Happy Halloween!!

Picture Share because it is Halloween, I just love her to death and she's just sooo stinkin cute...





This is one of my fav's!! ((below)) He REALLY loves that kid!!

Social Parade

Yay! I love to meet new people and I love new followers! I'm Megs. I have a thirteen month old, am an Army wife, a full time student, and a small business owner. My blog follows all my little life adventures. Enjoy!

A Short Story

I just sat down to a very big meal, that I made for myself. No one else is eating, just me. I made tons of entrees and side dishes and fruits and vegetables and desserts and beverages. Everything I made sounded good individually from the other foods, but together it makes an unappetizing meal. I was so hungry, I figured I would be ok to eat it all at the same time and just kept cooking, ignoring what was already on the table. It all sounded so good. But now, as I sit here staring at it, It makes me feel kind of... nauseous. Except for the wontons... those still look delicious.

Sitting here staring at the mashed potatoes next to the bowl of pasta, I start to wonder if I should just put half of the food on a shelf in the fridge and save it for later. I start to question my decision making abilities as I look at the pizza next to the Mexican food. Maybe, I've made myself too much? I was pretty hungry. But even on a good day Mexican food and pizza sounds like a bad choice.

Some of the plates start to stress me out. The food is going bad. I need to decide what I want to do with it. Will it last long enough in the fridge or should I just throw it out and be done with it now? If I get rid of one or two of the plates of food, will the others be allowed to stay? What will my husband think of me for wasting all this food??

The more I stare, the worse it gets and soon I become overwhelmed by all of it and just want to throw it all out and sit on the couch and wait until I'm hungry again and then maybe have... a bowl of cereal - it's much simpler. But I can't do that now, I'm already buried under all this food. Before I have a panic attack I push a large plate of rolls onto the floor. Oops. It opens a space on the table and I can move the plates around so there is more space between them. The table seems less full and I feel less overwhelmed. I know the pizza will reheat well, so I put it in a ziploc and toss it in the fridge. More room. The Chinese food was a good idea but I'm not hungry anymore and it doesn't keep well so I'll just throw it out. Same for the Mexican and the mashed potatoes. And so on. Soon, the items on the table look more like a proper meal and I'm even becoming hungry again. I don't feel so encumbered and I can eat happily, the food that is in front of me, The wontons.

I learn a valuable lesson from my cooking spree. When I cook I can't ignore the table. If I ignore the table, I'll wind up with more food than I need or want or that I can eat by myself.

How ((NOT)) to buy a House - Part 2

The craziness of the first week of living in this house continued for awhile. Every time we wanted to do one thing we'd have to completely stop what we were doing to clean up/move a project, paint, or we'd find that we had to fix three other issues before we could conquer the one at hand. Or, my very favorite, we'd need to go back to the hardware store, for only the fourth time that day. No really, once we went seven times in one day. Very shortly, we realized we were in over our Property Virgin Heads and that we needed help. And fast. Little-Mama was quickly becoming Big-Mama and the baby wasn't waiting on us to figure things out. Like many before us, when the going got tough, we called Daddy.

Well actually, J called his Daddy. Who just happens to be a contractor. A real one. Having never really asked his family for anything, when he called, they knew it was serious and managed to throw everything together and get here within two weeks. His Aunt, his Father and his brother, all came to help us fix the SO-WRONGS that were our house. I had high hopes they would at least see the potential in the place, but that was pretty much destroyed when Bob told us we weren't allowed to buy another house unless he was there to inspect it. Speaking of inspections... How did yours go? Well, dad, we weren't actually here for it. *Insert frowny face* Huh. Well that explains the house passing inspection with: standing water and black mold in this bathroom, the hole in the outside of the house, the THIRTEEN stairs ((I guess 'normal' houses have 14 - something about superstitions)) and the shotty job done on EVERYTHING! Yes, dad. We screwed up.

All *frowny faces* aside, They did so much work for us in the two weeks they were here, we never would have gotten it accomplished. Ever. Seriously, we didn't replace the air duct vents for nine months after we got here. That's right we had big giant holes in our ceilings. It took only $40 and ten minutes to solve the problem. But we ignored it. For nine months. While they were here, his family accomplished re-texture the walls of our entire upstairs, His dad put in new baseboards, they tore out ((to studs)) and re-finished our hall bathroom, they re-textured ceilings, they painted, put in five new doors, he built a brand new linen closet. OY! The LINEN CLOSET!! When we got here the "linen closet" was really an old set of kicthen cabinets set into a hole in the wall upstairs. Could you imagine? Not anchored in or anything. Just sitting in a GIANT hole in the wall. They did a LOT in two weeks. And on top of all that, they put up with a very hormonal, very pregnant, me. I tried to keep the house clean, that is very nearly impossible when all of that stuff is going on. I tried to help, did what they'd allow me, but it wasn't much.

