherent.....

Friday night was the rehearsal where I received my first (notice I said FIRST) Tiffany's box - with a beautiful Tiffany necklace from the bride.

You have never heard six girls squeal so excitedly as we did at the sight of those little blue bags.....

The next day we traveled to the Church to get ready.

The back of the dress

It took me twenty freaking minutes to lace up that dress perfectly. I'm pretty sure she couldn't breathe very well. Ah, the sacrifices we make to look gorgeous....

Since the bride and groom are huge Capitals fans, it was only appropriate that we ROCK THE RED!!

I was, to say the least, apprehensive about a strapless tight dress on my 41 year old hot mess of a figure.

The bride's sister and me

I bought full body spanx, and quickly decided against them because it took Brian and I a good half an hour, a lot of grunting and pulling and hysterical laughter and a gallon of sweat to get into them. And yes, he helped me. There's no way I could have gotten them on without him.

And they were hot.

Not "you look hot girlfriend!!" hot, but rather "ohmygod I'm burning up and these things don't breathe - how do people wear them? get them off get them off get them off!!!" hot.

And really they just squished everything around rather than making me look thinner, so I said fuggedaboutit....

Next, I bought a corset type thing. But after wearing it for all of 15 minutes and feeling like my boobs were being pushed up into my chin, I was so uncomfortable, it came off.

So, bought a strapless bra - a really NICE one. It held the girls up just fine, and held up to the jump test in the dressing room.

Yes, I jumped up and down in the dressing room and the girls didn't pop out. Now that's a good bra.

But the back of the dress was too low.

So I ended up going au natural beneath the dress.

Up top anyway.

$150+ spent on underwear only to end up going commando at the last minute.

Good thing I still have receipts and tags....

Most of these pictures were taken by Brian or the girls, so forgive the quality. But you get the idea.

First dance as husband and wife

It was a beautiful wedding - not a dry eye in the house.

Sharon and her dad - a wonderful man

And the reception was held at a local country club and was quite possibly the best reception I've ever attended.

The kids outside looking in at Sharon and Justin dancing

The Girls dancing

We danced all night long. The dance floor was packed for 3 hours straight.

Brian and Sydney

Brian and his girls - Olivia and Sydney

All of the kids had a blast, but their favorite part was the candy buffet hands down.

I didn't get a picture of the actual candy that night but this is the idea...

image

The groom

Sharon's nephew - the ring bearer

Justin - being Justin...

The beautiful bride

Justin and his groomsmen/fraternity brothers...

One of the best parts of the weekend was getting to spend time with one of my oldest and dearest friends and her boyfriend who came into town for the wedding.

Staci & Patrick

I'm pretty sure I'll be attending another wedding soon :)

They're going baaaaAAAAaaack!!!

2011-08-30T09:47:00.001-04:00

Yesterday was the first day of school around these parts (well, for those of us that didn't lose power because of Irene - there are a lot of schools south and east of us that have had to delay their first day and still aren't up and running as of this morning).

Ms. Liv started sixth grade and now has to get up at 6:00 to get ready and catch her bus at 7:10 - which seems so early to me for middle school....

The great part about this is that Daddy is now on Liv duty. He has to leave for work at the same time she has to catch the bus. So, he gets her up and oversees her getting ready.

So far it's going well. He thinks it's a piece of cake.

(Wait until he has to deal with an overly tired, hormonal, bad tempered pre-teen who is NOT a morning person. At all. Fun times.)

The night before school started, no one slept well.

The girls were up and down, up and down, and I just flat out didn't sleep.

Maybe anxiety? For all of us?

Look at that face :) You'd never know the night before we had a disagreement *coughscreamingmatchcough* that culminated in me removing her bedroom door from the hinges with a screw driver and hammer so that I didn't have to listen to it SLAM for the 20th time, would you?

Oh yes, I am so looking forward to the teenage years....

Olivia's looking forward to getting her door back.

Unfortunately for her, we have solid wood six panel doors (have I mentioned how LOUD they are when slammed?). And I'm not really motivated to put it back on.

That bitch was heavy.

(And totally ruined my "I'll show you who's boss by taking this door off" moment when I had to grunt and groan to get it down and could only move it 3 feet to the hallway while she snickered in her room at my red, sweaty face.)

But, even though she's a little diva with a HUGE attitude, I love her dearly and she sure is beautiful....

