O Kitchen, My Kitchen ...

Yes, I'm singing praises to my kitchen ... well, not quite, though I have spent a good deal of time singing in my kitchen lately! We had a small Thanksgiving dinner, just Dave, me and the kids, and I have to say, I don't think I have ever been so happy cooking as I was Thursday morning. It was just so darn pleasant to have that length of counter space, to have all the ingredients handy, and to do the dishes as I needed to. (Thanks again for putting it all together, Walt and Dave!)

Several things are new in the above photo: We picked up the missing cabinet door from IKEA when we were there last Monday, as well as the toe kicks, which are now in place. The under-cabinet lighting is installed -- I don't think I took a picture of that before, though it's been up a while already. And I put down one of my rugs -- I wove it when Dave and I were in Finland in 2003, staying with my grandmother, and I didn't use it at all in the house in Boone, as the colors didn't go with anything there. But it looks like I made it for this kitchen! The colors are near matches to my color scheme, with the addition of red, which I think adds a nice touch of brightness (as in that dish towel).

... We did Christmas Cookie Baking, Part I today. Mari and I don't get cookie baking done like we used to -- too many children "helping" the process, I think. So we'll have to finish another day. That also went well in the new kitchen, I think!

... We're working frantically to get the house in shape for the Tour of Homes on Dec. 6. The list is long, though nothing on it is terribly hard or time-consuming ... except there are only a few hours in the day when I don't have "helpers." We'll see how much we can get done between now and then -- good thing the new coffee pot works!

At home in a granary!

I can use illness as an excuse for part of my tardiness in blog posting lately – H1N1 (we think, anyway) made its way through the family in the past couple weeks. I wouldn’t say we are completely healthy yet even now – I’m still blowing my nose a lot, and Dave gets a coughing fit every now and again. Erik is much better, though it’s just in the last few days that he’s stopped sounding like Darth Vader when he’s asleep. Sofia’s nose is still running a bit, but she’s otherwise back to normal.

And, when we weren’t sleeping off our sickness, we’ve been busy. We were working late into the night to get the house ready for move-in day, which was Friday. We didn’t get as much done that day as we’d hoped, but ready or not, we bedded down in the new house that night!

I have to say, getting up on Saturday morning and sitting down to our usual pancake breakfast at our dining table in our own house (which, did you know, used to be a granary?!) was an amazing feeling.

I thought I’d give my impressions after living in the house for two full days now. Here are some things I absolutely love:

• The big south-facing windows. Living in this house is living on the farm in a way that living in the old house is not. There you look out the windows sometimes, but you have to purposefully do so, and many of them are covered with plastic and storm windows, so it’s not always easy to see out. Here, the windows draw your attention, whether you are planning to look out them or not. We watch the cars go by (mostly hunters lately, and a few combines and semis). Erik is thrilled with the dog-watching – the big windows are low enough that he can see out easily. And Sofi pointed out a flock of geese flying over while we were eating lunch today. I wonder a little if there are days when we won’t be excited to look outside – some nasty blizzards are bound to come through in January and February – but for the most part, I think those windows are a daily blessing.
• Our well-insulated, passive solar design. The big windows are a part of that as well. On Saturday, it was warm outside, in the 50s, but it was nearly hot inside. We opened the windows to let in a breeze. We rarely have to run the heaters while the sun is shining, and the house stays fairly warm into the evening.
  
  
• The IKEA cabinets. There’s so much room in them! We don’t yet have a well-stocked kitchen, but I’d say the cabinets are still at least a third empty. And eventually we’ll have the pantry space besides, though that’s pretty far down on the list of priorities. My pleasure is in no small part also due to not having to deal with two household’s kitchen needs in one set of cabinets, but the cabinets themselves are pretty nice. (Sofia is blurry in all the pictures I took Saturday -- she says the new house is a "fun house"!)
  
