The Grand Tour

So I bought a house two months ago.......and I'm not done unpacking or hanging stuff or even sorting into the correct rooms, but I realized I've neglected to give you the tour.......
So welcome...... I'm trying to think of the perfect phrase to have painted neatly on the front door. Some say "welcome" and others are more original, one lady has "no soliciting" painted neatly on her front door......interesting...but not me.
So this is the work space. I cook like crazy in this kitchen. The layout is perfect, I have tons of counter space and I love everything except the white appliances. I do not like them Sam I Am. I want stainless steel but The Man is ignoring those wants. He's still put out about my log (another day, I'll go there).
This is where all the magic happens. Just yesterday I cleaned that island six times. I do batch cooking on Sundays to make my life easier during the week. Hence all the white rags.
Murphy napped with his squirrel while I did my photo journaling of the house. He's such a momma's boy.

I would apoligize for the living area but I'm not. Yes, I have a Dora tv in my livingroom. I have a flat screen on my list, but just further down, past the dirt, sprinklers and grass. Also, yeah, I'm painting again, but neither picture is done, so don't judge me. It's really hard to have no talent. Plus up there, they can dry in peace and the kids won't be tempted to "add" to my work. I've also yet to finish unpacking all my books. But I think it's a very lived in look. We live here, it works for us. Not to mention all the other furniture and books are downstairs in the family room, which is framed but awaiting finishing. Maybe this winter.
Cause I keep it real, here is my dining room. Purses, new centerpiece bowl from my mom (fabo!), The Man's tackle box, Best Buy bags, belts, hand held games and all........sigh.....we're pigs
Besides having this thing for crosses, I love me some metal. So here is my bronze cross that guards the controls to Fort Knox, I mean our house......
Did I mention that I love metals? Yeah, wave to my clock, I love it. It tells perfect time but I would still have it on my wall if it didn't move at all. Oh and ignore the sock on the landing underneath it. Our laundry room is downstairs and as you can guess clothes just get thrown down the landing and then we move them into the proper area. We're pigs.
Nice view of my living area.......as much as I love my open floor plan (I blame years of military housing and all their silly walls for that), I can't wait to finish the two bedrooms/bath/laundry room and family room downstairs......these girls need their own space, so I can have mine back.

Speaking of their space? This disgrace is their bathroom. I'm on strike. I refuse to clean it, so I just talk really bad about it when I walk by, they finally picked it up last night before bed. It had been three days. Now, I'll go scrub their tub.
Princess is getting better at cleaning her room. Except, I should teach her to cover the end of the bed facing the door. So it won't give away her junk hiding spot.
Duchess has mastered the hiding spots. No junk in sight.
And yes, I really do wear high heels every day............see..........notice that my shoes get the good spots and the rest are lined up on the foyer floor?
And to round out our visit, this is the latest plant I've killed. I need a gardner......or a fake porch plant.......

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Open House

****I apoligize for not being around more this week, one of my coworkers has returned to grad school and I got his entire workload. In addition to mine. As in a promotion without a title, cause I'm a loser like that.....

I would love to post pictures of the girls' school open house for you, but sadly I forgot my camera. Which is just as well.....it was pandaleria (think Jeff Foxworthy).

We live in a children heavy area. Seriously we are the only people on our block that have two. The average family has five. Heck, one bunch have eight. Which kinda makes me want to cry whenever I see the mother of eight walking through the block. Cause my birth canal is having sympathy pains for hers. TMI, huh?

We pulled up and The Man immediately offered everyone ice cream if we could just leave, asap. But sadly behind that sea of cars, were my kids new teachers, I wasn't having it. So luck would have it and a minivan of moving truck proportions pulled out leaving a huge space in the bus lane directly in front of the school. Heaven shined on us, it was a beautiful moment. So once safetly parked in the smack middle of that spot, we departed the car and prepared to enter the fray.

The Man's football years came rushing back as he took in the massive crowds of people. He huddled us up and we made a game plan. We'd split and conquer, each taking a child and then reuniting on the playground and switch parents. Okay, we can do this.

