Progress in Zach's Room!

Huzzah! I finally feel like I am making some progress in Zach's new bedroom. That's mostly in part to my awesome sister who broke into my house and did some sneaky painting on Saturday night. Zach and I had plans to go to a friend's house for dinner, and I'd asked my sister if she'd come over when we were done (and once Zach was in bed) to help me do the final coat of green on, well, every place that was to be green. I'd had a minor issue with running out of paint and the next can being slightly different from the first, so it needed one more thin coat on everything just to even things out and make everything the same shade. We were a little later leaving the friend's house than I'd intended, and I was thinking as I turned into my neighborhood that I should call my sister and see if she'd still be up for painting or if it was getting too late. When I turned the corner onto my street and saw my sister's car parked in front of my house, I was feeling pretty bad about it being roughly an hour later the time I'd told her I was aiming for! Turns out that she "broke in" about two hours before we got home and had already gotten a great start. Love her!! Lol, although I have to admit I was a bit jealous that she got to spend two whole hours ALONE in my house; I can't remember the last time *I* got to do that :)

While she finished "rollering" the green paint, I drew the outline for the street and managed to get a couple clouds painted. You can see in the pictures that I left a large gap between the two clouds. That's because I'm still debating on whether or not I want to attempt painting an airplane. The plane will definitely be a last minute decision based on how the painting of everything else goes. Today during nap time I attempting to stencil the first coat of the sailboat. After that's finished I will paint a lake around it. The stenciling was super easy, but I've determined that this is the one and only stenciling attempt until I'm able to get to Michael's and buy some spray stencil adhesive. Apparently there IS a reason way every website I looked at recommended using the spray adhesive! Until then I'll stay busy doing the second (and maybe third?) coat on the sailboat, painting the lake, and cutting out the stencils for the car and trucks.

But without further ado or anymore jabbering, here are the newest room pictures:



Two clouds painted -- I picture a farm & sheep every time I see it like this. I really hope that stops once there are cars on the wall!



A close-up of the street penciled in ... but you can't really see it.






My angle is crooked in this one, not the boat. I promise.

There Goes That Great Idea ...

One of my crazy plans for baby boy's bedroom was to make a bumper and crib skirt since I no longer like the one we had for Zach and can't afford any of the ones I actually like. But I've ran into a little hitch: I can't find BOY material that meets my criteria. It's not like I'm being too picky or anything. I just want something that is 1) not babyish, 2) does not have flowers, pink, or purple, 3) does not have brown as a major color, 4) is blue, green, and hopefully orange. Like I said, not too picky ;) After spending way too much time (and I do mean WAY too much time) online looking at fabrics and hating everything in my price range, I've gotten super discouraged. I did find a really cute elephant print from Crafty Planet that came in blue, green, and grey. How cute would that have been, with one color on one side of the bumper and a second color on the opposite side? But alas, it was out of stock in all but one color. Oh, and it was also $15 a yard ...

Earlier this week I was at Target and found this. Houston, we have a winner. Probably more expensive than if I had made my own, depending on my fabric choice, but meets most of my criteria as far as print goes. Perhaps a little more brown than I care for, but not too bad. I know it can't be that much brown since Jerome, who hates anything and everything brown, approved of my choice ... although I have a feeling that part of that may have been based on me telling him that if he didn't like this one I was dragging him to some fabric stores with me. I'm feeling a little sad now about not making the bumper myself, but it's a nice weight off my shoulders to have a decision made. And I'll still have plenty of work to do: this set only includes the quilt/coverlet, a sheet, and the bumper. I don't love and can't justify the cost of the matching cribskirt, so I'll still make one of those - solid green. I will also make curtains for the room - either solid green or navy (or maybe a combination of the two). Ideally I'd like to get an extra crib sheet and include a stripe of the rocket print across the top of the curtains to tie it all together. We'll see.

So now the hard part: waiting for it to go on sale ... because I'm cheap like that :)

Get Lost

Or maybe that should read "Get LOST."

The Lost season premiere aired last night. Hurray for 3 hours of Lost! I was a little disappointed in last night's episode - I think I expected something a little more exciting to happen - but I'm not complaining. Jerome and I have been waiting a long time for this! Not as long as some, since we first started watching the show this summer (thank you Netflix!) and didn't finish Season 5 until the first part of January. But after watching 5 seasons of a show in just a few months, it felt like forever waiting for a new episode. And now we have to wait a whole week more to get our questions from last night answered (well, hopefully they'll be answered). Questions like "If 'it worked' then why are they still on that island? And how are they also in the airport? Do they have to figure out how to make time match up so that they can get off the island? Did they just create a parallel universe? Are their body parts going to start to not line up correctly from all this traveling through time, like in Michael Crichton's Timeline?" Yea ... probably not going to get all of those answers next week, am I? :)

During the show I worked on a hat that I'm knitting. Finished it, actually. It was my second time through the pattern, since the first one I made was too small (my fault for not measuring my head). I followed ALL the directions this time to make it a bit bigger, and what do you know - it was still too small! At least this time the circumference was right. I'm a little crabby, however, that it was still just a tiny bit too short, despite being longer than the first one AND longer than what the pattern calls for. I like the pattern, but am debating: should I see if the third time is the charm or just find a new hat pattern to make? Either way, it's going to have to wait a while since I have a baby project that needs to get started ASAP. Not to mention those bedrooms upstairs ... But before I can make more progress on those, I need to buy more paint. Again. Lol, at least the good news is I'm almost ready to start the mural that I wanted to have finished by last weekend!

