Category Archives: home

‘n sync

Posted on by Chris
4

By this time in my life, I thought I’d have things pretty well figured out. Everything would run seamlessly. Nice house, decent job, well-dressed and behaved kids, money in the bank, the whole nine yards proper. Like on TV. Like grown-ups do.

Since the real grown-ups haven’t appeared to call my bluff, I guess this is it for me. I need to do the figuring out for myself.

In my head there are little boxes or shelves. One for crafting. One for food. One for house projects. For everyday maintenance. For bar stuff. Someday stuff. Laundry. The problem seems to be in the juggling – as soon as I devote time to one box, the rest of them fall by the wayside.  Then I’ll nudge them all back into line for about 24 hours, ever so slightly. I think, ah, sooo close. I can dooo this…. and whomp, some scheduling thing or exciting new project or empty refrigerator throws it all out of whack.  I can hear the gears grinding.

My question is this. How do other people do it?  It is one of the great mysteries of the universe, I am telling you. Is there some secret test you have to pass before the key to it all is revealed?

I want to write up a week’s worth of menus, shop for them, cook them, eat them on a clean dining room table, have clean underwear, sew things, keep my kids on track, walk the dog, stay current on bookwork, knit something, plan a new kitchen when the garage is done.  It really does not seem unreasonable. I want those damn boxes to be in balance.

I am unwilling to give up simple joys like Project Runway to achieve this goal.  Open to any and all other tips, however.

discipline apply here

Posted on by Chris
7

Yesterday I sent the Stitchers an article about a woman who lost 300 pounds over 5 years through diet and exercise.  FIVE YEARS!  She remained focused on this goal for FIVE YEARS.  It boggles the mind.

I am the complete opposite.  I have remained unfocused on many goals for five years.  For way over five years actually. I don’t understand how some people do it.  Lots of moms and/or dads bring home the bacon and turn it into tasty meals while overseeing homework and organizing all the other household stuff AND maintain some sort of hobby or outside life.  Am I missing that discipline gene?  Did I get the spelling gene instead?

My dad was disciplined about damn near everything.  I can remember a little file box with bill stubs in it – mine go in a drawer, if at all.  He clips his hair almost daily, jeans are neatly creased.  My mom leans more toward the middle.  With four kids, her time was pretty much already consumed but she usually had some plan for dinner and knew who had to be where at what time.  The laundry was never completely done, but she had some sort of crafty thing on the side.  Hmmm.

I have only two kids and a husband who does his fair share, and usually more.  What’s my excuse?  I have none. I am sad and pathetic, but it’s not like I lay around eating bons bons and watching my stories ALL the time!  I am stumped.  Where does my time go?

Last night for example.  It was a full work day, so I was home at 6.  I did bar bookwork, and we grazed on party leftovers (bonus of party hosting: leftovers.  Bonus bonus in this case: houseguest did clean up!).  Then,  since Girl Child and The Geek were otherwise occupied (and the Boy Child is away for 4 days), I watched episode 7 of Downton Abbey.  Girl Child grudgingly went to bed and The Geek and I watched The Killing from Sunday.

OK, so last night I did lay around watching my stories!  Jesus. But I prefer to call it “recuperating from party hosting”, thank you very much.  In any case, something has to change – time is a-wasting.  If that woman can focus on something for FIVE YEARS, surely I can do SOMETHING for half an hour.  Drum roll please….

THINGS I WILL NOW FOCUS ON COMPLETING

  1. Meal planning.  For crying in the night, this should not be that difficult.  I hereby swear to set aside time to plan out a week’s worth of meals and make a shopping list for the Geek.  Like Real Grownups do.
  2. Do the stinking laundry.  And purge the crap we don’t wear.
  3. Lose 10 pounds.  I refuse to purge my Lucky jeans.  Having never had to LOSE weight, this is foreign to me.  Am hoping #5 below will do the trick.
  4. Excavate the bedroom.  Reduce the Hoarder Alert from Orange to Yellow, at least.
  5. Walk or do Kinect.  See #3.
  6. Bring the monthly bar work current.

I AM disciplined about some things, the fun things.  I’m pretty good about writing here, but that’s FUN and some people like it.  I also feed the dog most days.  I am RELIGIOUS about securing camping dates.  So there’s that. Now I just need to apply that fierce dtermination to the things on my list.

Wish me luck.  I might forget.  Luckily, Downton Abbey is finished for the season and Mad Men won’t be back til 2012.

gallery

Posted on by Chris
2

There is a space on the wall above our “office” (and by that I mean the desk upon which our computer sits in the living/dining area) that has never  been quite right.  Add to that my growing collection of thrifted art with no home, and the light bulb went off.  Gallery style hanging!  I thought it might help separate the space visually from the rest of the wall.  Regular readers will know precision in anything is not my preference/strongpoint, so I was a bit wary about taking this on and having it turn out halfway decent.  Then I saw on the glorious interweb about using newspaper templates to figure out the layout – even I could handle that.

draft

Now, the biggest problem is that most of this art hangs by wires, making it hard to measure where the nail should go.  Let’s not tell The Geek how many *ahem* extra nail holes there may be.  And yes, I know the spacing is not perfect – you artist types will just have to live with it.  Especially the horsy print on the right – it is just a tad too big for that leftover space – but since it is a horse, I think a certain artist might forgive me.

time for your close up!

someday i will find a good mid century lamp, i swear

The bottom line is it makes me happy despite its lack of precision!  And it does separate the space like I hoped it would.  Bonus: I get to see the stuff that would otherwise lay around in a pile.

