Jump. Jump. Jump with Glee.

Today I am thankful for the gift my Cindy, the little Mommy, has given me, specifically these little people.

And today, the youngest, Evan, decided that he was big enough to roll over all by himself. 

For your Sunday entertainment, here are a couple videos of him jumping in his Jumperoo.

 

 

The Home Stretch

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. The downstairs is almost completely painted now and ready for the baseboard installs and touch up of the trim. You don’t realize how dirty the front door gets until you put a fresh coat of paint next to it.

Yesterday I decided I felt good enough to finally tackle the front room. Two walls were this dark Bungalow Gold. It looked fine with cream colored carpet, but when you put the dark hardwoods in there, it just felt like walking into a cave. Those ceilings have to be 15 feet high. Or at least 11. Anyway, it was depressing and felt like I was always walking into a cave. I still have my goal of turning this into a lovely sitting and reading area. It’s ready now and all it needs is furniture.

We went from this:

To this:

A better shot of the color.

And now, the light fixture that I absolutely hated doesn’t look so bad after all. (It does need a wash though.)

Doing this room was a lot of work and I don’t plan on ever painting it myself again. I had to prime over the dark color before putting up the pretty blue. This meant cutting in the ceiling twice, and up and down the ladder nine million times. (That better count for some Weight Watchers Activity Points!) I am stiff as a board today, but that’s okay. It’s all worth it because I’ll be able to sit in that room and relax, enjoying my labors. Once I get a sofa in there, that is.

That color, by the way, is Summer Sorbet (SR1011). One of the Seaside Retreat colors from Lowes. In some light it has a slight green tint to it, in other lights it’s very Tiffany blue-ish, and in the sunlight, it’s almost white. When it’s wet, it looked like mint green, but look how it turned out blue. Just what I was hoping for. It is really a few shades lighter than the color I put in my kitchen, so everything flows in this house. Finally.

The stairwell is primed and ready to be painted too. I will probably carry the same blue up the stairwell since it is bright and light. The finish is also semi-gloss so that lets the light bounce and reflect off of it, making the area appear even larger. In the stairway, I already tried the beige (Pony Tail - used in the family room) and a pumpkin color that we used in the bathroom, and those are just too dark. I’m afraid of too much blue, but I plan on breaking it up with picture frames or artwork up the stairwell wall and sheers over the huge picture window. I think since the color turns almost white in the sunlight, it will be fine in the stairwell. I don’t want to have to do this again!

My daughter has a dark purple couch I’m going to put in the front room, and then I’m scouring flea markets, Craigslist, and garage sales for end tables, a coffee table, and an old dresser - oh and a small writing desk. I literally have NO furniture for this room. I plan to paint the furniture either white or black, and the dresser - when I find the right one - will be an entry buffet. I would like to find one where I can take out a couple of the drawers and use wicker baskets instead. I think it will look fabulous.

After the stairwell is done, all that will be left is one wall in my sewing room and the upstairs hallway. (I’m ignoring the bathrooms and laundry room for now.) Then all the baseboards will be installed, the furniture moved back in (sparingly), and life will be semi-normal again. Then I can focus on fun stuff, like sewing window treatments. Woohooo!

Later this spring and early summer, my next big home improvement project is the backyard. Let’s just say it involves a LOT of concrete and outdoor porcelain tile.

Hairdressers are a girl’s best friend.

As are makeup artists.

Say what? You thought it was diamonds? Oh nooooo. Diamonds have absolutely no resale value. Trust me. I’ve been trying to hock my diamond wedding ring for nine years now and can’t even get a bite on 50% of the appraised value. Whatever. Future boyfriends pay attention: You can woo me better with a great visit to a salon or money for clothes and shoes. Not purses though.

