2013 Tourney Consolation Email

Dear Losers,

I've been surprised at the overall lack of trash talking emails being sent this year, partly because Tyler and I didn't have internet until an hour ago. But now I realize it's that since I'm the Grand Master Winner of the Smith tourney, you are all too busy wiping away your tears at having lost to my supreme bracket to write any snarky emails. I know, that humble pie sure doesn't taste very good when the winner of the tourney (in case you forgot, that's ME) selected Michigan State to win it all. I assure you all, eventually with a lot of counseling, time, and baseball season, you may recover from this devastating loss.

Because I love you all and deeply care about your emotional health, may I recommend reading this article as you sort through these difficult feelings.

Better luck next year losers!

Love,
The NCAA Queen AKA Grand Master Winner of the Smith Tourney AKA Robyn :)

Phase 3: Flooring

 Up until this point, we had been tearing everything apart in our kitchen. We ripped the countertops and half wall off, took the tile and linoleum out, and discovered rotting subfloor. So we ripped out the stinky subfloor and replaced it, nailing it down to the plywood/studs which was beneath it.

This was where we took a break. We could walk across the floor without fearing it would rot away underneath us. Now came the fun part, finding what kind of flooring we wanted in our kitchen.
We knew we didn't want tile -grouting is a hassle and annoying to clean. We didn't want to fork out some expensive wood flooring either that Chloe's nails would wear away the surface of. We needed something durable, affordable, and pretty. Enter: laminate flooring.

Now I know laminate flooring sounds reminiscent of horrible 70s patterns that look outdated and awful. But after a trip to Lowes and Home Depot to check out their options, we were pleasantly surprised with the pretty options that were there. We like the look of wood flooring, but the expense and scratchable (is that a word?) quality of it made it out of the question. There were some pretty horrible laminate wood flooring options that looked incredibly fake and tacky. But we narrowed down our options to our favorites and compared how they looked to the cabinets that we were going to put in.

 Which one did you pick? We ended up choosing the one on the top, Antique Hickory. It has a rustic appearance that we love and we have learned if you love it, nothing else will do. Unfortunately, that particular flooring is a special order and we would have to wait 2 weeks for it to come in! Luckily, a store in East Portland had a whole bunch in the store where someone returned their special order. So we drove to the East side to get 5 boxes of the stuff.

 2 days later (it has to be out of the box for 2 days prior to installing to "cure") we began installation. First we put down a waterproof pad liner to protect from any further water damage. Your welcome future home owners. They we installed the flooring, one plank at a time. We also put a thin bead of clear silicone caulk between each board to further protect from water damage, because we're paranoid about things like that now.

And this is where things start to look better than they did before the demolition. I was so giddy with how the floor looked, that I even popped my leg in excitement. Your welcome for that too.

 

 We got into a pretty good rhythm working together, Tyler measuring and cutting the planks to correct size while I caulked and snapped them into place. Each plank has a groove on one side, and a tongue on the other that fits into that groove, making them fit like a glove. 

 

After we completed one side of the floor, we pulled the refrigerator on to the finished side so we could finish and put flooring under the entire floor. Our previous owners put the tile around the cabinets/refrigerator which we think helped cause the water damage, so we made sure to pull everything out so we could cover the entire kitchen floor.

 

Once all the flooring was in place, we caulked the perimeter of the room to prevent any water damage from seeping under our newly placed floor. Chloe is a pretty good helper in home improvement projects sniffing my feet.

Here is the finished product! What do you think?

Phase 2 Project KP

 After we removed the raised bar on the counter top, we removed the countertop and base cabinets so we could start working on the floor. So we pulled out the sink and moved the dishwasher into the living room along with everything that was in those base cabinets. 

That's when we noticed the water damage along the base sink cabinet.  And that's also where things got complicated. After removing the remaining cabinets along that wall, we got a better idea of the water damage situation.

Helpful hint: to avoid sewer smells from permeating your home while your sink is disconnected, cover the exposed pipes with saran wrap and a rubber band. 

