Castles, Houses, and Trains

We have quite the little builder in the house. (A rare still photo, with Great Aunt B.'s doggie ("Hannah") and "picture truck." There are ice cream trucks, cement trucks, and fruit trucks. This one has pictures on it, so it's a picture truck of course.)


O. needs some help with assembly, but he's definitely progressing in home and castle design. Notice the careful application of roofing to "Aunt M.'s house."

Aunt M.'s house, complete with Aunt M.'s car.


The blocks made by Grandpa have inspired some truly unique castle designs. Here we see a neoRoman/Escher structure. Unfortunately it is more for looks than function.



The blocks also have enabled adding another height level to the trainset. Sadly, derailment is a frequent problem.



And the trusty duplo blocks are seeing a high level of use these days. We call this one Orthanc.


And like all skyscraper designers, you have to know when to stop building upwards.


Still working on that.

Conquering the To-Do List

Well, not so much "conquer" as "scratch off one item": rearrange the bedroom wall decorations into something more presentable. This process was assisted by the generous stocking stuffer gift from my parents, which is now the central framed print. (Kathy--it's beautiful! Thanks for making such a wonderful work of art!)



This process was also aided by the purchase of the metal bee ($2.50!). It was found on a recent trip to an unfinished furniture store while looking for another project that we don't have enough time for. The remaining framed objects are prints from J's hometown, a print of a sketch my mom's friend made (the house is my childhood piano teacher's), a doily I crocheted a few years ago, and a random print thrown in because it matches the general style.

The grouping concept may be getting a little tired, however, and at least in my house, it's looks like I appear to be obsessed order and symmetry. But really, I'm not.

Bedroom, North wall

Bedroom, South Wall

Obsessed? Who me?
Dining room, North wall

Living room, East wall

I swear, not obsessed!
Bathroom

Well, maybe a little. Plus a healthy dose of trying to incorporate the small scale things that I loved that I collected while on a grad student budget with the larger scale of the new house. But I think the grouping 5"x7"s is tired, in the future, I think I should resist the obvious but worn-out solution to the scale problem.

Re-upholstery project

I'm thinking about reupholstering the dining room table seats. The fabric has thinned out considerably, it's been stained and cleaned so many times, and one chair is beginning to split. The fabric is 10 years old, and it served us well, but it's time for the fabric to go to the great sewing machine in the sky.

I've decided that I'd like to go with something different than the original fabric. The original fabric was offwhite in an striped pattern. It was chosen because it was neutral and would match almost any apartment. But lately I've noted that all of the neutral things I've chosen over the years for the apartment reason look like cream of wheat together.

I rented four fabric sample for the week, and I haven't decided if any of these are on the right track.

Robert Allen Home, Bristol Stripe in Seafoam, $40/yard. This one looks better up close than it does from a distance. It goes to off-white, and the seafoamy colors look too beachy with the wood in the chairs.



SMC Designs, Sequence 88, Ebbtide in Patina, $45/yard. This is the current front runner. The greens in this match the greens and reds in our house, and it goes with the tones in the wood. I wish the fabric was a little heavier though, it may not wear as well as some.



Platinum, Elsbeth in Juniper, $60/yard. I like the idea of this, but not the execution. I like the idea of of having the single stripe down the middle (we'd have to be careful to buy enough to do this). The colors aren't right with the room or the wood though. The green, I think, is the problem. Too much celery, not enough broccoli.



Waverly, Garden Ottoman, in Sage $45/yard. Another fabric that looks lucious up close, but goes to mush from afar. The green isn't right here either, although I think the fabric is substantial enough to do the job.



Two more photos of the fabrics, taking a couple of steps back.





I don't think we've found the right fabric yet.

First Snow

Our first snow of the winter arrived on Sunday.



This snow was much earlier than last year. We don't even have all of our fall yardwork done.

Snow doesn't last long here (in fact, it has already melted, three days later), so sent O. outside. Unfortunately, the precipitation before the snow was an inch or two of rain. O. found the minipond in our backyard, and he quickly broke through the ice. And the minipond quickly became a mud landing strip. Those sweatpants he's wearing in the picture below used to be light grey.



Sure was fun though.

December

Woooosh. That is the sound of our autumn that just flew by.

We now have a three-year old in the house.


