Friday, June 20, 2008

happy friday

our new cabinets were installed this week, and can i just say - i love them! they look great. the walls look less orangey (and more gold) next to them as well, so i'm much happier with the paint color. we are missing one piece for the fan over the stove area, so once that comes in, the contractor will come back to finish up that and a few odds and ends (the last cabinet, next to where the fan will go, as well as the trim). bryan has already started cleaning and loading the cabinets, though; it will be very nice to start having a kitchen again!

we bought our sink and faucet this week as well, along with the garbage disposal, so THAT was a fun transaction at the home depot registers. the granite company came out today and measured for the countertops. not sure when they'll verify that they have the color we want, but the installer said we should have them installed in about 4 weeks. and then - gasp! - i'll have a kitchen again! we'll still need to tile the backsplash, but i'll have an actual functioning kitchen.

we also need to install the new light fixtures; we bought them but are waiting until the cabinets are in to avoid getting them dirty. we went with antique bronze halogen track fixtures for our main lighting, and a lovely glass pendant to hang over the sink. OH! and we need to buy our under cabinet lighting as well. does the spending ever stop??

lots more pictures in the projects gallery.

bryan and i started ordering little accessories: a hanging pot rack, new fancy dish rack, etc. i need to order the butcher block island and kitchen carts yet; having a hard time pulling the triggger on those just knowing how much they cost. i'll get over it though, don't worry. drop in the bucket, at this point...

we got our first csa box yesterday! unfortunately, due to the insane weather around here lately, the boxes had been delayed and still some of the produce is looking a little smaller than normal. we got some basil, various greens, english cucumbers, garlic scapes, strawberries, and green garlic. still, it was a pretty exciting pick up - now if only we had a kitchen to cook it in! we'll be giving some to shannon and mom to cook with... but i see shortcakes in those strawberries' futures...

no new oliver pictures, so we'll look back on an "old" one. can you believe how much bigger and older he looks already?


i'm too excited it's nearly the weekend to think of any other updates... so have a good weekend everyone!

Monday, June 16, 2008

notes on a weekend

friday, i worked from home so i could have a mid day chiro appointment. since i still sent oliver to day care, i was able to get a lot of work done. it also afforded me the chance to have bbq slaw dogs for lunch with bryan. YUM.

friday night, oliver nearly slept through the night! he went down at 7pm, as normal. he woke up at 8, but i just tucked him back in and he was fine. then he didn't get up until 4:30! that was pretty awesome.

saturday morning, oliver and i got up early so i could try to complete bryan's father's day gift. friday after we went out to dinner we stopped by home depot (what day wouldn't be complete without 2 trips there!), and i ducked into the craft store next door (under false pretenses of course) to pick up some craft letters. saturday morning, i took pictures of oliver holding the letters D and A. i managed to get them uploaded and ordered via target for later pick up (i sent bryan over to the starbucks counter to get us some drinks while i snuck over to the photo counter to get the pictures). once we picked them up later, i put them in a frame (while bryan ran to home depot yet again) for 3 pictures to spell DAD:




bryan liked it. :) i put the DAD letters in his office as well. i also found a holographic space father's day card. like it was made for him!

that afternoon, we went to lunch at singha thai with shannon and her boyfriend david, who was in town visiting for the weekend. so we got to chat with him and get to know him. he's a pretty cool dude. he gets the approved stamp. ;)

oliver was pretty randomly fussy, but we decided to brave going to target after lunch to get some needed supplies (like the pictures for bryan's gift!!). he fell asleep on the way home, and after that, pretty much figured that 2 minute nap was all he needed that day. he refused to take an afternoon nap and around 4pm, i gave up trying to make him go down. he went to bed at 6:30pm, and woke up at 9:30pm SCREAMING and wanting nothing other than food, which was weird. i fed him and he went back to sleep until 2:30, then up for the day at 6:30, both of which were pretty normal wake ups.

