This Old House

Howdy all! I am preparing a big birthday post for Eily, but in the interim, I wanted to offer up some progress photos of the kitchen. Jesse and I (mostly Jesse) have been working our tails off to get this room finished, and while we still have a lot of work ahead of us, the end is at least now in sight! Enjoy!

In the beginning:

These were the walls - wood paneling and wall paper over plaster walls (January).



Ripping out the cabinets and sink.



Tearing down the paneling and plaster and opening up the ceiling (January - February).





Jim helps us run brand new electrical through the entire room (March).



Zak cuts a huge hole in the side of our house! (April)



Andy helps out with the drywall (May).



After 5 months, we finally have walls again!



The giant hole is replaced by the new French door.



Freshly primed walls & ceiling (June).



Paint!



(Yes, it's orange. No, it's not quite the orange we intended. Yes, we've decided to keep it!)

Remember the refrigerator that got shoved into an old pantry by the previous owners? It's gone!



This is how the floor looked on Thursday at 5 p.m.



Floor around 6p.m.



And a side by side of the floor at 5 p.m. v. the floor at 7p.m.

All we have to do now is stain and polyurethane the floor this week so we can start building the cabinets that are currently sitting in boxes in the neighbor's garage. One of these weeks soon we'll be posting the "finished product!"

Weekend Warriors

Okay, rather than focusing on the fact that Eily is only five days away from her first birthday, I'd like to play a little catch up and let you all know what we've been up to. (I'm hoping if I ignore the whole birthday thing, it can't possibly be true that she's already a year old!)

Let's start with a little game I like to call "You Know You Travel A Lot When..."

Here we go. You know you travel a lot when:
- You live out of a suitcase when you're at home.
- You can have yourself, your significant other, and the baby all packed and ready to go for a long weekend trip in under 20 minutes
- Your bags are packed and ready to go 5 days before your next trip (we've been packed since Tuesday for our trip to CT this weekend).
- The cats have learned not to come near the house on Fridays so they won't be corralled and locked inside for the entire weekend.
- You have to check your calendar before going grocery shopping to avoid over-purchasing and leaving a fridge full of food to spoil during your next trip.

And finally...
- The empty weekend on your calendar brings more doubt than relief. Surely, you must have forgotten to write down an important event, and now you have no idea where you're supposed to be!

Alright, I think you get the picture. Rather than wasting your time with lengthy descriptions of the past month+, I offer you this picto-blog of our exploits. We're digging back to the beginning of May to cover some of the items I've been meaning to get to but just haven't found the time.

May 9 Mother's Day
Eily and I spent the day together at the SGK Race for the Cure in Philly with my friend Ashley and her boyfriend, Kevin and her cousin, JoAnn. We woke at 4 a.m. to catch the train. You can read more about the day (including how Ashley and Kevin missed the train) in Ashley's blog.

Team Save Our Ta-Tas

Ashley and Kevin practicing for parenthood - apparently Eily made such an impression that Kevin has requested they have no less than 15 little girls.

May 14-16 Washington, D.C.
In honor of Little Jenn Zuba's visit from the West Coast, we made the trip south for a quick weekend visit.

Riding the Metro (and wearing Liam's authentic Irish cap)

Eily's first trip to the Zoo

Conversing with a meerkat

Jesse was a wee bit frightened by the prospect of running into this guy.


I had no idea flamingos make the same sound as geese!


Jenn meets Eily

Liam goes in for a tackle!

May 23 Meeting Ada!
Ada just returned recently from a year in New Zealand and stopped by to meet the wee lass.

Eily was very excited by the balloon Ada brought for her

May 27 A visit from Grandpa Rick
While passing through on business, Grandpa stopped by and bought Eily her first spaghetti supper


May 30 LBI
Our friends Justin and Alyssa invited us to spend a day at her parents' shore house.

Eily's first swim!

June 4-8 Minnesota trip
Eily took her first plane ride and headed west to meet the Robinette side of the family (and to pay Grandma a long overdue visit).

Underwater Adventure with a fellow BabyZone Junebug (Rosalynn) and her mommy (Jen) and big brother (Brady - who didn't want to join us for the picture).

Hanging out with Grandma Mary.

Too squirmy to sit for a picture with Auntie Kiki.

June 11-13 Back to D.C.!
This time Nathan was our excuse to shack up at the Shilliday house again.

