Five (Plus One) for Friday, Edition #41: The Gallimaufry Edition

1) The ghost: I think our house is haunted. Let me explain. There was THIS DAY. Here are the events that unfolded on THAT DAY.

• When I walked Hannah in the morning, the back door was locked when I got home. I swear I didn't lock it, but I'll grant you there was a slim possibility I did. But it was probably the ghost.
• The doorbell didn't work when I tried to ring it to get Dr. BB to let us in. I had to wander around the house banging on windows looking like a burglar. This, it turns out, is because the doorbell battery was dead, but I think the ghost did it.
• When we got home after work, our front door was WIDE OPEN. And I think it had been open ALL DAY when we were not home. I mean, Hannah would have murdered anyone who tried to get in, but we very rarely use the front door. How was it open? (Hypothesis: Dr. BB left it open when he was fiddling with the doorbells. I mean, maybe. Or it was the ghost.)
• When Dr. BB went to take a shower that night, there was stuff all over the bathroom floor. The squeegee we use to clean the shower door, a washcloth, and my towel. On the floor! I had just been in that room to clean the litter box and nothing was on the floor, but obviously the ghost had a beef. 

2) Passwords: I recently had to change my password at work and I realized that I've never talked about my password strategy. I go to the last note I've made in an ebook and I use that as a guide. The last thing I marked is from the book The Martian Contingency and it's the following line: Purim is easily the most fun of the Jewish holidays. I'm pretty sure I marked it because I've never heard of Purim (because I suck).

Anyway, if I were going to make a password from this (I am not because I already changed my password recently), I'd make it something like Pizez!!!mostest1001 because 1001 is the location number on the Kindle. And then I'd think about that book every time I type my password, which is dozens of times a day. I had a password from the mediocre book Zazen for a time and I always sort of wished it was from a better book. But the password I currently have is from a book I actively disliked, so that's even worse!

What's your password creation strategy?

3) It takes a village/I am THAT NEIGHBOR/are the boys okay?: Two incidents in my neighborhood have me concerned that I am the neighbor other neighbors talk about.

• There's a "rustic road" that I take to get to the next town over. It floods at least once a year, has potholes the size of a VW Beetle, and is sort of hilly, so the sightlines can be tricky. It's also a popular place for people to cycle, walk, and run, so you have to stay alert. Constant vigilance, as Mad-Eye Moody would say.  I was driving Hannah to get a bath and I noticed a person in a black hoodie sitting on the side of the road with their back to it - their back to a road with bad sightlines and no shoulder. I pulled over, threw on my flashers, and went to see if the person needed help. It was a teen boy and I asked if he was okay, thinking maybe he'd fallen on a run or something and he started laughing and said they had problems on a boat (who's they? what boat? I don't know) and he was waiting for someone to come pick him up to take him to the truck so he could pick up his brother. I was very confused by this description of events, but just as I was about to ask if I could drive him to the truck, an ATV pulled up and he got in.

• This next one, though, this is the one that's keeping me up at night. I was walking back from the community center on Monday night and I noticed two little boys PLAYING ON A ROOF. TINY BOYS. ONE WAS ONLY WEARING A DIAPER.  (A lot of houses in our neighborhood have porches/additions with flat roofs that you can access from windows/doors on the second floor. Our house has this exciting feature. This is what they were playing on. Not a pitched roof. It was only one story up and flat, but if a baby falls from one story, they can STILL DIE.) Another man was headed in my direction and he asked me "did you notice those kids on the roof?" and I said "did you do anything about it?" and he just shook his head. Meanwhile, there were THREE OTHER ADULTS across the street yelling at the kids, but not doing anything.
  
  You know what I did? I marched to the house, knocked on the door, and when a lady answered, I asked her if she knew her boys were on the roof and she said A LOT OF SWEAR WORDS and ran upstairs. I heard the older boy say "she's telling mom on us" as I waited below the porch with my arms out (liked I'd be able to catch one?) while the mom corralled them back inside. That lady was mad and I heard her say a bunch more swears as I walked home. Why did any of the other FOUR ADULTS who noticed this before I arrived on scene not do something? I had a nightmare that night and the adrenaline from seeing those kids on that roof is not something I ever want to relive. 

4) Wherefore art thou green beans? - I had all the stuff for my green bean salad except for green beans. EZ. Go get green beans and have a salad ready for lunch all week? Don't mind if I do. Except I went to five stores and four of them had ZERO green beans and one of them had DISGUSTING green beans. Is there a green bean shortage I am unaware of? 

5) CBWC - April is Cool Blogger Walking Club time! Elisabeth sponsors it and it basically just asks that you do at least ten minutes of intentional movement every day. Who's in? 

6) It's gawk at dangerous weather time! - I'm currently helping a friend so I am not at home. Last night there was a tornado watch/warning/watch at my home and Dr. BB was home alone with the girls. He laughed about how all the neighbors were out stormwatching, but then was no longer laughing when the sirens were going off and he had to somehow get two four-legged creatures into our asbestos-filled basement. They both had to be carried down and I have to admit that I am a bit concerned that my chronic rhabdo having husband carried a presumably squirmy 50-pound dog down the stairs.

Let tornado season begin!

In the meantime, my friend is mostly sleeping and I have been able to get a lot of work done (when you're not at the office, you get shit done because no one is stopping by to irritate you) and read a lot. I even did a short yoga thing. I'm "helping," but it actually sort of feels like a vacation? 

******************

Have you had an adrenaline raising situation recently? Ever "saved" children on a roof? Who's in for CBWC? Are there too many capslock in this post? 

20 Things About Our Home

We're ramping up to my blog's 20th anniversary on Sunday! I'll post a list of twenty things every day between now and Sunday and it will culminate, anticlimactically, on Sunday. 

Quirks 

Our house was built in 1912 and has some quirks.  Let's discuss them. 

1) Addition - The original construction of our house is a four-square. Four rooms on top, four on the bottom. The original house is QUALITY. There's an addition on the main floor, though, that gives us a bathroom/laundry room and a mudroom. Both of these rooms are crucial to the running of our household. The quirk is that the addition was shoddily built. There's not a square corner in either room. The person who cut the linoleum was clearly a rank amateur. There is no insulation (in a bathroom! in a place where the weather regularly gets under zero degrees!). Don't even get me started on the windows in the mudroom.

2) Water - The water in our town is super hard. And that means every pipe is clogged and no matter how often we clean our stainless steel sink, it looks like garbage. 

3) Bathrooms - So not only does our downstairs bathroom not have insulation, it's also the only shower in the house. The upstairs bathroom is small and only has a tub. The upstairs sink is also ALWAYS running slow, no matter how many times we snake it out. 

