Anastasia Suen has instituted Non Fiction Mondays on the children's literature blogs: it's the hard-working Monday to the frivolity of Poetry Friday! Join in, won't you?
Today for Non Fiction Monday I bring you a review of a book my mother read and enjoyed greatly.
This review was written by Alice Herold.
Ox, House, Stick: The History of Our Alphabet, by Don Robb, illustrated by Anne Smith
Scientists interested in the history of languages have traced our alphabet back about 4, 000 years. Ox, House, Stick tells the origin of some of the letters. I was surprised that A was named for an ox in the early Sinaitic alphabet. Turn it upside down and it shows the horns of an ox. Anne Smith contributes helpful pictures on the sides of each page of Ox, House, Stick showing what the letter looked like in Sinaitic, Phoenician, Early Greek, Classical Greek, and Roman Latin.
Robb explains that scientists are fairly certain that our D began as the Phoenician letter daleth meaning door. M in its original Sinaitic form means water. O, P, R, and S came from words for part of the head.
I found it interesting that Greeks wrote in both directions--called "boustrophedon"--which means "as the ox plows," turning at the end of the row to go back the other way.
The Romans became tired of reading words without spaces between them so they began to put a dot between sentences. The dot later became the punctuation mark we call a period.
Ox, House, Stick is an educational, fascinating book especially since I read it one day after visiting the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition. Robb includes lists of websites and additional resources at the end of the book.
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By: Kelly Herold,
on 1/28/2008
Blog: Crossover (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: book review, House, Anastasia Suen, Don Robb, non fiction Monday, Stick, Anne Smith, Ox, Add a tag
By: Sylvia Vardell,
on 12/14/2007
Blog: Poetry for Children (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Rosenthal, house, moving, Rosenthal, house, moving, Add a tag
My apologies for disappearing! I’ve been going through a major life change: MOVING. In the space of a few weeks, we sold our home (in Grand Prairie, TX where we had lived for 18 years raising two kids) and moved into the big city (of Dallas, where we’re 10 minutes from my favorite theaters, movies, museums, and restaurants!). Each Friday has brought a new crisis: first no electricity for two days, then no Internet for four days! EEK! Things are headed toward normalcy now and it’s time to get back on track with poetry. I’ve actually been reading a lot of poetry during this time as part of the Cybils award (I’m on the poetry subcommittee; stay tuned for news); it’s the perfect antidote.
As I looked for a poem to fit my current circumstance, I remembered a lovely picture book collection that came out a few years ago: My House is Singing by Betsy Rosenthal, illustrated by Margaret Chodos-Irvine. Each poem captures an aspect of the “places and spaces that make a house a home” against a backdrop of Chodos-Irvine’s colorful, sculptural collages. Using a variety of poetic forms, including rhyming and free verse forms, Rosenthal touches on details that children notice in the laundry room, the smoke detector, the refrigerator, the vacuum cleaner, the kitchen, special cubby-holes, the doorbell, the back door, and more. The following poem example gives the book it’s title and captures some of my own thoughts my first night in my new home:
My House’s Night Song
By Betsy Rosenthal
Listen closely.
Can you hear?
Heater whooshing out
warm air.
Blinds flapping
Floors creaking.
Clocks ticking.
Faucet leaking.
Dishwasher clicking.
Pipes pinging.
Listen closely.
My house is singing.
From: Rosenthal, Betsy. R. 2004. My House is Singing. Illustrated by Margaret Chodos-Irvine. San Diego: Harcourt.
It’s time for me to re-join the Poetry Friday Round Up-- which is hosted this week by Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect.
Picture: My new house
By: Claire Louise Milne,
on 12/5/2007
Blog: Needle Book (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: home, house, renovation, tiles, tiling, renovation, tiles, tiling, house, Add a tag
Things are really coming along now, the large kitchen and hall tiles are almost completely installed. There's just this last patch in the hall and 2nd closet to do. The tiles look white but they're actually very very pale grey with tiny matchstick lines of grey and white. They'll also look nicer once the grout is added. It's going to be a light grey so there won't be such dark lines between the tiles.
