New beginnings

Well it's Day 1 of my new blog. An online diary it says...hmm. I've started about a dozen diaries in my life and have never gotten beyond the first week. Maybe this will be different because it's online and I am usually online daily anyway. Wish me luck. :)

I have a confession to make... I'm a joiner. I'm one of those people that always raises their hand if they need a volunteer to do something. It drives my husband crazy. I guess I figure if you want it done right you might as well do it yourself. This compulsion makes me very busy at times. I think another reason that I volunteer for things is that I thrive on the at-a-boys that I get for a job well done. That's why I love to decorate cakes and plan parties etc... I love to hear people tell me what a good job I've done. I should say that I "need" to hear that. I've been told that since I'm the daughter of an alcoholic that I have the need to please people. I suppose that's true, but I also think it boosts my self-esteem. And let's face it, who couldn't use a boost every now and again.

Right now I am trying to decorate my daughter's new room. My daughter just turned 4 on Aug. 9th. She has the most beautiful auburn hair, she talks non-stop, and is very bright. I'm sure at some point I will post a picture of the kids. I say that I am trying to decorate her new room because the room is currently in chaos! You see, the room was the guest room and also where I stored some of my many crafts. Not to mention that the closet was storage for my husbands hundreds of cassettes that he's had since college and I don't even think we have a cassette player any more. Go figure. We also had boxes of books and stuff from college and beyond. We have gone through the closet and cleared a lot of it out. That was a good first step. But now my sewing table is covered in stacks of books. My husband wants to keep some of them and he wants me to sell a bunch of them online. I don't have any idea how to start to do that. Do I just box up the books and move them out of the room so that we can progress with the decorating? I bought and installed a drop rod in her closet and have placed her dresses down where she can reach them. For her birthday family members bought her a new quilt for her daybed, a matching lamp and I bought matching curtains. The quilt has pink, purple and electric green polka-dots on a field of white with a double border of purple and blue. Sewn onto some of the polka-dots are big pom poms in matching colors. The curtains have the pom poms too and my daughter loves it. I bought it from Target and you can check it online at http://www.target.com/ and it's called preppy girl I think. I also bought her a set of electric green sheets that are really cool. The next step is to pack up the books and move them out I guess. Then I need to pack up the contents of the craft cupboard that's in there so that we can move it. You see, I'm moving into my daughter's old room (the nursery) and I get my own craft room! I'm so excited. I have ideas of how I want to decorate in there too, but I'm trying to focus on getting her out of there and into her new room first. Then I need to take pictures of her convertible crib and changing table/dresser to sell on Craigslist. It's all solid oak and I'm hoping I can sell them for at least $300. In the mean time I think a lot of my daughter's clothes can go into the closet and this little chest of drawers that is already in the room. The chest currently has a bunch of odds and ends in it that I also need to go through and either pitch them or find new homes for them. That will be fun. NOT! I think the chest can hold her things that have to be folded. Once we sell the nursery furniture we will start looking for a decent dresser for her.

I'm trying to decide what color or colors to paint her room. Ideas so far are: pink with purple polka-dots in various sizes, pink on the top and purple on the bottom with a butterfly painted on the border in reverse colors (purple wing painted on the pink side and pink wing painted on the purple side), just pink or just light green. Any opinions or other cool ideas welcome here. I need to take the time to scour painting idea books and do something really cool in there. I also want to paint the daybed white. It's currently stained a maple brown color. That way it would be fresh and "new" for her. I'd also like to get her a bench type toy chest that I can make a cushion for that she can sit on and use as a place to house her toys. That may be a Christmas thing.

I am the chairperson for the teacher take-out for the PTA. Once a month I print out a menu and letter and order form for the teachers to order lunch out. Then I pick up the money and orders and create a spead sheet to take to the restaurant the day before the take-out lunch is scheduled. This is my first month and I got the letters, menus and order forms to the teachers on time last Wed. Now I need to pick them up tomorrow when I walk my son to school. My son just started first grade. He's terrific. He is very bright and is being tested for the gifted and talented program in a couple weeks. He also has a natural talent in sports and loves to draw. He's on a soccer team and has been playing soccer since he was 3. We've been told he could be on a select or academy team, but who has the money for that? We certainly don't. It's $900/yr. Versus $100/yr to play on the city league.

Besides being on the PTA in various other capacities I am a co-room mom in my son's class which I'm sure will be fun.

I am in charge of the annual fund raiser for the children's choirs at my church. Fortunately the fund raiser is a Dessert Auction. The chocolate cheesecake I made and donated to last year's event drew a bid of $100! I'm very proud of that fact. Last year's event was rather chaotic and confusing so I hope to fix that for this year. I'm running into some road blocks of "it's always been done this way, why do we need to change it". I don't want to step on anyone's toes at the church since we've only been members there for about 18 mos. But I want the event to be a BIG success. I guess I can only do what I can do huh? I'm sure I'll blog more about the auction at a later date. I've got a meeting scheduled with the children's choir director on Wed.

Today I started planning our outdoor display for Halloween. My husband often thinks I'm crazy with things and it would be easy for me to go overboard with stuff like this and spend money we don't have. But I think I've come up with inexpensive ideas of how we can decorate the outside. I'm going to run string from a tent stake in the ground to the corner of the entryway to the tree in the center of the yard about 20 feet away back to the ground on another tent stake. Then I will tie two more strings to the top string equal distance apart and down to two more tent stakes. This will give me a start so that I can create a web. In front of the web I'm going to place a "trash bag tarantula" that is an idea from http://www.familyfun.com/. Then we'll add other spiders and bats to the web to make it cool. Then we'll run Christmas lights up into the tree to light up the yard so that people can see the stuff out there. In the tree we will also have home made ghosts floating in the breeze. At the door we will hang some store bought web and add some additional plastic spiders. Then I will take another black trash bag and cover the door and made a big BOO! out of white paper to attach there. We will change out the normal outside light to something eerie like green or purple. Then once inside the treat bowl will rest on a small table just inside the door. The pumpkins will sit to the right of the door on the opposite side from the big spider web. It should be cool. I will be sure to post a picture once it's up. I hope to put it up the first part of October.

Speaking of the first part of October... I will be turning the big 4-0! I've never had an adult celebration of my birthday. Funny that I'm a party planner, but have never celebrated my own birthday. But my husband said that he would do something to celebrate the big event, but I know he hasn't done anything thus far. Figures. Men. I told him he should ask my two best friends for help. Maybe I will remind him.

Beyond that I'm the team mom for soccer and ordered uniforms and made the snack schedule and did the team roster etc. I will plan the end of season party for the end of October. The beginning of November is my son's birthday and he will be 7. He's very excited and wants a soccer themed birthday party this year. Way too easy, but that is what he wants. We'll see if it stays that. I usually go overboard with my kids' parties, but we always have them at home because that's where I always had mine when I was growing up. None of this going to a bounce house place or anything.

I'm not sure anyone will read this whole post as it is very long. I guess I should have made smaller posts about different subjects. I guess it's a matter of trial an error with this blog stuff huh?

Time to get the kids in bed and start another week.