The moving gods are funny

I don't specifically remember the moving gods while studying Greek mythology in high school. But surely they exist, right? How else can the nightmare of moving be explained? The moving gods and I, however, do not share the same sense of humor.

We are 90% moved out of our old house. All furniture moved, all that remains is the garage, attic, barn and miscellaneous annoying crap in the closets. Our house has not sold...which is ideal at the moment so we can move at a leisurely pace. But, Dear Lord, we are about done moving so please send that buyer now!


*I can never find an extension cord when I need it, for example Christmas. Whilst moving, I have found no fewer than 627 extension cords.

* Cleaning supplies and old towels (being saved for messy cleanups, dog bathing... you know the ones) multiply like rabbits.

*I have not had our mail forwarded yet (yes, we still pick it up about once a week when we are there moving stuff). The only address I have gone online to officially change is ....People Magazine. Priorities.

*A/C in old house went out. While we were packing stuff and it was Africa hot outside. Pleasant. The up side was that when we listed our house with the realtor, we purchased the home warranty to entice buyers. Thankfully that warranty goes into affect at the time you list. So the new fan motor for the A/C only cost us a $60 service call.

*The garage refrigerator went out after we moved it. Not a necessity by any stretch, since it just holds the overflow...and well, beer, which IS a necessity when moving while it is Africa hot outside. I digress. The garage refrigerator still had a lot of Pedro in it. Did I mention we moved the fridge last Sunday and realized it was not working....8 days later. Nice. Hubs and his buddy loaded the fridge onto the trailer by scooping it up in the bucket of the tractor, which may or may not have had something to do with why it is not working now....I'm just sayin'. Redneck moving may not always be the best method.

* I celebrated moving/unloading/organizing the entire kitchen in the new house, by actually cooking dinner and making a cake for dessert. Only to have the kitchen sink stop up. Hubs could not make it budge, so the whole nasty mess of dishes had to sit out until the plumber came the next day.

*A huge tree limb on a tree in our backyard came crashing down from a large gust of wind. Didn't land on anything luckily, just another untimely check mark on the the to-do list.

* The swimming pool a.k.a. science experiment gone awry is about to be the death of me. We bought this house with a nice new shiny year old saltwater pool. I was a little leery of having a swimming pool....I mean you have heard pool owners complain of the upkeep. However, "they" say saltwater is very low maintenance. Take my word on this dear readers, just join your neighborhood pool. Never, ever, never get a pool in your backyard. I think we have made it full circle in the learning curve of the chemicals...to the tune of about $500 in the past month. Now the sand filter went haywire, spewing sand into the pool. Not to mention, not properly filtering the water at that time. The pool was green so we could not see the bottom of the pool much less sand on the bottom. Hubs read about the sand filter on the internet, disassembled it and now it needs more sand. Did I meantion we live in a town of 10,000....no pool store readily available. Then the automatic crawler vacuum thing wasn't sinking to the bottom of the pool. More internet reading and hubs determines that sand effects the vacuum. We might have to buy a manual pool vacuum to get rid of the sand. The pool brings new meaning to the term money pit.

All of this to say...a few more days of this and the pool is going to be filled with dirt and my hair will be completely gray. In the mean time...we are enjoying the pea green swamp. Someday I am sure I will love the pool....maybe.

On a much more entertaining note....One of our barns has a little potty room in it. I opened the door yesterday and was very disappointed to see that someone had made a mess and been wasting toilet paper. For shame.

However there was no human being for me to scold...Dang mice.

Incidentally, our house cats now reside in this barn. Don't be alarmed, it is insulated and perfectly suited for large amounts of cat hair, hairballs and litter boxes. Anyway, justice was served as there was a mouse carcass on the floor with a perfectly content cat licking his paws nearby. Don't chew my Charmin.

