sounds like a case of the Fridays.

A lot of mornings I wake up with the sun on my side of the bed.
My kids are usually kicking snuggling me and we have no where to be. 
It's lovely that there is no alarm clock.  Just the sound of inhales and exhales from two almost-stirring blondes.
Until - "I want snaaaack!  I want snaaaaack!  Snack mommy!  I want snaaaack can we wake up now mommy???  Mommy?  Get UUUUPPPP.  Mommy I want to get up and I want snaaaaack!!"
All of this before I've even yawned or even quite realized it is morning.

My Young Sir is quite demanding in the morning.  And mid morning, lunchtime, nap time... dinner time... Oh- and bed time.  Not one of those kids who wants to do EVERYthing themselves.  He likes his mommy to do it all, which is great because I have nothing better to do than carry him downstairs when he could totally just walk his own little boy feet down, put him on potty chairs, fill cups with water, and dig through the dress-up clothes to find his desired avatar of the day.  I am not at all feeling TOTALLY OVER the dependence!!!  Not at all!

Today, like any other day, as the happy sunshine filtered through, so did the demands.
I tried to be delighted that it took Tulah an hour and a half to eat two dag-gone scrambled eggs.  I tried not to lecture her on how fortunate she is to have food.  I tried not to "raise my voice", I swear I tried!  It was just one of those mornings where nothing went well and my mood got lamer and lamer.  And why?  Gosh.  Like I have to take everything the kids do and don't do to heart and get all grizzled about it?

While I've been really digging deep into our days here in this new house and slowing down, trying to absorb it all, I know that sometimes my focus is what our days are NOT.  I got into some really bad habits after having Knox.  I was sad and stuck in my own head (it's lonely in there!) and I had my reasons / non-reasons.  Circumstances or not, I have been working hard the past several months to reverse my stinkiness and be the happy, kind-of-fun person I thought I used to be.  During those couple or three years of the hardest days I've had to manage, a lot of the lame-ness became habit.  But it's over now, I win!  I stand here before you to declare my dedication to the Reversal of Incredible Stinkiness!

Habits are hard to break.  Like, once in a while I try to stop drinking coffee.  And I am super proud of myself for waiting til 11 am to make my first pot of it.  Yay I broke the habit of brewing it first thing in the morning!  Woo!  Meh.  I am a creature of habit and tradition.  Also, a creature of coffee.  One blog I like to follow on fb, Awesomely Awake, well it's all about being awake for your life and enjoying the abundance around you.  Easy huh??  Kind of.  Sometimes it's not easy.  Sometimes I'm all, "I didn't get this done today.  I just want a minute to myself.  Why did you explode out your diaper AGAIN!?!  Why do you still wear diapers!!!  I wish I played more with you today.  Can't we just sleep 10 more minutes?  I really wish I could check my email without a toddler cheetah sitting on my head."  Shawn at Awesomely Awake, she offers these wonderful e-courses and e-books that are all about being present and staying awake in your life.  She's been there, like all of us, and she's real and completely relate-able and inspires presence.  I appreciate that in her.  The class I'm taking now, "The Abundant Mama Project" has been a very happy and encouraging gratitude practice so far, especially at the beginning of this new year.  Just a bunch of us mamas from all over the world, meeting on facebook to talk about who we are, why we're here... and it usually turns into how we're all the same.

Actively practicing gratitude has really been my bridge between the old fun me and the new dandy me.  The little side-road that skips the stinky-habit parts and gets right to the good stuff.  And it's got to be an active practice too, so that one day consistently seeing the good through the annoying is just pure and natural as the summer sun.  Practicing gratitude is why I sit on this computer if and when I get time, talking about our days and our projects and anything else that makes me feel happy.  GinnBoree is a celebration.  I don't blogwardly celebrate as frequently as I would like to, but it's at least a bit of the good stuff for now.  And it's already fun to peek back at the first posts about buying our new house, remembering how exciting it was and remembering all that we have to look forward to as we put the pieces of this puzzle together.  As part of the Abundant Mama Project, I'm also journaling in a daily gratitude journal.  You just list 5 things you are thankful for.  Pretty soon those five things turn into 15.  It's like a gratitude snowball! You should practice it too, dare ya.

Back to today.  I had to physically point my eyes away from the attitudes and the whining and the peeing of the pants.  Remember, I'm improving ok?!  A phone call to my sister to whine about stuff that is totally not worth whining about helped too, as it always does.  I felt better, and started focusing on my lucky stars... Like these things:

• Knox had to have a little "curl" drawn on his chin today, so he truly looked like Buzz Lightyear in his costume today. 
• Consequently, he got a lot of attention at the craft store and post office.  
• Knox and Roo were shaking their butts at the PO, cracking up the people in line.  Yes a booty-shakin' Buzz is pretty hilarious, and so are Tulah's contagious giggles :)
• I got to talk to my sister for, what, an hour or something?  And the KIDS WERE FINE to play for a while, even though I feel guilty not focusing on them or being available when I need to get a phone call in.  They were fine!
• I started this yesterday, a new crochet stitch that is very quick and addictive!!

