house reno

design + style, Fixer Upper, house reno, pregnancy, self care

Painted linoleum floors, postpartum PT, and learning to sit down

July 24, 2018

It has been tough to string more than couple of words together the past few weeks. The days are going by quickly and I’m shocked that we’re edging in on August, but around 3 pm every weekday, time seems to stand still, and there aren’t enough Otter Pops in the universe to hasten the coming of bedtime.

I am looking forward to a new school year, but my inner teenager shudders at store end-caps already filled with college ruled spiral notebooks and crayons. I wish for a carefree end to summer for my children’s sake, and I wish for a return to normalcy in schedule for my sake.

Both older boys have asked me in all earnestness at some point during the summer to homeschool them, and then reneged on the request when I explained that school at home would still, in fact, involve schoolwork.

I did consider the possibility for about 2 hours; I even got so far as to text a couple homeschooling friends, asking what their discernment process had been. Then Dave went out of town for the weekend and all thoughts of teaching my little darlings math and Latin were ejected from my brain by 48 hours of solo parenting.

We’ve had a good summer, and I’m glad we’ve been able to spend so much time together. I’m also glad I am not responsible for their mathematical development.

I’m trying to implement some better time management strategies to help realize some of my perennially-deferred goals. I’ve been waking up earlier than the kids most mornings and forcing myself to produce for 30 minutes or 1,000 words – whichever comes first. I’ve also strapped the trusty old FitBit back on to hit that 10k step count each day. All of the swimming and early morning gym-haunting has yet to result in any visible results to my postpartum return of form, but I do feel better when I move.

Oddly enough, my body seems to be responding better to gentler workouts. I think I am probably so depleted from back to back pregnancies that strenuous workouts were further taxing an already stressed system.

Gentle walking and stretching seem to be what my body craves, so I’m trying to honor that. The physical therapist I’ve been working with has indefinitely ruled out running, which I’m going to be honest, is actually a huge relief! It’s great to just let go of that part of my identity, for now, and embrace what is rather than lamenting for what once was. Not by slipping into depressed inactivity or anything, but by really embracing a period of physical recovery and rebuilding. And by spending a small fortune on vitamin and mineral supplements.

I’ve come to realize that I usually exert a lot of time and energy in the postpartum period beating myself up – mentally and physically – straining to “undo” something that can’t actually be undone. Whether from sheer exhaustion or just experienced maturity, I haven’t been able to cow my body into submission this time around. When I hit the wall, instead of redoubling my efforts and crashing through it, I curled up at the base of it and took a nap.

It has been pretty eye opening to be honest with myself about what my body needs, and about the tremendous personal cost of having a baby. I don’t “bounce back” physically, though when I was younger I could grit my teeth and sort of fake it.

At 35 I don’t seem to have that same resilience. But I do have a little more wisdom and lots more experience, which seems to me to be a fair tradeoff. So when the baby sleeps, I sit on the couch with a toddler and read a book, or stare vacantly into space, or sometimes do some dinner prep.

Mostly though, I’m sitting down a lot (always with intentional and improved posture!).

Stretching. Going for walks around the block with the bigger kids and not gritting my teeth in frustration that I can’t run the laps we’re making. Spending a decent amount of time and money going to therapy, and just generally investing in myself. It feels decadent. It also feels almost disastrously overdue. It feels a bit like I’m backing away from the edge of an abyss, step by faltering step, and reclaiming some ground that was (necessarily) ceded during the chaos of the past two years of home buying and selling and baby growing.

The real sign that I’m recovering and starting to get my head above water? My urge to paint has been restored.

Last weekend when Dave was gone I pulled the trigger on a long-desired flooring update and painted the linoleum in the kitchen and downstairs bathroom. I’d put the kids to bed and then creep downstairs each evening to tape and paint and after about 4 nights worth of effort (and 4 overnight drying periods) I’m just about finished with the whole project.

For around $60 bucks our lower level looks like a different house altogether, and I no longer feel like I’m peering bleakly into the mists of time while mopping spaghetti sauce off of hideous yellow linoleum. Time will tell how sturdy the “porch and floor” paint proves to be in an indoor application, but anything is better than our before pictures.

I’ll try to whip up a full tutorial one of these days for all my curious Instagram friends, but it was really one of the easier DIYs I’ve attempted.

For now, feast your eyes on the improvement:

What is the rest of your summer shaping up to look like? Are you eager for back to school time, or relishing in the last month of summer? My kids go back relatively late, as I understand, not resuming full classes until August 27th. I’ll have a second grader, a first grader, and a three day a week pre-K this year, which means I’ll be backing 13! lunches! a week! Come to think of it, summer can go ahead and stick around for a couple more weeks…

design + style, Family Life, house reno, local talent

The dinner table

November 22, 2017

For most of our still-young marriage we’ve had a steady stream of ugly, hand-me-down tables holding court as sort of placeholders in our kitchen or dining room, marking the spot where “someday” we’d put a real farmhouse table, a beautiful piece of furniture large enough to accommodate our growing collection of backsides plus a couple guests. We’ve had the 400 pound, everyone’s-mom-has-one-somewhere-in-the-house 90’s extendable oak pedestal table painted in multiple colors, the hideous but breathtakingly play-doh resistant farmhouse table with inlaid blue 80’s ceramic tile surface, and the tiny 3-person IKEA bistro table wedged into our triangular sailboat kitchen in a 5th floor Roman walkup apartment, only useable due to the presence of double IKEA plastic high chairs flanking either end.

When we moved this past summer we only budgeted for two new pieces of furniture: a kitchen table and a set of bunk beds for our boys. I found a set of those I loved at Walmart of all places, and they were remarkably affordable (though after my saintly father spent 5+ hours assembling them, we discovered why…) but the table was a little trickier.

I knew with baby number 5 on the way and a dedicated, honest-to-goodness dining room in our new house I wanted a real table we could gather around for years to come, one we wouldn’t break or outgrow in a year or three. But then there was the small matter of not having a Pottery Barn budget or much luck at the thrift shops that have delivered up so much bounty over the years. I looked and looked and just could not find something that fit the bill, so I resigned myself mentally to spending $700(!!!) on something disposable from IKEA that fit the length requirement, and that was going to be that.

It probably seems silly that I was fixated on a stupid table, but for me it represented more than just a piece of furniture. I am pretty detached from home furnishings, truth be told. Our entire house is a mishmash of Goodwill finds and hand-me-downs from friends and Craigslist scores, and I’m pretty chill about my kids destroying each and every single piece of it, but a table was something different.

Growing up with my 6 siblings, the table was the real centerpiece of our home. We had most of our dinners together and it was the school in which we were educated in the fine art of debate (often times heated), politics, theology, philosophy, and what Katy so-and-so said in the lunch room that day. We had a huge, long table, and there was always room for at least a friend or a neighbor kid or two. We were all expected to take place in the (occasionally) robust discussion which, to be honest, sometimes included raised voices and blood pressures.

I longed for my kids to have the same experience, and I felt strongly that the thing needed to be at least 7 feet long for our purposes. Would a smaller table work? Sure, and we’ve been making it work for 7+ years. But I wanted to have a longer term solution in place so that we could start early, schooling them in the fine art of dinnertime banter. And with 5 little butts in seats, it was getting pretty cramped around a table built for 6, particularly when any of our plentiful extended family were present.

Towards the end of the summer, after our 5th? 6th? house contract had fallen through and I was beginning to doubt we’d ever actually be living in a house we’d need to furnish, I attended a baby shower for a friend and I’m telling you, when I walked into her beautiful home, I laid eyes on the most gorgeous three dimensional platform for supporting dinner plates and elbows that the world has ever seen.

