My Favorite Day of the Year

No, June 27 is not my favorite day of the year. J

 My favorite day of the year is the day that I am finally finished (or mostly finished) with my front yard and porch spring spruce ups.

I took a small break from painting and other indoor chores last weekend and worked outside. It was glorious and warm, and I thought it was going to be cooler on Saturday, but it really wasn’t, and I kind of overworked myself to the point that I was on the couch in my pjs by 4:30 in the afternoon feeling like an old, out of shape wimpy loser. One of the things I hate the most about getting older is that I can’t work outside the way I want to. I used to spend days and days planting flowers, pulling weeds, spreading mulch--doing whatever needed to be done and finishing it in a few days. I just cannot do that anymore, and I hate it! It takes me several weeks of weekends to accomplish what used to take me 2 or 3 days. And I don’t even plant the amount of flowers that I used to. Now, if I spend a couple of hours out in the heat doing all those spring/summer chores, I have to come inside for lots of cool-off breaks, and even then, I end up feeling like I am going to pass out and die of heat exhaustion right in my front yard. Good thing I live on a busy street; there’s a pretty good chance if I do keel over, someone will notice. And things take me sooo much longer since I have to come inside and cool off every so often. Ugh. Getting older is better than the alternative, but it sure does suck sometimes.

Even though I can’t work outside the way I used to, I still so enjoyed whipping my front porch into shape for the summer, even if it is almost July and I just finished it. I love my front porch; it is my most favorite thing about our house. The covered porch is one of the main reasons we chose this model of home to build. When we first moved in, I sat in a fold up lawn chair from Target on my new front porch in the evenings after the boys went to sleep, gazed out over the scraggly new sprouts of grass that poked up through a layer of straw and fell so in love with my house. That fall, I decorated the porch for the first time with mums and corn husks. At Christmas time, we bought wreaths, tied big red bows onto them, and hung them on each of the front windows. We draped garland with more red bows along the front porch railing and wound white lights through it all.

When spring came I filled the yard with flowers—pots on the porch overflowed with red geraniums, and mounds of vibrant petunias surrounded scrawny trees and filled in empty spaces amongst our newly-planted bushes in front of the porch railing. A few years after we moved in, Tony surprised me with a porch swing on Mother’s Day. I practically lived on that swing, watching the kids play kickball and whiffle ball with their friends or visiting with friends over a glass of wine. In those days, my porch seemed to be a magnet for neighbors and others who were passing by, and I loved it.  Back then, Tony worked nights, and there were very few of my evenings that were not spent on my cozy porch.

It quickly became the heart of my home in the warmer months, and I now spend time there as long into the fall as possible, wrapping myself in blankets when necessary. At the first sign of spring, the chairs are dragged from the shed, and I start dreaming of flowers and ferns and late evenings reading on the porch, even though it is still months away from when I can actually start planting. While I miss the days of hanging out with friends and neighbors while oodles of kids ran through sprinklers or covered the driveway with their chalky art, the best parts of my day are still those spent rocking the time away sipping coffee or wine or iced tea while reading or chatting with a friend on the phone. A few weeks ago, I got together with an old friend I haven’t seen for a while, and of course, we ended up on the porch with a bottle of wine. It was about 200 degrees and mosquitos were out in full force, but we didn’t care. We scattered citronella candles around our feet, wiped sweat from our faces, and after a few minutes, she propped her feet up on the railing and said, “You’re going to think I’m sappy and stupid, but I miss this. I miss hanging out on your porch.” She went on to tell me that times spent on my porch watching our kids when they were little were some of her very favorite memories.

Mine too.

22 years ago, I had such grand dreams of a happy home, filled with family and friends. That moment with an old friend made me remember the days when I relaxed on my porch while thinking, “Life just cannot get any better than this!”

I have been feeling rather sappy and stupid right along with my friend. (A few weeks ago, I wrote that all of our remodeling projects have brought up a lot of memories that I have been compelled to write about, and this is one of those times!) I have been longing for the days when I so very aware of how blessed I was with this beautiful home, because in the past few years, I have tended to treat it with more criticism than love. Whenever I am frustrated or discouraged with how things are going right now, I give my best effort to putting the brakes on my pity party and remind myself that I am still lucky to have this house, even if some of the shine has worn off. The inside may be a dirty disaster, but outside, I still have this oasis to escape to:

 

 

I love it even more now than I did the day we moved in and all I had to sit on was a cheap plastic folding chair. (And I loved it plenty even then). I have made great memories here, and it is my peaceful spot. Too bad I can’t live out there since it is cleaner and prettier than inside!

Very Slowly but Surely...

We are making little tiny bits of progress.

Very little tiny bits!

This past weekend, the weather was simply perfect. We don’t often see such days here in the Lou—days that are warm, blue-skied and sunny without being miserably hot and humid at the same time. Saturday was Rachel’s graduation day, so we accomplished next to nothing. I can’t say nothing at all because between me, Lauren and the one-armed bandit, we managed to fix the broken water pipe in the upstairs bathroom. Who knew I could be a plumber! Don’t be too impressed—my foray into the plumbing world was helped along by Tony getting his phone up in the giant hole in my kitchen ceiling and taking a picture of the pipe I had to help him fit in. My plumbing repertoire consists of holding a pipe from the underneath while he attached it from above in the bathroom. I have a bruise on my arm to prove it. :) Whatever. The broken pipe is fixed, the bathroom can be used again, but I still have a giant hole in my kitchen ceiling.

