Dollywood

Ready to GO! (in my favorite summer outfit, hippos!)

Waiting patiently for her tram.

My child could live off of pickles.

Dolly was there. There are some very scary looking people there :)


On the zebra (I am going to get a picture of her on all the animals this summer!)

On Rosa! (she loves to name things)

On Flowery (I love it when the names make sense!)


On the pig

(No picture of the rollar coaster that I rode with my child TWICE. I get like super duper bonus mommy points for that. Little daredevil loved it.)




On the elephant, that is 2 times faster than Dumbo. Um yikes. We call this Dumbo's cousin.

Osa Dality the duck (not all names make sense) . Feverlla is the duck behind her. Beverty is wearing the the green shirt.

Riding Juju-ja Canada. Can you tell she sits on my lap when I do updates? Tell them this, tell them that - what a stink!

Check out what I won in the giant crane game! Yay me! The pink one was $12 LOL BUT the yellow one was $2 woot! lol They are 2 feet tall. They let us take our season pass picture with them lol

Shopping Spree

I did try to do a budget for the year. But it didn't work out. I'm a junk store, thrift shop, yard sale, consignment junkie!

First, Big Lots has several styles of real Crocs marked at $10. I bought Natalie one pair in purple, one in turquoise. Yay!

Her purple is darker and prettier!

Second, hit up the big consignment sale tonight. Look what I scored!



(I know, if you don't cloth diapers you are like what the heck? Tie Dye diapers! Love em! )

I also got a swimsuit with the built in floaties, 2 Little Einstein DVDs (Easter basket!), 2 Dora DVDs and an Elmo DVD. I got $80 worth of movies for $18. YAY I also got a cute disney skirt for the kiddo.

Then I hit up the $1 tag sale at my consignment store. I am buying up to size 6X right now. They had 18 pieces of clothing from 4T-6X in winter styles. Lots of gymbo! I have all her clothes for next winter now. Anything else I find between now and next year is just gravy.

I got Natalie 5 leotards at the consignment store. The purple long sleeved was $3, the two tank (she picked out that leopard one instead of mama's favorite blue one) ones were $2.50 and another short sleeved one not pictures (green and purple) and long sleeved fuzzy pink were just $1 each. Fancy leotards can cost $30! eeck! (BTW, have I mentioned how much my child rocks gymnastics? lol I'm so excited because she's so stinkin good!). I think these will last a couple of years, she is an XXS now and the largest one is a small.
Bye for now!

Art

This is her friend. The skirt wasn't long enough so she extended it. She is a cowgirl with a lot of money, that is what she has so many hats. The skirts on the left are her laundry. The yarn is her lasso. The fan, in case she gets hot. The umbrella, in case of snow. And yes, the friend seems to be packing a revolver and a shotgun along with her perfume and purse. This is what happens when you buy the wild west and pretty girl sticker packs.

I blew $50ish on art supplies. She's been putting together some interesting things!

Quick Post

We are still here. This is the update bullet style!

House(s)

• I have a buyer for the condo. She is looking into her financing options tomorrow.
  
• I have all my cabinets and appliances from the woman I bought them from now (it was three truckloads - yikes!).
• I still do not have my electrical done on the stove side. I have to wire the stove cord because THEY TOOK IT OFF. Yep. Nice huh?
  
• I took down one of the two wall cabinets on the sink side and was ecstatic to find normal plain drywall! WOOT!
• I am going to build granite tile countertops. That will take my 1940's kitchen to at least 1998!
  

Natalie

• She rocks gymnastics!
• She can do a backbend for a little bit then she loses her balance.
• She can balance on the bars on her belly and swing just a bit.
• She can do full splits and lay her belly down on the floor. No other kid is close to being able to do that.
• She still does not like the floor tramp so I am going to buy her a mini tramp.

Misc

• I am ready for vacation.
• We are going to the adoption event in Pigeon Forge in July. Anyone else going?

Day Three - I mean oops - Four

I didn't get to any kitchen work on day three. We were running around town on errand after errand, it was crazy.

Tonight I put the cut up cabinet on the wall. It probably looks fine but I can pick out all the places I messed it up. The hardest cabinet to put up is the one after the fridge, it is SO HEAVY! I pulled the fridge out and got the temp screws in there but my arms just can't handle any more. So I'll put the permanent ones in there tomorrow hopefully. I rolled the fridge back to catch it if it falls lol

My plans for tomorrow are to visit THD, get drywall anchor screws and a drywall mesh thingy. The cabinets had TWO screws holding them up at their previous house. I am way more paranoid than that. Not only do I have at least 4 screws on the studs I am going to add a few drywall anchor screws too. If I ever want to replace these cabinets, the drywall will have to come out hehe

I am happy to say the fridge cabinet is the last one for this side. I'll have to make something for the area to the left of the stove. And on the other side I'll only have to hang two cabinets and only ONE will be cut! YAY!