Since Liv leaves an hour earlier than Sydney, our mornings are much quieter. There's no more sibling bickering, slamming doors (heh - heh), stomping around, and rolling eyes.
Sydney gets up after Liv leaves, gets ready and off we go to meet her bus.

Whereas Liv was enthusiastic about the first day of school, Sydney was.....not.

She perked up after she had her coffee.

I'm kidding....

My little cutie patootie loves school even if she doesn't think it's "cool" to say so.

And so, we start a new chapter.

Sap that I am, I looked at all the old first day of school pics of the girls last night and got all misty eyed.....my babies are growing up.

I know the next few years will go by so fast and soon they'll be off to college and the house will be too quiet.

I'll miss the bickering and the attitudes and the general chaos.

And I'll probably go slam some doors - for old time's sake.

Remodelaholic

2011-08-29T09:33:00.001-04:00

My babies started school this morning. I am now officially a mom of a middle schooler.

*SIGH*

I'd be depressed, but for Cassity over at Remodelaholic.

I love to see everyone's projects, so I'm pretty much on there on a daily basis.

I was thrilled when she told me they were featuring my stairs!

(And I'm now lamenting the fact that the new front door isn't installed so a REAL after can be shown....boo)

Cassity and her hubby Justin recently redid their staircase too - it's very similar to what we did so go check out the site and get some inspiration!

Thanks Cassity! You made my day!

The list - again....

2011-08-26T10:03:00.001-04:00

Every few months I revisit my "List" (here and here) - to cross off what I've accomplished and add a few new things that I've come up with. Since it's been almost a year, and nothing gets me motivated like a LIST, here we go again.

1. STOP being a slacker. Eh - I'm middle aged now. Slacking isn't so wrong anymore.....

2. Get myself in shape. What can I say? I'm a "work in progress". Brian and I did P90X last year and it seriously kicked our butts. I had nice arm muscles. But then we stopped. And it all went back to flab. And since I've gained a bit of weight I figured the most efficient way to GET IT OFF (blech) was to start "ru-walking". So that's what I do. I don't know that it's actually done much, but I feel better about myself and I actually did a 5K this spring so I've got that going for me....

3. Get my house in shape. (Resolutions a through q). Is it just me or does this list grow every time I look at it???

a. Lay new wood floors in the dining room, entry hall and sitting room. Hot Damn! DONE!

b. Renovate the upstairs bathroom. YAY! This one is done! Woot! Done, 2010.

c. Paint the downstairs study/bedroom. Holy crap - another one to mark off my list - Yahoo! Done, 2010.

d. Add some decorative moldings to the bottom half of the dining room walls. I really want to do this soon, but I can't decide on the look I want. My ideabook on Houzz has a shit load of pictures. I like them all. Decisions, decisions....

e. Design and actually make wooden valances for the family room windows. This was my current project in September 2010. But I got sidetracked. Life was busy, the girls were involved in all kinds of activities, we were running around a lot, we threw a bunch of parties and then...wait, what was I saying?

f. Add crown molding to the big family room to match what's there. This room is getting a total redo. I'm working on my ideas now, so that will be part of it.

g. Talk my husband into moving our bedroom downstairs into the girls old playroom. He's getting sooooo close to letting me start this.....

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 still 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. Given our electric bills last year, this might happen sooner rather than later.

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. I'm totally counting this as DONE even though the couch hasn't been touched (I'm a'scared to try it), nothing has been hung on the walls yet (although I have most of it), and touch ups need to be done (seriously - I am NOT a touch up kind of girl. Once the major painting is done and that paint brush goes bye-bye, you can pretty much count on the fact that I'll never pick it up again). But, the wall came down, the floor was installed and the bench/ottoman recovered. Again - it's done in my book. For now.

n. Talk my hubby into installing several rain barrels. There's a freaking hurricane coming. I'm making him stand outside with buckets since he fought me on this one and we have NO RAIN BARRELS. That'll teach him.

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. I've about given up on this. The stinkbugs destroy our veggies. We might try next year....

p. Paint the trim. All of it. In every room of the house. Yeah, I still hate painting trim so it's a safe bet that this won't get done anytime soon....unless I redo every room in the house. Still, so far, the dining room, upstairs bath, downstairs hall, stairs and sitting room have been done. So, let's look at the glass as half full.

