Catching up with you

OK so here is a "catch up with me" post.

First thing I’ll show you is some new clothes.

I asked a stylish friend for shoe recommendations and confided in her that all I wear still are my yoga pants (the flared kind) because I still don’t care much these days. Mourning clothes.

And she shared the mind blowing magic of fitted yoga pants (look like leggings) with me.

And just like that, I’m comfortable, I still am not trying, but yet I look ok.

Mourning makeover.

I bought these Target yoga leggings and the great thing is they are thick enough, so I’m calling them pants. Super comfortable, easy fit and they don’t stretch out after wearing them (A LOT.) I recommend them. (But just because, not for money.)

These are the photos I sent her of what I bought after she schooled me.

The tops all are from TJMaxx -- that was a great place for shopping comfy, loose, tunic-y length shirts for wearing with my new leggings.

So that was a nice boost and distraction from things.

Although I’m not sure I’ve fallen in love with any sandals I’ve tried yet.(The ones in the photo are a few years old and broken.) Got any really comfy and stylish recommendations?

In the house -- things are not looking as good.

That one little quick job we thought we’d knock out in a weekend or a week (like a month ago) is still going strong…

That closet we wanted to turn into mini mud room hook space….

We also thought, while we have the wall taken apart lets add an outlet on the kitchen side. We plan to add a cabinet butler’s pantry kinda spot, and it would be nice to have an outlet in that mix.

Well, of course….this is an old house, and it seems like basically everything after this wall in the forefront is an addition, therefore finding the electrical work was not what we had anticipated. We had to take apart a lot more than we wanted to just to figure out something that would work. I was ready to say, forget the outlet. Blake was more willing to press on to the big picture goal. I’m glad he was because the outlet is going to be great. We even got one of those ones with USB slots next to the regular plus, so we can have a phone station.

Anyway here are so photos of what a mess we made (which I wasn’t emotionally ready for.)

I suddenly related very deeply with anyone who had told me they could never live in a reno house.

I’ve gotten used to the level of “doneness” we’ve arrived at. So this felt horrible. (You can’t see the layer of dust coating everything in our house that got made ripping stuff out.)

Once we opened this hole up and I could see the family room from the kitchen I COULD NOT stop channeling Joanna Gains. I told Blake that if I was Joanna Gains that wall would be gone. And he said “If I was Chip Gains, I’d say….something cute.” (That cracked me up.)

I didn’t ever actually want to open up stuff in my house (well just one spot between the cooking and eating parts of our kitchen, maybe someday, but out countertop has made that work really well.) I actually shopped on purpose for a house without an open concept. I’ve lived in one before and while I think they are really pretty and airy -- my personality likes walls (hide from messes when I’m tired. Gives me introvert room to breath.) But man, once this wall was see through the feeling of largeness was hard to deny.

I held MOST my thoughts in, because it wasn’t ever gonna happen. Taking that out for real would be INTENSE -- headers and bracing, bla bla bla. Plus I actually really want the storage we are working towards.

But Joanna, I heard you!

We had to buy a new piece of panneling to replace what we did. That actually hurt my heart/pride -- I have personally spent money on putting paneling on a wall. Sigh. But it was the only way -- I’m not re-drywalling this whole room right now -- no way. I will gladly paint some paneling.

To be honest, I have actually grown to LIKE the look of painted paneling. (I’d of course like it better if it was real wood, not just that flat board stuff, but whatever -- the texture has actually really grown on me.)

So this wall looks like this today. Painted, but not finished. Trim is calling out “Fix me! Fix me!" 

I’m trying (hopefully somewhat successfully) to be patient with asking Blake about it. He’s finishing up the semester at work -- so his work load is heavy and pressing. But pretty soon we will get this wrapped back up.

This is the family room side. Still just some bead board propped up and stuff hiding it from kids (there is bigger barricades closer to me, out of the photo.)

As far as the sunroom goes (which had created an enormous mess in the living room as well.) Here’s where we are at.

Blake and I both decided that the ceiling can’t just be flat dry wall. That space feels really weird like that. So we are gonna put up bead board.

