A funny kid quote (from Jonathan)

Actually, I guess it's a truism.

"Hey mom, look.

Now look for real."

Kitchen before and after's, etc.

Well, it only took three weeks, but I've finally cleaned the whole kitchen from top to bottom. *Everything* needed a good scrub-down and I cleaned out every crack and cranny. I washed cabinets inside and out, re-organized drawers, scrubbed baseboards with a toothbrush, walls with a Magic Eraser and the floors with a scrub brush, Pine-sol and good old fashioned elbow grease. I washed the refrigerator down inside and out. . . scrubbed down every square inch of the kitchen table and chairs (the ship for simple spot-cleaning had sailed months ago). . . washed windows inside and out, scrubbed down doors. . . Scrubbed the oven inside and out. . .

And although I try to curb negativity in my writing, I absolutely cannot go without mentioning how I *LOATHE* cleaning our gas cooktop. Too much surface area and too many cracks and crevices. . . . It always takes at least fifteen minutes, and that's if it's fairly clean. When it's super-greasy it can take more than an hour. It forces me to choose between thoroughness and efficiency. . . .And when those two go head-to-head, efficiency doesn't stand a chance.

Anyway, here are some before and after pictures:

Actually, this set is "after" (↑) and "before" (↓) . . . just to stamp out any confusion.

~ - ~

This is my "gardenscape" I set back up a few years ago. I had it set up really pretty in the apartment we lived in, but the crown molding topper for these cabinets threw me for a loop and they sat sort of randomly tossed up there for a few years. But when I found a bunch of Easter-basket "grass" on super-cheap 90% off clearance at Garden Ridge, I knew just what to do with it. . . and it worked out great! I think it looks even better than the original.

This one started out as an empty baker's rack from walmart seven years ago when we moved in and it has eventually evolved into this:

I replaced the similarly-shaped finials with artichokes. . . And sometime maybe four or five years ago I found the tomato knobs and switched out the originals. The vegetables on the top shelf started out as a wreath, but I "squished" it flat and it fits perfectly. The second shelf holds a collection of vegetable-shaped cast iron pots, along with a wooden pumpkin my mom brought me that was just the perfect size and color. The platter was an ebay purchase and arrived with the hanger already glued to the back and I don't think I could have found one myself that hooked onto the baskets below it more perfectly. . . .And the baskets were a solution to the question of what we should do with the pantry items when we converted the actual pantry into an office a few years ago. Surprisingly, we can store significantly more in these baskets than we could in the pantry because they don't have to be lined up or stacked. . . And as it turns out, I prefer having the pantry items on-hand in the kitchen anyway.

I've been tagged!

I've been tagged by my good friend MamaSue. Coming up with ten things took a while because I'm pretty boring. . . But here goes!

1) I have worshiped the ground MamaSue walks on since I was 7 years old. I am always amazed by her wisdom, insight and general brilliance. I always think I'm going to get used to it because I *know* how smart she is. . . but we go years and years between face-to-face visits and talking to her in person is always amazing.

2) I always thought the show, "Happy Days" was actually made in the '50's. . . until one day - I was well into adulthood - I saw an episode where Robin Williams made a guest appearance as "Mork" and finally connected the dots that the two shows were from the same era. . . .and of course the tip-off always should have been that the show was in color.

3) I played flute seriously for about 9 years and considered going professional. I played Vivaldi's "The Goldfinch" at the Texas Flute Festival (American Idol for flutists) in '95 or '96 and the judge said I played the best "birdcall" she'd ever heard. Here's a link to somebody else playing a near-identical "interperetation" (keeping in mind that I only had piano accompaniment). The part close to the beginning where the orchestra stops and the flutist plays all by herself is the "birdcall" and it's open to almost infinate artistic interperetation. . . so it's the only part that's significantly different (mine slowed up considerably in some places and teetered fairly randomly ~ like a bird call).

4) I'm a huge Star Trek fan. . . .Rather, I guess I should say I'm a huge fan of TNG, Voyager and all the movies. The original series is okay. . . I couldn't get into DS9 no matter how hard I tried, and couldn't even make it through the first episode of Enterprise. We moved to Austin halfway through the Voyager series and since Time Warner didn't carry UPN at that time, we had to wait for the last two seasons to come out on DVD to see the end. Watching on DVD is quite a different experience than watching week-to-week because on some subconscious level, you figure they're traveling at warp speed in the direction of Earth until the next episode. . . But watching a block of three or four episodes at a time has a flavor of monotony to it - like, "Man, they're never gonna make it home like this -- stopping *every hour* to offer humanitarian aid and exploring every single anomalous reading within sensor range? Sheesh."

5) My motto: "Anything worth doing is worth doing well. (. . .unless, of course there isn't enough time to do it well - in which case don't bother)."
This perfectly explains the usual state of my house.

6) My favorite artist is Dona Gelsinger, who expertly captures the spirit of Heaven in a rectangle:

7) I *LOVE* all kinds of mexican food, but my current favorite is Pappasito's. Mexico City Style Chicken and Rice Soup. . . with lots and lots of salsa. YUM!

