The window

When you look at this picture, you will see a window with a strange fitting into the ceiling and a set of white-ish mini blinds.

And if I ask you to look closer you will still see an ordinary window.  That is not your fault, it's just because you don't know the journey this window has been on.  When we moved into this house, the window was one of a few that had suffered the strange habits of the occupants before us.  Their way of opening a window which stuck or would not otherwise open was to break it.  This particular window, on the south wall of what will hopefully soon be the nursery was a jagged piece of glass sitting in its frame when we moved in.  There was also a black curtain that looked more like a sheet hanging in frront of it, in place of blinds or a normal curtain.

When we knew we were going to be starting the adoption process, I asked Nathan if he could figure out some way of fixing the glass before the home study so that it didn't look so bad.  Nathan and his dad took the window out of the wall and sent it to a local construction business who refitted it with new glass and sent it back.  Then it sat in our basement for a while, so that Nathan could repaint the outside frame.  This past week, Nathan and his dad put it back in place in the wall and even fitted the blinds in there, which had been bought earlier by Nathan's mother.  It may just be me that is impressed by all this, but it makes me very, very happy.

Wife Things

Nathan and I both kind of wish we could afford for me to stay home.  But we can't and we don't often dwell on it.  And really, I enjoy my job.  Of course there are days when things don't quite go my way and I get home and just feel exhausted.  And it's stressful, extremely stressful on occasion.

That's why when it comes to my weekends, I usually like to watch movies or work on knitting projects or read or just generally relax.  Needless to say, this doesn't do a whole lot to contribute to household duties, or "wife things."  Don't worry, that's my phrase for them, Nathan would never seriously call house chores "wife things." 

But yesterday, I took the menus and list I had created the night before and went grocery shopping.  And for me, never having approached shopping this way, I did pretty well.  I only bought 2 non-list items and only a couple name-brand things.  So, after groceries were bought, I came home and saw all the dishes waiting for Nathan's attention.  For about five weeks, Nathan was working 7 day weeks and then he was working hard on getting all the leaves raked up.  He's pretty great.  So, I rolled up my sleeves and did the dishes myself. 

While that was going on, I was also working on laundry.  I had a load of whites out on the line (in mid-November, I know, it's crazy.)  I also put a load of our work clothes in the washer and hung them up in the basement when they were done. 

And when all that was done, I made dinner. To be perfectly honest, all this happened because I wanted it to.  I really enjoyed everything I did as I was working on it.  It made me happy to relieve Nathan of the pressure of dirty dishes and having to go shopping. 

I guess I'm not so bad at these wife things.

The House

This summer has been an interesting one for the little house we live in.  I did not spend any time weeding our flower beds this year, so that the weeds run riot in them completely unchecked.  I hope to spend more time on the flowerbeds next spring.  Nathan has been very attentive to the lawn this year and seems to have given up on any thought of me mowing. Thank God!

We painted Nathan's office in the winter, but were unable to do anything with the ceiling that was damaged long ago by a leaking bathtub from above.  In April we got rid of the putrid purple-pink color on the walls of our bedroom and replaced it with a nice ice blue.  I had hoped to work on the breezway this month, but somehow the month has gotten away from us and the room is still in a little of sorry condition and the old refrigerator still sits there.  Oh well, maybe next month.

Spring

It feels a bit more like summer today, but spring, one of my favorite seasons, is definitely here.  I got home from a dispatcher class today and noticed that the red-bud tree at the end of our driveway had blossomed.  It only blumes for about two weeks, but it is an absolutely beautiful tree.  I'll try to get a picture of it up later.


Nathan got out into the field with his dad for the first time today to help with planting, which he enjoys. While he was out doing that I put an edge of primer around the ceiling in our bedroom.  We finished painting Nathan's office in Feburary and this month are working in our room.  I've decided to go with a shade of light blue and can't wait to no longer see the disgusting shade of pink-purple the room is now.  I'll  try to post pictures of the finished room later, too.

I knowmy posting has slackened off lately, and I'll make a more concerted effort to update more frequently.

Assessment

Over the last few months, I have discovered that, contrary to popular opinion, rehabbing an old, beaten up house is neither easy nor fun.

I'm not going to deny I felt a great sense of accomplishment after I painted the sun room and I was also pretty happy with the results of the living room.

