Crazy Busy

Did ya miss me?

I feel like I’ve been ignoring the blog. Life has been crazy and well, something’s gotta give. Between work, getting the house ready, family, outside activities and being sick, I’ve got no time left for thinking up witty blogs.

So here’s what’s been going on:

1. Operation Dream Home is moving at lightening speed! We’re nearing the home stretch of the first leg of the race and in a full out sprint. The realtors came over on Wednesday and think the house is ready so we’re filling out the paperwork tomorrow and it should be on the market by Monday! So excited and nervous at the same time. What if no one wants to buy and it’s on the market forever? Conversely, what if it sells really quickly and we don’t have a new house yet? We’ve started looking but I don’t think we’ve found “the one” yet. I keep telling myself it will all work out, and it will.

So every weekend in April has been filled with activity like this:

Painting or packing or cleaning or repairing or whatever. I’m ready for that phase to be over. Here’s what we have left from our big list:

~~Get a storage unit rented~~
Clean every room from top to bottom with a fine-tooth comb, including de-cluttering and organizing
- ~~Master Bedroom~~ and bath
- ~~Isabella’s room~~
- ~~Samson’s room~~
- Main Bathroom
- ~~Kitchen~~
- ~~Dining Room~~
- ~~Living Room~~
- Entryway (3/4 way done)
- Basement (3/4 of the way done)
- Utility Room
- Garage
~~Pack up all knick knacks and “personal” family type items (photos, etc)~~
Re-arrange furniture in a few of the rooms
- Samson’s Room
- ~~Dining room~~
- ~~Living Room~~
- Basement
~~Replace a sink or 2 and possibly a bathroom countertop~~
~~Clean up the yard~~ ~~and plant flowers, lay down mulch, etc~~
~~Put away all of Isabella’s toys and only keep out those that can fit in to a rubbermaid container~~
Paint or restain all baseboards and woodwork (about 1/2 of the way done)
~~Meet with a mortgage lender to see how much we can afford and how much of a loan we’ll get approved for~~
~~Repaint Master Bedroom and bath~~
~~Start looking for~~ and buy a new house

2. Our household was hit with a plague and we’ve all been sick for a week now. Well, Isabella for a week. It started for her last Thursday. CJ got hit on Saturday and me on Monday. All week I’ve been feeling “blah” and have negative amounts of energy. Yet, there’s too much going on to allow me to lie around so I’m pushing myself to the max.

3. April and May are crazy busy months. Between birthdays, Easter, Mother’s Day, Memorial Day and graduations, we’ve been on the go every weekend. I’m ready for a break! We also had a wedding and a funeral within a week of each other – for the same guy. Depressing isn’t it?

4. The royal wedding occurred and I pretty much missed it all! I feel so out of touch!

5. A little old lady tried to hijack my car.

6. I totally missed this week’s You Capture because the day just flew by me. It was afternoon on Wednesday when I realized I’d missed it. *sigh* I had some cute ones this week too! So, I’m going to post them here for you all to see! The theme was “outside”. I shot all these one beautiful sunny afternoon, when Isabella, Samson and I were out playing (CJ was probably out front painting).

Splashing in the birdbath (don’t you just love her little sunglasses?)

Playing with the wheelbarrow

Our adventurer peeking through the trees

Two buddies, taking a break

7. I did manage to spend some time last night getting my craft on. I had 2 projects to complete: 1) make a mother’s day gift for my mom and 2) make a fake plant arrangement for our living room.

See, if we leave real plants anywhere within toddler reach, she gets in them. But the realtors wanted us to have some greenery in one corner of the living room, so I had to go with silk. I was surprised how expensive it is to buy already made fake plants. Something like this would have cost $40. Instead, I made it myself for about $20. I think it turned out great!

And here’s the mom’s gift I made. It’s a mosaic stepping stone for the new rock garden my parents are putting in. I was going to have Isabella put her handprint in the middle but she threw a big fit so instead I wrote “Grandma’s” and drew a little flower to represent her garden.

I think she’ll love it!

And with that, it’s time for me to end this break, clock back in and go upstairs to do some cleaning. The checkout lady at Target told me to use oven cleaner on shower doors to get the soap scum off so I’m giving it a try. I will let you know how it turns out…

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27Apr2011

You Capture: Pink

Posted in You Capture by teamtradermom

The assignment this week was “pink”. That could mean a lot of things and I like these themes that are so broad. The interpretations are so much fun! Here’s what I came up with.

Playground Pink

I think this turtle ride used to be a bright red once upon a time. But over the years it has been much used and faded to a dull pink. I thought this was a good one to use some focal black and white affects on. The black and white adds to the mood of the picture – a lone turtle, waiting for someone to come and ride it.

