steph's stuff

What does your next house look like?

Our house has been on the market for 12 days and we've had 8 showings. I'm hopeful but not unrealistic. This is not a good real estate market and it may take awhile to sell. We know that the first 5 showings will probably not yield an offer but we haven't heard back anything about the last 3 showings. We just hope that the showings don't stop - you need showings to find a buyer, after all.

In the meantime, I've gone to look at some houses for us to buy. We still love the farmhouse in Michigan and it's very, very affordable (and still on the market) but since we have the luxury of time, we want to look around to see if there's anything else we might like better. I'm trying to crunch numbers again and again and come up with a realistic idea of what we can afford. Now that I've seen some houses in a couple of different price ranges, I have a pretty good idea of what's available.

And, of all things, what is attracting me is a good basement. I guess I never truly appreciated our basement but when you look at homes without a basement or without a finished basement, you realize the value and the space it adds.

Here's our current basement.

 

This is the view as you come down the stairs. All of my scrapping stuff is on the left in the white modular units, with more tools, books, and albums behind the desk. We just moved this stuff down to the basement from our den/living room. The entire basement used to be the kids' playroom. With the exception of the laundry room/storage area that is unfinished and off to the far right in this photo, the kids have always had this entire space to themselves. We refinished it about 6 years ago and painted the old paneling a light yellow and Tom installed the laminate floors himself.

 

Honestly, there are a ton of toys down here that they don't play with anymore but as long as it's neat and tidy, I don't really care. Emily has started having sleepovers with her friends down here so we put an old mini-fridge and TV/VCR down here so that they can have snacks and watch movies during sleepovers. The TV doesn't work but the VCR does and the girls watch old movies sometimes.

 

This little alcove was my original scrapbooking room when we first moved in. Emily has taken it over as a writing desk - using an old typewriter to compose the next great american novel. :)

So, I've decided that our next house just simply has to have a finished basement. This space is valuable to us and, as the kids get older, I think it will be even more valuable.

The only other thing that I absolutely have to have in a new house is a fireplace.

What about you? If you were buying a new house right now, what do you want? It might give me some ideas. More closet space? Walk-in closets? A porch? What does your next house look like?   
 

How to survive the winter blues. Part II

 

Part I is here. If you haven't read it, this post won't make much sense. :)

Now that you've gotten yourself a few minutes to yourself, the key is to USE that time. It's easy to think that playing on the computer or catching a few minutes of Oprah will help you wind down. And it probably will. But it only helps for those few minutes that you're watching it. There is something else that will help sustain the calm feeling for much longer.

Cleaning.

Yep, cleaning. And let me preface this by saying that I hate to clean. I hate the actual process. But, I have found that it really calms me down and lets me enjoy being inside so much more than I otherwise would. When I get totally stressed and the walls feel like they're closing in and I'm ready to sell the kids on eBay (my husband's joke), a clean house makes me feel so much better. When your environment is calmer, you will be calmer. Seriously.

This was my counter yesterday afternoon.

 

It was covered with dirty dishes, plastic bottles to be recycled, paperwork, mail, an empty plate that needs to be returned to a friend, empty napkin and paper towel holders and lots of odds and ends. And it gets a lot messier than this, believe me! This is not that bad - at least according to my standards - but it was bad enough to make me crazy.

This countertop makes me feel better. And when I'm feeling better and calmer, I can handle the craziness of life better.

 

The trick to utilizing quiet time to its potential is to clean something that will make you feel better all day long. Not just the 15 minutes that you use playing Farmville. ;)

Find a spot in your house that makes you crazy when you look at it. And clean it. Don't procrastinate - just clean it. It may be your sink, ala Fly Lady, it may be your kitchen counters, it may be the living room floor. But clean it. When your environment is calmer, you will be calmer. I promise. (And you might find that if you keep it up, your whole house will be clean in a week or two.)

