The Green Room, Part 1

Recently we've been talking a lot about what we want to do with the basement and the downstairs room, and we decided that for the downstairs green room, we wanted to either keep it as a bedroom or turn it into a family room/den. We needed to re-do the drywall in the entire room, anyway, because there had been water damage before and the drywall looked AWFUL. You could see the seams through the paint. Absolutely terrible.

So here is a view looking down the stairs from the kitchen:

On the right is the door to the basement and on the left is the door to the green room.

Here you can see the inside of the door to the green room:

Whether to make it a family room or not depended on a few things. One was whether the wall around the door frame was structural (so we would be able to knock the wall out) and the other was whether the weird little ledge around the room was part of the foundation.

First up we pulled up the wood shelf that was on top of the ledge:

It was, in fact, part of the foundation, so we were stuck with that, but we were able to take the wood shelf off and that made the ledge only a few inches deep. We can deal with that. As to the wall, we ripped it open to see if the wall was structural or not, and it turns out it wasn't, so we had both options open. A quick call to Mim, who is very good about these sorts of things, and we decided that it would be better, real-estate-wise, to have a family room there than a bedroom, since we're going to build another bedroom into the basement.

We only intended to open up that wall and the ledge and start making decisions and brainstorming, but Scott felt like he was on a roll, so he just kept going on the demolition! We also decided that we should put off buying flooring for a while and do this room instead, since it would cost much less and we could continue saving our money for a while and paying off the Home Depot card.

Scott knocked out the closet, making the room much bigger, and knocking out the wall with the door made the room seem much bigger as well, and made it flow up the stairs into the kitchen/living room. It was a very nice effect.

Here's the funny thing: as you know, our house was apparently built by half-trained monkeys. Every time we rip something open we make a bet about how many things are not to code, or just weird, or dangerous. This time, I bet 3 and Scott bet 4. But every time we pulled something out, something else was wrong, until we started keeping track of how many, just because it was funny!

Here's one, for example:

This is one place where the "electricians" cut a ton of extra Romex and instead of trimming off the extra and doing it properly, they TAPED IT TOGETHER and then just stuffed it into the wall. Scott actually got very angry about that one, because not only is it not to code, but it's downright dangerous and it could have started a fire. Lame.

Here's another one:

We found this series of holes inside the closet, and we were trying to figure out what in the world they were...and Scott figured it out and just about fell over laughing. The people who built this room apparently didn't know how to find studs, so their method was to pound in nails all along the wall until one stuck, and that meant they found the stud! Holy stupidity, Batman!

Anyway, there were so many things: things not to code, things made of the wrong materials, things that didn't make sense and several things that were just absolute WTF were they thinking things. Scott started making notches in one of the walls:

Yep. We got to 16 before we just stopped counting. When ripping it all open, and taking a look at what had been done, it became painfully obvious that the room has originally been a den and someone had turned it into a bedroom, but this someone definitely wasn't a contractor, or even a monkey. It was definitely some sort of slime mold, because WOW it was weird.

So here's part of the mess:

And here's the view down the stairs:

More to follow!

Reverb 10: Defining Moment

My goal was to answer all the prompts, not necessarily to post every day or else finish them all in December. SO, on we go.

December 29 Defining Moment


Describe a defining moment or series of events that has affected your life this year.

Well.

Joining a gym and doing home renovations made me feel three things: first, that I was a grownup (you'd think I'd feel that way by now, being married and graduated and having a job and owning a house and all, but sometimes I just feel like I'm still a kid) and second, that I was moving toward something, and third, that I had some semblance of control over my life.

These are very good feelings. These are empowering feelings. Especially the one where I feel in control. I can't complain.

Reverb 10: Achieve

December 28 Achieve


What's the thing you most want to achieve next year?  How do you imagine you'll feel when you get it? Free? Happy? Complete? Blissful? Write that feeling down. Then, brainstorm 10 things you can do, or 10 new thoughts you can think, in order to experience that feeling today.

I want to get down to my ideal weight. That's all I really want to achieve. I mean, yes, I want to get more done on the house and I definitely want to knit more beautiful things and I want to keep blogging; there are definitely other things that I want to achieve. BUT, this is the biggest goal I have for this year. It's within reach. I know I can get there. But once I get there...

...I have to maintain it. I HAVE to. I know I've been sort of obsessing about it lately, but I will go insane and do crazy things if I don't. It's going to be hard. I'm just going to have to say no to so many tasty things. But it will be worth it in the end.

Now, when I make it down to my ideal weight, I'm going to feel hope. Hope that I can keep working hard and keep the weight off. Hope that I'll continue to get regular exercise. Hope that I'll eventually be able to break this stupid cycle of weight loss (and loving myself) and weight gain (and hating myself) and be happy and whole.

