Mean!

So, needless to say, I am well aware of the fact that my blog has fallen by the wayside over the last several months. And I miss my blog...I miss the writing, the outlet for joys and frustrations, and the chance to record the comic strip moments that are our daily life right now.

I'm not sure why I've become so detached from it, though if I have to be honest, I know a lot of it has to do with my overwhelming frustrations with people (yes, I said people). This feeling of frustration has been brewing in me for the last several years, though it seems to have come to a sort of head lately. Do you know the song "Mean" by Taylor Swift? The chorus pretty much sums up what I want to say to the world right now. The chorus is essentially this, "Why you gotta be so mean?" I think letting the blog slip was just a way of cutting ties with other people and this cycle of meanness that I see everywhere I look.

I think I've had about all I can take of hard line attitudes that diminish other people's dignity. I'm tired of people using politics, religion, parenting, finances and other hot topics to berate each other. We all have opinions, and of course we think ours are the correct ones, but that doesn't mean we should stop being civil with each other.

Anyway, I will step down off my soap box now. And I'm going to do my best to get back in the habit of daily writing, because maybe I can be just one little light of joy and happiness shining in this grumpy old world!

More stripes!

I'm just way behind on updating this. It took me the better part of three weeks to complete this project, but I have our guest bath painted. While I was at it, I painted the pantry because it needed it. And I do mean that it NEEDED to be painted. The shelves were unprimed and unpainted MDF, which can be destroyed easily with just a little bit of water. I've been worried that a bottle would spill and we'd end up needing to rip out the shelves (which are very thoroughly nailed in). I also painted a small hallway area off the master bedroom. I did this to test out the color we choose for the great room. I didn't want to find out after we started the great room that we didn't really like the color (and I LOVE it, by the way).

I don't love the fixtures in the guest bath. I usually like very clean simple (though not necessarily contemporary) designs. The fixtures and hardware in the bathroom are just the opposite. Most of it I left alone, but we did splurge for new sconces. The old ones had vines wrapped around the glass globes and I absolutely detested them. At first I thought I would try to reuse them (because, after all, we reserve that bathroom for guests so we really don't look at them very often). However, after I took them down, I just couldn't bring myself to put them back up.

Here is the before (from the realtor's pictures, as I forgot to get a good shot before demolition):


And the after:

The stripes were a total pain in the you know what. The painting wasn't bad, but the taping off is time consuming (especially since I am totally OCD and spent an excessive amount of time making sure they were perfect). The dark stripes, by the way, are the same color as the kids bath and the light stripes are a light gray from the same color family.

I really like these colors -- they are much more "me" than the peachy beige that was here when we moved in. I can't wait to get the great room finished, which I started working on two days ago. It is going to take FOREVER because of the vaulted ceilings. I'm still working on patching and sanding off rough spots. Maybe by the end of the week I'll have all the prep work done and will actually be able to paint! My goal is to have the room painted by Thanksgiving (so that it is in good order when our holiday company arrives, but also so that I can put my Christmas decorations up).

So that's what the problem is...there is something wrong with his brain!

Yesterday was one of those parenting days (or, more accurately, evenings) that leave me in need of a good stiff drink at bedtime. Ross (why is it always Ross?) had a little incident. He's, obviously, been potty trained for a very long time. Lately we've been having accidents -- about every other week or so -- because he gets too busy to go potty and can't make it there in time (though luckily he can usually make it to the bathroom, so it is the bathroom floor bearing the brunt of this problem). He's also taken to not telling us about these accidents, because he doesn't want to get lectured (or yelled at, if I'm being totally honest). Sometimes he'll try to clean it up himself and sometimes he just goes on with life and pretends that his pants really aren't wet. Unfortunately, he's at an age where I don't hover over him every second of the day so sometimes he goes on playing in his room or in the basement playroom for quite a while before I catch on. Yeah...can we just all say "ewwwwwww" together. I am having an overwhelming urge to bleach every inch of my house RIGHT NOW.

Anyway...back to last night. We finished dinner rather late, so the kids only had about a 1/2 hour to play between the end of dinner and when we started cleaning up for bed. Most of that time I spent doing the dinner dishes. As I was getting Ross undressed, I noticed that he had poop on the FRONT of his underwear. Yeah...not a good sign! I continued to investigate (watching in horror as chunks of debris fell out on his bedroom carpet), only to realize that he had poop all up his backside. I asked him if he pooped his pants and his answer was, "Yeah, the last time I went potty, but don't worry, Mom, I cleaned it up." Sure, Ross, sure you did. Now, what was especially funny was the way he said it, as if he was telling me something nice and pleasant, just the same as if he were telling me that he put his shoes away and made his bed.

