Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

I keep forgetting that today actually is Halloween. Hurricane Sandy and all of her windy wrath has distracted me from pretty much everything else. Even though we were warned repeatedly about how nasty this storm would be, I didn't really believe it would be that bad. I figured it would die down once it made landfall and we'd all breathe a sigh of relief that Superstorm Sandy was not as "super" as we had been warned.

Turns out Sandy was pretty awful, as anyone with access to a TV, radio, internet, or newspaper already knows. Our city is right on the shore of Lake Erie and we were hit hard. About 85% of the city was without power, starting on Monday evening. As of about 4 hours ago, my power has been restored (hallelujah!!) but much of the area about a mile of east of my house and beyond is still without power and, per news reports, will likely stay that way for a few more days.

I mentioned in my last post about how much I dislike strong winds ands losing power, both of which we experienced in spades the past couple days. Monday night was the worst; the wind howled and we had 60+ mph gusts all night long. At times the windows rattled so loudly I was sure they would blow out. We kept hearing cracks and crashes of trees falling and hitting things, but mostly all we heard was the incredibly loud howling of the wind. It was as if we had a railroad tracks in our backyard with a constant stream of train traffic. And it was cold. No electricity=no heat. Old house=cold house.

We ended up going to my parents house yesterday morning and spending the day and night there. They never lost power, shockingly. I think they were one of just a few streets in the area that was spared, thankfully. Howard, in typical Howard fashion, made a scene with their dog, Izzy, and had to be kept in the basement. Oh Howard. I slept in a sleeping bag on the floor for the first time in probably 8 years. I'll be just fine if it takes another 8 years to have to sleep in a sleeping bag again :)

My phone rang around 7:30 this morning with an automated message from the electric company. I'm glad it was not a real person, because I blurted out "Oh I love you!" when they said my power was back on. I packed up the unreasonable amount of gear we came with as well as what I'd been able to salvage from my freezer/refrigerator and headed home to a house blazing with a bunch of lamps on, since we never turned them off after the power went out. Oh electricity, how I love you so. Thankfully there wasn't much damage to our house/yard. Weirdly, the porch furniture blew all around but my miniature pumpkins didn't move an inch.

Our city, along with just about every city in the Cleveland area, has postponed trick-or-treating until this Sunday which is contributing to the "is today really Halloween?!?" feeling. Nevertheless, Happy Halloween and I hope you and your family stayed safe during Sandy's visit.

~Stacy

Reading List

It seems fitting to do a post on book recommendations after all the talk lately of our bookshelves. It also gives me a reason to stop updating the weather map on weather.com every 12 minutes to check on Hurricane Sandy's latest antics. I know I shouldn't be all crazy lady about this storm, especially since I live in Cleveland and not the Jersey shore or NYC, where things are really bad. But still. I hate storms, and more specifically, I hate super windy storms. I can handle thunder and lighting and buckets of rain (though my basement may disagree on the rain part). But wind means two things I really don't like: losing power and trees falling down.

We live on a cute, tree-lined street. I like this about our street. Except in cases of strong, 60+ mile per hour wind gusts (as Sandy is supposed to bless us with tomorrow). Then those pretty trees become giant death traps, threatening to launch themselves on top of my garage or directly through my living room window. We have a huge, old maple tree in our front yard. I hope that since it's withstood some nasty weather for the last 100 years or so it can handle a little more abuse. The pine tree in the backyard makes me so nervous I can't even look at it. It's verrrry tall and skinny and moves back and forth more than any tree should have a right to. One move too far and it could easily split our garage in half.

Losing power is something that bothers me a ton and I really don't know why. Even if it's during the day and I don't need lights on or anything I feel really uncomfortable when the power is out. There's also the issue of losing all the food in the fridge/freezer, losing access to my ability to work on the computer or sew, and the biggest issue of having milk for the baby.

I guess what I'm saying is that I would have been a really crappy pioneer woman.