Anyway…

Yesterday, my oldest daughter, Cindy and I had a girl’s afternoon out. Sort of a pre-Mother’s day, pre-My Birthday afternoon. Her husband babysat the boys, and she and I headed for Gene Juarez. I recently lamented about having a bad haircut from a local stylist on this blog post here. Since my roots were becoming borderline trashy and I was looking and feeling decidedly frumpy, and my daughter also felt the same, we decided it was time to take that upcoming income tax stimulus payment and treat ourselves.

And I’m so glad we did. We had a delightful afternoon. Although the entire time at the salon we couldn’t see each other because we were with different stylists, it sure was fun when we were done to see how our “makeover” turned out.

Here’s Cindy and me before taken in the car before we got out:

 

But wait…

Before you see our “after” pictures I have to tell you about Awkward Moment Number One. After we got done at the hair salon, we decided we would go to the Mac counter at Nordstroms and Cindy could get her makeup done. There’s nothing that can make a young woman who just had a baby feel better than pretty hair and all new makeup. So we wandered over there and as we turned the corner, guess who was standing at the makeup counter and looked right at me? Yup. Bad Local Salon Hairstylist. Uh, HI! I waved, and clearly she knew I’d had my hair done. Can we say awkward? The color is exquisite, the style fresh and young, and I was walking about three inches off the ground. Who wouldn’t figure it out? Apparently she was there with her friend, who was getting her makeup done. We overheard them mumbling at the cash register that “she was the Hair Master.” Uh, ya, I think not.

So, without further ado, here are the after pictures. Is my daughter not absolutely beautiful? Well, her husband certainly thinks so.

 

Six Things Meme

A little slow on the uptake here… The Girl from the Ghetto tagged me with this some time ago, and I think I’ve been tagged for a couple others, but I don’t remember now. If you tagged me, please remind me.

Here are the rules:

1. Link back to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post by posting links to their blog sites.
5. Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their site.
6. And let your tagger know when your entry is up.

So, here are six things about me.

1. I love lilacs almost as much as I love roses. Best yet are purple lilacs. I got this lilac bush for $5 at a nursery closing sale some three years ago or so. I planted it and then promptly forgot about it. It’s survived high winds, snow, whatever else, and finally, this year it’s blooming.

   

   I  love lilacs so much I wanted them at my wedding but we were married too late in May for them to still be in bloom. But my mom did make sure I had some at my bridal shower though.

2. May is my favorite, yet most un-favorite, month. My birthday is this month. I was also married both times in May. Both marriages sucked. The first turned out abusive, and the second guy was, and still is, a serial non-committer. I am only grateful for the first one because, in the words of Joan Harvest, he spawned my lovely daughters for me. Thankfully, they have none of his horrible traits. My second hubby has been married twice since me, making for a total of six marriages he’s not committed to. I have no idea if he’s married still. I really don’t care. But I like May for birthdays and mother’s day. Now I have a daughter who is a mother so I can spoil her. Although, why do we call it spoiling someone? Isn’t it really cherishing them and honoring them? Yup, I think so too.
3. I don’t get angry very easy and I have a hard time crying. That doesn’t mean I don’t feel, I just must have my emotion sensor turned onto low frequency. I think getting really mad is a waste of energy especially when I learned that often there’s nothing I can do to change the situation. If there is, I do what I can to make that change. I rarely cry because, well, I don’t know why. It sometimes comes unexpectedly and surprises me, like when I went to Grandparent’s day at my granddaughter’s kindergarten class. I cried when my dad died, but the next day, we were all sent to Disneyland, so therein stopped the deep crying. Maybe I was all cried out by that time anyway. How surreal was that? Grieving yet enjoying a rollercoaster ride? My dad would have wanted it that way.
4. I hate shopping for purses. I had to get one this week simply because my free tote bag that my mom gave me broke and looked really tacky anyway. I needed something that gave off a bit more of a professional or put-together air rather than carrying a wallet, keys, cell phone all in my hand.
   
   (Not what I really bought)

   It took me an hour to browse the cheap purses at Target, and when I finally picked one out, when I was almost ready to check out, I went back and changed my mind. I am happy with my final $24.99 purchase.

