Urban Farm Living

It isn't even May yet and already my garden is eating up most of my free time! Last year was great, but this year we decided to expand operations a little more. I was cramped, needing more beds in the plot, and more space to walk around. Last year we had six 4x4 foot beds and one 1.5x10 foot row. This year we've almost doubled that. And we added a chicken coop. Because we weren't crazy enough with our giant front yard garden.

These are some of our silkies. We currently have more chickens than we will ultimately want, but since we got them unsexed, we bought extra. We are only keeping ladies, and probably only about 5 of them. But there are more than that right now, so, yeah, we're going to be eating some really fresh chicken dinners some time this summer. 

These are some of the second run of chicks we got to replace the fellas from the first run. Plus, somehow we ended up with all one breed in the first run, even though they were supposed to be assorted. The second run has three different breeds, so we will have a little more variety.

Speaking of variety, the vegetable varieties have increased dramatically this year. Since we'll have more room, I let each kid pick something new to try and grow. Sam chose brussel sprouts, Lucy chose purple cauliflower, Maggs chose watermelon, and Fred chose peppers. We already grow those, but he didn't really understand that. Plus we have five tomato varieties, tomatillos, lettuce, spinach, cucumbers, corn, zucchini, pumpkins, two hot pepper varieties, two sweet pepper varieties, and blueberries. I saved seeds from all of last year's tomatoes, and luckily everything sprouted! If everything goes well, we should be getting fresh eggs sometime in August. It should make for a tasty summer! 

New Year's Renovations

It seems like instead of resolutions, we make renovations for new year's. Last year was the big kitchen remodel of '13. Since we never ended up re-doing the floor in there, we finally decided it was time. We had to put down area rugs since the new counters weren't in the exact same places as the old ones, and the only area rugs we had were brown. The kitchen is already a small room, and it only has windows at one end, so putting dark rugs down makes it seem even darker. So sometime next week we will be switching it out for big, bright tiles.

And since we were going to have the tile guy out here already, we decided to go ahead and re-do our first floor powder room. One of the lovely things about this old house of ours is how many pink bathrooms we have…THREE! The master bathroom is pink, the upstairs hall bathroom is pink and our powder room is pink, too. With maroon and brown accents. Observe...

Isn't that special? Here are some closer looks...

True confession time: I love this sink. If we could somehow re-enamel it and re-chrome the fixtures, I would keep it. While those are actual things you can do, they were not very cost effective, and so a new, similarly shaped sink and faucet was purchased. But it isn't as cool.

This is the medicine cabinet. This also doesn't offend me, as it is very true to the style of the house. However, the edges are kind of yucky, especially at the bottom. The back of the mirror is metal, and after years and years it's gotten rusty. We are replacing it with a simple oval mirror with a beveled edge, like this one. Here is a closer look at the lights...

These lights wouldn't bother me so much if the crystals were original. When we moved in there were more missing then not, and we couldn't find a good match, so we ended up replacing them entirely. I have the old ones in a bag because they match another old chandelier we have. Also, they are incredibly dim. The replacements will look something like this. 

And finally, the pièce de résistance, the toilet. 

In all of it's maroon glory! First of all, you can't ever really tell if it's clean. It's maroon, and it's located in a dimly lit room. Secondly, it's incredibly low to the floor. Good for the kids, annoying for the adults. Thirdly, like all of the old toilets in this house, it's got a big water tank and takes forever to refill. Since this is the only toilet on the main floor, it gets a lot of use. The kids aren't patient enough to wait for the tank to refill to flush, so it can often be found with wads of toilet paper floating around in there. It's getting replaced with a standard issue white toilet. Easier to clean (or at least know it's clean), higher and with more efficient water usage. Oh, and that pink, brown, beige and maroon floor tile? OUT! It's getting replaced with black and white hexagon tiles on the floor. The pink and brown wall tile? OUT! Replaced with white subway tile with a black bull nose. Oh, and we'll have to paint the top parts of the walls. Right now they are a light beige, but they will be painted a very light gray, eventually.I'm hopeful that this project won't take too, too long. I mean, the room is only 4 feet wide by 8 feet deep. The demo might be a bit dodgy, but our tile man works quickly, so hopefully I'll have new photos to share next week! 