Ten things I can do or think today (or in the next few weeks, maybe?) that can help me experience a feeling of hope today (or in the next few weeks, maybe?):

1. Thought: I have eaten nothing but good, healthy food since the day after Christmas. I know that's only three days so far, but I'm thinking positive here.
2. Action: I will continue to eat nothing but good, healthy food. I know I can't portion, so I'm just not going to tempt myself. It's a little easier since Scott is dieting, too.
3. Thought: I feel great when I exercise.
4. Action: I will get to the gym at least three times a week consistently, and five days a week if I can.
5. Thought: I am stronger than my cravings.
6. Action: I will stop and think when I crave something. I will try to figure out what emotion I'm experiencing, and go from there.
7. Thought: I am beautiful regardless of my shape or size.
8. Action: I will ignore the mirror on bad days, and prance around in front of it on good days.
9. Thought: Although weight matters, it's more about how healthy I feel.
10. Action: I will continue to weigh myself, because I don't think I can NOT weigh myself, but I will gauge my progress more by how much energy I have and how I feel about myself. This doesn't mean I'm going to stop trying to lose weight. It just means that if I get down to 140 pounds (the upper "healthy" weight limit for my height) and I feel healthy, I won't obsess over losing more.

I'm betting putting these thoughts into action is going to be easier said than done. But what kind of a journey would life be if I got it all easily? I'll just have to chant to myself "Whatever doesn't kill me will make me stronger" over and over (and then be mad that I can't eat candy).

And check it out. I'm all caught up! Until tomorrow.

Reverb 10: Travel

December 22 Travel


How did you travel in 2010? How and/or where would you like to travel next year?

Well, seeing as I'm a total homebody and I've spent all my extra cash on my kitchen, I didn't really travel this year. I went to Lava Hot Springs with Mim, and we had pie, but I think that was about it.

This coming year I would like to take a vacation, if we can spare the cash and time. I think the problem with when Scott and I went to Vegas in 2009 was that we were trying hard not to spend money, so we didn't do a lot of things we could have done, had we budgeted better.

Scott and I are going to work very hard to eat right and exercise (I need to find some kind of exercise Scott won't loathe) and get into shape, and we'll save tons of money not eating out, so maybe we can actually plan something for later this year. Maybe.

Of course, this coming year we'll be paying for flooring and maybe we'll start in the basement. Expensiveness.

Reverb 10: Future Self

December 21 Future Self


Imagine yourself five years from now. What advice would you give your current self for the year ahead? (Bonus: Write a note to yourself ten years ago. What would you tell your younger self?)

I'm only four days behind. This is a Christmas Miracle!

Five years from now I'll be 29 (almost 30!) and (hopefully) we'll be on our next house flip.

Dear Me Now,
You know, I know right now things are stressful because this is your first remodel. It's exciting and you feel like a grown-up, but it's also stressful because you're going to make a few mistakes and there will be things you won't be happy with. The nice thing is that you're still going to make money off of the house you're in. Seriously, you've already increased the value of the house by thousands and thousands of dollars, and you haven't even started working on the basement. Take a chill pill. Enjoy the ride. And when you're done and you sell for a profit, go do something fun with a bit of the money you make.
Love,
Me in Five years
P.S. If things don't work out, it isn't the end of the world. Take another chill pill.

Ten years ago I was 14, nearing the end of my sophomore year of high school. I had a crush on a boy (over whom my best friend and I broke up), whom I ended up dating, then dumping because he was a total pothead.

Dear Me Ten Years Ago,
I know you're head over heels for him. I know he seems "deep" and he actually listens to what you have to say. But trust me, you're going to have to choose between him and your closest friend. It's juvenile, really, because she totally dated him behind your back before you dated him, even though she knew you liked him, and then when you date him you'll have to find a new place to sit at lunch, because she and all of her groupies will pretend you aren't there and you'll have to try hard not to cry. And after all that, you'll break up and she won't forgive you until you're signing yearbooks at the end of senior year, and even then she'll just stop hating you. You won't ever be friends again. All this being said, you'll probably ignore me and date him anyway, because you're a hopeless romantic and desperate to be loved, and on top of that you're a little boy crazy. At least you'll forever remember the smell of spearmint and pot very fondly...
Love,
Me Now (who finally has boys figured out)

Reverb 10: Beyond Avoidance

December 20 Beyond Avoidance

What should you have done this year but didn't because you were too scared, worried, unsure, busy, or otherwise deterred from doing? (Bonus: Will you do it?)

There are a few things. One is painting the rest of my living room and kitchen. I'm not scared about it or anything (because that would just be weird); I just keep putting it off. I know it'll get done, probably early this coming year, since we need to finish paint before we put down the new floor. I just keep putting it off because I'm having so much fun making things with sticks and string...

The other thing is exercise. I've been deterred from exercising this past month just because I've been eating terribly and I feel all blah and my feet still hurt...I know, it's excuses, but I'm jumping back in as soon as Christmas is over. My goal is to go to the gym every day (and if I set that goal, I'll skip sometimes but still go at least three times a week, and that's acceptable to me).

