Dirty Toes and Paint On My Elbows

Well, hello, blogland. How are ya? Sorry I’ve been MIA lately. Where have I been? Well, I’ve NOT been getting pregnant, for one. So, I’ve been using all that pent up energy that otherwise would have been spent obsessing over every pregnancy nuance to generally spruce up my home – inside and out.

You know about my kitchen. I’m still in love with all the white, though I practically live with a Magic Eraser in my hand, watching for any little mark or scuff on my pristine cabinetry. This weekend I completed a project that has been bugging me for…oh, about 3 years. We have one “accent wall” in the living room that is painted a lovely red. I painted it shortly after we bought the house. And shortly after that spots on the wall got scratched and nicked through to the white wall underneath. I got out my leftover paint and attempted to patch the damage, but somehow the paint had turned and the color was not the same. So ever since I have had these ugly patches of darker red on my beautiful red wall. Not attractive. So I finally bought a new gallon of the red and painted over the whole wall. Took me less than two hours. We’ll file that one under “Should have done this years ago…”

Another project that has been on my (so very long) list for years is our bathroom. Originally, the bathroom was the best room in the house…meaning the most recently re-done. It’s an ugly green, even the CEILING (ugh), but the fixtures are fairly new and compared to all the other rooms when we moved in, not a priority. Well I’ve finally made it through all the other rooms with my paintbrush (except the dining room, which we shall not talk about lest I get depressed) so it’s finally on to the bathroom to vanquish the ugly mint green and replace it with a deep, stately pine green. All the trim work will get a fresh coat of white paint and I’ll probably spring for new towels and shower curtain. Ah. I’m relaxing just thinking about it.

I’ve also been busy outside the house during these lovely, sunny days we’ve had. I’ve been freshening up the mulch in the front of the house and extending it around to the side bushes. (This is where the dirty toes comes in.) What a difference a few bags of mulch make! And cheap! My kind of home improvement. Yesterday we purchased a beautiful yellow forsythia bush (and one ladybug, as G pointed out) which I planted myself in the back yard (read, dug a big a** hole all by myself, go me.) I also filled in some random gopher holes in the yard. Next up, the annual spreading of the grass seed to try to repair the damage done by one dog and his urine. (Umm, gross, but this is my reality.)

Family has been consuming my time, too. Last week John and I made the trek to Manhattan for the day to see a couple of doctors and have a nice Indian lunch at this cute little place we found a few months ago on 1st and 74th. It was a beautiful, sunny day and traffic was incredibly light, even when we left the city at 4pm, so we drove with the windows down and the iTunes up. Not a bad day.

Giuliana has been spending most of her days outside. She’s following mommy’s lead and digging holes in the yard, but I’m trying to just be cool with it. She’ll only be little once, why not let her do her thing? Yesterday mommy and daddy took turns pushing her up and down the sidewalk on her new red trike, streamers flying in the breeze, giggles echoing down the street. Quintessential Suburban Americana and I love it. She’s been continuing with her tumbling class. Every week has been better than the last. She still has (many) “I do it myself” moments, but overall is listening much better. She has even taken part in the warm-up stretches, and this week she barely even glanced at the trampoline while she touched her toes and reached the sky. This is major progress.

So, that’s what I’ve been up to. I’ll try to catch up on my reader to see what YOU’VE been up too, because if I don’t my reader is likely to explode soon.

A Tale of a Kitchen Facelift: Done!

Well, it was a lot of work, but it's finally done. I took three days vacation from work to pound it out because I knew I couldn't handle living with my kitchen in shambles while I tried to sneak in a weekend here and there. I still wouldn't have been able to finish it if it weren't for my makeover partner--my mom. She's always up for a good project...she's been remodeling her house for 30 years, And I think she was just itching to get in my kitchen and "do something" with it. Thanks, Mom! You're awesome :)

Some of the progress along the way:


The gross cabinets, Before. (I can't believe I'm posting this!)


And After shelf papering and cleaning and organizing. Paint still to come.


The newly "brushed nickel" knobs.


The newly black range hood, two coats down. It took a third.

And a few shots of my constant "helper," who wanted her picture taken every time the camera came out to document the progress.


Re-claiming her step stool, which I "borrowed." It's usually reserved for G's hand washing. She kept climbing up with me. Possessive?


In her smock so she can help paint!

This chick is sooooo excited with the white kitchen. She keeps running into the room and saying "Surprise! It's white!" or "Not brown anymore, it's white now."

And now, the After:





Ahh. I like it.

A Tale Of A Kitchen Facelift

I've hated my kitchen since the day we moved in. Ok. I've hated it since we first walked through the house before we bought it. We've always had the intention to rip the entire thing out and replace the cabinets, floors, counters...the works! But...yeah. That's not cheap. So, someday. Until then, I just couldn't take the ugly cabinets and hardware another day. So, though it won't fix the falling apart drawers or the hideous yellow counters, I've decided to paint. Oh, boy. This should be fun.

