Day to day things

No new pics at the moment. Just a quick update.

I'm covered in decorator white, semi-gloss paint. Baseboards and closet shelves. Call me a perfectionist, but I can't stand to paint all the trim all over our house pretty new white and then leave our closet shelves dingy dirty white. Besides, I figure I have to look at my closet just about every day, so why not make it pretty too? We're doing a deep espresso in the master bath area, so I'm probably gonna carry that into the closets. And pretty brown walls need pretty white shelves. :)

David's working in the kitchen. We're not completely replacing all of our cabinets, but we're changing the layout a little and giving them a facelift. We're taking out the old oven (the one that doesn't fit my cookie sheets....) and putting in an oven/range. We're cutting out some shelves in some wasted space and putting in cabinets in on the peninsula -- which I think might turn out to be a pretty blue -- eeek! Quite the project, but we're trucking along quite nicely.

We got another dog. His name is Fleck. He's a German Shorthaired Pointer just like Jetta, but we think he's full-bred. He's bigger and brown instead of black. He has a big brown spot on his butt -- Fleck means 'spot' in German -- so there ya go. I like it. :) And I like him. Although, Jetta is a bit jealous of our attention towards him. But she was a little crazy to begin with. A little inferiority complex shouldn't make things too much worse. I hope. :)

And I played Macgyver this morning when I woke up. I went to open the door - and I was locked inside my bedroom. Well, not technically. The doorknob had broken on the inside - where I was conveniently located. Normally, I would freak out at a time like this, but I pulled it together, assessed the situation, and gathered potentially usable tools. Tweezers, nail clippers, and a paperclip were about all I could find. I tried jiggling the knob, unscrewing the knob, tweezing the latch. No luck. After about 20 minutes of fruitless attempts, I called David. "Have you tried using a credit card?" Duh.... One swipe, and I was free. Hey, I was just proud of myself for not hyperventilating or going all claustrophobic. I was a little late for work, but my usually intimidating director just made a little fun of me and didn't scold me for being tardy. Ah, c'est la vie....

"The future is no place to place your better days...."

Home Ownership, part, eh... who's counting anymore...?

So last weekend, I gave up.
Since we moved into this house, I kept thinking that our renovations would take much less time than they have in reality. When we bought the house in February, I thought - surely we can get everything done in a month. If we just work work work, we'll get it done. But after two months, I kinda had a breakdown, and cried for like a full weekend because our house was still such a mess. Then, after March had passed, I thought - okay. Three more months, and surely we'll be finished. Not as quick as I thought it would be, but hey, what can ya do? Sure enough, two weeks ago, I had a similar breakdown as the one in March. There was a some crying involved, and a whole lotta, "I can't LIVE like this anymore!!!" Which can be at least somewhat understood, because THIS:



is what my livingroom looks like right now....!! (Notice the dust under the side table and sofa... Even after putting up protective plastic, the dust carried to EVERY single part of the house.... Aye aye aye...)

So. last weekend, I gave up. I came to the realization that it will probably be at the very least six more months before I really feel like this house is "done." That it's at a point where I feel like it's 'home,' and I don't have to apologize every time somebody comes over. And even then, we still probably won't have all the little projects done. And even if we do have all the little projects done -- we won't have even touched the outside..... Living in a construction zone for a year wasn't exactly what I had in mind when we bought our first place, but I just keep telling myself that when everything's finally finished, it'll be worth all the hard work and discomfort, and we'll have a home that's ten times better than it was when we found it.... Here's hoping!

The most recent project - that only took two weekends - was the flooring on the kitchen side of the house. We have a dining/kitchen/eat-in/utility/half-bath on one side of our house, and the floor extends throughout each of these spaces, so to make it feel more open and cohesive, we decided to carry the same staining/scoring treatment all the way from one end to the other. I think it turned out nicely. It's a little darker than our original plan, but I think we can work it out in combination with the other changes we're planning. Here are some before/during/after shots. All of them are taken from our utility room.

This is after ripping up the carpet in the dining room and the vinyl in the kitchen/utility/half-bath, and sanding the concrete down.

After scoring. I know the color looks different, but it's just the lighting. At this point, it was still boring old gray.

