Holiday Home Tour

For the last month, the Christmas season has been around every corner in our little house. I started putting up decorations a day after Thanksgiving, and in early December we went to the tree farm to cut down and bring our live tree home. Plenty of decking the halls ensued as we welcomed the season of love, life, and giving.

I shared our blog address in our annual Christmas newsletter, so on the off-chance that our far-flung family and friends find their way to this humble spot in the blogosphere, I figured what better welcome than a virtual tour of our home. So here it goes - our first ever Holiday Home Tour.

What better place to start than our front door? Last year, I found a bunch of picks for literally a few cents a piece at an after-Christmas crafts sale, so I dressed up the wreath before I had to put it away. It was fun to open up our Christmas decorations to find jazzed-up, welcoming wreaths.

And this is our living room, with the typical Craftsman layout. The tree in the left corner actually does light up, as does the garland on the mantle (all white lights). I love how twinkly the room becomes for the holidays. The tile on the hearth is actually just placed there - one of our projects later this winter is to grout it. Custom tile was found at Lowe's for $1 (the whole box).

Our stockings are hung by the chimney with care. These are all hand-made by my mother-in-law. The nutcrackers were all gifts when I was a little girl, so it's fun to be able to use them in my holiday decorating.

The kitties are curled up and waiting for Santa. The red damask throw pillows are new - actually just covers, which made me really excited when we found them! I love having different throw pillows, but pillows themselves are a pain to store. This whole photo is emblematic of our first foray of being grown-ups. This year we purchased real, adult, delivered furniture for the first time.

This is a view looking into the mirror that hangs over the couch. Mistletoe kisses!

The columns are my favorite part of our Christmas decor. One of these years I might upgrade the garland, but it works for now. The garland is actually a leftover from our first Christmas together - we wrapped the banister in that home.

This is a view of the fabled Advent Calendar - Andrew and I exchange gifts every day in Advent. We've tried different variations, but to date, we switch days (I'm evens and he's odds this year) and leave little gifts inside. This and last year we didn't actually give each other Christmas gifts, but rather celebrated Christmas giving all through advent.

The 2011 tree - last year we had a fake tree because we left for vacation. I'm so glad to have a real tree again, even if it's a little more upkeep. Nothing feels more like Christmas to me than a real tree.

A view of my favorite ornaments: we picked up the hand-made church ornament on our honeymoon in Barbados, and the Lennox bride and groom ornament for our first married Christmas in 2007. Our tree is definitely a "family" tree, full of ornaments from our childhoods, so I like the red wooden bead garland to tie it all together.

I had to have this ornament this year - Hallmark did a Craftsman series, and I couldn't believe how uncanny the resemblance was to our actual house. The ornament is about the size of the softball, though, so it's hanging out in the back of the tree.

We rearrange the layout of our dining room to make room for the Christmas tree. This is our advent table, with pine green linens and the traditional advent wreath. I'm about the make the switch to "Christmas" linens - a red cloth, a poinsettia runner that we got last year in Mexico, white chair ties, and all white candles. In the background, the "crew" is ready for the birth of Jesus (who is in the drawer), with the exception of the wise men who are on camels in the "East" (on the side table in the living room).

Our homemade advent wreath. While the Church may "okay" blue candles now, we are staunchly traditional with purple and rose.

My stocking: Yes, it really is the stocking from my childhood. Yes, it's about two feet tall. Yes, I'm definitely an only child. It hangs on my closet door as a gentle reminder that I'm still a little spoiled all year long.

The guest room: this area got a pretty big makeover when we re-vamped the basement and moved some bookshelves, a night stand, and some other furniture that was previously crowding the room. In the red vase, you can barely make out the nerf guns that I gave Andrew as an Advent gift. We're still finding darts in odd places in the house.

My grandma made this angel pillow and I love how cute it is with the guest bedding. The headboard was picked up at a Goodwill store for $5.

This is a view of the updated bathroom. I am so happy how this project turned out. So, so happy! Even though it's been finished since earlier this fall, I still feel like it's the best Christmas present ever.

Mr. Snowman holds down the fort, and we chose art prints (Grant Wood - Iowan, of course - created this one, and in the previous photo, the print is by Georgia O'Keefe) to make the commode classy.

Ah, Beary Christmas, the DecemBear tradition. This hails from Andrew's family, and we follow it diligently. For the curious, today, the Bear looked in the Cookie Jar (but Christmas wasn't there).

Our bedroom is finally getting some character. The bookshelf was the start, and then we started toying with bedding. This is half of the Nautica set that we received as a wedding gift, standard shams from the bedding that we purchased to coordinate with a quilt made by my grandma, and a down comforter that we bought on a Black Friday sale a few years back. The mini tree was in the living room last year (it's mate still resides there), but now adds some classy Christmas ambiance.

This was an Advent Christmas to me from Andrew. I wanted a snow globe, but with "real" snow particles - no glitter. That's a tough thing to find! This one was perfect.

This is the entrance to the basement. Last year, these pillows were on the living room couch, but since the room got a little more "grown up," the whimsical ones are a better fit here.

Basement bathroom - it took me forever to find that retro Christmas night light (Andrew's advent gift a few years ago).

The downstairs has a pretty holiday table, too - the cloth belonged to Andrew's grandmother, and the centerpiece was an idea I found on Pinterest.com.

Close-up of the ornament tree: it's really my cupcake stand! How awesome is that? I found a bunch of clearance ornaments, and the topper is tied on with wire.

