Red Pencil Diaries

My living room is gold. Gold (yellowish) paint adorns the walls, I mean. When we moved in here, we had a gold couch and loveseat, so I chose the color to match. Nearly five years later, we have a brown couch and loveseat. But the walls are still gold. I dreamed of re-painting the living room, entry-way, and hallway a nice deep taupe or beigey color. Something more neutral. But we have so much more to do on the house that we don't have time (or the money) to buy that much paint and work on it for days. Not to mention, it's difficult to paint with the little ones around--especially since it's their primary "hanging out" area. So... I found a home decor book at the library called "Interiors In Yellows." There are some gorgeous rooms in this book. At once, I was drawn to a room that had some minimal, yet interesting usages of uhm... animal prints. A close friend, however, pointed out that animal prints can come across as tacky. And I'd probably tire of them after awhile. So... I searched for further inspiration.

Off to the basement storage room!

Inside, I found my most recent storage item--a giant canvas with a partial image of one of Gustav Klimt's paintings of a mother and child. Gustav Klimt is my favorite artist of all time. So when Dave and I went to Ikea on our anniversary, I found this large canvas print that I fell in love with and that was my anniversary present. I couldn't decide where to put it, though, and thought maybe some day it would end up in our basement room. But no! It will now reside in my living room--possibly above my fireplace.

I'm also considering painting some of the other furniture and structural pieces in this room to "lighten" them a bit. Maybe add some "metallic" flair to them. I thought about doing some gold with a drybrush of silver over it to make it streaky and metallic, but lighter. Right now, the mantle and the long table against the wall are painted dark chocolate brown. Maybe I'll leave them as is. I've already removed the dark brown scarves from around my windows that had the blue and tan polka dots on them--they were the inspiration for my vision of my living room in taupe, but I've been re-inspired! Bring on the design books. I have a room to redo!

Zack is 3. He will be 4 in November, so I suppose I should consider him 4, but for now, he's still 3 in my head. I just went into his bedroom to find him taking the mattress off his toddler bed--it's a crib mattress, so it's not extremely heavy. I asked what he was doing and he said he and Lola were going to try to make a bigger bed--a big boy bed. I asked what he meant by "big boy bed" and he explained it had a bed on top and one on the bottom and Lola could sleep on the bottom and have a sleep over. He is getting very tall--almost in a size 5 now. When he stretches, he can reach from the headboard almost to the footboard of the toddler bed. So I suppose it's time that Dave and I make good on our promise for a bunk bed like his cousin Evan's--Evan is 5 and last year, my dad helped build him a "bunk" platform bed that sits up high and has big rails and actual stairs that lead up to it, not just a flimsy ladder.

Although, Lola and the stairs don't mix--she climbed up Evan's last week when we were visiting ( I thought she was in my niece's room and didn't realize she had made it in there and climbed them until it was almost too late) and took a slight tumble. She managed to hang on to the handrail, though, and didn't fall completely down, but she got a scrape on her chin. Maybe a regular bunk with a ladder we could take down would be a better bet for when they are playing in there together.

Decisions decisions. I always have to overthink things. I guess having kids at two different stages of development warrants it. But it makes me go back and forth on so many thoughts before I can make an actual concrete decision! I guess it's part of being a mom. *sigh*

I found this while randomly stumbling through websites. Makes great sense to me.

According to Zack just now:

"I gone be on a food show and make pies! Momma! On the teebee. And Lola too! We gone be cookers! Good cookers! And when I say 'boo,' that makes Lola laughes. I gone make all kinds of pies on my teebee show. Strawberry, grape, cherry, strawberry, marshmallow, and chocolate. All kinds of pies."

He announced this from his little table and chairs where he sits (and Lola stands) with two bowls full of cracker crumbs and raisins. They each have a spoon and they are stirring their bowls. According to Zack, these will be raisin pies.

God, I love the imagination of children! And now, I also think maybe we watch too much Food Network. Not that I mind--I mean, if he grows up to be the next Emeril or Duff, I wouldn't complain one bit. Although, Lola had better not turn out quite as annoying as Rachel Ray!

Dave was off today, so we decided to hit the first day of the Kentucky State Fair. We arrived just before 1pm and Dave had his usual pork butt on a stick--essentially a giant pork chop on a stick. Zack had a corn dog, and Lola and I shared a pulled chicken barbecue sandwich. We took in some of the Pride Of The Counties boothes, the local boothes including the state police, the kids' safety town, the TARC bus booth with a bus you would walk through, a horrid puppet show (which the kids loved for some reason), the decorated Christmas trees, the homebrew, the decorated cakes and candies, cows, goats, sheep, pigeons, rabbits, roosters, geese, ganders, ducks, chickens, fish, aquariums, and the midway. I saw a very unfortunate family of mullets--the mom had the wings with hair in the back in a ponytail, the dad had a bit of thinning mullet, the children had the "shaved over the ears" mullet that was long in back. One poor son even had a long tail. It seems in the year 2008, however, there weren't as many mullets to spot as in years past. *sigh* We lastly headed over to the Mike Linnig's tent for karaoke championships, yummy fish sandwiches, and then took in a dog/frisbee show on the way back to the truck. Dave wore the pedometer--we walked nearly 12,500 steps--nearly 5 miles--total today. Whew. All that while wrangling two kids in a big double stroller. Not a bad day. But dang, I'm tired.

Well, I went through this list once and loved it. Even forwarded it to Dave. I'm sure it's not completely comprehensive. I'm sure there are things not on the list that some women prefer. Or there might be things on the list that some women don't enjoy. But for guys who might be clueless (or just in need of help), it's a good start. So get on it, already!

Last week, Zack saw Dave's travel horseshoe set in the garage. He wanted to play with it, but it is heavy and I told him it was a game for big people and that it's too heavy for kids to throw. Last night, he told me he was going to grow up big like me and daddy so he could play Daddy's horseshoe game. lol

This morning, he was playing with his building set and he made this handle with this yellow disc on the end. I asked what it was and he explained that it was a sander! He even held it to the arm of the couch and made grinding sounds. So cute! And so smart!

When he wants you to wait a minute he says, "Any minute!" instead of "in a minute!"

Last night, he was watching a Transformers cartoon, and he asked me to name all of them. I didn't know their names and he says "There's Opimus Prime [Optimus Prime], and Bumblebee... but who's the green one? Who, Mama?" I had to laugh. I honestly didn't know. Apparently Transformers are his new thing. He even got a Bumblebee backpack from my mom for "school." Later, Daddy watched it with him and they came up with most of the names. It's just adorable to see him so fascinated with something and wanting to learn more about it!

The Dave Matthews Band concert was fabulous. Even Willie Nelson as the opening act was wonderful! Dave and I actually got to Slugger Field at 4 pm and sat outside at Brownings drinking beer. We shared a yummmmy cheeseburger and had several beers. Our favorite was the Bourbon Barrel Stout--had this amazing "bourbon" aftertaste, which I loved. The beers there were STRONG, too. After our meal and 3 beers, Dave and I were pretty toasty. Then we proceeded to our seats where we drank more. I think I had 3 more tall Bud Lights. By the time we left the concert, I was definitely in "happy" mode and so was Dave. We made Adam drive us (and his friend Tommy) over to O'Sheas for... yes... more beer. We ended up staying around there until about 2 am when I was "sober" enough to drive home. A grand evening. We don't often get to go out like that and just stay out until we feel like coming home. We're usually counting hours and stopping by an ATM to pay the sitter. Having the inlaws come by to stay the night was terrific! We hope to be able to do that again soon(ish).