 Sunday, while I wanted to spend it painting the hallway and possibly the kitchen, my back was achy and right on the verge of kicking me to the curb, so I decided to supervise some yard work instead. Since we have been concentrating all of our housekeeping efforts indoors lately, the outdoors was sorely neglected and very weed-choked. I’m rather embarrassed to show these photos, but this is what the area in front of my porch looked like before Lauren and I went to work Sunday morning:

 

Why yes, you do see weeds that are taller than the bushes.

YIKES. 

This is what it looks like now, thanks to my girl who helped me dig up/pull weeds, clean up the piles of debris and spread mulch.

 

Lauren did most of the work, but I did pull a few weeds and trim the bushes. Amazing what you do when your husband has a broken arm and is pretty much useless in the yard work department. I’m just thankful I didn’t drop that trimmer and cut my nose off.

 

 

I still have things I need/want to do to get my porch ready for a lot of summer porch sitting, but I bought these ginormous flowers to hang.

 



My yard finally looks cared for and pretty, but oh, I paid dearly for my weekend shenanigans. Monday morning, I woke up to a back that clearly spent the night thinking of ways to torture me and make me miserable.

Seriously? Like I haven’t already moved through Plans A and B, now I have to come up with C? I honestly didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at that point.

I did neither and went to work. When I got home that night, I was determined that NO. MATTER. WHAT. I was going to get the hallway painted before I went to bed.

Yeah, that did NOT happen. I really did give it my best effort, but the more I rolled, and bended and stooped and climbed on a chair to do the trim, the more my back screamed at me, “Would you just STOP, you damn fool???”

I finally listened, and by the time I did, I was in so much pain I could barely stand at the sink to clean out my paint brush. I was in so much pain, that I sat down on my dirty, gross kitchen floor and cried. Then, I could barely get up, which made me cry even more. By the time Tony got home, I was on the porch reading, still in tears, and I'm sure he was thinking that I was being a big baby. My back often gives me grief, but it is the first time I have been in tears, and I usually just suck it up and carry on as much as I can. Though the tears were likely out of frustration as much as pain by that point because it seems like we just can’t seem to have anything go our way.

I have cried some more and gone to the chiropractor and regrouped once again. I have done nothing in the house this whole week because I wanted to give my back a chance to heal so it will decide to be nice to me.

So Plan C is this:  This weekend, I am hoping to finish painting the downstairs hallway and paint the kitchen. Then, if all goes well, big, giant IF, I am taking next week off to paint the kitchen cabinets.

In the meantime, I am on the hunt for the perfect shade of green paint for my kitchen. I think I have gathered every green swatch from every store that sells paint in St. Charles. I just can’t decide!

Thankfully, I am still feeling pretty positive most of the time, even if I do shed some tears now and then. I am tired of my dirty house. I am tired of floors that I can't walk on barefoot. I am tired of not being able to find things I need because they are packed away in boxes. But, I am still trying to enjoy this whole process and keep my thoughts focused on how lovely my house will look like when we are finished. If we are ever finished, that is.

I am crossing my fingers that my Plan C is the final plan, and that the next week is smooth and problem free.

Life...Under Construction

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about how much I loved my house when it was brand-spanking new and full of promise. What I didn’t write was how the process of building our house 22 years ago was a bit of a healing process for me.  More than “a bit” really. I’ll get to that in a moment or two. Or three. Probably more knowing me.

Years ago, when I used to scrapbook, I wanted to make one that told the “story” of my house. I gathered photos, started thinking what I wanted the book to show, and then, I chickened out because I thought I would be too emotional. I didn’t want people to look through the pages and perhaps be embarrassed to read such personal things when my scrapbooks were usually light-hearted and fun. Back in those days, I was afraid of my writing. Maybe “afraid” is not quite the right word, but I had never written about emotional things other than in my own private journals, and even then, I often held back for fear that someone would discover them and read my deep, dark “secrets.”

Over the years, I have gotten better about sharing more of my heart when I write because my job often requires me to. Having a couple of special people in my life who have always responded in positive ways to my writing and encouraged me to be “real” without fear has also helped me to be able to open up a bit more.

So, here I am today. The ME from 1993/94, when our house was being built, would never in a bazillion years have written a blog. Well, since blogs had not even been invented yet, I couldn’t have even if I wanted to. But the thought of writing about my feeeeelings in a public way would have never occurred to me. I censored my words and thoughts when I was writing privately.

Yeah, those days are LOOONG gone. And really, I have to say “Good riddance!” to those days. I rather enjoy writing about things that are important to me, and some days, I don’t know where I would be if I wasn’t able to sit at my computer and let my crazy thoughts spill from my brain into and through my fingers. I don’t always share what I write with anyone, in fact, most of the time I don’t, but now, I don’t really care if someday someone comes across my journals. Even if I am still alive when they do, I won’t be embarrassed by them. Well, maybe I would be a teensy little bit embarrassed, but mostly, whoever someday comes across the things I have written will know that I have been real. That I was able to take the emotions from my heart and put them into written words. And they will know what and who mattered most to me since that is often what I write about.

So, here I am now. Not quite someone who is always willing to put it all out there, but someone who does enjoy writing about things that can be a challenge to write about.

