Friday, March 30, 2012

...and there went March!

Well they do say that time flies when you're having fun, but this is ridiculous!  Where did March go? 

I think it must have got lost somewhere in between birthdays (mine and Brian's), an anniversary (21 years since we started dating), a spring break (Becca's, and she really needed it), various late winter coughs and colds, and an outbreak of kitchen redecorating. 

The kitchen was inspired by a beautiful piece of beech countertop that Brian and Caity found at a scrap wood place, they brought it home, cut it to size, refinished it, and it's now installed on my cut-down island.  We lost the old cooktop, removed one stack of drawers, and turned the island 90 degrees, also removing the doors so that the pans are easily accessible and they look pretty, too!  Then I got to work with a can of paint and refinished all the lower cabinets.  This really needs pictures...hang on a minute, let me go and find the camera...

First, and most important, here is Connie, in all her beautiful Aga glory!  Guess where everyone likes to sit....

Here's the new island.







 and the newly painted cabinets....

next on the list will be new countertops and white trim! 
 and here's where I'm blogging from!  With knitting, of course!  ;-) 
You can see which part of the floor is refinished and which hasn't been sanded back yet - there was no wood underneath the old island, so we're going to use the torn out bathroom flooring to tidy that up and make it all match nicely.  The refinishing of the rest of the floor will happen after that, probably in fall when we want to be back inside again. 

The ceiling needs paint, and one of the new light fittings hasn't been installed yet, but it's coming along nicely, and we're enjoying the new brighter space. 

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Ups and Downs

It's a bit bumpy, this life thing, isn't it? 

It's been a good news, bad news, happy news, sad news sort of a month so far, and most of the stories are not mine to tell, so we'll just leave it at this - I have a lot of dear and lovely people held in my heart right now, you know who you are, and you know why you have a special place, I'm thinking of you. 

Everything else is rolling along as usual, except for the snow this morning, which was a little unexpected.  We've had more days of snow this winter than the combined snow-day-total of the other 3 Washington winters we've experienced - and today was just one more.  Drove to school in falling snow, drove home in falling snow - sometime mid-morning snow gave way to blue sky and sunshine and this afternoon was really quite pleasant.  Bri is outside splitting kindling though, just in case...  you never can tell around here! 

I had planned to come here daily and tell you about my self-improvement challenges - I guess I failed at the first challenge, which was to share the challenges with you!  Oops!  maybe we'll try that one again...  yesterday was an 'eat well' day, and we had chinese veggie soup for supper, which was fabulous even if I do say so myself.  In fact it was so good that everyone took leftovers for lunch today (thus foiling my evil plan to have made 2 dinners at one time, but never mind that now) and it's pretty much gone now!  All those excellent veggies were very healthy, and tonight's chicken with peppers, onions, herbs and tomato sauce wasn't too shabby either. 

Today's challenge is the exercise challenge and that will be taken care of tomorrow morning when I go to the fitness club.  Yep, go ahead, read it again, I know, you're shocked, I have taken up exercise!  I have not yet worn my 'I'd rather be knitting' t-shirt to the club but it's tempting some days.  I go 3 days a week, and do cardio and strength training and it's all computerised and online and gadgety so it keeps me entertained and I barely notice how boring the whole thing is.  I have learned that my body is currently operating at the rate of a 36 year old, excellent news indeed for my 43-next-week self, and that I have only a very tiny amount of fat wrapped around my organs, also excellent news - inspiration to not eat the crispy skin off the chicken! 

Tomorrow's challenge will be to tidy up a miniature disaster somewhere in the house, and there are plenty to choose from!  Who knows, I may even remember to come back and tell you about it...