That Time of Year

Here we are again - December. The Christmas season is upon us. It's that time of year that some people try to avoid at all costs and others embrace. I love Christmas, and I believe in saying "Merry Christmas." I'll say "Happy Holidays" if I'm referring to the holidays as a group, and while I object to the Politically Correct Police who are trying to take Christ out of Christmas (and everything else!), I don't flip out if someone says Happy Holidays to me.

This year Christmas is going to be pretty slim around my house. Bobby ran for Sheriff but lost, and the next day was told to turn in his equipment, "and oh, by the way, can you submit a letter of resignation?" They want that letter so that they don't look like the bad guy and hopefully are able to wriggle out of any unemployment obligations. Bobby refused to submit a resignation letter, however, so now we're waiting for unemployment to get back to him with a decision. Almost 4 weeks! I don't make enough to keep us afloat, and although Bobby is trying to find work, there's nothing yet. I may have to try to find something part-time too...

Today is my birthday and with all of that on my shoulders and what is looming ahead, it's been a rather depressing day. Not because I won't get birthday gifts or a fancy dinner out, but because two people that I really wanted to hear from on my birthday were no-shows. How hard is it to text someone birthday wishes? How long does it take to send out an email? In this day of advanced technology and social media overload, video calls on your phone even, why is it so hard for people to connect? In actuality, it isn't difficult to connect, not really. It's all about "me"; "I'm so busy", "things are so crazy right now." They're excuses because we are so wrapped up in ourselves and our busy lives that we flat didn't think about anything else. Oh, we might have had a thought drift through but we quickly put it out of our mind by saying "I'll call later when things settle down" only, later never happens. I know what I'm talking about because I have caught myself doing it on occasion. When the guilt becomes overwhelming, we post something on Facebook - we could do better, but at least it's something...I guess. On the upside, though, my BFF since fourth grade texted me and that seriously improved my day :)

So, I won't be able to give fancy gifts this year, but I can give my time and of myself by saying "Merry Christmas" and meaning it, calling or contacting people important to me and letting them know I care, and helping out where needed. We don't have a homeless shelter here, or a soup kitchen, but I can definitely find some way to donate my time and skills. 

Our lights are up and we're a bit late getting the tree up, but that's happening this week, so we're ready for the season.  Bring it on! 

Signs, Wonders, and Unconventional Messengers

God's Messengers come in all forms it would seem. Have you ever had a complete sign-from-above moment? I have been struggling over the decision to change my degree program to Graphic Design or to stay on the Web Design and Interactive Media program. My problem lies with the last part: media. I just finished Intro to Audio and Desktop Video is coming up. Looking at the rest of the classes I have yet to take, I am seeing a heavy emphasis on media and very little web design. Actually, almost every class I've had that dealt with web design really revolved around the media aspects of web design. I'm just not that into media. I don't want to create Interactive CD Roms or mobile applications or interactive kiosks. I'm pretty sure I was told that these two programs share a lot of the same classes (but WDIM has more web courses). I know I heard that from at least two different counselors, waaaay back the first couple of times I questioned whether I was in the right program or not. But now I have a counselor who is really listening and wants to help me get the most out of my education instead of classes that are a waste of my time (and money!).

So anyhoo, Sunday evening was our church's trunk-or-treat. While I was talking with my friend Rhonda who was passing out candy she let me try a piece of Dove chocolate (milk chocolate with cinnamon graham cracker pieces), which was wonderful by the way! I put the wrapper in my pocket, thinking I would throw it away later when I was near the trash can. I forgot about it until we were about to leave and I felt it in my pocket when I put my hand in there to warm it up. I suddenly had the idea that I should open it, and then remembered that they put messages on the inside of the wrapper when I saw the white rounded square. I opened it carefully and smoothed out the wrinkles and read the message. A message that I'm sure is on hundreds of thousands of little pieces of chocolate, but this one was meant for me. I showed it to my husband and said "Look! It's just for me and now I know that I should change!" My husband being the wonderful man that he is, says "That's okay, Hun, I was just teasing - I love you just the way you are."  "No, you don't....What??"  