When I was 16, I had my first job working in a department store during the holidays. I was obsessed with the beautiful trees in the trim-a-tree section, and built my own to match my bedroom (which at the time was lavender and pale green). Last year, the original tree finally bit the dust (it was such a pain to put together, and all of the color-coded tape was missing), so we bought a pre-lit, folding one for $12 after Christmas.

And thus the tour comes to an end. Merry Christmas from our house to yours! May you have quiet, snowy days - with nowhere to go, and plenty of laughter with friends and loved ones in this holiday season.

With love,

Katie and Andrew (and feline companions)

Learning to Cook Mashed Potatoes

Andrew and I spent the bulk of our weekend grocery shopping, which foreshadows how much of this week will be spent in the kitchen. Nearly half of our Thanksgiving feast will be from the Farmer's Market (yay!), and then there were stops at the fish market, the regular grocery store, and one trip to Bed, Bath and Beyond for a deeper pie pan - so hopefully, I won't burn the pecan pie again this year. My blog turned out to be worth its weight in gold, because we printed out a copy and used it as a grocery and to-do list...not before adding a few items.

While I don't post quite as much about cooking as I do about house-related things, food has probably been a much more integral part of our ongoing "nesting" than any building project that Andrew and I have tackled together.

When we were dating and engaged, neither of us was adverse to cooking. I enjoyed it, as I always have, though tiny apartment kitchens and a limited assortment of pots and pans also limited the scope of what I tried to accomplish. After studying abroad in college, I could make a pretty mean Italian dinner, but that was about the extent of my skills. Andrew boasted about his stir-fry (not a favorite of mine) and grilling capablities (which I loved and still do). When I visited Andrew on weekends while I was in grad school, I'd often spend time cooking or baking something while he was at work, since he had a slightly bigger kitchen and a real table where we could sit and eat a meal. I'd make a lot of family recipes, and things that I enjoyed as a kid. I made shepherd's pie and meat loaf, cole slaw, and of course, mashed potatoes. It was never anything fancy, but Andrew and I liked cooking together and figured we wouldn't starve in our years of marriage.

After we'd been married for a few months, Andrew recieved the job offer that moved us to Iowa. I was short on work, which meant we were short on money - so while I had plenty of free time, I didn't have much to do. And this is when the Food Network changed my life. (Kidding...mostly).

I started watching because with no money for the foreseeable future, HGTV and TravelChannel made me lust for what I couldn't have. And because I was curious about what we did have. As newlyweds with a well-stocked registry, we owned every kitchen gadget known to man - plus matching plates, pretty silverware, and one silver spaghetti sever. Adding to the mystique of the culinary realm, our rental house had a decent sized kitchen with a giant formal dining room. While we were short on cash, we still needed to eat. And Iowa has really, really good grocery stores - I'd never seen such appetizing produce and meat. The stars were aligned in my favor.

As I became a student of Le Food Network Bleu, I started noticing that while Paula used butter, Rachel made things quick, Bobby made them cocky, Ina made them classic and Giada made it beautiful, they were all basically doing the same thing. In fact, if you watch 48 hours of the Food Network, you'll see the same recipes and techniques over and over again presented in a bunch of different ways - but at the end of the day, everyone's cake is made with flour and eggs (except for Sandra, who adds a diet coke to boxed mix...ew).

I'd always liked cooking, but I fell in love with cooking during those first few cold months in Iowa. It made me feel pride again because I could contribute to our home and welfare, even though I wasn't bringing home much of a paycheck. There were some failed experiments - like when I'd been cooking for 4 hours and Andrew came home to find me covered in red sauce and sobbing in the middle of the kitchen. My brave husband scooped as much sauce as he could off of the counters to top off his enchiladas and told me that the meal was still good and my effort was worth it.

During this time, I also grew closer to my grandma, who, with my grandpa, now lived closer to us than any other family. I'd call my grandma and ask, "I saw this recipe...how do you make yours?" or "I don't have this...what can I subsitute? What's another way to do that?" My grandma would tell me how proud she was of me when I'd tell her about the meals I'd made and how things turned out. When I'd visit her house, I felt more comfortable stepping in to help in the kitchen, and like a child again, I'd watch what she did closely. I needed to learn.

Though those first newlywed months were hardly idyllic - and God, were they cold -  I can't help but smile when I think about them. I no longer have the Food Network in my life, but I do have a beautiful little kitchen that gets plenty of use. And I don't have as much time as I once did, but I'm grateful to have a full-time job. It's not typical for Andrew to come home to fully prepared meals anymore, but he has become an amazing sous chef. And though my grandma is no longer close by for hands-on cooking lessons, she is still the person I happily chatted with last Friday night about the different options for making gravy or whether or not to stuff the turkey before roasting it.

In a lot of ways, those first months of "good eating" set the tone for how we buy food to prepare at home now. Andrew and I do as much as we can to eat natural, locally-grown/raised food. When we first moved to Iowa, I quickly learned that the best way to make good food is to start with good ingredients - and when we moved into our home and started a garden, I realized that the best meals are ones that we grew ourselves. There is something almost spiritual about sitting down to a meal that you planted as a seed, and with the help of the earth, water, and sunshine, it returns to your hands to cook and in turn, nourish your body so your hands can do the work of planting again. If I can't grow my own food, I want to buy it from someone who feels this same way about their work.