Pink Pajamas

Isabella was playing with our lamp and having a helluva time turning it on and off. It worked out well because the lamp provided just the right light source to snap this pic in her favorite jammies!

Pretty Pink

Can’t have a pink picture this week without an homage to Easter. We had Isabella help us color the eggs. She was not that interested in putting the eggs in the dye. She kept saying “Put it back!” So instead she watched while CJ and I colored them. I got all fancy with this marbled one! Winking smile

There you have it! My pink for the week!

Head on over to I Should be Folding Laundry to see what others did this week. Special love to Beth who hooked me up with a $50 gift card to Anthropologie in a giveaway! Yippee!

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You Capture: Spring

You Capture: Smile

You Capture: Fun

20Apr2011

You Capture: Spring

Posted in You Capture by teamtradermom

The theme for this week’s You Capture was “Spring”, which was quite easy because it was all around me! For the first time in a while I actually kept this assignment top of mind as Iabout my days. I hope you like the results!

Last Friday evening it was warm enough to take Isabella to the park for some play time. But, being Spring, the temperature quickly dropped as the minutes ticked by. Good thing she had a hooded jacket! She had lots of fun running around and picking up pine cones. I’m so glad we’re able to get outside more and play!

On our way home from the park, we ran across this tree that someone had hung Easter Eggs on. Seeing them all blowing in the breeze actually looked quite pretty! Isabella really liked it!

One of my favorite parts of Spring is seeing all the new life. Buds on trees, green grass poking out of the ground, flowers starting to sprout. Makes me feel happy knowing that warmer months are on the way!

Typical of Spring, there are nice warm days and there are cool rainy days. Well, on one particular day last week, it was raining all day, as evidenced by the row of umbrellas lining our cube farm at work. Can you guess which one is mine? Smile

It wouldn’t be Spring without all the cute little dresses for the girls. Isabella got to put one on Sunday for a wedding . She thought her new little dress shoes were very pretty – and I thought she was!

Well there you have it! Here’s hoping the next few weeks bring more warm days and less chilly ones!

For more takes on this theme, go visit Beth at I Should be Folding Laundry!

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You Capture: Smile

You Capture: Fun!

You Capture: Vibrance

13Apr2011

You Capture: Smile

Posted in You Capture by teamtradermom

This week’s You Capture was easy and fun. We have a lot of smiles around our house so it was simply a matter of being ready to capture them!

Samson

Some people say that dogs don’t show emotion but this sure looks like a smile to me. This was taken after a good romp and play in the backyard so he was hot, tired and very happy.

Peek-a-boo!

My favorite smile….Isabella loves to play peek-a-boo! She will hide behind doors, furniture, toys, Samson…whatever she things will obscure her. I was lucky to be there at the right time to capture this precious grin when she opened the window in her playhouse! Seeing this smile everyday makes all life’s troubles fade away.

Owen

Isabella’s boyfriend Owen came over to play on Saturday and really enjoyed eating his cupcake. I tell ya, this boy is well trained when it comes to smiling for the camera. All I had to do was say cheese and he’d break out in a big grin! I think it helps that his mommy is a photographer. Don’t you think he and Isabella make a cute couple?

Tired

This is her “I’m tired and ready to collapse but I have to keep playing” smile. Poor thing was exhausted and practically fell asleep in my arms before I could get her to the bed. It was a good, fun tired though!

I have one more to show…but it’s not nearly as cute as the others. I wanted to represent CJ and me in this series but I ran out of time and didn’t capture any. So, I took a quick self-portrait this morning after finishing the Shred. I’m hot and sweaty, but happy to be done with my workout!

I kept it small though. No sense in magnifying my glorious sweatiness!

There you have it! If you want to see what others did with the theme this week, head on over to Beth’s!

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You Capture: Fun

You Capture: Vibrance

6Apr2011

You Capture: Fun!

Posted in You Capture by teamtradermom

This week’s assignment, “fun”, seemed hard to find. With the stress of packing and cleaning and worrying about money, fun was far from my mind. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that we did have fun – a lot of it!

On my way home from work on Friday, I grabbed a package of mini-cupcakes. Munchkin, like her mommy, loves sweets and I knew these little cupcakes were the perfect size for her. As you can see, she did enjoy them quite a bit! She also made a big mess, but that’s ok. Sometimes the most fun things are the messiest!

We spent Sunday afternoon working in the yard because it was such a nice day. Isabella LOVES to be outside, which I think is so awesome. She had so much fun walking back and forth on this brick, that she literally did it for about 10 minutes. That’s like an eternity in toddler time!

Playing with toys Monday evening. She has a boat in her hands and a woobie in her mouth. She couldn’t be any happier!

Samson even joined in on the fun! He gazed on while Isabella climbed in to her wagon. I think he was watching over her though. Sort of. Mostly because he thought she had food in her hand.