Kitchen Remodel Part 2

We're on day 2 of potty-training. Her record yesterday was 4-2. We've pulled out the big motivational guns: She's getting M&Ms for each successful attempt. Five successful number 1s in the potty get her a cupcake party. Five successful number 2s will get her a bike. She was getting the bike anyway, which is the Ouisers' old tricycle that S is too big for, but the Lilliputian doesn't know that... She WANTS that bike BAAAAD!!! We actually had a hard time getting her off the potty yesterday because she was so focused on earning that bike. I'll keep you posted.

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The kitchen is plugging along and has made some HUGE progress. The slate floor is in:


The walls and ceiling are painted, the hickory cabinets are in:


The cabinetry was custom-made by a local small business. Those are little, tiny mahogany in-laid squares in the corners of the doors. The two cabinets with the glass doors need to have the shelves swapped out for glass...we forgot to ask for that. The Husband installed lights inside them, and also task lighting under the cabinets.





Technically, the granite countertops are in now, too. The sink is installed, though the Husband is still working on the plumbing. He's also working on tiling the backsplash, so none of the appliances are back in yet (pictures of all that soon), but it's coming. It's coming.

Kitchen Remodel, Part 1

This was our kitchen before the great dishwasher breakdown/kitchen-basement flood of '09.
(You can tell how old this photo is by the presence of the exersaucer! It goes without saying that you must excuse the mess.)


This is after the Husband ripped out everything, EVERYTHING, down to the studs. The water had seeped up into some of the cabinets and, because the original cabinets were custom-made, and because of the way they were installed, none of them could be salvaged. We have been completely sans kitchen since October 2009. The refrigerator and oven are in the dining room. The mircrowave is on the dining room table. The toaster oven and coffee maker are on top of the oven. We have not had use of the oven. We have had only our little bathroom pedestal sink for washing dishes (well, that, and occasionally the Ouisers' dishwasher). We didn't even have the microwave, toaster oven, or coffee maker at first. It took a while to get the dining room serviceable as a mini kitchen. During the serious demo, we didn't even have that, as it was closed off from the rest of the house to try to contain the dust. I think I've gained maybe two pounds after five months of eating out. I think that is a MAJOR success!




We took out the wall between the kitchen and the dining room. We're remodeling the adjacent mud room at the same time. The Husband did all the plumbing and electrical himself. We hired someone to take out that wall, and to put down the sub-flooring. We had another guy do the tiling. The Husband did all the sheetrocking with the help of his brother, Mr. Ouiser, and Ouiser's brother. It took FOREVER since everyone involved has, you know, a full-time job. And OMG, I think the Husband could have written his own blog on the trials and tribulations of home remodeling, especially in a 1930s home.





There's more, but I'm out of time. The Husband is at the lake, studying for a work-related test, and the Liliputian and I are on our way to Monkey's Treehouse. More to follow...at least it's a start!

In Which I Claim YET AGAIN to Be Back

Okay, so another two months have slipped by with no blogging. The holidays were busy, yo! I cannot seem to keep up with my life. Here is a list of excuses, in no particular order:

• kitchen remodel (you want pictures, I know. It's all still totally demoed, though. There's nothing new to see yet, but I should at least give you some before and during shots.)
• holidays
• purchased a vacation home
• Papoose's second birthday
• started working again: per diem for our local hospital, and in two weeks will start per diem for a Nashville hospital as well (it will be every Wednesday at the Nashville hospital, some Fridays, and then a more traditional as-needed basis at our local hospital)
• um, I have a two-year-old
• my house is a constant disaster due to kitchen remodel (have I mentioned that I have no sink? no food prep area? I'm lucky to have a working fridge, toaster oven, and microwave, but it's still not like I can cook anything because there's no way to wash any dishes or utensils. Except for the occasional bag of dirty dishes we cart over to Ouiser's house and sneak into her dishwasher when she's not looking.)

So, I'm not doing the whole New Year's resolution thing, but I'm going to make an effort to try to blog every day for the next month or so. Just to get back in the habit. I think I've just gotten into a routine of putting blogging behind all my other priorities so I never feel justified to spend the time to write these big long posts with lots of pictures, etc., like I used to. So be prepared for some Twitter-like posts as I try to get back on board with this whole blogging thing.

As for today, we spent the morning rearranging some furniture in the dining room/kitchen to try to beat back the crazies that are trying to take over my head. We got the china cabinet out of the hallway and back in the dining room. Things are newly configured so that there is space for the Papoose's kitchen to go, whenever it gets finished. (He was this close to finishing it when our dishwasher went kaput in September and we had to start this whole remodel thing.) The Husband is working his fingers to the bone every. single. night. on this remodel. Seriously. He comes home from work and goes to work in the kitchen until midnight-ish or later. He spends all day, every weekend, on it. It's like a second full-time job, no exaggeration.

My plan this afternoon is to pack up the rest of the Christmas stuff. The tree is down, but not packed, and the stockings are still out. I'm vowing to get that done before Valentine's Day...

Dining Room

This is our dining room. Notice I didn't even PRETEND to TRY to pick up for the pictures. We keeps it real 'round here.

