One more step closer...

I mentioned in my last post that the hubs is going to be gone for some significant chunks of time this summer, and he leaves for the first chunk next week. There are a couple of things that "need" to be done around the house by him before he leaves, and he's been getting them crossed off the list this week. One of them that wasn't a need at all but we decided to tackle last night was the hanging of all frames and items on the walls of the nursery. I mentioned just yesterday in my post that I couldn't wait to see things start to go into their actual homes instead of being completed and then just set off to the side for an undetermined amount of time, and it was so exciting for that to actually start happening last night! Aside from really easily exciting me, it's also nice to have these things up on the wall for practical reasons; it's been a pain having things just propped up against walls and worrying about having to protect them from dogs/me knocking them over at some point.

There were only two walls that got stuff hung on them last night (just one more frame to be added later this summer on a different wall). The first is next to the glider.

I drew this charcoal giraffe in high school art (senior year, I think) and have loved having him hung up wherever I've lived since. There really wasn't a place in our house that made sense to put him, so he got stuck in the corner of the nursery soon after moving day. I figured that was a good place for him, and now that there's a color scheme and he matches it, I have to say that I still think that. He adds a little something fun. (Also, the serious observer will notice that we shuffled the furniture around slightly in this corner of the room, and this is where it will all most likely stay. That side table still needs to be painted, but very soon that should get crossed off the list.)

The other wall is one of my favorites in the whole room.

You're looking at the door out of the room there on the left, into the hallway and the bathroom across the hall. The huge blank spot under this little collage will be filled with dressers/changing table. They're missing right now because they're in the basement being primed as I type! (Oh so excited for this step...the biggest one on the hubs' list for before he leaves so I can paint while he's gone.)

I've gone into a lot of detail about the purpose and sentimental value of some of these pieces as I've created them, so I won't bore you by going into all those details again. The chalkboard verse from 1 Samuel is really personal to us and one that we've clung to in the last several months, and I love seeing it on the wall in all its glory.

The middle of the collage is unfinished, and will remain that way until after the baby comes. The top and bottom frame will be filled with pictures of the baby after he or she is born, but since I didn't want to leave them empty in the meantime I put some scrapbook paper inside as a place holder (with some green, of course). I described the reason behind the Kid President quote in the very middle of the collage yesterday, and I love that it's in such a central location where I'll see it all the time.

The last part of this little collage is another piece that I made several years ago...if memory serves me right it was right before I moved away to start my new job and live on my own for the first time. The piece of wood was a gift from my dad; it's chestnut, which is largely believed to be extinct as a species. One of my dad's patients had some from a demolished barn and gave some to my dad knowing that he loved woodworking and using different kinds of wood (especially rare and unusual wood like this). Unfortunately it was almost all too worm-eaten and destroyed to do much of anything with it, but it was perfect for an art project. I absolutely love the holes and the roughness to it and left it largely unchanged.

I painted the tree onto the wood first, and then added the buttons for some added texture and fun. The verse that I included on the bottom has become one of my favorites, and the entire tree/verse combination has been used many times for me as both wedding and baby gifts because I think it's so perfect for both scenarios.

"For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, which spreads out its roots by the river, and will not fear when heat comes; but its leaf will be green."

-Jeremiah 17:8

For both marriages and nurseries, this verse is so perfect. Heat will come; it says "when," not "if." And when it comes, I want my child to be firmly planted by the waters, which is Christ. It is our deepest prayer as we prepare for this child and others to join our family and reside under our teaching and leading. 

Also...it was a huge bonus that the tree had lots of shades of green in it to fit the ever-important color palette ;) 

We do have one other photo frame to hang, but it's not going to happen for a while. We also will need to hang the mobile someday, but again, it won't be for a while. So for all intensive purposes, we're done with hanging things for quite a while. 

Here's our nursery to-do list now: 

• 1 Samuel 1:27-28 chalkboard
• quote for inside side table frame
• hang all pictures 
• turn green bottle into a lamp
• recover lamp shade? new lamp shade?
• prime dressers
• sand side table
• sand cube organizer
• paint dressers white
• paint side table white
• paint side table drawer pull silver
• paint cube organizer
• make mobile for over crib
• paint metal pail for books
• clean out closet and closet drawers
• clean out dresser drawers
• line dresser drawers with contact paper
• organizers for inside of dresser drawers
• hem curtains and hang them...or new curtains?
• storage system and bins
• basket(s) for cube organizer
• get small lamp for changing table
• make/buy crib skirt
• metal trash can for diapers
• basket with liner for hamper
• shelf over storage system?
• new overhead light?
• art piece above changing table
• large frame for showers

It looks really long still, but once I get those dressers primed and the hubs goes out of town, I'll cruise through all the sanding and painting of the furniture and most of that list will get crossed off. Plus, I'll be the happiest mama in the world because I am so tired of the black, green, and yellow furniture all being where white should be! Can't wait, can't wait. (How many times have I said that now?) 

We're really glad...

Have you seen this Kid President video yet?

I watched it a couple weeks ago, and although the entire video made me smile/laugh/cry (like all his videos), there was one line in particular that really grabbed me. "We're really glad you're here." After the pain of losing Sam and the months of trying to get pregnant, this line resonated with me so much. It's so simply said, but so perfect. I knew I needed to put that line in the nursery somewhere.

Remember my nursery sketch I shared a while ago? It showed my plans for the frames that will be hung above the changing tables.

The canvas on the far left of the collage has been switched to the 1 Samuel 1:27-28 chalkboard, but the rest of the design is staying the same. I'll go into more detail on what the rest of the collage is once we hang everything, but I decided that one of those frames in the middle should be the Kid President quote. Front and center in the room, right where I'll see it about a thousand times a day (I'm just guessing).

