it's not easy being green

It might be more accurate to say, 'it's not easy finding green'. Who knew finding the right shade of paint could be so dang hard?! GAAH! It's no secret that green is my favorite color; it's the color of springtime, renewal... money! heh heh heh ...that said, I decided green would be the color for my craft room/studio/office -or as it's come to be known lately, the place I plant my fat ass and surf the web. It's true, I haven't been feeling all that crafty lately, thus the reason for the room makeover. I figure, maybe, with a fresh, clean, spunky room, inspiration will strike ~or~ at the very least, I'll have a spiffy new room to bunk in once my hubs gets fed up with my 'projects'. LOL

My search for the perfect green started out at the local paint store where I spent a good long time gathering paint chips and with my hands full of every color from 'tropical grass' to 'zippidy doo dah' (yeah thats really a color!) I flashed a smile at the paint gal and headed out the door with a promise to be back soon.

After coming home and taping several paint chips up on the wall, I thought I had a pretty good handle on what I wanted; something fresh, maybe even a little bit unexpected but not too over the top. I want the ho-hum blah ...ness to be replaced by a shot of enthusiasm, but I don't want to have to bust out the shades to enjoy it. Should be easy enough, yes? Uhm... No.

I'm no stranger to color. I've taken art classes, I know how the color wheel works -that blue and yellow make green... but this paint business -whew- it's so much more complex. There are blue-greens, yellow-greens, minty greens, pine greens, grass greens, soft greens, and the ever poplular, puke {or baby poop} greens... there are more, but I'm sure you get the picture. The first color I chose to sample was called 'Sunny Glade', a nice enough color but after a couple of days of looking at it on the wall, it looked too minty. Hmmmph. I really thought it was the one.

Meanwhile, while visiting my friend Wendall's blog (visiting/stalking, whatever! -you say potato, I say spud...) I got a look at her studio and BAM it hit me -THAT'S the green! I LOVE IT -it's perfect. So, I email and nag her and beg for all the paint details and being the soooper schweetie that she is {or maybe she was askeered that her freaky blog stalker had contacted her??} she climbed around under the stairs in her garage and came up with all the nitty gritty info for me. Happy-happy-joy-joy! She got it at Lowe's, it's made by Valspar, it's called Jalapeno Jelly ...etc. etc. etc. Well, we don't have a Lowe's within 100 miles of us but my local paint store carries Valspar so woo-hoo, I'm off to see the wizard!! No dice. Even with all the particulars, my paint gal doesn't have the right stuff to make the mix. We concluded that Lowe's probably has some exclusive colors from Valspar and, barring a 200 mile round trip, I was shit out of luck. *sigh* Back to the drawing board... I should mention also that I went to the Valspar website in hopes that I could eyeball the color on line and try to match it locally but the color they showed is NOTHING like what Wendall has -in fact she commented that if I got a can of that paint I shouldn't freak out until I saw it on the wall but what's on the website is definitely not a good representation of her paint. UGH! I'm tellin ya... paint is weird.

At some point in our "chatting" Wendall said she loves the color in her studio so much, sometimes she goes in there and wants to lick the walls -{who's the freak now?" LOL!} It doesn't surprise me though, because they're the exact same color as a granny smith apple -I'd probably be tempted to take a taste myself! ;) Soooo... with that in mind, bright and early the next morning I stopped by the grocery store and bought the yummiest granny apple I could find and headed for the paint store. The gals all got a kick out of me standing there matching paint chips up to my apple -lol! but hey, a gals got to do what a gals got to do, right?

I came home with 2 different quarts of paint -both of which are perfect matches to my granny apple. The first one, unfortunately named 'Asparagus', is a deeper green, like you see when you look down by the apple's stem, the second color, called 'Olive Garden', is a bit lighter like you'd see on the sides of the apple. I have both colors up on the wall now and it's a toss up, I like them both. The lighter color is nice, kinda mellow but fun. The darker color, is bold and fun and it's definitely different than anything I would have chosen without benefit of seeing something similar in Wendall's studio. I admit, when I saw first saw it up on my wall, my first thought was how much it looked like baby poop -you know, like when they first start eating green beans? *gag* but after a couple of coats and a couple of days of curing, it's definitely the front runner -pffftt- no pun intended!
LOL! I just realized you can see my 'inspiration' apple on my shelf!

funfunfun mail!

WOOO-HOOO! I got some fun mail this afternoon from my pal Bethany! :) She surprised me with this awesome little {note}worthy spiral notebook from Making Memories that I've been drooling over for weeks!

