Failure to Plan

...is Planning to Fail. Ouch....right in my gut.

Here's the deal. I am not quite ready for it to be pretty much the end of January. I haven't picked out a calendar system to use for 2014. I haven't even spent any time really looking for something that will meet my do something different every single day lifestyle. Except for making sure I eat, routine is not my cup of tea.

I have come to the point that I quit making lists of things to do because I usually am just writing them on random pieces of paper that get shoved in a stack of papers that I never look at again until the pile starts getting in the way or gets so big that it won't stay piled. 

So this week, my goal is to get out of that rut. I need to spend some time working on a good calendar system that can keep all the segments of my life moving in positive directions.

I want to eventually have an all encompassing Home Management Binder system. That is on my ever growing do it one day list. I am finding the process of just finding printables that fit my needs is uber time consuming! One day I will have time to really browse and analyze all my options or make my own printables.

For now, I just need a central location to keep some lists, my personal calendar and some other organizational kinds of papers. Right now I write things down in various notebooks that get toted here and there and never make it back to the place where I need them, when I need them.

I am going to begin my notebook with the To Do Lists from DIY Home Sweet Home. She has some awesome free printables for putting together a Home Management binder. I will eventually use several of these, but for now, I need to get my To Do Lists under control!

I am going to keep using, I use the word keep very loosely since I haven't written a single thing in this calendar for over a month, a store bought daily calendar as a way to micro manage my To Do List and to plan out my daily activities. 

I like to have a calendar on the refrigerator so that everyone can see what is going on for the month since I am not the only person in my house who needs to be aware of where we need to be and when. I don't want to do double entries on a main calendar so we will keep using a calendar on the refrigerator. I actually just print a blank monthly calendar out each month and fill it in. 

Here is a link to the calendar page printables that I am currently using from Krafty Cards, Etc.

 

A few years ago, I started using Cozi on my phone, but without paying the monthly fee there were some functions that would have been helpful to me. You all know I am too cheap to pay a fee to use a calendar. I also have terrible service on my current phone so just pulling up the app was a frustrating ordeal.

Here's to hoping I can keep my calendar and my To Do Lists under some semblance of order.

What system do you use that seems to work for your family? I will take all the advice or leads to good tools that I can get. Happy Calendaring or To Do-ing!

JB's Room

I have been working on Jenna Beth's room for several months. Actually had a lot of the work done - painting, wall decor, curtains, etc - but kept forgetting to take the bed posts to a friend for her to refinish them! We finally got it all taken care of and I am glad to have her room done!! 

 

The bed will only look made if I make it, which is one of the reasons why none of my kids have actual bedspreads!  Her favorite color is blue so there is lots of it in her room. I bought the little wood frames above her bed at Michael's and painted them with acrylic paints that I already had at the house.

 

 

I love that there is room under this bed for storage! I had a couple of these wood crates, also from Michael's, already painted pink. When I figured out that they would fit under the bed, we bought 4 more in an undercover operation from Michael's and painted the extras pink and blue! I have all of her toy stuff organized neatly in them now, but know she won't keep it that way. At least they can just be shoved under the bed and all her junk will be out of sight!

 These zig zag curtains from Anna's Linens were kind of the jumping off point for her room. I had them many months before I ever put a coat of paint on the walls. I love the color combo in them!

 These little sayings are just printed and mod podged to 8x10 canvases. They add a little bit of a grown up touch to Jenna Beth's little corner of the world.

This is a dresser that I bought from my friend Kim who is a master furniture re-doer-extraordinaire! I love it! I actually had it sitting in my living room for a while wishing I could find an excuse to leave it there, but Jenna Beth's dresser at the time had 2 broken drawers and I had just bought it at a yard sale for like $30 so the fact that it was falling apart wasn't a huge deal!

 I am awful about hanging family pictures in our house. I always joke that my house looks like it is always staged because there are few pictures of us on the walls! I put these three pictures of the kids in her room to try to make it a little more personal. 

I got the idea for these little hanging shelves for dolls from here. They were easy to recreate, but with all projects I do it was a lesson in trial and error. As with the storage under her bed, I often have to come and put all the dolls back on these shelves! They are cute when loaded with stuffed things, but not so cute when the stuffed things are spread across the floor!

Probably one of my favorite parts of this room is the blue ceiling! I knew I couldn't get away with painting the whole room blue since we are probably going to be putting our house on the market at some point. I love the pop of color it adds to the otherwise neutral brownish walls.

I love the transformation this room took from the baby room (see that room here)  it was when we moved into this house to the sort of big girl room that it is now!