My absolute favorite tip for feeling better through cleaning is this: Take the 50 minutes you have left of quiet time after you've had your coffee and your deep breathing and clean a little bit in every single room. I like to have cleaned floors and cleaned surfaces. So, my trick is to go through the living room for about 10 minutes, quickly putting away things on the floor and on the tables, then move onto the kitchen, the hallway, and any other room that is messy.

Do NOT go upstairs or wherever the kids are, though. They might interrupt you. And that's not good. ;) 

I also take a laundry basket with me and throw all the toys, books, socks, etc...that don't belong in that room into the basket. I take it with me then into the dining room, the kitchen and any other room that I'm working on. Chances are really good that most of these things are not mine, anyway. After quiet time is over, the kids then have to go through the laundry basket and take out what is theirs and put it away. This does NOT take the place of the kids doing their normal cleaning chores.

And if you clean a little bit in each room, the whole house starts to feel clean. And when the house feels clean, the walls don't close in nearly as badly. :)

Pretty soon, you just might enjoy cleaning.

Okay, no, you probably won't. But you might feel calmer.

How to survive the winter blues. Part I

 

My quiet time spot.

Let me preface this by saying that the title of this blog post is a bit misleading. I don't really know how to survive the winter blues. I just know what's working for me some of the time. It might not work tomorrow. Today, though, it's working. So, that being said, here's how to survive the winter blues. For today.

The winter blues are tricky. They usually sneak up on me - right around February. December is full of visions of cozy family seasons around the Christmas tree or the fireplace - I don't have a fireplace but my cozy visions always have a fireplace in them. Guess what's on my wishlist for the new house? ;)

In December, the snow is welcome. Loved, even. In January, snow is still good. It coats the earth with that clean, fresh feeling and coordinates very well with that New Year and fresh start feeling.

And then it gets colder, the snow gets dirtier, the skies stay gray for days and days on end, and the blues get you. It's usually February (or even the end of January) and the fresh start feeling wears off and you're left with nothing but weeks and weeks of cold, gray days ahead and you're stuck in the house with kids.

That is when the winter blues sneak in. The walls of the house start to close in, everything feels messier, there are so many snow boots and watery, muddy messes to clean up multiple times/day, the kids suddenly seem so much louder and crazier, the dog is going out of his mind because he's not getting walked enough and so he's chewing up furniture, and you start dreaming about the tropics and putting your kids up for adoption.

At least this is what the winter blues feel like to me. I start getting a bit panicky at the thought of dealing with it all for two more months and I want to tear my hair out. Or run away to the above-mentioned tropics by myself and let the husband deal with all of it.

Since I'm more sensible than the little devil-me that sits on my shoulder - at least most of the time - I've devised something else to help me cope with the winter blues.

It's called quiet time at our house. It used to be called nap time. But when the kids are 6, 9 and 12, it's called quiet time.

Quiet time doesn't have a specific time of the day. Rather, it is timed solely on the Mommy's needs and moods. :)

Calling quiet time simply means that the children have to go away from the Mommy and do something quietly. If they can't play quietly or nicely together, they must have quiet time by themselves.

The duration of quiet time is also dependent on the Mommy's mood. On a normal day, quiet time lasts for 60 minutes. Although it has been known to last as long as 90 minutes (when the winter blues and PMS hit at the same time), quiet time can also last for only 30 minutes. But 60 minutes seems to be the magic amount of time needed to cope and recover.

Quiet time for the kids can take place in the basement if you have one. Or it can be in kids' bedrooms. If you have multiple kids who share a room, you may want to put one of them in your bedroom with some toys and books so that they don't fight. Disrupting quiet time IS NOT GOOD.

And, don't judge me, but when the kids were smaller, quiet time can also take place in front of the TV. Put on PBS so you don't feel quite so guilty, give them snacks, and then walk away.

The key to quiet time working is that no one interrupts the Mommy - it does take some training for younger kids or bribing with older kids.