As I look forward to making a huge meal for my family, those feelings of pride that I initially felt as a new wife return with even greater emotion. I'm proud of the ingredients that will be on our table - at least 3/4 of the produce on our table will have come from a local farm, which is an amazing feat considering that there's not much currently in season. And I'm proud, simply, that I know what to do with that bounty. During our conversation on Friday night, my grandma said "Thanksgiving doesn't need to be fussy - it's all the foods that your family loves, and usually those things aren't difficult."

And she is right. Nothing on our Thanksgiving table this year will be elegant or difficult or even remarkable. But as I collected our recipes in order to make our multiple grocery trips, I felt like I was collecting together pieces of our family story. These are the foods that I grew up eating, that my parents enjoyed, that my grandparents prepared, and in some cases, the recipes that my great-grandparents gave to my grandparents. This is the food that my family loves.

Last year, this realization was an emotional experience. Initially, I was thrilled to have "survived" keeping track of all of those dishes and planning the meal. But I had a hard time choking back tears when I finally took my seat at the Thanksgiving table, and saw how connected this meal was to our family. Andrew had just used the electric carving knife given to him by my grandpa (who always carved the turkey). We were sitting at Andrew's Grandma Ruth's table, and our plates were filled with Andrew's Grandma Ope's stuffing, my Grandma's oyster dressing and cole slaw. On the ledge in the kitchen, my maternal Grandma's pecan pie was waiting. So many members of the family were missing in the seats, but it felt like both our families were all there at our table.

In a book I read over the summer, the author wrote about how she felt closer to her family members when she cooked, especially during a holiday meal. As she moved throughout her kitchen, she would remember loved ones' hands, voices, and laugher from the years where they had been able to come together for meals. I felt tears streaming down my cheeks when I read those pages, because all I could think about was the mashed potatoes.

Whenever I peel potatoes, I use a paring knife, like my grandma does. As I run my knife under the potato skin, tempting fate as I use my thumb as a stopper for the blade, I can feel my grandma standing next to me at the sink. I think of the years that I stood next to her as a child with the safer (and slower) peeler in hand, as I watched her hands with that wooden-handled knife and how they moved in simple rhythm like folk music - like mine do now. After the potatoes are boiled, I run them through a potato ricer, smiling to myself as I remember Andrew's Grandma Ruth telling me about how her husband, Andrew's Grandpa, insist that she use the ricer so they're creamy - and that he could tell when she didn't! I've learned to make less of a mess using Ruth's ricer than I did the first time when I tried to figure out that contraption in her kitchen. As I spoon the potatoes into a serving bowl, I think of my grandma plopping the bowl in between my cousin and me as we mock argue about who will get to eat all of the potatoes, since clearly there aren't enough to share. Family members, don't be surprised if I put the bowl of potatoes next to me. That's just where they belong.

This year, I have so much to be thankful for. So much has changed since last year's Thanksgiving, and I had so much to be thankful for then, even though my family had gone through a particularly difficult fall. In the year that has passed since I prepared my first Thanksgiving meal, Andrew and I went on a wonderful vacation with my parents, I started a new job, we planted our first vegetable garden, we doubled the size of the living space in our home, remembered how fun it is to ride a bike again, made friends and rekindled old friendships, and as we do every year, we grew older, a little wiser, and certainly happier in our life together. My life is filled with bounty and blessings.

But most of all, this year and every year, I'm just thankful for the mashed potatoes.

Thanksgiving in Lists

I love Thanksgiving for a multitude of reasons. I love being around family and friends. I love food. I love cooking food. I really, really love mashed potatoes. I love hosting a dinner and seeing my pretty china and crystal on the table. I love saying a prayer together before the meal...I always get a little emotional, even if the prayer is as simple and everday as "Bless these gifts to our use and us to thy service." I love the short work week, and I love the chance to catch my breath before the end of the semster and the holidays. I love shopping, which means I also love waking up super early and standing in line to get into a store that I typically zip in and out of. I love cold meat sandwiches. I don't love football, but I do love hanging out with my mom and watching movies or reading magazines or just falling asleep in whatever room football isn't being watched. Thanksgiving is fantastic.

Thanksgiving also means organizing a lot of details. I'm a sorter by nature, so I like the details and lists and the planning. For about a month before the actual day, I'll run through the details in my head. I'll find recipes and read over my plans. While this may be a terrible look deep into my pysche, here are some of the lists that I've been plotting for Thanksgiving at our house this year:
T-day Breakfast:
Cinnamon rolls...Grandma's recipe, if I can make it!

Appetizers:

Olives and pickles

Pickled Herring - my dad and I are pretty much the only ones who will eat it, but it's a holiday staple

Cream cheese with sweet pepper jam over it, crackers

Mixed nuts

Entree:

Turkey - from a locally owned and family operated organic farm

Stuffing - Andrew's grandma's recipe with sausage, onion, garlic, and parsley

Oyster dressing - a staple at my Grandma's table

Turkey gravy - made from the turkey drippings (the only way to make great gravy)

Hot Vegetables:

Mashed potatoes - straightforward, no frills recipe - but insanely delicious

Corn - Fresh from the farm, frozen over the summer. No recipe for this, just heat the stuff up and it's ready.

Green bean casserole - being brought by a friend

Roasted root vegetables - This is a play by ear dish. We'll see what looks fresh and yummy at the store, but hopefully carrots, yams, parsnips, turnips, onion.

