Turtle or Tortoise, or Whatever

What I mean to say is that slow and steady wins the race, right? We’re ever-so-slowly starting to make some small home updates. I took a slew of pictures to share with you guys and I remembered how much I love photographing non-babies. Don’t get me wrong, taking pictures of Rose is like my number one hobby, but walking around the house with a camera with just the right light makes me feel squishy and marvelous.

Speaking of just the right light… our gallery wall lights up like a firecracker in the evenings. It’s probably terrible for our artwork, but good for the soul. And that’s what’s important.

We used to have these exact Mallard bookends when I was a kid. I longed for them, but alas my mom had given them away years ago. She found these in a Goodwill and knew it would be the easiest $4 she’d ever spend. Thanks Mom.

I’m in love with them. I have a thing for ducks. And for brass. So.

These roses were leftover from our open house last weekend at Steve’s parent’s house. They’re still alive and kicking and remind me how much I love having fresh flowers in the house.

New plant! (Crazy plant lady, here. Did you forget about me?) I managed to sneak this guy in without Steve being the wiser. He had no idea I added a new addition to our family until I casually brought it up one day. One important nugget of information he did notice? His golden skull was moved. He feels a little shafted by the brass ducks, but he’s licking his wounds and recovering.

We hung our sconces by the temple rubbing in the master bedroom over the weekend. It gives the room a nice romantic glow. But not for baby making. I’m so over making babies — don’t you go getting any ideas about another addition to this family. Except for plants. Plant babies are always welcome.

During our South Haven vacation last summer, we found these window panes at a vintage shop in the downtown area. I’ve been holding onto them, planning on hanging them in our bathroom. Well, it finally happened.

The plan: I want to paint a sort of abstract / gradient-rich watercolor of an ocean landscape to hang behind the glass. It’ll hopefully give the allusion that we’re living somewhere fabulous. Our little getaway.

As I was touring my own home, I realized I never showed you the cross-stitch that took TWO WEEKS because it included the then-secret name of our baby duckling.

Yes. Two weeks. Rose will be in college and will still have to hear about that one time when I developed early arthritis because it took me TWO WEEKS to cross-stitch her name. I also made the pattern myself. And then I ate that delicious chip off my shoulder.

I mentioned this mobile a few days ago, but never showed you Rose’s view. Can’t you see why she’s always so engaged?

The high-contrast geometric shapes are perfect for her level of vision, and the links make it the perfect distance from her face. And it was only twenty bucks. I wish more companies made simple, inexpensive, and engaging baby toys.

So those are the updates. Slow and steady, people. Think turtles.

Plants and a Little A.D.D.

I mentioned a week ago that there were a few untimely plant deaths in The Harpster Home. [insert sad funeral march]

I didn’t capture the deaths on camera because A. I thought that seemed a little too macabre for this blog, or B. I just forgot. “B” is the real reason. Here’s another “A” and “B” scenario: The plants died because A. soft water kills plants, or B. I didn’t give them enough water. The answer is mostly “A.” Mostly.

The nice lady at the nursery told me that soft water burns plant roots and that my succulents and air plants were probably too fragile to withstand that sort of mistake. I did fail to mention to her that I had been lazy about watering. I’m sure she would’ve also said “hey lady. you’re an idiot” if given the chance.

I filled up the silver pot on the coffee table with the large, surviving air plants:

They seem to be pretty happy in there. Happier than the succulents were, at least.

On my way to photograph the plant basket in the kitchen I got distracted by how pretty the sun looked on the kitchen rug. I went to take a picture, and this happened:

The Belly is growing. That is one thing I’m not forgetting to water, don’t worry.

Here is our new dinette corner, sans air plants:

As much as I liked the clear, glass globes filled with pebbles and greenery, I think I like this better. This nook seems much less chaotic, and this hanging basket has a presence that demands attention. Like Lady Gaga but less meat dress and make-up and more natural beauty.

I was heading to the desk to put the camera away when I saw Olive sleeping by Steve’s feet. I had to crawl on the ground and snap a quick picture. We have so many pictures of her; I can’t resist that face.

I’m pretty sure she knew I was there. I think she was trying to be an attractive sleeper for the camera. Not like her mom who is an ugly sleeper. Mouth open and snoring, from what Steve tells me.

While I was on the ground with her I saw my new basket in the background that I realized I had never photographed for you good people.

I got it a few weekends ago when I was in Cincinnati at a farmer’s market / bizarre sort of outdoor event. Isn’t it full of charm and character? I thought it would be a great place to corral toys and kid paraphernalia in the family room.

I just now realized that the whole point of this post was to show you guys my new plants and I absolutely failed on all accounts. I got a Snake Plant for the nursery, and a Neon Pothos for the kitchen. Google it.

