the bachelorette of kitchens

don't let the title fool you, i am a very happily married woman. very.happily.


i am however on a hunt for some pretty kitchens whilst i decide what tickles my fancy. i am at that stage in the process where i have to make up my mind, you all know the pains that will ensue. it is much more fun to narrow a couple of things down than to choose one specifically. i have met with 4 highly recommended cabinet makers. i met with them all, and then i sent them the pictures i am in love with as of late and they are all bidding my kitchen. hey, that's a catchy new HGTV show -{bid my kitchen}
alas.

these are the links i sent them, sorry the pictures won't save and let me show you without a click.

numero uno, the first picture in this post.
CLICK HERE
the bar does it for me. in our new wood structure lies the workings for a bar 8 feet by 8 feet. a kitchen bar is the center of the kitchen i did decide, so why not make it the showcase of the kitchen. i love the white cabinetry with the thin 2mm solid black surface. most of all, i heart the island and the home built for the great inspiration on the shelf. i love that the cookbooks get to be displayed here. so those were some of the demands i made to the cabinet makers.

numero 2
the third picture in the above link. the one with the shelf over the 3 windows. i made my plans to have 3 windows in the kitchen, right over the sink. which reminds me that i need to go and order my sink. check. there will be a pretty plain shelf just like this one.....

and c, lastly.
this one.click here obsessed.love.lust.must.need.oh, do you covet? i do....
i love the thick cabinetry and that overhang on the island got incorporated to the eating side of my bar with those square posts to secure them. oh beauty. i look at this picture far too long some days...the color on the walls also makes me dream of what room will be the recipient of that color....

so, bids are being gathered, which cabinet maker can make all of this girls dreams come true within budget? well, it might just be impossible, but i can't wait for my dreams to become a reality......i'll keep you posted!

{the making of me} chapter 10

the visitors.

we each had a sibling come to town. mountain man was our first visitor and our second. after moving us out there, he came for "winds of love"s birthday a few weeks after our arrival. i had staked out a small carnival in a port town thrown by the baptist church. it was lovely. fish and chips with sweet potato fries were involved as well as a down pour that gave us our first dose of east coast rain. never.in.my.life had i see a down pour like that. we had to pull over in our scenic route because i thought hell had been unleashed and i didn't think the trusty taurus would make it out unscathed. we took refuge under some trees off to the side of the road as other cars drove by unfazed.

mountain man told us the tale of a napoleon dynamite that had hit the rocky mountains with some shredded cheese and a tube of chapstick. he would tell us tales of boondoggle and crap being left on someone's porch. i thought it was quite weird and he assured me he would be letting us watch the show when he could get his hands on it. it did make me homesick to see him. knowing he would be returning to everything familiar and cozy to me. i kept telling myself i could do this, i could do this. still no tears had been shed in depression or longing up to that point.

we heard news that s.mac's brother, wife and new baby were coming for a weekend. we were thrilled and got to bustling around the house making it functional for company. it was decided that we would trek to the boston, mass. area. we headed out on holiday labor day weekend. we were out the door around 9:30 am only to come upon the road block of a race being held in the down town area we lived. every road to the freeway was blocked by runners and police men. no notice was left on our door that we would be unable to get out. i was a cussing mess after 45 minutes of this nonsense. i almost broke my crying spurt right then and there. luckily, we found our way out of the mess and got to our road trip.

the city was unlike anything i thought boston would be. i fell in love, deeply. it was one of the most friendly towns and that was a welcome refuge from the unfriendliness the east coast had shown us so far. s.mac's dad is a tour guide and told us that he one day wants to grow old in boston because of the people. he loves it there. he gave us the tip off of the red brick trail and faneuil square. we were able to walk the trail, eat in the sea of choices at the market and fall in love minute by minute with the lovely place. it was so invigorating for me. it was also expensive. parking, road tolls and food put us in the "we can do this one more time while we live here" category.

s.mac's brother was looking at a school in the area and we were able to peruse the cambridge area and the beautiful harvard and MIT campus. they were so picturesque. i loved seeing the rowers on the water and the colonial architecture.

