Family Photos

I have a computer full of family photos, other people's families. My last family photo was taken several years ago and doesn't even include our best looking family member (you gotta admit, all those baby curls pushes Danali just over the edge of being too stinkin cute). I don't know if it's because I become a total nightmare when family photo time rolls around, or if being photographed is especially difficult because I'm a photographer, but whatever the reason, it has been way too long and has been a thorn in my side. FINALLY we have some family photos (thank you Alexys J Photography) and I am thrilled! Now I'm in a wall display quandary. Frames or stand out mounts? Living room or family room? Size, feel, and texture of the display....I have almost as much anxiety about how and where to place the photos as I did about about everyone's hair and clothing on shoot day. Oh, well, at least I will rest well tonight knowing they exist.

Things that make sense to adults but seem so unnatural to children......

Ella, "Mom, where did Smidgen come from?"
Mom, "um, what do you mean?"
Ella, "Did Smidgen have a mom?"
Mom,"Yeah, he had a mom but he doesn't remember her. He only knows us as his family."
Caden getting in on the action, "But where is his mom now?"
Mom, "She is with her family."
Caden, "But Smidgen is her family too. A mom is always a mom you know."
Ella, as she coos and croons over the sleeping dog,"Poor Smigy, he misses his mom."
Caden, "Where is his mom's family? We can just call them and then Smidgen can see his mom again."
Mom, "I don't know where they are, I don't even remember the family's name. But guys Smidgen is happy with us as his family. Really, he wouldn't even know who his mom is even if he saw her."
Caden, "You don't even know where his mom is?! Great mom, now you can't even call them because you don't know their name."
Ella, "Caden what are we going to do now?"
Caden, "I don't know but good thing we have 3 weeks off from school so we can figure something out."*note- spring break is 1 week NOT 3. I think that he thinks that if he says 3 weeks often enough it will become fact.
Ella, "I'm going to try to cheer him up. I'll write him a card."
Caden, "Good one Ella. I'm gonna hit the net."
Yup, he said, "hit the net" and then went to the computer, exiting like a super hero.
What resulted was a dog that didn't get a moment's peace all day. Ella decided to put stickers and ribbons on him to "cheer him up" as well as drag him into closets, the laundry room, her bedroom, any room really where she could close a door trapping him so she could serenade her audience of one with made up song after made up song. Caden kept snatching him away from Ella and dragging him to the computer so he could hoist him up to the screen and say, "does that look like your mom boy?" When the dog seemed uninterested in any of the images on the screen Caden said, "I know she has to be here somewhere!" He seemed to have it in his head that every dog on the planet could be found when "Dog" is typed in the image search on Yahoo. He may be right. There WHERE a lot of photos of dogs.
Poor Smidgen. The kids stressed him out so much with their constant attention that he escaped to the yard where he got filthy digging several holes, got yelled at by his "mom" for digging several holes, then got an unappreciated bath.  Sorry, furry one, here's hoping they fixate on something else tomorrow. But I warn you, if you come sauntering up to the back door a filthy mess after digging any portion of my yard, I WILL suggest to them that you look like you need a little cheering up.

Daddy at a Glance....

*Laughs the loudest at his own jokes.
*Is the most playful dad I've ever seen...will play legos, will jump on trampoline, will finger paint, will wrestle and sword fight, and will do most anything that makes his kids smile.
*Says things like, "shazzbot!" and "Dog gone it!" and "Freakin!" in place of swear words.
*Looks forward to watching all the animated new releases almost as much (and often more than) our children.
*Kept a special note I wrote him in his wallet for over a year until it crumbled to tatters of paper.
*Is absolutely addicted to Diet Mt. Dew
*Has an aspiring gourmet chef as a wife but would choose KFC or Pizza Hut to grace his table most nights.
*Reads the kids bedtime stories every night until they are nice and drowsy and then grabs them in a bear hug and rolls around the bed while he chants, "I am the squishinator!"
*Is my best friend and favorite person in the world.

Mama at a glance....

* I start my day off with a cold caffeinated soda and am perpetually dehydrated.
* I administer Children's Tylenol willy nilly to crying children.
* I rarely arrive anywhere on time.
* I sing constantly although I don't know all the words to any song.
* I love sleeping in the car. Car ride of 30 mins or more and I leave the house with my pillow under my arm. It is bliss to doze off in the car while a stream of sunshine warms my face...man do I wish I was in a car right now.
*At 33, I am just starting to feel comfortable in my own skin. I'm not any thinner, not any more stylish, my hair style hasn't changed much in the last decade, and on a fancy day I spend more than 10 minutes applying my make up, but some how I feel more confident looking in the mirror with each passing year.
*I watch trashy TV on Hulu while I unload the dishwasher.
*I am currently reaching for more Tylenol as the dishwasher needs unloading and my fussy little one doesn't seem to want to take a nap.
*I love love love being a mom to my kids and I love love love leaving them for short bursts of time.
*Just spent two days of alone time with my hubby and realized mid morning that I missed him although we've only been apart a couple of hours.

