home is where the hitch is

our happy home.
sits amid the melting snow and muddy mud pit.
i have feared for my subaru's capacity to make it from the road to the pole barn...
but so far so good!
we do leave awesome tire tracks of mud paint on the road when we leave though :)


makes us all the more excited for our home to continue being built!


olaf certainly likes the kitchen floor already!

some ideas...

So our framing inside the house is COMPLETE as of today! Well it looks complete anyway, but I can't really tell the difference if there are small things left to be done. So here is a layout of what we decided on. This only took like... 30 iterations. At least. And of course since we were working within the existing constraints of walls/ceiling, some of the walls were moved a bit this way or that.
So this first one is downstairs. Living room in front, kitchen right behind it, and dining area off to the left. Behind the stairs is my office (ITS ALL MINE FOR WHATEVER I WANT I AM SO EXCITED!! Room for a sewing machine?) And then a nice big laundry room and half bath behind the kitchen.

This second one is the upstairs. Our master bedroom is in the back, and the two kid/guest rooms are up front. Yes I know the bathrooms are small, but we don't really care!

My favorite space right now is... well all of it. But I really really like the bonus space at the top of the stairs. It's going to be such a great spot for reading, playing, coloring, art projects... I want to make a space that I won't care too much if the kid destroys it :)

So now I have moved on to trying to pick out light fixtures... Here is what I am dreaming of over the kitchen table (Pottery Barn Hundi Lantern)...


And I LOVE these. (PB Rustic Glass Pendant)


Originally I was thinking over the bar/counter, but Steve pointed out that those lights should probably be directional, not so much ambient light. I can't wait to continue to look, though I am sure we'll end up with some cheap-ohs from Lowes or Home Depot just to fit our budget. Especially after I splurge on that first one from Pottery Barn.... :)

Also, I just returned from a short trip to the garage for frozen pizza and to visit the green room (which we so lovingly refer to the port-o-potty as), and found that our exterior doors have arrived, yay! I can't wait to see them stained and installed, though I am sure that will be a little while. But how exciting, eh?

Maybe later this week I'll give you all a sneak preview of one of the woodstoves that we like... It is RED and beautiful.

Until then.

we are a mess

The purpose of this post is to dispell any myths that we in any way shape or form have it all "together". Case in point. Below I have posted a picture of our home... It doesn't always look like this... in fact I often try to clean it. Actually if I don't clean daily it becomes like this. Because it is such a small space. And I have had trouble wanting to clean today. I would rather pay bills than clean. That's how tired of cleaning I am! But regardless, we are a bit of a mess :) If you can find Olaf in the mess, note that he is RIGHT next to both the couch and the table/desk/catch-all... within perfect range to get his slimy biscuit-encrusted fingers all over, even when strapped into his chair. Yes we are a mess. But we are a happy mess. Daddy is coming home tonight (hopefully), we are making progress on the house, and I can't help but smile at my son. Now I better clean off that gummy face full of wheat biscuits before I let him drink his lunchtime milk!

4am wakeup call

No this post has nothing to do with my son... I was relating this story to my friend Annie who is a great blogger and she said I should post it. I guess these crazy everyday things are the interesting types of posts!

So we are hanging out in our (huge) home the other night and Chelan keeps passing gas. It was VERY loud, but strangely didn't smell at all, like dog farts usually do. Steve mentioned that perhaps we should put her outside for the night but it was FREEZING and I felt bad doing that just because she was farting, so I said, "no, she ALWAYS wake us up when she needs to go out." So she stayed in.

Steve and I went to sleep. At about 4am I hear this crashing in the hallway and we both sit up in bed and turn our heads to the right. Chelan had her head on the foot of our bed, just staring at us, and the laundry basket, which had been precariously positioned on top of Steve's travel bag in the narrow hallway had crashed over into the shower door, and had spilled dirty laundry everywhere. (note - I can no longer actually store the dirty laundry in the shower because it is now useable for showers - yay!) I say to Steve "She NEEDS to go out honeY." "No, she's fine," he mumbles... "Chelan - go lay down - go on - lay down" and he falls backwards and proceeds on with sleep... I think I may have dozed too off for just a minute but my brain woke me back up and I thought, "no, that was bad 4am analysis from a man who is a super hard sleeper at night, I better let Chelan out." I sat up and her head was again perched on the end of our bed staring at us. So I got out of bed and she ran ahead the three or so steps to the living room. I was greeted by a slightly sour smell, but couldn't see anything on the floor anywhere. So I let Chelan and Rosie outside and started investigating. Turn right, nope, not there, turn left, wait, WHAT? Is that really dog poo IN OLAF'S CARSEAT? GROSS! I yelled back to Steve what I found and all I heard back was a muffled grunt. So I spent the next 15 minutes deliriously bagging up the carseat cover to wash later and lysol wiping the hard shell. My husband, though a rockstar helper during the day, is less than responsive to urgent poo requests at night...

Oh, to have a house again with tile floors next to the door where accidents will be slightly easier to clean up. Ah well, it makes for an amusing story later.

How the heck she aimed it so well right into the carseat I will never know...

No I do not have a picture of the mess. Gross.

Recommendation - if your dog wakes you at 4am NO GOING BACK TO SLEEP. I learned my lesson!