Bathroom & snow

We finished painting as Dave said. It looks so fresh and perfect now. He took the day off yesterday to avoid commuting in the snow and to help me paint. Now I just have to remove all the tape today and get the room ready for hardware installation. Then the ceiling tiles...then painting the front cabinet doors we removed. Then some serious cleaning as somethings haven't been cleaned in 6-9 years. I.e. my shower rod, which has taken on a new color of its own. Then photos!

When we removed every last item from our bathroom (towels, soaps, shampoos, medicines, bath toys etc), we realized just how much was IN the small bathroom! We do have a full closet and a cabinet above the toilet. Some medicines that I know we won't use are going among other things. Since it's such a small room, I am going to get everything off the floor as possible, including bath toys. Glenn even said, after we removed everything off the floor, "Room is bigger?".

Thankfully we live in an area that gets snow plowed very frequently! We got many inches of snow! I learned how to used the snow blower and found it fun and easier! Wish we had one while I was pregnant - that was very difficult to clear a path then. At least we have one now.

But it's not all work...besides remodeling, I am playing my electric guitar for fun and am painting a new painting that involves one of my favorite trees - the cherry blossom! I need to go to Japan soon...

Refreshing upstairs bathroom

We were comparing all of the places in our home that could use some refreshing and settled on the upstairs bathroom to do first. As it was in most need of updating. We've put it off a long time. Every other room has been repainted except this room because of it's size and difficulty. It has a small closet in it that will be a nightmare to paint but we'll get it done. Right now it's just unsightly how they painted the closet and other areas.

Besides cosmetics it had some issues such as the previous owners placement of a towel rod. I've banged my elbow into it numerous times combing my hair. It's a small room and it amazes us they'd put it there, but they did. So we are replacing it with a small towel ring. Our old shower head with removable sprayer decided that before it died it would spray onto our ceiling tiles and discolor them, making it look like we have roof water damage. The stain got darker and darker, so we are replacing the ceiling tiles as well. I've already removed hardware, patched all the holes, sanded, cleaned and next comes taping and actual painting. We found the perfect matching hardware (so beautiful) and a nice subtle paint color for a small room. It's going to look eons better.

I took a lot of before photos and will share them once the room is done.


My new little friend by Black & Decker I got last year has made numerous small jobs easy. It gets in tight spots and is dead simple for someone, like me, who doesn't understand tools that well. There's limited buttons and settings and it just works. It has a handy light that turns on when you're using it. I removed a lot of hardware with it!

There's a market for everything

Seriously, I just don't know what to say here. I stumbled upon this product and couldn't get over how many ways it's just wrong (for me) at least. A) It's a real tarantula, B) What's the point unless you're 10 and want to gross out your little sister, C) It adds insult to injury to have it glow in the dark, and D) Just weird factor. Look below:

Glow-in-the-dark tarantula computer mouse

A funny thing is when Glenn doesn't want to eat something or do something he'll say something way-out-there to make up a reason to not eat it or do it. Lately it's been "It's too wiggly wobbly" (really just nonsensical) and before it was "Yuck, can't eat it...has bugs in it". lol. And for this mouse - it's true!!

Today I laughed so hard with Glenn. I told him we'd be going down an elevator. He said "Oh no, not an alligator!" in a scared tone. I reassured him there were no alligators in the elevator! :) Well, it was funny; you had to be there...

Kitchen Organization #2

Since the major kitchen organization, this is just a follow-up small fix. I am amazed after cooking a few meals how efficient our shelf arrangement is. It was faster with less "Where is the ...." questions.

Some more simple kitchen organizational fixes...and some have already been installed a long time now. Below is a cleaning tool organizational item from Ikea ($19.99). I pared down my cleaners that I need immediately at hand to just what's below. The rest is stored in a 'cleaning closet' down the hall with the vacuum and all that stuff that's unfortunately necessary. The top rack is for gloves, sponges, etc and the bottom is for cleaners. It pulls out so you don't have to put your head under the cabinet each time. Love it. I really love it because I kept loosing new sponge packages in my closet. Little did I know that when I bought my 2nd sponge pack of 6, I already had 6 waiting to be used. Now it'll all be in one spot and I won't overbuy.

