Grateful Gertie

Doesn't Gertie sound like the name of someone who could be your favorite aunt? I need to invite her over more often. At least the Grateful part.

Thank you for your support, it really does get me through. I tried to respond to each of you, but some of you don't leave behind an email trail...just know I'm extremely grateful to each of you for your words of encouragement.

So we've established that lately I've gotten especially good at laying around, directing affairs from from the couch/bed, and generally being a lump. In fact if one could get paid for this, I'm sure I'd be somewhere in the six figures range...I'm that good.

In the beginning, I was able to go shopping and plan menus in my head... at least in the morning. Then dinner time would roll around and the not taking of pain management materials (in order to be able to be mom-ly ish) would catch up to me. I was spent, my focus lost, and emergency calls were made to Mr. O and take-out was brought in.

The poor children. Poor Mr. O. Perfectly good fixings were in the fridge and yet I think I managed only one cooked meal per week these past 2 months (and that's being generous); some of those even came out of bags in the freezer or boxes in the pantry (yes, Kraft dinner) but! they were made at home so that sort of counts, right? Right?! But mostly the meat and veggies purchased with Monday Morning's Optimism were left to become Sunday's Stash of Stench and Stank.

I felt so guilty about it (the complete waste and stinking mess) that I would stealthily freeze the rotten meat so we wouldn't completely offend our neighbors and then put them in the garbage under cover of darkness for Monday's pick-up. Wash. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

I suck. I know. The first step is acceptance. Right? Also, I've stopped grocery shopping altogether. As far as I know, cold cereal and frozen pizza never killed anyone.

Just a handful of some of the things it takes to keep me somewhat functioning. Those yellow pills are what is keeping me from chucking myself in the green garbage bins for a Monday morning pick-up myself. The doctor has now doubled my dose in an effort to calm the nerve to my middle ear the freak down. Cross your fingers that it works.

I did manage to make two birthday cakes of freaking awesome: See also Zucchini Chocolate Cake.

AND! My sister and a friend were my designated drivers for two days of redecorating madness.

We sold the green beast to a sorority girl who was so cute and tiny I want to adopt her or at least keep her in my pocket. We also sold the tapestry clam-shell chairs and started with a clean slate. Want to know the secret for selling on ksl.com or craigslist? List the price as $0 and say make me an offer. We sold everything for the price we originally had in mind, but didn't get a single call until we listed the price as "make me an offer".

I am in love. This room feels comfortable even though it is a complete switch for me. I am not a person who likes blue. At all. So I guess I've been converted. I have never made decorating decisions so quickly, but it helps to have someone along with an eye for potential. The only thing left is to figure out is the ottoman. Could I maybe tackle recovering the existing beat-up ottoman? What do I have to lose?

Things seem to be getting better in the pain department, but it is hard to know if we are covering up a problem or solving it. I'll keep you posted. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to rip out the rest of the garden with this week's batch of Monday Morning's Optimism.

How To: Gingerbread Roof

I attended the local Gingerbread Festival with my daughter's class. I have so many pictures, I thought I'd break it into a couple of posts. First up, roofing materials. Check out all the creative uses of candy for roofing materials. As per usual, click to biggify.



My favorite is the Big Red Gum roof. Which is yours and do you make gingerbread houses?

Don't forget to enter to win a free custom apron of your choice from Aprons by Amy. Winner drawn tomorrow. Please spread the word.

Paint Pleasure

Behold, the islands of plastic:

And also the still, as of today, garlanded railing:

The hallway masked and "cut in":

The trim redone in the living room - I know the difference appears subtle, but in real life? I assure you it's a huge difference.

For years, we have been surrounded by white with a heavy undertone of pink to it - gack! It really offended my sensibilities. Actually, it just made it feel very cave-like (and pepto bismolish) here at Chez Organic.

Behold, yet another island of plastic (these painters are awesome - they covered every square inch of anything not meant to be painted with either paper or plastic and they were impossibly fast - vampire painters, if you will). Perhaps I got a bit too much sun in California.

On the left is the new color, on the right is the old. Good riddance I say! While it is not a striking or bold difference, it has lightened my mental load immensely. There is a feeling of openness about the place. Gone is the feeling of claustrophobia.

Ta da! The end result. I think I might make it until spring now.

I just have to hang everything back up, arrange furniture and find something for that enormous wall. Suggestions, anyone?

Don't forget to stop by Lara's Talk About Tuesday and see her quilted pillowcases. Cute!

Islands of Plastic

The house is in a general state of upheaval and chaos. It has always felt cave-like in here and so now, after nearly 9 years of living here, we've finally bit the bullet and decided to paint the main living areas.