This is my new dry bar. I'm pretty sure that it's gray, not black, as I thought in the shop, given that the tag said it was black and the lighting was poor.
I'm also pretty sure that I want to paint it black, but I want to hear what you think, too, Internet. What say you? Also, keep the hardware, or replace with brushed nickel? It's from an antique store, but I don't think it's a real antique, so I'm pretty sure there's no actual monetary value to the current hardware.
Also, cute kid.
The table and chairs are also new. We bought them on craigslist. We're going to resell the table when the Husband finishes the one he made us. The chairs have already been colored on with orange marker. I haven't even bothered to try to wash it out yet. We believe in artistic expression 'round here, too.

So, vote below: to paint or not to paint? That is the first question. Then weigh in on the hardware. Pretty please.

These Boots Are Made for Walkin'

Picking up where Scarlet left off almost exactly one year ago, I am in need of a new pair of boots. Rain boots. Boots for when I'm working out in the garden or playing in the yard with the Papoose, and the ground is wet, and it's too cold for my Crocs (which just so happen to also be the same ones Scarlet has...great minds, and all that). And I think Ouiser has some orange Hunter boots.

I was almost drawn in by the idea of getting the Papoose and myself some matching boots. I mean, seriously, can you imagine the cuteness? I'm not the type who would dress us alike to just be out and about, but just matching boots for the garden...? Come on, what, are you made of stone?

But then I realized that she would quickly grow out of them and I would be stuck, likely for years, with these:

Which are cute. But just not me.

So, in search of some that are more me, I find that I'm torn between several. So, a la Scarlet, let's put it to a vote: Which boots should I get?






And, lest you think I've forgotten the Papoose, I've got a bid out for these on eBay:

When It's Not About the Baby...

We had a lovely time at Ouiser's father-in-law's 85th birthday party tonight. We had a delicious dinner, we all wore funny hats, we kept the Papoosekin up past her bedtime, we watched some Poppins. Then we came home.

To water all over the basement floor, dripping from the ceiling, wear it apparently had been pooling for days in the subflooring, waiting to unleash all its dirty nastiness all over my washing machine and general laundry area.

Apparently, the dishwasher is broken. No love lost there; we hate this Frigidaire monstrosity, and Ouiser has the same one and curses it at least once daily, too. But someone previously inhabiting this house fancied themselves a do-it-him (or her)-selfer and really so, so wasn't.

According to the Husband, the tile that is in our kitchen was installed improperly. Well, it's really a fantastic display of ineptitude captured in one glorious disaster of a kitchen floor. The specific dysfunction that applies to this story is the fact that the kitchen tile was installed on top of plywood adhered to linoleum, rather than a cement basing, and this tile does not extend under the dishwasher. So, when it flooded, we saw nary a drop, as you usually would, with the flooding flooding itself all over your floor. Instead, it just soaked into the subflooring. For at least two days. Now, we walk by the dishwasher and water squeezes up through cracks in the grout and pools on the floor. It's lovely, really.

The Husband is currently trying to determine whether he can repair it, we should call a repairman, or dump the hateful thing and buy a new one. I am helpfully staying out of the way. I did clean up some of the basement, but my back warned me against being the one to scrub and mop the floor.

So, we knew we were going to tear up this floor anyway, but don't really relish being forced into doing it NOW. This house is not so much into the gentle nudges.

Meanwhile, here's a funny blog on the ineptitudes of Pepperidge Farm to take our minds off the ineptitudes of Frigidaire.

Or something to make you think. A lot.

Or funny things from munchkins.

Links from Fussy.

My Future's So Bright

I started this post last Sunday, but it just never got finished. And now I've got more copy editing, so I'd better post now before another long stretch gets by me.

It was a productive weekend 'round these parts. Finally. Not that the last few weekends weren't productive in their way, but somehow sending invoices off to the publisher for whom I freelance isn't so gratifying when the checks tend to take a couple months to show up. Getting PROJECTS done around the house is so much more instantly gratifying.

Yeah, that's Chewy's bed. She climbed right in. Takes after her cousin.

Saturday, the Husband took a roomful of recycling to a drop-off. A roomful. I'm not exaggerating. Ask Ouiser. You know that utility room we're "remodeling?" It really became more of a to-be-recycled storage room. It just got away from us, and with all the safety disasters that we've been uncovering around here, getting the recycling out of the house was just no longer a high priority. But when it threatened to overwhelm even Ouiser's SUV, we knew it was just time. I wish I'd taken a before picture. Now we have real recycling bins and plans to empty them regularly and everything.

And, yeah, that's a dog toy. Yum. Please don't call CPS.

I also wish I'd taken a before picture of the little patch of land on the south side of our garage that I'm hoping to turn into garden space. Substantial progress has been made toward clearing out the garbage, weeds, dead brush, and other debris that was wedged back there. Oh, and bricks, rocks, and rusted pipe. Truly a wasteland. But I don't have much south-facing land, so I need to reclaim every possible inch. It's only a few feet wide, so I need to plan something to plant that I'm going to be able to access in such close quarters. Herbs with stepping stones in between? Corn with beans growing up the stalks? Is it too late to plant anything this year? I'll keep you updated on this developing news; I know you're riveted.