I gasped and asked her where it was from. Arhaus? Pottery Barn? Crate and Barrel? DID SHE DRIVE TO WACO AND HAVE CHIP AND JOJO HAND CARVE IT THEMSELVES WHILE SINGING PRAISE AND WORSHIP SONGS?

Nope, her husband made it. And for a super reasonable amount of money. Like crummy pre-fab IKEA table money.

“He could make you one too, I’m sure.”

Dead. I was sold. I was so excited, and although our ridiculous house hunt pushed the delivery date back a few times, by September we had our very own dreamy, custom-built dining room table (and matching bench!) which comfortably seats ten for a fraction of what it would have cost in a fancy, built-overseas-in-poor-labor-conditions retail outlet. My girlfriend even texted me a couple pictures of the process as it came together in her husband’s workshop in their backyard.

I love it so much. I love that every time we sit down to a meal we’re adding to a string of linked experiences that will stretch across the next 20 years. I love that he shellacked the thing with a billion coats of polycrylic per my request and that I can clean it with diaper wipes. Man, this is living.

What I love the most though? That it was built with love, and that God answered my silly, insignificant desire for a beautiful piece of furniture to gather our family around three times a day (and to work from too, as it turns out.)

If you’re local to Colorado, I’d love to put you in touch with Ryan at Blue Nails Woodcraft (read the poem that inspired the name at the end of this post) and see about getting one of these pretties custom built for your family, too. He can go the gauntlet from sturdy and no frills to high end artisanal craftsmanship, and the thrill of custom designing your own piece of furniture is something that I imagine few people in my generation have gotten to experience.

Cheerios under table incorporated to enhance realistic feel. (Laundry pile in bay window not included with purchase.)

*For pricing and customization information, call Ryan at (720) 933-1974 or email [email protected]*

From our big ‘ol table and the whole Uebbing crew, a blessed and beautiful Thanksgiving to you and yours.

Joseph and Child Jesus

By Father Leonard Feeney

Whenever the bright blue nails would drop,
Down on the floor of his carpenter’s shop,
St. Joseph, prince of carpenter men,
Would stoop to gather them up again;

For he feared for two little sandals sweet
And very easy to pierce they were
As they pattered over the lumber there
And rode on two little sandals sweet.

But alas on a hill between earth and heaven,
One day-two nails into a cross were driven
And fastened it firm to the Sacred Feet
Where once rode two little sandals sweet.
And Christ and His Mother looked off in death,
Afar-to the valley of Nazareth

Where the carpenter shop was spread with dust
And the little blue nails all packed in rust
Slept in a box on a window sill;
And Joseph lay sleeping under the hill.

coffee clicks, design + style, house reno

Coffee clicks + bathroom pics

October 27, 2017

Snappy, yes?

There’s a nesting bug infestation at our house right now, so at the end of this week’s list of must-reads from around the Catholic inter webs, I’ll regale you with a tale of two vanities. It was an endeavor of monumental proportions (mine) and really pleasing bang-for-buck, because our master bath and the kid’s bathroom look utterly transformed by about $50 in paint and supplies. My kids have become accustomed to mommy disappearing to the nether regions of the house to paint things for most of their short lives, so the only real advice I have to other aspiring DIY-ers out there with small children underfoot is “paint early, and paint often.”

Also, Netflix.

But first, our list. In honor of the upcoming observance of All Hallow’s Eve and the great Feast of All Saints, this week’s offerings are a tad diabolical in nature.

-1-

Italian exorcist: “There is a demon that targets the family.” Anyone who gives even a cursory glimpse to the headlines most days could confirm that suspicion, much as it’s out of fashion to attribute suffering in 2017 to the existence of evil. Still, a chilling and appropriate read this time of year. How do you talk to your children about the devil? About the existence of evil, and about the spiritual warfare we are involved in as baptized Christians?

-2-

This one hits close to home – literally. We live about 5 blocks between the two schools featured in this piece, and in fact I’m writing this from a Starbucks adjacent to Arapaho High School, where posters promoting “Offline October” adorn the community bulletin board. Archbishop Aquila touches on some really crucial points in the battle for our children’s hearts and minds, particularly in supporting burgeoning young adults learning to navigate a profoundly different world from the one even we oldest millennials came of age in. Take a quick moment to say a prayer for someone who is contemplating suicide today. You never know where those prayers could be directed.

-3-

I think this piece is always worth re-running this time of year. I had an interesting conversation on Facebook with a Latin American reader yesterday that got into some of the differences between the way Halloween is celebrated outside the United States. Obviously I’m writing from an American perspective, but what I’ve observed about the holiday over the years (and participated in with my own kids) bears little resemblance to anything dark or demonic. We don’t do witches or devil costumes. We don’t do chainsaw killers or Harry Potter or grotesque decorations. But I see little harm in dressing as a super hero or a princess (or heck, recycling that saint costume you’re going to be putting on again in the morning) and mingling with the neighbors for candy. Plus, there are some decidedly Catholic origins to the way we practice Halloween today.

-4-

Not everything that pops up around this time of year is harmless, however. Ever heard of the cult surrounding “Saint Death?” Drug lords, folk religion, and a pinch of superstition all wrapped up in one ugly package.

And now for some lighter fare. Actually, it’s still pretty dark. I went with a charcoal-ish navy blue to bring these sad, 70’s oak bathroom vanities into the light of the present day, and I think it turned out pretty nicely, if I do say so myself. And I’ve got the pixilated cell phone shots to prove it:

Before:

This is not my bathroom. Every time I got close enough to the scene of the crime (carpeted toilet-surround) I had to back away lest I vomit. I think we ripped the carpets out 5 hours after we closed, a week before we moved in.

Progress shot. The friendly gentleman at Home Depot recommended a thorough chemical stripping and sanding. I opted for a biodegradable cleaning solution and a baby wipe. Progress over perfection, that’s my motto.

Midway point:

This is always when I run out of steam and think, gosh, can I just skip the topcoat of polycryic and get on with my life? (Short answer? No. Not with 5 kids.)

And, voila, after:

Kids’ (didn’t my father in law do an amazing job on our tile? It was super cheap, too. Under $100 for both bathrooms, though I can’t promise that’s accounting for the toll on his knees and back.)

Nesting for me literally manifests as “oh my gosh, what should I paint today????” And meanwhile, barely cooking dinner. PB+J but a really nicely coming-together house, that’s my 3rd trimester MO.

(And guys, don’t worry, the paint was low VOC. Definitely safer than bleaching baseboards.)

Colors, for anyone who cares:

Mirror: Valspar chalky finish in Oxford White
Vanity: Behr premium plus in Night Sky

Happy weekend to you and yours!

About Me, Fixer Upper, house reno

New digs + downstairs tour (and the backstory of buying two houses in a single calendar year)

August 25, 2017

After an arduous journey through the hell that is the current real estate market in the Mile High City, we were thrilled to close on a house of our very own a couple weeks ago on August 11th. I haven’t talked about it in great detail here on the blog, but the reason we sold our last home, (which we only bought August 14th of last year) basically boiled down to a whole bunch of cosmetic issues turning out to be structural issues, upon further inve$tigation. Also, mold. The mold was really the last straw. We found it in the basement in the back wall of our big boy’s bedroom at the end of a long renovation process, and we decided to call the game. We had it professionally remediated, the air tested clean, and then we put the house (and the disclosure documents) on the market.