To the left you can see the bathroom is almost finished too. It doesn't look perfect, but I know it will once the grout is there. We've been visiting the house throughout the project and we can see that this job has been done with careful attention to detail, things we didn't even think about ourselves. Once we add the new baseboards, paint the walls and return the clawfoot tub and new vanity it's going to be really nice I think. Right now the pattern is a little hard on the eyes, mostly due to the dark lines between the tiles.
They've also done more work on the walls where the tiles were removed and they're looking really good. I know once we prime we'll see places we have to touch up a bit here and there but that's easily done.
So far so good...
Read the rest of this post
By: Rebecca,
on 10/22/2007
Blog: OUPblog (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Health, research, A-Featured, Medical Mondays, Psychology, patient, klitzman, physicians, medline, prognoses, technology, oxford, sick, house, illness, america, medicine, oupblog, columbia, healthcare, Add a tag
It is not easy for anyone to become ill and be at the mercy of doctors, but what about doctors themselves? How do they react to being on the other side of stethoscope? In When Doctors Become Patients Robert Klitzman, Associate Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at Columbia University, looks at what the experience is like for doctors who become sick, and what it can teach us about our current health care system and more broadly, the experience of being ill. In the excerpt below Klitzman explores how doctors go about researching their own diseases and how this research seems more disheartening once they have become part of the statistics.
‘‘We know very little,’’ Roxanne, the gastroenterologist, said, referring to the medical literature on the causes of cancer. As suggested above, once ill, many of these physicians came to reassess the role of research in individual medical decisions, and became more critical in their evaluations of research as a whole. Roxanne, for example, became more sensitive to the elusiveness of ‘‘the truth,’’ no longer thinking there was just one answer. ‘‘People base things on the literature and on one paper that’s not been duplicated. I’m skeptical. There’s a lot of literature, but also fashions—things used in the past. Now we’re into other treatment approaches. We can’t cure anything.’’ Indeed, these ill physicians appeared previously to have paid little heed to the implications of this pattern. (more…)
By: octavio diaz,
on 10/17/2007
Blog: Sugar Frosted Goodness (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: house, Octavio Diaz, bank, Add a tag
Illo for the daytona Beach News-Journal. Real Estate Owned is the term for bank-owned houses post-foreclosure.
By: Claire Louise Milne,
on 10/12/2007
Blog: Needle Book (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: home, painting, house, home decorating, decorating, decor, reveal, small, kitchen, hutch, Add a tag
I was so happy with how painting the cabinets has transformed our kitchen I'm going to show some "before" and "after"s, but there are still more changes to come. For those of you with something similar going on in your kitchen, I can tell you that this was our most affordable makeover yet at under $150. We had some leftover 1-2-3 primer, the cabinet paint (Debbie Travis, "cloudy white", semi-gloss latex) was around $40, new white hinges were around $40, new brushed nickel knobs and handles were around $60. Stores often sell these items in packs of ten as well, so you can really save there.
Here's the left side "before", I took this picture in the middle of unpacking. The old knobs were in the middle of the doors. And as I mentioned before the cupboards were made of fake wood laminate. Yuck!
Here's the "after" of the left side. I don't even mind the green countertop so much anymore:
Here's the "before" of the right side. Somehow it was even worse - the whole kitchen felt gloomy:
Here's the "after" of the right side. It's so much more cheerful now:
And this third view is from the eat-in area of the kitchen (not renovated yet) looking back into the galley kitchen area. This shows the wall where we took down a cabinet. Unfortunately the thermostat and an outlet were wedged underneath and cut into the tiling. But later on we plan to redo the tiles in any case. Once you change one thing you realize you need to change other things too. My friend Jaimie inspired me talking about apple green tiles, and Katie Muth's tiles are so pretty.
Here's the "after", the pale green wall paint (Debbie Travis, "chiffon", eggshell latex) needs a second coat but you can't really tell that from the photo!
We've ordered a new faucet online, the current one is leaky and specializes in going from cold to burning hot and rather than getting it fixed we're going to just replace it with something nicer. And someday we may replace those vinyl floor tiles. It's a constant dilemma deciding how much to spend on the house. I used to think that it was so small we'd definitely need to move soon and shouldn't put too much work into it, but that tiny house in my last post really inspired me. I mean, ours is more than twice as big! I thought we had the smallest house in Toronto but now I see I was quite wrong.