I had a black 8x10 frame with a matted 5x7 opening. I went back and forth a couple times over whether to use the matte or not, and did plenty of experimenting with both sizes. As always, I did some playing around with fonts and materials and such, and had lots of fails. I knew I wanted to use some Washi tape if possible...but beyond that I didn't really have a plan.

I thought the mix of Sharpie pen, Washi tape, and colored pencils would be cool, but it really wasn't. After a few minutes of staring and pondering (which is always the most crucial part of my creative process, I've realized) I decided that simple is best.

I went with the matte, and blocked off the perimeter of the 5x7 piece of paper with the Washi tape.

Then I just grabbed a thick Sharpie and wrote. Simple and easy.

I have to say that after all these little art pieces and projects being done out of context, I'm excited for when we can see them start to come together. I feel like we're really close, and the last handful of really big projects just need to be tackled for the room to look so different. Can't wait!

Here's our nursery to-do list now:

• 1 Samuel 1:27-28 chalkboard
• quote for inside side table frame
• hang all pictures 
• turn green bottle into a lamp
• recover lamp shade? new lamp shade?
• prime dressers
• sand side table
• sand cube organizer
• paint dressers white
• paint side table white
• paint side table drawer pull silver
• paint cube organizer
• make mobile for over crib
• paint metal pail for books
• clean out closet and closet drawers
• clean out dresser drawers
• line dresser drawers with contact paper
• organizers for inside of dresser drawers
• hem curtains and hang them...or new curtains?
• storage system and bins
• basket(s) for cube organizer
• get small lamp for changing table
• make/buy crib skirt
• metal trash can for diapers
• basket with liner for hamper
• shelf over storage system?
• new overhead light?
• art piece above changing table
• large frame for showers

Let there be light

Last summer sometime, I acquired a green glass gallon jug (what's up, alliteration) for $5 from a thrift store. I honestly can't remember if I had a plan for it at that point beyond just sitting on my fireplace hearth, but eventually I saw some whiskey bottles turned into lamps on Pinterest. The fact that you can make a lamp out of basically anything works for me on so many levels: lamps are entirely too expensive, I have several places throughout the house that need lamps, and we have a ton of empty bottles. A ton. The green jug became the color inspiration for the whole nursery, and I couldn't wait to see it as an actual lamp rather than a jug sitting on a side table (which is a little depressing).

The key to any DIY project you're attempting for the first time is to practice on a gift for someone else so you can work out all the kinks by the time you make your own. So I made a lamp for my sister out of a whiskey bottle, using a lamp kit from Home Depot and a lamp shade that I already had from an old thrift store find. (I totally failed and forgot to take any pictures of the lamp kit I used, but it was a pretty basic one that cost about $15 including the separate lamp harp.) By attempting to make my sister's lamp, I discovered that I'm not really the person who successfully makes lamps. I'm the person who finds bottles and lamp shades and asks her husband to turn it all into a lamp. Because even though those directions on the lamp kit were pretty simple...it was literally like they were written in a foreign language to me. I don't know what happened, but a severe mental block was involved. In any case...we made a lamp.

The first step to turning your bottle into a lamp is to drill a hole for the electrical cord to go through. If it's a glass bottle, you're going to need a special glass drill bit. We found ours at Home Depot for $8; they had a variety of sizes and we picked one that was just slightly bigger than the cord so it wouldn't have too much room to slide around.

While the hubs drilled the hole, I sprayed water on the bit and bottle to keep it cool while the drilling took place.

I rinsed the inside of the bottle - the glass and water make it kind of funky - and let it dry completely in the sink. I don't have many pictures of the actual lamp-making process, but if you don't think the directions are written in a foreign language I think it's pretty straight forward.

I had a lamp shade hanging around - also a thrift store find from back in the fall - that I loved and thought would be perfect for this lamp and the nursery. After the hubs had finished it and I put the lamp shade on...it didn't quite work.

Lamp shades come in two different forms: the part that rests on the lamp is at the top and needs a finial to attach it to the lamp harp, or the part that rests on the lamp is at the bottom and doesn't need a finial or a lamp harp at all. You can decide whether to include the lamp harp or not, depending on the shade you choose, when you're making your lamp, but you can't change the shade itself. This shade needed to rest on top of the lamp harp, and that made it way too disproportionate to the lamp. I wasn't a huge fan of the brass switch and such showing under the lamp. So I went on the hunt for a cost effective alternative. The shade I'd gotten from the thrift store was a mere $3...and I knew that the likelihood of finding a lamp shade that was a color, shape, and size I needed for this particular room at another thrift store was pretty unlikely. You kind of have to luck into those things and I was eager to get this crossed off my list. So, WalMart it was. Ten bucks, which is more than 3 but less than buying from most other stores, and I had my perfect shade.

One more project crossed off the nursery list! Next up is priming the black dressers so I can paint them soon. In the next couple weeks, four huge pieces of furniture (including that yellowed side table) are all getting painted, and I literally cannot wait to see the effect they make on the room. Having all the mismatched furniture in there is really messing with my color scheme right now, and I'm excited for it to all match. (Plus, I'm excited for how busy it will keep me when the hubs is away for work for a couple weeks.)

Here's our nursery to-do list now. It's been tweaked a little bit as I've made some new decisions and changed my mind on some things, meaning that some of the things that have been crossed off haven't been completed but have instead been eliminated or decided against:

• 1 Samuel 1:27-28 chalkboard
• quote for inside side table frame
• hang all pictures 
• turn green bottle into a lamp
• recover lamp shade? new lamp shade?
• prime dressers
• sand side table
• sand cube organizer
• paint dressers white
• paint side table white
• paint side table drawer pull silver
• paint cube organizer
• make mobile for over crib
• paint metal pail for books
• clean out closet and closet drawers
• clean out dresser drawers
• line dresser drawers with contact paper
• organizers for inside of dresser drawers
• hem curtains and hang them...or new curtains?
• storage system and bins
• basket(s) for cube organizer
• get small lamp for changing table
• make/buy crib skirt
• metal trash can for diapers
• basket with liner for hamper
• shelf over storage system?
• new overhead light?
• art piece above changing table
• large frame for showers

The Great Gatsby: a brief review

taken from www.npr.org

Yep, this was one of the books that somehow slipped through the cracks of both my public education and my personal life. I bought it at some point because it's obviously a classic worth owning, but hadn't read it yet. I actually taught about this book while student teaching 7th grade Social Studies (as part of my master's thesis project, no less), but it turns out you don't need to have read the book to be able to tell some kids why it was important to the American art and literature scene. I think the fact that this is one of those books that everyone assumes I've read makes it that much more satisfying to cross it off my 94 book challenge. Because now people can assume away and it's actually accurate.

