We might be grown-ups

Today, while Jake was putting the finishing touches on our new media set-up, I realized that we might be grown-ups. We now have a living room that is:

1. Not hot pink

2. Painted -- professionally -- in a color we actually chose

3. Has three pieces of furniture that we bought from a store. More importantly, we are the FIRST owners of these three pieces.

4. We have a large (in my opinion) TV & attached media equipment

5. Said equipment is arranged nicely in a cabinet, with dedicated electrical switches that don't involve an elaborate set of extension cords crossing the room.

6. There are actual curtains, actually hemmed to fit the particular windows in which they hang.



I know, some of you might have said that buying a house, or maybe, having a child, were rather obvious signs we were grown-ups. Or the fact that I am updating this blog on a Friday night. OK, fine. We're grown-ups. But here's the evidence:















If you'd like to see how far we've come, you might enjoy a walk down memory lane through some old blog posts about the room formerly known as the pink room, such as this one, or this one, or this one. We've come a long way, baby.



I will try to post some more details of the changes, but for now I wanted to post this so that certain people (Moms, we're looking at you) could see the results now!

Conversations with Lucy

I know I owe you a post w/ pictures of the changes, but we've hit a bit of a setback, with Lucy getting sick, then Jake getting sick, and now (surprise!) I'm sick too. Blargh. But for now, I must share with you this conversation from this morning's drive to school. As usual, we were listing to NPR's Morning Edition. Lucy was very quiet in the back, so in fact I thought she might have fallen asleep. But no, she was listening to the news, which was featuring a story on Jimmy Carter's trip to North Korea to get an American teacher out of prison there (the man is from Massachusetts, so this is an especially big story around here).

Lucy: Did they say "Carter"?
Me: Yes.
Lucy (with glee): They're talking about Carter!
Me: Oh, honey, they're not talking about your dog, Carter. They're talking about a man named Carter who was President.
Lucy: Carter! That's a funny name for a President.

Indeed!

More later when I'm feeling better.

Changes Afoot

I told Lucy we gave away our TV. I realize that this might be seen as cruel. We did in fact give away our TV -- or more appropriately, we returned it to our kind friends who gave it to us. This is because we are getting a new TV! We have not yet told Lucy this part, but she definitely knows something is up.

For the past couple of years, this cabinet has been the keeper of our television:


But this cabinet is rather large and bulky. While I like the fact that it keeps the TV & media out of sight when we're not watching it, it does take up a lot of space in this room. In the corner opposite this cabinet (both literally in the room and in the figurative sense of the opposing contender for media storage) is this built-in cabinet:

We have often thought that it would be nice if this could be our media center. It would completely re-orient the room. There are shelves on top (obviously) but there's also a neat little cabinet down below, which, sadly, has been blocked by the couch for all these years because of the current media/seating configuration.

Can you guess what's coming next? Well, you'll just have to wait. I'll update as we accomplish the transition -- it may be a couple of days. Stay tuned....

Updates of Various Sorts

This will be a bit of an update pot-luck, containing the bits and pieces I've been meaning to write for a while:

Paint Update:

Quite some time ago, we blogged about the array of paints we found in the basement. While my mom was here, we got around to doing something about those cans of paint that we will surely never use, like the hot pink that was once in the (now blue) living room, the bright orange that was in the basement, and several other random cans of unknown origin. There were a few that were dried out, so they went to the trash. Then there were several that had paint in them, so we used mom's solution of drying them out using sand. Grandma and Lucy had a very regular job for several days that involved checking on the paint cans. Lucy LOVED this and was very diligent about bringing sand around and checking on the cans VERY often. Today, Grandma would be happy to hear, the painted was deemed dry by local authorities (me) and the sandy-paint cans went out to the trash. Hooray! A job well done.


Infestation Update:

I don't know how or why this happened, but the three plants in our bathroom have become infested with some manner of tiny, flying bugs. It got so bad, I moved them all outside, as I'm not so keen on bugs inside the house. We've had the plants for quite some time. One is a Christmas cactus that Jake got me on our first Valentine's day, one is a spider plant we inherited from Jess when she moved across the ocean, and the third is a leafy guy that one of our neighbors gave us when we moved in here. About a month ago, I re-potted all of them in nice, new, matching blue pots that I got at Target. Could it be that the soil was infested? Any suggestions, readers? I liked having plants there, but (call me species-ist) I'm really not in favor of supporting an insect habitat indoors. Here they are, sadly outside, waiting for further action:


Seating update:

A while back, as documented in a photo from this post, Jake purchased two Adirondack chairs at our local Ace Hardware. He put them together a while ago, but they were bare wood, and we thought some paint or stain would be a good idea. Grandma to the rescue again: while we were off in New Hampshire getting away for an overnight, she gave our new chairs a good coating of stain/protectant. So now we have two quite lovely folding Adirondack chairs for the next time you come visit us!
Additionally, we should note that our new walls, both out front and out back, provide pretty awesome (if hard) seating, should you wish to visit us and rest your feet.

Garden Update:

Between the building of the wall, our various travels, and the lack of rain lately, our garden has not been doing so well. Lucy did just harvest a small array of tiny tomatoes:

They were delicious, and also kept Lucy busy with the picking, arranging, cleaning, and distributing of them. But other than that, there's not a whole lot going on in the garden. That's OK. Our CSA farm share has been terrific, and the local farmers' markets have been bursting with goodness. Tonight, Jake made a tremendous dinner of super-fresh local ingredients, including corn on the cob, a lovely green salad w/ ingredients from our CSA, and absolutely amazing omelets featuring eggs from Matt & Mary. Have we mentioned our friends Matt & Mary? Well, they are awesome. They have chickens (5 of them) in their yard, and they share the eggs with us. They're away for a few days, so we're minding the chickens. This means we get lots of eggs. They are awesome and amazing and delicious. YUM!
By the way, the tomato omelet is topped with Jake's home-made herbed creme fraiche. YUM!

