A Facelift for Hotel PM

So you know how the Super 8 Motel is ALWAYS under renovation? And how the sign ALWAYS says "Your inn for a super stay" (which always makes me hope that it's an intentional pun and not just a comment on the inadequacy of today's education system when it comes to homonyms).

Well, Hotel PM beat the Super 8 - we're updated and ready set for a super stay! Wanna see some pics?

(Note:  A design blogger I am not. A blurry-picture-poor-lighting-totally-not-the-same-angles blogger I definitely am.)

Here is the quasi-before of the quest room. It's actually after a fair bit of work, but I am also of the forget-to-take-proper-before-pictures variety of bloggers. That window? Used to be teeny weeny and definitely not ok if you were any larger than The Boy and needed to get out in a hurry. Also, you can kind of see on the right that the column of shelves continued further down the wall and they've been removed and patched.

And now look how pretty! 

Here you can see exactly where those shelves were. We took them out because there was already a lot of storage space and having them there definitely made the room seem smaller since you couldn't walk there.

Why is there a "bulletin board" made of the backside of a sheet of plywood that is framed for some reason? And a little closet door that leads to the water meter (even though you can totally get to it from the other side)? Good questions! The answer is that this house is 100 years old and we've learned not to ask "why" anymore.

(For example - why is the button to open the garage door located not by the door to the garage but instead tucked beneath the shelf in the closet in the laundry room so it took us two weeks to even find it? Again...we don't ask.)

But there's no "why" that can't be solved by a bit of paint:

Now I must ask you to oooh and aaah with me in surprise at The Husband's mad DIY skillz. I knew he would do amazing things with metal (RIP, sweet, sweet Jetta), but wood? This I did not know. And yet, who whipped out a built-in desk in a couple of hours? Yeah, I pretty much have that Carson the carpenter guy from that HGTV show living at my house. Who knew?

And now onto the room that would totally win all the votes if we were playing "what is the strangest room in PM's house" - the downstairs bathroom.

AKA - holy how-many-trees-died-to-make-this Batman?

AKA - huh - who knew that you could cover an ENTIRE bathroom in wood panelling.

AKA - this bathroom is bigger than most bedrooms but features an airplane-sized sink and squishes ALL the fixtures up onto one wall.

THIS bathroom:

Seriously. Every time I used it I would shake my head and say, why??

But now I go in there and I smile:

Is it still kind of crazy? Yes. I mean - what is this?? Some kind of dry sauna sans doors? Some kind of grow-op? (You know I'm totally starting my seedlings in here next spring.)

But add a bit of white paint and suddenly it's much more worthy of pretty new towels than of greenhouse comparisons.

So. Much. Paneling.

Still a crazy amount of paneling. But now prettier! And brighter!

You'll notice I went with classic white. I am NEVER painting this room again, so I didn't dare take a risk with any colour that might go out of style in the next 50 years. See those grooves? All those little corners? Ack - it took me so unbelievably long to paint. And so much oil-based primer to cover the wood. I lost a lot of brain cells. But so worth it!

Now you're possibly wondering why Hotel PM downgraded to a single bed guest room as there typically aren't many reservations for that type of room. I'm pleased to announce that we are at 100% occupancy from now until after Christmas - we have the sweetest, most wonderful young woman from France living with us who will be working as a teacher intern at The Boy's school. We're loving getting to know her and practicing our French while she is being very patient with us and working on her own English skillz. And hopefully she's feeling cozy and homey down in her new super stay digs!

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Garden Update: A Tale of Two Sides

It's that time of year - are you all successfully ducking your coworkers/neighbours/church friends/family who are trying to gift you with zucchini and tomatoes and cucumbers and all the rest of their garden plenty?

Alas,there is no ducking required on my part. Apparently I know no one with garden plenty.

Including me, more's the pity.

