My confession

I know I’ve been posting a bunch lately about our lack of money and me working more so what I am about to say probably sounds completely and totally hypocritical.  I re-hired our cleaning lady to come every 2 weeks.  Yes, I’m working more but do I still have time to clean the house?  Yes.  If I’m honest with myself, do we really have the money?  No.  Do I care that we don’t really have the money?  Big no

I love the whole house being clean at the same time.  Love it!  No matter how much I clean, that never happens.  And this gives me time to do all the other house projects I want to do, instead of the never ending cycle of cleaning kitchens and bathrooms but never actually getting them as clean as they should be.

So yeah, I’m that stay at home mom who has a cleaning lady. Judge away…

February 23, 2012. Uncategorized. 7 comments.

WTF-The mall edition

I had a chance to spend some QT with the baby this morning and couldn’t be in the house so we took off to the stereotypical stay at home locale, the mall.  Usually I’m there with both of the girls just to play at the indoor playground and am too crazed to notice anything else that is going on.  Today I got a chance to actually go in some stores and wow….WTF?

• Why do children’s and baby stores pack their merchandise in so tightly that you can’t navigate a stroller through them?  I’m looking at you Baby G.ap.  I would have loved to checked out your sale racks, what with the extra 25% off, but you are a store dedicated to baby clothes yet I can’t fit my baby stroller in.  WTF?
• Other stores do this but it bugs me less.  I still would have liked to check out P.ottery Barn but alas.  How are these stores comply with ADA?  WTF?
• Why do all the mannequins have hard nips?  I don’t want to know what clothes look like with hard nips.  I try to keep mine covered and not poke someone’s eyes out.  WTF?
• To the lady in Hallmark whose 10 year old son was verbally abusive him to her (Mom, this is so fucking boring, when the hell can we go to spencers?, why are you getting that bitch a card?), are you seriously going to yell in the worst stage whisper ever that you can’t concentrate because that baby over there is babbling?  I’ll take her “Hiiii-ya mama” and “bye-bye, bye-by-ee” over your kid dropping the f bomb continually.  WTF?
• God I sound like an old lady.  To make matters even worse, they now have those little “What happened in the year….” booklets in the year I graduated high school!  That’s not history!  I am not historic!!  WTF?

February 22, 2012. Uncategorized. 2 comments.

Waiting for the third shoe to drop

Sunday, while at a birthday party for one of S’s friends from school, another mom came over and said real fast, “We needed to let you know that all of us are leaving next year and enrolling the kids at school x.”  And then ran away.  Well, she had to run away because it was a pool party at an indoor water park so everyone had to be paying attention to the kids but still…damn.  There is a core group of moms that have been involved in the school for years (all had older kids that went there), two even co-chair the board of the school, and one day when they were out they got to talking and realized that they all wanted to go. So they found another school that is willing to absorb the entire class.  And I’ve got to decide rather quickly what to do.  I’m going to try to get more info from them this week.  I did get a chance to talk to one other mom about her reasons and they were less about the school and more about the direction the synagogue was going.  I could care less about that.  We aren’t members and have no intention of becoming one.  So I figure my three options are to

 1) go with the rest of the class. Not sure how I feel about this one, I need to find out more info about the other school but already a big negative is that it is 25 minutes away, maybe over 30 in traffic. 

2) stay where we are.   And have S be the only person in the class???  I guess they would try to fill it but what if they can’t?  What if they don’t have a class and then I’m screwed?

3) go to a totally different school.  When I picked this school for S, I was somewhat limited because it was the middle of the year.  I needed a school that had an opening in the 2’s class and also didn’t require them to be potty trained.  Now I can look around a little bit more and see what’s out there.  Although before, even though I was limited, this was the school I liked the most. 

So that’s the first thing I’m stressed about.  And then this afternoon when I came home from work, the babysitter who I love and the kids ADORE, told me that in two weeks, she isn’t going to be available on Tuesday’s anymore.  And she has no other availability.  Sucks!  I can’t really blame her.  She’s an adjunct professor so she is highly over qualified for babysitting and was asked to cove another class whose professor is going on medical leave.  Obviously she can’t turn that down.  But it sucks.  It is  SO FREAKING hard to find a babysitter.  I am impossibly picky and went through ALOT of sitters before finding her.  I just don’t want to do it all over again.   I know…wah, wah, wah

So now I’m just waiting for the third shoe to drop…

February 21, 2012. Uncategorized. 3 comments.

