It's real life - through a child's eyes

 

 

 

 

Thanks Jessica for hosting this again.  I always enjoy looking at everyone's posts.  This week theme is, "through a child's eyes.  Trevor does a good job with the camera.  Jayden had to have a little help.  She took this picture of Trevor with me mostly holding the camera and pushing her finger on the shutter, trying to keep her from pushing all the other buttons.

Trevor took a lot of pictures! 

 

I decided to do a scrapbook page.  I've been doing a lot of digiscrapping lately.  I don't think much commentary is necessary for his pictures as most of them are very self explanatory.  He was most interested in taking pictures through every window he could get to.  He loves to look out the windows every chance he gets.   He took 47 pictures and I think he did a darn good job for being only 3 1/2!

He really enjoyed taking pictures, I'll have to let him do it more often.  I let him use my point and shoot.  He knows he can't touch my rebel! 

You should be able to click the page to see the full size.  I may do some text path journaling around the square frame if I can figure out how.

It's Real Life: STORE IT: KITCHEN

  

     I told myself next time Jessica had a It's Real Life I would play.  Much to my chagrin it was the kitchen.  My kitchen is a bit of a mess, so here it is!  The photos are of course not staged and are not photoshopped, except for a little bit of cropping and exposure correction in a few.

 

I don't use "tupperware" I use gladware.  It's so much cheaper and stacks so nicely.  Why is it that the containers always disappear (or is it the lids reproduce?)  The lower shelf has my recipe binder for recipes that I've printed.  There's also the cookbook "Deceptively Delicious"  I use to try and sneak veggies into everything.  Most times Trevor isn't fooled.

Stainless steal container that holds all my cooking utensils, I love bamboo spoons.

2 baby bottle drying racks that hold sippy's and other misc. plastic things while they drip dry, they never get dry in the dishwasher.

This is pretty much the extent of cleaning supplies I use.  I guess I do use dishwasher detergent.  Very vinegar spray with a little tea tree oil.  A bottle of foaming dish soap.  I just keep refilling it with very diluted dishsoap.  Perfect for a little squirt when cleaning pots and pans, everything else goes in the dishwasher.  I don't imagine it would work as good for washing a sink of dishes

A very poorly used space, this is where appliances such as my food processor, blender, and who knows what else gets piled up, there's an identical cabinet below crammed to the brim.  In this cabinet is also my magic bullet which I love and use all the time.

The green and white thing my vidalia chop wizard which I think is one of the best inventions ever.  I gave it to everyone for Christmas last year.

This is where we "wee-cycle".  It's a really grimy landing on our basement stairs.  Muddy dogs stained the brick and it never comes clean.  Oh and that nice hole in the wall is where Cheyenne (our former Great Dane) decided to snack on drywall.  Repeatedly!

This is my compost bin, I just started composting in the fall so we'll see how it goes.

 

My favorite part of the kitchen and probably the only thing that will remain when when we remodel in a few years.  I love my pantry, it's one of the things that I fell in love with when we looked at this house.

My laptop is my cookbook!  I use Mastercook software after trying about 5 different  programs, I think this one is the best.  I have a stepstool I put my laptop on though so if there is a spill it doesn't land on my keyboard.

And that about does it.

Real Life: How I roll

My friend Jessica is back from maternity leave so it's time for another "It's real life" post.  The assignment this week is to take pictures of my wheels.  My car is a '98 Nissan Sentra.  It's got ALOT of miles on it, it's on it's second transmission and second engine.  It's a really pretty midnight purple.  Best part of all it's paid for!

 

 

Don't you love the big huge dent?  I have NO idea where that one came from.

 

Jayden and Trevor's car seats.  If you enlarge the picture you'll see I still have an ice scrapper on the floor.  There's a blanket we use for picnics and such.  The black and white polka dot bag is one of my bags I use for shopping.  I got 4 of them from the vendor expo at my business meeting in Phoenix.  They are huge and holds lots of stuff.  I use those along with a few Walmart and target totes.  I use them all the time.  The only place I don't use them is at Target because I like their bags for my diaper pail.  They're big and super strong.

 

Oh look there's that button that's been missing for a few months!  And is that a peanut?  There's tons more under the seat and on the floor.

 

One of my many recycling containers at work.  We recycle EVERYTHING!  We print on both sides of the paper and recycle it when we're done.  We recycle the individual boxes the lenses come in and also the plastic bags the individual frames come in.  I drive by several different drop of sites on my way home from work so it's easy to recycle.  Inside the container is recycled plastic bags I need to drop off next time I got to the store.   There's also my coffee cup.  I must have coffee every day to function.  I have to race to the store to start the coffee before the Dr does.  I can't drink his "coffee syrup"  it's literally that thick.   Oh and a few Mardi Gras bead hanging from my rearview mirror.  They've been there so long they've faded.

 

Last but not least is my trunk.  There's a basket of clothes that I need to take for consignment.  I haven't consigned clothes in forever but I've lost some weight so I've got a bunch of fairly new clothes that are too big.  There's a baby carrier something like this but black and blue.  Tool kit, another blanket, tray for the stroller, hammer, and mysterious crap on the carpet.  Oh look there's another ice scraper.  If I would have taken this picture a week ago there would have also been a box with sale fliers from my last job that I meant to drop off  over 6 months ago from my last job!  I don't use my trunk much because it is very dangerous.  It about killed me once when the mechanism that keeps it open failed and fell shut on me and the latch hit me in the back of the head.  We have a stick in there we use to prop it open.

