watchin' my weight Wednesday

This hand-me-down trampoline has been a fun way for me to get some extra activity. Our neighbor (who's kids are almost all done with high school0 said we could have it. Paul, my neighbor and one of his sons carried it from their house to ours. Completely put together, like a giant table, around the corner, down our street, to our back yard. So funny. If you don't jump on one of these regularly, get ready for some serious calf pains and ab work (not sure if it is from laughing or the jumping?!).

Anyway, I have been going to a spinning class once a week in addition to my running/jogging. I discovered spinning after Zoe was born and I loved it then, and love it now. I would go every day except that doesn't fit our schedule. I'll settle for once a week, some is better than none, right?! Again, anyway, I was there Tuesday at 5:45 AM (just bragging on my own self for getting up that early to go) and the instructor kept telling us to get water as we rode our long endurance ride. I was doing as I was told and then she said, "if you have a headache at the end of the day, and you don't think it is caused by your kids or your job or your spouse, it is probably because you are dehydrated." Seriously?! I have had a headache for about a month straight. I don't get headaches a lot so I have been thinking I have a tumor or something like terrible allergies. I hate taking medicine of any kind so realizing I could stop taking Advil and drink some extra water sounds like heaven. Then I got to thinking some more, all this extra activity might be making me dehydrated! I always drink a lot of water but I have been trying to move more and it makes total sense. Duh, right? Sometimes you need someone to knock you in the head, kind of like those V8 commercials, I feel so dumb not realizing the problem. So I sit here with my water nearby, chugging away, hoping to prevent anymore headaches and improve my health at the same time. Excuse me while I run to the bathroom for the tenth time today...

sniff sniff

He looks happy, but really he is bummed UK lost too. I'll still be rooting for them next October when the season starts again.

spring break

It's spring break for Zoe so my entries may be short this week, she is not happy about me being in front of the computer. Her delusional self thinks I should be spending every waking minute entertaining her, crafting huge projects, baking, shopping, playing beauty shop and whatever else she concocts as fun, so what that two other little guys might need me...

Here is a sneak peak of my April Get-Organized Challenge... Tanner was getting an early start on sorting.

This one is for Sarah, yes, I got them out and wore them after I read your shoe post (your blog does inspire!), yes, I thought of you when I put them on, yes I took the picture as I was wearing them, which explains why it looks funkadelic, yes, I made sure I was struttin' as I wore them. Oh, I am thinking of braving the Brass Armadillo this week too, since it is spring break and all, I could use some inspiration and maybe a tiny project or two... like I don't have anything else to do.
Wow, do my legs look chunky in those tights! Let's just blame it on the angle. I did get three compliments on them, the boots, not the legs, the day I wore them.

March Get Organized Challenge

Well, I did it. I accepted my own challenge. Here is my newly organized linen closet... no more games and puzzles trying to leap to their deaths, no more blankets we don't use, no more useless Space Bags (sorry, I really wanted to love those things, they just didn't have lasting quality for me), no more embarrassment. In fact, I have been leaving the doors open so I can enjoy my work and to keep showing the kids and hubby. Really, I just want them to say how wonderful it looks, but they could care less.

It looks really sparse right now because I am hoping potential buyers will look in there and see unused space and think it is cavernous. In reality, if we were not trying to sell our home, I might have a couple more things in here. I have some photo boxes looking for a home...
This bucket has been many things in its life, now it holds goggles, swim diapers, and a couple pool toys. We have a lot more pool and swimming supplies but I only get those out in the summer. These are the basics used for indoor swimming at the YMCA during the winter. It sits right next to the beach towels, that way, hubby can't say "where are the pool toys (or towels)" when he is helping get ready to go.
These are the extra sheets we have. Everyone has one extra set in case I have to do emergency changing in the middle of the night (I am an expert after all our stomach flus.). Usually, I just wash them and put them right back on the beds, that way I don't have to fold them. When I set out to reorganize this space, I had visions of gorgeous Longaberger (you know I love them) baskets with cute denim liners and then reality hit. I don't have the cash flow for that much beauty, if I did, I'd be spending it on myself! So I hit Walmart. These are really cheap craft baskets. I wanted the ones that are rectangular because they would fit better on a shelf but they were like $20 a piece, these were $5. AND I know when we move to our teeny new house we might not even have a linen closet so I was worried about shelling out money for things we probably wouldn't be using in a short while. So anyway, my mind's vision was way better than how it turned out but I still like the result. Again, labels are to help hubby when he can't find sheets.

