Ripping It

Andrew and I sat down a several weeks ago to write our to do list of things we wanted to get done on or around the house before we hosted Thanksgiving.

It looked something like this:
1. New French Door
2. Insulation in the attic
3. Clean windows
4. Clean baseboards
5. Paint basement
6. Fix basement baseboard
7. Hang decor in bathroom and so on and so on.

That's just off the top of my head.  Because I don't want to get up to go find the real list in the kitchen.  And, if you know the layout of my house, you are thinking - geez, lazy.  Maybe so.  But also maybe because Andrew hasn't let me turn on the heat yet, and I'm huddled up all cozy in my office behind closed doors.  Take your pick.

After two hard core work weekends at our house, the list now looks more like this.

1. New French Door
2. Insulation in the attic (BTW, this was not a fun project, but actually went pretty quickly.  I looked ridiculous wearing ear plugs, a respiratory mask, gloves, etc. trying to stuff insulation into the machine that blows it through a 100 foot hose up to Andrew.  Glad I only had to for two hours.)
3. Clean windows clean windows
4. Clean baseboards
5. Paint basement
6. Fix basement baseboard
7. Hang decor in bathroom ?? (one shelf down, many more things to do)
8. Rake leaves, rake leaves, rake leaves, rake leaves
9. Finish basement bed headboard
10. Decor in basement
11. Replace pictures
12. Find bedding for basement bed
13. Fix garage sale chair
14. Paint mirror

This is always how it goes at our house.  Seems like we cross one thing off the list and then think of two more things to add in its replace.  Oh well, that's really what I love about owning a house.  Always something fun coming up to work on.  I love a good to do list.  Really.

And, I LOVE crossing things off the to do list, but feel really guilty if they aren't 100% complete.  Like even though the French door got installed two weeks ago, I didn't cross it off the list until a couple of days ago because neither Andrew or I had removed the painters tape from the exterior frame.  It just hung there for days and days.  I just needed a good kick in the pants to move forward with the to do list and jump in like ripping off a band aid.  So, I ripped off the painters tape.   And then we hung this cute shelf I bought at a garage sale (used to be pink) and hung it in the guest bathroom.





































Of course now that it's up on the wall I need to add to my list to decorate it...It's like a domino effect.  You work on one thing and then you just want to keep ripping.

Another example, I cleaned the exterior of our windows, but haven't done the inside yet.  Can't cross it off.  Boo.

But, we did finish painting this mirror I've had forever that was gold.  And, I hung it in my office.  With power tools.  Watch out world.
























Plus, I found this old chair at a neighborhood garage sale for $2.  It was missing a spool so Handy Andy fixed it right up in about two minutes.  What a guy.  Makes a great little nook in my office for me to look at while I'm working.





































And, on top of this list, I'm ripping it in the kitchen (hahahaha) and cooking a lot more again.  Fall flavors and meals are inspiring me to put my apron back on.  This past week, we had lasagna with zucchini and squash, banana bread, chocolate chip cookies, creamy rice and chicken bake and homemade cinnamon rolls.  Yum.  So, maybe I've had a bit of a sweet tooth lately.  It's so hard to resist these suckers straight out of the oven, even without icing.


On the cooking list for this week:
1. Chicken tortilla soup with corn bread
2. Barbecue meat balls and mashed potatoes with green peas.  Yum.  I love peas.

And, if you haven't yet, go buy as many honey crisp apples and Bartlett pears as you can.  They are SO good right now.  While you're at it, go buy yourself a pumpkin spice latte from s-bux.  Fall is delicious.