I marched him to the bathroom to put him in the shower and then realize that, yes indeed, he had made a huge mess in the bathroom and, yes indeed, he had attempted to clean it up. There was poop on what seemed like everything, especially the floor. So, while he was showering I took the time to really clean the bathroom, getting more ticked off with every passing second. I got him out the shower and laid into him with a lecture on his needing to tell his dad and I when he needed help. I asked him, "Why didn't you tell me you had an accident?" His dead serious response was this, "I don't know, Mom, there must be something wrong with my brain."

And that did it. You can't yell when you're laughing (on the inside anyway). How can you be mad at that? I vacillated all evening between feeling bad that he might think there is something wrong with his brain and utter amusement that he thought he could claim brain damage as a good excuse for making a massive mess.

Sigh...what am I going to do with him? And, as a side note, between the Ross messes and the fact that Lucy has taken to playing in the bathroom sink, I'm actually considering locking the bathroom door so that the kids have to ask for my help each time they go in so that I can monitor the situation better. That sounds like a punishment for me more so than for them, though...

Three!

I'm not exactly sure where the time has gone, but somehow my little baby turned three today. I feel like we are in a time warp...the last time I remember breathing properly was on the way to the hospital when we were having Reid. Since then life has spun out of control, the chaos gaining momentum with each child added. I wonder when I'll feel composed again?!

We kept it fairly simple this year. Since we don't really know anyone here yet, it was just a family event. I made her ice cream cone cupcakes (which were kind of gross because I under baked them). We also made cupcakes for her to take to school (surprisingly, the preschool allows homemade treats) and a few of the spares got thrown in the mix at home tonight.

She was very concerned that we were going to damage her cupcakes!

Daddy surprised her (and me) by bringing home a lovely bunch of roses as a birthday treat! They are some of the prettiest roses I've ever seen...good job, Daddy!

And, of course, we spent an indecent amount of time taking photos today (I took about 125 of her!). For whatever reason, I have a hard time getting photos that really capture her well. I think my issue is that she poses and I don't like posed smiles. I like catching them while they are talking or making faces or playing. She insists on standing straight up, looking at the camera and saying "cheese" with a phoney smile. I spent an excessive amount of time trying to get her to relax today.

So, here is one of my favorites:

But I love this one, perhaps because I know what she is really doing. Ross is standing right next to her coaching her on how to make a proper silly face and she is trying, with all her might, to please him. It was really quite comical!

Happy Birthday, to my sweet, pink loving, little girl!

I think the yard is trying to kill me.

I don't think we really comprehended just how much work this house was going to be when we bought it. The yard is a challenge, mostly because of the slope, which we were expecting. However, I was so worried about the slope that I didn't really take in the shear size of the yard. The lot is almost an acre, though part of the back is wooded. There is a TON of flower beds around the house. I think we probably have about 10 times as much square footage of flower beds here as we did at our last house.

Those flower beds have been sorely neglected for the last 3 years that the house has been sitting on the market. The shrubs are way overgrown. There are weeds -- big behemoth sized weeds -- everywhere. The plants are still mostly builder grade (though some spots look like they were done remarkably well) and some are half dead. And the sprinkler system needs a good tune-up. Ugghhh...

So, earlier this week I decided that I CAN NOT STAND the status of my front flower bed -- the one along the house that everyone has to pass by to enter our front door. It was pitiful and not a welcoming sight. So, I spent an enormous amount of time and energy pulling EVERYTHING out. While I was at it, I pulled the ugly/half dead plants from the bed by the street/property line.

This morning, Jeremy announced that he wants to paint our screen porch next weekend (which also involves re-sealing the wood beam supports and railing on the deck below the screen porch). It really does need it very badly. The screen is ripped and torn and the porch is just filthy (we have a lovely spider infestation here). We can't easily reach the outside of the porch for cleaning, so we've been waiting until we could tear it apart completely. But, in order to do all that, we need to hack down the massively overgrown holly bushes that are around the bottom deck. They are so overgrown that you can't see the yard from the porch.

So, I spent the majority of the afternoon working on the front beds and the bushes around the porch. (Question: What kind of idiot does her inside projects in the morning when it is cool and then heads outside at 2:00 when it is getting good and hot?) I worked until my hands turned into useless claws, my hand trimmers were so dull that they couldn't cut through a leaf and I was so hot that I was dizzy. Ugh...I am exhausted. Though, it is that good exhausted -- the kind that leaves you feeling satisfied at the end of the day because you know you accomplished a lot.

The fun part of all of this is the new landscaping I get to put in. I have a laundry list of things I NEED to have in my yard: forsythia, tea olives, guara, roses (I'm going to try the knockout variety, as I've read that anyone can grow them), tulips, peonies and a host of other things! I can't wait to get it done and see how much better it looks! And, I'm trying something new this time. On Monday, I'm going to take a soil sample to the extension office for a soil test. I've never bothered to do this before, but the very helpful lady at the local nursery advised strongly that I do so before I began any planting. I usually have pretty good luck with my gardening without going to such measures, however I thought I'd give it a try and do it "by the books" this time.

