Double Standards

First off I would like to apologize to you, my 5 readers. Here you thought you were going to get to read about a nice little remodeling project...

Instead, I am daring to say the V word. Vaccination.

No, I am not trying to generate publicity for my blog or start a war. If I wanted war I would start ranting on Facebook. But I am choosing not to do that. It is your choice if you continue reading or not.

You see, my head feels like it is about to explode. I see, we all probably see, loads of vaccine info online whether we want to or not. Whether we have children or not. Whether you have ever actually looked into this or not.

I try not to see it and it still gets through and it makes me mad. I need to get some thoughts and problems out before I do something stupid and start calling people out and arguing with them over this.

Here are a couple things that keep coming to the top of my list that I wish people would ask themselves.

1. Do you have children?

Because if you do not than you have no idea the weight and responsibility that you will hopefully feel, that you should feel, when you have a child. One thing that happened to me when I became a mother was all my bias disappeared. I no longer cared which side of the political aisle my choices were on. I no longer cared which family member I agreed or disagreed with. All I care about is trying to make the best decisions, with the information I have for these amazing little people. Whom I love more than I ever thought possible. I don't care who says this or that. What is popular or not. All I care about Is. My. Children.

So, if you have never had the opportunity to be completely responsible for your child, I am saying this out of common courtesy. Please, for your own sake, keep these opinions to yourself. Because you never know, you may look back and realize you had no idea what you were talking about. You may even disagree with yourself, or be embarrassed, maybe have no regrets at all. Or you may be like me and wish you would have started using the gift of critical thinking earlier. Earlier, so that I could have better protected my child. I am not going to go into detail about what happened to one of my daughters... Maybe in another post. Whatever your opinion may be about vaccinations, lets all remember that most parents are trying to do and be the best they can be for their children. What is right for one family might be wrong for another. Let's show one another a little grace. I make decisions that I think are best, and I even think they are best for most people, but I will not shove that down your throat. I will not force you to eat like I do. Or exercise how I do. Treat sickness like I do. Or prevent sickness and vaccinate or not like I do. We are all or should all be given the choice. Even given the choice to make the wrong decision.

Which leads me to my next question.

2. What does pro choice mean to you?

Do you believe that a woman has the right to do with her body as she chooses?

With her unborn baby's body as she chooses? To choose wether that child is born or not?

If so, then I ask you, why does her getting to choose stop once the baby is born? Believe it or not but there is proposed legislation all over the U.S to make vaccination mandatory. Taking away the mothers choice. Some of these bills biggest supporters are also major supporters in the pro choice movement. Do you see the double standard here? It is like they are saying that they will let you have freedom of choice as long as your choice lines up with their thinking. I don't think I need to explain or go into how dangerous that line of thinking is.

If you have read this far thank you. I also want to encourage you to step back and look at this situation with as un biased of eyes that you can. Say no to all the hoopla and fear mongering that is going on from both sides of this debate. Say no to the blame game and finger pointing.

Because you never know why parents have chosen certain things for their family's.

You have never walked in their shoes.

Who Forgets They Have A Blog?

Me.

Yes, I know that seems ridiculous, but it is true. I had completely forgotten that I even had a blog until a good friend and soon to be sister in law brought it up to me yesterday.

Where were we.... Oh yes! My new living room. It is still not all the way finished, because we have come to the point in our remodel that we need really good ventilation. Meaning we need good weather. Even though we are having spring like weather here in Montana it is still not leave all your doors and windows open all day weather.

Here are some pictures that I took around Thanksgiving and Christmas when I actually remembered I had a blog.

In case you have forgotten here are a couple before photos.

And the Afters!

You can barely tell, but in the Christmas tree picture the gaps between the plank walls have been caulked. It makes it much less busy and line-y.

Trim and Primer

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! 

I love beginnings. Fresh starts, Mondays, the first day of a new month. I love the feeling of starting over, getting to have a do over. New beginnings give me peace and purpose. 

But I also love the old, the comfortable, the familiar. I am, as my mother so often says, quite the conundrum. I think it is her nice way of saying that I am really confusing and don't make any sense and have a few too many wires crossed.... Just kidding Mama! I know you say it with love. There.... Now that things are cleared up with my Mama, I don't want to upset my one reader, I can tell you more about my little house.

And like me this little house is a conundrum. We are continuing to strip it back to its old and comfortable bones, but at the same time freshening it up to greet a new day. 

Today in the living room we (Timothy and Chloe) are putting up the trim and base. We chose the most basic of basic. Are you ready for this? We went to the local hardware store and pick up 4 inch and 6 inch pine boards. Yep, that's it. We are using the 4 inch as the trim and the 6 inch as the base and headers. We decided to keep it super simple due to the fact that we have shiplap and horizontal line e.v.e.r.y.w.h.e.r.e. We did not need busy trim and finishes. I did not want to get dizzy every time I walked into the living area.

Chloe hard at work using the shop vac.

Don't mind the crazy glare from the light and instead share my excitement that the primer is starting to go on!

See the window with the bookshelves over there? We are pretty sure that is where the original front door was when this was just a tiny cabin. We eventually want to put in bigger windows so we are leaving it for the time being as is. No need to patch the wall twice I say.

Come back in a few days to see it with our furniture all moved in!

Happy Monday!

