oh and i forgot to mention

i'm coming home to a nice clean updated house...which will be awesome also!

we hired a cleaning lady! yes, i live in a small-ish town home, but i'm a busy woman. no judging please. she's relatively in-expensive and will be coming once a month for now (hopefully jumping to twice when she has another opening). so while i'm straightening everything up today, i'll come home to vacuumed carpets and clean kitchen floors (or even more importantly, clean bathroom floors)!

AND, Carl is giving the girls room a total make-over. Maybe, just maybe, this will keep all of their stuff contained to one room, instead of it spilling out into the hall, although perhaps that's wishful thinking. They will be psyched as the total makeover comes with brand new bunk beds! So not that I'm rushing my vacation...because i've been dreaming about it for weeks, months even, but it won't be all bad when its time to come home.

ok. i'm not signing off....beach relaxation and girl time, here i come!

Yay for Vacay!

Vacation eve is upon us! I am so excited, but have so much to do. I'm leaving work at noon so that I have plenty of time to get it all done.

I need to:
clean out the car for our long-ish (7hr) journey
do the laundry
pack the girlies and i
put together a bag o goodies for playing with at auntie wen's
get beach stuff together
straighten the house up
locate and wrap auntie wen's bday presents

Not too bad of a list.

I just checked the weather for Atlantic Beach and its looking beautiful! It will be in the upper 80s on day 1, but in the mid 80s for the rest of our visit. Sounds like fabulous beach weather. One week of girl time...here I come.

I can't forget my running gear...half marathon training is still on.

oh vacation

you're now only 2.5 work days away. I can't wait. The girls can't wait. And we have now entered the time of preparation.

for tonight, after my run i'm off to bookclub! ky is making a yummy dinner and i feel like i haven't seen these ladies in a while and it will be nice to catch up. i also need to clean out the backseat of my car. jenny or cirucci have to sit back there on the way to wen's, and its currently overwhelmed with cookie crumbs and car toys.

i'll save packing for later this week, although it looks like tomorrow evening, i'll be working on the girls laundry!

Is it ok to...

start counting down to my vacation? I can't wait to get away. Things have been so busy recently, even with work. I need some time just to relax. Summer is racing by and I feel like we really haven't been able to enjoy it. I think some girl time at Auntie Wen's will be just what we need.

So, I'm counting down. One week until we leave. One week until we pick up Cirucci and Jenny for the drive down. One week until we're lounging in Wen's living room, talking about what to eat and what to do. It will be wonderful!

Taking apart the kitchen

The kiddos kitchen that is...

When my brother and I chose a play kitchen for the girls two Christmases ago, we apparantly chose the wrong one. It has been falling apart, almost since Travis and Carl built it. So now that it is completely doorless, its time to take it apart. Strangely enough, the girls are psyched to help with it. The evenings have been super busy recently with running and dinner, bathtime and reading so we keep pushing it back, but tonights the night. We promised.

I'm secretly excited because taking it apart means that their kitchen will no longer be taking up space in my dining room.

Running...running

This weekend was filled with running, eventhough its super hot out! On Saturday, I had my first taste of what it feels like to be running dehydrated. We had to cut our run short, but came back strong on Sunday fully hydrated (after drinking water for most of the day). We also upped our run on Sunday and it felt great. My shins are still a bit sore, but I think that's to be expected. We'll try last nights run again tonight...as long as its not raining.

We tried to take apart our family room this weekend...it did not go as planned. It looks like we're going to hire a contractor for the front part of the room. The old owners didn't put the framing in correctly (or the ceiling)... in addition, they didn't put insulation in the front of the home (the wall that goes to the outside of the house).

We do plan to move ahead with my office this weekend. And the fence goes up tomorrow!

new fence on Tuesday and other daydreams

Its a Friday afternoon, and of course I am sitting here daydreaming. The new fence is going up in my backyard on Tuesday and I can't wait!!! I CAN'T WAIT! While the full backyard makeover is next summers project, the fence will be awesome for keeping kiddos and dogs in (and unwanted dogs out).

But, I'm really dreaming about the new office/guestroom. Though it still won't be finished for a few weeks, it will give me a great place to craft wtih my girlies. That makes me smile on this summer afternoon :)

Housework weekend....

This weekend we are doing some serious work on our home and I'm so excited. Friday night, we're loading up Carl's car for another trip to the dump. Hopefully, we'll be able to add some cardboard panelling to the load also.

We need to finish pulling all the panelling down, and then Carl will need to run his wiring for surround sound through the walls. Then its off to home depot to pick up dry wall and some lumber to build the wall in the back room (soon to be office). We also need to pick out tile for the backroom and a vanity for the bathroom.

In other news, Carl and I have decided to buy the girls bunk beds. Not yet. We thought if they were sharing a room, we would let them choose a new paint color and paint their furniture to match their new bed. That will be a winter project. Laney's room will be an upstairs playroom. As they get older, perhaps they can use it as their office/dressing room. Her room still needs some moulding, so that will most likely be a fall/winter project as well.

