A Few Pictures

Happy Wednesday, friends!!

I’m sorry I haven’t been posting much lately, but we have been working nonstop trying to get things done before Chuck has to go back to work, which is next week, so the crunch time is on!!

I have never done so much painting, staining and varnishing in my life!! lol I’ve painted the Kitchen, Family Room, stairway, a section of the Rec Room, stairway ceiling, two entry doors, Kitchen cupboards, plus other little odds and ends! I’ve stained and varnished over 40 pieces of trim, the inside pieces to all of the cupboards, plus 4 sets of louvered bi-fold doors!! And to top it off, all of the pieces that got stained, other than the cupboard pieces, had 3 colors applied to them – a few years ago, when we installed new windows, I had to use the 3 colors to match the color tone of the wood floors and the other existing trim. What I thought would take one day, took 3!!!

Well . . . . we’re finally about done with our Family Room!! All we have left to do is the base board trim, which we’ll do after the Kitchen is finished, and LOTS of decorating!! I have many projects planned to make plus a lot of other things that need makeovers, so I’ll have plenty of pictures to post in the future.

We are so thrilled with how this turned out!! It has made such a big difference!! To see some pictures of our Family Room before the renovations, click HERE.

This is a little peak at what my utility room looked like before we removed and built new walls, drywalled, painted, wallpapered, and installed a drop-ceiling:

Can you say “ugly painted concrete blocks”? I have lived with these ugly walls since the day we moved in 22 years ago!! I even had to deal with painted concrete floors!! Ewwww!! It was the perfect “mud” room for dealing with 2 dogs after they came in from inclement weather and a husband that comes home from work looking like he either got caught in a dust storm or was playing in the mud! lol I was too embarrassed to ever show pictures of my utility room, especially after seeing so many wonderfully decorated ones posted in blogland! And that is why I’m only showing you a small glimpse of the “before”! lol

This is the view from the Family Room looking into the new section.

( I forgot to “fluff” the recliner before I took this pic! )

Eventually, I’ll replace this chair below with a Wing chair, but for right now, I’m going to buy a slipcover to put over it. We have a 13 year old Dalmatian that, for some reason, has started drooling in the last year or two and it’s nice to be able to just take them off and wash them. Plus the plaids “kind of” clash! lol

Below shows our “creativity” with the stairs. We didn’t have enough carpet left from what my mom and dad gave us to completely cover the steps and Chuck had already ripped out the old stuff. The fronts of the steps were pretty beat-up, so Chuck cut strips of 1/4” birch plywood and I stained and varnished them and then attached them with PL400.

This is our new laundry area. I have a couple of projects that I’m working on to hang on the pegboard and I need to repaint the bench. There’s a little door that’ll be installed in the opening in the stairwell – it’s all ready to be installed whenever Chuck gets to it.

I have a shelf that I want to make for above the benches and the tree will probably get moved elsewhere. I’m not happy with the display on top of the dresser – I don’t know what I want there yet. The lamp ( I need to paint the base piece!) and the picture are staying ( I think. lol)

This area below is where we’ll come in and take off our coats and shoes. Also where Sam (our dog) will stay at night and when we go away.

On the opposite side of the door is our freezer and bi-fold doors that lead into our furnace, hot water tank and storage area.

And now for a couple of pictures of my kitchen!!! I’m having one heckuva time trying to get decent pictures!! They either come out too dark or there’s too much lighting and everything’s a bright haze and I haven’t had the time to play around with the lighting to get good ones. These are the best I have right now – just a few to give you a glimpse of what we have done so far.

This is my new tin-punched light that’s hanging over my sink. I’m searching for either new curtains or fabric to make new ones – I’m having a tough time finding something that I like.

This is a shot of the cupboards to the left of the sink area. Chuck made a boo-boo in the doors for the cupboard on the left, so he had to make new ones. They’re done, they just haven’t put put on yet. I like the look of having my spongeware exposed and wished I would have had a larger cupboard in the center for my spongeware and have 2 smaller cupboards on either side with doors. Oh well . . . . hindsight’s 50/50!