**Side note: Charlotte is going all Little House on the Prairie for Halloween and dressing as a pioneer girl. Unfortunately, if the weather predications are accurate, the only people who will see her adorable costume are Chad and I.

Ok, enough about the storm and back to how I'm attempting to distract myself from it: by reading. I've been reading a lot lately--some new, some old(ish), all good. I am lucky to live in a county with a wonderful library system. Anytime something new comes out that sounds good I request it right away and they ship it to my local branch for me to pick up. I don't think I've ever requested something they didn't have. My newest request:

I haven't started it yet but my sister-in-law read it already and said it was really good. Ever since reading the Harry Potter books I am of the belief that J.K. Rowling can do no wrong, so I'm sure this won't disappoint.

I just finished reading this book, and it was truly one of the best books I've read in awhile:

This book was so, so good. It was one of those books where you slow down toward the end because you don't want the story to end, and the fact that the whole story is true made it even better. To read more about the book and see the author's blog, click here.

Maeve Binchy. As with many authors and series I've come to love, I thank my sister-in-law again for introducing me to Maeve Binchy. I haven't read all of her books yet, but of the ones I have read so far they've all been great. Binchy is from Ireland and all of her books are set there as well. Her characters are well-rounded, believable and relatable--the markings of a good novel. Sadly, she passed away several months ago and I'm very much looking forward to reading her final book that will be published in the U.S. in March. Right now I'm reading this...:

...and just finished this:

And lastly, this book that just came out (and another one that I requested from the library):

To check out Luisa Weiss' blog, click here. It's a wonderful blog; you won't be disappointed. I haven't started this book yet either, but I like books that follow this formula of story interspersed with recipes. Some similar ones that I've read (and loved) are:

and my favorite:

Alright, time to go back to reading. And refreshing the weather map just one more time...

~Stacy

Built In Shelves: Check.

And the moment that I've been waiting a long time for--showing you our finished built-ins! We spent a few long nights painting and finishing everything we possibly could and managed to finish a day ahead of schedule. I put the last book onto the shelf last night, sat back, and breathed a huge sigh of relief that our last home improvement project of 2012 has come to an end. A very satisfying end.

To recap, here's where we started:

Everything was up to us to finish this week since the actual building was completed last Sunday. We had to take all 10 shelves out and sand, prime and paint them on each side. The most time consuming part was waiting around for everything to dry before the shelves could be given a second coat and flipped over to start again on the other side. This also meant that our dining room was left in disarray for yet another week while shelves piled up everywhere.

Have you noticed how every room somehow ends up a mess when just one is out of commission? That's the case in our house at least. Only the dining room really had an excuse to be a disaster, yet the kitchen and living room ended up a mess as well...perhaps it was just a reflection of my state of mind the past week spilling over into every room :)

Once the shelves were painted and dry it was time to hang them. I attempted this myself and was so proud when it only took 30 minutes. Then I stepped back to admire my work and realized that the left side shelves were about 4 inches higher than the right all the way up. I mis-measured the bottom one, which was the base height that I used for every subsequent shelf. Fabulous.

Thankfully Chad came home shortly after and fixed them. I think he was afraid I'd use them for kindling if I had to be near them another second. He took them all out, remeasured, and put them back in so that they were even with right side. Charlotte was his spotter.

After everything was in the correct place it was time to just wait around for a day or two while the paint dried and set completely. To make life easier, I measured the length of the shelves then arranged piles of books to that length according to how they'd be placed on the shelf. That might sound crazy but it was really helpful when it came time to haul all those books downstairs. This way we were able to grab one big pile at a time and put them right on the shelves--no sorting, no rearranging, no extra shuffling and carrying heavy stacks of books twice.


And finally:

I love these huge baskets (from Target--they're Smith & Hawken). They have a a chalkboard sign on the front so you can label what's inside and they store a ton of stuff. I managed to fit my entire fabric stash into one! I was able to consolidate three small/medium sized cubes that I had sitting around into this one basket. Win. The other one is home to art/craft supplies, games & puzzles.