What the Mommy does during quiet time depends on the Mommy. I highly recommend a beverage - no judgment from me if you have a glass of wine at 4 pm - coffee or tea or hot chocolate work well to help calm the nerves. Take your beverage to a comfy spot - a cozy plaid chair, the couch, or even the kitchen table - and take about 10 deep breaths. For the first 10 minutes of quiet time, do NOTHING. This is harder than it sounds but it really works. Your brain needs to shut down and recoup. Drink your beverage, breathe deeply and do nothing. And somehow during that 10 minutes, your brain will tell you what else you need to do in the remaining 50 minutes to feel better.

What's important is that you don't let that time turn into guilt time. You must not feel guilty for needing a break from your children. You are teaching them to respect you and your needs and to entertain themselves at the same time. It is good for them. Really.

Usually, I end up writing or cleaning in the remaining 50 minutes. Writing in a journal is a great idea. Making lists is another good idea because it helps you to organize your thoughts and feel more on top of the things that are making you feel out-of-control - this is one of my favorite things to do. Calling a friend and venting is another great idea.

But my favorite is cleaning. It's a new method of calming myself and I would never, ever have believed that it worked. Until I tried it. It really does sound crazy. Why would you want to clean when you have some time to yourself?

That will be Part 2 tomorrow.

For now, try quiet time today. It works. At least for today. :)

Not so patiently hoping for patience.

 
(The kids' playhouse custom-built by Tom) 

Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish. ~John Quincy Adams

As I mentioned yesterday, our house is finally on the market. We listed it on Monday, it went online on Tuesday, the sign went in the yard on Wednesday and we had 5 showings from Thursday - Sunday. It was a bit wild. We've had 3 days off with no showings but have another one scheduled tomorrow. And I'm hoping for more this weekend.

But, am I satisfied? Nope. Family and friends that have walked through the house have all said that it will sell quickly. I've looked at many other houses myself and our house is certainly in better condition and more updated than most of them. It is truly move-in ready. And we've had so many showings right away. Our realtor said the response to our listing was crazy - as in good crazy. But, am I satisfied? Nope.

And why?

I have no patience. I just don't. It's a character flaw, I'm sure. I just don't like the unknown. I feel as though I'm a fish on a line - just waiting for someone to jerk me one way or the other and I don't like it at all. I don't know how people go through this for months and months. I'm barely surviving it for 10 days.

So, that quote up there? I'm adopting it today. Nothing has to be decided this very minute.

Tomorrow would be good, though. ;)

Home Renovations: Part 5

Finally, finally finishing posting these photos of our big renovation project! And this post has taken me almost a week to write because we've had 5 showings of our house in the first week it's been on the market. :)

The den/family room was a room that we weren't sure about renovating. We knew the paint was a bit outdated but we were also running out of time and weren't sure we had the money to replace the carpeting. But, it was the only room downstairs that we hadn't done and after we found the hardwood floors and had $1100 refunded (you can read Part 3 here), we decided to go for it. And I'm so glad we did!

You can see the paint before the renovation in this old photo. The bottom third was a dark burgundy, the top two-thirds was a light camel and we installed a white chair rail at the intersection. We also had huge dark valances in the room. It was definitely outdated.

 

When you walked into the room, all you really saw was the bookcases at the end of the room and then our desks right in the middle of the room. Basically, we converted a family room into a den. On the left side of the room was a dark leather couch under two large windows. It's a nice-sized room but we had a lot of big, dark furniture in it and it felt tiny and cramped.

 

This layout gives another look standing in front of the bookcases and looking towards the kitchen. The room was just totally crammed full of furniture, books and scrapbooking supplies. And the dark valances really brought the eye down and made it look even more closed in.

 

The first part of the process was to clear out the room and re-paint it. Which was a lot easier said than done. So, we didn't do it right away. LOL! Those bookcases were impossible to move, as were the desks. We had to take the desks apart and move them into the basement piece by piece. We moved the rest of the stuff to the center of the room for the time being and used a lot of drop cloths.

