DEAR FRIENDS,

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That's all. 

Love,
Rachel

NOTHING BUT THE KITCHEN SINK

Source: flipflopsandpearlsdesign.blogspot.com via Rachel on Pinterest

Hi. It's just me trying to make another decision for this house of ours. 

My dream would be one of these deep, white apron front kitchen sinks I've seen everywhere lately. Unfortunately, from what I've seen so far, they cost a thousand buckaroos...at least. 

But I found this IKEA copycat for a third of the price. I think it's pretty, but it isn't very deep. Because of some poor planning on our part, after taking 4-5 steps through our front door, you get a clear shot of the kitchen sink. I'd like to have the option of keeping my dirty dishes out of sight, because I don't want them to be everyone's first impression of our home. 

This is a picture of the IKEA sink installed. The white farmhouse sink seems timeless and will look sharp with our white cabinets and black counter tops. 

But we also found this pretty, under mount sink from Home Depot for about 40 bucks more than the IKEA one. This one is SUPER deep and it would match our stainless steel appliances. 

This isn't the best picture, but it gives you an idea what the Home Depot sink looks like installed. 

Any advice? Anybody own either kind or have a preference one way or another? We'll need to get one ordered in the next few days! 

WEBSITE WEDNESDAY {This Healthy Homemaker}

Check out This Healthy Homemaker. 

From a passionate, well-informed mother of 3, you can find:

1) Healthy snack ideas
2) Sugar ins and outs
3) Home remedies for common ailments
4) Vitamin and supplement info
5) Book recommendations 
6) Healthy meal recipes
7) The truth about white flour and processed foods
8) Links to sources and research-based articles 
9) And many more useful tips about about things like washing produce, homemade laundry detergent, sneaky ways to get kids to eat healthy, and even the ketchup brand to buy without high fructose corn syrup!

After perusing the posts, read the comments too. Apparently, there are mothers everywhere struggling to raise healthy families in this junk food obsessed, fast food eatin', sugar-addicted society. Check it out and join the conversation!

Say "hi" to my super fly sister-in-law Andrea, while you're at it.  

HOUSE UPDATE {stucco and painting}

The stucco seems to change colors with the light. Direct sunlight shows it is a light brownish tan. Low light gives it a slight greenish tint. I love it. 

It will look more complete with the stone and white Azek around the doors and windows. The outside of the house has actually been like this for a month. Most of the change has been going on inside instead. 

Andrew painted the interior doors and trim a bright white. 

Here I am prepping for the master bedroom crown to be sprayed by papering off the ceiling. 

Apparently, this was a day I felt styling my hair was optional.

The wainscot looks so nice and complete with the paint. I'll post more about how to get this look later. 

While Andrew built cabinets at the shop, I spent my 3-day weekend painting walls. Here, the master bath has paint just in the corners and along the edges of trim. 

Then I rolled on my Sherwin Williams North Star. I love, love, love, this color.

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The perfect blue-gray.

It also went in the guest bath.

And the dining area. It is exactly what I envisioned and more. 

This space is not finished yet. The ceiling (which I can't WAIT to share more about later), will get some white trim around the edges and white beams going across. 

I've also started the Repose Gray in the kitchen...but no pictures yet. After all this painting, my body is exhausted! Only about 3/4 of the house left to go!

CHUCKY IS COMING FOR YOU

1) The snowman in our yard seems to illustrate this year's strange winter with one half of its body and face literally melted off. 
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And at this point, I think all that remains is a carrot in the grass. 

(Boxed shower tiles ready to install in the new house)

2) We just made a list of everything left to do on the house. 

1. stain wood ceilings
2. fix broken window/ add trim
3. paint prep
4. paint indoor trim/doors
5. kitchen beams
6. paint walls (2 rooms down!)
7. build/install cabinets
8. tile shower
9. make/ install concrete counters
10. tile floors
11. wood floors
12. finish trim
13. electrical outlets
14. lights
15. plumbing hardware
16. stone on fireplace/ wood mantel
17. appliances
18. carpet
19. pour concrete sidewalks
20. build back deck
21. build stairs to front door, back door, and in garage
22. stone on front of house
23. white Azek trim around outside doors and windows
24. shake tiles 
25. front porch columns

 It seems to go on forever. 
*sigh*

{source}

3) Challenging student #1 wrote apology letters to several students, as was assigned. The first two were sweet and sincere. The third one, I happened to intercept before its intended recipient read it.

Dear _________,
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Chucky is coming for you. You better run! I am sorry if I got you in truble. 
.
From,
_________

Apparently, Andrew has been aware of the (more than usual) number of stressful days I've been experiencing lately. I found this in my lunch. 

