2015 Review

As 2015 draws to a close, I am returning to my blog to review the year. I have not been as faithful to blog this year. One reason is that my computer has had problems, but the other is that I just haven't felt like putting my thoughts into words.

2015 has been a good year. Some highlights include:

Craig started the year driving over the road for Versatile Transport. I was able to go along on one trip to Alabama. Craig often took Percy along, and Percy is a great traveler.

We had 3 camping trips - Itasca State Park in May, Father Hennepin Park with Carrie, Mardo and Micah in June, and Two Harbors in August with friends from church.

We were able to go to Northfield one weekend to watch both Jake and Drew play baseball.

Carrie, Mardo and Micah visited the cabin a lot. Now that they live here in Minnesota, they've come up to visit often. Micah loves all of Bubba's vehicles (truck, tractor, moto, bicycle, etc), playing in the sandbox, and throwing stones in the 'agua'.

Brenton and the kids came up for Emily Day. It was fun to watch the kids try tubing and water skiing using a special board Craig borrowed from a friend. Izzy and I had fun doing some crafts together.

Aaron and his girlfriend came up 3 times this summer. Jeff and Whitney came a couple of times too. We always enjoy when any of the kids come up - it's so nice to spend time visiting, playing games, etc.

Craig and I also enjoyed several motorcycle rides during the summer.

This summer we finished the window seat in the bump-out in the family room. It now has drawers and a trundle bed. It's awesome! Craig also finished the trim on the family room windows.

Craig has made a lot of progress on his 1963 Hendrickson. He really wants to get it finished this year so that he can drive it to truck shows next summer.

Jeff and Whitney got married in September. Brenton officiated the ceremony, Aaron was Jeff's best man, Carrie was a bridesmaid, Mardo played the piano, Micah was the ring bearer, Izzy and Stephanie were Micah's "babysitters" while Mardo and Carrie were busy.... it was a real family affair. The weather was perfect, and the wedding and reception were perfect too. Welcome to the Balvin family, Whitney!

Northland Community Schools, where I work, passed their referendum this fall. That means that by 2018 we will have a whole new building for our schools. I signed a two year contract with the district. I am thankful to have a job.

Craig helped a builder add a portico to the cabin. We now have a beautiful entry that we just love.

We celebrated Thanksgiving down in Northfield at Brenton and Stephanie's house. I just so enjoy having all the kids and grandkids together.

Maybe the best highlight of all was the birth of our new grandson, Isaiah David, born 12/17/15 to Mardo and Carrie and big brother Micah.

As you can see, most of my highlights include being with family and friends. They are truly blessings!

I hope you've had a good year too.

Merry Christmas!

Summertime!

It's finally summer. We've been waiting and waiting for warm summer days so we can be on the lake, grilling meals on the Weber, and enjoying lots of visits from family and friends. While spring came fairly early this year, summer has been slower to arrive. I'm not complaining - I loved the cooler spring days and nights, when there weren't any mosquitoes or deer flies. But now it's July - time for summer!

I'm reminded of a song from "You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown" where Snoopy sings

It's suppertime. (click to hear the song on YouTube)
Yeah, it's suppertime.
Oh, it's sup-sup suppertime very best time of day.


Br-r-ing on the dog food, bring on the boneBring on the barrel and roll me home'Cause it's supperSupper, supper, supperSupperSuper, pepper upperSupperSuper duper suppertime


But in my mind I hear these lyrics:
It's summertime,
Yeah, it's summertime.
Oh, it's sum-sum-summertime very best time of year.

Bring on the boating, bring on the sun,
Bring all the grandkids, it's fun, fun, fun!
'Cause it's summer,
Summer, summer, summer,
Summer,
The best time ever!
Summer
Sum - sum Summertime!

Enjoy a few pictures of our summer so far.

