A penny for... my bathroom floor.

"Set up a jar to collect pennies in for the penny tile floor" was supposed to be an item for my March goals list, but I couldn't stop thinking about it so I decided to just do it.

This has all been sitting in my closet for an age.

While surfing Pinterest one night I found a tile floor made with pennies. I have to have one. It will be perfect for the main floor powder room.

Here is how it looks when it is finished, if you didn't go to the link:

Love!

How awesome does that look with all the different shades of colors from the old and new pennies all mixed in together?!
I cannot wait to do this, so yesterday I decided to grab the change jar and spent a good half an hour (probably more...) separating the pennies out from the rest of the change. There is a lot of change in this house. Holy moly.

I realize that I could easily just go to the bank and buy pennies from them, but where is the fun in that?
Besides, it will be a little while before I am ready to turn that room back into a bathroom (it is currently a storage closet), so I have a little time and the collecting will be fun.

I did notice one commenter's concern over potentially valuable pennies being glued to the floor. We totally take pennies for granted, don't we? I seriously would never have considered it, but now that the thought is in my head I have to. Thankfully one of my favorite people in this world is a coin collector! Guess I'll have to get his opinion.

Anyway - Who knows when this will actually come to life. The powder room is going to be a "from the ground up" kind of project, but I will definitely be updating you with a blog when it happens. Particularly the floor!

Happy Tuesday everyone!
(and please send your positive thoughts that the plague will leave my house. Thanks!)

Is it Monday already? Holy moly.

Weekend Recap:

1. I did not make it through the weekend without buying Skylanders Giants. In fact, I went out and bought it on Friday night.

2. It was convenient timing because I also came down with the plague on Friday. I've logged in a fair amount of hours thanks to the fact that I haven't wanted to move for the last few days.

3. I feel as though I should clarify that not wanting to move and having to move are separate things entirely. I didn't want to move, but I did have to because I had to work, grocery shop, and, you know, take care of a household. But I did take full advantage of the times that I was able to lay around.

4. This brings me to the thing I've been cracking up about all weekend. People's reactions to a 35 year old mother of three who plays video games. Why is this weird? Do you watch television? What's the difference?

First of all, I don't spend that much time playing nintendo (though I did this weekend because I was laying around more than normal). Secondly... why is it that if you watch tv, movies or surf the internet it's okay, but saying that you play video games automatically makes you a sloth? Ha! It's comical!

I am the mother of a one year old, a two and a half year old and a seventeen year old. During the day I have an extra charge who is 9 months old. I rarely sit down during the day. At all. When the kids nap I may try to get a blog in, or at least read some blogs, but for the most part, there is no "sitting idly" during my day, or even my evenings, for that matter! - even on the weekends.
Contrary to what some believe, being a stay at home mom does not involve laying on the couch eating bon bons. Not if you are doing your job. Funny enough, there are people out there who get paid to take care of children, it's just not a valid job when you are taking care of your own, for free. I know, we got the memo (and for the record, I was a single working mother for a good 11 years, so I know what it is like to be a working mom, and I spent WAY more time playing video games then than I do now, just so you know).

I also work part time. I do laundry, cook, clean, work out, manage the finances, play taxi so that my older daughter can work... The list goes on. I'm not sitting around on my ass 24 hours a day. I have precious little down time just like everyone else.

So what is the difference if I choose to spend the same amount of time on a video game at the end of my day as someone else spends on television, movies and internet at the end of their day? I'm just curious!
Whatever makes you feel superior, I suppose. Hahaha!

I'm done. I just... It just cracks me up! "The ways that I waste my time are just, like, so much more valid than the ways that you waste yours."

People are funny creatures.

5. I feel like I should have something else to tell you about this weekend, but I can't think of it. It is all kind of a fog because I have been feeling so crappy.  Unfortunately, I think this is really all I have for you today. I'm going to spend the day sterilizing the house so that hopefully we can get rid of this crud (the kids all have it too, boo hiss).

Happy Monday!

Dirty secrets...

Here's a dirty little secret... I kinda like video games. A lot.

There are only a few games that I get hooked on, but when I do you can forget seeing or communicating with me until the game has been completed.

I was recently introduced to Skylanders Giants. 

image from wired.com

What took me so long to find this game?!

And yes, I recognize that this put me in league with a host of 10 year old boys. I'm okay with that.

Admittedly, this isn't one that I would have just picked up off of the shelf myself - the whole portal thing and having to have actual figurines to go along with the game... I would not have thought it to be my cup of tea. Well, I was wrong. I tried it recently at a friend's house and I have been obsessed ever since. 

I've been playing on their game, but I'm going to have to break down and just go get one of my own. I want to play it always (or at least while the kids are napping, and after they go to bed). Not only do I want to play it always, but I also want to get my own figures because I want to be able to level my characters up myself. Sharing them kind of takes the fun out of it, at least for a geek like me because part of the fun of playing a game is getting all of the upgrades, extras and hidden things. I need to be able to upgrade them on my own.