Happy Thanksgiving From Us

Happy Thanksgiving to you from us!

I'm looking forward to eating way too much today and regretting it tomorrow. That's not much different than what I've been doing for the last week! I'm also looking forward to the short drive to eat that we have and getting to sleep in our own beds tonight. Being close to my family definitely has its benefits! 

My mom is going to be here tomorrow and we have several rearranging and constructing projects to conquer. We're going to switch 2 of my bedrooms and create a craft room with the spare room, or red room as we call it. It has a red couch in it, hence the red room! I have a desk and shelves to put together. I'm so excited to finally have a place for all of my craft stuff to call home and be in one place instead of the 3 or 4 places I have to go look now for my glue gun or the stapler or mod podge, etc. I can hardly wait. I'm also going to keep my sewing machine in a more accessible place so tackling little sewing projects won't be quite the hassle that it currently is.

The kids are also going to have a new swingset by the end of the weekend! They have no clue about it. They know we received a big long box from Fed Ex last weekend, but they have no idea what's in it. I can't wait to see the looks on their little faces when we start assembling it. Fun times ahead, for sure.

Have a fabulous day remembering how blessed we are. I have a hard time deciding if we're blessed or spoiled, but either way, I'm thankful for my Savior, Jesus Christ, who provided for my ultimate need - Eternal Salvation - and daily provides for our every need!

 

 

And a funny picture for the road. Not sure why wearing goggles and sunglasses in the house were so necessary on this day, but she was obviously having a bad fashion day and was just adding to it, I guess. You can't help but smile at her silliness!

Laundry Room Reveal

During the summer, I started this project on my laundry room/mud room because I wanted a more organized place for us to drop our stuff as we walked in the door. Even though we don't park in the garage, we still come through the garage just about every time we enter the house. It's just easier! If the front door had an automatic open remote, we'd probably use it more! Juggling keys, kids and their stuff that I get stuck holding and trying to insert juggled keys in a keyhole just isn't convenient!

I had a great idea, but knew I couldn't pull it off alone so I waited until my mom was around for a few days and put her and my step dad to work! We almost threw in the towel at one point because we weren't sure we would like the end product tied in with our current baseboards. Ripping up and redoing baseboards wasn't an option! We had to start googling and looking for other ideas. What we came up with was the perfect solution. Now I can't find the site from the walls we borrowed this idea from!

This is what my laundry room looked like the weekend we put in our offer - a little over a year ago. The door to the garage is on the left, beside that sink.

Here is the  board and battened wall of my laundry room in full use, even with a little person stealing something out of her brother's back pack. Pictures don't lie, right? 

A close up of the wall. I'm glad that we decided to put hooks from one end of the wall to the other because we obviously use all of them! 

This is the cleaned up version of the whole wall you see as you walk in from the garage. My WASH word is a Pinterest copy.The craftsmanship on the letters is far from perfect, but who other than me is going to spend that much time very close to these letters?

These labeled shoe boxes are directly in front of the door, to the right of the 3 laundry baskets. The kids do a great job putting their shoes in their own boxes. It's a much better system than just having shoes thrown on this rack without separate boxes!

 

My 5 minute curtain that I managed to cut the wrong direction on the fabric twice! Glad I had plenty of fabric because measuring twice and cutting once didn't click for me. You can barely see the 3 little yo-yo tacks that are holding this up. I think it turned out super cute.

This wall will always be a thorn in my side! The dryer vent is on the far right side of the dryer going out of the house, but our dryer duct is on the back. There is no way to push the dryer any closer to the wall so it sticks out a few inches further than the washer. I guess if I ever buy another dryer while living in this house I'll have to make sure it vents on the side! Above the sink is my dry erase board I made out of an old frame and some scrapbook paper. 

Honestly, if it weren't overkill, I'd have some form of board and batten or wainscoting in every room in my house! I have visions and dreams, but know they aren't going to become reality any time soon. Our current baseboards are stumbling block number one and we'd have to get creative to tie the boards into it. We also have a somewhat open floor plan and we have curved wall corners. Finding a good stopping and starting point would be another hurdle. We jumped a few hurdles with this one so you never know!

I'm sure my friends think I'm nuts because I always take them to the laundry room to show it off and tell them it's my favorite room in the house!

I still have some touch up work to do on the ceiling in here and now I have all of my kitchen/dining room painted except for one part of the ceiling. My ceiling painting motivation is obviously lacking! I'm hosting a party here in a couple of weeks. I really am hoping that will motivate me to get these nagging tasks done.

