A Mid Thirties Rambling

As I begin to write this it is the morning of my 34th birthday. Officially mid thirties. Yuck!  I've been developing plenty of wrinkles to prove it! I definitely feel like I've been looking older lately. Strange how having kids can make you feel like you're staying young but really kick-starts the old hag look.

Well, my birthday gift to myself is to indulge in a few blog posts. I'm still generally too busy to keep up at it. It's still not high enough up on my ladder of daily or long-term priorities.  But I've had such a terrible creative itch lately. And since this is one of my creative outlets I figured I'd stop in for a little while again. I've got a few thoughts and treasures to share.

Usually, when I get that creative itch, I can just scratch it with a little redecorating for a quick fix. But I'm in a long period of decorating limbo right now. Since the end of October we've been living at my in-laws' house. The plan is to officially buy it from them this spring but they won't move out until they build themselves a new place. They hope to break ground in April and then take several months to finish. So during this interim period, I'm at home, almost, but still a guest. But I have the world's best in-laws' so I can't imagine this transition period being any easier.

Most of my stuff is in storage though and sometimes I miss it. Every day I'm getting inspired for how I want to put my personal stamp on this space when I can - and I'm forced to be patient! In many ways its nice not to be distracted by my stuff and to not be jump into any changes right away but have a long time to mull them over.

There are a few spaces that I am free to fully settle us into right away - the girls' bedrooms and bathroom. So I'm hoping to redo the older girls' room before long. Most likely there will be some posts over the next few months that show before and after pics or how I've incorporated my treasures into those rooms.

Another way I like to scratch my creative itch with crafty projects - especially turning trash into treasure. It's my favorite therapeutic escape when kids are sleeping! I've got a laundry list of projects to get to - mainly painting furniture. But with everything we own taking over the basement and the room above the garage, and with the cold weather outside, I don't really have a work space at the moment.  Plus I'm still busy digging out of the post-Christmas/post-vacation/post-stomach bug mountain at home. We haven't even been home a week yet.

• I'm finally caught up on emails but not the to-do list that they created.
• I'm caught up on washing dirty clothes but still have 3 huge space saver bags full of clean clothes from vacation that need to be sorted into warm and cold weather piles and put away.
• I still have our Jesse Tree up. My oldest asked to keep it up for a while so I told her we'd review all the symbols on the ornaments once (actually I'll quiz them), then it comes down.
• I must confess the suitcase full of Christmas gifts from vaca still hasn't made it out of the back of the van and into the house yet!
• I think I've collected most other random Christmas stuff from around the house and into one box (we didn't take out much knowing we'd be gone), but that stuff needs putting away.

I'm giving myself through the end of this month to get caught up - THEN I'm working on a fresh start and diving into some projects. In the meantime, I reserve the right to schedule a few girls creative nights in or out. I'm dying to get back to making button bracelets and we're LONG overdue for a visit to Claytime. (Who's in?)

And that concludes my ramble. No point to that post, I guess I just felt the urge to ramble after being away from all my peeps for about a month. The other posts I have lined up will have a point, be more interesting, and/or have some pictures. :)