um....

I completely forgot to include the part of that post that related to the title.

I was sanding the rocking chair out in the garage today. The chair has been out in the garage for who knows how long, but I just grabbed it and started sanding. While I was sanding I noticed some spider webs, but they looked kind of broken already so I assumed they would be empty. I was wrong. I sanded the whole top part of the chair then turned it over to clean up the cobwebs and there was a big ol' icky spider crawling on the chair. I screamed a little and ran inside to ask someone to kill it.

I don't usually scream, but it caught me off guard and it was kind of large. Well, Wil couldn't find it so I fully expect the thing to stalk me. Ugh.

Little Miss Muffett

Well, I finally got my room somewhat organized and ready to start more packing. Mostly, my nephews and niece came to spend the night and I needed my trundle bed for the kiddos to sleep on which meant clearing out the already packed boxes and various things strewn across my teeny tiny room. Now I can see the floor! It's amazing. I still have no motivation, but at least I don't just sit on my bed and stare at the mess for 15 minutes while trying to figure out where exactly to begin.

As I mentioned, my nephews and niece came to spend the night. My brother, Matt, is no longer here to tag team with me, so I was taking care of all four kiddos. My parents are around and they help, but I tend to deal with all of them the most. I will start by saying that I love any time I get to spend with the kids. They are all funny and smart and I love being with them. Having said that, Hailey was exhausted and whiny (she is NEVER whiny. EVER.) and Noah is 11. And we went to see G Force. I'm sure you can fill in the blanks.

Needless to say, I didn't get much done Saturday or Sunday. No packing. No projects. But I did have a lot of fun with the family.

Sunday evening I spent the night trying to get a hold of the lady who I am working for this week and next. I have been filling in until her new nanny comes on the 7th and I had last week off while they were in Florida, but hadn't heard from her at all. I had no idea what was going to happen today, but I ended up getting the day off. I was happy to sleep in, watch some tv and get work done on my dresser and a rocking chair.

I bought my bed on Friday at Ikea and although I need to sand and paint it, it saved me $100 in the end. Now I just need a mattress. yay. I got all the dresser drawers stripped of the layers and layers of paint and started sanding them. I am also updating a rocking chair that used to be ours when we were little. Sanding, painting and adding a cushioned back to hide a broken spoke (you know, the little bars on the back of a chair so you can lean back? what are those called? spoke seems the most appropriate at the moment). Then, in addition to the bed, the chair and the dresser, I am going to sand, paint and upholster a small toy chest for the playroom. I'll cushion and upholster the lid so it can be used as a seat and paint the sides of the box. There are also some plain inserts that I'm thinking I will just cover with fabric or contact paper.

And that is that. Life is busy as always. I am looking forward to all of this stuff being finished and getting settled in West Virginia. We are going to spend the weekend at the new house painting and such - a fun little girls get away.

motivation

i have zero motivation. i have all sorts of things to do and no energy to do them. i'm a little worried, but really i don't care all that much. meh.

my room is covered in stuff. boxes o' stuff. fun!

i want to finish watching season 3 of buffy but i have no time.

we had a great book club last night for The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. i made cheesy cauliflower soup and we ate it with bread and delicious fruit and cookies. so good and it made me love the book even more. also, i'm really going to miss this ward. calvert ward has ruined me forever for all other wards.

i'm watching icarly. out of choice. but mostly because i don't want to watch yogi bear and monkey is quiet so there's that.

i'm going to invest in some dog training books. look at me trying to be prepared. oh yeah.

i'm heading to ikea this weekend to check out the bed and chair situation...i really hope i can find what i want for a good price. cross your fingers.

If there was an aisle, I would dance down it

Puppies!!

NATALIE PORTMAN & RASHIDA JONES Speak Out from Natalie Portman

(I know I posted this video before, but it's relevant here and it's funny so there.)

Moving to the house means I can consider a pet. Not a cat (unless Wil decides he wants one) but a puppy. Monkey already thinks the new house comes with puppy already installed, but that is not my doing. Lauren and Wil said they could get a puppy when they get a new house long before they realized that they would be getting a new house so quickly.