My Feelings Exactly

I've probably mentioned at some point how much I love TheNester. What's not to love - - She lives in the Charlotte area. She's crafty, creative and a great decorator. She says so many things that I think, but could never put into words. She's inspired a few of my decorating projects here in the new house like my coffee filter wreath and a sunburst mirror that has yet to be completed or begun for that matter.

Today or yesterday - sometime in the past few days - my days seem to run together or over each other and most of the time I have no idea what day of the week it is...Okay..the point is she had Karen from the Art of Doing Stuff do a guest blog on how she sold all of her stuff in a 2 week period of time and totally redid her house, only keeping those things that were truly meaningful. Check out her post here. While you're there, be sure and read some of TheNester's other posts on this topic.

I don't know about you, but I have been overwhelmed this week by many things - one of the main ones being my disgustingly filthy and cluttered house! Since Saturday, I have mopped my kitchen floor 3x because two of the tornadoes have dumped entire bowls of cereal on the floor. It could stand to be mopped again, but I can't let myself bond with the mop any more this week. I just can't do it! In an effort to have one room in my house be relatively clean, I spent a little while cleaning the laundry room this morning. It even has clean baseboards and that's totally not my style.

I'm feeling the need to just start tossing more stuff from our closets and drawers and wherever else I can find useless, meaningless things hiding. One day, not today or this week or even this month, probably not this year, I will have a clutter free, peaceful and easy to live in house.

If I could only figure out where I left that Diet Dr. Pepper I had in my hand, I could get started on the decluttering. I really do lose opened, half consumed cans of Diet Dr. Pepper in my house. I could do a whole blog post on the topic, I'm sure!

More House Pictures

It really is a shame that pictures can't just jump off the camera onto the blog page! I know some of my readers are interested in seeing what the inside of our new house looks like. At least, I think you want to see them. Honestly, I'm not sure who my readers are these days since my blogging is extremely sporadic lately. On to the pictures...

This is a picture of the front exterior of the house. I only took this because I was taking pictures of my new ride that was parked on the street. (That's another post in itself!) You can see the hubs standing by the garage.

The master bedroom has been fairly done for a while now, but it's those darn pictures that don't jump off the camera onto the laptop that have kept me from posting these.

These are of my dresser wall and this image has already changed since we were the recipients of a new larger tv for the living room. Our old tv from the living room is now on my dresser. It's much larger and easier to read the onscreen guide from the bed! (Thanks Dad)

A view of the bed.

The lampstands have been sitting on the night stands since we moved without lampshades. I finally made it to Ikea to get these last week. I'm not sure if these curtains will stay forever or not. I actually need 2 more panels, but finding 2 more of these panels hasn't been a priority. They no longer sell them at Target so it'll take some serious hunting to find them.

Mirror with sconces. Nothing special.

The best part about this mirror is how easily it went up when I was in one of my get it done moods and hanging mirrors all by myself! It went up on about the 2nd try as I was contorting my body to hold 2 different hooks and look behind the mirror to see if the hooks were hitting the screws. I've not had near as many picturing hanging mishaps in this house as I have in previous houses. I guess I'm getting to be a better picture hanger with all of my experience and the help of Command Strips! Love those things! I'm actually considering painting these sconces at some point, but that's hanging out on the bottom of the project list with finding the 2 panels for the windows.

I wish I could take a good picture of the ceiling and the 3 different sets of lights on it. I tried today, but just can't get a picture worth posting.

More to come...

F1's Room

F1's room is really the easiest room to decorate after we move. I think it was the first room complete when we got to our apt in OK, too. Once the bed is in place, it's pretty easy to decide where things will go on the walls. I'm not positive what I'm going to do with her windows. This valance is hung with a tension rod under a decorative piece of molding at the top of the faux wood blinds. There are arches on the 2 windows in the kids' bedrooms and I'm conflicted about how to cover both of them! For now this works for me in her room.

Apartment Sweet Apartment

For quite a few years I've said that I never wanted to live in an apartment ever again! When I was single, after college, my best friend and I lived in a 4th floor apartment in Fairfax, VA. It took my entire first paycheck of the month to pay my portion of the rent. I really didn't mind apartment living then, but certainly never thought we'd resort to living in an apartment with 3 kids! I don't recommend it. Some times I just have to fantasize and pretend that we're just renting a condo at the beach or something to make it feel somewhat enjoyable. I also have to remind myself that this is just for 6 short months and then we'll be back in a house with a yard. I'm hoping it's a house we own so I can paint a wall or two or ten!

