My Summer Vacation cont...The Laundry Room

Do you have a room that causes a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach and every time you open the door you just want to run and hide? I have felt this way about our laundry room since we moved in.

 It measures all of 5 1/2 x 6 and has two doors, one going to the family room and one going to the garage. From the garage it gets shoes and boots, hats, jackets, gloves, dirt, lint, saw dust, backpacks and more. From the family room it gets dirty rags thrown on the floor and all the stuff that no one knows what to do with. I this room we store light bulbs, wrapping paper and gift bags, Costco packs of toilet paper, kleenex, paper towels, three cowboy hats, the hot plate we take to hotels so we can make our own breakfast, cloth grocery bags, the high chair I keep for the grandkids, stamps that I use occasionally and of course the usual laundry stuff.

We got a shoe organizer, put up hooks and shelves above the cupboards and across the other wall. Mark put up a bar for hanging up wet clothes. I organized and reorganized and rearranged the stuff in the cupboards trying to find something that works but in the end I could never really reach any of the upper shelves without getting a chair from the kitchen and the pile on the dryer just grew until it would all fall down.

Just inside the family room I created a place for back packs and school books and relocating that stuff  helped some, but in between major cleaning efforts and reorganizing the laundry room looked like this...

(I can't find my before picture)

After I joined Pinterest I began to see all kinds of ways to decorate and organize a laundry room and I began to dream and plan...

Someday... 

in the far distant future... 

when our washer and/or dryer died

 my laundry room would no longer be the armpit of the house.

And then one day I was washing a load of tennis shoes to help with an eagle project and it happened...
a size 14 tennis shoe wedged itself between the agitator and the inside of the washer
(even though I did all I could to prevent it) and, well...
may my old washer rest in peace...

Having paved the way from my new laundry room:
still so small it was hard to get a picture where you could see most of it all in one shot.

Ikea cupboard I love you!

View from family room - garage to right

View from garage

 
New from top
(How many packs of Costco TP? the world may never know.)
to bottom
(John, who did my tile got into the decorating and painted my drain cover black!)

storage for brooms, mops and folding step stool

 
Funny how excited I was to have a step stool so I could reach everything in seconds, now that I have a space to store it.

There is no divider in the bottom of the cupboard so I can fit the high chair, my large cutting mat for sewing and my laundry basket ... you can actually open the door to the garage  WHILE I'm doing laundry...
who'da thought that was possible?!

I want to go out and buy more toilet paper just because I have a great place to store it!

While I will not say that I suddenly I LOVE to do laundry and this probably is not my FAVORITE room in the house, I have to admit that when I open the door, this room makes me happy. I don't mind being in here, in fact I kind of like it. I don't cringe at the possibility that someone will enter my home through this room.

My laundry room is still very small but it's functioning so wonderfully!

labeled and accessible storage with towel bar for hanging

Need a light bulb or wrapping paper? 

I can have it for you in two seconds, without causing an avalanche!

precision spacing so that all doors open without hitting anything 

I like this room enough that I will put hanging things away quickly,
and even iron rather than let them hang there and block my "window".

And the stackable washer and dryer... GENIUS.
I guess there are all kinds of blessings that come from helping others.

What I did over my summer vacation

I've been in denial about school starting again. Not that I don't like school and having a schedule again but it seems like Summer just got here. It was a cold Spring and I was busy with this 

and this

and I'm not really ready for this

followed by this..

BUT in an effort to embrace carpools, packing lunches, and getting up at 6:15 AM.

 I will share with you a few things I have done to my house this Summer.

Starting with something small:

Not the greatest picture I know but it's all I have.

Notice the countertops, 24 year old formica, scratched, cracked in places with wood trimmed edges.  What you can't see is the 24 year old porcelain sink which has long lost it's luster and stain fighting abilities, rimmed with a stainless steel crown, equally aged and tarnished...

Mark has offered to replace these with granite but I'm holding out...

At some point I would like to reconfigure the kitchen a little and replace the tile floor.

So I'll be patient... but still there has to be some way to fix it up without spending $$$.


