New Site

If you click on the title it will take you to the new site. Thought I would mention that since it doesn't always look like a link.

We've Moved

Well I'm both happy and sad to say that we will no longer be updating the blog from this host. In an effort to actually blog we are moving to wordpress which is much more friendly to mobile updating and well that is much more in tune with our current Internet use. So go here, http://twosomewhatdifferentepigrams.wordpress.com/, and I promise you'll get more updates.

Movie Review

I am finally going to write a post! About movies! Aren't you excited? And no, I'm probably not going to add in any new Rolo pictures because the iphone still befuddles me on this point. So, our movie watching has increased in the last six months, but most of the watching we do comes from Netflix or Redbox. Rosalind has been to two movies in the theater and we have had sort of mixed results. If she doesn't fall asleep halfway through then she becomes restless about halfway through. The reason we have been able to watch more, I think, comes from the fact that Rosalind no longer sleeps like a baby (the real way babies sleep, up every few hours) and now when she goes to bed at 8:30 we still sometimes have the energy to stay up for a movie. At least on the weekends during the summer. So here are some movie reviews from the last 6-9 months. As far as we can remember we did these out of a possible 4 points. (the last movie is supposed to show 3 clubs not four).

Kung Fu Panda 2 ♣♣ ¾
Fun and action packed. This was Rosalind's second attempt at a movie. We went after her nap so she stayed awake and all the action and colors and noise in the world couldn't keep her still and quiet for that long. The story is super sweet in this one, but then the last scene kind of leaves you wondering about everything you've just seen.

Bridesmaids ♣♣
We both wanted this to be better. It toned down some and got a lot better by the end. I remember thinking the movie seemed confused about what genre it wanted to be.

Rango ♣♣♣
This is a really pretty movie...sort of. The animation is stunning but sometimes it's almost grotesque since the subject matter are lizards and rodents. This was also Rosalind's first movie experience and she was pretty into it and then fell asleep. Perfect. The story is pretty much a basic western so adults can enjoy it and Rosalind enjoyed the cartoony aspect. Win/Win.

Harry Potter 8 ♣♣♣
I thought the movie did as well as it could to be faithful to the books so I really liked that. However, I somehow didn't feel much of the emotion you feel as you read the book. In fact, I found the first part of the last movie to be the better of the two. I have also heard from people who saw this without seeing any others or reading the books that they walked away with some false beliefs about the storyline and I can see how that might have happened with the way this movie plays out.

Wristcutter's: A Love Story ♣♣♣ ¼
This movie was recommended to me by one of my quirkier students last year and I thought it might be interesting. It sounds depressing as it is the story of a group of people who meet and have adventures after they have committed suicide and find that the afterlife for them is pretty much just a cruddier version of earth filled with other suicide victims. It's actually very sweet and kind of funny.

Black Snake Moan ♣♣ ½
I don't really know how to describe this movie. We saw the previews for it years ago and it looked kind of like a comedy. It's not. I liked it a lot and Sergio liked it a little. I think it is worth a watch, but beware that it is not for those squeamish with nudity or sex but that tones way down about 1/3 of the way through. Samuel L. Jackson and Christina Ricci are both very good in this.

Cedar Rapids ♣♣ ½
A comedy about insurance salesmen set in Cedar Rapids. Sergio liked it a little more than me. It was a good way to spend an evening.

Lincoln Lawyer ♣♣♣♣ ¼
I had no idea what this was about and was still confused at the end as to why the title referenced Abraham Lincoln. Sergio finally explained that it was because the lawyer's office was a Lincoln. I felt dumb. I would really recommend this movie. It's very good. I can't say much about the plot without ruining some of it. Sometimes watching lawyer movies with Sergio is bothersome because he gets mad when the movie has the lawyers do things wrong, but that didn't happen much with this one. Yay!

Potty. Trained?

It's a real question of how to phrase the title of this post. It could maybe be potty? Trained. A definitive answer. I'm just a little unsure yet. Rosalind has been totally out of diapers for two weeks or more. Even at night and nap. There have been a few accidents but ones that make sense. She was out of our care, playing with other kids, just didn't make it in time, etc. Then in the last couple of days she has gone really out if her way to tell us she had to go potty. Like, running to the door while playing in the sprinkler and yelling at us to get her out of the shower. That's dedication. So anyway, she seems to have crossed some sort of mental threshold that makes her know she doesn't want to go in her pants. That seems important. I think I'm going to call it. Trained! It seemed to easy. The pacifier is another story.
So, now seems like as good a time as any to discuss cloth diapers. I might be a little behind. Did we do it? Did we quit? Yes and yes. We cloth diapered for one year. When Sergio spent six months in Helena the system fell apart. He was the washer of the diapers. For the most part it was fine. The downsides were that the diapers eventually lost a bit of absorption and Rolo only produced more all the time. They also took on a bit of staleness after awhile. The positives were that they were not any grosser than any other diaper, they were super cute, reusable and FREE. Between breastfeeding, cloth diapers,and a midwife, Rolo could have been a poster child for the fictional magazine I just made up, My Bargain Baby! For six months, Rosalind was pretty much free. It worked well with our underemployed lifestyle. Pretty much as soon as I was employed she weaned and when Sergio got a job out of town she went to disposables. Oh well.
So, do I recommend the hippie, organic, granola approach to babies? Sure, but mostly because it's cheap as crap.

My 26th birthday...for the 4th time.

One of Sergio's talents is planning parties/gifts. Now, he only really gives parties and gifts to Rosalind and I now, and my nieces and nephews at Christmas, but I knew him even before we dated and saw what he gave former girlfriends, and he was good even then. It's a little distressing because I am never able to match it for his birthday. In fact, last year I was really proud of myself for arranging for our friends to all go to dinner and ordering a Boston Creme Pie. I honestly don't remember if there were any other parts to his birthday. He makes gift giving really hard, so I can't take the blame for that one. For example, a week before Father's Day he texted me that he had bought some shoes and that would just be his gift. What am I supposed to do with that?

Anyway, the point of all of that is to say that Friday was my birthday. Sergio planned a birthday that was targeted exactly at me. We went to a friends house for drinks and dinner, while watching the first part of the last Harry Potter movie (as none of our friends had seen it). My friend Nikki provided yummy...I can't spell the correct term so we'll go with...appetizers. Sergio had gotten sliders and mac n cheese (the best on the planet) catered from one of our favorite restaurants. Then he brought out the cake he had specially designed for me. It's the tiny details, like the dot in the date, that show just how much he thought about it. Apparently he also considered buying me some Potter gear to wear to the movie that night, but luckily chickened out. I'm not so much for the dressing up.

We arrived at the 10 pm showing of Harry Potter 3D at 9 pm. We were the last people inside the doors in the line that had already formed. That put us in the first third of the line. People are crazy. We got good seats and the movie was great.

So, yeah, I kind of like my birthdays to resemble those of pre-teens, but the fact that others will join me for that shows I have a good husband and good friends.

P.S. I also really appreciated all the texts, e-cards, and Facebook messages. It made cheer camp go by faster to have new stuff to read all day. Have I mentioned I am coaching Jr. High Cheer this year?

Our Last Six Months

Our Last Six Months

A New Bed

In an effort to ensure that Rolo never sleeps in a structure anyone else has, Dawn and I built this bed. It maintains the visual aesthetic that Dad and I were going for in her crib, mostly modern and entirely hardwood, yet still feels toddlery, though it is a twin bed. It is not done, the rails will be painted white, but I like it.

New Developments

So, for those of you that had ever expressed interest in one day seeing the little farmhouse that we were fixing up, sorry. We sold it. And moved. We're very quick. Blink and you'll miss us!
While there are any number of reasons we decided to sell (possum!) we really just could not get used to how far away from everything we were. We now live in a tiny yellow cottage smack in the middle of Fayetteville. It is an experiment in that tiny house living Sergio is so fired up about. Actually, it is a very good size for us.
It's crazy how fast we acclimated to being back in town. In fact, we periodically have to encourage each other to make that loooooong drive back to the house to move the rest of our stuff. Tomorrow is our last day to get it all cleaned up and moved and we are having to argue with ourselves that the new owners probably don't want the broken down shelves still in the living room or the box of yearbooks in the storage room. It's so far away.
So there you go. We moved and I have yet to find even one dead rat or live possum in the kitchen. I feel pretty good about that.

Summer Art Fun or Preparing for War

Irritating Dawn

Good morning all,
I thought I'd post something unrelated to Rolo, well, only Rolo tangential. I'm very into the idea of tiny or small homes, to Dawn's eternal chagrin, and I thought I would put some of my favorite ones here for some feedback. Why should you care? Because Rolo would have to live in one of these if I ever build one, see, Rolo tangential.







This is an 800 sqft. 2 Bed 1 Bath, obviously modern.











The floor plan is very simple and symmetrical, but where would you put the TV?














I really like the look of this house but it's really too small.









This is the living room, all of it, again though, where does the TV go?

I think I could convince Dawn we should here, appeal to Dawn's inner 9 year old and you're usually good.





Anyways, this post was going to be longer and full of great homes, but arranging the pictures and such is hard and I'm lazy.

Memorial Day Weekend

We decided last Thursday night that it would be a good idea to drive to New Orleans on Friday afternoon. This might explain why it took Sergio and I over half the trip to realize that we needed something cooler to wear than jeans and then to find somewhere to buy those items. New Orleans is super hot and humid. I vaguely recall this from the first three times we went there.
We went with our friends Sam and Nikki and dropped Rosalind with Sergio's parents on our way. There were plenty of kids in New Orleans and I think there is a lot of good stuff for them to do. Walking down Bourbon Street with them is not one of those things. Especially when it is after midnight and the kid is asleep in the stroller and the parents are both drunk. I'm not usually one to judge other parenting styles, but I feel pretty confident in that one. Seriously though, what is it you want your 6 yr old to take in on Bourbon St.? The bars, the drunk people, the naked pictures, the live almost naked girls in every doorway, the smell of old pee/vomit? The only thing a kid should see on Bourbon St. is the amazing group of break dancer guys. That's it. If you want them to see the history, the architecture, the street performers, etc. you can take them down, um, ANY other street. The end.
So anyway, we walked around, drank some here and there, rode the trolley out to the Garden District, and shopped. But who are we kidding? Let's talk about the food! I love New Orleans and the food is my number one reason. This time we went full tourist and almost every meal we ate required a 30-60 minute wait in a long line down the street. We started with Po'Boys at Parkway. It is about two miles outside the French Quarter and we caught it on our way in before we parked the car for the weekend. It was under 6 ft. of water during Katrina but you wouldn't know it now. Shrimp Po'Boys with sweet potato fries covered in gravy(debris). Amazing. Sadly, they didn't offer oyster Po'Boys. Only downside.
If you go here, avoid the line and go to the bar. You can sit in any available seat and order from there. Lesson learned.
Beignets at Cafe du Monde. In all the times we had gone we never tried this. It is always covered with people. This actually ended up being our shortest wait time and there is a giant shade tree almost the whole way. They have it down to an art in there and it helps that there are only about six items on the menu and five of them are drinks. Totally wonderful. Even though it is outside and lots of people are crammed together the fans really work and the iced coffee is yummy and helps with the heat as well. Beignets are like a donut and funnel cake and good bread all at once, but better.
Lunch at Mother's. This was our second longest wait time but felt the longest because it was midday and there was no shade at all. BEST FOOD EVER! Totally worth it. I'm sure everything is good, but the best deal at lunch is the lunch red beans and rice. You get red beans and rice, a meat, and two sides for $11. It says you only get one side but you get two. I recommend getting two sides of greens. I wish I had. And even though it is the best deal you really don't need the additional meat. The red beans are cooked with sausage and ham. The greens are cooked in ham. The cabbage is cooked in ham. And not just a little either, enough to feed you and a friend. Go here, eat this, but don't piss off the lady that let's you in the door and tells you where to stand. She's frightening.
Dinner at Acme Oyster House. Sergio is really the only raw oyster eater among us, so when this ended up being our longest wait I think we were all a little unsure it was worth it. Since we had a lot of time in line we made friends with people all around us and they assured us it was more than worth the wait. Without these people we would not have known to try the chargrilled oysters and the dinner would have been wasted. But since we did know, it was delightful. Sergio still got raw oysters and said they were great. I will take his word for it. I like the taste but unpleasant things happen when I try to eat a raw oyster. Gagging, yacking things. But the chargrilled!!! Oh dear. They were something to behold. Covered in lemon and parmesan cheese and grilled and charred! SOOO good. I could have eaten 12 alone. Or more. That would have been expensive. Instead I just picked every shell clean and dipped bread into all the leftover juice and nibbled at the burnt edges like a crazy person. I will not be showing a picture of the oysters, though. Turns out you can't take a pleasing picture of oysters under red lights. It looks like the something unpleasant already happened.
La Fitte's Blacksmith Bar for Cazerac's. Disclaimer: I didn't drink one of those and nobody else liked them. However, if you want an authentic drink from the nation's oldest bar, a cazerac is your best bet. Your other option is a Ramos Fizz, which might be good but sounds awful. It involves lemon juice, egg white, milk, and alcohol all in one glass. ugh. A cazerac is mostly whiskey that they make smell like licorice. Two of the most divisive flavors all at once. The smell was not pleasant, the bar was. Lit only by candlelight, a jukebox, a good bloody mary with pickled green beans. A very pleasant place to be.
And that concludes our tour of New Orleans for now. I could go on about other stuff we like. The tiny independent bookstores, the Anthropologie store, Royal st., how some drunk person dressed up the lamps in our hotel hallway with all their clothes, how the fire alarm went off twice on our last night there and we had to evacuate the building. And more! But anyway, just go to New Orleans in the early spring or late fall and eat to your hearts content. It's a good time.

So True.

The following is a poem(?) from Tina Fey that I read on a friend's blog and couldn't help but share here. It's pretty perfect. I tried to comment this on their blog but blogger wouldn't let me, so I'll just say thanks here.

First, Lord: No tattoos. May neither Chinese symbol for truth nor Winnie-the-Pooh holding the FSU logo stain her tender haunches.

May she be Beautiful but not Damaged, for it’s the Damage that draws the creepy soccer coach’s eye, not the Beauty.

When the Crystal Meth is offered, May she remember the parents who cut her grapes in half And stick with Beer.

Guide her, protect her
When crossing the street, stepping onto boats, swimming in the ocean, swimming in pools, walking near pools, standing on the subway platform, crossing 86th Street, stepping off of boats, using mall restrooms, getting on and off escalators, driving on country roads while arguing, leaning on large windows, walking in parking lots, riding Ferris wheels, roller-coasters, log flumes, or anything called “Hell Drop,” “Tower of Torture,” or “The Death Spiral Rock ‘N Zero G Roll featuring Aerosmith,” and standing on any kind of balcony ever, anywhere, at any age.

Lead her away from Acting but not all the way to Finance. Something where she can make her own hours but still feel intellectually fulfilled and get outside sometimes And not have to wear high heels.

What would that be, Lord? Architecture? Midwifery? Golf course design? I’m asking You, because if I knew, I’d be doing it, Youdammit.

May she play the Drums to the fiery rhythm of her Own Heart with the sinewy strength of her Own Arms, so she need Not Lie With Drummers.

Grant her a Rough Patch from twelve to seventeen. Let her draw horses and be interested in Barbies for much too long, For childhood is short – a Tiger Flower blooming Magenta for one day – And adulthood is long and dry-humping in cars will wait.

O Lord, break the Internet forever, That she may be spared the misspelled invective of her peers And the online marketing campaign for Rape Hostel V: Girls Just Wanna Get Stabbed.

And when she one day turns on me and calls me a Bitch in front of Hollister, Give me the strength, Lord, to yank her directly into a cab in front of her friends, For I will not have that Shit. I will not have it.

And should she choose to be a Mother one day, be my eyes, Lord, that I may see her, lying on a blanket on the floor at 4:50 A.M., all-at-once exhausted, bored, and in love with the little creature whose poop is leaking up its back.

“My mother did this for me once,” she will realize as she cleans feces off her baby’s neck. “My mother did this for me.” And the delayed gratitude will wash over her as it does each generation and she will make a Mental Note to call me. And she will forget. But I’ll know, because I peeped it with Your God eyes.

Amen.

P.S. Just realized this is our 500th post. Weird.

Surprise?

About two minutes ago Sergio opened a kitchen drawer filled with hand towels to find a baby opossum. We put the whole drawer outside and the little guy crawled back in after a few minutes. So now what? And furthermore, where is the mother?

PSA

Just so you are aware. If a tornado hits this area tonight and we live through it, I will be moving back to Oregon or another suitably non-tornadic/volcanic/hurricanic location in two weeks when school lets out. That is all.

It's Stuff Like This That Makes Being Broke Sort Of Okay.

Sergio is thinking of transitioning from his position at Legal Aid to something new over the coming months. Today he received this article in the mail, which is a lovely example of the good work that he has been a part of during his time there. And though Sergio is very hesitant about me posting this because he is afraid it could be considered self-congratulatory, I can't help it. He is one of the three attorneys being discussed here, in fact, the supervisor, and I for one am proud.

If you click into it I think you should be able to read it.

This is Her 'I Have Rubbed Liquorice Everywhere' Face

Take Me Out To The Ball Game

Our Little Troll

Last Weekend

Our week has been pretty craptacular. Instead of talking about that, let's take a look at last weekend, which was quite nice.

Yo-Yo Ma and Lil Buck

Seeing what this guy can do with his ankles is enough reason to watch this.

Body, Baby, Burnout

Body
Sergio and I joined a gym about three weeks ago. We didn't have enough internal motivation to stop expanding our pant sizes, so we spent money and signed a contract. We work better with external motivation. We are still trying out different workouts and routines and classes to see what works best for us now. This method pretty much guarantees that we wake up every morning with a newmuscle group so sore that we can't move or our legs give out. In fact, the second day in the gym my arm cramped in a place I would have sworn contained no muscles. Sergio and I both tried desperately to stretch the cramp out, but could neither one determine exactly where it was or how to reach it through stretching. That was less than fun. What is also less than fun is the fact that so far I have put on two pounds. I understand the whole muscle = weight thing, but weight gain is definitely discouraging.
I also bought a couple of rounds in a tanning bed. Don't gripe at me. I realize I am very pale and they are very dangerous. But I have developed eczema on my FACE! And prescription medication only helped it to a point. So I bought a few rounds in the tanning bed to see if it helps. The answer seems to be...a little...temporarily. However, in the wise words of one of my students, "Mrs. Barron, if you can't tone it, tan it." So I will finish out the last few appointments and then switch to spray tanning.
Baby
In the interest of full disclosure, the day after I wrote that Rosalind is a sweet kid and doesn't get much timeout, she totally got timeout at daycare for whacking another kid in the head with an elephant toy. Her kindness has it's limitations I guess.
Burnout
And lastly, when I was getting my Master's we were told that about 75% of our class would burn out by year five. And I think this week has shown me exactly how that happens. It isn't the annoying kids or the rude parents or the nice parents that are accidentally overbearing or the long hours or the grading of papers or even the crazy ever-changing government mandates. It is being a Junior class sponsor and having to throw prom. This Saturday at 11:15 pm you can find me in the closest bar to my school having a drink as big as my head. Prom planning can suck it.

Birthday Girl

Dear Rosalind,

You turned two about two and half weeks ago. Since you thought it would be fun to drown the computer in chocolate milk a few weeks before that we haven't gotten around to posting. Daddy finally brought home his work computer, so here we go.
THE TERRIBLE TWO'S!!!!! Except, not entirely. You began to test your boundaries around 18 months and we already dealt with the temper tantrums, biting, hitting, pulling hair, etc. And none of those things ever happened all at once. It was as though we would get it through to you that biting was inappropriate and you would then try hair pulling on for size. You also never did that stuff to us, but saved it for playmates at daycare. I am glad, if hesitant, to say that you have only gotten time out once at school in the last two months. In fact, you are very sweet. More of a caretaker than a troublemaker. You still love baby dolls and real life babies and play the big sister/mommy role for the most part.
What has been the most surprising thing about TWO! and the few months before it is how loving you are. You constantly run up and give our knees the best bear hugs for no apparent reason, and blow kisses when we leave you, and crawl into our laps and hug us tight and say, "Awuvyu," and most adorably of all, you make a satisfied moan/grunt thing when you give hugs. Kind of like grandmothers hug their grandkids when they haven't seen them in a while. I was all prepped for the constant timeout giving and stern lectures associated with two, but so far it has been a steady increase of affection.
On the other hand, you are almost abusive with your affection. When I say you crawl into our laps, I mean you rake your tennis shoes up our legs and down our chests and poke your knees in our faces and elbow our guts in your attempt to get in whatever position you were going for. Sometimes you like to put your face right up against ours and will clamp onto our heads tightly and smash your nose right into our noses. I wake up most days wondering where I will find the next bruise. But it's pretty great as long as I see it coming and have time to take evasive action.
You've chosen this time to go almost entirely off veggies, even the ones you have always loved. I sneak baby food into your mac and cheese. That gummy candy you like is really a vitamin. The only juice you get at home is V8 Fusion. Don't mess with me. I'm the mommy. Ha. Actually, for the most part we simply ignore your eating oddities and you seem to come back to things after awhile. I'm rooting for broccoli's return any day now.
We don't know who taught you this but you came home and started karate-chopping the air and kicking while yelling "hi-ya!" Now we have you kick everyone because it is crazy cute.
You can count to ten but almost never show us when we ask. You definitely don't know your ABC's but you do know the tune to the song sung only as Abc's abc's abc's abc's. You can identify a square, circle, triangle, star, diamond, and heart most of the time. You have recently dropped the word please and inserted the word okay instead. What was once, "Mama, I yant canny, peas?" is now, "Canny, okay." Except, think whinier. "Potty, okaaaaay." "Night, night, okaaaay." "Go play, okaaaaaaaaaaaaay, OKAAAAAAY."
Speaking of the potty...umm, let's work on that one. You pee on the floor more often than a new puppy. You were doing well once, but now tell us you need to potty as you stand there going. Then you waddle spraddle-legged to the bathroom so that nobody could possibly ignore what has happened.
You love to point out big trucks, you call every color either pink or green, and you know which car is our car. You are long and lean and have very little baby left in you. You are too old for a pacifier but I know that strangers probably think you are WAY too old because you look like a complete little girl and not a barely two year old.
I would encourage you to slow down but I really like every new little person you become even more than the last. Happy 2nd birthday, Rolo!

Love,

Mama

It Was 82 Degrees

Why we are absentee bloggers.

Stick with us while we get through this blogging dry spell. Rosalind killed our Mac with some chocolate milk. I can post from Sergio's phone but I am not tech savvy enough to figure out why it won't let me post pictures. It is also daunting to type on this little screen. Posts to come...
Rosalind turned two!
Playing in the creek.
Joining a gym and stuff.
And other topics probably but LOTS of pictures.

"Seven Down, Three to Go" -quote from our friend Brett

Our 7th anniversary was on Sunday. I had left the house at 4:30 am on Saturday in order to take my Quiz Bowl team to Regionals in Marshall (we won!) and got home around 7:30 pm. So by Sunday we were just happy to get to hang out and do regular weekend things. We went to lunch with our friends and played trivia video games at their house and then brought greasy pizza home. Not so exciting, I guess, but nice.

Our 7th year together was the first in which we both worked regular jobs the whole time, and for six months of it Sergio worked across the state, and we had a toddler, and then we bought a house that requires constant work just to keep it alive. In short, we've been busy. My marriage goal for year eight? I should say something like better communication, make more time for each other, work together on the house, but let's be real. My goal is to take a beach vacation.

Things learned about Sergio in year seven: He can snake pipes, install a dishwasher, build animal houses in an afternoon, and work in East Arkansas for six months without losing his mind.
Things learned about Dawn in year seven: She is not well-suited to living in the country in a half-working house.

Yet Another

A Picture To Keep You Coming

Sunday Matinee

We are alive over here, just lacking in those snow days that made me remember to blog more often. We have a couple of short videos sitting on hold that we want to post but can't quite seem to get them from the phones to the computer at the moment. They're cute, take my word for it.

Anyway, Rosalind went to her first movie today! Rango to be exact. We were never quite sure when to try this but since she makes us watch Ponyo day in and day out we thought this might be the time. She did great in the theater, asking with wide eyes, "what was that?" when the screen and sound came on. She watched about 3/4 of the movie in relative silence, ate sooo much popcorn, and then fell asleep. It was lovely.

But then it wasn't. Two tiny naps split up in the middle of a busy day meant that the rest of our day was pretty much crap while she whined and cried and wailed but still did not sleep again.

Sergio is also getting sick. He is also whiny.

Speaking of snow days, I had to work yesterday and I have to work again this coming Saturday because of those stupid days. I should be the one complaining. So that is my update. You can probably see why we haven't posted much.

IT'S WARM OUTSIDE!

We have the wood stove barely on at all and the windows and doors thrown open. It is glorious. I have never been this ready for spring and even summer. We ate fish for dinner last night (and Rosalind LOVED it, she ate more than a normal adult helping all by herself) and played in the yard yesterday afternoon. Now I am craving a margarita beachside, or even just a beer at a baseball game. I'm not picky. As long as it stops snowing I think I will just go ahead and consider this the beginning of spring. It doesn't even have to stay warm and sunny. Just no snow.

Sergio is outside making a pen for our baby chickens. The first batch are almost big enough to get out of their container and mine are not as big but there are more of them and they smell. I'm ready for them to live outdoors now. Rosalind is in her room, which now has a door(!), and I'm pretty sure I hear her talking to herself even though she is supposed to be taking a nap. She took a goofy 20 minute nap this morning in the car and seems to believe that should be it for the day. I disagree with her assessment. I am sitting in the living room on the computer when I should be mopping the kitchen or cleaning the bathroom or hanging pictures or vacuuming the floor. I am using the excuse that I don't want to wake Rosalind. Clever, no?

They aren't this little anymore. These are Sergio's last week. Now they all have feathers on their wings and tiny combs.

I have found myself saying strange things in response to Rosalind's behavior this past week. Things that in my wildest imagination I had not prepared for. I don't think I will bother giving you any context for these statements as I don't think it would help shed any light on them.

"Eliot is NOT a wheelbarrow!"

"We do NOT throw the dishwasher! Say you're sorry for throwing the dishwasher."

"Yes, that is Rolo's oink."

Curtains

I made something for the house, which is sort of a sad statement when you consider how many things Sergio has made for this house. Nonetheless, I made something for the house. After talking to some very crafty coworkers and perusing some house blogs, I decided that even I could probably make curtains using the newfangled technologies of Stitch Witchery and clip-on curtain rod...thingies. And behold...the simplest curtains ever that I probably shouldn't be so proud of but am anyway. Those of you that can sew and feel super bad for me should just avert your eyes.Ignore for a moment that I got totally swept up in this fabric and didn't realize until too late that it clashes with Rosalind's paint color. We might be moving these into the living room in the future. For now, they are much better than blankets nailed into the wall.
These are the clip on curtains things, so simpletons like me don't have to learn how to make loops or holes.
My crafty coworkers suggested that I make separate curtains out of the liner material rather than stress the hemming tape and then this would also allow the liners to be reused with future curtains.
So I did just that. It worked quite well.

They are meant to be opened or swept back to one side, but they conveniently cover the fact that we haven't trimmed out the windows while they are closed.

House of DOOM!