The rest of the house (hallway and bedroom) has long since been darkened and brightened with varying shades of greens, plums, taupes and sunny yellows. We'd paint the great room ourselves, but the room is vaulted and we'd really like it to last us another 9 years (which means it should be done right).

We are once again living in the basement. Upstairs, the furniture has been pushed to the centers of the rooms and covered over in makeshift plastic tents taped to the floor. The remaining floor space has been covered in brown paper, resulting in a very crinkly-sounding house.

Unfortunately, the camera is taped into the hutch right now - so, no pictures. The paint store had messed up and mixed the wall color for the baseboards and ceiling, but we caught it before the whole house had been done and it looks much better now. The whole thing should be done by Friday, which means an onslaught of pictures for Monday.

The mothership - she has arrived

Looks like an ordinary couch, right?

Wrong! It is the size of a twin bed, which makes it perfect for Ty to hang out on during the day (his hip is still causing him a lot of pain). In fact, he loves it and zonks right out. The size does make it tricky to assimilate into the room, but it's a whole lot better than having his actual bed in here.

Exciting news! The painters are coming tomorrow. I normally do all the painting, but people see this room and I want it to look like someone knew what they were doing. Pictures to come. Visit Lara at the Lazy Organizer to see what others are talking about.

Amazement

Sometimes I am amazed at how truly wonderful my life is and I know I don't deserve it. There are far too many good people in it.

I am swimming in the ocean of their selflessness.

I love a good deal

The retail gods smiled on me today - the chair that was originally marked sold, suddenly was not. I bought it, and I still got the discount that was offered last week. I know the clam shell design is a little 80s but hey, retro! Really, steel yourselves the clam shell is back and far more comfortable a chair than a pillow back.

On our way home from Ty's surgery follow-up, we stopped by the furniture store so I could return some fabric samples. It just so happened that the amazing couch we've had our eye on for Ty was 20% off. The budget is semi-blown for any other new sofas (thank you washing machine breakdown and subsequent replacement) so I made a last minute decision to change from a super safe neutral fabric to this one - maybe I should've gone this route. This is why I never decorate, I am immoblized by options.

And now for some natural lighting and better pics by Spielberg:

Thank you Hunt's pudding pack - puts the oo back in school.

Pencil sharpeners are more interesting these days - I kept thinking these were paper clip holders.

The business end of a quakie

Why it looks like a bag of cotton balls threw up in here

The floor company used a low VOC sealer so we stayed here, in the basement, while he worked. At first glance, it looks beautiful....

It has a nice satin finish, but then I noticed that my socks were sort of snagging every so often...

so I decided to walk the whole thing off and put a cotton ball down every time it happened.

Does that look like a lot of cotton balls to anyone else? I know I shouldn't care, I mean there are people with nothing but dirt for floors. I sure I should feel blessed that I (and my kids) have many more opportunities for slivers than the average Joe.

There are really only about 6 places where anyone is in danger of a potential skewering. The rest are where something (the sealer, the putty?) raised up and make it feel rough. So what would you do?
1. Beg the floor guy for mercy and hound him until he fixes it or...
2. Just live with it

Total hair count? Me: 2. The dog: 1. I love it when I win.

Like watching paint dry

This is the third and final coat. Fascinating stuff.

While I love the shine on my floor, it's only temporary. Check out that reflection!

It will dry to a satin finish and be ready for furniture on Monday. There's one spot in the kitchen where I can see two pieces of my hair dried into the finish (about 5 inches apart). So tell me, is it a big enough deal to ask him to fix it?

For Mr. O

Sanding off the old

Before sealing

After sealing

Looking towards the hall

The dining area (still wet). One more sanding/buffing and one more satin coat - finished product tomorrow. What do you think?

The reason I feel 50 hundred years old today

Exhibit A: filthy, dirty carpet for which we paid to have Scotchguarded and the factory forgot to do (even water left stains).

Anyway it was time for it to come out since my son has spent approximately 2 years in here in a hospital bed through various surgeries, chemo, body casts - you know, the routine stuff. We've all spilled his food in here more than once, and Pediasure is murder on carpet.

Here is the wood that is going to replace the carpet. I'm looking forward to the easier maintenance. I found it interesting that our wood bundles are stamped with the names Dorothy and Pam.

Exhibit B: we had the original carpet glued down to prevent "wheelchair creep" and the installers took us quite literally about the glue-down part. In fact, they troweled it on. After about 30 minutes, this is all the progress we had made.

