Skipped May

Well, how did that happen? I totally skipped a month and I was going to be SO good! The BEST intentions in the WORLD! I really want to be good, I promise. 

This is Mafia saying he wants to be a good cat, he promises…

I have hit a (hopefully passing) phase that can best be described as Down time? Do nothing! I'm serious...the dog needs grooming BADLY, the laundry needs done, the art supplies I bought (and the accompanying book on how to learn to draw portaits) gathers dust on my overcrowded desk. Little items of business, like  car registrations and mail-in surveys that I want to fill out mock me from the same dusty desk.

What is this paralysis? I don't exercise evn though we have had decent weather lately and a treadmill upstairs...

So what DO I do in my down time you may ask? I watch tivo and get caught up with The Bachelorette, Dancing with the Stars, (which the season has been over for a month now and I'm just now watching the ending), and surfing the internet. I am obsessed with the state of our economy and the certainty of a bleak future. I can't really talk myself out of this one...just too scary.

I go to costco and buy another couple of cases of canned food, trying to figure out how many black beans we would eat in a year, and how long a bag of pancake mix can last on the shelf. I haven't really even BEGUN to get the stuff I want stored. I don't have the room, for one thing.

I spend some time getting things ready for our cabin projects, which makes me feel like I am accomplishing something. Big tile job coming up over the Fourth of July week, so I bought all the supplies for that and will spend about ten days up there. I also want to take my art supplies with me and MAYBE draw a little...no promises!

I am working a lot (but no more than anyone else). I really am getting into a groove at work and feel good about how things are going. I'm a couple years into this profession and am starting to see where a couple more years will really solidify my skills. When I first started, I felt like the onion just had TOO many layers. But now that I have peeled a few of them off, I am gaining confidence that mastery will be within reach eventually.

My whole point of this post, I guess, is to just get something down on screen so I can look back on this time of my life at a later date and say...wow, what a weird funk I was in!

Front yard update...

In reference to the picture I posted in the last posting, we finished planting our front yard rocked-in area with a spruce tree, a maple tree, and a bunch of strawberries...Now with the weather starting to warm up, the leaves are coming out and we have a much nicer front yard. The strawberries are supposed to fill in and hopefully produce berries while acting as ground cover. It's been a long wet spring and I am ready for some warmer days! In other news, I went and visited my mom in Malad a couple of weeks ago. It was shaping up to be a really nice visit until she fell in her bedroom and broke her wrist! My poor mom! She went in for a pinning last week and is on the mend. But she is requiring help to get showered and dressed, fix meals, etc. So Annette and I arranged for some ladies in the town to come in once a day and help her for a few hours. Then Heather (Annette's oldest daughter) comes to hang out most afternoons to keep her company and fetch her the phone and things.

Kevin and I are getting very cabin hungry at this point...which usually happens this time of year. It's too early to get in there so we will have to wait for Memorial weekend. In the mean time, we have had a little more work done to it...the stairwell leading down to the basement needed treads finished and the whole staircase strengthened. The job is finished and we received some pictures from the guy who did the job.

This is the view from the basement going up the stairs...the treads were all open before so you could see through each stair. Now they are covered with the antique oak hardwood that is on the main floor.

This is the view going down from the main floor. The guy did an excellent job and we are lucky we found someone who pays attention to detail and takes pride in his work. We can't wait to get up there and see it for ourselves!

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.

Spring fever!

I'm feeling it already...the urge to purge! I want to get rid of everything! I'm sick of all my fake plants and nic nacs! Arggghhh. I want to move things around and clean clean clean. I want to paint and bring in new fresh stuff!

The trouble with this attitude is that I am so behind on even maintenance things like deep cleaning and putting away the Christmas decorations. Maybe when I get that done, I won't feel so grossed out by my house.

In other news, I'm back to work after two weeks off. It's been heavenly to just relax and not worry about work for a while. One week is just too short to get that relaxed feeling I think. I'm more than glad that I have a good job, don't get me wrong! I feel my good fortune in having a challenging and rewarding career. I just need to recharge my batteries every now and then.

Well, short post but I am going to try to get busy today and at least get the Christmas tree down!

Oh, I guess I should mention that a few years ago, Kevin and I thought it would be a great idea to just buy a fake tree...after all the years of going out to get a tree and dealing with the dry needles, etc. at the end of the season. We bought one that already had the lights on it so it would take that hassle out of the setup and take down processes...how smart!

