Color!

Tuesday afternoon, I stumbled out of bed, opened my bedroom door, and discovered I was trapped:

The contractors had tented off their work area, trying to contain the mess.  It worked out really well, too.  I could have gone out through the hall on the other side of the bedroom, but I decided to go back to bed instead.  So why the tent?  They were spraying texture, y'all!  That's the last step before primer and paint.  Wahoo!

We were asked to wait 24 hours before painting, and advised to run the air conditioning if possible.  Since we're STILL in triple digits here, the AC was on anyway.  24 hours and one minute later, Walker rolled on primer.  After work this morning, I added the first coat of color.  It's coming along, y'all!!

Color!  We used Bahr paint & primer.  The color on the left is called Safari Vest.  The color on the right is Wax Sculpture.  They get blended with  a third color for the faux paint process.

That big white wall will have a faux paint finish, but I need daylight to get that done. 

An Anniversary

Two years ago today, I was diagnosed with breast cancer.  Stage one, grade one ductal carcinoma in situ, to be exact.  A few days later I was upgraded to stage one, grade two.  That's not good news.  In the end, it didn't matter:  I totally kicked it's ass.  I was officially cancer free before the end of 2010.

Going through all that, I was pretty focused on the fight.  I didn't cry, I didn't think about the "what if's".  I did my research, followed the doctors' instructions, and did my best to take care of myself.  People tell you how brave you are, but here's the thing:  you have little choice.  You fight or you die, period.  Bravery has very little to do with it. Besides, the clinic staff had the hard part.  They had to save my life.  All I had to do was show up on time.

Looking back on everything that happened, it's hard not to get emotional.  One of the hardest things I've ever had to do was tell my mom I had cancer.  Nobody wants to cause their mother that kind of pain and worry.  I hope I never have to say those words again. 

Last week, I took myself shopping and bought myself a gift: a pretty pink sapphire set with tiny diamonds on a silver band.  I wear it to remind myself that life is precious, and not to take a moment for granted.  

Project Update

Not a lot to report.  We now have four coats of drywall mud on our new walls instead of one.  On Tuesday, the walls will get sanded and sprayed with texture.  That will have to dry for a couple days, then we can prime and paint.  I'm doing a faux painting technique and I have already finished the walls that aren't getting worked on.   I got the best compliment - the contractor told me he's done some faux painting, but his never turned out as good as mine.  Whoa!  Even if he didn't mean it, it still felt pretty darn awesome to hear. It actually does look really nice, and I'm a pretty harsh critic when it comes to my own work.  Even my mom liked it.

The carpet installers called today, wanting to schedule the installation for next Friday, which would mean - WAHOO! - we would have this project done by Labor Day, my original goal.  But I had to turn them down.  That would just not give us enough time to paint, and NOBODY is going on that new carpet with a paintbrush, or anything else that could ruin it. So we're getting our carpet on September 5th instead. Everything else should  be done by then.  Works for me!

We've Got Walls, Peeps!

The contractor called on Saturday afternoon to see if he could move up our install to Monday. Um, YEAH! OF COURSE we were all over that. So we kicked it into high gear: Walker painted the ceiling.....

while I moved all the smaller furniture pieces along with all the "decor". Plants went out to the patio, art was removed from the walls and stored under the bed in the guest room. End tables were stashed in the basement. Et cetera. The rest of the furniture was shoved into the middle of the living room and covered with a tarp.

And now we have walls, with one coat of mud, so far.  There will be a couple more coats of mud, then primer, then paint. Right now, everything is covered in a thick layer of dust.  The contractor vacuumed up what he could, but we'll have a lot of cleaning to do when they finish.  I don't care - it's going to be beautiful and it's worth every pound of dust we have to sweep.

That clunky front door is going, too.  Stay tuned!

Saturday in the Park

Walker and I took a short road trip up the river in search of the sand castle competition we heard about online.  We got to the park where the contest is usually held, but there were no castles, no sand, no contestants.  The day was just too beautiful to be disappointed, though.  We decided to stroll through the park. Turns out, that little park is a pretty hoppin' place....

