That time I took a picture of my fridge...

....and pretended like I was an organized, got-it-together homemaker type? Yeah, that would be today.

I'm tired lately. I have big projects to finish like painting the laundry and pantry doors in the kitchen, grouting the last part of the back splash, and building the railing for my deck to name a few. Those things are overwhelming me. So in an attempt to do "something" every day, I've been organizing like a crazy woman. Last night's project almost didn't happen, but while I was waiting for my frozen pizza to cook, I actually got something done. I organized the fridge, and since I have a little girl, I used that as an excuse to use HOT PINK baskets.

These Pins are all over Pinterest:

I didn't get a before picture of the fridge, but here's a current picture of my freezer (gulp), and the fridge was similar (i.e. lots of piles, especially since my brother is staying with me):

That is a dried up carrot on the bottom, a left over gift from a certain cute little girl.

I'm pretty good about wiping down the shelves before I restock with new groceries, so it wasn't actually too dirty. I did take everything out and give it a good scrub down, though. Then I organized all the food by leftovers, pre-packaged foods, bread, milk, fruits, veggies, meats and cheeses, glass jars, and plastic containers (down low for you-know-who). I love, love, love the baskets! I am slightly obsessed with having an organized fridge. Cooking should not be stressful! Mine may not be quite as pretty as the original picture above, but it's organized and it's pink. :-)





Now I need to go back to Gibson's in Kerrville to get some more baskets for the freezer! What a lovely excuse to go see my Grandmother.

Thursday Thirteen - Mother's Day

Mother's Day is this Sunday, so my mother seemed an excellent theme for a Thursday Thirteen!



1. My wonderful parents. Married for ... a long ass time. 30+ years. My Dad is a lucky man, and he knows it, which makes my Mom a lucky woman!

2. My mother is my best friend. The picture below was taken on a vacation to Port Aransas one summer. I can't think of anyone I'd have more fun with anywhere, anytime! 

3.

4. Isn't she beautiful?!

5. I don't think any children fully appreciate their parents when they are young, and that's a shame. I knew earlier than most kids that I had great parents. The longer I live, and the more life experiences I have, the more I realize just how true that is.

6. My beautiful sister who got her good looks from my beautiful mother. Two of my favorite ladies!

7.

8.

9. Olivia's first Lone Star Roundup with Gigi and I. 

10. My daughter could not be blessed with a more loving, doting Gigi. I think she makes an even better grandmother than she did a mother, and that's hard to do!

11. Pebbles and Gigi ;-)

12.

13. This is one of my all time favorite pictures of both these girls. You can almost feel the love they have for each other just from looking at the picture. I know seeing my mother with Olivia that Liv will always know what it feels like to truly be loved. I also know, from being raised by this amazing woman, that loving your children is the best thing you can give them.

Bees go Buzzzzz

My poor, sweet, fragile baby was stung by a bee!

A few days ago, we were in the front yard. I was watering the grass, and Liv was playing in the dirt (yes, literally - with a shovel. What is childhood for, after all?).

She stands up and says, "A ba bla be ba?" and holds out her arm. From across the yard, I can see something crawling on her arm and some iridescent green reflecting off of it. I assume it's a fly and say, "Say 'Shew fly, don't bother me!'"

A second later she screams. As I'm coming through the yard to see what's wrong, I see her pull the bee off her arm, where clearly the stinger was being pulled from her skin as she rips him off of her. She throws the bee on the ground ... points down at him ... and yells at it! She's not crying at this point, she's MAD. Yelling at the bee, face all scrunched up, really giving him a piece of her mind. "Ah no baa ba NO! Bird NO ba ba NO!"

Trying not to laugh, I pick her up and look at the insect on the ground. It looks exactly like this:

Apparently a Sweat Bee? I've never seen a green, metallic bee before!