One of my favorite parts about these built-ins is the storage bench across the middle. The bench is long, about 76", and the middle section lifts up so the entire unit underneath can be used as storage. I fit my ironing board in there, along with table linens and some larger sewing supplies like pillow forms, interfacing (piles and piles...) and fiberfill.

I guess I lied when I said this was completely finished, because it technically is not. I have a large piece of 2" foam sitting upstairs and just ordered upholstery fabric to make a cushion for the bench. I've never made anything so large before, nor have I ever made a boxed and corded cushion. That should be interesting...

Once everything was in place, we cleaned. Every single room. It felt so good to dust and know that the next day wouldn't bring another layer of dirt and sawdust flying around, or paint spatters, or wood filler drops. It was so nice to finally find a home for all of this stuff that been accumulating in places it didn't belong. It'll also be nice to go to a work meeting without any drops of paint in my hair that I don't discover until I'm in my car on the way home from said meeting.

We love how these turned out--they are exactly what I envisioned and turned out better than I hoped. I feel like they complete the space and were meant to be there all along. I love looking into that room and seeing rows and rows of books. It's like living in my own little library. Yes.

A Birthday and a Big Girl

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Today is a good day. For starters, it's Chad's birthday! We are celebrating with his dinner of choice: burgers. And yellow cake with chocolate frosting. And by not painting a single thing. More on that in a second. His "birthday week" so far (yes, we count the whole week as cause for celebration, not just the day) has consisted of the UPS man making an appearance at our house once per day since last Friday (thanks to his mom and sister, who have been sending wonderful presents from Maine), Chad working a lot on schoolwork as this is the final week of his course, and both of us painting shelves whenever there's a spare minute.

One thing that won't be sitting around (or rather, ON) our dining room table to celebrate tonight? The bookshelves, paint cans, brushes, rollers, tape measures, pliers, and paint spattered towels that have been hogging the entire thing since this built-in project started. Except for one little shelf, everything is done. I can't believe I am typing those words and I really, really, really don't want to touch a paintbrush again for a looooooong time. I know I speak for Chad and I when I say that.

The shelves are in place and hanging out for the next day or two before we can put anything on them. Once that's done and I get some good sunlight pouring through my windows, I will be taking the "After" pictures to show you all sometime next week. I know the suspense is killing you; try to get some sleep.

The other bit of news that is making this day (and week, month, etc.) so great is that our baby girl is walking all on her own now! She took her first steps awhile back, but never seemed interested in repeating. For quite some time now she's been walking all over the place (as in, around the block and to and from the deli around the corner) but only if she was holding onto us--a hand, even just a pinkie finger, it didn't matter. She needed something, and if we let go she would only go a step or two before realizing her security system was gone and she was back to crawling. She's also an incredibly fast crawler, so I don't think she had any incentive to walk. Why walk when you can crawl twice as fast (and therefore cause more trouble)? She's finally realized that there must be something to this whole walking business--and just in time to go trick-or-treating next week!

To entice her to walk on her own, I finally bought her one of those popper push toys. I think everyone has owned one of these in their lifetime, either as a kid or for their kid! I bought it last week and the walking started this week--maybe just a coincidence but I think it helped.

I'm so proud of my big girl :)

And happy, happy birthday to my wonderful husband.

~Stacy

Project Pinterest: Sock Snowmen

Pinterest is always full of good ideas but lately the pickings have been even better with all the holiday project ideas out there. I've been pinning a bunch of things to my "Project Ideas", "Gifting" and "Sew Pretty" boards. Because I have nothing better to do than play around on Pinterest, right? 