• The bright color choices. The high blue walls and ceiling don’t seem like overkill at all, and the blue wall in the kitchen makes me happy just to look at it!
• My dishwashing aids – the dishwasher and the drying cabinet. I love having both, I have to say! It’s great to be able to put dishes to dry in the cabinet and not have to look at them anymore until they are dry (though this will of course work better when we get that replacement cabinet door), and also to wash a big batch of dishes in the dishwasher. Sofia likes helping with loading and unloading the dishwasher – a bonus I wasn’t expecting! Dave and I haven’t debated once yet about whose turn it is to do the dishes – I’ve hopped right to it. (Dave did say that installing the dishwasher – a complete pain – should excuse him from a year’s worth of dishes. For now, I don’t mind a bit – but a year’s exemption might be a bit much.)
• Erik sleeping in the children’s room instead of ours. Maybe it’s just because it was so tough to sleep with his noisy breathing while he was sick, but I am resting much easier with Erik out of our room. He’s still fussed once each night, but I think soon he will be sleeping better, too – he’ll get better at putting himself to sleep if Mommy or Daddy don’t race to help with every little cry.
• Our improved moods. I have to say that Dave and I are both notably happier – it’s easier to laugh, and little problems are less frustrating. We live in a lovely house that we designed and built ourselves (with generous help from friends, of course) – that in itself is immensely satisfying.

That doesn’t mean that this new house isn’t without its challenges.

• The kids’ bedroom, with all of their necessary dressers, toys and bookshelves, barely has room for their beds. We had been planning on moving Erik into a bigger playpen for a few months, since we were thinking that having bunkbeds wouldn’t be a good idea for a while, as it would be too hard to keep Erik off the ladder to the top bunk. That plan is not going to work, as the playpen he’s in now barely fits. We’re still trying to figure out a way to have a bunkbed that Sofi can get into safely, but with a ladder that Erik can’t climb (for a while, anyway).
• Our bedroom is also very small. We installed a nice closet organizer, which will help, but I don’t think all of our clothes (especially all of mine) will fit in that room. Which is not that big a deal, really, as we have plenty of closet space upstairs – I’ll just have to get used to going upstairs on occasion to get clothes.
• There are spiders in here – left over, I’m sure, from the old wood’s granary days. I don’t have a huge fear of spiders, but it was a bit disconcerting to watch a spider drop down from the ceiling into Erik’s playpen (he wasn’t in it at the time). I’m hoping that’s a problem we can fix, or at least diminish, with some vigilant spider-crushing warfare.
• There’s still a lot to do. When we sit down to eat or relax, we try not to dwell on all the trim that’s left to do, or the doors that are missing, or the shelves, or the bathroom mirror, or the coathooks … as Don would say, when you have a house, you have a task and master for life. And it does sometimes feel that way. Though I have to say, it feels a whole lot better to be reaping the rewards of that work even as we look toward doing some more. The work is much more pleasant than it was just a few short days ago!

It's a costume party!

Halloween was definitely a trick and not a treat for my and my sister's kids this year, since they were all fighting off H1N1 on Oct. 31. We had been planning a trip to Iowa and to the Cities over that weekend -- Nama in St. Paul really had her heart set on having Sofia and Erik in the Cities to see the street festival that is held nearby each year on Halloween -- but all that had to be skipped. So, to make up for that, we planned a costume party for the family a week later, when everyone was healthy (more or less).

The rule was they everyone, grownups included, had to wear a costume. So, we had in the room:

• a giraffe,
• a frog,
• a ladybug,
• a butterfly,
• a witch,
• a genie,
• a Jordanian woman,
• a union suit man,
• a storybook princess,
• a hatted guy,
• a cleaning lady, and
• an old farmer.

Isn't that giraffe cute!

Erik didn't want to wear his costume at first, but pretty soon he really got into being a frog.


We had a fishing pond -- everyone got to fish.

Dad made a big deal of "reeling in" his catch -- looks like he got a big one here! (I think it was a "juice fish.")

The storybook princess and the butterfly enjoy their "juice fish."

Here's that crazy Jordanian woman running the penny toss. (My costume looked better when I had my scarf around my head.)

We had mentioned the day before that we'd have a balloon game, but I was thinking of skipping that game since there seemed to be enough going on. Sofia wouldn't have it! I had no idea how important the balloons were, but to Sofia, it wasn't really a party if we didn't have balloons. And I have to say, they were a big hit! Note to self: Balloons are a bigger deal than you think.

Sofia is just about to had after the balloons in this picture. Erik was pretty happy about the balloons, too, even if he's looking more subdued here.


And a grand time was had by all -- even if the party did go past the butterfly's bedtime!