Pondering Paint Colors

The time has come for us to paint to the living room.  We've lived here for six years and haven't touched it and I have no idea when the previous owners painted, so it's time to stop pretending that the walls will one day paint themselves.  As I've mentioned before on this blog, I hate painting.  I do okay with walls, but I dislike trim, cutting in, and most of all--ceilings.  I loathe painting ceilings.  Readers take note:  I'll provide paint, pizza, and refreshments if you paint the ceilings.  Deal?  Let's talk.

Right now the living room walls are supposed to be either white or slightly off-white, but over time have become a darling shade of "blah".  I didn't notice how much so until we painted the trim in the adjacent dining room a bright white.  While it made that room look great, it also highlighted all the other places in my house that need attention.  Isn't that always how home improvement projects work?  You do one project and before it's finished you've added at least five more.

I can't decide which colors to use.  I've been looking at swatches and have found several I like but I'm not sure I want to commit to any of them.  I definitely want to stick with a fairly neutral palette and bring in more color with accessories and pillows that can be changed out more easily.  I'm thinking of taking one of the palettes I like and toning down the colors so there's just a hint--similar to our dining room, which is painted a very pale shade of "sea glass" (I didn't name it).  It's just enough color and makes the white trim pop (which it better, because I didn't spend an entire weekend painting that trim four times to not have it pop).

The dining room opens up into the living room, so the colors need to flow.  The wood trim in the living room will also be painted white, and I'm leaning toward using more than one color but I haven't decided yet which walls to paint different colors.

I discovered a site called design-seeds.com that is a must-see for anyone debating paint colors.  You can search through tons of inspirational color palettes, like these ones:

Original photo from design-seeds.com (photo located here)

Find it here

Find it here

Find it here

Find it here

Find it here 

Find it here 

Find it here

I love them all; making a decision is the hard part...

~Stacy

Best Books: Children's Edition

Even though she's only a year old, Charlotte already has a bookcase in her room that's almost full.  She had a healthy head start when, around the 10th week or so of my pregnancy, my sister-in-law Sondra arrived on my doorstep with a huge box full of books she'd been collecting for her future niece/nephew.    She is a wonderful resource for all things kid related since she's a preschool teacher.  Since she's also an avid reader, she knew all the books to get that kids love that aren't as well known as some as well as which classics to have.  Our library does a book sale four times a year and we've found tons of barely used books that way--for only 25 cents a pop, even for hardcovers.  Just last week I found The Polar Express in hardcover!  When Chad and I were young we both liked the Franklin series (the cute little turtle) and The Berenstain Bears, so I was thrilled to find a bundle of 12 Franklin books and 15 BB books for $15 on Ebay last year.

Not all childrens' books were created equal, which is something I've learned quickly since we read a lot of them.  Even though Charlotte doesn't have much of an attention span yet for stories, we've read at least one book per night to her since her first night home from the hospital.  While she's free to pursue her own interests, reading is one that is a must.  Some books (which will remain nameless) are simply terrible.  Some are so bad we can't even get through them, and thankfully she's young enough that she doesn't notice or have any favorites that we hate but she insists on reading every night.  In the relatively short time we've been reading to her, we've definitely developed a list of favorites that we keep going back to:

1)  Olivia by Ian Falconer

All of the books in the Olivia series are wonderful (there are also many other Olivia titles based off of the Nickleodeon show by the same name.  These are cute, but the Falconer ones are by far the best).  Oliva is the perfect mix of girly and strong, silly and smart, and is one creative and imaginative little pig.  We have several Olivia books and never get tired of her!

2) All the World by Liz Garton Scanlon (illustrations by Marla Frazee)

This book is stunning.  The illustrations are absolutely beautiful and the story is even more so.  It sends a subtle yet important message about how humans are an important yet small piece in this great wide world.

