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Do you ever go to open houses just to look around?

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This past weekend my husband and I decided to go to a few open houses being held at some homes that are up for sale in our neighborhood.

We aren’t thinking of selling our home or moving – not just yet anyway … but we were curious as to how the home owners had renovated and decorated their homes.

One open house we visited was in a home that’s very similar to ours in design. Like us – they had knocked down the walls in the entry hallway, and the walls separating the living room, dinning room and main hallway in order to create an open living room dining room area. The only big difference was that they hadn’t taken out hte stairway hallway as we did. We felt that our main floor looked a little bigger or more open than the home we were in.

Another house that we visited was totally modern – stark white walls, white furnishings and just about everything stainless steel in the kitchen – including the Hansgrohe faucet. The house was a little too modern for my tastes, but I enjoyed looking around.

My husband and I are still renovating our home. Actually our renovations are stalled … so visiting a few open houses might have helped motivate us to finish our renovations and gave me some ideas for how we might decorate once we’re finally done our renovations … well if we ever manage to finish!

Do you ever go to open houses to just look around and get ideas?

We just can’t seem to get motivated to finish our home renovations

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I vowed earlier this year that this would be the year that we’d finish our renovations. So far that hasn’t happened!

We’ve actually been putting off finishing our renovations for 6 or more years! Can you believe that I’ve been living in a house that has two by one strapping spaced about a two feet apart all across the living room and dining room ceiling for 6 years or so? All that’s left to be done to finish the ceiling is for us to put up the tin ceiling tiles that we purchased about 8 years ago.

My husband and I both ended up having some bad health problems about 6 years ago so it made sense to put a hold on our reno. We also had some bad family tragedies happen around that time too .. but now, even though I’m still sick with Crohn’s we should be able to slowly start finishing the renovations that we started.

I mean .. all we have to do is put those tin ceiling tiles up, cut and apply baseboards, quarter round and maybe some molding around the top of the walls where it meets the ceiling and we’ll pretty much be done our living room dining room renovation.

Then we can either start on the kitchen or the basement. We just have to get motivated to get started!

I’ve been trying to motivate myself by looking at decor websites and magazines …I’m really interested in the look of a stone sink for our kitchen .. but I’m not sure it’s quite as easy to care for as a stainless steel sink … it also might cost more … so we’ll see.

Have you ever done renovations on your home? If so did you kind of stall at some point? If you did, what did you do to get yourself motivated again to start working on your renovation projects again?

Ow my aching back!

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I’m starting to wonder if we need a new bed, or rather mattress.

When we moved into our house in 2001 we bought a new bed for our bedroom … we had a double bed in the apartment, but we treated our selves to a queen sized bed when we finally graduated to new home owner.

I can’t remember what brand of mattress we bought, but it was a name brand and I’d selected a firm mattress because they’re generally better for you than soft mattresses.

I’ve been happy with our bed for the most part, but I remember that the first month we slept in the bed my back ached almost every day, until I got used to the new mattress. Now, for the last year I’ve had a bad back – so bad that I can’t sleep at night unless I put pillows under my knees. I know I have back problems, but I’m wondering if getting a new mattress might help too. Maybe one of those memory foam ones … do they come in firm?

Have you ever wondered if it was your mattress that was causing your back to ache?

Dry cracked skin

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Talk about strange internet searches. Earlier today I found myself on Amazon looking for Udder cream.

Why?

Well a long time ago my mom brought home this cream that she’d purchased while she and my dad were vacationing in Texas. My mom used to always get dry cracked skin on her heals and in the winter the skin on her hands, especially her fingers, would get so dry that sometimes it would crack and bleed.

So she found this cream that was originally made for putting on cow udders or teats to keep them from cracking.

Now this was back in the 80’s or maybe early 90’s … before it became quite common for people to use products made for cows.

Anyway .. back to my search for udder cream. I kept getting results that brought up face cream but of course that wasn’t what I wanted at all. I eventually found the exact product that my mom used 20 or so years ago and it’s Bag Balm. Hey … I was close … udder, bag … LOL

I was looking on Amazon, because, even though I could remember the exact name of the product I knew I could find it if I saw it in a department store or drug stores beauty aisle, but I haven’t seen it. Unfortunately for me, Amazon.com doesn’t ship this product to Canada. Hmmm.. I forgot to check on Amazon.ca but then they don’t have half the stuff that the US site does so they probably won’t have it. Now at least I know the name of the product and I can ask around.

I hope I find some soon … my heels are awful! No matter what I do I always get hard skin on the edges of my heels and the sides of my feet … I think that if I can get my hands on some Bag Balm or a similar product it might help.

Anyone know where I can get some Bag Balm in Canada? Toronto to be exact?

How do you take care of your skin?

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I guess I’ve been fairly lucky to be blessed with good skin. Actually my whole family has nice skin and I guess you could say good genes as far as aging goes, because everyone in my family, from my parents to my brothers and sister all look at least 10 years if not more younger than they actually are.

Oh sure, I had some skin problems when I was a teenager. A little bit of acne and some blackheads but nothing too bad.

I do battle enlarged pores on a constant basis though. If I don’t take care of my skin -well, especially on my nose, I’ll get some blackheads.

Lately I’ve taken to cleaning my face with Noxema. I did that when I was a teen and about a month ago I started using the skin cleanser again.

What I do is get a face cloth and wet it with hot water. I then place the hot cloth over my face to open up the pores. Then I gently massage some Noxema into my skin and rinse it off with a warm cloth. When I’m done cleaning my face I rinse the cloth out in cold water and pat my face with the cold cloth to close my pores.

My skin always feels fresh and tingly clean when I’m done. I like washing my face that way in the morning because it’s invigorating.

At night I usually just wash my face with a mild soap and then use facial creams that are meant for night use.

I guess that since I have Crohn’s and I’m sick quite often it’s at least nice that I have fairly good skin and look younger than I am.

How do you take care of your skin? Have you had problems with acne, blackheads or enlarged pores?

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