the happenings

A lot has been going on around here lately.
Alex: Alex is doing well. He is starting to smile and coo. I forgot how cute this phase is. He loves tummy time, but unfortunately, Claire doesn't. She likes to roll him onto his back if he is on his tummy. He is a big boy. I don't have to worry about how much chubbo eats, that is for sure. I know he is getting enough. I feel somewhat accomplished. He hasn't had an ounce of formula yet. I think right around 2 months is when the breakdown in breastfeeding started with Claire. I hate to compare them, but it is going to happen. I've been really careful about making sure I pump if he doesn't eat on schedule. Weds was my first really lax day. I think he nursed three times all day. He had a bottle at the doctors office and another at a meeting I had. But things are going well. Our freezer is stocked, so if we do need to supplement, we can do so with "natural" food first. But unfortunately, I am a round the clock dairy. I don't go more than 4 hours without pumping or nursing. It gets old. Tues night, he went a whole 9 hours without eating, but unfortunately that was 7pm to 4 or something. So I still had to get up, but it was later than usual. I usually have to get up at 2am, 5am, and somewhere between 7 and 8. It just isn't fair. Claire is sleeping until 8 or 9, but he wants me to get up earlier. I think it might be about time to switch him to the 3-6 month clothes. Maybe after our trip. He is filling the 0-3s very nicely though. He is FINALLY over his diaper rash. That thing lasted forever. And I have decided that part of it was the pampers. He has been in pampers brand diapers since birth. Remember that great deal I got? We finally ran out, and switched to Target brand. I told myself once we ran out of the pampers, I would start cloth with him. The rash seemed gone, than flared up again. We switched to the target and cloth diapers, and it was gone within a day.
Claire: Claire took an interesting tumble the other day. On July 3rd, she walked off a retaining wall and fell head first onto the concrete patio. Luckily the kid has a strong/ hard head. She is fine. She doesn't seem to have a concussion or any other damage. She keeps hitting the bruise on things. She ran face first into a wall and then bumped her head on a chair Weds. But otherwise is fine. She is a punk, but we love her. She is learning all kinds of words. She knows hat, eye, ear, more, milk, ice, and ball now. I'm sure there are others I am forgetting too. Time outs are really effective for her. She doesn't do whatever it is for a few days after a time out. She is still telling me when her diapers are "dirt" and I am trying to teach her the concept of "wet" to go along with it. Something that is really frustrating goes along with diapers. Almost every morning, she wakes up soaked through. Sometimes she wakes up in the middle of the night upset about her clothes being wet (I would be too). I wash her sheets and blankie several times a week. It's getting old. I've switched to a bigger size of diaper and that didn't help any. I've also tried limiting her drinks after dinner. That hasn't helped much. I just don't know what to do. I'm actually tempted to start buying specific overnight diapers, but they are so expensive. Any advice?? The good news is we have weaned her off of her bedtime cup! Yay! She still has some milk before bed, usually sitting on the couch with me or Daddy and snuggling, but she isn't taking the cup to bed with her anymore. I switched her to water in her bedtime cup a month ago, because I started getting worried about her using it as a binkie and having milk on her teeth all night. But three days ago (when Daddy was at class and therefore didn't have to listen to the crying), I just didn't give her a cup of water. We had our milk, brushed our teeth, and I put her to bed. She only cried for a few minutes, a lot less than I was expecting. The next night, she cried for maybe 30 seconds. Tonight- nothing. So I feel slightly accomplished about that. Claire just loves to play outside. We have to go outside at least once a day and play for a while. Sometimes we go to the park, sometimes she just chases the dogs around the yard. But she gets cranky if we don't. I can't blame her. She can go out and run around and not have to wear a coat or be cold like in winter.

In house news: we decided not to sell. We are still moving, just not selling right now. The market for our price range is just bad right now. So we are going to put our house up for rent with Alann's property management company. As of right now, it looks like we are moving Sept 1st. I'm sad and a little resistant. I just hate change. And this is really our first house. Sure, I moved into Alann's house with him, but it was always his house. This one we moved into together, we decorated together, had kids here. I wish it were bigger, but at the same time, I know I will be cursing how big the MO house is when I have to clean it or chase Claire around it.

I feel like I had more to talk about, but I started this post a few days ago so now I don't remember.

