DIY Dresser

My love has a dresser that has been his since he was 10 year sold. It is over 30 years old. It has been painted and repainted at least four times.
When we first moved in together, we repainted the dresser for my step girl and she added a few of her own personal touches:

We passed the dresser down to Fart Bone but it was hidden in his closet and we eventually bought his loft bed (with more drawers than could be imagined), so the magic traveling dresser was passed on to Chunko. We again hid it in our closet.

These past couple of weeks, we have slowly been moving Chunko into his brother's room. The last thing to be transferred was the traveling dresser.

I apparently have a thing against closet doors and think they need to be removed immediately upon move in. Which means that the boys do not have closet doors to hide the dresser with their sister's name on it.

It had to be repainted before we could move it.
I saw an Ikea dresser and I loved the color, and we used it as our inspiration.
We wanted "Ikea dresser" meets "Monster's Inc"

 ^ My Inspiration

 Hard at work and making the final touches

Tada!!!

We painted it green because that was the color the boys picked (you know, Mike Wyzowski's color?)
And we added white knobs with crazy monster eyes painted on them.

It looks perfect in its new place!

Chunko is so excited to be in his own room with his brother (Fart Bone could care less).
He is very happy to wake up, walk into his own room (cause he still sneaks into our room before 6am) and pick out his days outfit.

I call this DIY a success

Wise Cracks

I am about to blather on about my butt...
That was your warning...

I have been suffering immense pain in my tailbone for the past 9 months. It hurts when I sit mostly, which is what I do for my job, eight hours a day, so it is important to try to alleviate it. I went to my primary doctor's office and determined they are complete morons. The first doctor insisted it was due to my molar pregnancy or giving birth to an 11 pound baby. I could have agreed but this started in June/ July, not over 2 years ago. He sent me off to get x-rays, which came back completely normal. The next doctor insisted I injured myself without knowing. I live a very active life and, again, could have agreed. Only problem, this was a progressive onset of pain, not a sudden discomfort. She kept blathering on about her freshman year of college and how she injured her back and didn't even know why, except she was in gymnastics and fell off a trampoline once.... I was supposed to apparently ignore it and it would go away. I insisted on an MRI referral and she reluctantly agreed. After waiting three months for my (soon to be ex) doctor's office to get their shit together and refer me to an MRI center that accepts my insurance, I got the MRI. Holy shit, that is one of the scariest experiences of my life. It wasn't so bad, until they shove you in and you realize the roof of the tube is an inch above your nose. I nearly had a panic attack after spending almost two hours in that tube of hell. The results came back and it looked like I had a slight displacement of my tailbone. Both the MRI specialist and my (idiot) doctor agreed that 3mm of movement of my coccyx is not big deal. My doctor kept insisting on my having a mysterious injury that would heal itself but I managed to get a referral to a pain management specialist. I was defeated by this point. They were more concerned about the cysts on my ovaries than the pain preventing me from sitting. I always have cysts, I didn't come there to find out what I already knew. I almost didn't go, but I am glad I did. He believed I didn't forgetfully injure my butt and he believed that any displacement of my coccyx isn't normal. He wanted me to start with steroid shots to the area and maybe in a year (or two), we would plan on having my tailbone removed completely. He said he hasn't ever seen a situation like mine except in 80 year olds with osteoporosis who fell on their butts. Clearly not 80 and not suffering osteoporosis. I went home and tapped Google to read up on these shots... and I scared the crap out of myself. I read nothing good about them and became all too aware of the possibilities of an allergic reaction. I called the nurse for some reassurance and ended up getting an earful about the pain I would soon be in. I sucked it up. One time. If it was too much, then I wouldn't go back. Simple as that. Besides, if I can birth a baby naturally, birth an 11 pound baby, have 2 blood transfusions after a D&C, then I can conquer this... I hope.

Today was the big day.
I was shaking I was so scared.
Have I mentioned I hate needles (like most normal people)?
And have I mentioned that I am extremely sensitive about my back (and my butt)?
I walk out of the waiting room and follow to the back, sniffling because my husband won't be able to hold my hand through this (apparently they didn't want to uselessly expose him to radiation, pssshh, whatever). I nervously blurted all the ridiculous crap that came to my head.
"I'm a huge cry baby and you have to deal with me now."
"I'm nervous so sorry if I make any snarky bitch comments."
"I didn't shave my legs, please ignore that."
"I don't really like people playing with my butt."
"You seem tired, are you giving me the shot?"
"Not pregnant but clearly ovulating"
"My husband had the big V, but they wouldn't give me his balls in jar. I guess they don't remove them anymore."
"I have an unusually long butt crack."
And on, and on my wise words spewed from my mouth.

I climbed on the table and sat there, still vomiting my awesomeness.
And the nurse yanks my pants down!
"I have to shove a tissue up my nose because my allergies are acting up in this overly sterile environment."
I've had quite a few surgeries but never have I had to casually lay on my stomach and talk shop while my bare ass waves in the wind. Then they had to swab the area... and then they discussed the affected area. They had to give me three numbing shots (3!!!!) and then it was over. Kind of. The nurse had to clean up the iodine, blood and shot juices... From my butt. Awkward. I am so glad Chunko is potty trained because wiping his butt after a poo would have brought back memories of my own recently wiped rear end. Like PTSD but creepier.

