It's a crafty day for Elle.........

Today I decided I would get some of the crafts I have been wanting to do and just hanging on to out of the way. The first thing I wanted to get done today was my bathroom window. I know it sounds crazy, but we live so close to the neighbors that they can seriously see right into my bathroom window from their front porch. I had a sheer curtain hanging up, but you could still kinda see in so we even put a small sized blanket over the window. So........ I had bought this cool stuff that is called frosted glass. I had originally purchased it to use on a different project, but I will share that with you guys another time.

For today however I used it to cover over the bathroom window. It really was a simple project and I don't know why I haven't done it sooner, like 7 months ago when we moved in and the girl who used to live next door told us that the creepy dude that lived in our house before us used to keep a camera in the bathroom window and take pictures of her on her porch. IDK some people are just freaky and not in a www.therightsideofthebed.com kind of way. So it's pretty simple and straight forward to use. It comes in a spray paint can and you just hold it back and spry what you want frosted. It comes out kind of white looking, but not exactly and when it dries it lets the light still shine through, but blocks enough of the view to where I can shower in peace and not worry that I might be flashing the neighbors. : )

It wasn't totally dry when I took this picture, but this is pretty much what it will look like. The best way I can think to describe it is when you take a really hot shower and the window fogs up. Same kind of thing. This makes me very happy!!!!!

Ok next project:  I have been hanging on to this one for about 2 years, go figure I would get in a move your ass on the craft kind of mood today and give it a shot. I have always been a fan of tea sets, especially mismatched tea sets. So I went around to some thrift stores and found a couple of small tea cups and plates that could work together and I have turned them into candles. (Please note this is my first attempt at this so it could get better lol)

To start I glued the cup to the plate with liquid cement. Then I got the wicks and the soy wax from the Micheal's and I used the same glue to stick the wick to the bottom of the cup. Then I put it away for like a year : )

This is the wax I used. Seemed easier for me to melt the wax in the microwave instead of using a double boiler on the stove, that and I was being lazy and didn't feel like scrubbing out a pot after I melted all the wax in it so I also used a plastic container that had sour cream in it. ( I did run it through the dishwasher first)

See lazy with my craft. Next I put the wax flakes into the plastic container. This will take more wax than you might think if you decide to try this one. I just poured some in and started melting it and then realized it needed more so I put more in.

That's what the wax looks like in the bag before I put it in the container. And yes I am sure this is wax and not something else for any of my friends who have that thought because I know when I took the picture I thought it looked a little like a large bag of white powder too.

I started microwaving it for about 30 seconds and nothing happened so I put it in for 30 more seconds, still nothing. Then I got impatient and wanted to get to the good part so I put it in for a whole minute and it started melting faster.  (just keep checking it every once in awhile)  After a minute I took it out and swished it around to see if there were any chunks left, luckily for me there weren't and I could get on with it. I was excited at this point and forgot to take a picture for you guys to see. In my first candle I didn't add any kind of coloring just a splash of vanilla extract which did some strange things in the wax and looked like oil in water. Guess my candle might smell good and have some spots in it. Oh well who cares I like it : )

You can kind of see the spots towards the side of the cup, but they were though the whole candle. This is the point at which I made sure my wick was sticking up straight so I didn't have a sideways burning candle. Then I started over again skipping the two extra 30 seconds in the microwave and just started out at a full minute. As my wax was melting I thought I would like to have a more autumn smelling candle since it has been such nice fall weather the last few days. I went digging through my spice cabinet and come across some cinnamon and nutmeg, and some birthday candles! I know funny find, but I figure that birthday candles are candles, they do burn and they are already colored so I grabbed two red ones and start breaking them up and pull the wax out. I threw the colored wax in with my wax and let it melt a little longer. Then I dumped the spices in and swished it around too. Next I dumped it all into the other tea cup that I had.