Here we go again

Round 50 of home improvements. Well, maybe not, but I have lost track of how many renovations we have done on our house. Since Alann is currently unemployed and his school schedule is rather light this semester, he decided to take advantage of the situation and remodel our half-bath. The half-bath is connected to the office, which most people use as a master bedroom. (We live in a very much cookie-cutter subdivision. There were maybe 3 floor plans. Most houses have been customized and are slightly different now, but you can still find the bathroom in just about any house you walk into in our neighborhood.) We chose not to use it as our master bedroom because 1) it has the most hideous paneling, 2) it has no real closet (just a very flimsy curtain rod in a half-finished closet), and 3) it's smaller than the room we do use. We had a lot more bedroom furniture when we moved into the house, so the size of the room was a consideration. Now that we have condensed, we could probably use the office as the master bedroom, but since we are probably moving in a few months anyway, it doesn't make sense to go to all the hassle of rearranging. Anyway, I use the half-bath as my bathroom. It makes getting ready for bed easier and it means I can keep the sink as clean or dirty as I choose, instead of constantly dirty like it seems the other one always is. So for the next few weeks I have to share bathrooms with Alann. I am all for double sinks next time we buy a house.
This should be a pretty cheap project. A lot of the stuff we already have or can make do. There is a semblance of a closet in there already. Basically a little wooden box at one end with a closet rod. We took down the rod and put shelves in. The shelves all were salvaged from pieces of our old kitchen- no cost and recycled to boot. (yay greenness.) We already got rid of the mini-vanity that was in there and replaced it with the old one from the other bathroom, which is in fine shape, just didn't go with the decor in there. It also was a little small for that bathroom, and left this tiny little gap that you couldn't clean out and was a collector of dog hair. (Yay more recycling.) The toilet is fine, we won't replace that. The medicine cabinet is way old, and was rusty when we moved in. I painted it to last until we replaced it. When Alann worked at Lowe's, he found two really nice medicine cabinets on sale for $20 each. I forget what they were supposed to cost, but it was over $100. So we bought both. One is already in our full bath. The other will be living in the half-bath shortly. (yay for a mirror I can see my face in. The current one has a ripple in the middle of it, right through my nose.) The bathroom had paneling in it (ugh) that someone had painted white (double ugh). It was bubbling, since they didn't use enough nails and no glue (kind of yay for demolition purposes) and looked pretty awful. Also, it apparently didn't quite reach the ceiling (which we discovered when we took it down) and someone had put chair rail up as crown moulding. It has always looked funny and I hated it. We removed the paneling and the plaster underneath is mostly in good shape. There is one spot behind the toilet that has been damaged that we will have to figure out a repair for. But then we will just paint (kilz first) the walls and call it done. We did find more pink paint in the bathroom. I swear, at one point, my entire house was bubble-gum pink. It has been in every room we have remodeled from bathroom to kitchen, bedroom to baby's room.
The plan is to remove the vanity, toilet, and mirror (which is already down), repair the walls, paint everything (shelves and walls) with leftover paints, of which we have plenty, replace the flooring, and put the fixtures back in. The floor I will not be sad to see go. It is this awful black and green linoleum tile. There are a few tiles that aren't attached anymore. I try not to sweep them out of place. It may have looked nice when it was new, but it isn't anymore, and it never really matched the rest of the decor- the vanity or the walls. This is the only place where we may spend money. We have to check our stock of tile (since we have random bits left over from other projects) and decide if we have enough or not. Then we may buy tile or more linoleum tiles. The bathroom isn't large by any standards, so it should take one or maybe two boxes of tile. We just have to decide what we want to do with it. I'm looking forward to a nice new clean bathroom to use. And I'm looking forward to the construction being done, as usual. It just makes so much dust. And it doesn't help that the bathroom is farthest from the garage/ workshop so things get tracked all the way through the house.
Once we get done in there we just have to figure out if we want to tackle the office or not. I would love to say bye-bye to the hideous paneling, the painted-on trim around the doors (not kidding about that), the chair rail as crown moulding, and broken black mini-blinds. But we might not get to it. It would definitely require money, and money is one thing we don't have much of these days. Maybe we will just have to slap a coat of paint on it when we try to sell and call it good. I don't know what we would do about the gaps between the panels though.
It is a warm-fuzzy feeling to think about how far the house has come. It went from "desperation home buyer" to someone who might buy it because they actually like it. I didn't buy this house for its looks, that's for sure. I bought it because it was available, it suited our needs, and it was in our price range. Oh, and it wasn't broken down or needing 500 things done before we could live in it. It was perfectly habitable when we moved in, which was important to us (since most of the houses in our price range were not move-in ready). We don't mind doing the work, and if it means we break even when we sell (instead of losing value as so many of the homes that aren't improved have done in our neighborhood) than I am happy.