3)  Charlie the Ranch Dog by Ree Drummond (illustrations by Diane deGroat)

Oh Charlie.  If you've ever read Ree Drummond's wildly popular blog The Pioneer Woman, then you know about Charlie.  He's a large and in charge Bassett Hound who prefers sleeping and snacking to pretty much everything else, despite his "job" on a working cattle ranch.  He's sweet, lazy, and completely lovable (reminds me of my old Henry), and our copy is even signed from when we got to meet Ree and her husband at at book signing earlier this year!  You can read about that here.  I was super excited to find out today that Charlie has a new book coming out on September 25th called Charlie and the Christmas Kitty, which I'm sure will end up on our bookshelf as soon as it's available.

4)  The Ladybug Girl by David Soman and Jacky Davis

Another book that features a Bassett Hound as part of its main cast of characters, Ladybug Girl is about a little girl named LuLu with a huge imagination.  She spends her time exploring the world around her and always has her faithful companion Bingo at her side.  This is the first book in a series of Ladybug Girl books, also by the same authors, and they're all equally good reads.


5)  Duck & Goose by Tad Hills

Also a series, Duck and Goose are two adorable little birds who learn to be friends and go on to have wonderful adventures together.  This series is probably the most age appropriate for Charlotte right now, since they're large board books with more emphasis on cute pictures than text.

6)  The House in the Night by Susan Marie Swanson (illustrations by Beth Krommes)

We just discovered this book last weekend when we were browsing around the bookstore.  It's very different from many of the books on this list in that it tells its story with detailed pictures and very few words.  There's something really peaceful and comforting about this book and it has become an almost nightly read.


7)  A Visitor for Bear by Bonny Becker (illustrations by Kady MacDonald Denton)

This book is the first in another series (I believe there are currently four) about a crotchety old bear who befriends a sweet little mouse, despite the rocky start to their friendship.  The stories are fun and the watercolor illustrations are even better.


8)  Curious George by H.A. Rey

No "favorite book" list could ever be complete without Curious George.  I absolutely loved these books as a kid, even earning myself the nickname "George" (that is still used today).  I used to memorize the words before I could read and could recite Curious George and the Pizza by heart.  Naturally, I had to have plenty of the Curious George collection for Charlotte.  These books never get old :)


9)  The Little Blue Truck by Alice Schertle (illustrations by Jill McElmurry)

The Little Blue Truck is about a tenacious, talking, blue pickup truck who manages to overcome every obstacle in his way by sticking to doing what's right.  It doesn't hurt that he has a whole farm of animal friends on his side to help get where he needs to go.

10)  How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight? by Jane Yolen and Mark Teague

There are quite a few books in this series (also by the same authors) and we like them all, but this is my favorite.  In each book, an array of large and lovable dinosaurs (who live with humans) are taught important lessons about how to (and not to) behave.  It sends a message without beating readers over the head with it or taking itself too seriously.

I could go on and add many more to this list, but I'll leave it at this tonight.  I'm sure in another year I'll have a whole new list!

Happy Reading.

~Stacy

I Just Graduated High School...10 Years Ago

Tomorrow evening is my high school class reunion.  My 10th, though it feels like it should only be my 2nd.  Ten years passed in the blink of an eye, yet high school seemed interminably slow at times.  The ages 14 thru 18 are a bizarre, horrifying, exciting, and, now that I can look back with a healthy dose of perspective and a great pair of rose-colored glasses, pretty great.  Seriously, at what other point in life is your biggest concern what dress you'll wear to a dance, if so-and-so will notice you in the hallway, or what grade you'll get on some (relatively unimportant) test?

I've had many mixed feelings about this reunion.  My class never held a fifth year reunion, so this is literally the first time I will see many of the people in my class in a decade.  I've kept in contact with a very small number of people from high school--mainly my three closest friends (one of whom I'm going with to this reunion.  We've been friends since the 4th grade; she'll never get rid of me).  I'm Facebook "friends" with quite a few people from my class, but I wouldn't say that we actually "keep in touch", despite all the promises to do so scrawled in ink in each other's senior yearbooks.

