I can do this

No one could ever accuse me or my sweet husband of being talented Do-It-Yourself people. We are far from it. Over the years, we have become very talented at saving money to pay others to do things for us.

When we first became homeowners, we quickly learned our limits, not that we didn't try new things, but we knew when to call in the professionals. Snake a drain? No problem. Replace hardware in the shower? Easy. That is until the ancient, corroded pipe snapped off in Jason's hand. Time to call the plumber. Take down the ceiling tiles? Maybe. Until we discovered lead paint behind them. Professional time.

We did attempt to paint a room... once. Isn't painting the number one easy DIY project? Everyone says that on TV. We tried it. I wouldn't call it a disaster, but the end result wasn't very pretty to look at. Not really the effect we were going for. We haven't painted a room since.

I find our DIY aversion rather peculiar since we both come from hardy DIY stock. Jason's mother can wield a power tool like no other. If she can't do it herself, it probably isn't worth doing. On my side of the family, my father is meticulous with a project once he gets going and sets his mind to something. His strong suit is landscaping and gardening, another area we struggle with. Jason's philosophy is "if it's green and grows, I'm mowing it" and that's just about the extent of what he wants to do in the form of yard work. I'm not much better. I try, every year I try, to stay on top of the weeding and the edging and the deadheading and trimming. It just all seems so never ending that I lose my motivation, get overwhelmed and give in to the weeds.

I'm determined to change.

In November, we finally put a hardwood floor in our living room. I say "we" as in we paid a very nice local business to install it. My part of the project consisted of picking the floor and then staying home while the floor was installed. Tough, huh? What I didn't expect was that the new floor would lead to another project (don't they all?). I didn't realize that to install the floor the existing wood baseboard molding needed to be removed. I suppose someone must have mentioned that to me along the way, but I must have blocked it out. Much to my dismay, the molding suffered some damage being pried off and later reattached to the wall. We now had a beautiful floor and marked up, ugly baseboards.

My first reaction was to cry. My second was to hire someone to fix it. The more we talked about it the more we convinced ourselves we could do this. The affected areas weren't all that big once you looked around the room.Wood filler. Sand. Paint. We could do this.

Today I pulled out my brand new putty knife, donned some rubber gloves and started scraping filler into the dents and nail holes. I can do this. Maybe if I keep telling myself that, I'll start to believe it. Stay tuned for sanding. One step at a time.

Picking up pine cones

This afternoon the five of us took advantage of the beautiful weather and went down the street to my parent's house to tidy up a bit. We picked up sticks, pine cones and trash that appeared from under the melted snow. A landscaping crew we were not, but our quick clean up did make a difference. My parents are putting their house on the market in a week or so and in this market, anything that will get buyers through the doors is a good thing. When I think back to our home shopping days, Jason and I drove by more houses than the ones we actually went inside. Outward appearances say a lot.

As I dragged a barrel behind me tossing in pine cones I couldn't help but think about the many times I stood in that space. My family moved to this house when I was nine, and thirty years later I now live a few houses away. Understandably, this whole process of my parents moving is bittersweet and emotional for me too. That house is my other home.

Intellectually I understand and am happy that my parents will be blessed with a beautiful new home that will make life easy for them. Emotionally it's a chapter closing with my childhood home changing hands. Another reminder that life is short and keeps on rolling so you better stop and take a look around. Moving through the backyard I had this mini movie go through my head of moments I hope to always remember.

There was the fabulous retirement party and 60th birthday party my mom threw for my dad in 2000 with a dance floor under a tent, music and caterers scurrying around. I was seven months pregnant at the time and remember crying like a baby half the night overwhelmed by my emotions.

There was the 25th anniversary party my siblings and I organized for my parents in 1988 where we surprised them by flying my sister home early from her semester abroad in England. She hid in a box in the back of a truck and we drove her right into the backyard as my parent's present.

Even earlier, I remember summer nights camping out in the backyard with my sisters and friends, being silly, eating junk, and staying up late, daring each other to run around the house in the middle of the night in our undies.