Living in a small space is a fun challenge, making things work on a small scale can be very satisfying. I really believe it's a good thing, you know, environmentally and all that. Too many possessions can weigh you down, I'm always trying to pare down but it's hard because I can be a bit sentimental about things. I'm working on it though.
By: Claire Louise Milne,
on 9/17/2007
Blog: Needle Book (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: flowers, house, home decorating, decor, otters holding hands, Add a tag
Today is our wedding anniversary, I can't believe it, the year has flown by! These flowers just arrived from my parents and they were so gorgeous I just had to show them off. They smell wonderful too, mainly of tiger lilies which we had on the tables at our wedding. Mmmmmm.
I even cleared off the big piles of fabric that were all over our dining table and gave it a polish in their honour.We're going to meet up for dinner tonight after a very busy weekend working on the house. Bradley (my hero) was in the crawlspace clearing out a huge pile of lumber, a giant old water tank that would have made a great tin man, an old trunk that resembled some kind of mangy old pirate treasure chest and other miscellaneous junk. Everything went out to the front of our house along with shelves and other junk we've been clearing out of the house for the past few weeks.
Yesterday we listed the lumber for free on craigslist and someone came to pick up a bunch of it this morning. We also left out some odds and ends at the curb which got scooped up. I'm always thrilled when people can use something we're getting rid of and it doesn't go to waste. Then this morning we finally had some junk haulers come and clear everything else away. (They told me the lumber gets recycled so that was good to know.) Finally that giant chore is done. Phew!At the same time that Bradley was in the crawlspace I was painting a 2nd coat in the living room and then starting on priming the new bifold doors we got for the hallway. It took forever, I managed to watch The Princess Bride, Ella Enchanted and Mean Girls while priming the four doors. I used a regular paint brush for most of them, then a small artist brush to fill in the awkward corners at the end of each slat. I'm still not done priming all the corners, but it already looks better than the bare wood and it will be worth it in the end.
And finally, to end on a romantic note, I give you "Otters holding hands".
By: Claire Louise Milne,
on 9/12/2007
Blog: Needle Book (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: home, house, home decorating, decor, ikea, living room, Add a tag
Thank you for the nice comments about the house posts, I've hardly had time to do crafts but I did make a little bird bag I will show soon. I'm glad people are also interested in our renovations and decorating because it's definitely what I'm thinking about these days!
I have been swamped recently, though, with a big illustration contract so I've had less time to do things. But working at home means I'm looking around at everything that needs to be done and it can be very distracting. So I take little breaks in the day to do house things, and then work late into the evening on my sketches. Luckily this is one of the benefits of freelancing, you can pick your own hours as long as you meet the deadlines.
One of the things I couldn't wait to do was replace our bookshelves. In our old place we had a long row of short billy's on one wall and it gave us enough book storage and I think it looked nice. But we don't have a wall like that here, and we really needed something else. As you may have noticed I've become all about finding vintage furniture on craigslist, all "good old-fashioned workmanship - no more crummy flatpack!" recently. But I just could not find the perfect bookcases.
So finally I gave IKEA another chance and was smitten by the Liatorp bookcases. They seemed perfect for our space, two fit the wall I was planning to use perfectly, with lots of height, they have seven shelves (so more than two short billy's), and hidden storage at the bottom. You can join them together to give the feel of custom bookcases, and I like the details, moulding at the top, supports under the shelves (not just those metal pegs) and the edges of the shelves has a nice row of grooves. And you know how I feel about glass doors. Now that they're assembled I absolutely love them, and I really think they're the bookcases I've always wanted.
Incidentally, here's a detail of the vase which I found at Pier 1 (thanks to my friend Sandra who gave us the gift certificate!) I'm planning to use the vase colours throughout the room, pale blue, white and dark brown with cream - so it was the perfect addition. 
