The Greatest Table That Has Ever Tabled

Wandering through a Crate and Barrel last summer (there's one located next to one of my favorite stores on Earth, The Container Store), Steve and I came across a wonderful table. Its "origami" drop-leaf design allowed it to shrink to a mere 14 inches deep when fully collapsed, but could expand to seat a "holiday factor" of six. It seemed like the perfect table for the small dining area we had cleared in our kitchen redesign. We filed away knowledge of this great table possibility, wanting to be sure we considered all of our options, and went on our way. 

The first day of October, I spotted the table on one of the design blogs I frequent. My exact utterance at the time was "oh, no." It was on a list of (relatively) affordable tables well designed for small spaces. Which meant it was soon to become more difficult to acquire. 

Having found no more appealing options since we first happened upon this table, I clicked quickly over to Crate and Barrel's website to order it. I was able to... for delivery in mid-December. Luckily, there were no additional delays and the table arrived today, more than in time for Christmas.

And now, finally, I shall show my loyal readership why this table is the greatest. 

Fully collapsed:

How it'll be most of the time, one leaf up for me and Steve:

Fully extended (it's a bit impeded by un-assembled chair boxes at the moment, but it will fit nicely in our available space once we finish up the building process):

The chairs are Ikea. Steve and I sat in a dozen chairs that ranged wildly in price and style and this modest Ikea product was by far the most comfortable. I wanted to be sure long-term sitting would be comfy since this is the only table in the house and I want to be able to play games and lounge. It's hard to tell with the lighting weirdness in the pictures, but the seat covers are grey, not blue. I think it looks really great... we'll have to start hosting (small) dinner parties or something.

Postal Cookies

I have taken a break from blogging for the past month or so. This is mostly due to the fact that I have been extensively decorating our house for Christmas, and I want my family to be surprised when Steve and I host this year, so I'm refusing to post pictures. My mother protested, so I am relenting with one picture.

Steve was kind enough to help me (and by "help," I mean do everything while I watch) bake cookies for my friends at the post office.

That may sound a little odd, but I go to the post office a lot. Pretty much every week, sometimes more than once. The postal service introduced a rule many years ago requiring any piece of mail over 13 oz to be either processed through the automated postal center (or online) or taken up the counter. My boss being a bit of a luddite, he has me take things up to the counter.

So, for the past eight years, I have gone into the same small post office nearly every week. Though all of the clerks know me, I have struck up an especially friendly rapport with one in particular, who (in an "it's a small world" twist) is originally from Long Beach. He greets me with an enthusiastic grin and usually "yo, girl!" and we chat about various things while he processes my mail.

Today I delivered a plate of cookies (regular chocolate chip and double chocolate) with a tag reading "To: My friends at the post office." I was thanked repeatedly, told how wonderful I am, etc. I left feeling somewhat embarrassed in a really wonderful way. And I really can't think of anything that more perfectly encapsulates what the Christmas season is all about than the warm (slightly self-conscious) feeling that results when a kind gesture one makes is very much appreciated.

Floored: Living Room Edition

I honestly cannot believe how amazing the living room floor turned out. It was such a big job, we hired it out. There were so many deep gouges and scratches, I wasn't sure what they'd be able to do... well, I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. 

Before:

After:

 Before:

 After:

 Before:

 After:

I love the variations in color of our old floor. We asked the crew not to apply any stain, so the colors you see are the natural tones in the wood. Just beautiful. I am thrilled. 

Next up, Steve and I will be repairing the baseboards and installing some sort of shoe moulding. 

This was the last major interior project on our house (defined as requiring displacement of a large volume of belongings and extensive temporary reconfiguration of interior space). There will, of course, be little things to do for time and memoriam. All the same, completion of this project is a huge milestone. 

Tomato Man

Steve loves his tomatoes. We were fortunate to get a few days of hot weather to ripen up what we presume are the last tomatoes of the season. The resulting harvest was... bountiful.

Okay, so show off the plant for me:

A little creepy, but okay. Let's try a smile instead:

Maybe more an I'm happy smile instead of an I'm tolerating my crazy wife smile:

There it is.

