Let's Get This Party Started!

At a certain point this week, I suddenly realized that: "Oh! this cluttered, dusty, table sawed, KFC'd , Doctor Peppered, air compressored space was NOT just a workshop, but that INDEED there was a kitchen under there!

Remember? There's a kitchen coming!

It will kind of look like this, only a little more three dimensional, and now instead with three glass-front cabinets. (Aaaaaaaaaaaaah. The heavens open up. Glass-Front cabinets!) Actually, the kitchen is already here. It's piled up high, in bunches of boxes in the living room. The install is scheduled for Wednesday, and I just can't wait!

The old kitchen was taken out.

Wow, look at the old kitchen. It's already so different. In addition to taking everything out, we also added crown molding and removed the sliding glass doors off the dining "room", and replaced them with french doors. I think it's starting to look wonderful. :)

I can just picture sitting in front of the french doors, eating breakfast on a snowy morning, watching while a fire burns in the little family room fireplace.

So this brings me to my point, that since the kitchen is coming! The kitchen is coming! I really need to make a plan. It's time to get my interior decoration on!

The house's interior design theme is called: OLD. Kind of soft and shabby chic. If that's not too passe' with you internets?

The cabinets are white, my beloved sink is the Domsjo. The DOMSJO! What a great name. My next cat will be named Domsjo Bjorn Bjork fjord Swedish Chef.

The floor was a bit of a struggle. This part of the house was an 1981 addition, and the floor was an uneven sort of mess. With a little extra sub flooring and some inventive ideas....I'm hoping for smooth sailing. We're installing hardwood.

Ok, here's where the fun begins!

1.) The counter tops are being fabricated from Super White Granite. It light and bright and airy.

2.) We're going to wallpaper the hallway leading to the kitchen and the eating area with THIS wallpaper. It's called "Watercolor Peony" and the word peony makes me giggle. PEONY!

3.) The color, at least on my monitor, is not properly displayed here. I'm looking for some paint, to cover very minimal wall space in the kitchen, mainly in the small entrance from the side door. I'm going for a lilac, because I firmly believe that people should have lilac kitchens! I suppose, alternatively, I'd settle for a soft pink to match the wall paper. Oh decisions, decisions.

4.) Man, this is AWESOME! RustOleum has some tutorials and I came across this baby. I love the color so much, AND conveniently, we have a brass chandelier, ready for some paint!

What do you think? That's the bulk of it. We needed to order a new dishwasher and a range. Wait, could I please just tell you about the new range for a second?

Ok, comes with the standard controls, and then a set or three buttons. Ready:

Convection Oven Button

Self Clean Button

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Wait for it

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CHICKEN NUGGETS BUTTON!!!!!

Do tell me. What the hell is a "Chicken nuggetS" button? And why?

Chicken nuggets in Da House!

I have to figure out more odds and ends, but at least we've settled on a table and chairs and bench this week! We were shabby chic-ing an old Ikea table, but something went awry when we accidentally mixed layers of latex and oil paint. It seem though, that the table was a bit too long for the space anyway. It was great fun to paint the table, so we decided to go for "naked furniture" and finish the pieces ourselves. It saves a lot of money too!

Wait, why are the pictures so tiny!? Well, there's a farmhouse table, two bow-back chairs for one side, and a fun bench for the other side of the table. Bench seating!

The plan was originally to paint everything white, but we unexpectedly fell in love with the Slate Blue RustOleum paint that we used as an undercoat on the first table. Now we just have to decide, all white? White table with blue chairs? All blue?

That's an example of what the color looks like. Sort of. It's deeper or more pretty blue in person. Well internets, that's enough about the kitchen for now. I hope it all comes together. It's definitely going to take some work and a lot of luck!

xo

Mom's World

I just think this is one of the most lovely sets of photos that I've ever stumbled upon on Flickr.

Joey Harrison's Mother was a wonderful photographer! She took the above picture titled Maxwell Street, 1949. Look at those colors, 1949! Here is his set of her photos: "Mom's World". A personal, visual record of a lifetime. Complete with equally interesting narrative. Enjoy :)

Snip, Snip, Snip.

So, I cut mah hairs. At least now I only sort of have two-colored hair, rather than three- colored hair. Peoples were staring too much and making comments about my ever brightening henna hair. In the summer sun, the red was just becoming redder and redder and redder, until it was like Ronald. Not my uncle Ronald, like the MacDonald Ronald. It was bad.

Oh, and to preface all of this, I decided I was tired of henna-ing my hair. There was a lot of gray, and since I'm allergic to regular hair dye, I just gave in. So you have red hair + LOTS of white hair + my regular brown hair. OMG.

It looked like this:

These pictures DO NOT do service to just how vibrant that glorious red is on me. Lol.