I stumbled across this adorable pin a couple days ago and checked out the original website it came from called Then She Made. I can't believe I've never discovered this site until now! It's got a bunch of great craft tutorials and recipes, all with thorough instructions and step by step photos. Check out the website for the full Sock Snowmen tutorial. Here is how mine turned out:

I bought a pack of white tube socks since I didn't have any on hand. I found some in clearance at Target for $5 (this was for a pack of 10 pairs), along with the purple argyle socks for $1. I used a toothpick for the nose and just painted it orange and cut the tip off. I didn't have any black buttons small enough for eyes so I used a permanent Sharpie. I already had some twine and decorative buttons (which are all hot glued). All in all, the project cost me about $2.15 per snowman. Not bad! The total time investment? About 15 minutes to make both.

I think they're adorable :) The original site suggests using beans if you don't have any rice, as well as adding potpourri (or scented oil) to the rice/beans. I didn't do that on these ones, but I have some peppermint oil that I'm planning on using for future snowmen. These are too cute to stop at just two!

Happy Pinning!

~Stacy

Built-In Shelves: A Partial Reveal

I've been mentioning installing built-in bookshelves in our dining room for several months now. It started as an idea, then for about 5 seconds became something Chad and I considered doing ourselves. Soon after we hired a contractor and the official building/installation process started about a month ago. It only took a few minutes of watching our carpenter work for me to be incredibly thankful that we did not attempt this task ourselves. I like to think I know my limits, and this project would have far exceeded them.

We've talked for years about wanting some sort of built in shelving downstairs. We knew we wanted one place to put all our books that didn't require taking up any space in the bedrooms. As I've mentioned before, our house is small and the bedrooms are tiny--we have to maximize every square inch we can! Since we moved here in 2006, our books have lived in a few random bookshelves that we keep in the extra bedroom upstairs. At some point in the future that room will be home to Baby #2 (no, not in 9 months or sooner) so we wanted to find a place to put them as well as get some extra storage space for other things (like my ever-growing fabric stash). We decided that the back wall of our dining room would be the ideal place and started looking for photos of what we wanted. Here are the ones we really liked and used as inspiration for our own project:

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The general idea for all of these is the same: a bunch of shelves outlining the windows with storage in between. We decided we wanted a window seat in the middle with a hinged top that lifts with storage underneath. We also liked the shelving across the top and having adjustable shelves. After much debate (with myself) about paint colors, I decided to just go with white. It'll match the trim, brighten things up and keep the room from getting too busy.

Things are coming along great, and (fingers crossed) the building/install will be complete this Sunday. We had a few scheduling issues and minor setbacks that delayed things by a few weeks, plus our carpenter is doing this as a side job and is only available on Sundays to work on this. 

I did leave a little project for myself: painting. After the past couple of months, I really don't want to paint anything else ever, but I already had the paint and materials on hand and my labor is free. So far almost everything is primed and ready to be painted, which is my evening project for the next few days.  After Sunday there will be a few things left to prime/paint and then it's just a matter of hauling everything downstairs and putting it on the shelves!

Here's the evolution of the built-ins, and excuse the picture quality...

"Before"

I'll admit that seeing the 100 year old wood trim get removed (albeit temporarily) scared me little.

My table is a mess.

All of the shelves hiding in what will be the storage bench--away from curious little fingers!

My table, mostly covered by shelves that need painted.

I keep thinking I'll have "After" pictures to show and every time I say so it ends up getting delayed another week. So I'm not making any promises, but I should hopefully have the finished room ready to show by the end of next week. That is, if I can motivate myself to pick up a paintbrush...

~Stacy

Learning to Share

Charlotte loves playing with everything in the kitchen. Emptying cupboards and taking things out of drawers is her favorite, but it can get really challenging for me to work safely when she's literally underfoot. We don't have a real pantry, but we do have an alcove in our kitchen that we created a makeshift pantry out of and covered it with a curtain. It's out of the way of the stove, dishwasher, etc. so I let Charlotte empty the bottom shelf to her heart's content.

Yesterday she was playing in the "pantry" and I walked into the dining room for a minute. I heard some rattling and rustling. No big deal. A minute later I heard crunching. Lots of crunching.

I walked in to see their heads together, executing teamwork in its finest form.

They took turns, and I'm pretty sure they might have shared at least one of the same cracker.

And that's all I have to say about that.

