Why do I bother?

Anyone know where I can get 20 grand for free? I would love to have new flooring throughout the house, and a remodeled kitchen and bathrooms. As I type this my hand is cramping. Why? Our tub is a nice shade of salmon with a plastic liner covering nice salmon tiles around the walls (I hope you can sense the sarcasm when I type this, it truly is ugly). The liner is off white. Whoever put in that liner did a shotty job. The tiles are falling off behind it thus making the liner bubble out. I had recaulked the between the liner and tub when we moved in because the caulking was moldy and gross. One year later, same problem. So today I recaulked again. But as I'm sitting there caulking I'm thinking to myself, why bother? With the liner bubbling out it's only a matter of time when someone leans on it and the caulking splits allowing more moisture in and mold once again. We just need to gut it all and start over. But until then I have to keep recaulking because I fear mold spores.

I could go on and on about flooring issues and cabinets woes but I'll spare you. It just gets overwhelming sometimes owning an older home. Seems there are countless tasks that need to be done to make it more liveable and we are always in a constant mode of waiting until the money is right to do the things we want.

Then I'm told by others who hear our complaints, "Welcome to home ownership." It never ends. And I can't help but wonder, am I spoiled? There are so many people that have less than I do and there are many people who have more. Do I really have the right to want more? Why do we do that to ourselves? Will it ever be good enough? I suppose the answer is no. It's human nature to always want more, always want better. How do we break those chains? Why can't we just be content with what we have? I try to but it is soooo hard. Just needing to vent.

Toodles

.

Bilberry Christmas 2007

We had a great holiday! Christmas Eve I played my violin on stage for most of the Christmas Eve Church service and Jeff got the great privelage of trying to keep an almost two year old still and quiet. Apparently she was wiggling around like crazy saying, "Mama, mama, ite, ite (light), baaaaa, baaaa (bath, she thought the baptistry was a bath)" After about 15 minutes of that I saw him give up and take her out to the foyer to burn off a little energy.

Christmas morning we woke and ate cinnamon rolls, unloaded our stockings, and then dug into our presents. This year we decided to splurge quite a bit and I must say it was a memorable and fun experience. I even sent Jeff on a treasure hunt for his "surprise" gift. Kadyn did rather well with it all but would get into each gift too much and loose her motivation to open others because of it. Her favorite gift was the travel size doodle pad. I thought that weird considering she already has a big one. She also was quite fond of the Mr. Potatoe Head's glasses which she insists on wearing. She has yet to put them on the Mr. Potatoe head. For lunch we made Chile Renos. Yummy! No family, no friends, just the three of us the whole day and it was a lot of fun.

Ho Ho Ho

Santa came to the Bilberrys early this year. I got new dining room chairs! No more stains to clean off of the seats, no more sticky chairs (long story regarding my attempt to repaint the chairs), no more wobbly chairs, no more Brutus claws snagging fabric,no more storage problems (new chairs fold). Life is grand! Thanks Santa!

Mother Teresa

Some time ago Kadyn decided to get silly at the dinner table. Jeff
calls this her Mother Teresa look. Enjoy!

A moment in time

Sunday night Kadyn figured out how to adjust the volume on her stereo. I heard it blasting through the baby monitor. Next thing I know Jeff, Kadyn, and I are all doing the boogie to a Kanye West song in Kadyn's room(a personal favorite of mine). Every time something like this happens, I always will myself to soak in the moment as much as possible because I know that these times are here today gone tomorrow and I don't want to look back and wish I had done a better job of living in the moment. I love that my little girl loves to get down, I love that my husband is a good sport and joins in on the fun. I am so very very lucky!

Kadyn is now putting two sometimes three words together. Some of her accomplishments include: baby go night night, come on guyeeeeez, bye bye guyeeeez, bye bye ya'll, boo pooped, where dada, and I pooped. Her vocabulary is just exploding and I am loving it! It's so much easier to communicate with her and understand her, although like every mother of an almost two year old, I'm sure only Jeff and I understand her most of the time. Sometimes I'm surprised what I can interpret. Two days ago I asked her to ask for juice instead of just demanding it, so "juice please" came out "doof cheese." Then there is my all time favorite, "drink" is always "gunk," I had to clue Jeff in on that one. She's done it forever, I was kind of surprised he didn't get it by now.

In other news we are supposed to be in the middle of another ice storm. It was predicted to be as bad as last year's storm but so far it has been much milder than last year. The next round is coming from 6:00 p.m tonight to 6:00 p.m. tomorrow night. Hopefully this year we will be spared the power outages we had last year.

Yakking and a new phase?

You know it really amazes me how many times a baby will try something until they finally figure out that it's a no no. Will (one of my daycare kids) has been trying fifty something times now to touch this computer, so we'll see how far I get with this entry.

Last week my youngest, Kendall (another daycare kid), showed up with the stomach flu for two days. His mother thought he was better and sent him because she was sick as well. I have to give her credit though, as a new mother it can be really difficult to tell whether your child is really sick or not. Infants can be finicky eaters for any number of reasons and with them spitting up as often as they do, it's hard to tell whether it's real puking or not.

Well to make a long story short, the other toddler caught it and hurled all over the table and carpet two times before his mother came to get him. Needless to say, I have been frantically sterilizing every toy and steaming all my carpets like crazy ever since. With all that puke I am really amazed that as of today, none of us have caught it.

As for other news, I think Kadyn may have entered a new naughty phase. Seems whenever she gets frustrated for whatever reason (usually not getting her way) she hits. It's never very hard or forceful and so far it has only been directed towards Jeff and I, but I think it's her new way of showing she is displeased. As hard as it is not to laugh, I keep my composure and off to the naughty spot she goes and the rest goes as follows: cry, cry, she proceeds to hit the wall while on the naughty spot....off to the crib we go for two minutes...more crying, louder crying...back to the naughty spot to try to do it appropriately for two minutes...crying....stand up explain again why we don't hit, tell mommy your sorry...hug mommy, mommy tells daughter she loves her...wipe the tears away....remind her what will happen if she does it again.

Last weekend seemed to be the worst of it, today she has been very well behaved. Hopefully the phase is over. What a week!