Now, I will get back to the story of my humble home.

We spent the spring and summer of 1993 looking for a house to buy. Right after we moved into the groovy 70s pad, we talked to our landlord about buying it, but he wanted way too much money considering all the work we would have to do to drag it out of the time warp it was it stuck in. We also looked at other existing homes. But by far, our favorite way to spend a Sunday afternoon was going from one new subdivision to the next and wandering through beautifully decorated display homes. Most of them were far out of our reach price-wise, but we continued to tour and dream anyway.

We also spent time in homes and neighborhoods that were in our price range, and when we stumbled upon our current house, we fell in love with it. We didn’t, however, fall in love with the location of the subdivision it was being built in. So, we went to a neighborhood we loved, CC, and asked the builder if he was willing to build this perfect-for-us house we saw somewhere else, and he told us no, that he only built from his plans. Discouraged, we spent the summer continuing to look at both new and older houses, but we were leaning toward building new. Finding no other neighborhood that we loved as much as CC, we made our way back there in late summer, intending to choose one of the available plans.

Much to our surprise, when we finally told his sales agent which plan we were going to go with, she said, “Oh, if you like that house, you will love this one! It’s a new plan, and it’s been very popular!” When she showed us the blueprints, we were quite surprised to see that it was the house we loved in the neighborhood we didn’t love. Apparently, we were not the only ones who loved that home and wanted to build it in Cambridge Crossing, so the builder checked it out and decided to offer it in his development. It seemed like it was meant to be, and we were thrilled. We had found our new house! My excitement wasn’t even dampened a week or so later when I took my mom to show her where we decided to build, and I slid off a wet, curvy hill and hit a tree.

It has taken me too much time to get to the point of this story, but here it is: The time we spent looking for a new home that spring and summer gave me something wonderful and exciting to look forward to. It was the only bright spot in a very gloomy and sad time; I had experienced two miscarriages in the previous few months, and I wasn’t doing so well. We really wanted to have another child, yet it didn’t seem to be in the cards for us, and after four miscarriages, (2 before our son, and 2 after) I was ready to give up. Looking for a new place to raise our little boy Brandon put a smile in my heart and a stirred up my creative juices. I couldn’t wait to get out of that ugly 70s house that held so many bad memories and tears and pain. I had done what I could to make it homey, but it wasn’t our home, and I couldn’t wait to leave and start over fresh somewhere else. I began to think of it as leaving the dark, sad past behind me and stepping into a sunny, fresh new future where ugly harvest gold and ugly memories were just that…distant, old memories.

While the previous months had been filled with searching for the perfect home, the next couple of months became filled with planning how I would decorate, furnish and landscape. The house was much bigger than we would need with only one child, but we didn’t care. Better Homes and Gardens magazine became my favorite thing to read, and every issue soon had colorful strips of paper marking pages of furniture, wallpaper, paint colors and accessories I loved. We continued to spend our Sundays visiting model homes, jotting down ideas and making sketches. I collected paint swatches and spent hours looking at wallpaper samples. I knew that we would never be able to do everything we imagined, but we enjoyed every minute of the planning. While a new house certainly couldn’t come close to taking the place of new baby, it gave me something positive and happy to focus on for the first time in a long time.

Then, on a crisp, blue-skied day just before Halloween, I peed on a stick and the lines turned pink.  I was pregnant again, and I didn’t know if I should jump for joy or curl up in bed and cry.I did neither of those things, but I was in shock for sure. The fleeting moment of joy I felt was quickly overtaken by fear and disbelief, and I couldn’t help but think, “Why now?” I had resigned myself to not having any more children. In fact, I had a pack of birth control pills in the bathroom cabinet waiting for me to start taking them the very day I found out I was pregnant. I was finally on my way to being in a good place, enjoying my son, finding ways to be happy again, and I was completely terrified to hop back on the rollercoaster of emotions and crazy fears that I had no doubt that pregnancy would be.

In a state of panic, I called my doctor about a nanosecond after I took the test. The next day, I started bleeding. It seemed as if my ride on the rollercoaster would be short lived, and remember thinking that if I was going to lose the baby, I wished it would hurry up and happen so.  But alas, it did not, and my focus shifted from our new house to our new and growing (I hoped so anyway!) little bean. The day after we spent an afternoon picking out flooring, cabinets and countertops, I was seven weeks pregnant and bleeding heavily as we sat in front of the loan officer at our mortgage company filling out loan construction papers. I tried to focus and tried even harder not to cry. It has been 22 ½ years, and I will never forget the details…it was a blustery, rainy, frigid November day. As we drove home from the meeting at the mortgage company, cold rain streamed down the car windows and hot, burning tears streamed down my face as I prayed for, no begged, for God to let me keep this baby. I silently bargained with Him that I would give up on the house I loved if only my baby was okay.

The next day, an ultrasound showed us that our baby was, at least for the time being okay, but I knew there was still a long way to go. My life then became a whirlwind of weekly visits to a perinatologist, almost daily blood draws, progesterone supplements and ultrasounds while the bleeding continued.  

