This post is for Kelly, because I am writing it with my new ipad keyboard, hence it no longer looks like I'm typing with my elbows. Also because Kelly is about to have two kids.
A long long time ago, what feels like forever ago, I thought I would never love another kid. I was wholly dedicated to one tiny, perfect individual and could not imagine having someone else in my family, couldn't imagine giving the same amount of love and attention to a second person. I actually felt like loving the second one would take away from loving the first, which was crazy and wrongheaded. I felt sorry for both of them; to the first I felt like she would have to share me, and might feel resentful and short-changed. To the second I felt like he would get half a mother or be an afterthought, a tag-along in the Nora caravan.
I am happy to report now, six months later, that I was wrong on all counts.
It's a funny thing, falling in love with your child. There are about seven or a million different ways to fall in love, and you cycle through them with the passage of time. It's like the levels of hell only in reverse. I look at my baby, Theo, and I think "I am not even up to capacity on you yet and I already am over the moon. Holy." I went through all of the doubt and regret and fear when I was pregnant, so by the time he arrived I was like "OK let's do this; let's see what happens."
The first stage is meeting your new baby. When Theo arrived, the first thing he did that I love him for was being born fairly smoothly and relatively quickly. I didn't pass out this time, and I felt every damn thing - as flaky as it sounds, I finally had the 'birth experience' I'd always wanted. When I first saw him, all I could do was go "ooo oooo ooo oooo" like a demented ape, while looking at my husband like ARE YOU SEEING THIS? Theo made his presence known by immediately pooping and peeing all over me, thus setting the tone for his first several months of life. The second thing that made me love him was that he breastfed effectively right off the bat, therefore making me feel right away like I could do this; I had it in hand. I could manage this baby.
The first weeks and months of a baby's life are normally, and in my previous experience, harried and chaotic and full of worry. Not so with Theo, really. Four days after he was born we spent the day at the beach. Nine days after we brought him to the Canada Day celebrations, including baby's first fireworks. He was a relaxed and chill little guy who drank well, pooped like nobody's business and gained weight like a champ. We towed him along with us to the cottage, to the beach, to here and to there. The thing with a second child is that you already have a first child, whose needs still have to be met and who has to be occupied during the days, so number two gets to have a richly varied set of life experiences very early on.
I am looking back at this period through rose-coloured glasses, I realize. There were problems with Nora, for sure, as she dealt with sharing her mama with a new arrival. We had prepared her pretty well for the baby and she was instantly in love with him - a real wonderful big sister. She couldn't get enough. But we hadn't prepared her very well for just how time-consuming breastfeeding would be. She was at the tail end of potty training, at the stage where I was still wiping her, and inevitably she would have to go just when I'd settled him onto the boob. I learned to do a lot of things one-handed while breastfeeding: wiping bums, making macaroni and cheese, making dinner. Now that Theo is almost 16 lbs I can't really do it any more. He dangles too much but Nora quickly learned how to wipe her own bum and help herself to the fridge. Anyway, Nora got resentful of all the breastfeeding and all the naps and quiet time and how much he had to go into the ergo carrier. There were some awful moments. But it petered out at about 6 weeks, and now at 6 months there's nothing of that left. They are a twosome, in love with one another.
Two areas that I have learned are super tricky with two kids: sleep, and illness. When I am alone with both kids, I find it difficult to steal away for 15-20 minutes to get the baby to sleep and leave Nora alone to her own devices. So he sleeps in a baby carrier for naptimes and is used to a bit of chaos and noise. And my sleep is totally busted now that I play bedroom pingpong most nights, back and forth, back and forth. And illness - well, Nora started school in late September, and now the plague hits my house monthly. Theo has had two colds - one rather serious - and having two kids night-coughing at once is hell. I never sleep. I have a giant mystery dent in my back bumper and I nearly ran over my neighbor a little while ago. I am permanently impaired.
As for the title of this post, well, Nora has already started to involve Theo into her imaginary play. He is the ice monster in her imaginary "Frozen." He lays there on the floor gurgling while she plays with the toy pirate ship, firing cannonballs at him (a light plastic ball with zero velocity), and he has more than once been 'random bad guy.' He doesn't mind. He is delighted just to be invited. He grabs at her barbies' hair and irritates her and I can see already how it will be for the next 5-10 years.
But at the very bottom of it, I can say that it isn't a cliche when a mom tells you 'Oh your heart grows to fit the second one in'. I didn't believe it at the time. I do now. I have two different individuals but they fit together like little puzzle pieces, and both of them are my favourite people in the world. Seeing Nora as a big sister just gives me a whole new way to love her. And I look forward to falling even more deeply for Theo as time rolls on, because I know that's how it goes.
Also, now that Nora has a little brother, she has learned a bit more about anatomy. The other day she drew a four-eyed alien with a 'peanut.' Oh did I laugh.
9/18/14
All Work and No Play
Here is a post i drafted a long time ago and never hit 'publish'....
I have been reeeeal quiet lately. I mean I haven’t actually been quiet – I have in fact been making quite a ruckus in my house, stomping around, dismantling things, making use of every spare inch of space that my place does not have and making a real unholy mess. But I haven’t felt compelled to write about it just yet. These days, I am working three jobs.
There’s the job I’m paid for, where I am obligated to be for 7.5 hours out of each day but actually takes up 10.5 when you factor in transportation and preparation. It’s good, but I have to talk to strangers and I feel pressured to blow-dry my hair, which knocks it down a whole bunch of points. Then there’s the unpaid-yet-arguably-more-difficult job of shepherding a young child through life, ensuring that she is adequately clean, dressed, fed, slept and supported emotionally. A disproportionate amount of this job involves dressing stuffed animals in doll clothes and sparkly gewgaws. It is not rare to hear “MAMA! Can you put the giraffe’s ears inside this easter egg!?” or “THE BEAR NEEDS ANOTHER NECKLACE! I can’t do it! Mama you do it!” usually while I am in the other room with chicken juice all over my hands.
I love this job and I’m good at it. In fact, if they paid me 80 grand a year to do it – or hell even 60 – I’d walk away from the office job so fast I’d probably leave my inside shoes behind. But it’s the third unpaid job that’s keeping me hopping these days. And actually this job isn’t only unpaid, it actually COSTS me. This is the job of renovating and making things. Each evening I become a project manager, carefully plotting out a schedule of the evening’s plans in my head.
This week’s plans look something like this:
5:20 p.m. – get home. Feed child delicious nutritious goldfish crackers I made the other evening after work. Feed crazy pets while cursing.
5:30 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. – dress stuffed animals in various shreds of cloth, bits of costume jewellery, the aforementioned easter egg halves, hair elastics, mardi gras beads, etc.
6:00 p.m. – begin to cook nutritious well-balanced dinner for family.
6:30 p.m. – husband comes home. Takes over animal-dressing duties. Snacks on imaginary play food served by young child.
6:45 or 7:00 p.m. – family begins eating well-balanced dinner.
7:05 p.m. – husband and I are finished well-balanced dinner. Daughter still thinking about it.
7:30 p.m. – child finishes dinner (or close enough), drinks milk, maybe has yoghurt which buys me some project-management time. Maybe toss in a load of bread or pizza dough, bake muffins, or make more damn goldfish cookies. **** sometimes there is a bath here. Maybe twice a week. Don’t judge me, my child doesn’t stink. During bathtime I will intend to clean the toilet and surroundings but will actually spend my time on facebook. ****
8:00 p.m. – sew wings of peacock Halloween costume. I’m not sure what peacock wings even look like though I am sure they must have them. OR put handles on newly-painted kitchen cabinets OR (last week) put another coat of mortar on my fireplace bricks OR knit an elaborate sweater that has taken so long it’s on the verge of not fitting her anymore OR sketch out plans for an entirely new house because I’m fed up with the current one OR plan how to make peacock feet out of polar fleece. 9:00 p.m. – throw in a load of laundry. Daddy attempts to brush child’s teeth and wash her hands, which takes about 15 minutes and a lot of bargaining. Child is usually naked by now. Since she became potty trained and able to undress herself, she has become a nudist.
9:30 p.m. – Stories. Wrangling her into pyjamas either before or after stories, then bed. I am embarrassed about this. It is my major failing in my career as a parent of a small child, that she doesn’t get to bed until my own bedtime. My mom likes to tell me that I ‘wasn’t a sleeper’ either but the fact is, my kid’s happy enough to sleep in until almost 9 a.m., she is just wired at night and firing on all cylinders. The peak of her day, mentally, is between 7:30 and 10 p.m., it’s so nuts. I am trying to work out the intricacies of naps, daycare, bedtimes, but it’s all so much scheduling and coercing and truthfully I don’t have that much energy for it, given all my jobs.
Then I go to bed. It’s glamorous, I know, but at least while I’m in bed I use my ipad to ‘design’ fantasy houses before falling asleep. Anyway, so far, my fireplace is done (well 90% done) and it looks amazing. I can’t believe how covering up the bricks with mortar and then white paint has transformed my entire living room, like it’s opened it right up.
What began as painting a chair turquoise last year led to painting my kitchen cabinets red and white (damn you Pinterest!) so I have been painting quite a lot lately. My brother brought home a respirator for me to use, since the BIN primer I used for the fireplace AND the kitchen cabinetry is rather toxic-smelling, only I don’t have respirators for the entire family so we have to plan for Nora to either be out of the house or in the basement while I am actively using it. It’s proving to be a bit tricky, and it’s causing the whole thing to take an unreasonable amount of time. Time during which we have had to get used to having no cupboard doors on our (messy) kitchen, or even fronts on our drawers. I dismantled everything while hubby was away on a thanksgiving fishing trip, and was henceforth committed to finishing the job. Thankfully, we are in the home stretch: all painting should be completed this coming weekend, and then the new handles can go on. I will post pictures when I am done.
Oh and also I am pregnant.
I have been reeeeal quiet lately. I mean I haven’t actually been quiet – I have in fact been making quite a ruckus in my house, stomping around, dismantling things, making use of every spare inch of space that my place does not have and making a real unholy mess. But I haven’t felt compelled to write about it just yet. These days, I am working three jobs.
There’s the job I’m paid for, where I am obligated to be for 7.5 hours out of each day but actually takes up 10.5 when you factor in transportation and preparation. It’s good, but I have to talk to strangers and I feel pressured to blow-dry my hair, which knocks it down a whole bunch of points. Then there’s the unpaid-yet-arguably-more-difficult job of shepherding a young child through life, ensuring that she is adequately clean, dressed, fed, slept and supported emotionally. A disproportionate amount of this job involves dressing stuffed animals in doll clothes and sparkly gewgaws. It is not rare to hear “MAMA! Can you put the giraffe’s ears inside this easter egg!?” or “THE BEAR NEEDS ANOTHER NECKLACE! I can’t do it! Mama you do it!” usually while I am in the other room with chicken juice all over my hands.
I love this job and I’m good at it. In fact, if they paid me 80 grand a year to do it – or hell even 60 – I’d walk away from the office job so fast I’d probably leave my inside shoes behind. But it’s the third unpaid job that’s keeping me hopping these days. And actually this job isn’t only unpaid, it actually COSTS me. This is the job of renovating and making things. Each evening I become a project manager, carefully plotting out a schedule of the evening’s plans in my head.
This week’s plans look something like this:
5:20 p.m. – get home. Feed child delicious nutritious goldfish crackers I made the other evening after work. Feed crazy pets while cursing.
5:30 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. – dress stuffed animals in various shreds of cloth, bits of costume jewellery, the aforementioned easter egg halves, hair elastics, mardi gras beads, etc.
6:00 p.m. – begin to cook nutritious well-balanced dinner for family.
6:30 p.m. – husband comes home. Takes over animal-dressing duties. Snacks on imaginary play food served by young child.
6:45 or 7:00 p.m. – family begins eating well-balanced dinner.
7:05 p.m. – husband and I are finished well-balanced dinner. Daughter still thinking about it.
7:30 p.m. – child finishes dinner (or close enough), drinks milk, maybe has yoghurt which buys me some project-management time. Maybe toss in a load of bread or pizza dough, bake muffins, or make more damn goldfish cookies. **** sometimes there is a bath here. Maybe twice a week. Don’t judge me, my child doesn’t stink. During bathtime I will intend to clean the toilet and surroundings but will actually spend my time on facebook. ****
8:00 p.m. – sew wings of peacock Halloween costume. I’m not sure what peacock wings even look like though I am sure they must have them. OR put handles on newly-painted kitchen cabinets OR (last week) put another coat of mortar on my fireplace bricks OR knit an elaborate sweater that has taken so long it’s on the verge of not fitting her anymore OR sketch out plans for an entirely new house because I’m fed up with the current one OR plan how to make peacock feet out of polar fleece. 9:00 p.m. – throw in a load of laundry. Daddy attempts to brush child’s teeth and wash her hands, which takes about 15 minutes and a lot of bargaining. Child is usually naked by now. Since she became potty trained and able to undress herself, she has become a nudist.
9:30 p.m. – Stories. Wrangling her into pyjamas either before or after stories, then bed. I am embarrassed about this. It is my major failing in my career as a parent of a small child, that she doesn’t get to bed until my own bedtime. My mom likes to tell me that I ‘wasn’t a sleeper’ either but the fact is, my kid’s happy enough to sleep in until almost 9 a.m., she is just wired at night and firing on all cylinders. The peak of her day, mentally, is between 7:30 and 10 p.m., it’s so nuts. I am trying to work out the intricacies of naps, daycare, bedtimes, but it’s all so much scheduling and coercing and truthfully I don’t have that much energy for it, given all my jobs.
