Welcome to Kate's Indoor Garden!

Soon after we got home from the surgery center today, flowers started showing up. These, from my husband: These, from my parents and siblings: And these, from my Nestie Besties (The picture doesn't do these justice at all but I was too lazy to take them down into the light of the kitchen. Take my work for it, they're beautiful too.): My house now looks like some kind of indoor garden with flowers all over. It's awesome. And it's awesome feeling so loved today. Surgery went very well this morning. We got there at 7:45am and were back home before 10:30am. Besides being a little tired, I'm feeling great. I'm only taking Motrin for pain (which, I could probably do without but I'm enjoying the cushion for now). The dressing is waterproof and I have no activity restriction after today. The whole thing was calm and anticlimactic - which I'm grateful for. I spent most of the day napping, reading, watching TV and playing online. By dinner time I was feeling a little stir crazy already so I went with Mark to Wegmans to get some dinner. I'm sure tomorrow will be more of the same. In all honesty, it feels pretty good to be expected to do nothing. Aside from being cut open this morning, it's been pretty relaxing and I'm enjoying the little break from life!

Major Decision

The husband of one of the families I used to babysit for owns a roofing business so he was my first call after we discovered the roof was leaking. We got our official quote today so the only thing left to do, really, is picking a color for the new roof. This is what the house looks like now (or, what it looked like the day we moved in): And this is the color we're pretty sure we've settled on:

It looks a little darker and more red than what we have now, but I think it'll look good. It's a little scary to think that whatever we pick could be up there for 30 years - that's a lot of pressure!

Future Fruit

The pieces of this year's garden are starting to come together. I've got most of my seeds ready to go. A few seedlings are growing under our plant light. And this guy is growing on our patio: It's a blueberry bush-to-be. If we're lucky, we'll get some berries this year - if not, next year for sure. The worst part of gardening? Getting used to delayed gratification!

Spring Organizing - Pantry Spices

One of my spring cleaning projects was to reorganize the pantry. It had gotten a little out of hand. Once it was back in shape, it was obvious that the current spice storage wasn't working.

It doesn't look that bad, but it's nearly impossible to find a spice that's not in the first row without picking up a bunch. I've also ended up with duplicates of some because I couldn't find them before grocery shopping and they magically appeared later. I needed a way to be able to look over them all and find things quicker.

So, I went out and bought little round stickers.

It only took a few minutes to jot down the spices I had and afix the stickers to the proper lids.

Simple solution, and now I can find what I'm looking for easily and without rustling through everything.

On A Serious Note

A month ago today, I found a lump in my breast. While I do check regularly, there's nothing like a lump to make you second guess things; did I really check last month? Have I been checking well enough?

I promptly made a doctor's appointment and they confirmed that I wasn't imagining things - there was indeed a lump there. They thought it was a cyst, so I was sent for an ultrasound.

The ultrasound revealed it wasn't a cyst and it was recommended that I get it biopsied. I met with a surgeon earlier this week and set up to have the lump removed.

The surgery is set for a week from today. It's an easy procedure - I'll likely be home before lunch and fine by the next day.

Right now, the prevailing theory is that it's a fibroadenoma - which, in layman's terms, is just a non-cancerous lump. Regardless of what it is, it's been quite a month.

It's also reinforced for me how important self-checks are. Haven't done one lately? You can get info on the proper way to do them here.

Birthday Girl

Today is my little sister's 20th birthday. We officially have no teenagers left in the family.

Since Tuesday isn't the best day for a group celebration, we all went out to dinner Sunday night and then headed back to the house for birthday ice cream cake.



A sure sign you're getting old: there's so many candles on your cake you can practically set off the smoke alarm when you blow them out!


Happy Birthday, Laura!

CSN Winner!

And the winner is...

D from Diagonally Parked in a Parallel Universe. She's new to the blogging world but lots of fun - you should definitely check her blog out!

Congrats, D! I'm sure you'll find the purrfect scratching post for Jax - ours actually came from CSN and we love it!

Painting, Foiled.

Remember I said we were painting this past weekend? We totally did. Of course, when we went to take the tape off the edges in Mark's office, a big chunk of wall came with it - revealing what appeared to be water stains and damp walls.

My Dad came down after work today to see if he could diagnose the problem. Clue number one that something was wrong? He could pretty much just peel the wall off.



He ended up cutting away sections of the ceiling and wall until he could find out where the water was coming from. Our freshly-painted room is now a hot mess.



When Mark got home, he (and Kali) had to check it out too.



Kali, who's curious about everything, couldn't wait to see what was going on. She was a little too chicken to assert herself when my Dad was around, but once it was Mark doing the looking, she wanted to be involved. And, she totally tried to claw out of his arms and into the wall. We promptly covered it all up with plastic and tape after that.

The verdict? We need a new roof. Oh, the fun of owning a home.

Spring Cleaning!

A little more than a week ago, I got an email from BzzAgent asking if I wanted to participate in the SC Johnson Smart and Easy Spring Cleaning BzzCampaign. I couldn't say yes fast enough. At the risk of sounding like a geek, I'm so excited about spring cleaning.

The idea of spring cleaning has always appealed to me. The idea of everything put away, organized and cleaned at one time? Yes, please. I've never actually done any, though. I've essentially moved five times in the last seven years and with each move, I've cleaned. By the time spring cleaning rolled around, I was usually getting ready to move again.

This year (and hopefully for quite a few years to come) there will be no moving, so it's officially time to get a spring cleaning routine set up. In an effort to be organized about it, I scoured the 'net for checklists and organized the to-do's into one file for us.



Yes, that's right. I have a four page spring cleaning checklist. Checks motivate me, so a lot of the list is repetitive ("Wash windows" appears under each room) but it'll be a good guideline.