A google search turned up Giani Countertop paint.
It was reasonable and worth a try. I experimented first in the bathroom in the basement with mixed reviews and decided to try a different color in the kitchen. I also discovered that putting the paint on a little thicker allowed the colors to blend and make a really cool "stone like" texture.
(I realize that any geologist would quickly know it is a faux finish but to the layman it looks pretty good)

I also got a new sink and faucet...

And painted the basement door RED... just for fun.

Christmas Part 2

On Tuesday Mark and Christian began to take out the old swing set and get things ready to install the new one. Jenn and I joined another group as we took two vehicles to Tijuana to deliver supplies to three different orphanages. When Christian posts pictures of the swing set I will put a link here.
But until then I'll show you what Jenn and I did.

The first orphanage was in a decent neighborhood, just past these blue gates. It was a small orphanage with about 18 kids who are all special needs kids. Some had obvious disabilities, others had AIDS.
Our second stop was further out of town. I never realized how hilly Tijuana is and I've never seen such steep paved streets. When we were downtown I was glad I wasn't driving but as we drove around trying to find the next orphanage...
can I just say that we drove on streets the make the steepest streets around here seem flat.
And narrow... don't even think about a u-turn, more like a 7 point turn all he time feeling like you are going to roll over.
This neighborhood was not quite as nice as the first. The orphanage itself was levels of cement and buildings on the side of a hill.
The two boys sitting down greeted us and offered to share their trucks with us. When I pulled out the camera they just wanted to see pictures of themselves. How I wished for "a bit of earth" for them. There was a small planter about 6" x 2' but that's it. Even with stairs all over and steep walkways a 26 year old young lady in a wheel chair lives here.
They dry their clothes by hanging them on the fence. Looking out towards Tijuana I could see a number of houses that had billboards for roofs. No wonder all the working billboards I saw were made from fabric stretched on to frames.

The last orphanage was on the other side of Tijuana. It was my job to use the map and get us there. I wasn't too worried and considered myself a pretty good navigator...
based of course on the streets being marked and stuff like that.

Originally the plan was to stop in Tijuana for lunch.
I watched and watched for the street we were supposed to turn left on.
On the map it looked like a major street...
then all of a sudden we were crossing the canal
WHAT????!!!!
We missed not only the street we were looking for but were well on our way to the other side of town. Oh well, good thing we brought trail mix and some granola bars.

We decided we might as well deliver the rest of the stuff and come back and eat. If streets were hard to find in the center of town, finding them on the outskirts proved even more challenging. We circled the area for a good hour before we finally found it.
We pulled up to this gate and I rang the doorbell. An adult and two other big kids came out to open the gate. We parked inside and they locked the gate behind us.
This was a sign of things to come. Older kids came out to help unload boxes of food, diapers, baby formula, blankets, school kits and hygiene kits.
After all was unloaded they took us on a tour of the orphanage. Everywhere we went steel gates were unlocked and locked behind us. It was strange. They had a few dogs and the whole place smelled like dog poo.

This is the boys dorms. Notice the bunk beds three high on the left. All the kids were locked in the kitchen/dining room while we were there. For many years the orphanage used these:
Notice the locks on them. Can you imagine trying to keep all those kids out of them with no locks? Feel free to try this at home. Someone recently donated a large walk in refrigerator to the orphanage so they don't use these any more. I was relieved for them. Could you imagine cooking for massive quantities of people and needing to lock and unlock fridge after fridge to get out the ingredients you need?
This is the nun that is in charge of the orphanage.
She showed us a statue that is her pride and joy.
It's Jesus as a child with his adoptive father Joseph.
It sits in the main entrance.

This was the poorest of the orphanages that we visited and in the poorest of neighborhoods. It also serves as a battered woman's shelter. It was dirty with trash on the playground. A few children came over to us as we passed through the dining room but we didn't get to play with them. I felt disconnected. Maybe it was all the bars, gates and locks. How sad to grow up on a place like this.

