More coffee.

Before:

During:

After:
Coming Soon!

Gentlemen...Acceptable.

Hartwell said there was something in his orange juice. I couldn't figure out what it was so I decided to take it home and photograph it in case it was something yucky. So I have a series of orange juice shots. (Mmmmmm.) Then I dumped it out and discovered it was a Starbucks straw wrapper. That Bee probably shoved in there.

Man. All I wanted was a coupon. Phooey.

Hydrangeas

John came home with hydrangeas for the front yard. It seems a farmers market was getting rid of them. So we planted them and John said, "Better take a picture before they all die." So we did.

I think I need to explain "the secret" to him again.

Ask Sherwin Williams

This was a room scene from Sherwin Williams dot com. With IKEA stuff! So I added some color.

Too much?

Help me IKEA, you're my only hope.

From this:

To this:

The Captain and Tenille

Lathe and plastered.

This is what a venti skinny iced vanilla latte gets you. If you have a project, buy me one and it'll get done.

The electrician came by today to move my switch and outlet so I can remove that wall. That super cute wall that keeps me from having any kind of flow. That and the fact that the fridge is in the hall. So I hammered away and vacuumed and swept and mopped. The worst part was removing the wire mesh that wrapped around corners. I was worried that any small amount would get caught on my kids. Which made me think of the nail that was in our hallway growing up and how I would tell my mom I always worried my eyelid was gonna catch on it. Did she move it? No. She just hung an angel on it every Christmas to taunt me.

This is a scale sketch of how that stove wall will look when the wall comes out:

I think I have to get a hood with cabinet instead of an awesome range hood that I want.

Now,...what color do I paint that wall?

Colour Louvers

Adding a "u" to any word does not make it British. Lesson learned.

Theses are two palettes I just made! For house colors. What do they say about the person who lives there? Crazy? Indeed.

In order:

1. House color, trim color, window color, door color, porch floor color
2. House color, door color, porch floor color, trim color, window color.

Here's a quick drawing I did. The porch and door are switched, but you get the idea.

I got your number on the wall.

For my birthday I received some new house numbers. Some awesome new house numbers! With most gifts I really love, they were put in a safe place where no one could touch them. Then a few weeks later, my MOMS Club hosted a summer safety seminar mostly discussing fire safety as we live in the foothills. The firefighters stated that the most important thing to do to be safe was to have visible house numbers. If they can't find your house, they can't help you.

Our biggest problem was lack of lighting for our house numbers. Plus, we have a "privacy hedge." Which I put in quotation marks because it looks more like really, really overgrown bushes. So we needed lighting, but didn't want to have to get an electrician.

John found a solar light at home depot that he's gonna install under the eave. And if you can't see the new numbers from the street, you must be blind.

Floor Fail!

This is the southwestern corner of my kitchen/house. It sits under a flat roof that leaks. Still leaks. Our new roof did not include fixing the FLAT PART THAT LEAKS!! Which makes about no sense. (We have plans to fix it ourselves since it's only 300 sqft).

There are about 4 boards that are dry rotted. And my awesome neighbor happened to have 4 pieces of vintage tongue and groove fir. Which is amazing!

I still need to pull up a few more places to make sure it's mostly intact. I've only seen the kitchen nook area. But it's got an asbestos layer and I should wait until my kids are away. So,...never.

My dad is gonna come at the end of August to help me take out the wall, take up the floor and sand and finish it. Plus, new stove! It's gonna be a good time!

Fir Floor!

Mystery solved! My neighbor stopped by and confirmed what the internet said. It's a douglas fir subfloor. Let the linoleum removal begin!

Hey, Bearing

I really want to remove this wall in my kitchen. It's a little archway into the kitchen nook. If we get rid of it we can have continuous counter top running from the stove all the way into the nook. And we could get a bigger stove and more storage and bigger kitchen. But we needed to figure out if it's a load bearing wall. My instincts say no. We have two walls that run the length and width of the house and my money's on them. I think that guy is decorative. But the internets tell me that the only way I'll know for sure is to get a structural engineer to check it out.

Since I was already destroying the walls, all before 8am, I decided to see what our floor is made of. Looks like redwood? Is that a flooring material? I hope it's another treasure. I asked my neighbor over to tell me what to do...