2011 needs to be the year of exercise for me. It needs to be the year I solidify good eating and exercise habits. I want to start running, but I'm going to need to get some more weight off before I try, because my knees are going to take the most damage. I also need to go back to spinning, because it's a great workout and doesn't hurt my joints as much. Once I've lost a bit more weight and gotten my lungs a bit more fit, I want to try Zumba again. It was fun, but I just couldn't keep up and, once again, I think the extra weight was putting too much pressure on my joints.

Reverb 10: 5 Minutes

December 15 5 Minutes

Imagine you will completely lose your memory of 2010 in five minutes. Set an alarm for five minutes and capture the things you most want to remember about 2010.

Well, first of all, I'm ditching the time constraint. I checked to see what the prompt was for yesterday and I've been thinking about it for about a day, and I'm not going to take only five minutes to write. So there.

I want to remember:

• The times I was shown extra appreciation at work. This past year, with our new instruments, our lab has exponentially increased the number of chemical tests we do. It's amazing. We're working hard to keep that going and pull more business in, so it's nice to receive a Thank You.
• The times I felt amazing at the gym. I'm going to go more this next year (I totally slacked off in December...but planning on picking it up again after Christmas) and I kinda want to try actually running. I actually ran track when I was in school, and I kinda sucked at it, but I do remember enjoying it so much that it didn't matter. We'll see if my knees can actually handle it...
• That one time Kwiddens had a baby. AMAZING. It's a life-changing experience, and I got to go through it without the pesky pain.
• Holding said baby in the few days after she was born. SO SNUGGLY.
• The feelings of satisfaction every time Scott and I finished a project on the house.
• My visit with Li. We did a ton of fun things and I always love when she stays with us.
• Sunday mornings. We always sleep in, and then when we wake up we get Buster up on our bed and play and snuggle with him and just lay in bed, all lazy and warm, and talk all about everything.
• Time with my family. Holidays, birthdays, just-hanging-out-days, etc. It's the best.

And that's probably not everything. If I tried I could probably think of more but I'm too lazy right now.

Reverb 10: 11 Things

December 11 11 Things


What are 11 things your life doesn't need in 2011? How will you go about eliminating them? How will getting rid of these 11 things change your life?

My life doesn't need:

1. Clutter. I'm going to try not to buy things I don't need. This does not include new music, movies, or TV. This does include jewelry I don't ever get a chance to wear, extra clothes or shoes, even books about yarn that I realistically won't get a chance to use. I'm even not going to buy yarn unless I need it for a specific project. I have plenty.

2. Prejudice. I need to stop making snap judgements made from one small characteristic I see in someone, or from one little thing someone does. I don't do this often, though; mostly when I'm driving. Someone does something stupid and I assume they must be an idiot, when I do stupid things while driving just as often.

3. Food. I mean junk food. I need to fall in love with vegetables again.

4. Drama. I need to work on letting things go and on turning the other cheek. Some days I wake up and take everything personally, just because that's the mood I'm in because I'm nuts. Then I spend the whole day being mad at someone or something for no reason at all, and it totally ruins my day and stresses Scott out because he keeps thinking he did something to make me mad (you never do, Scott, you're an angel). The drama is all in my head!

5. Body fat. Gotta get rid of it!

I'm out. How about some things I do need in 2011?

1. More handmade socks. I'm working on a pair right now. I got the urge to make socks this weekend when I ran out of yarn for Mim's blanket, and when I went to grab my supplies, I had already made one sock! I had put it away and forgotten about it when I started Mim's blanket all those months ago!

2. A new floor for my kitchen. As much as I love walking around on carpet remnants...

3. I need to finish projects! This includes work on the house AND finishing as many yarny projects as I can. Eventually, I'd like to only have one or two going at any given moment. We'll see how that works out...

How will all these change my life? Well, if everything works out, my house will be cleaner, I will be happier (and have warmer feet), and I will be healthier. All good things!

Honestly, There Were More Marshmallows Than Fruit

I didn't have an opportunity to do a Thanksgiving post...oh, who am I kidding, I had many MANY opportunities, but almost my entire weekend was spent curled up on the couch with my favorite fuzzy purple blankie working on the blanket for Mim. I finished it ages ago, and it was too small, so I had asked Mim to expand the pattern for me, but she's so freaking busy that it didn't get done until I showed her what I had so far and she suggested I make it again and connect the two...but I'm going for broke and making four, and to make it fun I'm rotating what colors go where for each one. I made a spreadsheet. I love spreadsheets. We should get a room.

Anyway.

Lazy me.

At least my lazy times are still productive. I get blankets and socks and such out of it, so it's not a total waste of time.

