Emily Jones

Finally.

I just read this post by the lovely Steph Howell.

And I can SO relate.  So much.  Can't we all?

But what struck a chord with me, is not just Stephanie's heartfelt words and the way she writes with such unabashed honestly, but how thankful I am that I can relate to the feelings of being run ragged playing Supermom.

You see, for the last eight years I've been fighting an ongoing battle with my thyroid.  I've posted about it before on this blog, but to keep the back-story short, I've got many cysts and nodules all along my thyroid gland that have being growing like crazy mutants.  The largest one, which resides on the right side of my neck was estimated at the size of a golf ball.  These cysts have caused me to have hypothyroidism and more recently, I was diagnosed with Hashimoto's disease.  I have been struggling with this for so many years that I forgot what it was like to feel normal.  To not be tired all the time.  To not walk around in a constant state of freezing cold, to not have to write everything down because the brain fog turned my short term memory to crap, or the constant battle with the imminent weight gain that it causes and the depression it spiraled me into.  To have the energy to put on pants in the morning.  Seriously, I'm not joking, it was a concentrated effort to not wear pajamas. 

I forgot how good life could be.  Forgot what it was to have the energy and the drive to throw open the curtains and carry on with life's daily chores with a spring in my step and a song on my lips.  I forgot that life was good, you guys. 

I am so thankful that I have a husband who no only understands, but goes out of his way to support and care for me.  If it wasn't for Jim the last few years especially, we would have been living in filth and starving because I did not clean or cook much at all.  It took all the energy I had just to eat a meal.  I think I've missed the last half of every movie we've ever watched in the last few years, because I'd fall asleep almost immediately.  The brain fog that comes with Hashimoto's caused me to have ADD like symptoms and I could not concentrate on anything for long periods of time.  I quit doing things that had deadlines because I was never sure I'd have enough energy to produce quality work on time.  In short, I was miserable.

In January of this year I went back to my Endocrinologist for a follow up ultrasound and possibly another biopsy of the largest cyst, and I received some good news.  Not only had it stopped growing, but it had calcified, which means that it's not cancerous.  There was no need for a biopsy.  I did have an occurrence of more nodules, but he didn't seem too concerned about them, so that is always good to hear.  My doctor put me on a new regimen of meds, a much higher dosage, and I began taking them faithfully.  I take meds three times a day at specific times, always with a full glass of water, and it's hard to remember them every single time every single day, but I'm doing it. 

But I feel SO much better.

It's as if the Heavens' have parted, and the sun has shown directly down upon me.  I am awakened.  It's an incredible feeling.  To one day wake up, and suddenly you are alive.  More alive than you have been in at least five years. 

So I wake up now, at 6:45am on the dot-sometimes I am up before the alarm!  And I rejoice quietly in my head as I lay there in bed for 15 more minutes and wait for Jim's alarm. Sometimes I watch him sleep and sometimes I tell myself to just lay there and be for a few more minutes, but my feet are itching to get up and start the day.

My house is clean, my dishes are done, my laundry is caught up.  I happily make beds, pick up dirty clothes, and bake things from scratch.  These may seem like small occurrences to some people, but to me, it's a miracle. I have cooked dinner every night for the last month.  I am LOVING it.  I joined allrecipes.com and have compiled menus I want to try. 

I no longer dread when the kids want me to play with them, because I have the energy to do it now.  I have the energy to dance with my daughter and chase the boys around the house.  I have the energy to ease the burden I put upon my husband. 

I feel so good.  So alive. 

I am so thankful.

Easy Leprechaun Craft

This morning has been stressful.

Jim had to work today, and that leaves three stir-crazy kiddos with me all day with nothing to do.

I asked the kids if they wanted to maybe do a craft and Joey said: "Can we do a Leprechaun craft?!" 

I thought for a minute and said, "Hang on, I'll see what I can come up with."  So I went to my little Cloffice pulled out some supplies and in about five minutes had a craft for the kids.  I am super proud of myself because I am not an on the fly kind of thinker, so yay me!

