a Brand NEW FLOOR

Timmy got the sub floor layed this afternoon, the lovely orange as it is and Ben got to tile this morning... after a full day of cooking, tiling late last night- he put in a nice 17 hour day in all.

Asher got in on some of the action, helping lay the thinset and did a good job respecting the no walking on the tile rule.

And then the room was complete. A one sided picture, can't walk on it, and wasn't motivated in the cold to go to other doors for a different view. So stay tuned.

UGGGGHHH

What do you do when your whole house is covered in dust? Seriously, I dusted and swept the floor twice yesterday to no avail.
The boy is doing his typical tuesday morning lie in and I would love to take a shower, but I have no shower curtain and the bathroom is just covered, it doesn't feel clean, plus drafty and cold. I have dishes piled, but it is so hard to motivate to do them because it is such a pain in the ass.
I have piles of crap on me and seriously can't even pick a place to start. I can't wait to abandon all my troubles when we fly to philly on Thursday. I am going to take a shower every day, if not two just because I can without worry of mr. a touching the wood stove or opening the curtain and stealing all my heat.

I have been trying to ignore the mess, but it isn't working, I think I may go crazy.

And then Color Appeared

Hooray, there is actual color on the wall that will be staying with us. It will get a second coat adn be darker like the edges, but it is there. Ben did a great job picking out paint. It is wonderful to see the red with the white tile and then the tile next to the glass fractured tile.

Here is the doorway into the rest of the house. There will be shelves above the fractured glass and countertop below it with drawers. The counters will be black with stainless steel edging. It is excited to anticipate what it will all look like and hope that things all match together.

A feel for the red, look how high that ceiling is!!

Things are Going Up

We have tile on the wall. Not all of it is done but the boys got a good amount done yesterday. White subway tiles capped with black. The lines between will look pretty much as they are. We have a dark grout that we are using.

A crappily lit photo, but you can get a little feel for what the backsplash tiles are like. They are fractured glass. The paint should match them pretty well.

Today, the rest of the wall tile should be up minus 2 red sqares we were short. And paint on the walls, the boys primed yesterday. Oh and ben has aspirations for floor tile being laid tonight.

and the game goes on

Thanks to both Regan and Natalie, I have been tagged and since it was from two folks out there, I will do my best to actually list 6 random things about myself... there are just to many paths that one could wonder on random things, I generally need more direction if I am going to share things about myself but here goes. Edit this may only be a few things as pasting from word to here caused some html errors and has frustrated me for the last few days.

I hate to be hot, I think of this now as I am a little cold and while I await the wood stove fire I had thought about complaining but then remembered how much better it is than feeling so hot that you can't move. I tolerate summer and appreciate summer (for the food!) but I am a transition season girl with leanings towards winter. I also overheat easily, I was the girl at summer soccer tournaments in the first aid tent after nearly passing out people attending to me to get my internal temps down.

I love warm beverages: tea and coffee, but I go for a cider and cocoa once in awhile to satisfy that internal warm up (perhaps another reason to not like it when it is too hot out). I spent awhile in England and took right up with the tea served every hour or so... sugar and milk, not honey, but the same sweet creaminess that warms you up.

I love cheese pizza rolls. I hardly ever indulge in processed food, but these are my exception. Not that it happens often, but if I want something from the freezer section other than ice cream or juice, this is my item of choice. Ben and I used to have occassional deep fry nights, pizza rolls along with morning star buffolo wings and mini corn dogs. Now though I typically bake/broil them in the oven. Now that I think about it this splurge goes back to my college days, they deep fried pizza rolls in the AC and I would treat myself for this more expensive snack... my go to was the cheap curly fries (dipped in honey mustard).... I have been craving so much junk during this pregnancy, this all sounds incredibly good right now.

I have never lived alone really. My first college dorm was a private room- they all were, but that doesn't really count. I sometimes wonder if I missed out on something. I don't think I would have liked the idea younger, but now it sounds somewhat appealing. Perhaps that is what living without a kitchen and spare room does to you. I think I am just feeling a little crowded as of late.

Sorry not six, but this post has taken too long to begin with.
Consider yourself tagged: Sandy (the carpooling post was funny, but its time to update)
Sarah (when you get into that new house of yours in Amsterdam)
Carla- if you by chance read this
also if you blog and I don't know who you are...

Fruit Leathers, Gnocchi and a 6 Course Dinner

For my birthday this year Ben suprised me with a new dehydrator, the excaliber... very fancy stuff. So A and I have been experimenting making snacks for ourselves. I refuse to spend 59cents for six square inches of fruit leather pre packaged, even when it sounds really good, I just can't do it. So I am making my own. We have made a pear on (thanks to kara), carrot apple, banana and strawberry apple banana. They are very tasty and I look forward to making more. Oh and they are sofa king easy to make. Blend fruit, spread it, put it on saran, dry, check it, dry more, make sure its done, roll up on the saran. You do have to clean the blender, but not the dehydrator tray, very nice.

