Do You Love Your Home?

One of my favorite blogs to read posted this today and I feel it necessary to share it here because it embodies what I feel. This is what she wrote:

Do you want to love your home?

I think the secret to house love is to stop comparing your house to other's...just pay attention to your house, wherever you may be right now, whatever it might look like, and work at turning it into the coziest, cleanest home it can be.

In my book of rules I once wrote these things:

•Clean and everything will look better to you.
•Order=sanity.
•Less toys, furniture, clothing, junk is always better...keep a SIMPLE house...get rid of stuff constantly. Or better yet, don't buy it!
•Don't ask for endless opinions...you'll get too many ideas...stick with what YOU love.
•A small change, that usually costs pennies... flowers, a pretty plant, etc...makes a big difference.
•Don't copy anyone's style...yours is just as nice.
•There are tons of ideas and images out there from just about everywhere..magazines, (and I'll add now- blogs!)...it is a waste of time to constantly be on the search for the perfect idea, or to constantly want/need change. Be content! Mind your own home, with what you have on hand. Sometimes this means: STOP LOOKING!
I know it's hard! Sometimes I still fall victim, (although I do it much less than I used to), to looking at a picture and thinking, "oh why did I choose cream instead of white cabinets!?" or "I need more color in here!" or just plain "I want that!"

Once again, we have so many, TOO many, chances to want, want, want. Or to wish, wish, wish.

What if we just tried contentment? What if we accepted our homes as they are, linoleum, old cabinets, tiny closets, squeaky doors, hand-me-down sofa, and worked with and learned to love what we have right in front of us? I think our grandparents did this much better than we have ever done. Most of them lived in the same home for their lifetimes, and took such good care of what they had, whether it was the "in" thing or not.

If you can wean yourself from the barrage of magazines, from the constant ideas and images, and pitch those catalogs, I promise you, if you stop looking out there, and start looking nowhere but your own home, you will begin to love it.

I really have found if you clean, everything will look fresh and new to you. It's a little miracle, isn't it? Sometimes I think, "Oh, I need a change in here." And that change always means more money, more searching (time wasting searching), something new. BUT I find when I just give that room a good old fashioned cleaning I feel so differently...that's all that was needed. Dust those shelves, buy some tulips or pick some branches from outside to put in a vase, scrub, scrub, scrub, wash the windows, move things around, and purge all that clutter. Fill the air with the fresh scent of 'clean', whatever that is to you, and trust me, you will love your home again.

And your home will love you right back.

This was from http://memoriesoncloverlane.blogspot.com/2011/03/40-days-tips-and-tricks-house-love.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+CloverLane+%28Clover+Lane%29. Feel free to check out her blog because she is an amazing mother of five who writes about stuff that we all think about.

A Toothpick !

What a freakin' couple of days. Tuesday night I stepped on a toothpick. It barely punctured the skin but just enough to stick and make me have to take it out. It bled out so little that I didn't need anything. I just wiped it with my finger and it was done. I put peroxide on it and laid down. The pain seemed to get worst as the night went on and I couldn't sleep so I took an 800mg Motrin for the pain. Shortly after I fell asleep. When i got up in the morning it was still sore but I just figured that feet just take longer to heal so I put my socks and boots on and went to work. As the day went on it began to hurt more and more. I took another Motrin and managed to get through the day. When I got home and took off my socks and boots, my foot was swollen...almost double the size of my other foot. By the end of the night I was in so much pain that I was in tears...mind you, I have a very high tolerance for pain. I left a message for the dr on call and took another Motrin to ease the pain. The dr didn't call back but it's all good because I actually fell asleep and slept good with the pain meds.
This morning I called and the nurse told me to come right in. No questions asked, no appointment, just come in. That alone made me scared. So the doctor looks at it and says it's infected and pretty badly. He has me on antibotics and I have to go back to have him look at it on Tuesday. It needs to go down...the swelling, redness and hotness of it. He drew on my foot and told me that if it goes past where he drew then I need to get into the urgent care asap, not to wait for the follow up appointment...talk about making me stressed ! He said that my foot is too swollen for him to be able to tell but because of where it punctured, it might have hit a tendon and if that's the case then they might need to do a surgical procedure to look at it and fix any damage that it might have done. He said a few more things after that but honestly, I stopped listening after he said "surgical procedure". I think that I went into shock.
This is insane ! It was a damn toothpick ! It just punctured the skin and that was all ! Now I am keeping a close eye on foot and praying that this heals quickly and propperly and doesn't require surgery.