I'm sorry, don't you just want to roll over dead with the cuteness? Oh, yeah, and the baby looks pretty good, too. :)

The Husband also picked up a couple rain barrels yesterday! A man about an hour from here bought truckloads of them from Jack Daniels a couple of years ago. Apparently, we got the last two in good condition. Although, "good condition" is relative. You know how wood shrinks as it dries and the rings fall off barrels due to this shrinkage? The guy thought, and we thought, that once the wood was soaked with water it would expand again back to original shape. But the Husband's been soaking it for four days now, and the rings don't quite fit. Anyone know anything about this? One of the barrels actually has the Jack Daniels logo printed on it and is therefore infinitely cool. Although, we're not because we don't even drink JD. Posers, I know.

Thank you, Craigslist, for providing me with the great deal on the Leapfrog table that the Liliputian just HAD TO HAVE! Our ears will bleed if we hear that trombone one more time. I know you feel me, TT.

I whipped up some food for the Liliputian on Sunday: apricots, bananas, asparagus, yellow squash, and zucchini. Plans for peas and green beans this weekend. So much cheaper and way easy to make your own babyfood. I'm a little bit horrified at the money and waste everytime I open a jar of babyfood. And I'm in no way being judgmental here. We have the time and equipment to make our own, so it just makes so much more sense for us. I realize some people are just too busy and need portable food, and I still use jarred food when we're out. But it's very gratifying to make it myself. If only I could buy local, but I haven't worked that out yet.

It can't be helped. I love that grumpy little sleepy face.

Sunday, the Husband installed a reverse osmosis water filter (we have high-ish nitrate levels in our tap water), which is working swimmingly. This weekend I think we have big plans to install rail guards around the deck and second floor stairs so that those two areas will be more babyproof. She easily fits through the spaces between the rails as it is now, and I would make much more progress toward getting laundry put away, if I didn't have to keep my eyes glued to her every second while she's in our bedroom chasing cats.

My Husband, the Born-Again Electrician

Ever heard of knob and tube wiring? I'm betting older generations have, and anyone in my generation probably has not. I don't have time to find you a nice, educational link, but according to the Husband, it's old electrical wiring that was used in homes until around the mid 1900s when it became illegal due to the major fire hazard it caused. It's copper wire wrapped in cloth (instead of the good ole, lead-containing PVC that we're used to now), supported by little porcelain pieces that look like knobs.

Guess who has a sh!tload of it in their house.

We hired an electrician before buying this house for the exact purpose of ensuring that there was none of this wiring left in the house. At least none that was live.

He lied. Or was very bad at his job. Or both.

There's no ceiling light in the living room. We've had floor lamps in there, but now that the Papoosekin is mobile she's trying to pull herself up on them and both breaking them and attempting to break herself in the process. So they have to go.

The Husband set out to install a ceiling fan/light fixture. Should have been easy enough. Until he uncovered the web of fire-waiting-to-happen that is the wiring supplying electricity to about half the house, apparently.

Recall that this house was also sold to us with no smoke detectors. No, we have not made progress on that yet. We cannot keep up with our lives.

So, this has to come out immediately, which the Husband, luckily, knows how to do. He's off now to cajole Mr. Ouiser into watching the Papoosekin for me so I can continue to copy edit and he can turn our house into less of a deathtrap.

I may have to sleep on the floor outside the Papoosekin's room tonight, just for peace of mind.

In completely unrelated stressful happenings: My car registration expires on the 31st. I need a passport or birth certificate to get a TN license so I can get a TN registration. My passport has expired. My birth certificate is in NY with my parents. I'm so screwed.

I'm Late! I'm Late!

Okay, I wrote this a few days ago and was hoping to get time to post pictures with it, but that's clearly not happening, so I at least offer you some text:

I know that was a longish hiatus, and there are more to come in the near future. I’m swamped with copy editing again: three issues dumped on me at once, and one is a huge, special issue, meaning lots of extra pages, so I don’t know how I’m going to get it all done, but it will be. Done. In about four weeks. So be patient with me, please!

Mother’s Day was kind of a train wreck around here. The Papoosekin was sick in the days preceding. Sick like projectile-vomiting-sick. And 102-degree favor. Poor bebe. She was sooooo not herself. When she was awake, she was crying, and felt like she was on fire. But mostly she slept, which was just as well. And when she had nothing left in her little stomach to come up, she dry heaved. It was a little bit heartbreaking.

Then, just as she started to look better, I got sick. Chills, which I don’t remember ever experiencing before, and my own 102-degree fever. And achy all over. And a wicked headache. But that was gone after a couple days.

And then we discovered the baby girl had a tooth in addition to being sick. She had her six-month pediatrician appointment when I was sick, so the Husband took her and the doc said that while some upset tummy issues can be caused by teething, not to the degree she had them. So she had a virus and was teething at the same time. And now she has a little bitty incisor to prove it. You can hardly see the very tip of it, but you can feel it. One little bottom right incisor. I will miss that gummy smile. But it’s not really gone yet.

