Stuff, stuff and more stuff......

The Webster defines stuff as: 1. materials, supplies, or equipment used in various activities. 2.material to be manufactured, wrought, or used in construction. 3.a finished textile suitable for clothing.


Ok so their are 8 different defintions. But the one I like best is this: 6a : fundamental material. Ding Ding! That is what I have! All my stuff is "fundamental Material"


I read what old Mr. Webster defined as "fundamental material": stuff of greatness....inserting my deflated balloon here-. I don't have "stuff of greatness". Ok. so maybe I thought at one time it was stuff of greatness, but now my style and size has changed. Now it is purely defintions #1 & 2, and 3

I am having a garage sale this weekend. I truly thought I didn't have much. But I have done some major purging these last few weeks. I really do enjoy having a garage sale. The prep stuff is a bit much, but to see the stuff going and not coming back and a little change in my pocket is always exctiting for me. But this time: I am just sick of the stuff. These questions come flooding to me:

1. Where did this come from?
2. Have I used this within a year?
3. Does this fit?
4. Will I wear this ever again?
5. What was I thinking?
6. Can I get a quarter out of this or should I just pitch it?
7. Garrett & Maddie will never know.....
8. Will Owen ever where this and is 6 years too long to keep a hold of these pants?
9. What on earth is this?
10. This still has TAGS on it.

Don't get me wrong I LOVE garage sales. I get a rush. I am sooo afraid that I am going to miss out on a good deal. That I have a hard time staying home. So I get all excited and go and then disappointed that I didn't get the bargain that I wanted! Notice I said WANTED not needed!!! Its a vicious cycle. I have a garage sale to get rid of my stuff only to want to GO to garage sales to get more stuff!!! I will have to say this is my 2nd well maybe 3rd garage sale this year. Eeewww. saying that publically makes me feel waaaaaay bad. First one I threw some stuff on my sisters garage sale just to give an appearance that we had a lot of stuff. My sister in law and I had another one in May. Case in point: It was wakefield city wide that same day. I wanted to leave the garage sale where I was selling -to go to wakefield and garage sale to buy!

However the stuff that I have is pretty "decent stuff " AND someone else's stuff is another persons treasure!!! So if you are looking for:

1. Dining Room table w/leaf and chairs


2. Boys sz 12-24mo


3. Boys 8-10 (s & m)


4. Girls 6-8 (s)


5. changing table


6. baby monitor


7. household


8. young adult clothing


9. 2 stock pots


10. some decor & misc.

Then have I got the place for you!!! And this is just my list. My sister in law has laser printer, scrapbooking, infant and young adult clothing. My sister also has a blue library (sititng chair) and some other goodies as well..

Maddison

At 5am on Sept 20, 2002 I awoke to some pains. By 7am we were waiting for my mother in law to come watch Garrett. By 8:30am I am in the hospital awaiting an epidural. (I don't have a high pain tolerance). By 10:15 I call to check on Garrett and am feeling GREAT! By 10:45 my husband is getting testy because I want to watch the price is right instead of timing contractions. Duh...that is what the machine is for, plus I had no feeling! By 11:12am I want the labor nurse to stand in front of the mirror that I am looking directly into, because I refuse to look at myself pushing a child, w/my legs half UP in the air-I know, I know, TMI. At 11:14am on her due date Maddison Jenae Craig came into the world w/a ton of black hair-just like her mama did 30 some years ago!

Wow how time travels fast and a mom can get teary just writing this all out! Yesterday my little dark haired baby is now BLONDE and SEVEN! And missing her 2 front teeth!

She was all about pink and princess this bday. I tell you what, just when I think she couldn't be any more tom boy she puts this out! She saw a cake simliar to this in a cookbook from the library. The crown I bought for a buck at walmart and it even lights up! I think the cake looks like it has chickn pox, but she wanted "pearls". So Clay Gourmet came thru and found us these edible pearls. However-if you have any ideas on how to use them let me know because I have about 1000 left!