It looks kind of purple to me right now, but when they finish setting up I am sure they will both be a different color. Anyways that was my first try at candles and I am good with the way they came out. To me the best part of crafting is if I don't like it I will just throw it away. : ) Mr. Wonderful will of course come home and tell me it is great and I should do something like sell it online. Which I have started to think wouldn't be the worst idea he has ever had. Guess we will just wait and see. 

I did read somewhere when I first started looking this craft up that after the wax sets up you should cut the wick down to just about even with the top of the container, in my case cup, to help with not catching shit on fire. Go figure they want you to enjoy your candle and not burn your own house down who would have thought???  I have another thing that I am working on today, but I will save it for another post since I haven't started yet and I was excited to get this up before I finished it. What do you expect from me? 3 crafts a day,  laundry, a clean house and dinner?? Well I do have all the laundry washed, dried and one load to finish putting up and dinner is already in the marinade becoming yummy and the house is actually clean including all the beds made. I'm like super mom today, my super powers are being good at home stuff lol, too bad it's not at making a shit ton of money!!!!  Oh and I have also decided that I will be typing in the first five chapters of the new book today as well since I still have an hour and a half before the kids start getting home and it's time to do homework!!

Oh Elle........

You know you are a writer when you go out on date night looking all hot and end up writing the first 5 chapters in your new book while the stud muffin you are with plays poker. Sadly I have no idea how to play poker even though he wishes I would play with  him. I guess I need to brush up on online five card hold 'em so I can bet his tail lol. I did have 4 different men walk up to me and ask me about what I was writing and tell me about ideas for books they had themselves. I guess it is not every day you meet someone who has actually published a book, I  know I have not run into any to tell the truth, but when people find out that I really am working my a$$ off to become a well known author they all have a story in their head to tell me about. I have been asked to co-write, ghost write, and just write for them all kinds of wonderful stories. Good thing I haven't decided to steal any of their great ideas that they share with me : ) (No I really wouldn't those are original ideas and they should all sit down and put it on paper) However I did get an awesome cheese steak sandwich and a couple of margaritas out of date night, oh yes an a very drunk Mr. Wonderful that I tried to take advantage of when I got him home and we will just say he was not up for it. *wink wink* Sorry babe, and Sheila if you read this lol.

(See hot mama and my puppy)


Next on the list Mr. Wonderful has decided that he will start his own blog and I will be sure to figure out how to link to it so you can read all his thoughts too. His will most likely be more business related, but the first one was all family. Nice to know some of what he is thinking : ) As I type this I am a little unhappy with him, yes even we argue from time to time, and even though this is kind of a biggie hopefully we can work this out and move on from it.

(pretty guy huh? )

My son tells me tonight that next time his dad asks to get him for some time to tell him just for a few hours..... which is strange for him. Usually he wants to be with his dad all the time, but last time he went he didn't call me like he usually does or as often so when I finally got to talk to him he sounded different. I guess funny is a good way to put it, but he didn't really talk and wasn't answering my questions about how the last couple of days had been. After getting off the phone with him, and let me add I was not a happy mommy when I did, his dad started texting me acting very upset about a part of the conversation I had with Zach. Here is the strange part I was unaware that he was even listening to my conversation with my son and when I asked him about it he stumbled across with Zach was already back asleep, but when he brought him the phone back he said something about it..... All in 30 seconds right?? Sounds fishy to me. Anyways now it has been 2 weekends since his dad has asked to get him. We don't have any kind of visitation set up through the courts we just get along well enough to where he says hey can I get him and I say sure so honestly he got the good end out of this because he sees his son way more than most dads get to when they go through a court and I get a break from Zach for a little while anyways and he does try to do his best to help out and go above and beyond even just child support for Zach to make sure he has a good life and even helps with Jay some too. I wish everyone had a good relationship like we do with their ex's. Anyways now it is coming out from Zach that his little step brother told a fib on him and I don't think dad or step mom believed Zach since little step brother is only 3 so they don't think he would tell a fib, but I know at almost 12 Zach isn't going to be hitting the little guy no matter what. I guess I am going to have to give him a call and figure out what the deal is cuz it looks like Zach might be back slidding on how much time he is wanting to spend with his father and we have a deal that I will never tell Bryan that he can not see his son as long as his son does not say he doesn't want to see him.

