Happy New Year!

So I kind of laugh when I look at my Goals list for December. Then I hang my head when I remember it was carryover from November.

1. Get rid of the purged stuff.

2. Master Closet

3. Leif’s closet

4. Skadi’s bedroom, closet and bathroom

5. Trailer.

In the past few years I have done a lot over breaks. But this break I have this toddler who is into everything, wants attention and can't really be left alone while I get my tasks done. Oh and he has NO interest whatsoever in cleaning my closet with me. Skadi likes to help. Leif is a tween now and would rather sit on the computer.

I spent the evenings that first week of break (that AB and the older kids were in the Living Nativity) wrapping presents - and wrapping presents - and boxing stuff up to ship - and baking. All that Christmas prep. During the day when the kids were home with me we would sleep in, get up slowly and go swimming or do a few errands. Then we would go home and put the toddler down for nap. Then I couldn't bring myself to start on my chores. Nope. We pulled out a few games and had games afternoons while Silas slept. One day we did Family Pictionary (Skadi rocks at this game), another the new Family Trivial Pursuit, and another day we played Wii together. And I kept reminding myself that the chores in the back of my head would get done when my kids aren't home or don't want to hang with me anymore.

Point by point -

1. About 30% success here. I dumped a bunch of baby stuff with friends and acquaintances in December. Sold a little. Gave some away. Didn't do bad. Where I didn't succeed was in putting the bags and bags of stuff to go to Goodwill IN the car and dropping them at the station that is a whole 4 blocks from my house. As of Saturday though, I am not terribly concerned about that since I just got the notice from our other donation company they will be in our area next week. And they will be picking it all up (plus more I accumulated this last weekend)! This also makes AB happy because he isn't a big fan of Goodwill as a corporation. But I keep going back to the "it's easy and I need easy, but you are welcome to do otherwise" excuse. (He doesn't do otherwise.)

2. Master Closet - well all the Christmas presents are out! (I hope. Hope not to find some hidden.) And actually yesterday, yes, Jan 4th, I went in and sorted my shoes and got everything off the traffic portion of my side. It actually did a ton for the closet and may let me put off the actual complete disassembly and reassembly for a few more months. Because at this point it just isn't happening.

3. Nope.

4. Yay! Closet and bathroom done. Bedroom floor is still covered in Legos. And because she is so obsessed about her Legos and spent a huge portion of the break doing Legos, I left it.

5. Trailer. Yes, it got vacuumed and cleaned. And when it is back from being repaired from our most difficult trip yet, it will need to be done all over. Yay me.

We did get back from our trip to Canada with a weekend left of break and I tackled a good portion of my list of things I wanted to do over the 2 weeks off. Because in the first 14 days, not much had gotten done. The closet (see above), the boys' linen closet (conveniently while Silas bathed yesterday), Christmas down and packed up. Leif made jerky. I swapped around some blinds (housecleaners had broken one that I used regularly) and I didn't want to buy a new (non-matchy-matchy) one, so I swapped it out with another from a similar window I nearly never open.

(Which brings me to a burning question of late - how to deal with housecleaners breaking items... I have had 3-4 items broken recently. I have spoken with the owner about a few of them mostly when I called to question if someone was actually INJURED, but haven't made claims to have them replaced. Maybe I should? What irritates me most isn't the breakage, it is not knowing it happened until later - and no, they aren't things my kids have broken. Ok, off my aside.)

We were going to do lefse, but AB and I decided that focusing on losing weight and getting healthier was of higher priority than potato, sugar, butter, gooeyness. Still working on accepting this...

Then I got to thinking about my January goals. I asked AB the burning question on my mind. What should I do for January??

I was thinking about prepping the Master Bedroom for painting and deciding on a color. He sighed.

Then he said the magic words, "how about the living room floor".

You see we have this hideous and seen-far-better-days carpet in the living room. For a few years we have debated on going with hardwood that we put in our office and dining room to unify a few rooms downstairs. But it is expensive (the room is huge) and back breaking work for AB. But it would look the best and be the best for resale. But we just couldn't trip that trigger on the actual purchase.

So then we thought about replacing the carpet with carpet. But where do we stop with carpet? Do we just do that room or do we replace the carpet on both staircases and in the hallway upstairs? (My dream.) And when? Kind of hated for awhile to get new carpet when we have a toddler. But then it is getting to the point where we kind of hate not getting new carpet while we have a toddler. And then there is the whole "it is embarrassing to have people over this carpet is so hideous".

We are biting the bullet this month. Carpet for the living room. And probably just there and not the stairs and hallway upstairs. But it will be an easy neutral, always in stock pattern that we can do the staircases and hall at another point.

The October Goal - Finished!

Ok, so it is nearly the end of November, but I am happy to exclaim that the October goal to paint a portion of the living room is done! Finished! Yay!

I am really, really happy with it.

I messed around with some brownish-tan colors. I wanted a shade darker than the "brown teepee" that we have settled on for the neutral throughout the first floor. But they all seemed icky and weird. Or not darker. I needed something that would go with the neutral but compliment the grey in the dining room (diagonal and not directly attached the living room), the remaining "white" in the living room/kitchen, the green in the foyer (that is growing on me - AB likes it - I was iffy for awhile). I didn't want to pull the grey into the living room, but that was starting to look like an option.

I finally went and bought some browns that were so way darker than everything else and then we had the difficult task of narrowing down the choice because we - surprisingly - liked them all.

So it is dark. It is chocolate-esque.

And I love it.

The area over the couch still needs something - it is a very large brown space. But that is the fun part! Getting to look for art on our future trips to fill in the space. I don't have a burning desire to fill it in now. I can wait - and I often do wait - until I find the PERFECT pieces for us.

Happy happy!

December Goal? Survive and make Christmas.

Flooring selections

This fall we plan to replace our office and dining room crap carpet with hardwood. We went and picked out five options and once home immediately narrowed it down to three.

Going from three to one has proven to be more difficult. We love them all for various reasons. Here is where you come in.

Vote! I am posting the three options below. Please post in my comments picking your favorite selection and stating why.

A few details about our house. It is a very traditional style house. Lots of windows, two stories. We only plan to use this flooring in the two front rooms of the house - the formal dining room and office. There are two - yes two - different types of tile off the formal dining room.

