excerpts from my 'home' smashbook.

Long story short, SMASHbooking didn't happen yesterday. It did, however, happen today. I worked on my home-themed SMASHbook.

(Do I really have to keep using caps to refer to a SMASHbook? It makes me feel like I'm yelling. I don't like it. From here on out, it's 'smashbooking' or 'smashbook', just so you know. I don't like to yell.)

I actually made quite a bit of progress. I finished our 'home buying timeline' pages, but there is just too much personal info on them for me to post photos here. I also smashed a few other random things on random pages for rooms in our house, but mostly, not enough to be interesting. So.

Here are three page sets that are still very much in progress. In order, they are:  our farmer's porch, family room, and formal living room.

Farmer's porch

Family room

Formal living room (aka the "Blue" room)

And yes, I do have big plans. Please embrace them :)

{wordless} lights

It's a lot more fun to decorate your house for Christmas when it actually is yours. :)

been busy living life...

While my blog has been boring, life has been anything but. Here are the highlights, in no particular order:

• Lily missed three days of school due to the croup.
• We traveled down to and spent Veterans' Day weekend with my in-laws in New Jersey. The Sandy devastation --especially through Connecticut and New York-- was insane.
• I registered to "go back" to school in January. (I'm going to save the details on this for another post!)
• I've had two (out of three) pets to the vet for regular checkups. Both --Maggie and Sadie-- are doing fine. Sadie actually goes back again tomorrow for her second Lyme Disease vaccination booster.
• Lily joined a Brownie troop.
• I got a chance to spend a day with my favorite cousin. She came to see our new home, then she and I did lunch and a little shopping (where I spent too much at AC Moore, as usual).
• Sadie graduated from puppy obedience class.
• I met with Lily's teacher for the first parent-teacher conference of the year. My kiddo is doing great. Top of her class in math, actually. Yay!! She's also fitting in well with her new classmates :) 

And...I got caught up on my housework. Well, maybe for a day, anyway...

30 days of giving thanks

It’s simple.

Take a moment each day in November and thank someone in your life.

Send a text, make a call, leave a post-it,

write an old fashioned letter…

Make eye contact.

Smile.

And say, “thanks.”

It doesn’t matter how you thank them.  

Simply think of someone in your life - each day - and tell them why you are thankful for them.  

Give them your thanks.

Thank thirty people in thirty days.

Can’t think of thirty people?

Look more closely at the people you encounter in a day. 

The postman.

The barista.

The friendly teller at the bank.

The woman who always stamps your parking ticket.

Your neighbor down the street.

Is there a local store owner who makes you feel welcome every time you shop?

Do you have a favorite sacker at the grocery store?

How about someone you work with that makes you laugh?

Do you have a favorite hair stylist, or a massage therapist, or yoga teacher?

Have you you told your best friend how much you appreciate their friendship?

Did you ever thank your favorite teacher?

Has anyone helped change the course of your life?

What about someone you are really close to – like your kids or spouse – when’s the last time you thanked them?

***

Isn't this an amazing idea? I'm really looking forward to the positivity and warmth this brings into my life over the next month. You can join in too at:

  A Free Spirit Life.

hole in the wall.

So, remember two weeks ago when I said that the feeling of homeownership hadn't sunk in yet??  Our in-progress repair work on the back door has definitely taken care of that.

Due to our home inspection, we knew when we bought the house that there was some water damage under and around the bottom of the door casing due to improper installation of the doorstep. We were prepared for the fact that we'd need to fix that. We were also prepared that there might be some mold growing, as we could tell a small portion of wall/sheetrock was starting to swell towards the bottom right. In the scheme of house shopping and buying, it was a minimal problem and definitely not something to not buy the house over (or hold up the closing by trying to get the sellers' bank to pay for the fix). We still feel that way, but...

The contractor started yesterday, and the following are photos of how the day --and the door-- progressed:

Black mold under the woodwork completely crumbled the bottom of the sheetrock. Eeek.

The wood under the door rotten and moldy. See that strip of green in the middle, on the right? The contractor stuck his thumb down through it -- it was mush.