Finally - A Craft Closet

It's been a while since I've blogged...we've been pretty busy. Our daughter, son-in-law and grandson lived with us for two months after they moved back to the States and I soaked up the time with them, knowing that they'd be starting a life apart from us soon. Mardo got a job, they found an apartment, and they got a car. So we helped them move about 140 miles away. And while I am happy for them, and I know that they need to continue on the life God's planned for them, I am also a bit sad.  It's pretty quiet here without them. I miss my grandson meeting me after work, saying "Nana!" I miss the talks and shared chores with Carrie. I miss the steadiness and gentleness of my son-in-law as well as his music and creativeness. I miss shared meals and card games on the weekends.
However, the past couple of weeks have also been happy ones - as Craig and I readjust to having the house to ourselves. I enjoy time spent with my husband. We have some projects planned. We have been sharing dreams and hopes. We've watched football and hockey games together, worked on our Bible study lessons and just spent time together in the family room with a fire in the wood stove.
Some of our talks have centered around the holidays, and how much we are looking forward to spending time with all our children and grandchildren. We talk about how thankful we are for our boys - now men - and how proud we are of who they've become... their good hearts, their generosity, their good work ethics, etc. We love our daughter-in-law and one who will become our daughter-in-law next fall. We love and cherish our other grandchildren, marvel at how quickly they're growing up, and wish we could see them more.
You're probably wondering - what does this blog have to do with the title, "Finally - A Craft Closet"?
Well, I'll get to the point. For a long time (years, in fact) I've wanted to finish the closet in the guest bedroom and make it my craft closet. I've wanted a real craft closet, a place to store all my craft supplies (and I have a lot, I admit) where I can easily get to them and find what I need. There just always seemed to be other projects with a higher priority. When Carrie, Mardo and Micah moved into their own place I decided it was time for a craft closet makeover. I talked with Craig, and he agreed to help me.
I wish I had a "before"picture. I guess you'll just have to take my word for it that it was pretty bad. I think I'll let pictures do the rest of the "talking." I still want to organize my supplies a bit better, and I need to arrange the room... but I love my new craft closet! I have to say thanks to my husband, Craig, for all his help. He even put a light in the closet with a light switch outside the door!

 

Finally, here's a peek at my newest furniture piece - my craft island. I plan to paint it to coordinate with the room. It's on wheels, so it moves easily, and has a towel bar a paper towel bar. I'm thinking I could use those to hang other things using S hooks... like a glue gun or embossing gun maybe?

4th of July Recipes

I always like to try new recipes when we're going to have company. I worry a little that it may not turn out to be good, but there's always more food around just in case - and then Craig and I don't have to eat it all week long.
Here are two recipes I tried this weekend. They are both from taste of Home's Fast Fixes with Mixes (2012 ed.) Click on the picture for the recipe.
The first is a great 4th of July red,white and blue dessert- Hot Berries 'n' Brownie Ice Cream Cake.

I used a different sauce than the recipe called for - because I didn't have all the ingredients. I just went to the Internet and looked for a hot fruit sauce recipe. (click here).  Everyone loved it!

The second recipe is for a wild rice salad. I just made it today - and it's chilling in the refrigerator for tonight's supper, so I don't really know if it's good or not... but it sure looks good!

As usual, I was in a hurry when we were at the grocery store, and even though I had the recipe with me, I didn't read it very carefully. So I got mushrooms and artichoke hearts - but I was supposed to get marinated mushrooms and marinated artichoke hearts. So we'll see if the salad tastes like it's missing something.

How about you - did you try anything new this week?

4th of July 2014

We were blessed this 4th of July to have our oldest son and his family come for a visit.

I have to admit - I spent more time living in the moment than I did capturing memories with my camera... we had lots of fun tubing, boating, fishing, riding the motorcycle and the 4-wheeler, playing baseball and tennis, shopping, grilling our meals, doing art projects and playing games. Stephanie and Isabelle taught me how to play Canasta and I think I'm hooked on it.  It was a great weekend. 

Enjoy the pictures I did take!

Here's  a picture of Andrew I took back in July 2011,standing in almost the same place. These kids are growing up way too fast!

My New Gallery Wall

Ever since we moved up north, I've wanted to put up a gallery wall. I had one in our previous home, and wrote a post about it. (My Gallery Wall) Our new home, however, needed to be finished before I could start putting pictures on the walls. So my pictures were boxed up, and stored in the garage.
Last week I decided that it was time to get everything out of storage. I figured that Memorial Weekend would be the perfect time to put up my gallery wall.  I decided to have my gallery wall in our piano room. There's a big wall, and we can see it from the hallway.
After lunch today I got started. It took me about 5 hours, but I am so happy with the results so far. There's room for a few more pictures/treasures, and I need some heavier black frames on the right for balance, but at least now we can enjoy the things I have.

It's funny - I spent a lot of time trying to make sure all the pictures were level, but in the picture some don't look straight. I also found out it's hard to take a good picture of the wall. I didn't have much natural light.
Here's a picture from a different angle and different lighting.

