remember these guys?

Okay, here's a little recap:

The one in the back didn't appear to have any life in it....

Week 5ish:

And now, the little runty one is big and strong.... We are hoping for a christmas bloom. :)

Okay, this is kind of a funny story...I was griping that they weren't growing fast enough, so someone told me that i should blow on them! And so i did! I blew on them every morning and every night before bed--they come into the bed room with us at night too. HAHA! They really did start to grow fast after i started to blow on them (and sleep with them). Jason thought i was a nut case, but every now and then i'll catch him blowing on them too!

It's Complicated.

One of my most recent 'favorites' was the house in the movie It's Complicated. I could have watched it a million times just to study all of the details. So you can't imagine how devastated (ha!) i was to learn that that house was not even real. *GASP* well, some of it was real, but most of it wasn't. The actual exterior was real, but the interior was built on a SOUND STAGE! read more...

Hang with me, because i have a new favorite...

Dana Wolter's home was recently featured in Cote de Texas. Let me tell ya, it is GOR. JUS.

There are much larger (and more) photos at Cote De Texas.

Special delivery.

And no, it's not a baby...

We received a much anticipated delivery from the lovely people at Allen Millworks.

WINDOWS! wooot!

Five brand-spankin-new WINDOWS! woot!

Exciting, right? :)

We've been waiting for these bad boys for 4 weeks, so we were ecstatic to see the truck backing into our driveway.

We will start replacing the windows on the south side of the house--with the help of the lovely and talented John Golsby (shout out). He would be the master carpenter that made the kitchen come to be.

Merry Christmas!

Just testing this flickr to blog thingy...

Not too pleased with it being flush right.

Just beautiful.

How anyone could ever eat this, is beyond me...some things are too pretty to eat.

Get yo wreath on

check it.

I always forget to take before pictures--this is pretty close to 'before', though. The picture below is two straw wreaths that i wrapped in black garbage bags.

I headed to my moms house to violate a few of her cedar trees and other bushes she had too much of.

This is how it turned out... not too shabby. I don't think that the photo does it justice, but they turned out pretty well.

I wrapped a total of four wreaths with the trash bags (which is the worst part of the whole ordeal) so I may make some wreaths for a few of my kids parents. Will see.

our four-legged children.

I can't imagine how much digital space our children will take up--when we have them. As for now, our dogs are eating up most of the digital space.

Meet Eleanor.

Eleanor is the most codependent dog EVER.

The other morning I rolled over to see my husband and Ellie sleeping like this:

We've got some pot...

Potted plants, anyway...

We moved all of our potted plants in the house due to the freeze...so our living room is very green right now, with all of the plants and the christmas tree. I kind of like it...

We have planted these two bulbs. Not exactly sure what they are, but we are monitoring them very closely.

Week 1:

Week 2:

We should all be so lucky

We should all be so lucky to have such great friends. My grandmother and her friends play mexican train every saturday. The group was much larger, but as years have gone by the number of people has gotten smaller. :(

My grandmother is the youngest and she will be 93 this coming summer. They all live alone and they all drive--except for one, but she plans on regaining that privilege via a driving exam this coming week.

Retail Therapy

My mom had some tests in Houston, so I tagged along for retail therapy moral support. She was a little nervous about the tests/results, so we tore through some of Houston's finest in record time. Oh the things you'll do for the ones you love. :) One of our favorites was Area on Kirby. I snapped a few pictures.

This pretty little thing will set you back a cool 6K. WHAT? I love this chair, but 6K is a little much, don't ya think!?

And I found the round table that i have been searching for....Believe it or not the table is half the price of the chairs. Why are chairs so expensive?

OH and there were some Amanda Talley paintings too:

Yes, I'll take it!

Dropped by an estate sale this afternoon and scored big time!

In the corner was a lonely, dusty bolt of raw silk--or it could just be linen. FOR SIX DOLLARS!

Not the greatest photo, but you get the idea.

Pumpkin shine on Line Baltimore

We've had a sad little pumpkin sitting by our door for a few weeks. Today it received a much needed face lift.

Fischer wanted to help too...

RARRRRR....

Originally, it rocked some teeth, but they looked bad so they were pulled. :)

Okay, so I was done. I put it next to the door and left it for a while half a second...

Then I attacked it with some spray paint, two apples and a skewer. HA. I think it turned out pretty cute.

(picture taken with phone)

Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros

I've been a little under the weather, so Monday afternoon i dropped by my doctor's office and got celestone shot. Let me say that i LOVE these things! They hurt like hell, but OMG. The wrinkle between my eyes disappears, i could clean for days and i am never short on words. Love. the. celestone shots.

This being my birthday week and all, I needed the extra bump to overcome the crud and celebrate 28 years of living in full force!

So high on steroids (ha!), Jason and I headed to a hole in the wall to listen to some music.

It was an awesome show. It was a small show--maybe 100 people there. Jason and i had the privilege of standing behind two of the most ridiculous people in the joint. Jason stood behind a guy who had a huge, nasty, curly pony tail and every time the band would start to jam, the guy would bob his head and his nasty pony would go in jason's face. It was hilarious! And the most obnoxious girl ever stood in front of me. She obviously had participated in some extracurricular activities before the show. She hippy danced all over my feet. At one point i gave her a little 'knock it off-just kidding-i was hippy dancing too' shove. It was actually well received, but she didn't get the 'knock it off' part.