TV room

I warned you.  You’re all (all 5 of you) stuck looking at pictures of my house and you all better give me so ideas on what the heck to do with my house. 

This is the TV room.  It has been a bitch to figure out furniture and seating for this room.  It has an entry way/opening on each wall and it’s fairly narrow making seating and tables hard, if not impossible.  At some point we’re going to close off the wall connecting this room to the playroom (when it’s no longer a playroom).  Then we’ll get a comfy sectional and square table and the room will be all cozy and I can watch Tv and the fire and everyone can sit.  And yes, I love run on sentences. 

Until then though, I want to make the room presentable but not spend a ton of money on it.  This room is not on the list to paint since in a few years we’re going to redo it entirely.  Which means the wood paneling is here to stay. 

Here’s the TV wall.  The lamp in the corner is going, it doesn’t even work and it is purely due to inertia that it hasn’t gone out in the trash yet.  I got these for the corner to the right of the tv.  I’d love to be able to put some pictures or decorations on the tv stand but babyzilla will not stand for it.  Someday…

I want new curtains for the slider.  I’ve already got a new rod for it, just need to have it cut down to size.  The fireplace is to the right and the random floor lamp to the left.  I saw some fun chevron stripe fabric that I thought would look nice.  But is it too trendy right now?  If I am going to either spend alot of money buying these or a lot of time making them, I don’t want to hate them in 2 years.  Also, and this is probably a local problem, we have an insane amount of stink bugs.  They come in through the fire place and then head towards the light of the slider.  I always find them on the curtains and since it is a light fabric I can see them.  I’m afraid that I won’t see them on a patterned fabric and then the house will be over run with them and I”ll lose my mind.  Seriously, if you live in a stinkbug free area, consider yourself so lucky; they’re nasty. 

Help me with my mantle!!  It looked fantastic at christmas and that inspired me to try to make it look nice all the time.  It used to be a catch all for crap.  Now I’ve got a few things up there but it needs major work.  I’m not wed to anything and know that the monitor and handmade frame need to go.  But what should I put there instead?  I love when I see prints resting on a mantle but I”m afraid that with the low soffit, we wouldn’t have enough room.  Also, I need to do something about the brass of the fireplace hardware.  Only catch is that it is a custom piece that is fitted in.  Our home inspector told me to make sure we never broke the glass because it’d be crazy expensive to replace or fix.  I need to find a fire safe paint to get rid of the brass.  I hate brass

Here’s the little wall next to the fireplace.  And there’s doorway #3 leading into the playroom.  At some point this will most likely be walled off or the door moved to where the chair is now.  Here’s what I need from all of you: what on earth should I do with that dead space in the corner?  A plant or tree just screams doctors office.  Right now it is just a place where I hide crap.  I thought of putting a chest or something there to hold blankets or throws but I can’t find one the right size seeing as there is a heating vent on the floor.  And ideas great internet?

And just to give you an idea of the size of the room, here is the 4th wall.  Doorway leads into the foyer.  We desperately need seating but I just don’t know where to put it. 

If you’re still here and reading along then I love you and will buy you a virtual drink of your choice.  Better yet, come here and help me figure out this room and I’ll buy you a real drink!.  Here’s the last corner just in case you didn’t believe me about having an entryway on each wall.  Nothings going to change in this corner until A is potty trained 😉  Although the life sized S will come down soon.  I tried once but the tantrum that ensued was enough for me to get it out of the garage and put it back up.  Again, someday….

So there you have it.  Feel free to give as much advice as you’ve got, I need it!

February 17, 2012. Uncategorized. 2 comments.

Decorating 101

I like to think my husband and I are fairly smart people.  Mensa certainly won’t ever be knocking down my door but we’re no dummies.  Yet for some reason, when I stopped working last year, we never even thought to change his deductions.  Add that into doubling our mortgage with the new house and we ended up with a whopper of a tax refund.  He went and changed his deductions right away and that amounted to a nice monthly pay raise. 