It was a rough couple of months. I spent a great deal of time that fall and early winter resting on the couch while my little boy watched Disney movies. We stopped spending our weekends going to model homes, but I didn’t stop dreaming of all I wanted to do to our new house. I still marked pages in magazines and created a cozy, restful home in my thoughts. If only Pinterest had been around back then! Christmas came and, finally, I was out of the first trimester. The bleeding I had experienced for 2 months finally slowed then stopped altogether. I was released from the specialist, and my twice monthly visits to my regular ob, who I dearly loved, put my mind at ease. I slowly began to relax and enjoy the pregnancy with my baby boy.

We began making the rounds of display homes once again. Since we lived nearby, we drove to our lot regularly, and I remember how excited we were on a March day when a hole in the ground and a mountain of reddish mud next to it meant construction on our home had finally began. Tony carried Brandon to the edge and told him, “This is going to be our new house!” I will never forget how Brandon looked at him with a puzzled look and said, “I don’t wanna live in that hole, I wanna live in OUR house!” As the days and weeks went by, we made daily trips to our lot and excitedly watched every bit of progress. We took so many photos as the skeleton of boards eventually turned into walls and window openings. When there were rooms we could actually walk around in, we did that and excitedly envisioned our life there. I so enjoyed watching our home take shape. It was an experience I will always remember and cherish. I would love to share some photos from when we were building and first moving in, but since my house is in disarray right now, and pretty much everything I own is packed away, including photo albums, I will have to share them another time.

By then, our little guy was bouncing and kicking around, letting me know every day that he was happy and well.

And I was happy. How could I not be? In a short time, we would be moving into a brand new house and a short time later, we would be joyously welcoming a new baby into our family. I thought about how not only was our new home under construction, but our very lives were under construction. We were so close to both dreams coming true, and it was one of the happiest times of my life. After experiencing so much heartache, good things were happening. And while those good things didn’t erase the heartache, they made it easier to bear.

I really believed and felt as if life was turning the direction I wanted it to go. Growing a new baby and constructing a new house at the same time was soothing my soul and slowly healing my broken heart. 

I was inspired to write this post because I am feeling much as I felt back then. My soul and heart are once again in need of healing after what has been a very rough year. Not for the same reason, and in some ways, this past year has been more crushing than the one we spent trying to have a baby. I can’t publicly write about it, not because I don’t want to, but because other people are involved, and the story affects more than just me. What is important though is that I find it kind of ironic that once again, this house is playing a vital role in my well-being. I have wanted to do most of these home renovations for years and was not able to get my husband to agree to any of them. I really had given up, and all of the improvements we are working on now have been mostly his idea. I did not ever imagine we would be in this deep a couple of months ago when he said, "Let's rip up the carpet in the dining room and office and put down wood floors." I also had no clue how healing I would find the process of ripping up old floors, choosing new ones, clearing out debris and choosing paint colors.

There have been many times over the years that I have really hated my house and wished that we could move and start over somewhere fresh and new. This whole renovation process has brought up so many memories from when we were building it, and it is causing me to fall in love with my house all over again. I won’t say I am in love with my life right at the moment, but I am working on that, too.

Even houses that are great and loved can use some love and sprucing up.

Just like life.

Speaking of sprucing up…I’ve been out of town all week for a work trip, and Tony had the flu, but I did manage to get the dining room painted before I left. I just love this color. I am still a looooonnnngggg way away from having everything painted that I want to paint before we put the floor down, and there is still a huge hole in my kitchen ceiling, but slowly but surely, things are improving!

Progress...and a snafu or two

I am starting to feel like I am living in an HGTV episode. You know the ones where everything that can go wrong, does go wrong? The ones that leave viewers thinking “HOW predictable! OF COURSE everything goes wrong!”

That is my life right now with this home renovation project. Last weekend, I was feeling great, seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. We were slowly but surely getting rid of debris, and I painted a room!

Progress!

Another room needed a bit more drywall work, and then it would be ready to paint.

Progress!                    

I had a plan for what would be accomplished each day and where I would be by the end of this weekend. I am going out of town for a work trip on Tuesday and will be gone for three days. Last weekend, I painted the home office area, and I decided I would feel quite pleased with myself if I had the dining room and downstairs hallway painted by the time I had to leave on my trip. Then, I planned to spend next weekend beginning work on my kitchen cabinets. I know that is going to be a massive amount of work that is going to take some time, but once they are finished, all that will be left to do before the flooring can be placed is to paint the kitchen and family room. Again, a lot of work still to do, I know, but like I said, I was starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I told Tony that if we stuck to the plan, we could have it all finished and start moving everything back in by mid-July. I even wrote these deadlines I gave myself in my planner, thinking that if they were visible to me each day, I would be more likely to stick to them and not give in to laziness on days and nights when I wasn’t in the mood to work and would rather sit on the porch with a book and a frosty drink.

You know what they say about the best laid plans, right?

On Sunday afternoon, Tony had a bicycle accident and broke his elbow and a bone in his hand.

So much for the perfect plan. He won’t be able to do anything using his right arm (and he is right handed) for 12 weeks.

Nothing got done on the house during the week at all, until Friday night when Lauren and I, with guidance and some help from Tony, pulled the old carpet off the stairs.

All week, I felt rather defeated and down about the wasted days, but there really wasn’t much I could do anyway because the drywall work in the dining room wasn’t finished.

