Confessions for Friday

So it's only the best day of the week.  That's right it's Friday.  And even better this is a long weekend!  We are ducking out of work early to go get the rest of our kitchen cabinets and backsplash and stuff.  I'm not excited at all. Nope not me.

• Is it wrong that I'm looking forward to cleaning up the kitchen, once I have a kitchen again?
• I'm sad the summer is slmost gone, but really looking forward to the fun of fall.
• Halloween is only two months away.
• As I've been reminded by Bruiser, who wants to be a blue Ninja.
• Turbo had been getting his teenager on the last few days.
• He's a bit early, but he's been doing a really good imitation of a sullen teen when he doesn't get his way.
• We are in so much trouble.
• Someone else is doing the cooking and dishes tonight.
• After a week of making do without a sink when making a dinner, I'm over it.
• Dinner at a restaurant, yes please.
• It's tough dropping Bruiser off at the babysitter.
• He's going through a phase where he cries and lays on the guilt.
• I know he's fine after we leave and he has fun there, but still...
• He will get over it, eventually.

Short and sweet this week.  I really can't think of much else, but come back on Tuesday.  There will be pictures of Kitchen loveliness.
For now go see Mamarazzi and link up your own confessions.

Spin Cycle--What We did for the Summer

The Spin Cycle this week, in honor of all the kids heading back to school and the unofficial end of summer with Labor Day, is what you did on your summer vacation.  I'm modifying it a bit and showing through pictures what our summer has been.

Camping for Memorial Day--we survived the winds.

Lunches in the back yard.

Enjoying the back deck.

Camping for Nick's birthday.

Putting in a new kitchen floor

Watching the fire fighting helicopters take off.

Nick's 20 year High school reunion

Getting soaked/cooling off at the parade.

Breakfast with friends on the deck.

Fair fun.

Ride 'em at the fair

Hanging in the park

Riding bikes

Lots of cooking out on the grill.

Lake Vacation

Ahhh, toes in the sand.

And finally, going from this...

to this (so far). (check back next week for the finished project)

We had a very full summer.  No wonder it flashed by so fast.  What did you do this summer?  Spin it up and join in on the Spin Cycle with Gretchen.

WWTK--Would you rather...

 I missed the first round of Would you rather for We Want to Know.  Vacation will do that for you.  The lovely Mamarazzi had so much fun the first time around she decided to do it again.  So here goes:


{1} WYR...Never be able to look in the mirror again or always get dressed in total darkness?  Since I usually get dressed in the dark--or almost, I could go with that one.  You can always look later and fix it then.
{2} WYR...Receive $50 a day for the rest of your life or $50,000 right here and now?  I worked it out on a calculator and you get more if you take the $50 a day.  I'd chose that.
{3} WYR...Have extreme narcolepsy or have a bad case of tourette's?  Tough choice, but maybe the tourette's.  Nervous tics and a tendency to say the wrong thing at the wrong time are something I already have, just not that bad.
{4} WYR...Be able to rewind 24 hrs 3 times a year or consciously control your dreams?  I'd love to get to go back to the really good days and relive them. 
{5} WYR...Be fluent in every language around the world or be the best in the world in a category of your choosing?  Being fluent in all languages opens easier world travel so I think that one would be cool.

What would you rather do?  Link it up with Mamarazzi and Crazymama and check out what everyone would rather do.

Random Tuesday Thinking

Tuesday is looking fine.  It's not Monday, so that makes it better all around.  It also means it's time for random thoughts.  Here we go:

• Potty training sucks.  We have peeing down pretty good, but the pooping, well that's a whole nother thing.  In that he won't poop on the potty.  One of these days I'll get to hear, "Come wipe my butt"  Now that's music to my ears.  Yes, I am a deluded mommy.
• Taking out lathe and plaster is a horrible dirty job.  Our kitchen wall is back to studs.  All the dirt, coal dust, and 85 year old plaster is out of the house.  Nick did a fantastic job keeping the mess contained and doing all the dirty stuff.

The wall after the removal of the lathe and plaster.