My handsome sweetie ~

A calm looking bride and groom, relaxing before their big event

A paddle wheeler played calliope music as it floated past

Bike racers!

A tent full of food, drink, and music welcomed the racers at the finish line

And to top it off, a parade of classic cars!

We worked out quite an appetite with all that strolling and people watching.  So we found a little bistro across from the park, where we grabbed an outdoor table - with a perfect view of the wedding, of course! - and enjoyed a little lunch.  The race tent turned their music down during the wedding, but as soon as it was over they cranked up "I Knew the Bride When She Used to Rock and Roll" and the wedding guests fairly danced out of their chairs.

We topped off our afternoon with some scrumptious dessert at our little bistro.  While I would have loved to see the ginormous sand sculptures, I have no complaints about our adventure.  EVERYTHING was fabulous ~

I don't know what this was called, but it had chocolate covered puff pastry with cookies & cream filling, and Walker was very quiet eating it, a sure sign of deliciousness ~

 

 

Rum chata parfait - heaven in a footed dish ~

Countdown

One week from today, I will not have to look at studs and wires and insulation.  I will not lose a daily battle with dust.  We will have drywall, Peeps!  The contractor thinks he can get everything hung on Wednesday, along with the first coat of mud.  Then he’ll come back for about an hour each day to add another coat of mud until it’s done.  He thinks about a week to get everything done.  Then Walker and I have to prime and paint, then the trim will go back up, along with closet doors, light switch plates, furnace vent covers, etc.  Sometime after that, our carpet will be installed, and we can put all our furniture back.  I know it’s silly but I haven’t been this excited in a long time.  I don’t even care that I’ll have to go to work on no sleep.  Come on, Wednesday!

It's County Fair Time!

We so do not have time to go play right now, which made taking the afternoon off all the more fun. We had gorgeous weather, great company, and the whole afternoon to spend pursuing happiness. So off we went, to the county fair!

The only thing fuzzier than these baby chicks was...

the fuzziest bunny EVER

we visited the fowl

and chatted with the piggies

There were sweet cows....

and noble horses

Many talented artists shared their work

 

Then on to the midway for vomit-inducing rides

And at the end of the day, a snack of veggies

batter fried, of course.  Cause that's the way it is at the fair~

My Order is On Order

Your Order is On Order

    Order Purchased   On Order          Ready to Ship      In Transit to Store

This is the order tracker for my new front door.  This icon hasn't changed since July 18.  That would be a bigger deal except that Home Depot called on Thursday.  The carpet that was supposed to be ordered on Monday, wasn't.  They wanted to "go over", for the third time, my carpet choice.  So the whole project is behind schedule.  My new install date for the carpet is supposed to be around the tenth of September.  So much for wrapping this up before Labor Day. It's been a whole lot of "hurry up and wait".

Last week I was on mandatory over time at the office.  I'll be doing that this week, too.  Seems like, when we're so busy at home, for some reason we also get extra busy at work.  Then, when things calm down, we wander around wondering what to do with all our extra time.  It's hard to keep up with everything, and I really should stay home today and try to make sense of the piles of displaced stuff all over the house, but Walker and I have decided to shut the door on our project for the afternoon and immerse ourselves in some old fashioned fun. Come back tomorrow and I'll tell ya all about it ~

The Good, the Bad, & the Scary

Miss Diva fell off her scooter on Thursday.  She called me at work to tell me she was on her way to the emergency room with Grandma.  She sounded so young and so scared.  Three hours later, she called me back.  She very proudly announced she now has eight stitches in her leg.  I don't think she knows yet that this injury will end her swimming pool days for summer 2012.

Squeak had a bit of a trauma, too, when he discovered one of his beloved guinea pigs had died.  It's so hard on kids, losing a pet like that.  Squeak takes his animal care responsibilities very seriously.  I know he will miss his little friend.