The bathroom was a nightmare. I had naively thought it was just cosmetic surgery the house needed, but it turned out we needed a transplant doctor. Let's start with the floor. Peel and stick squares. I HATE peel and stick squares and someday when I'm Queen of everything, no one will be allowed to sell peel and stick squares so no home owner ever has to deal with them again. There was two layers of peel and stick floor. Two. Under them was a nice bubbly layer of water. Under the water, was four more layers of peel and stick squares and then a nice seventies orange laminate floor. I'm not kidding people, we had to add almost an inch of sub floor to make up for the height difference between the bathroom and hallway. In between each layer of flooring was a nice layer of mold.

The picture shows the 'pretty' rose-petal pink tile we removed and the yuck that was under the first two layers of peel and stick floor - white & black mold. We came to the conclusion once we reached the studs, since the house had been built every time there had been a major water issue in the bathroom they had just thrown peel and stick down to cover the problem. No one had ever actually solved it. To this day I wonder how much the previous home owners had to pay to get the inspector to pass the house. Maybe it was a good BJ?

Who knows. But if it hadn't been for J's family, we never would have gotten past it. We were already trying to find an exit strategy when they got here. I was/am so thankful they came. I was really thankful when they left, too. Pregnant-Hormonal me was tired of the banging, sawing, drilling, water leaks, yelling, and all the trips into the hardware stores. They made our house live able and safe to bring a baby into.


Our new bathroom :)

Decisions, Desicions

((Small break from How ((NOT)) to Buy a House series - do come back for it though))

I had a job interview today. For a very good job for this area. It went well, I think, and I was told that I would hear from her on Monday whether or not I had gotten the job. The pay isn't exactly what I had been hoping for, but it's 852% more than what I am making now. It's also a full time job which is more than I expected. All of it except the pay - which is probably good for the area- is great.

So why am I so bummed? I complained to you all for weeks about "wah wah me I can't find a job." I should be ecstatic. But I feel more confused now than I did then. When I was in my funk because I couldn't find a job or sell any of my stuff so I could be a real business, I asked God what I needed to do. I met the owner of this store ((I'm here for closing tonight)) and thought that was his way of saying, "Yes Megs, Go forth and prosper." Then Monday, three weeks, a Spirit of Survival, the filling of the store and only slightly more sales than I had made later, I get an e-mail asking for me to fill out an application so they could interview me for this position. Three weeks of telling myself not to rush it, things would pick up. Three weeks of trying to accept that I need to let go a little and try not to be so panicked about it. Three weeks of everyone around me telling to chill out. Now, NOW, they want an interview.

Let's discuss for a minute, shall we, what all Mrs. Megan has already got on her plate: a thirteen month old, a husband, a house ((who's maid never seems to show up)), three full time college classes I have completely ignored this semester, a promise to be in the store at least 3 days a week, filling orders ((should I ever FREAKING GET ANY)) and then there's my barn time that I can't live without otherwise I'd go crazy. I guess that somewhere in all that I could squeeze out forty hours a week for a full time job, right? Can't be too hard. And sleep? Sleep is a crutch. I don't need sleep.

There are so many variables here that I am not even going to list them. My eyes will go crossed and... do you smell that? Smells like... burning...

It must be my brain.

How ((NOT)) to buy a House - Part 1

I know I haven't written much in the last couple of weeks. I have had a bunch of things going on and as soon as I get on here to write about my lame problems, I read some of the blogs I follow and feel stupid for trying to whine about things that are so menial. The Grand Opening, which was last Saturday, went well. As a business owner I guess you could say it was a bit of a disappointment. I have come to the conclusion that it will never be enough now. This must be the fifth major lesson I've learned from all of this. Unless I had sold all of my inventory and made 100 orders, it wouldn't have been enough. It's not the money. I just want to prove to people that I can do it and it's not all for nothing and it will pay off. Just not tomorrow.

All that being said, I have decided, instead of boring you with Whiny McWhinerson I am going to tell you all about another lesson I have learned in the last couple of years; How ((NOT)) to buy a house. This is a long story. Actually, this is a several long stories. But I guarantee, one that you will benefit from if you are planning on purchasing a home any time soon.