I haven't caved to getting it yet, but I don't know that I will last the weekend without picking it up.

In other news... when did it get to be Friday?!

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

I'd like to start this freezing cold Monday morning off by saying...

RAVENS NATION!

If you haven't heard... We won the Super Bowl.

Super Bowl Sunday just needs to become a national holiday. It never matters whether or not your actual team is there. People still use the day to gather with friends and family, and enjoy a day of food and football. And while I understand that not everyone appreciates football, or the Super Bowl itself - not everyone appreciates Christmas or Thanksgiving either. They still get the day off.

In other news... The groundhog didn't see his shadow! Please let it be true! I'm so ready for winter to be over.

Happy Monday everyone!

A few things...

1. I can't believe that I am already preparing for Tobin's first birthday. How did his first year go by so fast?

2. You would not believe how difficult it is to plan a train party that is not centered around Thomas and Friends. I have nothing against Thomas and Friends, I'm just not really into character themes. If I had realized that trains would be so hard to find I would have started planning a year ago. Thank God for Etsy and Pinterest.

3. Food is becoming a major source of irritation. Why do we have to eat? I'll have more on this at some point, I just have to have the time to sit and write for more than 5 seconds at a time. ha!

4. If you put more value on a piece of card stock with a couple of words on it than you do a human being, I don't want to know you. 

5. I saw this when I was blog surfing the other day, but I can't remember where.

This is my next project:

Love, love, love!

That is pretty much all I have for today. I really need to get my butt in gear and work on getting ready for this party! The next week and a half is going to fly by. Eep!

Happy Tuesday!

TGIF...

It's been a week, y'all.

There are a lot of things in parenting that you feel you will never be prepared for. They come and go, and you realize that it wasn't a big deal in the grand scheme of things. Most things in parenting are like that, actually.

This week I experienced something that is decidedly NOT like that. Walking my kid through the death of a friend, almost a brother really. I don't think there is anything that can prepare you for this. Even going through the loss of friends too soon, myself.

It is a helpless feeling because there's just nothing that you can do. Yes, you can be there for hugs, and words of encouragement, but it is truly a battle that is all their own.
All you can really do is sit back and watch it unfold as they go from an initial detached reaction to, "wait, this is really happening, hold on, I can't find the brake", to finally reaching the point where the permanence begins to set in.

In The Teenager's case, it was a coworker, but he was much more than a coworker. He was who had trained her, she worked pretty much every shift with him (he was her shift manager), but more than that, over the past year and a half he had become the big brother she never had, one of her closest confidantes, and one of her biggest supporters. She talked to him about everything, from major life decisions down to the littlest things like what color to dye her hair. He always pushed her to go red. An option that was never even on the table in her mind.

Ironically, last Saturday, she dyed her hair red - on a complete whim. It was the next day, when she was done with her shift at work that they took her aside and told her that he had died overnight in his sleep.

When he told her he had cancer in November is was sad, it was scary, but it never crossed her mind that she might never see him again. She found out from the others last night, after his wake, that he was scared to tell her he was sick. He didn't want to have to tell her. They all felt the same way when it came to telling her that he had passed. Of course, I don't think anyone expected it at all, much less this soon. (He was only 27. Twenty-seven... so young...)

She has never experienced death before. Not like this, not this close. There have been a couple of kids from her school who have died over the past couple of years, but she wasn't close friends with them, so it was sad, but easily brushed off.
This is the first time it has ever been this real.

I'm so glad that she went out with everyone last night and she got to hear from them how he always talked about her, how much he cared about her, how she was like his little sister... She really needed to hear that, because from her mouth, "he was truly one of the most amazing people I will ever have known".

From bed last night she tweeted, "all the things you taught me will never be forgotten."

I hate that she is going through this, but I am so glad that he was a part of her life, even for that brief time.

Phew! Sucky, sucky week, yo... Now on to helping her celebrate that she was able to know him in the first place, and to move forward.

Thank you, Brad, for being in the league of best friends and best teachers my kid will ever know in this life.

Rest in peace...

I hope everyone has a great weekend (now that I've posted such a downer, sorry! Had to get it out), and make sure you tell the people around you how much you love them. You just never know in this life... 

Last night I stumbled upon this...

"Do you want to make money and impress people with your corner office, $50,000 Mercedes, 4500 square foot house, tailored suits, swimming pool, Sun Valley-acquired tan...? If these are your goals, tuck your kids into daycare, drink your milk of magnesia, and stop simpering about 60 hour work weeks. You've made your choice."

And this...

"Nothing has a stronger influence psychologically on their environment, and especially on their children, than the un-lived life of the parents."

Life is meant to be lived and enjoyed. That is just my humble opinion on the matter... 

I probably have more to come on this subject.

Happy Friday!