Spring cleaning is in full effect around here, and the girl’s rooms were the first rooms under attack. I’m a huge fan of “A place for everything, everything in it’s place” and until we reorganized everything, nothing had a place, other than “in the toybox”. Let’s hope we can keep it up.
My camera has a setting that lets you take panoramas, but they obviously warp the photos a bit to get them to stitch together. Click over to Flickr to see details, and all the little notes.
Ella’s room
Alice’s/Diaper/Play Room
Again, no before pictures, because, well, they were embarrassing.
Filed under: Renovation Vacation
After months of me sighing dramatically every time we walked by our front flowerbeds, Tom spent 6 hours yesterday digging out the waist high weeds, laying down weedblocker, putting in edging stones, and dumping bark on top. I’ve tried to tackle the mess before, but having an infant and a toddler in the front yard (which borders a rather busy street) with me while trying to do manual labor is just asking to lose my damn mind.
I didn’t take a real before picture, but take my word for it: it was bad. We plan to put in flowers this week, and also put up trellises with some sort of climbing vine (sweet peas?) to mask the ramp. What finally motivated Tom was the idea of selling the house so that we could move closer to a job opportunity that yesterday was 98% his. Aaaaand then of course today it fell through the cracks. *Dramatic sigh* At least I got a nice flowerbed out of it, right?
We’ve been spending more and more time out at the lake, and each time it is a little harder to come back into town. The first few hours without TV, internet, or reliable phone service gives me more anxiety than I would like to admit, but after a while I stop wondering if the DVR is recording John from Cincinnati and I remember what it is like to live without all of these extra people in my head. The amount of time I spend wondering about Kate and Sawyer, or dwelling on some strangers angry words online, is a bit over the line sometimes.
It’s not until I am laying on the dock after dark, pointing out stars to Ella (who makes the ’swim’ motion with her arms, and laughs at her own joke) and Tom looks at me like “Can you believe we lucked out like this?” that I start to wonder what I am missing out on by having so many modern ‘conveniences’.
And so, we are back out at the lake tonight. We finished my craft room today and I have to admit it is hard to leave. Do you think I can have a backwoods cabin with a 600sq ft craft room (which, btw, is bigger than our little house I loved?) Head over to Flickr to see the finished-ish version of my new workshop(complete with notes), where I swear to god I am actually going to make things, because check it out - a gated off play area where little people can play and not put their fingers under the rotary cutter! Whoopie!
Filed under: Renovation Vacation
We have been home for two days and I am slowly putting together a wedding and honeymoon recap, but we are in the middle of a “Renovation Vacation” which is to say: Tom is painting the entire freaking house while also looking for a job, and I sit with Ella in the basement away from the fumes. We also bought an entire living room’s worth of furniture while in B.C. at Ikea and then drove it home so that it could sit in our garage until Tom is finished painting the living room. Which? He is damn near done with. It once took me 2 months to paint a room white, and I never even got to the ceiling. We bought $1000 worth of paint this morning and he only has the edging to finish before I can watch the damn TV again. I’ve missed two Big Love episodes, people! Pity me while I read and play with the baby and Tom inhales fumes!
I have been uploading pictures as I get them onto Flickr, and am slowly going through and labeling them. If you are bored and are not on dial up (sorry Ang!) then you should head over and tell me I do not look like a lumpy loaf of bread in my wedding dress. With boobs. Bread with boobs.
Also,
watch out for those Swedish tigers.