Another one bites the dust...

I knocked another room off the painting list this week. The kids bathroom was very high on the to-do list because the thin layer of flat paint on the walls was just not adequate protection for the walls. I mean, really, the bathroom walls (and ceilings) often end up sopping wet at bath time still (thanks mostly to Lucy, as the boys have mostly figured out that they should not do canon balls in the bathtub). Plus, I hated the color. The paint the builder used has a peachy undertone to it. And, well, I don't like peach (no offense intended if you do, but I don't like it in my own house).

Here is the before:

Here is the after:

The color we used is in the color family we'll be using for the rest of the common areas of the house. I don't think the picture shows the color well, but it is a blue/gray. We'll be doing a shade lighter of this color in the kitchen, great rooms and halls. I'll be throwing this darker color and one two shades lighter around in the guest bath, laundry and office. The intent was to have a color on the walls that just hovers between blue and gray, hopefully looking a bit different depending on the lighting and causing people to stop and ask "is that blue or gray?".

I love this house, but one of my major complaints is the inconsistent use of finishes. The upstairs bathroom and satin nickel faucets, cabinet knobs and door hardware (as the rest of the house does), as well as a satin nickel shower curtain rod. The towel bars and light fixture were black. The half bath has "venetian bronze" finishes (which, is not the same as oil rubbed bronze and is really hard to find...that story to come later). The light fixtures in the entry and dining room (now office) were an antiqued brass. The master and great rooms have some sort of bronze. Most of the other ceiling fans are a rusty red metallic color, except the basement which has nickel colored fans. See the issue? NOTHING matches around here. I'm doing my best to tidy it up, but I'm also trying to salvage as much as possible. So, I replaced the shower curtain rod int he upstairs bath, hoping it would clean things up a bit. I think it worked, mostly because the rod seemed like it should match the towel bar (same shape, right?). If I need to, I'll replace the cabinet pulls, but as of now I think they look okay.

I found an extremely cute print that I want to get for the bathroom, but it is a lot more than I usually would spend on a decor item. I love it...it is cheeky and a bit irreverent, just like me. I'm still dithering over it, which is fine because the shop is currently closed.

I put the finishing touches on this yesterday afternoon...last night I tore apart the guest bath and this morning I tore apart the coat closet. There is no rest for the wicked around here...at least not until all 3200 square feet of this monstrocity is painted!

Reid's Room!

Reid's room was a lot of work to paint, but I'm very happy with the way it turned out (and so is Reid). I'll start by saying that I totally copied this idea for The Yellow Cape Cod. Where would I be without the help of the blogging world?

Here is the room today:

And this was our starting point:

The biggest lesson I learned from this project is this: NEVER use navy paint again, no matter how cute it will look. The navy required 4 coats of paint. The red required SIX, yes 6, coats of paint to cover adequately. I'm cringing just thinking about someday having to sand down the ridges that the stripes make.

I'm totally in love with the prints over Reid's bed, which I purchased from bexpert on Etsy. The prints feature the nautical flags and their definitions and I used them to spell out Reid's name.

The room has been done for a while now...I've just been waiting to get those prints hung before posting pictures (in fact, I'm almost done with the next room...the kids bathroom). I want to add some more nautical touches, but I'm in no rush and am willing to wait until the right things come up!

New beginnings for the kids!

Last Monday marked the beginning of the school year for Reid. I was extremely nervous (probably more so than last year). I'm not sure why, though I think the sheer size of the school unnerves me. It is at least twice the size of his school last year, which itself seemed huge in comparison with the schools I grew up in. Plus, his regular teacher is on maternity leave, so he'll have a sub until after Labor Day. He seems to be doing well and thoroughly enjoying himself. I'm mostly happy, but will wait until his regular teacher is there to make any final assessments. I am a little worried about him being bored...the reading materials they are sending home are WAY below his level.

Lucy & Ross had their first day of preschool yesterday. This is Lucy's first year going anywhere. It was really bittersweet. Part of me was ready to throw a massive party and the other part of me wanted to sit down and have a good cry. I ended up painting the ceiling in the kids bathroom instead. I have an admission here: I'm not a huge fan of the very young age group. I really do enjoy my kids more as they get older, though we are approaching the age where I would like to hit pause and keep everything as it is. Yesterday was wonderful taste of how much simpler life is getting (in some respects, anyway). It was nice to have time to tackle my to-do list while the kids weren't in the house, so that I could concentrate on them more when they were home. Next week I'm going to start working in the office a bit while the kids are all at school...so much is changing so fast!

