Yellow House

Whenever we take a walk as a family and our house comes into view on the return stretch Elise will shout, "I see our yellow house!" It makes me happy every time. I love our yellow house.

Today marks four years in our home, our first home. Please read the post here. You would think that after four years I would be used to home ownership, but it is still such a thrill. When Eric and I talk finances I often say," our rent, I mean mortgage." We still wander around our home and marvel,"Can you believe this is our home?" It isn't as though our house is super amazing, in fact it is pretty basic, but we love where we live. We haven't see a single neighbor in their underwear, which is a tremendous feat after our rental experiences.

 

We have made changes to our home in the past four years. We have painted every single wall. We tore up carpet. We have gotten new fixtures and appliances. We have worked the garden. We have decorated. We still have a long list of goals, but those will come in time. More than anything our lives have changed so much in the past four years.

 

 

 

 

When we moved in Cordelia was just a toddler. We had two cats and a dog. Since moving here we have:

-Had new jobs.
-Had a miscarriage.
-Had a baby.
-Adopted another dog.
-Said goodbye to our sweet Mia.
- Potty trained two children.
-Made more art than we can believe.
-We've made friends.
-We have entertained friends from all over.
-We have traveled.
-We have gotten a second car.
-We adopted a second cat.
-We have re-arranged more than we can count.
-We still have no idea what to do with our guest room/ plant nursery/craft room/storage/catch all.
-We have read stories to our daughters.
-We have enjoyed the shade of cottonwood trees and harvest a zillion apples from the apple tree.
-We have laughed and cried and spent wakeful nights with little kids.

 

 

 

 

 

Over the past year the previous owner passed away. I think of her daily as I go about my business. I have been seeing a lot of the purple flowers she so loved popping up with the onset of spring and I think of the happy life she had here and I am so thankful that we too are enjoying this beautiful family home. This home will always be where my children were first home and for that I am always going to be happy when I reflect on our happy yellow house years.

Life as it is now

 

Before it was home.

Before our house was our home it belonged to someone else, a woman named Margery. She and her husband Ted bought this home when they were parents of two daughters. They raised their two daughters under this roof. Eventually the daughters married and moved away. Later Ted passed on and then Margery decided the stairs were a bit too much for her, she was ready to move. It just so happened that one of Ted and Margery's daughters is a family friend. She approached me one day and suggested that we might want to purchase her mother's home. One thing led to another and we were moving in within a few months (read here about move in day).

Then it was just Eric, Cordelia, and I...along with two cats and a dog. We moved in and over the course of three and a half years we have made this our home. We love our house. I think part of that love comes from its history. There is something beautiful about carrying on a long tradition of love and family under one roof. Sure, we desperately need new windows and have been working to make some updates, but the bones of this house are so good.

Margery passed away earlier this year, but there isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about her or Ted (I still get their junk mail) and how much they loved this home. On Sunday their daughter Celia approached Eric and handed him this photo of her home, our home, long ago.



Eric asked Celia to tell him a bit about the colors and he was able to magically colorize the photo (he said that the colorization is still in progress).



See that little twig of a tree a few feet to the left of that station wagon? That tree is now taller than our house, much taller. In fact a squirrel has nested about half way up and the nest is parallel with the upper windows.

Now here is a photo of our house, not from the same angle, but it was the best I could find. We can't really shoot the same angle until next spring so this will have to suffice.



You can see that some things have certainly changed, but the house remains. Our home.

This Morning

Here in this house

 

The day seemed quite ordinary and it passed right under my radar without a second thought. I had meant to post about it on our third anniversary, but I forgot. So here we are three years and a few days under our own roof, our first home. Three years doesn't seem like a lot, but a whole bunch of living has happened here in this house.

Over the last 3 years we have:

Welcomed Elise into our family. Bringing home a baby to your own home is so much nicer than bringing a baby to a junky rental.

We have painted very single room and every cabinet.

We have met neighbors.

Cordelia has had her 2nd, 3rd, 4th birthdays here. 

Elise celebrated her first birthday.

We have taken a zillion walks around the neighborhood.

Eric has changed jobs. 

I have worked as an artist and teacher.

We have gardened.

We said goodbye to our beloved cat Mia a year ago, burying her in the garden where we can go to reflect on that sweet weird cat.

Two daughters have weaned and potty trained--well, Elise is potty training.

We have grown exponentially as artists and have a lot to show for it.

Cordelia has become a big sister.

Elise learned to walk, talk, crawl.

We adopted Betty Sprinkles.

We have arranged and rearranged every room in this house.

We have been messy.

We have been clean.

We have answered the door to trick or treaters.

We have had visitors from all over.

