A Well Kept Secret

A few months ago, we were told about a surprise 50th anniversary party for Colin's aunt and uncle in Indiana (Colin's dad's sister Aunt Val and her husband Uncle Bob).  Colin's parents were planning to drive out from Oregon to go to the party.  Then they were going to drive to NH to see us for a few days.  We decided to fly out to meet them at the party, and drive back with them to NH.

When I first found out about this party from Colin's mom, we were a little worried that she wouldn't be able to keep it a secret.  The party wasn't until June, so she had to keep it a secret for about 5 months.  She emails Val every day and they are very close.  Colin and I had bets on when she or his dad would spill the beans because neither of them are known for keeping a secret.  Since they drove from Oregon, Colin's mom spent the week before the party emailing Val from whatever hotel room she was staying in at the time and lying to her about what she had done that day in Oregon.  She almost gave it away once when she sent an email meant for me to Val talking about a deli in Chicago that her friend recommended.  She covered it up by saying the email was meant for a friend that was going to Chicago.  We had to remind her not to post anything on facebook, or say anything in her emails that would give it away.

Aunt Val and Uncle Bob live in West Lafayette, IN, so we flew into Chicago which is a couple hours away the day before the party.  Colin's parents picked us up from the airport.  Aunt Val and Uncle Bob were truly surprised.  They had no idea.  They couldn't believe that all their friends and family could keep a secret like this for so long.  It was wonderful to see them and get to meet other family members we hadn't met before and meet some of their friends.  We spent the weekend in Indiana visiting with family before making our way back to NH.

All dressed up and ready to Par-Tay!

Mom & Dad Battersby

Uncle Bob and Aunt Val

A little dancing

Aunt Val, Colin & Uncle Bob

Us with Aunt Val & Uncle Bob

Colin's parents & Val & Bob

A miracle shot where Colin and his parents are all looking at the camera at the same time!

Jerry and his sister Val

Colin's mom thought that she deserved a reward for keeping the secret for so long and so did we- so we bought her a lobster dinner when we got back to NH!

Out With The Old- In With The New

As our home improvement projects came to a close, there were just a few things that we wanted to do to complete the look. 

The new granite kitchen countertop got installed and we LOVE it!  We also love the new undermounted sink and the faucet.  We updated all the light fixtures throughout the downstairs because they were all an ugly brass color that didn't match any of the current stuff that we were doing.

 

We were looking at living room furniture back in the first part of January and had found the set we wanted.  Then my brother died and everything was put on hold while I grieved and comfort ate my way through the next 2 months.  Around mid March I decided that pattern of behavior could not continue or I would be gaining back the 60 lbs I lost last year!  That's when the home improvements started- much to Colin's dismay!  I think he preferred comfort eating Heidi to the new Heidi that filled up all his time off with multiple trips (a day) to Home Depot.

After we got the living room painted and the crown molding put up we started looking at furniture again.  We ended up back at the first set that we liked back in January.  It had a reclining sofa, reclining loveseat and a reclining oversized chair.  I fell in love with the oversized chair and it's really what sold me on the set.  I knew it would be perfect for me and the doggies.  As you can see- it is!  They love it too.  I seriously think Skittles thinks it is HER chair!  I'm so glad she lets me sit in it-sometimes.

Every time we would go shopping for new living room furniture, I would detour off to where the dining room furniture was.  I have always wanted a hutch and I have been wanting a bigger dining room table for awhile, and by bigger I mean one that would seat more than 4 comfortably.  Ideally, I wanted one that would seat 8.  I realize we are a family of 2 people and 2 dogs, but there are times when we could use a table for 8.  Sometimes the dogs have friends over.  Just seeing if anyone actually reads this.  :)

The problem was not finding a dining room table that I liked that would seat 8 because I found plenty of those, but finding a dining room table that would seat 8 AND fit in our dining room!  I fell in love with a long oblong table that had a matching hutch.  It was the style I liked and it was perfect. The bad news is, there is no way it would fit in our dining room.  It was way too long.  The good news is, it had an oval shaped twin that WOULD fit in the dining room and WOULD seat 8!  We opted to go with 2 chairs for both ends of the table, and then 2 benches for the sides because you can fit 3 people on each bench.  If we had opted to go with chairs all the way around, the most you would comfortably fit is 6.

