My Fourth Child

Here she is! And she's prettier in person. I have slaved over this piece of furniture painstakingly... tediously... methodically ... almost slave-labor-in-a-sweat-shop like, and she is finished! At last!

As I mentioned before, I've envisioned a piece just like this for years. She lights up at night and looks so pretty in my kitchen. I pulled all my dishes out today and organized them in her. I am just so happy!

Last night in bed, Tyler expressed some concern about the amount of time that this little endeavour was demanding of me, and I stopped him in his tracks - "No. Stop. This is like our fourth child, honey! You can only win by saying good things about her."

He must have gotten the message because he came home tonight, kissed me and looked quickly to her, "Oh, wow! That looks so good! It is way better than I imagined!" After I excitedly showed him how nicely everything fits into it, he commented that, had he known how much I wanted one of these, he would have bought me one years ago.

Oh well. She's a special piece of art, this hutch of mine. She and I have a life long bond.




P.S. In case you're wondering what all I had to do to her, here are my steps: I got her, took all the hardware off, glass panes out, doors off. Lugged her piece by piece inside, primed her white, primed her red, lugged her back out to the garage, spray painted her red, sanded her, put the hardware back on and her back together, lugged her back inside, stained her sanded spots and loaded her up. Don't worry, I'll never do anything like this again.

Fall at the Farm

We went to Schnepf Farms this weekend. LOVING the fall weather! I think it was a high of 78 that day, amazing. Lots of fun miniature golfing, picking out and painting our pumpkins (we like little), riding rides, eating hot dogs and kettle corn, and enjoying the feeling of FALL! Yay!

My Eyes have Beheld It!

...I've officially been to New York City!

The whole time I was there I couldn't believe that I was actually seeing/hearing/smelling/tasting and feeling everything in the Big Apple! When I've seen something so many times on TV, it is crazy fun to behold it in real life. I imagine this is how it will be someday when I finally meet Oprah, whom I already consider a friend. Still can't wrap my mind around the fact that she doesn't know who I am.

Anyway, here are bunch of pictures. I haven't learned how to collage my pictures or even put them into a slide show format. Sorry. Most of our time in the city was spent at night because Tyler was working during the day, and I was sleeping (it was amazing to sleep in with the three hour time change. The first morning I got up and saw that my watch said it was 9:30 but quickly learned that it was actually 12:30and the day was half over!). The day time was beautifully refreshing coming from here. It was just wonderful being there.

Enjoy.

These are from the first night spent at Times Square. It felt a lot like Las Vegas to me, but less sleazy. We drove our rental car in for the first and only time, saw The New York Times building, Rockefeller Center (the famous ice-skating rink which wasn't filled), the place that Good Morning America airs from each morning, and Broadway among other things. We bought our Wicked CD (in anticipation of the show), went out for Sushi, saw the many knock-off purse and Rolex salesmen, the hundreds of Taxis (there are actually 13,000 in NYC!) and smelled the gross mid-night air filled with the daily dose of garbage lining the streets (the do garbage pick-up nightly for an obvious reason). Oh, and we saw SPIDERMAN. Cool shot for Luke.

These pictures are of Grand Central Station. It also reminded me of Las Vegas, the Venetian or something. Just incredible how large and complex and populated everything is!

On day two we decided to try the train system. This was really, really cool. To be on the trains coming in from Newark, to Penn Station. It was crazy. We found lots of kind, helpful people and managed to make it into the city in one piece. Late, but in one piece.

The last night we took the train in again, and saw the show "Wicked". It exceeded expecations, even after all the great things that people had told us about it! Super show. I wish we could take our kids sometime. Following that, we hailed a taxi (We got a thrill yelling "Taxi!"! and having one pull over! The drivers are super nice, too.) and went to see Ground Zero and Wall Street.

Definitely a sober thing being at the site of the World Trade Centers. We were there late, at like 10pm and there were few people down around that area, but the construction work was going. A nice man walking by stopped to talk with us about that day, where he was, and what's been done since. It was so sad! They say they are five years behind schedule and way over budget. The plan is to rebuild the two buildings a few stories higher than the last ones... so much work with all the intricate details of the subway running underneath that they are restoring and all.

Also, the fire station that was right there on the opposite corner is special. Obviously they lost many firefighters that day and whole place is a working memorial. There is no museum or anything up and running yet for us to visit but you could feel the Spirit there. It was so sad.

We topped the trip off with a quick peek at Wall Street, a slice of pizza from 'Little Italy', and a couple souvenirs. And as quickly as we'd come, we were gone. Great trip. So much fun.

More news from our "garden"

Months ago I took pictures of the massive sunflowers we had in our garden. It was at that time that I cut everything down and tore everything out except for a small bit of watermelon vines and something else growing that I didn't know what it was.

Come to find out, the other stuff was peppers! We now have red and green peppers sprouting out all over. And the watermelon has successfully spread and taken over the side yard.

Only one watermelon to show for it all so far. But she's a cutie. Now we just need to pick her at the right time, and try to keep the peppers from scalding in the hot sun (shut up, I know it's the FALL, but it's still HOT here) and we'll be ready to rip all them out and start a winter garden.


By the way, I do know very, very little about gardening, honestly, except I do know this: the things to plant in the spring (at least this is true in AZ) are things that have seeds (peppers, watermelon, pumpkins, cucumbers, cantalope, etc) and the things to plant in the fall are those without seeds (potatoes, carrots, can't think of anything else, etc). That's the rule of thumb I go by, and hey, it works!

Ashley's Party

My latest project (call me crazy)

Ever since we moved into this house I've had a vision of a beautiful, red china hutch against the wall by our kitchen table. It's been almost five years and I am finally making my dream a reality! And the price was RIGHT. We were given this hutch for free, and I have had so much fun taking the liberty of sanding it, priming it and painting it red! Today, even though it is not complete, I had to bring it in (thanks to Lukey for the pushing help) and set it all up just to see how it is going to look!

Yay! I am so happy. I figure I'd better leave it for a week or so because I am kind-of getting sick of looking at it (which leads to slopping painting on my part). So next week I plan to spray on the final coat, put the glass panes and hardward back on, and fill it up with the dishes that have been hidden in cupboards for too long.

Ali has been with me in thought through this process and I wanted to share these pictures with her tonight.

Now, to go scrub the red paint off my cheek, elbow and knees.

Picture of the Week

Jacob taking his baby on a stroll.