...recipe fail.

I'm not a chef, but I think this recipe might be missing something important.

...the onset of rennovations and cleaning up the mess.

First off, if you know me, you know that I hate mess and disorganization more than anything. (Hmm..almost anything.)  I can't tell you how many times I've been mistaken for a sales clerk because I straighten up the shelves/racks when I go shopping. 

So with that being said, please appreciate how hard it was for me was when I had contractors come in and remove a six inch, load bearing brick wall.  Because it made my entire house was one giant, disorganized mess. Every square inch.

I tried my damndest to tarp everything off. I had tarps over the staircase, the cabinets, what little furniture is on my first floor. I sealed off doors with tape. I put my small appliances in the basement. I moved a bunch of kitchen stuff to my bedroom. I put cereal and snacks in the refrigerator. My once overly organized kitchen was in disarray. And covered in plastic.

When the dust literally setttled, I had a nice new open floorplan and about 1/4 inch of red dust EVERYWHERE. It took me two days and an arsenal of concentrated heavy duty cleaner, windex, a shop-vac, and the help of local take-out restaurants to make my house liveable again. I still haven't tackled the basement and I'm afraid to see how much dust wound up on my kitchenwares stored there.

The saving grace in all of that is that the kitchen rennovations have officially commenced! I hope that within the next 6-8 months, my kitchen will look like a combo of this:

and this:

Wish me luck, because holy crap, I will need it.

...when the walls come down!

Ahhh....the day is finally (almost) here. Today is the day that the wall between my dining room and kitchen came down. Woo!! Words can't express how much I loathed this wall and relish in its demise!

The workers got to my place around 9:30...by 9:45 they were already going to town and there was exposed brick. These guys did not mess around. By 4:30...the wall was GONE! Granted, they need to come back tomorrow and finish framing the out opening and plug up the gaping hole to my basement, but I am oh-so-happy with what's been done thus far.

Now, I expected to come home and find the bathroom pipes exposed  in the middle of the room, but lo and behold - a plumber magically appeared and moved them! (Okay, he didn't magically appear, but he was summoned by the contractors and made the problem disappear rather quickly.) However, I did come home to a big, fat mess. (Apparently they're coming with a shop-vac tomorrow.)

Can't wait for the rest to be done, although I expect to be doing a LOT of cleaning this weekend.

...my first snow as a homeowner.

I will start this off by informing/reminding the audience that even though I'm an urban girl, I grew up in Bucks Co., PA. While it was actually named after William Penn's home, Buckinghamshire, it more appropriately describes all the freakin' deer.  I grew up in an area that was equally suburban and rural. And when it snowed, it snowed. It would take me 15 minutes just to get dressed to go shovel the driveway. And then another hour or more to help do it.

Suffice it to say, I know snow. So when I looked out the window this morning and realized that there was about 3-4 inches of snow already, and it hadn't stopped coming down, I thought the prudent thing to do would be to go out and shovel before it go too bad. (Note - I have a raging head cold at the moment, so finding the motivation to actually get off the couch and go outside was nothing short of a Christmas miracle.)

I got out all my snow gear and got dressed. Took my handy new shovel (thanks Mom!) and headed out to brave the elements.

Apparently I thought I was going to be shoveling the entire street during a blizzard.

Ten minutes later I was back inside.

This is the entire area that I'm responsible for keeping clear:

Was so tempted to move my car into that open spot.

I've shoveled more snow off my parents' front porch. It took me longer to get dressed than it did to shovel my sidewalk. So I shoveled my neighbor's steps. And then a part of my other neighbor's sidewalk. Then I came back in and had to remove all the layers.

Now I'm going to curl up on the couch with my Slanket and a hot beverage, Netflix some "Spooks," and not shovel again until tonight. At which point I will probably just throw on a coat and boots.

Oh man, I just heard someone start up a snowblower. *sigh*

...my funny mom.

I have an unfinished follow-up to the wall paper post that I started on Sunday. My job is getting in the way of my blogging. *sigh*

In the meantime...yet another reason why my mother cracks me up. This is the tail end of a convesation my mom and I just had:

Mom: "Alright, I'll talk to you later. I have to go put out."
Me: "hee hee hee hee"
Mom: "I have to go re-stock. I can't say 'put out.'"
Me:  "hee hee hee hee"

This is almost as good as the time my grandmother announced to my mom and her friends that she got a hickey on her head.

...removing wallpaper. Or not.

A guide of things NOT to do when attempting to remove wallpaper.

1. Do not attempt to do any sort of manual labor after only consuming a mere 160 calories.

• This morning, I got up late and proceeded to go about my day shopping and running errands on an empty stomach. Baaad idea. No good can come of this. As a self-diagnosed "hypoglycemic," I should know better than this.
• When I finally did eat around 2:30, I filled up with...a can of soup. Then started to prep the bathroom for paper removal, which included removing a shelf system from behind the toilet (God only knows how they got it in there in the first place) - and this made me want to take a nap.
• Considering I didn't really do anything and was tired, I figured I was due for more food. A snack! A snack will do wonders! Filled to the brim with apples & peanut butter, I set off. It didn't work, 15 minutes into wall paper removal I was whiny and cranky and everything sucked. 

2. Do not attempt to remove wallpaper without reading up on the subject.

• Watching HGTV and TLC does not count as experience in removing wallpaper. I just went at it armed with a rented steamer, a very dangerous looking scoring tool, and a general idea of what to do.

The scoring tool is downright medieval.

And while I waited for the steamer to heat up, I "scored" the entire bathroom instead of testing a section that was somewhat out of sight.

• Somewhere along the way, I wasn't sure where the wallpaper ended and the sheet rock began.

3. Do not think that removing wallpaper is easy.

• Perhaps there are instances where this process is easy, but I had to go and try to remove textured AND painted wallpaper...that the aforementioned very dangerous scoring tool had trouble permeating.

After about an hour and the feeling that I was not only doing more damage than good, the bathroom was quickly becoming a "Project." I have enough Projects without adding a new one.

So as of right now, there's a bald spot in my bathroom. I have three options I'm willing to entertain - leave it as it and paint over it, cut a pice of wallpaper and put it up in the bald spot, or....put the damn shelf back and hope no one notices.

The bald spot.

...why my new house will not be home to children.

Aside from the fact that I just don't ever see myself reproducing (*shudder*), I apprently am not a baby-friendly person.

Exhibit A:
I tried to order woven blinds last night, and was told that I couldn't because the company wasn't taking orders due to a customer service issue relating to cord control and safety concerns. So owing to the fact that I didn't see any problems with the cords as they were...I'm apparently not baby-friendly.
(What? Do parents really not know how to keep a cord out of a baby's reach?? Come on. The sales lady and I bonded over this...her rationale, she survived just fine with cords the way they are. Right on lady. Right on.)

Don't do this.

Exhibit B:
I think this is fucking hilarious and I would totally use it. (I also have been trying to figure out a way to attach a swiffer to our cats' tails. What? I hate dusting.)


Baby Mop from Chris Milk on Vimeo.