Both the little ones liked their new school. Lucy was just happy to go and happy to be picked-up, which wasn't surprising. Ross, however, is pitching a fit because I won't enroll him 5 days a week (they are currently going 3 days a week). I wouldn't mind doing it, but I don't think he is ready....school really wipes him out and he is generally exhausted after going, so I don't think he can handle 5 days just yet.

Here are a few shots of the kiddos on their first day of school:

The little man's room!

I'm feeling a bit guilty, because in all honesty, Ross' room is nothing special. We painted it my favorite shade of green, which luckily matched the bedding we already had for his room (poor kid got the left over quilts from the last house). I do like his room, but it just isn't exciting...no architectural details, no exciting paint or color schemes (wait to you see what I did with Reid's room). And, on top of that, he did get the smallest bedroom in the house.

His closet was a monster to paint...I lovingly dubbed it "h!**" because it was so hot in there. It is a walk-in, though small, and has no vent. It also has a LOT of shelves, so it took as much time to paint the closet as to paint the room itself (maybe more). I'm pretty sure I'll be hiring out the re-painting of this room in 15 years. (A girl can dream, right?)

So, anyway, here is the room as it stands now:

And here is the way it was before all the green paint:

We're waiting on vinyl wall decal with his name, which will go above the nightstand. It still needs something, though, and I'm not sure what. Maybe curtains? A bulltetin board over the dresser? My wheels are turning, but not getting anywhere!

I should also mention that Ross took a pair of scissors to one of his quilts the week before I snapped this photo. My head almost exploded...I mean, seriously, I JUST painted the room to match the quilts. Luckily, I was able to patch it fairly well. If you look closely you can see the patch, but I doubt anyone would catch it in passing.

Finally...the girls room!

The girls room has been pretty much complete for a month now, but I just haven't had time to take pictures and post. I must say, I totally love this room! Lucy, however, says it isn't pink enough. What am I going to do with that girl?

Here is a little tour!

We integrated hooks into the board and batten. I'm really happy with the way these look and will be doing the same thing in our foyer (yep, more board and batten is on its way at Jeremy insistence, believe it or not).

The beds were a Craigslist find that I painted. I was going to attempt to do the same for the dressers, but couldn't find anything and, quite frankly, didn't have time to paint anything anyway. After our last kids furniture purchase -- a fairly nice set of solid wood furniture -- we decided that we'd rather go with economical (but what I really mean is cheap) furniture for the kids from now on. They really have put the good stuff through the ringer and it is rather dinged up. We ended up getting the dressers at IKEA and, so far, are pretty happy with them. And hopefully I won't mind the dents so much when they hit the cheap furniture!

The window seat really is my favorite part of the room. The vinyl wall cling is a quote from Audrey Hepburn, "happy girls are the prettiest", and is one of my favorites. I like that it says something deep (it's what your insides look like that matters, not your outsides), without being overly sentimental.

The ruffle pillows look great (though you probably couldn't pay me to make them again)!

I really wanted to put some fresh plants in the room, but I was afraid to, so I went with silk flowers instead. Maybe when all the kids are older I'll be brave enough to put a pot of dirt in the upstairs of my house.

The prints on the wall are Martin Luther's morning & evening prayers. I had them printed by an Etsy seller (Enduring Arts).

And, that is it for now. I'm on the hunt for some sparkly crystal lamps to put on one of the dressers, perhaps with some pink pompons on the lamp shade, but I'm in no rush now...I'm sure the room will continue to evolve!

Happy 15th Birthday, Hannah!

It seems hard to believe, but Hannah turned FIFTEEN today. Wow! I got to spend some time with her last weekend and we celebrated then with a special girls day out (lunch, shopping and Harry Potter, what could be better?).

We stopped and shot a few pictures at the park in Waterville...here are a few of my favorites:



I'm trying not to think about the fact that she'll have a drivers permit in 6 months...

And, that makes me think, have you heard the song "Teenage Daughters" by Martina McBride? I love it and so "get it". Google it if you haven't heard it...if you have (or have had) a teenage daughter then you'll probably enjoy it!

Boys!

The boys have been particularly grumpy lately, which I am positive is due to the fact that I've been very busy with unpacking and house projects. Add in the fact that it is so hot that we don't go outside much during the day and you end up with two grumpy (and extremely ornery) boys.

They've used some of their pent up energy to harass Lucy. In their defense, I'm glad to see them cooperate, but I'd prefer they not gang up on her. One day last week when I was cleaning upstairs and the kids were playing in the basement, Lucy started screaming -- not normal screams either, but absolutely terrified screams. I thought for sure that someone was hurt -- badly. I figured about the only thing that could make her react like that was if either Reid or Ross were bleeding out on the floor. I got downstairs and Lucy met me at the door to the basement, shaking and hysterical. I tore off down the steps with her in my arms and round the corner to find Reid & Ross laughing uncontrably on the floor. They had apparently been taunting Lucy about ghosts and told her one was going to come get her. Someday Lucy is going to get them back and they are going to deserve every bit of it!

