Born Confused: a brief (book club) review

taken from wikipedia.com

This was a book chosen for the book club I'm in, and since we don't meet for a couple weeks I'll be extra brief with my review.

Tanuja Desai Hidier's Born Confused tells the story of Dimple Lala's summer vacation following her junior year in high school. She enters the summer highly insecure, linked to only one good childhood friend, and very confused about who she really is. As a first generation American, she feels too American at home with her parents and too Indian at school with her peers. A busy, hectic summer takes place, launching both Dimple and her best friend Gwyn into unfamiliar and exciting new relationships, experiences, and identities. By the end of the summer a lot has changed for everyone in Dimple's life, but probably most of all for Dimple.

I liked this book; it's not my new favorite and I don't know that I'll read it again, but I definitely liked it. I thought it raised some really interesting sources of discussion, and even though some of the basic plot I had some real issues with - which I'll save for book club and/or if you want to discuss them with me since most of them would be spoilers - I really did enjoy the book. I recommend it...although I will have to warn you that it's a hefty 500 pages long. Eek.

A Whole New Entryway

When we reorganized the garage early this spring and could finally fit my car in there, we stopped using the front door altogether and did all our coming and going through the garage. The hubs parks his truck in the driveway but he uses his garage door opener to come in that way. Suddenly, the piano bench I've had in our entryway was a little obsolete; there was nowhere to put our keys, nowhere to drop my purse, and nowhere for the hubs to dump his hats, badge, etc. It was all getting dumped on my kitchen island, which didn't make me too happy.

I took a look at the little walkway that had become our new entryway, and tried to see if I could fix the situation.

My apologies for the bar stool that is in the foreground...It seems that at the time this picture was taken I had been using the bar stool as a stand for my laptop so I could listen to a movie while painting something (I'm almost always painting something).

So this is what I was working with, though. The basement stairs railing is to the left as you walk through the kitchen doorway, so there's just enough space in between the railing and the walkway for a narrow table or bench. I tried the piano bench we already had in the original entryway, and it was too wide, so it would need to be a really narrow table or bench. I also needed a place for us to hang coats and such, since the kitchen island bar stools weren't my favorite choice for that either.

I kept my eyes peeled for a cheap table or bench, and couldn't have been more excited when I noticed during a trip to visit my parents that their old entryway table was being stored in my childhood bedroom because they had no use for it anymore. It was narrow enough, and it was free. Score and score.

I love wood pieces in our house but after spending so many hours painting all the wood in that room white I couldn't leave this guy his original wood. We decided on Behr's Bicycle Yellow paint, a bright yellow that's enough on the paler side to not be too obnoxious.

When I put the first coat on, I thought for one of the first times ever that we had made a horrible mistake with paint choice. I was already pretty invested at this point though so I put the second coat on and was happy with the end result.

And it's a perfect fit in that space! Doesn't stick out into the walkway, doesn't hang over the end of the railing and into the walkway to the rest of the room...I literally couldn't have custom made a table that fit more perfectly. It needed a little bit of organization, though, because just tossing things haphazardly onto the top of that table would probably send our items over the edge, through the railing and to the concrete basement floor below.

I took a small wooden bowl off of my bookshelves - it hadn't been serving any purpose other than decorative - to hold our keys, and added a plant for aesthetics. The plant is struggling...but then so are all my plants. The basket on the shelf below held dog leashes until we got the coat rack set up; it will hold winter hats and gloves now. The plastic basket on the ground holds our shoes. I get really annoyed with shoes scattered in plain sight, and just having them all lined up under the table would make it hard to clean the floors. I found this basket at Home Depot for $10, and it's perfect; it's big enough to hold multiple pairs of shoes and the fact that it's plastic means that it will hold up well against dirty shoes. It will also be easy to clean.

Now for the coat rack. We have a open stalled barn in our backyard that we use for wood storage, and the hubs fantasizes about burning it down someday after he's built a new barn in a more ideal location in the yard. I snagged some boards from the walls of the barn and painted them for the structure of the coat rack. I considered leaving them wood but decided against it for the same reason that I painted the table, as well as the fact that the grayed hue of the wood didn't pop very much off of the dark gray walls. I wanted the yellow table to be the only significant color pop - didn't want to have color overload in such a small space - so I painted the boards the same white as the trim and the railings I had painted.

