Progress!

The kitchen has gone from this blah, white on white, yawn inducing color scheme to this:

We couldn't be happier with the way the color turned out in the kitchen.  Of course now it makes the gold knobs that were only mildly ugly before, full-on ugly.  They will be replaced soon.

The floor is starting to take shape too.  After all day Saturday (and the help of my brother) and all day Sunday and Kevin working for about six hours tonight we have a good section of flooring installed.

OK, actually we have more than in the first photo but I am too lazy to go downstairs and take another picture.  The living room and dining room are done and the little entrance to the kitchen is done as is part of the hallway heading towards the front door.  Soon the memory of walking around on perpetually dusty, nasty feeling concrete will be a memory.  We will have a floor!! 

Of course along the way we discovered that we have another leaky heater and so two of our six heaters will need to be replaced.  This has also necessitated more drywall work than we anticipated but it has to be done. 

New gold paint and floor, glorious floor!

Old boring white paint and a section of the old flooring.

Hallway!

Watching Paint Dry

The house is starting to look like borderline insane people live here.  We painted the living and dining room last weekend and the color turned to a most unfortunate shade of pumpkin when it dried.  It didn't even mildly resemble the paint chip we chose.  So we went to a real paint place instead of a big box store and had them do two color samples and threw those on the walls. One was how the original chip was supposed to look and one was a pillowcase we had.  One looked great in the lighting in the dining room and one looked great on the living room walls.  So back to the paint store to have them make the bastard child of both of the paints.  And then we threw that in a few different spots on the walls tonight.  The colors aren't exact on the camera but you get the general idea.

We have spent far too much time sitting around watching the paint dry and contemplating colors.  I was going for a warm gold and Kevin is OK with any of the three so it is up to me to choose the color that will be on our walls for the next 10 years or so.  I will wait to see how the spawn of the other two (the middle one) looks after it dries completely and then see how they all look again tomorrow in daylight and will make a decision.  The rest of the weekend is painting, painting and, for a change, some painting.

Kevin finished drywalling the closet and is just waiting to spray texture on it. 

The old closet stopped where the white on the floor is.  You can see that we gained quite a bit of extra storage.  Heck, since the walls were ripped out because of the water damage we might as well take advantage of it. 

The other thing we got done today was to have the crack in our concrete slab fixed.  We discovered this when we ripped up the flooring in the dining room and kitchen.  Luckily, it wasn't a foundation issue so we could just seal it instead of having to have the floor jackhammered out and re-poured. 

The flooring will be delivered next Friday so we can start laying it on Saturday.  We have 1000 sq. feet of cork underlayment piled up in Kevin's office just waiting to be put down under it so we are almost all ready to go.

A River Ran Through It

By now I should have a post filled with beautiful pictures from our fabulous Glacier/Canadian Rockies (amazing, stunning, jaw-droppingly gorgeous place by the way) trip.  Unfortunately, our time has been a more than a little consumed with some unexpected home renovations. 

The day after we got back from our trip I noticed some warping of the laminate flooring in our hallway.  We poked around a bit, saw a little bit of water near the warping and then heard the floor actually make a squishing sound when we stepped on certain sections.  Turns out our radiant heater in the hallway sprung a leak and let loose a lot of water that got under about a third of our downstairs flooring.  Luckily we think we caught it fairly early before it ruined cabinets or more walls.  Because they don't make our old laminate anymore and it would be too hard to color match we ended up having to rip up all of the downstairs flooring:  the hallway, Kevin's office, the bathroom, the understairs closet, the living room, dining room and the kitchen. 

So for the last week and a half we have been dealing with plumbers, insurance adjusters, water mitigation people and a whole slew of other fun stuff.  Even though it is mostly covered by insurance we have decided to do most of the work ourselves to a) save some money and b) because Kevin is really excited about putting down the new flooring himself.  Since we were going to paint the living room, dining room and kitchen anyway this fall we just pushed up our schedule and are going to do all the painting before the new flooring goes in.  It will be so much easier to paint without a floor or baseboards or furniture to worry about.  And since Kevin has everything out of his almost-an-episode-of-Hoarders-but-without-the-dead-cats-or-feces office we figure it is a good time to paint that and install a new light.  And since we were going to paint the downstairs bathroom at some point anyway we are going to just go ahead and do that now too.  You know, 'cause there wasn't enough on our to-do list. 

