2014

21 days into the new year and not one blog post. It's been awhile. I struggle to find the time and energy to keep it updated.
We had a wonderful Christmas and New Years. This winter has been crazy with so much snow and Arctic vortex weather. What the hell is that all about!?




Silas turned 8!!! Like always, there were a number of birthday celebrations and finally this coming weekend he will have a few friends sleep over.



I have been working like a maniac to get things cleared out of the house. I went thru round 1 of the crawl space. As in the stuff piled in the center that made walking in there near impossible. I've trashed, donated, sold, repurposed...it feels great to finally get to it. I bought this beautiful table to put in the entry way.
I love it!

And then found these 2 tables for $10 for the pair so i replaced my big white bedside tables. It looks so much less cluttered!


I found the floor again in my office and am excited to go down there and work now. Which is good, because there are a lot of changes going on at work and I will be down there a lot!


Silas has been building lots of stuff to knock down with dominos and spending much less time on the games. He is a builder and will spend hours building just to knock it all down.


I've been doing a photo challenge called 100 Happy Days. 100 posts on random things that make me happy.

And Silas just woke up puking...to be continued :(

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When We Last Left Off...

Seems to have been awhile since I last posted!  Dang, time flies when you have to work for a living!

Since the camping and back to school updates, we've been busy getting back into a groove of school, getting up at 6am(ish), homework, packing lunches, paying  for schools fees, paying lunches, girl scouts, after school art and choir programs, homecoming coming up (Mason is actually going he says!), soccer...ya know.

First, running:  I've really been hurting and not running much.  I pulled my hamstring back in (Aug?) and it's been hurting since.  I've done a few fun runs and they have been fine.  I'm worried about the Half in October but know I can finish...but it may take awhile to recover.  I really want to finish it though because Alison will be at Mile 13 as a Children's Champion! It's very important for me to make it to the end AND still have enough strength and energy to hang out and have fun with her there!
In August, 12 of us girls did the Tap N Run and we were the Blue Mooners.  We had a TON of fun running in our tutus and buttocks!

Strides for Hope is the Ovarian Cancer run and has become one that I really enjoy running with my friend Heather, who lost her mom to ovarian cancer 2 years ago.  Our team is Carla's Rum Runners and the rum and coke toast after at 10:30am has nothing to do with why I run it!

We are back in the soccer groove too...this year is a little different.  Ella has gone up a league.  Justin is no longer coaching her.  She's playing for Coach Sam, who coached her indoor league.  It's been a bit of an adjustment but she is loving it!

 Daddy and toothless Si watching one of Ella's games.

Justin IS coaching Si's team again this year but he's the assistant.  It's been hard for him to give up a little control over "strategy" and how to coach the kids but it's been great because he's not doing the organizing for snacks, trophies, etc.

And this look on his face is one we see often.  I love it.

And for your amusement - go back and look at this post of Silas and his soccer arms/face :)



Oh, and I got my hair cut!!  First time in a LONG time that I've chopped it off...but it was time!!  I don't think I had my hair out of a ponytail in 2 years and I was sick of it.  This is quick and easy, I like that I can do something with it when I'm so inclined (like going to a concert!) but can still get it into a (albeit, the teeniest ever) ponytail!

Last weekend, Justin and I went to Put-in-Bay with 4 other couples.  MY FIRST TIME THERE!  We had so much fun!!
We got there on Friday, early evening.  Caught the Jet Express by the skin of our teeth at 5:45pm.

We milled around the island, had a little dinner and drinks and then chilled and got ready for our Saturday morning PIB 5K!  After a very soggy Friday night, we had incredible weather for the morning run.

 

Doug and his babes had a great run!

We spent the rest of Saturday watching the Buckeyes game and bar hopping.  We found a super fun band that night and got to dance and have a great time.

We're really looking forward to doing it again next year.

The last but definitely not least update is our progress on the house (a YOSP update the I've failed to do lately!).
So, one of the things that we really wanted was to convert the 1st floor laundry into a mudroom. Justin put a laundry area in the newly finished basement and that allowed for the laundry room by the kitchen to be turned into a mudroom.

It was a big project and the first portion (tear out and tiling the floor) went pretty smoothly.
Building the cubbies went fairly smoothly too.  The problem really started when trying to get the cubbies INTO the space.  That wasn't as smooth!

And then TA DA!  It all worked out and I have my mud room!!

It is such an awesome space.  The baskets at the bottom hold shoes, the ones above can be used for gloves, hats, etc. Papers will go in there, hooks for book bags, jackets, hats, umbrellas...
Top shelf holds lunch boxes and other odds and ends. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE!!


It's been a fun and productive month!  Much more to do in October!!

An Insight or Two

#1 - I am not a runner.  I ran today at the Y.  And just to make things clear; I ran and no one was chasing me with a machete. It makes me hurt. My knees, my hips.  But Justin and I are going to participate in the Warrior Dash in June and worse than the pain of my knees and hips hurting, would be the humiliation of falling on my face and being carried off the course by Justin or some other macho men.  So run and get into shape I must.

#2 - We are supreme packrats.  I started my day by spending 1.5 hours in Ella's room.  I made a small dent in the mess.  I bagged up clothes, toys, garbage (broken and missing part toys) and I am one of those people that has to push myself with each item not to say "well, we might need this if Mercury crosses Mars on the 10th day of the 8th month at 2:32 AM. Then what will we do?!".  After Ella's room I spent another 1.5 hours in the basement trying to make some headway with the 93 bags of kids clothes that we have down there.  All in all, I made good progress and it feels good to purge!!