It took three coats but they went quick the wood looks good by the end of it. Next, I needed knobs. I went to Hobby Lobby, which thankfully had a 50% off sale on knobs and drawer pulls so I was able to get $50 worth of knobs for $25. Not too shabby; it made it a lot more fun since I didn't feel like I had to skimp on fun knobs to save money.

How fun are they? I figured that with two boards, five knobs per board made sense. The two big brown knobs aren't actually knobs at all; they're finials from a curtain rod we used in our old house that I kept just in case I could use them someday. At that point, all we had to do was figure out what layout of knobs I wanted and have the hubs do all the hanging. (Captain helped.)

And the finished product?

We decided to put the rack on the bottom down there as more of a long term plan, so our kids can hang their own coats and bags as well. In the meantime, I like how it fills the wall and adds some interest to the whole space. With the racks up, I was able to move my purse and the dog leashes to their new homes, off the table.

When this project was just a figment of my imagination and not in real life yet, I had worried about whether hanging coats and such on such a shallow wall would impede the walkway. I really didn't want that, but I took the gamble and hoped it would work out okay. It's awesome that it's now up and I can see that that won't be a problem.

I love it! Such small and easy changes to make such a huge difference in the functionality of our home.

Deck Reno Stage 1, Part 2

Friends, family, strangers: this latest project I'm about to share with you absolutely sucked. I officially did not enjoy it. The majority of it was done in 90+ degree heat and lovely Virginia humidity; I thought it would take a long weekend but instead it took 26 days; I thought I'd be able to happily and blissfully use a roller but only a paint brush would do the trick. It was unpleasant, it was not what I bargained for, but it has definitely been worth it. (And I can say that now, now that it's done.)

I shared Part 1 of our Stage 1 deck renovation about a month ago, showing the befores and afters of our built in flower boxes. Part 2, painting the deck, started at the same time but just took a whole lot longer. I explained last time that we have had strong negative feelings towards our deck since day 1, and were planning on replacing it next summer with Trex decking and a whole new layout, but after another glance at the prices we had to be honest with ourselves and put it off a couple more years. But we did think that painting the deck in the meantime would be the way to go, both to make it look a little bit prettier and to stretch its life a couple more years. When we saw Behr's Deck Over at Home Depot, we figured that was the obvious way to go. It's actually intended to make your wood look like Trex, filling in cracks and smoothing out the rough surfaces, so we thought it would be a nice trial run. We picked colors that matched what we were imagining for the actual deck renovation so we could see if we liked them, and got to work.

First, though, here are some before shots.

Because the wood has been exposed to the elements for who knows how long without any kind of stain or paint, there's a lot of chipping, chunks missing, cracks, and mold stains everywhere. Here's a shot of one of the worst hand rails.

One of my least favorite features of the deck is the weird and sudden slant in the floorboards halfway down the length of it. Our guess is that whoever built the deck just didn't measure very well and when one end of the deck met the other end they realized the floorboards didn't match up and they just did a little slant to make them meet up...and to make you trip every time. You really can't even see it if you're walking towards it, so it's a real killer. Just terrible design all around.

Despite being ugly, it's just not a very welcoming part of our house. The wood was too rough and splintery to walk across without shoes, you don't want to lean on or touch the hand railings, and the whole thing just feels dirty. Painting it seemed like the best way to give the whole space some new life and buy us some time.

The first step was to power wash the deck. Behr sells a cleaning product designed to be put down before the Deck Over, but it specifically said no to use it on unstained wood and since you can see that our deck is very much unstained so we decided to just power wash it instead.

My parents were generous enough to give us their old power washer when they purchased a new one this year, which I have to admit gave me some mixed feelings since on the one hand it was one less thing to have to buy for ourselves but on the other hand gave me flashback tremors of all the summers I had to power wash my parents' house, shed, and workshop. But in any case, it was extremely helpful.

It didn't really take all that long to clean the whole deck and railings; it was so long ago I can't remember for sure but if I had to guess I would say about three hours. If you've never power washed old wood and seen the difference it can make, it's pretty incredible. Here's a before, a during, and an after shot of that really bad hand railing I showed earlier.