Turning a house into a HOME

When you are little, the words "house" and "home" seem to be interchangable. Then you grow up and realize that they are not one in the same. You can live in many houses before finding a home. In this day and age when the world is filled with cookie cutter houses, it become even more important to turn your house into a home. A home. A place you can come to each night and feel cozy and relaxed and it embodies you. It makes you smile. It makes you proud.

My house is no exception to the cookie cutter mold....the modular home mold. I am in desperate search of making ours stand out. In desperate search of making our home symbolize us. In desperate search of turning out house into a home. This time it's even more important to us because this will truly be our home....the place CJ remembers growing up in.

Our requirements for a home have changed dramatically with each one of our moves and the fear of the recent recession and fear of any future recessions as well. Everyone has learned to live wisely and on a budget....well, most people anyways. Home for me doesn't mean bigger, it doesn't mean all the luxury items (although I love having two bathrooms again). It means having what you need and making due with what you have. Our biggest concern has been finding a community. That must sound so strange when we live in a state filled with communities but ask many people and you will realize that the communities being created are not living up to their names. The first one we lived in was beautiful. We fell in love the moment we saw it. The house with the large southern porch. The manicured lawns. The perfect community in all its glory. But it never felt like a community. People didn't come together the way that we had hoped. The move after that proved to be slightly better with the community feel but the neighborhood proved to be something we didn't want the kids growing up in. It seems as though we have found where we belong. We have found the feeling of community that we had been searching for. Probably in the least expected place but it's a wonderful feeling. And I know that it's probably too early to know for sure if this community is all that we hold it to but it certainly has started off on the right foot and we are determined to keep it this way.

Boy do I manage to get off topic when I start talking...lol.

So anyways, I am feeling out our home. Moving furniture around. Putting up curtains. Making pillows. Doing what I feel is necessary to make our house a home. And I wanted to share one of the things that I recently added near our front door during my Simply Said party. It reminds me that is our HOME !

Adjusting to the Move

The move has left me really tired and just wanting to sit and relax. Between our move and then Kelly's move, my body is screaming for mercy but that is nothing that a soak in my new garden tub won't cure. :o)

The house is not coming along as well as I had hoped but that is simply because I haven't been doing anything. I have to admit it because it's the truth. Once things were moved I got lazy. I also hate to admit that we still have some things at the old house that we have to get out this weekend too. I will do a lot this weekend though because I am having people over for a Simply Said party and even though it's friends that know we just moved, I want to place to look nice. So I will have to do my tazmanian devil act and just go through the whole house. I can't believe that this is out home. It is so wonderful to know that we will be here for a while. To know that I can unpack and not worry about having to pack back up. It is a pretty amazing feeling.

Nathan has adapted real well to the new neighborhood. He made friends even before he started school. He is out playing with the neighborhood kids until it's dark. God, I remember doing that when I was a kid and it's all I have ever wanted for my kids. Nathan has always been sort of an indoor person. He has been stuck inside on the computer and video games but things have changed. It makes me so happy to see him running in the door when the street lights go on smelling of the outdoors. I never thought that would be a sweet smell to me but it is, even though I am quick to send him directly to the shower. To me, it means that he has been outside doing what boys do best. He is running around and getting all his energy out. He races to the playground in the development to go play football with the boys and even leaves for the bus early in the morning to get in some playing too.

CJ has really gotten to enjoy the outdoors since we moved too. He heads straight for his McQueen riding car as soon as he gets home and rides until it's dinner time. Sometimes he reaches for his bike or Nathan's scooter. The little boy across the street is usually outside too so he now has a friend to play with and I think that Sam, that's the little boy across the street, is only a year younger than CJ. It's cute to watch the two of them race in the cul-de-sac with their little cars. Sam just got a sandbox too that CJ has been invited to go play in...lol.

Larissa is really the only one who hasn't made friends in the development but she already has so many friends that she doesn't know what to do with them. She barely has enough time for them...when she is not on punishment...lol. She likes the new neighborhood because she can once again go for walks or go down to the playground. And in the summer, she can go down to the pool too.

So I just wanted to report to everyone that things are good even though I haven't had too much time to get on here and tell you all about it. I hope to have some nice pictures of the house this weekend. I hope everyone has a great weekend.

Slow & Steady Progress (pics of the house)

The unpacking has been a slow and steady process but it is coming along. We are are so warm with the idea of this being our long term home. The home that CJ remembers growing up in and Nathan too and that Larissa has fond memories of. It is so perfect for us and what we want. So without further rambling on...here are a few updated pics of the house.

