Clean up, clean up, everybody clean up!!!!

 I really don’t like to cook and I dislike cleaning up the kitchen even more than I dislike cooking.  The thing is I’m not a big eater.  As long as I can snack all day {J}, I could totally survive off of three things….a sandwich, a bowl of grits or a fried egg.  But unfortunately there are these other three people that live with me and they totally expect me to prepare them some sort of a meal EVERY SINGLE NIGHT!!!

Does this happen to anyone else….I stand in the kitchen for no less than 45 minutes to an hour preparing a meal.  The entire time, both kids and my husband are circling around me like sharks out for blood.  Tegan suddenly has to play with his cars right under my feet and Rylee has to tell me how hungry she is every five seconds while my dear husband is attempting to tell me about his day.  I finally get everything done.  Everyone sits down at the table at least five minutes before me.  By the time I sit down, someone needs something so I get back up.  Ten to fifteen minutes in to the meal, I finally fix my plate but the food is cold by this point and I remember that I hate cold food.  I barely eat but yet somehow everyone else is done way before me and nowhere to be found.  I mean, even the four year old knows when to run for his life and suddenly disappear.  Then I spend another 30 minutes cleaning up this huge mess that apparently I made so it is mine to deal with.  Have I mentioned that I dislike cooking b/c of the cleaning???  Have I mentioned that I only really cook for them??

Last night the four year old had already gone in to hiding.  The husband and nine year old stood up at the exact same time and were inching off to make their great escape.  I say STOP!!!  They both look like deer in headlights as I tell them that they have to help me clean up this mess before they can leave the kitchen.  Rylee looks like she will crumble in to tears at any moment while my husband says in a joking way that I didn’t take as a joke, “We can’t help, we have other stuff to do”.  I give him the famous “watch yourself” look and they both begin helping as I tell them that “the rest of the week I will have other stuff to do and forget to cook”.  Exactly two minutes in to cleaning, Paul’s cell phone rings so he steps out on the porch to talk and Rylee suddenly needs a bathroom break.  Despite my very best efforts, they never returned and I cleaned the kitchen alone. 

Tonight they will be eating frozen pizza cooked by them!!!!

Rylee's Second Play

I don't know how I forgot to post about Rylee's play at the end of July.  This is play #2 for Rylee and she is a natural at it.  I just love to watch her on a stage.  She attended a drama camp this summer and at the end they had a very cute performance.  She played a witch.  Cutest and sweetest witch I have ever seen:)  I think the pictures can speak for themselves....

She had a great time and is already talking about going next year.  Mark my words now....this little girl is going places one day!!!  Big places!!!!

Back to School Babies!!!!

My babies headed back to school today!  In some ways I was ready b/c the endless fighting this summer has almost sent me over the edge but then it hit me that my baby boy was heading in to kindergarten.  My husband laughed at me as I had a "Mama Meltdown" last night b/c I told him that after you drop your kid off for kindergarten, it is all downhill from there.  Before I know it, he will be getting married:(  He did great this morning and had no issues heading in to his new classroom.  He went to pre-k at this school last year so starting kindergarten was no big deal.  His biggest worry is that he has heard you have to "study" a lot in kindergarten and he isn't really in the mood for that (his words)! What a character I have on my hands!!

My precious little lady headed off to the 4th grade today!  I'm not sure how this happened.  Just yesterday she was making that nervous ride to kindergarten and now look at her:(  She wouldn't let me walk her to her class even though I begged and pleaded.  Once we hit the doors of the school, she took off.  I had to call her back to tell me bye....she did but not without an eye roll.  Then I went a little down her hall to yell "Have a good day" to her.  She stopped, turned around and said "Mom, your on my hall....GO"!  When that happened, I was suddenly sadder about her than I was Tegan starting Kindergarten.  I mean, in a lot of ways she doesn't need me anymore.  I am clinging tight to the things that she does still need me for but I know that those moments are getting few and far between these days! 

I know I have to let these little ones grow up.  Some days I am excited and happy about all the new things they get to do b/c they are getting older but other days I am sad b/c I know that soon enough they will be flying the nest and I will have to patiently sit back and wait for grandbabies.

ENOUGH ALREADY MOM!!!

On a totally different note, I am very excited about my business and hoping that I can fill all this quiet time around the house with lots of working and actually getting all these ideas out of my head an in to reality!  Make sure to visit Cohen Lane to support me as I step up my game a little....I hope:)



Mommy Advice Needed!!!

I try so hard to encourage my kids and not be that mommy that pushes them.  I don’t want to be the “stage mom” in any activity that they do but I have an issue.  My little lady has tried just about everything….dance, cheerleading at a rec. dept., gymnastics, soccer, piano, voice lessons and now the plays and theater stuff.  She always seems to enjoy herself when she is doing these things but she never feels connected to any of it.  Like I see other kids find an activity that they love and cling to but she has just never really been “in love” with any of the stuff that she has done. 

The problem is that she wants to do something.  She is looking for something that she can commit to.  Her latest kick is that she wants to try twirling but there aren’t any close local places around here that offer that….not that I can find anyway.

So the question for Mommy is, if she has done something recently that I can see that she is really good at and that others praise her for how good she is at it, do I push her to continue or allow her to do like she has in the past.  What she has done in the past is finish out what she started and then just says she is done with it and never looks back.  Should I just sign her up and make her do it or let her make that decision.  Let me remind you that she is closer to 10 years old than 9 but is going on 18 any day now! 

