Remember a few months ago when I confessed my love for HGTV? Right around that same time I was brainstorming ways to improve our kitchen.  I had just watched an episode of Sarah’s House (my favorite show!) which had given me a little hope that perhaps *we* could transform our ho-hum kitchen into something a little bit better.

So here’s how it looked before we started:

(view from the living room looking towards the kitchen)

 (view from inside the kitchen looking towards the living/dining room)

Yuck. I’m embarassed to even have my logo on that. :)

What I didn’t like about it? Well, lots.  But mainly:

The isolation in the kitchen. Trying to have a conversation with someone in the living and/or dining room while I was in the kitchen was weird.  I like to see people when I talk to them. 

Carpet in the dining room.  Sick.  Perhaps it works for some people, but not for our family with two messy little eaters.

Counterspace in the kitchen wasn’t great.  Obviously these photos don’t show the cabinet/counter side of the kitchen, so you’ll just have to take my word for it.  Spreading out while we cooked wasn’t really an option.

Jim and I went through several different ideas for kitchen renovations.  The first involved replacing all of the cabinets, flooring, lighting, appliances, etc. etc.  After we pulled out the calculators we opted against that option, as, let’s be honest, we didn’t want to spend that much money! : )

Here’s what we decided to do:

Tah-Dah!  No, its not my dream kitchen, but being in my kitchen today feels like a 145% improvement over what it used to be. What I love about it now:

I have LOTS of COUNTERSPACE!

James and Colin can eat breakfast/do homework/chit chat with me at the breakfast bar while I’m chopping. We’re all in the same space! 

Mmmm….do you see that new dark bamboo floor?  Isn’t it delicious?

**Lots of thanks to my father-in-law who coached us through the whole process!!**

I’m not sure I know of anyone who loves birthdays more than James and Colin.  Their own, grandma’s, a friend from school–doesn’t matter.  If it’s a birthday, they’re super excited and up in their room crafting up a birthday present. For the past couple of weeks they’ve been talking about the upcoming one in our family–MINE (!!!).  Yesterday afternoon they surprised me with a few early birthday presents.

Lovely wrapping job by both.  James gets extra points for using paper, tape, stickers AND a sandwich bag. :)From James–one of his colored pencils (red, of course, because it’s my favorite color), with a nicely designed Happy Berth Day tag scotch-taped into place.

From Colin–an index card, “folded” into a “tube” and taped.  After he opened it for me he demonstrated exactly what it was by putting it up to his mouth and talking into it.  “See Mommy?!? It makes you talk loud!!”

Aaah. Beautiful.  A pencil and an index-card megaphone. I love my sweet boys.

Photos taken with the iPhone 4 and processed with my favorite iPhone app, Camera+

When I was 18 my dad gave me a 35mm camera for Christmas.  I set it to “program” mode and brought it with me on my big college adventures–a summer semester in Guadalajara Mexico, nannying in Venice Italy, backpacking through Europe, etc. etc.  Sometime around 2004 I switched to digital photography which is when my love for photography really started to blossom.  For the past seven years my film camera has been hiding in a camera bag tucked away behind my digital equipment.  Last week I decided it was time to pull it out of the closet.  I brought it with me on a trip to the park with the goal of shooting in manual mode.  

Next step–buy a few rolls of nice film (mine was 8+ years old) and find a lab that doesn’t oversharpen the files!

Last weekend Jim and I took our boys to Lyons for a kid-sized hike and a photo scavenger hunt.  I recently gave James my old 3 megapixel point and shoot ca. 2001.  Colin, by default, inherited James’  .00025 megapixel (haha–not really–but that’s definitely what it looks like) plastic point and shoot camera, so the four of us each had our own camera to use.  I cranked out a quick list of things to photograph (something blue, something wet, a footprint, something moving, something green, something shiny,  something heavy, something with fur or feathers, etc. etc.).  It was fun! 

After taking dozens of pictures of his finger, Jim tried explaining to Colin that he can’t put his finger over the lens when he takes pictures (though the concept never did quite stick…better luck next time?). 

“. . . the beauty any of us can find in everyday life if we aren’t too caught up in other things to stop and really look.” -curator Eric Paddock

Everyday life:

Date afternoon with Jim in Denver. After enjoying some delicious cupcakes from Lovely Confections Bakery (I’m blaming my addiction on YOU, Anslee!), we wandered into Mod Livin’, a mid-century modern furniture shop.  I am a bit obsessed with letterforms, and couldn’t resist grabbing a few semi-abstract shots of the sans-serif type stenciled onto one of their walls.

P.S.  My sister just sent me the most wonderful present, a book called How to Be an Explorer of the World, by Keri Smith (love it. highly recommend it to anyone, especially artists or someone who wants to be an artist).  The single sentence on its back cover reminds me of my “stop & look” project:

“At any given moment, no matter where you are, there are hundreds of things around you that are interesting and worth documenting.”