12 on the 12th | November

1. Snow was in the forecast, but fortunately it was just rainy and cold.
2. Cold enough to require fingerless gloves when I was painting in the garage!
3. My current batch of 5 cupboard doors received their polyurethane coat.
4. I kind of wish I had taken a "before" picture of this job. It took me 2.5 hours to sort through the piles of paperwork that had accumulated on the counter!
5. Jill had been texting me throughout the morning to give me updates on Landon. The poor guy had a bad fall at a campout — this email was notifying me that he broke his elbow! (They spent the day at InstaCare and at Primary Children's Hospital, and he ended up having surgery last night!)
6. Marc strongly suggested that I take a break from painting. (Apparently my painting frustration is making me difficult to be around?) I read for awhile and had a little nap. Glorious.
7. Then I resumed painting. I've been watching (listening to) The Sing-Off while I do my interior painting. I've always been an a cappella fan.
8. The last section of upper cabinets got their polyurethane coat! Whew.
9. Grandma and Grandpa brought Eva back from her ultimate grandparent date of going to Disney on Ice! They also bought her a light-up tiara and an Ariel necklace. Best day ever.
10. Lucas came back from our neighbors' house, where he had evidently helped them to make applesauce, and they sent a bottle for us. (Why does he never help with kitchen projects here?!) It was still warm and very delicious.
11. I went out to get some balloons and treats for Landon.
12. Lucas in his T-birds jacket. We've been seeing that jacket a lot around here! He went to Max's high school for a bonus performance of 3 of the songs from Grease.

six for Saturday

1. I rented a pressure washer last week and cleaned the exterior of the house. I've been wanting to do it ever since I read about it on Kelly's blog, what, last year? Anyway. While I wouldn't necessarily characterize it as fun, it was very satisfying to see all that grime getting washed away.

2. I made meatballs for the very first time this week! I know. Where have I been? (If you must know, I'm not a huge spaghetti fan, due to the many ward dinners I attended as a child where we had mushy spaghetti and jarred sauce. I'm getting over it.) I made Alton's baked meatballs (I think from allrecipes.com), my favorite quick & easy pasta sauce -- but now I have made the very good addition of a dash of crushed red pepper flakes -- and Grandma's French bread. I forgot to make a green vegetable, oops!

3. After the pressure washing, I was ready to paint the front door! Before:

During. I did two coats of Sherwin Williams' Parakeet, but even though I loved the color on the strip, I decided it was a little too bright on the door. I took the paint back and had them add a little more tint. Here, you can see the contrast if you look closely.

After! I finished the last coat last night, and now I officially love it! I am continually amazed by what a fresh coat of paint can do to spruce up my surroundings.

4. We finally got the sprinkler guys back this week to investigate the two big mud puddles we have in the backyard. The city says we have a water leak somewhere, because our meter is constantly running. I'm pretty sure the puddles are related.

Bad news from the sprinkler guys. We already have 4 out of 6 of our sprinkler stations turned off due to major breaks in the system. Now it looks like we will have to have another expensive repair or turn off our sprinklers completely. It bugs me to no end to have a sprinkler system and not be able to use it. Oh, but they did offer to let us save some money by doing some of the labor ourselves -- oh, goody! Hours of digging to look forward to! (did I mention it's 101 degree today??)

5. We had Creative Friday on Wednesday because Jill went on a family campout yesterday. It was a super-productive day! Jill, at least, set a record. I didn't, but I was still pleased with my output. At one point, Jill cracked me up by saying, "It's like a good mail sweatshop!!" Now that's a sweatshop I can get behind.

Do you like the extreme angles that are now required to minimize my chins? Man, I wish I looked like this from straight on...

6. Because of our early Creative Friday, Thursday felt like Saturday, and yesterday and today have felt like bonus days!! I spent some time putting my studio back to rights (everything has been out of the closet and piled up since the flood) -- still more work required, but it's a fun kind of work. I went visiting teaching. I even took a nap, oh so glorious. And now, I'm off to finally touch up the paint in the foyer that's been hanging over my head for, oh about six months...