"Before" photos

I am going to just post before pictures today...I feel like it looks pretty good in the pics. We are hopefully going to make it better! I just think everything seems so dark in the kitchen. I wish that I had taken a set of before photos with all of the stuff in it. Oh well, I know that it is too late...I'm not getting the stuff back out!

 This is a photo of the wall of cabinets that is going away. This aspect makes me the most nervous...that we won't have enough cabinet space.

 The wall with the fridge is going to come out and be an island.

 Different view...or really the same but farther away

 The former wall ball court!

Dining room

The Fall

Yesterday, I was the kind of mom I have always wanted to be...the fun mom, who doesn't worry about the breakables in the house, who has time for everything. Both kids had play dates (a rarity) and one friend spent the night. We had wall ball (in the house no less), swimming and an iced tea and cookie stand, they had an idea and I said, "Sure!"

Then, this morning my out of body experience ended and I had to go back to being me.

What a bummer. I woke up to two of the cutest little guys you ever saw. Kellis said, "Can you come outside and play a baseball game with us?" Umm, no.

Ten minutes later (8:30 a.m., PJ's still on, all the yucky packing still to finish)...Kellis comes back in, "Can you take us to the park?" Umm, no.

I hear the little friend ask, "What did she say?"

I want to go back to being that mom I was yesterday...the fall is heartbreaking! Oh well, packing prevailed today, I'm on a short rope in that department because D Day is upon us. Maybe I can be yes, fun mom again another day...soon.

Well, Well, Well....

Ok, the prodigal blogger returns! Lots has happened since snow days...no, I did not jump off of a cliff. I can see how you might wonder though. Anyway, Spring Break happened and we were having a wonderful time until my beloved grandmother got sick and passed away. Sigh. Then, some sort of vicious parasite or virus attacked my alimentary canal, in Round Top, of course. (I'm just hitting the highlights here.) All that, on top of baseball 8 nights a week and packing to begin our kitchen remodel. Enough belly-aching onto the rest of the story.

I know that I have promised before to be better and record things more often, but now I REALLY want to document the progress of the kitchen remodel so I am determined to be more vigilant. It is very bare in here at the moment and my imagination is running wild, so I am a little frightened. It is either going to be fabulous or I am going to make myself crazy with indecision.

There are so many wonderful blogs/products/magazine pictures out there that I have a bit of decorating schizophrenia. In a beautiful contemporary Fort Worth home, someone once asked me what style my house was...contemporary, she asked? I replied, "Ummm, no, my style is more like, if it looks unsafe and rusty, and you might contract tetanus, I love it, style." She had no response...I think I took her off guard. I am coming up with a new name for my style and I hope I can pull it off.

I wish that I had taken before pics of these rooms furnished, but alas, I did not...here is the empty living room. The kids are loving it...so far there has been indoor basketball and then a mean wall ball match that got even a little too rambunctious for an empty room. Rainey has now set up an art studio on the bench in the corner. They had better enjoy it, it will soon be off-limits. So I am planning to post progress photos and ideas I have for the space, should be fun...loud and dirty. I think it will get worse before it gets better, but bear with me!