Home Sweet Home

I'm blogging some pics of the house tonight. Above you see our dining table. I'm immortalizing it in all its paperless glory because it is so rarely clean and clutter-free as it is in this picture. ;)

The kitchen. It's almost too small to see, but in the far back, to the right, is the laundry area. I like having the laundry on the main living level, it's nice. Though I considered going to the basement for laundry purposes my only form of exercise in the past, so in that sense, it's not so great. Anyway...my point was that on the wall in there, you can see my college degree. It's my way of poking fun at myself a little. Jeremy didn't really get it (and neither will a lot of people probably) but I was certainly yukkin' it up the day I hung it there.

Here you can see the screens that came out of J's Grandparents' store in Superior, or rather the old apartments that were above the store. Bug realized today that they might be interesting to touch (and/or bang, poke, rip, and other such things a little boy enjoys doing) and the paper is quite delicate, so there was a lot of "No"s coming out of my mouth and a lot of redirecting him to his toys scattered everywhere.

The knotty room (referring to the knotty pine that adorns its walls). This is just to the left of the area in the picture above.

And those toys strewn around, as mentioned above. =) Monkey is cleaning herself and looking oh so lady-like on top of the gas stove. I love our animals.

One last picture. This is the view from the knotty room, complete with little miss Paisley. All those toys are in that big basket on the right. ;) Except the tonka, it gets "parked" on the sideboard.

The lighting is so different in all these pictures, I just noticed! Please excuse the poor quality.

This week should be interesting. J hopped in the car and headed for Pairie Island, MN after we put Bugga to bed tonight. He will be in a training class all week at the nuclear plant there. He had to do this back in November too, when we were living in the cabin, so at least I can say this time I am glad to be in our house with our things.

I think the hardest part is not that the responsibility of the house and Bug fall solely on my shoulders this week, but that I don't have him here to share the good stuff with. You know, the "oh you wouldn't believe what Grady did today..." and the "did you see that?! I can't believe he just did that!" and the ever popular "did you hear that {fart, giggle, scream, belch, or whatever strange noise that just came out of our son}?!" Sure I'll tell him on the phone daily, but it's not the same.

I have quite a to-do list for myself this week. Who wants to make bets about how much I will actually accomplish? (Don't all jump on zero/nothing/nada at once now!) One thing on the list is Grady's baby book. Can you believe he is almost a year old and I haven't entered one solitary word in that book yet?! Haven't even written his name in it. That's right, the Parent of the Year Award just keeps slipping farther and farther away. *sigh*

I did however put some hair we saved from his first haircut in the appropriate envelope in the book tonight, so that is a start. Wouldn't that be cruddy if he opens his baby book years down the line and all that's in there is some old hair? Yes, this week I will work to prevent such a thing from happening to my dear boy. ;)

I LOVE this picture of J and Bugga. Here's to my boys tonight...one's sleeping like a little angel in his bed and one's driving to a hotel on the other side of the cities. The first of course makes me very happy, the second not so much. If this past year is any indication though, this week will fly be in the blink of an eye, so I know I shouldn't fret about it. What I should fret about is getting my hiney in bed, since I have a full day of Bugga-wrangling ahead of me! ;)