The color is called “Cottage Hill” by Ralph Lauren. It’s kind of a unique color – depending on the lighting it has an olive green tone, a brown tone and even a charcoal gray tone. Unfortunately, Home Depot has discontinued carrying that brand and I bought one of the final gallons of paint that they had left on the shelf. I was kind of panicking because I’ve already used 1/2 of the can just painting the upper cupboards and still have the bottom ones to paint yet. On the last of our many, many trips to Home Depot, I spotted a couple cans of the Ralph Lauren paint sitting on the shelf. As luck would have it, one of the cans was the base tint I needed for the color I’m using, so I bought another gallon to be safe!

This is our new over-the-range microwave that we’ve installed. Oh my gosh, it is so much quieter than our other one!! You almost don’t even hear it running!! Eventually all of our appliances will be replaced with stainless steel. (When we hit the lottery!! – Boy, those things are expensive!!)

Chuck has been working diligently on the base cabinets this week. Like I mentioned before, he starts back to work regularly next week, so the crunch time is on to get them done. They won’t get installed right away, though, because the existing concrete countertops need to be broken out and removed and then new ones will be formed and poured, and Chuck won’t be able to do all of that until we have a free weekend and if the weather cooperates. I’ll post pictures of the process when that happens.

It’s amazing how your body changes as you get older!! In our younger days, we could stay up as late as we wanted and just keep working away on projects to get them done.

Now. . . . this is how we feel at the end of the day!! lol Pooped out!!! With all of the renovations we’ve been doing, plus our regular daily chores of cleaning, laundry, cooking, shopping, etc. - we are worn out!!! lol

Ahhhh. . . .To live the life of a cat! This is Lucy. Isn’t she a cutie?

Well, friends, I must get back to work!! I will be back on Friday with a wonderful recipe that my daughter, Kory, and her class made for all of the parents for a Spring “Break”fast, plus a simple, easy-to-do project.

Until Next Time. . . .Kris

Did you hear the BIG NEWS?????

ANNOUNCING

A PRIMITIVE PLACE MAGAZINE

Coming August 2010!!

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A Primitive Place website has been growing by leaps and bounds since October 2008 and now we have the biggest news yet! Starting this fall, APP will have it’s very own prim magazine with never seen before home tours, decorating ideas, garden tours, recipes, crafts, and so much more! To find out all about it including what’s inside the first issue, how to subscribe and how to advertise, click HERE!

Isn’t this exciting? Make sure you click on the link and sign up for a subscription so that you don’t miss out on the first issue!!

I’ll be back Sunday evening with more pictures of my Family Room and Kitchen!

Until Next Time . . . .Kris

WHEW!!! I’ve Been a Very Busy Girl!!

Well . . . . where do I start?!  In my last post I mentioned that we’d begun making our kitchen cupboards.  Well, that project snowballed into a much larger renovation!!  Things have been moving so fast and we have been working so hard to get things done before Chuck has to go back to work that I haven’t had time to make any posts, much less, even be on the computer!!

It all started after we removed a brick wall in the kitchen.  After tearing down all of the brick and drywall, my hubby decided to remove all of the drywall in the stairway leading downstairs.  There was an ugly swirl patterned stucco on it and we had talked about one day redrywalling the whole thing.  His thinking on the matter was, since we already have a mess, what’s a little more?  So, all of that drywall came down, too.

About a month before we started all of this, as we were sitting downstairs in our dark, dreary family room, we talked about one day possibly removing the walls from the lower half of the stairs and opening up the family room and the utility room.  Between the light from the door at the top of the stairs and the window in the utility room, we thought it would brighten up the family room a lot.

So. . . . . since we already had a big mess. . . . .guess what we did?  lol

(I guess I didn’t take a picture of the “before”.  This is after the stairway has been drywalled)

Besides removing the lower part of the walls, we also removed the wall at the bottom of the stairs on the right that leads into the utility room.

With the removal of the walls, some of the electrical wires and light switches had to be moved.  So. . . .since Chuck had to do that, he decided to run wiring over into the family room to places we had planned on putting recess lighting (some day in the future – along with a new drop-ceiling).  All of that wiring would be going to the light switch panel that he was installing, so that portion of the project would be done - all he would have to do was connect the wiring to the recessed lighting when we decided to install them.

