Cutie Patootie

Just a quick little post to show off my cute kid:

Haven't cropped or touched it up yet. Not exactly sure what my stepmom put on her head but I just love her little expression!

I actually have some crafty projects underway so hopefully I get the show on the road and post them in a couple of days.

Funny Little Father's Day Lunch

"Happy birthday FARTER's day!" is how Little Miss M greeted my dad ("Papa Gene") yesterday at lunch. Also, it should be noted that she has taken to wearing her "hair" most of the time these days. "Hair" used to involve a long red sweater but has, in recent months, switched to a yellow floral jacket and most recently a pink and silver scarf. Wrapped around her head and tied at the back. I'll try to take a picture in the next day or two. My dad started calling her Gypsy Rose because of it. Anyway...the US Open was on a big screen and they did some blurb about Tiger and M thought it was funny that his name was Tiger. Thought Papa Gene was teasing her. So he said, "Well actually his name is Eldridge (or whatever it really is) but they call him Tiger. Like a nickname. Like your name is Marilyn but we call you...what?" And out of nowhere she says, "Troll?"

Troll?! I think I'm going to start calling her that. Man, that kid can get me going. On the way home I was worried about her having to go to the bathroom so we reworded the Beastie Boys' "No Sleep Till Brooklyn" to "No Pee Till Pamma's!" It was a random two hours to say the least.

And if you ever find yourself in Bixby looking for a place to eat, I highly recommend Savastano's. Excellent pizza. Better than Hideaway. Maybe even better than Joe Mama's. Maybe it's a chain and they're all over the place, I don't know. But it was good. So, so good.

Totally Floored

Yesterday morning while tinkling on the potty I took a good, long look at the floor. The ugly blue and white vinyl peel and stick tiles were starting to come up in places due to Little Miss Thang splish splashing in the tub. So I did what I always do at the cusp of a home improvement project: I jumped right in without knowing what would come next.

Had I known that what would come next involved scraped knuckles, bruised kneecaps, swollen palms, blistered fingers, and a Barbie bandaid where I jabbed myself with a utility knife, I might have decided to tuck that single stray tile back into place. But I didn't. So this is what my bathroom floor looked like before I went to bed last night:

It looks much better than I had anticipated underneath. There is one small divot in the concrete near the door. The adhesive was still pretty sticky in some areas but I was able to scrape it up pretty easily. Except for a good cleaning to remove the nasty smell (I think it's just the standing water that had been sitting underneath some of the tiles that had pulled up over time), over all I don't think there's going to be too much prepping before moving on to stage 2:

via desire to inspire

High gloss floor paint! I've been considering pulling up all the flooring in my house and slapping on a coat or two of paint since I bought the place last summer. So this is going to be the trial run.

But, really, who am I kidding? We all know that this is going to be what my floor will look like for a good, long while:

I think the floor mat makes all the difference, no?!

Weekend Revisited

Little Miss M finished up with swim lessons on Friday. She was really pretty good!

Got bored Friday night and decided to cut my bangs. No going back, at least not for a few more months. Ran down to Texas on Saturday with a few girlfriends to celebrate Carrie's grad school graduation. Bought an fantastic vintage tote bag, paid $17 for a hamburger, and trekked back home by 1 AM. Awesome!

Made it to Sunday School before heading out to T-Town.

Caught up with Amy and Katie both last night and at lunch today. 5 kids + lunch buffet = en.ter.tain.ment!

Ran by one of my favorite thrift stores after lunch and scored this beauty for $25:

Made the drive home in the torrential downpour and wondered how children can sleep for hours at a time in positions like this:

Entre Vous, Si Vous Plait

Geez, I need to have people over more often. Yes, it involves some cleaning but it is also motivation to knock out an item or two off my to-do list around the house. Take, for example, my entry hall. It has been sitting unadorned for the past nine ten months. Unless, of course, you count months of junk mail and boxes of random stuff I move out of my car when it gets too full. Anyway, the night before having company over, I finally hung my collection of vintage mirrors near the front door. And I also hung the decorative hooks my Aunt Kim gave me several years ago.

