Bathroom - Tiling Day 2

The professional tile workers we hired did got 85% of the shower stall done yesterday. The day prior they came in and setup all the tile-board on the walls and floor.

Tomorrow they'll be finishing laying out the tile for the shower, shower floor and bathroom/laundry room floors. Hooray! Then 1/2 day of grouting the day following that. I'm really quite excited to have this room done - because this is what the rest of my house looks like right now:

And I don't mean to complain (it is my mess and we're so incredibly lucky to be able to get this done), but really, the mess madness is giving me fretful anxiety. When this is all done and cleaned up, I'm not touching ANYTHING.

Adventures In Indoor Plumbing - The Plan Revised

So the original plan for a black / white bathroom didn't work out. The tile we picked out was too slippery for a bathroom / mudroom (for both us and the dogs). So back to Lowes we went, and picked out another slate tile- one that we actually like even better. Here's the new plan:

The newly-expanded shower is being done in white subway tile with a slate border at chest level. The base of the shower is being done in 2X2 slate tiles. The floor (pictured above) will flow right into the laundry room. Now we just have to figure out some creative storage options!

"Yes, We Always End With Definite Success"

I think I got the quote right; I should have gotten a piece of paper and pen to write it down, but amidst the laughter, I didn't find the time. My mom is always good for one of these hysterical quotes - the kind that make sense when you're in the moment and you can recognize their preciousness immediately as if they were glittered with gold and they become the family quotes that everyone uses forever, no matter the occassion.


So what exactly was she referencing? My two birthday cakes. Yes, that's right, you can be jealous. I'm so loved, she got TWO cakes for me. Well, I'll choose to look at it that way- not just that she was hankering for chocolatey fudge and ice cream cake (the good kind with the crumblies inside). Here they are in all of their fabulousness:



Thanks Mom, I love you!

Happy Birthday, and 10 Things I Love About Me

Happy birthday to me! A day for reflection and happiness to celebrate myself - what could be better? To kick it off, here is the list promised yesterday - about my top 10 favorite things about me and my life:

1. I love that I have a superb husband, family, friends and animals.
2. I love that I'm a traveller, and a city girl at heart
3. I love that I love tea houses, antique stores, thrift stores, accapella concerts, farmers markets, and adventuring in cafes around the world.
4. I love that I can take good photos
5. I love that I'm crafty with art, sewing, and furniture redoing - and that my creativity allows me to plan out my house projects via some accumulated talent in photoshop. (Example 1, Example 2)
6. I love my dedication to all things charity related.
7. I love that I blog here and have kept with it.
8. I love the absolute joy I can feel from silly love story books and shows.
9. I love that people come to me for advice on resumes, job interviews, clothes, computers, and websites.
10. I love my hair and being tall.

Perhaps this year I will focus on making these my priorities. I'm so lucky, and so glad to be able to celebrate another birthday with all this in mind.

Spoil Me, Its My Birthday!

Okay, so I really do have the best family and friends ever. Seriously, I'm one lucky duck. My hubby took me for a surprise dinner to Le Bec Fin on Sunday with two of our friends for a wonderful meal. Then, I came home to "cupcakes and presidents" last night (he bought me the feather bed I wanted), along with a movie rental (we watched the animated film "Up" and it was super). This morning, he surprised me again with a full breakfast of egg sandwiches, breakfast meats & seasoned potatoes. I married a wonderful man.

My other family and friends haven't forgotten me either - I've gotten 6 text messages, 23 Facebook messages, and 4 emails (all by 10 am). My coworkers surprised me with a homemade (and 70% organic) cake and birthday breakfast display this morning.

This really is going to be a fabulous year - and I'm so grateful for all these wonderful people who make me feel special.

10 Things I Hate About Me

Late night earlier this week, I discovered a show on the Style network called What I Hate About Me. They redid parts of this girl's house, her wardrobe & hair gave her cooking lessons and had an emotional intercession about getting over her ex - all to help her with the top ten things she hated about her life. They were definitely simple changes - everything was done in a day - but it was a neat concept.

So here's my list of the ten things I'd like to change about my life:

1. I hate that the dogs are often out of control & sleep in my bed
2. I hate that I can never get on top of the laundry - EVER.
3. I hate that I don't have a list or system for dinners every night and that I resort to the fastest / easiest thing to snack on or go out to eat
4. I hate that my house is full of junk without a cohesive style
5. I hate that I feel that I am not doing as much with my life for others and the community / world as I could be, or that I haven't done something grand yet (i.e. write a book, travel as a missionary to a 3rd world country, etc.).
6. I hate that I don't know what my next job / career move should be.
7. I hate that I feel I'm in a style rut compared to my college-age sisters, that I'm feeling old because I haven't done anything all that daring in my life, and that I'm not feeling sexy anymore.
8. I hate feeling out of control with my finances.
9. I hate that I worry about everything all the time.
10. I hate that I have a bad back, turf toe, TMJ and worrisome moles that need to be checked out all the time.

What I love about this list is that its all changeable - either by changing my perspective or by a 'just do it if its going to make me happy' action plan. I love that this is my actual list - that there aren't any huge problems that can't be taken care of on it - it shows me how great I really do have it in this life.