The builders/original owners of this house were spastic with flooring. We have about five different carpets and three different tiles throughout the house. I need some consistency. The office and dining room are separated by a dark clay/terra cotta colored smooth tile. Off the formal dining room on the other side is pale cream rough tile.

We have maple trim.

The first is tiger bamboo. It is a solid hardwood, two toned bamboo. Bamboo is of an advantage because it is also the hardest material out there - and we have dogs.

Close up of the bamboo.

 The second choice is a tobacco teak, handscraped hardwood. It has a rough finish and will successfully hide little dings and dents.

Australian Cypress. The light color matches our trim very well. Disadvantage is that it is light and shiny and will show many different dings and dents.

So... what are your thoughts?

That time of the month... Goals!

I think the last time I talked about monthly goals was the end of July/first part of August. I am trying to remember (while being lazy and not scrolling back too far) what I put? I am pretty sure that it was August to select colors for the dining room/office/foyer and that in September I would paint.

For this being a late summer goal, I didn't do too bad!

We got the colors picked and I have so far, spent two afternoons painting to total one hallway in the foyer and one wall painted and two in the dining room. We need to double check our second accent color against the new taupe color of the dining room, purchase it and then paint.

We decided on a taupe neutral to use throughout the three rooms and I am thrilled with it. The second accent color will be a slate-ish grey.

Today we went and picked out new floors - or at least picked out 6 options which once home were quickly narrowed down to three.

Tiger Bamboo

Tobacco Road Teak

Australian (or was it Austrian?) Cypress

So that is the goal for this and next month - get the new floors decided on and in.

I seem to have a bit more flexibility with time lately and so my goals can be more than "clean out Leif's closet" because in theory WE can do that one day after school.

My stretch goal is that by Thanksgiving, I have a newly painted foyer and new paint and floors in the office and dining room.

Feeling the neighborhood love

Or not.

When AB and I were looking for our second home we weren't terribly particular with neighborhoods. We just wanted a nice home and really, in our part of the town, anything was open to us as we just wanted to be in the South end of the city.

When we found our house we didn't really think about the temple on the corner of a particular religious persuassion. Maybe we should have thought about that we were living in "Temple Meadows".

When I tell people where I live I can easily say, "behind the temple" and people know where we are. I have had more than one person say, "oh, are you XXX religion?" Maybe we should have known? Or maybe we were just naive.

Honestly I don't know how many of our neighbors are of that particular religion.

I believe this is partly because after just over two years in our home, we don't know our neighbors.

In our old neighborhood we knew the first names of our neighbors on each side, their kids and families up and down the street. We had two teenagers ready to babysit and knew that the guy four houses down was running for Mayor. We met and banded together to oppose construction of an apartment complex behind us as well as to request that a builder who came in to develop the last two lots in our neighborhood follow the code established (that required that 1/3 of the front of the house be in rock or brick). We were a community.

I don't get that in our new neighborhood. We know our neighbors immediately adjacent on one side alright, an elderly couple who are quite sweet and very helpful with RV and yard questions. And I know the family down from them only a little. Their kids are staggered from ours and the oldest isn't terribly interested in playing with someone 18 months younger than him and their youngest has a weird and vocal aversion to girls.

Yeah, we don't do much with them.

It isn't like we hide in our house. We walk most evenings around the neighborhood. We sit out on our patio and the kids play in the yard.

Still I feel as though the neighbors walk a wide berth.

I have wondered if it is because we aren't one of "them". (The ones who attend the temple.)

Or if we just live in an unfriendly neighborhood?

This blog has been rolling around in my head for a few months. Maybe even a year. How do I write this without whining. Or seeming like I am opposed to their religious persuassion (I think I blogged about Leif stating that Darth Vadar lived in the temple.)

Tonight kind of kicked it over that edge.

We were out for our evening walk and walked down a street that we walk maybe once or twice a month. Skadi was on her trike (as she is boycotting the bike with training wheels we were loaned), Leif was walking and the dogs were ambling along. A woman came out of her house.

AB: "Hello, what a lovely evening!"

Witch: "I don't like you or your dogs because they poop in my yard."

Umm hello to you too.

Nope. My dogs don't poop in your yard. They might walk there on occasion. But they don't poop there.

Rudeness? My neighborhood has it.

If only my whole house could look this nice...

I just have to say that I still – a few weeks after finishing it off – walk into my half bath just to look and obtain a sense of calm. I still love it! And it is kicking some serious motivation into me to make the rest of my house pretty.

Insert my husband’s eye roll.

This weekend I cleaned my closet out. I split it up – my side on Saturday and AB’s side on Sunday. As always happens with this type of organization project, I envision that it is going to take days, maybe even weeks! I look at the daunting mess and worry about getting lost in there and no one finding me.

I was wrong. It took me an hour on each day and this includes hanging hooks, piling up trash, piling up Goodwill stacks and actually bringing stuff into the closet to store. AB gets up before the crack of dawn and he tends to go back and forth from the dresser to the bathroom and closet. I emptied about 1/3 of his dresser out into his shelves. I KNOW my husband well and so I KNOW that these shelves will become messy quickly. He made mention of possibly putting cupboard fronts on the faces of the shelves, but I don’t think that will work easily and I think his time will be better spent just folding and not stuffing stuff on the shelves. Or *my* time will be better spent finding a few low tray like baskets to hold the small loose things. We will see.

In the meantime I have belts, bags and scarves all separated and on their own hooks.

I had to walk in the closet a few times today just to look around and admire.

Our house was a parade home once upon a time. So little details were paid attention to. We have loads of shelves in our closet. I love that. My bank of shelves doesn’t hold clothes. It holds shoes. And I took a little ribbing about the sheer number of shoes on my shelves. Oh well. I can deal.

The last thing I need though is a step ladder to just put in and keep in the closet. A very tall person built our house. Many of these fabulous shelves are up high and I need to be able to utilize them without going to get a ladder. If I can do that then my closet becomes so much more effective at its job.

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The other part of my goals that I am working this month is tackling my quilt.