In amongst all the weariness and headaches of moving...we are enjoying our new digs. On Father's Day evening we took a ride around in the Gator. Well hubs and I were in the Gator, blonde rascal chose his own means of transportation....
That is until we came across this......in all my excitement at seeing this I didn't take time to focus very well....Yep, it's a bobcat. Totally cool. It was at this point though that blonde rascal ditched his dirt bike and hoped in the back of the Gator with us!

Here is a little tour....
The road leading up to our property is a little hilly. I am looking forward to running that...when I regain my running mojo which the act of moving has temporarily robbed me of. Not to mention, where are my running shoes?

The rugged open landscape is calming.
Our property is, as is our entire neck of the woods, surrounded by these wind energy turbines.

Interesting.......old and new wind power, side by side.

That is all for now friends....I am off to unpack something or study the extra large, in ground petri dish in our backyard. Sigh.

Bye-bye plain mirrors

The hall bathroom in the "new" house is a great size but it needed a little refreshing you might say. It has mainly been cosmetic updates, which I will show sooner or later. The one thing that I knew had to happen was this. Rhoda at Southern Hospitality is brilliant.

I followed her instructions and just like she said, it was easy peasy.

Here is the before...still in the midst of a renovation mess, just overlook it please!

And after framing the ginormous mirrors....It is shocking to me the difference it made, I keep walking in there looking at it.

The mirrors are really big so it would have been expensive to replace them not to mention a pain to get them down. I needed 5 eight ft. pieces of that fake wood molding stuff. I think they were $8 a piece. So for $40 I got a totally updated look!

A better method

...or more self discipline to organize the photos I download from my camera as I download them, either way I have to do something. That is why I have not posted many "new" house pictures cuz I am tired and lazy and don't want to hunt through them all!!

I started out using iPhoto cuz it is easy (duh) and then when I got my Canon precious love, then I decided to use the Canon software....which goes without saying is much harder (duh) than a foolproof Mac product. I had grandiose ideas of mastering the editing capabilities of the Canon software thereby becoming a stellar picture taker/photo editor. I have thrown in the towel and gone back to iPhoto, so from here on out it is smooth sailing in the picture organizing dept.

On that note, the note of how I am a Mac girl until the day I die, we had the satellite hooked up last week at the "new" house for the Internet. The nice installer man said that we would have to call him when we brought our laptops to the house cuz he'd have to walk us through the blahblahblah of getting our computers set for the blahblahblah and the wireless router blahblahblah. (I am a computer moron which is exactly why I have a Mac) Anyway I thought yah we'll see about that. I took my Mac baby to the house, turned it on and was connected to the Internet all by its little self like magic. Or should I say like Mac.

Next time you are in the market for a computer, do yourself a favor and RUN from those PC's. Trust me.

Why, besides the fact that I adore Mac, am I babbling about this? Because I am tired and I keep using "cuz" and blogging at night is a bad idea for me because I turn into a pumpkin at about 8:30pm. Just ask my pesky brother-in-law Mark. He thinks I am a complete dork, for many reasons no doubt, but mainly because I go to bed early. He can go for days w/o sleeping. I think he is a robot.

There I go babbling again.

We were at the "new" house again last weekend and I am proud to say I am DONE painting walls. Praise God from whom all blessings flow. I will never paint again. I hope we like Tobacco Road for the rest of our lives. All that remains is baseboards in the master bathroom and touch ups.

That does not include spray painting various and sundry re-purposing ventures. Bring that on baby!

On an equally exciting note, there was nary a sign of a scorpion, dead or alive, this weekend. Amen.

I'll shut up now and show you 2 before and "almost" after pictures....

Here is the before , which was taken right before we closed.

And the almost after....
Hard to tell a whole lot because it is a total in the midst of remodeling pig sty. Now that the painting ordeal is winding down I will have time to organize and primp. Anyway, the big difference being the floor, counter tops and back splash. Well...that and the light fixture and sink/faucet and after all was said and done we decided that white appliances were not cutting it with the new updated look. So, stainless are being delivered Friday. Oy.