Then I go to bed. It’s glamorous, I know, but at least while I’m in bed I use my ipad to ‘design’ fantasy houses before falling asleep. Anyway, so far, my fireplace is done (well 90% done) and it looks amazing. I can’t believe how covering up the bricks with mortar and then white paint has transformed my entire living room, like it’s opened it right up.
What began as painting a chair turquoise last year led to painting my kitchen cabinets red and white (damn you Pinterest!) so I have been painting quite a lot lately. My brother brought home a respirator for me to use, since the BIN primer I used for the fireplace AND the kitchen cabinetry is rather toxic-smelling, only I don’t have respirators for the entire family so we have to plan for Nora to either be out of the house or in the basement while I am actively using it. It’s proving to be a bit tricky, and it’s causing the whole thing to take an unreasonable amount of time. Time during which we have had to get used to having no cupboard doors on our (messy) kitchen, or even fronts on our drawers. I dismantled everything while hubby was away on a thanksgiving fishing trip, and was henceforth committed to finishing the job. Thankfully, we are in the home stretch: all painting should be completed this coming weekend, and then the new handles can go on. I will post pictures when I am done.
Oh and also I am pregnant.
Five Good Reasons Why My Blog is Dead
1. I had a baby. Like, another baby, so now I have two, and life is busy. Also, typing with one hand is the pits.
2. I haven't got much going on worth writing about. There are enough people on the internet describing their babies' poop and lack of sleep.
3. I converted my computing to an ipad, and it is absolutely NOT meant for writing anything beyond status updates and photo captions.
4. Only four people read my blog. Hi mom!
5. I spend all my time on facebook, pinterest, blah blah blah I am such a cliché. I find the process of going into this program, uploading images, getting everything lined up, etc., really tiresome.
Anyway, I like to write, so if I ever get a keyboard for this thing you may see a resurrection of gennyland but for now, sorry, the blog is dunzo.
2. I haven't got much going on worth writing about. There are enough people on the internet describing their babies' poop and lack of sleep.
3. I converted my computing to an ipad, and it is absolutely NOT meant for writing anything beyond status updates and photo captions.
4. Only four people read my blog. Hi mom!
5. I spend all my time on facebook, pinterest, blah blah blah I am such a cliché. I find the process of going into this program, uploading images, getting everything lined up, etc., really tiresome.
Anyway, I like to write, so if I ever get a keyboard for this thing you may see a resurrection of gennyland but for now, sorry, the blog is dunzo.
2/6/14
Mommy Blogging
I’ve tried never to make this blog about the trials and
tribulations of parenting. There are enough blogs out there dealing with these
topics and I think people are getting a bit sick of it all. My facebook feed is
all about reasons peoples’ toddlers are crying, links to the youtube video of
that admittedly-hilarious comedian talking about life with kids, and videos of
kids crying to songs on the radio or discovering rain for the first time.
But I would be kidding you if I could pretend to write about
other stuff right now. I’ve got nothing happening on the home renovation front,
work is a bit of a slump despite moving to a brand new building, family life is
stable, and I haven’t been to the cottage since September. Meanwhile, Gennyland
is busy - Nora is as hilarious as ever, and I am expecting number 2 (a boy) in
June. I don’t want to bore people with the mundane specificities of my days,
but Nora and I are having a good time enjoying each other’s company, laughing,
crying, learning stuff. I could spend a
few paragraphs listing the indignities that my aging body is withstanding
through this happy unexpected baby surprise (Namely, a lot of constipation,
gas, grey hair and peeing) but I don’t think anyone’s interested in that stuff.
There is one issue that pops up here and there in response
to all the mommy-blogging going on: I read an article earlier today saying that
it seems like parents do nothing but complain on the internet about how hard
their lives are. I would like to chime in on this one, because I do feel it’s
relevant in my situation.
Where I work, in my particular field and division only one
other person (out of 16) has a young child. Most of the people in equivalent
positions (program officers) are either childless or are men with grown
children. In the mornings they come in
and tell me about the movies they saw the previous night, the trips they’re
taking on the weekends, the hip evening activities they have taken advantage of,
all the travel they look forward to doing for work, and the fabulous elaborate
meals they cook on Saturdays with friends. I think that’s great. I really do –
I remember those days fondly. I keep my lips sealed and nod and pretend that I
can relate to their fabulous carefree lifestyles. But when they start asking me
“why don’t you ever travel for work?” (I am supposed to*) and “what are your
plans for the weekend” and I start to answer honestly, their eyes glaze over.
I have also recently
seen a few colleagues take a day off or a morning off here and there because
they’ve “been having trouble sleeping lately,“ and not to seem like a bitter
old crone, but by that logic I should NEVER COME TO WORK AT ALL. For real. I
haven’t slept a stretch longer than 4 or 5 hours since about November.
I have decided not to share with them what it’s like to work
three shifts. I call my day a three-shift day, and the shift in the middle (the
one for which I am paid handsomely) is the most relaxing and stress-free of
all. I don’t want to make it sound like it’s all horrible because it’s not – at
the time some of the things that I do seem kind of unreasonable but it has become
the new normal in my world. It’s just when it’s thrown up against the
lifestyles of others less entangled than I that it becomes a sore spot.
My day usually sort of starts around 3 a.m. though I’m not even
sure where one day stops and the next one starts anymore. Nora is a great one
for talking/shouting/crying/screaming in her sleep, but never actually waking
up and walking into our room, so that I have to get up and go get her to see
what’s going on so it doesn’t escalate. One late-night/early-morning screaming
session was caused by a dream she’d had wherein I had cracked an egg on top of
her head. “YOU CRACKED AN EGG ON MY HEAD!” Me: “no sweetie, shhh shhh, it’s ok,
I would never do that to you.” Nora: “YES YOU DID! YOU DID IT JUST NOW!” (How
do you explain that conversation to a coworker when they say “you look tired today”?)
She is a wonderful, imaginative, interesting and smart child, with a really
vivid imagination and a lot of energy, but her one fault in life is that she is
not a terrific sleeper. I long ago reconciled myself to the fact that she will
never in her life go to bed early and indeed, she goes to bed easily but very
very late for someone under 40” tall. There’s no yo-yo-ing back and forth for
endless glasses of water, and she is super reliably dry at night. She’s just –
active. The brain never shuts off. She
has full conversations in the dark, complaining about some minor indignity she
suffered at daycare that day, worrying about lost toys or parents who crack
produce over her head. She doesn’t like sleeping in her room because she claims
she can hear loud cars and trucks all night (we live in the country – once in a
while she hears the admittedly-very-loud snowplow around 6 a.m.) so she tries to
spend each night in our bed, which as another very funny viral cartoon has
illustrated can be incredibly disruptive. (He has a book. Of course he does.
See it here . Nora is a fan of “H is for Hell.”
Anyway, so my day usually starts with one of these such
interruptions. Then I’m awake. Then I have to pee. I make my way to the
bathroom to do the deed (thank god we renovated and included a bathroom
upstairs. Thank.God.), then I go back to bed where hubby is snoring loudly. I
roll him over onto his side again, and try to settle in. He keeps snoring on despite
the nose strip and double pillows and repeated jabs to the back. Then the dog
has a dream and starts running in her sleep at the foot of the bed. “Oh” you
say. “You let your very large rambunctious dog sleep in your bed, no wonder you
get no sleep.” Yes, yes I do, because if I don’t, she paces all clickety
clickety around the bed all night and her nocturnal twitchings are LOUD against
the floorboards and surrounding furniture. At least the bedding is quiet. Plus
our bedroom is unheated and I like to stick my toes under her when it’s minus
100 outside. After I kick the dog (gently, more like a nudge) to discourage her
dream-twitching, I try to settle back in but now that I’ve awoken, so has Squid
(the fetus) and he starts booting me in the belly. Not hard, just noticeably
because as Babycenter has told me, he’s only the size of a banana. If I can
ignore all this and get back to sleep, I usually have three hours max of sleep-time
before either my biological clock or my alarm clock wakes me up.
I haul myself up, shower myself, shuffle to the kitchen,
feed the cat, and make Nora’s breakfast to bring to daycare. This is 6:50, I am
chopping up fruit while the cat crunches away, which I actually kind of enjoy. I
finish this and head upstairs to choose outfits – another tiny pleasure. I
dress myself (usually in the dark), then try to gently awaken Nora, dressing
her as she sleeps/wakes up. This is easiest because she has no opinions on what
she wants to wear when she’s still asleep, except sometimes socks are
contentious. I pick her up and bring her downstairs and we snuggle on the couch
for 5 minutes while she wakes up. This is my favorite part of my day. Then it’s
time to bundle into winter coats, snowsuits, boots, hats, mitts, poured coffee,
bags by the door, haul it all up to the car, stuff all the bits into the carseat,
start the car, warm it up, drive to daycare, drop her off (unbundle), then
until very recently I would have to make two or three separate stops on the way
to work to pick up carpoolers. I then drive to work – enjoyable. I listen to
the radio and drink coffee. This now represents my only real alone time of the
day and this subtle change in my routine makes me feel free as a bird, sadly.
Then I park in my new spot and briskly walk the 1km to work. Thus begins my
second shift.
After the second shift is over (and it is a quiet shift,
full of adult conversations and decent food), I bundle up, walk back to my
parking spot, and start shift #3. Sometimes I have to run a quick errand on the
way home to pick up something for dinner. I then pick up Nora at daycare at 5 –
bundle her up, ask about the day, what was for lunch, did she eat her
breakfast, light chat with the other parents, wait while she crawls to the car
through the deep snow. Pick up the mail, drive home. We get home, unbundle, and
I let the dog outside, feed the pets, get Nora a wee snack (especially if it
was soup day at daycare), and try to re-light the fire in the woodstove. I have
about 30 minutes of play time before I have to break to make dinner, which is
usually a difficult break with Miss Nora. She hates it when I go make dinner.
While I am making dinner (usually a full dinner, and I’m not afraid to brag
here: my family is LUCKY), hubby gets home and takes over the playing-with.
This is a real skill of his; he can dress and undress and redress stuffed
animals until the cows come home. Then I call them to dinner and we eat
together. Sometimes this is easy and great fun and Nora eats like a horse, and
other nights she’s not into it. Sometimes she sits with her back to us and I
get tense. We finish dinner and if it’s Monday (or Tuesday if I gave up and fed
her Cheerios for breakfast on Tuesday morning), I usually have to bake
something for the week’s daycare breakfasts – a loaf of some sort, usually
banana bread or blueberry-oatmeal loaf (cut down the sugar, add flax and chia
and other sneaky mom stuff). I can now almost do this in my sleep. Hubby cleans
the kitchen. I lay on the couch and ‘play’ or just sort of lie nearby like a beached
whale while Nora creates scenarios where various toy penguins have blended
families and have pet cats and like to eat sparkly pompoms.
We do this, unless it is bath night, where I (or hubby if I
can trick him) have to sit in the bathroom and watch Nora pour water over the
heads of various toy animals for an hour. It’s tough to sit crunched up on the
bathroom floor when you are 5 months pregnant and have just eaten dinner. So that’s
why Nora only has two baths a week. Plus our water supply is kind of low and
her skin dries out easily. She plays, she plays with me, she plays with daddy,
until it’s time to brush teeth and go upstairs, where we put on jammies and she
plays a bit more in bed. Sometimes we draw pictures, sometimes we read stories.
Then I say “it’s time to turn out the light”, she goes pee one more time, has a
little cup of water, and scampers back to bed where she snuggles next to me and
falls asleep within 2 minutes. I love this time. Sometimes I am asleep before
she is. If it’s before 10 p.m. it’s a good night, but sometimes it’s a bit past
10 p.m. and I’ve learned that that’s ok too. Everyone is different.
Hubby comes to bed at 12:30 or 1:00, and moves Nora to her
own bed. Sometimes we have small conversations and I have to try to get to
sleep again. And so ends my third shift.
So childless people might think that that all sounds horrible
or bland. I remember when I was pregnant the first time, I had no idea how I would
fit it all in. But you do. Somehow it works out. Things happen gradually. And
you have no way of telling your childless coworkers that you didn’t really do
anything of note last night, but man you laughed so hard when your daughter
informed you that her baby dolly’s name is “Jeff,” and that you woke up this
morning to her looming over you whispering “Mama. Mama. Rosie’s licking her
butt.” You can’t really explain how wonderful
it is that the three-and-a-half-year-old ate more salmon at dinner than you
did. How you and your 42-year-old husband and your daughter played the
recorder, the keyboards, and a broken guitar for 2 hours the other night
without going insane. How wonderful and creative and meaningful Pingu is even after seeing them all 48
times. How something as simple as Nora’s new haircut has made me feel like I
have fallen in love all over again.
And so I nod and smile and ask about the movie and the
dinner and the weekend away. And I know that while I am somewhat freaking out
about having two kids, it will also all work out, as it does, and there’s just more
adventure ahead, and that I wouldn’t trade places with anyone for anything in
the world.
But I am totally taking tomorrow off and blaming it on lack
of sleep.
*for the record, the last time I travelled for work, I was away for two nights and because of it, Nora peed the bed for two weeks. I am having a hard time seeing the value in it.
7/9/13
Cottage, Season 2
We have, so far, made the very most of having a cottage in 2013.
We started going up there almost as soon as the snow had melted, while the mosquitos were still thick in the air (in and out of the cottage!) and the trees were still trying to grow leaves. We were still far far from being able to go swimming – a misunderstanding with our water pump led me to peel off my pants and test the waters sometime in late May, and I can tell you, even the dog couldn’t swim in it. It was cuh-cuh cold. But we did have running water and a propane stove and lights and fridge and oh man did we have a lot of projects lined up for this year.
