tOWeL

Holy crap you guys... I'm completely geeking out right now. LOOK AT WHAT I JUST MADE.

I took 3 innocent towels:

1 bath, 2 hand

Then I gave them a face:

And ears:

First try ears are a little uneven.  Oh well.

 

And a forehead:

And got a bath towel! For the baby! And apparently for me! Well, not really, but I was the only model available...

 

How awesome is that? I've had the towels to make this for a while, but I hadn't gotten a chance to yet, with all the other "emergency" projects that I was working on. I found the tutorial here.  She's got a ton of other towels patterns on her site.  I'm planning on making a lady bug one too, but I think one was enough for tonight.  It only took me about an hour probably.

L.Soup's towels are all getting too small for her.  So I'm pretty excited about making some new ones to replace the tiny baby ones we are still using somehow.

Too Cute!

A nice little weekend

First and foremost, we found this little guy on the back of the truck. I can't remember what day we found him, but I'm pretty sure it was this weekend at some point.

Sup?

A few months ago, my grandfather gave me two praying mantis nests to relocate to my house.  They are supposed to eat mosquitoes, so I happily took them.  I think they've finally hatched!  This is the only one we've seen so far, but I thought it was pretty cool.  Saturday we saw him again, on the garage door.  I moved him back to the safety of the flower bed.  I haven't seen him since.

Friday my parents kindly kept L.Soup and brought her home for bedtime so that we could do this:

Pretty sunset

Our friends have a boat, and asked us to go fishing with them after work. We had a great time and it was absolutely beautiful.

Saturday we cleaned up around the house in the morning. We all ended up napping when L.Soup was ready. That's one good part about her not taking naps in her crib, its an excuse for us to nap too!  After her nap, we went down to the beach in our neighborhood.  It was a beautiful day out, and the water was so warm. We walked around in the water and on the sand for about 45 minutes, and then we came back home.

L.Soup got a bath, and we changed our clothes and headed to Target!  I decided during the week that I needed 2 things in my life:

1.  A "recycle bin" trash can
2.  A basket for all L.Soup's dirty bibs and wash clothes.

I had a trash can I wanted to use already, problem was, it was being used in L.Soup's bedroom.  And it was definitely overkill for what we needed in there.  So we found a smaller, replacement trash can that fits perfectly in the space.  So we moved the bigger trash can downstairs next to our actual trash can.  I'm going to make some stickers with the little "recycling" symbol, so that its clearly marked for guests.  Now I just have to teach L.Soup the difference between the two!

The basket is actually working perfectly.  It's exactly what we needed to put her dirty stuff in.  When it fills up, we just carry it upstairs.  It's much easier than scooping it all up off the table and trying to fumble up the stairs with it as a pile in  your arms.  I already have enough problems going up the stairs.  On top of the fact that usually I'm not alone when I'm making the trip anymore.

We got back from Target later than we expected to, and L.Soup was HUNGRY.  We had dinner planned out already, but hadn't taken the chicken out of the freezer.  Luckily it thawed pretty fast in a bowl of hot water, and we were able to make a delicious version of Cajun Chicken Pasta.  We substituted asparagus for mushrooms because D.Soup does not like them, and we had asparagus in the fridge.

It was a delicious decision. A serving size is 1.5 cups. The meal itself makes 7.5 cups so we had a million left overs. It was so amazingly good. We've made it before but I had forgotten how yummy it was. Also, luckily it is really filling, so I didn't even eat over my serving size.

NOM NOM NOM.

Sunday we did some more cleaning, packed up a bunch of things that don't belong to us and took them over to my parent's house so they could be delivered to where they actually belong.  It was great to get more stuff moved out of the main level of our house.  The last thing we really need to do is switch around where the couch and loveseat are and the living room will be complete (for now).  D.Soup went out for a few hours with his brother, so L.Soup and I settled in for a nap.  Not soon after we woke up, D.Soup came back home.  So the timing worked out really well for us.

The rest of the afternoon we played, had leftovers of the deliciousness above, and watched Firefly because I had control of the remote it's awesome.  We all went upstairs when it was time for L.Soup to go to bed.  When I came out of her room D.Soup was asleep on the bed!  Rude.  I went in and took a bath in scalding hot water, and it was glorious.  He was still asleep when I got done.  So I went back downstairs and watched TWO (!) more hours of Firefly before I came upstairs and finally got in bed.

