Not much.

Well its been two weeks again. Seems to be my going rate for blogging. Good thing nobody is paying me -- I can’t get fired. 

I don’t feel like I’ve accomplished anything. But I know that’s not true. It’s just been so busy lately I don’t feel like I’ve had time to work.

The entire month of March is full of family birthdays for us. Every single weekend we celebrate a birthday. I’m feeling extra blessed that my mom chose to come here for her birthday a few weeks back, because all the other weekends in March (and the first one in April) have equaled loading up the van with the girls and road tripping it.
Every trip has been a good time, its been fun to see everyone and get in some grown up time and kid play time.
But I am seriously thrilled our birthday month has come to a close. With young kids, I really look forward to a weekend with Blake around so I can get some parental backup and maybe a minute to myself. Add in that at this stage of our life, with our house so crazy, the weekend is one of the only times we can get anything besides painting done. So having a whole month of no weekends…at this very moment I feel like simultaneously staring at the wall, not moving, just recovering in silence, yet all the while I feel like I should go paint staying up till 1am -- or make that 4am, or why sleep, just pull a painting all-nighter --to get a room done -- something, anything done.
(You may have guessed I tried to aim for the middle ground and chose to blog while sitting in silence.)

I do know I got something done since I last wrote because my mom came down for two days this week and I got the trim in the guest room painted and caulked. All that’s left in there now are the walls.

Didn’t that look horrible? Not now though. You’ll just have to trust me on that one.

I also got to go to the DMV while she was here. I have been needing to do that since January! ha! But I am now sporting IL plates and a driver’s license with my current address on it. I’m legit.
Trips to that place are always a blast.
Somehow they always come across implying I’m a criminal, it seems. And it’s over the dumbest most obvious stuff like “You’re last name doesn’t match your birth certificate.” It’s like they’ve never encountered a women who got married and changed her last name before. When I nicely explain that is my maiden name on my birth certificate, I’m married now. They incredulously ask (as if they are CERTAIN I did not), “Did you BRING!? your marriage license with you!?!!!?”  YEP! I’ve been treated like a criminal over this before -- I made sure to bring it. Here it is in all it’s glory. Then they tried to tell me it wasn’t original -- till they looked for one second longer and saw -- oh wait it does have a seal. I don’t know, maybe I really am in the minority now, with being married and changing my name? Maybe it is really weird for them to work on this paper work then? It just doesn’t seem like it should be that baffling to them -- and I don’t know why it makes them treat me soooo suspiciously.
     Then there was the kind of fun where one person says you have all the right prof of residency and the next person you stood in line to see (after you stood in a different line for the first person) says you don’t.
Somehow... because I stood there long enough not saying anything attempting to be nice, not get totally irritated (like I REALLY wanted to) -- she started typing and saw that I used to have an IL license two years ago and then... bam - - like magic, we are best friends for the day. Phew! I CAN get my license.
     The whole ordeal took longer than the normal forever, because I needed to drive the plates and registration paper work over to Blake, at work, for him to sign, because his name is on there. And then bring them back and stand in line again. So I was SO happy my mom was watching the girls and I didn’t have to do all that with them. I don’t really know how I could have actually done this with them there -- I mean I had to take a written (aka push buttons on computer) test and everything -- that would have been nuts with them.

Ok anyway -- enough DMV.
So I just scrolled through my iphone photos since last I wrote, and see that I actually have pretty much nothing to show you. I really haven’t gotten much done at all this month.

The things that have gotten done:

• I did finish painting the family room. But you’ve already seen the color, and the room has been SO messy lately (because I don’t know how to keep it clean while being so busy) that I don’t have a picture of the wall that was most recently painted.
• The changing of that funny once-was-a-back-door light in the family room. I tried going a with a different light than I had blogged about wanting. And it turned out to look initially nice, but then 15 mins in I was freaking out about how bad it looked, and how I’m gonna have to order the one I really wanted first.

  

  I thought this one looked like a cartoon against the brick. This is the one I had to take back,

  And Blake was looking at me like he was gonna kill me because he JUST put it up. Anyway, so that got taken care of and it looks worlds better than what it was. (no pic yet)
• Blake put on our new door knob. We got one of the official big deal front door knobs.

  

  The big baby on that board.

  This house really needed more than a matches-nothing-random-gold lever.

  

  The house had all knobs before, so this lever seemed SO random to me.

  This house really needed the scrolly pull to fit it’s style. But now that it’s on it's really inconspicuous because we have oil rubbed bronze hardware and the door is black on the outside. I’ve been tring to decide on a door color for later. I’m leaning grey-blue? I have a hard time straying from the black though, because the shutters are black. And though boring -- its super classic. Still thinking.
• I mentioned that I did the trim in the guest bedroom. That really freshens up a space fresh trim (especially when it was just dingy grey-dirty-white before.) (Can’t wait to get the walls done.)
• I painted the cabinet we need to hang in the laundry room.