But the first year we put it up, we were blinded by the lights they put on this thing. So we went out and got some fresh pine boughs to put in and around the fake branches. It dimmed the lights somewhat but then we had to take all the real boughs out at the end and they threw needles all over. So we bagged that idea.

The next year, I wired a bunch of fake evergreen boughs to the fake tree in order to cover the lights and add a little variety to the greenery on the tree. That didn't really work either because the lights were so overpowering still.

This year, we got the brilliant idea that we would just take out every other bulb or so since the strands stay lit even if you are missing some bulbs...it worked until some of the remaining bulbs got overheated and burned out! So here is our lovely fake tree about half way through the Christmas season. We had to string some lights at the top to get us through Christmas just so we could have a semi decent tree.

See how bright the bottom is even with half the bulbs gone? Ridiculous! Or as Chelsie likes to say...Rahhhhdiculous!

So we decided to sell it on Craigs list and tell people the top half doesn't light but they can string lights and it works ok...maybe we'll get 50 bucks for it...who knows? The sad irony is that we have hated this tree from the start, have gone through three seasons with it...and are right back to the commitment of getting a real cut tree every year from now on.

Big Island trip/Happy New Year!

Kevin and I recently attended a non-wedding on the Big Island of Hawaii. Without going into details or revealing the parties involved, let me say that the bride and her family handled the situation with grace and generosity. The groom's parents were also very gracious and made a difficult situation easier.

The wedding had been called off the previous weekend but all the travel arrangements were in place so the entire party assembled on the Big Island for a few relaxing days in the sun. We had a lot of fun and saw just a small part of the island. It's definitely a study in contrasting landscapes! We stayed near an old lava flow so the surrounding area was just barren rock. But the small islands of green (that were built up with resorts) made up for it. The beach we went to most of the time was absolutely beautiful and one of the best beaches I've been to.

I had to throw this photo of Kevin in here...he was trying to sleep on the flight over and decided to rig up his eye mask to keep his head from lolling forward. Notice how the strap of the eye mask is wrapped around the headrest on the seat of the plane...it worked...kind of. But I couldn't stop giggling so he eventually removed it. I ruin all his fun! This is early morning on that beach I mentioned...no one was around...very quiet. What was I doing so early in the morning on a beach you ask? Why, taking Kevin to the beach park so I could have the car and he could fish! I sat there and read and caught up on my blog (previous post was written in that park) then I went to a starbucks and did some shopping at a some nice shops near there. Same park later that day...beautiful trees...hard to imagine that only 200 yards away back up the drive is a black rocky expanse as far as the eye can see.

This park was full of turtles all over the place. This is the part of the beach we spent most of our time in...fine sand, secluded spot, great swimming. I loved it. The girl who's wedding had been called off spent a lot of time there also, just relaxing and contemplating the sudden changes she was facing. She said she was so glad she came if only to rest on a beach like this and be able to think without the pressures of everyday life. I agreed!

Ok, back to the way most of the rest of the world spends it's December...brrrr! This shot was taken by Polina's mom Elena during the winter last year...love this shot of these trees in a park near St Petersburg. I want to make it into a poster or something. I hope my readers are having a good winter! Happy New Year!

Catch up post # 2,374

(Doh! I went to add in all my prewritten commentary about these pictures but I can't cut and paste for some reason...I had a description written for each picture on a word document and I thought I could just add them in after I downloaded all the pictures...silly me!

Oh well, such is life.)

I wanted to try and catch up with a few months worth of events in one post here so it will be a longer post with a lot of pictures! This is totally guilt motivated. I am finding it very difficult to keep up with this blog! Now that I'm on facebook, it just seems redundant. But really, I don't put much on facebook either. So I better try to keep a record somewhere.

Jasper and Polina had a wedding reception here in Boise in October. The venue turned out to be perfect and the weather cooperated too! We were very lucky!

This is a rooftop event center here in Boise with a wonderful view of the surrounding area.

We were very fortunate to have friends and family come in from all over just to join us. These are my good friends Nettie and Kathy. Kathy came in from El Paso to attend the reception. Can't get enough of these two..so happy and perfect for eachother!

Here is the other happy couple in our lives and we feel very content with our complete family.