Because we are those parents who exacerbate their child's car fetish rather than curtailing with gentle discipline, he received a semitruck that serves as a car carrier. He loves it.


-

Only a few house-related activities have occurred recently. We put up the Christmas tree yesterday. We placed it in a different spot from last year. It's beside the fireplace, which means we need a tall, skinny tree. We also decided we needed more red in the tree, because the tree last year looked too brown and dull.



O.'s tree decorating skills improved this year. He was able to hang ornaments this year, though he doesn't have a good sense of spacing them, yet--I keep finding four ornaments on the same branch.

Japanese Maple, Take 2

My mom and her sister visited this weekend, and we visited a local nursery. We found a Japanese maple within my price range and my specifications, so I decided to go for it.



It is Acer Palmatum "Bloodgood." It matures to a size just a tad bigger than I had targeted, but I think we'll jump over that bridge if we come to it. The burgundy leaves are supposed to remain the color all years, which should look striking against our brick. I still need to mulch it, as I expect a hard freeze this week on Tuesday, but it is watered and well-fed.

Keep your fingers crossed...

I am Memphis' newest fan.

We had a good trip. The conference was fine, J.'s meeting was fine, but Memphis was cool. Or maybe we were just starved for city-type activities? Regardless, we enjoyed it more than we expected.

We were downtown for most of our stay. We used the trolley for transportation down Main Street. For O., the trolley was a Big Deal, and he loved riding on it.



We walked on Beale Street and enjoyed being in a mixer of music.


We saw the Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King was assassinated. O. ate at his first Hard Rock Cafe (so-so food, but the memorabilia was worth it--the Blues Brothers suits, hats, and sunglasses were my favorite).


J. and O. also visited the Memphis Fire Museum, and O. went ape over the fire trucks, which he could climb all over.

We could have stayed at least another day or two. The Children's Museum and the Mud Island River Park looked interesting with O. in mind. We drove by Graceland, but didn't have time to tour it. I would have liked the Civil Rights Museum and Sun Studios.

O. has been talking about the trip off and on ever since. Sometimes he tells the story of riding the elevator in the hotel ("Door open. Push the button. Up, up, up, ding, ding! Door open again. Down, down, down, ding, ding! Lobby!") And sometimes he speaks mournfully to all of the things he say "Bye-bye fire trucks. Bye-bye elemater. Bye-bye trolley train."

Mid-tunnel update

Two trips down, four to go. We have the two hardest and longest trips done, at least. The next one is the second and last of the family trips, and it is followed by a quick turnaround and out-the-door for J., who has a work trip this weekend.

I was able to do a small amount of gardening this weekend. My order from Wayside Gardens finally came in. This order was the refund for the maple tree fiasco. We didn't want to risk another maple tree order through the mail again, and instead ordered a barberry, a couple of hostas (one bareroot, yikes), and a couple of packets scilla and allium bulbs. I planted the hostas under the giant bonsai tree (item #4). The barberry replaces the thuja that croaked this summer. We're still very short for rain (I can't remember the last time it rained, in fact, but it was at least two weeks ago). I need to finish fertilizing everything and we'll have leaves to rake soon. There's whispers of adding a screen door to the front entrance during Thanksgiving break. Other than that, my immediate house plans only include trying to keep it moderately clean.

The View From My Room

Not too shabby.

I didn't have a chance too actually BE in those mountains, but it was nice to have them nearby.

Entering the Tunnel

All's quiet in my personal blogosphere, because we're preparing to enter a long period of mayhem, mostly related to our jobs. As a family, we have six out-of-town trips planned for the next six weeks. J and I each have three trips for work, plus travel to a wedding. I see our autumn as if we're at the beginning of a long dark tunnel, where you are whooshed through the darkness and come out the other side in the light, blinking and disoriented. That'll be us, come mid-November.

We're going to attempt a two birds/one stone approach for one of the trips, because we both have work-related meetings in the same city (or maybe that's two stones/one bird? Am I bird or a stone? Whatever.) It'll be the first time we've tried to travel for work with O., so that'll be interesting.

Home stuff--nothing new, just maintenance. We're still very dry, but the nights have cooled off and we've a little rain, so everything is green again. I've had a few herb harvests, and I made a Italian seasoning mix and have a nice supply of chives for the winter. My lavender has finally bloomed too. It was one of the few plants that was very happy in August heat and humidity. At the moment I'm trying to get the basil going again because I want one more batch of pesto to freeze. And--bonus--my cilantro has self-seeded, so I hope to enjoy that soon.