Craft Room Update

I haven't been happy with the space in my craft room, and so I've been carrying all my supplies upstairs to work on projects. But then the dining room is a mess. So this weekend, after bringing all my stuff back from the Scrap N Craft weekend, I decided it was time to rearrange my craft room a bit.

I moved the work table to a different wall in the room, and it opened up the space. Cleaning up and organizing supplies helped a lot too. I am very happy with the result - and hope to be crafting in there soon... as soon as it warms up a little. Since the room is on the lower level, it is colder all year round. But when the temperature outside is below zero, it's even chillier. I could run a space heater, but I think I'll just wait for a warmer day.
Here are some pictures of my craft room... (by the way, my craft room also doubles as a guest room.)

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There's still work to be done. We need to put wood on the ceiling, and we need to finish the closet and put in shelves for all my supplies. The windows need to be trimmed out too. But I like the space, and think that it will work well. Crafts, here I come!

One more look at the kitchen

The kitchen is finished except for the floor. We couldn't be happier with the choices we made - we simply love our kitchen. Cooking and cleaning up is fun, when we're in such a beautiful place.

This weekend I started decorating with a few antiques and other items. On the right, on the top shelf, are antique film cans from my grandpa.  See the silver disk thing on the top shelf on the left?

I found it at a little antique shop in town but couldn't figure out what it was. So I asked.

The owner of the shop showed me that it's actually a serving piece. The outsides fold down, and a disk in the middle is rotated to be flat.

Perfect for serving cookies, candy, crackers, hors d'oeuvres, etc. I thought it was perfect for my kitchen. The silver complements the stainless appliances.

At the same shop I found these dark turquoise Ball jars. This picture doesn't really show how well they match the platter I already had.

I already had a couple of lighter blue Ball jars and the chicken wire basket so they went up on the shelf above the sink.

At the same little shop in town (it was a great day for me to stop there) I found the vase on the shelf below.

Here's a little bit better look at it. It has more color than it looks like in this picture, and I have a little blue bottle next to it on the shelf which matches it.

Finally, I found this candle holder when I was unpacking boxes. It really looks nice in the corner of the counter.

You probably noticed in the picture of the silver server earlier, that we got our granite counters installed on the kitchen island. We are absolutely thrilled with the granite - and feel so blessed to have this kitchen. I feel like I'm walking into a decorating magazine whenever I go in the kitchen.

It's hard with my little Sony Cyber Shot camera to get a good picture of the granite. So you may have to come for a visit and see it in person!

Craig has finished the wood trim around the window, and he added a nice window ledge. He's become quite the carpenter.

So that's our kitchen. We'll eventually finish the floor, but for now we're just going to enjoy the beauty and function of our new kitchen.

Almost Everything -Including the Kitchen Sink

This week we've made a lot of progress in finishing our kitchen. We now have all our appliances in and working. We have unpacked almost all our boxes and filled the drawers and cupboards. We have kitchen counter tops everywhere except the island (we're waiting on the granite for that). We even have a new kitchen sink and faucet. (Did I tell you before that it took us almost two hours to pick out a faucet? I had no idea that decision would be so hard to make!)
Bottom line - we love our kitchen! It's hard to get a good picture of the counter top with my little Sony Cyber Shot camera, but here are some pictures of the kitchen....

We have found that the colors in the kitchen change with the light - and it's another thing we love about it.

This last picture is of our pantry - which we now call our butler's pantry :)  We reused our old kitchen cabinets in there, and added counter top to match the kitchen. It has become our "beverage station" because we have the coffeepot and supplies, including coffee cups in there. In the left cupboard we also keep tea, Crystal Light, Tang, etc. We also have the toaster in here, and Craig loves going in there in the morning to start the coffee and make his toast.

Our kitchen is almost complete. We are waiting for the island counter top, and then we will need to decide on flooring. Up until now we had planned on having hardwood floors in the kitchen and dining area. But now I am wondering if that would be too much wood and take away from the beauty of the cabinets. So it's back to my books, the Internet, and Home Depot/Menard's to see what other options we might have. What would you suggest?

Adivce About A Kitchen Remodel (or any major remodeling project)

We have been in the middle of a kitchen remodel for over 6 months, and here are some of the things I've learned when trying to make decisions:

1) Take your time. I find that when we take the time to explore options, to do our homework, and to talk over our expectations and preferences, we make better decisions. And, the decisions are easier to make, because we know what we want and what we like. Don't rush - enjoy the process.

2) Do your homework.

