dear blog,

did you miss me?  i hope that you didn’t feel neglected because i’ve been paying so much attention to your sister over there.  since you’re nice and rested, let’s jump right back in.

love, katie

i’ve found some cool housewares at goodwill lately.  at least they’re cool now.  on the shelf surrounded by much junk, maybe not so much.

first up, this book storage thingy.  i had been looking for one of these for awhile so i was stoked when i found it.  it was a rust red color with some faded letters on the front (so faded that i never could figure out what they said).  i sanded it and painted it with a glossy “real green”.  i decopauged “read” on the front with some leftover scrapbook paper.  here’s what it looks like now:

next are some cool candle holders that i’m using as coasters.  if you look closely, you’ll see that my beloved silver table is pretty much ruined from us being too careless with beverages.  i hate coasters, but i really love my table.  i’ve learned my lesson.  anyway, aren’t they cool?  (yes, they are glass and yes, that is RISKY.)

i’m always on the lookout for things i can “remake” or repurpose.  this frame caught my eye and i knew i could definitely turn it into something cool (i figured out when my girls were born that cool “one year” frames are hard to find…).  it was pretty beat up and just something i would never hang in my house.

i really don’t think my friend kristen reads this blog, but kristen, if you do and you are seeing this before i give it to you, i’m so sorry!  i just really wanted to do this post today.    here is the frame after (the baby’s name is gunnar):

those pictures make the letters look off center for some reason (i just panicked and ran in the other room to make sure they were centered).  the bottom circles have his birthday 08 20 09.  lastly, found this cool candle holder a few weeks ago.  i can’t figure out if it used to have glass, but i really don’t care.  i love it.

no idea why that ”display” picture is cloudy.  both my 50mm prime lenses are broken, one moreso than the other.  today i was practicing shooting manual with the less-broken one (it doesn’t shoot in automatic focus anymore).

anyway, happy thrifting!  you never know what you’ll find (and that’s why i love it!).

the past 4 days have been pretty busy.  picked up my mom (candie) at the airport on friday night and things have been crazy since then.  leaving in an hour to take candedo to the airport, so hopefully i’ll get my rear in gear for a new BLESSED post, but for now, quick new post over at the photography/design blog.

i just wanted to write to you and say i’m sorry.  i’m so sorry that i neglected you this week.  i was very busy and adhering to a strict routine every day.  it went something like this:

• wake up
• lay around in pj’s (getting real clothes on before putting on bathing suits is not allowed)
• eat delicoius breakfast made by Dad
• change into bathing suits and make sure everyone was “sunscreened”
• head to the beach (play in the sand, play in the waves, explore things on the shore left there by the tide, eat popsicles, sit in a chair and do nothing, etc)
• take the kids to the pool to rinse off while we made thier lunches
• ate lunch (sometimes mine shockingly consisted of simply a brownie and some pretzels)
• put kids down for naps then forced myself back down to the beach or the poolside to lay on a chair and nap or do a sudoku puzzle
• swim in the pool with the kids until it was time to shampoo hair and scrape all of the day’s sand off (mine and the kids’)
• eat a well-deserved delicious dinner with 9 other adults and 5 kiddos (all that lounging and swimming and scraping makes for a big appetite)
• put kids to bed so we can have homemade ice cream and warm brownies and/or cookies without them seeing us
• watch tv or play a game or whatever until we head to bed
• some family members stayed up obnoxiously late to go out to see the nesting sea turtles, but i couldn’t bring myself to put on a coat of bugspray at 1:00 AM when i knew i’d see it on video the next day

and so, dear blog, as you can see, it was a rough week.  my negligence is merited.  you cannot imagine how miserable i was constantly covered in layers of sunscreen and salt water and chlorine and with my stomach perpetually stuffed full of biscuits and brownies and blackberries.  i hope that my breaking my “no computer on sundays” rule means something to you.  alas, i must leave you again to go catch up on the piling clean laundry and the crumby under-the-highchair floor.  have no fear, though, dear “blessed”.  i’ll be back in sooner than a week…today started business as usual.  vacation is no more.

just finished my first official design post over at my photography/design blog.  i’m planning on doing them once a month or so, or whenever i accumulate 2 or 3 designs to post.  here’s a taste, but please visit!  [i'm annoyed because the letters are white but showing up light blue...help me out, wordpress!]

that i’ve totally been a blog slacker this week…worse, actually.  i have had no time.  i’m planning to do a real post before we leave town tomorrow afternoon, but first i still have several items on my to-do list.  see you later!

we’re watching dirty jobs.  i seriously never get sick of this show.  even if it’s an episode i’ve seen twice, i can still watch it and be fully entertained.  i do sort-of have a crush on mike rowe, but it’s also just that i love seeing how stuff works or where it comes from.

anyway, today seemed pretty full.  got up and went to the gym this morning (YAY!), then picked up breakfast at mcdonald’s on the way to mom’s group at church (please no comments from the peanut gallery about cancelling out my workout…if you really know me, you know i could care less about eating fast food).  after mom’s group we came home, i fixed lunch, and then it was naptime.  both girls slept GREAT and i powered through the ironing basket…i hadn’t seen the bottom in months.  after they woke up, i was randomly motivated to clean the porch.  we’re making plans to utilize the area more effectively (i.e. get rid of the rusted grill we never use and put a play kitchen out there), so i thought i’d get started.  i moved all the plants down to one end, swept up most of the dirt and leaves, and cut back anything that looked dead.  if you’ve been to my house, you know how our porch is long and skinny.  we’re hoping that moving all the plants to one end will keep the dirt at that end…there’s a low spot in the concrete at the end closest to the area we use the most.  the rain brings all the dirt to that spot and then it just sits there.  i think we’re going to rent a pressure washer this weekend to get it super clean and then hope that it stays that way.  our neighbors on both sides have no plants, and both of their porches are super clean looking.  i hope we don’t have to get rid of all our plants for it to be clean…i like to have some green out there, plus harper loves to water them.

