Fun{ky} Filled Fridays: Home Reno Edition

So stinking excited for this post y'all!  I have literally been waiting 7 years for this.  I never thought I'd see it happen.

What?  You have no clue what I'm talking about?  I'm taking about my living room & kitchen remodel!!! Thank.the.Lord.

I love my house.  But it resides in 1983, which I don't love.  It's got tons of awesome features, like tons of natural rock throughout, huge rooms and a wood burning stove.  And then it has things that make me cry. No really, they make me cry.  These include wood paneling, fluorescent lights in EVERY room, popcorn ceilings, linoleum through the whole house, and did I say wood paneling?

Here are a few dinky phone pics because I was too lazy to pull out the big camera.  For some viewing pleasure, which may cause a few gasps and giggles.  Bless my husband, he'd leave it just like this for the next 32 years if I let him.

My father in law built every last inch of this house, placed every stone, every tiny detail.  I can't imagine living anywhere else.  But all things need a little work and after 32 years, it's time to update this baby.

 Looking into the living room from the front door

Looking into the living room from the kitchen doorway

 Looking into the kitchen from the backdoor

 Looking into the kitchen from the game room {ignore the counter clutter, I was in the middle of cooking and dishes when I took these}

My life is consumed by the color brown.  I may never own anything brown again.  Right now the living room is doubling as my office, I've got junk everywhere. Pardon the mess.  This is real life.

Between the living room and kitchen we've got 724 sq. ft. of renovations.  That's a lot.  My kitchen is actually the biggest room in our house.  I want the whole thing opened up.  Now this may not seem like a big deal, but when the main wall in your house is the one wall you want removed, it takes a little engineering expertise to figure out how to keep my house from caving in. 

Now the details.  The main wall will come down, which is the wall that the stove and frig is on.  Everything has to be moved.  For that to happen the side bar has to come out too.  This will be replaced with a center beam and 2 columns and a huge snazzy island that will house the stove.

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The center light will be sheet rocked over and replaced with something similar to one of these fixtures that my handy husband will build.  Actually, we'll be doing all of this on our own, with the help of my father in law.

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I'll lose my pantry, so that will be relocated along with the frig.  Instead of a pantry we'll do open shelving like this.  It works for us because I don't have a ton of pantry items.  I really try to cook fresh.  Go ahead and say ugly things. 

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The backsplash, on the remaining kitchen wall where the sink and cabinets are, and in the island will be antique bricks that we've been collecting.  The cabinets will all get a fresh coat of paint and new hardware.  Which I've been buying from Hobby Lobby twice a month when they have them 50% off. Score.

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The floors will be ripped up throughout the living room and kitchen and we'll stain the concrete.  I'd love to be bold enough to do this turquoise, but for the hubby's sake, I'll probably do this rusty color.

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The island is being built from 4 old farmhouse doors we have and some farmhouse windows.  The windows will open to all the storage in the island.  It'll have 2 levels, and possibly an open end for my cookbooks.  The countertops will be concrete, which I'm in love with.

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That leaves the awful popcorn ceilings.  Our 2 options right now are scrape it off and paint or replace with vintage tiles.  Since the vintage tiles will cost us more than the whole reno, we've been looking at some cheap new options.  Styrofoam tiles you can paint.  What?  Y'all.  These things are pretty cool.  And cheap.  I'm gonna get a couple and play with paint options before we commit to these.

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The remaining walls haven't been decided on yet.  We'd love to do ship lap, but other options are painting the paneling, remove the paneling and texturing/painting the walls, or installing beadboard.  Our pallet wall will stay.

This whole thing should cost us very little.  Because we're awesome like that.  But really, we have most of the materials, at this point the only things to buy are the stuff to prep and stain/seal the floors and the ceiling tiles.  We have the lumber for the island, we have the beams, because my hubby and his dad save everything they could potentially use to build stuff.  Soooo we're good on most of it.

I dream of this every night.   I have to keep myself from getting a sledge hammer and taking the wall down during the days.  I.can't.wait.

Mom Struggles: Friendships

I know it seems like all I talk about lately is tweens.  Probably because I have one.  It consumes most of my time.  What I don't talk about is tween mommas.  Let's talk about that today.  Bare with me.

We spend 5 years in elementary school building relationships, with teachers, other mommas, our kids with other kids etc., only to be dumped into a whole new school and start the whole process all.over.again.

What about those other relationships?  What about new relationships?  How do we help our kids navigate through all that and not lose ourselves in the process?  Seems silly, huh?  The struggle is real y'all.

We spent 5th grade in a kind of blur and so far that's how 6th grade is going.  Everything just happened so fast that it truly just took me by surprise.  We went from a tiny school to a huge school and with that a ton of new people for Caroline to meet.  This is a GOOD thing people.  We want our kids to expand their relationships, grow, find themselves, get involved.  Now the BAD part of that is that kids feel a little lost, and so do the mommas.