So Thanksgiving. Usually Scott and I stay overnight a day or two at Mim's house, but Scott has allergies so in order to do that he has to be so totally stoned on all sorts of meds that it's not as fun. This year we decided to just head down to Mim's Thanksgiving morning and spend all day there. The holiday was spent cooking, eating, playing games, watching movies (do you know how adorable "Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs" is??), and just enjoying each other's company. No pressure, no schedules.

We ended up going to the store twice that morning because we kept forgetting things. One of them was butter, and there is just no way to do Thanksgiving without butter. Fortunately, I didn't have to make that trip...people in stores on holidays are generally freaking nuts.

We had our usual: turkey, cranberry sauce, marshmallow fruit salad, pie, more pie, mashed potatoes, butter corn, more marshmallow fruit salad...yum. Nothing weird. Everything was perfect. I do have a confession, though: I didn't eat any turkey. I wanted to have room for other, more important things, such as second portions of marshmallow fruit salad.

So that was about it. It was relaxing and awesome. I got to play with the baby and hug my brother and sisters. What more could I want?

So now for the cliche: a list of what I'm thankful for this year.

• Family. Duh.
• Especially Scott. Another duh.
• The miracle of modern medicine, which enables me to experience emotions I never could before, while keeping the totally crappy emotions in check.
• Egg nog. You knew it was coming.
• My fabulous job. I make more than I need doing something I love. How many people can honestly say that?
• My new kitchen, paid for with the money I make at my awesome job.
• The ability to not eat french fries for more than six months this past year. I think I should go back to not eating them...
• And on that note, I've been able to keep most of the weight I lost off. I am, however, mad at myself for gaining any of it back at all, but I'm continually working on making better food choices. Except when I'm not.
• Being completely totally done with my Christmas shopping so I didn't even have to leave my house on Black Freaking Friday, the day when nice, normal people turn into demons.

Life is good, you know?

There Are NO SEAMS, People!

Once upon a time we started remodeling our kitchen. In January. I think. Early this year, at any rate. Months and months later, I have an actual kitchen. Like, a real one, with working appliances and real countertops instead of plywood and everything except a floor...we'll get there.

Anyway, without further ado, I present to you the (almost) final kitchen pictures:

First up, we have a detail that we didn't pressure ourselves to finish until we'd had a good, long rest. It turns out, putting in a whole kitchen worth of cabinets wears you out and then you want to spend the next few weekends vegging on the couch, crocheting a blanket while you watch BSG, even though your wonderful husband did most of the work. SO, we left the crown moulding until later, but it looks awesome and gorgeous, and calculating the correct angles at which to cut the pieces was a...well it sucked. There were expletives. But it looks awesome:

Next up is a picture of the right side of my new kitchen, with the countertops installed and things placed strategically around the kitchen (microwave, blender, etc.):

And the left side:

Brand new kitchen and I've already got a mess going on the counter. Fabulous.

One of the best parts of getting acrylic countertops is the fully integrated sink, a.k.a. NO SEAMS FOR GUNK TO BUILD UP IN. That means less cleaning, and we all know I'm not really into cleaning.

Another view of the left side, right after the countertops were installed, before the mess began:

And, one of my very favorite details:

Shiny new stainless steel faucet. It will eventually match our appliances.

They will all be stainless steel, and all the handles will match all the handles on the cabinets. This is very important. Because I'm nuts.

But first we need a floor.

All in good time.

It's Almost Useful!

When we had our cabinets delivered we stashed them in the garage, but the night before we wanted to start on them we pulled them all upstairs and they completely filled my living room so I couldn't get to anything, and for a little while we had Buster trapped in the corner (don't worry, we let him out eventually...ha). 



The first order of business was getting the upper cabinets on the walls. First up we had to fasten them together, so we put two or three together on the floor before we got them up onto the wall.

You have no idea how hard it is to get these things up properly. They have to be perfectly level and corners and sides have to line up perfectly or else it won't work. One trick Scott had for making them level was to build a ledger underneath where all the upper cabinets would be. We made the ledger perfectly level, and that made it WAY easier to hold the cabinets level while they were being screwed into the wall.

We had a bit of a problem when we went to put in the solitary cabinet by the window. I wanted an equal amount of wall space between the window and the cabinets on each side, but I also wanted the very end of the upper and lower cabinets to align vertically. That didn't add up, however, so I had to make the very difficult decision to have the ends align instead of equal space around the window.

Ugh.

So here we are with the large section of upper cabinets installed (sans doors). At this point it started to look like it might actually turn into a kitchen at some point.

After we got all the upper cabinets in we started on the lower cabinets. We started in the corner by the window. It took a long time to get it level and such because our floor is not level and our walls are not straight. But, we got there.

Next up was the sink base. This one was tricksy. It seemed that no matter how we arranged the shims it just wouldn't work. We worked on this for TWO HOURS. Two. Finally Scott and I were getting really really frustrated and we were starting to get snappy with each other and we decided we should take a break and go get snacks at Maverik. Scott and I went and left Mim at the house, and by the time we got back she had magically shimmed it HERSELF. In ten freaking minutes. Anyway, it was a victory.

