Hello, My Name Is Kristen and I've Lost 8 Lbs. on the Construction Diet

{Is it possible to patent a diet?}

Kristen's Construction Program for Weight Loss

1. Buy an itty bitty house - preferably a cozy house with only one family room. No basement or bonus rooms. When purchasing this house, limit your offspring to either one or none.

2. Make certain that your itty bitty house has no garage.

3. Multiply and replenish the earth.

4. Allow your children to grow, take up more space, and accumulate throngs of toys through birthdays, Christmases, and potty training successes.

5. Multiply and replenish the earth some more.

6. Stuff every nook and cranny of your itty bitty house with the necessities of life. Practice shuffling piles of papers from one place to another. Organize one area only to find out that you've caused more clutter in another area. Enjoy and relish this ongoing game. Be creative in your endeavors to keep the recommended amount of food storage - behind entertainment centers, under beds, packed under desk areas in the kitchen (try and hide this behind a cute curtain and count how many times you have to straighten that d#$@ curtain each day). Store a lovely blue water barrel in your front coat closet.

7. Calculate how much square footage you have per person. (Ours was roughly 300 - 316.)

8. Realize that, as much as they love you, your teenager(s) don't want to be with you every minute of everyday and that their friends don't want to either. Notice that when these said teenagers have friends over, everyone else (including yourself) is exiled to their rooms for the afternoon or evening. (This exile is always by choice...not by force. But how much teenage foolery can you handle?) You will question yourself about how you ever decided to buy that itty bitty house with only one family room (and no basement or bonus room). This is normal.

9. Wait 6.5 years and then be blessed with one more multiplying and replenishing. Be faced with the challenge of housing 3 boys in one bedroom. Enjoy 2 years of no sleeping because when the baby cries, he needs to be moved away from his sleeping brothers. Learn to sleep in a diagonal position in your queen sized bed so that that small bundle of sleepless energy doesn't smack you in the forehead all night.

10. Decide a house addition is in order.

11. If you decide to be your own contractor, you can count on at least 2 - 3 times the weight loss of hiring someone to do it for you. Since we opted to hire that out, my weight loss is slightly less but I have kept my full head of hair (no need to rip it out). The choice is yours.

12. Orchestrate in your imaginative mind, what would happen if your sons found some mysterious bones during excavation. Paint an elaborate mental picture that if bones were found, could they possibly be the remains of one of the wives of the polygamist who built the home? Watch too many episodes of CSI to try and figure out how such a situation might be handled.

13. For kicks, have a wind storm blow down some walls.

14. During daily walk throughs, try and keep your toddler out of the sawdust. Then try and keep the sawdust from getting tracked into the existing house.

15. Get some exercise by getting your groove on.

16. Do a few projects yourself. I chose to paint my kitchen cabinets, 2 bedrooms, and 2 bathrooms. I'm hoping to still lose a few more pounds by painting the new pantry and kitchen dining area. Consuming fumes rather than real food is a surefire way to get the weight off. The brain cells that are killed in this process just add to your overall reduction in size.

17. For optimal weight loss benefit, bathroom projects are key.

18. To change unhealthy cravings and addictions to certain foods, take the targeted food into a bathroom in the middle of remodeling.

19. Try to enjoy your above mentioned food amidst the sights and smells of the bathroom makeover. Need a little more intensity? Closely examine the toilet seal on the floor and imagine its years of use.

20. Mmmmmm............

21. Plant yourself on the toilet that now resides in the shower and finish your good eats. If this doesn't ensure the food aversion you're looking for, I don't know what will.

DISCLAIMER:

Results will vary from person to person. While the construction diet did work for me, there were also side effects that included:

Bags under my eyes

Dark circles under my eyes

Irritability

Insomnia

Sudden outbursts of unexplained tears

Headaches

Bad Hair Days

Frequent outbreaks of cereal for dinner

Mood Swings

White trash tendencies

House Project 2010: Weeks 12 - 20 (PART ONE)

This post is 8 weeks in the making, so it is lengthy. I'm dividing it into 2 parts since I don't expect people to want to take an hour to read a single post. So, one post today and a second post in the next couple of days.

