I neeeeeed to blog!

Remember my post about our computer and the creeper who fixed it? Well, he didn't fix it and it officially crashed about a week after I wrote that blog. J felt sorry for me, trying to do everything I needed a real computer for on my phone and we decided the least expensive route would be for me to have a tablet, which would, in theory, get me to his home-arrival date. We have a brand new laptop, it just happens to be with him. In Afghanistan. Probably in a foot locker. Where I can't use it. I'm still not positive how that came to pass. The one we had was dying when he left {{hence, the new one}} and I'm not exactly sure how the new one went to Afghanistan and the old one stayed home to die here {{no TAPS for a laptop, huh?}}.

Anyway, for about a month I made due with the tablet and my phone. Both of which I could have typed a blog on, but niether are entirely comfortable for long winded post-typing and also {{an more importantly}} we didn't really have anything exciting going on. Our days come and go with Groundhog Day-esque monotony, broken only by random appointments and pay day errands. Fully narrated {{for your viewing pleasure}}, not by Bill Murray, but by the awesome observations of an almost three year old. She tells me what we are doing from the moment she enters my room in the morning until it's time to find her princess flashlight for bed. "Mommy, you wakin up now? Mommy, you changing baby sissers butt now? Mommy, You making cereal? Mommy, that noise is the coffee pot. Haha! Beep! Beep! Time for coffee, Mommy! Mommy, you eating toast? I like to make toast, can I help? Mommy, you unloading the dishwasher? Mommy, you walking up the stairs now?" It. Goes. On. AAAALLLLLLLL DAAAAAAYYYYYY. Sometimes, the narrative stops {{thank you, sweet Jesus!}} and she uses a series of clicks, beeps and bops to communicate {{womp, womp}}. My point is, if I posted about our days of this I would very quickly lose any readers I may have, so I just haven't posted.

On the up side, lately I have thrown myself full into getting my long list of projects done. I have made a nice dent in the list but this funny thing happens when you accomplish one project, you think about another one to add to the list. So, while I may be getting a lot done, I can't seem to get to the bottom of the to-do list. The biggest project is re-doing the rooms upatirs to accomodate our pending arrival. The bonus room {{currently our active living area}} with the girls room. What is currently Bugs room will be the man cave. What is currently 2.0's room, will be the Mama-cave {{I wish my name was Wanda so we could call it "Wanda-land"}}.

Here is where "we" are in our massive room re-dos: {{Some day each of these rooms will have their own post}}

I painted the man cave in the NFL colors of Js favorite team. {{It's funny because the princess bed is still in that room and it just looks silly!}} From where he is, J has been Ebaying team paraphernalia and chotchkies to fill his space and make it a happy home for his butt. The room will be loaded to the gills, but hopefully, in a classy way and not in a bad Applebee's way.

The girls room has been painted. This has been difficult because it is still acting as our family room, so trying to decorate around the sofa {{any one want to buy a giant couch?}}, tv and my office has been kind of a pain. I bought one color to paint the whole room and it turned out to be the same color the builder used {{womp, womp}}. We decided to paint the top half of the room in the light cream color and do a pink that coordinated with the fabrics I am using on the bottom half of the wall.

I love the way it turned out and with the way I am using everything, I think it will be girly without being punch-you-in-the-face-pink {{not what I was going for.}} I also finished the girls name art. I mod-podged my fabric scraps to the letters for their names and each girl will have a wall with their name and maybe pictures of them {{or something?}} I haven't really decided on that yet.

My next project is to get the furniture I have purchased for their room painted. So far we have a nice three drawer nightstand {{free from a friend}}, a five drawer dresser {{$45 from a local thrift store}} and some shelves that we had, that I decided to up-cycle for their reading area.

I have also been doing a TON of sewing {{hello? How come now one told me how addicting the sewing machine was?!}} and I have decided I'll be using Wal-mart flat sheets for everything in the future. Inspired by the awesomeness of the little reading tent I made, I am making matching duvet covers for each of the girls.

{{Still a work in progress}}

Sadly, the Mama-cave has taken a back seat to the other rooms. I really want to have a nice place for J to go to relax when he gets home and I also want the girls to have a fabulous room. That being said the Mama-cave re-do will probably not be done until after the new year. However, I am already pinning ideas and I know how I want it to look, and that's half the battle, right?

Stay tuned for more projectopia and a very late baby update {{whoops!}}

Inspiration

Since J left and I found out I was knocked up again, I have been suffering from some serious lack of motivation to do anything. My house is clean enough, the girls are fed, work is getting accomplished, but other than that, everything else is just sitting. It's not all from a lack of motivation. Between the kids and the dogs, some days I feel like I'm fighting an up hill battle trying to make a nice clean home. Pretty much every time I accomplish one task, one of my children {{be it furry or not}} destroys something else. It's very frustrating and in my case motivation-killing.