I also found a cd wall cabinet in the same style. This item is new, and I think I was the first person at the store to buy it as I called in the morning and it was out of stock, but when I got there I double checked and they said it had just arrived. It's perfect because it fits all of our cds exactly and now they're no longer awkwardly crammed into a small bookshelf taking up floor space. Plus we're doing matching which seems very grown up.
Here are my assembly tips (for all IKEA flatpack furnishings):
1. pretend you are a surgeon and lay out all the screws and pegs and tools and things on a tray so you are organized
2. use a tea towel under all those things so they don't roll around and drive you crazy
3. don't knock over the tray because you will have to crawl around looking under your furniture for all the little bits and it is VERY VEXING.
4. actually count them so you don't wonder later if something is missing or if you used the wrong thing
5. experienced assemblers will already know this, but each screw has a little number beside it at the beginning of the manual and next to the step where you use it so you can double check it's the right one
6. use the box your furniture came in as a mat to protect the pieces while assembling
7. when the instructions have a little "!" pay attention, or you will regret it
8. don't start assembling at 11pm at night if you are already tired and cranky
9. keep any extra bits for later - and the instructions!
By: Claire Louise Milne,
on 8/19/2007
Blog: Needle Book (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: decor, design, home, house, home decorating, Add a tag
Bradley went camping this weekend, so I decided to surprise him with a mini "Changing Rooms" in our front room. The bathroom needs the most work, but I can't do a lot of the work myself, so that will have to wait. Aside from the bathroom, the front room was the least appealing.
First of all the walls were covered with the drab caramel colour and I think it made the room look darker and smaller than it needed to be. As you will see we had a lot to ask from our front room since the house is a little bungalow with only 1 bedroom and the front room is the largest room in the house. Please also note the eyesore of a box on the wall which covers the electrical panel and is made from fake wood laminate. Ick! Here's a before picture:
We'd unpacked most of our things so that we wouldn't have stacks of boxes everywhere, so at the start of the weekend this is what the room looked like:
The first thing I did was paint the walls in the same creamy colour as the hallway. It was an instant transformation! I still have another coat to do, but it's good enough for the "reveal". The bookcases will have to be sorted and possibly rearranged or replaced with taller ones, but for now, here's the "later" of the dining area:
I also re-covered the chairs with a 1950s vintage barkcloth fabric. It's a little whimsical but I think it works with the style of the furniture (the table also has a removable leaf not shown). The dining set was a craigslist find for $100 - the original chair covers were bright orange, then recovered (not very well) with four different colours and the fabric was dirty. So that was a big improvement. Here's a detail of the chairs, and the wicker ottomen/boxes that we're using as a coffee table, they also hold all our dvds.
This front room is also the living room, so here's a view of the living room area with our couch. As you can see the electrical box is now painted out to match the walls and it's much less noticeable. There's still some blue painter's tape showing because the trim isn't painted yet. Hey it was only one weekend! I wish I'd had Linda Barker or Anna Ryder Richardson helping me out. And ideally Laurence Llewelyn Bowen would be the host as he was in the later episodes of Changing Rooms, he is so funny and witty.
And last but not least, this overworked room is also my studio. Of course I work on the dining room table as well. Another craigslist find was an art deco style secretary desk in a similar style to the one I already had. They only wanted $50 for it (which as you can imagine had me in a tizzy begging Bradley to rent a van and help me go get it immediately before they changed their minds). The desk was originally in a sorry state though. It was painted orange (in a very patchy way) and the lattice mullions were on the outside of the doors and warped and broken. Also the veneer was peeled away from one of the drawers (also in a very patchy way) and so there was a lot of work to do. But now the two desks look pretty similar. My old one still holds all my art supplies, and the new one has sewing and crafts things.
So that's the big reveal - you're getting a sneak peek because even Bradley hasn't seen it yet. He's getting home in around three hours so I can't wait to show him! I hinted that I had done some work in the house but wasn't specific. Ideally he will cover his mouth and get teary, then say "oh my god" several times. Then he'll start pointing out all the great new features and make comments such as: "is this really our house??" and "I can't believe it, it looks so different!" and "look at our new chair covers!" etc. Well we'll see.
