WET PAINT!

The boys room needed to be painted and I thought it would be nice if they had some input into the color of their room.  Well, Andrew wanted red and Geoffrey wanted blue and there was no compromise to be made. So the wise mother that I am suggested we use both colors (am I out of my mind!!).  The window wall (3 big windows) that are trimmed in white got painted red and the remaining three walls I painted blue.

While the boys were at school I got the red wall competely finished with Sara’s “help”….luckly it was latex paint and the little red footprints wiped off the wood floors!  I had the edges all taped off and started the blue by the time the bus dropped them off.  There was no cutting around windows, just straight rolling so I figured it would go pretty fast. I was also really hoping I would have had it all done by the time they came home but  the ferrier had come to do the horses and I had several other interruptions so it was not to be.  Needless to say they wanted desparately to help me paint. Let me just say that I will NEVER do that again.  If it means I stay up all night to paint while the kids are sleeping that is what I will do. There was more paint on us, the floor, etc. than the walls. Paint containers got knocked over more times than I can count. A whole bookcase of books and the hamster cage got knocked over…lets not even go there. But by the time they went to bed that night the room was painted and put back to rights and looked quite wonderful.  I can look back at the situation now and laugh but at the time I was not having fun. Oh well, I have two very happy little boys who are thrilled with their room so in the end it was all worth it.

Hello, is anyone out there.

I have been getting alot of grief over my lack of blogging and its starting to getting nasty.  People are starting to blog about my lack of blogging!!!(I won’t mention any names Kim).

Let me explain…Life got busy and I kind of got away from the whole blog thing.  Then once I was away for awhile it was hard to get back into it.  In fact, when I went to type this post I couldn’t remember where to go to start.

I started the blog to let everyone know what was going on in terms of appointments, treatments and results during my journey with cancer.  Then it kind of became a therapuetic tool for me where I could let out what was going on inside me.  I was housebound alot and it was a way for me to communicate especially when it took too much energy to talk on the phone or visit with someone. So when things started to get back to normal I kind of thought that maybe the whole blog thing had served its purpose.  I mean who really wants to hear the boring goings on at the Mullen home?

But I don’t want to offend all of you who travelled this journey with me via my blog.  I really, really appreciated all your comments and encouragement over the past year.  Some people seek counceling or go to support groups…I had my blog and the comments to help me.  So I will try to be a good blogger.  I can’t promise I will blog everyday but I will try to post something every now and then and let you all know how things are going.

I am feeling good now (well except for the whole tamoxifen thing but that is a blog for another day!) and life is returning to normal, meaning I am doing everything and running everywhere and fall into bed exhausted at night.

 Since this whole experience I am feeling this urge to purge (oh, that rhymes!!).  I want to de- clutter…get rid of toys the kids don’t play with,  clothes that don’t fit, just stuff! I only what to be surrounded with things that I really love. You know what I mean, I am holding on to “stuff” because so and so gave it to me or it belonged to someone or it was a wedding gift (almost 17 years ago) or my favorite is, “its still good, there’s nothing wrong with it”.

So since this “stuff” is still good I decided to have a yard sale on Saturday.  Well let me tell you its alot of work but we got rid of a bunch of stuff and made a bunch of money.  So I’m all fired up to have another one.  I’m going into every room and looking around with new eyes…hmmm what could I sell!

Randy and I are playing with the idea of moving and when I look around I don’t see alot that I would want to pack and move to a new house so stuff is starting to come down off the walls!!!  The next fine Saturday we will be setting our tables up again.

This time though I will be watching my helpers more carefully.  I had gotten these colored yard sale stickers with preprinted prices on them…50 cents, 1 and 5 dollars, etc. to make things easier.  I had gotten a few things tagged but  people started coming and I didn’t get everything done.  Andrew and Geoffrey really wanted to help and be involved so they set up the tables, lugged everything out and helped display things. I was so busy I wasn’t really paying attention to exactly what they were doing until a lady came up and asked me to hold two items for her while she ran and got $10.00.  The two items were a large fisher price tool bench with all the tools and a little tykes easel/chaulk board with the two chairs.  The boys had stuck $5.00 stickers on both items!!  Needless to say the lady got a great deal but not as good as the lady who got a Bombay Company mirror and matching shelf for 50 cents.  Needless to say the boys and I had a quick pow wow and they quickly ran around and took off all the stickers they had put on things.  I know they were just trying to help but from now on I will be doing all the pricing!

My last blog today!

I was at the dentist with the boys this week.  The dental assistant, who I haven’t seen since all this cancer stuff started, told me she loved my new short haircut and where did I get it cut!  I thought this was hilarious. I guess I am moving into a new phase of this journey.

An Update on Viper, the snake….

Last June Andrew earned the priveledge of having a snake.  After months of having a difficult time obtaining “pinkies” or food for the snake we purchased a female hamster to “marry and raise a family” with our male hamster. In November, several weeks after the wedding, the snake went MIA, yup missing, yup somewhere in the house.  Randy and I tore the boy’s room apart looking for it but so far he hasn’t turned up.  We have been told he can “hole up” and hibernate for months on end. Yikes! So shortly after the snake goes missing the happy couple (of hamsters) produce a large family (11!).  In hopes that the snake will show up soon we took the babies and put them in the freezer (I am cringing as I am typing that).  We then did that we the second and third batch as well.  With the snake still MIA I let the boys raise her fourth batch to adulthood.  They had great fun watching the babies grow and finally a few weeks ago we took them to the pet store to find new homes.  The day we dropped the babies off we put the Daddy hamster back in with his love.  He is quite a smart hamster and unfortunately for him he is able to open the locked caged door and that night he made his escape and went exploring. The next morning we found him down stairs on the mat.  Apparently, our two cats play a little too rough.  While I felt sorry for the poor guy, I thought phew, that will be the end of the baby hamsters. Not! Momma had a litter this week of 10….I guess it was his parting gift to us!

Anyone want a hamster?

The Hippycups

I loved when Sara would come up to me and say, “Mommy, do you have the hippycups?”.  Her way of saying hiccups.  Or when she would ask for a “ola bar” aka granola bar or a “dork” instead of a fork.  Recently the boys taught her how to say hiccups correctly and quite frankly I was a little upset with them.  I don’t want her to grow up!  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to have a twelve year old with a speech impediment but with every new lesson learned she is growing up bit by bit.  I am losing my little baby and it doesn’t seem like I have had her that way for nearly long enough.  But growing up is inevitable so I am going to be grateful and thankful for the times I did have and learn to love and enjoy all these new phases in her development.  It’s just that hippycups was so darn cute!