Sunday, August 31, 2008

Fulfilling Our Patriotic Duty


Since it is Labor Day weekend, we did what every good American should do: make a major home appliance purchase at Home Depot and labor a lot. At least that's what the Home Depot commercials tell you to do.

Seriously though, we have certainly labored a lot this weekend. As you can see from the pictures I posted earlier, we've gotten a lot of painting done. We've also got the carpet ripped up in all the place where we will be putting new flooring. I did the majority of the painting and Andrew did the majority of the floor work. I don't envy his job, but I don't think he envies mine either. I fired him from painting because I was not satisfied with the job he did, but I don't think he was too upset about it.

We have been lucky to be able to borrow a lot of equipment from friends. Yesterday morning we went to my friend from work Jay's house to shop through his garage of tools. He was nice enough to follow us over to the house with his truck to transport everything. Once we got started ripping up carpet we quickly realized we needed a shop vac. I hated to bug Jay again so I called another friend from work Ryan who lives about a mile from the new house. He had a shop vac that he said we could borrow and within 5 minutes I was over there with it loaded up in the trunk. It's nice having friends who live nearby and are so helpful.

We got a lot of work done yesterday morning and called it a day around 2. I had a wedding shower to go to for my friend Catherine who was in town. I hadn't seen her in about a year and a half and there were some other friends there that I don't get to see too often, so it was fun. Here is a pic of all of us ACU girls at the shower.

Andrew wasn't too upset that I took off, since he had DVRed Virginia Tech's first game of the season and was anxious to go home and watch it. After the shower I had to hightail it downtown to meet up with Andrew and others for my cousin Chip's birthday dinner. We ate at Fogo de Chao, which is a meat lover's dream. It is a Brazilian steakhouse where they bring around every kind of meat you could imagine on long swords. It's definitely a fun time, but not cheap!!

Today we went to church in the morning and then on the way home stopped at Home Depot to order our refrigerator. We had picked out an LG side by side model in the "stainless look" finish (which really means titanium) but unfortunately they didn't have it in stock. The guy recommended we check online or at another store (ie. Lowes) but we were kind of disappointed since we had spent a while researching them and really wanted to order it that day without going on a wild goose chase. We were walking out of the store when we remembered we needed to pick up more paintbrushes. We turned around and walked over to the paint section when the sales guy from the appliances came and found us. He said that same model was available in stainless (even better!) and they had plenty in stock in the warehouse! He said it was $100 more expensive but he would knock $50 off of that for us! Score! So we went back over and happily ordered it. For the holiday weekend they had a %10 off sale going on, plus free delivery with a mail in rebate, so all in all we ended up paying less for the stainless model than we would have for the stainless look. Thanks Home Depot for making it a great Labor Day!

Here are some more pictures of our work! Andrew ripped up the carpet in the formal living/ dining room and in the master bathroom. There is also a "before" photo of the master bath for you to compare. I am putting a second coat of paint on the living room walls. The place looks kind of crazy right now, but it will all be worth it when it's done!



Goings On...

Getting paint on the walls and ripping up the carpets...


Saturday, August 30, 2008

It Begins...

I am exhausted and it's 1:30 am so I'm not going to be long. Today was a long day! I woke up early enough to run by the house for 5 minutes to look at the paint colors in the morning light. This would have been a great idea except for the cloud cover we had this morning. Oh well. At least I got an idea of what the commute would be like from the new house at the time of the morning.

Work seemed to drag on (again) but I think it's going to feel that way for a while since I'm so distracted. Also it didn't help that is was the last day before a 3 day weekend. After work we came home for a bit, ate dinner and then headed over to Home Depot. We bought paint and lots of paint supplies, as well as some other things we needed. By the time we got back to the house it was about 9. We got to work taping off the trim, window frames, outlets, etc. Taping the ceiling was a pain in the butt because we have yucky popcorn ceilings and tape does not like to stick to them. We will be having the contractor scrape the popcorn ceilings and repaint them, but for the time being I didn't want to slop paint all over them so I was trying to be careful. While I began painting Andrew started experimenting with the baseboards. We have to pull them all off in the rooms where we are getting new floors. They look kind of crappy anyway so we think we are just going to pull them all off and replace them on the first level of the house. After some finagling he got the first baseboard off and after that it went like clock work. I got most of the living room done with the first coat of paint and he got all the baseboards off. We left the house around 12:30 impressed with how much we actually accomplished. I wish I had my camera over there with me tonight, but I will be sure to post some pics of our progress over the weekend. There is still a lot of work to be done!

