Going Domestic

Paint by Numbers

Chris is on a mission to paint our bedroom and install baseboards while the room is still empty from having the oak floor sanded and refinished. We're painting it grey - "Manhattan Mist", actually. I've been wondering lately if we would have painted our home different colours if they'd had different names. Is our living room beige because "Pecan Sandie" just sounded good, or do we really like beige walls that much? Our dining room is "Seven Seas" blue, and Madeline's room is "Wildflower Honey" yellow with "Teal Bayou" accents.

We have a brochure for Farrow & Ball paint at home - the weirdest paint colour names I've ever heard of! We could have painted our home in "Smoked Trout", "Dead Salmon", or "Lichen".

I surrender!

Well, after launching "Laura's First-Ever Gardening Experience" this past spring (or last fall, when I planted bulbs), I've concluded that I have an affinity for growing weeds. They're flourishing. I know that I've spent practically zero time in the gardens since Madeline was born, but I can't explain why one flower box of petunias and pansies died right out in July while the box beside it, containing the same flowers, didn't. I planted nastertiums that didn't bloom but sprouted leaves the size of apples (?), and I have no idea where my sweetpeas are. I know that I planted seeds ...

It's to Chris's credit that we've had some romaine lettuce and zucchinis because he still manages to get outside and water from time to time ...

Couch Potatoes Anonymous

Thursday is the end of an era for Chris and I. We've lived in Calgary for four years without cable television. We get four channels, and feel that we watch enough programs to get by. Every now and then we'd say that we'd subscribe if we could pay $20 and get the twenty channels that we want. Paying extra for unwanted channels is an abhorant idea to us. Then yesterday, a salesperson from Shaw Cable called and offered us pretty much all the channels for $20/month and free installation, so we caved. Chris is excited about catching Edmonton Oilers games on TSN - hopefully there's an NHL season this fall ...

I'm just looking forward to catching Six Feet Under without having to wait for more episodes to come out on DVD :)

Modern convenience, huh?

I still haven't figured out why our refridgerator leaks from this plastic and tubing contraption inside the main compartment, but every now and then I wonder if Chris and I should vaccuum the coils. And then I notice a recent article about doing just that ... Maybe it's a sign?

Why we pay the bill each month ...

I don't think that I've posted about this before, but the company that owns the natural gas distribution system in Alberta also operates a nifty cooking website: ATCO Blue Flame Kitchen. I called their hotline once to ask how I could make a quiche with less cream. It's weird but handy at the same time.

Got Milk?

I think that my husband felt a little leftout at meal time when he'd enjoy a beer in one of his Ritzenhoff pilsner glasses, because he recently bought me this cool Ritzenhoff "cat woman" milk glass. Yes, I'm nearly thirty and still enjoy skim milk with my dinner ... We aresuch suckers for funky kitchen stuff ...

Good kind of clutter

Maybe it's just me, but I've never felt "moved-in" into my abode until I had a few pictures hanging on the wall. This was a crisis of conscience when I was living in apartments because I never knew if a nail in the wall meant a forfeit of the damage deposit, but now that we're homeowners, I've been banging away at the wall at leisure. Our latest picture purchase is a watercolour on silk by Beth Coulas. We've been admiring her paintings at the Edmonton Folk Music Festival for three years, and finally bought one. It's of Gallegher Park (where the folk fest is held), and will be good memory for when we move to Newfoundland next year.

Has anyone tried hanging photos using those 3M Command Hooks? I didn't realize that they had special ones for hanging up pictures until my friend Ada showed me the pictures for her kitchen that she's intending to try them out on!

Floor Me

It was almost a year ago that I posted about having the oak floors in our hall, living room, and dining room re-finished, and uploaded a photo to compare the newly finished floor of the hall to the icky and rough floor of one of the bedrooms. This week the little person and I have been freeloading at my parents' house in Edmonton while the three bedrooms are finally having their own floors sanded and refinished. I'm a little worried that we waited too long in-between, and that there will be a noticeable colour change between the hallway floor and the bedrooms where they meet! All of the furniture from the bedrooms have been moved into the dining room, which is conveniently empty as we still don't have any furniture for it.

While the rooms are empty, Chris wants to paint the spare bedroom that we've designated "the study" and our own bedroom. Hopefully we'll be able to agree on a colour for our bedroom smoothly - we had a technical difficulty with the paint colour for the study. We each hated the colours that the other loved, so we compromised on a colour that looked like sage green on the paint chip, but looked more like hospital-scrub green on our walls. Now we're painting the room a shade of brown that reminds me of hot chocolate or a latte ...

Attack of the baby robins ...

Two days ago, the Mayday tree in our front yard was full of berries ... but a dozen hungry young robins took care of that rather handily!

They were awfully cute - not expert flyers yet, so they often needed a few attempts to reach the next branch!