What you have to be careful about with power washing wood, though, is that if you don't cover it with new stain or paint as soon as it dries, you're actually just opening the wood up to more mold and damage from the elements. Since we knew we'd immediately be painting, we weren't too concerned about that.

One other quick step we had to accomplish was to secure the railings a little bit more firmly. They were very wobbly, and you didn't necessarily feel too safe leaning up against them. We used some simple L brackets to secure them to the deck floorboards. They're very solid now, and even though the hubs was kind of bummed about how ugly this particular solution is, we planned on just painting over them and crossing our fingers that they would blend in somewhat. 

 
Once the prepping of the project was done, we waited for it to dry (almost no time at all in this crazy heat, let's be serious) and then started painting. We started with the railings; we used a different color on the floorboards and didn't want to have to worry about drips or mistakes while painting one color over another finished color. If we had drips or spills on this deck the way we did it, we just painted over it later with the floorboard color.

I had big dreams of using a small roller to paint all the spindles on the railings, since the spindles are gloriously square instead of cylindrical. After about twelve seconds of attempting to roll, though, we realized it just wasn't going on thick enough to fill any of the cracks and we'd have to brush it all. Such a bummer, guys. Those railings took forEVER, and when we rolled the floorboards several days later and discovered that that wasn't filling any cracks either it was an even bigger bummer.

Here's a shot of the difference between the first, rolled on coat and the second, brushed on coat (the rolled is on the left and the brushed is on the right).

You're able to just put it on so much thicker with the brush, and the cracks are actually filled instead of highlighted by the paint around them. It took forever, but it just made way too much of a difference to not take the time and do it right. 

All total, we did one thick brushed coat on the railings, one rolled coat on the floorboards and one thick brushed coat on the floorboards. Hence why it took so long. Are you aware of how much surface area a deck is made up of? So much more than you'd think. Behr does recommend two coats on everything, but it went on the railings so thick and covered so well we felt confident about our decision to save us some time and pain (and money) by just doing the one. The floorboards get the most wear and tear anyway, so that made more sense to do the two coats there.

Now that it's all done, here are some after shots.

You might have noticed that we chose to paint the tops of the hand railings in the same grey/blue color of the floorboards. We went back and forth over what color to paint them, but in the end decided to do the darker color because people's hands would potentially make the white dirty. We love the end result, and think it definitely has done its intended job of making the whole space more attractive while also giving the deck some protection for the next couple years. Now that we've done it, though, we've learned a couple things:

• The grey/blue color is not at all what we thought it would be. We like it, but we had been picturing much more of a darker grey/muddy brown color. When we get the Trex decking done we will pursue a color more like that. 
• The color of the floorboards, aside from being different than we'd pictured, is entirely too light for function. IE: it rained and the dogs walked through the yard and then walked across the deck in their slightly muddy feet and stained the deck. Like, permanently and actually stained it. Just like that. We scrubbed it with a microfiber rag, and the hubs even got the power washer back out and tried that, and those footprints are here to stay. And they're kind of everywhere. It's a little bit deflating...but it's also a temporary solution and we know that. I'm keeping it all in perspective. Because I suppose there are worse things in life than muddy footprints. But again: in the future we will definitely be pursuing a darker, muddier color that will hide their footprints. 

Overall, we're very excited with the end result. It's so much better than what was there, and it's been a great learning experience. All total, we ended up having to get 3 one-gallon cans of the white paint and 1 five-gallon can of the grey/blue paint, totally about $300. It's still a chunk of change, but much less than a whole new Trex deck so we see it as a good investment for the next couple years.

Now that that's done and crossed off the list, here's the updated to-do list for outside:

-trim all bushes and trees on back property line
-trim bushes in front yard
-dig out drainage ditch in front yard
-replace shed
-paint trim on back door
-repaint back door
-hose holder in front yard
-hose and hose holder by back door
-black barn trim pieces for garage door
-relandscape front beds
-tree in front yard
-rock beds with landscaping around back of house
-fix fence
-power wash fence
-repaint fence
-plant flowers in deck flower boxes
-fix up wood storage area on deck
-build new wood storage/barn
-organize new shed
-reorganize garage
-move storage unit from garage to shed
-clean deck wood
-repaint deck and railings
-lattice under decking
-build garbage can storage
-level off shed's ramp
-paint shed's ramp
-bury drainage pipe in front yard
-new shed for bikes?
-driveway redirect of driveway to bike shed?