You Say Tomato, I Say PLEASE MAKE IT STOP!!!

If I made a conservative estimate, I'd say that it's likely I've pulled 150 pounds of tomatoes from our garden so far this year, with August bearing the brunt of that harvest. I was picking 10-15 pounds every 2 to 3 days for a while there, but now we've slowed down a little bit. I still have a big pile of San Marzanos sitting on my counter waiting to be processed into sauce tomorrow, however. And there are still fruits coming in from all four types of tomatoes I planted. The little sweeties and hillbilly tomatoes have so far simply been eaten, some while we pick in order to keep us going. The black krims and previously mentioned San Marzanos have been made into sauces and salsas, or halved and canned. Not to mention all of the other ones we've eaten or given away. I just took a bag over to the neighbors, my folks take a big bag every week and SOB is taking them to work.

One day's harvest in August...

And I didn't even take a photo of the 16 pints of salsa verde I have sitting in my pantry right now. Or any of the pickles, pickled peppers or candied peppers. Or jam. Or peaches in syrup. Or the bags and bags of frozen beans and peas. There was a stretch of about 10 days in there when I canned something each and every morning. At least I know we'll be eating well come winter!

The funny thing is, we plan on making the garden even bigger next year in hopes of increasing both the variety of veggies and the amounts of each. We need way more peppers next year. And more carrots. And more tomatillos. Our cukes didn't fare well this year, so we want to give them a bigger bed to grow in. We are experimenting with eggplants this year, and if we like the results we'll need space for those. And we want to put in some rows of corn. And I offered some garden space to our neighbor.

All of this is offered as an apology. If you didn't hear from me much last month, this is the reason why. It's also the reason I didn't clean my house or buy my kids back to school shoes or do much in the way of anything except garden.

It was a yummy way to pass the time.

Homesteading

The past few weeks have been a little quiet around here, but now that school is out for the girls, I should be able to get back to posting more regularly. The problem is that I spend the few precious hours I have while Fred is napping tending to my green babies.

The weather we've been having here has been bizarre, cold then hot and then cold again. We've had a few freeze warnings and we even have a frost warning tonight, on MAY 24TH! In the above photo you can only see my peas, beans and hops (in the pots) but there are 26 tomato plants, 3 cucumber plants, 3 zucchini plants, and a big thyme plant out there as well. Then down by the pool I have a bunch more in containers, including my tomatillos, hot peppers and a few more tomatoes.  Plus I still have a few trays of smallish plants still in peat pots, in case I need a replacement. Every time we have a cold snap I have to run out and cover everyone, or bring them inside. Then the next day I have to go out and uncover and look for damages. Plus, we didn't rig up any irrigation this year, so I have to water manually every non-rainy day, which takes the better part of an hour. Then I fret over my tomatillos, which aren't doing very well, and hope that I'll get at least enough to make one batch of salsa. Then I inspect every inch of fencing to make sure rabbits or deer aren't getting in. The I put away the hose and go take a shower, because by this time I'm filthy and sweaty. Then Fred wakes up and all of my blogging time is gone!

BUT! Now that the girls are finished with school and I won't be doing the drop-off-pick-up madness, I will have much more time during the day to tend to my green babies, so that nap time can still sometimes be blog time. Occasionally nap time will be painting time or swimming time, but I should be able to squeeze in a post here or there. 

Until harvest comes in, that is. Then I'll be busy canning and preserving!

Oh, and did I mention that next year we're getting chickens? 

