I bought a set of acrylic paints to use with the boys’ Pinewood Derby cars last week. The next day, I bought some canvas panels to paint, and now I’m all happy because I’m painting. Yay me!

Tonight, I brought out the paints and my work in progress, and began painting. Soon after, Cody got his paints out, his easel, and his canvas and he started painting. Then Evan and Dylan joined in. We had our own little painting party going on in the dining room.

Evan and Dylan, painting on the floor.

Cody painting at the table. Ignore the mess that is my dining room table, I’m in the process of moving things around in there.

I’ve decided that I need a craft space. Since the dining room is already home to my sewing cabinet, and we don’t eat in there except on rare occasions, I’m going to turn it into a crafty space. There’s a desk in the right hand corner just out of the picture that I want to use as my craft ‘station’, which right now would consist of paints, brushes, and canvases. I’ll get before and after pictures once I actually get around to doing it, probably tomorrow. Or Thursday. Hell, I may just wait until this weekend, since I have the whole damn weekend off.

I want something that is easy to change up, as my tastes in crafts change. Some crafts don’t need a station- my knitting and crochet projects fit nicely in my cute purple owl purse, or any of the baskets and totes that I have stationed around the living room. My sewing projects need their own space- which is why i have a sewing cabinet. But things like painting? I want a nice set up to where I can enjoy it.

Right now, I plan on getting a table top easel to use on the desk itself. I want jars to hold brushes, a box to hold my paints, and some way to store blank canvases that won’t damage them. Right now, my blank canvases are chilling in the box that my laptop came in. Handy, but butt ugly.

Maybe I’ll decoupage the box…

Yeah. Nothing has changed except that now people can see my procrastination quirk.

There are a lot of crafts that I would love to try. I bought a set of acrylic paints, and some brushes, and some canvas this week. I am going to paint something! But there’s also jewelry making- I’m going to buy myself the tools to make purty eye candy for my neck and wrists. Oh, and I’d love to learn how to spin my own yarn.

I have dyed yarn before- and had a ball doing it. My son’s Cub Scout den is going to an alpaca farm next month, and I’m hoping to tag along and check out the yarn offerings. I’m hoping to find some undyed yarn, and- barring that- undyed roving that I can then dye and then learn how to spin into my very own yarn.

Pinterest has caused another little problem. I spend time on their, repinning crap that I may or may not try. Today, I found a pin of a book shelf made out of an old step ladder. I’m already wondering where I can find a vintage wooden step ladder that I can take apart and turn into a bookshelf.

Never mind that I cleaned out my previous book shelf because it’s not needed anymore.

Also- vintage wooden step ladder doesn’t match my current decor of ‘shit my kids haven’t ruined yet’. But hey, they’ll move out eventually.

Pinterest is also a big time waster for me- I should be cleaning my dining room and moving furniture, instead, I’m screwing around on Pinterest looking for anything interesting to try (and discovering that some people have really, really crappy taste).

I wish that I had more free time to try all this stuff, but then it’s probably a blessing in disguise that I don’t have enough time to try this stuff. It keeps me from wasting money on crafts that I frankly suck at. And I’m sure that there’s a few of them.

I’m wasting time on Facebook. I like the new timeline (I know that people hate it- but I like it and don’t care), and one thing that I like about it is that I can relatively easily go back and read all my status updates using my activity log. There are some status messages that I should have explained in more detail…

9/12/2009: you know it’s going to be a long day when the boys argue over Derek Lee before 8am…

But what I am really doing is going back and picking my favorite status updates for 2011. Which I am now going to share with you, my imaginary readers.

1/25/2011: “dylan just asked cody ‘what took you so long, mr fuzzy pants?’ i think that cody now has a new nickname- ‘mr fuzzypants’.”

2/1/2011: “is worried about cody. he wants to see the justin bieber movie.”

2/4/2011: “Cody and Dylan both have nebulas in the back of their throats…”

2/11/2011: “just once i would like a morning where i don’t have to hunt for evan’s shoes.”

which was, oddly enough, followed up by this one:

2/12/2011: “poor evan- woke up sick this morning. “

which was then followed by this one:

2/12/2011: “been a scary hour- evan’s fever spiked at 104.5, thank God it came back down with tylenol and a bath. it’s now 103.1.”

I’m no longer going to complain about having to hunt for shoes every morning (mostly because I don’t have to. But still.)

2/28/2011: “Cody says that I can trust him with a $20… Yeah, don’t think so.”

3/1/2011: “evan just asked me for a raise… should i tell him that we don’t give raises to people who dump cups of water on their brother’s head?”

3/5/2011: “i leave the room to answer my phone, and when i come back, cody has tied up evan. not sure that i want to know what happened while i was out of the room…”

3/15/2011: “‎9 years, 2 months, 1 day, 5 hours, and 30 minutes until Dylan turns 18 and can legally move out of the house… i’m going to need a LOT of alcohol”

3/17/2011: “got a job, got a job, got a job!”

3/24/2011: “me: cody, bedtime. cody: i’m at war, there is no bedtime. i almost regret having mike hook the ps3 up again…”

4/11/2011: “The Easter Bunny is going to have to be careful… Evan and Dylan are planning on setting up the PS3 Move camera so that they can ‘catch’ him…”

4/20/2011: “Cody says that you’ve got to use the dazzle dazzle in baseball… I think jazz hands were also mentioned…”

4/26/2011: “Evan apparently did not talk today at school. He saved up all of his words for me- the child has not shut up since he got in the car…”

4/26/2011: “Dylan: Noun.
Evan: Eye.
Dylan: Stop putting eyes! It’s not going to be funny!
Evan: Fine, animal.
Dylan: Too late, I already put eye…
*facepalm*”

5/6/2011: “Evan: It’s been 20 years since I got my casts! Yeah, I think he’s ready to get them off…”

5/8/2011: “Cody: Evan, who is a better brother, me or Dylan?
Evan: Me.
Cody: No, who is a better brother? ME or DYLAN?
Evan: Me.
Cody (finally catching on to what Evan is doing): Evan, who is a better brother, Cody or Dylan?”