That...is a lot of black mold. More than we anticipated.

Just a closer look.

All the bad stuff has been removed...now waiting for repair.

Maybe I meant regressed, instead of progressed. Ugh.

We are SO glad we made up our minds to take care of this immediately. Not only because black mold is so unsafe, but also because the contractor told us we caught it just in time. Before too long, it would have moved into the structure work of the house. Not good.

According to the contractor, the door he removed yesterday was not the original one to the house. Someone had known about this problem, removed the original door and wood under it without thoroughly cleaning up the rot or mold OR fixing the leak, slapped a new piece of wood down and threw a door in, and left it. Nice, huh?

At the present moment, the new door is in place and is being secured. After that, the finish work will be completed, a storm door installed, and the stairs reinstalled and lowered so that they don't cause another water issue in the future. I'm not sure if all of those things will be happening today, but I hope so. It's getting a little tiring having people around, especially since I'm still pretty under the weather.

time management?

If you're out there, readers, this is a time I'd love to hear from you. How do you manage your time efficiently? Do you schedule your days? Make lists? Follow a program like FlyLady? Completely wing it?

Week One of Project Real Life focuses on the idea that cultivating a good life is beginning with the end [result] in mind. I've spent a lot of time over the weekend thinking about what that means for me - what I want for myself, my family, and my home.

I want a home filled with love and joy (which we have), but I want it without the guilt hanging over my head that there is still laundry to be done or dishes to be loaded into the dishwasher (don't have that so much, lol). I want those things to already be done, and I want to have a system in place to ensure that is how things start happening around here. There are other aspects of life cultivating that I am thinking about as well, but those are a little more personal and not for public consumption. At least, not yet. Who knows, maybe I'll need to pick your brains again ;)

It's quite possible I need to simplify, too. Moving has shown me just how much needless "stuff" we have. It just makes for clutter, and for extra work. So, I need to let go of these things. Sounds easy, right? It's not. I hate to give up anything that I might have a use for "someday". I'm working on changing that mentality. Case in point:  the gorgeous snowflake porcelain plates I bought seven years ago to serve Christmas dinners on, and have never used -- but have boxed up and moved FIVE times now. Chances are good that I'm never going to use these plates, so why can't I let them go??

Less stuff = less work. That needs to be my mantra. Well, one of them anyway.

However, back to the original point of my post -- I still need to figure out a way to better manage my time because I'll need plenty of it to work on purging the items I don't need as well as getting the everyday stuff done and making time for family (and, for me, too!). So, any suggestions? :)

finito.

It's Thursday! When did that happen??

I say this because WE CLOSED ON OUR HOUSE ON MONDAY morning and I just realized I didn't even mention it here yet!! It was definitely not my intention to withhold that information all week. After all we've been through with it, you'd think I would be standing up on the roof shouting, "We're homeowners! It's OURS! Yaaaaaay!"

It was a quiet affair. We met at the bank and signed the papers, then he went off to work and I came home to Sadie and a pee puddle. For all of the lead up to and waiting for we did, the day felt pretty normal. I'd expected to feel different when it was a done deal, but I didn't. I still don't. No Cloud 9 moment for me. Maybe it hasn't sunk in yet??

A friend of mine said, "Wait until you make that first mortgage payment. Then it'll hit you." I don't think I believe that, though. We've been paying rent for ten years. I'm used to making monthly payments on our living arrangements, so I don't think mailing off a check is going to bring about any epiphanies.

No, I think the slide into homeownership mentality is going to be gradual. Little realizations here and there, like when we decide we want to paint a room or pull up a rug, and don't have to ask (and be denied) permission. Or, when we don't mow our lawn for another week because it really doesn't need to be done and there is no one out there all but measuring the blades of grass with a ruler because she has some sort of complex about the length grass should be. (Not kidding about that.)

Now that I think about it, I do feel something:  relief. Relief in knowing those days of answering to someone else about our home are over. That, quite possibly, may be the best feeling of all.

You know what? This feeling of peace and the huge smile on my face make me think it may have hit me just now :)