I love my house

Want to see my newest ghetto fabulous upgrade to my house? I mean um, energy efficient upgrade?


That's right. I have a clothesline. And it is ghetto fabulous! It cost me all of $5, including 100 clothespins. Thank you dollar store. All I did was put one nail in two of the fence posts and tied myself some knots. Hanging on it are 15 of my 24 burp clothes. There is one more on a foldable drying rack, and one more clean one in the house. The other 7 are MIA. I am concerned. Where did they go? Have I left them somewhere? I picked up the two from Shannon's house. Maybe they are still in Claire's drawers, I just forgot about them, but I am pretty sure I moved the clean ones from the excess stash to the "use now" drawer, and that drawer is empty. Oh well. They will turn up.

And now, for your viewing pleasure, the reason I need and go through 24 burp clothes in a week:

Don't you love the drool coming out of her mouth? I guess Tanner deserves it for how many times he has drooled on her and me.

She is loving petting the dog. She was all about the dogs the other day. She kept watching them, laughing at them, and shrieking when they kissed her. It was cute.

The seasons are changing

How do I know? Well, my contacts are driving me NUTS! (That’s my first clue.) And my hair is staticy all the time. My allergies are ramping up again. And it’s almost cold enough at night to put a real blanket back on the bed (at least once Alann turns the fan on high). I’m glad it’s changing. It’s time to get my fall plantings in (just carrots, beets, garlic, and onions). We got some decent sized beets this spring/summer, but the ants harvested them first. (Jerks) So we haven’t had any beets yet. I like beets. Alann likes borscht. I deal with it. It’s ok hot, but once it’s cold, it’s all him. We made our first salsa of the summer this weekend. Everything in it was home-grown- the tomatoes, onions, garlic, bell pepper, and hot pepper. It was yummy!

On a sad note, there has been a death in the family. Our dear old avocado fridge has gone the way of all appliances. I noticed Friday that the light didn’t come on when you opened the fridge, but since we have never replaced it, I figured it just burned out. But when I got some bacon out for breakfast on Saturday, there was no denying it. I will miss the green fridge- the way it used to freeze the milk, and anything else that got pushed too far back, or the way it didn’t keep anything cold when we turned the thermostat up. The way it had very few shelves and the drawers weren’t attached. How it made the laundry room 5 degrees hotter than the rest of the house. And of course it’s lovely avocado color. Those were the days. Wait, no I hated that thing. I’m actually kind of glad it died. Plus we get $30 from the power company for recycling it through them, and our power bill should go down. That thing was a monster.
So we spent all day Saturday fridge shopping. Well not really. We checked Craigslist and found a few fridges. We called and ended up getting a 12 year old Kenmore. We were home around 2. It’s pretty nice. (Nicer than the 70s fridge anyway, and bigger than the one that came with the house.) So we put it in the front and moved the one that came with the house to the laundry room. Could we live with just one fridge? Yes. Do we want to? No. It’s so convenient because we can buy 4 gallons of milk and not go back to the store just for milk in the middle of the week or on our “off weekend”. And we can leave food in larger containers instead of trying to dish it into Tupperware to fit elsewhere. And of course, we need the freezer space, because I buy meat in bulk on sale. It wouldn’t all fit in just one tiny freezer. When we lived with my dad when I was little, we used to have 3 or 4 fridge or freezer combinations. We had the everyday fridge/freezer in the kitchen (I wouldn’t be surprised if my dad still ahs the same fridge). Then we had the “ice cream” freezer that we were not supposed to get into on our own. And the meat freezer. We had a big garden and butchered our own rabbit and chicken meat, so we always had a big stock. That may have been a side-by-side. I don’t really remember. So having multiple fridge or freezer units is not strange to me at all. We debated whether we should get a chest or upright freezer or another fridge/freezer unit. I am pretty happy with what we got. The new fridge has shelves! And drawers! The fridge that came with the house had only 2 shelves and the drawers were missing. There is room in the fridge. Things don't sit on top of each other. We are moving up in the world.
And just to spite us, as Alann was unplugging the green fridge to move it, he saw a spark. He plugged the fridge back in, and it started. He said “the fridge is running” I said good, thinking he meant the white one. Then it dawned on me that he was messing with the green one. I said “It’s too late! Get rid of it!” We didn’t bother trying to check it or fix it or anything. The thing was 30 years old. We figured it was dead dead. Not just sleeping. Alann said maybe there was a power surge but the fridge didn’t have the power to start itself up again. I don’t care. I don’t want to have to worry about the fridge not working and us not noticing until all the food goes bad. But it works, which means it is eligible for the rebate. Good enough for me. And, we paid cash. So no credit expenditures. Also awesome.