I've tried to do my best to get settled in and make this 1300 sqft feel like home for all of us. Here are a few pictures to let you know what 1300 sqft of Wade stuff looks like! Jenna Beth's room was the easiest to do so I did hers first.

She has these 3 cute little windows that if we were to stay here longer I would work on some cutesy curtain or covering for, but for 6 months, I thought her initial letters would hang perfectly on them! I have some pink flower hooks that must be in a random box that the letters normally hang on, but until I start digging through boxes that didn't get opened a nail will have to do.Her curtain that matches the bedding and the very versatile window seat bench that both of the boys used in their rooms. My mom and I recovered it with a different sheet a few months ago so that it would better match JB's stuff. She even wanted to make sure she got in the picture!This is the quilt that goes with her bedding. I bought the little flower hooks that are holding it up from someone on Etsy a year or so ago.And her blah bed! I didn't put the bumper back in it when we got here. The other night we heard this weird banging sound and couldn't figure out where it was coming from. We opened her door and found her banging this metal flower against the wall! She was not ready to go to bed and wanted to make sure we all knew. I think Maverick was vacuuming the floor for her.

I have pretty much every other room except for the boys as decorated as they're going to get. More pictures of those to come!

VBS...Check...Purging...Ummm...

As our time here in EP is winding down, last night marked the end of Vacation Bible School (VBS) and my first public tears shed over our leaving here. We had a great week with all the cowpokes (kids) who attended. Now the fun clean up, reorganize part begins.

This week I get to send about 40 kids and sponsors to camp. There's still some prep work that needs to be done to get them there, but it's minimal compared to prepping for VBS.

I feel like I'm getting my life back in some respects. I have a lot of winding down and finishing out to do at FBC, but can start to focus some of my energy on the much needed purging projects that have been neglected here at the house. Finding the right time and energy to focus on any of these for any amount of time has been difficult lately. I've come to the conclusion that not all can be done, but some can and I need to focus on those.

Beware craft room, here I come...Beware master bedroom closet, here I come...Those are the only 2 threats I can make at this point in time!

Observations on the Homefront

Since LT's been home about 3 weeks now or maybe closer to 4, there are some things that have changed a ton compared to our lives while he was away. Here are a few of the obvious:

1) The stockpile of food in the pantry doesn't seem to last as long, especially the diet sodas! When he got home, the pantry was bursting at the seems and every shelf was packed with multiple layers of stuff. Now, it's looking pretty bare in comparison. One more adult mouth to feed really makes a huge difference in my cooking and eating habits.

2) The laundry never ends! LT has done a great job trying to keep the laundry under control, but his 3 outfits a day, most days, has made a significant increase in the amount of laundry we do.

3) My routine has been rocked! Part of this is because LT hasn't been working a 'normal' schedule and has had many days when he's home at lunch and never goes back to work. He's had several 4 day weekends, too. I'm having a difficult time adjusting to this sporadic schedule change. I would say it's going to get better soon, but we're about to go on vacation and there will be no routine when that happens. Maybe in April we'll start to sort of understand a normal routine again.

4) It's so much easier to go places alone when daddy's here to provide his child care services. I try not to take advantage of him, but there are days when I feel like I have a year's worth of me time to catch up on.

5) I don't spend nearly as much time on the internet as I used to! That's good for him and probably good for me, too. My poor farms on FB have been neglected and I'm sure they'll be foreclosed on if I don't start planting some crops again soon.

These are just a few observations - that are okay for public sharing! Things may be different and it may take us a while to get completely adjusted, but we're glad he's home, most of the time! :o)

From Drab to Fab

Since the boys have gobs of toys that seem to be a constant source of clutter at our house, I always tell Grammy, my mom, to get them something that's probably more valuable to me than to them for Christmas or birthdays. Believe me, Grammy and Pop make their contribution to the toy clutter!

This year, I asked her to get the boys new stuff for their bathroom. It's not a bathroom we use that much so it hasn't been high on my decorating priority list. I've just been using old bathroom stuff in there that is now in a pile to go to Goodwill.

Bailey's first thought when he saw it all was "It's beautiful." He really said that! It was really sweet.

Here are pictures for you to enjoy the "beautiful" new stuff in their bathroom.

Boys' Rooms #2

I didn't have space to upload pictures of Maverick's room on my last post so he gets a post all to himself - for once!! Finally he has something that's JUST HIS!