I don't know about you, but the worst part about making crafts with the kids is the prep time.  Cutting and tracing and measuring, it just sucks the fun out of it, at least for me.  So let me tell you with great happiness that this little craft takes around  two minutes to prep.

 

Here is my little Leprechaun creation, isn't he cute?!

Here are the materials you will need: 

A square punch

A large circle punch

A larger scalloped circle punch

A heart punch

Cardstock

And scissors or a trimmer, and glue.

You will need to punch: 

Two large circles of the green (my green cardstock was double sided dark and light green, so you may want to grab two different colors of green, but all one color is fine too!)

One large scalloped circle of orange

One large circle of peach

One green square

Two green hearts. 

Then you will cut a small strip of black cardstock for the belt and a small square of yellow for the buckle.

Your supplies should look like this:

You can use white cardstock or construction paper for the base of your project.

 

Using Elmer's glue or a glue stick, adhere the peach circle to the orange scalloped beard, set aside.

Glue your large green circle (the belly) to your paper base, leaving room at the top of your paper for the head and hat.

Next, glue your head to the body, overlapping the two circles just a bit.

Next you will glue your black belt to your Leprechaun's belly.

Then add the buckle.

Use the other green circle, cut it in half, and adhere one half to the top of the leprechaun's head, overlapping just a bit again.

Next, use your green square and place it flush against the half circle.

Grab your two green hearts, dab a bit of glue on the backside of one, and place it over the top of the other, creating a four leaf clover.

Add some glue to the back of your clover and adhere to the leprechauns hat.

Once he is all put together, you can use a black pen to add a face, or legs and arms, and that's it!  Easy peasy! 

Joey made his say "Yay!"  And told me that this craft was "Sooo much fun!"  So there ya go.  A craft that is pleasing to a Second grader, Kindergartner, and a three year old!  Woohoo!

Clean up was a breeze, there was virtually no mess! 

Now on to the other things on today's agenda....LAUNDRY.  (BOO!)

XOXO,

Em

How we spent our Valentine's Day...

This year we didn't plan anything too crazy for the big V-day....in fact I was quite content with just hanging out at home watching a movie, but Mr. Jones had other plans. ;)

We decided to celebrate on Sunday the 13th, because we were going to be busy on the 14th volunteering in Jake's class for his V-day party.  Unbeknown to me Jim got me a present (which we had already agreed NOT to do!  Bad boy!)  He cooked us a fabulous dinner of Mushroom and Garlic Steak with Spinach and Portabella mushroom Risotto.  It was DIVINE.

Then, when dinner was over he presneted me with this gift!

He got me the first 2 volumes of  Glee: Season 1, a cute card, a little candy, and a fun Valentine's scrabble game!

 

We decided to play "Dirt-Word Scrabble" after dinner, which was fun...and it was probably a little sad how proud we were of all the dirty words we were able to spell. ;)

Afterwards we retreated to bed and watched the Time Traveler's Wife, we both thought it was a pretty good movie, interesting concept..

 

The next morning we went to Jakey's Kindergarten class and helped out.  I had baked a few dozen sugar cookies with my friend Nicole for the kids in the class to decorate, so that was fun, albeit messy!  And Jim operated the bean bag toss game while Nicole and I did the cookie decorating.  The kids had a blast.  <3

Hope you Valentine's Day was lovely.

XOXO,

Em

 

 

Cards Galore!

I've been on a card making kick lately...it started out last week when I was making my friend Michelle a Birthday card...now let me tell you..I've always hated making cards.  I've always thought I was no good at it, and that it was not as fun as making scrapbook layouts...but I have been having so much fun! 

I think it probably has to do with having a cuttlebug and playing with all the different textures of the embossing folders. :)

So here's the first one I made, the card for Michelle:

 

Then I made this little cutie...

 

...and I was hooked...and I've been making cards all week!

 

 

 

 

 

Some of these are already on their way to some family/friends, but the majority will go up in my etsy store later this week.

