The Quiet Season

I imagine I am in the minority, but I really love the "quiet" of winter that settles in during January and typically continues into February.  Though, if I'm honest with myself, I really just love the seasons as they change.  Except summer.  I have a bias against summer...for some reason we don't really get along!  In January and February, it always seems like life slows down a bit.  Maybe it is just the comparison of January to December (usually the busiest month of all!), but I like having time here and there where I have nothing planned.  That is a rarity in my current life.

My last 2 winters have been a bit busy (2010-just got engaged, 2011-settling into marriage and our new home), so I'm happy that this one is a bit quieter.  I also tend to get a nesting instinct in January...lots of cleaning, organizing, and cooking.  After a busy fall, I love looking at my calendar and seeing weekends with only one or two obligations or engagements, if any at all.  Life settles back into a routine in January/February, and that is where I am most comfortable.  It feels a bit like I have a chance to catch up on rest, life, and priorities. 

So far this winter, our weather hasn't quite felt like winter.  Though I generally complain when it is bitterly cold, this year I am missing the week or two where we have temps that don't go above freezing.  Those are the times that I most enjoy hot baths, hot drinks, soup, and snuggling under a down comforter.  We've had a few cold nights this year, but nothing like years past!  However, I am happy to do without the snows and blizzards of the past few years.  A fair trade-off, I suppose.

So while I have some social engagements, performances, and fun things planned for the next few months, you're most likely to find me somewhere in my house cooking, cleaning, or some other form of being domestic.  Or watching a movie in preparation for the Oscars.  We've got about 7 more left to see before the big show (and our big party).  Guess I'll be preparing for that in the coming weeks, as well!

2011 Year in Review

I love writing these "Year in Review" posts.  They really help me remember all I've done (and left undone) in the past year.  This year was definitely a challenging, wonderful, stretching, and just plain FUN year!  I'm not sure how one year can be all of those adjectives, but mine was.  Perhaps that is just life?  So here we go, Page's 2011 Year in Review:

January- I begin my first "real" (non-wedding/honeymoon/holiday) month of marriage.  We visit Chapel Hill for a wedding.  We eat lots of plant-based foods.  I spend most of my free time trying to get our home in order.  We win a fabulous home theater system and host an awesome Super Bowl party.

February- It's cold.  I learn how to adjust to my husband being at rehearsal in DC most nights.  The house and doggies and I bond while I learn to feel like "our" home is also "my" home.  I spend a weekend in Annapolis while performing as a nun in the Sound of Music.  Which was a blast!  At the end of the month, J is hospitalized with pleurisy.

March- Learn about how to live out the "in sickness" clause of my wedding vows.  Perform the Monteverdi Vespers. Begin the work of readying our half-plot in the community garden.

April- Spring finally seems to be peeking its head around the corner.  This was a long winter for me.  We throw a few dinner parties.  On Easter Sunday, I try to burn off my cornea.  Ouch.

May- To Scotland we go to celebrate Eliza's wedding.  And just happen to touch down in London in the midst of the Royal Wedding.  Drink lots of whisky, learn some Scottish dancing, and have an overall fabulous time.

June- Life slows down.  I learn what it is like to be married with my husband and I home together most nights.  It's awesome.  We begin receiving shares from our CSA and working in our community garden plot.  Veggies a-plenty and I learn a lot of new veggie recipes!

July- We watch the Wimbledon Men's Final on the theater screen upstairs.  Wow.  We also host a Harry Potter Marathon in preparation for the opening of the last movie.  We then see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows pt. 2.  I finally admit that I am struggling with anxiety.

August- J's family visits for a fun-filled week of food, fun, and baseball.  We visit Maine!  Chorale rehearsals start back up.

September- J and I both participate in 2 performances of the Mozart Requiem for September 11th memorials (he as the tenor soloist...and me in the chorus, naturally).  It's moving, beautiful, and tough.  Towards the end of the month, Maureen and I travel to SC for the Navy vs. SC football game. 

October- Lots of Navy football. Lots of singing.  And a little wine tasting.

November- I take J on a surprise trip to a B&B in Virginia Wine Country to celebrate our first Anniversary.  My parents visit for Thanksgiving.  I host my first Thanksgiving meal in the Spy House.  It was a success, if I do say so myself.