~Stacy

A Week of Thoughts (Yikes)

I think this is the longest I've gone without posting in almost a year...my apologies (did I totally ruin your week when you kept checking my blog for a new post and wound up disappointed? I thought so.). Usually long-ish blog absences mean I'm in the middle of starting or wrapping up a work project (my "real" work, aka HR consulting stuff). Such was the case this week, as there's an event I organized for this Saturday that needed some attention as well as a new project that I'm diving into that will soak up a good chunk of time over the next 6 weeks or so. As a result, this post is pretty random.

Here are some things that may or may not be noteworthy from this week:

• I keep adding the list of Things I Never Thought I'd Say. Some recent additions include: "Hold still, Mommy needs to wipe the peaches off your ear" and "No, we don't touch toilet seats or throw books in the bathtub." 
• If you are an animal owner you've probably experienced your fair share of grossness. Last week Howard was outside when it was raining and disappeared for a minute. When he ran back inside I noticed he was all wet on his left side, so I grabbed him to dry him off. The smell nearly knocked me out and my hand looked like I'd just committed a grisly crime--he had rolled in a dead rabbit. I briefly considered amputating my arm. After four rounds of shampoo and a trip to the pet store to purchase a new collar and tags he was finally allowed near me again. I may or may not have told him, during round two or three of shampoos, that if he ever pulled another stunt like that again he might find himself in a commercial featuring Sarah McLachlan music. I later apologized. 
• Speaking of Howard, he was rather upset that we got rid of our old couches (or, shall I say, his old couches). He isn't too sure about the new ones and has been sleeping on, gasp!--the floor. Don't worry, he's fine:

• I always thought that there was some sort of stigma with being either a working or a stay-at-home mom. I remember when I had just made the decision to stay home with Charlotte a friend of mine, who is also an at-home mom, told me that she always heard from people from both camps about how to deal with negativity from others who felt like you should be home with your kids or out working, depending on which side you were on. I can honestly say that after 16 months of being a stay-at-home mama, I have never gotten any sort of guff for what I do. If and when people ask what I do and I tell them, it's almost always met with a positive reaction or neutrality. In the beginning I would elaborate and tell them that I also worked as an independent HR consultant, just to immediately ward off any possible judgments, but after awhile I stopped (unless I'm talking to someone who might find what I do in my paying job to be interesting). So this makes me wonder if whether our preconceived notions about something make it more real to us than it actually is. In my case, yes. Thankfully.
•  Charlotte has always been talkative, even though it mostly means she babbles in cute baby speak most of the time. I feel like writing a letter of apology to her future teachers, as they will most likely need to remind her to be quiet. She is always chattering, and it's so fun to see her baby speak evolve more and more every day. She is a master mimic--her newest phrase is "Oh man!" and she puts her hand over her face as she says it. She picked this up from her Daddy one day (thankfully it was that and not what he said when he dropped his laptop...). She also started saying "Ta da!" (thanks Mom) and "Aw done!" when she's finished eating. In the past two weeks she's added several other words to her growing list: "Ba-Pa" (Grandpa, which my Dad is loving), "ball", "bed" (because she likes to jump on ours), "duck" (why duck?), and "bubbles." 
• A young girl, high school-ish age, who works at the grocery store called me ma'am and I died a little inside. Granted, I wear wedding rings and was carrying a toddler so clearly I'm not anywhere near her age. But when the cart boy gave me my pick-up ticket and said "here you go, Miss" I felt a major sense of redemption. Bless you, cart boy. It's the small victories.
• Sometimes when I see Chad and Charlotte playing together I want to bawl. It's so cute it's crazy. I both can't believe it yet I always knew that the boy I met at 14 would one day hold our babies. 
• Also, having a baby has made me a sap. Did anyone see Modern Family this week? The scene where Claire and Phil are driving home from dropping Hayley off at college left a lump in my throat the size of Texas. One day at a time, one day at a time...

Have a great weekend, everyone. 

~Stacy