 Apparently the cabinets did not go in over the floor, but were placed directly on the subfloor. And it appears that the dishwasher sprung a leak once upon a time, and seeped under the existing tile floor to soak into the subfloor. Anxious to see what we were getting ourselves in to, we removed the tile/linoleum (the previous owners tiled the kitchen floor directly over the existing linoleum, so we had 2 layers of flooring to remove to evaluate the damage) underneath the dishwasher and realized things were a lot worse than we realized.

Yep, rotted wood. And we had no idea how much of our kitchen floor was rotting away under the tile. So we did what anyone would do in this situation, we took out our frustrations on removing the floor. It was slow work, chipping away at each tile and then removing each nail that was securing the linoleum in place.

It took a few days, but eventually we got all our anger out and we uncovered all the water damage on our kitchen subfloor. Yep, that's about 2/3 of our kitchen floor with the bulk of the damage squarely underneath the dishwasher.

Unforeseen expense #1: new subfloor. So much for just ripping out tile and putting new flooring in. This was probably the lowest point in the remodel project. There's always the "oh crap, I just ruined something really expensive and I hope I know what we're doing to fix it" feeling after any home demolition project. And usually there are unexpected expenses that pop up during projects, but when they all collide at once, it's overwhelming. But, we put on our big kid panties and got down to business to begin the construction phase of our project.

I'm Baaaaaack! (Also Phase 1 of Project KR)

I know, I know, I've been MIA for quite a while. I have 2 words for you:

kitchen. remodel.

Also known as Project KR. Here are some before/phase 1 pictures for your viewing pleasure.

These are a couple of before pictures. We hated this half bar in the kitchen. The raised counter top was only about a foot wide, so you couldn't sit at it, not to mention the elevated height. All it did really well was collect clutter. And hide the messy dishes on the counter/in the sink. After thinking long and hard about what we wanted done in the kitchen, we decided that to really open up the area, the raised bar needed to go. 

Step one was to remove the tile backsplash on that half wall so we could remove the half wall and level it out with the countertop. I've become the queen of removing tile with a crowbar and a hammer.

Here's an action shot for ya. Remember safety glasses! Last thing you want is shards of tile getting in your eye.

Up next, we needed to remove the top portion of the raised bar. Enter reciprocating saw. This bad boy made the renovation possible. Most of the other tools we had on hand, but we needed this saw to get the remodel done. Probably best tool investment we made on this project. Basically you can take out the saw blade and turn it any direction you need to get the cut you want. Forwards, backwards and each side were all used on Project KR. Tyler marked a line where we wanted the cut to go and then went to town with the recip saw.

One thing you should know about recip saws, they are only as steady as you hold them, and they vibrate a lot so don't expect perfect cuts. The line that we marked was higher than we needed to allow for wiggle room. You can always go back and remove more later, but you can't add wall back (well, you can, but it's a huge pain to work with drywall, but that's another post).

Oh, and another word of caution, be careful with the electrical outlets/cords. We turned off the power to the kitchen and used an extension cord to power the saw just to be careful.

Also, the only cuts that really mattered were the studs because the saw slices through the drywall like butter. Take care to make your cuts on the studs with precision.

Look at how much more open the kitchen looks with that horrible half wall gone! Granted, no more hiding dirty dishes behind the wall anymore, but at least now we'll have to man up and wash/dry dishes ASAP.

See the awkward end cap on this counter? We also decided to open up the walkway into the kitchen and take that sucker out so we would have a nice square edge to the counter. So we took out all of our pent up aggression on that baby and whacked it with the biggest hammers we had around the house.

Demolition Phase 1 of KR, complete! Up next, removing the sink/base cabinets.

Wanna Feel Like Martha Stewart?

Then make these today. Seriously, so delicious. Adapted from this recipe.

Homemade Granola Bars

1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup corn syrup (or just all honey or all corn syrup)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup peanut butter
2 cups Rice Krispies
2 cups quick oats
1 cup mix-ins (I use chocolate chips and whatever nuts I have on hand, today it was cashews)

Mix the honey (and/or corn syrup) and brown sugar together in a saucepan and heat on medium heat until sugar dissolves, stirring constantly. Add in the peanut butter. Pour over the remaining mixed ingredients in large bowl. Transfer to a 9x13 dish that has been lined with wax paper. Pres the mixture into the pan and place another sheet of wax paper over the top. Press down with a cup or hand to flatten the mixture so it fill the entire pan. Throw in the refrigerator to set up and cut into bars and enjoy!