We have hosted dinners.

We have cried.

We have laughed until we cried.

We have let our freak flags fly.

I have baked exactly 30 billion cookies (I keep a running tally).

We have celebrated holidays.

We have made so many memories. 

We have made this house our home.

Words of Wisdom

 

Take a close look at this photo. Do you see what's happening here? I have a photo of Elise holding a head of garlic. This is my way at satisfying the topic (you'll see) and family members who like to see pictures of our kids.

Anyway, I was laying in my bed in the middle of the night after being awakened by Ophelia's nightly meowing (it's gone on since our cat Mia passed, any ideas?) and I thought about random tips and tricks that I have leaned over the years. I was thinking about how many of them had been heard or learned from people willing to pass them on. Today I am going to share a few random tips with you and I invite you to do the same, then with our collective knowledge we can plot to accomplish something great. I was going to say plot to take over the world, but then I thought about how exhausting and unrewarding that would be, so I just went with something great. I am open for plotting suggestions as well.

Whoa...off track today. Whatever, here are my tips in no particular order.

• Well, let's just get straight to the garlic shall we? I heard this tip on the radio years ago and for some reason it has stuck with me. If you want to peel a couple cloves of garlic just pop them into the microwave for seven seconds. You will probably hear a little pop as their skins release, pull them out and the skins just slip off.
• My friend Jennifer in Australia was here over the summer and happened to mention that there was a woman in her town that she paid to apply screen covers to her mobile device. I asked what the secret was and she said that part of it was that the woman used tape to remove any dust that might not be visible to the naked eye until it created a bubble. I have tried this technique and I can tell you it works! I will, however, accept your money if you want me to do it for you.
•  I think I came up with this one myself, but I am sure I am not the only person to do this, but I clean the tub and shower while I shower. I keep a cleaning brush and cleaner in the shower and just spend five minutes cleaning the tub and tile. It's a great way to keep things clean in between a serious cleansing.
• Buy yourself a pair of kitchen scissors. I use them for everything! You can put your herbs into a mug and go to town with those scissors, way more fun than chopping. You can cut vegan quesadillas into snowflakes, you can generally cut food quickly. Great for anything that doesn't need chopping.
• When your hands or feet are super dry coat them in lotion and put either cotton gloves or socks on, no need to buy special ones at the store. I leave them on for a couple of hours/as long as I can bear and then repeat for a few nights.
• When I need a good exfoliant I use sugar, fine grain. Don't try salt you will regret it.
• I learned this trick while working at Hallmark a million years ago. If you are an obsessive and orderly person (I am not) take a clipboard, a small cutting board would work too. Lay your t-shirt flat and face down and place the board up by the collar. Fold the sleeves in, one over the other. Fold the bottom out and slide out the board. You will be left with a uniform fold for all shirts and a stack of shirts that look like they belong in a store.
• Little kid socks are a nightmare to corral in their sock drawer. I usually keep a leftover shoe box and toss the rolled socks into the box within their drawer, keeps them corralled. Similarly, I keep a basket for single socks sitting atop the dresser. When a kid sock inevitably shows up I have a good idea where the match will be.
• I use a tie rack to keep my necklaces in order.
• I have two bins for medicine. One is a children's bin and the other is an adult bin, this lessens any confusion.
• I wrote in magic marker on the dog thermometer (because you know where that's been) and it reads, "Been in dog bum" so nobody will misuse that and I keep it in a totally different location than other thermometers.
• I keep cleaning stations on every floor of my house. I tend to be a bit laid back about messes, especially if I have to hunt for cleaning tools in the darkest recesses of my house. I have three levels and on each level, in a place that is not accessible to kids/animals, I keep the basics for cleaning.
• I trim my own hair. I go in for a good cut once a year and then every couple of months I get out of the shower and while my hair is still wet I part it and cut it, just half an inch or so.

OK, so now it is your turn. Please share!

Painting Cabinets Part 1

Two weeks ago I was coming up the basement stairs and as my gaze fell upon our kitchen cabinets, which were looking a bit like the cliffs of insanity, something snapped. I grabbed a paintbrush and a bucket of paint and quickly, before I could stop myself, I smeared paint onto our outdated cabinets. I was committed. I could no longer endure the gigantic laminate eyesore and we couldn't possibly afford new cabinets...so painting was the only option.

Eric and I had talked about painting those cabinets from day one. Over the course of a year and a half that we've been living here we have re-painted nearly every surface of this house...but those cabinets were so daunting. I mean first you have to take off every single cabinet door (we have 20 plus 10 drawers); handles, hinges, and all. Then there is the taping and sanding and layers of paint.