No, not really. Though, there have been many times I have referred to this house in just that way. My favorite way of thinking of this house is an old, lonely, curmudgeony man that signed a DNR order and we are the irritating grandkids that just won't honor it. Most of our attempts at fixing this house are thwarted by this house breaking down further. We need to put sheetrock upstairs, but instead we have to spend most weekends snaking the pipes to make it possible to flush the toilets and take a shower for one more week. Or we have to burn trash, or move piles, or gather and sell metal, or make animal pens, or go to work, or cook dinner, or fix the oven, or unfreeze pipes. We struggled with the pipes freezing over and over. I am happy to report that we seem to have finally figured out a way of keeping the water going, due mostly to the fact that Sergio's parents loaned us a giant wood stove. Anyway, lots of things like that have kept us just keeping the house functioning instead of improving it in any way.
Since some people have expressed curiosity I have compiled some pictures of the house at this point in the journey. Keep in mind that this is only the stuff we are willing to show you and leaves out our goofier, grosser, or downright ingenious "fixes."
1. We sleep in the living room for now, but the bedroom is next on our list. We do have a comforter and stuff. I was washing it.
2. Because our bed is in the living room we have all the rest of our stuff smushed on one side. We need to get the tv on the wall and will eventually take that whole window out and make that wall the focal point of the living room. The wall with the tv will disappear and the living room and kitchen will open into each other. We don't leave that ottoman there. You can see that Sergio was playing a video game and didn't want to be in the picture.
3. There they are! That front window is one of the only uncovered windows in our house. By uncovered, I mean with plastic. That curtain over it is a shower curtain (cloth, not plastic. We have some standards!) and is held up by nails. I spent the weekend making simple curtains with Stitch Witchery. More on that later.
3. Our kitchen is surprisingly large for a tiny house, but we have filled it to the brim. The washer/dryer will not always be here. Neither will the stove, though I adore it completely (though the house constantly smells like barbecue!). The blue bucket and red barrel in the corner hold wood. Speaking of the washer/dryer, when we had propane and electric heaters Sergio vented the dryer straight into the house for an extra source of heat. It worked really well. As for the pipes to the washer, well, they are temporary and not worth talking about. It would make you laugh to see, though.
4. We took the doors off the cabinets for aesthetic reasons and then rethought that move. However, given our rat problems, I kind of like the open cabinets. Easily monitored and totally rat unfriendly. That bottom cabinet is held closed against Rosalind. It is full of all kinds of rat traps. Be you can't guess where the rat shows up from time to time.
5. The fan keeps the heat circulating. Notice the towel under the diswasher? It's to keep the cold out. There is not even a hint of insulation in that wall and the dishwasher freezes constantly. Until the woodstove the floor on that whole side of the kitchen stayed entirely cold. Now it stays warm. Nice. Notice the outside ground coming in under the door? That is because it used to go into a room. We weather stripped for now, but that is all. I sweep a lot.
6. Here is the stove. Love it. See how it goes out the window? Don't worry about it. That window has been completely broken since we bought the place. We only took down plastic to put it out there. We have since closed up the spaces you can see around the chimney.
7. This is coming from the hallway into the kitchen. Just to show you the crowdedness and how undone this part still is. That is all new sheetrock in the hall, but we haven't finished the ceiling yet or attempted the mudding process.
8. We need to sheetrock the kitchen ceiling. It was this strange sort of tile/paneling thing before that had a lot of water damage. So we took it down, but this is where it is for now. He and I can't do ceiling sheetrock alone because I have gotten so out of shape and weak. That will get done the next time people innocently come to visit us and we make them work the whole time.
9. This the hallway, looking up the unfinished stairs. We can't finish the stairs until we finish the upstairs. You can see that we just leave sheetrock over the bedroom access point for now and use it all for storage. Our first batch of baby chicks are living in that cooler on the stairs.
10. Under our stairs. That holds the vacuum, a shop vac, some flooring, Sergio's big bag of power tools, door framing supplies, an electric fence battery and a baby gate. And whatever Rosalind has chosen to hide there. This space will eventually be closed off and made into Rosalind's closet.
11. We took up the carpet in this area when we moved in and as you can see, the subfloor leaves something to be desired. On the bright side, those pieces come up easily and allow us to defrost pipes. We aren't attempting to fix the floor right now because this winter has shown us that the majority of our floors will need to be ripped up come spring to replace the plumbing. So we just live with it.
12. Obviously, the hallway is sort of the catch-all. The breaker box used to be located in the bathroom where the mirror belongs. When we took it to the store to try and find some replacements we were greeted with genuine awe at our antique. So we changed it all and moved it to the hallway. We put a mirror up in the bathroom.
13. Rosalind's room for now. She is inside what will become a window seat/storage chest and built in shelves. For now, she just plays in there. It is for her room that I made curtains. You can see we just have old blankets covering her windows for now. The room lacks a door, a closet door, and trim, but it is by far the most complete redo.


14. And in case you think we haven't accomplished anything and live in a hovel, here are some pictures of Rosalind's room from the beginning of this.