The anesthesia has worn off and I hurt like hell. I hope that there is improvement over time. I am overly excited to go back for more highly enjoyable butt shot fun. Nothing beats a day where you bare your ass in front of strangers.

Ps, I really do have an overly long butt crack. It is long like Jennifer Aniston's. I know my butt isn't as firm as her but it used to be

 

Crappy Pictures R Us

I don't know what the heck is wrong with the idiots who take Fart Bone's school pictures but I have declared war on them.

Life touch? Psshh, more like "Crappy Pictures R Us"

At the beginning of kindergarten and even first grade, we were begging Fart Bone to take a nice picture. He did a fake, cringe-like smile and rocked the "What the heck did you just call me?" look.

A couple of years ago, we tried some School Picture Training and we practiced his smile for hours. I gave up on getting nice, model-esque pictures of my crazy boy child and decided that if you can't fight them, then why not join them? We practiced goofy lopsided grins and we practiced a few really nice wide smiles (I hadn't completely given up yet).

When we got his pictures, his smile was actually very cute... He looked adorable, and then I noticed his shirt was tucked in. It wasn't even neatly tucked in, it was shoved in a half assed attempt to tuck my kid's shirt in. I HATE tucked in shirts. I spit venom at tucked in shirts. I don't know what it is about them but to see a shirt crappily tucked in rubs my nerves raw.

I assumed it was a fluke. I was a bit pissy but I rolled with it.

Then it was time for spring pictures. I put him in a shirt they couldn't tuck in and we practiced his smiles again. I had high hopes. Then we got the pictures....

He was in a ridiculous pose (Standing, with his hand literally gripping his chin? Who does that????) and they made him "lessen his smile"
Apparently the professional photographer thought that my sons smile was too much and made him lessen his grin. Am I the only one dying from the rancid stupidity?

I called to complain about the pose and they told me the pose goes with the background. Um, I am not a graphic designer or even proficient in photoshop (I can' even open it), but I know that I can easily switch out the background or the pose. I know because I did it!

So it was time for war...

School pictures came up again and I told Fart Bone that he was going to give me his most ridiculous smile. I wanted it to ooze with creepy stalker goodness or to remind you of someones porcelain clown collection. I wanted ugly and I wanted to cry with laughter when I saw them.

Aaaaannnnnddd they sucked.

Weak smile, lifeless eyes, lame, lame and lame. I was so mad.

First they tuck my kid's shirt in. Then they plead stupidity and refuse to change the pose. Then they made Fart Bone smile less and then, lastly they photograph him with a lame look on his face?

So it is time for spring pictures... I told him to tell the photographer that I am the one paying for the pictures and if they aren't going in the yearbook, then why can't I have it my way. I told him to tell these Lifetouch jerks that they were stupid and I might have given him a few sample taunts if the photographer argued with him (I said I was mad).
We practiced.
1.
2.
3.
Smile

 I told him I really wanted the serious frown but if not I wanted a "slap you in the face" cheesy grin with all his teeth (even the molars that hadn't grown in yet). I told him that if the photographer told him to lessen his smile, then he was to keep frowning until the photographer gave up.

After school today, I made him show me what he was able to do... He showed me two options... He won't tell me which one was taken. I guess I have to wait the 16 weeks to find out (which means so do you, I know you are dying to know). 

He has such an amazing smile... I adore him. Don't those dimples kill you?

I understand why my parents gave up on my school pictures. Why pay $50 for pictures you can't stand? You can't be there to approve. You can't even view samples before a final selection. You can't even choose a nice background without it coming with a lame pose.

Pinter-Test

Like most women, I am an avid pinner on Pinterest (and if you aren't on it, seriously get on it) and I have started a small collection of delicious looking recipes. My family has fallen into a very bad rut of crappy, bland dinners and I was hoping to throw in new things to allow new tastes in our lives. It tends to be hard to eat healthy in our family because I am a picky eater. Very very very picky eater. It has been classified as an eating disorder, it is pretty bad. With my picky tastes, it narrows what we eat down to a very small amount. The baby doesn't like meat (and no, chicken nuggets are not meat) and Fart Bone is random on what he will and will not eat. If we let him, he would eat ramen and cheese pizza for months on end and never complain.

So I scroll through millions of delicious recipes, hunting for what will meet our various wants and needs. We have tested a few of them so far. Mostly very sad fails, like the limp baked asparagus or the overly garlic and basil nightmare this was.

Last night we had success! It was delicious (x 1,000,000) and everyone loved it (except my nephew but he was sick and crabby so he doesn't count). We made twice baked potato casserole and it was to die for!!!


Pinterest Version

Our Version (Looks so much better, right?)

 We also made these cute swirly color cupcakes and they were so much fun to make. My sister and I had so much fun making the color swirls that we actually forgot to invite the kids down to help! We were trying to make designs and see what would happen if me swished colors together. It was so much fun to make and very delicious to clean up after. 

Pinterest version



Ours (Again, so much better)

I am hoping to be able to create simple, healthy snacks and lunches for the boys (cause my step girl is a teenager, we all know they live off of Mt Dew and Dorritos) and also for my husband and myself.

Why are you still here? Get on Pinterest already!!!!!