The Transforming Kitchen

Now that the floors are done curing, the reconfiguration of Steve's and my kitchen is underway.

First, our new wagon was put to the test transporting boxes containing our future cabinetry:

Adding eight medium-duty rubber non-marking casters to three Ikea base cabinets, Steve and I created a mobile kitchen peninsula. Even when fully loaded, the peninsula glides very smoothly, but requires enough effort to begin rolling that it doesn't move unbidden.

(picture above shows fridge with microwave on top inside the former pantry cupboard)

One advantage of this arrangement is that we can adjust the size of the galley kitchen portion to accommodate guests in our soon-to-be-created dining section (nifty adjustable-size table is on order and we've been shopping for chairs). It'll be cozy, but we should be able to accommodate small gatherings.

I spent a joyful evening arranging the drawers. I love that kind of thing. Sampling of my handiwork:

Yes, all of our glassware fits in those two (open) leftmost drawers. The other drawers contain everything from pyrex dishes to cookie sheets to aluminum foil. All neatly arranged, which makes me very happy.

Yeah, I'm a super exciting person. It's true. More super exciting things to come.

Floored: Kitchen Edition

Though certainly no expert, I am also not a stranger to the process of refinishing floors. As a teenager, I ran the big floor sander along my parents' den in pursuit of renewed planks. As a homeowner, I did the same in my small bedroom. Both floors turned out fine. 

However, those experiences taught me that refinishing floors is a noisy, dusty, smelly process. The kitchen floor in Steve's and my old house was in definite need of such treatment. Facing the prospect of a whole lot of work and a giant mess, there was only one thing to do... hire somebody else to do it.

Before

Exposed subfloor in the pantry cubby (future home of our fridge) and missing chunk under a removed base cabinet (apparently the geniuses that laid the original floor installed the floorboards around the cabinet instead of moving said cabinet, which was particularly ridiculous given that the cabinet was floating, as in, not attached to the floor or wall):

The worst section of the floor, deeply gouged, rippled from some long-ago water damage and stained with a mysterious black substance (possibly rot from past water issues):

During

First round of sanding complete, patching compound dries on the floor:

Sanding complete, a beautiful blank slate (the most heavily damaged area from the second picture of this post is right there in the foreground - all better!):

After

Polyurethane cures on the stained floor: 

Since our base cabinets are black, we wanted to be sure that the floor was not dark, to provide contrast. So we picked a warm, slightly red-ish tone for the stain (Colonial Maple, to be precise). 

We're happy with how things have turned out. The crew we hired has been very pleasant to work with, so it's been a positive experience. Definitely better than doing it ourselves, that's for sure. Worth every penny.

Until the floor cures enough for things to be moved back in (approx. 4 days), Steve and I are operating our kitchen out of the living room. 

Steve prepares a bagel (note toaster at his feet) by the front door:

Next up: moving all of the stuff out of our living room so the crew can refinish that floor. Should be... interesting. 

The Kitchen: We can rebuild it. We have the technology.

Steve and I decided several months ago to radically alter the layout of our kitchen. Other projects and events arose keeping us from making much progress toward that goal. When my parents visited in late August, my dad helped me take the first step by removing our only upper cabinet.

Unsurprisingly, the wall behind the cabinet wasn't in perfect shape. That mattered little, as we planned to reconfigure some of the kitchen wiring, which would result in two outlet boxes being removed from the area (requiring patching).

Steve gets working on the electrical (don't worry about the concerned look, he assures me he knows what he's doing):

The reason we were pulling wires, patching walls and cutting holes for new outlet boxes is that we are moving our refrigerator from one corner of the room into the strange little pantry/cupboard/closet near our stove (yes, there is adequate ventilation above and behind the fridge). By recessing the fridge, we'll have enough space to carve out a little dining area in our kitchen. There's lots of other arranging being done, but more to come on that another time.

Steve connecting the new circuit he ran for the fridge:

Steve works in the new refrigerator closet:

Because the floor in the refrigerator closet needs repair, we have not yet settled the fridge back into the space (aside from a short trial period to be sure we liked the arrangement). This made working on the wall a bit of a tight squeeze, but manageable.