looking forward

Posted on by Chris
2

It seems to me that by this time last year, much fun had already been had in the sun.  I distinctly remember sitting in the sun with Miss Z and drinking Prosecco pre-plant sale in mid-March, fer crying out loud.  And the weather being so nice, I already had lots of yard chores done and plant babies in.  So far, 2011 has been a bust.  I am left to planning what I WILL do in the sun, should it ever actually make more than a 5 minute, filtered appearance.  Such as:

  • Busting out the spring clothes.  I am most displeased that I am still having to wear winter’s wardrobe.  It was 38 degrees here when I came to work yesterday, and it snowed the day before that!  My skirts and sandals are dying to come out and play.
  • Getting yard work done!  Seriously, it disgusts me.  Not only the regular maintenance stuff in the front, but the whole back yard needs to be gutted.  Which I am actually kind of excited about.  Pressure washing, concrete staining, junk hauling – all that needs to happen first.  Then the rebuilding of the landscaping.  And plant buying.  Maybe less viewing of 4 neighbors yards.  Also, I would super appreciate it if the “lawn” would  dry out enough for me to mow it before it’s 3 feet high.
  • Happy hours al fresco!  Yes!  Fancy cocktails, food and good people on Fridays!  Hoping it becomes a regular thing this summer.
  • Picnics.  In the park, with The Sandwich.  Our go-to is salami, mozzarella, tomatoes and basil on rosemary or olive bread, with dijon, olive oil and salt and pepper.
  • Don’t even get me started on BBQ’s.  Ribs, foolproof grilled chicken, cornbread salad, potato salad, grilled asparagus, grilled haloumi.  PIEEEEE.
  • Camping.  It’s true, I may well be the only member of my family that actually enjoys camping – the others endure it.  First trip out this year – Steamboat Rock in June.
  • Farmers markets.  I will try to grow some things, but I LOVE the cornucopia of stuff you can get at the markets.  Goal this year:  go to the University Farmers market and get everything for the entire meal.
  • Summer schedule.  On Wednesdays-Fridays, I get home at 2:30 pm.  Which makes the summer days seem twice as long.  Kids are home, we can head out to swim, picnic, take Jack to the park…
  • Big goal this year!  CLEAN OUT THE FREAKING GARAGE.  Our house is 980 SF.  The garage is another 500 SF of unfinished, packed-to-the-gills, space.   Need to gut it so we can one day convert part of it at least to living space.  It will be done!

I hope I get to do some of these things soon. Otherwise, the consequences may be dire.  I’m used to this weather, having lived here since the 70′s but jesus, this is too much!

What about you – what are you looking forward to when the sun comes out?

the great purge – part one

Posted on by Chris
6

When we moved into this wee tiny place in April 2007, every room needed work.  There was wall paper to remove, walls to paint, windows to replace, umpteen handrails to remove in the bathroom.  The only thing in good condition was the hardwood floors.  And the tile in the bathroom was decent too, once you got past the desk lamp as light fixture.  And the accordion door in place of the actual door.  But I digress.  This is what the kitchen looked like.

This is looking in from the dining room, where we were removing wall paper (hence the giant bits of missing wall.) The door on the other end goes into the garage.  We don’t talk about that.  In a perfect world, we would have replaced the cabinets then too, but windows without cracks were higher on the list (and in a perfect world, we would have bought a killer mid-century house to start with).  So we decided to paint what we could, replace the counters and sink and get a stainless steel frig.  We took the doors off the cabinets and…they’re still off.  Started sanding them and discovered one of the layers of paint is some weird uber glossy stuff that WILL NOT SAND.  So this spring we will try some Kilz on them first.

The counters we got are a black and white speckled Corian, because it goes with everything.  Good thing too, because this year I decided I no longer liked the butter yellow I had painted the walls.  The walls in the dining/living areas are a pale blue, and in a house this small it’s better to maintain a little continuity.  The kitchen is now a slightly greener version of the pale blue.

And now the point of this post.  This is what the kitchen looked like last Saturday. A hot damn mess. FYI, if your initials are JWR or RD, you may want to avert your eyes.This might sting a little.

Painful, I know.  In an ongoing effort in the New Year to declutter and make our spaces more efficient, I opened a can of whup-ass up in here over the last week.  Still not perfect, but closer.  For inquiring minds, this is about 20% of my cookbooks.

See that dish rack? Indeed, we have no dishwasher.  None of the places I’ve lived in since I left home has had one, so I don’t really miss it. I hear they are fabulous. And we put the bottom doors back on in the middle to guard the garbage from a certain yellow Lab.  You can see the lovely orange color they were once.

Until we get the proper doors back on, I decided to add some fun curtains.  Not everyone’s style, maybe, but the colors go well with the walls and the rug and it serves my purpose of enclosing that shelf.

Got rid of a bunch of crap under here and some spiffy shelf paper.

Put some snazzy magnetic spice jars on the fridge and made a sweet little curtain for that shelf.  Yes, I am aware it is too short. I have decided I can live with it.  I am auditioning that gray fabric as slipcovers for the food processor and blender that are now on the fridge.

The pantry.  Took 7 cans of olives out of here!

New accessories to finish it up!

Still need to replace the door into the garage – it has a *ahem* small hole in it due to busting through when we got locked out.  Once that is in, I can paint the trim and both doors to match the window.  And this pile is going to Goodwill!  The intervention from Hoarders is delayed a little longer.