I packed it up and went to the local Quiltworks store that I heard had a long arm machine and could likely quilt my quilt in a very short time. And yes, they can do it, and yes, it will look fancy and fabulous when finished. For only $240.

Sigh.

AB heaved a big sigh and said, “what?”

Then I ignored him and pulled out the three fabrics I found – two for a double border and one for a dress for Skadi.

Quilt – zero progress.

Dress? And matching dolly dress? Done! Skadi had found a pattern for a dress in my stacks of my mom’s sewing stuff. I am sure she bought it intending to make the dress for Skadi at some point (or for Celeste before this). (See I DO get this affliction from someone.) So when I saw the cute fishy fabric I knew I had to have it.

Skadi was a bit disappointed that little mice didn’t come out to help us sew and that flinging the fabric into the air didn’t magically create a gown. But she was very interested in watching me sew and “helping”.

Once the dress was nearly done I needed to sew the shoulder straps on. Skadi squealed, “wait!” And she ran up to her room and found her little baggie of cute buttons from my mom and pulled out two smiley faced orange buttons and handed them to me. Instead of sewing the straps on and putting a zipper in the back, I sewed up the back and put buttons on.

I know my mom was looking down smiling.

Anyways… back to my issue. I have a decision to make. Try and tackle quilting a king sized quilt myself. Pay the local shop's price. Finding a less expensive place online. Or deciding that it is just worth it to try and quilt it myself. Or – and as a quilter, I can’t believe I am thinking this – tie it?

A brand new half bath

The last touch to the bathroom was finished this past week - crown moulding! I loved the way the hotel room we stayed at in Palm Springs used dark crown moulding at the intersection of the walls and the ceiling. So I stole the idea for my bathroom makeover.


The crown moulding at Home Depot - you know the stuff labelled crown moulding was wide. Too wide, in my opinion for my little half bath. So I found some trim I liked instead and painted it.

Then I bought some new accessories - towel and soap pump shown here and finished the room off. I love the mirror in this room - it came with the house.

This is an awful crooked picture below, but it shows the toilet paper/flower pot thingy that I bought (that AB laughs at). You can also see the green color that has to go at some point.

Yay! I am really happy with how the half bath came out. February goal was a success!

I can't say much for March yet... I bought a few hooks for the closet to hang my belts and shawls/scarves. We will claim 10% complete on the status of the closet. By the end of the day if I am lucky I might be able to see the floor. I can't claim any status on the quilt - not even a trip to the fabric store to buy the supplies. Though we are slowly working our way through the freezer... last night we had both sturgeon and salmon from the freezer - and it was delicious.

Tonight we are having paella... of which nothing came from the freezer. Oh well.

Winding down the month

As typical for most resolutioners, my first of the year goals are filled with lots of spunk and promise. Promises of an organized house, followed by a beautiful and elegant new half guest bathroom and lots of ideas to follow for the months after. Then by summer I am talking about taking months off because we are too busy. And goals over the holidays? Yeah right.

I wandered the Target aisles over lunch yesterday with AB… and no kids. He doesn’t work on Fridays and I met him for a quick and easy lunch and then to grab a few things.

I have been coveting some cute desk organizers for our office. I didn’t find much.

I haven’t found much online either.

The desk organization part of my January goals is not flying. I bought a little square caddy thing that can either lie on its side for cds, or sit upwards to hold – what I am thinking – pads of paper and midsize desk stuff. I bought a couple magazine storage containers. But I don’t need an In box or an Out box or alphabetical storage. We walk in the house through the garage and everything lands on the surface in the opposite corner of the house. Office type stuff often gets stored and organized in the kitchen first instead because of this. If I am looking for a piece of paper, I don’t go straight to my office. The kitchen is the first stop.

Our computer desk just raises a big question mark for me.

I think I did my shopping for organizing items prematurely. I think I should have cleaned off the desk, figured out what really needs to be there and then gone shopping. I knew we needed a pens container and I bought that. But it isn’t cute. In fact, I am already wondering if it would be better suited for Leif’s room and wondering if I would be better suited for a trip to Hobby Lobby?

Oh well. It’s on my list for the weekend, clear off the desk and organize. (Maybe go to Hobby Lobby…)

Today I worked on Leif’s mess of a closet. (A trip to Hobby Lobby would definitely serve as reward that effort…) Done. Finished. Whew. Not fun. Skadi has already started back to destroying it now that she can see all the fun things.

I am trying to finish out my January organization tactics before getting too amped about the downstairs half bath. But I found these… and I fell in love with them:



I love irises. Always have. There was an iris field in Boulder near my apartment in college that I loved. Irises were my wedding flower.

And oh, they were on sale. I got one for $36 and the other for $41. Yay me!

They are going to look spectacular in my bathroom! And now I have color inspiration for the lackluster room!

January Goals Update

It is almost halfway through January, so I figured it was time to update my goals!

Goal #1 – Organization Needs

I have addressed a few of my organization needs throughout the house.

Recycling Bin – Done – I bought a neat big basket from Target that seems to be doing the job – as long as I continually remind the occupants of the house to RINSE out the containers and BREAK DOWN the cardboard.

Dog Food – Purchased today! Who knew that Amazon was THE place to go? I have had a horrible time lately finding anything I need on Amazon and with Prime shipping. (Leif ski gloves, hello? Hello?) Anyways, I got a nice rolling bin AND a scoop. The rolling bin will be super because I have two dogs who cannot eat together. Unless you want to listen to growling. I mean you each have your own bowl, what is the big deal? Fill one bowl, roll the bin over and fill the other. And for $21.

Stairs – Did these. Found some cute leather containers that sit at the foot of the stairs. Now if I could just get some small people to empty them…

The Wii stuff – I bought an el cheapo storage ottoman. Ottoman for someone who has small feet or butt – whatever you are supposed to put on an ottoman. Anyways, it actually looks halfway decent and fits perfectly save for the Wii lightsabers – which are never used. For some reason Leif doesn’t actually like them, go figure.

Shelves in the kids’ room – Done and I am thinking both kids might need a few more shelves since I really only addressed the stuff that was sitting out in their rooms and not the box of breakable stuff still packed up in Leif’s closet.

