January

My goal is to crank through some posts this week... I've gotten out of the habit of regular blogging and it's more overwhelming if you aren't current.  So, without further adieu, here are our January happenings:

I refinished our kitchen table top!!  After quite a few mishaps (nail polish remover being the biggest whoopsie) it was in pretty sour shape.  If I would've known earlier how easy it was to strip (I used Citri-Strip) and stain I would've done it a long time ago.  Seriously, it was EASY... so easy in fact that I did it twice - see below.  Here is a close-up of the damaged top and a picture after I've stripped it.

 The pic below is my first attempt at staining the table.  I wanted to try something different and found some super cute pieces of green furniture on Pinterest so I headed down that road.  I actually loved the way the table looked in person but it was too rustic, artsy/craftsy for my kitchen.  Maybe the green would be perfect on a smaller accent piece? So, I stripped it again and stained it to look like the original table.  I'm very pleased with the results. :)  Also, you may notice that I've finally replaced my unstable barstools with these fun, modern, steel ones - yea!

I know I'm in the minority, but I love all the snow we've gotten this year.  Matt helped the kids form a pretty great sledding hill (about 20 yards long!) in our front yard and Bradley built a gigantic igloo.  Good times.

Matt got PRK surgery on his eyes at the end of the month.  It's similar to Lasik; it's a safer procedure but the downside is that it's a long and painful recovery.  He had to wear eye protection for about a week and lay around the house with his eyes closed listening to books on tape.  His recovery isn't quite what we'd hoped (he's dealing with a lot of pressure and haze and is trying different meds to remedy it) but we're excited at the prospect of him finally having perfect vision.