There seems to be some miscommunication between the home front (me and Walker) and the Home Depot. My understanding was, we were to go out to the local store and contact the flooring manager, who would help us choose replacement carpet.  We did that a couple weeks ago, but then we were charged $35 for the measurement to be done.  We paid that and scheduled the measurement, but then someone from the measurement service called and quoted me nearly $3000 for the flooring and installation.  Now, we had asked for pricing on vinyl flooring for our foyer area, knowing that we might have to pay for that ourselves even though it's part of the area currently covered by the carpet Home Depot is replacing.  But, as that area is barely 100 square feet, so I knew they were adding in charges for the carpet that is supposed to be a warranty replacement.  I contacted the store manager via email, and she ended up pushing us off on someone from the flooring department.  She didn't tell me she was ditching us, which didn't sit too well, especially since I had explained that we had the measurement done and she responded with and email instructing us to get the measurement done.  Um, HELLO!!! Did she READ my email?  We did that already! She went on to say that after our rooms were measured we could then choose carpet.  Yeah, we did that already, too.  Anyway - Walker and I decided the best thing to do was to go back out to Home Depot, meet up with the guy who will be taking over our issue, and get this resolved.  So that's what we did.  Funny thing, once we got there, he pulled up our account and saw that, yep, everything was measured, and yep, the carpet we picked out two weeks ago is a suitable replacement for the warranty, and no, we should not have been charged for the measurement, so that will be refunded.  Sigh.  Wasted two hours on a trip to the other end of town.  Oh well.  The carpet should be ordered sometime today.  Maybe we'll get this project done sometime before the snow flies.   We've been thinking about updating our kitchen, too, probably next year.  At this point, I doubt we'd go with Home Depot for our supplies. 

The other good news turned out to be only partly good;  I have completed all of my scheduled dental visits.  Can you hear my "Wahoo!!"?  The not good part is really not good, though.  Sometime in the not-too-distant future, I need to have one of my fillings replaced with a crown.  Before that can be done, I'll need to have gum surgery.  Can I tell you?  I DO NOT want to do this!  I made the mistake of Googling the procedure and, ew, there are photos and everything.  It does not look simple and it does look painful and the sites I found said it often is not covered by insurance.  Of course, since I didn't Google before I left the dentist office, I didn't know to ask how bad my procedure will be, or how long I can put it off.  So for now, I'm in total denial.  I'm just enjoying not having any appointments on the books, and, oh yeah, baby - I finally got my iced coffee.  And I enjoyed every last sip.

Um, YUM!!!

Diva's Daddy is getting married.  His fiance, a wonderful girl that we cannot wait to be related to, has decided on a casual affair.  With that in mind, she opted to have a dessert buffet instead of a traditional wedding cake.  She's asked several friends and family members to contribute a few pans of their favorite treats, and everyone has been happy to comply. 

Except.

She hadn't asked me and Diva.  What's up with THAT???  We decided she is just not aware of our supreme fabulosity in the area of kitchen confections.  Really, we're a fantastic team.  So we decided to do what the caterers do:  we held a tasting.  We spent the whole morning baking, then we invited my mom, my sister,and the bride-to-be over for a "light snack". 

Miss Diva seated our guests around the dining room table and got each one a beverage.  Then she brought out all of our treat selections, announcing each one as she carried it in.  Soon, everyone had  plate of sweet treats to sample.  Ta-dah! 

Now who can resist all this deliciousness?

We sent a sampler box to the neighbors, and one home for Diva's Daddy ~

And guess what, Peeps? We got the job!!  The happily surprised bride ordered some of everything for her big day.  Now THAT'S what I'm talkin' about!!

Happy Anniversary, Sweetie!

Walker and I had our second first date nine years ago today.  We met, and dated, when I was in high school and Walker was in college, but, though we always got along great and always had fun together, we never really became a couple.  Fast forward twenty years to Walker's cousin's wedding.  We reconnected that night, and have been together ever since.  Happy Anniversary, Sweetie!!