Getting there one step at a time.

The landscape out in front of the house is nearly done...simply awaiting the tree i bought to be put in and mulch to be added then thats done.

I have window trim left to paint still, lots of it and most of it is the high up stuff, but it has rained so much the last 2 weeks I have hardly had a day where i could tackle it.

The kids rooms are on their way as well, we still have 2 rooms to paint, and i am hitting ikea for the boys this week to score some new bedding for them to prep up their new space now that we got them some new bunkbeds (new to us that is ;) ).

The plumbing on my laundry room might get done tomorrow, not sure yet...and weekend after this the whole thing will get finished by Dean and his dad. That weekend is going to be hell in a lot of ways, I might need to get out of here and go find tings for me and the kids that do not require daddy time...they always act up when Daddy has not been around a ton, not their fault of course but I dread those times because its hard on them. Either way that room HAS to get done...we can't start on the kitchen until thats done and I NEED my kitchen done in the next year come hell or high water.

I'm going through a phase right now lol, not really wanting to delve into it as its kind of private but in retrospect the last year (nearly 2) of my life have brought on some really difficult challenges that I feel I've only faced halfheartedly. Anyways my biggest issue with myself right now is losing these last few lbs by summertime. I've worked my UU off to get them off and they are still coming off but its slower than I would like lol, so i think i'm enlisting in a bootcamp in June through the gym. It's only 3 days a week and i figure if i do that and run one other day it ought to push me over the edge to get the last 10-15 lbs off. My upper body actually looks pretty darn good LOL, its my lower half I struggle with and always have all my life. I actually got a size 9/10 jeans on this past week....this is momentous for me as I wasn't even that small when i lost between baby's #4 and 5. (i got down to a size 12 then I believe). Also I have a TON more muscle this time around so the scale has been difficult to understand...I weigh more but am smaller because of the muscle, but you have to build muscle to burn fat...the bigger the muscles, the more fat you burn which is why i don't weight lift like a sissy LOL. I lift as heavy as I can handle and increase whenever I need too versus endless reps on lower weights. You can do it that way, but I don't want a body that's super skinny with tiny muscles, I want muscles you can actually see and that give me better curves ;) (natural curves that is!). I'm also hoping to avoid the long anticipated tummy tuck. I've lost almost all the fat off my waist at this point, only a small portion remains so even if I did need to go there later I could probably go with a mini versus a full (let's face it...after having four , 10 lb babies there is a good chance that the skin might never go back to what it was).

All in all i'm happy with my results. I really need to take updated shots but I'm a total chicken lol...maybe next week, who knows. One day i'll just do them and post them, ha.

My time is now up now, hope everyone is having a good week despite this yuck weather. I can't wait for some real sunny days! :)

Your joking , right?!

You'll have to excuse any major typo errors in this post, my laptop is in serious need of a new keyboard thanks to my 2 youngest babes ;) ah gotta love toddlers that pick keys off your laptop.

Anyway, my bedtime is drawing near as we speak so I only have a few to get down what I have to say. I have recently made a commitment to making sure I go to bed nlt 10pm because staying up later is not conducive to workouts in the wee morning hours....and if I want to drop these last few lbs, something's gotta give, namely my staying up late.

So in a nutshell this week we recieved some news. Normally in light of the past 5 months this would be great news, however I find myself even more confused now than I have ever been in my life I think.

Our mortgage guy called yesterday to tell us that we are back on again for the loan approval, with one catch....we have to wait until August. I won't go into why except to say apparently you can bankrupt the govt. if you plan to spend a lot of $ upon gaining your next loan ;) true story...

So in light of this news as I said above confusion is without a doubt raining in this house like there is no tomorrow. We had resolved over the last 2 weeks (in between the weeping, heart wrenching and overall depressive nature of our life mind you) that we were staying in this house a minimum of 2-3 years in order to #1 pay down the loan and hopefully see a market rebound and B do some improvements to make the house more livable and better for resale down the line if that day ever came. This was of course after speaking with another bank loan officer who told us we can't even get a loan for putting on an addition...not because we don't qualify but because it would never appraise after the fact. You have no idea how bad it sucks to not only need a bigger house but to be able to actually afford having so much more only to be stopped at every angel. I guess you could say that we felt this was the *answer* we had been asking God for all along, as difficult as that was to swallow.

So much has gone throug my head over the last few weeks...the why's, the what next...even trying to figure out how to pay out of pocket for the extensive updates to this house and fixing our lives to gear up for that.

I even went to far as to realize that honestly...i wish we could stay here for a lot of reasons. I love our neighborhood. When we first moved here there were a few neighbors that were down right awful...they are now gone. We do have some rif raf in the general area but not directly on our block (and hello what city/street in the world doesn't kwim??). We have friends here, ...and while that is no substitute for family its still kind of reassuring. I know there are at least 2 dozen sets of eyes watching out for my kids on any given day here, that holds some level of comfort. Also, this house would be hard to walk away from from the sheer fact that 2 of my babies were born right here in the kitchen. granted...not really a reason to stay in a house too small (and lets face it this house is WAY too small for our gang), i guess it was just one of those things that crossed my mind while *making peace* wit staying here the last 3 weeks.

I must say that above all I'm just shaking my head trying to figure out what the heck is going on around here lol. We were adding on and staying...then we got approved and house hunted, losing 3 houses and countless hours of time before being told NOPE sorry, now your not. And now 3 weeks later after we have had 3 contractors out for mud room bids, and dropped over $500. on landscape for the front of the house (and its still not done LOl) we find out we can still get one in 3 months???