Duchess was my first partner. As she was stuck clinging to my leg, this seemed the easiest method of surviving this without a meltdown. OMG. We found her room and I was pleasantly surprised to see that although her teacher was still wearing braces, she seemed to be very confident. She's been teaching four years. Greeeeeeaaaaat. When it was our turn at the meet & greet table she intro-ed herself and looked at Duchess.

"What's your name?"

Duchess stared. At her then at me.

I'm good at reading Duchess stares, so I tell her Duchess' name.

Then I get a dirty Duchess look cause Duchess prefers her nickname, the very short version of her real name.

Cause I'm an old fashioned sort of girl and gave my girls long beautiful, elegant names. Or so I though.

Duchess thinks I'm an idiot.

So I told her the nickname and that she prefers it.

Duchess nodded.

So we went through some more nodding, got our treasure hunt list (treasure hunt?) and went off to find, the door to the private playground (score!), the inclass bathroom (score!), the locker with Duchess' class number on it (she's #3) and the coat/bag rack. Then we climbed in her indoor reading treehouse and after I unlodged my high heel from a bean bag (hey no judging, I left work early to be there for my girlies) we ventured outside to test the playground.

Where through the fencing, I see The Man being drug all over the big playground by Princess. He immediately hails me and screams, Switch!

Seems Princess has found some friends she knew.

And went from his little camo wearing, bow and gun shooting tom girl into a squealing little mass of female. He panicked. The quitter. So we all met up and switched.

Then I got the puddle of squealing female hormones and we went to see the 4th grade.

My kids are once again, new at a school.

Even though we bought a house a mile from the old place, we were assigned a different school. And since this happened in mid summer, Princess was one of the last 4th graders apparently to sign up. Kid got stashed in one of the only portable buildings on the premises.

Reminds me of seventh grade when my junior high burned down.......sigh.

Her teacher seems well.......odd. She's an older woman, who apparently was just hired this week and is from Cali. Normally I would think this rocks, but she was a mess. Seriously her clothing and her hair just looked slept in. Hey, I'm not one to judge but another parent was going to town talking about it 5 feet away and I happened to notice.

Frazzled. That is a good word for how she seemed.

I hope this is temporary. We'll see......

Until then, my puddle of 4th grade girlieness is just excited to be back in school.

And Duchess, well Duchess announced that she was glad kindergarten was over.

Oh boy....

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Welcome Murphy

Murphy joined our family today. Besides being the utter love of my life. He's beautiful, trouble and blue eyed......he's perfect. He's also The Man's anniversary gift for me since he plans to spend our actual anniversary in the woods, as it's opening day of deer season. He's forgiven.
Murphy is 7lbs, 8 weeks old, and again, the love of my life........When I got the call that The Man was bringing me the perfect dog, I called my mom and we met him at the local pet store to get supplies.....my mom loves her newest grandbaby.
The girls agree that Murphy is perfect in every way. Except I keep losing him in my house. We've spent most of the evening on our hands and knees looking under stuff for him. He's fun.
He also likes to eat my rugs, but who cares........aren't my boys adorable? Ahhhhhh..... makes me forget about stress weeks at work, karate tourneys, log deliveries, the crack smoking fence people who think they want me to pay 4k for a stupid fence.......yep, The Man brought a much needed smile to my face.
So after all the drama, guess what I did. I sat out in the grass while little man sniffed around, went potty and made friends with a stick. I found myself curling my toes in the thick grass that needs a serious mow and weed-eat, just enjoying some time with Murphy. Then I told my girls that just cause Murphy chewed wood chips didn't mean they could.....monkey see, monkey do.

Welcome home little boy. Now there is more testosterone in my house, just what I needed.

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Pre-Dating Prep

The Man has enrolled both girls into karate. He calls this the beginning of their pre-dating boot camp of preparations. He is kinda narrow minded at times, but we love him.