Buh-bye, Rocks

The rocks are gone!
The couple from craigslist came around 9:45 AM today. We had two wheel barrows, three shovels, four adults, and a toddler. Two truckloads later, and we were done by noon, except for the packed in rocks around the roses. The couple left then, because they had enough rocks and enough of the project. J. and I took a break for lunch, put O. down for a nap, and finished the rest by 2:30 PM.

We lucked out on the weather too. We've had about a week of 100 oF and up heat indices, but a front came through last night, and it was only 85 oF. Light rain, too, but not enough to stop the work.

Rock-moving was also a good reason to try the local bakery doughnuts. It was O.'s first. He loved them. Ate two, and asked for more.

New Cat Species

Have I mentioned that we have a new cat in our house?

The new cat appears to be an unusual species: Felis silvestris toddlerus. Very rare, in fact. It likely descends from both domestic house cats and some humanoid ancestor, and we suspect that it has close relatives in the monkey family. It only appears after bathtime, by the way, and disappears by bedtime.


The cat is about 2 and half years old. Its back and head are orange and black in color with terry cloth-like fur, and it has a pink and fleshy (and quite ticklish) belly. This cat also exhibits an unusual dual bipedal and quadrupedal gait. Very unusual for mammalian vertebrates. In fact, its bipedal movement has been clocked to be the fastest in the genus Felis. It lacks a non-vestigial tail, much to its own dismay.

The cat's diet consists of water, raisins, bananas, and other bedtime snacks.

And "coffee" (and the cat insists that drinking this way makes it coffee).

The cat also occasionally transfigures into a Wheatthin-eating duck, but cat seems to be its preferred form.

The cat also claims that it can fly, but proof of this (fortunately) is not available.

Rocks make people happy. Who knew?

Remember the rocks? The ones in our flowerbeds, especially near the roses? The ones that aren't worth a darn in terms of reducing weeds and keeping plant roots cool and moist? After extensive discussion, we've decided we no longer want the remaining rocks in the flower beds. We want to replace the rocks with nice, soft, biodegradable mulch.

This decision led to the next logical question: how do we get rid of them? Various options were discussed.
-Burying them in the backyard (no hole that we can make would be deep enough).
-Throwing them out with the trash (what do you mean, Mr. Sanitation Worker, that our garbage bins are unusually heavy this week?)
-Donation to the Goodwill (do they take rocks?)
-Asking Lowes to buy them back from us (ha)

We even considered a plan that included surreptitious contributions to our fellow citizens' landscaping. We had locations with similar rocks staked out even, but decided we probably wouldn't be able to find someone who would agree to babysit O. for a midnight rock relocation project.

Instead, I listed the rocks on a local bulletin board, and within three days, I received eight offers to take them off our hands. Wow. By they next weekend (keep your fingers crossed), the rocks should be gone!

Post-Painting Vacation Update

Firstly, I have a public service announcement: Ladies and gentlemen, don't install wallpaper. Today's temporary pretty wall is tomorrow's home improvement project.

We are done. Well, not quite done, but we're at a stopping point. We had a setback in the form of an unexpected illness when O. came down with an ear infection and stomach flu. He was well by Thursday and returned to daycare with glee, and we returned to the project at hand.

The office is completely painted (well, walls and the trim). I'm happy with the way this looks. the wall with the bookcase was a strange brown color in a textured effect, and I hadn't realized how much I didn't like it until it was gone. Now, it's all one color ("tea stain," same as the entryway and hallway). As you can see, the passthrough is going to have to wait.

Office, as seen from the living room

Possibly our biggest accomplishment: the wallpaper on the dining room wall is gone! We had previously peeled off the first layer of wallpaper. For the bottom layer of paper, we rented a steamer. This wall is not drywall, it is paneling with some sort of surface-leveling paint on it. We felt very fortunate that the steamer and scraper didn't damage the surface much. We also learned that the wallpaper was fairly recent. We found he signature of three people who must of installed it "Steve, Pete, and Tim Decorating, 11-17-99."

We did have to patch this wall, however, and to be honest, we could have spent more time patching it. I may still go back and do that someday. We painted it "woodland snow" which is an off-white, more taupe than white.