all in all, the visiting both comforted me and made me lonely. i was so jealous of the landing their departing planes would be doing. a part of me was thinking the 2 years ahead were too long and too hard. i really couldn't see myself here for 2 years. on the up side, it gave me pride in our new area to have visitors and show them the beauty of brick oven pizza, a cannoli from libby's, thai food that rocked and the campus, that was the comforting part of visitors. i was determined to make our house a home and settle.

i think the only thing that kept me going at this point was the sunday's we got to partake in. it was the one familiar place to me. familiar songs, familiar feelings of bonding thru belief and those beautiful missionaries that greeted us every sunday at that door with a hand shake and a smile. i would wait all week for it.

jobs and thoughts

and thoughts and jobs.

i posted a while back about the decision we were facing about employment.

did i mention that the night it happened, my little redheaded husband came to me with tear filled eyes brimming with gratitude that in these troubled times we weren't being faced with lack of employment? (that was a long run on sentence that was meant to demonstrate our gratitude.)

without going into too much detail, i will say that s.mac made a decision. i felt like it was his to make because either option was good. the new offer from the current job was wonderful and the new job offer was wonderful as well. it came down to s.mac taking some time to ponder and contemplate and call on a higher power to offer some warm fuzzies directing his decision.

i am so happy he was able to come up with the job to take feeling so strongly that it was the best one, and held the best future.

so that begs me to tell you that he is going to be taking the new job offer. he will be with a neuro surgeon in the area that he has been friends with for over 8 years. it doesn't mean that he hasn't lost sleep or shed tears about the surgeon he is leaving. it has been one of the harder things he has had to do. they are such good friends, always getting compliments in the OR from staff about how well they work together and they always let this pair know what a rare thing that is.

in the process of s.mac's job being posted as open, we have had a lot of phone calls at this house with interest for this job. it furthers our grateful hearts for these 2choices. with the downward spiral our economy seems to be doing, i thought his field of medicine was immune from the job layoffs and cutting back that seems to surround us. as these phone calls have been pouring in to our home of interested candidates in his job, i am shocked to find out of the lay offs, slow times and furlough's that PA's in this state are experiencing. people who fund clinics can't afford to fund anymore, dr's aren't busy like they used to be and people are not hiring right now. it has been super humbling for us to be able to recognize our blessings everyday. i also keep in the back of my mind a little extra gratitude for these events, knowing we aren't immune to hard things and our turn will one day be taken again as is has in years past. we will get the opportunity to learn from opposition.

in the next few months chit chat at this house will be of spines, the delicate brain and perfecting the neuro exam. his new books have been ordered and the learning has begun. so, adios. i am off to be the "patient" as he performs neuro exams to make sure my brain is ok.;)

texting testimony

i admit to be slow to jump on the bandwagon of texting. within the last 2 years i have fallen a little more in love everyday. when s.mac is up to his elbows in the operating room and not available for commenting on the phone, i can text a little something lovie or not so much. he might receive a {911}, {blood and stitches} or maybe a little {call me NOW}. then he knows in between cases, when he should be using the facilities or grabbing a snack, he should text or call the mrs.

i used to be SO against it because i thought it took the personal out of communicating. putting us back to the stone age with thx,lol,mil and other such abominable short cuts. sometimes i feel the need to doctor my texts up with periods and capitalization (what?me?) and then every once in a while i go out on a limb and throw in a...... comma. one of my besties recently showed me how to do the WORD option where this little contraption magically guesses every word you put in. i was shocked and it took going out to dinner with her and her husbie twice before i got it. then, once i did, i sent her a text saying {thanks}. we are texters, my bestie and i. we talk about trivial things like steamers and windex. we always text about recipes and food. we are such trivial talkers sometimes she forgets to tell me that her sister is pregnant or she put in her adoption papers for baby #2. hello. and then i have to call her to tell her she forgot to tell me about it because my uncle married her aunt and the family talk tree gives me the information she does not.