New Table and Chairs/Benches

8 Places!

The Hutch

We sold our old dining room set on Craig's list.  In fact, I sold a LOT of stuff in order to get this new dining room set.  About 4 years ago I was into card making as a hobby and had purchased a lot of Stampin Up products.  I lost interest in it about 2 years ago but I still belonged to a Stampin Up group on Facebook and noticed that people would sell their old items there.  I hung onto my stuff for a couple years after I stopped stamping to see if I would want to pick it up again.  After 2 years, that didn't happen so I decided it was time to start selling the stuff in my craft room.  Honestly, in the beginning I wasn't even sure it would sell, or how much people would buy it for.  I just figured I would put whatever money I made selling it towards getting the new dining room set and hutch.  My goal was to have enough money from selling my craft stuff to get the dining room set and hutch by the end of the year.  I started listing some things that I had, and it started selling-fast.  The first day I made $300 in under 2 hours after listing just a few of the items and Colin joked that I should quit my job and just start selling our stuff on the internet.  The quick start motivated me to get serious about selling it, and in a couple of weeks, we had all the money for the dining room set and almost enough for the hutch from the stamping stuff that I sold.  In a couple more weeks, I'm sure we would have had it all, but my mom wanted to buy me the hutch (thanks mom), which made it so we could buy the dining room table and chairs/benches after just a couple weeks.  3 weeks to the day that I started selling it was the day the dining room furniture got delivered.  Colin also got motivated during this time to get rid of some things and found a place online that buys old DVD's.  He sold a bunch that we didn't watch anymore and were just taking up space and made a few hundred dollars from that.  I will say that all this selling business takes up a lot of time.  The ladies at the post office know me by name now.  I was there at least every day twice a day during those first couple of weeks mailing stuff out and checking how much postage would be to certain places.  It was all worth it in the end though!  I still have more craft items to sell too, so I will keep at it.  After all, now that the craft room isn't going to be a craft room, we'll have to remodel it into something else- most likely another spare bedroom for when company comes.  I have my eye on a day bed with a trundle that would be perfect in there.  After we repaint the room of course.  Colin is excited already! HA!  

Kitchen Cabinet Makeover

The work continues at our house.  Colin says that all these home improvement projects I am making him help me with are my way of dealing with my brother's death.  He's probably right.  At least I'm doing something constructive though, right?  The week after we did the living room, I took a day and painted the dining room.  We did have a dark navy blue on the walls in there, and I just painted it a lighter blue and also painted the windows white.    We also put up new pantry doors.  It is amazing how much bigger it makes the room look now that the dark color is gone.

 Anyway, onto the major project...the kitchen cabinets!  This is how the kitchen looked 6 years ago when we first moved into the house.

I've never been a big fan of the blue cabinets, and over the years, they really started to look worse than this with the paint chipping off, but I've tried to work with them since we couldn't afford to have them taken out and a brand new kitchen put in.  Then, I saw a product in Home Depot where you didn't have to sand the cabinets to paint them.  The product is called Rustoleum, and this is the link in case you're interested.  http://cabinets.rustoleumtransformations.com.  So, I watched the video and it all seemed simple enough, like something Colin and I, who are not what I would call handy, could do ourselves.  "Do it in a weekend", the video said.  Oh how I love that video (insert sarcasm here). In the video they show you how one cabinet is done and how easy it is, but they don't show you a real kitchen that has 18 cupboards and how time consuming it really is.  The work itself wasn't hard,  it was the waiting 3 hours or 8 hours or 15 hours between steps while everything dries that was maddening for an impatient person like myself.  How impatient can I possibly be, you ask?  Well, Colin pointed out to me this week that I have 6 bottles of body wash in the shower, all with about a 1/4 of the product left in them.  Once it gets down that low I stop using it and open another one because it takes too long for the shower gel to get from the bottom of the bottle to the top.  I also can't make grilled cheese because I get too impatient waiting for the cheese to melt, so I turn the burner up on the stove to speed the process along which only succeeds in burning the bread and not melting the cheese.  So, yeah, you could say I'm slightly impatient.  

We had cupboard doors and drawers scattered throughout almost every room of the house, which was distressing in itself to me-and Wally too!

Skittles once again slept through the whole thing.  She's so lazy!

There were 4 doors that we didn't have a place to put, so I had to do those after the others were done.  Not ideal, but we made it work.  I always thought I didn't have enough cabinets for all my kitchen stuff.  After painting 18 of them, I am beginning to think that maybe I just have too much stuff!  Wait- did I just say that?  Nevermind...

I did get to use my very first power tool while working on this project-an electric screwdriver.  Say what you will, but I am counting that as a power tool!

Since real life continued on, we had to complete this in between going to work and it took us about 5 days to do the cabinets.  A couple weeks before starting the cabinets, I painted the kitchen the same cream color that is on the bottom half of our living room.  Here are the finished cabinets.  We love the way it turned out.  All that work was definitely worth it in the end.

We were initially going to use a Rustoleum product on our countertops too, but in the end we decided to have granite countertops installed which will HOPEFULLY be put in in the next 2-3 weeks (impatient, remember?).  We've already picked out the granite, new sink and new faucet.  We just need them to come do the final measurement and then install.  I know we will love them.  Colin can breathe easy- the home improvement projects we are doing ourselves are over.  For at least a week anyway...

My Birthday

My 39th birthday was on April 29th.  We took some time off from home improvements to celebrate.  It was on a Monday this year, so we both had to work.  The weather has been beautiful in NH lately, so we drove up to Maine on Sunday and and enjoyed the coast, ate at our favorite pizza place and got some ice cream.  My mom got me a necklace with my brother's thumbprint that I absolutely love and I haven't taken off since.

