What's up

I can't begin to explain the frustration that is house selling. Our house went on the market at the end of January. We have had only 2 showings in all that time and the last one was well over a month ago. I am continuing to keep the house as clean as possible, and cleaning it to show-worthiness every time we leave to go somewhere, every day.
I am continuing to declutter, stage, and dang it... I miss my family pictures! I do not ever, ever, ever, want to move again and you know what? I haven't even started really packing yet. I just shoved a bunch of "extra" stuff in boxes and put it in the attic. I know someone will fall in love with our house, just like we did, when they see it but we have to get people in the door to even have a chance.

I can't WAIT to go on vacation, because that means a solid week of not having to clean my house. Oh, and the beach will be nice too.

In the meantime we decided to build a new house. We only get to move in if we sell this one though. That's not stressful at all...

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In other news, we've done some fun stuff too. Miss L's preschool is over for the year and we're kind of off and on done with homeschooling. We have lots of camps and classes scheduled for June. We'll pick up school again in July when it's too hot to go outside.

We went to the Hot Air Balloon Jubilee which has become an annual tradition for us.

We've had birthday celebrations, and a great Mother's Day as well.

We also went swimming...

... and hiking. (several different times. )

Last but not least, I'm not sure if I mentioned that O and Miss L were in a play, The Velveteen Rabbit, at the beginning of May. Boy, what an experience (and commitment) that was!

What the what, 2014?

2014 just keeps throwing little things our way. It seems every way we turn there's a new little surprise - and almost no really good ones. Most of them are little things like opening a new (and last) gallon of milk and finding it's already bad, or finding an unopened gallon of water somehow started leaking while we were out. Said water left a huge puddle from one room the next, ruining a luckily-not-important piece of furniture and running out from under the fridge so we have a few minutes of panic trying to figure out what's wrong. Weird little things, and not a big deal really, but when your stress level is already up to your ears those little things feel like they could be the tipping point into a total break down. My emotions are always *right* at the surface because of some bigger issues and yet it's the little things that send me over the edge.

Somehow we've manged to make it through 9 years of parenthood with no broken bones, but C broke his elbow a little over a week ago. On a Friday evening, OF COURSE, so we now have an ER bill and an orthopedist bill. Unfortunately, it caused a fight with us because I wanted to take him to the ER then and D thought it was fine and wanted to wait but he was going to be gone the next day and I might have gotten a *little* mad about the thought of taking all 4 kids to the ER when we could just go NOW and also C was in a lot of pain and just, UGH.
Anyway, I won in one sense because we took him Friday and I was right in that it was broken but I also lost because, well, it's broken and that kind of sucks. But, it's not a really bad break and he gets the cast off in 3 (now 2) weeks.

Miss L had a minor surgery today, to remove one of her ear tubes which has been in for almost 3 years. Couldn't the darn thing have just fallen out like it was supposed to and saved us $1700? (and also the worry that comes with putting a child under for anything, no matter how minor?!) C also still has one, also for 3 years, so there will probably be another surgery in his future as well. At least we'll probably have met our deductible by then.

The day after C broke his arm, D was gone for rugby and we finally had another showing! Our second. Not our second of that day, week or even MONTH, but our second. Period.  (since January)
I had just gotten finished mowing our gigantic yard with our little push mower (good exercise at least) and had half cleaned up the house, turned on the shower and noticed that there was a car sitting outside. I was thinking maybe I should wait a minute to jump in the shower when the phone rang. There was NO WAY I was going to turn down a showing, so I ran around like a crazy person and the kids - mercifully - quickly cleaned up the play room and their bedrooms. I had to go out looking like I had just mowed the grass for two hours, but at least they liked the house. Not enough to buy it, most likely, though. *sigh*

The house being on the market is really not going well. The house looks great, mostly always clean, beautiful flowers planted in the yard, grass under control, decluttered... but I can't enjoy it because I'm trying to keep it from being messed up just so no one can come and see it.
If we don't sell it this year I'm not sure how I can do this again. And yet, what option do I have? None, that's what.

On the very, very bright side, D is done with rugby for this season and hopefully forever and ever. He hurt his shoulder at that game I mentioned above and while I am most definitely NOT happy about that (nor his refusal to see a doctor) I am hoping that it might push him to finally hang it up. I want him to have a hobby, but does it have to be a hobby that takes him away from home 2 nights a week and Saturdays too? Between his hobby and the kids' stuff, guess who comes in last? You don't have to guess because if you're reading this you're probably a mom too and you KNOW who comes last. I feel guilty for even wanting him to quit, which is probably why he's kept playing this long.