After he removed a few of the old ceiling tiles to run the wiring, he got annoyed with all of the cable wires and phone lines that were dangling down in his way.  So. . . . he decided to take down all of the old tile and untangle and then coil up and tack all of the wires in place.

“You know, instead of putting all of that old ceiling tile back up, why don’t we just go ahead and tear down all of the old framework and put  up a new ceiling with the recessed lighting?!” . . . . Okay, honey!! . . . .

So many things were going on at one time and we have been so busy that I forgot to take pictures of the progress as it was happening.

Here is what we have done so far . . .

We framed out and drywalled an area for our washer,  dryer and laundry tub.  We removed the old cabinets above our washer and dryer and built shelves.  I painted the entire interior white.  We had a big double-door armoire standing where the red bench sits that held all of my power tools, sand paper, nails, bug sprays, cleaning supplies, etc.  It was a total disaster area!!  I went through everything and got it all organized and then put it on the new shelves.

 

This view is from standing on the stairs. As I mentioned before, we removed the wall/doorway at the bottom of the stairs the led into the utility room.  We extended the back wall – starting from about where the dresser ends – which still gives us a little area to come in and take off our shoes and hang up our coats.

I was lucky to have almost a whole roll of wallpaper left from when we had refinished our family room a few years ago!  I had just enough to finish the extended wall, plus the wall  in the new section that can be seen from the family room.  I wasn’t fortunate enough to have any of the border left, so I had to remove all of the existing border and then I repainted all of the walls.  The color that I used before is no longer made, so I chose “Mesa Tan” from Sherwin Williams.

 

My Mom and Dad are installing hardwood floors in their Great room and since their carpet was still like new, Chuck brought it home with him after he helped my Dad and brother remove it.  We had enough to do all of the family room plus the little area in the new section.  We ran a little short to cover all of the stairs, so we had to get creative.  We had enough to cover the stair treads, but not the fronts, so we cut 1/4” thick boards and will nail those to the fronts  (pictured above).  It’ll work for now and then in a year or two, we’ll have new carpet installed.  The cap pieces to the stairs and the front pieces aren’t nailed on yet – they need to be stained first. 

This is the little area as you come in the back door.  We replaced our solid steel door with this 9-lite door.  What a big difference!!

Today, since the weather is suppose to be nice, I’m staining the bi-fold doors for the laundry area, the chair rail moulding, the window and door frame moulding, and all of the pieces for the stairs.  Then tomorrow, while Chuck is nailing all of the trim pieces on, I’m going to paint the back door and then install vinyl tile in the coat area and the laundry area. 

The only thing we’ll have left to do downstairs is the base board trim, but that’s going to wait until after my kitchen gets finished, which somehow got put on the back burner!!

Speaking of my kitchen. . . . . we have the wall cabinets installed, along with a new stainless steel over-the-range microwave, under-cabinet lights and my new punched tinware light that hangs over my sink.   We still have to put  the trim moulding on top, but that should be done by this weekend. The pictures I took and were going to post didn’t turn out. . . some were blurry and the others were so dark, you couldn’t even see my cupboards!!  I didn’t have time to take new ones and I wanted to get this post in since it’s been so long since my last one. 

I sure can’t wait until  everything’s done!!!  We have been living in total chaos for the last few weeks.   Most of my kitchen stuff was sitting in my dining room and even though I tried to leave out things that we used every day, I still found myself digging through boxes looking for things.  We had very simple meals like sloppy joes and french fries and spaghetti and meatballs. . . .things that were quick and easy!!  lol

My downstairs was all torn up and my rec room was a disaster area!!  All of the materials we used got stored in there!  And the drywall dust!!!!. . . .  As much as we tried to cover things up, it still seemed to find every nook and cranny in my house!  lol  I have been doing a lot of cleaning!! . . . . I think I have finally conquered it!   (I hope!!)

On Monday, Chuck and I are taking a well deserved day off and heading to Amish country.  We’re starting with breakfast at Rebecca’s Bistro and then stopping at my favorite antique mall along with a few of my favorite prim shops.  I have a loooong list of things I’m in search of to decorate my family room and kitchen!

I’ll be back sometime next week with more pictures of my family room completed and with some new decor!!  Also, better pictures of my kitchen!!

