Girl Obsessed

I'm a girl obsessed....really and truly. I woke up this morning thinking about colors....white, green, and blue. I went to bed last night thinking about our next move....and how I am so beyond excited to get this {rental}house in order. Start fresh. That's my new favorite word....fresh.

The boys were snuggling with me.....so I shared my thoughts of....white, green, and blue. The boys said they were thinking of ......red.

I told them that they could have red.....I'll stick to my green and blue.

                                             But, I would accept some orange, too.

I just want.....fresh, clean, and organized.

We have a lot of black furniture....so I thought that this might work....

Goals are good, right? A girl can dream.

Bin Decorating and Making Lemonade

I actually have not "been" decorating....we are not going to think about decorating or hanging pictures here. What I have been doing is buying "bins" and putting everything from clothes to books in them. We don't have much closet space or storage so you do what you can.

                                      (Boys watching our previous cities baseball team)

Something interesting has happened over the last couple of days.....I'm not feeling as homesick. I think the hectic month and being exhausted caused my body/mind to collapse. Seriously. My arms and hands still ache. But enough of that....I feel like I've been sort of in a fog...or down in the dumps....something? So, part of moving forward is walking out of the fog and climbing out of the dump.

I'm embracing apartment living....if you could have seen me today. I do believe that I'm the strangest tenant our maintenance guys have ever come across. They really don't know what to make of me. I'm somewhat of a squeeky wheel. Our unit was not in the best shape....so as I mentioned....I requested a new washer/dryer. Thankfully, today it arrived. The junk and muck underneath it was disgusting!! I got on my hands and knees and cleaned the junk up....layers of dust and who knows what (from 8 yrs of renters!). They said that I was the first resident to actually clean it myself. I'm pretty certain that they would have just put the new washer/dryer over the caked in muck???

I'm thrilled to have a new, clean washer/dryer. I'm missing our house less and less. I'm liking the small space. We are trying to make the best of it. Now I just need to work on getting the playground repaired!

That's where the lemonade comes in......trying to turn some negatives into positives.

Re-arrange-itis

I'm at it again.

My girlfriend came over on Wed, armed with pepperoni bread,homemade chicken soup and some amazing Italian cookies from a local bakery. Her goal was to help me decide if my family room furniture would work better in other places. That's a fancy way of saying, she was helping me move furniture.

We ended up eating and chatting for so long.....so we only had about 5 minutes to move the furniture(she had kids getting off the bus). She gave me some great ideas and I'm really happy with the change(on the first floor). Our problem is that when we first moved to our house, we bought some furniture for the bonus room(second floor)...and then could not get the furniture through the doorway because the arms are so big! Until we finish the basement, the pieces must stay in our family room. That is why I'm always moving them....they really don't belong there. G-man was happy with the change. Not a big deal.

My friend had also suggested that I switch the boys bedroom with our bonus room....BTW-it's not an official bonus room. It's just a big bedroom that we don't know what to do with. It probably should have been split into 2 bedrooms to begin with. That is a future project.

So, Thursday I woke up thinking -I'm moving the rooms....NOW! We are talking big pieces of furniture and lots of little things. I started and then felt like I was making a mistake. So, my super hero decorating friend came to the rescue-again. After she could sense confusion in my voice.....she said "I'm on my way!".

We've moved to a new town and all our friends live a minimum of 20 minutes away-which is a long drive for the natives. I remember when I lived in Detroit and Minneapolis....everything was at least a 20 minute drive. Here 20 minutes is a day trip(am I right Carla and Carol?!)I was thrilled that she came 2 days in a row.

We started by eating and chatting again.....and then to the upstairs rooms I had already started moving. After moving some more things, dropping a bookcase on my foot and evaluating again....we decided to move things back and keep them the way they were. It was all worth it-we got some good exercise and had fun chatting.

Now, I need to organize, box up toys and dream about all the things in the Pottery Barn catalog I would love to buy. Don't worry, I'm a dreamer not an impulse shopper.

**I welcome any decorating suggestions :)The above pictures are of the bonus room. I feel like there is so much wasted space. Plus the room does not feel very cozy.

My latest obsession

Glass jars!! I love them. I had been in a basket phase... still am, but now I'm breaking it up with some glass jars. I have them on various table tops.....mostly filled with crayons, markers and math manipulatives. We are not super crafty over here....but, hey if the mood strikes we will know where to find something to draw with :)



I've collected these jars randomly over the year....the large one filled with crayons--I found at Wal-Mart for $7. The others I found for about $5 each. I can't wait for garage sale weather.....that's where the true glass jar bargains will be found!!