Finding a new style, instead of our current thrift store mishmash look.

Ever since we bought the house 3 years ago we have been talking about covering our long odd wall in the living room/ hallway with floor to ceiling shelves.

Our house, though the best we could have hoped for in our small budget, is decidedly odd.
We have thousands of books and most of them are completely inaccessible and stored in boxes in the garage.  Our living room space is narrow and mostly non functional since it is also the isthmus of the house. All traffic from one side has to pass through there to get to the other half. Kinda like having your living room on an extra wide staircase leading from the down stairs to the upstairs. We figured since we can't actually use this for sitting, we would just line one wall with bookshelves. We have filled it with different almost matching shelves, but our 9 foot ceilings, the odd door in the middle, and the TV really break it up. After looking at different design ideas over the years Jed fell in love with a rustic-industrial look combining pipes and wood. We are going to wrap the shelves over and around the TV, which we will mount on the wall, over the door to the garage, along the wall, over the squared archway that leads into the kitchen side of the house, and down the other shorter wall where we will have a wall length desk for the computer area. With 8 people in the house this 12 foot desk will not be too big at all.
Jed will also build our new bed in the same style. After shopping around and finding nothing he liked enough to actually pay for it, this was really what started the whole project. We really love the bed we have but were gifted a Cal King and we could not find anything in the same style anywhere.

After searching online we found some great images that have worked as inspiration and reference.

The majority of the shelves are going to look like this. The wood sits on top of half inch pipes.

Found at overthebigmoon.com

The shelf over the entryway to the kitchen half of the house won't have room underneath for the pipes, so it will be hung more or less like this.

From Pinterest: Original source unknown

The bed frame is going to be a combination of the next two pictures, only without the wood on the foot board.

Found at thekidsroomdecor.com

Found at bobvila.com, but the watermark reads thatsmyletter.blogspot.com

Because the desk is going to be much longer than the one in this picture it will have a third set of legs in the middle. The cross brace will also be slightly different.

Another Pinterest find

The pipes are getting painted with a spray paint called Rust-Oleum oil rubbed bronze. We used it in the kitchen to make something match our awesome faucet and we really like it. It gives the metal a cast ironish look, but smoother. Basically like the black pipe in the pictures. The wood will be left natural and we will just oil it to really show the grain. The headboard of the bed will get some wood burning done, though we have not quite figured out what we want yet. Jed was originally planning on our family crest but we are going to hang that instead.

Then came shopping. Since we are getting A LOT of pipe, price matters. After looking around for HOURS at the typical places, Home Depot, Lowes, etc. Jed realized that we live in a world of options, went online, and found this glorious place!
Plumbing Fittings Direct - Your Plumbing Supplies Online Store!
Shopping here saved us more than 50% on the pipe and fittings for the design Jed came up with. HUGE difference for our budget!

When life imitates the movies.

Some times I feel like my life is a satire. Surprise you are actually having twins! RIGHT NOW! PUSH! what????
Check it out!
Mysterious rich estranged relative in law has passed away and left you an inheritance! SWEET!!! Water in the dessert! But they only left money for 2 of the 5 siblings (what?) and felt like they had already done enough for you (huh? sure it is your money we are grateful for anything, but what is this reference to?) turns out we are getting the change between the couch cushions. Oh well. But seriously how many times have someone asked you what would you do if you suddenly inherited a ton of money? I never in a million years thought we actually even be an consideration in that situation. I know my family and my 4 grandparents left me with a wonderful childhood, the best of memories, a deep respect for the people they were and filled with their love for me, even the one who often would tell me that she had her will all typed up and had it all worked out exactly who would get what never succeeded in passing anything on to us. This person might have been loaded but they did not exactly leave behind relatives feeling the way I feel about my grandparents so who was richer?

Baby Stuff we want!

We want nice stuff, but really any stuff is good and used stuff is great and we suddenly got a bunch of lenders and hand-me-downs this weekend so that was super exciting!

We have registered for stuff in a few places but now that we have gotten a few things I may delete some of the stuff on there.