5. I’m secretly scared of being skinny. I’m secretly scared that men will find me attractive and I won’t know how to handle it. (Hell, there are a couple who are interested now, and I don’t know how to handle it.) I’m afraid that those men will be as judgmental and perfectionistic as the past men in my life and I will end up hurt again. But I’m going to be skinny anyway, and to hell with the judgmental dudes. I’ll keep my hopes alive that there are more nice guys available than jerks.
6. I hate sushi. I don’t get it. Seriously. And I will never try it. Ever. Normally, I’m very open minded, but in this area, I will let my Taurus stubbornness reign. I’ll eat just about any other ethnic cuisine and enjoy it, but I won’t do sushi. My favorite cuisine? I guess I’d say Italian, and that would figure too, right? Since it’s usually high in calories, cheeses, carbs, everything else that I shouldn’t be having on my goal to being skinny.

So, there you have it. I am not going to tag people because I think all my favorite people have already been tagged.

(Also, I’m a rule breaker - so that’s #7 - cuz I just broke one of the meme’s rules. I break rules when they don’t make any sense to me. I dislike rules just for the sake of having rules. Right, that doesn’t fit here, because there’s a reason there is that rule, but still… you get my drift. I hope. )

If you want to do this, just let me know, and I’ll tag you if you want, or just let know so I can read your interesting stuff. Or, I’ll probably already know, since I probably already subscribe to your blog via RSS.

Grandparents Day

Yesterday I attended a Grandparents Day event at my granddaughter’s school. Since Elise is in Kindergarten, this is the first opportunity I’ve had to attend something like this. It was very, very special for me.

My daughter dropped me off at Elise’s school and there were older kids there handing out carnations to the grandparents. We then went into their little cafeteria where there were tables set up with baskets of crayons, sorted by color, and paper and cutouts and glue sticks - everything for a cute art project. Teams of older kids came by with large trays of cookies (I passed, thank you Weight Watchers) and there was also Starbucks coffee or juice. I chose coffee.

Then Elise and her class comes in and Elise comes up to me, hands me a little card she’d made, and gives me a huge hug. And she keeps hugging and clings to me as if to never let go. I swear, I almost started crying right there. This is a girl who I thought had no more time or interest in me and here she was tickled and delighted that I was there for her.

We then proceeded to do our little art project and the design was all Elise’s idea. She wanted a field of flowers. I think this is really special too because she and I have had some very sweet times together planting flowers in my yard or my containers. And I learned something new: Elise’s favorite flowers are tulips and roses.

After our art project, we got to go to her classroom and she showed me around. Her favorite part was the pretend “store” where there was even a toy cash register with a credit card slot for payment! Oh my, oh my. Then we had fun playing with building blocks while I waited for Cindy to pick me back up and it was time to go.

I had a wonderful time, and the whole event will stay in my memory for ever. And I’m framing that picture to put on my office wall.

(Oh, and when my kids were in school, I was always the very youngest parent and I often felt out of place. Now I am the very youngest grandparent, and the older grandparents were looking at me like, your her mom, right? Uh, nope. <BIG ASS GRIN> I love it.)

Pure Unbridled Delight

Today, I was at my daughter’s and we thought Cayden went out into the back yard. Cindy went to investigate and we saw him sitting on the ramp outside the front door. He’d turned on the water hose and was watering everything in sight. I snuck out the front door and captured him on video.

And now you know why I can’t get enough of these kids.

My Office Space Visitors

 

These office visitors are always welcome.

Mama, what’s that shiny thing with all the buttons?

Finishing decorating touches a la Cayden.

It’s the little moments that count

Joy in my life consists of little moments that I experience and the feeling I get from them. These moments can be fleeting - a look, a glance, a quick exchange - or they can be short visits with loved ones and family, or long spells of time spent living with others. These are the moments that make me smile and feel blessed, even when I’m all alone.