As you can see from the photo we need to retouch up the paint on some cabinet areas. It's been 6 years since the paint job. Damn you, high mega pixel camera...must you show all the imperfections and grime? :)

Already installed for a long time now is our bag caddy and plastic wrap/baggie/alum. foil caddy. When you don't have a lot of cabinetry or drawers, or even if you do, why waste it on this stuff? Some of them can be longer than a cabinet or taller than a drawer, or hard-to-find fast. These 2 were from The Container Store, my mecca.

I got this paper towel holder yesterday while out and about with the car (drove Dave to work) and so far I think it'll work. I am getting used to it, have never had this style.

Right now I'm patching many holes in my walk-in-closet. The previous owners left us some holes and after taking down "odd hardware" for lack of a better term, we're left with even MORE holes. So I am sick of looking at other peoples holes and it will be fixed. Then I will repaint my WIC, it really needs it.

Favorite Picture

To continue the appreciation posts, I decided to add one of my favorite paintings in the whole house. It's in our master bedroom. I probably go to sleep most nights looking at it a few times, and I wake up seeing it. We got it at "World Market" and we picked the frame and framed it. It really looks like you're looking out a window at a wonderful bay, that pretty much everyone would love to live by. It also reminds me of a great photo I took when I was in Greece when I was a young teen (?) that had boats in the foreground and a great sunset in the background. I will try to dig out that photo someday.

I was thinking if we lived in an area where there'd be a slow, traveling forest fire and a) everyone & lizard were safe, b) all our important documents & photos, were safe, I'd possibly c) go back for this painting. It's not that expensive, I just love it. And I'd go back for my guitar, laptop, and a few changes of clothes, Glenn's baby memorabilia, but everything else can burn and will be replaced. :-) Watch, I am forgetting some critical thing...On an odd side note, I had this dream we had to move to Hawaii. I woke up and immediately mentally scanned the house and went through what we would take with us. It was mostly small stuff. I may be the only person who has forest fire plans, in a non-forest fire area. :-)

Kitchen Organization #1

We had nothing to do yesterday and thought we'd help the kitchen a little (and me). We tried to plan out what we'd buy from IKEA, but it wasn't working, so we just went there. After about 2.5 hours (Glenn cooperated and used their bathrooms twice) walking, searching, and planning, we bought a 47" shelf that matches the size of our island perfectly (also 47").

The problem was I noticed I circled 100 times to make a meal. I do all my work on the island table shown above, not on the actual kitchen countertop. So I had to admit I need tool storage there. But I had to constantly go back to my tool drawers on the other side of the room many times during preparation. Not efficient.

Ikea makes a really nice island table with drawers that we love but it is way too big for the space, 57"+, which basically means we wouldn't be able to open our oven. They make another one we like with all drawers but then we had no where to put spare pots/pans. So instead we put up a shelf.

My only problem with my 7-8 year old island table is that it's unfinished wood. I use food-grade mineral oil every few months on it, but if you drop waffle batter on it and don't notice, it will harden and become 'rock'. Same with staining. On the plus side, it makes you clean it often. We've sanded it before but they really should have put an easier clean top on it, IMO.

We removed our previously purchased spice rack and it now hangs off the new shelf (same IKEA model name). Then we added a hanging metal tray (?) that has all my measuring spoons & cups in it, we added hooks for commonly used tools. And my cutting boards, scale, pepper/salt, and mixer tools are in a container on top of the shelf.

Eventually the hanging metal tool thing next to the oven will be replaced with a matching one to the 'big shelf'.

This frees up the entire countertop for prep work. We bought the matching Ikea knife rack as it was longer than my current one and matched better. I've said before: I don't need new top of the line counters and cabinets, but I need efficiency and lots of space. So hopefully this was in the right direction, which I think it was. I used to be somewhat anti-drill holes and install too much on the kitchen walls, but since we don't have upper or lower cabinetry on this wall, I had to go with efficiency.

