it is just around the corner…

…

 

CHRISTMAS!!! 

It is exactly four months from tomorrow.

 

Just 122 MORE days!!!

 

I am a little excited!!!

on a roll…

Since we will be moving in with my Mom & step dad in about 10 days, I have been on a cleaning & purging spree.

We plan to sell, give away & donate a lot of our furniture as it is time for new. I have NEVER had an BRAND NEW furniture. EVER. (with the exception of my mattress) Everything I have ever bought or been given has been second hand…”new to me”. Which has never bothered me, bc most everything I had looked new and I was thankful for it.
But now is the time for me to get to pick out my own furniture. I found an awesome discount furniture store here in our town and they have the BEST lay a way plan ever. You pick out what you want…put a down payment on it (whatever amt you want) then make payments (in any amt) every two weeks until it is paid. At which point you pick up your furniture.
Isn’t that GREAT? There is no holding fee, no financing charge, etc. It can not be beat. Plus the prices are cheaper than if you go to the larger retail showrooms.
We are ordering our couch this weekend. We have been paying on it for the past 6 weeks and have just one more payment to make and it will be ours. It will of course go into storage until we move out of my Mom’s, but it will be nice knowing it is ours and it is waiting on us. Next we are looking for a new dining/kitchen set. Part of our new furniture is going to be a Christmas gift from my family. (how great is that?)

I am so anxious to set out on this new journey.

So far we have sold a couch & chair for my Mom (they are taking our our current set for their basement). I am waiting now on someone to come and pick up our dining table & chairs. And up next  to go is a large dresser & our patio table.

I also have a large box of clothes to donate to the Goodwill.

So how often to you replace your furniture? Do you buy new, used or get hand me downs from friends/family? How often does your style change?

how does this happen?

how is it that these are sock mates? Why when I wash socks does one come out so much larger than the other???
Can anyone tell me the answer to this???

A little of this, a little of that

This past weekend we went for a drive to a nearby lake. We are thinking of moving there, once our house sells.
Isn't it beautiful?  (yes, since you asked...I did take that picture. Oh, sorry you didn't ask!)

We also went for ice cream while we were there. Yummm...

Today was Collin's EEG. We won't have the results for approximately 10 days. He did GREAT. He listened and followed all the instructions he was given, including falling asleep.  I was so proud.


Since he did so well, his Maw-kle (pronounced Ma-Kohl and is what he calls my Mom, his Grandma) bought him the Imaginex Bat Cave he has been wanting. He was thrilled.


Since so many of you asked...NO I did not make the cake, but my sister did. It is a hobby of hers and she does not do it for a living, just for family. It took 8 cake mixes and many lbs of icing. But it was SO GOOD!!!
She also made his first birthday cake...

I just realized that I may have too much time on my hands. Why? Because each time I share pictures with you I first run them through scrapblog. It is a great (mostly) free online scrapbooking site. Never tried them out? You won't be sorry you did, but be warned first...it is ADDICTING!!!  www.scrapblog.com .
I would have included a picture of Collin from his first birthday party, but I do not have any of them saved on this computer.    :(          Sorry.

I am watching Dancing with the Stars as I work on this and I am very upset that Melissa is injured and won't be dancing this evening. I hope she is all right and able to return next week. I am nervous what this will mean for her & Tony.

Tomorrow we have someone coming to give us an estimate on a new fence. We are also looking for someone to install a new bath tub for us. This is one of the few things Preston is not comfortable doing on his own. What lucky buyers we will have (soon)...a new fence, a new tub, a new electric hot water heater, a freshly stained/painted deck, newly painted shudders, a 2 yr old remodeled kitchen, all new plumbing and electric, new carpet and wood floors through out, a three year old furnace. (the list could go on)  I will be so glad to move on from here.

I think this post is long enough. More tomorrow, possibly.     :)

One last thing... PRAISE the Lord...Stellan was discharged from Boston Children's Hospital earlier today and will be returning with his MckMama tomorrow to his home and many siblings and Father. What a sweet reunion that will be. Please say a prayer for MckMama and Stellan for a safe flight home tomorrow.

