Refrigerator Woes Update

We finally got a real live honest to goodness human being to come to our house today to look at our refrigerator. The one that is not refrigerating. The one that turns gallons of milk into solid smelly pieces of sludge (hope you weren't trying to eat :) ). And of course, he looked at it, plugged in the computer (who knew that you can plug a computer into a refrigerator? Not me) to see what was wrong. He did a few grunts and "ahh ha" and came to the conclusion that the fan is broken and not working. (No, really, you think?) And of course, as is our usual luck, he did not have that part with him and will have to order it. So we get to be without a refrigerator for at least another week! Oh Joy!

Well there is one small silver lining in all this - it is extremely hard to cook without refrigerated items and I have given up trying. No cooking for the next week!

1 1/2 To Go

I only have 1 1/2 rooms to go before my entire house, as in every single wall, is painted. I have been painting all morning long and have finally finished my bedroom and half of my bathroom. I only have the other 1/2 of my bathroom and the guest bedroom left to paint! Yay! I chose a soft sage green for my bedroom and bathroom and I am thinking of a gray/taupe for the guest bedroom.

I told myself at the beginning of the summer that I was going to get the rest of the house painted by the time we were here a year. Well that year is up next month. How that is possible, I do not know. But hopefully, I will make good on my promise and actually get it done.

But right now, I am tired! Four hours of painting and my neck is seriously needing a trip to the chiro! I really want to crawl to the couch and watch tv right now for oh about 10 hours. But there is a problem. Jack is bored and wanting to "do something." I guess motherhood comes first before comfort huh? I am so not going to be able to walk tomorrow. I just know that right now.

We Didn't Kill Em

We bought 6 rose bushes about a month ago and planted them in front of our house. They looked beautiful in the pots, however when we got them home and planted, not so much. I thought that we had killed em. But with a little bit of rose food, watering, and a strict talking to, they are starting to flower! Yay! Well four of the bushes are anyway, two of them still look kinda sick. I need to talk to them some more, I guess.

Obsessed

In my 40 years on this earth, I have owned 6 houses. Is that a lot? I think that is a lot. Of course, that does not include the original house that I was born into (the smallest house in Michigan, I believe) nor the house that we moved to when I was 6 years old. I have also lived in a couple dorm rooms and three different apartments. Yes, I have moved around a lot. Oh and that all was in 5 different states.

In all that moving around, I do not believe that I have ever obsessed over decorating as I have in this current house. I am obsessed. Of course watching HGTV all the time does not help. I record all the shows with House Hunters and Designed to Sell being my favs. And for the last 8 or 9 months that we have been living here, I have thought about how to decorate this house every single day. I think I am done with the majority of the house. The only rooms that I haven't touched are my bedroom and the guest bedroom. I have gone through what seems like hundreds of gallons of paint and hours upon hours spent online looking for stuff for the house. My latest research project was area rugs. We just put down the hardwood floor and of course ya gotta cover them up with area rugs right? So thrifty me found overstock.com and went wild buying rugs. Even the UPS guy who on the third day of delivering rugs to my house said "ya got enough rugs now?"

So after all that, my fear is what do I do when I finish? Start all over? Or will it be time to buy a new house?

Girl's Room ... Part Two

Well after a long day of painting, Jim and I finished the girl's room. It is hot pink. Oh boy is it hot pink. But I have to admit, it looks awesome. The lime green drapery panels look awesome and her new bedding just completes the look. Jim put the PB shelves up today and put her dolls and stuffed animals on the shelves. I only bought a quart of the lime green paint and will hold off until Laura gets here to help me with that. I thought Iwould go get some stencils with her and we can stencil something on the wall with the green paint.

Oh and I have to just say that I totally heart ebay! You basically can find anything on there. I ordered a pink and green flip flop lamp shade. It is absolutely perfect for the girl since the only thing she puts on her feet are flip flops. I also ordered the light switch cover that matches the lamp shade. Of course. I will take a picture of the room and post it here when I get everything assembled and put together. I think she is going to love it.

Of course, Jim and I had to do the painting yesterday with the boy in the room. Of course he wanted to help also with his little paint brush that let him hold. I don't know how the boy did it, but I would put the smallest speck of paint on his brush to "help" paint, but somehow he managed to get that speck of paint everywhere BUT the wall. I don't know how many times I was taking a wash rag trying to get paint out of the carpet. Between him "helping" with the paint and all the trucks he insisted on bringing into the room, Jim and I needed that well deserved beer at the end of the day yesterday.

Grrrr....