Here's the before. The walls are staying green. The counters and floors, unfortunately, are staying yellow. The brick...it's fate hasn't been decided yet. It may end up white. We'll see. The cabinets and those blue doors will be white. The range hood gets a coat of black paint. I'm even ripping out the old shelf paper!




A close up of the ugly, so ugly, hardware. Luckily that back plate comes off. So, it will go and the knobs will get sprayed with brushed nickel paint and, hopefully, they will match our light fixture, which is staying. And all that grime around the knobs will disappear under nice white paint.

Wish me luck!! After shots are just around the corner.

Unplugged Weekend

1/2 of Front porch, Before

1/2 of Front porch, After

Other 1/2 of Front porch, Before

Other 1/2 of Front porch, After

Ok, the floor and walls need serious painting attention, but I have to say, I am pretty happy with this transformation. I was feeling that the enclosed front porch needed a face-lift. I love the porch, and the porch swing. It was one of the main selling points in the house, truth be told. I pictured us lazing about with a glass of ice tea, a good book, rocking the day away on the swing, dog contentedly sleeping in a heap on the floor. I was actually pretty happy with the front porch when I first set it up. But over the 3 years it has accumulated a pretty thick layer of dust, dog hair, and crap that had no where else to go. There are no electrical outlets out there, so that hanging light? The cord has always just...dangled, with no happy place to be plugged. And also, due to the lack of outlets, it is very difficult to vacuum out there. I mean, I have to dig out an extension cord, for god sakes!

Oh, but yesterday! I mustered the energy and vacuumed, dusted, mopped, even cleaned windows! And I rearranged the furniture (and switched out some old stuff for some new stuff). Now it feels much more usable. And cozy. Perfect for lazing. In fact, we did spend quite some time out there after I was done. G discovered the mail slot and spent, oh...7.5 minutes, give or take, opening it, closing it, peeking outside. I am going to have to start watching for things to disappear and end up on the front steps. I could just see her thinking....what would happen if I dropped something OUT there??? It's science, people. I should encourage it, right?

So, what else did I do this weekend? Well, first off, I spent all of it disconnected from the internet. Intentionally. I didn't even have my cell phone within reach most of the time! No blogging, no twittering, no texting even...well, except for a couple texts to Kate, but other than that....

My other big project was The Back Yard. Oh the backyard. Those of you who have been to my house can relate. Those who haven't...I took pictures there too, but decided that I am still to embarrassed to post them. We have a large dog, you see. And a small, fenced in yard. Perfect for G to play in...but a disaster due to said dog. Holes dug up everywhere. Dirt patches from dog pee. Dead grass. It's gross. So, my big, BIG project on Saturday was to clean it up. And I did. I mowed the grass, raked the dirt, put down fresh top soil to fill the holes/uneven spots, spread grass seed, watered. I even planted a forsythia bush. I am also going to plant a wildflower border along the garage wall, but ran out of energy to dig it up. Whew! I have the callouses to prove that I am not much of an outdoorswoman, usually. But it felt so good to get it all done. And, it looks about 1,000x better. But still not good enough to post. The fence is still falling apart, the garage needs to be scraped and painted...oh well, I will be happy with my efforts anyway. We got G all set up outside, too. Moved her fort outside, filled the water table, bought sidewalk chalk and bubbles. Needless to say, she runs to the back door the moment she comes downstairs in the morning. I forsee spending much of the summer on the patio.

To top it all off, I even rearranged the dining room on Saturday, too. G's fort had been taking up a lot of space in there ever since Christmas. When we moved it outside I was able to actually move the dining room table back into the center of the room. The dining room is still Toy Central for the downstairs (is your dining room Toy Central. I find that if you don't have a designated Toy Room, it usually becomes the dining room. Why is that?) but at least we can now eat dinner at the table, like a Norman Rockwell family. Yippee!

Oh, I almost forgot. We even made it to church yesterday. That's two weeks in a row! After...oh, a year. I had almost forgotten how awesome everyone at our church is. They really are great people. Totally welcoming, loving. There is no sitting in the back anonymously at our church, which would be my natural inclination. No, everyone there comes and says "hi", remembers your name, asks about your job. And there is none of that "churchy judgment syndrome" that seems to plague so many of the churches I have been to. So happy we found that church. John and I made a pact to kick each other in the butt to make it on Sundays.

Hope you had a fantastic weekend, too. I think I'll take a little nap at my desk now.

Hard Wood Floors Can Just Suck A$$ And Die

Several years ago, before I was a home owner, when I yearned and dreamed of owning and decorating my own home, the title of this post would not have been possible. I had visions of beautiful, shiny, well-maintained oak or cherry floors, gleaming in the sunlight. I saw myself lazing about on those beautiful floors, maybe with a big, fluffy floor cushion, a magazine, and a cup of tea. I did not, however, envision cleaning those floors. Everyday.