(Just in case someone reading this also hasn't read this American classic either:) F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby is narrated by Nick Carraway, who decides to become a New York broker and move into a house on Long Island, which just happens to be next door to Jay Gatsby's mansion. Nick soon becomes very aware of Gatsby's loud, spirited parties, where hundreds of strangers show up on a regular basis to enjoy his music, alcohol, and company. Everyone knows Gatsby, or at least feels as if they do, and have much information to supply about the mysterious man...whether any of it is actually true Nick can only guess. As time passes and Nick develops a strange friendship with Gatsby himself, the mysteries just seem to grow. When he reveals that he has feelings for Nick's (married) cousin Daisy, with whom he shares a past, things start to spiral out of control for everyone.

This book wasn't really what I expected. I'm not sure what I expected, just that this wasn't exactly it. I enjoyed it as a whole - some of the details of Fitzgerald's writing style frustrated me at times - and I felt very intrigued with what would happen next throughout the entire plot. It's a quick, fairly easy read if you're looking to add a little classic literature into your life, and as an added bonus it's a good read too. There is definitely much discussion about friendship, marriage, money, and the pursuit of power intertwined within the entirety of the plot, leaving you with some pretty distinctively clear answers by the end of the book. I wouldn't say I loved it, but I would recommend it for sure.

And just for kicks and giggles, here's the trailer for Leo's version (which I plan to see very soon):

Fangirl: a brief review

Guys, this is a little embarrassing. As someone who jumps at the chance to finish a book just so she can blog a review...this one somehow slipped through the cracks. Actually, I know what happened: it was a book I had read for Book Club, so when I finished it I didn't review it right away because I wanted to discuss it at Book Club first...but then I was too sick to go to Book Club that night and I forgot about the review completely. Not the end of the world, but hey. I read this book. I might as well share my thoughts about it, even if it's about three months later. (And because it's three months later, I'll probably be really brief.)

Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl introduces Cath on the day she and her twin sister move into college. After years of living in the same room and sharing all the same activities and friends, Wren has decided that she wants a random roommate for a chance to strike out on her own. Cath does her best to hide from all of campus and new experiences within the safety of her dorm room, despite her roommate's attractive friend's best attempts to show her around. Meanwhile, Cath tries to keep her biggest hobby/passion a secret from her new acquaintances: she is perhaps the biggest Simon Snow fan in the world. Such a huge fan, however, that she is one of the most popular fan fiction writer for the popular science fantasy series. As Cath tries to figure out how to balance a college campus, a new roommate, flirty boys, an advanced writing course, her Simon Snow fan fiction, separation from her sister for the first time in her life, and a father teetering on a mental breakdown back at home, she also learns much about herself as a young adult.

I enjoyed a lot of this book; the story of Cath navigating college life while also dealing with her personal life falling apart was great. I have to admit that first semester college freshman Andrea could relate quite a lot to Cath's fears of dining halls and new people. The family issues were really interesting, and the love interests were great. I just didn't get much out of the Simon Snow stuff. I hear that it was very similar to Harry Potter but since I still haven't read Harry Potter...I just didn't love it. In between every chapter was a snippet of either Cath's fan fiction or from a Simon Snow book. It was well written, just didn't really interest me. I think it was because there wasn't really any context for the snippets that were included...just random scenes that didn't mean anything to me. All in all though, I enjoyed the book. Not my favorite, but I would definitely read other books by Rowell. 

An Open Letter to my Book Club

Dear wonderful Book Club members,

This last book we chose has caused me to have some moments of reflection...not because of the book but because of my attitude towards the book. And even though this "open letter" is beyond cheesy and probably ridiculous, I thought that maybe there was a chance that other people could relate to at least some of what I've been processing through.

I was so excited to get this Book Club started up, and was from the first time the idea was proposed to me. But that first month when we read Fangirl, I put it off till the last week or so before our meeting, partially because I was deep into some library books with a limited time on my Kindle and partially because I told myself I wanted the plot of the book to be fresh in my mind when we talked about it. I ended up having to read the whole thing in basically one day, and had to stay up most of the night to finish it...and then after all that I didn't even make it to the meeting because of [at the time secret] morning sickness. The next month we chose to read Divergent, and I secretly saw it as a free pass because I'd already read it and didn't really feel like reading it again. I thought I'd be able to pull off having a conversation about it at our meeting, but realized pretty quick that I couldn't remember any of the details you were all talking about. I honestly can't remember if I said anything during that whole discussion that night. And then came Code Name Verity, which sounded like a great idea when it was brought up, but once I got home and let the fun of picking out a new book fade, that bad attitude started creeping in.

I've been blogging a lot since last summer about how I made myself the goal of reading through all the books (94 at the time) that I owned but hadn't read. I've been chugging along at that list pretty steadily, but then came New Year's and a whole new set of goals, including the goal to read 20 books on that list of 94 and 20 books not on that list. The addition of a library card into my life has made reading 20 books not on the list pretty easy...but meanwhile my own books are staring at me on my shelves not really being read. So I've been feeling pressure there. But then I saw a list of movies that are coming out this year that are all based on books and I thought "I should make myself another goal of reading all these books before I watch the movies," and even though it's a short list I have been feeling pressure to read them as well. And then right around the time I needed to start reading Code Name Verity, a book I'd been on a long waiting list for from the library arrived on my Kindle, which should have been exciting but instead really frustrated me. I had been waiting to read it, but had to release it back into the library universe for someone else because I had to read our Book Club book instead. Cue bad attitude/minor meltdown.