The desk in the office - it is a nice big open flat space with stacks of stuff. Seriously in need of some pen holders and desk organizers and the like. This is still pending. And it is pending me finding some NEAT and in the colors I have selected for the paint accessories. So, this is pending…

SO this was the stuff I set out to tackle in December. I did a few more things too – we got a Hobby Lobby recently. Yay us! Anyways, I bought a nice, large leather tray for my peninsula in the kitchen. It is the stacking place, the landing place. I have tried tactics to minimize this and I have finally just embraced it. The tray at least makes it look a little nicer. Or better yet, when I need it to look nice quickly, it can be done.

I have additional organizational needs. They just keep popping up.

The tops of my and AB’s dressers in our rooms. And the area next to our nightstands. Our nightstands actually hold a lot. But we still have stuff stacked. I am halfway wondering though if I don’t need to devote an entire month to the needs of our Master bedroom… I am not sure 2 weeks can do it justice and I fear I really need a more functional piece of furniture there. AB tonight told me it didn't just need a piece of furniture, it needs all new furniture and by the way, why have we never had a bed frame?

Leif’s closet. The poor child can’t even walk into it – the largest closet in the house. Now it is his fault for dumping his stuff in the doorway. But we need to fix this. THIS IS on the schedule for one of the last two weekends of the month. It shouldn’t really take purchasing anything, just some organization time.

My closet. Specifically my clothes. I have a thing with buying more. I just bought a boatload on after Christmas uber-clearance. Like seriously a sweater originally priced for $150 that I bought for $24. I hate to even admit that last week, I found a pair of really cute cords. Found them. As in forgot I even bought them last year. I need to ruthlessly purge my closet. Who knows what treasures I will find.

Goal #2 Paint Colors

We are working the paint thing. Working and working it. AB and I have narrowed into a color scheme, now it is just a matter of testing said colors and then deciding where to put them - and where to stop. Very difficult in a foyer that is two stories tall. And if you know AB you will not be surprised to hear that the word "scaffold" has come up with enthusiasm. I know. Scary.

Help?

I need help with one of my January goals. It’s the paint colors one.

AB and I went bold and had no problems selecting colors in our other house. Unfortunately I am having a serious problem with selecting colors in our new house. The kids’ rooms, no problem. Our entryway? Gah.

I have been playing with the behr.com site, but my biggest issue there it seems is that I cannot share with you the colors I have selected. No copy and paste allowed.

Ok, so my foyer area is painted “Egyptian Nile”, it is a deep green. I liked it at the time, but have to admit it isn’t sticking with me. And there is some part of me that wants to scrap that color altogether so that my palatte can start new. Because trying to coordinate all my other adjoining areas with Egyptian Nile is giving me a headache. The Egyptian Nile is the reason I cannot commit to anything. About the only coordinating color I can come up with is shades of grey and frankly, grey isn’t tripping my trigger.

Oh yes, this blog was going to be about selecting colors for my half bath.

I need inspiration! I want something slightly funky, slightly sophisticated, not stuffy, a bit edgy and that will match ANYTHING I decide to do to the foyer/office/dining room.

Make sense?

Small half bath with a beautiful deep mahogany framed mirror (that I love) and white white toilet and pedestal sink, mirror finish stainless fixtures. The lights are good too. Floor is a clayish terra cotta colored 18” tile.

Go forth and bring back ideas!

Stacker? Stuffer? Or other?

When you live with someone you get to know their habits. Habits are most often connotated as negative, yet we all have them.

My mom learned to deal with the one that, as an adult I realize, was probably very difficult for her. My mom was one of those very organized people. Not only in her work (I am organized from a work perspective), but also home. My home isn't horrible wrt to organization, but it needs help on occasion.

Anyways, the thing that drove my mom nearly insane is that I am a stacker. I have stacks of stuff. If I pick up something and am not sure what to do with it, I put it in a stack. And there is organization to my madness, I have stacks of books, stacks of bills, stacks of kids' papers from school... And at work I have a stack of lab notebooks, stack of stuff to go up to my lab, stacks of post-it notes.

I do go through my stacks. But this is a side effect of my type of multi-tasking. I generate stacks and then at some point I sit down and deal with my stacks. I have a bit of pack-rat to me though. At first glance, I can't get rid of anything. But give me a little time and distance and I am much more brutal with what goes to the trash.

Stacking works for me.

And it doesn't bother my husband. And in fact, he is probably a stacker too and contributes to my systems.

I have recently discovered a new system that was foreign to me. Stuffers.

A "stuffer" by my definition, instead of making stacks (like me) or putting stuff in a proper spot (like my mom) stuffs things in random drawers, containers, pockets and nooks.

I was working on my holiday vacation to do list and clearing off my desk area when I discovered random stuff (coins, paper clips, note pads, pens, pencil sharpeners) stuffed in random and IMO, just wrong places. My rationalle with stacking is that eventually, the items will get to the right places. It may be tomorrow, or three months from now, but it gets there.

With stuffing, not only will I never ever find said item I might be looking for, but you have to remove it from the stored spot and then find a new spot.

Ah well.

It's what makes us all individuals.

And I will try really, really hard not to steam when I find handfuls of change dropped in my phone charging station. Or paper clips in my remote caddy. Or Lego pieces in my pencil jar. Or spare keys stuck in my bamboo notepad holder. Or my notepads in the fruit bowl...

Design major?

I am not a decorator. I loved art classes through high school and when I meet up with people who only knew me in high school, they typically speaking put me with the art crowd… not the science crowd. I started out college as a double major – biology and art. I dropped the art major deciding that I could do art anytime I wanted, what was more important was that I had a good paying job (and art wasn’t it). Soon after I switched from bio to chem.

Given that I liked art so much you might think that my home looks like a designer magazine.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha!

I suffer in the design department. Badly.

On houses in general…
When AB and I house shopped for both houses we toyed with the notion of “fixer uppers”. I envy people who can do that. Who can come up with neat layouts and see options in houses that need an upgrade. Who don’t mind flipping through tile after tile and carpet books and can make decisions on granite versus… well versus whatever the countertop of the minute is. We have dreamed about renovating a house and then we laugh. Our weekends are almost always full so doing it ourselves is out of the question and neither of us likes dealing with contractors. Flipping houses? Not for us.

