Dear Philadelphia, We Would Like To Have Our Stanley Cup Now Please......Pretty Please?

Don't Mind Me, I Only Own This Blog

OK.

So, it turns out I'm just a part-time blogger.

I suppose I can live with that.

I hope you can, too.

I don't have anything important to say today.

I just wanted to post something.

Anything.

The end.

Soul Searching

Happy Monday (is there such a thing?)!!!

I can't seem to get my act together the past few months when it comes to my blog. I would love to get back into the swing of things, posting on a regular basis, but I just haven't been motivated enough to post. Lately, I have been a little pre-occupied with a few things, which have me staying up WAY past my bedtime. So, needless to say, I haven't been prioritizing my time properly and blogging seems to take a backseat.

One of the things that I have been pre-occupied with, which I am not quite ready to share just yet, has me doing a lot of soul searching. The issue is making me wonder whether it's God's will or my own. Sometimes it's really tough to tell the difference!

Anyway, I hope you are all doing great and enjoying some great weather in your neck of the woods. It's sunny and beautiful here in Illinois today! I can't believe it's already May....just a few more weeks and the kids will be done with school and then SUMMER!

OK, wasn't it just Christmas?? Where does the time go?

For now, I will leave you with two of my favorite souls......

Ali (brand new 6 year old) and Sherman (a few weeks away from being a brand new 18 year old....he's almost legal. AAAWWW!!)

My babies are growing up.

Again, I ask, where does the time go?

It Only Takes A Second And......

This is why we should NEVER text and drive at the same time.

Seriously.

Update And An Interesting Observation

Thank you all once again for your thoughts and prayers for my Mom and Dad. You ladies are just wonderful! I am happy to report that my Mom's surgery went exactly as we hoped and prayed for. They removed the entire tumor and all seems to be going well. She is in quite a bit of pain and has not had anything to eat since Wednesday but she is sitting up in a chair and seems to be coping as well as can be expected. We are, of course, praying that she makes a full recovery! My Mom and I having been planning for several months on having a garage sale in May. She fully expects to be "up and running" for the big event. I have no doubt that she will be! She is a strong woman and there isn't much that stands in her way! I love you Mom!

On a different note, Ali asked me today "Do I have black squares?" I was a bit confused at first, until it dawned on me what she was asking. "No, honey, you don't have black squares."

I guess Mommy's dark circles have her wondering if she takes after me. Thanks for noticing, sweetie. It's nice to be reminded how tired I look, just in case the mirror forgot to tell me.

She's awfully thoughtful, don't you think?

Family

My Mom is in surgery right now. Thank you for all of your continued prayers.

PS - Happy birthday to my wonderful husband! Love you, honey!

It Doesn't Take Much

It's amazing to me the amount of joy a $1 princess dress from a garage sale can bring a five year old little girl.

One Man's Trash......

It's only day two of Easter break and I'm not sure that I'm going to survive another 9 days.

Just sayin'......

Onto other news.

As you may or may not know, I pretty much live for garage sales.

It's in my DNA.

So, with the weather being so beautiful the past couple of days, the kids and I decided to hit the pavement, in search of signs for garages sales, rummage sales, estate sales......ANY kind of sales! Here are a few of my finds:

I also find a great table that I plan on using in my new craft room. I have been searching Craigslist for about 3 months now without any luck. But today I hit the jackpot. I stumbled upon a great wood workbench for the whopping price of just $10. I LOVE A GREAT BARGAIN! I am going back to pick it up today, so I will post a picture soon.

I picked up this shabby chic cross and shabby chic birdhouse for just $1 each. Can't beat that! Plus, I just really love saying shabby chic.

What kind of great finds have found a new home with you?

Have a blessed Easter!

Sometimes You Just Need A Break

First, I want to say thank you to my loyal friends for welcoming me back. You girls are great! I missed you and I can't wait to catch up with each of you! Second, welcome to my new friends, who visited me for the first time while I was taking a break. Glad you found me and I look forward to getting to know you better!

Since I last posted back at the beginning of February, life has gotten a bit crazy. But rather than going into details right now, I think I will just highlight some of the things that have kept me away.

Shortly after my Dad came over to help with the electric outlet in our basement, he had to go into the hospital to have a stint put in. He had been experiencing chest pains for about six weeks so he decided to see the doctor and discovered two arteries were severely blocked. In 2001, my Dad had open heart surgery, so the blockage was a bit of a surprise. We didn't realize that arteries could become blocked again. Anyway, he had the stint put in but, after a couple weeks, was still experiencing chest pains. So, back to the doctor. Long story short, they put the stint in the WRONG artery. So, he had to have the surgery AGAIN, in order to have a stint put in the proper artery. It's now been about a month since the last stint was put in and although he has had some relief, he is still getting chest pains occasionally. He has been putting off going back to the doctor for a follow up because he doesn't want to be "out of commission" right now. The reason being is because, during the same time my Dad was dealing with his stint situation, my Mom was diagnosed with colon/rectal cancer.

