two new posts and....

brian's parents are back together. praise the Lord. i might have mentioned this earlier. cant remember but i'm saying this again b/c we are moving her stuff out of the front bedroom and redecorating it. now it's going to be a room w/ many jobs....guest room, gun room, office. now please keep an open mind. im married to a gun owner and we have a little boy who loves guns- ryder has toy guns people, im not nutso. so there. my husband is going to be able to reload his bullets in our home. obviously the guns and reloading .....stuff...will be locked up b/c we have small children and my nieces come often. so connie, if you ever need to shoot an intruder while visiting, you will be stocked w/ options.

cruise pics next....woohoooooo

idea help needed and before pictures of my living room

about the kitchen window treatment: should i take down the shorter one and put the longer one up? hhhhmmmm. i do like natural light coming in the kitchen and it's pretty much blocked out with both "curtain pieces" up.

and if you go to the previous post check out the picture w/ the silver clock. does this need something. paint around the red? shelf? what?

my living room before.......




notice the colors in my couch. im going to go with two to redo my living room/alcove: chocolate brown and orange-burnt orange sort of.

new window treatments: chocolate brown
wall w/ t.v.: chocolate brown
alcove: orange/burnt
pillows: orange/bunt

my parents are coming in two weeks and tanya paul and i are having a "mini progressive dinner" for michawn and family before they go back to brasil and i want the above improvements done by that time ....so i got lots to do:)

ready. set. go!

befores and afters.....:)

first let me begin by saying thank you to brian...who makes me feel like i'm the most beautiful girl he's ever met no matter what size i am. and...for not really having an opinion about the house and its decor. unless i just have a nutsy idea or something he pretty much will say, "what about this or that" then let's me do whatever i want to do. and in the words of chris pace..."do what you want to do 'cause that's what your gonna do anyway". hahahahaha

second thank you to my sis, connie, for all her help and ideas with the house and kitchen and words of encouragement, weight and other things:).
well, thank you to all my family and friends who's words of encouragement helped me to keep going till i reached my weight goal...still not quite there but thats ok:)

now for the fun part......

Me......

This lovely picture is from summer of '06 at youth camp:) rough weight estimate: 155lbs



I love this picture ....look at Jules...cute cute cute:) Connie took this last week. my current weight was 131 lbs.:):):):

my kitchen......
before:




after...or in the middle would be more like it.......


notice the dry erase/cork board just waiting to be put up by my sweeeeeeeeet husband...hint hint hint

These precious 3 are coming to our house this weekend! she's bringing chicken n spaghetti woohoo! i have roast, brown sugar meatloaf and gggghhhhooouuuullllooosssshhhh - hamburger w/ rotel and pasta but i'm gonna add some cheeeese - on the menu. so we should be good.

connie and i will be attending our youth girls ministry Chocolate Fest which i am sorta in charge of. i have everything organized so we won't be up at the church all day on saturday. my house is clean. still gotta get some clutter out of the front room where connie and jules will be sleeping.

i really want to go see "mall cop". i know. weird huh? brian is taking care of the kids while connie and i go to the choc fest. gasp gasp choke choke. nah just kidding he's a good husband, dad, and uncle. he might even take them to see "hotel for dogs". not sure if he's brave enough. hahaha

anywoo...until next time...........

you are not gonna believe this...oh and a few pics!

me and my sis at christmas!

me, connie, and mom




i have done the following things today:

1. Got out of the house. had to take brian to work but first we went for coffee - i did NOT get my usual frozen caramel frap with extra caramel and extra whipcream and that is an abosolute miracle - seriously you just dont understand my relationship with this simply deeeelish frozen concoction) and beneigts (sp?). then had to run back home and ryder got really mad at Powder because she grabbed her bag of 3 remaing beneigts as he was walking into the house:( as he put it he's really mad at her and is not going to play w/ her- she's our golden retriever. i seriously doubt she cares.

