Check out this desk: a reveal

Well it's about time.

I know I've showed you Rad's room, and Rhett's big boy dresser/nightstand, but really other than that it has been pretty darn quite on the blog for almost a YEAR.

Crazy.

I know I haven't shown you much of our new house in the past 7 months we've been living here.

Mostly that's because we haven't done much to it in terms of decorating other than installing all new flooring through the house and painting pretty much everything.

Our goal this year is to be debt free (minus the house and a little left on our student loans) by December  (more on the later) so that means my decorating budget is almost non-existant.

Which for the most part I'm OK with. We've done Rad's room, Rhett's room is almost done, the playroom is also almost done as is the laundry room, downstairs bathroom and upstairs kids bathroom.

So watch over the next few weeks/months for some sweet room reveals. :)

Anyway, that's my apologie/explanation. If you read my post yesterday you'll know I'm still struggling with being a mom of 2 little boys; but we're making it a priority to give me some time to do projects like this more often. So stay tunned. :)

And now here's a reveal of a desk that is going into the shop.

Since it's so hot here in AZ working in the garage is pretty much what I think working in hell would be like, so I really wanted to find a piece that I could use milk paint on so that I could refinish inside. 

The plus to having almost no furniture and hardwood floors is that you can just throw a drop cloth down just about anywhere and get your paint on.

Plus any little splatters of milk paint cleaned up super easy with a damp cloth and a little dish soap if the paint dried before I got to it. 

So I wanted it to have a little Anthropologie look to it. 

Chippy, but in a urban kind of way. 

Like a old brick wall in NYC would look. 

Make sense?

Anyway, this lady has a unique shape and I'm happy with how she turned out. 

Oh! And here's the before!

Refinished in General Finishes Antique White. Sealed with 2 coats of wax.

This piece is SOLD.

if the Little Mermaid were a stay-at-home-mom

Today I felt like Ariel from the Little Mermaid. Minus the red hair, tiny waist and sea shell bikini.

But otherwise just like her.

Ariel had a good life. She was a princess, she had a loving father, lobster and fish.

Her hair looks awesome in the water. (Mine looks something like a wet sheep dog.)

But she wanted something different. Something more.

Durning the wisdom of my 16th year I watched this movie while I was babysitting a little girl and I thought '"Man, this Ariel is a horrible example! Why is she complaining when she has so much! What an immature teenager." (The irony in thinking that last sentence at 16 years old still gets me.)

But now that I'm a little older (a hopefully mature) and sometimes i just want to tell Ariel, "Yeah girl, Itotally get what you're singing about!

I don't think Ariel wanted specifically more, I think she wanted something different. A change from everyday life. And can we really fault her for that? Don't we all want that sometimes?

Anyway, yesterday was one of those days.

A day that was just HARD. And exhausting. And frustrating. And what did I do that was so hard, exhausting and frustrating? I played a million rounds of red light/green light, my awesome lunch of leftover popcorn and apple slices was interrupted by a 3 year old who took off his own poopy diaper, and my 4 month old really loved me; to the point of not being happy unless he was held.

I kept telling myself i should just count my blessings.

I have 2 great boys. A loving husband. Who has a great job. We have a home. We're healthy.

And I think really how much more could I want?

But like Ariel sang about, somedays I want more. Or something different.

We only have one car right now, so getting out of the house (other than a daily walk) isn't an everyday thing.

And so sometimes I feel so TRAPPED.

I know this is just a phase of our lives. I know my boys will grow up so fast and I'll yearn for these days again. But for right now, sometimes I feel like I might go crazy if I don't have SOME change.

And I think Ariel would totally understand that.

So here is my version of what she would sing if she were a SAHM.

via

(To the tune of Part of Your World")

Look at my life

Isn't it neat?

Wouldn't you think happiness' complete?

Wouldn't you think I'm the girl

The girl who has everything?

Look at this home

Memories untold

How many wonders can one little house hold?

Looking around here you think

Sure, she's got everything.

I've got little boys and dino toys aplenty

I've got fruit snacks and kisses galore

You want dirty diapers?

I've got twenty!

But who cares?

No big deal

I want more

I wanna be where other people are

I wanna hear, wanna hear them talkin'

Using those, those - what do you call 'em?

Oh - adjectives!

Being a mom, you don't get too far

Someone needs you all the time 

Going to Target alone - what's that called again?

Oh, heaven. 

Up where adults walk, up where they run

 Up where they don't pick up toys all day long

Wanderin' free - wish I could be

Part of that world

What would I give to sleep through the night?

What would I pay not to share my drink?