 

I started with the ceiling and here's some advice. If you paint walls in a room, please, please paint the ceiling, too. I'm done it both ways. I've been soooooo amazed at the amount of dirt on ceilings that I never noticed. A new coat of paint on the ceiling is a dramatic transformation. I had to do it to believe it, though.

I was also a bit surprised at how dark the camel color on the top portion of our walls really was. It looks like a light color but the new coat of China White from Benjamin Moore looks much better. Here's where I started.

 

Covering that burgundy paint was almost my undoing. It was not fun.

After everything was painted, we decided that we simply had to replace the carpeting, too. Moving the furniture revealed a whole lot more dirt than we had imagined. When we ripped up the carpet, look what we found. Yuck, yuck. This image was taken from the back wall looking into the kitchen. You can see the door to the patio, the closet and the furniture stored in the kitchen. And the dirt under the carpet. It was so gross.

 

And here's the new carpet. A nice, basic neutral carpeting.

 

Once again, I used my own photographs for the walls. I found these three frames at Target and enlarged 3 photos from Texas - the middle one is the tower at the University of Texas and the other ones are photos I took at Tom's family's ranch outside of San Antonio.

 

I used drapes from Target again. Not only was my budget very small for all of these home projects, but I also knew that drapes would have to stay with the house so I didn't want to spend too much on them. And more plants on clearance - winter is a great time to buy house plants for next-to-nothing, I've found!

 
 

 I also wanted to keep things very light around the windows to take advantage of all the natural light that comes in through the huge windows on this wall.

 

See the quilt I made Tom on the sofa? It went perfectly in here. :)

And here's the finished room.

 

Cost breakdown: Paint for the walls and ceiling were approximately $80. The Target frames were $60 total for all three, the four plants were $35 and the pots were another $35. The drapery rods and drapes were also from Target - the rod cost $40 and the drapes were only $20. The carpeting was $860 from Lowe's and various new lamps and side tables were another $100. I decided to dip into the fund for the two chairs under the window - we simply didn't have enough furniture for this room. The two chairs I found at a discount shop locally and cost $289 for the pair.

Total cost for the family room:  $1519 (our most expensive room by far - because of the carpeting and chairs)

Final cost for the entire downstairs renovations (4 rooms, a hallway, and staircase): $3155
  
 

 
 

Place holder

This is just a place holder blog post. Kind of a "save the date" blog post. I've been getting lots of flak from my husband for not updating the blog (hello!!!! dude, you've had my laptop for the past 3 days and my photos are on my laptop - you cannot blog without photos!!) and I've gotten some sweet messages asking if I'm okay.

I'm just fine! Our life got crazy last weekend, though, when the house went up on the market. Two words now define my life. Constant. cleaning.

And, whew, we finally got the basement ready - photo below. :)

I'm actually home for just a second now - the house was shown this morning and I'm headed out now to go look at houses.

Thanks for the emails and tweets - life is good, just crazy busy. And I'm constantly. cleaning. :p

I will be back soon, I promise!!!

 

A great craft idea for the whole family

 

Project 365 projects are everywhere these days! Flickr has entire galleries and tons of groups devoted to photos taken every day of the year, most every scrapbook store (traditional and digital) is now offering Project 365 ideas and you can find ideas everywhere.

But, I'm doing mine differently. I'm using an old Project 365 kit from Becky Higgins that I received last year and didn't get in time to use for 2009. By the way, Becky has a new kit available this year called Project Life and it's beautiful! It is essentially the same kit that I am using but with different designs and colors.

What I'm doing differently from most other Project 365 projects is that I'm not doing the project alone. My kids (and hubby - oh yes, honey, you are doing this, too!!) are doing it, too. I'll give you the details and photos later tonight or tomorrow but here's a photo of what I love the most about this project.

 

This journaling done by Libby is just precious to me! I'm teaching the kids to journal - the big stuff and the small stuff - and the value of family memories.