Beach Boys

Last night I was stumbling and found a blog with a picnik tutorial, homemade by jill. She was creating cupcake toppers which is sort of ingenious. It's an online photo editing software. I have been trying to find a free photo editor for a long time. Mostly for red eye removal. Lots of light eyes over here.

I think I may even upgrade to the pay version. Because I could finally print some stuff. iPhoto makes me mad when I try to print, it's all bossy and expensive.

I think I'm gonna print these photos for my kitchen nook. I need to change what's in there and these are pretty cute. I used a Lomo effect for these. Which makes the color crazy awesome.

Boots.

Are you ready universe? Start workin'.

Shake it.

Polaroid fx photo from my phone.

Oil...cloth...

I made this little tote last night for a MOMS Club raffle. I wanted to make a waterproof bag to tote swimsuits around after lessons/sprinkler play. It's unlined but has fabric handles. It took my brain a long time to settle on how to do the handles. I even googled. The trouble is the oil cloth becomes so think when it is folded 4 times. So I just used some cute lemon fabric I had on hand.

I love it when my creativity and laziness collide.

What a croc.

I bought Hartwell some crocs recently. Possibly my least favorite shoes. To me, they look like a disease growing science experiment. Sweaty feet and dirt? Yuck. But Hartwell has Fred Flintstone feet and all the other shoes were too narrow for him. Then, once his brother had a pair, Bee wanted some. I got Bee's at Target. Which Hartwell was very sweet about pointing out,"Yours are from Target. They don't have a strap. Or a crocodile." Scamp. They also forced Bee to walk like a slippered grandpa shuffling toward the boob tube. He kept losing a shoe and didn't want to walk. So there I am, at a ginormous outdoor mall suspiciously devoid of kids shoe stores. (Unless you count Kitson and their $48 adidas). Suddenly, my brain led me to a paper store and a rubber band ball and voila! His shoes stayed on and he could run! Run like the wind!

That rubber band ball is going everywhere with me.

Fun Fourth.

I was looking for all the fun things the internets said my new camera did. And found this.

Bee really liked Papa. He spent half the day growling at and chasing after him. Papa is in the chair and the focus of said growling:

Hartwell: Why do they call them sparklers?
Me: Because they sparkle.
Hartwell: Why do they sparkle?
Me: Because they're called sparklers.
Repeat ad nauseum.

Monterey and Pancakes

I tried my best to get a photo of Hartwell and the Cannery Row sign. Magic hour was not so very magic for me. But this pose was so hilarious, I had to post a blurry photo. Is he a teapot? An Egyptian?

We stayed at a friendly little cottage-style motor lodge in Pacific Grove. We had limited resources with Barkley traveling with us. It was nice enough, but we were a bit loud for the place. I was accosted in the parking lot at ten by an old man who I can only describe as the bad guy in a Scooby Doo cartoon. He had that "haunted amusement park owner" look to him. He could hear my kids jumping. They'd been in the car all day! Don't worry, I gave him the what for. You cannot approach a woman in a parking lot late at night and not get the Waternoose Jump and Growl. Or whatever.

The next morning, we slept in and John took Barkley on a loooong walk:

When we finally woke up, we went to this place for breakfast:

They allowed dogs and gave us a squirt bottle to squirt the pigeons. What the WHAT?!

John ate this:

I swear they were ten inches across. I had to make him stop eating so he didn't fall asleep on the drive.

The rest of the drive into Sacramento I spent asking John what people did for a living in every town we drove through. He was sick of me after Castroville. Castroville,...mmmmm,...artichokes...

Driving up the coast.

This photo was taken when the 101 becomes the 1 and starts twisting into the mountains of the central coast. I made John pull over so I could take the next one. I don't know where we were, but it was gorgeous!

We had lunch is Cayucos, a cozy little beach town. John researched a smoked fish taco place that had outdoor seating to accommodate the hound. Delicious! Then we puttered around at antique and candy stores. Then I found some pirates:

Fishing for lake trout...

That was the movie line that popped in my head, and then I realized he could be doing just that.

And,...Hartwell kayaking! We brought John's kayak so he got to chauffeur them around the lake. While I sat and read magazines. When he was done, Hartwell said, "Mom, I just panicked a little."

Kayaking with dad!