heyyyy! long time, no blog!

Now, as for revamping this blog.  It started out as a....I don't know what but it morphed into a nothing interesting blog unless you know me.  Then, it's still just slightly interesting when I mention the boys. 

I've been inspired!  As you know (if you've followed) I missed the registration for the Chicago Marathon due to moving.  Yeah, I'll blame it on moving.  Anyway, I was super disappointed.  I've been running, but training for anything until I bit the bullet a month ago and signed myself and my loving husband up for the Rock n Roll half marathon at Virginia Beach.  Last week I finally finished my vampire romance series (yes, I'm one of those girls) and decided to start a book my husband had started and kept telling me "you gotta read this book next".  Okay, okay, stop pressuring me.  So I started it, am more than half way through, and I feel like it's changed my thinking.  Not just for running but maybe all aspects of my life?  Born to Run by Christopher McDougall is amazing. 

I ran yesterday as naked as I dared to go in years.  I was clothed, but decided to leave my iPod at home.  Something amazing happened.  I listened to my body rather than Lady Gaga or the soundtrack to Glee.  The result was I decided my pace, not the tempo of the current song blaring in my ears.  Also, I will be ordering minimalist shoes.  I used to think barefoot running or minimalist shoes were stupid.  How can no cushioning help?  But it makes total sense!  Run in your yard barefoot and see how your foot placement instinctively changes.  And how pronation isn't a bad thing that needs to be corrected.  Just blows my mind and has re-lit the fire under my ass to run. 

But run differently.  I've always known running is 99% mental.  But the difference between my thinking before Born to Run was "Just another mile until I reach my goal".  Since I've been reading the book it's more "Where else can I run because I don't feel like stopping yet".  The unfortunate side is that I now look at my treadmill and scoff.  Which means that I need to get up extra early before Jamie and the boys and run.  Speaking of running, I gotta go! 
  

My Margaritaville

Let the countdown begin!  Only four days until I am on vacation.  Where to, you ask?  The Outer Banks.  We have been planning this trip for about a year now and those frozen drinks are finally within reach.  The we part is made up of me, my bestie Sarah, her bestie from college Kelly(who I also love), my twin boys and two teenage daughters, Sarah's two kids, Kelly's two kids, Sarah's mom, Kelly's mom, my mom and mother in law, my two dogs, and Sarah's dog.  Yeah...if you lost count that's three moms, six kids, two teenagers, four grandmas, three dogs, and a partridge in a pear tree.  However, the most important part to take away from that harem is the four grandmas.  Which means that us three tired and harried mommies can take a BREAK!!!!  Thank the gods for grandmas.  I plan to sit either pool side or with my toes buried in the sand drinking pretty much the whole week.  Not that I'm going to go on a bender or anything, just need to maintain that happy medium between really tipsy but still functional.  At least until the young kids are in bed asleep, then I make no promises! 

I have much to prepare for.  I should clean out the van, pack, paint my toenails, and clean the house since my mother in law is coming the night before we leave.  Luckily, I have an awesome mother in law who couldn't care less about the state of my house as long as she gets to see her grand babies. 

Also, I, and the other two moms, are of the mind that it takes a village to raise a child.  So, if one of us sees another's kid doing something wrong we can and will correct it.  To me, that takes soooo much pressure off.  I see some moms, just running after their kids making sure they don't do anything wrong so they won't be confronted with a discipline situation in front of anyone.  Seriously?  Discipline your kids moms, don't leave it just to the dad.  No kid is perfect, and no parent is perfect.  Embrace it and move on. 

I know I keep promising pictures...I am terrible about bringing a camera anywhere.  But we will definitely have pics from the beach for all to see.  I will be the one in the big floppy hat, huge sunglasses, and margarita in hand.  Wait that might be all of us...  I will label.