In conclusion, sorry I rarely post anymore and that this is just basically a laundry list of complaints. Perhaps my next post will be a lot happier, but I'm not going to make any promises.

spaces

I find it fun to share the spaces I enjoy in my house with you all. Of course, I'm not going to share the kids' bathroom or my bathroom cabinet because they don't look nice. OH, and I don't dust so don't be surprised by the dust coating on my knick knacks.
 So, 2 more spaces, this time in my bedroom...

My dresser:
When I don't have clothes piled on it, I enjoy my dresser. The dress hanging on the far side is from when Miss L was itty bitty. It's the only baby thing I haven't been able to get rid of. I went searching for some pictures of her in it and found these. They made my uterus ache a bit. *sigh*

You can see the dress hanging on the far side...

One of the few wedding pictures left in our house. (the little boy in that picture is now in high school.)

The ones I love most... 

One of my favorite quotes! I got this for D, the workaholic.

The shelf:

The bottom shelf is my SAD light, a jump rope, yoga mat and some other stuff...

D's rugby awards

One of my favorite pictures.

Yes, it's a children's book, but it's mine anyway.

One last thing! This one's on my computer desk:

I also have that little tape measure on my desk because I inevitably need to measure something when I'm shopping online. It's very handy!

Show Me

A view into 3 little spaces in my house...

1 - My kitchen sink and window.
I spend a lot of time here. I could have cleaned it up some first, but hey, this is what it looks like a lot so I just left it. My mind tends to wander while I'm washing dishes or loading the dishwasher and my natural tendency is to obsess and fret. The window sill is full of things that make me smile and also a little reminder for me.

2 - The refrigerator. Weird spot to highlight... but it's like a year-round Christmas tree! I put special magnets from trips we take, and pictures of many of my favorite people there.

Can't forget my Swistle magnets!

3 - The screened in porch. A comfy seat, a nice view; what more could you ask for?
Want to share some of your spaces with me? Link in the comments if you do!

bathroom storage

We have two full baths, but we also have a half bath. I try to keep the kids out of it as much as possible, to keep it clean for guests. However, it has absolutely NO storage or countertops so it's not super useful for overnight guests. I decided to remedy that. Here's the bathroom before:

I bought and put together (all on my own!) a storage cabinet. The basket is filled with small soaps, lotion, essential oil spray and hand sanitizer.

I added some storage on the wall with a towel rack, s hooks and metal baskets. I also added a rug to warm it up. I'm hoping these small changes will make the bathroom a lot more useful! It looks better too. :)

(toilet paper for showing size)

It's incredibly hard to take pictures in that teeny bathroom, so this is about as good as I could do! Hopefully I'll have a post showing you new floors in the next couple of weeks. I swear I'm going to get back to posting regular stuff too, I'm just lacking the creative writing juices lately...

On the other hand...

Yesterday was kind of a shitty day. I had plans with a friend I haven't seen in too long, and C woke up with a nasty case of pink eye.

A mess.

So, those plans were canceled and instead I spent the morning in the doctor's office (co-pay) and then at the pharmacy (2 prescriptions). When I came home and started making the kids' lunch, I realized the big chest freezer seemed... warm... which is obviously not good for a freezer.
At dinner C ran into the other room and gave us all a heart attack when he started screaming and ran back in with a HUGE goose egg on his head. We thought he might need to go to the emergency room, but after awhile we convinced ourselves that he's OK.
Shortly after we realized something was also wrong with the refrigerator since the water dispenser was spraying water all over the place. I gave up after that and put the kids to bed early.
I had a cup of hot chocolate and a handful of chocolate chips and talked myself into seeing the silver lining.

