Our housewarming party went really well. Everything was done in time, the kitchen looks fabulous painted and I was proud to show it all off. What an exhausting day, though! We cooked barbecue for 22 people. That is a lot of meat! The barbecue caught fire twice, but no one exploded and everything was fine.

I was so stressed about this one stupid party that about an hour before people were supposed to show up, everything caught up with me and I burst into tears. I blamed it on chopping onions for my salad.

Before the weekend, I had a couple of pots of fuchias strapped to my deck railing, but they didn't do so well there and I think they were just getting a bit too much sun. I've since taken them down and put them in a shadier spot and they seem to be doing a bit better. I even have a few new blooms. To replace them, we went to the garden centre and got a few plants that are more sun- and heat-tolerant.

My mom is retiring this year. Today her friends at work are throwing her a big retirement party and as soon as Alex gets home from school we're all heading down there to celebrate. Her retirement date is sometime near the end of September but she's got a lot of vacation days that she never took so she won't have to go back after her plant shuts down for summer holidays at the end of July. I'm so happy for her. She's had lots of health problems over the past year and she's finally doing much better, so it's nice to see that she's going to retire while she still feels good and can enjoy her free time.

Tomorrow morning we're saying goodbye to a lot of our stuff. In our area, different charitable organizations do clothing drives, and this time we'll be donating books, shoes, clothes and toys to a local Cerebral Palsy foundation. They come around with a truck to pick up donations. When we moved last year, we donated and threw away so much stuff, it's amazing we still have so much more. I guess it takes a while for me to really come to terms with the fact that I don't need these things anymore. I've been working on decluttering for a long time but I can't just part with everything right away. I worry that I'm going to suddenly need it, fit into it, want to read it again. But that never happens. I hope they have enough room in their truck!

Jeremy and I are finally throwing our housewarming party this Saturday, a whole year after moving in. My reasoning for this is that we wanted to get some significant work done before we threw the official party. Since our house is small, the party needed to happen in the summer because I can't fit 25 people in my living room.

We are almost ready. The coffee table and plant stand table (pictures in the previous post) have been stained. They look terrific. Unfortunately I haven't been able to varnish them, it's just been too windy outside. As soon as I wipe the dust from the surface, the wind blows it right back on so I'm just going to wait for a still day. This means I won't be able to varnish them and have them be dry in time for Saturday. That's okay. I'd rather not rush them anyway.

Most of the yardwork is done. We dug some big rocks out of the front garden when we were planting and they're still on the driveway, they need to be moved to the back. Lawn needs mowing, weeds need whacking, but for the most part, everything is pretty presentable and I'm happy with how it all looks.

This past weekend I washed all of my curtains and my sister helped me iron them while we drank wine and watched Muriel's Wedding. I highly discourage you all from buying cotton curtains because they're a total bitch to iron. No matter what I do, they are still somewhat wrinkled. I decided that I am okay with this. My mom is not...she tried to buy me some new curtains for the living room, but I wouldn't have it. I've got plans to make my own sometime soon and until then, the ones I have will have to do, wrinkled or not.

Yesterday, our friends lent us their reciprocating saw so Jeremy spent a couple of hours sawing up one of the kitchen cupboards to house the dishwasher. We cornered our plumber neighbour who confirmed he is happy to do the plumbing part of the hookup for us, but that will have to wait until next week some time. I'm just thrilled to have the dishwasher under the counter for now. Saturday morning an electrician came in to wire the dishwasher for us. He charged less than his estimate so we got the bright idea to use the money we saved on some paint. As though we don't have enough to do, today we're going to paint the kitchen. We won't be able to actually renovate it for a couple of years, so we decided we could at least paint in the meantime and try to make it look a little bit nicer. We've got lots of primer and ceiling paint leftover from doing the rest of the house, so all we'll need to buy are a couple of tray liners, some rollers and a gallon of eggshell.

Still on the to-do list are things like organizing the bedroom closets (the closets don't have doors and I want our guests to feel free to peek around), cleaning up the office (it's degenerated into a storage area and I want to remedy that), cleaning up the laundry room, and a final mop, sweep, vacuum. I think we can do it.

I feel like a crazy person, trying to do all of this stuff before our party on Saturday. Despite the lunacy, time constraints like this actually help me get things done (I am SUCH a procrastinator otherwise) and I know I'll be happy in the end. I plan to be completely finished by Thursday evening, so all I'll need to to on Friday is prepare the food. Oh god, the food.

Pictures of the kitchen and living room to come later. Will I ever knit again? I'll let you know after Saturday.

Here are the pictures I promised yesterday. The living room originally looked like the photo below. Not bad, it was nice and full but I have fallen out of love with blond wood and the bookshelves just looked very boxy and plain. I've wanted to get rid of them for some time, but didn't know what to replace them with. I have a nasty habit of buying things too fast because I need a shelf or the room looks empty, without taking the time to find something really nice. Also, getting a discount at a certain Swedish furniture store means that we usually end up with something from there, just because it's cheaper.

Continue reading "New Living Room"

Yesterday we spent money we didn't have and bought two pieces of furniture from the local antique shop. We got a couple of non-antique end tables that have been refinished that we fell in love with. Last night, after dinner, we spent hours moving our furniture around.

The result is...different. Do I like it better? I don't know. We used the end tables as a tv bench, which meant we had to shuffle around our big Ikea bookcases. I have been tired of these bookcases for a long time, but they did pull the room together. Without the bookcases we have a lot less storage out here, including places for my yarn. We now have piles of books everywhere (yard sale!). The office has become a big storeroom again and I have a big headache. I love the new furniture but the room looks unbalanced. Hopefully with the creative altering of some things we already have, we can make it work.

We've come to terms with the fact that renovating the kitchen is financially out of the question. Our dishwasher has been sitting in the corner for the past year, unusable, because we were waiting until kitchen reno time. Since that's just not happening we thought we might as well take care of the dishwasher now so we could at least use it. We got some estimates for the electrical and now we're wondering if the plumbing part of it is within our dope skillz or if we should hire a professional. Our neighbour is a plumber and he's offered to help us out, but I don't know if he was just making conversation or if he really wants to help us out.

Tonight I'm going to my SNB and we've got some stuff to do around here before we leave, so I don't have time for pictures. Tomorrow, fools.