I know I’m almost a week late, but I still want to send out a Happy Mother’s Day to all you moms out there!  I had a wonderful Mother’s Day thanks to the hubs and the little one.  I feel truly blessed to be a mom, and although I don’t need a special day or gifts to celebrate it was nice to have that family time and pampering.

Ben feels he “owes” me quite a few birthday and Christmas presents because there have been plenty of years when we just couldn’t afford gifts.  Personally the gift isn’t what’s important to me.  Just spending the day celebrating with my family is all I need, but he decided he wanted to make up all those “lost” present opportunities by going all out for Mother’s Day this year now that his new job allows him to do so.

So, I woke up Mother’s Day morning to breakfast in bed courtesy of Ellie throwing a Burger King bacon, egg, and cheese croissant at me lmao!  Ben said they tried to make me pancakes, but things didn’t go very well in the kitchen (I saw the aftermath and no it wasn’t pretty), so they gave up and opted for the drive thru option.  Then they came home and attempted to wrap my presents.  Now, you have to understand Ben doesn’t do gift wrap.  If something needs wrapped he passes it on to me and forgets about it.  I always have gift wrapping supplies and gift bags on hand, but he is absolutely clueless as to where I keep everything.  He did manage to find the tape and a few sheets of blank paper, so he taped the paper over the pictures of the item on the box and wrote “Happy Mother’s Day” in big letters before letting Ellie scribble on it! As um…unique…as that was Ellie’s wrapping job was even better.

We recycle as much as we can, so if a gift bag isn’t available hiding a present for each other in a few grocery bags is not uncommon.  Yeah, we’re redneck like that, but we’re saving the environment one bag at a time, right?  Ellie took it one step further and recycled the Burger King carryout bag into my gift bag.  She was beaming ear to ear when she crawled up on the bed with that BK bag and placed it in my lap, and that made it the best wrapping job ever!

So what did I get?  Ben gave me the Keurig B60 Special Edition.  I’ve wanted a Keurig for a very long time, and I adore it!  Ellie gave me a mini travel sewing machine I’ve also been wanting.  As much as I would like to have a really nice sewing machine with all the bells and whistles I would never use it.  I spotted the mini one a couple weeks ago and told Ben it would be perfect for clothing repairs and sewing bows, just what I need, and that’s just what I got.  I love that the sewing machine runs off batteries (you can also buy a 6v adapter), so I can use it anywhere without worrying about where the plugins are.  Yesterday I sewed a few bows outside on the patio while Ellie ran around and played!

I’ve already gotten so much use out of both of my presents.  The entire family is enjoying the Keurig, even Ellie.  Someone gave me a few of the hot chocolate k cups, and even though I don’t like the watered down taste Ellie is loving them.  When I make my coffee in the morning she asks “Mama, you make me hot chocolate, too?”, so of course I must!

After years of using WordPress as my main choice in website software I have decided to break down and mess around with Joomla.  I don’t necessarily want to run my own sites on the platform, but lately I’ve had a lot of customers asking about Joomla.  A great way to expand my business is to offer more than one choice, so I’m making that leap.  I’ve downloaded and installed Joomla on my test site, and now I’m in the process of searching best joomla templates to find a few I like.

Who out there is using Joomla?  I’d love to hear what you think about it.  Do you have your own personal set of pros and cons concerning the software?  I’m going to spend the afternoon playing around with it before I make any assumptions of my own. 

I’m been in full fledged Spring Cleaning mode today. I got so much done, Winter stuff put in the attic, Summer stuff pulled out, and my house now smells like Pine-sol from top to bottom. I have to tackle the bathroom in the morning, and everything will be officially spic and span again. With everything that’s been going on lately the housework has definitely fallen behind, and it’s driving me crazy. Sometimes you just have to let it go, especially when you’ve got so much going on you feel like you’re being pulled in 5 different directions by wire rope. I’m just glad everything has calmed back down and I can get back into a routine again.

I’m also glad Ellie is in little helper mode these days. While I mopped the kitchen, dining room, and den she happily ran around the playroom and her bedroom with her kiddie mop and a bucket with a little bit of water in it. She was so proud of herself for mopping her own room (we have linoleum throughout the house except for the hardwood in the den), and her smile beamed from ear to ear when she proudly told me I didn’t have to mop her room because it was “all done! I mopped my floor, Mama!”

I’m really enjoying this stage of her life.  I know there is so much more to come, but I’m going to savor every moment of her innocence now as well.

Whew.  I feel like soaking in a bathtub full of ice right about now.  I just spent the last few hours helping my Nana sort through some of the stuff she’s been hoarding over the years in hopes that she can have a yard sale in the next few weeks.  We tackled half the basement and 2 of her storage buildings, and that wasn’t even a drop in the bucket. 

The family land here is 76 acres filled with storage sheds and workshops sprinkled all over. My Nana’s house may be so clean you could eat off practically any surface and clutter free, but every single one of those buildings is packed floor to ceiling with stuff she refuses to get rid of. Honestly I don’t think my Nana has ever thrown anything away that wasn’t regular household garbage or seriously broken.

The main building we tackled today is the old playhouse.  My Papa built it for my mom when she was a little girl.  It then became a favorite hideout for my aunts.  When I came along I moved my stuff in, and each of us grandkids enjoyed our little hideout.  Once all of us grandkids were too old to really care about it anymore my Nana turned it into yet another building to house her junk, and it’s sat there full of stuff that hasn’t been touched in over 15 years.  Ellie was watching TV with Nana yesterday and when they saw kids playing in a tree house Ellie said “I have playhouse, too!”.  That kick started Nana’s desire to restore the old playhouse for Ellie and Xander to play in, and if it means cleaning out more junk and giving the kids somewhere to play (as long as Ben deems it to be structurally sound or fixes it) I’m all for it!

But, we had to clean it out today?  The thermometer on the carport said it was 92 at 2pm, and even with the windows and door open that little building was not kind when it came to the heat.  I feel like I’ve sweat at least 5 lbs off.  I’m also thinking I need to invest in a small window unit to go in the playhouse.  It has power to it already, so it would be nice to keep it cool for the kids, too.  As Summer rolls in it will get way too hot for them to play out there without at least a ceiling fan to keep the air moving.

Today has been a really laid back day, and I’m thankful for it after everything that happened yesterday.  Ellie spent the night with her MomMom, so I slept late.  I woke up around 10:30 dreaming I’d just been hired as the head of cybersecurity for a huge business, and they were going to pay me $20 million a year! Too bad it wasn’t real!

Then Ben and I headed to Harbor Freight to pick up some tools he needs to fix the bike.  I picked up a few things for his anniversary and Christmas presents when he wandered off to look at other stuff.  I couldn’t pass up the 60% off sale they were having. 

Then we picked up the little one and headed home.  I feel like I hardly ever see her on the weekends anymore!  As soon as she got home from MomMom’s house she wanted to call Nana, and she ended up going to church with them tonight.  I guess I need to take advantage of the fact that she’s not home and go knock out a few loads of laundry while I can!