Then, it felt like someone was playing a cruel joke on me, because I couldn't fall asleep for almost an hour.  That was terrible.

I fully intend on finishing the foyer wall this week.  So I can finally stop talking about it and actually show it to you.  Other than that I don't have much planned for this week.

We'll see how that works out.

PS How many times did I say "delicious" when referring to my dinner.
Obviously I liked it.
Jeez.

End of June recap. I am really far behind.

I've been quite busy in the time since I last posted any crafty update... so busy that this post is all about stuff that happened in June!  But I'm starting to feel a little embarrassed in the amount of time it's taking me to finish these things I've started.  Let's recap:

1.  Foyer wall.  Got the new paint to finish the base layer for this wall.  Have not even thought about opening it.  I think now I need a new roller, since I was all "oh I'll be right back to this in a few days" and never cleaned off the old roller, just wrapped it in saran wrap.  *sigh*

2.  Boxes for the nursery.  I FINALLY FINISHED THEM.  If L.Soup wasn't already asleep I would march this last part up there right now and take pictures of all of them together.  Its taken so long to get these done.  I'll be happy when I don't have to look at them anymore.  For a "quick project" they've been misery.  Okay, that's an exaggeration.  I just didn't expect them to take this long.  They are looking super cute though, can't wait for them to be done so I can take pictures of them!  I put the two bookshelf boxes in her room already because I was sick of books all over.  I'll get some pictures tomorrow and post that right up.

3. A present for my mom.  I have been working on this for a while, and originally you all were supposed to see this post before the reveal of the surprise.  But I finished it and gave it to her yesterday.  So that post went up because I got excited about it.

4.  Sewing.  Just all general sewing projects.  Which have been on hold since I decided that I NEEDED the boxes to be done.  Most important was L.Soup's 4th of July outfit.  Well I actually did get this finished, the morning of the 4th (I'm totally not a procrastinator). I also made a pattern for some bibs that I'm going to make for her.  So, there's a step in the right direction.

Now let's move on to the reasons I haven't gotten anything done.

First, and most importantly: Saturday, June 22 was Girls Day Out.  There were cupcakes, and shopping, and day drinking, and more cupcakes, and BRUNO MARS.  And it was incredible!  It was one of my friend's birthdays, so we did an entire day of celebrating. I have a ton of pictures, but I didn't really dedicate a post to it, and now it's almost a month past and I feel I've missed the boat.  Whoops.

Then Sunday D.Soup went fishing in the morning, and we hung out with some OTHER friends for dinner and frozen yogurt.  Now, I'm not usually one to choose frozen yogurt over ice cream.  But I must say that Yolavie is actually really good.  We've been there twice in the last few days.  We've had other places that we really were not happy with, but I can be down with sometimes substituting.  Not all the time. No no no no.

In other (more disgusting, sorry) news.  Sunday morning I went to snuggle in with L.Soup on the couch for nap time.  And smelled something strange.  I started looking around, and found cat pee on my couch!  GAH!  I couldn't believe it.  I was so sad all the rest of the day.  I cleaned up as much of it as I could, but of course he peed right where the back of the couch meets the seat, so I was never 100% sure that I got it all.

Now let me explain...  One of my cats is very particular about the cleanliness of his litter box.  We are normally really good about taking care of it, but sometimes it goes a little bit longer than it should before we clean it.  We have 2 boxes, but haven't really found a good place for the second one, so currently we're working with 1, which is not a good thing when you have 2 cats.  Anywho.   A few times in the past, he's used the couch as a litter box.  I don't know why he decided on the couch, but that's where he goes.  I guess its because he knows we are there all the time.  But never NEVER before has he peed.  It's always been poop...  Which sounds like it would be more disgusting than pee...  But in actuality I've always been grateful because cat pee is not something that you can get out of ANYTHING.  It always smells.  *sigh*

So immediately when D.Soup got home I demanded that we go to the furniture store and pick out a new couch.  We found one that we liked, but we were still looking around when a salesman came up and started talking to us.  We ended up asking him about getting animal urine smells out of the couch and he asked if we had gotten a warranty on the couch when we had purchased it.  And we had.  So we felt a little better about that.  AND we found the matching loveseat to the couch we currently have, which had been discontinued, and was on sale!  So we bought that and headed home happier with the news that we could have someone come clean the couch and get use out of our warranty...

