an addiction

I know that some people have shoe addictions, and others can’t pass up a new purse. My addiction is to linens. It’s very strange. There are two classifications of this addiction too…the Bed Linens Addiction (I have about 5 sets of sheets/duvet covers that I change out every couple of months just because I have to) and the Random Vintage Linens Addiction. I can’t go into an antique store without checking out the linens and hoping to find some great little pillow case, table cloth, or randomly shaped table runner. And the worst part is that I never use any of them because I’m afraid that I’ll wear them out or stain them. A couple of years ago I found this great pair of napkins.

Just too fun. I’m hoping that when we move this fall I can find a great old craftsman style house that will make a few more of my linens feel at home (vintage linens in 70’s style apartments just seem a little out of place).

makes me want to squeal!

I am in love again. Well, again and again. First, we found out yesterday that we’re having another little girl, Miss Evangeline Audrey (Eva). So first of all I’m in love with her, and the idea of two girls. I am, however, a little scared of the idea of “sisters” because I never had sisters and the whole relationship just kind of freaks me out. I have no experience with the “sister dynamic” and all sorts of scenarios are running through my head along with a bunch of preggo emotions and making me want to faint. But hey, all that is a long way off and I’m sure that God will equip me for it when it shows up. So that’s taken care of. Sisters. Check.

Second, I just checked out Anna Maria Horner’s new fabric line, and it just makes me all giddy inside! This fabric, combined with a little girl due at the beginning of summer just brings to mind all sorts of lovely cheery things to be made. I want blankets, dresses, sheets, curtains (for our new house up in Spokane, have I mentioned that yet?), and tablecloths galore out of this stuff. These prints are just plain cheerful. Now I just have to get my hands on some….

Omop

Well, we finally did it. Last month we bought the Omop I talked about in this post. And, after 3 weeks of use, I’m in love with it. We are still using the Method cleaning products. I have yet to find one that doesn’t work wonderfully. Sure, it costs a little more, but the yummy smells and being able to include Ophelia in my cleaning routine makes it all worth it. I just reordered up today. More soap, dish detergent, leather wipes, toilet cleaner and all purpose cleaner. Secretly, I’m hoping someone buys me the Method Baby Gift basket when I have Mira. I know Johnson & Johnson does the job, but now Method and I are an “item“.

Roses

We had Ben & Abra and their kidlet over for dinner last week. This was my first time entertaining since I’d repainted, and I was a little nervous that they might walk in and go all bug-eyed at the pure yellow-ness of it all. So I bought these roses to put on the table to kind of tie in the colors and make the walls look a little tamer (the roses are only a hair yellower than the walls, so it worked well).

Fortunately, even without the roses, they liked the new paint job and so now I’m not quite so nervous about our next guests going into color shock.

In other news, it’s a lovely cool dreary day here and so I’m taking advantage of the natural air conditioning and firing up my oven to make Coconut-Pineapple Loaf Cake this afternoon. If it passes muster, I’ll post some pictures to go along with the recipe.

Howard Feed-N-Wax

I think it’s time to plug my favorite furniture polish. Howard Feed-N-Wax is a simple blend of beeswax, carnauba wax, and orange oil that you just put on a cloth and rub on until your furniture can’t soak up any more. It works much better than Pledge and does a fantastic job of protecting wood. I use it every time I dust (once every two months or so – don’t come near my house with a white glove!!) to keep our wood furniture happy and protected. It smells great too – it’s hard to beat orange oil! Here in Moscow you can find it at Tri-State and the little antique store down on the corner of C St. and North Main.

weekend project

I’m one of those women who compulsively rearranges furniture. I am easily bored with the layout of a room and I will continually experiment with new layouts in search of the *perfect* one (as if one exists!). Unfortunately, the floor plan of our current apartment combined with the amount of furniture that we’ve tried to squeeze in has left me with little room to rearrange. So I must find alternative ways to update our living space, and this last weekend I went with the more labor intensive project of repainting.

The walls of our living room/dining room/kitchen have been the same cool, dull green for two years now. It was getting old, and I wanted something warmer and cheerier. I also wanted something that wouldn’t make our unattractively cheap honey maple cabinets stand out anymore than they needed to, so I went with a honey yellow color that would ‘blend’ a little more.

When I started painting, it was a little scary. From cool green to warm, vibrant yellow is quite a contrast, and it looked like I was putting up warning tape around the edges of my walls.

But, I am usually scared when I first start to brush the paint on, so I trudged along. The walls got yellower, and I got more comfortable with it.

This painting job taught me a little trick that I thought I’d pass on. I originally bought one gallon of paint that was a little lighter than I’d originally wanted (I wimped out at the last minute and went for the ’safer’ color). I used up that gallon on the first coat and it was quite plain that I was going to need a second coat. I let the first coat dry and I decided that I did want to go with the darker color (the first one was a little too lemony and I wanted something a little darker and more substantial). So when I went to buy the second gallon, I went with the darker tint, and am much happier with it. So if you’re reticent to paint in a darker color, use a ’safer’ hue on the first coat and darken it up on the second round if you’re up for it.

An unexpected blessing came while I was moving furniture away from the walls and that was the discovery of the little hole that our unwelcome guest had chewed through our carpet in order to gain access into our tasty apartment.

We stuffed the hole with steel wool (apparently that’s the one thing that mice can’t gnaw through with their little razor sharp fangs), and don’t expect to see the little varmint again.