Then we did the front door together and it looks great, and I'm happy with that. But this month, I have dedicated to repainting Nathan's office. However, before I started painting, I had to scrape the ceiling, which was flaking quite a bit. I thought it was going to be like scraping the living room ceiling, which involved scraping a little and then sanding and painting over to make it look right. But the office ceiling hasn't stopped peeling as I've scraped, so the decision has been made that I need to scrape the ENTIRE ceiling.

Now, to be fair, this is not a large room...thank God. But working on it is just me with a little scraper so the progress I make is relatively limited. I'm not sure I'll actually get around to painting this month.

It's so Pretty!

In the midst of Nathan spending his weekends working at a local apple orchard, me working on the books and looking for a job and substitute teaching, we continue fixing up the house room by room and piece by piece.

This month, I'm going to repaint Nathan's office (which is dark blue and doesn't go with the rest of the house), but the true excitement of the early month comes from our work on the front door.

When we moved in, it looked like this:

After quite a bit of scraping and using liquid scraper and sanding and making this past weekend a marathon of scraping, sanding and painting, the front door looks like this:

We still need to do a few touch-ups, but it is a huge improvement. The house has a very "cottagey" feel and I wanted a bright bold color for the front door. Pam and Craig picked this out and I think it's perfect.

Life in an Ice Box

Nathan tried to turn our heat on last week. Nothing happened. I don't know quite how things got confused, but there is an east and west of our street and we live on east. The gas company seems to think we live on west. Nathan had to fax them a copy of our lease, a copy of his driver's license and a few other things to try and prove to them we do in fact live where we say we do.

It was fine not to have heat least week. It wasn't that cold. I put flannel sheets on the bed and we just dealt, mostly. It made the cats a little more cuddly, trying to absorb our heat. It's not so fine this week. While I was gone this weekend, Nathan, who probably should have gone to spend the weekend with his mom and dad, just borrowed some of their space heaters and set them up in the bedroom. Now, we have enough heat in our room, but the rest of the house is at the very least, chilly.

This is fine during the day, since I spend most of my time at my desk in the bedroom anyway, but it's doing nothing for the pile of dirty dishes in the kitchen or the pile of bills on the desk in Nathan's office.

We were told it would be anywhere from five to ten days before we had heat.

Hemmed in

I'm not afraid of mice or rats or snakes or any animal of reasonable enough size to inspire fear. Instead, my biggest problem is spiders. I'm not really afraid of them, per se, I just don't like them at all...even a little bit.

This wasn't so much a problem when we were living in Tinley Park, I think our apartment has been inhabited since it was built and the spider count was relatively low. This is not the case in the house we live in now. It sat empty for close to a year after the previous tenants moved out. In that time, many spiders seemed to have decided that the ceiling corners of nearly every room were the best places to build webs. I can't even tell you how many I've killed painting just the sun room and living room. But, I started to feel like I was winning the battle against them until...I went into the garage today and saw these two...
I knew the first one was there, its web is absolutely massive and hangs above the outer part of our garage. The second is new to me and has made its web over a window in the other garage door. There was a third that was actually in the house for a brief period of time while I was washing the walls in the foyer before painting the living room. It went outside and Nathan wouldn't chase it for me. Because here's the kicker...Nathan absolutely refuses to kill them.

He says as long as they're outside and they're not doing me any harm. He dosen't seem to understand that they are in my space and, being spiders in my space, that means they must die. I can't kill them because I'm not sure I'm big enough to take them, so for now I think they're safe. But if they come inside, they will be penned in and executed when Nathan gets home. I take no prisoners in the Arachnid War.

News

First of all, a very enthusiastic congratulations to my very good friends Bonnie and Travis on the birth of their son Bennet Mark on the fourth...I can't wait to meet the little guy in October.

Bonnie, I took a suggestion of yours from a while ago the other day and watched the movie "Heartlands." I thought the movie was okay, to me it wasn't really memorable for anything but the music. I LOVED the music. I can't get enough of listening to Kate Rusby these days. Her thick Yorkshire accent reminds me of my friend Pippa, who was one of the girls I lived with in England. It feels like I'm sitting back in flat 18.

