Recent shenans

People totally shorten "shenanigans" to "shenans"...right? right?

I keep trying to sit down to write some blog posts that have been brewing in my brain and it just cannot seem to happen. Even though this is one of my less-busy weeks with work, I have two freelance projects I'm engrossed with in the background of normal work, and somehow I still feel like I'm catching up from the weeks when David was out of town and then was home sick with influenza A for 11 days. (Yes. 11 days on the couch.)

Anyway, life around here is pretty normal after that crazy two-week stretch mentioned above. I'm vacuuming like crazy because Murphy is shedding a lot, David and I are obsessing about the insanity in The Bachelor every week, I'm plodding away at Middlemarch and just started Shannon's ebook for Lent. I've been feeling pretty stretched thin (obviously) and I think this Lent will be good with her work to guide me. We're attempting a decade of the rosary every night with the kids as part of our Lenten penance so please wish us all the luck in the world that we don't give up on it on day 2.

What else is new around here?

Felix is pulling himself up on EVERYTHING and he's going to bust out walking any day now, I can feel it. Luckily our microwave that is inset into our cabinets by the fridge has a lock button on it so he can't start cooking things while I'm in the shower but everything else is really fair game. He's also very into trying to peel apart the layers of our board books and carrying toys around in his mouth while he crawls so he looks like a puppy and it's very funny.

Last weekend we spent some time finally -- FINALLY -- adding a chandelier to the dining room half of the kitchen. As a reminder, the bulk of our work on the kitchen was July of 2018, so it was almost two years between that and me finally deciding (and getting David to agree on) this light fixture.

For awhile we were debating if we wanted to add a light over the island (remember that Instastories poll I did forever ago? haha) but nothing felt right that close to the pendant we have over the sink. I couldn't decide if it was the placement or the lack of inspiration that was barring me from pulling the trigger on something until I saw this one on Amazon and clicked purchase SO FAST.

I'm really happy with it! It looks so pretty at night from outside and pretty during the day, too.

$5 clearance rattan tray from World Market, sunflowers from David, sunlight. What more could you want?

(affiliate link) Here's the light on Amazon if you're curious. We had to hack it because of where the previous light junction box was by adding a different swag cord because the included one wasn't long enough, but for most uses it should be plenty long enough. I'm debating adding this Schoolhouse oversized bulb to it just to change things up but I'm going to live with it as-is for a little while longer. I really am very happy with it and so grateful that David can just do stuff like this when I ask him, no problem.

Now the only (hahah ONLY) things left to do in the kitchen are: decide on and install a range hood, sand down and paint or replace entirely the door to the garage, touch up paint, fix the broken-for-we-don't-know-what-reason light switch by the garage door, possibly replace the buffet table with the built ins gathering dust in the garage (and they need a lot of work done on them before we could possibly install them) . . . and that's just off the top of my head, I'm sure I'm forgetting other things. Oh well. It never ends!

I have used up my precious nap time/free time so I will leave you with these adorable photos of Cora who has been pushing all the buttons recently but continues to be such a frickin' CUTIE PIE that it's hard to stay too mad. Sometimes. ;)

thanks for being here, friends. <3