If determination were to have a body, this is what it would look like :)
FIVE IN THE POTTER'S HAND
Monday, June 29, 2009
Saturday, June 27, 2009
My Quidnunc
This one's for you Mrs. Olfert ;0)
quidnunc \KWID-nuhngk\, noun:
One who is curious to know everything that passes; one who knows or pretends to know all that is going on; a gossip; a busybody.
That describes my oldest (with the exception of being a gossip...we don't gossip over here in the FITPH household because we want to build up with our words and not tear people down) to a 't'! He always wants to be in the know about the going-ons in our house and with our friends! Drives me to irritation at times :)
But I love my quidnunc child :) It's like having an interactive planner...I never have to wonder what is on the agenda for the day!
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Suffocating
This Father's Day was especially difficult for me. My father is still alive, just not very accessible. We have an email relationship. And it is very sporadic.
I don't understand how a man can tell his daughter he wants a relationship with her, but not do anything different than he did before she cut him out of her life. It is so painful to know that I mean next to nothing to him. If his efforts at rebuilding our relationship are any indication of his level of commitment, then it is going to take a l-o-o-o-o-o-o-n-g time to get to a "meet face to face" stage.
On Sunday, I was talking with a friend about how I was feeling. She was feeling the same because her father wasn't a part of her life either. She made a comment that really hit the nail on the head. She said that last Father's Day it was easy to get past all of it because she held a lot of anger toward him. But this time, she had forgiven her father and was just left dealing with the feelings of neglect. I feel the same way. It had been three years since I had talked to my dad before I reached out to him. Those three Father's Days weren't nearly as difficult as this last one. And it is because I had all that anger that I could power through the sentiment of the day. But I have chosen to forgive my dad and so there was no anger to help me get through. I was just left confused and feeling abandoned and lied to.
He said that he was going to be determined to rebuild our relationship. I gave him lattitude because of his work hours being so crazy. But today, I was on the computer for a while doing bills and I saw he was online. I put myself on as available rather than invisible and waited. While waiting I resisted the urge to instant message him. I waited. And waited. And waited some more.
Occasionally, I would check my inbox to see if he had emailed me. Empty.
I stayed online waiting for three hours and then I finally gave up.
Still no email.
He was on the computer for over three hours and he never thought once about me.
I just don't know how to deal with that. There are times I wish I had just left myself in anonymity and never contacted him. Today was one of those times. What will it take for him to want to be my father? Not just my biological parent, but a real father who cares about me?
Why is it so hard for him to love me?
I feel as if I am holding my breath, waiting for him to notice me.
My lips are turning blue.
I don't understand how a man can tell his daughter he wants a relationship with her, but not do anything different than he did before she cut him out of her life. It is so painful to know that I mean next to nothing to him. If his efforts at rebuilding our relationship are any indication of his level of commitment, then it is going to take a l-o-o-o-o-o-o-n-g time to get to a "meet face to face" stage.
On Sunday, I was talking with a friend about how I was feeling. She was feeling the same because her father wasn't a part of her life either. She made a comment that really hit the nail on the head. She said that last Father's Day it was easy to get past all of it because she held a lot of anger toward him. But this time, she had forgiven her father and was just left dealing with the feelings of neglect. I feel the same way. It had been three years since I had talked to my dad before I reached out to him. Those three Father's Days weren't nearly as difficult as this last one. And it is because I had all that anger that I could power through the sentiment of the day. But I have chosen to forgive my dad and so there was no anger to help me get through. I was just left confused and feeling abandoned and lied to.
He said that he was going to be determined to rebuild our relationship. I gave him lattitude because of his work hours being so crazy. But today, I was on the computer for a while doing bills and I saw he was online. I put myself on as available rather than invisible and waited. While waiting I resisted the urge to instant message him. I waited. And waited. And waited some more.
Occasionally, I would check my inbox to see if he had emailed me. Empty.
I stayed online waiting for three hours and then I finally gave up.
Still no email.
He was on the computer for over three hours and he never thought once about me.
I just don't know how to deal with that. There are times I wish I had just left myself in anonymity and never contacted him. Today was one of those times. What will it take for him to want to be my father? Not just my biological parent, but a real father who cares about me?
Why is it so hard for him to love me?
