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 stiff so I can make more Valentine’s Day wreaths and ran my 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 licked 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.  

 

101 little projects

We have been truly enjoying the break from school and school related things.  I admit that when I don’t have to drive the bus, my days tend to be less regimented.  I tend to sleep in a bit, rush around to get everything done and usually end up flying out at the last possible moment for  work. I also tend to stay up later, as my true nature is to be a bit of a night owl, and Jim tends to be the same.  We are not good adults I guess.  But the relaxed schedule and the extra sleep have been nice.  I’m can’t say I’m ready to go back yet.  And the girls feel the same. We are trying to enjoy the few days we have left.  We have been sort of taking turns going to see Colin,  Spencer and Easton. Cameron went down on New Year’s Day.  They took the baby to his first trip to Menards.  Mallory and Madison took the girls down today. I loved seeing all 3 of our grandkids in one picture!   We will make one more trip down before school starts now that we are feeling better.  And one of the reasons I quit working at the liquor store was so that we had more free time on weekends to go see the baby.  We have been so fortunate to have the girls close. Wichita isn’t far, but it does require a little bit more strategic planning!  We don’t want to miss out on this little guy growing up!  

Saige is getting pretty proficient at changing her nose ring. We had a huge learning curve on this.  I do like the smaller studs she has been wearing lately.  More dainty.  

After Christmas sales came in clutch when we had the girls here for our New Year’s Eve sleepover.  We played  lot of Mrs Claus (old maid), crazy elves (crazy 8’a) and go deer (go fish).  This cracks me up.  And it cost me 50 cents!  I love clearance sales! 

Saige has been wanting to get her ears pierced again. Friday I was able to get in with Terri for a much needed haircut and she happened have time to fix Saige up.  Is she addicted to piercings?  Maybe.  Is it hurting anything?  I don’t really think so.  We have limits and rules and she hasn’t broken any of them.  Nothing body changing until you are 18.  No gages, no tattoos, no piercing weird areas that you feel uncomfortable having people look at if they got an infection or other problems, or potentially detrimental things like random tongue bars.  What she does as an adult is fine, but this is her set of rules for now.  

Pick your battles I always say. 

Seriously how cute is this baby?   I love him so much!  I can’t get enough. 

And of course, uncle Colin always has to entertain you when you go visit.  The tandem bike is a huge fascination to so many! 

We had a rare nothing going day today.  We slept in.  We did a bunch of completely random stuff.  We actually worked pretty hard, but all on weird things. Did I manage to get dressed today?   Negative.  Did I leave the house?  Also negative, with the exception of walking out to feed critters.  Am I ok with this?  100%.  

I worked on the basement bathroom. I am done painting in there with the exception of touch ups.  I have decided to paint the vanity and will do that tomorrow at some point.  We have taken the trim all down and have the flooring all gone. The plumber is coming and then we will install new trim and wainscoting.  And then I will be working on the flooring.  Or perhaps we won’t do things in that order. I am hoping like crazy that Preston won’t mind helping me when he is home next week to do grandma’s cabinets.  He has done both projects before.  I don’t need him to do it for me, just need a few pointers.  I have ingested enough YouTube videos to make me believe this will be a piece of cake.  

I also made a few wreaths.  For Cameron and me- Martin Luther King Jr wreaths.  And a couple of Valentine’s Day wreaths as well.  I would have done more, but I ran out of hot glue sticks.  If you know me at all, you know I love to spend a day crafting.  And I did a lot of that today. I made 6 wreaths, painted an angel project I have been wanting to do, painted Saige’s jewelry box to match her room, and am making some tp roll chickens that I saw a video for when I was looking for wainscoting videos.  I have craft stuff spread all over the place and I couldn’t be happier wallowing around in my stashes.  Since Jim is cleaning out the closet and organizing thousands of baseball cards, he is also happily wallowing around in his stashes so everyone is happy!  We also managed to put away the Christmas decorations, clean the messes up for the most part and get our Valentine’s Day stuff out just for fun.  Mostly because I bought Valentine’s Day wreath making stuff and needed a few more things.  I was sort of laughing to the kids about Christmas.  I don’t love the holiday.  Never have. But one thing I do love is Christmas decorations. I love the lights. The sparkly  glittery junk everywhere. The nativity with lights on it.  But as much as I like it, I also love putting it away.  The visual clutter sort of gets to my weird OCD for having things cleaned up.  I am always ready to put it away for the year.  I always feel good when that job is done.  Am I weird?  Absolutely.  Embrace it. 

Thursday, the girls and I went to town to spend their Christmas money and pick up snacks for New Year’s Eve.  When we were in checkers, they had some great sales on produce.  I have really utilized the mushrooms I dehydrated a couple months ago, so when I saw they had mushrooms for 68 cents a pound, I grabbed 8 pounds.  I dehydrated them and got them all stored in containers today.  Side note- they had these mango melons on sale for 48 cents each.  Have I ever had a mango melon?  No.  Should you try new things?  In this case no!  Mango melons taste like vomit.  They are awful!  Luckily the chickens liked it so it wasn’t a complete waste of money!  