We’re being responsible with 80% of the refund and putting it into savings.  We have to, especially since my income varies from month to month and we pull from savings regularly.  If I’m being perfectly honest, we probably should have saved the whole refund.  I can here S.uze Or.mond’s annoying voice telling me that if I can’t pay cash for it, I can’t afford it.  But ya know what, my foyer has pink wall paper.  That pink wall paper runs all the way upstairs.  Our dining room was probably last painted back in 1978 when the house was built.  And we bought a king sized bed when we moved in, but never got a headboard or anything.  So we’re using that 20% to make some much needed house improvements. 

Now all of you poor readers are going to be stuck second guessing every decision with me. And trying to help me stretch every single dime out of that money so I can make it last and do as much as I can.  Because I really want to have a presentable house.  Doesn’t have to be crazy insanely decorated like everything I’m seeing on pinterest. (which as an aside I just joined and dear lord what a time suck).  I just want it to not look 30 + years old. 

Oh, and if someone wants to come here and teach me how to use my sewing machine that I bought for 20 bucks on amazon without reading any reviews (WHAT was I thinking??), that’d be awesome.  Because our windows are floor to ceiling, which lets in an amazing amount of light, but means that they are custom and curtains are crazy EXPENSIVE.  I figure curtains should be easy to make, right?  I need to stretch that money as far as I can!

Where do you get your decorating or painting inspirations?  What should I be looking at?

February 16, 2012. Uncategorized. 2 comments.

Things to remember

I’m trying to make a habit of writing all of this down so you’re all stuck reading the obnoxious ramblings of an annoying mom.  Feel free to click away.

I love the few things S still says wrong.  She doesn’t mispronounce much now.  (Aside the jumpaline I wrote about last time).  But there are still a few and I love them.  She insisted on calling the dining room the ‘diamond’ room.  And I will never correct that because really, I would so love it if that room was filled with diamonds.  And so everytime she says it, especially out in public, I like to pretend that we have a room full of loose diamonds for me to play in.  The other is her chapstick.  She got a 3 pack in her stocking and I think it was her favorite present.  She always has to know where all 3 of her ‘chopsticks’ are.  This one gets confusing sometimes because she also likes to eat with chopsticks on occasion.  Yet anytime I try to correct her, she says she’s saying it like me.

The baby is at such an amazingly sweet age.  I love 15 months to 2 years.  Well, I love 2 year olds too but at this age it’s all sweet with very little of the tantrum and control issues.  And it’s really nice to not have tantrum and control issues.  Yes, I know they are coming, but I’m going to savor each day without them.  She and S are actually starting to play together and it makes me melt each and every time.  The other day A was sitting on top of S and kept leaning over and kissing her.  Poor S was covered in baby drool but the too of them were shrieking and giggling the entire time.  I know there are going to be years and years of them bickering ahead, so I’ve got to remember these sweet moments too. 

And in a good parenting moment to remember (just let me wipe the sarcastic drool off my chin) I want to remember, S had a pack of Strawberry Shortcake bandaids.  The other night she ‘needed’ one for the hangnail on her finger.  I caved because it is much easier to give her a bandaid then to deal with intense pain in her hand all night long.  The bandaid was whoever the yellow friend of Strawberry Shortcake is.  And S of course needed to know her name.  After her calling me back to her room 5 times asking who it was, I finally said Liz Lemon.  It is now her favorite bandaid and she tells everyone about the Liz Lemon bandaids that she loves.  People must think we’re insane.

February 14, 2012. Uncategorized. 2 comments.

Things I should be doing

A is still sleeping, which means no afternoon nap but it’s not my problem since I’ll be out working, and Hubs is with S at swim class.  I have the whole quiet house to myself.  Here are the things I should be doing:

• printing out my invoice for work later.  This is important since I need it to get paid and it certainly won’t be any easier to do with a 15 month old banging on the keyboard
• organizing the 4829 little pieces of crap in the playroom.  It’s great that Hubs straightens up but he just throws everything into bins and then S can’t find the princess that goes with the fairy tree when she wants it.  Or A can’t find the pieces to her shape sorter.  So I should be putting all of the little pieces with their respective toys to make my life just a little bit easier
• Any cleaning, the list of things that need to be cleaned is quite long and getting longer by the minute
• Changing all the linens.  This is such a pain in the ass
• Wrapping Valentine’s presents
• Prepping dinner now

Instead here are the things I did (or am doing)

• blogging, it’s about mental health
• went for a run, also about mental health.  I’m almost back at the point where I enjoy running again and its’ free therapeutic effects.  Almost.  My 10k in April is getting closer and closer
• Shaved my legs.  It had been far too long

Guess it’s time to go be a responsible adult.  I’ll start with eating lunch and putting on make up in peace and see if I actually get to the other stuff 😉

February 11, 2012. Uncategorized. 2 comments.

