Works for Me Wednesdays - Getting Paint out of Carpet

Yeah, ask me how I know this one.

We’re in the middle of several painting projects, and they’re not going so smoothly. I normally love painting, but lately? Not so much.

We are painting our dining room a rusty reddish-orangish color. Like my technical description? It’s actually called Paprika, but you just need to know that it’s a dark red color. And of course, the carpet in there is a light beige.

It was almost midnight and I had one more little area to go when the dreaded mistake happened. When I went to refill my brush, it fell out of my hands and landed smack-dab in the middle of our dining room. On the cream colored carpet. It was one of those slow motion moments where you know it’s happening and you can’t do anything to stop it.

Now, I must point out that we were not painting recklessly. We had plastic drop cloths down all around the room, but of course the one spot I dropped my brush had nothing underneath it.

But guess what? Here’s my tip to share…

If you take approximately 1 teaspoon of dishwasher detergent (I used Cascade) and mix it with 1 C. of warm water, it will take all your paint stains out! It takes awhile, but just keep blotting until all the paint is gone. Just be sure to work from the outside in, so you don’t spread the color further.

Red paint on the cream carpet? Completely gone! This worked so well for me that even I can’t tell where the paint was. And that’s a bright spot that I just had to share!

Wake Up Calls

In the perfect world, I would get up each morning before my children awake. I'd have time to grab a shower, start my day in God's Word, visit with hubby a little before he leaves for work, and maybe even get a few chores done before the little ones get up.

Most mornings?

My alarm goes off in the morning and I hit snooze several times until either
a. Josh crawls in bed with me or
b. Sarah starts yelling through the monitor, "Mooooommmmy, I'm awake!"

But the other morning?

It was a Saturday and my mom was here, sleeping in Josh's room in his trundle bed. (Enjoying her great accommodations, I'm sure...meanwhile, my dad was at the Hyatt Regency for a conference.) Hubby was already gone to a basketball game and I woke up all on my own.

For whatever reason, when Sarah woke up she didn't call for me. Instead she sat in her bed and sang all sorts of songs. The Itsy-Bitsy Spider. The song from Sleeping Beauty. The song from Land Before Time X. The Wonderful Cross. Even another worship song she must have learned at church, because I didn't know it.

It was so very cute and such a great way to start my morning.

And while I was enjoying my concert through the monitor, my mom was snuggling in bed with Josh. She even said to me that she thought of this blog because that was such a bright spot for her.

I thought it was pretty cool that before 8:00 a.m., we both enjoyed some bright spots. And knowing that I am definitely not a morning person, this makes the bright spot all the better.

If only I could start every day that way!

Our Wild and Crazy Saturday Night

You know, nothing makes for a better Saturday night than deciding to paint a two-story entryway which leads to a stairwell and an upstairs hallway.

Yeah. What were we thinking?

Well, we actually were pretty smart, if I do say so myself. My dad had a conference in town this weekend and my mom decided to come along and hang with us for a couple of days. Our thinking was that it'd be much, much easier to paint all that if there was another adult around to keep an eye on the kiddos for us.

And oh my goodness, I can't imagine undertaking this project without her help. So, mom, THANK YOU!!!!!!

Here. You can see for yourself. These are all of our entryway. Obviously, we had some serious whiteness going on that desperately needed some color therapy.

Have you been blinded by the white yet? (And yes, that is a basketball goal right by our front door.)

Well, we the good news is we got started today. The bad news is that halfway through, we realized we once again had a terrible streaking problem. (We got three coats into the dining room a couple of weeks ago and gave up after such terrible streaking. We'll have to fix that soon...)

Let me stop here and show you more pics. Here is the halfway through shot...

And here, look closely....see the streaking? Ugh...

So now, we've decided to follow the advice given by all those professional painters. We got primer.

We've spent the last couple of hours priming our walls and over the next few days, we hope to finish up with the paint – hopefully without streaking.

I do admit, this hasn't been the most fun, but I do normally love painting very much, and I really can't wait to have it all finished! I think it will be quite beautiful.

And definitely much more welcoming than all the white!

Don't you think?

Hold On to the Lasts

Have you ever read the children's book by Karen Kingsbury, Let Me Hold You Longer?

It's a beautiful story about cherishing the lasts with our kids. No one needs a book to remind you to celebrate all the firsts - first roll, first steps, first words, and so on. But the lasts? Somewhere along the way, your kids stop doing special things and you don't often even notice until you look back and say, "huh...haven't gotten to fill in the blank for awhile now."

Well, yesterday I may have had a last with Josh and I'm cherishing it in my mommy heart.

He actually fell asleep during his rest time. Yes, he'll be six soon. And yes, he does still sometimes take a nap.

Sarah, my sweet 3 year old, on the other hand? Hardly ever. She sings and plays and needs to go to the bathroom 800 times during her rest time.

Anyways...it got to be rather late in the afternoon, so I went up to wake him up so he'd still sleep at night. I went in his room and softly kissed him and told him it was awfully late and he could get up and go play. He literally popped up out of bed and walked over to his door. Then, he turned around and muttered something to me. I have no idea what he said as he certainly wasn't speaking English.

This is the good part...

Then, he came over and snuggled into my lap and curled up in a ball and went back to sleep. In my arms. All snuggled and warm.

Oh, sweet mommy moment.

It's not too often you get to snuggle with a sleepy kindergartner. It is quite likely I may never again have a moment with him like that. And so today, my bright spot is noticing and cherishing this precious last with my son.

Life goes by so fast. I don't want to wish it away, and I never want to take it for granted! Thank you, Karen, for reminding me to celebrate the lasts, as well as the firsts.

Ten Years Ago Today

Ten years ago today, I woke up absolutely giddy with excitement.

Just a few moments later, though, my mom was in my room saying, "We need to talk."

Apparently, 18 inches of snow fell overnight and getting around town was more than difficult to do. Not to mention, that there were orders from local authority that if you were on the roads for any reason other than an emergency, you would be fined.

This poses just a slight problem when it's your wedding day!

But alas, (did I just say alas?)...no need to be upset. I seriously didn't freak out about any of it! I just called my sweet soon-to-be-husband at the hotel and asked him to go door to door and tell our guests who were staying there to just head to the church - we'd figure it out from there!

I tell you what - no one who was part of our wedding that day will ever forget it! Everyone chipped in and made sure we were able to have our special day! Friends with vehicles that were able to brave the weather headed to pick up grandparents or the grocery store to get the staples - you know, meat trays, cheese trays, champagne. (Did I mention that we couldn't have our reception as planned, and had to throw together an impromptu one in the church basement?) Hubby's uncles used their trucks to dig out the snow plow (yeah, I'm not kidding!) and clear off the church parking lot as best as they could.

All in all, it was an amazingly special day. I don't think anything could have wiped the grin off my face. Our goal was to become husband and wife, and that was achieved.

10 years ago today, I married my best friend.


And the last ten years have been filled with many, many happy memories. Three beautiful children, some amazing vacations, new homes, new jobs, lots of great times together. Yes, some troubles too, but those have only brought us closer together.

Today, 10 years after that beautiful (yet very snowy) day, I am more in love with him than ever before.

And I can't wait to see what the next ten years (and beyond!) bring.