Lesson learned

The lesson Lincoln and I learned this weekend is never, ever, EVER ignore the job of raking the leaves in the fall. We didn't rake them this past fall and so that was our project for this weekend. That means for the past five months or so thousands of leaves and pine needles have been compacted into the lawn under the weight of snow and record breaking rainfall. This was not something you could just get a leaf blower out for and take care of quickly. Oh no, it required some serious physical labor to rake up all the leaves that were embedded into the ground. It definitely wasn't as bad as having to ice pick the driveway in order to get an oil delivery but it was pretty close. I have bruises and blisters on both my hands and every muscle from my neck to my waist is screaming at me.

So, lesson learned, never neglect your leaf clean up in the fall.

The Master Bath - FINALLY!

We have finally finished redecorating the Master Bathroom. Everything in this room is designed around souvenirs we bought and pictures that we took when we were in Istanbul, Turkey. It all started because I wanted to design the bathroom around the six hand painted tiles that I purchased in the Grand Bazaar. Those are the ones hanging over the tub depicting a Turkish Bath (how appropriate!). You can also see in these pictures my TV that hangs over the tub, my heated towel bar, and my remote control lighting with dimmer capabilities. No wonder the kids never want to use their own bath tub anymore since they've discovered mine. It's quite a luxury to go in there, close the curtain, light a few candles, and just soak.

Mom, you may want to be sitting down when you read this post

My mother might actually pass out from the excitement of this post and the accompanying pictures.

I wish I had taken "before" pictures of the closet but basically all you have to do is picture three racks of clothing (one on each wall....one long, and two short) all crammed with so many clothes that you couldn't put anything else on the racks. Then picture stuff from the floor all the way up to the bottom of the clothes and from the shelf over the clothes all the way up to the ceiling. Picture boxes falling everywhere. Purses crammed under foot stools (yes, for some reason we had a foot stool in the closet) and boxes and unused wooden shelving sticking out in such a way you could barely close the door to get to the clothing bar behind the closet door. In short, picture a really full, really messy and there you have it.


We're not 100% done with the closet yet. Lincoln has two shelves he can use if he wants and there are two shelves that we'll probably moving the bedding to when we clean out the linen closet in the bathroom. Also, the empty top shelf above the drawers is where the Tivo and cable box go as they're fed through the wall to the TV on the other side. Finally, we actually have one empty drawer that I'm not sure what we'll use it for but I'm sure we'll find a use.

Okay Mom.....time to be proud of us!

The stuff from the closet. This is just the stuff from under and over the clothes racks.

Getting the supplies ready:

The old single rack across the closet:

The clothes from the closet:

Installing the new shelves. This process might have broken a lesser marriage. Note to self, don't start these projects late at night after a long day.

The new TWO-tier racks and four shelves. On the right there are four shelves. Two are currently empty (Lincoln's), along with my two, which contain my pajamas, sweatpants, and tank tops. Mom will recognize all those things as the items that lived on top of the dryer because we had no where else to put them. Under the shelves is the mini-fridge. We put that in when we moved into the house thinking we'd stock it with beer and wine for the Master Suite. Instead it ended up being a bottled water and formula fridge. We're finally starting to use it for it's original purpose.

Behind the closet door. There is a shoe rack on the back of the door and behind the door are these drawers containing belts, ties, and shawls, swimsuits and pool towels, and purses/backpacks. Underneath is another shoe rack. Yes, I have both lion slippers and rabbit slippers. I also have sock monkey slippers but those live under my desk in the office.

More behind the door stuff. The shoe rack hangs on the back of the closet door. Above the closet door is Lincoln's hat rack. Above the drawers you can see the additional empty shelves for the bed linens and the top shelf (and wires) for the Tivo/Cable box.

And that's it. Next up is the bathroom linen closet and under the sink cabinets.

Take a deep breath Mom. It's going to be okay. We promise to keep it this way until at least your next visit.

Out latest piece of artwork

This weekend I got to pick up the custom framing I had done at A.C. Moore with the kids' pictures that we took a few weeks ago. I think it looks gorgeous and it looks great in our living room.

It's going to be a crazy, crazy week

The end of the year is always the busiest time for me at work. I'm in charge of a number of end of year social activities such as our Thanksgiving Potluck and - the big one - our holiday party. On top of all that I have to close out everything for the year and finalize everything before our holiday break.

