to my sister

I've eaten all but the almond one. Come and get it.

my new fun space

My Dad had a nice pool table that he gave to us when we moved into our house. Over Christmas we passed it on to my sister's house and created a craft room out of the now available space. Some people would say my husband is nuts for letting me get rid of a game room to make a crafty space, but I... well...*swoon*

The hubs ordered some cabinets and a countertop from work to create this work area.

We've had the curtains for a while, but finally got them hung. My MIL gave me these work tables for Christmas.

I got these shelves on sale on Black Friday.

I decided to put Julianna's little desk in there so she could do her own "crafts" while I played.

Here's one more view of the new room.

learn to share

The other night when Jonathan was giving Jules a bath he started the routine hair-washing and dumped a cup of water on her head. She's never really minded this too much because she loves to play with the cup afterwards, but as she wants more and more control she is beginning to dislike that part of her bath. She's also quite clever. She grabbed the cup out of his hands and demanded, "Share, Daddy!"

we ran out of money, but we did it

This is my brother-in-law, husband, and father at their finest.

A few months ago we decided we really didn’t like our deck. It was small and badly in need of repair. The stupid bumblebees had bored hole after hole in the railing, there were nails sticking up everywhere that my husband had to keep knocking back down, and the wood was in such poor condition that we were afraid to let Jules run around out there barefooted. Also, there was only one small set of steps to the sidewalk on the far end of the deck and it made it a big pain in the rear to run after Julianna when she was headed for trouble.

So my brother-in-law (who’s working on his contractor’s license) offered to help us with a new one. Jonathan produced a preliminary design and they worked through a few ideas on paper. We saved up what money we could and decided on Trex instead of regular lumber. On November 4th Jonathan started taking down the old deck. The plan was to work a little each weekend or whenever there was spare time and see what could get done before next summer.

On Sunday, Jonathan swept off the last few scraps and particles of sawdust. We’re super-pleased with the result thus far although the proposed L-shaped bench, the stair lighting, and extra step to the ground on the far end will have to wait because we’re out of money for now.

If you take a look at the picture below you can see how much we need to pressure-wash the house now. The line you see shows how much lower the new deck is than the old one. The lower height is super-nice because you can step off at least the front half of the deck at any edge and be right on the ground. If Julianna were to fall off, I wouldn't be too worried about her getting really hurt. Also the height means, no hand rail which means greater visibility from all around.

If we do put the bench seats in (eventually), they’ll probably be just under the small window and down the far side of deck where it’s higher off the ground (the back left corner). We’ll probably add another step at the front, left angled edge and then lights all around the sides and steps.

They also extended it out from the house about four feet so it is considerably larger. When we put the cheap-o patio table and chairs back on it the other day it was obviously roomier.

Although at first I wasn’t sure about the color choices, I really like how the dark edge design turned out. I also love the angled corners (even though and especially because I wouldn’t have thought of it myself).

We’re probably going to have to fill in with some dirt on the lower side to make it a little more level in the yard around it, but I'd say it's not bad work indeed, especially for free-labor. One thing’s for sure, Julianna will miss frequently seeing her family members working outside the kitchen window, but she will definitely enjoy the fruits of their labor in a few months when the sun finds it's way back to NC.

i’ve been meaning to update you on this for a long time now

My dry erase board To Do List is working out pretty well. In case you were wondering.

I've made a few modifications.

There are only two columns now for things to do. A PRIORITY column and a SOMETIME column.

Right now those look like this:

PRIORITY: finish sewing crayon pouch, make fabric swatch ring, send Claire K birthday card, vacuum all floors, wrap K’s present, order shower cake, Craigslist postings, order frozen meal for J, call Vonage

SOMETIME: paint J's new room, take A's stuff back to her, clean out closet, sort through magazines, etc

It really helps me see that if one particular item from the PRIORITY column is still left to do at the end of the week then it probably wasn’t in the right list to begin with. I try to move that item over to the next column. It also helps me add things to one central list as I think of them (even craft projects, etc that aren’t high priority).

The system isn’t perfect, but I think it’s helped me get a little better organized and less stressed out over my five on-going lists.

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Another thing I added to the board was a list of weekly household cleaning chores. It looks like this:

MONDAY:
bathrooms
general pick up

TUESDAY:
paperwork/bills
clean out/wipe down fridge

WEDNESDAY:
plan meals
groceries

THURSDAY:
vacuum
dust

FRIDAY:
mop kitchen
trash

SATURDAY:
laundry
change beds

What I've been trying to do with this list is complete the chore every day. It's hard getting going the first week, but once you've completed a week, the next is a lot easier. I try to do it early in the day, but I tell myself that if I don't complete the chore then I can't have an evening snack until it's done. That usually works.

this may be a little weird

But is it crazy that I want desparately to go to this?

If I wasn't throwing a baby shower and my daughter wasn't sick I would totally be there.

my fortune