New art for the family room

I'm so excited to finally have art on the walls in our family room. I'm even more excited because I took all of the pictures.

There are two 16x24 and four 16x16 pictures. They are mounted on 3/16" foam board so no need for frames :o)

Back to reality

So Jim and I took our week vacation a little earlier this year due to some concert conflicts. Ridiculous right? I know, but we love our concerts. Anywho, we went to our family cottage from 10-18 July and it was a nice relaxing week. We took a few day trips here and there but really just kind of hung out. I'll be adding some pics to my photo blog of things from the week.

I took the 19th off of work to sort of get back into the swing of things and do laundry and whatnot. I usually take the Monday off after I get back. Don't want to go jumping back into work too fast now lol.

Monday night was a photo shoot though. Now, I don't do portrait photography. I'm not really a people person and I prefer macro photography and landscapes. But, my friend Rachel asked me and my other friend Rachel to do some maternity pictures for her so I thought it would be fun to try something different. And guess what...it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be lol. I think its more the editing of portrait photographs that I don't like. Getting the skin tones right and making sure the white balance is good...ugh. I did edit one picture though...



...and I'm pretty proud of how it turned out.

So anyway, back to work...it was good actually. We had a new piece of equipment being added to the lab and after traveling to Ottawa back in March for the training, I was excited to get it up and running.

I bought a new purse too. I bought it before we went on vacation and it was waiting for me when I got back. I bought the Steve Madden BPatchh purse in lilac.



It was originally $98 and then it went "on sale" for like $89. Then the very next day it was on sale for $39.99...yes please! I love it! It's not leather, but it's super soft and can hold a ton of stuff.

Then, this past Thursday I went to a Gigi Hill handbags party. Of course I bought a few things. I'll post the actual pics of the items when I get them in. I must say that their business card holder is sweet!

And that's about it for now. Jim and I know we need to get back into home renovations so we're trying to decide what project to tackle next. We shall see...

Been super busy lately

So the day after my wonderful surprise party, I headed off to Kansas City, MO for work. Not only was I flying (not my favorite thing in the world) but there were tornado warnings out all over the place...awesome. Our flight was supposed to take off at 7:55 p.m. but at that time, we were still sitting in the airport. We had a plane but no crew. The weather that day really screwed everything up. So we're finally sitting on the plane and the pilot comes on to say there's a hydraulic leak and it will take at least 30 minutes to fix it...awesome. Needless to say, we ended up getting to KC about an hour and a half late. Oh well. It was Sunday night so we didn't have anything planned that night anyway.

I was in KC Mon-Thurs. Monday I was fine. Went to some meetings, ate lunch, went out to dinner that night, all good. Tuesday rolls around and in the morning I bought a bagel but wasn't super hungry...I sort of forced it down. So now its lunchtime and I have absolutely no appetite. I think I took two bites out of my sandwich and couldn't eat the rest. I continue my day, go to some more meetings, try to force some food down at around 4:00 since I knew dinner would be late. So I'm back in my room, brushing my teeth and I throw up. Score. I decided I felt OK though and headed on down to dinner. We get to the restaurant (which thankfully was in the hotel) and it just hit me. I don't feel good AT ALL! I decide to skip out on dinner, buy some water and pretzels at the drugstore and retire to my room for the night. I think I was able to eat like 3 pretzels.

Wednesday morning rolls around (my actual birthday) and I feel like complete crap! I had some meetings in the morning, but was always going back to my room in between meetings to rest a little. At lunch I ordered a bowl of minestrone soup and could barely get the broth down. I went to a 4:00 meeting and after an hour, finally went back to my room. I took a two hour nap, nice! It sucks though because I was all excited to go out and get some tasty BBQ and celebrate my birthday with some nice folks we had met. Nope. Went out to dinner at like 9:00 and while I did actually order some fish & chips, I only ate half of it. That was a start though.

Thursday we left. I was feeling better but not 100%. Oh and on the plane I had a window seat with no window. Seriously? That sucked! I may not be a huge fan of flying but I at least like to look out the window. So all in all, for work it was a pretty good trip. Too bad I felt like crap most of the time.

