We had a fantastic whirlwind of a time with our families for Christamas and have spent these last couple days at home recovering from it all, but there is something about Christmas that inspires change at our house. Last year we packed up our TV and hauled it away and this year we’ve got a bug in our hair about painting our den and reorganizing everything. Since Maggie inherited her play kitchen and we moved the computer, we’ve been spending much more time in there and the pumpkin orange wasn’t cutting it anymore.

In with the new and out with the old….at least in terms of paint. I’d like to say that I’m not sure what we were thinking when we painted the room orange, but it seems that we picked the new color in much of the same way: we went to the store and picked a color we liked. This time we went with more of a stone grey, NOT orange in the slightest.

Our spatial reasoning is also being tested as we’ve moved and shifted furniture in some capacity in every other room. I’ll translate that for you.

Our house is in flux. Check that. Our ENTIRE house is in flux.

Christmas is gone. Neatly packed away in bins until next year, some dangling snowflakes and the mistletoe are the only reminders, along with the gifts we brought home from our whirlwind celebration tour  (more on that some other day), that Christmas was even here.

On top of painting, Barry also built a desk for our computer…but if you came and knocked on our door right now you’d never, ever guess that we were on the road to living a more organized life. Seriously, I can hardly keep track of Mags in all the mess, but by tomorrow we’re going to be feeling footloose and fancy-free because we won’t have an orange room anymore and our house will, I promise, feel a less like a tornado.

I hope.

*You can read about the first time we painted the orange room HERE

**You can read about getting rid of our TV HERE

]]> http://www.hbadventure.com/blog/index.php/2011/12/orange-you-glad-you-asked-part-ii/feed/ 1 http://www.hbadventure.com/blog/index.php/2011/11/work-party/ http://www.hbadventure.com/blog/index.php/2011/11/work-party/#comments Mon, 14 Nov 2011 07:57:24 +0000 hannah http://www.hbadventure.com/blog/?p=6913

Gracious. What a whirl-wind of a weekend. It all started last week when my dad mentioned that he had a bit of time open up in his schedule to come down and build us a small rock wall where part of our pond once was.  It just so happened that I was scheduled to work on Thursday, the day that he and Izak were set to arrive. I didn’t exactly get minute by minute updates as to what was going on, but the time I got home I had a pretty good idea.

When I walked through our backdoor into our yard, I discovered that there was a HUGE bonfire where our pond once was and concrete had been poured where we once had an odd collection of rocks. The work party had all but commenced without me and Maggie was having the time of her life making sure that all was right in her Construction Sal hat.

Friday morning brought the smell of coffee wafting from our kitchen, and my mom’s early arrival at our front door with work gloves spilling out of her pockets.  Eventually we were all out in the yard, digging, mixing and making a ruckus. I was informed that my rain gear wasn’t up to snuff and when the rain really started to fall, I retreated inside with the rest of the girls.

I called my grandparents to make sure that they stopped by because there is something that my grandpa loves about construction and he couldn’t miss this chance to see his own son creating something beautiful. Plus, my grandparents never, ever turn down a chance to see Maggie. Look at my grandpa’s face in the photo below. That is one proud chicken.

Work, work, work. I’ve said it before and I’ll probably say it again: working outside digging, lifting, hauling, bending, chopping and everything else is hard and extremely rewarding.  My dad and Izak didn’t complain once about the horrible weather or my endless chatter when I was ‘helping.’ My dad especially was a machine….a miracle worker, if you will.

Towards the end of Saturday night and daylight was all but gone, Barry and I started to haul gravel to cover the nearly finished pit.  I had been fussing earlier over his inability  to use power tools and ability to haul a large load of rocks.  I think he was ready for me to stop hover-mothering him because he threatened to do a blog post titled ‘My Wife Thinks I’m a [Wimp].’  Personally, I think it’d be a funny blog post to read, but I don’t think he’s going to write it. Don’t hold your breath.

Cora and Chaya stopped by too, but we were too busy eating lunch to take any photos.  I also convinced Barry and my dad to help me hack down some branches that have been bothering me and I was informed that I am for sure ‘my mother’s daughter,’ a badge that I’m proud to wear. My mom and Maggie spent time both inside and out and those of us still outside could often see her curly top perched next to the window babbling orders to my mom or through the open window to us.

Technically we’re not supposed to sit on the wall until Tuesday, but some of us got a chance to test it out earlier….you know, just want to make sure it can hold us and all. Last time my dad came and built us a wall, Kurt and Debbie literally walked in as we were putting the tools away. Today Joe beat them to the punch line and strolled into our backyard just as we were lighting the fire to test out our new digs. He invited Barry to the Seahawks game and Barry changed out of his dirty clothes and they hit the road.  [Side note: Kurt and Debbie ended up coming over for dinner (Thanks, Deb!) so they weren’t too far off with their timing!)