Next we have looking at part of the living room, dining room, kitchen...Notice the stark white walls, tile in dining room/ wood in living and the doorway next to the kitchen cabinets. That doorway went directly into the master.

And almost after....New laminate floor that I am hoping after I mop it 10 or 12 times all of the construction/moving dust will come up! Crown molding added, yes I painted that, and the lovely Tobacco Road on the walls. Nice. Notice where the ladder is, there is no longer a doorway. We moved the entrance to the back hallway in order to have a true isolated master.
Yep, that is the back of the old oven sitting in the dining room. And that is our new sectional that is totally "family movie night/napping/curling up with a good book/conversing" worthy and I can't WAIT to park my big butt on it for a few hours sometime soon!

OK that is all for now. I. Must. Sleep.

Tobacco Road is the bomb.

Any fan of The Nester knows that she claims that Tobacco Road is the end all do all wall paint color. I wanted a warm, cozy, draw you in color. Not khaki or tan, been there done that...but more of a golden brown. I decided to trust Nester and use T.R. for the majority of our house.


Here is the living room when we bought the house.

OK, but the red accent and with stark white walls is too severe. The brown brick is just blah.


Fast forward to some crown molding added, the ceiling painted a fresh white, the mantle painted white and the glorious Tobacco Road....Tobacco Road blends perfectly with the brick....totally changing the look. Brilliant paint color, I tell you! Please note that this picture is mid-way through the project. That is just primer on the molding, second coats, cutting in, etc... are still on the 67 page to-do list.

Hubs loves the color. He was delighted. I think he holds his breath when I decide to paint. He was beyond pleased with Tobacco Road....could not stop staring at it and declaring how perfect it was for the house. (T.R. is a Duron color, but we don't have a Duron store within 500 miles of us...so I used the Lowe's version that the Nester gives.)

In case you were wondering, Missy approves too. She got a smudge of T.R. on her bootie (I told you she would) and thinks it looks fabulous with her chocolate coat.


I am working on a "before and during" house tour....it's coming I promise!

No pain, no gain

That is the back of hub's pickup loaded up with 14 gallons of various paints. I am leaving in the morning for Snyder to submerge myself in a 4 day paint-a-thon at our "new" house. Hubs is going to be Mr. Mom for a few days. He and the blonde rascal will drive down Saturday morning, which is when hubs is going to install the laminate floor in the bathroom.

I am taking my trusty assistant along with me...
Determining just exactly how helpful she will be is a total crap shoot.
90% of the time she is afflicted with severe ADHD.
So while it is doubtful that she will help me paint...
....I can guarantee she will inevitably get paint ON her.
I won't have internet over the weekend, but I will be documenting the whole ordeal with my camera. So tune in next week for the play by play...assuming I am not still high from paint fumes... or in traction.

Based on the pictures I have just downloaded from the past week, here is the long story short since my last post....

If you will recall hubs was out of town last week, Friday night b.r. spent the night with a friend so I rented "Nights in Rodanthe" during which I surprisingly stayed awake. Incidentally, it was not the best movie ever made.

The next morning I was calmly drinking my coffee in the glorious lazy silence, when all of a sudden Missy starts barking. I glance up looking out the front window and what do I see.......none other than these chumps in our front yard. It is Murphy's Law that they get out when hub's is out of town. I called my kind next door neighbor, and he came to my rescue.

Here is how God rewards me (That is how I prefer to imagine it anyway...He is happy I am taking care of my ticker, right?) for getting up at 6am to run on the treadmill....
...this is the view right in front of me as I step off the treadmill at the end of my run. That's good stuff.

There was also a major master bedroom closet clean out....but I only have before pictures because the afters can't be taken until hub's tackles HIS side of the closet. I know you hate that you can't see that. Maybe someday soon children.

Keep your fingers crossed for me this weekend. I hope to put a huge dent in the painting project...but come about Friday night I might drink beer for hours while sitting on the porch I fear I might fall into bed and sleep for 16 hours from exhaustion.

