California art

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Yesterday I made this. I’ve wondered what to do with this awkward spot above the desk and next to the stairs for years. I even made a pallet project before this to fill it, but it ended up looking better somewhere else in the house. I thought I’d used up my pallet wood and tried to throw the rest of the pallet away in the trash but the garbage men wouldn’t take it! They took the wood pieces out of the trash can and put it on the sidewalk. Sooooo, I had to do something with the rest of the pieces of pallet wood. It was good wood too, just in weird, smallish pieces though. The wood had been well weathered – a process I had nothing to do with. I just let it sit in the side yard getting rained on, washed over with sprinklers and bleached out by the sun for years. Anyway, I wanted to do a little tutorial as to how I made it.

I don’t have a ton of pictures to share about the process, so I’ll have to explain it mostly. First off, I really used this website as a guideline and inspiration: http://www.manmadediy.com/users/david/posts/3456

1. I had a map of CA printed on a large engineer print at Staples for like $4. You can use my map, which is 2×3 feet, but I felt like it was too small and didn’t realize it until I got home with it and put it on the wall space. At that point, I just tried to freehand an enlargement of the map I had printed out. I don’t recommend that. But here it is:

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If you want something bigger, here is a 3×4 foot map:

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2. Once you print out the map, cut it out.

3. Lay out all your pieces of pallet wood on the ground and situate it the way you like it. I had thick and thin pieces of pallet wood. Some were 4″ tall and some were 6″. Brush it all off and make sure it looks the way you want it and then place your cut out map on top of the wood. Once you see that it fits ….

4. Take your map off, flip all your wood over to the “wrong” side (or the side you want on back) and you will be working on the back side of your project from here on out. Flip your map over too now, so you’re looking at the back of the map and lay it on the wood pallets. Now trace it.

5. Take your paper map off the boards and get a piece of thin plywood (that’s what I used). Make sure your plywood is smaller than the map you drew. Cut it if you need to (I used my Skil saw for that).

6. Once your plywood is small enough to fit within the border of the map you drew, screw it into place. Make sure your screws are just long enough to go through the plywood and into the pallet boards without coming through the front side of the pallet boards.

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7. My plywood was pretty flimsy, so I used a 1×4 pinewood board to stabilize it. I just screwed that into the back also (see picture above – the picture above was taken at the end, after I had already cut everything out, but at this point in the steps, you haven’t cut out your map yet).

8. Now you cut out the traced map with a jigsaw. There are few tight turns on the CA border, especially the San Francisco bay area and I had to use my drill to make holes and then insert the jigsaw blade into those holes and keep cutting. I also cut it in sections. Sometimes I came at different portions from another angle. If you need to know how, I watched a few videos on YouTube about how to use a jigsaw. Very informative.

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9. The pallet wood I used was pretty heavy, so to hang it, I used two hook eye screws and screwed them in at an even level, then wrapped a wire between them. Below is a picture of a hook eye screw:

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California is an awkward shape, so to make sure it hung correctly, I had to put the wire and hook eye screws pretty far down on the state, about halfway down, and not high at the top.

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10. And that’s it! You can sand it if you want (I didn’t) or stain it (I didn’t) or paint it (I didn’t), but don’t let that stop you. If I didn’t love the patina the wood I had, I would’ve stained it.

At the end, I freehand painted a gold heart over the Bay Area where I grew up.

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I really liked this project. It was pretty easy and problem free. It was meant to be rustic looking, so a few imperfections are desired. Fun project. There you go, make one yourself now!

scheduling conflicts

Oh. my. goodness. Life is just screaming along at a breakneck pace! Daniel and I have turned 70% of our conversations into scheduling discussions. I feel like we’re playing some sort of tag team race. Days and weeks are just flying by and we are so exhausted!

This morning was supposed to be different. We had a whirlwind weekend and yesterday was the first Bishop’s Youth Fireside that we hosted here at our house. We got to bed late and I woke up, got the boys off to school and thought, “phew! I’ve got a free morning ahead of me and Ray isn’t awake yet! huh. I think I’ll sit down and blog.” But as I went to sign in to the blog, I had to reset my password and I had the new one sent to my email …. and that was my mistake. Because then I was looking at my email and there was soooooooooo much there. I found myself answering emails to our Rental Manager in MI about refinishing the hardwood floors and emailing a family photo to the ward YW’s president for a ward event and scheduling with Daniel how I could get him to do the soccer practice rigamorale so I could attend the ward Terrific Tuesday and then I’m so busy that I haven’t eaten breakfast and I’m scheduling piano lessons over email!

It feels like it will never end. But it’s all good stuff. Nothing terrible is happening. We’re just so busy we feel like we can’t get our footing. We feel like we’re spinning. It’s felt like that ever since he was called to be bishop.