Colin made my birthday cake this year, and there is a little story behind that.  I am a Pinterest addict, which I have mentioned before, and I saw this cake on Pinterest back in January and of course immediately pinned it.  Here is the website where I found the cake.  http://thenonpareilbaker.blogspot.com/2011/09/chocolate-cake-with-cream-cheese.html?m=1  I sent it to Colin and told him this was the cake that I wanted for my birthday and then proceeded to text him nearly every day for the last 4 months saying "Have you thought about my cake today?"  His answer was always no, but deep deep down I know he was excited about it too! :)

It turned out great, and only one hand mixer died in the process of him making it. (Don't ask!)  Since it's a big cake, and there are only 2 of us, he took the remainder into work the next morning and it was gone in under an hour.  Good stuff, I'm telling ya!

The home improvement break is over and we're getting started on the kitchen.  I painted the dining room the week after we did the living room and we put on new pantry doors.  I painted the kitchen the week after that and now we are knee deep in the cabinet makeover.  Colin jokes that I only give him a one week break between projects, but hey, at least he gets a break!  Stop complaining! :)

Living Room Remodel

I have been wanting to change our living room for a LONG time.  It has taken me a couple years of talking about it to get Colin on board, mainly because he painted the room 6 years ago when we moved into the house, and it took him 13 hours because of the painting technique that he used.  He finally got tired of hearing me complain about the living room being too dark agreed with me that it was time for a change.  I started searching Pinterest for ideas and came up with a lot of them.  I am now on Pinterest restriction.

Here is a picture of the color of the living room before-

Wall and dark wood around the windows

The brown and dark wood had to go. We started by repainting the ceiling (if you've ever painted a ceiling, you know how much fun that is).  We painted the windows white and put up crown molding.  Now, it should be said that neither of us are particularly "handy" people when it comes to tools and such, but Colin researched online and watched some you tube videos of  how to put up the crown molding and by the time he was done with the room, he was a pro semi pro.  The funniest part of the whole crown molding process is that when Colin would go from the living room to the deck outside where he was cutting the molding, Wally would follow him outside and stay there next to him while he used the saw like he was helping.  Skittles was content to just sit in the recliner the full 4 days and watch us work!   

Figuring it all out

Piece of cake

Not too shabby

He still loves me the infinite mostest despite me making him help me with this!

 We also wanted to get rid of the brass around the fireplace, so we painted it black with a high heat spray paint, and then painted the mantle cream.

Fireplace Before

Fireplace After

We put up a chair rail and painted the top half of the room a soft blue and the bottom half a cream color.    All the windows and crown molding and chair rail were painted white.

Wally approves too!

It took 4 long days, and we were so sore we could barely move when we were done, but we like the way it turned out.  It's so much brighter.  New furniture will soon complete the transition.  Next up- kitchen remodel- as soon as I can bribe convince Colin to tackle another home improvement project.  :)

Busy in 2013

It seems like we have been on the go since the New Year.  When we returned from Idaho, we were home about a  week and a half and then we went to Providence, RI, for a couple of days for the AHL All Star Game and Skills Competition.  We got the tickets and hotel room back in November, so it is something we had been looking forward to.  We had fun cheering on our Manchester Monarch's all star Tyler Toffoli. 

Colin's cousin Dustin came down from Vermont and watched the Super Bowl with us.  The team we were rooting for didn't win, but we had fun anyway and ate lots of good food.   

Mother Nature seemed to think that we hadn't had enough excitement in 2013 so far, so in February we had the worst blizzard since 1978 hit here.  I swear I don't know what it is about us and historic weather events, but I for one am tired of being part of them!  We got over 2 ft of snow.  I was just thankful our power stayed on.  That, to me, is a succesful storm these days!

Colin ready to brave the elements and snow blow

We celebrated Valentine's Day quietly by going out to dinner.  Since it fell on a Thursday, we kept with our Thursday tradition of going out to our favorite Mexican restaurant for dinner.  We exchanged cards and Colin got me some beautiful flowers and my favorite chocolate.

We celebrated our 10 year wedding anniversary by going to Maine for the weekend.  Well, we actually started celebrating it a day early and went to Ruth's Chris Steakhouse in Boston (one of our favorites), and to a Bruins game.  The next day we went to Maine and and stayed at our favorite hotel on the beach.  I never get tired of going to Maine.  We saw the Monarchs play in Portland on Friday night and ate at some of our favorite places around the area.

Bruins Game!

We went to Vermont in mid March to see Dustin, Sandra and the boys and we went to Dakin Farms.  They make their own maple syrup there and make a pretty good breakfast too.  After dinner one night we somehow ended up at Best Buy, where I snapped this picture.

The "little boys", Leif and Keiran, were in one aisle playing a video game, while the "big boys" Colin and Dustin were in the next aisle over looking for a new video game.  Proof that they never really grow up.

Leif and Kieran also showed us how they used "the force" to levitate a ball.  That Jedi training is really paying off.  :)

March was a busy traveling month for us because we also went to Rhode Island for a concert.  We saw Kip Moore one night, and the next day we took a tour of the mansion The Breakers, owned by the Vanderbilt family.  It was amazing to see.  We want to go back to Rhode Island soon and tour a few of the other mansions.

       

Things haven't really slowed down yet because when we got back we remodeled our living room.  That was so much work it deserves a post of its own!