4) Crypt - There's a room in our basement I call the crypt. I think it was probably originally the coal chute. Or the originally entrance to the basement. Or both. It's creepy AF.

If you come visit, you can see this creepfest in person.

5) HVAC - The air conditioning barely works on the second floor. The house probably should be zoned and have a second air conditioner for the bedrooms. But it isn't and it doesn't, so if you come visit us in the summer, just be aware that it might not be super comfortable. 

Best Things

Our house is awesome, though, so don't let those quirks fool you.

1) Location - The location is clearly the best part of our house. We're walkable to everything in town and the library is literally two blocks away. Yes, we do have the worst house in the best neighborhood, thankyouverymuch.

2) Layout - I love the four square layout. There is not an inch of wasted hallway space in the house. It is the best of an open floor plan without actually being an open floor plan. I love the wood window frames, the wood floors, and I love how I know where my husband is at any moment of the day, even though we have a giant house*. 

3) Peak Cozy - We have made this house our own. It is peak cozy. The furniture is perfect. The decorations are perfect. The rugs are perfect. I can't get over how much our house represents us. 

4) Windows - There are windows in every room. I love it. 

5) Addition - As much as I whine about the addition and how badly built it is, I also love the mudroom and how much the girls love it. And I love having a shower. And not having to go to the basement to do laundry. 

*A giant house for two people, a dog, and a cat. I am sure this would not feel quite so spacious if we had children or other people running around. 

Chores
Just a list of chores I should be doing right now.

1) Floors - I should sweep every day and vacuum every other. In reality, I sweep every two or three days and vacuum most Sundays. 

2) Windows - I have to clean the stupid windows a couple of times a year and every time I forget how much I love that we have windows in every room. 

3) Counters - Our kitchen counters are some weird laminate that the old owners painted black. I have to clean them every time someone uses them. LOL. Or they get hard water spots. And every speck of broccoli that didn't quite make the cutting board shows up. Why paint them black? I'll never know. 

4) Dining room table - Why does the dining room table become the landing pad for every possible random piece of mail/business/shopping/to-do list item that comes into our lives?

Why does it always look like this?!

5) Candle batteries - We have five LED candles that are sporadically around the main floor of our house. These are crucial when it gets dark at 4:30pm. Right now the batteries are dead and I don't even notice most nights because I'm getting ready for bed before it's truly dark out. I'll need to get those batteries replaced in the next month or so. See here for where some of those candles live. 

Projects

We have some short- to medium- to long-term projects we'd like to do to make the house perfect. However, these projects require money and/or time and know-how and we don't have any of these things right now, so who knows when they'll get done. In order of priority to me, which is to say that I haven't asked my husband what his priority list is, although I know we agree on #1.

1) Bathrooms - The showers need renovated ASAP. We need a working shower and a working tub both upstairs and downstairs. We need the plumbing to be revamped, particularly upstairs. There are some issues with this (time, money), but we're mostly nervous because there is vermiculite insulation that probably has asbestos in it and  asbestos remediation could be quite a thing. We'll definitely do the upstairs before the downstairs, but we have to make some decisions about whether or not to keep the layout the same (four bedrooms, one bath ) or make the bathroom and primary bedroom both larger and go to a three bedroom, one bath upstairs.

2) The Jungle - Our yard is out of control. We really need to figure it out. 

3) Addition more broadly - While the downstairs bathroom is part of the addition, we need to tackle the addition more broadly - fix the lack of insulation problem, put in new windows, maybe get some new doors to replace a couple of cheap doors. 

4) Garage - Our garage is a two-car garage if each of those cars is a compact car and the people getting in and out of the car can squeeze through a ten inch gap. Right now that's all true, but I'm not sure that will be true forever. 

5) Attic - Our attic is a beautiful wide open unfinished space. In our retirement years, I'd love to redo that room and make it a huge library. I'd also use the opportunity to redo the HVAC system and zone the house so it was a zone on each floor, including the attic. My husband would probably say redoing the basement would be a better use of resources, but this is my list, not his. 

****************

Does your home have any quirks? What's the best thing about it?

Throw Some Money At It

I recently paid an enterprising young man $250 to just come and make my biggest yard problems disappear. Our yard is a jungle and every week it kept getting worse and worse. Here are the big issues with the yard.

1) The compost is open almost every day, but most days it closes at 3pm and we are working adults. That means that if we do yardwork, the waste sits around in our garage for days and days until we can get it there, usually on a Saturday. The compost is not open at all on Sunday, which means that if we do yardwork on the weekends, it has to be Saturday morning/early Saturday afternoon or bust. Now, I don't know how things work in your world, but in my world, a lot of that Saturday morning time is spent sleeping in. The compost hours are a big problem.

2) When Dr. BB went into the hospital, we lost a weekend. And now he's on restricted activity and I have a full-time job and it turned into, hmmmm, a fucking nightmare. I was literally have nightmares about weeds killing me. 

So, you know what? I decided that my innate frugality was going to lose the battle and I paid Trevor and he came THE NEXT DAY and now I am not having nightmares.

We were bumping into greenery with our cars trying to get in and out of the driveway. No, I'm not exaggerating that the church is right behind us. 

He left the damn hostas, so I'm going to have go in there and remove them, but look! You can use the driveway. Next weekend we'll get some wood chips and we're going to roundup the plants we don't want to come back and we're just going to count this as a lost year. Sorry birds and insects.

But I don't want anyone feeling too bad for the birds and insects because there are at least four other beds just like the one we had taken down that just don't impede the driveway. Those are beds for another day. 

****************

What chore have you recently given up on?

3.28 Meaning - Safe in the Car

Bestest Friend and I are doing a blog project. Each day we will write a blog post on a pre-determined theme chosen by a random noun generator. The theme for the twenty-eighth day of the month is "Meaning."

********************

Preview: Everything is fine.

The morning walk had been taken, breakfast had been served, and I was settling in on the couch to do my Spanish on Duolingo. The cat had jumped up and was sprawled across my legs. My husband wanders in sniffing in a quite exaggerated manner. He smelled gas, I smelled something. We went down in the basement and the odor was really strong there, so we put Zelda in her carrier, put Hannah's leash on, and we were all bundled up in the car before we called the energy company's emergency line.

A very confused Zelda.

What do you take when you leave the house in a psuedo-emegency? I mean, obviously all the living creatures were taken out of the house, except for that very large spider who lives in the basement and takes care of things down there.  I took my purse, Kindle, a library book, and my phone. My husband grabbed his work bag and his phone.  I thought those were meaningful choices on both of our parts.

