Posted by MAKMU ta
On Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Sometimes I tend to over think things and today I had one of those moments. Peyton (The Youngest) has seemed to be a bit more sensitive than usual over the past few days and I made the assumption that it was probably because there has been a lot of focus on the arrival of The Baby. You see Peyton doesn't really handle anticipation very well (as I am sure every other 4 year old is) so I thought that she may be a little nervous about what is going to happy over the next few days and what it will be like at home after The Baby arrives.
So, I decided to take her out to breakfast at one of her favorite establishments, Tim Horton's, for a little girl time.
Once she had settled in with her Vanilla Dip Donut I got serious with her and tried to talk to her about how she was feeling. I asked her if she was excited for the baby to come and she answered "Yes". I asked her if maybe she was a little nervous too and she answered "No". I asked her if she was concerned about Mommy being in the hospital and she answered "No". So finally I explained to her that she seemed a little sad over the weekend and I was wondering why. Her answer - "um, Mom I was just a little bit sad because Lainey was home and I couldn't play with her toys."
Seriously!!!! Here I am all concerned that Peyton is feeling a little unsteady because a new baby will be coming into the house and all she was upset about was that her sister was off from school for 3 whole days and that she didn't have reign over all of the toys. That's sisters for you:)
Posted by MAKMU ta
On Monday, October 17, 2011
So, there won't be much of a "Makin' it Monday" post today since I won't be making much of anything for a while. Why? Well, because I decided to set my oven on fire Friday morning.
Now, I know what most of you are thinking - a fire in an oven is not that big of a deal right? Well, of course not I mean I have had very small flames on the bottom of my oven before where some grease was burning off or something. But this time it was different. This time I was doing something stupid.
So, I will start at the very beginning. Over the summer I had a large jar sitting in the middle of my outdoor dining table and I put a pillar candle in it. In the heat of the summer, the candle warped and I could no longer get it out of the jar. I really wanted to use the jar for a different purpose this fall so I decided to try to melt the candle to get it out of the jar. I had remember reading on the Internet that you could put a candle in the oven to melt it. What I did not remember was that this needed to be done at a LOW temperature. For those of you who are wondering, 350 degrees is NOT a low temperature.
Luckily, I was in my kitchen talking on the phone when it started so I could catch it early but it grew very quickly and soon the flames started coming out of the top of my oven. Holy Panic!!!! We keep a fire extinguisher in our kitchen but I had no idea how to use it and was so panicked that I could not read the directions. I started pulling on all of the tabs and pushing any sort of trigger button I could find and eventually set off the extinguisher in the middle of my kitchen (dust everywhere). Now that I knew how to make the extinguisher work I sprayed it in the oven and put the fire out!!!
The house was filled with smoke so I grabbed The Youngest (The Oldest was as school) and the dog and we went outside. Because I had never experienced anything like this before I did decided to call the fire department just to make sure everything was okay. Over the phone I explained that everything was okay and that the fire was out, I just wanted someone to come and check out my kitchen.
Three minutes later the fire chief, a fire truck and the ladder truck were all outside my house.
Need I remind you that I live on MAIN STREET!! I was mortified! To make matters worse, one of our friends (and the mother of our babysitter) was driving by and stopped to make sure we were okay. The firefighters were very nice and they did bring a handy little fan to get the rest of the smoke out but I do think the ladder truck was a bit of overkill, don't you?
So here is what my oven looked after the incident. You will notice the small film of white fire extinguisher residue that fell all over everything in my kitchen. But if you also look at the bottom of the oven you will see about a 1/4 inch of wax where the candle melted all over the bottom of the oven.
So I spent the rest of my Friday cleaning white dust off of everything in our kitchen but The Husband really went above the call of duty and cleaned the oven for me. We haven't tried it out at high temperatures yet but it seems to be back in working order. However my entire house smell like a burning candle.
So, how was your weekend?
Posted by MAKMU ta
On Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Ask anyone who knows me and they will tell you that I am NOT a neat-freak. Sure, I like to keep a clean house but I can handle the clutter if necessary. That is why I am very surprised to find out that all of these falling leaves are making me nuts!!!
Please keep in mind that we moved into The House from a home that was only six years old and only had one tree in the entire yard. So, this very small tree did not have much to offer in terms of falling leaves. Now we live in a very old home with two very mature trees with a whole bunch of leaves to offer!
I actually don't mind if the leaves fall in the grass but somehow the leaves on the sidewalks really bug me. The worst part of it all is that I swept/raked yesterday!!!! It is like these leaves are taunting me and once I get everything nice and clear a big gust of wind comes and the whole thing is covered up again.
I know this is something that I am going to have to live with and the fact that these trees haven't even really begun to drop their leaves for real (both trees still appear to be very full) but I have become a sidewalk sweeper.