December- The crazy singing season begins.  My half marathon training schedule is demanding more long runs.  I sing 6 concerts in 10 days.  My parents arrive.  We celebrate a lovely Christmas...complete with J's special custom "Spy House" holiday blend of coffee.

There you have it...My Year.  With its ups and downs, highs and lows, joys and struggles.  All on this journey that we call "Life" that I feel quite privileged to be on!

NaBloCleanPoMo Day #11 Laundry Room

Today was supposed to be a "do nothing" day.  However, J and I cleaned the Laundry Room since it was on my list for NaBloCleanPoMo.  I don't have a good before picture of how disorganized and "linty" the room was, but here are some in progress pictures:

With the dryer moved out

Closer look

After...everything clean and organized.  My main accomplishment was getting rid of the miscellaneous stack of stuff on top of the dryer.

Done!

And now, I'm ready to go watch some football.

NaBloCleanPoMo Day #9 Spooky Chandelier

The other morning while I was lying in bed, with the lovely fall morning sun streaming in the windows past the trees changing color, I looked up at the chandelier in our bedroom.  And discovered it was covered in cobwebs.  Obviously, I don't spend much time in our bedroom while it is light, or I guess I would have noticed earlier!  I think the last time we cleaned the chandelier was last winter when J got on a ladder to change a bulb and gave it a quick dust.  So, after a long rehearsal tonight, I decided an "easy" NaBloCleanPoMo task was in order.

See the cobwebs?

My trusty long-handled swiffer duster

After- no more cobwebs!

NaBloCleanPoMo Day #8 My Closet

So tonight is one of my few nights at home during the week.  I even made a crockpot meal so that I wouldn't take up my evening time cooking a meal.  After I ate my pot roast, I headed upstairs to tackle switching out my summer and winter clothes and re-organizing my closet.

I hate organizing my closet.  We have a number of closets in our house, but J uses the two in our bedroom. The sitting room is my "dressing room"/closet.  But, there is only one small closet, so I use the closet in the 3rd floor hallway (old house...the closet is not actually in a room) as my off-season closet.  To be honest, I have all of my coats and formal clothes (including my wedding dress...which still needs to be dry-cleaned...definitely a NaBloCleanPoMo project) in the guest bedroom closet, which helps with space.

Anyway, switching clothes requires going up and down the stairs multiple times.  I dread it.  But, tonight, I sucked it up...and even managed to organize my shoes and some of the other items in the closet.

Notice the mess of stuff on the top shelf and on the floor of the closet

In progress.  My summer shoes are in the laundry basket to go upstairs

And After.  Winter clothes in, shoes organized, and top shelf in order.  I could probably organize the shirts, skirts, pants and dresses by color.  But that is a project for another day.

NaBloCleanPoMo Day #7 Guest Room Rugs

It's late.  I'm exhausted.  Tonight's project was on the list...but not difficult.

Our guest room floors are wood (like the rest of the floors in the house), and are cold.  So in the winter, we put rugs down to "warm it up".

No rugs.

Better, no?  

Time for bed.

NaBloCleanPoMo Day #6 Kitchen Table

Our kitchen table seems to be a catch-all in our house.  Papers, stuff, more stuff....you get the picture.  Today, I ran 9 miles in the afternoon and didn't have the time or energy to undertake a big project.  So I decided to organize the stuff on our kitchen table.  Really boring, but needed.

Kitchen Table Before

Kitchen Table After

And there you have it.

NaBloCleanPoMo Day #5 The Gutter

One project that we have to complete occasionally at our house is cleaning out the gutters.  Well, I at least am in charge of the gutter on the front of our house.  Most people are able to get up to clean their gutters with a ladder.  We don't have a ladder tall enough to get to the gutter on our 2nd floor.  So someone has to go out the bedroom window.  Seeing as I am blessed with former gymnast toe-grip skills, I am the best choice for crawling out on the pitched roof to empty the gutter.

The last time we cleaned the front gutter was 10:30 at night before we were headed to Maine.  A storm called Irene was headed our way, and we wanted to be sure the gutters were free to carry water away from our house.  Even though it was chilly this morning, this was a much easier project during the day.  Although, I could see how high up I actually am on the roof...