 

Until Next Time . . . . Kris

 

Spring Goodies and Raspberry Cookie Bars

Happy Friday, friends!   I don’t know about some of you, but I’m tired of all of this snow that we’ve been getting!!  A couple of weeks ago, our local weatherman pointed out that, as of that day, we had only 34” inches of snow fall compared to last year’s total of 70”.  Well . . . I think we more than made up for the deficit!  I don’t know what the exact total is, but I’m sure we went well over the mark with all of this snow we’ve been getting.  The only good thing about this kind of weather is that my hubby is home a lot.  He has his own concrete business and so this is a slow time in the year for him, which is also the time of year when most of our inside projects get done.

For a long time, we’ve wanted to replace our kitchen cupboards.  I have a very small galley kitchen with minimal storage space so we figured we could gain more space by replacing the standard 30” high wall cupboards with 42” to-the-ceiling cupboards.  We went to Home Depot and Lowes and got prices ranging between $5,000-$6,000!!   What?!!!  Cupboards are that much for my tiny little kitchen?!!!   We were kind of figuring $2,000-$3,000 and I wasn’t even really happy with any of the styles that they had.  I wanted inset doors without any overlay, but all of the styles had an overlay.  We then went to a local independent cabinet company.  Chuck figured that they would have better prices since there wasn’t any “middle man” to go through.  By then I had already decided that I wanted to paint the cupboards a charcoal grayish color – picking out one of the colors from my slate floor tile (which isn’t as brightly colored as shown in the pic- it’s much more subdued).  They had a couple of styles like what I was looking for, so we got prices for unfinished and finished cupboards.  Okay are you ready for this?!!  Unfinished were a little over $7,000 and finished were over $8,000!!  Whoa!!!  A little too much for me!  So we decided to make them ourselves.  And let me tell you, it’s been a very long, time consuming process!!

After Chuck cut and sanded all of the pieces for the base of the wall cabinets, I had the fun of staining each of the inside pieces and then applied 2 coats of polyurethane with sanding in between coats before he assembled them.  I figured it would be a lot easier doing them that way than trying to get in the corners after they were put together.  My Rec room was wall-to-wall with cupboard pieces!

I chose a color by Ralph Lauren called “Cottage Hill” (which Home Depot has since discontinued).  It’s kind of hard to describe. . .depending on the lighting sometimes it looks gray, sometimes an olive green, and sometimes a brownish color.  I haven’t had a chance to take a picture of it yet, but I’ll try to post one later. I don’t know if you’ll be able to get the true color or not.

I had made many sample boards before I finally came up with a finish that I liked.  I’ve decided to just lightly sand around the edges.  I don’t want them “too prim”, just simple. . . no stain, no heavy sanding, just simple.  So far, I’ve given everything two coats of paint and today I’m going to apply a sealer which will reduce the amount of scratching to the paint when I lightly sand the edges.  The final step will be to apply plain paste wax and then they should be ready to install.

Unfortunately, that won’t happen until after we remove all of the brick on the one side of the kitchen and replace the drywall, which Chuck is starting on that today.  I love the look of the brick, but the color doesn’t match my color scheme.  Eventually, we’ll install new brick.  But, for now, it’s just going to be primed and painted.  The kitchen will get painted the same color as the Living room and Dining room that I had painted right before Thanksgiving.

 

It’ll be a long, slow process to finish the kitchen.  Our countertops are concrete, which are also going to be replaced.  They’ll still be concrete, which I absolutely love, but our base cabinets are about 3” longer than the wall cabinets near the refrigerator.  We’ll eventually replace all of the appliances with stainless steel and want to get a side-by-side refrigerator.  The one we have now is only 23 cubic feet due to the base cabinets being too long.  We need to have the sides finished in stainless steel since that is what you see most of when you look into the kitchen.  Our options for a fridge in that size with those requirements are much slimmer than those for a 25 cubic foot one, so we’re reconfiguring the cabinets from the dishwasher down to the refrigerator to accommodate for a larger fridge.