WELL, come to find out.  Because there is no actual stain on the couch, and it's just smell, the warranty does not cover it!  Of course not!  How is a couch that's DARK BROWN going to get a stain on it EVER.  Answer?  IT'S NOT.  So what's the point of paying for a warranty (which we really only got BECAUSE of situations like this) if it's not going to cover the ONE TIME I need it.  I was so angry.  It does cover other things, like scratches and if its broken, things of that nature.  So I guess there's still a chance for me to need it.  But why INCLUDE "pet urine" and "pet feces" into the list, when you know the only REAL worry with those things is the SMELL. 

hurumph





Moving on...

On Tuesday's schedule was the delivery of a shed D.Soup bought with his bonus money.  The only problem is the delivery time was 9-5.  And someone needed to be there to sign for it.  Luckily my parents came over in the morning and watched L.Soup at our house and waited for the delivery. 

Wednesday was the pick up for our new loveseat.  D.Soup and one of our friends drove over to the furniture place and picked it up while I picked L.Soup up from my parents.  We got there about the same time.  I got everything together to pass the boat pads on to our friend while they put the few pieces.  When they finished putting the loveseat together, they plopped down onto it, reclined both their seats and started holding hands... I just about fell over.  I was laughing too hard to even think about getting my camera, and I'm really sad about that now.  Then we handed over the boat pads...
He was happy to have them (and to not have spent a million dollars on them) and I was happy to get them out of my house.  At least I got one thing completed.

I borrowed a wet vac and went to work on the couch.  I'm hoping that fixed all the issues.

After that we met D.Soup's family for dinner.  I got a salad because everything else on the menu at Friendly's is well over 900 calories, and that's a bit extreme.  By the time we got home and got Little Miss to bed, we were not in the mood to do anything.  So we sat on our new loveseat and watched the first episode of this season on Rizzoli and Isles! I was so excited that it was coming back on!

source

That next weekend was filled with building the shed, laundry and preparing for vacation!

More on that later.

Finishing touches to the nursery. Part 1

So I didn't manage to get a whole lot accomplished this weekend.  That doesn't mean we didn't DO a million things, just that my to do list is still sitting there, mostly uncrossed.

Today I woke up to a bouquet of yucky emotions: sad/angry/general unhappiness and malaise.  I'm hoping that as soon as I get started on some of my projects, that will all change.  We are heading to the hardware store today to pick up some things so I can actually get some projects done!  Some more paint, since I ran out when I was working on the wall.  Some other pieces for projects that I haven't started yet. 

Fast forward a few hours...

Turns out I didn't need as much at the hardware store as I thought.   D.Soup ended up with more for the boat than I did for the crafts.  We stopped at Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner,  and I made the mistake of ordering 2 sets of spicier wings.  And now I look 5 months pregnant because my stomach is NOT happy about all that heat.   We got L.Soup naked chicken... and she refused to eat any of it.  Sometimes she's a vegetarian and other days she devours anything we put in front of her.  So tonight she had a well rounded meal of fries, pickles, and mandarin oranges.  Ugh.  Well, better luck tomorrow.

My intention is to work on some boxes for L.Soup's room tonight.  They were already in there but didn't really match, and I have enough left over paint from the wall in her room to make them work.  I had the boxes when I lived with my parents, so I'm happy to get more use out of them, and they are perfect to store her books, diapers and spare wipes.

A few more hours in the future:

I got the boxes prepped and 3 sides started.  But little miss was not feeling bedtime tonight and trying to convince her otherwise severely cut into my crafty time... I know she's got teeth coming in so I forgive her for being so cranky and needy tonight.

D.Soup ended up asleep on the floor in her room with her... which was adorable when I peeked in on them.  He said she pushed him out of the way and climbed up onto the pillow he had been using and went to sleep... so he ended up using her monkey stuffed animal as a pillow.   Poor guy.

Anywho.  Here are some before pictures of to of the boxes.   The third is white and I'm leaving it that way.  The drawers in the second picture are staying white as well.  The new knobs will get painted.

The drawers go in the top one.

I bought new knobs.   Goodbye stars.

Scuffed up and ready for paint!  