So I have been trying to do some research. I have to keep it small and social. Lauren and Wil will also be getting a dog and it might be bigger so we don't want to squish two big dogs in one space. I also might wait till they get their puppy so they can be friends but we'll see.

My motivator for getting one sooner is that I will have more time now to train a puppy. I still might wait for other factors to fall in line.

Anyway, I want to do my research first. Plenty of it. That's why I'm starting now. I don't want to just go and see a puppy and make an impulse decision which would be a totally easy thing to do. I've been leaning toward the Yorkie Poo. Which seems kind of silly just because I would have to tell people it was a Yorkie Poo (like now, for instance, when I have to direct you to that totally cheesy dog site - but I'm learning all dog sites are cheesy). But they are adorable and small and have different colors (I like the darker ones). They also don't shed which is a plus with all that white carpet in the house. And because they are so small, it will be easier to find a place of my own and still keep my dog without feeling like I'm not giving it enough space to live.

And here's a helpful note according to information asking whether you are ready for a dog, "Some dogs will kill your cat." Um. Awesome? I know some dogs hate cats and that statement is true, but isn't that kind of intense? I thought so at least.

ready for west virginia!

Monkey keeps climbing into bins, pulling the lid over himself and saying, "I'm ready to go to West Virginia!" It's adorable.

I'm packing very slowly. Like two boxes of books in three hours. Three hours. That's insanely too long to be packing two boxes of books. The problem is that I'm really incredibly tired so I go to pack something and then I kind of just find other things to do. My mom likes to call me into her room and distract me with Food Network Challenges and HGTV Design Showdowns and I just cuddle up and let her distract me while she sleeps through the whole show. Then it's 10pm and I still need to shower and pack at least two boxes (two boxes a day is my goal, although if I only pack one I consider that accomplished). So I've packed the most important things (books and dvds) as well as most of my winter wardrobe. Next up is finishing the craft supply sorting and packing.

I also started refurbishing a dresser. It is part of the bedroom set my mom got when she was in 3rd grade. I just want to buy a new dresser, but they are expensive and I think putting money into a bed is a better idea. So I started stripping off the paint. The pink paint and the yellow paint under the pink paint and the white paint under that and the gold accents under that. Yeah, that's a lot of paint and it's a 7 drawer dresser with little french provincial details. Ideally I would like to stain it, but will probably end up painting it black/brown. This whole process is going to take forever (with the stripping and the sanding and the painting and such) but it's my best option for a nice dresser.

I also have plans to sand and paint other old things so they are cute and new. A kid size rocking chair that will be red with a new cushioned back and an old ikea trunk that will become toy storage/seating for the playroom downstairs. The kitchen table will also be sanded and painted because it's a good table, just obviously worn on top. And this bed:

Which will either be painted the same color as the dresser for some kind of uniformity or stained the same color as my bookshelf.

It's simple and on sale and not white. I'll have to sand and treat the whole thing which is bothersome, but everything else I've seen so far is at least $40 more expensive and most are a good $100-$200 more expensive. I need to go up to ikea and check it out, but right now I'm liking it. Also, it's not so substantial that it will be so overpowering in my small bedroom. Going to the full is iffy already, I don't want a headboard that will make everything look even more squished. But, I want some opinions. Other things in the room will be my bookshelf (tall, wood, antique stain), the dresser, a nightstand and hopefully a small chair (one of these:)

The white one is cheaper, but the gray one can get a blue cover so it would match my room.

My room will be brown and blue to start out with (eventually it will be blue and white with brown/wood accents and furniture). All of the bedding I have out of storage at the moment goes with that theme and Wil and Lauren want the room I'm going to be in to be brown anyway so there ya go.

Any ideas? Thoughts? Hate the direction I'm going?

kind of funny

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

not terribly amazing...but funny enough. mostly i like anything where people randomly burst into song and even more so when the songs are about totally random things.

The 'Hood Literary and Toaster Strudel Society

A random post for your week.

I am working three jobs this week. I am also looking forward to having a full-time job so I don't HAVE to say yes to every job that comes along.