I am pleased to report that we have managed to accomplish much of what we set out to do in 2013. During our first chilly weekend I focused on giving Nora a place to sleep – a junior bed bought off of a friend - and had luckily found a giant Ikea bed net somewhere in our belongings, which was necessary due to the aforementioned mosquito infestation. Mom made up Nora’s curtains and I went to Ikea for some Jr. bedding and rugs to cover up the particleboard, and now Nora’s got a cute and cozy room that she can sleep and play in.
Next I built us a bed. We’d been sleeping on an old futon frame that we’d gotten in the Ikea scratch and dent ages ago, back when we were living like a couple of 28-year-olds in their first house. It was our tv couch and spare room, back in the day. Problem is, we were using it with a queen-size mattress (newly purchased) and the futon frame is really a double so the sides were floppy, and Nora rolled off of it more than once. I even rolled off of it a few times. Add to that the fact that a few bolts were missing from the central hinged section of the frame, and it was slightly sloped down to my side ….. we needed a bed. So I went under the cottage and found a bunch of wood, bought the queen-sized wooden slats at Ikea (yay Ikea, well-represented in our cottage), and built a bed. It is a solid bed. I moved the futon frame out of there but it lingered at the side of our room like an albatross, until this past weekend when I re-purposed it into a bench for the screen porch.
Add some more mom-made curtains (both sets of curtains made with the fabric I coveted oh so long ago and finally got over the winter), and the turquoise chair that set off my kitchen renovation, and the orange shelf that I started to paint LAST YEAR and only finished this spring, and the bedroom is dunzo.
I made it my life’s mission to finish off the screen porch this spring, somewhat during a timeframe when a screen porch would be necessary. While I didn’t manage to finish it while the bugs were at their peak, it sure is nice to sit out there and not worry in late summer evenings when the sun goes down and the air starts humming. I cannot tell you how much I have come to loathe mosquitos. Anyway, the porch was built in a kind of funky way that made it nearly impossible to fit the screens in but I am pleased to say it’s (mostly) done. There are still a few tiny gaps, but mosquitos are dumb, and they haven’t really found them yet. We ate our first dinner out on the screen porch this past very hot Saturday, just before this bench went in. We had tacos.
Here’s the other end of the screen porch, just for a full picture
There were a few more major projects that we needed to get done before our cottage is 100% usable. While our bathroom had a door and a flushable toilet, it did not have its sink or shower hooked up yet. I went through a few ideas for both; originally the sink was going to be an enamel farm bowl with a hole cut out of it. Then I gave up on that and bought the round kitchen sink from Ikea of about the same dimensions, and I bought a raw-edge (and raw top, sides, and bottom as it turns out) thick piece of pine from our wood guy and sanded the snot out of the top, cut it to size, varnished it, added some legs (with birch log spacers as the legs were too short) to make a vanity. I bought a slick Ikea tap, and finally this weekend my brother plumbed it all in. So now we can brush our teeth and wash our hands in the bathroom, instead of at the kitchen sink!
An the pièce de résistance: the shower stall. Originally I was looking for this stock tank:
And was going to get a hole cut into it, a curtain rod that went all around, and just use that as the shower stall/bathtub. Well, luckily I had a real hard time tracking down the exact right tank, and instead, we decided to make the best use of the space by putting in a corner shower basin – the most petite one we could find, since the room’s not that big. It’s white vinyl, which I wanted to avoid, but then I had a brain wave when it came time to decide what to put on the walls around the tub, and my mind fell on galvanized tin roofing. It’s relatively cheap, relatively easy to install (without all the snipping required to go around fixtures, windows, etc – it’s two pieces), and it has the same look and feel as the stock tank while keeping the walls totally waterproof. However, since the shower basin was intended for use with a glass wall, it has a very low lip, and I so we had to buy a shower head that rains straight down, rather than one that blows the water on a diagonal right at the shower curtain. I bought a nice little unit with a cost comparable to a standard shower head. My superhero little brother installed it all last week, and it is fabulous.
When he’s got some time he’s also going to make us a curved shower curtain rod with phalanges, to attach to either wall, and that gingham shower curtain will be hung up. I bought a stock tank quite similar to that original one, but for $40, and it fits right into the shower base and under the tap – it is Nora’s bathtub, my laundry tub, you name it.
Next up, I am working on (and when I say “I am working on”, I mean the team that includes my dad who is cutting the tiles, my friend who is supplying the tiles) tiling the bathroom floor. It’s a bit of a job but in the end, the tiles are free, and we will have a ceramic tile floor. Add a nice white bathmat (not an expensive one, I have a black dog) and it’ll be pretty freaking lovely when it’s all done.
The other big project is the loft. Last year the loft was there but it had no ladder and no railings, so it was this big space that we’d heard was stunning (from the builder) but we’d never used. We couldn’t get up there. So this year we bought a nifty set of wooden pull-down attic stairs (a unit that comes as one piece and is simple to install), put it in, and I am building railings out of pine and steel chicken fencing. The top railing’s still not on because I have to order some nice 2x6 pine, but you get the picture. Once we’ve finished the molding around the stair opening, we are going to install a hatch/trapdoor, so that when kids are upstairs and the ladder is down, they won’t fall down the hole. This is the one dog-free area in my entire world. We are going to get a really nice rug up there, and I’m gonna build another bed, and neither of them will ever be covered in black fur.
So we progress. Also done so far in 2013: a very tiny, very productive veggie garden (I basically stuck my seedlings right into a bag of compost, which took me about 3 minutes), the beginnings of a wee perennial garden (varying success, it is all sand), some shelving and a future cupboard for Nora’s room, some more steps down to the water, hubby has been clearing branches and burning all of our scrap, so we are developing a firepit area, and the hillside – once a sandy wasteland – is now a thickly-growing thatch of grasses and wildflowers and the trees we’ve been planting, and it’s full of frogs, bird nests, interesting bugs and garter snakes. Hubby also took out every screen in the cottage and added foam tape around it, as we learned early in the season that the bugs were getting around the screens and into the cottage. Relief.
And now that the nice hot weather is starting to hit, we are mostly finished our indoor projects, and will be able to relax a bit when the Austrians arrive next week. Next up: attaching our dock to land. It’s been three years. It’s time.
(This pic. is from last year, before the big windows went in and the grass and trees were planted.)
We started going up there almost as soon as the snow had melted, while the mosquitos were still thick in the air (in and out of the cottage!) and the trees were still trying to grow leaves. We were still far far from being able to go swimming – a misunderstanding with our water pump led me to peel off my pants and test the waters sometime in late May, and I can tell you, even the dog couldn’t swim in it. It was cuh-cuh cold. But we did have running water and a propane stove and lights and fridge and oh man did we have a lot of projects lined up for this year.
I am pleased to report that we have managed to accomplish much of what we set out to do in 2013. During our first chilly weekend I focused on giving Nora a place to sleep – a junior bed bought off of a friend - and had luckily found a giant Ikea bed net somewhere in our belongings, which was necessary due to the aforementioned mosquito infestation. Mom made up Nora’s curtains and I went to Ikea for some Jr. bedding and rugs to cover up the particleboard, and now Nora’s got a cute and cozy room that she can sleep and play in.
Next I built us a bed. We’d been sleeping on an old futon frame that we’d gotten in the Ikea scratch and dent ages ago, back when we were living like a couple of 28-year-olds in their first house. It was our tv couch and spare room, back in the day. Problem is, we were using it with a queen-size mattress (newly purchased) and the futon frame is really a double so the sides were floppy, and Nora rolled off of it more than once. I even rolled off of it a few times. Add to that the fact that a few bolts were missing from the central hinged section of the frame, and it was slightly sloped down to my side ….. we needed a bed. So I went under the cottage and found a bunch of wood, bought the queen-sized wooden slats at Ikea (yay Ikea, well-represented in our cottage), and built a bed. It is a solid bed. I moved the futon frame out of there but it lingered at the side of our room like an albatross, until this past weekend when I re-purposed it into a bench for the screen porch.
Add some more mom-made curtains (both sets of curtains made with the fabric I coveted oh so long ago and finally got over the winter), and the turquoise chair that set off my kitchen renovation, and the orange shelf that I started to paint LAST YEAR and only finished this spring, and the bedroom is dunzo.
I made it my life’s mission to finish off the screen porch this spring, somewhat during a timeframe when a screen porch would be necessary. While I didn’t manage to finish it while the bugs were at their peak, it sure is nice to sit out there and not worry in late summer evenings when the sun goes down and the air starts humming. I cannot tell you how much I have come to loathe mosquitos. Anyway, the porch was built in a kind of funky way that made it nearly impossible to fit the screens in but I am pleased to say it’s (mostly) done. There are still a few tiny gaps, but mosquitos are dumb, and they haven’t really found them yet. We ate our first dinner out on the screen porch this past very hot Saturday, just before this bench went in. We had tacos.
Here’s the other end of the screen porch, just for a full picture
There were a few more major projects that we needed to get done before our cottage is 100% usable. While our bathroom had a door and a flushable toilet, it did not have its sink or shower hooked up yet. I went through a few ideas for both; originally the sink was going to be an enamel farm bowl with a hole cut out of it. Then I gave up on that and bought the round kitchen sink from Ikea of about the same dimensions, and I bought a raw-edge (and raw top, sides, and bottom as it turns out) thick piece of pine from our wood guy and sanded the snot out of the top, cut it to size, varnished it, added some legs (with birch log spacers as the legs were too short) to make a vanity. I bought a slick Ikea tap, and finally this weekend my brother plumbed it all in. So now we can brush our teeth and wash our hands in the bathroom, instead of at the kitchen sink!
An the pièce de résistance: the shower stall. Originally I was looking for this stock tank:
And was going to get a hole cut into it, a curtain rod that went all around, and just use that as the shower stall/bathtub. Well, luckily I had a real hard time tracking down the exact right tank, and instead, we decided to make the best use of the space by putting in a corner shower basin – the most petite one we could find, since the room’s not that big. It’s white vinyl, which I wanted to avoid, but then I had a brain wave when it came time to decide what to put on the walls around the tub, and my mind fell on galvanized tin roofing. It’s relatively cheap, relatively easy to install (without all the snipping required to go around fixtures, windows, etc – it’s two pieces), and it has the same look and feel as the stock tank while keeping the walls totally waterproof. However, since the shower basin was intended for use with a glass wall, it has a very low lip, and I so we had to buy a shower head that rains straight down, rather than one that blows the water on a diagonal right at the shower curtain. I bought a nice little unit with a cost comparable to a standard shower head. My superhero little brother installed it all last week, and it is fabulous.
When he’s got some time he’s also going to make us a curved shower curtain rod with phalanges, to attach to either wall, and that gingham shower curtain will be hung up. I bought a stock tank quite similar to that original one, but for $40, and it fits right into the shower base and under the tap – it is Nora’s bathtub, my laundry tub, you name it.
Next up, I am working on (and when I say “I am working on”, I mean the team that includes my dad who is cutting the tiles, my friend who is supplying the tiles) tiling the bathroom floor. It’s a bit of a job but in the end, the tiles are free, and we will have a ceramic tile floor. Add a nice white bathmat (not an expensive one, I have a black dog) and it’ll be pretty freaking lovely when it’s all done.
The other big project is the loft. Last year the loft was there but it had no ladder and no railings, so it was this big space that we’d heard was stunning (from the builder) but we’d never used. We couldn’t get up there. So this year we bought a nifty set of wooden pull-down attic stairs (a unit that comes as one piece and is simple to install), put it in, and I am building railings out of pine and steel chicken fencing. The top railing’s still not on because I have to order some nice 2x6 pine, but you get the picture. Once we’ve finished the molding around the stair opening, we are going to install a hatch/trapdoor, so that when kids are upstairs and the ladder is down, they won’t fall down the hole. This is the one dog-free area in my entire world. We are going to get a really nice rug up there, and I’m gonna build another bed, and neither of them will ever be covered in black fur.
So we progress. Also done so far in 2013: a very tiny, very productive veggie garden (I basically stuck my seedlings right into a bag of compost, which took me about 3 minutes), the beginnings of a wee perennial garden (varying success, it is all sand), some shelving and a future cupboard for Nora’s room, some more steps down to the water, hubby has been clearing branches and burning all of our scrap, so we are developing a firepit area, and the hillside – once a sandy wasteland – is now a thickly-growing thatch of grasses and wildflowers and the trees we’ve been planting, and it’s full of frogs, bird nests, interesting bugs and garter snakes. Hubby also took out every screen in the cottage and added foam tape around it, as we learned early in the season that the bugs were getting around the screens and into the cottage. Relief.
And now that the nice hot weather is starting to hit, we are mostly finished our indoor projects, and will be able to relax a bit when the Austrians arrive next week. Next up: attaching our dock to land. It’s been three years. It’s time.
4/4/13
Spring Shakedown
Every spring I get itchy. I don’t think this is uncommon – I believe everyone starts to get a bit restless when the snow finally starts melting and exposing mess, and we have to start switching our wardrobes over to warmer garb. But this year is the first in awhile that I have gotten really hungry for change.
I guess last year we were busy building the cottage, and that took up a lot of my energies. In the end I’d planned that thing within an inch of my life and the whole process of building and moving into it seemed to take very little time or grief – two months at the most. All of my decorating and project making mojo went into the cottage last year so naturally our house was completely neglected. Worth it.