We found out J was going Drill and being sent to Ft. Sill, OK when he was still on his last deployment. We had a long time to process the situation and decided it would be best to buy our first house once we arrived. We knew we would be here for roughly three years and the housing markets in military towns are rarely burdened by the markets in big cities, due to the comings and goings of military personnel. Three years would give us enough time to fix it up and hopefully build a nice amount of equity so we could sell and make decent enough money to buy a nice house, once we got to our next duty station. J and I agreed to look online and just see what Lawton had to offer and what our expectations should be for when we got here. We decided to look online first, move and then find a house once we were here. Essentially, we planned on moving twice. Doing the research this way we found, that for our budget, we were looking at houses that had kitchens and bathrooms that were going to have to pretty much be gutted and started from scratch. Also, we found that the houses here were all mostly 3 bedroom, 1.75 bathroom houses. We wanted 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms.

Everything was going well with our plans and research until I found out I was pregnant. After we knew it was going to stick, I found the idea of moving half way across the country 5 months pregnant and then moving again 6 months or more pregnant once we found a house, to be out of the question. Too hard on me and too hard on the pregnancy. J and I discussed this and though he assured me everything would be fine, I stood my ground on the subject and we decided to find a house BEFORE we moved. What it is pregnancy hormones do to a woman's brain, I'll never understand, but this is inevitably where things start to go wrong.

It just so happened that I came across a house on the Internet right about this time, that I thought would be perfect for us. It had three bedrooms, a large master with his and her walk-in closets and though the bathrooms needed to be updated, there was two and a half of them and also the kitchen was brand new, with custom cabinets and granite counter tops. Even better then all that, It was actually below our price range. We both like the style of the house and even though the real estate agent emailed about 30 pictures of all the potential issues, we decided to go ahead with the bargaining. The real estate agent also told me the house was dirty and said she insisted on putting professional cleaning in the contract. This should have been a red flag but it wasn't. I thought it made sense to have it professionally cleaned, after all that's what they do when you get a new apartment, right? Soon, we were passed the inspection and ready to sign the contract. We were excited to be first time home buyers. We knew it would take some work to get the house to what we wanted it to be but nothing that wasn't cosmetic. The perfect first time home.

A month later we were in the car on our way to Lawton, OK. Our new home and new life. Our trip did not go as planned and 3/4 of the way through Arkansas my brand new car engine seized. The dealer was astounded that my 2006 with 30,000 mile engine had died the way it did. We were astounded to find out that this had never happened before and because of the car I drive there wasn't just an extra engine laying around anywhere close. Actually, I think his words were in the "Continental United States". Now down to one car, we piled all of my stuff, our two dogs and everything of J's into his small car and continued on our way. We were looking forward to seeing and being in our house to make up for the car incident. Man were we in for it.

When we drove through Lawton, we weren't really surprised by how small it is but we were disappointed by the lack of amenities you usually find next to a military post. Like a Target. Or a Dunkin Donuts. We pulled up in our driveway and both of us had the biggest smiles on our faces. The lawn needed to be mowed and the outside of the house needed some work, but it was what we expected. Then we walked through the front door. The house was disgusting. No disgusting doesn't even describe the level of filth these people had been living in. We could actually see where their pictures and decorations hung on the wall and where they had there living room furniture; The walls were so greasy around it all. The kitchen was even worse. There was hairy mold in three of the cabinets. The stove looked as if it hadn't been cleaned in years and the fridge... was well... just gross. On our way up stairs we noticed a three by three inch hole they cut into the ceiling, from what we could tell, to get some piece of furniture out of the house. The "hardwood floors" boasted in the ad were all covered in 12-inch peal and stick tile, that was poignantly left off the ad. The bathrooms were what we expected, except for the feces left in the toilet and the mushy floors. The third bedroom had a perfect line of poop on the wall where an animal cage had been sitting and the entire house was dotted with chunks of chewed blue bubble gum. Chewed freaking gum. We also found a bunch of things you don't think to look for in pictures. Every wall in the house had a different texture than the one it connected to. All the light switches and plug in face plates were yellow and gross. The handrail going up the stairs was literally covered black with sticky and grime. We even found boogers and snot.