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Starbucks Full Circle

Well it is official! We are homeowners! I didn't get a chance to write last night because there was a lot going on. I almost didn't get a chance to write tonight either, but I'm making some time for it. I imagine now that we are out of the "planning" phase and into the "doing" phase, I will have less time for writing on here. I will try to still keep up with it as best I can.

I'll try to summarize the closing process briefly. We got to the title company a few minutes before 1 and Paul was already there. We went in the room with the lady who was doing our closing at pretty much 1 on the dot. All of our paperwork was ready to go so there was no delay with that. She began handing us documents and briefly explaining what each page said. Most of this stuff is over my head so I let Andrew ask questions if he needed to and I stayed quiet for the most part. Paul was pretty reassuring about the whole thing and we really didn't have to many questions, so it was just a matter or signing all the pages. It was over before I knew it. By 1:30 we were driving down the road trying to decide where to eat lunch. The whole process took about 20 minutes. It was completely opposite of most of the horror stories I've heard about closings. In fact, it went so quick, it didn't really feel real.

The other reason it didn't really feel real was we didn't have the keys yet. The seller wasn't coming in to do their end of the closing until 3 o'clock. I almost cried when I heard this. Also it takes a little bit of time for the lender to receive all the paperwork and release the funds, or something like that. So the lady said they could get us the keys later in the day, or possibly in the morning. There was no way I was waiting till the next morning to get the keys. I wanted them RIGHT NOW. Then I remembered we had an appointment with the electrician at 8 am, so we definitely needed the keys before then. Paul came to our rescue and said he could come back for the keys and bring them to us later on in the day.

So I left feeling a little disappointed, relieved, but wishing we had the keys or something to show for it! Eating lunch at Freebirds helped to lift my spirits, but then we didn't know what to do with ourselves after that. I suggested we go to RoomStore and order our furniture and Andrew was on board with that. So that's what we did! We had been in several times and looked at it so we were ready to buy when we walked in the door. Since this weekend is Labor Day, they had a sale going on, so we got some money off on the deal. The furniture will be delivered on Sunday the 7th of September. I can't wait to get it! After we left RoomStore we went on home to hang out for a while. Paul called around 4 and said he could meet us at 4:45 to give us the keys. He wanted to meet at the Starbucks at Mopac and William Cannon. The great thing about this was on August 25th, 2007 we were in Austin looking for a rental property before we moved down, and we met Paul for the first time at this same Starbucks. It seemed very appropriate that this is where we would meet to get the keys for our first home purchase. I made Paul and Andrew take this cheesy picture. Paul was goofy and looks like a total nerd, but he was definitely a better sport than Andrew. Thanks for everything Paul!!! This is the part where I give Paul a plug and say if you need a great agent, we happen to know one.


So after we had the keys and officially felt like homeowners, we immediately went to the house. We walked every square inch and looked at every little detail. We played with all the light switches to see what they did (there are still a few I'm not sure what they do). We looked in the darkest corners of every closet and studied the thermostat and played with the garage door opener. Its weird how many little nuances there are in a new house. It takes a while to get everything figured out. Since the paint samples I ordered had come in, I wasted no time in trying them out. When I first put the green "Grass Cloth" on the wall I about freaked out because it looked neon lime green. After it dried and I put three coats on it, it looked like what I imagined, and I'm very happy with it. I'm also very happy with the yellow-gold "Honey Bear" color for our master bedroom. I'm still tackling the formal living/ dining room because the color is not working out. The one I originally picked out "Castle Stone" is supposed to be a light khaki color. On the wall it looked like a light, bright yellow. Today I bought two more samples so I now have three different colored blobs painted on the wall. I am waiting to let them dry overnight and then will see how they look. So far I have been frustrated and disappointed with these shades, because they look COMPLETELY different on the wall than on the swatch.

While we were trying out the paint last night, my friend Ellen from work called and wanted to come by and see the house. Her and her husband Jeff just bought a house a few months ago, not too far from our place. When they showed up they had brought us a bottle of wine and some toilet paper! Necessities!! We have gotten a lot of use out of both. Luckily I had brought some plastic cups over to the house in case we might want a drink of water while working. We looked super classy drinking our wine out of red Solo cups. The toilet paper was a great idea that I had not even thought of. Sometimes you have to use the bathroom in the empty house!

