The Bunny

We were planning on getting Nora all dressed up in her Easter best, and making a special trip to the mall--just to see the Easter Bunny.

And then we realized, WHAT THE HELL ARE WE THINKING?

We knew there was about a 0.001% chance that Nora would actually sit with the bunny long enough to take a photo, and figured it most certainly was not worth putting in that much effort. So, we instead lumped in a quick stop at the bunny with dinner out with my family on Friday night. The bunny was right next door at the mall. Nora wore what she had been wearing all day.

And it went just about as well as we expected. Which was not well at all.

Despite attempts to thwart the crying with a lovey (the lovey of choice varies by day--in this case, it was her stuffed giraffe), and then trying to distract with a new little ducky toy that they were giving to the kids... Nora was not a happy camper. And I didn't want to torture the poor kid, so I only left her on his (her?) lap for about five seconds.

Done. D-O-N-E.

We figured that almost-3-years-old Hunter would be better suited for this. Nora is shy all around, while Hunter is more outgoing and comfortable with strangers. But even Hunter kept saying "No!" every time we tried to get him close to the bunny. He was fine waving to the bunny, saying "Hi Bunny!" and everything from afar, but he didn't want anything to do with approaching him and sitting on his lap.

We thought that maybe if we took the two of them up together, they would feel more at ease knowing they had each other.

Nope. No dice. This was the best we did.

Oh well. Maybe someday, Nora will be all about Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. Or, maybe she won't. I think we'll probably at least give her the opportunity to visit each year, but it's not a big deal. Honestly, I don't blame the kids one bit, because it's admittedly strange to walk up and sit on a giant bunny's lap.

At least we got a cute picture for Nora's first Easter, before she was old enough to know how creepy that Bunny really is! :)

How did everyone else's kids do with the Easter Bunny this year? Do you remember visiting with the Easter Bunny when you were a kid? Did you like him, or were you terrified?

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Kitchen Reno: Let There Be Light

You know, a light at the end of the tunnel. Or, under-cabinet lighting. Whatever.

Either way, things are seemingly starting to come together. Don't get me wrong--we are still not even close to being finished, but we're getting there. Slowly, but surely. You might remember that I hoped to be completely done by the end of March.

HA.

Haha.

HAHAHAHAHAHA.

Oh well, that's just the way it goes, right? House projects take three times as long and cost twice as much as you anticipate. Or so I'm told. I don't really like to keep track of such things. :) But since I've at least been documenting timing along the way, the missed "deadline" is difficult to ignore.

Let's move on to some photos and talk about progress made from last week, huh?

A lot of the progress this week was electrical. Our electrician spent a few evenings and a good chunk of Sunday afternoon at our house, wiring outlets, the under-cabinet lights, adding switches, and more. It's nice to finally get all of those stray wires connected to things!

Michael and I also hung the rest of the upper cabinets. What a pain in the ass that process is. But it's done, and we're hopeful that they're all in the right position and won't need to be moved again anytime soon!

Ignore the messes in the cabinets, we're just starting to try to get our lives semi-organized again! But check out that pendant light above the sink. We installed that on Sunday night. That light fixture was something we ripped down way back in August, but didn't put anything new in its place... until now. It feels so amazing to have it up there and looking so nice!

I look at this pic and hear angels singing. Why? Because THE MICROWAVE IS BACK UP OHMYGOD. If you look back at my previous kitchen renovation posts, the over-the-range microwave has been living on the countertop (taking up an ungodly amount of space) for the past several weeks. In order to open and/or close the door, we had to keep tilting the microwave backwards--it was just ridiculous, really. We re-installed it in its rightful place on Sunday afternoon and it was easily one of the most satisfying tasks we've completed so far. Strange, but true.

Because I finally got the second coat of paint on all of the cabinet frames, we were able to put things back in the cabinets. And hey, we put the basement door back on the hinges! Victories.

Then, because my dad was coming into town (he's here!), we CLEANED. Imagine that.

We are about thisclose to being able to start spray painting some cabinet doors, people. I.am.psyched.