Eventually:
-new deck
-lattice under decking?
-new furniture for deck
-build permanent fire pit
-roof over portion of new deck

The Relocation of the Bed

When I was in middle school (I think it was middle school anyway), my dad and I built me a new bed. It's made out of oak (...a lot of oak) and we put four drawers in it to replace my dresser. When we started the planning process of making the bed, I requested that it was so tall that I needed a step stool to get up into it. Dad did not deliver on that account, but it was kind of a ridiculous request considering the half walls my bedroom was made out of. This bed, guys, is HEAVY. It's literally almost solid oak from the mattress to the ground, with the only negative space coming from the drawers themselves.

Between the weight and the extreme difficulty that came with putting it together, Dad made it very clear all those years ago that he would move it exactly once, and I needed to choose wisely. I chose this house, and Dad, my brother and the hubs put it all together and in place in our spare bedroom. We figured that room made the most sense, since the plan is for future kids to move out of the nursery and into that extra room as new kids arrive. Having the bed already in place for when the little one inside me gets old enough is kind of cool...and having an extra bed in the house for visitors in the meantime is always an added bonus.

Because of the drawers, we were a little bit limited in where we could put the bed to maximize future furniture layouts. We can always move it later on, but that wouldn't be the most enjoyable task so this might be where it stays forever. It's so fun to have it here with me again, and I'm excited to think about my kids (or one of them, I guess) sleeping in it in the future.

After the two hours it took to put it all back together, it was kind of decided by all that this bed would be sold with the house whenever we move again. I'm telling you guys: it's not fun to deal with this thing. But it's here, and that's what matters for the next 10 to 15 years.

The Time Traveler's Wife: a brief review

I think I've already mentioned at one point that I realized about a month ago that I'm doing a pretty bad job of keeping up with my reading goals for 2014. I thought I was doing pretty good...but then I actually looked at the numbers and I'd only read like 14 books out of 40, and it was the middle of May at the time. I definitely (always) want to keep my personal goals in check and see them for what they are - personal goals, for me and no one else - but I would like to at least step up my game if I need to. So I sat down with a hand drawn calendar and sketched out my new specific monthly reading goals, making sure to include plenty of books from my 94-book challenge and from other sources to even out my total 40 book goal. It's not all set in stone, and it definitely isn't something I'm holding myself to like a law; it's just a guide to make my guessing game a little easier each time I finish a book, and to keep me motivated when I'm in the middle of a book.

After rereading The Fault in Our Stars, the first book on the list for this month is Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife. I've never seen the movie and obviously hadn't read the book, and yet it surprised me how little I knew about the basic plot once I started reading. Henry and Clare are happily married and living their lives together in Chicago in the 1990's and 2000's, but Henry's rare ability to travel through time has made their relationship anything but normal. He can't control when he leaves the present and he can't control where he shows up, causing all kinds of chaos for the people in his life. Henry travels mostly backward in time, visiting Clare at earlier moments in their marriage, earlier moments in their dating relationship, and earlier moments in Clare's childhood. For her, Henry has always been a part of her life as he comes and goes at varying ages and she patiently waits until she's old enough and their lives converge in live time.

I'm not gonna lie: it took me a while to get in the groove of the time travel concept. I thought it seemed pretty straight forward until I started actually reading and Henry jumped from age 43 to age 25 to age 32 and Clare is 5 and then she's 14 and then she's 33 and then she's 26...and keeping up with what's "real life" and what's a time travel....and to make it even slightly more confusing the book isn't written in much of a chronological order so you're bouncing around even more than Henry and have to remember what you've read already that might relate to what you're reading now. It would probably be impossible if not for the fact that the author tells you the exact date and both Henry and Clare's ages at the start of each scene, but a lot is still left up to your memory as you fit together the puzzle pieces of their lives. It took a while but I did kind of get the hang of it eventually. I liked this book a lot; it kept me pretty engaged throughout the whole thing (which, by the way, was way longer than I thought it would be) and it's definitely written in a way that makes you hungry for the pieces of their puzzle that are alluded to but left out till later in the book. Mostly, throughout the whole thing I just kept thinking about how much it would suck to have Henry's unfortunate "gift."

