Family Visits

As we're just recuperating from my Dad visiting us for about a week to meet the babes and help us out, we're also getting ready for my father-in-law and his wife to come to Saskatchewan to do the same. Don't get me wrong, I love my in-laws. They're awesome and so supportive and so generous with us and excited beyond belief to meet the twins that it warms my shriveled little raisin of a heart. When you look at the big picture, as helpful as it may be it's still an added stress to have family over for any amount of time when you're still trying to get to know your own kids.

Even before the babies were born, I told Js about my "worries" for when family came to visit. The house won't be clean enough, we'll be tired, they'll get bored, they'll tell us what to do and when, and I'll loose my cool. I'm overall not one who deals well with being told what to do in normal circumstances. 

While I'm trying to figure out what the fuck we got ourselves into and how to handle these little shrimp I gave birth too, I don't need anyone to look over my shoulder and tell me what to do because "that's how we did it back in the day" or whatever. I need to fool myself into thinking I got this and I'm doing the right thing. I can't go on questioning myself day-in and day-out because I will literally go insane. Js brushed off my anxiety about it all saying "Don't freak out until we actually get there, it might not be that bad. You're overreacting (my personal favorite) and you're creating a problem before it actually happens." Well, sure as shit - the minute my Dad and my Aunt walk through the door and make the slightest comment at how Js is handling the babies, something along the lines of "watch his head" or "be careful" he internally looses his mind. After trying to convince myself that it wasn't going to happen and it wasn't such a huge deal, I'm now frantically bracing myself for the next couple of weeks. It's different when it's not your own parents, I guess. I was able to brush off most comments from my Dad and my Aunt whereas Js took them a lot more personally. That's what I have to look forward to. Yay.

When family says they want to help - my advice is to make sure their definition of "help" matches with your definition of "help". I don't want anyone to go ahead and scrub the inside of the fridge clean. I want someone to watch the babies while I take an extra long shower and do my nails. The fridge can wait. I'm worried that I'll wake up one morning and my mother-in-law will have gone through the pile of random shit stuffed into the little where-shit-goes-to-die drawer in the kitchen. Not helpful. I'm still at the same point as I was before except with a better organized junk drawer.

As for providing entertainment for our guests...

Wash ALL the dishes!

I hate doing the dishes. Hate it. Somehow I always end up with dirty dish water on my boob, the mushy shit at the bottom of the sink makes me gag and I just generally do not like it. I don't like the smell of dish soap. I don't like the noise of a knife scraping the bottom of the sink. I don't like the smell of the dish rag or sponges. I hate drying the pasta strainer.

Solution?

Meet Bertha!

My friend bought a house and it comes with appliances so I bought her dish washer for 75$. Ours is it's third home on the Base as it's been passed around from PMQ to PMQ but it's in top shape! Comes with extra counter space. It's kind of bulky where we have it now but I'm more than willing to put up with a bit of bulk if it means I don't have to do the dishes.

Like right now... I could be washing dishes. But I'm not. Thanks Bertha!

Guestroom Update

For 4 years I've been nagging my husband for us to paint the guest bedroom upstairs or our bedroom - hell, anything really! I totally get that while we live in PMQs there is no real and tangible gain from painting a room or buying furniture to suit a specific room. But there's also even less to gain from living with beige walls, beige carpet and ill-fitting furniture. I'd rather grow to love a PMQ than grow to hate it.

Anyways, he finally gave in and we re-decorated our office/guestroom/yoga room a few weekends ago.

*Please ignore the stretching husband.

We painted the walls Napa Valley green inspired by this little brochure. We liked the mix with blue and the comfy yet bright tone of it. We reconfigured our computer desk, printer table and book cases to have them all on the same side of the room so it looks more like a custom unit or a larger desk. The desk was bought at Walmart maybe a few years ago on sale for 50ish bucks. The bookcases where given to us by Js' co-worker who was moving and didn't need them anymore and our printer table is actually a coffee table from our living room set. The futon is old as dust as is (obviously) the ugly ass chair. All this to say that we just reorganized and re-purposed furniture we already owned to give the room more functionality and to create better use of the little space we have.