But this year I am seeing things with brand new eyes. I am looking at some of the spaces in my house as though for the very first time and letting myself get carried away by the decorating domino effect. I finally re-did an old chair I’d had in the basement forever and oh man is it nice. It’s gonna go in the corner of our room at the cottage because I’m not sure how sturdy it is to actually sit on. It was this ratty old silver-painted thing that I found in someone’s office at my old job, with a painted canvas seat that was falling off. I tore off and re-stuffed the seat in cool fabric and painted the chair in a deep turquoise colour, which meant I had to buy a 1-quart can of paint, since they no longer mix paint in smaller quantities. I have 7/8 of a can of paint left over in a gorgeous deep glossy turquoise so I started thinking to myself “what else can I paint?” My eye fell on these two shelves I’ve got in my dining area, painted gold from when I was in my red-and-gold Asian baroque phase, living at my folks’ house. My Opa made me these shelves, and they were originally pale blue, then gold, and now I am going to paint them turquoise. But this led me to recognize that the wall where the shelves are hung is covered in really aged (re: oranged) wood with mysterious stains on it that we never questioned, and wouldn’t turquoise shelves look much better on a crisp white wall? Which will require me to crack out the pry bar, drywall mud and primer. When I mentioned this to dear hubby he thought maybe a window should go in there as well but that’s too much even for me. Then I think I need a new clock on that wall, just to freshen it up and make it easier for Nora to learn to tell time, and while we’re at it, the curtains on the adjacent window are looking a bit tired – add some new curtains to the to-do list. My dining table hangs out in front of this soon-to-be white wall and it, too, is really old and tired and impossible to clean (got it at a yard sale about 12 years ago for $25), so as soon as the weather warms up, I am taking it outside on the deck, sanding it, and giving it a coat of shiny shiny white paint – only on the very top. I am leaving the rest of it wood. This way I will be able to see any mess on it and wipe it up appropriately and it will be more inviting in general. The room is going to look nice and fresh, but maybe that vintage metal flower chandelier over the table - the one I wanted so badly and paid way too much for on ebay 10 years ago and sometimes bang my forehead on rather dramatically – is a bit dustymusty for my crisp new dining area? Also dangerous, one of the lightbulbs is busted and hanging on by some kind of internal wire. I think the room would look smashing with a d.i.y light fixture made with coloured fabric cord and exposed leaded lightbulbs….. and the list goes on. If I follow this domino all the way to the end, the room will look absolutely fresh and fantastic and unrecognizable, but I fear poor hubby will have a heart attack from all the change.
Gonna stick to the shelves, the wall, and the table. And the curtains. Give the chandelier a good cleaning, fix the bulb, get new shades for it, and put it on notice. And while I’m at it, I might replace one or two of our dining chairs and lose the booster seat – Nora is big enough now that we don’t need that ugly thing hanging around for much longer.
Then when I was left to my own devices on Easter Monday (hubby had to work, I did not, very dangerous stuff), I turned my critical eye to the area around our woodstove. When you look at your house through the eyes of an imaginary stranger, the results can be shocking I tell you. What I saw embarrassed the hell out of me – the mantle is a wreck and appears to be falling off in one spot, the brickwork is atrocious and breaking up, and the wall where we dump our firewood is so damaged that you can almost see the back of the exterior siding through it. Drywall is useless stuff. No match for a log of well-aged maple thrown from 5 paces.
The biggest culprit in all of this mess is the jerk who built the mantle area in the first place. The whole wall around my woodstove – formerly a fireplace, as evidenced by the arch that still shows above my stove, grr – is done in brick but in a uniquely horrible style where the mortar was never smoothed off or chipped away, it just hangs out in blobs from between the bricks. This is incredibly stupid, as this zone is constantly bombarded with ash and wood dust, and this textured mortar is impossible to clean (unless I figure out a way to get a pressure washer going in my living room) so the whole thing is permanently dingy and gross.
So on Easter Monday, I casually went to the basement, got myself a sturdy chisel and a hammer, and started to investigate. One innocent “ting ting” turned, half an hour later, into a pile of rubble on my living room floor, dust everywhere. But dammit the mortar looks better. It’s not 100% - the bricks themselves are very rough and pockmarked and the mortar is obviously chipped, not smooth, and that damned arch will always be poking its head over my stove surround, and of course I naturally started right in the middle, at eye level, and did not finish – but it’s a visual improvement. Now I am toying with the idea of buying a bag of mortar and smoothing the bricks out a bit, and painting the whole thing glossy white. OR buying a bunch of really thin flagstone and just re-doing the entire thing, either by removing the bricks first or just going right over them. I am definitely going to find a beam and make a new mantle, and fix up that side wall that’s all mangled up – possibly foregoing drywall and putting in a solid piece of painted wood instead.
Add to all of this the desk that’s been on my back burner for awhile. I want to build myself a narrower desk for my back office, now that I am no longer accommodating an 8-cubic-foot computer monitor. All I have to fit on it is a laptop and a printer, so it will be about 18 inches wide and we will have more room in the office space for art projects and other fun stuff. I am building it out of the barn board that came off the office wall, so we will see.
I also have a few projects lined up for hubby that he doesn’t know about yet. He loves spring because trout fishing season starts, so I am hoping to get a bit of his time before then.
As much as I enjoy doing all of these things, when the rush of ideas hits me I get kind of stressed out. I go into panicky list-making mode and start worrying that I won’t have enough time. The glorious thing about it is, I am starting to be able to do more and more of this stuff with Nora around. She no longer naps during the day, which is hard in some ways but ok in others, because we don’t have to tiptoe around in the afternoons. I can crack out the power tools at will. And she’s kind of keen to help me, though I have to watch her around sharp stuff and things that permanently stain, like paint. She’s learning to use basic tools (she likes to pry nails out with the hammer, or try to) and is gaining an appreciation for fixing things up, and for her it’s totally normal for her to have a mama who fixes stuff. I think that sets a pretty neat example.
Now all I have to do is to remember to take before and after pictures!
I guess last year we were busy building the cottage, and that took up a lot of my energies. In the end I’d planned that thing within an inch of my life and the whole process of building and moving into it seemed to take very little time or grief – two months at the most. All of my decorating and project making mojo went into the cottage last year so naturally our house was completely neglected. Worth it.
But this year I am seeing things with brand new eyes. I am looking at some of the spaces in my house as though for the very first time and letting myself get carried away by the decorating domino effect. I finally re-did an old chair I’d had in the basement forever and oh man is it nice. It’s gonna go in the corner of our room at the cottage because I’m not sure how sturdy it is to actually sit on. It was this ratty old silver-painted thing that I found in someone’s office at my old job, with a painted canvas seat that was falling off. I tore off and re-stuffed the seat in cool fabric and painted the chair in a deep turquoise colour, which meant I had to buy a 1-quart can of paint, since they no longer mix paint in smaller quantities. I have 7/8 of a can of paint left over in a gorgeous deep glossy turquoise so I started thinking to myself “what else can I paint?” My eye fell on these two shelves I’ve got in my dining area, painted gold from when I was in my red-and-gold Asian baroque phase, living at my folks’ house. My Opa made me these shelves, and they were originally pale blue, then gold, and now I am going to paint them turquoise. But this led me to recognize that the wall where the shelves are hung is covered in really aged (re: oranged) wood with mysterious stains on it that we never questioned, and wouldn’t turquoise shelves look much better on a crisp white wall? Which will require me to crack out the pry bar, drywall mud and primer. When I mentioned this to dear hubby he thought maybe a window should go in there as well but that’s too much even for me. Then I think I need a new clock on that wall, just to freshen it up and make it easier for Nora to learn to tell time, and while we’re at it, the curtains on the adjacent window are looking a bit tired – add some new curtains to the to-do list. My dining table hangs out in front of this soon-to-be white wall and it, too, is really old and tired and impossible to clean (got it at a yard sale about 12 years ago for $25), so as soon as the weather warms up, I am taking it outside on the deck, sanding it, and giving it a coat of shiny shiny white paint – only on the very top. I am leaving the rest of it wood. This way I will be able to see any mess on it and wipe it up appropriately and it will be more inviting in general. The room is going to look nice and fresh, but maybe that vintage metal flower chandelier over the table - the one I wanted so badly and paid way too much for on ebay 10 years ago and sometimes bang my forehead on rather dramatically – is a bit dustymusty for my crisp new dining area? Also dangerous, one of the lightbulbs is busted and hanging on by some kind of internal wire. I think the room would look smashing with a d.i.y light fixture made with coloured fabric cord and exposed leaded lightbulbs….. and the list goes on. If I follow this domino all the way to the end, the room will look absolutely fresh and fantastic and unrecognizable, but I fear poor hubby will have a heart attack from all the change.
Gonna stick to the shelves, the wall, and the table. And the curtains. Give the chandelier a good cleaning, fix the bulb, get new shades for it, and put it on notice. And while I’m at it, I might replace one or two of our dining chairs and lose the booster seat – Nora is big enough now that we don’t need that ugly thing hanging around for much longer.
Then when I was left to my own devices on Easter Monday (hubby had to work, I did not, very dangerous stuff), I turned my critical eye to the area around our woodstove. When you look at your house through the eyes of an imaginary stranger, the results can be shocking I tell you. What I saw embarrassed the hell out of me – the mantle is a wreck and appears to be falling off in one spot, the brickwork is atrocious and breaking up, and the wall where we dump our firewood is so damaged that you can almost see the back of the exterior siding through it. Drywall is useless stuff. No match for a log of well-aged maple thrown from 5 paces.
The biggest culprit in all of this mess is the jerk who built the mantle area in the first place. The whole wall around my woodstove – formerly a fireplace, as evidenced by the arch that still shows above my stove, grr – is done in brick but in a uniquely horrible style where the mortar was never smoothed off or chipped away, it just hangs out in blobs from between the bricks. This is incredibly stupid, as this zone is constantly bombarded with ash and wood dust, and this textured mortar is impossible to clean (unless I figure out a way to get a pressure washer going in my living room) so the whole thing is permanently dingy and gross.
So on Easter Monday, I casually went to the basement, got myself a sturdy chisel and a hammer, and started to investigate. One innocent “ting ting” turned, half an hour later, into a pile of rubble on my living room floor, dust everywhere. But dammit the mortar looks better. It’s not 100% - the bricks themselves are very rough and pockmarked and the mortar is obviously chipped, not smooth, and that damned arch will always be poking its head over my stove surround, and of course I naturally started right in the middle, at eye level, and did not finish – but it’s a visual improvement. Now I am toying with the idea of buying a bag of mortar and smoothing the bricks out a bit, and painting the whole thing glossy white. OR buying a bunch of really thin flagstone and just re-doing the entire thing, either by removing the bricks first or just going right over them. I am definitely going to find a beam and make a new mantle, and fix up that side wall that’s all mangled up – possibly foregoing drywall and putting in a solid piece of painted wood instead.
Add to all of this the desk that’s been on my back burner for awhile. I want to build myself a narrower desk for my back office, now that I am no longer accommodating an 8-cubic-foot computer monitor. All I have to fit on it is a laptop and a printer, so it will be about 18 inches wide and we will have more room in the office space for art projects and other fun stuff. I am building it out of the barn board that came off the office wall, so we will see.
I also have a few projects lined up for hubby that he doesn’t know about yet. He loves spring because trout fishing season starts, so I am hoping to get a bit of his time before then.
As much as I enjoy doing all of these things, when the rush of ideas hits me I get kind of stressed out. I go into panicky list-making mode and start worrying that I won’t have enough time. The glorious thing about it is, I am starting to be able to do more and more of this stuff with Nora around. She no longer naps during the day, which is hard in some ways but ok in others, because we don’t have to tiptoe around in the afternoons. I can crack out the power tools at will. And she’s kind of keen to help me, though I have to watch her around sharp stuff and things that permanently stain, like paint. She’s learning to use basic tools (she likes to pry nails out with the hammer, or try to) and is gaining an appreciation for fixing things up, and for her it’s totally normal for her to have a mama who fixes stuff. I think that sets a pretty neat example.
Now all I have to do is to remember to take before and after pictures!
1/29/13
Well hello there.
Let me first address the elephant in the room: it has been awhile since I’ve written. I don’t really know how to account for the time missing from my blog, only that I probably was not inspired to write about anything humdrum so I just stayed away altogether. What have I been doing with the past six months or so? Well, working, momming, daughtering, becoming an aunt, dealing with family illness, trying to keep my head above the water and my little family healthy. Nothing much to write about.
This past fall was a confusing time, for a bunch of reasons. But one thing that I will discuss is the funny way that once fall hit, and we locked up the cottage, I completely forgot about it. Like, put it completely out of my head. Once in a while I would think of it and go “huh, I have a total second house just sitting there by itself, under a thick blanket of snow.” Acknowledge the strangeness of that, and move on. But then January hit, and all of a sudden as though a switch was flipped in my brain, I started planning stuff for the cottage again. Pull-down loft stairs, a loft railing, a shower stall, a bed, decorating, it all started coming fast and furious and now I find it hard to focus on other things (well, mostly work. I find it hard to focus on work).
We had Christmas, and it was lovely, though Nora and I were sort of sick for the whole of December. There seems to be a plague going around our town, and my hope is that after that December, we will be in the clear for awhile. So far so good, fingers crossed. We got Nora some skis in the hopes that we could familiarize her with the only sport in which I have any proficiency, but when we put them on her she goes all limp like a purple sack of jello so we have a ways to go yet. The other day I put my own skis on and sailed down the tiny hill in our front yard, only the snow was pretty fast and I went pretty fast and ended up nearly running into the woods at the far end of the yard. Nora just sat there and looked at me like “what the hell are you doing?” as I huffed and puffed back towards the house, pole-less, in the deep snow. I don’t think I was selling it.