Cold salads, fruit, etc:

Cranberry sauce - mine is amazing (recipe from the bag of whole cranberries...so good), but I'm well aware no one is going to eat it. But, it's a T-day staple and is down right amazing on cold turkey sandwiches with horseradish sauce. Mmmmmm!

Cole slaw - my grandma's recipe - vinegar based with carrots and cabbage. I can pretty much make this
with my eyes closed.

Pickled beets - a purple hazard on the table, but oh so good.

Apple sauce - this is a maybe. I've frozen up a bunch of homemade apple sauce, but I'm not sure if it's T-day worthy.

Bread:

Frozen rolls from the Beefhouse Restaurant

Honey butter (just mix honey with softened butter and then let it re-harden).

Dessert:

Pecan Pie (Grandma's recipe)

Pumpkin Pie (Libbey recipe...still searching for a better pumpkin pie recipe)

Homemade cinnamon whipped cream (no recipe needed)

Beverages:

Water

Iced Tea

Pumpkin Beer

Red and white wine

Coffee

Decaf Coffee (Sbux Vias)

Evening:

Bread, Horseradish, Mayo, Lettuce, Tomato, Onion - all the good things for sandwiches

This year's shopping list -

Kitchen/Serving
Roaster Oven -- still debating
A really deep dish pie pan for pecan pie, crust covers

Farmer's Market
Turkey (pick-up)
Pepper jam
Pickled herring
Pickles
Crackers? Cheese?
Bread for sandwiches
Honey
Eggs

Local fish market
Oysters
Pickled herring, if the Farmer's Mkt is out

Already in the pantry/home grown
Fresh parsley (so far, our egress window green house is working great!)
Corn
Rolls
Applesauce

Produce
onions (3-4)
garlic (2 or 3)
potatoes
carrots (2 bunches),
yams,
parsnips,
turnips
cranberries
head of cabbage
tomatoes
lettuce

Grocery store
Sausage

Butter
Whipping cream
Vitamin D milk
Cream cheese

Pie crusts (yes, I totally shortcut this)

Bread (to stale)

Crackers (if not at Farmer's Mkt)
Ritz-type crackers
Olives

Mixed nuts
Pecans
Canned pumpkin
Evaporated milk
Sugar
Karo syrup

T-day Timeline
Saturday: Pick up items at Farmer's Market
Sunday: Get Remaining Groceries
Monday evening: Make cranberries. Figure out what items will go in which dish
Tuesday evening: Make slaw, cinnamon rolls.
Wednesday: Parents arrive; make pies. Put leaves in the table after dinner. Set coffee timer before bed.
Thursday, 7am: Prep stuffing, stuff bird. Get in oven
8am: Turkey Trot
9am: Return
10am: Prep oyster dressing and roasted vegetables, rolls
10:30: Set the table
11:00: Set out appetizers
11:15: Make whipped cream and set aside before kitchen gets too hot
11:30 Start stove-top items: Mashed potatoes, corn, gravy
12:00 Plate the cold stuff, get out the turkey to rest/carve
12:30 Get drinks, finish plating
12:45 Begin Thanksgiving feast
.........
12am: Stores begin to open (though I much preferred when it was 4am...may protest).

Prettiest room in the house

When we moved in to our house, the room that struck me as the most strangely appointed was the bathroom. It had a drop ceiling (think: Dentist's office) and the world's cheapest looking, tiny medicine cabinet. Everything else was lovely - new tub, fixtures, pedestal sink, ceramic tile floor, etc. Stepping into the bathroom was like that Sesame Street segment - "one of these things is not like the other..."

Over the summer, Andrew took out the drop ceiling, and our contractor returned the ceiling to the appropriate height and correctly installed our bathroom light/fan. All that was needed to complete the polished look was to get rid of that awful, cheap-looking medicine cabinet.

Andrew and I thought this was a project we could do on our own, but we were a little worried about doing the electrical work, even though it's pretty basic. Electricuting yourself is not an enjoyable way to spend a weekend. Andrew's dad and step-mom were due for a visit, and Andrew mentioned that his dad had drywalled and done the electrical work in a room in their house, so we recruited my father-in-law for our project.

The result is beautiful! While I went shopping with Andrew's step-mom, the guys were hard at work. From Andrew's description, my father-in-law did pretty much all the work (I think we should invite my in-laws to visit much, much more often!!). I came home to this:

Doesn't it look fantastic? I'd been imagining this project for nearly 3 years, and couldn't believe how perfectly it turned out - I've learned the hard way through our rennovation projects that it's dangerous to picture exactly what you want, because it never turns out quite that way. But this looked exactly how I imagined it.

Last night I asked Andrew, "Is our bathroom too pretty?" He told me that no, it's not too pretty. But it's certainly grown-up now. It's amazing what a difference a handy father-in-law, a simple light fixture, and a basic mirror (ours was from TJ Maxx) can make.  I'd venture that the upstairs bath may be the prettiest room in our house.

Unfortunately, our work in the bathroom isn't quite as done as we thought. We've had a crack in the bathtub that we've now fixed twice and it won't go away, despite Andrew's best efforts with the bathtub repair kit and my brilliant idea to get a rubber bath mat. And at the same time, the wall above the shower is getting too much moisture from the shower, and the ridiculously high shower head needs to go. I'd like to tile the wall (just the parts that jut out) above the shower, which should be a quick weekend project, but if the bathtub needs major repair (we're horrified of the idea that it may just need to be replaced...ack!), tiling might get put on major hold.

But still, the bathroom looks pretty, even if the function needs a little work. And sometimes, that's all you need for a little while.