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. Yeah - still not done. *sigh*

4. Finish that pesky little thing called "Grad School". ~~DONE~~ DONE ~~DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!~~ Done, 2010

5. Spend more time with my kids. We've actually really made great strides here. Unfortunately, with fall gearing up and cheer, dance and school for the girls, I expect our family "bonding time" will once again be in the toilet for the foreseeable future.

6. Spend more time with my hubby. Our anniversary is in September (13 YEARS!) so we hope to sneak away for a weekend. Somewhere close. And cheap.

7. Start reading. Have I told you how much I love my Kindle? I'm blowing through books like crazy....

8. Plant a money tree in the backyard to fund Resolutions 1 through 7. Apparently money trees are back ordered. Maybe we'll find one next year.

9. FINALLY quit smoking for good. I'm not even going to go there....

NEW ITEMS ADDED TO LIST:

10. Family Room. Put some sort of wainscoting in the Family Room, repaint, resurface the built in bookcases (I simply can't bring myself to paint them. I'll probably stain them darker), and find new or recover the old furniture. The room bores me. I need to amp up the excitement in here. This may call for a complete overhaul.

11. Downstairs Bath. I want ceramic flooring, do something with the vanity/mirror and repaint. I'm struggling because it has nice tile on the tub and vanity and its a difficult color to try and coordinate with, along with the back of the brick fireplace. I looooooove exposed brick. But I'm just not sure I'm loving it so much in this bathroom. We'll see.....

12. Closet. My closet needs some drawers and shelves. I can totally do this in a weekend, but I need a plan. And materials. I'm working on it.

13. Outdoor furniture. Build an outdoor sectional for the deck. I want to get this done this winter so next year we can enjoy it. We found some fairly user friendly plans (I love Ana White) so although it's a bit outside our comfort zone, I'm pretty sure we can handle this.

I feel MUCH better now. I loves me a good list! Although the fact that this one has grown instead of shrinking may be cause for concern.....

This is the random stuff that floats around in my head....

2011-08-20T07:02:00.000-04:00

1. I've realized that I may think of myself as a strong, confident woman, but when someone wrongs my kids, I turn into a shaking, distraught, angry mama bear.

2. I've also realized that in those situations, e-mail is better.

3. I've realized that - even though my daughter can be knocked down, devastated and humiliated - her strength and confidence in herself is beyond anything that I have.

4. I'm in love with my shoes for the wedding.

5. I will always doubt myself and whether or not I'm doing right by my children. But I actually AM a good mother. My daughter proved that this week.

6. Being in a wedding is expensive. Like, crazy expensive.

7. Having kids involved in youth sports and other activities is like having another full time job. Seriously.

8. In a few days I'll be the mother of a middle schooler. How the hell did that happen?

9. Why is it that I can never get my butt out of bed during the week but here it is Saturday morning and I'm wide awake at 6 am? DAMMIT!

10. I'm starting to think that plastic surgery is not so bad.....

Our new retirement plan...

2011-08-10T09:30:00.000-04:00

Since the stock market is in the crapper (excuse my language) Brian and I decided to look elsewhere for our retirement funds.

For Christmas/his birthday, Brian got a new set of golf clubs.

The questions then became, what to do with the old ones?

I voted to sell them on Craigslist.

I got vetoed.

He cut them down so the girls could use them instead.

I'm OK with that.

They go out every night and hit balls in the side yard.

Tonight while Liv is at practice, Brian is taking Sydney to the driving range.

They actually LIKE it.

Look at that form - when she wins a bunch of money as a pro, she can take care of her mom and dad.

Voila! Retirement!

This is where the "coach" sits, observing their swings, occasionally getting up to help with their form....

As you can see, Olivia takes it very seriously. So seriously, she doesn't even wear shoes.

Sydney is a little more serious about it. She even insists on wearing a hat when she golfs, like daddy.

(Watch out Mister, Sydney would now like to play cars and golf with you.)

He is the master of all he surveys....

Actually, he's just happy to have SOMEONE interested in something besides cheerleading and ballet.

Our most costly Before and After....

2011-08-06T21:07:00.000-04:00

Before.....

After.....

Olivia got braces on Friday. So far she's been so good about it.

She's brushed her teeth at least four times a day.

She's flossed.

Unfortunately, she's barely eaten.

She has a bite guard in so she can't shew. Her teeth don't touch anymore in the back.

But she's been so good about it.

