Tuesday, June 14, 2005

Yes, This Was As Fun As It Looks

tracey_swing.jpg

Jason snapped this of me at the playground over the weekend.

This Is What Happens When Me Getting Money Doesn't Coincide With Me Breaking Jason's Stuff

New rug! This almost makes up for the way I literally flushed my money down the drain last time.

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Also, behold my not-dead garden!

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More not-dead stuff:

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Monday, June 13, 2005

Thinking

I have not been paying attention to the Michael Jackson trial. Frankly, I think there are more important things that should be dominating the headlines daily. That being said, I turned on the tv today and watched the aftermath of the not-guilty verdict. Although I'm not exactly sure what my feeling are about the whole case, two things crossed my mind while watching:

1) If indeed he is innocent, how entirely awful it must be to go through all of this.

2) I'm starting to wonder though, if "reasonable doubt" can always be raised if you pay enough money for it.

Thursday, June 9, 2005

Summah-tiiime...When The Livin's Eeeasy...

I'm the kind of person who gets seriously bored if I don't have a project to work on. And if I don't have something given to me, I make something up. Something that has to be taken care of RIGHT NOW. Since I have essentially declared my home itself my summer project, I have taken it upon myself to construct a list for what I plan to accomplish in the next three months:

1) CLEAN MY GARAGE.

We are getting a second car in August. (It's a PT Cruiser that we are driving back from Florida- YAY!) First of all, our garage will barely fit our little Chevy Prism. Second... well, there is no second. It's just ridiculously crowded in there and needs to be dealt with. Somewhat related to this, I will be enlisting my Dad to put in a small patio area out back so we can move our grill out of the garage and into the back yard. Also, once I get the garage cleaned out I can paint it with that neat-o grey floor paint and make it all purdy.

2)Build a shelf that fits into our tv nook in the living room wall.

I hate the nook with a passion and wish I could knock that wall down, but without going into the boring details, this will be a much more efficient solution to our problem and also be, quite frankly, much less INSANE. (This project involves my dad's help again. He's like me though and can't sit still so don't worry about him having to work too hard.)

3)Re-paint our bedroom.

Remember when I was joking about becoming the kind of person who paints their bedroom taupe? I'm totally going through with it. Only maybe I'll morph into Hildi Santo-Tomas from Trading Spaces and call it "mocha". Or maybe "toffee". And then I'll wear all black with my three-inch heels and talk all breathy and arty while I'm painting the caramel-latte color on the walls. (Kidding!) But seriously though, I've had enough of the lavender in here. And this new color looks really good as far as I can tell from the teeny swatch I took home from the Home Depot. Plus, I have a good track record with my decorating skillz and think I have a pretty good eye. You're talking to someone who got the award for "Most Fashionable Camper" at her summer day camp in the third grade. Why I felt the need to be stylish at the YWCA camp, I'll never know. The girly-girl in me likes decorating and fashion-y stuff.

4)Do something about the floors in our upstairs bathrooms.

The only thing I can't stand about our lovely ceramic tile on the first floor is that it reminds me about HOW MUCH I can't stand the hideous vinyl floor in the other bathrooms upstairs. It's WHITE and completley impossible to keep clean. Especially in the girls bathroom. I don't really want to spend the money to install ceramic up there so I've been tossing around the idea of putting down some peel and stick tiles (at least in the kid's bath.) I know, I know, it's totally cheap right? I think if I did this though that it would satisfy me enough to where I could stop complaining about it all the time and not completely break the bank as well.

So you see, I have a lot on my to-do list. And I didn't even talk about putting up handrails on the stairs, doing some touch-up paint work on the walls and continuing to build up my garden. (After four years here I think I've finally figured out how to NOT make things die!)

I also want to have more dinner parties. And barbeques. And have more people over for cocktails. Basically, I want to entertain. (And apparently I don't want to get that much sleep.)

Embracing One's Shortcomings and Making With The Joke-y

"Someday you will appreciate the grammar and verbal skills you learned here." (Laughter and applause.) "And if any of you wonder how far a mastery of the English language can take you, just look what it did for me." (Laughter and applause.)

-G.W.B. speaking at the commencement ceremony at Calvin College last month.

Lately I just try to tune that guy out but THAT, my friends, was a good one. (I know I'm late to the punch but I just heard the sound byte today. Like I said- I'm usually quick with the mute button.) Also good: The "dissassemble" means "not to tell the truth" line from last week.

I laugh to keep from crying.

*Sigh*

Tuesday, June 7, 2005

The Post Where I Am A Good Granddaughter

Today the girls and I stopped by the sales office for the condo my grandparents will be moving into and we snapped some pictures of the model they had constructed. (Grandma and Grandpa: You can click here to see a gallery of the photos I took!)

So unless you are planning on moving into the Clare Oaks Retirement Community in Bartlett, this entry is probably pretty uninteresting for you. My apologies!

Monday, June 6, 2005

Home Sweet Home

After being reminded by some of you of the fact that buying a super-cheap house in Rockford would require me to actually LIVE in Rockford, I have begun to let go of the idea of my awesome fantasy home happening any time soon. Let me be the first to say: THANK YOU FOR HELPING TO CRUSH MY DREAMS . Just kidding! Sort of. I know that I don't want to live in Rockford- and now that my grandparents will be moving into the area I don't want to leave Bartlett either. It's just sometimes I can't stop thinking about how neat it would be to live in a place that is not physically attached to another family's home. A place that has some character to it. And more bedrooms. And an awesome sun room and a pool.

ANYWAY, since I can't have that, I have decided to dedicate myself to making the home I DO have as beautiful as possible. I think I've done a pretty good job already at bringing our own personal style to a place that quite frankly had none when we moved in. But there still are a few things that I'd like to do around the house to spruce it up a bit- especially since we won't be going anywhere anytime soon. (Juli and Ava can look forward to some bunk beds when Ava outgrows that crib!) Summer is always a good time for house projects too. And having a retired Dad who is good with the tools and looking for stuff busy himself with is a nice perk.