home improvements

For the past two days, I have been painting the last of our dirty white walls downstairs.  Okay, not the last of them, but the last of the same color as the living room.  All that is left is the kitchen but I am in no hurry to paint that--I can only imagine the head ache that will be !  I have one more wall on the stairs to do tomorrow and then next week I will move on to the loft/computer area.  It is so exciting for me to see these walls--which have been dirty for over two years now thanks to the dogs and Brett, mostly--become clean and have a touch of color added.  My house is really starting to look like a home and I love it !!!  I no longer have to be jealous of other people who have painted walls.  It sounds so stupid, but it really does make a house look so much better.  I will just keep going from room to room, until I run out of paint.  Then once we can afford to get another five gallon bucket, I will finish the upstairs.  I'm thinking maybe a medium green for our bedroom, with one wall accented.  But what color ?!  I hate choices.  I am not good at decorating and especially not with picking paint.  I don't love the colors I have downstairs (the lighter brown looks a little peachy in some lights..) but I do like them a lot.  I can live with them, other people like them and it is 1,000x better than dirty white.  I keep stopping by the areas I painted yesterday and today and just stare at them.  It's almost like a dream because I never thought they would actually be painted.  It is very difficult to paint while having a toddler at the house, which is why it has taken so long for me to paint, but we make it work.  Well, I'm off to do the tiny sections on the other side of the stair case as soon as we put Brett to sleep.  Can't use a roller, it's going to be all brush.  My hand hurts already just thinking about it !  I will post pictures in a few days of all the before and after, but here is our living room from when we moved in, to today, painted and decorated.  The one wall just needs some picture frames hung and it will be complete.  :]

Exciting, huh ?

Much better. :]

a few links of my own

A fellow blogger friend posts links every week that are so fun to look at, so I thought I'd post a few of my own. :]

How to Tie a Turban  Very cute for different activities.

Moustache Nails  How cute are those ?

Zuppa Toscana Soup Recipe  I am going to try this soon.  It's my favorite soup at Olive Garden.

Mason Jar Uses  Awesome uses for mason jars !

Free Your Mind  This is so neat (yes, I said neat..) but I can't try it until Brett's a little older.  It would end up shattered.

Mason Jar Garden  A very cool way to grow your own herbs.

Close Your Clothes  Such a fun way to teach your kids about different fasteners !

Kid's Chalkboard Table with Benches  I wish I had the space for this.  Such a cute idea !

Chore Magnets  This will definitely be handy when Brett gets a little older and wants to earn some money. :]

Sweetie Pie  This looks like Heaven !!!

jingle bells

I caught my little monkey singing Jingle Bells along with the caroling houses that he plays with all day long.  He keeps on amazing me with how smart he is.  I sang the song with the music a couple of times last week while doing dishes and he caught on right away.  Now every time one of the different songs plays, he says "Mommm !  The song !" if I don't start singing immediately.  I could just watch this video over and over--it puts a big smile on my face.  :]

last bunch of pictures

We took Brett to the mall this year to try and have him sit on Santa's lap but it didn't work out.  He said "Hi Grandpa" and seemed okay, but when Bud went to set Brett on his lap, he started freaking out.  Oh well !  There's always next year.  I kinda wish we had a photo of him crying--I know, that sounds bad--but you have to admit.  They are hilarious to look at ! 

 

Brett likes to watch TV in our bedroom in his little couch/sleeping bag.  :]

Playing outside on his motorcycle seemed like an easy opportunity for a cute picture.  He loves to try and run you over so it's guaranteed to bring a smile to his face !

