Andrew and Nicole

Recovering from toilet fail

We're still in the long process of putting our home back together again. It's been a long frustrating 4 months since we came home from an out-of-town wedding to find our house flooded with more than 16,000 gallons of water from a broken toilet. Throughout the process, we have tried hard to remember how lucky we are that insurance is covering the repairs, especially with the late-September flooding in Atlanta where many people had similar damage but no insurance coverage. We are very lucky in so many ways, and now that we are close to the end of the process, all the hours we have spent are starting to pay off.

The cabinets and countertops are installed, and they laid the wood floors on Monday. Yesterday was they stained the floors and applied the first coat of poly. It stinks to high heaven in the house, and the boys are already getting cabin fever as they now are stuck in the master bedroom 24 hours a day. We're all looking forward to Saturday night, the hardwoods will be dry, the carpet installed, and we can start getting back to normal. After that, it's just a few minor repairs and a lot of paperwork. And a lot of cooking in our new kitchen.

Hardwood floors waiting to be sanded and stained.

What life looks like when your kitchen is in the living room and everything but the living room furniture is upstairs.

The first coat of poly drying. Our floor guys are great!

Conrad loves laundry day

He gets to curl up in the comforter for at least a couple of hours.

Thanksgiving in KC

We had a wonderful time celebrating Thanksgiving in Kansas City -- lots of good food and fun with the family. Nicholas at one point called Andrew "Aunt Andrew," and we all laughed so much that he's taken to calling him that all the time, even though he's clear on which title goes with which gender. Andrew came thisclose to getting Nicholas to refer to me as Uncle Nicole.

I had the best 30th birthday party a girl could wish for on Friday night -- bowling at the Living Room at Incred-A-Bowl. The place was so cool, with 9 private lanes, a full bar, pool table, couches and comfy chairs everywhere. The food was really good too, impressive for a bowling alley. My mom rocks, is all I have to say. Best part of the night? Everyone on my lane rolling a strike in the same frame.

I'm thankful to be 30 and so happy!

I love spring

Rose outside our front porch, click on the picture to enlarge.

I didn't even know we had a peony

Peony bloom weighed down after the rain. Click for larger image.

We had a brief debate last spring and summer, about a plant on the corner of our house closest to the shed (northern end of the west face of the house). First it was hibiscus, then holly hock, which tells you a lot about our ability to figure out our plants. Once the plant really started going this spring, it looked nothing like a holly hock, and not even a hibiscus.

Until I came home from work today and Andrew mentioned that my plant had bloomed, I wasn't sure that it was a peony. The buds on this plant have been growing larger with each passing day, and I've been looking forward to a bloom for at least two weeks. It happened to bloom on the birthday of one of my favorite girls, who happens to love peonies. Gardens are funny in that they get tied in with life -- when this peony blooms in the future, I will always think about her.

Unfortunately, the weight of the bloom and the recent rains resulted in the stem of bloom weakening and breaking a little way down. Since I knew it wouldn't last long with that kind of damage to the stem, I cut just below the bend. Peonies are wonderful for cut flowers, and technically the bloom would last a lot longer in a vase if I cut a bud, but I'm loving the first full-blown bloom of spring sitting on my kitchen counter. If teleporting were reality, I would bring the flower to the birthday girl. :-)

Our rose in the front has been blooming for a couple of weeks, and the daylilies are just about to bloom. Of course, we had azaleas a while ago, and all of the spring trees. But this peony is different. A sign of lush growth of summer.

Click for larger image.

But what happened to the holly hock? I'm pretty sure I positively identified it last summer. I'm going to have to look back over my pictures of the garden from last year.