View From The Hills

Aren’t we hot?  People have been trying to keep up with the countertop debacle, but everything’s moving too fast!  I could spend hours explaining, but I’ll try to give the short version.  We decided to remodel this kitchen-do it ourselves-on a tight budget.  I do not care to wait until we can afford our dream kitchen (when would that be??).  I also know that if and when we decide to sell this house, nobody would want it with that old, nasty kitchen.  I watch HGTV enough to know that it’s sad when people update their homes to sell and realize all the potential their house had.  I want to enjoy my updated house.  Anyways, we grossly under-budgeted for the simple laminate countertops we were going to buy.  That in itself is a ridiculous saga involving Home Depot, Lowes, IKEA, and all of the shockingly awful customer service stories-don’t get me started on how these people stay in business or why we finance them.  So guess what happens when you can’t even afford basic laminate countertop?  You’re screwed.  There aren’t really any other options.  Or so I thought!   This leads to my first exciting discovery, Habitat for Humanity.  Did you know that they have stores?  It’s like Goodwill for home renovations!  We went to the one in Frederick, because I found Corian countertops there.  Unfortunately, they were not going to fit correctly, and making it work would cost more than it was worth.  But, the store was amazing!  They have all kinds of new and used materials: sinks, toilets, hardware, lighting, furniture, appliances.  All for next to nothing!  It’s going to save us a fortune.  We might not be able to get countertops there, but there are so many things we will be able to use. 

Back to countertops.  My next discovery was a very new product, comparable to stone, maybe concrete.  It’s called ironstone.  You can see them on the website.  A couple in Kansas is the only distributor for them in the country.  She has spent a great deal of time on the phone with me helping, explaining, pricing.  At this point, I’m willing to buy from anyone who is willing to genuinely try to help me.   We definitely have some work to do to install them, but I’m pretty pumped.  Not only do they look really cool, they are cheaper than laminate (mostly because they are not in demand yet)!  Woohoo!  So at this point, we have ordered a sample, and upon our approval, we will be ordering all of the materials.  I’ll keep you posted, I know you are on the edge of your seat.  Try to be patient.

*Don’t read this if you are easily grossed out.  Or if you don’t have kids and might want them someday.  hahaha.

I have just had the most wonderful afternoon playing with my baby outside, and just put him down for a nap.  I go to check my email and had something from Chris Garza, yay!  Christopher and his wife Lana, are newly pregnant and understandably excited.  They are going to be such great parents!!  Anyways, this is an excerpt from the email:

Anyhow, the real reason that I wanted to write you is to tell you about my parenting warmup that I had this morning.  Lana and I are staying at her sister’s place since we still dont have electricity at our apartment.  Well Lana and Amy and Scott all had to work today, as did I, but I didn’t have to report in until  10:00 a.m.  They had to be in at 8:00 a.m. So I offered to babysit until I had to leave at 9:30, at which point the neighbor would come and relieve me of my duties.  So I hadtwo hours, that’s it, two hours.  Simple enough huh?  Weeeeeell, Abby decided to be just fine until about 9:00, at which point she decided to recreate the atomic bomb in her diaper.  If only her diaper would have been big enough to contain the chaos!  That stuff was everywhere!  I went into the bathroom to brush my teeth, and when I came out she was covered!  She had it in her hair, all over her clothes, all over her arms, legs, face, and hands, and all over her Boppy seat.  So I took a deep breathand hauled her into her room to change her.  I got her in there and got her clothes off, and then she just kept going.  OMG!  How can that much stuff come from such a little angel?  Well to make a long disgusting story short, I threw up in the toilet and then proceeded to get anything she was touching or near at the time into the washing machine for decon.  I know I know, I have one on the way and I cant change a poopoo diaper without throwing up.  As funny as it might be to everyone else, it was quite a traumatic experience for me.  I hope that I get better at this, which I am sure I will, but that was g-r-o-s-s!  So there you go, your laugh for the day.  I am sure your sister would have fun with that one. 

I want to mention that being a parent yourself will not make you “better” at dealing with those experiences.  Sorry.  I only tell you that because it sounds like you think this will make you some sort of bad parent.  The poop will stink whether it’s your child or not.  This brought back a vivid memory of Stu and I literally cutting the poop-drenched clothes off of Blake in the bathtub and manually trying to scrape it off of him.  I don’t understand the logistics either, Chris.  They are just drinking MILK for crying out loud.  How do their sweet little bodies turn it into something so wretched??  And in such quantity?  The good news is, even though it will inevitably happen with your own child (I don’t know anyone with kids who doesn’t have one of these stories-and yet they never get old), it doesn’t happen all the time.  I think we had 2 bad bad bad diapers in Blake’s infancy.  Of course, there are other weird gross experiences your child will put you through (some involving poop, some other bodily fluids)-but we will save that for another blog.  And yes, my sister will like this.

Maybe if I don’t choose the Katie bob route, I could go alittle Posh?

UPDATE: I obviously am no good at inserting pics.  I’m working on it.  But until that gets better, you’ll have to look up Victoria Beckham if you’re really dying to see the haircut I want.  Also, I went to get said haircut today and can’t have it yet.  My layers are too short to do anything fun.  Boo.  I have a trimmed up haircut and am pretty annoyed about it.

Here we go. duh.

So let’s visit the topic of hair.  I’m due for a haircut (I have been for about a month now).  I have been casually putting it off, mostly because now that I stay at home, I find it more difficult to spend money on myself.  But I went to lunch with a friend the other day, and she had just had her hair cut so very cute.  It made me very self conscience of my pitiful grown out haircut.  Last time I went for this cut:

This is a very cute cut, but the problem was way too many layers and unless you have a stylist with plenty of time to make them look like above, then you end up looking poofy and out of control.  I ended up with mom hair.  I’ve let this cut grow almost to my shoulders, in a effort to grow the shortest layer out some.  So this time I think I’ll go with a bob and less heavy layering.  And bangs!  Ta da:

And yes, it appears that one way or another I am determined to look just like Katie Holmes. 

So, tell me what you think (I may or may not listen).  And then, please let me know 1. Where I can get a free chi and 2. When you can babysit so I can go get said haircut.