Homemaking

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Really Cool Architecture

January 13, 2009 in Art, Homemaking | 2 comments

I really like the interesting design of blogger Michelle Mitchell’s remodel:


Our Home Remodel Is Finished from Michelle Mitchell at Scribbit on Vimeo.

What a great way to expand the existing rooms and bring in tons of natural light.  At first I didn’t like the way the addition looked from the outside, but once I saw the function of it on the inside, I grew to like the view from outside as well.  And aren’t those light fixtures the best? 

I’m also impressed with the way this family uses their space.  The house is not very large, and there are four kids living there!  Michelle also blogs, bakes, and does tons of crafts from that house.  I hope to be so organized some day.

What I Found Behind the Dishwasher

January 12, 2009 in Homemaking, Humor | 5 comments

Another interesting find in my new home:

Trash Behind Dishwasher

This is the space right next to my dishwasher.  I was cleaning the cabinets near it when I saw this mess.  There is a grape, some wadded up paper, plastic wrapping of some sort, and the glass, which is not a drinking glass, but a lamp shade for the ceiling fan light fixture in our breakfast area.  We can’t get the lamp shade out – it doesn’t fit!  Adam and I have been debating about how it got there.  It must have arrived there sometime between the time they installed the horrible tile floor and the time they installed the dishwasher.  Adam thinks somebody put it there as some kind of joke.  I think they must have installed the ceiling fan at the same time they installed the dishwasher, and it just rolled there.  But in my theory, the lamp shade would have had to roll all the way around a peninsula.   Unless it was on the kitchen counter and fell off and rolled in there.  I could think about this for days.

Dinner, Desk, and Delinquency

January 11, 2009 in Food and Drink, Homemaking, Parenting, Three Good Things | No comments

Three Good Things for the day:

  1. Had a nice sushi dinner out with a friend who also recently moved to northern Virginia.  Samantha ate a tiny bit of crab, licked the eel and the salmon, but otherwise stuck to Miso soup and edamame.  She’s adventurous in her eating, but come on!
  2. Adam put up a shelf for my monitor which means there is only one step left in building my awesome workspace in the living room.  I’ll post pictures and the reasoning behind the design when it is complete. 
  3. Got through about 30 of the 82 emails that were lingering in my inbox.  Found some nice notes from friends that I hadn’t really read yet, some pictures of a friend’s new baby, and an electronic Christmas card I hadn’t had the chance to view yet.  Is it too late to make a New Year’s resolution to keep up with my email?

Bedtime Bliss, Busy, and Bucket O’ Beer

January 9, 2009 in Food and Drink, Homemaking, Three Good Things | No comments

Three Good Things for the day:

  1. Samantha slept in until almost 9am this morning.
  2. I took Sam to the doctor (she has an ear infection) and, trying to convince her to step up on the scale, I weighed myself.  I’ve lost 5 pounds just because I’ve been too busy to remember to eat.
  3. Even though I told myself I’d go to bed early, something inspired me to rearrange the furniture in the living room and it led to all kinds of good reorganization around the house.  The most interesting thing was that I found this leftover from the previous occupants up on a high shelf in the laundry room.  Yes, they are unopened.  Ha!

Bucket \'O Beer

Grooming, Groceries, and Good Morning

January 5, 2009 in Homemaking, Parenting, Three Good Things | 1 comment

Three Good Things for the day:

  1. I got my hair cut.
  2. I shopped at Wegman’s for the first time.  What a beautiful supermarket.  I think I could live there.
  3. I set my alarm and woke up before Samantha, so that I was able to shower and dress without begging a favor from my husband or sticking Sam in front of the TV.  I need to do that more often.

Brita Now Comes in Green

January 5, 2009 in Homemaking, Ideas, News, Products/Services | 6 comments

I just got a new Brita water pitcher.  The flip-up pour spout cover on our old one had broken off long ago, and when we moved here to our new house we felt like it was time to start fresh and get a new one.

I love my Brita water.  I wanted to write a whole post about how drinking Brita water is superior to drinking bottled water, but then I found out that the Cult of Green is taking on the bottled water industry, and I hate to be on the same side as those wackos.

Recycling, Roots, and Revelry

January 4, 2009 in Homemaking, Three Good Things | No comments

Three Good Things for the day:

  1. Gave away most of our moving boxes to a friend. 
  2. Finished up with the bleach and took another pass at reorganizing the kitchen.  I can’t tell you how fulfulling this is, knowing that I’ll be using this kitchen for years to come.  Roots are growing.
  3. Speaking of roots, I started planning a party last night.  This is a big deal for anti-social me and I’ll be writing more about it in the coming days.  Maybe I’ll have a chance to make some friends who actually live near me!

