Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho, it's off to work we go

Shew, we have been BUSY!  When we aren't at work or out running, we are working on the house!  We've been trying to get ready to list our house for sale for AGES, as I've mentioned here before, but we weren't really making much progress.  We finally sat down and made a list of all the projects we wanted to do and actually put them on a calendar.  That put things in perspective, because with mainly only have time to work on things on the weekends....well that was going to take a lot of weekends.  We've been hard at work for about 6 weeks solid and we've actually made a lot of progress!

We have work to do in every single room in the house.  A lot of projects are just fresh paint and curtains, but we knew that both bathrooms and the kitchen needed major overhauls.  We've already redone the floor and countertops and sink in the kitchen, but the raggedy wallpaper needs to be removed (yeah, I talked about starting this in the Spring of 2014 and I'm ashamed to say only one wall got done back then), the walls and cabinets need painted, new hardware will be installed and new lighting will need to go in. 

I'm thrilled to say that the upstairs bath is DONE!!!  Well, we still need to install one more towel rack, but I'm calling it done anyway!  We replaced the flooring, shower surround, vanity and counter, both lights and painted the walls and I think it looks really great!

BEFORE:  Sadly I lost the other before pics I took when I accidentally deleted all the photos on my phone

AFTER:  Vanity cabinet purchased at auction, top from the Habitat for Humanity REstore, and the faucet was an auction leftover!

AFTER: Shower Surround after!  Also bought at an auction. The shower head and faucet are also from plumbing auctions

AFTER:  New lighting, purchased at the REstore for I think $15.

The downstairs bath is basically done too!  It was a HUGE huge HUGE change.  The downstairs bath is really a half bath with the laundry and utilities also housed in it.  Until recently, it had mis-matched paneled walls, exposed rafters, icky flooring, a cheap accordian door, a bare lightbulb, and the heater and water heater were very much out in the open.  With the help of Adam's coworker/contractor, we now have clean white paneled walls, new flooring, a drop ceiling, can recessed lighting, a newly stained vanity with a new faucet, a sliding paneled door (like a pocket door, but it just slides against the wall, and a the utilities are now tucked away in a closet with slatted wood doors.  I'm thrilled with how it turned out!  I love the doors and the lighting! It was so dark and dingy before and now it's bright and clean!  I need to put a coat of paint on the door and hang curtains, but then it's done too!

BEFORE: Dark, mismatched walls, exposed ceiling

BEFORE: Exposed utilities (excuse the litter box)

BEFORE: accordion door, exposed duct work/pipes

AFTER: New sliding door, enclosed utilities with slatted doors (REstore, $10 a door)

AFTER:  Stained Vaniety and added hardware, new walls and towel rack.  Mirror Walmart $15

AFTER:  New flooring, drop ceiling, recessed lighting

This weekend we painted our hall (just white, not very exciting, but fresh and clean) and finished up some things on the bathrooms.  I feel like we've made progress, but there is still a lot to do. We are taking next week off work and we plan to work on the kitchen walls and also outside.  Outside we want to paint the shutters and front door, remove the damaged outdoor carpeting from the porch and stairs, clean out the gutters, power wash the patio, porch and siding, put up a new porch light, and do some basic pruning and weeding.  I also need to put down a little grass seed in a few places. Eventually I'll plant some flowers in the pot at the curb, but I'll probably leave that until right before we list.  Of course, these outdoor plans are hinged on the weather, which has been really crummy here lately.  Enough rain!  Don't make me call Noah!

Over the next few months, we have more painting to do (master bedroom, Tyler's room (sob!  Goodbye pawprints!), living room, downstairs hall, and mom's room), flooring (stairs and upstairs hall and new carpet in the family room), change out the ceiling tiles in the basement, lots of lighting (family room, entry, hall x2), and putting up curtains in basically all the rooms.  It's overwhelming at times.  I hope we can keep this momentum going and I hope the money holds out (actually that's it's replenished, because Adam has been working so much on the house that ebay has suffered).  I touched base with our realtor and she's happy with our progress and they're going to update our information to give us a better idea of our budget and what we might expect to get for our house, so fingers crossed for some good news there!  Michelle started her new job awhile back and it's going well so she's starting to look for a place as well, so it seems like things might be beginning to fall into place. I hope I'm not wrong about that!

Kindergarten Grad!

I just realized I didn't blog about Tyler's last day of school!  I can't believe he's done with kindergarten already!!!

