Thepast28daysofmylife

Highlights from the past 28 days of our life... When I last left all twelve of my readers I was headed to Disney. The following is in no way exaggerated.

Oct. 1: Packing. No, throwing stuff into the basement and POD before we leave for Disney. The hardwood floors in the whole house are getting sanded and stained while we are gone.

Oct. 2: Morning: Still throwing stuff in the basement. My sweet builder and crew are going to move all furniture in the POD for us, as he can see we are in no way going to be able to leave for our trip if its up to us to get it all out of the house. We love him.

Oct. 2: 4:30p.m.: Little Man falls down the stairs. Backwards, I'm being told by the 6 year old, who swears she had nothing to do with it. My builder was present. Little Man was bleeding, we think he needs stitches. We are leaving in about 3 hours to go out of town. My electrician shows up, while I'm on the phone telling the nurse we need to come in immediately. I'm on hold and ask him to get the chandelier out of my car. I'm calm and able to multi-task.
5:00 p.m. Little Man gets a staple in his head. He proceeds to call its his "stapler". The doctor's office is a whole other post in and of itself.

Oct. 3: We successfully leave from the farm with Aunt, Uncle, cousin, friend and our children in their mini van. CPA and I drive ourselves to Disney in peace and quiet. We arrive at the Disney resort. The kids think, and I quote, "this is the best vacation EVER!". We haven't even been to the park yet. They are going to have a heart attack.

Oct.4: Disney Day 1: It's hot as hell in Orlando. Like record breaking hot. We start in Animal Kingdom. The kids think this place is awesome. It is. Its Disney. The kids rode all the roller coasters. Like twice. I rode Mt. Everest once and threw up 3 times after. I had to go back to the hotel. Motion sickness.

Oct. 5-8: Remained hot at Disney. Kids did great! They asked for snacks and juice between all the rides and drove me crazy doing so. Although Disney could be the happiest place on earth. It doesn't make whining for juice and snack less annoying than when at home. Btw Disney, your Nescafe coffee sucks. You know about Starbucks, right?

Oct. 9: We headed back to the farm for the weekend because we knew the floors needed extra drying time. That is until my builder called and said it rained all week in Greenville. Which set back the drying time on my new dark floors. Which set back the day they put the first of three coats of poly on the floors... which was today. We can't stay at home until at least Thursday. Frick. Frick. Frick.

Oct. 11: We check into another hotel in Greenville. They call it a two bedroom with kitchenette. I called it "gross". This was not the Ritz. And I am pretty much over sleeping in confined spaces with my kids.

Oct. 12-14: I'm working from the new basement studio, trying not get high off the coats of poly. This totally sucks.

Oct. 15: Kids have no school today or tomorrow, so are off to the farm again, so CPA and I can get us moved back in.

Oct. 16: My AWE.SOME builder and crew move us back in from the POD. We spend the weekend trying to reassemble our lives.

Oct.17: My birthday is Tuesday, so today is Saturday and CPA says we'll go out for a nice dinner since the kids are away. We end up spending the day in Charlotte at IKEA getting more furniture for my new studio... we are there until about 7. We ate dinner at IKEA. We were those people. And I was okay with that. We were alone ;) And just to be clear, this was not CPA's original plan for my birthday dinner. He's not that frugal.

Oct. 19: One of my sweet friends took me on an early bday lunch. She is super cool and a load of laughs to hang out with ;)

Oct. 20: I'm 36 today. I was okay with my age up to 35. Suddenly my ob-gyn is telling me I need a mammogram and I'm that much closer to 40. The carpet came for the rec room. Finally! CPA tells me that my birthday present. Funny. I don't recall my birthday present being in the itemized budget from my builder. grrrr.

Oct. 24 & Fun Facts: Today is my niece's bday! She is exactly 4 weeks older than Big Girl. On a side note, my nephew (her brother) is 4 weeks older than Little Man. My sister (their mom) is 4 years younger than me and we got married the same year, just 4 months apart. Crazy, right?! CPA took me and the kids out for a late birthday dinner. I do like to celebrate my birthday for at least a week... He also got me the Keurig coffee maker I've been dying to have. This thing makes a cup of great coffee in less than a minute. Its AWE.SOME.

Oct. 26: Today. I'm starting to breath a little. Get caught up a little. Enjoying the space ALOT. It was worth the wait. Thanks CPA ;)

Sunday, Nov. 1: My littlest sister is getting married. My sister and I will be standing beside her. Big Girl, Little Man and cousins will be her flower girls and "ring buriers" (as Little Man keeps calling it).

Sick & Tired

Evidently you can't stay up until 2 in the morning (monogramming, cleaning up, doing laundry, just catching up) and get up with the kids at 6:45 everyday for school for a month and stay well.... I am sick, run down, just bleh! Not flu sick, just cold, snuffy, cough, sore throat sick. Oh, and we're leaving for Disney World (our first trip) on Saturday....


Not to worry. I'm totally resting. While I cram in last minute monogramming, do laundry, pack for trip, and move my house into the POD sitting in our driveway. Moving everything out because the hardwood floors are getting done while we're gone. And yes, its quite like moving. I have to pack EVERY.THING.


I did have one of my sweet friends take little man to the park with her boys the other day to help me out while not in school. And I'm on the ball and have another play date lined up for him tomorrow. I'm just taking one day at a time and trying not to drown before we leave.