We had a problem installing the shelf: the 'wonderful place' the kitchen installers put the light switch. Seriously, anywhere else, please. Also they put the wall outlet dead center where any table/counter/etc would hit the wall. Again, what were you thinking? (Usually it'd be a few feet above.) We have to put an outlet splitter thing there to make the outlet higher. So these are the things we had to work around.

We have one more great Ikea item to install later tonight and then I'll take photos of it. An under-the-sink organizer.

Great close up photo of my filthy scale, which I just noticed, lol.

Then, since I had to clean the wall dust from the drilling, I basically noticed how dirty the kitchen was! The worst was the light switches had small civilizations living on them, the stove top needed cleaning, then my spices needed refilling, just everything needed to be cleaned. Even my spice lids were dusty/grimy. This organization will really help us.

I labeled my spices. I wanted to not have labels but then I couldn't tell the paprika from the cayenne so, something had to be done. :)

We need to figure out a paper towel solution. Maybe a countertop one for the un-used, actual countertop on the other side of the room. We also need a proper 'home' for the paper towel. Where's it off to now?

And the other side effect of doing this is we'll be able to find things easier. The scale kept moving: was it under the towel on the countertop, was it on top of the dishwasher, who knew? Now everything has a home. And don't worry about dust - I use every item so frequently it's never out for more than 2 days until it reaches the dishwasher.

Other things need to be fixed soon as well: Our circle turning cabinet in our cabinetry has died. It's old, cracked, and not level anymore and can't take weight. A newer kitchen overhead light.

Ready for preschool

Blogger is being not so friendly and won't let me put this picture at the bottom.

This photo is for Ron/Ev. While we were at American Science & Surplus we saw this 3D Xmas tree that you build yourself and attach the LED lights, sounds fun.

We took Glenn today to be registered for preschool, after seeing the rooms and facility. After all our questions were answered (and we had many!), we signed him up and put down the deposit. We wanted to see one of the rooms and he just instantly took to all the toys (found the bucket of cars and gigantic trucks fast!). He showed a teacher wooden blocks and they talked about colors, etc. He looked really into it and the environment seemed conducive to learning. Given, we, the parents were still there and there were no kids yet, but I think he will adjust well or get used to it like all the other kids come August.

What we especially like was that there are several rooms for the kids to visit. There's a homeroom and that's starts off the day. Then they visit each room with different teachers for different play/learning: motor skills, alphabet/colors/etc, and more. It's like a station environment.

Weekend Occasion

Tomorrow we have Albert, our friend, coming over for dinner and good times. I am slow cooking my personal recipe of BBQ beef ribs, and am also making baked sweet potatoes with marshmallows, bread, and more. I made the dessert already: chocolate cup cakes with sprinkles. They're nice individual portions - versus a cake - and each is only 280 calories. I calculated, measured, weighed frosting, and of course wrote it down so I never have to calculate it again! I will freeze the remainder. We watched a great movie last time too.

And on another topic, the data is in and with 2 get-togethers, we managed to save, if my math is correct, 27 to 38% off our former grocery bill by shopping at Aldi, comparing to past monthly totals from October to November 2009. So February will be a truer total. And of course I look forward to seeing the yearly 2010 total compared to 2009. Why's it matter? 'Cuz we need a 2nd car and lowering your food budget is important, if you can eat the same or higher quality food for less money. Why not! (Also, most importantly, striving to waste less on a daily basis!)

Happy Birthday Mom!

My flower bloomed!

Well my mother made it to 66! Today is her birthday. She is happy in many ways as well because she will receive her first social security check soon, which she has looked forward to her whole life. She really could not have more on her plate right now, but is surviving. Hopefully this is the year she sells her home to reduce stress and downsize, but there are a lot of factors going on there. Today she will go with a friend downtown to the Drake, sit at her favorite window, and have lunch. That's a pretty good tradition, I think!