Since we last left our garden, we've had some successes and failures. The basil on the porch is looking pretty good (especially since it hasn't had much rain and its pot doesn't hold a whole lot of water):

Ditto on the mint. Although apparently this stuff is pretty hard to kill.

Behold my overflowing patch of lettuce and spinach:

My voluminous kale on the left and my cornucopia of zucchini on the right:

The Girl's proliferating green onions, towering dill, and bountiful peas:

The Boy's sky-high stalks of corn and bean poles groaning with the weight of their largesse:

Okay, so it hasn't been a year of plenty for us. I think the biggest issue is that I completely underestimated how quickly raised beds dry out. I've been watering them, but it's been so unbelievably hot this summer. Days and days of 30 degrees, sunny, no rain.

*Awesome* if you're the girl who has to do the mowing (I think I've done it twice since the end of June), but less awesome on the produce front.

I'd say that this picture captures the state of the garden at the back of the house - a bit green, mostly brown, bedraggled. Even the dwarf has capitulated.

But! Check out the other side of the house:

Red and rosy and juicy and soooo delicious. My tomatoes are doing quite well, if I do say so myself:

Not to be outdone by the peppers - not many of them, but they're lookin' good:

Now I know most gardeners will demur and say, "oh, Mother Nature did the hard work - all I did was help them along a bit."

Not I - what you are beholding is the work of that mighty goddess of fertility, Peitricia "Tomato Whisperer" Mae. My tomatoes weren't coming, nor my green peppers, and my hair stylist (that deep repository of green thumb wisdom) suggested that maybe the bees weren't doing their thang.

You know - that thing. Ferrying pollen. You know - flower S-E-X.

I realized I hadn't seen many bees around. Partly because I have zero flowers this year.

So I took matters into my own hands, and me and my Q-tip and my tomato buds had ourselves a little IVF party.

And, as witnessed above, it TOTALLY worked.

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How I Spent My Family Vacation

Once again, The Husband wins the prize. If "Trip Planning" were an Olympic sport (and seriously, if motorboating used to be in the Olympics, I feel quite positive that coming up with a family vacation that pleases most of the family most of the time should be on that list as well), he would win the gold medal.

And since he does this every year, he's pretty much the Michael Phelps of The Lonely Planet.

Let's watch the highlight reel from this year's performance, shall we?

The Family PM headed northeast this year - to an area called the Upper Peninsula. It involves Wisconsin and Michigan. And Lake Superior and Lake Michigan. Kind of in that order.

(I have to say that the downside of the ol' GPS is that you never get the same sense of where you've been as you do with an atlas. Plus, ours is an unnecessarily vague one. Her favourite instruction is "follow the road." Um, thanks. Will do.)

The first weekend was spent in a little resort town. Know what's more awesome than owning a cabin? Having a friend who owns a cabin and lets you stay there! It was fabulous.

While there, we took a boat tour of the Apostle Islands. (Wisconsin somewhere. I'm pretty sure. You'll have to look it up.) It was too rough to kayak, but we still got close-ups of the caves.

It was a seven-hour tour, so we definitely needed some time to stretch our legs on one of the islands.

I'm kind of getting the appeal of The Cabin. I used to not understand it - why have two houses when I can barely keep up with one? But when one of the houses is a short nature trail away from Lake Superior, I could maybe see myself being willing to do a bit of extra cleaning.

Plus who needs to do any cooking in that kitchen when you've got restaurants nearby that serve huge plates of nachos and overlook the marina?

Having explored cabin country, we hopped back into our trusty covered wagon. Here she is in the early days of the trip - still kinda shiny. (The Husband whimpered every time he heard someone open a chip bag in the back and his shoulders slumped a little more each day when he looked at the mess in the back.)

Ah, the family road trip. Such a time of togetherness. Of playing games. Of fighting over who has more space. Of being forced to listen to the #1 Hits station yet again (guess who knows all the words to Call Me Maybe? Oh yeah...this girl).