We also got a suprise this week in the form of a 6 course catering job for a lot of money. Do we have space to do this? Of course not, is it crazy to cook a 6 course meal without a kitchen when you have tons of other work? Yes, but this is us and really we wouldn't be us if we didn't take on too much at once and have incredibly stressful periods followed by calm. So we made squash gnocchi in our dinning room as a family. Ben cooked on site, I helped serve and we made up for the lost foodnanny week this month.

6 courses is lots of fun, ben made halibut gravlocs served with shitake mushrooms and micro greens, heirloom pumkin soup with something fancy, seared lamb tenderloin over the gnocchi with leeks and other fancy sauces, salad with roast beets, a cheese plate and some killer pear tarts. Things went off with only one hitch, the dude who had the party described his kithchen as "professional" great we thought as that is what we are working towards in our kitchen... it wasn't so much professional as it was- old and inefficient. (we ended up bring our camp stoves to get the job done!) He had an electric range- ick, the largest burner shot out sparks and the other took 45 minutes to boil water. The lighting was awful, I couldn't tell if I was getting the forks clean enough between courses. I could go on, but for fear of insulting those of you with an electric range (mom) I will stop and just say it really confirms that every penny we put into our kitchen is going to be worth it, which is a great things when your budget is running low and the timelime is extending.

Some Crafting

A week or so ago, Asher and I started to get into a bit of a routine where after breakfast he would play independantly, with the house in good shape, I got to do a very small simple project that pleased him and therefore bought me more time to do some more. Our friends Kara and Wren had some great eggs and as they are Asher's favorite ingrediat and he is obsessed with flipping food (actually flipping it not a clever explative cover up) I thought he would enjoy theses. For a better flip though I think they need something to give them some weight.

With white felt, yellow scraps, thread, pins, some stuffing and scissors, we set out on the morning crafting adventure. I pinned a yellow scrap onto the felt stuffed with the stuffing (what else is that stuff called?)

Drew a circle with a pencil, did a tight zig zag around it, cut off the yellow close to the stitching.

Cut out the white in fried egg shape, and repeated to have a little clutch of felt eggs.

Insulation and Dry Wall

For those of you who like visuals, here is the insulation doing its wonderful job.

And walls back up in the kitchen. The mudding and taping starts tonight. Then we will be moving on to floor and wall tiles.

Being out of your kitchen and having to use others really makes you appreciate having a kitchen that suits your needs I am super excited for this project to conclude and for us to be able to use a kitchen at our home that doesn't involve a camp stove and 14 inch hand sink for cleaning up.

Think good, happy thoughts for a smooth finish.

New Attachments

New Gutters, free of lead paint, Asher went to work this day with the men folk.

The new sink faucet, that extends out 22 inches, have we mentioned the size of the sink? It really looks like a bathtub, it is massive, which we are thrilled about. New baby and Asher will start to get sink baths.

As I now have access to pictures again- don't even get me started on the state of the office/craft room, I will try and show you the walls up. Plus we now have an insulated house. Instead of losing 12 degrees over night after cranking the wood stove, we only lost 6-HOORAY!

Besides the Kitchen...

we are getting into cold and flu season and I have to gripe. I just got back from the library where I was coughed on by some sick kids. I don't mind sniffles and a few sneezes, nor even a cough. But if your kid is hacking up a lung, has colored snot dripping out her nose don't take them to a public program for kids. If you need to run errands, or go somewhere that isn't geared towards kids I understand. I am even more okay if it is my friends coming over to my house, at least I know them. But public places where you are well aware in advance that other children will be present to infect? Come On.
I may be overreacting, but on this same visit I was also coughed on by a kid behind me, who spit chunks of noodles all over my back, forearm and leg. It was one of the more disgusting things. It is one thing if your own kids spits up on you but quite another when someone else does it. The mom was apologizing, but I didn't even know how to respond, she touched my boob to pick off a chunk of noodle. When I tried to get them off it was hard because they were partially digested and really mushy. Plus it has a little bit of stomach acid smell to it, and the children's section bathrooms were closed. The librarian did give me some antibacterial wipes to get me through the program. I would be mortified if my child coughed up his dinner on someone, but these people sat right back down next to me, I was a little afraid of getting noodle on me again, yuck, at least pick a new seat.
Then a mother is talking about how she recently had the most god awful cold in the world which layed her on her back for Monday and Tuesday-it is only Wednesday and she was over there coughing. At least pretend, don't announce to the whole world that you are sick.
Fortunately we have been very lucky with Asher, he has only had one cold. I do hold breastfeeding accountable for a lot of this fortune, plus the fact that he eats dirt and chews on sticks. We don't keep him in a vaccuum, and most of the time I am not nervous about illnesses and maybe this stems from the fact that we are weening a bit as I have only colostrum, Asher still nurses but not nearly as much as he was a year ago. Being sick sucks, and if it happens often to your kid, I can see still wanting to stay active, heck, go to the library at an off time even, the noon hour is typically dead there... better yet go for a walk, fresh air is best and tires kids out so sicky will go to sleep and get over being sick. Kids don't catch colds from being outside.
It's been awhile since a venting post, feels kinda good, am going to publish without rereading.