I'm not Superwoman!

 Every valley shall be raised up,

every mountain and hill made low;
the rough ground shall become level,
the rugged places a plain.

-Isaiah 40:4

I am beyond being overwhelmed.

Sometimes I don't realize it until it's too late and I've found myself in the very depths of despair.  That's where I am now.  I try to be Superwoman too often I think.  When I get overwhelmed, I completely shut down.  Not laid up in the bed sleeping all day depressed, my life still goes on. I'm just not as productive.  If at all.

I've already mentioned before how busy this month was going to be and it has FLOWN by.  I've not had the chance to even do half the things that were planned due to the flooding in the house and all that...blah blah blah.  On a normal day, I would have even had all of it cleaned up, carpet up, and laid new flooring by now.  It has simply stopped me in my tracks this time.  The girls are helping, but when I don't feel like messing with anything, I don't even worry about them doing anything either.  I'm just blah.  There are still so many things that are coming up for the rest of this month and I'm about to pull my hair out.  These are the times and the only times I wish I didn't home-school.  It's hard to think about lesson plans for 3 different aged students and getting everything together for the week.  That alone takes up an entire day.

So, now that I recognize it, even though it's about an hour from bedtime, I think I'm going to brew me a pot of coffee and soak up some Word of God and beat this.  I don't plan on doing any more today, other than that, but I do need some good old fashioned encouragement and inspiration.  We have a busy day tomorrow.

Kitchen Makeover

I'm in remodel mode!

Then again, I always am.

I just get overwhelmed sometimes and don't want to touch anything remodel related.

I think the biggest problem is being financially overwhelmed.  Knowing this entire house could use updating, and the updates I've done are only temporary, it is going to get expensive.

I remember the first home we owned.  Our income wasn't a fraction of what it is now, yet we were still able to bring a house that should have been condemned, to a cute little place we called home.  Why do I feel we can't afford to do that to this place?  Our bills are more plenty now and higher, but still, something can be done.  We just have to be determined to get there.  Just like we were in that little house many moons ago.  A place, we still call home to this day.

The biggest sore spot on my home now is my kitchen.  It is tragic.  No, that's an understatement.  I've never seen an uglier kitchen.  I've brought it far from what it was when we first moved in, but it's still the most annoying room in my home (other than the bathrooms).  I can't put my finger on "why" exactly, but I think it's all of it.

So, with that being said, I've decided to do what I've preached to others about when it comes to buying for something expensive such as an entire kitchen makeover.  I'm going to buy cabinets a little at a time and stick them in storage until I have all I need.  Then, when I have all I need, it's out with the old, in with the new!  I figure this will be easier than saving since once the cabinets are bought, that's not money that can be spent elsewhere.  Sounds like a plan to me.

Maybe doing it this way will be motivation for me.

Now that the expense part is figured out, it's time now to decide exactly what I want.  What color cabinets do I want?  What style?  Oh, the agony!  Decisions, decisions.

One day while we were letterboxing, we passed by our little old house I mentioned above.  There is a house on the corner from that house that I have just always loved.  It is now for sale.  I had never been in that house, despite the fact the elderly woman who lived there always wanted me to bring the girls over for a visit.  I never made the time, but the house just always intrigued me.  So, being the type of person I am, I decided to go take a look and waste the realtor's time.  Yep, I fell in love, but that's not the point I'm making.  I fell in love with the kitchen.  It wasn't anything special, really.  It was small, even.  It had simple, plain white kitchen cabinets and the walls were yellow.  That's still not why I loved it, though.  I loved it because it was a kitchen that was by itself.  It was closed off to the rest of the house with only a door leading from it to the dining room.  It didn't have a closed off "feel", though. 

I know I've said it loads of times before, but that's one of the things I absolutely can't stand about my kitchen here.  It's entirely too open to the large dining room, which in turn, is too open to the living room.  I find it a waste of space where more cabinets could go.  I've looked into having a bar or something dividing the two areas, but that's just not good enough for me.  I thought about it before and decided I wanted french doors being the only way into the dining room from my kitchen, but was talked out of it, for fear it would be too closed off.  So, I went another direction and really loved the new idea.  Not now.  I'm back to wanting french doors that open into my dining room from my kitchen.  I just can't find a photo online to see how it will look exactly.  The way I see it though, it will be just what I'm shooting for.