I scrape plaster off of the lath to allow for a drywall patch:

Patched and painted, the wall awaits our next project (hint: foreshadowing in the foreground):

We're trying to have as few kitchen cabinets as possible. Kitchen cabinets tend to accumulate junk, and I want to be sure we're not enabling that tendency. We've decided to have no upper cabinets at all. We won't have many base cabinets either, so we needed a solution for storing bulky pots and pans. On the wall they go!

Steve uses blocks made of scrap wood (and a level to verify) to place the "rails":

The rails are made of walnut and have small block spacers sandwiched between them and the wall at the studs (pushing the rails off of the wall allowing the attachment of hooks for hanging pots).

Steve oils the rails for a somewhat water-resistant and attractive finish:

Finished product:

I'm thrilled. It'll look more impressive when there isn't a fridge in the way, but we're making progress toward that end. We've hired someone to patch and refinish the hardwood floors in the kitchen and living room. Work should begin next week.

This'll be funny someday...

Steve and I bought a new car two weeks ago. I didn't blog about it initially because I was waiting for time to nudge what happened on that car lot from the frustrating to the funny side of the equation.

The newly acquired vehicle is a 2014 VW Jetta SportWagen (brand new, only 9 miles on it when we bought it). My top three criteria when we went shopping (the first two heavily influenced by the scary accident that demolished our poor truck): 

1. Safety (I didn't want to look at anything that didn't get a perfect score from IIHS)

2. Visibility (I wanted to feel I was sitting up high enough to see what was going on around me, coupled with large and well-placed windows)

3. Hauling capability (Though I don't expect a wagon to be able to do everything our little pickup truck could do, I wanted it to be able to handle most of our project needs)

It has a clean diesel engine (no smell like old diesels) so it gets up to 42 mpg highway (30 city) and 600 miles per tank (nice to not have to stop for gas on our drives to Southern California). We got an automatic transmission as I am past the point in my life where I'm willing to sit in traffic with a stick shift. It drives wonderfully and has all the fun bells and whistles one expects in a new car: navigation system, bluetooth, backup camera, etc. It also has a feature I love as a person prone to carsickness: air vents in the backseat (in the center console facing the rear seats, that is). Steve and I are very happy with the car so far.

So, what was the aforementioned frustrating part? After a long day at the dealership, after the finance and sales staff detailed the car themselves so we wouldn't have to wait any longer for the overworked detail guy, as I sat in the car adjusting my seat to drive off the lot, before I could even start the engine to move from where the dealership staff had parked the car... another customer backed into our brand new car.

(dent around seam between front fender and front passenger door)

The other customer clearly didn't even turn around to check behind him before backing out of his parking spot. He sheepishly admitted fault on site to the pissed-off sales guys (who were much angrier than I was about the whole thing). Luckily the other customer's insurance has moved forward promptly and our new car is currently being repaired. The dent wouldn't be such a big deal, except that it impedes the operation of the front passenger door. And that I was (and am) still a little shaky behind the wheel after the accident and the crunch sound and rocking of the car after it was hit triggered a bit of an anxiety attack. [sigh]

Regardless, it's a great car and we're happy with it. Soon we'll even be able to open the passenger door without the terrible cracking/popping sound. That'll be nice. 

The truck is no more. It has ceased to be.

I tend to be unreasonably sentimental about inanimate objects. Not everything, but some things. My mind molds them into symbols. For me, the truck was a powerful symbol of Steve's and my relationship. The truck was the first vehicle we bought together, that was truly ours, not solely Steve's or mine. The truck moved us out of the Santa Cruz mountains, pulling a little trailer with all our worldly possessions. It hauled lumber, dirt and supplies to rebuild our beloved house. It transported us to every important event in our life for the past seven years.

Steve and I with our truck right after buying it from brother-in-law Richard in May 2007:

We babied it. We added tinting, a rolling bed cover, spray-in bed liner, upgraded the sound system and added a tow hitch. As a thank you gift for my efforts to help my grandparents in their final years, my dad installed cruise control. The truck was finally perfect. Exactly one week after said cruise control installation, after being able to use that wonderful new feature only a few times, the truck was totaled.