The Guest House

We've had relatively few visitors through the month of October, which is partially a bummer and partially great because we've had lots of weekends to get things done around the house.

But this weekend, we're having a virtual explosion of visitors. Andrew's dad and step-mom are visiting on Saturday, which I'm definitely looking forward to, since we haven't seen them since this summer. We can't wait to show off what all we've done, and maybe enlist Andrew's dad's help with a minor electrical project....we'll see.

And on Friday night, we'll have 6 college students crashing at our house. Our church is hosting a visiting choir from a small Christian college, and our choir director asked if some of us could open our homes for them to stay the night. I counted up how much space we'd have at capacity and blurted out that we could take 8. Then, based on the reaction around me, I realized that was um...crazy. Oh well. Since there were more volunteers of homes on Sunday, our number has been pared down to 6, which is a little less crazy - and also means that I don't have to get out air mattresses - yay!

So, this weekend, there will be 10 humans and 2 kitties in our house at one point or another. It's a little terrifying that we actually have plenty of bedding, towels, dishes, etc to accommodate this crowd (yay, Wedding Registries!). Andrew and I did go out yesterday and sprang for a 12-cup coffee maker (with timer - I'm thrilled about this perk) which might see its first use this weekend, and definitely over Thanksgiving. I love the idea of waking up to a hot cup of coffee when we're up early to run the annual Turkey Trot and then get back to stuff the bird. T - 16 days until Thanksgiving!

INNNNSULATION!

(Please sing the title with the notes/gusto of INTERJECTION! from School House Rock. That's how it's meant to be).

Our house is finishing getting INSULATED! today. This is very, very exciting.

When winter comes every year, I have a hard time dealing with the cold. The Iowa winds whip right through our 85-year-old plaster walls, and I  imagine that I'm Laura Ingalls Wilder/a tough-as-nails B.A. pioneer.  Or I imagine what my ancestors must have felt like when they moved from balmy Germany/Ireland to the rough, un-tamed Northern Illinois/Northern Missouri landscape. It doesn't make me feel warmer, sadly. So, mostly, I just freeze and try to deal.

In year 1 of living in our little house, I moved a space heater with me wherever I went, and tried to limit my occupation of rooms in the house to the living room couch, the bedroom, and short trips to the bathroom (which doesn't have a heating vent at all...brilliant).

For year 2, my parents gave us an early Xmas present of an electric stove/fireplace, so I'd sit on the couch all winter with a giant, lighted electric heater and take my portable heater with me as well, carefully trying to avoid plugging the portable heater into an outlet that was shared on the same circuit as the fireplace. I learned quickly that two electric heaters on the same circuit is not good. The lights will go out.

During year 3, I decided that screaming with cold and alternating with chattering teeth is no way to try to fall asleep in one's bed, so I invested in a pair of adult-size, fleece, footed pajamas and would alternate locations of a heat-pad before climing in (this brilliant idea came to me after imagining that I was Felicity, a colonial American girl whose character doll came with a copper bed-warming accessory). I'd also trap my cats under the bed with me and hold them close for warmth until they wriggled away.

I think it was this final scene - wife clad in a 3-year old's pajamas, yowling cats, and floating heat pad that may have finally suggested to my husband that perhaps we should invest in insulating our walls.

Or, actually, the suggestion came from our friendly representative at the our elecric company when we got an energy audit prior to finishing the basement. During the summer, our contractor suggested that we have an energy audit because our electric company does rebates for insulation. We were already putting insulation into our basement remodel, so we got a nice rebate to help with those costs. If you complete other suggestions (insulate walls and attic) in a specific period of time, our electric company will also pay up to 60 or 70% of the cost.

So, a few weeks ago, Andrew called the electric company to make sure that we still had enough of a window of time to complete the project, and then we called the same person who had done our basement insulation for a quote. After rebate, we realized that it in 2 years, we will have paid for the cost of insulation in our energy savings. Pretty awesome! The guys came out yesterday and finished the exterior walls, and the attic will be completed today.

Yay, warmth!!

Joy.

On Friday, Andrew and I had a rare date night. We drove to a neighboring town about 40 minutes away, so there was plenty of car chatter, which also meant that our dinner chatter got a little more random, since we'd covered all the typical end of the day topics already. I asked Andrew, "If you had to name 5 things, in no particular order, that bring you joy, what would they be?"

Not surprisingly, Andrew's list and mine were pretty similar. While I don't remember everything exactly or in what order, here's a general summary of the things we said:

- Riding our bikes together
- Working with our church youth group/feeling a sense of community within our church
- Curling up with the kitties and each other
- Improving our house/coming home to our house at the end of the day
- Enjoying the nature and changing seasons where we live
- Spending time with family
- Finding meaning in our work
- Eating, growing, preparing organic/sustainable/local food

Looking at that collection, it makes me realize that our joy (and many of our goals) stems from the idea of living a simple life. Sometimes, I feel like I should be striving for something greater. Other times, I feel like living a simple life in itself is complicated, daunting, frustrating, chaotic, and possibly probably unattainable.

One of the things that stuck with me from my abnormal pyschology class in college was the idea that a disorder becomes a problem when it gets in the way of a person finding pleasure in the things they once enjoyed. But in order to identify if a person has lost pleasure in these things, the person has to first identify the things that they do (or did) find pleasure in to begin with. A person who is depressed and has been for some time can have a hard time identifying what once made them happy. The example that our lecturer used was of one client who said that she once found pleasure in sitting in quiet and drinking a cup of coffee - it took her nearly an entire session to identify that one activity as being one that used to bring her happiness.