I keep putting off potty training and I don’t know why. Doctor, why do I put off potty training? Why, Gennyland, it’s probably because you don’t want to acknowledge that your baby’s growing up, especially since we’re not sure there are others in the cards. Yep, that’s probably it. I figure she’s more than ready, as once in a while I will come around the corner and she’ll stand there, looking at me accusingly, and say “No, don’t come in here! I’m pooping!” So fine, she’s allowed to grow up this little bit, but she’s never getting a cellphone. Compromises people!
She’s super hilarious these days. NOTE: if you are bored reading stories about peoples’ adorable toddlers, skip the next two paragraphs! She’ll be two and a half next month – 30 months – which means that (according to BabyCentre.com) she should “name a few body parts, some colors, and even a friend or two. Her memory and speaking ability work in tandem. Help out by expanding on what she says. If she says, "Dog sleep," you might say, "Yes, Spot is curled up and fast asleep in his doggie bed." She can't imitate your complex language patterns yet, but her brain is absorbing them.” Ummm, my kid corrects me. I think BabyCentre needs to update their sources because most toddlers I know can handle those basic tasks, and mine knows all the colours of the rainbow, can count to 12, recognize about 50% of the letters in the alphabet, names all her friends AND their parents, identifies her own written name, knows the street she lives on, all the members of our family and remembers who gave her that dress that she wouldn’t take off last summer. Also she pronounces the “I” in “again” which is the cutest thing ever, because neither my husband nor I do this. She picked it up from the daycare provider, who speaks proper english. She will say to us “read it agayn” And it makes me chuckle quietly.
She is super into penguins these days - goddamn Happy Feet, which I have seen 78 times. Though I do appreciate that my kid now knows “Boogie Wonderland” and Grandmaster Flash’s “the Message”. Hearing her say “don’t push me, cause I’m close.to.the.edge” kills me every time. I learned the hard way that a 2.5 year old kid is like a broken record, so if you introduce one movie to them, they will want to watch it over and over again until they have it completely memorized and can recite the lines over dinner each night. Once in a while she will turn to me out of the blue and, with a very mock-serious face, say “remember the Leopard Seal? Ooooh.” We put a moratorium on Happy Feet so we only watch it maybe once a week now, but we talk about it daily. Putting on her snowsuit (“got one flipper in!”) in the tub (plastic penguins are “Mumble” and “Gloria” even though one is a yellow wind-up and the other is a squirt toy, and I have to draw killer whales on the sides of the tub constantly. Black tub crayon doesn’t come out easily BTW), at Sunday dinner (mom and dad are kind of bored of hearing us repeat “Remember dumplings, I know where you live” but her giggles make it worthwhile. Also when she does her Schwarzeneggeresque “I’ll take you with ketchup” it is so genuinely funny). Part of me wants to blow her mind and buy Happy Feet 2 but the other, sane part of me really does not.
Nora is pretty excited these days because she has a new family member: her cousin Henry, who was born to my brother and his wife two weeks ago. Henry is a sweet babe, very chill, and Nora is pretty amazed that someone can be so small. She’s always telling me things like “Henry doesn’t have his words yet” and “Henry can’t jump yet.” Seeing her with Henry warms the cockles of my heart and makes me love her 15 times more, but somehow I think having a baby cousin she can visit weekly is somewhat different than having a baby in the house that she’d have to share me with. For now, my itch is scratched, especially now that Henry’s in the picture. I can hold a baby when I feel the urge. I can give him back to his momma when my attention is required elsewhere. My only disappointment is that I can’t foist my bins and bins of outgrown girl clothes on him.
So, now it is almost Forevuary. I started 3 bean seeds in a jar the other day, effectively kicking off gardening season 2013. Goals for this upcoming month are: go skiing at least once or twice, bring a giant load of old junk to the local old junk store, potty training, knitting hubby a sweater, fixing up my ‘office’ and building a desk, and maybe painting a dresser I’ve got for Nora’s cottage bedroom. Not a priority yet. The office space is sort of halfway there, but it has made me realize that we are such crazy paper hoarders. Also, a wee moral dilemma has presented itself: what to do with random photographs that are sent to us? Hubby’s cousin’s graduation photo, pictures of peoples’ kids from a few years back, family wedding photos… all of them are in a special pile with which I do not know what to do. I am leaning towards throwing them out. In this age of facebook and digital pictures, everything is available at any time anyway.
Now it is lunchtime. Good bye.
This past fall was a confusing time, for a bunch of reasons. But one thing that I will discuss is the funny way that once fall hit, and we locked up the cottage, I completely forgot about it. Like, put it completely out of my head. Once in a while I would think of it and go “huh, I have a total second house just sitting there by itself, under a thick blanket of snow.” Acknowledge the strangeness of that, and move on. But then January hit, and all of a sudden as though a switch was flipped in my brain, I started planning stuff for the cottage again. Pull-down loft stairs, a loft railing, a shower stall, a bed, decorating, it all started coming fast and furious and now I find it hard to focus on other things (well, mostly work. I find it hard to focus on work).
We had Christmas, and it was lovely, though Nora and I were sort of sick for the whole of December. There seems to be a plague going around our town, and my hope is that after that December, we will be in the clear for awhile. So far so good, fingers crossed. We got Nora some skis in the hopes that we could familiarize her with the only sport in which I have any proficiency, but when we put them on her she goes all limp like a purple sack of jello so we have a ways to go yet. The other day I put my own skis on and sailed down the tiny hill in our front yard, only the snow was pretty fast and I went pretty fast and ended up nearly running into the woods at the far end of the yard. Nora just sat there and looked at me like “what the hell are you doing?” as I huffed and puffed back towards the house, pole-less, in the deep snow. I don’t think I was selling it.
I keep putting off potty training and I don’t know why. Doctor, why do I put off potty training? Why, Gennyland, it’s probably because you don’t want to acknowledge that your baby’s growing up, especially since we’re not sure there are others in the cards. Yep, that’s probably it. I figure she’s more than ready, as once in a while I will come around the corner and she’ll stand there, looking at me accusingly, and say “No, don’t come in here! I’m pooping!” So fine, she’s allowed to grow up this little bit, but she’s never getting a cellphone. Compromises people!
She’s super hilarious these days. NOTE: if you are bored reading stories about peoples’ adorable toddlers, skip the next two paragraphs! She’ll be two and a half next month – 30 months – which means that (according to BabyCentre.com) she should “name a few body parts, some colors, and even a friend or two. Her memory and speaking ability work in tandem. Help out by expanding on what she says. If she says, "Dog sleep," you might say, "Yes, Spot is curled up and fast asleep in his doggie bed." She can't imitate your complex language patterns yet, but her brain is absorbing them.” Ummm, my kid corrects me. I think BabyCentre needs to update their sources because most toddlers I know can handle those basic tasks, and mine knows all the colours of the rainbow, can count to 12, recognize about 50% of the letters in the alphabet, names all her friends AND their parents, identifies her own written name, knows the street she lives on, all the members of our family and remembers who gave her that dress that she wouldn’t take off last summer. Also she pronounces the “I” in “again” which is the cutest thing ever, because neither my husband nor I do this. She picked it up from the daycare provider, who speaks proper english. She will say to us “read it agayn” And it makes me chuckle quietly.
She is super into penguins these days - goddamn Happy Feet, which I have seen 78 times. Though I do appreciate that my kid now knows “Boogie Wonderland” and Grandmaster Flash’s “the Message”. Hearing her say “don’t push me, cause I’m close.to.the.edge” kills me every time. I learned the hard way that a 2.5 year old kid is like a broken record, so if you introduce one movie to them, they will want to watch it over and over again until they have it completely memorized and can recite the lines over dinner each night. Once in a while she will turn to me out of the blue and, with a very mock-serious face, say “remember the Leopard Seal? Ooooh.” We put a moratorium on Happy Feet so we only watch it maybe once a week now, but we talk about it daily. Putting on her snowsuit (“got one flipper in!”) in the tub (plastic penguins are “Mumble” and “Gloria” even though one is a yellow wind-up and the other is a squirt toy, and I have to draw killer whales on the sides of the tub constantly. Black tub crayon doesn’t come out easily BTW), at Sunday dinner (mom and dad are kind of bored of hearing us repeat “Remember dumplings, I know where you live” but her giggles make it worthwhile. Also when she does her Schwarzeneggeresque “I’ll take you with ketchup” it is so genuinely funny). Part of me wants to blow her mind and buy Happy Feet 2 but the other, sane part of me really does not.
Nora is pretty excited these days because she has a new family member: her cousin Henry, who was born to my brother and his wife two weeks ago. Henry is a sweet babe, very chill, and Nora is pretty amazed that someone can be so small. She’s always telling me things like “Henry doesn’t have his words yet” and “Henry can’t jump yet.” Seeing her with Henry warms the cockles of my heart and makes me love her 15 times more, but somehow I think having a baby cousin she can visit weekly is somewhat different than having a baby in the house that she’d have to share me with. For now, my itch is scratched, especially now that Henry’s in the picture. I can hold a baby when I feel the urge. I can give him back to his momma when my attention is required elsewhere. My only disappointment is that I can’t foist my bins and bins of outgrown girl clothes on him.
So, now it is almost Forevuary. I started 3 bean seeds in a jar the other day, effectively kicking off gardening season 2013. Goals for this upcoming month are: go skiing at least once or twice, bring a giant load of old junk to the local old junk store, potty training, knitting hubby a sweater, fixing up my ‘office’ and building a desk, and maybe painting a dresser I’ve got for Nora’s cottage bedroom. Not a priority yet. The office space is sort of halfway there, but it has made me realize that we are such crazy paper hoarders. Also, a wee moral dilemma has presented itself: what to do with random photographs that are sent to us? Hubby’s cousin’s graduation photo, pictures of peoples’ kids from a few years back, family wedding photos… all of them are in a special pile with which I do not know what to do. I am leaning towards throwing them out. In this age of facebook and digital pictures, everything is available at any time anyway.
Now it is lunchtime. Good bye.
9/28/12
Is This Two?
Maybe the other mothers out there can offer me some enlightenment on this topic.
For a little over a month now, Nora has been two. And ever since that lovely birthday spent at the cottage eating pink and mocha cupcakes, she has been very… emotional. Things seem a bit more difficult. Daycare drop-off is no longer an easy transaction. Getting dressed is the hardest part of our day and this week, even bedtime (which was a later-than-normal but relatively easy 15-minute ritual) has become controversial. I am never, ever, on time for work.
I’m not too sure what’s going on with my wee Nora. I know that she’s had a cold on and off for about two weeks now but it hasn’t seemed all that bad, though she is stuffy in the mornings. Our days haven’t been traumatic that I know about – we’ve had a few houseguests come and go, and we weathered a return to work and daycare schedules after our vacation at the cottage – but perhaps there’s something bubbling under the surface that I don’t know about. Perhaps something has destabilized her somehow. I know the first week at the cottage was a bit weird for her; she was having fun, but still kept asking to go home. That soon shifted to “don’t want go home!” and when we were at home, “want go to the cottage!” so I feel like that has become ok for her. No worries there, I don’t think. House guests throw her off for a couple of days. She loves having them, but the routine is different and she reacts to it in subtle ways: waking up at night more, resisting daycare more, clinging to mommy more.
Aside from all this, things have been pretty cheery in her world. She goes to daycare, yes, but that’s not a horrible thing (at least I hope it isn’t). She plays with her friends and eats all her lunches and has all of her naps at the regular times. She plays outside and is happy to see me when I pick her up. When we get home we usually play outside for an hour, just horsing around rolling down the grassy hill, picking apples, playing with the dog, messing around in the veggie garden picking tomatoes and zucchinis and petting fuzzy caterpillars. Then we go inside and have dinner. Daddy comes home and one of us plays with Nora while the other makes dinner. Big messes are made with markers and water and vegetables and many changes of footwear. Sometimes she has a bath, which involves lots of drawing with the bath markers and splashing and ‘swimming,’ followed by naked monkey shenanigans. She is wacky and smart and chatty through all of that. All seems totally fine until pyjama time, then bedtime. I was so smug last week because she’d started to go to bed a bit earlier, but this week I’ve had my comeuppance as she’s back to her usual later-than-a-toddler-should-go-to-bed schedule.
Lately everything is an emergency. She makes this strange high-pitched panicky noise that sounds like a distressed monkey whenever something is temporarily amiss. She lays on the floor with her bum in the air and wails. She has a very specific idea of exactly which dishes she needs to use at suppertime (water in the BLUE cup!) and getting her dressed must sound to the neighbors as though I’m scorching her with a branding iron. I no sooner get an arm into a t-shirt or a leg into her pants than she screams and pulls it all off again. It is quite stressful. By the time we get into the car (late) we are both worn out.
So I can’t figure out what’s changed, and I wonder if I get to chalk it up to the terrible twos. I expected two to be defiant, noisy, messy, petulant and sometimes tantrumy. I didn’t expect it to be sad and quiet and shaken-to-the-core upsetting for both of us.
God help me when it comes time to get her into her snowsuit (shudder).
For a little over a month now, Nora has been two. And ever since that lovely birthday spent at the cottage eating pink and mocha cupcakes, she has been very… emotional. Things seem a bit more difficult. Daycare drop-off is no longer an easy transaction. Getting dressed is the hardest part of our day and this week, even bedtime (which was a later-than-normal but relatively easy 15-minute ritual) has become controversial. I am never, ever, on time for work.
I’m not too sure what’s going on with my wee Nora. I know that she’s had a cold on and off for about two weeks now but it hasn’t seemed all that bad, though she is stuffy in the mornings. Our days haven’t been traumatic that I know about – we’ve had a few houseguests come and go, and we weathered a return to work and daycare schedules after our vacation at the cottage – but perhaps there’s something bubbling under the surface that I don’t know about. Perhaps something has destabilized her somehow. I know the first week at the cottage was a bit weird for her; she was having fun, but still kept asking to go home. That soon shifted to “don’t want go home!” and when we were at home, “want go to the cottage!” so I feel like that has become ok for her. No worries there, I don’t think. House guests throw her off for a couple of days. She loves having them, but the routine is different and she reacts to it in subtle ways: waking up at night more, resisting daycare more, clinging to mommy more.