Anyways, they didn't come out on stage until nearly 10:30, so we listened for an hour or so and headed home...

Show us your life friday-Kitchens

The day after Christmas in 2008, Jason and I took a sledge hammer to a wall. I have to emphasize 'A WALL', because that was what were were doing. We were to take out one wall and move it over just a few inches for new washer and dryer that would wash and dry more than a pair of socks and a towel without bouncing all over the place!

The one wall quickly turned into all of the walls! We ended up taking the kitchen all the way down to the studs on all four walls. When my computer crashed I lost all of the photos, but there are some on our flicker page.

You really need to see the before to appreciate the change. We did move the door, which totally opened the house. We couldn't have maximized the space any better (thanks mom!).

Here are a few after shots:

The pine floors, which we stenciled, were found under ceramic tile and two layers of linoleum. I think they look great!

It is hard to get a good picture of the other side of the kitchen...but you get the idea....Please excuse the two bulbs that are burned out above the refrigerator. :)

If you notice under the microwave there is a little door. Behind that door is our electrical box, and where we keep our broom and vacuum.

To the left of the refrigerator is our NEW WASHER AND DRYER! woot!

TA DA! the big red machines! There are shelves inside the closet, but i thought I'd spare your eyes...it messy in there!

My mom and I found these guys at an Restoration Hardware Clearance Center in Florida. I had some other knobs in mind, but these $2 knobs were a steal and they had just enough for my kitchen. Pre-renovation we had 8 knobs...and after we had some 22 knobs!

Obviously, we didn't start out with the intention of gutting our kitchen, but now after all of the sweat (and tears) we love it!

Au Revoir!

Trading my junk for your cash

YARD SALE!!!

This weekend we had a yard sale and managed to make $275. Had we not stayed out so late the night before, I think I could've totally sold some more goods! The weather was perfect, which made for a great day to sit outside and meet our neighbors.

I finally parted with my kamp trunk, and I actually got a little teary when they left with it! I'm sure who ever is reading this is gasping for air...But I loved, LOVED kamp.

I can't believe no one wanted this ugly chair or the super creepy clown print! ha!

These two were in charge of the money! I could not have done it without Jason! How'd I get so lucky? :)

As of late...

On September 24, Jason and I celebrated our second anniversary. Last year we were to buy a 'piece of art' for our first anniversary, but we never got around to it. We knew what we wanted, we just needed to either get down to New Orleans and pick it out or commission it and coordinate it all online. Well, we choose the former and hit the road to NOLA to pick it out in person. By the time we actually got to her (Amanda Stone Talley) studio I was so excited, I could barely see straight! We settled on this one....

I suffer from terrible buyers remorse. It really is ridiculous. As soon as we stepped out of her studio I was consumed by regret and insecurity...is this right for us?, is it going to look right in our house?, that was a lot of money, did we really need this? (yes and no). I do this every time I spend money (groceries, pedicures, clothes, etc). oh well! it's a done deal! It is now sitting at Nader's Art Gallery waiting to be framed. It is going to look FABULOUS!

While we were in New Orleans, we went on a bike tour. I can't remember the names of the neighborhoods we rode around, but they weren't in the prettiest parts of the city, that's for sure. It was interesting. Our tour guide gave us quite the history lesson at each stop. This photo is at a stop at a cemetery.

Arizona Sun Devils and C25K

Last week I was accepted to Arizona State University--geaux sun devils?! I start this week working towards a master's in education. The actual program is Special Education (consultation and collaboration). I am hoping to take at least 9-12 hours this semester.

I'm super excited, nervous, anxious and eager! Once school starts, i'm going to have to make a mad dash to try and get my 1500 fieldwork hours in.

Week 1, day 573. Just kidding.

Jason and I have been doing C25k for what seems like for ever now. We are only up to week 3.

Have i ever mentioned i hate running? well, I do. I hate it. (However, not so fiercely now). When we started, i thought i would never get passed week one!

How sad.

tear.

One of the reason's we aren't further along in program is because we have been catering to others in the group. sounds bitchy, and do not mean it like that. but its true.

some people come, so we'll start wk1day1 with them. they'll drop out, and somebody else will come so we do start over again.

We aren't doing that anymore.

Tonight, I did go back to week one, because i want to run faster. So during the intervals i ran a little harder. Not sure about this, but i'm going to see how it works for me this week.

You Only Live Once

It seems that I can only manage to push out one post every six months. I'm going to try to change that. So if i have to bore you with day to day hoopla, then that's what I'll do.

We recently returned from Santa Rosa Beach, Florida. We spent a week at Watercolor and had a blast. We were both a little sad it ended. While there we went on a 'Yolo Adventure.' I have been wanting a Yolo board for FOREVER. So I was super excited, to say the least!

They took us to a freshwater spring the middle of nowhere. It was beautiful! The water was clear as swimming pool water and 25+ feet deep. It was the highlight of the trip (for me anyway). We didn't get any pictures, but i found one on Facebook.

Scouting Out

It seems that a couch will NOT be our near future, but a new desk is for sure.

Jason's poor desk has been using books in place of 3 of the 4 casters to hold it up.

I'm still stalking the sofas...and drooling over these beautiful tables.