hi sara - i'm so excited for you!  so does that mean you had settlement already?  if not, tell them thru your realtor that they'll be charged for trash removal if there's anything left behind.  forest green sounds really nice.  make sure you have light trim tho - i learned that the hard way.  dark walls and dark trim equals cave, no matter how much light the room gets.  my playroom gets a ton of light and it looks like a cave, especially in the summer.  but my bedroom is very dark but with light trim and looks nice i think. 

 

my living room paint is by laura ashley - it's called sand 3 and is #la809.  we didn't use laura ashley brand paint - we used regular medium-grade latex in a satin finish, probably lowe's brand.  i get lots of compliments on it and it's the 4th color we painted the room before finding what we wanted.  it's darker than creme but not dark at all - it looks like a real color rather than off-white.  my banister and doors in there are off-white and look very white next to the wall color so it's definitely not off-white.  just sharing from lots of trial and error but definitely don't feel like i'm pushing it!  we had it off-white (a color called "oak buff") for years but it felt too white-ish, then i wanted something darker and went thru 3 separate shades over a 2-year period before i found that one and am very happy with it.  it's so hard to tell how a color will look until you paint!

 

the trim should be easier to paint once you're moved in - i'd love to fix up all of mine. it's very raggedy.  i didn't do a good job.  it's better to wait to paint it until the wall paint is totally cured anyway because the tape is less likely to rip paint off the walls if it's older paint and not fresh.  i love the idea of butter yellow.  i wanted a room that color but could never figure out which one.  eventually i'll redo the boys' bath so if you like your butter yellow maybe you can recommend the actual paint color once i get to that point.  i was thinking tan but it might be my chance to finally have some yellow.  my hall bath is mustard - actually it's TOO mustardy to tell the truth - but otherwise no yellow in my house.  i'd love to tone that bathroom down just one notch but it's not worth painting it when it's not that bad.

 

my MIL didn't say anything about my house.  that is not her style.  unless she's agitated - then she might say something like "i looked all over for a pan but everything's so disorganized (i.e. not in the exact same place as her kitchen) i couldn't find one."  but usually her style is to wait 3 months and then i say something about dusty soffits and she'll say "yes, i noticed how dusty yours were when we decorated for halloween."  you'd think i'd just give up!  but i'm trying to focus on how lucky my kids are that she actually WANTED to be with them all day.  she called us around 6 pm and told us not to come home 'til sunday.  which was awesome - however, because of the apple harvest festival all the hotels around here were booked.  the festival was so busy that we couldn't even get in.  apparently they've started spending lots of money (like $100,000) on advertising starting last year when we didn't go for the first time and it's impossible to get in to it now without waiting forever.  we got to the area - it's about an hour from our house - around 1pm.  it starts around 9am and even at 1 there were miles of cars that we could see waiting to get in - we couldn't even see the fair grounds, just a long long line of cars and since it's in the mountains we could see the line winding around ahead of us through the apple orchards.  so we gave up - we figured if the line was that long just to get into a lot, by the time we got bussed to the festival from the lot and stood in line to get in it would be late afternoon and it closes at 5 i think.  or 6, i'm not sure.  kind of a bummer because i actually really wanted to go for the craftier stuff this year - usually we just hit it for the food or skip it altogether but i'm back in the market for a few things for my house.  we thought of trying again sunday with the kids but figured it would be too difficult plus at $8 a person to get in and it being the last of 4 days (it's two weekends) that the vendors would probably all be wiped out from being so busy anyway.  we went to see appaloosa (western based on a robert parker book that scott really wanted to see but it's only in limited theaters so we drove over an hour and a half back the other way to see it down in maryland).  the movie was okay but every time i go to something in maryland, i realize how different it is there.  i get so irked at the rudeness and lack of customer service.  when we first moved here, it was so rinky dink that customer service kind of sucked because it was like all mom & pop type stores where they didn't take returns and made up rules as they went along.  but nowadays, the customer service around here is really good - people care about their jobs i guess, because it's harder to find jobs here.  like the people i see at wendy's during the day have been there since we first moved here 17 years ago.  the customer service at the movie theater sucked.  they gave refills on drinks but wanted me to stand behind 15 people to wait for one in the middle of the movie.  and when i was first standing in line for popcorn, another register opened up and around here, people would be somewhat polite about it but down there, the family behind me all ran as fast they could go get to the register before anyone else could.  and an old guy got in my line from the other side right when i did.  here (usually) we'd both be polite and say "you go" "no you go" etc but he stomped right on ahead to the register when it was our turn.  i can't explain it because it's not like everyone here is so wonderful but there is a definite difference down there. 

 

i've been getting irked about stuff anyway so i know it's partially me!  little things are really geting to me.  the guy not giving me a refill irked me so bad it ruined the rest of the movie for me which is crazy!  anyway we ended up at a marriott in hunt valley which was yet another hour - when she called us, we were almost back in our town so we came by here to get stuff and went back out. 

 

before my tangent i was saying - they are lucky to have a grandmother who wants to be with them.  she said she was bonding with braeden.  my MIL is good with babies, toddlers and preschoolers but not so good with ages from about 5 to 10.  then once they get to a reasonable age where you can do more adult stuff with them and have real conversations, she's good again.  so she was pretty miffed at chane - he spent most of the day on the computer but i think she expects kids to go right from the cute preschool age to grown up acting.  braeden has finally reached the grown up stage so they hung out and he got lots of attention.  she made a lot of remarks about chane being on the computer and i'm sure all the other old ladies where she works and my BIL and his wife will hear about how all he does it computer games but in reality, he's not allowed on here all that much.  i could have told him limited computer time but i figured it would be easier on her if he did his thing while she and braeden hung out, and that would keep them from fighting.  in her mind i'm sure she thinks that's all he does when in reality chane does a lot of other playing too and the reason he was on here all day was because i wasn't here to say "get off the computer."  like a binge, i guess.  i'm sure it's filed away in her brain that i have no limits for them but whatever!  the important thing is that braeden and she decorated the house for halloween and they did manage to get chane to help them decorate halloween cupcakes so i think they had a good time.  at least they didn't fight!  well, until we walked in the door - right as we came in they got into a good one and she's like "hm, they didn't fight at ALL for me - it must be you guys."  They hadn't even seen us yet or knew we were home but i was very glad they didn't fight for her.  if chane hadn't been occupied i'm sure that would have been different!

 

 

okay that's today's novel.  we are going to make candy apples tonight so i'm going to FINALLY go shower and go get some apples.  i promised them to the kids from the festival but we are making them instead.

what the heck happened to my font? LOL