And there you have it, my dirty car!

Real Life #4

This week is Momentous Occasions. Thanks Jessica for the trip down memory lane. Our wedding day was definately the most Momentous Occasion of all. We were married October 16, 2004. It was a really chilly, windy day but it was perfect! Looking at these pictures makes me remember like it was yesterday. I'd go into more detail but it's past my bedtime. Maybe one of these days I'll have to write about it.

Be sure to stop back by in a few days. I'll try to post about a few other Momentous Occasions such as the births of my babies and Tae Kwon Do World Championships.

It's Real Life #3

So this weeks assignment is "where the magic happens" And if I were a magician I would magically transform our bedroom into a much larger, serene oasis. At this moment it couldn't be farther from that.

Lucky for me today is laundry day and I had already pulled the sheets off the bed. Surprisingly the bare mattress is actually prettier than what is actually normally on my bed. I really want new stuff but like everything else the bedroom decor has pretty much been forgotten about. My usual sheets are a lovely cream, navy and hunter green stripe. Travis' pillow cases match, mine are a dusty blue, they coordinate perfectly I assure you. *grin* The bed is rarely made, okay, never made. For covers we have uber warm, huge, fuzzy fleece blanket adorned with a wolf that I snuggle under in the winter. For warmer weather we have a lovely tattered and torn "quilt" It's one of those cheaply mass-produced horrors that I've had for ohhhh maybe 10 years. It's white with lots of blue, some pink and yellow and a tiny bit of red. That red ties in perfectly with my "beautiful" red walls.

The red walls where the first color paint we threw up when we bought our house. The red was a rebellion against the white rental walls I'd always had. I wanted COLOR and this red was just the ticket. Too bad we actually did "throw" it up because we did a pretty bad job painting. We never painted out the trim and it REALLY needs it. I'm sure the trim was at one time white. Now it's more of a yellowish cream. There's chips and gouges and red brush marks from where we got sloppy thinking we were just going to paint the trim white anyway. So how do we explain the brush strokes on the white of the ceiling? Ummmmm no comment.

So here is the tiny closet used by Travis mentioned in last weeks post. This door is as wide as the closet actually is. And that door is not even as wide as a normal door! The closet is deeper than it is wide.

Don't you just love my dresser! I want a nice antique type dresser someday, in the meantime this somewhat qualifies as a dresser. Travis has a matching one on his side of the bed. On top there's the lamp that I made when I was about 20, teddy bear given to me by Travis, phone book, roll of toilet paper, and a nursing pad!?! I've been done nursing for more than 2 months now! There's also lotion, I most nights put lotion on my feet and hands when I climb into bed. Or for a back rub once in awhile. The massager on the other side was part of Trav's Christmas present. I gave him that and some massage oil to throw him off, his real present was a massage at the spa. The massager is good for the back but if used on the shoulders you feel like your rattling your brains! There's also a binkie for those mornings I bring Jayden into bed with me so that maybe I can get a few extra minutes of sleep. She's almost kicked the binkie habit. Oh and the baby monitor we use to be able to hear Jayden over...
...the fan that we have to have running in order to sleep at night.

We jacked up our bed so that I could use underneath as storage. Primarily stored under there are books that I don't have time to read. Favorite authors: Stephen King, Danielle Steele, VC Andrews.

Oh look here's a bunch of decorating books. I was a big fan of these when I dreamed of owning a home and daydreamed often of how fabulously decorated it would be. Hmmmmm now I own my home and it's been many years since I've opened one of these books!

Somehow I doubt my mini-blind window treatment with the caution tag still attached would be a feature in one of those books!

It's real life #2

Here is "It's Real Life" assignment #2. So here is my real life in all it's glory.

Curb Appeal - I love my house. There's not a bigger yard in about a 8 block radius. No lie, I checked it out on our county treasurer maps. Problem is it completely lacks curb appeal. See that window on the 2nd floor? Yes, it's got plywood covering it. Not because the window is broken but because that is Trevor's room and the risk taker he is we were afraid somehow he'd break it and fall out. The window ledge is low to the floor and it wouldn't even take any climbing for him to be in serious trouble. So the plywood was Trav's solution. Ya know, we hardly ever go out front so I never really thought about what it looked like from the outside. Pretty ghetto I know. Don't mind the rickety stairs, they need to be replaced. Nor the copious amounts of weeds sprouting around the house. They took over the flowers that I planted two summers ago


Junk drawer - Pretty much your average junk drawer. Several kinds of tape, a flash light, pliers, fly traps, (we had nats last summer from some fruit gone bad) pink streamers from Jayden's birthday party I never got around to hanging. Don't forget the burnt out night light bulb, 'cause you never know when something like that might come in handy!


My favorite Jewelry - Well this one is a little staged. I tried to take a self portrait with my necklace while it was around my neck as it was at the moment but my stupid camera was doing a bad job at taking a decent picture. The locket was a Christmas gift from Travis. Don't ask to see the picture in it; because I've been to lazy to figure out how to print such a tiny picture. Oh wait I don't really print pictures at all. And of course my wedding ring. I ~heart~ my wedding set.

From whence I blog - You can see the last weeks post to see my office. Not much has changed, just a little bit of junk has been moved around. Some has been removed, only to be replaced. And quite a lot has been added I'm sure. It's too depressing to take another picture.

My Best Feature - I think it's got to be my eyes. Specifically, my eye color. Please oh please do not click the picture. I didn't primp of course for this one and I had no makeup on. Not that I wear much but ack! I looked at this one close up and it was scary!