I've already got an idea of what I want to do with it and get this -I'm actually excited about doing something crafty! (yay me!) THANK YOU SO MUCH BEFFY!! you da bomb, baybee! *muuuah*

ADD, OCD ...call it what you will, I am the queen of distractions

So, a few weeks ago I finally decided to jump in and tackle the mess that has taken over my scraproom. I've been organizing and doing some hardcore purging, finally getting rid of tons of the 'really cool' stuff I just HAD to have over the years, but strangely, have never been compelled to actually use. There was a time it would have killed me to get rid of this stuff, but now, I'm sick of looking at it and trying to work around it -and I just want it gone. In a weird way, it's kind of exciting, even a little liberating, to be able to simplify and reclaim this room.

While changes are gradually taking place, and it *is* looking better in here, it's definitely been a sllllooooow process and my ADD keeps kicking into overdrive. I find myself slacking on the cleaning and skipping ahead to what I want to do next, which is ...PAINT! (pffftt! nevermind the fact that I still have a few odds and ends to finish up from my last painting project -but that's a whole 'nuther story...) I've been collecting paint chips and taping them up on the walls so I can get a look at the colors in the different light throughout the day. A few days ago I actually bought a quart of what I thought was going to be THE color and painted a patch of wall behind the door, just to test it out. Then, last night as I was putting on the second coat, I was kinda diggin it so I decided to paint a little more, ...and then a little more, so I could really get a feel for it... I ended up painting all around the door and a good portion of the wall... meanwhile, as that was drying, I was looking at all the paint chips again and found another color that I might like better, so I'll be getting a quart of that tomorrow -you know, just to make sure I end up with exactly the right color. *gaah* as if ADD weren't enough, now my OCD tendencies are starting to surface. Soon I'll be obsessing about being distracted ...all while I should be cleaning and organizing -it's a vicious cycle, I tell ya! *note to self: call pharmacy and refill meds.

(here's a little preview of color #1 -it's actually darker IRL)

I cereally drive myself crazy when I get hung up on stuff like this. Thank goodness Jack has pretty much learned to take my chaotic tendencies in stride -which is just one of the many reasons I keep him around. ;) He occasionally peeks in to check on my progress (or lack thereof) and usually aknowledges any changes with a quick smile and a nod and then he's gone -he's smart that way.

Hopefully, once the room is done, I'll find my mojo. It's been so long since I've done anything artsy-fartsy, I'm beginning to wonder if I even *gasp* want a scraproom anymore.

20 years

I met my friend Andrea, what seems like a lifetime ago, when she moved to my hometown, to live with her mom and her younger brother. We actually met thru work, -we'd both just started working for Longs Drugs Store. Aside from being the 'newbies' at work together, we found we had lots in common and quickly became friends, hanging out, partying, doing all the stooopid stuff 19 year old girls do. We made tons of roadtrips back to her hometown, where I met her friends and before long, I felt just like one of the gang. Over the next couple years, she and I were more or less joined at the hip. We supported eachother thru breakups with boyfriends, family drama -everything.
It wasn't too long after she moved back to her hometown, and I was just getting over some major boyfriend drama, -feeling depressed and wanting to shake my life up a bit, -that she convinced me that I should up and move too. She told me about one of her old friends who needed a room mate... and so it went.

Just two days after my 21st birthday, I packed up my Pop's suburban, piled stuff in a trailer, filled up my little honda and hit the road. 300 miles and about 6 hours later I was here. I stepped inside the shabby old house I'd be sharing with my new room mate, Tim (whom I'd already met and loved like a brother ...still do, in fact!) and he introduced me to his friend Jack.... A year and a half later Jack and I got married and the rest, as they say, is history.

Here we are, 20 years to the day from when I moved here and Jack and I first met... -we've been married now for 18 and a half years, have 3 beautiful kidlets, and amazingly, even with all the ups and downs we've gone through, we've managed to keep it together pretty well. I can't wait to see what the next 20 years brings -I just hope they don't go by so fast!

Andrea and I have long since fallen out of touch. She moved back to my hometown, got married and I haven't heard from her in years. ...it's strange how things work out sometimes.

some things never change

I can't count the multitude of times I've shopped for *the* perfect birthday or Christmas gift, usually spending way too much money in an effort to please -and then, as if that weren't bad enough, my OCD kicks into overdrive as I start the process of coordinating the giftwrap, ribbons and bows, and I wind up spending nearly as much on that stuff as I did on the gift -lol.

Picture me, camera poised, hardly able to contain my excitement as my kid is overcome with joy and moved beyond words when he sees what's inside the magnificent package. Then hellloooo... flash back to reality as said kid rips into the magnificent package, and with nary a blink at my efforts to impress, chucks the 'perfect' gift aside and then adds insult to injury as he goes on to spend hours, maybe even days, playing with the freakin' cardboard box it came in! What is it about kids and boxes??!