So, without having a lot of natural lighting in my home, as far as the kitchen area, I'm thinking about going a light color for the cabinets.  Since the room will be closed off to the more modern, darker woods in my home, it won't matter much that it's a different style, right?  I love bright kitchens.

Here are a few pictures I found for inspiration:

Well, I'm using my old computer and it's acting sluggish, so that's all the pictures I'll post for now.  By the looks of it, I guess I'm leaning more toward the lighter side of cabinetry.  It's just really more versatile, I think.

Still don't know what style though. :)

Fried Kool-Aid

A friend of mine was watching the news and saw where a man had fried Kool-Aid.  She got me interested, so I thought I'd search online to find the recipe.  Well, the creator of this treat isn't spilling his recipe, but I did find one, so I gave it a shot.  I wanted to try it with the girls, but they just weren't fast enough.  I had to try it immediately!  Turns out, this stuff is pretty stinking good!  Definitely fair food, just as the creator, Charlie Boghosian made it for.  Check it out here.  

Sorry for the bad photos.  My battery is dead, so I had to resort to the old phone version pics.

Oh, and the recipe doesn't specify the unsweetened, sweetened, or the drink when it says koolaid.  I used the sweetened and still had to add more flour to make it thick enough.

Give it a shot!

Could it be True???

I walked outside this morning to check on the garden and the air felt strange.  There was a cool breeze blowing and I looked up and saw a gray cloud.  WOW!!!  Haven't see that in a while!  So, I decided to look up the weather.  Could it be?  It would be prayers answered from all around!

This is a conversation Emily and I had after I posted this...

Me:  Emily, we may have rain for the next 9 days!

Emily:  What?  Are we going to be raptured?

Me:  What?

Emily:  I mean, do we need to build an ark?

:)

Battle of Floors



I haven't had to do much research on flooring.  I've experienced all types.  So, I knew just what I wanted to replace the carpet in the bedrooms and possibly in the rest of the house in due time.

Wood - Our last house had wood flooring.  It was beautiful and quiet, and easy to do a quick daily sweep through.  After a while, I began to hate it.  I couldn't mop it the old fashioned way.  I tried the wood floor cleaners and every one of them left a haze, taking away the shine.  I could see footprints where the haze would be buffed by the traffic.  I did finally find the perfect way to clean that floor without the haze and that was with a steam mop.  It wasn't a big house, but by the time I steam mopped that floor, I was beat.  Also, it scratched incredibly easy.  Now, this wasn't the old kind of wood floor where it was real planks of wood like the house I grew up in.  It was the fabricated kind (I guess that's what you call it) where if it was scratched, it was scratched, and there was not much you could do to hide it.  You couldn't refinish it. 

Laminate - I've had this kind too.  It was truly durable.  We had a flood in that house too..a terrible one.  We were renting and the house had particle wood sub floors (which I had never seen in a home that wasn't mobile)  When it flooded, the entire house had hills and valleys going all through it where the carpet was. Wow, if you could have seen that!  The kitchen also flooded, but it had laminate in it on top of the particle wood sub floor.  The laminate held it down flat and it didn't even buckle itself.  I was very impressed.  It cleaned easily and maybe it was because I didn't have the sun shining directly on it,  but it didn't seem to streak when I mopped it.  Oh, and I could actually mop it!  I'm not a big Swiffer Wet Jet fan, in case you haven't noticed.  My problem with laminate was the noise it made.  When I walk on one, I feel like I should break out in tap. ;)  I like quiet.

Vinyl - I think every home in America has had some sort of vinyl flooring in it at one point or another.  It quick, easy, and cheap.  It's mostly very recognizable, especially the older kind, but it's easy to clean, probably the easiest, and is what?  Quiet?  Yep!  Not the choice for most people, but I don't have a problem with it.  Lessens the value of your home in comparison to other types, but I'm not selling, even if I threaten to.