Amazon and babies "R" us

There are a few things I would really love:
It basically comes down to this!

A co-sleeper for nursing the baby, I have several on my pinterest, I am looking for something that works like a little cubby extension of the regular bed, so I do not have to sit up to grab baby when she wakes up and want to eat, it is all about the lazy but I have been down this road before and I know what will make me happy.

Some sort of dresser or other super useful storage furniture that will work as a changing table with the changing pad we have so that it can stay with her as she gets older.

A crib for when she out grows the bassinet.

A diaper sprayer for the toilet, for cleaning cloth diapers.

2 diaper pail washable liners for the cloth diapers, and possibly a matching sized pail, but trash cans are easier to come by than liners.

A jogging stroller for Jed.

A few good bibs and washable baby wipes/other cloth wipe like items.

I had a dream.

When ever we visit with my brother in-law he asks me several times every morning what I dreamt. I don't like this question. Why? Because if I remember what I dreamt it is almost always because I did not sleep well. If I did sleep somewhat well and I still remember my dreams it is usually very disturbing and something I'd rather forget about and i really do not need someone reminding me several times that I'm some sort of sociopath just waiting......waiting......waiting to emerge out of my shell and spread havoc!!!!! muhahhahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, my baby is due in a month, so I'm going to tell you what I dreamt last night! Because! How do you think I sleapt last night? What! you think I slept? This is what it has come down to. I lay down on the bed with 2 giant beating hearts painfully throbbing in my feet. Then when they suddenly remember that they are not part of the human anatomy and slowly fade away to something more subtle, my old circus injury (yes really, story time for another day children) takes over and I toss and turn trying in vain to get comfy enough to fall asleep, whilst attempting this physically challenging feat (turning over in bed) I sound like a wounded duck trying to defend it's babies from a wolf, or something similarly destitute. Once I do manage to sleep I'm quickly interrupted by the well run, clean water initiative that my uterus has instituted and so I hike to the bathroom on my still sore feet and then since I have just flushed the system it needs immediate replenishing to acceptable H2O levels. Some how in this process that repeats it self all night long I did manage to have dreams, and pretty much all of them had to do with being in labor. (or my dog running away)

This is the only one I recall in detail.

 My pregnant self is standing in the mostly deserted maternity ward. there is a nurse sitting in a chair smoking a cigarette. Just next to her is a hospital room with a sad looking huge pregnant woman in hospital paper covers laying on a hospital bed moaning and complaining. There is a small child in the room with her playing on the floor. The nurse asks me to tell the lady to come and talk to her, so I tell the woman. She looks at me shocked and replies that she can't possibly get up she is feeling awful. So I tell the nurse, who casually informs me to tell the woman that she is not ready to have her baby so she needs to pack it up and come back later when she is actually in active labor. Wondering how this is my responsibility to tell her that, I walk back into the room and tell the lady that unfortunately she has to go back home, and she looks at me with sad quiet eyes and slowly sits up. Smoking lazy nurse still just sits there.

So here is what I get from that. In spite the fact that I have decided to take it quite personal every time the alarm clock rings and I'm still pregnant, I'm nearly 36 weeks now, I apparently have an evil nurse inside of me who's job is to tell me to suck it up and deal! Because she could care less that I am the heaviest I have ever been and that my muscles are morphing into jell-o every hour I'm not able to walk or lift or sleep or sit or lay down or stand up with out it making me tired and feeling like it was me and not Jed that just did a bunch of push ups. I just have to keep on trucking until this baby is good and ready, and before that she does not want to see my mug.

So tell me, why when I just spend the last many hours wrestling with my blanket in some failed attempt to force it to become an anti gravity chamber where I can sleep in perfect comfort without the rest of my walrus shaped body crushing my already tired hip, would I want to remember that?

