Again

What is it they say about the road to hell being paved with good intentions?  Oh right. ~they say fake it til you make it.  Right?  

I’d like to say it was fake that the weekend is over.  Dang that flew by like a flash. 

I heard a little from Colin and Spencer.  Easton is doing good.  He looks like he’s growing!  Gotta carve out a trip south soon. 

I have always loved hot air balloons.  So when I was in the store this weekend to get food to barbecue with Preston and Sunny, and they had this cute little solar powered hot air balloon, into the cart it went.  The solar lights flicker, making it seem realistic.   I’m enamored.  Jim said “oh yeaaa” which after all these years I recognize as he isn’t as impressed as I am, but also doesn’t want to tell me I’m a weirdo. Do I care?  Nope.  Am I going to continue to throw odd things into my cart and then ask him if he thinks it’s cool?  Absolutely.  And sorry/not sorry this thing is cool!   10/10 stars. Would buy again. 

I spent the bulk of Saturday bouncing between working on the basement bathroom, cleaning stuff, cooking and hanging out with Preston and Sunny who are here for the weekend.  I also conned Cameron into coming down for Sunday dinner.  It was nice to have a house full of people, relaxing and hanging out.  

And playing with the girls is always fun. Or at least it was fun until Andrew took a few guppies down to feed to Jim’s tank of bass.  He let the girls go with him.  They were not impressed at all.  Wrenley kept telling me that was mean!  Those fish mean!  I guess she didn’t appreciate their love of sea food.  

Jim starts his new job tomorrow.  I don’t know if he is ready to go back to the grind, but he seems excited about this opportunity.  Good luck at your first day Jim!  

Did I mention I am ready to go back to Wichita?  

So progress was made this weekend.  Flooring went down.  Then I ran out.  Then I ordered more and it was delivered today (I know we are supposed to be avoiding Amazon, but I got my stuff and didn’t go into Menards - saving money.   I love this floor.  Sort of.  I should not have gotten tile with such a definite pattern!  Especially for my first flooring job.  Matching it up is more difficult than I thought - especially in the areas where I have to cut the tiles down. I have just a slight touch of OCD with stuff like this. If it doesn’t match up, it will drive me crazy - I will never be able to go in there and not see it.  So it is taking me a lot longer than I originally thought.  I have made it further than this photo shows, but I am having to cut and piece together each piece, and it is tedious and time consuming.  I’ll get it done, but my idea that I would finish this bathroom this weekend  was definitely a pipe dream. It’s fine.  Everything is fine.  It’s winter time. I don’t like being outside anyway.  I also got the trim all cut, and I have a plan.  It’s just not a realistic time management type of plan.  

Lots of things

The remodeling of grandma’s kitchen continues.  Preston and Sunny are here, retrofitting cabinets to fill up her soffit space.  I am weirdly excited about it, I think I might be addicted to projects?  I even broke out the new multi-tool!  The first step = admitting there is a problem.  I admit nothing!  There is nothing to see here folks!

This little girl is growing up too fast.  Why is she looking more like a kid than a baby?  

An ornery, ornery kid.  

This little buddy had his first ER visit.  He had a complication with his circumcision. Only mention this because if you might recall, Colin was our king of the ER when he was younger.  I sort of laughed, sort of cringed when Colin said “we made it 2 weeks before we had to go to the ER.  I am not joking when I tell you that the nurses at St Francis knew my son my name.  

Easton is ok. He had a very long night and day, but he is home and they have a resolution.  (Grammy loves you little buddy!). 

I am still enamored with my bichirs. They are getting big. I can’t get enough.  I have owned fish my entire life - but these are different.  They seem friendly. Or curious or something. They come up to say hi when I go in the room.  Jim has noticed too.  They are really amazing fish.  

The weather has been exceptional.  One night, I came home from work and grilled steaks on the grill in shorts and flip flops. It is January?   Yesterday we had thunder storms.  It was 60 degrees and seemed like an April day.  My brain cannot handle it.  I have spring fever.  