Do you hear it?  Jimmy Buffett is calling................................ 
   

no point, just babble

Can I please be a girl again.  Just for a day.  I swear I'll go back to the mommy mode immediately afterwards.  It's been almost three months since Jamie's been gone and while I have had one haircut at a "salon", I feel a little blah.  I took a ride to the mall today, an hour each way with my boys.  I got there and thought "yes!  I'm out of the house".  Then I realized that the boys just spent an hour in the car and now they are confined to a stroller, and then we have an hour ride home.  Right away I felt like I was being selfish because now the boys aren't going to run around and play.  Not only that but like I can weave through a store with my double stroller, let alone try any thing on.  So the afternoon consisted of me looking longingly into the store windows just getting cranky.  I did however get a smoothie!  Isn't that exciting?  I also got my eyebrows threaded.  It hurt like a bitch, but I like the results better than waxing.  If you haven't tried it and you don't mind ripping hairs out of the tenderest spots on your face one by one in a rapid succession because you are a sadist, you really should.  I hate my eyebrows due to their insane growth rate, so I do secretly love it when they are ripped from my head.  Ah...

Jamie is flying home tomorrow for the Memorial Day weekend.  We have a date night planned.  Well, we have dinner planned.  That's as far as we got because we suck at coming up with things to do that sound better than sitting on the couch and watching some sci fi crap.  It sounds super pathetic and I know we should both weigh about 300lbs, but thankfully we run...a lot.  My goal this weekend is to get a family picture.  I realized I have no pictures of me with the boys since like Easter of last year.  Hopefully, my next posting will include a pic.

Been a while

I just realized I haven't posted anything in about a month.  It feels like forever.  I haven't had any motivation to do any projects.  In fact, one of my projects which would only take me about 15 minutes to complete, is sitting in the garage staring at me every time I pass through, annoying me.  My only excuse is that I am currently a single mom of two very active 16 month old boys.  It's basically all I can do to make it to their bed time and back to the couch to stare off into nothingness.  Okay, it's not THAT bad.  Not every day anyway. 

The Framer's Market has opened here about three weeks ago and it is awesome.  It's small, but has just about everything I would ever think to use and some things I wouldn't...  My first trip to the market I was apparently feeling adventurous.  I bought goat meat from a very local farm.  I decided that a loin and two loin chops would be good.  I plan to slow cook the loin and the farmer told me to prepare it as I would a lamb dish (cuz I've prepared so many of those?) Anyway I figured my dad is the perfect person to try it out on.  He, like my husband, will eat just about anything.  I mean that in the most complimentary way.  It is nice when you can put a "spaghetti pie" in front of your new husband and he eats it without complaining.  I had no clue how to cook when Jamie and I got married. 

The other constant purchases at the market is eggs, sweet potatoes, green tomatoes, lettuce, onions, and strawberries.  I've discovered that for my Yankee roots, I make killer fried green tomatoes. 

Dad comes in two days and other than hanging out with the boys I plan on going for nature walks and to the park and maybe coerce dad into coming along on a grocery trip before he leaves so I don't have to push the double stroller and pull the shopping cart like some retarded caravan through the ever crowded Wally World hearing "you've got your hands full" every two feet.  If this weren't predominantly a retirement community, I would seriously consider ramming people with the stroller when they said that to me.  It makes me want to scream! 

In other news, this is only the half way mark through this stint of single parent hood.  Seriously?  Another 6 weeks?  As you all know, I'm more of a "glass half empty" kinda girl.  So that's my take on the halfway marker.  The bright side is that I will have my dad for 8 days (like dad Hanukkah) then Jamie flies home for a three day weekend.  Actually it's more like a day and a half with travel time, but it will be awesome.  After that it's a month until the beach house.  I'm hoping for the fastest month in history. 

As you can tell, I'm going a little crazy here by myself.  If it wasn't for wanting to get this house I probably would have gone to my parents at least for a little while.  Or maybe gone down with Jamie to San Antonio.  Oh well. Speaking of crazy, I just heard my kids squeal, thus starts my day... 

