bunk beds alternatives?

Since I'd like to move the Princess in with the boys, I need to do some furniture rearranging.  While the boys' room is spacious, I still need to get three beds, three dressers, a bookshelf, a rocking chair and hopefully a desk in there.  So....I'm looking at bunk beds.

The boys are five and three.  Bunk beds aren't recommended until your kids are six and over.  I am kind of uncomfortable with Greg being in a top bunk, because he gets up at least twice a night.

Two years ago, before we decided to put our three bedroom house on the market, I had planned to move the boys in together in preparation for the Princess's arrival.  That bedroom was very small, maybe 10x10, with oddly placed radiators and inconveniently placed doors, and I had the same problem of trying to cram too much furniture into a very small space.

When looking for bed solutions, I came across a great low loft, L-shaped bunk bed.  The top bunk was about 36 inches off the ground, so only a little higher than a regular bed, and then the bottom bunk was only about 6 inches off the ground, and the end tucked under the top bunk like an L.  I bookmarked it, but then we moved, and that was three computers ago, and now I can't find anything remotely similar in my searching on the internet. Has anyone seen something similar?

Since I can't find it, I'm wondering if I could hack something similar.

I could get this, and cut about eighteen inches off the legs, and put Peter's mattress on the floor underneath one end, so its an L-shape.

If that won't work, I am thinking of possibly using the Ikea Kura bed since its pretty low:

I am not the biggest fan of the blue, but it can be painted.  (See here for an example.) Peter's mattress would go on the floor on the inside, and Greg would have the top.  I could also get a canopy top (in that ugly blue, sigh) to further ensure that Greg doesn't fall out of bed.

Anyone know of any great low loft/bunk beds?  Other suggestions?

living room rugs

As long as I'm mentally dreaming about my living room and the sofas I'm never getting, lets talk about my new rug (that I'm also not getting). I'd like something grayish-brown, with a geometric pattern.  It can't be too light or beige-y, as there are young dirty feet tramping all over it on a daily basis.

My favorite is this Madeline Weinrib rug:

or this Madeline Weinrib:

This from RugsUSA:

This from RugsUSA:

Or this by West Elm:

or this

Although I really like the bottom three, I feel they are a bit too dark for the space.  I'm looking for a very neutral (but not too light) brown.  The darker ones make more of a statement, but I don't think I'm looking for a statement.

I think the top two contenders are the first Madeline Weinrib and the chain-link from RugsUSA.  Thoughts?

getting a new furnace

So, the furnace needs to be completely replaced.  Sometimes that happens when things catch on fire.  


We are very lucky though--the fire alarm woke us up before the rest of the house caught fire.  Also, since there is a furnace for each apartment, we have heat, hot water and a working stove in the downstairs apartment. We'll find out today when they can give us an appointment to replace the furnace, and in the meantime, we'll still be able to cook, bathe and sleep in comfort.  Things work out for the best. 


When my maternal grandmother was a kid, her house was struck by lightning, and if memory serves, I think it burned down.  For the rest of her life she was terrified of storms and would sit in her basement whenever there was thunder and lightning.  I feel kind of like her---I'm terrified of our house burning down.


A few years ago in our old house, I woke up at 2 am, smelling smoke.  My eyes flew open and saw a smoky haze in our bedroom, and red and yellow firetruck light reflections revolving on the ceiling.  It was one of those "OMG PANIC GET THE KIDS GET OUT NOW" moments.  As I ran to my son's room I could see out the side window that there was a fire either next door or the house next to that.  My brain finally caught up to my pounding heart, and I looked out the front window---there were firetrucks in the street, hosing down the house two doors down.  It wasn't our house.

That fire started because of an electric fireplace on the first floor that malfunctioned around midnight. The fire started around an electrical outlet and spread through the walls.  The teenage son of the family saw it catch fire, got the family out safely, but in less than 20 minutes the entire house went up in flames. The fire company spent most of their time hosing down the two houses next to them to keep them from catching fire, and both neighboring houses sustained melted plastic siding.  The family lost everything, even their cars.  The next day the site was condemned and was torn down, but the smell of burnt wood lingered for weeks. 


