Well, I found this handy thing called Assistive Touch and I just think it’s the neatest little thing.  I’ve had 3 models of the iPhone and have never heard about this.  I have no clue how long it’s been there. 

Oh and PS, I can’t take screen shots on my phone since, you know, my lock button is broken.  This fix doesn’t fix that unfortunately.  If you know of an alternate way to do that, please let me know.

Go to settings:

General:

Accessibility: 

Turn Assistive Touch on.

A little black box with a white circle will show up somewhere on your screen.  It kind of jumps around on the screen depending on what you’re doing.  You can see it here on the right side in the middle-ish of the screen.

You can also drag it around on your own.  Here I’ve moved it to the bottom right.  You can see it right under that fingerprint and glare.

When you need to lock your screen or go Home, click on it and you’ll see this menu pop up:

For Home, click on Home or for the lock button, click on Device and you’ll see this sub-menu:

Click the Lock Screen and voila!  Your phone is locked and you can see your fingerprints and smudges perfectly!

As you might have seen in that submenu, you can do several other things.  This can also be used when the volume/mute button is broken.  Handy little thing.

So for two weeks, this is how I have to lock my screen.  Works for me! Think it might work for you one day, pin it to keep it handy!

I’ve linked this post to Works for me Wednesday at WeAreThatFamily.

I am back at the office today and much of my access is gone. Today will be the day that I stay at the office for 9 hours and commute for over an hour. Ten hours away from home. It’s just…yucky to me.

I read this post over at Beneath My Heart (sorry no link at present) today where she chronicles her home and work life through the years. I love the comment she quoted from her mother, “God does everything in seasons.” Right now she’s in a season of staying home with her children after full time work in her last season. Right now I’m in a season of being full-time hours, half-time telecommuter.

There is a never-ending debate on whether mothers, or even females, should be working at all. Obviously I fall in the camp of “it’s ok”. As with many things, I think there is a balance and not a one-size-fits-all rule to the whole deal. Some mothers would be nearly violent if forced to stay at home full-time. Or, they simply enjoy using their talents at their job. Other mothers wouldn’t be able to handle the juggle between full-time at the office and to be “busy at home” life. And some simply love being being home full-time. I’m a Jesus-loving girl and bathed this decision about work in prayer and no one is going to convince me that God hasn’t led me here. It’s just a season. It may be that we need this extra money in the future for a time where I WILL be led to be at home full-time.

I won’t lie, it’s hard to be gone this long. As I said, it feels “yucky” to me. But you know what? I feel kind of sad when I leave my kids to go get coffee with a friend and I miss bedtime. I feel kind of sad when they spend the night away from home and I don’t get Saturday morning with them. My sadness is not about work. It’s about loving and missing my kids when I’m away, no matter what it’s for. But we can’t insulate ourselves so much that we are with our kids 100% of the time. I think it does a disservice to both me and my girls if I were to limit my time with my friends and their time with their family and friends. At the same time, God has given us the kids for only a season and yes, it’s great when we can sow into their lives. To be honest, given the choice aside from money I would probably choose to be a full time stay-at-home mom. I would love to take off to Target at 10am or go bowling at 2. I’d be happy to be home every day to have dinner set and ready at 5.

I guess I just think our hearts and minds can be one place and our bodies in another. A stay at home can FOR SURE be absent in mind and heart from their home and children even if physically at home while a working mother can be at work, but their hearts and minds at home and actually, be MORE attentive when physically at home than if they were home all day. I think it comes down to a heart issue. If our hearts are at home and our attention is with our kids, that’s what is important, no matter where we spend our day physically.

So here we go:

Mineral Powder Foundation in Ivory #2.  I hope you’ve tried this stuff because it is GREAT!

I use the Coal eyeshadow with their angled brush to make the eyeliner.  It doesn’t move!

I have these three eyeshadows on Ivy Garden, Emerald, Moonstone

Love their mascara!  I get so many free mascaras from CVS and this one by far surpasses them!

I used a combination of Shy Blush and Golden Copper blushes

Bronzer on my forehead, nose and chin

Apricot Glaze lipstick

And to top it off, Bronze Bronze lipgloss

Whew, are you as tired as I am after all that? 

If you’re at all interested in trying any of this I have some great news!  My wonderful consultant, Jo Ann Blackwood will give you a free consultation and because she loves me, she’s offering a 15% discount to anyone that mentions Permission to Peruse when you order!

If you’re really wanting or needing some product, I highly recommend holding a party with her.  JUST for picking a date and not changing it, you get $25 in free product!!  You can make up to $100 just for having friends over and playing with make-up for an evening.  You know I love a good deal and this is one of them!

Jo Ann is a dear friend who recently lost her job and is trying to make a full-timer career with Mary Kay.  I hope all of us can help support her efforts and end up looking great in the process!