Here are how things look with the pendant light and a few of the under-cabinet lights lit up. I'll have to try to take some more pics one of these evenings to better depict the ambiance. :)

What's up next? Well, we're actually going to try to give ourselves a little bit of a break this week while my dad is here. Turn down the pressure to get things done. Relax a little more. We want to tackle some smaller projects if we can, but overall, we're going to try to take things easier than we have been. As much as we want to get things D-O-N-E, it's probably good to cut ourselves a little slack.

More to come.

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Nona

Last weekend, we said goodbye to Michael's grandmother.

Honestly, it was one of those situations in which her death was really a blessing. Nona's health and mental well-being had been declining for the last several years. Her husband--Nono--was her sole caretaker and when he passed away after a short illness two years ago, Nona had to go to live in a nursing home.

It wasn't easy on anybody, but it was especially hard on Nona, of course. It was sad.

We took Nora to see her a few times, the first being just a few days after she was born. This is the only photo we have of her with Nora. On the one hand, I'm disappointed we don't have more; on the other, I'm so happy that we at least have this.

Nona wasn't always "with it." Her short-term memory seemed particularly poor, so she often didn't remember things that had happened recently. She had good days and bad. But for some reason, she almost always remembered that Michael had a baby girl.

Nona was a sweet woman. She was quiet. Like Nono, she was born and raised in Italy, immigrated to Argentina where she raised her own kids, and then moved to the U.S. with her adult children. She, too, never learned the language, so I never really had the opportunity to truly talk to her.

As you can imagine, losing a parent is difficult at any age, so the impact of Nona's death was felt mostly when I saw how it affected my mother-in-law. I have held fast to the belief that Nona is now in a better place, and reunited with Nono. It made the whole situation so much easier to deal with. It's comforting, even.

When I remember Nona, I will remember happier times. The Thanksgivings and Christmases that we all enjoyed together--with Nono, too--in years past. Like true Italians, Nono and Nona loved their wine, especially at the holidays. :)

As we laid Nona to rest on Saturday, I just kept picturing her free of nursing homes and illness and pain--and with Nono. And I couldn't help but smile inside.

May you rest in peace, Nona. And finally be with your true love once again.

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Up and Down

I'm convinced that toddlers are bipolar.

I don't mean to make light of the actual mental condition--I know it's very real, and very serious--but SO ARE TODDLER MOOD SWINGS. Dear lord.

Nora was such an easy baby. Seriously, she almost never cried. But then she turned one, and went all crazy. The tantrums were moderate at first, but they have slowly progressed to be the most ridiculously dramatic episodes of all time.

On Friday night, things escalated to an all new level. Nora had gone a few days with bad naps at daycare, and had been spending a lot of time outside playing. On both Thursday and Friday, she fell asleep in the car during the 10-minute drive home, which is saying a lot because she NEVER does that. I actually left her in the car to sleep for an extra 15-20 minutes or so once we were home in the hopes that it would hold her over until bedtime.

No such luck.

She was crabby as all hell, didn't want to eat dinner, and just generally seemed exhausted, so Michael and I decided to take her up to bed early. As we were attempting to change her diaper and put her pajamas on--notice I said WE because it was a job for two--it was like wrestling an alligator. And then it was like a crazy switch was turned on, because she was literally screaming her head off and going insane. She had this insane look in her eyes and I actually kind of laughed in disbelief and said to Michael, "I think we need an exorcist!"

It was nuts.

No matter what we did--pick her up, put her down, give her toys, give her milk, give her books--she just kept screaming. We finally got her to calm down by putting on a movie for a few minutes, and then she went to bed without issue.

We went through a similar episode yesterday morning, but without the proposed exorcism. She didn't seem QUITE as crazy, but she did scream and cry and roll around on the family room floor for a good 15 minutes because Michael dared to get her out of bed in the morning. She didn't want to get her diaper changed, didn't want to get dressed, didn't want to eat breakfast. You get the gist.

We've been assured by the pediatrician that this is all normal, especially considering that Nora does not have more than a few words. I've done some reading on "manipulative" tantrums vs. "frustration" tantrums and I am damn sure that I can tell the difference.

Nora's manipulative tantrums occur when something is taken away, or when we won't let her do something she wants to do--like run into the street, or stay outside longer. She's crying because she doesn't get her way. With those, we can distract her, or ignore her, and she just gets over it.

