No way! Dry Erase to remove permanent marker!

It had to happen at some point – she wrote on the tv stand with a Sharpie. This is why we didn’t spend a ton of money on it, but I was still disappointed. I told my mom and she told me to try writing over it with a dry erase marker, then wiping it off and MAGIC!! It worked!!!

Thanks Mom!

An almost finished Play Room

Calling it a “Play Room” is hardly a fair statement – it’s really this strange little porch sort of room tacked onto the back of the house. It’s tiny and weird(who does vinyl siding on the inside of a room??), but it’s a good little space for kids! I think it’ll especially be great in the winter when it gets a lot of light because of the sliding doors. This rooms is also our main path to the backyard, so it gets a ton of traffic and a ton of dirt. So, it’s not a fancy Play Room by any stretch – that wasn’t really the point. I just wanted to make a space that was a little bit more bright and cheery and cleaner than before that made it a bit easier for me to keep up with the dirt.

Before:

After:

The big green thing on the ground is a Neat Sheet.  I can take it outside and shake it off and hose it down when it gets dirty and I’m loving it so much that I think we’ll get another one for picnics, etc. I know the area rugs are a bit strange, but I originally planned to get this rug. I still love it and want to look at it daily, but the area rugs were $6.99 each and are so easy to grab and shake out and throw in the wash and if they get ruined it won’t bother me as much.

I have been informed that he doesn’t “want” to paint.

Well, shoot – I thought I was going to pick out a bunch of pretty colors and convince John to do all of the actual work! Except that he informed me that he just doesn’t want to paint around here. It’s understandable, especially when I think about the long list of other things that fall on his plate when it comes to our house projects!

So, my upcoming projects are going to involve a lot of painting. I’m not entirely sure how it’s going to go since I’m going to try to work a bit at a time during nap times{insert hysterical laughing at myself here.} This might take a while. I’ve never painted a room in my life. I’m feeling optimistic, though! Maybe I’ll reevaluate after I get started, but for now I’m kind of looking forward to brightening up the walls around this place. The entire house(even ceilings) is beige. It works because it’s neutral, but I need some pretty colors in my life!

First up: The bathroom! It’s needs so much more than just a coat of paint, but it’s going to be a while before that happens and I decided that I don’t want to wait to paint rooms until we’re ready to do remodels. Paint is cheap and easy, so we can paint again when we’re ready to do the actual remodels.

Before: {Don’t you love that I didn’t even notice that I left the lid up for the picture?}

Paint Color will be: Glidden Tropical Surf.

It was free with their paint give

away, so I figuredit was a good way to go on my first try paint!

Easy Thank You Notes – 2 year old style

And, to be fair, she did have some little helpers:

Long 4th of July Weekend Plan

There is a ton I’d love to squeeze into the long weekend, but if we can just get the kids’ room painted I’ll be a very happy person.

1. Paint kids’ room. Here’s the lame before pic:  I’m so excited to actually dig into decorating their room. I never really got to do a nursery for Amelia, so 2+ years later I’m so excited to finally be able to work on a nursery!



2. Pick a garden spot in the yard and figure out what we need to do to get it started. {I do realize that planning a garden is going to be a much larger task than I seem to imply here – we’re only planning to get the plot ready this year, so I’d like to just pick a spot and decide how we’re going to kill the grass and start to turn the soil.}
3. Get started on a compost pile – figure out a spot, decide if it’ll just be a pile or if we’ll enclose it, get a container for the kitchen and do some reading to know how to make a proper compost.

Editing to add: We didn’t paint:) See this post for the reason. But we did make a plan for it and pick spots for the compost pile and the garden and we got a ton of research and planning done to decide how/what we want to do for each of those.  Plus I got the Play Room basically done, so that felt good.