If you live in rural Wisconsin, the response time for an emergency call to WE Energies is 20 minutes. On one hand, that seems pretty good. On the other hand, it seems like a lot could happen in twenty minutes, you know? Oh, well. We choose to live in the middle of nowhere, so this is all on us.  

Hannah was LIVID about this disruption to her morning nap routine and refused to look at us. 

Anyway, they arrived quickishly and I stayed in the car with the girls while Dr. BB did manly things with the other men, waving wands about and taking measurements. There was no gas and they gave us a scratch and sniff card with what natural gas would smell like and I swear to you that both of us smelled that. Anyway. They said it was safe. I had to pee like mad, so I ran inside to pee and they left. 

Dr. BB went to work. 

It still smells like gross in here. I know it's 27 degrees outside and snowing, but I may be forced to open the windows soon.

3.26 Moment - Memories Live Here

Bestest Friend and I are doing a blog project. Each day we will write a blog post on pre-determined theme chosen by a random noun generator. The theme for the twenty-sixth day of the month is "Moment."

********************

Furniture week continues! My husband's grandmother's curio cabinet has been installed in a cozy nook in our front room. 

I took this photo and sent it to my husband's aunt and the following exchange took place:

Aunt T: I love that you guys have this! It was the one thing we were NEVER allowed to touch! It looks beautiful in your home! (heart face emoji)

NGS: Dr. BB won't let me touch it, either! Good to know where he got it from!

Aunt T: (laughing emoji)

Suzanne asked if we could see what was inside and I determined that since I write a post here Every Single Day, I would devote a post to just that topic. Also, I just realized that I've written a million times about all these topics and it's probably boring to long-time readers. Sorry, my friends. Feel free to skip this! Before you read this, just know that I am not and have never been a Catholic. It will become apparent that someone in this house was raised Catholic,  though. 

The top: Three LED candles that automatically light up from 5-10pm. They add a lot of ambience to the room which is typically dark by 4:00pm in the winter. My mom bought me a set of five a couple of years ago. They are fabulous and I highly recommend them. The key to the cabinet is up there, too, but we all know that's off limits to me!

First shelf: 

Item #1 - My husband's First Communion photo (Catholics, amirite?) - Baby Dr. BB!!! He looks just like one of my nephews.

Item #2 - A teapot that was in his parents' house growing up that was the origin of "frog in a teapot/Oscar the Grouch"

Item #3 - A photo frame where we keep a (mostly) updated photo of our Godchild (Catholics, amirite?)

Second shelf:

Item #1 - All of the saucers and cups that came with the teapot from the first shelf

Item #2 - A pewter cup from my husband's baptism (Catholics, AMIRITE?)

Item #3: A creepy pewter cup that has a rabbit on it and I hate rabbits and I hate this cup (my FIL gave my husband this cup and Dr. BB has no idea why, but we have it and so into the curio cabinet it goes; I'm half convinced my FIL purposefully gave it to us to needle me because he knows about my rabbit antipathy)

Third shelf:

Item #1 - A teapot and two saucers and cups. These were in the curio cabinet at Dr. BB's grandmother's house. His grandmother had a social club that consisted of between three to six ladies who graduated from their college together. This club met weekly for decades and I think it only stopped when Dr. BB's grandmother was the only lady left standing. Each member of the club had their own saucer and teacup. 

Item #2 - Chunky clay teapot that Dr. BB's friend made for him in college

Fourth shelf: 

Item #1 - Mice chess pieces that my parents had in their house that I took with me when my mom downsized. 

Item #2:  A tiny glass pumpkin that was in the curio cabinet at Dr. BB's grandmother's house. It has a note with it that says "Marg Happy Thanksgiving Bernadette" and a) we've never known ANYONE to give his grandmother whose name is Margaret a nickname; b) we like to think that the saucers we were given with the teapot on the third shelf are his grandmother's and Bernadette's; and c) the pumpkin is just adorable.

Fifth shelf:

Item #1: Two bowls my MIL gave to me.

Item #2: A bowl and plate with Paddington Bear on them that my husband used when he was a child.

There's also a built-in in our dining room that has a lot of decorative serving bowls in it because I'm a bit of a basic bitch who likes bowls and can't resist when someone asks if I want them. Maybe I'll show you those bowls on a different day.

Do you have a curio cabinet? What do you have in yours?  Does it include a lot of religious artifacts even though you are not religious?!

3.24 Family - Old Things

Bestest Friend and I are doing a blog project. Every day we will write a blog post on a pre-determined topic chosen by a random noun generator. The theme for the twenty-fourth day of the month is "Family."

*******************

The curio cabinet has arrived and has been curio-ed and my husband has hidden* the key and has asked me not to touch it because the lock is old and fragile and I am big and clumsy. We also brought home one of my husband's grandmother's cedar chests. It now lives in our bedroom. We are pretty sure it was his grandmother's hope chest, but that's just our best guess.

Why, you might be thinking, don't you just ask his grandmother? Because she's 100-years-old and thinks Dr. BB is her long dead neighbor and that I am one of her sisters. She's very good about talking about things from the 1940s, but she doesn't know who we are, doesn't remember the condo that's currently up for sale, and certainly can't give us the rundown on furniture in said condo.  If we'd known we would be responsible for family heirlooms and the like, I might have made more of an effort to ask her about these priceless pieces of furniture in the last decade and a half. On the other hand, I probably wouldn't have because then it would have been as if I were trying to steal all of her stuff.

And you probably think that's the last post about furniture that you're going to see from me in the near future. Ha ha. Just wait until tomorrow.

If you were a piece of furniture, what would you be? I desperately want to be the dictionary stand that Jenny's parents had in her house when she was growing up. (She wrote about in the comments on this post, if you have no idea what I'm blathering about.)

*It's not hidden. I know where it is. But he DID, in fact, ask me not to touch it. LOL.

3.13 Failure - A Matter of Timing

Bestest Friend and I are doing a blog project. Each day we will write a blog post on a pre-determined theme chosen by a random noun generator. The theme for the thirteenth day of the month is "Failure."

****************

Five years ago, we moved into our house and I scoured estate sales and antique stores to find a few pieces of furniture, including a couple of cedar chests. Our house is old and has very few closets and so storage space was crucial. Then, in 2021, I broke down and bought a sideboard for our kitchen after being annoyed by an IKEA bookcase we'd had in there for years. 

Anyway. I'm only reminding you of these purchases because Dr. BB's grandmother has recently been moved into a nursing home and I was very displeased to hear that among the items of furniture the family is trying to dispose of include FOUR cedar chests and a sideboard. *heavy sigh* Just for record, we are bringing two of those cedar chests home. We might replace one of the chests we bought in 2017 if we can't find space for all of them.

