Going ... going ... SOLD!!!

Well it appears that we are in escrow folks! I am not sure if I am excited or scared. Probably both. Anyways it got me to thinking I needed to get the girls out in front of the house for some pictures. Besides PJ told me I had to post some recent pics of them. So here are my beauties. You'd hardly know Hannah wasn't being cooperative at all when you look at them. I know you can't actually see the house, but they are in front of it. :)

Help!

I am now officially depserate. I need to find someone to watch my two girls here at the house starting next week while I return to work. It would be 2 days a week from 10 til 4. It can either be Mon/Wed or Tues/Thur. Job pays $12/hour. Has to be here at my house. If you know of anyone looking for something, let me know. I am thinking a college aged girl would be best. Somoene who needs a little extra money in her pocket, but doesn't want to take a job that may conflict with her class schedule. I am hoping I can get someone referred because the two girls I wanted through a service I paid for unfortunately accepted other jobs prior to me making my offer to them. The other applicants are good but nothing great so far.

Seems too soon!

Aaaaaaghhhh ... I am struggling. I have to create two Christmas projects for upcoming events at SGT and have stumbled upon a major case of scrappers block. It's awful. I think it has something to do with the fact that it's only August. Sadly I know Christmas will be here before I know it, but I am still enjoying being in the sun and pool. Not ready for the rich reds and greens, and snowmen (embellishments, not real snowmen -- I live in Southern CA), etc that goes with the holiday. Well hopefully I can get over this hurdle soon.

By the way, if anyone should be wondering where I have been for the past week, my normal late night blogging has been superseded by the need to make window curtains for our master bedroom in an attempt to spruce the room up since it's on the market. One of the definite bummers about being creative is that I cannot buy anything that I think I can make for cheaper. All of my non-scrapping friends will buy curtains if they need curtains. So what if it will cost them almost $400. Me, I see a $400 price and FREAK out. No way!!! I can make that for so much cheaper. So down to downtown LA I went on a quest for affordable fabric, lining, and sheers. With two kids by the way. A big thanks to little sister who came with me! Found all of that for $87 so I am thrilled. Rio Fabric on Maple Street was awesome! But now I have been hunched over a sewing machine for the past 5 nights trying to follow some pretty vague instructions in a create-your-own-window-treatments book I bought some time back. I have 4 of 6 panels done, but there's a huge learning curve that goes with the project. Unfortunately, all 4 don't match. The goal is to get three pairs of 2 panels that do match so at least the curtain panels on a window will look like they belong together. Catastrophies so far: left the iron on too long as I was "pressing a seam" and melted the fabric (thank goodness on the backside), cut some fabric too short (so mad!), and have a million pin holes in my fingertips.

So I guess I have saved a bunch of money. But then if you add back in my hourly rate (even at minimum wage) I am probably going to be close to that $400 mark. Waaaaahhhh ... and I still have the 6 sheer panels to make! It never ends! I think it will be a while before you see me again.

What a crazy couple of days it has been here at home. Joel took the week off of work to do some renovation projects in an effort to make our house more marketable in this not-so-great-for–selling-your-house economy. We flew his buddy out from Texas who is pretty experienced with this kind of stuff. The poor guys worked so hard. At the end of each night (which was no earlier than 11PM), you could just tell they were ready to drop. The results are pretty awesome. They redid the master bath. Here’s a before and here’s the after. As you can tell, we still need a shower door, but I am so thrilled with how it came out. Now you are probably wondering what the heck they did ib there. It almost looks the exact same. Well unfortunately, there's no way to really change the layout of our small bathroom so it's hard to get a good picture. But, they demo'd the old shower tile and redid it. Painted the inside and out of the existing cabinets, painted walls and ceilings, and installed new fixtures. Then they also added moulding trim to our hallway cabinets which has truly made a great difference. Sorry no pictures.

A funny sidebar to this “event” is that this Buddy of ours loves In-n-Out. As I mentioned, he’s from Texas and they don’t have them out there. I am not joking, he’s been here since Tuesday and they have gone to In-n-out for EVERY meal. That's at least 8 times! I guess we take it for granted here. I forget how good they are.

Wow!

