But I am never quite sure if I have totally lost it or not. Sometimes, its quite apparent I have totally shut down. You can usually tell as I go from start raving looney to my nose in a book or a game (currently Edgeword). It's my sanity break and isn't quite understood by my husband or family. It generally happens when I begin to take on too many projects. Like how my sons are now in two different school which means double the volunteering. So instead of just doing one volunteer job for the 5k fun run this weekend, I now have 2 jobs on top of helping with the new school dedication and fundraiser distribution. On top of that I have a yard sale on Saturday, trying to still finish the server (still torn between paint colors), my son doesn't want to go to gymnastics or tutoring, homework, dinner.... you get the point.
When is enough, enough? In the past it has been easy for me to say No. I was 40 lbs heavier and totally not in the mood to deal with people when I didn't even like myself that much. Now I feel better (about 1 size from great, 2 from fantastic) and I know its time I paid my volunteering dues. The problem is that when I sign up to volunteer I'm thinking this is great and I can do it no problems, I seem to forget that everything adds up. On top of it, I never seem to remember to put it on the calendar so I can keep track of everything. The school is trying to help by going with a new program www.volunteerspot.com
Now the program is great. It helps the school keep track of how many volunteer spots they have and who has signed up for what. The main issue is that there is no way for this to get linked to my calendar. What happens is I end up volunteering for a couple of spots, not putting it on my calendar as I am on the computer, then forgetting about it until I get a reminder email right before the event. So I am thinking, until they fix this vital flaw, I should be able to get out of volunteering right?
Uh no, thanks Mom for the built in guilt monster. She did such a good job instilling guilt so I wouldn't do anything inappropriate, that I now feel guilty not doing things that I am capable of doing and helping out others. Life is sooo unfair at times. Sigh. What's a girl to do? What are you guys doing to keep track of whats happening in your busy lives?
October 12, 2011
October 6, 2011
Some times I am proud to be sneaky!
Face it, as a mom you have to be sneaky. How else can you get a child who doesn't like to eat veggies to eat them. Other than carrots, my boys don't like veggies. They must have inherited this from their father who does not eat anything green or nutritious. His mom tried, but facing a child who wouldn't eat she caved. I don't blame her.
I went to the grocery store yesterday and Barilla has come out with a new product line piccolini which are smaller versions of their regular pasta. I grabbed them up. Two of them have, gasp ,1 serving of vegetables in them. I asked my oldest, who is very much pickier than his father, if he would like to try the green wheel pasta or the red bow tie pasta. Even though there were other non colored pastas there he chose the rotelle (wheel for us regular people). Being 11 he reads quite well so I'm betting he didn't bother reading that is is made from vegetables.
Now I did not hid the label from him but I also didn't encourage it or tell him. So I'm torn between whether I should feel guilty or not. On a side note he ask for them again the next night. Score!!!
I went to the grocery store yesterday and Barilla has come out with a new product line piccolini which are smaller versions of their regular pasta. I grabbed them up. Two of them have, gasp ,1 serving of vegetables in them. I asked my oldest, who is very much pickier than his father, if he would like to try the green wheel pasta or the red bow tie pasta. Even though there were other non colored pastas there he chose the rotelle (wheel for us regular people). Being 11 he reads quite well so I'm betting he didn't bother reading that is is made from vegetables.
Now I did not hid the label from him but I also didn't encourage it or tell him. So I'm torn between whether I should feel guilty or not. On a side note he ask for them again the next night. Score!!!
September 29, 2011
Ok so I was wrong
The next post was to be about the steps for tiling a bathroom. However, being a woman, I changed my mind! I know how shocking . So my carpal tunnel kicked in (and my back kicked out a little) so I have taken a break from tiling. Now my break should have included doing things that don't require repetitious hand movements (duh). So what did I choose? Spray paint.
I know, I know I really should know better (and I do) but I often refuse to let it dictate what I can and can't do. So do you remember my oh yeah high five free find from a couple of weeks ago? That beautiful free broyhill console/server? I went back and forth on whether to strip it, sand it and stain it deep java brown or to lightly sand it and paint it. And the winner is (insert drum roll here)...