• The new sink got here today.  It's huge.  Doesn't take much to thrill me, just a deep, shiny, stainless steel sink.  With a sexy tall faucet, and a soap dispenser.  Sigh.  Doing the dishes will be fun (for the first few days).
• Network TV is still not my first pick but it makes for a diverting evening when there's nothing else really on.  Monday night TV stinks.
• Truly, the bed becomes most comfortable just before you have to get up.
• I'm really liking the handiness of the smart phone camera.  It's way easier to get photos for the ol' blog from it than the regular camera.  I'd still like to have a digital SLR one day--but that might have to be when boys are older and I have more time and less worry about little hands messing it up.

So what's your random for Tuesday?  Post and link up with Stacy.

Also you can link any old thing up with Shawn and Impulsive for Talk To Us Tuesday.

School shopping and DIY

So this last weekend went by just a bit too fast.  Well, parts of it did.  Other parts were a bit longer.
Friday night Turbo had a friend over for a sleep over.  Bruiser pitched a fit about going to bed.  I got the grocery shopping done.  Busy night really.
Saturday morning I loaded up the boys and all the keep them occupied in the car stuff and picked up my mom and we headed to the bigger city for school shopping.  There are way better thrift stores there.  We managed to get all the clothes Turbo needed for less than $75.  Gotta love secondhand and 50% off sales for back to school.  Then we headed to Target for shoes and the school supplies Turbo needed.  We get to take everything to school this week during the open house/meet the teacher/drop off all the stuff the kids need on Thursday.
When we got home on Saturday, I started laundry.   The piles were beginning to try to take over certain rooms so it was time. (Also, the laundry fairy has yet to show up and do her thing.)   We sort of coasted through dinner, Bruiser had chicken strips, Turbo had a fried egg sandwich, I had a peanut butter sandwich.  I'm not sure Nick had anything.  Nick had friends over and they hung out and talked.  I had words with Bruiser about bedtime again.  Well I had words, Bruiser screamed.  He missed his nap and kept insisting that he wasn't tired.  Sure kid.  Mom always wins and the kid was out cold by 8:00pm.
Sunday morning Nick cooked biscuits and gravy.  We enjoyed the last meal where we could do dishes and then I started clearing kitchen cabinets out.  After they were empty, Nick started demolishing them.  We are finally redoing the sink side of the kitchen with a new sink, cabinets to match the rest of the kitchen, and a back splash.  The drains will work, I get a pantry cabinet, and we went through a lot of dished that were just sitting in the cabinet and gathering dust--lots of dust.

What we started with...

...what it looked like with all the stuff and cabinets gone.

Look, no kitchen sink.

So, over all, we did do a lot this weekend.  Lots more is planned for next weekend.  We are putting in the cabinets then, after all the preliminary work is done--rewiring, plumbing, insulation, drywall, and flooring. I'm sooo glad Nick is handy.  Makes DIY so much easier.
So what did you do this weekend?

I have so much to confess...

...it's been a while since my last confession.  So much has happened.
We did a lot of this stuff:

Donuts on the beach

Dad kayaking

Toes in the sand

Bruiser as captain of his own paddle board

Tubing fun

Turbo up on his third try.

Sand fun.

Excellent boat captains

Summer water fun

I confess I didn't really want to come home.
I confess we are going to finish the kitchen in the next couple of weeks.  We did the cabinets in half of it 7 years ago.  We did the floors earlier this summer and Nick has the home improvement bug so we are going to finish off the remaining side that needs to be done so it all matches.
I confess this makes me rather excited.  A modern looking kitchen without 1920's cabinets?  Sign me up!
I confess I saw an add for low fat chocolate.  I think they shouldn't mess with chocolate.  Chocolate is not supposed to be healthy.  It's supposed to taste so good it makes you feel slightly guilty.

What are you confessing?  Link it up with Mamarazzi and check out the other confessors.

