Welcome Home, Honey!

The two older girls and I had a lightning trip to CA last week, coming back late last night. The house was relatively clean, the kids were in bed, so all in all, a great return. But here's the big surprise waiting for me in the master bathroom:

Uh...guess I'll find a different bathroom?

Doug decided to fix our toilet. We've spent a few weeks trying to track down the source of a "mystery leak" downstairs. These are the kind of mysteries you never want to have, let me tell you. We thought it was our shower at first, since there are some serious cracks in the grout.

Then came the moment of truth: I was folding laundry and some child flushed the toilet in the master bath. I got to see the leak become a trickle and a small shower. Yuck. Well, mystery solved. Doug wasn't too thrilled, but at least we don't have to wait for rotten floorboards before we figure it out. So while I was gone, he removed the toilet.

And found another surprise. Just as with the rest of the projects "done" on this house, the tile job in the bathroom wasn't quite finished. We figured it was just a few loose tiles and some grouting around the shower. Oh no. They didn't grout under the toilet, making a fabulous place for any loose water droplets to accumulate before spilling over into the downstairs. Again, yuck.

Can you see how much grout that required? All the dark-colored grout is the new stuff that Doug just put in, bless his grouting heart.

There is also now grout in front of the shower. Here's hoping I get a toilet for the new year, but I'm certainly not worried about it today. After all, I'd rather wait for the job to be complete...instead of allowing the not-so-mysterious leak to reinvent itself in the future.

Makin' "Snug and Cozy" Outta "da Trash Heap"

Da Trash Heap: what I affectionately call the girls' "second room." Or not so affectionately, as is most often the case.

My sister came to spend the holidays with us (hooray for family!), and I wanted her to have a snug place to sleep. We have put her up in many ways over the years - pull-out couch, captain's bed, futon...and she has uncomplainingly slept on whatever we have. For Christmas this year, though, I wanted to give her a space to call her own and make her feel welcome (instead of thrown into the mix, which I'm sure she still feels on some level).

I started with the bed. A queen bed was my first choice, obtained through a local classified (KSL is an amazing site for anyone in Utah). The person I was buying it from spent the week dithering, however. Which left me with Sophie's bed, still unused in her room. See? It's hardly in this picture...lower left if you're really looking.

So I figured Sophie wouldn't miss it. It went downstairs. The bookshelf was already there, and still needs to be really cleaned out (admittedly). I found the lamp hiding under Doug's desk...it used to be on our piano. Cute, huh? Love reusing stuff!

Then came the rocking chair, also originally from Sophie's room. It's been in the playroom for a few weeks, but it looks very comfy in here, no?

And finally, a television. Most recently from our room (Doug got a new flat-screen for his birthday - under $200 from Amazon on a Cyber Week deal), it works great with the DVD player sitting next to it. The kids broke the original VHS and DVD player that came attached to the TV. Sigh.

I even added the cute lantern, one of the accents bought for Malena's "garden room" way back when we painted the blue skies and green rolling hills. And to top it off, Malena's dream-catcher still hangs from the heating register.

So why "da Trash Heap"? Because there was little in there but trash...and after two garbage bags emptied in the trash, it was ready for habitation. And even a guest.

Oh, and today I got the mattress for the queen size bed. But the guest room is so sweet the way it is...it may stay that way for a bit. At least this visit. Merry Christmas, sis - may you sleep well!

Moravian Stars, Again

Collin has a weekly eye appointment for eye therapy (can you say, expensive?) and I just sit there for about an hour. Usually, an excellent time for me to catch up on reading or just staring at the wall, trying to recoup some sanity in my day.

Last week, I took my paper strips for Moravian stars. I can read at home - even if it's just walking from room to room with my Kindle held up to my nose - but those stars are hard to keep out of the children's grasping hands. The staff gave me quizzical looks, but generally just left me to fold and fold and...well, fold.

I made three in an hour. Seriously. Not exactly the quickest things to make. There were two others that were almost done. Which meant that there were eight made. Sophia quickly made that seven.

They are now hanging up, though...far, far out of Sophie's reach.

Yes, I still need to paint that wall...

This is our dumb octagonal window...and I agree that the star needs to be bigger, hung lower, etc. But it's a fun picture, all the same.

Here's the best part: they are still there! It is really fun to have a different decoration hanging up, and even more fun to proudly announce that "I did that" when anyone comments. Although only Malena and Doug have commented thus far. Not that I'm counting.