Camping is supposed to be fun, right?

I always thought that I was a smart consumer, and I really have been. It is a rare occasion that I buy clothes or shoes at full price, I stock up on the coupon items at Costco, and I love trolling Goodwill on 50% off day. I look for sales and read customer reviews before buying big ticket items and I know exactly where the clearance end caps are at all my favorite retailers. I have always been thrifty but I am realizing what a BIG consumer I have been. When I find something on clearance that I know will be useful in the future I stock up. For example, Target clearanced a bunch of shoes months ago and I bought the kids two pairs each even though they were several sizes too big. Who can pass up tennis shoes for $3.24? And when Chicken nuggets were $4 off at Costco I bought 5 bags reasoning out that although I was spending over $40 in the moment, I was saving $20 in the long run.  On top of that, there are areas where I don't worry about being too thrifty and just indulge. I love shopping for the perfect baby shower, wedding shower, or birthday gift and when I find something that fits the bill, I can always find a way to justify the cost.

 Jon and I really enjoy taking the kids on outings and day trips as well as a couple of vacations a year. We usually don't write up a very strict budget for these little breaks from the daily grind, but I try to keep things in balance by maybe splurging on an extra night at Great Wolf Lodge but bringing a cooler of food instead of eating out. Jon and I also like to go away together several times a year as well as go on dates several times a month. It seems reasonable because we aren't flying off to a five star resort in Hawaii, we wait until we find a great hotel/airfare combo in Vegas and instead of gambling we take in a show and as many buffets as possible. And our date nights aren't spent in fancy restaurants or going to expensive concerts, they are usually dinner at Azteca and a movie, or even just getting Cold Stone and then perusing the travel section at Barnes and Noble. Granted, we have to pay a baby sitter and the final tally on the evening is always around $50 but can you really put a price on strengthening a marriage?

It wasn't always comfortable. We worked really hard for the first 5 years of our marriage to get to where we're at. We ate a lot of top roman, spent all school holidays scrounging for overtime,  made gifts for one another, rationed out gas so that we could splurge on Subway Sandwiches for a picnic date, and our big vacations always included finding the cheapest hotel along the Washington Coast. When we graduated and started making a professional income it was really fun to live a grown up life style.  So that is what we've done for the last 7 years, not lived extravagantly or lavishly, just comfortably.

Oh, how I miss you fiscal years 2003-2010. We are now living on a military paycheck and boy oh boy, is it a financial adjustment. Let me just note that I totally supported and still do support Jon's decision to leave the rat race of retail pharmacy management. It was lucrative but soul crushing for him. The military is paying off our all our $88K in student loans and he is loving the versatility of being a medical services officer in the military. It was a prayerful decision and I know that it was the right one for our family.

With that being said, I did the budget last night and my little bubble of comfort is no more. Instead of feeling like I'm hanging out in my favorite pair of yoga pants I am now feeling like I am wearing a bone girdle under an unforgiving holiday dress. Try taking a deep breath in a dress like that! Nope, definitely not comfortable.
I am going to need to be so much more than a smart consumer to make this work. I am entering the waters of needing to be down right frugal. So I have been thinking of ways to reduce, simplify, and consume so much less. IT IS AN ADJUSTMENT! But the funny thing is, I am kind of looking forward to the challenge. Its like going camping. You work hard to have a home where there is heat and light, a stove in your kitchen, and a working toilet in your hall but every so often you long to just get back to basics. You head off into the woods and construct yourself a shelter from the elements,  bring heat and light to your space with fire, cook your food over the flames you created, and dig yourself a latrine. And somehow there is great pride in doing it because the thing is done by the sweat of your brow and your own cunning. That is how I feel about this new financial age, like I'm going on a financial camping trip.

Already, I'm re-evaluating what things in my life are more luxuries than necessity. Paper towels for example. Really what do I need paper towels for? We can wipe our fingers on those square napkins that come like 500 to a package and I can clean my windows and mirrors with old newspaper. Done, just shaved $10.50 off the monthly budget. Next, laundry detergent. It is $13.99 for the kind we buy, but my cousin told me that she makes her own laundry soap and it comes out to like $1.50 for 100 loads and works great! But wait there's more! I am clipping coupons -saved $115 last shopping trip with discounts and coupons-, watching youtube videos on how to groom your own dog-BAM! just saved us the $42 I have been putting out in dog grooming every 6 weeks-and then there's toting all the kids old clothes to the consignment shop instead of Goodwill,  selling their old toys on Craigslist (if your interested, I am getting ready to put up a HUGE lot of ZuZu pet stuff soon, mostly because they annoy the crap out of me-why in the world would a hamster moo and who was the genius  who decided they wouldn't have an off switch-and because the kids just don't play with them anymore), making my family homemade Valentine's sweets instead of buying them gifts,  finding all the free family fun things to do and coming up with my some of my own, and I'm trolling through blogs on how people find ways to be thrifty and frugal in their lives (if you have any leads let me know).
So I have about 18 months of getting back to basics before things become comfortable again and although I am a little daunted by the task, I think that it will be really good for me and for my family. Already I feel such empowerment every time I can say, "I really don't need that" and walk away not even really wanting it. It is amazing how much mindless shopping I did and how much of what I bought wasn't needed or even wanted until I saw it on a clearance end cap. I am going to have to change my thinking and my habits and I'm sure there will be an adjustment period with some painful moments when I just want the "camping trip" to end so I can get back to the luxuries of life before, but I am also sure that there will be a lot of growth and that if I'm mindful, this period in our lives can have a lasting impact on all 5 of us.