Buyer's Remorse

Last summer when we were house hunting, we looked at several homes with pools. As a child SOB had a big in-ground pool and thus was very interested in having one again as an adult. (Never mind the fact that he very nearly drowned once as a child, as in unconscious and needing to be revived very nearly drowned.) However, most of the homes with pools were vetoed almost instantly by yours truly. My thalassophobia extends a bit into generalized aquaphobia, not for me but for my children, (and if we're being honest here all of the children in the world). I wouldn't even consider a house with a pool if there was any continuity at all between the house and the pool. Door from the house to the pool area? VETO! Regular old non-child-proofed gate to the pool area? VETO! Only available yard playing area also inside pool area? VETO! Basically, I would only accept a house with a pool if the pool in question was separate from he house entirely, locked up like Fort Knox, and separated from the rest of a nice, usable yard.

Guess what? SOB managed to find a house that was pretty darn perfect for our family, plus it had a pool that met all of my requirements for safety, therefore making me the proud owner a pool. I haven't had too many issues with it so far. Since we moved into the house back in the fall, the pool was only opened for a few weeks and we only went it in once. Sam went in twice. Then we had the cover put on and I haven't thought about it much since then.

Until last week, when we made the appointment to have it opened up. In the next few days, the cover is going to come off and the backyard will be converted into a super fun family death trap! I know that my anxiety is a bit out of hand, however it's not completely unfounded. We recently added extra combination locks to the child safety locks on the fence, but I'm still being scared awake by nightmares of kids/people drowning in our pool. Plus I've already witnessed my oldest and another kid his age almost successfully scale the fence to retrieve a ball, so I now I have that on my brain.

Even just writing this is making me feel a little bit nauseous.

So any pool owners out there care to share some coping mechanisms with me? If not, I might just be tempted fill it in and make a basketball court.

Kitchen Remodel: Almost Done Edition!

OMG you guys! We have back splash!!!

It wasn't nearly as hard as we thought it was going to be to pick it out. And it wasn't nearly as expensive as we thought it was going to be to have it professionally installed. And it didn't take anywhere as long as we thought it might take! 

We debated about getting a stainless back splash here above the stove, but it was as expensive as we though it might be, so we went with tile. I really like the way it looks, and it's all sealed so it should be stain proof. 

Oh, and some where along the way (like waaaaaay back two whole weeks ago when we were getting ready for our florida trip) our upper cabinets got installed, too! I finally got to put my dishes away and clear off my dining room table, HOO-fucking-RAY!

Some final painting will be done next week (see that bulkhead between the ceiling and the cabinets? THAT) and that hole in the ceiling you see in the top right there needs patched, but we have the tiles cut to the size of the hole. Scaredy cat tile guy wouldn't put them up for us because of liability, but he was nice enough to cut them for us, saving us from having to buy a wet saw. SOB was a little disappointed, I think. He always loves adding to his saw collection.

The floor, which is hardly ever pictured, will be professionally done sometime soon, but not in the next few weeks. SOB is going to install some under cabinet lighting and fix the ceiling hole, and we're just about finished! Which is perfect timing since we're having a big birthday party for Fred on the 10th. I love giving myself a reason to get shit done.

Speaking of getting shit done, I need to order a cake!

Kitchen Remodel: The Counters Are Here!

We used to have these really super cool custom counter tops. They were made of a cool composite consisting mostly of pieces of dry wall...

And reclaimed cabinet doors. They were really quite stunning. 

However, they were a bear to keep clean, and the dry wall wasn't staying too dry, which was making it lumpy. So we finally caved and got some new counter tops.

These ones wipe clean, and don't have peeling contact paper on top, which is a real plus if you ask me!

Plus our sink is a new and permanent fixture now, instead of a random piece of particle board counter with a recycled (read: trash picked) sink. I like that.

Next week the rest of the cabinets arrive, which means we're in the home stretch! Now we just (really) have to figure out that to do with that damn back splash...

Kitchen Remodel: Day 1

Well, we spent all day on January first emptying out the kitchen. It looked almost nice when it was all cleaned out, see: 

However nice it looked, the appliance still didn't work for shit, so bright and early Tuesday morning some men arrived with crow bars.

