Kitchen Renovation: Phase I

Phase I: Before
The yellow post-it marks the cabinet that will not be used in the new kitchen.
The white notes indicate what is in each drawer.

Because this corner of the kitchen contains neither appliances nor water hook-ups, it is the logical place to start our renovation, as it will (conceivably, we hope) cause the least disruption.

Good Christmas

As I sit here enjoying my turkey sandwich, I've been trying to figure out what made this Christmas so different from other years. So much better.

It wasn't that I didn't make an all-in Christmas dinner (including egg-wheat-dairy-free variations for one daughter). And it wasn't that I didn't make elaborate to-do lists. (See photo above.)

Nananeye's Muffled Pup - UPDATED

Today's post is actually a recipe for a meat pie, but it requires a bit of a preamble. It is from back in the days when Steve and I were just starting out. Now for the explanation of the recipe's name:

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

Back-to-school time has excited me ever since I can remember. New school supplies! New clothes! Seeing friends I hadn't seen all summer! What's not to love?

Well, hello there!

At lunch before the change-of-appointment parade.

The combination of house guests and a 10-day Internet failure has meant that I've been incommunicado for about two weeks. I've been so busy that I haven't really missed it, but I have periodically felt frustrated that I couldn't share news and pictures with you.

It was a very busy couple of weeks, indeed! Rather than blasting you with all the news in a single post, I'll split the highlights over the next two or three days. Here's the first instalment.

Post from the Past: Awww

This post originally appeared in October 2010, but I'm re-posting for Thankful Thursday.

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It doesn't take much to make me happy, really.

This morning, Brian handed me this pillbox.

He must have found it while putting away the dishes.
(Ignore the dust.)

So I opened it.

The Snowy Day

Or snowy week, really. It has snowed, and then it has snowed again some, with very little melting in between. This is what our driveway looks like right now.

With thanks to Peter and Brian for some excellent shovel-work.

Where the snow has not been shoveled, it is deep and slippery - hard work to walk through. I tried following in Stephen's steps, but his stride is about a foot longer than mine, so it did not work very well. I was better off cutting my own trail.

The snow and bright sunlight made pretty vignettes everywhere we looked.

The fence around the ice rink - which has not yet been poured.

Evergreen boughs sagged heavily under the mounded snow. We need a good, strong wind to blow it off.

We stepped in out of the cold, cold winter into a house aromatic with the smell of turkey roasting: sage, thyme, onion, and butter. Mmmmmm.

Almost done.

Then, Peter lit a fire for us.

Peter still had hat head from shoveling the driveway.

So, it's been a perfect day. And it's not over yet! This evening, both my girls will be home, to share that turkey, and for Emily's birthday cake. I can't promise that I'll take pictures, but it does seem likely, doesn't it?

By the Sea

I love to be beside your side, beside the sea,
Beside the seaside, by the beautiful sea! 

From the song By the Beautiful Sea, from the musical "For Me and My Gal"

(Harold Atteridge / Harry Carroll) (1914)

Oh, what a beautiful vacation this has been! I did almost no sightseeing, but enjoyed myself nevertheless being a homebody and simply enjoying the views.

After Ottawa's long, grey winter and wet spring, I really enjoyed the gardens around our resort.
Does anyone know what these purple flowers are called? Coneflowers?

Steve went to the beach every day; Brian went most days (where he dug a trench with Steve). I went only twice, but enjoyed it when I did go.

Crystal Cove has a small historic neighbourhood of cottages that are quaint and tidy. (This was not where we were staying, but it was so pretty. I'm sure they cost a tidy sum as they are right on the ocean bluffs.)

Curiously, there was another row of cottages right down on the shore that were falling down from disrepair. I'm guessing that the State was eventually going to demolish them.

This place looks like it gained an addition every time a storm rolled in.

The following may be my favourite photo of the entire trip. At the time I took it, I wasn't sure how it would turn out. The camera's autofocus had a hard time finding anything to focus on, and the colours were all so washed out...

This absolutely captures the peacefulness we feel here.

And tonight, our last night here, Steve and I went down to the Cove for a date. While he parked the car, I snapped some more sunset pictures because, kitschy as they are, I just can't get over sunsets. They always grab me.