The frustration tantrums are a whole different story. Sometimes, they are easy to solve because she'll come running up to me, arms outstretched, just wanting me to pick her up. And when I do, she calms down. We talked to our pediatrician about this, and she said that in these cases, we SHOULD pick her up, because when she's coming to us like that, it's her way of asking us for help. But there are times when picking her up doesn't help, and she just gets completely out of control. I've been reading about ways to deal with this, too, like holding them tight to help them regain that control. We've tried to just let her cry it out like a manipulative tantrum, but it just doesn't work--that's when we end up with her rolling around on the floor for 15 minutes, or charging at me like a crazy person (and when I pick her up, she just keeps screaming).

There have been days that are just hard. I've come to realize that this is just a part of her development, it's a stage to get through. As all parents say, "This too shall pass," and I know it will.

But today? Today was a good day. We have good days (or at least parts of days) frequently. That's the funny thing: As challenging as she has been lately, she's also been the most fun that she has ever been. As I've mentioned, we've been outside a lot, and she is just eating it up. She loves to swing and play with chalk on the driveway. She walks around aimlessly, and points at all of the dogs in the neighborhood while saying "TESSA!" (Yes, she thinks all dogs are "Tessas.")

Nora has a sense of humor. She laughs when people burp. She smiles so big that her eyes close.

In short, she is amazing in every sense of the word. Amazingly difficult. Amazingly smart. Amazingly sensitive. Amazingly beautiful, inside and out.

It's a rollercoaster, but it's one that I'm thankful every day to be on.

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Kitchen Reno: The Grass is Greener

...and so are the walls.

It's been two weeks since I last updated you, and well, things are a lot different. But they're also largely the same in that they are STILL A FREAKING MESS.

I gotta say: We're six weeks in and I am so.over.this. Which is unfortunate, since we're most definitely not going to meet my initial deadline of March 31 to have everything done. In fact, I don't think it's going to be even close. Ugh.

But, instead of focusing on the neverending nature of this project, let's just take a look at everything that has been accomplished over the last two weeks. First, I have to admit that I have not taken a whole lot of photos. I don't know, I guess in my state of being tired of it all, I got too lazy to even document our work. And then I meant to take photos in natural light this weekend and never got around to it, so... I just finally took some tonight.

Obviously, one of the biggest things--which I already mentioned in the title and beginning of this post--is the GREEN! The walls have COLOR, people. And we LOVE it. Needless to say, after the great paint debate of 2012, we bit the bullet, got the paint tinted, and we hit the nail on the head. It is exactly the green that we wanted. THANK GOODNESS. (It is Sherwin Williams "Clary Sage," by the way.)

Basically, there's just been a whole lot of painting going on around here the last few weeks. After the walls, it was more cabinets. We deglossed, sanded, and cleaned all of the upper cabinets, and then I primed them. Then, we finally chose a cabinet paint color (a soft/creamy white called "Paper Mache" from Benjamin Moore), and I've got at least one coat of paint on all of the base cabinet frames.

Except these over here. These have two coats (so they're done). And hey, look at them! They're back in place on either side of the stove. That was an accomplishment in and of itself--to return the kitchen back to its rightful layout. Hooray for having more counterspace back!

I've also painted two coats of the cabinet paint on the soffits. We plan to add crown moulding around the top of the soffits, and since they're painted to match the cabinets, they should trick the eye a bit and make things look a bit bigger and more open than if we had painted the soffits green like the walls.

Last night, we did something really big--we started hanging those upper cabinets back on the walls. And let me tell you, that's a real bitch. Especially because it was just the two of us. Michael basically had to support the weight of the cabinets himself (and some of them are giant and HEAVY!) while I checked for levelness, spacing, pulled the wires for the cabinet lights through the holes we drilled, etc. It was not an easy process, and my screaming muscles were proof when I woke up this morning. We have a few more to hang up, but we have to wait for the electrician to come to wire through the back of the one that goes above the microwave before we continue on down the wall.

I cannot WAIT to get that microwave back up on the wall, too. Holy moly, that thing is a monster when it sits on our countertops like that.