Next week I have off from my temporary nanny job, then two weeks on and a week of dogsitting after that. Sometime during all of that I have to pack my life away and move to WV. Needless to say, I'm not getting much sleep.

I really want furniture. I'm planning a post to gather my design thoughts. Mostly I'm just really tired of using all the mismatched, old furniture around my house. I want things that work as they should and match each other.

I'm watching 5 kids today. It's 9:30 and I'm already exhausted. Now I have to go and make sure none of them kill each other. WOO!

I'm still alive...I think.

I thought about various posts to write about the 4th (it was stressful then fun) and about West Virginia (I'm moving in a month) and about other recent goings on, but then I was in Chincoteague for a week without my computer. I thought, well, maybe it would be nice to not have my computer for a week. I did not think about having to catch up after being gone for a week. Mostly I'm not so much catching up as trying to figure out the things that need replies and ignoring the rest. It's kind of refreshing.

Also, I like this:


Chincoteague was great (if you like taking Aunt Flo to the beach and then contracting a rash that covers 40% of your body and itches like the dickens while you are actually supposed to be caring for someone else's children). So somehow my skin is tanner than it was three months ago, but I have no idea how that's happened because I have had two successful days in the sun. TWO. and the first one I didn't even have my bathing suit. I waded into the water and got burnt on my neck. So maybe that wasn't really "successful" in terms of tanning and preparation but it was a fun day with the kids. But, I digress.

The best thing about the trip, hands down was this:
That would be me sitting in a hammock, reading a book, listening to the waves of the bay that literally washed up into the backyard and enjoying the amazing breeze that was a blowin'. I told Megan later that while I was in that hammock, I thought about how utterly happy I was in that moment. The kids were out so it was peaceful. I was reading an amazing book, swaying in the breeze by the bay. I decided that my husband will take me on voyages to sea-side places with hammocks...even if I have to take my own hammock with me.

Also, texting Megan a lot (mostly regarding Buffy) and actually completeing three books (I lie, Julie Andrews' Home still has three pages or so left, but you get the idea). I will go into more detail over on the book blog, but I read Al Capone Does My Shirts (Miri mentioned it and they had it on the shelf at the rental house so I picked it up and thoroughly enjoyed it) and I read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (and the rest of Home as previously mentioned). Again, I'll elaborate later, but everyone should go read Guernsey Lit. I loved it. It definitely succeeded in getting me out of the slump I was in after falling in love with I Capture the Castle. I will be buying a hard bound copy and treasuring it for years.


And so, with that quick round up I will inform you all that I am working three jobs this week. Typing amendments at my old office, nannying for the friend (with three children) that I just went to Chincoteague with and watching the boys on Wed and Thurs. I'm already exhausted...here's hoping I make it to Friday.

Today some awesome things happened

Today we drove up to West Virginia so Lauren and Wil could sign the contract on their new town house. My dad drove so you should all be happy I'm still alive to blog about all of this. Mom and Lauren and I were bracing ourselves the entire time and also complaining out loud about how he shouldn't try to kill us, but I digress.

The drive is about 2 hours. Not too long really especially with the outlet mall on the way. When we got there we went straight to their house to check it out. It really is nice. I don't know what possessed them to put white carpet throughout (white carpet is never a good idea I don't care who you are) but other than that it was beautiful. My official room and bathroom will need to be finished, but they are there. There is also a big playroom on the first level with a door to the backyard. The second level has what Lauren will be using as a large family room, a nice kitchen with pretty new appliances and a dining room next to the kitchen (because not only is white carpet a bad idea, EATING over a white carpet with children under 4 is an extremely bad idea). There is also a sliding glass door so they can build a deck off the back of the house and a half bath. The top floor has all the bedrooms and the laundry. The absolute best feature is the windows. They are big and plentiful and make the house seem so much bigger.