And just like that! It was all gone. Naturally, not even one day into the project and we have already encountered some significant problems. For starters, the cabinets that were ordered are too small. Now, the kitchen was measured by professionals, who told us what to order. And the guys who are installing the cabinets are the same guys that did all of the measuring. BUT since we signed the papers to submit the order it's all our fault, of course. So everything that goes above the counters has to be sent back and new, bigger ones have to be made. Not a huge deal, but we will have to pay for the difference on the larger cabinets.

The other main issue is that the bulkhead you see up by the ceiling basically fell apart in several places, so it's currently being re-built. AND! Since the old wall tiles were applied with some sort of crazy epoxy, most of the wall came off with the tiles, which means everything has to get new drywall. Plus a ton of electrical work has to be done. And the hole for the new hood has to be cut. And and and.

Prior to Tuesday we were debating having the floors done at the same time, but now we're really glad we're not. The floor money has now been spent! Here's hoping for not too many more surprise expenses! 

Tedious Yet Lovely Home Improvements

We've been very busy lately, with all of the wall paper removal and painting. And now, we've moved into Phase II of home renovation. You know, the stage when you get so fed up with everything that you cave and decide to pay someone else to do the stuff. So, a painter comes on Thursday! Hooray!

Unfortunately, that doesn't mean that the DIY home projects are finished. We've just changed gears. In several places in the house we have lovely antique light fixtures. They might even be original to the home, which would date them around 1930. However, they are in serious need of cleaning. It's entirely possible that they haven't been cleaned, well, ever. That's 82 years of dust, people. The one in the dining room is big and needs lots of TLC, so I decided to start with the one in our bedroom, which we were planning to move to the foyer. 

As you can see, it looks a little dingy. We SOB got it down from the ceiling, and then my work began. First, I took off each individual crystal, which is actually two crystals connected with a thin wire. Once the crystals were off, I scrubbed the brass with SOB's tooth brush. Don't worry, he was in need of a new one anyway. As I scrubbed, the crystals soaked in a vinegar/water bath. After I was done scrubbing, I rinsed the crystals and then dipped them into a water/alcohol solution to make them dry without spots. I laid them on a towel for a few minutes while I looked for some needle nose pliers, and then I got to work on re-assembling. 

After an hour, I had everything back together and nice and secure. SOB got to work removing the old light fixture, and a few hours (and one trip to Home Depot) later, it was up and shining gloriously in our foyer. 

I am so pleased with our work, but then I think about how this project took us AN ENTIRE DAY to complete. And then I cry a little bit thinking about the dining room chandelier.

And I haven't even mentioned the MAJOR KITCHEN DEMOLITION/RENOVATION OF 2013!

I Wanna Go Back There

Remember how hard I thought things were when we were neck deep in the gypsy life?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

(sob!)

At this point, I would do a trade back for the gypsy life in the blink of an eye. Because now, I'm trapped in a painters life. Strike that. We've barely even painted anything, because we're still just putting primer on everything. When you buy a century old house that hasn't been remodeled in many, MANY decades, most of the paint you're trying to cover up is oil based. Since oil-based paint is hard to purchase, not to mention kinda toxic, we have to prime every-mother-loving-thing in the house. AFTER WE STRIP OFF ALL OF THE WALL PAPER.

Sigh.

So far we've primed the foyer, dining room, family room and two bathrooms. We've painted the foyer, half the dining room and the entire family room. My parents were a HUGE help with the family room, which had a burlap/grassy layer over the top of the wall paper. SOB has to fabricate some wainscoting for the dining room before we can finish painting. We have to prime and paint both kids' rooms before we get the carpet replaced (which is happening soon). Our bedroom and our living room both have the same kind of burlap/grassy wallpaper shit that took over 20 man hours to remove, so those have moved to the bottom of the list of things to do.

Side bar: Did you realize how much painting terminology is tinged with vagina? Be sure to keep a wet edge, and don't forget the TRIM!

Back to the house: every bathroom and our kitchen are from the 1960s. YAY!