2. since i was out of the house, ryder and i ran some errands:
* cleaned out the car
* paid for a ticket...i seriously was NOT going 85 in a 70 no way no how.
* took bags and bags of old stuff to charity
* took ryder to McD's for some chicken nuggets - which he did not eat.
* spent a couple of hours at "the walmarts".
* came home
* ryder said he would LIKE to take a nap. i of course let him
* proceeded to put up the bags of stuff i got out of the car as i cleaned it out. another miracle. usually when i "clean" out
the car i just leave the bagged items i removed from the car in the bags for as long as possible.
* cleaned up the house
* watched a little bit of vh1's "rock of love bus". i know isn't that...well, i have no words for that behavior. i obviously
need prayer and i need to repent.

i'm in the process of.......cleaning the "mud room" and putting away what i bought at the walmarts. tomorrow i will let ya know what i'm gonna do to my kitchen. when i figure out what i'm gonna do. my sis is coming for the weekend "muhaahaaahaaa" - you have to say it like Rico off of hanny montanny. seriously. or it just doesn't work.) she's a creative one i tell ya and i'm fixin' to abuse my sisterly privileges. heeheeheehee

hope she reads this....the color i'm feeling is red....a deep red. hhhmmmm.

motivation. hmfff.

since plans have changed for the day brian wants to clean off the back porch. this is going to force me to go through boxes of papers. he's all motivated. great.

boxes of papers....here i come..... get ready to burn.

change

change. little word. big meaning. there's always good and bad when change is made. depending on the circumstances i'm not a huge fan of change. this particular subject has been a theme in our lives lately. and i'm trying to "roll w/ it". hard.

we get to see michawn and her family tonight! oh and goals.

gonna cook up some deer chili and take it over to them this evening then hang out and let the kiddos play. ryder is sooo excited he's driving me nuts as to when we are going to go:) fun times.

Goals for today...
1. continue decluttering front bedroom and our room
2. go through mail which i haven't touched yet
3. continue doing laundry
4. clean and organize matties room
5. play with ryder!

i have kept the living room and kitchen clean everyday...and i've cooked everyday too:) so i'm feeling pretting excited about my accomplishments. but gotta keep on going.

Goals for today...

I accomplished all my goals from yesterday accept the mail and the laundry...that's gonna be a week long process!


Goals for Wed. Jan. 7, 2009
1. clean and organize ryders room
2. continue w/ laundry
3. continue decluttering front bedroom
4. organize mail
5. play w/ ryder!

Enough. Here are m y goals for today...and no i don't have a handy dandy ipod touch so this will have to do! :)

ok enough of the blahs. i have my family who loves me and my health. brian has a great job. i get to stay at home. now its time for me to take care of my home. i must say, for me, i feel better when i "write" out how i'm feeling. i post for my sake. i feel better, sometimes, after i get things "off my chest".

Goals.....
Daily
*keep sink clean
*keep dining room table cleaned off
*keep living room clutter free
*keep bar clutter free

Tuesday, Jan 6, 2009
1. declutter kitchen and living room
2. put christmas stuff up in the attic not just in the hallway
3. put up clean laundry where they go. not just in a neat pile somewhere
4. go through mail
5. play w/ ryder when he asks but accomplish my goals for today.


there. now i'm off.............

warning....this post isn't the most uplifting.