I launched into this incredibly selfish head space where I felt like having one book a month dictated to me was just too crazy to imagine. I've got all these reading goals hanging over my head (goals that I made up for myself...) and library books arriving when I can't read them and people constantly telling me "you should reach such-and-such book, it's really great!" and I already feel like I'm never going to get everything read ever...and then you're going to introduce a completely new book to me and tell me I have to read it every month?! Obviously, my new Book Club (that I've already confessed I've spent little to no real effort contributing to) should only ever read books that are on one of my multiple lists. Because then we're always being productive for me and I'm never wasting time on some book I've never even heard of. Seems fair, right?

Some honest insight into me: I can be really selfish and I can honestly feel as if the world revolves around me. And that during the moments in which it doesn't actually revolve around me, it should be fixed so that it does. IE: Book Club should only read books that are helpful and productive for me and my dumb personal reading goals. That's just ridiculous. Even in the middle of my meltdown, I knew it was ridiculous. Here are the thoughts I have now, the things I know to be true, now that I'm on the other side of that particular moment of selfishness:

1. Reading is supposed to be fun. I genuinely like reading, but nothing in my attitude as I just described it would suggest that to you. It's all about goals and crossing things off and being productive and feeling stressed. Sheesh. I tend to turn my hobbies into work, and that's no fun for anyone. Reading is fun, and reading goals are meant to be fun as well as put a little fire under me. If I get to the end of 2014 and haven't read all 40 books I challenged myself to, and if I watch a movie on that list without reading its corresponding book first, I'm pretty sure the world will keep spinning. It will really be okay. It's not a matter of life or death, it's about reading because I like reading. 
2. I joined the Book Club because I genuinely wanted to be in a Book Club. That's the truth! When I first heard about the idea of forming this thing almost a year ago, I thought it was the best idea ever. Because I do in fact love to read new books, and because I love making new friends and spending time with people who are different than me, and because maybe if we get to read some books I'd already had on my radar then yay for me. I didn't join it because I thought we'd only ever read books I wanted to read; I didn't join it so I could add more stress to my life. I joined it because I saw the value in it and I also saw the fun in it. 
3. I am really sorry. I hate it when I get on the other side of my selfishness and see how I've affected people around me. Maybe none of you care or even notice that I haven't shown up for two of the meetings, and maybe the noisy restaurant kept my silence during the Divergent meeting unnoticed. But maybe some or all of you are kind of annoyed with me and feel like I've been a deadbeat member so far. Either way, I need to apologize to all of you. I've made it all about me and that's not even close to fair. I didn't even read one of the books for our meeting and the other two were crammed into a day or two before the meeting. I haven't taken it seriously and I haven't been intentional about planning my time so that I can take it seriously. I know that this Book Club isn't - and isn't designed to be - the most important thing in our lives. We all have lives, we have friendships and significant others and jobs and homes and pets and a million other things. I'm not trying to say that I should have been making this club the most important part of my life...I'm just saying that I should have been making it important enough to do what was needed of me. I was trying to get by with the bare minimum and I wasn't even succeeding at that. So I really am sorry. 

Here's the thing: I let something that was meant to be fun slowly bring me to an immature meltdown. It happens. But it's done, it's over now, and I'm truly excited to read our next book (which is already on my Kindle and will be started with more than enough time). ;) I didn't write this for any reason other than just needing to be honest with you for a few minutes so I can move on with a fresh slate. I really do value this group and I value the friendships that will form because of it, so it was important to me that I be real with you.

Have a super happy Monday, and I'll see you all soon,
Andrea

Code Name Verity: a brief review

taken from Goodreads.com

This book came to me through my book club this past month. I did a horrible job of planning out my time - still getting the hang of reading books under a schedule for a designated meeting - and had an unexpected trip to my parents' house that got in the way of me even going to book club anyway, but I pressed ahead and finally finished it yesterday. I have to be completely honest: I'd never heard of this book before it was "assigned" and I had a little bit of a bad attitude about reading it (I'm planning a post that will delve into this bad attitude in a lot more detail). I have lots of conflicting thoughts about it now that I'm done, and I think that even as I type I'm still sorting through all those thoughts. So this should be good.

Elizabeth Wein's historical fiction novel Code Name Verity is the story of two young girls fighting for the Allies in pre-Normandy WWII. One is a spy and the other is a pilot, and their time together in training and fighting has made them best friends. When a simple flight turns into a near death experience that separates them, both girls are left to fend for themselves in the middle of occupied France. (I realize that's a really vague description, but that's intentional because it's hard to say much more without giving important surprises and details away. And the best parts of this book are the surprising details.)

Here are my really conflicting thoughts: I didn't understand the entire first half of the book. I genuinely didn't. The reader is thrown right into the middle of the plot with no information or context, which sometimes works really well and sometimes is just really confusing. This time, I personally felt really confused. I was confused by what was happening in the plot as well as what I was the actual content was: I can watch war movies all day long but I just cannot read about it. It all goes way over my head and I have no way of picturing what's happening or understanding the details. BUT, the second half was really great. And the farther you get into the book, the more everything starts to make sense. Even that super confusing first half. By the end of the 480-something pages, the light bulbs are all on and you realize how freaking brilliant the book is as a whole...but I still couldn't help but be frustrated by the fact that it took me that long and that many pages to get to that point. Because really, the book as a whole is freaking brilliant. And wonderful. And beautiful. But I have a hard time recommending it because of how long it took me to see the brilliant, wonderful beauty.