Media Update:

During our travels, our friends recommended a variety of fabulous television shows, movies, and blogs that we think deserve mention here.

First and foremost, we are now officially fans of the fabulous British sitcom, The IT Crowd (thank you, Tamara!). There are three seasons, all available on Netflix to watch instantly. They are funny. As Jake IS the IT department at his office, so he has many opportunities to experience some of the scenarios in the show. Also, Season 3, Episode 5 features a plotline involving "FriendFace" that totally explains why I am not on Facebook. [I'm not. Don't ask me to join. Jake's on if you want to poke him or whatever it is you people do on the Facebook with your Interwebs.]

My new favorite blog is Hyperbole and a Half. This might not be appropriate for some readers, but it is very, very funny. And often quite dark. Just as we like it. The new pain rating scale located here, is one of my very favorites. Be forewarned, there is some language that may offend some readers. And some shocking images rendered in childish cartoon drawings.

In recent movie releases, while at the beach, we went to see Inception. It was very enjoyable, and worth seeing on the big screen. These days we tend to wait until movies are out on DVD so we can watch them at home, thus saving on the babysitter front. We've been burned too often by the likes of Wolverine to get a sitter for a movie with questionable reviews. Fellow parents, I decree, Inception is babysitter-worthy.

In recent DVD releases, while at my brother's house, we watched Star Trek -- the one from last year with Chris Pine as Kirk and Eric Bana as the baddie, and Winona Ryder as Spock's mother (WHOA!). Some of you may be aware of my Star Trek issues. For those of you unaware and those who need a refresher, here is the deal: when my Mom was going into labor with me, my Dad told her to wait until the episode of Star Trek he was watching was over, and then he would take her to the hospital so she could give birth to their first child (me). I am not kidding. I've not quite managed to forgive him or Spock for this choice. So I'm not a big fan. My brother, on the other hand, can safely be referred to as a Trekkie. I mean, he owns the latest Star Trek film, and most of the other ones (feel free to correct me here, Brendan) and (I believe) various items signed by various members of casts of the various Star Trek franchises. Despite my misgivings, we sat down to watch Star Trek on Brendan's considerably large television. It was good. Very good. We thoroughly enjoyed it. As has happened previously with breakfast sandwiches and cream cheese, I have learned that the things I once despised and mocked are actually pretty good. I stand corrected.

That's the media round-up for today. Readers, feel free to suggest additional films, TV shows, blogs or Twitter feeds that we should be watching so that we can catch up with the rest of the world.

August Update

Howdy! We're back from our travels and our guests have left, and boy has it been forever since we've posted. There are many new things I've been meaning to blog for a while, so let's get right to them, shall we?

I'll start with the biggest news first, or at least, the biggest project. While my Mom was here, she painted our guest room/craft room. Yes, you read correctly, while she was a guest in our house, actually using the guest room, she painted the room. She is awesome. Thank you, Mom. This is a project we'd wanted to have done for some time, but we kept putting it off because....well, you read this blog & know what happens here. But Mom was ready for the challenge.

We had a variety of thoughts on color; I had previously wanted this room to be a periwinkle that I had seen in a friend's office, but after the change in the pink room (to dark blue) I wasn't sure if that was still going to work. We tried out a couple of paint samples that we had and ruled out both colors, deciding that the "French Lavender" was too bright and the "Spring Green" was too dark.
This shot also gives you a sense of how the room color needs to be OK with the blue room (and also the dining room, since there's also a door between this room and the dining room).

I think it's also the best shot I have here that portrays the original color of the room, which I had come to describe as the color of an old Band-Aid, fabric kind. I thought initially that it was sort of a neutral color, but after a while (this room was my office when we first moved here) I came to loathe this color and its ace-bandage-ish tone.

The room also featured a wallpaper border up by the ceiling:

It was sort of bland; we didn't realize until we were up on the ladder that it's actually textured. The worst part is that our ceilings are VERY high. So we were going to be scraping wallpaper up high above our heads, working on ladders. This part was not fun. Using a lot of vinegar and a ladder was had to lean up against the wall, we managed to get the thing down:


But we realized that we couldn't paint using a ladder that we leaned against the wall. We discovered that Taylor Rental near us would rent a ladder (just $12! who knew?) and then we were also able to borrow one from our fabulous next-door-neighbor, so it all worked out.

Mom did the vast majority of the painting. After about 5 minutes of painting, I came to the conclusion that I do not like, nor am I good at painting. But Mom did a very professional job, getting a coat on the ceiling, doing the color, touching up trim, and painting all of the baseboards (which really needed it).

Here's an after shot so you can get a sense of the color.
What's that down in the lower portion of the picture, you ask? I'm so glad you asked! It's Ella Fitzgerald!


My lovely friend Gab gave me this switchplate ages ago, and I brought it with me when we moved. I just hadn't found the right place for it. This is totally the right place! Hooray!

OK, here are a couple more shots of the new walls:


We're very happy with the color. Thanks, Mom!

That's all for tonight. I hope to post more soon.