Degrees of separation

Usually when there is some tragedy related to children that the media takes hold of I do one of two things depending on my mental health; ignore it all or obsessively watch every second of it.  When this recent tragedy struck, I couldn’t stop watching the house burn while giving A her morning bottle.  And I was about to start my obsessive cycle of watching and crying.  In my own sick way, I was planning on watching the news while S was in school and the baby napped so I could sob my way through it.  And I started to do just that. 

And then I got an email from the director of our preschool with the subject ‘sad news’.  It didn’t reference all of the details but said that the sister of one of the moms went missing over the weekend and this morning her two nephews died.  It went on to give details on meals for the family and help with travel expenses so she can attend the boys funerals and be with her family.  And then I turned off the tv and went to throw up.  And I can’t watch any of it anymore.  It is far too real.  While I do not know her well, it is all still waaay to close to home.  We’ve sat next to each other and bitched about nightmare bedtimes. 

Hubs had one of the specials on last night and I couldn’t get him to turn it off fast enough.  It is just so tragic.  And the ripple effect so far reaching.  Three year olds shouldn’t have to be worried about their cousins dying and shouldn’t, at the mention of lighting a fire in the fireplace, start crying that she might die and her cousins will miss her.  And I can’t explain it to her, because I certainly can’t explain it to myself. 

I hope this doesn’t come across as sounding all about me.  I’m not even sure why I’m writing about it.  I just can’t get that poor women and those children out of my head.  And her sister.  Not only is she living it, but she can’t escape hearing about it.  Every news channel, blogs, everywhere.  And that’s why I can’t watch anything about it, I feel like I’m rubbernecking at a disastrous car crash.  And I just want to give her the privacy she deserves.    Once again, I made a lasagna and a huge vat of bolognese sauce and dropped it off at their house with a toy story game for the kids. 

I just don’t know what else to say…

February 9, 2012. Uncategorized. 2 comments.

Getting back

I had gotten in a pretty good blogging groove, posting a few time a week.  And then January happened.  And January sucked.  On one hand, it was awesome because I took on 2 new clients and brought in more money in one month than I did all last year.  So that was awesome.  But I had few other things lined up for January and I had I known these 2 new clients would fall into my lap, I would have paced out my work better.  As it was, I maintained an impossible pace for the month.  So I’m going to update with some bullets and then hopefully keep it going.

• One of my new clients is a typical DC scenario that is SO freaking cool but I can’t talk about it at all.  Obviously I always maintain confidentiality with all my clients  but I so wish I could talk about this kid just a little bit.  But nope, it’s one of those times were if I do my job well, no one will ever know I did my job. 
• Hubs and I decided that I just couldn’t bring in enough money with a small caseload and while only doing nights and weekends.  So I bit the bullet and got a babysitter.  It was hard and stressful but I love her.  And most importantly, so do the girls.  S waits for her at the front door and then sprints out to meet her in the driveway.  And the baby happily jumps out of my arms into hers.  She’s me when I was in college and that is what I was looking for.  We interviewed a TON of sitters and I know I drove my husband crazy trying to find the perfect person but I’m so glad we did it. 
• S has been having a bit of a hard time with me working more.  Which surprised me because I worked full time up until she was over 2 years old.  I guess she just got used to me being around all the time.  It’s not that she’s misbehaving for the sitter.  We’ll be reading books during quiet time and she’ll say “mommy, do you love me when you go to work”? And then my heart breaks into a million little pieces.  I almost wish she was just acting out or misbehaving.
• I got to spend an amazing 3 day weekend visiting my bestest friend since high school and her new little baby.  She was finishing up her fertility treatment journey right as I was starting mine and in November she was matched and brought home the most beautiful little baby.  I don’t think I have ever been so happy for someone else

I know there’s a month’s worth of things I’ve been thinking about blogging but now I’m drawing a blank. 

Here’s to getting back on the blog wagon!

February 8, 2012. Uncategorized. 2 comments.