I don’t get all mushy often but even non-mushy people deserve to gush a little on their anniversary :)

I love this man. We have been married 13 years today. We are ridiculously happy but it has been hard most of the time. We married young (he was 24 and I was just shy of 21) and started our family only 18 months later. We have experienced 3 lay offs, deaths in our family, mistakes/forgiveness, a miscarriage, extended family drama, and have always struggled financially. But we also have experienced the birth of four amazing little boys, our first house, lots of quality time with family, and have supported each other in every endeavor.  We are rich in what matters most. We have the same goals. We are on the same parenting page. We are total nerds together. And we have so much FUN!

For our anniversary this year we went out to eat and then stayed in a hotel in ”the city” (Salt Lake City).

The next day we went to City Creek for the first time since it opened this past winter. HOLY COW people! It is impressive. Stunning! I got to venture into Anthropologie for the first time. WAY better than shopping online.

This display was one of my favorites. I wanted to take the whole thing home :)

See, we are kind of nerdy.

I also got to see West Elm in person for the first time. My husband fell in love with several things there. If it were not for the fact that our tub has started leaking (the day before we left!) into the basement and rotting the wood, we may have bought something. Such is life!

After City Creek we headed to the theme park LAGOON. We both have not been there since we were teenagers. They have added so much since then.

We got soaked on Rattle Snake Rapids…..

We rode some rides that were my favorite as a kid. I must been getting old because now this just makes me dizzy and nauseous.

We had a blast! We spent almost 8 hours there and were so completely exhausted. We acted like teenagers, but our bodies told us later that we are far from being kids :)

What fun things  have you guys done to celebrate your anniversary???

I woke up one day recently and realized that I was not in my twenties anymore. I miss my twenties. I could eat whatever I wanted and do nothing and basically maintain my weight and energy level.  And then I turned 30. And then I had my fourth child. And then I never really lost the weight from the pregnancy. And then I gained a little more. And now I am 33 and have 40 extra pounds just hangin’ there…… Literally.

I think I am more aware of my weight because I take pictures for this blog and I do local TV so when I see those pictures/video clips I am like WOW! Are those MY arms? Seeing myself everyday in the mirror I am use to it. As I slowly gain the weight it is almost undetectable. But I think at one point we all have that moment when we see a picture and do a double take. “Is that me?”

I am tired all the time. I know that my schedule of being a mom and then trying to be a DIY Diva doing projects at night and blogging on top of that doesn’t help me any, but I know that my age, diet, and the fact that my exercise routine is sporadic at best, also contribute.

I swore I would never join a gym. Like SWORE up and down, over and over that it would never happen.

But there was something about turning 33. Something about it made me re-evaluate my life. I all of a sudden realized I am an adult. That I am not this indestructible young person that will never grow old or slow down. I know, you are thinking “Dude, Stacy, you were suppose to have that epiphany YEARS ago.” Okay. So I am a little slow.

I started to FEEL old. And time is going by way too fast. I have a terrible health history on my side of the family. You know those boxes on Doctor forms you fill out? I usually have to check them all. I do not want to have all those health issues.

I have an exercise bike and a treadmill plus some free weights at home. I have tried over the years to just do it on my own. You see, I have a HUGE deep seeded fear of working out in front of other people.

I first talked about this when I talked about finally dancing in front of others at the blog conference SNAP last year.. But dancing around and having fun with other women who are friends (even though it was still hard for me) was one thing, exercising in front of MEN I didn’t know is a whole other thing.

So I decided to put my big girl panties on and face reality. I can’t do it on my own. I have to take this seriously. I have to DO something.

So I joined a freakin’ GYM!

Last night was my first time going. My husband is doing this with me.  I have never stepped foot inside a gym so I had no idea what to expect. I wore stretchy black pants and an old tee shirt. I quickly found that I was sadly under dressed. I think these ladies have the gym confused with the mall……(ironically they are both places I avoid). The gym does a free health assessment so we went after my husband got off work. Because it was in the evening the placed was packed with men. I was so nervous I was sweating before we even touched a piece of equipment. And to make matters worse we had a personal trainer showing us around and having us workout for him to check our form. (P.S. I have no form) We stuck out like a couple of tourists. We might as well have been wearing Hawaiian shirts and giant cameras around out necks.

More sweat.

And then for the cherry on top…… I saw a guy I use to date in High school. Yep. AFTER the workout when I was hot (not to be confused with hawt).

But guess what? I survived.

And I will be going back 3 days a week.

Why am I sharing this when it has zero to do with home decor???

Because 2013 is the year of the uncomfortable. I have decided I am going to do things that scare me. I am going to do things I said I would never do. I am going to go outside of my comfort zone. Because I want to grow. And I want you to do it with me. Sometime this spring I am going to do something BIG on this blog. Something I have planned on and wanted to do for over 2 years. I had this idea when my blog was in the planning stages but I have never actually done anything to make it a reality. It will be a lot of work on my part and it may be an epic fail.

But I am going to try.

P.S. I have a ton of posts about the details of my family room coming up in the next few days!  And if you missed it, I have the Best DIY Project of the Year Contest going on right now!!! You could win a $250 gift card to Home Depot!

For those of you who are big DIYers or into making handmade items you may have experienced people asking you why you bother to make something when you could just buy it. Or why you don’t just pay someone to do something instead of figuring it out yourself. I have been thinking about this a lot lately and thought it would be fun to discuss.