Not to be an overachiever or anything, but she also decided that this was a good time to start crawling. At six months. Normal is eight to ten months. Though I apparently started crawling at six months also; I don’t know if there’s a hereditary link there. And I don’t know the Husband’s milestones. But my Papoosekin is officially on the move.

And, not easily satisfied, she seems to have decided that this is not quite enough achievement for one month and so she should start pulling herself up to standing now, too. She’s only done it a few times, but this morning I left her in what I thought was a baby-proofed living room, except for my laptop on the chair, which I knew she couldn’t get to. How many baby stories start with what the parents thought they knew? Anyway, in the time it took me to get my cup of coffee from the kitchen, she had crawled over to the chair, gotten her hands up on the edge of the seat, pulled up to kneeling, and was kind of hanging with her knees off the ground, but not quite standing. Trying to get to the laptop. I came over and gave her just the smallest bit of support and she pulled herself up the rest of the way.

Crap.

Did you all know that Scarlet Lily started walking at seven months? It’s true. Her mother told me so. According to my mother, I started around nine months. Both seem ridiculously early. Anyway, my little girl seems bound and determined to be as mobile as possible as soon as possible, so we may be in trouble soon. Another round of babyproofing at a higher height may be in order.

A few quick items of non-baby news:

I had my last physical therapy appointment. Yay! I think I just may be one of those people who actually has to exercise, just to ward off pain and injury. Good motivation, I guess.

The Husband’s cousin graduated from college last weekend! So a shout-out to him. We wanted to be there so bad and tried for weeks to get plane tickets, but just couldn’t make it work. The Husband will be flying to Poland in a few months for his stepbrother’s wedding and it’s eating up basically all of his vacation time, making other travel pretty much impossible. Anyway, the point is, we are so proud of W and so happy for him!

No progress on house stuff recently. And none in the near future with all the copy editing I have to get done. Next on our list is getting the kitchen floor ripped up, getting the asbestos down, and laying new tile. We did choose new tile (thanks for the advice TT!), so I guess that’s some progress. Then I think that utility room will remain on hold a little longer because remodeling the bathroom just became a bigger priority.

There’s no vent in our first floor bathroom, which is the only one with a shower. And there’s a window in the shower. And it’s not one of those glass cube windows or anything; it’s just a regular window. At first we thought that if we opened the window and/or the door during showers, that would be enough to vent the steam out. But the window still gets soaked, and we’ve discovered evidence that water is likely leaking through to the outside of the house. Upon further research, we learned that it’s likely that the wall is so damaged it may have to be torn down and replaced. Basically, we need to get the window out, assess the damage, and go from there. But in the meantime, no showers. So we are looking at weeks of baths. Sigh. I had to take baths my whole life growing up because my parents live in an old farmhouse that didn’t have a shower installed, just a tub. They were fine with that. I always found it terribly inconvenient. An inconvenience I seem unable to escape. Ironic.

On the bright side, our TiVo is working again, though we’re having bizarre time zone issues that caused me to miss the season finale of Gossip Girl last night, so I’m off to watch that before the Papoosekin awakens. Have I mentioned that she’s taking two 90-minute naps per day now? And usually a third little catnap. Life is getting good.

This Old House

The Husband is so sweet sometimes. I hate when I accidentally thwart him. Ouiser wasn't the only one throwing money at the Sigg peeps this week. The same day (unknowingly), I also bought Sigg bottles for the Husband and myself. Apparently, that was also my Mother's Day present. We only figured it out because he called me to verify a charge that our credit card company had found suspicious, leading them to block further charges until we verified it (I am so grateful about how seriously they're taking our identity theft issues, really, but I am wondering what they found suspicious about us buying diapers from Amazon. Seriously? That company should be sending me a Christmas cards every year thanking me for personally funding their corporate holiday parties in Maui.). Anyway, I made him change the Sigg he'd picked out for me to the one I'd picked out for myself. Then I canceled my order. At least, that's what the emails we sent the company said. I'm pretty sure we're actually just going to end up with four Siggs.This is the one he was going to get me . I like it a lot, and blue is usually a great guess for me, but this one I love:Those folksy Swedish designs get me every time. Thank God the nearest Ikea is in Atlanta.

Who knew there was so much to say about a water bottle?

If I haven't lost you to more interesting reads, in other news around here, we have seen the first of the Papoosekin's first tooth (Ouiser, do you have to filch all my blog fodder? LOL)! Thursday afternoon, out of nowhere, she projectile vomited all over me, herself, and the highchair (The Papoosekin did. Not Ouiser.). She didn't act like she was feeling bad, except for all that gagging and turning red during the vomiting. I took her temperature: 102. Stripped her naked, turned on the AC. When the Husband got home, we called the doc. To make a long story short, she was much worse the next morning. If she wasn't asleep, she was crying, and she is generally such a happy baby, I felt soooo bad for her. I held her all day long because she screamed bloody murder the second I tried to put her down. No interest in playing. No interest in crawling, sitting, standing (all the current favorite pastimes). She just so wasn't herself. In addition to burning up and vomiting.