i talked to her this weekend about shin splints and female torture tactics that show up inconveniently. s.mac told her to call him if the shins didn't feel happy soon. i got the call monday from the family talk tree that she had been in the hospital all weekend with trauma. she gets sick fast and easy and the shin splints were aches that proved something else was wrong. here it is, days later and there are still no answers for her ailing body. and everyday, i get a simple text from her husband. today, i am grateful for texting. her husband manages a title office, goes to school full time and is trying to care for their beautiful baby as my bestie goes in for more tests and waits patiently at the hospital for diagnosis. i don't want to call him to add to the burden he is currently shouldering and she is beyond words with the pain that has taken over he entire body, requiring constant pain meds that require sleep to relieve her ailing body.

so today, my heart that seems heavy knowing what my bestie is going thru, feels a little lighter with 54 letters from the husbie. and for sure, you can believe the most springy flowers were ordered to be delivered today to give her a glimpse that life will be waiting for her once she is out.......

romancing the scale.....

well, not the scale. but i am talking about fitness here. it is something i struggle with, real bad.

i am in no way complaining about where i am at with my body, i gave that up a long time ago. i spent the entire teen years practicing walking a certain way to hide the junky trunk i inherited. i proudly carry my junky trunk now, fine with it. we've grown on each other. in my teenage years i was waking up some mornings before the sun, going on walks with my dad, trying to run from puberty. it took my 78 pound frame and slapped it silly with the weight stick. i mean, up and down and back again. i counted fat grams, went on the cabbage soup diet, tried buns of steel, and about every possible gimmick. i even bought chitosol, the amazing TV infomercial that collected all the fat from your intake and isolated it, making your body never process it. all that did was make my plumbing so clogged it took an african bird pepper pill to rid me from the clutches of chitosol. then we added some necessary medication into the mix that made me swell up like a balloon the month before junior prom. i kept growing out of dresses, it was not fun.

i always hated when i had the "time to go on a diet" mind set. i felt so deprived, so sad. didn't like looking at myself or heaven forbid swim suit season. every april i would get the "diet" feeling. what a horrid way to spend the teenage years.

then, i got married, went off medication, had a baby and lost all the weight. something happened when i got pregnant. i never worked out, never lifted a finger. i can't say i ate to my hearts content either, i just got busy with other things besides eating.

then, i discovered cooking. i loved following thru with a recipe and having it turn out so well. eating my preparations made me cut back what i was eating in quantity because i felt so satisfied with the whole process of it. i can watch a cooking show and feel full, it just does something for me without trying it. so weird, right?

lately, as this old haggard body is approaching the big 30, i have noticed sagging in places that have always been full and fat. i have never considered jeans that need extra saddle bag room, always rump room, but not 3 inches below the rump to carry the sag. i almost think the sag may be beyond repair. throw nursing into the mix and you want to post an ad on a milk carton - please find my body that up and left me, please. pregnancy took my body and threw it to the thunder storms and rain, returning it gloomy and dismal. the scale has not bothered me the past 8 years, it's the stretchy skin that i fear has gone forever. surgery holds no answers for me. i can't be fully honest with you unless i tell you there was a time in the early 20's i thought the only way i could be made whole was to have an enhancement or some skin removal. now, as i approach my 30's, the thought makes me giggle like a school girl. leaving the utah rat race of beauty for 2 years was the best thing i ever, ever could have done for myself.

adding diversity in my life with other nationalities, cultures and looks - it was easy for me to embrace me. all of me. sag, droop and body. i wasn't like everyone else, my sag was uniquely mine. i was able to start deciphering the different looks of the asian culture and could surely tell you a korean from a japanese, no problem. it opened my eyes the shallowness i looked with before my east coast stint. here, in the current residence of the rocky mountains, there are A LOT of 20 something young white mothers. we all mesh and try to look alike oddly. i guess that is what happens. i miss the culture but am grateful for the embracing it helped me do with my own saggy mess because deep in my bones, i know this is where we are supposed to be for this time. that doesn't mean i don't about jump out of my skin when i brush shoulders with another culture at the local market. our first day back in the rocky mountains, over 2 years ago, we were at the local store. we were grocery shopping s.mac and i. there were 2 black kids and he told me he was going to ask if he could hug them he was so glad to see beyond the white. i grabbed his arm and threatened him with my pregnancy eyes, one look at the bulge in my mid-section gave him reason to stay at bay.

