Dining room to Library progress photos

When we were looking at houses to buy, one of the things we wanted was a formal dining room. We didn't want  it for a dining room- we wanted a library :)

We got what we wanted, and here's what it looked like before we bought it. Apparently I didn't take any other pics after we moved in, which is too bad, since the stacks of books were quite impressive.

Another view of the library from before we bought the house.

I finally got around to painting the library not too long ago. I went with a sand color, which is a bit grayer than the hideous builders beige that STILL (12 years after being built) covers almost all the walls (and the ceilings) in this house. My mission this winter is  to paint every surface in this house :)

These pics show the top half of the room painted, with the bottom still the original color. The new paint highlighted how grungy the old paint has gotten.

The ceiling is now white, the wall sand, and all the trim got a white touch up as well.

I still need to hang the picture on the wall and recover the brown chair (and finish the blue chair) and fix the top of the sewing table since I'm not loving the lacy tablecloth look. I also need to figure out what to do about curtains. I haven't yet found any fabric I love, so the windows are still unadorned.

See that empty wall? That's where the built in shelves will be for all our books. The piano is a recent craigslist acquisition- we got a great deal on it! We also need to move a cupboard into the room to put the musical instruments in so they aren't sitting in one of the chairs.

I will hopefully get the bookshelves built by Christmas, but in the meantime I wanted to show the progress I've made so far.

Farmhouse dining table

We have a perfectly serviceable dining table that we bought 8 or 9 years ago at a scratch and dent sale for $125. It came with 5 chairs, not the usual 4 or 6, but we weren't complaining. We had a real dining table instead of the glorified cardtable (a square, tile-topped wood table) that we had bought when we first got married. That table was actually a bit big for our first apartment, which tells you how small that was, but when we went to language school and lived in a real house that had an actual dining room, the table looked rather pathetic.

However, I've never really liked the finish of the table- a bit orangey for my taste, and the carving looks sloppy IMO. Ana White posted some plans for a farmhouse table awhile ago and I realized I could make us a new dining table. I'd already figured out what I wanted to do with the old one when it was replaced, but I couldn't do that till we had a new dining table.

Can I tell you how much I like Ana White's site and the myriad plans that are available? And it's so easy to alter them to fit your needs. The original farmhouse table plans are for an 8 foot table. We don't have room in our eat-in kitchen for an 8 foot table, so I cut the plans down to 6 feet long and started building.

Here's the frame:

After sanding the wood puttied screw holes, I primered the frame and then painted it a dark gray. I then pained a couple coats of white on top of that in preparation for some distressing.

I attached the table top, then did lots of sanding. LOTS of sanding. There was enough difference in the height of each board that the palm sander couldn't handle it all. We ended up getting a belt sander (which we needed anyway), which made fairly quick work of leveling the surface. After sanding with a rough sanding belt I switched it for a smoother sanding belt and sanded the whole thing again. After that, I used the palm sander again, and by then it was nice and smooth.

Table top on:

I fixed the wood putty, sanded it again, then applied wood conditioner and stain.
I was a little apprehensive about using a black stain, but I think it turned out pretty good.

Table top stained:

But, I made the mistake of using the palm sander to lightly sand between coats of polycrylic:

When they say 'lightly sand', they mean lightly sand by hand. Somehow I missed that one...
The spot wouldn't take more stain, and it was pretty obvious, so it had to be fixed.

So, I stripped the table top:

And sanded it again before re-staining and applying polycrylic properly:

I built it downstairs in the basement and Mr M helped me carry it outside for the sanding, but this table weighs a TON. I knew there was no way we could get it upstairs by ourselves. Luckily our home teachers were willing to help us move it, so it was much more manageable.

The finished table:

The chairs do detract from it, but that's just because I haven't had time to refinish them yet. I'll be painting the wood and changing the fabric and finally getting rid of the vinyl that's been covering the seats since LMS started eating solid food. Not sure why I wanted to protect the upholstery, but there you go.

I'll also be building these benches to go on the sides. The three chairs on the sides will find homes in other parts of the house.

Next up:

Pictures of what I did with the old dining table.

Gluten free frog eye salad, part 3: recipe with egg free option

I've been meaning to post my gluten free frog eye salad for awhile, but with our added food restrictions I haven't seen the point in making it (we can't eat the marshmallows, cool whip, tapioca pearls, or eggs, and the oranges are on the iffy list) and I couldn't quite remember how I'd done it before- it's been a year and a half since I last made it. Mr M convinced me to fudge things a bit for Thanksgiving so I decided to go ahead and make some frog eye salad so I could finally post the recipe.