I have been waiting around all day long for the floor installers to come back and finish up their job. They told us yesterday that they would be back here in the morning, but they called about 10:00 this morning and said they would be here this afternoon because they "wanted the glue to set some more". Okay fine. It is now almost 4:00 in the afternoon and I have not seen or heard from them at all. My house is torn up. Literally. My stove and refrigerator are in the middle of the kitchen. My washer and dryer are in the garage, along with bucketfuls of sawdust from them cutting in there yesterday that they promised they would clean up. My china cabinet is in two pieces in my den, along with my dining room table. And the kitchen table is in the middle of the family room. Yes, my house is a mess. And there is nothing I can do about it until these guys get back here to replace my baseboards and clean up the mess. In the meantime, I have been trying to figure out things to do with the boy while Daddy sleeps because Daddy has to work tonight. I can't go anywhere because that is the precise time they will show up and then leave. It is super duper hot outside and after 45 minutes of walking and Jack riding his bike, we called it quits. I wanted to go to the swimming pool, but I can't because I have to stay and wait for the possibility they will show up. But it is looking slim that they even will today and if they don't, that means my house will be torn up until Monday.

Yes, I love the new wood floors. But for the last two and half weeks, it feels like my house and subsequently my life is in shambles. I just can't wait until it is all done and put back in order!!!!

Date Night!

It actually happened! Jim and I got a night out. By ourselves. As in with no boy! A true miracle indeed.

We went to see Ron White at the Beau Rivage last night in Biloxi. We went with Ms. Kelsey (Jack's teacher) and her husband and Kyle's mom and dad (also known as Jennifer and Mark). We had a great time. Laughed a lot at Ron White. He sure is funny. And even had a grown up drink! It sure was fun getting out of the house just the two of us.

We dropped Jack off at Miss Ming's (his chinese tutor) house. I could tell the boy was a bit confused about the whole getting dropped off and not getting to go with mama and daddy thing. He kept saying "you are dropping me off?" But he had a blast playing with her son and their dog, a big black lab, named Shay. In fact, he was sleeping when we went to pick him up and didn't wake up even when we put him in bed.

I do believe that it had been almost two years since we had a night out by ourselves. In fact, it was when we went to see Ron White in California! And yes, we do need to do it more often. It easy to forget that you are first and foremost a couple before parents.

In other news, our house is tore up again. The wood floor is being installed in our kitchen and laundry room and is giving me great excuses for not cooking hehe. Hopefully it will be done today and I can get my house back into shape once and for all. Yay!

Voila! ... Almost

Well after four days of mess, dust, and strange men traipsing through my house, I finally have my wood floors that I wanted. Of course to get the floors looking all shiny and clean, I had to get on my hands and knees for about two hours and scrap off all the little glue pieces that the strange men left behind. I am sure that I will be scraping glue up for the next month! But, I am beyond thrilled at this point. I love love love them. Now I just can't wait for the strange men to show up and do the kitchen hopefully in the next week or so. The kitchen is looking really yicky now with that yicky vinyl floor that is half ripped up cause it was never glued down properly in the first place.

And yes, Stefanie, I was whining hehe. I am good at that :).

Notice that lazy cat laying there getting orange fur everywhere!

Here is a short video of what the boy thinks of the floors. However, right after this was taken, I noticed a scratch in the floor that made me sick and it came from the boy riding his bike. His bike is now an outside only toy and who cares if he is upset with that latest development.

I Want My House Back!!!!

I am tired of these people being in my house! They have been here since Thursday and it is time that I get my house back, of course with really nice new wood floors.

Here is the final product, well if you can imagine it without all that blue painters tape all over the place, which hopefully will be going today. They only have to finish up the long hallway and then put all the base molding back on and they will be done until they come back in a couple of weeks to do my kitchen, which looks pretty bad next to the nice new floor in the family room.

So hopefully by tonight, we will have our furniture back in place and cleaned off from the 6 inches of dust that is everywhere in my house right now. I feel like I need to take a shower all the time because I feel the dust everywhere on me and all around. I know I am crazy.

Jack thinks the wood floor is now his personal race track for his bike. I have a video of him riding his bike through the house yelling that I will post later when I get back on my desktop (this laptop was not made for uploading video in my lifetime). But the boy is having so much fun with the new floors and having a place to race his bike and all the trains, cars, trucks, and tractors. A new toy for the boy!

Check back later to see if I have lost my sanity in all this process, cause I feel like I am on the brink ya'll.

Fleas!

We have been taken over by fleas. They are everywhere. Or I should say they were. We had to have the pest control people come and spray and hopefully we have seen the last of the little indestructible creatures. Of course, it couldn't be easy. We had the cats boarded overnight to get them out of the house and also get groomed (no I do NOT give cats baths) and de-fleaed. Did ya'll know there are these pills out there now that you can give to the cats and dogs and it will kill all the fleas on their bodies within 20 minutes? That is so cool.