Aside from all this, things have been pretty cheery in her world. She goes to daycare, yes, but that’s not a horrible thing (at least I hope it isn’t). She plays with her friends and eats all her lunches and has all of her naps at the regular times. She plays outside and is happy to see me when I pick her up. When we get home we usually play outside for an hour, just horsing around rolling down the grassy hill, picking apples, playing with the dog, messing around in the veggie garden picking tomatoes and zucchinis and petting fuzzy caterpillars. Then we go inside and have dinner. Daddy comes home and one of us plays with Nora while the other makes dinner. Big messes are made with markers and water and vegetables and many changes of footwear. Sometimes she has a bath, which involves lots of drawing with the bath markers and splashing and ‘swimming,’ followed by naked monkey shenanigans. She is wacky and smart and chatty through all of that. All seems totally fine until pyjama time, then bedtime. I was so smug last week because she’d started to go to bed a bit earlier, but this week I’ve had my comeuppance as she’s back to her usual later-than-a-toddler-should-go-to-bed schedule.
Lately everything is an emergency. She makes this strange high-pitched panicky noise that sounds like a distressed monkey whenever something is temporarily amiss. She lays on the floor with her bum in the air and wails. She has a very specific idea of exactly which dishes she needs to use at suppertime (water in the BLUE cup!) and getting her dressed must sound to the neighbors as though I’m scorching her with a branding iron. I no sooner get an arm into a t-shirt or a leg into her pants than she screams and pulls it all off again. It is quite stressful. By the time we get into the car (late) we are both worn out.
So I can’t figure out what’s changed, and I wonder if I get to chalk it up to the terrible twos. I expected two to be defiant, noisy, messy, petulant and sometimes tantrumy. I didn’t expect it to be sad and quiet and shaken-to-the-core upsetting for both of us.
God help me when it comes time to get her into her snowsuit (shudder).
9/21/12
The Meals.
Oh the meals.
I love to eat and I love to cook. I really get inspired when I read about food or cooking or gardening or any of those good food-related things, and I love taking time and experimenting in the kitchen. I love the feeling of having made a whole bunch of food, and I theoretically love the idea of sharing it with my family and friends.
But lately, I am not so into it. I am not sure why – perhaps it’s because I have to do it, or because I am kind of tired and frazzled all the time. Maybe it’s because when I cook, I usually get to the penultimate moment (pots are at the right temperature on the stove, ingredients are about to go in and be stirred, things urgently need to be chopped) when Rosie parks herself between my knees and the counters and my darling sweet amazing Nora all of a sudden turns into a cartoon toddler, whining to come ‘Uppy mama!’ and clinging to my legs. Sometimes she falls to the kitchen floor and wails, face down, dramatic, and sometimes (the good times) she wants to drag a chair over and stand next to me while I cook. This is great but not conducive to fast cooking. She makes her own concoctions out of the discarded veggie scraps (a favourite is red peppers stuffed with whatever garbage she can find, like mushroom stems and onion skins) or just grabs and eats fistfuls of whatever ingredients (especially grated cheese, which she eats like cookie monster) I am trying to work with.
So mealtimes are a bit stressful.
Adding to the stress, because of our wacky schedules Nora eats earlier than hubby and I. Hubby gets home juuuuust a bit too late for Nora to wait. This was a fine and acceptable arrangement because theoretically, Nora goes to bed much earlier than us, and because she was pretty much eating baby food – low-spice, soft, small portions, not incredible variety - so we didn’t want to eat the same food as her anyway. I ended up cooking two meals in a hurry – the first one harried because an over-hungry Nora is no fun at all (see falling to the floor wailing, above) and the second because our dinnertime would conflict with bedtime preparations. Unacceptable! Sometimes hubby cooks but he finds it much more stressful than I do and makes a giant mess in the process. His strength is pizza night (Thursdays); he is great at making our pizzas. And he does the nightly cleanup, usually after I crawl off to bed.
I need to get a handle on this situation. Store-bought prepared foods are a no-go for me, even in the busiest weeks. And I get super depressed when my produce rots in the crisper because I couldn’t get my act together and create some meal out of it.
I improve things by about 50% when I take the time on Sunday night to plan dinners for the whole week. I can plan to have a dinner each of beef, chicken, pork, fish/seafood, Pizza night and vegetarian (we sometimes double up on chicken or seafood, rarely on beef or pork with the exception of pepperoni). I can plan to have one meal on Monday that will make a dinner for Nora on Tuesday. I can sometimes plan to have some things made in advance – sometimes. So that is a good first step. I make the list on Sunday, post it to the board on the fridge (a stick-on whiteboard on our fridge helps us to keep organized), and then I write out a grocery list accordingly. I am so anal that I will actually write the grocery list in geographic order (by placement in the grocery store), so that when hubby or I do the groceries after work on Monday it takes about 20 minutes max. It really bugs me when the IGA thwarts my plans by moving stuff around. SOMETIMES I will base this plan on what’s on sale that week but I find that’s just one too many factors. I often base it on what kind of meat we have in the freezer. In the morning when I leave, I use the little weird system we’ve developed where I leave signs we have made of cardboard and popsicle sticks saying “CHICKEN” (for example – the back of it says “FISH”) sticking out of hubby’s travel mug, and he gets said meat out of the freezer before he leaves and pops it into the fridge to thaw for the day. It’s weird but it seems to work, because in the morning frenzy neither of us can remember to communicate the message to the other. We’re too busy wrestling the toddler into her clothes and convincing her that daycare isn’t evil.
So I do that about 7 weeks out of 10. Not too bad.
I improve my life quite a lot when I make a big batch of a Nora-friendly meal and freeze it in small portions. A long time ago I baked little healthy (packed with veggies and pumpkin puree and ground flax seed and oatmeal etc) meatloaves, frozen in muffin tins. She liked that just fine because my girl likes beef. I made a veggie/lentil stew and froze that too, in baby food jars, and that went down ok with a dollop of yoghurt on top and a side of either crackers or toast with butter. I need to have dinner options for Nora that I can just take out of the freezer, pop in the toaster oven or microwave, and give her right away because often we fart around outside after work/daycare and only come in to eat, and by that time it’s almost too late (see wailing on the floor, above) I have 15 minutes MAX. Some other options that we like include jars of leftover butter chicken pre-mixed with rice, little containers of frozen homemade cheese sauce (I boil up some healthy pasta – kamut or something else crunchy like that – with some broccoli or peas, warm up the cheese sauce and just mix it together), fish cakes (made from leftover dinner trout that hubby caught), and whatever frozen casserole leftovers we might have kicking around. Sometimes I will whip something up in the moment, like a tiny one-egg omelette with veggies and multigrain toast or a yogurt mashed potato with broccoli and cut-up meatballs, but I much prefer the frozen option.
Then usually, if she’s up late enough, she eats a second dinner with us, poaching our dinners from our plates like a baby vulture.
This plan is evolving. It’s evolving because of two things: 1) Nora has started eating slightly larger portions, so I have to adjust my jars/portions accordingly. Maybe I have to start using small mason jars instead of baby food jars, and 2) she has started eating some more interesting things and tolerating spices. Hubby and I eat a lot of spicy food – standards at our place include pad thai, Singapore noodles, fajitas, spicy BBQ pork tenderloin, grilled chicken sandwiches with chipotle mayo – hence my need to make Nora her own dinners. Once she spat something out and said “it burn me” because it had one chili flake on it. Oops, my bad. But lately she’s into it; she will eat her own fajita and pick at my Singapore noodles. We had curry the other day – not the hottest curry in the world, more like a yellow English curry with raisins – and she liked it so much she ate it for dinner the next day. We shared a pork stir-fry last week as well. So that is getting moderately easier. She will as happily eat rice, couscous, and tortillas as she will eat mashed potatoes and pasta. She is 78% composed of hummus. Eating with Nora is becoming a lot of fun.
In writing this post, I have talked myself into caring about food again. I have also been inspired by Pinterest to kick it up a notch, maybe use my crockpot a bit more to ease the burden now that fall is upon us. I am going to make a stew and freeze it. I am going to re-do the little muffin tin meatloaves. I am going to make make-ahead oatmeal for her daycare breakfasts, and start doing things like keeping pre-grilled meats and sauces around. I am going to mince up a mango and freeze it in ice cube trays, puree a squash to freeze and add to this and that, and buy some long-lasting produce like carrots and beets.
All I need is a day, a day when the pantry is stocked, the kitchen is clean, I can sip a glass of wine while cooking and nobody’s hanging off of my pant leg.
I love to eat and I love to cook. I really get inspired when I read about food or cooking or gardening or any of those good food-related things, and I love taking time and experimenting in the kitchen. I love the feeling of having made a whole bunch of food, and I theoretically love the idea of sharing it with my family and friends.
But lately, I am not so into it. I am not sure why – perhaps it’s because I have to do it, or because I am kind of tired and frazzled all the time. Maybe it’s because when I cook, I usually get to the penultimate moment (pots are at the right temperature on the stove, ingredients are about to go in and be stirred, things urgently need to be chopped) when Rosie parks herself between my knees and the counters and my darling sweet amazing Nora all of a sudden turns into a cartoon toddler, whining to come ‘Uppy mama!’ and clinging to my legs. Sometimes she falls to the kitchen floor and wails, face down, dramatic, and sometimes (the good times) she wants to drag a chair over and stand next to me while I cook. This is great but not conducive to fast cooking. She makes her own concoctions out of the discarded veggie scraps (a favourite is red peppers stuffed with whatever garbage she can find, like mushroom stems and onion skins) or just grabs and eats fistfuls of whatever ingredients (especially grated cheese, which she eats like cookie monster) I am trying to work with.
So mealtimes are a bit stressful.
Adding to the stress, because of our wacky schedules Nora eats earlier than hubby and I. Hubby gets home juuuuust a bit too late for Nora to wait. This was a fine and acceptable arrangement because theoretically, Nora goes to bed much earlier than us, and because she was pretty much eating baby food – low-spice, soft, small portions, not incredible variety - so we didn’t want to eat the same food as her anyway. I ended up cooking two meals in a hurry – the first one harried because an over-hungry Nora is no fun at all (see falling to the floor wailing, above) and the second because our dinnertime would conflict with bedtime preparations. Unacceptable! Sometimes hubby cooks but he finds it much more stressful than I do and makes a giant mess in the process. His strength is pizza night (Thursdays); he is great at making our pizzas. And he does the nightly cleanup, usually after I crawl off to bed.
I need to get a handle on this situation. Store-bought prepared foods are a no-go for me, even in the busiest weeks. And I get super depressed when my produce rots in the crisper because I couldn’t get my act together and create some meal out of it.
I improve things by about 50% when I take the time on Sunday night to plan dinners for the whole week. I can plan to have a dinner each of beef, chicken, pork, fish/seafood, Pizza night and vegetarian (we sometimes double up on chicken or seafood, rarely on beef or pork with the exception of pepperoni). I can plan to have one meal on Monday that will make a dinner for Nora on Tuesday. I can sometimes plan to have some things made in advance – sometimes. So that is a good first step. I make the list on Sunday, post it to the board on the fridge (a stick-on whiteboard on our fridge helps us to keep organized), and then I write out a grocery list accordingly. I am so anal that I will actually write the grocery list in geographic order (by placement in the grocery store), so that when hubby or I do the groceries after work on Monday it takes about 20 minutes max. It really bugs me when the IGA thwarts my plans by moving stuff around. SOMETIMES I will base this plan on what’s on sale that week but I find that’s just one too many factors. I often base it on what kind of meat we have in the freezer. In the morning when I leave, I use the little weird system we’ve developed where I leave signs we have made of cardboard and popsicle sticks saying “CHICKEN” (for example – the back of it says “FISH”) sticking out of hubby’s travel mug, and he gets said meat out of the freezer before he leaves and pops it into the fridge to thaw for the day. It’s weird but it seems to work, because in the morning frenzy neither of us can remember to communicate the message to the other. We’re too busy wrestling the toddler into her clothes and convincing her that daycare isn’t evil.
So I do that about 7 weeks out of 10. Not too bad.
I improve my life quite a lot when I make a big batch of a Nora-friendly meal and freeze it in small portions. A long time ago I baked little healthy (packed with veggies and pumpkin puree and ground flax seed and oatmeal etc) meatloaves, frozen in muffin tins. She liked that just fine because my girl likes beef. I made a veggie/lentil stew and froze that too, in baby food jars, and that went down ok with a dollop of yoghurt on top and a side of either crackers or toast with butter. I need to have dinner options for Nora that I can just take out of the freezer, pop in the toaster oven or microwave, and give her right away because often we fart around outside after work/daycare and only come in to eat, and by that time it’s almost too late (see wailing on the floor, above) I have 15 minutes MAX. Some other options that we like include jars of leftover butter chicken pre-mixed with rice, little containers of frozen homemade cheese sauce (I boil up some healthy pasta – kamut or something else crunchy like that – with some broccoli or peas, warm up the cheese sauce and just mix it together), fish cakes (made from leftover dinner trout that hubby caught), and whatever frozen casserole leftovers we might have kicking around. Sometimes I will whip something up in the moment, like a tiny one-egg omelette with veggies and multigrain toast or a yogurt mashed potato with broccoli and cut-up meatballs, but I much prefer the frozen option.