For a new tradition of mine, I will begin a new photo taking opportunity. A part of simplicity is appreciation for what you have; not always wanting. So I will take a photo whenever the mood hits me of something/someone/some experience I am appreciative of. The first photo will be my new plant (above). I will post my next photo soon.

Dictionary: Falderol

fal⋅de⋅ral

  [fal-duh-ral] Show IPA

–noun

1.	mere nonsense; foolish talk or ideas.

2.	a trifle; gimcrack; gew-gaw.

Also, fal⋅de⋅rol  [fal-duh-rol] Show IPA , folderol.

Origin:
1695–1705; orig. as a nonsense refrain in songs; of obscure orig.

Preschool Ahead

So this week we have an Open House for Preschool for Glenn! Technically preschool starts in late August. It will be a big change, that's for sure. It will involve social changes for him and freedom and more alone time for me, given the 2nd car addition and the hours away from him. He really doesn't have that many friends, which is sad. And of course with the winter around here, even less. It really cemented it in for us that he needs to start school soon with 3 social reasons lately:

1. The doorbell rang, Glenn & I ran upstairs. He said "It's my friends!!!" cheerfully wanting to play, it was the USPS. :( Sad.
2. He talked to a lady bug (one that was on it's back - dead, he didn't know). He said "Look at this lady bug" and went on to talk to it.
3. Daddy was busy last night and Glenn talked to the bookcase...ok. He was joking I am sure, but said "Hi bookcase, nice to meet you". And then to the train table with playing catch: "Catch table...good job". He needs more than just his parents.

The only thing stopping us was he had to be 3 and potty trained. The latter was the problem. I think they ask a lot of boys honestly, since they're slower to train. The pressure is high. He's pretty good with a rare accident but when he sees tons of people and is so excited by them and new toys, he gets very distracted. Since he'll be 4 when preschool starts, we have some time to perfect things.

I'd be lying if I said I couldn't use a break 2-3 times a week with preschool. At age 3 they're even more "ON" than age 2. And I find my hour or so break a day mandatory. I will be looking forward to the 2nd car so I can run errands during the day and also so he and I can visit different parks during the warmer months and have experiences at places that are too far to walk to. I am very prone to cabin fever so I look forward to a little more outings. But again, it will all be a big change.

Great photos

For some reason Glenn inundated me with great photos and milestones in the last few days, so I thought I'd share. Usually I can get some so-so photos but these really captured where he is right now...excluding the plant.

So I bought this above amaryllis plant at Lowes in late December on a whim. It looked sad there sitting it its container with no soil next to a freezing cold entry door. It looked like it was just dying to sprout & thrive. Well, it was. I added warm water to this circular soil thingy and out sprouted soil. I guess it was dehydrated soil, but it was like a cool science experiment. Anyway, I had a 'before' photo and the plant was 2" tall. Now it's 12" and it will have a big red bloom soon. It's 'high maintenance' in my opinion but for some reason I thought it was worth it - and the price was phenomenal. It needs to be planted outside and then brought in yearly, but it looks very cool.

Being silly, he brought his short chair to the dining table. He knew it'd be too short and gave me the sneaky eyes look. There are his cars - Daddy's train cars we got out of a storage bin in the basement that he played with as a child. We of course found a train car carrier in the box. Daddy found his favorite tan car that he thought was lost to the ages. Of course, Glenn loves it too. He's never turned down a car.

Bad photos but here's 2 photos of his first written word. LOVE. Is there a better word to write? He told me he wanted to write words on the pad of paper. He made the "L", then I suggested "O" because it's easy (he gets frustrated if a letter's too hard to write), then I thought of a word we could make and told him to write the rest and he did. I love the long, never-ending 'E".

Part of an "I".
He drew an "A" all by himself on my dry erase pad. He was very proud.