Water water everywhere

Sometimes, I wish we had a really big problem to fix, instead of all these little ones. I know it wasn't fun for Shannon and Ian when their pipes were broken, but at least it was a specific problem with a specific solution, and it was readily identifiable what both of those were. Our water heater has taken up the fight now. It's leaking. From nowhere. At least no where we can see. And it is only 5 years old. Is that old for a water heater? I have no idea. I wouldn't be surprised if it rusted out, considering the state of most of our other pipes. At least the home warranty will cover this. So even if it is totally broken, at least it will only cost $55 to replace it. We extended the home warranty because of the 20+ year furnace, but if we get a new water heater out of it, that's ok too.
In other news, I harvested all the rest of the broccoli and the swiss chard. Alann didn't bag the chard, so it is wilty. I guess if I just blanch it and freeze it, it won't matter if it is wilty. I'm still a little bugged though. I know I know, I should have just done it myself, but he knows the reason I didn't. I harvested some of the peas. They are some fatty peas. I am way excited for the rest of them to be done so I can make some fresh peas for dinner. And the sugar snaps are doing good. A lot of them are ready too. We are having stir fry one of these nights, and I am going to harvest the sugars for those. I dont really remember if I planted snow peas or sugar snaps.....crap. I better check the packages. That makes a big difference in harvesting.
The beans are a little leggy. They honestly don't look any different then they did last year, and last year I got like 5 green beans off of them. Since I pulled the chard and broccoli though, they should get more sun, which will help. (I learned shortly after I removed the chard that I could have just harvested the big leaves and left the stubs and roots and they would have grown new leaves. Oh well. The chard was an impulse buy anyway.) Now I don't know what to plant behind the beans where the broccoli was. Maybe carrots. But my carrots don't grow. Maybe I'll just wait a month or so and plant more beets. We have yet to harvest a good size beet. (In a book about root cellaring that I got, there is a picture of a guy holding a basket of beets, and each beet is the size of his head!) The beets we get are usually about the size of a golf ball. Maybe I am impatient (likely). I have a hard time thinning out the beets to the proper spacing too. I worry that I will thin the one that would have grown better. I'm getting over it. Slowly.
The tomatoes have taken off. The cherry, which was never frozen as much as the romas, already has little green tomatoes on it. I really really hope the romas come through for me. I could use some salsa. MMM, salsa. Still warm from the sun salsa- even better. I built a little trellis for the tomatoes this year. The stakes worked ok last year, but some of them broke and the tomatoes outgrew the stakes, so I ended up tying the tomatoes to the frame for the plastic when it is cold. This year we try the trellis. It was a relatively cheap investment, so if it doesnt work out, I wont be too bummed. I guess if it doesnt work, next year we will try the metal tomato cages. I don't like them though. Maybe we could get some of the metal fencing that we used to make the garden, and we could use that to make little cages. Maybe I just need to find a new place for the tomatoes. I don't know where else they could go though. Of course we might not have time for or want to do a garden next year anyway. I assume we will, but if we might move, then we will have to do only quick growing stuff- no drawn out harvests like corn and tomatoes and peppers.
Otherwise, things are good. Nothing much else to report...

