I Give This Kitchen Makeover a C-

 Drab and Dreary to Hello Skittles

Here it was when we moved in

It definitely needed some brightening up in the paint department as well as the floor

It needed color in the cabinets as well as blinds and a curtain. I have walked around in the kitchen at night nearly naked many times with an uncovered window. Oops.

Then the task of making a valance. Love the fabric but hate the satin trim. I wanted cotton bias tape but it didn't come in the thick size. It looks like it came off a bridesmaid's dress. It will be changed...eventually.

I didn't like these two pictures on a huge wall with a long table, so I thought throwing up a painting would help. It didn't.

So then I thought I'd try a bunch of un-windexed mirrors. They hang high, but our chairs are tall and its a narrow space back there. Does it need more? Does it look too much like skittles and I just need to start all over???

I'm thinking the valance will be changed to match the table runner. The orange is slightly better, although I'm wishing I had done black. Again...skittle-ish?

 I recovered the barstool's and need to have the rug narrowed down, but that will be...eventually. Welcome to my Willy Wonka's Kitchen. I think I over did it. I HATE decorating.

Oh, and here is the kid's bathroom finished window treatment. Should it have been longer??

Oh well

And the here's the hanging artwork. 

I thought it was a tad more masculine for Zane than the original hanging bow.

 Yes. One mirror is hanging lower. It'll be fixed...eventually...

Pumpkin Patch Arkansas Style

 Not Quite Parkhurst or Orr Family Farm

 

It was flat land with very little decor...but there by golly there was corn shootin...

and cow ridin...



 and corn mazin...

and face paintin...

(bet you can't guess what Avery's is supposed to be!)

and animal feedin...

and pumpkin pickin...

and cousin's posin...

and the only decor out there...Good Times!

 

Then it was time to carve some pumpkins!!!

They were hard at work at first...

but that didn't last long...

Our adorable pumpkins that are now rotting by our front door!

 

Happy Fall!!

 



Camping 101

 Arcadia. My New Love.

It may be a good idea to leave before 7pm if you would like your tent put up before dark...

You may want to bring your own firewood if you plan to eat warm hotdogs. Every twig in a one mile radius will last you about 5 minutes...

Thank goodness for last minute Wal-mart firewood...

You may want to bring a lantern to hang. The small lantern/flashlight shown by the cards will not cut it. The flash on the camera helps quite a bit though...

 We may be newbies to the camping world...

 but our family (and friends) sure know how to rock it...

 and two foot thick airmattresses will never fail you...

 Next time, we'll be pro's!!

 I'm pretty sure I love camping.

Designer Challenge

I HAVE NO CLUE!

I get frustrated decorating. I can sew some, paint a little, but having a vision of what goes well together? I got nothin. Just look at my living room...the one place I would like to look nice, resembles a garage sale. Anyway...

I bring you our guest bath. We are not redoing this shower anytime soon, so what are the options? Can you spray paint the brass doors? Or can you get a shower curtain for a non-tub shower? I know the white shelf above the toilet will be a gonner, and the old blue towels do not match the more muted tones. But...

 Would you change these walls? They had a professional texture/painter guy do this stuff before moving. I'd hate to cover it completely. I bought the rug, which had that color in it, hoping it would make it look a little better. Did it work?!?

Thankfully there was already a framed mirror. No hitting glass with hammers will be necessary, but this is still short of luxurious...and given the kid's bath was kinda crazy, I thought I'd be a tad more sophisticated with this one? 

 So, these walls, what would you do? leave them? Get rid of it? Add stripes of another color/s? Paint the woodwork?

I'd LOVE ideas!!

Kid's Bath Redo...Finally

 Its only been 2 years...

This is the kids' colorful bathroom. I didn't want to spend a lot of money, so the orange is from playroom, blue is from living room accent wall, and the light grey/white is from main living area. Not in love with the triple photo frame hanging, but I had it, so used it. I painted the little canvases to match the shower curtain. I just need to get a thick matching green ribbon to hang it with instead of the clear.

(PS. I didn't feel like cleaning dried toothpaste off the counter, drawers, and everywhere else for that matter just to take a picture. I did flush the toilet and remove dirty underwear for you though. You're welcome).

I also would LOVE to make a "boxed" type valance (no clue what the technical term in) with this awesome material if I get time this weekend!

Wes did an awesome job shattering and tearing down the GLUED wall mirror and then texturing behind it. He added the towel rods, and helped me hang the mirrors.

