whitney's garden

confession...

2011-09-09T12:51:00.000-07:00

Okay, I have a confession to make; although I'm pretty sure my family already suspects it.....I'm pregnant. I can't hold back my enormous boobs anymore, and I'm tired of trying to suck in my gut all day long. Yeah, this one wasn't exactly planned, but what can you do? I'm fertile. But I'm for sure making myself infertile after this one.

My due date is Feb. 19, but I'm going the planned c-section route this time, so I guess it'll be a week before that. After last time, I'm not messing around with this one. So, if I don't post again in a while, it's because I'm fat & lazy. I have absolutely zero motivation to do anything when I'm pregnant. I am so damn lazy it's pitiful.

for sale

2011-08-28T13:46:00.000-07:00

I have been so bad about keeping this stupid thing up to date, but I actually have a pretty good reason. We have officially put our cute little house on the market, and my life has been a nightmare ever since. It is the saddest thing to spiffy up your house, just to watch strangers wander through it and not be impressed in the least. This house has been like my little project that I've lovingly worked on and cared for over the last 5 years, and so I want to kill everyone who doesn't appreciate it.

We always knew when we first bought this house that we would have to give it up once we had a kid. It's pretty small, and there are only 2 bedrooms, so when we have guests it's always kind of weird trying to figure out where to put everyone. I thought some young couple would buy this house up immediately, and be charmed by all the quaintness of it like I am. Umm, yeah....no such luck. It has been a total blow to my remodeling self-esteem. I am now convinced I have horrible design skills, and everyone that comes to looks at it is laughing at me behind my back.

I wandered around the house and took all these pictures, and it made me so sad. I really feel like this is my house, and no one else will ever take care of it the way I do. If I drive by in 2 years, and the lawn is un-mowed and full of weeds, I think I'll blow my top.

I will admit, the house is unique, and I realize not everyone will appreciate that. But there are so many artsy-fartsies in Portland, there's got to be someone who does.

I remember this bathroom was the first room we re-did, and Cody even built the little bathroom cabinet thing himself. And then we realized that we'd made the door frame too narrow, and we couldn't get the washer and dryer out. We got better as we went along, I promise.

I've been listing the house on craigslist as well, and week after week I get absolutely no response. Until a few weeks ago, and this is what I got: "Good luck.....your house is waaaay too funky-looking." Gee, thanks. The guy left his name, so I googled it, and found out he is a toy-maker in Portland. If a toy-maker in Portland thinks my house is too funky-looking, we're in serious trouble.

My master suite. I love, love, love this room. It's surrounded by windows, and I can examine all areas of my garden from here. Cody has even caught our next door neighbor changing a few times from here. Great entertainment.

Cassidy's little den. This was the perfect baby-sleeping room. Although she now hates cribs, and now sprawls out on her new queen bed. She is such a diva.

One of the biggest selling points for me when we originally bought the house was all of the old wood windows. You just can't find neat little windows like this anymore. Everyone wants to rip them out and put in air-tight dorky vinyl windows because they're cheap.

The kitchen was definitely the biggest transformation in the house. We used to just have a little kitchenette that really sucked. My favorite parts of the kitchen are the undermount sink, and the concrete countertops.

We even offered our furniture to any potential buyers, but that didn't work either. Maybe because we only have like 3 pieces of furniture in the entire house. On more than one occasion, we've had people visiting us ask if we were moving out because our house is so bare. I'm a minimalist, and I hate knick-knacks.

Our little fire-pit. We've actually used this a lot, even though I'm not sure it's legal to have bonfires in the city limits.

A shot of my sunroom from the backyard. I get sick every time I think about leaving this room behind. Every house I live in from now on has to have a sunroom.

This is our basement, the second room we re-did. I remember before it was done, we'd bring our lawn chairs down here and watch movies on the concrete floor.

Our front entryway.

The side yard.

And the front yard. So this is my excuse for never blogging this summer. I've been crying over the impending loss of my pride and joy, and also hating everyone for not loving it as much as I do. I don't get it - just look at it! It's so cute. Someone buy it please. And then keep weeding and mowing.

mondays

2011-05-23T13:46:00.000-07:00

I've realized that I love my Monday's. It hasn't always been this way, of course, but the last few months I've noticed that I always have good Monday's. Here's why:

After breakfast, I usually water my plants in the sunroom, and Cassidy has caught on. I'm not trying to say that my baby is better than yours, but she actually waters my plants for me now, and does a pretty good job. My baby is soooo smart, and I didn't even make her watch Baby Einstein movies when she was in the womb.

Ever since she was like 4 months old, I've been kind of worried that she's going to be super butch when she gets older. She has this really deep voice that scares the other little kids in the park, and everyone still calls her a boy, even when I have her in pink. But then I remember we're in Portland, and boys wear pink in Portland, and have names like Ariel, and Sparrow.

After watering, I usually have some yard work to do, so I let the wild child loose in the backyard. See those bushes she's running by? I've been trimming those damn things for the past 2 weeks.

I repotted some of my geraniums and put them by the door here. I love them! She's sporting her dollar store thermals.