The closest thing I have to spring is that my little cherry seeds went from little roots to actually sprouting and starting to get leaves.  And yes, if you come here often you will continue to get updates because this is truly exciting!

I do know that spring isn’t here and I’m not planting a garden or thinking about starting to clean the pool.  Although that’s where my heart is.  Instead I have been making Valentine’s Day wreaths.   Mallory even got Carlos a Valentines day outfit. He was so happy!  

Other exciting news- Jim got a job with the Kansas Rural Water office.  It was a job he really wanted and I am so happy and excited for him.  As you probably know, Jim worked for the city of Overbrook for 20 years. In that time he learned a lot of stuff. He became certified in water treatment and wastewater treatment. He became a master clerk. He learned a lot stuff about a bunch of computer programs, learned about utility billing and management. He wore a whole bunch of hats.  He also met a lot of people who he both learned from and impacted.  I believe those skills he acquired both helped him get this job, and make him a perfect fit for it.  I can’t wait to watch him master this!  Proud is an understatement.  

We are weekend ready.  This was a short week, but it was a long short week.  If you want to hang out this weekend, I will be in the basement bathroom, feel free to join me!  Since Preston and Sunny are here, I am going to pick their brains about how to do a couple of things down there.  And by the grace of God, I am hoping to finish up.  Plumber is currently on his way. Vanity is painted and first coat of poly is on, just have to do one more coat and reattach the drawer pulls.  I am ready to crunch out some flooring, trim and wainscoting!  I watched a YouTube video, I believe it will only take about 25 minutes!  :)  OHHH and just wait until Jim sees the amazing decor I bought just for this room!  He will probably have tears in his eyes when he sees the amazingness!

 

Sweet little Easton

I have the best grandkids.  No doubt in my mind!  
Yesterday, I ran down to see Easton, Colin and Spencer for a little bit.  It was so nice to have a couple of hours to visit with them, snuggle the baby, and catch up on life.  I honestly had a hard time leaving.  Or at least a hard time handing the baby back to them!  

I remember when I was 5, my cousin Melissa was born.  The adults in my life let me sit on the couch and hold her.  I remember being instantly in love, and wanting to take her home with us!  About a year later, my little sister was born.  She had some stomach issues, and had to be held in an upright manner after eating.  I remember sitting in a chair holding her so that mom could run out to gather eggs, or switch around laundry.  Again, just love.  I knew I wanted to be surrounded by babies for the rest of my life.  And I have been!  Tons of cousins, so much baby sitting, a 'few' of my own kids and I literally have been surrounded by babies!  But grandkids just hit a little different.  They show you all the best parts of the people you raised.  It is like a reward after years of work.  I always joke that it is all of the fun parts with none of the responsibility.  I am not responsible for these little people, it is just my job to love them, to be there for them, to watch them grow and take pride in their accomplishments.  Nobody loves you like your grandma.  I am thrilled to have that job!

And seriously, this little dude is easy to love.  He is sweet, has the cutest little noises, and I love the way he scrunches up his face.  I am proud of the job that Spencer and Colin are doing, and feel abundantly blessed to have this sweet little boy in our family.  

Of course, every family has one - the ornery, feral

 kid.  Luckily, I absolutely adore orneriness!  Jim cleaned out our closet Sunday.  When Wrenley came to Sunday dinner, she latched onto this mask that he found in there.  When she went to leave, she refused to take it off.  I told her she could have it.  Madison texted this photo yesterday morning.  Haha!  She likes being a spooky clown.  What can we say?  Grammy loves Halloween too kid!  

