New Kitchen Lights

We've slowly been working on the kitchen since I removed the hanging cupboards, and last week we had an electrician come in and install can lights in our kitchen.  This was one project we didn't feel like tackling ourselves- wiring new lights wasn't something we wanted to mess around with.

Bad picture  of the old mismatched lights- I forgot to take a picture before I started changing out the lights.

The 2x4's and crown molding on the ceiling were taken down quite a while ago.

The electricians took down the large nipple light (yuck!) and put a can light there as well as four more. They also installed a box for the pendant lights over the sink.

Both the nipple light and the pendant lights also just had holes punched in the drywall and wires hanging down. I'm really not sure why they cheaped out on these, since there's lots of other details in the house that are upgrades.  Maybe it was just the electrician who did a crap job?

Holes waiting to be patched

Next up on the list: patch the holes, then finish painting the kitchen ceiling and the kitchen walls and install crown molding.

Even though it's not finished, the kitchen is already so much brighter and looks so much better. I love the light yellow on the walls- it's so cheerful.

New light over the dining table, where LMS is doing schoolwork

 

I'm thinking of putting some beadboard on the walls in the dining area. Not sure if I'd paint it white or light gray, though. What do you think?

Sunday Funny

 

The Little Miss was playing duck, duck, goose with some friends recently.

On our way home, she was playing with her "My Little Ponies", and she had them play a game called horse, horse, unicorn.

I love her imagination and creativity :)

Painting Progress

(the new light in the hall bathroom)

As I mentioned before, I've been painting several rooms- the kitchen, a small hallway next to the kitchen, the master bedroom, the upstairs hallway, hall bathroom, and part of the stairway.

Because they were ceiling-mounted, I replaced the lights in the kitchen, master bedroom, and upstairs hallway when I painted the ceilings. The wall-mounted hall bathroom light fixture didn't get removed till I started on all the walls.

I didn't take a picture of the old light, but it was a smaller version of the one in our bathroom

(which will also not be staying). The wall color looks quite nice in this pic, but it's actually a lime green, so the master bathroom will be painted in the near future.

I also removed the mirror to make it easier to paint everything. Once I got the light off, though, I found out that the builder cheaped out and didn't put a box in the wall- they just punched a hole and threaded the wires through it.

I carefully enlarged the hole to fit the box (after flipping the circuit breaker, first, of course- no death wishes here), threaded the wires into the appropriate spots, and installed the box. Apparently the bathroom has been repainted, but it was repainted builder's beige (why?!!) and they didn't remove the light first. So I also had to spackle the paint lines and the holes where the fixture was attached to the wall. The new fixture has a lot smaller face plate than the old one.

After two coats of paint, everything looks so much brighter and cleaner! Bye-bye grungy, scuffed-up walls, hello clean and bright ceilings and walls.

There's still more work to be done {touch up the paint where the ceiling meets the walls, paint the trim, paint the sink cabinet and medicine cabinet white, cut and install a frame around the mirror, and install a new TP holder} but I love how much better it looks already.

Every time I walk past the clean, bright walls I can't help but smile!

First Grade

LMS sounding out words in one of her favorite books. She LOVES anatomy books and we have quite a few now, of varying degrees of difficulty. Do we have a future doctor on our hands?

Yesterday we started first grade.

Yes, our summer was short, but we'll be taking breaks throughout the year, so we're not missing out.

And who really wants to be outside when it's really hot and muggy? Not me. I'm all for staying inside and enjoying our air conditioning. When it cools down we'll take a break and spend some time outside.

As I've mentioned before, we're using the curriculum suggestions from A Well-Trained Mind. So what are we studying this year?

Reading, writing, spelling, grammar, math, science, history/geography, music, art, Japanese, and religion.

Yes, we will be busy, but each subject doesn't take very long when you're working one-on-one, and not all subjects are studied every day.

I was going to hold off on the Japanese for a few more years and start Latin next year, but a lady who's originally from Japan recently moved into our ward and I want to be able to take advantage of a native speaker to practice with (I'm super rusty), and figured it would be a good opportunity for LMS as well.

We've already decided on some extra-curricular and enrichment activities, the rest will be decided on as time passes.

We're continuing violin lessons, and after Labor Day LMS will start soccer again and an Irish sampler class that includes instruction in Irish language, dance, music (bodrhan and fiddle or tin whistle), and singing. Yes, I wish I could take this class, but it's only for kids, unfortunately.

After soccer is over, we might do some ice skating lessons or some skiing (I'd like to do both), but we'll have to see how our schedule is.

I don't think we'll be doing any co-ops this year because our schedule is already too full. Maybe next year.