I am happy to say I finally gave myself a kick in the pants and decided to look on the bright side of things, because really, in the grand scheme of it all, what is a little ol’ delay, huh? The work will be finished eventually, and in the meantime, I really don’t have to clean much since everything is filthy and there is not really anything that can be done about it at the moment. Another bonus is that now, I don’t have to feel rushed to get the cabinets finished, and I can take my time with all the rest of the painting as well. To celebrate my shiny new positive attitude, I even bought some flowers for the kitchen so that I can have at least one thing in this house that is pretty to look at.

 

Tony managed to finish the drywall work with one hand and my help, and I came up with a new plan, a much more relaxed plan than the first one.

Plan B hit a snafu, too.

Thursday night, one of the girls was taking a shower, and water started pouring into the kitchen from the upstairs bathroom. We had a similar problem a couple of years ago, but it had been fixed, and there had been no water leakage issues since.

Now, my already gross kitchen looks like this:

 

Rachel’s boyfriend was over hanging out yesterday, and Tony put him to work cutting a hole in the ceiling so that he could try to figure out where the leak was coming from. He was a trooper, and with Tony’s guidance, they found the cause of the leak.

 

When one-armed Tony tried to remove the offending joint and piece of pipe, he ended up breaking the main line from the bathroom.

Oh, the fun just never ends around here!

He cleaned up and went to Home Depot intending to buy the pieces he needs to fix it, and wouldn’t you know, Home Depot doesn’t sell those things. He will have to purchase them at a plumbing supply store, or call a plumber.

And, it’s a holiday weekend, so no plumbing stores will be open until Tuesday.

And, the man swears he is not going to call a plumber.

Tony is a very handy guy and can do just about anything. However, I fear that he may have bitten off more than he can chew when it comes to fixing the main water line, above his head, with one arm.

Lord, help me. I am praying that he doesn’t cause more damage when he tries to fix it.

In the meantime, I present the one room (our home office) that is finished and ready for a new floor.  One down, four to go.

Before:

 

During:

 

And after: (The white part under the chair rail will have picture frame molding once Tony has the use of his arm back).

 

Coming up next is the dining room and hallway. They look like this at the moment:

 

 

 

 

Hopefully, by tomorrow, at least one of them will be coated in a creamy yellow.

While this home renovation project has turned into way more than I expected it to be, I am rather enjoying it all, even with the setbacks we have already encountered. I have been doing a lot of reminiscing and writing about so many memories from when we were planning and building this house along with reflecting on good and bad times spent here. I originally planned to blog about the whole sprucing up process, but I have a sneaky feeling it is going to end up being way more than that as time goes on. Somedays, I write and write, and I am rather enjoying that, too.
Until next time, Adios from the chaotic construction zone. Hopefully, the coming week will be less eventful than the last.

Dancing in the...Dust

When we moved into our house nearly 22 years ago, I thought I was the luckiest person. We were moving from a house that had been built in the 1970s (and was still stuck there!) It was a great house with a big, beautiful yard, a gorgeous tree right outside the front door and neighbors that we loved.

However, we didn’t own it, and I did not love the harvest gold appliances and bathroom fixtures. While I loved the huge kitchen, I most definitely did not love the dark fake-wood ornate cabinets or the floor that looked like various sizes of pebbles in all shades of orange, gold and brown. All of those things may have been quite groovy in the 70s, but in the 90s, they were just blech. And ugly.

When we decided to build this house, I wanted most every surface to be white. White floor. White countertop. White appliances. White walls. You get the picture. Our house was so sparkling white it was blinding.

Not really blinding, but it was very pristine with not a speck of ugly dark brown or harvest gold. We did however choose hunter green carpet (it was the 90s after all!). For some reason, I loved that carpet. When the house was being built, the builder called one day to tell us it was our last chance to change any of the flooring we picked out because he was ordering it all that day. We briefly talked about changing the carpet color to tan, but decided what the hell? If we got tired of it, we would replace it.

Yeah, that did not happen.

If I had been able to look into a crystal ball in 1994 to see that my beloved hunter green carpet would be the harvest gold and avocado green of the 90s, I wouldn’t have chosen it because I grew tired of it less than 10 years after moving in. By then, we had 4 kiddos and no extra money to replace carpet. Also, it held up very well and still looked “good” so it was harder to justify ripping it up. And I grew to hate it. My decorating taste has changed more than once over the years, and it was always hard to pick new paint colors because it had to look good with that hunter green carpet.

But, 22 years ago, I loved every single thing about this house. Everything. I walked around the empty rooms the day we closed, taking it all in, thinking of how I would decorate each room, dreaming of the memories we would make here with our children, one of whom was still in my belly, just 2 weeks away from being born!

Like I said, I loved it all. I loved the front porch that already had a chair waiting for my 9 months pregnant self to sit in while I bossed everyone around and told those who were helping us move where to put things. I loved the crisp white vinyl floor in the kitchen and the oak parquet in the hallway. I loved the hunter green carpet. I loved the white countertops and the golden oak cabinets. I had just been relieved of 8 weeks of bedrest the day before, and I couldn’t wait to put my beautiful, spacious kitchen together. I loved the white walls that were a blank canvas just waiting to be coated with pretty paint colors and wallpaper.