Here's hoping I get a lot more done tomorrow night. 

Road trip!

D.Soup has been scowering the interwebs for the last couple weeks for a decent golf cart thats not ridiculously expensive.  Well, last night he found one on Craigslist for the right price.  In Pennsylvania. 

So we are on our way to hopefully not be murdered...

Wish us luck.

I tagged along in hopes that the boo girl wiuld sleep most of the way, since she obviously wasn't down for nap time at home.  But she lasted about 30 minutes and then:

oh well... maybe on the way back.

In other news... we are going out with actual adults tonight... as much as you can consider all of us adults.  Movie and dinner!

I'm pretty excited about that.

UPDATE:  Got it!  It was a little iffy for a minute, there was another guy interested and we showed up MINUTES before him.  I thought they were going to death match for it... but luckily the guy selling it gave it to us because we got there first!  Whew!

Here it is in all its trailered glory:

And so it begins

I started working on the foyer tonight.   And holy crap ya'll it looks like I poured wine all over the walls.  But so far I really like it.  

More to come, but for now:

I had to get D.Soup to paint that one corner because I'm just.to.short.  

Edging all done

First coat drying!

Second coat drying 

Almost done!

Of course, I ran out of paint.  So back to the store tomorrow to buy another can. *sigh* so close, but so far...

In other news, I got the boat pads finished tonight.  

Pretty excited about that.

Guess who's back, back again.

I really have to stop ignoring this place for such long periods of time.  I've even had a lot of awesome things to talk about, and yet... nothing.  I have finally gotten motivation back to start on the projects that I listed off here.

I've mostly finished the nursery (a year later), and will give that experience it's own post, when I have the pictures available.  All that's left is some floating shelves and some work in the closet, and I think it's complete!

We D.Soup built a raised planter for the back yard.  It is full of so many different vegetables.  We still have to add some lattice to it so that the vines have a place to grow.  They are taking over the bed at the moment.  I need to get that done or everything else is going to die. :(

Also, I have plans to paint the foyer this weekend.  I got the walls taped tonight, I was about halfway through, when this happened:

  

Little Ms. Crankypants was NOT okay with me up on this step stool, or with the fact that I wasn't giving her any attention.  She tried to join me, and was just generally bitter the whole time I was taping while she was awake.  So that got postponed until after bedtime.  BUT, we're ready!:

 

Now, the next decision I have to make is if I want to include this section of wall underneath the handrail in with the painted section.  I think I'm going to get a first coat of paint on the main wall first, and make that decision once I can see how everything looks together.

That's all I've got so far for the original list.  Other things have been pushed ahead of this stuff, and new things have been added. 

In the last 6ish months we've had many distractions that are keeping us from getting anything done.

1. Vacations
2. Baby birthdays! (also should get its own post, since I worked my fanny off for it)
3. Other projects that are "more fun" (according to D.Soup)
4. Cleaning
5. General laziness

I've been doing a lot of paper crafting over the last few months.  With L.Soup's birthday decorations, helping my best friend with her baby shower and creating the invitations and sign decorations for a work party for a friend of the family, I've been running through some paper.  I've fallen more and more in love with my Silhouette Cameo every time I use it.  I just got the sketch pens in the mail, I can't wait to use them!  Also, I should probably become a sales rep for Silhouette, because with just talking it up, and explaining how to use it I got them two sales in about a week!  I'm so glad other people are getting them, but also a little sad that I won't be able to help them with whatever projects they are going to work on!  They did tell me they would probably need tutorials!  Yay!

I've also been continuing the process of getting to know my sewing machine.  We have become much better friends.  I made L.Soup the cutest skirt last week, I can't wait for her to wear it.  I had a pair of jeans that were getting really worn, so I cut them up to include in the project! 

I didn't take any pictures of the finished product yet, but I did take this shot of my jeans before I cut them to shreds (RIP).  I'm glad I got to reuse them for something, instead of just trashing them.

I'm also planning on making a 4th of July outfit for my girl.  I have an idea of what I want it to look like in my head, and I wasn't finding anything that matched my vision (read: AND was reasonably priced).  So I'll be getting started on that very soon, so it will actually be done in time!