When do your kids start school?

Palmyra, NY and the Hill Cumorah Pageant

the set for the Hill Cumorah Pageant

After we visited one of our old houses, we continued on to Palmyra, New York. While there we did a little sight seeing.

We went to the Grandin printing shop, where the Book of Mormon was first published.

outside view of the shop 

 where all the type pieces were stored

the printing press 

the press to compress the pages before binding and cutting

Then we drove out to the Smith Farm, which is a couple miles outside of Palmyra.

 the log house they lived in

inside the log house- it was actually bigger inside than the outside led one to believe 

the frame house they built and moved into for a short period of time, just down the road from the log house 

we walked through the Sacred Grove, which is just behind the log house

On our way back to the campground we visited the Hill Cumorah. The visitor's center had a display of old costumes that had been used in the pageant in the past. After looking at them, we wandered outside and eventually found the footpath to the top of the hill (it was hiding behind various barriers and signs for the pageant). It's not a tall hill, but the path was a bit steep, even with switchbacks.

monument at the top, LMS is in the red shirt

looking down from the top of the hill at the stage and the chairs for the audience

looking at the stage and up the hill from the seating

We went back in the evening to watch the Hill Cumorah Pageant. I hadn't realized that the audio portion is a recording, but it makes sense, since the participants only have about a week to practice before performances start. We enjoyed it, but LMS had a hard time staying awake for the whole thing- it didn't start till 9:15pm, and didn't finish till after 10. So I don't know that I'd recommend taking young children to see the pageant unless you bring blankets and sit in the back so they can lay down and sleep. I thought about doing that, but wanted to actually see the actors.

The cast members interacted with the audience before the start, which is such a great pre-mission missionary opportunity for the youth involved. When LMS gets a little older, it would be such a neat experience for our family to participate in the pageant.

Have you seen the Hill Cumorah Pageant?

You *Can* Go Back

We went on a short road trip this week, and since we weren't too far from it, we swung by to see a house my family rented almost 30 years ago.

We only lived there for about 10 months- Dad had a short term training assignment- but we lived in the coolest old Victorian house during that time.

I was happy to see that the house is still there and looking pretty good. Though I will admit it's a bit shorter than I remember, and the barn is closer to the house than I remember.

I'm sure that has nothing to do with me getting taller and my legs getting longer :)

 I do remember the barn being white, though.

This really was a great house for kids: there's a walkup attic (my parents just stored empty boxes up there, but we had fun playing up there), a dumbwaiter, a front stairway and a back stairway, a scary cellar, a big barn (that we weren't allowed in because the owners had stuff stored there), woods to play in, and a river at the bottom of the hill.

In the late fall the river flooded, and while most of the water receded, a giant puddle remained that then froze over. When it snowed, we had a game of seeing who could sled down the hill and go the farthest. My older brother made it almost to the river's edge one time, but most of the time we usually just went as far as the frozen puddle.

There were sugar maples on the property that we tapped, then we boiled the sap on the the wood stove in the scary cellar and made our own maple syrup.

We also stopped by the elementary school my brother and I attended, and it's still there, and still just as small (preK-4), no portable classroom units or expansions. That probably has a lot to do with the size of the town, though- it was small when we lived there and it hasn't gotten any bigger.

I've had the chance to visit several of our old homes, and this one was the least disappointing :)

Have you gone back to a house you lived in many years ago?

Sunday Funny

The other day, LMS was playing with her Star Wars Legos figures, and she had Darth Vader and Luke have the following conversation.

Darth: Luke, come with me.

Luke: No.

Darth: Luke, come with me.

Luke: OK, but tell me the password first.

--------

Mr M and I: Way to give in, Luke!

Betsy-Tacy

source

Not too long ago I was in a homeschool book store, looking for next year's books. I didn't find any of them, but I did find Betsy-Tacy and Tib, and Betsy and Tacy go over the Big Hill. I remembered hearing them mentioned in "You've Got Mail", so I bought them. A buck a piece, I think?

I started reading Betsy-Tacy and Tib to LMS (we finished the Little House books), then realized it was actually the second book in the series. So I requested the first one (Betsy-Tacy) from the library and started over. We're now on the third book (Betsy and Tacy go over the Big Hill) and we're enjoying them.

LMS likes to pretend that she's playing with the girls as I read about their adventures. She even reminds me to add her name to theirs: Betsy, Tacy and Tib and LMS walked to school. Too cute :)

Have you read the Betsy-Tacy books?

School year evaluation

exploring a local river with friends

So how did the past school year go?

Reading
Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons worked well, but didn't teach reasons for why some e's are long and some are short, along with other rules. I've read that criticism elsewhere and plan on using The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading in first grade to compensate.