As far as the dogs, we took them with us while the house was flea bombed. Then when we got home, I had the lovely job of giving them baths (the 15th in the last week or so it seems) and then giving them the pills to commit flea murder. And now I am in the middle of doing 1800 loads of laundry. Hopefully with all these efforts, we can be rid of the critters forever. I hate them!

In other news, Jack has taken to just running. His favorite thing to do is just run and run and run. So tonight after dinner, Jack and I went out front and just ran and ran and ran all around the cul-de-sac. I love living on a cul-de-sac. We also played the turn-around-and-around-then-freeze game which made him burst into fits of giggles. The boy just cracks me up.

My Handy Husband

Ever since Christmas brought the mega toys upon our little house, I was wondering what and how to handle all these toys. I did go through his toys the other day and weeded out a large tote and a garbage bag full of stuff. However, it didn't even feel like I put a dent in the mess.

So my husband, who is wonderful, made this:

It holds all the new huge trucks, tractors, jeeps, and other assorted boy toys. Do ya'll think he has enough trucks?

Of course the boy loved it. He also helped Daddy work on it by helping drill the holes and measure. The boy is a whiz with the tape measure. Now I need to paint it. His room, which is only done at the moment, is painted in a gray blue. I was thinking of doing primary colors, but who knows I might get fancy and do coordinating stripes or something.

A picture of the train table also in his room with the cute little shelf that holds his cars and trains. Of course it doesn't hold ALL of them because then we would need something that covers the entire wall! Yeah and this wall is not yet painted. Hopefully I can get his room finished painting in the next week or so and call it done!

Home Alone!

Jim just left with Jack to go get haircuts and do "guy" things as he put it. And me? I am estatic! I get to be home alone for a couple of hours! How exciting is that? What to do? What to do? I could read, internet surf, watch tv, clean my house with NO interruptions from a little "helper". The list is endless. But what I really NEED to do while the boy is out of the house is go through his room and pack up about half of his toys. Seriously people, you can not even walk through there anymore. It is bad. And I can not even blame myself for this toy explosion because over 80% of the toys came from family and friends. People, the boy's birthday is in two months, if you really feel the need to spend money on the boy, I can tell you where to deposit that money into his college fund. HE DOES NOT NEED MORE TOYS!

So here I go off to clean the boy's room on MY TIME. Sigh.

Technical Difficulties

**Updated to add that I did get a new dvd player and NO tv. I did look at the tvs but seriously the price tags, even the cheap ones, made me run the other way. I did, however, end up buying a dvd recorder that I can hook up our camcorder to and record onto dvd - supposedly. I will probably use our camcorder a lot more if that is the case.

Frustration is trying to watch a movie on a dvd player that is almost as old as a decade and have it breakdown in the middle of movie. I guess that is what me and the kids are going to be doing today while Jim is sleeping - buying a new dvd player. Of course this comes hours after Jim and I had THE talk about tightening up our purse strings a bit to save for something big. Alright one more purchase this year. I am just going to try to control myself so that I don't come home with a new plasma tv that I have been eyeing for the past few months. Our tv, which is as old as the dvd player, is also on the fritz. We get to watch tv with these big purple balls at the bottom of the screen. I know you are jealous.

I need to be chanting to myself - No New Tv, No New Tv, No New Tv, Just a dvd player!

No Offers

Well my phone was not ringing off the hook with offers to babysit, so I had to improvise and use another babysitter. The TV. Yep that is right, I sat Jack down in front of The Polar Express movie. It seems however, our dvd of the movie is not working because it kept jumping back to the beginning, so I had to use the tv version that was on Tivo. This worked like a charm until a commercial would come on and the child would burst into tears and start screaming. I, of course, came running from whatever room to fast forward through the commercials. But hey it occupied the child for a couple of hours. Between that and Thomas shows, I was able to get my house cleaned, laundry done, bills paid, and Christmas cards addressed.

The only room that I did not tackle was Jack's room and well that is an all day project that MUST get done soon. I seriously need to go through all his toys and box up the ones he does not play with anymore. I also need to paint his room and hang some stuff up on his walls that have been sitting in his closet since we moved. Jim bought these really cute airplane and train shelves that Jack keeps wanting to play with because he can see them on the top shelf in his closet. The room will be really cute once it is done, or I should say once I get my butt in gear and actually work on it.

So because the rooms were cleaned, I thought I would show off my new window coverings that took TEN WEEKS to get to me. I ordered them the week after we moved in and they promised me that I would have them by Thanksgiving. They were good on their promise, however, they were delivered TWO days before turkey day and that was only because I begged on the phone with the installer. I am really pleased with how the shutters and valances came out, just not sure it was worth the small fortune (college education) that I paid.