This is the last day of the holiday break.  As with all breaks, this one flew by too fast.  We did accomplish a lot!  I wish it could stay just a few more days!  I am so blown away and thankful for the weather being so nice!  I am thankful that we have been able to make a few trips to Wichita and not had to worry about the weather at all.  No canceling plans, no worries about getting down the turnpike safely. No frozen water buckets.  I hope it will just stay like this until spring!!  Hey, I know it isn't' realistic, but a girl can dream.  

 

A Sunday full of Grace and Hope

Literally a day of Grace and Hope as we had one of our lunch/shopping dates.  Jim never minds me having lunch with Grace.  But he also never knows what kind of ideas I will get from hanging out with her either.  Today’s topic - my bathroom remodeling project.  We discussed the vanity.  Jim isn’t a real big fan of painting wood   Especially if that wood matches all the other wood surfaces in the house.  Fair, I agree with him on that most of the time.  The vanity in the downstairs bathroom did match all of the others  when we purchased this house.  But that was before 8 kids used and abused it.  The thing was covered in nail polish, some sort of black stuff that I can’t get off no matter what I tried, had some water damage.  I was faced with the very real problem that in order to make it look good, we either had to cover all that with paint,  strip it down and restain and refinish it, or buy a new one.  Since I sold this project on the pretense that it won’t be too expensive, buying new was out.  And I have no idea how to refinish a vanity and have it look good so I really just wanted to paint it.  Jim reluctantly gave his (less than enthusiastic) blessing.  But I wanted someone to agree that my vision was good.  Enter Grace.  Who enthusiastically agreed that with the wainscoting, it was almost necessary for it to match, and I was doing the right thing!  Second topic - new trim to match the wainscoting.  I told her my vision. She told me she knew exactly what we should go get!   So off to Menards we went!  The trim I had in mind does exist. And it was $38 for a 6 foot piece.  Grace - enters the picture, drags me to the decking section and bravo!   Same stuff (basically) already primed, $7 for 6 feet!  See?  Hanging out with her saved me 31 bucks times 5 pieces -$155  in savings just for listening!   Enter the multi-tool conversation.  What will make this install ten times easier?  The right tools.  Of course. And since I saved $155 on the trim, I definitely could justify spending $58 on a tool we didn’t know we needed until today!   It was basically like getting the tool for free right?   I mean that is how math works right?  Right?  Grace said yes.  Good enough for me!  Jim didn’t seem upset about having a multi tool, and he was happy with the trim I picked out - winning all day!  

We also got more stuff so I can make more Valentine’s Day wreaths and ran by Checkers because Madison was coming this evening to make chicken cordon bleu- a favorite of mine that I am too lazy to make most of the time!  

I am done with painting blue, I have painted the wood trim and have one coat on the vanity.  I admit the blue is a little bit darker than I thought when I picked the color, but I think the wainscoting will wash it out some.  I love how it is looking. 

I loved having a person who gets as excited about projects as I do to bounce ideas off of.  We also talked about a lot of other things, and, as time often does when we are together, I realized we had been out there for over 4 hours!   Grace and Hope time always goes by too quickly!  I am so blessed to have a handful of really amazing women in my squad.    

I came home to Madison making dinner, Mallory had shown up with 2 homemade pies, the grandkids were happily playing Jim had cleaned out he master bedroom closet, and the girls had cleaned up more around the house.  That’s what I like to come home to!  

As the chicken was cooking? The pan dripped a little in the oven. Madison opened the window a little to let out the smoke. I turned around to see this!  Hello Maude!  She is seriously the funniest dog I ever owned.  I love her.  

I had a fun evening with the kids. Today was a good day. 

Colin sent me a couple of pictures, my little buddy!  Tomorrow, I am trekking down the turnpike to see him (and his parents).  Just a few snuggles and maybe lunch before I have to go back to driving the bus.  I cannot wait!  

The weekend may be over, but I have a vacation day tomorrow.  The girls and I return to school stuff on Wednesday.  It has been a good, much needed break.  I am thankful for it, but wish we had a few more days.  Oh well, no rest for the wicked.