God created the earth in 6 days, the least I can do is finish my baseboard in 3 weeks…

I'm a 'cut twice measure once' kinda girl.

A 'paint before prepping', a 'mop before sweeping', an 'assemble before reading the instructions', a 'write a paper before outlining' kinda girl.

Are we clear?

It doesn't help when the man I married ISN'T any of those things.

He pulled out a LEVEL and a TAPE MEASURE to hang a curtain rod!

Meanwhile, Jenn and I stared at him with confused expressions. I was simply planning to hold it in place until Jenn told me it looked even then hit the screw with a hammer until it stuck - or I put a hole in the wall, whichever came first.

I wanted to 'spot' steam clean our furniture.

I wanted to use a roller to paint the crown molding.

I lost

I lost

And I lost again.

He caught me putting my foot in the washer yesterday to push the clothes down so I could squnich another shirt in.

Give me a break! It's a stackable washer/dryer with the capacity of a gallbladder. I'm lucky to get a pair of jeans AND a shirt in there!

He's taken to giving me 'the look'.

No. Not the 'I love her so much look'...

... the 'How on earth did I get stuck with this wacko?!?!' look.

I've been seeing a lot more of it these days.

I have a feeling a lot more of those looks are to come.

I'm supposed to paint the bathrooms tonight. Cover the floor? Who needs to cover the floor?

Glad I didn’t pay for the good seats…

Chris and I went to see Cirque Du Soleil - Quidam last year and were very impressed. We spent the whole show saying, 'How is that remotely possible to BEND like that?!?!? Did he lift that guy up by his head?!?!' and perhaps the most shocking of all, 'You want $8.50 for this water?!?!'

The whole 'headless man leading a little girl around explaining death' was a bit odd, the show still left everyone in awe. The little girl who sang kept the whole audience entranced and the talented human contortionists were unbelievable.

Based on our positive experiences from last year, we decided to see the talented troupe in the 'Delirium' show last night. We couldn't afford the front seats like last time, and the steep $40 + fees price tag of the nose bleed seats left a nice hole in our wallets, but we couldn't wait to see our favorite show in town again.

Oh what a terrible disappointment.

The show focused more on so so music and less on the talented circus freaks.

You know when you go to a concert and you constantly look at your watch while the opening band is playing wondering when your favorite artist is going to perform? That's what last night felt like... but the opening band wouldn't get off the stage!!

They frequently shined bright lights at the audience and made loud booming noises. I'm quite positive this was simply a tactic to make sure everyone stayed awake.

The set design was clearly modeled after a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos and a hamster wheel. Give me two glasses of wine and a crayon and I'm pretty sure I could surpass their set designer in creativity.

Paula where were you!?!?!

I was more entertained by our server's facial hair at Bakers Square and whether or not he considered those 7 - quarter inch long hairs a 'mustache' or a botched shave job.


In short:

Two Cirque tickets - $92
Dinner for two at Bakers Square - $27
Parking at Sports Arena - $15
Discovering that no two Cirque shows are alike - $134
'Priceless' doesn't apply here. Ask my Debit Card.

So much for entertaining 'water cooler' talk at work today. Last year I told stories of men bending in half, standing on each others heads, then doing some sort of reverse back flip off each other. This year all I have is, 'Some people sang and a lady hula hooped with both feet then did a summersault'. Sounded too much like a crummy 6th grade birthday party.

Oh well. Date night with my darling hubby is always a treat - regardless of the silly shows we see.

We're seeing Stomp next month.

Fingers crossed!

The shower...

I thought I'd share a before picture of our bathroom shower.

That white stuff isn't steam and that black stuff isn't Oreo cookie crumbs. The black inside the shower was awful! Too bad someone didn't take more pictures prior to the 'sanitation'.

Oh and just a note, this picture was taken before she moved out. I DO NOT have a cloud blue padded toilet seat with a fuzzy green lid cover.

Eww. Talk about no taste.

But just in case you missed the gross parts of this shower... I thought I'd point them out for you:

Once again, no 'after' pictures. I'll show you the whole package when we finish.

They say you learn new things everyday...

That's an understatement.

Nothing has quite made me feel more like an idiot than first time homeownership. My underestimations and overestimations have caused a lot of laughter. Not laughter from me, of course, laughter at me.

Chris had to work Saturday so I decided I would impress him with my cleaning ability (trust me, it wouldn't take much based on my history folks). I cleaned the living room and dining room, contemplated making a sweater from all the cat fur... wondered how two cats could leave that much fur and still have hair... then made my way to the dreaded Master Bath. To be honest, I'd been avoiding it. Without a fully encapsulated chemical suit equipped with a government approved gas mask, I was afraid for my health and safety.

Armed with thick jeans, a long sleeve shirt, and Chris' slippers (I wasn't about to ruin my own!) I attacked the shower. I poured through an entire bottle of Kaboom (at times I wished the stupid cleaning solution would live up to its name so I could make a home insurance claim rather than an emergency room run after catching a disease). Disappointingly, after two scrub throughs, the shower looked dirtier. The soap scum had been hiding a whole layer of mildew. I guess I hadn't realized that soap scum can actually be attractive compared to other shower 'ick'.

