Boston

April 15, 2013. Patriot Day in Boston also known as Marathon Monday. It'll never be the same. Ever. 

Whether it was domestic or foreign, it was an act of terror.

2 bombs, 3 dead and 100+ injured, as this is written  No words that I have come close to how everyone feels. 

It's rocked everyone to the core. Not to sound flippant or sarcastic, but it's cut so deep that the NY Yankee's have shown amazing support for Boston- maybe only baseball fans would know how outside the realm of possible that really is.

picture via @Yankees/Twitter

At first, inevitably, you hear the "there's no hope for the human race" comments. But as the day went on the cream started to rise. Runners left the race to go right to the hospital to donate blood. Strangers offering racers and family members the use of their cell phones, chargers, blankets, etc. We're resilient. We bounce.

I'm naive. I'm aware of it and choose to live with my glass half full (most of the time). I believe in the good in most people and how we are willing to help each other in a crisis. The stories that are coming out of Boston, and now the reaction of others around the country, did not disappoint my inner Pollyanna.

My prayers are going out to Boston and following each of the runners and family members as they make their ways home.

xoxo

Lissa

Myla Milestone

 Our sweet, tiny baby girl

Is now this sweet 2 year old, not so much of a baby, girl. 

Her mommy & daddy threw her a little party. Friends, "Aunties" galore, cousins & grandparents were there to celebrate. They made the brilliant decision to have the party at a local pizza place. Big enough for everyone, stuff to keep the kidos occupied, and NO CLEANUP. Perfect!

Once again, Danee's friend Katie made the cake. 

All the cousins were so helpful eating it

There were snap, crackle & pop treats for those who didn't want toddler mangled cake.

The ladybug treats were so cute!

The girl started strong, putting so much enthusiasm into opening her gifts...but of course she wanted to play. After all, she's 2 and her attention span is about what you'd expect. 

We gave her an outfit, a bikini for pool time this summer, some Princess sunglasses & a 2 dollar bill in honor of her #2 birthday. And then for the personal, Nana made gift I made her a book to save her artwork AKA "Myla's Masterpieces". Adam found the idea in, of all places, a Willie Nelson autobiography he was reading. This year I've decided that I'm going to write a letter for the girls on their birthdays. I wish so much that I had something like that from my grandma.

This year's letter

A bike!

Best reaction of the day- she loved the "MOUSE"

Grace brings the comic relief to our lives

Happy birthday Myla Marie! Can't wait to see all the fun you have this year.

xoxo

Lissa

Easter and one last taste of snow

 2013 will go down as one of the years that Old Man Winter just wouldn't die. I know it's happened before, those late season snows- or was it EARLY season? I also know I'm ready for some flowers, warm weather, sitting outside for drinks and dinner... get the picture?
I had offered to fill in at work on Sunday the 24th for the girls that were on Spring Break. I agree, Stupid. And as the busy week moved on and Sunday got closer I started to dread it. I did hear that it might snow, but I didn't really pay too much attention until Friday. Then the chatter started... "4 inches, 6 inches, we might get 10 inches" Seriously??! WTH?
 My boss text me on Saturday. She was making the call to close and my response was, while thankful, I really couldn't wish for snow.
But snow it did!

We ended up with just under 10"

These had to be bought to bring some spring in

This crazy, last hurrah of winter was short lived though. I think my flowers did the trick! A week later, we've got a BEAUTIFUL Easter Sunday on our hands.

I didn't manage to catch them before the crazy hair portion of the day

Even though it wasn't a long day together it was so good for me. I think relief is the closest I can come to describing how I feel, seeing them all when it's been a while.

I'm hoping that recharge helps get me through the next couple of weeks.

Happy Spring!

xoxo

Lissa

DIY- laundry soap

 Pinterest is overflowing with "recipes for laundry detergent, dishwasher detergent, make your own dryer sheets, all with the promise that you'll save loads of money. Bad pun, but yes, intended. Not sure what exactly it was that made me decide to try one of them. Maybe it's just the fun of starting a new project to make Adam crazy. I do have a tendency of starting things and then losing interest in them. Whatever it was I made a list based on a couple different that I had "pinned" and hit the laundry isle.

