Suddenly Routine

Remember my list of stuff to do from last week? One of the items was to redo my daughter’s room. She’s going to be three years old in a couple of weeks and her room needs a little updating. Getting rid of the big nursing chair, the diaper area, the toddler bed, etc. Furniture needs to be rearranged. The problem areas need to be dealt with.

The two big problem areas are book and toy storage. Right now they are just lying all over the place. Not very organized. At one point I had bought the supplies to make one of these hanging book shelves, but like so many of my projects, I just lost the motivation and they never got made. I guess I could still make them, we’ll see how the room starts to shape up.

Here are some of my ideas.

Some things are elements that are already there (pale sage wall color, dresser, lamp, posters, birds and bed). Other are things I’d like to incorporate (cubes, bed tent curtain idea, the Marimekko fabric). Anna likes everything so far and is really excited about having curtains on her bed. I’ve already ordered the cubes from Way Basics. Taking a little bit of a chance on them, since I’ve never seen them in person, but I like what I read.

Tomorrow we are going to rearrange the furniture. The cubes should be here Tuesday and I already have the fabric for the bed tent.

Notice that I haven’t mentioned anything about her closet. There is a small one in the room, but it’s currently being used as a holding area for my old purses that I can’t seem to bring myself to get rid of. They aren’t even good purses. I don’t know why I hang on to them. The closet will be next years’ project. Or I’ll just wait until Anna gets old enough to be like, “Uh, Mom, do you think I could use my own closet now????”

Ever since I decided to go back to school, there have been some really important things to think about. Wondering what they are?

Maybe:
Who’s going to watch Anna while I’m in class?
How am I going to pay for all of this?
Should I live at home or in the dorms? (ha!)
Is my brain actually up for the challenge?
What is going to happen when my unemployment runs out?

All good questions, but the most important one is, “What am I going to carry all my stuff around in?”

Frivolous, right? Yes. But fun. I’ve been searching for the perfect bag that fits the following requirements:

• Roomy enough for a couple of books, notebooks, water bottle, snacks and various purse things like phone, wallet, etc. Oh, and a laptop needs to able to fit in there too.
• Separate compartments.
• Comfortable to carry. You know, I’m an old person now, I don’t want to throw my back out or break my hips or something.
• And it has to look good.

My husband says that I should get a good backpack or one of those rolling cases. Rolling case? Ha ha ha… no. And while a back pack would probably save my back, I am what you’d call a busty gal. Back pack straps would squish the girls and push them out pretty far. I’d be bumping into people in front of me. I’m a married woman, my flirting days are over.

I’ve ordered a bunch of bags from zappos and ebags that looked promising online, but didn’t work in person. Mostly they were too small. I’ve since sent them all back. Here are some of the other ones I’m considering.

I am open to new suggestions. Ideally, I’d like to keep to under $100. But if the bag of all bags makes an appearance somewhere, I might reconsider. It would have to be one bad ass bag though.

The irony (maybe not irony, but I’m not sure of the correct word here) is that I think I might have the perfect solution upstairs in the attic. It the bag I got from my old company during the big re-branding of 2005. So it has their logo on it. But it’s roomy and comfortable to carry. I’ll have to dig it out. Maybe I could cover up/scratch off/pick out the logo and just enjoy the bag without looking at it and getting all bitter about my job being eliminated. (No, I’m not bitter, I don’t give the stink-eye to the company every time I drive by the building or anything…)

My summer class wrapped up last week with an exam, a lab report, a group presentation, a lab practical exam and finally, the final exam. Whew, it was a busy week. And I’m glad it’s over, but I’m really going to miss going to class. It was fun to get up and have some where to go and people to talk to. Which makes me really excited for the fall semester. It starts August 30, that gives me about seven weeks to fill with things to do. I’m hoping to not spend those seven weeks in a tv-induced coma, so I’ve been thinking about what should get done around the house before school starts.

So in no particular order of importance, here’s my to-do list for the next seven weeks.