However, now that we know that baby3 is a little girl, we have to do some serious rearranging of the upstairs of our house. Right now, we have one child in each bedroom {{us in the master, obviously}} and we use our large upstairs bonus room as a family/man room and an office. Well, that won't work now. We have decided the best way to accommodate three girls is to put them all into the large Bonus {{which conveniently has three walk in closets}}. Then J will have his own man room and I'll have a proper Mama-cave. The room is big enough to last the three of them until J can retire and then we'll be on to bigger things {{and houses}} anyways.

I have been having fun planning a nice girly room for our little princesses and thought I'd share some of my inspirations for their room.

Color Palette

Source

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Wall Decor

Source {{LOVE!!}}

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I want to do something fun for each girls name, above their bed.

Curtains

Source

Maybe some ombre ruffly curtains to match their color palette?

Something Fun

Source

One of the BEST things we have done for Bug {{and eventually our subsequent children}} is enrolling her in the Dr. Suess book club {{a GREAT gift for any child!}} She loves to read and LOVES getting the books for her in the mail. We signed her up when she was 18 months old, so she has developed quite the collection. I want to turn what is now the office, into their reading/ color area. It'll have book shelves, a black-board wall, a small coloring table and hopefully a nice little place for them to curl up with their books.

Lot's to do... and I can find motivation in the fact that when it's all said and done, this mama will have her own hiding space!

Look What I can do!

Ok, so I said I was back and then left again. There are so many other women out there with a deployed husbands that I didn't want to turn my blog into a "Boo hoo hoo! My husbands deployed" blog. Plus, I'm trying to process quite a bit right now and my brain feels like its slowly being poked to death. Creativity {{at least in the writing department}} took a back burner.

Since J left we have had two different sets of visitors: My BFF and my Madre and a family friend that drove out with her. My BFF and I met when J and I were stationed here before he went to DS and we jokingly say that she is my husbands girlfriend and I'm her husbands girlfriend. She ended up getting to be here when J left and it was such a great distraction from him leaving.

{{A man. His Wife. And his girlfriend.}}

While She was here, we made no-sew fleece blankets {{soooo warm!!}} We got the fabric on sale, too which makes it even better! We each used 2 yards of fabric and cut 4" slits into all four of the sides. A glass of wine and forty minutes later - Vwalla!!

Between the time She left and my mom and her friend got here, I didn't really do much but feel sorry for myself. While at the outlets the day after they got here we found a Madeleine Pan. I have been searching for one for awhile {{ok, not really looking that hard}} but all I found was one at Williams-Sonoma for $30 {{and lets face it, I'm cheap.}} After professing my love for the scrumptious tasty snack and promising to make them, my mom bought the pan for me. We used THIS recipe. There were some easier sounding recipes, but I wanted to make a real Madeleine. They were DEEEEEEEEELICIOUS!! The recipe made just under 3 dozen light and buttery cookies.

{{Be jealous!}}

While showing off the sewing machine to my mom and all of the projects I have made thus far, she asked if I could make a travel kit. She's pretty much on the road at least once a week so she uses hers quite a bit. I'd never attempted to make one but I said, "Sure!" We picked up the stuff and I found a TUTORIAL that seemed well written and jumped right in.

My first attempt turned out great except the fabric I had intended for the lining turned out on the outside {{haha!}} and I was sewing while reading the steps instead of the other way around and I had already sewn my seams and couldn't add a handle {{whoops!}}

The second attempt took less than an hour to bust out and it turned out a little not square GREAT! Especially for only being my second attempt.

After my travel-bag success I decided to sew together a tote bag I had forgotten in my pity-party cut almost two weeks ago. I made it from a piece of fabric that I absolutely loved and had no clue what to do with. It's not finished {{I have to rip and re-sew the bottom seam because I missed a piece of the fabric}} but I still think for a first try it was a success!

And last but not least, the Play Set Fairies heeded my call and this weekend, with the help of some friendly awesome neighbors, we'll be putting together one of these

Three weeks down. Only 6 and a half more months to go. I figure by then I should be able to hire myself out for handyman, sewing and painting projects.

Watching Paint Dry

This is the longest I have sat down in the last three days {{writing this blog, watching paint dry}}. I've been keeping myself SUPER busy. And by busy I mean I refuse to sit still. Sitting still means thinking about things to come. Thinking about things to comes usually means some form of crying. And why do that when I could just turn it into something productive?