The round things are sleeping bags. My kids play with these all the time so I can't hide them in the basement. We use them for watching movies and playing camping so they have to be accessible. Yes, my spoiled diva daughter has two (hence pink ones) and Tanner doesn't have one yet. It looks weird to have two girly things when I really have two boys. She will have to choose one to purge soon, I can't stand to have extras of things like this, just annoying. Anyway. The plaid boxes hold my table cloths for the dining room and kitchen. They used to be in Tanner's room holding baby toys but they are kind of flimsy, everytime we got something out, they were collapsing. So I decided they'd be better used here since really I won't be using them a lot. Does that make sense?
The yellow towels are "guest" towels even though we don't have a guest bathroom anymore. It's good to have extra towels for the kids, I guess. They are miss matched but they are all in good shape because we hardly ever use them.

That's it, my big project is done for the month. I have a new one planned for next month. Stay tuned. Did you accept my challenge? I hope maybe you got inspired to do a little project, even if it isn't this one.

Have a nice weekend. We woke up to snow, are you kidding me?! And the freakish wind blew our recycling stuff all over the street, then it rained, then the papers froze to the ground. So now I have to wait for the weather to warm up before I can go pick up trash on my street. Grr, it is always something...

My Wildcats won! Elite Eight baby!!!

realtor disaster

It has taken me a couple days to get this all down, because I am still so mad...

For my friends who are listing their homes on the market (you know who you are):

We've had our house on the market for almost a year now. We just had to fire our second realtor. That's two bad Realtors in a year. Not good odds.

We set up a video camera during our last open house so we could hear exactly what visitors were saying, not the edited "nice" version from our realtor. We were also very concerned about safety/theft (we've been hearing lots of horror stories about what happens after people have open houses.) What we heard was shocking, not from the potential buyers but from the realtor, the lady who was supposed to be working for us! The lady who, if she sold our house, would walk away with more money than we did at closing! She was basically telling all the visitors the things about our house that were wrong, not pointing out positives (which I think are a lot!), not encouraging them to make offers, none of the stuff Realtors are supposed to do. She was telling people that "our house would have sold if our basement was finished" before they even asked about the basement!!!! Not once did she point out all the pluses of our house.

I know I am biased because we live here, we built this house, it definitely has our "stamp" on it, but I happen to think my house is beautiful with lots of upgrades that are not overly apparent at first so I can't believe she would be so nasty. (for example: our home has smooth ceilings, not the patterned plaster so prevalent in newer homes, this was an expensive upgrade that we choose because it is more in lines with our traditional taste, it shows classic and elegant, something you don't notice right away but if pointed out, you think "wow, that does look good, it really makes a difference." She knew about all our upgrades because I typed up a huge list and gave them to her so she could tell others.) There are many, many more I could share but I don't want to do that here. This is our dream home, our once in a lifetime home, we'll never have another house like this one again. Ever. No one has ever said anything bad about our house to us, not that they would, but still. I know there is room for improvement but I do love it here. The fact is, this lady did not have good intentions, she did not have faith in our home, and it makes me so mad, sad, furious, you get the idea.

I mean, seriously, I worked my butt off to get ready for the open house, staying up late cleaning, letting my kids watch tv so I could de-clutter, running myself ragged, crying when my dog got diarrhea again, (I wasn't crying because he was sick, I was crying because I had to clean up more messes!) and she was not telling them how great our house is! Are you kidding me?! We had no idea she was like this, a total wolf in sheep's clothing. This woman was recommended to us by friends, who obviously didn't know she was like this either!

So now we are back to the drawing board and it really just stinks. We are missing out on times our house could be shown while the tax credit is still in effect and this is prime home buying season, man does that really burn me up. I have big plans to write a nasty letter to her superiors, I just don't know where to start, I am still completely flabbergasted. So I guess I am just saying, be careful everyone. In this economy, you don't need any more things that negatively effect the sale of your home. There are just too many factors in the home selling/buying market to consider. Having a shit*y realtor should not be your concern.

Oh, and she yelled at our bird to "shut up." Twice. Not acceptable.

date night

Why, hello there, total hottest guy alive! (Except for my hubby of course!) I can't wait for our date tonight, wink wink!

So excited to see Michael Buble tonight, mmm, yummy.

don't know why his picture has disappeared?!

truly disturbing

Just when I thought I couldn't be shocked by any more bad behavior from people in the world (long story- will share tomorrow)...

I saw this on a bumper sticker today:

"I f**k on the first date."

Except it was totally spelled out, no asterisks, are you serious people? Oh, I swear I could have jumped out of the car and smacked the driver and said, "does your mother know you have this on your car?" I am no prude by any means, I like to think of myself as a former wild-ish child with liberal views on most things, but seriously, this is way out of line. I am so thankful Zoe was at school and I didn't have to explain that one to her. I am so thankful that Parker can't read. I am so thankful that someday if my kids have that on their cars, I will literally smack them and take away the keys forever. Ugh, still bugging me, hours later.