So both girls participated in a kick-a-thon tourney this past weekend. This is why I wasn't on my internet, I'm sorry. It's not my fault, I should totally have my own wireless card.
Duchess is pretty involved. She likes to yell and scream but otherwise she kicks like a girl and bites like a crocodile........(name that song? Anybody? I'll post it later) So most of her class time is play time and not very serious. Cause she's not a serious kinda girl at all......
Really, even though she totally looks serious here, it's only cause she was kicking her sister. But Duchess managed to kick over 100 kicks. She got an award for it.
Princess has got her some strong legs. Seriously strong legs. She is very focused and is already planning her acceptance speech for when she gets her first Olympic medal in karate. She's been going for three weeks. Except my baby has no form. Her form, it needs work.
And she giggles. No body can kick a giggler............wait a minute, scratch that. But she managed over 100 kicks as well. And to top it off, the kid got an invite to a tourny to compete in form. Gonna need alot of form work in the next month to get that kiddo ready. Me? I'll be there rooting her on, with my book and my drink and my shoes tucked neatly beneath my chair. I'm all about support!!!!!
Finally, we've found something they both love. Except now I'm not sure how the heck I'm gonna juggle ballet with this too? And choir? Oh Lord, help me now......

Next time The Man has a great idea...........I'm leaving him in charge of scheduling the results.

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Pruning Princess

Princess got a haircut about a month ago. She wanted to try growing her bangs out and since her hair grows like a patch of weeds, we'd nearly accomplished it, when I realized something. I didn't like her hairstyle.

It was too old for her. Seen here on a wild and wooly day, but when dried and fixed, she was rocking a sleek teenaged style bob. Not to mention she kept most of her long bangs drapped over one eye. I think not.

So after much to do about hair, The Man and I finally came to terms with a haircut.
She got her bangs back, and we got some layers in the back to enhance the natural curl. Cause I'm sorry but sleek and flatironed hair in not appropriate for my nine year old.
I think she likes it. Don't mind my water stained bathroom mirror........
I think she looks her age now. What do you think?
And since I was so busy showing her how to do her hair this morning before work, this is what I got stuck with.

Is it me, or are our little girls just growing up too fast?

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Sweet Nothings....

I wasn't feeling hot yesterday, sneaky gluten crept into my dinner somehow the night before. But by dinner, I was feeling okay. So we headed out to run errands and decided to try Outback's GF menu.

It was actually a menu. Wow. I had three pages of choices. The wait staff was very knowledgable about GF as well.

However, when they put the bread down on the table, The Man tried to have the waitress take it back, cause I couldn't eat it.

I argued with him, that I was now GF forever, so it made more sense to get over it and for him and the kids to enjoy regular bread products when we dine out. Then I pointed out that he could take the girls to eat anywhere and I would stay at home and relax.

This pissed him off like crazy!

I kept telling him, it won't hurt you to have dinner just you and your girls, thinking that he wasn't into to going solo parent with them.

Nope.

He goes, no but it hurts me to leave you behind.

Sniff, sniff...

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Close Your Eyes!

Are they closed? Now take a sniff....do you smell honeysuckle? I do.......or I will. I've gotten really involved in my landscaping plan. See I had to hurry up and submit a plan to our HOA since we've already started working on our yard. So excuse my grade school drawing....but it ain't rocket science.

As you can see I have plans for a simple backyard. This is what I want my HOA to think. Especially since the management for the HOA is in another state, I'm really not sweating it. But it's less drama if they know nothing about my actual plans. Arses!

Let's start with all the things they DON'T know for my proposed backyard.

1. I'm building a stage in my backyard for this man.......so maybe he'll come serinade me to sleep every night.......

Hey, a girl can dream right? We'll leave it at that, otherwise The Man will take my laptop.

Sorry, got off track.......When they built our house, the HOA requires the builder to put grass in the front yard and on any side yards of a corner lot. Which is how we ended up with a tiny patch of unfinished yard in the back. Trouble is, our house sat empty for six months before we bought it. Seems the people who actually designed it, lost their financing, hence it went on the market as a spec.

In that six months, it became hard, weedy nasty dirt. Great. So in our attempt to clean it up, we noticed that they had built burns (little hills people) all around the edge of the dirt pit. This was to keep the neighbor behind us (oh you remember the ghetto white trash right?) from flooding our yard. Since they violate the HOA and city rules and water their yard EVERY day, seven times a day. I counted.

After we pulled the burns down, we realized that our yard was horribly unlevel. Enter topsoil. Now we are at the top of a hill, happens when you build on the side of a mountain sometimes. So all of water drains into the southside neighbors yard. Not my problem. But we didn't want an

uneven ugly backyard. Therefore........