By the time we went to bed last night we were exhausted. It was hard to concentrate at work today because I wanted to be at the house. The electrician was there most of the day doing work, most of which was unexciting. The one thing I was excited to see was the new fans he had installed in the two upstairs bathrooms. I know this doesn't sound very exciting to most, but if you have bought a home, you know how anxious you are to see the results of any additions or improvements. Even bathroom fans. We spent a good amount of time over there tonight trying out the paint and letting the dogs run around and check the place out. Here are a few pics of the dogs in the empty new house.
We think they like it so far... they mostly tore around the rooms sniffing every inch and running around like maniacs.









They seem to like the yard although Macy is a little hesitant to leave the deck at times. There are other dogs in the yard that backs up to ours and Beamer and them are getting acquainted. There have been some hostile growls and barks but for
the most part just curious sniffing.
They will get used to each other after a while. The dogs are still kind of confused by the garage and the big door going up and down. Macy definitely doesn't like the loud noise. It will be interesting to see how they adjust to the new place. I'm sure they will like having more space.

Well it's getting late and I have had two long days so I'm ready to hit the sack! I'm looking forward to the three day weekend, even if I will be spending most of it painting! If you're here in town, feel free to stop by!!

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

AHHHHHH!

I'm at work, it's 10:20 and I can barely think!!! Only one and a half more hours!!! I'm going craaaaazy!!!!!!!!!!!

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Tomorrow, Tomorrow, I Love You Tomorrow, You're Only a Day Away...

Tomorrow is the big day! I hope I can sleep tonight! I'm feeling pretty sleepy right now so hopefully I can get some rest. We are both going into work until noon and then heading up north for the closing at 1. We are both feeling pretty good about everything at this point, and a lot of the anxiety we had has been lifted, for several reasons. I think we might need to fire our real estate agent, though! Just kidding.... Paul told me the other day he reads this sometimes so I had to get a jab in at him. I guess our biggest anxiety at this point is getting TO the closing! It would sure help if Paul would e-mail the directions properly!!

We finally got an estimate from the contractor. The first estimate we got was from the partner of the friend-of-a-friend guy. He quoted us several THOUSANDS of dollars more than we ever dreamed of paying. Then later in the day his partner (the guy we actually know) called and gave me another estimate, one that was actually in the ballpark of what we were considering. I guess the first guy gave us a quote based on making a lot of money off of the deal, but Rob just wants to give us a good price and wasn't concerned about his cut. So that is good news, knowing we can get the work done for a reasonable amount. And it was one of the better conversations I've had with him, he wasn't pushy or opinionated, just nice.

I can't believe it's really happening tomorrow! I'm so excited to have the keys and get started on the whole thing! I'm sure I'll have lots to say tomorrow night, but for now I'm off to bed! Thanks for reading!

Monday, August 25, 2008

Ode to The Neighbors

Over the last few weeks since I've started blogging I've been talking about all the exciting plans we have for moving into the new house. One thing I have overlooked is the one (and maybe only) downside to moving out of the duplex, but it is a big downside! We love our neighbors!! I am going to be so sad to leave them behind when we move. In our old house back in Virginia we only knew one set of neighbors, they were retirement age, and we could never remember their names. When we came here we weren't looking to make friends with anyone on the street, it just happened that way. We first began talking because our dogs always wanted to play together and liked to sniff at each other between the fence boards in the backyard. Eventually we let them run around together in the front yard and we started chatting. After a while this became an almost nightly ritual that I looked forward to. And then after couple of months of chatting in the front yard, I guess they liked us enough to invite us out with them. It happened to be George's birthday, and I won't share too many details on here, but Andrew jokingly threatened to punch George in the face, and they all wondered if he was half serious. I guess that was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

It's been almost a year now and we've shared a lot of fun times. We have barbecued together on many occasions, stayed up late playing video games, hiked with the dogs on the greenbelt, celebrated all of our birthdays' together, gone to concerts, and drank many a cold beverage in the front yard. They have turned out to be some of our best friends in Austin! I'm glad we'll be just a few minutes away still, but I will miss the ease and casual feeling of having friends right next door.

I have to share one of my favorite stories regarding the neighbors. One evening Jaime sent me a text message to see if the we wanted to come outside with the dogs. She meant to send the text to my cell phone but accidentally sent it to the house phone. Andrew and I were sitting on the couch watching tv when the house phone rang once and then the answering machine immediately picked up. It began recording in a robot sounding voice, "Can Beamer and Macy come out to play?" We just about died laughing. When we opened the front door to go outside Jaime had no idea why we were laughing so hard until we told her. None of us had any idea that you could text a land line and it would actually speak the words!

