A Brand Spankin' New Year, n' such.

LT left for Norfolk, VA today. Olivia and I went to the airport with him. I've seen so many pictures of military daddys hugging their children goodbye it doesn't phase me anymore. However, I wasn't prepared for it to be my husband and my daughter in the photograph. LT, in full uniform, knelt down and gave O a hug. The lighting was such it glowed behind him. My heart ached. One year is a LONG time. He's been back and forth from the east coast since September so we've had many goodbyes and homecomings. Even though I will see him again in two weeks, when he left today everything felt differently. The house felt emptier, the weight felt heavier and I felt more inadequate to handle this than ever before. Sweet O has seen me cry multiple times in the past couple of days she now says, "Mommy crying". Yep, I am.

I will miss my friend.

However, life MUST GO ON!!!!!

So, without delay, O informed me, in her own way, she is ready for potty training. I'm guessing chasing after a bare bottomed two-year-old yelling at me "no diaper, no diaper" is a sign. I also think her pulling down her own pants and trying to rip off her diaper AND saying "potty, potty" is another sign. Needless to say, we made a trip to the store tonight for her "special underwear". Yep, we bought pull-ups. She was so excited to have them she became very possessive of them. Fortunately something else distracted her before there was a scene in the check out line.

In other unrelated news, the painting project I started some time in March or April was completed BEFORE the end of 2008. I'm so excited. The project started out like most of my well planned out projects do. In the summer of 2007 I picked out the colors I wanted, or thought I wanted and then waited 10 months for our income to catch up to my interior decor desires. During the wait, other friends of mine replaced and remodeled kitchens, painted a combined total of a bazillion rooms and one garage before I was able to start mine. The point of that last sentence was, I felt like I had to wait FOREVER. When the income FINALLY came, I purchased paint, painted a huge section of my kitchen and put a few patches of color in my living room. It turned out I HATED the colors. I am SO bad at picking colors. So bad, seriously.

Once I was in Home Depot with a friend who was helping me pick out colors for the living room in our old house. She is a VERY talented artistic person whose house ALWAYS, and I mean ALWAYS, looks great. (I know this for sure because I actually lived with her and her family for 4 months.) Anyway, she was getting all excited and inspired and was shooting out ideas that ricocheted all over and made me dizzy. I swear the aisle of tiles we were in started to spin in circles that kept getting faster as she spoke. I panicked and tears were welling up threatening to spill out. I think she noticed this because she stopped. I really don't remember anything else after that. I do remember being ecstatic with how my living room looked after it was finished. But, I digress.

Back to my current house and most recent painting experience. The initial thrill, fire and gusto that comes with a new painting project was extinguished when I realized I HATED the colors I'd purchased. It took me a month to go back to the store with my paint and ask them to remix them to different colors. One gallon turned out perfectly, the other gallon... Well, let's just say if you're into neon pink, it would have been perfect. I wasn't so I purchased another gallon and tried again. This time around I was more pleased with my kitchen color and somewhat okay with the living room color. Anyway, to cut this story short, it took months, two sets of missionaries (try to figure that one out) and two days with LT to get it FINISHED. I'm so relieved. I'm still not crazy about the living room, but whatever. Oh, and here's a little advice to any of you would-be painters out there. Beware of RED. It takes 12 thousand coats to fill it in.

Thank you to those of you who endured this long ramble. I promise to post some "done" pictures soon but here is a pic that kind of shows the colors. The red on the front door is the same color as the kitchen and the yellow/brown is the color of the rest of our living room now.