In other sewing machine news, mom and I invested in some embroidery patterns... and they are AWESOME.  I started off stitching them up for mom, but she wanted in on the fun, so I let her have them.  Mom makes hair bows and sells them on etsy (here's her shop!).  She's been paying for these from someone else, and now she can make them herself for SO CHEAP.  The coolest part is, if she sells one, she's paid for the pattern, so it's completed worth it.  I'm pretty excited for her, and she can't seem to tear herself away from her sewing machine now.  Whoops.

My friend asked me if I could reupholster some cushions for his boat, since the guy he was going to take them to was asking an outrageous fee even though my friend was providing all the pieces.  He gave me the stuff right before L.Soup's birthday (when I was in frantic mode) and told me not to worry about getting them done, as the aren't NECESSARY for being able to use the boat.  Well, I finally got around to working on them this week.  It went a lot faster than I thought it would, especially with this being my first time doing any kind of re-upholstery work.  They aren't perfect, but I think they look awesome.  And I don't think you are going to notice where the imperfections are, so I'm pretty happy with them.

 

Tonight I finished the beading.  I was going to get everything put together, but I ran out of steam.  So, tomorrow!

I started out with pinning the two pieces together.  But that was a LOT more work than I had the energy for.  It was so much easier to stop every few inches and make sure the next part was matched up, like this:

 

 At one point in my life I thought I could be a hand model, now I think I would need a TON of practice.

Finished Product

Next project is tracing out L.Soup's July 4th outfit.

Happy to be back :)

I think I'm the only person in the world that enjoys painting.

1. Find antique TV stand and refinish it.
2. Build bed frame.
3. Build matching night stands.
4. Refinish dining room table.
5. Refinish bedroom furniture to match bed and night stands.
6. Build computer desk for D.Soup.
7. Refinish wing back chair.
8. Build floating shelves.
9. Build outdoor planters.
10. Install cabinets with clothes folding space into laundry room, with cat door.
11. Paint L.Soup's bedroom.
12. Paint foyer.
13. Sew pillow for L.Soup's bedroom.

I have this whole big plan for painting in the new house.  Well, at least parts of the new house.  I have two rooms I know for sure what I want to do, and one or two others that I'm on the fence about if I want to paint them at all.  I'm pretty sure I'm going to let the colors on the furniture do all the talking.

Luckily, the house is new.  Like, brand new.  Never been lived in before.  And the builder painted everything a nice off white color.  So there's no glaring issues with anything currently.  Unlike the old house, where every room I demanded we paint or I just might scratch my eyes out.  (who needs that many different wall borders in a house less than 1000 square feet?!)

-------------

11.  Paint L.Soup's bedroom.

I know exactly what I want to do in L.Soup's room.  I had intended on doing it in the old house, but then we encountered the hobo and I lost all inspiration to do anything else in that house, and started looking for new places to live.

I have a very light yellow that I want to paint on three of the walls.  The fourth wall is going to look like this:

Only without the border.  And 16 squares instead of 9.  Because I need in include all the colors of the rainbow or my brain might explode.  I also may paint the inside of her closet a different color than the walls, but I haven't quite figured that out yet.

I've bought all the paint, and I've got the bottom of the wall all taped and ready to go.  I just need to finish taping the rest of the room and I can get started.  But I've been too lazy to bring the step ladder upstairs to tape the ceiling.  (And who wants to hold their arms up for that long anyway?)  I also need D.Soup's help taping the lines for the squares, because my arms aren't long enough to get the lines straight.   So I've been kind of putting it off.

------------- 

 12.  Paint foyer.

I found this image on Pinterest a while ago and it lead me to a blog post describing how the girl had the same color paint in flat and high gloss, and she made this amazing design:

source

 And I've decided I want to do that in my foyer, with stripes.  In this color:

Now, one of the walls in the foyer is like, a million feet tall, so we're going to leave that wall blank.  Instead, I'm going to fill that wall with picture frames, all painted to mirror the opposite wall.  In my head it looks really good.  I hope it works out.

-------------

I also want to paint our bedroom, but I'm uncertain what color to go with.  The comforter set is mostly gray with white and yellow accents.  I'm already leaning towards painting the furniture gray, but I feel like it would be too much.  I don't think the walls in gray would look very good.  I'm contemplating painting the furniture yellow and staining them, but I'm just not sure how it will look. 

We shall see.

I need to get some of the other stuff done on my list first.

Where do I even start?