A few weeks ago I joined a gym not far from home (I can get there in about 6 minutes, which seems divine after driving 25 minutes to the gym for the last 5 years). On a whim on Sunday, I called the gym to see if they had any spots open in their day camp this week, which they luckily did. I figured the boys could use some time out of the house doing fun stuff with kids their own age. The boys have been in heaven. Lucy, on the other hand, is ticked because she can't go (the camps are open to 4 years and older).

I thought things were going better this week because of the diversion, but today Ross took a pair of scissors to his quilt. To the quilt that I JUST painted his room to match. Seriously! What is WRONG with that child?

I should have kept a log of the stuff they have pulled in the last 10 days...seriosly not one of our better weeks!

Seriously!?!?

So, in looking at my window seat post, I'm seeing that the pictures are cut off. They're fine when I preview my post, but are messed up after publishing. Ugh...this is starting to tick me off! Anyway...I realize the pictures aren't very helpful...I'll have to work on this and see if I can figure out the problem!

A window seat tutorial...sort of!

I've been working on this post FOR DAYS and it seems blogger would really like me to fail at succeeding in finishing it! Seriously, I have spent hours trying to get my pictures on here and finally gave up and went with an entirely new system of posting pictures...photobucket!

So, anyway, I wanted to share the window seat project I did for the girls room with you. We used a stock cabinet as the base of the seat. I'm calling this a "sort of" tutorial, because I'm not going too far into details, but sharing the general steps we took to make this happen.

Here is the before shot of the dormer:



I started by removing the trim. Do you know how hard that was? I bought a new house -- a BRAND new house with BRAND new trim and promptly tore it apart. I literally had an upset stomach while I was doing this.

Anyway, to protect the walls, I put a paint stick between the little prybar I was using and the wall.



I realized very quickly that the little prybar wasn't going to work. There was just no way that the little toy I bought was going to get the trim off (I suppose it may have worked with smaller trim, but we have hefty deep moldings in this house). Luckily, the builder was in that day doing some repairs to the trim in the bathroom and left his nice big pry bar sitting on the counter while he was outside cutting pieces. See the difference? Once I "borrowed" his prybar, the process went quite quickly. I don't feel bad about borrowing it -- he dug around in our garage and used our saw horses without asking (and, incidentally, sat them over the spare car seat, which meant the car seat was covered in sawdust and had to be torn apart for a thorough cleaning). Note to self: don't be cheap with your tool purchases.



A side note on protecting the wall with a paint stick: it works, but not well. I kept dropping the sticks between the wall and the trim. See that little guy down there? Yeah...you can't get them out without removing the trim. I ended up with about 7 of them behind the trim before I got the first piece off, so if you are trying this, have a couple spares around.



But once I got all these little hiccups resolved, we ended up with this:



We had a major discussion regarding the carpet...do we remove it or install the seat over it? I feel strongly that the correct thing to do is to remove it. However, I was 95% sure that we would mess up the visible carpet in the process, so we decided to leave it. I figured the carpet could be cut later, when it was old and ugly and being sent to the dump anyway.

So, Jeremy built me a simple base out of 2 x 4's and screwed them into the wall.



Then we added some vertical boards. These served two purposes. One purpose is to provide support for the seat top along the wall. The other was to provide spacers to screw the ready made cabinet into, as the cabinet was smaller than the dormer space and we wanted the seat to be slightly deeper than the cabinet.



Then we added the stock cabinet that we purchased at Home Depot and fill pieces to the front. We had a heck of a time with the fill pieces...there were no precut pieces that fit the space and the store wouldn't cut them for us. They told us to get a table saw (hah, not likely). We ended up screwing two smaller pieces together instead and it worked out very nicely for us. We caulked and filled the gap and you can't tell from the finished product.



Then we attached the top. We chose the depth of the seat based upon the ready made boards in stock, so we didn't have the whole "don't have a table saw, what are we gonna do" dilemma this time. Jeremy also added a piece of trim to the bottom, too, to tie in with the rest of the base boards.



The top didn't fit perfectly, due to the fact that the walls weren't 100% square (are they ever?). So, we added some additional trim to tie into the board and batten. It worked out very nicely and the board and batten accents ended up hiding a lot of our carpentry sloppiness. Here you can see it after the trim and a coat of primer:



And, finally, after two painstaking coats of paint (which never would have gotten done if my in-laws hadn't swooped in and spent an entire weekend painting):

Another shot, showing the pink ceiling:



I must say that I AM IN LOVE with the way this turned out!!!! I can't wait to get a cushion on this thing. Pictures of the rest of the room to come soon!

Coming down off the high!