We bought a house in the hood!

this last month has been a stressful blur! And I forgot to take a million pictures of everything that has happened. We are now out of the rental that served us well but was small and very much a temporary home and felt very much like a rental, especial when it was time to move. Even though we liked it there and felt at home we are happy to be out and done. We are trying hard to make this hose a home and a nice one at that so we shall have to see how that turns out, we have 6!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! bedrooms! In order for us to score this amazing deal on rooms, not to mention the 4 bathrooms, we had to move to a less desirable part of town. HOWEVER! wiki calls our neighborhood a hidden gem of north Sacramento so it can't be all bad. We do not have to go many blocks in any given direction to find reminders as to why this is an area that people typically do not tell their real estate agent they want to move to BUT at the same time the streets sprawl with beautifully tall trees of all different kinds and flowers are basically falling over the fences and trying to take over the road. The houses vary in age and majority of them are taken care of well and are bursting at the seams with personality and history, and it is really quite lovely here. The first house, build in the 30's, that I fell in love with and wanted to buy, is one the same street a few blocks east. The people who did get it are really making it shine and heaven knows I'm bold enough so one day I might just go knock on the door and tell them all about how lucky they are and hopefully they will let me see a little of what they have done to it, because that house was so fun! When it was first started this was actually a very nice area , build on an old horse ranch. Then sometime mid last century the city of North Sacramento had a heated election where they close to become part of Sacramento and ever since then they have become a neglected part of the greater Sacramento area. There are now efforts being made to reverse the effect but it is not going to happen quickly. We are not really sure how long we will stay here, but the house has the possibility to become a long term place for us if we end up choosing to. We would love to build up equity sell it and then get a place that is more in line with what we've been wanting when we sit down and talk of the dream home. Bigger kitchen, more living space, bigger yard, 3 acres at least! But who knows! It depends on the housing market, Jed's job situation and many other things.
Send me a message if you would like the new address.

Free online classes

My friend Adriana just posted a list of free classes available online! I have not looked at any of the links yet so do not shoot me if they are not what you think I'm advertising. I think this could be a lot of fun. I've been wanting to go back to school but now is not the time. I've been keeping an eye on various publications in the mail that offer short classes on different topics but they all cost something. In case you are interested here it is! Enjoy! If you have anything to add let me know!

coursera.org (free). 

there's also 360training.com (some free)

, ocw.mit.edu (free), openculture.com (free),

 class-central.com 

edx.org with tons of classes from major universities for free. 

 One of my favorites, lynda.com (paid subscription) 

CreativeLive.com great for photographers and designers.

Magic!

 I originally posted this on facebook a year ago but I wanted it a bit more permanent so here it is again.


I have loved so many places but to me my grandmother's house was magic and when she moved I realized she was the one that really made that 400 year old farm house with a straw roof enchanted because the new house (only 100 years old) turned out to be just as fantastic. I loved the stained glass windows in the bathroom, they made me feel like I was looking through time into something sacred and private. I loved the smells of straw, bread in the own, wooden plank floors that felt rough under your bare feet and some times gave you a splinter, the grumpy farmers field behind the house and the cooking smells from the neighboring "home for the traveler" that would fill the night air with loud laughter and music on Saturday nights. The garden was full of wonderful trees for climbing or apple picking and the garden had flowers and vegetables growing and filling the air with joy. My grandfathers workshop was sharply and wonderfully fragrant with wood shavings and paint, and when I would sneak in there I felt as though I had entered a separate world hidden in plain sight in the middle of my oasis of childhood bliss. There were 2 sets of stairs in the house and one led straight up to the remodeled hayloft which was now a large family room with sloping walls almost to the floor, there was still a door for loading the hay in and now it simply opened up to a straight drop down to the lawn below and my older and much braver cousins would fill it up with pillows and blankets and jump out into the open, how I envied them the freedom but I was absolutely terrified of leaping out myself. The other set of stars I rarely walked up because they led to my uncles end of the house and since he was just 16 years older than my self I was usually not a welcome sight there, when he was home and awake the house was filled with the rhythms he constantly was beating into his drum set. When he was not home I would sometimes tiptoe into his room and look at his detailed drawings of shoes that he was designing the rest of his art was to uninteresting for this young art critic to catch my attention, then I might walk on to the next section of the house I was not allowed in. i was a sort of an attic full of strange dusty things i remember a butter churn and other artifacts, dusty boxes and crates and a glorious old organ that you had to constantly pump with pedal-like bellows in order to make it produce sound. This was difficult because I was to short to do this while sitting on the bench so I had to master the skill of pumping, balancing and producing horrible sounding music that I would attempt to sing along to all at once with out getting asked to stop by an adult or older cousin. This house had wonderful sounds as well, laughter. Lots and lots of jolly, sweet, enthusiastic, soul feeding laughter. And music. Singing, strumming on guitars, a banjo, a harmonica, an accordion, on occasion a violin, a saw, a comb and a number of other instruments real or not that I can't name. The sound of my grandmothers voice though, that is the most powerful magic there was within those tutor walls. When she sat down with a book the kids would flock around her and quiet and expectant and when she opened the pages and filled our imaginations with wonder and adventure they would stay full long hours after she snapped the book shut and told our objecting selves that we would have to wait, then if we were really lucky we would get to listen to her talk about the shadows on the walls and her memories from her own childhood while we lay squeezed tighter together in one little bed next to her than we would ever have put up in our own rooms, yet here in her bedroom with the old lumpy heavy blankets and the elbows and knees of my siblings i felt totally and completely happy.