Moving on...I sent my counselor an email and completed the forms on Monday morning. I had to take a course that works for either program until the transfer is accepted, and since classes started Monday, we had to work fast.  So now I am in Intro to Communications 101, otherwise known as Speech - Yay.  Oh well, it had to happen sooner or later, better to get it done and over with now.

After wrestling with the decision and flipping back and forth, and asking God for guidance and direction, the answer came in the form of a wrapper on a heavenly little piece of chocolate that otherwise would have been thrown away. The God of the Universe is altogether amazing and wonderful, and because he knows what I like, he chose to give me my answer in chocolate. Okay, so it wasn't in the smoke of a burning tree, or spelled out in the night sky with stars, but does an answer to prayer or a message from God really have to be big and spectacular?  Not at all  :)

Find a Happy Place

Do you ever have those moments when you wish you could open a secret door and step out of your crazy-busy life and into a quiet serene place? A place where you can sit and enjoy a cup of coffee in peace and quiet without the phone going off or people asking you where the mop is (mess alert!) with the dogs barking in the background while kids are asking what's for dinner? My personal time-out space would be large, yet cozy, with a comfy couch, a super hi-tech programmable machine that would produce whatever kind of coffee or tea drink I choose, and a full length window with a remote so that I can sip on my drink and look out at the beach or mountains, etc. The only sounds would be from whatever I'm watching in the nature-window; waves, rain, birds, streams, etc. I could go on.This summer has been so busy that I have my personal time-out space very meticulously mapped out and decorated in my mind. Things have been so hectic and just weird, that I want to slip through that secret door a lot.

This summer was so hot and dry that almost everybody lost if not all, at least part of their lawn. The trees lost well over half of their leaves so that now, there's hardly any left to turn red and fall off. We had a shrub die because no matter how much water I put on it at night, the full strength of the sun all day was just too much for it and it got fried. A lot of people lost plants, trees, flowers and whole yards of grass. My dogs didn't even want to go outside. Everyone became nocturnal. I would go out at 10:00 pm to water and would see other neighbors out watering and doing other outdoor chores. It had an almost eerie feeling to it to see so many of us out there at night like that. Almost as if some horrible event had taken place and it wasn't safe to go out during the daylight. Or we were all vampires...

My youngest son (8) decided he wanted to play football. But he doesn't want to play flag football, he wants to play tackle, and our town doesn't offer tackle so we have to go across to a town in Missouri (30 minutes away) for the games. We have two practices a week (Tues. and Thurs.) and games on Saturday. Practices (held at the middle school her in town) started the 2nd week of September,  and we had our first game on the 29th of September. There are only 6 games and we have had three so far with this coming Saturday's game being the 4th. So, I have two more weeks to go of this crazy schedule I'm on. Monday and Friday are the only days without something, but even then it isn't an evening off because I have class that I have to try to fit in amongst it all. Practice wouldn't be so bad (even though it is 2 hours long) if I could watch some Netflix or Hulu or read a book on my phone, but my little man expects me to watch him practice. He asks me if I saw him do this or that and if I say no, he actually accuses me of not paying attention. So, I have to watch - closely!

But he's having so much fun, so I don't let on how tired I am of it all. I know he will be sad when the games are done and there are no more practices. He looks so cute in his football uniform! And I really am glad he's playing. This is the first time he has stepped out and done something on his own, without his brother. He's the youngest and he is used to following. Until just recently, the last year or so, he wouldn't eat or do anything that his older brother didn't like. He's kind of quiet and in his way, shy, so this football thing is really big for him. This summer, the boys did archery with a friend and Sully really enjoyed it, and he went every Tues. and Thurs. even when Tucker didn't. So it would seem he is growing up, coming out of his shell...my baby.