the next morning, though, i found the cause for his beastliness. he bit me, and instead of just getting sliced by bottom teeth, i was also getting nibbled on by upper teeth! so those are poking through. sunday he vacillated between being raging monster baby and quiet sweet darling baby. he nearly didn't take a nap that afternoon, but he did pass out eventually, thank goodness. i'm sure the motrin and teething tablets helped!!

after his nap, bryan, shannon, david, ollie and i trekked out to family picnics. first, we hit my uncle frank and aunt linda's house to see my mom's side of the family. oliver got to go swimming for the first time, and he *LOVED* it!! he got to splash, splash, splash, and watch the big kids swimming around. i can't wait to start taking him to the pool at the park! he also had a lot of fun visiting with my cousin's baby, who is older but about the same size as him. i think he really liked that - someone his size!! :) however, since we were outdoors, and my uncle's house is in a new development with lots of brush out back, oliver's allergies were going nuts. he had some serious red blotches all over his face, which didn't seem to bother him too much (or he was too distracted by all the fun wooden blocks to chew on and people to see), but he looked just awful. he immediately started clearing up once we got in the car, though. needless to say, he got benedryl last night!!

we then drove over to my cousin's house for another father's day / birthday party (their little girl turned 4), on my dad's side of the family. they also have a boy 2 weeks older than oliver (also teething!) so they had fun staring at each other. oliver also liked getting to see new toys, including a totally cool jumperoo where the seat spins around and there are multiple toys. he also started making forward progress with the crawling!! mom and dad made it, after their flight in from vegas was delayed, so i got to see my pop on father's day after all and hear all about their fun trip. after some food, cake, and presents, we zipped home (it was already past oliver's bed time).

oliver did well last night, up at 12:30 and 5 to eat, and 6:30 for the day. those little teeth are still coming through, so hopefully he won't be a total monster at day care, naps well, and isn't a beast tonight either. not sure what we're doing for dinner tonight buuuuuuut david made fruit pirogi saturday night, so i know what we're having for dessert!! he is polish and his grandmother taught him. um, perfect?

our kitchen will look more like a kitchen tonight!!! our cabinets are getting installed today, WOOHOO! the contractor is there right now.

bryan and i got the whole room primed, and the ceiling painted (a lovely color called "evocative sunlight" which looked rather yellow against the white primer but has since toned down against the paint) friday night. saturday we painted. we chose a color called perennial gold, and while we couldn't get it in the brand we wanted, as they didn't have the finish we wanted AND their color was copyrighted, we found a near exact match in another brand. the color came out a little more orange than the paint chip (they're never the same). i'm not 100% sure how i feel about it, but bryan is happy. it looks good against the floor, so we'll see tonight how it ends up looking with the cabinets (the paint chip looked great with them, but again, it's not quite the same).

now here's hoping our countertop choice is still in stock (they measure wednesday so we will find out soon) and we don't have to choose another color... and re-paint the walls to match!!

Friday, June 13, 2008

the closest i'll ever come to johnny depp

SO. johnny depp is in wisconsin filming his new movie about john dillinger. he's been in milwaukee this week. a women at work's husband and his friend were downtown night before last, around 3am, and knowing that the filming was happening at night, decided to drive down there and see if they could see anything. well, JOHNNY DEPP was STANDING ON THE CORNER and FLAGGED THEM DOWN, and told them he was hungry and did they know where he could get some breakfast? sure, they said, jump in. so JOHNNY DEPP JUMPED IN THEIR TRUCK AND THEY ALL WENT TO BREAKFAST. my coworker was mad that he was out later than expected... until she found out his was at breakfast with johnny depp. as you may be able to tell, i heart johnny depp. omg i am so jealous. LOVE HIM. so that's about as close as i'll ever get to johnny depp. le sigh.

kitchen progress...

