Spirit.

Recently I've gotten into the Halloween spirit. I've always enjoyed Halloween, I like to pass out candy to the kiddo's (okay...I don't personally like to hand out the candy, but I like to listen to Nick to do it - he's all "oh, that's a great costume, Happy Halloween!" and I'm all "here's your candy, get off my lawn") and I liked throwing up a few decorations. Fall, however, is one of my all time favorite seasons and Halloween just happens to fall in the middle of it.

Usually for fall, I do up my mantle with lots of cute decorations. This year, though, I have a tiny Ben art gallery on my mantle that apparently I'm not okay with taking down (it's not like I can't just go LOOK at him any time or like I don't have thousands of photos of him on my computer I could look at in case I forgot what he looked like), so I've got it spread out a little. And this year I'm incorporating more Halloween goodness in with the fall stuff. Probably I'm more into it this year because I stay at home and have time to decorate (especially now that he takes nice long naps - I can get so much accomplished in 2 hours, it's fantastic - and would rather play on his own than play with me). I also read a lot of blogs during the day to pass the time when I'm not cleaning up after Ben. These women are SO crafty. I wish I was even 1/10th as crafty.

At this point, I'm not really going too much overboard because pretty much the only one that appreciates it is me. I know Nick doesn't care if I decorate or not (he got a kick out of the thing I made last night - more on that later) and Ben has NO idea so right now it's just for me. As Ben gets older and is more aware of what's going on, I'll probably do up all the holiday's more to make them fun and special for me. I remember my mom used to make all the little holiday's fun. The one I remember the most was Valentine's day. V-day is 3 days before my birthday so V-day morning, I would get a special Valentine's day breakfast and a little present (I always thought it was a birthday present early - for all I know my mom could have just been getting me a special prize).

I find myself really enjoying being a stay at home mom. I wasn't sure I would - I thought after a few months I'd be dying to go back to work. To be completely honest with you....I don't. I don't miss work at all. I suppose it doesn't hurt any that I really didn't like what I was doing before I quit. It wasn't a good fit for me (although I did like the people I worked with, just not the actual job itself) and I didn't enjoy doing it. I really just have no desire to go back to work. Sure, I get bored and I long for some social interaction, but over all, I love it. I love tending my home, my child and my husband. I enjoy cooking a great meal and watch Nick all but eat the paint off the plate. I enjoy watching Ben destroy a room I just picked up (really I do, that's not sarcasm. For such a tiny kid, he makes a big mess and fast and he selects and then discards a toy with such deliberateness (is that a word?) and speed). I like finding that I have time to do all the crafty things I admired before but never seemed to have time to sit down and do.

I'm trying to spend less time with the dramas of Facebook and more time tending to my house and working on things that inspire me. I've been a spray painting fool this week and spent a stupid amount of money at the dollar store ($30? really? at the DOLLAR store?? hey, it's all stuff I can use when I'm feeling inspired, which is a lot lately) and crafting up a storm. Here's some of my more recent projects:

I found these bottle idea here

Here is a close up of the label. It made me laugh that it says "Mr. Bones" and I have it sitting by a skeleton....ahh, it's the simple things in life. The bottle is just filled with food colored water

Okay so this isn't something I made, but it is something I decorated. I created this little "office" station since we don't have an actual office any more. It's a place to keep the calendar, our bills and other miscellaneous office stuff. It makes me smile every time I look at it.

I made this ribbon wreath yesterday afternoon during one of Ben's nap. I keep finding spaces where the foam base is peeking through so I'm going to get another ribbon color (I'm thinking ivory) and fill in. I found the idea here ages ago and I have been dying to make it. I LOVE it.

So that's my craftiness as of late. I have a few more projects I'm excited to do (this & this) and of course I'm constantly moving things around my house and discovering something else I can spray paint.

Happy fall, ya'll! :-)