I'm Back Baby! I'm Back!

This is me RIGHT NOW:

Something had to give and, quite depressingly, it was blogging. But I must tell you, this very minute I am enjoying a landmark moment. A moment I have been looking forward to... FOREVER it seems. Definately the whole time since we bought the house, but really longer than that- years in fact. You see, I am sitting in my library, drinking cinnamon hot chocolate loaded with fresh whipped cream. I'm feeling the cool fall breeze through my open windows, smelling fresh cut grass, gazing at little kids riding bikes. All this whilst rededicating myself to my favorite past time ever in the universe: BLOGGING!

I'm back in business baby. I can't tell you the guilt I felt each day I didn't blog... I hate not having the journal and the cataloged photos , all those memories and self reflective digressions lost. I hate not seeing your lives and reading your stories. I feel like I just checked out of life for a while. It's not just me. There's been a serious blogging deficit in my regular circles. Have you been as busy, overwhelmed, and stretched thin as I have? Have you too been hanging on to day-to-day survival with a slowly loosening death grip? I have. No more will blogging get the shaft. I will log my life. in cyberspace. I will play a bit of catch up, and I will find some way to keep up with it all and still do what I want or I swear, I'm quitting my jobs.

So today is my first real MOM day! I've added more classes at the middle school, an extra day of teaching dance in Hurricane, and Annie is a super demanding child. Between grading and cleaning and work work work and Annie, I don't get to do all of those things I thought I would get to do when I became a stay-at-home. Perhaps I should edit the stay-at-home bit. Today I actually do get to stay at home. It's a holiday and for once, we are not going out of town, I will not grade, I don't have work, and my house is pretty clean. I even have clean sheets on the beds and a plan for dinner: Sprouted grain organic meatloaf and homemade vegetable/potato quiche. Yum. (I'll let you know- it is just a plan). This is really living. By 1 pm, I had already been to the store, put the baby down for her nap, and changed back into my pajamas!

Here's the rest of my official mom-day plan:

• Drill the seats down on all the chairs I finally finished recovering.

• Finally hang the acrylic frames on the wall and plan family photos.
  

• Paint the hardware for our newly refinished hutch and get Q to hang the doors.

TONIGHT:
Prepare a fantastic dinner (sprouted grain meatloaf and homemade quiche)
and then watch Q work on the yard with our neighbor's tractor.

The yard will be a decade in the making. It is an acre of dirt and confusion. Last night Q and Annie realized you can't landscape an acre of land without a big green tractor. Q has been working on it almost everyday since the moment we finished the inside, but it still looks like the surface of the moon to us. The tractor is helping though. A few of our neighbors have taken pity on us and come over with their tractors when they see us working [did you catch that?: We have neighbors who just have tractors in their garages]. We are trying to finish the front yard this year but he's got to move a couple tons of dirt before we can lay cement. Someday it will be fab fab fab. Someday there will be a front porch for watching trick-or-treaters, a bike path for the kids to ride around on without going into the street, grass under the orchard for tea parties, and a swing hanging from the tree.

UP and COMING uPcOmInG EVENTS

{Annie & I on her Birthday @ the family gazebo show in Kanab}

So I feel pretty bad about what I said about the loathing stay-at-home moms. I don't. Really. I am super envious but I'm going to chalk my blog rage moment up to first-week-back-at-work-ness. If you've ever taught middle school Language Arts maybe you can offer up some empathy. I'm over it now. {maybe} It's always uggy going back after the summer. Sum of it: I'm a bit overwhelmed with our finances because we bought our dream house 12 months earlier than we planned (which I will never regret because it is a complete and total dream) so NOW- I have to work instead of oh I'm just choosing to work so it's no big deal because I'm in control. Overwhelmed. It's a lot. Despite more classes this year I am engorged with conflict. My jobs are terrific. I'm great at them. When I'm teaching, I ENJOY the company of students and learning and progress. IT'S JUST THAT I need more of me to go around. Sound familiar? I need to work and mum around and get to OH SO MUCH ELSE. Plus sleep. How are the rest of you doing it?

Enough personal diatribe.
Here's the Up and Coming UPCOMING stuff you should note:

• Grandpa Polly is going to start blogging again so add her if you are private (pollystir@msn.com)
• Mission Mark flies home THIS Saturday. Come to the airport.
• The family PEACH DAYS show is that night. ***memo: GPO's house is a sweltering 90 degrees at coolest.
• Mark's homecoming is on the 11th. You can stay with us if you need to.
• Anyone else INSANELY excited for the annual Halloween Party over here?
  

Annie wants to show you more of her house.

Our 1-year-old is experiencing her terrible-2's a bit early.
She's super feisty and not a little precocious! She knows how to get just what she wants-
and what do I want? More Annie Annie Annie ALL THE TIME.
I started to work last week and it's tragic leaving this perfect thing every morning before I face the 8th grade. Ah the plight of the working mom. All you stay-at-homers, I completely loathe you in my dripping envy! Wish I was one of those! Here's some more Hadley House Love:

ANNIE'S ROOM
I could not wait to put her room together- it was the first bedroom I completed. Well, completed is a relative term; I still have a bunch of ideas but the budget made me stop at this. Of course I brought over the Robert Marbel's and it was even ME who had to convince Quinn to throw our pencil drawing of Yankee Stadium up. We had to take apart the rocker to fit it in the narrow doorway. Then there is the BIG splurge: this amazing rug! Annie LOVES to hang out on her rug. My ultimate rug tip is don't buy anywhere but Overstock- really, just start and end at Overstock. {It's BM Anonymous for those who keep asking about the paint}

BEFORE AFTER

GUEST ROOM
This is our guest room for another 2 years until our next kid leaves our bedroom and our tenants move out. We'll move the guest room downstairs after that. Q built out the closet (but I forgot to take a pic so there's a blank spot) and then there was paint, endless staple removal, new carpet, and all the finishing touches. I have been dreaming about this PB duvet for over a year! If you visit us, you get to crawl into these flannel sheets on top of a feather bed over a plush mattress.

BEFORE AFTER

GUEST BATH
We are extremely lucky to have inherited a previous renovation to our house. The Italian who lost it to the bank put some bucks into a terrific granite and upscale tile bathroom(s) and kitchen redo. The plus is that we have some really nice mediums in the bathrooms until we can afford to expand the Master and guest baths upstairs (in a decade). There is even a new sky light! Some paint, a mirror, and a major scrub down almost completed the guest bath, but don't be fooled, we had to replace ALL the pipes in the house and most of the fixtures. I hate it when you have to spend thousands and thousands of dollars on stuff you can't even see!

BEFORE AFTER

MASTER BED & BATH
I still lie awake at night looking out my window unable to believe the .79 acre view! It's a trip. The Master is the after-thought room, it got left with the leftover art and decor that didn't work in the rest of the house. Someday I'll do it up right (yellow please), but for now I have my NYC neighborhood over my pillow and my beautiful tree out my window. The master bath presented a huge storage problem so I whipped out my trusty pencil and drew some shelves on the wall then Q built them out. We have a terrific shower though and don't forget about the new pipes!

BEFORE AFTER

More to come. I've saved the best for last: The library and mud room!