We're also getting this:

This curio cabinet belonged to my husband's grandfather's grandfather, so we here are. We'll be bringing it home next week. 

The problem is that we have an old house and everyone in both of our families think we want all the old furniture and we DO, but we are officially out of space at this point. No more furniture! 

What's the oldest piece of furniture in your house?

****************

To see what Bestest Friend has to say about failure, go see her at Too Legit to Quit.

2.14 Control - In the Navy Now

Bestest Friend and I are doing a blog project. Each day we will write a post on a pre-determined theme chosen by a random noun generator. The theme for the fourteenth day of the month is "Control."

****************

How much control do you have over your living space? Even if you live alone, there are probably things you want to change, but can't, like the color of the wall if you're a renter or the low ceiling in the dining room. If you live with other people, there's always the clash of interior decorating styles, a difference in cleanliness levels, or the mishmash that comes with combining households. 

In general, Dr. BB and I are on the same page about where we live. But there are some things that come with being married to him that I just have no control over, including the fact that our home office has developed a nautical theme over the last year.

Dr. BB's father and his new wife moved houses and when they did this, Dr. BB's father gave us a bunch of stuff, including these two ship pictures. The one on the left depicts the burning of the frigate Philadelphia, in which the captain burned the ship rather than allow it to be used by pirates after the ship had been captured during the First Barbary War. Please do not ask me any other questions (like what was the First Barbary War?) because I have zero cares to care about any of it. My husband, however, remembers this "art" fondly from it being in the pool room at his parents' house and who am I to tell him that it's kind of scary and not really my jam?

The one of the right is actually kind of charming. It used to be part of a set of five and each one has the name of one of Dr. BB's siblings and their date of birth on the sails. My FIL broke up the set and gave each one to the person whose name was on it. It was much more effective as a set and it feels weird to have it up all by itself. But now our office celebrates the sea. Go us.

Adding another angle of the room so you will understand why we call it the office. It's not just a place where my husband keeps his musical instruments.

****************

To see what Bestest Friend has control of, go visit her at Too Legit to Quit.

Neighborhood Conundrums

Our neighbor has a different approach to yardwork than we do. We inherited a yard that was jampacked with native plants and very little grass. It's bed after bed of bee-balm, ferns, asters, goldenrods, milkweed, coneflowers, cup flowers, stupid roses I can't kill (I don't mind roses, to be fair, but they are planted at places that get frequent foot traffic and I don't want people to get scratched, so I have been trying to get rid of the roses in those high traffic areas), hyssop, wild bergamot, and the like. We do have some non-native plants like a few hostas and bulbs like tulips and daffodils, but we've tried to keep the plants limited to prairie protecting species.  Well, I say we, but as I mentioned above, the previous homeowners are mostly responsible for that.  

For a brief time period, I think my husband and I thought we would probably do some yardwork and reconfigure so that there was less prairie-inspired madness and more like a "regular" yard with more grass. But as we've lived here longer, we see that our yard has lots of wildlife, including a wide diversity of birds, insects, and small mammals. Our yard isn't too far off in its wildness from others in the neighborhood and there's a local group in town that is really into protecting properties like ours. We do have some grass and it gets mowed semi-regularly, but the truth is that our yard requires remarkably little work for us and it provides some good results for the environment and we are not really invested in having a picture perfect suburban yard, so we've basically left the yard to do whatever it wants.

Our neighbor does not share this philosophy. She moved in a year or so ago and immediately began pulling out all the native plants, replaced them all with hostas (which are really fine, but I wish I'd known that's what she wanted because I would have given her all the hostas out of our yard), and started chemically treating her grass. Look.  I know some of you are people with picture perfect suburban yards and you're like, this is normal.  I know that some of you are wondering why I'm so upset about this.

Here's why. We live a block and a half from a river. All those gross chemicals are getting into our water supply. I have a dog and for weeks at a time I have to keep her from my neighbor's yard (and, more relevant for me, the sidewalk in front of her yard where you know some of that crap lingers). Those chemicals are likely leaching into my yard. 

There's nothing to be done here. She's a really great neighbor, but we just don't agree on yardwork. Or the presence of windchimes. (Do you have windchimes?  Why? The noise pollution is terrible for birds. Also, it's not a consistent enough noise to be white noise, so it keeps me up at night when the windows are open. Basically, take down your stupid windchimes. During the next thunderstorm, something *might accidentally* happen to our neighbors windchimes. 

But I really started writing this because our neighbor fired up the lawnmower at 6:55 yesterday morning. I get why she did that -  highs in the 90s and all the warnings are don't go outside for longer than ten seconds! and it probably was the coolest it will be for weeks at 6:55 yesterday morning, but there are a number of issues I have with this. One, because the forecast is 80s and 90s for weeks ahead, your grass is not going to grow if you just leave it alone.  Two, aren't a lot of people still in bed at that time? I feel like starting up your lawnmower before 9am is a violation.  Let alone before 7!  But maybe that's me?

Anyway, this makes it sound like way too much complaining about our neighbor. She's truly lovely. Likes my dog. Has taken my trash cans in for me when we were out of town. Regularly mows the strip of lawn between her house and ours (this might be a passive aggressive dig at our lawnmowing frequency, but I take it as a nicety), has helped us with yardwork, lent us her wheelbarrow, and regularly texted when she's going to be in our yard for one reason or another. She's lovely, I promise.  

What's your neighborhood drama?  If you chemically treat your grass, please don't tell me. If you have a favorite native plant you think I should put* in our yard, what is it?

* Ha ha! This will never happen. Our yard is overplanted as is and we have not once actually planted anything.

A Purple Bin

I was the first person in my household to go away to college, so when we were packing for me to leave home, my mom and I diligently purchased everything the school sent us about what I would need. I rented a microwave/minifridge combo, got the extra long sheets, a set of towels, shower caddy, flip flops, an umbrella, and an extension cord, but despite our best efforts to do everything right, there were things we missed.

So it was with this that I found myself in a local Walmart* with a list of things I still needed about two weeks into my freshman year and about $200 in my bank account that had to last until I figured out  a job. One of the things I decided I needed was a larger wastebasket. The wastebaskets in our rooms were the size of a box of cereal and I was struggling with the idea that I would be taking out trash every time I left the room. So I bought a purple kitchen wastebasket.

And I moved that wastebasket into my first apartment post-college, all the way to Minnesota for grad school through five apartments. When Dr. BB and I moved in together, we used it as our kitchen garbage. When we moved to Wisconsin, it came with us. Along the way, a slight hole developed in the bottom, but it still did its job. 