And judging the fact that it's doubled in size since this photo last night, I'd say I'm pretty lucky that I had a little time to work on it at some point this morning!  satisfying.  Soon to be a little neck-warmer cowl for one of my best friends.

•   I made a loaf of bread and washed two more small loads of alpaca fleece.  Brown and black, and the kind for felting.  At the craft store I saw that some felting surfaces are nothing more that scrub-brush type of dense bristly things, so I'm going to have to go to the dollar store to find some for us to start felting with!  
• I also had a little conversation with my BFF while the kids were eating lunch.  I realized that they were cracking up as they found it hilarious to be my little Myna birds:  I would listen to Ashleigh and respond with a, "Oh wow, really?" and I would hear, "Oh wow, reeeeaaally??!  Aha haa haa haa hahaaa!!!" in unison from the peanut gallery.  I say into the phone, "I can't believe that!" and there they are, "I can't BELIEVE that!!" and cracking up again.  Mimicked me for 5 or so minutes.  They were in hysterical fits and soon I was too, those wise-arses!
• Instead of waiting for nap time to come around, I said NO NAPS today as long as you stay in the pirate ship for a little quiet time!  And I made a pirate ship for the aforementioned quiet time:

• And then I sat down and started typing.  And now they're done with their sail across the pirate sea.  Roo's setting out all the "stuff" we collect for inventions and art projects, and I just drew some fresh whiskers on Knox the Cheetah.  He's over Buzz for today, I guess.

I'm about to start some chili and it will be delicious.  So will the cornbread, and so is the bread I just took out of the oven!  TOO good, oops.  The loaf is half-full at this point, not half-gone right?

Demanding or not, at least I'm around to meet those demands.  And around to focus on setting them up for independence, because DANG do we need to work on this!   Hope you have a happy weekend!

The new year is flying by!

It's already the 5th!  And I probably won't post this 'til the 6th!  Like sands through the hour glass, I tell you.

Last we met I was telling you of the Christmas tree we ripped from nature.
Today, that tree is still up, and the gradual process of de-Christmastizing has commenced.  In all its subtlety.  Meaning, all I've done to begin is to not turn on the tree lights the past two nights.  It's beginning to feel a lot less Christmas.

hmm.  Should I work backwards from today, or should I back the truck up and proceed from perhaps Christmas day?  How oh how shall I catch you up... Christmas-ish forward.  Here we go!






We have a little "powder room" off of our living room.  It has a cute (though improperly installed) black and white tile floor.  The walls were light gray.  It housed a lot of dust and debris, random tools and supplies, and paint clean-up in the sink.

One day, when I had one hundred and forty other things to do, I decided it needed a renovation stat.  I could totally get it done during naptime, right?  So I went to the garage, found all of the cans of green paint I could find (I have quite the paint stash!!) and mixed em up.  I came up with the greenest green you ever seen, and I painted.  

So, one thing that turned out to be a predicament, was the wallpaper.  It was necessary for there to be a pretty wall in that room, and I wasn't about to squeeze in a mini-mural into my window of naptime opportunity.  I know you're thinking that the hard part was probably pasting and cutting and hanging and smoothing that dang paper all by myself.  While that was challenging, and did end up in me covered in paste that required an industrial-strength shower to remove, hanging was not the worst of it.  The worst was deciding to use my precious estate-sale wallpaper in that bathroom, instead of in its betrothed kitchen :(  I sat in wonder and worry for a few minutes before I started attacking it with paste.  After all the guilt wore off, I'm happy to say today that I love it, and I think it's happy in the green room too.  I didn't have enough to cover the entire wall, so I did a simple panel of three strips and I think it did the job just fine.

**note to your-self:  sticky, pasted wallpaper is much like buttered toast.  If you drop it, it will find a way to land all over you, buttered-side down.  Wear a slicker.**

I love that the reflection, which you see all the time from the doorway or from the living room, is bright and happy-------------> see?               

The mirror that was previously in there was a huge medicine cabinet from Nineteen-eighty-awful.  It wasn't necessary to have that much storage, and they must have gotten a great deal on a bulk order as the same mirror is in each of our bathrooms.  See ya!  I put in the mirror that was always above our mantel at our yellow house.  It was the mirror Nick's grandma always had above the mantel too.  I love it in there :)  The floating shelves I found at a thrift store one day, still in the box, so I painted two of them green and put them on the wallpaper side.  Left the longest one white to pop on the green wall, and placed it under the mirror.  In case you didn't notice.