Interesting development

We went furniture shopping last night. I received a coupon in the mail for one of our local furniture stores and decided that it couldn't hurt to check it out. Unfortunately, I couldn't find what I was looking for. Not sure what I'm looking for, I just know it wasn't there.

While at the furniture store, the girls decided that they wanted bunk beds. I feel like we just separated their rooms (it was probably 2 years ago, but still) and now they want to be back together again?!? We told them that bunk beds was a big decision and something that they needed to think about. We suggested they continue to think as they get older because we want them to be fully confident in their decision to share rooms again.

This morning, while we were brushing our teeth, the girls decided that they will be old enough to make the bunk bed decision when they turn five. I did have more than four months in mind when asking them to think about the decision. I guess we'll just have to wait and see how long the desire for bunk beds continues.

Getting there

With the home remodeling projects. Since we couldn't take stuff to the dump this weekend (Carl's battery died and I'm unclear as to why my car is not suitable for the dump), we decided to move our "storage" items to the attic. I have never been in the attic before, eventhough we have owned our home for five years. Its nice up there, although hot as hell (which I guess is to be expected). We hauled Christmas ornaments, backpacking stuff and grad school stuff up from storage int he basement. I climbed up through the entrance to the attic in Alie's closet and pulled up the stuff Carl was handing me. It felt good to continue the momentum on the project, especially with all of my vacations coming up ;)

Yay! It's the weekend...

For some reason, with the girls in preschool full time, I am much more anxious for the arrival of the weekends. I look forward all week to time to just be. Be with the girls. Be with Carl. I really need to figure out a way to "just be" on weeknights also. I generally try to inlcude the girls in cooking dinner, but they are starving and cranky as soon as they get in my car in the afternoon, and they seem to want to chill on the couch.

Anyway. This weekend, though I would like to be chill, we will be staying at casa myers with the kitties. I had planned to stay at some point this week, but it just never happened. This short week somehow felt partiularly crazy. Perhaps because of the vacation bump up and the mad dash to make new dining reservations. We also have to go down to Carl's parents house for a mini family reunion of Carl's dads side on Saturday evening. I am excited to eat crabs!

Carl is having a man-date on Sunday with Brian L, so I think the girls and I may spend the afternoon swimming in Cirucci's pool. A nice change from our backyard pool. The best news though is that it might rain tomorrow. I can see a nice, lazy Saturday morning sipping coffee and reading while it rains outside Cirucci's sliding glass door.

And tonight. Tonight is girl night. My girlies love girl night and look forward to them all week :) Pretty nail polish, facials and late night movie watching...here we come!

update to the dilemma

Called the travel agent. Savings is over 700 bucks. I changed the date. I'll celebrate the 30th some other way :)

New Haircut and tough decisions...

Carl has a new haircut. He's been walking around with this ridiculous overgrown look for the past couple of weeks. It had gotten so long that he decided that the best remedy for the sides would be to try to slick them to his head....try to imagine how wonderful that looked. Sooo, he buzzed his head. Nope, he's not totally bald, but almost. He looks much different, but so much better and so much more his age (whatever that means). I am loving the new look and he's planning to make it is permacut since he is going bald afterall.

Now for my tough decision (and how lucky am I that today, this is my toughest decision).
Disney has extended its free dining plan through November, but my travel date is a blackout date. Normally, I'm not overly attatched to my travel dates but this year we were going to Disney to celebrate my 30th. I can't change my 30th birthday, and I ADORE Disney. So I'm thinking I might just suck up the money. On the other hand, it is quite a big savings. I mean, all of our meals would be paid for! You can't beat that. And we would leave 12 days later....but, I have made reservations for breakfast at Cinderella's castle before the park opens on my birthday. I have been waiting to show my girlies an empty main street for years...maybe even since before they were born. I will have to discuss with Carl...weigh the pros and cons.

Is it wrong...

to be lusting after appliances? After learning that I can have my pick of any appliances I want for my kitchen (restriction in size was my original concern) I have been lusting after refridgerators, ovens and dishwashers. In fact, I think I have a problem. I dream about my new kitchen, my fabulous new finishes and of course, my amazing new appliances (this coming from a woman with an avocado green dishwasher residing in her kitchen). Can't wait until the contractor gives me an instillation date for the appliances (which translates into go time in terms of purchasing them).

the new kitchen will be snazzy...that's for sure!

girl dates

I have spent a lot of time with Cirucci over the past two days (which is good since she's leaving me for a few weeks). She helped me pick out my kitchen stuff (yay! decisions are made and kitchen should be going in around late August). We had our usual Tuesday night date and then yesterday, we went to see Twilight! So fun...I also helped her set up her sewing machine so she'll be all set to sew when she's ready.

Tomorrow night my little girlies and I are headed to see Toy Story 3. Toy Story is a favorite of theirs and they are SO excited. I'm excited to see it too, I heard it was quite good. To make all of this better, I have a three day weekend. So excited :)