As you can tell from the pictures, the lighting is horrible, so we’re installing under-the-cabinet lighting.  Yayyy!!  We’re also replacing the recessed light over the sink with this new tin-punched one that was just delivered Wednesday.  It’s kind of funny…I  found this light online from a place called “Rustic Log Lighting”.  It was only $87.00 with shipping included.  The company is based in Montana and when I called to place the order, the gentleman said that the light would be shipped from a company in Pennsylvania.  When it came, the return address was “Irvin’s Country Tinware”.   I was so excited!  I love Irvin’s, but some of their things are a little pricey.   I’m thinking, “Great!  I could have just ordered from them in the first place and saved a couple of bucks”.  But, I looked up the light in their catalog and they were asking $79.99 and an additional $13.99 for shipping and handling.  That totals $93.98.  I only paid $87.00, so I saved $6.98!!  Can’t beat that!!

This kitchen remodel is snowballing into another project.  The cabinets that we are taking out are going to be installed down stairs in the kitchenette area of our Rec room.   After Chuck is done removing the brick and replacing the drywall in the kitchen today, he’s going to tear out the downstairs cupboards and the drywall there, which also needs to be replaced.  He figures if he’s mudding walls, he may as well do them both at the same time.  Needless to say, I’m going to have a huge mess in my home for the next couple of days!!

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In between waiting for stain and varnish to dry, I was able to get a couple of spring craft projects done this past week.  I actually had sewn these bunnies last year, but never did anything more with them.  I just stuffed and tea-dyed them and stitched their eyes and noses.

  

I made this guy  by adapting a pattern that I had bought from Pattermart for a snowman that I absolutely love!  I just made a new head pattern and added ears.  Click here if you’d like to purchase the snowman pattern.  I also made the carrot and stuffed it with Sweet Annie.

I’m also working on a horse from a pattern by T.F.C.  Folkart.   All I have left to do is apply the flax for his mane and tail, which just came in the mail yesterday, but I haven’t had a chance to finish it yet.

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A couple of weeks ago, Chuck and I stopped in at Goodwill. . . I don’t know why - I never find anything great like a lot of you do. . .but every once in a while, I figure “what the heck” and stop in.  Chuck found this dresser and wants me to “work my magic” on it.  lol  He wants to replace the one in our room that he uses for his clothes with this larger one.  (I claimed all of the stepback cupboard for myself!)  I haven’t started on it yet. . .it’s still sitting in my Rec room waiting to be made over.  Someday . . . .

  

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In participating in Colleen’s (And Baby Makes Five) Kitchen Weekly Recipe swap, I wanted to share this awesome recipe for Raspberry Cookie Bars.  I found this recipe on the back of the box of the graham cracker crumbs when I made the disappointing Peanut Butter Cup Cheesecake.   At least one good thing came from that fiasco!  lol   I made these for my family for Valentines and were a huge hit!  They are so easy to make!!

Magic Raspberry Cookie Bars

2 c. graham cracker crumbs

1/4 c. sugar

1/2 c. margarine or butter, melted

1 can (14 oz.) sweetened condensed milk

1 1/4 c. seedless red raspberry preserves

1 1/3 c. flaked coconut

1 c. chopped walnuts or pecans

In a small bowl, combine crumbs and sugar.  Add margarine or butter.  Toss until combined.  Press into bottom of 13x9 inch baking pan.

Evenly drizzle sweetened condense milk over crumbs.  Refrigerate for 10 minutes.  Spoon preserves over top.

Sprinkle with coconut and nuts.  Bake a 350°F for 25 to 30 minutes or until light brown.

Cool completely.  Cut into bars.  Store, loosely covered, at room temperature.

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If you would like to participate or see who else is participating in Colleen’s Kitchen Weekly Recipe Swap click on the picture below to take you to her blog.

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I meant to share this picture with you in my last post but somehow it got left out.  I took this a day before we got hammered with mountains of snow!   Spring  IS around the corner!!  These are some of my daffodils popping up!  Yayyy!!!