so today, i reflect with gratitude for the experience of being uniquely me. embracing it without having to go under the knife to make me feel whole. discovering these feelings and making them alive again makes me see the importance of some good physical activity without the intent of making jeans fit a certain way or a shirt to sit just so. celebrate you today, just for me. there will be less honking on the freeway for sure if we all partook. thank you.

giggles for you

if you or someone you know was a victim of the ravaging affects of the mullet, perms or haywire glasses - please find support at this site, click here

the making of me {chapter 9}

as we got to talking to our new found friends this sunday we eventually set off to our car and back to our "new home".

s.mac informed me that we had been invited to dinner with some students and their families that were attending the medical school. i thought it was so nice that a woman would open her house last minute at the happenstance showing of this new family to the ward.

he told me they lived right across the way in our apartment complex. they had a daughter "winds of love's" age and she was expecting a little boy in a few weeks. they also invited another couple over, which ironically enough, turned out to have utah connections also. this couple had seen our moving truck and our trusty ford taurus with those utah plates that boasted the golden arches and that night had brought my husband dinner. so, i knew this dinner invitation was going to be flowing over with good people.

we were able to go over, eat a wonderful stew from todd's mission, spain, that he made. we were able to talk and enjoy their company. the little girls took to each other quickly. poor bud "e" was in an ear infection kick for about 8 months of our time on the east. this night we found him starting to show all the signs of an unhappy baby and excused ourselves early. on our way out we bumped into more familiar faces we had seen from church that day and realized that where we were living was the mormon mecca. why, in one 4 plex alone there were 3 mormon families. there were playgrounds in our complex that were always laced with the shrills of delight from hapy tots.

we ended our social night with tension thick at our house. s.mac was to start school in the morning and i had scarcely made myself familiar with the town. i was incredibly nervous, 3 days wasn't enough for me to feel confident on my own.

how could i live in a place i had to put a bar on the steering wheel just to park at the grocery store? i was determined to make this place our own. i started mapping out saturdays and where we would explore. s.mac had raided the local welcome station's magazines and it soon became my hobby finding a town to explore and a little local favorite to grab a bite to eat. it was my salvation the first few months.

s.mac did this wonderful, fabulous thing for me in grad school. he committed himself to our little family from 5 to 7 every night. i promised to have dinner ready and he helped bath, read books and put the children into a fitful slumber. he then returned his focus to studying efforts from 7-10. he wanted also to dedicate his weekends to us. he felt strongly about not abandoning his wife once school started. it was a most lovely schedule. he was rewarded in his priorities with his test scores and the ability to be able to meet the schools standards. and so the week went. and then turned into months of that rhythmic schedule.

on the playground down the street...

there is a little brown headed girl who i will refer to as "winds of love". she has decided that she is a qualified teacher of the following things:

horse lesens
duck lesons
laphing lesons
tap lesons

she wrote these titles on her fathers note cards and passed them around the recess hour for a few days. she had many people interested in tap lessons. i was interested in how she would teach them as she hasn't ever tapped. laphing lesons i knew she would be skilled at and she does the most killer duck sound she figured out on a 5 hour flight across the coasts.

before i could approve of any of this, i had to make sure that she hadn't been tapping into allowance funds for the skilled instructor before i approved of such creative childhood endeavors.

when bud "e" asked her what exactly horse lessons would entail as he was deeply contemplating signing up, she told him she got the idea from her yale buddy jessica. you see, jessica handed down some clog shoes 3 years ago and this year, "winds of love" finally grew into them. she had a brilliant memory flash of her and this buddy in the clogs, running as fast as they could on the playground sidewalk and how the running in clogs amazingly replicated the trot of a horse. bud "e" was sold, well, until "winds of love" pointed out that he should under no circumstances be owning a pair of clogs. she did reassure him that he was welcome to sign up for duck lessons and she explained to him the doors that would open for him. he impolitely declined.

