Knitting With Caleb

Partial Progress, Killing Brain Cells and Your Opinions Wanted

Catchy title, huh?

I made partial progress on the kitchen yesterday. I primed the cabinets inside and out but did not get to the doors yet. As I said before, I am having to use oil based primer because the cabinets were previously painted with an oil based paint.

Which brings me to killing brain cells...

The quality of this stuff is great. I can tell it is covering well and evenly, and I got it during Sherwin William's preferred customer 30% off sale (which lasts until the 31st!). Don't be too jealous - they will let anyone become a preferred customer as long as you give them your email address.

But the smell...good golly miss molly. I had doors and windows open, and I still had a headache most of the day yesterday that is still lingering this morning. I have used oil based primer before, but only in the great outdoors. And it was totally bearable outside. The worst was having to stick my head way inside the cabinets to paint the back walls and corners.

OPINION TIME!!!!

So I thought I would ask your opinion on a few things. We have these copper screens on 4 drawer fronts and one corner cabinet door. They are the same color as the door hardware, which we will be spray painting oil rubbed bronze (looks almost black).

Should we paint these white to blend in with the cabinets or oil rubbed bronze to match the door hardware?

This is a piece of trim above the sink. I think it looks very "country" to me. I would prefer a clean, straight trim. But this would require cutting it out, repairing the wall on each side where it is attached, and figuring out something else to put in its place. Thoughts? Ideas?

If you look closely in the above picture, you can see that right in the center is the old cabinet color and to each side is the new white primer. Such a difference! The final color is going to be similar to the white primer.

I am off to kill a few more brain cells...wish me luck!

Painting the Kitchen Cabinets

Has anyone ever painted their kitchen cabinets before? Oh my. I think it is sort of like birthing a child...

If you talk to someone who just finished birthing a child (usually within the first day or two after giving birth) they will generally say something like, "I am never doing that again!".

If you talk to someone who is in serious *labor*, they will say something like, "I don't want to do this anymore!" or my favorite, "I've changed my mind!". Like there is any going back at that point!

I sort of feel like that right now. I have no idea when I will be able to use my kitchen again. It is currently covered in saw dust, and everything is packed into boxes. But, there is no going back now.

Not to mention the fact that I am about to embark on priming all 25 cabinet doors, 7 drawers, cabinet frames, and the INSIDES OF ALL THE CABINETS with oil based primer and then finish with two coats of paint. And the kicker is that I will have to let each coat dry at least a day to make sure they cure completely.

I guess I can look on the bright side...I might not be cooking for at least a week!

This is our friend Jeremy that is helping Steve. He said that if I posted his picture on my blog, he would expect a royalty. I am pretty sure if you post a picture of people from the back, they get nothin'.

New Grilled Cheese Recipe

I thought I would share the new Grilled Cheese recipe I came up with today. I haven't done a recipe post in a l-o-n-g time. This does not mean that I never cook anymore. It just means I don't cook anything very *interesting*... :-) Until today!

The usual suspects:

Wheat bread

Slice of Cheese

Butter

Take the bread and butter each side. Place one piece butter side down, and lay the slice of cheese on top. Cover with the other piece of bread, butter side up.

Let cook for approx. 2 minutes, then flip.

Then, and this is the really important part of the recipe, start thinking about something stressful in your life. You might even close your eyes at some point and not even realize that you are doing it.

If this stressful thing you are thinking about involves a forgetful mistake that you made, even better! Because then, you can hopelessly waste time analyzing all of the ways that you could have done things differently.

You can add in 2 Tbs. of Beating Yourself Up

And 1 cup of Feeling Sorry For Yourself

(I am sure everyone can find these last two ingredients somewhere in the back of their spice cabinet....)

And eventually, you will open your eyes and have arrived at the perfect, two-toned, half-blackened grilled cheese.

Side 1:

Side 2:

We all need to extend grace to those who make mistakes. And sometimes, it seems to be the hardest to extend that same grace to ourselves.

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." Matt 11:28

"Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need." Hebrews 4:16

Choosing to dwell on my mistakes sure seems appealing at times. Wallowing is a word that comes to mind. But it sure renders me ineffective for all the other things I am called to in a day.

Like making my four year old an edible lunch.... :-)

Pringles Ad

A random moment with Caleb...and a Santa Hat...and some Pringles.

Pringles are serious business....

Pringles make me happy!

Pringles make me sleepy...

Sneaky, Sneaky

Last night, I went into the closet to get a pull-up for Caleb for bedtime. I couldn't get a totally accurate picture of what was waiting for me, because it was dark and it wouldn't have shown up properly. But somehow this....

was waiting for me at eye level, in the dark, as I bent down to where we keep the pull-ups. I am not ashamed to admit I screamed really, really loudly. So loudly that my throat hurt. And the next thing out of my mouth, at full volume, was "STEVE HORVATH!!".

I went into the boys' room and they were all laughing. Steve was almost crying. He was rather proud of himself. And then Caleb kept copying my scream and yelling "Steve Horvath!".

Good times in a house full of boys.

Mid-Winter Swim

My friend Jen posted today about their hotel stay over the weekend. It reminded me that I had neglected to post pictures from our fun hotel stay at the end of December.

We received some money as a Christmas gift for our family from Steve's Mom, and instead of buying more stuff, we decided to use it to do something together as a family.

Our boys LOVE to swim, and they LOVE to stay in hotels. Several years ago, we took them to stay in a hotel in the middle of downtown Dallas. The pool was on the top floor, so you could be in the pool and were surrounded by sky scrapers on all sides. After that, whenever Seth would catch a glimpse of downtown Dallas, he would say excitedly, "Go building, go bed!".