• One four pound 12 ounce box of borax
• One four pound box Arm & Hammer baking soda
• One box Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda
• Four pounds of Oxi Clean {1 small/ 1 large}
• 3 bars of soap- most recipes called for Fels-Neptha I used a brand who's fragrance is lovely and tropical

Adam got me a 5 gallon bucket for mixing and I poured all the ingredients in, grated the bars of soap then turned it back over to Adam who put on the lid and shook it all up for me. Worked great!

When putting all the items in the basket I was sure it was going to cost more than this..

You supposedly use 2 to 3 tablespoons per load, so this may last a while! I'll let you know.

xoxo

Lissa

Snow Daze aka CoMo Snow 2013

Just when I thought we were out of the winter woods it caught up with us. Big time. Just like Snowpocalypse and SnOMGeddon of 2011, schools and businesses shut down, the State of Missouri issued a state of emergency as well and a "do not travel advisory". Alright, I'm going to admit I thought we'd get a few inches and it would all prove to be a lot of hype. I mean seriously, could we get another "shut the town down" storm just 2 years later. I just didn't see it in the cards. Boy was I wrong. Not only did we get one big storm we got two, in a week.

I got up February 21st, got ready for work and made my way in. It was BARELY snowing at my house. It's a 7 or 8 mile trip depending how you go and most days takes me 15 or 20 minutes. By the time I got a little over half way there it was snowing. Hard. When I passed my first fender- bender I started to think maybe I should have just stayed home.

The two staff members that don't live in Columbia were told to just stay home, turns out it was a good call. After being there about an hour and a half it was time to get out while the getting was good. I emailed Adam and told him he should think about putting his stuff together and head home too. Turns out, the gettin' wasn't all that good, but I had a much easier time than some.

 My sensitivity to snow has changed drastically over the last few years, and amounts that used to seem ridiculous to cancel anything for now makes me wish people would just stay home. Mostly because they're just plain stupid about it around here. My Twitter and Facebook feeds were full of people who took 4 hours to get home, or got stuck and left their cars on the sides of the roads or even highways. It was MAYHEM. There actually was a reason it got so bad so fast, we had a weather anomaly. Thunder-snow. Sounds really cool, right?  Well just like a rain thunderstorm is fast and intense. Lots of precip in a very short amount of time. LOTS.

This lovely box was on my porch when I made it home. Perfect for a snow day!

Giant fluffy snow flakes came fast and hard

Annie is about as much of a fan of snow as I am. 

Pretty in pink. 

I do have a couple of friends that plow in the winter so I had text one, but his crew was on the other side of town and booked solid. So when a break in the heavy snow came we bundled up and headed out. 

This was taken at 2:04. Remember there was no snow at all a little over 6 hours earlier

After an hour and 1/2 it looked a lot better. 

A fun snowstorm story~  Our really cool neighbors are pregnant and due any day. While we're shoveling we talked about how we should probably go do some of their drive way too. What if she went into labor? It was going to be a job to get to the hospital. I just kept thinking about Courtney's sister in law who had to be rescued by the National Guard in 2011 when she went into labor.... kinda scary. So in we go to take a break, eat, warm up and, of course, catch up on some social media. And what do I see? Pictures of a brand new baby that had been born that morning! Whew! That baby knew what was coming a decided not to wait. At least that's what I think. :o)

Fast forward a few days and the buzz about another storm headed our way, and we were still digging out from the week before. If I was skeptical about round 1 I was double that for round 2. But for the 2nd time I was so wrong.

A text first thing in the morning said "stay home". Yay! It felt the same as when I was little and got to have a snow day. Then to make the day better I heard a plow. It was our friend Jerry, he was headed to a job and came by to rescue us. It's a wonderful thing to have friends that'll go out of their way to nice things for you.

Jerry to the rescue

When I realized how heavy and wet this snow was compared to a week before I was even more grateful. We didn't have to shovel!