Hope you are all enjoying your Holiday!  We are having a lazy 4 day weekend hanging out at home, working on the boys' Pinewood Derby Cars for Cub Scouts, they have turned out so cute and I will share pics of them very soon!

XOXO,

Em

Apparently It's Superbowl Sunday...

Yes, I didn't know that it was Superbowl Sunday until yesterday.  Lame, I know!

You see, we decided in August that we wanted to shut off our cable and TV.  I'm not fundamentally opposed to TV or anything, in fact I LOVE TV.  It's just that we never watched it anymore!  Once we got the Netflix for Wii DVD, we never turned the cable on!  We have been enjoying full seasons of shows and movies on the Wii, so we decided, why keep paying $200 a month for something you don't watch!

Of course, once the new seasons of all my favorite shows started in September I was a tad regretful, but I have been keeping up on Hulu, so it's all good. :)

 

Anyway, I am rambling...but I thought since we are not watching the Superbowl, and I have nothing too exciting to share, I thought I'd post a layout I did the other day. 

It was inspired by this sketch: The Sketch from 10/17/2010

The journaling was inspired from one of Liz Kartchner's challenges in her book (remember my vow to do all 52 challenges in a year?  I've got less than ten left, although I'm a little late on my one year deadline.)  The challenge was to make your journaling a mad lib.

And I just love this picture of Lily, her face cracks me up!

 

That's all I've got for today folks!

Hope you are enjoying your Superbowl Sunday!

 

XO,

Em

Date Night With The Jones'

So awhile back Jim and I were talking about how we rarely ever get to go out on a real date.  With three kids, and family over an hour away, we don't usually have a babysitter, lest for maybe our anniversary in August and Valentine's Day.

So we decided that we would start making an effort to do a "date night" at home at least once a month.  We would feed the kids, let them watch a movie while we got ready, then put them in bed.  Then it would be our time.

We decided yesterday afternoon on the spur of the moment that it would be a good night for date night since we had nothing to do today.  So we watched Ramona and Beezus with the kids (adorable movie!!) and Jim started cooking our dinner.  He wouldn't let me in the kitchen to see what he was making, so while he cooked I curled my hair, did my makeup and threw on an outfit that was not yoga pants (go me!)

When the kids were asleep and I was done getting ready, Jim called me to the dining room and this is what I found:

 

Table set with candles, appetizers waiting.

Spinach dip with toasted french bread:

And for dinner:  Seared round steak with garlic shrimp penne Alfredo and french onion green beans.  It was soooo good. Jim is an amazing cook. The sauce on the penne was made from scratch, all just thrown together out of Jim's head, and it was divine.

 

We both took a pic of each other to remember the night, doesn't my hubby look cute?!  He is the sweetest ever, I tell ya. <3

After dinner we watched the newest M. Night Shyamalan movie, "Devil"  We are big fans of M. Night, so I was looking forward to this one, and it was actually pretty good! 

 

We are already planning our next date night.  This one will be themed!  I can't wait!  I'm so glad we decided to start doing this, it's so nice to reconnect and talk over a candlelit dinner. <3

 

XO

Em

My Mischievous Children (As told by Facebook Statuses)

 So, I was on facebook the other day and a little add on the sidebar was displaying my statuses from the last year...naturally I got caught up in reading them, and after awhile I realized that my children are mischievous little monkeys! 

So I thought I'd share some of my favorites, so without further ado:

The antics of my crew:

 

Did I tell you about the time I woke at 6am and found Lily in the living room, Wii remote in hand, watching the South Park Christmas Movie on the Netflix Wii Channel? Parenting Win.

Apparently Lily's new game is to yell: "Mom! The toilet's flooding!" so she can watch me scamper like a dog on linoleum to get there quickly, only to find that the toilet is indeed, NOT flooding.

 Lily got into my lipstick yesterday, and I have to say, if she's going for the "Joker" look, she totally pulls it off.