My grandparents sitting on chairs in the shade on Sunday afternoons simply watching my dad work in the garden.

My own kids playing wiffle ball and running laps around the house.

The spectacular lilac bush that bursts open every Mother's day as a gift to us all, reminding us of my uncle who nurtured it in his own yard before his passing.

Good times. All of them. So much joy in one place. And this is just me picking up pine cones. I haven't even started on the inside. This is going to be more difficult than I thought, but the memories so wonderful to experience again. What good is a memory if you don't get a chance to dig it out again?

Alanya Flower

When you buy a new home, there is a year or so of discovery as you learn things about the new place you live. The furnace might make a weird clicking noise. The ceiling fans may wobble on high. The refrigerator may sweat when it’s over a certain temperature. New discoveries are made every day, and the same goes for your yard. What color will those leaves turn? That area of the driveway gets covered in ice because of bad drainage. Is that a weed or a flower? Should we pull it or hope for the best?

Seven years ago was our first year in this house and I was also pregnant. It was a learning process as we discovered what each flower bed had to offer from the previous owners. Out near the mailbox we had a number of things coming up, and one plant was taking a longer time than normal to show itself. It was nearly August and still no flowers, although it was bursting with buds. What would it be?

In the wee hours of August first we left for the hospital. That morning we called my mom and the boys at home to tell them about the new little girl in our family. Much to our delight, my mom told us that the mystery flower had burst open over night, and it turned out to be spectacular pink and white stargazer lilies. A celebration of pink and perfume for our little girl we had waited so long for.

We call them “Alanya Flowers” and every summer she continually checks to see how they are growing. Finally, within days of her birthday they burst open just for her. I’ll never in my life be able to look at one of those pink blooms without thinking of my little girl.

Good neighbors

We never got a garden in this year because of some major tree work we had done. Good thing too because they had to drop a large section in the garden area and we would have lost anything that was planted. There's always next year.

In the meantime, today I stopped at our favorite veggie stand that opens up about a mile or so from here and got the most spectacular tomatoes. Alanya and I enjoyed them with a light sprinkling of kosher salt. Luckily I drive by this stand often!

Yesterday our neighbor, who has quite the garden and fruit orchard in his backyard, invited us over to pick raspberries. He also sent us off with a few peaches fresh from the tree. Alanya, Jason and I enjoyed the raspberries... they are so delicate! Much to our delight this evening he invited us back over to pick again because of the impending rain tomorrow. We brought home another overflowing container of raspberries and another good handful of peaches.

Rule number one to home ownership - always stay on good terms with the neighbors who grow fabulous fruit and veggies!! Hopefully he'll invite us back when the blueberries need picking!!

The "destruction" project

See those massive, overgrown, 70s style hedges under the two front windows? I have finally had enough of them. I'd say they are original to the house, putting them at 35-40 years old. They trap leaves, provide homes for critters and crowd the trees and plantings that I do like.

About a month ago I mentioned to Jason I wanted to hire someone to take them out and replace it with some nice clean drainage stone and mulch. Hire someone? Jason jumped at the chance to do this project. It was destruction, and according to him he couldn't mess it up.

Step one was to cut all the greens off. Easy enough. That turned out to be about 3% of the total project. He then started battling the roots and stumps, unsuccessfully. This was more difficult than he thought.

Around the same time we were having some trees taken down so I asked the tree crew if they could pop the stumps out. The tree guy winced at the thought and said that wasn't as easy as it sounded. Three guys wrapped chains around the root balls and with a tractor tried to pull them out. Two of the eight got pulled out before they gave up. And we thought we could do it with loppers, a saw and a shovel?

To make a long story short, it took us many days of hard, back-breaking work but Jason happily posed for these "after" pictures on Sunday. Moral of the story? Never underestimate destruction!

The Laundry Room

Does anyone really love to do laundry? If so, I have yet to meet them. I have owned two homes in my life and in both houses the washing machine has been in a yucky basement with a cement floor and it was miserable and dreary to spend much time there. This picture shows where I have done laundry for the last seven years. Not so pleasant. So how wonderful would it be to be able to design my new laundry area?