We had a tornado hit a big chunk of town September 7th and it took out power lines and trees and left us without power for two days. The people in charge of the storm siren (which didn't go off 'they say' because they received no official warning from Springfield) are saying it was microbursts. The people that saw it hovering over the parts of the county and town that mysteriously have damages, and heard the rumbling and shrieking wind say something quite different. I was one of the people who saw it and heard it. I happened to be alone at the funeral home when the storm hit and shortly after I saw the swirling mass of clouds go over the Post Office, the power went out - everywhere. I've been through several tornado warnings since living here and it was the first time I have heard that odd sound. Honestly, the movie Twister got it right. It does sound like that. 

It took out power all over town and parts of the county. The police command van was out with a loud speaker telling people to conserve water and where to go if they needed shelter. My kids were scared because suddenly all of those disasters they had seen on TV became very real. And even though we were nowhere near being a real natural disaster area, it brought the concept home to them. Our block alone had four trees down and our neighbor had one fall on her house. We were blessed that nothing fell on our house. It took the roof off of the dorms at the community college which is just three blocks west and south of our house. There were huge chunks of the roof debris all over town.

It certainly was an eye-opener! Just two of the many things I was very thankful for: my smart phone so that I had communication and access to news and weather and other invaluable information, and that we bought a gas stove when we remodeled. I had to charge my phone in the truck, but no biggie. We read a lot, played some board games, and went to bed early. It really wasn't so bad.The real bummer was that I couldn't use my Keurig :(

So Much for Karma

I have proof that Karma doesn't work. Last Saturday after seeing soon-to-be--year-old off on a Missions trip with church, I went to WalMart to get coffee (Donut Shop) and creamer (Natural Bliss-Sweet Cream) and something for breakfast. As I walk into the store, I take my sunglasses off and put my eyeglasses on. As soon as I walk in, I see a shopping cart sitting there, empty except for a little old lady purse (you know what they look like, lol) and nobody around. Since WalMart did away with greeters, there was nobody around to help, so I grabbed the cart by the back end and pulled it to the Customer Service desk and told them where I found it, etc. So, then I go about my shopping, and as I am walking away from the checkout, I take off my glass, slip them into a pocket of my purse, and slip on my sunglasses, pushing them on top of my head. When I get to the foyer, I put my purse on my shoulder and grab my bags and proceed to walk to my truck. After a pleasant drive back home, 3 minutes later, I pull into the drive and turn off the truck. I immediately take off the sunglasses and put them in the little cubby-hole and reach into my purse to get my glasses. They aren't there. I turn out my purse - nothing. I climb around and under everything in the truck looking - nothing. I go back to WalMart because by now I'm pretty sure that when I put my purse on my shoulder and reached over to grab my bags, they must have fallen out. I try to park close to the same place, and I scan the parking lot on my way in. I then scour the foyer area. I check with customer service and nothing there either. Somebody had picked up my glasses and instead of turning them in, either kept them or threw them away. See? If Karma was a real thing, someone would have returned my glasses instead of keeping them so that they can put their own lenses in them...grrr.

Saving The Finder

I'm jumping on my soapbox over yet another good television show not being given a chance. My family watches Bones, and when we saw the episode introducing Walter Sherman as The Finder we loved it and couldn't wait until the new show came on. It's a great show and my boys absolutely love Walter, played by Geoff Stults and also starring Michael Clark Duncan. Fabulous show; warm, funny, quirky...they've cancelled it! Of course they sabotaged it first by having a 3 or 4 week break in the middle of its season and then moving it to Friday night when it came back on and then they put it on just before Fringe. See what I mean? It's like they want it to fail!

Of course there is a petition and a campaign on Twitter and Facebook to get it back and you can find all of that info here: http://www.savethefinder.org/

My idea is if Fox doesn't want it, then sell it to another network who does. At the very least they could put it on during the summer when there is nothing but garbage on anyway. Not all of us vacation all summer long - there are plenty of people who will be home watching re-runs or DVD's because there isn't anything good on. 