Then we decided to double check our measurements before we moved on. Um. We were like 1.5" off...and the sink base was off center under the window. Thank you Home Depot, for giving us incomplete plans. There was supposed to be a spacer between the corner cabinet and the sink base...so we had to cut a spacer, take the whole sink base out, and start again. It was...disheartening. There was something awesome, though: once we got the spacer in, the sink base was centered under the window AND once we moved the upper cabinet to align vertically on the side, there was the same amount of space on each side of the window! Happy! Fortunately, after that the rest of the cabinets were a cinch.

After a long, LONG day, we got to the point where we could finish by ourselves, so Mim went home. I wanted to just quit for the night, but Scott thought that he might be in too much pain the next day (stupid back spasms) to get much done, so he wanted to do as much that night as possible.

Here is Scott, expressing how tired he was at this point. He will probably be mad that I posted this picture of him. That's too bad. It's funny.

So Scott started putting doors on the cabinets, while I put shelves inside them (and took pictures, obviously).

Just look at that gorgeous cherry color!

The next day we put hardware on, and that's about all we can do until our countertops get installed. So here's the (semi-) finished kitchen:

The appliances, eventually, will be stainless steel, but that's a long way in the future. We need to get a floor put in first!

The countertop dude came this past Friday and made a template for the countertops, and they will be delivered and installed this coming Friday. I'm really excited to spend that weekend organizing and cleaning up my kitchen!

Painting...A Few Weeks Ago

I am SO REMISS in posting about the house. It's been weeks since we painted...so here. I blame Daylight Savings Time.

When I was at Home Depot picking out paint colors, I narrowed it down to a few different combinations and brought the samples over to the cabinet section to hold them up against my cabinets. This was the best combo I found:

I LOVED it! The only problem was, I wanted to use the darkest color on one wall as an accent, the middle color everywhere else, and the lightest color for the trim, but I didn't know if the dark color was going to be too dark and make my huge front room look small. Fortunately, Home Depot has little baby sample paint jars, so I took them home and painted a few coats on my wall:

And then...I stared at them. For two days. It just seemed so...dark. I was looking for input from everyone I knew. Half of my friends and family said the darker color was too dark, and the other half said it would be fine (and dramatic) because it was such a large, well-lit room.

So I went online and read up as much as I could on multiple-color paint schemes, and on the Behr website you can plug in your colors to a sample room and see how they look, so I did:

And it looked fabulous there. But I was still worried about it. So when I went in to get my paint mixed, I asked if there were any way I could get the same colors but slightly lighter, and apparently they are magic and can mix colors at 50% or 75% saturation. I decided to go with 50%, because the employee said that if it wasn't dark enough I could bring the paint back and she would add in more color.

So we spent two days putting primer on the walls: two coats. The paint that was on the walls was very old, and we had to cover up all the new drywall, too, to ensure good adhesion with the new paint.

Here's Scott, with his primer war-paint on:

So cute.

Anyway, so after we got the primer on, Kwiddens, Scott and I started painting with the lighter color, and...it just looked...too pale. So, I took all the paint back to Home Depot and had them add more color, and when I got back and started painting it was PERFECT. So, we continued to paint, and got only one coat done each day because that room is HUGE and very tall, so Scott had to get onto the very top of our ladder to paint near the ceiling, and the whole thing made me very nervous because he wasn't holding on to anything at all.

Anyway, we got all the walls that would be behind cabinets and the half-wall done, and the color is beautiful, but my camera sucks so I couldn't really get any more good pictures (ok, I didn't try very hard...) but when I get the pictures of the cabinets up you will see how awesome it looks!

I still have the rest of the kitchen and living room to paint, but that can wait. I just need to make sure I get it done before we decided to put flooring in.

So SAD, But My Cabinets Are Gorgeous

There are just a few completely unrelated things bouncing around in my head today that I'd like to share.

Let me tell you something about me: daylight savings time totally effs me up. As soon as we made the time change and it was suddenly dark outside at freaking SIX...my body went OH NO NO SUNLIGHT LET'S CRY FOREVER. Seriously. I've got a few personal things on my mind that are just weighing on me terribly, and when I went to the gym and instead of feeling skinny and empowered and beautiful like I usually do, I went home and when I took my clothes off to take a shower and I saw myself in the mirror and I just...lost it.

