I noticed this long blonde hair growing out of my thigh when I was blow drying my hair a few weeks ago, but couldn't find it later on to pluck it, so I forgot. John noticed it in the car. :) He's apparently grossed out about it (which makes it all the more fun for me) but considering all the gross things he has and does, I don't understand how my sexy leg hair is offensive lol. He wanted to badly to pull it out while he was driving but I wouldn't let him. I said, "you'll hurt me and not even get it out...besides it's growing on me." haha...
We have been getting used to the new area we live in, and we found a couple nice parks. The first one was mostly walking trails, but it was funny because it was full of "NO" signs for ridiculous things..like "no playing on field" or "no golfing of any type on grass" or "no climbing trees" or "water is for drinking only" above water fountains...darn I was going to do my laundry! We had brought our awesome bubble guns to use and I was expecting to see this:
So we walked a few trails at the "No" park, and showed daddy how we play cars...here we are getting gas :). It's so cute when they go "wee ooh weee ooh" and then say "firetruck!" and pull over to the side lol. I'm teaching them to drive now!
Then John and I had a bet. Every time we drove to and from this house (for the move etc) we saw this Softball /soccer/football field park. I swore I saw a huge jungle gym for kids too---John laughed and said "you're wrong. there's nothing there for them. Didn't you look and see it was just muddy baseball fields?" And once we got bored with the "No" park, I told him to just drive there and see who's right. We bet dinner (he wins= i make him what he wants, I win= he makes me what I want...he doesn't cook...so I knew it would be eating out lol). So we get there and he's like "Damn! Why are you always right!? I thought there wasn't a park!"
It was an awesome and clean playground :) And it's closer to our house!
Had to do a Tebow-shot :)
John....never gonna grow up :)
Finally wore these kids out...he fell asleep on the couch til it got dark...and we turned the lights off and howled til he woke up lol. He was kinda scared but knew it was us lol. It's fun to play hide and seek in the new house--but when it's Lucas' turn to hide, he lays on the couch covering his eyes laughing excitedly like we can't see him lol..then he jumps out and tries to scare us. He'll learn pretty soon. Took him forever to find me :)
I feel like we lost ourselves the past 3 days--we have been so busy moving and cleaning and installing...we lost all sense of time and place...our bodies ache, but the house is done!! There are few little things we need to do/buy, but we will do them one at a time. We are very pleased with the way the house has turned out, and can't even see it as the same old dirty house we first walked into in November, and walked out thinking, "ugh...no it's not what we thought...too much work and cleaning..."
It is very fulfilling to have truly made this our home. I really think making those dorky paint drawings assisted us in figuring out what we wanted to do with 2760 sq ft of house. John has worked so hard and I am really proud of him; not just at home with moving and caring for the kids with me, but at work too. His coworkers compliment him all the time and he's been given some great gift cards for dealing with stressful situations with the pipeline. And the cherry on top is that he actually likes his job :)
Here is the house in 3 videos:
Lucas hit the ball into Olivia....but she was okay :)
I took pictures, but they don't really show the house as well as the videos:
We got a few things left to do this week--security system, dishwasher installed, and some large furniture deliveries from Ikea. More pictures when that comes. We are eventually going to repaint (spray) all the doors too, but for now we replaced all the knobs. Come visit Texas!
this argument is made all the time...people don't understand what they're fighting for. Or rather, they don't want to understand. Calling me racist, for being against genocide. hmm.
I have been watching "The Voice" and I just don't understand it. First, yes, I may be a little bitter from not making it (I auditioned last summer). The premise of the show is that it's a talent competition that is supposed to be based on your voice, and your voice alone...not your look, age, sexual preference or sob story...but to me, watching every contestant, it seems to have resulted in the opposite....contestants were chosen because of everything but their voice...and especially so if you pronounce words wierdly.
There have been a few really good singers, but most of them are pitchy. And I am disappointed in Blake always getting so excited for wierd voices...and it annoys me because it's not a unique singing capability that came naturally....it's an intentional 'accent' that doesn't really make sense. example:
She's so pretty..I wanted her to be good but how could you listen to that pretentious singing and not cringe!? She's a lesbian, so that obviously scored her some points for the audition. She's a model--more points. But the voice?! I get it--she's trying to sound like Eartha Kitt mixed with a british baby having a seizure, but I don't find that to be talent. Who knows--she may just have a good voice if she would relax and not try to sound 'cool'. Even if she had actually chosen a good song it would've been unbearable without the 'mute' button.
Same here:
I haven't heard Blake's music or his wife's but I hope it sounds nothing like what he claims is amazing. This girl scores points for those nasty dreadlocks...you know they have to wreak. John and I both really don't like this "lazy song" but her voice was boring and she was sharp a lot of the time. ya yayayayayayaya. guess that's talent today. After hearing another video of hers on youtube, she has an alright voice but the performance and song choice on the voice sucked to me.