I feel as if I am holding my breath, waiting for him to notice me.
My lips are turning blue.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
The Evolution of Our Master Bedroom
First of all, technically this isn't the master bedroom of the house. We let our boys have the bigger bedroom and we took the smaller second bedroom. But we still consider it the master because it would be weird to call it the second bedroom :) I digress.
After we moved into the "master" I set about trying to make it the dream bedroom we wanted. Only we had an extremely tight budget. So here is what I came up with.
Well, I suppose I should show you a before first :)
When we first moved into the house, the walls were white. We remedied that by painting them a spring green color. When we moved ourselves from the master bedroom into the smaller second bedroom, the green felt cold and uninviting. I tried to fix it by warming up the bed with a chocolate color.
For more uninspiring before photos of our master bedroom look here.
The windows were naked and the five drawer dresser blocked off the light. We put the dresser in the boys' room for added clothing storage. That freed up a bit of space and then we purchased this for $40 off Craigslist..mirror included!
We also ditched the torchiere lamp that was broken..why hang onto something that we thought was ugly and non-functional?
I was so exicted about the dresser because we have had separate dressers ever since we got married! Finally, our clothes share the same abode just as we do :) Plus, it is solid wood and it has beautiful bones. I have plans for this baby!
So, our room went from cold green (sorry, can't remember the name of the color) to Anonymous (Behr).
(Am I the only one who loves the name of this color?) Anonymous...sounds so mysterious.
So now we have a beautiful soothing grey on the wall. We love it. It feels like being wrapped in a soft cocoon. When I researched how color affects moods, it said that grey can be depressing to some people. Yikes, oops, I had already bought the paint by then! We went for it and here is what it looked like.
(Sorry the lighting wasn't the best that day)
The chocolate went well with the grey to our surprise, but we were tired of the bed covering. After searching I decided I was going to make our own duvet cover. I found this fabric for 50% off at the JoAnn's over here.
I loved the patterned fabric and it went perfectly with the wall color. Unfortunately, it was extremely noisy and it looked way too masculine sitting on our bed. So I had to repurpose it into this:
(Close up of the curtains)
It makes such luxurious curtains! I am so happy with the outcome. I still need to figure out what to do with the solid color mercury fabric though...
And then at Ross I found a comforter with pillows for $24. I threw that on the bed and loved it! Here is the room, not quite finished yet.
Surprisingly enough we left the comforter as is and we love our new room!
Here is the breakdown of the costs:
Primer for window frame: $0 (leftover from other project)
Paint: $23.47
Curtain rod: $3.27
Curtain rings: $14 (2 sets--$7 a set)
12 yards of fabric: $36.49 (currently only using 6 yards for the curtains)
9 drawer dresser with large mirror: $40
Comforter and pillows: $24
Black pillow: $5
Grand total: $146.23
The room still has some finishing touches so it will probably come close to $200 when all is said and done. It won't ever come close to the rooms you see in a designer magazine, but it is a room we love and now enjoy being in. I am really proud of using what we had and sticking to a real life budget :)
What really surprised me the most about this makeover is how I really love the monochromatic look our room now sports. I am sure that I will throw in some bold color with accessories later on, but I love the soothing grey with the dramatic black and bright white.
Our room is finally a place that beckons you to relax and rest.
After we moved into the "master" I set about trying to make it the dream bedroom we wanted. Only we had an extremely tight budget. So here is what I came up with.
Well, I suppose I should show you a before first :)
When we first moved into the house, the walls were white. We remedied that by painting them a spring green color. When we moved ourselves from the master bedroom into the smaller second bedroom, the green felt cold and uninviting. I tried to fix it by warming up the bed with a chocolate color.
For more uninspiring before photos of our master bedroom look here.
The windows were naked and the five drawer dresser blocked off the light. We put the dresser in the boys' room for added clothing storage. That freed up a bit of space and then we purchased this for $40 off Craigslist..mirror included!
We also ditched the torchiere lamp that was broken..why hang onto something that we thought was ugly and non-functional?
I was so exicted about the dresser because we have had separate dressers ever since we got married! Finally, our clothes share the same abode just as we do :) Plus, it is solid wood and it has beautiful bones. I have plans for this baby!
So, our room went from cold green (sorry, can't remember the name of the color) to Anonymous (Behr).