I feel like I've been busting my ass trying to lose weight and it just doesn't happen. I know I could definitely do better. I could go to the gym more often (although I've been doing three times a week or more consistently) (because I'm a total ROCK STAR). And I know I could be eating better. Confession: I've been eating french fries lately. I don't think this is a problem in and of itself, because I'm not eating them often at all. But, all things considered, I could be doing better to eat healthier. So even though I'm a lot better off that I was a few years ago, I still feel like a total failure. After doing the hCG diet and losing so much weight so quickly, it is KILLING me to lose one pound a week (or some weeks not lose any) (ok, most weeks not lose any). I want a quick fix. I want to wake up one day and just magically be a size 8. Or a 10. Whatever. I just want to feel better about myself than I do now, and I feel like that's always going to be connected to the number on the scale. I'm just...stuck.

I'm sure I'll feel better later, but for now that's what's going on in my nutty head.

So anyway, back to yesterday after my shower. I got dressed and called Mim with only the intent of complaining about the size of my derriere, but what really happened was everything that I had been putting to the back of my mind for the last few weeks just came flooding out and before I knew it I was bawling and just freaking out about everything at once and my poor mother, who is a saint, talked me down. We talked about some really important stuff and I just have to say that she's the best friend a girl could ever have. She lets me say whatever I need to and she never gets offended or judgemental or anything like that, just like I can talk to Kwiddens and have her be totally awesome. I have some really awesome people in my life, I really do.

So, here's the plan:
Keep exercising.
Keep taking happy pills.
Bust out my SAD light. It's this amazing nifty light that mimics sunlight, and you shine it on yourself in the morning for a little while every day and it helps with Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) (it's awesome that it's called that, because oh look, it makes you sad).

Blargh. I hate being crazy. Moving on.

Scott has been working very very hard, coding like no nerd has coded before, for a few months, building a new system at work. He recently finished it, and everyone in the entire company, and all the customers, and all the members of the board have had nothing but praise for the system, and I am SO proud of him. He works so hard, and I'm so glad he's getting some recognition for that. He's smart AND handy! Also, he gets more PTO than I do and he has to use it up by the end of the year, so he has every Friday for the rest of the year off, plus extra days around Christmas and Thanksgiving. Jerk (he totally deserves it though).

Last weekend we installed our new cabinets, and they look AMAZING! Amazing as in, I walk up the stairs and go WHOA IS THAT REALLY MY KITCHEN?? I've been intending to post about it, on here and on Facebook, but the SAD has got me feeling unmotivated to do ANYTHING except work on Mim's blanket. And watch Battlestar Galactica. Again. Really, the idea of sitting down and blogging has seemed totally boring to me (yet, here I am...blogging). So I will post about it, I promise, I just don't know when.

The countertop dude is coming over tomorrow while Scott is at home (not at work...jerk) to take measurements, and then the following Friday we'll have countertops installed and we will have a FULLY FUNCTIONAL KITCHEN. Like, appliances plugged in and water turned on and everything. You have no idea how excited I am about this.

I think once the countertops are in I'm going to go through all my dishes and such and decide what to keep and what to donate and organize everything exactly where I want it, and put the silverware in the SILVERWARE DRAWER...I don't know if I've ever mentioned it, but we didn't have a freaking silverware drawer before but now we do and it's the most awesomely epic thing EVER.

Then I plan on busting out the crock pot and learning to cook a bit. I'll actually have space to do it!

Now look. It's 7:30 and I'm so sleepy...stupid Daylight Savings Time. I wonder how long it's going to take me to adjust this time...and then I'll get to do it again in the spring. Oh, joy.

Antibiotics Are Useless

So I joined a gym, right?

Right.

I was going all the time and feeling awesome for about two weeks. Then, everything just kinda...well, stopped.

First, Li came to visit. I did go to the gym (and brought her with me) on a Saturday morning, but the other several days I just wanted to hang with my best friend and get some well-needed rest.

As soon as she was gone I was planning on going back. Unfortunately, I got sick. I had some kind of cold or maybe a mild flu. I was tired and dizzy and stuffy and generally miserable, so exercising was just out of the question.

After I got better I started going back, until my ankle exploded. Fun times. The doctor told me to stay off of it for two to three weeks, so I did two weeks (I was itching to get back onto that treadmill) and took it a bit easier for about a week.

THEN.

Maybe this is TMI, but THEN I developed a raging UTI. Have you ever had one of those? Did it make you want to walk on the treadmill? Or walk at all? Nope.

So I went back to the doctor and got antibiotics and went on my merry way. At this point, we had been spending a ton of time working on the kitchen, getting it ready for cabinets, so there just wasn't much time to go work out, even when my symptoms had subsided.

Unfortunately, that relief was short-lived. Ugh. My symptoms came BACK, like BAM, so suddenly...awesome. So I went BACK to the doctor and they tested me again and apparently Macrobid does absolutely nothing (at least in me, I'm a medical mystery) and it had gotten worse, even though the symptoms had gone way for a while. The doctor prescribed a different antibiotic, in a larger dose for a longer duration, and I went on my merry way.