I’m actually SO glad Blake decided that. I was thinking that, but didn’t want to say anything because I thought it would have negated the work he did on the drywalling. But he said, he would have done that anyway so the bead board had something to adhere to.

So the bead board is bought, but not placed.

And then I’ve decided before anything can really go in the sunroom we need to do better prep work.

I want to roll up our linoleum (it’s not tacked down at all) and use that famous BIN Shellac that has rescued so much of our house from bad smells (from the previous renter’s pet problems.)

That room smells once the heat is turned on, it awakens the odor. So I need to seal the floors up.

And then inside that same “smelly” issue, plus water staining, the nature of cedar, and random issues, I need to use that shellac on the walls as well before we can paint. Blake and I both feel grieved to paint the cedar, but it’s the only real way forward in there.

SO that meant the living junk could not go back into the sunroom.

We also realized we had another event during that garage sale we thought we were gonna join. So the garage sale wasn’t an option.

That actually turned out to be a huge relief to me -- I didn’t see how we were gonna pull off a garage sale at this stage of life.

We just donated our stuff to ReStore and Salvation Army and are going to claim it on our taxes. We felt best about that for where everything is.

So thankfully our living room looks normal again!

SOOO nice! Not taking that for granted.

Inside all that house stress, I found it very hard to deal with my anxiety I’ve had recently.

So I just one day decided I would do one thing I didn’t think I could do -- one thing that would make me feel like I was making headway. One thing that grounded me.

The first day that was moving three hostas (that were over crowded where they were) to next to our mail box since grass never grows there. I took our baby montior outside and me and Jasmine worked away. Ruby used it as some introvert time to herself. And we all enjoyed ourselves throughly.

The next day I moved some rogue backyard hostas, that were barely hanging on, over to a happier shadier place for them on the opposite side of the driveway.

They will look better next year. 

Doing these small tasks has helped me not crumble inside this stress.

It gives me something tangible to prove I’m making it.

And 

in

terrifying

photo 

news

….

.

.

.

our family has been battling pink eye for THREE WEEKS now.

It’s ridiculous.

Ruby had it first and it looked terrible.

Then she got better.

Then a few days later Jasmine had it.

It looked terrible.

She got a fever!? (Got her checked, she was ok. It’s just weird.)

Then she got better.

Then a few days later….

I had it.

It looked terrible

.

.

.

ahhhhhh!!!! 

The worst!

I wasn’t even as upset as I would normally be about it. I was annoyed and irked. But it was like 

“Whatever -- this is seriously just life right now. My face looks like my life.”

Not in a bitter way either. Just in like a “meh. whatever.”

I’m happy to report that while my eyes are still pink, they are normal sized today.

Sadly I think Baby Bronson is next with the goop forming in his eyes.

SIGH --- This will never end!

Also you can see my new teething necklace I just got. Me and Bronson both really like it.

I wanted to find one that looks the most like real jewelry. I like what I found.

I bought it off of Etsy -- Here

I went ahead and got my girls some sensory (same stuff as teething) necklaces.

Ruby has had a hard time letting go of her pacifier. So I thought this could ease her transition if she needed something to put in her mouth. I let her pick out any kind she liked and we decided when it arrived we would be done with pacifiers. It worked seamlessly. I thought we were in for a rough road -- but she took it awesome. Shes actually barely used the necklace -- but I think it still was a great help and motivator. She’s not fussed about the pacifier once.

(You should have seen her the week before -- if she lost it, she was in hysterics for hours. I was actually terrified to get rid of it. This was such a pleasant surprise.)

Here’s what she picked out: 

Off Etsy Here.

And to be fair, Jasmine got a necklace too. This is what she picked.

Off Etsy Here.

I think it’s so cute -- these necklaces perfectly reflect their personalities.

Other than that, me and my friend are still cheering each other on to do our MuTu work outs. We aren’t perfect at it -- but I’m just proud I’m doing anything right now. I’m glad she’s being my buddy for this because my emotions have wanted to derail me pretty hard.

I’m not sure how my progress will be since I really can’t commit to doing everything full force, but I can tell the program is great. I think it’s creator is right on target, knows just what a post partum body needs and can handle --  and she’s sensitive to the mom plight, I like her.

Anyway,  that’s my catch up for now.

TTYL