Tuesday I blasted for the first time since before 2.0 was born. It was a GREAT feeling to be doing that again and I LOVED the way everything came out... until I noticed a date wrong on the baby prints frame I was making for my cousin {{womp, womp, womp}}. It was perfect besides that. The "Notions" jar turned out great and it was so perfect to keep my desk organized, I made one for my neighbor.

Yesterday I made the girls blankets, rearranged my office, made a pin board for my pictures to free up desk space {{with some fabric I LOVE and had no idea what to use for}}, cleaned the house {{wish you could have seen it}}, went on a walk, let Bug play with our neighbors kid {{Bug's little boyfriend}} for awhile, then made dinner. While dinner was cooking I managed to create a feature wall with our family pics. It turned out WAY cute!! When we finished dinner, we went to Lowe's and to Walmart in search of patio furniture {{which we did not find}}. By the time we got home it was time for bed.

Today I have managed to clean downstairs and primer the walls that had Bug's Sharpie vandalism artwork on them and then painted the sliding glass-door wall and touch up the green wall she tagged. All before 11am. We were supposed to go to lunch at a neighbors house but Bug had a very bad attitude and so instead I am enjoying some quiet time in my office while both girls nap {{2.0 is even in her own, bed!! Yay!!}}. J will be home in a bit and then we're off to an FRG function {{jury is still out on this one}}.

I'm not sure that staying busy is really helping any. I feel like an emotional wreck. I'm so up and down. Happy then sad. Okay then angry. Irritated then needy. It's really quite ridiculous, but I have been assured by several it's all normal {{so, that's good, right?}} This inherent need to stay busy has been very helpful to something more than crossing shhhtuff off my to-do list, it's also great for weight loss. I'm down another 3.5 pounds. What is that saying? "Busy hands, happy mind"? Just need to find enough household projects and crafts to keep me busy until October and I'll be great AND a size two...

Easy, right?

The chair

As with everything I do, when I decided to reupholster our office chair, I jumped right in without doing any research. As with most things I do, I GROSSLY underestimated the difficulty of this project. I was prepared to photo bomb you with pics of every single step in the process. But having just finished this bad boy, I'm tired.

So here are the cliff notes:

What you need~
~ Furniture with good bones and horrific upholstery fabric {{check Craigslist}}
~ A Tack Hammer
~ A Staple Gun
~ A BOAT load of staples
~ A flat head screw driver
~ Needle nose pliers
~ Band aides
~ A Current Tetanus Shot

Step One: Bask in the disgust glory that was our office chair.

Sewing For Grandma

When I was in third grade my little brother and I lived with my Grandma for the school year and the summer after. It's one of the best years I remember. We went to school with cousins and they were always about to play with. Total kid-chaos.

One thing I fondly remember from that time, is sitting in my grandmothers sewing room with my cousins while she made us stuff. Nothing of any real importance, but it was stuff made just for us. Just-for-us-stuff. My grandma was handy like that. She even used to make my clothes. I remember one outfit in particular. It was a red & white sailor-esque button up shirt with the square collar part that hung down in back? Totally mortifying to think about now, but I LOVED it then because it was made just for me.

A couple of weeks ago, while perusing Pinterest {{*shaking fist* DAMN YOU PINTEREST!!}} I decided I needed a sewing machine. Then I could do all the fun things my grandma did with me, with Bug. How fun! Never mind that the last {{and first}} time I ever used a sewing machine to sew, {{as apposed to using it as a junk rack}} I made curtains that hung at an angle. But hey, I spent that one summer with my grandma when I was eight, watching her sew. I should have caught some kind of talent through osmosis. Right?

I don't know how, {{especially after reiterating my curtain story}} but I managed to talk my husband into letting me buy a nice one that my neighbor found for me on Craigslist. My neighbor sews for a living. It's what she went to college for. She has a cute shop on Etsy and sells neat stuff. I tell you this not so you'll go buy her stuff {{which you could do if you want}} but so you know when she says, 'it's a good machine,' you can take her word for it. So I bought this great sewing machine this week. Then went and spent all sorts of money on fabric and things to 'practice' on. The girls will each get a blanket, a stuffed toy pattern and a wheelchair organizer for my Grandma.

The fifth time I pulled a seam on the chair organizer, I had to laugh. Osmosis. No one learns sewing through osmosis. Osmosis is for filtering water!

;)

Projectopia & A Wonderful Milestone

I'm taking a break from removing a thousand upholstery tacks {{not an exaggeration, I actually thought it was a tack strip. Nope.}} I need a minute so my poor arms can rest {{Yes, A. You were right. Ouch!}} and I thought I'd write down a few things for you about living in Projectopia {{a.k.a. the place where there are currently ten things going on/halfway finished/or given up on - usually your desk.}}. When I got on to post I found that my blog had reached an AWESOME milestone over night: 5,000 hits!! You guys Rock! So high five yourself and read on! ;0)

I blame Pinterest for this new need to take random crap and turn it into cool stuff. Most of the things pinned look really easy. Making something look easy I guess is easy to do. Having an idea and following through with it is the hard part. {{Especially in this house.}} Thinking things will be easy {{like say, sitting down to take a tack strip off}} and finding out how hard it truly is, {{a thousand individual tacks that have to be removed ONE AT A TIME}} is all part of the adventure of DIYing, No?