Thanks to the incredible generosity of friends and the providence of God, we were able to spend a couple ~~weeks~~ months living in a house north of the city while a family just our size – 3 boys and a girl – served overseas doing mission work. They assured us that we were an answered prayer, as they felt comforted knowing their house wouldn’t sit vacant in their absence. We’re still pretty sure we got the better end of the deal, however, and we’re hoping we can pay that generosity forward at some point down the road.

Since they left behind their furniture and kitchen gear, it was basically like moving into an extended stay hotel or a vacation rental. We kept all our things packed in boxes in their oversized two car garage and just brought in sheets and clothes.

While the setup of this house was ideal and the generosity of our friends unprecedented, it wasn’t without it’s imperfections. It was about an hour each way to work each day for Dave, and when school was in session, I would leave around 2:15 for pickup and sometimes get back close to 5, traffic depending. So we learned to embrace the minivan’s DVD player and the art of living out of a van (but not down by the river.) Still, I don’t care if I never see I-25 again. At least for a month or two.

It also made house hunting … interesting. Once the first trimester started to ease up, I’d spend an hour or so in the morning scanning the listings, send a handful to our realtor, and then jump in the car and see a house or four before hightailing it back north to beat rush hour and/or scoop up the big kids from school. We saw about 70% of the houses with all 4 kids in tow, which was really, really fun for our realtor, St. Brendan. We walked through close to 80 houses in a couple month’s time, and we were under contract seven (7!) frapping times before locking down a very Biblical home run with our current abode. I was beginning to despair that my desperate artificial deadline which I beseeched the Lord with was ever going to be met. (I pleaded with Him: “don’t let me have to make that drive again this school year; not even once.”)

Well, against all odds, mere hours after our 6th contract fell through (#foundationissues), our home came on the market. It was listed as an estate being dissolved by the adult children of the deceased owner, who took impeccable care of it and very much embraced the 70’s whence it was built. So the windows and AC and water heater and all the serious business had been updated, but the gold shag carpet (in.the.bathrooms), yellow linoleum and faux wood panelling game was strong. (Is still strong, linoleum-wise. Embracing my inner Kendra Tierney.)

We saw the house 2 hours after it hit the market, on a Thursday afternoon, wrote an offer that night, and had a signed contract before the end of the day on Friday. We got it for slightly under asking but still a bit more than we’d been hoping to pay, but it’s in our ideal neighborhood, close to my sisters, and 10 minutes from our parish and 20 from school. Plus, at 2,900 sq feet including an unfinished basement, we’re not about to bust out of it any time soon. In fact, I plan to be buried here because after 8 moves in 7 years of marriage, we’re loading another Uhaul only if my casket’s inside.

I know some people thought we were morons for trying to buy a house in this market (and I got a few lovely comments on social media to that effect. People be classy.) But we both felt that God had more for us. And after 6 months of almost continuous respiratory and GI illness in our old house, we figured out that the mold was actually making us really, really sick. Me and the two big boys, in particular. Within a week of moving into our friend’s home in the spring, every single one of us had a complete return to health. It was actually kind of disturbing, in retrospect, because it made us realize how sick we’d really been, and for how long.

Our new house tested mercifully mold and moisture free, and the basement being unfinished was actually a bonus to us, because we could be diligent in our investigation of any possible moisture incursion and rest easy that no below-grade drywall was hiding a dirty secret.

Once we closed earlier in the month, we had a little over a week until school started, and so we rolled up our sleeves, called in our sibling and parent crew, and got to work. (Well, they got to work. I made a lot of runs to Starbucks and Chipotle and wrangled a lot of kids for a lot of long nights solo.) My husband, his father, and his brothers tore out all the carpeting downstairs, took down a hunting lodge worth of faux wood paneling, beams, and bookshelves (trust me, it wasn’t charming or paint-able) and tiled two bathroom floors. I ripped down two room’s worth of wallpaper, painted the kitchen and family room (low voc and with a mask, fear not) and cleaned. We still have a ways to go (trim, moulding, some more paint) but overall it looks like a new house. I wish I’d saved the listing pics for before shots, but I was too busy ripping carpet up the hour after we got the keys to think about snapping evidence shots. So all I have for you is some after-ish shots today. Think of them more as “work in progress” shots.

We ended up moving in Saturday, August 19th, 2 days before school began, almost the literal 11th hour of my imaginary deadline with God. Nicely played, Lord.

The downstairs has a large living room, a formal dining room (which I love because of the size of our family/extended family) a half bath powder room, a family room with a fire place and great sliders out to the backyard, and a smallish galley style kitchen with a breakfast nook. I’ll probably end up putting a small table there for a homework center/grocery bag drop zone, but right now it’s where we’re eating our meals off a folding table while a girlfriend’s talented hubby builds us a custom farmhouse table + bench set. (Local Denver readers, stay tuned for details.)

Without further ado, please enjoy some adequate cellphone snaps and the reminder that lifestyle blogger I am not. And thanks for all the prayers along the long, bumpy ride. (And thanks to our wonderful community for all the muscle and all the meals the past week. We’ll never ask for moving help again, and we owe you a Saturday or 10 in return.)

Front yard and exterior. We’re on a super quiet street and all our neighbors are in their 60’s. Introvert’s dream.

Kitchen. Definitely the weakest link, but hey, new appliances. (And I don’t really like to cook anyway.)

Grainy view of the entryway/stairwell from the front door

It’s hard to convey the scale of the yard. It’s enormous and there is sooooo much grass. Dream come true.

40 foot Blue Spruce. I foresee decking this out with about 1,000 Christmas lights in a few short months.

Blurry fireplace vibes. Gas insert means minimal actual heat but also (high fives here) minimal actual mess. I’m all about them shortcuts.

Dining room with freshly installed hickory floor. Not crazy about the color or the board widths, but the price was right. We can afford to do one room a year in hardwood I think, provided nobody needs braces in the near future. 😉

View from the living room, through the kitchen into the family room.

Blurry little half bath. Imagine painted cabinets and Evie having a place to do her makeup, brother-free, in about 10 years. Plus a place for my guests to feign belief that my boys don’t pee all over the floor. Yellow linoleum covers a multitude of sins.

Living room with new grey carpet and childhood detritus.

Brooding shot of the living room from the other angle (have I mentioned that my dumbed down smartphone is no iPhone when it comes to pixels?)

Stay tuned for the vv exciting upstairs tour coming soon to a blog post near you, and happy Friday.

About Me, blessed is she, Family Life, house reno, Lent, social media, Trim Healthy Mama

Lately, in random bullet points

March 15, 2017

It’s full-blown spring here today. Blossoms about to pop into bloom, temperatures creeping up past the mid 70s, and so much wind. A month from now we’ll be buried in 22 inches of snow, I predict, so I try to keep my expectations low this time of year, because for every margarita-on-the-patio kind of afternoon Denver hands out in March, she predictably levies a devastating penalty in the form of spring blizzards come April and May. And sometimes (gulp) June.

But, it’s lovely. It’s lovely to be able to kick the kids outside after school, and to run around with them barefoot with a soccer ball. And oh, speaking of backyards, here’s a little glimpse of our new one:

Let them dissect my broken blowdryer. Very STEM.

That’s right, we moved. #again. It’s a temporary stint in a town north of Denver, in the home of some friends who are living oversees right now, whilst our pristine, staged and mostly packed home sits on the market (hopefully not for much longer, c’mon St. Joseph!) and we search for a new one.