On the last day of school, they had an awards presentation for each group (the groups are a couple classes from each grade, I think K-3).  When I heard about it, I hemmed and hawed over if I should try to go or not. Obviously I wanted to, but it means taking time off work and it happened to fall on the 28th, which was the second-to-last day of the month, where I have to perform tasks that will allow me to invoice the jobs the next day.  It meant that I'd have to ask for someone else to cover for me, performing the transactions for the afternoon.

In the end, I talked it over with my boss and got it covered so I could leave early.  Adam look a late lunch and drove me home to get the van and drive over to the school.  I ended up being very glad I went!  When the parents filed into the gym and Tyler spotted me, he was so excited!  I could see him pointing me out to his friends.  I could tell it meant a lot to him that I'd come.  The parents sat in the bleachers while the kids sat in chairs on the floor, so I sat with a couple of his classmate's parents, which was nice. 

There he is, right in the middle, looking back at me and grinning like a goofball!

Each class gave out awards for perfect and near-perfect attendance and also two awards for what they called "Super Top Dog".  The school's mascot is a Bulldog, and as I've blogged about before, they give out a weekly "Top Dog" award, so this is kind of a TOP top dog award for the year.  I was surprised and THRILLED when they announced that Tyler had won Super Top Dog for his class!!  They also give out awards for each "specials" class (their word for PE, Art, Music, and Spanish) and Tyler won awards for Music and Spanish too!  He got to shake hands with the principal and stand up with the other winners while everyone applauded.  I was so proud of him!

Shaking hands with the principal as Super Top Dog!

After the awards were over, it was almost time for dismissal, so parents were allowed to go to their child's classroom and sign them out early.  When I got to Tyler's room, we collected his things and I wanted to get a quick picture with his teachers, so I asked him to give them a hug and tell them goodbye and wouldn't you know it, he burst into tears!  He said he was going to miss them!  He's my sweet sensitive little guy!  I reminded him that he'd see them again next year around the school.  I told his teacher, we started the year with tears and I guess we needed to end it that way too!  He did give them hugs and we headed out.  He cheered up pretty quickly as we chased down one of his little friends in the parking lot for a hug and promises of a playdate.

With Mrs. M, who is just the BEST, and teary eyes!

We headed home, stopping off for a celebratory Icee (he reminded me we'd gotten one on the first day of school so it was fitting to get one on the last day too).  When we got home, I took some last day of school pictures in the front yard.  We didn't plan it, but he actually wore the same shirt on the first and last days!  It's funny to see the photos side by side!

Getting so big!!!

He's my Super Top Dog!

Selfie action with Mommy!

All in all, Tyler did an amazing job this year and he learned so much, it really amazes me!  First Grade, here we come!

Pic of the Week: Tenacity

I need to do a pic of the week more often!  Yesterday, I was walking through our back lot at work and I spotted this little flower (I'm sure it's really a weed, but I think it's pretty) growing in the middle of all that gravel.  It's a highly traveled area too, both foot traffic and vehicles, heck the area was also marred by the moving around of a track vehicle in that area.  Yet here is this little tiny thing, growing in spite of it all.  It just struck me.

Funny aside:  I got my phone out to take this picture and the glare of the sun was so bad I was just pointing and shooting and I realized the first picture was taking with the front camera.  I got a great shot of me making my stupid concentrating face.  That one got deleted!

*Snicker*

Don't you love it when you read something and it leaves you giggling for days afterward?  I stumbled on a news story yesterday about Matthew Lewis, who played Neville Longbottom in the Harry Potter series and how he's posed nearly nude for a magazine.  The reaction of series author JK Rowling left me....well, rolling:





















Lewis was properly abashed in his response:

 Additionally, Jason Isaacs, who played Lucious Malfoy couldn't help but tease Rowling a little further:



SO FUNNY! 

Happy Friday!


Twitter screengrabs from this article:  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3092372/Horrified-JK-Rowling-tweets-hilarious-reaction-Harry-Potter-star-Matthew-Lewis-s-raunchy-underwear-shoot.html

10 Favorite Things About Being a Mom

I'm such a thief, I'm stealing this idea from Amber at Old Lady No Baby again!  It's such a great idea and with Mother's Day just having past, I couldn't resist!

1. HUGS!  KISSES!  SNUGGLES!  I can't get enough and it seems like my kiddos agree!

2.  I love it when my kids master a new skill or accomplish something new.  That rush of pride is amazing! Watching Tyler read an entire book with almost no help amazes me!

3.  The things kids say! The other day, I was changing AJ's poopy diaper and he said, "Oh AJ!  What a mess!"  I cracked up!