The colours never got very strong, because of the clouds, but I watched them fade to grey as they played taps, and I took those moments to remember our fallen.

Finally, we went in for dinner - and a wonderful meal it was!

Not surprisingly, I found myself thinking, "Wouldn't it be wonderful to look at the ocean or a big lake every morning? Maybe we should retire to a house on the water." It's something we've talked about. But, in the end, I think part of what makes this so magical for us is that it is the exception.

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The following clip is the version of "By the Beautiful Sea" with which I am familiar. It was on one of the kids' favourite videos when they were young. This song runs through my head whenever I go to the ocean.

Should I be worried?

On Saturday, I made one final attempt to make decent bread in my bread machine. (How hard can it be, right?) Previously, it has produced "bread" that is dry and leaden, and heavy as a brick. This time it worked: the bread was light, with an even texture and flavorful with basil and oregano. It was gone by breakfast.

When my fifteen-year-old finally came downstairs, he called out, "Who ate the last of the bread you baked yesterday?"

Me: I don't know. Should I bake more?

Brian: Yes, please!

So I showed Brian how to bake some bread and the house filled with the smells of comfort food.

Also on Saturday, Emily asked if I would help her make cookies to bring to her friend who is in hospital with Crohn's. This friend is not supposed to eat cookies, but she is craving Just. One. Poor thing.

Steve: That sounds like a fun Mommy-Emily activity.

So I agreed. Fast forward to this afternoon while the bread fills the house with its yeasty goodness.

Emily: Are you ready to help me bake cookies? Last time I tried, they all burned.

Me (with a little trepidation): Sure.

So we mix up a batch of buttery, sugary chocolate-chip yumminess.

I'd like to see YOU try not to eat one of these!

Freshly baked bread? Warm-from-the-oven cookies? Hey, I am only human! Diabetes be damned, I ate a cookie [three cookies]. And I did have a slice of that bread [two slices] with butter melting into its herb-flecked sponge.

In the meantime, I can't help but wonder if my kids are trying to hasten my demise ...

Everyone should have a soldier in the house.

If there's one thing soldiers are taught, it's how to shine a pair of boots. We won't get into why it is important that a soldier's boots be shiny, we will simply accept that it is. And then we will reap the benefits of having such a skill in the household.

Did you see what happened to my favourite leather boots while I was in Toronto?

That is some serious salt damage right there.
The tips of the toes are sopping wet with salt water.

I was a little distraught because I do like these boots - they are extremely comfortable, great for walking, and they look unique with their foot-forming shape. (They kind of remind me of those old "Earth shoes.")

As soon as I could, I covered the salty spots with moist paper towels and was pleasantly surprised by how much salt came out. (Yay, osmosis!) But the leather still looked rather sad.

So this past weekend, I paid Brian (who is an Army cadet) to give those boots a good cleaning and polishing.

Clean and smooth

Isn't that kind of amazing? I immediately applied a fresh coat of waterproofing. Then I gave him two more pairs of boots to treat.

Tiny Dancer

I'm a bit of a stickler for rules, you may have noticed. There is a right and a wrong way for everything. In this, I am very much like my older son. His world has a lot of black and white, and very little grey.

Sadly, sometimes I come down on the wrong side of black and white. Tonight, for example, we went to Brian's band barbecue fundraiser. It was an extremely casual affair, with picnic blankets, hot dogs, tug-o-war, egg-races, ice cream, and lots of sugar-buzzed little kids running around while parents chatted (and secretly wished the event included beer so they could be buzzed as well).

When the band started playing, my foot started wagging along with Emily's.

Those kids are surprisingly good! 

And while they played, a little girl (about six years old) grabbed some streamers that were lying around and began to dance. She sashayed with wild abandon between the audience and the band.

And I Was Irritated.

The show's not about her, I thought.
She's stealing the attention from the band, I thought.
She's just an attention whore, I thought.
She should be dancing behind the audience, I said to Emily.

Righteous indignation was mine. And then I thought:

Wait a minute. There is music playing. A child is dancing. I am grouchy about it. What is wrong with this picture?

I was wrong with this picture! I'm glad she danced. I hope she never stops.

