Weekend recap

This was a pretty good weekend.

Saturday, I got up early with Widget and hit the diner for breakfast and the library to trade in movies and pick up to book they had on hold for me, then I headed off to whuffle's place to help with painting. First we had to make the paint run, where we were helped by the very cute and knowledgeable paint guy at Home Depot. Paint acquired, we got back to the house to get to work. Cleared the room, sanded the floor, painted and painted and painted. Jill showed up at some point with lunch, and I was astonished to see that it was already 4:30 when we sat down to eat (no wonder I'd been getting light headed.) Back upstairs for a second coat, at the finish of that, I declared myself done in for the day and went downstairs for some bunny snuggling. After everyone wrapped up, we headed out to Grumpy White's for some yum dinner. Didn't make it over to knitting, which was a bummer, but I'll make it over there next week, probably.

Sunday, I made a critical tactical error in not having the Easter Bunny come to the house. We don't really celebrate Easter, and apparently, I missed the memo where the Easter Bunny is the new Santa. I knew I was doomed when we got to church and one of Widget's friends came right up and asked "What did the Easter Bunny bring to YOUR house? I got candy, and markers and Charlotte's Web and..." Spent all day trying to fob off "why didn't the easter bunny come to our house" questions.

After church and the Easter egg hunt, we came home and chilled out reading and watching tv, and writing out party invitations for Widget's birthday party. I must be insane, opening the house up to 10 crazed 6 year olds, but it's done at this point. I just hope we don't have a reprise of last year's painful 75% decline rate. I don't think I could handle that again. If anyone has suggestions for food or activities for a "princess party", I'd love to hear them.

We went to lorac's place for dinner, and her sweetie cooked up a fabulous meal of scallops and roasted potatoes and green beans, finished with strawberries and fresh madelines. It was all omg yummy, and a nice relaxing end to a busy and hectic weekend.

I making huge progress on an very (embarrassingly and absurdly so) overdue project. The block that has been keeping me from working on it for so long has finally lifted, and it is going to be delightful when it is finished. I only hope that it is still welcomed when it is finished.

Apparently, I'm a sheep without realizing it & house stuff

I was blathering at someone recently how the one significant improvement I'd make to my house (short of the pie-in-the-sky inheritance from a rich uncle I didn't know I had plan for a basement level garage, sun porch and master bath) would be to add a small addition to the back of the house with a second bathroom and a "mudroom" like space for hanging coats, leaving shoes and bags, and really containing all the crap that ends up on my kitchen counters and floors.

While bathrooming today at work, I was skimming the leftover NY Times from a couple of weeks ago and there was a whole article about how the uber-chic mudroom has become the newest "must-have" in American McMansions.

I don't need beadboard or custom cubby cabinets. I just want a place for people to leave their crap.

At some point in the last few weeks, I had a total vision for how I want to overhaul my bathroom, when I decide I'm ready to take on that project. Current gating factor for that is my desire to install glass brick windows in the shower, which moves it squarely out of the realm of do-it-yourself, since punching holes through the exterior walls seems a bit extreme for a do-it-yourselfer. No idea how much that would cost, but it's likely more than I've got at the moment. (Plus the whole factor of it being our only bathroom, which complicates any renovation plan.) Deep cornflower blue walls, silver metal fixtures, white sink and tub, with white and blue tiling for the shower enclosure. Yum, when I can do it.

And I'm trying to figure out how I can make my kitchen work better in the short term, short of a long overhaul. My main thing is that I want to be able to cook for people and have it feel social while I'm doing it. Putting a table in the room could work, and it;s mostly large enough for that, but in this house, horizontal surfaces collect crap too quickly to be useful, so I'm not sure, ultimately how good a solution it would be. Plus, we've got storage cabinets against the wall that would be best left where it is (not enough storage as it is), and I don't know how well that would work with a table in the space.