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Is my son a liberal?

T just informed me that when he grows up, he wants to be a sailor that looks for sunken treasure. When he finds a huge treasure, he will have enough money to become president. When he is president, he is going to make a law that his Dad and I don't have to pay taxes. In addition, we will get a paycheck from the government for at least $1 million dollars per year.

He might be on to something. I think I might actually be able to better spend the bail-out money, and keep track of where it went.

Snow day...

As you can see, it actually snowed some today. I know that you can't tell, but the kids were so excited! I'm sure some of you are snickering at the "snow", well, that or the fact that my children are wearing cotton gloves and crocs ;) We aim to be very prepared in the Bryan home.

Ah! Yes, these are the first pics of our home! Welcome!!!

We have so many tall twisted oak trees it makes for a great imaginary land for the kids to play in. Our yard backs up to land that has been posted as a wild life refuge - plenty of romping/exploring space. I hope to do a complete thrifty makeover of the little playhouse for Lacy in the spring.






Honestly, we've done so much renovation work lately that I sometimes have to remind myself of what I love about our little piece of the American Dream. We have finished a ton of projects and I can't wait to post pictures, but for now, I will leave you with... drum roll, please... the hallway!

Now, don't knock the hallway. When we first started, this baby was covered in layers (yes, layers) of wall paper and paint. I spent over 18 hours scraping the walls after I found out that neither the steamer nor chemicals would remove the hallway's second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, or seventh skin. It was about the most frazzling job I've ever undertaken. Millimeter by millimeter, centimeter by agonizing centimeter... Over and over in my mind I repeated, "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at.. a... time." Yes, with all of the mind-frying scraping, I actually started answering myself.

After the layers of "pain-in-the-wazoo" were removed, I washed down, sanded, wiped down, skimmed, sanded, wiped down, primed, and painted the walls in a latte brown. We were replacing the hollow core doors with solid wood sound-muffling doors when I decided that I didn't want the hall to look like Alice in Wonderland anymore. Alice in Wonderland creeps me out a bit :) Our little hall has 9 doors: 3 bedroom, 4 closets and a bathroom. I made 3 curtains out of drop cloths and stitch witchery, and Michael hung a regular curtain rod over the two closet doors on the right. Linen closet doors, lovin' it!

A much needed reminder...


I don't know why, but the ceiling looks crooked in these pictures. Thankfully, it's not :) I'll post more pictures when I finally put away all of the Christmas decorations. T.T.F.N.