Forgetting your joys is not something that I think is limited to a person who has depression. While I'd say that I have a relatively happy, hopeful outlook at the moment, I still forget to identify the things that bring me happiness sometimes. Is joy real if it goes unacknowleged?

A lot of times, when I carry a burden, it can become oppressive until I write it down, speak it to another person, voice my concern in prayer - whatever it takes to acknowledge the idea as being one that is weighing me down. Then, once acknowleged, I can begin the process of overcoming or letting it go. Once it is voiced, that burden becomes real and I'm better able to tackle it or face it. I begin to feel better in the exact moment that I am able to voice my pain. I think joys work the same way for me. To acknowledge it, write it out, or say it out loud makes the joy feel more real.

For me, the end of October signals not so much the celebration of Halloween, but instead it means it's time to re-focus, start slowing down, and acknowledging what's important. At work, I'm encouraging my students to re-focus on their goals and what they need to do to attain those goals before the semester slows to a close. And at home, I'm re-focusing on the seasons to come, managing my time into bits and pieces so that I'm prepared to enjoy the holidays and the vacation time that comes with the end of the year. With Thanksgiving coming in just a few more weeks, there will be a house to clean, meals to plan, dishes to prepare, and family and friends to welcome. After that, there will be gifts to buy, bags to pack, celebrations to attend, and gifts to wrap (ugh, I hate doing that). In the season of giving thanks, there are still lots and lots of distractions. So maybe it's best that I get a head start on voicing my thanks and sharing my joys by writing them down and sharing them out loud.

Porch "After" Photos Part II

Starting from where the last post left off, here's what the porch looked a few hours after we'd applied the (oil based) stain. By no means is the wood on the porch perfect, but I'm still glad we went with the stain that would allow the most natural beauty of the grain to show through.



After a long weekend, we felt that the oil had completely soaked up, and we returned our porch furniture to their original places. The adirondak chairs are plastic and were a great sale find at Menard's earlier this summer. Their low price means that I don't feel guilty when I hope they're replaced next season by a porch swing - there are hooks still in place from years ago when someone who lived here had one.



View of the entry way - the front door seems to fit in so much better with the stained porch.



All ghouled and ready for Halloween this weekend! Our pumpkins were all purchased at the Farmer's Market, and I love their irregular shapes, colors, and stems. They fit in well with our not-so-perfect, but wonderfully so, finished project.

Harvest/ Porch "After" Photos Part I

Living in Iowa, even in a city, you'd have to be living under a rock to not notice when the fall harvest begins. Driving outside (and sometimes in) the city limits can become an interesting game of Frogger with combines. Everyone in the heartland seems to be preparing for the winter.

In our household, harvest preparations are underway, too. I brought in the last of the tomatoes before the frost, let (most) of the green ones ripen (--everyone says to wrap them in newspaper, but for the last 2 years, I've just put mine in a deep wooden bowl, and they turn red just fine), and then froze them along with our teensy crop of peppers. I decided that even though I only had 4 ziplocks of frozen vegetables that I'd grown (and technically, tomato is a fruit) I'd go ahead and cross off "Freeze my own vegetables" from the 101 in 1001 list.

We've been trucking away at our house to-do list. But the biggest accomplishment that we made in October is Porch Project. Driving up the house, I can't help but be proud of what we accomplished. Even though the project took longer than we thought, it was much, much less painless than the other refinishing projects we've done since moving into this house three years ago. And, our porch is ready and waiting for Trick-or Treaters this weekend!

Here's what we started with in early October - a slate blue, very chipped porch.



Then we tried a non-toxic chemical and power wash, thinking everything would come up, since it was already chipped.



Not quite. So we began the heat gun process. In the end, it looked good enough to sand. The orange stuff is stainable woodfiller.


Andrew spent a few afternoons sanding tough spots with a hand sander, since we only rented the floor sander for a day. The wood looked beautiful by the time we were ready to stain.


And so began the staining process. I did the edges with a brush, while Andrew used a larger applicator that we'd held on to after completing the interior floors in '09.

To-do Lists

I love lists.

I'm one of those people who makes and actually uses grocery lists. I have a stack of lists at the office (and there, I'm also the queen of Excel files...nothing better than sorting a list!). I recently signed up on DayZeroProject.com for a list of 101 things I want to accomplish in 1001 days - my "ultimate" list for the next 3 years. I make wishlists - the count on Amazon.com is up to about 4 (gift list, someday list, dream list, shopping list). And then of course there are the lists for the house. With all of the progress we've been making, I've noticed that my ambition and lists themselves keep on growing.

We have a list on our fridge right now of the little things that need to happen in the week or two. These items include:
-Schedule upstairs insulation installation (YAY!)
-Fix the upstairs bathtub
-Touch up paint
-Fill in holes in grout (outside)
-Get rid of cobwebs
-Winterize the garden
-Clear out the weeds
-Wipe down walls upstairs (dust and construction dust still linger)
-New TV for upstairs and take current TV downstairs...I'd like this to happen in the next week or two, but may take a little bit longer, since it's the least pressing item on the list

Then there are a few more things on our winterizing list, which will happen sometime before the end of November:
-Plastic the windows (kitchen, upstairs bedrooms, dining room)
-Get out cold weather bedding (flannel sheets, down comforters)
-Put recreational stuff in the attic (bikes, lawn mower)/get out the snowblower
-Put rubber mats in our cars, get out shovels and ice scrapers
-Re-organize coat closet so that hats, gloves, and winter coats are within reach
-Buy a bag of salt/put salt in trunks to weigh down our lightweight cars

Last year, we didn't have much of a list about the house. The few items in our winterizing list were pretty much the only things that got done. Andrew and I were too busy and stressed to really think about the house, and thankfully, it was still standing by the time we got to this summer. But this year, it's list city, and I'm excited about it. There will be plenty to do all winter.