So if I'm not posting here all too often, it's because I am somewhere with a paint roller duct tapped to my hand, painting and painting and painting and painting painting painting painting paintingpaintingpaintingpaintingpaintingpaintingpaintingpaintingpaintingpaintingpaintingpaintingpaintingpaintingpaintingpaintingpaintingpaintingpaintingpaintingpaintingpaintingpaintingpaintingpaintingpaintingpaintingpaintingpaintingpaintingpaintingpaintingpaintingpaintingpaintingpaintingpaintingpaintingpaintingpaintingpaintingpaintingpaintingpaintingpaintingpaintingpaintingpaintingpainting

Gypsy Life: FINAL DAY

Today is our last day in the gypsy house. We got the keys on monday night, and even though it was only in the sixties, Sam jumped in the pool in his underpants. 

He was the only kid there, but please don't tell the other three! They would be enraged. Even Fred, who just points and yells 'POOOOOOOL' every time we're there. I wonder if and when that will stop?

I didn't get a chance to write yesterday because SOB and I were busy little beavers. Since our furniture won't come until tomorrow morning, we decided to try and scrape some wallpaper and rip up some carpeting before then. Neither one of us had any expereince with the wallpaper stripping, so I was a combo of anxious and excited about the prospect. I've heard horror stories of homes with layer upon layer of wallpaper, and since our house is almost 100 years old, and has wallpaper in every room, it seemed likely that this might have turned into our worst nightmare.

HOWEVER! In barely any time, we had this:

Looking like this:

Yay!!! In the dining room there was only one layer of the paper over the plaster.

We got started in the breakfast nook, which had it's challenges, but we got it finished. Then we started in on the stairwell.

Why, yes! That is psychedelic wall paper on the ceiling. Thanks for asking! Most of the stairwells and every bathroom in the house has wallpapered ceilings as well. Oh, what fun! We got halfway finished here, then did the foyer, two bedrooms and half of two bathrooms. Plus we pulled up the blood red carpeting in the room that will be our office, and investigated the hardwood floors on the carpeted stairs and hallways. They all look amazing, so once the movers come through we'll pull that up. 

We still have wall paper in two bedrooms, one of which is on the third floor and also has wall paper on the ceiling (seriously, WTFFFFF?) Plus the basement and the third floor bathroom have green indoor/outdoor carpeting that looks like astro-turf, which will be burned as a sacrifice to the gods of interior design. THEN all of the de-papered walls need to be painted. But I think we made really great progress for one day.

I can't imagine how productive I'll be when I can sleep in my own bed and drink reall coffee instead of this instant crap I've been guzzling. 

Gypsy Life: Day Eighteen

Yesterday was one of the hardest days of my life. All of the stress surrounding my gram's death and our living situation and my husband's absence reached a head and I kind of freaked out. But when I was driving home I saw this cloud formation in front of me on the highway, and I pulled over. 

I just stopped. The kids were firmly plugged into a DVD, so they barely noticed that we were no longer moving. I stared at the light breaking through the clouds, shed a few tears, snapped a picture with my phone, and got back on the road. Driving towards the light, I thought to myself, 'From here on out, it can only get better.'

Today was her burial. Thanks to the world's best babysitter and all-around awesome person Nicole, I was able to leave the kids behind and mourn her without having to worry about if the ipod was charged or if I had brought enough diapers. It was awful, but it was peaceful.

--

And on a completely unrelated and different topic: Tonight? WE OFFICIALLY BECOME HOME OWNERS AGAIN!

Living on the Edge

I hate real estate. I hate every little thing about it. It sets my teeth on edge even thinking about it. I could never, ever in my wildest dreams, be one of those people who buys and sells houses for a living. At this point in our transactions, I'm about ready to call it quits and live in West Virginia forever. One one side we have a buyer wanting anything and everything to be absolutely perfect by closing, which is an impossibility, both because of time and money. On the other side we have a seller who has lived in their home for almost forty years is very sentimentally attached to it. Which is understandable. However, that doesn't mean that the home is worth any more money than what it's worth. We have an offer in, but they won't even see it until their daughter gets into town. The agent is hoping that she'll be able to help them understand things a little better.