A quick peak at the house

Following are 3 little videos that I made of the house the first time I went to see it, Astrid was with me because she was home sick and my mom came along for fun, and good times and to help me see if it was any good since most everything we have looked at so far was not. Jed was at work and this house looked promising but we had very little time to put in an offer so we had to go right then.

I still have no idea how we got this house you get a brief glimpse in the back ground of a guy in the drive way, who walked in right when we were done looking and wanted Nancy (our real estate agent) to show him the house as well She went mother hen on him. She basically told him very politely to go away and not bother to come back because I was going to get this house! I like having an agent who really looks out for me!

I have watched a total of 3 different groups of people coming into the house, after we already had our home inspection people were still coming in and I was starting to feel a little possessive but Nancy assures me that I have nothing to worry about and that HUD (government agency who we are buying it from) are just taking their time changing the listing status.

Big Changes!

BIG CHANGES!

We are having a baby the first week of July and we are in the process of buying a house! I get wonderfully useless when i am pregnant and so for the last several months I have been MIA Sorry about that!

A few things we will be working on as far as baby goes, is trying to be more enviromentaly friendly. We are talking both the nature, world, save the whales kinda environmentally friendly and also the home environment Home environment Especially is more friendly when we are not spending a fortune on something that goes straight in the trash so we are seriously considering cloth diapering. Well if that does not sound ambitious enough my dear mother and I are also planning to try to make the diapers our selves because we are just that crazy! Let's see how it all works out!

House! 

House house house!

We are buying a HUD home so that basically boils down to buying a normal house but instead of a person or even a bank owning it, it is own by the government! And anytime you are dealing with the government...... well it is certainly a learning experience!

Last time we bought a house it was the old fashioned way, from a regular person and it was so much simpler. Assuming everything goes according to plan we'll be moving in a few months or less.

Things I love about the house  6! yep I said  6!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

bedrooms! halleluiah!

And it is only 5 years old so there are not any big stuff wrong with it. We had a very thorough inspection done and everything is looking pretty good, the house has been vacant for a long time so it is filthy and needs a ton of small stuff that does add up BUT it is so much better than just about everything else we have looked at and it is so much bigger, we are getting just under 2300 square feet of space ! yay! 

It is far from my dream home but considering our limitations and options I'm extremely pleased.

A few things i would do differently. The floorplan. it is odd and I wish i could pick up the house and shake it about and rearange everything. I wish the yard was bigger. I wish the area it is located in was nicer including the schol that the kids in theory will be attending, and I wish there was a real grocery store somewhere close.I have not found anything other than strange looking corner stores so far, and a bunch of auto repair places.

Big Stuff! More details to follow! 