Think I can keep these daily sweeping/raking missions going all fall?????
Posted by MAKMU ta
On Tuesday, October 11, 2011
So, about a week and a half ago I wrote a post hinting to the very cool weather we had here at Main Street House. You may also remember me mentioning that it was during this period that our furnace decided to stop working. When the temperature in our house dropped down to a cool 64 degrees I turned the furnace on and it worked perfectly, sometime in the middle of the night it decided to stop.
This was on a Friday and we decided to suffer through it for the weekend but when we woke up Sunday morning to a house that was 54 degrees, The Husband decided it was time to call in the big guns.
We started off by calling a bigger named company that had done some work on our furnace at our old house and they came out a few days later. Now, this gentleman was quick to tell us that we need a completely new furnace and he would get a quote to us the next day but estimated it would cost around $1500.
Enter, the second opinion.....we have wonderful neighbor here who has lived in historic homes forever so he is usually our go-to resource guy. Guess what - he had an HVAC guy that has worked for him for years, the only downside was that this gentleman was currently on a cruise and we would have to wait a week for him to come out and look at our unit.
Not a big deal since we have been in the mid seventies this week but we have a cold front coming in and we started to get nervous about what we were going to do for heat. We lucked out because he was home from his cruise and came by yesterday to check everything out. Guess what???? He said there was nothing wrong!!!!! He got it running again and said that all looked great. What he also said was that, if something did end up failing he could probably replace the whole unit (at cost) for around $400.
How does that happen??? How does one guy say it is completely gone and will cost $1500 to replace and the other guy says that it is fine? Oh, and by the way - the big company guy never did get back to us with exact estimate on how much it would really cost to replace the unit.
So, for now we are going with what the second guy said and I think, from here on out, we are going to leave our repairs to the little guys - these big name companies are just getting on my nerves!
Posted by MAKMU ta
On Thursday, September 08, 2011
I mean seriously! I know I asked for cooler weather but we are not prepared for all of this rain! Don't get me wrong, I love the rain, and boy did we need it - but again - we are not prepared! I took The Dog for a walk in the rain yesterday and I am not sure my
Toms will ever be the same. They are still wet! In addition to that - the only one in the house with a rain coat is The Youngest. You would think that we have lived in the desert for the past six years. Okay, maybe we are not that bad - we ARE well prepared for Winter but, for now, the whole family looks a little like drowned rats.
While I'm at it, I should probably go out and get each of The Girls a pair of these too - SO CUTE!
Posted by MAKMU ta
On Thursday, August 25, 2011
So usually at the beginning of the week I try to organize my thoughts and put some sort of plan in place for what I would like to blog about. This week (like most weeks) things did not go as planned. Yesterday we were going to take a break from the house tours so that I could post a TON of pictures and brag all about The Oldest's first day of school. And then today we were going to pick the house tour back up with some photos of the Front Room.
Only problem, The Oldest has been running a fever for the past two days and has been camped out on the couch in the Front Room. So, no first day of school pictures and no house tour pictures - just a picture of the most pathetic 6 year old on the block:-(
Posted by MAKMU ta
On Monday, July 25, 2011
I always forget how long things actually take with this house. You would think after taking on four rooms, two hallways and a bathroom I would realized that there was no way what-so-ever that we were going to get the Master Bedroom finished in a weekend.
By now, I am sure that you all are sick and tired of hearing me whine about our Master Bedroom make-over. The good news!!!! The Husband worked his tail off yesterday with some of the final details and we are finished!!
Pictures to come tomorrow.
Posted by MAKMU ta
On Tuesday, July 19, 2011
That's it, nothing more. The room is still not finished and my house is a disaster zone.
Posted by MAKMU ta
On Tuesday, July 12, 2011
For those of you who have been following this blog from the beginning, most of this may be old news but be sure to read all the way through 'cause the good part is at the end.
For those of you who have not been here since the beginning, here is a little recap.
This is the fridge that belonged to The House when we moved in:
This is the fridge that I dream about but costs way too much money:
This is the fridge we
ultimately ended up with which was just fine with us (a hand-me-down from The Husband's Cousin) until.......
....it stopped working and we were back to the beginning.
So what could be worse that a tiny fridge with a left side handle in a kitchen that clearly needs a right side handle (and maybe an
ice maker, water filter, more room, etc.)?
Well, last night during dinner, I opened the door to get some more milk for one of The Girls and THE DOOR FELL OFF. You read it right, the door just came right off and I have no idea how it happened.
We fixed it and everything is back to normal except for the fact that we still have a small and ugly fridge.