On knick knacks…
Does it surprise you if I say that I am not into knick knacks? I don’t like things that collect dust. I don’t mind clutter and you will find clutter in my house. But something that is purposefully left out to collect dust? Doesn’t work for me. I don’t have shelves with things on them save for my china cabinet and hutch. When I do have a shelf, I am never quite sure what to put on it. I have a cute corner shelf in my entryway… no idea what I am supposed to put on it. Seriously. The cat likes to sleep on the bottom shelf and so it is half filled with a framed photograph, a wooden carved bird my dad sent me and a candle, then the bottom two shelves serve as a cat bed.

My hutch I love. My mom bought it for me one Christmas and I walked past it at Ennis a few times before AB pointed it out. I sat there and looked at it, not so sure about it. It wasn’t what I was envisioning. (Wasn’t even sure what I was envisioning.) But I liked the two tone black and wood. And functionality was there. It could hold my very few pieces of crystal and serving ware. Once it was in my home, it was perfect and now holds more china and crystal than I ever expected it would.

Speaking of those crystal pieces… during the trek to Colorado, and then Wyoming, in July I returned with luggage and to wait for about 8 boxes I shipped to myself. In the stacks of stuff are a few pieces of crystal from my grandmother’s house and some knick knack type things from my mom’s house. For as neat and tidy as my mom’s house was, they have a number of knick knacks. A few of those things spoke to me and I returned with things that I would deem to be knick knacks. Thus, I have been completely perplexed what to do with them. The crystal, notsomuch. It goes in my hutch. My mom’s five little pie birds? Well they belong out somewhere, not in a cupboard. Where… I haven’t quite figured out.

Knick knack type things perplex me.

On painting…
If you know me, then you also know that I love painting walls. This is my idea of decorating. I wasn’t always this way. My mom enjoyed painting when they bought a home after I graduated from high school. I didn’t always care for my mom’s color selection and techniques. So when we bought our first home I shy’d away from color. Then one boring weekend BC (before children) I painted a bathroom green. Before I knew it I was hooked and had an orange kitchen. Not everyone liked my orange kitchen… which is fine.

AB and I have taken a bit more conservative approach with painting in the new house. One problem we had in the other house was a lack of cohesiveness with color. We want to avoid that this time around and have taken loads more time to decide on colors than we ever did before. I had to have a colored wall to put my black and white photos on and so that was one of the first things we did. A deep green… that now doesn’t sit nearly as well with me as it did a year ago. Then we jumped to the kids’ rooms and I let my mom’s painting influence take over. The kids rooms include colors like black and pepto bismol pink.

Now I am faced with the dining room.

Amazingly AB and I are on the same page in the dining room. We don’t really argue over decorating much (because we don’t decorate much). But we don’t always see eye to eye on what should be done and IMO, my husband likes to be too involved somedays. Though fickle me… I want to make all the decisions, but don’t want to do all the work.

The July goal is nearly done, we have selected the color for the dining room – a slate grey blue color. Actually we have a few selections in this color scheme, but haven’t honed in on a color as the light is so bad in the dining room that we fear making a decision before changing out the chandelier. Taking things one step at a time… the August goal is looking like it will be a new chandelier followed by paint.

On art…

This is where I get really, really picky. I have an interior designer friend who really enjoys finding art to fit a space, but her husband drives her nuts. He believes that a piece of art on the wall should mean something, i.e., come from a vacation or have a story with it.

I agree with her husband.

We have a few prints by one of AB’s closest friends’ dad. They are in our favored contemporary style, are by someone we know and even better are personalized. We love our paintings.

And I like photographs that I (or someone else) has taken of subjects that I know. Namely, my kids. I have photos of my kids all over the house. For a long time they were professional photos that I paid an arm and a leg for after sitting in a studio with whiney kids. More lately, they have become photos that I have taken of the kids and then have processed professionally. I emulate my sister in law a lot. Even lately with family photos? The best ones are proving to be ones that our friends or family take and thus no whiney children in studios.

At the Colorado Renaissance Festival AB found a piece of art he loved and thought would work fabulously in our newly decorated dining room, but failed to get me back to see. This has created an unfortunate circumstance whereby he really, really wants the piece he found, but has no way to get it and furthermore, cannot find anything similar.

The challenges ahead…

Melding the treasures I found at my grandmother’s house, the items I took from my mother’s house and my design / décor together. We are talking three very different styles here – my grandmother’s antiques, my mother’s traditional styling and my contemporary stylings. Melding these three together is proving to be an interesting challenge.

Chandelier, oh chandelier, why must you be so ugly? Yes, replacing the chandelier in the formal dining room is a must. Soon. AB and I like this:
Once the chandelier goes then so does the matching window treatments and non-matching hardware. Window treatments. Yeah, I haven’t even gone there yet. Window treatments I will tackle AFTER the new chandelier and paint.

I wish I could say goodbye to the grey carpet that has seen better days, but that will still be awhile.

And my neverending battle with clutter.

July Goals

My goal for the month of July is to decide on a design tactic for my dining room. I have no intention of tackling the decorating in July - just too much going on - I just want to have a strategy in mind.

Part of that strategy allows for time to convince AB of my plan!

In no way did I expect to have this complete by July 4th.

Ok, so it isn't totally complete as in paint this color and start here and stop here.

Nope, my first goal was to convince AB that the dining room needed to be addressed. Thanks to my sister in law, who has been residing with us for a few months now, this became a little easier.

"Well we actually have been using the room a fair amount, that makes it easier to justify" AB relented way too easily. "What were you thinking?"

"Slate," I replied.

AB's eyebrows raised in an intrigued manner.

"With some sort of light neutral, like a tan or something, just a bit darker than the off-white that is already here, something close to the color in the coffer," I went on enthused by the lack of puking noises on his part.

"What would you paint?" he asked.

"The wall with the buffet, the wall with the arch and maybe the stairs wall," I replied.

"Well you probably would want to hit some in the coffer I think," he goes on. (This is going well... maybe we can do this!"

"And in an ideal world we would dump the light fixture and the curtains too," I said seeing my chance.

"Really?" AB said, "but I thought those were your favorite things in the house?" He joked. "What do you think of doing it in one of the textured paints?"