She's taken a lot of Tylenol.

But she's been a trooper.

And in 3 years, I'll have another before and after.

A very expensive one.

But the most worthy one to date.

And that new car Brian wanted?

It's now in his daughter's mouth - ha!

The Bridal Shower

2011-07-31T22:45:00.000-04:00

First, a picture of my Baxter...

Because he's so cute!

Now, on to the good stuff!

My great friend Sharon is getting married September 2nd.

(You may remember the bachelorette party in South Beach)

Today was the Bridal Shower and it was awesome.

We had it at a hotel nearby and the Maid of Honor did an amazing job setting everything up.

The cake and prizes for games.

Another view of the cake. The bride's last name will begin with a "C", if you were wondering - ha!

Olivia had a birthday party but Sydney came with me and was so excited to be a part of Aunt Sharon's "grown up" party.

She looked A-DOR-A-BLE!!!

She was such a helper and everyone raved about her.

She got her own little flower - a left over from the rehearsal dinner "bow bouquet".

She felt so special....

A few artistic "Sydney Shots".

The flowers that were on the cake.

Mommy and Aunt Sharon serving cake - from Syd's point of view.

Sydney made this poster for Aunt Sharon and then asked everyone to sign it - she even brought colored markers.

She just melts my heart....

Congratulations Sharon!

We are SOOOOO looking forward to the wedding and hope that you and Justin have many, many happy years together.

We love you!

Sheesh! Am I behind or what????

2011-07-28T09:39:00.000-04:00

So, blame it on summer.

And 100+ degree days.

And two young girls.

And a trip to Hershey Park.

Along with a trip to the beach.

And cheer practice starting, middle school orientation, braces for baby girl number 1, a wedding shower, followed by a wedding, summer parties, birthday parties, another charity event, pool time and most of all...

Laziness.

July was so crazy busy, that I was looking forward to August and thinking about lazy weekends at home or lounging at the pool.

And then I checked the calendar.

Alas....it's not to be.

The sitting room…continued….

2011-07-16T18:50:00.002-04:00

Well, now that the sitting room is "done" (for the most part), I need furniture! So I traveled over to my trusty Goodwill and found this....

Ten Buckaroos - BONUS!

OK, OK...it needed some help.

But it was perfect for what I had in mind.

I had bought this material at our local fabric outlet, and had originally intended on using it to reupholster my Nanny's couch - I'd been searching for material like this for.... well,years actually!

When I found it I was thrilled!

Until I saw that it was $50 a yard - and I needed nine yards for the couch.

Not happening...

Onto Plan B.

I painted the coffee table...

And since I was terrified to actually cut the material myself since I had NEVER done anything like this before, I did what any 40 year old would do.

I called my mommy.

We brought the painted bench upstairs and attached the foam and batting to the top and started with fabric - stapling and pulling and pulling and stapling.

When it was done, I loved the top.

And I hated the bottom.

The green didn't look the way I thought it would (couldn't have anything to do with the fact that I picked it out without a swatch of material and painted it in my dark basement.....)

I went back and tried to find something similar to the green in my Great Aunt Pearl's chair but couldn't.

Isn't that chair adorable?

So, I picked another color from the fabric....

.......taped up the upholstery with thick black garbage bags and SPRAYED.

A little oil rubbed bronze on the handle, which was refastened and I was done.

And since red is one of my favorite colors, I love to have something red in just about every room.

The bench will sit in front of the couch when I get that reupholstered.

I have an idea in my head, but haven't found what I'm looking for - yet.

I love that the deep purple in this room allows me to play with so many different colors!

So, there you have it.

Furniture piece numero uno.

Oh, but there's more.....

41

2011-07-09T08:42:00.000-04:00

I opened my eyes this morning and thought - no freaking way.

I can NOT be 41.

I was 30 just last week.

It seemed like last week anyway - how did 11 years pass in the blink of an eye?

*sigh*

When my mom was 41 she was...well, old!

Old to me at the time anyway.

I'm not old.

At least I don't think I am.

And then I got up.

My back cramped up, my joints all cracked and creaked, and I had to stretch.

OK, so maybe my BODY is 41.

But in my mind, I'm 30.

Here's hoping the next decade doesn't goes as fast as the last one.....

Ah, South Beach - how I Heart thee....

2011-07-01T16:18:00.000-04:00

Well, I'm back.

What an amazing time.