My initial reaction to hearing about the reunion was "No."  It's being held at a bar, and I'm not a bar person at all.  I also didn't really feel a strong emotional pull to reconnect with the BHS Class of 2002.  I blame Facebook for this--now that you can keep in touch but not really keep in touch with people, it satisfies that curiosity that we all have about people from our past.  With a simple scroll thru my news feed, I can see who has recently gotten married, divorced, had a baby, changed jobs, went on vacation, or drank too much and posted regrettable pictures.  No need to agonize over what to wear or even leave the house--I've officially been "reunited."  Not to mention, there have been several people that have RSVP'd to the reunion who I don't remember at all.  As in, I had to check my yearbook and even then didn't always recall seeing that person ever in my life.  Perhaps my circle of acquaintances was even smaller than I thought.

A part of me also felt like, by going to the reunion, I would immediately become 15 again and would walk into the bar and nervously look around for someone I knew that I could sit with, or just end up sitting alone.  The popular kids would regroup with one another, as would every other high school category you can think of.  I guess I never really fell into any clear category, which I suppose was a good thing.  I wasn't one of the "popular" kids, but I wasn't particularly unpopular.  I was on friendly terms with most people, and I had a decent sized group of friends who also didn't fit into a clearly defined group.  I was artistic and creative, but no so much so that I fit in with the artists.  I wasn't in the marching band and I didn't play sports.  I was smart and took honors classes, but I wasn't a nerd or smart enough to be considered among the "talented and gifted."  I was shy and lacked confidence, as I'm sure most teenage girls deal with at some point, and in my case could have been easily misattributed to being aloof or standoff-ish.  I felt afraid that the 28 year old me of today would become irrelevant to everyone at the reunion, and that all anyone would see is the person I was in high school.  Not necessarily a terrible thing, but I think we can all agree that we have changed for the better since high school and we'd rather focus on that.  I'm guilty of it too--I think of people I haven't seen in 10 years as the way I knew them.  These people are frozen in my mind as teenagers, and in many ways so am I.  A part of me would like to leave it that way.

But on the other hand, there was a part of me that wondered.  Wondered what everyone was up to, looked like, acted like, in a real way that can't be conveyed the same way on Facebook.  I wondered if I would regret not going, then have to wait 10 more years to get another shot.  Also, a girl in my class took on the planning of this whole event with little help and fewer resources.  She thought it was important and put in a lot of time and effort in making it happen--she deserves to have people show up.  But most importantly, it will be, at the very least, interesting to see all these people whose 18 year old selves are imprinted in my brain have their images transformed into the people they are now--their real, adult selves.

I'm looking forward to it, but also a little apprehensive.  I tend to blank out completely when I'm confronted with a question that asks me to summarize something.  Is there a list out there of questions that are only allowed to be asked at family and class reunions?  You know, like "so, how's married life?" or "how's work?" or "so what have you been up to the last ___ years?".  Those questions make me wish I had superpowers that give me the ability to evaporate.  I never know what to say; they're just too broad.  So instead I just end up stumbling around and completely forgetting the past several years of my life.  It's like my brain turns off the highlight reel and instead picks the most mundane topics it can grab.  I can totally see someone asking me "So, what have you been up to since graduation?" and me answering something totally ridiculous like "Well, I just got a Costco membership!" or "I saw The Nutcracker downtown last Christmas!".  And immediately after feeling like a total jackass and excusing myself awkwardly before any more damage can be done.