 

So as much as I wont be looking forward to this one I guess I get to make that phone call and swear his father to secrecy before I give him the scoop. : ) I figured eventually it would become a small issue, good thing Zach doesn't usually let things bother him for long after he gets to tell mom. I love having such a good relationship with both of my boys.

What have you learned today?

My children teach me things every day. In fact some times I wonder if they have really taught me more than I have them.....  I became a mother at the ripe old age of 19 and a year later I became a mother again. I know that having my children made me grow up and become an adult probably before I was really ready to, but hey here we are 11 and a half years later and they both made it lol.

Anyways today my youngest son Jason came in from playing with all the neighborhood kids and asked me "if his ear was kinda red??" (<--- His words) I took a look and said yeah a little. Why what happened? He says we were playing football and I tried to pick it and it flew by my face and hit my ear. Now here is the impressive part. I actually knew what he was talking about!!! This is a huge deal for me because seriously I do NOT follow football in any way shape or form. I went to a football game one time with a friend and had no idea what was going on. I finally said to her to just tell me what's going on in nascar terms so I could understand it. Last year however both my boys decided they wanted to play football for school. Thank God Mr. Wonderful was around to show them what to do since he played football in school. And apparently the knowledge rubbed off a little since I can follow what is going on anyways. (Hate to say it but sometimes I loose which kid is mine on the field though.) This year Bryce has decided he wants to play football too so now we have about half a team in our family because my nephew Drew A.K.A. Brick House is also playing. If we got them all on the same team someone would get killed I swear.

So not only have I learned how to grow up and all about sports from my children I have learned how to keep my imagination and heart young. I love the conversations we have about all kinds of crazy stuff. We can talk about bugs, the dog, girls : / how guys interact with each other and any thing else that pops into their silly little heads. Some times our conversations are a little scary ( they actually told me what tea bag is) and the sex talk was pushed right off on Mr. Wonderful too (Score!)  Even my new book series is from a conversation that Jay and I had and it kind of took on a life of it's own. And any time I have writers block I ask Jay what Tom should do next? My favorite part was when he asked me if I was going to let the farmer catch Tom, the main character in my book is based off of Jay since it was his idea, and when I said yes he screamed You are going to kill me???!!!! Of course if you want to know if I kill my son off then you will have to wait and read the last book LOL.

The most importaint things in life.....

.... Are people not things. I love my family and even though we have had our share of ups and downs we stick together and work it out.  Today has been an awesome day in Elle's world. Mr. Wonderful got the phone call today saying he will now be changing jobs, something that he has been trying to do for almost a year now. It has been a LONG haul, but the perfect job opening became available and now it is his. :) If you can't tell I am very happy and excited about this. I still haven't heard from the guy who offered me a new job, but I have only been waiting one day so I need to have some patience.

My child also did something today that made me laugh even though he was in tears. Our little Boston Terrier puppy has taken to biting the crap out of the children to get them to play with her. She doesn't seem to understand that her little puppy teeth really hurt when she chomps into you. So the boys have started swatting or pushing her away with their feet, not really kicking her just shaking her loose from their legs when she latches on. So anyways Zach was trying to work on a picture he was drawing and Alice was jumping on the couch biting him and when he put her on the ground she grabbed him by the leg. Zach shook his leg and I didn't think anything of it. Alice jumped back up on the couch and laid down. Not the normal Alice reaction to being told she can't do something but hey she has to learn at some point. Anyways I went about doing what I was and then I heard my son crying. Now he is 11 almost 12 and while he is a very tender loving child he has gotten over the cry over everything stage and so for him to be in tears something is wrong. I asked him what was going on? Did she hurt him? And with the biggest tears running down his face he looks up and me and says "I think I hurt the dog." (Imagine booo hooo hooo) coming out about the same time. He held out his hand and there was a very small tooth sitting in it. I asked him where he got that? He said that it was the puppies and went back into sobs. I wasn't overly worried because I do know that puppies lose teeth just like little kids so I wrestled the dog to the ground and pried her mouth open so I could check her out. I could see right where the little tooth came from because I could see where the big tooth had already started pushing its way through. I showed it to Zach and explained to him that it happens to dogs and little kids. He was still upset that her tooth had come out but was ok with the fact that he didn't hurt her. He did however sit on the couch with her for the next 10 minutes petting her and then took her out to play with the ball until the ants attacked them. (She is way overly noise and gets into everything.)