Life has been busy, but we feel so blessed right now. Feel free to just peruse through the pictures, but if you have time, read the captions as well. The story of our construction has ended up with some interesting facts that might interest you.

***

Looking back, the last thing I wrote about our house project was a post introducing you to The Great Wall of Separation.

I will be forever and always, eternally and endlessly grateful for this wall.

Although it has lacked in keeping out the construction sounds, has eaten up half of my kitchen eating area, and requires a person to scoot around it sideways to reach the laundry room or our current bedroom, it has kept the dust and mess and debris to a bare minimum. This thin divide has allowed me to keep my mental faculties (mostly) intact, and the dust has not been much worse than what it typically is. I chalk this up as miracle #457 in the last 4.5 months. It has been a life saver and I am its loyal fan. Would I go through this whole process again? I would shout a resounding "YES!" if and only if I could bring my plywood partner along with me.

The wall is still standing and should be removed within the next week or so. We still don't know what our new addition feels like in connection to our existing house, because we still haven't been able to access our new square footage through the new dining area/breezeway. I have learned great patience through this process and this is just one more thing for me to wait for and anticipate.

The whole kit and caboodle should be finished within the month. There are still a lot of things to be done, but I'm hoping that I can still follow through with my promise to Kennedy that she can host a Halloween party here. There may not be enough time to load the addition with furniture and decor (our carpet is on back order and we'll be cutting it close), but teenagers don't mind sitting on the floor, right? Kennedy just needs to think of it as one giant dance floor...

8 weeks of construction production has produced the following changes:

BEFORE - Old, weathered, unlovely porch...

AFTER: Every part of the porch was resurfaced. Decorative shakes were used and the columns were made a little heavier.

BEFORE: Stairs up to master bedroom, unpainted walls, untrimmed windows

AFTER:

BEFORE: Fireplace

AFTER: As the rock from our kitchen wall sat outside, Jeff kept insisting that we use it for our fireplace. I kept reminding him that our contractor said the cost of labor would be too expensive. We settled on the fact that we would have to use fabricated (fake) rock which we didn't love but it would have to do. Jeff would then bring up the fact that it was pertinent that we use our Farmington rock - handled by our authentic pioneers - and I would remind him that it wasn't in the budget. This went on for around 2 months. I finally asked our contractor to get us a firm bid. Long story short, it only cost us a few hundred dollars more to have our home's rock used rather than the fakey stuff. Jeff was finally content. The guys who did our finish work beat up an old beam for us to make it look weathered and worn. We love how it turned out.

BEFORE: Lockers for the kids' backpacks, jackets, and such. Notice the built in bench for removing shoes and the cute bottom cubby to put them in.

I had them line the inside and outside with bead board.

AFTER: just waiting for coat hooks

We ended up with a seam in the bead board (on the backside) that couldn't be hidden. We had them build another bench for shoe removal since it is right next to the door that heads out to the courtyard and back yard. Still waiting for this to be caulked and painted.

BEFORE: Our old red kitchen with green counters and those funky mirrors in the corner. WHO PUTS MIRRORS IN A KITCHEN? They were odd and a pain in the neck to clean. When we moved in 11.5 years ago, that was one of the first things I wanted to get rid of. We're kinda slow around here, so 11.5 years later and they finally got the boot.

Jeff removed the mirrors while wearing ski goggles for protection. It was quite a sight to see. I think the final count was 21 years of bad luck.

AFTER: WHITE SUBWAY TILED KITCHEN and chunkier new counter tops (Basalt Slate finish). LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this look and can't believe it's the same kitchen.

It was hard to get a good picture with the flash on (above - hello, shiny tile) but without the flash it looks dark (below - the construction wall in the kitchen keeps it kinda dark). When we have the wall down and our chandelier above our kitchen table, things will brighten up a bit.