1. Redo Anna’s room. I never really finished the nursery and now that she’s beyond the nursery stage, I need to finish a room for a little girl. Where did my baby go? It’s hard to believe that she’s going to be three at the end of the month. Guess I can take out the nursing chair and the diaper changing area now.
2. Second garage sale. We did the first one, which went over pretty well, but we still have a garage full of stuff that needs to get cleared out. Whatever doesn’t sell is going to get donated. Or thrown out. We need the garage back before winter. I’ve become a little too accustomed to parking indoors.
3. Clear out guest room. AKA our dumping ground for everything that doesn’t have a place. I’m tired of having to close the door when people come over.
4. Clean up and organize my office. This is the little room off of our bedroom that is always a disaster area. I don’t know why it’s impossible to keep this area sort of clean. Maybe I’ll work on that today.

I’m sure there’s other things to go on that list, but that’s all I can think of for now.

Good thing I’m not doing any of those daily posting challenges. I’d be failing miserably, even by my already low standards. Are you wondering where I’ve been? (probably not, but I need a way to start this post, so please bear with me…)

If you follow me on twitter (@krisobi), you know that I’ve been taking a summer class in Biology over at the local community college. The class is six weeks long and meets four days a week from 8-12. It’s a long one. But I don’t mind, I’m really enjoying it and happy with my decision to dip my toes back into the school thing.

So I decided to jump cannon ball-style back into the academic life and enrolled to get another bachelor’s degree over at my local SUNY school. The same one I got my first BS from. Initially, I thought it would only take me a year, year and a half to get the second BS, but since my first degree was in art, we’ll just say I was a little light on the science and math courses. Now it looks like I’ll be spending at least the next two years taking pretty much all biology/chemistry classes. With maybe a math class or two thrown in for fun. Then after I kick ass in those classes, there is a year of internship. So, three years. I will totally be over 40 when I finish. That thought freaks me out, but I think it would be worse to be over 40 and think, man, I really should have done that when I was 37. Right now I’m sort of thinking, man, I should have done this five years ago.

Last Friday, I registered and got 15 credits of classes. All set to go for the fall semester. I’m so excited. Even though my schedule sort of sucks and I pretty much had to take whatever classes were left, I can’t wait to start.

There’s the update. I’m going back to school and turning my families’ lives upside down.

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I apologize for the crummy photo, but it was too hard to get a certain two year old to hold her feet still.

Anna got her first pedicure tonight. I’m not a big fan of painting little girls’ fingers and toes, but last week when she saw my red toenails, she said they were “beautiful!” and had a big wide eyed look of amazement and happiness on her face. It was too sweet. How could I say no when she asked for red toes of her own? Well, to be honest, it was pretty easy for me to say no. (I’m a hardass that way) But I did file the request away in my brain files to use as a future reward (or bribe, whatever works)

Tonight, she earned those red toes. I’m so proud of her. She held very still through the two coats of my favorite red summer polish, even the drying time.

She loves her new fabulously glamorous painted toes. Too bad it seems like she has inherited my finger-toes. They run in my family.

In a couple of hours, I’ll be getting on a plane that is heading to Baltimore. Then I’ll be getting on another plane headed to ATLANTA! Whooooo-hooooo!!! To say I was excited would be an understatement. I’ll be there until Sunday. Am I bad mother/wife for leaving my family for five days? Probably, but I think it’s good for them to have some alone time together… hahaha…

Between my trip, the plans to take a class this summer and the camping trip next week, I’m feeling pretty good right now.

Maybe I should bring Anna back to school with me. She seems to have an interest in the sciences.

I don’t like to think I’m having a mid life crisis, because hey, that means my life is half over. That’s no fun, so I’m calling it my pre-mid life crisis. You know, the one I have before I have the real one many many years from now…

That’s your warning, feel free to stop reading now because seriously, this is going to be one long rambling self indulgent cliche-ridden post. Like something an emo Twilight-loving teen girl would write, Live Journal-style.