Winter Projects List:
-Remove upstairs bathroom medicine cabinet and replace with mirror and light fixture
-Grout/lay down ceramic tile in hearth
-Possibly stencil ceiling borders in the bedrooms using craftsman inspired patterns...not sure if I want to to do this or go the more expensive route and install crown molding
-Build additional shelves in the cellar
-Make a master plan about what goes in the cellar, attic, upstairs cabinets/organize all
-Organize decorations and storage in basement closet
-Re-organize important documents/filing cabinet system
-New sound equipment for basement TV area (this is all Andrew - I have no idea what's going on with this project)
-Go through attic and sort through storage (this will be closer to spring - hopefully we will be able to list some items for sale)
-Add organization system and finish overhead lighting in the laundry room

This list doesn't even bother to go into my "Holiday Lists" - which include gifts (both purchased and made), baking, party hosting, decorating, etc.

And then there is my 101 in 1001 project that I mentioned earlier. Sometime this summer, I made my Day Zero list (http://www.dayzeroproject.com/). It's like a bucket list, with a much shorter span of time. So far, I have 912 days left and I've completed 10 items (for the curious, the items I've done are: kiss in the rain, ride the bike trails, make fresh crepes, organize my recipes, make made from scratch tortillas, refinish the porch, go to Brookfield Zoo, join the church choir, make a new friend, and learn to sew...okay, still working on the last one, but I felt like I could mark it as done since I'd attempted).

When I organized this list, I made a point to put things in a do-able order, and group items according to the season that they're most likely to be completed. I have some very clearly winter-themed goals, like iceskate in our neighborhood park, go skiing (I've never been), attend a Madrigal dinner (something I haven't done in years), host a New Year's Eve party, and make cinnamon rolls from my grandma's recipe. One of my 101 in 1001 items is to collect copies of Andrew and my grandparents' wedding photos - so I'm planning to ask for this as a Christmas gift from my parents and in-laws. In an album of pictures from my mom, I found a black and white of my maternal grandparents holding their wedding cake, which made me realize how much I'd love to frame of all of our grandparents' wedding photos together (or wedding-era photos...I'm not sure that an actual ceremony photo exists of my paternal grandparents, since they married in the middle of WWII).

I may not actually finish my 101 in 1001 list...Andrew pointed out that to finish it, a person has to do about 1 task every 10 days. Technically, I'm about on target, but some of the items on my list will take more time to do than experiment with a new recipe or go somewhere over the weekend. But, as a chronic list-maker, I just enjoy having a place to put my miscellaneous plans.

Tour de basement - 1

It all starts here!

I've always loved hall trees, and when we were laying out the plans, I thought I'd put one at the base of the stairs. Last winter, I'd started horseback riding, so I was always clomping downstairs to store my dust/gunk covered riding gear or gearing up before lessons and needed a spot to put on my boots near the back door of our house. But when we started planning, the depth of the nook that I'd envisioned kept on getting slimmer.

So I came up with this idea instead. I put up a mirror (from my Grandma's old kitchen) and a row of deco-inspired dragonfly hooks (Target - the main source of all my decorating). We already had the cubes for the basement TV area, so I put them here and added 2 pillows that we already had plus the red one - another Target find - for $4. So, all told, this little nook cost about $20 to put together.

The other thing worth noting in this photo is the vinyl floor...it was the only splurge in our entire basement remodel. We had some basic beige options for about $300 less that were very nice, but I loved the slate-y colors in this sample and decided that the upgrade was worth it. A few months later, I still think it was worth it.

Tour de basement - 2

For poker nights and bananas and cribbage and trivial pursuit and jenga and all the other board games in the closet. Had a few late nights with friends around this table already this summer and it was great fun...definitely a good investment!

One of my favorite things about this area is that absolutely nothing in this photo (minus the cafe curtain/rod) is new. The basement does have a very clear "Europe" theme as everything on the walls comes from my travels (except the Chat Noir hanging, which is just a nod to my own black kitty), and I will admit that there are several new things on the walls upstairs in our house. Using stuff we already had gave me a pretty solid excuse to "sophisticate" the upstairs a little bit. For example, the bullfight poster used to be over our living room couch - there is now a very grown up mirror in its place.

Tour de basement - 3

Family room..yeah, we are aware that the tv is from 1992. Working on that!

This part has a little bit more new stuff. Last spring, I loved this blue and white print at Target, and planned on steel-gray walls with everything else blue and white floral - kindof a modern take on vintage blue willow. When I realized that our budget did not involve all new stuff, I abandoned the idea to work with what we already had. However, on a last run to Target in June for things like a shower rod, I found that the blue and white print had gone on deep clearance. While I didn't end up with the whole matchy-matchy line, I bought the pillows for about $7 each and the vase for $4. The paisley chair pad on the rocker was less than $10 at Tuesday morning, and I like how it ties together the royal blue and the the sage green from our couch cover (I wanted to replace this, but those things are darned expensive, and our current one is still in decent shape). The entertainment center and coffee table were the biggest pieces in the room, but together came in under $75 - and I thought my days of "college furniture" were over. Unfortunately, the entertainment center is "expresso" and the coffee table is black, so it's not my ideal, but both were in our extremely limited budget so I went for it. I'm able to camoflauge the shades enough by keeping a small runner on the coffee table. My favorite new piece in this room is the funky modern-and-mission style lamp from Target.