I'm also very lucky to work for a company that closes -with pay - for the time period between Christmas and New Year's. This year, because of the way the holidays fall, it is a "short" break of only a week and a half. We close early on Wednesday, December 24th and won't re-open until Monday, January 4th. However, I also have a number of vacation days that I have to burn off before the end of the year so that adds to my holiday break.

When you add in all of our time off and my leftover vacation time that means I worked two days last week, five days this week, four the next, and three the following week before starting my holiday break on Thursday, December 17th. While it's absolutely wonderful that I have all that paid time off that means that my busiest time of year is condensed into a number of very short work weeks. What is already a busy time gets even busier when I'm not at work to actually do all the stuff that is keeping me busy.

So this week is my only full week between now and the end of the year. On top of all that it's also the week right before the holiday party which is always insane. Add into the mix Jake's birthday party this weekend, his actually birthday next Tuesday, and my parents coming to town for a week starting Wednesday and things start to get a wee bit overwhelming.

The good news is that my parents come often enough - and know me well enough - that they don't expect perfection when they come to visit. My house won't be 100% clean. The fridge won't be stocked with food. And I'll have a list of "chores" for them to do while they're here. As horrible of a vacation as that sounds to everyone else, they keep coming back. Thank God.

Our new security system

We have a small half bath right next to the side door to our house. We never use our front door and all traffic goes through that side door. Jake has yet to learn the value of privacy and never closes the door when he goes in the bathroom. This morning he was in there and from the bathroom you can see into the office where I was working on my computer.

Jake: Hey Mommy. You know why I never close the door when I go to the bathroom?

Me: Why?

Jake: Because that way if a stranger comes in and you and Daddy and Hannah are all upstairs they'll see me and run away.

Me: Umm....okay.

Jake: Because NO ONE likes to see a boy going to the bathroom.

Finally coming to terms with what happened in the 3rd grade (subtitled: Admitting I was wrong)

When I was in the 3rd grade I was having what the kids today would call a "playdate" with my friend Rachel over at her house while my parents were at a Super Bowl party. Rachel's entire house consists of hardwood floors and we were playing dolls upstairs when I ran into the room and slid on the blanket we had down for them on the floor. I fell and broke my pinkie.....on the growth bone. In such a way that I had to go to Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN seventy miles away to get it set. For any of you men reading this you've probably already guessed that means my father had to miss the Super Bowl but I digress, as usual.

Ever since that happened I have had a bit of a fear of hardwood floors. When we built our house I was adamant that we would not have hardwood floors in the house. The rational part of my brain realizes that the linoleum in the kitchen is just as slippery but it didn't matter. And I realize that my kids probably spend more waking hours at their grandparents house then ours and that there house is also all hardwood floors. But I still feared those damn hardwood floors. We always sent the kids to Grandma and Grandpa's in "no-skid" socks from Old Navy or if Hannah was wearing tights we made her keep her shoes on or wear "no-skid" socks over the tights while at Grandma and Grandpa's. When I was over there with them and watched them come down stairs I practically had a heart attack every time.

Lincoln put up with my craziness and we have carpet all through the house except in the kitchen and bathrooms. Last year we turned the dining room into the office and I've finally come to the conclusion that it would look better as a hardwood floor. I told Lincoln we should change it and he just laughed and said "Oh NOW you want hardwood in here but not when it was a dining room?" And he was right. It made no sense for it to be carpeted in there and now we have a million stains. Although to be fair some of the stains aren't from eating at the dining room table and are from the kids having drinks in there when their desk was in the dining room.

Today we finally changed it. We had hardwood laminate put in and the old, nasty stained carpet ripped out. It has taken me many, many years to come to terms with it but I'm finally okay with "hardwood" floors. I realize these are just fake ones but this is a HUGE step for me.

And one picture of Hannah getting creative with her office chair and the kitchen stools while we wait for the room to be done.

Home

Pardon me but this post is going to ramble a little bit. Just stick with me.

I have a beautiful home. I love my home. But it is definitely a continual work in progress. Lincoln and I were very blessed when we got married and his parents deeded some family land over to us so that we could build our house. We received 4.26 acres of beautiful wooded land at the end of a dead-end road. The land behind us is owned by the state and contains high tension wires. The land across from us is still owned by Lincoln's parents. The land past the end of the road is a combination of Lincoln's parents, land that has been deeded to the town but can't be built on for 99 years (or something like that), and conservation land. In other words, we don't have to worry about developers coming in and turning our woods into the newest development in town. We're very, very lucky.