After a frank conversation with the body shop, I finally conceded today that the truck is beyond repair. It will be hauled away to salvage for parts today or tomorrow.

State Farm treated us well throughout this process and gave us a very fair amount of cash for our little truck. Steve and I are now shopping for our new vehicle. There are so many decisions to make... new vs. used, truck vs. small SUV vs. crossover-type-thing, make and model. It makes my head spin. So far I don't love anything I've seen. I didn't want a new car; I wanted our truck back. I suppose I can only throw a fit about it for so long... we'll have to settle on something eventually.

I prefer to stay at home...

Sometimes there's a price to be paid when venturing out.

First off, Steve and I are both okay. As Steve says, "the truck did what it was supposed to do" and protected us, especially him. It could have been so much worse. The window tint Steve had done on the truck even held the shattered passenger window in place.

I was driving, Steve was in the passenger seat. We were proceeding along a large, four-lane parkway when a mid-sized U-Haul truck (which had a stop sign and should have waited for us to pass) abruptly pulled out of a small side street and smashed into our truck. I swerved to avoid, but the U-Haul broadsided us anyway.

The U-Haul quickly left the scene, pushing our stopped truck out of the way to do so. So quickly in fact, that we couldn't get a good look at the driver or more identifying information on the vehicle (other than, obviously, to see that it was of the U-Haul persuasion) before he/she fled.

I am profoundly shaken up. Not because of the accident, accidents happen. Not because of the callous disregard of the U-Haul driver, people can be thoughtless, this is not news. After Steve and I confirmed to each other that we were uninjured, I got out of the truck feeling okay about the whole thing, but then I saw the damage... to the side of the truck where Steve was sitting just moments before. And I had an overwhelming feeling of failure that I did not somehow prevent what could have done so much more harm to the most important thing in the world to me. But that's life, I suppose. We are all so frail.

We'll find out from the insurance adjuster on Monday if our little truck can be repaired or if it's final act was to valiantly defend Steve from a much larger vehicle. If we can repair it, we will. We owe it that much. Otherwise, well... I guess we'll see.

Bunny Laundering

I want to make clear that actually laundering rabbits is not nice. However, when they are running out of time at the San Jose animal shelter, it is a nice thing to make a temporary home for them in the laundry room.

Alana and Amanda:

I have asked the director of the local rescue to only call on me in cases of true emergency for temporary fostering (since I acknowledge that having five permanent resident rabbits is a lot). When I was informed that these girls were out of time, I talked it over with Steve and, with a gracious smile and comment about my sweet nature (okay, he may have said I'm a sucker, but close enough), he gave me the go-ahead. So a shelter volunteer delivered the bunnies this afternoon.

I know I have a problem. The first step is admitting it.

But... they're so fuzzy!

Hammock Time

Steve manages to fit in a little rest time between projects.

All right, that's enough. There's painting to do...

Adventures in Civil Discourse

This afternoon, as I often do, I headed over to the post office after work to drop off mail my boss and I had generated after our daily pickup occurred. I was looking forward to chatting with the employees there (yes, I go so frequently that I know the front counter workers and they know me). I pulled in to the parking lot and saw two young people on the sidewalk manning a table with fliers... under a large poster of President Obama sporting a Hitler-style mustache graced with the title "Impeach Obama." It appeared to be a signature collection effort toward that stated end.

I went in to the post office and got my stuff mailed. As I headed back to my truck, I paused and looked again at the poster. Against my better judgement, I decided to approach the table.

The young man turned toward me, gave me a once-over, and then turned away. Whether he brushed me off because I look like I'm twelve or some other reason, I don't know. I spoke up politely (I use quotes because what follows is literally what was said, I did not take any poetic license).

"I hope you'll reconsider the use of nazi imagery in your campaign. It's offensive and inappropriate."

He turned his head slightly to look at me out of the corner of his eye. "I'll stop doing that as soon as Obama stops funding nazis in Ukraine. You go tell him that." With a smirk, clearly satisfied in his superior knowledge and wisdom, he turned away.

