Getting Rid Of All The Things

My house feels like an enormous Rube Goldberg machine right now.  As soon as I build that dresser, I can move the bookshelf it is replacing into the garage, and then I can get all those photo albums off the floor, and then I can move that table into that spot where the photo albums currently reside, and then those lamps will come into the other room, and then....you get the idea.  I have about five projects going on at the moment that I can't wait to share, but everything is currently a giant mess.

Number one on my Things to Do in 2013 is to Get Rid Of All The Stuff.  A few months ago I decided there was too much furniture in our living room, and too much crap in our garage, so I rented a storage unit and removed everything so that I would stop tripping over it.  Everything that went to the storage unit was furniture that I wanted to keep but didn't have room for.  I figured that we would eventually use it when we buy our next house.

I'm done with that attitude.  This is the next house. If it doesn't fit here, then I'm not keeping it.

I don't know when we will buy our next house.  Maybe next year, maybe three years from now, it depends on a number of factors that I have zero control over.  And I'm not keeping around a bunch of furniture waiting for that mythical day.  It will cost me more money to store the old furniture than it would cost to buy new furniture when that day comes.

Last week we completely rearranged the living room.  I also purged the half the garage for the 400th time--I sorted through more kids clothes bins and toys and home decor stuff, and culled seven more bins. (The other side of the garage is still waiting to be done, but there are only so many hours in a weekend.)  We donated an enormous pile to Goodwill.  When the garage was emptied, we brought everything back from the storage unit and filled it back up.  I gave some furniture to a friend.  I have listed the rest on craigslist.  If I don't sell it within the next week, I will donate it.

I feel ok with getting rid of all the furniture, except for one item.  A few years ago we bought a lovely round dining table with a pedestal base from Crate and Barrel.

It chipped if you looked at it funny, or put your silverware down, or breathed near it.  Since we paid a lot of money for it, we decided to retire it to storage until the kids were older and buy a table from craigslist that we wouldn't mind if the children destroyed.  The pretty table lived wrapped in blankets in a garage for the past three years.  Unfortunately, when we took it out of the blankets this weekend to look at it, the blankets did not do a great job of protecting it.  It is really chipped, dinged and scratched, but worse, the cable that allows the table to open for an extension leaf has snapped. Keeping this table would entail expensively repairing it, since we frequently need to use the extension leaf.  

I should just accept this as a loss.  It doesn't work, it will not stand up to the wear and tear my family will put on it, and I should just accept this as a sunk cost and move on.  But ARG I paid SO MUCH MONEY for this table.  I'm having a hard time letting this go. I could refinish it! We could get it repaired! Its a nice table that might work in the next house!

Basically I am having a hard time accepting that it was a poor financial decision and thus I will just hold on to it to make it seem like I didn't throw my money away.

Sigh.

I've really been quite ruthless in purging this time around.  My rule is if there is not a designated spot for it inside the house, it has to go. Can I easily replace it? Yes?  Begone with you then.  No storing in the garage. The "storage" in the garage is reserved for hand me down clothes and Christmas decor and children's bicycles.

It feels good to be getting rid of stuff.  Or it will when all this crap is out of my garage again.  

Item # 12 crossed off the list: stop the beeping

First project of the year: fix the beeping fridge or get a new one.

We've had Sears out twice to fix the fridge.  It is my problem since I live in a house with uneven floors, apparently.

We decided against getting a new fridge.  Its a big expense that should last a long time and I hate to buy a really fabulous fridge but then buy a new house next year and it doesn't fit.  Or buy an el cheapo fridge and be stuck with it in the next house. Plus, the old fridge works fine as a fridge.  It just NEVER STOPS BEEPING.  

The problem with the old fridge is that the freezer door doesn't stay shut, thus setting off the alarm.  Sometimes it lifts an infinitesimal amount off the seal, and sometimes its a good quarter inch off.  Taping the freezer door shut eliminates the beeping but makes it hard to access the food inside.  (Duh.)

So we compromised and bought an upright freezer to put in the garage.

The cheapest option would be to buy a chest freezer, but I don't have any dead bodies to store, and they are difficult to organize.  We opted for the upright freezer, figuring that we would be happy to have an extra freezer in the garage of the next house as well.

The bottom freezer in the kitchen is now taped shut in perpetuity.  And the beeping has stopped.  Blessed silence reigns.

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I also started on item # 6, rearrange the living room, and it has made me very very happy.  Pictures to follow!

Plans for finishing the playroom/dining room

Thanks so much for the lovely comments on the 2012 recap post, especially those of you who have special needs kids. I really appreciate your kind words.

