Parenthood...

Best.Season.Ending.Ever.

Ahhh...for once in my life the season finale didn't leave me wanting. What a relief! Seriously, are you watching NBC's Parenthood? Because you should be. I cry when I watch it because i'm happy for the good things that happen to them, i'm sad for the bad things that happen to them, i'm happy that they have each other, i'm sad that I don't have that. I know it's tv...but I also know that there are people out there with multiple siblings who have those kinds of supportive networks. I don't have that. Don't get me wrong, I have friends and I have extended family. But immediate family is different. Even family that comes via marriage or remarriage is still family. I lost my brother, my only sibling. I don't have that kind of connection anymore. It makes me sad. Boo.

I didn't mean to make this go in this direction. Wow. I'm Debbie Downer today. Maybe more sunshine and flowers tomorrow! :)

Save the magnolia...

I'm venting here because I don't know what else to do, I promised him I wouldn't say another word about it to him. But i'm sitting here in tears. Frustrated. Sad. Angry.

We're building a fence. To keep the boys in. To keep a dog in (if we ever get one). The city says we have to come 25' in from our property line. Seriously? 25 feet! That's a whole lot of lost backyard. The major "issue" facing us (once I got over the whole 3000 square feet that we are losing, yep, that's 120 feet x 25 feet, I did the math) is that our magnolia is 25' 4" in from the property line. We could ask for a variance. Two feet is all we need. Heck, one would probably work. He doesn't want to do it. "It'll be a month and they might decide we can't have one anyway." I want that beautiful tree in the backyard where the boys can climb it. Where I can see it in all its glory in April. To continue to make our backyard look like the oasis I want it to look like. So how do we have both? I found this online:

(from http://obviousdiversion.com/seattle/cool-fence/)

Here's what our tree looks like:

Isn't she pretty? It's ours, we should be able to enjoy it. I can't think right now. I just wish one of the following would happen:
a) He'd decide we should wait and try to get a variance.
b) The city would call us and say, "Hey, we realize that tree is a problem, go ahead and take a couple extra feet."
c) God would help me feel peace with going another two feet in and keeping it on the outside of the fence.
d) I had a landscape designer friend.
e) I had blog readers to help me think "outside the box" on this problem.

Thanks for listening. I guess time will tell. But time doesn't wait and he's digging on Saturday.

Wanna win it...

I love jewelry. And I love jewelry that no one else has. Something that's interesting with texture. Kayce Hughes is giving away one of her necklaces over on her blog.


Know what else I love? I love that the world seems tinier because of blogs. I was LITERALLY last night re-reading my April 2010 Country Living magazine and Kayce and her family's home was featured. I had a few of their pages folded down for future reference. This morning there's this post...small, small world.

L.O.V.E...

My husband is a genius. I'm loving our new front door. Now we need to change the sidelites, perhaps get a storm door before it gets stormy, apply trim, decide on a door color, paint the house...blah, blah, blah. But hey, this is a start!

What i'm wearing this fall...

Maybe I should say "what i'm buying this fall." I've purchased a few things that I haven't been able to wear simply because it's been too warm. But here's what i've got sitting in my closet so far:

Old Navy

Old Navy

Target

Target

Target

Piperlime

Old Navy

Old Navy

Target

Target

PLUS...

Yep, this is from Target too...

My cute target bag that I bought as a diaper bag-turned-purse three years ago has handles that are ripping. They are literally hanging on by threads. I'm ashamed to even be carrying it around it's in such bad shape. So this is what i'm going with. I'm thinking i'll also do something in either silver or a darker gray. I plan on having a plum or peacock wool coat (time for something besides black) and think the orange will work with either one. Maybe this one:

J Crew

So what are you wearing this fall?

Wowee...

I can safely say that that was one hell of a summer! From getting our house ready to sell, to buying the new one, starting renovations on it, getting over the emotional roller coaster of moving and saying goodbye to our old place...it was a crazy 3 months! Make that 4 months! Baby Kara arrived in June (see my previous post) and she's one beautiful girl. Our house is coming along and we're so busy that it may be a while before I post anything about the remodel (which I had hoped to do as we were in the process). Suffice it to say that we've ripped out floors, painted 12 foot ceilings, fixed a leaking chimney, measured for doors, measured for blinds, installed carpet, measured for kitchen islands, painted, painted, and painted some more. Soon, very soon, I will start on the new blog. Then i'll have to rely on the dates on the photos to know when we did what. Over the short summer I lost my focus on exercising and eating right. I keep telling myself that it's okay, I had an excuse. But you know what? I HATE excuses! So no more of those, I am doing Weight Watchers again. This is how I lost 22 pounds 10 years ago. Now i've had two kids and sit on my rear for work a LOT. My goal this time is to lose 21.9 pounds. I'd like to do it by Thanksgiving, we'll see what happens! Just for fun here's some pics of the boys (and Max's friend Jaidyn) at the fair in July:

One final note, it's September and we've got a Thunderstorm Warning here and a Tornado Watch north of us. What's up with that?

Nine more weeks...

My beautiful sister-in-law is having her first baby (a girl!) in about nine weeks. This past weekend we had her baby shower and took some time to get some pregnancy photos. I call her Mego Prego (not to her face of course)...but really her name is Megan.

I hope to get some more of her, and maybe her good-lookin' husband too, before the little one gets here in June. Thanks for letting me practice Meg!