So instead of blogging about vacations and enjoying our pretty fall weather we have been moving everything out of the downstairs, which included boxing up all nine of Kevin's floor to ceiling bookshelves (why didn't I marry an illiterate man again?) and putting it in the garage.  We have been tearing up the remaining laminate flooring (which is actually really fun and satisfying) and have picked out new laminate and some tile for the bathroom.  The next few days are about removing all of the crap on the walls and prepping them for a marathon paint session this weekend. Hopefully, the new floor will be ordered and ready in the next two weekends.  We ordered the tile last night so Kevin will be quickly learning how to tile a bathroom floor.

While it kind of sucks to have had the "water event" it is kind of fun to get to completely redo the downstairs.  We are both excited about the way we hope it will look in the end.  

Just wish us luck and some strong backs for the work that awaits us. 

I'm Still Here

Good gravy, these have been a busy two weeks.  I haven't had time to do laundry, let alone turn my computer on at home.  Good thing that I have a few moments here at the old jobey-job today to catch-up on my crazy last two weeks.

I fully intended on some blog posts about some of this fun stuff but instead you get a list and maybe some pictures later.

In the past two weeks I have:  been to a Brandi Carlile concert at the zoo, ate Minnesota style pizza and drank bad beer before the Dave Alvin show at the Tractor, went to the Slow Food Roots Music Festival in Stanwood for tasty chow and more Dave Alvin, had a picnic at Chateau St. Michelle with friends, went to a baseball game, had two dance lessons, had a podiatry appointment (news flash:  my left foot is wonky), met with our new cat sitter, had to go down to Mom's place after work to help her after she threw her back out, hosted dinner and vertical wine tasting at our place for a couple of friends, back to Mom's place for a day of deck cleaning and power washing, hike up to Spray Park at Mt. Rainier, back to Mom's again after work on Labor Day (not a holiday at my job) for the rest of the power washing project to prepare the deck for staining.  Whew!  No wonder I am feeling a bit tired right now. 

Anyway, we are leaving for a camping/road trip to Glacier National Park and the Canadian Rockies this weekend so I won't have time for a proper blog post until we get back.  Hopefully I will come back with some beautiful pictures and tales of (safe) bear sightings and maybe mountain goats too!  Then we can commence with a slightly less busy life and get down to painting, decorating, running, yoga-ing and other healthy pursuits.

I hope everyone enjoys these beautiful September days!

The Great Closet Purge

This weekend I finally finished a project I have been working on for the past two weeks:  The Great Closet Purge.  I decided awhile ago that I wanted to give my closet a good gutting and get down to pieces I actually will, and do, wear.  I wanted to get brutal with it.  I also am beyond ready to jazz up my wardrobe a little bit and you can't do that when you have a closet full of crap.  Here was my purge criteria:

• It had to be something I loved or at least really, really liked.  No more clothes I felt "meh" in or about.
• It had to either fit now or be within eight pounds of fitting.  Totally arbitrary number I agree but it seemed more reasonable than either five or ten pounds.
• It had to be comfortable. No pulling or tugging or, in the case of shoes, bunion hurting.
• It had to be in decent shape.  So no overly faded, or pilled or frayed clothes.

So with those criteria in mind I tried on every stinkin' item in that closet.  Every. Damn. Piece.  And I looked in the mirror and assessed.  And I turned this mess

into this (OK, the change is more noticeable in person but humor me; it was a lot of work and is noticeable in person)

There is so much more room in there now and when I look at all the items I know it is all stuff I want and can and do wear.  It's funny, but having less in the closet actually feels like having more when it is filled with clothes you want.  It is liberating and I can not recommend this process highly enough. 

Here is the giveaway pile and the final tally of items to be donated.

• 7 pairs of shoes
• 8 purses
• 13 sleeveless or tank top style shirts
• 16 casual or t-shirt style shirts
• 9 workout shirts
• 18 dressier shirts/blouses
• 15 sweaters
• 5 pairs of shorts
• 2 pairs of pants
• 4 dresses
• 7 pairs of pajamas
• 4 jackets/blazers
• 2 suits
• 17 skirts
  Total items to be donated:  127
  

Now before you think I am some crazy shopaholic I would like to point out that some of those things have been in my closet forever.  Like since the late 90's kind of forever and I had been hanging on to them because they are cute and I thought I might like to wear them when I lost weight.  Some were more recent than that but a lot of them have been in there for many, many years.  I came to the realization that if/when I lose the weight I deserve new clothes and to let go of all the old things.  

