,,: Up To...

We've just been plugging along here at the Lyman house. It's one project after the next, phew!

After the carpet went in, we took a few days to decide what to work on next, and the kitchen won out. So anyway, here's a few in between pictures:

The other day, we had some random black cat perusing through our garage. He was a sweet little thing, and Marin just loved him. He was ready come inside when we tried to go inside!

And yes, we *finally* have a laying hen! About 10 days ago I was outside and noticed a small, round thing on the ground, and upon closer inspection, it was an egg! The next egg ended up on the floor inside the hen-house, and the rest have been inside the nesting boxes where they belong. I think it's one of the Barred Plymouth Rock's, since the majority of the feathers in the nesting box are black and striped. So far we've received about 8 eggs!

Sometimes we let the chickens out into the grassy yard, they love that.

The kids requested to make cookies, and they then requested to watch the buffalo hunt scene from Dances with Wolves. That was something my dad did with them before he passed away; the kids still remember it, and I *cling* to that. I don't ever want them to forget those few, precious memories they have with my dad. So we watched the buffalo hunt together, and I don't think I'll ever be able to watch that scene and not get choked up. His memory is just as bright as day when I see that scene, and hear the music. I love that my kids still remember.

If you are wondering, yes, I am still getting my dinner recipes from The Fresh 20, and I LOVE it, still! This is just a dinner from last week. I use the meals 100% of the time, maybe 80% of the time? But it still saves us money, and we eat so many veggies for dinner. It really expands my kids pallet's, which I love. It's been a whole year, bring on another!

Every so often, when I am the closer at work, I get stuck LATE, and it stinks....especially having kids. So this was my cheese and cracker dinner at 6:15 one night.

This was the first offering from our ladies that we cooked up. The eggs are still a bit small (I hear they'll get bigger), but they were delish!! Super yummy, way better than store bought.

I had this strange unused space beneath my cooktop range, and it made me crazy. It had an opening cupboard door, but there was nothing there! It was just empty to the storage space below. And I reeeeeally needed a place for my cookie pans; they had been sharing space with my cutting boards and it was not a happy match. SO, one day, I took it upon myself to put in a shelf. It was more of a project than I thought, but I got it done and I'm so happy with it! It's a great use of space, and I got to use my husband's power tools ;)

We saw a rainbow outside of kitchen one night while eating dinner. Marin had *just* been talking about rainbows, and was SO excited when she saw this.

The kitchen, a before. Well, just one. I have more, but I'll save those for when we're done. Here we are emptying out the cupboards. Meh, having a chaotic kitchen is not my favorite, but it will be worth it! We're painting them a slightly off-white "Swiss Coffee" by Behr. Those cabinets to the left of the window are gone, and in their place, we are putting open shelving, dark stained wood, and I'm debating on doing beadboard behind or a stencil...I haven't made up my mind yet. I'm leaning toward beadboard.

So far the bases have all been primed, and the doors/drawers have had their first coat of primer and need to be sanded. Progress is slow, it's kind of tedious, especially when you have an evil paint sprayer named Chucky. Chucky has now met his maker. And below, you'll meet our new paint sprayer...Glenda. She's just lovely!

The garage. It's been unpredictably rainy/windy outside the last couple of weeks, so my paint studio has been temporarily relocated to the garage. Here are all of our doors/ drawers ready for primer!

We had Trine and Barry up one Saturday evening and they offered to paint the chicken house, sweet! We decided on "Farmhouse Red", Behr, and I love it! I'll need to add some white trim and pretty it up with details, but I was so happy they painted it! Marin helped, and she loved it!

And here's Glenda, our new paint sprayer. Let me tell you the story. Yesterday, I got everything ready to spray, and Chucky (who was named after this whole ordeal), the old paint sprayer, didn't work. The suction wasn't there, I replaced the tubing, I cleaned the whole sprayer like a boss, I fooled with that stupid sprayer for 2 hours, and Kristoffer finally looked at it....nothing. I told him to chuck it. I was absolutely fed up with that stupid sprayer, it has given me so much grief (a Ryobi, battery powered sprayer, it's supposed to be nice). We went to Home Depot (our other home, lately), and I wasn't even thinking about getting an air sprayer until Kristoffer found them. I had totally forgotten that Kris had purchased an air compressor! We decided on this one and took it home. I was scared stiff. After all of the nonsense I experienced with Chucky, I held my breath while we fired up the air compressor and I pulled the lever on Glenda. She puffed out the most beautiful, soft spray I have ever seen, it was a paint-spraying miracle! She sprayed and sprayed the most even, and lovely line of spray...no dripping, and clogging piston that sounds like a hammer, no clumps, she performed 110%, and I am over the moon in love with her. I know, this has been the longest sonnet ever about a paint sprayer, but I am so happy, and confident that my cabinets will look fabulous!

The Master. We started on the Master bedroom a few weeks ago. We painted the wall behind the bed a plum color, and the accenting walls will be a slate/pewter gray. I'm still deciding on my accent color...green? yellow? turquoise? Not sure.