Now that the kids are in school....

Why is this debate still going on? What is there still such a stigma attached to my choice? Why do I still get the question “now that the kids are both going to school are you going back to work?”

The question that flows from a bunch of “well meaning” individuals who are just “curious.” But I guess I really just want to add this to the (ever growing) list of questions you just don’t need to ask. You know that list of questions that people seem to feel are there right to ask of moms. “Don’t you think it is time to have another baby?” “Wouldn’t your husband really like a boy? “Are you to try again for a boy?” “Weren’t you really hoping for a boy?” “Your husband secretly really want a boy doesn’t he?”

Well yes, we have 2 girls, and are we going to “try for a boy?” well that is really NONE of your business in the end now is it? And I would also like to say that my husband is happy and feels blessed that we have the 2 children God gave us. Cause it wasn’t actually like I have the choice as to what gender our children were.

Just like there is a stigma that because we have girls and no boys that we should be trying for a boy, to “carry on the family name; there seems to be a stigma that because the kids are going to school (even if just barely) that I should be looking for a job. As if I haven’t had a job for the last 7 years.

As it turns out I feel I’ve had a job, and STILL have a job. Even though it is a job with none of the benefits of a paycheck, 401K, social security, medical, dental, vision, sick days, paid time off, quitting time, 40 hour work weeks, or weekends off, I still feel it is a job.

You may disagree with me and that’s fine. I’m not here to have the working mom vs. stay at home mom debate. I don’t care if you work, that is your business. I don’t think your kids will grow up feeling neglected, and your family will suffer because you work. I just don’t think any of that is true. It is different of course. But I grew up in a family with two working parents and I turned out fine (at least I think so).

But my husband and I decided when we had kids that we wanted someone home with the kids. We wanted to be the ones to care for our kids in the early years. We just didn’t want to miss that. So I quit my job as teacher to stay home with them. But now that both are in school even though the youngest one is only in school 2 mornings a week, people expect my job is done.

I disagree. I feel like my job only gets more important. I have less time with them, to influence them, to love on them, to encourage them, to give them confidence. I don’t think any mom disagrees with that because I think it is something all moms have in common. If you are working you want to spend the time you do have with your family enjoying them and being present. But I know the question remains. What will I (or do I) do with my “free” time?

I think that is what people are really “concerned” about. They want to know how I’m going to use my time. But I think that is why I just don’t understand how it is their business. I’m not a drain on society being a stay at home mom. We aren’t on public assistance, we pay all our own bills, we own our home, we have 2 cars, we have savings for emergencies and retirement, we ‘want’ for nothing. So what does it matter what I do with MY time. Or my families time as I like to think of it. Even though I am the only one home at the time it is what I do with my time will affect the rest of my family.

So… No. That is the answer to your question. Not that I think it is any of anyone’s business but the fact remains that the answer is no. No I’m not going back to work. I am staying at work at the home. I will continue to run the house, from home. I will continue to be the primary caregiver to our kids, help them with homework, take them to the bus and get them off when they get home. I will also continue to keep the house clean, dishes done and house organized (though that process gets easier to do without kids around all the time). I will also continue to try to grow my business from home.

My small sewing business does keep me occupied when I have too much “free” time, and right now I haven’t had enough time to put into it. But it is something I enjoy and is a way to help the family financially too; cause even though we don’t NEED the money who doesn’t enjoy a bit of extra cash at the same time.

So to all my at home moms, and working moms out there. I think we need to ignore the questions and just keep doing what we are doing and enjoy our families however they are configured. And for all of you out there wondering about the family dynamics of someone else’s family just ask yourself before, why do you really want to know? and is it really any of your business?

Project Purge: Office Eddition

After over a year I finally finished my last room my office. This room definitely took a back seat to other rooms because of the simple fact that it serves many purposes and is frequently needed by either me or guests and I didn't have time to tare it all apart to purge it. It also got put off because it is so easy to just close the door and not think about it.

My office, which until recently, serves and my guestroom as well is the last purge and it feels great. But also is a bit of let down (for now).

It's a let down because it looks worse now then it did before, and let me tell you why. When we moved into our house 6 and half years ago we quickly learned (as I think most people who buy a house on the older side) that the people who owned the house before us didn't always do things the right way. Some corners that were cut when the put the addition on (which is where my office is) really need to be addressed. We ran into issues when we refinished the other room in the addition and we know similar issues are in my office as well. So we decided that we would fix it now.

Here are a few pictures of what the office looked like before the purge.

 

 

So the office has been purged but lots of stuff has been moved into boxes and such in preparation for the remodel so it's not impressive.

But the piles of stuff I removed from the room I think are in fact impressive.

I kinda did my office in stages over a few days months and the first thing I did was my desk. I have had this desk since I was living with my parents, I think, like since high school some nearly 20 years ago. Some of the drawers haven't really been gone though in that time (even though I've moved the desk at least twice.

This is just some of the stuff I emptied out of the desk.

Here are some items I found in the deep dark corners of my desk drawers. Floppy Disks! Really! These are saved from High School and some from college. Do I really need to keep these things? I didn't think so. For those of you who don't know what these are, this isn't a history blog, you can goggle it.