A short time later my mom and dad pulled out of our driveway, with Maggie ‘beep beeping’ to the dump truck and blowing kisses to my mom.  With just Maggie and I now at the house, we went back up to the fire pit and got the digger-thing and practiced moving rocks from here to there. We also dug out some dry wood and built a heavy-duty fire…..I don’t think that either of us were ready for the work party to be over.

Our backyard is transforming into a even better version of itself.

The rain doesn’t stop my dad and brother from working.

Construstion Sal is here again.

More to come.

I love pictures of people. I love flipping through other people’s photos and studying faces, backgrounds and anything to do with people living life. Since I’ve started taking more photos, I’ve found myself placing more and more value on the moments I capture and of the people that I love. I fight the battle of what to do with my images afterwards….that first year photo book is slowly coming along.

I recently created an area in Maggie’s room of a collage of pictures for The Little Miss to enjoy. As time rolls on and I snap more pictures, we’ll add them or trade them out because it is apparent that she loves having them to look at, making her room all the more homey and totally hers. In all honesty, it makes her room feel more connected to the rest of the house, where we’ve got family photos sprinkled about. Her favorite shots, by far, are the ones that include Barry. She shouts “PAPA” every time we walk into her room and points frantically as if he is going to come alive in the images!

They aren’t framed in matchy-matchy frames and they aren’t even symmetrical (although I did get a level out to put them up!), but they are photos that Maggie can look at and do as she pleases. The faces and places are familiar and I’m hoping that they’re a reminder that she is so loved by so many.

Speaking of looooove, Maggie has been loving her baby dollies more and more these days and it is simply the sweetest thing. We loaded her baby (Valarie) into a little backpack and Maggie wore her around and rocked her for a while. I’d like to think that she was able to make the connection to me wearing her in the Ergo. She is a pretty serious little mama to her babies, but if something better comes along….poor babies have to take a second seat. It is amazing to me how innate taking care of something is for her; however, for all the sweetness that she shows for her baby, we’ve got a ways to go with loving Sydney gently. Girlfriend just loves to tug on Syd’s rolls and bop her on the head, not cool at all.

And because I know you were wondering what those two were up to roughly a year ago, I’ll leave you with this little gem.

You know, because I love photos of people….and my dog.

Remember when we decided to fill in our pond that we inherited when we bought our house? Well, this weekend was a Part 2 of Project Pond Be Gone! I became BFFs with my wheelbarrow, Barry his shovel, Sydney uninterupted naps, and Maggie, that girl, she went and fell in love with dirt. We’ve started referring her to Construciton Sal because she became so interested in the work process.

It has been a slow-going process with lots of loads of rocks getting moved from one place to another and many more shovels full of dirt, but I think Project Pond Be Gone has been a success thus far. I’ve learned my lesson in that home improvement projects are never, ever easy and assuming so is just silly.  Maggie also has slowly figured out that the best place to be is right where the action is and tends to stand next to Barry bellowing what sound like orders to shovel faster.

Even when we plopped her down on the other side of the “pond” with a bowl of chocolate zucchini cake and milk, she continued to want to be involved in the work process, giving us cheese-ball smiles and squawking as we shuffled by hauling big rocks. Like I said, Construction Sal seems to be a fitting name for her, especially when she was wearing one knee pad around and ‘helping’ to shovel.

A SPECIAL THANKS TO GREG FOR THE NETS! THEY WORKED GREAT!

When we bought our house one of the things we were excited about was the pond that came fully stocked with huge Koi fish and for a few years there we enjoyed feeding the fish and seeing them multiply. Then Maggie came along and the pond took on a whole new light and we decided to fill it in, rather than constantly be worrying about the dangers of Maggie falling in.

What we failed to really think about was the size of the pond and how we were going to catch those dang fish.  Sky Nursery was willing to take the fish off our hands, but we just needed to deliver them safe and sound. Easier said than done,  people!! Turns out our pond is easily 5 feet deep and those fish had survived in the pond for so long not because they’re dumb or slow. So we started the process of draining the pond Tuesday morning and finally unplugged the pump Wednesday evening. Ugh.

Once the pond was low enough to get the fish out Barry was the most magnificent fish wrangler I’ve ever seen. He was graceful, patient and all things I wasn’t. If a fish ended up in my net, I started shrieking and cussing. I think that’s why we make such a good team: Barry is steady as a rock and I’m…..I’m wobbly like Beyonce.

Suffice to say, it was a much larger task than I ever thought to drain the pond and say ‘adios’ to the fish. In total we emptied 7 huge Koi and at least 15 teeny ones out.  Thanks to Cora (not Chaya) for coming by and catching some of the tiny baby fish. Where there was a pond now is a huge, gaping hole with disgusting sludge in the bottom. Hopefully we’ll find the time over these next days to start filling it in because falling into a sludge filled hole isn’t much different than falling into a pond, right?