and so it goes, preparations for lessons here.....

i'm not above it you know

a post about motherhood...

i have been watching a lot of sesame, barney, franklin and little bear to get us thru the woes of my little hella and the ectomy{s} she had yesterday. adenoids and tonsills got the boot. i was much, much more calm this time around. last year with bud "e" i was in the depths of despair thinking of putting an innocent star wars lover thru an elective surgery.

this time around i knew how dangerous it was for her to keep them. nothing too out of the ordinary. her IV came loose in the struggle to {come to} after the blades were down and then there was the incident where my red headed PA noticed her arm bulging to unnatural sizes. all the schooling was worth it, whew. we got a nurse to take the menace IV out of her arm and the injury site had fully recovered by this evening. the trick has been not to let the meds overlap the allocated time, it HAS TO BE EVERY SIX HOURS for happiness. and when you don't do that to the second....

you end up calling your mother blubbering into oblivion to come take the crying child into her arms. i have to admit that is not typical behavior from this phone number to hers. well, rarely. needless to say, my mother got a sobbing call from me after i had been up since 3 am trying to get something in her belly. i made homemade applesauce, pancakes, scrambled eggs, danimals yogurt, and anything else you could imagine. all she wanted was peanut butter toast. of course she couldn't eat that. after a couple of hours of that, i started crying with her, pleading to eat something else. i just lost it. that happens sometimes to the motha. overloaded and all with the nighttime duty and the syringes in hand, mentally clocking the next time medicine intake is necessary. within minutes of the white flag going up, me madre was over in record time with a fresh whipped strawberry protein ice cream shake in a pink sippy, the peanut butter toast lover left only 2 drops of grandma's magic. per grandma's orders, i bustled myself off to brush my teeth and clean my tired head. i sat in the shower way beyond a normal time, i had tears come up for jason and molly, and then melissa, and then about how one time i didn't let bud "e" buy a toy at the store, and how "winds of love" and i haven't got to snuggle for a while. i let a few tears loose because the red head has missed dinner a couple of time this week to check {pro}gress on the new timbers, i cried about how many gray hairs obama has and how happy i am that after 9 years of marriage - we will have a home of our own, and so on and so on. i mean they came. i cried for the job situation, for the clothes i wear that do not claim a place in 2009 and mostly, i cried because my hella was so sad. miserable. any mother knows, heart strings attach right behind the guilt nerve located right behind the eye{s}. in the shower i resolved to love her better and be like grandma. all calm and soothing. the situation was helped immensely when s.mac was home early and gave me some much needed shut eye in between the mandatory "where is this" and "where is that" interruption. my mother in law graciously took the older two for an exciting sleepover at the canyon house to ease my tears, how i love the mothers in my life. they took care of me so i could continue the cycle of good women that learn a lot in the shower with tears streaming down their face. how to be more gentle and more loving. i thought about how my semi-annual read, the peace giver, that teaches me that someone else knows how i feel when i hand my baby over to strangers with lots of faith things will go smoothly.

and on the happy front, once we fulfilled our dutiful 6 hour dedication to the syringe, liquid and eating right after - we are happy. she is kissing my face tonight, talking up a storm and indulging on a rare appearance of mac and crack, er cheese at the bar. so, from this house to yours may your tears encompass all the tragedies these tears covered today - and may your load feel lighter afterwards.....amen

progress...

please, pronounce that as PRO gress instead of pragress. i am kind of in love with french canadian accents as of late. a little property virgins from HGTV makes me happy.
sidetracking stopped.

here are the timbers as of last week, and yesterday......we got a roof. pictures to come soon.

weekend.

temple {new}.indian food {bombay house} declaration from bud "e" it was the best meal he ever had {proud and happy motha}. homestead {swimming}. spin cafe {happy}. zoo. {stinky} dinner for a neighbor and new baby {hungry in 2 ways} some pictures....


and a little house browsing in the lovely swiss town of midway. it is our other hobby, i mean ONLY hobby as of late..