Cipro has a few warnings. One is to avoid eating dairy and taking the meds at the same time (which wasn't a problem, really) and the other is NOT TO EXERCISE. Especially if you have tendonitis in your Achilles tendon OH LOOK THAT'S ME. Because apparently Cipro makes it worse and you could actually end up badly damaging your tendons. Super. It's also been making me extremely nauseated and bloaty (TMI again, I know) so that doesn't make me want to exercise, anyway. I totally threw up at work. Gross.

I just took my last dose! Yay!

So tomorrow...it's back to the gym. And I'm going to get skinny if it kills me.

Three Layers? Really?!

These pictures are somewhat out of order. Just a few more little things about our ongoing kitchen renovation.

When we pulled up the linoleum to replace that section of subfloor a few weeks ago, we had found a bit of water damage. In order to make sure we didn't have any water damage anywhere else in the kitchen, we pulled up the rest of the linoleum and took a peek behind and under cabinets and appliances.

We found this:

It looks pretty bad, yes?

Well, it wasn't! It turned out to be just a surface stain, so we didn't have to replace any more subfloor. I call that a win!

When we pulled out the hood over the stove we were surprised to find it wired into the wall instead of plugged into an outlet, but the most surprising part was that instead of cutting a nice hole in the drywall, they had just knocked a little hole in the wall and yanked the wires out:

We continue to realize that our house was built by Special People.

Here's Scott attaching corner bead (I told you these were out of order...):

And here's the back door, looking more and more like a door instead of just a hole in the house where we stuffed a door. This has since been mudded over and the boys are, in fact, almost done so I can jump in and start painting:

And a picture of the pulling up of the linoleum:

They had put a new layer of linoleum over the old one, and in a few places we actually found a third layer of linoleum... Oh well, it's all gone now. We just have subfloor now, so we pulled a few carpet scraps we had lying around in the basement and spread them over the kitchen floor so we wouldn't be walking on bare wood.

Oh, and P.S. We ordered the countertops, and we were lucky that we went in when we did because they had a special: free edging upgrade, so we saved about $500!

Potions Class Would ROCK

So, it's no secret that I'm not much of a cook. I can make basic things, like pasta and sandwiches and almost anything pre-packaged that you just have to microwave, or throw in the oven, or throw in a skillet and simmer over medium-high heat for 7-9 minutes, or until cooked thoroughly (I make Bird's Eye Garlic Chicken enough to have it memorized, oh yes). I have, however, messed up these sorts of things. And I can't for the life of me boil a freaking egg.

You'd think that because cooking is following recipes and chemistry is following recipes (sometimes) that I would be totally awesomely awesome at cooking, but for whatever reason, I'm not (although I'm convinced that in Harry Potter's world, I would be AMAZING with Potions).

So here, I give you some of the reasons I don't cook.

Enjoy.

1. I don't enjoy doing dishes. Something about food residue sitting on dishes, getting gummy in the soapy water...blergh. It gets slimy on my fingers. Shoot me now.

2. The logical thing to do would be to use the dishwasher, right? Well, Utah has hard water. The hardest water I've ever encountered. And the dishwasher is really really good at coating all of our dishes with a crust of minerals. Yum. I mean, they're still clean. We eat off of them. It's just...well, we don't need to take extra mineral supplements is all I'm saying. After the kitchen cabinets and countertops are done, we're going to invest in a water softener. Expect a post about how happy that makes me.

3. I have plenty of time. I go to work for 8 hours, the gym for an hour, add in an hour for travel time and showering and such, and 8-9 hours for sleep, and VOILA! I have 5-6 hours each weekday for NOTHING. And even more on weekends! However, I just can't see spending much time making food in the crappy half-kitchen while there's so much YARN to be dealt with (and my new complete BSG series to watch...). So spending ten minutes making sandwiches? Absolutely.

4. Half-kitchen. HALF-KITCHEN. There's almost no counter space. All of our dishes are crammed in and stacked as tight as they will go into our little baby cabinets (they're going to be gone soon, WOO). All it takes is like one dirty bowl and spoon and then I'm out of counter space and there's nowhere to work any more and it's really frustrating, even when I'm just making sandwiches! Our new kitchen layout adds like eight more feet of countertops! Joy!

5. Since there are only two of us (well, three for now, if you count Jon), we don't need to make such large portions as recipes call for. If I did cook, there would always be tons of leftovers. WAIT. Then I might not have to cook the next day. Ok, maybe this isn't such a bad thing... But when I bake things, the baked things get eaten. Quickly. And in large quantities. And then my hips get bigger. I don't need that.

6. Lastly, my Scott is happy to cook, so why should I bother? Ha, just kidding Scottie!

This Post Is So Boring I Couldn't Think Of A Title

This morning I tried to redeem a Free Mountain Dew cap that I won from my last one, but Maverik doesn't redeem them, so I had to buy one instead. Fail. I have no idea where I can redeem it.