I want to see viewers win for a change! I'm tired of networks taking off good shows the family can watch and replacing them with absolute garbage. I'm fighting back. I've signed the petition and I post and retweet #savethefinder and #TheFinder and others as much as I can. There's also a blog, http://keepthefinder.wordpress.com/ If you haven't seen it they are still showing the re-runs Sundays at 10pm Central. Watch it. Love it. Save it!

Summer Kick-off

Even though it isn't officially Summer yet, Good Ol' Days is Fort Scott's Summer opener, as I've blogged about before.  You wouldn't know it isn't Summer yet, it has all the earmarks: it's always hotter than blazes, all the usual bugs are out (and I don't mean just the winged or multi-leg variety), and folks lose all sense when it comes to attire. 400 lb specimen wearing lime green spandex shorts, yellow tank top with arm holes so big why bother, black bra plainly visible, and zebra pattern flip-flops with rhinestones on the straps - yup. It's Summer, alright! 

I made a decision that I was not going this year, even though Dock Dogs was coming back (I love watching those dogs jump into the water!). My husband had to work this year and I just did not feel like walking around in the heat with all of those sweaty bodies while my boys dragged me around looking for slingshots and marshmallow shooters that they aren't going to get no matter how much they beg....and beg...and...yeah, you get it.

I've been seeing just a few lightning bugs for a couple of weeks now, and this last week I heard the first locusts of the season. We had some really hot weather in the early weeks of May and if that is any indication, we will have an atomic summer! We had a pretty mild winter with only one snowfall of a little over 2 inches which immediately melted off by later the same day. That means the bugs will be bad :( Heck they are already bad! The fleas are terrible and the usual stuff from the vet isn't working past the first couple of days.

Wow, I didn't realize it's been a month since I updated!  I finished up with a class on writing for multimedia which was intensive and I had to create a mock-up of a mobile application and then went into College Math 1 (Algebra), which is where I'm at now. It's going a lot better than my Elementary Algebra class went. That instructor was horrible! I've got a much better instructor this time, but it's still a struggle and having a bad teacher set me back a bit. My next class is Screen Design - don't know anything about it, but it sounds interesting! In my Typography class I got to do a movie title sequence storyboard which was really cool. We had to pick a movie from the 1970's we hadn't seen and design a title sequence. We had to indicate movement or atmosphere, etc., using only typography and whatever Photoshop effects we were capable of creating. It was a real challenge, but it was really fun, and of course everything we create goes into our portfolio, so it needs to look good. I picked House of Dark Shadows, which I had never seen. The only Dark Shadows I remember seeing was the TV series remake with Ben Cross & Joanna Going - 80's or maybe early 90's - but this was with the original soap opera cast. It came out pretty good and I got full points for it, so it will make a nice addition to my portfolio. Totally funny too that about a month later the word came out that Johnny Depp was starring in a remake of the movie. I want to see it, of course being a huge Johnny Depp fan, but I usually wait until they come out on DVD. Movies are so expensive anymore that unless it is something truly special, we wait.


I'm still having fun with Instagram; I find myself seeing everything from the viewpoint of "that would make a great photo!" and since I always have my phone with me, I can usually get that great pic. So, with that in mind, I will leave you with a shot of my lunch  :) By the way if you're ever in Fort Scott, you should definitely stop by the Nu Grille to eat!

Moments Like These

I may or may not have mentioned that my husband goes a little, what we like to call, "Clark Griswold" when he gets frustrated with a project that doesn't go according to plan. It is also referred to as "kicking the Santa" on occasion. If you don't know what I'm talking about, then you haven't seen Christmas Vacation with Chevy Chase as Clark - our family's favorite cult movie. He goes berserk on a Santa and reindeer display when the lights don't light. Anyhoo, my husband has these moments from time to time...here is an example of one. As I have mentioned, we are in the midst of hell - I mean a remodel (LOL) -  and things don't always go as planned. This was a re-wiring project of the light switch to accommodate the two new can lights in the hallway. I honestly don't know what he was trying to do, but he got frustrated and hit the offending area with the hammer - problem solved. Of course this created a new problem in which he had to repair the section of wall with new drywall, meaning that he also has to texture the entire hallway to match. We originally were just going to re-paint the walls after doing the ceiling in the hallway. Looks like plans have changed.