The last few days, I’ve done way too much and my body told me so last night, but I’ve loved every minute of it, because of moments like these:

• Walking up to my daughter’s family and seeing my grandson, Cayden, recognize me when he isn’t expecting me. He calls out, “Mama, there’s Damma!” and he looks back at me and runs up to me with arms outstretched, unsolicited.
• How my grandson, Evan, lays his head on my shoulder when I’m holding him.
• How my granddaughter, Elise, gets excited playing silly games with me.
• Hearing my cat purr as she lays across my arm and I distractedly pet her instead of my usual pushing her off because her kneading claws are so sharp.
• The quick look that Cayden gives me when people start singing him Happy Birthday that shows his recognition and excitement about what’s going on, as if to say, Damma, these people are singing for me!
• Spending time with my daughter, Cindy, and helping with the kids while she pursues her new found passion of baking.
• Hanging with my daughter, Stacy, and enjoying the Chihuahuas. (If it wasn’t for her, I’d not even have Lily.)
• Watching a little family grow and witnessing a father’s love for his sons and daughter.

Unleashed and Unwound

Today was a busy day. Today we got up early because we had to take all three dogs to compete in Petco’s Fastest Chihuahua in America race. We didn’t win any prizes, but we sure had a great time. After that, we raced (no pun intended) over to Chuck E. Cheese’s for Cayden’s birthday party. The weather was also absolutely gorgeous all day today, and now I’m sitting listening to lawn mowers, kids playing, and birds chirping. And trying to just rest and unwind all the way without freezing up completely. I ended up being on my feet from about 9:30 to 11:30, which, for me, is a very long time.

Oh, and I almost forgot… we got interviewed by the Seattle Times on video, so I’ll have to check in a couple days to see if we made the cut.

So, you asked for pictures, here you go. (I think you can click the pictures for a larger view.)

This lady was one of the first we bumped into when we got there. Poor doggy - that’s a boy. Does he look annoyed, or what? Not only is there a wig, but he’s got pantaloons on. Poor confused little doggy. Or is it the owner who is confused?

Trixie making friends. Trixie loved everyone and was so cute doing her commando crawl to scoot up to the cute puppies she wanted to befriend.

Some people dogs wear the weirdest things in public.

Stella from A Life with Buck and my Lily are so much cuter than these two.

The sun was out so even the dogs sported shades.

A couple random shots of the crowd so you can see just how many dogs and people there were there.

Lily and Daisy take it easy in the comfort of their pink Outdoor Hound stroller.

This boy was so cute riding around on his unicycle. That’s supposed to be a chihuahua he’s got there, but it’s a mighty big one. He even admitted the dog was almost too big to get through the race chutes.

Stacy and Trixie, and Stacy and Lily.

Trixie investigating this pretty girl’s fashionable attire and where she shops.

The starting gate and finish line. I think the distance they run is a mere 28 yards or something.

 

On your bark, get set, go. (Okay, I stole that line from the announcer. But it was cute.)

Owners waiting at the finish line, enticing their pups to run to them.

A Petco helper with Trixie so I could take pictures and watch Lily and Daisy. I tried to take a movie, but my camera malfunctioned and I got only five seconds of video.

Lily heading down the race track (sorry for the butt shot) and Lily and Daisy at the finish line. (I couldn’t take more pictures other than this of them because they combined both their heats so they both went at the same time.)

So, there you have it. A day at the races, a dog-day afternoon morning, now we’re all dog tired… Okay, you add to the puns. I dare you. I double dog dare you.

Betty, Uh, Cindy and the Tow-Mater

Check out her cake she did for Cayden. Oh my gosh. She’s good! Of course, pure brilliance doesn’t fall far from the tree, and I certainly do NOT mean her father. I always knew she was creative.

(Oh, and to Debbie - I’ll tell Cindy about that Food Network show. I’ve not seen it as watching too much Food Network makes me gain pounds. If you know what I mean…LOL)