Ok, so maybe we haven't been through the hardest part yet, selecting the actual colors... but I am making up for only having four recipes written out from June's goal!

Productive weekend

I can't say that I actually did anything goals related... except for be attracted to random pillowcases. Yes, I have inherited a love for pillowcases and the possibilities that surround them...

But, we got loads done. Loads.

First what we didn't do. We didn't mow, trim, edge or clean the yard. Nope, that was done, but in the interest of not only time, but beauty (because I suck ROYALLY and so does AB at trimming shrubs), we paid someone to come in who knew what they were doing. Someone who knew what could be cut to the ground and what could be trimmed gently and who can actually cut a shrub into a cone. (With like three whips of a fancy chainsaw like trimmer that made AB a touch envious.)

I did go rent a steam cleaner and remove all the toys from the playroom so AB could steam clean the carpet up there. And it looks fabulous! Seriously it was pretty ick when we moved in and one of the goals this year will probably be to rip out that carpet (that attracts our pets - who never ever soiled carpets before) and put in bamboo flooring in there and through the upstairs hallway. But that won't happen for some time and since we would like to actually use the room, we steam cleaned. And then wondered how much a steam cleaner might actually cost? And its usefulness in real life?

The kids have spent most of the later afternoon and evening playing up there. Without the toys put back in. This has additionally prompted me to look at all the toys stacked in the hallway wondering how many should really go back in? If a big OPEN space might be more utilized by the kids?

I packed up Skadi's 2T's. Most of them. Some still fit her. But most of them are in a big plastic bin. Sigh.

I got some groceries and whined a little about our lack of decent markets here. I whined just enough to prompt agreement that we should probably stop at Cost Plus World Market on our way to Silver Mountain next weekend. AB has a love of harissa and we are out.

We had an evening off from cooking as we went to a friends' house for game night. Loads of fun. Made me want to do the same. Soon. I only had to play a few games of Uno, until another little boy showed up with a NEW Uno game that shoots cards. Leif has actually decided he would like to spend his piggy bank money on that game instead of continuing to save for the Harry Potter Wii game. I would think this noble and be proud except that I think he is just angling for us buying it for him for his birthday (in 4 months).

And I actually started giving more serious thought to Skadi's birthday party. We officially nixed the gym party. Skadi then decided that she would opt out of inviting her girl friends if only Coach Brett would come to her party and tell her she is beautiful. Sigh.

Yeah, nixed that. Poor neglected three year old never gets what she wants. It will be a small princess dress up party with her four closest girl friends. I am planning a "tea-style" lunch. A pile of dress up clothes. (Cameras) And decorate your own cupcake bar.

One of the last things I got to thinking about this weekend was courtesy of church. How can I better serve others. It's awfully easy to write a check.

AB wants to go to Honduras next year to work in a village that the church has adopted. He is feeling pretty strongly about this and this makes me proud of him.

I am presently reading Stones Into Schools and for the second time, I am feeling particularly motivated and moved to help in this movement to build schools for girls in Pakistan and Afghanistan. No, I don't envision going there. I don't think that I could actually go there for certain reasons. However, I would love to do something to raise money for the cause.

Ideas anyone?

When faced with the question...

Back about almost 8 years now, AB and I moved to the area. We left a city where I was a student and we lived in a noisy apartment building. We ditched many of our possessions and headed north. When we got here we couldn’t wait to be homeowners – and quickly bought a house.

We brought with us our queen sized bed that we had purchased about 1996 when we moved to Reno. It is a nice, comfortable bed. When we bought our house we decided we wanted a Select Comfort bed though and looked forward to turning the old bed into a guest bed in our ultra-huge new house. (Tongue in cheek… I remember thinking our house was SO big… compared to our apartment we moved from, it was huge!)

I am always pleased when someone stays at our house and comments how well they slept. I don’t know if anyone would tell us, “you know that bed in your guest room is really uncomfortable”.

We went to the Select Comfort store with our money burning a hole in our pocket. Picked out our bed and then asked a critical question… one that we look back on our younger selves and scream, “WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?”

That fateful question…

“What do you think, queen or king?”

We debated for awhile and finally decided that since our old bed was a queen, and we already had queen sized sheets (that weren’t even great sheets mind you), that we would get a queen sized Select Comfort.

If ever you are faced with the same dilemma… where you have the spare few hundred bucks to bump up to a king… and you have the space in your bedroom… and you have no real feelings one way or the other on it…

BUY THE KING SIZED BED!

Ok, I think I am done now.

Another mystery

But this one (unlike my "allergy") may be nearly solved.

I love my new house. We bought it from a relocation company, so there was no one there to walk us through or to explain how things worked. No one to e-mail quick questions to, like our buyers have done with our old house.

I have discovered a few things with this new house:

-I will never again be without a boiling water tap. I use that thing constantly and never thought I would. I actually missed it while at my mom's house and either had to microwave water or put a kettle on the stove. Love the boiling water tap.

-I finally figured out how to work the wooden blinds. Huge accomplishement.

-Some of the light switches have funky push buttons. To work this you flip the neighboring switch and push the button. That turns the light on. (Now is where we ask "WHY?")

-The weird remote actually operates the fan in the play room and you turn on the light from there, not the switch. Changing the light bulbs was not the problem.

-To lock the back door you have to lift the lever handle up.

-There is no shortage of wall outlets. There are wall outlets in the kitchen cupboards!

There is still one mystery that we may be on the verge of solving. Back about mid-summer we noticed over the counter lights on late one night.

"Neato," I said and then proceeded to look for the switch. I couldn't find it. But no matter, they were off the next night.

Then a few weeks later they were on again. A few months later I was still looking for the switch.

AB, tired of my pondering the random off-on nature of the lights over the cupboards in the evenings, crawled up and reported that it was one of those strings of rope lights plugged into another wall outlet.

Interesting! So it was a wall outlet operating the switch. I returned to flipping switches downstairs while AB watched the cupboard tops. Then I actually started flipping switches upstairs.

Nearly 10 months later it dawned on me that the lights have been on nearly constantly lately. During the day and NOT just the nights before, that I think they are operating on a daylight sensor!!

