Bless Your Heart

Before we went to meet Ike I knew he was coming, but it was in the back of my mind. Now that we’ve met him we’ve gone nuts. We went to Petsmart last night and bought supplies- a crate, leash, collar, food, and toys. Now I’m at work and can’t seem to stop looking at puppy stuff! Cute accessories, pug this, pug that. I may need an intervention!

So remember I told you about our little errand? Time to let the secret out! We’re getting a pug! He comes home in 2 weeks. We went to the kennel yesterday to visit him. A very nice couple runs a small kennel on their farm about an hour from us. Here he is!

So cute! So tiny!

We’re so excited and can’t wait for him to come home! Now we’ve just got to get ready for him. We need puppy food, a crate, etc. We were talking about the supplies we need and Jon said since he’s so tiny there’s no need to buy a leash and collar- a rubber band and some yarn oughta do it just fine! (just kidding- of course he’ll be outfitted properly) Check out some more pictures here.

Oh, and his name: Ike. Short for, you guessed it…Ikea. I know, I know, we’re obsessed.

Just got back from the vet with Nimbus from her check up. She’s doing great- has lost a little over a pound from last year’s visit, she’s down to 13 lbs now. She likes to flaunt her womanly body.

Jon’s outside cleaning the gutters. I’m about to finish the 2nd coat on our bedroom wall- finally. This darn j-o-b thing really can get in the way of my projects at home. ;) Jon finished the kitchen Monday so today I’m going to put it all back together and take a few pictures. Speaking of projects, check out Sara’s new chalkboard wall- it’s so cool!: I drew the pumpkin. And I have to throw in this cute Jakey picture: sitting in the big red hand chair st Spencer’s

Tomorrow we’re going on a little errand when I’m finished with my morning meeting. I’m so excited about this “errand” but I can’t tell you until tomorrow when I have photographic evidence. So be patient, but get ready to squeal when you see these pictures! (and no, unfortunately, I’m not pregnant.) But this is still something great!

I’ll leave you today with a disturbing image. I saw this the last time we were grocery shopping and was so amazed to see that yes, they will put anything on a stick: ew!

Here’s the next round of pics from our home improvement extravaganza! First up we have the ceiling fan. This is in our bedroom and it replaced the tacky shiny brass fan that was in there when we bought the house. The set up of the room requires that the fan has lights (something I’m not crazy about, but it’s necessary). So we found this fan (half price!) at Lowe’s but the blades were a light “wood” that didn’t match the bedroom. So I painted them the lighter shade of the paints we used in the room:ceiling fan

I’ve put out most of my fall/Halloween decorations including this sweet frame I found (on clearance at Hallmark for like $2!). Sara gave me one of Jake’s Halloween pictures for it because he is my little pumpkin pie:Dumbo

We finished putting together our new Ikea armoire for our den on Sunday (the old tv stand was too small with these high ceilings):armoire Note the Carolina Panthers whomping on the Saints, and my cute little retro Halloween pails. =)

Here’s a picture of one of the living room walls post icky barbed wire stencils, lots o primer, and two coats of Silver Sage paint: living room

And finally, the kitchen. Here’s the breakfast nook before. Full of curtains, dishes, stupid looking light with sprayed on “texture” that really looked like dirt, dusty valances, multi colored stencils, and window shelves:kitchen before

And here we are one coat into the new butter cream color with new light fixture and big gorgeous windows sans curtains (I still don’t know what to do here). The furniture (and a ladder) are pushed to the middle of the room while we paint. Once everything’s complete I’ll post better after pics, but for now here you go:kitchen after

So if anyone has ideas for window treatments for our kitchen please let me know. Oh, and this weekend we had date night on Saturday and saw “The Rundown“. So cute! Much better than we expected. Very funny with a clever script and excellent pairing of The Rock and Seann William Scott. We went for Christopher Walken but I have to say I was really impressed with that Rock fellow.

I love the power of the internet. Jon read my post yesterday so when I got home he had the kitchen almost painted. yay! He has another coat to go (those darn stencils!), and some trimwork, but then it will be finished. I’ll take pictures tonight. I can’t decide what to do with the windows in there though. I’ll post pictures of the windows and maybe you can help me brainstorm. The problem is it’s a bay window sort of. There’s a tall window on the left, a larger tall window in the middle, then a glass door on the right. So it’s not symmetrical. The prev. owner had valances on each window and over the door. So that looked silly. She also had bistro curtains and window shelves up with china displayed on the shelves. It really cluttered up the window and obscured the view. We have an amazing view and I don’t want to hide it. We took all of her stuff down and the room instantly looks bigger, but now it’s rather bare and feels like it needs something. Yikes! Help!

