Great Weekend

I spent all weekend cleaning and my husband spent all weekend baking. :)

The result was a clean house, homemade bread, pizza, and baklava.

We had company come over last night. We are so lucky because this company is also a distant cousin through marriage. They speak Arabic which is fantastic so that my children can get more exposure and they have children close to my own children's' ages. Best of all they are fantastic company. I am excited to have a potential friend/family member in the area that can come to me if they need anything, or we can go to them if we need something.

I must say, I wish I was as great of company as they are. I was not raised to be an entertainer. I was raised to be a worker. My cousins wedding. I missed the ceremony because I was busy setting up for the reception. Growing up as a child, you needed something done, you knew you could depend on my parents (and my bothers & I) to do the job and do it well, if only you asked.

I guess this is why my husband and I make a great team. I work, he entertains. I know how to do a lot of things, he is willing to learn or knows the science behind them.

Trash can tales

Here we have 3 garbage bins. One for recycling, one for yard waste, and one for trash/other. 3 weeks ago our yard waste bin went missing. Last week on trash day our trash bin was out at noon and around 3pm I see our neighbor go by with what looks like our trash bin.

Husband goes to bring our bins in and sure enough ours is gone and we look and there is ours in front of their house. My husband being the nice person he is doesn't take it back.

He later knocks on their door. The conversation went something like this:

"Hi I don't mean to bother you but I believe you may have taken our trash can by mistake"

"Oh yeah, well someone took one of our bins a few weeks ago."

"Yeah, someone took our yard bin a few weeks ago too, but my wife believes she say you accidentally take our trash can yesterday."

" Well I think your other neighbor took it, they have a lot of trash cans in their yard. Oh... How is your basement repairs going?"

Then the conversation turns into her husband and how we should call him if we need X,Y,Z fixed.

Let me point out. We are the only ones that have a trash can like ours, and yes I have the receipt for it. She had her 12 year old son do take the can while she drove. They live in a $750K house. We did NOT have our address on it....our own fault. "Oh...." is where she realized she was talking about our yard. We are allowed up to 7 yard waste bins. We have 3 that the previous owner left us. Plus 2 recycling ones (one again from the previous owners), plus 3 compost bins in the yard that someone might mistake for upside down trash cans. Our other neighbor does not any visible trash cans from their vantage point.

So I don't know if I will get the trash can back or not but I find them to be very white trash. I feel bad for the 12 year old boy and their other 3 children who are now adults. I hope they sale their house and move soon...but maybe I shouldn't hope for this....never know...we could get someone worse... :/

Only took a year

Last year I bought a mahogany table (2nd hand). Since then I have been looking for chairs and a cabinet to complete it as a set for my formal dining room. My goal was to find something that my husband also liked that wouldn't break the bank. It is finally done all my searches are over. Table $200
Cabinet $200
Chairs $120
Total $520

The chairs could use a little bit of glue and some new fabric, but they are okay for now if I just do a little spot cleaning. If you are wondering where all the beautiful crystal came from...grandmothers. The real question is, Will I ever use it? Who knows...

In other home improvement news, the basement is finally done. I can slowly start to put everything back together again and give the kids their play are back. I also have another area I am working on. A middle east sitting room.

Today we worked on pattern blocks. It honestly took my 4.5 year old a few minutes to fully catch on. I think we will be working with them on and off for the next couple of weeks just to make sure we solidify a few basic concepts.