It has been dark and dreary here and with the short days, we have very little daylight. And the cupboard lights are on nearly constant.

If the frequency decreases as it gets lighter I will have solved the mystery!

Goals update

January is done!

Closet is organized and linen closet is done too!

I admit to planning the January goals as low hanging fruit, but they are two things that I am truly thrilled to have done.

I have two weeks left in January and so I have decided to add a bonus item.

I debated between two things - my son's walk in closet that is bigger than my own and somewhat more of a play room. Truly it is a fabulous space and the kids use it as a hide out routinely. It has boxes and stuff all over the floor. It needs organized.

Then there is the stack of stuff and boxes in the Master that needs put somewhere.

I am going to be totally selfish here and admit that the Master "put away all the stuff" has won. My reasoning here is that I organized my linen closet and was made aware of two empty shelves there. And with the Master closet organized it appears as if there is a few shelves in there too.

I have places to put all that stuff still in boxes and stacked randomly!

I figure I better tackle that one before that space disappears.

Welcome 2010

I have never been a huge fan of resolutions. I am not really sure why, but I don’t really remember ever making “New Year’s Resolutions” even as a kid. Maybe it’s because if I labeled it such, it was bound to fail simply because of the failure rate of resolutions.

A few years ago thanks to a suggestion from a friend, I embarked on a new concept. Goals.

Goals strike me as a much more forgiving concept. You can strive for your goals hard, and never quite make them, but the important thing is you tried, right? See so much more forgiving than resolving to do something!

2010 brings the return of the goals since I dropped them off big time in 2009 while we packed up our house and moved.

As usual, my goals are going to be home based. I realize I could make goals that have nothing to do with the house, but this year more than others I need the home based goals.

We bought our new house this past year and life kept moving along. Life didn’t seem to want to stop and give me a chance to unpack, set up, settle in or simply to make my new house a home.

Sure, it’s our home. But as I look around I don’t find that homey home home feel. It needs stuff, it needs attention, it needs paint, it needs organization. And I wonder routinely (and a touch concerned-like) if I will ever get a house to a point where I don’t feel like I am working on it all weekend, every weekend. I eventually want days where I can just cook and do laundry and sit around my perfectly decorated, exactly how I want it home. I need to work to get it to that point.

A new year seems to me to scream organization. It’s cold outside, so naturally I look inward. Straight in to the guts of the house. And if my house has guts, they are located in the Master Closet and Master Bath Linen Closet #2.

(Yeah, I had to get that in there… my previous entire house had only one linen closet and now I have TWO in the Master bath!)

I had grand intentions when we moved into the new house of not letting my Master Closet plummet to the depths. But plummet it has. There are clothes on the floor, a few boxes that haven’t been unpacked and clothes hanging up that I will never, ever, ever wear again.

We have a Goodwill pick up arranged for January 15th where we are getting rid of a few very large items and I would like a few boxes of clothes in there as well.

My closet IS January Goal #1.

The closet must be cleaned out, clothes and shoes sorted through and boxed up for surrender to the needy. Have you noticed me wearing old clothes the past two days? If so, I will tell you why… because I am going with that 6 month rule! If I haven’t worn it in 6 months it is moving on! And well, there are a few things in there that I don’t want to have to place the ax to, so I wore them this past weekend. But that’s our secret, right?

Once the closet is cleaned out and clothes and shoes organized there are a few things I will need to buy. I bought a key hanger from Target and used it for belts at the other house and now I want it. And since I am not going to go and ring the doorbell at the old house with a screwdriver in hand, it will require instead a trip to Target. Same for the hooks that I hung purses on. I need a place to hang my purses.

The biggest problem with BOTH of these plans is where to put the hooks and belt hangers? See our Master Closet has LOTS of shelves and built in things. Great, right? Yeah, but someone forgot about the purses and belts! This is something that will have to be figured out.

January Goal #2 is my linen closet. I never really emptied and organized anything. When we moved out of the old house I just took the organizer bins that held everything and put them in a box. Then I took them out at the new house and haven’t done anything with them. The linen closet needs purged and organized.

Neither of these tasks are large or time consuming, but both are things that NEED to be done and will contribute to my peaceful calmness I attain from having organized bits in my house. I can do these things while the kids bathe, and it isn’t going to impact my weekends or our budget (that is recovering from a holiday trip) adversely.

I have vague thoughts on the coming months… but of course AB wants buy in on anything very large or major. Organizing the closets brings only a sigh of relief from him that I am not going to be waving paint chips around or barking orders.

-We want to transform our wine closet from being a non-descript closet with cases of wine on the floor into a welcoming walk in closet with a wine rack and other miscellaneous things. Cost estimated at about $300 and two solid days of work.

-Pull outs-ville. Love my pull outs in a few of the kitchen cabinets. Love my big (recently organized) pantry. Cannot for the life of me figure out what to do with our spices. And we have LOADS of spices. We had in mind what we wanted – those hidden cute little pull outs nestled in next to the stove – but since we aren’t redoing our entire kitchen for spice racks, I had to go back to square one. Or at least to Google. And I found these:

Ready to be installed pull outs that hold spice bottles! And that will fit PERFECTLY in the current spice jamboree cabinet that is 10” wide and each pull out is 3” wide. In theory, we can fit three in the cabinet side by side by side. Cost estimated at about $400 for hardware and two days of my husband’s time whining and moaning. But a large payoff is anticipated.

-Dining room. Have the table, have the buffet/china cabinet. Must paint. Must, must, must get rid of the swirly 90’s stenciling done over the doorway and the maroon curtains and light fixture. Cost anticipated at about $500 including color consultation with a friend who has been newly annointed with the label interior decorator. I will have a nicely painted, color coordinated front of my house. I will.

-Play Room. Oh my. This is a big one. AB wants to rip out the carpet and put in bamboo flooring. The carpet is awful and AB has a deep seated need to put in a floor. It is a very square room and will be a great place to start. The needs for this room though are endless. An organizing unit for toys, a TV/entertainment center, a sofa or other seating… we would use this room more as a family if it were more organized/user friendly. This goal has so many layers to it.