the only way my kitchen could be LESS of a kitchen is if we didn't have the floor in there. yesterday, bryan finished taking down the last set of upper cabinets and tile backsplash. we primed the ceiling over the course of the last 2 nights, and it is ready for paint. the walls will be primed today so that we may begin painting tomorrow, or even tonight. we have settled on a paint color - woohoo. we're going with a color called ginger palm, which is a lovely golden almost brown color. i had found a blue i loved, and i do love it, but it just wasn't thrilling me as a kitchen color. i wanted something warmer. i was afraid the golds i was looking at would be too monotone against the cabinets and floor, but both bryan and shannon assured me that with our stainless steel appliances, nifty kitchen tools (like the blue le creuset i've been planning my kitchen around for years; no, i am not kidding, i love that stuff), and other accessories we can add, it will be perfect.

the cabinets get installed monday, then we wait for countertops. during that time, we'll add the new light fixtures and details like light switch plates, window treatments, etc, and pick up the sink and faucet and all that good stuff. once the counters are in, we can tile the backsplash (off white subway tile) and then... i think we're done! so, another month or so, and i'll have a kitchen back!

i have a fun artwork project planned, involving the kids and food, which i'll do while hannah is here. so that will be fun. a lot of work has gone into the kitchen so far, which is kind of hard to tell considering there is nothing in there, but! it's all about to come together quickly. so excited.

this weekend, we have a few family bbqs to attend, which hopefully works ok with ollie's naps. my uncle has a swimming pool so oliver will get to go swimming for the first time!!!!

oliver has been doing really well lately. been sleeping well, cute as ever! some cute baby pics to get you through the weekend:





bunch more in the june gallery.

my new favorite: adam sevani. white boy can dance.

Monday, June 9, 2008

at least there weren't zombies

so, the weather this weekend was CRAZY. tornadoes friday and saturday, and serious storms most of the rest of the time. saturday afternoon, oliver and i went to mom and dad's house for lunch. we were planning on having some smoked pork butt for dinner, so i set up the electric smoker while he was down for his nap. after his nap, he, shannon, and i headed to the mall. we were in boston store for about 30 minutes when someone came on over the loudspeaker and alerted everyone of the tornado warning, and directed everyone to gather at the bottom of the escalator in the center of the builing. so, we were locked in the mall! unfortunately, not quite as fun as it sounds, especially since oliver's dinner time came while we were locked in. luckily, shannon and i were able to distract him with toys, a snack (dehydrated apples - which i think led to some tummy trouble... too much fiber), and a mirror. after they let us go, we got out pretty quickly. we never did make it to ann taylor so... i'll have to go back!

of course, the rains shorted out the electric smoker (or something - it turned off), and our pork butt was no where near done. soooooo, mom was quick to think on her feet and made some sausages to go with shannon's cornbread and corn on the cob. we took our rhubarb pie (with rhubarb from our garden!) and baked apple slices to go. i was very glad we were driving the suv, since there were flash floods everywhere. some areas were too deep even for the jeep, and after a few detours and wading through some deep water, we eventually made it home. luckily, though our street flooded a bit, our basement did not.

that night around 12am, our sleep was disturbed by drunk people "swimming" in the flooded back yard. they were shouting and shrieking and diving into the flood water. which, i'm not sure they knew, occurs because a) the grounds are saturated, and b) the sewers overflow. i contemplated calling the police because of their noise level, but didn't. i consoled myself by thinking they'll probably get worms from playing in dirty sewer water.

oliver fought his naps most of the weekend, the only time taking a good long nap at mom's while we were waiting to go to the mall, of course. he just seemed fussy and uncomfortable most of the weekend. his allergies were on full alert all weekend (he got some benedryl last night), and i'm keeping an eye out for new teeth but we'll see. it was also very hot and humid most of the weekend, and i found that turning on the ceiling fan provided some nice cool air AND white noise for him. friday night, he only woke up once, which was pretty awesome. saturday and sunday nights we were back to our 2 feeding sessions, which wasn't too bad. he's still a whole mess of cuteness, so i've decided to keep him.