I've been able to eat small amounts of corn products without too many problems, so I was willing to fudge most of the ingredients, but I wasn't willing to eat eggs. I tried eating some last month and it was not pleasant. So I tried making the custard with a flax egg, and it actually turned out pretty good. While it's not as pretty as an egg custard, it tastes very similar to what I remember it tasting like, and Mr M agreed.

Gluten free, Egg free Frog Eye Salad

EF Custard

½ c sugar

1 tbl fine brown rice flour (I used Authentic Foods)

¼ tsp salt

1 cup pineapple juice drained from 20 oz can of pineapple that you use later

1 flax egg (1 tbl ground flax seed + 3 tbl boiling water, let sit for a few minutes to thicken) or use 1 egg if you're not egg free, beat the egg well

2 tsp lemon juice

Whisk together dry ingredients then whisk in pineapple juice and flax egg. Heat over medium heat , stirring occasionally. Bring to boil and continue to cook for a few more minutes till thickened. Remove from heat and stir in lemon juice. Allow to cool, it will “gel” as it cools, so stir occasionally.

The custard as it cools and gels. The brown flecks are bits of ground flax. 

GF “acini de pepe”

1.5 c large tapioca pearls

Bring water to boil in a large saucepan/pot. Whisk in tapioca pearls.

Stir occasionally and cook till most of the pearls are translucent (about 17 min).

Turn off heat and let sit for another 5 minutes or so till the pearls have only small bits of white left in the centers. Carefully dump tapioca into a fine mesh sieve and gently rinse the gel from around the pearls (I had to do it in three batches because my sieve isn’t big enough to hold it all).

rinsing the tapioca pearls

Allow pearls to cool in bowl.

Bring it all together

1 20 oz can crushed pineapple (juice drained and used in custard)

2 11 oz cans mandarin oranges, drained (juice can be used in custard if needed to make 1 cup)

1.5 c mini marshmallows

8 oz tub cool whip

Once the custard and tapioca are cool, gently fold together.

Carefully add pineapple, oranges, marshmallows, coconut, and cool whip and mix together. Refrigerate overnight.

Enjoy!
My previous posts on gluten free frog eye salad are here and here.

If you make it, let me know how it turns out for you!

This recipe is gluten free, egg free, peanut free, nut free, coconut free, and is also free of tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, sorghum, and shellfish. Always check labels before using to make sure the ingredients and/or manufacturing conditions haven't been changed.

Conversations with LMS

The other day I was sorting through LMS' clothes, pulling out things that were too small or off-season.

I commented " you have waaay too many clothes LMS."  (she really does- she doesn't wear half of what's in her closet)

She asked "why do you keep buying me new clothes then?" (in my defense, I didn't buy all the clothes in her closet- a lot of them are hand-me-downs)

Me: "because I see cute outfits and think how cute you'll look in them." 


Yeah, not a great excuse to buy clothes.

My new mantra: LMS does NOT need new clothes.  

Except for Christmas pjs and a Christmas dress...  :)

2011 Turkey Trot

Thursday Mr M, LMS and I ran the Turkey Trot that LMS and I did last year.

Awhile ago I bought LMS some running clothes to try to encourage her to run and be excited about it. You can find exercise clothes for girls at Target for fairly reasonable prices. I found a cute pink non-cotton shirt, a running skirt, and running tights. Isn't she adorable?

This year LMS was old enough to participate in the half mile kids' run. Here she is, already to go.

Lined up at the start line.

 Heading back after the turnaround.

 I'm tired, mommy.

I don't blame her. The kids' run is a quarter mile out and a quarter mile back. The problem is that going out is down hill and coming back is uphill. Needless to say, LMS didn't enjoy the return trip, but she finished! This is the second race she's done. The first one was almost three years ago and was only 25 yards :)

Mr M hasn't been doing much running lately so he walked and pushed LMS in the jogger in the 5k, finishing in 47:24. I ran the race and then walked back and finished again with them.

I finished in 32:44, which is faster than I thought I did. I thought I finished in the 33 or 34 minute range. I was only 16 seconds slower than the Halloween race last month, which is really good, since I had to stop and walk more on this race because my knee was bothering me.