(I think this goes without saying, but I'm going to say it. This stupid trash can represented my fledging independence in college. It represented to me, in a very small way, that I could be trusted to make decisions and that those decisions could be positive. After all, this thing I bought lasted for more than twenty years because I bought something that was quality and I took care of it. It represented that I was a functioning adult.)

When we moved into our house almost five years ago, the purple bin was demoted to our recycling bin and we bought a slightly larger kitchen bin. But Dr. BB took the recycling out a couple of days ago and he banged the purple bin on our outdoors bin and a crack developed. (NOTE: Fragile plastic should not be banged against very durable plastic when it is below zero.) And then the crack met the hole in the bottom and the bin basically stopped any semblance of "containing" things.

I bought a new bin - it's white and boring and sits right next to the kitchen garbage can as if it has always been there.

But I'm not going to lie. When I saw the old bin in the outside trash, I felt a teeny bit emotional. 

What household item are you oddly attached to?  Please tell me I'm not the only one who feels sad when mere things have outlived their usefulness.

*At the time, the town where I went to college had only a Kmart and Walmart. This was well before I was anti-Walton family, so I went there. I was young. I haven't spent any money there in a very long time.

2021 Q4 Quarterly Goals Update

And here's the final recap of my 2021 quarterly goals. Q1, Q2, and Q3.  

Area One: Health

1) Two yoga classes of thirty minutes or more twice a week 

    October: 10 

    November: 11 

    December: 13

    Total: 34

    Average: 2.6 times a week - This is pretty good, especially since I would also occasionally throw do some yoga for less than 30 minutes, so that would not be counted here.
2) Three other fitness classes/fitness activities of thirty minutes or more per week

    October: 17 

    November: 17

    December: 16

    Total: 50

    Average: 3.8 times a week - This is excellent - I really pushed myself this year!
3) Buy a sports bra - I did it! I actually purchased three sports bras and two pairs of running pants. It felt indulgent, but I do wear them a lot and I still (very occasionally) find that I don't have enough workout wear.

(I bought two She Fit sports bras - I like the zip enclosure, I HATE the velcro straps. I HATE them. It is impossible to get the velcro to line up exactly, so it's always rubbing at my shoulder and chafing. I will wear all my other bras before wearing these, which only sort of defeats the purpose. They are the best I have for running and high-impact workouts, though. I also bought an Ultimate Zip Front Bra from Athleta. I like the front zip and it does an okay job as long as you're not doing minutes and minutes of jumping jacks or burpees. I would probably NOT buy the She Fit ones again, but would buy the Athleta one again.)

I feel good about my health goals.  I definitely need to keep these up next year.
      

Area Two: Financial
1) Track what I spend my money on each month - I did this with the dog and cat last year, but I'd like to extend it to see where my money is going (I'm modelling it after monthly budget updates from Stephany Writes) - Done!

October

November

December

2) Put $500 into our savings account each month and $500 into my retirement accounts

Oh, boy, this just didn't happen again this quarter. They got $100 each month, but I honestly can't figure out how to put more than that into them, so I need to figure this out.

3) Create a budget using the tracking information to save more money -  cut my costs by 10% from the first quarter to the last

This didn't happen, either. I'm hoping that now that I have most of a year worth of data, I can do some budgeting.

My financial goals could use some serious work in 2022.

Area Three: Communication
1) Continue to post to my blog twice a week

    October: 14 posts

    November: 30 posts (I did NaNoBloPo, so I wrote something every day)

    December: 20

    Average: 4.9 times a week.

Definitely met this metric, but it hardly seems fair.  My posting tends to wax and wane through the months, but quarter four was a good quarter for writing in this space.

2) Continue to send snail mail to my uncle K, aunt D, and my mom once a month, plus one other person who will be chosen on a rotating basis - I did do this. I sent Halloween cards in October, Thanksgiving cards in November, and our holiday cards in December. 
3) Keep a list of the books I read - I did do this!

I feel very good about these goals and hope to keep up my progress in 2022.

Area Four: Personal Improvement
1) Brush Hannah and Zelda's teeth every day

    I just didn't do this, particularly in December. On to the goals list for 2022.
2) Duolingo every day

    My streak remains!  It takes between five minutes and 30 minutes every day and I think there have only been one or two days in the quarter when I've been sliding into bed and realized I still need to do it.
3) One house project every month

    Ha ha ha! Who am I even kidding? Absolutely not.

2021 Q3 Quarterly Goals Update

I am incredibly embarrassed about this quarterly update. It is clear that the pandemic has wrecked me.  Other than my health goals, everything else has been a sort of disaster, particularly my financial goals. *sigh* It's a new quarter.

 Area One: Health

1) Two yoga classes of thirty minutes or more twice a week 

    July: 7 

    August: 5

    September: 10

This is 1.7/week, which isn't bad considering the ethical conundrum that is my (former?) yoga studio. I'm not particularly motivated to do yoga videos and I really like live classes, but I guess I need to motivate myself to get more yoga and meditation done on my own.

2) Three other fitness classes/fitness activities of thirty minutes or more per week

    July: 11

    August: 21

    September: 16

This is 3.7/week, so I killed this goal.  

3) Buy a new sports bra

I still haven't done this. I would be more than happy to buy one if the process of researching doesn't kill my soul.  I will put this on my list for Q4 (again).

4) Complete a 5K run

I did!  I have actually run three 5K distances in the last month or so.  I'm a runner, everybody!!

      

Area Two: Financial
1) Track what I spend my money on each month - I did this with the dog and cat last year, but I'd like to extend it to see where my money is going (I'm modelling it after monthly budget updates from Stephany Writes):

I just didn't do this at all. I kept track until mid-June and then just stopped. Ugh. I have been keeping track since the beginning of October, so I think I can rescue this.

2) Put $500 into our savings account each month and $500 into my retirement accounts

No. I just couldn't bring myself to do anything except the bare minimum.

3) Create a budget using the tracking information to save more money -  cut my costs by 10% from the first quarter to the last

I think we all know the answer to this.  

Area Three: Communication
1) Continue to post to my blog twice a week

    July: 10

    August: 7

    September: 11

2.1/week. I do think this is a success because if you had asked me before I started typing this, I would have said I did not meet this goal. Yay me.

2) Continue to send snail mail to my uncle K, aunt D, and my mom once a month, plus one other person who will be chosen on a rotating basis

This just didn't happen. It's easier in Q4 because there's a holiday in each month (Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas), so that will hopefully get me started in a good direction.

3) Keep a list of the books I read

Here's my Q3 list.  Whew. I did do something.