The walls in the dining area will soon be painted a cheerful, pale green.

Any suggestions of what to do in the corner behind the sink, or what to do near or around the window?

This area is the only space in my entire house that is decorated and good to go. Everything else is in major disarray or is ready to be transformed into something else. This is the spot where I go to be put into a happy place. It's the only area that is clean and shiny and pretty.

CURRENTLY: Gregson Paint Center - in my kitchen, snuggled up to my bestest friend

Just One of the Boys

Oh, Brother - Here We Go Again....

A year later, a little less heated, but we're still having to give permission to our kids to watch the President's address at school.

I'm reposting my feelings from September 4, 2009 'cause they're still the same.

*****

Post preface: I don't get involved in a lot of conversations regarding the political world. Mainly because conversations I've had among family and friends don't usually end well and views and opinions run deep into people's souls. To the core of their beings. You tell someone you disagree with their political views and it's like you just kicked their dog or pinched their (ugly) baby. Jeff and I will discuss and banter because we've learned to agree to disagree. Neither one of us like to sleep on the couch, so we kiss and make up. I also know that he's a crazy Canook so he doesn't know much and he knows I'm just an imbecile of a housewife so I don't know much either. It's an even wash.

(Don't be hatin' on me, Canada! You know I love you!)

While we both have generally viewed ourselves as Republicans, he voted for Obama and I voted for McCain. So, in a sense, we cancelled out each other's votes. That's how much political clout we have.

...

Since it's swarming in the media, I know that most of you probably received the same letter or phone call I did yesterday. The ones with concerns over the upcoming address our current President plans to deliver to the students of this nation. The ones letting parents opt out of having their kids watch the address during school via TV.

By the way everyone is reacting, you'd think Obama was going to deliver the first ever Presidential address on sex education. With graphic posters and correct anatomical vocabulary. And free samples.

I really don't get what all the fretting is about. He is our elected President. He is the leader of our country. I'm assuming he just wants to encourage our students to stay in school, work hard, live up to their potential, and make the most of their education. You can see more about it here.

What's the harm in that?

Am I missing something? Is there a hidden message or agenda somewhere there that I, in my imbecilic mind, can't see?

Not everyone likes Obama or his politics. That is fine. But he is our President and, because of that, I will continue to have respect for that office. Does it mean I have to agree with everything he says? No. Does it mean that I have lost a voice of my own of how I think things should be handled in this country? No. But just because my views may or may not always be in line with his, it does not discredit his position nor does it make him all bad or all good. HE IS OUR PRESIDENT. He is in a position of leadership. Our countries' freedom to vote put him there. So whether or not you like what he is doing every second of everyday, does not make him a saint nor the devil incarnate.

We've forgotten how to be fair in this country.

I remember when Pres. Reagan was shot, I was in 3rd grade. All the students in our school wrote "get well" cards to him and we sent him bags and bags of jelly beans - that being the presidential candied treat of his choice. We were so excited to have some type of small connection with our President. Though we'd never meet him face to face, we were aware of him and he was aware of us.

But were people all up in arms thinking there was some political propaganda that we were being put through in the form of telling the President we were sorry he got shot? I think not.

So, now we have a situation in 2009 in which our President wants to talk to our kids. Not about stimulus packages and health care reform, or clunkers for cash, or the housing market. He wants to take the time to talk to them about what they are ALL experiencing right now. A common thread - their schooling. He, of all people, should be the one to deliver such an address. As the first American elected as President without Caucasian coloring, he has PROVEN that if you work hard, don't let shut doors get in your way, and never give up, you can do anything. Anyone can have success if they are willing to work for it.

He wants to talk and encourage and uplift.

But we're not willing to let him do that?

Really? I guess we haven't come as far as I thought.

Fall is in the Air (Along with Those Cutthroat Rivalries)

It's college football season.

In Utah, well, it brings with it a lot of intensity and buckets of animosity.

Neighbors against neighbors. Brothers against brothers. Friends become foes for the duration of the season, only to rekindle their camaraderie when the last football is thrown.