This is post-staining, pre-sealing. I loved the color after this step, and I kinda wish we could've left it like this, but since concrete is porous, it's not the best idea to leave it unsealed.

And finally, post-sealer. Again, the color looks super yellow because of the lighting (and because of my camera), but it's a little darker and browner than this. This is one of the first projects that I think David and I worked on together - just the two of us - from start to finish, so it feels really good to look at what we did as a team. :)

Yesterday, we had to clean the residue off of the floor and let it dry for eight hours before we could seal it, so we went to hang out with the Walkers for the afternoon. I gave Josh a haircut, and since I was playing beauty shop, we all decided as a group that I should straighten David's hair with Angela's Chi. David was not so happy with the result, but it makes me giggle. :)

Teeheeheeeee..... :)


"Me and you. And you and me. No matter how they tossed the dice, it's meant to be. The only one for me is you, and you for me. So happy together.....! Bum bum bum bum bum buh duh duh duh duh duh. Buh bum bum bum....."

Family Addition.

Okay, friends. So last week, David calls me at work and asks, "Hey babe, would your day be any better if there was a dog in your back yard when you came home?" David's been looking for a dog for a while now. We mourned our sweet little Derf, and we decided it was time to adopt another pooch. My day, at the time, had been just fine, so David's question left me smirking and thinking, "Yeah right, like he's really gonna bring a dog home..." But sure enough, when I pulled up to our garage, I saw the puppy paws of this:

in our backyard. To be honest, it took me a little while to warm up to the little dear. It's only been a month since Derf ran away. But it didn't take long before the sweetheart won me over. She's a 6-month-old German Shorthaired pointer with the sweetest disposition and TONS of energy. (Thank goodness we have a big backyard!) The family who previously owned her named her Paris - but we didn't like that, so we named her Jetta. Heeheee... :) Since moving into Chateau Smith, she's learned to sit, shake, and fetch. Well, okay, she really already knew how to sit and fetch, but we've perfected those skills since she got here. We love taking her out and playing - she's just the sweetest thing.

Monday night, I got home from work early, and David had to work late. I thought to myself, "I'll just take that sweet little dog for a walk." So I did. I didn't get far before I realized I didn't have my cell phone with me, and I thought David might be concerned to find his wife's car in the driveway but no wife in the house. Once I got back to the house, I didn't wanna walk anymore, so I thought to myself, "I'll just take her out on the bike. I've seen David do it a million times. Surely it's not that hard." ......... Eeesh.

Not 3 houses down our quiet little street does Jetta's leash get caught in my front tire and the back tire leap into the air, sending me straight over the handlebars.... The slow-motion freefall toward the black asphalt sent thoughts of broken teeth and scar tissue through my head, and I landed abruptly, tangled in the leash and front tire. I caught a quick breath, and shortly after, the bike landed right after me - on top of me..... (shakes head, lowers head, giggles...) Seriously, this is why I don't do anything adventurous. This is why I don't ever take risks. Inevitably something bad is going to happen. Some sort of injury is sure to wreck any hope of excitement or fun. I just need to accept this fact....

Anyways, once I realized I was still alive, no bones were broken, my face was unharmed, and sweet Jetta was still content, I sat on the side of our street laughing and shrugging my shoulders until my phone rang. David called to tell me he was on his way home, and of course, that sent me into weepy little girl mode. I hung up the phone, bit my lower lip and held it together until I got in the house - where the waterworks let loose. I'm telling you, the word, "Waahh," literally came out of my mouth. I heard, coming from my 26-year-old self, the same noises I heard a few weeks ago when my friend tried to put his 3-year-old to bed. I'm such a little kid....

So now I have a busted knee, a twisted ankle, a skinned elbow and a bunch of bruises. I've been wobbling around my office like an old woman for the past few days, but really I'm doing just fine. I probably won't be taking the dog for a bikeride anytime soon, but nevertheless, I'll survive. :)

By the way, apparently this whole dog bike thing is an actual sport called bikejoring. The video below is in a language foreign to me and it has pretty obnoxious music - but it shows you what I attempted and failed at miserably.




Notice the HELMETS and the PADS. Ugh...... :)

"...that we are blessed beyond what we could ever dream in abundance or in need."