You know, I've been so pumped up and full of adrenaline over the move for the last 6 weeks or so that I haven't been down to earth for a reality check. I'm loosing altitude quickly at this point and feel like I'm just about to make a crash landing.

I like it here, I really do. But, I also hate it right now. I hate not knowing where things are or who to call. I hate the endless to-do list. I hate that my best-friend isn't around to drop in for a play date. I hate that there are boxes everywhere (and I hate that it bothers me so much that they are there).

I knew this was coming. It always does...MICHELLE DOESN'T MOVE WELL! Which is the whole point of THIS move -- this is supposed to be the last one. I just so want to be past this adjustment phase. And, really, it has gone MUCH better than I thought it would. The house really does feel like home already. The neighborhood is great and I love it. But, friendly neighbors aren't the same as good friends. I'm LONELY here. I know this is temporary.

Ok...that is probably enough of my whining and sniveling for the day. Tomorrow I'm going to the gym to get a membership -- there is an outdoor pool there for the kids and a daycare so that I can workout while Jeremy is at work. I'm hoping that some extra activities out of the house will be good for both the kids and I (and praying desperately that there is a mom at the pool that I hit it off with)!

A little peak!

I am really excited about how the girls room is turning out!!! I'm not completely done (they have no furniture except beds at this point), but I wanted to share a peak. You can see the used (very ugly) beds that I painted, the quilts (not perfect, but done) and a glimpse of the board and batten.

Busy, busy!

Actually, busy doesn't even begin to describe how the last two weeks have been for us. And, in my defence, I did try to update on here a LONG time ago. Blogger wasn't working for me the night I tried to update and after spending a lot of time (that I didn't really have to spare), I got mad and ignored my blog. So, I'm back now that blogger is behaving for me.

We have gotten a lot done around here in the two weeks since we closed, however we have about 10 times as much left to go. And, unfortunately, we're back to real life, so everything else has to happen around our daily life.

Ross is now the proud owner of a perfectly green room, which I love (and he is now complaining about and telling me that red is what he wanted). The girls' room is almost finished...the board and batten is up and painted, the ceiling is painted and the window seat is built. We have to shorten the blinds (and by we, I mean Jeremy), I need to caulk the top of the battens and I need to finish painting the window seat. It will all get done...eventually. I would like to have the paint and such supplies packed up by the end of the weekend, but we'll see. Everything seems to take 4 times as long to finish as I plan for.

Luckily, last weekend my parents and in-laws swooped in and did a ton of work around here! The board and batten would not be painted if it weren't for my in-laws. My dad painted our large storage closet in the basement and my mom kept the kids out of my hair and sorted through the kids clothes (all of which needed laundered after the handling they got during the move). And while they were all busy, I actually switched gears from house maintenance to unpacking. So, we now have a place to sit in our living room -- yay!!!

Today I took the day off from working and took the kids to the local children's museum. They all enjoyed it thoroughly (even Hannah) and were dead asleep in the van within minutes of leaving. I was completely tickled to find that we had more options of things to do today than we've had since leaving Columbus. I don't think we'll run out of things to do around here (both in our time off and when we're busy working) for a long time!

We've arrived!

Actually, we arrived at our new home on Monday, but it has been pure chaos around here up until now. Scratch that -- it is still utter chaos, but I'm exhausted and taking a break from the cleaning/sorting/painting to post a bit.

The first thing I want to say is this: I LOVE IT HERE! I was really nervous as we drove here on Monday, because this is a big change and not one easily reversed. We've been welcomed so warmly, though, and this house already feels like home (even if it is a disorganized, dirty mess of a home). One of our new neighbors brought us dinner on Tuesday (THANK YOU) and I was delighted to find that she has a daughter about Lucy's age (and the first thing out of the little girls mouth when she walked up to the house was, "where is Lucy?"). I'm really looking forward to the neighborhood fireworks for the 4th of July. And we are close to EVERYTHING, which is great after having lived in (what felt like) the middle of no-where for 5 years.

We did have our first round of bad luck with the gate. We went out for dinner on Monday and couldn't get back in. I guess that is the price for keeping the Kirby salesmen out, though.

I do have a lot done -- the kitchen cabinets are clean and ready to accept our items (when the truck arrives next Monday), as are the cabinets in the master bath. I've sealed the grout and caulked in two of the baths and the laundry room, too. Ross's room is almost finished...one more coat of paint and then I (hope) we'll be ready to re-assemble his room. And we've almost finished a window seat for Lucy.

So, I have lots of pictures, but they will have to wait until later. Off to do some more painting...

First impressions!

Tonight I've been sitting here surfing Etsy (one of my favorite things to do). I'm on the hunt for front door and front porch decor. I'm always so impressed when I go to homes and the decorating extends to the outside. I'm absolutely determined to have a lovely, enchanting entrance to our home this time around. First impressions are the most important, right?

