Quick Takes 7-26-2013

Linking up with Jen and the gang...

I promised more on the house and travels last post so that's what I'll do:

1. My parents, sister, J, B and I all went to the Children's Museum on July 4th.  We had a blast even with only one kid in tow.  We were there from 11-5... no joke.  We went from basement to 4th floor and even had lunch there.  Serious fun...

Dinosaur exhibit, hands on part

looking up at the blown glass sculpture

And of course my camera battery died shortly after this moment, at the beginning of our visit.  Hmm, perhaps my sis has some pics I could have...

2. B was up all day on the 4th and still did fireworks, I don't know how he pulled that off but he was great throughout.  The rest of the week was spent with my family...

sudden rainshower = puddle splashing 

"well for starters, you have to understand that..."

Dancing after chocolate ice cream?  Why yes, don't mind if we groove.  One of my fav pics evah.

BTW, B's dancing reminded me of this scene from Psych, one of my favorite shows, if you haven't seen it, you should:

3.  My grandmother turned 80 and I really enjoyed seeing all of my extended family.  Every time I get some time with family I realize just how utterly blessed I am to have these wonderful people in my life.

One of the highlights was my uncle "interviewing" Grandma about her life.  She told us about finding work at 11 years old to help out financially, living with rations during WWII, walking to Church, her first experience of Adoration as a young girl and, of course, the love story of her and my grandfather.  The interview was videotaped.  I'm tearing up again just thinking about how much I was able to learn about this amazing woman that I wouldn't have learned without that opportunity.  Everyone should hear from their grandparents like this.

Listening intently

She even pulled out some things... this is her high school cheerleading sweater!
She was in the class of 1941 :)

4. Summer at home has been full of house projects, gardening and such.  I lost all my romaine lettuce because I didn't know when to harvest and it bolted.  Chalk that one up to a learning experience.  I have more tomato plants than I thought I would because so many volunteers came up from tomatoes that dropped last year.  I have 2 little icebox watermelons out there that I'm curious to watch grow.

5. Stripping dining room/playroom wallpaper and washing walls... teeeeeedious!
Before:

B photobombing the before pic :)

Pulling off the paper... thinking, "oh my, this is pretty easy for once!!!"

Something's not right here... that's not some kind of design...

And as I realized that there was a wallpaper mural under the glue and a coat of primer
I may or may not have cussed in German... ok, I did.  B was in bed.

I played with the filters on the last picture in hopes you would see what I was seeing... THIS MURAL UNDER A COAT OF PAINT... AAAAAACK!!!  (yes, I searched for it online because I was that mad that the least they could have done is not painted over it so that I could see the mural in all it's 1950's glory before I tediously scraped it off of the plaster walls... grr.)

Yup, it's under there alright.

 A week and a half later we finally finished scraping and steaming and scraping some more.  Now we're washing, washing and washing the walls.  Wallpaper is my nemesis and it has now been completely erradicated from my home.  WAHOO!

6. Speaking of stubbornness (wallpaper), a little boy is really exercising his independence lately :)  But we're learning to adapt to a big boy bed, drinking from real cups, doing things all by ourselves...

"I'm a big kid now" 

7.  B and I joined some friends for Mass and bagels this morning, great way to start a Friday!

Sorry so long, but thanks for stickin with me :)

House-work

Everybody loves a good before and after!  This was the laundry room project, the first after Joe's graduation last year.  We started around August and completely finished a couple months later.

Laundry room before:

hated the wall color and wood color

"not hideous but so not us" curtains

In progress:

notice the baby monitor on the right side of the pic... naptime = worktime!

sanding cabinet doors and drawers in 98 degree heat

Inspiration for colors:

walls and curtain material

pinned on pinterest of course

Laundry room after:

so fresh and so clean!

plain black countertop

What did we do?

We painted almost every single surface of this room... actually we did paint every single paintable surface.  The walls went gray.  The ceiling got a coat of flat white (as opposed to the glossy off-white blech that was on the walls also before.)  I swear the ceiling seemed higher just with it's new paint.

 We took off all the cabinet doors, sanded, painted and rehung them.  The counter got a coat of black countertop paint from Rust0leum. (While I wouldn't use it in the kitchen, this room was a perfect application)  The doors, trim and even the sink all got new coats of fresh white paint.

I made the curtains and hung them up high.  Add the clock in yellow and some fresh new simple knobs and we were good to go!

I think the biggest challenge of this room was all the different surfaces.  We had indoor doors, outdoor doors, cabinets, a sink and trim all in different sheens of white.  Oh, technically the ceiling too.

One more room down... many more to go!  Living room was up next...

Updating things

Hello friends! It's been awhile :) I just thought I'd share what's been going on at the Tigue residence since August... now that it's early November. Where does the time go? I guess it does the proverbial flying while we're having fun, eh.

Pics of some updates to the house...
http://picasaweb.google.com/rachel.tigue

House front

To make this easier, I'll post our before/after and during moving house pictures on Picasa. Blogger isn't so good with big blocks of pictures...


Today:

February:

post-Honeymoon, Halloween and House-hunting

I feel as if right after we got back from our honeymoon we hit the ground running. We have been working very hard with our respective jobs and schooling. I got into my classroom and began teaching in September, it's extremely challenging.

We were able to go to King's Island with Eric and Jill in October. We planned it for Joe's b-day. So he got to be in Noblesville for cake and ice cream :) For halloween I dressed up as Peyton Manning at school. (much to the chagrin of my students who are bears fans) Then Joe and I dressed up as Chuck and Sarah from the TV show "Chuck" on NBC Monday nights. We were able to attend a friend's Halloween party which was so much fun.

We also got to go to South Bend for an ND game - the Pitt game, which was the longest game ever played in the ND stadium. Rock on, but would have been better if we had won. Justin, Joe's friends for... um, years, was at that game with his gf so we were able to meet her and visit for awhile before heading to the game. We did the game trip in one day, so we were very tired on the way home but made it in time to congratulate Courtney and Amy on their new home at their housewarming party.

Nov. 5th was Confirmation at SVdP which means it's my students being confirmed and as DRE I'm also getting things ready for the parish as well. God bless my secretary, she took care of lots of small things for me like nametags and programs. One sacrament down for the year, 2 to go!

One last comment before I go. We're looking into houses in the Peoria area and it's been quite fun. Joe and I will go and look at houses, pick our favorite and then decide we need to wait to get a house for awhile longer. It's an exciting process and will continue to be for awhile!

Ok, the procrastinating has to stop- back to grading papers... :(