The Story Of Us

I have been in a bit of a book funk.. the last three books I read have been not so great. I am currently reading The Girl in the Mirror by Rose Carlyle .. I am a couple of chapters in but it seems promising.  We have started reading the third Harry Potter book, the Prisoned of Azkaban. The kids are enthralled by the series and try to negotiate extending their bedtime every night just to be able to hear a bit more.  Ever heard of an agamograph? Well the kids were bored over the weekend and I found this little activity for them to do. H made this one. You can find the template here D made the one below. You can find the template here We have been working on redoing M's office space..  we had redone it when we had moved in over seven years ago and thought it needed a refresh. You can see how we redid it the first time here .  This is the before.. the after is not done just yet..  We are also sprucing up the guest bedroom which for all these years has always been a ...

Where do we start.. the world, common sense, basic kindness, humanity.. everything is just falling apart, we are seeing a lot of peoples true colors and they are not pretty. The news, social media everything is veering to push one over the edge and into a downward spiral. I wonder which dystopian fictional world will be our reality? Too much negativity.. I know.. gotta try to keep things a little positive..  Our quarantine world has opened up a little. We hit the tennis courts a couple of times a week.. sometimes M and I.. sometimes M and D. We have been biking around the neighborhood.. we started to venture out onto a semi main road. The kids and I have taken up jogging in the mornings before breakfast.. we don't get much far.. turns out none of us have much stamina.. something we are working on. Hopefully we'll all come of this quarantine a little bit healthier.  We have also taken up golf.. well at least attempting to. M occasionally plays golf, the rest of us have only eve...

It has been busy.. the boys had two days off for the New Jersey teachers convention and now they have the next four days of half days which I loath.. by the time they leave it's just time for them to come back again.. Many moons ago I had mentioned a powder room remodel.. I never got around to sharing the after pictures with you.. the bathroom is very narrow and taking decent pictures was such a challenge.  the before I hand painted the floor.. you can read about it here A few of the poorly shot afters.. the bathroom shelves are still a little bare.. but I don't want to just go to Home Goods and buy a bunch of stuff.. we like it when the things in our home mean something.. have a story. The faucet we bought in Morocco. The frames on the wall are two of my own photographs.. Frustration and Laughing The little glass bottle on the top shelf was bought in Venice as was the mask.. the little turtles we got in Mexico and the dried citrus wreath w...

We are currently toward the tail end of the holy month of Ramadan.. as of today we have one week of fasting left. For those of you not aware of what Ramadan is, well it is a month where we fast from dawn to dusk.. so at present approximately beginning around 4 am and ending around 8:30 pm. During the fast no food of any kind is permitted. And while I know the hours seem long it's not really all that hard.. it takes a day or two to get used to it and then you can hardly tell.. I personally miss food just because food is awesome but there is not a lot of I'm too hungry to function type of scenarios. We are also celebrating a birthday this month.. D turned the 6 on Thursday :) Since we were all fasting.. minus the kids of course.. we will be taking a rain check on the family celebrations.. but the big boy started his day off with some whip cream covered MnM pancakes. And D continued the celebrations with an ice cream party at school. Friday was D's last day of sc...

I have been a bit absent.. I have a ton to post about but for some of it I'm not ready just yet. Mostly we are in between a lot of things.. like.. We have ordered window treatments for our and the boys rooms.. We went back and forth about curtains.. I thought about stenciling fun curtains for the boys like I had done before for D's nursery . But in all honesty I just don't have the time for a DIY. We bought and returned a few different curtains for our room.. our windows are placed oddly.. the set of windows on the other side are not a problem but this little one behind the bed is awkward.. so we thought roman shades? I'm mulling over the placement of art and photographs too.. something off center maybe..? Thinking thinking.. planning planning.. Speaking of planning.. we are also planning our vacation days.. hopefully my ankle will be better by then.. in case you haven't been following along here's the ankle story . I am now taking two medicines... and...

Where do I begin? So the ankle.. remember that? If not click here for a refresher.. well two and a half months later it still hurts. I have done physical therapy, had an MRI and still no solution.. now I am on prescription medicine.. something to fix the nerve damage I have along with the partially torn ligament. Yup.. it just keeps getting better. Boy do I know how to sprain an ankle. But there is a light at the end of the tunnel.. I have been on the pills almost two weeks and I can feel the difference.. thank God! The contractor finally left.. almost three months later. It started with the master bath and bedroom.. when we started to rip out the old carpet it made the most sense to rip out all the carpet and refinish the floors.. and since we were ripping out carpets why not just repaint too.. and so the job took on a life of it's own.. and we are done! I can not wait to get settled in and share with you the results.. But here are a few BEFORE's  Teeny Tiny Master...