This house has been through many transformations since then. I have wallpapered and ripped down wallpaper while cursing and swearing that as God is my witness, I will never wallpaper again. I have painted and repainted so many times I can't even remember how many. We covered the white vinyl kitchen and bathroom floors with ceramic tile. We finished and refinished the basement, bought new furniture and curtains and replaced the fake wood baseboards. We have rearranged kid’s bedrooms as our family grew. Yet sadly, the hated hunter green carpet survived every single one of my redecorating escapades. But alas, the time has come! I have said, “Adios!” And, “Good riddance!” to most of the green carpet. It is still on the stairs and in the upstairs, but there is not a trace of it downstairs. There are now 38 boxes of beautiful wood flooring waiting to be placed throughout the whole first level. Yay and yahoo!

There aren’t enough adjectives to describe how I feel about that. Giddy is the first one that comes to mind.

And those piddly little makeovers of the past? They are nothing like the transformation my beloved home is going through now.

This renovation that started out with us only replacing the carpet in the dining room and office area has turned into one of those “If you give a mouse a cookie” situations.

*If you decide to replace the flooring, you are going to realize that you simply cannot have beautiful new floors with walls that haven’t been painted in years. So you are going to want to paint them.

*If you paint the walls, you truly must paint all of the white baseboards and doors and trim. Because who wants beautiful new floors, freshly painted walls and dirty white trim?

Not me.

*If you have pristine new white baseboards and trim with newly painted walls, you really must paint the ceilings, too. Right?

*And if you are putting beautiful new floors down in the kitchen, the 22 year old cabinets that need some love and attention just won’t do any longer. Will they?

Nope.

*And if you decide that you are going to finally take the plunge after years of thinking about it and paint your kitchen cabinets, well, the old, stained white countertops that bleach won’t even clean will feel left out if you don’t replace them. Won’t they?

Yep.

All of the above is where I have been over the past month.

In my head anyway.

Right now, I am in the painting ceilings and trim phase while walking across dirty subfloors that are crying out to be new and pretty and loved. Not only are they dirty and oh-so-gross, I can’t walk through my house barefoot because of the nails and staples in the subfloor that we are slowly but surely smashing down with a hammer. These Sketcher sandals have become my very good friend over the past month.

 

My plan at the beginning was to blog about it as we progressed, and that clearly has not happened, but I have been taking photos along the way. Don’t be jealous now. I just know that everyone dreams of living in a home that looks like this!

 

Those are photos that have been taken over the past month as we have ripped all of the flooring from our downstairs. I gotta admit that while I loved that vinyl flooring in 1994, when we uncovered it a few weeks ago, I wasn't feeling the love.

We have progressed, though, and this is what my house looks like today.

 

I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, and yesterday, I finally was able to start painting. So far, I have only painted the ceilings and trim in the dining room and office space. I have chosen a paint color to cover up the red, and my next project is to primer over the red walls. I used to love that red, but it is time for that color to go, too.

My house is definitely a work in progress at the moment, and while I hate what I am living in now, I know (hope!) it will be so worth it when we are finished.  

I will have to keep reminding myself to dance in the dust and find things to love and enjoy about the process as I sweep and hammer and paint and breathe some love back into this home.

 

Easy Like Sunday

Easy Like Sunday…

I have somewhat of a love/hate relationship with Sundays. On one hand, I love them because they are typically slow-paced and quiet. That’s my favorite kind of Sunday, anyway, and while not every one of my Sunday’s IS that way, I sure cherish those that are.

Easy like Sunday mornings…

Tony leaves early on Sunday mornings for long runs with the dogs, Rachel and Justin usually sleep in late because it’s the one day a week no one has to be anywhere early. I normally awake pretty early, so that means I have lots of quiet time to read, crochet or watch a movie. When the weather is decent, I love settling into a rocking chair on the porch and when it's not, on the couch with a quilt and a steaming cup of coffee, relaxing in the knowing that I don’t have to rush off anywhere.

I also love Sunday mornings because it is the one day of week I can take the time to make a good breakfast, one that sometimes turns into brunch by the time everyone rousts themselves from sleep. I love the routine of making homemade cinnamon rolls or chocolate chip waffles or pumpkin muffins that we all eat in our pjs before we’ve showered and prepared ourselves for the day. I love the smell of bacon sizzling in the oven, and that is often what encourages the kids to rise and shine and call down the stairs, “Is that bacon I smell?” A cheesy eggy potato-y casserole baking in the crockpot when I wake up in the morning makes me downright giddy. What I love most of all about these Sunday breakfasts is that my family loves and looks forward to the comforting routine of them. Before anyone makes plans, they always ask me on Saturday night if I am making breakfast and if I can make it early before they leave. Justin has a newish girlfriend who often stays over on Saturday night because she lives kind of far away; it made my heart sing the first time she was staying and he told her, “Oh, you will love my mom-she makes awesome breakfasts on Sunday mornings!” He has been talking about moving out, and he told me a few weeks ago that Sunday breakfast will be what he most misses. He asked if he could still come over for breakfast if/when he does.

I love that.

I also love that my girls’ friends who often spend the night even ask me on Saturday night what breakfast I’m making the next morning. And when Lauren is home, as she is on this frosty winter Sunday, I love knowing that 3 of my 4 children are safe and snug under my roof.