NITE!!!

A little project

My Mom (finally) gave me this cupboard that I have been wanting for several years now. It belonged to her Grandmother and was pass to my Grandma and then on to my Aunt. When my Aunt moved she gave it to my Mom. And now, almost 12 years after my Grandma passed away it is mine. I am so thankful. I love getting furniture (or anything for that matter) that has been passed through my family. Most everything(but not everything) in my house has come from family and I love it that way.

This particular cupboard has been painted and painted and painted and painted some more. I have no idea how many colors it has been in years past, but the ones I can remember are blue, green, burgundy, and purple. My Mom painted it purple about a year ago. Well I have nothing purple in my house, so it had to painted again.

 

 

BEFORE

I got to work on it yesterday and restored it to its former color of....
burgundy.  ;-)

 
AFTER

I have every intention of buying some nice dishes to put in there someday, but until then my "everyday" dishes will have to do. 

Sorry...

I must apologize for my absence. It was not planned and nothing was/is wrong.
Thank you to those who emailed to check on me. You made me feel special.

I just abruptly took a short break from the world of blogging. Not really sure why. I just felt I needed a small break. I did pop in & out on a couple times, but did not post many (if any) comments. I will be catching up with you all this week, I promise.
I have missed each of you. You're like family now.  :)

We had a couple play dates this past week. One was with my (step) sister & her son. My (step) sister is pregnant and scheduled to be induced this thursday. She is having another little boy. How exciting.    :) I can not wait.

We also had a friend of ours from high school and her husband and kids over for lunch and a play date. It was lots of fun too. My friends oldest (a girl) is just a month older than C.  He LOVED having kids to play with this past week. He will LOVE pre-school come fall.

My friend's husband made dessert...fried ice cream. It was yummy. Once we make it and I write down the recipe, I will share it with you. YUM!!!!!

I started "working"...sort of. Our church needed help with their childcare on tuesday evenings and thursday mornings, so I signed up to help out. I find that each tuesday I am dragging myself there, but once there I have so much fun with the kids. C comes with me and he enjoys this time too, but wants his Mom to help with the babies instead of his age group. HA
I think the only reason I am dragging myself there is bc we leave about the same time P gets home from work. And we don't get back home until 9:30 and I am usually beat. 20-30 3-8yr olds can wear you out FAST.  ;)

Well that is a quick round up of what is going on here. I can not wait to see what you all are up to.

Back to work and the Fiesta Bowl

After two weeks off, my husband is back to work today. I am not sure if I miss him or if I am glad to have things getting back to normal.  CJ does not seem to listen to me as well when Daddy is home.  (ugh) We are missing him regardless.

After wednesday we will be cable free. I am excited and nervous. We have tried to explain to CJ as much as we could. He cried a little and wanted to know how he could watch his cartoons. (awww) We told him that is why he has so many dvds. Would you believe this same child did not watch tv at all the first two years of his life? We will still have local channels, so he can still see Clifford, Curious George, Word World, etc. I am really looking forward to all the quality time we will now be spending as a family instead of in front of the tv.

Not sure if you know this or not...it is listed in my "about me"  section. It is a dream of mine to someday own an rv and travel all over. Well we are always talking about them and CJ asked PJ over the weekend if he could see inside one.  ;) (that's my boy, he also asked if he could get one for Christmas) (I wish)  Anyway, I looked it up and the annual boat and rv show is this coming weekend, so I think we are going to take him so he can see inside an rv like he wants to.  Good cheap fun.

Some of you have asked about our decision re: PJ's job opportunity,we are still praying about it. To be honest if the economy were in a better place I don't think we would be quite as apprehensive about the cut in pay. Who
knows. I have also mentioned that if it is meant to be it will be. I get the feeling that the timing is a little off. I also think we like being on the outside looking in (so to speak) rather than on the inside looking out. There are some things I would rather be in the dark about. Does that make sense?