Above he's watching Sims 3 where the little boy is playing with -what else- a car! He was smiling and enjoying the virtual child playing. He told me when I was redecorating the Sims room to buy more toys for the boy, all he saw was a teddy bear. He saw this boy as a newborn swaddled in a blanket and wondered why he couldn't play with the yellow car. I told him he was too young. Then he asked me "He has legs??" He couldn't see legs on the baby. ;)

He lined up his fruit/vegetables of his chopping set and 'cutting' some, then proceeded to line up the alphabet (backwards for extra challenge for Mommy) and had fun.

Here he's been silly showing his feet hanging above the fruit & letters. His latest thing is he loves to do something, have his photo taken, and look at the photo. He lined up some numbers, said "Be right back", came back with HIS camera and took a quite good photo of it.

Uncommon pose.
Here he's playing with his wooden toolkit, specifically the drill. I'm in the office, he comes in to fix the wall, drills (with his sounds), and does it over and over.

Another funny conversation we had today: I went to get the mail.

Glenn: Car in the mail?

Me: No you can't get a new car in the mail every day.

Glenn: (pause)....yes you can. Yes, you can Mommy!

Sometimes Nana sends him a Matchbox car in the mail if she hasn't seen him in a while so I guess the mail is fun. ;)

Cold & Laryngitis & Bleeding Hands

I'm sick again, this time not a flu but a very bad cold that turned into laryngitis, which is more than a sore throat believe me. I've been sick since Monday, or 8 days now. But yet the show must go on with little to no changes in my daily routine. Little rest for the weary. Glenn very lightly understands sicknesses so no breaks are given really. I hope someday soon he truly understands how others can't act normally when they're sick. Cut someone some slack please. The worst is the hacking cough now and the fact when I am reclining, I no longer can breathe. So Nyquil zonks me out until about 530 AM and then I am up, like today, again. I want nothing more than a healthy 2010.

Not only did Dave have 1 bad day with the flu, but also with the cold. So what am I doing wrong? The flu took me out for 2 weeks and the cold, over a week. Maybe I am more susceptible to disease which means I have to be more careful what sick people I am around. I was a preemie, I don't know if that follows you through your whole life, or if it gave me reduced immunity. I did get pneumonia way more often that other people. I am very conscious of sanitation and vie to stay away from the sick. Or I need to work on my immunity. Dave drinks a lot of O.J. and I don't drink as much. So, I will start. I need some juice glasses though. I dislike huge glasses of juice. I like small servings.

Other health news, even with a blessed dishwasher (which I still am thankful for daily), my hands still can't take this arctic cold. Even wearing good gloves outside, I come back inside and my hands will fissure and bleed within minutes to hours. Does this happen to anyone else?

Japanese New Year!

Gorgeous.

One thing that annoys me about American culture is there aren't many amazing traditions so I guess since American is a 'melting pot' I will have to assimilate my traditions from various cultures. One I really love is the Japanese New Year, or shogatu, which involves cleaning your home from top to bottom, celebrating with family for the holiday (not there yet), ringing a bell to usher out the old year, giving your children New Year's gifts (money in envelopes, how easy), and giving New Years cards. Maybe down the line we'll do more of those things. Pray for good health and fortune. What a wonderful holiday idea. The New Year is a great way to enjoy a fresh start. Japan is definitely a country we must see in the next decade. We love their culture. That's definitely a trip to save up for.

So we did the cleaning house part so far. Next year we'll make plans to do more things for Japanese New Year. It wasn't really planned this year and my chronic sickness didn't help plan it. We've been cleaning up: decluttering and cleaning. If we weren't using it with no chance of using it in the future, it's gone or is going right now. We are not pack rats. We don't value stuff over people. Lessening attachment to things, especially those 'not as loved' things, I find, is very important. One reason is it frees up your attention and now you can focus on what you DO love and enjoy. And that's important. As some of us have seen on "Hoarders" sometimes possessiveness gets out of hand. Of course there's underlying psychological issues there sometimes. As I've said before if I see something waste away in the basement for over a year and there's no hope of using it, it's going. And if you think you're saving money by keeping it, you're wrong. It takes time/money to protect, clean, insure, maintain, move, and think about it.