bryan and dad banged out some good work on the kitchen over the weekend. they got the new ceiling in place, and the first layer of spackle over everything. it's looking good! the plan is to get that finished today (provided it's not so humid the spackle won't dry) so that bryan can begin priming. he is also taking out the last set of upper cabinets, removing the tile backsplash, and patching up that area of wall. my assignment is to settle on a paint color (no, i haven't been able to yet) by tomorrow night. i got a new stack of paint swatches and hope i'll have time to sit on the floor in there and stare are them for awhile tonight. we did decide to move ahead with the alabaster viole countertops, big holes and all. we really like the pattern and color, so we're keeping our fingers crossed.

i think that's it: kitchen, tornadoes, flooding, locked in the mall, cranky but adorable baby. this week, we'll be working on that kitchen. cabinets get installed next week, so we have a deadline!! shannon's boyfriend arrives in town friday, so we finally get to meet him!

Wednesday, June 4, 2008


i love you. i wish i were there. if you need anything at all, you know where to find me.

there's a hole in my ceiling


there's a hole in my ceiling. bryan and dad worked on yanking out the upper cabinets to remove the soffits. we had a small scare with possibly asbestos laden insulation, but it turned out to be a scare and nothing more. THANK GOODNESS. bryan needs to work on getting the soffits and their supporting woodwork out over the next few days, so that he and dad can re-drywall this weekend before mom and dad leave on their vegas/grand canyon trip. THEN we can remove old tile/spackle/sand/paint. assuming i have a paint color picked, that is. which assumes we have chosen a countertop.

yesterday morning we drove out to the granite warehouse to look at the alabaster viole we love so much. it does actually have huge holes/cracks in it; they are filled with resin. so we have to decide if we are ok with that or not. we did see another stone we liked a lot, called briolette, but we're not sure if it has enough brown in it. we're currently awaiting some advice from shannon with bated breath. :)

dear wisconsin

dear wisconsin,

i hate you.

it's 55 and raining today. in june! it's june! maybe you didn't know that? maybe you lost your calender. maybe the alarm didn't go off and you've overslept. june = summer, and summer = warm weather.

you're a very beautiful state, wisconsin. i've always thought so. but your beauty isn't enough to keep you charming at this point. you need to give us some more. you need to give us some sunshine and warm weather.

55 and raining. yesterday was even colder. we should have had this weather in april. but in april we had even colder weather and snow. again. april showers bring may flowers? does this ring any bells? my first roses just bloomed this weekend. in june.

we laughed the 5th time it snowed. we even giggled the 27th. but by march, it really wasn't funny anymore. just wait, we told each other, it's almost spring.

in april, we laughed nervously and said, surely this can't go on forever.

in may, we really started to worry about you, wisconsin. we weren't sure it was ever going to end. it's almost june, we reassured each other. in june, we'll be fine.

well, june 1st has come and gone, and it is not warm. you've teased us with a few gorgeous days, then punished us with chills again. haven't we been punished enough? don't you see the news? didn't you know that this past winter was one of the worst in our recorded history?

you've already dashed our hopes for spring, must you do so for summer too? we don't get a very long summer. it's beyond unfair to put us through a winter like that, only to eat up one of the three months of warm weather we get. will you take away our beautiful spring only to dump us directly into a hot and humid summer, which will only be 8 weeks long by that point, and then it's on to a chilly fall and WINTER AGAIN? our poor little psyches cannot handle it.

you're officially on notice, wisconsin. i'm not sure what we're going to do, but when we figure it out, it will be big.

i want to love you, wisconsin. i really do. but i hate you right now.

love screw you,
mrsjenpeters

Monday, June 2, 2008

and i halped

our weekend was good, though far too short.