We have however reached the painting stage in the living room and family room -YAY! About a month or so ago we picked out our colors. The living room was a no-brainer: Cyprus green with a white trim. We did however have problems agreeing on a kitchen color. We both wanted some real color; no white or off-white or variation of beige. Since the rooms are now opened up together they needed to coordinate and because red apples are my kitchen theme, it also needed to go with a deep warm red - what I call country red. Not a problem with the living room color- green is the compliment to red on the color wheel. I wanted a muted rosy-melon color that I saw on a paint card, but Bobby didn't like it so eventually we settled on a mild (or so we thought) yellow (Behr: Cornmeal). It wasn't what I wanted, but I thought I could live with it. Well, after priming the walls and painting the colors on I decided I couldn't live with it after all. It looked like Greenbay Packer fans lived in my house - nothing against Greenbay, of course - they're awesome -  but c'mon! It was just so much yellow and wow was it ugly! So, Monday morning we chose a different color: a lighter version of the Cyprus, cucumber-something from True Value. It looks so much better! It goes with my apples and my new cabinets that are being installed today and I am now much happier. Now I just need my new stove...

new paint, new light

new paint

Makeup Mishaps and Dumpster Divers

A while back I bought some of that Almay Smart Shade makeup and I really like it. It adjusts to your skin tone and according to the advertising it gives a perfect color match. I am using the Light -Medium and I've been using it for maybe six weeks now. I have my little routine where after I put on my moisturizer I let it fully absorb before I put on my makeup - foundation first, well after concealer if necessary. Yesterday morning was no different except maybe the humidity level in the bathroom, so after brushing my teeth, etc. I started to put on the foundation. I typically start with my forehead, and didn't notice anything unusual until I moved down to my nose and applied more. The color came out a little darker than usual, but I blended it in more and moved on. When I applied the makeup to the right side of my face I knew something was wrong. The more I blended it, the darker it got until it just wouldn't blend anymore. I don't know why, maybe just thinking I got a blob of unmixed color, but I went ahead and put it on the left side of my face...and it was worse. It looked like a self tanning episode gone awry. I began to wash it off of my hands and had a moment of panic because it didn't seem to be coming off. I got more soap and then it started to come off so I proceeded to wash my face, happy that it all washed off. After re-applying my moisturizer, I decided to try it again to see if it was just a fluke or if I needed to throw the rest of it away. This time I shook it up a little first to see if that helped, and I guess it did because it didn't happen again.I tried it on my nose first, just in case but nothing unusual happened. It was almost like I dreamed it all. I say "almost" because my husband was there to witness the whole thing. The only thing I found shocking about his behavior is that he didn't try to take a picture. Men! This morning I was cautious while applying my makeup, but nothing happened, so I guess it was just a fluke...hoping, here!

In other news, it is that time of year again in my community; City-Wide Pick-Up. Not to be confused with City-Wide Yard Sale which happens twice a year in Spring and Fall, also known as stuff swap (keeping it PG here). Pick-Up is a phenomena that happens once a year here and if you put your stuff out on the curb, the city will come haul it off for free. Great deal, right? What makes this even more fantastic is the people who go through the stuff you leave out at the curb. Looks a lot like cockroaches swarming over scraps in the trash out back of your favorite restaurant. Can you still call them dumpster divers? I think so.These dumpster divers get to make a mess of your neatly piled junk and make off with the broken flotsam of your life while you get to lie in wait and secretly video them. Yippee! Unfortunately for us, it was broad daylight when they swiped our junky old dog house. We saw them driving off and no time to grab the camera. Darned it!