(I'll see you in December, Randee.)

Do you bleed red or do you bleed blue?

We've learned that the lines are drawn at an early age. Not only do our kids need to plant themselves firmly in moral values and principles, but they also have to declare allegiance and devotion to a team. A school.

It is as if their core, fundamental beings can't fully develop until they have chosen a side.

(Don't believe me? Seem too extreme? Go hang out in the elementary school cafeteria for 5 minutes September - November. They're discussing a whole heckuvalot more than fruit snacks and sandwich contents. )

In honor of this emotionally charged time of year, I thought I might share with you this clever video from my Alma Mater. You may remember the funny ads that I shared in a previous post - this is a play on the Old Spice commercial.

Very clever. Very smart.

(Thanks to my friend, Alysa, for sharing this. She is actually a Utah fan and I have never held it against her. Nope, not even for 1 day.)

Go Cougs!!

Either I Have a Severe Case of Short Term Memory Loss or My Toddler's a Klepto

Yesterday, while Kennedy was at an Ortho appointment, I took 3 minutes to run into a grocery store for some toilet paper.

(My family really likes TP and they start to get a little annoyed when we run out and they have to go without.)

(Yes, they're spoiled, I know.)

I had my little 2 year old buddy with me. I grabbed my package of unscented ultra soft 2-ply, and headed for the checkout. Thank heavens for the express line. One and a half minutes later, I was out the door with my toddler and tissue.

When in the driver's seat, I reached into my purse to rummage for my keys.

(Let me pause here to say that, indeed, some purses are too big. My purse would be one that would fit into the unnecessarily ginormous category. On a daily basis, I'm inconvenienced by the fact that the bottom of my purse is a deep abyss and I can't ever get anything out of it quickly. My wallet, checkbook, cell phone, keys and the occasional package of gum are all lost in the black empty chasm at the base of my handbag. Oh, and the pens which I have unknowingly borrowed from countless businesses.)

As I was feeling around for my keys, my hand brushed against something that crinkled - not a normal sound for my purse. I looked inside and found a package of Hostess Snowballs.

I honestly sat there for a full minute staring at them.

And that's when the 2 trains of thought - that named this post - went through my mind.

Let's take a vote.

I don't remember buying them, but with the amount of paint fumes being inhaled lately, it is a possibility.

OR

Was Shaw just securing an after dinner snack for himself using the stealth of a ninja?

What's your verdict?

And I Just Thought it Was a Pretty Color

Who knew Cherry Tart by Behr could have so much meaning?

I just liked the hue, the name, and was hankering for something sweet.

(Plus, I thought it would go splendidly with the new yellow on our house.)

(Pardon our dust.)

In Feng Shui, a red door symbolizes the mouth of the home. By painting our door red (or any bright color that stands out) chi (positive energy) is drawn to the house. It is the entry point in which abundance and opportunities find us.

The Chinese consider red to be the lucky or sacred color. Many doors are painted with a fresh coat of red just before Chinese New Year to invite good luck and happiness.

In Ireland, a red door is supposed to ward off ghosts and evil spirits.

In Catholicism, a red door represents that the blood of Christ has been smeared on it and that the area beyond the door is holy and sacred.

Also, according to the Old Testament, the Jewish slaves in Egypt smeared their doors with lambs blood as a sign that the required sacrifice had already been made, and those homes would be passed over by the Angel of Vengence.

Supposedly red doors were used as part of the Underground Railroad, and homes with red doors were "safe houses".

Albert Einstein painted his door red because he couldn't recognize his house without it.

And for homeowners (but not THESE homeowners), a red door announces that the house is paid for, free and clear.

One of the Greats in My Life

Several months ago, I wrote about my good friend Britni and her battle with cancer. You can read about it here.

She was in town a couple of weeks ago and we were able to get a group of friends together for lunch. It was so wonderful to see her. She is healthy and vibrant and strong and continues to be an inspirational source of strength to us all.

Simply put, she is amazing.

We love you, Britni.