Oh! On Friday, we also used our brand new compressor and nail gun to put the window trim back on above the sink. And then we caulked and painted that; good times.

See? So there's been progress. I suppose there's actually been lots of it.

At this point, our short-term goal is to get the rest of the cabinets up on the walls and get them painted (the upper ones are only primed right now) so we can put stuff back into the cabinets. We still won't have doors for a while--we've barely even started prepping them for primer at this point--but at least the kitchen will be fully functional, with STORAGE. I swear we have countertops underneath all of the mess you see in the photos. We just have nowhere to PUT anything.

My dad is coming into town to stay with us for nearly a week, starting on March 27. That means we have just a little more than a week to get things into shape, and we're determined to get 'er done. I'll keep you posted!

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Outside

I'm afraid we've created a monster.

We've had pretty great weather this week. Every night after work, we've taken Nora outside to play. The only problem (if you can call it that) is that she LOVES it--a little too much, maybe. The minute we get home, she's whining/reaching for the door/begging to go outside. We happily oblige, but sometimes it's necessary to--I don't know--drop our things off in the house, change our clothes, get dinner started, or pee. God forbid!

It's tough to teach an 18 month old patience, especially when they can't comprehend reason.

Anyway. A couple of nights ago, I finally put away the iPhone and got the real camera out. I also unburied my 50mm f/1.8 lens, which--although my favorite--I haven't used in quite some time. I chased Nora around in the front and back yards, trying desperately to get some good photos of our girl. And then, I edited them! I took a night off from kitchen stuff to enjoy playing around with pics. The results are the photos here in this post. Not perfect (hello, limb chops!), but it was the best I could do with a fixed lens and a never-stops-moving toddler.

This little one enjoys being outside so much that she doesn't even want to sleep. Or bathe. Last night, she threw an absolute FIT when I took her shoes off, took her upstairs, and gave her a quick bath. She normally loves baths, so it was a different experience to have her screaming and fighting me (I even had to call in reinforcements--Michael!) the whole time.

{Reaching for a ball that Daddy threw way up into the sky}

We didn't move into our house until mid-August of last year, and at that point, we were in a mad rush of house projects to make the place liveable. We didn't have much time to be outdoors, and even when we did, it was tough because Nora was not yet walking, but didn't like to be in the grass for extended periods of time. So, this will be our first time to really take advantage of the benefits of having a house. With a yard. And a fence. And a driveway.

{Waving bye-bye to Daddy}

We have big plans for a spring and summer filled with cars/bikes, balls, bubbles, slides, swings, chalk, and a baby pool. And (hopefully) eating things straight out of our soon-to-be little backyard garden.

Yesterday, as I drove home after picking up Nora from daycare, I glanced in the back seat to see her SLEEPING, wisps of her hair gently moving in the breeze flowing in through my half-open window. It's only a 10-minute drive from daycare to our house, which is never enough time for her to fall asleep anymore. The last time that happened? Last summer.

I asked Mary whether Nora had actually napped yesterday, and she said that she did, but only for 45 minutes. She had been furious with Mary when she brought her inside to nap, and when she woke up, all she wanted to do was go back out.

We have an outdoor-loving girl.

And it is still only March. We have 7+ months ahead of us to enjoy the great outdoors.

I can't wait to see how our adventures unfold.

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Refresh

Well, I'm back.

After being showered with comments, tweets, and e-mails from so many of you--saying such nice, supportive things--I didn't feel like I could stay away for long. Because honestly, how could I not come back to say thank you?

Many of you were thanking me. But thank you.

Each and every one of you made a point to say that I shouldn't let negativity win. I shouldn't give in to the one person who chose to try to knock me down when there are so many others who want to do nothing but lift me up. Of course, you're all absolutely right, and deep down, I knew that from the beginning. It was just a perfect storm of emotions and insecurities and hateful words that led to an extreme reaction.

Brushing off the haters is so much easier said than done. But I'll keep on keepin' on.

As the comments kept coming in--blowing up my phone--I read every single one. And you guys, it was overwhelming. You are unbelievable. So many of you said that I had actually helped you. Through wedding projects and pregnancy and parenting and dinner planning. Through photography and home renovations.