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One of the first projects I plan on doing in the New Year is finishing the dining room.  It has been livable for a while, but I'd like to bring in some finishing touches.  Currently the dining room looks like this:

If you look closely, the dining chairs are peeling paint and every single chair seat is no longer affixed to the frame. Sit down too far forward and you might get dumped on the floor.  Although I love the lines of these chairs, and wish I could take them to a refinishing shop to have them stripped and painted....I just do not have the time or energy to invest in sanding all six of them down (and all the curvy spindles!) and repainting them.

I'd like to replace them with tolix chairs.  I'm still undecided between galvanized steel or gunmetal.

When we first moved in, I planned to put these blue Ikea Stockholm Blad curtains up in the dining room, but when I went to Ikea to buy them, I saw these much cheaper curtains.  The cheaper curtains had green in them, which I though would work perfectly with the green bins of toys in the playroom.  Sadly, I was wrong.  The yellow green of the curtains clashes with the apple green of the bins. I have not liked them since the day after I put them up, but at that point I was stuck with them for a while.

This is a valuable lesson--I knew that I really wanted the blue Stockholm ones, but I talked myself into a cheaper curtain that I didn't like as much and didn't work because I wanted to save money.  I do this all the time.  I should just keep saving my money till I can get what I really want.

Another issue is that the only light in the long space is the dining room fixture.  Although the playroom area gets light from the kitchen and the dining room, there is no light fixture within the space. Since we rent, I'd rectify that by hanging a pendant light with a swagged cord instead of paying an electrician to add hardwired lighting in the room.

The sliding glass door in the playroom and the window in the kitchen need a window treatment.  I am planning on a cornice for both.  Lastly, the green bins are falling apart, so I plan to replace them with blue bins.

Here's a moodboard of what I plan to do in the space.

To be done in 2013

Happy New Year!

There are many many things to be done in 2013.  Many of them involve purging.  We have committed to staying in this house another year and thus I am going on a massive cleaning bender this year.

1.  Get rid of the storage unit.  I am done with hoarding furniture.  Yes, maybe some of it would be good for the next house, but whatever, I am done with holding on to stuff and tripping over stuff that I don't have a space for.  It is costing more money to store this furniture than it will be to buy new furniture when I eventually buy a house, which will be who knows when.

2. Purge the garage.  HAHAHA.  But seriously, I'm so tired of carrying all this stuff around, and organizing it every damn weekend because it is a never ending source of entropic disorder. I want it ALL GONE.

Side note: possibly do a 31 Day series on getting rid of all my stuff.  My plan is for us to sleep on tatami mats and have one plate apiece.

3. Finish the dining room/playroom area.  I went with the cheap curtain option originally instead of the curtains I really wanted, and have been annoyed with myself ever since. Our dining chairs are disgusting and dangerous to unsuspecting guests.  There is one teeny tiny light fixture that illuminates the 20 x 12 room.

4. Finish the master bedroom.  This is nearly done, I just need to spraypaint the lamps again and hang some art.

5.  Do the Princess's room.  It is a hot mess, and she is very vocal about her dislike of the (so twee! so cute!) monkeys in the curtains.

6.  Rearrange the living room.  The current furniture arrangement feels like an alley of furniture along the side walls.  This is probably going to necessitate getting rid of some furniture. (Are you sensing a trend?)

7.  Write that damn article I've been avoiding for five years. I am putting it out there now--the month of February I WILL DO THIS.

8. Get a J-O-B.  (Writing the article is step one of getting a job.) Full time, part time, doesn't matter, just get out of the house.

9.  Take the kids to Disney (Anaheim, not Orlando).

10. Put all my currently unused but expensive curtains up on ebay. Why am I so afraid of selling stuff on ebay?

11. Learn to thread my sewing machine.  I have basic competence on a sewing machine, but I cannot get the dumb thing threaded, despite multiple YouTube tutorials and my mother showing me four times.

12. Either fix the fridge or get a new one.  I cannot live with that horrendous beeping for another minute, let alone another 365 days.

13. With my luck lately, item number 13 may not have the best karma, so maybe we'll say something dumb like organize my bedside table.

14. Learn to use my camera.  The Mister got me camera lessons for Christmas, so I may actually accomplish this one.

15. Go to a blogger conference. Which one? Blissdom, Mom 2.0, Camp Mighty?  BlogHer seems enormous and unwieldy and ack too many people.  Which one are you going to?

16. Go to a design camp.  I signed up for ABChao's design camp in LA (anyone else going?).  I would love to go to Tobi Fairley's design camp, but that is two new refrigerators, and I'd rather accomplish item #12 above.