About a month and a half ago I tripped going up the stairs and whacked my kneecap on the edge of one of the stairs (which really, really hurt) so I've been taking it easy since then. Sometimes it hurts when I walk, but this was the first time it hurt when I ran. And it didn't hurt in an I-can-ignore-this way, it was definitely in an I'm-going-to-have-to-go-to-the-doctor-and-get-this-checked-out way. I was hoping to avoid this, especially since I've got a half marathon to run in a month and a half. Hopefully it won't be too bad.

I'm proud of Mr M for finishing his first 5k (and doing it while pushing the stroller!) and of LMS for finishing her half mile run.

Hope we can keep up this tradition :)

What we ate for Thanksgiving dinner

Mr M convinced me to relax some of our food restrictions for Thanksgiving. Not sure that's going to happen again- my intestines aren't too happy. We were gluten, egg, and soy free, but we still ate potatoes, tapioca, corn and corn products, and sorghum.

I bought the ham from the Honey Baked Ham store and the gravy was Imagine brand. Both are gluten free. Mr M really wanted a HB Ham so we went that route instead of the traditional turkey this year. While pricey, there was zero stress when it came to preparing it. You let it sit on the counter for a half hour or so before you eat, and then you eat it. Sooo simple! I did purchase a turkey from the grocery store because it was a great price, but it's sitting in the freezer- we'll probably have it for Christmas.

The mashed potatoes had coconut milk and Earth Balance soy free "butter" in them.

I made the cranberry pear sauce using this recipe, and there was no questionable ingredients in it.

I made the frog eye salad using my MIL's recipe that I adapted to be more within our limits- tapioca pearls instead of acini de pepe pasta and a flax egg instead of a real egg in the custard- I'll post the recipe soon now that I have it (finally) figured out.

The oranges in the jello are still on the iffy list, but I sure do like them :)

I made the cornbread and sausage stuffing mix using this recipe. I had planned on making my own corn bread from scratch, but I couldn't find gluten free cornmeal so I used Bob's Redmill gluten free cornbread mix. I've used it before and it's super easy to make, but the mix also contains sorghum flour, which makes my intestines really unhappy. Better the sorghum than gluten contamination, though.

I was going to do some green veggies- salad or something, but we eat lots of vegetables and we decided to take a break for the day :) Do olives count as veggies? Mr M insisted that Thanksgiving wouldn't be complete without some olives.

We also had blueberry pie and vanilla ice cream and  a pumpkin bread trifle. Yummy! I found the blueberry pie recipe here and the vanilla ice cream recipe was adapted from this recipe.

I used this recipe for the pumpkin bread trifle, which isn't super attractive-looking, but did taste good.

Everything tasted yummy, and while my intestines weren't super happy, my stomach and throat didn't bother me (if I'd eaten eggs or gluten they would have), so I'm not complaining too much. If it was just my intestines, I might fudge things more often. Unfortunately, the mental fog comes back if I eat foods that don't agree with me. So it's probably a good thing I don't fudge on a regular basis. I'll have to decide if it's worth it do this again come Christmas. It does make meal planning easier, and as long as we don't go anywhere LMS and I can be close to the bathroom. Hmmmm....

Project progress

Saturday we got a lot of work done, and it's nice to actually see the progress.

Mr M tilled up the spot where we're putting in our garden next spring. There's tons of rocks in the ground here, so he has more work to do still unfortunately.

While he was doing that, I finished clearing the leaves. After raking and bagging 20+ bags of leaves from just a couple trees last year, we decided to take the easy way out and get a leafblower this year. Totally worth the money! I cleared the driveway and parking area Friday and all the grassy areas Saturday. So much quicker (and easier on the body) than raking and bagging. It's nice not to have to get rid of all those bags of leaves- I just blew them into the underbrush and trees that surround the house and lawn- there will be more mulch in the woods come spring.

Side deck, not powerwashed yet 

Mr M was finally able to finish powerwashing the back deck while I stained the side and front porches. We still have to stain the back deck next week. I can see why the previous owners didn't keep the decks clean and sealed- it's a lot of work, and you have to have the time to work on it when the weather is cooperating (which hasn't been the case lately). We can't wait till we can afford to replace the high maintenance wood with low maintenance Trex-type decking.