4) Keep a list of the snail mail I send

I didn't do this. I'm going to take it off the goal list for Q4 and maybe in 2022 I can do it.

Area Four: Personal Improvement
1) Brush Hannah and Zelda's teeth every day

    July: H 30/31 days Z 28/31 days

    August: 27/31 days

    September: 18/30 days

Things got rocky in September, but in general this is actually going okay and brushing teeth at night is now part of our bedtime routine.  At Zelda's vet appointment at the end of September, the vet tech was impressed with the state of her teeth (for a ten year old cat, my friends - they are still kind of gross, but she's never had a tooth pulled or even a cleaning).  I feel very good about the progress we've made on this goal in 2021.

2) Duolingo every day

Yes, I'm very good at this.  

4) One house project every month

No, I'm very bad at this.  

2021 Q2 Quarterly Goals Update

I've been putting off doing my quarterly review of goals, but I guess I should be honest with you and myself. Things are not going well.  Here's Q1 for comparison. 

Area One: Health
1) Two yoga classes of thirty minutes or more twice a week 

April: 7 classes

May: 11 classes

June: 8 classes

This averages to exactly 2 a week, so I met this one.

2) Three other fitness classes/fitness activities of thirty minutes or more per week

April: 10 days

May: 13 days

June: 14 days

This averages to 2.85 a week, which rounds up to 3, so I give myself an A- on this. There was a period in April when I got my second dose of the vaccine and felt crappy for days, so I didn't work out and in June I was traveling and didn't get a workout in, so I feel pretty good about this.  

3) Tracking goal
        Q2: Caloric intake using My Fitness Pal

I didn't do this at all. I think I'm going to take this goal out for Q3 and change it to buy a new sports bra and complete a 5K run, which I purchased an app to help me complete.

        

Area Two: Financial
1) Track what I spend my money on each month - I did this with the dog and cat last year, but I'd like to extend it to see where my money is going (I'm modelling it after monthly budget updates from Stephany Writes)

April, May, June

I did do this!

2) Put $500 into our savings account each month and $500 into my retirement accounts

I completed this in April and May. I did not in June. I also still haven't figured out how to add the amount I'm putting in my retirement accounts. I guess I'll roll this over for the next quarter.

Area Three: Communication
1) Continue to post to my blog twice a week

April: 9 posts (6 books, 1 shopping, Q1 goals update, monthly expense wrap-up)

May: 10 posts (8 books, Hannah update, monthly expense wrap-up)

June: 11 posts (7 books, Hannah update, monthly expense wrap-up, podcast roundup, small town gossip)

This is an average of 2.3 times a week, so full marks!

2) Continue to send snail mail to my uncle K, aunt D, and my mom once a month, plus one other person who will be chosen on a rotating basis

I only sent stuff out in May (Mother's Day reminded me). I'll have to get back in the habit of writing cards and keeping track. What a bummer.  

3) Keep a list of the books I read - Q2 book list complete. I like the addition of books I don't finish. It's actually encouraged me to complete more books just so I don't feel like a failure when I add something to the list.

4) Keep a list of the snail mail I send

I didn't do this at all.

Area Four: Personal Improvement
1) Brush Hannah and Zelda's teeth every day

April: I missed Hannah one day and Zelda two days

May: I missed each on one day

June: I missed Hannah three days and Zelda four days

Considering that before I started keeping track, I did this about once every month, I will call this a win.

2) Do a 30-day challenge every month
    

I didn't do this at all. I'm also more than halfway through June and I haven't done it in June, either. Obviously this was too much of a stretch goal for me. I'm probably just going to take it out for Q3 and Q4 without too much guilt.

3) Duolingo every day

100%. My daily streak is over 400 days at this point.

4) One house project every month

I did complete a bit of decluttering in the guest room, but that's all I have done. Not great.

I don't know. It doesn't feel like much of a win.  My health goals are okay, but my communication goals are just a disaster. Ugh.  Next quarter is a new quarter, I guess.

2021 Q1 Quarterly Goals Update

It is time for me to do a quick check of my first quarter goals for 2021. Strap in because it's a wild ride. 

Area One: Health

1) Two yoga classes of thirty minutes or more twice a week 

    January: 9

    February: 10

    March: 14 

    Total: 33 

    I've met this goal quite handily.
2) Three other fitness classes/fitness activities of thirty minutes or more per week 

    January: 12

    February: 13

    March: 13

    Total: 38

    This is one workout shy of the goal. I will count 97.4% as A work here. 
3) Tracking goal
        Q1: Liquid intake using Aqualert - I did this for like two days before I deleted the app because I 

        was so annoyed with it.  I think these tracking goals may be impossible for me.  

Overall, I'm pleased with my number of workouts. This doesn't count the large number of 15 minute "move and stretch" classes that I do during my lunch breaks, nor does it include the hours and hours that I walk with Hannah. I know there's some cliché that folks became much less active during Covid, but I have found it's actually a lot easier to get movement when I'm working from home.  

        

Area Two: Financial
1) Track what I spend my money on each month - I did this with the dog and cat last year, but I'd like to extend it to see where my money is going (I'm modelling it after monthly budget updates from Stephany Writes) - I did it! January, February, and March posts for your viewing pleasure.
2) Put $500 into our savings account each month and $500 into my retirement accounts - Okay, this is complicated. 

    January: $900

    February:  $950   

    March: $1125

    Total: $2975

This is only $25 off what I'd hope to accomplish in the first three months, so it's pretty good. What's not good is that most of that is going right into our savings account because I can't figure out how to add money to my retirement accounts and I keep saying I'll deal with it and I mean it, but I honestly am stressed about it, so there you go. I'd give myself a C- on this goal.

Financial goals are going okay, I think.  

Area Three: Communication
1) Continue to post to my blog twice a week 

    January: 14 posts

    February: 13 posts

    March: 14 posts

    Total: 41

This is actually more than three times a week, so I crushed this.

2) Continue to send snail mail to my uncle K, aunt D, and my mom once a month, plus one other person who will be chosen on a rotating basis - Sure?  I did send out letters in January, Valentine's Day cards in February, and St. Patricks' Day cards in March.  Crushing it.
3) Keep a list of the books I read - Yes! Here's the first quarter book list. It's actually pretty unwieldy doing it by quarter and I wonder if it would be better if I did a monthly book list instead. Let me know if you have a preference. 

4) Keep a list of the snail mail I send - Hm. I did this in January and then just sort of stopped doing it. I'll have to get back on the train in the second quarter.

Communication goals are on track. Yay!