17. Redesign the blog.  I really need to figure out how to do threaded commenting, since the blogger "check here for threaded commenting" button doesn't seem to work for me.  The entire blog needs a makeover, to be honest. Do you have any recommendations for a designer?

18. Get bifocals. Sigh.

19. Get over my intense hatred of suffering through cosmetic dentistry and get my teeth fixed.

20. Organize all the photos. This is a wayyyyy bigger project than it sounds.

And you?  Share your goals for 2013.

2012: The Year In Review

If I were to pick one word to describe 2012, it would be....sucktastic....lets go with "challenging." Areas of concern were uprooting my life, lack of a job, and worrying about my child.

When I was little, my grandmother had a children's book that was titled "Fortunately".  The book went something like this:

Fortunately, Ned was invited to a party.
Unfortunately, the party was a thousand miles away.
Fortunately, a friend loaned Ned an airplane. 
Unfortunately, the motor exploded.

2012 could be described in this manner.

Fortunately, the Mister was offered his dream job.
Unfortunately, the dream job was located 3000 miles from our family and friends.  

We have made a friend or two.  This was a long, lonely year, for the most part.  Things are looking up: I have a circle of mom friends that are pretty cool, and Princess and Greg have some buddies from school.  Sadly, Peter's good buddy from school just moved, so....we will work on that in 2013.

Fortunately, I am ready to go back to work.
Unfortunately, I had a midlife crisis this summer over my lack of career. 

I turned 38 this year, and my birthday coincided with a meltdown of epic proportions.  I felt quite sorry for myself about my lack of a career and the lack of accomplishment in my life.  It was a hell of a pity party up in here. The fact that I was contemplating all this during a time immediately after uprooting my entire life and when I had no local friends or people to talk to mayyyy have contributed to the hysteria.

I am still on the fence about my lack of a job, a career, and any sort of external accomplishments.  I like gold stars, I like recognition, and I like people thinking that I am reasonably intelligent.  Those things are in short supply in the SAHM world.  Yes, having three kids in four years and not losing your mind is an accomplishment, but at 18 I was full of myself and how smart I was and how I would be a fabulously smart person doing fabulously smart things at 40....and that isn't quite what happened.

I hate writing on this topic--it is so tangled with people's entrenched opinions about what constitutes being a good mother.  I don't regret staying home with my kids for the past four years; I've enjoyed them and I feel it was the right move for me at the time.  And now the right move for me is to go back to work.

This is high on my list of things to accomplish next year.  Whether it be full time or part time, I need more interaction with the outside world, I need more intellectual challenge, and I need to do something that is not about my kids.

And then there was the Big Thing I Don't Blog About. My child was diagnosed with a special needs issue at the end of 2011, and that has been a huge part of 2012.

Fortunately, we live near an excellent medical center and school that deals with this specific issue.
Unfortunately, there is a waiting list and it is expensive.
Fortunately, there are a number of therapies that can help treat this issue.
Unfortunately, none of them are covered by insurance.

I have debated many, many times about whether or not to blog on this, even in such a brief way. I would love to--I could write REAMS on this issue.  I have decided largely no, I won't blog about it, because it is disclosing medical information about someone else who isn't old enough to make a decision for themselves, and my children are entitled to privacy.  So I won't tell you which child or what specific issue. But I will talk a wee bit about my feelings on the matter.

We got our diagnosis last year right after Thanksgiving.  At the time, we were living with rats, the Mister was interviewing for jobs in four different states across the country, I knew something was not right with my child, and I felt as if the ground were caving in under me. Last year's end-of-year post noted that I was not able to make resolutions because I was trying to keep my head above water and was not in a place of growth.  That feeling persisted for quite a while.

Getting a special needs diagnosis is just a label. Your kid is still the same kid that you love.  But its also an unmooring, a casting off from the shores of What I Expected and sailing your boat into unknown waters.  It is an acknowledgement of "oh crap, things are not the rosy, perfect picture I had hoped and dreamed."  At best, it can be a benefit; now you have a direction, an idea where to start researching and finding help.  It is a "thank goodness someone is finally listening to my concerns". At worst it is a paralyzing fear of "oh SHITE I am overwhelmed and I have no flipping idea what to do."

For me, much of 2012 was spent in the latter "oh shite" category.  I read and I researched and I read and we visited doctors and more doctors.  Worrying about this issue in addition to remaking my entire life has been kind of stressful.  2012 has been accompanied by an ever-present low thrum of anxiety that I can't get away from.

Fortunately, things are looking up.

We have plans in place and doctor appointments and therapy appointments and evaluations and a hope that 2013 will be better.  I am hopeful that we will get this thing figured out and this will all be a non-issue eventually.