Paint! Now before wood purists freak out and come storm my house in protest. I actually prefer stained wood. With the traditional lines of this piece I felt it would fit in with my more modern theme if it was painted. It's amazing how paint can totally change the vibe you get from a piece of furniture. Now I originally thought to paint this a deep yummy plum, but the more I think about it a dark charcoal would rock it. It would give this traditional piece of furniture a modern edge.
Nothing could disguise the traditional doors of this piece other than buying/making new ones. Both of those options are beyond me. So along with the paint I am changing the knobs. I had thought about painting the original knobs a brushed nickel but the original style is waaay to traditional. Now a smart cookie would have gone ahead and filled in the holes and just drilled new ones when i found the perfect knobs, but I forgot (another shocker I know). So I have to find knobs that will fit these holes. I have seen some I really like however they cost more and I want to keep the price down since I had to buy spray primer.
Ahh the beauty of rustoleum professional spray primer. Normally I absolutely stink at spray painting. However I am now thinking it the cheap paint I have tried in the past. While not OMgosh expensive, it does cost more than the $2.00 cheap stuff from kmart that I have used on my Halloween fencing. It barely covered and ran like a pro marathoner. So now the I'm in another pickle. I had originally planned on moving the piece to where it will soon be placed permanently and just paint it there. This would free up my husband's parking spot, which he needs tomorrow, and would allow me to get an idea of what else the space needs. However, with how nice the spray paint covered, I'm wondering if I should spray paint it instead. So let's go over the pros and cons.
Brush/roller painting:
Pro: hubby would have his parking spot and the garage wont smell like spray paint.
Con: painting could show roller/brush marks and look home done. Take longer for the paint to cure.
Spray painting:
Pro: finish would look more professionally done with no brush marks. Will dry quickly.
Con: probably can't get out of the garage as I won't want to damage the paint. Moving it into the house will probably mean I scuff it somehow.
What's a girl to do? Any suggestions?
I know, I know I really should know better (and I do) but I often refuse to let it dictate what I can and can't do. So do you remember my oh yeah high five free find from a couple of weeks ago? That beautiful free broyhill console/server? I went back and forth on whether to strip it, sand it and stain it deep java brown or to lightly sand it and paint it. And the winner is (insert drum roll here)...
Paint! Now before wood purists freak out and come storm my house in protest. I actually prefer stained wood. With the traditional lines of this piece I felt it would fit in with my more modern theme if it was painted. It's amazing how paint can totally change the vibe you get from a piece of furniture. Now I originally thought to paint this a deep yummy plum, but the more I think about it a dark charcoal would rock it. It would give this traditional piece of furniture a modern edge.
Nothing could disguise the traditional doors of this piece other than buying/making new ones. Both of those options are beyond me. So along with the paint I am changing the knobs. I had thought about painting the original knobs a brushed nickel but the original style is waaay to traditional. Now a smart cookie would have gone ahead and filled in the holes and just drilled new ones when i found the perfect knobs, but I forgot (another shocker I know). So I have to find knobs that will fit these holes. I have seen some I really like however they cost more and I want to keep the price down since I had to buy spray primer.
Ahh the beauty of rustoleum professional spray primer. Normally I absolutely stink at spray painting. However I am now thinking it the cheap paint I have tried in the past. While not OMgosh expensive, it does cost more than the $2.00 cheap stuff from kmart that I have used on my Halloween fencing. It barely covered and ran like a pro marathoner. So now the I'm in another pickle. I had originally planned on moving the piece to where it will soon be placed permanently and just paint it there. This would free up my husband's parking spot, which he needs tomorrow, and would allow me to get an idea of what else the space needs. However, with how nice the spray paint covered, I'm wondering if I should spray paint it instead. So let's go over the pros and cons.
Brush/roller painting:
Pro: hubby would have his parking spot and the garage wont smell like spray paint.