The doctor wanted us to come in this morning, but she woke up with no fever and we discovered the tooth. I knew that teething could cause GI problems at the other end, but I didn't know about the vomiting. So it's a pretty classic, cliched story of new parents getting all worried about their child's illness only to find out that it was just a tooth. But in our defense, I know babies who show no symptoms of teething, just wake up one morning with a tooth. So I think our little one is just pretty far on the other end of that spectrum. At any rate, she's doing better today, though not all better yet. Send her happy thoughts to distract her from the pain.

The Husband and I are off this afternoon to look for new tile for the kitchen. Remember that tiny earthquake in the Midwest a few weeks ago? We barely felt it here. In fact, it was the Husband's first earthquake ever (except for a small one at my parent's house a couple years ago, but he slept through that), which he was very excited about, but I was not. It woke us up in the middle of the night, and I knew he was going to make a big deal about it and all I wanted was to go back to bed, so I tried to convince him that it was just the cat. Shaking the whole bed. Yeah, he didn't buy it either. Hey, it was the best I could come up with at 4:30 in the morning!

Anyway, that earthquake pushed up one of the tiles in our kitchen. Enough that it needs to be replaced. But we have asbestos linoleum under the tiles. And we have a six-month-old. And we're a little uncomfortable with that situation. There was a little patch of asbestos that we were already going to remove from where we made the new door into the utility room. The Husband was going to do that himself because it was so small. But now we're talking about the whole kitchen, so we're calling in the professionals. And frankly, it's not just a matter of safety at this point, but time. We need people who know what they're doing to come in, get 'er done, and get out. This is the kitchen we're talking about. Kind of an important room.

So the gist of all that is, we need to go pick out new tile. This will be the same tile that will eventually extend into the utility room, so once that's purchased at least I can pretend we're making a little headway in that area, too! Any tile choosing tips? Anyone out there with experience in this?

Have I mentioned there are no smoke detectors in this house? How do you buy a house in 2008 with no smoke detectors? Especially when the previous owners had three small children? Maybe they took them with them? Not so hard to believe if you knew some of the other details about the condition in which they left this house...

Anyway, we're out...

Tool Time

The Liliputian has slept through the night a couple nights in a row now. By George, I think we've got it. Although, maybe I don't have it yet. I accidentally let her fall asleep on me last night at about 5:40 for 20 minutes or so. She ate a good meal first, but I swear she wouldn't wake up for singing, burping, jiggling, cold hands, nothing. Until the Husband came upstairs and suggested I just put her down on the bed next to me. Oh...yeah. Oops. I think I just spend so much of my day with her sleeping on me, thinking I can't put her down or she'll wake up, that I forgot to use that quirk to my advantage when I could have. Oh well, she just stayed up about 30 minutes later last night than usual, so no disaster.

Today we've got the contractor in here doing some demo and construction. There's a room in the back of our house that leads out to the deck that the previous owners used as a family room. We're convering it to a pantry/utility room. The current door is into the hall. We're closing that off and adding a door through the kitchen. The kitchen's not tiny, but it's small. Perfectly functional for me, but we wanted a place for our chest freezer. We don't have a coat closet. We need a place for Chewy's crate. And I can't stand having the washer and dryer in the basement, so we're moving those up to this room, too (maybe the basement would be find without a baby, but lugging her and baskets of laundry up and down those stairs, in addition to the stairs to the top floor? No way, Jose.). So today they're just moving the door. The Husband is thinking about trying to put the tile down himself--it will be the same tile we have in the kitchen, extended into this utility room. He's never done it before, but he works with a few guys who have a lot of experience with it and they say it's easy as long as you read up on how to do it. And you save a ton of money.

Anyway, the Liliputian is sleeping upstairs in her crib right now, as they tear giant holes in my wall. She fell asleep in the Moby, while I was puttering around trying to make space for my coffee maker among the workmen. I was just settling down to nurse her and let her nap on me at about 8:00 because I realized she'd been up for over two hours...except that she hadn't, I realized, when I looked down and saw that she was already asleep. I walked upstairs, gingerly unwrapped my little Papoose from the Moby (a tricky thing, if you've ever seen one of those Mobys [Mobies?]. They're about 27 ft long. Well...maybe not quite that long.), and put her in her crib. Half an hour and enough noise to wake the dead later, she's still asleep. Amazing. I told the Husband yesterday that, although I had planned to wait until next week to start the sleep training for naps, I felt like she was ready now. But I thought we'd have to get blinds or something up on her windows first. Apparently not.

Window treatments are such a nightmare. There was hardware up on her windows for blinds, but we took it down because there were no blinds. Then the Husband found the blinds in the basement, but now we don't know if we still have the hardware somewhere or threw it away because we didn't think there was a reason to save it. Of course, you can't find anything because the house looks like a moving van threw up in it. So all she has on her windows right now are some flimsy white curtains that don't even cover the four side by side windows in her little dormer. And the Husband needs serious darkness in order to sleep, so I have to either buy or make some curtains with blackout lining for our bedroom. It kills me to buy them because they're so expensive and so easy, in theory, to make. But making curtains requires unpacking enough stuff from my sewing room to find everything I need and finding a place to set it all up...eventually we're going to finish the basement and I'll have a sewing room down there, but in the meantime we'd hoped to just leave it all in boxes. So, I don't know what we'll do there. Any thoughts?