4.  I love when other people think my child is cute/smart/funny.  It just thrills me!  Tyler got to "pin" my sister at her graduation ceremony last week and he went bopping down those stairs and giving thumbs up and everyone laughed and I was like HE'S MINE!

5.  Laughter!!!  We do a lot of tickling in our house!

6.  Unconditional love.  I have it for them and they have it for me and it is THE BEST.

7. Watching my boys bond.  They really do adore each other!

 

8.   Falling in love with them and their daddy all over again, every day.

9. I'm a special person in their lives.  The cries of "Mama!" from AJ when I get home from work or Tyler's face when I surprise him picking him up from school is AWESOME!

10. My kids make grateful.  They make me want to be better.  I want to be a good mom for them and a better person.  I'm a work in progress and they make me strive to better myself.  I really think that being a mom is the most important thing I will ever do and it's up to me to give them a good start.  I don't always do as well as I'd like, but because of them I keep trying!

Four

I've been seeing this float around the blogosphere lately, most recently from Old Lady No Baby and Dancing My Way Through Life, Loss and Books, so I decided to post it here, just for fun!

Four jobs I've had:

1. Current job: Invoicing at a company that sells Utility Trucks
2. Local college, at a mentoring center as a tutoring program coordinator
3. Direct Sales for a jewelry company called Lia Sophia
4. My first job was at a local bowling ally, babysitting children while their parents bowled on the leagues

Four movies I've watched more than once: (OMG just four?)

1. The Princess Bride
2. Ever After
3. Baby Mama
4. American President

Four books I'd recommend:

1. The Fault in Our Stars (ABSOLUTE FAV! ALL THE FEELINGS!) by John Green
2. Hunger Games Series (Suzanne Collins) - The 2nd book, Catching Fire, was by far my favorite of the three.
3. Harry Potter Series (J.K. Rowling)
4. The Divergent Trilogy by Veronica Roth

Four places I've lived: (Since I have NEVER lived anywhere but Indianapolis, I'm forced to be more specific)

1. Childhood home, south side of Indy
2. First apartment, west side of Indy
3. Condo, west side of Indy
4. Current home, south side of Indy

Four places I've traveled:

1. Freeport, Bahamas (Honeymoon)
2. New York, NY (Spring Break my senior year of high school-Broadway Baby!)
3. San Francisco, CA (Trip for work, just spent an afternoon in SF)
4. Ontario, Canada (also for work)

Four things I prefer not to eat:

1. mushrooms
2. caviar
3. fish
4. escargot

Four of my favorite foods:

1. Spaghettie
2. Mom's vegetable soup
3. Cheese quesadillas
4. Chocolate anything

Four TV shows I watch:

1. Big Bang Theory
2. Dancing with the Stars
3. The Little Couple
4. Switched at Birth

Four things I'm looking forward to this year:

1. Hopefully selling our home and buying a new one
2. Spending more time with my boys
3. Getting AJ potty trained
4. Working on writing projects

Four things I'm always saying:

1. Are you serious?!
2. AJ, no no!
3. Hi buddy
4. I love you

Need to recommitt

As my ticker reflects, my weight loss has taken a hit in the last few months.  It started slowly, at first I just plateaued, then slowly I started to gain a few of those pounds back.  I wasn't working out as much and I was not making good food choices. 

I have had to admit that I am definitely a comfort eater.  If I've had a rough day, if I'm stressed, I tend to make poor food choices, or treat myself.  Life has been stressful lately and with it being birthday season around my house (we have 5 birthdays within less 33 days!  Michelle's, mine and Angies, my mom, and Adam all between April 27th and May 30, plus at least 3 other birthdays in the close family and friends) there is a lot of leftover cake to resist.  When we get busy, we also tend to eat out more.  Adam and I will forego making our lunches in favor of eating out.  And lets face it, when I eat out I want to eat what I want. I don't want to go order a salad every time.  I try to watch the portions, but it's very hard.  Add that to the fact that I've been run down and just not feeling my best physically, plus stress (car issues, working on the house, family stress, work stress etc etc etc) and it's a recipe for disaster for my waistline.

The bottom line is my clothes are getting tight and I'm starting to hate how I look in them again.  I see myself in photos and I don't like what I see.  Of course when I gain weight I gain it in my tummy.  I don't like how I look or feel.  I need to change it.  I worked too hard to lose all that weight to gain it all back. So I am recommitting.  Adam and I are going to eat in more (which also helps save money) and I'm going to start working out again.  I am going to track my calories--I hate doing it, but it really makes me more accountable.

So here we go. If I put it out there, maybe it will help me stick to it.