Back to School (and Back to Work)

Wow! I totally didn’t intend to take a month off blogging (and DIYing), but that’s exactly what happened. After getting back from Disney World in early August I spent the rest of the summer at the Jersey Shore. Tough life, I know. 🙂 My mom has had the same house in Ocean Grove since 1979 and I’ve been there, at least on weekends, every summer since. This summer my kids got the same chance. I think it was a subconscious thing… today was the first day of school for my three kids and the first time the younger two are going all day. I wanted to spend as much time with them as I could this summer because it is going to take a lot of adjusting to them being away from me all day. My longest running job ever, being a stay-at-home-mom for seven years, is coming to an end as I am planning to go back to work soon. And I am pretty devastated about it. Especially my little guy. Here are my kiddos by the front door. The up side is that I can now finish up all the projects that have been half-finished for months. Today I will be sanding the family room. After I finish this post of course. And I’m going to try really hard not to get distracted by anything else until it’s done. For the love of Pete, I tore apart the family room in MARCH and we haven’t been able to use the family room since. I have issues, I know. To catch up on the family room renovation check out these posts – Ladies Demo and Wine Night, Family Room Can of Worms, and Family Room Gets Wired Up. But I actually have done a little since then. I finished hanging the drywall, taping and mudding. Which is why I now need to sand. Then mud. Then sand. Then start putting the room back together. It’s going to get a fireplace update, new floor, molding and paint, I’m probably going to knock down the half-wall, and hopefully build some sort of built-in or banquette seating. I’ve been pinning all my built-in inspirations on this Pinterest board and banquette ideas here.

What else will I be doing while my kids are at school? Well job hunting, of course. But I’m also going to be feeding my addiction to Lynda.com. I recently upgrading to the yearly membership and have about 200 courses saved to various playlists. If you love to learn new things, then Lynda.com can be a pretty dangerous place to be. I’m like a kid in a candy store. I’ve already taken courses on Photoshop, WordPress, and design, but there are so many others I am dying to take. Ok, it took me a lot longer than I thought to get through 8 hours of an HTML course, but eventually I finished it and now I’m moving on to CSS. I’ve got to get some headphones so I can watch Lynda courses on my iPad while my kids watch TV. It’s all about multitasking! Oh and I’m stoked that Lynda.com accepted me as a partner recently, so if you end up subscribing, I get a huge kickback. Not really, but I do get something. Regardless, you should check out the one week trial. I think I watched 4 courses during my one week trial.

OMG. Already distracted. I just spent an hour writing an email to my Girl Scout Daisy parents about the new year. Sheesh. Going to go sand… no really.

Be sure to check out more posts about our family life below!