  

  Jasmine laying down on the job, in her princess gown no less. Helping me prime. She can’t help me paint enough -- which is both adorable and stressful.

  I also bought some cuter laundry baskets on wayfair because I intend to have some up on shelves in there. We need to get to making those and hanging them. I’m dying to have a done laundry room. How weird is it that I always want my laundry room done first?
• Oh I almost forgot, I did buy new switch plates for some of my outlets and light switches. I put a lot of thought into these. Once again, could have gone white plastic and that would have been a huge update next to the vintage stuff we have going on.

  

  Vintage. Hey…why do these look kinda nice in this picture? Real life is not as kind to these. They are awkward.

  (It’s not vintage in a way that works for me here.) BUT…I saw that pin on pinterest about how that one lady upgraded her faceplates to painted wood because it’s fancier than plastic. And I thought well why not start out that way then? So I got wood ones for my family room and painted away. (Just FYI that’s kinda a lot of work.)

  

  New. Blake is going through the house slowly updating the light switches to clean and white. Some day these will look nice. The screws probably need some white paint too.

  The unfinished wood are more pricey than plastic, but not as much as the really fancy ones. But then after I got those, I started really thinking hard. (Sounds like me right?)  I like the ones we put in our bedroom (fancy pricer ones) -- the white with sort-of-a-moulding around them ones. But to be honest I don’t love them. And I started to think about the one I had in my bedroom growing up, and how I did love that one. I even made sure to ask my mom if we could take it with us when we moved, when I was a teenager. It’s wasn't stunning -- like not on trend at all now -- but I am sentimental about it and love it. It was faux-aged-brass plastic, with floral designs on it. And at one point we got all fancy and added some pearlized paint to the raised designs. I remember just gazing at it when I was bored as a kid. So I thought that I’d like to find some unique ones as well for this house.  Cut to a lot of time on eBay later, and I found some stuff. I quite like them. (Although I’m a little ify on one set -- but Blake and Jasmine are in love with them -- so I guess I’m just being weird.) I’ll show you pictures later -- I didn’t take any yet -- and some of the spots they go are still wallpapered -- so it might look hilarious.

So that’s what I’ve actually done.

I’ve also planned to white wash our family room brickwall fireplace. (For the time being, until we get the time to actually do that plank thing I wanna do.)

It drives me nuts that there is one kind of brick on one wall, and a different kind on the other wall. So I am trying to aim for a color of paint that will make them look more like bricks that get along with each other, rather than just yell at each other from across the room. I think the color is called grey beige -- but well -- that’s what it looks like.

The middle color shown against the aged brick I like, and am hoping to sort of tie in with.

think it will help match the mortar to the other wall’s mortar, and also tone down the unmatching hue.

The middle color. Shown against the offending brick.

I’m kinda nervous because I can’t undo it. But at the same time…I really dislike the brick as is, so I don’t feel like I can really mess it up. So I’m starting with white washing, not painting because I can always amp it up to paint later.

And out side of that. I’ve been doing a lot of organizing of the kitchen area -- clearing out no-no foods and reordering our food life.

Rice, popcorn and shredded coconut -- my new norm. Bye wheat flour. 

I’ve also been doing a lot of thinking. On life, motherhood, feeding my family. I’ve been eating (most the time) only foods my girls can eat.

Sunbutter is the new Peanut butter. And coconut milk is the new half and half. And those boxes are my new “wheat” not wheat. #sorrynotsorry anyone?

It’s been going better than I thought. (But I did think it was gonna horribly hard.) It’s actually not been terrible.

Look at this Modern Marvel! Its like two food miracles in one! We haven’t even tasted this yet -- but it’s existence boosts my moral so well! I feel really blessed to have so many options, even in the midst of less options.

But I do have a really hard time hosting anyone. Right now I live off of very unusual concoctions….so when people are here, I feel really bad offering them food because I don’t have much of what one might find normal. 

The last couple days I’ve been on a mental stream of food I’m finding super interesting. But I’m gonna save them for another post.

I’m also in the process of putting a home management binder together for myself. Because I’m not keeping up with the day to day stuff around here at all. I’ve been so consumed with the painting/remodeling/etc that I really let the cleanliness of the useable spaces in our home just go to crap. So I’m gonna try and make some attainable goals on paper. And check them off regularly. (Hopefully.)

I’m also gonna try to do menu planning, post de-allergigzing our home, for the first real time. Should be interesting. (Did I mention my kids, well mostly one of them, are really picky on top of not being able to eat tons of stuff….food is rough over here -- but I’m gonna get through this.)

So that’s my little update for you.

Hopefully I get around to blogging a few more things soon. I have some stuff in the noggin asking to get out.