The Friday after we got back, Jim, my brother and I headed up to our cottage for the 4th of July weekend. I was pretty blah all weekend. Too much go-go-going, being sick and not enough sleep caught up with me I guess. We went to the fireworks in town and it was pretty sweet! There really isn't a huge body of water in town so they essentially set the fireworks off over a pond, which is pretty much the entire town. Yeah, flaming pieces of fireworks were falling around us lol.

This week at work has been super busy, but that's good. I also put together my application to go back to school (Master's in Engineering Management) so now I'm just waiting to hear if I've been accepted. I NEVER thought I'd go back to school but I figure if I'm not going to have kids any time soon I might as well accomplish something within the next few years lol.

So tonight we have to do some hardcore packing and cleaning since we're leaving tomorrow to go up to our cottage for a week. I'm so ready for this vacation!

Best Birthday Day Ever!

So yesterday we celebrated my birthday. (It's not actually until the 30th. I'll be 30 on the 30th - my golden year). It ended up being a surprise party and I was totally shocked! I knew Jill had a day planned for us and then I thought we were just going out to dinner with a bunch of friends...because that's what the email said that she sent out to everyone. Apparently this planning started back in April. Everyone had me totally fooled!

So our day started out with a lovely brunch at The Pantry. I love this place! Normally I would go with the omelette (because they are baked and delicious and fluffy and cheesy), but I decided on the cherry cheesecake crepes. So good!

Then it was off to get my haircut. Apparently Jill had planned for us to get a mani/pedi, but in passing conversation I mentioned that I'm not all about the "spa" type events. So I sort of put a damper on those plans, but I did get a nice trim on the hair and bangs. She got the pedi.

After that we stopped by Sonic to pick up a delicious cherry limeade and then it was off to Catching Fireflies. Cutest shop ever! I ended up getting a headband to wear at dinner (which I obviously totally didn't end up needing)...

and a cute little crystal to hang in my window...

On the way to our next stop, I received this gift...

It's a garden stone so I need to find the perfect place for it. Every time I look at it I'll remember my awesome birthday day!

Next stop was the International Gem and Jewelry show. (Oh, and by the way, with each planned stop, Jill had a little note card that I opened that sort of had a clue in it. Best idea ever! Those little note cards made me all excited and Jill thought that was hilarious).

So we stopped by the show and I picked up 6 more glass rings...

And apparently at this point, we hadn't quite used up enough time to let everyone prepare for the surprise back at her house so she was trying to keep us at the show longer. By this point I was pretty beat and just wanted to get back to her house to chill for a few, change and go out to dinner. Little did I know she was stalling.

After the jewelry show we stopped by Caribou Coffee for a little caffeine burst and Jill needed to "just sit and relax for a few". Oh, you mean stall?! LOL

So we finally start heading back to her house and I decide to text Jim and ask him what he's up to. He was heading over to Jill's, along with some of my other friends, to have a few drinks before we went out to dinner...or so I thought. So Jim tells me he had just left at it was like 6:45. I know in the fake email that Jill sent that everyone was supposed to meet at her house at 7:00 so I was kind of like, geez, way to leave so late.

So we get to Jill's house and there's a few cars in the driveway (including Jim's, hmmmmmmmmm), but nothing out of the ordinary since I knew people would be there already. But then Jill tells me I have to go around back first because those few people might want to say hi to me before I dart off and change. So I walk around back and I'm greeted with about 30 people all yelling surprise! My parents were there (which I TOTALLY did not expect), friends from work, everyone! It was so awesome! And I did get a little choked up (which is why I didn't take off my sunglasses Rachel, lol).

So yeah, they pulled of a surprise party and it was so much fun!

They even rented one of those bouncy/boxing ring things...

And then of course there was the delicious cake...along side my custom koozie which reads "it took me 30 years to look this good" lol.

Everyone put a lot of work into this and I'll never forget it. Thanks everyone for a very memorable birthday!

Thank you Netflix

Jim and I aren't big movie watchers. We don't even own a DVD player. If we ever want to watch a DVD, which is usually a comedy from the 90's, we pop it into the PS2.

Well I've been reading the Sookie Stackhouse books, which is what True Blood is based off of, so of course now I want to actually see the show. We don't have HBO either so that was a no go. I looked into how much the first season costs on DVD and it was like $40. No thanks.

Soooooooo, I realized it would be much cheaper for me to sign up for Netflix than to buy the season DVDs. And then since we have the Wii, we can instantly get shows/movies through that. Although I've heard that selection isn't that great. I haven't really checked it out yet.