 #3 - It takes me double the time to get "gussied up" now that I am in my 40s. Not sure if it's that my face really requires more work, or I just care more about how I look when it's time to make the effort.  Or maybe it's really just the fact that I usually lock myself in my room with a glass of wine when it's time to get ready to go out, which makes it more enticing to take longer...

 #4 - My husband can play the part of empathic when he needs to. I never let Justin forget that he once scored a (big fat ZERO) in Empathy on a personality test that he took in college.  ZIP.  NADA. NOTHING.  Today in all the cleaning, I about cut my finger off in the basement.  Even though that is something that he does at least twice a week on a job, he very kindly got a band-aid and wrapped it around my finger, cutting off the circulation and turning my finger purple.  But the blood stopped and he fed me an Advil and I felt better.  I think he should have scored at least a 2 on that test.

The Lists

Well, Christmas break is over...the kids are all tucked in bed, getting ready to head back to school. It went incredibly fast.  I could have used another week off, bickering and all.

I had 2 lists for break.  One was for stuff to do around the house - organizing, cleaning, etc. The other was stuff that I wanted to do with the kids. 

On the "fun" list was...

 1.  Make Christmas cookies

We made lots of cookies and a really BIG mess!

 

2. Go to see the Wildlights at the zoo.

 

The zoo lights were beautiful!  We went on a pretty cold night - it was about 20 degrees.  It started snowing when we were on our way there and by the time we got there, it was coming down pretty hard.  The kids started complaining because the snowflakes were pelting them in the eyeballs. It made the lights even more beautiful though.

 

Ella got very cold and about 45 minutes into being there, got a nasty earache. 

 

They did have fun riding on the Merry-Go-Round - it was warmer in there!

 

After that, we decided the weather was getting worse, everyone was cold and tired

and we headed home (making a pit stop to pick up some Caines Chicken).  It was REALLY snowing hard and difficult to see much on the road.  Warm pj's for everyone when we got home, and Motrin and a heating pad for Ella and her ear.

#3. The Main Library and the train display.

 

With the kids' school schedules/times all being different, it's hard to find a good time to get down to our awesome Main Library. 

 

We took Aunt Margie down there with us.

Saw the train display, the kids picked out a ton of books and played in the

Children's area - wow, has that changed since I worked down there.

Apparently you aren't supposed to take the book baskets out into the lobby area - 

the security dude jumped all over us about it.  If I want one badly enough, I'll have to steal it from Kroger instead...

Two things that did not get crossed off our list were Graeter's Ice cream  (lots of gift cards to spend but who wants to eat ice cream when it's 9 degrees out??) and the Franklin Park Conservatory.  Those will have to wait until we have a no school day or some weekend with available time.

On the NOT so fun list, I admit I got less than 1/2 of my items crossed off.  And my Christmas tree is still up until next weekend. But I feel like I spent a lot of time resting, spending time with friends and family (3 family birthdays, several family Christmas gatherings, a fun NYE party/birthday party and a Buckeye victory in the Rose Bowl!), had a lot of fun with the kids and the mess will still be there when I get to it.

One thing that Justin accomplished is getting my under the cabinet iPod radio mounted (a Christmas present for me).  Love having the free counter space!

 

What did not get done is cleaning up the kids' rooms, sorting though my piles of papers, taking the tree down (like I said), starting on the basement cleanup...all in due time.

*I do have a special request.  Over the holidays we found out that Justin's dad, Grandpa J, has cancer (lung). Please keep him and the family in your prayers.  I hope to update more later when we have more details. Until then, prayers and positive vibes are greatly appreciated!

Happy New Year-

May it be a blessed one for us all!

99 Piles of Junk...

99 piles of junk in my house, 99 piles of junk...sort one out, throw sh*t out...98 piles of junk in my house...

It is totally a never ending battle around here! Over the weekend I felt compelled to tackle the laundry room. The piles of junk in there had gotten out of control, making it difficult to actually DO laundry in the laundry room. There was an avalanche of junk threatening to fall on my head...



So, I pulled everything out of there, threw it all on the kitchen floor and started sorting and pitching. BAGS of candy left over from Easter and July 4th parade (tossed!), 5 purses from my various purse changes over the last year (or more...), stuff that needed dry cleaned, snacks, juices and pantry overflow, parts of Halloween costumes, on and on...

The problem is...this is the point in organizing projects that I tend to lose steam.
I see ALL this stuff scattered all over and I'm like "UGH, what have I done!?"

But I marched onward and continued sorting, tossing, sorting, tossing...sorting, tossing...

And then!

We now have a beautifully organized laundry room
that we can actually do laundry in!!

Justin worked on the hall closet the same day with similar results - feels good to have some semblance of organization in the house!

Hmmm, what can be next?

Looove my handyman

Last weekend we cleaned and cleaned and cleaned in our Master bedroom. It was a room that had just been ignored for too long - lots of clutter, clothes, junk. Not a room that I really wanted to be in unless it was dark and I was asleep.

One item in there was this white....thing...it had come with a tea candle infuser and oils, which is now used elsewhere in the room. I really liked this holder though, so Justin and I came up with the idea to make it into a jewelry box of sorts (I didn't have anyplace to hang my necklaces). I bought some eye hooks and he drilled them and and now I have a cute little place to put my necklaces and bracelets on my newly cleaned off dresser top!



The 2nd handy thing my lovely handyman (lovely and handyman don't quite go together...how about "hunky"?) did was put an organizer over the toilet. Much needed because Justin was really sick of looking at my "feminine products" scattered about and now they won't get barfed on again if Ella doesn't quite make the toilet. The little wood/silver thing on the left is the infuser that came out of the white jewelry box.

I'm excited to move on to another room of the house now...
like our front room. It needs a LOT of work!