 

This was all that went back into my desk.

This went in the trash.

 

The rest of the desk stuff got donated.

 

My next stop was my closet. I don't really have pictures of this but I did fill a whole trash bag with scrap fabric too small to do anything with. Another bag of fabric I'm donating because I just didn't have plans to use it or it was left over from other projects. 

I filled a bag with fabric I don't have a plan for using and a whole box of other things to donate. Similar results came from the shelve and the rolling cart I have. Lots of trash and many things to donate.

I can't believe how much trash I really ended up having in my office. Lots of things that a little over a year ago I think I would have never considered trash but now I realize it is. I removed about 3 large kitchen trash bags full of... well... trash (I didn't photograph that).

Now here is my office as it stands now. You may notice above my desk the reason for my office redo. My new TV that got mounted on the wall and needs an Ethernet cable and new outlet run. I think my husband got it mounted so quickly so that he could watch TV while he was working on my room. All those boxes near the closet are the essentials from my office so I can still work as needed during the project.

Look I do have one of my new curtains up already.

 

 

 

Like I said not impressive. But I can't wait till it's done.

 

I will post some new pictures of the office remodel very soon (I hope). It will probably take 2 weeks to get the rest of the work done. Not just the TV outlets, there is plenty more to do. We will remove the 'molding' around the ceiling and mud and tap (since that was never done prior to the molding), patch some holes from different things that were hung or mounted to the walls in the past. A new light fixture that will actually light the space not just create a funny yellow glow. New paint color and fresh coat on the ceiling and the baseboard trim. Lastly some new curtain rods so I can hang the new curtains I made.

Other Purges
Project Purge: Basement Edition
Project Purge: Kitchen Edition
Project Purge: Kids Room Edition
Project Purge: Master Bedroom Edition

Project Purge: Kid Rooms Edition

On a whim the other day I decided to tackle the first of the 2 kids bedrooms. So with "S's" help we got down to it right after lunch and 2 hours latter it was done.

Here are our before pictures.



Closet

We had a lot of trash in this room. Trash was anything that wasn't worth donating, selling or saving for the little sister. Items that made the trash list included pieces of fast food toys, old pictures, partly used coloring books



Items going to the little sister



Trash (on left) donate in the big box

Here after some moving things around we have the newly purged and organized room.

The closet (now with her dress up dresses hung in there)



She now has a "nursery" area for her babies

So I went directly from one kids room to the next. One day 2 rooms. Boom Baby!

Here's the before pictures.



Top of the closet

Lower closet

There was significantly less in by the way of trash but a number of toys and books that She didn't need any more. Ok in the closet there was a fair amount of trash. I found items from when she was a newborn (she's 2 and half now), things I had saved from my first baby even. So the closet took a lot of work.

What I pulled out of the little ones room

Here are the finished pictures of her room



Top of the closet

Lower closet

Complete with Minnie Mouse coloring

Other Purges
Project Purge: Basement Edition
Project Purge: Kitchen Edition
Project Purge: Master Bedroom Edition
Project Purge: Office Edition

Project Purge: Master Bedroom Eddition

Our master bedroom purge is now done. I think I went through my drawers and closet 3 or 4 different times to really get rid of all the clothes that are too big for me or I just don't like anymore. Other than weeding out clothes we didn't purge much. A few things here and there that had taken up residence in our room instead of where they really do belong.

So I'll share my pictures of after, but be kind and remember I have no linen closet and my master bedroom closet has nothing but a bar (for now). We are still going to put in the new closet system in and hopefully that will rid us for some of the remaining piles around.

Before

After

After

Before

After: Still some piles but SO much better



Before

After: I love the new lamp (no more college desk lamp)



Before

After (no more bulging at the seams)

After (some day I'll get this looking better too)

 

 

I am now on to more purging. I'm looking back at my original list of places/rooms to purge and seeing that I've got lots of work left. I better get cracking.

 

 

Other Purges
Project Purge: Basement Edition

Project Purge: Kitchen Edition
Project Purge: Kids Room Edition
Project Purge: Office Edition

Project Purge... Where have you been?

Where have you been? On the back burner. It's been a while since I posted about Project Purge but it still going on (albeit slowly at the time). We have begun and are already nearly done our Master Bedroom. I did take pictures before we started and here are the before pictures.

Oh the clutter, the disorganization, I truly do not like my bedroom. They always say the bedroom should be a place you can go to escape. Well I want to escape from my bedroom. Where I can't do anything about the size or overall layout of the bedroom I can do a lot about the clutter and organization.

Now we have begun this process and here is what's happened so far.

We have gone through all of our clothing (me for a second time in the last 5 months) and weeded out items we, don't like, don't need, don't wear, and don't fit (and there were lots of the last in a good way).

I've cleaned off my dresser and ridded it of all unnecessary clutter (and the accompanying dust). I cleaned off my night stand both on top and underneath. We purchased new lamps for the night stands (no more college desk lamp!!!), and soon will be installing a new closet system to get rid of the one ridiculously high shelf and single bar and give us much more usability out of our closet space.