Admittedly my primary interest is not foreign policy, but I consider myself basically well-informed. I spend a lot of time reading news from various sources and I listen to public radio pretty much all day during the week. Now, public radio in my area isn't just NPR. I get two hours of BBC news everyday, two hours of what I consider the best NPR show out there (The Diane Rehm Show), an hour of Democracy Now! as well as a few other news programs. I understand that the politics of what is happening in Ukraine are complex and all sorts of accusations have been leveled, including that one fascist/neo-nazi political party that has gained some power after Yanukovych's ouster (I had to look up the name of the party: Svoboda) is being backed by the United States and other western powers.

I realized, as I stood there in the parking lot for a moment, that none of my sources of information would be considered legitimate to him. His source appeared to be some sort of low-rent libertarian magazine. If I protested that the use of broad and charged symbolism prevents earnest discourse (the "only nazis are nazis" argument) because it is both ineffective at conveying one's point (its overuse has confused its meaning) and inflammatory (accusing someone of belonging to a party that attempted to use military force to claim many sovereign nations as its own territory and directed genocides against several minority populations is somewhat... extreme, to say the least) I would likely just start an argument with no possible satisfactory resolution.

So, I sighed. And said "I hope you'll reconsider." And left.

This has been Adventures in Civil Discourse. Join me next week when I attempt to convince the local Planned Parenthood protestor (yeah, we really only have one, she always looks a bit lonely out there with her sign) that supporting affordable and readily available birth control for all is the real way to end abortion and she should actually be donating to PP's family planning services.

(By the way, I'm not really going to do that. I know it's futile.)

A Reflection

My grandma's memorial service was nearly two weeks ago. I haven't felt much like writing about it, but I do want to share some images.

My mom made a beautiful slideshow to give an overview of my grandma's life. I'll just share a couple slides.

Me and Grandma (the dates of the two pictures on the right should be 2006 for the wedding and likely sometime in the mid-90's for the picture below it, but those are truly minor details):

This next slide features one of my favorite pictures. The picture on the right of my grandparents, my brother, Steve and me was taken outside the Green Street Restaurant in Pasadena after lunch. I don't remember the exact exchange, but while my dad was pulling the car around, my mom was attempting to get a decent picture of us. She wasn't getting the smiles she wanted, so I recall some kind of humorous threat being levied, resulting in this picture:

It makes me smile every time I look at it.

Since everybody was dressed up for the memorial, my mom wanted to do some pictures at my grandparents' house. It chokes me up to think that these are the last pictures of me and my family in that house (as it will be sold soon).

Steve and me in the dining room:

Steve sits oh-so-daintily on my lap:

My immediate family (introducing for the first time on this blog, my brother's girlfriend Brooke, who shopped for and arranged all of the beautiful flowers for the memorial service):

Brooke and Jim pose with me and Steve:

I mention with frustration that I never know what to do with my hands in pictures. Brooke says to put one up and one down. I say, "like this?"

I'll take the laughter as a "no, not like that." I'm such a dork.

I've been trying to keep my mind on positive memories. I picture my grandma's dramatic rolled eyes when someone let one of the screen doors slam. I remember her specific tone of amusement coupled with exasperation when my father made a bad joke or gave a nonsense answer to one of her questions. I remember how delighted she was when I showed up unannounced to surprise her on her birthday. I think of that certain teasing smile she'd get when she called Steve "ol' what's-his-name."

My grandparents' house was my second home. It has been very difficult to come to terms with the fact that I won't be going back there again. But without them, it's a shadow of its former self anyway.

One chapter ends and another begins. I spent just about every holiday in that house. But for Christmas this year, Steve and I will be hosting at our house. I spend a lot of time thinking about the traditions I want to preserve, those to let go, and new ones to introduce. We'll see how things go.

The Great Eight

Today Steve and I celebrated our eighth wedding anniversary. We had a nice dinner out at a place I'd been wanting to try, Cafe Cruz. Quite tasty.

In our kitchen before heading out to dinner (because blog posts are kinda boring without pictures):

And... that's about it. We enjoy going out to dinner and chatting; I'm thankful we still somehow manage to find topics of conversation after nearly fourteen years together (and two years of friendship before that). We'd been so busy lately that neither of us remembered until last night that our anniversary was imminent. Time flies.