This new house has inspired me to start making (or refurbishing) things myself instead of looking for new pieces.  The house just needs to be filled with a certain type of furniture, I can feel it.  The problem is, buying something new that would feel right in the house is expensive.  Non particle board furniture is ridiculously overpriced!

Luckily I read about 50 crafting blogs, and one day followed a link to Ana White's DIY website.  If you haven't been there, you should check it out.  Unless you want to avoid getting sucked into a never ending BUILD ALL THE THINGS vortex, then I would probably avoid her website at all costs.

I'm really excited about building something and making it our own, instead of finding a piece of furniture that we sort of like and going with it just because it's the closest option.  We haven't actually started on any of these projects yet, as we're coming to a close on actually MOVING ourselves into the new house.  I am constantly hoping each day will be the day that D.Soup says "Okay, lets go get our supplies."  I'm ready, the list has been made (and made, and remade, and made again). 

 As I've already shown you, I have a ridiculous amount of projects that I would like to work on to make this house exactly what we want.

1. Find antique TV stand and refinish it.
2. Build bed frame.
3. Build matching night stands.
4. Refinish dining room table.
5. Refinish bedroom furniture to match bed and night stands.
6. Build computer desk for D.Soup.
7. Refinish wing back chair.
8. Build floating shelves.
9. Build outdoor planters.
10. Install cabinets with clothes folding space into laundry room, with cat door.
11. Paint L.Soup's bedroom.
12. Paint foyer.
13. Sew pillow for L.Soup's bedroom.

-------------

2.  Build bed frame. 

I have been drooling over this bed for over a year.  I love almost everything about it.  I love the way it looks, and how functional it is.  I love that I won't lose things that I store under the bed anymore because they end up in the middle where I can't reach.  I love that I will know 100% that my cat's aren't hiding underneath the bed when I try to shut the door...

The Stratton Bed from Pottery Barn

With drawers

I don't love 2 things:

1. The fact that the way it is made in this picture, I would have to move the nightstand every time I want access to that first basket
2. The price tag.

In comes Ana White.  I was already in awe of all of her other plans, but when I found this I almost cried.  There it was.  The bed of my dreams.  And I can make it myself, for just the price of materials?!  I'm sold.

This is totally not my bed (yet), or my dog.  I will post again when we finally get started.

So then I proceeded to click through and snatch up every set of plans that I found for projects around our house...

-------------

3.  Build matching night stands.

To match our bed, we're going to make these.

It is based off this plan from Ana White's website.  I'm pretty sure these are going to be our first project.  It seems to be fairly easy, and it will help ease us into the whole process.


My only dilemma with this (and the bed) is what color to paint them.  This is the comforter set that I've purchased for in the bedroom:

So I'm still debating color options.  I originally wanted gray furniture, but now I'm thinking that might be too much.

-------------

 6.  Build computer desk for D.Soup.

This is a later project, after all the others are finished.  D.Soup's old computer desk got left behind for his brother at the old house.  It probably wouldn't have survived another move anyway.  He doesn't desperately need a desk at the moment, so he has time to pick out exactly what he wants before we move ahead.  We were discussing it the other day though.  I recommended that we look into building a desk that would span the entire long wall in the computer room (I may have also mentioned that it would be nice to have a little bit of that desk space for crafting).

-------------

8.  Build floating shelves.

I love these shelves.

I originally saw them on Shanty2Chic, and loved them.  Of course the plans were also from Ana White (how had I not heard of this website before this month!?)  I plan on making quite a few of these to go around the house, but they are probably going to be more like in between projects type things.

-------------

9.  Build outdoor planters.

The last "build" project on the list is planters for the back yard.  I want to start growing some veggies, and now that I have a yard that's large enough to do something with, I want to build up some planters and get to it (well, in the spring). 

Also not my dog.

These are going to serve double duty in my back yard.  They are going to serve as planters, obviously.  But they are also going to serve as covers for the piping sticking out out of the ground sporadically throughout my yard.  We are on well water, so we have a inspection pipe for that, as well as an array of inspection and clean out pipes for the septic system.  They are kind of ugly, so I think these would be helpful in covering them up.  The only thing I'm worried about is the random placement around the yard, but I think we could figure something out.

Well, that was an excessively long post.