Anyway, does anyone have any "new" decorations this year? Anything outside of the tree-and-garland decor that we all know and see everywhere? No, I'm not knocking it, I love it...but I also love new stuff! How about you?

Only a Week and a Half Left!

You think I'm going to say "until Christmas", right?

Nope, not me. Only a week and a half left of...autumn. Yes, even though we've had snow that still hasn't melted, it is still technically autumn. This is important to procrastinators like me because tulips and daylilies still need to get in the ground before winter.

Now, what's funny is that I finally went out and bought new white tennis shoes. The old ones had given up the ghost and even I, being the fashion-less person that I am, could not stand wearing them with my toes hanging out anymore. The very day that I buy these new shoes, I decide I need to get those bulbs in the ground.

This is how I break in my shoes, apparently. Now they are suitably mud-covered. More importantly, next spring I should have hundreds of red tulips, and next summer, six or seven lovely purple daylilies.

Even though I'm not writing about blooms anymore (since they've all gone and died on me with the first snowfall), I am still working on getting more of those blooms next year. Because I just love flowers!

You know what else I love? Being done with gardening for a few weeks. Weeks, you ask? Oh yes. Doug will insist we start seedlings in January, so I get to enjoy these few precious weeks of not gardening or watering. Ahhhhhh.

Making Moravian Stars

I saw this post last year about making Moravian stars out of paper, and promised myself that this year I was going to try it.

And I did! The tutorial on 33 Shades of Green was very easy to follow...so I cut out some strips using wrapping paper. I chose a silver pattern on white, so that the front and back wouldn't look too crazy when I folded it. Here is the front of the star:

And here is the back:

The idea was to make lots of them and then string them from the ceiling, add them to the tree...but after five, I gave up. Mostly because by that point I only had two (Jack had destroyed three of them), and one of the remaining ones was smashed:

Argh. And again, this is why my house is sparsely decorated for Christmas. I really enjoyed making these, though, so maybe it will still happen? You never know!

Dash to the Deadline

We are refinancing (again - how many times have we done that in the past two years?!?) to take advantage of the low interest rates before they shoot back up. Did you know they're expected to get back up to 12% starting in January? Whoa. This refinance will break even in two months. A serious no-brainer.

What this means to me is that we have to be ready for an appraisal. And I just am not ready for that. Really. However, appraisals do not wait for homeowners who just want to sit around wrapped in a blanket reading a new book. I got a call from our appraiser on Friday, asking to see the house today. Yikes!!!

So Doug and I went to work. Trying to look at the big picture, we decided that we needed a finished wall in the front room, and it would be really nice to have the painting done in the kitchen. Saturday was also Malena's piano recital and a church Christmas party (at which I was singing and accompanying a quartet - that hadn't practiced). So it was a busy, busy day.

It worked kind of like this:

1. Prep the kitchen while Doug pulls electrical to the other side of the wall.
2. Prime the kitchen.
3. Take girls shopping for a birthday party (oh yes, that happened too).
4. Eat lunch. Doug is still playing with the electrical.
5. Go to recital. Drop Malena off at her birthday party.
6. Paint the kitchen (coat #1). Doug was now finishing the wall by installing a new corner bead and mudding the new drywall.
7. Rehearse with the quartet.
8. Paint the kitchen (coat #2). Doug had finished what he was going to do, so I was all alone...and loving the solitude.
9. Go to the Christmas party. Eat dinner (mostly), then rehearse again.
10. Perform. Repeat.
11. Fight with Sophia, who was soooo tired at this point (no nap).
12. Go home and crash.

It was kinda crazy. But here are the results!

A painted kitchen. Sadly, this is one of those things that you don't notice - and that is a good thing. I should be grateful that no one is noticing it because it's bad, right?

Before

After!

A finished wall. The electrical isn't quite done, but I can now sand, prime and paint the wall to match everything else, too. Yay!

The back of the wall

And the front of the wall.

Sunday I put all the electrical plates back on in the kitchen and basically rested, and rested, and rested. Monday I tried to put the house to rights (weekends are hard on the house with everyone home) and finished vacuuming moments before it was time for the appraisal. I made it! Hopefully the rest of the week won't be so chaotic and demanding. Of course, that's just wishing for pie in the sky, but a girl can dream, right?