So as you can see, basically all of the hair growing in on the top of my head is white. Anywhere there is red hair, that is truly white hair underneath! Yikes!

(If you read previous post, you'll know why I'm going gray. Oy.)

Well, actually, my father's side goes prematurely gray. It really runs in the family.

Anyway, so after a particularly annoying week of far too many people making not funny, unhelpful statements about the ridiculous and unfortunate state of my hair, I could take no more. I just said, "You go girl. Cut that hair!" All it took was pair of scissors and a mirror. I went snip, snip, snip! I have to say, it was sooooo much fun and liberating! I cut it short, REALLY short guys. Just the shock value alone was fun. It was worth it.

So now, with just a tiny bit of post-haircut professional shaping, it looks like this:

What silly pictures. WHAT is that face I'm making in that last one? I'll need to post better ones soon. I've learned to style it a bit better since then.

At first I was sad and thought.....what did I do!!!?? I felt really ugly. :(

I felt much too masculine. :(

And, I noticed that men looked my way less. So, I took that as, well being less attractive to the world.

But you know what? It's kind of really growing on me. Ha! No pun intended.

I really, actually like having short hair. It's AMAZING not having to blow-dry my hair, let alone use the flat iron daily. And, in some weird way, it's totally liberating! I like being my own self too. I don't want to be a cookie cutter human. Never have, never will. I'm just weirdo, little tri-colored hair me. Lol . :)

Just Venting.

Oh man, I'm worn out peoples.

I'm SOOO fortunate, and thankful and grateful and I'm sure I have NOTHING to complain about. But I've just been feeling a little drained lately, and tired and not up to all the challenges. :(

This summer has been too much so far, which came on the tails of seven months of too much work at school, which followed five and a half months of too much work at home as my house was being torn apart and I was trapped inside with it everyday. Basically, I've had no daily life to myself since March of 2010. I have stuff that I need to get done peoples! There's no end in sight, maybe October. Maybe. I hope.

I need a break so badly. Which ironically would not ideally come in the form of nothing to do, or a beach with a book, but rather stretches of uninteruppted time where I could simple get to the grocery store, or cook for my family, or clean out the garage or work on my portfolio.

Sometimes you just know, you feel and you know when your life is not jiving the way it should be. You know when you need more boundaries and better solutions. Often times, there's nothing you can do, but hang in there, and plan a way to get back on track once the dust settles.

I don't regret buying the new house, not one single bit. Everyday I'm amazed that this little place is really ours! Well, it's not just "ours", this house belongs every bit to the people who lived there long long ago. Like Ann and Betsey, John and Mary Jane.

We bought the house, just as my massive, seven month volunteer project was wrapping up. The project that I didn't really exactly feel sure about doing, that blindsided me with enormous hours, keeping me busy every weekday, many evenings and many weekends. I was more than ready for a break, but buying the new house was a one shot chance! Something we'd been hoping for, for a long long time.

Now we're several months in, and due to many hold-ups and an ever growing fix-it and change-it list, everything is behind. It's stressful. The days and weeks are stretching and we teeter on a questionable move-in date that keeps getting further off.

I'm stressed about the new house, the never ending to do lists, the decisions, the multiple daily trips over there, with wild acting, crabby child in tow. The enormous bleeding of money. The lack of floors, kitchen, bathroom and some ceilings.

I'm stressed about our current house. How much I have to pack, how will I ever accomplish it?Organize and purge, sell and donate. Box and move. I'm on my own with this.

Oh my God. We have so much stuff, and we're moving to a home with much less storage. I have nightmares.

I'm stressed because just a few weeks from now, my next volunteer project will begin. Yet another one that I'm doing because I didn't have strong enough boundaries. Like I'm not going to already be busy enough next month. Fudge!

I'm stressed because (please don't question this) my child was not able to tolerate camp as planned this summer, we had to withdraw him, and I have no extra money for babysitting. So my time is consumed with renovating a new house, getting ready to move my current house, AND I am caring for my little kiddo with no help. Every.single.day.

I think having more than one child must be very very hard, but at least the children can play with each other, or keep each other company. My son now has trouble being in another room from me. I have a 24/7 shadow. I just need some breathing space.

I'm stressed because said kiddo is also having problems. Problems that I'm not sure I want to discuss here or not. In the grand scheme of things, he's fine, but in a non-traditional way, he has some special needs and I have little support. :(

Oh, and Jon doesn't have great vacation time, he's taken no time off this summer and has travel four times in the past six weeks. In fact, he's been in California since early Monday morning. It's 11:51 pm on Friday and he's still not home.

Thank you universe for everything. I have gratitude, but please please please....I need a little break.

I know all things must pass. It'll be fine and jolly soon. But sometimes, when you're in the thick of things, it's just a lot to muddle through.

Ok, thank you internets. Just venting made me feel better already.

The End