New Kitchen Countertops

I shared earlier that we had our kitchen countertops redone. I love it, and now I want to share some before and after pictures. We replaced our white with black speckled granite-tile counter top with a brown speckled Silestone (quartz) countertop. This contrasts nicely with our light kitchen cabinets/flooring/ tile. It's weird because even though the two countertops are different in color, the pictures don't look that different. We also extended our countertop to create an eating bar which gives me even more countertop space (to clutter up). I'm so excited. Now we just have to get some bar stools. The remodel also included a new gas cooktop (which I also love), a new dishwasher, and an undermount deep sink. The sink and faucet are fabulous. We wonder why we didn't do this a lot sooner. Oh well. It's done now and I am very happy. Yippee.

Wordless Wednesday: Weird Spring

Why I Blog Blog

I was tagged by my good friend, Julie, to answer these questions. Her answers are really good. Please do not expect too much from me:

1. Why did you start your blog?

I thought it would be a great way to keep family and friends posted on our daily lives, whether they want to know or not. Plus, I've been really lazy about writing emails. This way I only have to type once.

2. How did you come up with your blog name?

The Lohstroh Lowdown was short and to the point. It works for me.

3. Do your friends and family know about your blog and what do they think?

I think I sent this link to all my computer savvy friends and family. What they think of it, I don't know. My friends Deb and Julie leave comments so I know someone is reading them. Thanks guys!

4. How do you write posts?

Usually I'm so far behind in posting that I think I'm first! I basically blog about our Not-so-exciting lives. As you can tell, it's so Not-so-exciting that I haven't been blogging on a regular basis like I wanted to. Oh well.

5. Have you ever had a troll or had to delete unkind comments?

No.... what's a troll?

6. Do you check your stats or care how many people read your blog. If you care how do you increase traffic?

I'm pretty much blogging for my own benefit. It's like a journal for me. So really, stats don't matter to me.

Thanks Julie for the tag. Now I choose Deb. I hope she gets her blog site up and running. I'm excited to see it.

Happy Anniversary

Daryl and I celebrated our 12 year wedding anniversary yesterday. I can't believe it's already been 12 years. We used to make a big deal about it and do a lot of fun and exciting things: Bed and breakfast, flowers, cruise (for our 10 year). But now that we are busy with the kids, we are lucky if we exchange cards. We did however go out to dinner, just the two of us. We tried a new restaurant in town called The Melting Pot. It's a chain fondue restaurant. Oh my gosh. It was so much fun. We had a quaint booth in our own little room. It was very intimate. Then we splurged on the the 4 course dinner which included appetizer (cheese fondue), salad, a variety of meat fondue, and dessert (chocolate fondue! YUM!). I ate way too much over the course of 2 hours. I don't remember being so uncomfortable (except being pregnant, of course). Ohhhh. I'm still feeling very full today. The place was awesome. It is a bit spendy, but the ambiance is wonderful. I recommend it. Next time we may skip the main course and just stick with cheese and chocolate. YUMMY!!!

Crazy Week

Normally you could ask what we've been up to all week and my typical response would be that we've been keeping busy. Busy doing what, I never seem to recall, but we have been busy.....weird, I know. Once again, this past week we've been busy, but this time I know why. It's actually been a bit crazy, but crazy is good every once in a while. So here is our week:

1. PartyLite: I've been keeping occupied with the PartyLite candles trying to do 6 shows a month. If I can do this for 3 months there are some added incentives for me. April is month #3, so after this month, things should slow down. Daryl can't wait. He's told me numerous times that this was not what the original agreement was when I signed on to be a consultant. I know honey, but just look at all the free stuff I'm getting!
2. JBF: This is my first time being a consignor for Just Between Friends, a huge consignment sale for baby and kid stuff. I've been holding on to all this baby stuff for what seems like forever, so I've finally decided to get rid of it all. A lot of it was my sister's, but she doesn't want it back. I told her I'd try to sell it and then she can get some money for it all. Well, of course I waited until the last minute, so this last weekend I was frantically washing, sorting and pricing all the stuff to sell. It actually went pretty well, but it was still a lot of work. The consignment sale is this weekend. Hopefully we can make a couple of bucks!
3. Work: The year started off slow for my work, but all of a sudden in April, things are picking up and I'm trying to get a few hours in to help out with some of the projects. I even made a site visit to Sandpoint, ID to visit the hospital there. I haven't made site visits since Henry's been born. I guess I'm slowly getting back into the swing of things. It was nice to get out for awhile, but now I have some work to do at home.
4. MOPS: I joined a "Mothers Of Pre-Schoolers" group through one of the local churches. We get together once a month at the church and have breakfast, do a craft and have a speaker. Plus there is child care. It's a break for all us moms with little ones. Well, April is Spa-day for MOPS. Oh so nice. Well, I thought I'd set up a table and do some advertising for PartyLite. We have a Spa line, you know. I had candles burning to create some ambiance. It was good PR, but it did take me some time to prepare for it. All of which added to my hectic week. I'm glad I did it though. I did however, miss out on a lot of the spa stuff (massage, pedicure, facials) since I was manning my table. Oh well, hopefully next year I can take full advantage of Spa-day.
5. Kitchen Makeover: We finally had new countertops put in the kitchen. We had refaced our cabinets a few years ago, but didn't have the countertops done (they were going to cost as much as the cabinets). So, we waited. Finally I said we need to countertops. The granite tiles that we had were uneven and just plain ugly. This week the contractor came in and completed our task. Of course the price had gone up since the last time. Yikes. Oh well, they are gorgeous and totally worth it. I will post pictures later. We picked a darker Silestone quartz countertop to contrast with our light maple cabinets and beige tile floors. It looks great. We also got a new sink, faucet, dishwasher and gas cooktop. I'm so excited. We were out of our kitchen for a few days this week which added to our week's craziness. But hey, we got to go out for dinner a couple of times. We haven't done that in a long time.
6. Cold or teeth? Natalie hasn't been feeling well this last week. I don't know if she just has a cold, or maybe some new teeth are coming in. She's been extra fussy and is running a low temperature. The poor thing isn't sleeping well at all. Not that she sleeps well at night anyway, but now it's worse. I've been up with her the last few nights and am a complete zombie. No wonder this week has been a blur.

Whew! I'm sure this may not seem to hectic too alot of you, but for me and my slow paced life, I'm exhausted. Thankfully the weekend is near!

Wordless Wednesday: Hello Spring!