Side deck, powerwashed and stained

When we re-do the decks we're going to screen in part of the back porch. We had a screened-in back porch at our last house, and it's a lifesaver in the summer. There's so many bugs here that we end up staying inside to avoid them. It'd be nice to be able to spend more time outside.

In the meantime, it feels good to be making progress on the myriad projects that need to be taken care of around the house.  Ahhh, the joys of homeownership :)

I wrote this last Thursday night, but needed a bit more time to process it all before I actually posted it.

So..... yeah, I got a big shock tonight.

Our ward got split a week and a half ago, and we're in a new ward that was formed from parts of three other wards (much less geographically spread out now). We've never been in a ward when it was split, so it's been neat to see the whole process. Did you know that ward boundary changes go all the way to the First Presidency to be okayed? I didn't.

A week and a half ago we had stake conference and after conference was over they had a special meeting for the three wards that were going to be affected. They explained the process of forming a new ward and showed us the new boundaries. Those who are in the new ward were released from their callings in their previous wards and the bishopric was called.

They've since been busy meeting with people and extending callings. This past Sunday we sustained a bunch and this Sunday we'll be sustaining a bunch more, including us. Mr M got re-called (called again?) to 11 year old scouts. The stake president wants continuity with the scouting program so they're trying to keep the leadership the same as much as possible (the 11 year old scout group has boys from three different wards in it right now because there's only a couple 11 year old boys in each ward). I was kind of thinking this would happen, so it wasn't a surprise at all.

My calling is another matter entirely. After Mr M accepted his call, the bishop turned to me and said they'd like me to be the Relief Society president.

Huh????!!!!!!

A side note: we knew we were going in to get callings so I was trying to think which callings had been sustained on Sunday, and I was pretty sure all the "major" ones had been taken care of already this past Sunday.

Or not.

My reaction?  "You're kidding, right?"  (yes, I really said that to the bishop, but in my defense, he's only a year or so older than me and we used to live across the street from them before we bought this house, so it's a little easier to be more casual with him)

His response was "I would never kid about something like this."

Which I knew, but I was so shocked that I wasn't really filtering what came out of my mouth. RS president has always been one calling I never wanted (there's a couple, but this was definitely at the top of the list). I've been more relaxed with what I eat lately (Halloween and all the candy is not a good thing for my self control) and I've been feeling a lot more fuzzy headed lately. I never feel as in touch spiritually when my brain is fuzzy.

I was talking to my mom a few days ago and I mentioned the ward split and that we would be getting new callings. I bemoaned the loss of my previous calling of Sunbeam teacher (which I really enjoyed, along with being a nursery leader a few years ago- neither are on my don't want list) and mentioned that I've been feeling stressed out lately. Homeschool, extra activities for LMS, trying to get the house organized and looking nice (lots and lots of paint), and so on are keeping me super-busy. I said something about not being sure I could handle a time-intensive calling, and she reminded me that I needed to accept whatever calling came my way. I responded that if I got a time intensive calling maybe that meant I needed to re-think what I'm spending my time on.

By itself, that was a good reminder since I am not always good with time management and it's easy for me to feel overwhelmed by everything, especially if I'm not feeling as good as I could be (like now). Since I didn't get a super easy, cakewalk calling I do need to rethink some things, but overall I should be ok. As the bishop reminded me, if I'm feeling overwhelmed, than I'm not doing the calling right. I need to call good, capable counselors and allow them to do their callings and not take on everything myself (which my OCD tends to want to do). And I will definitely be learning lots from the experience.

Some things I've been thinking about, some of them even before tonight:

- LMS does not need to take a ballet class. She loves playing ballet class, but that doesn't mean she needs to take one.
- I don't need to do it all. I was planning on making Christmas gifts for family this year, but even though I want to do it, I don't need to it. It's ok to give store-bought gifts.
- It's ok not to get the house all painted and the needed furniture (bookshelves and such) built before Christmas. Not that that's realistic anyway, it's just my OCD really wanting to get the house just right as quickly as possible. It's ok to take my time getting the rooms painted, as long as I get the bookshelves built and installed as soon as possible. I can't handle the stacks of books all over the front room anymore.
- I'm glad I've been working on a menu plan for us, since mealtime can be stressful if I don't have something planned ahead of time (especially if I'm not feeling good). This has also helped lower our food expenditures a bit.
- I need to be better at getting to bed on time and getting up earlier in the morning.
- This will be a a good opportunity for me to look outside myself and serve others more. I haven't done that much over the past few years because of the celiac and Mr M's deployments (I was focused more on getting myself and LMS through each day).

