Blog a la Cart

This should be featured on Damn You Auto Correct. I mean, the iPhone’s messing with him. Hard. Apologies in advance for James’ potty mouth.

I am officially obsessed with Ron Schmidt’s dog photography. They capture the spirit and personalities of our canine friends brilliantly. I’m a bit biased, but the Lewis and Clark series of the two labs is my favorite. I will always have a soft spot in my heart for tennis ball addicted retrievers.

LINK: LOOSE LEASHES

Written by a Williams College English professor, I can draw some parallels to my mother’s parenting style and my own. We Weeks women love fiercely. Loudly. All in.

And yet my brother and I have been unbelievably lucky to have been in the track of her storm. Wherever she’s passed, sure, there are branches down and leaves all over the place, but the clouds look washed and beautiful, and the sky is beginning to clear. And the storm itself, we soon realize, has been mesmerizing, has been galvanizing and has been just what was necessary to shake us into feeling what anyone who’s spent any time around Ida has always felt: as though they’ve really lived through something.

My Saturday’s tied up with meetings and a work dinner. If it wasn’t, and if my craft trunk and baking supplies weren’t currently stashed in boxes, I’d be spending my day baking these cookies…

And crafting up these piñatas…

Why don’t you tackle them for me, mkay? Happy Cinco de Mayo!

James has been listening to this honky-tonk gem nonstop to power him through the many projects on his “Honey Do” list.

When we first started dating (i.e. watching movies in each other’s dorm rooms and “studying”), I informed James that I positively despised country music. He proceeded to make me a mix CD (people still do that right?) called “Just a Sweet Sweet Taste” with all of his favorite country jams to ease me into life with a bona fide country music lover.

I can’t say I hated it. Or that I haven’t been singing this little ditty myself.

Addison is a professional newborn handler.

She’s been so eager to meet Baby Brie, and yesterday was her time to shine. She said very little, but just smiled and glowed with contentment as she watched Gabrielle slumber in her arms.

Yesterday evening, as we went around the table and talked about our days, I asked Sunny what the best part of her day was.

Without hesitation, she responded, Meeting Gabrielle.

Indeed, it was the best.

Most of you have probably seen this brilliant poster for the non-profit Burning Through Pages. As a proud book worm myself, I am positively inspired by Mike Anderick’s design.

This lesser known ad of theirs is equally genius, no?

Burning Through Pages is a non-profit dedicated to the task of getting young people excited about reading. Such a simple but important goal.

Remember this post? How I said that I intended to replace the bathroom floor with hot pink carpet? Well…

I told you that I wasn’t kidding.

We still have plenty of work to do in the bathroom, but we have a new floor and have restored toilet and shower function to the room, so I wanted to share how far we’ve come.

We started here. With cracked tiles.

Then my lack of impulse control catapulted us here.

Which meant we had to go here. And remove the toilet and sink that were impeding the tile removal.

Upon removing the toilet, we realized that we needed to install a new flange. That’s our WE’RE HAVING FUN face. Swear.

Ah the poop hole. The Trojan Horse of wasp invasion.

It seemed totally reasonable to store the toilet in the shower, the only shower in the entire house. That was of course until we became permanent residents of said house. Then suddenly we were as stinky as the wasp inhabited poop hole.

It was at this stage in the process, upon unveiling a moldy wall and piece of floor, that James called me and declared that we needed to hire a contractor. Fortunately, the contractor that we liked best from our inspection process came right over and talked James through next steps so as to avoid having to completely gut the room. Whew!

So James cut out the moldy piece of wall and floor and patched in new pieces.

Then, to help protect and seal the wood from water damage, we coated the floor in some hot pink goo (a perfect preview for the hot pink carpet). For those DIY readers out there, we used Red Guard, a water proof sealant most often used to seal concrete basements.

It dries red. Thus, the name.

As you can see, after sealing the floor, Kimmy and I took over and painted the deep purple walls white. If I was going to be using such a bold, loud color on the floor, I needed everything else to be clean and crisp and white. Also, I thought the white would expand the space and brighten it up. We went a bit slap happy painting. It took far far more coats than we’d anticipated. Ah the joys of painting white on a deeply saturated wall color.

Here is where I take a moment to justify my decision to use carpet. In a bathroom. Everyone has told me that I am totally and completely off my rocker. Which, hey, I already knew. But I promise, this decision is a very well researched and deliberate one. Thus, in this instance, off my rocker I am not.

You see, our house is horribly horribly HORRIBLY uneven. Which we knew when purchasing. If you were to check out our basement, or just put a marble to any floor surface, you’d see that our little farm house is aiming for its place as Vermont’s Leaning Tower of Pisa. A noble aspiration, but one that makes the use of materials such as slate and tile difficult. The reason that the floor was so cracked to begin with is because of all this sloping and slanting and uneveness. James and I intend to remedy the problem. But it will be quite the undertaking, so in the interim, there was no way I was going to take the time to lay down new tile, only to have it crack and crumble.

My options seemed to be linoleum, which, ugh. Or carpet. Having recently visited James’ grandparents who have an incredibly lush carpet in their guest bathroom, I noted how delightful and cozy it was to make a midnight run to the loo. I attribute this to the carpet. Absolutely.

James’ immediate reaction to my carpet proposal was absolute horror. Did I know how gross and moldy and gnarly that carpet was going to get? Not to mention, how much damage we’d do to the floor?