Posted by MAKMU ta
On Tuesday, June 07, 2011
This morning, as I changed my "Currently Playing on my
iPod"
The Cave by Mumford & Sons was playing and I was inspired to write about
the cave we have been living in for the past two weeks.
As what probably
happened to the rest of you - spring skipped us. We went straight from a 58 degrees to 94 degrees in two days. Now don't get me wrong, I love summer - I mean like LOVE summer. I would choose hot over cold any day but it feels extra hot because my body didn't really have the chance to get used to it.
So, onto my cave. Our house may have the smallest air conditioner every and no matter what I do, we just can't seem to get the temperature below 74 degrees (72 would be best). I even tried to open the windows one chill morning to bring the temp lower and then turn the air conditioner on - no dice, the poor little thing just couldn't keep up.
Needless to say that our little air conditioner has been working overtime to keep the house at 74 degrees so we decided to help her out a little bit and now keep all of our blinds closed. I mean could you be at more of a disadvantage if you were the air conditioner of a 175 year old home with terrible
windows?
Its not so much of a big deal for us because we are not home a lot during the day but I have noticed that our poor dog sleeps a whole lot more than she used to and I am beginning to wonder what our neighbors think. But for now creating our little cave has help out our air conditioner (and I am sure our electric bill) so that we still get that refreshing chill when we walk into the house after playing outside.
TODAY IS THE LAST DAY TO ENTER THE
GIVEAWAY! WINNER WILL BE ANNOUNCED TOMORROW.
As of right now, it is a tight race between Barb & Sarah Kate:)
Posted by MAKMU ta
On Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Do you guys
remember way back when I used my Blog as a platform to whine about all of the
Laundry I was doing??
Well I am back again but this time to complain about all of the sweeping I have been doing. First there is an ongoing battle between my broom and my Siberian Husky - I am sorry to say that I think the Husky is winning this one.
But the bigger problem seems to be outside. We have a ton of walkways plus the big front porch and I feel like nature is throwing up all over the place. Our ferns are shedding worse than our dog, the tree is dropping all sorts of seed pods and the flowers are dropping petals all over the front steps.
So, I swept outside on Friday and then again on Saturday because we had friends over. It rained on Sunday (which resulted in more stuff falling off the trees, ferns and flowers) so I swept yesterday and guess what happened this morning?!?!?!?!?!?! The mowers from the city came through and mowed the patch of grass between the sidewalk and the street so now there is grass everywhere. I mean COME ON!!!!!
Whew, really needed to get that off my chest - thanks so much for listening:)
Posted by MAKMU ta
On Tuesday, May 17, 2011
This is a big week for us as we will FINALLY be painting the Master Bedroom. This has been pushed to the back burner for two reasons. The first being that we have just been tired of painting. We hit the ground running when we first got the house but kind of burnt ourselves out. The second being that nobody ever sees our Master Bedroom. When we have guests this usually becomes the catch all of where we put all of the misc. items during our "quick clean" or it is where our dog spends some quality time since she becomes very high energy whenever we have guests. Whatever the reason, the door is usually closed so nobody gets to see inside.
I would like to see this train of thought to change. I would like to see our Master Bedroom become a relaxing and inviting place to be.
This is what it looked like when we first acquired the home:
See the fan? See how close the windows are to the floor? Well I guess in the 1830's people liked to have 12 foot ceiling downstairs but only 6 foot ceilings upstairs. Needless to say that the fan was a bit of a safety hazard and was soon replaced with a ceiling light.
We also ripped out the ugly blue carpet. Although the floors we found underneath were not in perfect shape, anything was better than the carpet.
But after that, we didn't do much else. It is a bit cleaner and there is now furniture it it but the trim is still navy blue and the walls are still a chalky white.
Not for long, though - after I finish this post I am headed to the basement to get my paintbrush and our 5-gallon jug of primer! Here we go!
Posted by MAKMU ta
On Thursday, April 28, 2011
So, I have to confess that I am a sucker for Paint Color Names. If I am trying to choose between paint colors, it often comes down to the name of the color. The best example is the color we painted the downstairs at The Old House. The name of the color was Dockside Haze, can't you just see it? I immediately had a vision of the color that would surround me, IF I lived lakeside, drinking a cup of coffee early in the morning. Kind of like this milky/blue-gray color. Nope, it was blue. In fact it was too blue. But, because it was named Dockside Haze and I liked the name so much we kept it.
Now, moving onto this house - two of the colors we have used: Tattered Sail and Barefoot Beach. Again, I can just picture what these two colors should look like. Fortunately, we were a little more on point with these colors and I am happier that I was with the Dockside Haze color.
But now, there is a whole like of paint colors out there labeled NATIONAL TRUST FOR HISTORIC PRESERVATION. Well - Of Course - those are the only colors we can buy now, I mean we are trying to preserve a historic home right?