Only now does she start crying. I thought my Dad was allergic to bees, and I've never been stung by a bee (only a wasp, which is a Texas right of passage). I'm immediately on the phone with my parents, sure we're due for a trip to the ER. Except she's already quit crying, and only the tiniest little bump is coming up on her wrist. Dad is only allergic to wasps. Per Dr. Dad's orders, we put baking soda and water on the sting. Naturally, Gigi (accompanied by Granny Juju -my Aunt Jul) come running to the rescue with Benedryl Gel. Before baking soda, it looked like this:

30 minutes later, the baking soda had rubbed off and we went to put Benedryl Gel on it, but it was gone already! Liv was back to her happy self, and you'd never know she'd just been stung by a bee, and thereby conquering one of her Mommy's biggest fears!

"Good Morning"

When I was pregnant, I had a routine with Bandit and Kimber. When it was time to get up and go downstairs (and therefore outside to potty), I'd always say, "Good morning, how are you?" in a sing songy voice. I had heard that a baby would recognize their mother's voice, and specifically things they said over and over. This phrase was the only thing I could think of that I said over and over while pregnant.


When Olivia was born, I wanted to say this to her, but thought I'd be too shy and embarrassed to do so in front of doctors and nurses. Not so much. It was the very first thing I said to her, and she responded! Not with words, of course, but physically. She looked right at me! My newborn baby looked right at me and responded with familiarity to the words I'd just said. It was amazing.

So for the last 16+ months, I've gone into her room every morning and sung, "Good morning! How are you?"

I've been trying to teach her words, and it's always the words I don't expect that she comes up with. Yesterday morning when I went in to get her, she said, "Goomor!" I jumped up and down and oohed and aahed and gave her a great big hug and a kiss. It was to-die-for cute! So cute, that I might have caved and given her a little cookie before breakfast. ;-)

Is the above pictures sideways to you? Because I have rotated it 372 times, and even uploaded new copies of the f-ing picture, but Blogger keeps importing it sideways. I know punching my monitor won't fix the problem, but DAMN it would feel good right now.

El Fin

Written March 2, 2012:

Today I drove to the Travis County courthouse to file for divorce from my husband. My husband who still seems very much mine. He's been in my life for more than 9 years, although our marriage was a short one of 4 years and 1 month, to the day.

I'm nervous. I'm sad. I'm relieved. I'm relived that we've finally found a solution to our problems, I'm relieved the awkard conversation about how and when to do this is behind me, and I'm relieved, sadly, to be ending my marriage. There, I said it. There's no way to sugar coat something like that.

I wish Chris could be different. I wish he was the person I'd hoped he would become. I wish we saw eye to eye on how to live our lives. Those are a lot of needs on my part, and I understand that. His side is of course that I didn't hold up my end of the bargain. I changed. Obviously, I changed physically. I also changed my path. What Chris sees is a side of me that isn't nearly as fun or easy going as the girl he started dating 9 years ago.

My side is that he hasn't changed. He hasn't adapted to life as a "grown up." Maybe because I came into his life too soon and he never had a chance to find himself or sew his wild oats. Or whatever. Since this is an amicable divorce, that's where I'll leave that.


Today:

On May 2, 2012, 61 days after I filed for divorce, I drove back to the same courthouse and finalized my divorce. I feel very different than the day I wrote the post above. Being away from Chris has given me a different perspective. It's allowed me to accept how bad things really were in our marriage. I realize now how unhappy I was during that time.

Today, I feel like a different person. I feel happier and more confident than I ever have in my life. It's strange to be a divorced, single mother before I'm even 30, but I'm glad. I'm happy I've given myself the opportunity. I have my sad moments. May 2 wasn't quite the celebration I expected. I was sad for a lot of reasons (that didn't include not being married to Chris anymore). I felt relieved that the divorce and everything that led to it were behind me. Did I feel like celebrating? No. I also know that that is okay, and probably a good thing as far as recovering and moving on goes.

Today I feel happy. I feel free. I'm starting to feel like celebrating as my social calendar fills up! I think the real celebration will come when Chris finally moves his stuff out of my house (14 days!) and the refinance on the house is done. Technicalities, I guess.

Pity Party For One

A certain blogger that I read just announced that she's pregnant again. She was just a few weeks farther along with her first than I was with Olivia. Of all the days to hear this news, today stung. The day I'm supposed to finalize my divorce, she's telling the world she's having her second child and showing cute video of how she told her husband.