I had honestly never viewed myself or my blog in that way. I never really thought about readers actually learning anything here. (I was shocked, however, that no one mentioned they had learned that you could break your ass during childbirth. Come on, you heard it here first, folks. Was that not an important lesson? But I digress.)

Many of you also said that when you come here, you feel like you are checking in on a friend. That means more to me than you know. And it's funny, because so many of you felt that you would come off as "creepy" for saying so. But the thing is, I know exactly what you're saying, because I've grown attached to other blogs and their authors in the same way. All of the things you were saying? I've said those things to a couple of bloggers myself. So I get it. I really do. I just never imagined someone would say those things to me.

Just know that I'm thankful--so very thankful--for everyone who took the time to leave me such thoughtful notes and words of wisdom.

And as of right now, I'm not going anywhere.

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Rocked

There have been many occasions during which I have entertained thoughts of giving up this blog--or, more accurately, making it private. After all, I never set out to become an actual "blogger."

I started a blog in 2007 about my wedding projects, never expecting anyone to ever READ the thing. I directed people to it when they wanted instructions for painted aisle runners or DIY pocketfold invitations. But people came, and then they... stayed. Naturally, I started infusing pieces of my life into my writing as well. It wasn't just about the wedding planning anymore--the blog was about my life. At that time, I just so happened to be a bride-to-be. And then I was married, and wasn't sure what form the blog would take.

It became Heather Drive--and the hobbies I shared became cooking, baking, decorating cakes, and photography. I got pregnant, and it only seemed natural to share that experience, and then lean on the community I (somehow!) built as I waded through the first year of motherhood.

For the most part, blogging has been a wonderful thing for me. Even as readership has grown, and comments come in, and Facebook "fans" sign on--I always try to take a step back in order to not lose sight of why I have chosen to do this.

It is, in large part, a journal. Sure, it's not as intimate as it would be if it were read only by me, but the main reason for blogging--the reason I have continuously pushed myself to keep writing, even when it seems like I don't possibly have the time--is to document my life for myself. For my husband. For my kids (someday). Michael and I like to go back and look at old posts. See the specifics about where we ate and what we saw on our honeymoon. Recollect what my pregnant belly looked like at 28 weeks. Look back and see what Nora was up to at three months old.

As much as I love all most of you, and the help, guidance, encouragement, and friendship you have offered through your comments over the years--let's make no mistake that the primary reason I have this here blog is for me. Of course, I feel a little pressure to post things that I think others will enjoy reading, but I try not to let that dictate how and what I write. Some posts garner feedback through comments. Others don't. I'm OK with that.

Occasionally, I post something controversial--about breaking Tom Brady's knees, or hating Twilight, or abortion, or (gasp!) politics. And with those posts come heated comments. Some are seething, but most are respectful, just posted in disagreement with me. In those cases, discussing those topics, it is expected--and welcomed!--for people to disagree with me. Although it's rare for it to happen, I've even tolerated some blatant criticism of who I am as a person. I've never contemplated giving up my blog for comments like those.

So imagine my surprise with myself, then, as I am actually considering abandoning ship over Snooki. Freaking Snooki, you guys.

When I reposted that stupid Snooki joke last week, it was literally a split second decision. I saw it on Facebook and almost reposted it there, but since it had been shared so many times in my feed, I figured I'd throw it up over here instead. It made me laugh out loud for a moment in the middle of a difficult week, so I thought it might cause the same reaction for some of you readers. It wasn't something I put a lot of thought into, wasn't something that I anticipated would ignite discussion (and it didn't--at least not at the time).

But then I woke up this morning to a nasty comment on the Snooki post. Not only did this person disagree with the joke--they compared Snooki's fame and subsequent (presumed, mind you) placement of her baby in the public spotlight to my sharing photos of and stories about my daughter on this blog.

Well, hell. Someone was out to hit where it hurt.

Of course, all of this was posted under "anonymous" (isn't it always?) and I have no idea who it is. Is it someone I know in real life? Is it a regular commenter that I "know"? Or is it someone who has (until now) sat silent, quietly judging me, waiting for the right moment to strike?

Regardless, I have to admit that this comment makes me feel uneasy. I would be lying if I said I haven't gone into the setup of this blog and changed it to "private" three times since this morning. Every time, I've canceled the changes, not wanting to make rash decisions.