Super heavy wet snow.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say I think we're done with snow for the winter. I hope.

xoxo

Lissa

Chairs for my office

About a year ago I found these chairs in the basement at work. I fell in love with them. I told my boss I wanted to buy them and she said, "You can have them!"  The plan has been to re-upholster them, but I did a little research- they are Good Form Furniture Co- so I didn't want to alter them that much myself. So plan B- just cover them.

Bad pics- sorry

I love the aluminum frame.
Our little photo bomber is back too.

These are super sturdy, but the padding is rock hard and they wouldn't really come clean. I added a layer of padding before the fabric and the upholstery is held on with clips so I (Adam) just had to remove those and reused them.

I'm not going to lie, I fought with this one. I get frustrated easily, and walked away to let it sit more than a few times. But I'm stuck at home again today with a snow day, so I had no excuse not to get it done. 

I'm pretty happy with the how it turned out. Now to get the other one finished! 

xoxo

Lissa

A project I LOVE!

I'm so excited about what's been going on in our house over the last week or so. After talking about it for a long time, we bit the bullet and picked out flooring. We'd said all along that we wanted to go light with some dark streaks in it to give it some character. Of course it's never as easy as that and, wow, once we started looking the darker woods were gorgeous. But logic prevailed, and for several reasons we stuck with the original plan.

Neither one was our final choice

We've shampooed the carpet at least once a year since we moved in, but between dogs and grand babies there were some spots that kept coming back. Yucky and embarrassing both.

Before

This was a HUGE source of stress but couldn't be avoided. The living room crammed into the kitchen and dining area. 

We had to do all the "demo" on Sunday since there would be no time at all during the week.

Annie is a blur because she was a nervous mess. She ran and back and forth like a tennis ball at Wimbledon

The carpet and pad portion of the program went so fast. Fast as in about a 1/2 hour!

Not so the tile though. OH EM GEE! What a stinkin mess. Thankfully it was a really nice day so we could open the front door.

Clouds of dust

It was kinda fun smashing the tile out, but we did have to be pretty careful. Tile EXPLODES when you smash it, and since we didn't want to add "Replace drywall & paint" to the to do list, we went the slow and steady route. I love this picture for a few reasons.  1. I didn't even put shoes on. What a dummy. I had shards in my slippers and it's just like breaking a plate- the pieces are really sharp. 2. Yep, I'm wearing safety goggles. Hot, right?! But again,it just explodes, so necessary. 3. This makes it look like I did TONS all by myself. Um, no. I'm pretty sure the ratio was like 3 to 1, maybe even 4 to 1. And even then my hands hurt like crazy. Gripping a baby sledge hammer and a heavy chisel made them pretty sore. Yes, I'm a wuss.

So pathetic. But at least she found a spot out of the way where she could see us. We kept joking that she was plotting revenge of some sort.

This is how our week went by. Our Tommy Bahama beach chairs on a concrete slab. This part didn't bother me in the least.

The flooring was delivered on Wednesday. It needed to acclimate to the house for a few days before installation. She is just the best little photo bomber ever, isn't she?? 

Saturday 8am couldn't get here soon enough. I was so excited to hear the installers pull into the drive way. They did prepare me for the possibility that they wouldn't get done in one day, mostly because each job is different, and rooms are not always square, etc. Lucky for us he said everything was great in that department, even the coat closet. Makes me feel good about the way our house was built!

A relatively thin pad with a reflective backing went down first. Moisture barrier and some insulation too. 

I really tried to stay upstairs and out of the way. But I had to come down for coffee a "couple" times. The progress in this picture took me by surprise. This was taken at 12:40 pm when they stopped to get something to eat. 

I can't even tell you how happy I am with the results. Sure, we could have done the install ourselves. But there's a lot to be said for knowing what you're doing. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend these guys to others, and I asked for some cards to take to work or give out myself. 

Everything was all cleaned up when they finished. Not even any sawdust on the porch. They left the box of left over wood on the floor at our request but didn't want to. He wanted to wrap it and put it away for us. 

Do you love it too?

xoxo

Lissa