Fast forward a month or so to my birthday. Jaime decided to be cute and send a text message birthday wish to the house phone for me to hear when I got home from work. She wrote out the words to the birthday song by the Beatles, and where the music would play she typed "na na na na." For whatever reason, when Sprint translated this text message into audio, "na" became "North America." Listen here and get ready to laugh. Besides the obvious hilariousness of it, at the end, instead of pronouncing her name "jay-me" it chose to pronounce it like the Hispanic male's name. This event has been one of our favorite jokes ever since. After this, I will never be able to separate birthdays and North America.

So here are some pictures of us with "the neighbors" (I use it as a collective term for all four of them) from my birthday party and on the way to see Ghostland Observatory.












































We have had some fun times. Jaime, George, Mel, Iggy,
Marika, Richard and Lucy, we will miss you guys, but there is no excuse for not coming over to visit!







And just as a glimpse of what is to come, our new neighbor are the "crazy people on the street with the ugly house." That's right, they are the ones with the neon blue house with teal trim. You won't have any trouble finding us! We're right next door!

Sunday, August 24, 2008

Three Days!!

According to our official Countdown Timer, we close in less than three days! This weekend was fun and flew by, but I'm afraid the next few days are really going to drag. Our appointment is on Wednesday at 1pm, so I will leave work around noon. I really only have to make it through Monday and Tuesday because Wednesday will barely count as a day. I also get to go into work late tomorrow because we are meeting the contractor at the house tomorrow morning at 8:30, so that will help make tomorrow not feel so long. Let's all keep our fingers crossed that we can actually GET INTO the house tomorrow at 8:30.

Yesterday was a fun and long day, and a great distraction from thinking about house stuff! I was so glad to be involved in something else for once, and something that was fun! It was Lindsey's birthday, so all of her family was in town, and we spent that day doing wedding things. Her sister Bethany and I are going to be the the maid/ matron of honor, and her step sister Lori is one of the bridesmaids. We went to an awesome new bridal salon near the Hill Country Galleria called Signaure Bridal Salon. Lindz had pretty much already found the dress she liked there, but she wanted everyone to see it. Let's just say we all approved!


While she was finishing up on the bridal side, she sent us over to the bridesmaid section to take a look at the dresses over there. She had already seen a few she liked but she wanted us to look for ourselves. We picked out a few we all liked and headed to the dressing room to try them all on. It was a unanimous decision on the dress Bethany had on first, which was great because it was Lindsey's first choice, too! Unfortunately the only color they had it in was a coral-y pink color and we will be wearing it in Espresso (brown). Of course they had swatches so we know what it will look like, but I can't wait to see it in person in the right color and in a size that isn't falling off of me. Here is a pic of the dress, but I think pictures don't do it justice! It really is a very flattering fit and looks much better on a person than in the picture or on the hanger. In fact, when I first saw it on the hanger I thought it was nice but wasn't in love with it yet. As soon as I saw it on Bethany I knew it was the dress for us all and the other styles couldn't even compete. I wish the other girls could have been there with us, but we are so spread out across the country. The other three bridesmaids will all be in Austin at some point over the next few weeks, so hopefully they will get the opportunity to see it and fall in love with it also.

Lindsey's mom also tried on an AMAZING mother of the bride dress that we all loved. Dana is a hot mom and this dress is definitely a great look for her. In just about an hour Lindsey got her dress, the bridesmaids picked out ours, her mom found hers, we all got measured and ordered our dresses. It was too easy! Since we were done so early, we headed across the parking lot to the new Little Woodrow's and all had drinks! We finished off the night with some delicious City Market barbecue brought in from Luling, "moist" chocolate cake, and Mexican Train dominoes!! It was a great day, but I was tired when I got home!

Throughout the day we tossed around some ideas for what Bethany referred to as the "Bach Party" (pronounced "batch", sounds like short for bachelorette). At one point Lindsey mentioned that she would love to watch the Sex and the City movie at the party, which gave me and awesome idea. Unfortunately I will not get to live out this awesome idea because when I looked into the pricing, it would cost several THOUSAND dollars! Lindsey and Jake love to go to Alamo Drafthouse to see movies, so I thought it would be awesome to rent out a theater at Alamo and watch the movie, and do dinner and drinks there. It would have been perfect because the one downtown is less than a block from Pete's Piano bar, which is one of the places we'd like to go for the Bach Party. Unless one of us wins the lotto in the next 6 months, I don't think this is going to happen, but if it did, it would have gone down as the best Bach Party in history.