Spin Cycle--Work, Work, Work

The spin cycle this week is all about work.  I don't tend to talk about my job here too much.  I try to keep it separate.  However that's not the only work I do.  I am a mom after all.  The work that comes with being a wife and mother is, at times, thankless and never ending.
Running a house is repetitive to say the least.  No sooner do I get the dishes done, the bathroom clean, the laundry done than I get to start all over again. The laundry piles grow, the dishes get dirty again, boys use the bathroom, the floor needs vacuuming again.  I do take satisfaction is a job well done--I just wish it lasted a bit longer.
There are some rewards to doing the work around the house.  Every now and then Nick does express his appreciation--it's all the nicer when he does it unprompted.  Really it's the simple things that keep a house running smoothly.  I'm not the most organized but I do have a system.
I never understood why I had to keep my room cleaned, do dishes, vacuum and do other chores when I was growing up.  At least not until I had first a dorm room, then an apartment, and finally a house to keep clean.  Keeping a room clean is so much easier.  I finally understand the logic behind my mom's harping about doing dishes, cleaning my room and learning how to do laundry.
These are things I will be teaching my boys.  Turbo is already cleaning his room.  Bruiser has been working on picking up his clothes.  Turbo has helped sort laundry.  As soon as he can be relied on to clean the dishes, Turbo will be doing that too.  He has done it a few times but he still needs a stool to reach.  It won't be long though. 
And really isn't that the most important work you can do?  Teach your kids how to live a healthy, clean life?  I won't send my boys out without them knowing the mechanics of doing laundry, washing dishes, cleaning a room, vacuuming, dusting (although I don't do this one all that much), cleaning a bathroom, all the things you need to know to keep a house.  They will impress girls all the more with this knowledge and won't have to rely on someone else to do it.  Sometimes there is no one else to do it.  Sometimes splitting the work is easier and you have to know how to do the work to be able to split the work.  Nick and I split the work now--he takes care of the outside stuff and I take care of the inside stuff, mostly.
So what's your take on work?  Spin it up and link up with Gretchen.

WWTK--Take Two Aleve and Call Me Later

Time for We Want to Know Wednesday.  Crazymama is asking the questions--after a rough patch for her she wants to know:
1. If you are sick in bed how do you entertain yourself? TV, books, sleep?  I tend to watch TV until I get tired enough to sleep.  Home improvement shows are comfort watching for me.  Have been since my hospital stay due to the kidney stones from hell.
2. Do you share your medical drama with the world or keep it to yourself?  It depends on the medical drama--if it's major enough I'll share--re. the kidney stones from hell.  If it's minor--a cold or aches and pains, I play it down some.  I do share the fact that I have a migraine with the fam.  They deserve to know why mom is a cranky bear.
3. Do you pray, send healing thoughts and hugs or good vibes to friends when they are ill or sad?  I lean more toward the good vibes and good thoughts.  Not so much with the praying anymore.
4. If someone offers to bring in dinner to you or your family, do you let them?  When I had Bruiser the neighbor lady (who has since gone off the deep end) brought us a few dinners, but the offer doesn't happen that often--although Nick's parents did grocery shop for us during the kidney stones from hell episode.
5. If you could ask for any meal or treat when you were sick/sad/healing, what would it be? Depends on the sickness.  Mostly I am not hungry when I'm sick--saltines and seven up.  Not a huge fan of soup so I shy away from chicken noodle soup.  I really go for what ever sounds appealing and that varies.

So what do you do when you don't feel good?  Answer the questions and link up with Mamarazzi and Crazymama.

Random Tuesday TIme

After a week away from all things plugged in, well mostly, I can honestly say the break was worth it.  I'm ready to plunge back in though.  So let's get at the random:

• The cabin/lake house we stayed at had no internet, only intermittent phone connection and got only two channels on the TV.  We could occasionally check Facebook, but I couldn't post anything to it. Since we only had two channels we were stuck watching what was available.  We kinda got hooked on America's got talent.  We got to watch the You Tube show. Some of the acts were alright, a couple were quite goods and the rest were strange.  The air guitar guy?  I didn't know air guitar was a  talent.  I still don't think it was a talent.
• I'm still shaking sand out of bags and shoes.  Sometimes sand can be a little too convenient.
• The temperature outside was a chilly 42 degrees this morning.  Fall is definitely on it's way.  It will get warm today, but we had a cool start.
• We are going to get Turbo hermit crabs.  He held up his part of the deal and since I don't want a lizard in the house, we are settling for hermit crabs.  The kid is ridiculously excited by this prospect.  We shall see how it goes.  If he can keep them alive for a while I'll call it a win.
• Tomorrow is my birthday.  Using my mom's math (counting backwards from 29) I'm turning 19 tomorrow.  Woo Hoo--I've hit my teens again!
• My kindle was wonderful for vacation.  When I finished one book, I could move on to another one and I didn't have to carry five or six books with me or resort to desperation reading and read what ever was available.  The safety brochures will only provide a certain amount of distraction.
• There are some really weird commercials out there any more.  Advertisers are really scraping the bottom of the barrel for ideas.
• And finally one for the raod--where I'd rather be:

