RecipeMuncher

Just 10 days ago, my dearest childhood friend got hitched! We’ve been friends since 3rd grade, through ups and downs, through moves across oceans and cross country. She has always been there for me, and it was such a joy to be at her wedding, to see her start a new chapter in life. She was also the most cheerful & coolest bride I’ve seen and she had a beautiful Indian ceremony in New Jersey.

For Father's Day the kids gave Bill cards and candy and hugs and generosity (they didn't eat all the candy before he got some).

And tonight I'm roasting some Cornish Game Hens and cooking up some lovely kohlrabi I got at the farmers' market the other day AND some of the pea tenrils and leaves, not that most of the pea pods have been consumed.  Should be tasty.

And we'll probably sample some of the goat cheese I made - I'll do a whole post on that probably tomorrow - not enough time today.

And so what does the lucky Man of the House get to do today?  Go fishing?  Play darts, drink beer and smoke cigars?  Snooze on the couch?

Nope.

He's upstairs patching the hardwoods outside of the kids' rooms.  When we (well, Bill and Joe - I had no part in it) took down part of the wall and the original doorway into the original big room, it left some gaps in the hardwoods.  And so Bill is fixing that whole mess.

It's a big project, partly because whoever put the floor in originally has the tongue & groove parts lined up one way for a while, then the other way…plus there are a couple boards that were cut thinner so they could fill a space wider than a standard piece of hardwood flooring…it's all kinds of tricky, especially when it's not Bill's day job.  But he's got it figured out, and he's up there sawing and nailing and cursing as I type this.  But he's determined to finish it today, and I'm very sure he will.

That's his Father's day gift to himself, I think.  To get that project over with.

And in other news, I've primed Julia's room and I bought the paint, so I'm all ready to go on that, but I'll probably leave it til tomorrow, since I don't want any of the flying sawdust to end up as a funky texture on Julia's walls.

I lucked out at Lowe's, too, where I bought the paint.  I wanted a gallon and a quart of one of the shades of pink, and the guy gave me two gallons.  They were out of quarts (which seems odd to me, but whatever) and so he gave me the second gallon for the price of a quart.  Woo hoo!  So who knows what else I'll paint pink…

By the way, in case you were wondering, I'm using Olympic Premium Interior Paint on the walls - it's got zero VOCs, so we're not letting harmful chemicals loose into the atmosphere or our kids' lungs. 

The colors for Alex's room are Free Spirit, Aqua Dusk and Aqua Chiffon (I think.  The cans are upstairs and Bill's got all his saws and things in the way and I don't want to disturb him.) and there'll be a dark green - I think it's Medieval Forest - for the baseboards and around the doorframes.  But that's not done yet, since we don't have the door frames or most of the baseboards up.

Julia's room will be swathed in Cotton Candy, Pink Chintz, and Magic Magenta.  Of course.

I don't think I'll be using the same sponge technique I used in Alex's room this time around, but I'll be doing something to add some texture and visual interest.  Just not sure what yet.  I bought a few practice boards so I can play around with the sponges for other effects. 

Updates to come.

Right now I need to check the bread in the oven.  Oh - and here's a handy tip for you - when you're doing things upstairs and in the kitchen, like putting primer on walls and making bread…and then you take a shower and make your list of paints…and you've got your bread IN THE PANS for their final rise…well…maybe it would be a good idea to bake the bread first.  That way when you get home they won't have risen to twice their size and be stuck together and threatening to spill over the sides of the pans. 

Just in case you were thinking about multitasking like that.  But you probably weren't.