Daddy's Birthday

Nora's daddy, that is. :)

Oooh, look at that. A store-bought half-moon cookie. As you can see, our kitchen (sneak peek of the demo prep!) is not exactly in good shape for doing any baking right now.

Happy Birthday, Michael! <3

Read more...

Kitchen Reno: The Beginning

It is here, folks: It's KITCHEN DEMO WEEK.

To see what the kitchen looked like when we moved in, see this post. And this is what it looked like earlier this week, when we started (sorta) tearing things up:

So, in other words--not that different. But like I mentioned in my original kitchen post, we did remove the wallpaper. And tore out the z-brick around the dishwasher (as you see, we haven't really gotten around to rebuilding the surround, but now that we're moving forward with everything else, that's actually a good thing). This is how we've lived with the kitchen for the past six months. Blah.

But no more. The road to removing the brick is now short. We're just days away from ridding ourselves of it, once and for all.

(Oh, we took down a fugly flourescent light fixture above the sink, too. We had big plans to replace it right away, but, um... well. You'll see.) As a reminder, we plan to rip out all of the brick, paint the cabinets white, and install a tile backsplash.

We also have plans to replace the floor. Timing on that will depend on some other things we have going on, and will be one of the last steps in the process. But it will be coming. We're also going to paint the wood trim/sliding glass door, and replace those cheap, busted-looking bifold pantry/laundry closet doors with six panel bifolds. Wheeeee!

Oh, there's something else we did. We replaced that door--it was an old, cheap, wood-colored door that was totally '70s. We did the replacement six-panel door ourselves (it still needs to be painted). And we've done 8 others in the house, too. We only have two more to do and we'll have replaced every single interior door. Woot woot!

Get ready for progress!

Read more...

An ENT Experience

Given that I've posted several times about our trials and tribulations with Nora's frequent and persistent ear infections, I would be remiss if I didn't share the latest developments.

As I mentioned a few weeks ago when we were in every-day-antibiotic-injection hell, we were finally referred to an ENT specialist. The appointment with him was last week, and although it was a fairly brief appointment, it was obviously an important one.

At the appointment, we gave a history of Nora's problems with her ear infections, and answered a bunch of questions from the doctor (i.e. when was her first ear infection, is there secondhand smoke in the home, what are her typical symptoms, do we have any reason to believe she has hearing loss, etc.). After the "interview" portion, the doctor took a look in Nora's ears. She was NOT pleased; in fact, we had to hold her down and fight her while she screamed bloody murder. Awful. And rare for her, as she usually lets the pediatricians at our practice check her out without issue.

Despite the kicking and screaming, he was able to get a look at both ears and told us that while they weren't currently infected (hooray!), they weren't healthy ears. There was fluid visible in both ears, and he said that based on what they looked like, the problems there could turn into an ear infection at any time. He then told us that based on her history and the current exam, she met all criteria for tubes. He gave us his spiel about the anatomy of the ear that causes infections, the tubes, the procedure, and the risks--for both surgery AND continuing what we've been doing. Unfortunately, there are risks associated with both. Obviously, there is a slight chance of complications with the tubes, but there is also risk to continuing to allow her to get frequent ear infections and repeatedly dosing her with antibiotics.

At the end, I asked him if there was any chance that Nora could have hearing loss due to the infections. This has been one of my many concerns. He looked right at me and said, "She does have hearing loss." I was kind of surprised at his certainty, given that he hadn't done a hearing test, so I said, "Really?" And he explained that with the amount of fluid she had in her ears, it causes some hearing loss. He compared it to holding your hands over your ears; you can still HEAR, but not as clearly as you should be able to.

That was pretty much the kicker for us. We decided to go ahead and schedule surgery.

Yesterday, they called me to schedule her pre-op appointments and surgery. We have two pre-op appointments early next week, then her surgery is on Friday 2/17. I had a pit in my stomach the entire time I was talking to the scheduler. This situation just sucks. As far as we know, Nora doesn't have an ear infection right now, which makes it a little harder--as bad as it sounds, I think it would be easier on us if she were to develop another ear infection between now and surgery day, because it would assure us that we're making the right decision!

At the end of the day, we do still believe it to be the right decision, but it's a lot harder to send a "healthy" kid into the operating room than a currently sick one, you know?

Anyway, we'll still be able to do some more information gathering during her pre-op appointments that will hopefully help to ease our minds. One of the appointments is actually for a formal hearing test with an audiologist. Apparently the ENT ordered it for Nora to get a better feel for the degree of her hearing loss--and whether it is temporary (we have every reason to believe it is) or permanent.

It has not been an easy decision for us. It has also not been an easy few months, that's for sure. I am going to be a nervous wreck until we can officially call this a success and put it all behind us. Until then, I will live with a ball of nerves in my belly.

Read more...

Kitchen Planning

A few weeks ago, I let the cat out of the bag about our ugly kitchen. This week, we're preparing to rid ourselves of the ugly, once and for all.

We're preparing to demo.

We knew we would be hosting my in-laws at our house the first weekend of February, and had plans to have my family over for Super Bowl. As a result, we held off on doing anything--and enjoyed our last few weeks with a normal life--until now. Instead, we held ourselves over by doing a lot of research and shopping.