Feet on the beach of Grand Traverse Bay.

 So what's your random?  Go link it up with Stacy.

And join up with Shawn and Impulsive for Talk to Us Tuesday.

And I'm Back

Hey, how are you all.  We are wonderful.  Well, the vacation is over, but we had a fabulous time.
Taking the train was the perfect way to get where we were going and relatively painless.
We headed to Torch Lake in northern Michigan--not the upper peninsula, but just east of Grand Traverse Bay.  Nick had a friend who let us use the family cabin (really a lake house) for the week.  The house st not 50 feet from the water, with a lawn and a sandy beach.  The water was warmish--perfect for swimming in, the sand bar out from the beach meant we could walk out 75 yards from teh beach before it got to the depth Nick and I had to swim.  They had kayaks, paddle boards, a boat we could ski behind or just take for a spin, and countless sand toys for the boys to play with.

There will be more photos, but I need to get them off the camera.
We all had a fabulous time and now it's time to get back in the groove.  School shopping, Labor Day and then Turbo heads back to school.  Fall will be upon us before we know it.  It's been a wonderful summer, but I'm looking forward to the fall.
How was your week and weekend?  Fun filled, or ho hum?  Either way, I'd like to hear about it.

Friday Confessions

Thank goodness it's finally Friday.  This week took forever and at the same time whizzed by. Work was agonizingly slow, but the evenings were busy so they flew by.  And now it's Friday!  On to the confessions:

• We leave tonight.
• We are getting on a train with two small boys and heading east.
• Kinda excited about it. 
• It's got to be better than driving would be.
• And hopefully it's less hassle than flying.
• Then it's lake shore living for a few days.
• Relaxation here we come.
• A real vacation.
• It's been 4 years since our last vacation.
• We're due.
• My run this morning felt almost good.
• This is probably a good thing.
• I'm going to go with it.
• I'm taking next week off running.
• It's vacation after all.
• I just can't go nuts with the eating.
• Sadly, vacation calories still end up on my hips.
• I won't be around much next week.
• I have no idea what kind of connection to the interwebs there is where we are going.
• Not really great with the phone typing either.
• So see you all when we get back.

So what are your weekend plans?  Confess them and link up with Mamarazzi. 

Spin Cycle--Family

So Gretchen assigned the topic of Family.  That can be a broad subject or a very narrow one.  Family ties, family outings, family holidays, family anything really.  So here goes my take on family.
I know recently I have complained and gritched about my family--my mom and Nick's dad.  I love them, but they are masters at driving Nick and I nuts.  I appreciate everything they've done for us, but there are days when I wish they lived 1000 miles away, not just down the street.  But then doesn't everyone feel that way about their parents?

These guys right here, best family ever.

Love the family time we get together.

 One day I'm sure Turbo and Bruiser will feel the same about us.  Nick and I are just hoping we can give them a good foundation and example of how a family should be.  After all, you can choose your friends, but you're stuck with your family. 
Family is important to Nick and I, but we have pretty small families.  He has one brother as do I.  We don't see them all that often, so we made the conscious decision that family would have to be what we made it.  We have several friends that have become aunts and uncles to our kids, we are the same for their kids.  We are a bit spread out these days as most of these friendships were made in college, but not so far spread that we can't get together every few months.
Family is what you make of it.  Some people have large related families, others get to make family out of friends.
What's your family like?
Go see Gretchen for more Family Spins.