Work smarter not harder...

If any of you have a flat top stove you know the torture it is to clean it. I have invested in all the special cleanser, the scratching pads, tried baking soda paste, and in the end I just have to scrub and scrub and it never really comes out looking sparkling fresh...until today. Last night a large quantity of starchy water boiled over while making mashed potatoes. I used the special flat top cleaner with the little scrubbing pad and still it looked like this. Annoyed I trolled the internet looking for options and found one lady who suggested using oven cleaner.  

Following her tips,  I sprayed the oven cleaner all over the surface of the stove turned the burners all to low for about 5 minutes and then waited for the cook top to cool. 

All I had to do was wipe the flat top clean. I did a little scrubbing with the scratching end of my sponge but all in all it was very little effort. Voila! The flat top stove I remembered. 

The Play Kitchen

I wanted to get a play kitchen for my girls (almost 5 and 18 months) for Christmas but nothing I saw felt right. I wanted something that could be enjoyed by both of them for years to come but all the plastic kitchens were too small and seemed like they wouldn't stand up to much play abuse. I started looking up patterns for making your own play kitchen and came across the idea to refurbish an old entertainment unit. My favorite was at www.suttongrace.blogspot.com. So I started trolling good will and craigslist for the perfect entertainment unit and after a month of searching found this one for $40. It is really solid and the perfect size. There were doors on the front bottom but I in my excitement started taking it apart before I got the "before" picture. I started by ripping off the thin backing on the unit and replacing it with ply wood.

 Then I cut the hole for the sink (which I purchased for $12-including faucet- at Habitat for Humanity) and started priming. After priming I painted every thing.

 I reused the bottom doors but took off the magnetic latches and put them on the top so that the doors would open from the top like a dishwasher and oven. Then I cut out an opening on the oven front and spray painted both the "dishwasher" door and the "oven" door a metallic silver. After they dried I put on some old oven knobs using bolts and nuts so that they would turn then added a small towel bar (also purchased at HFH-I just spray painted the sink and the hardware to freshen them up). I bought a sheet of plexi glass at Lowe's and used a clear caulking to glue it in place on the oven door.

 To out line the stove I painted a gray square then used electric tape to edge it in.

 For the burners I bought a couple of plastic lids in the paint section at Lowe's and spray painted them black.

 I really wanted something authentic for the elements and was thrilled to find a tangle of electrical chording at HFH. I coiled the chording and glued it to inside the lids with liquid nail.

 Then glued the burners in place. I really love how they turned out.

 The fridge gave me issues. I couldn't figure out how to reuse the door that came on the original unit. It had glass on 3/4 of it and ran the full length, and I really didn't want a fridge that big. I wanted to leave some space for food storage. So I found this cupboard door at HFH and it was just about a perfect fit. I bought some new hardware and spray painted it metallic silver too. *I primed the door then put 3 coats of this special, and expensive, magnetic paint on the door. Then I spray painted over it with the silver but it didn't cover very well so I went over it with some gray paint I had on hand. I don't know if that was too much paint but the door is so weakly magnetic that it won't hold a magnet. It was also really cold in the garage even with the heater running so that may have effected it but annoyed it didn't work out.

The unit was really tall so I put in a shelf (under the curtain) and attached a kid's microwave to it. I also thought that it would be fun to put in a window over the kitchen sink and loved this frame with plexiglass in it I found for $2.00 at HFH. The side of the unit had a DVD storage area covered by a door. I took the door off and painted the shelves and call this area the pantry.

This is what it looked like at 3am Christmas morning.

 I didn't have time to finish a few things but since then have added under counter lighting, sewed the curtains, and found a cute metal door hanger in my Spring decorations in my garage and turned the picture frame into a shadow box. 

After buying the unit, the paint, the hardware, the plywood backing, the door, the lighting, the material for the curtain, the project ended up costing about $125 (still annoyed about paying $20 for the magnetic paint). I really loved the way it came out though and the kids love it too.