I have to take one of my kitty girls to the vet after work. DaBrie hurt her little hip the other day and it doesn’t look any better. Hopefully it’s nothing serious.

There’s this lady who works on my floor who always (I’ve never seen her otherwise) wears her jacket or sweater on her shoulders. Not with her arms in her sleeves, but just drapes it over her shoulders. I’ve always wondered how she keeps it on. She reminds me of a clothes hanger floating around.

Not much painting going on the last couple of days. Well, except Jon did paint the living room a pretty silver sage color. I’ll take pictures and post them later. Now I’m just waiting for him to finish the kitchen and entryway so I can start on the guest baths and craft room. Sara’s done some painting though, she painted a wall in her kitchen with chalkboard paint! I can’t wait to see it!

I’ve decided I’m over lipstick. Completely done with it. I don’t like the feel of it, taste, texture, all of that. It’s just me and lip gloss and balm from here on out. I’m gathering up all my lipsticks and getting rid of them! Have you ever realized that all at once you were just over something?

Remember when I made those baby blankets? Both babies have since been born. Casey was born 9/17 and little Xavier was born 9/25. Xavier’s the one with the big story though. His dad, Ed, works with me. His mom is finishing up school in a town about an hour and a half away from here. Xavier is their first baby. So she goes into labor and they decide to try and make it to the other town so she can be treated by the doctor she’s familiar with. They realize they aren’t going to make it so Ed flashes his lights at a cop and gets a police escort to the hospital. Once they get there they realize the head is coming out so there’s no time to get her inside. They had their first child in the front seat of a Hyundai in the parking lot of the hospital with their dog in the backseat!! People, if you don’t click here to read this story I can promise you’ll be sorry! What a story to tell your child! And how about when he brings home his first girlfriend? Well you see, little Xman here was born in a car… And what I’m really wondering now is…what did they do with the car? Ooh, he just came in for the day. I’m off to get the scoop!

We’ve been working on painting our bedroom. Luckily there were no stencils there, just lots of white walls that needed freshening up. First we painted the entire room a pale, pale, lavender called Ice Violet. We painted the sitting area a darker shade of the same color so it would stand out: bed sitting area. Since we don’t have a headboard on our bed (Jon’s 6’4″ so most headboard/footboards combos are too short for him so we just skip them all together) we decided to paint an accent wall. We decided on a harlequin pattern to jazz up the room a bit, plus we like the French flair of it. Jon cut a template from cardboard and measured out the diamonds. I taped each diamond we wouldn’t be painting (since we already had the lighter color on): taping off. I painted the outer edges with a small (tiny, really) brush to keep the lines straight, and Jon painted the centers of each diamond. We have to give it another coat and touch up a little, but here it is so far: bedroom in progress. My mom likes it but said it looks a little Alice in Wonderland, but we’re kinda digging it. What do you think?

The bathroom is finished! Well, the painting at least. We’re replacing the mirror and putting in a shelving/organizer thingy to hold towels etc, and we have to install blinds (to put an end to my neighbor’s free peep show every morning), and I want to post pics of the new and old light fixtures but I have to take pics of the new ones yet, but I thought I’d at least post the color.

bath before

bath after

Very soothing color. It goes well with the floor. Of course now that the walls are painted I want to paint the vanity as well to brighten that up, and I want a larger shower, etc. We’ll never be finished. We have sooo many projects lined up we won’t have free time til 2012!! =)

The dining room is finished! So excited- I really love the way it came out. So smooth, so elegant. It really looks like a formal dining room now. It makes the new chandelier pop and I love the way the Elderberry color is so sharp against the white crown moldings and chair rail.

Before:Too busy!- this picture was taken before we moved in so this is the previous owner’s furniture/drapes etc.

Close up before: I think we all remember this lovely faux painting.

After: Love how the chandelier stands out now. This one show’s the color the best: Elderberry. We can’t wait to have dinner in here! Now we just need to put together our new buffet, hang some art & curtains, and oh yeah, buy a dining room table and chairs! Those may come in handy at dinner time.