So don’t do what I did

Backstory: My dad worked a lot when I was a kid. So my mom often did the “man’s job” like mowing the lawn and hanging the Christmas lights. My dad and mom both encouraged and taught my sister and me how to mow the lawn, and such various things around the house. This ended up being a great lesson, because I have the confidence to take care of most of the stuff around the house that Husband might not get to because of his long work hours….

Now back to the story. About 6 weeks ago I was going about my business of mowing the backyard lawn- as it was getting pretty high- making that Miss G didn’t want to walk out in it. We had just moved our boat into the side yard which leaves maybe a foot or so between the boat and the side of the house. So I had to mow the lawn and simply lifted the lawnmower up over the boat from the garage man door out into the backyard. I proceeded to mow the lawn as usual. Then…stupid mistake that I strongly encourage you to NOT do. I went to lift the lawnmower back over the boat to be put back into the storage spot in the garage. Never mind that the motor had been going and now was extremely hot! The mower started teetering and I used my leg to stabilize it. BAD MOVE! It seared my leg. I ended up having a sever second degree burn on my thigh. So bad I had to go to the doctor to get special ointment and stronger ibuprofen to reduce swelling. It was crazy.

What made me more frustrated than the stupidity of my mistake was that I had been going strong into my fourth week of training for my bucket list goal half marathon. With my leg so severely burned I had to stop. I could barely walk let alone work out. So I stopped for nearly 6 weeks. Not a good feeling. I was itching to get back at it the whole recovery time. Now it is mostly healed so I am back at getting into the workout routine. Good thing I gave myself plenty of training time. I can’t imagine what I would have done if I had only given myself the suggested 9-12 week training schedule!

SO moral of the story, don’t move a lawnmower in any such way other than how it was designed to be- rolling on the ground.

A breath of fresh air

Our house interior is tan…everywhere. All the walls in every single room. All the ceilings. Everywhere. And on top of that it is flat finish which is not good for high traffic areas or kids with grubby hands. Kids have left oil and dirt marks everywhere. And if I try to clean it, it looks worse or chips the paint off.
So we have been starting the paint selection process. The blending of Husbands and my taste in colors. We agreed on mostly bedrooms colors. Downstairs is giving us a bit of a challenge as to what color and/or how to divide the colors in the best possible way (as we have a very open concept floor plan).
In wanting to rid at least one room of tan, we renovated the guest/downstairs bathroom. It is small so it gave a perfect opportunity to see how well the tan would be to cover up.
Here is what we started with:

Of course I was blessed with help from some adorable kiddos.

I had gotten oops paint (what looked to me in the store as a tranquil pale green gray). Well Husband didn’t like it at all. So he picked up some paint. Blue. A very bright blue.

It was a bit too bright at first for me to be honest. It looked like a straight shot to baby blue or under sea kids themed bathroom. But not wanting to spend more on paint, I did my best to “adult-ify” it (yes I made up that word but you know what I mean). I thought of Husbands and my trip to Maui and remembered how incredibly blue the water was. And it took off from there…

Custom towel rack rather than builder-yuck towel bar. With, of course, one of pictures from our Maui trip.

A new mirror (Hobby Lobby clearance score-only $20!!), a shelf with recycled jar, canning jar, and a couple decorative items too.

It is just a breath of fresh air to walk into. I love the break from tan and it makes me want to tackle more rooms.