I've been wanting to paint my front door since the day I moved in, and it finally happened today! I tore a page out of a magazine a year or so ago with tons of ideas for front doors. I was attracted to a Benjamin Moore color called Venezuelan Sea so I sent my mom for search around T-town for a swatch. It's a really pretty blue green. A little more on the green side than blue. I've been to all the local haunts looking for something close...Caribbean Splash, Bermuda, Bluefin, Peacock Plume, Astral Journey, Endless Galaxy, etc. And then a few months back I bought that pot to coil my hose up in that was flecked with all sorts of blues and greens. I finally just decided to take Venezuelan Sea into the store to have it matched but, wouldn't you know, the machine was broken. So I picked up a random paint chip called (get this) Basic Teal, crossed my fingers, and held my breath.

Before:

Here goes nothing!

Voila! It's a bit more vibrant than I was expecting but it's a nice pop of color for the otherwise dark covered entry. An added bonus is that it happens to be the best match for that pot! Perhaps I should have taken a photo that included the pot. Hmm.

My one concern now is how similar it is to my gal pal Val's front door color. It wasn't my intention to copy her but if someone were to accuse me of trying to steal her style, I wouldn't take offense (although Valerie might!). I mean, have you seen her and/or her house?! To. Die. For.

35

I can't believe that I'm 35 years old today. None of my other birthdays have hit me quite like this one. I mean, 35 is practically 40. And 40 just sounds old. But I have plenty of friends in their 40s and beyond and I wouldn't ever consider them to be old. I think the thing that is really starting to hit me is that I'm not really where I had hoped/expected to be at this (dare I say it?) middle-aged stage of my life. Like so many women, I just assumed I'd meet Mr. Right a few years out of college and start a family soon after. But it hasn't quite worked out that way for me.

Don't get me wrong, I'm okay with where I am now. It's just different than what I had pictured so many years ago. I have an awesome family and great friends and I'm enjoying my fairly new job. I have a house, furbabies, and even a child on the way. Now don't go jumping to conclusions, folks! For those of you who may not be aware of the situation, I am in the middle of the adoption process so that my precious foster daughter can drop "foster" from her title. It's so crazy that things have played out the way they have. Never would I have imagined I would be a single adoptive mother. Who will be 49 years old at her daughter's high school graduation. Yikes!

I stopped trying to figure out when and how things would unfold in my life a long time ago and decided to just roll with it and enjoy the ride. So for the past few years, on my birthday I sit and wonder what's in store for me in the coming year. Travel? True love? Fortune? Intrigue? I know one thing, it's sure going to be hard to beat a surprise kid!

Freedom!

Today was my last day of work and tomorrow, therefore, is the first day of summer. Giddy up! I don't have summer plans as of yet which is kind of nice. But I'll get bored. And then I'll shop. So here is the part where I come up with my Summer To-Do list and hope that I actually cross some of it off by the time school rolls around again.

1. Paint ALL the walls in the house white
2. Paint ALL the trim white
3. Paint ALL the doors black
4. Wallpaper my bathroom(s)
5. Paint the front door a glossy teal, turquoise, something or other (6.9.10)
6. Paint the kitchen cabinetry black
7. Pull up the peel and stick tiles in both (6.16.10) one bathroom(s) and paint the concrete slab.
8. Swap M's room and the office/craft room (7.27.10?)
9. Spray the kitchen chairs a glossy white
10. Learn how to use my DSLR camera (9.25.10 - SnapShop!)
11. Have a garage sale (yay, Kara!) (7.24.10)
12. Find a sturdy old dresser for M (6.14.10) and paint it out in a fun color
13. Sew something (anything!) (7.27.10 - OBU beanies!)
14. Paint something to hang in my bedroom
15. Hang all the light fixtures sitting around in boxes (the count is at four now)
16. Reduce the clutter (tips welcomed!)
17. Hang with friends from far away (Amy! (6.13 and 6.14 and 6.18) Kristin! (7.6 and 7.7) Jen!)
18. Plant those elephant ear bulbs...is it too late???
19. Exercise regularly (yes, it is last on my list. Of course!)