They're writing, thinking, connecting and being crafty. How cool is that?!

Typepad is copying me

Well, this is interesting.

This is my blog.

 

The photo in the header was taken by me. It's a photo of flowers in my backyard that I cropped, photoshopped and made into a banner. I chose the gray background and designed the entire blog from scratch. Months and months ago.

Just for shits and grins, I went through Typepad's available designs today. I don't use their premade designs but one caught my eye right away. I can't see the entire design without converting my blog to that design but I can certainly see the photo in the header and the gray background.

 

Kind of weird, huh? 

I am a saint

My husband has a huge trial coming up in a week so the kids and I have spent a lot of time together lately while he works every waking moment.

He's been working late and all day on the weekends, too. So, today found me at Super Target with all three kids. Grocery shopping on a Sunday afternoon is the worst time to go shopping and dragging around all three kids made it even worse.

Throughout the entire time we were there, the kids were getting progressively more antsy. And whining and begging for things and generally making me absolutely crazy. They had asked for pizza, ice cream, pudding, toys, toothbrushes, new clothes and on and on. The more they asked for, the more frustrated I got.

Standing in line waiting our turn to check out almost made me lose my mind. They were getting louder and louder and pushing the cart back and forth at each other.

We finally got outside and made it to the car. The windchill here is below zero and I was miserably cold trying to get the groceries into the back of the van as fast as I could. Meanwhile, none of them bothered to help me and they started fussing and complaining in the car and then running around in the van yelling. I practically threw the shopping cart into a snowpile, got into the van and totally lost it. I was more frustrated than I had been in a very long time.

I screamed out, "ENOUGH!" "Sit down, behave yourselves, and BE QUIET!"

There was deafening silence.

In utter exasperation and with a huge sigh, I said (more to myself than to them), "I ought to be awarded sainthood for taking three kids to Target for a full week's grocery shopping!"

About a half a second later, I heard movement from the back. I looked in my rear view mirror just in time to see Libby strike a dramatic opera pose - one hand dramatically clutching her chest, the other raised to the heavens and she belted out in full falsetto, "Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!"

It took me a second or two to get it but then I burst out laughing, the kids burst out laughing and we all laughed until we cried.

:)

January 7

It's my birthday today. Which would ordinarily be a good thing. But, you see, my husband is a die-hard University of Texas fan. No, that's wrong. He's a UT fanatic. Right down to his UT underwear.

Yep, I said it. He wears UT underwear. Sorry, babe, but some things just come out on the blog.

And it's my birthday so I get to say those things today.

Anyway, so I'm married to a UT fanatic and UT just happens to be playing in a little football game tonight. Something called the National Championship game. Yeah, not so little, right?

So..........I knew I would not exactly be the center of the hubby's attention today. Which is why I declared that my birthday is not going to be today. At least for this year. It's going to be on Saturday, January 9th this year.

Hubby wisely agreed that that was not a bad idea. And, therefore, got himself out of a huge guilt trip from watching the game all night long.

And, he's also preparing for a pretty big trial that's coming up. So, not only is he glued to the TV tonight but he's barely been home all week long and will be gone most of the weekend, including Saturday. Which also means not much time to shop for me.

Hubby wisely (again) agreed that I should just go shopping and buy my own birthday present.

So, I did. I bought myself a present today. Or two. ;)

 

A little point-and-shoot camera so that the kids can help with photos this year, especially for our Project 365. Although I don't think this camera is going to have the bokeh that I got on this shot with my 50mm 1.4 (see, Torm, you need this lens).

 

A bread box from Target! I saw a photo and a link to it on Facebook yesterday and just had to have it. It was going to go on my kitchen counter but now I'm thinking I have a use for it in my scrapping room. ;)

 

A cute new purse! Just a cheapie from Target but it's totally me. :) 

 

And my mom sent some bling from Macy's.

It was a good day.

Happy Birthday to me!

P.S. And also to Alicia and Katie Couric. :)