5/23/2011: “Evan went to the zoo yesterday. When I asked him this morning how his trip was, he said ‘I saw a rhinoceros poop!’”

5/30/2011: “Cody: You can’t take away technology!
Me: Wanna bet?”

6/6/2011: “

Say hello to my little friend, Mr Wristbrace.

Isn’t he sexy?

I wear it at work, and when I’m typing my posts or editing my novel.

Until I put this little thing on, I had no idea just how much I used my wrists. It’s just not something that you think about. I haven’t worn it at work yet (see stockpile comment above), so that should be a rather interesting experience. Hopefully, it helps and I’m not stuck wearing this brace forever.

I think he needs something. Stickers or pins or an applique or something.

The Homework Board.

The original Homework Board was an old cutting board- a huge old cutting board. We all used that thing- it made doing homework on the couch or in the comfy living room chair so much easier. Someone- I don’t remember who- signed and dated the homework board. Eventually, we all started doing it. We added quotes, doodles, asked each other questions, answered questions, and so on.

My dad still has that board.

When my boys started school, I went looking for a board to use to make our very own Homework Board. I used a shelf from an old entertainment center, and explained the board’s purpose to the boys. Now, that board is their Homework Board. It’s not the same- they don’t doodle on it, they don’t write each other notes, they don’t sign and date it.

But we still use it.

I changed my mind.

Today, I woke up and noticed that the space heater that I use to help keep the back rooms warm in the winter (the house definitely needs new duct work) wasn’t hot. It wasn’t even warm. That is a problem when you have three kids who refuse to wear socks in the house. So this morning, I hopped in my cute little red Audi and drove to Walmart.

I picked up the new heater, and then wandered the store for a bit.

I ended up in ladies’ wear. Which is where I saw them. Jeggings. In my size. Yesterday, I bought a cute little drapey top. I looked at the jeggings and thought about that new cute little top at home and my cute black boots. And how the entire outfit would just look adorable on me. So… I bought the jeggings.

This afternoon, I sat down to catch up on my blog reading and read this post by The Bloggess. And then I read this article that she linked. And then I thought about The Traveling Red Dress.

This time last year, you wouldn’t have caught me dead in jeggins or straight leg jeans or skinny jeans or anything that I couldn’t hide my fat ass, my tummy rolls, and my big feet. My ‘cute tops’ were tee shirts. Boring stuff, really. While I was reading the Forbes article, it hit me. I have my own version of the red dress, and I’m choosing to wear it, every day. I’m avoiding the tee shirt and jeans ‘mom look’ that I wore for so long, I’m shedding it and trying on something new and different.

And in order for me to do that, I have to face my demons. Yes, I’ve lost a shit ton of weight in the last year, but I’ve also faced the fact that I’m never going to be a size 2. If the weight loss were to stop now, I would be ok with being my size 16 self.

The red dress phenomenon is, for me, about accepting who you are, flaws and all. It’s not just rocking the red dress, it’s about facing the fact that at whatever age, whatever size, whether you are bald and wrinkly or hairy and smooth, you are still beautiful. There is something beautiful and amazing and wonderful about you.

So while I’m not wearing a red strapless ballgown, I am wearing jeggings and boots and a cute little top and I’m looking good. This outfit is my red dress.

Today, I’ve decided that I need to set goals for myself. I need to challenge myself. I can’t do NaBloWriMo, because it falls in November, and I’m in the middle of NaNoWriMo at the time. 50k in a month tends to drain a person when they try something like that.

I survived Nano by setting daily goals for myself- 2k on days that I work, 4k on my days off. Since that’s a lot of words for one blog post, and it won’t be long before I’m doing some form of writing challenge (Camp Nano, anyone?), my challenge for myself is to have three posts a week ready to go.

I’m going to stock pile posts, and schedule them to publish on a later date. I’m going to look through my drafts folder and see what I have hiding there. And I’m going to try and find something to post about.

So, I apologize in advance for my inevitable ramblings.

So, basically, I started 2011 miserable. It sucked. It sucked great big hairy donkey balls. But… it got better.

I found the strength inside me to move on. I wrote my heart out in a pen and paper journal, because I couldn’t bare to write my feelings out in public on a blog. I had a hard enough time coming out with those feelings to my husband, when he found that journal and read it.

I barely remember January 14th 2011. I remember standing in the middle of my dining room, crying ‘nononono’ over and over again. I remember spending the day, cleaning and rearranging my room in a fog. I remember- and this I find rather funny, in a sad sort of way, having a conversation with the guy at the DMV. We’re both from the same town, and we were talking about the 2010 tornado that hit our town. I remember him saying that his wife was sitting out on the patio. It’s silly, but we don’t choose our memories.

I didn’t realize how bad I was until after Mike left and I started to heal. I don’t blame him- I really don’t. I started to get on with my life, still holding on to a little bit of hope that things would work out for the better between us, but I looked for a job, I spent time with my kids, I worked out a routine, I found myself again.

I got a job in March. And I fell in love with it. I love my job, I’m good at my job, and I have fun at my job.

In June, I had a date. We’ll leave it at that.

Life has gotten better. I have high hopes for 2012. It hasn’t started off any better than 2011, but I know, based on 2011′s experiences, that no matter what happens, I will survive, it will be okay.