A year later, the house directly across the street caught fire, a week after the owner had finished remodeling it and had put it on the market.  A few weeks after that, a house at the end of the block burned down.  (I managed to live for 32 years without ever seeing or living near a house burning down, and then I live within a 100 feet of three houses that burn down in a year's time.  Odd, no?)  


Ever since our neighbor's house burned down, whenever I smell smoke--for whatever reason--someone has lit a match, a cigarette, is using their backyard chiminea, the toast is overdone, I am on high alert.  I run around sniffing till I figure out if my house is on fire.  A few months ago my mother in law forgot about dinner while she was on the computer, which you can read about here (see question #2).  That was like a scene out of the movie Backdraft; the smoke was unbelievable.  


My inlaws have a fireplace in their kitchen, which they use on a regular basis. Its a pleasure to sit in front of and warm up, especially when we come back from picking Greg up from school and we have a nice snack of tea and cookies.  However, I have been living on the knife-edge of paranoia for the past few months, as every morning I wake up to the smell of a wood fire.  I usually stick my head out the front window to make sure that the smoke is coming from their chimney and not billowing out the kitchen window.  Sometimes I call downstairs just to make sure that the fireplace is on and the toaster hasn't caught on fire.  


Waking up at 5 am to hear the fire alarm going off was frightening.  I think my heart stopped pounding around 9 am. But we were lucky.  I am so thankful that the fire alarm worked, that we were able to turn off the furnace without any injuries, and that we are all safe.  

When your furnace is engulfed in flames

We had a lovely vacation in Costa Rica.

We arrived home at 1:30 am this morning and were promptly in bed at 1:40.  At 5:02 am, we were awakened by the hard-wired fire alarm.  We live in a two family house, and there is a hardwired alarm, plus freestanding alarms upstairs.  Since the hardwired alarm meant that the fire could be anywhere in the house, we were running all over our apartment, my inlaws' apartment and the basement, trying to figure out where the fire was.  In the basement, we discovered our furnace was on fire.  


I suppose "engulfed in flames" is an exaggeration.  Technically, the exterior of the furnace was glowing cherry red, and something was on fire inside the furnace.  No, it was not the pilot light. Things were ON FIRE.  


We figured out which furnace was ours (two family house---separate furnaces---ours was the one on fire).  We turned off the gas, the fire died down, and we are waiting for PSE&G to come take a look at the furnace and inform us that it needs to be replaced.  I find it difficult to sleep when I think the house might burn down, so I am awake for the day.  

#4: the last book I read, or, bodice-rippers and the women who love them

I love romance novels.  Or, as my father calls them, "bodice-rippers."

Some people read to enrich their minds.  Not me.  The books I read are the equivalent of candy.  Light, airy, sticky candy floss.  No nutritional or educational value whatsoever.  But highly entertaining.

When buying books, I generally limit myself to a few authors that I have been reading for years. Nora Roberts, Julia Quinn, Amanda Quick, Elizabeth Lowell, Charlaine Harris and Kresley Cole are who I will shell out money for.  Everyone else I will read at the library first.  

The guiltiest pleasure, though, is Harlequin Romance novels.  You can get them at Target for about $5, or if you go to Walmart you can get the previous month  publications for less than $3.  Or you can go whole hog and just have them delivered to your house every month, like me.

Harlequins are akin to eating a box of cotton candy.  Plots you can drive a truck through (wait, they have plots?), little character development, tropes and stock characters galore.  Generally, the plot looks like this:  boy meets girl, boy misunderstands girl (thinks she's a prostitute/golddigger/drug addict/bad mother), boy treats girl like crap yet wants to have mad nookie with her, at the end of  the book girl proves to boy that boy was wrong, boy begs forgiveness, they get married and live happily ever after. Because you know, you need to get married in order to be happy.

The best (and I've read thousands, I should know) are usually the girl-gets-unexpectedly-pregnant or girl-gets-makeover variety.  Do I cringe at the predictable "you need a man to be happy" themes throughout the books?  Yes.  But I devour them anyways.

