Blue Sail, Soft Camel, and Tawny

Laid off from work, all three of my girls in school all day, I SHOULD have a perfectly clean house, hot meals on the table, laundry done, and steadily checking off projects from my to-do list. RIGHT??!!

Sigh....

I was whining about this to my sister Raychel as we sweated away on the treadmill. I feel like I should be getting more done! So I can (mostly) keep up on my house and meals and workouts, but beyond that, I certainly am not finding myself with hours to get caught up on the family albums, redecorate rooms, meticulously keep track of our finances, and re-landscape the front yard. You know those bigger projects that have consistently been on my long term list but never make it to the daily to-do today list.

I know, I know, I'm being too hard on myself. But this is blog entry is for those of you Moms who are just waiting for all your kids to be in school and imagining how much you can get done. I can still spend the whole day just "keeping up".

But, on to the good part.... once Raychel gave me hard time for whining (thanks, I needed that!), I decided to stop complaining and start working. I left the laundry undone and started tearing down the hideous bunny rabbit border in the master bathroom. Yes, I put up the hideous border myself 12 years ago. What was I thinking??? Liz came into the bathroom as I was in the midst of the enthusiastically ripping down those bunnies. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING????" she said. "Getting rid of this ugly border," I told her. "No! I liked those bunnies, don't take them down!" Too late. "But Mom...." Too late.... I wish I took a "before" picture, because along with the the ugly bunny border was an ugly bunny picture. Oh well, you'll have to use your imagination.

I then painted the bathroom "Tawny" - a nice medium khaki color. I added new art, dark plum towels to coordinate with my bedroom, and my Dad came and helped me install a medicine cabinet so we didn't have wire mesh baskets of toiletries with a radio balanced on top of the basket on the counter. Now the radio fits perfectly on top of the medicine cabinet. I am happy every time I walk into the bathroom. (unless the girls have used it and left towels, dirty clothes, and toothpaste everywhere - use your own bathroom!) Happiness for under $100.00.

I was on a roll. I liked my bubble-gum inspired bathroom downstairs, but felt the white wall were somewhat boring. So along comes Blue Sail and Soft Camel. The Soft Camel color was a little lighter than I wanted, but to me paint color is kind of like doing my girls' hair, once it's done, I'm not re-doing it. It's good enough even if it's not perfect and the pony tails are just a little bit crooked. The new thing in the downstairs bathroom is a magazine rack. The old one was a wooden one on the floor that the kids had scratched up the floor and wall dragging it towards them to get something to read as the sat on the toilet! This one matches the other brushed steel accessories.

What I've learned is that I can't have a perfectly clean house AND get some of these projects done. So I let things go a bit while I do the projects, or I stay up late.

What's next? The extension cord is marking my new layout for the front yard landscaping...