 

 

 

Jason has been bugging me since he got home at 3 to make dinner. We are having Tacos tonight and instead of trying to figure out how many shells we need and do we want hard shells or soft shells we have started getting 2 bags of Dorito's and let everyone put what they want in a bowl and just scoop it out with your chips. My kids (all 5) love this dinner. And I'm sure when Luke Bryce and Kaleb come over this weekend and they find out that we just had Taco's they are going to fuss like crazy and ask why can't we just do it again lol. Best part is we probably could and everyone would be super happy anyways. Chad and I went grocery shopping today and got so much food we actually had to use 2 shopping carts to get it all out to the truck and he had to help me push mine : ) I am sure we looked very silly walking around with 2 people pushing 1 cart, but we don't care. We love each other and if it takes both of us to push the cart it just gives us a chance to snuggle a little more. The lady that rang us up actually asked if we only went shopping once a month. Chad said nah this might last a week and a half or so. The look on her face was priceless!

                                                                     (This was us)

For the love of Elle......

I finally did it!! My first two books are now published through Amazon.com and it is awesome!!! Everyone with a child should go look at these two books titled The Great Turkey Run, Book 1: The Great Turk-styrio and Book 2: The Great Bucko-rama. Right now they are only going to be available on ereaders, but I am hopefully going to be able to get them into print at least in paper back soon. Still trying to figure out all this self publishing stuff. My family has been so supportive of my love of writing and even giving me the push I needed to finally share my work with the rest of the world. So extra big THANK YOU to Mr. Wonderful, and my kid sister Desiree. You guys are awesome and I love you both for all the help. Also to my son Jay thank you for having your crazy dreams and giving mom the idea for these books in the first place. I have taken a number of the children in my life and turned them all into characters in my books and they seem to be so tickled to guess who they might be. I figure they can't be that bad when the ex sends a message saying even he liked them and we haven't spoken in I don't even know how long.  Everyone should keep their eyes open for book 3 The Great Race which will be coming out later this year.

 

 

Well now that that is out of the way...... yesterday was the first day of school for the boys.(Zach is in middle school now 6th grade while Jay is in 5th grade. Luke is in 8th Bryce made it to 6th like Zach and Kaleb is in 2nd now.)  Zach was very ready to head back to school while Jay was a little less excited to be getting up so early again. They both had a great couple of first days back however and Zach was much more excited today when he got home since he has two good friends who both ended up having classes and one even has lunch with him. Jay has a couple of friends in his class, but since we moved to this school half way though the year last year he didn't have very long to get to know a lot of different kids. It's also a nice thing to know that his brother wasn't a total pain last year so now that Jay has the same teachers that Zach did they are all looking out for him and he isn't known as the little brother of the trouble maker lol. We haven't had the other 3 kids back yet, but hopefully they are having a great first week too. It's kinda scary having 2 go into middle school this week!!

 

 

 

(Zach was making a bad face because he was playing with me about not taking his picture.)

 

Mr. Wonderful should be finding out about his new job tomorrow. Fingers crossed because this would be a great thing for our family. Same money no commute sounds good to us and add in the company truck and we are in hog heaven.  I also received an E mail today asking if I would be interested in a new job myself : ) Of course I am! Writing is my passion and at some point I would love for that to be all I ever have to do and be able to make some money at it to take care of my family, but for right now I will keep writing, working on the online business www.therightsideofthebed.com and hopefully get this new job as well to keep me busy on top of all these crazy kids and Mr. Wonderful lol. Just a few days ago things weren't looking real good and in just a matter of a few hours things have started to turn around, now lets just hope that we can keep it moving in the right direction.