I think the following pictures tell the story well:

Clogged gutter

Step 1: Remove window screen

Step 2: Climb out window and scoot down pitched roof towards gutter

Step 3: Lean over and pull gunk out of gutter and throw to ground

Perch carefully (notice the car on the street below...that's how high it is!)

Unlike Felina, who laid on the floor while I was magic erasing the wall, Kyra wanted to help with the gutters.  We told her that dogs and roofs don't mix.

She was sad.

Much cleaner!

I am glad this is a task we don't have to do all that often!

NaBloCleanPoMo Day #4 Marble Entry

Tonight was my normal house cleaning time...bathrooms, vacuum, mop, etc.  While I was in scrubbing and cleaning mode, I decided to scrub our marble entry.

The poor entry will never be back at it's former glory...as with many homes in our neighborhood, it was turned into apartments back in the 40s, and the entry was never really properly cared for.

But, a good scrub now and then does at least keep it somewhat clean.

Before

Cleaning tools: a rag, scrub brush, and soapy water

Not too much of a difference, other than that the colors are brighter

But at least I got up some of the dirt that we track in on a day to day basis.

NaBloCleanPoMo Day #3 Gift Cards

Tonight I didn't have too much time to clean/blog between Church Choir and Owl Bar.  So I picked an easy task...organizing the gift cards we have left over from wedding stuff, etc.  Not exciting at all, but something that needed to be done.

Gift Cards before

Gift Cards after

Let the spending begin!

NaBloCleanPoMo Day #2 The Tub

As I've written before, one of my favorite things about our house is the claw foot tub in the Master Bathroom.  I am an avid bath taker, and this tub speaks to me!  Over the past year, though...after getting lots of use, I started noticing that there was a stained "ring" around the bottom of the tub.  I'm used to rings around the top, but these were stains that didn't go away with my regular lysol scrub.

So, today, I bought some soft scrub to try and get rid of the stains.  It worked like a charm!

It's hard to see in this picture, but the stained ring is around the bottom of the tub.

A closer look at the stubborn stains

My scrubbing tools

After...no more stains!

After close-up

So again for comparison....

Before...

...and After!

So while not a very exciting transformation, it is great to have an easy cleaning project that only took about 10 minutes, and makes a difference in the everyday cleanliness of my life.

NaBloCleanPoMo Day #1 Magic Erase the Wall

One of the things that I have had to adjust to most in our new house is having dogs.  I love the dogs, don't get me wrong, but dogs are much harder to clean up after.  Thankfully, J takes care of the grossest clean up (poop scooping), but vacuuming and keeping things in the house clean usually fall to me.  I've mostly gotten a handle on managing dog hair in the house (by realizing that I will never win the War against dog hair...but I can win battles!), but one thing that still baffles me is the dirt on the walls.  Ok, it's not too baffling, since I know Felina rubs up against the wall ALL the time.

She is an itchy dog, and I think she thinks the wall scratches her.  It also deposits lovely dirt from the baseboard up to where the top of her back hits the wall.  Case in point:

Of course, when I am home and see her walk back and forth rubbing on the wall, I scold her.  But, I have visions that as soon as we leave the house, she spends her day walking up and down the wall.  Probably not, but it sure looks like it.  As I was cleaning the wall tonight, I remembered that when we were giving the dogs a bath this week, I wondered why Felina wasn't as dirty as Kyra.  As I was cleaning the wall, I realized that Felina probably deposits her dirt on the wall each day!

The only thing I've found that helps get rid of the dirt is the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser.  It isn't perfect, but it helps.  I know eventually I'll probably rub most of the paint off the wall trying to get it clean, but the walls need to be painted in a few years anyway!

Here is a wide angle view of the wall:

So I got out my trusty Magic Eraser and went to work.

Yuck!

Felina was no help.  I think she was looking at me thinking, "As soon as you're done, I'm rubbing up against that wall again!"

And the finished product.  It is still drying a bit in this photo, but I do think I will need to go back over it at some point.  Maybe tomorrow.  But, it is much better than before!  For comparison again...

Before...

And after!

Thus completes NaBloCleanPoMo Day #1!  Stay tuned for tomorrow's project...