And another 30 minutes:

Finally, Mr O. struck upon the idea of cutting the carpet in strips and ripping it back, foot by foot. It still took stinkin' forever. This was about 10:30 pm (keep in mind we started at 5:30)


And here we are at 1:30 am - FINISHED. The floor was still extremely sticky - I mean pieces of wood were stuck to my feet, so we laid out carpet pieces to form a walkway back to the bedrooms. All that pulling nearly ripped my arms from their sockets, I feel like I did some major weight lifting. See that black stuff? It was all over the floor and the kids helped me pick it off - we no longer have any fingerprints (I suppose that means they have a future in jewel thievery)

Where the old meets new (wow is it ever loud listening to the nail gun even though we are down in the basement today).

The absolute best thing about the wood floor going in is the new flush-mount floor vents. Love them!

I guess I will eventually recover from 8 hours of HARD manual labor and the new floor will be worth it.

Stop back by on Friday to see the finished product. In the meantime, here's a fun, easy Halloween decoration. To see what others are talking about, stop by the Lazy Organizer

Bookshelf Tour

I've decided to jump on the bookshelf theme at TAT's home tour. This room has 12 foot ceilings and even though it's only 10x10.5, I'd love to put tall, tall bookcases all around the room and have one of those sliding ladders - a girl can dream can't she? The armoire houses the computer, printer, files and a fold-away chair that slides under the keyboard tray.

I know I need something on the wall above the armoire, but I'm not quite sure what to put there.

The piano which some dear child took a paper clip to. I tell myself, "It's only a piano and someday this will be funny."
We've got bookshelves (much smaller ones) scattered through the house: two in our bedroom, and two more in the kids' rooms, and a few shelves in the storage room hold the ones we don't use as often. In Ellie's room we use a cute white-washed metal tub to hold her picture books right next to her bed. We cannot get enough books in this house. How about you?

Things I should tell you about Ellie

1. Her "maggot" friends - lately she has developed two imaginary friends (named Hailey and, um also Hailey). She overheard me telling someone that they were imaginary and started calling them her maggit friends. They have now graduated to "Magic" friends. She will ask me if they are with us in the car. I turn it around and ask her if they are. She tells me "Yes, I better buckow dem in. Buckow! Buckow! Shook! Shook!"

2. "I like Dinahsawrs. They are cute, just like mommies and green." She said this right after seeing the Sinclair dino, it's good to know that I rate right up there with Maggot dinosaurs.

3. "Can I pick your nose?" Every night I read her a couple stories and finish up with singing some favorite songs. One night, just after we'd belted out a much abbreviated version of Woopie Wye, she asked me, "Mommy, I pick your nose?" I told her of course not, that's really yucky and that I would rather have a kleenex. She then proceeded to inform me that "Daddy let's me pick him's nose." (Whah?!? Ewww!) When she made a snatch for mine, I realized she was talking about the game - I've Got Your Nose.

4. Hipanomanusses and Zreebahs, self-explanatory. English is hard.

***

In other news, the room has progressed so far as to know that we are definitely extending the wood floor into the family room and hallway, for sure. Probably.

Also, glazing the cabinets is cost-prohibitive, I mean I could half a kitchen's worth of brand spankin' new cabinets for what it would cost to glaze them. Neither one of those is happening unless I decide to risk it and glaze and lacquer them myself. Most likely we will keep the cabinets the way they are until they are eaten up with dry rot or something.

Painting? No numbers yet. I wish I had the skills to do the vaulted ceiling and cut it in perfectly, because I'd start Monday. I think we're going Oatmeal.

The jury is still out on the fireplace, but I have found a sofa that will accommodate Ty and not require an ottoman next to it. I'm not sure what the rest of us will sit on, but maybe Ellie has some Maggot chairs we can borrow.

***

Ty update

Lab results Sunday afternoon, pray him some good results please: No more infection.

Big changes coming

We've finally reached that point in our current home's life where stuff is starting to die - last year it was the water heater, water softener, and dishwasher. This year, the carpet is flat-lining and no amount of carpet cleaning/steaming can resuscitate it. Wouldn't carpet paddles be a great invention? Charging....Clear! Zap! Voila, I think I hear a pulse. The carpet is coming back to life.

Well, anyway it's time to rip out and replace the family room carpet (even though no one but Ty eats in here, we've all managed to spill his food), repaint the walls, resurface the wood floors, and while we're at it, we could give the cabinets a face lift and glaze them, sew up new window treatments, put in a ceiling fan or two, and reconfigure the family room so we can all sit in it and get a wheelchair through it (so much tougher than you might think). There is also the canning of peaches and salsa/tomato sauce coming up as well as the curing of squash and onions - so coverage here will be spotty, at best.

It will also be mostly in pictures. Here's one to get you started - what are your thoughts on these paint colors?

A very cute house

Just a couple shots from a very cute house - if you know who it belongs to, be nice and don't say anything (I kinda like living).

All the lights have medallions - don't they look great?

And this painting makes me want to live in France. Sigh...

To see what others are talking about, visit Lara at the Lazy Organizer.