I would never pick this for my life but I can see how it changes me for the good. For instance, I am back to praying constantly. I have felt this scripture play out in my life:

2 Nephi 32:9

9 But behold, I say unto you that ye must pray always, and not faint; that ye must not perform any thing unto the Lord save in the first place ye shall pray unto the Father in the name of Christ, that he will consecrate thy performance unto thee, that thy performance may be for the welfare of thy soul.

I felt this way while I was a young mommy too. That was terribly hard. It was exhausting and it was painful. I needed to pray. I needed the help. I feel that way again and it worries me. I don’t want life to be a struggle, I want to enjoy it but maybe the only way I can be perfected is through struggle. I would not go to my Heavenly Father unless I were in dire need. Why am I like that? Maybe if I were a more perfect being I wouldn’t need struggle to bring me to my knees; I would seek for the Lord in times of relative ease too. But I have to say – either way, I have felt the Lord with me. I feel a sense of strength and assistance.

I also feel closer to Daniel. Weird, cuz he’s physically and mentally gone more. But because he is gone more, we relish the time together. We really appreciate one another now. It’s only been about 6 weeks with him serving as bishop, but it has made a massive change in our lives. Our love feels concentrated now, because it’s given and received in small chunks, but it’s like taking a spoonful of orange juice concentrate – it’s strong. We also don’t have time to be angry with one another or have fights. That’s wasteful. Every time we get angry (in the last 6 weeks), we are quick to resolve it and melt toward each other. We need each other more.

That’s where we’re at right now. It’s crazy busy and I don’t know how to change that. I want more downtime and I wish things were less hectic, but it has caused me to depend more on the Lord. Daniel remains as the most wonderful thing in my life. I love him.

eating my words

So remember when I potty trained Ray in 3 days? And I didn’t think it would work and it did? And remember when I was so proud of myself and sharing with other women I met how unbelievable it was and how they should try it too? Remember when I smugly told Christina that I could potty train Emily too cuz I was evidently so good at it? And remember when I thought, “wow, this third kid is actually easier than the first two. He did it! He’s the best! I knew I could do it with him because I didn’t make the same mistakes  as I did with Noah and Liam!” ….. yeah.

So Ray has majorly regressed in the potty training department. In fact, he has completely forgotten how to go to the bathroom. Like, he’s a large baby wearing underwear that I have to clean up 7 times a day. It would be easier if I’d just admit that he doesn’t know how to go to the bathroom and put a stinking diaper on him. But something inside me says that it’s wrong to do that and that it will have major emotional consequences or something.

I keep telling myself that it’s just a set back, that he’s busy playing and forgets, or that cousins are over, his schedule was disrupted and that’s why it’s happening. But guess what? We were home all day, in our normal schedule with nobody distracting him today and guess how many times I’ve cleaned poop out of his underwear? Three times. Do you know how gross that is? Like waaaaaaaaaaay grosser than changing a diaper because when you change a diaper, the poop usually stays inside the diaper and you can undo the diaper while he’s lying down and wipe it with wet wipes and then toss it in the trash. But when you’re changing underwear that’s been pooped in you know you will touch feces at some point. It’s only a matter of time. Because you have to pull it down his legs and poop inevitably gets all over his legs when you pull down his pants and then sometimes he loses his balance while you’re pulling the pants off his feet and he steps in the poop.

Sometimes he says he needs to go potty, and you believe him (first mistake), so you run to the potty with him and pull his pants down quickly, plop him on the toilet and realize he didn’t make it and his poopy underwear is smashed up against the front of the toilet now. So now you’re cleaning poop off the toilet too. Then you have to clean the poop off the underwear by swishing it around in the toilet. That’s the worst. Because when you’re turning the underwear inside out, poop usually gets on your fingers or when you’re swishing, poopy water gets on you (equally as disgusting). If poop mysteriously doesn’t get on you when you’re swishing then it happens when you’re wiping the poop off his bum. If it doesn’t get on your hand then, it’s when you’re cleaning the poop off the front of the toilet, or off his legs or feet or when you pull down his pants …. it becomes unavoidable that you will have poop on your fingers at some point during clean up of a poopy pants situation. I’ve done that 3 times today. Three times!! I mean, how much poop could a child his size make? I feel like I should stop feeding him so he stops pooping so darn much.

So I’m at my wits end. A few nights ago, I cried about it. I don’t know what to do. Heavens knows I’ve tried though. I made a potty chart and gave him rewards, stickers and treats, but that didn’t seem to make a dent in the problem, so I tried making him clean up the poopy mess. You know what’s a sure fire way to make a poopy pants situation worse and a bigger mess? … having him clean it up. Major fail. I’ve been putting him on time outs now every time he does it and I just don’t know what else to do.