 

Until Next Time . . . .Kris 

 

Peanut Butter Cookies And More

Tuesday was my daughter, Brittney’s, 24th birthday and we took her out for dinner to the restaurant of her choice. She chose to go to a place called Steak On A Stone. We had never been there before but a couple of people have told us how wonderful it was. Their specialty is having you cook your own meat on a stone that’s heated to 750°. You can choose steak, chicken, shrimp, scallops, duck, lamb chops, pork tenderloin and lobster tail and when the waiter brings it out to you, it’s already browned on one side and he does a demonstration on how you cook your food. He flips the meat over to brown the other side and then tells you to slice off and cook each individual piece to your preference of wellness. It was pretty neat!! Chuck and Justin got steak, Brittney got Shrimp and Kory and I opted to have a meal already cooked – she got a cheeseburger and I got Lake Perch. Sorry, but one of the reasons why I like dining out is because I don’t have to cook! lol I didn’t want to have to work at making my meal!!

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Instead of cake, Brittney found a recipe in the “Taste of Home/Healthy Living” magazine for Peanut Butter Cup Cheesecake. It looked delicious and the recipe was revamped to reduce calories and grams of fat by using fat-free and reduced-fat cream cheese. Now you’re talking!!! A decadent dessert without the guilt!! It smelled like heaven while it was baking and looked even more scrumptious after it was completely done!

Now let me ask you this.. . . doesn’t this look sinful?

We eagerly awaited until it was time to sing “Happy Birthday” and cut into that yummy confection! With the anticipation of tasting the gooey peanut butter and the rich chocolaty goodness, we took a bite and we all pretty much had the same look on our faces – disappointment!! It had NO flavor!!! I couldn’t believe it! What a bummer!!

If you’d like to try it anyways, just click on the picture to take you to the web page with the recipe.

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I’m hoping to continue to participate in Colleen’s Kitchen Weekly Recipe Swap, although I can’t promise that I will be consistently posting each week, but I’ll post when I can. I think it is a fun way to share recipes and I’ve gotten quite a few good ones already! Thank you, Colleen!!

So this week, I would like to share with you a fabulous cookie recipe. Growing up, there was a woman in our small town that was a phenomenal baker and she posted several of her favorite recipes in our church cookbook. This is a basic peanut butter cookie recipe which is outstanding by itself, but I like to add chocolate and peanut butter chips. ( A girl can’t get enough chocolate!!) They have become a favorite in our household and especially with my kids’ friends! Whenever they have a get-together, my cookies are a definite request!

Peanut Butter Cookies w/Chocolate and

Peanut Butter Chips

1c. brown sugar

1 c. sugar

1 c. margarine

1 c. peanut butter

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

3 c. flour

1 tsp. salt

2 tsp. baking soda

1 12 oz. bag chocolate chip

5 oz. (half of bag) Reese’s peanut butter chips

Preheat oven to 350°.

Cream margarine and peanut butter together. Blend in sugar and brown sugar. Add eggs and vanilla. Stir in flour, salt and baking soda. Add chocolate and peanut butter chips.

Drop by spoonfuls onto cookie sheet and bake 8-10 minutes or until nicely browned.

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If you would like to participate or see who else is participating in Colleen’s (And Baby Makes Five) Kitchen Weekly Recipe Swap, click on the photo below and it will take you to her blog.

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Thank you for all the concern and “get well” wishes for my hubby. He went this past Monday and had his catheter removed. And let me tell you, what a world of difference that has made in his attitude!! I don’t want you to think he was crabby or anything, because he wasn’t! If anything, I was the one that was probably crabby! lol He got a clean bill of health and has no more weight restrictions but shouldn’t try to lift anything extremely heavy for a couple more weeks. He can go back to his usual activities and has been knocking himself out doing things around the house! The man has become a little busy body! lol

I think I mentioned before in an earlier post that we wanted to make new kitchen cupboards, but with the holidays and then his surgery, we just didn’t have time to make them. Well. . . . .since he’s feeling so energetic (lol), I just “kind of” mentioned something about them and he jumped right on the bandwagon with me and we’ve begun making them!! Yayy!! It’s going to get done in stages. We’re starting with the wall cabinets, for now, which will make the biggest difference. I have a “galley” kitchen and so my cupboard space is limited. Instead of the standard 30” high cupboards, like we already have now, we’re going to make them to go all the way up to the ceiling, which will give me a lot more cupboard space!! We have concrete countertops (surprise, surprise, since that’s what Chuck’s business is) which I absolutely love!! We’ll have to make new ones due to the fact that there’ll be a slight adjustment in the width of the base cabinets (I’ll explain that later) but it’s a little too cold out to mixing up concrete outside., so those will have to wait until warmer weather. I’ll post pics of the progress.