• You can go to the library and look at books. 
• You can go online... there are thousands of images and articles available.  Pinterest and www.houzz.com are a couple of my favorite websites. You can also find remodeling tips online. I read this blog about a disappointing remodel and it was helpful.
• You should also visit several stores, talk to salesmen, look for sales, and view product samples.
• Ask friends for tips from their remodeling/building experiences
• Compile a notebook or collection of pictures and ideas for your project. Take them with when you go to talk to professionals about the project you're doing.

Here are two of the pictures I took at one store we visited.  We used both of these ideas in our kitchen.

Here are pictures of the same ideas - in our own new kitchen!

3) Bring samples home! The light in your home is different than the light in the store.  Get as big a sample as possible. You can see here that we brought several samples of counter tops home. I didn't think I like the black granite (4th picture) for our counter top, but when I saw it on the cabinet, I fell in love with it.

 4) Be creative and make mock ups of your room. Either draw it on graph paper, or find an object that's about the same size. Put masking tape on the floor to make an outline.  We taped out the size of our future kitchen island. When we started taking out the old cabinets, we used one section as our island, and a table to simulate counters.

 Tonight we used a paper bag to lay out the kitchen sink and faucets. I couldn't believe how long it took us to pick out this faucet at the store, and how long it took to decide where to put the sprayer and soap dispenser. But once the holes are cut in the counter top we can't change it - so I want to make sure we're both happy with our decision.

 5) Decide what your must haves are, and what things are just wishes. Decide on your budget, and make sure that your must-haves are included. Find other areas where you can save money. I have always wanted a refrigerator with french doors and a bottom freezer. I was able to get it because we shopped when appliances were on sale, and  got it for a great price. We had a hard time deciding on whether or not to put in a dishwasher. We talked to friends and family, but still hadn't decided when we went to make final decisions with the cabinet maker. In the end, I gave up a dream to have pull out baskets for potatoes, etc. in order to have room for a dishwasher. Since we made the decision to have the dishwasher, I haven't regretted it at all.

6) Get advice from a professional. We asked a professional kitchen designer (Paula) to come out and help us, and it was money well spent. Not only did she give us advice on layout and design, she also designed the kitchen on the computer and sent us several drawings with different options.She was a great sounding board for our ideas, and her advice helped us make our decisions. So I guess I should qualify the statement about getting professional advice - find someone who knows what they're talking about but who is also willing to listen to what you really want. The drawings she sent us helped us clarify our ideas, and made it easier to talk with the cabinet maker and others. (One picture is worth a thousand words!)

 7) Be realistic. Unless you're wealthy, you won't be able to get everything you want. And, things sometimes turn out differently than you expected/ planned. For example - the stain color we chose was called "cashew."  The sample board we had was the same kind of wood as we were ordering for our cabinets - knotty alder. Cashew, on that board, was much the same color as a cashew nut. But when our cabinets came, they had a lot of red in them ( a lot of red!). We love the cabinets, and the stain color, now but it wasn't what we were expecting - so it took some time to get used to the new color. Another example is the corner cabinet.

We saw the idea of open shelves in the corner at a design store, and really liked the look. On the drawing of our kitchen they looked pretty big. But as you can see in the picture above, they aren't very big at all. But I still love them.

8) Be ready to have your world in disarray while the project is being completed. I feel like my kitchen has been in boxes forever, and I'm tired of doing dishes downstairs in the laundry room. But I keep the goal in sight - a beautiful functional kitchen!

9) Design your space for the way you live. My husband and I aren't getting any younger. So we built our kitchen with that in mind. We are getting a wall oven so we don't have to bend over so far to see into the oven and get things out. We ordered more drawers than cupboard doors - it's easier to open a drawer to get what we need than to reach way back into a dark cabinet. We are getting a lazy susan in the corner cabinet, and we got pull out cabinets for: spices, trash, and a pull out for the broom and some cleaning supplies.

10) Hire professionals to do at least some of the work. We decided that we could do the prep work on the walls, install the beam on the ceiling, and do all the wiring. But our time is worth money too. It would take us so long to figure out what cabinets to order and install - and plumbing just isn't our thing. So we hired out the cabinets and plumbing. Doing everything yourself isn't always the most cost effective - especially if you've never done those things before.

11) Don't forget lighting! Make sure your space is lit for the way you will use the space. In our kitchen that means pendant lights over the sink area as well as the island, and under cabinet lights as well. I love the lights we chose - and I love that they match!

12) Enjoy every moment - from the dreaming, planning, shopping, and installation. My husband and I have had such fun making our dream of a new kitchen a reality.