There were some good ones, my favorite being the army girl Angie Johnson:
As far as the other show, American Idol, there were so many good singers--I have no doubt that I don't belong among them! But there were some exceptions that I don't understand. Jennifer Lopez seems to think this girl who lays her southern accent on way too thick, sounds like Reba!? I don't hear it...just because it's country? Maybe it was just this performance that I didn't like with all the growling, she probably has a good voice.
Another country singer that has survived all the cuts for some reason is this guy...he's annoying when he's not singing, and when he is. I think because of Scotty Mcreary's success they think any old cowboy hat guy will do. He sucks. Watch this group performance and tell me at 00:38 sec that this guy belongs on the show...
and then watch the Philip Phillips guy after him...so annoying with the fake-seizures guys! geez.
This guy is trying to be like that actor from "My So-Called Life" who is now in a band..that sucks. I am just too easily annoyed with the dramatic faces and hackneyed antics that it apparently takes to make it.
My favorites so far:
this guy is so good and I like his tone:
This girl is just...makes me so freaking jealous that it's so easy for her:
And Lauren Gray is good too.
This guy's ADD-behavior is annoying but I like his voice:
I liked his group performance---this girl Elise is awesome:
This girl Jessica Sanchez was pretty good--and I like this Buddy Holly song:
And I know there's no arguing that this guy is good...but I just don't like him. That's mean huh?
So anyway, i just wanted to share what I thought of this years contestants. American Idol has the best voices and talent....NBC's The Voice is just annoying.
I really hope Ron Paul continues this momentum. I know Santorum is really creeping up on Romney, and many conservatives like him. I know he's Catholic and pro-life and all about family etc. But if you really look at his voting record, branding him a conservative, socially OR fiscally, is a misrepresentation. Unfortunately, many of my conservative peers are so desperate for a 'conservative' to replace Obama that they don't dig a little deeper to understanding the issues. Santorum is someone I would've supported a few years ago,without looking at the bigger picture. This guy's distinction between Santorum & Paul pretty much sums it up:
You all already know how I feel about Obama essentially mandating churches to offer insurance policies with contraception/abortifacients, and then 'accomodating' them by mandating that insurance companies themselves cover it 'for free'. And it's not because I am Catholic. I do agree with Santorum that contraceptives harm women (odd that he supported contraceptive funding to Planned Parenthood in the past...), but in the bigger picture, this affects ALL faiths, because it is blurring the lines between church & state. When Ron Paul says harping on conservative social issues is a losing position, he isn't saying he doesn't agree with conservative stances...he in fact does. Basically, arguing with liberals about the morality of social issues is attempting to treat the symptoms, not the root cause. The root cause, which should worry each and every American, is the attack on civil liberties. And the best method to preserve liberty, is as this guy Woods says, through subsidiarity--which basically means that every issue should be addressed at the lowest level, and if it cannot be resolved, move up one notch to the next level...and the first most local level can in some cases, even be parents... to local, regional, state, federal. Which is the opposite of what has been happening lately....everything has been directly mandated by the federal government under the guise that they are really looking out for you. It's really about control.
When you support the kind of government that can unilaterally decide such relative issues as what is 'healthy', what a 'good' doctor is, what an 'efficient' car is, who should pay for who's care, what opinions are taught to your kids as fact, and who can marry, you are supporting tyranny.
Santorum has voted to waste so much tax $ on unnecessary tasks that should not be on the government's to do list.
I agree with the 'ground up' approach not top to bottom, to affect the change you want...which should be in the hearts and minds, not mandated and subsidized.
I can't even put it in better words than this guy Tom Woods. He is spot on. He is a true Catholic--stays true to his values, while getting past all the emtpy rhetoric, and straight to the heart...you don't have to be Catholic to understand what is right, what is fair, and what is best for all of us. You don't even have to call yourself conservative. More than anything, to me, Ron Paul's stances are humane.
After making that Spaghetti bread last month, I have wanted to make a Stromboli. I did today and they were delicious! Olivia and I ate a whole one today :) Lucas only liked the bread, and daddy loved it too when he got home from work.
I made the same bread recipe with the bread flour I had, and I let it rise for the full hour. I put thyme and olive oil on the outside. I separated it into 2 pieces and rolled them out flat to fill with:
-spinach
-mushrooms
-yellow squash
-low fat mozzarella cheese
-low fat cheddar
-thin sliced deli pepperoni
-thin sliced deli ham
and I decided to use pre-made Ragu pizza sauce this time because I didn't feel like making my own and didn't really need that much. I brushed it with light butter and put some parmesan cheese on top to bake for 35 minutes.
It was warm and juicy on the inside and crispy on the outside. I liked the thyme seasoning. I didn't fill it too much, and actually didn't use that much meat, but the pepperoni made it delicious. I think I'll look for turkey pepperoni next time to make it a little more healthy. Needless to say, it's all gone!
