In My Own Skin

Insane, Overwhelmed, Tired, Scared, Excited, Confused, Conflicted, Hopeful, Lazy, Energized.....There are a few words off the top of my head that explain me and my nutty life lately. I have been "trying" to blog for the last month or more. Well, I say I have. Obviously, we do the things we "want" to do. I love my blog and I love what it gives me in the way of a journal and I love the connections I feel with other people in my "blog community". It's crazy, but I talk about you folks with my family and "real" friends. (Don't act like you are offended by that, you know what I mean.)

Sometimes, (HA) I put too much pressure on myself. I think if I don't have pictures to document my story, my story isn't worth posting. Then I think I can't take pictures because my house is dirty. Then I realize the dirt doesn't matter because I don't even have a "complete" house right now. Then, WOW, the flood of so many things I've been trying to mentally avoid. Well, self, I'm ready to start blogging again so it's time to "come out".

I have been avoiding some family anger. In a nutshell, for those of you that don't live inside my head that I don't refer to as "self", Jeff and I entered into a verbal and written contract and trust agreement with Jeff's great Aunt J several years ago. Per the terms of that agreement, Jeff and I sold our home and Aunt J sold her home and we all moved into the "Big Ass House". Part of the agreement was to care for Aunt J as she aged and ensure that she would not be "put away in a home" as she had no other living relatives. LONG story short, she was diagnosed with dementia and one of her alter egos decided she would rather live in hell than with us. After $$thousands$$ of dollars fighting her and realizing that the laws to protect the elderly were not to be messed with (even if you weren't wrong) we had no choice but to stop fighting. The contracts and agreements and trusts and POA's we spent so much money on before merging our lives were worth nothing! I think Jeff wrote a letter to Dateline about this situation. If you've ever had a family member with dementia, you probably understand. If you haven't, just be careful in trying to do the right thing and help family members. Just Sayin.....

Fast forward to where we are today. We "sold" our ownership in the Big Ass House back to the trust and started over.....FOR REAL STARTED OVER. The life in the BAH represented so many things that we no longer wanted to be a part of. I guess, in a way, we are lucky to have this chance with a little hind sight to totally re-route our lives. MOST days I feel that way. Other days, I give in to the feeling that has been a HUGE pain in my Fat Ass and I hate ALL of it. I'm praying hard for the strength to stay positive, but come on folks.....I'm human. There are many more Pros to the whole situation than Cons, but I will say it has been a MAJOR disruption to the flow of our lives and worst of all....it uprooted my children. We are all adjusting very well. I DO NOT MISS THE OLD NEIGHBORHOOD OR HOUSE FOR THAT MATTER, and I don't think Jeff does either. BUT, the kids do. They are getting used to it around here, but we went from being Grand Central Station to hearing nothing but frogs and crickets. That's a big change for a couple of city kids.

So, while I LOVE my house and enjoy ripping rooms out and putting new ones in their place, I constantly have my kiddos mental state on my mind and then just the general tiredness that comes from living ON the job site. I let that get to me the last couple of weeks, and went into shutdown mode. UMMM, I don't have time for that.....so here is a little photo run down of where we are NOW..

I took the day off of work on Friday to concentrate on my sanity and try to make some sense of the mess we call our house these days. Here is what I started with.....

I did some serious workage and the day ended on a little better note with alot more room and many more pictures and paintings hung on the walls.

And look, I did all of this with the help of these two. NOT. I wonder why we need three laptops in this house AND the desktop I put on its own table the other day. Jeff is your local computer debugger. Only one of those is actually ours. The other two belong to some friends of ours who got a virus for hijacking Internet: )

Our bedroom is still in dire need of attention. We went to buy bedding Friday night, but came home empty handed. I just can't find any I LOVE. I think I'm going to have to make something. I've found some really yummy fabrics lately. Oh, and Jeff is not fond of the older family portraits that have taken up new homes on the walls of our bedrooms. I admit, I wasn't sure about it myself at first, but I honestly have no where else to put them. I called my local decorator friend and was told that next to the hallway, this is the next appropriate place to put them. Since the hallway is FULL and I get to see them more often this way, I rolled with it. If you side with Jeff on this one, let me know. He rarely takes a stand when it comes to decorating so I try to take his feelings into account, but I'm a little lost on this one.

So remembering my yummy fabrics yesterday, lead me to this.....

I found me a little space and claimed it. I had missed sewing and at the end of the day, I was pretty proud of my work.

And all of that brings me to today's goings ons. The kids are on Fall Break today and Tuesday. The plan was to get anything unnecessary cabinet and Sheetrock wise OUT. Our new cabinets have been ordered and are being built as we speak. They will be here next week. In the meantime, my BFF Jenifer called and needed a ride to her shoulder surgery this morning. Her DH was in bed with the flu. What good is a BFF if you can't come to the rescue? So when I left this morning at the total crack of dawn, here is what we had......
When I got home from the hospital....this is what I had.....
At several points along the way in this "project" I was very explicit with my instructions NOT to remove my kitchen sink until the LAST POSSIBLE MOMENT. For just a moment, try to imagine your life withOUT your kitchen sink, CUZ do you see mine? Look close.....

Oh look, there is my sink, IN THE FREAKING DITCH. Hello, Jeff, where have you been? Yes I realize it ALL needed to come out, but couldn't we have waited until the last minute on the sink?

HAHAHAHAHAHA That's all I can do.

Wanna come over for dinner?

Is it safe to cook on top of the Guinea Pig? HUMMM?

Thanks for letting me vent. Thanks for loving my projects.

Peace,

Kacy

Oh, and by the way, totally into the Rachel Zoe Project, Project Runway and So You Think You Can Dance!!