Area Four: Personal Improvement
1) Brush Hannah and Zelda's teeth every day

    January: Hannah 31/31, Zelda 30/31

    February: Hannah 27/28, Zelda 26/28

    March: Hannah 27/31 (I ran out of toothpaste and went to half a dozen stores looking for more only         to end up just ordering it on Amazon), Zelda 30/31

This is so much better than I have ever done before. I now have a system for when to brush their teeth and they expect it now and (mostly) cooperate.  This is a nice place to be in for their dental health.

2) Do a 30-day challenge every month
    January: Meditation every day using the Headspace app on my phone - 31/31 days. It was great. 
    February: 30-day core challenge - 19/28 - You're going to start noticing a downward trend in my stats     from here on out.
    March: This insane good posture in 30 days challenge - 0/31 - I decided to restart the core challenge,     but I only even did that for a few times in the month. I'm realizing that I haven't done anything yet in     April, either. I better get started.
3) Duolingo every day - Yes! I am well over a year of doing practice every day.  Woot! 
4) One house project every month  - Ha ha! Well, no.  We got a new dehumidifier for the basement and that's about it.  I'm really terrible at this goal.

So my personal improvement goals are a mixed bag.  Let's hope for some gains in the next quarter, although that is definitely unlikely from what I'm seeing so far!

Summer is Afoot

This is mostly a life update that I'm using as a way to organize my thoughts. Summer is officially on our minds now. It's crazy that we submitted grades three weeks ago and it's only this week that I am not constantly on edge about my work at the university. Anyway, Dr. BB is on sabbatical in the fall, so we need to have a plan or we'll find ourselves at the end of December having frittered away all our time.

Here are things that are going to be changing for us soon.

1) Car - Our car is a 2010 Elantra (look at when she was new!) with 240,000 miles on it. She's still puttering along, but there are occasional issues that are worrisome. Multiple times I've turned on the bright lights to find ALL the dashboard lights coming on. Sometimes if we're on the highway using cruise control, the engine revs in a bit of a concerning fashion.  It's a good car, but we're looking for something that I don't worry about when I'm driving an hour or two away from home and that might have a bit more cargo space.

We're looking mostly at hatchbacks. I still want a smallish car because we drive in Madison, Milwaukee, and Chicago enough that I don't want to have to pilot a boat around in a parking garage, but we do want cargo space. We looked at the Honda Fit and Civic Hatchback, the Elantra GT, and the Subaru Impreza Hatchback and Crosstrek in a test driving spree last Thursday. We still need to track down hte VW Golf and Golf Sport Wagen and the Toyota Camry Hatchback.  If you have an opinion on any of these cars, please tell me.

We're looking for cargo space because...

2) Dog - We're going to get a dog.  I've waited patiently for years. We have a house now. Dr. BB will be on sabbatical in the fall, so he'll be home and we'll have time for dog training. I'm super ready and excited. The rescue we're using came and did a home visit last week.  Right now, the two dogs we're leaning towards are a one-year-old female shepherd and a female puppy Great Dane/boxer mix (they call these dogs "boxanes"!).

They're both big dogs, which we want because we've heard that's the way to go when you have cats.  These dogs have both been around cats and have a known history as being good with them.  The shepherd will be a shedding disaster and if the boxane has as much energy as a boxer, she might be a bit too much for us.  We're in contact with the rescue about them and we'll see what additional information we can get. I think that boxane is beautiful, but there's something in that shepherd's downturned ears that make me want to take her in and cuddle her forever.

3) Piano - We've been taking piano lessons for a few months because we have a great room downstairs that is begging for a piano to be in it. Right now we're practicing on a keyboard and it's not really conducive to loving to practice.  We've been poking around the used piano market in Madison and Milwaukee and it looks like we're probably going to have to spend $3500-4000 to get a piano that meets our sound and aesthetic needs.  That's almost twice our piano budget, so we might have to save a bit more and keep on keeping on with that stupid keyboard for another year or so.

Northwest corner of the great room. 

Southern wall of the great room

4) CSA - Brand new CSA has started!  We have a new farm, a new pickup location, and I'm all in all fairly nervous about how all this will go. That being said, I'm also super excited and hope it's amazing. 

And that's a lot for the likes of me. I'm trying to be cool and act like these major purchases and adopting a new member of the family are just things that happen (and they are!), but they are exciting things that are happening and I am excited, but just a little bit terrified, too.

When It Rains...

...it comes in through the bathroom ceiling.

I made a passing reference to our house collapsing around us last week and I was only sort of joking.  Here are things that are happening.

1) We have a flat roof on our addition.  Both Dr. BB and I were suspicious of this roof from the very beginning (for a variety of reasons) but the home inspector AND two roofers we had come look it last fall told us it was fine and that we were being paranoid over nothing.  So when we woke up last week after a heavy rain and there was water coming from the light fixture in our bathroom, I guess neither of us were surprised, so much as ticked off. We now are the cool house with a tarp on the roof.  Roofers are coming later this week. I hope.

2) We had some issues with our front porch and we paid to have it replaced last year, but then snow came early and we sat around all winter with a rotting porch. They came! They fixed it!  But now we have to wait a month or two (via the instructions of the men who installed it) to paint it. We are now the cool house with half a painted porch.

3) We had four new basement windows installed. This actually is a good thing because the old ones were single-pane (I accidentally typed "single-pain" and that is true, too) and one was literally held together with duct tape. I mentioned that these would need to get fixed during the home inspection and was told that I was being paranoid and that the windows were fine. Well, that's not entirely accurate based on the fact that it got below 50 degrees in the basement over the winter.  Anyway, these basement windows have been in the plan for a long time, but way to see another few thousand dollars leak out of our savings account. I guess better now than in the long term in our heating bills.

4) Shortly after the rain in the ceiling incident, Dr. BB noticed Zelda the Cat stalking the back door like she was a real hunter.  It turns out that we had dozens of tiny ants marching all along our back wall.  We called the bug guy (we have a bug guy - his name is Jim and if you live in southeastern Wisconsin, I can give you his number) and he came to see us today.  And that is good because my husband was stalking the mud room with Raid and I was starting to worry he was going to poison the cat with his willynilly spraying.  $85 and now our house is impervious to bugs. I hope.

5) The plumbing in the upstairs bathroom is old. This causes some problems with the flow between the sink and the tub with disgusting water coming up from the tub whenever we used the sink. We had a plumber out and he basically did the best he could, but told us we needed to vent the sink and that would involve cutting open the wall. Our long-term plans have always included a renovation of the configuration of the rooms upstairs, including modernizing this bathroom, but this might have moved those plans up to medium-term.  Although, honestly, I don't know where we'd find the money.

Meanwhile, we can at least use the upstairs bathroom again.