More on Getting Rid of Plaster

This house had a few plaster accents when we moved in. I removed one of the larger accents early on, as you might remember.

The hallway had those large concrete block-looking things - in this picture, you can see the plaster on the left side, and the smooth side on the right where I had started removing them.

The last of these plaster accents was these "bricks" above the stove.

I admit, if they were glazed, they would look cute. But they would be difficult to clean - and behind the stove is not a place where you need additional roadblocks to cleanliness. So, with a spray bottle of water and a putty knife, I scraped them away.

Oh, yes...I also patched two large holes that had been semi-patched before. Here's the thing: even if I had glazed the "bricks", I would still have had to deal with those patched places that were just hanging out there. Much easier to patch them on a solid wall.

With it patched, I'll admit, it doesn't look any better. But it's progress. Now I can sand and paint...without said roadblocks.

Christmas is So Not Happening

At least as far as decorating goes...

The kids (these are Doug's kids, you know) like to take ornaments and play with them. Aka destroy them. In the past, I have held off until close to Christmas to decorate the tree. Some years, it's Christmas Eve. This year it's going to be Christmas Eve.

I have the tree up - it's been up for about a week. The lights have even been strung. Malena is strenuously opposed to waiting for ornaments. In defiance, she "decorated" the tree with whatever she could find...on the floor. There's a stuffed swan as a tree topper, and even socks and shoes. This effort required pictures.

Oh, and the other kids helped...Jack and Malena were the most proud, however.

Once that was cleared off, we had a few days of just lights. As there are no ornaments to destroy, the boys have decided to try a new tactic. They are pulling out the light bulbs. The glass portion, they bring to me. And are very proud of themselves. The plastic bit gets left on the ground.

Can we say, "AAARRRRRGGGHH!?!?!?"

Yesterday I fixed all the light bulbs - they had pulled out about 50 - and put a star on top. The kids were quite pleased that we at least had a star. But that's not the end of the story.

Last night, they put the glasses from a Mr. Potato Head on the star. No kidding. I am very proud of myself - I did not lose it. If it wouldn't have encouraged them, I would have probably taken pictures. They were sternly warned to leave the decorations alone, though...or Christmas is So Not Happening.

But I'm such a wuss, it will probably happen anyway. They're only kids once, right?

Moving the House Inside

Winter is tough for kids. All that energy, but too cold to go outside. Even with snow, you can't stay outside for long...unless you want some serious pain coming back inside as your too-cold nose adjusts to the warmness of a heated house.

An Easy (and Illuminating) Change

We toured a lot of houses in buying the three we've had so far - not to mention the apartments and houses for rent that we've also toured. Small, basic things were wrong in many of them. My biggest pet peeve was burned-out light bulbs. Such a small change to allow prospective buyers to see what you are hoping they will buy.

Which brings me to today's tip: look at your lights. With winter getting closer and days getting shorter, we rely more and more on interior lighting. If your light shades are dusty (or have toys lodged in them, as our's did), you are getting so much less light. Ditto for unchanged light bulbs.

You and I both know that a lack of light is depressing...so lighten up! Take 15 minutes and walk through your domicile, just looking for shades that need cleaning (I know, I'm not a fan of cleaning either - but I am a fan of the results) and for burned-out bulbs.

See what a difference it can make - whether you're selling your house or, more importantly, living in it.

Chicken Coop Maneuvers

 There are two cement pads on either side of our chicken coop - while the coop itself is on dirt. "Huh?", you say. Exactly. Just another example of how the previous owners of this domicile didn't care to do things properly.

Looking toward its future location

Where it's going

Doug decided to move that chicken coop. By himself. I am rolling my eyes and shaking my head. He spent a Saturday morning digging out one of the sides and propping it up.

Doesn't look fun, does it? Then it just sat there, waiting for him to decide what to do with it. Until we got a good 6-7 inches of snow. Then he decides that it is time to move that coop.

He got it about one foot from being all the way on the concrete pad. He was exhausted. Imagine that.

So this is where he started on it again last weekend. Luckily, the snow was gone.

He heaved and ho-ed, and finally got it square with that cement pad. This was the same Saturday that he put most of the fence up.

When he was done, I gave him a hand massage. He really deserved something nice after working so hard. And since he was finished moving it, he decided his next project was to make shelving for the inside of the coop. These days it's all I can do to finish a project...much less plan the next one.