Tonight the Buckeyes take on the Texas Longhorns @ the Fiesta Bowl in Glendale, AZ.  GO BUCKS!!! According to the hubby, the Big 10 is not doing so well in their bowl games. I have faith in our Buckeyes.
In honor of our Buckeyes big game tonight...I want to share this pictures with you...CJ is 4 months old in these pictures...a true Buckeye from birth...

That is it for now.


Do you enjoy photo updates? (even though they are tacky photos? Except for the ones of CJ;)  )

this & that

WoW, it has happened. I can think of nothing to blog about today. Hmmm...maybe I should GET A LIFE!!! ha ha ha I have tons I would like to get done today, but NO motivation to get started. The house is spik n span...so not cleaning today. Maybe a load of laundry to finish up. I have to pick my niece up from school/cheerleading this afternoon and take her home. Which reminds me that I HATE to drive in the dark. And with daylight savings ending it will be almost dark at that time. FUN. The hubs is working TWO HOURS away today. UGH. Makes for a long day for him and US. (me & CJ) We had a lady over last night from an insurance company to go over life insurance policies and possibly health insurance with us. UGH!!! Obviously I need maternity coverage, MOST women do right??? Well in order to get the maternity coverage it is $106.00 more EACH month and is NOT GOOD for the first year of coverage AT ALL. WHAT? Is that legal? I know it is, but come on...it is NOT right!!! After the first year of coverage you can use it, BUT it still does not cover everything and won't cover ALL maternity expenses until AFTER five years. Ummm...I am thinking I could just save $100 a month for five years and pay for my OWN expenses, I would not need the insurance then. DUH!!! Ok, so that would ONLY be $6000.00 but still. Did I just say DUH? Not sure if anyone remembers, but a few weeks back I bought a flag to put on my Dad's grave. He has a garden flag holder at the head of his grave. Anyway, the flag was green with a bear fishing on it and said Go Fish. (just to refresh your memory. So I took the flag out to the cemetery and struggled to get it on the holder bc it was such a tight fit, but I managed. This was about a month ago. This past week the three of us (hubby, son and I) went out to put some flowers on his grave and the flag was GONE!!! Who does something like that? Steals from a grave? From a cemetery? From the deceased? Come on!!! I was in tears. It stills makes my stomach turn to think about it. I am in the process of buying another one. PJ says to buy a few of them and we will just keep replacing it. The sad thing is...we think we might know who took it. You see, this is not the first time something has come up missing from out there. And it is ALWAYS the things I take out. Never is it something my sister or niece or Grandma takes out. Isn't that SAD? If the above was not bad enough...yesterday I was trying to post a picture on here of my award and discovered that ALL my pictures from 2008 were GONE. History. For whatever reason it says the folder was corupt. ??? No clue!!! I was able to retrieve a FEW of them from another location, but only a few...hundreds are still MIA. This makes me SICK!!! I cried for an hour yesterday over this. Today is Veteran's Day and as I sit here typing this I can here the bands playing in the parade. I want to THANK all the Veterans' out there for the hard work, dedication and service. You help(ed) to make this country what it is today. And it does not go un-noticed or un-appreciated. Not in this house anyway. THANK YOU!!!

busy day for us today...(again)

FALL PICTURE DAY 11

todays pictures are of corn mazes. I can not believe the detail in these. They are awesome. These were just a few I chose. You can see many more my google-ing corn mazes (images).

while I am a Buckeye fan myself, I included this one bc I read the blogs of MANY Hog fans. So this is just for them. I searched for a Buckeye corn maze and could not find one. :(

Good Morning fellow bloggers.

Today we have lots to do and to get done.

PJ had a meeting this morning and as soon as he gets back we are off to Target and the grocery. (I some how ran out of bottled water...still not sure how that happened) I also need to take a flag that I ordered for my Dad's grave out to the cemetery. I have looked so long for the perfect one and I found one that is close enough...for now.

We also have the BUCKEYES game at 3:30 this afternoon. GO BUCKS!!! And after that the the demolition derby at our county fair.

Our neighbors our moving out today. I guess they finally closed on their house. (it has been three months since they said they were moving/closing) Good for them. We have lost two neighbors (because of them moving) in the past two months. Everyone have a great saturday.