saturday, we dropped ollie off with mom after his morning nap so bryan and i could get cracking on the floor. we spent pretty much all afternoon grouting and cleaning the floor. it turned out rather beautiful. we still have a few tiles to grout: bryan was unable to grout the last few in the kitchen, as i needed to stand on them to clean some of the others, and we have yet to do the little back hall area. should be pretty easy, though. the toughest part was cleaning up the grout haze; the dirty wash the grout leaves all over the tiles. we went over them with 3 stages of water during the initial clean up, and then over and over them again and again. at the end of the day we scrubbed them with a 50/50 vinegar/water solution and that did the trick. once we get the last little area grouted, bryan will use an acid cleaner to remove the white film from the grout (a side effect of our cleaning) and THEN he can seal it. and the floor will be DONE!

it was tough work, though we hit our groove and started to move pretty fast. i'm still sore from all that bending and squatting though. once we were finished, dad arrived to help bryan finish laying the last couple of tiles in the back hall. i took a cool shower (which, along with fresh picked corn and afternoon naps in a warm breeze, i believe are one of the pure joys of summer) and headed over to mom and dad's to see the baby. he was having fun with nana and shannon and even took a great nap for them, thank goodness. bryan and i stayed for dinner (chicken fajitas) then rushed the baby home before total meltdown.

oliver's allergies were bothering him something awful all weekend, so i gave him some benedryl at bedtime and he slept pretty much as awesome as i could hope for (not through the night, but at least on schedule).

sunday was our anniversary! we took oliver over to mom's again, and bryan took me to see the new indiana jones movie. we both thought it was really cute and just as cheesy as ever, which i absolutely expect for an indiana jones movie. we had a lot of fun. we went to the super fancy theater again, and even ate lunch there. we don't much like paying for movies, but we're really digging the vip seating there.

afterwards, we came home and i was able to trick oliver into taking a 3rd nap for the day. after he woke up, we walked down the block to michael's family restaurant to have 5pm dinner with all the old folks (not even a joke). i had meatloaf and bryan had liver an onions. yes, we're becoming the old folks ourselves.

dad came over to help bryan move the old cabinets out of the garage and into the basement, as our new cabinets are being delivered today. the old cabinets are now in the basement, along with the old countertops and the majority of our dishes, pots, pans, and whatever else we stored in our kitchen that didn't fit in the dining room along with the dining room table, breakfast table, and fridge(yes, my house is a total disaster zone; the only way i get through it is closing my eyes). anyways, i can't wait to see the new cabinets!

as i was following them around snapping pictures, i noticed that our first roses are blooming. they are utterly gorgeous and smell wonderful. is spring actually here, now that it is june??


oliver slept like garbage last night, the little stinker. no idea what was wrong. well, plenty of ideas but no solution. so i am exhausted today. hopefully he is getting back on track at day care. she hasn't called and some PLEASE COME PICK UP YOUR INSANE SON so i have to imagine he's doing better. to make things even more fun, i ended up getting sick last night as well. oliver woke up around 10 and i went to fed him. as i was sitting in the chair i started to get very, very nauseous and hoped and prayed ollie would finish eating and go back down quickly before it got out of hand. luckily he did. for a short time at least. not sure if it was the movie theater food, suspect diner food, or the combination of the two, or perhaps i got shannon's tummy blog saturday, but it was NOT very fun.

tomorrow morning we're taking a few hours from work to drive out to sullivan, wi to view countertop samples. our designer asked the warehouse to hold the slabs for us, since the color is being discontinued. they said NO that is against policy, we will only do so once the cabinets are installed (june 15th) and the official measurements are taken. our designer pleaded, since we have to know what kind of countertops we'll have in order to paint and pick out backsplash tile, and as it's being discontinued there is no hope of knowing for sure they will have that stone by that time. but they were adamant. then the sales woman there went on to say that the stone is not smooth and we better look at it before we make our decision. sooooo we're trekking out there to view it and our 2nd choice. we really can't wait until after the cabinets are installed to know what we're getting, since we need to paint before. SUCH A PAIN. so we'll see what happens.