This Sunday morning was especially a good one. Things in my life have been so hectic and crazy that I haven’t made many Sunday breakfasts lately. A couple of weekends, no one was home but me, and as much as I love a big breakfast, I don’t make them for myself. I’ve barely even been cooking dinner lately as I get home too late and too tired to do much more than throw some chicken nuggets and tater tots on a baking tray. Some days, that even seems like too much trouble, so we’ve been eating a lot of pizza. One night this week when I had to work late, Tony and Justin ate cereal for dinner.

 I hate that.

Life is still crazy, and I had a million other things I should have been doing today and yesterday, but Lauren was home, and I decided I was stepping away from all of the “I should be...” guilt and just enjoying the weekend. And it’s been so great, and very much (desperately!) needed. I spent the whole day yesterday with my girlie, then last night all of us, including Lauren’s best friend, Justin’s girlfriend and Rachel’s boyfriend, went bowling. Oh, we had so much fun. I knew everyone would be sleeping in this morning, but I of course was up before dawn. It was snowing, and oh so beautiful, and I decided to make a big batch of cinnamon rolls to surprise everyone. I haven’t made them in forever, and I found such comfort in sinking my hands into a huge, squishy pile of warm yeasty deliciousness.

I also took some time to work on a blanket I started crocheting back in the fall. I haven’t taken the time to work on it in months, and I love that it is now big enough that it serves two purposes…one, to warm my lap as I worked on this cold morning, and two, to soothe and calm me in a way that nothing else can.

It is afternoon now, and everyone is out and about, leaving me home with more quiet time. I sat down at my computer to do some work that I know I will regret not doing when tomorrow comes, but I couldn’t do it. I am not sure what drew me to write for my blog when I haven’t written here in over a year, but something did. And I decided to go with it. So, instead of doing work that needs to be done for my job, I started a load of laundry, made a pot of coffee, and settled in to write. I couldn’t think of a better way right now to spend a chilly, alone afternoon, and I am loving it.

The craziness of the week ahead will have to wait.  J

On another note, I started a “project” on January 1 that I am really having fun with. I decided that I am going to take a picture of something every day for the entire year. I have this new camera that is completely awesome, that I am mostly completely clueless how to use, and I have signed up for a class in February. I’m still in the phase of “oh, crap, I forgot to take a photo today” while scrambling, sometimes late at night, to figure out what to take a photo of, but I am hoping that it will soon become a habit.

Here are some of my favorite daily pics so far.

 

I have realized over the past few years that while it is quite a nice feeling to have all of the Christmas decorations put away and have the house clean and back in some sort of order, I miss the lights that I put everywhere. I miss driving up to my house and seeing it look so festive and welcoming. So, for the past few years, I’ve started leaving some things up, but giving them a winter vibe rather than a Christmas vibe. I leave out things snowman/snowflake related, and I try to incorporate a strand or two of Christmas lights that I leave up until closer to spring. (Indoors, only!) This is my favorite spot right now…my dining room. I plug in the lights each day as soon as I walk in the door from work.

 

I have been slowly collecting some fun new things to use in the kitchen, and these bowls make my heart smile every time I look at them. I put them to good use over the holiday season!

 

 

I had so much fun over the holidays trying some new recipes, and this was one of my favorites. I made these little beauties to take to an after-New-Year’s-party at my cousins. They were a bit time consuming, but they were sooooo tasty! I bought those cute little phyllo shells already made, cut up cubes of brie, topped them with a dab of cranberry sauce that I made, put a  few chopped pecans on top of that, drizzled them with a bit of maple syrup, and baked them until the cheese was melted. I will definitely be making these again.

 

There have been so many breathtaking sunrises and sunsets lately. I have no words to describe them, so I’m not even going to try. I will just let this picture speak for itself.

 

I took this one this morning. I can’t wait to get this blanket finished and snuggle up under it on chilly days. I will probably have to share it with the cat like I do all of my other blankets, but that’s okay. I love how this is turning out. (I seem to have a thing for polka dots, huh?)

 

I’m going to close with this...a necklace I bought for someone I have become very close to the past year. When I saw it in a shop in downtown St. Charles, I knew I had to buy it, but I couldn’t decide if I wanted to keep it or give it to her. I didn’t keep it, but I am going back to the shop and ask if she can make another one. (It is handmade) REFUSE TO SINK is a reminder I need, and even if I can’t get another necklace, I will be carrying that thought with me in the coming months. 

It feels really good to be back here writing.

Coming and Going

19 years ago, I was hugely pregnant in the midst of one of the hottest summers on record in St. Louis. That summer, I barely left the comfort of my house. My husband did a lot of the errand-running for me that summer while I spent a lot of time cooling my big pregnant body in a blow up kiddy pool in our backyard.

19 years ago, my sweet girl Lauren was coming. A baby girl after two boys.

19 years ago, after two boys, her room was fully stocked with all things pink and frilly. A few dresses in her closet. The bottom half of the walls in her room were sponge painted in mint green, yellow and pink, the top was a cheery, lemony yellow, and a pretty watercolory wallpaper border wrapped around the room dividing the two. White eyelet curtains with pink gingham ribbon trim framed the windows. A white bookshelf between the windows held books, a squishy pink doll that was stitched with “My First Doll,” pastel stuffed animals and whatever other girlie trinket I could find. A bundle of pastel satin balloons hung on the wall above the crib that was waiting for her. A white dresser held more little ruffled socks than any baby would ever need, and a music box on top of that dresser played “You are my Sunshine.” She already owned her first pair of shoes—tiny black patent leather Mary Jane’s that I imagined her wearing on her first Christmas.