My Mom received this diagnosis back in February, but she waited a few weeks to tell me because she knew how excited I was about refinishing our basement and getting a new craft room. That's my Mom, always thinking about others. Anyway, she is scheduled for surgery next week. She is 77 years old and a diabetic and this is major surgery. However, she took the news rather well and has such a good attitude and sense of humor about it. She always says "If I don't laugh, I would cry...and I choose to to laugh."

I know that I don't really have to ask but if you could please keep my Mom and Dad in your prayers, I would be so grateful. Thanks! :)

And because it's really beginning to look a lot like Spring here in Illinois (it is 75 degrees right now at 5:30 in the afternoon), I decided to brighten things up around this here blog with a little something I whipped up today (with the help of one enthusiastic 5 year old chick.) Uh, that would be the basket of fabric eggs pictured above. Just in case it wasn't obvious.

Give me some of Ali's old shirts, a package of plastic eggs and a glue gun and I can make magic happen.

Am I talented or what?

Thankyouverymuch.

I'm Back

I apologize for being away for so long. Lots of life's unexpected curve balls. I will share more soon. I've missed my blog friends.

You Have To See This

Are you crying as much as me right now?

In the midst of all of our crazy home improvement projects, I really needed this beautiful reminder. Carpet choices and paint colors somehow don't seem all that important now.

Does It Ever End?

Sorry I haven't been posting this past week. We have been super busy trying to finish up our home improvement projects. It seems like one project leads to another and another and so on......

Anyway, we should be winding up our major projects by the weekend, so hopefully I will have more time to post after that.

For now, I will leave you with a picture of my handyman.

I know. I'm lucky.

Waasup?!

Along with all of my sortanizing, we've also been busy making me a sewing/craft room (yeah!!) and redoing our playroom in the basement. I have been coordinating these projects, which basically means that I tell everyone else what I want and they make it happen. It works for me.

Contemplating my next request......

Ray cutting a hole in the knotty pine wall to create a new doorway.

My Dad and brother Randy came over to help re-route an electrical outlet.

Ben helping Daddy......look at that concentration!

Somebody couldn't wait to help with the painting!

Well, that's it for now. I know, I know. You want more, right? Well, you're just going to have to wait until we are all done and I post more pictures. Can you stand the anticipation? I thought not.

I can't wait to get my craft on! Now I'm off to see what all of you have been up to. Have a wonderful Wednesday!

Because I Know You've Been Wondering......

Yes, I'm still on my quest to become a Domestic Diva.

I know you are probably getting bored hearing all about my domestic challenges. Sorry. I'd probably feel the same if the tables were turned. But it seems this cleaning and organizing thing is never ending and is consuming my every waking minute. Sometimes it even keeps me up at night (not really, I just thought I would throw that in to hit home the point of just how crazy I've become with this whole thing.) But I am determined to become one of those women who actually lets people inside my house when they come to visit. Call me a dreamer.

I also know what you're probably thinking right about now. "Just how messy and unorganized is your house?"

I have only one word for you......

VERY.

But the good news is, I am making a lot of headway. And that feels GREAT! I am taking some before and after pictures, just so I can be reminded of the progress that I am making. I might even post some of the pictures here, in hopes of inspiring other domestically challenged ladies. Because I'm thoughtful like that.

Nah. I just want to show off to the blog world my clean organized house.

Is that so wrong?

Oh, and guess what? I have a laundry day! No more flying by the seat of my pants, when it comes to providing my family with clean clothes. We will no longer be living out of laundry baskets. That's right, my friend, the madness has finally ended. I have seen the light! It's like I'm seeing the world in a whole new way. And it's wrinkle free.

By the way, my laundry day is Friday. So, I'm off to do another load! I can only imagine how envious you might be right now.

Unless, of course, your laundry day is Friday too.

A Little Late

Happy 1st birthday to my sweet nephew

Thomas the Tank Engine,

who turned ONE on December 18th!!

Now you're a BIG BOY! Auntie Val loves you!!

Less Is More

"Project Organization" is coming along quite well, thank-you-very-much! I have sorted through and purged all of the useless contents from my entire house (I only have a few more rooms and closets left to tackle) and, surprisingly, I'm kind of having fun with this whole process. I'm actually sort of sad knowing that the "sortanizing" (as Ali likes to call it) is almost done.

