Red Clogs and Green Beans

First of all, I got my new clogs!  They are adorable and I feel oh so fashionable in them, which is nice, because the other night we went out and I hadn't showered and was feeling GROSS, but I slipped these bad boys on and suddenly felt feminine and gorgeous.

Tonight Ingrid and I picked green beans from the garden.  I had just thrown some seeds in a row at the beginning of the summer and they just blew up!  So we got about a bazillion plants growing and tonight we picked them.  We got a lot.  Ingrid just kept eating them like candy!  Good for her.  (Honestly I hate green beans unless there's a lot of butter and salt on them.)

One last thing--our kitchen is looking so much better now!  I painted the cabinets white yesterday.  It was a sweaty job and it took four coats of paint on each door, but dammit, I did it!  I love it.  I'm hoping to paint the walls gray and get new floors and a new sink.  Then one room in our house will be done!  And I can focus on another room!

House stuff, Sewing stuff, Surgery stuff.

Doesn't our house look nice?  We painted the door red, which only looks good from far away, so don't come too close, lol!  And with the new numbers, some daffodils and tulips popping up, it looks so charming.  We planted some more things in the flower beds this week and are looking at getting a new light and perhaps painting the house.  Obviously that is not a high priority but we're looking at it...

 In the backyard we are planning a little deck.  Finally!  Of course, I had gotten a concrete guy to come give us an estimate and was all ready to pay him to get it done in a couple weeks, but then Brendan changed his mind and didn't want a poured concrete patio after all.  How frustrating, I just want it done!  Alas, I do think the deck will look nicer.  So I'll give him that.

 

Last weekend I had a craft show at Ingrid's school.  It was fun!  I sold a fair bit of things, and was able to stock up at the Waxwing afterwards, which means I don't have to do any more sewing for awhile, I'll be good until the end of June.

 Which is a good thing, as I go in for surgery on Monday...again.  Last summer I had a cyst removed on my throat and I was all excited to have it taken care of once and for all.  Then I got sick and guess what got infected again??  My throat.  Again.  BLARGH!  So I've been in and out of the ENT doctor for months trying to figure out what's going on, as this usually doesn't happen.  Cat scans and antibiotics, lots of bills.  And another surgery.  See how happy I am about it?

 Next week will be a blur of drugs and pain, but then hopefully it will really truly be done.  Done I say!

 

In other news, it's really spring here, and we've been enjoying as much time outside as possible.  I even hung laundry on the clothesline!  So excited for warm weather and summer.

Ingrid's birthday party is next weekend.  We are having 8 four and five year olds coming for a purple unicorn party.  We are making glitter fairy wands as a craft.  There is going to be glitter all over our house for the next seventeen years, I can already tell.  But look how happy she is.  I can't say no to that.

 

Spring Weekend

It's so funny how a little sun and warm weather makes everyone so happy.  Especially when you have shitty weather for most of your year, like we do in the midwest.  This weekend was like all smiles and sunshine and fun, because it was nice out.  We got a lot accomplished!

Saturday morning we went to the zoo.  We saw the baby jaguars, they were playing with their mama, it was pretty cute to watch.  We had a picnic and then the kids crashed in the car on the way home. 

Brendan took off the front door so we could paint it.  By "we" I really mean "HE" since he ended up doing all the work.  I chose the color. 

Our door had a funny panel nailed on the front.  Brendan said hey, I think this is really a six panel door, they just covered it for some reason.  So he took off the panel and found that they had filled in the panels and then nailed a piece of cardboard over it, painted the whole thing an ugly navy blue color or black that faded in the sun, and called it a day.  So...hours later he'd managed to yank all the junk out of the panels and today he sanded and primed and painted.  It's still drying, but we will have a nice six panel, classic red front door soon!

We also got new house numbers.  It's amazing how something so small makes such a big difference!  Our neighbors were like wow, we never even noticed our numbers before but yours look so great!  And the best thing is, they were $6 a piece from Home Depot.  Next up is a new light fixture for outside. 

The kids got their fair share of play, too.  Chalk, tricycles, playing catch with the dads, going to the park, and popsicles.  Not bad for a weekend!

Phones Are Great, Just Not For Blogs.

My mother in law asked why I hadn't updated the blog lately and I realized it's because I am never down in the basement on my computer anymore, I'm always doing things on my phone.  Which is great, but I haven't been able to post anything here from my phone.  SO...here we are.  Brendan is off today and the kids are up coloring Bubble Guppie pictures and I snuck away to the computer.

 

So what has been going on lately?  Last weekend I took the kids to my sister's.  We played with cousins and saw Gramma Pam.  We ate at Russ' which is a kid favorite, we thrifted at Bibles for Mexico which is a mama favorite.  It was fun!  The kids were awesome on the four hour drive and Chicago traffic was smooth sailing both ways.

 Other than that, not much has been going on.  Same old life of school, thrifting, sewing, and playing.

Ooh, wait, no, we got new appliances, thats's fun!  We had ordered a stove from Home Depot and when they delivered it, it was damaged.  Two weeks later we still didn't have a new one, and then it was a hassle to get my money back, it was just such a pain in the ass.  Finally we ended up going to Sears Outlet where they have all the scratch and dent ones, where we found our new stove AND ended up getting a refrigerator because they're such low prices, why not?  So we still ended up with dents in our stove, but we got it for way cheaper.  Ha!

 And...we got a new vacuum.  Life is good.

Moving Furniture Beats the Winter Blahs!

When I was a kid, it was completely normal to come home from school to find my mom had rearranged the furniture.  It never seemed like a strange thing to do.  I think I've talked about this before, how I know people that have had their furniture in the same place for like 30 years??  Insane.  Anyway, I had moved stuff around this summer and was pretty pleased with it.  But that was like months ago, so of course I got sick of it!  And the toys, ugh, the toys.  I thought with my Ikea shelves I had that problem covered, but then the toys exploded from their nice shelves into the dining room, where there just wasn't really room. 

 

So.  Today I took everything out of the living room, tried a few different places for the couch, hated all of them, talked to my mom on the phone for a bit, trying to brainstorm.  In the end, I came up with a wonky solution, but one that seems to work.  For now.  I angled the couch and made room for a play area behind the couch.  We now have a little play space in the living room, but it's kind of hidden so you don't really have to see all the junk.  Yay!

 Otis really loved it as soon as I was done.  He got out a book and sat himself right down.  Because he had room!  Success!

What I really want to do is move our cable to another space, which would really make things easier.  But until that happens, we'll live with this.  Which is fine.

 

**And can I just say how much I LOVE Ikea Expedit shelves??  Oh my god, just go to Pinterest and search for expedit and there are tons of great ideas!  I loved this one so much!  Such a good idea!**

House Tour

Have you ever seen the blog Life Made Lovely?  They have a great section of house tours that are so cool, just pictures of the rooms, showing little snippets into the lives of the owners.  I love seeing things like their collections of vintage things, or family pictures, or cool color combos.  One house had some vintage furniture that didn't match but it just worked.  Anyway, as I was going around my house today I was imagining what my pictures would look like.  And then I started laughing because I've been sick the past week and the kids were sick before that, so our house is a bit of a mess.  I did clean a little this morning, but still there are just piles of shit in every room.  Papers that need to go somewhere, pictures the kids have colored, old cds that found their way out into the dining room somehow.  Things just laying on any available surface...

So here is my house tour, complete with piles of shit.

All the meds from all the sickness going around!

I'm telling you, piles of junk.

Primrose from the store today.  Needed some fresh color!

Naughty horse in the corner.

Best Christmas present ever.  I love this doll house!

New artwork for our bedroom from tastesorangey on etsy. (they aren't crooked, I just had a strange angle.)

This is what I mean--picture hangers, earbuds, candles, boxes from our new phones, lotion, and a bottle of Vicodin.  There has to be a better place for this shit than on our dresser!

I can't wait until Ingrid can read these books!

Ingrid's broken dresser.  I hate this thing.

Ugliest sconces ever.

New artwork from Uncle Pat.

 And there it is.  The Liddle Family House Tour!  The more I see these pictures the more I hate the colors in our house.  I am totally fine with our room and the dining room, but every other room in our house is getting a paint job this year!!