Overachieving List and Antique store finds

Buying a house is a lot of work...

It might just be because I am crazy have a ton of projects that I want to work on.

The last few years I've purchased everything that we need from big box stores.  I could never justify purchasing anything made with real wood because it is so outrageously priced and the house we used to live in was not worthy of anything nice looking tiny.  So everything that we have owned has been made of particle board.  When we moved into the new house, I decided we needed a fresh start. 

I'll go ahead and list everything out, and then take my time explaining each one:

1. Find antique TV stand and refinish it.
2. Build bed frame.
3. Build matching night stands.
4. Refinish dining room table.
5. Refinish bedroom furniture to match bed and night stands.
6. Build computer desk for D.Soup.
7. Refinish wing back chair.
8. Build floating shelves.
9. Build outdoor planters.
10. Install cabinets with clothes folding space into laundry room, with cat door.
11. Paint L.Soup's bedroom.
12. Paint foyer.
13. Sew pillow for L.Soup's bedroom.

It all started with an entertainment center.  We had a few requirements for the piece -- it had to be short enough that our mischievous cat would not be able to reach the TV from the top of the furniture once the TV was on the wall, and it had to have enclosed storage space so we (I) didn't have to look at the gaming equipment all the time.  The feel of the main floor of our new home is very vintage. Finding an entertainment center that matched our requirements and that style, but was in our price range proved to be an issue.  We decided to switch gears, and head off to search the antique stores in our area.

I've always loved the idea of antiquing.  But never had anything I specifically needed, so I wouldn't bother going to the store.  I was so excited to be able to wander around some stores with an actual purpose!

After a few stops and some near misses with pieces that *might* work but we weren't absolutely sure about... we found an amazing antique store/consignment shop.

We spotted a coffee table that we loved, and thought would be perfect as an entertainment center after a few tweaks.

Then, right next to it was a matching side table.

As we were "oohing" and "ahhing" over our amazing two finds, my friend pointed behind us... to a matching TV stand!  It was meant to be!  The stand is a little bit taller than we had originally intended, but once the TV goes up on the wall I think it will work out just beautifully.

So we ended up with three pieces for our living room when we originally went looking for one.  I believe they are pretty much brand new, they still have tags on them!  There's a little water damage and a few scratches.  So its even more justification as to why I need to refinish them.  And we got them for a great price!  They are an off white/yellow color, but in my head I see them as this steel gray/blue with a distressed finish. 

While we were wandering around, I found the most beautiful china cabinet.  Someone had already distressed it, and it was GREEN.  I turned to D.Soup and said "I love this so much I can't stand it."  We decided to wait it out and see if it was still available when we came back to pick up the other pieces.

A few days later, D.Soup, my mom and I went back to the store.  I immediately showed my mom our pieces, and then dragged her around the corner to get her opinion on the cabinet.  Much to my dismay, there was a sticker on the glass that said "SOLD."  I was so upset.

As I was standing there, wallowing in my own self pity... D.Soup walks up behind me and says "Oh, that?  I bought it.  Happy Anniversary."  I didn't believe him for a solid five minutes.

Stop screwing with me.

No really, I bought it.

Really?

Isn't it beautiful?  I'm so happy with it.  And with my husband who so sweetly caught me off guard with it as a surprise gift.

I can't wait for the next trip to the antique store.

She's Alive!

So, I haven't posted here in basically forever.  That means the next few minutes is going to be a giant cluster of me trying to remember what's happened in the last uhm... YEAR.  Ugh.

1. First and most importantly:  I made a baby.  Well, D.Soup and I made a baby.  She's kind of precious.  I think we'll keep her.  I can't post any pictures from WORK (geez, way to ruin everything).  But I'll try to remember to add some later.  She's going to be 5 months old on Sunday.  I shall dub her - L.Soup.  Or I'll call her that for now and change it around later.  Who knows.



2. In other news, we have moved!  YAY FINALLY.  We actually JUST moved last Friday, so we are still very much in limbo right now.  But we're getting there.  There isn't any internet or television at the new house right now, so that pretty much sucks.  But everything else is spectacular, wonderful, amazing, awesome.



