February 28, 2010
larsinnh
Uncategorized
New England wind storm
Day 3 of no electricity, no phone, no internet. (I’m trying wi-fi at McDonald’s for the first time. Very cool!)
Outside: still a lot of trees down. I counted about 5 broken poles or broken wires in a 10 minute drive from our house to McDonald’s. There are branches and trees down everywhere; it looks like a war zone. The power to the main route where I am now is on (mostly), but I think it’s going to be a while for our neighborhood. Snowed some more over the weekend. Lost three BIG trees in the woods behind our house. I think we heard them fall overnight on Thursday.
Our house: thankfully, we have a generator running the essentials (see yesterday’s post.) One of the neighbors came back and put on a generator, too. Neighborhood is pretty deserted.
Handy Man: has a cold, and his gout in his foot is bothering him. Yes, handy man has GOUT like an old man. He’s been sniffling, coughing and hobbling around whining. I think he needs to go back to work…SOON!
Handy Boy: bored out of his mind; winter vacation last week wasn’t much of a vacation. There may be no school tomorrow, I don’t think the school has power. He’s fighting me on finishing his book report. Hard to concentrate, hard to see with only 1 lamp on, lol.
Me: tired and aggravated. I may have to go to my parent’s tomorrow to wash underwear.
Everytime we hear a truck or car on the street, we rush (or hobble) to the window to see if its an electric company truck.
Supplies are running low…I’m going to bring some milk home. SEND HELP SOON! **sighhhh**
February 27, 2010
larsinnh
Uncategorized
New England wind storm
Hi everyone! I haven’t been able to update the blog, as we had a HUGE wind storm on Thursday night. We had winds of over 50 mph; trees are down, lines are down. Poor Handy Boy was TERRIFIED of the noise! It was so awful.
Thursday at 10:30 pm, our power went out. As I write this (2:00 pm eastern on Saturday), we STILL have no power. So, no power, no phone lines, no INTERNET, aaaack!! I am posting this from my friend Holly’s house. Thanks, Holly & Sean, for letting me use your internet!
Holly just re-did her downstairs bath, I asked her if I could take pictures of it to show on the blog here, so watch for those soon.
Handy Man is at home, keeping an eye on the generator. Thank GOODNESS we have a generator that powers the basics: heat, hot water, the fridge (so food doesn’t spoil)…and the TV and VCR. That was Handy Man’s idea, of course. Gotta make sure the TV has power! We can’t watch any cable TV, but we have DVDs to watch. Handy Man also hooked up his computer to the generator; but with no internet service available, there’s not much we can do with that.
I’ll be sharing some photos of the storm damage when I can. Thanks for sticking around; I’ll be back when I can!
I hope those of you in New England who were hit by the storm weren’t out of electricity for too long. I’ll update when I can.
February 24, 2010
larsinnh
Magdalena, recipes
salad
We went to Scott and Magdalena’s house recently, and my sister-in-law made a wicked good salad with a wicked good dressing that I wanted to share. Yum! Even Handy Boy ate it (we just recently got him to eat salad!)
Salad
mixed spring greens
apples
red peppers
carrots
Dressing
1-2 cloves of garlic, minced
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1-2 lemon wedges
salt and pepper (to taste)
The dressing was nice and tangy and flavorful!
February 22, 2010
larsinnh
before & after, books, decorating
painting a bookcase
Here is the new/old book case we bought at the antique store. It was painted green, was very dirty, and had a wobbly board on the back of it.
Remember what it looked like before? Handy Man put two coats of white glossy latex paint on it, and we moved it to the guest room. He also removed the board on the back of it. I started to put some pictures and trinkets on top of it, and moved some books into it. I don’t have all the books moved up there yet, but I like how it looks so far.
And yes, that is the Twilight series on the second shelf. I am still on the first book! (Don’t laugh, I have been super busy blogging, and I just got the set for Christmas. Never mind that its after Valentine’s Day now!)