But, I'm thinking. I'm thinking about why I do this. Do the pros of keeping the blog public outweigh the cons? I appreciate all of the readers and comments I've had over the years, and I've found value in all of it. But I am definitely sensitive to the fact that it's not just about me anymore. I have a family to be mindful of. I share a few photos every couple of weeks. There might be a post here or there focusing on Nora--but usually, those relate to my parenting of her, and are done in a way that I don't think could ever be accused of "airing it all out" so that it would be embarrassing to her in the future.

I thought I was striking a good balance between what to share and what to keep private--but perhaps I need to reconsider altogether.

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Green Thumb

We had our first little taste of spring yesterday, with 60-degree weather. When we got home from work, we spent some time playing with Nora outside, which was so refreshing. And girlfriend LOVED IT, so I think we will be spending a lot of time outdoors in the coming months. I cannot wait for that.

In the meantime, though, we have retreated back indoors, where we New Yorkers belong this time of year (brrrr!). But the little spring preview has me dreaming of warmer, sunnier days, and how I want to spend them.

I want to start a garden.

When I say "green thumb" in the title of this post, I mean GREEN in the sense that I am inexperienced. A newbie. I have no clue what I'm doing.

We have a fair amount of shade in our backyard (lots of trees), so I've been told that a garden might not fare well back there. However, I think we have a few spots that get enough sun for it to work, but I don't know that. Because, well, how much direct sunlight do gardens NEED?

What are the best things to plant for newbies? I'd love to grow tomatoes, zucchini, bell peppers, and some other things, too. But what? And when do we plant?

How do we plant? Raised beds. Containers. Planter bags. What is a clueless girl to do?

And, how do you keep your hard work protected from little critters? We have a fenced in backyard, but we've still had rabbits make repeated appearances back there. They're cute and all, but I don't want them eating my veggies. And insects? I think I've read that there are some herbs you can plant that are natural insect repellants? But what do I know?

So, if you would, give me the rundown. Where do we start? What do we need? Any good resources to point me in the direction of? If you've had success starting your very own garden, I want to hear from you. I need to know I can pull this off.

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Rapture

This made me chuckle.

Disclaimer: I've never actually seen an episode of Jersey Shore. But unfortunately, I do know who Snooki is, and I know enough to realize that this is funny. Ha!

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Kitchen Reno: Prepping and Priming

We're one month into our kitchen renovation.

On the one hand, I can't believe how far we've come in just a few short weeks. On the other hand, I look at how far we still have to go, and can't believe we're already a month into it. I originally had the idea that we could be completely done with everything by the end of March (so, I basically gave ourselves two months--seemed generous) but now I'm wondering if even that was a little too ambitious.

Just keep swimming. I'm trying to break this up into digestible chunks of work, because when I start thinking about it as a whole, it's too overwhelming. All we can do is take one thing at a time.

There were exciting parts of this week, and there were boring oh-my-gosh-let's-just-get-this-over-with parts.

On Thursday night, I started deglossing some of our base cabinet frames with TSP-PF. The guy at Home Depot tried to tell me that I wouldn't need to bother sanding after using this stuff, but after he raised my expectations, I was not all that impressed. It did do its part to clean the cabinets well, and I think it did help remove some of the glossy protective coat on the cabinets, but I didn't feel comfortable just priming from there. We want this paint job to be as durable as possible, so we decided to follow all the info I've been reading and sand, even though it's a giant pain in the keister.

So, Friday night was some sanding. We used the palm sander and 150 grit paper. Now THIS seemed to do a good job. It removed the finish in some parts, and in the places where it didn't, it did severely dull the surface. I went over everything with the sander twice, then did a good wipe down/clean up again to remove any dust.

Come Saturday, I was feeling pretty confident that it was well prepped for primer. So, I busted out the primer and got busy.

I've read about a zillion cabinet painting tutorials, and after talking to one of the experts at a local paint store, this was confirmed to be the best product for the job. This is Zinsser Smart Prime. They claim that it's the performance of oil-based but with the benefits of water-based primer. So far, so good. I like working with it.