Today has been a lazy Sunday so far. We went to church this morning and then came home and napped and lounged around. One thing I really need to do tonight is some cleaning and laundry! Our duplex is about to be listed as up for lease which means people are going to start coming through to see it. I'm really not looking forward to this but it's a necessary part of the process. It's kind of weird situation, because it's not like we are trying to get our house sold, it's not even our house. But at the same time, I don't want a stranger to come in and see piles of dirty laundry or dishes around, it's just kind of embarrassing. If our landlord is able to find a tenant for the end of September, we can get refunded part of September's rent, so that is some incentive for us to try and get the place leased.

Hope everyone else had a good weekend! Hopefully I will have good news to report tomorrow after our meeting with the contractor! Thanks for reading!

Friday, August 22, 2008

I Can't Believe I Forgot!!

The other night when I posted my ideas for our masterbedroom, I forgot to add something. After I had already put together the colors and everything, I found this picture in a Pottery Barn catalog. I couldn't believe it, because it was almost the exact same colors as what I wanted, and even the headboard of the bed looks like ours! The wall color in the picture is more of a sunshine-y yellow, and ours will be more goldy, but its still a very similar look. The blue and white bedding is very similar to ours, although ours of course is the toile pattern. Anyway, just wanted to put this up here!

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Christmas in August!!!

When I got home from work today there were 9 boxes from UPS and Fed Ex waiting on the door step! All our the fixtures we ordered from Home Depot came in today! Here is a picture of them piled up inside the house:

I immediately went to work opening each one to take a look. I had spent hours staring at them on the website, but since they were only available online, I had never seen any of them in real life. I was like a kid on Christmas morning! The dogs were very interested in what I was up to, and wanted to help by sniffing everything as much as possible. By the time Andrew got home from work, I pretty much had them all opened. This is what he saw when he came in the door:


I am happy to report nothing was broken, and everything looks just like I imagined it would! Now I can't wait to actually get them into the house!

I'm posting early tonight because we are getting ready to eat dinner and then we're off to a concert tonight! Merry Christmas everybody!!

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Project Runway Night!!

How could I be in a bad mood on Wednesday?? It's Project Runway night!!! I'm in the female's equivalent of a Fantasy Football league, except with Project Runway. The point systems is kind of elaborate so I won't go into too much detail about it, but basically you pick your top three designers and then two alternates. It's organized by a friend back home in Virginia, and there are 20 people playing. It's a 10 dollar buy in, so the winner gets 200 bucks!! I don't think it will be me since my number one pick was eliminated tonight but it's still fun to watch and keep up with who is winning in our game. This is my first time to play, but last season a guy actually won, and right now a guy is in the lead. Andrew likes to watch the runway show so he can make fun of all the designs. I wouldn't be surprised if he was playing next season! Time will tell. Another reason for being in a good mood... we got a free dinner tonight! We met our friend Randy who is in Georgetown visiting his uncle, and his uncle bought dinner! Definitely made the drive to 35 & 290 worth it!

Well tonight I figured I post my ideas for our master bedroom. A lot of the pieces will carry over from what we have now in the rental house, but it will get a sprucing up. Before we moved down here and I left my job at Country Curtains, I bought basically a whole new bedding set for our bedroom. I bought it with the hope we would own a house soon and I would use it in our new house, but in the meantime I wanted to use it in the rental house as well. The print is a blue and white toile and the quilt and accent pillows are a solid blue. Here is a picture of it in our bedroom right now.


We are using the color Honey Bear on the walls, which is a soft gold color. I love the color combo of the blue, white and gold. I think having a color behind it instead of just white will change the look of the toile, so even though I've lived in this room with this print for a year already, the new bedroom will have a whole new look to it. We will also be doing a sitting area in the master bedroom since it's such a big space and we need to fill it up with something. We have a loveseat that is very comfortable but doesn't look great or match anything so we bought a slip cover to put on it for the master bedroom. The wall in front of the sitting area will be painted white as an accent wall, so Honey Bear will only be on three walls. Here is what the slipcover looks like.

Unfortunately we don't have a whole matching bedroom set to use in this room. A few years ago we got this sleigh bed, which I LOVE but our bedroom was so tiny at the time, we didn't have room for any other furniture. Now this style is discontinued so I can't get the matching pieces. I would love two matching nightstands and a big dresser. Of course those things aren't really in the budget right now, but someday I will find ones that match the wood color and when the time is right they will be ours. Here are pictures of the master bedroom, bathroom and some of the fixtures, some from the listing and some that I have taken.



In the bathroom we are going to rip up the yucky carpet on the floor and lay new tile. I haven't picked out the exact shade for the bathroom walls, but I think I'll just see if at Home Depot they can mix a lighter shade of Honey Bear. We have the matching shower curtain in the blue toile and white towels (shown to the left), so I think the effect would be very pretty. I think a shade slightly lighter would be nice though, since the bathroom is a smaller room. We will be replacing all of the towel bars, towel ring, and other fixtures with brushed nickel ones. This is the vanity lighting we will use, and the ceiling fan for the master bedroom!


