A Deadline and A Discovery

Did you know that when we bought this house we were planning on leaving everything as is for the Winter so we could get settled in? What were we thinking! My husband and I both LOVE fixing up and working on houses. We had been waiting, semi-patiently, for 6 years to buy our own house. Like we were going to be able to wait to make it our own. Plus, I have not mentioned this yet, but you may already be figuring this out, the hubby Can't. Sit. Still. He likes to work. To stay busy. Be productive. It is a good thing though since we had just taken a wall down and started some major demo just a little bit before our Thanksgiving get together.

After the wall was removed the remainder of the carpet had to come up. Remember the old wood floors? Those were in the old bedroom thing/ new living room too. After exposing the rest of the floor, he started on the walls. Our hopes were high and fingers crossed that we would find wood shiplap underneath. We had a few clues that there was, but you can never, ever, ever be sure that what you think you saw is actually what is there in an old house.

So far, so good. Timothy always has lots of help. Here is a close up of our 12" wide rough sawn discovery. It was better than I had hoped.

The thing with demo is that while it is very exciting and necessary, it is also very, very time consuming and labor intensive. And dirty, super dirty.

But oh so worth it! Remember the log wall we exposed in the kitchen? We exposed the other side of it so we can enjoy it from the new living room as well. 

At this point, which took a few late nights to even get to, we decided to leave the ceiling as is for the time being and button up the room for guest to start arriving in a few days. Don't get too comfortable there you old, characterless ceiling, your days are numbered.

Come back in a few days to see the trim we chose and what we are starting to do to the walls!

There Was This Wall....

That is no longer. Oh happy day! The weird bedroom with no light and oversized, useless, wasted space of an entryway are gone! The two have become one.

The entry alone was 8.5 ft. x 14.5 ft. of nothing. There was nothing we could use the space for. There were 4 doorways coming off the one room alone making it a very high traffic and blah space.

Sooo after a nice morning at church and while we had some of our best friends over we decided, logically of course, to take a wall down. Might as well, it's not like we were having a nice visit or getting ready to host some friends on Thanksgiving or anything.

Again, sorry, not a great before picture. See that brown wall? Way in the back? Yep, that's the one.

It was a very dinky wall. A few studs, a little bit of drywall and no electrical or plumbing running through it. Oh yeah, this baby was calling to be torn down. You are welcome wall.

Things are staring to feel opened up. We are starting to see the vision. A little tearing here, a little kick here and there and TA DAAAA! One huge room!

This last picture is taken from the original living room looking into what will be the new living room. See that doorway on the left? That goes directly into the kitchen and dining room. Now our living room is right next to the kitchen where it belongs. The Great Room remodel is officially under way!

Showing Us the Love

This little house of ours has really been showing us some love. Every carpet (so far) that we pull up, every layer of wall we take off has just been so fun! So far we keep finding what we consider treasures. Shiplap under the walls. Extremely old real wood floors in pretty good shape. No weird wiring or other hiccups... minus The Flood of course. I know I may be jinxing ourselves, but between me knocking on the wooden arm of the couch I am sitting on and my husband pounding and pulling up a floor in the Dining/Kitchen are I think we are safe. Oh yes, right now another floor is coming up.

But I am not here to talk about my kitchen floor. I am here to talk about our, what will be, new living room floor. We aren't finished yet, this remodel has about 587 phases to it, and that is just the great room remodel.

Here we go.

This is the carpet before. This is in what was the entry way. I don't have many before pictures, because we rarely plan when we will start our projects. They normally happen spontaneously when my husband has a shorter day at work or we are board.

See that brownish wall in the back? Through that doorway was a weird random bedroom thing? That didn't even have a light, but it did have an awesome old swing through door that we have saved for another project.

Under the carpet pad we found this weird brown vinyl, tile look alike made out of compressed board. This was a bugger to get up! It was nailed down EVERYWHERE causing it to only want to come up in tiny pieces. No fun. Atleast for my husband. He took up the floor, I kept the dogs and children off the tack strips and nails. It's all about teamwork;)

Aaaannndddd finally under the tile stuff we found.....

This beauty! We love it! It is old, it is worn and it has a history. It is not perfect, it needs some work, but it is an awesome blank canvas of sorts. We love this little house. I love the people who built it way back in 1910 and if I could I would give them a big hug and say thank you.

Better Late Than Never.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Why yes, I am serious.

And yes, I do know it is December 1st.

You should probably just plan on my Christmas post hitting the blog around Valentines day.

Here are a couple pictures of our simple Thanksgiving decor.

We had some of our awesome friends over after the BIG get together  to play games and drink eggnog. We make our own eggnog and it is way better than the store.

Do you want the recipe?

Good, because it is at the bottom of this post.

I hope you all had wonderful holiday.

If it was anything like mine it lasted Thursday-Sunday and I am using today to recover.

And by recover I do mean write a blog post, drink coffee and eat leftover pumpkin pie instead of doing my dishes and laundry and every other productive thing I should be doing.

Eggnog

Ingredients 

1 C. Cream
1 C. Whole Milk
4 TBS. Maple Syrup ( it has to be real) or Honey
2 TBS. Vanilla (also needs to be real, not that imitation junk)
2 tsp. Cinnamon
1/2 tsp. Fresh Ground Nutmeg
1/2 tsp. Ground Cloves
1/2 tsp. Allspice
4 Egg Yolks ( these eggs MUST be fresh and high quality since they are left raw. We get our eggs from a farm just a few minutes from our house)

Put everything in a blender until completely combined.

Serve warm or chilled and try not to drink the entire blender full by yourself. At least share it with one person.... If you have to.

That's it. Super simple, really delicious and perfect for this time of year. Not to mention how much better for you it is than any of the cartons of it you can find in the store!

Hope you all have a wonderful Monday!