And so it begins…

I’m finally taking the time to sit down and write out my list of everything we need to do around here. I’m giving us a 1 year deadline to complete it, so I’m hoping to use this blog to make us accountable! So starting today…

The Big List:

• Start a compost pile
• Start a garden (at least get the spot ready this year so that it’s planned and ready to go next spring)
• Figure out kitchen designs and start putting the pieces of that together – first will be knocking out half of a wall to the dining room, closing off a door to outside and switching the locations of the fridge and stove. Basically, we’ll gut the whole kitchen, so it will include new floors, new cabinets and counters, possibly a new range, new paint, new backsplash, new lighting fixtures and new hardware.
• Do something with our entry
• Put something on the blank wall under the stairs
• Actually paint and finish the kids’ room
• Finish painting the shutters so that they’re all the same color since the slackers who sold our house only did some of them
• Figure out something to do with the little mini-sun room/play area
• Redo the bathroom since we don’t have a tub(just a big walk-in shower) and it’s majorly in need of an update in general – this will include either wainscoting or subway tile, repainting, a new tub/shower combo, new flooring, new vanity, new lighting fixtures and new cabinets on the wall
• Paint the whole house’s ceilings white
• Refinish the wooden floors
• Replace the front door
• Replace the garage door and the door into the garage next to the larger garage door
• Put up a basement door instead of a baby gate
• Add a porch
• Add a walkway directly to the front door from the sidewalk
• Take out the current deck and put in a patio
• Get new living room furniture and actually design the room
• Overhaul our bedroom
• Paint, wallpaper or somehow make the inside of the closets fun and organized
• Organize and make laundry area in garage more fun
• Setup an office area for me in the basement and organize my inventory

Whew…we can do that all in a year, right??

The things that they know…

It NEVER ceases to amaze me. We’re sitting and eating breakfast(requested Cheerios – on a plate, no milk. This girl doesn’t know what she wants in life, does she??). She looks at me and giggles. Holds up a broken Cheerio and says, “Banana! Banana!” Two seconds later she’s holding the same broken Cheerio up to her ear and saying, “Mmm hmm…yeah…”
I miss having an imagination like that where things are SO exciting to discover and everything is play:)

p.s. As I sit here typing this, she finishes the Cheerioos, giggles some more and starts putting her plate on her head and saying, “Hat! Big hat!” She’s doing it to get my attention – because, yes, I’m THAT mom sitting on my laptop at the dining room table – but it’s still cute. I LOVE THAT GIRL.

A *few* months later…

…and I’m still just sort of blogging about, well…not blogging:) Sorry – we’ve been a little bit busy.  I keep thinking about this blog lately because we will FINALLY have our own house for me to be “domestically simple” in. We close on our very first house on March 18th(one day after St Patty’s must be good luck, right??) and we’re so excited we can hardly stand it! I wouldn’t call it quite a “fixer upper,” but it needs some love. We can move right in and generally be good to go, but there’s a lot we’d LOVE to do. But, we’re on a budget.  And – to be honest – right now we just want to be happy and content with the fact that we’ll be living in our own house and not renting anymore. So, it doesn’t need a ton, but it also DOES need a ton, so we’re working on deep breaths in and out and planning one project at a time.  I think this year will be the inside focus, even though with spring and summer right around the corner I have visions of perfect rows of veggies in a garden and colorful flowers all around the yard…I’m fairly certain that with a new baby in April along with the new house that the yard attempts just might not happen this year. So, I think I might attempt some herbs and flower boxes just to do something and settle in for now with a cup of tea and happy thoughts of being able to hang our laundry on the line this summer and a baby pools in the back yard for Amelia. The thought of those alone is worth the wait!

Otherwise, on the list(you know – so I’m saying it out loud to a general audience and therefore might be more inclined to actually get some of this done!):

- Get a fridge. (We did pick this out, we just need to go get it. I fear that it’s officially going to corrupt me, though, because we found an insane deal on a Fisher and Paykel and now I was ALL of our new appliances to be F&P and that’s just not in the budget for now:)

- Paint the kids’ room. This is going to be my first “real” project and my goal of the first room to actually finish in the house.

- Get blinds for the.whole.house.  Of all of the fun ways to try to spend money on a budget – this is not my favorite.

- Figure out some sort of door or locked gate for the basement. There’s not door to the basement and no door frame, so we’re going to have to rig something, somehow…we’re just not sure what!