It was a good read, and I definitely enjoyed it. I will say though - just because I always feel like I have to - it's definitely an adult book with adult language and scenes. Just so you're warned. 

The Fault in Our Stars: a brief review (of a reread)

taken from wikipedia.com

I first read this book almost a year and a half ago. It was my first John Green book and it was before I started my 94-book challenge and therefore before I started blogging my book reviews again, so there's no review of it on here. I just finished rereading it for book club and for the trip to the movies I have planned with my sisters and mom at the end of the month, and figured it deserved some blog recognition since it didn't get any last time.

I really love this book. The super prideful part of me wants to make sure you understand that I loved it before it became a movie and that I love it despite it being a movie; the prideful part of me wants to be clear that I loved it before it became the flavor of the month (literally) that it is right now. But honestly...who cares. I love this book, so there. I love both this book and the only other John Green book I've read so far, Looking for Alaska, and I fully plan to love more of his books as soon as I can. His writing is witty and hilarious and painful and emotional. Yes, he does seem to have a tragic kind of theme going on with his work but he does it so stinking well that you laugh just as much as you cry. Maybe even more. I think he's a truly incredible writer, and I really love this book.

You'd be hard-pressed to not have seen a trailer for the movie yet, and therefore probably know the plot, but just in case: 16-year-old Hazel has cancer. It's in her lungs, and she has an oxygen tank that goes everywhere with her. There's no cure for her particular brand of cancer, but she's had a miracle or two and an experimental drug is helping keep her alive longer. When she meets charming and clever and extremely attractive Augustus Waters at a kids-with-cancer support group, the majority of her world is flipped upside down. They become friends and eventually more than friends as they weigh topics and life circumstances far too harsh for their teenage selves.

Yep, if you read this book you will most likely cry. Yes, a book about kids with cancer sounds super depressing and upsetting and like something to avoid. I'm telling you though: it's good. It's sweet and smart and so funny and surprising and, yes, at times it is quite painful. But above all, it's good. And I highly recommend it.

Introducing Rosie!

I shared a photo on Instagram and Facebook earlier this week of a sweet little face that I said is now a member of our family. A sweet little face that makes us the owners of three sweet little faces, one of which is already an over-sized handful by himself. This may seem like an odd choice for a couple who is 23 weeks pregnant with their first baby, but a whole lot of thought and prayer took place in the last couple months and when the opportunity to snatch her up came along it seemed like the perfect answer.

At our friends' house, before bringing her home

The dilemma started last summer when we were pregnant with Sam and thought we were starting to notice some decline in Zuriel. He's 7 and a half years old, which doesn't sound like reason for concern but the average age for Boxers is only 8-10 years and he's never been 100% healthy. We knew that if something happened to him we would need to get another dog almost immediately because of how hard it would be on Captain. He'd be miserable, and he'd probably in all honesty drive me insane because he needs an outlet so badly. When we got pregnant with Sam the discussion started because I didn't want us to find ourselves in a situation where we were having to get a puppy for Captain while I had a newborn. Scratch that: I refuse to have a puppy and a newborn at the same time. (Keep in mind that my only newborn puppy experience is Captain, and that was the epitome of an unpleasant experience.) But time passed, we lost Sam, and Zuriel is still with us a year later. It definitely seemed like we jumped to a worst case scenario last time...except...now Zuriel is a whole year older, and he has slowed down so much Captain was losing his mind. Zuriel just can't keep up with Captain anymore - not for lack of trying - and even though they still do their fair share of running around and antagonizing the neighbor's dog, it's not enough for Captain. He was getting antsy, barking all the time and struggling to get any of his energy out. I took him on long walks to wear him out as often as I could, which helped Captain but made Zuriel jealous because of all the extra attention his brother seemed to be getting (dog politics are rough). We started talking about whether we needed a third dog for Captain again, and got an elderly dog panel done on Zuriel to get a better idea of how he is really doing health-wise. The results didn't tell us much: "some of his numbers are higher than they should be and some of his numbers are lower than they should be, but we're not concerned about. There are crystals and a high pH in his pee but we don't know why so we recommend getting the test done again in 6 months." (This is where I don't say how I feel about vets and they money they take from me for such little results.) So we didn't really have any more direction, and we continued to have the back and forth, round and round discussion of all the possible pros and cons we could think of. We ended up arriving at the concept of a slightly older puppy - about 6 months was our thought - so we could skip most of the potty training and still be able to mold them and train them before the baby comes. When our good friends posted a picture of their adorable puppy who they love but needed a new environment (one without chickens to kill and pet bunnies to mangle), it didn't take much of a conversation to know we wanted her. Within a couple days we had driven to VA Beach to see our friends and pick our little spitfire up.