 

 

 

(And for Chad's Grandma: " I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." ~Philippians 4:13. I have heard him say this was her favorite scripture a number of times and it seems like it fits right now even though I am not overly religious.)



It's only August right???

Today is a Jason and me day. Zach is with his dad and the other 3 boys are back at their moms for this week. Anyways I was moving the laundry around and cleaning up the dishes from lunch with Jay in the living room playing computer  and having full control of the TV. ( Lucky kid) And he starts screaming "MOM! MOM! It's my favorite Scooby Doo! Don't' change it!!!!" Like I was anywhere near the TV in the first place. So when I finish with the chores I was doing and needed a turn on the computer to send an email and of course surf my pinterest and Facebook ~ Yeah I'm a junky, I noticed that it's the Halloween episode. Of course Jay is still going on about how its his favorite one ever better than the ones with the real people and all, which is saying something coming from Jay because he has been Scooby Doo's biggest fan since he was about 2 years old and even though he is now 10 his bed still has a Scooby Doo comforter and pillows on it. I think he likes the fact that the dog talks and gets into trouble, but who knows when it comes to Jay.

This of course gets us started on a Halloween related conversation, which then leads to a what do you want to be for Halloween this year question.  So we pull up party city's web page and start looking at the same old tired costumes that you see year after year after year and the only thing that changes about them is the price ~~ It just keeps going up. And with a family of 7 to outfit for one night of the year because it would be uncool to wear the same costume as you did last year not to mention the boys grow like a bunch of weeds I am having a really hard time justifying $40 too $60 each for a one time thing. We did this last year and ended up going from store to store looking for the right costume and of course couldn't find what everyone wanted and ended up spending too much money and way to much time!

So this year I am thinking it would be great if I could "make" everyone's costumes. Maybe not sew them from scratch mind you, I don't have a sewing machine, but I can hand stitch anything when the need arises. So we are going to see if we can find some super cool ideas that everyone might like and then I am going to use my crafty imagination and see if there is away that I can pull this off for minimal money anyways. Now that I am at home all the time with the kids anyways why not put my time to good use? I can only clean the house so much before it gets repetitive. I saw an amazing idea on my Pinterest where a smart mom took one of those morph suites and put her kids in all black clothes on top of it and turned them into a shadow! Imagine how freaked out you would be if a shadow knocked on your front door.  And lucky me we have one from last year that Zach refused to wear because "It showed his junk" (I am still shaking my head at that one.) and another from where Kaleb was a ninja morph suite. But seriously if you look on the internet you can find all kinds of cute ideas for home made costumes. Another example was to be a minion, you know from despicable me, those cute little yellow guys. They took a yellow long sleeved shirt, you could probably find one in a 2nd hand store or even a white one you could dye yellow, and a pair of jean overalls, also which you could probably find in a 2nd hand store if you didn't already have some, a pair of black gloves and some kind of glasses to make the eyes look funny and boom you are done!

I will be sure to keep everyone updated on how well this works and turns out for us, but as of right now I am very hopeful and even excited about this one. : ) Now if I can just get the kids to go along with it because you know Mr. Wonderful is all about saving money so he is already on board. AH I love having "one of those minds". Hope everyone gets an early start too so it's not such a stressful holiday for anyone trying to fight the crowds and going from place to place in search of that perfect one night for the year costume like we were last year.
Oh and if you don't want to make a homemade costume yourself but want something sexy and different www.therightsideofthebed.com has some really cute costumes and more are added daily.

not for the faint of heart....