Can You Hear the Hallelujah Chorus?

Together, now: "Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hal-le-lu-jah!" I could keep going, but you probably get the idea.

Me, I've been hearing that song ever since my birthday. Doug said, gruffly, "Let's go to the store." I agreed, asking what we were getting, where we were going...and he replied, "Oh, we're getting fence stuff."

Inwardly, I was jumping up and down and doing a dance or maybe twenty. But then I calmly replied, "Okay." Aren't you impressed with my self control? After all, he might have changed his mind if I broke out some pom-poms and started doing cheers. So we went shopping. With me being pretty quiet. And smug.

Shopping for a fence was, frankly, cold. All the fencing materials were outside in a large yard and it was probably three hours after sunset. Brrrr. The salesmen were shivering, but were also kindly answering Doug's questions. They even loaded the fencing for us. Hopefully the work kept them warm.

When we got home, Doug said he was going out to "play". His version of "playing?" Putting up one section of the fence!

He calls it a "rodent" fence. Pretty accurate. Then, Saturday he put up another section.

There were still enough gaps in it that Sophie couldn't be trusted outside. Monday night, though, he finished. And now Sophie can play outside without constant supervision. Meaning, I can actually plant something with her exploring in a different part of the yard.  Tuesday, we went outside for her to take a look.

Contemplating the new fence.

She doesn't look excited, does she? But it was more fun when her friends came over and they were racing from one side of the yard to the other...without me standing over them the entire time.

Here's the finished view:

Doug used silicone to fuse the brick to the wood blocks. It definitely isn't a long-term solution, but neither is the fence.

The kids aren't quite as thrilled as I am. This fence has no gates, so they are now confined to using just the front door. That's okay with me - fewer exits means that I can keep a closer watch on who is coming and going. Perhaps that's why they're not so thrilled, hm?

Anyway, three cheers for Doug: Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!

A fence. Now we can take our time figuring out what we really want as a privacy fence (which might be important, since Jack likes to "spray" our house at least once a week). That could take a looong while. While we're debating, though, we won't have any squished toddlers. And that makes a mama very, very happy. And since it's Thanksgiving tomorrow, we'll add incredibly grateful. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Shelving for the Kitchen

Shelves are awesome. Some time ago, Doug took down the upper cupboard in our kitchen.

And there it stayed, for many a month.

I could get all bugged with myself for not taking the opportunity to paint while there wasn't a cupboard, but really, what fun would that be?

Anyway, I finally decided on brackets and shelving, and got myself over to IKEA to get them. The shelves were deemed to be okay, but the brackets needed some serious help - in the form of drywall anchors. It took a bit of time to order and receive screws with the same finish as the brackets. But, as soon as they came, Doug installed 'dem shelves.

It didn't take too long for me to fill them.

I know, I should really get going on the paint. Having a half-painted wall ruins the effect. And the molding really needs to be reattached to the existing cupboard. But my dishes have somewhere that is accessible. Progress, though slow, is still happening. Celebrate the small stuff, yes?

Jack-Jack: Five Looks Good on You!

Jack(-Jack Attack) is now five (on Thursday), and he has a new swagger in his step. Let's take a look at him growing up...

Six months old

Two years old

Three years old

Four years old

Five years old - with dad and Collin

He is such a funny kid...and I'm so glad he's in our family. Happy birthday, Jack!!!

Da Big Four - Oh

Well, it's here. November 14th, the fortieth of my life.

Malena drew the sun on the calendar. Cute, isn't it? I asked the kids not to get me gifts (thus the "No Gifts" inbetween "Mom's" and "Birthday") and instead to just give me a quiet day with well-behaved children. With the exception of Jack, it's been working pretty well. Mind you, the kids aren't home from school yet.

Doug has been up to his old tricks...

Right in our front yard. Nothing subtle about that there. This was made (by Doug and his brother) for his older sister's fortieth. And reused for Doug's birthday last year, which is why it is in our possession. Thanks for making use of that again, sweetie.

And even with the helium shortage, my friend brought me a balloon. Even better, I've gotten lots of calls from well-wishers. I have the best family and friends anywhere. The only regret I have about the last forty years is that I wish I were better at keeping track of said family and friends. They are such wonderful individuals that have blessed my life in a million different ways.

Well, I am really enjoying my birthday! Here's to a new decade! (Maybe I'll be better at keeping in touch...)