I Should Be Folding Laundry

um...help?

I don't know about you all, but we had such a great holiday weekend.  It was very relaxing and it started out with me cleaning bathrooms on Saturday morning, which really does make me happy.  Well not so happy while I was doing it...but definitely happy after I did it...but that only lasted about four minutes until my kids and husband went into the bathroom and squirted toothpaste all over the cabinets and the boys peed all over everything.

But due to our relaxing, non-eventful weekend which included pools, beaches, bratwurst and smores...I have nothing to blog about, except pools, beaches, bratwurst and smores.

And dirty bathrooms, apparently.

Can you help me come up with something to blog about? PLEASE?

In the meantime, I'll share some pictures with you, how's that sound? 

If you look closely at this picture, you'll see the Chicago Skyline:

Now, I am gnot a gnome lover, but Crooked Eyebrow bought two of these gnomes for me, they're about three inches tall and well, I just love them!

Here's a picture of one of the trees we have for James and Jake, you can see the bricks we had made with their names on it.  This is the tree that was most severely eaten by the bastard beetles, it's in my backyard and gets lots of love and attention from the sun and me, of course. 

Oh and I'll leave you with a picture of my sister's friend, Katie, who happens to read my blog.  I was lucky enough to spend time with Katie when I visited my sister in Louisville last month.  Katie is really fun, but all of a sudden she started to taunt me and tell me that I would never be able to break up with Wal-Mart, it was pretty mean, just look at her mean face:

Mean girl.  I'll just blame all of the mojitos she had been drinking.

That's it!  That's all I've got!  Seriously, help me get rid of my blogger's block, m'kay?  Do you have topics, ideas, questions? Anything?  Share them with me. 

HURRY. 

Yes. But he's four.

A few weeks after we moved in, the doorbell rang.  I went to the door and found two lovely boys standing sweetly in front of me.  "Can Racecar come out to play?"  (I so badly want to use real names, but Brian vetoed it...sorry!)  "Well, um...nnnnot, right now." I answered nervously.  This had never happened to me, I have never had kids come over to ask if my kids could come out to play.

I asked what their names were and how old they were, the bigger of the two spoke for both of them.  "I'm Fred and I'm 10 and this is Barney and he's 7."

"Oh, well.  Um....Racecar is four and how do you even know who Racecar is?" I asked.

"We met him in your backyard yesterday."  Which happened to be the same day I left Brian in charge of the kids outside while I worked inside and then I looked outside and saw my kids coming out of someone else's back door.  It was very "twilight zone," really.   (side note: do not leave your kids with my husband.  side note to side note:  I'm totally kidding, he watches other kids a thousand times better than he watches our own.  The first side note is just for me.)

Anyway, back to the story.  (by the way, this is how I tell stories in real life, I interrupt myself and every story has seventeen side stories and before ten hours is up, I never even finish one story.)

(just ask my sisters.)

(and Brian.)

(except I never really talk to Brian because when he gets home I am typically comatose.)

ANYWAY.

I shoo'd the boys away and shut the door and called Brian and told him how cute and crazy it was that these boys came over and asked for Racecar. 

And then the next week they came back.

"how old are you boys again?"  Ten and seven, they replied.

"You do know Racecar is four, right?" 

"Yeah, can he come out and play?" 

"Well, yes, but only in the backyard, our backyard, he's to young to run around the the neighborhood."

So, I asked Racecar if we wanted to go outside and play and he said yes.

And off they went.

For five minutes.

Then they came back again the next week.

"Can Racecar come out and play?"

"You do know he's four, right?"

"He is?  What grade is he in."  He asked as if this was brand new information.

"Well, no grade really, just preschool."

"How old is she?"  He asked while pointing at Ariel.  "She's five and she goes to your school, she's in kindergarten."

"Awesome, does she ride the bus?"

"No."

"OH MAN, SHE SHOULD RIDE THE BUS IT'S SOOOOOOOOO MUCH FUN, IT'S THE BEST, WE LOVE THE BUS, WE CAN'T WAIT FOR IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  EVERY SINGLE DAY!!!"

And then Ariel started to cry because she doesn't ride the bus.

So, Racecar goes outside and playS and I'm in the living room and Brian's in the office and I hear Racecar come in and say "yeah, we've got Guitar Hero and Mario Brothers and Wii Fit....."

I stood up...."um, what you are boys doing?"

"We are playing Wii."

"Well, unless there is a Wii in the backyard, then we are not playing Wii.  Racecar, if you want to play Wii, come inside and say good bye to your friends."