I used all the veggies I had in my fridge and they all meshed well with the sauce and meat. Gonna be making these regularly, and it's something easy for John to take to work and re-heat! Proud of myself...I'm not a very good cook, so anything that didn't come out of a box feels like a big deal to me--when it tastes good! :)
Yesterday they finished the floors! So happy to be done with walls and floors...now we can work on the little things :) I am so impatient, but I work hard to get things done quickly so I think that has helped speed up this time line of events. I devoted a lot of time to searching out the best products, prices, services, paint colors and appliances, and we negotiated better this time around, than last time we got a house/appliances in VA. It is very fulfilling to see this outdated and dirty house reach the potential we have envisioned since November. Every step we took, made it feel like it belonged to us more; it took a while to fully feel we could say, "yeah, lets move in and make this our home." But we are there!
The pictures aren't the most clear because there was a lot of sawdust and regular dust from removing the carpet and all the various work being done, so when I used the flash it showed all the little dust orbs, but without the flash it's a bit blurry... but you can see the huge difference. I wanted to clean the floors so badly yesterday but we don't have a swiffer sweeper thing yet. This thursday lowes should be delivering and installing all the appliances, so we will be going out there on wednesday evening after mass to stay the night, clean and bring some of the boxes I packed.
This is the hallway leading to master.. they were still installing the carpet:
Lucas did this dollar store puzzle all day!
While they installed the carpet, we installed these Faux wood 2" blinds from Lowes called 'Levelor' blinds. They can cut them to any width, but you have to adjust the length by removing slats. We didn't as most of them were close to the correct length. We put them up in the living room, kitchen, utility and most importantly in the master bath.
I forgot to get a picture of it but then we installed the new light fixture in the master bath, but it's not as secure as I'd like. The little decorative balls that only screw down a little bit, are all that's really holding the light up, and in addition to the unevenly installed power box, it's not as secure as I'd like. So we are going to buy 2 extra little hex nuts to secure it, and then screw the balls on top of them.
And the carpet:
left= under stairs closet.
right= master closet.
Carpet in the game room :)--must be comfortable--olivia fell asleep on it pretty quickly !
No more squeaky steps either!
And lastly, John installed this new Kohler toilet. They are never fun to install and I never feel very sure that the wax ring created the perfect seal, but I think we did it right and it looks nice. 2 more to go!
Just before leaving, we started replacing the door knobs with new brushed nickel knobs...we replaced 9 when our drill battery finally died. I really wanted to finish but it would take too long and cause carpal tunnel syndrome with a regular screwdriver lol. So we called it a night and went home. But all 4 of us actually wanted to stay...like we feel it's our home now. John works til wednesday night so thats when we'll be back with more stuff. I hope we can move all our stuff without needing any help, but I also don't want either of us to throw our backs out. That just means I have to disassemble more than I wanted to, but we don't actually have that much stuff so I'll start on that today. Will donate some toys and clothes too- that should help!
And here's a walk-through video with the new floors (had to stop in the beginning..flooring guy had me sign forms):
We went by the house today to finish installing the new ceiling fan and light in the game room. They have finished installing the vinyl floors in the kitchen, utility, and bathrooms, and I like it. They have put down cement to 'float' the uneven ground to create an even surface for tomorrow's laminate installation. Then friday they should be completing the new carpet and be done. In the meantime, we are trying to tie together loose ends for the transition, and prioritize the true "needs" and "wants" when it comes to what is required to actually move in.
After a disappointing tax return earlier today, and notification that our tenants in our rental will be deployed to Afghanistan in 2 months, it has further consolidated our 'needs' list lol. But I know everything we want will get done, just little by little...and more overtime for John :(
Some pictures from today:
The bare floors are even an improvement over the ugly blue huh?
Can't wait to see the dark laminate pull it all together.
This is the upstairs bathroom.Clean new floors! Clean new bath yay!
This is the downstairs half bath. This sink has stuff stuck to it so I will have to get some heavy duty cleaner and pumice stone to scrub it, but it could look nice.
This is the utility room. I think white appliances will look great in it.
Doesn't the flooring look good against the olivewood color?
This is the master. Going to order blinds for this window tomorrow...that's definitely a 'need' if I don't want the neighbors seeing me naked...which I don't FYI. Oh and I never said anything about the sink--we have no idea why one of the cabinet doors is bare...it's gonna suck trying to find the exact match of spray paint to match the others.
And we still don't like the blue in the potty room...probably will paint it some other leftover color.
This was not as easy as it seemed to install, but we like it and definitely needed a working fan up there. And now there is enough light in the room too. Can't wait to see carpets and then get the new modular couch.
Friday we intend to buy 3 new kohler toilets and install them. Another need :)
