More us, less everything else

We spent Easter weekend at my parents. The boys love going there, because they get to wear rubber boots and get dirty and smelly and eat well. I could tell on Saturday afternoon they had gotten a little bored, so I shocked them by declaring that I was taking them into the woods. There are woods by my parents' house and if you follow the right trails, you can come out at the junior high school, in another neighborhood, or at a little waterfall. I could only remember how to get to the junior high, and that requires tight-roping over a pipe eight feet above a creek. That pipe was a LOT smaller than I remembered from twenty years ago, but I did it TWICE, carrying a BB gun, with Landen holding his breath at the other end. I hate nature, the outdoors, and being covered in 50+ mosquito bites, but I am still getting high praise from the boys about how cool it was that I could do that and could we please do it again next time we go to Jena.

Teenage Prayer + Adoption Photo Shoot, My Messy Beautiful

I have a confession, a shocking admission from a liberal, semi-socialist, formerly shacked-up, now single-mothering girl like me…I listen to Dr. Laura. She’s unreasonable and dismissive and wildly hypocritical. I mostly listen because of the morbid curiosity of other people’s problems, but I get very rage-y at her. The last few times I’ve listened, she’s had the poor twisted Mothers of Teenage Sons From Broken Homes who are lashing out and behaving abusively towards the mothers. Dr. Laura’s advice is always to pack their bags and boxes and send them to live with their erstwhile fathers, asserting that the mother needs to Take a Stand and show the sons that they cannot treat women this way without consequences. To show the sons that Mom Is Not Going to Take This Sh*t Anymore and they should not expect their future wives to tolerate such jackassery either.

Nell's Kitchen

When I think about my adoration for houses and interiors, the word "junkie" is the first to jump up. I think I am actually an "enthusiast." I am a Home Enthusiast. If you are a contractor, and you agree to build a house for a Home Enthusiast, you should be prepared to earn every penny you are charging to build the house. A Home Enthusiast knows exactly what she wants, because she has been looking and loving and thinking about what she likes and does not like for a long, LONG time.

Let's talk about my kitchen. The kitchen has the most design elements, is often the room that has the most "pieces," and as I am learning, the room where the upgrades cost the most.