My Life Well-Lived

It’s Monday and it’s almost 10pm, so I’ll make this quick…

1. I have wallpaper glue underneath my fingernails.
2. This is a sign that the bathroom renovation has, in fact, begun.
3. I forgot to take “before” pictures.
4. I need a solid plan in place (at least in my head) in order to start home improvement projects.
5. Once said plan is in place, get out of my way!
6. A family trip to Lowe’s after work/daycare is out of the norm for us.
7. We did it anyway…then we ate at a Mexican restauranaut (that’s Anna’s word for it).
8. We can’t just do one project at a time.
9. We are also redoing the floors in the kitchen & laundry room.
10. My entire family is coming to our house for Memorial Day.
11. Did I mention that I do my best work under pressure?
12. I do my best work under pressure.
13. We will be replacing or recovering the floor in 3 rooms.
14. We will be painting every non-porcelain surface in our bathroom (well mostly).
15. I have a vision of a clean, sophisticated style for our (stupidly small) bathroom.
16. I hope that vision works out for me.
17. I need lots more money to do what I really want to do with our bathroom.
18. What I really want to do with our bathroom is make it go away and build 2 new ones.
19. That’s probably not going to happen any time soon.
20. I’m still going to like our revamped bathroom.  I will like it.  I will like it.  I WILL like it!
21. I like a good challenge.
22. Having a very limited budget = a good challenge.
23. Having 3 weeks to complete 3 DIY projects = a good challenge.
24. I’m not looking forward to (at least) one full day without a functioning toilet.
25. I don’t really even want to think about that last item.
26. Anna doesn’t mind using her potty chair.
27. #25 is a really good thing in this case.
28. Anna just moved up to the 4-year old room at daycare today.
29. How on EARTH is that girl almost 4?!
30. The 4 year old room at daycare was not there on Friday.
31. The 4 year old room at daycare was built over the weekend (pretty impressive!).
32. I planted 4 tomato plants, 2 verbenas, and 2 dianthus on Saturday.
33. That’s nothing compared to what I planted last weekend.
34. I need some mulch…lots of it.
35. I am entirely too wired to sleep.
36. I’m sure you couldn’t tell that I’m too wired to sleep.
37. I think Benadryl may be my best friend tonight.
38. I should go take a Benadryl.
39. ‘Night-’night!

It has almost been an entire month since I last posted here.  Wow.

In the past month, I’ve thought of a million different things to post about, but by the time I get to sit down to write, inspiration has just completely left me.  I’ve been tired.  I’ve been busy.  I’ve been neglecting my blog.

I guess it’s just the usual Spring stuff.  We work, work, work on the backyard & the garden…everything outside and then everything inside goes to hell in a hand basket.  That’s about where I am today.  The inside of my house is a disaster.  Today, the kitchen got a pretty thorough cleaning, but there’s still a lot to do in there.  We also changed the sheets on all the beds…which means tonight is clean sheet night.  Woohoo!  I love the first night of sleeping on clean sheets!  We did a lot of picking up odds and ends that had been scattered throughout the house.  We (all 4 of us) picked-up and put away all the toys.  The house is somewhat straight (Ha!  Not literally!), but there is so, so much deep cleaning that needs to be done.  I swear, I can barely keep up with the everyday stuff, much less anything else!

We have gotten so much done in the last few weeks, despite the fact that we still have a messy, dirty house.  Mark poured a concrete sidewalk for me from the deck stairs to the driveway.  I’ve been walking through the grass in my high-heels every morning when I leave for work for the past (almost) 7 years.  It’s so nice to not have to remember to walk on my toes so my heels don’t sink!
We’ve also cleaned out flowerbeds, more flowerbeds, and, oh yeah, even more flowerbeds.  We’ve planted flowers, herbs, vegetables and melons.  We’ve weeded endlessly, we’ve moved plants around to take better advantage of what we already have.  We’ve cleaned out the goldfish pond (Ick!).  We’ve (well, Mark did) took out the smaller pond that was in the pergola.  We filled in and bricked that area to expand our seating space.  We’ve put up little white (Christmas) lights around the perimeter of the pergola.  They were so pretty, but half of them burned out after one night’s use (seriously!), so we’ll be replacing them with LED lights (that I just ordered today).  Mark ordered a big canvas tarp/drop cloth thing that works beautifully as a sunshade over the pergola now that the nasty wisteria is gone. We have finished planting the garden except for the corn and a few tomato plants my mother-in-law has for us.  We didn’t do as much this year, and we moved some things up closer to the house…along the fence in the kids’ play area in the backyard.

We’ve done a million little things around the house and yard, plus we made a trip to see my family for Easter.  I made that same trip the weekend before Easter to take advantage of a couple consignment sales.  To sum it all up, I feel like I’m in a state of perpetual motion.  Motherhood alone would be enough to make me say that though!

The kids are doing well.  They both had a rather “off” day today.  I’m hoping it’s just today, at least!  William is getting his 2-year molars and, judging by his attitude and behavior, they must be really bothering him.  He is able to articulate that more than Anna was at not-quite-two-and-a-half.  He has told me his mouth hurts, the fact that he can tell me is so nice.  That is so much easier than the guessing game we’ve gone through in the past (with both kids).  Is it his ears?  Does he have a cold?  Is it teething?  Is he just irritable for no reason?  Ugh.  William is suddenly obsessed with watching Shrek…he asks to watch it all. the. time.  It’s kind of weird coming from him.

Anna is…oh, I don’t know…Anna.  There just aren’t always words to describe her!  She’s as super-smart as ever, getting sassier all the time.  I’m really trying to work on that.  She’s getting more and more into pretend play and making up stories.  I hear her in bed some nights acting out little stories with her lovies and stuffed animals.  It’s sweet to hear.  She loves to sing, and I am continually surprised at how well she carries a tune.  She only has to hear something once, I swear.  Mark played Don McLean’s Vincent for her the other night and for the rest of the night (even after she was in bed) she sang one line over and over again…very much on pitch: “Starry, starry night – paint your palette blue and gray.”

I have pictures from the past month somewhere.  If I can sit still long enough, I will post them later this week!