So aside from the possibility of feeling uncomfortable or saying something stupid, I am looking forward to tomorrow evening.  To all of my FB friends who I haven't seen in 10 years, but who may be reading this, please come up and say "hi" tomorrow and promise to ask only specific questions that I can't screw up.  I'll return the favor.  :)

~Stacy

First Fair

Charlotte has been to her very first County Fair.  We went earlier this week, on a day that was sunny and beautiful and wasn't so hot that it makes you sweat the instant you step outside.  We rode the merry-go-round, which she actually seemed sort of bored with and was starting to lull her to sleep by the end.  We went into all the barns to see the animals, where I was instantly reminded why I wouldn't last 5 minutes if I lived on a farm.  It was neat to be able to show her the real life version of all the animals she looks at in her farm animals book, though she seemed rather unimpressed by the cows and horses--she's apparently more of a rabbit and turkey kind of girl.  She whistled at the rabbits--whistling is a cute little trick she picked up about a week ago (where?  No idea.  I can't whistle.).

I think he was impressed:

While we had fun, she was much more in her element here:

The fair is always the first or second week of August and, to me, sort of signifies the beginning of the end of summer.  This week was the start of football, so all week the high school football team has been practicing for hours in the early morning.  The marching band has started practicing, too (during Charlotte's nap times.  It seems like right when she falls asleep is the exact moment that the drum line gets going).  Every ad in the Sunday paper is for "Back to School" items, and the air outside is just different--especially in the evening.  Even when it's still warm, even hot, the air is just...different, somehow.

I read yesterday that July was the hottest month since 1936.  Maybe it's that, or maybe since its been pretty warm since March, but I'm really looking forward to fall.  Fall is my favorite month; I love everything about it.  Winter is another story, but fall is fabulous.  I'm ready.

~Stacy

Out and About

Taking our trip to Maine last month has had an effect on how we've been spending our weekends since we've been home.  When we were on vacation, we spent each day taking some sort of mini-trip to either a bunch of places and turning it into an all day outing, or just picking one place or activity.  Either way, we did something different every day--things we don't think to do during the course of our normal weekends at home but that we could if we wanted (museums, the zoo, new parks, etc.).  It got us wondering why we don't take advantage of all our city and its surroundings have to offer, and why "doing things" is so often limited to vacations.

Cleveland gets beat up on a lot, but having grown up around this area and living here my whole life, I can say that the reputation we are sometimes known for is far from the whole picture.  Every major city has its negatives, some more than others, but we are lucky to live in area with so many things to do and places to visit--all set against the backdrop of the Lake Erie shoreline and dozens of public parks, trails and gardens.

Even though Chad and I have lived in the Cleveland area for our entire lives, we have never been to the Cleveland Botanical Gardens.  I don't know why we've never visited, especially since we love doing things outdoors and it's right next to the Cleveland Museum of Natural History and the Cleveland Museum of Art, both of which we've visited several times in the last few years.  This weekend we decided to try out the Botanical Gardens and I am so glad we did--we loved it!  There is a huge glass building with multiple gardens (and levels) that can be toured year round, as well as a huge outdoor garden space that has at least a dozen gardens, waterfalls, bridges, and more plants and flowers than I can count.  The place is just beautiful, inside and out, and we liked it so much that we ended up buying a family pass that we can use for the next year so we'll be able to visit as many times as we want.  I took an excessive amount of pictures (surprised?) and here are some highlights:

They even had a kids' play area inside, so we took a quick break so Charlotte could "cook" something at the play kitchen:

On our way to the gardens, we discovered Lakewood Park.  It was gorgeous and practically empty since it had just finished storming.  I don't know how I've managed to make it this far and just now find this park, but now that we have we'll be spending many more mornings there.

Charlotte got a kick out of the geese...

I'm excited about finding new things to do and places to see--today I'm taking Charlotte to the fair for the first time.  It's supposed to be beautiful outside and not too hot, so we're taking advantage.  She gets to see animals, I get to eat fair food, everybody wins.

Happy Monday!

~Stacy

Pretend Sleep

Lately Charlotte has taken to "pretend" napping, where she'll grab a pillow, look at us like "well?" and wait until we say "night night Charlotte!" and then pretend to sleep.  Aside from cracking us up, it's really cute.

And in this case, she just sprawled out in the middle of the floor while we had guests over:

I still like real naps better.  :)

~Stacy