So there you have it. The consolidated first part of this whole pond debacle.  I fully wish that we were able blink and the whole project would be done. If only we were so lucky. If you’ve got some things you’d like to throw in the hole, I’m considering making it a huge time capsule, so write yourself a letter and we can toss it in together! When Maggie is a teenager we’re going to reinstall the pond.

Just kidding.

In all honesty, if you’ve got any fill dirt or ideas about this process we’d love to hear from you…..but really if you’ve got some dirt for us, let us know!

Looking forward to the next part of this project?

Me too.

It seems like with my photography I am always on the lookout for the best light and the best angle to capture the shot. I find myself thinking about light a lot and end up kicking myself when an opportunity knocks and I’ve left my camera to gather dust somewhere. I try to never use my flash and rely on natural light to get the job done and am  grateful for our house that has big windows and tons of natural light.

I’ve been stretching my runs longer, and I’ve found myself weaving through neighborhoods that I never knew existed and I’ve noticed one commonality: people keep their blinds shut ALL the time. As a photographer, it pains me to see how closed off to light people are, but as a person I can’t help but think what living in a dark, dark place does for one’s outlook on life. I determined that not only am I in search of light to better my pictures, but also to better other aspects of my life: lighter thinking, lighter weight, lighter teeth (seriously!), lighter-minded friends, and lighter/brighter days.

We got rid of all of our blinds a while ago, they’re sitting in the garage and will most likely find a new home at Value Village. Our bedrooms have blinds that we close at night and open first thing in the morning, we’re lucky enough to not have neighbors that live thisclose to us, but even if we did I’d still open my blinds to let the light in.

I hope you’re able to search for the best light today.

I’ve got a huge red splotch on my nose from a bite-kiss that Maggie planted on me the other day. I knew that she got me pretty good, but when I woke up yesterday I was shocked to see the damage that she did. It kind of looks like a zit, but having a zit on the bridge of my nose isn’t exactly my idea of a dream. So it goes, right?

Things could certainly be worse, but they’re not. I came upon Maggie and Barry having a quiet moment the other morning and I about melted into a puddle because it was so cute. Maggie takes a while to wake up and they were having a quiet conversation about the upcoming events in our day….one of which happened to be the death of The Old Speed Queen.

Yep, our dryer broke. Maybe Maggie knew it was going to happen and was trying to prevent anymore dirty clothes from needing to be washed; none the less, we’re waiting until next weekend to get a new one because apparently there is a HUGE warehouse sale that we MUST attend, according to the sales guy. I figure if the sales guy is telling us to wait for the HUGE sale, we better check it out.

Either way, our laundry pile is growing, but so is the bite mark on my nose…maybe it is a zit after all.

Somebody (my mom) once told me that I have a Pillow Problem. Considering there are 8 pillows on our bed right now, I’m not in the position to say that she is wrong. Who doesn’t love big, fluffy pillows?

I’ve had to resist the urge to add on two more tiny pillows to our bed to make it an even ten. I kid, I kid. No need to roll your eyes, not many people have Pillow Problems, but if you feel like your life is lacking and needs a bit of sprucing ~ I suggest a few pillows.

If your life still needs sprucing after you sprinkle your house with the afore-mentioned pillows, I suggest that you invite us over and let Maggie and Sydney crawl all over your pillows. Sydney will teach you how to snore on them and Maggie will flash her huge eyes towards you….and I promise all will be well in your world.

This past weekend we decided to paint our bedroom and pick up some paint for our front room, something we’ve been meaning to do since we bought our house almost three years ago.

I’m not sure why it has taken us so long to finally get moving on some of these projects that could have easily been done before we had a baby. Eh, life is more exciting this way and we like to live life on the edge!!

We were able to assist Barry with the taping and Maggie spent a good portion of this time listening to the echo of her voice in the cavernous room. It was all sorts of adorable until she cranked it up a notch and our eardrums nearly split.

I can now say that I have no idea how to pick out paint and have it look the same on our walls as it does on the swatch. We were hoping for a small dusting of blueish grey; we now have a blue bedroom. As Barry painted, I wrangled Maggie and she decided to take her first steps. Yeah, she’s been taking baby steps for a while now, but she suddenly decided to take multiple steps in a row! Like 7 steps in a row!  I brought her into The Painting Zone and let her take some steps on our bed frame so Barry could witness the milestone.

By the time Barry was done painting and I was done wrangling, it was time for bed. The reality of even attempting to move things back in the room was daunting and a bit stinky. So, we camped out in our front room and literally waited for the paint to dry. I don’t have an ‘after’ photo, but things look amazingly better, if not a bit blue.