2. Log, see I added the log here but not of the version I sent to the HOA. I purchased a 14 ft log that is 4 ft in diameter. I promise we're not smoking crack over here..... instead of spending close to a $1000 to build a retaining wall in the middle of my yard, we're half burying this log. It will help us to keep 3/4 of the yard level while the other 1/4 will gently slope down towards our fence....water-into-neighbors yard......lol no seriously it'll go towards the street down the fenceline. I hope.

How much do you think I paid for that log? Yes, I paid for it, plus the delivery which will come next week.........

3. The noted 2 ft retaining wall will be made from pavers (thanks Lowes) and I've noted shrubs. Nope that baby will be filled with honeysuckle vines that I'll stake out and let grow up the fence. Hello darling......

4. The deck is another huge project but my goal is a built in natural gas grill with room for a mini-fridge and then planters on the sides. We're also doing beams on all corners to put on a slated tuscan style roof. But I ain't sharing that......they'll want me to pay for a license from the HOA. Greed money hungry idiots.

5. Fencing is a tricky one. They covenants say I have to do a funky line-of-sight thing because there is a stop sign in front of my house. So I have to stagger my fence along the side of my house all the way back to the end of my property line. Except, the house in the exact same position of mine a street over, didn't do it. I can surely use this as an excuse just to fence it normal? Right? Is that cheating?

So this is the beginning plans for our yard. We'll keep you posted as it comes along. I have a feeling this is gonna take us awhile.

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Getting Dirty........

So in our attempt to finish our backyard.......we bought a dump truck full of dirt. It was alot of freaking dirt. So we stood out there and admired it, until the news came on and said hey, gonna rain this week. OMG, instead of a mound of dirt, we'll have a hard hard mound of muddy dirt.
So The Man put us to work. We received our delivery at 7:30 p.m. and by 8:30, even the kids were in on it. Bucket fulls and shoveling. We needed a bobcat but we didn't have one lined up since we weren't going to spread the dirt until Thursday. No such luck.
So fresh from her bath, Duchess jumped at the chance to get a little dirty.

Notice all the neighbors out and about. Not one offered to help. But they did all , at one point or another come stand in their driveways and watch.
We lucked out when we bought this house. The only part not finished was the very back yard. Thank you, corner lot HOA regulations. So since our house takes up most of our lot, we only had a little bit of yard to work on. But it's big enough to be a pain in my arse. I'm glad we bought a rambler though, cause those two stories bad boys..........just more yard.
See how color coordinated my girls are. That comes naturally, from me......lol But they were great little helpers. Until they decided to abandon us and watch movies. In between shots I was actually working, just FYI
That is a big ole pile of dirt.
By 10:30 p.m., I was sneezing dirt, drinking dirt with my tea. Inhaling dirt with my ciggie. And I had just given up on shoes. But between my "little' help and The Man we were done. He'd basically man handled the entire pile. It was gone. Spread out nicely through my yard. I'm loving it. Except, we need more. And I have to go pick out a log today.........I'll explain the log later, lol.

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Blame Becky!

It's that time again.......you can blame Becky if you read something here that causes you emotional or mental anguish.

Tagged: Six Things You NEVER Wanted to Know About Hope4Grace

1) Link to the person who tagged you.
2) Post the rules on your blog (copy and paste 1-6).
3) Write 6 random things about yourself (see below).
4) Tag 6 people at the end of your post and link to them.
5) Let each person know they have been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
6) Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

So here goes........and for those of you who I chase away, it's been nice knowing you.

1. I can not talk about gas, pooh, bodily functions of any kind without giggling. Even as a mother, I must say that my maturity level on this subject is hovering around the seven year old boy mark. Sorry.......

2. I will say F*ck before I say Fart. Back to the gas subject, I'm giggling you know. Right now. But Fart to me is just low class. I blame my Aunt who growing up enforced such lady like terms for all such things.

3. I'm vindictive. Seriously and without remorse. I will eventually get even. I try the whole "turn my cheek thing" but after I calm down and it simmers, I will eventually serve up some well deserved "back at ya". Perhaps reading this post will clear this up for you.