Well we have had a whirl wind of a week! My guy, Chad, was married before and since he got divorced his ex wife has done pretty much anything she can think of to make his life a living HELL. She has made things up and had him arrested repeatedly, she has filled the kids heads full of.... well honestly shit.... And since we started living together she has done everything she can to upset not just him but me too. She has attacked me on multiple occasions, she has threatened everyone in our house including my two children who live with me. She even went as far as to threaten my son in front of a gym full of people at a basketball game one of the boys was playing in and when she didn't get her way she called the police to have me arrested. Luckily it back fired on her and she ended up being the one who went to jail that time.( Saddest part is she actually put her youngest kid in the back of the cop car with her before they took her away.) I even took her son to the ER not long after Chad and I started seeing each other because he cut his knee open on a rock and needed stitches and instead of being grateful that I  had gotten her son the medical attention he needed she attacked me in the parking lot and Chad was hit multiple times in the head and back while keeping himself between us. The worst incident was early this year. She found out I was pregnant and completely freaked out. With all the stress she put me and Chad under within a month I had lost the baby, which she couldn't have been happier about.

This is our weekend and she had again done everything that she can to make life miserable for everyone. Since this is Chad's third shift week he comes home about 8 a.m. he was just going to swing by her house and get the boys which is about 5 miles from where he works and come home, which is about 30 miles from where he works. But of course she said oh no one of the boys has practice at 5:30 up here so you can't get them till after that. Hate to tell her but at 6 they legally become ours so if we wanted to act like her we would just take them, but Chad is a wonderful dad and instead of arguing with her he asked if they wanted him to get them after practice or at 8 in the morning? She couldn't seem to understand the question and just kept saying junk about how they needed to be going to church on Sundays that they are with us and how she knows we don't go to church because I don't believe in God. Let me just be the first to say that I do believe in God and I have my own relationship with him, it may not be the same way she wants it to be but it's my way. I am a firm believer in the fact that church is not the place to go dump your kids and send them off to play video games and have social hour while you as the adult are herded  to a different room to hear the word. Also I don't think that you need three or four huge TV's set up so you can see the preacher. What happened to sitting with your parents in rows of chairs, listening to the same sermon, taking the same message in and talking about it later with your family? That's the way I was raised anyways and I turned out just fine. I would love nothing more than to tell her that by judging others she isn't acting the way the bible tells us to anyways so how dare she say anything about anyone else? " Ye without sin my cast the first stone." ~~ Just sayin' (oh best part it's now after 6 and no one is at practice. Only know because super dad drove all the way up there to get them and then will have to drive all the way back to drop them off and turn around and drive all the way back again to go to work all in about 2 hours of starting this crap.)

                                                         ( probably something she would have to ask herself)

AAAAAHHHHHH I feel so much better now. Told you guys I was going to use this thing to bitch when I am overly stressed. LOL all I can say is this had better be a good weekend all around cuz if not I'm going to bust some heads. Sadly she has the oldest boy convinced that no one here loves or wants him and we haven't had him in almost 3 months. Looks like he is coming tonight, but who knows because he was supposed to come every other weekend for the last 3 months and she manages to get him all worked up and he either gets upset when he gets here and we end up having to take him back or he just doesn't come at all. Things really are hard when it comes to dealing with her and her behavior and the way she tells the kids to act. I wish that she could get over Chad and realize she is the one who filed for divorce, she is the one who had the boyfriend, she is the one who has been married and divorced within 3 months again, she is the one who is responsible for her life and how unhappy she is with it. And she needs to get it through her head that he is happy with me and needs to back off because she can't seem to do that for herself.

 

 

And this woman has tons of nerve on top of everything even though we give her 800 dollars a month in child support she calls every week and wants more money for clothes, shoes, game equipment, school supplies and trip out of town. Really?? I want a free ride too!! The only reason I am posting all this is because I know the kids wont be checking out my blog and I really need to get this off of my chest since I will not say things to the kids about their mom. They get totally bent out of shape if you even ask them a question and they think you might be saying something that could possibly be about their mother. I guess you get defensive when you know she isn't doing right but you don't want others to think it.  ~~ maybe Chad wont see this one either LOL.