The view from the door. I need to adjust the letters on the wall because they're not spaced out very well. The C was added as an afterthought because it's been dropped and broken into 3 different pieces on 2 occasions - once by Bailey and once by me as I was hanging it! I wasn't sure if I would be able to find all the pieces so I hung the M and W without it. It's amazing what a little super glue can do!You can see the vent on the groudn by the little rocking chair. Much like a fireplace does in a living room, the vent and the windows just about kill the usefulness of that whole wall. I had the crib over the vent at one point, but decided it might be blocking heat a little too much so I moved it!When I moved the bed so that it was next to the blanket hanging on the wall, I knew that Maverick would pull it down. Sure enough just a second ago when I went to get him from his nap, he had it in his hand. I may have to relocate it now that I rearranged the furniture!

Finally, his dresser! Exciting, I know :o)

Hope you enjoyed the first installment of house pictures! There'll be more to come since I'll have to get this place into tip top shape by Friday.

Moving Day - Sort Of!

Many of our neighbors are spending this pleasant November Saturday packing their trucks, vans and cars with their personal belongings to move to their new house about a block from where they currently live. It's a bittersweet day for me because it's the reality that our neighborhood as it is will no longer exist and we'll soon be moving out of our very first military post house. It's also the first single family home our little family of 4 has ever lived in. It's a great day because it's the beginning of the day we've all been waiting for - getting to move into our NEW houses! We've all been looking forward to moving since we moved into these houses. Unless there's a surprise letter in our mailbox today, we won't be moving until December. According to our housing rep, we're right on the cutoff line of who will move in this phase. It just depended on how many 3 and 4 bedroom houses were available.

I told Jake I've had visions of decorating this house with all my Christmas decorations and just putting my already decorated tree on the back of a truck and taking it across the street to the new house. He didn't like that idea so I guess I'll just leave my Christmas tree up until Maverick's birthday so that we can fully enjoy the work it is to get all the decorations out! We could have Maverick a snowman birthday and the house would already be decorated. Not a bad idea at all! I'll have to start looking for snowman plates and cups. Oooh, even better maybe I can find some on clearance after Christmas.

In other news, we're in the process of finding out where we're going after Fort Bliss. I may have mentioned once before that Jake's current battery is folding some time between February and April. We've been in discussions for weeks about what we would do next. Our favorite option is to try to get another assignment here at Fort Bliss, but we're not sure if there'll be a position available here. We have some other options. Anyone who knows anything about the military knows that nothing is ever in stone and there are no definites. Pray that we'll be open to where the Lord may need us to be next, whether that's here or there, wherever there may be! As most of you know we didn't want to come to El Paso, but have grown to love it here. If we can like El Paso, I have a feeling we can like most anywhere.

Our House and more

I told you I would post pictures of our house a long time ago so here are a few. One I took from across the street so you could see all of it in all its glory. The other is a close up of our nameplate as proof that we live here. Notice my mini-van and my SC license plate, the one part of the South I can hold onto until September! My license is good until 2008 so I guess I can hold onto it, too. When the house is clean and picture worthy, I'll take some inside shots of the 'chateau.' I still haven't gotten the curtains hung in mine and Maverick's rooms. Jake's had tests and projects so my projects got put on hold. I need to spray paint my curtain rods, too, so I guess I'm holding it up, as well. I would hang curtains myself, but I don't have enough strength to drive the drill bit in the concrete wall. Believe me, I've tried!

I made another major purchase today that I'm so pumped about. I bought myself a full size electronic piano with weighted keys. I know you're saying what's the big deal? I'm a piano player that has lived without a piano for about 10 years. Now that I'll have 24/7 access to one, I'll never get anything done! I don't get anything done already so I guess it won't be any different. I did get 2 pages in Bailey's scrapbook done last night while we watched a special on places to visit in Hawaii. I don't think I'll ever get caught up! Maybe when Jake retires and I have a room in my house dedicated to all my hobbies, I'll finish scrapbooking baby pictures! Ha!

We had more Bailey drama yesterday over a buggy, but I won't bore you with those stories because I could tell one about every day. He and his room got some serious bonding time! The whole trip was for him and he just didn't care. I was going to Hobby Lobby to buy some art supplies so I can be a good creative mother and do some projects with my wonderful son. I could've been taking him to Chicken Nugget Heaven and it wouldn't have made a difference! Jake's outside now trying to talk him into being a golf prodigy. He's not getting very far. I don't think Bailey cares that Tiger Woods could hit a ball 50 yards when he was 2. He's still got 11 months to be 2 so maybe he'll figure it out. I'll have to get him a better club than the plastic club I got at a consignment sale that's currently taped together.