Clothes were the gifts of choice this year. It was so fun to have everyone get together. Maddison had a great day. Her prayer last night was - she couldn't wait until she was 8!

5K Trail Run

I usually don't write/talk much on my running, so this is more for my friend and doing some bragging on her! On Saturday the 19th, my friend Julie and I competed and COMPLETED our first 5K trail run. I was wanting to do something and she was wanting some motivation. So together we decided to try this race. This race was at Milford Lake and was 3.1 miles thru the woods, rocks, trees, and limbs, dirt (thankfully not too much mud)hills, more rocks and even a little beach/sand and a fisherman! It was an absolutely gorgeous morning and cool. It was not only wonderful to do this with her but that we got to do this WITH OUT our kids. (not that mine really wanted to watch me run, they were more interested in grandpa and grandma's. I think one of Julie's wanted to come).But the peace and quiet that we had was wonderful as well! Your hard work payed off Julie, I couldn't be more proud of you! Thank you for doing this with me and being my motivation as well! Oh and both of our husbands deserve some credit here too...with out them to watch the kids or go w/us so we didn't have to run by ourselves was a huge help. Made it harder for us to say no, I'm not going to run today, its just too hard. This race company is putting the same one on in February-sounds cold, but again-maybe just the motivation we need to get thru the holidays!!

Happy Birthday Maddison

Today was Maddison's 7th bday. It was great. No, I don't have pictures.....yet, but I will. I was just too darn swamped the ENTIRE WEEK. I feel bad, but tomorrow, I am already forewarning my husband, and my family, I AM NOT DOING a whole heck of a lot tomrrow, because I am BEAT....thus I think a lot of time will be on the computer

Of course this is MY plan at 9:21pm Sunday night. 5:30 tomorrow morning, the Lord may have different plans for me. I realized today at about 2:30pm when I lost control while cleaning the toilet (amazing how God talks to you during my stiniking chores,) that MY plans for this week weren't HIS plans. I need to release my CONTROL and let HIM handle things....not sure I can explain it tonight. Tomorrow I might have better words. But for now....

My little girl is now 7!

All in all it was a great day. Thanks to all of our family for helping celebrate tonight. Maddison is sleeping soundly...she had a GREAT time tonight! Also a big thank you to my husband who helped BUNCHES today!

Mud Room Renovation

When we first built our house we just built the main part and then after we moved in we built on the garage and the mudroom. Wow was it nice when it was done, because walking on plywood up to the door carrying groceries while it was muddy and raining was not fun! While building it the garage that was framed and had tresses up blew completely over in a bad summer storm. Looked like dominos. Brent and I still don't sleep so hot when the wind start blowing THAT hard.

Anyway we hurried to get it done. Soo..I begged brent to build me these lockers so I could be ORGANIZED. Oh and I should say that when these were built we only had 2 kids! You all know my story of the 3rd. So for now O shares G & M's locker. For the most part it worked, and to be honest and Brent would/will admit HIS locker is the messiest. He is a hoarder of "things" that he might use or wear. But after living here awhile we (I) wanted a different floor. The indoor outdoor carpet thing wasn't working out so well. I should admit it was probably more me leaning towards the carpet in the first place. I will admit I am not a huge fan of wood floors. I think they are cold and little uninviting, but after living here almost 5 years and having 75% of the house carpet, I am finding that having stains on your carpet can be uninviting as well. So all in all its a toss up.

SOOOO while doing the basement room downstairs we decided to redo the floor in the mudroom. I also bought some better red paint and repainted the lockers. Here are some before shots. I thought I had wrote on the pics to show you, but apparently that didn't take. I will say that Brent's locker (closest to the white door) looks WAY better in the pic than normal. He already cleared stuff out before I could take the pic!

BEFORE

Daddy and His Elf's

AFTER
AFTERI still need to find a couple of rugs and/or runners to wipe feet off. Problem is they need to serve a specifc purpose AND I would like them to be CHEAP AND I would like to LIKE them. Sometimes that combo is hard to find!