When you take 7 women who don't all know each other well and throw them into two hotel rooms hundreds of miles from home for five days, you are SERIOUSLY taking a risk.

I was Ner-Vous.

I didn't need to be. We had the best time. We all got along. There were no personality clashes.

We made a pact that there would be no bathing suit pictures and no pictures taken on the night of the actual Bachelorette party in order to preserve our sense of dignity.

(Turns out THAT was a good call...)

We ate a lot of good food, sat in the sun all day, visited a few bars....drank a few drinks......

All in all a very wonderful weekend, although I REALLY missed Brian and the girls and I think Brian REALLY missed me.

(I'm totally taking more trips away by myself if my reception when I got home was any indication of how much my family loves and misses me when I'm not around. Nothing like a little absence to make the heart grow fonder, right?)

And now it's back to business. I have pictures and projects and life events I've been meaning to post about but before we do that just look at what I got to look at every day for five days.....

And of course - the one picture from the Bachelorette Party that can be shown....it's not too humiliating....

Yes. I'm a sassy bitch.

Is it Summer yet?

2011-06-15T10:23:00.000-04:00

Just about!

Today is the girls last day of school.

I am now officially the mother of a middle schooler (God help me) and a third grader.

Where did the time go? *sniff, sniff*

The Casino Night Event for PPF was a big success!
Is it wrong for me to be sooooo glad THAT'S over?
Because I am.
Glad it was a success, had a great time, but wow - lots of work and lots of stress went into it.

I'm finally to the point where I can start finishing up things I started a few weeks ago - my sitting room looks the same as it did a month ago (with a bit more dust bunnies) and I really want to get that room in order so that's on the agenda for the next week.

And SUMMER IS ALMOST HERE!!

We have so much jam packed into this summer that it will probably FLY by, but my goal this year is to
stop.relax.enjoy.

My kids are growing SO fast.

And in the words of my secret lover Steven Tyler - I don't want to miss a thing.

I'm channeling my inner Samuel Jackson...

2011-06-09T11:33:00.000-04:00

This morning started like any other.....

I got the girls ready, led them to the basement and out the garage, ran them up to the bus stop, came back - again through the basement - went upstairs, got my coffee, let the dogs in, locked up and once again made my way down the basement steps to the garage and my car.

About three steps down I noticed something that wasn't there five minutes before....

Wait....

Is that.......?

OHMYGODITSASNAKEANDITSHUGEANDITSINMYHOUSE!!
(that's what I screamed at the TOP of my lungs for, oh...60 seconds or so)

I HATE snakes.....

It wasn't moving and had lots of lumps. Was it dead? Was it just resting?

I had no idea what to do.

So I took a picture of it.

Sorry it's so far away and blurry but I felt that standing on the top basement step while screaming and shaking was a MUCH better idea than actually getting closer to it.

My brother and mom came up about ten hours later.

OK, so it was only like 15 minutes but it FELT like ten hours and by this point I was almost hyperventilating.

By this time the snake had decided I was freaking HIM out and he was on the move.

He moved right behind my fridge and freezer we keep in the basement.
(I have a ridiculous amount of freezers and refrigerators. Seriously.)

We (and by "we" I mean my mom with her cane and my brother - I felt it was my job to sit on the steps rocking and sucking my thumb) chased him down and cornered him behind the freezer. Brandon even got a hold of him with some clamp thingy and

*poof*

....he slithered out and disappeared.

Right into the back of the freezer where the motor is.

That's right people, I have a snake in my freezer.

And I can't get it out.

Just a few more days.....

2011-06-07T13:34:00.000-04:00

I was asked chair a Casino Night Benefit for the Patty Pollatos Fund and the event is this Saturday night.

You may remember that they helped us out with Beth last year when we had the Benefit Concert and Auction for her and Ciana, a little girl who also had cancer.

So, it's crunch time (read - TIME TO PANIC) trying to get volunteers straight, the auction items organized and set up completed.

I'll be out of loop a few more days, but I'll be back soon!

Wish us luck!

Did I tell you I'm going to South Beach?

2011-05-25T14:18:00.000-04:00

I totally am.

In June. For five days. Without kids. Or my husband.

I'm going for a Bachelorette Pary for my girl Sharon who's getting married in September.

On a side note, I get to wear an awesome dress in the wedding - I look a bit like Jessica Rabbit in it!!