But like I said it's a work in progress. Our basement isn't finished. Our foundation for the garage was poured in November 2001 but we still don't have a garage. Our deck is half built. It took us until August 2009 to get curtains put up. It's just a work in progress. Right now we are planning on making some major changes to our house after the new year. Once again through the generosity of Lincoln's parents we're able to move forward on some of our plans for building a garage and a mother-in-law apartment as well as adding a farmer's porch which is something we've wanted for years.

Why am I writing about all of this?

Because every now and then I think to myself....wow, this house needs work. Or, I wish we could do so much more but we just don't have the money. Or, wow, I went to so-and-so's house and it was huge and gorgeous and professionally decorated - what must they think when they come to mine? But here's the thing....I'm 32.

I'm 32 years old. When I was 24 years old we built - not just moved into, but built - a 2,400 square foot, 4 bedroom, 2.5 bathroom house on over 4 acres of land. That's ridiculous. When my parents were 25 years old they were living in a small apartment on Water Street if I'm not mistaken. Every time we've moved our houses got bigger and nicer but a big part of that was the fact that they had worked hard and built these things up over time.

As for those women with the bigger and nicer and more professionally decorated houses here in town, by the time that I'm their age my house will be just as big and just as nice but probably still not professionally decorated (that's just not my thing). A lot of those women are older and both they and their husbands had substantial careers before having kids while I started young. I was only 24 for 6 days before I gave birth to Hannah. When our house is done with all the plans that we have for it we'll have 3,600 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 3.5 baths, a 1 bedroom, 1 bath mother-in-law apartment only 174 sq. ft. smaller than my condo when I moved out here and a gorgeous, kick-ass farmer's porch we can sit on and look out at our beautiful acreage. That is when we're not kicking it out on the (above ground) pool deck out back of course.

Once again, why am I rambling about all this?

Just because. Because I truly appreciate everything that Lincoln and I have and everything we're working towards together in the future. I think it's a general trait of my generation to have come along when our parents were more financially secure and able to give us a comfortable life. My parents may not have been that secure when I was a baby but by the time I was old enough to notice they certainly were (or if not, they covered it well). I grew up in an era of prosperity and consumerism and the "you can have anything you want" mentality. I'm used to nice things. I'm used to being able to travel. I'm used to being able to buy things at the store if they're not obscenely expensive and I want them. We're certainly not able to go out and buy things without thinking about what is in the checkbook but for the most part we have a very good life. And I never want to take that for granted.

So I guess that's my point. I'm lucky. I'm loved. I'm able to provide things for my family.

And I never, ever, ever want to take that for granted.

Whoudda thunk it?

Whoudda thunk it that almost 10 years later my parents would benefit from a fight Lincoln and I had back when we lived in our little tiny condo and didn't have any kids?

This March it will be 8 years since we build our house and moved into it. Eight years since we poured the foundation for our garage but never built anything. Eight years of hoping the kids don't impale themselves on a rusty bolt sticking out of the garage foundation when they can't resist walking along the little wall. It is rather tempting for a child after all - a low wall that is just their size.

But now....now that is all going to change. It looks like with a generous gift from Lincoln's parents we'll finally get a chance to build our garage. It has always been our intention to build a room above the garage but what that room would be has always been somewhat up for debate. Do you make it guest quarters? A playroom for the kids? A warehouse/workshop for Lincoln's business? What to do, what to do.

When we found out we'd be able to build the garage next spring Lincoln and I were very excited and immediately started making plans. I would love to do it as guest quarters so that my family can come and stay with us for longer periods of time but it also didn't seem terribly practical since it would stand empty a lot of the time. And by "guest quarters" I meant a huge room with a bed in it and a bathroom in the corner since you'd have to go outside to get into the main house. That's all I was hoping for. I talked with Mom and she seemed excited about the idea but she and Dad also thought maybe it would be more practical for us to plan something for that space that would be used on a more consistent basis. It made sense to me, and even Lincoln admitted the idea had some merit, but Lincoln really wants to put an apartment up there. An apartment....not guest quarters....but an apartment with a kitchen and a living room and everything. Who am I to argue with that when it means Mom and Dad can come out here and spend more and more time with the kids?

Oh wait...that would be me. Yep, it's all coming back to me now. The second big fight Lincoln and I ever had with each other. Click the link to read the back story on this but I just want to put it out there that I AM WILLINGLY CONCEDING THE ARGUMENT TO LINCOLN.