Mysteries

January 3, 2009 in Homemaking, Mysteries | 1 comment

Why isn’t there a cleaning service that will do things like clean all the walls in the house?  Or wipe the sticky, linty film off the shelves in the laundry room?  Or bleach all the grout in the whole house?

Buddies, Bleach, and Bananas

January 3, 2009 in Food and Drink, Homemaking, Three Good Things | 2 comments

Three Good Things for the day:

  1. I had a nice chat on the phone with my high school friend, Andrea.  She lives in California, but we try to catch up at New Year’s if we’ve been bad about keeping in touch.  I’m happy that my two best friends from high school are still two of my very best friends, even when we don’t speak very often. 
  2. I bleached the grout on my tiled kitchen counters.  This might not sound like a Good Thing, but I’ve been dying to do it since we moved in and, wow, it looks so much better!
  3. I’ll never throw away a brown banana again after making this banana pudding, which really did take only 5 minutes.

A Little Thing

January 3, 2009 in Homemaking, Little Things | No comments

We’ve resumed the practice of making the bed every day.  It’s a Little Thing that’s never been high on my priority list so it fell off completely during the insanity that has been the past year and a half.  It’s nice to have it back again.  It feels….civilized.

Christmas

December 20, 2008 in Events, Homemaking, Parenting, Travel | No comments

Luckily, we will be having Christmas this year.  We’re going to Florida to visit Adam’s parents.  We managed to put up a few little Christmas decorations around the house, but no tree or outside lights.  Santa will come while we are gone and leave a few things.

This is the third year in a row that we’ll be away for Christmas.  We visited Adam’s parents in St. Louis for Sam’s first Christmas, then last year we were literally homeless, in between living in San Diego and Lexington, so we stayed at our super-great friends’ house in Richmond.  My mom pointed out that these early years are really the best time to take Sam to other places for Christmas – when she gets older it will be more important to stay home. 

I finished my “Christmas shopping” today.  We managed to make zero Christmas shopping trips by picking up items here and there along the way.  Besides Christmas cards (which I’m very proud to say that we got out in early December) we didn’t buy a single thing for anybody other than Sam.  I picked up stocking stuffers at Target (where I’ve been 4 times in the past 3 weeks for stuff we need for the house) and Adam picked out the big-ticket item at Ikea: an easel which has paper, chalkboard, and whiteboard.  I know she’ll get some nice things from the grandparents and maybe a couple of friends, and that is enough.

I’m looking forward to the vacation.  I really need a break and I’m hoping the grandparents will take over and let me sleep in a few days.  I probably won’t blog while we’re gone, so I’ll take this opportunity to wish all my readers a Merry Christmas.  Get off your computers and go play with your kids!

Mysteries

December 9, 2008 in Homemaking, Mysteries | 2 comments

Here’s another one:  Why do people use placemats?  Is it supposed to be easier to clean the placemat than the table?  I can understand a tablecloth, but only if you have an ugly table.  If it’s a nice table, don’t you want to see it?  This all seems to be one step away from covering your furniture in plastic.

A Little Thing

December 9, 2008 in Homemaking, Little Things | No comments

Now that we have 2 sinks in our master bathroom again, it’s not ridiculous for me and my husband to each use our own favorite brand of toothpaste.

Mysteries

December 8, 2008 in Homemaking, Mysteries, Products/Services | 3 comments

Does anybody iron their clothes anymore?  I’ve never ironed and yes, my clothes are wrinkled some of the time (but not often, thanks to this).  But, seriously, after sorting, washing, and drying clothes, does anyone really get out an ironing board and an iron, put water in it, wait for it to heat up, and spend multiple minutes per item making them just perfect, then folding or hanging?  And I’ve heard a rumor that some people actually iron their sheets!  What planet do they live on?

Home Improvements

December 4, 2008 in Homemaking | No comments

We’ve lived in our new home for one week now and we’ve been busy.  Well, our handyman has been busy and I’m exhausted from monitoring him.  So far we’ve:

  • replaced the carpet
  • painted Samantha’s room
  • replaced the kitchen faucet
  • replaced the garbage disposal
  • installed a light switch in the basement storage room
  • replaced all the rotten wood trim on the front windows and fixed the leak that caused it
  • caulked a cracked front step
  • reset some of the tile in the basement shower
  • fixed a broken kitchen cabinet
  • cleaned the chimney
  • cleaned the dryer vent (which was so full of lint that the dryer did not work)

There are only a few more urgent things on the list, plus unpacking and cleaning.  We’re feeling secure enough that we decided to go to Florida for Christmas with Adam’s folks.  Now, if only I could find the towels so that I can change out this one I’ve been using for over 2 weeks…

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