Plus the annoyance luxury of being forced to getting to pull over every half hour because someone has to pee stop and smell the roses anytime the fancy takes you.

Or, in our case, finding a hidden waterfall.

And putting our own stamp on it.

Our next stop was Pictured Rocks. (Michigan-ish?) I think it was still Lake Superior. Although you wouldn't know it - that's some pretty blue water.... Looks more like the Caribbean yes? Except replace pine trees with palm trees, I guess.

Blue water, a beautiful beach...everyone had a great time.

Including one chillaxing Mama who did this for two hours.

After the beach day, it was hiking day! We dragged those kids on a 10 mile hike and they did AMAZING! I was honestly shocked. We fueled them up with frequent granola bar and applesauce breaks, but otherwise they just kept trekking for almost six hours.

This might have been my favourite day, actually. Walking around the lakeshore, chatting with my kids, and enjoying the scenery.

And snuggling.

And what's this? More Mama chillaxing. (That's right. Bringing the Can Con. CBC Represent.)

Mosquito Beach. Inappropriately named, since we got zero bites. (Okay by me.) Instead, just rocks and sand and waves.

A happy hike family:

Probably because of this (The Husband totally pegs it):

From the wilderness to civilization...ish. Our next adventure required a ferry ride. A fast and apparently very fun one.

We spent a couple of days on Mackinac Island. (Do not be fooled by the "ac" at the end. It is pronounced "Mackinaw." Apparently it is French. We can't come up with one another word that works that way. Oh well.)

No cars allowed on MackinacAW Island. Just horse taxis.

And bikes!

(You just know I was singing "Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer true..." on this one!)

And chillaxing. Just takin' a bike break.

Best thing about traveling with older kids? You don't actually have to be with them 100% of the time. Weary of a day of biking and touring and desperate for the hotel room TV (we got begged several times over the course of the trip to renew our cable subscription), the kids were deliriously happy when we picked up take-out pizza for them and plopped them in front of SpongeBob with a phone to receive texts about putting on pajamas while we popped down the street for a Grown Up Date.

Complete with crazy drinks with pickles in them.

(This picture is slightly out of focus. Someone has had too many pickles, methinks.)

There's an old fort on the island to visit, and the kids were absolutely taken by a game called Graces involving sticks and hoops and tossing them back and forth. The Boy cares not that it is an 18th century game for girls so they can play without becoming unladylike.

Looks ladylike to me:

After the island came Sleeping Bear Dunes. Apparently this is the most beautiful place in America per Good Morning America. Not sure about that, but it was definitely a looooooong climb to the top. (The kids are in green and red. I'm the girl slogging in the black at the bottom.)

A lovebird picture. (Heh heh, The Husband forgot his shaver on the trip, so I got the unexpected treat of beard season in the summer. Rowr!)

What's this - more beach? Bigger waves? Bring it on, they say!

While Mama...you know.... (I don't do water.)

I do do cherry pie. And cherry iced tea. And playing games with cherries.

Our last night was preceded by a ferry ride across Lake Michigan. It looks like it will be fun:

However, a 1:00 AM docking after four hours of 15 foot swells and constant rocking (and a mama who forgot Gravol) looked more like this:

Fortunately for you all, I do NOT have a picture of the hotel bathroom two minutes after someone (who shall remain nameless to protect the innocent but who very happily returned for seconds at the all-you-can-eat buffet we hit prior to the ferry ride) said, "oh...I don't feel so good...."

(Guess who drew the short straw? Hint:  I can tell you with good authority that Bill the night cleaning man at the Holiday Inn Express in Manitowac is very helpful at procuring paper towels at 2:00 AM.)

But explosions of other sorts aside, the trip was definitely an explosion of fun. We loved each other up good and didn't even hate each other when we got back. We were happy to explore Wisconsin and Michigan and beaches and fudge shops and forts...and even happier to get home.

So to the top of the podium with you, The Husband! Once again, you earned it, Mr. Phelps!

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