8) I LOVE anything pertaining to Disney animated classics. I've recently picked up collecting again as a hobby since I decided I might as well use all of my old stuff to decorate the gameroom. There's a board game from practically every Disney classic, and I'm trying to collect my favorites. . . .My dad shops around at thrift stores all across the country and has brought me back tons of treasures. The best finds so far are an extremely rare VHS copy of "Make Mine Music" which I keep under lock and key and a large original (Disney) Pooh Bear from the '70's.

9) Even though my kids aren't in preschool any more, I still love Blue's Clue's. I could sit and watch that show by the hour. Joe is okay, but I prefer Steve. If the TV is tuned to Noggin and a good episode comes on, I've been known to stop what I'm doing and watch. My favorite episodes are "What Story Does Blue Want to Play?" which features a skit with a "king" that happens to look and sound like Elvis. . . and "What's so Funny?" which features Sock Puppet and a funny, dry, almost candid comment from Steve: "this is absurd." that absolutely *nails* for a brief moment the reality/absurdity of a grown man pretending to be "Steve," crouched behind the thinking chair pretending to be Blue, talking to himself in what probably resembles a large, empty swimming pool (green screen). Maybe you'd have to see it to appreciate it. . . .Or maybe you'd just have to be me :)

10) I love thinking "out of the box." If it's common or has been done before, I'll find another way. Sometimes I will take somebody else's idea and put my own spin on it, which is similarly satisfying. . . .but my favorite ideas are always original and usually involve using one or more completely non-associated items put together to make what I need. ( i.e. using beef stroganoff TV dinners as a base for wedding soup.)

Bonus: I don't give a hoot about the environment, but I love to recycle for sheer joy of sorting. I also find it hard to part with stuff and see future uses for all kinds of old things that are otherwise useless . . .and pack tons of stuff away for use with future projects.

Oh yeah~I'm unique.

I'm new to blogging and am something of a leaf node, without anyone to tag yet. . . .Will pass along first chance I get :)

Life's little adventures. . .

Our A/C went out just after fireworks on the 4th of July and we had to check into a hotel around 11:30pm. Our local Residence Inn had 2 nights available, but were scheduled to have no vacancies for Monday night, so we had to pack our bags and move to another hotel for night #3 of our adventure. Stetson spent most of his time at the PetsMart PetsHotel. (Karlon says blogging should be more interactive, so you can watch their video tour here)
. . .And I have to say that the staff really does treat the dogs with genuine kindness and I always feel at ease knowing that Stetson is happy and well cared-for.

(Incidentally, he and we were camped out in the same parking lot for the first two nights as Petsmart and Residence Inn are in the same shopping center).

. . .My mom came through town on her way back from visiting her mom in Brenham and we had lunch at Macaroni Grill and visited for a long time, which was a wonderful diversion. The food took *forever* to get to the table, but we barely noticed since we were having so much fun. They were supposed to comp some of the meal, but forgot, and as I didn't make a point to remind anyone of it, the manager presented us a $15 gift card and gave the kids free ice cream for dessert. Not a bad deal when we were having lots of fun visiting anyway.

Brandon got sick halfway through day 2 and was listless and nauseous. We now think he was just overtired from two very late nights and poor sleeping conditions ~ as he woke up this morning in fine form and ready to partake of his complimentary breakfast downstairs.

Very fortunately, the a/c guy came yesterday afternoon and replaced the broken "starter capacitor" for $189 including service call. My dad happened to roll through town just after the A/C was fixed. . . He and I went to dinner at Red Lobster, our favorite place to go when he comes to town ~ where he took full advantage of his cranky senior-citizenship and told the waitress that he didn't care for the fact that they didn't serve Diet Dr. Pepper. . . and no, he didn't want lemonade when he could make it out of water, lemons and packaged sugar at the table for free. When we got back, all of us put our heads together and decided that the house still wasn't cool enough to sleep in, and we would go back to the hotel and check out in the morning. Dad and Karlon each had a bedroom to themselves. . . Ashley and Jonathan took the fold-out couch in the living room, Brandon slept on the floor using the large uni-cushion from the couch for a bed and I slept on the aerobed we smuggled in from home. It would have been the most comfortable night's sleep of the whole ordeal for me, except. . .
. . .Karlon woke up around 1:30 with what we first thought was a kidney stone, but turned out to be a huge knot of a charley-horse in his back. I massaged the heck out of it for about and hour and we finally went back to bed 2:30 or 3am.

Dad took the kids down for breakfast this morning while Karlon and I slept-in and he said it was an experience to remember. Within 20 seconds of each other, Brandon dropped a heaping plateful of scrambled eggs on the floor and Ashley dropped a waffle and syrup face-down on the carpet. . . and before they left, all three kids figured out how to get the sticky syrup off their hands by using the ice that was being used to chill the boxed beverages. Dad said he had forgotten how much "fun" it was to take the three of them on an outing.

But THANKFULLY, we're back home now and everything is almost back to normal. Stetson's grooming appointment is this afternoon and as soon as he's finished, we'll pick him up and be back once again to status-quo, and the (comparitavely) lazy days of summer.