While Lauren and Wil signed their mountain of papers, Mom and dad and I looked around the model home getting ideas and playing with all the fake stuff. Also, reading through this Panera Bread cook book (which I will own, hopefully in the near future). We were starving. The cook book and the fake food were taunting us. Obviously mom and I took pictures of us "drinking beer" and "playing poker." What better activities for a Sunday afternoon? Eventually we left the model home to head back to Maryland. We stopped for food (bc it was necessary) and embarked on one of the funniest drives I have been on in a very long time. I was laughing so hard toward the end that every part of my body hurt. Of course none of the things that made us laugh so much will ever be funny to anyone else so I won't bore you with the nonsense.

And now tomorrow I am off to the beach. Heading down to Chincoteague to babysit for a week. I've never been down there and I only know the lady I'm working for so I'm a little nervous not knowing the whole situation, but I'm sure it will be fun. I'm over preparing (as I often do) and packing a big box of things to do just in cases. And if all else fails, I'll trek the kids to wal-mart and let them run around like crazy ragamuffins.

Patriotism swells in the heart of the American bear

Today we celebrated the Fourth of July. It was full of lovely family frustration, cleaning, delicious food and little cousins running after each other and lots of talk about West Virginia.

I think I am going to move with Lauren and Wil if only because I think I might have more opportunities to find a job. It's hard enough to find a job in the county when times are good...nearly impossible when times are bad and I really hate commuting to DC because it ends up eating so much of your day. Also, I'm not a nice person when sitting in traffic. But the place they are moving to is close to Hagerstown and Frederick and several other places that are big enough that I should be able to find some kind of gainful employment.

And I need a break from here.

And I don't know what I would do around here without my sister. And by that I literally mean I don't know what I would do because we pretty much hang out with each other and 95% of my friends here are also her friends and they are all married with children.

And, how on earth could I live without this:

Life is old there, older than the trees...

a few things.

Today I sanded rusty chairs, primed them and painted them "tuscan sunset" which is kind of an orangey color. It was as hot as a very very hot place outside and I just kept thinking about how I wasn't supposed to be spending prolonged periods of time in the sunshine bc of the antibiotics I'm on for my sinus infection. And by thinking about it I mean not caring that I was "breaking the rules." I have gone through three outfits today. One to sand and prime, one to run to kmart to purchase more spray paint and one to sit around in the rest of the day.

The boys ran around inside and out hanging out with Grandma, Matt, Michelle and Lexie and Grandpa. Monkey apparently knows how to shovel really well. I know not that much skill is involved, but it's kind of crazy to actually stop and pay attention to him as he shovels. He sticks the shovel in the ground (which is an actual small metal/wooden shovel), uses his foot to push the shovel in further and picks up his dirt. The only thing lacking is arm muscles big enough to move that dirt a significant distance from the place it was removed. Bug ran around like a ragamuffin, his face covered in chocolate from his oh-s0-healthy cookie lunch, just trying to keep up with the big kids.

After some tearful goodbyes my parents left to take Matt to the airport. Michelle asked me how I was keeping my cool. I told her "I'm a big fan of denial and avoidance." Of course it's hard to say goodbye knowing we won't see each other for months, I just don't have the mental capacity or energy at the moment for a big break down. I broke out in tears the minute I was supposed to be smiling for a picture because obviously I wasn't looking bad enough what with my hair in the messiest of buns, wearing an oversized tshirt that cost me $1 and the ugliest pants I own. Glad we have that photo to treasure forever and ever.

The boys got a bath because they were filthy. At that point it was 1pm and Bug still hadn't had any sort of nap. So after the bath, I dressed him and took him to his crib. He laid down, giggled and buried himself under his beloved blankie and instantly fell asleep. Seriously. I think he was asleep before I made it to the door. I had to go back in to give him some medicine and he was out cold.

Finally, I have no idea what to do about WV. Everyone else seems to think it's a no brainer - they all just assume I'm going with Lauren and ask me things like, "are you getting excited to move?" instead of "are you going to miss your sister when SHE moves?" I don't really know what to think of that but oh well. Maybe it is that easy and I'm just so stressed out and overwhelmed at the moment that I can't help but overthink. I just don't know.

Okay, one more thing. Monkey just walked over, hugged me and said, "You're cute, Zizi." What wonderful timing he has.