By: Claire Louise Milne,
on 8/15/2007
Blog: Needle Book (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: home, house, home decorating, renovation, Add a tag
Things are going well so far, we love our new house (especially our lovely deck and garden - we have a rose-of-sharon tree which is flowering now and a forsythia that has bright yellow flowers in the spring) but we've been swamped with things we want to fix up.
First of all I could. not. live with the flourescent light fixtures, so those are all gone now. I think they had some extra cold "let's do surgery!" style tubes in them, and it was really depressing. We've also been doing unpacking, painting, cleaning, clearing out some things that were left behind and even a little bit of demolition. There's still so much to do but I thought I'd share some of what we're doing with "before" and "later" pictures, although there aren't quite any "after"s yet!
The first wall to get painted was in the bedroom. Here's the before:
It's a tiny room, just big enough for our bed, side table, pax and bureau, and the dark blue was definitely not the right colour to make it look spacious. I love our little wooden bed, and even though we've just primed the walls it already looks lots better. Here's the "later" picture:
The hallway and front living/dining room were both a caramel colour that was also too dark. It wasn't doing much for our long hallway. The hall closet doors were pretty terrible, one of them was only half height, with a bit of curtain tacked on the bottom. Both of them were thick and awkwardly attached so that they swayed in and out of the alcove. Here's the "before" picture. 
I painted the hallway a nice creamy white colour (cil "chalk"), and already it's looking much sunnier. We also added a new light fixture to replace the flourescent light, and that made a huge difference. Once the right sized bifold doors arrive, they'll all get painted white to match the trim and will fit neatly into the alcoves. The bureau will also tuck inside the cupboards once we remove the old chest freezer that was left behind. This is the "later" picture:
The kitchen cupboards are icky fake wood laminate and the cabinet by the doorway seemed to jut out and we'd both hit our heads on it. We thought it made the kitchen have a bit of a crowded feeling and we actually have tons of cabinets - much more storage than we had before. The "before" picture:
So we took out the cupboards by the doorway entirely - ahh! space! I read in a magazine that every kitchen should have one bare wall and it really does make a difference. It feels more like a room and less like a tunnel of cabinets.
And I primed and painted two of the cupboards. I like the way it looks - so I'll be doing all of them. They're odd custom sizes so we'd have to replace them entirely otherwise and that's not at the top of our wish list. I also made some swiss dot type sheer curtains. Here's a "later" picture:
So that's all I'm going to show you for now. The craft/art studio is in the front room so I'll be sharing that too when it's in better shape!
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By: Jannie Ho,
on 8/14/2007
Blog: Chickengirl Design (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: sewing, craft, fabric, house, Add a tag
I made a house tissue cover! The awesome pattern is by My Paper Crane from book The Crafters Companion. I basicly picked up this book mainly because of this pattern. So cute. The chimney was a little tough to put on though.
I originally wanted to make a bunch of these fabric collages and sell them. But now I am not so sure. I am, however, taking steps to open an etsy shop. I have some fun stuff in the works! More soon.
By: Claire Louise Milne,
on 7/27/2007
Blog: Needle Book (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: home, house, owls, Add a tag
Today we're closing on the purchase of our new house. And for some reason I felt like saying goodbye from our old home. I can't wait to show you our new house - especially the new arts & crafts "studio" (which will still have to be a corner of another room). The old sewing corner is now completely dismantled and in boxes. It's chaos here right now!
For the last few weeks I've been trying to clear things out, and sort through all our things, rethinking things I've been holding on to for years. We also acquired a few new bits and pieces, some different furniture, and things we never used to need such as chairs for our backyard. It's been so much fun imagining how we want our home to be, with a fresh start and a bit of extra room. But mainly it's been about letting things go.
So it doesn't make any sense that I bought this mug recently at Goodwill. I didn't need it but when I tried to put it down it kept sitting on the shelf looking like something I already own and should remember to take home with me. I've added it to my secretary desk which is the last thing I have left to pack up, since it's full of the things I use every day. I love the brown layers of glaze at the bottom, the pretty oak leaves and acorns but most of all those two sweet owls. I hope they like the new house!