-Outdoor area. We have been talking about what we need as far as an outdoor living area and are working on reaching consensus. It will be a big one, but one that I know we will enjoy and use based off of the success of our pergola/patio at the other house. We need this outdoor living area in this house and presently we have nothing that works for this. I expect this will be a multi-month project this spring.

-Master Bedroom. Our Master Bedrooms have never been anything to get excited about. We need paint and storage space and something nice to sit in. And frankly, I just need all the boxes lined up under the window unpacked. Of course then I need somewhere to put the stuff, which means some type of storage thing. I am thinking about a long bench for under the window with storage underneath. I could use two of them – one for the library too – anyone seen anything like this?

My week

Thanksgiving is my week. After about my first year at the lab I started saving my personal holidays to use during Thanksgiving, whereby I could then supplement these two days with 8 hours of vacation time and wa-la... a full week off with minimal expense on my part.

Thanksgiving is my second favorite holiday of the year and one that I really enjoy prepping for. I remember back to 1st or 2nd grade when the neighborhood boys came to get me for sledding one Thanksgiving day and I declined the offer in favor of cooking with my mom.

I enjoy puttering about the house, working on small projects, improving little things, thinking about Christmas presents and prepping for the big meal. Or little meal as the case may be. We always cook more food than we can possibly eat because it is thoroughly impossible to make a traditional Thanksgiving meal for just a few people.

This time around I hadn't taken much time to plan for my week. Many factors playing into this... first the plan to host Thanksgiving for my mom and stepdad and then that not working out. The second is work. I have never been so busy and overwhelmed with work. Third is the kids, they keep me hopping. Fourth is that this year is just moving by so quickly that I am still (despite the fridge full of groceries) having trouble believing that Thanksgiving is really here.

I did think ahead enough when we found out my family wouldn't be visiting to declare it a good time to paint Skadi's room. So we are tackling that. (Pink, green and periwinkle with flowers. The pink is done.)

Aside from that the plans are:
-Make jerky (aka pemmican) with Leif (done and it turned out superbly).
-Clean the fridge (done)
-Dermatologist appt (done and I have the wounds to prove it)
-Cook/bake (will start with cranberry zin sauce tomorrow)
-Entertain children for six days straight.
-Check work e-mail multiple times a day (ongoing)
-Keep checking my phone for signs of work distress (ongoing)
-Empty (and quit paying for) the storage unit (still need to inform AB of this one).
-Christmas shopping started and/or done (good start)
-Photo for the Christmas card (working on tomorrow)
-Abandon town for the snowy hills this weekend for a day of sledding/scouting ski areas/retreating to nature.

You will notice a number of different things on this list from previous years. The work aspect... cannot seem to abandon it all this year. And the Christmas shopping (normally nearly finished by now) and the photo (normally with cards in hand at this point). Also there are fewer projects.

This year there is more simple struggle to stay on top of what is at hand as opposed to undertaking new things.

September Goals

Since finishing (mostly) with Leif’s room I have been debating the path forward in our new house. There is so much I want to do that my decision has not been easy. Unfortunately none of them seem inexpensive. I am resisting the urge, now that our house has sold, to start buying everything at once. And truly, I can’t do this. I don’t want to do this. I want to take it a month at a time and really bring a room together with elements that I really want.

Instead of immediately jumping on one of the two rooms that *I* want to see done (formal dining room or bonus room) I am going to bend to the will of other people in my house.

I dream of a luxurious formal dining room with a table that seats 8, rich paint, new drapes and a new chandelier.

I also dream of an updated playroom/bonus room that has a wall unit for toy storage, media center to house a new TV and seating.

Both of these room updates require more cash outflow than I can justify right now. Though AB may give me the bitty shove I need in justifying the bonus room updates simply due to his “want” for a new TV. However he tends to look at me sideways whenever I start mentioning the formal dining room.

I have asked AB a few times which room we should tackle next and his answer tends to alternate between “nothing” and “the garage”.

How boring.

How uninspiring.

Then there is one other person who lately has been quite vocal on her needs.

Skadi.

The only person silent on the issue is Leif. Leif loves his mommy.

Skadi is still harping on needing her room painted. And she has BIG plans for her room!

A few common themes have been emerging in her décor choices. Some combination of purple, pink, yellow, green and blue are preferred and life would be grand if there were rainbows and dolphins.

When I was in 5th grade or so my mom redid my sisters and my bedrooms – we did lavender with rainbow wallpaper and so I am finding it a touch freakish that purple and rainbows are topping my daughters list. She would have been in heaven in my bedroom as a kid.

The September goal is twofold. I can’t put off the need to organize the garage any longer. Once the garage is organized we can bring the rest of our belongings from the storage unit and close out that account, thus saving a little money each month. So blah blah blah… the first goal is the garage.

But since I NEED a fun goal, a decorating goal, I will add in there Skadi’s room. It shouldn’t take more than a weekend to paint her bedroom. And her bedroom has everything it needs – I don’t need to spend money on her room aside from the cost of paint. AND I would like to get paint on her walls before we start bringing in boxes of stuff from storage to fill the kids’ rooms.

So there it is… my dual goals for the month of September – Skadi’s bedroom painted and the garage organized.

I need ideas for Skadi’s bedroom. I am not making the “error” I made with Leif’s bedroom at this age – I need Skadi’s room design to be appropriate not only for a toddler but through age 8 or so. (It wasn’t an error necessarily, and it worked out fine since we moved, but Leif was tiring of his “little kid” room.) I am leaning towards purple and yellow walls (if I can get that past AB – he is still buying into that statement he read 6 years ago that said a yellow bedroom will cause anxiety in babies). If I can’t fly with the yellow we will explore purple and green with maybe a pale blue ceiling. (I just don’t think I can do pink. Sorry Skadi.) I am thinking about maybe some big flowers painted on the wall… but that doesn’t have to be done immediately either.

Also on the list are little things from the prior two months:

-Touch up white paint in the foyer – requires matching the white color of the walls.-Buy a bench for the foyer. (I like this one .)

-Hang the mirror in the foyer. (Something AB has been avoiding like the plague. He even at one point mentioned LEAVING the mirror at the other house.)

-Stars on Leif’s ceiling.

-Paint lightsabers on Leif’s wall.