November's NaBloCleanPoMo

For those of you who don't know, November is National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo).  The challenge is to write a blog post everyday for a month.  I actually tried to complete NaBloPoMo a few years ago.  Surprise... I didn't succeed!  But with my recent 30 day exercise challenge success, I feel ready to tackle another "Every day for a month" challenge.  Since I haven't been too successful at the yearly challenges...ahem....365 day...fail, I thought I'd try to stick with a 30 day challenge.  Although, my husband has informed me that the new standard is it takes 40 days to create a habit, not 30.  This as he comes to the end of his own exercise-every-day-for-30-days-challenge.

Anyway, I thought it would be helpful to put a different spin on posting everyday for a month and add a home improvement component.  (In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that I stole this idea from a friend who did it a few years ago).  I love reading blogs with before and after photos of house projects like Young House Love, and improve-your-house-and-life projects like the 20/20 Cure so I figured I'd try my own hand at it for a month. 

However, there are not that many non-expensive projects I can complete and blog about everyday for a month.  So, my projects will be cleaning projects.  I have house guests coming for both Thanksgiving and Christmas, and while my house is fairly organized and clean, it could certainly be more so.  And bringing out Christmas decorations has the tendency to make surfaces look more cluttered, so I'm guessing getting rid of the bits of actual clutter that are there will improve things!

I feel like I've finally gotten a handle on managing our large, lovely, old Victorian house.  Old houses get dirty fast!  And with so much space, clutter builds up in a heartbeat.  If I don't vacuum at least weekly (and preferably twice a week), dog hair tumbleweeds start making their way down our hallways.  I was used to a small 3 bedroom house...then a 1 bedroom apartment...and then a townhouse.  Going from 1500 square feet with 2 people and 2 kitties (and a roommate who did most of the cleaning)...to 3300 square feet with 2 people, 2 LARGE dogs, and ME doing most of the cleaning was an adjustment.

I also really love the idea of doing a cleaning task each day.  Though, it's difficult on days I have rehearsal and leave the house at 7:30 or 8 AM and arrive home at 10:45 PM.  But I'm gonna do my best!  I think I will always have one day a week where I do a big 2-3 hour clean of the house, but I want to get used to doing one extra task a day as well.  I've made a list of every little random cleaning and organizing project in the house I could think of, and I came up with 25.  I'm sure I'll come up with others as the month goes on.  I have tasks like scrub our marble entrance, organize my closet, and wash my cashmere sweaters on the list.

It's gonna be fun.  I'll be completing a project a day, taking pictures, and posting about the project.  So tomorrow, look for the first NaBloCleanPoMo post.  Anyone else want to join me?

84/365 Matchy Matchy...and yet not

When I get to the end of the day and have forgotten to take a photo, I generally find something around the house to photograph.  Here are the curtains and the ceiling in our kitchen.  The fabric from these curtains were the drapes in my Mom's Living Room for 30 years.  She got new ones last year, and brought a lot of fabric up to make valances for our house.  These worked best in the kitchen.  Who would have thought that 30 year old drapes would freshen up and make great valances to match our copper ceiling?  I love re-purposing...

78/365 Serious Day of Domesticity ends in the Kitchen

Here is where I ended my Day of Domesticity.  It began in our Community Farm garden plot where I helped turn over the soil to prepare it for planting.  Then, I cleaned up our back yard.  Next, I cleaned the whole house.  Then, I made stir fry with leftover veggies and cleaned up the kitchen.  Now, I'm about to fall asleep...

75/365 Marble

I've heard stories of how Baltimore housewives used to scrub their marble entries everyone morning.  Mine obviously needs some scrubbing..but isn't the inlaid pattern pretty? :)

61/365 Chandelier

To put the Home Theater in our Library/Study, we had to switch light fixtures.  So now, this lovely chandelier is in our bedroom.

54/365 See more of our home...

I love the large plank wood floors in our home.  Scratches, imperfections, and all.  I think they tell an interesting story about our house.

25/365 The Sitting Room

Looks like it is time to hang some pictures on the wall...

3/365 One of My New Favorite Places in Our House

As mentioned on my blog multiple times...I love baths.  Perhaps that is why one of the things that called to me most about our house when we were hunting was the claw foot tub in this house.  I love taking baths here...add a bath bomb, a glass of wine, and a good book...and to me, this is a little slice of heaven on earth!