"Bye Friends," he said, without hesitation. (his devotion to Wii is deep, friends.  Real deep.)

Twenty minutes later.

Someone knocks on my patio door.  Shockingly, it's these boys.

"Can Racecar come out to play?"

"Yes.  But he's four."

"He is?  Is Racecar playing Wii?"

"Yes."

Racecar comes to the door.  "Hey Racecar, what are you playing?"

"Um, Guitar Hero, I want to rock and roll all night."

"Can we come in and play, we've never played Wii?"  They asked me sweetly.

"No."

Twenty minutes later, the boys return.

"Can Racecar come out to play."

"No, he has homework."

"But he's only four, how can he have homework?  Can we come in and play Wii?"

Oy.

"I need lots and lots of drinks."

(I said that, not the kids.)

Perfection

Remember last week when I wrote about the painting I saw at a furniture store and instantly fell in love with it and wanted it for our ninth wedding anniversary which fell on the seventh?  But we didn't get it because it cost over $300 and we had to be all responsible because our washing machine broke and we had to replace it and my dreams of buying that painting went out the window?

Well, do you remember or not?

The painting, if you recall, made me think of James and Jake the second I saw it.  My heart fell to my stomach, I felt the painting that much.

The interesting thing is that since moving into our new house, I have been searching for something to hang over our fireplace.  I have looked at decorating websites and flipped through magazines just trying to get an idea of what to do above the fireplace.  The one thing I did not want to do was hang a mirror, so, I went to every store ever created and shopped for the perfect print.

I knew that one day, that print would jump out at me and it did, at the furniture store.

But again, it was over $300.

But then, last week, when we went to Ikea, we found what could very well be the exact same print, sitting there, waiting for me to fall in love with it.  And I did.  All for $99.

Since we've been out of town since last Wednesday, I haven't had a chance to hang it, but I did tonight.  I took the wrapping off of it and found a piece of paper about the painter.  Come to find out, the painter, has a twin brother.  Which makes me love the painting even more.

And tonight, we hung it.

And it's perfect.

Pottery & Willow. or appliances. Whatever.

Brian and I are quickly approaching our ninth wedding anniversary, it's this Thursday, but we celebrated this weekend with our kids going to Grandma's for the night, then we went to dinner and I did not drink too much (don't listen to Brian if he tells you anything different, or Christy who I drunk texted, m'kay?  or Crooked Eyebrow who I drunk texted, too.) (not to self - when drinking, leave blackberry in glove compartment.  Amen.)   and then we went furniture shopping because is there anything more romantic than that?

Oh and we did shop at Wal-Mart after dinner, but we went there for more alcohol and while I should not have gone there since I said I was breaking up with Wal-Mart last week, I can blame being drunk from the vodka filled cosmo and the glasses of red wine, or..uh, I mean, I was drunk from ALL OF THE LOVE. 

Yes, that's more like it.

The night before our big drunk date our romantic celebration we were furniture shopping with the kids (which I only recommend to you if you like stabbing sticks in your eyes) and I found a BEAUTIFUL painting that I loved and that would look stunning above our fireplace, the only problem is that it was a few hundred dollars and if anyone knows Brian, you know that the only time he likes things that are a few hundred dollars are when it's on a paycheck.  So, you can see where we tend to butt heads.  Especially when it means spending money on something that just sits there and looks pretty for years to come, he much prefers to spend that type of cash on say, a Wii or a vacuum cleaner or a lawn mower or sunglasses or computer wire, not that I blame him or anything.

But in MY defense, I do not commonly fall in love with artwork, in fact, I'm quite picky, but this particular piece took my breath away and it had a wonderful tree on it and it made me think of our James and Jake, it was peaceful and beautiful.  I thought about the sad day, years from now when our children would fight over who would get this phenomenal piece of art after my passing.  *sigh*

And let me back up a bit to stop and remind you that last week, I mentioned, in passing, that our washing machine was broken and well, it's true, it was broken.  By Saturday morning the situation was turning critical as the laundry piles were building and the water that was sitting in the washer when it broke was still sitting in the same washer and well, standing water is never a good thing, unless it's in an ocean and I'm sitting by it in a chair with a margarita and a flat stomach.

This was not the case.  So, Brian called the repair guy and he basically said "well, I'll charge you $109 just to come out to your house and seven years ago you paid $350 for this washer, sooooooooooooooooo...just buy a new one."

Which I'm sure he meant from his store, but that just went right over our heads and instead of the family owned appliance store with excellent service, with whom I went to high school with their daughter, we decided to go to Best Buy.  Because, well, isn't that where you go to buy a washing machine?