Today I ordered paint samples directly from the Behr website. They sell small 8 oz. samples for you to paint a patch on your walls to see how you like it. Since I spent so long picking out paint, I'm really excited about seeing what the colors actually look like on the wall. I think it will be fun to paint a little patch and experiment! I'm hoping they come in by next Wednesday, because as soon as I get the keys to the house I want to try the samples out! I'm not wasting any time! The one week countdown has officially begun!

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

The Slowest Week in History.... Until Next Week

Hello faithful blog readers. Tonight I'm feeling better and a little more cheery, although today was another day on the emotional rollercoaster called "Waiting to Close on Your House." I was feeling pretty productive this morning so I called the electrician who recently did an estimate for us at the new house, and scheduled a day for him to come do the work. During the inspection some electrical problems were discovered that required attention, luckily we were able to ask for some money back towards closing to cover those costs. I was very happy to be able to schedule him for the 28th, the day after we close, and felt relieved to have crossed at least one thing off my ever growing list. We also opted to have him to put in exhaust fans in the two upstairs bathrooms since they have poor ventilation. Apparently if a bathroom has a window in it, building codes don't require it to have a fan, but who wants to shower with the window open all the time? After talking to him on the phone I was quite happy to learn that doing this additional work would cost about half of what we thought it would. Score!

On his way home from work Andrew called me to let me know about his rollercoaster ride of the day. Our contact with the lender called him this afternoon and suddenly needed some documentation that we had not known we would need before. Some of this documentation required him calling back home to Virginia to get information from his parents. She called him at 4:30 our time, 5:30 eastern time, so it wasn't really the most convenient time to be dealing with this issue. By some stroke of luck he was able to get a hold of everyone he needed and get all the information and documentation but it definitely made for a stressful end of the day.

After getting a semi-decent night's rest I was feeling a little better about my conversation with the contractor last night, which was most of the cause of my anxiety in my last post. I don't like to bash people on the internet, especially people who I know USE the internet, but I doubt he will be reading my blog anytime soon. The contractor is a nice guy and I know he means well, but he has more opinions than I care to hear about. I'd like him to do the work I'm paying him to do and not have to hear his thoughts and professional opinion on EVERYTHING else in the house. I feel like I have to justify my decisions to him and it gets really tiresome. I know he will give us a good deal and do a good job so I'm willing to put up with it. Also, I'm not the only person he's like that with, which makes me feel better. Apparently he's like that with everyone. It was frustrating last night, but in the light of a new day it was not such a big deal.

I guess all these things are to be expected. We are going about our daily lives with these lumps in the back of our throats, like just waiting for something to go awry and find out the loan got screwed up, or the house was struck by lightening, or a sink hole opened up and swallowed all of South Austin... Ok I know that sounds ridiculous, but at this point it feels like everything is teeter tottering and we are just waiting for something to happen to blow the whole thing up. And it doesn't help that the days are crawling by. I can't believe it's only Tuesday; I feel like I've lived through two months already this week. All I can think about while I'm at work is house stuff, and I'm driving myself insane. Work hasn't been particularly busy lately either, there is always something to do, but I haven't been "busy."

I think the week will start picking up tomorrow. We had to break our meal schedule for the week because we got an unexpected call from a friend in town who wanted to do dinner tomorrow night. I guess this means I will be cooking on Friday night now. Anyway, Randy grew up at Falls Church and has known Andrew forever, he was in the youth group when I was an intern, and this summer he WAS the intern at Falls Church. It makes me feel old to think about that, but it will be good to see him for a little while tomorrow night. Thursday night we are going to a show at Antone's to see Homer Hiccolm and the Rocket Boys, a band that I love a lot, made up of all guys from ACU. Friday night is the weekend, finally, and then Saturday is Lindsey's birthday and all kind of fun wedding things! I just have to find things to keep myself occupied until next Wednesday!!

That's all for tonight! Completely unrelated to house stuff, here is a pic I took the other day of our "babies!" Aren't they cute???