Do your kids get tired of their favorite sports or activities they love?  Do you make them sign up for another season even if their heart isn’t in it?  Do you just hope that once they get started back up, they will love it again?  Help a Mama out please!!! 

Catch Up!

I locked myself out of the house yesterday.  It wouldn't have been so bad except I had a whole bunch of groceries in the car and no way to get them in the house!!!  That is just about how life has been going lately.

My mind is in about 750 places ALL THE TIME!!!!  I want to do this, I want to do that but getting it out of my head and making it happen, well that just isn't happening.

The kids have less than two weeks before school starts back.  Poor things haven't had a very fun filled summer with all this house remodeling and moving going on but at least there is a beach trip in our future.

We are in the house and mostly unpacked but I just kind of quit.  What hasn't been put away yet probably won't happen for a few more weeks.  I'm taking a break:)

We had a yard sale the Saturday before last.  I thought it was very successful and I am so glad to have all that stuff GONE!!!

It has been so hot in Georgia that there hasn't been much outside time.  Stuck in the house with these kids has been a whole new adventure to say the least. 

I have recently discovered that there is no sweeter sound in the world than the successful snap of a mouse trap:)  Best $1 investment of my life!!!

Someone pray me through this day b/c I have lots of work to do and two fighting kids on my hands!!!

Busy, Frazzled and Blessed is the new way of life for me!!!

Living WITH less!!!

Over the past year and a half my family has learned to live on less as we have fought hard and became debt free.  I have said it before and will say it again....it was rough.  My husband pulled me in to it kicking and screaming but I'm so glad he did.  When we started loading things up and getting ready to move, I realized that I could very easily end up on the show hoarders in about ten years if I didn't change something.  Now in my defense, I didn't have 5 year old pizza boxes lying around or molded coffee pots but man at the stuff we had.  I had felt overwhelmed in my old house for a while and now I totally know why.  There was so much stuff in there that we didn't use or need. 

So I just LET IT GO!  I let go of A LOT of stuff.  We have a dumpster that we use for our regular trash but boy did that thing come in handy.  There was a lot of stuff that I couldn't really sell but yet didn't want to keep so guess what...TRASH IT!!!  We pretty much filled the dumpster up.  So much so that we had to stop putting our everyday trash in it just so that my sister-in-law (whom we share the dumpster with) could use it for their everyday trash until they came to empty it. If it was broken, it was trashed.  If I hadn't seen it in the past year, it was trashed or gone.  If I didn't even remember I had it, GONE!

Then there was the pile of stuff that was worthy of not trashing but I just had to let go of it.  We proceeded to fill two buildings slap up with stuff for our yard sale.  I'm not talking just a few things, I am talking about enough to fill a whole house!!!!

How we ever fit all that in our old house, I will never know.  At this point we have moved in to a slightly smaller house but yet it is feeling bigger to me because guess what....the clutter is gone.  If you have never totally decluttered your house, you have no idea what you are missing!  It has been the most freeing thing ever.  I would say that I feel as good about letting go of all that stuff as my husband does about being debt free (if you know him....he calculates everything). 

I think I have learned so much through this process.  I don't need all this stuff to be happy.  Just like we decided to cut back and live ON less, now we are living WITH less.  All I have to say is that you can have your debt and all your junk but I promise, you won't ever feel as awesome as I do:)

Happy Friday world!  Now go clean out a closet and eat at home tonight instead of going out to eat.  You gotta start somewhere to achieve living WITH less and ON less!!!   

C.R.A.Z.Y.T.O.W.N

So I feel like I have been in crazy town for a few weeks now.  Wow the exhaustion!!!!  It started with wood floors, trim and painting that seemed to never end.  There was wallpaper in the living room and kitchen that I just got tired of peeling off and slapped some kilz and paint right on top of it.  I think it turned out pretty darn good.  I did sponge painting in the kitchen area and I LOVE how it turned out.  Now I wish I would have done that in the living room.  Then came the bedrooms.  Holy crap don't ever try to paint old wood paneling all by yourself.  I started in Ry's room which then took me two ENTIRE days, one whole can of kilz and 2 gallons of paint.  That wood paneling was just soaking the paint right up and I kept slowly going over the edge.  After three full days, we finally got Ry's room and our room painted but that still left Teg's room.  Well when the boy said that he wanted his walls brown, I said DONE and left the wood paneling!!!  Even though I already bought the paint, who cares....I couldn't paint another panel wall. 
We were a little stupid b/c we scheduled our phones and satellite to be transferred and decided we would officially start moving that day but what we didn't do was check the weather and see that for the entire time that we would be moving the temps in Georgia would be around 108 or higher.  It was so hot and miserable.  I woke up sick the first morning of our move but rallied myself several hours later and pushed through.  The heat and moving on top of a nauseous stomach is not a good combo. 
This move taught me something.  I (and my daughter) am boarder line hoarder.  Not the nasty trash kind but there was stuff crammed in every single corner.  I even found a few boxes that were packed way back in the closets from when we moved in there 8 years ago...pretty sure if we haven't used it in 8 years, we don't need it.  I don't know if it was the heat or my nauseous stomach but I just wanted to throw everything away.  After six days of sorting, moving and trashing stuff in triple digit heat....we finally got moved!
I am still unpacking and putting stuff away.  Trying to get settled and hoping that this uneasy feeling (which I didn't expect to have) will soon go away:(
Huge shout out to our dear friends Larkin and Tyson who came over numerous times to save the day.  She helped me paint the living room, move and helped keep the kids while Tyson helped lay floors and trim and helped move too. 
I would like to say that I never hope to move again but more on that later!!!