First cliche alert! I’m at a crossroads. A career crossroads. (Not the cool Ralph Macchio/Steve Vai Crossroads, that would be totally bad ass because I love that movie, the end anyway) I’ve spent the last 14 years or so working in different areas of graphic design/marketing. It’s been fun and I’ve gotten a lot out of it, but I want to do something else. I love design, I think it’s important, but I don’t want to have a career in it anymore. It’s time for a change. Do I think this because I’ve been sans job for nine months? Maybe, but I sort of was thinking this during my last job, even when things were going well.

Deciding on a new direction is tough. Obviously, I’m not a senior in high school with a sky-is-the-limit mind set. It’s not all about me anymore. (unfortunately… haha) Whatever direction I go in, it has to be one that actually leads to an actual job that provides a decent income, with some sort of stability and growth, in my geographical area. Seems like a tall order. I’ve always had the abstract idea of going back to school in the back of my mind, but lately I’ve been seriously looking into it. Which is sort of scary for me. I’d be pretty much starting over. My previous college experience was mostly spent in the art studios. Loved it, but I wouldn’t be doing that this time, I’d probably be using the other side of my brain this time. But my papers would be the best formatted ones in the class.

So anyway, this afternoon, I’m heading over to the local community college and find out what my possibilities are. Because seriously, I have no idea what I’ll be able to do. Or pay for. And then you have the Anna factor. And the husband factor. And the no money/being broke factor. Not too mention the ‘older student’ factor. There’s a lot to mull over, a lot of sacrifices that might need to be considered. We’ll see how my meeting goes. Should be interesting since I will have the two year old in tow. She’s very excited about the idea of me going to the ‘big girl’ school. Ha!

After I post this, I’m going to have to post something else to bump it down the page, I’d hate for this to be the post people see when they come to my site. I have a couple of posts in the hopper to finish. Ones with pictures! See you then.

A couple of weeks ago, we had our very first garage sale. My husband and I have been together for about 7-8 years and between the two of us, we’ve accumulated an impressive amount of stuff, not too mention the stuff we both still had from before we met. So after deciding that our house badly needed a good decluttering, I looked for some helpful garage sale tips to help us unload our stuff to our neighbors.

All the advice I had seen said to give yourself at least a month to get organized. Hahahahahaha… yeah, we didn’t do that. My husband had an unexpected week of vacation that week, so we did the majority of all the work then. We were in pretty decent shape until Friday. That’s when we realized that Iron Man 2 was opening and since Anna was in daycare, we were both free to go and see it. Guess what we did? The movie was awesome, but we were very behind schedule on Saturday.

The weather was pretty crummy. Cold, really windy and teetering on the verge of rain. I thought no one would come. But we went ahead and got most everything set up by 8am. Except for the clothes. There were just too many to hang. We put up our big tent in front of the garage in case of rain and put the signs out. And then got some big ass coffees and some donuts and sat and waited. And the people came. In the cold crappy weather. And bought stuff. It was great. We got rid of a good amount of crap including the big heavy dresser that we’ve been moving around from house to house. It’s gone now!

We even had a table of free stuff that included the set of encyclopedias from the sixties that my husband hates, but I love having. I was willing to part with them for the sake of house harmony.

No one wanted them. And making jokes about having their own set to rid of. Har har… I got tired of that freaking joke after about the tenth time I heard it. But someone came by and took them all. And seemed very happy to have them so I felt good about letting them go.

All in all it was a successful sale. Since we’re sort of on the edge of becoming hoarders, we still have a lot of stuff to purge. There’s another sale planned for a still yet to be determined weekend in June. Whatever doesn’t sell then is going to be donated and then we can have our garage back. Hopefully we’ll have some better weather. I want to sell everything now. Purging feels good.

And the best customer we had was the big bearded dude that came by with a t-shirt that said, “This one time, at bear camp…” Which made me giggle because I’m not that mature and I know what a bear is.