Check out her site to or email her to set up a consultation.  She’s willing to work with you no matter what your location is, so give her a shout.  And let me know, what’s your favorite Mary Kay product?  Obviously I’m very willing to try any of their products!

This morning started off a little early and disappointing.  I had our appointment with our designer down for the wrong day.  But I didn’t realize it until we all got up early, got ready and got the house in showroom condition and the designer was “late”.  I checked my emails and sure enough, I had today down when it is really tomorrow.  You know how excited I am about her coming but yeah, only one more day I have to wait.

Also, I was supposed to talk to the bank yesterday but she never called so we chatted this morning.  The thing I was worried about (why do I do that?) is that last year we tried to refi because we have a 7 year arm and it’s “up” this spring but we couldn’t even though we’ve always had excellent credit. One credit card Scott got to hide a birthday present from me in 2009 was late and it tripped up our credit score enough we couldn’t get a conventional loan.  We were planning to refi this spring anyway assuming our credit was back up.  But I was nervous!  Knowing they’d be checking our score in this process, I haven’t wanted to check it on my own lately so I’ve been in a big waiting pattern for the past year to see if it had gone back up.  I told her our plans and she said she’d go ahead and check our scores while we were on the phone and we are BOTH back in the excellent range! 

The thing I want to mention specifically for this post is I really can see God moving because you know how God has been saying do this in a hurry?  I think I saw why today.  Because we are doing a fairly small project and it should be done in a few months versus 8 months or more, she wants to do an equity loan for the addition and then refi it all together at the end.  So no construction loan and no multiple closings.  The thing about it is we won’t be locked into a rate right now.  Rates are supposed to go up so she said the best thing to do is…HURRY.  Can you believe that?  First conversation with the bank and she unknowingly confirms what God has been telling me.  The addition is a green light and hurry up and do it!

Also, I may as well talk about the elephant in the room.  Almost literally.  Not my room but you know, they will be in the room.  So I know circuses get a lot of pressure because of the treatment of their elephants.  If that is a concern for you, here is some information about the care and concern for the elephants in the show.  I feel confident that the show will be safe and that the elephants are taken care of sufficiently.

The circus will be in Charlotte at Time Warner Arena  Wednesday through Sunday January 26-30.  And don’t forget I have a coupon code for you to use to either have a fun date with your significant other or take your kiddos.

Check out this page for more information, a show schedule, and how to purchase tickets.

And be sure to let me know when you’re going.  The four of us will be headed out for the January 27th 7pm show!

I received this opportunity including tickets to the show because of my participation in the NC Blog Buzz network. I have pledged to give my honest opinion of the product/event.  All opinions are my own.

The fact that we have to build in the closet from the second bedroom makes it a bit more challenging.  Since I couldn’t figure out how to close off half the bathroom like option 3 with a sliding door, I went with a room for just the toilet.  I think it actually fits nicely.  And trust me, it’s going to be beneficial for all of us if we can close that off  

Still debating whether to make the shower a linen closet.  The dimensions are a little weird for one.  If we do a separate shower, the tub would be more like a spa tub and might need more room into the closet which is not a big deal because right now it’s 9.5’ long!  If we don’t do a full linen closet, I’m thinking we can use the space under the counter since it’s twice what we have now or some space in the closet.  Really we don’t NEED another linen closet but it would be nice.

While I really wanted a separate his and hers closet it’s just hard to do because of the closet in the girls’ room.  The square in the middle is a bench for dressing.  Scott really needs an area to hang his uniform and get dressed when he gets up at 4am.  Right now he hangs his stuff in the laundry room and it drives me nutso when he puts his bulletproof vest and jackets on top of the washer/dryer.  Sorry, random rant there.

Make sure to check out the oh-so-awful 3D rendering I did.  While awful, it did help me picture better what we would see walking in.

UPDATE:

Ended up doing another new one while I had some down time working this morning.  I still like the thought of the countertop at the back and separate closet spaces.  Downside is the toilet is not separate and we don’t have a separate shower.

The first I posted is still our favorite.  Thoughts?

My idea now is to put the bathroom in dead center and a his and hers closet on either side, with the openings from within the bathroom so we have no closet doors in our bedroom.  I am SO tired of staring at two sets of bifolding doors from our bed.

Here are a few plans we’re working from right now:

Option 1

This first one we’d add a door and come into the bathroom from the bottom and then go into each closet on either side of the sink.  This is my favorite I think.  I like the long countertop.  I like the idea of natural light at the sink.  The bad news is this is a tad larger than we have space for.

Found here

Option 2

Scott couldn’t get around the idea of a bidet but I don’t know, I think we could work from this.  I like the double sink and the possible makeup area and especially the linen closet.  We NEED one in a bad way. 

Found here

Option 3

I think on this one I just really think it would look nice coming in and our sink areas are definitely separate.  I also like the sliding door that could close off from the shower and toilet, especially with the kids getting older.  Just not sure I like the lack of countertop.  Also, the window would need to be a door to the bedroom and we’d have to add a window between the tub and toilet.