But, the salesperson at Best Buy was ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC, (big shout-out to Best Buy coming....) not only did the person at Best Buy teach us about every single washer, he didn't really care what we bought, because he doesn't work on commission, so when he was helping us?  He was really helping us and it was amazing.  And then, on a Sunday, about 20 hours after we walked into Best Buy, I was washing a load of laundry in my brand new, front loading, very fancy and smart and efficient washing machine.  And to make matters even better?  I was actually sad when I was done with my laundry last night.  I'm not kidding.

I may actually re-wash my clothes, you know, for fun.

And Ariel?  Well, she watches the cycles like it's the best Hannah Montana episode ever.

It's awesome.

So, my point is, that washing machine?  Has suddenly turned into our anniversary present, which is terribly romantic and all, but seriously?  A washing machine? 

I know, we are overloaded with romance here at the folding laundry household, it's just like the year we bought a house for our anniversary in 2003.

It's the stuff Harlequins are made of.

But next year, we decided we are going to do something really amazing and different...we are going to buy the matching dryer. 

I honestly can't wait.

(since many of you are asking...no, we did not get the artwork.)

The First Floor

Do not adjust your computer monitors, I have pictures of my house.  But just the first floor because I'm way too lazy to do more than that.  Way too lazy.

First the kitchen.  This kitchen IS the kitchen of my dreams.  Inside the lower cabinets, the shelves pull out.  I have empty cabinets there are so many cabinets, and cabinets just for paper goods, like paper plates and napkins.  I'm not showing off, I'm just telling you about how glorious and amazing our kitchen is.   The pantry is on the left and passed the refrigerator on the left is the door that leads to the laundry room and a closet and then the garage.  I do not have pictures of my laundry room, the pantry, the closet or the garage because HOW BORING DO YOU WANT THIS POST TO BE?

Oh look!  Another picture of my kitchen.  The island has proven to be the perfect table for folding clothes.  I may have to change my blog title to "I Should Be Dieting" or "I Should Be Cleaning the Toilets" because I've been doing a pretty good job of folding laundry.  (except our washer broke today...I see a laundry back up in the very near future.)  See those bar stools?  The first time my kids sat in those chairs, they spilled something on them.  So the stools fit right in.

Here's the view from the kitchen, into the living room. 

Here's the living room.  I have decorator's block in this room, therefore my walls remain bare.  I do like the way the photo looks on the mantel so my plan is hang photos I have taken up there.  And Shutterfly is having a sale on prints!  Yippee. 

(for the record, I do not say yippee in real life.  or yee haw.)

More living room pictures from the other side.  I love our windows in the living room.  Love. Them.  See the ottoman with the smokin' hot laptop on it?  That's my computer, her name is Roja and that's where I sit to blog n' such.  I'm sitting there right now!

And here's our office, again.  This time with the new light fixture and more stuff on the walls.  I did get some photos I took printed and enlarged and two of them are in this room, I like them.  I think.  This office makes happy, very happy.  We will be making some changes to it in the future.  Oh and to the right is a bathroom and a door to the basement. 

There you have it!  The first floor.  Check back later for the rest...you know, should you need to read something that will make you sleepy.

I'm almost out of excuses

I know what you must be thinking when you come to my blog...

"will she ever show us pictures of her new house?"

"will she ever add mulch to her garden so she can show us pictures?"

"will she ever tell us about the jerk that sold her the trees?"

I finally have answers...yes. yes. and ooooooooooh yeah.  (At least I think I'm going to go into detail about the jerk at the landscape place, I haven't totally decided, yet.)

But not right now.

The mulch was delivered, thanks to my friend and blog reader, Angie, who called me this morning and I had the mulch delivered this afternoon!!!  (thank you, Angie!!) which means we are mulching right now, as we speak.

Well, Brian is, right now I'm blogging and he's dumping the mulch and I'm spreading it when I get done blogging, obviously I have my priorities straight. 

Then tomorrow night I am hosting my Mommies group here and do you know what that means?!?!  I have to clean my house and don't think for a second that I will not be taking tons of pictures after cleaning my house because I do not intend to clean again for a VERY, VERY LONG TIME and I need to capture it, while it lasts.  (which will be about 30 minutes, since I'll wait until the very last minute to clean and everyone will arrive just moments after I have finished cleaning.  Procrastinate much?)  And the pictures will come in handy for when a neighbor drops by and sees the squalor we live in and I can be all like "yeah, but, see these pictures? it USED to be clean."

What does all this mean?  I'm busy!  Can't blog!  But will soon!  With pictures!