As I mentioned, we're planning to paint the cabinets white. Do you know how many different shades of white there are? It's ridiculous. We have a bunch of white samples taped up on our cabinets right now, and at this point, I think we're just going to blindly pick one. We've narrowed it down to five, and I just don't think there is enough difference between any of them to continue debating it any further. It's white; how can we go wrong?

We've never purchased Benjamin Moore paint before, but everything we've been reading has recommended Benjamin Moore's Advance paint for cabinets. Last weekend, we ventured out to a local paint store to talk to the experts about painting our cabinets, get pricing for the paint and primer so we'd know what to expect, and grab the aforementioned white paint samples. Nora had a grand ol' time collecting the little paint sample jars from the racks and putting them in her own configuration on the floor.

Although a bit premature (this will be one of the last steps in our kitchen makeover), we did some shopping for backsplash tile, too. We bought a bunch of options and took them home to look at them in our kitchen, with our countertops. The above is our current favorite, and it also happens to be the most expensive mosaic tile that we looked at. My mom always says that she has champagne taste on a beer budget, and I suppose I take after her in that department. Sheesh. (And, for the record, it's definitely Michael's favorite, too.)

Although our countertops are laminate, they are relatively new and in good shape, so we're planning to keep them for a while. We've looked into other options, and holy hell, countertops are expensive. So, here's hoping that we can safely remove our countertops and put them back on without any damage, because that's $1600+ that we don't really want to spend right now.

One thing that we can't wait to replace (aside from the z-brick, because that's obviously the worst offender) is our kitchen faucet. Apparently the previous owners replaced it just a couple of years ago, but it's one of the really cheap, plain, builder-grade type ones. We replaced our faucet at the condo with one of the nice designer ones in 2010, and wondered why we hadn't done it when we moved in in 2005. It's one of those things that doesn't seem like it could possibly make that big a difference, but then it does.

We spent some time in the fixture aisle at Home Depot last week, and after narrowing it down to three very similar Delta faucets, we're pretty sure we're going with the one pictured above. It just so happens to be the cheapest least expensive of the three, which isn't saying much, since they're all pricey. Cha-ching!

We've also ordered our paint sprayer for the cabinets. After some research and talking to the professionals, we've decided to go with the Wagner HVLP Conversion Gun. The nice thing about this guy is that it can be attached to an air compressor, so you don't need to buy a fancy-pants turbine or paint system.

We wanted to go with HVLP for a few reasons: 1) We read that it was best for small jobs like cabinets, because the spray can be narrowed down to a very small radius for the details, or dialed up for a more broad spray for larger surface areas like the backs of the doors; 2) Because the spray can be narrowed so much, there is significantly less overspray (read: getting paint on everything around you!) than with other models; 3) We heard that it's the easiest to use for beginners, since the spray is slower than with some of the other types of guns; and 4) I had seen a few success stories for beginners like us painting cabinets with it (check out Jenny and her amazing kitchen transformation).

There are some cheaper HVLP guns out there--some even available at Home Depot--but we talked to an employee there and he said that they've received a lot of complaints about those models. With something like this, we decided to stick with something that had been recommended by professionals, and had worked for DIYers like us. Fingers crossed.

So, that's where we are in our preparation to make over our kitchen. This week, we're going to work on all of the pre-demo stuff. Removing all cabinet doors and drawer fronts, taking down the upper cabinets, our over-the-range microwave, etc. We are going to do our best to set up a makeshift kitchen in our dining room so things don't get tremendously out of hand. I'll hopefully have some pics of progress to share throughout the week.

I'm so excited.

And nervous. I have a pit in my stomach.

But mostly I'm excited.

Read more...

Yard Sale

OK, not really a yard sale. It's a cloth diaper sale. And a small one at that.

Try as we might, we cannot fall in love with our One-Size Blueberry Deluxe Pocket Diapers. They've always been our least favorite in our stash, simply for the way they fit Nora. I wanted to love them, but Nora has a big buddha belly and relatively small thighs, so they typically ride down on her hips, creating big gaps at the legs. And gaps at the legs = leaks. Blah.

Sadly, we're giving up on them. But I know that for many people, Blueberry diapers are a favorite, so we're hoping that we can find them a good home. :) I'm actually sad to get rid of these, as they are some of my favorites in terms of the prints--so cute!

Here's what we've got for sale:

UPDATE 2/6/12 - EVERYTHING HAS BEEN SOLD. Thank you to everyone for the interest!

• OS Blueberry Deluxe in Red (Snaps) SOLD
• OS Blueberry Deluxe in Chocolate with Light Blue Polka Dots (Snaps) SOLD
• OS Blueberry Deluxe in Pink Lemonade (Snaps) SOLD
• OS Blueberry Deluxe in Cow Print (Snaps) SOLD

Here's Nora wearing the pink lemonade diaper when we first got it:

All diapers are in good used condition. These were probably used the least frequently out of all of our diapers, since they have never been our favorites. Elastic, PUL, snaps--all in good shape. We always hang our covers to dry instead of throwing them in the dryer. Smoke free home. Washed in Charlie's Soap.

Price is $14/diaper, including both inserts. Brand new, these retail for $23.95/diaper. They're the most expensive diapers we own! I'm disappointed they didn't work out for us.

Leave a comment with contact info, or e-mail me if you're interested (heatherdriveblog at yahoo dot com). I can take some pics to share if you'd like.

Read more...