Thank you for following me along my A.D.D.-filled journey. I hope you guys have a wonderful weekend!

Cha Cha Cha Changes

So, the gallery wall. It bugged me. You all knew that.

I made a decision that it was the Chicago print that bothered me. Not because I don’t love it — because I do — but because the colors made me want to go all cross-eyed. Also, that big, black frame was too heavy for the centerpiece.

A few little tweaks and I think we have a vast improvement! The first order of business was replacing that frame. I found this oak-ish colored one at the Indy ReStore for $10. Yup. I know. Go ahead and pat me on the back. I deserve it. 10 bucks! It’s pretty and ornate and was only 10 BUCKS!

I was searching high and low on the internet for a print to replace good ole Chicago when it dawned on me that I had a print in my closet that was so meaningful, so special, and so obviously needed to be the center of attention.

I probably didn’t think of it at first because I knew this particular print wasn’t large enough for this spot. But after taping it to a piece of white poster board (matting done on the cheap) it filled up that frame like it had just been waiting his whole life for this opportunity. Like the Olympics. The Picture Frame Olympics. YOU GET A GOLD MEDAL, MY FRIEND.

I’m sitting here with tears in my eyes, like a big ball of pregnant emotional goo, as I explain this to you. One of my dearest friends, like I love this girl so much I can’t explain it (and her totally amazing husband, who we joke about being Steve’s long-lost something. I mean they have to be related. They’re like the same person), got this print for us as a wedding present. So, that is Emotional Cue #1. Emotional Cue #2 is what is on the print. Our first dance was La Vie En Rose by Louis Armstrong, so yeah. Crying. Lots of tears when I opened it back in March. Did her and her husband hit this nail on the head, or what? Kelly, if you’re reading this, thank you. You’ll never know how much this gift means to me.

And it’s so full of letterpress goodness, and it’s textural, and amazing.

I don’t know why it took me so long to figure out that this needed to live here. All that matters is I have finally figured it out. And it’s home.

Did you notice another small change to the gallery wall? If you did you deserve a gold star. Or a cookie.

Our first two ultrasounds are hanging proudly! Man, I can’t wait to meet this little gummy bear.

Also, here’s a never-before-seen picture of the height of this room. I don’t know if I’ve ever actually gotten a picture of this wall before, in all it’s glory. It’s tall one. It allows for a very monsterous Hanukkah Bush. (See Dad? We call our Christmas Tree a Hanukkah Bush, too.)

And here’s an obligatory picture of Olive.

Those eyes. She’s just the saddest happiest dog that ever lived.

Happy Hump Day, everyone! Might I suggest a McDonalds hash brown to start your day? Breakfast of Champions. Or of Pregnant Women Everywhere.

 

 

A Reprieve from OCD

One word: PHEW

Let me tell you something about our laundry room: I love it. There’s a big “but” in there, though. I love big butts and I cannot lie.

I love our laundry room, BUT every time I walked past the non-matching washer and dryer a little part of me died inside.

GAH!

It was an involuntary twitch every time I walked into this room. A spasm. My OCD had trouble processing the information. It did not compute.

Enter Stage Right: My superhero best friend, Molly. She was selling her home and no longer had the need for her High Efficiency, basically brand-spankin’ new washer and dryer. Being the totally rad person that she is, she sold them to us for a fraction of what she paid for them, and… wait for it….
wait for it…..
AND SHE DELIVERED THEM.

Am I a lucky girl, or what? She also brought me gummy bears, but that’s beside the point.

After we finagled them off of the truck and into their new home my twitches and spasms disappeared.

If that’s not the whitest, brightest smile you’ve ever seen then, well, I just don’t think you understand how monumental this is.

That mirror definitely doesn’t make their butt look big.

They’re all fancy and electronic and make sounds that ape a space shuttle control room. I have my own little laboratory in here. My favorite sound is when I change the load from cool cool to warm cool. It’s like a delightful little electronic bird chirping a song it wrote just for me.

And THAT my friends is how you fix a miss-matched washer / dryer situation.

Step 1: Find a superhero best friend who likes to bring you gummy bears
Step 2: That same friend also needs to be selling their current washer and dryer
Step 3: Gummy Bear friend will deliver new appliances from Cincinnati to Indianapolis
Step 4: Cook said friend dinner

And that’s all you need to do to get this project done on your very own! Good luck!

Better Than Twilight

This saga I’m about to tell blows Twilight out of the water. But I’m on Team WhoGivesAHoot, so that’s probably not difficult by my standards.

Let me start off by defending my totally bad-ass husband, and add a disclaimer: the reason this project took so long is because of his long work hours (you know, at his real job), and the fact that neither of us had ever done this before. Learn from our mistakes, people. This is me, grabbing around your collar and shaking you vigorously: LEARN FROM OUR  MISTAKES.