Don't Stop 'Til You See the Whites of Their Eyes

So it doesn't take long to get on the bad side of a homeowners' association, does it? DH and I are sooooo not HA kind of people and hope that when we buy a house we can find one we love in a non-HA neighborhood, but from what I understand that is increasingly hard to do in many areas. The front yard of all the houses in our neighborhood are xeriscaped, but weeds abound and it's been impossible to keep up with them. So, we got a nasty letter from the HA that we must bend to their will by the end of the weekend and rid our front yard of all life forms. It's back-breaking work. I don't know how my mother does it in her own huge, beautiful, much more elaborately-landscaped yard.

Contrarily, the backyard is suddenly sprouting mushrooms everywhere. Unfortunately, Chewy seems to always notice before me. Do you know what happens to mushrooms when you try to pry them out of a dog's mouth? They disintegrate into mushroom powder. It's impossible stuff. I don't think they're poisonous. They look like the generic white mushroom kind. Spoken like someone truly ignorant of mushroom species. I should take a picture to show you guys, but that means finding one before Chewy does. But why are mushrooms sprouting up in my supposedly desert backyard anyway? Methinks the irrigation system must be over-hydrating some areas.

On a completely unrelated note, I'm already losing faith in my Petsmart dog trainer. We went to our second puppy class on Tuesday and I expressed to her my concerns with the "watch" command we were supposed to teach the dogs over the previous week. Am I the only one whose heard of the concept that animals don't like direct eye contact? That it's a form of aggression and an animal who wants to avoid a conflict will look away if stared in the eyes by another animal? I swear I've read this in all my dog training books. That's why you're not supposed to make eye contact if you meet an aggressive dog who you think might be about to attack you. The girl teaching my class wanted the dogs to hold this command for 30 seconds. Now, beside the fact that my 11-week-old puppy doesn't really have the attention span for that, it also goes against his instinct to look his pack leader in the eye (sorry, Dad, so far you're wrong. I seem to be the pack leader. Mainly, I think, because DH has been working twelve- to sixteen-hour days since early September.).

I tried to very politely and privately ask her what she thought about this. She looked at me like I was crazy, then made a point to do the command with my dog and prove me wrong. Not meanly, but she was definitely trying to show me just how wrong I was. I didn't want to get into it with her so I didn't bother pointing out that the only reason she was able to get him to hold the "watch" was because she was bent over towards him (another no-no according to my books) and letting him jump up on her while "watching." He's not allowed to jump up on people. Whatever. The girl is still an undergrad, so I don't know what I was expecting. We go more for the socialization anyway.

Rejoice!

The prodigal sewing machine has returned and it comes bearing a new pattern selector gear. I picked it up Tuesday afternoon and have already pumped out two rompers for Jonah. *Spoiler alert for Jonah's 'rents: there's a pic at the end of this post.* I hope to get a couple more done this weekend. That kid is going to have a whole new wardrobe via his only auntie come Christmas. That's okay, he's a good excuse for me to practice my sewing skills. Someday, I'll make clothes for my own babies and Jonah will have a chance to say, "You know, back when I was young, your mom was throwing some thread and a needle at a pile of fabric and calling it a romper. Meanwhile, your sitting here in your designer duds and I'm stuck in this potato sack she likes to call clothing. Hmph." And my babies will say, "..." (because they're imaginary babies; they can't talk yet).

Well, the lease is signed and the deposit in, so the rental house is official. We'll have those keys on August 1 and we have our current apartment until August 15, so we have 15 days to make the transition. I'll post pics when we get in there.

The puppies still aren't born yet! Or, if they are, the breeder hasn't posted it on her website yet. Which would be understandable if she has a houseful of new puppies. I feel like such a traitor, sitting here writing about a move and a new puppy with Puck ferociously cuddling and head-butting in my lap. Oh, they are so going to hate us for a while. Their peace will hold out a couple more weeks, though. And I have a stack full of puppy books to get through! I'm actually really looking forward to training this puppy; I think it will be fun for both of us. The not so fun part will be training DH to train the puppy. DH is not so fond of rules and structure and, although I think he knows how important these things are for a dog, I'm not sure he's completely willing yet to follow through on them. But he's so busy with work and school, I think I'll be doing 90% of the training anyway. DH can just show up for playtime, which is the best part anyway! He did say he'd go to as many puppy-kindergarten classes as possible, so that will be a help.

Here's the latest catnip pic. The sprouts keep growing taller, but their stalks aren't getting any thicker, so they're just kind of folding over on themselves because the stalks are getting to be too weak to support the leaves. I didn't remember catnip looking quite like this. The stuff I remember growing in my mom's garden had very thick stalks. Maybe it's just still too young at this point to look anything like it will. The cats seem to recognize it though. I thought I was safe leaving it on the kitchen counter at night because they're pretty well-trained not to jump up there. Turns out they're just well-trained not to do it while we're looking. The plants are now fairly nomadic. Never a night in the same place. My bathroom counter seems to be a haven as I think the cats decided long ago that this was a boring place, not worth visiting. Plus, it can be wet. So they steer clear. For now. One whiff of the catnip and I'm sure it'll become the happening hang-out spot. I can't wait until the plants are big enough to be planted in the ground at our new place and to withstand the affections of the kitties.

