This Old House

When your house is 82 years old, you always have a lot of projects to do. We have done something to every room and now we are starting on the last. Some background first. Since Tim and I got our own apartment, he has usually had his own "man room". Tim has a lot of stuff and everyone is happier(me) when it is all contained in it's own space. That was fine before we had kids and lived in a too small house. He has managed to hang onto his room but it has gradually been taken away from him and now, we are turning it into a bedroom. Grace really needs her own room and this will most likely become hers. Yes, my 9 year old daughter and 7 year old son share a room. They never have seemed to care about it because they haven't known anything different but it has to come to an end.

So, the house is from the 1920's but had a redecoration sometime in the 1960's or 70's. Every room was covered in fake wood paneling. The woman who owned the house before us, took it all down except for this room. Tim is taking the panels down and discovering the pink crumbling plaster underneath. He is going to demo this stuff as well but first, he let the kids decorate the walls. I hope they understand this was a one time deal.
Scary things are being unearthed. Random electrical wires in an old house freak me out.
Sometimes the paneling doesn't want to go peacefully. I'm finding long shards of it everywhere and am sure there will be a major splinter in someone at some point.
Tim is dealing with the major demo and I will probably come in more once the drywall is up. Until then, I just have to deal with the mess as best I can. I just need to keep telling myself that this is the last room we have to do this to. Hopefully.

Sometimes I Like My Job

Sometimes, very rarely, I get some good stuff from work. There is a new Sephora store opening in the Maine Mall. They want us to cover it and we aren't going to but they still sent me an awesome press kit full of makeup. The rule is, we are not allowed to accept free gifts from possible stories. However, my news director quit and we are not going to cover this story and they cut my pay this year so I don't feel bad about keeping all the makeup they sent me.

I am a sucker for any kind of moisturizer and this stuff smells amazing.
I hope this works on my hair so I'm not a frizz ball for my high school reunion next week.
Anti-aging, anti-wrinkle cream..enough said. Although I am concerned that the directions say to keep it away from your eyes. I have a feeling this stuff sort of burns but I'm still using it.
This is bronzing powder. I have practically transparent Irish skin. This is not going to look right on me. Anybody want it?
This lipstick scares me. It's the kind that plumps up your lips without having to get collagen injections. I tried a small amount of it, immediately wiped it off and my lips are still sort of tingling.
Finally, they sent this cool face powder in my skin shade-transparent. I'm actually not a huge makeup wearer but I do use powder so this is probably the best of the lot for me.

I went to the Sephora website, looked up all these products and added it all up. In the end, they sent me about $150 worth of products. I should feel guilty but I just don't.

Dear Carly

Dear Carly,

You have been living with us for a couple of weeks now. You are doing pretty good but there is one basic rule we need to go over. Please pay attention.

The following items are not things that you can chew on...
The corner of my coffee table...
Any of our shoes, especially Declan's rain boots...
My feet or the feet of anybody else in this house...
Any of the kid's balls-this one used to be Declans favorite...
Any of the baseball bats. We'll talk later about that hole you dug next to it...
Any pencils or pens you come across. I don't care if they were left on the floor...
Any Lego pieces especially Star Wars ones. These will lead to major surgery...
This basket is yours. You can chew on anything in this and you can even chew on the basket if you want.
I understand that you are teething but if you don't stop soon, this cage will be your permanent home.

Late Night With Conan O'Brien

Thanks to some strangers on YouTube, here is some very shaky and blurry video of our night in Boston with Conan. At the end of the show, he ran through the audience. I was next to him for about 1/3 of a second. Now, on to Craig Ferguson in October!

The Poky Little Puppy

First off, I have to say, we did not intend to get another animal so soon after Peter. The puppy discussion had been going on for quite a while and this batch of puppies popped up out of the blue. Now, I would like you to meet Carly Meghan McMahon. The kids named her but we all had to agree on it.

We got her last week and she's now 9 weeks old and about 11 pounds. She is very sweet and smart. I haven't had a dog since high school when we had Tara who was sweet too but the stupidest dog ever born.
She is a mutt and we have no idea what she will turn into. We see lab, golden retriever and beagle in her so far. She sort of looks purebred even though she was free.
I mean "free" in that she was given to us but setting up a puppy is very costly. Hopefully she is all set now. She sleeps in her crate without a problem but she does need to go outside every 3-4 hours. Good thing Tim's lunch break is in the middle of the night because I do not want to get up for her potty break at 3AM. She has had several accidents in the house but she does know we want her to do it outside. It's sort of like having a newborn again.
Grace takes her for about 10 walks a day. I think she likes the fact that we let her do the walks around the block by herself. Carly's legs are tired by the end of the day.
This was our biggest obstacle. Declan is still deathly afraid of dogs. He does like Carly though if he is in control of the situation. He can approach her but she can't approach him. He is spending a lot of time on the couch and asking us to bring him things. I hope by the end of the summer he will at least be able to walk past her without freaking out. One of the reasons we got her was to help Declan get over his fear and we are taking baby steps towards that. For now, we just enjoy her and I light a lot of candles to combat the dog smell.