Caulking. Hold your fire; you don’t have to make any jokes about that word because I used them all up throughout the course of this project. Black caulk, white caulk, your caulk is leaking… we have that topic covered.

This 11 day project started because of a simple problem: the old, dark green paint was left on all of the caulking around the entire master bathroom.

It wasn’t the painters fault – their job was to paint, not replace any caulk. It was really nobody’s fault, just something that happens when you switch from a saturated, dark color to a light and airy one.

It was all we could see when we looked at the bathroom.

Enter: the tools. I thought we would just buy this cute little yellow packet of tools, go to town, fix ‘er up, drink a margarita, and call it a day. And then unicorns were going to give me a manicure while I farted rainbows.

Ho, ho hooooo boy was I wrong.

This is me starting to scrape away the discolored caulk (::snicker::)

Yeah, plastic tools kinda suck. This is what I was left with:

Then steps in my beastly husband and his all-powerful tool set. I’m not even sure what tool he used. It looked like a chisel? I don’t know, anything past a hammer or a screwdriver and I’m basically nose down in a dictionary.

I can practically hear Tim the Tool Man Taylor grunting in the background. So, imagine this level of destruction, all the way around the bathroom. After some spackling and primer we were left with a pretty good-looking wall.

By this point a few days had gone by, and Steve attempted to paint the wall, and then run a bead of caulking along the seam. And wouldn’t you know it? IT DIDN’T WORK. Every single time he had problems. We realized it was because we weren’t taping off the walls to protect the paint from the caulk when it was spread, so he would rub the caulking off to try it again, and then all of the paint and primer and spackling would rub off. So, that step was completed multiple times. Frustrating. Very frustrating.

So, that being said, that’s where the majority of the extra days went. This project wouldn’t have taken so long if we would’ve just used the method below.

ATTENTION: USE THE METHOD BELOW (Please, please, please save yourself many gray hairs and loud bursts of profanity, and just follow the next few steps.)

Ok, so let’s pretend this is where we started. La Tee Daaa, here we are. The wall is spackled, and then was promptly primed and painted.

We taped off the wall to allow just a small crease where the caulking would go.

Excuse the terrible quality. I was zoomed in from across the room. I didn’t want to disturb the master. You know how you feel when you’re watching a superhero movie and you’re practically holding your breath during the epic fight scene at the end, afraid to breathe because you just want the good guy to win so badly? That’s how I felt watching Steve vs. The Caulking. And he totally won. It was awesome.

You can see why the tape was needed. This phase, where you spread out the caulk so it seals the crack, gets quite messy if you don’t have the tape. Steve totally owned this round.

While everything was still wet, he ripped that tape off. Well, more like gingerly pulled it up.

TA DAH!

You guys, I seriously wasn’t sure if we were going to make it through this project. You ever have one of those ideas that you think is going to take you a day, and it turns out taking 11 days? ELEVEN DAYS. 11 days of spackling everywhere, drying paintbrushes cluttering the sinks, rollers, and tools strewn about the room. Yeah, I was over it. But I can’t even tell you how proud I am of my never-give-up lumberjack. Thanks to his patience this project is now over and looks truly incredible. I didn’t really do anything but wipe his sweat and snap a few photos. All the credit goes to Steve on this one.

The moral of this story is when the going gets tough give up and drink a cocktail keep trying until you get it right. It’ll happen.

The end.

Trim Your Bush

I’m probably going to get all kinds of random traffic to the blog today. If you came here in search of something else, my apologies.

Today’s post subject is simple, yet effective. It’s all about how 10 minutes spent taming your shrubs can make a world of difference. I’m not a big “yard work” person. I threw those quotes in there because if we were talking in person I would’ve most definitely done air quotes around that phrase. “Yard work” isn’t really my cup of tea, or rather, my flute of champagne.

BUT, something had to be done about this shrub outside of my kitchen window.

Every time I did dishes I got this nagging sensation that I needed a haircut because I couldn’t see out of my window. I don’t even have bangs, but I felt like they were covering my eyes.

Do you see that punk? Just blocking the window like he owns the place. I went out to investigate. Don’t think those pretty flowers were fooling me at all.

I busted out my $10 best-garage-sale-find-ever electric trimmers and went to town. Imagine me going all Edward Scissorhands on that bush. It was madness.

Olive oversaw the procedure. She was precisely just as bored in real life as she looks in this picture.

After I was done I was left with this beaut:

I may have lost a few flowers in the process, but it was well worth it. That electric trimmer is something I suggest all homeowners go out and purchase today. This project literally took me 10 minutes.