After yard work, we head over to the park, which you can see by her face she loves. I can't stop laughing at this picture. I want to blow it up to life size and make wallpaper out of it. It would sell like hotcakes.

After playing in the park, I head out to track practice. I coach a high school team, and Monday's are our long distance days, where we go for long runs that take us all over the surrounding neighborhoods. I must say, I get a kick out of coaching. Not only is it satisfying to see the kids discovering the intrigue of running, but I also have fun hanging out and running with them. It keeps me young, and high schoolers are pretty entertaining. But it also leads me to try reliving my glory days, which usually ends up making me depressed. That's me in the picture above, back when I was light on my feet, and a little less jiggly.

After track practice, I come home, take a shower while trying to dodge Cassidy playing with her bath toys under my feet, put on something cozy, and sprawl out on the couch with a Rootbeer to watch Gossip Girl. This show is so stupid, it's almost painful to watch, but I have a lesbian crush on Serena, and all of her pretty clothes, so I watch it faithfully every monday night.

And then, it's time to put Cassidy down for bed, and I can fall asleep while reading The Three Musketeers. It's such a good book. Not a bad day, I must say.

a few month's back

2011-05-04T22:12:00.000-07:00

I just remembered I had these pics from Cassidy's birthday, and I never looked at them. That's what I love about blogging. It forces me to organize my photos. For her 1st birthday, I got a pinata, and made everyone wear mustaches so we'd look more authentic. They looked cute on the kids, but sort of creepy on me, so you won't be seeing any of those pics.

Tyler's mustache looked amazingly real. This is the only way he'll ever have hair on his upper lip. I think he can grow like 2 mustache hairs on his own. And a couple really long ones on his chin.

What's with River's eyes being closed in every picture? It looks like she's eagerly awaiting some big surprise. Who's that Italian Luigi standing behind her?

Cassidy holding her position before the raining of candy.

The pinata was a giant cat. I found the coolest store in Portland with pinatas in every shape imaginable. That's Jason sporting the uni-brow in the corner. I wish I had a better shot of him in his outfit that day. Tight silvery spandex and a sweatshirt that wasn't quite long enough to cover his bulge.

The anticipation builds as swing after swing breaks apart the poor cat.

Gee Cody, it's just your only child's first birthday party. Don't look so excited.

And the candy goes flying! It really did burst out in an impressive wave of sweets. It always cracks me up how excited kids get over the littlest things. Kids are so much more fun than adults..I wish Cassidy would just stay a little kid. I don't want her to turn into an uptight, opinionated, argumentative adult.

Even Cassidy got in on the action a little bit. But mostly she just wandered around grunting at everything.

i'm back...

2011-04-22T22:04:00.000-07:00


Okay, so I'm going to try this blogging thing again. I miss it. Plus, I like having a place to organize my pictures. It's like a journal I can look back at whenever I want.

So the main reason I gave up my blog was because of this little girl. I seriously had no time to even think about getting on the computer. She was one of those newborns that had to be held, and bounced, and walked, and jiggled all at the same time. And if I happened to get a smidgen of time, I was doing tracy anderson to try and get my butt back to its original size. 1 year olds are so much easier than newborns.

Also, I think I went a little cuckoo after I had her. I have a theory about this: I've decided most new moms lose it for a little while immediately after having a baby. Eventually, 1/3 of those moms will get it together and return to normalcy. Another 1/3 will morph into those creepy super-moms, you know the type that can't stop talking about baby & kid stuff, buys every known product ever made to make their baby 'smarter', joins 'mommy & me' classes, etc. And the final 1/3 of new moms will stay crazy and sort of disappear from everyone's radar. I think I was bordering on that last group for a while. Remember Brittney Spears after she had her 2 kids, and then she shaved her head and started hitting people with umbrellas? That was me.

I think I'm pretty much back to normal now. Except with slightly droopier boobs. Which is sad, but nothing a boob job can't fix, right? So what has been going on since I last posted? My sunroom is looking awesome, for one. I can't believe how much I love this room. I've been spoiled with this; every place I live has to have a sunroom from now on. And I got a new kitchen table. I bought it from some hippie on craigslist.

I've been working in the yard alot, of course. If someone told me I had to live in an apartment with no yard, I think I would die.

My favorite section of the yard. The little bleeding hearts are just starting to bloom, and everything looks so green.

My backyard. Somehow Cassidy manages to make her way into every picture.

Tending to her plants. I've taught her well.

Okay, the making of these cookies might have been my biggest accomplishment since I last posted. I can't even describe how good these are. I don't have the recipe with me right now, but I'll post it later. I was getting so bugged with Cody while I was making these, because he kept trying to eat them before I had finished putting them together, and I was trying to pretend I was on a cooking show, and he kept messing everything up. He has this really annoying habit of eating things before they've cooled down, so then he has to kind of push the food around really fast in his mouth so it doesn't burn, and basically swallow it whole, so he never actually tastes the food.

Another thing I did was finally find a charm necklace that I like. For some reason, I've been obsessed with charm necklaces, and this one, at long last, satisfied my obsession. The C is for Cassidy, in case you're confused. I ordered it from The Vintage Pearl.