Snownami

I've heard of a blizzard or snow storm before, but the weathermen on the Kansas City news stations were calling the snow event this past week a "snowmageddon" and a"snownami", somehow comparing the storm to armageddon or a tsunami.  Not sure how those were related, but needless to say it did snow quite a bit! 

I woke up around 5 AM lying in bed praying that it had started snowing outside and that I could stay home from work.  The wind was blowing pretty hard, so I was just waiting for my alarm to go off and see all the snow on the ground.  My alarm rang at 5:30 AM, and unfortunately, there was no sign of snow anywhere.  I took a shower and started getting ready for work.  I watched the news during breakfast, and they said the storm was right on top of us, so I looked outside again and noticed a couple flakes started to fall from the sky.  I went back upstairs and started blow drying my hair.  The snow really started picking up, so I said I would wait until 7 AM to leave to see if it was bad enough.  And sure enough, the streets were already covered, so I called into work and said I was staying home. 





The news said the snow fell between 2-3 inches per hour, and gosh they weren't kidding.  The pictures below were taken looking out the front door.  These were only a couple hours apart.  There was also lightning and thunder, which was awesome to see and hear while it was snowing out. 


It finally stopped around 3 PM, and Greg and I went out to start shoveling the driveway around 4 PM.  We received around 14" of snow and our street was a mess.  We only shoveled one side of the driveway because it was so much work, and Abby wanted to play, so we just couldn't resist.  She ran so hard in the snow and was so tired the rest of the night. 

The street was plowed overnight, so Greg and I had to shovel the end of the driveway again just to back up.  There were cars stranded on the streets, highways and on-ramps.  A car spun out in front of me on the way to work and hit a snow bank, and even I was sliding around.  It was a crazy scene, but I made it safely to work and the sun came out and melted the thin layer of snow on the highways for the drive home.

AND, they are calling for snow again on Monday!

Dining Room Completion

The dining room was the first room in our house that Greg and I decided to decorate.  I think it’s the room in our house that expresses my decorating style the most.  I wanted this room to be completely mine, and Greg was on board with that.  There is a previous post that mentions the table that we bought, the gigantic mirror that was a find at Hobby Lobby, and the China cabinet that we redid that took us almost 8 months to complete.

We picked a color for the walls that matches close to the details on our China dishes.  It’s a grey color, but I think it has a hint of purple in it.  I tried to do the horizontal stripes on the wall where the colors are the same, but one of the paint types is eggshell and the other is a semi-gloss.  It’s hardly noticeable, which makes me a little upset since we spent so much time on it.  I probably should have done one type in flat and the other in a high gloss for more of a contrast.  I just hear that flat paint is hard to clean if it gets dirt or scratches on it, so that’s why I stuck with the eggshell finish.

I searched for curtains forever and could not find any that I liked.  I finally found a fabric at JoAnn’s that I fell in love with.  Later I found out that this same Waverly pattern is sold at Lowes, but it wouldn’t have been the length that I needed.  I had in mind that these curtains would have grommets at the top, but I should have done the research first because grommets are a lot more difficult than I thought and require tools that I didn’t have.  So, I simply sewed a sleeve at the top and called it good. 

I was given a platter that has all the colors in the room.  It looks great displayed on top of the China cabinet with the other miscellaneous vases.  One item that I kept trying to find was a vase to set on the table with a flower arrangement.  I finally found one that would work.  It only took about 5 weeks of visits to Hobby Lobby to see what they received in their shipment that week.  I bought the flowers from Michaels to do the arrangement.  I love the way it turned out and how it brings all the colors of the room together.  I pass the room and the flowers always catch my eyes.  They add such a soft touch to the room.

The room is completed for now aside from a small project to add an ornamental medallion to the ceiling around the light fixture.  I have the medallion and the spray paint, I just have to find some time to complete it.  We usually use the dining room to play games since it has the most seating in the house.  I would love to have a nice dinner sometime and use our China.

Half Bath Renovation

Do you ever feel like you have planned out a room in your house, yet it never feels like that room ever gets completely renovated?  Maybe that’s why Greg asks me to have a plan in mind before we get started because I never have all the details worked out.  It’s typically the accessories that I have trouble with, like finding the perfect vase or choosing items to display on a shelf, and those are the items that I consider the most important because they bring the room together and give it that sense of comfort.  I have planned many rooms on this blog, like the half bath, the dining room and the guest bedroom, but I have never followed up on the completed project because I am still looking for more items to give those rooms the finished look that I had in my mind.  However, for the sake of the blog, I will share my progress.