Here is the current list of Projects I would like to complete and start here in the next 30 days:

Painting: {{Every room in this house needs it, but we are starting with these ones}}
The Living Room
The dining room
My office {{Mom's Hide Away}}
The upstairs Hallway

Sewing: {{this may or may not be a joke. I am getting a sewing machine soon and I have NO IDEA whether or not this will be a hobby I'll actually enjoy.}}
Curtains For our French Doors in the Office
Roman Shades for the office, the master bathroom and for Bug's Room
Plus a whole bunch of crafts I've pinned that look easy.
Book Slings for Bug's Room

Crafts:
The frame for the map {{We have to make one ourselves. Having one made that big would cost BIG!}}
Reupholster An Office Chair {{The one with all the damn tacks}}
Make Pallet Furniture {{with pallets we thoughtfully 'picked up' in our neighborhood}}
Clean up and paint an old Army box
And there is also this little beauty {{while excusing the messy garage, of course}}

Be jealous at its awesomeness, before I have even done anything with it.

I've got myself quite a To Do list. Things to keep me occupied during the first few weeks of the deployment. I can't wait to try some of these new things and see how they go and how I like them.

Guess for now I'll get back to pulling tacks.

Yaaaay.

A Craft Project

As I said in an earlier post, I have been spending way too much time on Pinterest. Getting all sorts of ideas for stuff to do to our house {{Sorry, Honey.}} A friend of mine posted a very cute map framed art piece and then another one that had heart shaped maps with the words "We met," "We Married," "We lived" above them. We had talked about having a craft day and having this as one of our options. In the mean time we had been planning a craft day to do a Valentine's Day craft. The craft I chose for that needed a love quote and had me on the look out for the perfect one.

While I was out one day {{in my search for Fashion Fabulousness}} I decided to hop into a local boutique. The boutique wasn't what I expected but they did have an area where another vendor had quote signs for your house {{that's right I thieved one - the quote that is}} and I saw a quote that was SO perfect I had to put it on my "notepad" so I would remember it. The problem was that it was SO perfect I wanted to put it up where it could be read year round, not just in February. With the quote on my mind and the map ideas fresh in my head, my brain molded them together into what was sure to be an AMAZING piece of art for the house... if I could pull it off.

You know those ideas that you get and you have the PERFECT image in your head but when you try and execute it, you suck at life?

This wasn't one of those...

I started by purchasing a large poster board {{I wanted mine to be big, but this could be done at any scale}}, a map of the United States, some decorative scrapbooking brads and some laminate.

Then I laid out my items on my kitchen table to start work.

I started by prepping the map. I wanted a distressed look and after discussing cutting options with my friend, we decided the best way to do it would be to tear it. I was a little nervous about tearing {{I was worried about tearing it wrong}} but I guess tearing and distressing go hand in hand so I jumped in. When I finished tearing it down to the places we agreed upon, it still didn't feel done. I kept on tearing until I was happy with it. Then I smushed it into a tiny ball.

Once I was happy with the map, I was instantly unhappy with how white the poster board behind it was. I tried a few different colors of paper to see if I could layer some paper to make a nice background. But none of the pages I used gave me warm & fuzzies so I thought I'd give painting it a try. It was a $3 board and I figured at worst I would just have to buy another. I used a dry brush and made small "x" shapes for the cross hatch pattern I wanted.

Next, I used spray adhesive {{This is the first time I used spray adhesive. This stuff is AMAZING!!}} to glue the map down. Then spent some time on my computer deciding on fonts and word sizes by making a mock up of the board on Corel draw. When all the words were perfect, another friend and I used her Silhouette machine to make the letters. After I got the letters placed, I was SO excited!! I used the decorative brads I bought to mark the places we met, where we lived for the military and where we live now. I am SO happy with the way this turned out!

It now has a home above our crap shelf {{Crap shelf: n. Builder-built place in your home that makes NO sense, where crap will undoubtedly collect. See also, place where children will most likely hurt themselves one day climbing on things they shouldn't}} It isn't framed yet {{we have to make a frame for it, but I will post a picture of it completed when we do}} but I was SO happy with the way it turned out, I decided to post about it anyway.

*If you love it and you make it, give credit where it's due*

{{J's addition to this post: "tgpgkujoflyt9jo"}}