Cat update

After our scary ordeal with Mafia having seizures, we put him on some powerful anti-seizure medication. Then, as you may recall, we weaned him off. Well, I'm happy to report back that he is his old self again. no more seizures. Here he is in the wood box that I bought to go on the ottoman in the livingroom to hold drinks in...you know, kind of like a coffee table. He loves the box, especially when it's directly in front of the fireplace! I really didn't intend for him to have access to it but we can't keep him out of it. I guess it's a small price to pay since he did us the favor of surviving. Waiting for Spring around here...rain and more rain has hampered our efforts to improve our yard...just muddy right now. We will be planting strawberries as soon as this patch dries out enough. It looks really dry in this picture but it's just gloppy mud underneath. We placed these rocks last summer and intend to plant a maple tree and some smaller shrubs as well as the strawberries. We'll see how it all turns out! I do NOT have a green thumb...

Kitchen remodel !!! finally...

We bought the house in 2003 and it had these generic oak cabinets and white appliances in it. We loved it at the time...Notice the raised bar on the left-hand side of the picture...handy for catching all kinds of papers, keys, cell phones, but not for sitting and eating. It did block the view of the kitchen sink from the livingroom though so I guess that's good.About a year and a half ago, we had the oak resurfaced with a darker wood veneer and new cabinet doors and drawer fronts. But we didn't know exactly what we wanted for the counter top and even toyed with the idea of painting the edging around the tile to match the dark wood cabinets...I just didn't like the tile at all with the cabinets at this point.

About 6 weeks ago, we got granite put in with tile backsplash but with the white appliances...But now we have the stainless appliances just this past weekend so I wanted to get this in the blog before I forget! We are so excited. it's like livng in a new house!

Notice the drawers to either side of the oven door...they used to be cupboard doors with shelves but we had huge drawers installed for pans and now you just reach into them to get a pan instead of having to get down on the floor to reach under the cupboard shelving.

We lowered the raised bar to the height of the rest of the countertop so that we would have a bigger expanse of granite there and open up the room to a view of the livingroom. Now we will have to keep our dishes off the countertop...no more cheating and hiding the mess behind a wall ;)

Undermount sink and new faucet as well. So nice to be able to wipe the countertop crumbs right into the sink!

Well, that's it. I'm so glad this project is FINALLY done and that we can enjoy the total effect!

March

Ok, this is ridiculous. A post a month? No respectable blogger only posts once a month. (Now for the lame excuse)...It's just that I feel like my life is just not that interesting. Is that sad or what?

Things happen all the time, bookclub, kids over for dinner, cat having seizures and taking him to the vet...you know, normal stuff. Oh, we are also having our kitchen countertops replaced with granite and getting stainless steel appliances. We have the countertop in but are waiting for the appliances to ship. So I haven't taken any after pictures until the new appliances are in. So yeah, things are happening. But I just don't feel inspired to write about them.

But this blog is more of a journal than anything else so I will try to forget that countless fans are hanging on my every word, and just write about stuff.

Mafia started having seizures about three weeks ago, out of the blue. So weird. He would lay on his side and convulse and paddle his legs. Then his eyes would dilate and he would drool all over the place. The first two times it happened, I was all, oh well, he's gotten into something, it's a freak thing. By the third time, I was all, Kevin! something's really wrong with him! (while crying hysterically). My reaction surprised me because I think I'm pretty logical about animals...you know, they don't live as long as us and they get weird illnesses and die and stuff. But I could NOT help it.

The next day, I took him in to the vet...239.00 later, I left with a bottle of pills that costs 3.00 and instructions to give him the pills twice a day and bring him in in two weeks for a blood test to check drug levels in his blood. So these pills are supposed to take up to a week to stop seizure activity. Well, he never had another seizure since that day. I don't think the pills are the reason. I think he got into something and it worked itself through his system. But regardless, I've been giving him the pills every day for two weeks now.

We are now running out of pills...and I don't believe in them anyway...and I don't want to put him through another vet visit...and I don't want to pay another 80.00 for a blood test...so I am playing vet and weaning him off the pills...am I a terrible mom? Kevin and I have agreed to experiment on our poor cat. If he starts having seizures again, we will, of course, go get more pills and start the whole thing again.

We've had a couple of family nights at our place that involved build your own meal type dinners. They are so fun. The concept is provide a lot of toppings or fillings and have everyone just put what they want in their own thing. The first time I tried it was with pizzas. I first made the dough and shaped it into individual rounds so that everyone could make their crust thick or thin.Then I got a lot of toppings together into small serving dishes so everyone could pick what they wanted. I had feta cheese, fresh garlic, basil leaves, tomatoes, pine nuts, pesto, tomato sauce, etc.Here's Chelsie and Polina with their pizzas...Kevin and Jasper...They all turned out really good. Michael couldn't join us that night so Chelsie made him a pizza in a pie plate and took it home.

The next time I tried this was with burritos. I got those tortillas from Costco that you cook yourself. And then I had all the fillings available that I could think of. Michael and Chelsie did all the prep work so I didn't have to chop any thing up. Nice for me! Grandma Gibbons was with us for that dinner. We all made our own burritos and had a great time catching up with each other. I am liking the cooking together concept. It's more fun than just cooking it all yourself and then there is a cool activity for everyone to participate in.

That's about all I can think of for this time. I really want to do a separate post for the kitchen and include befores and afters.