And it was awesome. I felt kind of like a bad ass, wielding my power tool. That’s what happens when Steve has to work on the weekends. I get all high and mighty and bust out my power tools. OUR power tools. Ok, his power tools. But, still.

I know this picture is terrible because the sun was SO BRIGHT and everything beyond the bush is washed out, but the point is that I CAN SEE NOW. I can see if Jason or Freddy Krueger tries to sneak up in front of the window now. OR A ZOMBIE! A few less things to be afraid of!

I love anything that yields a major improvement after only 10 minutes. So, what I’m saying ladies is take the time to trim your bush.

Happy Tuesday!

A New Knobby Knob

Let me set up a bit of a back story here. We let Olive out of our back door, into the backyard, every single day.

Every day – multiple times of the day – we struggled to get the door open. When we turned the handle on that door, the latch never pulled in all the way, so we had to give it a few pumps before the door would unlatch. ALSO it was impossible to lock. I had to put all of my weight on the door with a hefty heave-ho and simultaneously turn the deadbolt to get it to lock. Watching me open that damn door was like watching the choreography of Swan Lake, but much less graceful. I’m a grunter.

We eventually want to get rid of our brass door handles because A they’re ugly and B we can’t stand the shape of them. Just give us a nice, round knob. That’s what she said.

Instead of buying them all at once (!!$$$!!$!$!$) we started with just this back door over the weekend. I’ll admit it’s not the most visually impressive change we’ve accomplished around here, but HOLY HELL. Let me tell you guys how happy it makes me.

Imagine me waking up in the morning to let my little baby Olive outside to go potty. I approach the door, and with a simple flick of my wrist I turn the deadbolt open. AND THEN! And then I turn the door knob and the door opens with ease.

Did you guys hear the birds as they happily chirped for me? Did you see the squirrels give me a standing ovation? It’s getting all Cinderella up in here. BECAUSE THIS DOOR KNOB IS A DREAM COME TRUE. See what I did there? Suddenly my life feels like a fairy tale.

Here’s a close up of My Most Favorite New Family Member:

I totally should’ve taken a video of me trying to open the door before we changed out the knobs, and then one after. But the before would’ve been filled with expletives and desperation, and I probably would’ve been kicked out of the internet and/or shamed into never returning.

So, my apologies to you guys. I know this doesn’t look that exciting. But let me tell you what, I suggest you all go and buy yourself a non-sticking new knobby knob. It will CHANGE YOUR LIFE.

Another Splended Weekend

Man, if I don’t blog until Thursday of any given week, if sure feels like my months are filled with weekends. I have more weekend updates for you today. But I am warning you I am nowhere near as funny as Tina Fey. Tina Fey, if you are reading this I would really like to be your friend. Or even Liz Lemon’s friend. Two in the same, right?

Ok, focus. Weekend. We had a rip roarin’ good time! We got a few projects done that I’m going to share in more depth in a separate post (I know, go ahead and roll your eyes) like cleaning and organizing half of the garage and sewing a few more pillows. But here are some of the highlights:

Sconces! Finally! We hung three out of the four over the bed. One of them was broken and I was always afraid it was going to shatter and sprinkle little shards of death upon us while we slept. Three felt like a better fit, anyway.

I’m just going to say one thing: I recommend candles in the bedroom. And before this gets any creepier I’m just going to move on to the next topic.

Steve hung my “see the back of my head while I do my hair” mirror in the bathroom. This may not seem like a big deal but you have no idea how much I learned about my backside this weekend. I can see it all now! Still debating if that’s good or bad news.

There are a kajillion garage sales this coming weekend, but we decided to hit one up on Memorial Day. And I’m glad we did because we scored a pair of nightstands for our master bedroom!

Use your imagination. I REPEAT: use your imagination. A few coats of paint and some new hardware ought to welcome these babies to 2012.

It’s all in the details. These babies had me at the faux keyhole and detailing in the woodwork.

Oh yeah. And they also had me at the price tag. HIGH FIVE.

And when did garage sales get so fancy? Printed prices? Oooh lah lah!

Angela and Christian taught us Dominoes last time they were in town, and we went out and bought a set after they left. We’ve been playing it pretty much non stop since then. It’s addictive!

Olive helped out a little bit. Or napped. Whatever.

It’s adorable how she meanders through our playing field, though. She wants to get right up in our business but manages to step around all of the Dominoes without knocking anything over. Bravo Olive, bravo.

Forever a goof ball. I wish you could see the ferocity with which her tail wags as she’s pushing the limits of Dominoes tightrope walking.

More project pictures from the weekend to come later this week! It was so nice to just relax and work on the house again. There is nothing more exciting for us than crossing things off our to-do list. Oops! Our Nerd is showing!