No pictures.

I considered before and after pictures of the work Neall and I did yesterday, but decided to focus on actually doing what needed to be done instead. The upstairs living areas look amazing. My bedroom closet still contains tools and paint but a good portion of that paint is FOR the upstairs so I let it stay. It didn't make sense to just move it around for the sake of moving it. I may move it to a prominent location in the hopes that painting folk will get the hint and USE it :p. Winnie's room is set up and organized as is the overall design of Zella and Finn's room. Oak's bed is sort of incorporated into Winnie's room which she is THRILLED about. She loves being big, so I am taking fully disclosed advantage of her willingness to help. There are a few things on my "need" list. For one thing, a platform for our bed. It does not need to be fancy, but with a half story for a bedroom we need it to be relatively low. Our sleep number bed has no boxspring so we just really need a platform on legs. Sounds simple yes? Well, apparently not, lol. The ones we've found are $$$. I foresee a trip to Ikea in our future though, and they have one there we like for under $100 (why does anyone near Ikea shop anywhere else?). I think we're good on storage bins for toys. I'll know more today as I try to organize. I'll make do with what I have though. If it doesn't fit, something goes bye-bye. This week: Downstairs. It will have to be broken up into smaller chunks. The upstairs was simple enough to do all at once, but downstairs is more versatile in the types of things cluttering. It'll be a slow-and-steady-wins-the-race scenario, but in about 2-3 weeks we might even be able to have company, and that's if we just work one of Neall's off days. Motivation is strong right now though so that's a long-term timeline. We're both hoping for a quicker turnaround.

We had to replace the brakes on the van yesterday to the tune of $500. Ouch. It's our only vehicle, truly an investment for us. We take good care of it and it needs what it needs. $500 was at least double what we were expecting. Apparently the front brakes were so far gone that the back brakes were doing all of the braking. Furthermore, the back brakes were ORIGINAL. It's an '02 with 130k miles on it. ORIGINAL??? WHAT??? Yikes. So those were in desparate need of being done. I blame the front brake fiasco on Meineke. When we got brakes done there last time (a year or so ago) they never stopped squeaking. I had it in several times to them to find out if that could be remedied and they just kept saying (sorry, that's just how they are). SO, I had no idea that the brakes were bad until they were actually grinding. Squeaking is supposed to be the "yoo-hoo, time to check the breaks" indicator your car gives you. When they do it constantly, how do you know? Meineke didn't have an answer for that, and they can kiss my business goodbye from now on. I don't appreciate their customer service and their greasy-shirted, snaggle toothed, generic beer drinking "manager" can just get fatter behind his greasy desk. He won't do it with my money. I don't appreciate the lives of my family being put at risk because a company is using cheap parts to make an extra buck. I'll take it to Ron, who knows my first name when he sees me but calls me Mrs. West anyway out of respect, even though he may cost a tad more. In the long run, he's cheaper. WAY cheaper. Even when we took it to Meineke 2 days ago they did not say "you have no brakes in front and are down to nothing in back". They let my husband drive away in a van with 4 child safety seats to go pick up his family. Yeah, not happy.

Anyway, Denver had a storm this last week that dumped a foot of snow in a classic spring blizzard. I was feeling homesick :). Now, however, that storm is coming here! And, for about 24 hours, we might actually have some great snowfall on the ground too! It was unexpected to be looking forward to a huge storm at the end of March in Saint Louis, but it's dropping temps outside right now and I have officially gotten my hopes up. 40 and raining can quickly become 30 and snow :D. Admittedly, my excitement has something to do with the fact that I snagged snow bibs in every size that my children are or might possibly be next year for $3 each, just last week. The justification to my husband has turned to "haha, see, I knew we'd need them, I'm psychic". Love that, lol.