I pulled out the bleach and scrubbed away. First coat. Scrub. Rinse. Second coat. Scrub. Rinse. Third coat. Sit for 10 minutes. Scrub. Rinse.

I realized I MAY have been overdoing it after discovering my industrial strength gloves were beginning to melt and my eyes beginning to itch... oh and I developed a real naggy cough.

I poured a final coat of bleach in the shower to soak and went to watch some much needed TV (by this time, I had been scrubbing this danged shower for 2 hours). Chris called about 9:30 PM to tell me he was on his way home. I told him I thought I perhaps got some bleach up my nose because that was all I could smell.

Chris came home, opened the front door, and started to gag. 'What did you do?!?!' he gasped.

'Huh?' I mumbled. I was in the middle of a chick flick and a stack of double stuffed Oreos, that was the best response I had.

'Hon, the house smells awful? It smells like... *sniffs*... BLEACH!! Why do you have all the windows and doors closed?!? Are you trying to kill yourself?'

I'd been in the house all day by myself and I did what every normal girl does in that situation, locked every door and window!

How do you tell your hubby that you'd rather die of chemical fumes than white trash crime?!?!



But I didn't die... and the cough is clearing...

...somewhat.



Oh, and I'm over budget... again.

I hadn't anticipated:

2 bottles of bleach
2 bottles of Kaboom
1 industrial pair of gloves
1 pair of slippers (sorry hon)

For one bathroom.




Just a quick question:

Everyone has little black spots in their vision right? And when you cough, your lungs burn too right?



Learning. New things. Everyday.

Ooops... I love mistakes!

Last night we went out and bought a gi-normous fridge. We got it for nearly half off because there is a 1” ding at the top. We are now calling it the '$700 ding' – and we couldn’t be happier.

Cheers to the guys at Sears for making mistakes and hitting refrigerators.

25 cu. Ft.

It’s a monster.

And the '$700 ding'

Oh and here’s the Poop Room. No further pictures of the house until we finish. I’m not going to ruin the surprise.

Home ownership is…

EXPENSIVE.

I’ve heard rumors. I’ve seen bills. I’ve heard mom, Liz, and Cole complain about the expense of home ownership.

But I’ve only been a homeowner for 6 days and my savings account is empty!!

Here was my ‘Move In Budget’:

New Carpet in 3 bedrooms - $1,000
Paint and Supplies - $200
Miscellaneous Items - $300

Total Move-In Budget - $1,500


I hate to expose the idiocy of my ways but here are the current required purchases (and we’re not even moved in yet!!):

New Carpet - $1,905
(After begging Chris, ‘But Hoooonnnnneeeeyyy, this one is preeeeettttyyyy’. Man I’ve turned in to quite the WHINER)

Paint and Supplies - $658
(Dad always gave it to us for free. I had no idea the stuff was $25 a gallon!!!! A stupid roller cover is six bucks?!?!)

New door locks on all exterior doors - $205
(To stop the crazies from coming back)

New locking mailbox - $72
(To stop the crazies from stealing our mail)

Cleaning supplies - $141
(To clean up after the people who I’m quite positive never owned cleaning supplies)

Total so far - $2,981


Yet to be purchased:
New Countertop in Master Bath (The current hunk of broken/cracked/mildewed plastic isn’t usable)
New Flooring in Master Bath (When Carpet guy said he didn’t want to work around it because it was ‘gross’, I took that as a sign that a big bottle of 409 wouldn’t be adequate)
Rug for Spare Bedroom to hide GIANT painting mistake (I’ll explain later)
Refrigerator (Turns out… the house doesn’t have one and it’s kinda important!)
Closet Doors in Master Bedroom (They liked the ‘exposed clothing’ look. Eww. How messy can they be?!?!)

Um yeah.

Ouch.

But thankfully our escrow company made an error... in our favor so we got a nice check back from them.



AND… here’s a little hint. When choosing paint colors, consider the color of your flooring. We picked out this gorgeous color for our walls called ‘Warm Nutmeg’ for our spare bedroom, kitchen, and dining room. It just makes the house feel homey, inviting, and ‘warm’.

We also chose a medium brown Berber carpet. Well…

Warm brown walls with warmer brown flooring make your room look like…


…


Let’s just say Chris and I call our spare bedroom ‘the poop room’.

Now we have to buy a giant rug to hide the carpet and break up the…

brown.




Since we have no fridge, we eat out every night. I actually find myself missing my home cooked microwave meals.

This morning I ran out of my stash of Cinnibons, so I came to work and devoured a bag of Hershey Nuggets with Toffee and Almond.

Here’s my thinking:

Chocolate is a dairy product. That’s practically whole milk. The Hershey Nugget has toffee AND almonds in it. Almonds are totally healthy!

So if my mom asks, I had whole milk and Almonds this morning for breakfast.

Also… I took my multi-vitamin which counteracts the Toffee/sugar.

I’m good to go.

Oy. My poor future children.

Mother's Day Wishes...

For Mother's Day this year, all of us kids decided to get a book done with a special note to mom and pops. Here are some of the pages.


*Click on the pictures to take them to full screen.




Mike:
John:

Me:

Lizzie:

Cole:

Paula:

James: