tiny visitors

look what we found on our porch recently...

hello kitty!

the cats weren't afraid of us, in fact this one rubbed on my legs and sat up at the door, begging to come in.

kitty keeping it klassy.  not shy, this one.


kitty's sibling on our steps before ducking under the neighbor's truck.  both cats were on the porch.


we have no idear where they came from, but we think the neighborhood alley cat had sexyfuntimes and had a litter.  our borough is trying to find ways to deal with the problem.  but i for one am tired of the cats using my flower boxes as litter boxes, and i am afraid of letting the kiddos outside to play for fear they will get scratched or bit.

i love animals, and while cats are not my favorite animal, i don't want to see them hurt either.  i really wish people would take responsibility for their pets.  if they can't be bothered with properly caring for a pet, they shouldn't have one!

upcycled

inspired by the salad in a jar, i found some pretty jars down cellar.  they are left over from a time when hubby used to can spaghetti sauce and grape juice.

a couple of these jars were in a shopping bag - i wonder if they were from my parents.  one had an apple butter label still stuck to the lid.

these jars are bigger for my salads.  i also want to use them to store soup leftovers.  while i switched to mostly pyrex storage containers, i still use small plastic storage containers in a pinch, and it would be so much easier to pour the soup from a jar than spoon it from a container.  also, the jars are narrower and would take up less room in the fridge.  

in bloom

it only took 8 years to finally get some blooms on my hydrangea bush:



each year i get maybe one bloom on it before it browns and shrivels.  or else it doesn't bloom at all.  not this year:




i'm gobsmacked at the variety of colors of the blooms.  some bushes have pink blooms, other blue or purple. my bush seems to have an identity crisis - it has pink and purple blooms:




i've heard many wives' tales on getting full hydrangea blooms, in different colors.  i've heard about using epsom salt and burying rusty nails in the soil.  i never know when to cut the canes down.  sometimes they just pull out, they're so old.  i think we cut the canes last fall, but we've also cut them in the spring too.  i have such a crappy gardening thumb.

any suggestions, i'd be so happy for!

diva mcK's dream house

our house feels like it's shrinking.

it's not, obviously.  it's the same 3BR 2 1/2 bath 3 bay detached garage we bought 12 years ago.  but with three kids, it's incredible how a seemingly roomy house quickly feels tight.

we're not in the market to purchase a new bigger house.  we don't have the funds and with 5 years left on our mortgage and the housing market sucky at the moment, it would be foolish to move.  and i LOVE my home.  but it doesn't stop me from dreaming about a new house, someday.

we bought our home, back in 1998, 6 months before our wedding.  we wanted a house before we got married, so we weren't scurrying for a new home.  our requirements were - at least 3 bedrooms, at least 2 baths, a garage, and preferably in norry/sunbury.  we saw a lot of homes during that spring and summer.  some homes needed a lot of fixing up.  while we expected some minor maintenance, we didn't want any heavy duty restoration.  some homes were out of our price range.  some houses were just plain wrong.

we found our little farm style home in the middle of the summer.  the realtor went to my church.  the house, which had been on the market for nearly a year, was stuffy from being shut up.  the living and dining rooms were nice sized, and there were 3 bedrooms.  the house had 2 and a half bathrooms, well, one full bath, a 3/4 bath and a half bath.  there was a side porch, closed in years ago, off the kitchen.  the garage was huge - 3 bays, with a large basement.  it was detached from the house.  outside there was a raised garden and fruit trees.  the house had an unfinished cellar and a nice sized attic.  what sold me was the stained glass wood-mode cupboards in the kitchen.  the home was old - it had old wallpaper and chandeliers, but nothing that couldn't be replaced or repainted/papered over.  the house was in the right price range, the right town...it was perfect!  we placed a bid and it was accepted.  we later learned that someone else had placed a bid the same time, but it was less than ours.

we got our keys that september and spent the fall and winter months removing wallpaper, stripping paint from baseboards, replacing fixtures and making the house our home.  hubby moved into the house a month before we got married; a week before the wedding i brought my furniture and belongings and after a beautiful wedding and a blissful honeymoon we settled into our nest.

we picked this house with children in mind, and 4 years later the boy took up residence in the sunny shelf room.  i loved his nursery, and while i was pregnant with him i would sit in the glider, folding up tiny clothes and putting them in my old dresser drawers, hanging up pictures.  some days i would just sit there, my hands folded over my growing bump, and take in the lemonade yellow walls, the baby snoopy bedding, the book shelves full of books and toys that i couldn't wait to share with our new little one.

all too quickly the boy grew up, we dismantled the crib and changing table and my bed from childhood moved into their places.  more books crowded the shelves, baskets of toys around.

one presidents day weekend hubby and i moved the furniture out of our bedroom and he ripped up the old shag carpeting and sanded, stained and polyurethaned the floors.  the floors looked like molten honey and were beautiful.  later that summer, we moved furniture from the living to dining room and back again as we stripped those floors, baseboards and window frames and finished them as well.  our 80+ year old home now looked authentically its age and we loved it.

6 months after finishing those floors we learned we were having twins.  while we had an extra bedroom - i grew up with a guest bedroom and always wanted one in my home - it would be for not just one but two kids!  after some reshuffling, the boy moved over t0 the spare room - we repainted it and he chose batman bedding - and we returned the nursery back to it's original space.  when the twins were 8 months old, we added another crib, and i lost my "perfect" nursery.

somehow my neat homey house became tight.  now rattles, blocks and a big ol' exercircle fight for space with the boy's wii junk and million little action figures.  my dining room table, which once was bare except for a table scarf and a bowl on top, is now covered with the boy's markers and drawing books, knitting crap, a moby and a baby bjorn and other junk that has accumulated there.  and i don't even want to talk about the kitchen, with breakfast bar full of containers of baby food and formula, bottles and sippy cups, the table blanketed with miscellaneous clutter, the counters crowded with bowls of snack foods, pill baskets and appliances.  i recently cleaned out my junk food drawer (originally a bread drawer).  there were snacks in there older than the boy.  scary.

every month the newspaper publishes a real estate guide and i entertain myself looking over the listings.  for one thing, half doubles now cost what our house did 12 years ago!  a house and even a rancher half the size of our home is easily twice what our house cost.  and for the price of a house that has the 3+BR 2+baths plus family room (or is it great room?) and 2 car garage, i would have to go back to work.  at about 3 times the salary of my best paying job.  and hubby would have to be head of the IU.  who the hell can afford these homes anyway?  no wonder the housing market sucks!

but while i dream about a bigger home, with an extra bedroom, a large kitchen and more closets (my house was built when closets were taxed as rooms, hence why it only has one real closet) i am grateful for what i have.  i am grateful that our mortgage is more than half paid off and in 5 years we will own it free and clear.  i am grateful that while the house feels small to me, it is huge compared to what most people in the world have for their own home.  it shouldn't even matter what kind of house we have - it's whose inside that counts.  and what matters to me is my family - they are my home.

mommy's whupped

just did an hour of wii.  played tennis (played 8 games, won no sets, backhand sucks).  boxed 3 rounds and KOd the opponent each time.  :)  did yoga (half moon, warrior, 2 bridges).  fitness age dropped from 70 (!) to 34 (!).  i am tired, but i feel good.  arms hurt.  read the game brochure which warned against repetitive injuries.  no wonder my shoulders hurt!

last night the babies had a "normal" night.  last feeding at 8, ME ate around 5:30 am, the pixie ate at 8:30 (!).  maybe it was a growth spurt, or maybe it was the weird week disrupting them.  i hope they go back to normal.  them waking up twice in the night is exhausting.

did i mention we gots new furniture?  a la-z-boy sofa and love seat (adler models).  now we have 6 seats instead of 5.  the room feels weird becos the seats are so oversized (to work in bigger family and great rooms, no doubt).  the furniture smells horrible and i can feel cancer cells developing in me and my kiddos as we speak, but hubby read that burning candles can help "burn off" the formaldehyde odor, so we are burning my new beeswax candles.  the room smells like honey.