And, finally, here are the aforementioned rompers:

Que Pasa?

I was supposed to go see a potential house today after work at about 6:00. I got done at 3:00. Instead of driving the half hour home to turn around and come back, I decided to kill time. I went to buy a fourth pair of scrubs, now that I'm working four days per week. I drove around to familiarize myself with the northwest side of town, now that we may be living there. I explored the Foothills Mall, to which I'd, for some reason, not yet been. Probably because it's one of those outlet malls without any exciting stores; just your standard Levi's, Big Dogs, etc.

But there was a Linens n' Things there, too. I've been looking everywhere for a set of sheets with pink in them with no success (no success with any I like anyway). I want to make a quilt for our bed (after a couple more practice smaller ones) and am dreaming of pinks & browns, but that means convincing DH that pink on the bed won't bother him. So we agreed on a trial set of pink sheets. Today I actually found two sets that I liked, as well as a brown set (clearance, no less!), so I snatched them all up and paid for them before the pink sheet gnomes could come and spirit them out of my arms.

And as I was checking out, I had a little incident. My skills as an SLP got me mistaken for a bilinguist. Some woman, obviously Spanish-speaking, at the cashier next to mine kept asking for "roz." And the cashier kept saying, "Rose? Rose? I don't know what you're talking about." And I asked, helpfully, I thought, "Ross?" (as in Ross Dress for Less, akin to TJ Maxx and probably many others, varying regionally). At which both salesladies and many customers looked at me and smiled as though I were the cleverest person in the store. Unfortunately, the Spanish-speaking woman thought I was clever enough to speak Spanish, which I'm not (yet), but should be, and started saying a lot of Spanish words really fast and everyone was looking at me expectantly... And all I could utter was a meek "No hablo Espanol." And only the English-speakers seemed to grasp that concept. She kept right on spewing rapid-fire Spanish at me. So then I'm wildly flinging my arms around in the air trying to communicate in gesture how she could get to Ross because I'm, in fact, not clever enough to tell her in Spanish. Nothing makes me feel stupider, living in Tucson, than my inability to speak Spanish. That was going to be one of my goals for the summer, but I'm too fully aware of the mass of the undertaking, and other things seemed more fun, in the end. Ultimately, I'll have to do it. Maybe when I'm not so new at the speech path thing and my brain isn't so exhausted every day I'll have more mental energy to devote to that.

Anyway, back to the shopping. I met with more success at the Levi's outlet. A pair of jeans that fit! In a dark rinse! Jeans, or pants of any kind, never fit me, so this was a huge breakthrough.

Then I discovered the Carter's outlet. Good Lord, I think I spend every day fighting off temptation after temptation to buy my nephew more clothes and books. I go through stores picking stuff up, making a little pile, carefully calculating costs, months-old, and sizes in my head, only to finally come to my senses, abandon the pile somewhere for the poor saleslady to find, and skidaddle before the baby-gift-buying demon overtakes me again.

By the time I left the outlet mall to head over to this house for rent, I realized I'd left my phone in the car. Doing so is a sure guarantee that I will have missed at least 17 calls in under 3 minutes. Not quite, this time, but I did miss 5. All from DH, who was frantically trying to warn me that this lady had cancelled. Apparently, her dog died 4 days ago and she's "too distraught to do anything." Normally, I'd be nothing but sympathetic, but DH called her at 4:30 to confirm and that's when she told him she wouldn't be there. Hello? Were you ever going to call us? Or were you just going to let us drive the half hour from where we work to be stood up? So I'm 90% annoyed and only 10% sympathetic.

It was probably an omen. The place was really far away. We live central and ~30 minutes from where we work in the NW. This woman was another 30 minutes west of there. The draw was that there was an acre of fenced in backyard. An acre! What dog needs a park when his backyard is an acre?! But there was also the little problem of the six feral cats she was feeding twice a day. That would have become an issue. So she's off our list. DH will go see two places tomorrow and we'll see a third on Saturday together. Wish us luck.

I know there's at least one Republican reading this blog, so this is fair warning that you may want to scroll past this paragraph, Republican. :) But I feel the need to mention what I see as a poor, poor decision made by my hometown state of New York today regarding gay marriage. I can't say I was as surprised as the gay activists seem to be regarding the state's decision to ban gay marriage, but it's the state's reasoning I get worked up about. One of the main arguments was apparently the questionable wisdom of allowing gays to raise children. What, are we afraid that the straight kids are going to be confused into "gay-ness" by the deviant natures of their adoptive parents? Really, we think they're better off in the foster care system? Really?The moral fabric of society is unraveling as I write this. Oh, wait...it already did. And it ain't the fault of the gays. But that's a whole other gigantic tank of worms. Are we worried about the decline in reproductive rates when this whole gay thing spreads to the hearts and mind

I'm off to watch another gripping episode of "So You Think You Can Dance?" Anyone else as in love with Ivan as I am? Oh...I'm the only one over the age of 14 watching? Never mind.