Budget Smudget

I painted the kitchen/dining room/living room ceiling at our "new" house on Sunday. The ceiling starts at 8ft. and slants up to probably 13 ft. or so. (I assigned myself the position of chief painter after the contractor told me what he estimated it would cost to have the inside of the house painted.)

Midway through the ceiling painting torture, in a weak moment, I informed hubs that I was through saving money.

(Remember hubs had rotator cuff surgery in Oct. so assisting in painting is out for him! In his defense, he did kindly offer to hire painters to save my fragile little self. Yet, I firmly & perhaps ignorantly remain cheap and determined when it comes to saving money.)

The trauma of schlepping the 12 ft. extension pole for the paint roller, wearing a shower cap and goggles (it's a popcorn ceiling...messy painting), hyper extending my neck and shoulders for 8 hours and the blisters on my hands...really, it was not fun.

However. It looks fabulous! It is amazing how a fresh coat of white ceiling paint brightens up the place.

It is all a distant memory as I have regained most of the movement back in my neck and I will bravely paint the walls of the house now. WALLS, not ceilings.

The good news is that The Marine was in town for the weekend and we had the strapping young man rip up the rest of the tile. He is used to physical torture by now.

On a different note, blonde rascal didn't have school Monday so we went to see "Hotel for Dogs"....totally cute. I even teared up at one point.

My mission this week is packing up excess clutter and "staging" the house for showing. Clutter....where does it come from and why do I have it?

By a landslide

It is unanimous...Tobacco Road is the winner! Thanks for all of your input and tips. You guys rawk.

Yesterday I spent the day cleaning out/packing the built in, in the breakfast area and the hutch in my dining room. Good grief. What I found was mass disorganization. So I made copious notes of things that must be grouped together when we move and ALL storage is uber organized.

For example. Candles. What the crap? I found at the very least one candle in every drawer, shelf, cabinet. Then there was holiday paper plates/napkins. I am a sucker for the after holiday 90% off sales when you can get cute paper plates for nothing. But what good are they if I never know where they are/forget I have them when the holiday rolls around?

Also included are salt and pepper shakers. And a new category, pool side plastic ware. A happy category indeed! I saw a whole collection of colorful summer-ish plastic plates at Goodwill...that will hopefully still be there after I scrape all of the coins out from under the couch cushions. Remember, we are getting granite, so my decorating budget is...exactly what I can find in the cushions!!!

While I was dutifully working, I couldn't help but stop to photograph the lazy miniature weenie dog napping on blonde rascal's bean bag...
What a life. I loathe using the flash unless 100% necessary, so I am still trying to master keeping the camera steady to avoid blur. I have a nifty tripod...but sometimes that hinders spur of the moment shots.

Then I decided to switch to my ultra cool big momma lens...Admit it, Missy is beeeeeeutiful! Still a little blurry so how about outside for some natural light shots?


Oh geez, sorry....a bathroom break.

Ahem. Moving on.... she goes down for a roll in the grass.
ahhhhh.
Shake your booty.

And then here she comes.......looking like a low rider wooly mammoth!


Last night hubs and I went to a wine tasting party at the home of some good friends. It was seriously fun. We sampled lots of wine while snacking on cheese, chocolate, meat and fruits that complemented each wine.

I was feeling all civilized, cultured and chic...until hubs asked the wine guru if Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill would be complimented by Frito's. You might be a redneck...

(Be honest, raise your hand if you drank a little Boone's Farm in your minor days!)

We are going to the "new" house today to tear out all the flooring which will be replaced (by professionals thank goodness) with wood floors. You know, a little sweat equity. I suspect our bodies, specifically backs, will be hurt by this project. Send Tylenol.

It's mind boggling, really.

My advice to you today is don't ever paint a room in your house again without first buying a few, hundred, samples. You know how the light in a room changes from sun up to sun down, so you have to live with you color choices for a few days to see how you like it in all light exposures. But who wants to spend $18 on a gallon of paint that you may hate AND goodness knows the little paint cards are honestly no help at all.