I have this vision in my head of having a seasonal and ever changing front porch vignette. I've told Jeremy that I want to get a rocking chair (possibly two) and a small table to put on the porch. I'm planning on getting an outdoor pillow for the chair and making seasonal covers to swap out on it -- red, white & blue for the 4th of July & Memorial Day, Holiday prints during Christmas, pastel florals for Easter, etc. And I want to have a coordinating wreath for the door, as well as sign for the wall (there is already a nail drilled into the masonry, for heaven knows what reason, so I might as well use it!). Does that sound a little crazy? Yeah, I kind of think so, too, but I can't help myself!

So, this is the front porch as it stands now:

The picture isn't very good, but that is basically the extent of it -- I only cut off about a foot. Eventually we want to put a wrought-iron hand rail up, too.

It is a good thing that we will have a massive amount of storage in this house -- we're going to need it for all those wreaths I'm planning on collecting!

Quilts!

So, I am almost finished with the quilts for the girls. They are both tied (or tufted -- in lieu of quilting), but I need to finish the bindings for them. I have the bindings machine sewed on one of the quilts(I'm sewing one side of the binding on by machine and then hand stitching the other side). The other quilt is on the machine right now. And both quilts are getting packed up to go with us on our trip to Ohio next week, where I intend to finish the hand stitching.

I was surprised to find that my least favorite (and by that, I mean I absolutely detested the process) part of making these was layering the quilt parts together and pinning them. It was a royal pain in the patootie. The layers all stuck together, so if I need to reposition the top layer, I would actually have to pick it up and reposition the entire thing, because it would just drag the bottom layers with it. It took FOREVER to get them positioned correctly.

Here is a little peak at one of the quilts:


The tufting of the quilt wasn't hard, but it was dangerous. I used a rather large, and very sharp, darning needle for said task. Check out this monstrosity:


I have several deep puncture wounds as a result of the quilt making. I'm pretty happy with them so far, but I'm thinking I'll stick to simpler (and smaller) sewing projects from now on!

Moving Part 1: Complete!

So, today we sold our house here in North Carolina. It is really weird to be living down the street through this process. I really wish we weren't -- I'm having an overwhelming urge to get as far away from here as possible. That isn't because I didn't love our house here, but because it is just too weird to think about someone living in my house (let alone watching them move in). I never met the person buying our house, at my choice -- again, I just didn't want to be able to picture some weirdo in my home. I'd rather remember it with us living in it and not have our memories tainted with impressions of the new owner. I wonder how soon until my lovely annuals are dead and the perennials over grown. Every once in a while I still get the urge to drive by our old house in Columbus and I'm always saddened to see just how much the new owner has let the yard get run down. I know neither one of those houses are ours anymore, but I have an irrational, emotional attachment to them (especially to the things like the plants that I spent hours and hours of hard labor planting and caring for).

We did have a little bit of a hick-up yesterday. The buyer's agent came two hours early for the final walk through. This meant I didn't get a chance to do the last few things on my to-do list, which included removing the spare key from the counter. Guess what she took? Yep, she took both the house keys and the pool key, which is NOT GOOD. We didn't close until today, so neither she nor her client had any right to our keys. We should have called the police. I'll settle with complaining to her employer and the state board of realtors. The woman is just plain crazy and has absolutely no business having access to the realtor's lock box that hang on the door of thousands of homes in this city.

Whew...what a week!

So, for good reason, I haven't been able to post this week. We moved out of our house here in North Carolina. We spent Monday & Tuesday clearing the last of the stuff out that either couldn't be moved by the movers or that we needed to keep with us. The packers came on Wednesday & Thursday and the movers came & picked up our items on Friday. Whew...what a busy (and stressful and bittersweet) week!!!

I have the house about 1/2 cleaned and I need to finish that this weekend, as we close on Tuesday. I'll be glad to have this leg of the transition finished!!!

And, if you are wondering, we're now crashing at my in-laws. I feel like I've turned their house into a zoo (and am ever grateful that they'll let us do so)!

Last week we also celebrated Reid's 6th birthday. How did I forget to post about that? Hmmm...perhaps the 30 million things running through my head. Anyway, we had a small gathering and I made cupcakes for him. We were supposed to have home-made bon-bons (which he was super excited about), but they did not turn out. I rolled out the scoops of ice cream on Thursday night and awoke (expecting to have them frozen into hard little balls) to a sheet of gooey ice cream on my cookie sheet. He was bummed, but what is there to do about it? I suppose I owe the kid a grand party next year, to make up for the fact that we've now moved on his birthday twice.

Here are some of his official 6th birthday shots and one of him with his cupcakes:

Our new house!