Then usually, if she’s up late enough, she eats a second dinner with us, poaching our dinners from our plates like a baby vulture.
This plan is evolving. It’s evolving because of two things: 1) Nora has started eating slightly larger portions, so I have to adjust my jars/portions accordingly. Maybe I have to start using small mason jars instead of baby food jars, and 2) she has started eating some more interesting things and tolerating spices. Hubby and I eat a lot of spicy food – standards at our place include pad thai, Singapore noodles, fajitas, spicy BBQ pork tenderloin, grilled chicken sandwiches with chipotle mayo – hence my need to make Nora her own dinners. Once she spat something out and said “it burn me” because it had one chili flake on it. Oops, my bad. But lately she’s into it; she will eat her own fajita and pick at my Singapore noodles. We had curry the other day – not the hottest curry in the world, more like a yellow English curry with raisins – and she liked it so much she ate it for dinner the next day. We shared a pork stir-fry last week as well. So that is getting moderately easier. She will as happily eat rice, couscous, and tortillas as she will eat mashed potatoes and pasta. She is 78% composed of hummus. Eating with Nora is becoming a lot of fun.
In writing this post, I have talked myself into caring about food again. I have also been inspired by Pinterest to kick it up a notch, maybe use my crockpot a bit more to ease the burden now that fall is upon us. I am going to make a stew and freeze it. I am going to re-do the little muffin tin meatloaves. I am going to make make-ahead oatmeal for her daycare breakfasts, and start doing things like keeping pre-grilled meats and sauces around. I am going to mince up a mango and freeze it in ice cube trays, puree a squash to freeze and add to this and that, and buy some long-lasting produce like carrots and beets.
All I need is a day, a day when the pantry is stocked, the kitchen is clean, I can sip a glass of wine while cooking and nobody’s hanging off of my pant leg.
8/28/12
Cottage Livin'
I am pleased to report that I can now answer all of those people who, upon hearing that hubby and I were building a cottage, said “you live in the country. Why do you need a cottage?”
Ways in which our house is not a cottage:
- Drinking water comes out of the tap.
- Our road is being paved as I write this.
- In any given hour, approximately 9 cars will drive quickly right past my house.
- My dog, if loose, might run over and irritate the neighbors or worse, attack their dog. She has developed an irrational and intense dislike of the sweet dog next door.
- My dog might get hit by one of those 9 cars that drive quickly past my house.
- I can hear my neighbors talking on their deck. And I’m sure they can hear me.
- Sometimes, at home, the radio is on, the t.v. is on, and I am on the computer. All at once.
- At home, if I need something, I can drive to the store quickly and get it.
- My well has its limits.
- There are always chores to do at home. Not fun chores, but things like laundry folding, floor washing, dusting, vacuuming, plant-watering, lawn mowing, ironing, furniture cleaning. If I try to sit down and relax, one of those beasts is always calling my name.
- In our evening fatigue, we usually sit speechless in front of the t.v.
- In the 10 years since we bought our house, somehow our neighborhood has become more of a suburb than a country road.
Ways in which our cottage is not our house:
- There is no limit to the water that comes out of the tap, but you can’t drink it. We just drink beer instead.
- Our road is 2.5 acres away from our cottage, through the bush. Said road is a nearly-undriveable rock pile-slash-dirt track. We have no idea who is driving past when.
- No car can drive faster than 40kmh past our property without doing major damage.
- My dog, loose, runs over and irritates the neighbors all the time and their dog does the same. Since we are family, it’s all expected and all good. She goes no further than the lower property limits of our two lots and is always within sight of someone.
- There’s a stronger chance my dog will get hit by a motorboat than a car at the cottage. Or perhaps an aggressive loon.
- I can hear the neighbors talk only if they are doing construction projects and they have to shout over power tools, or if they are calling one another to dinner, but that’s about it. Also: they are family, we love each other, it is not an issue.
- At the cottage there is no electricity. Hence, no internet, radio, television, and my cellphone charge only lasts 2 days. Blissful silence, broken only by the abovementioned aggressive loons.
- At the cottage, if I need something, I will walk across and ask the neighbors. If they don’t have it, I will live without. Dinner planning is simple when the nearest grocery store is 45 minutes away.
- The chores that need to be done at the cottage are fun chores. Sweep the sand off of the couch. Wash the dishes after each meal because the kitchen is small and I only have 6 plates. Maybe throw the duvet onto the deck railing so it airs out. Build stuff. Organize stuff. Fun chores!
- In the evenings, we have options: game nights, where the two families get together in some combination for rousing evenings of games and wine; fishing nights, where hubby and nephew go fishing until dark and I stay home, put Nora to bed, then read on the couch with the dog snoring beside me; or we can always sit on the deck listening to the litany of owls, wolves, loons, distant motorboats, or any combination of the above.
So yeah, smartypantses, I have learned over the last two weeks that country life and cottage life are nowhere near the same thing. Now that I am being unwillingly dragged into suburban living kicking and screaming (even though I am still technically surrounded by trees) I am certainly happy to have at least one refuge in the woods.
Ways in which our house is not a cottage:
- Drinking water comes out of the tap.
- Our road is being paved as I write this.
- In any given hour, approximately 9 cars will drive quickly right past my house.
- My dog, if loose, might run over and irritate the neighbors or worse, attack their dog. She has developed an irrational and intense dislike of the sweet dog next door.
- My dog might get hit by one of those 9 cars that drive quickly past my house.
- I can hear my neighbors talking on their deck. And I’m sure they can hear me.
- Sometimes, at home, the radio is on, the t.v. is on, and I am on the computer. All at once.
- At home, if I need something, I can drive to the store quickly and get it.
- My well has its limits.
- There are always chores to do at home. Not fun chores, but things like laundry folding, floor washing, dusting, vacuuming, plant-watering, lawn mowing, ironing, furniture cleaning. If I try to sit down and relax, one of those beasts is always calling my name.
- In our evening fatigue, we usually sit speechless in front of the t.v.
- In the 10 years since we bought our house, somehow our neighborhood has become more of a suburb than a country road.
Ways in which our cottage is not our house:
- There is no limit to the water that comes out of the tap, but you can’t drink it. We just drink beer instead.
- Our road is 2.5 acres away from our cottage, through the bush. Said road is a nearly-undriveable rock pile-slash-dirt track. We have no idea who is driving past when.
- No car can drive faster than 40kmh past our property without doing major damage.
- My dog, loose, runs over and irritates the neighbors all the time and their dog does the same. Since we are family, it’s all expected and all good. She goes no further than the lower property limits of our two lots and is always within sight of someone.
- There’s a stronger chance my dog will get hit by a motorboat than a car at the cottage. Or perhaps an aggressive loon.
- I can hear the neighbors talk only if they are doing construction projects and they have to shout over power tools, or if they are calling one another to dinner, but that’s about it. Also: they are family, we love each other, it is not an issue.
- At the cottage there is no electricity. Hence, no internet, radio, television, and my cellphone charge only lasts 2 days. Blissful silence, broken only by the abovementioned aggressive loons.
- At the cottage, if I need something, I will walk across and ask the neighbors. If they don’t have it, I will live without. Dinner planning is simple when the nearest grocery store is 45 minutes away.
- The chores that need to be done at the cottage are fun chores. Sweep the sand off of the couch. Wash the dishes after each meal because the kitchen is small and I only have 6 plates. Maybe throw the duvet onto the deck railing so it airs out. Build stuff. Organize stuff. Fun chores!
- In the evenings, we have options: game nights, where the two families get together in some combination for rousing evenings of games and wine; fishing nights, where hubby and nephew go fishing until dark and I stay home, put Nora to bed, then read on the couch with the dog snoring beside me; or we can always sit on the deck listening to the litany of owls, wolves, loons, distant motorboats, or any combination of the above.
So yeah, smartypantses, I have learned over the last two weeks that country life and cottage life are nowhere near the same thing. Now that I am being unwillingly dragged into suburban living kicking and screaming (even though I am still technically surrounded by trees) I am certainly happy to have at least one refuge in the woods.
8/2/12
And Now For The Fun Stuff
The last month has been a bit rough. Not only have we been blowing the money cannon on a near-daily basis, there have been a ton of small projects on the go, most of them unfinished. We weathered a drought (hopefully I can use the past tense there) which nearly gave me an ulcer; the year I decide to put extra effort into a vegetable garden, water becomes scarce. Our well kept running dry. Thankfully I installed an irrigation system this year so at least I could do short targeted waterings every three days or so, because otherwise, sayonara investment and fresh veggies.
I have been messing up at work here and there as well. Nothing major – it’s not like I failed to come up with adequate security two weeks before the Olympics or had to deal with thousands of people protesting my political decisions in the streets – but small mistakes that threaten to make me look bad in the long run. Add them up, it’s not looking so great. I have been very distracted. I am now hoping that a brand new month (August) and a vacation means I can turn a new leaf, leave that awful July behind me and restore my reputation.
But now for the fun stuff.
The cottage is nearly done. There’s enough roof on it that it’s dry inside, and the doors and windows are going in as I write this. I hope that by the end of the week, we have some interior walls, and on Monday we are all going up there to put together the kitchen and bathroom. It has come in pretty damn close to on time and on budget, barring some last-minute changes that may or may not have cost us some extra money. I haven’t yet had to call the bank and ask them to raise our credit limit - fingers crossed.
And last week I ignored my bank statements and went to Ikea. I had a whirlwind lunchtime shopping spree and spent $450 on fun but necessary stuff for the cottage – a nice duvet cover, kitchen knickknacks, small storage for Nora’s room, batteries, a garbage can, storage bins, a bench, curtain rod holders, all that stuff. It may not be everyone’s idea of a rockin’ great time but for me, Ikea is my happy place (to hubby’s dismay).
I realize, through the compulsive writing of 857 lists, that there’s a lot that goes into creating a new household, even a casual, temporary one. While life at the cottage should be simple, that doesn’t mean that we don’t also need batteries, a fire extinguisher, a broom, a dustpan, basic food necessities and the jars to store them in, a potato peeler, knives, a frying pan, barbecue lighters, propane tanks, lamp oil, bedding, mattresses, curtains, dog bowls, pens, hair elastics, a coffee thermos, cereal bowls, a soap dish, wall hooks, towels, first aid supplies, toilet paper… you catch my drift. It is a lot, because we are not camping, and we intend to leave all of it up there in the interest of not having to pack everything every Thursday night. Packing = fighting at my house, so all of this is to benefit marital harmony. From curtain rods to paper napkins and a seperate set of toys and things to amuse Nora during the evenings and rainy days, we have to think of it all unless we want to be driving back and for the whole damn time in search of stuff we forgot. Selection is fairly limited in Otter Lake, Quebec.
The goal is to go up there, unpack, put it all in its forever home, and relax.
We got loads of stuff second hand, at the Great Glebe Garage Sale, and from our own jam-packed household. We are breaking down and getting a used couch from kijiji (more like a loveseat, due to space considerations, but when do you ever fit 3 people on a couch anyway?). I’m not sure we’ll have many kitchen chairs but we’ll figure something out. Just means we can’t have any giant dinner parties in the near future unless we have a BYOBAC party (Bring Your Own Booze And Chairs).
And the projects. The projects! There have been a lot of projects. I have (as always) bitten off a bit more than I can chew, but here’s the rundown of my projects:
THE TRUNK
That leg on the front right is the new one I made (Nora was making Styrofoam art on top. The things I let her do in the interest of getting stuff done…). To achieve the proper level of distress, Nora and I rubbed it with rocks! She enjoyed her woodworking experience very much. I had to cut down all of the legs by about 1.5 inches to make it an appropriate coffee-table height, and I had to shore up a few of the others with some extra nails, but I am thrilled with the result. And for 10 bucks!
THE MIRROR
We bought a very ornate gilt picture frame at the Great Glebe Garage Sale. It is very old, and gorgeous, and was a bit more than we’d normally expect to pay at the GGGS (a whole $15) but worth it. We then took it in to have a piece of mirror fit to it, and hubby installed it with his framing experience. It is stunning. It will go in the bathroom right above….
THE BATHROOM VANITY
I think it will look nice - simple and a good contrast with the very woody wood - but I’m not sure when I’m going to have time to sand it more, get it finished, then oil or varathane it. Am running out of days. Ah well it has to dry out anyway.
My brother is trying to cut a drain hole in an old enamel farm bowl so we can use it as a sink, but he’s convinced he’s going to mess it up. I think he’s just trying to lower my expectations; he’s actually going to do just fine.
THE KITCHEN COUNTERS
We bought an Ikea kitchen, the ‘Varde’ free-standing jobbie that I have always wanted in my house but could never ever have. We got the two big pieces as part of the ‘kitchen event’, and then when they were offering them at 15% off 42 days later we went in and got a further discount. The countertops are the basic cheapie ‘Lagen’ ones thank god, because I have had to cut them and couldn’t handle the pressure if they’d been more expensive. It took me forever to do these cuts, mostly because when I first tried I was sick and every time I’d start I’d get the sweats and have to stop again. We’ve had to shift gears and switch the sink and the stovetop locations because of the width of our stove, but I haven’t cut holes yet, plumbing and propane haven't yet been installed, so it’s still ok. All is well. I am thinking of sweet-talking Ben (the builder) into doing the cuts for me. The kitchen is rather large vis-à-vis the space so plans for a breakfast bar are on hold for the time being. I have to see what I’m working with first.
TOP SECRET NON-COTTAGE-RELATED PROJECT
OK not so top secret, I’m making Nora a play kitchen for her birthday. It’s in 3 weeks – and we plan to spend nearly two of those weeks up at the cottage where I am unable to work on this project. I am officially unprepared.