Which of your callings have you found the most challenging?

American Girl Dolls

image source

I'm not sure how this happened, but somehow I ended up on the mailing list for American Girl catalogs. Although I'd rather my name be on it than Little Miss Sunshine's- I'd be really concerned if it was in her name.

Anyway, have you flipped through an AG catalog lately? I remember reading a few of the first couple books that came out, and I knew there was dolls to go with them (there was only two or three dolls at that point), and you could buy an extra outfit or two and a bed for them, but that was about it.

Fast forward 20 years, and things have gotten insane! I don't know how many dolls there are (at least a dozen?), and they each have books to go with them, elaborate outfits and accessories, dining sets, bedroom sets, matching outfits for dolls and their owners, the list goes on and on.

Flipping through the first catalog I felt a bit of nostalgia and "oh, it'd be cool to get one of these for LMS eventually" until I looked at the prices. Holy cow! $100 just for the doll??? Yeah, that's not going to happen. Guess I'm going to have to make sure she doesn't see the catalog because that's a super-expensive road to go down.

I then started wondering about the books- did the books come first, or the dolls? It's been about 20 years since I last read one, so I don't remember the quality of the writing. I imagine they're fairly historically accurate or someone would have complained by now.

I'm going to have to do some research into them to see if it's worth the fuss to check the books out of the library and forestall any requests for the dolls (and their plethora of accessories).

Has anyone read any of the books more recently than I have? What were your thoughts on them?

Instant gratification

Our neighbors with the one year old daughter stopped by the other day to pick up a bowl they left here and to share the good news that they're pregant.

LMS has apparently been pondering this (I didn't realize she even heard them), because the next day she asked me why some kids get brothers and sisters and she doesn't.

We've talked about how some families are big, and some are small, and some are in between, so I reminded her of that. I also reminded her that she has at least 3 or 4 friends her age who also don't have brothers or sisters. Of course, that didn't really help: she wants a baby sister NOW. Like by this weekend.

Poor kiddo. We're still working on the paperwork, so it'll be awhile.

Sunday Funny

I've been doing a lot of painting lately, and the other day the little miss came up to me and asked "does the wall need another jacket of paint?"

Jacket, coat, it's all the same, right?   :)

Our Halloween Costumes

I was editing the Halloween costume pics when I realized I didn't get a picture of the back of LMS' costume. Since I'm particularly pleased with how it turned out, I had to wait for a sunny day and reshoot the costume pics. And then I had to wait till I had some spare time to edit the photos before adding them to the post. So, a week and a half after Halloween, here's my costume post :)

Little Miss Sunshine dressed as Princess Leia. She wanted to be a princess again, and I managed to direct her in a direction other than the Disney variety :) She's seen the original three movies, so she knows who Princess Leia is and was ok with being her instead of Belle (I sooo did not have time to sew Belle's yellow ball gown this year).

I was Upper GI and Mr M was Lower GI- a fun idea I found online that worked out well- all we had to do was dig out an old uniform and make name tags.

 You can't see my name tag, so here's the tags we pinned to our shirts.

I used my silhouette to cut the black cardstock for the back and the cream vinyl to go on top.

I followed ideas found here and here and used pictures from here. I drew an outline around LMS (with her laying on some newsprint) and used that as the pattern for the dress. I used a synthetic fabric (nylon or polyester something, I don't remember for sure) that has a really nice drape to it. I cut two of everything so the dress had a self lining. A rectangle formed the hood and was attached to the neckline with pleats. I put a zipper in the back and used some stiff interfacing to help the collar keep its shape. I then sewed some silver lame on some white canvas to make the belt, which also has velcro on the ends to close it.

I bought a skein of yarn and a costume wig and played with some ideas for the cinnamon buns. The wig didn't work because it didn't have a center part in the back and because I couldn't touch the nasty fake hair for longer than 5 seconds without being completely icked out. Have you ever touched the fake hair in a cheap wig? Yech! Anyway, I carefully cut the hair off the wig base and then sewed yarn to it with a center seam for the part. Using the wig base definitely made the whole thing so much easier. I then gathered the yarn and twisted it into cinnamon buns and sewed them in place with some yarn. It's not perfect, but it's good enough and definitely recognizable for what it is :)

  I really like how the hood turned out :)

  

  

Isn't she cute?