Oh, I'm kidding. Because......well......that would make me a complete dork, missing something like sortanizing.

As if.

However, there is something very freeing about letting go of "stuff." Especially stuff that wasn't really needed in the first place and was just taking up space and creating chaos in my life. Chaos that was slowing stealing my sanity, one Lincoln log after another and one Polly Pocket accessory after another. I mean really, could toys these days have more pieces?

I am, however, happy to learn that what they say is true - less is more.

Now, if I can only get the scale to relay that to my hips and butt, I'd be all set.

Brings A Little Tear To My Eye

Organization......it's a beautiful thing.

Storage Containers Are My New BFF

Cleaning, organizing and sorting......OH MY!

I'm kinda tired. I've been an organizing fool this past week and I'm not done yet. It's exhausting getting a house clean and organized. Who knew?

I'm pretty excited about the progress I'm making. I never thought it was possible to be excited about cleaning and organizing. Who knew?

I have to admit, I've been accused of being "over the top" at times. Becoming overly passionate about certain projects. I don't really see it in this particular situation. I mean, having dreams about storage containers, file folders and other various organizing paraphernalia is perfectly normal right?

That's not at all weird, right?

Don't answer that please.

By the way, I actually went to K-Mart today in search of new cutting-edge storage and organizing tools. Because I'm a weird dork who thinks that makes for a fun Saturday afternoon.

What's even weirder, I actually went to the store looking like this chick:

I may look very disheveled at this point but on the bright side my house has never looked better.

Putting Out The Trash

I love Stie over at These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things. She's hilarious and a great writer! Yesterday, she wrote a thought-provoking post about whether we bloggers tend to keep it real on our blogs or if we only put our best foot forward, so to speak, only allowing our readers to see what we want them to see.

Do I intentionally only put my best foot forward and cover up the trash piles, far from the eyes of my blog friends? Sometimes. Because, really, life can be hard and messy and trashy at times and sometimes I just want to focus on the positive and leave the messy stuff out of it. Sometimes when I visit certain blogs, I also wonder if what I'm reading and seeing is actually the real deal. Some of these women's lives seem so perfect. Their houses are always spotless, their children seem to always be dressed in clean (and matching) clothes with clean faces and brushed hair, the laundry is washed (and put away) AND and there is always some awesome dinner baking in the oven!

Seriously? I'm lucky if I have ONE of things going on......but never all of them at the same time!

So, what do you think? Is it real or are they only revealing the parts they want us to see? The best parts. If it's genuine, more power to them! I would love to have my act a lot more together and I could probably stand to learn a thing or two from some of these wonder women. And I do believe there are some extraordinary women out there who really can do it all!

And really, I'm not jealous. Much.

I am, however, pretty genuine when it comes to my blog. I actually do "keep it real" with most aspects of my life. Although I will admit to not posting certain pictures of myself because, well, I wouldn't want anyone to die of fright. Also, there may be certain topics that I haven't posted about because it doesn't fit into the "image" that I am trying to present. You know, that image of being a cool, hip Mom who keeps a spotless house, spotless children and is a gourmet cook.

You weren't fooled, huh?

Considering that my house is typically not spotless, I don't know how to cook and I have been known to wear my pajamas in public, I'm guessing that you saw right through my pathetic charade.

So, here's to keeping it MORE real in 2010. I promise to let down my guard a little more and, as Stie says, "put out the trash." Because sometimes trash can be beautiful......it all depends on your perspective I guess. After all, how bad can it really be?

Apparently pretty bad. Messy house, no make-up, pajamas......

Just putting out a little trash.

Merry Christmas! (Better Late Than Never)

From our family to yours!

I'll be back after the New Year and I can't wait to read all of your wonderful holiday stories and see all of your beautiful pictures!

**********

I originally planned on posting this on Christmas Eve but stuff got in the way......you know how that goes, right? Anyway, I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and I promise to visit all of my blog friends in the upcoming week! I can't wait to read about your holidays and to see what you are up to now. As for me, I am exhausted (I know, shocker) and today is the day that I begin my organization transformation!

Basically, I'll be cleaning my house. But in an organizing and transforming kind of way.

2010 is my year to finally get my act together! I'm going to clean like I've never cleaned before. I'm going to organize like I've never organized before. I'm going to containerize (as in storage containers and LOTS of them) like I've never containerized before. I AM WOMAN, HEAR ME ROAR!!

Sorry, I got a little carried away there for a second.

So, let the games begin. 'Cuz Pajama Mama is in da house and she's ready to get her clean on!

For shizzle.