SPIRIT WEEK

It was homecoming week at #3's school. Every day there was a different dress up theme. Monday was Neon Day and Tuesday was Camo Day. 

My two favorites were Fashion Disaster Day on Wednesday.....

(she slept in sponge curlers)

...... and Animal Planet Day on Thursday.

Friday was School Spirit Day which ended up being the hardest day for us because we don't have a lot of royal blue and gold around the house. 

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I had a little flashback last night when I realized what the date was. October 29, 2009 was not a good one. It was the day that I found out that my mom's breast cancer had metastasized and was in her brain and she had to begin emergency radiation that day. The Man of the House was out of town (just like he has been this week), all the way on the west coast and I sat in the emergency room until 2AM across from this.....

Even with two broken bones in her arm, she still was able to smile at me and cheer me up. She is such a sweetheart whether she is in a soccer uniform or dressed as a penguin!

PARDON MY MESS

Pardon my blogging mess, but I have been dealing with a mess here at home.

I am not even going to look at the date of the last post I made. I know it was way back in the dark ages. I have had the best intentions, honestly, I have, but just couldn't seem to act upon them. I found myself up to my eyeballs with projects and really just needing to  do some much needed work around the house. I have enforced a rule upon myself of no computer during the day because I get too lost in the time I spend browsing around and when I sit down at night I literally am crossed eyed when I look at the screen. We started some big projects, have some others on the calendar and have some even bigger ones in the works.  I have been nominated the manager and coordinator of them all.

We are redoing our office upstairs. It has always been the catch all room with left over and hand me down furniture for many years. It is the room with the Wii and other video games systems in there and when #1 and #2 were in high school, it was the hangout on many weekends. Well, no more. I am finally getting "my" space to do"my" things in. Right now at my house, there are men working up there, going up down the stairs and in and out of the house and it has been that way for a while.  All of the sheet rock needed to be replaced (which ended up covering everything in my house with an inch of dust when they sanded the seams) and there are stacks and piles of the things that used to be in that room in every other room in the house.

 I have been spending my time meeting with different cabinet designers and companies over the last weeks and looked at so many drawings and samples of cabinet doors, counter tops, hinges and so on that I finally got so tired of it and I just closed my eyes and picked things out. Now, I am just patiently waiting. The install date for the cabinets is the second week of November. I will be so glad when this project is over.

Here are a few pictures of rooms that I have used as inspiration:

I could not resist the idea of having a craft island!!

The other (even bigger) project in the works is switching #1 and #3's bedrooms around. Since #3 is the only one at home and has over four more years until college, we decided she should have the big/second master bedroom. This project involves new furniture, bedding and paint in the bed and bathrooms. They know me by name at the local Benjamin Moore store these days because I am having a hard time finding that perfect color. #3 has decided that she wants grey walls to go with this comforter she picked out from Anthropologie.....

The writing on the comforter is different shades of grey and the trim is even darker. She wants a "shabby chic meets Parisian with some peacock colored accents" look.  I am not too sure just how we are going to mix everything into one room, but we are working on it. 

Here are a few pictures we are using as inspiration:

I am not even thinking about the new bedroom for #1 yet. She is all over the place with her colors and ideas. The biggest thing with her is getting her to go through things and consolidate everything because she is going from the largest bedroom to the smallest and is being booted out of her bathroom and walk in closet. 

The Man of the House has been traveling A.L.O.T. and I have been dealing with these things on my own. He was in Las Vegas last week and all he brought me back were detailed stories of the wonderful meals he ate while he was there. He didn't even bring me back any winnings. He came home with less money than he went out there with! Bummer! As long as it doesn't come out of my decorating budget, I guess I won't complain.....

this time.