Did you see it?! Only the most amazing gold medal finish in swimming ever! I was watching the men's 4x100 medley and feeling pretty good as the first two swimmers Phelps and Weber-Gale swam. Then we lost quite a bit of ground as Jones took to the water. I was really bummed that it looked like we were going to lose to the smack talking French but then Lezak turned it on!!! Such an awesome finish as he beat the French team by a fingertip. Literally! It's such a proud feeling I have watching our Olympians perform. Even if they don't win gold or any medal for that matter. Good for them for making it this far. Just think about the mental and physical commitment it requires to get this far. I am happy to let them do it. I'll sit on the couch and watch my TV and cheer them on. USA! USA! USA!

We're really doing it man!

Wow! So I guess we are selling our house. It's so weird to even think about. We met with a great realtor tonight, referred to us by some friends, and by the end of the meeting, we were signing a bunch of paperwork to officially put it on the market. Hopefully it sells sooner than later. It's no secret the market sucks right now. But that also means our future dream home may be more within our reach.

Now comes the challenge of keeping this house "show ready". Sob sob sob! How am I going to do that with two kids? I will get 2 hours notice before someone comes to see the property. In that two hours, I will have to get the house vaccumed (my dog sheds like crazy), pack up the two girls, and the dog and take off for who knows how long. It'll be worth it in the long run, but my sanity is definitely at stake here.

On a more fun note, the Olympics begin tomorrow and I am so excited. Go USA! I so wish I had Tevo (sp?) or DVR. Can you believe I don't?! What's wrong with us?

It's the little things

Victory!!!! I got both kids down for a nap at the same time!!!!! I can't believe it. I thought it could never happen. I want to sing and shout from the mountain tops. Oh wait, I'd better not because I might wake them. Anyways, it's interesting that my life has turned out in such a way where this would be the highlight of one of my days. :) I hope I don't sound like I am complaining about my life there, because I do truly love it. But yes, it is these small accomplishments that make me so happy. So what am I going to do with this possible two hour window? Well, I have BIG plans. I am going to start another load of laundry, work on defrosting chicken and turning it into something I hope is edible, take a much needed shower, and hopefully continue work on Makaela's LONG overdue announcements. Exciting huh? Wish me luck!

By the way, I promise to post more scrapbooking stuff soon. I was terrible and turned in all of my layouts for the store without taking pictures of them. I did the same for my LA County Fair entries. But those shouldn't count because I turned in projects I did a while ago. Some projects in the works are a mini album for a friend who just delivered twin boys, a wall decoration for Makaela's room, and a cool little repurposing of a child's shape box that the dog ate all the shapes to. I will post that one for sure, good or bad. May be a while though.

OK off to do laundry. Hurray for me!

My fav band!!!

I got to see Matchbox 20 last night at the Pacific Amphitheater with my most wonderful husband! He emailed me from work a couple of weeks ago to see if I wanted to go cuz they were in town. "Ummm yeah!!!" was my response. And he delivered.

Words can't say how much I love this band. And when I say that, don't think I am some diehard stalker fan who's a member of their fan club or anything. But as I told my husband last night, I have liked these guys longer than I have liked him!!! It was my first time seeing them and they did not disappoint in the least. They played their classics as well as some new stuff I didn't recognize but now love. And Rob Thomas is one of those guys who's good we the crowd. He interacted, made some jokes, thanked the crowd many times and genuinely looked like he was enjoying himself. You could tell the whole band was having a great time. And what a talented bunch of guys they are. Several of them switched from guitar to piano to drums. Truly an amazing experience. I wish I had a picture to post, but we were pretty far back so no luck there.

We were almost in the last row but at this venue it didn't matter. It was a perfect summer evening in this beautiful open area. They had screens set up that allowed you to see everything if you didn't feel like squinting your eyes to make out the tiny band members. The sound set up was INCREDIBLE. By far the best concert experience as far as sound goes. I could hear the music as well as the lyrics. If you ever have the opportunity to see a concert at the Pacific Amphitheater in Costa Mesa, I highly recommend it.

So now I am off to join the Matchbox 20 fan club so I can be sure to be alerted the next time they are in town. I think it will be a while since they announced last night that they're going to be taking a break. That's a bummer but I say take as long as you need as long as you come back with some more amazing music.