This is our living room. You can see Nathan sitting behind the loveseat. The living is long so we have decided to give it areas. That area behind the loveseat will become our office/computer area. We still have a long way to go and a lot of boxes to unpack but I wanted to give you all an idea of how it's coming along and what it looks like with furniture in it.


This picture is of the living room too but taken from the opposite end, the end where the office area will be. That is our front door and what will be our entry area. Right now it is just full of boxes and stuff we have waiting to be unpacked. That table was godmother's table and it gives me great pride to be able to display it in our new home. I plan on keeping it there but without the chairs. It will serve as an entry table with maybe two lamps, a picture and basket to throw our keys and change into. Oh and a mirror would look nice there too.


I now move you onto my dining area. I am not sure how I feel about the green chairs that Jose got. We might end up moving them somewhere else and go back to my other chairs. They just seem to not blend well but I want to give them a little time before changing anything. As you can see, the area is really large because my table is pretty big for those of you who have seen it. You can also see my red dryer there. It is not staying there, we are waiting to get a shed and have nowhere else to put it. I am going to be painting this area an neautral color and putting up some nice curtains too.


From our dining area we go into my kitchen. Nothing too much has changed in here. I have my mini bar above my frig until I figure out where I want it to go. You can see my laundry room through the kitchen. And you can also see my kitty Milo in the window. That is his favorite spot to sit and watch the birds.


And last but not least I have a picture of the boys room for you. The room is much bigger that I had originally though. Nathan's bed is full size and CJ's bed is a twin and as you can see they fit in there nicely. My original plan was to buy a loft so that I could have Nathan sleep in the twin up top and CJ on the bottom and it would give us the full size bed for company. I am not sure that I am going to do that now since it seems to work well the way that it is now. That is the door to their walk in closet too. It has turned into a toy room. Most of CJ's toys are in there and it manages to keep the room a bit tidier too.

Here is a better view of Nathan's side:

And a better view of CJ's side:

And a tiny peek at the closet with the toys. I know it's a bad pic and kind of dark but you get the idea:

I hope to have pics of the rest of the rooms soon but like I said, it has been slow and steady. I am loving my new home !

Getting Back on Track

Do you ever feel like you have gotten so busy with the world that you have forgotten all about yourself? Or worst yet...lost yourself. I think that I was there or at least on the brink of it. So I need to get back on track.

I looked in the mirror this morning and saw my mother. I know that we all go through this at one point or another. And seriously, my mother took care of herself through most of her life and I would be proud to be like her in that aspect. But I am not ready to feel old. I feel like I still have so much spunk left in me and I have to plan a way back to myself. So the journey starts to find out what it is that I want to change and how I can do it. Once I have a plan, I will let you know...lol.

Packing, Moving, More Packing & More Moving !

Things are moving right along. We moved all the boxes packed already to the new house already and decided to move up our move date to this Saturday. Yes ! This Saturday. As in...3 days ! Sometimes I worry about the way that we do things. But things seem to be falling right into place.

The electric was switched over today. Cable/phone/internet should be on Friday or Saturday. Already signed the withdrawl papers from Nathan's school and picked up the enrollment papers for the new school. There will be a gap in days because of the schools but Nathan will enjoy that I am sure. I could use some prayers on the school front with Nathan. I am hoping that God has had a hand in this whole situation and is guiding me to the right place.

Saturday morning we are meeting a guy for a quote for the shed. Then we have to get the truck and then it's moving time. We have a lot to pack though from now until then. The living room is done top to bottom. I finished it last night and even cleaned it...go me ! Not sure what I am working on tonight. I guess the kitchen is my goal tonight so that we can get that into the new house. The dining room should be done tonight too, not much going on there except the boxes that I ended up packing last night and furniture. The drums will go tonight. CJ's easel will go tonight and his toy basket will go and then the dining room will be done too. Can't wait to sleep at the new place on Saturday already ! And can't wait for this whole move to be over. A friend asked me if we had even unpacked from the last move. Sadly we did and that is what makes it harder...lol. This is our final move though because this house will be ours. The feeling is def different I tell you !

Oh....and I ordered new slipcovers for the couches because they are really beat up and I am not crazy about the green covers we have already. So this is what they look like but I don't know how well you will be able to see them considering the picture isn't that good. Sometimes the quality of things on here surprises me though. I got the loveseat and the sofa cover the same.