It's never a good thing when you hear one child crying and the other runs in to the room shouting: "Umm, Jake's story of what happened is going to be exaggerated!!

They canceled AM Kindergarten today and I said to Jake: "You will probably have to do a Make-Up Day at the end of the year." And Lily overhears and says: "WHA? MAKE-UP Day??!!!111!!!" It took me a second to realize that she was probably picturing Jake's class getting make-overs. ;)

Joey made me an adorable heart shaped card...outside it said: "You are the best cook ever in the whole world!!!!" Inside it said: "You know, besides Dad."

Joey just told me: "Hey Mom! Did you know if you take the "S" off of the word Smother, you get Mother?!" He's a regualr comedian, that one.

While I was hanging up some clothes is my closet, I noticed my jeans were on the floor so I picked them up...I then realized something brown and clumpy that looked suspiciously like poo was all over my jeans...and now my hand...so I smelled it (!!!!!!) and turns out it was pudding. One of my darling children hid pudding in my closet...and based on it's level of decomp I'd say they did this last Thursday. Awesome.

Lily just came over to show me her red tongue from the Crystal Light fruit punch she drank...and then she walked away licking the wall, leaving a pink trail behind her. She is a weirdo...and I guess I'm washing the walls today.

Lily says: "I see da doctor."I said:"Did you like him?" she says: "Umm,
yeah....he have nice hair." Obviously she knows the critical qualities
one must look for in an Urgent Care physician.

Lily picks up my ipod and says: "I can listen to your ipod peez? You have Wady Gaga on here?"

...overheard while Lily sits on the potty: "Oh shit.....I need toilet paper."

jim and I were talking in the car and he says the word "franchise"...Lily perks up from the backseat and says: "French fries?!!! Why you talkin' 'bout french fries dad?! I get some french fries?!" ;)

Overheard while watching the boys play legos:
Jake: Whatcha buildin' Joey?
Joey: A tower.
Jake: Oooh...the Eiffel Tower?
Joey: No...that's way too good architecture.
...Jake: But mom would LOVE if you built the Eiffel Tower.
Joey: I'm sorry Jake, it's just not practical.
LMAO!

Lily comes up to me with half her hair damp....she insists Jake has peed on her head. Jake has no idea what she is talking about. I'm thinking this calls for a precautionary bath.

Lily has a bit of difficulty with the pronunciation of the word "square". So please don't be alarmed when she tells you her favorite TV show is "Sponge Bob QUEER pants."

is cooking Tacos for dinner. Joey is very pleased about this, and decided to declare his love for tacos very loudly throughout the house. Jake walked into the kitchen and said: "Yeah, Joey is a real Taco Muncher!" Say what now?

I love how, just now Lily threw her cup against the wall when I said no more juice. Then, realizing that I was watching with a raised eyebrow, she said: "uhhhh...you not see that mom. You not see that."

And my absolute favorite from the past year?  This little gem brought to you by Jake back in February:

spirited 4 year old says: "Ummm, mom I ACCIDENTALLY bumped into the wall with my paintbrush." UH HUH.

 XO,

Em

Loving Hands

The other day I got upset over something so stupid.  Something that was not worth crying about, but I did. I heaved heavy, loud, wracking sobs into Jim's chest. 

I sat on the top stair, of the two stair decent that leads into the garage from the kitchen.  Jim knelt in front of me, as he would any of our children, and he held out his arms for me to collapse into.  We sat like this for a few minutes, as tears of frustration, tears of anger, tears of pain, rolled down my cheeks.

It felt good.

Until I felt a tiny hand on my shoulder.  It was Jake.  And my stomach dropped.

I hate to cry like this in front of my kids.  hate.

I know that they should see me cry once in awhile, and they do.  Maybe they see me wipe away tears, okay SOBS, at the end of Toy Story 3, because OMG it's so sad, Andy leaves for college! 

But I never want them to see me like this.  Wallowing in self-pity, crying because I'm pissed.  Not using my words, and basically, having a tantrum.  You know, the same thing I tell them not to do.