So, I'm feeling sad. Not sad that I won't be married to Chris. I know I've made the right decision in that regard. I'm sad that Olivia won't have a sibling. I'm sad that I don't have a husband that I want to have more babies with right now. I'm sad that my life isn't the picture perfect event I thought it would be.

I kind of feel like stomping my feet, and saying, "I should be having another baby! I'm good at babies, damnit!" But that would just be silly, so I thought I'd just do the online equivalent and write a long woe-es me blog about it. ;-)

I'm happy with life, don't get me wrong.

It's impossible to be unhappy when you are sharing your life with someone who can find the joy in a discarded cardboard box.

The sun was in her eyes, but you get the point. She carried that box from my mother's house, all the way home, and inside the house to fill it with toys.

Just look at this happy girl! She has so much fun, everyday, just living life.

Also, I'll be celebrating this afternoon by buying a new sofa! I have a whole house to furnish, plus I live with two sofa loving dogs and a toddler, so it's nothing fancy. It's stylish and comfortable and that is what matters, right?!

Fun in Home Depot

One of Olivia's favorite playgrounds happens to be Home Depot. She gets to ride on the carts, see doggies, and play with all kinds of new things. Seriously, she loves it there. Yesterday, she decided that the display shower stall was the awesomest of the awesome.

Click to Enlarge

Hmm... Keeping Busy

I have not been taking very many pictures, which is a shame since Olivia is up to her usual cuteness.

I've been keeping myself plenty busy with projects around the house. I've packed almost all of Chris's things and moved them to the garage (divorce date: May 2. Move out date: May 18. Grrr.). I've purged and organized my bathroom. I've been working on the front patio, the back patio, the baby's play area in the yard, growing my grass out into other parts of the yard, the kitchen .... you get the idea.

Let's see ... what have I got ... Mostly repeats from Facebook ...

Olivia loves playing with the self portrait function on my iPhone.

Her water table is her new favorite toy. She wants to spend all day every day outside.

She seriously loves her kitties. So much so, that Gigi keeps making new ones magically appear. I've somehow created a cat person. She loves the dogs, but I'm thinking our next pet will probably be a cat, and the idea - I'll admit - is growing on me. How could it not when someone walks around saying, "Kitty? Kitty kitty kitty. Kitty? Kitty!" The neighborhood cats are not so pleased. Apparently, they don't like being chased by a crazy-looking toddler.

Olivia had her first sucker at the grocery store. The nice man at the bank (meaning, he was way too hot for Mommy to say No to) gave it to her, and I let her eat half of it before sneaking it away and distracting her with a kitty.

New kitchen stool. Lots of fun, I tell ya.

That's all I've got, folks. Sorry.

Mommy's New Toy

Some women get new boobs (you know who you are, and I'm supremely jealous).

Some women start dating a younger man (Dear J. Lo, ew. I'd sooner shoot myself in the foot than date someone younger than me).

Some people get dangerous new toys, like motorcycles. Ahem, coughChriscough.

I had planned on buying myself a diamond necklace I'd had my eye on for a while.

But in a move that is so true to me these days, I bought myself an entirely different type of divorce present!

Behold the Kindle Fire

I borrowed a Kindle e-reader from my Dad to read the third Hunger Games book. For over a week now, I've been thinking about how badly I wanted a Kindle. Originally, I was going to get the Kindle Touch, but had been feeling guilty about spending $100 on myself, when Liv still needs sand for her new sand box and the house has a never ending list of things "it needs." When I walked in with the Touch, the first words out of my mother's mouth were, "Why didn't you get the Fire?" So back I went. I'm feeling a little ridiculous for spending $200 on something that still requires me to buy more books, but I'm also still very excited!

First purchased book: Outlander for my next book club meeting. I've read it before, but don't remember it very well, so thought it was worth another read.



Surprise!

Last night after Liv went to bed, we found this adorable gazebo on Craigslist for a great price. It's a little sun-faded, but she doesn't mind. First thing this morning, we came downstairs and she spotted it as soon as we opened the door to let the dogs out. She approves. Begin Project Kid-a-fy the Backyard!

*My favorite pic is actually the first one. Click to enlarge and just enjoy the expression on her face. Shock, surprise, excitement, astonishment, you name it ...