And, J. turned the light fixture is upside down. Or rightside up, depending on your perspective. It is much easier on the eyes this way, though I still can't help but think that this is the wrong light for the room.

Dining room wall, as seen from the living room.

Lastly, the kitchen. The wallpaper here was a bear. I think it was higher quality and it didn't give up as easily as the dining room wallpaper. We painted the walls the same color as the dining room and living room.

Kitchen

I like that the wallpaper is gone, but I think the result is plain kitchen. This color ("woodland snow") looks good in the living room but blah in the kitchen. Filling in the passthrough with tile will help and maybe adding more color in general. Those are projects for the future.

As of this week, we have now painted every inch of paintable surface. Except for the trim in some rooms, the closets, ceilings, doors, and the outside shutters.

We learned more about the house's wiring, too. J. thinks the organization of the circuits is just bizarre. There is one breaker for the the closet lights, the outside light for the garage, and the dining room light. The master bedroom lights are the same as the sink light and the garbage disposal. Many of the double switch panels are installed as relays, like they were an afterthought. There are some advantages to this setup; one can, for example, work on the kitchen wiring without having to turn off all of the lights. Maybe what we see as madness is method.

Painting Vacation

This week begins our painting vacation. J. has the whole week off from work, and I have the last three days. The to-do list includes:
-removing wallpaper from the dining room and kitchen
-painting the living room, dining room and kitchen ("woodland snow")
-painting the office walls ("tea stain") and the trim ("white")
-replacing several of the outlets and covers
-flipping the dining room light so it points upward
-some touchup work in the blue bathroom
-tiling a wooden drink tray, which will serve as a test of technique for the upcoming passthrough project
-some odds and ends, like rehanging some of the blinds so that they roll up right
-J. would like to change the living room lights for recessed, although I would rather add a storm door. Most likely, we won't have time for either.

We also plan to take advantage of the already paid-for daycare and see a movie matinée. And there's discussion of trying to recreate the vanilla vodka smoothies that we had two summers ago at a super swanky DC hotel. Will report back on all accounts at the end of the week.

Zoo Trip

Toddler photography is challenge greater than I ever would have realized. This was demonstrated for the umpteenth time yesterday, during last weekend's zoo outing.

Zoo photo: we ate lunch here.

First, there's the speed factor. I'm convinced that there is no shutter speed low enough to capture a two year old in constant motion. For every halfway decent photo, I have ten more of blurry blobs that I've deleted from the memory card. It's safe to say that the experience of seeing unusual animals at the zoo was completely lost on O. For him, it was all about having an unusual space to run through.

Combine the speed problem with the fact that a toddler's expression and mood varies from microsecond to microsecond, and add on a side of the same toddler is so distracted by the camera that he forgets that mere microseconds ago he was in full glee, and you have a series of photos that show O. in the expression just after he was completely adorable.

Evidence 1: O. loved the fish tank. Really, he did. He acted as tour guide for every new group of people that came to the fish tank, saying "LOOK! At the FISHIES!" and "LOOK! Fishies here, TOO!" But you'd never know it from the photo below, which is the best of the bunch.

"Nice fishies!"

Evidence 2: Here we are, waiting for our pizza at lunch. He was excited about the pizza, eating out, being in the presence of a hundred or so other kids, and the zoo banners hanging from the ceiling ("Zebra!!" "Lion!!" "Bird!!!"). But whatever you do, don't say "Hey, O., can you look at Mommy?" You get this:

Waiting for lunch

Evidence 3: Well, here he's just being a little punk.

Posing, but not liking it.

There were a few good photos. O. liked this giant beetle statue, because he thought the back of the shell was a slide.

O. loved this cobra snake sculpture. I thought we were never going to get him away from it.

"Nice snake!"

The highlight of the trip may have been the waterfall. This is a really great idea. On a hot day, this hit the spot.
One last photo. The zoo has a train that circles the whole park. We knew about the train beforehand, and talked it up for O. He was so excited, and talked about how he was going to ride the train, on and on, talk talk, jabber jabber. We waited in line for our turn and finally the train came. O. walked right up to the train and climbed aboard and sat down. And then nothing. Silence, stunned silence. No comment, nothing, for the whole train ride. This is how he looked the whole trip.

This is serious train riding, folks. He recovered promptly after the ride, fortunately.

Pretending that his father's head is a drum.