Addictions

Macro lens and Instagram

Back in December (2011) I got my first smart phone - a Motorola Droid Razr. Yeah, I didn't start with something simple to get my feet wet, I went for the Big Kahuna. I LOVE it! Seriously, I really have to say I have never enjoyed a phone so much!  I can do just about anything on it that I can do on my computer. I have downloaded some good productivity apps so that I can keep up with school stuff when I am away from the computer, but it is the other apps that I am having so much fun with. Instagram has been on the iPhone for a while now, but a few weeks ago it became quietly available for Android. I am completely addicted to it. I have a decent enough camera on my Razr (8 mp) so now I am making good use of it. It has a cool macro lens for taking closeups of bugs and flowers, etc., and that is just way too much fun. I also have a thing for Fruit Ninja, which is a lot of fun, and of course Angry Birds. 

Something else I discovered is Pinterest. Pinterest is a fabulous site that lets you "pin" the things you see on the internet that you like onto boards and you can organize them anyway you want to. You can also pin other people's pins that you see and like, and they can pin yours. It's a great way to hang onto recipes and craft ideas, or anything else, really. The best part is that there is a mobile version of the web site that really works well. An app is in development, but really the mobile site works great. So there is something else I am addicted to.

Which brings me to my other addiction...I recently got a Keurig and now find that I can't seem to get enough coffee.  Which is odd, when you think about it because the whole thing about Keurig is to brew a single cup of perfect coffee, right? Well, before the Keurig (b.k.) when I brewed a whole pot of coffee, I usually only had one cup. That led me to the thought that a Keurig would be great for me because I like my coffee bold and my husband likes his on the weak side and I only have one cup anyway, sooo...yeah - I am drinking a lot more coffee than I used to.  I love Coffee Mate's Natural Bliss creamer in Sweet Cream flavor. Low in fat and calories and tastes fabulous. 

Okay, so I wonder if I have a problem that requires a 12 step program? Oh wait! I just realized that I can keep up with all of my obsessions on my phone! How cool is that??

Just a Real Nice Day

Hubby and I had a nice afternoon ride on the bike Sunday. We rode around out in the county and saw the sights; Redfield, Mapleton, Devon...some of the sights saw us. The lilac is blooming as are irises and tulips, and we saw a bunch of baby sheep and goats at several farms.

Here is a photo of the post office in Mapleton. Across from the post office (where I am standing) is a small park. Down the road is a cafe that my husband says is pretty good-I wouldn't know because he eats there when he's working and has never taken me there...not so subtle jab at my hubby, there :) There's not much else to see here in Mapleton right from the highway except for some farms and a few houses. It's not very big, but it is a nice quiet place to live. 

 

Since I was taking pictures, I took one of my neighbors lilacs in her backyard. This is a much better shot than I took a couple of mornings ago. It was very early and I didn't want to be caught stalking her backyard in my jammies so it came out kind of blurry. It just smelled so heavenly! I don't like the scent of fake-lilacs, but the real deal is wonderful.Wouldn't it be nice if there was a way to make online photos of food and flowers like those scratch and sniff cards? When I was a kid there were some bubblegum collectible cards that were scratch & sniff. Right now I can only remember the dill pickle and orange mint ones, but there were others.

We recently got some new neighbors next door to the North of us. Remember the house with the family of raccoons? Yeah, she sold it (rent-to-own) and didn't tell the family about all the critters that had also been calling it home. She also told them that we were crazy and to avoid us. Of course they must have picked up on her crazy-vibe because they completely ignored that advice and told us all about it. We in turn told them all about their new house and how many times the codes officer had been there. They seem like a really nice family who just wants a house of their own, so hopefully things work out for them.

Pick Your Poison

I'm SO ready to be done with this remodeling! We're at the stage where cooking is near impossible; we have no stove, and no counters (the cabinets are being stained), and my kitchen table is being used as a work bench. My wonderful husband asked his mother (the woman who hates - doesn't like me) if he could fix dinner at her house. I get a phone call from him explaining all of this to me and I'm thinking "fabulous!"...sarcasm. 