End of Day Two

This is how my day went:

7am - mama, wake up! (nooooooooooooooooooooooo)
mubble around the house until 10am when Nana picked her up so I could work (she doesn't like saws/sanders/drills)
10-12 back in bed - oh yes I did!
12-4 got ready for my open house. One guy showed and was very pleasant. I spent the time mostly cleaning my car.
4:30 - make my first cabinet cut. Crooked.
4:33 - cry
4:35 - make my second cabinet cut. Crooked.
4:37 - cry. get a beer. play games online
5:00 - try to even out the cuts - it is looking better
5:02 - cut through a nail or something and the entire cabinet falls apart
5:03 - learn exactly how cabinets are put together - sand/cut and mess with cabinet
6:00 - mom picks me up at we go to THD to look at countertops. I buy glue. A BIG BOTTLE of glue.
7:00 - we go to Lowes. I find a granite tile for $3.48 a tile and I am thinking about doing granite tile counter tops. It is cheaper overall than laminate and I think would look better. Lowes would do the cuts for me and I wouldn't even have to rent the saw.
7:30 eat dinner
8:30 - back home. I cut and sand that cabinet. I nail and glue that sucker back together. I am a little worried. I bypassed the regular gorilla glue for wood gorilla glue. The fact the glue smells and felt like elmers doesn't give me a ton of confidence in it. I guess we'll see if it works.

So this one little cabinet is all I did today. I really did think I'd be done with that side by the end of tomorrow. Now there is NO WAY. I still need to sand the trim at the top and bottom so it will fit flush. (flush-ish, my walls aren't straight)

And what I cut off (plus a mound of sawdust)
To non-kitchen to do list tomorrow is a mile long. So my kitchen goals are to buy small drill bits, reinforce this cabinet (because I took a big chunk out of it inside), hang it, and hang the other cabinet. That's it. Anything else is gravy.

End of Day One

Crazy how this took like 4 hours to do. I brought two more cabinets from my Mom's tonight so after I get my saw from the big house tomorrow, I'll have more to hang. I have to cut down a corner cabinet, the kind that has a blind corner, to a regular single cabinet. Let's hope I can get it halfway straight.

So tomorrow, the plan is...
Open house for the big house
cut down a cabinet to a single and hang it
scrape the stucco wall above the fridge to make it flat
hang the cabinet above the fridge and put the fridge back where it belongs
wire the outlet
patch the big holes
put another layer of stucco on the wall

Then all I need to do is decide on a counter top (the green one was the previous owner) and a paint color. I'll also need to do the stove outlet thing. Oh ya, and stain the side of the cabinet that you see in the picture. What a PITA.

(I've edited this post 3 times now. I also have to put up the crown molding!)

I'm pooped! And I have two more days to work on this stuff. Yuck

Day One of Three

Linoleum is gone. Concrete for under the cabinets is finally dry. The soffit mounting wood strips are gone too. I knocked a new hole in the ceiling. Oops.




Wall primed. Big difference huh?



After the primer is dry, I'll hang the first cabinet. Then I'll hang the second one that goes above the built in microwave. There is an outlet hole in that cabinet for the microwave plug. So I'll cut the drywall (and after a trip to THD) I'll put in the plug in a floating receptacle box (I think I said that right). It is a nifty little box that grabs the drywall so you don't have to screw it to a stud.

Then I'll drill a hole in the stud that is to the left of the huge rectangular hole to pull the wire through. That wire will connect into a regular outlet. Then the wire will go through the hole in the floor to to live in the basement until I have time to tack it to the joists and connect it to a breaker.

The rest of my cabinets are at my Mom's so I won't be able to hang any more today. But I'll mark the wall where the other two will be hung. Then I'll start stuccoing the walls and fixing the 3 big holes in the ceiling.

I hope to get all of this done today.

Gynastics!

She rocked gymnastics tonight! They did a lot of stretching and she was way more limber than all the other kids. She also followed instructions WAY better than everyone else. She jumped just a little bit on the floor tramp, I don't think she liked it.

THEN

I'm messing with my camera. I look up. My child is STANDING ON HER HEAD. Then she sort of flips forward. I'm thinking - wow!- world record! Broken neck 20 minutes into first class. But nope, she just knocked her headband sideways. I've asked her not to do that anymore. She was mimicking the much older girls across the room!

She could already so all the bends, splits, rolls and jumps. She didn't play on the bars a lot and I'm not sure why. She loves pulling up and swinging on stuff (me). She also did very well on the balance bar and wasn't scared at all. I will see if the gymnastics thing continues - if so I'll get her a balance beam for the playroom (and put it on the floor).

One thing I noticed that she did, that the other kids didn't do at all, was constantly point her toes. She also walks and prances on them. I don't know if I've just not noticed this because she's wearing shoes or if she was mimicking the floor routine girls.

I am anxious to see what she does next week :) She just wants to wear a pink sparkle headband!