And just to hold you over, I'm going to share some pictures for you that I took this weekend, while my sister-in-law and her family were visiting.  The beautiful girl in the shots is my niece and she's very, very cute with a tiny, little girl voice.  oh and there's other shots of crap thrown in, just for good measure.  Enjoy!

And here's one of Ariel, before I leave (if you look closely, you can see where she cut her own bangs way back in June - sadly, she loves the way it turned out.)

Oh dear, I think Brian just flipped me off, I better get to work.

Weird. Bizarre. Long-Winded. Awesome.

Do you want to hear a really weird, bizarre, long winded story?  You do?  I'm so glad.

We moved into our last home on August 1, 2003.  The house was brand new, no yard, no landscaping, just like this one.  I waited until July of 2004 to do the landscaping because I was pregnant and very large and grouchy, with the puffiest fingers anyone has ever seen, so we waited.  During that year, my sister lost her baby, Jonathon.  She was 22 weeks along. 

My Mom and I decided to tackle the landscaping on our own.  I happen to think my Mom is a Landscape Genius, but she disagrees.  While shopping for plants I came across the most peculiar looking tree, it was small, unique and it was a perfect tree to become my Jonathon tree.  I had a brick made with his initials on it and placed the brick underneath that tree.  It was the perfect place, the perfect tree, it was all perfect.  That tree became my favorite part of the garden and I LOVED my garden, so that says a lot.  Unfortunately, when we bought the tree, we didn't even know the name of it, as it had no tags.

When we sold our house, my first point of panic came when I thought about leaving that tree and the rest of my landscaping, for that matter.  Every Mother's Day, I planted something new, one year I planted two lilac trees beneath my kitchen window (a dream of mine.)  Another year I planted a beautiful purple clematis, that just this year climbed the sides of my deck with vigor, it was gorgeous.  So, leaving my landscaping was more than just leaving my landscaping, it was leaving a little piece of my heart at that house.

I am okay with that, after meeting the new owners.  The wife is an avid landscaper, which makes me happy.  We discussed my plants and what they meant to me, specifically that tree.  I told her about James and Jake and she looked deep into my eyes and listened and understood.  We connected.  It was amazing.  She was meant for our house.

But now here I am, wanting to begin the landscape "adventure" all over again.  I worked with the landscaper, who put in our yard, and he and I created and prepared the beds, with beautiful dirt just waiting to hold and nurture some vibrant black-eyed Susans or protect the hostas from the harsh cold during the winter.

At our last house, Brian dug out all of the beds and it took many hours of back breaking labor, so he was quite pleased with the work the landscapers did.  I am quite, pleased, too.

I want to plant two trees for James and Jake, I want them to be the same trees I planted for Jonathon, the problem?  I don't know what kind of tree it was.  I knew it was some sort of crabapple and that's about it.

On Thursday, I began my search for the trees, no luck.  Then yesterday afternoon, I stopped at a landscape place, kinda out in the country.  I went there and talked with someone and they had lots of crabapples.  It didn't take us long to find THE tree.  It's called a lollipop crabapple.  It had crabapples on it, which surprised me because I didn't remember ever seeing crabapples on the ground.  I told her this and she said "that's because birds eat them in the fall and in the winter."

I thought, "of course they do, what an absolutely perfect tree to plant for James and Jake, as birds thrive off of its fruit in the colder months."  Birds which remind me so much of my precious boys. (and always have.)

Unfortunately, there was only one.  I discussed with her having personalized bricks created , this is the same place I bought one four years ago.  We walked into the building and she asked me what color brick I wanted.  I told her I didn't really pay attention to the colors and told her I would go back outside to look.  I did and on my way back to the store, I saw it, the other lollipop crabapple.

I came in and told her there was another one and she said "no, that's a lilac tree."  I told her she was wrong and she agreed.

But, both of these trees were so expensive that I couldn't even bring myself to buy one of them without searching every other landscape place in Northwest Indiana, I wish I could have just taken them and thrown them into the back of the van, but they just cost too much.

My plan was to continue looking for the trees this morning.

Well, last night, another blogger who lives in this area left a comment saying she drove past a landscape place and thought of me, the sign in front said "if your name is Beth or Brian, come in for a free rose."

My name.  My husband's name.

I e-mailed her and asked her where the place was.  She replied and would you believe it was the EXACT place I had found the two trees and ordered the stones with their names engraved on them.

Ever since losing James and Jake I have decided to try to follow what is meant to be.  To not fight anything, to just go with the flow. 

I have no doubt, these two trees are meant to be and I know that James and Jake agree.