Writing
We zipped through the Zaner-Bloser workbook in less than two months. We'll continue using ZB, but will take it slower and will do additional practice activities, like we did this year.

Math
I really liked the Math-U-See curriculum, but it wasn't working for LMS. Unfortunately I didn't realize this till February. We did a quick switch to RightStart Math and then did some catching up so we could still finish on time. That wasn't necessary, but I wanted to try to make up for confusing her earlier in the year :)

Music
LMS started violin lessons in the fall. We occasionally listen to classical  and Irish music. We finally bought a piano in the fall and she plays her violin lessons on the piano. We'll start formal piano lessons in another year or so.

PE/Sports
We did fall and spring soccer, ski lessons, three kids fun runs, and four weeks of swimming lessons. We also have weekly park days with friends (I'm not always the best at getting out and going to parks, so having a scheduled time works well for us).

Art
Nothing formal- just fun with paints and crayons and glue and the sewing class at the co-op in the fall.

Science
Physics class at the co-op in the fall, farm animal class at the co-op in the fall, nothing too extensive this year.

We took a pretty relaxed approach to school this year and learned a lot from it. In the coming year we'll be changing how we do some things as well as adding more structure to the subjects that we didn't pay much attention to this year. My main goal for LMS in her kindergarten year was for her to learn to read and to make good progress in her math skills, which she did. I didn't want kindergarten to be high stress, and I think we did a pretty good job of keeping things low key.

Happy 4th of July {a week late}

We celebrated by braving the triple digit heat and going to a parade. Small town parades are so fun!

There was something for everyone:

Local beauty queens and princesses, politicians, old cars, the VFW, military vehicles, scout troops, church floats, lots of fire trucks (from 3 towns!), tractors, local businesses (including a paint ball team/company/not sure what they were exactly), and even a juggling unicyclist. No horses, though. I think it was too hot for them.

Did you get to see a parade on the 4th?

Our Adventure

We got hit by that big storm last weekend, which left us without power for about 30 hours and caused some minor damage to the trampoline and the truck, as well as leaving quite a mess for us to clean up.

we really got off lightly when it comes to damage- this dent isn't big at all

The power flickered last Friday night just as I was getting ready to send some emails, so I saved everything quick and shut down my laptop. It won't hold a charge anymore, so I knew if the power went out my computer would be dead. Minutes later the power went out and stayed out.

We usually keep a flashlight in the kitchen, but we'd recently used it and not returned it (and I couldn't remember where we put it), so I went upstairs to light some candles- I knew where the matches and candles were. I read a book by candlelight for an hour or so, then went to bed.

The next morning the power was still out when we out to assess the damage. I plugged my cell into the charger in the truck (it charges even when the truck is off, which my car doesn't do), and shifted the large branch away from the truck. Luckily it only left a small dent and some small scrapes that I think should buff out ok. We then went to the back yard and moved the branch off the trampoline. It bent the upper support ring of the safety net, but that was all. We picked up the big branches, but left the smaller branches and leaf clumps for later. With temperatures in the triple digits and the A/C out, we didn't want to get all hot and sweaty and then not be able to clean up and cool off. We have a well so if the power is out so is our well pump.

After lunch we went to wallyworld. I wasn't certain they'd have power, but figured it was worth a try. Luckily, they had power, so we were able to get water (they weren't quite sold out yet), but not ice, which was sold out. We were able to find some at a grocery store on the way home, though.

Saturday night the house was quite warm so we slept in the basement, which was cooler than the rest of the house, but also getting warm. I woke up in the wee hours of the morning, feeling chilly. My brain registered that the power was back on, then went back to sleep.

In the morning we got to take showers in our own bathrooms instead of driving to a friend's house to take showers before church. Yay! Not having all the modern comforts readily available sure makes you appreciate them a lot more.

Some things we learned from this:

1. Those big empty water jugs in the basement don't do us any good if they're not actually FULL. Yeah, we moved over a year ago and I still haven't refilled them.
2. Flashlights also don't do us any good if we can't remember where we put them. So I'm going to get baskets or bins for each floor of the house and put a flashlight, batteries, candles, and matches in them, then put them where they can be easily reached in an emergency.
3. We'd talked about getting a generator for the house once we bought a house, but again, it never got done. Once local stores restock and we do some research into brand and size and such, we will be getting a generator. We will also have an electrician come out and make sure the wiring is done properly. We'll at least hook up the well pump and frig/basement freezer to it, but the master bed/bath and heat and A/C would also be nice.
4. We need to start adding to our food storage again (we've been holding off while we figure out our food issues, but I have found one company that sells gluten free freeze dried food), and we need to come up with recipes to use what we have stored.