And as far as my boys go ... let's just say that tomorrow is my Friday and while I love all my boys, I couldn't be happier about that!

Out With The Old ...

Last weekend my mom brought over her sewing machine for me to borrow. Along with the sewing machine, she also brought over several boxes of ... stuff. Two boxes were filled with half-finished sewing projects; one box was hers and one box was mine. The other three boxes? Old college textbooks and notebooks/3-ring binders which I immediately knew would end up either 1) going to Goodwill (after spending an indeterminate amount of time in my basement) or 2) being recycled. During the week, I surprised myself by finding the motivation to actually go through these boxes. I think my motivator was the fact that they were sitting on my dining room table, which I needed the following day in order to have a place to feed four boys under five. So while Zach colored at one end of the table, I purged papers at the other end.

Going through my old binders and papers was a pretty mundane task, as whatever reason I once had for holding on to all the stuff has escaped me now, but it felt a little bittersweet once I got about halfway through. I mean, certainly I was happy to get rid of two boxes of crap instead of stashing it somewhere and worrying about the possibilities of ending up on Hoarders. But at the same time, I felt a little sad as I went through it ... most of the stuff was from when I'd planned being a science major and eventually ending up at pharmacy school ... notes and labs from calculus, physics, biology, etc classes. Even from my loved/hated organic chemistry class (and upon looking back through my tests and labs from that class, I still maintain that his grading had absolutely no rhyme or reason to it!). I got to thinking about how my life and who I was as a person was SO different then, and really it wasn't all that long ago. If I'd kept my life going in that direction, I'd now be done or nearly done with my doctorate in pharmacology, making much more money than I do now! Albeit with much larger student loans to repay ... Yet, here I sit in my living room with my not husband of nearly 5 years sitting less than ten feet from me playing on his laptop, listening to our almost three year old son snoring away on the couch and feeling my soon to be born baby kicking at my ribs. How in the world did I get from there to here? Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. My life isn't perfect, but I love my family and the home we've made. I'm proud of how far we've come despite being broke :) It just seems like all my dreams and goals changed overnight and sometimes I have a hard time remembering why. (And then I remember: it was the daunting idea of another 6 years of school and $100k in student loans that did it!)

But without all that change, I wouldn't have my not husband, our kids, our house ... So, out to the recycling bin goes two boxes full of the old me. Here's to my new(er) goals: An eventual master's in healthcare management and a job to go along with it. Raising two loving little boys to the best of my ability. But first, finally finishing the boys' rooms!

Unexpected Surprises

I don't know if I should admit this or not, but in my never ending quest to find a replacement for my favorite magazine that is no longer in print (Jane) I have picked up just about every "girly" magazine out there. And for the most part, I feel like they are all the same ... I don't know how people can be subscribers to any one of them for a long period of time: they all seem to print the same articles month after month with minor changes here and there. But that's not the point of this post :) One of the magazines I occasionally pick up (and can tolerate much more than Cosmo!) is Allure. Definitely not a replacement for Jane, but more tolerable than others.

Last summer I discovered that Allure does a daily giveaway. I don't pay close enough attention to know if they do this every month or just some months, but I've seen it most times I've visited their website (which I'm more likely to do than actually pay money for a magazine). Most of the giveaways entail being one of the first 50 people to enter at noon EST on any given day ... the kicker is they don't ever tell you if you won. You just have to wait and see. How do I know this? Sometime around June of last year, I managed to be at the right place at the right time and entered one of the giveaways right at noon (well, 11am where I live). I was pleasantly surprised about two months later when UPS came and left this on my doorstep. $23 shampoo for free? I'll take that! Even better that it happens to be for my hair type.

So today, a day that consisted of wiping my son's constantly runny nose, trying to clean up my house, and going through a bunch of old papers (more about that tomorrow) I heard Zach and Boy#4 crying "Truck! Truck!" Now they'd been yelling that most of the morning, pronouncing it more like the F word, but since they were looking out the front window I figured I'd better turn off the vacuum and have a look too. Lo and behold, there is the UPS man walking up my driveway. I have to admit, my first thought was not a pleasant one. I was definitely thinking that Jerome had forgotten to cancel his coffee of the month club or whatever it is and UPS was coming to bring us more. (My disclaimer: I thought we still had a cupboard full of coffee. I was corrected tonight when I recanted this story to Jerome that all we have is 2 really old packs of decaf and about a quarter pound of regular coffee.) Needless to say, I was a little irritated when I opened the door to get the package. My spirits quickly turned around when I saw that instead of a good size box addressed to Jerome, what was actually delivered was a small, lumpy envelope addressed to me. When I saw the return address, I immediately knew what it was.