-We need a washer and dryer. We have this *funny* feeling that the 1972 models that come with the house just aren’t going to cut it. (You know  – sort of how the house is listed as 1.5 baths and you should SEE the ickiness that they consider a “half” bath that’s in the corner closed off by plywood in the corner of the garage that IS technically usable, but not really going to be used…)

- Cleaning supplies. We need to completely start over and I’m soooooo excited about this one. Admittedly, I don’t clean nearly as much as I should, but the thought of all brand squeaky new cleaning supplies that I can go completely nuts with does sort of inspire me to get a little bit Fly Lady again:)

- Speaking of Fly Lady – it should be said that on this list NEEDS to be added that I need to get back into her routines again when we move in. I have not done any of it lately (with the excuse that we’re at my parent’s at it’s not the “same”)  but I know I’m going to have no choice but to get myself back into a cleaning routine/schedule again to keep up with a new house.

- Area rugs – we need a million and one of these since the house if top to bottom hardwoods, so we’re going to just focus on a few areas (kids’ room, play area, family room) first and go from there since that’s money that will add up quickly.

- Smoke and CO detectors. We NEED to get these asap. There’s one smoke detector and no CO detector, so even though it’s at the bottom of my list here, it’s at the top of our list of things that HAVE to happen before we even move in.

So, that’s the short list. Not bad, right?? I can’t complain. I know it could be tons worse, but for now – it’ll be livable. We are eventually going to need to re-model the kitchen and bathrooms, get new dining and living room furniture, figure out organization of toys majorly, get a freezer for the garage(That might make it to the sooner-rather-than-later list!), get a big girl bed for Amelia, get a whole house worth of curtains…but it’s all things that can wait. In the mean time, we’re just happy to be moving into our very own house. And I can’t wait to share the adventures as we go through this process of moving and and making it our own (on a budget!).

So as a testament to my organization skills, follow through, etc…

I haven’t posted in months. Um, yeah…I’m fairly certain no one is really reading this anyway, but still! I think it proves just how much I really NEED to focus a bit more on this. I’m laying in bed ready to take a nap looking around the room(that also doubles as my “office” and storage) at the laundry I need to do and laundry I need to put away, dusting I need to do, piles of paper sitting on my desk, books piled up on my nightstand…you get the picture. It’s sort of like a tornado. The thing is, I know, I just know, that I feel a million times better when everything is neat and tidy and organized. But sometimes I think the disaster state of our place is a reflection of my mental state more than anything. There. I said it out loud – my brain is currently a disaster! There do happen to be a *few* reasons for that, though…

-#2 is on the way. With that, I’m sick all day, every day.

-We’re waiting for a job offer for the husband because we’re moving across the country. We anxiously(VERY anxiously) awaiting an offer from the company he really wants to work for.

-I have to legally move my business to another state. I can’t lie, I’m a little nervous about messing that up.

-We don’t even technically know when we’re moving because we’re waiting for his offer-  once that happens, he puts in his two weeks and we move 2.5 weeks later.

-If the offer doesn’t happen, we have to be out of our current apartment exactly a month from today. And find somewhere to live month-to-month while he starts the job hunting process all over again because we’re defintiely moving.

-We’re moving across the country to be closer to family. We’re blessed – our parents live about 10 minutes apart in an area we love, but along with wanting to be near family, my dad just told me he has cancer. It’s not really the right word, but it’s a “good” cancer to have – the prognosis is about as good as it gets, but we’re still anxious to get back and be there while he has surgery and possible treatment, etc.

-If/when we move, we’re living with my parents. In their basement(you know you’re jealous – don’t be jealous;).  This is to not have the hassle of finding somewhere to live from across the country, though I’m still not entirely convinced that we’re saving ourselves that much hassle – just maybe trading one for another? That’s yet to be determined and I’m crossing all of my fingers and toes that it’s all going to be fantastic.

-If we don’t move in the next few weeks – we’re spending the holidays with just us, no other family. It’ll be fine, but it just makes me sad to think about it.

So, amongst all of this, I feel like I need a nap, even thugh what I should be doing is cleaning and organizing to make myself feel better. I need to pack, get more stuff donated to , get copies of all three of our medical records here, get all of the numbers and addresses ready to change and cancel our utilities and update our mailing address in a million places and just do some real cleaning a la Fly Lady, but I think the nap is going to win for now.

Lose the junk mail…

So in an effort to be more “green” I feel like it’s a neverending list of things we need to do, not do or just be better at being more aware of. It’s a little thing, but I figured it couldnt’ hurt to get a little less junk mail – here’s a guide. I especially love the part that let me opt out of all of the crazy credit and insurance offers that are such a waste!