Now I own a home that is filled with these floors. Not the handsome floors of my daydreams. No, these hard wood (and really, do we always need the disclaimer that they are "hard" wood? I mean, who doesn't want to giggle a little in a dirty way every time I say that? I think a man must have devised that particular descriptive term. Yes, there was definitely a man behind hard wood floors, the more I think about it. It all makes sense. I digress...continue on) that "grace" my home have seen the worst of it. Kids, animals, water damage, years of wear and tear. They are battle scarred. I should probably think of them in more charitable ways, given all they have seen and withstood in their 72 years. But, alas, I cannot.

For the benefit of those of you who have not been in my home, let me describe for you our flooring layout. We have one strip of carpeting in the whole house, the stairs and upstairs hallway, which finds itself just as abused as the hard wood. This carpet is routinely called upon by my animals to be subjected to their various gastrointestinal woes. I mean, John has gastroinestinal woes, but HE doesn't see a need to spread it all over the only carpet in the house. In any event, the rest of the house is either tired, old linoleum (kitchen and bath, nat.) or tired, old hard wood. The downstairs floors have had a little more love in their lives than the upstairs. The downstairs was at one time (way prior to us) covered in carpeting of its own, which protected the wood. Then, when the carpeting came up, I'm sure in some 80's reno project, the floors were sanded and resealed, as they deserved. The upstairs floors, they have never seen the love of a wood sander or an oil treatment. They have been left to their own pathetic devices over the years and have turned dry, tired and bitter.

Enter my furry family. By that, I mean, two cats and a rather large dog. Enter spring. Oh, spring. You two-faced back-stabber. You bring flowers and birdsong and sunny skies. And you bring shedding and mud all over the freakin' place. And this is where I have come to loathe my hard wood floors. For, unlike carpeting, they do not quietly suck up the dust and dander and let you peacefully imagine that you have a clean home. No, they announce to everyone that no matter how dutifully I sweep and vacuum and even get down on my freakin' hands and knees and wipe up all the cat hair/dog hair/tracked in dirt, etc....it is STILL there, 2 seconds later, as someone walks by and the hairs fly. It's ALWAYS there.

My next house will be carpeted in dull, industrial strength, grey heaven. And yes, I just completed a 1000+ word essay on my floors.

A Little Help From Our Friends

As a lot of you know, my family has been going through a difficult time lately. John has this crazy pain in his abdomen that brings him to his knees many times a day, and leaves a lingering pain 24/7. He finds it hard to do almost anything, though he tries and tries and it leaves him in even more pain. His doctor finally put him on disability on Thursday for at least 4 weeks. Luckily, we both work at an amazing agency that just so happens to work with people with disabilities, so, there's a lot of sympathy and good benefits. He will continue to receive full pay while on disability, as he did the last 3 times he has been on disability in the last 18 months (3 hospitalizations).

I have been trying to keep up on my own, but, man, it's hard. I had an insane month at work due to changing jobs. I haven't seen much of my daughter because of working so much. I have been so exhausted that I have just basically let all housework go. Now, I grant you, for me, that still means my house is pretty clean. I am fastidious, I admit it. "Hi, my name is Kami, and I'm obsessively organized." I manage to keep all of G's toy picked up most of the time, or at least picked up enough so they don't take over the house. I literally can't sit down until any and all "piles" of stuff have been put away. I HATE! piles. They do not exist in my house. And I straighten furniture, knick knacks, etc in my sleep. I can't help it. But...there is a fine layer of dust, cat hair and dog hair on top of EVERYTHING in my house. I have 3 baskets of laundry in the basement that haven't been sorted, folded or put away in 2 weeks. I have a big pile of sheets, towels also in the basement waiting to be washed, and 2 overflowing hampers upstairs. I haven't truly cleaned my bathroom in weeks (ewwww). I haven't vacuumed possibly since Christmas, I can't remember. I haven't even swept my hardwood floors in a few weeks. I did finally break down yesterday and wipe up all the sticky spots on my kitchen floor, but it hasn't seen a mop in quite a while. And my little backyard? Where the dog is let out? Let's just call that a disgusting, vile, biohazard and not talk about it anymore. Now that I have you thoroughly grossed out, let's move on.

I put out a call, both on my blog and in person, last week to any and all friends and family who might be able to help us out a little bit. And I just want to say a HUMONGOUS THANK YOU! to all the people who have responded with their help, their time, their love and support. Dan and Colleen came over the other night and brought a big, yummy lasagna that we have been enjoying ever since (read: I don't have to cook). Rose and Jason came over last week and took our dog for a very much needed walk (read: less jumping on G). Kate and Nick came over today and played with G (read: I took a nap!). And then there are all the people at work who have offered me a shoulder to (literally) cry on, advice, and help actually getting sh*t done, too. And my parents who have been there whenever we needed any extra help with G. And all my bloggy friends who have been there with loving words and thoughts. Thank you, thank you.

I don't know where the next few weeks will lead us. We have a lot of important doctors' appointments coming up. I sincerly hope that we will find some answers. Hey, a diagnosis would be nice. It is so much easier to go down this road with all of you behind my back, propping my exhausted self up.