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Well, this post has become a little lengthy!! (Sorry, I have much to make up for!) And I need to bake some more cookies. Justin is having friends over, again, Saturday night after their Sweethearts Dance at the high school. We’re suppose to get a major snow storm tonight into tomorrow morning with a lot of snow accumulation. So I don’t now how big of a turn out he’ll have. The southern part of the state is expecting 6-8 inches while the farther north you go, the snow accumulation will be less. The amount of snow we’re suppose to get keeps changing - it’ll be anywhere from 2-6 inches. So I guess we’ll just have wait and see what we get by morning!

Until Next Time. . . . Kris

Hello!! Remember Me?!!

Hello, Friends!!    I can’t believe how long it’s been since my last post!!  Almost a month!!  I promise I won’t let that much time pass between posts again! 

Chuck’s surgery went pretty well.  It was definitely rough the first week and a half.  He was very sore.  We weren’t expecting him to be as incapacitated as he was.  The urologist insisted that the inside of his cheek would hurt more than his “bottom”, but that certainly was not the case!  He was not allowed to sit for 2 weeks – he had to recline.  I had to help lift him off the couch or bed so that he didn’t put pressure on his bottom trying to get up.  Even though he’s allowed to sit now, he’s still a little tender and has to sit gingerly.  He ended up having a regular Foley catheter instead of through his abdomen and will finally get that removed tomorrow!  I think once that’s out, he’ll feel a whole lot better. 

Besides dealing with my hubby that first week, I had a family birthday brunch for Kory and Justin to prepare for at the end of the week.  I definitely missed having Chuck’s help!  We usually make most of the food the morning of the brunch, with the exception of the muffins and the coffeecake.  But since I had to do it all by myself, I made 4 kinds of muffins and 2 pans of coffeecake a couple of days before and threw them in the freezer.  On Saturday, after I took Kory to bowling and then picked up bagels and cream cheese from Panera’s, I made sausage, bacon, hash browns, regular pancakes, blueberry pancakes, French Toast Bake, chicken & broccoli  quiche, plain scrambled eggs and scrambled eggs with green pepper, onions, mushrooms and cheddar cheese.   I also baked 2 batches of brownies for our “create-your-own-sundae” bar and chopped some Snickers bars and crushed some Oreo cookies for toppings.  I didn’t get to bed until 11:30 and then got up at 5:00 on Sunday morning to do some last-minute cleaning and other preparations along with putting everything in the oven to warm.  I wasn’t sure how all of it would taste being made the day before, but it turned out pretty good.

We had 18 family members arrive at 11:00 and didn’t think they would stay too long because of Chuck not being up to par, but they stayed way longer than they normally do!!  They stayed until a little after 5:00!  Now don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed having their company and normally wouldn’t have minded them being there that late, but I was exhausted!!!  On top of that, since the kids didn’t have school on Monday, Justin was having 6 or 7 friends over later that night.  They love my peanut butter cookies with chocolate and peanut butter chips and I promised Justin that I would make some for them.  Well, I was still baking cookies when the kids started showing up.  And the number of kids went from 6-7 to 28!!!!  Chuck ended up going to bed around 8:30 - he was worn out and in a lot of pain.  I wanted to go to bed so bad, but I felt I should stay up until the kids left, which, surprisingly, was 11:30.  I thought it would be much later than that and so glad that it wasn’t!!   Come Monday, I stayed in my jammies all day and didn’t do a darn thing!!  It still took me a couple of days after that to get back to “normal”, if there is such a thing!  lol 

I then went through a period of “winter blues”.  I think it was a combination of being cooped up at home trying to keep Chuck company since he couldn’t do much (and to keep him from doing things he wasn’t suppose to) and the fact that we didn’t have very many days of sunshine.  Our local weatherman stated a couple of days ago that since November 1st we’ve only had 17 days with sunshine! ( I think were up to about 19 now).  We even had a week of fog lasting all day – the temperatures were rising into the 40’s with snow still on the ground creating the fog.  Talk about gloomy!!  I was in such a frumpy mood.  I had no desire to be creative and didn’t even get on the computer for several days.  And what’s even more amazing. . . . . Chuck gave me a gift certificate to one of my favorite prim shops, Primitive Keepings, and I had NO desire to go use it!!  What’s wrong with me?!!!  lol