Let me explain that a little.  When we first build up our kids and support their little friendships, we usually make friends with those mommas.  As the kiddos make new friends, we moms may or may not make new friends.  Why?  Well, it's simple.  We may have friendships that we cherish, we feel fulfilled with those, and don't necessarily care to delve too deeply into making new friendships.  Not that we won't be friends with new moms, but we may not invest as much into it as we did in the past, maybe we will.

After talking to a handful of my momma friends, I realized several things.  Girls see how their moms handle relationships, and they act that out in their little lives.  I also realized that some mommas feel like as their kids grow away from old friendships, they also grow away from previous friendships.  With that these moms feel guilt that their kids aren't friends with other kids anymore and don't quite know how to navigate those momma friendships anymore.

Both of these are fine, what makes both not okay is when people get hurt.  Like I said in my other post, we should be teaching our girls to be better than that.  It's heartbreaking really, to see the moms go through this.  Why?  Because we're not 11/12 and should have a handle on being adults and handling friendships in an adult manner.  We know better.  As mommas, we know our kids will make new friends over the years and that they may grow apart from some friendships.  We also know that with growing up comes growing pains and dealing with other girls that may not always be nice.  But why do we have to deal with these things from moms too?

I don't know. But it makes me sad.

I have a handful of friends that I count on.  All the time.  Women who have been there at my worst, who have come to my rescue in a pinch and who love my kid like their own.  No matter what status our daughters friendship is in, I plan on my friendships staying the same.  I guess that's where the last 2 years have been a bit of a confusing time for me.  Those friendships aren't the same anymore and I just don't know why.  I've distanced myself because of it.  I'm not as involved because it hurts.  Not that these friendships are ruined, or done with, they've just changed.  Hopefully one day it will be different.

That's really the whole point of this post.  Just because our kids aren't close anymore shouldn't have any bearing on our own friendships.  When our kids see this, they think it's okay to do the same and they don't value friendships.  Friendships always change, but that doesn't mean we toss them aside.  We learn to grow in a new capacity and I want to teach that to my tween girl.  I want her to know that her friends no matter how close they are, they matter, they have value.

Love your other momma friends, I promise it'll make our daughters that much more loving to their friends.

Good for my Soul

Life is crazy, right?  Sometimes we just need to take a minute and get away from the craziness of it all.  So last weekend, that's exactly what I did.

Being a transplant to a new town {really, it's been 8 years, but you get my point} I didn't have any friends at first and was crushed to not be with my bestie everyday anymore.  I never thought I'd have any friends here.  Just a tad dramatic, I know.  Let's be real here ya'll.  Women are not always the nicest people.  It's not easy to put yourself out there and meet new friends, but thanks to my outgoing daughter, I did just that.

I've made a handful of precious friends, and I'm so thankful for them.  Then a few months ago, we got the sad news that one of them would be moving to Siberia.  Not really, but Midland, Texas might as well be Siberia in my book.  Well folks, she came for a visit last weekend!  To say I was happy is an understatement.  And well, it was time for a girls night.  Thank you Jesus!

After getting my hair all prettied up, 3 of us hit the town.  We're such party animals, we went for our favorite.  Salsa and maybe a margarita or two.  We had so much stinking fun just talking and laughing.  These are my people.  I love them.

Saturday night, we had family game night.  Normally we host at our house, but this week we were at another friends house.  Seriously, game nights with friends and family are just the best.  Good food, good people and good laughs.

Nights like these are just good for my soul.

Tween Girls, Mean Girls

There really should be a handbook for raising tween girls.  Like really, there should.  Since there is no such book, I'm just going to put out a few of the things I've learned.

They are hormonal. Y'all.  It's like 2 worlds colliding every 20 minutes.  Good meets Evil.  I never know which one is approaching.  We go from sweet to the world is over in .0006 seconds. 

They test boundaries. Like nobody has ever tested them before.  They push us to the brink.  Just when we think we've got it handled, yep, they push us even further.

They have no clue who they are.  This also can fall under hormonal and testing boundaries.  They think they are sweet innocent girls.  They have no clue that there heads spin when they are angry. Exorcist style.

They think their lives are over.  Again this is every 20 minutes.  Whether its over a friend, a boy, shoes, iphones...everything can cause this reaction from them.

They think they are GROWN.  Bless their little souls.  I promise mine does not know more than me, no matter how much she rolls her pretty little eyes.

These are just a few of the daily woes of a tween girl tween mom.

After a particularly trying day for my girl, I finally get to the bottom of today's meltdown.  What I realized is that its a recurring theme.  Mean girls.  All of them.  Including mine.

Y'all, they have no clue how to handle whats going on in their little tween bodies.  This manifests in all of the above symptoms.  And to top all of those gems off, they just want to fit in.  This causes our sweet, precious little babies to be mean spirited and hurtful to the friends they love so much.  And wait.  Before you start thinking, 'not my little girl', yes, even the sweetest and most tender girls go through it. 