This really was a great learning experience- it went on just long enough for us to realize our weak points, but not so long as to really cause problems. We now know what we need to do to be better prepared in case we lose our power again. How prepared are you?

June Goals Re-Cap

The bookshelves are built and painted, now I've got to finish all the shelves so we can get the stacks of books off the floor and move the furniture around.

Since I wrote down some new goals, I thought I should track my progress at the end of each month. So here's how I did in the month of June:

A few goals under Health:
1. keep strengthening my knee and start running for longer periods of time/distance
         I started increasing distance, than life got super crazy and I didn't exercise much
2. train for and run at least 4 races by the end of 2012 (at least one half marathon)
         I ran a 5k and my knee didn't hurt
3. be more careful with my eating and lose some weight
         No weight lost yet, but I'm paying more attention to what I'm eating and how much

A few goals under House:
1. finish painting all the rooms
        Not started yet
2. do the family room ceiling
        Not started yet
3. finish building built-in shelves in the library
        Still need to caulk and paint the adjustable shelves

A few goals under Homeschool:
1. stick to the schedule I've worked out, as much as possible
       We finished the school year and are now enjoying summer break
2. be more consistent with violin practicing
        Ummm, not yet

A few goals under Habits:
1. practice the piano more frequently
        Life was way too crazy to even think about playing the piano
2. index several batches every week for FamilySearch
        Only managed to index one week out of the month
3. have more meaningful daily scripture study (start journaling as I read)
        I haven't started journaling yet because after my daily reading in the Book of Mormon I've been studying the Church Handbook for Leaders so I can better understand my role as Relief Society president and how the Relief Society program should work

How are you at keeping goals you make?

So what have YOU been up to lately?

eating snow cones while waiting for the movie to start at the drive in theater

The last month we've been insanely busy:

• Mr M had to travel for drill
• he had a bunch of appointments and things to take care of before he could go on an overseas business trip
• we finally finished all our adoption stuff (interviews, home visit, training, and online profile are all done- just waiting for the written approval now)
• the usual house stuff- we finally got the last couple boxes unpacked and sorted (yay!)
• we went on a short camping trip
• LMS started swim lessons
• LMS finished kindergarten
• and the list goes on and on

I got tired all over again just typing the list. No wonder I haven't had the energy to blog lately.

Things have slowed down a smidge (finishing Mr M's stuff and the adoption stuff helped a lot), and my current project is to finally make progress painting the inside of the house. I've only painted three rooms since we moved in last spring: LMS's room, the library, and the basement rec room. That leaves the kitchen, front room, two stairways, two hallways, two bathrooms, and three bedrooms to paint. The other two bathrooms have recent paint jobs that I'm leaving for now.

Since the predominant color in our house is grungy builder's beige, except the lime green in the master bed/bath, it's important to me to get the walls looking clean and pretty. The grunge is really starting to get to me.

I've been holding off actually starting because I'm going to put paneling on the front room ceiling and we're installing can lights in the kitchen and we need to find a long ladder to do the ceiling above the stairs, all of which need to be done before the walls can be painted. I've recently realized I can move forward anyway by painting the dining part of the kitchen and working on the upstairs rooms until the ceiling stuff is finished.

Last week I spackled all the dents and little holes left by the previous owners, then I sanded and respackled where necessary, then sanded again. Spackle dust makes such a mess! I ended up working on the little hallway between the kitchen and front room, the kitchen, the stairs going upstairs, the upstairs hall, hall bath, and the master bedroom.

After the dust settled a bit I painted all the ceilings white and installed new light fixtures in the dining area of the kitchen, the upstairs hall, and the master bedroom, which makes a big impact for not a lot of money.

After two coats of flat ceiling white, I'm now ready to move on to the walls this week: "Shore" by Valspar for the small hallway, the stairway, the upstairs hall, and the hall bath. It's the same color I used in the library, and I like that it's still a light, neutral color, but with more gray than the current yellowish beige. So far it seems to go with just about any other color, which makes it very versatile. I tried other colors for the upstairs hallway and stairway, but they just weren't working, so we'll stay neutral for now. I'll use "Lemon Butter" by Valspar for the kitchen, and gray for the master bed. The gray is leftover from when the previous owners painted the front room, but it's a bit dark, so I'll add some white to lighten it up, and maybe a touch of blue as well.

We're also finishing up swimming lessons this week, which will be nice. I like the progress LMS has made, and she's got a great teacher, but it's definitely a time commitment that I'm ready to give up :)

How busy has your summer been?