C'Mon Irene! Well, I swear what I mean. At this moment...

Paint, paint, paint, all day long...paint, paint, paint while I sing this song.  Cman's room is painted. Donezo.  No mas painting needed in Cman's room.  About 90% of the rest of the trim in the house is painted too. Yay!


Remember how I said we I had a plan for the interior color of the front door? No? Let me remind you...

Well, it was vetoed 2-1. I lost. However, it's ok. No, really, I promise. I LOVE, love, love that green door a LOT, but it wasn't jivin' with the rest of the hizzy. Oh!! I'm going to derail for a few minutes and tell you a story of fabulous deals happening in the world of RHN. So, our ceilings are a short 7.5 feet high; short because I am 5'11" and Ed is just about 6'1". So, what that meant was any ceiling light we installed realistically couldn't be any more than 7.5" in height off the ceiling to make sure us giants of RHN clear said lighting apparatus. Does anyone know how hard it is to find a non-boob-resembling-modern-looking-attrictive flush mount light?! Well, three weeks of Google-ing proved to me there isn't a lot out there, yet a local-ish Brooklyn based company proved me wrong and for a steal! I ended up finding a 6" in height flush mount light that is modern, clean, and a deal! The light was $90 base price; $140 with a "designer" shade. After Google-ing a little more I found the exact same light for $59 + NYS sales tax. I ordered two - one for each hallway - and paid $113 total including shipping. But $59 + $59 does not = $113. That's because I found a coupon, although no cash back, but savings of about $90. Anyway, these two lights cost the same as some single lighting we were considering. What? Too much babble and no pictures? Ok, ok. 

So, back to the interior no-more-green door... wanna see what we decided on?

Black semi-gloss fabulousness. See the light? It's at least 1.5' above our heads and it all. just. meshes. Ok, well except for the plastic on the floor and the fan and lack of added accessories. Imagine, people, imagine. 

Ok, what's next?  Hurricane Irene... um, Hurri-what? We suffered horridly. We lost another tree (yes that was growing in our gutter) and suffered extreme flooding. (disclaimer: I'm not poking fun at those who did suffer; I'm simply poking fun at the hype that was stirred up for Dutchess Co. and didn't obviously happen.)  There was flooding in some areas - especially around streams, creeks, and ponds, but around here all-in-all it was just wet. Very wet. (Haha!! On our way back to Fishkill we were on Robinson Lane and the creek and adjoining pond flooded the road. The flooding was up to my doors and front grill on the GTI and my dad yells out: "can I use my seat as a flotation device?!" We laughed pretty hard because the water was that deep.)

Another tree lost.

Major flood!

Dad and Ed worked on tiling the shower today and got a lot done until the power went out when they were about 20min out of finishing. Thanks, Irene. There's always tomorrow.


On Saturday we sat down with our friend, Pierre. Who's Pierre you ask? Well, Pierre and I go back - waaaaay back. We began working together in 2000-ish and after years and years we both divorced the car business and went our merry ways. Well, Pierre is a kitchen specialist/designer at Home Depot and he's also our knight in kitchen shining armor. That's right kids, we have cabinets. We have beautiful, classy, already finished, ALL-inclusive, premium cabinets that we thought we could never afford. No, I'm not kidding and yes we are beyond ecstatic. Hi, we have cushion-close drawers and cabinets. You cannot slam them shut! Oh!! And we have hidden garbage and recycling cabinet. And crown moulding. We gave Pierre a budget and magic happened. In about a month.5 we should have pretty much an awesome kitchen. Thanksgiving, we will own you.


So, that's what happened this weekend at RHN. Oh, one last note - the pears on our tree are really close to ripe. I found one so big it filled my hand. I bit into it and it was a Bartlett Pear all the way. It was delicious. Not even kidding. Next year lateish-summer party will include pears and apples (and plain prosecco for Katie).

Giant pear on the left; Regular sized pear on the right

Delicious!