Monday, August 18, 2008

Garfield's Favorite Food

I made lasagna for dinner tonight. For some reason during the day while thinking about the lasagna I was going to be making I was reminded of Garfield. I used to love watching the Garfield cartoon show when I was a kid. If you followed Garfield at all you will remember how much he loved lasagna. When I was a kid I never questioned this, but today I started wondering why he loved lasagna so much and couldn't really make sense of it. Besides his love of lasagna, some other themes of the comic strip/ show were laziness, naps and hatred of diets. He probably wouldn't like the lasagna I make; I use fat free ricotta cheese, fat free mozzarella, ground turkey and whole grain pasta. I think its quite delicious and there is no guilt involved in eating this lasagna. I got the recipe from a cook book that I love, if you are interested let me know and I can send it to you. This lasagna is one of the reasons I was able to have that infamous $81 dollar grocery store trip. We will eat this for several lunches and at least one more dinner this week. It's strategy.

That's all the humor I have for tonight.

In the next few days I'm going to get all the ideas for the master bedroom up here but tonight I don't have the mental energy to do it. I'm feeling kind of stressed tonight and not in the mood to gush. Obviously there is a lot of anxiety and anticipation that goes along with closing on a house. I am interested to see what it will actually be like since we have heard so many different stories. Some people say it was easy, piece of cake, no problem. Then I've heard stories of people showing up to their closings and the paperwork being all wrong, wrong interest rate, an ARM instead of a fixed, etc. Some people say don't bother reading every little line, some people say make sure you read everything. I guess in those kind of situations I count on Andrew to make sure everything is as it should be, because it's too much for me to take it all in. I'm obviously excited to get in the house and get all my decorating ideas started. But really come August 27th when we close, I will be most glad to have THIS process behind me.

I think most of my audience is made up of females so you will probably all understand when I say I think I need a good cry (any males reading will think I'm crazy). I kind of feel it coming on and I'm sure sometime in the next week leading up to or on our closing day it will happen. Sometimes you just have to get in a good cry and you feel so much better afterwards, its like a release of all the stress built up inside you. Here's hoping it happens soon!

Sunday, August 17, 2008

A Good Grocery Trip and More Plans

In the past few months as we have tightened our budget and our belts in preparation for buying a house, we've gotten smarter about our grocery shopping strategies. You might not have thought there was much strategy involved in grocery shopping, but you were wrong. If you know either one of us very well, you know we love to eat out, (especially me at Freebirds about every 7-10 days) and eating out several times a week can really add up. That is one habit we are still working hard to change, but we have gotten it down to a minimum. Usually in the past we would be eating out as a result of a conversation like this:

"What do you feel like eating tonight?"

"I dunno, what do you want?"

"I don't know.... I don't really feel like cooking."

"Let's just go get something somewhere."

In order to curb this behavior, like I said, we came up with a strategy that helps us avoid being in this situation. We started planning out our meals for two weeks at a time before making a trip to the grocery store. This doesn't necessarily mean that I am going to cook every night for two solid weeks. We might schedule a night where we just eat leftovers, or make ourselves a sandwich, or eat the occasional bowl of cereal for dinner (don't deny it, you do it too). We also take into account anything we might have going on during the week, for example an evening we know we won't be at home but the occasion might include a meal. We usually schedule one night a week for ourselves to eat out, typically Friday night. I also try to make enough food that we will have leftovers to take for lunch, but we also buy groceries to pack our lunches for when we don't have leftovers. This systems has worked great for us because it takes the burden off of myself for deciding what to make for dinner that night and knowing if we have all the proper ingredients. It completely avoids a situation where you revert to eating out for lack of better options and knowing you will get to eat out on Friday night gives you something to look forward to.

This systems is also great because we found that when we make short, sporadic trips to the grocery store we end up spending a lot more than when we make one big trip. That's not to say that we still don't have to make the occasional trip to the store, but they are fewer and far between when we have done our planning right. So I am pleased to announced that tonight we went to HEB and spent EIGHTY ONE DOLLARS on two weeks worth of groceries for lunch and dinner!!!!!!! This is a world record!!! Ok, I have to admit some of the meals we planned involved foods we already had at home (i.e. frozen burger patties) but seriously, 81 dollars??? I'm pretty proud of ourselves. And as a reward we get to eat out the next two Friday nights. :)

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On to bigger and better things. Tonight I'd like to unveil to you all (drum roll please) my plans for our formal living/ dining room. While this room probably won't get as much use as the family room, I'm really glad to have an area where we can serve a larger meal and entertain as well. It may take a little longer than the family room for this room to come together, but when it does it will be a great space. Here are a few photos of the room, some from the real estate listing and some that I have taken.

