We found a place really close to home that had an indoor salt water pool. We have been spoiled by salt water pools now...love them. The Hilton Garden Inn in Richardson/North Dallas:

It was really new, clean, had huge rooms, and the pool was perfect!

It also had sleep number beds, and you could adjust each side from soft to firm.

Stock photos found in Google Images

Needless to say, our boys had a wonderful time in that pool! We spent about 3 hours in it the first afternoon, then got up the next morning and swam for a couple hours before we had to check out.

A humorous story...when we went down to the pool in the morning, there was a maintenance man in slacks and a dress shirt with a net in the pool. It appeared someone had thrown a bunch of coins into the pool the night before. He was able to pull them into a pile with the net, but he couldn't get them into the net. I could see by the look on his face that he was wondering how the heck he was going to get the coins out of the pool.

Before I even stuck my toe in the water, I told him that we would get the coins out for him. By "we", I meant Seth. It was in the shallow end, and I figured Seth could dive down and get them. He was extremely relieved, and asked me several times if I was sure.

I then noticed there was a water hose adding (cold) water to the pool. I thought perhaps the rowdies from the previous evening that had been making wishes with their coins might have splashed some significant water out.

Wow. The water was *cold*. Like, "never would have put my head under the water" kind of cold. And it was quickly obvious that Seth doesn't have enough strength to keep his body down at the bottom of the pool AND pick up coins at the same time. He just kept floating back to the surface.

AND my husband happened to decide he wasn't feeling getting in the pool that morning. Only the hot tub for him. Convenient since it was *cold* and someone had to dive down to the bottom and get all the coins we (me) had promised to get.

It probably took me diving down 20 times to get all the coins. The bottom of the pool was rough and it was really hard to pick them up. After about my 10th dive, the maintenance man came back in with 4 Hershey chocolate bars for us to say thank you.

Later, maintenance man #2 showed up. We had spoken with him the evening before when we were swimming. He was carrying a gift basket full of snacks and treats that was all wrapped up with a bow on top.

Maintenance man #1 had called him at home to let him know there were coins in the pool, and to ask him to bring his swim suit so that he could get in and get them out. He was not a happy camper (he was an older gentleman in his late 50's).

So when he arrived and found out we had taken care of it, he rounded up a gift basket for us. Super nice of him, especially since we were expecting nothing!

All this to say:

Stay at the Hilton Garden Inn Richardson if you ever get the chance. Great hotel, beautiful pool, reasonable rates and really friendly people.

The End.

Chalkboard Project

Here is the transformation of dry erase board to chalkboard:

BEFORE

AFTER

And just to give you an idea of the size, here is my 4 year old modeling it...

I am planning on hanging it centered above our bed (where there is currently nothing!) and then filling in the space around it with framed pictures of our adventures and travels this past summer.

Maybe now that I have actually stated to the blogosphere that I am going to do it, I will.

Along with painting those kitchen cabinets that we took the doors off of TWO WEEKS ago...

Thrifting for Treasures

I made two purchases at a little thrift store this past week. Numero uno...

It will not win any Academy Awards, but our boys LOVE any of this series of movies. We already have Space Buddies, and they are now asking for Treasure Buddies (it looks very Indiana Jones'ish.) They think the puppies look like our dog Jake, and the dogs mouths move like they are talking.

Wow, if you asked me five years ago if I would have ever even WATCHED a movie that had talking dogs, let alone blog about it, I would have given you an emphatic heck no. Alas, the times, they are a-changin'.... (name that artist!)

Cost - $4.00

Numero dos...

It is a dry erase board with a cream painted frame. Sort of sporting the weathered/shabby chic look, which I am not sure that I am going to keep. But I am using these bad boys:

and turn it into a chalkboard. I already took it apart and primed the erase board, but I am being patient and letting it dry fully before I use the chalkboard paint on it.

Cost breakdown:

Thrift Store Dry Erase Board - $4.50, but it was in lucky Booth 16. Half price that day made it only $2.25!

Spray Primer - already owned

Chalkboard Paint - Borrowed from Christine, who I am pretty sure bought it at a garage sale - or tag sale as she calls them. She lived in Connecticut before she moved here a few years ago. They do things a little differently there... ;-)

Total Project Price: $2.25!

Stay tuned for the finished product later this weekend...

Crazy Hair Day

This is a little slice of "real time blogging". I don't know if I have EVER posted pictures to the blog on the actual day that I took them. Today might be a first!

This was Seth at 7:15am this morning...

And this was Seth at 7:25am...

It's Crazy Hair Day at school.

I think he was feeling pretty confident in his craziness.

And just in case he needs a CD cover (with attitude) any time soon...

Two Turntables and a Microphone

Unless you are my age, + or - 5 years on either side, you might not recognize the above reference to an old Beck song.

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? (another one for the 30 somethings...)

But around the Horvath house, things are constantly happening that involve singing, guitars, amps, karaoke machines, writing silly songs and microphones.

Exhibit A :

Somebody loves their Daddy just a tad...

Happy Snow Day!

Love the house with snow all over it!

Eating Snow...um, um

Happy

Old Faithful Jake- click on the photo above to enlarge it, but only if you are a dog lover. You will better be able to see the softness of Jake's fur right under his chin. Doesn't it just make you want to cuddle with him? I warned you, only for dog lovers....

If there's a puddle, Caleb will find it!

I love this picture, but it also makes me laugh! We were doing the old "stretch out your arm and take a picture of yourselves" trick. But we had a fixed 50mm lens on the camera, and Steve's arms are only so long...this is as much of both of our faces as we could get!