My Mom Says . . .

I don't update this blog enough. She's right.

Nick and I have had a really lazy, do-nothing week, which we earned because the previous week was psychotic and mental disease-inducing. We decided to do some renovating in our downstairs guest bath. This meant taking down the wallpaper, painting, removing and replacing the light fixture, mirror, toilet paper holder, and towel rack and then cleaning up the giant mess we made. Between two adults this should not be too much work, right? Wrong.

It took us 4 days to take down the wallpaper (one of those days both of us were incredibly sick and didn't really do any taking down of the wallpaper, so I don't know if that day counted). Then we had to paint and do all that other stuff (we didn't actually get the light fixture up since neither of us felt like getting an electric shock, but that's okay since there is another light in the ceiling that we didn't mess with). All this on top of getting the house ready for two separate Easter celebrations. Yes, I did TWO Easter celebrations at my house. Why? Because I'm crazy.

On Saturday, the day before everyone came over, we did all the painting and other stuff. Why did we wait so long to do this? Well, the wallpaper wasn't completely off the walls until 3am the night before/morning of. This was also the day that I cleaned the entire house, top to bottom. And made a brunch casserole and a GIANT batch of roasted tomato salsa. This salsa took 3 hours to do by itself, considering the fact that I had to roast 10 cloves of garlic, 25 roma tomatoes, 3 onions, and 25 serrano peppers.( And yes, we still have a ton of it in our fridge. It made a lot of salsa!) Add to that the fact that I had to process it in 4 batches and you have one messy kitchen, which I had spent the morning deep cleaning. Anyway, lots of work.

Nick and I were so tired by the time Saturday was over and then we had a long day on Sunday too. First, my mom, dad, and brother came over and they brought my Papa, who hadn't seen our new house yet. It was really nice to have Papa there for brunch and he liked the house, which meant a lot to me. We had lots of great food and everyone kept saying how nice it was just being together like this. It was! But then they left and we had to clean all over again to get ready for dinner with the Pritchetts. A nap was in order, but it would have taken a full 8-hour "nap" to help us feel rested. Fortunately, Nick and I have amazing families who make it incredibly easy to entertain, so we had a delicious and successful dinner on top of our delicious and successful brunch. All in all, it was a great day. But we were exhausted when it was all over!

So Nick and I took this week "off." We also relaxed on Nick's 3-day this weekend. Next weekend we're going to Powell's Books in Portland (a huge, amazing bookstore) and to the Woodburn factory outlets to go shopping. And then after that? We start getting ready for a big Mother's Day brunch with my family and Papa and the Pritchetts. That's right, everyone in our house at the same time! Crazy! I figure since I did so well with brunch and dinner separately, I can handle an all-in-one brunch. As much work as it is to entertain, I really love it, especially when it's with family.

And don't tell Nick, but my goals for home renovations before Mother's Day include painting the upstairs guest bath and two spare bedrooms. He's going to poop a brick when he finds out!