Pure Madness

I have been:
1. Dying for my builder (whom I adore) to finish up the house, like yesterday. Not until the end of September I'm being told.
2. Cleaning up a vicious cycle of sheet rock dust, saw dust, sanding dust, tile man dust, and the regular dust. All over the house! I told my builder if he witnessed me losing "it" sometime soon, not to be alarmed.
3. Moving into the one space I asked nicely (read: told immediately) to finish, which was my new studio, so I could move in. It would make life a little nicer upstairs on the main floor. He did. And I'm 75 % moved in. 90% of new items from IKEA are bought for organization of the new studio. Zero are put together yet.
4. Learning 1st grade homework sucks for me and Big Girl. She spent 30 minutes (I'm not kidding) redrawing a star (which was part of a math pattern) that was not perfect enough (for her) to turn in. Many tears were shed. I kept trying to tell her its the concept that's important, not how the star is drawn. She got the concept, it was the star she was not accepting. Can we say OCD?
5. Cleaning out the basement for a last minute yard sale this past weekend. Because I don't have enough to do.
6. Trying to entertainment Little Man (and keep out of trouble) until he goes back to school. Next Week.
7. Working on getting CPA's birthday present framed in time. Birthday is Tuesday. Picked up framed picture Friday. Check.
8. Asked to get TV hung back up before Thursday.... Stupid ESPN thursday night games. It's his birthday week. And because of that, I will beg my sweet electrician to squeeze finishing that before Thursday.
9. Trying to remember how fabulously calm my life will be, when this house returns to normal.

Back to School

I love the first week of school. Everyone loves going to bed early to get up early for school. Big Girl is thrilled one of her best friends (my friend's daughter) is in her class this year. However, all the sunshine and rainbows stop during week two, when the novelty of the new monogrammed backpack and lunch box has worn off already. Little Man's 4K doesn't start until AFTER labor day. I do love the time alone with him. He is just too sweet, I could eat him up. Although, I did catch him wandering around the house with the work crew today... looking for trouble to get into.

My new studio digs are almost done. The house is almost done really. The painter just got here this week, so we asked him to finish up my studio first before anything else. I've GOT to get my stuff out of my current office, the dining room and what is creeping into the living room. The work crew was literally hanging crown molding around me and one of my customers in the dining room this morning....

The kids are headed to the farm this weekend with the in-laws. CPA and I are doing some painting. The painter is painting all the trim, moldings, ceiling, doors inside and out. We opted to save a little bit by painting the walls. We are down to nickles and dimes here people, and if painting the walls means I get to spend that money getting the whole house sanded and stained espresso the way I want... this chick is painting. I'm also tackling the kitchen cabinets. I consider myself a jack of all trades.... so I'm pretty excited to take this on. I'll be sure to take before and after shots. By the way, did I mention CPA and I do AND do not work well together on team projects. This should be a ball....

Let the mayhem begin...

Old or New? Old or New?

Let's not beat around the bush.

OLD.

Bleh. I don't even know where to begin telling you the things I know are wrong with this picture. (disclaimer: The back of the house in no way represents how cute the front of the house is.)Lets start with the actual atrocities on the outside of the home.

One. The oil tank located under the stairs. We have lived on oil for six years now. No gas. Yes, we have to fill it up (250 gallons x the price of oil) about 4 1/2 times a winter. Yes, we've run out on accident. It was the first thing to go!

Two. That white, glassed in porch thing... that was my laundry "room". Not heated or cooled. So, I froze in the winter loading laundry and sweated my arse off June-September. That's my new front loading washer/dryer that I stacked just to get a few more inches of room out there. No, it didn't make doing laundry any more fun.

Three. From the left side of the house, top floor... the 2nd window over. That atrocious glass cubed "window"... That was in my shower. The one shower in the house. It could be worse. The previous owner actually replaced the old wood sill window that was there.

Four. That huge window in the middle. About the biggest thing in the house. I just don't like it. It was drafty and just ugly. It's gone.

Five. The garage door. Yes, you are correct. There is no driveway leading to the garage door. It's just the basement. It's gone now too. Behind that old door, in the old basement is my new laundry room! 15x15 sq. ft. of laundry room and I love it ;)

And now... the New....

More new...

The top on the main floor of the house is our new master bedroom. The door and window you see are part of the bedroom. The other side of the bedroom has two windows symmetric to those. The corner of the house, where you see no windows is the closet. The double arched window is over the garden tub. The shower has no window ;) Around the corner is another arched window where the vanities are.


The new basement you see bricked is the kids new playroom, guest room & full bath. They just started on the deck and we are very excited about that.

A closer look at the new doors. The set of three doors walk into the den & kitchen We knocked out all the walls and expanded it. I can't tell you how many times I've drooled over homes in Traditional Home, Southern Accents, etc. that showcased a room with 3 sets of doors. Had.To.Have.Them. The one on the far left walks into our master bedroom. My new studio will be in the old basement. Here's my new door for customers into all the monogram madness....

That concludes the tour for today. Better, right?!!!

The Money Pit

I realize since I started blogging back in January, I have not written a word about the renovation. I promised lots of stories of what I thought would be a nightmare. It's been somewhat of a painless process. Other than the fact that CPA has asked me no less than 57,000 times "is it in the budget?" whenever I show him something. I guess I have felt guilty to complain on a bad construction day about adding onto my house, when so many people are losing theirs and their jobs right now. I will say, I could have picked red polka doted tiles and orange carpet and CPA would not have cared as long as it's in the budget....

I'm headed back to Greenville from Atlanta tomorrow sans the kids. I've been in Atlanta helping my sister with her two kids, while she does some teacher training. I'm meeting my fabulous SIL on my way back to Greenville, where she will be taking my two until Sunday!

CPA is at home and informs me tonight that the kitchen is officially torn up (the floor that is) and the one wall that was separating the old house from the new addition is down and we are officially connected. Which means the crew is in my house starting at 7am from now until its done. Monday-Thursdays. For 3 more months.

I have also not wanted to post pictures of the atrocity that was the back of our house, until I at least had some pretty to show you of the new back of the house. I'll show you old vs. new when I return. And trust me, it was that bad.

XOXOX