It's kind of a fun pop of color from the fairly calm and neutral living room:

 

OOOOH!  Are you paying attention??  Do you see those b-n-b walls are done!?  In this picture, everything is done but the paint above.  We wrapped up the ol' board and batten paneling.  It completely transformed the room!  I will post on the walls, but probably not today!

(ignore the area by the stairs there... We're tearing out the wall behind the Christmas tree and putting a banister and railing.  I like the idea of a pretty staircase opening up the space, instead of a huge wall boxing it in!  We'll be doing the paneling up the stairs too, but the doorway was a good stopping point until the banister is done.)

In the spirit of the holidays, I like to come up with a last-minute Christmas card to upload somewhere online where they'll print and address and mail them for me (because, who has that much time to devote to the eighty people on your Christmas card list.  Nothing personal...)  It's usually done the week of Christmas, when time is ticking and will require me to burn some midnight oil and beauty sleep.  I love sending postcards through AmazingMail.com.  Last year I used them for a couple of things, including my Christmas postcard:

this is how Tulah sang "Deck the Halls" last year.  Her version is now a holiday favorite :)

This year required a full-on, "why am I doing this I wanna rip my hair out and SMILE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD we're doing this for the people we LOVE because it's CHRISTMASTIME so be happy or else NO CHRISTMAS FOR YOU!!" photo shoot to capture the kiddos' essence and personality.  It was lovely and required lots of bribery and lecture.

 Knox required 46 shots, and Tulah required two.  Success!  In the end, I got it edited and ordered and shipped and then I went to sleep for a few hours.

And now, some random cuteness as I close, for I have to run.  MWAH!

Poor Howdy the Hurdle!

Me: "Do you guys want to eat what's on the beater?"  ... "Oh."

I have to do a gingerbread portrait of ze kiddos each year...

Happy new year and I'll post at you soon!

This is my house, and I am the Mommy.

I want to talk about Little Mommies.

You know the book... "This is my house, and I am the Mommy.  My children are Annabelle, Betsy, and Bonnie."

A little girl has three dear little dollies and is their mommy in the little Golden storybook.  My mom had it when she was little, and my Nana sent it to Tulah when she was tiny tiny.  It's memorized in my head and probably Tulah's too.  It's been packed away or hidden under other books for some time, and we just read it at nap time a few minutes ago.  A few pages are missing, but since it's committed to memory that's no big deal.  The Little Mommy cares for her little ones probably just how her mommy cares for her.  She wakes up and they say goodbye to the breadwinner of the family... She feeds the babes, they play while she sweeps and does dishes.  She bakes, has a neighbor over for tea, goes for a little peaceful stroll.  Her home is neat and tidy, and she even hand-washes the laundry. When Betsy falls ill, Mommy makes a call to the doctor who comes immediately for a house call.  It's an idyllic and precious little story.  I am jealous of the mother of that Little Mommy for giving her such great lessons on how to keep house and order and patience. 

Funny how you read an innocent little story, especially one you know well, and all of a sudden it's not a story- it's an OMEN.  Reading about a sweet little "perfect" mama at a time when you have been thinking about your home, your 'job' as a mom, your patience and your example.  My thoughts lately travel and wander and sojourn to places of resolution, resolution to be better.  Resolution to well, resolve, that it's okay to not be better sometimes and to figure out how to truly start fresh tomorrow.  Well I think every parent tries to be better, daily, or at least has the desire to try to be better.  I am a, uh, a  good mom, and I've always known I was born for this role.  But what does "good" really mean?  One thing that's hard for me is knowing if I snapped, or settled, or didn't discipline, or got jack-squat done one day, I find myself saying, "Yeah but I DID do this, that, and that."  Great.  Usually those things that did get done are of no importance to a four and two year old. 

What Little Mommy has that I don't have is simplicity.  She has one automobile that Padre took to work that day.  She has a buggy, a broom, and a doctor on speed dial call.  She has no Pandora streaming to set the mood.  No texts coming in, and she certainly hasn't received 5 phone calls from student loan collectors by lunch time the way that I have.  No errands to run on that particular day.  She did not post pictures on facebook the night before and is not curious if anyone 'liked' any of them.  She uses a cookbook to make her famous ginger cake and does not require Pinterest or Epicurious to bake a tasty treat.  After all, checking Pinterest for a recipe just inevitably leads to just peeking at your email quickly since the computer's open, which leads to checking out this crazy online coupon in your inbox which leads to remembering you better place your order NOW if you want it to arrive by Christmas, which means you have to read the reviews and compare websites to make sure you get the most bang for your few dollars... And oh yeah, what was I about to bake again?  Wait, I have children to tend to??