this holiday season wasn't what i expected it to be. i don't know what i expected but it just didn't happen. i had grand plans of "thinking of others" but it just didnt happen the way i wanted it to. thanksgiving was a mix of good and not so good. i loved cooking the dressing and ham but i didn't love other things that happened on that day. but it ended up good. then the christmas season came. we put up the tree and i put out other decorations but i didn't set my village out until the week before christmas. brian usually puts lights up outside but i ended up attempting to put some on the porch but half of them went out and they werent fixed so we didn't plug them in after the second time. something really great that we thought was going to happen didn't and that really set the tone. the christmas boxes turned out really cute. the postman loved his. but mattie ended up getting sick and the goodies we had fixed for her class....took 3 hrs to make....didn't get passed out. the little homemade ornaments didn't get passed out to her class. she missed her class fun days. since she got sick the bus didn't stop by our house and we didn't get to give the bus driver her box. we had two christmas's w/ brians family. one w/ his dad and one w his mom. still can't get used to that. i made cinnamon rolls that were intended for the neighbors. it got crazy around here and i didn't get them passed out. i did take some to my parents house and mom took some to work. then mom, mattie, ryder, and i passed out two pans to my parents neighbors. so that was good. mom had the house decorated really cute w/ old homemade christmas decor connie and i had made in our elementary years framed and set out through the house. so that made it special. christmas eve was good. then christmas day came. the morning was great. when i woke up that morning i new something wasn't right. then i progressively got worse through the day. i didn't get to help mom and connie in the kitchen. and the worse part was i didn't get to go to my grandaddy's for our big christmas family get together that night. dad stayed home w/ me. i was so nausiated i couldn't even talk to my dad much. i was so looking forward to seeing my cousins and uncles and family....especially since this was the first time i'd see them since steven's death. i knew it was going to be tough on my family and really wanted to be there. michael and danny called me which i loved that!!! but it still hurt that i wasn't there. they had a tough time. stevens wife and step-daughters were there and of course had a tough time. danny called again later that night and his mom - our "aunt" - wanted to see connie and i and our kids but we just couldn't do it. there's a lot of hard feelings w/ her and what she did when they were growing up. i pray to God danny isn't mad but we just couldn't do it. anyway, i started feeling better the next day and we went to the mall and ate at roadhouse as a family. then we rushed home saturday and i crammed in a surprise bday party for brian...which was great. our friends..chris and tori pace and their kiddos got to come...and had a great turn out from church. the youth parents and some friends really helped me so much w/ the party. then we headed to colorado and had a good time skiing. and now we're back. and mattie has swimmer's ear and she's in a lot of pain. her ear is stopped up and that really irritates her. my mominlaw cleaned the kitchen and living room up while we were gone so that was great to come home to a clean house....well at least those two rooms. brian took down the christmas tree last night which irritated me. but he says he doesn't pay any attention to me after 10pm i get delirious and mean. now i have to get busy on the other rooms. but i just don't have it in me. not right now.

connie i'm trying to fly but my wings are stuck in neutral. come to my rescue.

random pics

ski trip and such!

We are presently "hittin' the slopes" at Wolf Creek near Pagosa Springs, CO! We are here w/ our family: me, brian, mattie, pawpaw, bailey, uncle william, "aunt" leigh ann, statton, cole, john michael! and several families from church. A blast has been had by all. well, not all - altitude sickness hit one and some people just didn't care for skiing. but we've all had fun whether we were just hanging out or skiing. brian's hair has changed colors three times in the past 48 hours. he bleached it which was a bad idea. he did it while i was asleep...w/out my help. i wake up to yellow hair. that happened tuesday night. then last night i bought a root touch up kit and another bleach kit. we opted for the root touch up. there wasn't enough color in the kit to cover so he ended up w/ a bronzey color....toned down the yellow. well, i jump in the tahoe make a mad dash to the market before it closed and get a medium golden brown color. well, the end result is an auburn color. it kinda takes you by surprise like "whoa" and you take a step back then you adjust your eyes and get used to it. it's not bad just not brian. as one mom siad today, "it's not brian. he doesn't stand out enough". we will be calling his hair lady first thing when we get back.

i'm living w/ the guilt of "tricking" my son. he has no idea that we are on this ski trip that he was supposed to be on. my sis is keeping him and they are having a blast. but on the first day they had all our ski boots sitting out w/ our names on them...and there sat these itty bitty boots w/ the name Ryder B. on them. :( we just couldn't do it. we couldn't bring him. he's tooooo little and toooo whiney. we started mattie skiing when she was 3 but she's just a tad bit different than ryder. he will get his turn next year. mattie on the other hand....kicks butt skiing. she is hardcore. hates to wait on people who don't ski as fast as she does.

hopefully i'll have some pictures soon. oh, we forgot our camara. figures. so i've had to borrow camaras.

off to bed. there's no sleeping in on a "brian britt ski trip". sleep who needs sleep. sleep when you get home. we are here to SKIIIIIIIIII.