As we went through down town Tijuana to get lunch (at 3:00 pm) I noticed a statue of Abraham Lincoln in the center of a large round-about. He stands tall holding broken chains in his hands.
I'm sure it symbolizes freeing the slaves but I also thought about all the children growing up here with so little. One thing I was impressed with is that each of the orphanages we visited emphasized schooling. It provided hope that these kids may be able to take control of their lives someday, to break the chains of poverty that could bind them.

How I Spent My Christmas Vacation

Our "Deluxe Villa" in La Mision, Baja California, Mexico

We were through the green door in the right with another family.
Bunk "beds", no heat, bathroom in the little brown house on the far left.
It was lovely!

by Karen Zimbelman
Part 1

About 8 years ago Mark and the three oldest kids left on Christmas morning to travel to Haiti with A Child's Hope Foundation to help build this orphanage:
Robbie built this swing set while there for his eagle project.
I think it's safe to say it was a life changing experience.
Amy, and then Mark and Robbie got to go a second time to Haiti and
Amy has volunteered at an orphanage in Romania two different times,
the first time she met Jordan
who was doing an internship in a nearby city,
the second time they went as facilitators after they were married.

When it came time for Christian to do his eagle project nothing else seemed to really capture his heart until it was suggested that we go with ACHF and build a swing set at an orphanage.
Since they are not making trips to Haiti we joined them on a trip to Mexico.

We stayed at a campground hosted by the Door of Faith Orphanage
The above picture is looking past our kitchen facility on the right towards the orphanage. On the left are pens where they keep goats, sheep, chickens, ducks and rabbits.

We arrived Sunday afternoon and Jenn and I (along with others) spent Monday sorting and organizing all the donations. Mark and Christian went shopping for the poles for the swing set.

In the afternoon Jenn and I went to play with the Children at DOFO
We started small, swinging Raul and Angelina (in the pink shirt)
Angelina giggled and told us "mucho, mucho!" over and over.

As the group and size of the children grew we decided
ring-around-the-rosie was a better way to go

this is me breaking the "disco" (cd) I was holding for Angelina in the pocket of my sweat jacket

Those boys loved Jenn and soon the game evolved into a game of keep away -starring Jenn's hat. She was a good sport.

Raul and I were fine on our own.
- when Raul told me his name I repeated it back to him
but he corrected me until I rrrrrrrolled my rrrrrrr sufficiently.
When we asked him how old he was he held out all the fingers in one hand plus his thumb on the other. We asked "seis?" He looked unsure and quickly counted the extended appendages, "uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco, seis". He looked up with a big smile and nodded, "SEIS!"
He melted my heart!

That evening we had fabulous carne asada tacos at a nearby taco stand.
Mmmmmmmm they were good.

More tomorrow.

1000 Islands

They say that "No man is an island"...
But apparently some men own islands.
(What looks like the "shore" in the back is really another island.)


They say a man's home is his castle...

...and apparently some take that quite literally.

What does it mean when a man's home is a castle on an island?

I haven't the foggiest, but as Mark and I were leaving Kingston, Ontario (10 days or so ago) we took some time to enjoy an hour long cruise on the St. Lawrence River exploring the 1000 island area.
It's right where Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River come together.

I was awed by all the islands.
There are actually 1003 (or something like that).
They were basically bedrock sticking up out of the water in all shapes and sizes
And I mean ALL shapes and sizes.

To qualify as an official island they have to have one tree.
(Once again behind the little island is another bigger island)

These are some of the smaller islands
(with larger islands behind them)
Some islands were hard to distinguish from the shore because they were so big.
Some houses were built on the shore while others were on top of their boat houses.

Mark and I picked out the perfect island. It was a medium sized island with quite a few houses - at least that we could see.

The houses were not right on top of each other and the middle of the island was large and thick with trees. It looked like a fun place to explore and mountain bike. Lots of fun places for tree houses and such. We imagined how much fun it would be to have a house on the island for us and one for each of our kids. Of course we would need to install ziplines so that we could just let our kids know we were needing some snuggles and they could zip the grandkids on over.

Of course our reality is that this will always remain just a dream.
But in reality I already live the dream.

This man is no island.
And my home with him is my castle.
I remain in awe of him and all that he does.
He is my dream come true!

Island or no island.