Until things get settled, I'll be holed up over here with my shoulders up around my ears and my teeth gnashed together and a bottle of ibuprofen clutched in my white knuckled hands.

Good times.

Dear West Virginia: F*ck You

A few months ago we decided to sell our house and move out of West Virginia, as you may recall. We put our house on the market for a fairly reasonable price, considering the local economy, and had lots of interest. I was, of course, losing my mind trying to keep things neat and tidy all day every day, plus vacating my ultra-tidy house with all four kids whenever the realtors came a-calling. But it was going well, this house selling process.

Or so it seemed.

Most of the "interested parties" we had were very concerned with the exterior surface of our house, which is a synthetic stucco. So to calm all of the fears, we had it inspected. And there were some issues. Still, we hadn't scared off everyone, so we set about finding a contractor to makes the necessary repairs.

We had three companies give us quotes, one local and two from the Pittsburgh area. The work is pretty specialized, so there aren't an abundance of companies who even do this kind of thing. The guys from PA were specialy trained and certified to work with this specific material, but the guy from WV wasn't. The bid from the WV guy was the lowest in price, but we had heard from several people we trust that he was likely to jack up that number once the work was started and we were at his mercy. Plus, by now we were only down to one "interested party" and they were from the Pittsburgh area, and more comfortable with the work being done by someone who was bonafied. AND! Not to toot our own horn, but generally speaking we are pretty decent folks who would feel badly about getting a cut-rate guy to do this work just because we're trying to sell the joint.

Long story long, we went with one of the Pittsburgh companies. Two weeks into a six week job, when a good portion of our house was torn apart, someone made an anonymous call to the WV division of labor about our contractor. He's a stand up guy, but some of his documentation required by this state had expired, so he was served with cease-and-desist papers by the state of West Virginia.

No one really knows who made that call, but I've seen WV contractor's truck in our neighborhood once or twice in the past few weeks, and I can't really imagine that any of our neighbors would do that to us. So now our contractor has one week to weather-proof our house and then his crew has to stop working until he gets all of his affairs in order. SOB has tried to make some calls to some of our local government guys, just to see how long things might take and if there's any way we can help facilitate the process. You know, since we're living in a house that has half of the windows and doors sealed shut temporarily, but he was basically told to go screw. In fact, one guy told him that we were probably going to be scrutinized even more for making the calls.

And why is all of this happening? Because we are not from West Virginia, and we opted to use a contractor who also isn't from West Virginia. Just like everything else here, from housework to hospitals, it doesn't matter how well you do your job, what matters is where you were born and where you went to college. And who does this hurt? The people of West Virginia.

Which is why I'm counting the days until we are no longer among their numbers.

Paint and Prejudice

Back in the early part of summer we got some of our deck replaced. Because the deck had been painted in the past, we were going to have to paint the new boards to match. SOB had planned to do the painting himself, but every time he had a few days off to complete the project, it would rain like a mother. After several weekends and even an entire vacation week rained out, we called a painter. A guy and his crew came over and painted like crazy for two days, and now we have a painted deck.

While they were here, we got to thinking. A large majority of the wall space in our house is painted
yellowgold. I'm sure I mentioned this before, but some previous owner of this house was a MEGA WVU fan. Most of the upstairs is WVU
yellowgold and the carpet, which we had ripped up right before Fred was born, was blue. There were blue ceiling fans, even. Now the
yellowgold isn't objectively horrifying, but it's not great. Also, as a photographer, it really sucks. In my kitchen, everyone looks like they have cirrhosis of the liver. Even babies:

A grey card helps, but not entirely.

We inquired about the cost of painting over all of the
yellowgold and found that it wasn't nearly as expensive as we expected. But. BUT! There is always a 'but', isn't there? They wanted to do the job ASAP, so we had to pick out paint colors right quick.