In December I was perusing Allure's website one day when I saw something that I thought I'd like (but would never pay for) in their daily giveaway. Since they weren't giving that particular item away for a few more days, it somehow popped into my head that the thing to would be to set a reminder alarm on my cell phone. Moment. of. genius. The item that I received today: a fairly new product by Elizabeth Grant called The Socializer. It consists of two pen-style products, one for daytime and another for night, that are supposed to help you cover up and get rid of under-eye circles and puffiness. TOTALLY what I need, especially when I'm pregnant since I tend to look like I haven't slept in a week ... which differs slightly from when I'm not pregnant and look like I haven't slept in 3 days. I can't wait to try this product out. Especially since it is rumored to be one of Blake Lively's favorites.

I have a feeling that I will be making it a point to check Allure's website more often from now on :) Also, if anyone has a good magazine recommendation, I would love to hear it! I'm open to just about any type of magazine, though I will admit that I'm starting to have the same feelings towards Woman's Day/Family Circle/Good Housekeeping that I do regarding Cosmo/Glamour/Allure/Lucky.

The Boys' Rooms

I made this a page on here too, but once I start posting pictures I'm going to be removing a lot of my writing (everything but the to do lists). I think it's partly because I'm just wordy and partly because of the layout I chose, but I feel like all my posts are a bit on the "novel" side of things in terms of length. Not quite what I'm going for. Here ya go:

OK, I've officially fallen off my rocker. I've actually wondered if I am perhaps going through a manic episode and need to go get myself evaluated somewhere. (Yes, that was a joke!) Since we're pretty much broke, at least when it comes to extraneous money for fun things like bedrooms, I decided I'd save money and do a lot of the work myself. A LOT of the work. Here are my to-do lists for the boys' rooms:

Zach's Room:

• Paint 3 walls green


• Paint car/truck mural on 4th wall


• Paint some sort of decoration on the solid, non-mural wall (I'm thinking words of some sort? Stop? Beep Beep? Dunno yet.)


• Sew curtains for windows


• Fabric paint some sort of design on curtains

Baby's Room:

• Find fabric I 1) like and 2) can afford


• Sew the following:
  - Curtains
  - Bed Skirt
  - Bumper


• Paint room or touch up existing paint (wholly depends on fabric choice


• Paint accents on wall above crib

Sounds easy, right? Right ... but the first step before any sewing can be done would be remember how to thread the damn sewing machine. And no, that one wasn't a joke :) Zach's room gets first priority, then I will move on to the baby's room. Once I get that done, I have a list of other things I'd like to sew, but they're definitely bottom of the totem pole things. (New sling, new boppy cover, pillow for rocking chair in baby's room, and a car seat tent) Now ... any bets on how old the baby will be when I actually get all this stuff finished? I'll give you all a hint and say that I have definitely inherited my mom's ability to finish projects. The quilt she started for my brother when he was about 2 years old was finished in the weeks before he left for college ...

Zach's Room

To get ready for the new little guy that will be joining us in May we're planning on moving Zach's bedroom across the hall into what had been being used as a playroom. I have big goals for this room. Well, not as big as the goals I have for the baby's room, but we'll come back to that a different day. Zach's current bedroom isn't anything special - blue walls because we had a lot left over from painting our bedroom. Mattress on the floor with a sports-themed comforter, because I found it on clearance over the summer at Target and it beat what he had been using - my old red and blue comforter from my college dorm room. No curtains, no personality, just boring. So for his new room I decided I wanted to paint a mural with cars and trucks. Initially I'd planned on just painting grass, the sky, and a road and using those removable wall stickers for the vehicles, but ultimately I just couldn't find anything that I liked. I think I'm too picky. But hey, I figured, how hard can it be to paint a couple trucks ...

Apparently I'm not going to know for quite some time. Tomorrow marks the day that I was hoping to have the mural done, and how far am I actually? The non-mural walls are almost done, just need a bit of touching up. The grass needs at least one more coat of trim around the bottom and another coat with the paint roller. And the sky? Well, that's not even started yet. Turns out I hated the blue I bought and wanted to get something different. However, since my colorblind brother told me the same thing about the blue that I'd been thinking myself (that it looks rather purple), I felt a little better about my decision! I've been telling myself since Thursday night that I was going to go work on the room after Zach was in bed - I couldn't do it before then because Jerome has been working or at school every night until at least Zach's bedtime. And yet, I have made no progress since Tuesday, when I ran out of green paint and decided I didn't like the blue. Turns out my motivation is slim to none after 8:30pm. But because my goal of having Zach moved into the room by the end of January is quickly approaching, and the only thing that really needs to be done for him to move in there is the painting, I'm now going to do the insane and start painting at 10:30pm. Thankfully, Jerome has agreed to let me sleep in tomorrow, which is a good thing, because I promised Zach that he would take him to go buy donuts for breakfast ...

But the point of this post: I'm going to be making a page for the boys' rooms so you all can keep track of my crazy to-do list and the progress of the boys' rooms with me. (Yes, there will be pictures too.) Except I'm not doing it right now because I really need to go paint.