So, if you remember our half bath, we started the renovation by demoing out the soffit and can light and replacing it with a wall mounted fixture to provide lots of light.  This was the first ceiling in the house where we scraped the popcorn ceiling.  Overall, the process was pretty easy, but I wouldn’t recommend it if you aren’t planning on painting your walls.  The process of protecting them and masking everything off was quite the chore, so I gave that up half way through, and just had to wipe down the walls a bit before I started painting.  I think the room needs crown molding to make that line between the ceiling and the walls nice and neat, but that will have to be done in the future. 

I absolutely love the neutral color in the bathroom.  My parents had this color in their bathroom in the basement.  It is a color from Sherwin Williams, I believe, called Living Stone that Home Depot matched.  It’s kind of a cream, gray and brown color, but a lot more neutral than the light brown color that was in there before.

It took me a while to fall in love with the turquoise, but it is a fun color.  The color that I had in mind was a little more muted and not as bright, but it matches the color in the pictures on the wall, so it turned out well.  There needs to be a floating shelf on that wall to break up the color some.

The pictures on the wall were from Home Goods, and I found the rug a couple weeks ago from there, but I’m afraid it’s not going to hold up.  I think the wall with the door is missing something as well.  The previous owners had a small cabinet along this wall, but we haven’t found a piece of furniture that we would like for this space.  I think once we put something there and set some accessories on it, that will fill the space on the empty wall.  I also want to create a wood frame around the mirror.

So, as you can tell, I’m not completely satisfied with just the new light fixture and paint on the walls.  The bathroom seems unfinished to me, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction.  Now it’s just a couple weekend projects to get it to the point that I want it.  I’ve recently learned that those finishing touches with the perfect accessories can be hard.  I think going forward, I’m going to find a couple pieces that I really like or a picture and design a room around that.

Over the next week or so, check back to see the progress on the dining room and guest bedroom.

Opposites Attract

As most people say about their spouses, I too was lucky enough to marry my best friend...
 
Throughout college and living in Kansas City, I would love spending time with Greg and I could never get enough of him on the weekends.  I was elated when Greg proposed looking forward to getting married, moving into a house and picturing the rest of our lives together.  As part of our marriage preparation, we took personality tests, answered questions on the typical roles of a husband and wife, and examined how each of us were raised in our families in order to understand how those aspects would affect our marriage.  On the personality test, Greg scored to be well on the introverted side, while I was slightly on the extroverted side.  Our marriage counselor said that this may present issues in the future because of the way we will interact in situations.

It wasn’t truly until after we got married when our weekends finally slowed down when I realized how different Greg and I were.  I think I noticed it most on Saturday mornings when I would spring out of bed looking forward to all the tasks that I wanted to accomplish on that day, while Greg would slowly roll out of bed, need a cup of coffee before he showed any sign of emotion and then open up his computer and spend literally HOURS on his machine.  Greg’s ideal Saturday was being left in solitude on his computer, while mine was running errands, cleaning the house, or doing anything where I was moving, and not to mention that I pictured Greg right by my side doing all of these things with me.  I would sit there and think that we had nothing in common.  And when I would try and talk to Greg about it, he was lost for words, so I just thought that he didn’t care.

That’s when I decided to read a book called, “The Introvert and Extrovert in Love”, that was suggested to us by our marriage counselor during our marriage preparation classes.  Since reading this book, I have grown in appreciation for all people being unique, and I have learned to be understanding and more patient towards those that are different than me.  The book was truly an eye opener to the way that I am and how I view others and how we can’t help the way that we are because that is the way we are wired.  We can only control the way we react.

It's a very interesting book that explores the chemical make-up of our brains and how that influences our reactions and then it gives several examples of the interaction between a husband and wife and how they believe the other person is responding to them.  So, here is my attempt to share a bit of the book with you, and hopefully you will pick up a copy one day and read it yourself so you can understand that we're not all that crazy, it's only the way our brain is wired...

There are five sections of the brain. The occipital lobe processes vision, the parietal lobe processes sensory data from the body, and the temporal lobe process auditory information.  The frontal lobe processes the two types of movement: thinking which is movement from the brain and voluntary movement of the muscles.  This lobe is considered the area of complex functioning from speaking, emotional intelligence, decision making, reasoning, remembering, self-control, problem solving, and planning.  The fifth lobe is the insula, which has recently been thought of to control many of our higher functions by integrating input from the other lobes.  Most of us know or have been told this information before.