The bases were a bit tedious with the door and drawer openings. I eventually figured out that the best method was to do the inside lip of the openings first, then go over the fronts to fix any drips. I got better and faster as I went, but it still took me about two hours to do all of our base cabinet frames. All was OK, though; I was listening to "Overboard" on TV. Can't go wrong with Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell.

"I just... ate a bug!"

ANYWAY.

It felt really good to get some primer on those cabinets. I'm more looking forward to doing the doors since we plan to spray those, but at this point, putting white paint on those dirt-colored cabinets was extremely satisfying, no matter which method I was using. And it has already made a huge difference--just wait a minute and I'll show you. :)

First I must discuss the great paint debate of 2012. For the love of all things Sherwin Williams, I have not ever had this much trouble choosing a paint color. Back when we first bought the place, we thought we were going to paint the kitchen a goldish-yellowish-creamish color. And, while it was still in the running initially, it just didn't seem to be quite right. Then we thought we'd go with a gray color, but after staring at about 25 shades of gray, that didn't seem to fit either. Then we landed on green. And, although we are sold on green at this point, and although we *think* we have our shade picked out, I think it'll still be a split second decision this week.

Although the one in the middle was the initial favorite, after staring at it for a good 24 hours or so, I was no longer convinced. The one on the left (highlighted with the red arrow) is our current leader. And no, your eyes are not deceiving you--they really aren't very different from one another. Gah.

During Nora's nap today, we were back to work. Michael continued prepping more cabinets in the basement while I tackled a completely lackluster job--repainting the ceiling. BLAH. I really was not looking forward to it at all, because come on... the ceiling is boring. However, I must say that I have gotten way better at it since we've moved in. Back in August, I painted Nora's ceiling and it nearly drove me to drink. It was awful. It was impossible to tell where I had painted, I applied everything unevenly, streaks were visible, my neck was killing me... I ended up painting the damn thing like three or four times and I swore I would never paint another ceiling again.

Of course, after we redid the drywall (including the ceiling!) in our family room this past fall, ceiling painting was upon me again--and I pulled out all of the stops. I Googled the "proper" way to paint a ceiling and watched YouTube tutorials. (Who knew that you were just supposed to paint in straight, overlapping lines? I had always been taught to do the damn "W.") I also armed myself with a secret weapon: PINK PAINT.

Have y'all seen this stuff? It's Glidden's EZ Track Ceiling Paint, and it.is.glorious. It became my best friend in the fall, when I had to paint the family room ceiling way more times than I wanted (it was a drywall/mudding problem, not a paint one). So EZ Track and I became reacquainted this afternoon. Yay.

The gist is that the paint goes on pink, but dries white. Pink so you can see what you're doing and where you've painted--white so that your ceiling looks fabulous when it's done.

See the pinkish/grayish streaking going on up there? This was after I had painted the entire ceiling, so it was in the middle of drying. The parts closest to you were done first, so they are pretty much completely dry, while the portion furthest away from you is wet. Cool, huh?

This is after it has already dried quite a bit, but you can still see the pink hue. (Don't mind the busted looking drywall right there--we ripped out and are replacing the door jamb for the laundry closet.)

For good measure, I'll be doing a second coat of paint on the ceiling tomorrow, and then I'll get to move onto the walls--COLOR!! I'm pretty excited to add color. I just hope I end up liking what we choose.

Oh, and here's what the rest of the kitchen is looking like:

Still a freaking disaster, but LOOK! The beginnings of white cabinets! Wheee!

It's amazing how adding a little primer can change the way things look so dramatically. The countertop, in my eyes, looks like a completely different countertop. Before, it seemed to be sort of pinkish somehow, but not anymore. Hooray.

The next time I update, things should be looking significantly green around here. And hopefully we'll have made some good progress on the upper cabinet frames, too. Currently, we're trying to decide if we should rehang the uppers BEFORE painting them (after priming, definitely), or after they're done. While it would be easier to paint them while they're down, I'm afraid we're going to end up damaging the paint job while getting them back up, so... you can imagine which way we're leaning. Any experience out there?

Hopefully you're not sick of my kitchen updates (and infrequency of other posts, sorry!) already? Fun times--and more progress--are ahead.

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