Tomorrow, for my birthday, I'll post a list of the top 10 things I love about my life to give this list some balance.

I Don't Do Dead

This morning things were going pretty smooth - I got on my 7am work call on time, the dogs had been let out, I remembered all my vitamins and ate a nice breakfast. My headache from the night before was gone, and regardless of the horrid sleep I got last night, I felt pretty good.

Then I realized how weird my cats were acting, and it hit me: we have a mouse in the house. All the construction from the bathroom must have stirred it up! A few years ago, this wasn't an issue for me; when my mom wrenched me out of my bed at 4:30 am squealing about a mouse under the couch (the couch which she had violently turned over so the mouse couldn't escape), I actually laughed at her, picked up the tiny mouse (it was smaller than a pack of matches) and whisked him out through the damp yard and freed him. That was then - when there was someone else terrified and I had to be the brave one.

Now, I get to be the one to freak out. The year we first moved in, I came home for lunch one day and there was a recently departed mouse in the middle of my dining room floor. That did it for me - I don't do dead things. I ran to my neighbor pleading for her help to rid me of the tiny mouse body. And thankfully, she did. Now, a couple of years later, I've got a very live one, quivering under my dining room hutch waiting for its chance to run back to the hole it came from. I locked up the cats and prayed that the dogs just wouldn't notice it- giving my husband time to come to our rescue (mine and the mouse's) with a live trap.

Sure the germs bother me, and I certainly don't want the dogs / cats to catch anything from their mousey conquest. However, I'm mostly upset for the mouse. I'd like to see it released into the wild (anywhere but my house!) and have it go along its happy little mouse life. Sure, the circle of life may have other plans for the mouse out there, but at least this way it could have a chance! So call me crazy, but ignorance is bliss and I just don't do dead.

Lawn Ornaments Gone Terribly Wrong

I was driving to lunch today and made a wrong turn. Fortunately for me, this turned into good fortune when I drove past the creepiest lawn ornament I've ever seen. I quickly dug out my camera and backed up to get a closer view. It's a 4-5 foot high stone sculpture of two cats. I'm not a fan of lawn ornaments to begin with, but to me this is every "Hanging In There" poster mixed with dusty old grandparent-given birthday cards - in one impossible to miss lawn marker.

Adventures In Indoor Plumbing - The Plan

Here's the plan for the downstairs bathroom - now I need to figure out some colors! What do you think?

Adventures with Indoor Plumbing

We're in the midst of another home reno project- our downstairs bathroom! Here's the demo work my lovely husband has done:

Haiti & My January Contribution

Continuing with my goal from last year to participate charitably in something every month, I decided to donate some money (and a couple of prayers) to a Haiti earthquake relief fund. Its situations like this that make me so glad for the safety of my family and friends, for the general peace my life has had to date, and the ability to help others. My friend posted this link on Facebook: https://donate.pih.org/page/contribute/haiti_earthquake?source=earthquake&subsource=homepage

She also posted about a website called Charity Navigator, which ranks charities. It makes me feel a lot safer knowing my money is going somewhere real - and to my mother's point, mostly to its operational efforts, not to the "fundraising machine".

Resolve: And I Don't Mean The Carpet Cleaner

So even in a new decade, I'm back to my old tricks again... wishing I had better control of the clutter, the food and the money. Here are my new years resolutions:

1. Get rid of the junk! I've "hired" my sister (can you pay a sister with hugs?) to help me establish a yard sale to get rid of all the "stuff" in my house that we don't want or need. I'll be putting a few things on Craigslist and maybe trying out ebay as well, but the stuff has to go. Difficulty rating: 2.5/5 stars

2. Minimize eating out! Getting rid of the junk doesn't just mean in the house, it means in my food as well. I want to start cooking more at home to eat better (helps to know what goes into the fooding process). Plus I hate not having a plan for when I get home - I always get too hungry and just pick the junk from our local takeout place. The target is to only eat out on special occasions. Difficulty rating: 3/5 stars

3. Save Money! By combining #1 & 2 as well as taking a harder look at my finances, I want to see if I can actually pay off my credit card bill by year's end and operate entirely on a cash basis. I'll feel a lot better about buying that next big ticket item if I can say I paid for it with cash. Difficulty Rating: 5/5 stars

Happy 2010!

So its 2010! 10 years ago today (New Years Morning, circa 12:30 am) I first kissed the man who is now my husband. We have both grown so very much in these past 10 years, as individuals and as a couple. He has brought me so many joys in my life, this was such a wonderful decade. Here are some other highlights spanning 1/1/00 - 12/31/09:

1. I graduated from Pitt
2. I bought my own house, met some of my best friends through my new neighbors and have successfully made over nearly every house in my home.
3. I have worked for two different companies
4. I got married
5. I've been to the Dominican Republic, Arizona, 2 cruises to the Caribbean, Germany, Canada, California, Colorado, Las Vegas, & Italy
6. I've got the two best dogs anyone could ask for (Missy b. '00 & Trotter b. '07 )
7. I've had two great cars and created tons of memories with them (the Jetter and now the Black Pearl)
8. I gained a collection of new friends by joining a book club
9. I learned to love yoga and to run, and completed my first 5K alongside my hubby
10. I'm sure there is something else... :)