By: Rebecca,
on 6/15/2007
Blog: OUPblog (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: author, blog, Literature, internet, Blogs, house, penguin, Media, A-Featured, A-Editor's Picks, bleak, Add a tag
Rebecca OUP-US
We have a lot of debate at OUP about the type of web presence authors should have. There is no definitive answer, since the web is still one big experiment but over at the Penguin UK blog, Colin Brush has taken a serious look at the issues.
Which makes me wonder, what author blogs do you read? (more…)
By: Adam,
on 6/6/2007
Blog: Sugar Frosted Goodness (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Adam Levine, house, Add a tag
So I've had something on my mind lately...any guesses?
www.SoundsLikeBlue.com
By: Michelle Lana,
on 6/1/2007
Blog: Sugar Frosted Goodness (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: house, Brothers, Manila, Mic, Ghost Stories, Add a tag
My two older brothers always had fun telling me all their ghost stories and spooks lurking around our house back in Manila. Those days were priceless!
By: Claire Louise Milne,
on 5/31/2007
Blog: Needle Book (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: new york, sewing, shopping, house, bunny, vintage, ribbons, rabbit, trim, flea market, Add a tag
I feel I've been neglecting my needle book posts..so I'm going to try to catch up a bit. We've had a busy time recently, mainly because we just bought our first house! We didn't think we could afford one in Toronto, and were planning to just buy a slightly bigger condo, but after not really seeing anything we liked, we extended our search a bit and found a little house just at the edge of our budget. I keep telling people that it's very small (it's a 1-bedroom bungalow), because I don't want people to see it and be disappointed. I have to admit that my first reaction on seeing the house was to laugh, because it looked so tiny. But while it also needs redecorating throughout, it definitely has potential to be a really lovely little home. We'll be moving in at the end of July and I'll be sure to share our decorating pictures then.
We also had a trip to New York city recently, and stayed with a friend in Hoboken. Lucky for me he had already found the "ribbon district" and had lots of great shopping tips. The ribbons at the top of this post are all from M&J Trimming (1008 Sixth Ave.), a store that will dazzle the ribbon lover, but also has buttons, lace, purse handles etc. All my favourite ribbons were from the front of the store, in a section devoted to embroidered ribbons, with many fancy ribbons imported from Europe as well.
To balance out this splurge, I also found these lovely ribbons (above) at the Textile Museum sale last week, the place where I like to stock up on crafts supplies for the coming year. The one on the bottom is my favourite - many thanks to my friend Sarah who found it first but let me have it!
Around the corner from M&J Trimming are more ribbon, button and bead stores, including the Martha Stewart recommend Tinsel Trading (Tinsel Trading 47 West 38th Street New York), and a similar store I discovered called Store Across the Street (Store Across the Street 64 West 38th Street New York). And if you're in that neighbourhood, I recommend the beautiful Bryant Park nearby as the perfect place to have a drink and sit down and look over your new ribbons. There are lots of little iron table and chair sets for anyone to use.
We also went to a couple of flea markets. At the first outdoor parking lot (junky type) flea market I found a beautiful antique compact for $5 and a Noel Streatfeild book I hadn't heard of (New Shoes) for $1. It was across from an expensive looking indoor antique mall which we didn't visit (too much to do, too little time!) The second flea market was a few streets over in a parking garage. We could have spent hours in there but were getting a little tired and hungry.
And speaking of ribbons, I picked up these bargains at Kate's Paperie on Broadway in Soho which was having a moving sale. This was also near to my other favourite stores, Pearl River Trading, Anthropologie and Kate Spade.
And last but not least, my catch up wouldn't be complete without finally sharing the adorable little rabbit made for me by the lovely and talented Susan!
By: Adam,
on 5/17/2007
Blog: Sugar Frosted Goodness (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Adam Levine, Birthday, house, Bear, Add a tag
Barry the Birthday Bear, and some purple houses just for good measure. The bear is from a card I just made for my girlfriend. You can read more about it here: BloggyMcBloggBlogg
The houses were for the fun of it...much like everything else I draw. Odd fact #25: The texture for the house drawing comes from a photoshop brush I made out repeating text spelling out the word "sky."
www.SoundsLikeBlue.com
By: Susan Taylor Brown,
on 3/29/2007
Blog: SusanWrites (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: house, Add a tag
This is completely off-topic so if you were expecting an illuminating post about writing for children, you can skip this right now. This is about the new house. Or specifically about the old refrigerator that came with the new house. It is built-in. It is a built-in SubZero. Wow, you say. Lucky you.