Now, we had our bedroom painted not long after we moved in, and I'll just say that there are still some very raw, unsettled feelings about those colors. In summary, I don't like the colors SOB picked and SOB blames me for giving him the go-ahead on those colors, and we can't talk about this without things ending badly, so we just don't. ever. talk. about. it. Needless to say, I wasn't optimistic about our ability to select paint colors for 50% of our house without it coming to blows in the aisles of Lowe's. However, colors needed to be agreed upon. Luckily, we have a lovely and intelligent babysitter who suggested that we paint some patches of the wall to see how different colors might look. With that in mind, we set off to Lowe's with a spring in our steps.

We came home with four rather beige paint samples, which worked out perfectly. You see, in our kitchen we have four large framed portraits of the kids, all hanging on the same wall. I took down the pictures and painted four beige squares, two of my choosing and two chosen by SOB.

Mine are on the right, and SOB's are on the left. He argued that mine were too pink, and I countered that his were too grey. Things were off to a rocky beginning. However, two days later we were back at Lowe's to give it another try.

This mish-mash of colors had some we liked and some we hated. BUT! We were making headway on coming to a consensus. It was really eye opening to see how different the colors looked in the light of our actual home. On the cards, colors that looked almost identical were wildly different in tone. After one final trip to Lowe's, here are the four colors we ended up with:

The two mid-tone colors are going to cover the bulk of the walls, and the lightest and darkest will be accent colors. All told, we went through thirteen paint samples to end up with these. And the best part? The fucking names of these thirteen nearly identical shades of beige:

Hopsack

Moose Mousse

Desert Fortress

Woodrow Wilson Putty

Mesa Tumbleweed

Holmes Cream

Balance

Oatbran

Lovely Bluff

Cream In My Coffee

Cliveden Leather

Lyndhurst Gallery Beige

Sand Storm

(A major award will be given to the person that correctly identifies the four shades we selected.)

The painters came on Friday to mask and tape, and the real painting begins first thing this morning. Keep your fingers crossed that we make it through this with our marriage intact!

And the Dish Ran Away with My Son

I bought some new dishes today.

When SOB and I first moved in together his mother gave us a set of plain white dishes that she had in her basement. They were actually very high quality, but since we were living in a rather generic apartment, with a plain white kitchen, the plain white dishes got to me after a while. I always felt like I was eating in a cafeteria. So we passed them onto his sister and went shopping. We got our current/old ones at Ikea about twelve years ago, and we loved them so, so much. We had never before made a big-ish collaborative home purchase, and the addition of those twelve matching plates and bowls and mugs, for me, meant we were grown-ups making a home together. There was some serious commitment involved, and no one had to buy jewelery!

They have served us very well. Sadly, time marches on, and some have gotten chipped. Some others have gotten down right busted and thrown in the trash. Ever since we moved here I've been on the lookout for a new set, and today I found what I was looking for (on the clearance rack, no less!) and now we have a whole set of un-chipped, pristine dishes.

So what to do with the old ones? We still have at least 80% of them. The dinner plates, which saw the most use, have had the highest casualty rate, but there are still nine of them. We barely ever used the cups and saucers.

I was thinking I could re-use the packages from the new dishes and we could store them in the basement. Then maybe one day Sam could take that box when he gets his first apartment, girlfriend or not. Imagining him eating home made mac and cheese (because he will learn how to make it before he's permitted to set out on his own) out of that bowl with the chipped rim makes me smile. Maybe one night he'll sort through them so he can use the nicer ones for a dinner party. And then when he's ready to go out and buy his own, he can pass them along to Lucy.

Who am I kidding? Lucy won't accept hand-me-downs. She's the one who will demand her very own brand new set of stone wear for her first dorm room!

The Great Room Swap of '11

Yesterday I mentioned about moving Maggie out of the nursery so Freddie could take up residence there. Let me elaborate on that a little bit, because, lo we are involved in some major shit over here.

Now, we are no strangers to re-arranging in this household. We lived in our last for three years, and everybody got switched around at some point, and Sam even got switched twice! All of these babies complicate things, I tell you! We are now in a similar situation here are we were back when Maggs was born. At this house, the big kids each have their own rooms and Maggie was in the nursery. There are only three bedrooms upstairs, so when Freddie came along, we kept him in our room. Until we moved him into our closet. The closet was easily big enough to accommodate him, his pack-n-play and my rocking chair, so it wasn't a big deal for us to keep him in there, and Maggie in the nursery.