I'm starting to discover myself as a cook, which means I'm starting to cook more complicated things. My basic method is to find out what kind of meat we have in the freezer and throw it into a frying pan with whatever else we have on hand and some herbs. Today I made Cheerio chicken, which meant I peeled the skin off some chicken thighs and cut the meat off the bones and tossed it into the frying pan with some olive oil, minced garlic, lemon juice, and crushed Cheerios which had been mixed with poultry seasonings, garlic salt, fresh rosemary and oregano. It was much better than I was expecting. Tomorrow I'm trying salsa pork, which will be baked rather than fried, so we'll see how that goes. I rarely ever use recipes...I'm not sure yet whether or not this is a hindrance.

On Wednesday I had my very first substitute teaching gig, for high school art at my old high school. Ironically enough, the class is taught by my best friend from high school's mom. It was only a half day and the students were all right, but the fact that it was high school had me totally terrified of them before I went in. Next Wednesday...fourth grade.

Nathan has just about finished stripping the paint off our front door. I will be so excited when he's done with that. We've picked out a really pretty deep green color for the door and it will look lovely.

I've saved the biggest news for last. I'm an auntie! My wonderful and lovely sister-in-law Janelle (whom I hope will not mind me posting this on the blog) is going to have a baby in February. I am so excited and so happy for her and her husband.

2 down...6 to go...

For the last week, I've been devoting just about all my free time to repainting my living room. Before I got to it, the ceiling was peeling, the walls were a dirty blue-green, with patches peeling and cracked buckled plaster.

I rather loved the color and wanted to keep it the same, but I couldn't get more than a quarter size chip from the walls and when I took it to get a sample made, the color was so light that the sample they gave me was white.

So, I matched it as best I could with a color sample from Menards, but it turned out to be bluer than I wanted. The old color was much greener. Oh well, it still looks nice and clean. I finished today and moved all the furniture back in. The plaster is still buckled next to the fireplace, but at least it looks neater and I still have to take a bottle of paint remover to several places around the room. We took the curtains down and they need to go back up, but I've actually hung things on the walls finally, and it looks so much better.

The living room proved much more difficult than the sun room because it is so much bigger and there is more intricate wood work to get around, and I also had to do the little foyer. Also I did almost all the work myself and when I was taking the tape down from the ceiling it peeled off from underneath and in some spots took the wall paint down with it. But...it's done.

Just imagine how nice it will look once we actually get the floor redone and regrout the tiles around the fireplace...

So that makes the sun room and living room done; the office, both bedrooms, both bathrooms, and kitchen left to do...oh, and the stairwell, hallways and breezeway. Up next: the office.

New project

Earlier this month I got the okay to start working on the living room. It's turning out to be almost a bigger chore than the sun room. This past week I washed the walls and ceiling and scraped the flaking paint off a few spots on the walls and ceiling. I taped and moved most of the furniture out and covered the rest of it up and then spackled the few holes that were left. Hopefully, tomorrow, I'm going to get to start painting the ceiling.

I'm hoping we can keep the room the same color, but it's a very strange light blue-green color that, when I took a chip of it to get matched, the paint sample they gave me was white. I may just have to match it as closely as I can. Hopefully I'll be done with the room by the end of the week. I'm really looking forward to having two rooms done.

Oh, happy day!

Today, September 1, is my favorite non-holiday day of the year, and yes, I consider my birthday a holiday. This is the day I allow myself to decorate for fall, my favorite season. I love everything about fall decorations: the non-jack-o'lantern pumpkins, the deep bright colors, the leaves, the Indian corn. It all makes me want to take a hayride, wear every sweater I own at once, and watch Charlie Brown.

This was the first fall decoration I received, as a wedding present from Pam's boss. It used to hang on our front door in Tinley Park. It is simple and lovely, I love it.


The leaf rope was draped from the head table at our wedding and the green ribbon in it was the same kind we used on pew bows. I love the pumpkins on the mantle, too, Pam gave us the one on the left for our first anniversary, Mom got me the one in the middle for Christmas, and I bought the one on the end.

I absolutely love these blocks. I saw them while shopping with my mom before Christmas last year and they ended up under her Christmas tree with my name on them.

Ever the fan of fairy tales, this is my pumpkin coach. The ribbon I tried to weave ribbon through it and make it look nice, but I'm not good at things like that, and I just think it looks sloppy. I bought loose fake leaves and sprinkled them over the book case and the sofa table in the previous picture, and put some in the pumpkin coach.