Thanksgiving came up next in our event calendar. We hosted 18 at our house. It was snug to say the least but very fun. Everyone brought food so it wasn't a big deal to provide a few side dishes to go along with the main courses. Jasper and Polina came over early to make the stuffing and set up chairs and things. I snapped this mid-blink and I ordinarily wouldn't put a picture up that has the subject blinking but it's so rare that I get Jasper in an apron and cooking that I thought I better not press my luck by trying to get a perfect shot.

Following close on the heels of Thanksgiving was an event of many years tradition. I think Nettie and Kari and I have been having this annual birthday/Christmas dinner for at least 10 years. We all have birthdays around the same time so we came up with this solution long ago to combine the celebrations to save us all time during the holidays. We've long ago stopped exhanging gifts per-se (Nettie always manages to sneak a gift in somewhere!) but we spend hours over dinner at a nice place (different every year) just catching up and enjoying each other's company.

This year was no exception to Nettie's stealth gift giving...she got this tiara for Kari since she turned fifty this year. Ok, I admit, I gave them each a little plaque with a saying on it! No big deal. (but I wrapped them so cute!)

And it's not the holidays without my Annual Ladies Christmas Brunch! I have started noticing a pattern in that this event typically falls on the first Sunday of December. So I think I will just make that the annual day of my party. We did glass candle globes this year and also paper ornaments with glitter and paint...still cleaning up the glitter weeks later...the sign of a really awesome party! The only downer about this whole thing was that one of the guests lit her candle in the glass globe and all the little decorations caught on fire!

This made Kevin feel very vindicated since he had warned me about maybe some of the decorations being flammable! To my partial credit, I HAD tested some of the items that were to go into the globes and they just melted but I DID issue a general (and not so adamant) warning at the beginning of the craft portion of the festivities that they were to light these candles at their own risk! So anyway, I had to call or text all my guests and warn them to just use these as little decorations and not light them.

Ok, moving right along, and leaving the subject of flames behind...I went with Polina for a quick overnight stay to Phoenix where she had an interview for PA school. I visited Jeri while Polina was in the all day interview. Then we went to lunch at this great outdoor patio Italian place to celebrate her getting through the interview in one piece. Look at the weather! We are in short sleeves! It was so beautiful down there...too bad we had to leave right after this picture was taken and head back to the airport...back to Boise where it was raining and cold when we arrived! Oh, BTW, Polina WAS ACCEPTED!!! We are thrilled for her. This has been a dream of her's for a very long time. She is still waiting on the Idaho school to let her know her status since she interviewed with them as well. But either way, she will be in PA school next fall.

Well, I feel better now. Whew! I will be trying a little harder in the next few months to be a little steadier poster since I really like it when I can look back and see everything that has been going on in my life.

Another picture from the wedding

This is me and Polinka with a flower that I swiped from an arrangement in the room soon after the wedding...she is concentrating on it so hard! I just loved her determination! Polina just sent this to me so I thought I'd share.

Wedding post

I feel like this post is not going to do this whole experience justice but I can't write a whole book on a blog page. I am just going to hit some of the highlights and leave the rest for another time. We arrived in St Petersburg after a week of sun in Greece. It was in the 40's when we got there at 11pm (after a trial and a half getting through the Moscow airport...but that's another whole blog post) so it was a bit of a shock.

We got to the apartment we were renting for the week, which was in downtown St Petersburg by all the cool buildings and historical sites. The building was run down but the apartment did not disappoint. The whole place had been completely and wonderfully remodeled by an architect with a flair for lighting. There were these really cool lights behind layers of ceiling and wall...very creative and modern. It was clean and the beds were very comfortable, granite coutertops, tile showers, the works! We were really lucky to find it since most of the hotels in Russia are a mixed bag to be sure! So we lived in style the whole time we were there.

We spent the first day just getting acquainted with our surroundings and then traveling over to Polina's parents on the metro for a beautiful dinner. Polina's parents, her brother and his wife and little girl were all there. There were 10 of us around the table...(the most they had ever sat at dinner they said). You could tell they had cooked all day for this dinner. I was overwhelmed with all the wonderful food and graciousness of Polina's great family! We know now why Polina is such a sweet and loving person, her parents are so giving.

We stayed several hours and were made to feel so welcome. The language barrier was not really a problem since Polina, her mother, her brother, and her sis-in-law all speak some English. Her father could not speak much English but he made up for it getting Polina to translate. He toasted us several times and played his accordian for us! I can't say enough about this dinner. I was blown away. They even had coffee and little chocolates, cakes, etc at the end of it. Everything so well thought out and delicious. We left feeling very full in our hearts as well as our tummies, I can tell you!