Also cleaning: I saw the bottom of my -ironic- cleaning closet and almost died. It was so utterly filthy. I took everything out, got rid of half my cleaning products I didn't need or were cast upon me, cleaned it all, and put everything back. Now we can find everything! Also it really helps my lungs can't use 50% of the products out there, so I am limited to only needing a small arsenal. Goodbye Pledge & oven cleaner! I've been cleaning up toys, herding Glenn's books, and our possessions too. It's a good feeling to see someone else use it and need it more than us.

And another short bit of wisdom: If you want easier cleaning, own less crap.

Now to tidy my desk...!!!

Happy with Aldi

After seeing the '09 grocery totals, we knew something had to be improved. The place we were going was very good on deli/fresh meat/veg/fruit prices but everything else was not the best. I knew after a few times of paying $2.99-3.99 for a jar of small to medium pasta sauce something wasn't right. Also one of the last straws was the deceptiveness at our old store, questionable sale signs: We bought a cardboard-style pizza and the sign said $4.99 or less (can't remember) we got it home, popped it in the oven, and when I was reviewing my receipt it said $9.99! For a pizza that was no better than Jack's or similar brand. It wasn't even that good, I'd say Tombstone is better. This is only 1 example. (My fav is deep dish, anyway...)

After hearing my mother and a complete stranger rave about Aldi, I decided to try it once and if it sucked, I'd just never go back. I've tried 2 locations and I prefer the one on Kedzie versus 95th street, but the latter isn't bad at all, just worse traffic/driving.

The first trip I went with Dave/Glenn, the 2nd I went alone.

I personally enjoy

a) lack of choice, limited choices (how many times I stood in "...." aisle comparing brands, sizes, prices per oz. Now I can pretty much just grab the item and go. Or Jewel's massive cereal aisle that's an entire aisle long, floor to top of display. Overwhelming.

b) generic foods (we were buying generic anyway, yet weren't saving what we are at Aldi)

c) bagging myself (most of the time places bag too heavy anyway or still put the delicate fruit at the bottom of the bag or a pie sideways, not that I buy much pie.) I like doing it myself.

d) returning my cart (get a few extra steps in the day and keeps their costs down)

e) the well-lit, clean store. It's cleaner and better lit than our old grocery store. Glenn tried the Aldi bathroom and it was clean as well.

f) some name brands. I expected to see zero name brands but I saw a few.

g) Easy to read receipt. The receipt will say "stewed tomatoes" versus "Del Mnte 13.5Z", quickly can see what you paid.

We tried a lot of foods there so far, we've been happy with their cereal, vegetables, fruits (wonderful, tasty baby watermelon $1.99), lunch meat, cheese was really good, strawberries were freshest ever Dave said, macaroni and cheese all 3 of us enjoyed, etc etc. I am about to cookup red meats from them today and we bought filet mignon, virtually impossible at our old store with the budget.

One example: Stewed tomatoes. I make stew semi-often and at Target it's $.80-$.90 a can. At our old store it would be maybe $0.99 on sale, at Aldi it's $0.49 regular price. Less sale hunting, less massive stocking (I just don't have tons of cabinetry storage for food). That's the regular price.

2 things I didn't like: -Garlic chicken heat-up meal was too garlicky. $3.99. Can't win them all. and their only diet cola is GT Cola and it's caffeinated, it's not my favorite. I'm used to my brands there.

What I still have to buy elsewhere: So I buy my pop elsewhere, Apollo's dandelion they don't carry, and they didn't have buttermilk but I don't think it's a 'common' ingredient for most people. So no big deal. Maybe once every 2 weeks we go to a different grocery store for those odd items.

Very happy so far and did I mention the money saved? Yesterday I saw the belt loaded with food and got that "I spent too much" feeling. At our old store it would have been bad. At Aldi, I did a double-take at the low price. The savings may go towards that 2nd car we may need later this year and/or schooling and it's good to save and eat the same quality of food!