Carpet - Although I do love the coziness of carpet, especially in a bedroom, notgonnahappen.

Ceramic  or other Hard Surface Tile - Way too permanent for me.  I know it's not permanent permanent, but having it makes me feel that way.  I wouldn't want to go through the work of tearing it up.  On the other hand, having it on the walls of an older home I've lived in and flooded, it held that water from getting into the other rooms.  I fell in love with it then at that moment.  It's too hard and cold for me though.  I like cozy.  Tile would only be in the wet areas of my home.

So, with all that being said, I've chosen to go with vinyl for the bedrooms.  I'm not getting the sheet vinyl, though.  I'm getting the vinyl planks which makes it easier for me, myself to install.  If there's a place that may get damaged, I can just replace that plank.  Easy peasy.  If it floods again, I haven't lost anything.  It's just the bedrooms for now, so I think this is the easiest, quickest, cheapest, fix out there.  If I don't like it in the long run, I'm not out much money. 

The top left picture looks just like the wood flooring I had in my last home.  It makes me miss that floor, but I know better. ;)

Shabby Chic Bedroom

Taking Morgan along for the ride to Canton was a very wise decision on my part.  Aside from the time spent together and loving all that was to see, Morgan found her style. 

Loving the choice she made, I found an old book I had in my stash and gave it to her for inspiration and for me to know exactly what she's looking for in her bedroom.  I've had this book forever now, and it's finally coming in handy.

As I was getting all the things out of her room to be able to pull up the carpet, I found the book on her bed with Post-Its sticking out of the pages.

Here are her some of her choices:

With all the work that has been done around here and all that's still left to do, Bud offered me a glimpse of hope.  Shamefully, my car hasn't been washed since we came back from the beach, what a month ago?  So, yeah, it still had that salt all over it and it looked horrible.  He asked if he could take it to the car wash and wash it.  Um yeah!  Don't have to ask me again, Son!  Now I'll have a clean ride up to Dallas to get my Morgan.

I've been working on refinishing that 12 buck headboard I bought for Emily's room.  I have no idea really where to go with it.  She is wanting an Indian inspired bedroom with all the deep colors, so I'm trying to figure out exactly what color I should do the furniture.  Right now, it's black, but I'm not sure that's going to work.  We will see.  I'll need to do it in a hurry though, because in about 2 weeks, the flooring will be in and the girls' bedrooms will be beautiful!  Can't wait!  Oh, just can't wait.

How Frugal is TOO Frugal?

I love the look of hardwood floors.  Actually, who doesn't?   I also believe in saving as much money as possible and when it comes to hardwood floors, it can get quite expensive.  There are cheaper alternatives, though.  Laminate, vinyl, etc.  We all know this.  One could even paint a faux wood floor and get off even cheaper.  Are there even less expensive solutions to get that wood look you want?

Apparently, there have been those who have tried.  At least I'm guessing so anyway.  Unless this is a flooring prepping technique even Google couldn't find, I'm thinking this is exactly what this is all about:

I found this under the carpet I was ripping up today.

My main question and concern is this:  

Even IF (highly unlikely) it originally looked like wood, how is tape supposed to be cleaned exactly?  

Floor prep or faux finish, either way, whoever put this tape down, did it meticulously.  

I was afraid of what I was going to find under it.  After all, this is an old home, so surely it has years of people not taking the time to rip out previous flooring.

Whew!  Concrete!  

The tape wasn't even hard to scrape up.  It's still very wet though, so I'm sure that's why.

Still a very long way to go.  I have my work cut out for me, no doubt.

The smell is getting worse and I'm starting to sneeze a lot.  Bad sign of growth I don't want in my home.

The silver lining?  New flooring of course!

Bedtime.

EDITED TO ADD THIS:

I couldn't sleep (due to the smell in the house), so I started scraping more of the "tape" off the floor.  The bigger pieces I was able to detach made me realize it looked more like brown paper bags rather than masking tape.  So, I Googled this technique and sure enough, crazy enough, it exists.

I realize I don't have to scrape all that up for new flooring, but it's obviously wet and it is becoming moldy as well.  I just want to do it right and start fresh and clean.