So here we are, painting our door Mark Twain House Ombra Gray and our shed Cincinnatian Hotel Dominica. Not totally in love with the names but that is okay because they are special colors for the NATIONAL TRUST FOR HISTORIC PRESERVATION.
Jeez, I am a sucker:)
Posted by MAKMU ta
On Monday, April 25, 2011
Okay, so I am all about
April Showers Bring May Flowers but I am not really sure how much more of this I can take. What we have been a bit lucky with is that after four days of rain we do get a few hours of sunshine so The Girls and I can get outside to play, but
definitely not enough sun to dry things out.
The thing that has suffered the most is all of this wetness - our lawn. Wait, I guess it hasn't really suffered because it is quite green and lush right now but it is
sooooo...... long. Between our busy schedules and all of this rain, I don't think the grass has been cut in two weeks.
We are supposed to have some Sun this weekend so The Husband has a big day of
yard work planned but cutting this grass is going to be a huge job.
Look at this:
Let me zoom in so you can get the full effect of it all.
A shot of the back yard:
Zoomin' in again:
On more just
in case you were not fully convinced of how long our grass really is.
Posted by MAKMU ta
On Monday, March 21, 2011
Well, our fridge crapped out on us this weekend!!!
Fortunately for us, I am not a food
stocker-upper so all we lost in the meltdown were some
Popsicles. We were able to save the rest before it was too late.
Fortunately for us, we still had
THIS in the basement, and since I am still holding out for
THIS, we decide to just recycle the old one (found a very nice man on
Craigslist to come and pick it up) and use the original
for now:)
Posted by MAKMU ta
On Friday, March 11, 2011
It is Friday...
It is Sunny...
The Junior High just let out...
Foot-traffic is at its all time high since we moving into this house. There are tons of them out there (I didn't want to take a picture for fear of being referred to as
the creepy lady that lives in the brown house). But groups and groups of teens and tweens have been passing buy our house all afternoon on their way to the Speedway on the corner.
I am not sure if they are really that loud or if our windows are really that bad, but I was upstairs when the first group passed by and I could have sworn that they were actually in my house!
Speaking of windows, did you
VOTE today?
Posted by MAKMU ta
On Monday, February 28, 2011
There will be no post today for I am mad at my house!!!!! I don't care that we got 1 1/2 inches of rain last night, that is no excuse!
Posted by MAKMU ta
On Tuesday, February 15, 2011
I have been loving this warm(er) weather we have been having! At least up until The Husband started talking about all of the Outside projects we have looming in our near future.
I was becoming quite content in our nicely painted indoors that I had completely forgotten about the outdoors. Looks like we are going to be back to busy here in a couple of months.
Items on the list:
Repair the rotting wood and paint the shed. I would also like to
liven it up a little with some trim pieces and maybe a flower box:)
We also need to paint and repair the wood on the outhouse.
Oh, and I almost forgot that we have to paint and repair whatever this is (it
is covering our door into the basement)
This needs to be ripped up and replaced...
...because The Husband wants to move the
fire pit there so he doesn't have to mow around it.
Last but not least, we need to buy some plants.
Lots of plants!
Posted by MAKMU ta
On Monday, January 31, 2011
Remember this
post?
Well, I just wanted to let you know that I made toast this morning!! Not is a skillet, not in the oven but in my BRAND NEW TOASTER!
Now, what this toaster has taught me is that there a little fairies out there called Blogger Fairies. And sometimes when you write/whine about things you don't have, these little fairies bring you these things. Keep a close eye out fairies because my wish-list is long:)
Ahhh, just kidding I know it wasn't the fairies but that would be really cool right?
You know who you are so, thanks so much, I love it!
Posted by MAKMU ta
On Wednesday, January 26, 2011
...Laundry Problems
So when it comes to household duties, I need a schedule. Much like a Chore Chart some would say. Why? Because if I didn't then nothing would get done. When we made The Move to The House, most of the items on the Chore Chart stayed the same. I had to make some adjustments but nothing too extreme.
Except for our laundry, I am struggling. I think I am struggling for two reasons. Reason number one is that we now only have one hamper which means that all of the adult clothes and all of the kid clothes are washed together (they used to be washed separately). Reason number two is because our washer and dryer are in the basement. Before they were right off the kitchen (which is where I spend most of my days) so I could fold a load here, switch a load here and all was right with the world.
Now, I usually have one of four problems. We either have an overflowing hamper, a basket of dirty clothes in the basement, piles of clean clothes on our bed or a load that sat in the washer overnight.
I truly feel like I am always doing laundry. The the more experienced mom's out there - is this what the rest of my life will be like?
Well, at least we will all smell good:)