Last night I joined a crochet group run by a lady in my town in her home. I had been on Ravelry for a few weeks trying to get something together and she found me and  invited me to come to her group, so I did. It was pretty fun! There were only four people, but I got to show off a bit, and they were all working on Tunisian crochet (which is basically a hybrid of crocheting and knitting), which I think I might like to learn. I have instructions for it in my Harmony Guides, but I've never actually tried it. I think I really need to finish some of my current projects first, though. I have a baby blanket (for nobody in particular - just thought it might be wise to have a spare, just in case someone gets babied) that's almost finished. In fact, I think it's big enough now and I could be done any time I want, and then I just have to put an edging on it.

Mercury has been giving me issues this week. They're not major, but if it happens again I'll need someone to come out and take a look at it. For now she's running just fine, so I'll just cross my fingers.

I'm still working back up to where I was at the gym. It's slow going, and I hate it, but there's nothing I can do to speed up the process, since I still get pain. It's less pain, though, so at least I'm making progress.

We're inching toward being able to paint in the kitchen.

And that's all I can think of today. I'm getting boring.

There Was Makeup EVERYWHERE

I am a total klutz. You'd think that as a knitter and a chemist, you know, someone who works with her hands, that I would have very agile little fingers. Think again.

This is why I'm not allowed to use the super glue any more:

Yes. I glued my thumb to the glue. And seconds after that, I glued the Q-tip soaked in acetone I was using to try and pry it off to my fingers on my other hand.

This weekend has been...crazyish. Em and three of her friends were planning on attending the Anime Banzai in the Davis Conference Center this weekend, and I'm super nice so I offered to let them stay at my house instead of having to get a hotel room for three nights. We pulled out all of our extra pillows and blankets and sleeping bags and let them crash on the living room floor.

Scott and I generally go to bed rather early, but we needed to stay up late enough to let the girls in each night...LATE. Also, between their regular stuff and their costumes (like 3 different costumes each) my living room and bathroom were CHAOS. There was makeup everywhere. HURGH. I got home and hurried to clean up as much of it as I could before Scott saw it and had a conniption. Ha!

They're over at the convention right now, and later today they will gather all their things and head back down home and then my house will be SILENT again. So nice.

They were gone during the day though, so on the plus side, we got all the ugly linoleum in the kitchen ripped up, and we were happy to find that there wasn't any more water damage under the dishwasher, so we don't have to replace any more subfloor. Happy!

Sunday Spackling!

So Sunday we picked up where we left off. The floor was done (where we needed it to be; we still need to pull up the rest of the linoleum but that can wait) so we needed to build the new half-wall, do the electrical wiring, drywall, and mud.

Our kitchen was already messy just from moving things out of the way so we could pull sub floor up, but it was only going to get messier.

We needed to pull out some of the cabinets so we could patch some holes in the drywall and move electrical outlets.

Here's the beginning of the new wall (which, funnily enough, ended up only a few inches from where the old wall was...) (but we still would have had to demo the old wall anyway to get it to the right height and get the electrical stuff in the right places).

Scott did all the wiring himself, saving us hundreds of dollars compared to having an electrician do it. Scott never ceases to amaze me with the amount of things he can do around the house!

We started drywalling over the old back door:

Screwing dry wall on to the new wall:

The ceremonial last piece of drywall (well, on the new wall, anyway):

Putting on the first layer of mud:

Here's the end product (well, not really end, but the end for Sunday):

We got a ton more done on Sunday than we did on Saturday. Saturday everything just seemed to get messed up a bit here and there, and it made everything SO. SLOW. But Sunday we had only planned on building the wall and getting the electrical outlets wired. We didn't plan to get drywall and mud done, but we did and it is starting to look AMAZING!

My kitchen is going to be fabulous.

Sub Floor Saturday!

This past weekend we got a lot of work done in the kitchen in preparation for the new cabinets that will arrive next month. I briefly mentioned it before, but now you get to see the pictures!

This is the section of floor where the pantry closet used to be.

There was an air return in the other side of the wall behind it, and there are several holes where electrical wires had been threaded. When we put the new flooring down we are going to need as perfect a sub floor as we can get, so we decided to replace a section of it. It's a good thing, too, because there was a bit of water damage we didn't even know about!

The first step was to rip up the old linoleum (yuck!) and what do you know, there was more, even uglier linoleum underneath it!

After that we started pulling up sub floor. When we're ripping the guts out of this house, we always come across something weird the builders did that makes us think they didn't get it inspected...here's Scott, with an incredulous look on his face because OH LOOK, THEY USED PEGBOARD INSTEAD OF SUB FLOOR. Idiots.

Once we got the giant hole torn out of our floor (and Scott was being goofy and stuck his head up through from the basement), we were able to start putting in new sub floor.

Scott is enjoying a well-needed break.

And, tada, the finished sub floor:

The end. Well, not really. But that's all we got done on Saturday.

And by we I mean Scott and Jon. I wasn't very useful most of the time.