Whatever, I was just super excited to watch the first two True Blood episodes last night!! And who knows, maybe we'll actually start watching some movies.

Garage Sale Finds

I've probably only been to a few garage sales in my life, but I had the urge to check some out with my mom the other day. I'm glad I did! I found some awesome stuff!

This little glass vase totally reminded me of chemistry class. What can I say...being a chemist I guess I'm kind of dorky like that. And $0.25? Yes please.

I was on the lookout for cool frames or mirrors and I came across these two. I'll be painting the frames just not sure what color yet. $2 for the pair.

Ok, so I knew those potato/onion storage bins existed but every time I looked for one to buy they were like $50! Um, no thank you. Well I was totally psyched when I saw this one at a garage sale. It needed some cleaning up, but Jim promptly took care of that when we brought it home. It now has a nice home in our basement.

And the best find of the day was this chair. After browsing various blogs and seeing all the cool things people do to old chairs, I was on the lookout for one. How awesome will this look painted (probably white) with some fun new fabric on it?! I'm so excited!

The first day I saw the chair they were asking $25 for it. I decided to leave it and come back the next day to see if it was still there. It was, and I got the chair and the above potato bin for $20! Now that's a sweet deal!

Super cute appetizer plates

Go ahead and add these to my list of things I have to have but don't need in the slightest.

oliver appetizer plates

Ikea purchases

I made a trip to Ikea today and like always, picked up more than a few things.

The main purpose of my trip was to get the Hyllis shelf that I saw in bryn alexandra's blog

I bought two and plan on putting them on either side of the desk in the office. I kind of like the stainless look, but I'm debating painting them white...or maybe black. I don't know yet.

Then I got two of these Ribba frames.

They have a silver foil finish on them so I might hang them in the office as well. And if I leave those shelves unpainted, it would add some more silver color to the room.

Another thing I picked up was this Lillholmen accessories stand.

I'm not quite sure where it's going to go yet, but I'm thinking either the bathroom or our bedroom, to hold some of my jewelry or other little items.

I picked up this cheap Bomull rug for our laundry room.

Not very exciting, but it'll get the job done.

Then I picked up these cute Godis glasses...like we don't have enough glasses. But for $6.99 I couldn't pass them up!

Another item I got was this Jonsbo Egby lamp.

I currently have it on the dresser in the office but I'm not sure if that is it's permanent home. It looks cute for now though.

I also bought this Ung Drill frame.

I'm thinking maybe that will go in the office as well, but I'm not sure yet. I don't know if I want to leave it black or paint it a really fun contrasting color. Still deciding on that one.

I also picked up some white curtains for the window in the office. I bought the Ikea Stockholm Figur curtains.

And last but not least, I bought the Kristaller chandelier. And this is definitely for the office!

Jim already hung it up and looks so awesome!

So that was my Ikea trip. The closest Ikea is almost an hour away, so the 2-3 trips I make there a year, I make worth the drive

Fun foodpod

I think I might need one of these...

foodpod

How fun is that?

Dresser makeover

This dresser has been around for as long as I can remember. I'm pretty sure my parents used it many moons ago. When I moved out and into the condo back in 2003, this dresser went with me and into our 9x9 closet. It spent many years hiding in that closet in its sad state but I wanted to change it up for use in our new office.

BEFORE

This was my second attempt at making over some furniture. I painted our desk as well which was a cherry wood color before, but I haven't taken any pictures yet. I'm not going to go into the details of how to paint furniture (a simple Google search will give you the answer) but it involved a little wood filler, sanding, priming with Kilz, painting and poly.

I used Benjamin Moore Cloud White in semi-gloss for the paint and it took three coats to get the best coverage. Since I used a latex paint, I needed to use a water-based polyurethane so I used the Minwax (in a blue can) semi-gloss finish. I did the first two coats with a can of the poly and a brush, but once it dried, it just didn't look right (and my dad warned me about that). I went ahead and bought a spray can for the last coat and it worked like a charm. A little more expensive, but much easier to work with.

And here's the finished product...

I went ahead and added glass knobs since there weren't any sort of handles/knobs before.

I also lined the drawers with a black & white patterned drawer liner that I found at Meijer.

It's being used in our office, which is SO not finished yet so a full office redo will be blogged at a later date.