All my various projects, now in one handy place!

I thought I’d throw together all of my “before and after” shots of the furniture I’ve done so far.  I don’t normally think of myself as “crafty”, but it turns out I love the Anthropologie look but I sure as hell can’t afford it.  Plus there is a certain thrill in discovering some FANTASTIC couch or chair at somewhere like Goodwill.

I have one more loveseat I’m working on, but unfortunately this HAS to be my last project.  As Pool Boy pointed out, “there’s a finite amount of space in our house.”

Also, emberassingly, I titled these pics (“bf1”, “bf2”, etc) which in my mind stood for “before/after”.  I’ve only just realized “after” doesn’t start with an F.  Well done, Sarah.

Nothing in these pics cost more than $100 originally, and the desk pictured was actually drunkenly pulled from a dumpster one night.  SCORE!

The centerpiece on the left (of the “before and after” picture) is one from Anthropologie that retails for $800.  The one on the right was put together from white glass bits found at Goodwill purchased for roughly $20 total and then glued together.

Dono’s first school project. Kind of. I mean seriously… he’s 1.

It started with this:

A blank poster board with a note from Donovan’s “teachers” asking us to fill it up with pictures and memories for Donovan.

A simple request, no?  But not to me!  I see this and think “OMG!  A take home art project for Donovan’s “school”!  It’s just like you see on TV!  It’s the kind of thing teachers give REAL moms to do!  This is AWESOME!!!  I will decorate the SHIT out of this poster board!!”   And so it began.

My only regret is that I didn’t find a way to incorporate the glittery puff-paint.

And there’s the end result.  A glittery, bejejeweled monstrosity masterpiece for a 1 1/2 yr old who is most definitely too young to ever remember this project.  A child who only recently stopped treating the cat box as his own personal cookie jar.  A child who occasionally (for some unknown reason) refers to me as Mike.

Being a relatively-new mom, I feel like I’m still figuring out what kind of mom I am.  It looks like the early read is “bat-shit crazy”.  I hope I can reign it in before I’m asked to help with REAL school projects.

New hat!

My inlaws just got back from Alaska and they told me they had brought me a present.  I was so excited when I saw my new hat!  It’s perfect!  Just my taste.  Then they told me the hat was actually Donovan’s.  Very sad and slightly embarassing.

Diet & Exercise – you’re doing it wrong.

So far, The Great Diet of 2011 is going well!  I’m finding it easy to stick to and you could even say I’m enjoying it.

In an effort to mix some activity in to the mix (some crazy extremists suggest diet AND exercise leads to weight loss…. weird, eh??) I bought a little red wagon last night so we could take family walks.  He happily rode in the wagon for maybe 500 feet and then insisted on getting out and pulling it himself.

I think next time we’ll put some toys or something in the wagon so it looks a little less ridiculous.  I can’t help but think this wasn’t exactly $100 well spent.

My Pride: It is Bruised,

Today I joined Weight Watchers.  No, really.

I tried Atkins, which once worked for me, but I get SO bitter over the huge list of foods that are “forbidden”.

I tried eating as little as humanly possible, which once worked for me, but by the end of the day I was so run down and cranky… I didn’t feel it was fair to Dono and Pool Boy.  (or me, probably)

To be honest, I’m not sure why I was so resistant to the idea of WW.  I have several fabulous, glamorous friends who love it and have had great results.  Still, I don’t picture them when I hear “weight watchers”.  I picture these two:

I feel like my subscription should come with a fanny pack, a minivan and maybe some Kotex in case I pee a little when I sneeze.

A hefty dose of Dono-Drama

Last night, as I was upstairs with Donovan, he rammed the baby gate with his fire-truck-thingy and managed to knock down the gate and go tumbling halfway down the stairs.  TOTAL PANIC for both of us.  I later found the book I had been carrying flung halfway across the living room where I must have thrown it in a fit of melodrama when it all happened.

I ran downstairs and scooped up my wailing, clumsy, toddler and quickly realized he was fine, just spooked.  David, who had heard me shout “OH MY GOD!!!” when it happened had joined me on the stairs asking “are you ok????” repeatedly.  Just as everyone was starting to calm down and realize we had averted disaster, Donovan points to the top of the stairs where his fire truck is rammed through the demolished baby gate and says “OH NO!!” as if to say “look!  Some ass hole tore up the gate and my favorite toy!!”  Yeah, that would be you, turd-o-potamus.

At least that kid is always good for some comic relief.

“I will wreck your shit with my happy little cartooney firetruck.”

For my first post: a sampling of the hilarity I work with every day.

The Cautionary Tale of Jay the Intern:

This morning, our company owner and a few of the presidents (everyone’s a president of something around here) hopped on the private jet to go pick up one of our major customers and bring him down for a visit.

The owner called ahead to one of our interns and asked him to pick up some breakfast tacos from a local gas station (because that’s how he rolls).  Intern was SUPER STOKED to be able to do something for the head honchos!

He hops in his fancy ‘my-parents-are-rich’-mobile and takes off like a bat out of hell.  Gets to the Get-It-Kwick, picks up his big bag o’ tacos and heads to the local private airport where he can just drive up on the tarmac and deliver the tacos like the breakfast-bearing hero that he is.

He decides to take the dirt-road shortcut to shave off a few minutes… and that, my friends, was his undoing.  You see dirt roads are tricky if you’re not used to driving on them.  Sudden sharp turns at a high rate of speed are a very bad idea.  Unfortunately Home Boy ended up totaling his car.  Fortunately he was unhurt!!

But he was SO CLOSE!  So close he could see the airport and the jet sitting on the runway.  He thinks to himself “If I run, I can make it!”  So he valiantly grabs his bag of tacos and takes off in a sprint towards the airport…. and gets there just in time to see the jet take off.

Guess who gets to eat gas station breakfast tacos this morning, courtesy of the defeated intern?  This girl.