So here are my summed up thoughts: this is a beautiful book about friendship, loyalty, maintaining incredible decisions under stress, and some spunky 1940s era European girls. It's also a book you're going to have to be - if you're a reader like me, anyway - really patient with, and see through to the end. 480-something pages is a whole lot to feel like you need to be patient with, but I do think it's worth it. Because, like I said, it's freaking brilliant.

Homemade Laundry Detergent

Well folks the day finally came. When I shared the recipes I was using for all my homemade cleaners back in January, I mentioned that I had plans for a homemade laundry detergent as well...but I'd just started a whole new bottle of liquid detergent at the time and didn't want to waste it. I finally and officially ran out of that detergent today, so it was time to make my own.

 Ingredients:
1 cup Borax
1 cup Super Washing Soda
1 full bar of Fels-Naptha Laundry Bar and Stain Remover, grated

For the purposes of keeping my cleaning products and my food separate, I went ahead and purchased a separate grater and measuring cups/spoons. Since I bought them, and the glass container to house the detergent, all at the Dollar Tree, I felt like it was definitely worth the investment. It's just as simple to make the detergent as it sounds: just mix all three ingredients (I used a larger, different bowl just so it would be easy to really mix them up well) and you're done. The hardest part was grating that stupid car of Fels-Naptha...never thought I was going to get through it.

The mixture filled my cute little glass jar to the rim; I would have bought a bigger one if there had been one available to buy, and I'm glad it fit even though it was definitely cutting it close. Each load of laundry only needs one Tablespoon of the detergent, so I went ahead and tied the Tablespoon to the jar with some twine. And that's it!

The jar itself will make many loads of laundry (I would do the conversion to be more exact but the jar wasn't labeled to let me know how big it is. But I also have a huge supply of both Borax and Washing Soda left in those boxes, so all I will need is some more Fels-Naptha at some point in the distant future.

One more "yay" for homemade cleaning products!

Berryville, Year 1

One year ago yesterday (April 17, 2013) we officially moved into our Berryville house. We did a lot of moving ourselves in our cars in the days before (an hour and a half each way, multiple trips a day...glad we're not back there) but the actual moving truck came for the big furniture and the last of the things we couldn't fit in our cars. It was such a surreal day, as this big empty house actually became filled with furniture and our things. The house we'd fallen in love with suddenly looked like it was supposed to be ours, rather than just the vision of it being ours.

I've blogged about a lot of things we've done in and around the house since we moved in, but I thought it would be fun to use the anniversary of moving in to summarize and list all the projects we accomplished over the last year (generally in chronological order).

• painted the book room, kitchen/dining room, family room, laundry room/mud room, master bedroom, master bathroom, guest room, and nursery
• bought, put together, and installed two full walls of bookshelves in the book room
• switched from broom and dustpan to hard floor vacuum
• bought new couch and TV stand for the family room
• trimmed all trees on back property line
• trimmed and relandscaped the entire back property line 
• trimmed bushes in front of the house
• bought shelves, work bench, and organizers for the garage
• bought new washer and dryer 
• installed counter top on top of washer and dryer
• installed a new shower head in the master bathroom
• installed new towel bars and toilet paper holder in master bathroom
• dug a fire pit in the backyard
• reorganized the guest room/office
• bought a new grill 
• bought a glider for the nursery
• replaced sump pump
• hung pictures and paintings in the entire house
• moved Grandpa Potter's porch furniture to Berryville
• brought Grandpa Potter's dollhouse to Berryville
• finished many small craft projects like a jewelry board, chalkboard "verse of the week" kitchen sign, our "Moore" burlap photo sign, house number flower pot, new DVD storage baskets, bar stool end table, glass coffee table tray...
• painted all the wood in the laundry room/mud room, including the basement stair railing and spindles
• painted the front door baby blue
• (paid for someone to) fix both fireplaces and chimneys 
• bought a rug, crib, and pack-n-play for the nursery
• had our heat pump replaced and then fixed multiple times throughout the winter
• hung curtains in the master bedroom, family room, and book room
• switched to all homemade cleaning products
• installed water softener and filter
• installed generator and generator electrical panel
• reorganized the garage a second time, allowing space for my car
• fixed and redug the water trench in our front yard to fix its flow and prevent backup
• started small craft projects in the nursery, like the chalkboard scripture project, smaller artwork for the glider's side table, and the picture book bucket
• reorganized and emptied the dressers and closet in the nursery
• switched from Swiffer Wet to steam mop

This was a pretty productive and transformational year for the Moores here in Berryville, and that's mostly just because you can't help but be transformational when you first move in. We have an extremely detailed Excel spreadsheet with all our plans and ideas for each room of the house - to tackle gradually over many years - and we have the next couple years sketched out as far as the big projects we want to get crossed off each calendar year, but we will see. Nothing is set in stone, and I have a small feeling that this next Berryville year will be a little less productive on paper. With the hubs being out of town a lot this summer for work and, more importantly, the arrival of our first baby this fall, some of our house projects may need to get bumped. But like I said, we will see. You never know what you can accomplish with a couple of well-used Saturdays.

It's been a fantastic year here in Berryville, and we couldn't be happier with our move. Even though we really knocked out a lot of projects on the house this year, I know we only really scratched the surface on what Berryville and Winchester have to offer us and our family, and I think I'm the most excited to see what the next year brings us socially and personally.

Movie Trailers: Gone Girl and If I Stay

I woke up this morning and discovered that two new trailers had been released last night...two trailers I'm super over the moon about. I recently shared my enthusiastic and obsessive review of Gone Girl, and even though I read If I Stay a couple years ago before I started blogging book reviews, I am completely in love with that book. Here are both trailers, as well as a super brief plot summary:

Gone Girl:
A man comes home from work on his wedding anniversary to discover that his house has been ransacked and his wife is missing. As the search progresses and more clues are discovered, the most likely suspect seems to be the devoted husband...although few things are what they seem.