Bet'cha our toddlers don't understand

That they don't reprimand their mother's

Bright young women, tired of given'

 Their space up on the couch!

And ready to know what my kid is thinking

Ask 'em my questions and get some answers

Why can't they let me pee- what's the word?

Alone?

When's it my turn?

Wouldn't I love- love to explore that world out my door?

Out of the house

A date with my spouse (no puke on my blouse)

Part of that world

Thanks Ariel. And all you SAHM's or dad's or grandparents or nannies etc who get this. :) 

bring me some paint

Because I'm ready to get back in the painting saddle. 

Watch for the reveal at the end of this week. 

I'm thinking Friday is a good day for one. :)

on nose hair, new cars and the day after vacation

We spent most of last week in Tucson for a family retreat for Jake's work.

Any place that is 15 degrees cooler than where we currently are is vacation to me. 

(It's a little sad that 90 degrees is a vacation from 105 degrees. Thanks AZ.)

I snapped this picture one morning.

Such a sweet moment right?

Here's the caption, provided by Rhett.

"Dad, the hair on your head is like the hair in your nose!"

Hahahaha oh gosh I love him. :)

On Father's Day he ran into our room yelling "Happy Father's day Dad! You're getting a new CAR!"

Yeah....a new car wasn't part of Jake's father's day, but he was happy with his finger painting covered in super hero stickers. 

So today we're taking it slow and recovering from all the vacation-ing.

Needing a vacation from your vacation is a good thing right? :)

Keepin' it short and sassy

Since I'm not a fan of losing massive amounts of hair each day from blow drying, straightening, yada yada, (and let's face it, cleaning hair off the bathroom floor is no bueno) I got a new "do" over the weekend.

Short and sassy!

Here was my hair before (this was taken on Mother's Day).

My hair is super thick, so I love it long and curly, but it's a butt load of work and time commitment to get it under control. So chopping it off seemed like the way to go. 

My hair hasn't been this short in a LONG time. Pretty much not since I was 12 and the stylist tripped while finishing up with a trim and cut a huge chunk out of the back. True story. You think being 12 in general is traumatizing? Trying being forced to get a page boy hair cut. 

So now I'm getting used to using a lot less shampoo and blow drying it takes 3 minutes. 

What am I going to do with all that extra time?!

Maybe this...:)

how Rad got his name

This story actually starts almost 3 1/2 years ago when we found out that we were pregnant with a little boy, Rhett.

Jake and I had a great list of girls names before we found out the Rhett was a boy, but we had no boys names that we could agree on. We made lists, scratched the names off, added new ones, scratched those off and so on.

We finally agreed on Rhett, Jake's best friend's name, and the name of one of my favorite characters Rhett Butler and we love it.

The problem was that that was the ONLY boy name we could agree on, so when we found out that we were having another boy we were stumped at what to name him.

After repeating the same cycle with the lists and scratching names off we decided to narrow the search by deciding to give him a R name like his brother.

One day I asked Jake what he thought of the name Rad. When I was in college I became friends with a guy named Rad and to this day we are very close. Don't you love those relationships that survie no matter how much time lapses between seeing each other? He's a great guy and I've always talked very highly of him to Jake so we both agreed that that was the name that felt right to us.

PS As a funny side note, when Rad and I were in college, we joked that I should name a kid Rad to honor him. (So humble right? :)) It was a joke, but all those years later we now have a kid named Rad. Go figure. :)

So now we have our little fellas, Rhett and Rad. Rhett isn't a common name, so we're used to having to say it twice, spelling it out and occasionally correctting people that "no, we didn't name our son Rat."

And now with Rad meeting new people is a bit of an ordeal. For starters, we typically have to spell his name for folks as everyone thinks they heard us say "Brad" or "Chad" or even "Greg" because there's simply no way we actually said "Rad" (me: "no B, just R-A-D.. Rad"). Once the actual name is finally established, there are 2 typical responses from the general public which follow:

"Whoa, that's Rad!" or "Ha! Are you guys surfers?!"

Yes. We are professional surfers living in a desert known as Arizona.

So regardless of how many times we have to explain ourselves we love the name and we can't imagine him (or Rhett) being named anything else. :)

PS: Just for fun, this is an excerpt from Urban Dictionary: "RAD - really cool, but in a more subtle way. As opposed to extreme or awesome. One of the highest compliments you can give someone. Being rad is like being cool without having to work for it. It's like a natural coolness."

PPS: The original, original Rad was my friends grandfather named Rad Cherry who lived in Kentucky and made moonshine. Here's a picture of him.