Even if it isn't, having a hopeful attitude feels better than the swirling-around-the-drain feeling I have had for the past year.

I like things settled and predictable. 2012 was not settled in the least.  It felt like someone had picked up the box containing my life and shook it up like a snowglobe.  New things are coming together.  Good things are coming together.  It is the building the new good things and clearing the wreckage of old stuff that is the difficult part.

Life was not all terrible this year. I found a good friend. I live in a place where the weather is fantastic (returning to NJ at a snowy Christmas reaffirmed my love of the weather in CA).  My husband made a happy and fulfilling career move.  The Mister and I weathered this challenging year together. I can't imagine what this year would have looked like without his love and support.  His love was the best part of this year. Good things happened this year.

I have big dreams for next year. I am building a new life in a new place.  I've done the hard part.  The foundations are in place, now its time to raise the barn, so to speak.  I am going to find a job this year. I am going to help my kid this year. I am going to get rid of the clutter left over from my old life (literally and figuratively; I have a massive purge of our belongings planned for this year).  I am opening the door to bad stuff out, good stuff in.

I can do this. I'm good enough, smart enough, and gosh darn it, people like me.  (Can you tell I'm feeling a little beat up by 2012?)

I'd tell 2013 to bring it on, but my triskaidekaphobia says I should politely ask 2013 to lay it on me gently, kindly, and with as much consideration of my tender feelings as possible.

Life is good. And getting better. I hope your 2013 is filled with love and happiness.

possibilities for a Princess bedroom

Princess has repeatedly told me how much she wants a princess bedroom, and she has found this picture in a ToysRUs catalogue to demonstrate how it should look:

via

Um...no.  I can't find a picture of the full room online, but it is a riot of Disney princess curtains, princess rug, princess chair, princess wallpaper, and crowned with that canopy bed.  *Shudder*

I am open to redecorating her room, since she seems to be supremely offended by the monkeys in her curtains (I doan wike da monkeys, Mama!).  But I'd prefer to avoid a heavily "themed" room.

I tend to like saturated, bright jewel tones, especially for kids rooms.  It seems like most "princess" stuff is pastel pink or lavender. (Blarg.)  Currently I am thinking of something along these lines:

The pink splatter painting is currently residing in Princess's bedroom already. Instead of a Disneyfied bed, I'd like to find a canopy like this one from Pottery Barn Kids (but hopefully way cheaper) to hang over the head of Princess's bed.  The pink duvet with dancing ladies on it seems fancy and princess-y without being too sickly pastel.  Lastly, Princess likes purple, so the darker purple curtains also help cut the sweetness factor.  One can hope, anyways; I feel like this room might be still a bit too sweet.

If you have an idea for a princess bedroom that does not involve a Disney character, I am all ears.  

Mullet boots and a uniform update

The dresses arrived and they are fantastic.  I have received many compliments on the uniform and lo, I am happy with the dress portion of the uniform.

The obi belts also arrived.  I have wanted these obi belts for years because I thought they might hide the never-goes-away tummy pooch my children have gifted me.  Lo, I was wrong.  The obi belt emphasizes and magnifies the tummy pooch, so if you are unable to bounce a quarter off your tummy you may want to avoid the obi belt.  

I also ordered one pair of Uggs and three pairs of wide-calf/wide-width boots from Zappos.  I had high hopes for these Ugg boots, but they were too narrow.  One pair of wide calf boots did not zip up over my (slender, delicate) calf.  One pair of wide-width boots sent a shooting electrical pain from my toes to my knees.  And the last pair of wide-calf boots could have fit two of my legs.  Lo, all four pairs went back to Zappos.  

Sunday I took my my mother in law and my daughter to Marshalls to look at lamps, and we detoured through the shoe department.  I tried on a few pairs of boots, despite being aware that this is generally an exercise in futility.  And LO!  BEHOLD!!!

My new boots.  You might notice that these boots are the boot equivalent of a mullet--business in the front, party in the back.  I believe the Mister described them as "heinously tacky."  My mother in law described them as "quirky."

But they fit! And they are comfortable! DID I MENTION THAT THEY FIT?? (Can you tell that I have a hard time finding shoes that fit?)  And I like them.  My boots say something about me.  They scream "I just moved here from New Jersey and I like listening to Bruce Springsteen and perhaps I have questionable taste."  But I'm keeping them anyways.

Unbelievably, I found a SECOND pair of boots that fit in the Marshalls shoe department!

Its a Festivus miracle! I have been attempting to hunt down the boots in black online, but can't find them in a 7.5.

So, if I can just find a pair of black boots, my uniform will be complete.