Do you see what I see?

Going to the thrift is always like a big I Spy adventure. Particularly so today.

Want to play?

I found a little bag of ornaments hanging with the toys. What's that I think I see in there?
Cheap plastic bells, weird satiny ornaments, generic glass balls.

Oh wait! A little something is calling me...
Ohhhhhh, a super thin old fruit ornament.

Hmmmm, what else is hiding in that little bag?
A cool indent ornament...
and two more tiny ornaments. The smallest pine cone I have *ever* seen and a beautiful old orange one (that is likely an old feather tree ornament).

Let's wander over to the fabric section. What's that I see in that big bag with that nasty polyester fabric?
I think I see something interesting in the corner up there.
First up, a nice old tablecloth, but not my style. (And destined to be redonated.)

Getting closer. Is that what I think it is? In a fabric bag?
Ohhhhhhhhhhh, it is! A tablecloth.
But wait, the checkered "fabric" that first caught my eye...it's a tablecloth too!

Yippeee! (There was also a white damask cloth in the bag. Clearly the sorter was insane that day. I've never seen them bag up tablecloths.)
And just for fun, I found a dozen Shiny Brites too.

Not too shabby for my little adventure while Jack is off playing with Oma, eh?

Love is

Jack's first drawing of our family...
"Look mom! It's our family. Wait, you need arms." LOL
a quiet nap on a Sunday afternoon...
painting the bricks on our new old house white (even if everyone said I was crazy)...
a pile of yummy vintage tinsel from the flea market yesterday (even if I did have to pay a premium price for it)...
and a lovely new piece of old fabric (wish there was more of it!).

Happy Monday to you!

Am I being punked?

A few weeks ago there was a knock on the door in the afternoon. It's always a solicitor, so I was already irritated. For some reason I agreed to a subscription to the St Louis Post Dispatch. (I think it was the "Post can't sell enough papers so they aren't sure they are going to still do a daily next year" part that got me.)

Recently they changed their website and the garage sale ads are HORRIBLE. Impossible to navigate, make my head spin, awful. So I thought it would be useful to have the actual paper in hand again.

After the first two weeks they started calling me on the phone every day trying to upsell me...subscribe for longer, yada yada. After the first phone call I realized I had not yet seen a SINGLE newspaper. I was assured that would be remedied.

Another week passes, they are calling again. Again I realize I still haven't seen any papers. Again reassured that would be remedied.

This week I got a few random papers. Maybe one on Tuesday and one Friday and part of the Sunday.

I sit down this afternoon to browse the sale ads and this is what greets me:
Oh, I got a newspaper alright.

After someone removed the coupons they wanted first.

Total.waste.of.27.dollars.

And really irritating to boot.

I need to go make sure that Ashton dude isn't hiding the bushes...

Goodbye Brady Bunch

We started the demo on the porch this weekend.

We are going from Brady Brunch:


To something a bit more traditional:
There will be round columns and vinyl fence railings and siding and all that good stuff soon.

We've gone from plain ceilings:

To more of a beadboard ceiling:
Which tomorrow will get painted blue!


And just for fun, let's enjoy some scans of my grandparents when they first moved into our new old house.
My gran tending to some kind of topiary near the front door. This must not have lasted long, I never remember any sort of topiaries in the yard, lol.
Gran near what will be Jack's new bedroom. She ALWAYS carried her purse everywhere. An early golden girls Sophia I suppose...

Behind the house you can see all the farm fields. That is totally filled with houses and a golf course now!
My grandparents doing some wierd Pulp Fiction impersonation. LOL (I never, ever saw my grandfather wear anything even remotely close to this kind of shirt. It makes me laugh.)

Dave and I love that dentil molding and wish it were still on the house.
And this is my uncle and a friend BBQ'ing in the area where the new french doors are that I showed you yesterday.

Back tomorrow with new paint on some parts of the house I hope!

Right about now

Right about now, I am:

* Very, very thankful for all of your kindnesses. It doesn't often seem like it out here in "cyberspace," but your comments do leave little fingerprints on my spirit. Whenever I find myself thinking this is all too damn hard right now I remind myself of one your emails which said, "It's worth having hope." Thank you for that. For all of it. Really.
*Busy loading things into the pod. I have a goal of 4 boxes per day, in the hopes of lessening the stress of moving. BUT, having the pod arrive was pretty emotional for all of us, neighbors included. It's real now. We are going.
* The freecycling madness has begun. I have some decent things to freecycle too (china, bedspreads, vintage crap, lol). If you are local I will put a note on facebook before I give it away to strangers. (If you are local and we aren't facebook friends email makinprojiks@gmail.com BUT that is not my facebook email, so don't try and find me with that email there.)
* Totally digging my new french doors. They are awesome, right?