He says all the right things though. I ask him if he wants to go back to diapers and he says, “Nooo. I’m a BIG boy and big boys wear underwear!” and I ask him after he sits on time out what he did wrong and he says, “I went stinkies in my underwear and that’s bad. I go poopies in the potty!” Then smiles. He seems super optimistic.

Well, I will no longer be preaching the good word of potty training in 3 days. Cuz that’s a sham. And I don’t believe people that tell me that potty training isn’t that bad … maybe it’s just me and the children I create. They have potty issues. It’s always a year long, drawn out, terribly dirty, frustrating experience where everybody involved cries … especially me.

 

#blessed

I have so much to do, but I have wanted to blog for weeks now and have not found a moment. I am squeezing this in anyway. I said I’d keep you posted on how the bishop thing is going and today I will. Also, today was crazy and I have to share.

When Daniel was called as bishop, my mom told me, “the Lord takes care of his bishops”. She was, of course, right. I have felt blessings poured out on us and I wanted to document what I see happening. It’s mostly small things, but it makes me feel less alone. I feel like someone is with me, helping me out.

For a couple Sundays in a row now, the nursery leader has taken Ray to nursery. I am usually frantically picking up the massive mess that is our row at church when he comes by and says hi to Ray and then asks if Ray could come with him to nursery. I don’t even know his name, the nursery leader, but I just love that he’s so kind and helpful.

About 2 weeks ago Daniel went out of town for one night. That one night happened to be back to school night. It also happened to be one of the 3 nights I was watching the Clark kids while Jeff and Christina went out of town. I had a babysitter all lined up, then something happened and she called me hours before and said she couldn’t. Nancy Rowley found out and jumped in and came over and watched all 7 kids so I could go to back to school night. Nancy is the previous bishop’s wife. It was so incredibly kind of her to do that.

One night a week ago, I was losing it. I was near tears and stressed out from the invasion of ants we’ve had all month. I feel like all I do all day is find ant lines, trace them back, caulk the area, spray it with ant killer and vacuum the ants up, then repeat in a different portion of the house. It drives me bonkers. It’s never ending and an urgent need all. the. time. And I wanted to scream. The boys had also been fighting. I talked to Daniel on the phone as he was on his way to the church and just cried to him. After I got off the phone, I sucked it up and tried to figure out what I was going to do about dinner. 10 minutes later Daniel walked in the door! His interview had been cancelled and he was able to come home and be with me and help me. It was so needed that night.

I still miss Daniel madly but I also feel like I can do this, with the help I feel like I’m receiving. Just when I feel overwhelmed, I receive assistance.

Today I had a LOT of errands to run. We were all out of food, it’s the first day of the month and I had to do Costco shopping. I also have preschool at my house tomorrow morning and had to get things for that. I prayed last night to be able to accomplish everything I needed to do today and planned on getting an early start today. That was the plan …. until I found ants. again. It really blows my mind. I just sprayed the exterior of the house 2 days ago. The ants were coming out of the inside of the sink and up through a crack in the carpet. for reals. I had also just spent an hour the night before cleaning up ants in the boys’ room … and in their bathroom, and in the laundry room … and in Ray’s room. I wanted to cry this morning when I found them. It set me back. I spent an hour and a half cleaning them all up. I didn’t leave the house until 10:30 am. I had just 3 hours to do everything and I just thought, “well, I’ll do what I can and see what happens”. I wasn’t sure there was anything I could cut out so I just moved forward. And it happened. All of it. It was amazing.

I had to go get some things printed at Staples for preschool and knew they got busy sometimes, so I called them. The girl said they were reeeeeeally busy. But I knew I wouldn’t have any time the rest of the day to go there before they closed tonight, so I just went anyway. And guess what? I walked in and the girl was helping one other person, which finished in a couple minutes and then literally there was not a single other person there but me. I showed her what I wanted printed and she said, “were you the one that called just a few minutes ago? Because you just barely missed the rush!”

There were green lights and things moved smoothly. I even found all of my library books for preschool quickly! This is everything I accomplished in 3 hours with Ray by my side:

– I went to Rite Aid, returned something and picked up my meds (no line)

– I went to the library and checked out books for preschool

– I went to Lowe’s and bought sand for preschool

– I went to JoAnn’s and bought supplies for preschool (paper, glue sticks, treasure boxes and foam)

– I went to Staples and printed out stuff for preschool

– I went to Costco and got in and out in 40 minutes. No joke. I did a Costco trip, with Ray, in 40 minutes, start to finish. Should I say that again? That’s unbelievable! Buying, checking out, unpacking it all into my car …. unreal.

I was even able to go home after Costco and refrigerate the perishables before picking up the boys from school. I know that miracles are often hard to recognize. The word “mira” means “to look”. Miracles are only seen by those who are looking. I was looking, hoping and praying for one today.