 

I found him hugging our kitty.  :]  He sure loves her--I just wish he didn't scare the crap out of her with how loud and in-your-face he is !!

decorating

We didn't decorate much for Christmas last year because it was hard enough the first year keeping him from crawling to the tree and yanking ornaments off.  Why would I want to torture myself and have a ridiculously rambunctious 1.5 year old doing it ?  Well, I decided to torture myself this year because it's just too depressing to not decorate.  We thought decorating with Brett would keep him from touching it as much, but nope.   Fortunately, he's only broken one ball ornament and lost about three hooks.  Hello 99 cent store !  They have a box of about 150 for... yep... 99 cents.  He seemed to enjoy putting ornaments on the tree, but I don't think he quite understood the idea because they'd fall off and I would have to put them back on.  He'll get it next year for sure.  :]  So here are some very unflattering pictures of me--probably in need of a shower by the looks of my hair. 

Here is what we ended up with.  It's something at least.  :]  Hard to put stuff out with a toddler, and if you don't really have any shelves or anything downstairs--other than the kitchen.

*My poor cowboy snowman is squished on top of the cabinet but I know Brett would have a blast ripping him apart.  :[ 

~~~~~

Brett loves doing the "abent"--advent--calendar every day !  I was so happy to find that thing on clearance last year at Target.  It was the only one that didn't have broken and/or missing doors and nobs.  There was a pretty one with glass doors at Target the other day but I really like mine.  :]

new pics--finally ! (and you're welcome)

We decided not to do a Christmas card this year with our financial situation lost at sea--that's what it feels like because it's taking forever to get fixed--but my mom still wants to do one.  So she asks me to take a cute picture of Brett for her card.   Okay.  Easy enough.  Wait !  I can't upload pictures to my dinosaur computer.  :[  Since we were not planning on going anywhere this week where I could upload my pictures, I decided to try out the Target photo machines I always pass but have never stopped to inspect.  Let me tell you--amazing !!!!  You can upload via memory card, CD, floppy disk (I think) or just print right there from your Facebook page.  How awesome is that ?  Once you pick the photos you want to upload, you can rotate and even edit them right there at the machine and have them printed in an hour.  Way cool !!  Oh, and it gets better.  You can put pictures onto CDs, too !!!!  I fell in love when I saw that.  I was going to just have a picture printed, scan it on my computer and then hope the quality was still nice until I saw the CD option.  Now I can just take my memory card to Target once a month or whenever I have pictures I need uploaded asap and bring the disc home in an hour--for just $4.34 per disc.  Love it !!!  Aaaaaand, I can also give the CD to my parents to have if they want to upload the pictures to their computer.  It's like killing a dozen birds with one stone !  Sorry, birdies.  I'm one happy momma !!

A few nights ago, Brett was showered and watching Pooh before bed time and was being very goofy.  I ran and got my camera and started chasing him around the upstairs.  Then daddy comes up and sees me throw Brett onto the bed so he joins in on the fun.  Obviously, he was able to throw him much higher and farther than I was, so Brett was just laughing his little head off at being tossed into the air and landing on the bed--which is not such a soft landing being a Tempur Pedic mattress.  Here's the proof, in these very unflattering pics of my husband.  Oops !

Seriously, he doesn't even need toys when this makes him so happy.

 

Brett was just in the best mood that night so I had an easy time getting really cute pictures.  It isn't often very anymore when he is in such a great mood that he will let me take picture after picture of him so I was pretty stoked. :]

I love falling pictures !  There were others, but I only put one on the CD.

More tossing--from a different angle !

patience

I wish patience could be bottled so that people who have an over abundance of it could share with the less fortunate--like me.  Growing up, I assumed this was something that grew with time and age.  Surely teenagers are just too young to have much of it and I will get some once I graduate and step into the real world, right ?  I sure hate it when I'm wrong.  Since I quit my job to stay home with Brett, I have oodles of time to think about things I wish that I could change.  Some I actually can and others that aren't realistic.  Little man has been on a mean streak the past week or two and has now started hitting us when he doesn't get his way.  Toy throwing, hitting the dogs in the face, smacking the wall and banging the dinner table chairs back and forth are just some of the cute new things he does.  (....there is a whole lot of sarcasm said with that "cute")  Aren't kids just supposed to be adorable with everything they do ?  Where has my smiley, sweet little angel gone ?  I am positive he is hiding somewhere inside of this beautiful child who looks more and more like my mother with each day.  Somehow, I lost my copy of the "what to do when you want to rip out your hair and hide under a rock" manual.  I really need to find that...... Anyway, I know it's just a phase--I really do !  But when you are home with the craziness almost 24/7, it can really do some damage mentally and physically.  He brings me to frustrated tears almost every day now but I know he is just so eager to learn and explore--and frankly, is just plain bored at times--that it only makes me feel worse when I get mad at him.  I wish I could hit the fast forward button and speed up to about five months from now when he will be three.  I just know things will be better then.