The short version of the “why in the name of all that is good and reasonable would you move twice in 7 months with 4 children” is that our house, a fixer upper if ever the term were applicable, has been fixed. To the level of our competence, and then some. About 2 months ago, after a major construction project in the basement necessitating lots of professionals and lot$$$s of drywall and electrical work, we kinda threw our hands up and were like, um, what are we doing?

We are not handy people. Painting, laying flooring, some light caulking? Sure. We can handle that. But when walls started having to come down, it turned out we’d gotten in over our heads. Happily for us, the market is white hot here in the Denver metro area, and so when we finished up the last bit of work in the basement in February, we made the call to list it, because hey, we don’t love it. And we didn’t relish the notion of spending the next 4 years of weekends at Home Depot. We have had so much peace (after the initial “wth are we actually thinking about doing this???), and it was very providential the way the dominos all fell, including having this amazing home to stay in while we sell it, thanks to the generous hospitality of friends.

So, this whole situation may seem a little crazy to some people, but we’re okay with that. We’ve done plenty of things in the short 7.5 years we’ve been married that have been conventionally crazy. We figured, why stay in a house that doesn’t work for our family while we’re in the business of raising that family? We’d rather get into something smaller, if necessary, if it means we can have our nights and weekends back and can actually spend time together when we’re home. The house was less than ideal before the cascade of interventions, and so this time, we’ll look smarter at things that really do matter with a larger family, like a sleepy street with less traffic, a more suburban location, and a better floorpan that allows for common areas where the 6 of us (plus our large extended families) can gather.

Come on, St. Joseph. You’ve got 5 more days.

Looks good without people living there, doesn’t it?

There are some bonuses about this extended staycation situation we’ve entered into, including living in a totally different part of our area that we’d never spend time in otherwise (new parks, friends we don’t usually see, a new parish) and it’s interesting and fun and inconvenient all rolled into one. It has been fun to see familiar faces we only get to see at holiday events or big parties, and it is interesting to see life in a different parish, and to feel both welcomed and totally, totally off our game because our kids are struggling with the layout/lack of grandparent support/different Mass times. It’s given me a deep appreciation for how wonderful our parish really is, and how much of it we take for granted. Also? The drive. OMG THE DRIVING. We didn’t pull the kids out of school because we knew the commute was possible (the family whose home we’re borrowing were also students in our school) but hot damn, going from a leisurely 7 am wakeup and out-the-door-with-daddy by 7:40 am to reveille at still-dark thirty and a frantic scrambling of eggs, cinching of belts, making of lunches and slurping of espressos – and all before 7 am – has been shocking. I know that most grown ups live this way. I just never wanted to be one of them.

“Let’s all go grocery shopping in the snow at 4 pm, it’ll be great!”

My Lenten practice has been to get up early and pray before the kids, which means something starting with a 5. This is not a happy reality for me, but surprisingly, my internal clock has adjusted and I have been waking up on my own around 5:40 most mornings. I have to go to be no later than 10 now, but I should be doing that anyway because, adulthood. It’s been a good practice in self discipline, which I sorely lack. But boy, by 7pm every night, I am d.o.n.e. with parenting, dishes, mopping, answering emails, all of it. So the standards of cleanliness are relaxing, and my need to sit and chill with the kids at night is taking precedence over the need to shine that empty sink or get one more hour or writing squeezed in.

Probably it’s a better way to live. But it has been hard. It’s like I was still coasting on the fumes of survival mode mothering and now I’ve been thrust into the bigger-leagues of “you no longer have any free time during the day unless you guard that 45 minutes of quiet time like a prison sergeant,” because without predictable nap times (hello, crazy school pickup commute and car naps) and without my beloved mother’s helper who is now a good 45 minutes south of us, I’ve been boots on the ground in it in a way I have become unaccustomed to. In some ways it reminds me of our year in Rome, minus the good coffee, the beautiful churches, and the astonishing loneliness. I guess it just reminds me of having to be more self-sufficient and learning to navigate a strange new place (but still, Target. And a mini van.) and not being able to call a friend or sister 5 minutes down the road for some back up babysitting or a quick La Croix.

And, speaking of La Croix. I have a problem.

Next week I’ll be doing a live teaching event for Blessed is She and I’m kind of nervous. I’ve got plenty of speaking experience under my belt from various mom’s groups, conferences, and retreats I’ve participated in over the years, but for some reason doing it remotely behind a computer screen has me a little more jittery. I mean, I don’t love public speaking to begin with, but I can do it. And afterwards there’s inevitably the huge smile and endorphin rush “I can’t believe I did that!” Anyway, if you want to follow along, you can resister here (and with a Blessed is She membership you have access to all this content, which is so good. I’ve listened to a couple amazing talks this month while I’ve been preparing mine – this one is especially good) and tune in next Wednesday night, 3/22, at 9 pm EST for “Grocery Store Evangelization: engaging in the missionary apostolate of your ordinary life”

I’ve spent the past year and some change experimenting with various dietary restrictions, having blood work and hormone levels checked, and adding different combinations of supplements to the mix. It seems like I might have Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis (I have been hypothyroid since my teens, and on thyroid meds) which is an autoimmune thyroid disease, and is a little overwhelming in terms of the lifestyle changes it demands, but, happily, for lots of people, it can be treated really effectively that way.

I’ve been gluten free for about a year (minus the inevitable gluten exposure from restaurant eating) and it has helped a lot, and now it seems that cutting out dairy is the next step. Which is …. uggggggggh. Just ugh. I love cheese and ranch. But not so much that I want to keep feeling like crap.

So, gosh, that aspirational stuff about God choosing your Lent and all that. Yes. (Did I mention that wine seems to be a terrible culprit too. 5 months off the mommy juice now, and missing it still.) Tequila and vodka seem to be tolerable, in small and occasional amounts, but I’m getting to be a really, really lame happy hour buddy. I have some girlfriends who are also exploring health problems right now and the persistent joke among us has been “welcome to your 30s, when everything falls apart.”

I’ve also crashed and burned with THM and have been trying to reincorporate the most helpful pieces of it (namely, the stable blood sugar levels that it delivers) but haven’t been following it religiously by any means. And that’s starting to show up on the scale. Or it’s stress that is showing up. But regardless, trying to get back in the habit of balancing out my meals with protein and separating fats and carbs by several hours. It really does help prevent crashy afternoon syndrome, and I still have about 18 stubborn “baby” (read: cool ranch dorito) pounds to shed.

Anything else missing from this novella? Oh, yes, I’m back on Instagram. It’s much more addictive than I remember, so I’m trying to only use it certain days of the week, and to resist the pull of the stoplight/carline scroll. It’s hard!

Finally, any good reading recommendations that don’t involve World War II? I’m a little burnt out on the genre after a slew of fantastic reads, and I’d like to get into some other fiction. Currently reading THM (again), this fantastic book Ignatius sent me to review, and something about some guy in Moscow that Kindle recommended to me that I do not love, at least not enough to recall the title.

Happy hump day, may yours be filled with daffodils and spicy water.

About Me, Catholics Do What?, deliverance, house reno, spiritual warfare

Life lately

February 1, 2017

It’s hump day so why not toss together a random assortment of items on the more personal side of the spectrum, lest I go a full week without enthralling you with something in this space.

The week after I have a piece go “Catholic viral,” if you will, is always kind of …draining. I mean of course, I write stuff out here in the digital public square to be read and thoughtfully discussed/debated, and I’m so happy when I reach a wider audience, but… it’s always surprising how much energy and effort it takes to respond to comments and answer emails. And guys? I’m really, really terrible at that. I’m sorry. Know that I read every single comment I get (though I delete it as soon as I figure out it’s hate mail, if it is, #byefelicia) and I really appreciate the time it takes for you to read and then respond to anything that I write.