Luckily, things are looking a little brighter.   Chuck’s feeling much better and almost back to his old self, with the exception of not being able to lift anything over 20 lbs until the end of February.  He’s gotten out a couple of times with me, but feels self-conscious of his catheter bag.  As I said earlier, he’ll get that removed tomorrow and then he’ll feel much better.  This has been hard for him – he’s not used to being cooped up and not able to do anything.  He’s going stir crazy!  The only bright side is, is in the last 3 weeks, he was able to read the four books that he got for Christmas.  One of them is Stephen King’s new book,  Under the Dome, which has 1,072 pages.  Now that’s being laid up!!

I’ve been trying to “think spring” and have a few projects brewing in my head, so that’s helped lift the winter blues a bit.

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I know I’m way behind and that a lot of you have probably put your snowmen decor away, but I wanted to share this snowman with you.  I bought him several years ago at a craft show and thought it was a very clever idea!  He’s made out of an old cooking pot lid!  The woman that made him said she bought the lids at Goodwill – each one had a different shaped nose due to the handle style.  Isn’t that clever?

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Do any of you notice the resemblance of my blogger background to this picture?

Yep, it’s my wallpaper!  I had a piece left and scanned it on my computer.  I’ll share more on exactly how I did it at a later date!

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I’m excited to announce that I’m the new Prim Project Coordinator for A Primitive Place!!  Each month I will do a craft tutorial exclusively for APP.  I won’t be posting it on my blog, you’ll only be able to see it by visiting A Primitive Place.  Click on the picture below to check out this amazing forum! 

My first tutorial is how to make an Artificial Prim Tree.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Until Next Time. . . . Kris

Just Checking In!!

Hello, friends!!  I’m just checking in to let you know that everything is fine and that I’m not giving up blogging!!  Thanks to all of you who were concerned and have emailed me to make sure I’m alright!

I spent the last couple of weeks being extremely lazy and enjoyed spending time with my family.  My kids are older and at the “moving out” age, so I want to spend as much family time as I can.

This month is going to be a busy one for me, so I still may not be blogging much.  Kory’s birthday is today (she turns 21) and Justin turns 18 on the 21st.  On the 17th, we’re having about 18-20 family members over for a birthday brunch.  Chuck usually does a lot of the cooking – scrambled eggs, hash browns, bacon and sausage – but this year he may not be up to par to help me much!! 

On Tuesday, the 12th, my hubby is scheduled to have surgery at the Cleveland Clinic.  He has scar tissue built up in his urethra and has had problems urinating for the past several years.  He has had times when urinating has slowed down to a trickle and a couple of times, has come to a complete stop.  The poor man has had to go to his urologist about every 3 months to get “reamed” open for too many years.  They finally convinced him that surgery is his only option.  After they remove a 4-5 cm section of his urethra, they’ll take skin from the inside of his cheek to make a new replacement.  He’ll have to have a catheter inserted through his lower abdomen and have that for about 3 weeks until everything is healed.

My Mom and Dad made their rounds right after Christmas visiting me and my 4 siblings to tell us that my Dad has prostate cancer.  He’s 75 and considered too old to have surgery, which he would have refused anyways, because he and my mom have the belief that “once they cut you open, the cancer will spread”.   He’ll have radiation treatments 5 days a week for 8 weeks.  He has an appointment next week with an oncologist to find out when he’ll have to start the radiation.  They’re both still very active and independent – also stubborn enough to refuse any help offered!  My dad ordered hardwood flooring to replace the carpet in their Great Room a couple of days after he found out he had cancer and insists on installing it himself!  It may be a good project to keep his mind busy, but he also has a tendency of doing more than he can handle and won’t admit when he needs help.

My busy month ends with my daughter, Brittney, turning 24 on Feb 2nd.  Hopefully, after that, I should get back to blogging on a normal basis!   Please be patient with me!!  I miss all of you and look forward to being in touch with you soon!!

Until Next Time. . . .Kris