The pipe sticking out is for a SINK. I am soooooo tired of my regular bathroom sink and good towels being used as a dirt trough. We have an idea we would like to try, but we are finding that idea a little hard as well. I will let you know if we get that taken care of. I know that the blue tubs and cream baskets aren't real "fashionable", but I hadn't been able to find anything that caught my eye and what did didn't fit or was WAY more than I was willing to pay. So until I can find something else this is what we have. The small cream basket has hats and gloves and the bigger cream basket has misc. outdoor stuff. Bug spray, ball hats and gloves, bubbles, sidewalk chalk and little of whatever can be shoved in there!

There is one wall opposite the kids locker that is free so I might try and find a bench or chair. It all depends on how big the sink is going to be too.

Oh I should mention too that I washed the rag rugs so everything would be clean and of course they all frayed on one end..Sigh...one more finish job...oh I wasssssssss sooooooooooo close to marking this job "COMPLETELY DONE"

Owen and Heels

Did you know that you can make purple dress up high heels sound like a galloping horse??? Please excuse the clothing attire or lack there of (potty training issues). Oh and the runny nose, actually snotty nose, I'm blaming that on teeth. Things can be a little rough at the Craig's. Oh, yeah and the pom pom's, don't ask me???

Labor Day Weekend - Part 2

Labor Day at the Craig's only means that Brent doesn't go to his normal day job. That's it, period. So there was still "labor" happening. But this Labor Day was a little more special than others as it was Brent's BIRTHDAY. I won't post any baby pics. Not because I don't want to but because I'm not exactly sure where they are at-at this moment.

• Because Brent celebrated his birthday by helping his parents put a new "drying floor" in an old grain bin, he was gone Monday morning. Garrett went w/Brent to help and Maddie, Owen and I stayed home to sort some garage sale items. But we did eat lunch w/him at Grandpa and Grandma's. She made Garrett's favorite -mashed potatoes w/hb gravy over top. Gravy is one thing that I can't make unless it comes from a package and all I have to do is add milk or water. (I know pretty pathetic!).
• While at G&G's we were able to see Garrett's calf. They have to leave the cow/calf pair in the barn because G's cow never claims her calf. We have decided that this is the last calf for her. We are keeping a heifer from last year to replace the cow. Sad thing is "white face" (g named this cow when he was 2) always has a very nice calf. This year was no exception.


Owen liked the calf. He wanted to pet him, but then again-maybe not.

• After we at lunch w/Brent we headed to my parents house to hang out and do a little fishing. According to the solar tables, it was supposed to be a perfect afternoon for fishing. And it WAS. The fish were biting anything. From grasshoppers, to frogs, to hot dogs, and even the spinner. My mom went thru almost a half a hot dog as bait for one fish. I can't remember if she did catch it the thing or not. But the water was clear enough and shallow enough that we could see the fish biting. It was fun. Bad part of the afternoon was that Owen did NOT have a nap. He was not so much fun, but the older 2 had fun.

Although, Garrett did have an issue w/a fish. We had so many in the bucket that one jumped out and as he was picking it back up to put back in, he caught his thumb on a fin. Gave him a little poke and was bleeding. (I promise his zipper is up, I think that is a belt and not underwear)This is the creek that runs right below my parents house. I can't believe we used to swim in it. Although Monday it didn't look too bad. But man it can be dirty!

Maddie forever posing. But w/a bass really???? My dad caught this with his spinner. All the fish we caught we took to the pond in the pasture in hopes that we can fish there in a couple of years.

• Monday night Garrett had a soccer game. It was a beautiful night. Garrett even scored 2 goals. He and his team played WAY better than the first game. He actually enjoyed himself.
• After soccer game we went to wendy's for a treat and to celebrate Brent's bday. By Monday night though we were all shot. Overall a great weekend.