Of course when the children want to move back home after college I reserve the right to change my mind again.

Things that go bump in the night

Our house sits on four and a quarter acres of which all of it is trees except for a large front yard and a smaller backyard. Our house sits in the corner of the cleared area and is surrounded by very tall - and mostly dead - pine trees. On average they're probably well over 100 feet tall. I have a huge fear of them falling over onto the house, the pool, and/or the cars.

At 3 a.m. this morning there was a huge crash which caused both Lincoln and I to sit straight up in bed. There was a loud bang, the rustle of leaves, and what sounded like breaking glass. I immediately thought a tree had fallen on the house. Luckily it was just the hanging plant in our bedroom crashing onto the dresser below it and knocking everything off. The hook, which obviously wasn't strong enough to hold such a heavy plant, had come out of the ceiling. The only thing that broke was a clay figurine clock that we got in Athens, Greece last year. That clock has now been broken three times, once from falling off the dresser when we shut it and twice from things falling on it. It is the unluckiest souvenir we've ever owned and every time we glue it back together and move it somewhere else the thing above it falls off the wall (or ceiling). Obviously we need to just throw it away. On the other hand, the hand-blown glass flowers from Venezuela that were also on the dresser survived and the last time something fell and broke the clock it missed the beautiful statue that we purchased in Corinth, Greece.

So I guess the question is do we get rid of the clock and hope things stop falling off the walls or keep the clock so that it continues to protect the more expensive and more sentimental pieces from being destroyed?

Or do we just need to get better at securing things to our walls and ceiling?

I am never leaving my bedroom again

Over the past nine months or so Lincoln and I have been re-doing our bedroom. Last year at Christmas we re-arranged it and put in a flat screen TV. When Mom and Dad were here last May we got all of our travel souvenirs up on the walls. In September we took out the old recliner and put in a wonderful, plush couch and hung up window treatments. Today we installed an electric fireplace on a brick hearth.

It. Is. Heaven.

Working together

Yesterday morning we worked on getting the house cleaned. Hannah wanted to mop the kitchen floor which of course meant that Jake wanted to do it too. We have a Clorox mop but we were out of solution so they were using a different mop solution that we have in a separate spray bottle. Hannah was trying to teach Jake how to spray it while she mopped and it was just too cute for words. Of course what started off as entertaining to the two of them quickly went down hill when Jake wouldn't listen to Hannah. In the second video Hannah walks off to go get a tissue and her sigh as she walks away is too precious for words.

Little brothers....they can be such a pain.

Deck building weather

Two years ago we built a great big deck on one end of our pool. It was necessary to have a deck of some sort around the pool so we really had no choice but to start on the deck at the beginning of the summer. Our plan was to take the next summer off and then build the rest of the deck (going around the rest of the pool) the following summer. Well that would have been this summer but when the nice weather finally came around we had no desire to be outside working on the pool deck when we could be in the pool itself. We decided to be lazy and push the project off another year.

Until yesterday.....

Yesterday was a beautiful sunny day but it wasn't terribly warm. It was only in the high 60's/low 70's and the pool was definitely too cold to go swimming. Instead we were just sitting out by the pool enjoying the weather and I was having a glass of wine when I decided that this was perfect weather for deck building. Instead of just filling up my glass of wine again and hoping that I would forget the idea Lincoln immediately broke out the measuring tape and graph paper and started planning out the deck.

This morning found us at Lowe's and many dollars later we started working on our deck. Hopefully we'll have a bunch of nice weekends in September and early October and we'll be able to get the whole thing done before winter. The deck isn't nearly as big as the one at the far end of the pool but it will still be quite the project. We're extending the current deck out on either side of the pool so that there is a three foot walk way on both sides. After that there will be a small 6-foot wide deck at the other end making it roughly 6 ft by 24 ft. Next spring we'll start to landscape around the area so that eventually the pool and the pool deck will actually be hidden from view as you come up our driveway. It will be our own nice little hideaway.

As much as I hurt right now - and let me tell you, I hurt - I'm glad that we're taking on this project now. I know that we wouldn't have wanted to do it next June when the time rolled around and this way we can go into next season with a great new deck around the pool.

At least that is what I have to keep telling myself.