And this is a random thing, but last summer, I started a project that is considered fairly difficult and I am proud that it worked!   When we picked cherries, I started some seeds propagating.  When you do this, you have to crack the seeds to get to the inner part. Then you wrap it in a wet paper towel, place them in a plastic bag, and leave it in the refrigerator for 4-6 months!  At 4 months, there was nothing.  I almost threw them out, but thought what would it hurt to wait a little bit longer?  I actually forgot about them.    This week, I found them in the butter keeper and figured they would be all rotten. But they were growing!  The amount of excitement I have over this is just silly.   I had to re-watch the video I had watched so many months ago, to figure out the next steps!  They are now planted in dirt, and I am cautiously optimistic that I might get a couple of cherry trees eventually!  They have to be watered every day until they grow leaves.  I hope my attention span for this project doesn’t let me down! 

And since I’m this deep into random things for the day - my chickens that I purchased in June finally started laying!   I don’t think I have ever had chickens start laying in winter !  We are usually  doing good to get 2 eggs a day in the winter time.  I’m not getting a ton, but I am happy to get 6-8 eggs a day!  Also, 2 years ago, I bought a “rainbow egg layer variety pack” from the hatchery.  In that bunch of birds, I got 2 Americanas. Those birds lay eggs every single day. It is easy to know they are the ones laying since the eggs are blue and green. They have been the best chickens.  I am really impressed with them.  This year I got a “brown egg layer variety pack” and they are laying now - also impressive.  I will keep doing these variety packs because it makes me happy when I go to the chicken pen and have so many different birds.  It’s one of those little things that truly makes me happy.  Happy wife - happy life right Jim?  ;)

I guess that is enough random stuff for one day.  Maybe we can pack in more tomorrow.  Stay tuned. 

 

Welcome 2026

New Year’s Eve. A day I usually spend remembering my grandparents.  This year wasn’t really any different.  Flashbacks to all of the cousins aunts and uncles, grandma’s siblings - our great aunts and uncles, extended family, sometimes neighbors all gathered at my grandma’s party.  Card tables set up everywhere with lively games of pitch happening.  Accusations of cheating, and occasionally actual cheating, all with lively banter accompanying a variety of drinks ranging from beer to Dr Pepper to grandma’s famous brandy slush. Being 16 and feeling special because you were allowed a glass (just one).  Being 10 and learning to play beer pong using Dr Pepper.  Being 12 and finally being allowed into the adults table of pitch.  Being 8 and making confetti for hours waiting for the ball to drop while listening to Dick Clark’s rocking New Year’s Eve on the console tv.  Laughing about my grandpa sleeping in his recliner through all of it.  All of it flashing back. Happy memories of a childhood that I never realized was so blessed until I was much older.  And longing for just one more night like that, yet knowing it isn’t possible. And then over compensating by making an unreasonable amount of food and having whoever wants to come over and hang out here.  Jim actually walked into the kitchen where I was making said food and asked me “how many people did you invite?”   When I said I thought just the girls were coming he smiled and walked away with a handful of goodies.  He knows.  He knows that I am going to do this, and nothing he says that is reasonable and sane will reign me in. So he just eats the snacks, drinks the (apparently disgusting) beer that we picked out for him, and watches some newer version of Dick Clark that isn’t quite the same and yet, seems perfect for where we are in life.  And I cannot tell you how happy that makes me.  To be married to a man who just gets it.  Who rides the insanity without letting it bother him too much.  He’s a real “gem”.  

Not only  did  we have all the snacks, I also got party supplies. 

My only regret is that I didn’t buy more confetti cannons.  Worth every dime. Confetti cannons are awesome!  

2025 looking back it would be easy to say wasn’t our best year.  I spent a whole lot of it being upset about things going on in this country. Some would say I pay too much attention to politics and current events.  And they might be right, however it is hard not to pay attention when things are in such a mess.  Adding in the loss of Eric and I’d say this year sucked rocks.  But then I look at the photos of Colin’s wedding, recalling the happiness and excitement of that day.  Adding a daughter to our family who we love so much. And then having that daughter give us our first grandson. I can’t say the whole year was bad. As a matter of fact, we have been very blessed, with some sadness and disappointment thrown in.  And as much as I wish I could take the sad parts and erase them, it’s not possible.

I am welcoming 2026 in with open arms. Hoping and praying for a year with less loss, more love, better days and all of the family, food, celebrations, and happiness we can pack in! 

We are making our own traditions.  Grandkids spending New Year’s Eve crashed out here. Building a new generation of games and food and slumber parties and all the things that they will hopefully look back on with love and fondness and good memories.  My heart is happy.