So, we're the house with an ant infestation, a tarp on the roof, and a half-painted front porch.  I say we just put a bathtub out front and call it a day.

The Saga of the Front Porch

Spoiler: There is no resolution to this situation.

We thought we would just power wash the front porch, replace a couple of rotting boards, and put some DeckCorrect on it. We wanted to do something with the front porch in the medium-term, but it wasn't really a project we were ready to tackle right away. 

What you can't see in this photo is that those columns are actually holding weight. That's our bedroom and office on top of that porch.

I mean, the stairs are a bit not to code, but it was in pretty good shape. Or so we thought.  I bet you can see where this story is going.

Dr. BB pulled up a couple of rotted boards. And, as he put the crowbar on the joist below those rotted boards, the bar went right through the support beam.  Oh, man, that's not good. That beam is holding up our bedroom.

Now there's a hole and we can totally see that someone sistered up some beams against old rotted beams, but never removed the original rotted supports, so the rot spread. 

We plopped down thousands of dollars at a company that specializes in decks and balconies after three companies came out to give us quotes and recommendations that we not do the work ourselves because a) we don't know what we're doing, b) we don't have time to do it, and c) this is a load-bearing porch.  We were told that it would be done in the last week of November or the first week in December.

I called this morning to be told that maybe, just maybe, they might be able to fit us in by midweek next week.  

We're doing a relatively big (for us) holiday party on Saturday the 16th and I'm already anticipating that there will be no front porch at that time and we will look like the trashy house.  I had dreamed of garland and lights on the porch, inviting people to come into our house. I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to let this dream go.  

So, there is a giant hole in our porch.  

The people who are going to replace it MIGHT be here next week.

I'm just going to have to let this go. I can't make the workers come any faster.  I can't do the work myself.  So here we are.  

Breathe in. Breathe out.

I'll update if anything happens. 

It's Not Pink Anymore

I have lost the memory card that actually holds most of the "before" photos of the house, so this post is going to be super anticlimactic. I spent almost an hour looking for the card yesterday to no avail, so you're getting a before and after post with no before. C'est la vie, I guess.

Our guest room used to be pink. Not quite Pepto Bismol pink, but not lovely baby nursery pink, either. The other rooms in the house were tastefully painted when we moved in, so I was dumbfounded by this room and it quickly became a priority of mine to get it painted. No guest was ever going to come visit us when the room was pink!

So we went with this blue because it is in the same family as the other colors in the rest of the upstairs. I learned some things about my husband while painting this room. First off, he's a terrible painter. Second, he's not concerned about what a terrible painter he is. Lastly, I can't paint rooms with him.

So we did one coat and you could still see pink shining through and he was all "good enough," so I waited until he was at work one day and I was home alone and I did a second coat. And then, because I'm a lunatic/perfectionist, I went ahead and repainted the ceiling, too.  It's not perfect, but it's so much better than it used to be.

So our little guest room is actually looking like a grown up room now.

You can see in the above photo that the ceiling actually isn't straight across and has a slant to it on the one side. This caused us me a great deal of angst while painting.

My goal is to sew a quilt for this bed (white with blue, red, and yellow accents, I think), but in the meantime, it's got blankets on it that are just a smidge too small. Don't judge me.

I think it's possible those plants are going to die if I don't water them soon. Ha ha. No, they won't. They're invincible and I've forgotten to water them for months and months in the past. They'll bounce back.

 

Besides the bed, the only furniture in this room is a bookshelf that I assembled with TJC when she came to visit. It's kind of a small room, but guests can use the bookshelf as a place to put their belongings. TJC tells me we also need a trash can in the room. Anything else in a smallish room that is essential for guest rooms?

And that's it. I'll update this post with before photos if I ever find that memory card.

Four Pieces of Furniture, Part II

I know you've been waiting on the edge of your seats. What happened with your furniture shopping? Weren't there four pieces of furniture you wanted to buy?

Well, it turns out it was really FIVE pieces of furniture we purchased over the last month. Making good use of a borrowed SUV and local antique shops, we managed to get this done. Here's the rundown.

First up. We got a desk for our front room, along with an bookshelf my husband was adamant about because WHERE ELSE WOULD WE PUT THE SOUND SYSTEM?  He's responsible for the all caps, not me.

We got the desk at an antique store about an hour away. It was tagged at $225 and I bargained it down to $175, so we paid $183.93 with tax. It's a rolltop which is even better than the secretary I thought we'd have to settle for. The bookshelf came from a different antique shop and was quite pricey, I thought. It was marked at $375, but we told them we'd only pay f$300, so the total was $316.50 when all was said and done.  We still need a rug for this room, but it solves a number of our logistical problems (where to put mail and the sound system) and storage problems (so much book overflow is going to go in that bookshelf).

You might recall that we wanted two trunks, one for mud room and one for the main room right when you walk inside. We obtained these trunks at yet another antique store. I learned that cedar chests in good shape are incredibly easy to find antique stores in southeastern Wisconsin. If we hadn't purchased these, there were honestly lots more out there. We found these at the same store and they were each marked at $175, so we offered $300 for both.

This one stores our my workout gear. Yes, we have tools next to it because OH MY GOD THE FRONT PORCH but that's a saga for later on in the week.

I'm still super confused about what to do with the giant wall space above this trunk, but I am not made of money, so that giant empty wall is going to stay empty for a while, I think. A friend suggested a tapestry and I do think it's a good idea. I might make a quilt and put it up there.

This one is in our mud room and holds bicycling supplies - I thought it would be plenty big enough, but I thought wrong. We still have approximately a million more bicycling accessories that need a home. We also sit on it to take our shoes on and off. And Zelda uses it to stalk rabbits and chipmunks and squirrels.

And, finally, the stupid hall tree. We went to SO MANY PLACES looking for hall trees. We found some at the place we had our bedroom furniture made, but it was so expensive that I couldn't justify it. So we went someplace really close. They managed to have two hall trees, neither of which we loved and neither of which was moveable on price, but we really wanted something before we had to return the borrowed SUV, so we bought one.

On the bright side, there is no mirror, which is great. It will store winter things, I think. I do like that we have a designated place for our bike helmets because neither one of us was going to put our helmets in the trunk. This way we can just hang them and go. It was $606.63, which I personally found a little unreasonable, but I do like its rustic charm.

So that's the tale of the furniture. $1423.56 and approximately a dozen antique stores later and we have these five pieces of wooden furniture. Since I originally spitballed $2000 as a budget for this, I'm actually quite pleased. Also, if anyone wants to know the best antique stores in this corner of Wisconsin, hit me up. I have opinions.