I think I will add more blues and bright greens to the painting. Other than that. I think I love it, even if it's crazy and makes the value of our house go down!!

Now for a question. Would you paint the cabinets the greyish/white since the granite is black? I wouldn't want to paint any of the other wood around the walls or the baseboards, so I'm not sure if that's a big no no or not? I'm just wondering if it would brighten it a tad? Would love thoughts.



Tuesday Truth...a day late.

 Eight and a Half Years
I forgot. When does the honeymoon phase start?!?!

I can't believe it's been a little over 8.5 years since we married. That is a LONG time and yet it seems like just a couple of years ago. Maybe it's because I've been in an autopilot coma for many stretches of it! It's definitely been a roller-coaster. Honestly, it's a miracle I'm even able to blog about this. In March, on our 8th year anniversary, we were not even living together. We had a settlement we both agreed to and in June, I had finally felt at peace with the decision to go our separate ways. A counseling session over how to tell the kids turned into something much different.

 I really can't even remember what particular thing happened that changed it, I just know we took a different path...and I'm very glad we did!
These 8 years have definitely not been a Cinderella story. There needs to be a sequel where Cinderella and Prince Charming get beat up with sicknesses, have a couple demanding jobs, several sad family situations, painful events, and bad coping skills...yet still make it through alive. That is what Happily Ever After really means!!

To throw in a random moment...We went on a family camping trip last weekend and were taking pictures. The kids kept chanting kiss kiss kiss...so we did...and it was followed by crazy giggling that lasted several minutes! They are such weird kiddos!!

I don't have a sappy ending that says our life is perfect now, but we are probably more open and closer than we ever have been. I do believe there is always hope for a marriage when both are committed and have positive encouraging support.

As for just life, there's been another hurtful event this year and I've never been one to stay in the victim mentality very long. It's completely counterproductive, but I'd be lying if I didn't say I'm currently there. I've always liked to think there is a reason for everything, a blessing in every storm, a silver lining. At the same time, I think it is totally OK to be sick and tired of finding that dang silver lining. Sometimes things suck and are hard and you don't care that there will be a blessing later on, you just want to punch something and scream it's not fair!! It's a normal place to be, but dangerous if you are there alone. I've struggled spiritually, emotionally, and physically many times in my life, but especially this year. Thankfully, through Celebrate Recovery and other small groups and prayer groups at church, I've found great friends that are willing to listen. Friends who will pray for me when I can't and who will let me lay in their spare bed to cry for an entire day and bring me cake and ice cream!  If you are struggling, reach out. If I didn't have some of the friends I have, this story most likely would have been a lot different. 

Masks are stupid. Reality is more effective.

Who Needs Two Ovaries Anyway...

 July 25, 2012

 Avery started throwing up and fell to the floor in pain saying she couldn't walk and her lower right side of tummy hurt. It sounded like an appendix issue, so we took her to the ER

They wanted a CT scan done on her abdomen. This. Was. Traumatic. They not only wanted to pump her with fluids through IV to fill up bladder, but they wanted to fill her up with a big enema as well. The look of terror in her face when they showed her what they were about to do and then the scream that followed when it was happening was awful. I had flashbacks of Law and Order SVU going on in my head. It was horrific. I held her hand and said it was almost done while I looked away crying. 

Results came back as appendix being fine but that they found a cyst on the LEFT ovary. I questioned...is there any way the cyst is hitting a nerve or something that is making it hurt on the right side? They said no, and because she hasn't complained of pain on the left side, then they wouldn't worry about the cyst, but just get an ultrasound done in 6 months to see if it's shrinking or growing. They said cysts on ovaries and cause ovarian torsion which is serious, so if she ever has pain on the left side, bring her in immediately. They said the pain on the right side must just be gas. Pain continued, but not as severe. We'd just tell her to lay down to and give her fiber powder. 

 August 17, 2012

She started throwing up and pain got real severe again. Pediatrician said to go to Children's, so off to the ER again. I said no crazy CT's again...lets just try an ultrasound. Ultrasound (much lower in quality when it comes to picture taking) showed a 2 inch cyst on the RIGHT side!! How the person who read the CT came up with it being on the LEFT side is beyond me. I wonder if I can get out of paying that bill? They already got over 3,000 from my insurance for the visit...

They asked the ultrasound tech if blood was flowing in the ovary and she said it was (meaning no ovarian torsion), so they did not perform the surgery that night but waited until the morning...and this is what they found...