Bobby comes and picks me up from work (we went from two vehicles to one a couple of years ago to save on vehicle payments and gas) and when we get to his mom's we start dishing up spaghetti, etc. While I am working on my plate, I hear a complaint from one of the boys about the cheese looking brownish. I ignore this and say I'm sure it's fine. By the time I get to the table, hear another complaint about the color. There is some questioning back and forth: "where did you get it?" "was it in the refrigerator?" "Grandfather gave it to me-it was in the cupboard, but it hadn't been opened yet." By this time cheese has been sprinkled all around, and we have all had a sniff of the container. "Smells fine-smells like Parmesan cheese smells-stinky feet.." Oh dear...I spotted the date on the container and it says "Best by 06/06/2010." Two-year-old Parmesan cheese and we've all eaten it. The eleven-year-old: "Will it make us sick?" The not-quite-eight-year-old: "I wonder what it feels like to have your stomach pumped?" Oy vey! The good news? Clearly the attempted poisoning by Parmesan failed. The bad news: my youngest thinks he is funny. (He is, but we don't want him to know that!)

No Time

I saw some interesting things on my way to work this morning. I saw a cute little brick house with a white picket fence and tulips coming up all along the fence line. I drive by this house all the time, but this morning there were the tulips to capture my attention. Red, yellow and pink blooms with their dark green leaves against the white fence ...unfortunately I didn't have time to stop & take a picture. I'm fairly certain a drive-by photo wouldn't have gone over well had I run into something.

A little further down the road I saw two elderly people bent over and staring at something on the ground. I tried to see what it was they were looking at, but whatever it was must have been really small. Of course we have the same problem as before: no time to stop and running into parked vehicles is bad.

The next thing I saw, or rather noticed, and not for the first time, was how much traffic there was at 3 minutes before 8:00 in the morning. My theory is that because it only takes 3 minutes to get anywhere in town, every one who has to be to work by 8 a.m. doesn't leave their houses until 7:57. The streets are semi-dead at about 8:02 until 8:57 when the peeps who have to be at work by 9:00 are scrambling to get to work. Me? I leave my house anywhere between 7:45 and 8:05...don't want to be a slave to convention. :)

Moving On

I could go into all of the details as to why I have been absent and why I have treated this blog so shamefully, but instead I have opted to rise above, to start fresh. Anybody can start fresh in January - all of those well-intentioned resolutions to lose weight or quit smoking, etc. I'm choosing to break away from the pack and begin anew in March!  So, moving on... :)

Last spring we renovated our bathroom. This year we are remodeling our kitchen and living room from floor to ceiling - floors being last.  We had an old, huge floor-to-ceiling window in our living room and we were losing a lot of heating and cooling through it. Actually I think it was more a case of the outside coming in. We also had this goofy angled ceiling that was really high at one end (12 feet at least!) and about 8 feet at the other end, and a wall separating the kitchen from the living room that was not squared up. Most walls are at a 90 degree angle to each other, but this was something else. Basically it made my kitchen a wedge kind of shape and gave my living room a weird deep corner that I had to try to camouflage so it wasn't so noticeable. We took down that wall and are putting up a new straight wall that is quite a bit shorter so that the dining room, living room and a large part of the kitchen are open together. So we dropped the ceilings to a level 8 feet high, put in insulation, new can lighting, a new window, and we will be putting in soon a new stove that is now part of the 21st century, new cabinets, and a new door between the kitchen and laundry room. Whew! And when we're all done with that,we'll tear up the old carpet and stain the pristine hardwood floors underneath ;)

Right now we are finishing up the drywall and getting ready to stain all of the cabinets. I came home yesterday to find a thick white coating over all visible surfaces. My husband had been busy sanding the the places where he had put up the tape and mud. It looked a lot like a case of baby powder had exploded. So thankful for vacuum cleaners!