Back To Work!

So it's back to work. That was me you heard sobbing so violently this morning. I completely enjoyed my time reading, lazing and gallivanting around with the kiddos and was completely unready to return to 5am alarm clocks, reference assisting and people all up in my face.

 

I read FOUR BOOKS, YA'LL. FOUR. Sad to say, but in between being overwhelmed with life and slightly depressed, I hardly read four books all year, much less four in a row. But I loved every stinkin' minute of it while I was off. And I slept in and cooked decadent breakfasts (stuffed French toast for the win!) and just thoroughly enjoyed being away from responsibilities, deadlines and supervision.

 

Anyway, I know I blogged a bit while I was off but there were a few things I missed and wanted to catch you up on since I have access to a full on keyboard.

 

First, these earrings!

 

 

They were a gift from the folks and I love them! They're handmade by a vendor at the flea market and I love them so much that I purchased the shirt in the pic on Monday just so I'd have more clothes that suited the blue bead to get maximum wearability out of these earrings. My parents are, apparently, finally figuring out what my jewelry taste is. And I say "parents" because Daddy swears he helped pick them out. They are, quite possibly, my favorite gift that I opened on Christmas morning and they probably cost around $5. Just goes to show that it isn't how much you spend, but rather how much thought you put into a gift.

 

Also, This!

Libs was less than impressed but since she usually doesn't get excited unless she can eat it or chew on it, you can't really go by her impressions. I loved it, Trix! The book was good, too, btw. It was one of the four I read.

Another thing that happened while I was off that I forgot to blog was our Monday (Dec. 30th) excursion with the kiddos.

 

We had planned on going to our usual pottery place but wouldn't you know they are closed on Mondays and we didn't realize it until we got there. Womp, womp, womp. The kids were DEVISTATED. Like, crying. Fortunately, we'd recently discovered through facebook that the tiny little town in my county has a pottery painting place and they were having a half off sale. So after much debate and calling Daddy to find out how to locate the street it's on, we decided to go for it. Well, everyone but Mama. She had a doctor's appointment that she had to stay in the "city" for so Emmy and I loaded up in Sis2's car and we went in search of pottery to paint.

 

We had a little bit of an adventure, actually. Neither Sis2 nor I are terribly familiar with the area of town the place is located and we drove and drove and fretted and worried, "Are we in the right place?" because ya'll...the first half of the long and winding street leads you straight through the ghetto. Not even joking. Even Efan stated, "I don't like this place," as he stared out the window while we drove.

 

Then when we finally got to the right address with a big sign for the place, we turned onto this white rock graveled...street? Driveway? We couldn't tell and there was a "Private Property, No Tresspassing" sign posted on a tree and we were all, "This can't be it." But we drove down this long narrow and winding driveway and over this decrepit one lane bridge until we came to...a house! Seriously? Seriously. We thought for sure we had the wrong place so we turned around and went back toward the street we'd turned from and sat at the end of the driveway wondering what to do. So I did the mature thing and called the place and was all, "Where ya'll at?" haha Sure enough, we'd been in the right place but there was no indication that the house we'd driven to was a place of business. No sign other than the one at the street. We weren't the only ones confused, either, because we met an SUV coming and going and on our return trip to the "house" the SUV stopped and was all, "You know where the pottery place is?" haha

 

So apparently, the chick runs the thing in her basement with a back entrance but has NO SIGNS indicating anything. No, "Pottery entrance around back", no THIS IS THE PLACE in bold neon. Not even a small sign in front of the house or even at the actual entrance that indicates the name of the place. I guess you're either just supposed to KNOW or she's not really serious about wanting customers? Not sure.

 

She was really super nice, though. And with the entire inventory 50% off, we couldn't complain too much.

 

Lyssa got to pick out an Arial figure which would have been way out price range, otherwise and she was tickled pink. She LOVES Ariel, like, a lot. Efan did a cat that looked like a bear. In all brown. haha He was less excited about painting because he wanted to play with the trains that the other pottery place keeps in a playroom. He was sorely disappointed that this place didn't have any trains.

Emmy painted a travel cup that she intends to use as a paintbrush cup because she's still into painting canvases and stuff. In fact, for Christmas, I got her a bunch of wooden pieces to paint. She was super thrilled and already had in her head exactly what she wanted to do with them when she got home.

 

Her only disappointment with her pottery piece is that we ran out of time for her to do the chevron pattern she'd planned on. The commute to this place threw our time way out of whack and we had plans to do lunch with Nana and go see Frozen so we were cutting it close.

 

Sis2 and I both painted these egg crates that we intend to use for jewelry sorting. Sherry at Young House Love uses a ceramic egg crate for that purpose so we totally stole her idea. haha

We used a special kind of paint on ours that would give it a more random design without a lot of work and add bits of added color to the base. She did hers in a grey cream with red splotches and I did mine in a turquoise with dark blue and purple splotches. I can't wait to see how they turn out. They're supposed to be ready to pick up today.

Once finished, we RACED back to the city and ended up grabbing a quick lunch from Sonic that we could wolf down in the theater parking lot. Mama met us at the theater instead of Sonic because she was starving by the time we got there and ate before we even ordered. haha Plus, it being a drive-in instead of a restaurant, we couldn't really eat together anyway. :-/

 

The girls and I had fun playing with iPhone cameras on the way back. A sort of stress/tension reliever after the harried morning we'd had.

 

Efan enjoyed a quick nap on the way.

 

As mentioned earlier, we raced back in order to catch the Frozen matinee.

 

Ya'll. It. Was. AWESOME. Best Disney movie I've seen in AGES...I guess since Brave...and we all left the theater singing the awesome songs. Even Efan, who'd been upset because he wanted to see the dinosaur movie instead was enthralled with Frozen.

 

 
So what started out as a kinda weird morning ended up being a really great day. We had fun and experienced new things (and places) and had an adventure.

Yesterday was rather bittersweet. I spent most of my last day at home reading and snuggling with Libs but I also had a three hour window of time with Emmy before she headed back to T-town. We worked on a project she was doing for her teacher and I fixed us loaded twice baked potatoes. I was going to bake her some cookies but her dad got there earlier than we'd anticipated and she had to leave. *sniffle*

And now I'm back at work and wondering how I might snag me a rich husband so that I can be a housewife. No. Scratch that. I'm wondering what talents I might have that could render me independently wealthy so that I can work from home! haha