I had big big dreams of being the sweet Little Mommy I always thought I had inside of me.  Instead I find that some days, I'm fitting the kids into a very long list of Most Important Tasks.  Even this house... This house was supposed to be a sweet and mellow beginning for our new chapter.  I really thought that the rut I was in was because my role as Mom Of Two began so stressfully and not quite balanced.  Nick having that job out of town for 2 and a half years and having a VERY CHALLENGING newborn (and beyond) baby boy was something I never ever ever want to repeat.  Adjusting to living together has been not great too, if we're being honest.  We were probably fools to purchase such a rough house while we were just getting back into the groove, but this rough house also represents the future to us.  It's the almost-homestead we've always wanted... At least it will be eventually.  As I try to remind myself why we're here and not in our finished and lovely yellow house, I try to also remember that we will be here for decades and decades and that it's okay to pump the brakes on the projects.  While the projects do define us, the kids do MORE (usually... ;) and I don't want to get distracted.

I realize that most of the women of that time, the Little Mommy time, were brought up to become mothers and homemakers.  One thing I always think about is Nick's grandma, Pat.  Our yellow house was hers and was the first and only home that Nick's grandparents ever had as a family.  Yes, we sold it, and the regret is so huge sometimes I can hardly stand it.  Anyway, that special house held a lot of lessons, but one I always remember is how Pat was not allowed to paint.  At least that's how we understand it.  Grandma Pat was a FABULOUSLY talented painter.  I will post some pictures of the paintings we ended up with of hers.  Prized and adored possessions.  She had a skill that is hard to find.  Well, Robert The Man Of The House thought that her painting was a waste of time.  So she just plain didn't do it, really.  And if you look at the dates of the paintings we know of, a lot of them are from after the kids were grown and after Robert passed away.  What a funny thing anymore to not be allowed to do your passion, and be a mother, and make the home.  What a funny thing to just... Cook.  And grocery shop.  And feed faces and mend and iron clothing.  Boy I would be "mending" clothing every day!!  Those clothes would have some pretty far-out and fancy mend-age if I were the Mom.  Hubby would be all, "You're mending clothes again???  Why do my dinner rolls have notes tucked in them?  Why are all my socks embroidered with teal flowers and red polkadots??"

What did Grandma Pat feel like she was born to do?  Did she ONLY want to be a mother and a wife?  Is that what a Little Mommy was?  Did she want to find the balance between her family/home and her skills and passions?  How did she feel when she wasn't allowed to do her art?  I set out to Colorado 8 or so years ago to get my dream degree, be a crazy and super successful product designer until my late 20's, at which point I would proceed to have 3 or 4 lovely children and stay home with them, freelancing my way around for some balance and extra money.  I would have been so wildly successful that my loans would have been paid off in 6 years- nothing to worry about.  Well I didn't finish that degree, I had a precious baby girl instead.  I have no way of paying for day care, so I stay home (LUCKY ME!!  Truly!!).  But that creative road was truncated before I was really ready.  I am always fighting the urge to just spend a day MAKING STUFF and feeling successful... Networking and finding treasures and conversing with adults and accomplishing things I'm GREAT at.  Sometimes this just takes over and I find myself yearning for it, as opposed to embracing my true role as homemaker.  And I feel so guilty for wanting it so badly!!  Sometimes I lie my head down at night, wondering how many times I told my kids, "Hang on just another minute guys, Mommy needs to wrap up just one more thing" that day.  I know it's not like that every day... But...  But how does a mother find balance and simplicity in today's world full of a zillion different definitions of success?  I have everything I've ever wanted so why would I want MORE. 

This house has been alive and connecting for me and the kiddos.  While it is busy, I find myself at a place where most times I am able to include them much much more than before in my tasks.  I have a little Tulah helper when it comes to dishes and baking and laundry and totally worth the 50 cents I pay her :)  I started this journal to keep you up to date on the progress, but actually it's been really nice to see how I'm doing as a mom too.  I go through a day and I think, "If I wouldn't want in in my journal, then we're staying away from it."  I won't be able to be one of those writers that make everything look like sunshine and rainbows, because that's not life and I don't trust people who won't allow themselves to be real, and vulnerable, and relate-able. I'll never make you feel like you're the only one with problems, I promise.  I probably don't always say when we've had just a super-cranky awful day, which is probably due to the fact that I do not write every day.  But sometimes I do and after all, this journal is a celebration of what IS working.

I have some new goals I'm hoping to accomplish in my ever-continuing list of GinnImprovements.  Maybe instead of listing them, I'll discuss them as I succeed.  Less pressure :)  I think I'm almost the mom I want to be so what's a little more fine-tuning right??  I want the simplicity of the little "homestead" we wanted to create here to happen and I think it is, in its own time.

It's not MORE that I want, I've realized.  It's ME I'm after.  My best me.  Truly celebrating where and who I am, and giving my greatest to my home and my sweets. 

This is my house, and I am the {improving} mommy.