Today is January 3rd, 2009 (happy new year!) It was an exact 81 degrees today. 81 DEGREES IN JANUARY?!?! Thats obscene, even for Texas! Guess what? tomorrow is going to be 46 degrees. Now theres texas for you, high one day, cold the next. Its a miracle we aren’t all sick from the varying temperatures. The whole winter season has been up down up down like this.
The unseasonably warm weather has caused me to go into an early “spring cleaning/redecorating” mode. I am wanting to PURGE PURGE PURGE, and am looking around at what I can change, add, or fix. So first off on my list is to purchase some much needed furniture.
On my list to purchase are:
1. A kitchen island – I have finally picked out exactly what I want, and mark is actually going to build it this month! I couldn’t believe how overly atrociously priced islands are! Lucky for me I have a hubby who not only likes to wood work but he’s pretty darn good at it to boot! 
So I picked the style that I want, and he’s going to make it to match my kitchen so its a win/win, cheaper and matching!
2. New kitchen table and SIX MATCHING chairs – Its out with the old on this one. Since ours was old anyway, so we tiled the top of ours as an experiment, and I do NOT like it. All the dishes clang and stuff gets stuck in the grout, yuck! I’m really glad we tried it though because my original island was supposed to be tiled, so I’m glad we tested it first! As for our chairs, I’m getting REALLY tired of the black folding card table chairs! lol. I could never bring myself to pay such huge mounts of money PER CHAIR, so I never did. And man are those black chairs UUUUUGLY! So I am going to buy a complete table and chair Set, so I can finally say buh – bye to those hiddeous things!
3. A Sofa Bed (and maybe a loveseat) for the game room – It’s time to get into action on decorating the upstairs. Give three children a huge empty room with a pool table, and watch out! Thats all I’m gonna say about that! lol. I’d like to turn it into a nice comfortable hang out for the kids, as we have ment to for the last two years.
4. A fish tank for the living room. Let me tell you a little story….Once upon a time we lived in Colorado. We had a huge fish tank that was filled with hand picked rocks from the mountains that we had climbed. In said tank were many gorgeous and some even exspensive fish. It brought us much joy. Then we decided to move to Florida. We left almost everything we owned behind, as we only had the back of a truck and the inside of a second vehicle to fill up with belongings. But you can be sure that our fish tank was one of the few items we actually DID take! We drained it halfway so that we could transport it, and Fish and all, we packed it into the back of our vehicle and drove cross country. The fish made the trip quite well (they fared better than we did! lol) We stayed with my grandparents for a month before we found a house, so the fish tank lived in a closet, (it was too big for their house) where it remained half full, but was filtered constantly and the fish were kept happy. Once we found a house we moved the fish tank in, and proceeded to follow the correct process declorinating and adding water to finally fill it back up. And in about three miniutes time all of our beloved fish started having seizures. We immediatly called a fish store to see what went wrong. It was then that they informed us that Florida water had somthing extra in it. I can not recall what it is now but it had too much of some chemical that our fish could not handle nor were used to . So I flew in my car and drove thirty min to the closesest fish store to get the required solution to fix the waters problem. Of course it was also a thirty min. trip back, and by then all of our beloved fish were belly up. We were very upset. To have gone to all that trouble to keep our dear fish and for them to die in the home streatch.
Fast forward a few months . The tank had sat empty while we licked our wounds, and mark decided that he was going to surprise me for Mothers day by finally converting our fish tank into a salt water tank. Somthing we had always wanted to do. It was a wonderful surprise. He had worked diligently and sneakily (is that a word?) to get it all set up. Well Apparently you have to let a salt water tank cycle for at least a month before you can really put fish in it. (YES We waited!) There are some little fishys that you start off with to help build the right kind of bacteria’s. So we enjoyed our tiny bacteria fishys for a whole month, while getting all excited about picking out our first ever real salt water fish. And then, ……….we moved. Again. Right when it was time to buy gorgeous salt water fish. So we returned our little pretty little bacteria fishy’s and salt water back to the store. 
Since then the tank made several more moves, but we never did fill it up again, as we knew we would have to wait until we were in a more permanant place before we were going to try that again. Two moves ago the tank finally cracked.
Now that we have finally purchased a house and are planning on spending many a years here, we would like to once again have fish. Wish us luck! lol (ok so it wasn’t exactly a little story
5. A couch for the living room – This isn’t high on my priority list, as our couch is still very nice, and its comfortable, unless you want to lay down. It has two recliners in the ends, and we are starting to feel the metal bars between the cushions when we lay down. So it will have to go in the near future I suppose. Not looking forward to picking out a new one though. I really like ours! But mark would like a wider one where we can snuggle better , cause ya know, we’re wider now too! *snicker*
6. Another Recliner – This one can wait too, I would like to have a recliner for me, as mark’s is sooo comfortable, but right now we have Marks’ Grandmothers’ rocking chair where mine would go, so I am in no rush. I would like to have one 1 day, and put the rocker in my bedroom, but its not top priority .
Things I want to accomplish:
1. Paint the remaining accent wall in the living room. – I can’t believe its been almost two years and I havent’ even picked a dang color for it. Time to bust a move
2. Paint my office/studio – the color choice is easy on this one, but I’m not looking forward to moving all of my office furniture to get it done.
3. Paint and decorate the Game room - This one is going to take some time to figure out what exactly we want to do to it. I will most likely buy the furniture first and work from there.
4. Hang family photos – ok now this is an embarrasing one. A studying photographer admitting that she barely has any photos of her family hanging in her own home. Definitly not good for business!
5. Paint the pantry – Not really looking forward to this so its probably going to be last on my list to do, but it would be nice to have it done
6. Finish Kids Bedrooms – I still need to finish painting Christians room, poor kid has had only two painted walls for over a year now, and Seths bunk-bed-fort still needs to be built. This is where my hubby’s skills come in again
crap theres an awful lot of painting left to be done!
And after all that it will be spring I am assuming, and I plan on working on the backyard. My main goal for the backyard will be to finally :
1. start my garden
So there are my Spring cleaning / resolutions(?) Here’s hoping I actually get it all accomplished before anouther two years have passed!