I can tell you that I'm a pretty laid back person. Take it as it comes. Flexibility is key when your married to the military. I try to handle every situation like I would want it to be handled if I was on the other side of it. This was not one of those times. I called my real estate agent and explained to her as nicely as I could that the house had not been cleaned like it should have been. It was Monday. Our stuff was arriving Friday. She had until Thursday night to fix the problem or I would be going to JAG. I took pictures. There were clearly items that should have NEVER passed the inspection, the family and the listing real estate agent knew we were military and coming from out of town, I was sure this kind of jilting would be great on the 9 o'clock news. When we got off the phone, she called the listing agent and I can only imagine the ass chewing she gave him, if for nothing other than getting one from me. When she called me back she was out of breathe. A maid was arriving first thing in the morning. I could leave a key if we didn't want to stay there until it was cleaned. The kicker was he told he had walked through the house and felt that it "wasn't that bad." I remember screaming into the phone, "TELL HIM TO COME OVER HERE RIGHT NOW AND TELL ME WHAT PART OF THIS 'ISN'T THAT BAD'!!!" I was heated.

He did, in fact, get a maid to the house the very next morning. Lucky enough for us, J had a very good friend stationed here at the time who was good enough to give us his bed for as long as we needed it. We worked 16 hour days all week cleaning, painting and removing gum, trash and peel and stick flooring. When I say painting, I mean we painted. EVERY. Single. Wall. In. This. House. We worked so hard on the house that first week, when I think about it now, I have no clue how I didn't go into premature labor and have to file for divorce at the same time. We tell people now that the fact that we made it through this as a couple shows we'll last through anything. Once it was cleaned the house wasn't that bad. It had our stuff in it and it was at least clean. But we were far from done.

The filth on the outside should have been a warning to what was on the inside. Stay Tuned. Part 2 - Inspector Gadget

Some more Spirit of Survival Pics - Cuz I'm proud

The three ladies!!







And after today... I'M IN THE MALL!! Whooo Hoo!!

Better late than never - The Spirit of Survival 2010

Let me just begin by saying that for as crazy as things seem to be right now, on the inside I'm so excited I could just pee myself! Sunday was the Spirit of Survival. They had a 5k Run, a 1 mile walk and a childrens 1 mile. There were over 650 kids running and more than 700 adults ran! It was incredible. I met a woman who had three kids and had beaten cancer twice! She said, "I have three kids to take care of, you think I'm gonna let cancer win?!"

We got there fairly early to set up so that we would be one of the few set up while people were getting registration done for the day. Our booth turned out GREAT and we were one of the most festive of the day!


((Sugar Bee's stuff is on the table to the right))

Over the last week I have gotten to know the people that I will be sharing a good portion of my business time with and I am loving them! They are such amazing women! They both are inspirations to me and I am so happy that I found them! We had a great day and sold quite a bit of their stuff. I didn't do bad either. I made four orders and sold 6 other items that I had there. Plus, even better than that, I was able to meet & talk to lots of potential customers and let people know that I'll be in the mall soon. Everyone. EVERY one told me how great the frames were and the wine glasses. They loved them. As an artist, I was so nervous about people actually seeing my stuff for the first time, I thought I was going to throw up. I honestly do not know how painters and other artists do it. I was so nervous people were going to hate it; I think I may have had a mini panic attack as I was setting stuff out. But I felt a lot better after the first few people came by and the day ended up being a great day.

I am SO lucky! And SO blessed! I was going to post pictures but Blogger just gave up on me. I'll be back later to try again.

This week:

Some great things have happened this week as well as some not so great things. I got to have girls night out for the first time in forever. It was awesome! We went to see Little Big Town and SugarLand in concert in OKC. We had a blast and the show was AmAzing. I honestly think it's the best one Ive ever been too. They played for four hours! Ive never been to a concert that lasted that long! I also failed my first accounting test and government test. And by fail I mean FAIL. This week I have gotten two of the lowest scores on tests that I have EVER gotten in my life. The truth is my heads not in school right now and I just need to re-focus.

Tomorrow is the Spirit of Survival. I got 18 wine glasses and 13 picture frames made in 7 days ((I think)). It's been a busy week. Tuesday and Wednesday were two 12 hour days of masking & taping the glassware to get it ready for blasting and in all of that I only had two mis-haps. I blew some the lettering off one of the picture frames so it looks like it says, "I ran for my grandma" only the "m" and the "a" are all blasted away and smudged. Oh well I'll use it for orders. I made Special Order Forms, a Font List, a little advertisement for reasons to make special orders ANNNNDDD I also got my new logo from the Small Business Development Center of OK.

I'm way more nervous than I thought I'd be. I just need to be positive about everything and know that it will all work out. It's a little scary because we have put ourselves in a tough spot to get here, but if it pays off, it will be for the best. I got to work with the store owner on Friday, merchandising and setting out her stuff. I really enjoyed it. I am so excited about the store owner and her friend that is helping her run it. It's so funny how you think that people were put in your life right when you need them, sometimes its easy to forget you are probably showing up in their life right when they need you.