Con: painting could show roller/brush marks and look home done. Take longer for the paint to cure.
Spray painting:
Pro: finish would look more professionally done with no brush marks. Will dry quickly.
Con: probably can't get out of the garage as I won't want to damage the paint. Moving it into the house will probably mean I scuff it somehow.
What's a girl to do? Any suggestions?
September 24, 2011
What to do when you are all cracked up
So my hubby walks up to me one day and tells me we have an ant infestation in the room the kids use as a playroom. He also tells me he sprayed the area down and the bathroom that my 2 beautiful boys have been using is a mess. So I'm thinking, eh it can't be that bad. OMGosh I was totally wrong. I need to remember the difference between women and men.
A woman would have come and and said it's nasty in there. Apparently men say it's a mess most likely in the hopes of having to avoid cleaning it themselves. Normally in our home who sees the mess cleans the mess. However, I have been uber lazy in the kitchen and not putting my dishes away etc. So I decided that I will clean the bathroom a week later. I just about died. Thank goodness no one but my kids use that bathroom. I put on gloves and my dust mask I use for sanding. More to protect myself from flying debris, well that and bleach.
I cleaned as much as I could until I finally had to get down on my knees and scrub. I already knew the grout was permanently stained but since I just regrouted my bathroom I wasn't too worried. Well I scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed some more. I could not get some odd gray marks off the tile. On closer inspection I realized why. The tiles were cracked!
I just about hit the roof when I suddenly realized there is no way on earth that my kids could have cracked this tile. (well there is but they don't get to play with the tools). Upon closer examination I realized that the tile was installed - gasp- incorrectly. I know what a shocker for a track home.
For those of you who may not know (and it used to be me) a track home is one of the massed produced homes going up rapidly all across America. So each team of workers goes from one home to another slapping everything together. I'm not going to blast the workers as I feel they have to rush through the job as the owners of the business and supervisors want quantity not quality. Well I want quality.
What I got instead are people who grouted the different plans of tile. Now you might ask why this is important and I'm going to give you a brief run down and a link to an excellent site with more info than you probably want to know. When you are tiling your floor you leave a minimum gap between the floor tile and the wall. This allows your floor to contract and expand with the weather/temperature. When you put up baseboard (whether it's tile or wood) you also leave a gap for the same reason. Now this gap is filled with caulk. The most easily screwed up and hated substance you need in a bathroom. If you go and push on caulk what does it do? It gives as it's resilient and pliable. This is so it will move as does the floor and baseboard. Now if you do something like, um grout it, you are putting cement in between 2 plans (surfaces) that move. So when u push on concrete does it move? Um, no it doesn't. So you might ask yourself what happens, well my bathroom happens. You end up with tiles that crack under the pressure. Not just one tile but 8! Two were because they decided to not cut the door trim high enough which means they didn't leave the proper gap and u guessed it 2 cracked tiles.
So at this point I'm thinking I don't want to spend money but I do need practice for my master bath. Practice for what? Demo and retiling! That's what. Thankfully my husband is willing to let me redo the bathroom. I'm planning on keeping the toilet, vanity and tub. All I need to do is take out the toilet (ewww), demo the tile floor and demo the shower walls. Now a sane person would just do the floor tiles and be done with it, but I never said I was sane. Plus with our house being 9 years old there are no matching tiles available. I also didn't want to have a different style tile in my shower than on the floor. So my husband agreed it had to get replaced (I told u he is a smart cookie).
Next up: Now that you know I can do this (and by default so can you) here is what u need to know.
A woman would have come and and said it's nasty in there. Apparently men say it's a mess most likely in the hopes of having to avoid cleaning it themselves. Normally in our home who sees the mess cleans the mess. However, I have been uber lazy in the kitchen and not putting my dishes away etc. So I decided that I will clean the bathroom a week later. I just about died. Thank goodness no one but my kids use that bathroom. I put on gloves and my dust mask I use for sanding. More to protect myself from flying debris, well that and bleach.