(Am I the only one who loves the name of this color?) Anonymous...sounds so mysterious.
So now we have a beautiful soothing grey on the wall. We love it. It feels like being wrapped in a soft cocoon. When I researched how color affects moods, it said that grey can be depressing to some people. Yikes, oops, I had already bought the paint by then! We went for it and here is what it looked like.
(Sorry the lighting wasn't the best that day)
The chocolate went well with the grey to our surprise, but we were tired of the bed covering. After searching I decided I was going to make our own duvet cover. I found this fabric for 50% off at the JoAnn's over here.
I loved the patterned fabric and it went perfectly with the wall color. Unfortunately, it was extremely noisy and it looked way too masculine sitting on our bed. So I had to repurpose it into this:
(Close up of the curtains)
It makes such luxurious curtains! I am so happy with the outcome. I still need to figure out what to do with the solid color mercury fabric though...
And then at Ross I found a comforter with pillows for $24. I threw that on the bed and loved it! Here is the room, not quite finished yet.
Surprisingly enough we left the comforter as is and we love our new room!
Here is the breakdown of the costs:
Primer for window frame: $0 (leftover from other project)
Paint: $23.47
Curtain rod: $3.27
Curtain rings: $14 (2 sets--$7 a set)
12 yards of fabric: $36.49 (currently only using 6 yards for the curtains)
9 drawer dresser with large mirror: $40
Comforter and pillows: $24
Black pillow: $5
Grand total: $146.23
The room still has some finishing touches so it will probably come close to $200 when all is said and done. It won't ever come close to the rooms you see in a designer magazine, but it is a room we love and now enjoy being in. I am really proud of using what we had and sticking to a real life budget :)
What really surprised me the most about this makeover is how I really love the monochromatic look our room now sports. I am sure that I will throw in some bold color with accessories later on, but I love the soothing grey with the dramatic black and bright white.
Our room is finally a place that beckons you to relax and rest.
The Family Room Is Done...Mostly :)
We did it! Hubby finished the family room remodel! I am so proud...he did it mostly on his own and it looks so good. :)
But first let us revisit the room before...
Completely disgusting and unusable space. Lovely 70's linoleum, with water stained acoustic tiling for the ceiling, and spiderwebs EVERYWHERE.
After two and a half months of hubby working whenever he had a spare moment, blood sweat and tears. Here is the finished result...
Looking from the kitchen..
Looking toward the kitchen...
A photo of the window that I have yet to make a covering for. As of right now, there are dropcloths over it. I love the window :) Now I want to switch out all our other windows.
A beautiful, large (11x10 foot space), light and bright space! We love it. The kids really enjoy the extra space to play in. (Evidenced by the toys already strewn across the floor) And once I get it all set up, we will have school in there as well.
We created the room for about $2,000. This figure includes wood, materials, tool rental, etc.
The color on the walls is Grasscloth by Behr. All furnishings are hand-me downs and I have no idea where they were purchased :) The lighting was from Home Depot and it was on clearance.
Remodeling a portion of your home is time-consuming and expensive! But I am so pleased with the end result. I can't wait to put the finishing touches on it.
My hubby is amazing!
But first let us revisit the room before...
Completely disgusting and unusable space. Lovely 70's linoleum, with water stained acoustic tiling for the ceiling, and spiderwebs EVERYWHERE.
After two and a half months of hubby working whenever he had a spare moment, blood sweat and tears. Here is the finished result...
Looking from the kitchen..
Looking toward the kitchen...
A photo of the window that I have yet to make a covering for. As of right now, there are dropcloths over it. I love the window :) Now I want to switch out all our other windows.
A beautiful, large (11x10 foot space), light and bright space! We love it. The kids really enjoy the extra space to play in. (Evidenced by the toys already strewn across the floor) And once I get it all set up, we will have school in there as well.
We created the room for about $2,000. This figure includes wood, materials, tool rental, etc.
The color on the walls is Grasscloth by Behr. All furnishings are hand-me downs and I have no idea where they were purchased :) The lighting was from Home Depot and it was on clearance.
Remodeling a portion of your home is time-consuming and expensive! But I am so pleased with the end result. I can't wait to put the finishing touches on it.
My hubby is amazing!
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