There is obviously a brilliant woman (no doubt) somewhere who said... hey make a pint size sample that costs $3.50!

This is a wall in the living room of our "new " house...and no I am not keeping the red accent wall. I think I have narrowed it down to 2.
I am looking for a warm buttery/tan color. When I turn the lamps on at night, my dream is for the wall color to softly glow in a wonderfully cozy way! One is Tobacco Road, which The Nester (and she knows, trust me) swears by. Then we have Cracker Crumb from The Queen Bee...by all means go visit her, she shares some way cool budget friendly decorating!

I think C.C. may be a hint too yellow. I dunno. What do you think?

Saving a buck where I can

We are very aware right now of how granite can break the bank faster than you can say "formica sucks"...

So I am aiming to save in every area that I can when it comes to our new house.

When we bought our current house 3.5 years ago we upgraded from a queen to a king bed. Praise God. A king size bed is the ultimate indulgence.

That of course required new bedding. Buying new bedding sounds fun...until you actually have to do it. I could never find anything I loved. Well, most likely what I loved was $1,200 and I don't ever in my lifetime see that being in the bedding budget!!! Anyway I found one at Target that I could live with.
Our "new" bedroom is small and I think our dark bedding will shrink the room even more.

Here is my inspiration room in my quest for new affordable bedding ...
Step #1 I found a creamy matelasse bedspread, like in the picture, on Craigslist for $25. Yep $25 and yep I bought it! Bedspread AND shams...$25. Sweet.

Step #2 I found a Ralph Lauren bedding line, "Charlotte", which I adore.Being RL makes it very unattainable in the budget area....UNLESS it is a discontinued line!! Which translates to EBAY! Woo hoo! It found it readily available on Ebay...sheet sets, new in the package, that I will make into a quilt to put at the foot of the bed like in my inspiration room.

Step #3 is that I can use some of the curtains that were left behind in the house, and embellish them with the RL sheets.

Don't you love it when a plan comes together in an affordable way?

Work day #1

I like that title because it sounds like an episode of HGTV.

We camped out at our little new house on Saturday night. We mostly piddled around and talked about all the different things we wanted to do to the house. I of course dreamed of decorating and arranging furniture!

We have a contractor hired to do a teeny tiny add on of a master closet, enlarge the master bathroom, some trim work and new counter tops. We are trying to tackle any & all work that we can possibly do ourselves and avoid paying the contractor to do it!

Like for instance, I have been crowned the official painter. No sense paying someone to paint when God gave me 2 good arms. No doubt, the quality of my painting skills is questionable and level of soreness in my arms will be the topic of many posts to come. I digress.


Work day #1 was demolition. The first item up for the do-it-yourself wrecking ball was the spindle opening in the entry way.
See it over there? Very circa 1986. It was a great year for my hair but not so much for spindles. This is the only picture I have of the spindles and it was while the former owners were still living there. Also a great shot of the white formica....I said almond before. People with kids....or husbands.... do not need a white surface anywhere in the kitchen.

Anyway hubs ripped out the spindles, in a very manly fashion I might mention. That is going to be a solid wall.

Also, in most likely another regrettable 1986 decision, there was cedar planks on one wall of both the guest bath and one bedroom.
(Blonde rascal worked very hard to be in every picture I took that day. After viewing all of the pictures, I can assure you he succeeded!)

We ripped the planks right off the wall along with the cedar baseboards, door & window trim. Hubs thought (hoped) that the wall behind the cedar was in fact a finished textured wall, that is until we removed the first plank. Luckily it will all even out...we saved on demolition but we will pay for texturing the walls and new trim. BUT then factor in me painting the said trim and walls. Oh yeah baby we are firmly in the black.