[blue bell rocky road....YUMMMY!] 

before i started working outside, i decided to clean the plastic pool that i almost forgot we had.  layne is starting to crawl and i knew i needed to have a place she could sit and crawl where she wouldn’t scrape up her knees…also where she’d be contained.  i took it into the girls’ bathtub and started spraying it and scrubbing it.  at one point, i grabbed onto the lip of the pool to rotate it around and felt something disgusting.  “oh this thing is dirtier than i thought!”  i looked at the spot, expecting to see a huge growth of mildew and there was a cute little green tree frog.  he was squished up as tight as he could get.  i’d been spraying and scrubbing for about 5 minutes and he hadn’t moved (thank goodness…i would not want him loose in my house).  i finished cleaning the pool and then went to wake harper up from her nap to show her our little friend.  she loved it.  we’ve seen him before out there, but it’s been awhile.  i took a picture hoping to add it to this post, but harper’s asleep in our room so i can’t upload it.  when we got the pool back outside, i picked him up and took him over to the plants.  those frogs are so darn cute!  he curled around my finger like it was a branch.  little things make me happy.

this post is getting long, but one more nice thing about tonight was that we ate dinner outside.  we don’t have a table out there, but i had taken layne’s highchair out there so she could chew on a biscuit when she got fussy, so i figured we’d improvise.  we took chairs out, ryan and i ate off our laps (and put our drinks on a barstool), and harper used the milking stool as a little table to go with her dora camping chair.  we had frozen pizza, due to the fact that i was working outside and all of a sudden realized that i hadn’t even thought about dinner.  it was so nice out and it was great to do something a little different.

i wish i would’ve taken before pictures of the porch…but those of you who’ve seen it will appreciate it when i post after pictures (hopefully soon!).

nighty-night!

i’m in a funk.  i really have no material right now.  i do have an idea for a new series, though, that i’ll be thinking over and possibly starting next week…still mulling it over.  if anyone has anything they’d like to see me write about, PLEASE feel free to comment and let me know.  i don’t want to lose any loyal fans! 

i was going to post some pictures from our surprise weekend, but instead i’ll just tell you to check out sarah and amy’s blogs…

harper’s watching “the little mermaid” (i’m fastforwarding all the scary ursela parts).  it is surreal.  i feel like i was a little girl watching that movie like 5 years ago.  i cannot believe it was almost 20 years ago that i was seeing it for the first time (1989)! 

gotta go cook some sausage and wash some sheets.

i know i’ve been slacking the past few days, but i really have nothing to write about.  also, layne is sleeping terribly at night, so we’ve been putting harper down in our room, which means i can’t use the computer after she goes to bed (there’s something wrong with the laptop).  not too much is going on…just hanging at home today, trying to get some things done.  i have bbq ribs in the slow cooker and the house smells like Sonny’s and that is a little annoying…i guess i could open the windows, but i’m just so darn cold!  i’m such a south florida wimp!

right now i’m spending a little time looking up preschool tuition prices…i am really hoping to get harper in somewhere for the fall.  i’m so excited at the prospect of some one-on-one time with layne, and i know that harper will LOVE school.  hopefully we’ll find a great place that is affordable.

my room is a disaster.  gotta run!

i’m out in the living room on the laptop.  both girls are still sleeping, but in seperate rooms.  layne is still waking up screaming like 3 times a night, so harper has been sleeping in our room.  she still barely fits in the pack n play but it’s always set up in there for layne’s naps anyway, so that’s where she’s been sleeping (little kids like small spaces, right?).  she’s been really good about it…i guess because she knows the only alternative is lying in her bed listening to layne scream for an hour.

i got up at 6:30 and took a shower and then went downstairs to move my car so it won’t get towed.  ahhh the joys of towncenter living.    honestly, though, this weekend it was kinda fun to live here.  there was alot going on.  on saturday there was: the green market, a cardinals game, the WIRK rough & ready man show (exactly what it sounds like), and the scripps research center grand opening celebration.  we took the big stroller for a…um…stroll over to scripps.  the festivities were apparently really for nerdy adolescents and curious retirees, but we enjoyed seeing all the new buildings nevertheless.  just curious to see what several hundred million dollars will get you.  i was trying to message some of the workers with ESP:  “come buy a condo…come buy a condo…it’s a really hip and convenient location with new wood flooring.”  we’ve been hoping for awhile that the completion of scripps would sell our house for sure, but apparently no one working there is interested.  we haven’t even had anyone come look at our place in about 6 weeks…i have no idea why we still have it on the market.  oh wait, yes i do.  because i’m sick of parking 3 blocks away and carrying $100 worth of groceries up the elevator and down a long hallway with 2 kids in tow.

ANYWAY…i decided in the middle of saturday that i wasn’t going to touch the computer yesterday (sunday).  it was nice.  it was actually alot harder than i’d thought it would be.  i was telling ryan last night that throughout the day i’d thought about turning on the computer at least once every 15 minutes….it got a little better toward the end of the day, but after the kids were in bed it was really hard to stay away.  i guess i just feel the need to seperate sunday a little bit..i don’t think that my sundays are in the least bit holy yet, but leaving the computer off did help me keep my mind on things i’d heard at church and it freed me a little to just relax and not worry about who sent me a message on facebook or how many e-mails were in my inbox.  it’s a start.

i need to run make my grocery list.  happy monday everyone!