Salad........everyday

I applied to host yet another house party event. This time it is for salad dressing and one of the things I did in the process was to write about the salads I make. So here is a snippet into my salad making habits. Writing it makes me want to go make a pasta salad right now! I love to cook elaborate meals and I LOVE setting an impressive table. However, in between these feats of feasting, I really just want something quick and easy and healthy. I try to always have a fresh veggie salad and fruit salad ready in the fridge, because otherwise it is much to easy to reach for something that is less healthy and we eat a lot more fresh fruit and veggies when I do this than on the days where I did not take the time. The wonderful thing about this is that if my all-veggie salads start to look like they are getting to old they can be tossed in the freezer and added next time I make soup. This way salad is never wasted. I love nuts, dried and fresh fruit and seeds as an option to change things up for toppings to mix in with the salad. Typical ingredients for a salad at my house would be red cabbage, some dark leafy greens such as spinach, shredded carrots, red, yellow, or orange bell peppers unless we have the pleasure to get hold of some purple ones. It really just comes down to what is in season and how much room I have left in the bowl, for example right now i have a portebella mushroom in the fridge so it will either be used in the next salad or soup unless I suddenly feel like making coking something that happens to need one of those. I always have more veggies ready to go. I know a lot of people do well with making meal plans for the whole week but for me it is better to just stock up on fresh produce until the fridge is overflowing and just make sure it all gets eaten or frozen and I almost always have what I need for what ever I feel like making. Thinly sliced summer squash or soybeans can give it a nice crunch, sometimes we will add tomatoes, most of the time we just eat them by them selves though because we love them so much and they tend to make the salad go bad faster. There are really very few things I will not add to a salad, but I do try to avoid iceberg lettuce if at all possible, it just seems like such a waste of the space in your stomach. If we really want the salad to be the only meal we sometimes add cheese or meat or even bacon. I love pasta salad and I love having good dressings around for those. Some cooked noodles, finely sliced veggies and a good dressing and quick as a fox, you have a perfect side dish. If I have had company coming and I worry I will not have enough food i have made a super quick and very popular version that basically just consists of a can of black olives, a can of artichokes, half a bottle of vinaigrette and some noodles.

Summer 2012 Videos

homemade liquid handsoap

I'm really excited to try this at some point

Cheese grater (from the dollar store)
2 Tablespoons of Liquid Glycerin (found in the band aid section at any drugstore or grocery store)
1 - 8 oz bar of soap
1 gallon of water

Step 1:

Grate the entire bar of soap

 

Step 2:
Fill a pot with 1 gallon of water and add the soap shavings.

Step 3:
Add 2 Tablespoons of liquid glycerin and turn the heat to medium/high and stir until the soap dissolves.

Leave it alone to cool for at least 10-12 hours. It begins to cloud up after 3-4 hours.

After it has cooled completely around 12 hours later it will harden and look like liquid soap.

If the soap is harder than it should be you can take some beaters and blend it while adding just a little bit of water until the consistency is more like liquid soap.

All this I got from here  where she has excellent pictures as well. Some people in the comments are saying that you have to add preservatives so that it will not get moldy, I have no idea how to deal with that but I was thinking that you could freeze it in smaller portions and take them out as you need them.

one of the coments said "Have you tried microwaving a solid bar of Ivory for a couple of minutes? Great fun for the kids - OK I find it fascinating as it erupts into what looks like shaving cream but sets into a big plate of something just a little more dense than cotton candy. The next day put it into a bag and smash it. It turns to fine powder, which I would think would be perfect for your recipe. (And way more fun!)" I think it sounds fantastic!