Although with a much bigger waistline.

And smaller boobs.

And shorter hair.

OK - the dress is strapless and red. The similarities pretty much stop there.

Anywho - we're staying here:

Loews Hotel, Miami Beach

This is my first trip for more than a night or two without the kiddos and the hubs, and I'm not kidding when I say I'm a wee bit nervous about it.

I've never been to Miami before and have no idea what I'm in for or where to go. Given how expensive it is down there, I'm hoping we spend 99% of our time on the beach.

I'm pretty sure I won't be eating or drinking much - ha!

Actually, since it's only a month away and we probably will be spending a fair amount of time at the beach, I probably won't be eating or drinking much for the next thirty days in preparation!

When I told the girls about the trip, Olivia wanted to know if I thought I'd run into any of the Real Housewives of Miami.
(Um, Wha...?????)

Brian told the girls that mommy and Aunt Sharon are going down where all the rich people are and might not come back.

I told the girls not to worry - I'd fly them down to meet their new rich daddy!

Seriously- we were totally kidding and luckily the girls are used to our sense of humor.

Although I think they were a little too excited about the "rich" part of that statement....

So what does one do in Miami besides eat, drink, lay in the sun and pick out new rich daddies????

Patches

2011-05-23T09:54:00.000-04:00

It has been a full week people - SpongeBob parties (more on that later), walking tours of my home town (lots of history there!) upholstering my new bench (pictures to come - it's not quite ready yet) and front door painting (almost done!)

In between all that we managed to wash and shave our oldest dog Chauncey. Baxter goes to the groomers, because he's harder to do with all that long hair but, quite frankly, I wouldn't trust Chauncey with the groomer.

He's a bit, um, unmanagable shall we say....

Now - I should warn you that the pictures you are about to see are disturbingly funny in an "Oh, that poor, poor dog" kinda way.

You see, Chauncey - much to our dismay - is getting older. He has this coat of sleek black hair, but - as we discovered - it's only black on top. So as we shaved him...well....see for yourself....

Poor dog looks like he's got a disease....

As the girls said "You ruined him!!"

And yes - he was shaved evenly. Unfortunately, his hair color was not as evenly disbursed.

Poor Chauncey has been walking around with head hung, and everytime I got my camera out he ran and hid. I think we ruined his self esteem.

That may have been from me bursting into laughter everytime he walked by me, but I'm not sure...

My car has a boo-boo....

2011-05-15T07:44:00.000-04:00

That's what happens when someone runs into the back of you. On Cinco de Mayo, no less.

First, the driver (who wasn't the owner of the car which was registered in another state) gave me the wrong insurance. Then the owner gave me the right insurance. Then they decided to dispute it. Wop Wop Wop...

I "celebrated" hard that night.

I LOVE my car. Truly. LOVE.

And I am totally bummed that I have to drive around with it like this until we get this resolved.

On the bright side, other drivers see my car and avoid me, so there's that.

Eight years ago today

2011-05-07T22:00:00.000-04:00

This little piece of sunshine came into our lives…..

Look close and you can see the tears - she had just fallen over and bumped her head

She made our family complete.

Totally different from her sister – Sydney Alexandra Henry was nearly bald with just a bit of soft downy blond hair.

She’s sensitive to a fault – a cuddlebug to top all cuddlebugs, with a daring adventurous side. She loves to play dress up, she loves to play cars, she loves her baby dolls and stuffed animals, and she loves to jump off high things and go fast.

And the kid can fall asleep anywhere...

Seriously - I have about 50 pictures of her in various places sound asleep.

As tentative as her sister was and is, Sydney is the complete opposite. She has little fear – which made the toddler years interesting to say the least.

And she’s the cutest little bugger you ever saw.

Forgive me for the cuteness overload you are about to see…..

Our former nanny Mariya and Sydney at mom's pool

Love Bug, you make me laugh everyday. Your dad and I love you soooo much.

Don't ever change.

You're perfect the way you are.

Happy birthday beautiful....

My excellent parenting skills once again astound me....

2011-04-28T13:13:00.002-04:00

Last night and this morning we had some pretty wicked storms around here, with severe thunderstorms and more tornado warnings in 24 hours than we typically get in a year.

My kids aren't crazy about storms, but Olivia gets downright frantic.

This was exacerbated by the fact that, on Easter Sunday, "Twister" was on and since we were all sitting around talking, I didn't realize that the girls were watching it until Olivia said "Um, tornadoes can pick up COWS????"