Let them praise his name with dancing and make music to him with tambourine and harp.                                                                                                                       Psalm 149:3

Sadly, I didn't get a picture of the tiny dancer,
but this wee girl shows the same joy.

Married to the Military

I cannot imagine my life
without this man.

Several months after Steve and I married, my sister-in-law asked me, "So how does it feel being married to the military?"

I don't recall exactly what I replied, but it was something along the lines of, "I didn't marry the military; I married your brother."

As a military kid herself, she knew better. The military has been the landscape of our marriage, of our family. It has shaped many of our choices, it has shaped my career. It has affected our children's education, friendships and mental health.

Indeed, what hasn't it touched?

Some of the aspects of being a military spouse are common to families who do not have a military member:

• Moving from one location to another, including to another country. (My brother and his family have lived in as many (or more) houses, including a home in Singapore.)
• Living apart for periods of time - and not because you're having marital difficulties.
• One spouse giving up or modifying career options for the sake of the other.
• Getting caught up in the social expectations to conform: to marry, to be heterosexual, to put work before family. 

The one big difference is that corporate execs or bureaucrats don't generally put their lives on the line when they go to work. But police officers, first responders, firefighters, and some defense contractors do that. As spouses, we share the worry that our best friend might never come home.


Brian, 2002

When Steve returned home after his six-month deployment to Sarajevo, our five-year-old greeted him excitedly with the words,

"Daddy! I thought you were dead!"

My heart broke that he had been worried about that for the whole time his dad was gone.
 
So, yes, being a military wife has certainly had an impact on our life.
 
I'm thinking about all this today for two reasons: (1) this Thursday will be our 27th wedding anniversary (yes, I was a teenaged bride, why do you ask?), and (2) a friend shared a heart-wrenching blog about a military spouse who was on the brink of suicide and is now in residential care, in part because of the effect military life had on her husband, her marriage and her own mental health.

In the first case, the years have flown by, and we will celebrate them.

In the second case, I don't think it's hyperbole to say that the lack of support from the military for this woman was tragic. Thank God she survived.

But I have a few thoughts on the matter. (I'm an opinionated gal. I have thoughts on EVERYTHING.) For one thing, I think we underestimate how emotionally difficult it is to live with someone who is depressed. "I felt very helpless" she writes of coping with her husband's depression and heavy drinking. "I knew my husband needed some sort of counseling, but I also knew it wasn’t something you could force someone into. I started to feel very overwhelmed."

And because her husband's mental health was not treated comprehensively, but was simply medicated, his behaviour had an increasingly negative impact on her and eventually the marriage broke down. In fact, if you tot up all the stressors in her life, you get a picture of someone who is at serious risk for stress-related illness. 

So, being a military spouse certainly didn't help her, but the same thing could happen to anyone who finds herself (or himself) without support, especially from her or his partner. As this compassionate website puts it, suicidal thinking "happens when pain exceeds resources for coping with pain."

My point - and I do have one - is that we shouldn't assume that being a military family is worse or better than any other lifestyle, but that we should all be aware of people who are at risk of being overwhelmed and do what we can to help anyone cope with the pain of excessive stress and depression.

Shame on the military network for letting her - and her husband - down.

Shame on us if we don't reach out to those around us who need someone to help shoulder their pain.

Now go give someone a hug or say a prayer or light a candle or send someone a note to let them know you're thinking about them.

Photography: Brian's Diorama

Brian has been working on military models (from aircraft to ships, to tanks and more) for about two years now. The following pictures are from one particular diorama he made - complete with a textured snowy landscape. To read more about the story depicted, visit Brian's blog. He has his own pictures there, but I decided to do a little photographic exercise of my own.

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Pictures like these were almost impossible for me to take using the fully automatic mode on my camera. In fact, I think I have a couple:

P.S. I've created a separate page for my photography hobby. I won't be posting links on Facebook to each photography post, but you can check them out any time by going to that page or subscribing to my blog. (Or click the "Photography - My Latest Passion" link at the top of the main page.)

