A Simple Country Mouse

So yeah, I'm a bit of a fairy-tales nut. This includes all the Disney movies, and of course the traditional fairy-tales as well. The Brothers Grimm, Hans Christen Andersen, Lewis Carroll, Charles Perrault and so on. While many people believe that fairy-tales are a waste of time, I beg to differ. All stories, whether true or made up, have some moral behind them. It's up to us to discover that moral. Little Mermaid-traditional version-don't make deals with seas witches...bad things happen. Just kidding. But there is some truth to that. Not the sea witches, but the making deals that could potentially cause greater harm than good. We need to think carefully before jumping into deals. Rumpelstiltskin would be the same lesson. Cinderella-always have courage and be kind no matter the circumstance you find yourself in. Alice in Wonderland-things are not always as they appear. Also, don't do drugs or eat mushrooms if you don't know what kind they are...you trip out. Sleeping...

Yes, you read that right. Yesterday I looked in the fridge and realized I had chicken, ground beef, and bell peppers that needed to be cooked. Because you know, that's a great combination. Or not. So I had this conversation with myself. Me: "Self, what can we cook that would use all these ingredients and still taste good." Myself: "Stuffed peppers and some kind of Mexican chicken." Me: "Ok, but we've never made stuffed bell peppers. Stuffed mushrooms, and stuffed meats, and lots of other stuffed things, but never stuffed bell peppers." Myself: "How hard can it be Dummy? We have Google!" Me: "To true myself. Let's give it a whirl shall we?" Myself: "You get the phone and I'll get the Google." So with that I looked up to find some recipes on southwest style chicken, and stuffed bell peppers. Who knew that they had many of the same ingredients? When I discovered this I had another conversation with myself...

There are days in this life when all you want to do is break down and cry. Unfortunately that's not always possible. Sometimes, even when it's been a good day, all you want to do is let your hair down, bury yourself in a pillow, and have a meltdown. And sometimes, even when you want to cry, you just can't. While I won't say I have a lot of those days, I can say I have them often enough to understand the frustration of things not going right. Mine is generally caused by massive lack of sleep. By that I mean 5 hours of sleep on a good night and 2 hours of sleep on a bad night for several days on end. Which seems to be pretty much every night lately. I have been getting roused by one child around 4:00 am, sometimes again at 5:00 am or so, and then again around 6:00-6:30 am, only to just fall asleep and have him want to play from 7:00 am until 9:00-9:30 am. About that time he's ready to fall back asleep (no matter how hard I fight to get him back down) and the other on...

For those of you who don't know, I love to design interiors. Mostly for myself and friends, but having spent a fair amount of time in retail, I've also sold lots of interior decor. In retail nothing makes me smile more than making people happy with a new look in their homes. A friend of mine is looking to decorate a man cave like room. When I asked him what he liked, "the northern lights" is what I got back. So it got me thinking. What could I do with "the northern lights"? As I happened to be at Home Depot, the kids and I went paint chip looking. Oh we had so much fun. Letting Sam look at all the different colors was a kick in the pants. Not only did we find awesome colors for my friend, but also for the kids' rooms eventually. A couple of lighter blues and clear glitter paint for Sam's Frozen themed room, and deeper, darker blues for Clay's Nautical themed room. Josh and I will sit down and look at paints for our room. I'm debating between ...