Before I go, I wanted to give you a sneak peak at the way the merchandise turned out for the Spirit of Survival tomorrow. Enjoy! <3

Are you breathing?

"Are you breathing?" A question that is asked several times during my riding lessons. Our trainer says it and before I can think of something witty to respond with, I realize that somewhere between the canter and the cross-bars I actually did, stop breathing. "Ya can't ride if you don't breathe." Thank you, Jane-Anne.

What is really funny is how often I find the Jane-Anne in my head asking me that question. I have adapted to it in the arena, but it fits so well in with every day life I ask it to myself all the time. A car runs the red light that would have been my green but someone loves me and I happened to be paying attention; "Are you breathing?" Stub my toe and instead of a long slough of cuss words, "Are you breathing?" Any stressful part of the day now and Im questioning my oxygen supply.

Tonight has been no exception. I got the mask I ordered in the mail, so I started working on making the mask I need for the designs for the Spirit of Survival this weekend. I am making 13 picture frames and 18 wine glasses all with pink-ribbon themes. Seven pages ((11x17")) of mask in total. This is the first time I am working with this many products at once and the first time I have made this much mask at once. Up until now my mask-making skills have been sub-par and I've managed to blow through 2 out of 3 images I have tried to wash out. Unfortunately for me, this evening I didn't have the extra to fix the problem if I had blown through it. As I stood over the sink with the first piece on the wash out board, guess what? I held my breath. After a few minutes, and probably a few color changes, I realized I was doing and thought, "Are you breathing?" Well no, no I'm not. "You can't ride if you don't breathe." Whether it was oxygen deprevation or not, a little light went off, and I realized what she's been saying. You can't know until you try. You can't ride if you don't breathe. Tonight, I decided breathing was important, For more than just obvious reasons. And I am proud to say I washed out all seven pages of mask without dicking up one single image.

"Are you breathing? Ya can't ride if you don't breathe." Thank you Jane-Anne, Lesson Learned.

Mi Vida Loca - Every single day

My birthday was yesterday. It started out as a great day and then about 30 minutes after dropping Bug of to run my "first-errands" - the ones every mil-wife has - I started to get a migraine. Pardon the expression, but it really pissed me off. So I took a mini-break, ate a bagel and had some coke and tried the new stuff they gave me, Maxalt. I was instructed to take one every two hours until the migraine went away and then the next time I have one, just take that specific amount of medicine right away. Well I took some, sat a minute ad tried to get some of my errands done. Sometimes if I ignore it enough, they'll go away for awhile. Well that didn't happen and I ended up only picking up the wine glasses and the picture frames for the Spirit of Survival, paid for the hutch for the store and then I made a quick stop to get in and cut my hair. That poor lady. When I get migraines, I get really bad zigzagging lines through one or both of my eyes. THANKFULLY, it happened in the salon and NOT while I was driving, but it was kind of annoying to have to close one eye and try to see if I liked what she was doing.

By the grace of God, Bug was with my friend. She assured me that Bug was not being a problem and demanded that I come home to nap. Which I did, but not before taking another Maxalt. When I woke up, the lights and numbness were gone, but my head was KILLING me. Even after some motrin and another Maxalt, I was sucking yesterday. All in all it was a good day, so many people remembered and sent me birthday wishes. It was so awesome and I felt special and thought of! J brought the hutch home and we ordered in chinese so I could baby my head. He's a good husband :)

This morning I was wide awake again at 5am. Again. Thinking about 50 different things at once. Again. I used the time to start spray painting the hutch. Something I didn't think you could fail at, but if you could see it, you would know I CLEARLY am not a painter. I have decided I am TOO overwhelmed and I need to wwwwooossssaahhh or something. It's definitely not helping the headache ((still pounding)). I'm trying really hard not to put myself under so much pressure to make this perfect. It needs to be great, but perfection just isn't gonna happen. At the same time every dollar we put into my* business is coming out of our* pockets right now. I think, "What if it doesn't sell?" "What if we don't get this money back?" "How will we manage?" "It will be my fault." One thing that I have read in every small business book for every class I have taken is that the income of a sole-proprietorship is limited by the fear or ability of the business owner. This rings in my ears every time I doubt myself. There is so much to be done; it seems like every time I scratch one thing off my list, three more replace it. I'm going to be overwhlemed, it's going to happen. I just need to get over it. It's how I handle it that matters.

How do I handle it? The migraine didn't help much. Migraines aren't a good cure for overwhelming situations. That's like pouring booze on alcoholism. Gasoline on fire... Guess it's time to change my tactics, huh?