Mexican Tortillas and Enchiladas with Patty

These videos are especially for my awesome family and friends in Denmark who have been asking me to either send them Mexican food or to tell them how to make it. The problem with mailing Mexican food is that it will go bad (heh) or that a  can of enchilada sauce and a stack of tortillas would be very expensive to mail considering how heavy they are. So that brings me to the second request. Tell them how to make it.....hhhmmmm....that requires me to KNOW how to make it from scratch. Yea, so that is a problem as well so I decided to go to an expert if you will, because that just makes a whole lot of more sense. So I have to tell you that this was yummy!
Patty is this fantastic lady that I have gotten to know and she was such a good sport! And I got to stuff my face with crazy good food! I still do not know how to make the corn tortillas but I think it would work with the flour ones as well even though she says not to.......hhmmmm..... anyways. Maybe I can convince her to teach me how to make salsa as well! She actually also shows how to make refried beans in this here fantastic educational experience of a video sequence! Enjoy and please ask questions!

Institute graduation

first of I have to say that I love these pictures.

Anna was sick and this was the beginning of the strange fever and headaches that would just show up and then go at random. I finally took her to the Emergency Room at Dell Children's hospital since I wanted her looked at by people who knew how to read kids since her symptoms were so odd.

Since she was not feeling well she had a really hard time with bladder control *AND in these pictures she pees on Jed! Priceless! Happy graduation Daddy!

Jed gave a talk at the ceremony and I already knew it was great because I had helped edit but I have heard him talk in the past and i can tell that he has gotten so much better up there in front of people and if that is how he is in the classroom then it is beyond me why he does not have school districts stocking him begging him to work for them. He did such an amazing job on this talk and I was so impressed and proud of him.

*She had gone through several out fits by the time we hid the end of the night. After this picture was taken we had to borrow clothes from some of the other people there because we had gone through the large stack of extras in the car. We had been there for some time before then because Jed cleans the institute building. It is a part time job that he has had for more than a year and it has been very helpful with that extra little paycheck during this last year of school since the student teaching had taken away most of his very little extra time to work. The whole family went with him to clean before the ceremony and Anna tore through the extra clothes. While we were there we also had quite the drama. A young man came in and very politely asked to use the phone. The building was closed to the public and it was just our little family. The only reason the door was unlocked was because Jed was getting ready to clean the front steps. As soon as you looked in his eyes you knew something was terribly wrong. He was dressed like a typical college kid you would expect in this part of town but his eyes were bloodshot and his face was covered in sweat. Jed told him that the building was closed and that he had to leave, he did not want to leave. He finally walked half way out the door then came back in and said he wanted to ask someone else. Jed followed him down the hall way and just kept telling him "we're closed and you have to leave" he finally got him to walk out the back door and again he would not let go of the door. Jed tells he have to let go of the door and then the man says"I do not like your attitude" Jed informs him that he does not care and pulls the door closed. Then the man goes berserk on the door kicking and kicking until the glass breaks screaming profanity. i had stayed with the kids not wanting them to follow him, so now I run down the hallway to see what is going on, Jed is already calling 911 as soon as he man sees he through the broken door he stops or maybe it is not my angelic inspiring aura that makes him act like he ought and he simply just gets tired of kicking the door, I like the first reason better though. He then walks down the stairs. I turn right around and lock the front door then i run to the door by the parking lot where the stairs will take him next and lock it then I watch as he wanders past tell all the kids to go hide in the bathroom, It was not until this point that they thought anything dangerous was happening they just thought it was all very weird. Jed comes out and watches at a distance as the man randomly wanders around on the street parking lot and at odd times takes of at a sprint just to stop again a few steps later, when he sees Jed the profanity and screaming begins again and he suddenly runs in the middle of the street and stops a car, then he takes of at a run down the street and we loose track of him. Just after that the cops show up. Turns out he asked the girls in the car to call the police and stay until they got here. When all was said and done we ended up filing charges and realized that those crappy low quality cameras on our cell phones would have come in very handy just then. Oh well. Then I had a long talk with the kids about why we do not do drugs and why we do not make friends with people who do drugs and if our friends start doing drugs we ditch them. Tough, but do we really want to be friends with people who act like that? Glad that they agreed that that was a really bad idea.

For Jed!

http://www.jed.com/ a directory of people and things named jed !!!
very cool!


http://www.jedfoundation.org/   The Jed Foundation is the nation's leading organization working to reduce emotional distress and prevent suicide among college students.
also very cool in a differnt kind of way!