Jake asked me, "What's wrong mommy, why are you sad?"  And I didn't know what to tell him.  I paused, and finally just said:

"I'm crying because I'm mad.  Because I'm frustrated.  Isn't that silly?" 

And Jake bent forward, locked his arms around my neck and said, "I love you mommy."

Which made me cry even harder.

And then I heard the tiny pad of Lily's footsteps running into the kitchen.  She was decked out in full princess gear, head to toe, which made me smile.  And Lily stopped, looked at me and asked:

"You sad Momma?"

She came over, put her face in mine, gave me a kiss and rubbed my back, murmuring, "It's okay mommy, it's okay.  Don't cry."

And we sat like this, the four of us in the kitchen.  Jake and Lily were, by this time, both in my lap.  And we rocked back and forth. 

And I began to cry once more.

But this time, I was crying tears of happiness, tears of gratitude.

I am so blessed.

These kids are my everything.

Later that night, after the kids were asleep, and we lay in bed reminiscing about the scene in the kitchen earlier, I marveled at how sweet the kids had been to comfort me the way the did.  How they seemed to know just what I needed in that moment.

I said: "Lily is such a little mommy."

And Jim looked at me, smiled and said:

"And where do you think she learned that?  She learned it from her mommy.  You teach the kids compassion, you show them what kindness is.  She is only imitating the example you set.  You are an awesome mom, and they are so lucky to have you."

You know what?  Sometimes Jim knows exactly what I need to hear too.

My day started off with anger, and frustration and wanting to punch things, but it took one simple act, the act of being surrounded by loving hands, sitting on a kitchen floor, to change my perspective on everything.

All I know is I'm going to do my best to show my children the compassion and comfort they showed me.  The next time one of them is crying because they are frustrated or angry (which happens a lot)  I will not send them to their room for having a tantrum.  I will place loving hands on them and murmur.   "I'm here."

"It's Okay."

 

 

 

 

 

No-Cost Living Room Redo

 

So, I'm back with another "redo". :)

Ever since we got these vintage chairs, I have been obsessed with rearranging the living room to show them off.. They took a little fixing, okay, A LOT of fixing.  Jim worked very hard to restore them, they are literally vintage, not just vintage looking.  The insides are burlap and horse hair, people.

Once they were sturdy and ready to go in the house, I knew what I wanted to do.  This is once again, A zero cost makeover that was achieved by switching things around and pulling pieces from one place to another.

 

Before:

It was a perfectly nice living room, but too much couch.   The plaid couch was given to us by my parents, and we kept it because it's a hide-a-bed, which can be handy, but eventually we just decided to donate it because it was taking up room and wasn't really our style.

The treadmill that you see next the the couch is now in it's new home, the garage.  We cleaned out the garage and now there is a "man space" office and workout area.  :)

 

After:

Oh how I love the after.

By switching our glass table behind the couch for the Ikea expedit in the dining room, we created a separate living/dining area.  I love how the books are now part of the room.  We are avid readers in this house and the books are a must. 

Don't my vintage chairs look pretty?!  I love them so much.  Eventually we will recover them, but for now the tan corduroy works fine in the space.  The new rug was bought with a Home Depot gift card, so it was technically free.  So even the only new piece added to room was no cost.  And if you notice the new pillows, I made those with fabric and pillow forms I had on hand.

The next thing on the list for this room is paint.  I want to paint the wall that has the couch and mirror a pretty marigold color to match the rug.  Slowly but surely this room will be the yellow+grey+black that I am envisioning.

Once the walls are painted, I of course, will post pictures.

 

Hope you're having a great weekend!

XOXO,

Em

Kitchen Redo For $22.50

Hey all,

So today I thought I'd share with you a fun project that I finished up the other day.

As you can guess by the title of this post, I redid our kitchen for under $23!. 

Now, I am so terrible at taking before shots, and I of course forgot, so here is the closest thing I have to a before..this was taken in April, you might remember it from my Week In The Life series I did.