High Tea

Here are some long overdue pictures of the living room.  I have a mirror on it's way to put over the mantle which I ordered from...my mom's basement.  Well, it's a frame for a mirror.  Whatever, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.  Anyway, I also finished the tea cart that was our first house warming gift from, you guessed it, mom.  She found it at a garage sale.  It was dark stained and I needed to lighten it up so it would go in my kitchen to hold the all important TV.  I'm pathetic.  But I love to watch Food network while I cook.  I pretend I'm on Iron Chef America, battling it out with Bobby Flay.  Then I think about if he were to find me and challenge me to a throw down, what would it be?  I'll have to ask my husband to see what it is I make that he can't live without.  But I digress...where was I?

Ah, yes, the tea cart.  It started out as an antique which I then primed, painted and distressed to make it look old.  PS-I know that sounds stupid.  But I like the worn shabby chic look.  It just so happened that I'm really lazy and lose motivation 1/3 into a project so that look works out well for me.  No need to be a perfectionist.

Enough babble, it's fast approaching 10pm and I'm staving!

Living Room Before:

Living Room After

And the tea cart:

Going Coastal

Kitchen is done, entranceway/office area is done, living room has been started. Two days ago I was totally over it.  I had hit that wall that most marathoners encounter at like mile 18, where you just want to lay down on the side of the road and poop yourself because you are so tired...yeah, th t was me.  However, with just the living room to go I have woken up this morning with renewed vigor.  Have to give a big shout out to mom.  I wouldn't have been able to do this by myself.  Well, not correctly and not in a week and a half.  I wanted to wait topost pics until everything was done and staged and looked like a magazine, what planet do I live on?  I have 15 mo old boys, so that won't happen until they are in college!  So here ya go!

Before

                             After. Paint-Antique White on walls, Banana Cream Pie on cabinets

                                                                 Dining Area Before

Dining Area After.  Paint-ontop, antique white.  Bottom-Banana Cream Pie

                                                                        Hutch in process

                                                                            Hutch after-paint, Hint of Mint

Kitchen ceiling before

Kitchen ceiling after

Foyer before

Foyer after-paint Grey Ghost

Cleaning the air intake-blech

Up next, the living room.  Stay Tuned!!!!!!!!

Well, hello everyone!  Mom conquered a grueling 18 hrs on the road just so I could put her to work and make her eat nothing but bologna sandwiches.  That's love.  Her incentive was getting to play with the boys.  However, after tackling the kitchen, I don't even know if repaying her with grandkid hugs is enough!  First she said, "we have to paint the ceiling". I nodded politely but internally was kicking and screaming.  Does anyone really look up?  The house has that lovely popcorn ceiling. Has anyone tried to paint that?  If not and you eventually do...wear safety glasses, the popcorn pops off the ceiling a little and can/will get in your eyes.  I'm so glad we painted that ceiling though.  It looks sooooo much better.
Here is a picture of where I stopped and still have to pick up when we reach the dining area.  Which will be after the cabinets.

Okay, so the cabinets.  As of now they have been cleaned, sanded, wiped, and got a coat of antique white.  Today we are going to get some color, all be it  very slight, on them.  The worst part was sanding them, I talked mom into just leaving them on and we did it by hand.  I just couldn't imagine having them off and two little boys resisting the invitation to get into everything.  I finished up the coat of white on 3/4 of the cabinets last night at 11pm. here is a before and
mid transformation pic

This was two days worth of work.  We work when the boys are napping, here and there after they wake up, and for about 3 hours after they go to bed.  I can't wait to get color on the cabinets! 

Oh but, like with any home remodel project, you come across something that stops you in your tracks and makes you say, "ew".  Mom popped off the fridge grate at the bottom. Now, I vacuumed it when we moved in and a lot of crap came out.  But when we looked to see the coils, we couldn't!  It was so full of pet hair/dirt/whatever that we have no idea how it was still working.  Gross with a capitol G!  I wish I took pictures.  I wanted to vomit and shower immediately.  For sure it was never cleaned out since it's been installed.  FYI, like 90% of all service calls for fridges ends up as just needing to clean it!  Some depending on what type of fridge you have, I order you to go pull it out, pop off the grate, and VACUUM!!!!  Okay, I've said my piece. 

Back to work for us!  More pics to follow.  We should (fingers crossed) be done by the end of tomorrow.  I hope, I hope, I hope!