I guess some things never change...

A couple of weeks ago, Jack went out and bought a GIANT new tv -the kids had been jonsin for us to bring it home and get it all set up so late that night we dragged this ginormous box into the livingroom, carefully unpack the tv, and as Jack and I are muttering under our breath about the trials and tribulations that come along with trying to decipher which cords get plugged into what component and WHY is there an extra cord leftover, etc... we suddenly realize that the box has come alive and is making it's way across the hardwood floor -LOL! Matt has crawled inside and is using the box as a quasi shell. Bedtime finally rolls around and as I step into the boys' room, I notice the box has ended up in there and it is now stuffed to overflowing with Matt and all his bedding -the big goof slept in the box!
Oh well, I guess as long as it's not a fridge box under a bridge, we're doing ok.

Seriously... it's ridiculous.

As of today, prices up here on the northcoast are $3.66 a gallon for reg. unleaded at Costco and a whopping $3.79 a gallon for reg. unleaded at the 76 station... GAAH! talk about depressing.

pffftt! who needs daytona beach??

Things are finally winding down and getting back to "normal" here at Rancho McBirdie. We had a kick ass spring break -totally different than any of our other 'vacations', because the family went in different directions (which may be the secret of our success!? lol), but we were busy and it was fun.

Jack had to work (work, Jack, work) and Andrew was busy building fence with his cousin Nate out at the ranch so Matt, Kendall and I left Friday after they got out of school and made the trek down to the clov-i to hang with Shayna and her gang. It's always SO good to see her and I love how the kids seem to pick up right where they left off ... it didn't take them long to figure out that they were on their own as far as entertaining themselves. They swam, played video games, and did a pretty good job of staying under the radar, freeing up the adults to drink margi's, tip back some beeyahs, and play a few cut-throat rounds of dominos (because, according to Bennett, that's what old peeps do), oh yeah... we're wild like that.

Saturday the kids colored eggs and the Easter bunny, along with her trusty sidekick, did a smashing (literally) job of hiding them. The next morning, the little grills pranced around the yard, hunting down the mangled eggs that the dogs hadn't already managed to liberate. After a delicious Easter dinner, we all hastened on down to the local bowling alley where a) we were entirely too high maintenance when it comes to renting shoes 2) were a little challenged by the automatic scoring machine, and c) Shayna kicked me arse in a bowling throwdown. I must say though, I was one proud mama when my girl managed to loft her ball onto the lane NEXT to us and then later, had an apparent 'early release' and sort of erm, threw the ball behind her... can't even imagine what might have happened if we hadn't been using bumpers! No doubt the PBA scouts would have our phone ringing off the hook ...if only our number weren't unlisted. *sigh*

As usual, I hated to leave so we stuck around for an extra day and got to see some other friends who came to visit (pffftt! go figure -they live within 10 minutes of me but I travel 8 freaking hours and see them!). I'm wondering if Shayna's fully recovered yet... at one point there were 5 adults and 9 kids bunking in her house. Crazy as it sounds, the kids were great and it was loads of fun! I laughed me arse off with Shayna over our retarded inside jokes, Doyle's goofy faces, Renee and her velcro pajamas and omg her 'my mom only has one eye' story will be a classic I'm sure. ...gooood times.

After a long drive home Tuesday night, I saw Andrew for about 20 min. before he headed over to Nate's house for the night, so they could get an early start over to Redding/Mt. Shasta to snowboard and stay with our friend Michelle (my kids' godmother). Thursday night Jack hooked up the boat and he, Matt and Kendall headed over to Shasta Lake to fish ...and to stay with Michelle. I had a few things to do so I stayed home and ran some errands with Pop, and then drove over on Friday night. We haven't seen these guys since last July/August so we had lots of catching up to do and we stayed up way too late.

Durring the days some of the guys went fishing and some went snowboarding, the girls just hung out and in the evenings all the kids played video games. Michelle and Jim took me around to show me some of the houses they've been looking at -kinda cool to see what's out there, totally can't believe how much the Redding area has grown.

Saturday night we took everyone out to Logan's Roadhouse for dinner to celebrate Tatum's 11th birthday. I'd never been there but it had a fun atomsphere and what's not to love about a place where you can throw peanut shells on the floor?! On a personal note, I learned it's not wise to start a peanut fight while wearing a low cut blouse -the upside here, is that with all that I brought home in my bra, I will be set once winter rolls back around.