When we lived in Virginia some family friends gave us furniture they didn't want anymore because they were moving into a new house. This furniture was almost brand new and looked like it had come right from the store. At the time we didn't have any room for it but we didn't want to turn it down either. We have had it in storage at various places for the past 3 years so I am really excited to finally get to use it. They gave us a nice sofa and matching arm chair that are very attractive and formal looking. It's not the kind of sofa you could curl up on and watch a movie, but it's perfect for a nice formal sitting area. The sofa is being stored in our garage right now and has about a hundred boxes stacked up on it, but the chair is in our bedroom so I took a pic of it to show on here. You can get an idea of the styling of the sofa from the chair. We are using Castle Stone as the paint color in this room, which is pretty neutral and will compliment the blue very nicely I think. I am looking for some occasional tables to use in this sitting area. I need to find a coffee table, sofa table and console table (possibly just 2 of the same to use for both purposes) for this room. I'd like to find something with a darker maybe cherry colored finish to match the wood on the legs of this furniture. I have seen a group at Target that I actually like a lot and are a pretty good price so they are the number one choice. I want something that looks nice but I don't want to spend a lot of money. If anyone has any good suggestions on where to find tables let me know!

This room opens up to the kitchen and then onto the family room so I wanted to keep the pineapple theme going throughout the whole first level. The colors in the pineapple fabric really wouldn't work with the blue sofa and chair so I had to come up with a solution. Don't worry my friends, Country Curtains never dissapoints! They sell the cutest lace curtain with pineapples in the lace! I'm normally not a big lace fan, I think it looks kind of grandma-ish in a lot of cases, but this lace is SO not grandma! It's really whimsical and cute and the perfect way to carry the pineapples over into this room. They even sell a curtain rod in a pewter finish (it will be a close match with the brushed nickel fixtures) with pineapple finials! Here are the pics off the website.




















The pineapple lace shown in the picture is the "natural" color. Since the paint color in that room is going to be a beige-y color, we will be using the lace in white. It's really going to pop against the walls and look so cute! I can't wait to see it all done!

The formal dining area will be in front of the HUGE window shown in some of the other pictures. We have a dining table (also a hand-me-down) with a leaf that came with 6 chairs but 2 have since been broken! It is a nice table but sooner or later we are going to want something a little more modern and with 6 matching chairs! For now it will have to do with four chairs and maybe someday if I'm lucky we will get a new dining set.

Of course being the over-planner that I am, I had to design a layout for this room as well. Off to the right side of the room are the stairs leading to the second level. There is also a powder room and coat closet off of this room. I've added in the tables that I'd like to have in here, so hopefully we can find something that will work for what we are looking for!


Well that's all for tonight. Sometimes I wonder if anyone even reads all of my ramblings, but even if no one does, it sure is nice for me to get it all out of my head and onto paper... or screen... whatever. ;)

Goodnight!

Saturday, August 16, 2008

Let There Be Light

If you have ever been to Home Depot on a Saturday you may have experienced a lack of available sales associates and long wait times for getting answers to your questions, like we usually do. I don't know if there was a full moon tonight, or if it was the fact that I was a female by myself, or what the case was, but my during my solo trip to Home Depot today I had the undivided attention of four different employees who were extremely helpful and answered all my questions. When I got home I told Andrew he should never go with me again.

Today I ordered all the new light fixtures for the house. Right now the house has shiny brass accents on all the chandeliers and ceiling fans and it looks quite like 1993... the year the house was built. But very soon the house will have brand new brushed nickel fixtures everywhere you look and the lighting will look very sharp. This will definitely give the house an updated look and bring it in to the new millennium. I had a lot of fun picking these out, but I also never imagined I would care so much about what ceiling fans looked like. It's funny how your priorities change when you are facing homeownership, and the ugly ceiling fans you've lived with your whole rental life suddenly become a non-negotiable in your own house. Here are some pics of the current fixtures and what we will be replacing them with!






The chandelier and ceiling fan are for the formal living and dining room combo.












The breakfast area in the kitchen will get this cute 3 light casual chandelier.






The vanity lighting in all of the bathrooms will look like this!








Well there is a glimpse into what all the new fixtures will look like. I love the look of brushed nickel and it will definitely give the house a modern face lift.


In my journeys today I also found some great pineapple accents to use around the house! I was so excited to find these, and for so cheap! I love a good bargain! I also discovered a new store today, Garden Ridge. I have driven by it a hundred times but never been inside. That place is a gold mine! I could spend a lot more money in there, but you practically need a whole day to go through the store. This place is like Hobby Lobby or Michael's on steroids. It's HUGE. So I will leave you with these pictures: the pack of pineapple towels I found for $7.99 (I bought 3 packs!) and the framed pineapple prints for $12.99 each! Nothing like a good deal!




Countdown till Closing!