4) Valentine's Day is the best. I can always count on tulips. 

One thing I wasn't counting on was Andrew's dinner plans. You can imagine my confusion when he handed me a suit and board shorts and sent me to our room alone instructing me, "Put these on and don't ask any questions." 

Believe me, I had a lot of questions. First off, did he not know it was below freezing outside? And weren't we going to go eat something? Lucky for him, I put them on and waited nervously for the okay to come out. 

Eventually, I was lead out to a beach-themed picnic with Chinese food and Martinelli's on the living room floor. Major brownie points for my man. 

FOG

Driving around Saturday morning, I couldn't resist pulling over to capture the patchy, wintery landscape shrouded in fog. 

These pictures feel so much like home.

HEAVENLY HOMEMADE SYRUP

My cousin dropped off a bottle of homemade cinnamon plum syrup, and I ate the whole thing in a week. By myself. 

Holy Hannah. The combination of sweet, tart, and spicy was perfection, I tell you. It was so good I felt the need to document its consumption. 

Yes, I need help.




Next chance I get, the juicy details of my cousin's recipe will be mine! Until then, I googled a possibly similar recipe/tutorial here. I can't imagine it would vary too much.




THE END.

A DAY FROM HECK

Did I say heck? I'm sorry. I meant: H-E-double-hockey-sticks. 

I love my job...I really do. But every once in a while, I feel that I REEeaaally earn my 13 or so bucks an hour. 


1.) First off, a certain little someone in my class DEFINITELY forgot to take a certain medication today. Again. I could tell the moment this child waltzed through my door. This meant, I was to be this certain someone's full-time aid/ policeman/ ring leader. Every. single. blasted. second. 

2.) One of my students got kicked out of special education reading pull-out time for not completing homework. If getting 30 minutes of reading help each day is contingent upon completing homework...this kid will NEVER be getting this 30 minutes of reading help.
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And it doesn't feel right to me.

3.) One of my students fell at recess. He came back to class with blood dripping down his neck from the gaping gash on the back of his head. After calling Mom, she showed up to get him stitched up. 

4.) A certain lonely little guy was chasing his crush around at afternoon recess. She got sick of it and asked him to stop. He threatened to get a gun and shoot her. She cried in fear. Classmates rallied in her defense...and took it upon themselves to physically drag him away from her. Things got rough. Blood was drawn.

I began to hear snippets of this story as they came back from recess, and spent the next hour sorting out the details. The principal got involved. The district social worker got involved. I was lucky to have a student teacher continue class as normal, so I could handle it all . 

5.) It was at about this point I began to get a throbbing, blinding headache. 

6.) With only half an hour to go, a student threw up and I once again, called a parent to come get their child.

7.) The students finally got on the bus to go home. Within 30 minutes, parents were calling my room to express concern over the death threat. I gave proper reassurances that it is being addressed. 

8.) Then, I unintentionally made a teacher mad at me...one that I really like and need on my side. As I watched her leave my room in a huff, I decided it was officially time for me to go home. 

So here I am. At home. Nursing this darn headache and still reeling from all that still needs to be handled tomorrow. This is usually such a peaceful, country elementary school. What the heck happened?!


But anyway. Enough about me. How was your day? :)

HOLES

Well, the Super Bowl is about to start. I'm still not sure who's playing...but I'm excited for some awesome commercials! 

I'm working on the above flag banner for our Young Women's football-themed New Beginnings this week.




This is what I looked like after a long weekend of paint prep. This phase of the house building pretty much sucks. 




First, we had to putty in every single nail hole...in the baseboards, around the doors and windows, in the closet shelves, crown molding, and the mudroom lockers...before sanding it and caulking every seam. 

Now I haven't really done the math, but I'm guessing there are approximately 500 BILLION nail holes in this here house of ours. Pretty close, anyway. 




But we...meaning Andrew and Lane...got the master bedroom ceiling up! Isn't it gorgeous? It'll be stained this week. 

LONG "i" FRIES

When our spelling list followed the long /i/ pattern, I typed up the week's words (smiley monster font), copied them onto yellow construction paper, and had kids sort them into the labeled French fry containers (is the long /i/ sound made with "-igh", "i-consonant-e", "y", or some other spelling pattern?) I know I've seen this on the Internet somewhere. The kids thought it was sooo cool.

To get the McDonald's boxes, I walked in and asked for them, simple as that. I felt foolish, but the teenage girl returned my explanation with a smirk and a handful of red boxes for free.