Especially when I go over 1,000 words! I feel like you should get a prize, then. But, I have no social media assistant or admin. I have my wonderful mother’s helper who comes once a week, but most of the time I use her presence to spend time creating new content/praying about what to write/answering urgent emails, etc.

So, please accept my gratitude and also my little personality quirk/design flaw, which is just that I’m terrible at responding to all your awesome comments?

——

We’re in the throes of some major home improvement projects/renovations that have my big boys sleeping on mattresses on the living room floor and they are loving it. I don’t hate it. But it will be great to get things tied up, at which point, guess what? We’re putting our house on the market. Yep, the house we bought last summer, after an agonizing hunt and many, many false alarms. But we’ve discerned that God is calling us in a different direction, and with the many improvements we’ve made both cosmetic and functional, we probably stand to turn a decent profit on the thing. Call it our profoundly unintended fix and flip. Or call it “Discovering you aren’t HGTV’s next big thing, after all.” Move in ready (and maybe a good bit smaller), here we come. (And, it bears noting, this will be an in-town move. #Denver4life)

I’ll miss our lovely new neighbors and the huge yard, but the scope of what this house needs long term to be really functional for our family of 6 is simply beyond our capacity. (We’re definitely adding “tri-level” to our list of deal breakers as we head into another hunting season.)

On the upside, I am giving away or selling everything we own and starting over with $500 at IKEA. I actually dream of living in an open concept warehouse with cement floors, skylights, and whitewashed walls. With benches. And without personal items aside from house plants and bath towels. Maybe I actually want to live in the IKEA foyer?

Anyway, if you’re local and in need of furniture, give me a holler, we’re seriously liquidating 80% of our belongings and starting over. (Sounds dramatic but keep in mind, we made an international move 3.5 years ago and basically started from scratch, so we don’t own that much furniture to begin with.)

——-

I’ve been having fascinating conversations with people lately about deliverance prayer, and observed a growing awareness within the Catholic Church and in Protestant churches about the reality of spiritual warfare. I don’t mean that the Church hasn’t always taught about and believed in the spiritual realm, but that we moderns have lost a great deal of our sense of the supernatural. Most people will not be too weirded out by the mention of guardian angels or God Himself, but bring the devil into the conversation, and you’ll get people slowly backing away looking you up and down. (Which is such a successful tactic for the enemy, when you think about it. CS Lewis famously said as much.) In our family we’ve been paying more attention to the spiritual climate within our home and out in the world, and making use of sacramentals like holy water, and praying over and for each other asking for protection and deliverance.

The St. Michael prayer and a bottle of holy water to bless your kids with in the morning and at bedtime is a great place to start. (This is one of my favorite books on the subject. It’s not Catholic, but the author works with a lot of priests and has a thriving ecumenical ministry.)

I’ll be writing some stuff specifically about deliverence and spiritual warfare over the next couple months. We really have so many incredible resources at our fingertips in the Church’s rich history, it’s just a matter of reacquainting ourselves with practices which have fallen out of common knowledge, and reawakening to the reality that we are in a literal – not a figurative – battle.

——

On a less combative note, last night at 8 pm a little head popped into my room and informed me that he needed a costume for his “Trivia Bowl” team, and it needed to be “all gray, Mom. A gray bowl, with eye holes, and a grey outfit, and sunglasses. I texted a few fellow moms from his class trying to figure out what that might mean, and when I couldn’t get better clarification, I sent him to bed promising we’d “figure it out at breakfast.” Cackle. Cue 7:12 am and he is screaming because actually he remembered it’s a real bull, with horns, and it has to be gray! IT HAS TO BE GRAY. I WON’T GO TO SCHOOL WITHOUT A GRAY BULL MASK AND SUNGLASSES!!!!!”

Hysterics, tears, snot, scissors, poster board, a literal shirt-off-your-brother’s-back exchange from the big hearted 4 year old, and we had the following to show for ourselves:

Killed it, right?

Well guess what. My sister found a comprehensive list of the costumes for each grade and team and texted it to me about 10 am, complete with 121 laughing/crying emojis.

It was a gray bowl he needed for his head. The non-torro kind.

Can’t wait to see him at pickup time.

Here’s a little pick me up of the musical variety, as a reward for wading through all this random goodness. I’m off to start paaaaaaaacking. #again.

About Me, design + style, house reno

Day in the life + a really, really low quality Advent-ish home tour

December 20, 2016

Thought I’d kick it a little bit old school today with Christmas being just a handful of sleeps away, and most bloggers having fallen silent in the lead up to the Silent Night. I wandered around the dirty house snapping some phone pics after driving to school this morning to drop off “free dress” clothes to a very, very angry kindergartener whose mom was up too late alternating between rubbing a barfing kid’s shoulders and finishing this excellent book until o’dark thirty and forgot and sent him in his uniform.

How’s that for a run-on sentence?

Anyway, it’s past noon here in the Mile High city but I’m dressed only in the very loosest application of the term. My new Costco leggings are dreamily soft, but I would not recommend leaving the house in them without a long tunic or skirt situation. Which compounded the awkwardness of this morning’s jeans + thermal handoff to the aforementioned kindergartener. I’ll just leave it at that.

We’re kind of hanging on by the loosest of threads to our Christmas anticipation over here with one definitely sick kid who was mysteriously well enough to go to Tae Kwon Do last night, but who climbed riiiight back aboard the vom train around 11pm last night. Thankfully, he doesn’t have school on Mondays and Tuesdays this year, so we haven’t exposed anyone aside from his poor little martial arts buddies. And nobody else has yet to hurl. Crossing every digit and pleading with heaven to spare us from a holiday puke fest.

Anyway, on to the house tour, shall we? I actually love this house more and more each day that we edge into Christmastime, because it just calls out to be decked in candles and garlands and tiny Little People Nativity figurines and broken ornaments. The weirdly green mossy fireplace stones almost look intentional when festooned with my festive dead Trader Joe’s eucalyptus branches.

Also, I realized that I’ve hardly shared any pictures of what this new place looks like, save for a handful of hideous 70’s before shots, and like a grade A creeper, I will admit that I love looking at pictures of other people’s houses. Especially if they are A. significantly more beautiful than mine or B. just as sketchy looking up close.

Keep option B in the forefront of your mind as we tour, mkay?

It seems that Evie will be joining us on this little virtual reality excursion, because since her 3rd birthday five whole days ago, she has ceased napping but also ceased using diapers altogether, so while my introverted soul recoils from the extra hours on duty, my wallet is sighing with relief at having just!one!kid! in diapers for the first time in 4 years.

She just walked into the kitchen asking me for shrimp and vitamins: “Babe, where are the cups? Do you know, honey? I need a glass of water. And some shrimp and my vitamins.”

Without further ado…

Let’s start in the kitchen, shall we? It’s where I spend 89% of my time. Not cooking, exactly, but pulling slices of turkey out of the meat drawer and flopping them in front of various people’s noses. And retrieving clementines to peel. And mostly picking up IKEA plastic cutlery because I’m ~~too dumb~~ too committed to Montessori to move the kid’s stuff up into a higher cupboards. Plus, as you’ll soon see, there are precious few cupboards to be had.