(Dammit.)

While I find this movie completely unrealistic and almost campy, my (almost) 8 and 11 year old found it a bit frightening until we assured them that tornadoes rarely - if ever - happen where we live.

So really, they were safe.

Anyway, not paying attention and allowing my children to watch the movie Twister (albeit in a room full of adults talking) and then telling them that it likely would NEVER happen here was probably not the best parenting decision I've ever made and certainly came back to bite me in the ass when the dogs woke us up at 4:15 this morning, which is juuuuusssst about the time the first tornado warning was issued, and we had to usher the girls downstairs.

In the middle of the night.

In the dark.

Because the weatherman told us to take cover due to the possibility of a tornado.

The tornado we told our kids would likely not happen.

Brilliant.

Oh, but wait, the evidence of my excellent parenting skills gets better....

Last evening, as we sat watching the Weather Channel for updates on the storms in Alabama (that would torture us in a few hours) and again, reassuring the children that we would be fine and answering a billion questions about tornadoes, out of nowhere my little Sydney pops out this gem:

"Mommy? If you hadn't married daddy, I wouldn't be here, right? So I'm glad you married daddy because he's my buddy.

But.....

(wait for it....)

... how did you MAKE me?"

If a tornado had touched down in my kitchen at that very moment, I wouldn't have been more shocked - or panicked - than I was at hearing that question burst (rather nonchalantly I might add) from my baby's mouth.

"And, I know I was in your belly, but how did I get IN there?"

And that's when I started hoping for that tornado to touch down in my kitchen. Or a cow to fly past the window. Anything for a diversion.

Now, I have to say that having "the talk" with Liv has been weighing heavily on me. First of all, she's 11, has already had that "My Body and Me" unit in school and will be going to Middle School next year. It's time. But she is NOT a talker when it comes to this kind of thing and anytime I bring up something even remotely close to "the talk", she gets uncomfortable and finishes the conversation as soon as possible with a lot of

"Yes, I KNOW mother. O-KAY mom" punctuated by excessive eye rolling.

So as you can probably guess, I was trying to figure out how to approach it delicately.

I was prepared, I was ready, and I was willing to talk about it.

But NOT with my (almost) 8 year old.

However, I'm a big believer in not lying to my kids about stuff like this and I also don't want them to feel like they can't ask me sensitive questions.

So, while Brian stood behind Sydney, attempting not to hyperventilate and cradling his head with his hands, I explained to her what I felt she needed to know and left it at that.

Right as I was finishing up, Olivia walked in the room. I told her what Sydney had asked me, hoping I could use this to break the ice about the subject, when Sydney broke in and recited VER-BA-TIM what I had just told her.

"Livvie, what happens is, after a mommy and daddy get married they might decide to start a family and have a baby. So, the mommy and daddy do some things and sometimes the mommy gets pregnant and has a baby in her belly. But NOT until after they have done all the important stuff to get ready like finish college, get married, buy a house and have a career. THEN they have a baby. After they're married."

And yes, I actually said "do some things" because really, I had noooooo idea how far she would take this so I figured if I could get away with "do some things" rather then get into detail, I was gonna take it.

I also stressed the "get married" part. A lot.

Brian at this point was nearly choking - whether from laughter or sheer panic, I don't know - but I looked at Liv with a weak smile and said "So, I know you probably have lots of questions and this is something that we need to talk about more, don't you think?"

Olivia looked at me with that blank look she reserves for when I've embarrassed her, rolled her eyes, cranked up her iPod, turned on her heel and walked out of the room.

Sydney looked at me and said "Don't worry mommy. If she has any questions, I'll help her."

Finally, the after....

2011-04-25T11:15:00.005-04:00

We finished the floors two days before Easter.

Oh yeah - down to the wire and stressing out about having a floor to walk on for all the people coming to the house for Easter.

That's how we roll....

Just to give perspective, here are a few before pictures.

The dining room looking into the entry hall and the sitting room beyond.

The other side of the wall. The sitting room looking into entry hall.

The wall comes down!

Nice and open now....

The stairs are rebuilt (here, here and here the dreaded floor is being installed.

And FINALLY....drum roll please.....

AFTER!!

The stairs - looking in the front door.

And Baxter Boy makes an appearance....the dogs were never far from the construction.