What am I missing here?!!!???????

I'm frustrated beyond belief with everything right now. I don't get it and I don't know that I care to get it, period. This is a walk of faith without a doubt because we are seriously in the dark and there are landmines at every turn. I am so over house hunting...no way I'll consider it come August I can tell you that right now....that would put us moving before xmas, um.................no,thankyouverymuch.


So with that said, we are moving ahead with making a mud/laundry room out back , the landscape is nearly done (waiting for the temp to come up before I buy my precious plants :) ), and if we have $ left after that we are fixing up the attic space for the big kids' new hang out. We also plan to buy bits and peices of the kitchen cabinets as we go along and eventually probably come feb or march of next year latest we will redo the kitchen. I CANNOT WAIT. We will also most likely put in a second bathroom off the mudroom as long as its possible (and I am pretty sure it is). THEN...we might see what the market is like and THEN sell this and move. I dunno, maybe lol.

I'm over it.

I haven't been online much at all lately because of all my spring projects. I have window trim still left to paint (again waiting on warmer weather) and one more coat on my door surround, then a trip to Ikea is in order with my enthusiastic SIL, can't wait!! My LR furniture will be picked up this weekend and then i can work on some indoor projects, it should all be done soon then we can relax and enjoy the summer with the kids. The littles are all taking swim lessons this year....and peanut turns 6, so hard to believe!!

Welcome rain.

So its been a few weeks since I have been able to post. Some of that is due to all I have had going on and some of it was not really wanting to perm. put it out there...

it would be ....we are not moving.

long story short, after making the offer on the house, paying for the inspection...and waiting the appraisal, we found out that Dean's VA cert is no longer any good thanks to early (read young) stupid financial mistakes in our 20's. There is nothing quite like reliving mistakes you made when you were young....ahhhhh LOL.


This was something unforseen by any of us during this journey, and while it stinks the hardest part was the 4.5 months we have spent living this whole thing out. I cannot begin to tell you the amount of stress that it put on our family. Maybe...that should have been my first clue, I dunno. I will say this though, living here in this tiny house with my troop was enough to push me through said stress for the bigger goal ahead. With that now said while i am really sad we are not moving (right now anyway) part of me is a bit relieved over not having to deal with it all right now. Dean is working an ungodly amount of hours right now thanks to the position he has been in for the last year (minimum of 65 hours a week for the most part) so while it sucks.........i'm ok with one less thing on my plate.

In the meantime, we HAVE to make this house more livable for crying out loud. I don't think i've ever dove into what we live in here too much so I'll try and paint the picture for you here. In a nut shell...we have a 4 bedroom house that is roughly 1450 sq ft. We have ONE....count it ONE bathroom. The bedroom sitch is very tight, 4 of the kids (currently the 4 girls) all share the master BR and then we have 2 boys in each of the other (we had the boys all in the bigger room at one point...yeah NOT good). My least fav part of this whole scenario is the fact that 1/4 of my huge kitchen is consumed by my laundry room. For the average family this would be a pain...for us? It's a major fat PITB daily. I am always working on laundry, it never ends, but having it right in my face in my kitchen? it doesn't get any worse than that. its so bad that many times we can't even sit together as a family at the table because there are clean folded clothes everywhere. I know it seems obvious to just put them away...however in my day sometimes thats not always possible.

Anyways, the point of this is, we live in a shoe (but i'm NOT old lol).

The good news is that we found out that we actually can still use my VA loan, we just have to get a few things lined up in order too, which could mean another 6-12 months. So for now we have to figure out how to make this house work. As of right now we have plans in the works to convert our covered porch into a laundry room (yes!!) and also to finish the attic area upstairs for a bonus room for the kids. This will give us an additional 300 sq ft so not only adding value to the house (for not a lot of $ i might add) but also will be a selling point eventually.

In the meantime, I've been busy doing a few other improvements to the house that *I* want. I am currently working on painting the trim on the outside of the house a new fresh color, and I just painted my door in a gorgeous deep (antigue) teal color yesterday. We went to Lowe's last night and bought a new Pella screen door and a new door mat and I finally splurged and bought some patio furniture that wasn't lawn chairs (ROFL!). These few little things alone have made a huge difference. It didn't add any space, but it makes the house more beautiful for sure. I also have the front flower bed to redo, I think I'm putting in hydrangea bushes and hostas, but first I have to buy dirt. Huh...dirt. Do you have any idea how hard it is for me to spend my $ on DIRT?! lol!! O well...

In other news, the struggle with Dyl continues at school. I cannot begin to express my fears about him entering into MS next year. Out of all the things about not moving have meant for us in the past week, this one is the toughest for me. I had every intention of putting him into the autistic school in Garden city, and now that won't be happening. There is too much to say to put here, but the good news is I have opened a new blog for him that is directly attached to this one so it should be easier for me to actually post on it. If you would like to read, here ya go...

http://ilovedylpickles.blogspot.com/


I always have the best intentions of blogging then don't seem to find time. The night is usually best, but lately I'm either tired or know I have to get up early to workout that I skip it in favor of rest. I'm hoping that now that the moving sitch has been summed up i'll be able to find more time for it both here at on Dyl's. Today was the exception because its sat., Daddy is working and it's raining outside...thus giving me a chance to sit here for a little bit while the kids are enjoying TV and video games curled up in blanket masses on the couch :). I love the rain, and this morning it has hit the proverbial spot.