distractions

Distraction has been the name of the game this week. I mean, why deal with complex emotions and difficult situations when you can just pretend they don't exist? Exactly. I love how that terribly useful and profitable psychology degree comes in handy during times like this. Distract yourself! Deny anything bad happened! Deal with it later!! Winning At Life 101.

SO! How have we been passing the time on this lovely week off? On Tuesday I made the very wise and spontaneous decision to go get a massage. See, Matt wanted to go shopping at a tool store and I wasn't really in the mood-- BUT it just so happened that the tool store is located RIGHT NEXT DOOR to Massage Envy. I'm pretty sure that was some smart thinking on some developer's behalf: let's see, Jones...we need to balance out this strip mall. If we put a giant ugly tool store right here, what should we put next door? What will entice women to come along while their husbands ogle chainsaws? Bingo. Massage place. Brilliant.

I took my chances on it being the middle of the day on a work day and hoped I'd get a walk-in appointment. I did and it was so wonderful I can't even describe it. I may or may not have asked the girl doing my massage to move in/marry me/never stop. I don't even feel guilty about it, although she turned me down on all three counts (slightly bruised ego, but I've felt worse pain this week so I'll let it slide). Now I am busy scheming how I can drum up the $$$ (or work it out as a birthday/Christmas gift) for a Wellness Membership there. I know. Can you imagine anything as awesome as getting a massage EVERY MONTH? That there is something to live for. 

Have you ever known someone (or maybe this is you personally?) that shopped/budgeted out of a 'savings' mentality? Maybe there's a better term for it, but this is what I mean: "Oh my gosh!! I saved $200 on this dress! Now I can buy shoes, too!" Like...regardless of how much money they ACTUALLY have or have actually BUDGETED for shoes/dresses, these people tend to base their decisions on the hypothetical money they've "saved" and then re-spend that money? Does that make sense? Now this sort of works out if, say, you have a set $400 you're going to spend on clothes today/this month/whatever. Now if you go out and the dress you wanted really is $200 off and so you get it for $200 (then a) you are too rich for me; who spends that kind of money on clothes?), then I guess it's true that you really do now have $200 left to spend on shoes or whatever. But I notice that the people who do this generally don't have an actual budgeted amount of money to spend...they just tend to notice the 'savings' and then re-spend that. 

I'm probably making no sense. But let's move on.

This week I feel like I'm totally operating out of this 'spend your savings' mindset. Which is totally not "me" at all. But there it is. The thing is, we just spent weeks crunching numbers, redistributing funds, and totally re-working our budget in order to allow for the baby and her super pricey needs (primarily childcare, formula, and the increased cost of our health insurance). We had to work hard to free up a LOT of cash to fund those things.

But now?

No baby. No childcare. No formula.

WHATEVER SHALL WE DO WITH ALL THIS MONEY!?!??!?!

Despite the fact that we earned the exact same amount this month as we did all the other months prior to this, suddenly I am RIIIICCCCCHHHH...because I won't have all these expenses that I'd budgeted for? It's really weird. But anyway. This is how on Tuesday I decided it was totally no big deal to go for a massage and follow it up with a minorly major shopping spree at Ulta. I mean, remember last week (oh gosh, was this only last week?) when I mentioned that I was converting all money into Cans of Formula? Well now I'm still doing that, only since I don't actually have to buy any more formula, it's like all the money is FREE FREE FREE. And a massage is only 3 cans of formula, so like...yeah. 

In conclusion, you should not ask me for any help with your budgeting anytime in the near future. We're going to require a Dave Ramsey intervention at some point.

In the spirit of spontaneity and distraction, I also decided that there is no time like the present for that living room renovation I've been thinking about since spring. I've been planning to ask for painters to paint the living room for my birthday present since I hate painting with the passion of 1000 fiery suns, but...well, whatever. If I wait til then, the Christmas decorations will be up and who wants to have to paint around a Christmas tree? No one, that's who. And I have nothing else to do this week, so LET'S PAINT THE LIVING ROOM!

That's why at 10:00 Tuesday night my living room looked like this:

  
Wow, this is probably the blurriest and worst picture on earth. Thanks, iPhone! Anyway, all the furniture was smushed in the middle of the room (including the PIANO, which Matt and I moved BY OURSELVES!!!!! Who needs a gym, anyway?), we taped the baseboards and vacuumed the cobwebs/dog hair off the walls (that is so gross, makes me feel like I've been living in a haunted house or something), and were totally prepped to wake up early Wednesday (you know, 10 a.m.) and get 'er done.

And we did!! By 10 p.m. we had two coats of paint completed, tape removed, outlet plates replaced, and furniture back- but in a slightly different configuration.

See...we still have the glider coming. Womp womp. Yeah, the one we special ordered for the nursery. I've been dreading the phone call telling me it's in and we have to go get it and then what the heck will we do with it since we clearly don't have a baby to rock in it? There's nothing I hate like spending a lot of money on a piece of furniture I'll never use and that will make me sad...

So I decided that we absolutely just HAD to find a way to put the glider in the living room. If we put it back in the nursery, I'd lose my mind. If we put it in the living room, it will be a fun and comfy new piece of furniture and it will be used and appreciated, with or without a baby. So while we painted, I brainstormed how we could free up a spot for a lovely new glider to have a home. (Luckily we ordered the glider in a dark gray fabric so it will match just fine.)

Luckily inspiration struck and with a few crafty maneuvers (turning a bookcase into a bookcase slash TV stand, meaning we got rid of the old TV stand and moved the bookcase to the TV 'spot' and then shifted a different bookcase down the wall and NOW THERE IS A FREE SPOT FOR THE GLIDER next to the fireplace) we have a fun and slightly re-mixed living room with room for our chair when it arrives!

 I seriously don't know what I did to make all these pictures so bad, but you get the idea. Now the room is a nice light gray (blue undertones) and feels so much brighter and more open!! I LOVE the new color...and am now in the market for a new rug because I'm sick of the old one, obviously. 

There's Matt in his PJs just now. Real life, people. But see how now the bookcase is holding the TV? Genius, right? (Go here to see roughly how it used to look)

The dining room chair is holding the place for the glider. Lola's portrait will hang over the glider...we just want to wait til it arrives so that we know how to place the picture. But I'm excited to have some new seating in the living room! Hopefully it won't stick out too much...but whatever. Who cares.

So anyway. Now that the walls are painted I am ready to start thinking about decorating for Christmas. In the past I never used a lot of greens, since the whole ROOM was green already and I didn't want stuff to clash/have too much of a good thing...but now I can! So I think I need to craft up some new stuff because it won't be long til it's socially appropriate to start decorating!

And thanks still for all of your continuing support and love. I seriously think that yall's prayers and support are the only reason we're functioning well enough that we can think about things like redecorating and holiday crafting right now. And that instead of losing my mind over the impending arrival of the glider, I was able to make an actual plan for it that doesn't make me sad? That's a miracle, people. So thank you so much for that. 

On a final and unrelated note, I think it's important that you know that my phone auto-corrects anything starting with 'ma' or 'ms' or anything else near those letters to "mwahahahaha." For real. And most of the time it's appropriate. I'm glad that iPhones can appreciate evil laughter as much as I do. The end.