I cleaned as much as I could until I finally had to get down on my knees and scrub. I already knew the grout was permanently stained but since I just regrouted my bathroom I wasn't too worried. Well I scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed some more. I could not get some odd gray marks off the tile. On closer inspection I realized why. The tiles were cracked!
I just about hit the roof when I suddenly realized there is no way on earth that my kids could have cracked this tile. (well there is but they don't get to play with the tools). Upon closer examination I realized that the tile was installed - gasp- incorrectly. I know what a shocker for a track home.
For those of you who may not know (and it used to be me) a track home is one of the massed produced homes going up rapidly all across America. So each team of workers goes from one home to another slapping everything together. I'm not going to blast the workers as I feel they have to rush through the job as the owners of the business and supervisors want quantity not quality. Well I want quality.
What I got instead are people who grouted the different plans of tile. Now you might ask why this is important and I'm going to give you a brief run down and a link to an excellent site with more info than you probably want to know. When you are tiling your floor you leave a minimum gap between the floor tile and the wall. This allows your floor to contract and expand with the weather/temperature. When you put up baseboard (whether it's tile or wood) you also leave a gap for the same reason. Now this gap is filled with caulk. The most easily screwed up and hated substance you need in a bathroom. If you go and push on caulk what does it do? It gives as it's resilient and pliable. This is so it will move as does the floor and baseboard. Now if you do something like, um grout it, you are putting cement in between 2 plans (surfaces) that move. So when u push on concrete does it move? Um, no it doesn't. So you might ask yourself what happens, well my bathroom happens. You end up with tiles that crack under the pressure. Not just one tile but 8! Two were because they decided to not cut the door trim high enough which means they didn't leave the proper gap and u guessed it 2 cracked tiles.
So at this point I'm thinking I don't want to spend money but I do need practice for my master bath. Practice for what? Demo and retiling! That's what. Thankfully my husband is willing to let me redo the bathroom. I'm planning on keeping the toilet, vanity and tub. All I need to do is take out the toilet (ewww), demo the tile floor and demo the shower walls. Now a sane person would just do the floor tiles and be done with it, but I never said I was sane. Plus with our house being 9 years old there are no matching tiles available. I also didn't want to have a different style tile in my shower than on the floor. So my husband agreed it had to get replaced (I told u he is a smart cookie).
Next up: Now that you know I can do this (and by default so can you) here is what u need to know.
September 12, 2011
You know ya gotta clean when...
You can't find your spray paint. How can you lose 4 cans of spray paint! I don't know how I managed it but I did it. I figured I would make my husband happy after yesterday's fabulous furniture find (FFF) and actually complete a project that's been sitting waiting for me since March. Now what will really make him happy is that since I can't find my spray paint (bought full cans in the perfect colors at the local restore for $1.00 each) I now will have to, shudder, clean the garage.
Now I don't mind cleaning out the garage but I don't like to clean it up. What's the difference you might ask? Well cleaning out the garage means having a yardsale and making some 'my husband doesn't get to use it' money. The sweetest kind of money next to found money (putting on a jacket you haven't worn in 2 years and there is a $20 I'm the pocket).
It's the time of the year when all money goes to buying Christmas gifts. While I love finding the perfect gift (especially under budget) I prefer to play with my yardsale money and I'm starting to feel a bit blue about it, but then again it is Monday. Is there something that makes you stop what your doing and clean? If your as fond of found money/yard sale money as I am, what do you like to spend it on?
Now I don't mind cleaning out the garage but I don't like to clean it up. What's the difference you might ask? Well cleaning out the garage means having a yardsale and making some 'my husband doesn't get to use it' money. The sweetest kind of money next to found money (putting on a jacket you haven't worn in 2 years and there is a $20 I'm the pocket).
It's the time of the year when all money goes to buying Christmas gifts. While I love finding the perfect gift (especially under budget) I prefer to play with my yardsale money and I'm starting to feel a bit blue about it, but then again it is Monday. Is there something that makes you stop what your doing and clean? If your as fond of found money/yard sale money as I am, what do you like to spend it on?
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