The other way to divide the brain is down the middle, which we’ve all heard as left-brain or right-brain thinkers.  The left-brain shines when performing cognitive, language and math skills and controls the more action-oriented right side of the body.  The right-brain controls the less action-oriented left side of the body and regulates emotions, intuition and artistic abilities.  If you didn't know, Greg is a left-brain thinker and I am right-brained.  We are literally complete opposites.

The last brain divide is the front from the back.  Introverts use the front of the brain and extroverts use the back of the brain.  The back is the “being” part, which is reacting in the moment where sensory data creates a candid snapshot of a perception, which activates basic behaviors.  The front part is the “doing” part, which reflects before acting combining sensory data, old and new memories, thinking, and feeling contribute to the development of a thought.

The book explains how our parents passed down their genes containing recipes to create our neurotransmitters, in which our different “ingredients” will create a separate pathway through the brain switching on or off specialized functions.  Introverts’ genes produce acetylcholine, which activates conscious movement of the body, selects or “tags” memories to be stored in long-term memory, initiates REM sleep, triggers consciousness and concentration, and runs the parasympathetic conserving side of the nervous system.  Extroverts’ genes make dopamine, which is a major reward neurotransmitter that is involved in feeling excited, unconsciously moving the body, and triggering the sympathetic spending side of the nervous system.  I told Greg that this is the reason I sometimes wave my arms uncontrollably in our living room for no reason while singing a song... I can't help myself.  And also the reason he has to tell his body to get up and move around the house or he will end up in the same spot for several hours of the day while I'm out running around.

When dopamine is released in response to input to the back of the brain, clusters of cells that like this neurotransmitter create pathways in the brain for dopamine to travel.  Well-used pathways develop grooves so that the cells can fire even faster and therefore, dopamine travels the shortest, fastest route through the brain.  Similarly, acetylcholine is released in the front of the brain and unlike dopamine, it travels longer, more complex pathways.  For example, I am pretty quick to respond, while Greg takes a little bit longer to decide what he wants to say, especially when it comes to feelings since he is also left-brained... From these grooved pathways through the brain, temperaments are created triggering the same behavior patterns.  These grooves can also become ruts that we call habits, and that is why habits are so hard to break.

Alright...enough education.  Here are the quick points:

Innies may have the following tendencies:

·        They think before they act or speak

·        They make good eye contact when listening, less so when speaking.

·        When speaking they have soft voices, appear calm, pause frequently, may sound hesitant, and may hunt for words.

·        They enjoy solitude and feel drained after too much socializing.

·        They have one or two good friends.

Outies may have the following tendencies:

·        They shoot from the hip and the lip.

·        They act first and think later.

·        They have good eye contact when speaking, less so when listening.

·        When speaking they show facial expressions, move their body, interrupt others (and feel interruptions are complements to a conversation), speak loudly, sound authoritative, and have a silver tongue.

·        They enjoy excitement, plenty of activities, and socializing and feel drained by too much solitude.

·        They consider lots of people to be their friends.

Characteristics of Right-Brainers:

·        Tolerates mixed feelings

·        Is nonverbal and more artistic

·        Uses empathic and emotional language

·        Emphasizes relationships

·        Talks with other mainly to make connection

·        Enjoys sharing person experiences

·        Asks questions about others’ perspective and experiences

·        Helps others come to their own decisions

·        Changes mind if evidence suggests

Characteristics of Left-Brainers:

·        Uses black-and-white, right-and-wrong thinking

·        Uses precise, logical, and authoritarian language

·        Emphasizes independence and separation

·        Communicates as a process of clarification

·        Talks mainly in order to think things out

·        Has an impersonal and objective style of speaking

·        Asks questions to understand the others’ logic

·        Helps others find correct answer to their problems

·        Makes evidence fit his or her opinion

I've been going on for a while, and I would love to tell you so much more, but the book just says it best, so you'll all have to read it.  So to summarize... We are all different, and it takes some work in order to communicate effectively.  Change is hard and expecting that someone else will change is even harder.  One of my favorite paragraphs from the book is:

"Say good-bye to the illusion of control - life holds surprises.  Change threatens our illusion of control.  As helpless children we need this illusion.  When we grow up we need to let that notion go because we don't really have control of life.  Take heart, though, because we do have some amount of control over ourselves.  Life runs its own course and people do their own things.  But we do have choices about how we cope with what life sends our way.  Paradoxically, we have more choices when we leave the illusion of control behind."

This book has given me the insight to slow down and try to relate to how my wonderful husband thinks and what he perceives of me because of my actions towards him.  We all think we know what the perfect world would be, but to someone else, it's completely different. 

Love to know what all of you think or what your relationship dynamic is and your experiences.  Publish a comment below.