I’m still getting used to the warmth of my new walls. I love the color, but I’m trying to decide if it really goes with my furniture. Either way, it’s still something new and it’s much more cozy than it was before, so I’m content with it for now. And as a heads-up to you husbands out there – these kind of large scale projects are to be expected when you work Saturday nights.

weeding

I’ve spent the past two days weeding my house. It seems that a number of things have snuck in under the radar and somehow managed to grow some very deep roots, thereby making it difficult for me to get rid of them during any other weeding session in the past four years. But today it rained and the ground was soft, so a lot of the weeds that were difficult to pull before were easier to pull and toss today. For example, the old ball gowns that are just not all that attractive and my daughter will never play dress up with. Those went in the proverbial compost pile. The old games that were gifts that we never play. Ugly/seldom used blankets. Annoying kids’ toys. LOTS of clothes. I also pulled out some rubbermaid totes of B’s clothes and baby things to put in storage, because we don’t need easy access to them and so they are going to be toted off to the storage place. Here’s the Mount Everest of stuff that is finally going to be leaving my house:

And here is one of the happy results:

…a nearly empty shelf in my closet! We have but two closets in our apartment, so they are highly valuable real estate. Freeing up this shelf to store stuff that’s been lying around is a great victory.

The weeding is nowhere near done, but I’m happy (albeit exhausted) with the progress so far. My main goal is to get B’s room to the point where she can actually go in there and play without me having to remind her to not stand on that box and pull the tv off of that other box. It’s a lofty goal, but like I said, the ground is wet and it’s easier to pull the weeds now for some reason.

Completely unrelated is this little guy. I caught him trying to blend in with our parking lot this afternoon.

A number of years ago some old timer out in Troy informed us that these are Hungarian Partridges. I’d always thought they were quail, but I guess not.

Pets

Growing up, we always had pets. Lots of pets. Everything from multiple cats(Pocahontas, Buttercup, Stella, Jeeves), multiple dogs(Kieber, Tovi, Ceedra, Will), fish, mice (Kitty), frogs (Touchstone), newts. I think it’s good for kids to grow up around other living things. Growing up around other people, of course. Growing up around plants. But growing up around pets requires a higher degree of responsibility and care. Pets are like babies. You have to do everything for them at first, train them, love them. Plus, there’s the added benefit of animals unconditional love and loyalty. Jeeves was my college cat. Ben adopted Kate the cat when we were dating. When I drove to Boise to find my wedding gown, Ben got lonely in Moscow and bought a fish, Dr. Dre, and an albino frog, Eminem. After we got married, Ben bought me Oscar the cat…who turned out to need more wide open spaces then our starter apartment could offer. We had lots of fish. Salamanders. Snakes. It was good to be around life. To have something else to take care of. Then Miss Ophelia came along. We kept the fish until we moved to Maryland. We tried to get a cat. Poor Seymour. He had health troubles and our condo ended up being too small for a baby and a large needy cat. We’ve gone for about a year with snakes as our only pets. It’s been nice. They are pretty. Low maintenance. They don’t smell. But recently, I’ve been thinking we need more life around here. I can’t keep plants alive to save me (I’ve killed everything from cacti to tropical succulents.) So yesterday at the pet store, we bought fish….and a snail.

(Hoover the snail is hiding the left corner. The blue beta is named Howard and the orange dude is named George. We were going to name it Georgette, but he didn’t like that idea.)

They’ve been great. Ophelia easily added them to her ritual of saying good morning to all the snakes. There’s more movement in the house. Life. The tank is small so it makes upkeep simple. They’re cheap to feed. In fact, the fish and snail, the tank, the rocks, the fake plants and and 2 kinds of food ended up costing us about $30.00 and we shouldn’t need to put much more money into it unless we want to. Of course, I still want a cat and Ben still would like a dog. But until we have a place with more space and we have more time to train, we’ll stick to our cold blooded friends.

Method in the Madness

Yesterday, I was reminded of one of the reasons I fell in love with Ben. He came home from work and asked if he could show me something he wanted to buy. He pulled up the Method Home website. There, he pulled up various products and outlined the selling points,  and (not that he needed my permission, but he’s just that thoughtful kind of guy…) in no time we were on our way to Target. After exercising a good deal of self control, we came home with the Aroma Pill and All Purpose Spray in Lavender, Body Wash and Body Bar in Mint, and Shower Spray in Ylang Ylang. We already own the Leather Wipes and Furniture Polish. Thankfully, the products are a little bit cheaper at Target then they are on the Method website. Today I used the all purpose and shower spray and I can honestly say, I LOVE them! I found the scent pleasant and refreshing, but not overwhelming. I can vouch for the leather wipes and furniture polish. They are wonderful no muss, no fuss, yummy smelling products that do the job well. We plugged in the aroma pill last night. Of course I prefer just airing out my home, but when you live in an apartment where the tenant down below spends 24 hours a day, everyday, smoking the cheapest, foulest cigars my nose has ever been unfortunate enough to smell, all without having the common decency to ventilate his apartment, a girls got to bring out the big guns of scent control. So far, so good. The lavender is natural and not over powering, but strong enough to scent most of the apartment with one unit. We are looking forward to converting our cleaning products almost entirely to the Method line as our budget allows. We are especially looking forward to buying the Omop!

PS All the Method products are non-toxic and little people safe!

cleaning products

Lately I’ve been re-examining my house cleaning methods, or more particularly my house cleaning products. I’ve known for a while that I’ve probably been going a little overboard with my ‘bleach everything’ policy, and so I’ve slowly been warming up the ‘vinegar and baking soda method’ of cleaning. After doing some reading this morning, I’ve decided to launch into it and do away with my many bottles of specialized cleaning products and try to simplify it down to a few products that are easier to store and safer to use. One thing I’m wondering about though is a good all purpose cleaner. I’ve looked at that new line of Clorox Green Works products, and I’m considering their all purpose cleaner. I’m wondering, has anyone used that? Do you have any other suggestions for ’safer’ cleaning products?