We have more projects in mind, for future years. The loft is going to need railings and some kind of stair system. We are going to make our own shower stall. We may, when Nora gets older, somehow build bunk beds in her room. I may still build the aforementioned breakfast bar, and the cottage will need flooring at some point. I will need to make curtains (or ha ha who am I kidding, it's a sewing project, meaning I will very much intend to make curtains but my mom will end up doing it) and have become, in my temporary insanity, obsessed with this seemingly-unobtainable fabric:
for our room
for Nora's room
This year, aside from making the screens for the screen porch, we are going to take it easy with fun smaller projects and landscaping (and that maybe in fall, or rainy days). It is a work in progress.
So these days are busy but as the projects wind down and the cottage gets done, the fun level increases.
I have been messing up at work here and there as well. Nothing major – it’s not like I failed to come up with adequate security two weeks before the Olympics or had to deal with thousands of people protesting my political decisions in the streets – but small mistakes that threaten to make me look bad in the long run. Add them up, it’s not looking so great. I have been very distracted. I am now hoping that a brand new month (August) and a vacation means I can turn a new leaf, leave that awful July behind me and restore my reputation.
But now for the fun stuff.
The cottage is nearly done. There’s enough roof on it that it’s dry inside, and the doors and windows are going in as I write this. I hope that by the end of the week, we have some interior walls, and on Monday we are all going up there to put together the kitchen and bathroom. It has come in pretty damn close to on time and on budget, barring some last-minute changes that may or may not have cost us some extra money. I haven’t yet had to call the bank and ask them to raise our credit limit - fingers crossed.
And last week I ignored my bank statements and went to Ikea. I had a whirlwind lunchtime shopping spree and spent $450 on fun but necessary stuff for the cottage – a nice duvet cover, kitchen knickknacks, small storage for Nora’s room, batteries, a garbage can, storage bins, a bench, curtain rod holders, all that stuff. It may not be everyone’s idea of a rockin’ great time but for me, Ikea is my happy place (to hubby’s dismay).
I realize, through the compulsive writing of 857 lists, that there’s a lot that goes into creating a new household, even a casual, temporary one. While life at the cottage should be simple, that doesn’t mean that we don’t also need batteries, a fire extinguisher, a broom, a dustpan, basic food necessities and the jars to store them in, a potato peeler, knives, a frying pan, barbecue lighters, propane tanks, lamp oil, bedding, mattresses, curtains, dog bowls, pens, hair elastics, a coffee thermos, cereal bowls, a soap dish, wall hooks, towels, first aid supplies, toilet paper… you catch my drift. It is a lot, because we are not camping, and we intend to leave all of it up there in the interest of not having to pack everything every Thursday night. Packing = fighting at my house, so all of this is to benefit marital harmony. From curtain rods to paper napkins and a seperate set of toys and things to amuse Nora during the evenings and rainy days, we have to think of it all unless we want to be driving back and for the whole damn time in search of stuff we forgot. Selection is fairly limited in Otter Lake, Quebec.
The goal is to go up there, unpack, put it all in its forever home, and relax.
We got loads of stuff second hand, at the Great Glebe Garage Sale, and from our own jam-packed household. We are breaking down and getting a used couch from kijiji (more like a loveseat, due to space considerations, but when do you ever fit 3 people on a couch anyway?). I’m not sure we’ll have many kitchen chairs but we’ll figure something out. Just means we can’t have any giant dinner parties in the near future unless we have a BYOBAC party (Bring Your Own Booze And Chairs).
And the projects. The projects! There have been a lot of projects. I have (as always) bitten off a bit more than I can chew, but here’s the rundown of my projects:
THE TRUNK
We were wandering down the street at the Great Glebe Garage Sale when from across the road I spied an orange wooden trunk. It is old – very distressed – and the seller was standing there holding up the lid. When I got closer I realized he was actually holding up the trunk since it only had three legs, but I wanted it anyway – the colour and distressing are perfect. We got the trunk for 8 or 10 dollars, I can’t remember. Hubby talked him down for sure, as he always does. It is pretty big, and will be our coffee table. All puzzles and board games and extra blankets and that kind of junk will be stored in it. Trouble was, it only had three legs. I had it in my mind that I would restore the missing leg to match the other three old, distressed ones, even though hubby kept trying to convince me just to get something completely different, to be funny and wacky. Here is my result:
That leg on the front right is the new one I made (Nora was making Styrofoam art on top. The things I let her do in the interest of getting stuff done…). To achieve the proper level of distress, Nora and I rubbed it with rocks! She enjoyed her woodworking experience very much. I had to cut down all of the legs by about 1.5 inches to make it an appropriate coffee-table height, and I had to shore up a few of the others with some extra nails, but I am thrilled with the result. And for 10 bucks!THE MIRROR
We bought a very ornate gilt picture frame at the Great Glebe Garage Sale. It is very old, and gorgeous, and was a bit more than we’d normally expect to pay at the GGGS (a whole $15) but worth it. We then took it in to have a piece of mirror fit to it, and hubby installed it with his framing experience. It is stunning. It will go in the bathroom right above….
THE BATHROOM VANITY
A long time ago I asked our hippie wood guy “hey, do you have a piece of wood about 3’ long, 2’ wide, live edge, 2” thick?” and he said “yeah no problem! I can get that to you for about $50”. Last week he left on vacation but seemingly forgot to do it, because we got the piece in kind of a panic one night before he left (after having reminded him a week earlier). It is huge. It weighs 150 pounds I’m sure. It was all shaggy and hasn’t dried out yet, it has a big weird curved cut piece one one side and the live edge was sort of less than impressive. Anyway, I cut it to squarish and to size, sanded it, sanded it, fixed up the live edge a bit (removed some shaggy bark) and will sand it some more, and it will be our bathroom vanity. I had thought I would use these Ikea legs under it:
But discovered that they are much too wide, and on second thought they are also too bulky-looking, so I am going for two of these legs at the front, and bolting it to the back wall:
I think it will look nice - simple and a good contrast with the very woody wood - but I’m not sure when I’m going to have time to sand it more, get it finished, then oil or varathane it. Am running out of days. Ah well it has to dry out anyway.
My brother is trying to cut a drain hole in an old enamel farm bowl so we can use it as a sink, but he’s convinced he’s going to mess it up. I think he’s just trying to lower my expectations; he’s actually going to do just fine.
THE KITCHEN COUNTERS
We bought an Ikea kitchen, the ‘Varde’ free-standing jobbie that I have always wanted in my house but could never ever have. We got the two big pieces as part of the ‘kitchen event’, and then when they were offering them at 15% off 42 days later we went in and got a further discount. The countertops are the basic cheapie ‘Lagen’ ones thank god, because I have had to cut them and couldn’t handle the pressure if they’d been more expensive. It took me forever to do these cuts, mostly because when I first tried I was sick and every time I’d start I’d get the sweats and have to stop again. We’ve had to shift gears and switch the sink and the stovetop locations because of the width of our stove, but I haven’t cut holes yet, plumbing and propane haven't yet been installed, so it’s still ok. All is well. I am thinking of sweet-talking Ben (the builder) into doing the cuts for me. The kitchen is rather large vis-à-vis the space so plans for a breakfast bar are on hold for the time being. I have to see what I’m working with first.
TOP SECRET NON-COTTAGE-RELATED PROJECT
OK not so top secret, I’m making Nora a play kitchen for her birthday. It’s in 3 weeks – and we plan to spend nearly two of those weeks up at the cottage where I am unable to work on this project. I am officially unprepared.
We have more projects in mind, for future years. The loft is going to need railings and some kind of stair system. We are going to make our own shower stall. We may, when Nora gets older, somehow build bunk beds in her room. I may still build the aforementioned breakfast bar, and the cottage will need flooring at some point. I will need to make curtains (or ha ha who am I kidding, it's a sewing project, meaning I will very much intend to make curtains but my mom will end up doing it) and have become, in my temporary insanity, obsessed with this seemingly-unobtainable fabric:
for our room for Nora's roomThis year, aside from making the screens for the screen porch, we are going to take it easy with fun smaller projects and landscaping (and that maybe in fall, or rainy days). It is a work in progress.
So these days are busy but as the projects wind down and the cottage gets done, the fun level increases.
5/3/12
Cottage Life
Yesterday, May 2, 2012, work on our cottage began in earnest.
Nothing was built or anything, but the boys (my husband with our contractor and his 2-guy crew) went up and cleared the trees off of the building site. On May 21 a fellow is coming to install our septic system (yes, this cottage will have a septic system due to our being way too by-the-book and sticking to the letter of the law) and clear an access road down to the site. He will also be flattening out the site a little bit, so our cottage doesn't have to soar up into the sky on its piers.
Soon after that, we are having the piers put in. We will be using these things called 'Technopiers' as our foundation – they are like big metal screws that are drilled about 5 or 6 feet into the ground, with metal posts welded on top. Then you put wooden posts on top of those. It's relatively easy peasy to install; apparently it should take two days due to the welding.
After that, the floors go in. Soon after that, the walls go up.
Sheesh.
A few months ago all of this was giving me a slow-mo heart attack, like how on earth can I set myself back another 100k or so in debt when we've come so far in clearing what we've already got? I find it crazy. I think it's a bit irresponsible. I think we're flying by the seat of our pants a little bit finance-wise. But what's life without risk? Other friends of ours have risked more on their projects, gotten themselves deep into holes for various passions and outcomes. It's our turn now to leap into the void.
This cottage we're building is not to be a palace. I estimate it will be approximately 800 square feet on the ground floor, plus a sleeping/playing/storage loft. Two bedrooms, one bathroom, a great room that comprises the kitchen, dining, living, and entry areas, a screen porch and a deck. Our floor plan is a sort of wide T-shape, simply because our hilly site makes it easier for us to go wide rather than deep. This plan was arrived at after I(and hubby) mock-designed about 658 different floor plans, finally made official by my architect brother-in-law, so if it works out I will feel a great deal of pride in my design. It will require a lot of elaborate stairs to get to, because of said hill, but it is my hope that we will eventually get to the point where one will be welcomed by lovely (natural, woodland – natch) paths and steps and plantings rather than just steep wooden stairs.
Hubby and I are not the kind of folks who enjoy clearing land and chopping down trees. On the contrary. We would have built a treehouse if it had been at all feasible. We want to leave a band of trees between us and the neighbors (our septic bed clearings are sort of beside each other) for privacy etc., but luckily the neighbors are family. The builders and septic-installers will need an access road in order to reach the site, so there will be some destruction there, but as soon as we move large furniture into the cottage (hopefully late July) I can start healing that land with small local tree transplants. We are fortunate in that no difficult decisions really have to be made with regards to trees; only one nice tree was taken down in yesterday's adventure: a maple that went super red every fall. Aside from that the forest in that spot is a dense mess of little trees that have choked out the light for so long that the only thing that grows there are mushrooms. We are trying not to clear too many trees overall but the reality is this: the trees we've got down there are kind of shitty. They are nasty birches – most of them dead on top – and a bunch of small hemlocks. Without some more cutting, that lot is going to be a nasty blackfly-and mosquito-infested mess and a safety hazard. The forest floor was just a pile of fallen branches and decades-old garbage from ancient campers. Once the building is complete, I am going to replace all that scrubby crap with some nice small white pines and junipers, abundantly available along the roadside that leads to the property, and lots and lots of blueberry plants. Near the water we have a stunning giant white pine tree that will be preserved (we aren't building at the water's edge) so as long as that's standing, I'm happy.
An interesting factor in all of this is that the cottage lot is off-grid. Not necessarily because we wanted it that way (though it is an advantage in my mind), but because nobody on our private gated road has power – the nearest hydro pole is 5 km away, beyond the gate. This impacts everything we do, both minor and major. All appliances we have to buy have to be propane, and man alive, propane fridges are freaking expensive. Hot water has to be supplied through a propane on-demand tankless heater, from water pumped out of the lake and stored in a tank. Lights will be propane, and we will read by the glow of solar lamps from Ikea. Eventually we want to invest in a solar panel to run some lights, at least 12v lights, but for right now the budget doesn't allow for that system. Having no power also means we won't be able to make normal decent toast, so we are currently looking into investing in one of these babies because we like toast with our eggs. There is, ironically, better internet and cellphone reception at our cottage than there is at our house.
The cottage will be an interesting construction project to watch: technopiers in the ground, then SIPS panels (dense Styrofoam/plywood sandwiches) become the entire floor, then on top of that go the walls which will all be interlocked square logs. They go up like Lincoln Logs – corners are simply chopped off with a chainsaw, windowholes cut out with a chainsaw and windows popped in – so my builder estimates the entire thing could go up in as fast as six weeks. The longest parts will be the roof and the ceiling, because the insides will all be tongue-and-groove and angles and this and that and it's finicky. My builder does fantastic work, though – he is a real wood artist. He's 26 going on 56 and I trust him to do a beautiful job.
So we are biting the bullet and building this thing. The idea is to have it paid off by the time I'm 45 or 50. It is to be Nora's inheritance and our Plan B, in case our everyday house crumbles into the ground or is carried off by ants someday. It is also to be a spot that we want our friends and family to enjoy, as the normal rigors of everyday living will hopefully be lessened – or at least that's the idea. It will need to be cleaned and maintained, secured and insured, like everything else but at least it's small, it's wood, it has no elaborate systems which can fail, it costs very little to run, and it's on a lake.
I want to go there right now. I have booked off two weeks in mid-August and our intention is to go there and enjoy ourselves. Some work will still need to be done, but hopefully by that time we'll also be ready to cook, eat, swim, play games, sleep, listen to the loons, talk, drink coffee, relax and stare at the water through the trees.
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