Happy Mommy
Max brought me breakfast in bed - done perfectly - toast with butter and a bowl of yogurt with walnuts, cranberries and granola. This boy WATCHES me fix my breakfast every morning (although I rarely have toast - but it was delicious!) Could there be a better Mother's Day?
Gerry splurged on chocolates from Chocolat Celeste, which are almost too pretty to eat. But I'll force myself. Evidently that was why the trip to Menards on Friday took so long...
For lunch we found an excellent Chinese Restaurant, later we visited the library and I finished a small project. I got some ideas for newer projects, too - woo!
At the library after lunch we ran into friends who ended up taking Maxie to the Mississippi River for a little outing (my own personal Huck Finn.) A rich and full day!
Gerry and I sat down for a few hours and hashed out details to discuss with our contractor (that is, if we ever get one...) and the kids gave me wonderful, hand-made and lovingly picked out gifts. Hannah and I sat on the newly stained deck for a while reading and knitting - what a nice afternoon!
Chinese Just Like Mother Used To Make
Not my mom, but someone's mom...
I looked up a few restaurants online, and found a blog review of Little Szechuan at chowhound.com - and what a great lead it was!
Gerry got lo mein (so it would warm up well) and I splurged with crispy shrimp in special sauce. I have no idea what was in the sauce, but it was orange and sweet. Yum! Max was bummed that his chicken was spicier than he though it would be (I never eat spicy food, and this was mild enough for me...) so he ate a lot of his sisters chicken & broccoli.
We will definitely be back!
Have A Seat!I did a pattern for Vogue Knitting's Knit 1 - a lace chairseat (on the frame of a Shaker rocker I got at an auction last year) and was very happy to see it in this issue.
The pattern is online as a free downloadable pdf file, so here's your chance to reseat that ladder back chair you've had stored in the garage for a few years!
I have a Ginko sweater in the same issue - I'm happy with it, which is nice because it's almost been a knee jerk reaction that I'm not happy with some of my stuff in magazines lately. There are so many variables in every design & presentation.
Cooks Tour
The island may be big - we're still working that out. We may just tape this layout off in the kitchen to see if we find it workable.
We'll hire the contractor to create the new space (bathroom & laundry) and do the plumbing stuff that needs to be done in kitchen.
The cabinets et al? I'm feeling secure enough to do a lot of the kitchen stuff myself - with Gerry's advice and guidance, that is! We'll see - I'm always open to admitting something's beyond me - but I'm feeling that at least I should be able to do a bit of it myself!
At any rate, the kitchen is down the road. The important thing is to get the new bathroom & laundry created to make life easier this coming year. Have at it!
11 Comments:
Before you get too comfortable about your plan, check your local code. Some cities do not allow bathrooms off the kitchen like that.
I have a friend who lives in a big Victorian house in Newark. They have a large (former bedroom) bathroom upstairs with a tub and a shower, and a smaller room next door with a toilet. For a long time that was their only bath. With 9 kids.
There was a mud room off the kitchen that she wanted to make a downstairs bathroom, but she said the building code wouldn't allow a bathroom off the kitchen.
We used to live outside of Newark - lots of odd zoning stuff there.
I've been in touch with the building permit folks here in St. Paul (did that before I contacted the contractor) and this seems to be okay.
I took a little quiet time this morning to go through a pile of mail, magazines, etc. and while perusing a recent edition of Mpls./St. Paul I saw a review for Little Szechuan. I intended this comment to be a suggestion to you to try it, although I've never been there myself. What a surprise to see you already have! Now I must go.
Have you heard of Kitchens Made Simple? I've never used them, but have read about them quite a bit lately - they're showroom is really close to your area.
In making plans for your redo of the kitchen, be sure to allow enough space around the island to manuver in a wheelchair and you might want one side to be so the person cooking can wheel up to it if that person has to be in a wheelchair. Don't know if the universal design or whatever the adaptations for use by seniors and others who use health aids is called are readily available but a perusal of those ideas might be helpful.
Little Szechuan is good - also, Schwang Chen in Dinkytown. And since it is close to you, you can get some good stuff at Grand Shanghai if you get the more non traditional items. It can vary depending on who is cooking but their steamed pork bao are fab.
I'm still having trouble getting you through bloglines......Out of all the options I found this feed that works:
http://www.blogger.com/feeds/3654891/posts/full
and so does this one:
http://www.blogger.com/feeds/3654891/posts/default
If this is still a concern, I hope this helps.
Glad to hear you had a good Mother's day. Seemed like you needed a good day like that.
Good luck with the kitchen plans, my DH is currently redoing our (one and only) bathroom. Yesterday he was in there with a jackhammer!
i'm jealous. the advantage of being as tall as you are is that you can hang cabinets with ease. not me, sigh. tell you what. i'll come up there (it's only 5 hours!) and do the bottom ones, and you can come down here and do my topones, if i ever change my cabinets, lol!
sounds like a lovely plan, and i would have loved chinese on sunday!
Consider uing a pocket door for the bathroom. It is easy to use and doesn't get in the way of walkers or wheelchairs. When I was using both the walker and wheelchair the darn door always was either in the way or hard to close with the walker in the way.
Excellent points - pocket doors are our friend!
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