Not so lucky. First off, I liked my old refrigerator just fine. I imagine it to be rather lonely stuck off in the garage, away from us, home to just the leftover beer and soda from the move party. The new fridge doesn't like me. In order to open the freezer drawer on the bottom you need to be standing in just the right place, with BOTH HANDS evenly spaced on either side of the center and pull back with a slight (but not too much) downward motion. Can I just say that it is hard to stand in front of it and do that with the island pushed up against my backside. It never takes me less than 5 tries to open the freezer. I can get the refrigerator door open in one try if I use both hands. I'm not liking any of this much at all but I was willing to live with it.
Except.
Except that this is a refrigerator that has had a funky smell in it since we moved in. The cleaners cleaned it. We cleaned it. I left 20 mounds of baking soda in it the week before we moved in. My husband took every shelf and drawer and drip pan and any removable part off and washed it in a bleach solution. I called SubZero and they also suggested flushing the drain pipe with the bleach solution. We did.
It still stinks.
But only when it is running. When it is off, it smells fine. Which leads my husband to think that it is in the actual system that we can't get to because a) it's built-in and b) we've pretty much exhausted our ability as do-it-yourselfers.
Sigh.
So I admit defeat and call the home warranty plan that the previous owners unexpectedly included in our contract. A plan that I was sure we had checked out completely. Only, (you know what's coming but like a train wreck you are going to keep on reading, right?)
For some reason, we assumed, thought, whatever, that the built-in refrigerator was in the home warranty plan. I called today to see if they would come service it for the smell and IT ISN'T COVERED. We could have added it within the first 30 days which were up, of course, less than a week ago.
I feel so dumb for not catching that in the contract and mad and frustrated and well, mostly mad. If this were a normal kitchen we'd just dump that old thing (it's an old model - more than 10 years old) and bring OUR old fridge into the house (it's only 3 years old, and did I happen to mention how much I loved it.) But this thing is built-in. And being a SubZero, this one is counter depth and our old one is not. To replace it with the comparable SubZero is nearly $7K. For that price I could get my new fence installed.
The alternative is to take it out anyway and slide the old one in there. Which means it will look funky as heck, okay, not even funky but ugly and stick out and we wouldn't really be able to walk around the island.
I'd love to end this with some witty bit of something but I'm not seeing the humor in this yet.
Score: House 1, Susan 0 (SubZero, to be exact)
By: Adam,
on 3/21/2007
Blog: Sugar Frosted Goodness (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Adam Levine, house, stress, Add a tag
Here's something I did while under a bit of stress.
www.SoundsLikeBlue.com
By: Adam,
on 3/15/2007
Blog: Sugar Frosted Goodness (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: watercolour, watercolor, Adam Levine, house, Add a tag
I don't know why but I love to draw houses. This was me breaking in my new watercolor pencils. Good times had by all.
www.SoundsLikeBlue.com
Happy new home! And what a lovely reflective poem.
Congratulations on the move, Sylvia! And enjoy your new digs! May your new house sing happy songs for years to come.
Thanks so much! It's particularly fun to "break in" a new home at Christmastime. We still have boxes to unpack, but the tree is up and the lights are twinkling...
Sylvia,
I hope you are happy in your new home. I've been living in the same house since 1976.
I like MY HOUSE IS SINGING and the poem you selected from it to post today.
Happy Holidays!!! I look forward to our discussions about the Cybils poetry nominations.
Thanks, Elaine. Yes, I am enjoying the Cybils reading and hope to jump into the dialogue shortly. Just scrambling to catch up... Happy holidays to you, too!
Happy new home, Sylvia. Half my relatives live in Dallas, so tell them hey.
Susan T.
Chicken Spaghetti
Thanks, Susan. And come on by the next time you're in town visiting family-- or not visiting family, as the case may be. :-)