3. I originally started writing this BEFORE we had moved.  When we were tiptoeing around our old house, surrounded by box towers, worried that something was going to knock them over and we would suffocate under the pile.  Luckily we survived, and (almost) everything has moved over to the new house, where the boxes don't have to be stacked on top of each other with just a small pathway to get around.  I mean, how did we even live in that house?!  We went back over earlier this week - my first time back since the move - to grab a few straggler things (we still have MORE to get too, ugh) and I couldn't believe how small everything looked.  It was really eye opening.  



4. We found a drunk man asleep in the yard behind our old house.  We've also since seen him wandering around the street outside our house, and cleaning up road debris and leaving that shit in a pile in my front yard.  Hence the move - well, that was part of the reason anyway.  It gave us a real push to get out of that area.  It wasn't like he tried to break into the house or anything, but it was definitely still scary.  And annoying.



5. The name of the blog has changed, if you hadn't noticed.  I finally decided what should go here, other than ranting and whatnot.  D.Soup and I have all sorts of craft things planned for this new house.  As well as crafty things I've been working on while I was gone to help save us a bunch of money the planet.  So I plan on detailing all that information on here for your reading pleasure.  Hopefully.



6. My camera is broken.  I need to get it fixed (obviously before I can start sharing the awesome things I'm doing with you).  It got stepped on during one of the many family get-togethers that we had this summer -- totally my fault, who leaves a camera in the middle of the floor when they know it's going to be crazy time in less than an hour?!  Now that we've moved, I can finally order the piece and work on fixing it.  As soon as I find it.  Awesome.



7. We are cloth diapering.  Its been a learning process, but we are actually really enjoying it.  I need to invest in a few more diapers, and then I'll feel like we are set.  Right now we sometimes have to delve into our disposable stash, which makes me sad.  More on that later.



8. .....................I can't think of anything else.  That's really embarassing.  An entire year gone and I have 7 bullets to show for it.  And most of them revolve around moving, which JUST happened.  Le sigh.  

I'm so glad to be back.

It's sad how oblivious we are sometimes.

So this weekend Hurricane Irene showed her rainy, overbearing self. Luckily, we made it through unscathed. I spent the entire day yesterday being completely lazy, because it was the first time in a while that I had that opportunity. Played on my iPad for hours, watched a ridiculous amount of pointless TV, and basically did absolutely nothing.

Right before it started to get dark, I suggested that we take Calli for a walk. It was absolutely gorgeous all afternoon. We made our way down the street, and about six houses down from ours encountered a man sitting on a chair in his front yard. We exchanged greetings and then he asked if we had heard anything about when the power was coming back.

Wait, you guys don't have power?

Haven't had any power since 2:30 this morning.

We had absolutely no idea that power was out anywhere near us. We knew it was out in other areas, but not that close to us. We should have been clued in when we noticed that the traffic light right outside our house was out. But no.

On a completely different note. We got a new TV. We didn't want a new TV, the earthquake decided that we needed a new one.

I got home last Tuesday (after the earthquake and a long drawn-out hour of not having any way to get home) and milled around the house for a few hours. Nothing was out of place so it eased me into a false sense of security. After a while I turned on the TV and was watching some random show. I didn't notice anything wrong until a commercial with a black background that I was half paying attention to, I remember thinking to myself "that's really interesting, they put pink stars in the background behind that car." Then the commercial changed, and the pink stars were still there. I also noticed green lines (Matrix-style, almost) running down every quarter of an inch all the way across the screen.

So of course, when D.Soup got home and I showed him, he started researching new TVs.

And, of course, that next day we had a brand new LED television. And last night I realized something that had been bothering me for the last few days.

Our new TV...
makes everything look like a soap opera.

Long Day

Tonight is midnight showing of

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS
PART 2

And last, but CERTAINLY not least:

omg i love him

I'm so ridiculously excited. If I was smart, I would be taking a nap before leaving for the movies. But of course, D.Soup, Tiffany.Dawn and I are watching Part 1 before we go.

SO, basically... my schedule today/tomorrow is:

• Work all day (8-4)
• Pick Calli up
• Go home and try to clean up a little (we have a new schedule that we are doing a terrible job sticking to... more about that later)
• Watch Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1
• Drive to movie theater
• Stand in line for 3 hours
• WATCH MOVIE
• Leave movie theater (approx 3 am)
• Power nap
• Work all day tomorrow

It's going to be SO FREAKING AWESOME.

This movie is so totally worth lack of sleep.