Feelin' Fall

Owen running around the yard with our pumpkin candy bucket and a free grocery store balloon.

It's cool(ish) outside.

And the leaves are starting to turn and fall.

So Owen and I got up this morning and retrieved the Halloween decorations from the basement- then we went out and bought a pumpkin the size of Buddha's belly.

Yay for fall!

B & A: Kitchen

It's still not finished, but I wanted to go ahead and share some pics of the kitchen.  I think we've put nearly 100 hours of work into it so far, which makes me think the before and afters should be MUCH more dramatic than they are.  I swear I got confused a few times and had them backwards.  Sigh.

We painted the upper and lower cabinets, walls and trim.  We took out the ceiling fan and changed the lighting.  We removed the soffit above the sink (along with that scroll doohickey that looked more like punctuation than an architectural feature).  And we filled and re-drilled the cabinets for new hardware.

Meh.  Not a very dramatic difference here, and yet I still feel compelled to share. 

For the back of the open shelves, I hot glued some Ikea fabric to foamboard and wedged it in.   I'm still shocked that I got away with it.  From even a short distance the shelves look wallpapered.  And I'm thinking I could have a taller kitchen window now!

... I heard that Scott.

I always thought that ceiling fan looked like a giant spider on the ceiling.  It even had a little maroon tassel that hung down and would tickle you on the back of your neck if you backed into it.  Then we hung the new baby chandelier over the kitchen sink, and I was amused to discover it reminded me a little of a spider too.  A good sparkly spider.

The remaining to-do list:

1. Paint rest of trim
2. Paint inside of upper cabinets
3. Paint pantry and desk area
4. Fix place on cabinet where I just rammed my chair
5. Finish painting walls and remaining soffits

Dream to-do list:

1. Skip painting soffits and go after them with sledgehammer instead
2. Send neon white dishwasher and refrigerator out to pasture

Owen and Solomon with their matching left winged hair at the zoo yesterday.

Sunday best

I was going to post pictures of our (mostly finished) kitchen update, but Blogger is being a twerp.  So you'll just have to settle for seeing how handsome Owen looked in his church duds yesterday.

And the dinner party was a blast!  No one had to eat cheese curls.  Thanks for all your calls and e-mails to check up on neurotic ole me.

How about that view

Apologies folks.  Have myself on lockdown around here trying to finish up the kitchen (and bath and sun porch...) before a dinner party here Friday.  If I'm not careful I'm going to have a houseful of people and find myself saying, "I'm sorry there's nothing for you to eat but cheese curls and that you've been having trouble even stomaching those because the paint and glue fumes are making you nauseous but doesn't my new wallpaper look fab?!"

While the hall bath is getting a makeover, Owen has been enjoying his new throne location.  Not appropriate to share, right?  I had to do it anyway though.

Here are some of our favorite pictures from the Texas trip:

Flying with Owen

We went to Texas for the weekend and had a great time.  As far as what it was like getting Owen there... I thought the in-flight crossword puzzle had some appropriate clues.

Across

  57.  Uncivilized ( _ i _ _ )
132.  Go ballistic ( _ _ _ p)

Down

109.  "I _____ drink!"  ( _ _ e _   _ )

I'll post the answers in the comments later today.  Have fun guessing!

Labor Day Weekend, Part II

I started Labor Day by running away from home for an hour and going on a walk with three of my closest friends.  I know that may not sound like much to some people, but it was luxury to us!

Next we had a neighborhood picnic in our front yard with the Hartins and Nolens.  I finally remembered to get someone to take a picture of me with Owen, and look how he posed.  The boys spent most of the early afternoon pretending our flower beds were construction sites, so Owen looked pretty rough by party's end.

And here's what Owen thought was documentable about the picnic:

Once we gave Owen a midday bath and put him down for a nap, Scott and I went back to work on the kitchen.  

We're still weeks away from having the whole thing finished, but here's a little sneak peek at the one side we've completed:

We finished off the day with dinner at Mimi and Granddad's house.  I don't think I've ever done so much to celebrate a single Labor Day.  Thanks to everyone who enjoyed it with us!

Labor Day Weekend, Part I

I considered trying to squeeze the whole weekend into one post, but it would have taken too much thoughtful editing, and I'm pretty worn out from all the fun!  So Part II tomorrow.

On Saturday we went to a local dive for Mickey Mouse pancakes, then to the farmer's market for summer fruits and veggies.  Owen is sampling a hard pear in the photo on the right.

My favorite part of Saturday was taking Owen to explore some abandoned railroad tracks just east of downtown.  For you non-locals, Birmingham has an interesting history in the mining, iron, steel and railroading industries.  From what I hear, we never reached our potential as "the Pittsburgh of the South" because we had trouble being competitive: first with Andrew Carnegie (of the actual Pittsburgh) and his government connections and then with foreign imports.  Today, most of Birmingham's furnaces are gone, and we have a whole lot of railroad lines that lead to nowhere.

That's a railroad spike in Owen's hand in the left photo.  We made off with 5 of them.  Is that theft of government property?

Happy Labor Day!

Scott getting a raspberry at breakfast Saturday.

For Coach

Really clean shorts

Apparently my shorts fell into Scott's dry cleaning basket.  What did the cleaners think, that I plan to attend an exercise-themed gala in the near future?  I've got to be the only person outside of Manhattan or Beverly Hills who's ever treated Adidas jogging shorts to a $6.30 bath.  

I don't even jog.

We've been blog silent lately because I couldn't find the camera.  It was lost in one of the many piles of junk we've got around here these days.  There's some kitchin' sprucin' goin' on!