The only new thing is the roman shades which are meant to be the focus point. I love, love, love the print and made them myself for a few dollars based on this tutorial. They cost me a total of $23 and I'm quite happy with the results.

Another view. Crouching husband - hidden ugly chair.

I know the poster is a little tacky but I enjoy it and it cost me a buck. You can also see my yoga mat there and Js' guitar. That lamp is from Ikea and I've had it for something like 9 years. :) I have a bit of that curtain fabric left so I'm probably going to do something like a small pillow or something to bring that pattern in to this side of the room. That closet we use to keep Js' uniforms and endless shoes and boots and stuff so we sacrificed access to that door nearest to the wall and gained a whole bunch of usable space.

I'll stop gushing now... but yeah, pretty happy about all our work. I've got a few more projects I'm working on so stay tuned... or not. Whichever works.

SK Bugs - ew!

We discovered last year that the convenience and privacy of having your home right by a huge empty field comes with a couple not-so-great details. Aside from the massive snow drifts that take over our front yard and drive way, aside from the very strong winds, aside from having random dogs decide to jump the fence and come poop or play in our yard we have also noticed an in-sa-ne amount of weird bugs.

The most disgusting of them all have been the spiders that seem to live in the siding of the house. There's also a smaller very determined one that lives in the car's side view mirror. Everywhere we go, it's there even though we destroy it's web daily.

Last year, we found a huge muttereffer outside our bathroom window. I tried to get a good photo of it but it to send to Nick was too dark outside.  Anyways, when Js squished it (manly man-ness!) it esssploded of orange-yellow ooze all over. We think our yard is a spider breeding party.

That's a picture I took, for Nick again, of this year's mother-load of a spider and luckily, she built her cozy trap of doom right by the patio light. We haven't been able to squish it yet but I suspect her gigantic booty is just as gross and as explosive as the other one.

You're welcome, Nick!

Home Stuff - Another challenge!

I like challenges (because being a military spouse isn't enough!) and I'm always trying to find ways to grow, learn and discover new things. I don't like to stand still.

I thought I would share my efforts, problems, solutions and adventures as I try to convert this house into our home.

Truth is, we currently live in Military Housing and it's the first place that we have that's "ours" as opposed to "mine and then he moved in". We've been here for a bit over a year and we haven't done much to the place to be quite honest. We were lucky to be assigned to a recently renovated MQ (Married Quarters - though they are called Housing Units now, they are still referred to as MQs or Qs) and we kinda got lazy because everything was good and functional and looked okay.

We both lived in rental apartments for quite some time before we moved in together. When you live in an apartment by yourself or with roommates, simply painting the walls is a huge task. Because you don't know how long you'll be living there for and because you have to paint everything back to the standard white or eggshell paint before you vacate, you tend to just leave it be.

That's what we've been telling ourselves over the last year and I'm sick and tired of looking at beige walls, box upon box of unpacked clutter due to lack of organizational space. Ugh.

My challenge will be to make this place a little bite more ours and to convince Js to let me. He doesn't see how it affects me that the downstairs bathroom is a total disaster and all those white walls blind me. There's also the challenge of saving a buck or two - because we don't own the place, we can't tear down a wall or anything so I have to find creative ways for people to look away from the ugly carpet. I also don't want to pay someone else to do the work and I don't want it to cost us our first born. It's just not worth spending too much money when we have so many other priorities and we'll get nothing in return.

I have a certificate in Interior Decorating that I've never used for anything else but plant my butt firmly in front of TV shows like 'Take this house and sell it' or 'Color Confidential'. I figure it's time to put it to a bit more productive use.

I'll post some "Home Stuff" updates, tips, progress reports as I face my challenge head on... Stay tuned...