Yesterday "the breakfast club" which consists of myself, sweet Mary and nutty Lori/Jen A. took a road trip. We have started getting together for breakfast every other Monday. Yesterday "the club" decided to drive to Snyder so they could see the house. It was a raucous good time, as all road trips should be, with lots of small town entertainment like a visit to a deathtrap, dusty, smoky junktique store. I would go into detail, but if you want to know more you'll just have to go on a road trip with me to Snyder and experience it for yourself.

I wonder if they will get suspicious if I suggest another road trip in the near future and suggest they wear some painting clothes?

It is like 18 degrees right now and all gray & icy. We hoped (and prayed at bedtime last night!) for no school or at least a delay...no such luck. I am about to leave to go do my weekly volunteering at the school library. Which I normally love, an hour of handling wonderful children's books... puhhhleezze what is not to love about that? But on a day like today I would prefer to stay snuggled up inside as long as possible. Oh well the understaffed and underpaid public school system needs me! We will be coming home right after school and get a fire going in the fireplace.

Stay warm friends!

Vomit

We are going to replace the kitchen counter tops in our "new" house. Today we went shopping with the contractor. Ouch. I'm pretty sure purchasing a granite quarry in Brazil would turn out to be an ace business venture. Someone is BANKING off of that racket.

Lordamercy...our kitchen is not big at all and it still amounts to a lahhhrge chunk of change. Perhaps I will begin a plasma donation schedule tomorrow or start picking up aluminum cans. Standing on the corner by the liquor store holding a sign "will work for granite" perhaps? Or there is always the hope that maybe almond color Formica will make a comeback real soon and we could just leave the kitchen as is. After all, they say styles are cyclical.

On the up side....it shore is gunna be purdy!!!

Home

I have an obsession with houses. I love to look at other people's houses. Old, new, big, small it matters not. Driving through neighborhoods when it is dark and going by a house with the lights on and blinds open, love it. Not for any freaky voyeur reasons...but because I love to see how they have decorated...is it cozy, sterile, too modern, too outdated? Going to someones house that I have never been to...love it! Sometimes if insomnia hits at 2am, I lay in bed and think about how I would decorate a house I have been in.

I love all "home" magazines, not because I aspire to have the latest decor, but more because I like to gather ideas. I even love looking at houses for sale online like on Coldwell Banker or whatever...the still lived in houses, not the already vacant ones. And blogs...oh have mercy that is why I spend waaaaaayyy to many hours blogging....I get to see inside houses! Oh bliss.

Maybe I should join a 12 step program?

My dream career would be that of a realtor. They get to see houses for a living!

On Thursday hubs and I will own the 3rd house in our 14 years of marriage.

When we got married we lived in an apartment for the first almost 3 years. Hubs wanted a little piece of land so he could keep his horse there. We searched and searched to find one in our budget. Our budget was...small! Hubs was a police officer and we knew we didn't want to buy including my salary because our goal was for me to stay home after babies.

So we found a little fixer upper on an acre. I would show you a picture but that was before digital and I am too lazy to scan right now! It was a little 1700 sq. ft. house with a basement. It was really cute, all stone on the outside. When we bought it, it was horrible on the inside. In need of updating and rather dirty. But we could afford it, so we worked our fingers to the bone cleaning and doing all of the cosmetic updates ourselves. The only thing we hired out was getting new carpet installed.

We made do with what we had, hand me down furniture, my couch from college and a wealth of frugal decorating ideas from my beloved magazines! And it turned into a warm, inviting, cozy home.

We lived there for 7 years. By then the Marine was in the teenage years, blonde rascal was 5, the street we lived on was going down hill, the school district was not the best, we knew any further improvements on the house would not be recouped in a sale...so we decided to move.

Hubs had retired from the P.D. at that point and gotten his job in the auto resale field so finances were not quite as tight and we made a pretty good profit on the sale of our little stone house. We found our 2,400 sq. ft. house that was only 2 years old. We loved everything about it. Hubs loved that it was on 10 acres & had a roping arena. I appreciated that it was his "country" living but it was still a neighborhood, so I could borrow a cup of flour when needed!