There were also a lot of things I wouldn't have thought of - like dusting the refrigerator coils and replacing smoke alarm batteries - are on the list too. If you're doing your own spring cleaning, a condensed version of our checklist is here.

And, because I'm participating in the BzzCampaign, I got these in the mail this week:


My house is going to be so sparkly clean!

They also sent me a bunch of coupons to share for the products pictured. Want some? I'm happy to share, just leave a comment!

You Don't Get Many Days Like This

75 degrees? In March? I'll take it!

The last time I saw weather like that we were in the Caribbean, so getting it in March seems extra special. We celebrated by dragging out the patio set and having dinner outside.



And, of course, the cats came out to check things out too.



So much playing tired Kali out. By the end of dinner she was chilling by the table.

Rocky decided he was done after a while, too.

It makes me a little sad that tomorrow's weather will be back in the low 50s. It almost felt like summer today!

Switchin' Things Up

We seem to do home improvement things in waves. We're in the midst of a wave now.

This was a quick switch. All of our fixtures in the upstairs bathroom were brushed nickle - except for the vanity cabinet handles. We picked up new ones to match and Mark switched them out.

New one on the left, old one on the right. It's a bigger difference than I thought it would be and I really do love it.

It's also given us the kick in the butt we needed to get some other projects around the house going. Like painting. We're turning into painting pros.

Hibernia Mine Railroad Bridge Bike Trail

Since we moved in, I've been wanting to check out this bridge near our house. I pass it all the time but we weren't sure what exactly it was. Since the weather was so nice today we broke out our bikes (my new bike's debut!) and went exploring.

It turns out the bridge is an old mini railroad bridge - and the start of a bike trail.

The path follows along a stretch of the Raritan River, which is currently very swollen. The recent rain caused flooding, although not as bad as was expected.

The river seemed to be mostly within its banks, but it was moving fast.

And, I believe this would be a damn, if the water level was lower.

It's still winter here, so we really weren't expecting more than a brown landscape. All of that brown, though, was actually mud - the river must have washed way up over the trail.

The trail connected through to a big park. This should be a field, not a puddle.

It was interesting to see our neighborhood in such a soggy state. It gave us a better idea what we'd be dealing with if we were to get major flooding. And, it gave us the opportunity to scope out some pretty great bike trails.

I can't wait for the warmer weather so we can do this more often!

CSN Giveaway - $45 Gift Certificate!

I never got around to mentioning it here, but during the pre-Superbowl sales, Mark and I bought a TV for the bedroom. The problem with buying a TV after you've bought bedroom furniture is - naturally - we didn't have a good spot to put it and trying to find something to match is often hard.

And then I remembered CSN Stores - sure enough, they had a store dedicated to LCD TV stands! Do you know how much easier it is to pick something when you can look at everything on one page?

I've mentioned here before how impressed by CSN Stores quality, prices and customer service - they're all top notch in my book - so I'm excited that they're offering up a $45 gift certificate to one of my readers.

Whether you put it towards a TV stand, some other home improvement project or some entirely different, I'm sure you'll find plenty on this site that catches your eye!

To enter, just leave a comment on this post letting me know what you'd get with the gift certificate if you won AND an email to contact you at. You have until midnight EST on March 18, 2011 to leave a comment - I'll announce the winner March 19th.

Disclosure: I received no compensation for this post and the opinions expressed are solely my own. CSN Stores is providing the gift certificate to the winner.

A Typical Night

Our evenings have gotten into a bit of a routine. After dinner is finished and cleaned up, we often end up here:

Mark's studying for his first CFA exam. He's been spending a lot of his time sprawled across the bed reading financial stuff and studying for the test. I've been joining in - reading or watching the new TV. And Rocky? He's just thrilled he has a warm spot to sleep.

Teenie Tiny Greenhouse

One of my projects yesterday was to get my garden stuff going. A few weeks back, we picked up a lot of seeds at Home Depot. Yesterday, I went though and started the few that I had that needed to be started indoors.

We now have this cute, teenie tiny greenhouse thing hanging out on the workbench - hopefully growing seeds.

I also officially plotted out the garden and ordered the remaining plants we need. I can't wait to get them all in the garden!

February Reads

Not as much reading got done in February but I'm chalking that up to the fact that it's the shortest month of the year - and we were pretty busy!

What I did read, though, I really liked.

The Book Thief - This story is set in Germany during WWII. It's heavy but moving. The writing is a little weird at first but once you get used to the style it really sucks you in. It was the first book in a long time that's made me cry.

Shakespeare's Trollop - After the heart-wrenching heaviness of WWII, I needed something lighter. Charlaine Harris never disappoints. I really love her writing.

Candyfreak: A Journey Through the Chocolate Underbelly of America - My only complaint about this book is that it really should come with a set of candy bars talked about in the book so you can eat-along as you read. This was really delightful.

The Patron Saint of Liars - One of the book challenges for this quarter is to read a book from an author featured on this site and then read one of the books they list in their top ten list. This is from Jodi Picoult's list. I really disliked the choices the main characters made, but I loved their stories and I loved the way it was written.

What are your recent reads?

Lazy Days

Sunday, my parents and sister came down for the afternoon. My Dad worked on spackling the basement stairway and Mark did PJ and Laura's taxes.

What did us girls do? Went to the library, of course.

After we were wandering through the stacks for a bit, Laura asked, "Can you just leave me here for a bit?"

My library is, hands down, the best one I've ever belonged to.

It's newer and also serves as the main offices for the county library system so there's plenty of stuff going on there. There are seperate areas for teens and kids. The electronic media collection dwarfs my last library by far. The parking lot is always packed and it's sometimes hard to find a seat - but I love all that because it means so many other people are enjoying the library too.

It's nice to be able to share it with the other library lovers in my life too.