kitchen dilemma

ok, i'm going to need your help on this one...

for a while now i have been wanting to buy an old stove. not for decoration. to use. as my stove. in my house. when we bought our house, we were ok with the stove in the kitchen for now...

...but we knew that we would eventually want to replace it. initially we were thinking of buying all new, stainless steel, blah blah blah, and we did buy a new stainless fridge that i love. but the more i think about my design style and how i want to live (simply, trying not to acquire so many possessions, and trying to buy used/vintage/salvaged as much as possible) i started to think that an old stove is what i should do instead of buying new. there are always lots of old stoves on craigslist, like this one...

...but being the worrier that i am i think about how i will know if it's useable or not, how will it fit it into my TINY kitchen, etc.

here's some examples of the same stove in other kitchens and i think it LOOKS great (both pictures are from sneak peeks on design sponge).

now, look at that very first picture of my kitchen and try to imagine how we might make it work. i think we would have to take out one section of the lower cabinets to the right or left of the stove to fit the slightly larger older stove and then build a narrow section of cabinets to fill in the remaining space. we are most likely going to replace the counter tops someday anyway, because we HATE them, but we were planning on doing these types of projects gradually instead of all at once to spread out the cost over time. so, if we decide to buy the stove from above from craigslist this kind of bumps up all of these projects to the more immediate future. this ultimately brings up bigger home project dilemmas for me. those of you who do DIY or reno projects understand: how far should we go with this reno? how much money should we invest in changing what we have? should i take some risks to go with what i love or just stick with what i have? are we going to stay in this house for a long enough time to make it worth it?

so my questions to you are: what would you do? what do you think of using an old stove instead of using modern appliances? do you have creative solutions for fitting it into my tiny space? should i go for it or play it safe?

spring

this is a lovely little screenprinted book my sis sent to me for my birthday. i decided to share some of the clever illustrations with you, especially those that reflect my mood lately...

i have been thoroughly enjoying getting outside with my camera, taking walks downtown for brunch, and basking in the sun this spring, but...

...it does come with a price.

approaching the end of another school year and i am deeply needing a...

alas there is no rest until june 2. 29 days of school left, and counting...

here are a few shots from around my yard and on the walk between my house and downtown:

i have a few single tulips that spring up every year. i really ought to plant some more bulbs to fill it in a bit. a single tulip seems a little depressing.

i found this winding vine-thing (honeysuckle maybe?) to be really curious. i like it.

blooming yard = happy black thumb!

despite my shameful neglect of my yard and my ominous past as a black-thumb plant-killer, the magnolia tree in our front yard has the most beautiful blooms. they only last a short while, so i ran outside with camera to capture the moment before the wind swept all of the petals away!

this is one of my favorite shots, but it was not a very pretty flower! the blooms almost begin to look burnt at the edges when they start to fall off, makes for very curious-looking photos!

loving my new camera and it's ability to zoom in very close! this is inside the magnolia bloom, you can actually see the pollen!

i did take some other fun pictures from around the yard, but they're still on the camera so that will have to be for another day...

i have not disappeared...

...i'm just busy, nearing the end of a long school year, and out of clever thoughts to share with the blogging world. maybe i should share un-clever thoughts. maybe i don't even have un-clever thoughts to share! so here's a brief summary for now:

*i have to take my comprehensive exams for my masters program tomorrow. it is four hours of writing. bleh. i will be finished with my masters in may barring a terrible disaster resulting in failure on an epic level! i'm excited and proud to finally be finished. but mostly excited about being able to just work without also being in school.

*the students are squirrel-ly, it's spring, we're all just holding on by the thinnest of threads of sanity. i'm running extremely low on grace, patience, logic and other positive qualities that are helpful for teaching.

*i have some new vintage finds (old-new, new-old, whatever) that i will eventually post...i've been storing up. there is a theme among the finds...i like items that function as containers, i like to contain...that's my teaser.

*i have tried running again for the first time since the maybe-stress-fracture...nothing spectacular, which is to be expected. the hip seems ok, but the knees are rebelling against this newfound activity called jogging!

*i have gorged myself on basketball but i'm not quite done! one more weekend of blessed basketball. go VCU! or Butler! i know they can't both win, but i'd really rather root for the underdogs than see stupid uconn or kentucky take the ultimate prize!

*to get me through the drought between the end of march madness and the beginning of football season i have indulged in purchasing some Sporting KC tickets (formerly KC Wizards...MLS soccer). fun times.

*couldn't decide what to give up for lent. so here's a list of things that have fallen to the wayside that i could choose from to give up: working out, reading for pleasure (not for my classes), sleep, blogging. i'm just kidding. is that sacrilegious? no, i'm just being dramatic because this is the time of year when everything else in life comes to a standstill to make way for "just getting through" to the end of school.

so that's all for now...the least i could do.