Empty House

It's not unusual for Lincoln and I to take a weekend (or longer) and get away from the kids for awhile. We enjoy taking trips together and luckily my parents enjoy staying with the kids while we travel. I miss the kids while we're gone but since it's not our usual routine I'm usually distracted by whatever wonderful activities we have planned on our travels. It's a totally different story when we're in our house all alone without the kids. I'm constantly listening for them in the other room and waiting for that "Daddy! Mommy!" cry that means you have to take care of something. Last night we giddily ran around the house turning off night lights and talking about how we were guaranteed to sleep past 7 p.m. because Jake wouldn't be waking us up but this morning we were both in bed saying "wow, this feels so weird without the kids." The kids definitely make this house come alive and as enjoyable as it is to get some peace and quiet sometimes it will be nice to have them back this evening.

Not complaining

I am absolutely not complaining about the hot weather we're having because FINALLY summer is here and it's delightful. I do wish, however, that it didn't coincide with the week that our air conditioner gave out.

Home again

We made it home! It's good to be home. I promise to post lots of pictures soon. Right now we're just trying to settle back in and get everything together before going back to work tomorrow morning.

Snakes

Tonight I pulled into the driveway to see Lincoln, Kayla, Hannah and Jake all gathered around the stairs leading from our "garage" to the "breezeway".* Apparently there is a lovely little collection of snakes living down there. Yes, snakes....with an s. More than one. More than two I believe. Thanks to the Internet we identified them as a milk snake and a couple of ringneck snakes. And Hannah informed me that a garter snake went up our drain pipe the other day when she almost ran it over with her bike. We have lived here for over 7 years now and I think these are the first snakes I've ever seen. I've seen mice. I've seen frogs. I've seen toads. I have never yet seen a snake but I guess we're getting six years worth of them in one week. And while I would take snakes over frogs any day of the week, I'm not really digging it. Hopefully now that Lincoln cleared out their habitat they'll head out of our yard but I'm not really counting on it.

Sometimes I really hate living in the woods.

*I use the terms garage and breezeway in the loosest way possible since we poured the foundation walls for both when we moved into the house in 2002 but never put in floors, walls, or a roof. So while we technically park in the bays of our "garage" it's not really a garage as evidenced by the fact that, well, it doesn't exist.

A very successful day

We had a very successful day today. For once we actually cleaned BOTH floors of the house with the exception of the kids bathroom and Hannah's room. Hannah started on her room but then got involved with re-arranging her book case and, like her mother, ended up not completing her original task because she got distracted by something else. I kept planning on getting to the kids bathroom next but always got off track. This should be a fairly quite holiday week so hopefully I can get that done in the next day or so and then have a 100% clean house for once. What a novel idea.

I also managed to get all of my returns done today so I don't have that hanging over my head this week either. All in all it was a very productive day and it ended with Jake and Hannah snuggling together not once but TWICE. Check it out:

I'm developing my own color coded chart like President Bush

I hate cleaning. I really do. Since I can't afford a housekeeper I just live with various levels of tolerance for my lack of housecleaning skills. Luckily my mother comes often enough that my house gets a deep cleaning on a fairly regular basis.

My levels of tolerance:

Mild: Blissfully ignoring the mess.

Moderate: Pick up the obvious stuff and pretend like we cleaned the house.

Severe: Deep, deep cleaning. Usually peters out before we get both floors done. In my opinion as long as one floor is clean we can live on that one and ignore the other one until the "Severe" mode passes.

Today we have a Code Red.

Jake: Why do I have to clean my desk?

Me: Because we're cleaning our house from top to bottom today.

Jake: Why?

Me: So that next weekend during the long weekend we can play out in the pool all weekend long and not have a dirty house hanging over us.

Lincoln: So we're not going to live in the house between now and then?

Me: Nope.

(A little while later Lincoln walks into the bathroom while I'm scrubbing the sink.)

Lincoln: Oh. You're cleaning cleaning today.

Me: Yes. I told you we were cleaning today.

Lincoln: I thought you meant picking-up cleaning.

Me: Nope. Now where is the toilet bowl cleaner?

It's going to be a looooonnnng day.

New Optimism

Today I'm going to look at this situation as the clouds are half empty. That is our new version of optimism. Screw the water glass. It's not supposed to rain today but it will be cloudy all day. That's good because if there was even a slice of sun we would be out in the pool but this way we can get everything done that we've been putting off lately. The house is about to be cleaned from top to bottom and all the returns that I need to take back to Kohl's and Old Navy will finally be done. Unfortunately the only thing I can't do today is go and order my new glasses because the place is closed on Sunday. Other than that we're going to be EXTREMELY productive today. (At least that is what I tell myself.)