We're lucky to have good insurance, a good doctor and the money to afford the prescriptions and generally healthy kids. We got that huge chest freezer (which HAD to be 30 years old!) from D's parents, for free, so while it was a financial blow, it could have been worse. We had the money to buy a new (smaller and more energy efficient) one, which is some kind of miracle so soon after Christmas and several road trips. In fact, the cost of the new freezer was almost exactly the same amount of money we received for Christmas.
Even better, the store had it in stock and we were able to get it immediately, and because we were home and noticed it in time we didn't lose ANY food in the freezer. I'm thanking my lucky stars it didn't happen just a few days sooner, when we were out of town and would have lost everything. This morning, D was able to fix the fridge and I had a moment of inspiration and took the old metal baskets out of the dead freezer and used them for storage!

this bathroom has NO storage whatsoever so this seems like a good use of the baskets

I put the dead freezer on a "curb alert" on craigslist and it was gone before lunch.

In the end, it didn't turn out so bad after all.

Paint, complaint and vaccinate

Living room - before

Living room - after (Obv - we're not done - hence the plastic, tape, and furniture in disarray)
Standing in the entry, looking in.


Standing by the back doors, looking to the front.

We're trying to decide if we should just leave the one wall orange (mincemeat) or go ahead and paint the other large wall. (in the picture above)
We won't paint the whole living room, but I just can't decide what to do.

What do you think? Leave it or add orange to the wall on the left too?

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I'm going to complain about pregnancy right now so if you'd rather skip it you really should stop reading now.

I have a long list of things that are so bothersome to me right now!
* Restless Leg Syndrome. MOST annoying thing ever - especially since I previously thought it was mostly made up.
* Contractions. I was hoping for a few more weeks before all the annoying contractions started.
* Hip pain.
* Back pain.
* Tailbone pain.
* Pelvic pain.
* Swollen feet and fingers.
* Aching knees, legs, feet.
* Shoulders and hips falling asleep at night and making me struggle to turn over every 154 seconds.
* Daily headaches.
* Mild nausea, almost like morning sickness, except more mild - thankfully.
* Lack of energy.
* 6-ish weeks to go.
* Crazy emotions. No patience. Kids who always test patience...

OK - I feel better now. Well, not really, but at least I got that out. Sorry.

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OK - you can come back now.

Vaccines. Oooooh, it's a touchy subject, huh?

Here is my stance:

I don't think all vaccines are bad, and I don't think all vaccines are good and/or necessary. We never get the flu shot, as it's one that I don't feel is necessary or beneficial. That's just my choice. We won't be getting the H1N1 either, because it falls into the same category. In any case, it's not available here and won't be till December (from what I've heard).
My kids are fully vaccinated, however. They do not receive flu shots or the "voluntary" shots that are not state mandated. I'm comfortable with my decision.
What I'm sick of is the media. This swine flu thing is so hyped up that people are freaking out!
I know of several people who have had it and it's been mild, many have said it's not even as bad as the "regular" flu. Granted, there are people that have died, as there are people who die EVERY year from the flu.
We are, of course, taking precautions. We're staying away from crowded, germy places like the mall play area. We're washing hands more frequently. We're all taking our vitamins and eating healthy - for the most part. We don't WANT to catch the flu! Who does?!

All that to say, everyone has a choice. What's important is that YOU are comfortable with YOUR choice.

Brick Dust

Before:

After:

I can barely walk, and definitely over did it. But isn't it beautiful!? I'm totally in love with the color!

Paint updates & more help

Painting updates! We're *almost* finished with the dining room. When we got to the store we found that the paint samples were a little different than online. We decided to go with Birch Forest for the dining room.

Before:

After:

Here is the entry way. You can see that it's next to the dining room, so the way it looks next to the green is important.



Here is the color we chose. It's called Brick Dust. With a primer under it, it will be a truer color and less pink-ish. I love this color, and pulled for it in a bigger room but D is very reluctant about the red.

Here is where I need help!!! This is our living room. We plan on painting the 2 long walls and then evaluating whether or not we want to paint the 2 shorter walls.

This picture is taken standing by the front door, in the entry way. You can see my color swatch on the wall by the window.


Ignore the toys...


This one is taken standing by the back french doors you saw in the other picture. The red and the color we choose for the living room will touch, so they need to be compatible too.



Here's where I get nervous. The color is called Mincemeat. I really, really liked it in the store. I STILL really like. But... it's orange. I am not sure I'm bold enough to paint half of this huge living room orange. It matches the colors in the rug. It goes with the other paint we've chosen.

But. It's ORANGE.


It will be slightly less orange, a deeper color, with the primer under it. And it's just paint, so if we get one wall done and hate it we can always choose something else, right?

What do you think?