This week has kind of been a turning point for me in a lot of ways.  Something inside of me just clicked one day when my son was staring up at me with his big, beautiful, sad brown eyes asking me to "run"--because he loves to be chased after. And at that moment, I started to realize things I should (and probably did) already know:  the house will not clean itself, I will not continue to shed pounds by watching TV and reading in bed, Brett is not as entertained by his gazillion toys as we had hoped and the only person who can make me feel better about my life is me.  I think I have always relied on other people and other things to make me really feel happy and satisfied, but that cannot always be the case.  It honestly made me feel completely happy to hear my beautiful boy laughing freely and smiling with an ear to ear grin.  Not that it is anything new for those things to make me happy, but ever since I had him, I have felt like a person who has stepped out of my body and is just watching from the sidelines.  Realizing that something as simple as chasing my son around the living room can mean the world to him and make him feel loved at the same time--and me, too.  I am a lazy person and always have been--hence the 15 lbs of baby weight still hanging on after 2.5 years.  My mom said when I was an infant, I used to cry just to go back to bed.  See ?  Lazy from the start.  I have not always liked to chase after Brett because I am completely out of shape (not sure I have ever actually been in shape, though), it makes me winded and sometimes lightheaded and I'd really rather just sit and watch Mickey Mouse with him.  I really sound like the worst mother ever, but that is what quitting my job has done to me.  It's as if my body knows there is nothing too demanding that I have to get up and get ready for in the morning, so my internal "drive" is just kind of on slow speed every day.  Transitioning into a mother has been a very difficult change for me full of head aches and lots of tears and I'm behind on figuring things out.  Better late than never, though, right ? 

After that little switch inside my brain clicked, I have had a very different outlook on my days.  Even just little things like trying to stay moving while Brett is awake, either by playing with him or taking care of a chore that needs to be done--as difficult as that can be while still keeping a hawk eye on a fearless toddler.  Staying on top of laundry, keeping unused toys put away, vacuuming at least every other day--both floors and stairs and doing my best to stay away from the bad foods in the pantry when I get stressed.  Also, who would have thought that walking down the street every afternoon to get the mail can be a nice little dose of calming quiet ?!  We usually just picked it up on our way in from the store or we'd drive down to get it because Brett likes car rides--but he really does enjoy the walk, too. Part of that motivation is to see if Bud got his first state disability check in the mail.  His worker's comp insurance really messed things up for everyone, including themselves, and it's going to take some time for Bud's lawyer to go to court and straighten out his disability status.  I am trying so very hard to be patient, but again, that's nearly impossible for me.  What can I really do, though--if it's not there, it's not there !   Worrying about money and bills like never before is probably also part of that internal thought bubble.  I need to start appreciating more and taking better care of the things I have now because I am lucky to have what I have.    

I guess what I was trying to say with all those jumbled thoughts is that I used to just kind of cruise through my days and assume great things would come my way eventually.  I'd use up all my free time to lay in bed and read because reading takes me away from this chaos I call life and into another world that is more exciting and usually has a happy ending.  It only made me worse off, though, because now I am still fat and full of regrets from the past few years.  The fat part was a joke.  Kind of.  He he ?  Things I coulda shoulda woulda done that I cannot change.  I know that in a few years, when Brett is telling me he hates me because I wouldn't let him have his way, I will wish he was back to being 2.5.  And in a few months, this whole worker's comp nightmare will almost be forgotten.  I just need to have patience and play with the cards I was dealt.