Movie release date: October 3, 2014

 

If I Stay:

A teenage girl gets into a horrible car accident with her family and finds herself to be the lone survivor. Although her body is in a life-threatening coma, her unconscious self wanders the hospital, mourning the deaths of her family members and watching as her friends and boyfriend grieve her own critical state. Caught between the pain of moving forward and the memories that she cherishes and replays, she much decide whether to stay or go. 

Movie release date: August 22, 2014

Stuff I Like: Steam Mop

Okay people. Time for another passionate installment of "Stuff I Like," and apparently I'm stuck on floor cleaning supplies. One of my friends lovingly pointed out that I may be in need of an intervention, except here's the thing: I have dogs. Big dogs. Big dogs who run all day long in the dirt and the mud. I have one who digs under the deck even though he's not allowed to and another one who thinks puddles were created just for him. I clean their paws on the obviously dirty days, but a lot of stuff gets carried in with them. And onto my wonderful floors. And I've watched my wonderful, freshly resurfaced hardwood floors slowly become dull and dirty and my tile become stained in the year since we moved in. And my stupid Swiffer Wet Mop could do nothing to help.

Enter, steam mop. Just like when I realized my broom and dustpan weren't cutting it, I did some research. I made a list of what wasn't working about my Swiffer Wet Mop, and a list of what I needed in a new toy. Here's, basically, that list:

• I was burning through 6 or 7 pads every time I mopped, which seemed like a waste of money. 
• There are spots on my tile that will. not. get. clean. They are almost exclusively in our laundry/mud room, which is also where the dog bowls are. Zuriel is a little sloppy about eating because of his Boxer underbite, and Captain is just a dunce who sticks his whole excited face in his water every time he drinks, and then drips water everywhere when he pulls his mouth back out. When they then walk through that mess and the tile gets dirty...it's become borderline impossible to clean. I scrub and scrub and SCRUB with my Swiffer and it just will not come off. 
• There are dog foot prints all over my hardwood floors that stare at me every time the sun hits them, and the Swiffer doesn't get them off either. 
• Every once in a while, the Swiffer leaves my floor sticky. It's not every time - which, by the way, is weird - but it does happen and it is super annoying and it doesn't make me feel like my floor is actually clean. 

My list and research led me pretty quickly to steam mops. The general thought process was that I loved for function of my hardwood floor vacuum, and if I could get a mop in that same format then yay for me. After reading some reviews and watching some instructional videos and comparing some prices, I decided on the Bissell PowerFresh Steam Mop. (And as an added perk for you, when I bought it yesterday it cost $83 and now it's apparently $79.)

A quick tour of the actual mop before I show you a couple of before and after shots.

The mop came with two removable microfiber pads that can be cleaned by throwing them in the washing machine. It also came with two fresh scent pods to stick in a pocket of the microfiber pad, but I didn't use them this time. I'm assuming they smell lovely, but I'm also assuming they don't last very long and are potentially a money pit I'm trying to avoid.

On the backside of the mop (the side facing you when you're using it), there's this little brush you can snap down in to a locked position for deep scrubbing. I tried it out and it didn't work as well as I wanted it to, but it might take some playing with.

When you plug in the mop, the light above the "steam level" button starts flashing. It stops flashing when the steam has heated up enough, and you can push the button to decide which intensity of steam you need.

The water reservoir; super easy to fill and I used one tank on my whole house.

And the verdict? This thing is fantastic. I told the hubs that it's life changing, and he said I was probably exaggerating. I'm telling you...I'm not. Everything on my list is fixed by this thing, which means I'm happier and cleaning days are happier and my floors are happier. Sounds life changing to me.

I mentioned that the worst floors in the house are the mud room. Most of the blame goes to the dogs' eating habits, but a lot of the problem is also that we use the back door to let the dogs in and out (except for when I'm especially lazy and let them in through the family room). When we don't take the time to clean their paws, a lot gets tracked in. It's better there than in our carpeted family room, but it's still not ideal. Now that all our own coming and going is through the garage, we track in a fair amount ourselves through the door leading to the garage, which is also in this space. The tile has seen better days, and has slowly gotten discolored in many spots because of dirt I just can't get up. Here are a couple attempts at before and after shots, although I will say they looked a lot worse in person.

The grout lines were the hardest, because the Swiffer just wouldn't get in those edges and clean the dirt out. A lot of the floor in this room looked like that. After some required fiddling to figure out how to properly use my new toy, I started to see some dramatic results. I used the scrub brush pedal to try to clean the grout lines, and it didn't really work so I just held the mop over a problem spot for about 20 seconds instead to see what happened (this is how the manual says to properly "sanitize" an area). It worked like magic. A couple spots needed to be hit like this a couple times instead of just once, but within a matter of minutes the floor was all the same color!

The rest of the floor just needed to be mopped like normal, and the steam did all the work. Even though this floor took some extra time and effort to get clean this time, I'm hoping that it will be easier to maintain and keep to a higher level of clean from week to week now that I have a stronger tool. I also got the microfiber pad totally disgusting because of how dirty this floor was, which I'm hoping isn't the case every week. They sent me two, though, so all was fine and I just swapped them out and did the rest of the house with the other pad.

And the rest of the house looks just as great. There weren't too many spots that needed to be given the extra time and attention the mud room needed, so it went quicker and I was able to just mop all the floors with a normal vacuum-like motion in not much time. All those dog foot prints all over the floor? Gone. Dirt spots that I'd thought were stains I was stuck with forever? Gone. The super annoying black dirt that's been in the corner next to my front door since 1970 that I've tried to clean so many times but couldn't ever get to come up? Gone. And the floor isn't sticky at all; in fact, it dries really fast.

