I'm a Failure

I'm not gonna sugar coat it.

I'm a failure.

And I'm ok with that.
Well, kinda.

I'm one of those people that starts a project but can never finish it.
I don't beat myself up for it, it's just the way I am.
I always have great intentions in the beginning and then the
excitement of the situation wears off and the project
nosedives off of my priority list.

Here are some examples of some recent projects I have failed at:

• Gardening, sounded great in the beginning and now it's dead. The flowers in the front are barely hanging on for dear life.
• Two hundred sit ups challenge, I've attempted this probably 6 times and can't ever stick with it past Week 3.
• Scrapbooking, I love it, I enjoy it, but once I had kids I realized its a lot more difficult to do with little grabby hands hanging around me constantly. So my oldest daughters scrapbook has about 8 pages completed and the other 2 kids don't even have an album.
• C25K, I'm in the process of failing since I have only successfully completed week 1 and I've only managed to go to the gym two times in the past two weeks.
• The Twilight Series, I finished New Moon and the rest of the books are sitting on my shelf.

I'm sure there's more that I just can't think of because, well,

that's how I failed at them in the first place.

So what am I going to do about this? I have so many things I want

to do, so many plans around the house that I haven't followed through

with. I really need to pick one and focus on it until the job is done instead

of attempting 100 different things at once and half-assing all of them.

So the first project I will be working on until completed (NO EXCUSES)

is printing and organizing all of our family photos. I purchased some awesome

albums from Kolo.com, one color for each kid, and I have yet to put a single photo

in any of them. Maybe I will have time to scrapbook some of the pictures later,

but I don't want to bite off more than I can chew right now. If I can get these pictures placed

in their specified albums in chronological order before my kids move out of the house,

I will deem this a success!

Finding My Creative Streak

I am the least creative or artistic person I know.

lol

But one of the reasons I started this blog was to motivate

myself to try things, even if I'm not good at it!

So the first artsy project I tried was whitewashing three wooden

boxes that I want to add to my laundry room.

 

I know this sounds like the easiest project on Earth and no

one can really fail at whitewashing, right? It doesn't exactly

take much skill or intellect to do!

Oh well, it made me feel better about myself!

Anyway, I did it! And it turned out just fine.

Maybe I could have used more water in my ratio but whatever,

it looks good and I'm proud of myself for completing a project!

 

Slowly but surely I'm getting this laundry room makeover done.

My husband comes home from deployment very soon,

we're talking DAYS.

I have a lot to finish up around here before then.

I'm glad I started some projects though because I really feel

like this deployment has flown by!

Tis the Season

I'm baaaaaaack.

I had a short hiatus as the kids and I visited some family.

It's one of those "must do" things during deployment I think.

It was a wonderful trip and now we are home and ready to get

back into the swing of things which includes my blog!

(I missed you, bloggy! *pat pat*)

SO It's starting to warm up a little bit around these parts.

Spring is right around the corner.

Birds are tweeting, plants are sprouting, 

crickets are....returning *shudders*

And this is the time of year I start planning my garden

and flower beds.

 

I have this section along the front walkway outside my

house that always looks so plain and boring. 

 

It really bothered me when we first moved in and last year I

finally decided to do something about it and plant some flowers.

They turned out to be very pretty and they grew really well

in the desert heat so I will plant the same kind again this year.

In the back yard I have a small garden bed my hubby built for us

after we moved in. I'm eager to get it started this season!

I have to share one of my favorite websites.

www.sproutrobot.com

Type in your zip code and it will give you a growing guide

specific to your area with instructions (and drawings) to help

you along the way!

Project Backyard

Time for another embarrassing moment for Yours Truly!

I left my backyard out of my home tour for the sole

reason that it was highly unattractive at the time.

Well not much has changed.

BUT I said when I started my blog that this would be

my source of motivation to accomplish what I needed to

do around my house.

So without further adieu, take a look at my backyard...

Now in my defense, everyone's grass here looks like this

in the winter! Our front yards all look this way too :(

 However, its beginning to warm up so its starting to green up.

 We have the biggest backyard available here and I'm ashamed

of how ours looks! We don't spend a whole lot of time outside

during the winter but with Spring right around the corner, I need

to get it cleaned up for the kids.

My Goals

Plant a flower garden

Paint the garden bed

Reseed the grass

Stain and seal the play structure

Repair anything loose or broken on play structure

Fix up the trampoline

Wish me luck!

For those of you wondering what happened to my laundry room,

its still a work in progress. I am very close to finishing it so here 

is a sneak peek!

My Home Tour {pic heavy}

Ok I'm doing this for a few reasons.

1. I like to look back at pictures of places I used to

live and reminisce. I know we won't be here forever

so having pics of our home will be nice in the future.

2. Depending on how long we'll be here, I want to

redecorate all the bedrooms so getting the boring-ness 

out in the wide open will give me more motivation 

to actually do it.

3. Military families moving to 29 Palms can get an idea

of what base housing looks like, at least in my area.

4. It gave me a good reason to clean the entire house.

5. When I'm sad I can come back to this post and 

remember what my house looks like when

its clean.

6. For all you nosy people who want to see how I live.

Welcome to my home!

 

Here's the living room and Kayden's homeschool

space. We used to have a rug and coffee table but

the kids decided that wasn't such a good idea. 

 

To the right is our dining room and kitchen.

That door in our kitchen goes to the laundry room,

which you have unfortunately already seen.

(Laundry room make over is almost complete, stay tuned!)

 

 The hallway to the bedrooms.

One of my favorite features of this house is the hallway door!

Ps. See that giant crack in my wall straight ahead? Thank my

hubby and my dog for that. Wrestling and damaging property!

First we got Bubby's room. And yes, he has 2 closets.

Although I hijacked one for storage.

 

 Next is Kayden's room.

Continue down the hall to the other rooms.

Britton's room.

 

Our room and bathroom.

There it is :)

Our little home.

Besides the summer cricket infestation, I love this house.

I love that we have a one story with four bedrooms.

I love the hallway door.

I love our HUGE back yard which I will post pictures of

another time because that really needs some work right now lol

I love my giant kitchen and surplus of cupboard space.

I just feel so cozy here. I'll be sad when the day comes

that we have to leave!

The HMB

The HMB is one of my favorite tools!

It stands for Home Management Binder.

I created mine about 4 years ago and got the

idea from a group I was a part of on CafeMom,

back when that was cool.

It is my household guide book and is responsible

for keeping me sane on a daily basis.

 I will give you an idea of what I keep in my

personal HMB and hopefully you will be inspired

enough to make one!

I can't tell you how useful it is!

Section 1 - Monthly Planner

Monthly calendar

Weekly menus

Grocery lists

Schedules

Section 2 - Expenses

Budget sheet

Bills schedule

Debt snowball worksheet

Receipts/warranty information

Section 3 - Household

Password list

Trip packing list

Auto maintenance paperwork

Travel plans

Contracts

Section 4 - Cleaning

Daily chores

Weekly chores

Monthly chores

Spring cleaning breakdown 

Section 5 - Emergency

Info for babysitters

Family ID information

(thumbprints, recent pic, etc)

Medical consent forms

 Copies of insurance info

Home inventory w/ pictures

Evacuation plans

Section 6 - Home Projects

To-Do lists

Home wish list

Magazine cut outs, printed ideas

Garden information

That is my HMB in a nutshell. To give you a

head start on your own HMB, I designed some title

pages and added them to my Etsy store!

If you plan on making one you will need to get

a 3-ring binder, page protectors, and dividers.

"Stressed is desserts spelled backwards!"