I love happy endings.  I hate reading books where bad things happen to nice people.   The Mister has been reading the George R.R. Martin series for a while now. I picked it up and started reading it, and about fifty pages in, a young boy gets thrown off a roof.  On purpose. I thought to myself, nothing good is going to happen to these people.  I flipped to the end, and lo and behold, I was right.  I stopped reading that series right there and went back to my romance novels.

In the last week I have read In Too Deep by Jayne Ann Krentz and The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larssen. In the past month I have re-read the Harry Potter series, and I started watching True Blood on Netflix, so I pulled out the Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris. I also have fourteen free romance novels loaded on my Kindle at the moment, waiting to be read.  I have also read 12 Harlequins but cannot remember the titles, authors or plots of any of them.

# 29 the story behind one of my scars

All of my scars are from childbirth, and no one wants to hear about my lady bits, so I'll tell you about one of my injuries instead.

Years ago, I used to run. I loved running. I never got below a ten and a half minute mile, so I suppose you could call me a "jogger", not a runner, but it was a good workout, there was no going to a gym--just put on my shoes and walk out the door.

Then I sprained my neck and upper back.  If you have never sprained your neck and upper back, allow me to tell you that your head is UNBELIEVABLY HEAVY if you are trying to carry it with your sprained neck.  The first time I sprained my neck (yes, the first time--I've done it five times in the past seven years) was two weeks before my wedding.  I was sitting on the sofa, watching tv, and thought, time to go for a run! I stood up, stretched, and heard the most godawful crunching noise in my neck.  And dropped to the floor, writhing in agony.

I guess I wasn't really writhing, as I was actually frozen in pain, as any move at all was excruciating.  The Mister took me a to doctor, who gave me Percocet.  That doctor was an idiot. Percocet barely touched the pain, and did nothing for the underlying problem, which were my spasming back muscles.  If you looked at me from the back, my left shoulder was hunched up to my ear.  You know how if you pick a piece of string that is unraveling from a sweater, and pull on it, it will scrunch up the sweater, almost like little waves?  My back muscles looked like that.  You could actually feel rivers and trenches in my back muscles. 

After two days of excruciating pain, my mother in law got me an appointement with the head of spinal surgery at a hospital in NYC.  That doctor said, well, you sprained your neck and back, you should be better in about six months or so, here are some muscle relaxers.  I was ca-razy high at my wedding. It was three months before I could turn my head far enough so that I could drive on my own, and at six months before I felt reasonably pain-free.

The second time I sprained my neck and back I was laying in bed on a Monday morning, about 6 am, and was thinking to myself, "I really wish I didn't have to go to work today."  I rolled over, heard the crunching noise, and wish granted!  I should have been a little more specific.

Since then I've sprained it about every year to 18 months.  Nothing as bad as the first time, but still enough to take me out for a couple days. 

#5 Meaning behind my blog name

Back in June of last year I was working on my mother in law's kitchen, bathroom and home office, and talking to my sisters on a daily basis about ideas for the spaces. (My sisters are my BFFs.)  I did a lot of internet window shopping, bothering my at-work sisters on gchat with links--look at this! Or how about this! I don't recall how it came about, but someone (maybe me?) said "you should have a blog."   


I toyed with it for a while, thought, ok, yes! I will blog!  However, original ideas are not my forte and I could not think of a good blog name.  I would have gone with the Mexican Casserole, but 1) I wanted a blog name that was meaningful to my family with the Mister and our kids, not a family joke from my childhood, and 2) an alcoholic divorcee in Atlanta had already absconded with the Mexican Casserole.  


At the time Peter was obsessed with the Pigeon series by Mo Willems, and my sister suggested I use Pigeon Starts a Blog...or Pigeon Has a Blog...or something about pigeons. I forget. I set up that blog for about 6 hours, then decided I hated that name and didn't want the copyrighted wrath of Mo Willems raining down on me, so I took it down, but couldn't figure out how to change my author name, so if you wonder why my early posts have "posted by Pigeon" on them, that's why.  


One Sunday the Mister and I were out and about running errands, and I was complaining vociferously about the incredibly high cost of housing located within an hour and a half of the Mister's job, and moving further away means that the Mister spends nearly as much time commuting as he does working...a rant the Mister has heard quite a few times....and he said "well, there you have it.  Trapped In North Jersey. Your new blog name."