As you can see, the kitchen was a sea of boring Oak cabinets, no personality whatsoever.  No color.  BOO!  But at least you can enjoy the pic of my super hunky hubby! <3

So here is the AFTER:

When you are on a tight budget but you want to give your kitchen a lift, it can be challenging for sure.  A coat of new paint in a fun color is one of the easiest ways, but is not always practical.

The next best thing, in my opinion, is a great piece of art.  And it doesn't have to be expensive either.  See that guy behind the stove?  I painted that.  I had the canvas in my garage, and the paints I always have on hand...so I grabbed some paint colors that I wanted to bring out in the kitchen and got to work.  It took about 2 hours to paint from start to finish, but I'm very pleased with the end result. :)  It was literally a no cost painting.

Oh, and if you are worrying about the canvas being damaged by stray grease or food splatters..don't!  I sprayed a double coat of clear matte finish over the whole thing, so it can be easily wiped clean!

The canisters on the counter were also no cost.  Remember a couple weeks ago when Jim made me a Cloffice in our bedroom? When I used to scrapbook in the garage, I had all my ribbons sorted by color in the canisters, but alas, there was no room in the cloffice for them.  So they were re-purposed into flour, sugar, and brown sugar jars.  And the tall one with beans was previously just hanging out on our expedit in the dining room.

The rug on the floor is more of a soft mat, and I found it at Target.  It was only $9.99!  The brightly colored dish towels were also at Target.  I got the blue ones for $2.99 and a pack of two striped orange and and one solid orange for $3.99.  What a steal!

A few months ago I was inspired  by this post on Apartment Therapy.  I loved how this smart girl thought to remove the fronts of her cabinets to reveal her cute Fiesta Ware.  What I loved was the fun look of the paper she put in the backs of the shelves, but I was a bit turned off at how busy it looked with every door gone.

After prodding Jim multiple times and making him look at the post, he finally relented and took the doors to the cabinets above the microwave off.  Once they were off it made a HUGE difference in the overall feel of the space.  It took us two days to agree on which papers we wanted in the shelves.  As a scrapbooker, the sheer volume of paper I have is pretty staggering, so we had a lot to choose from.  We both immediately loved the blue, but it took a little convincing to get Jim to like the funkadelic paisley print.  I actually put it in the shelves temporarily for a day and we looked at it and decided it worked.

Once the papers were up, we chose what to display.  One of our Christmas gifts to ourselves was a new set of dishes.  We originally found the 10 piece set of small colorful plates at the Goodwill back in November, and then we decided on the off-white bowls and plates as accents.  The colors of the plates work well with the papers we chose.  Also displayed are my china plates and our Princess House collection of Fantasia Ware.

And I couldn't resist putting my little Gnome in there too.  He is special to me because my super talented Grandma Rose carved him for me.  She is a brilliant wood carver and she has made tons of little guys like these for the 21 grandchildren.  I also have a Santa she made me too. <3

This was Jim's idea...instead of putting an ugly bottle of dish soap on the counter, we used an old syrup jar with a wine cork...much cuter. ;)

Here's a shot from the dining room.  I love this table cloth, not only because it's cute...but I'll tell ya a little secret...it is actually a fabric shower curtain from the Target clearance section, and it was $2.48!  Can't beat that!

So there you have it, a new kitchen for minimal cost but optimal effect! 

Below I broke down the cost, just so you can see how cheap it really was,

 

Total Cost Breakdown:

Canvas and Paint: $0 (already on hand)

Canisters $0 (already on hand)

Paper $0 (already on hand)

Dish Towels $10

Floor Mat $10

Clearance Shower Curtain $2.50

TOTAL COST: $22.50

 

I truly believe in shopping around your home first before buying any new pieces.  I tend to collect little things here and there around the house and when I'm putting together a new space, I'll pull things from other rooms.  It helps with cost but the important thing is to give the pieces you love a home to display them in!

If you've done any new decorating projects lately, leave me a link in the comments, I'd love to check it out!

XOXO,

Em