Let’s start off with a candid shot of Luke and his persistent love interest, the garbage can. Treasures in, treasures out. So far I have retrieved numerous forks and knives and not a few toys and once my phone. He, in turn, has fished out many a plastic strawberry carton and egg shell to cackle with delight over.

Moving into the expansive belly of the galley kitchen, we have the … entire rest of it:

And a gentle candid shot of a little human hard at work. See how masterfully he empties the cupboards and learns all about the world around him by trashing it? Poetry.

Lest I be remiss, I’ll end the kitchen portion of our tour with an action shot of the cat drinking water off the floor. Is this because she has none in her dish? Or is she just an opportunist like the rest of the family? A lady never tells.

Moving out of the kitchen into the dining room, oh wait. I forgot to turn around and show you my “office” and the pantry. Hang on.

(My coworkers are ever present.) See that cleverly-disguised-in-white-latex 90’s tv/entertainment center situation? No? Just a pantry? Good. Move along.

And this? This is where all the magic happens:

Moving back through the kitchen to the dining room, which you may remember had floor to ceiling orange wood paneling, aka “vertical shiplap” plus tootsie roll brown wall-to-wall carpet, I’d say we’ve made some real improvements.

As you can see, it gives us an almost panoramic view of the main level of the house. We’ve scratched our heads over how we could gain more space for a bigger table and more chairs, but,

There really isn’t any space to take from. That wall is lined with the major kitchen appliances in an already slender galley kitchen, and then the fourth “wall” of our dining room is really just the enormous jut of the hulking stone fireplace the previous owner installed as a questionable aftermarket design “upgrade:”

Still, it fits the 6 of us when we don’t have company. And when we do? We make it work. We had Dave’s parents and 3 of his adult siblings over for Evie’s birthday dinner, and we crammed 11 humans around that oval, yessir we did. It was an intimate and festive affair.

Moving into the living room/family room situation from the dinning area, you can see the front door and the entryway that leads to my office/the kitchen. The main level of what is effectively 3.5 levels is pretty small and kind of set up like a circle, so the kids have a sort of track to run. Which they do.

20161220_093419

If you turn back around you can see the fireplace and the edge of the dining room table:

(And I have to admit, that fireplace which is weird and hulking the rest of the year, it does shine at Christmas)

This is a shot standing just inside the front door, watching my kids ~~learn Latin declensions~~ watch Netflix. #memories

And then turning to the left, my favorite little corner in the whole house. I love to curl up in that perfectly distressed leather chair with the great hammered brass trim (that I thrifted for nine freaking dollars) and read at night. Paint colors in this room are Sherwin Williams for HGTV “Passive” grey and “Marshmallow” white, if anybody cares. (Primed the wood paneling with oil-based death smelling Kilz and then slapped 3 coats of paint on it before almost asphyxiating, in case anyone is looking for a good wood paneling painting tutorial.)

Moving into the entry way and looking back towards the kitchen, we head upstairs to the main bedrooms. (We also have a basement that we’ve framed out a 4th bedroom for the big boys in, but 4 months in and they’re still sleeping in what will eventually be the family room/playroom, because hanging drywall is one thing, but tape and texture is a whole other beast. Which we have yet to tame. Maybe I’ll do a separate post on the basement next time, because this is getting loooong.)

So anyway, here’s the entryway, as seen from the kitchen/my office. If you walked forward towards the front door, you could turn left and look back into that previous view of the fireplace and couch.

If you turn right at the cheetah print scarf, that would take you down to the 1/2 level of what I’ve dubbed our tri-and-a-half level house, which houses the laundry room, the entrance from the garage into the house, and a weirdly large bathroom that I have big plans to convert into a mudroom with some floor to ceiling beadboard and built in shelves. Backpack station be mine.

Ominous drop off, no? Ask Luke how he knows it’s so. (Also, proof that one shouldn’t drink and tile. I am not making any judgments on the previous owner’s soul, just observing the dangers of mixing home improvements with ever clear. Which I presume would be the necessary fuel behind such a design choice.)

And the laundry room, which has dreamy light and would look amazing with a tasteful little chandelier and a pocket door swapped out for the regular one, wouldn’t it? A girl can dream.

Turning back towards the front door and looking right around the corner from this perilously not-to-code stairwell, we have this little number:

Which you can bet your bottom dollar I’ve fantasized about stripping down to the solid wood and doing some kind of rich coffee colored stain on the treads, but…kids. Who keep falling down the gently carpeted too-short planks and cause me to raise some praise hands every time I hear little heads hitting polyester padding and not wood.

Upstairs on the left we have the sole functional shower in our palace with 4 bathrooms. That’s right, 4 toilets, but only one reputable shower that does not cause mysterious waterfalls to pour out of the front of the house. Dave re-caulked our master shower about 3 weeks ago, to be fair, but we’ve been – okay, I’ve been – too afraid to test it in freezing temps lest lest the leak problem be deeper than we realized. One shower for a family of 6 we can handle. Burst pipes in the dead of winter, not so much.

So this beauty was also floor to ceiling orange wood paneling. How lucky are we?? And I Kilz’d it and nearly sent myself to urgent care in the process, and I solemnly swear never to paint again without a respirator or at least a high quality mask. Or maybe just never paint again, ever. Like, never.

But it looks so much better white. Even if it does give off a bit of an unintentional birchwood forrest vibe. Ah, well:

What’s that you say? Not enough shots of wilted eucalyptus in mason jars here? Wait, wait. Don’t click away to Pinterest yet. Here:

(This post sponsored by 222.4 million germs and parenting guilt surrounding oral hygiene decisions.)

Moving down the hall past the bathroom, we have the master bedroom which has great, dreamy lighting. Unfortunately I’m so attached to the airy look of the daytime lightning the white curtains provide, we no longer have blackout quality sleep at night.

But look how pretty:

Some laundry in the bottom of the shot. “For relatability”

And my decorative scarf rack, aka the only color in this entire whitewashed and gray situation, according to my beloved. Also, see that painting? My talented friend painted that for us as a belated wedding gift. It’s an original rendering of the view from outside their wedding reception, where Dave and I had our first kiss. (Sorry, future kids who are one day trolling mommy’s blog archives and now grossed out.)

Oh, and see that hideous little snippet of baseboard heating? Gah, those things are ugly. But the heat they put out is dreamy and soft and non-drying and so much better on everybody’s lungs. But the radiator covers are he.i.no.ous. These ones in our room are in the best shape of the whole house.

Oooookay, moving along seriously, let me just dump some shots of our master bath and then Evie and Luke’s room and we’ll call it a day, yes? Totally unrelated, but my awesome next door neighbor just knocked on the door and handed me a note while whispering furtively about candy canes and “coming through the garage door” on Christmas Eve.

The note encourages me to give him a call about “Gaylord the Elf.”

I really love my life.

Hey, I painted that poop brown vanity dark grey myself. Pat, pat. Never mind the shower. Nothing to see here.

Moving on:

Evie’s palace. It’s a little bit bigger than the master, maybe? But with no en suite. So we let her keep it. Meanwhile, her older brothers bunk in the basement like dogs.

I hung a mirror at her height in the closet, and it’s a popular spot for the elves who live here.

Look, here comes one now! Pls note the IKEA super hero bib turned cape. Luke has a flair for accessorizing.