Found here

I know it’d be hard but if you have any recommendations, throw them at us.  I love this kind of thing!  So fun to make something beautiful from nothing!

Anyway, we had a couple of other great ideas and thought we’d share.  Here’s the original plan again:

And I do want to be clear that the boxes in between the Master and Girls Bedroom are each of our closets.

This first additional option was from Allison and that is to take out those closets instead of cutting through the girls room to make the hallway.  We do have a tad of an issue because the closets are only 34” and code says it has to be 36” wide.  Also there is a question on what to do with our old entrance to our room but I think it could definitely work.  It would only take out a small corner of the room instead of a large chunk and we’d build their new closet as part of the new addition.

Another option takes out a need for a hallway through a bedroom at all and that is to close in the girls bedroom completely and make that the closet for the new suite.  In this case, we’d only have 3 bedrooms but the flow is much better.  We’d also get a cool deck leading out to the pool in the backyard.  Scott isn’t much of a fan of this one and seems to think he’d rather do a 4th room in case the girls eventually want to split rooms (which I expect but is not required).  This way also knocks out the closets, giving the current master bedroom another 3 feet of space, giving the girls more room since it would be a combined bedroom/playroom.  Another option with the deck is to close that in and make a second closet for the current master bedroom for our impending two teenage girls sharing that room .  Or, you know, make a HUGE master bathroom.

So there ya go.  I’m pretty excited about this and feel from several sides that God is prodding us to move forward quickly with it.

Do you like any of these plans better/worse?

UPDATE:

Scott found a way to use the closets as the hallway.  Our other closet was posing an issue but I think he has it worked out.  Latest favorite is this:

Why not just buy a new house?  Well, we can’t even let go of a recliner.  Think about how we feel about moving.  Really, we are in a fabulous location, have a nice piece of property, like the school, etc.   I’m not saying NO to it, but all of us want to consider an addition.  So I thought we might all want to consider it together.  Yes?

OK, so here’s the front of our house.  It looks oh so…wintry.  Wahhh…when is Spring coming??

Here’s the same side but from the back.

And here’s the current floor plan on that side of the house

So basically that room you see jutting out of the back of the house is my office (where I’m currently sitting).  It used to be our back porch and Scott closed it in.  I just looked and wow, it has been 6 years since he did that.  The room on the back corner is our room and the two windows on the left side of the house are the girls’ play room and bedroom.  Here’s a shot down the hallway.  Playroom to the left, their room straight down the hall and our bedroom is the last door on the right and as I said, is in the back of the house.

Actually, here’s a really old house tour if you’d like a better feel for the inside.  I’m almost embarrassed by it though…not ONE of those rooms look the same but the floor plan is still legit.

OK, whew, I hope you get the idea of the current state of our floor plan.  So there are really only two options for an addition.  In both cases, the idea is to add on a master suite, let the girls share our room, and let whomever (whether it be adoptee or just guests) have their bedroom.

OPTION 1

The first is to close in that back corner of the house where the trampoline is.  You might want to scroll back up to the pic from the back yard.

The door to the new bedroom would come off the office.  You can see I added in where the furniture would go. 

The back of the house would look something like this:

• The good part about this is you don’t change the front of the house.  You wouldn’t even know it was different if you were driving down the road. 
• You also don’t really lose any square footage from the house.  Yes, we’d have to do some rearranging in the office to get a door from there but overall, no square footage is lost.
• The one really big downside is you’d lose the window in the office, the window to the master bathroom AND one in the bedroom.  Our house already is pretty dark and that’s the side of the house where we get a lot of sun. 
• We’d also lose the back yard for the trampoline, where it is currently hidden from passersby.  However, we do have room for it still. 
• The bedroom would be roughly 16×17 and include a closet and bathroom.

OPTION 2

The second option is to go wide.  We’d tack the room on to the end of the house. 

The tricky thing about this is how to get to the room.  We’d have to extend our hallway into the current girls bedroom , make a new wall for their room (see the dashed line) and have our doorway at the end of the hall.

The front would look roughly like this.  This is rough, but the last two windows would be the addition.  The ones in the middle are the current girls’ room:

And the back, you can see it to the right there:

• The bad part about this is obviously the second bedroom loses a lot of square footage.  The room is not big already and I think this change would make it as small as the first one, which is like 8×10.
• Another downside is we’d for sure have to redo all the siding and possibly carpet.
• The good news is the room could be much larger, up to 22×20 if needed.
• We have lots of space in our side yard that is not used.
• We keep all the windows in the back as well as the trampoline space.
• All the bedrooms are still accessed from the hall.

Given all that, we are definitely leaning towards putting it on the end.  I know we’d lose some of the bedroom but I think it’s better than losing back yard and all my windows and office space.  And really, I think it’s a better looking solution.

So did I lose you?  Follow that at all?  What do you think?  Side or back?  Or bad idea altogether?