The next day we spent walking around St petersburg. We visited many beautiful places and took more pictures than we can count. Around every corner was an even grander building or structure. The build up of St Petersburg took place in the late 1700's early 1800's and no expence was spared! Copper roofs, statuary on top of buildings, on the face of buildings, in the intersections...anywhere you looked, there was a beautiful statue or iron work.

Parks and squares where people gather are beautifully maintained. Here we are in front of one of the most spectacular buildings I've ever seen...Cathedral on the spilled blood...named after a martyr. There is also a series of canals going through the city that is just beautiful...all stone work. The sidewalks downtown are all granite blocks and crews are constantly replacing cracked ones or working on the facades of the buildings. Several construction zones downtown snarled traffic while we were there. There is only so much you can take in when you are in a place like this. You would need months to do it justice. But we got the flavor of the place at least.

next day...Here we are before the wedding. We are in a palace...a grand home that an aristocrat built in the 1800's that has been restored. They hold events in it now. We are waiting for Polina to arrive here.This is the room they were married in. This is Polina's father of course, walking her down the isle. We were a very small party..about 25 guests in all but it didn't seem to make any difference to us. Polina's grandmother is sitting in the background to the right. She was such a warm and affectionate lady. She spoke Russian to us and just hugged and hugged us. (Unfortunately, Polina's grandfather was not feeling well so he was unable to make the trip from their smaller town to the wedding).The giving away of the bride...they both look so happy! There is Polina's sis-in-law Tatiana with baby Polinka in the lower right cornerThere was a small reception right after the ceremony and we all visited and got to know each other a little better. This has to be the sweetest picture I took. Polinka is looking at her dress and seems to be thinking how she looks like Aunt Polina. She let me hold her during some of this time and we went around looking at flowers. At one point she saw Polina in the other room and pointed to her with her little lower lip out and a crease between her brows and said "POOOLLLLY!" as though she wanted her aunt to hold her and get her away from this strange lady that was holding her. (Polina's nickname is Polly in the family).After the ceremony and small reception, we all got into the Hummer limo that was waiting for us. It took us around to some of the more famous sites in St Petersburg and let us out to walk and take pictures with the couple. This is a tradition in Russia. I was glad I bought those shoes I mentioned before because we walked a lot! It was very fun and we all got to know each other even better. By the time we headed to the larger reception, we were all laughing and having fun with each other...no feelings of being among strangers at all. Polina's cousins were with us in the limo and we got to know them pretty well too.This is the reception hall we ended up in after the limo ride...another wonderful old palace with a history of being a headquarters for the cavalry or some such. The table was set beautifully and the food was very good. We tried everything and everything was delicious. We ate and drank and ate some more!There were several games and traditions that we participated in...this one is where the bride and groom break bread together...the one that comes away with the biggest piece basically "wears the pants in the family"...so this is the reaction they had to Polina breaking off more than 80% of the bread! Tatiana got up at that point and broke off about half and gave it back to Jasper. We were all dying laughing.There they are during dinner...so sweet together.The tradition of cutting the cake is the same in Russia and it was also very good cake! We were all in the lower level of the building at this point with a DJ and lots of good music and goofing around. They made Kevin get up along with several other men and wear feathers and tutus and do a dance...I have the pictures to blackmail him with if he ever gets out of line...but I won't show that here or what leverage would I have? I really can't tell you how wonderful this experience was. I know I could write a lot more. Just the fact that we were all there together was so precious to me and Kevin. A trip of a lifetime and the beginning of a wonderful family life for Jasper and Polina! We can't wait to host Polina's family here in the USA. We want them to come here and go to the cabin with us...see Yellowstone...see Boise where their daughter is making a home.

We returned via Athens a day and a half after the wedding and we were all exhausted. I posted some pictures of that brief time in Athens in my last post. It took 20 hours of travel time (including layovers) to get back to Boise. I must say I was so glad to get home! It's great having adventures and all but it really makes you appreciate what you have.

Ok, I will stop this post and go make dinner. I really wanted to get this down though since the longer I delay, the dimmer the memories get! The reception here in Boise is October 9th so we have that to look forward to. I will post more then.