4. I enjoy dealing with people who don't care for me. Example: maybe a co-worker who just can't stand me or a neighbor who enjoys gossiping about me......Honestly if they are dogging on me than they are giving some poor other person a break. Although in reality I enjoy looking them straight in the eye and smiling. Bring it on. Do your worse. It really amps my day where as they tend to look pissy or slightly sick. I have issues people.

5. I have different aspects of my personality for different situations. Home, I'm just me. Whatever the hell that is. Work, I'm work me. I'm smiley and firm at all times. Don't push me, just get it done. I drop the occasional f-bomb and kick a copier once in a while but I'm in my professional garb and heels doing it. Outside of work, but still a work function: I'm a watcher. I notice and file things away for future use. I make sure every one there speaks to me at least once, with a smile and handshake, then I leave and go smoke ciggies in my car. The Man's work function: I smile and wave, meanwhile sharing other snarky comments with Cec, cause our hubs work together so we are always there together. I don't socialize but I will be nice. Come to think on it, I'm only sociable if you pay me to be.........hmmmm

6. I refuse to be naked in daylight or artificial lighting of any kind. Damn modesty issue! This is probably why The Man takes pleasure in turning on every light he can when I'm getting out of the bath or shower. Perv.

Okay, I'm tagging the following cause I'm dying to know their darkest secrets!
1. Bigest1Brat
2. Oh Country Girl......
3. Brad?
4. Yo Working Mom!
5. Rhea ---
6. Mom? Mom? Mom? If you'd update your blog you could play along too!

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Gluten Free Cooking- Take 1

We're learning the hard way on this whole GF thing. However, I must say I would be a lost babe in the woods without my ready made mixes. These little bags that cost as much as pure gold are saving my bacon. Literally, saving me from a life of eating nothing but bacon....

Attempt 1 at normal eating was GF pancakes. These bad boys come out thick and are much better warm than room temp. But man oh man, everyone raved about them. The kids couldn't tell at all that they weren't wheat products.

This inspired me to get creative......with my own recipe for granola. Which I let cook a little too long cause I was reading the latest JD Robb book. Dang. But still, which chocolate chips and nuts, OMG hello sugar. I seriously went through this pan (with help!) in two days. I've bought dried cranberries for the next batch. Costco granola move over, there's a new sheriff in town.

I'm moving beyond just specific GF foods too. I'm going through my cookbooks and pulling recipes that are naturally gluten free. Like steaks, kabobs, fresh green beans sauted with bacon, asparagus wrapped in bacon....are you seeing a common theme.....toss in bacon and I'm there.

Also, how about some boiled shrimp.....

This was the left overs. Hello love, how are you? I did some serious pigging last night on these bad boys. Then I curled up in bed holding my tummy groaning.....The Man brought in my tummy meds and was all sympathic until I confessed that I just ate too much....then he made me go outside and rake some more. Damn back yard.
Bread is the largest challenge. Witness the first attempt at GF bread in my bread maker....not impressive at all. It tasted about the same as the Madden shoe box that my new red shoes came in. It was a miserable failure. Moving on.......
It also failed the sniff test. So I gave up on having sandwiches for awhile.
But I had this brand new breadmaker so I needed to use it............enter banana bread. Which turned out so good, it was gone before the night was over. Burp. I've redeemed myself in the bread department.

Next up this week: My menu.....

Monday: BBQ ribs (with naturally GF BBQ sauce - Bull's Eye, Lawry's seasonings), french fries and roasted veggies.

Tuesday: Eating at a work function, crossing my fingers that there will be food there I can eat.

Wed: Flank steak on the Grill in a soy sauce marinade (Great Value -Walmart's brand is GF) with corn on the cob and a side salad.

Thur: Pizza (Gillian's GF pizza crust) with coleslaw on the side

Fri: Meatloaf (Heinz if GF, as are the Gillian's bread crumbs), smashed potatoes and salad

Sat: Red beans and rice (cajun style) with a side of GF garlic bread.

Sun: Pot roast with rice, black eyed peas and steamed veggies.

I'm hoping by working out a weekly menu ahead of time, there'll be less panic when I get home from work with two tired kids and a hungry husband.

Send GF recipe ideas this way!!!!!!!!! I'm living on potatoes, meat and rice!

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Hostage......Send help and chocolate!