They found a black fallopian tube with a nice sized cyst twisting the ovary...ovarian torsion. This causes necrosis of the ovary. Not only killing the ovary, but causing a nasty infection. Thankfully, after cutting off most of the cyst and untwisting ovary, it pinked back up meaning necrosis had not set in. You can see the size of the tiny little pink ovary on the right side compared to the size of the cyst on the left side. Crazy.

Surgery was at 7am that morning. It was fast and happened before she even knew it. Here she is out of surgery, holding Lucy and watching Disney channel.

 Her good friend came to bring her some games and me some chocolate!!

 Aunt Brittany brought her some balloons and played some of the games with her.

 She only needed one pain pill at 11am that day in the hospital. She walked down the hall at 7pm and she was able to go home!

 August 21, 2012

Her first day of 3rd grade (she missed the first two days)!!

August 23, 2012

I got a call saying the cyst was not good and she would need to come back in and have her ovary removed. It was a cystic teratoma which have different stages and I have no clue what hers was. I started crying immediately, so I hung up and didn't get any information other than we need to come back in on Monday.

My idea was to not tell Avery until after it happened, and just tell her on Monday that they needed to check it and make sure everything was OK. Wes didn't think that was a good idea and decided to tell her on Saturday the 25th, when we could distract her with games, ice cream, grandparents, cousins, etc. She immediately bawled and demanded to know how we knew, when we found out, and why we talked to the Dr. without her there!! She cried and cried. I had to leave the room and let Wes handle it. We quickly left to do something fun or eat something yummy.

Sunday we skipped church to go to the zoo with my parents, sister's, their families/friends!

August 27, 2012

We were told to be there at 8:30 for a surgery that took place at 11:30! The past two days I was telling Avery how it was going to be the exact same surgery, they just needed to get the rest of the cyst out. She sits waiting and watching different Dr's come in to talk about the procedure. Little did they know this little worrier has good ears. She only looks like she's watching Disney channel. First, she is MORTIFIED she has to take her panties off. She didn't have to do that last time (they took them off when she was already drugged). She then hears a doctor say "you can go back with her while they put the mask on her and give her the gas. She may twitch and her eye's may roll back, but that is totally normal so don't let it scare you." When that doctor left, Avery bawled. It was 9:30. She cried and cried telling me how I LIED to her and how it was NOT the same as last time. She didn't have to wait, she didn't have to put on a mask, she didn't want her eyes rolling backwards, etc. It was non-stop crying for thirty minutes.

Thankfully she was given some anxiety medicine and a child life specialist came in to talk to her. She gave her a mask to hold and she got to smell all the scents they could put on the mask to make it smell yummy. She got to rub strawberry (her favorite scent) on the mask and practice putting it on and seeing how non-scary it was. 

 She then pulled out an Ipad and showed her the different rooms she would go to and answered her 500 questions about what were all the things she saw in the pictures, what all would happen in each room and if it would hurt. This took up a good portion of time, and the anxiety medicine kicked in, so we laid and watched a little more Disney until it was time to go.

Recovery was traumatic this go round. The Dr. said they had to stretch one hole the size of a golf ball in order to remove the ovary, remaining cyst, and some fat tissue that was touching the cyst...so she would be more sore this time. They only allowed one parent back their at a time since it was more crowded than it was over the weekend. Wes went first since he had to get back to work. He came back quickly to get me. Avery was hyperventilating crying for me. It took her a good 10 minutes to calm down...which was a long 10 minutes. 

She did indeed recover and came home to an American Girl doll and all the bad memories left immediately!!

 She was given so many goodies from people and she loved it all!!

August 30, 2012

I bolted to Baton Rouge to stay with my friend from college for the holiday weekend. The doctor had taken surrounding tissue and fluids to test to see if they found bad cells. If they did, there would be some chemo involved. I knew I could not be at home when this news came. I just knew it was going to come back bad and I was going to end up in a straight jacket in a special hospital. I was convinced. I had a good trip, stayed busy with my friend, and helped paint her house and tear down wallpaper!!

September 4, 2012

We found out the bad cells were all contained to the cyst only, so no chemo was needed and everything was over. She will have an ultrasound 3 months later just to make sure it really was all gone and nothing grows back. She'll have to have a few of those throughout the next year or two, but they are confident it wont grow back...probably as confident as the doctors who said the cyst was on her left ovary...but I'll take the optimism and go with it! I'm not worried and am not even thinking about it anymore. She's healed up and ready to start dance!!