penn

Little Bathroom Trick

This is a quick tip to help with soap scum. I discovered this during college while trying to clean a boyfriend's tub. What can I say? I was desperate for a bath, even if it meant lots of cleaning. Rather than spend lots of time scrubbing and chemicals to try to cut through the scum, a little scrape can do the trick.

I use an old gift card and simply scrape along the wall. I continually run my hand along the surface to feel where soap scum may be hiding out of sight. Once I'm done, then I do a once-over with some cleaning fluid.

Along with re-caulking the tub, this made our new bathroom much more comfortable while saving time. Worth it!

RIP, Seamus Heaney

Seamus Heaney, a truly great poet, just passed away. I am truly saddened this morning. I was first introduced to him through his beautiful translation of Beowulf. I also read his poems during college (both in class and out), and one of my dear friends gave me a Seamus Heaney book, The Haw Lantern, for graduation. He was a Nobel Laureate in literature with a great view on life. This is a great loss for the literary community.

In honor of Seamus, I will share my favorite poem of his here. Enjoy!

Scaffolding

Masons, when they start upon a building,
Are careful to test out the scaffolding;

Make sure that planks won’t slip at busy points,
Secure all ladders, tighten bolted joints.

And yet all this comes down when the job’s done,
Showing off walls of sure and solid stone.

So if, my dear, there sometimes seems to be
Old bridges breaking between you and me,

Never fear. We may let the scaffolds fall,
Confident that we have built our wall.

Livin' the Glam Life

We moved into our new apartment a month ago after our trip to the west coast. We took a few days to paint (unfortunately, not enough) and then relied on the good will of our wonderful friends (also neighbors!) to help us get everything in.

A few days after that, we headed back to Portland for a conference for Matt. I got to do a good bit of tech support for my parents and enjoyed seeing friends again.

Since we got back, we've been working busily to both make this new place our home and get our classrooms ready. Students arrive tomorrow with classes starting Tuesday, and I'm not quite ready, but I will survive.

I have a few fun pics to share. I'm not quite ready to do a home tour, but we're slowly getting organized and figured out. We still have painting left to do, but that will have to wait until we have a little more time and days that aren't pushing 95 degrees with high humidity.

Here's the living room from a little bit ago -- excuse the stuff still to be put away. The walls are Kilim Beige by Sherwin Williams (love it!), and the inside of the book shelves is Lagoon by Sherwin Williams.

A detail shot of bookshelf:

Perhaps the most exciting part of our new apartment is the new washer and dryer we bought! We moved our old washer in only to have the pump promptly break. Given our time squeeze in getting ready for school, we decided to buy for the perk of getting our machines installed. We went with a local store, and we couldn't be happier.

PS The kitchen color is Lime Granita by Sherwin Williams. It's like being inside a margarita!

The washer is jimmied into that strange corner (a previous occupant cut out the bottom cabinets to make room for it), but everything is reachable. I have done a million, give or take a few, loads since we got the machines yesterday. And, since we no longer have a stacked machine, we can appreciate the light coming through the one window in our galley kitchen.

Overall, the move is good for us. I was sad to leave our old place, but we're taking advantage of the move to help our home feel more grown up. We have a guest room that fits a bed! Speaking of, here's the pictures I'm putting on the wall, since that space will be my office when no guests are here. Excuse the yellow color -- this room will also be Kilim Beige when we get around to painting.

Update: the Harry Potter Lego portrait was done by the talented Jennifer Maher as a custom piece. She's awesome to work with!

It is fun to be surrounded by memories with my photo wall. Hopefully, I'll be back soon to share more.