We have quite an oddball collection of books. We have new and old books of all subjects. On the same shelf as the Twilight books, you may be able to see some light blue books. Those are my Little House on the Prairie books. They are paperback and I have had them since I was a child. I suppose I could buy nicer hardcover copies; but I like the worn paperbacks.
On the top shelf are books that I have already read. I bought several of them at Goodwill for 25 or 50 cents. Sometimes it takes me a while to get around to books that I want to read (as you can see, with the Twilight books!), so I like to just buy them and have them around for a while. If I don’t love a book, when I’m finished with it, I will pass it on to someone. If I love it, I’ll keep it. Most of those paperbacks are books I probably won’t read again, but I wanted to check them out.
Do you have a lot of books around?
February 19, 2010
larsinnh
Miscellaneous
to-do list
Poor Handy Man. He always has a never-ending “Hunny Do” list, as he calls it. “Hunny, do this” and “Hunny, do that.”
We are always making lists of things we want to do around the house and the yard. I thought I would post our list on the “Hunny Do List” page. That way, you can compare your list to ours, and maybe you won’t feel so bad if you have a long list going. We usually do. Maybe if your list is longer than ours, you can let us know, so Handy Man doesn’t feel so overwhelmed.
Then again, I’m not worried about it. Handy Man thrives on House Projects. I don’t know what he would ever do if he ran out! I’ll be adding to the list, and editing it often.
February 15, 2010
larsinnh
365 Days of Decluttering, kitchen
decluttering
Kitchens seem to be the room in the house that need the most organizing. When Handy Man pulled apart our kitchen, I had to stack allllll of our kitchen stuff in another room. I thought I had gone through and decluttered the kitchen pretty well, but WOW! What huge piles! When the kitchen was finished and I had to move everything back, I took the opportunity to go through everything. Again.
I donated items that I could live without, and tried to put things back in a way that made more sense. One of the things that helped to store my baking pans was this wooden gadget, shown above. I had seen something similar in a magazine, and told Handy Man that I wanted one for my baking sheets and pans in one of our cabinets. What a difference it made! It’s so much easier to take out items when I need them. Handy Man even made the system flexible, so I could remove sections to make them larger or smaller.
If you have a Handy Person in your house, perhaps you could ask them to make one for you. Or, see if you can find something similar online. Even if you don’t have the best storage in your kitchen cabinets, try a little rearranging. Take out the contents of one drawer or cabinet, go through everything, and put back only what you use. Even the smallest kitchen can be a big decluttering job, so don’t try to do this all at once. Take out one or two drawers, declutter a bit, and put things back. You can work on it over the course of a few weeks, if you need to. Put “like” things with “like”, get rid of things you haven’t used in a while, and put things back.
Anyone else need a kitchen declutter?
February 13, 2010
larsinnh
before & after
before and after photos
I’ve added most of the before and after kitchen photos to the “Before & After” page. It’s kind of fun to see them all close together, so you can see the process all in one page.
I do intend to add more rooms to the “Before & After” page as I talk about them, and as time allows. I’ve heard from a few people that they really enjoy before and after photos of houses and rooms. I know I enjoy looking at other people’s befores and afters, as well.
February 12, 2010
larsinnh
decorating, kid stuff, thrift
changing table
Handy Man and I bought this changing table waaaay back in about 2000, for the impending arrival of Handy Baby. We found it in a consignment store that sold used and antique furniture and collectibles. We liked it for several reasons:
- it was cheap
- it was sturdy, not flimsy like the changing tables we had been looking at in department stores
- it had nice, deep drawers for storage of all that baby “stuff”
- it was a project. Handy Man painted it white, and we bought a nice pad to put on the top of it for baby changing.
- it was cheap. Seriously, I think we paid less than $70 for it.
The old changing table has now turned into a storage dresser in our guest room upstairs. I loved the changing table, its so cute and charming…but we’ve decided to put the new/old book case in its place. We no longer have a baby that needs changing, obviously; and there is another dresser in that room for storage, along with an ample closet.
I’m not sure where the changing table will travel to on its next journey…perhaps we will sell it on Craigslist? Maybe we’ll find a friend or family member who needs it? Farewell, ye olde changing table…
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