As we worked out the plans for our partially finished basement we knew we still had to have the washing machine, dryer, deep freezer, sump pump and dehumidifier in the room somehow. Everything stretched along the far wall and I assumed there was nothing we could do. It wasn't until our contractor suggested building a laundry closet and reconfiguring things a bit that we realized we could have a "real" family room down there. Coming into the room you'd likely not know what was behind the louvered doors.


Tucked in the corner is everything neat and out of the way.

Best of all, I got to think about how I like to do things and Bob the Builder (that's what the kids call him) figured out how to make it all work. My favorite thing is the two levels of drying racks and shelves so that I can easily hang laundry. I'm proud to say one day this week I ran three loads of wash but only one load in the dryer.

For once my new laundry room is exactly the way I'd want it. I won't go so far as to say I enjoy doing laundry now, I haven't completely lost my mind, but if you have to do it, you might as well enjoy the space you are in!

March in New England

Wait a minute... wasn't it yesterday we taught Alanya to ride a bike and the kids were playing with no jackets?? Cut to today. 4-5 inches of snow and it's still coming. You gotta love it!

A Scrabble first for me!

Yesterday I got my first bingo in Scrabble! That means I used all seven tiles at once and got a 50 point bonus. My word was 'airport', and I'd love to be able to report how many points I got, but it appears Jason destroyed the score sheet. Tee hee hee. I won too!

Snow Day, part 2

Well our snow day found us busy in the kitchen. I'm happy to report it was all a success. Everything tasted good, and it kept the kids busy and stopped them from arguing and driving me bananas! Benny and Paula Deen's pretzels came out awesome! I could have eaten the whole plate. Surprisingly, the salted ones were the favorite with the cinnamon coming in a close second. I hope they still taste as good by the time Jason gets home. I will definitely be making these again.

Next came the cupcakes. Even Noah got in on the action. They sprinkled coconut, walnuts, butterscotch chips and crushed candy cane on them. Ick. They had fun though, and the only time I intervened was when they licked their fingers and then reached back into one of the bowls.










With everything done and the kitchen cleaned, I ventured outside to shovel, and it's now raining as the temperature rises. The snow weighed a ton, and I'll be feeling it later. We only have to shovel about 10-15 feet of a front walk and it has never wiped me out like it did today! It's been a fun snow day, but I'll be looking forward to getting them back to school tomorrow. Too many days like this and we'll all weigh a ton!

Another snow day... what to do?

Make cupcakes! Alanya has been dying to make cupcakes and decorate them all by herself without me interfering, or telling her how to do it. (For those of you who know me you know how difficult that is!) I figured a snow day was the perfect day. We just put them in the oven, and I have a can of chocolate frosting taking up space in the pantry. She and Ben have been tossing around ideas "for toppings" - sounds like they are making a pizza!

Ben's choice for baking today was a recipe out of his Paula Deen's My First Cookbook that he got for his birthday. After much pondering, he settled on homemade pretzels with either salt or cinnamon sugar. He said he wants to try both flavors. His dough is rising and we should be getting the pretzels going right about when the cupcakes come out.

I also have dinner going already... a pot roast with veggies in the crockpot. A perfect day for it. Will post our results later today!

The basement, what you can't see

This past weekend we had to empty our basement in anticipation of the demolition that would be happening down there this week. You can imagine what our upstairs looks like now. Every cabinet filled, things under beds, plastic bins in hallways. This will be a long process. I went downstairs this morning at 8am and took a few before pictures. This is just a simple wall that was in the tool room, or workshop. Looks ok, right. Jump ahead to 10:30 am when I took this picture below of the same wall.

Nasty, isn't it? The mold is disgusting and in every single room. I'm so happy we are doing this. Tomorrow we have a guy coming to meet with us about installing a generator. The first power outage and flood was a fluke. The second made us determined that there wouldn't be a third!