My Goals

For awhile now I've had certain 'goals'. Things I felt that were NEVER going to get done. For lack of some motivation and lack of time... lack of a bit of everything, really.

First let me tell you some of my 'goals'.

1. To get in shape. I don't 'want' my body back, as I never actually had a good body to begin with. I'm skinny and bony. I have no muscle tone. Harder than it seems with three kids and no gym around our area (that I know of). So I decided to do some boxing. Not bad. I go for a 45min-1hour workout with the punching bag, but it's just not working out what I want/need it to work out. So fast forward a few days and I'm cruising (again) on one of the FB buy and sell pages, and I found a personal home gym :) WOOHOO. Bert has been looking for one of these, so we made some inquiries, and he went and picked it up. We have it setup downstairs in our (future) guest room at the moment. And I'm all for it. I won't even tell you how sad and pathetic my 'workout' was. It's embarrassing, haha. But I've started, and that's what matters. I'm hoping to do boxing three days of the week and workout everything else (focusing on my upper body first) on the alternating three days, with Sunday off. I'm hoping I can do it. All of my friends/family that are currently working out have inspired me! :)

2. Make a pretend play kitchen for my girls. Big goal, yes. BUT I've looked thoroughly into this, and the kitchen I had my heart set on has been out for awhile now, and the reviews come back saying that it's poorly constructed. I'm not going to buy them something that can't withstand their "rough play". My girls are rowdy, I don't need a broken kitchen I've put money out on, if you KWIM.

So I thought about buying a different one... well anything with a good review that is big enough for two girls, and within a year, three girls, to play with is near the $399 range and up. The wood ones I'd go with, but again with the pressboard that I can't stand? Probably not.

Then I remembered crossing this one blog (that I cannot remember) and the lady had made her daughter (or was in the process of) a play kitchen. Well I'm handy. My husband could help me with the more difficult things (I'd recruit him for any routering and using the table saw), but I should be able to do everything else.

And that's how it came to be. I looked around at what other people had made, and I'm impressed. I'm also absolutely certain my husband and I can make a kitchen that my kid will LOVE. :)

3. Get a book done. This has been my goal for quite some time. I had some finished books in high school, but when I reread them-- I was horrified. I am embarrassed by the fact that I let anyone read them. So about... three years ago I began writing again. And now, three years later, I have finally finished a book. At least the first draft of it. With three kids it's been difficult to have time, I get nap time (if both Eden and Keira are sleeping and Joslyn will watch a movie), and when Jawz and Keira go to bed (if Eden will sleep too). But I've got one. It's the second book in the series, but that's good enough for me. Technically I finished the first book, but not the ending as I changed some major things in it, so I couldn't bring myself to write an ending that I positively knew was not going to happen. So I guess that would be two books, minus one ending.

I've been pretty stoked about this. I cannot even begin to tell you how excited I was to finish a book. It makes me one step closer to my ultimate goal of publishing... :) Now on to finishing the second draft of Midnight Reckoning. :P

So those are my main three goals. Can I do all three? Well, one is already checked off... so yes, yes I can. Wish me luck! ;)

My Great Find

At the moment Joslyn has this captains bed with a matching dresser... not "girlie" at all, when we bought it I painted it ivory and a light lavender. It's okay, but not exactly what I was looking for.

So every once in awhile I'll cruise Kijiji and FB buy and sell pages and see if there are any good deals on there.

Well, a month or so ago this dresser set caught my eye. I was hoping it was made out of wood... I'm really REALLY not a fan of pressboard. The stuff breaks and is just not quality.

The set was a dresser, desk, and an armoire. As long as it was wood, I wanted it. It was very feminine and my hopes soared...

So I called the lady, and lo and behold, it was solid wood. She said she'd bought it for her daughter and had never refinished it like she had wanted to. I told her I wanted them, and I'd send my husband over (whom I had to convince that I really wanted this set). She told me she'd hold them (because she was located an hour and a half away.

I sent my husband out and when he returned he had my set! :) He told me they were very good quality and we'd gotten a steal of a deal. Very true, looking at the back they are made by Shermag, and they make good stuff. I was, am, so excited!

And then I began sanding them so that I could prime and paint... and found that the wood underneath the paint is gorgeous! So now I have a dilemma. Do I sand them down and prime and paint them because it's easier? Or do I sand them down which is A LOT of work, so far I've worked a total of about two hours and the one piece isn't even half finished, and then clear coat them? What do you think? Here are some pictures... and one picture of part of a sanded piece, not fully finished as you can see...

Desk... (this top piece comes off and it's the only piece I've worked on so far)

Mirror that goes on top of dresser

Dresser

Armoire

Semi-sanded piece (it has some of the sanded paint on it as a powder that I need to wipe off)

So what do you think? Should I go the easy way out and just paint or sand every piece down individually (because I have to see if all of the wood is in this good of shape first) and then clear coat them?