I love eating these on my morning breaks. So delicious! And I feel healthy because I made them myself. Seriously, go make these today.You could be healthy and throw flax seed and wheat germ and other healthy stuff in there, but I don't have those things on hand like I do peanut butter and honey haha. :)

And here is a picture to hopefully brighten your day. It makes me happy to look outside my window now!

BYU Nursing Friends

Do any of you get choked up/shed a tear/bawl uncontrollably whenever you sing "Lord, I Would Follow Thee" in church?

I would be my brother's keeper;
I would learn the healer's art.
To the wounded and the weary
I would show a gentle heart.

Anyone? Anyone? Just me?

Pantry Part 2

Remember how I was reorganizing my pantry? Well, now I'm done. For now. I reserve the right to rearrange as many times as I want because I am a woman and lets face it, it's what we do best. :)

Here we have our cereal shelf. We have a lot of cereal. And that's the way I like it. Cereal is a wonderful snack and instant meal. Off to the right are my 9x13 disposable pans for when I freeze meals (lasagna!) or need to send them to someone. Much easier than waiting for your 9x13 glass pan to become available again. And it's full of bulk granola from Winco since I don't have a container for it to go in.

Below the cereal shelf is my fruit/vegetable shelf. Canned vegetables on the left organized by type (corn and green beans are usually all we buy) followed by the fruits. On the right is my homemade applesauce, then freeze fried fruits. In the middle are the nuts I buy in bulk. Helpful tip: mason jars are wonderful for storing pretty much any dried food when you put an oxygen packet in there. It creates an air-tight seal (with an unused lid) to keep items fresh without going stale. Perfect for buying in bulk!

 Up next is my baking shelf. I think this is my favorite shelf, probably because of all of the canisters I purchased for bulk baking goods. These are all air tight to keep things fresh, but because I use these more frequently, they are in canisters so I'm not "breaking" the seal like I would on a mason jar. Oats, cornmeal, cocoa powder, and flour are right there in the front. And there's my jar of oxygen packets!

Below the baking shelf is my pasta/sauces shelf. Pretty self explanatory here too. And I like to store half opened/used boxes of pasta in mason jars. Yet again, they are so versatile!

 On the bottom shelf on the right side of my pantry is the beverage/dog biscuit center. That's cocoa mix in the #10 can, juices, and in the back are odd shaped/large items (canola oil and syrup).

 In the middle are my food storage buckets. Wheat, rice, oats, pinto beans and flour are in here. I put my onions on the top too since they take up valuable fridge space and are fine in here. And check out my huge container of vinegar!

On the other side of my pantry is my snack shelf. Fruit snacks, chips, graham crackers, pretzels, popcorn etc go up here. I'm hoping if it's above my head, I won't be tempted to eat so much. Maybe.

 Below that is my soup shelf. Canned soups on the left, condensed soups on the right, with chili in the middle. I'm waiting for a sale on chili before I stock up again.

 Below the soups are the condiments. I had no idea that we had so many condiments! PB, mayo, syrups, soy sauce, vinegars etc are all here. Along with my homemade jams and canned beans.

 Up next is what I call my tomato shelf. Canned tomatoes, rotel, tomato sauce/paste is all found here. Then I thew on my canned meats (chicken and tuna) and boxed meals because there was room and I needed to use my table again and I was getting tired of organizing. And there's my kitchenaid since I hate having it on the counter because it takes up so much space.

 And finally (you're almost done!) this is my surplus shelf. It's mostly baking stuff that I'll use to refill my canisters on my baking shelf. In the big basket are chocolate chips and jello pudding mixes. Behind are cake mixes and 5 lb bags of sugar. 

Whew, if you made it this far, you're a champ! So there you have it, everything all dumped out and (somewhat) organized now.

**And, as always, apologies for the sub-par pictures. They are from my phone and when the room doesn't have a window, the light bulbs make for odd lighting/shadows.