The Big Reveal

Okay, so the title was just a teaser. The Big Reveal will happen tomorrow. But I can tell you about it today!

Griffin's birthday is tomorrow, and as a gift to him (and to Sammy) I gave the upstairs hallway bathroom a makeover. It went from having yucky kitty litter boxes in the bathtub and litter stuck all over the floor, the toilet, and the sink, and the cats' food and water dishes cluttering the floor, to THIS!




Just kidding.




But I'll have pictures tomorrow. I worked on it for a long time today, and got all hot and worked up quite a sweat, and I'm tired now, so I rented a couple of movies from RedBox, and am popping popcorn as I type this. And it is done now. And Mike is coming up the stairs.

I promise to post those pictures...uh...some time before next Saturday! ;)

Window (Mis)treatments

I spent a couple of hours putting up my living room curtains last week. I've had the fabric for a year, and was planning on making couch pillows with it, but since we got the new furniture in the living room, pillows weren't really needed any more so I was able to use the fabric for curtains! I think it adds just the right touch to the windows. And in my favorite colors and patterns, too!

I have been reading The Nester's blog at www.thenestingplacenc.blogspot.com, and I am really trying to adopt her philosophy of "It Doesn't Have To Be Perfect To Be Beautiful"... well, these curtains certainly aren't perfect... I didn't sew them or finish the edges or measure... but they add much more beauty to our home than they would just sitting in a bag stuffed in a closet somewhere. How sad that I haven't made use of these bits of beauty before now... all because I was waiting for the perfect use for them. And I had a preconceived idea of what that perfect use was, so until now I hadn't been willing to change my idea.

I know, I know, they are just curtains. I am philosophizing about... curtains? Well, not really. I am working on this area of my life. "This area" meaning the whole reduce, reuse, recycle concept. I want to make sure I don't have things just to "have" them. Even books. I had been keeping ALL of my books, saving them for... what, I'm not really sure. Now, there are some of my books that I know I will be reading again, and those I will keep. But I just made a trip to our local Half Price Books with two boxes full of books and DVDs that we don't read or watch, and the space on the shelves and the money they gave us (although not as much as I would have liked, it was something) is totally worth it! Less clutter! More space! It is a wonderful thing.

I also joined the CSA (community supported agriculture) at our local grocery store. It is only $25 a week, and every week I -- and my parents, who joined too! -- am supporting local, mostly family-owned farms. Last week we got two big hothouse cucumbers, a basket of tomatoes, a bunch of chives, a loaf of Farm to Market bread, a chunk of cheddar cheese, and a pound of ground round. I also picked up some green onions, a pan of fresh apple crisp from the "jelly lady" (as Bonnie said, it's like having your grandma living down the street from you!), a painted rock for my "garden" in the front... I'll post a picture of it sometime soon... and a red onion and a yellow onion. Wow... that's a lot of oniony goodness I have to use this week. I wonder if i should attempt a fried onion. That might be good.

Christmas in... May?

Just some Christmas cards I have been working on... because you can never start too early!

Address Book

No, I could not think of a more original title for this post. But the book looks good, no? I picked out 22 of my favorite papers and made this beauty. I finally got to use all of those girly papers I have been buying because they appeal to me! I look at my address book at least once a day, so I wanted to make it fun for me. I usually settle on something in the store, but this time I really wanted to go all out and make something that I will love forever that I can change the pages in if need be. I have had many of these papers for a few years, and have loved them from the moment I bought them, so I know I won't outgrow them.

I know, I'm silly, but I just love paper!

I Must Admit

I didn't actually "go for a walk" with Mike and the boys yesterday. I drove to Dairy Queen while they walked there, then drove them over to the gas station and they were going to walk home from there. On our way to the gas station, we saw the big "Griffin" tubes (which Mike informs me are not "plastic tubes" as I called them yesterday. Oh well. They looked like big plastic tubes to me. Anyway, Mike requested a photo shoot at the tubes, so I ran (ahem... drove) home and grabbed my precious camera and when I got back it turned into... well, it turned into some big picture-taking fun for me!

I was too tired to walk much after having gone on "Garden Tour 2008" with my parents from about 10am-4pm. Saturday mornings are my time to go do something fun for myself, and I was invited at the last minute to go with Mom and Dad, so I snatched up the opportunity to do something different and out of my normal comfort zone!

It was such a fun time, and I learned a lot about plants, gardens, and what flowers I love. There were 6 homes on the tour, all of them lived in by "Master Gardeners," who are talented beyond belief when it comes to their knowledge of flowers and plants of all varieties, and also their planting and decorating abilities... it was truly amazing to walk through their gorgeous yards and stare in awe at the beauty they had helped to create. I can't wait to go again next year! I'm putting it on my calendar for sure.

And yes, I'll be taking my camera.

We Went for a Walk...

...and Mommy took her camera along...

These big plastic tubes were just TOO picture-worthy...

Playing in the grass...

Posing for Mommy... kind of...

Priceless Faces...

Candy!!!

A "Big Owie"...

Phew!!!

We have had quite a day today! But let me back up a bit... I stayed up later than my bedtime last night to watch part of a movie with Mike. I actually watched all of "Dan in Real Life," which was a really fun movie. Then Mike watched "Beowulf and Grendel," which is just not my kind of movie, but I stayed up and watched the first part... until I decided that sleep was more important than watching the rest of the movie.

Anyway, I ended up sleeping in until 8 this morning, which just throws my whole day off. I really need to leave the movie watching for Friday and Saturday nights! I made my espresso and had a lovely sprouted sesame seed bagel with onion and chive cream cheese, natural cheddar cheese and broccoli sprouts.

We picked up JJ from school, then headed over to Bass Pro to check out the big fish tank and the (dead, stuffed, but still decidedly cool) animals there. We rode the elevator and walked around and had a grand old time, and the boys were so well behaved! It was wonderful.

Then we went to Arby's and picked up lunch and took it to Mike's office, where we all had a lovely picnic on the picnic table located in between a big field of tall, waving grass and a charming little lake with lily pads in it and a walking trail around it. After we finished eating, we all walked around the lake. We were going to play Pooh-Sticks -- if you haven't seen Winnie the Pooh, "Pooh-Sticks" is a game in which you all choose sticks, then drop them on one side of a bridge and whoever's stick gets to the other side first is the winner -- but the bridge at Daddy's office lake was located just on top of a dam-like thing that just wouldn't work for Pooh-Sticks. So we abandoned our sticks and finished our walk.

We all took a restroom break inside Daddy's office, which is just the ultimate in cool places to the boys. Then we came home and spent quite some time playing in the back yard on the swings. We decided another walk was in order, and walked down the trail behind our house, over the bridge (no water under that bridge) and up to the road, then back again. Yeah, I got my exercise in today! Chasing three active little boys around outside would tire anyone out! They will sleep well tonight, though, and they had SO much fun collecting roly-poly bugs and yellow dandelions and making wishes on big puffy white dandelions before blowing them to pieces... yeah, it was worth it.

I am enjoying sitting right now, and am watching Griffin work on a puzzle and Sammy play on the little VTech computer. I'm really looking forward to tonight when Mike comes home, and am hoping that maybe, just maybe I can have some time to work on cards for my website. I am running pretty low, and I have so many ideas floating around in my head, I just need to sit down and put them "on paper." With my new early bedtime, I need to use my evenings wisely and not waste my free time!

Okay, time to fix dinner. We'll be having cabbage and mushrooms over Ramen noodles tonight. Um, without the mushrooms. Because we don't have any. I think we'll have beets too. Mike's mom makes the most awesome pickled beets, and we have been enjoying them with many meals. They are very versatile, and go with a lot of different foods, so we pair them with at least one meal a week, it seems. Yummy!

Breakfast

It appears I will be getting up much earlier than my usual wakey-wakey time for the rest of the summer! I will need to be up and ready by 6:30 now!! We have another little boy who will be joining us for the summer, and he gets here early! I'm so excited to have a reason for getting up early again. I'm such a morning person!

It's disgusting, really.

I was always the one who showed up to work at McDonald's (that was over 10 years ago, I can't believe it!) at 6am -- which meant that I would have been up since 4:30 -- bright and perky and smiling and driving everybody else there nuts because they were tired and groggy and sometimes hung over from the night before. I soon learned to contain my excitement at getting to watch the sun rise every day, and just lean out the drive-through window (where I was usually placed because I was the fastest moving person that early in the morning) and soak in all of God's beauty while the morning dew evaporated and the sun warmed up the earth.

I love the smell of coffee brewing, or in my case now, espresso, thanks to Mike's famous poker-playing skillz. He won me an espresso machine, and I am learning how to brew the perfect cup for me. I broke the glass pot right off the bat, so I'm going to be buying one, but I can handle $13... lots better than paying for a new espresso machine.

My breakfast this morning has been:

*a banana, before my quiet time

*Bible reading... I am reading my new Women of Faith "The Message" Bible (Happy Mother's Day from my family!), and I love it! Today I read Genesis 9, where God established the rainbow as the sign of His promise to never again kill every living thing with a flood. I also read Matthew 1-2, about Jesus' birth and the wise men and Herod killing all of the baby boys ages 2 and under (what a horrid person he was!) and then I flipped over to Proverbs and read Proverbs 31, because I wanted to see what it was like in "The Message" version. Oh, wow. It was still just as convicting as ever, if not more...

*a cup of organic espresso with organic cream and Hershey's syrup (just negated all of the organic stuff there!)

*a mug filled with organic whole milk yogurt and topped with a generous helping of Flax Plus Pumpkin Seed Granola

Yummy stuff!

Now the boys are awake, and Sammy is sitting on the kitty, so I need to go run some interference!

Sometimes I Wake Up Grumpy...

... and sometimes I let him sleep.

Sammy woke up from his nap hungry for Cheddar Bunnies, and nothing else would satisfy. I appeased the little monster, and he soon turned into quite a happy fellow.

Fresh Face

So, how do you like it? I know, I know... music, how annoying, right? Well, if you love it, let me know, and I'll keep it. If you hate it, let me know, and I'll keep it. Just kidding! If everyone hates it, I'll get rid of it. Or you can just turn your speakers off. *wink, wink* If you can't hear the music, you may need to turn your speakers ON, or you may just need to grab yourself a cup of coffee to wake up!

I love this new format, I was getting a bit tired of BROWN everything. Let me know what you think!

Boy Play