I still need to go through the "hope chest" at the foot of the bed and purge items from there. Other than that the purging is done.
I will post final pictures of this room SOON!

A Needed Break

Well if you have been following the progress in Project Purge the you will know we have been busy people. And because of that I decided I was due for a bit of a "reward" (or a break) for all my hard work.

If you know a lot about me you might know I spend a lot of time on Pintrest (that's where I got the whole idea in the first place for Project Purge), and I pin all kinds of ideas that I want to do in and around the house. So on Monday I saw this idea on that I fell in love with. I knew I instantly wanted to do it. What I also knew that I could do it!

So on Monday I was home with a sick kid and we were watching movies ALL day, and I was playing on the computer. That's when I saw the idea and re pinned it. Then I went right to work on DOING it. I started searching through nearly 6 years of photos in order to find a special 2-4 pictures and edit them. Then in about an hour (or another time through Atlantis I forget) I had the pictures on their way to the 1 hour photo center.

Then a day went by with my sick kiddo home and we didn't get to pick up the pictures till today. So I picked up the pictures and headed over to the frame section and picked out the perfect frame and home I came. Put the pictures in the frame and now it's DONE!

A project from Pin to Product in 3 days. I think it is a personal record for me. And here it is...

 

 

Ok... So it isn't hung on the wall yet. I'm kind of a freak about putting holes in my walls and they need to be in the perfect place and with the right kind of mount and such so I don't end up with a lot of silly holes in my walls. I'll wait for my husband to mount it. But here is some wall art for our bathroom. Some adorable pictures of my two girls S (on the top) and K (on the bottom) swimming in our tub.

 

 

I'm just so pleased with it I had to share it.

Project Purge: Kitchen Edition

While Project Purge Basement Edition had many instalments, the Kitchen Edition has but one. Why because it took one day to accomplish. It was a busy full afternoon and early evening but one day!
So I think my husband was right, the basement was the hardest to accomplish and maybe we shouldn't have started with that but he did make a good point. I'm a, rip the band aid off quick, kinda gal. I prefer to run a full speed and then walk during my workouts, and that's the method I chose for this task.

So now it's smooth sailing. Well... it's easier.

The kitchen is probably the most used room the house (aside from the bathroom). We are in their all the time. However, when we moved into our house almost 6 years ago, I was 8+ months pregnant (and actually had the baby 1 week after we moved in), so I had to rely on the help of family and friends to put things away in the kitchen. And here we are 6 years latter and not much has changed. So I still have problems reaching items I use all the time and have to dig around items I rarely use.

Because of that to start with I reorganized the food cabinets moving items to the top shelves that my husband (who is 6' 2") uses and items that I (a mere 5' 3") use regularly to the lower shelves. We also found that we had 2 open containers of the same bread crumbs and 2 half used bags of powdered sugar. So after some consolidation and reorganizing things make much more sense in those cabinets.

I didn't do as good a job with pictures in the kitchen because I was being productive and I choose to ride the productivity train instead of the make the best blog possible train. That and my husband had the kids outside playing so I had the Pandora tunes cranked, was working at full tilt and I forgot to take pictures.

But I do have some so I'll share them with you.

I did some organizing, consolidating and getting rid of items in my cabinets. The spice cabinet was the most scary to open before this, it was always a guess what would fall on you (so be prepared).


Before

After

The next cabinet I didn't take a before picture of (sorry but trust me it was scary). I also don't understand how a clean cabinet that you put clean dishes in gets so dirty but needless to say YUK was the right word for what I cleaned out of the bottom of that cabinet (and all the others).

After

This one holds many dishes I use a lot and I just love to take all the dishes out to get the bottom dish when needed.... NOT. Now it is much more functional and I only actually took 3 things out of this cabinet.


Before



After

 

Now here is the before and after picture of my kitchen.

Before

After

Some things you may not notice is the decreased clutter on top of the cabinets and the larger amounts of counter space and less wasted space. Believe me it's all there. I implemented "centers" into my kitchen and so far 24 hours latter it has revolutionized my kitchen experience. Before I always did my baking in the same spot (kinda near where my Kitchen Aid mixer is), but kept my flour and sugar canisters on the other side of the kitchen sink. I kept pens and tape (for marking sippy cups and items for school) and some sticky notes in a bin over near my fruit and the "baking" area and the rest of the "paper work" stuff on the other side of the kitchen. Basically my kitchen didn't make sense. So now I have "Centers."

I have a "command center," for phone messages, lunch stuff and bills/mail items.

We have a "cooking center," with easy access to cooking sprays, wines, utensils etc...

And my favorite area in the kitchen the "baking center." Flour, sugar, Kitchen Aid Mixer, and other baking things all in one area. And my Bear cookie jar is the perfect place for me to prop my Nook while I fallow recipes on it.

Completing this project in such a quick amount of time has me so excited to do the other rooms of the house. But they will wait a bit because all this stirring up dust these last few days has stirred up my allergies so I'll be resting for a few days.

Other Purges
Project Purge: Basement Edition
Project Purge: Master Bedroom Edition
Project Purge: Kids Room Edition
Project Purge: Office Edition