So fellow tween moms, here's my plea to you.  Pray with me for them.  Let's teach them, walk them through this tough age.  Teach them to have grace.  Teach them about their actions and words.  Talk to them about how much they can hurt with their words.

After an hour long talk today, many confessions, many tears, I hope I helped smooth a path for my girl.  She, like many, many young girls get their feelings hurt so easily and then they react.  And lets be honest.  They can be mean.  They are mean because they have been hurt.  The hurt can be silly in our eyes, but in theirs, its everything.  And all it does is create a vicious cycle that they can't find their way out of.

I want us mommas to work together to teach them to let go of jealousies.  To let go of who has the new cool thing.  To let go of who likes what boy {this still kills me}.  These things are real. 

They use Instagram to out do each other.  To prove who their besties are each week.  To brag about what they got over the weekend or where they went.  They do these same things on the bus or in the cafeteria, talking loudly about what they have or who spent the night.  We need to teach them these things do not define them. 

We need to tell them they are each special in their own right and that its a good thing for them to be different.  They need our love and guidance. 

And we might need a lifetime supply of wine to get through it.

#soulemates

Y'all.  I can't help myself.  I'll admit it, I'm a Bachelor Fan.  I know, I know, it's cheesy.  But I'm truly a romantic at heart and I love the thought of this whole bizarre process working.  In fact, as sad as this confession is, Caroline's dad proposed to me the same night as Trista & Ryan, hahaha!  I'd gone to watch the last show with a good friend and because he knew I loved it, he proposed after I got home!  But that's a lifetime ago.  And a little cheeseballs.

Anywho...so Chris is a doll.  So many of the bachelor/bachelorettes just don't seem genuine.  But Chris, he's a cutie and seems to be just so sweet and down to earth.

Now lets talk girls and their crazy entrances.  So it's been the trend forever now to come up with a memorable entrance.  Most are dorky, some are cute, and some are just perfect.  In this age of social media, the #soulemates was too cute {even though it was totally cheesy}.  And apparently cheesy {and other forms of the word cheese} happens to be the word of the night.  Ahem.  Let's continue.

The girl with the piggy nose was cute, if not bold.  I mean who wants to be seen right out of the gate with a pig nose?  But the best part of that was the girls teasing that she needed to do her research because they didn't think he raised pigs...then he said he did!  Ha!

Homegirl with the fake heart....Blech!  No thanks.

I'm not gonna lie.  Britt, the one who gave the 'free hug'?  I thought she had potential.  I thought her little gift was cute, genuine, and not over the top.

Now, Tara...oh Tara.  I love loved that she came in without being all fancy. But...her shorts were a tad short and God love her, she and her Jameson needed to slow down a bit.

With the 30 girls this go round, I had a hard time picking out my front runners, so I'm ready for next week to see who my top gals are gonna be for this whole crazy ride.

What about you?  Do you watch? What did you think about the girls?

Ramping It Up

On my journey to find my place in the business world, I've decided it's time to be more proactive about listing things in my Etsy Shop.  I'm the worst.  I make tons of stuff and never even list it, which to me means I'm missing out on marketing myself and what I make.

I think my biggest issue is that I have no clear path with what I create.  I make everything from paintings, to chalkboards, to sugar scrubs and whipped lotions, to hair ties, to small wooden items along with re-purposing things I find along the way.  None of it really fits together cohesively.  So I just don't list most of what I create.  I feel like I need to find one area and focus on that, but then I still make so many other things....what does a girl do?

I think to start, I'll just list the whole range of items and see what happens from there.  Because honestly, I have no clue what else to do.

Here's to hoping that I can figure out what direction I want to take this little shop!  Once I get it all loaded I'll post a link if you want to stop by!

Day 1

As the first day of 2015 comes to a close, I'm sitting here, with Caroline cuddled up next to me on the couch, reflecting on the last year.  It was a tough year for us.  Lots of struggles, pain, realizations and also a year of love, joy and hope.

It doesn't ever leave my mind that God has a plan for my family, but during these trials, I often wonder what the heck it is.  Don't we all?  My faith in His plan never waivers, but I struggle with being patient until He reveals his plans to me.  Sometimes it's hard to be patient with His timing.

My plan for this new year is to be patient.  To be open to what His plan is and to embrace it.  That can be a hard thing.  I plan to dig deep and see what he has in store for me, whether that's finding my groove with my photography, or creating or going back into the away from home workforce.  I don't know what's in store for me, but I know I need a change.  And as much as I love being at home full time, I'm ready for what's next.  I'd love nothing more than to stay at home, and continue creating beautiful images, creating things with my hands for people to enjoy and cherish.  Hopefully. 

For now, I'm going to enjoy my time with my crazy girl and cherish the last few days before she goes back to school.  And learn to be patient with a tween.  Hopefully.