So, even though officially, the autumnal equinox is still weeks away, I will take this opportunity to wish you a happy fall, my favorite season.

P.S.: to someone who loves the season less, decorating the living room may have seemed silly since I have to take it all down tomorrow. Because...I'm going to start working on the living room tomorrow!

Mow 'em Down

Ever since Nathan and I moved into the house we live in, which has a lovely side yard with nice sheltered areas and a huge second lot to the west, Nathan has been convinced that I need to learn to mow the lawn.

I have avoided mowing, shoveling, raking and nearly any yard work my entire life. Mostly because I'm not supposed to be outside working or doing anything too strenuous when the weather is eather too hot or too cold. But Nathan seems to think that learning to mow the lawn will add dramatically to my self-worth, respectability as a human being, and value as a spouse. He didn't say that last part, I'm just expostulating.

I have tried several times, once with the push mower which meant I made it down and back one row in the side yard and said "There's no way I'm doing this." Then, Nathan went to his father's and borrowed a riding mower, but I made it clear I was not interested. But, Nathan is persistent. This weekend he borrowed my father-in-law's other riding mower and all but pushed me into the seat. So, I mowed some of the back yard and most of the side lot, all the while Nathan walked along side or behind the mower and would occasionally stop me with pointers.

Since we live in a small town, when we went to church on Sunday, one of the other members of the congregation stopped us (I don't know who it was, we were at Nathan's church), commented that he saw me learning to how to mow the lawn, and that he liked Nathan's teaching methods. Hmmm....

How does our garden grow?

I have never been much of a gardener. I never had a garden before, I never really did any weeding, except as a punishment I think, once or twice. So when we moved in here and the gardens were in such horrible shape...still are...I was a little intimidated. It turns out I actually don't really mind weeding and we planted some vegetables as well. It actually looks kind of nice.

These peonies have been here since before we moved in and they just bloomed this past week. I think they're quite pretty, even if I don't enjoy how peonies smell.
This is our vegetable garden, which my dad actually planted because I had no idea what I was doing. The plants were a birthday gift from my sister-in-law Janelle. We have four tomato plants, two cucumbers and two squash. And the really weedy leafy thing to the left is a patch of rhubarb that was there when we moved in.


My parents separated their hostas and donated the separations to us. We planted them under a big tree in our side yard, which is having a bit of a problem with ground cover. As you can see, we attempted to sod and it didn't take very well.

More Like a Home

We now have a functioning stove, courtesy of Nathan's friend Joe. The oven doesn't work quite right, but at least we can boil water and sautee things now.

We also have a dryer, courtesy of Nathan's friend Jamie. It's a bit old, and I'm told it takes longer than most dryers to heat up, but it is a dryer.

I have weeded several of the flower beds around the house which badly needed weeding.

The house is starting to feel more like a home everyday.

I call it Walden

When we were setting up the office Nathan was convinced we could fit his work desk, his computer desk and my desk all in the room, which is not that big, along with the printers, and file cabinet, bookcase, and garbage can.

I was more pessimistic and volunteered to have my desk upstairs in a corner of our bedroom. At first I didn't like it because it means when we are both on the computer, we are opposite ends of the house.

However, once we got it set up, I absolutely fell in love with it.
The books behind my desk are fantastic, I love being surrounded by books. There is a small bookcase next to my desk that the plant is sitting on that is filled with binders and notebooks that hold the fragments of ideas I've come up with over the years. The red paper in front of the big bookcases is my storyboard.

But I think my favorite part of the set up is the lamp over the desk. It used to hang over my Grandpa's chair in the den at their house.

This little corner of the room is my oasis, I call it Walden. I'm thinking of putting screens up to separate the two side of the room

Moved in

I actually took the time today to take pictures of the evolution of our new home.

This is my work area in our bedroom. I like having my computer out of the way of the high-traffic areas of the house. It means I might actually get things done.
This is my favorite feature of our bedroom. I love those bookshelves. We have also been able to store larger holiday decorations in the cabinets under the shelves.


Our guest bedroom is a little sparse, but it works. I was able to set up the folding table and wrap birthday presents without feline interference.
This is looking into the sun room. We don't have enough furniture yet to use it, but I'm hoping to go second hand furniture shopping soon and find some things to make this room usable.
These are my favorite features of the sun room. This looks into the living room. There are more pictures of the living room and kitchen, but I will include them on a later post.