Here's a current plant picture. I've been shutting the cats out of the bedroom during the day to let the plants sit in the windowsill. One of us messed up this morning and accidentally shut Lita in the room. Entrapment, I know. You can see a little of the minor carnage here, in some snapped grass blades. The catnip was slightly mauled as well, though I don't think it's visible in the crime scene photos. I'm not sure if it was the smell of the catnip or the dirt that lured her in to a life of crime. This one has a strange thing for digging. Always has. Comes from being born in the mean streets of Norwich, NY. Unfit mother, absent father. You know the story.

You can't be any geek off the street. Gotta be handy with the steel, if you know what I mean. Earn your keep!

(please excuse the background-of-questionable-taste; focus on the kitty!)

Waiting

I hate waiting. I should have worked these past two days because I've driven myself crazy.

1. waiting for my sewing machine to be repaired

2. waiting for the quilting and scrapbooking books I ordered from Amazon to arrive

3. waiting for various house rental people to get back to us

4. waiting for various puppy people to get back to us

That's right, we've decided to move our long-term plan up a year and get the dog now. This means moving to a bigger place, so we're looking at houses to rent. So the dog will have a yard, our living space won't be splitting at the seams, and we can live closer to work (we work about 5-10 minutes from one another, but about 35 minutes from where we currently live). I'm very excited about this, but I'm also a member of the "now" generation, so I have very little patience.

In the meantime, here's a wreath I've finally finished (I started it when we were still in Philly, so at least 2-3 years ago).





And the catnip sprouted a couple days ago, so here's where it was on the 2nd. (I didn't take a picture today, but the plant life is abundant in one catnip pot and the grass is starting to look like grass. Sparse grass, but grass nonetheless.)

Sprouts!

The oat grass has sprouted! The challenge I hadn't yet tackled was how to move the pots into an area with decent sunlight without leaving them susceptible to curious paws and noses. My less-than-ideal solution was to put them in the bedroom windowsill with the door shut by day, back to the kitchen counter (where the kitties don't dare set paw) by night. I'm not sure how well this works when the catnip sprouts; it may be too odiferous for them to resist, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it (when did I start using the royal "we"?).

Worked four days this week. It's getting much better now that they've given me a modicum of independence and now that I've reaccepted the student role and stopped fighting it. I also got yet another copy editing job, so I feel like I'm raking in the dough for someone working part-time. Ooh, and I got a surprise couple of days off for this long weekend; I thought I was going to have to work through the holiday.

Sewing machine update: I called Friday afternoon to get the status report and they claim (and I have no reason not to believe them) that the company sent the wrong part! Wah! They had already reordered it, but it could be as long as another two weeks. I'm trying not to think about it and satisfy myself with scrapbooking. I've gotten another four pages done, but it's a poor substitute for the pleasing whir of my machine. Sigh. The wee wonderfuls pattern continues to taunt me from the coffee table (I should put it in a drawer before it taunts me a second time). Meanwhile, other recipients have torn through the kitty and are well on their way to having a bear-rabbit-kitty army.

Seedlings!

Better day at work today. Mainly because at the end of the day, just as I was about to leave, my supervisor asked for feedback on how they were doing training me, if I needed more or less supervision in various areas, etc. I took that opportunity to mention that, no no they were supervision goddesses with nothing to improve upon except, perhaps, not blinding me with the golden sheen of their professional wisdom (gag, gag), but that I was maybe-possibly-just-a-little-bit-kind-of-sort-of feeling like I might not be progressing as fast as they would like me to be. To which she answered that, in fact, they think I'm moving quite fast and that they are actually very impressed with my writing skills. Yay! My linguistic strengths have somehow camouflaged my clinical weaknesses. JK, but it felt really good to get the positive feedback.

DH and I decided it was an ice-cream-for-dinner kind of night so we had our usuals: Starbucks Mud Pie for him, Ben & Jerry's Body & Soul Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough for me. I feel ill now. But satisfied. Trying not to think about the fact that I missed my spinning class today (don't usually work on Mondays) after not going to the gym for a week.

New copy editing job in today, plus I'm feeling exhausted (why am I sleepier now that I'm out of school? Or am I just noticing it more? Exchange with DH on the way to pick up ice cream tonight: "I notice that I consistently get tired at the same time of day, every day. From about 4:30...on."), so not much productive done tonight. However, I did get four scrapbooking pages done last night (this is impressive as I am not really a scrapbookin' sort o' girl; it's also really intimidating to me that it's taken me three years to get through the engagement party section of what is intended to someday be a giant wedding scrapbook) and some seedlings planted, about which I'm very excited. My tentative hope is to plant a bunch of cat-friendly plants in one section of the imaginary garden so that maybe they'll leave whatever else I plant alone. Because all my gardening research has informed me that I can't really plant anything outdoors until September, and because I happened to already have some catnip and oatgrass seeds (from 2000; do seeds go bad?), I decided to try to germinate those indoors for transplantation outdoors in the fall. I can't wait until their little green heads peek through the soil! Oh, and of course I also had to make little ID stakes for each pot, so if they get lost people will know their names.