 Tiny Rosiegirl is about 7 months old, a Boxer/Bulldog mix, and weighs 51 pounds which puts her as the smallest by far of the Moore pups (Zuriel is right under 70 pounds and Captain is pushing 80 pounds). Because of her age she may not get much bigger, but size doesn't seem to matter much with this one. She's sweet and cuddly and very protective, but she is also feisty feisty feisty. Zuriel is successfully pulling off the Grumpy Old Man act and intimidating her but she's officially winning in the Rosie vs. Captain dominance battle. She's chased him across the room because he started chewing on a bone and snapped at him for playing with her toy, and he is currently unwilling to walk near her without cowering. It's a little bit ridiculous, actually. I must have told him to "be a man" at least eight times yesterday. But they also have moments where they're able to run and play and wrestle and I think with time their relationship will look more like that consistently.

It's kind of funny that she's a flashy brindle just like Zuriel...her face just looks so dark in comparison to our super gray old man. And she's a lot smaller than him, although it's been hard to capture size comparisons in photos yet. They don't really stop moving long enough.

Some quick Rosie facts:

• She's faster than Captain. It's true, I don't have any idea how it's true because Captain is as fast as a freak of nature and his legs are about twice as long as hers, but it's true. She's literally faster than him. It's terrifying. 
• She jumps when she's excited. High. Girl hit my shoulder with her head yesterday morning when I let her out of the crate. She also does a kind of run-and-jump into the doorknob when she wants to be let inside, which is gonna have to stop because I'm not repainting that door anytime soon. 
• She wiggles more than Zuriel when she's happy...I didn't think it was possible to wiggle more than Zuriel. 
• She's officially afraid of Zuriel - he laid in the door way to the mudroom yesterday afternoon so she couldn't go in and eat or drink, which is just obnoxious but kind of how he runs things - but she'll wear him down eventually. 
• She's mostly potty trained. She did have one and a half accidents in the house yesterday but one was our fault because we didn't let her outside soon enough after letting her out of the crate. And we were warned (by our friends' 4 year old son): "Rosie poops and pees in the house!" I can take a little bit of pee while she adjusts but poop is officially not allowed. I've told her; she's aware. 
• She's apparently a genius. The pups were all fighting all morning over the toys and treats scattered around the family room, so when they went outside I picked it all up and put it in the doggy basket in a different room. I'd never showed Rosie the basket, but when I let her inside later on she immediately went right over to it and took out a bone. It took Captain NINE MONTHS to figure that basket out...it took Rosiegirl about nine seconds. Not sure whether that says more about Rosie or Captain. 
• She's very protective, and didn't let me out of her sight for almost the whole day yesterday. She just followed me in and out of rooms as I cleaned and picked things up, and when I would stop moving for a while she would park herself as close to me as she physically could be and wait for me to move again. Captain isn't really a fan of this, since she's stealing all his favorite cuddle places. 
• She's a rock star in the crate training arena (memories of 10 week old Captain that have haunted me for a year and a half are finally fading away) and she's about 8 for 10 on the "sit/break" combination at the door. She definitely learns quick.
• It's possible that she wants to get to our neighbor dog even more than her brothers...it's only day 2 and her face is successfully scratched up from the fence battles.

She's super sweet, super cute, and figuring out her place in this family quickly. It's possible that we're crazy adding another dog to the mix with a baby coming in approximately 17 weeks, but it's the kind of crazy that's covered with prayer and that we feel really confident and comfortable with. We both have a pretty strong "the more the merrier" mentality when it comes to our family, and we want to foster and grow that as much as possible. So if Zuriel is only with us for another month, then I'm glad we have Rosie now to help Captain with the transition...and if he's with us for another two or three years (which we would obviously prefer) then we will have three dogs and a baby and a beautiful fenced yard to make everyone happy.

Come visit and get some sweet tiny Rosie cuddles!