#75

Yeah I have been slacking. Our trip was good. We saw family, friends, ate lots of food, and didn’t spend a dime (other than on bandaids and Craig’s present). So it was a good weekend. It was also incredibly hectic. I felt like we never really sat still for very long. The flights were pretty good- full of people, but not terribly bumpy. I get a little more nervous each time I fly. I don’t know why that is. We saw Iron Man, which was pretty awesome. The movie was great, and I might watch it again should Alann buy it when it comes out. (I don’t usually watch movies more than once, with the exception of Fight Club and Monty Python’s Holy Grail. But then a year or two goes by between viewings, so it is like seeing it again for the first time.) We went to the Cardinal’s game. I am not a big fan of professional sports, but it wasn’t terrible. We left just as the sun started to really beat on me, so I didn’t even get sunburned (unlike last time). I got to hold Ginny’s boy Bruce at the reception. Multiple people thought he was mine. That’s what I get for holding children. It was fun though. He’s quite a cutie. We spent most of Sunday watching HGTV, which means lots of motivation to work on the house. We also saw a show where the realtors ask how much people spent on stuff and we spent WAY less than most people, and our improvements look quite decent I think.
This weekend we are going to plant a new front lawn. Yay! We will probably be finishing the yard in small stages- this weekend the majority of the work and expense will be done, and then sometime next month we will finish with planting some shrubs, moving the rose bushes to the back yard (they just don’t like the front) and filling in with gravel and mulch. It should be a lot of fun. I will definitely have to post pictures come fall when our lawn is nice and filled in. We have to pull out the old crappy crap, finish the border, put in some stepping stones. The works.
Then after the yard is done, we have our sights set on the full bath. We bought a new vanity at quite a discount. Now Alann wants to tile the floor. So basically, we will rip out everything that hasn’t previously been ripped out (meaning the toilet and vanity, not the tub), lay new flooring, sand and paint the walls (I think I have an awesome color picked out), then reinstall and it will be done! It sounds huge, until you realize that our bathroom is 6’ wide by maybe 10’ deep. Not a whole lot of floor to be laid.
Then maybe we will FINALLY finish the kitchen. It really is my goal to not hit two years with a half-done kitchen. Thanksgiving marks two years. There isn’t much there. Repair the floor, paint the walls, finish the moulding, fix the cracks in the ceiling where the old cabinets used to be and the new ones don’t quiiiiiiiite cover.
Then maybe my tiny little half bath. We are planning (hoping really) to put the vanity from the full bath into the half bath. But we have yet to measure it, so I don’t know if that will work out. This might be a major project. We need to pull out the toilet and vanity, tear out the walls (I say out with all of it! Plaster and nasty paneling!), put the new medicine cabinet in (going on a year of it sitting in the garage, but it was a steal at 10% of original price), slap up some drywall, paint, reinstall the fixtures, put an access door in to get to the bath plumbing, and possibly do some flooring. It is black and green vinyl tile. Of course, I only see it when I clean, because my (normal sized) bath mat takes up all the floor space. We are seriously talking two, maybe three sheets of drywall for the whole bathroom. That’s how tiny it is. So maybe there will be enough left over flooring from full bath that we can tile mine too. Oh, I almost forgot. I want to install shelves. There is this sad little “closet” in the bathroom right now. I would love to put in shelves and maybe a little sliding door on the bottom to make a cabinet (to keep el gato out and keep my toilet paper safe from her claws). The house doesn’t really lack storage, at least as far as linen closets go, but it would be nice to at least make the space seem useful. Plus you never know what the next owner will want. That extra storage may be enough to make someone say “this house has so much storage. I’ll buy it! Triple the price” (Yeah, I can dream if I want to.)
And some day, I would really like some doors on the hall closet. Right now it is “open to the elements” which is a nice way of saying that it collects enough dog hair to create a new dog. All of my sheets and bedding have to be in plastic to keep them safe. Plus, assuming we ever get to this point, I can imagine some little superman trying to climb the shelves and breaking his head in the process.
And we can’t forget the blue room. That one is pretty much on standby until the time comes that it is needed. It will become the nursery if we need it, but until then, it will stay cold, and blue. When we tackle that room, we need to put in some insulation and put up new drywall. We could seriously hang meat in that room. Then paint. Lots and lots of paint. I am pretty sure we will need to Kilz what doesn’t get covered with drywall, just to cover up all the blue. And the closet door could stand to be replaced, or at least improved. I’m thinking a real doorknob would be fabulous.
The office is a nightmare. I would love to rip out the paneling and make the closet more usable. Right now it is a thin little curtain rod being held up with plumbers strap (you know, the long thin metal thing with holes in it). A real curtain rod and some drywall would make it spiffy. You can see the framing. It was obviously an addition. But we might not ever get to this room.
I won’t even go into the plans for the back yard. I think for now, as much as I would love to just pay off debt, I know that we need to also work on the house. So for the summer at least, I think we will make the minimums on the debt, but save/use some of the “excess” to work on the house. I know it will return to me when we sell it. I also know that come winter, we won’t want to do projects, and can then safely put everything to the debt, after hopefully finishing out at least a few projects. Those are my plans anyway.
And the tomatoes just might pull through. They have some leaves growing again.