the boy goes back to school tomorrow.  hubby is back to work as usual.  and i get to put the house back in order after the holiday shake-up with the rooms.  the living and dining rooms are pretty much back to normal.  i'm slowly chipping away at the crap on the dining room table.  the next room i tackle will be the computer room and get my stash back in order.  stash grows, yet i knit less.

i started knitting a baby sock monkey for a HAPL care package - the mom receiving the package is having a difficult pregnancy, carrying a child with a potentially fatal physical defect.  i, ever the optimist, am praying that the MRIs and scans are wrong and the little guy is actually healthy and fine.  at any rate, i'm making a monkey for him, becos every little kid needs a sock monkey.  and the sad thing is, should he not survive, he'll have a friend with him as he passes on to the next world.  no little one should be alone during that journey.  and i'm making the mom stitch markers.

i love making stitch markers.  i don't make normal sets.  i make markers to fit my moods.  i get my beads at ellacinders.  i've gotten really cool beads there - my favorite stitch markers i've made from their goodies are my skull marker, my rainbow bead marker, my silver celtic knot marker and my pyrite marker.  i also made my own sock and right/wrong side markers (sorry cat bordhi) and initial markers.  i toy with selling my markers on etsy, but i'd have to make multiple markers sets.

she's musical!

okay, i think my blog is now complete and pretty much near perfect.

I HAZ MUSIK!!!

i have always admired blogs that have music and wanted to add to my own...and i found a site where i could make my own music widget.

the only downside is that music pickings may be slim.  i wanted to add joey ramone's "what a beautiful world" and "louisiana hot sauce" and couldn't find them.  i did however, find lady sovereign, champion and the mumlers.  i'm pretty happy with the playlist.

the past few days have been really nice and unseasonably warm, and i took advantage of them by taking the babies for a walk.  took them to the fish pond in the park, past the playground, and around the nearby neighborhoods.  i need to take advantage of this.  it'll be colder before we know it and soon the snow will be flying.

what did happen to this year anyway?  we had no spring, summer felt nonexistent and now fall is flying by.  in 2 months it will be christmas.  wow, how quickly it went by.

did you ever find a house that was so beautiful that if it ever went on the market you'd sell both of your kidney's to buy it?

i have a house like that.  and it just went on the market.

it's a couple blocks from our house.  hubby and i admired it ever since we dated.  it's a stone ranch home with a terraced yard.  the home is set off an an angle on the property.  it's surrounded by trees and appears dark and brooding.  i love stone homes and would love a historical one, except in order to afford one i will prolly have to sell my kids and get a job doing TSS.

anyways, mom and dad found out the property came on the market and the first thing i did was look it up online.

first off, the selling price is $270,000.  i realize that people wouldn't consider that price high, but we could buy our house 3 times over with that amount, so we can't afford that house.  short of becoming a prostitute or selling my kids' souls for a reality show, it's too far out of our reach.

i checked out the interior pictures and found more disappointment.  the home has 4 bedrooms (yay!) but they are really small.  the smallest room is 8X13.  the bathroom has a clawfoot tub (yay!).  there are only 1 and a half baths in the house (and with a family of 5, we need at least 2 full baths).  the kitchen is smaller than mine (which i can't believe is possible!)  there's no garage (there's the deal breaker right there!)  while there is loads of yardage outside and we could assemble a garage, it would cost a buttload of money to do so.  the rooms are old and wallpapered.  the heat is oil (expensive).  no AC.  old windows.  slate roof.  while the yard would be great for the kids, it would be a lot of upkeep.

even if we could get a cheaper price, the renovations and adding a garage would cost a fortune.  it's just not worth it.  and i can't believe the sellers are going to get that price either.  it's not on the borough's historic list, although it was featured in better homes and gardens years ago.

guess we won't be getting that home either.  oh well.

knit time.  going to try to finish the stroller blanket.  i'm halfway there.  it's a fast knit.

bored and crampy

it's memorial day, and i'm spending it laying on the sofa watching a vintage "land of the lost" marathon. i haven't felt well all day - really tired, cramping off and on.

this morning i moved the boy's clothes over to his new room and culled out the clothes he outgrew. it didn't take very long, and hubby helped move the drawers back and forth. but i lost a lot of steam doing that. also did some wash (hubby helped swap loads). ran to Kmart to get more bins and a shelf unit for the boy's new toy closet. saw mom and dad there too, mom was returning a shirt she got for the boy that was too big (mislabeled). she got the boy new sheets and towels for his new bed.

saturday hubby painted the spare room. the blue is actually pretty nice, cross between tiffany and robin's egg blue. it took him all day to strip the border, clean the walls, move the furniture and then paint. there's a lot of trim to go around, there are 5 doors, the window and the closet. hubby did a good job on the room, and the boy is excited to move in. next thing we'll do is get his toys moved over. little by little, it's happening.

i had a bad night friday night. i couldn't breathe and couldn't sleep. i'd fall asleep and then wake up unable to breathe. i actually had a panic attack from it. i ate a huge hoagie friday night, which was prolly the reason why i couldn't sleep. guess it's mini meals from now on! i had good sleep the last two nights, but i'm still having trouble sleeping. nature of the beast.

got my knitting mojo back!

i knitted 2 pairs of baby socks this week. 2 pairs in 2 days! i wish i could knit my socks that quickly! it feels good to be getting my mojo back. i have a lot of knitting to do for the next few months and this is the only time i can do it. no telling what kind of knitting time i'll get when the babies arrive.

mom and dad got us a new recliner for our anniversary. rust colored, rocks, just what we want. we also looked at sofas. mom had no idear my sofa was getting threadbare (i have no idear how it happened, either, since no one sits at that end). hubby thinks there's no reason to get new furniture if we're having 2 more kids, cos they'll be spilling on it, peeing/pooping on it, generally making a mess on it. so i'm going to splurge and get slip covers for the sofa and the matching chair (which has also seen better days). in a few years, either when the twins are bigger or we move to a new house, we'll get new furniture.

i wore my church pants today. a bit tighter, but i got another week out of them.

hubby went to a rain barrel class at our county extension office. he and dad (who went too) got free rain barrels. hubby is currently reconnecting the rain spouting so it collects in the barrels. figures, we no longer have a garden to water, but at least the water won't puddle by the fence or freeze in winter. it will feel good to collect nature's bounty, instead of using our town water for our plants (i still plant flowers and like a few tomato and pepper plants).

our neighbor kid is such an ass. saw his name in the police blotter for riding in a car while holding his baby, not in a car seat. this is the same kid who rode his bike with his kid slung over his back in a backpack. why does God allow degenerates like this kid continue to procreate? the little one is so sweet. he doesn't deserve such an asshole for a dad.

our neighbors get thumbs down this weekend too. they parked in front of our garage (across the alley) and naturally we couldn't back the van out well without risk of hitting their truck. it sat there all weekend. next time i see them, i will tell them to not park across from our garage. we have been putting the van in the garage not only to save the finish, but to prevent vandals from wrecking it. it's hard parking in the garage in the first place, but it's worse when you can't even get your vehicle out!

a big BUT...

i found my crystal ball lamp at country cupboard today!. unfortunately (this is where the BUT comes in)...it also cost $200. and it's matte pewter. with a fancy schmancy white shade.

damn. it was the right height and everything. i just can't afford the damn thing. and i think i wanted a muted brass look. no, actually, i wanted the whole thing to be crystal balls, just like the table lamps. and i don't want to feel guilty if i get rid of the fancy schmancy shade.

why not get the table lamp and be done with it, spesh when it's at target for like fifty bucks? becos i don't have a table to put it on. and putting a table next to my sofa would look really stupid.

our floor now has its second coat of polyurethane. the floor will be GORGEOUS when its done.

oh and another BUT...for shits and giggles we pulled up the corner of the dining room carpet, since our next goal is to refinish the dining and living room floors...and lo and behold, didn't they varnish AROUND ANOTHER DAMN RUG. how bloody lazy is that????? and i'd wager a fortune cookie that the living room floor looks the same. so hubby will have to sand and varnish those floors just like the upstairs.

that's what i love about this house. just when you think it doesn't get weirder, it does. i'm guessing that behind the cellar door downstairs (that used to have an outdoor entrance out back), is jimmy hoffa. just a wild guess.