The sitting room looking into the entry hall and dining room. Notice the lack of wall - ha!

And Chauncey - the wonder dog.

Dining room looking into the entry hall and sitting room

Dining room looking through the pocket doors into the family room.

The sitting room.

I still need to finish the furniture, change the light fixture and hang pictures.

The little green chair belonged to my great-great Aunt Pearl. Love it.

I love how cozy this room is at night.....

The entry hall. Still need a little table for under the mirror.

So, there you have it. Whew!

Now I have a lot of furniture to refinish.

Which is good because Brian told me that if I start another project, he's sooooo outta here.

I'll give him until the fall before I start something else - ha!

Linked to:

Looks like we made it...

2011-04-19T09:50:00.000-04:00

Brian and I have been putting in some long hours, neglecting the yard and the housework, neglecting the kids (no, not really....well, OK, maybe a little...) and made so much progress over the weekend that I think we are actually going to meet our deadline for hosting Easter dinner with a somewhat, almost, pretty damn near finished dining room, sitting room and staircase.

Whew! This weekend we laid the flooring (all 500 square feet of it - my knees and hips still hurt), laid the quarter round, put a fresh coat of paint on the dining room, painted all the pocket doors (I'm finishing the last one now), touched up everything, caulked and finished up the trim on the stairs and in the sitting room. I'm tired just reading that! In the middle of all that, I managed to get in a few little runs and when I got on the scale this morning I was down 3 pounds - Woot!

All we have left to do is hang one more piece of crown moulding in the hall and touch it up, lay the thresholds (we have a little issue there) and move everything back in the rooms.

I have been taking pictures along the way, but frankly, we crawl into bed late a night, barely able to even say "g'night" and so downloading them from my camera is not exactly at the top of my list :)

The Easter Bunny is NOT going to recognize our house.

So where did we leave off????

2011-04-12T12:00:00.000-04:00

Ah, yes, THE WALLPAPER.

Seriously, this stuff was like a bad date that just wouldn't leave you alone even after you snuck out the back door of the restaurant, took a cab home and changed your phone number.

Not that I've ever done that.....

It took me a loooooooong time to get the walls free of it. And then we had to repair the places where someone *ahem* got a little over zealous with the scraper.

But it was finally done.

Those stairs make my heart go pitter patter...swoon.....

We added a lot of mouldings to create definition between the rooms.

OK, who am I kidding.
They covered up our mistakes.

And, like all projects, more gets added on as you progress.
We decided the entry hallway also needed to be painted.

I apologize for the quality of the photos but these were taken at night (usually around midnight when we'd collapse from exhaustion).

And the can light (to be replaced) didn't help.

After all that, it was time to prime.

So I put my homegrown help to work.

They lasted about 30 minutes. But if I HADN'T let them help?
They'd have bugged me All. Day. Long. about wanting to paint.

Finally all primed.

This room gets a lot of light, but the morning light makes my heart happy......

And there are some of the paint colors on the wall.

I chose none of them.

Brian trimming out the stairs.

Since the new flooring will encompass the sitting room, entry hall and dining room (which are all contiguous now) Brian had to remove the carpet from the dining room.

The color I finally chose was Elderberry by Martha Stewart. I knew I wanted a deep purple. Honestly, when I picked up this paint chip, I though - no way - too purple. But after seeing it for three days in every light possible in this room, I knew it was the one.

It's dark, and definitely an eggplant purple, but at night it looks like the color of dark, dark chocolate. LOVE.

And I have BIG plans for the furniture and decor in this room.

The hallway is a darker grey - which totally isn't me, but in my mind I always saw grey in this space, so I went for it after trying to talk myself into another color for weeks.
It's neutral and yet blends beautifully with both the red of the dining room and the eggplant color of the sitting room.

I wish the color would come through better.
It's not lavendar, nor is it a beige taupe color, I assure you.

Of course, we decided (after telling Brian for weeks and him poo-pooing me until one day he "came up" with the idea himself - why are men like that?) that since the dining and sitting room had dentil moulding, the hallway also needed it.
So we're hanging that now.

And Brian hung my chair rail for me after I painted.

I think I'll keep him.

The dining room (where I'll be hosting Easter dinner in LESS THAN TWO WEEKS), has become our workroom.

So that's where we are.

Flooring is next, and then the fun of finding furniture and making this room exactly what I want it to be begins.....