The couch is our old couch from the living room. I can't remember if I blogged about this, but the couch itself was a major headache in this project. Since our plan was to put in a wall (for the bathroom) next to the already very narrow but previously open staircase, we knew that we needed to get the couch downstairs before construction started. And once the couch was in, it would not be going out (same for the bed...the only way these things will come out is with a large saw).

Due to some strange corners in our house, the couch needed to go through a window. So, around 10pm, one of our good friends came over to help Andrew get the couch through the window. Of course it started raining the second the couch was out on our porch. The guys then carried the couch around our house and we started to work the thing down the stairs. But it was stuck. Over the next 2 hours, we managed to saw off all but 1 of the couch's feet. We were so exhausted that we didn't care.

But after a couple of weeks into construction, Andrew and I tried several different methods of giving the couch new feet. And all failed. Finally, our contractor suggested putting 2x4 rails on the sides. Andrew did some excellent carpentry work (we do miss all of the nice tools that were housed in our basement for a couple months!) and now we have the heaviest couch on earth, but also probably the most stable. Which it needs to be, considering the thing will be in our house probably longer than we will.

Tour de basement - 4

This photo shows a lot of the ceiling, which was one of my biggest woes throughout the whole project. It turned out fantastically, though we're now finding a few spots that need touching-up (not a big deal). I also like how our layout gave us a few "nooks" - I wasn't expecting that, but found that the nooks worked perfectly for our needs. In the nook by the closet, our DVDs, CDs, and stereo were a perfect fit.

I also love how the closet turned out. It holds our massive collection of board games and I also stashed our extra heavy winter coats there (in the winter, I'll put the light jackets here) so there is more room in the coat closet upstairs.

This is also a pretty good view of the carpet, vinyl, and paint colors together. Again, I couldn't be happier how it turned out. Carpet selection was incredibly quick (I just wanted a heavy-duty beige) but paint and vinyl took a lot longer. The paint was a little brighter than I wanted, but I think the bright is great in what was a very dark basement. I also like how the the blue works as a neutral - a lot of the stuff on our walls have brown, rust, orange, and red as main colors and I found myself really liking a light blue paired with earthy reds - not a color combo I'd been particularly fond of before.

Tour de basement - 5

This part didn't turn out at all how I envisioned, but it still turned out pretty good.

The plan in this room was to put enclose the bedroom, add a door, add an egress window, and a walk-in closet. Basically, I wanted this to be a potential master suite if we needed it later on.

However, when the ceilings were deemed too low for us to call it an official bedroom, we decided to keep this area open. The egress window stayed in the plan since we did intend for this to be a sleeping and recreation area.

It was very late in the game when the contractor told me that my walk-in closet idea wouldn't work due to where the furnace and connections were located. However, we did put a closet door here so that I could use the space as unfinished storage. It's now the home to all of my holiday decorations and exercise equipment.

So, in the end, this space is pretty different from the vision, but pretty close to the function.

Tour de basement - 6

This is a view of the guest bedroom, which is the only room that still needs a little bit of work. You can see in the left corner by the bed that there is a headboard sticking out. The headboard is actually one of the original doors from elsewhere in the house (we have another 1 or 2 in the garage as well). I wanted to hang it as a headboard, but we haven't quite figured out the best way to do that.

On the right side of the picture, you can see the gray curtains that I picked out to create a little "wall" and separate the room. While having a real wall would have been ideal, I like the flow of the space with the curtains there.

Tour de basement - 7

Here's a view of what we did with the curtains. Originally, this was supposed to be a full wall (with a door), but I like how it turned out. The room feels a lot bigger and more open, and because the egress shares so much light (obviously hard to tell because this is taken at night), I'm glad that light can come into the family room area, too.

Tour de basement - 8

Cellar and "litter closet." Yes, our kittehs require their priv-acy.

This was another surprise. We thought the litter closet would be a full sized door (and that the closet would slant since this is the underside of the stairs leading up to the kitchen), but our contractor built mini-doors. They're still big enough for an adult to duck under, which is good, since our sump pump is also hidden back there under the stairs leading down to the basement.

Tour de basement - 9

Bathroom - the biggest investment, but also possibly the best improvement.

The closet here leads directly to the furnace. We couldn't fit both a laundry sink and a bathroom sink in here, so the bathroom sink doubles as both - it's super deep and then we had the tall-neck fixture so things like buckets can get in the sink. I love this feature. All the fixtures minus the lighting came from my favorite place, le Target.

Tour de basement - 10

Commode...yupp, this picture needs to be flipped...but I can't figure out how to do it. Oooops.

Tour de basement - 11

Bathroom/laundry - again, badly uploaded photo...but it shows how the bathroom opens up into the laundry room. Originally, the whole space was supposed to be open, but there were problems with layout late into the inspection process. We ended up really liking this solution.

Craftsman closet

All finished! Here's the shelf above the door/window and my wall of hooks for handbags. I added a firefly hook on the door (can't get enough of these...also have a few in the basement).