* Totally NOT digging the fencing estimates. $11,000?!?!??! Holy Hell I would have to sell Jack to pay for that.

* Listening to this song over and over and over again.

* Still feeling pretty emotional about everything. I am pretty sure this is all the hormonal rollercoaster, but holy moses if ONE MORE PERSON ASKS IF MY GRANDPARENTS HOUSE IS FOR SALE I am going to lose my mind. Yes, I know it's huge and the lot is huge and the neighborhood is quiet! That's why we are moving in! :-) (I swear every.single.person.passing by on the street asks me this. Even contractors coming to bid ask me this.)

* Missing my grandparents quite a bit. See above emotional wreck bit. LOL

So, that's my story this week.

What's yours?

On my mind

I've waffled a lot about what to say here in regards to what is going on with me the past month or so. On the one hand, I tend to be a pretty open book here. On the other hand, what's on my mind right now is *intensely* personal.

But, it's bugging me. It's keeping me awake at night. I need to talk about it and get on with it.

I was pregnant. Again. In October. And I am not pregnant now. Again.

Having this happen twice in a row is more than a little like being struck by lightening. Twice in 5 months.

I had called my OB within hours of a positive test and we started the blood work immediately.

And then I found out that I have a problem which means that I am "highly unlikely to carry a pregnancy without intervention."

Hearing that pretty much me laid flat.

I got pregnant with Jack very easily, and while the pregnancy itself was a nightmare, I had Jack. I never imagined that if and when I decided I wanted another baby it was going to be this way.

Never.

So, the OB has recommended some fertility treatments. I think I have made a decision about that, but it's a scary place to go.

I mean...how much do I get my hopes up? What if this doesn't work? How far am I willing to go here?

And don't even get me started on the why is this happening to me? why on earth do people insist on saying things like "it wasn't meant to be" or "you just need a vacation"? (Yes indeed, this is not an ideal time for all of this to be happening, but I am 34.5 years old, Jack is 5, and it's pretty much a now or never moment for me clearly.)

*This*, my friends, is a tough road.

I know many of you have already walked it. I have a new found appreciation for each of those decisions you have made.

And I really hope I am able to make peace with this soon.

And just like that

And just like that, Halloween is gone for another year.


But let's back up first.
We went to the ortho on Friday. He said Jack very well may have fractured his growth plate in the middle of his foot, but that there is no easy (cheap) way to know that, and that the treatment would still be the same anyway. Sooooooo, Jack is in an orthopedic boot for up to 3 weeks and then we will do another x-ray to see if there has been additional bone growth in that area. If there has been then he did have/does have a fracture.

He still absolutely refuses to bear weight on the foot without the boot on though.
Halloween flew by me this year in an absolute flurry of non-stop activity. I don't think we even watched one Halloween movie all the way through. (Sad for us, we love that stuff.)

One of our pumpkins had started to rot, so I let Jack draw on it with a marker.
There was pumpkin gutting, of course.
The big ones were FREEZING inside. It was too cold to stand having your hand in there for very long.
I've been reading a few Montessori blogs so I decided to let Jack in on the pumpkin carving for the first time this year.
Under Dad's careful supervision of course.
Jack REFUSED to let us carve this pumpkin the way I wanted to. He guarded it for quite awhile.
The tiny happy faces he drew on the too squishy ones.
I had to have Martha's snail and at least one toadstool. (The toadstools were dead easy to make, must make more of those another year.)
And the candy corn costume was apparently a big hit with the neighbors. (I stayed home to hand out candy this year.)
I think it turned out pretty sweet myself.
And Jack reported that "he was everyone's favorite!" while trick or treating.

The passing of this halloween is a little bittersweet. This is our last year in this house and this neighborhood is amazing on Halloween. I handed out 143 cans of play-doh! So many trick or treaters.

Now we are on to bigger things.

The pod is arriving tomorrow so I can start packing.

I have Jack's very first parent teacher conference at 9 am in the morning.

And, with any luck at all, this is the month we will be moving into our new house.

Welcome November.