How could you possibly beat something like this? All you need is water and an electrical outlet. Obviously, I'm sold. It does smell a tiny bit like the shoreline of Boothbay Harbor, Maine, when it's steaming for some reason, but since that's where we honeymooned I'm okay with that. And my sense of smell probably isn't reliable right now in my pregnant state. I should also probably, to be fair, share that it is a little heavy to actually push around. The mop itself isn't heavy, but when it's in its steaming glory and it's doing the work, there's a lot of friction there and it takes a little umph to push it along. I used two hands (one on the handle and one mid-shaft) for most of the house and by the end my back was feeling it, but my technique may need some finessing and I suppose it's possible I'm super weak. I'm also going to give it a little while and see if buying some extra microfiber pads isn't a good idea, just to have on hand (they're on Amazon as well and not expensive at all).

All in all, I'm pretty solidly sold on this thing. Captain is too, but that's mostly because it doesn't make any noise when it's working. (For whatever reason, my 75 pound dog who thinks getting punched in the face is fun has always been terrified of vacuums).

He's still a little unsure of it in this picture, when I had only done the mud room (hence, dog bowls in the kitchen). By the end of the next room, I was having to push him out of my way because he wanted to follow the mop and lick it...and he won't even go in the same room as a vacuum.

So yup. I wrote another love letter to a floor cleaning appliance of mine. But my floors are clean! Isn't that really all that matters?

A Nursery Book Bucket

Crossed another couple items off the nursery to-do list, one of which being a moderately annoying painting project (aren't they all somehow moderately annoying?). I had a metal bucket from our wedding that was collecting dust in our extra bedroom with no purpose, so naturally I found it a purpose in the nursery. The picture book bucket was born, but it needed some work first.

Here's the "before" picture of the bucket:

I liked it the way it was, and it fit the color scheme of the nursery perfectly...but I wanted it to have a little bit of extra umph. And fun. It is a baby's room, after all. I knew I wanted to paint either the inside or the outside green, and I went back and forth for a couple months over which would be best. I ultimately decided to paint the outside, but then I couldn't decide what the best way to actually paint it would be. Spray paint or craft paint by brush? The cheap side of me won out and I decided to use craft paint I already had.

I cleaned the inside and outside of the bucket with my stainless steel cleaner, just so the year and a half of dust and whatnot would be gone before I applied the paint. I didn't have a paint color that was what I wanted, so I mixed up a new batch of green.

There's the ratio of yellow to green (a dark green) that I used, and here's the finished color mixed.

Kind of Nickelodeon slime-y, isn't it? I made sure to mix quite a bit of the new color, since it's a moderately sized surface area and I knew there would be multiple coats.

The inside of the bucket, as you can see, is painted a glossy, smooth white. The outside, though, is a rough galvanized metal. I knew the first coat would basically be a weak primer and nothing more, serving as a base that would allow future coats to stick to the metal better. Coat 1:

Super rough. Gotta love those brush strokes. Coat 2 was a little bit better, but not a whole lot. Here you can see the difference between Coat 2 (on the right side of the seam) and Coat 3 (on the left side of the seam).

I thought (really hoped) that Coat 3 would do the trick, but when I woke up this morning and came out to the family room, all kinds of brush streaks greeted me on my dried bucket. Rats. Thankfully, though, Coat 4 was definitely all it needed (and a good thing too, because I think I was going to call it quits by that time anyway). It's not perfect, and there are a couple of spots where you can see a brush stroke or imperfection of some kind, but I'll take it.

Isn't that a great color? I love it. It would have/could have been done at that point, except I noticed when I was cleaning the bucket that the whole bottom was scratched up and looked dirty. I really could have just left it, since the bucket will be filled with books most of the time, but I wanted to at least look for a solution first. The solution came in the form of some printed contact paper from WalMart. At $6 per 36 square foot roll, it was hard to pass up.

It's not grey, and there isn't much beige in the room at all, but I decided it was okay for a couple reasons. It's still a neutral color, there's a lot of white in the print to balance it out, there's a tiny amount of beige in the rug, and I plan on introducing a couple baskets into the room eventually, which are kind of beige-y in color. Sounded good to me.

I used the bottom of the bucket to trace the shape I needed on the contact paper and then cut it out.

I put the contact paper in the bottom of the bucket, and like I suspected it was just a hair too big (the bottom of the bucket doesn't account for the walls of the bucket, which would make the size just a smidge smaller). I trimmed just the slightest amount off the entire circumference of the circle and tried its fit again. Perfect. All that was left was to take the paper backing of the contact paper off and put it in, sticky side down (duh).

There were some (many) air bubbles in the contact paper despite my efforts, so all I needed to do was poke tiny holes in each of them with a needle and press the air out. It's like they were never there.

If I had it to do over again, I think I should have splurged on the spray paint. It would have saved me time (probably wouldn't have needed 4 coats), it would have covered even more evenly in the end, and it really wouldn't have cost me more money in the end because even though I used paint I already had, I used a whole lot of it and I'll need to replace it at some point. That being said, I'm still happy with how it turned out and I think it's super cute. And now I have the contact paper that I'll use to line the dresser drawers after I paint them!

Here's the nursery to-do list now:

• 1 Samuel 1:27-28 chalkboard
• quote for inside side table frame
• hang all pictures 
• turn green bottle into a lamp
• recover lamp shade? new lamp shade?
• paint dressers white
• paint side table white
• paint side table drawer pull silver
• make mobile for over crib
• paint metal pail for books
• clean out closet and closet drawers
• clean out dresser drawers
• line dresser drawers with contact paper
• organizers for inside of dresser drawers
• hem curtains and hang them...or new curtains?
• storage system and bins
• get small lamp for changing table
• make/buy crib skirt
• metal trash can for diapers
• basket with liner for hamper
• shelf over storage system?
• new overhead light?

Some Words on Cleaning

I promise I won't tell you about every single tiny thing I do in the nursery from here to October, but I can also promise that I'll most likely end up telling you about almost everything. (At least I'm being honest.) Yesterday I decided to tackle one of my monthly cleaning chores, "reorganize a drawer or closet," in the nursery. It was a pretty intentional decision, since cleaning out the closet and dresser drawers in the nursery were also on a different list. Kill two birds with one stone? Yes please.