And then finally, Luke’s spartan quarters:

The previous owners slapped a white coat of paint on everything (and I do mean slapped) before they listed this house, and I’m so glad they did, slaps and splats and all, because it makes a world of difference to have a clean, blank slate to start from. We installed wall to wall gray carpet throughout the upstairs and the basement, because after repeatedly crunching the numbers on every other potential solution for flooring (and living for 2 weeks with the persistent eau de dog poop) we just LOL’d and said OH WELL IT’S DISPOSABLE ESSENTIALLY, RIGHT???? and then laughed maniacally while spending $$ (but not $$$$$$$$) to coat the floors in bodily fluid catching fabric stretched and tacked down tight to all four walls, which I calculate will need to be completed replaced in 4.5 years. But so far I’m really happy with the color choice, which is holding up marvelously to the kid traffic.

And I think at a record-setting 2000+ words, we can call it a day. Tune in next time – or maybe never – for the basement and backyard edition.

And if I don’t see you before then, Merry Christmas!

chalk paint, design + style, house reno, Valspar chalky finish

Rock Chalk

October 24, 2016

(I have zero affiliation with the state of Kansas or their basketball team, so I apologize if that title gives offense. But it was irresistible.)

Earlier this month, fed up with the 4.3 million to do items that it turns out are actually too hard for me to accomplish on my own (y u give me inflated sense of my home improvement abilities, HGTV?), I decided that if nothing else, I could paint.

But not, you know, walls. It turns out those are really, frustratingly hard to paint. To date I’ve done 3 bathrooms, most of the kitchen, the dining room and living room, and I’m done. I don’t care what color anything is any more, not if it involves me buying yet another pack of roller refills and spending 3 hours making lackluster progress.

But furniture, now that’s another story.

So I wandered into Lowe’s to pick up some of that fabled chalk paint that everyone has been talking about for 4 years or so, and after dropping more than $70 after the helpful guy at the paint desk convinced me I could “easily and much more cheaply make my own!” I returned to my senses and then returned to the store, sheepishly, to return the ridiculous amount of ingredients he’d talked me into and instead opted to just buy one measly quart of Valspar “chalky finish” in woolen mittens. And it was $33. Which is horrifyingly expensive for a quart of paint. Let’s just acknowledge that. Plus, I purchased the finishing wax for another $15. So, this is a project with a little upfront investment. But! But. Here is the biggest but of them all: the stuff is never-ending.

It has almost magical stretching abilities, and I can hardly believe how many pieces of furniture have been coated, to date. They all look incredible, as I will soon demonstrate for you using my lackluster cell phone photography skills. I mentioned on Facebook earlier today that of that original can I still have maybe 15% remaining. And that is enough to do at least one more medium piece of furniture, which I will hastily slop paint onto as soon as I’m done tapping this out and before the two younger kids wake up from their naps. Because no priming. Zero. And no sanding. It’s a harried mommy miracle.

Also, it’s low VOC (I would say no VOC, because it has no discernible odor) which was key, because I did not want to move heavy pieces of furniture back up from the very unventilated basement to accomplish this feat. (Not a sponsored post, I just love this stuff.)

The breakdown for time invested was probably around 6 hours, all told, for painting, waxing, and touching up. And in that amount of time I was able to refinish a china buffet, a twin bed frame from IKEA, a piano bench, an antique chair with attached half desk, 2 children’s chairs, and a small bookshelf.

Our little homeschool nook in the basement looks adorable. Which is important since I’m not homeschooling, you know?

And Evie’s big girl bed which she will not sleep peacefully in under pain of death is completely charming, too. Which is nice, seeing as she is so repulsed by it, and the crib was donated nigh 3 weeks ago now. Typical.

I also plan to turn this buffet my mother in law passed down to me (she’s fine that I painted it) into a media stand for all the TV we don’t actually watch, except during football games, so basically it was really essential that I focus on all these Very Important Projects to make the house feel pulled together.

Girls can be weird.

I swear that I am sleeping more deeply and more contentedly with a few more “settled” spaces in this home of ours, though. And it feels great to check some things off the ‘ol to do list, even if I had to scan all the way down to the 79th position on the list, in terms of importance, because it turns out hanging drywall, installing baseboard, and resealing caulk lines in the shower are not my forte.

Anyway, want to see how some of it turned out? Okay, good.

bed 2

You see now why I am clearly meant to be transitioning to a lifestyle blog in 2017, no?

The only thing I did more than one coat with was that large buffet piece, because I cared more about how it turned out. Oh, I guess I did multiple coats on the twin bed frame too, now that I think about it. Because it was raw natural wood from IKEA so it was much “thirstier” than some of the other stuff I was painting. But this stuff really worked so well for me. There were brush marks when wet that just sort of faded away as it cured, and it required zero sanding, which I think we can all agree is just the worst. It’s the worst. Plus, I never wear a mask and then I feel very anxious about mesothelioma or whatever inhaling particulate matter can give you. For about a day. And then I go back to worrying about whether my kids are wearing enough sunscreen, eating toxic produce because I can’t remember which ones are the dirtiest of the dozen, or being adequately spiritually formed because their mother is chalk painting thrift store furniture instead of catechizing them.

The 21st century is a real hoot for anxious mothering.

But where was I? Oh yes, here are my next 2 victims, provided that Mary Poppin’s-esque can of paint doesn’t run out on me: next bench

Nap time sirens are wailing, so it may be a longer wait than I’d hoped, if the noises I’m hearing from upstairs are any indication.

Though last week I did paint “with” Luke, which went about how you’re imagining it might have. Still, stuff’s nontoxic and it was a memory making moment.

If you’re intrigued about details like these, I used this paint in “Woolen Stockings” and these brushes (chip brushes, the cheaper the better!) and I used cheesecloth to apply the wax, which is still somewhat present on my hands 5 days later, so, minor regretsies about not buying the actual wax brush there.

About Me, Catholic Spirituality, house reno, Life in Italy, reading, Traveling with Children

7 quick takes: oldschool

September 2, 2016

Remember when blogging was just basically long Facebook statuses? And bloggers wrote about mundane minutia and nothing was brand conscious or beautiful or filtered? Sometimes I miss those days. I think readers do too? I’m not saying I wish all blogging was still raw paragraphs and embarrassing fonts and sparkle GIF signatures, but it is nice to revisit a simpler past from time to time. And I know I always love when my favorite bloggers write day in the life kind of stuff. So, without further ado, some disconnected thoughts and things I’m loving lately.

-1-

Mother Teresa. I love her, my husband has a super big devotion to her, and she was bffs with my favorite saint of all time, so I can.not. get enough of these video montages and all the coverage of Rome gearing up for her canonization on Sunday. Her love and her clarity and her pragmatism have rescued me in some of my darkest moments of motherhood. Some of my favorite quotes of hers:

-2-

2 weeks until we leave with Luke for Rome, Lanciano, Manoppello, San Giovanni Rotondo, Pietrelcina, Pompeii, and a couple other places so awesome it makes my head spin thinking about it. We’re going on pilgrimage for the Year of Mercy with our wonderful Archbishop, and we’ll be seeing Italy in an entirely different way that does not involve schlepping 2 toddlers on public transportation and changing diapers on the floors of every major basilica. (Actually that last part is still totally going to happen. But the tour buses will be a significant upgrade.) I would be honored to pray for you while we are visiting the different holy sites and shrines. And I very much covet your prayers for a well behaved lap baby who is newly mobile and can hardly be contained on my person for for 11 minutes, (I’ve been practicing and nervously timing him so I know this) let alone 11 hours.

Feeling like a fresh new mom all over again while I countdown the hours till takeoff. Wine and melatonin. Wine and m-e-l-a-t-o-n-i-n.

