Highlight of my Saturday: a book purchase!

Specifically, a full set of 1966 encyclopedias for $5 at an estate sale. I love them. Check out these beauties (iPhone pics, taken using the Hipstamatic app):

The ‘Library’ article. I love it! Notice my lovely silhouette bookends?? I love them.

Insects

Their new home

Today I’m going to share with you the 3 cleaning products that make life with 2 cats, 1 dog, 1 son, and 1 husband, a little less messy/crazy.

1. Orange-Glo

This works perfectly on our hardwood floors! I’m not always dilligent about doing this; I keep the house vacuumed, but when I do get around to cleaning the wood floors, this does the trick to getting them shiny. I’ve heard some complain that they leave a residue – but I haven’t had any problems with this.

2. Swiffer Sweeper Wet Cloths

Half of our house is hardwood, and the other half is the linoleum we put in a few months ago.  I hate mopping, and these definitely come in handy! After vacuuming, I use a few of these on the floor, and I feel great. Does it completely replace cleaning with a traditional mop and soapy water? No, but if you are like me, then this does the job most of the time.

3. Method Lil’ Bowl Blu

This is the best toilet cleaner ever. I know, I know…. EWWWWWWW!! I hate this job, but Tim hates it even more; therefore, this is my territory. I’ve tried a few different cleansers, and this one is the only type that doesn’t smell like bleach, and keeps them clean for an entire week.

What do you use to keep things clean?

Photos from the past week

Please forgive this iPhone picture; it was taken right after my workout on Thursday – no makeup and my hair is a bit of a mess  - but this will give you an idea of what my haircut looks like.

My Friday night: a Pink Champagne cupcake from Sift and episodes of ‘Castle’ (also taken with my iPhone)

The adorable silhouette bookends I found on clearance at Target yesterday:

Awesome paint color we ended up choosing for our front room (last room in the house! only took us 1 1/2 years, lol):

I don’t have a picture of the finished room yet, but one will be forthcoming.

Last week, we removed the icky shower doors from our guest bathroom, and I finally found the perfect shower curtain (another Target find!)

What do you think??

Decorating my library is SO FREAKING FUN! Here are the items I’ve chosen, thus far:

Curtains, purchased at Target

I wasn’t sure I’d find curtains that I liked, but these look fantastic in person, and are made from a good quality, thick cotton. I can’t wait to hang them up!

A black chaise lounge, purchased from Overstock.com

I am so excited for this chair. It’s the perfect size and shape for my library, and the seat opens into storage!

Chandelier, also purchased from Overstock.com

So lovely! It will look perfect with the charcoal ceiling.

IKEA is slacking on the delivery of my bookcases, and the overstock items won’t arrive until next week. But, that’s okay; I’ve waited my entire life for my own library…a few more days won’t kill me.

OR WILL IT!?

Timmy ordered the bookcases and shelving for my library!! It’s all due to arrive on Monday, so this Saturday I think we are going to paint. My library is going to be the girliest space in the house; pink, white and black. The bookcases are white, and I think the ceiling is going to be a charcoal color. The 1 1/2 walls that don’t have shelves will be a Behr shade called ‘Fuschia Kiss’.  I have to pick out a chandelier and a lounge chair. Eventually, I’ll add a unit for my record player and records, and a small desk.

Now, to decide on the system I’m going to use to organize my lovelies. Can’t make up my mind between the Dewey or my usual( alphabetical by author’s last name). Probably have Fiction, Non-Fiction, and Children’s sections. Marco received so many books as gifts, and I’ve saved all my childhood favorites; he’ll have a whole section to choose from!

I bought some bookplates too. The Mac will be hooked up to our home server, and I’ll have my LibraryThing account pulled up so I can keep track. OMG who wants a Dickson library card?! Might make some for fun. YES, I AM GEEKY. But seriously, I rarely lend books out to people unless I know I’ll get them back; I’ve lost too many books to random people. I STILL don’t know what happened to my copy of The World According to Garp by John Irving. SOMEONE borrowed it. Just can’t remember who. Library cards might help… hee hee

I am so excited! I’ve been waiting my whole life for a library. Tim is amazing, he always manages to make my dreams come true.<3

I finished The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver last week. I thought it was an exceptionally well-crafted story.  Definitely a ‘political’ novel, with a clear voice  and stance on patriotism; a bit cynical, but ultimately, on target.

Yesterday, I finished The Story Sisters by Alice Hoffman (a good read, but not as great as Here on Earth) and now have to find my next book! I was thinking of grabbing The Third Angel (another Hoffman novel), but would love a recommendation.