That fact that it was relatively new was great. Everything is fresh and current...but I never could get that cozy feeling that I love. I have told hubs that while our house is nice, it just isn't me.

I miss something about our old small house. Was it because that was our "first" house as a married couple? Was it because that is the house we lived in when we brought blonde rascal home from the hospital? I am sure those both have a lot to do with it, but I think it was because it was lived in and quaint!

The plain truth is that I am an old house person. Granted wherever I live will always be "home" because the people I love live there with me. However, my preference would be to own an older house. It doesn't sound right when I say that I don't like our house because it is very nice and we are certainly blessed to have it...but it is just not me!

The way I see it now, after having owned both an older and a newer house, is that a new house with all the bells and whistles dictates how you will decorate. Whereas an old house that you have to paint and primp...takes on your own very unique thumbprint. Our current house with columns and arches and curved ceilings, trendy paint techniques, high ceilings... has led to a more stuffy feel. New homes have beauty & style and older homes have charm. Sign me up for charm.

(This is all MY opinion of course....love the house YOU are in for your own reasons!)

We would have stayed in our current house forever, and I was fine with that, had our life plan not changed a little!

So tomorrow we will own our 3rd house. A 2,000 sq. ft. house built in the early 80's. We have to give it some paint, love and TLC....but then it will be "us". My goal is to have the house be warm, cozy, a little quirky, charming and welcoming. I have no doubt that we will achieve that and I am very excited about it.

We have been to see it 4 or 5 times and every time we go, you know what it feels like? A vacation. Not a fancy 5 star resort (there is NOTHING fancy about it I can assure you!) but more like renting a cabin in the woods type vacation. A get up and watch the sun rise with a quilt and coffee on the porch type vacation. Or watch deer from the porch at dusk. BBQs on warm summer nights. Swimming, exploring, entertaining friends. And then best of all ending up back in the small cabin, snug as a bug, with my family.

I honestly can't wait for my old, small, quirky, charming house!

What about you? What do you love about your house? Are you an old or a new house person?

"I'm going off the rails on a crazy train"

Sing it Ozzy. Hey, don’t judge...he makes me giggle, the old brain fried coot.

It’s a new year and my thoughts are all willie nillie. I need to be going in many directions all at once...but need some kind of a plan.

It’s a new year and should I be spouting resolutions I ask? Aw heck no. I don’t believe in a list of resolutions that get acted on for a month and then turn into a miserable failure. Who has time for that?

I do resolve to do whatever it is I need to do improve myself. No stringent rigid changes just a few areas I am working on improving. SUCH as....

1. Eat more fresh fruits & raw veggies, grains, etc... Admittedly too much processed food is going to kill us all, right?

2. Work on my running schedule. From about Thanksgiving on, through the great strep epidemic of 08 and on into the Christmas holidays my running was sporadic at best. I bought a new pair of bouncy Shox yesterday...and splurged a little on the Nike chip thing that goes in the shoe and corresponds with your ipod...it gives you your pace, mileage, calories, power songs that kick on when you start sucking wind, computer tracking of your workouts, competing against other Nike+ users all over the world. Way soooo cool. I am ready to resume some now high tech running! Those Apple folks are brilliant. Love them forever.

Even though I adore my early morning first thing runs, ("my runs", not to be confused with "the runs") if I don’t get up exactly as early as planned then my workout length is just not adequate. So I am going to start alternating those shorter run days, with longer run days happening after blonde rascal leaves for school. And then also try to change it up and run outside a day or two weather permitting. Varying your distance builds good lung capacity. I love me some good lungs.

3. Time management. Can I get an amen? The main thing is that I want from the time I pick up blonde rascal at school until he goes to bed to be family time, instead of a time where we squeeze in homework while I hurriedly do the things I did not finish earlier in the day! I feel like my “coffee-start the day-read a few blogs-loaf around" morning routine is taking WAY too much of my time, so I am going to limit that. Which will then allow me to accomplish more before blonde rascal gets home!