Playing with her BFF Liam.



Hey, what app is that? Sweet, I'll have to download it too!

June 18-20 Saratoga, NY
We headed north to meet Eily's newest friend - Rory!

Introducing Rory Evangeline Adams - isn't she sweet!

Eily's first parade in downtown 'Toga.

Kelsey and Kevin getting some practice

Jim: The Ultimate Baby Daddy

June 22

We have pig tails!

June 24 Part I of Auntie Kiki's gift for Eily

Handmade onesies made just for Eily!

Check out the backs of these two!

As you can see, life is crazy around here! We've traveled every weekend since Memorial Day, and the trend hasn't stopped despite all the other things we have going on here at home. This weekend we'll be hitting our first Celtic festival of the year, then driving up to CT to celebrate Eily's birthday with my family. Jesse and I will both be getting tattoos on Saturday in honor of our big girl while she spends some time with Nana and Auntie Katie (and James and Victoria, too!). Then next week it's off to Virginia/West Virginia to do some 4th of July camping with the Shillidays and Rich & Amy.

Stay tuned for updates on Eily's birthday party and first camping trip, as well as kitchen updates as we near completion!

"The Future of (My Daughter's) Food"

Last night, my protective bubble of ignorance burst. At the end of a long day, I popped in my most recent Netflix rental, a documentary film from 2004 called The Future of Food. Here I was, a few scant hours after returning home from a grocery shopping trip, and I was confronted by my own nescience of just what, exactly, I place in my shopping cart each week. Admittedly, I know very little about food. Sure, I can cook, and I know that buying organic is all the rage these days. I thought I even had a handle on what was so great about organic food - no poisonous pesticides touching the crops that would eventually end up on my dinner table. After viewing this film, however, I am horrified by what I now know I didn't know (you follow?). Outraged would be another good word for how I feel.

But before I go on, I'm sure you're all wondering: What does this have to do with Eily? After all, I know that's why you're all here. If you give me a few minutes of your time, I hope to make it clear just how important the topic of this post is for Eily and all future generations of children in the United States. After all, the use of GMOs and the biotech firms who patent them negatively impact not only our health, but also the environment, the economy, and quite possibly the future of food as we know it.

*Climbs up on soapbox*

I just spent the better part of two hours composing a diatribe detailing my outrage at industrialized agriculture in America. I've since scrapped all that work, as I think it started getting long (and rather preachy). Quite honestly, everything I have to say is in the film. So instead, I invite you to visit the website or view the film in its entirety**:

The Future of Food Free Documentary from Deborah Koons Garcia on Vimeo.

Yes, it's long. If you decided not to watch it right now, please consider giving it a chance when you have some time. For those of you who can't stand "hippies" or think that "global warming" is a figment of our imagination, I promise you will still find value in this documentary. Whether or not your eating or purchasing habits change, you will become an educated consumer of food. To expand on the old adage, nothing in this world is more powerful than knowledge.

Now for those of you who are scratching your heads and saying, "Well, duh, Jessa, where have you been?", I freely admit I haven't paid nearly as much attention to what I use to fuel my body as I should have. While I am accustomed to shrugging off nutritional concerns for myself, I realize I'm now responsible for someone else's health. I can't sit idly by and remain ignorant of the potential harm GMOs can have on both my daughter's health and the fate of the world in which she is growing up.

So while it will take some effort and research on my part, I have come to the conclusion that I need to be more cognizant of what I purchase each week. Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to get all crazy Level 5 Vegan or anything. I love food far too much to go giving up whole sections of my diet. But instead of looking to save the almighty dollar and time by shopping at the big box stores, I will look to save money and support local farmers by buying fresh, local produce whenever I can. As often as possible, I will purchase foods that are specifically labeled as "GMO free," since simply buying food labeled "organic" or "natural" does not necessarily mean it's harmless. All in all, I know it's probably not feasible or cost effective for us to buy entirely local all the time, but the least I can hope to do is be more aware of what we're eating.

I still have a lot of learning to do, but I hope that even these baby steps will improve our small family's impact on the planet and our health. If anyone has advice, information, book/film recommendations to share on this topic, please feel free to educate me!

**As an additional disclaimer, I realize that documentaries like this tend to be very biased, and I do take it all with the proverbial grain of salt. Still, even just one or two of the film's arguments are enough for me to want to change some of our habits.