For some reason  in my moment of madness the other day I was willing to do it all before Christmas...hopefully much sooner. Then I panicked. What had I done? What a  huge commitment of time and energy. What if I messed it up? I mean look at this cell phone picture of the upper portion of the cabinet. Shabby chic is not my style.



Then I got over it because they are just cabinets for goodness' sake. Perspective.

I did not bother sanding because I don't like to sand. Thankfully the paint took to the ancient laminate and all it took was a zillion coats of paint. I have been working on it in increments and finally yesterday I was able to see a bit of progress. Sorry about the cell phone pic.



I could see that it will all work out! Soon our kitchen will be transformed. Soon I will show you real pictures of the finished product.

Do you have a big project you're working on?

Apples

Last year, when we had just moved into our house, the previous owner told us about the apple tree out front. She said that she hoped we would enjoy the apples. I didn't even think to ask her what type of apples they were; I was just so excited about it.

A few months later I glanced out the window and saw the neighbor kids in our tree. I didn't mind at first. I mean, they're kids and kids are fairly unburdened by property lines and a climb-able tree is a climb-able tree.
So I was acting cool and laid back about the whole thing, watching them with a smile until I noticed that they were throwing all of the apples into the yard before they were fully grown. It was then that I realized the reason there were so few apples growing in the first place....they'd been doing this for a while. I kept my cool and walked outside to ask them to stop. I was careful to not be a scary angry lady. I asked them nicely to please quit picking and throwing the apples. Didn't matter, I freaked them out and they went running. ***In my defense they were kind of weird kids.



Anyway, the kids moved away with their family and a new family moved in next door. Apparently the new neighbor kids don't care about our tree. The result is that my apple tree has hundreds of apples. So now I have no excuse. I need to find out A) What kind of apples they are B) What should I do with all of them?



Anyone?

Close to Home

We have been spending a lot of time at home over the past week. I suppose that is to be expected when one finds themselves in the newborn bubble. So my whole world has really become rather narrowed, but in a good way I think. We have made a couple of quick trips and we take walks in the evening, but most of our time is spent in the house or yard, just hanging out.


Bedhead looking out the window


Sleeping baby


Flowers from my husband


Bumblebee keeping watch over her kingdom


Our overflowing book basket. We have been reading a lot of books. Good way to spend time with Cordelia while nursing.

Soon enough we will be back out in reality and that will be good too, but for now we are keeping close to home.

Spending My Saturday

Today promises to be a quiet day at home with the little lady. I love days like this, quietly spent enjoying my little girl, perhaps a little work will be fit into the spare moments throughout the day. Mostly I plan to take it slow.

I am sure I will spend much of my day in Cordelia's room. We will probably play with her toys, maybe a little creative fun, perhaps a little learning, but largely nothing.

I am learning as a parent that it is so important to leave empty spaces in the day. Important for her, because it allows her time to just be. Important for me because it gives me time to watch this girl and interact without distractions and to cement this time into my memory so that I can look back on it when I am an old woman and remember what a gift it was to be a mother to this little girl.

Today I will probably read every book she has a few times through, skipping ahead to the parts she enjoys most.

She will probably bring me all of her stuffed animals and insist that I hold them while dancing to music.

There will be cuddles and hugs and meltdowns and giggles and silence. Perhaps later in the day we will take a walk or have some visitors and that will be good too.

Yes, I am looking forward to this day very much. Now if you'll excuse me Cordelia has brought me several hats to try on with her...

What does your day look like?

What are you reading?

Many of you know that I have a special place in my heart for classic literature. I have actually been working my way through the classics for many many years. You may also know that I have a special place in my heart for zombies. My husband is well aware of this and managed to touch on both loves with one of his gifts to me this holiday season when he gifted me Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith.

I think you can probably guess what it's about. Grahame-Smith has re-worked the entire novel to include zombies. I read through the book in a couple of days, good time for someone with a little one! If you like zombies and the classics, then this is a must read. Ha ha!

Lest you think I read only zombie books let me tell you that I have moved on to Home, by Julie Andrews. I LOVE Julie Andrews. I am also looking over Handmade Home, by Amanda Blake Soule. What have you been reading?

Home!

Yesterday my conference wrapped up at around 2pm. I am so happy to report that things went really well. I put a huge amount of effort into this event and it turned out well.

After the conference Eric, Bumblebee and I all headed back down the mountain toward the city. We made it home by 4pm. I love that feeling of walking in the door after a time away.

I was pretty exhausted so I showered and hopped into my pj's. Eric and I settled for a lovely and lazy night at home! What a treat. Today I get to spend the day with my hubby and animal family because my boss gave me the day off.