I gave this a trial run yesterday after school. I let blonde rascal play the Wii for 30 minutes, after a day at school he does need a little down time for crying out loud. Then he worked hard on homework, he cleaned his room, he played outside while I made dinner, he showered and we leisurely read 2 library books...all with time to spare. I laid in his bed after the books and we chatted & giggled.....unlike so many nights where it is past his bed time when he is finally getting into bed and I am cranky!

It was so much more enjoyable (and productive) this way. By the way we read this book which was adorable. I will be buying it for my already too large childrensbooksthatIadoreandwillnevergetridof collection.

The large time consuming event of 2009 will be us moving! That is my big news that has been lingering around my blog. Life changing events here. I didn't really want to waste my time blogging about it until it was 100% for sure. Now it is, so here goes....

We are moving to Snyder (technically about 5 miles outside the city limit in the middle of nowhere) which is 90 miles south of Lubbock where we now live. Hubs is jumping into self employment and starting a small retail used car lot. He has been in the dealers only wholesale auto auction business for the past 4 years, which he has excelled at tremendously. Car trading has always been in his blood and for our entire married life I have said he needed to be in the car business, even while he was a police officer.

So this is big, huge, life changing and crazy. Bad economy you ask? It has not affected used car sales much, at least not in our neck of the world. Everyone needs/wants a car and no one can buy new...you do the math.

All of that aside, the man I married is a hard worker (too hard most of the time!), he accepts nothing less than success, is driven like no other and is very resourceful. This has been brewing for a long time with much research and homework done by hubs. We have prayed and prayed for guidance and wisdom over this decision and all doors have been opened....so we are going forward with confidence!

We close on our house in Snyder next Thursday but will stay in Lubbock until school is out in May. So there is where all of my scatter brained chaotic thoughts are centering... Packing, cleaning out, organizing, what to do with the boxes of x-mas decorations still lingering...

The up side is that the new house has 2 huge ginormous barns just waiting for us to junk up!So that means come next Thursday I will be able to pack crap up and store it in the barns at the new house.

I would rather take a hot poker to the eye than deal with the moving process. Have my toenails ripped off one by one...

The saving grace obviously being that we do have a long time to move. So we can slowly pack it all up and then we will hire movers for the furniture.

On to more exciting things like the house!!! It is not new actually, built in 1984 or something. It is just a simple small ranch house...but I am in love.

More on the house tomorrow.....or more like for the next 6 months!! We will be doing some small renovations and cosmetic stuff to the house. Blog fodder galore. That, combined with the fact that Snyder’s population is 10,000 will have blog worthy nonsense FLOWing out of me like a river!

So if home improvement is not your cup of tea and you could potentially be bored by the foolishness that a big city girl moving to a small town can provide...then you better not stick around.

I will leave you with a hint of why I love our "new" old house...



This will be my quilting room/cottage/sweat shop/place where I will spend all my time...WOOHOO! The current owner is a hair stylist, I guess her clients drive out to the middle of nowhere and get their hair cut. Here is the inside as her little hair salon...
Dreamy. Yep it even has a bathroom. And look what it overlooks in the backyard...

...that would be the pool! We were with the Realtor while I was rapidly taking pictures, so my pictures are not so hot.

(I envision it like this....I will be sewing away in my sewing cottage probably sipping a margarita some cold ice tea, with the door open while gazing at the pool boy cleaning the pool watching blonde rascal and friends swim.)

When I get tired of the sewing cottage then there is the little sweet front porch where I will be spending lots of time.

It looks out over the front and driveway...
When I get tired of lounging and loafing on the front porch I will just move to the back porch...
...which overlooks the pool and barns and my little quilt cottage!

Hubs went and looked at the house before I did. He knew in a heartbeat that the cottage would get me and if that failed then the porches would do it. He was right, I was sold!

I am off now to make no less than 46 lists of all the tasks that need to get put into motion on this crazy train!