Here are MY reasons in no particular order……

* It is FUN. I like it.

I get a rush, a thrill when I am creating something. It is a natural high (who is singing Safety Kids right now???). I think if I didn’t like it so much I wouldn’t do it as often. Even with the other reasons. It is also a stress reliever.

(image source)

*It saves us money.

(image source)

More often than not when I build, refinish, or fix something it is a lot cheaper than hiring it out or buying it. And in the 12 years of marriage there has never been a time when money wasn’t tight. I am so glad I didn’t wait until we had the money to hire it all out. I am so glad we plugged along doing a little project here and there when our budget allowed. I wish I would have kept track of how much everything was so I could figure out what it would have cost to have paid someone. Wouldn’t that be cool to see the savings in black and white?

*I get a HUGE sense of satisfaction when I complete something, especially if it was hard or my first time doing it.

I like to challenge myself. I like learning new things. I think when you make something and have put yourself into it you love it more than if you had bought it. And I know that my kids take better care of the things they have helped with because of their sense of pride.

*I am teaching my kids to be self sufficient and handy.

 I love that when something breaks (even something as simple as a toy) my boys assume that we will fix it. I like that they see us problem solving and working around the house. They have started helping more and more now that they are getting a little older. I don’t care if they grow up and decided they don’t want to build furniture. I want them to have the confidence that if they want to, they can. I want them to have basic knowledge in how to fix things so that one day they can help save their family money and feel pride in doing things for themselves.

*I get joy out of helping others

This is the whole reason I started my blog. I wanted to share my ideas with others and have them share theirs with me. My goal is that every single on of the people that read my blog will learn how to use power tools. My other goal is to inspire you to get outside your comfort zones. And for some of you those two things go hand in hand :)

*I have no fashion sense

If I am going to be wearing grubby out of date clothes I might as well be painting, staining, and sawing something…. right?

*I love having unique one of a kind items.

I love that our little quirky house doesn’t look like any other house around. And I love that the things I build and make are also one of a kind. I don’t know why, but I have always been that way.

I am sure there are a million reason why we all do what we do. I would love to hear some of YOUR reason why you do-it-yourself rather than hire it out or buy. Please leave a comment and share :)

Being a mother is amazing. Being a mother is hard. Motherhood is an honor I thank my Heavenly Father for daily. So anytime I see negativity towards mothers or motherhood in general it makes me terribly sad. I am not sure if you remember my picture that got stolen awhile back of me and my kids at the store. I wrote about it in a post simply called “Stuff“.

Well, it happened again.

Another picture of me with my children (again staged) was stolen and a caption added and plastered all over FaceBook. (sheesh, why can’t one of my projects get that much attention?)

This is the picture they took:

And the post it was from also had this picture:

The post was called “Mixed Emotions” and was all about how I am so torn when my kids go back to school and how they themselves are torn. I LOVE having my kids home with me and it is hard to let them go each year. But I am excited to have a routine again.

I like the idea of homeschooling. My very best friend homeschoools her kids and I have such respect for her. I have even considered doing it myself. But after a lot of thought, prayer and discussion I feel like sending my kids to school outside of our home is the best option for us. My kids thrive and are happy there.

I didn’t take those comments personally. The comments on the first picture and the comments on the second picture were both horrendous. I cried when I read them but not because I felt attacked personally. They don’t know me. It could have been anyone in that picture and they would have attacked regardless. I cried because of the judgmental comments being thrown in both directions. I cried because it pained me to see women tearing other women down. I am a good mom. Are there things I could do better and improve on? You bet. A ton. But I try my best. I get up every morning and pray that I will do better than yesterday. I have a fantastic relationship with my kids. They tell me everything. We are very open. We say we love each other a dozen or more times a day and hug the crap out of each other all day long. I do activities and crafts with them all the time. I let them help with my DIY projects so they feel included and important. I choose to blog at night when they are sleeping so I am not in front of the computer all day. My kids are my whole world.

Just because we all have different schedules and ways of doing things does not make one right over the other. Me choosing to have 4 kids does not make me crazy. I should not have someone ask me if I know what a condom is. I should not have to explain myself to anyone. If I send them to school I should not have to defend myself. And neither should you. If you home school I applaud you. You have a special ability that I do not.

I love you guys and your support. I wish everyone had the supportive community we have here. I hope some good can come from the ugliness. Maybe someone on Facebook will have a light bulb moment and reflect on what they want to teach their children by the example they set. Are we teaching our children tolerance and love? Are we building each other up? We don’t have to agree on everything. We don’t have to all do things the same way. But we should all treat each other with respect.

 Now back to the whole “motherhood is hard” part. It is. And sometimes the only way to get through it is humor. I do not fault anyone who thought my pictures were funny. That is how I intended them to be. All the pictures mention in this post were staged and meant as a lighthearted look into motherhood. I love the funny sayings and cartoons that are out there. They are funny because they are true. But when it gets twisted and motherhood is pictured as something negative it breaks my heart.

I have learned a lesson too. I will not be posting fun posts about me and my kids. Although meant for you and in fun, they are being stolen and taken out of context.

I hope this post did not come off as preachy or anything. I just feel so passionate about being a mother and a woman. And I feel strongly that we are meant to lift each other, serve each other, and help each other along in this life. I love you all so much and hope you have a wonderful week :)