Conquering the ClosetMaid

I BUILT SOMETHING TODAY. Huzzah! Granted, assembling two ClosetMaid shelving units is not really a whole lot to brag about, but I am bursting with pride since I did it myself, instead of waiting for Dn. John to come home and put them together for me. Baby steps, I'm telling you.

The shelves are to replace our mismatched, drawerless, too short nightstands. I bought some baskets to fit on the shelves to be "drawers", and now they match and are lovely. Makes my heart pitter-patter. :) One thing down on my grand plan of a bedroom makeover. Painting the walls is going to be the doozy. I can't decide if I should get a babysitter and bully one of my sisters into helping me paint, or just wait for a Saturday, watch my own kids, and bully my husband into painting. Decisions, decisions.

I got to be "that Mom" at Target yesterday, checking out (with said ClosetMaid shelves and baskets) while Marina sat in the cart and had a screaming meltdown. It was epic. Thankfully, we were done shopping when the screaming began, so when I told her, "Okay, we're leaving now," I could just go without being annoyed about missing out on the rest of the stuff I needed to get. Plus, I think it made a greater impression on her since we literally stopped what we were doing and left.

I've come to the conclusion that parenting is a heck of a lot easier at home, as opposed to church/the grocery store/restaurants, etc. I don't usually feel overwhelmed until I try to take the kids somewhere. This, of course, leads many people who don't visit my home and only see me at church to believe that I'm generally frazzled and frustrated. It's really a shame, since I feel that I'm not that crazy of a person...it's just that they never see me in my comfort zone, which is frankly where I spend 90% of my time. Ah well.

In any case, my comfort zone is a sty and needs to be cleaned, so I'm off to tackle that. Oh, and it's above zero today (3 degrees! Hooray!) for the second day in a row, so here's hoping the nastiest part of this cold snap is over. Yesterday it got all the way up to 10. Megan told me, "Mom! It's so warm! (It was 8 degrees at the time). I don't need a hat." Have no fear though, my southern readers, I still made her wear a hat. We don't go hat-less unless it's above 30. :)