-3-

Our new neighborhood is great, but it isn’t our old neighborhood. The street is significantly busier, the foot traffic is 100% more, and the kids are kind of struggling with the concept of an off-limits front yard, however great our backyard (will eventually be/)is. I’m trying to think of all the ways this house is an improvement even though we miss our old hood, and I’m trying to unleash my inner gardener/manual laborer as we gear up for a long weekend of laying mulch and generally de-crappifying a quarter acre of complete horticultural neglect. I wish I was as outdoor crafty as I am indoor crafty.

20160902_134035 — Still basically serviceable,

20160902_134048 — And then it gets real. Reminds me of my Steubie days.

-4-

The downstairs/main level is looking pretty great. Dave worked hard laying these floors which are actually (drumroll) plastic. They’re luxury vinyl planks, installed to the tune of $1.99/sq foot after the Pergo engineered hardwood we’d ordered was so damaged during shipping that it was unusable. 4 frustrating hours later we surrendered and took the stuff back to Lowe’s, who to their eternal credit returned the entire order no questions asked. Customers for life. And this plastic stuff? I can clean it with a diaper wipe, a wet rag, a mop, a vacuum, whatever. It doesn’t really feel like wood, but it does look pretty good, and I’d do it again in heartbeat. When the kids are older and we’re richer (that’s a thing, right? Hahahaha…..no.) we’d love to do hardwood, but for now, plastic floors are mother’s little helper. Holler.

-5-

Madame Secretary. Everyone I’ve talked up this show to has wrinkled their nose at me and asked “isn’t that about Hillary Clinton?” to which I respond “Only in that Tea Leoni is also blonde and has a female reproductive system.” because, no. Just no. It’s the most awesome show on the Netflix right now, and Dave and I eagerly gobble up an episode every night once the kids are abed. This week we’ve had a slew of nighttime obligations and last night I was longing to be curled up in front of the laptop watching the Secretary help save the world, along with her winning staff and clever dialogue. Watch it. You won’t be sorry.

-6-

Christy came to my rescue earlier this summer and filled my ear with book recommendations. I’ve loved everything she’s told me to read, but I’ve especially been obsessed with Kate Morton. So far I’ve read the Lake House, the Forgotten Cottage, the Secret Keeper and the Distant Hours. I think the Secret Keeper was my favorite, but I loved them all. It’s so rare to find modern fiction that isn’t either trashy, super gruesome or just … bad. And these are none of those, and set largely in Cornwall, England, and I love everything about them. The end.

-7-

Grace shouted out these jeans from Old Navy and I might have to squeeze myself into a pair this weekend and see if the hype is warranted. I love ON jeans because you can wear them … a lot of times between washes. Which is unhygienically important to me at this stage of life.

See you over at Kelly’s (who wrote the most beautiful piece earlier this week or maybe last about prayer as a special needs parent)

About Me, Catholic Spirituality, house reno, sin, temperaments

Radically detached and slightly unhinged

August 25, 2016

Maybe we should get a kitten.

We’ve been in our new house a week and a half now, and as the floors are slowly covered with clean, shining new surfaces to scratch and scuff and sully, I find myself sucking in pained breaths of First World air, agonizing over the new damage wrought almost immediately upon installation. I remember learning in earth science or some class that all of life is essentially in a constant state of decay, the microbes and bacteria at war with the material universe in a continual cycle of reclaim and recycle.

I could see that with mine own eyes as the kindergartener dragged a waylaid dresser across the new living room floor, gouging a cut in the surface my husband and sweated to perfect only 12 hours before. The walls are almost literally crumbling around us as we shift and juggle and apportion furniture to different rooms, scraping and arranging against new and unfamiliar walls.

A little to the left crash no let’s try that wall, scraaaaaaaaape, no maybe back there was perfect crunch.

I joked to my babysitter this morning that I would have made a terrible nun because material detachment is so painful for me, before I stopped and wondered aloud to her (bless her heart, she puts up with a lot between me and the kids) if actually, maybe motherhood is a little tougher for my personality type, at least, because the detachment is less of the bandaid-ripping surrender all your worldly goods and don this habit, and more of the for the rest of your days, you will see furniture destroyed, walls marked, and floors savaged. Prepare your heart to love the people more than the place.

I am not a graceful detacher. I am more of a strangle-holding controller. My really lucky husband and my darling children are benefiting from a front row view of the disassembling of my fragile, Type-A psyche under the assault of motherhood and early childhood. This morning as we shoved my precious leather couch through the front door, my heart sinking as we punctuated the backside with a fresh laceration, I noticed a tag I’d previously overlooked: “Durablend: 17% real leather.”

That’s so nice, I thought, beads of sweat dripping onto the scratched laminate floors we did not install but have managed to really bring to rustic perfection in just over 1 short week. I’m glad it’s not real.

All this to say that I am as much a work much in progress, as is my slowly-beautifying and simultaneously-necrotizing house. For every wall I finish painting, stepping back in satisfaction to sigh and set paintbrush aside, 15 more improvement/repair projects pop up in the resultant vacuum.

I’m kind of like that too. For every layer of bad habit, pesky personal shortcoming and outright sin that I allow the Lord to peel back, I am rewarded not with a static, serene panorama of progress, but with a fresh jolt of “Look at all that garbage! man there’s still a lot of work to do.”

During this summer of shingles and signings and strips of packing tape being applied and removed, I have become more and more humbled by my utter incompetence to weather any actual stress, and by my husband’s incredible fortitude under pressure. I’ve marveled over my kid’s flexibility while marking my own fragility in wonderment, scarcely recognizing that the woman who scaled mountains in her twenties and now bursts into tears over first days of school and flooded basements.

I don’t feel like I’m going backwards though, not exactly. It’s more like the Lord is revealing, through the circumstances of my very ordinary life, my actual position in the universe: weakness.

And there seem to be two choices; either I allow the weakness to overwhelm me and I scramble to deny it, wrapping my fragile heart in material comforts and conveniences and surface-level stuff, or I embrace the weakness and transform it to receptivity, looking expectantly to God to make up for what is clearly lacking.

I have thought often enough this summer that if I just had more help or more money or more energy, everything would be fine. Which is a lie. Because it’s never enough. The human heart is an endless chasm of desire, and no amount of material striving will fill it.

In fact, some of the most memorable moments of providence have been from moments of abject need: friends rallying with meals and helping hands while I lied in bed, to sick to tend to the kids. My parents and in-laws swooping in with power tools and muscles and moving boxes to transplant us from one house to another while I cried paint-streaked tears of overwhelm and gratitude, huddled in a too-hot bathroom at 11pm with a roller brush and 3 opened cans of primer.

Every time I’ve shown Him my real weakness this summer, He has overwhelmed me with a blanket of grace, covering my metaphorical nakedness with such generous care that I could not help but acknowledge my littleness and His bigness. And that has always been a little hard for a choleric go-getter. I don’t like to need, I prefer to be needed. But He waits patiently, allowing me to follow my delusions of grandeur to their natural conclusion. And then He rescues. He delivers. And I am ashamed and relieved and resolved all over again.

And then I find another wall to paint.

Home renovation and holiness is the work of a lifetime. And that is why I suspect we should find ourselves a cat, to hurry along the progress of perfection.

(Dave, if you’re reading this, you know I want a little calico, and that the kids want to name him Peyton Manning.)

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Joseph and Child Jesus

Colors, for anyone who cares:

Mirror: Valspar chalky finish in Oxford White Vanity: Behr premium plus in Night Sky

Mirror: Valspar chalky finish in Oxford White
Vanity: Behr premium plus in Night Sky