19 years ago, I was sewing my first ever (and only ever!) quilt, one that had rows of eyelet woven with pink ribbon and edged with a yellow satin ruffle.  At night after Brandon and Justin were tucked in their beds, I would go into Lauren’s room, rock in the rocking chair with my hands on my belly and talk to her. I talked to her about all of the hopes and dreams I had for her.  I envisioned dance recitals and gymnastics classes. I thought of myself as a little girl and all of the things I had wished I could do, and I promised her that not only would she always be cherished and loved, but that I would do whatever I could to make all of her dreams come true. That summer, Elton John, who is one of my all-time favorite singers, released a song called Blessed, and every time I heard it, I thought of the baby girl I was carrying:

Hey you, you're a child in my head
You haven't walked yet
Your first words have yet to be said
But I swear you'll be blessed

I know you're still just a dream
your eyes might be green
Or the bluest that I've ever seen
Anyway you'll be blessed

And you, you'll be blessed
You'll have the best
I promise you that
I'll pick a star from the sky
Pull your name from a hat
I promise you that, promise you that, promise you that

To this day, when I hear that song, I tear up and remember the summer that I was expecting Lauren.

19 years ago, my bags were already packed and waiting by the front door since I had preterm labor with Justin at 29 weeks, and I was worried it would happen again. One of those bags, I cute mint green and white diaper bag, held her coming home outfit--a sweet little pink and white onsie with eyelet and pink ribbon trim. Yeah, I liked eyelet.

19 years ago, though her birth was still a month away, I was ready.

19 years ago, I was waiting for Lauren to come.

Now, a day away, Lauren is going.

It’s not been a summer anything at all like the one I spent waiting for her arrival. It’s definitely not hot like that summer 19 years ago when I would sometimes go into the grocery store and leave my car running so that it would stay cool while I was gone. In fact, it’s been a rather cool and rainy, not at all a normal St. Louis summer. And I haven’t been as excited for her going as I was for her coming. Don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled for her. I love her school. I think she is going to thrive there. But waiting for her to go has been different than waiting for her to come.

I digress.

Lauren’s room is still fully stocked. Very fully stocked. Shelves of trophies have replaced the shelves of stuffed animals and dolls and books.  Her walls, that are now blue rather than pink and mint green and yellow, are almost completely covered with posters of Cardinals baseball players, photos of her friends and her artwork.

No more music boxes for this girl. But her room does have a drum set.

The drawers of frilly socks have been replaced with black Adidas basketball socks, lots of them, that cost $12 a pair. A PAIR!! No Mary Janes have graced her feet since she was four. No ballet shoes have graced her feet since she was four either.

But, she does have shiny black Nike basketball high tops. More than one pair.

She’s never done a back flip on a mat in a gym, but she has been elbowed in the nose, knocked around, gotten floor burns on her legs and worse burns on her ego.

Her closet no longer holds frilly pink things like it did 19 years ago. Instead, it contains a myriad of shirts with team logos and hoods and athletic symbols. There hasn’t been a dress in her closet for many years.

Her room, her life, is stocked with things and dreams I never imagined 19 years ago when I cradled her in my belly while I rocked her and talked to her about all of the dreams I wished to come true for her.

Her life is now stocked with the things that are HER hopes and dreams, not mine.

Our living room is stocked now, too. It is stocked with the things that she has loved and the things that will accompany her going.

No more frilly quilts edged with satin and eyelet. Instead, a thick warm lime green and turquoise comforter that is so soft, I want to wrap myself up in it.

As she brought the very last thing that is going to college with her downstairs this afternoon and plunked it on the living room floor, it reminded me of a cute little diaper bag that once sat in almost the same exact spot, ready for her to come into the world. Now, it’s a very large Vera Bradley duffel bag that she received as a graduation gift.

She is going.

The pile of stuff in my living room proves that she is. Just as a mint green and pink and yellow room brimming with stuff proved she was coming 19 years ago.

I started writing this post very late last night. I put it aside because it seemed too scrambled and unorganized. This afternoon, Lauren brought me a folder with all of the letters she has gotten from her college over the past months, and I found it very ironic that their motto is “Dream Up.” I knew that, but didn’t give it much thought until today, with thoughts of this post I started writing last night very fresh in my mind. Some of the things she has received from them say things like, “Dream Big!,” and, “Follow your Dreams!” And always, “Dream Up!”

She is doing all of those things, right along with me. I can’t help but think now of the dreams I had for her 19 years ago when I dreamed of a happy, confident girl who would find her way much easier than I did. Dreams of a girl who knew she could do whatever she wanted. Those dreams of mine, perhaps the most important dreams of all, have come true, even if they came true in ways I never imagined 19 years ago.

I still have the same dreams for her that I had 19 years ago when I was waiting for her to arrive. I still promise her she will always be cherished and loved.

Unlike 19 years ago when the words to that Elton John song resonated so much with my heart, she has taken her first steps. She has said her first words. She’s no longer just a dream. Yet the lyrics of that song still resonate with my heart. She is getting ready to take her first new steps. She is getting ready to find a new voice. Whatever her life is to be is now her dream. And that is just how it should be.

My only dream now is that she is happy and makes her dreams come true.

And I pray that she’ll always be blessed.