But now he's four months old. And my two biggest kids are away at their Nunnie and Pappy's house for the week, and so my mom suggested that this might be a good time to execute the room swap-age. She is one smart cookie, that mother of mine. So on Sunday night, after Sam and Lucy had been deposited at their grandparents, we put Maggie to bed in Lucy's room.

And she flipping loved it.

We didn't hear a peep from her all night, and in the morning when she woke, she just called out for me as she did when she was in her crib. Then she successfully napped in there yesterday, slept in there last night and is currently napping in there again.

So I moved all of the furniture from Sam's room into there. Sam and Lucy had matching stuff from Ikea, so we thought it would be easier to move all of the matching stuff into one room and just buy him a new bed. Then I got some cute new matchy-matchy bedding from Target (some of it even on clearance!) and Viola! The girls' room is (nearly) complete!

(That tube on the bookshelf is a package of wall decorations that I hope to get up today or tomorrow, to tie the whole room together.)

(Also, the Bert and Ernie rug totes does not match, but it was SOB's when he was little, and we've put it in one of the kids' room ever since we had them.)

So far, so good! Sam's room is practicially empty, and Fred is sleeping on ladybug and flower, sheets, but hopefully by the end of the week the bunk beds, crib bedding and mattresses will arrive. Otherwise my five year old will be sleeping on the couch.

Now we'll just have to see how Lucy reacts when she comes home...Stay tuned!

No Cure For the Green Thumb Disease

Even though I just had my fourth kid and we have about sixty-eight things going on at any particular moment, I can not help but dream about some freshly picked tomatoes or a salsa made from my home grown tomatillos. So even though we've barely had time to even think about where to plant the garden, I've started my seeds...

And they're taking over. We've got beans, three types of tomatoes, tomatillos, and carrots. None of my poblanos sprouted, so we'll have to try again.

Plus, we have two cherry trees in the yard that are in full bloom, which is exciting! I hope they fruit.

And as a precaution against the deer, we've planted some peas on the deck:

And some strawberries, which are in one of those upside down planter things. I was skeptical, but it was on clearance, so I figured what the hell. Well, guess who has some baby strawberries growing on her back porch???

With everything sprouting and growing and blooming, it's kind of hard to hate on West Virginia these days.

March Madness: Sam Edition

The past two days have been unseasonably warm here in WV, so we've been outside as much as possible. Currently, Sam is as obsessed with college basketball, despite the fact that neither his father or I have ever watched a game. This means that when he's outside, he's working on his moves. Now, the hoop is only five feet off of the ground, but I think he's making progress from last year!

And of course, SOB has been developing his skills as well. He finally mastered the "Slam-dunk-while-nurturing-your-newborn" move he's been working on.

Flower Power

Lately I've been dreaming about flowers. Maybe it's because March is finally here, and I've been seeing all sorts of blossoming plants at the store. But I think it's mostly because I've been remembering all of the amazing flowers that would have been starting to poke through the wintry ground back at our old house.

Before moving there, I never took any interest in gardening, but when a yard finally became part of my world I decided I wanted it to look pretty. I knew that I didn't have the patience for annuals, so I set about looking for perennials that I wouldn't mind looking at year after year. The first plants I came home with were lilies. Then came the hydrangeas. The apple blossomswere there when we moved in, and quite possibly were my favorite. The rose of sharon bushes were there, too, when we moved in, and they blossomed just as we were leaving last spring. I planted a young lilac, but never got to see it bloom.

I'm waiting patiently to see what will come up here this spring. I'd like to plant some hyacinths and more lilacs, but with the baby coming sometime in the next two weeks, I don't know how likely that is. And I'm trying not to think about the plants and flower we left behind. Luckily with a later growing season, I should have some time to get something into the ground this year in WV.