Things are clipping along with our new house. We had the home inspection yesterday, which went pretty well. There are a few items that they need to address -- the only major one being that one of the A/C units didn't work (which isn't surprising considering how long the house has been vacant). The home inspector said the house looked to be well built, so we are happy on the whole with the inspection.

Both of us are happy to find ourselves liking the house more and more each time we go there. It really will be a great place for us. I also was pleasantly surprised by some of the features that had previously missed my attention. The kitchen cabinets have built in slide out shelves in several places (yay!) and there is under cabinet lighting in the kitchen as well.

On the other hand, there is a LOT of work to do yet. The backyard will need a major overhaul at some point (we think we'll need/want to add more substantial retaining walls to prevent erosion), which is the only major project. However, every wall in the house needs painted, including the ceilings. The paint is builder grade and the walls are un-primed. We knew to expect this, after having lived in a new house once already. I know it will eventually all get done, but I'm a perfectionist and want the house in tip-top shape when we move in.

Here are a few pictures of the new place:

My Newest Project

For a while now I've been contemplating what to do about furniture for Lucy & Hannah's room. I knew I wanted twin beds whether they shared a room or not, because I liked the idea of having a few spare beds in the house for when company stays. With the boys, we got basic metal beds and sturdy, but not top of the line, wood furniture. The boys have done a pretty good job dinging up the wooden stuff, so I'm loath to spend that much on furniture again (even though we really didn't spend much in the big scheme of things). After scouring design blogs for ideas, I decided to look for used solid wood beds that could be painted. I wanted something sturdy that could be spruced up with a little elbow grease.

Last weekend I found some on Craigslist and we picked them up. They looked awful!!! However, after 5 days of intensive work, they are looking much better. I sanded them, primed them (twice) and have one coat of paint on them. I went with a black paint, because we'll be doing a "board and batten" treatment on the bottom half of the walls, which means the backdrop to the beds will be white. I wanted something neutral, but something that would stand out. My inspiration for the room is very much driven by this blog post:

http://emilyaclark.blogspot.com/2011/03/paneled-headboard-project.html

The girls room will have sloped ceilings with short walls on two sides. So, I have decided to paint the ceiling (and top portion of the walls) PINK. Lucy will love it! Hannah probably won't love it so much, but the girl already has a room completely to herself at her dad's house, so I'm thinking this is pretty fair (and she's ackowledged that herself).

I had intended to show pictures of the beds, but my crappy little camera (the point and shoot I picked up for our Disney trip) isn't cooperating...the pictures are REFUSING to be removed from the darn thing. So, the pictures will have to wait until later!

Ugh...I feel a breakdown coming on!

Seriously, I'm starting to feel the stress of this move at a whole new level. I really, REALLY, can't wait to be done with this. Today I was wondering why we ever went down this road (optometry school, that is). It was an easy decision at the time: Jeremy needed a career that would satisfy him and we needed a life that we would both be happy with. But, at that time we were young, freshly married and had nothing to lose -- no home, no assets to speak of, and it was just us and Hannah. Now, 10 years later, we have a lot to lose -- we have three more little people to care for, equity in our home and a secure and comfortable life. In three years, I'm sure I'll say it was all worth it. Right now, however, I'm doubting our choices. I feel a bit like I'm standing blindfolded on a high dive and I'm just waiting to jump so I can find out if there is water in the pool or not.

Anyway, last weekend we went and house shopped again (as our first choice didn't pan out). We ended up choosing one we had checked out on our first trip (which was our 2nd favorite, but was so outshined by our 1st choice that I didn't remember much about it). We made an offer and it has been accepted. Now we're just waiting for the home inspection (ugh...another trip to SC this weekend for that) to firm up the deal. We're set to close no later than June 30th. The home is a "new" build -- it is still owned by the builder, however it was built in 2008 and was occupied shortly by someone who had a "lease to own" contract that went sour. I'll post some pictures after our trip this weekend (assuming the home inspector doesn't find anything wrong that would end this deal).

To top everything off, I've been working like a mad woman on some projects (quilts, furniture refinishing and prepping the house for the movers). I haven't gotten more than about 6 hours sleep a night in several weeks (and I'm one of those 8 hour sleepers). I'm EXHAUSTED. And I'm calling it a day...perhaps a good nights sleep will help my perspective just a bit!

Look at what I made!

As I am waiting (impatiently) for the batting for the quilts, I am occupying myself with decorative pillow making. Look what I made today:

It turned out okay, but I could point out a thousand flaws. I'm not sure if I'll make another one, even though I have the pillow to do so. It was a ROYAL pain in the patootie! On the other hand, I'm a stickler for symetry...if there are two twin beds in a room, they both should have the exact same trimmings (at least in my little corner of the world). We'll see...tomorrow we are house hunting, Sunday we have a fun day planned with friends and maybe by Monday I will have forgotten just how hard it was to sew the rufles on!