Yes, but…

It wouldn’t be as bad if we used a carpet made of synthetic material like nylon. Also, this was a temporary fix for the next couple years until we had leveled the foundation and had the money to truly gut the bathroom and start over (the dream!). Also, in reading about carpets in the bathroom, FLOR was a name that continually surfaced and came highly recommended. Why? Because they sell tiles. CARPET tiles.

If a part of the carpet was completely saturated with water or totally destroyed, we didn’t have to remove the entire floor. Just the offending tile(s).

Genius!

Our friends had opted to use FLOR throughout their house, so we’d seen the carpet before and knew that they were a high quality product.

James was sold. Per FLOR’s recommendation, we opted for the RAKE ME OVER style. Slightly shaggy but made of recycled nylon so as to minimize the impact of water saturation. I went with my gut and initial vision and ordered the tiles in pink.

I could not have been more pleased when the box arrived. It was precisely what I had in mind.

Even better? The install was a breeze!

I mean, seriously. This was the fastest part of the process. It cut easily. James and I had to take some time fitting smaller pieces into the corners, given our less than square floor, but altogether, the FLOR was down and installed in under an hour.

The tiles are attached to one another, but not the actual floor of the room. It is truly a floating floor. And looks, feels, and IS exactly what I had envisioned for the room.

Courtland approves. Wholeheartedly!

Thank you, FLOR!

The next step was to get the toilet reinstalled. James put in a new flange. And then we YouTubed wax ring installs, and this happened.

Hey whatever works, because BOOM!

We put in a new shower head, and one of those curved shower curtain rods so that we don’t feel as though we are being smothered by the shower curtain every time we bathe. We’ve got a DIY sink cabinet and sink install in the works. And have some shelving and medicine cabinet decisions to make. We’re getting their folks.

The good news is that this was my view last night as I took my inaugural soak in the tub. Not too shabby.

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FULL DISCLOSURE: The product(s) mentioned in the above post were provided to me by the stated brand or company for review and/or sponsorship purposes only. I was not paid to promote or endorse this product and all thoughts and ideas are truthful and reflect my opinion alone.

Everyone meet Blue.

The newest member of our stuffed animal family.

A plush testicle, to be exact. Gifted to James by our friend Courtney, master gift giving extrodinaire, who wanted to ensure that our household had a balanced array of his/her plush anatomy.

Addison hearts Blue. And now has mastered the proper pronunciation of the word “testicle.”

Our work here is done.

I typically fare very very poorly during times of transition. HOWEVER! I have not once ugly cried during this moving process. Nary a tear has been shed!

James is thanking the Emotional Stability Gods.

And I’m thanking our dear friend, Tine, for all of her support. From the use of her truck and husband and babysitting skills and organizational expertise and rogue supply of prescription pain killers, we survived Saturday’s proceedings and James slept very very soundly despite a very very sore back. Also, Courtland’s babysitter is single handedly responsible for boxing and sorting and organizing the entire house in preparation for this weekend. And my mother, who is always my rock, and entertained my children and dug up plants and berries and flowers and schooled us on how to manage our perennial garden beds. I don’t know what I did to deserve these amazing women in my life, but lord knows I owe them my sanity, my marriage, my gardens, and a stiff drink.

While James and I are typically a great team, our first born personalities take hold during tasks such as say, moving an entire household, and we have very different ideas as to how and in what order such tasks should be accomplished. It was best for all involved that we had friends running interference on the power of birth order. Admittedly, James and I were left unattended for a brief hour Saturday morning and during that time there was one altercation involving a couch and a doorway built for a family of twigs. The couch suffered some tearing, but both our egos are still intact. And by that I mean, I told you that the door was too narrow, JAMES.

I’ve reached a point of exhaustion, so I’ve been anticipating a meltdown of epic proportions as is typical when I am in a state of flux and physically and emotionally drained. Fortunately, I have yet to exhibit any 3-year-old-esque behavior. Given that meltdowns are of a frequent nature in our household thanks to a one Miss Addison Weeks, James is well-equipped to manage the impending fall out. We’re both hopeful that I won’t require a 15 minute time-out and some “thinking” time in my bedroom.

I’d like to believe that’s because despite all of the madness, and the disorder, and the upheaval, and the busy, demanding kids, I know that all of this is absolutely worth it. Somehow, even when I’m up to my eyeballs in bubble wrap and packing tape, all I need to do is step outside on the back porch and listen to the stream running through the property, and everything just relaxes. I feel all the tension fall from my face. My eyes soften. My cheeks slack. And I know. And that’s all I need to then step back inside and keep going. I absolutely know how disgustingly and nauseatingly lucky we are. I carry that gratitude with me everywhere I go.

In fact, I feel so fortunate that I find the corners of my mouth breaking into stupid grins of delight while performing the most inane of tasks, like say spraying bug repellent down the poop hole as a wasp makes his way up the shitter. I kid you not. Good news? Toilet is now reinstalled so there is no risk of wasp intrusion via the plumbing. Whew! We can all breath a sigh of relief and go back to grinning like the stupidly lucky idiots that we are.

Last night James and I lay in our new bedroom, our heads tucked up under the slanted roof, gazing out our sky light at the rising moon…

I feel like I’m sleeping tucked inside the bow of a sailboat.

I feel like I’m camping.

And there we were. Reliving our childhoods as we laid the groundwork for our children’s.