Also, any tips on getting my husband to finish my library?? My books are STILL in boxes, and, since I’m always buying books, the stacks just keep getting bigger! The only thing that’s been done in there is the primer. What should I resort to, bribery? Trickery? Torture?

Decided to share a few pictures of some of the changes that have taken place in our house.  The living room is almost complete; we want to put a large mirror above the fireplace, toss the old couch and get some comfy lounge chairs.

Living Room Before:

After:

Guest Room Before:

Guest Room After:

I’ve been a bit remiss updating the blog this past week, sorry!

Timmy also managed to get the fountain working yesterday! It had some broken hoses but he fixed them and now look:

Woo-hoo!!

One problem follows another, like a trail of ants.

Wednesday we were told that the lingering issues (all caused by the title company) were taken care of, and that they were sending a rush on the recording for Thursday afternoon, and we’d get the keys that day. Thursday arrives, and we get a phone call in the middle of packing up the rest of our toiletries from Bekah. The title company didn’t get the money to the sellers on time, so the sale won’t be recorded until Friday morning. Good news is, we can have the keys to the house to start cleaning and painting, but we have to promise that we won’t move any personal belongings into the house until Friday. Unfortunately, Friday was not a fortuitous day for the move as we were unable to secure help. We scheduled the move for Sunday and figured we’d be able to have everything out of the rental by Tuesday. Tim called our landlord and let her know that Tuesday she could have the keys.

Yesterday we cleaned most of the house and started painting our bedroom. We spent a total of $400 at Home Depot on paint and supplies, new heating/air conditioning vents and some electrical supplies. A little scary, especially since our door project is going to cost another $400 next week. The listing agent for our house stopped by and took the lockboxes off of the front door, and removed the “For Sale’ sign off the front lawn. We left our house in Napa around 8:30 and when we were about fifteen minutes from Calistoga, I received a phone call from the Calistoga Police Department. Apparently the milk cartons of old motor oil that Tim had put in front of our house for the recycling deparment to pick up were run over by our neighbors and dragged halfway down the street. Luckily, none of the oil got into the sewer system. However, the fire department had to clean up the oil and throw down sand on half our block. We didn’t receive a ticket or any fines, but they wanted to let us know and make sure we hadn’t done anything on purpose.

I go to bed feeling tired, achy, and a little worried about money but completely excited to get a start on moving our mountains of stuff. Tim and I woke up early this morning and went to Home Depot AGAIN to get another can of White Truffle paint for our bedroom and a few things we’d forgotten Thursday. Bekah let us know at 11am that we would hear from her as soon as the sale was officially recorded, probably around 3 or 4. We managed to get our bathroom and the hall bathroom painted before we needed a break at 3:30pm. Then we get THE CALL. Bekah informed us that the sale did not record today and would not record until possibly Monday. The underwriter at the title company decided that the $2000 credit towards our down payment we received from our realtor was not put into our contract to their satisfaction EVEN THOUGH IT WAS DONE EXACTLY AS THEY REQUESTED. So, the underwriter decided not to send our transaction to the county recorder.

Not only that but we are NOT allowed to move anything until this sale is recorded. I can do all the cleaning, painting and repairing that we want but the move is off until next week.

and NOT IN OUR HOUSE.

We were supposed to get our keys at 1pm today, but there’s been another holdup. I even woke up early this morning to pack up my clothes and toiletries, then we get a call saying that the seller hadn’t confirmed receipt of the sale so it wasn’t officially recorded with the county. After several conversations (mostly sobbing in the fetal position on my end) we’ve managed to get confirmation that the sale will be recorded tomorrow and we will get the keys tomorrow. HOWEVER, instead of by 1pm, it may not be finished until 4pm. There goes our plans for moving day! Tim and I had been back and forth trying to pin down a date and time for the move, and then had to push it to Thursday. Now, we’ve got to do it Friday, and possibly without help. I can help Tim with a lot of the heavy stuff, but the bookcase was difficult enough for Tim and Justin when we moved here to Calistoga, so I know I wouldn’t be able keep my end up.

One thing that has put a smile on my face is the new ice cream/frozen yogurt shop that opened this week in Calistoga, called Scoops & Swirls. On Sunday evening I had nonfat raspberry frozen yogurt (it was delicious), last night I had the rainbow sherbet ice cream (not as good as the fro-yo) and tonight I had coffee ice cream (awesome). I gotta back off but I can’t help myself.

LOL of the week: