Quaint... and Progress

Is it possible that the church bells just tolled out "My Country Tis Of Thee" for the noon hour?

I'm pretty sure they did.

Last night there was a band in the gazebo in the center of town.

Today Mr F and the girls are headed down to the donut shop and hardware store.

Oatmeal will be a thing of the past here shortly (I hope).

"Flax Seed" (yellow side of beige) for the living room and "Exhale" (a blue that is nice... can't think how to describe it... dusty medium light blue?) for the kitchen/dining area. It's going to go well with the cherry cabinets while REALLY drawing the eye away from the counters/tile/sink color. I have the most amazing curtains for each room that tie the two color schemes together:


Sorry the lighting in here is bad... trust me they're really nice. And fun. Yet sophisticated. And they are lined... which these days is hard to come by without paying a million dollars (also Cost Plus World Market like the knobs... and they are 96" long)


And I have what I think is a great idea for the light fixtures in the kitchen/dining area... which are currently HIDEOUS. As my friend said "hello Vegas!":

These pictures don't do these babies justice. There is no scale... they are huge. And brassy. And sassy... in a bad way. We have two more of these beauties in the family room!

My idea for the dining area is to take this light from Ikea and spray paint it some sort of accent color... pumpkin orange, or muted yellow.. draw one of the colors from the curtains that will also be in the dining room. We need a light fixture that we can swag over to our dining table... the room was at some point remodeled to add a bar... but the light is in the middle of the ceiling... which is awkwardly now just off to the side of the eating area. This chandelier fits the bill while still being under $40... and with a little makeover I think it will be a perfect fit. In the kitchen I think I'm going to need to do some kind of track lighting so I can get better light in my work areas. And, honestly, there is SO much going on in there... with the cabinets, the crazy counters & tile, the white/black appliances... I think less is more at this point.

That's all I've got for today. Maybe by Monday these rooms will be painted?

Here's The Part Where I Complain A Little (it's my nature people... and my nurture)

Okay you know how I've got everything I wanted?
You know... got out of Asheville (still miss the Super family though).
Got Mr F out of a sinking ship for a MUCH better job(more stable, more perks, more richy-richy cars for Kid to ask Mr F to drop her off in on the first day of school... yes, yes, she did).
Got back to a good group of friends.
Got back closer to family.
Got back to Whole Foods and Trader Joe's (and way over priced Busch's... who do they think they're fooling?)

Added bonus our house is in a quintessential small town.
For reals.
Our neighbor flagged down the ice cream truck and bought my kids ice cream today... and he's not even a pedophile.
I've got a gossipy neighbor on the other side who runs a home daycare (gives out Barbie big wheels too) and doesn't seem to mind that my girls crawl under her bushes Every Single Day to chat and stare at the daycare kids (well Baby just scoops pea gravel into sand buckets... but Kid chats and stares). Added bonus she has a 20 year feud going with ice cream guy!
And there's a 100 year old donut shop.
And a church bell that tolls the hour.
And an active train (kind of cool... kind of annoying).
And a small hardware store where I was actually able to buy a phone when the cable guy demanded I have one for installation in 5 minutes door to door.
Oh, and we have community mailboxes (also kind of cool... kind of annoying).

So... you know... if you were a glass half full person you'd be pretty psyched.

But

I'm not that kind of lady.

So I'm kind of overwhelmed by the boxes and the shit spewed everywhere.
And the fact that Mr F has decided to just get dressed in the living room and lay his clothes all over the flat surfaces.
The unpacking gets old.
Real old.
And it just doesn't end.

I plowed through 14 freaking dishpacks in the kitchen in two days.
That seemed great.
Then I hit the weird boxes that were packed at the end in Asheville.
You know the ones that contain the weird shit you should have thrown out mixed with some highly necessary thing like your silverware? So you can't just chuck the box you have to go through it... and now your counters are covered in piles of weird shit that you don't really have a place for? Yes... I'm in that stage.

So I decided to completely avoid that task and focus on decorating.

As you know our house smells like someone walked in 5 minutes before you and emptied their bladder all over the floor (especially my room... thanks). This is a problem. We've had the carpet guy out and we're all measured. I've picked out the exact stuff I want. But the problem is that we can't really unpack until the carpet is in. BECAUSE we have to move everything out of the rooms for the carpet. And we're replacing ALL the carpet in the main part of the house. So we're kind of stuck in this horrible limbo. I need for my sanity to get past this unpacking phase... but... that's not really going to happen for 3 weeks or so and it's just one of those horrible things... not unpacking just makes MORE mess and chaos since there isn't anywhere to put the things we need to use in the majority of the rooms.

Also all of this has just reminded me of moving to Asheville and how shockingly hard I found this phase of a move. Mr F goes to work all day and gets out of the madness and comes home late and we need to have dinner and get the kids to bed... and very little gets accomplished. I just kind of want to freak out. I feel so stuck. I want to just whip through but I can't... either because of the carpets or because it's a project I can't do on my own. But all of this... from start to finish... the showing the house in Asheville, the packing, the moving, and now the unpacking... are time consuming efforts. Like ALL of your time. From waking to sleeping. It's exhausting never ending work... but the thing of it is... the other work... the day to day work that consumed ALL of your time before you were moving... is still there. And you can't do it all. So during the showings and packing and things that were time sensitive my parenting was sacrificed. And my personal care. And our diets. And now I'm back in the moment with the kids. I've actually gone grocery shopping and had our first week in a house with a stocked fridge in months... and all that stuff... the day to day stuff takes up ALL of my time... if I do it right.

And yet I want the house DONE (who doesn't) and functioning before school starts so that I don't murder people.

Plus, and this is serious... I haven't had a break in any way in over 6 months. Not an hour to workout. Not a book on the porch. Nothing. I've been with the kids ALL the time... and I love it... and I love them... but, peeps, I'm tired. And there are days that, while I know it isn't Mr F's fault, I can get a little ticked off that so much of this process has fallen on me... BY MYSELF. Even now... we're all together... but he's gone a lot (my grandmother can attest to that) and getting us settled is really on me. And I'm tired. And I never did get that spa weekend I had promised myself. And now we're gearing up for another stressor: back to school time... and it's just a lot. And there is shit on the floor... everywhere. And 95% of our walls, ceilings, moldings, and window treatments are ALL oatmeal colored.
Seriously. It could make you freak out. It's like being locked in an asylum.

So....

I bought some knobs.
Before:


After:



And that kind of made me feel better.

Maybe one day I won't have those hideous appliances...

False Start

Sorry about that. I forgot how much Comcast sucks.

Now, I'm back online.

Tomorrow I'll actually post.

Maybe something of interest.

Maybe not.

Until then I'll leave you with this:


The girls hurtling down our World's longest driveway (note Kid's maniacal expression) on their newly acquired (thanks new neighbor) big wheel. They've been sharing it pretty well... if you count that Kid is ALWAYS the driver and Baby is always precariously perched on a small piece of plastic clutching Kid's back. Hey... at least they have helmets... right? It's not like our driveway is a steep slope right into a road... oh... wait... it is.

And this:
Cause it's cute.

Back Online Peeps

Of course Mr F has his computer at the Cougar's and who knows where our router is so I'm standing in the dark dingy basement corner (the site of Mr F's eventual office space) to type this.

It's not 100% pleasant.

I'll be back.