Photo Class: Shadowland

Today's assignment for the online photography class I'm taking is "Shadows," so k.d. lang's Shadowland ran through my head all weekend, her plaintive, pure voice lamenting,

I'm a shadow since you've gone

Just a shadow in the dawn

Frustratingly for this assignment, Ottawa was NOT shadowland this weekend. Or maybe it was ALL shadowland and NO shadows! The sun taunted and teased, but slipped away faster than I could grab my camera. The sky was mostly a uniform grey, turning everything monochrome and sad.

Nevertheless, as Brian and I went out to the Museum of Science and Technology on Sunday afternoon, I grabbed my camera.

Like most modern museums, the lighting in the museum is very moody. There is minimal ambient light, but lots of focal lighting. In a sense, the space is flooded with shadows. I did manage a few interesting shots.

Unfortunately, there is a lot of "noise" in all of these pictures because the lighting was so low.

The ramp going up towards the Crazy Kitchen.
Leading lines are powerful in this one.
[Haha! Just had a Star Wars moment: "The Force is powerful with this one."]
f/2.8, 1/15, ISO/1600

One of the final exhibits we saw had this little backlit scene of a woman entering a room.

f/2.8, 1/100, ISO/1600

It's an interesting tableau. I decided to make it a story-telling picture, with a sense of portent.

Are you scared?
Perhaps you should be.
The lock is useless.
What's in the hand she's holding behind her?

I don't know which picture I like better. Do you have a favourite?

Photo Class: Brian, the Friendly Ghost

The theme for this weekend's photo class is: In. I seriously considered doing a picture of an inny bellybutton, but that didn't fly. If Emily's bellybutton were still pierced (and if she were here instead of at a youth retreat), I would definitely take a snap of that.

While sitting in "my chair" (that would be the one with the Wynn Anne's-butt-sized divot in it) this afternoon, I glanced up to see this:

That is the glorious afternoon sun shining IN
and reflecting off our glass-topped dining table on to our living-room ceiling.
Makes me think of PacMan.

Interesting, but not really a photo I'd print or frame. Then I considered being outside, looking in, but on a sunny day, all you get is reflections.

Brian, the Friendly Ghost
The reflection is stronger than the image I was hoping to catch.
Though this is pretty much what I expected.

So far we're zero for two attempts at photographing this theme.
Then I thought about being inside, looking out - especially considering what a gorgeous day we had here. Ottawans come out of the woodwork in weather like this, taking to the trails, the bike paths, and the sidewalks, rolling down their car windows and basking in the sunshine, fresh air and lack of humidity. Bliss.

[Confession: being the lazy gal that I am, I opted for rolling down the car windows. But I have the utmost respect for those of you who got your bodies moving in the great outdoors.]

So, I went to the front hall, where I spied this little [canary? goldfinch? oriole? are orioles even yellow?] looking out the small sidelite by the front door.


This lovely little bird stands sentinel IN our front hall.
She was a hostess gift we received last fall.
f/4, 1/250, ISO/200

And, while in the hall, I captured this:

See: balls IN a bowl.
Oooh. I quite like the play of all those round objects: balls, bowl, beads, swirls in the paint.
As I've mentioned before, I really like organic shapes.

I used one of the perspectives from the day-two e-mail, and as Beth V suggested, I opened the front door to let in as much light as possible. It made an enormous difference.

[Confession: I did intensify the shadows and adjust the "curves" a little on Picnik.com.]
[Confession: I have no idea what "curves" even are! In the photography sense, I mean.]

Here is the undoctored photo, SOOC (straight out of the camera).
A decent photo I can work with.
f/3.5, 1/8, ISO/400

But here's what I got with the door closed:

Yucky picture. Yuck, yuckity, yuck.
I didn't even bother trying to do any "fixes" to it.
As my Photoshop instructor said, sometimes a bad picture is just a bad picture.

I feel like I'm kind of cheating on this course because I'm using a point-and-shoot instead of an SLR/manual camera. But I'm still learning lots, and will be able to apply it all when I eventually get the new camera.

However, I don't feel like I'm cheating by using software to make changes to my photos. To me, that is part of the art of creating. Even back in the days of film, a lot of the creative process went on in the darkroom, exposing certain areas of the paper to more light (the origin of the "burn" tool), or using a pen to mask some areas of the print so it has less exposure (i.e., "dodging"). Besides, I'm not good enough to be a purist.

I can't imagine what Monday's theme will be.