Because this room has been unused until now, and since these dressers have been used for random extra storage in our guest room since we got married, there was a fair amount of cleaning out that needed to be done. The dresser drawers looked something like this:

One drawer had random nursery and baby stuff just stuffed inside, two drawers had old t-shirts of mine that I had one day planned on turning into a blanket, one drawer had some place mats hiding, and another drawer was stuffed full of garage rags that the hubs has been looking for since we moved (whoops). The rest of the drawers were empty.

I started with the t-shirts, and made three piles: "donate," "keep," and "hide in a different drawer in a different empty bedroom for another couple years because I can't bear to get rid of them yet but I know I won't wear them." What can I say? I'm not that strong. I moved all the shirts out of the room and into their respective new homes, and then moved the rest of the items out of the dresser. The garage rags were moved to the hall closet (to be better organized a different month), the place mats were moved to the cabinet in the kitchen where the rest of the place mats are, and the drawer of baby stuff got better rearranged. None of the drawers are organized yet, but 7 of the 8 drawers are empty and the only things in the dressers at this point are baby-related.

The closet, before I started cleaning it out, looked like this:

First, I need to say: aren't our closets amazing? That's original, 1970 cedar lining and built in drawers, ya'll. So cool. 

When we moved into the house, we knew this room would be the future nursery; it's the closest to our bedroom, and it's the smallest of the four bedrooms. Because of that, though, a lot of stuff that would one day belong to our kids was kind of thoughtlessly stuck in this closet. It was nice because we could close the doors and at least hide it, but I always knew the time would come when it would have to be addressed. I started by isolating the items that were more for "kids" and less for babies (my American Girl doll trunk and furniture, the Finding Nemo pillow) and moved them into the next empty bedroom's closet. I pulled all the blankets down from the shelf and separated them into two piles: blankets that needed to be moved to the blanket chest in the family room and ones that made more sense to stay in the nursery. Those got put into one of the drawers in the closet.

All that was left after that was just pulling out some other random things that had been stuck in there, like the large framed drawings the hubs did during high school that we hid in here because one of the pieces of glass is broken. The teddy bear and stuffed dog (really special and sentimental stuffed animals of my childhood) were put in the crib, the bag of random baby stuff we picked up from the people who sold us the crib got put into a tiny organized pile, and some of the larger crib and pack-n-play pieces got pushed over to one side of the closet. I also put the pack-n-play itself in the closet to hide it, since it wasn't really fitting the room's aesthetic standing up in the corner. Here's the the emptied and cleaned out closet.

It's nowhere near finished, and organization will come later just like in the dressers, but for now I feel like I can breathe a little better knowing everything is only where it should be. It will also be easy to put more things in there as we accumulate them, and not feel like the middle of the floor has to be the holding place.

As an afterthought, I did remember that I had a hanging shoe organizer in my "donate" pile, and grabbed it for this closet. I'm thinking it will be an excellent baby clothes/stuff organizer.

The nursery to-do list now looks like this:

• 1 Samuel 1:27-28 chalkboard
• quote for inside side table frame
• hang all pictures 
• turn green bottle into a lamp
• recover lamp shade? new lamp shade?
• paint dressers white
• paint side table white
• paint side table drawer pull silver
• make mobile for over crib
• paint metal pail for books
• clean out closet and closet drawers
• clean out dresser drawers
• line dresser drawers with contact paper
• organizers for inside of dresser drawers
• hem curtains and hang them...or new curtains?
• storage system and bins
• get small lamp for changing table
• make/buy crib skirt
• metal trash can for diapers
• basket with liner for hamper
• shelf over storage system?
• new overhead light?

Yeah...I added a couple things. I'm entirely sure I'll be adding things along the whole process. The hubs saw me writing things down the other day under the heading "Nursery," and started talking to the dog about how I have an infinite list for a room that's only so big. We'll see, babe.

One other thing I wanted to address is my updated weekly cleaning schedule. I mentioned a couple weeks ago that I had switched up my monthly and bi-yearly cleaning schedule to be more intentional with the things that often go unnoticed and missed. It's been really helpful making that switch, and after talking to the hubs a little bit I've decided to switch up my weekly cleaning schedule too. I'd always been more attracted to the weekly Cleaning Day, where it all gets done at once and I don't have to think about it the rest of the week. Looking ahead, though, that's going to probably be pretty unrealistic to maintain once I have a newborn/infant/toddler. It makes a lot more sense to break it up in between days and do a couple things every day rather than trying to do 20 on one day. (In all honesty, sometimes I don't do things on my list because I don't feel like it or because I'm overwhelmed...and that's going to be harder to get away with when I know I only have a couple things to clean that day.)

So here's the new plan:

Monday: 

• grocery shopping
• clean coffee pot and parts
• vacuum carpet
• vacuum hard floors
• mop if needed
• dust

Tuesday:

• clean dog beds and blankets
• clean couch

Wednesday:

• clean back door
• laundry 
• get all cobwebs
• dust baseboards

Thursday:

• clean dog bowls
• clean bathrooms
• wash bath mats
• vacuum carpet
• vacuum hard floors
• mop
• wash sheets and towels

Friday:

• clean out fridge
• clean stainless steel
• clean stove top
• clean sink
• dust

Some of the days that have a lot less were intentionally designed that day because of what my weekly schedule looks like outside of the house (I work Wednesdays mornings in Manassas, for example, so I knew I wouldn't have a ton of time to do a lot, but laundry is very doable). I'm excited about this switch, and I think it will help me keep the mentality of maintaining a clean house, rather than checking out until "cleaning day." And by practicing and getting all the kinks knocked out now, it should hopefully be that much easier to keep up once the baby comes.