I'm sorry that I've neglected my two readers! hi guys! But The Man is to blame. He has kidnapped me and is holding me hostage. He's making me work like a dog.

We've decided to really kick it up a notch on our back yard. Unfortunately I didn't get many pictures of the process as he hid my camera. Yeah, you seriously read that right. Not only did he hide my camera several times (cause I'm sneaky and on my union approved bathroom breaks, I would find it) he also got tough military type on my lazy arse.

It started this morning, early. Yesterday he rented a tiller. I went about making a lovely (GF=Gluten Free) GF ziti dinner with a beautiful salad and banana GF bread for dessert. All the while waving from the kitchen window while The Man made the children pull weeds. He actually bought them work gloves, how very medievil of him. But after dinner, he handed me a very ugly blue pair and set my butt to work. Luckily it got dark after 15 minutes so I caught a break.

But at 7 a.m. this morning, I got a finger between my two favorite ribs and a terse, "Get moving" from Mr. Motivated. Seems he actually expected me to work. After a quick breakfast, we set out.

I was color coordinated and very cute, cause you should always garden looking your best. But I forgot sunscreen on my face so I'm beet red now. Great! Luck came calling at 11 when Princess and Duchess got invited to a play date. Sweet, I graciously offered to drive them over, (hee hee).

The Man looked at his watch and said "If you're not back here by noon, you better find someone else to buy your shoes" Oh crap, he was serious about this whole helping thing. Huh...... So I barely made it but at 11:58 a.m. I pulled back in with a big ole gas station fountain Dr. Pepper and a happy smile. That didn't last. In 102 degrees, nether did my drink. Crap........

And when I complained?

This is the look I got......The Man rarely does not give into my charm, but today was definately one of those days. Damn!
Do you know how distracting it is pulling weeds when you look over and see this? Ummm, hi! I'm Hope4Grace, could we grab a coffee, drink or tea together? Yeah, he didn't even look up. Dang his hard working self.......and it doesn't help that he is very good at tuning me out.
OMG, hey how about a freebie? Hello? Hunkie? Sweet Jesus, it's the hat and the arms.....OMG. He looked up with an evil smile too fast for my camera and drooling self to catch. Then pointed back at my pile and weeds. Then he hid the camera again...........Damn.
So once we were mostly weed free. Out came the rented Tiller. This thing was seriously bad arsed. The Man is pretty big but this thing was shaking his self around like he was a light weight sissy boy. Not an easy task at all.

30 minutes after this was taken. He broke it. Yep, you read it right. He broke the rented tiller. Go back up....see the handles.....they are solid metal right? well The Man hit a mud puddle and had to manhandle it out of there. He broke a handle off......

So I was finally sent inside to "clean up briefly" so we could take the tiller back and grab some stupid garden rakes to finish the job by hand.......OMG. Do you see what he did to me......and he was totally watching me so I was trying to be sneaky, cause I found the camera again....... Notice the sweat and the nasty hair and the red face and the cute outfit.......I had one cute black capris too with the sweetest little black sneakers......

So we pulled up to the rental place and The Man disappeared inside. I was told to stay outside and look mean. No problemo. The little sissy boy man came outside and looked at the handle and goes "No way, that is impossible......" Enter me with a pissy rant about how my yard isn't done. He went back inside. The owner comes outside and three other guys come to stand around and look at the Tiller. Yep, they just stood and looked....at The Man.......then at the tiller. I wanted to brag at that point, but I kept my mouth shut.

The owner assured us it wouldn't be charged to us since obviously the tiller was defective cause surely there is NO way someone could break metal and rip a handle off. The Man just smiled. We stopped and bought rakes.....but I got some flowers and stuff too..........sweet. The Man was feeling very generous with my sweaty self.

Then he took me to pick up our girls and go home.........to work some more.

Princess was sunburnt and went to bed, lucky ducky.........I mean poor baby. Duchess spent an hour in the tub and then read her book. Me? I got raking duty......Except......
Then I got to watch The Man bury our drains french style..........Now that it's bedtime.....There is a shower in my future and after looking at these pics again, I'm gonna go scrub that Man's back. He deserves it........Hard slave driver that he is........

I think I have a thing for him when he's all bossy and in control...........Damn.

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