Oh, and here is a disturbing blast from the past.  The skirt I am holding up in this picture was the same one I comfortably wore to my job interview 13 years ago for my current job.  

Yes, I am holding up the right seam to my right hip where a skirt would normally fit and yes, that skirt did fit beautifully 13 years ago.  I just want to go back and kick my 27 year-old self in the shins for ever thinking I was fat back then.  I actually contemplated my bone structure after holding this skirt up to my waist and wondering if it was physically possible that I fit into it at one point.  *sigh* 

Back In The Groove

I have been out of the running habit for far too long.  Between injuries earlier this year, the wedding, and then just plain being out of shape and uninterested I got far away from my running routine.  Things have changed though and I am glad to say that I am actually running again.  The past two weeks I have gone out for three days each week and ran.  Not fast and no further than three miles but I am running.  The last time that happened was back in February.  More importantly I am making it a regular part of my life again and feel like I can start re-building some fitness and base building.  Hooray, I am a runner again!

Super Secret Saturday Surprise

Saturday morning Kevin sprung his super-secret surprise on me.  He had been planning something for a few weeks but wouldn't clue me in to what it was until we pulled into the parking lot.  He had bought us both a cougar cub encounter at Cougar Mountain Zoo!!!  See, guessing penguin hugging wasn't too far off after all.  The cub encounter allowed us both to go in the cougar enclosure and pet and play with one of the zoos three new cubs. 

The cubs are from a zoo in Wisconsin and I think the keeper said they were orphaned but don't hold me to that.  There is one boy and two girls and we got to play with one of the girl cubs.  The cubs are three months old and are in that "I want to do it myself" kind of tween stage.  She was interested in lots of exploring her enclosure and not as interested in playing with us.  I can't blame her.  The cubs get out once or twice a day to play under supervision in their enclosure since it isn't kitten proofed yet.  I would want to run around and explore too.

Even though she didn't want to play much with us we still got to watch her play and explore and observe her cat behavior.  It is so obvious that domestic cats aren't all that far removed from these guys. 

We did get to pet the cub and they have surprisingly rough hair.  I figured it would be soft like a cat but it isn't.  We also learned that they have spots and blue eyes when they are young.  We were encouraged to pet them on the back and not the belly (we laughed when they told us that; anyone who has owned a cat knows that all too well) and to touch the tail.  They will eventually do blood draws through the tail and want to get the cats used to tail touching as much as possible.  This cub weighed in at 13 pounds but she was all lanky muscle.  It is hard to believe because our cat Ollie is a big boy and he tips the scales at 15 pounds but is about half the size of this cat.  Female cougars get to be about 100 pounds so she still has some growing to do as you can see from her feet.

Look at the size of those paws!

It was so much fun to get to be that close to a cougar cub! It was also fun to be that close and not worry about being eviscerated by a lurking momma cat.  Cougars are fascinating animals but I admit to being a little intimidated by them in the wild.  We had a blast following her around, watching her explore and test her still slightly awkward jumping skills and to play a bit with some of her toys.  Later in the day we watched her two siblings play together and observed some really strong stalking instinct happening already.  It was a blast to watch.

We weren't allowed to pick the cubs up because, well....the cub wasn't interested in being picked up by anybody.  Even her keepers that she knew super well annoyed her when they picked her up.  Cougar cub growls sound a lot liked pissed off domestic cat sounds.  But we also found out that cougars purr.  In fact, they are the largest of the purring cats.  Here is our cub giving the keeper head-butts and purring for her.



Sadly, that isn't a cougar cub stuffed under my shirt.

 She is such a beautiful cat and we can't wait to go back to the zoo to watch her grow up to be a big cougar. We feel invested in her now. 

This was such a wonderful surprise and I am such a lucky woman to have a guy who surprises me with things he knows I will love, like cougar cubs. He was right; it really was a once in a lifetime experience and I am so glad we had a chance to do it.  It was so much fun.  And you would have been proud of me, I didn't even try to smuggle one of the cubs home with us!