La La Land

I wake up at 6:30 a.m. pretty much every morning. When I'm in my own little world, which is often referred to as la la land, my mornings go something like this:

6:30    Wake up and go potty.

6:37     Start the coffee.

6:40    Turn on the news, sit down and enjoy five minutes of peace and quiet.

6:45    Wake up Assman, make my cup of coffee and sit back down on the couch to enjoy just one cup of coffee and fifteen more minutes of me time.

7:00    Wake up the adorable monsters so they can watch Curious George, while I start making lunches and breakfast.

7:30     Give the boys their breakfast.

7:45     Boys brush teeth and get dressed.

8:00    Walk out the door for school.

Easy peasy. Everything goes nice and smooth and right on schedule.  But then reality slaps me in the face and I'm dealing with something along these lines:

6:15    Hit snooze on the alarm.  Even though Assman will not physically remove himself from the bed until around 7:00, the alarm MUST be set at 6:15 for some reason.

6:30    As carefully and quietly as I can, I must wiggle my way out of bed trying very hard not to disturb the cat that’s purring loudly in my ear, the dog that's curled in the crook of my legs and the Porkchop that is wedged in between me and Assman.  I should mention we are all in a queen size bed.  As you can imagine, I usually fail miserably at not disturbing someone during this process. However, if I am successful, I now must tip toe quietly, trying desperately not to find the squeaky board in the floor on the very long trek to the bathroom (an entire two feet), so as not to awaken the sleeping Hambone (The only one who gets to enjoy a bed to himself) who is in the room next door.

6:37    Start the coffee, but first I have to wash it out from the day before, because I somehow forget to during one of the ten times a day I wash dishes.  It’s usually at this point in time that Porkchop walks sleepily into the kitchen stating he is hungry and would like his oatmeal now.  No good morning. Just feed me. I give him a hug and say good morning and he says it back in his cute little voice so all is forgiven. He will ask if he has to go to school today. I will say yes honey, today you go to school.  He will then grunt like what I imagine a cave child would have done back in the day and turn around and go into the living room to turn on Curios George.  Get used to it kid, you have a lot of years of school ahead of you!

6:39    Hambone now enters the kitchen, sucking his thumb, which is a good indicator that he is still sleepy.  He looks up at me and doesn’t say it (because his thumb is more important), but his eyes tell me good morning. I give him a hug and say good morning. He, too, tells me he’s hungry.

6:40   They turn on the tv and realize that George isn’t on yet (by the way, we do not have cable so we watch a lot of pbs, which in my opinion is waaaaaay better for them than stupid sponge bob square pants!) So they sit and watch yoga lady.  Porkchop will attempt some of the exercises.

6:41    I get the water going for oatmeal.  (We don’t have a microwave either – only because itty bitty doesn’t allow for it due to her lack of counter space. Surprisingly enough, I really don’t miss not having one.  I reheat my food in a pan on the stove just like June Cleaver probably did and I have a popcorn maker. Those were really the only times I used a microwave)

6:45    They are already bored with yoga lady (can’t say that I blame them). I remind them that they get up to early.

6:46    They start running around and chasing the dog and getting her all excited.

6:47    They starting fighting with each other.

6:50     They eat.

7:00     They go into the living room to watch George.

7:15      They start running around and chasing the dog.

7:16      They start fighting with each other

7:17      I ask them to take turns brushing their teeth and getting dressed.  They completely ignore me and continue to run around and yell and not listen.

            Somehow during all this time I have managed to make lunches, but it has taken much longer than it should have.

7:55    After a lot of separating and threatening that they will be in their rooms after school, instead of playing outside, they are both finally dressed and ready for school.

8:00    Threatening some more, while they find their shoes and coats (which are always in the same spot, yet they claim they can never find them.)

8:06    FINALLY walk out the door. By this time I’m usually very frazzled and barreling full force into an anxiety attack.

8:35    Back from taking Porkchop to school and finally ready to sit down, enjoy a cup of coffee and visit la la land – only if it's Tuesday though. 

Until next time, enjoy your own personal la la land and live, laugh, love xoxo

                               

The Move and Retirement

I was planning on having more time to blog once I retired, but it turns out running a household is much more demanding than my previous job! I'm still not completely settled in - how pathetic is that?

We were not able to take our time and move in as planned. Because it was all thrown together at the last minute, we decided not to bribe our friends with beer and food, but to hire a company to move all the big, heavy stuff this time (which, by the way, felt really weird to just sit around and watch other people move my stuff - I felt like I should jump in and help!)

Word of advice - if you have a money tree and/or can afford it - next time you move, hire someone to pack and move ALL your stuff.  We have so much stuff that it took us about eight additional runs to move the remainder of it. In fact, if you saw a cross between the Beverly Hillbillies and Sanford & Son driving down Mack it was most likely us!

Everyone keeps asking me how I like our new house. It feels just as it should - like our home and like we belong here.  Here is itty bitty:

I'm not a fan of the awning - therefore it will be coming down soon!



As for how it's coming along, well, if you own a home you know it will always be a work in progress.  Ours, aside from a few coats of paint, appears to be in its original 1950 something condition.  I mean original lights, original medicine cabinet, original sink, etc.  While I love antique and vintage, there are some updates I need!

Surprisingly, the first on my list is a garbage disposal. I actually don't mind not having a dishwasher (even though it seems like I'm doing dishes literally at least 10 times a day!), but I really don't like having to constantly throw the gunk away that is stuck in the drain! My dinner always looks so much more appetizing on my plate than in the drain!

The only other thing I don't like about our home is having one bathroom! There have been a couple of extremely close calls and I'm not talking about just for the boys!!!

When you walk into our home and look around you will see that our ADD is present everywhere.  We have a bunch of different, unfinished projects going on in all rooms. So, for the sake of sanity, we decided to focus on one room at a time, starting with the boy’s room. 

The room most complete, minus some wall decorations and the shoe molding is our living room. What's that? You want to know why we don't start with this room? Well, we can't seem to decide on what kind/color window treatments we should use. The dilemma is that I love having the sun shine in through the big picture window and Assman likes to keep the curtains shut because he does not want people like me peeking into our house as they are walking or driving by.  The suggestion box is open; please feel free to drop your idea/solution into it :)  Here are some pictures:

Before



After



Before - I can not for the life of me get the after of this shot to upload. I have been trying for days now.  I will keep trying though.

See, I am not kidding when I say itty, bitty! :)

The other million dollar question is how I liking being a stay at home mom.  Honestly, it's not as easy as I thought and it's definitely more demanding than a 9-5 job.  Like most everyone else, I have good and bad days.  My bad days are judged by how many times Rosie has figured out how to get into the garbage and how often my adorable monsters tell me I'm mean and that they don't love me. 

I've developed this June Cleaver persona and feel as though the home needs to be spotless and I feel guilty if I sit down for a little to enjoy Ellen.  I am honestly doing something all day, yet if you walk into my house around 4:30 (an hour after both boys are home) you would think I sat on my doupa all day eating bon bons and watching my soaps!  

On the bright side, being a stay at home mom is so much more rewarding than my 9-5 job! I love walking hambone to/from school. I get to come home and help him with homework right after school and then play with him for a little before I start dinner. Porkchop gets to make his banana bread whenever he wants now! I'm making tons of delicious homemade dinners, which are ready for Assman when he gets home from work.  The icing on the cake is I get my baby fix by watching my sweet nephew two days a week!  I'm so very thankful to Assman for helping to make this happen.

So to answer the questions - I'm loving my new home, my new job, my new life!

Until next time, make sure you take a moment to live, laugh and love - xoxo