Christmas cards and such….

I used to mail Christmas cards until the year we reached 100 cards to send. At that point I kind of gave up. It’s hard to put a cheerful little message to each and every person. You start getting repetitious. I feel bad because so many of you lovelies have sent us cards. I know I should try harder….

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

Also if you’ve sent a gift and I haven’t called to Thank you than the calls on its way. I’m staggering opening presents because I like to really savor each and every item.

I’ve caught up my Google reader now what….

Christmas is a mere one work day away (and several non-work days) which creates a bit of a dilemma. I’ve got no work to do; well I do but no pressing need to do it. People I’d need to link up with are either off, unavailable or wasting time so what am I to do. Yesterday I caught up my Google reader. I’m all caught up on my work reading (reading about new hypothetical tax laws makes me want to change professions), the gossip rags aren’t reporting anything of interest, and Pinterest has lost me (the shock). So now I’m looking for recommendations. What blogs are you reading? Be detailed in your description and please provide a link.

OOOOhhhh I like when things show up in the mail….

I ordered something 30 days ago that finally showed up….

Any clue what it is?

How about now? Gosh I love how Pinterest has all this witty stuff on it and I can just save picture as and seem all cool. It ends up I ordered a new duvet cover last month that took a full 30 days to arrive. When it came today I was so excited I officially amended tonight’s plans (yeah Honey we had plans tonight) from the following:

1. Bake Christmas cookies

2. Drink hot chocolate

3. Watch Elf



To

1. Bake Christmas cookies

2. Strip bed of all the old crap we have on it

3. Make bed with all the new stuff I bought today on my lunch break (yeah Honey I bought a bunch of new stuff at Target today…I mean really didn’t you know a new duvet cover meant new comforter, duvet and sheets. I stopped at the pillows cause you know they are ok)

4. Drink hot chocolate AND watch Elf….IN BED!



Gosh I love my new plan. What’s your big happenings today?

November 25th = Christmas in our house….

Everyone has an opinion about when is the proper time to start putting up the Christmas decorations. Most of the time people think Christmas is coming too early and I used to be one of those people. When I worked down town in one of those huge office buildings the Monday after Thanksgiving they would always start putting up the lobby tree. It felt too soon. When I’d hear about people doing black Friday shopping the day after Thanksgiving I would think “whose thinking about Christmas already”. Jedd and I have only put up a tree one year in the almost eight we’ve been together. That was the total extent of our decorating for Christmas too, a tree, decorated with no presents under it.


Things change….on Monday (November 21st) after coming back with half pint mason jars I planned on making Thanksgiving desserts in I informed Jedd it only made sense that since we had Friday off we start decorating for Christmas. I expected some backlash but surprisingly he thought it made sense too. I had a whole explanation I had planned just in case he was resistant. I didn’t get to use it, so in case you are one of those people who think the Friday after Thanksgiving is too soon here are my reasons for you:

1. We get a real tree: Not only are these expense in my opinion but it’s also a big pain in the butt to go to home depot, put it in and out of the car, carry it up to the house and decorate the thing only to enjoy it for a few weeks. I mean SOMEONE CUT DOWN A TREE. The least I can do is celebrate its death for a full 30 days.

2. Decorating is time consuming: Setting up the seasonal décor takes time. The tree took two days for the branches to fall and settle after sitting on other trees for what I hope was only a day before I got it and put it in water. Decorating the tree took several hours (we ended up having to stop midway because we didn’t have ornament hangers). We actually have to decorate in stages. Day one was starting the mantel and inside décor. Day two was getting the tree, wreath and other live décor set up. Day three was decorating the tree. I still have to decorate the inside banister and the exterior banister. That doesn’t even include wrapping presents for under the tree.

3. Decorating is expensive: Sure you get to keep the ordainments and anything that isn’t alive to enjoy in future years but the first years is EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE. I’m not sure why stockings from Pottery Barn that are made to look old and handcrafted like your grandmother knitted them and put your name on them should cost $50…but they do. I know because we needed two of them. Don’t get me started on the cost of a live wreath or poinsettias. For the cost of Christmas not only is it starting on November 25th in our house but it’s going straight through January 1st.

4. Christmas cookies: The Food Network or maybe its Kraft does a 12 days of Christmas cookies email annually. What this means for those of you who don’t know I receive a daily email with a seasonal cookie I have to make. For this to make any sense at all I need to really make one recipe every other day for a month. There are only two people in my house and no one comes to visit until later in the month. I really need a full month to get rid of these cookies. I know you’re thinking I could just not make all 12 types of cookies but seriously that is silly CAUSE IT’S CHRISTMAS.

5. Christmas movies: I have four movies I watch every year to get me into the Christmas spirit. Every year in the following order I watch: Elf, The Santa Clause 1, 2 and 3. Now as much as I love these movies I can only take one Tim Allen movie a week. This means the three Santa Clause movies take three weeks to get through. I own these movies because they don’t necessarily come on TV. I like to watch all four of my movies the weeks before Christmas because there are movies that come on TV the week of and I’d really like to be freed up to watch those. They include “The Grinch” both the old one and the Jim Carrey one, the Peanut Christmas special, Home Alone (cause I still cannot believe that kids mom didn’t fly back for him), and if I am really lucky Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas. I’m also going to answer the question for you since I know you think I’ve forgotten …no I actually do not watch “A Christmas Story”.

So that’s it folks, my very valid argument of why we start celebrating Christmas on November 25th. I’m going to go make some hot chocolate now even though it was 72 degrees out today…because that’s what you drink when it’s Christmas.

Thanks…

I log onto the blogosphere this morning only to realize I was so caught up with Thanksgiving I didn’t get on here and blog about what I’m thankful for.


In a word I’m thankful for EVERYTHING! I’m thankful for my friends and family, my dogs, my home, the extra 30 pounds I’m lugging around, the good and the bad. There is nothing I’d change. I only hope those of you reading are as Thankful and Happy as I am.

Let the countdown begin…

Thanksgiving is coming, next week, as in Thursday. We are hosting the dinner (is it dinner if it’s at 1:30 pm sharp) at our house this year. I decided it might be in my best interest to pull together the menu today and get a shopping list put together. The menu is:


1. Turkey

2. Ham (mom is cooking)

3. Stuffing

4. Cranberry stuff (mom is making)

5. Deviled Eggs (mom is making)

6. Rolls

7. Brussel sprouts (Jedd is making)

8. Mash potatoes

9. Gravy

10. Sweet potato casserole

11. Baked Mac ‘n’cheese

12. Baked Parmesan Tomatoes

13. Pumpkin Pecan Desserts

14. Individual peanut butter pies

15. Oyster stuffing (Dorinda is making)

Without Jedd’s mom’s ingredients for the oyster stuffing my grocery list is 37 items long, one of which is 20 ½ pint jars for the desserts. Let’s just say tomorrows grocery shopping is probably going to be hell. I’m basing this on the fact that this morning I attempted to stop at Safeway before work and the usually empty parking lot was already THREE rows full of cars. WHY OH WHY DO I ALWAYS WAIT UNTIL THE LAST MINUTE.

What are you doing for Thanksgiving?

A year from now…

Nothing has happened at the house…NOTHING. We have kind of been on hiatus, as you can tell from the blog. The most significant purchase as of late has been some Christmas stockings. Oh and I did manage to complete a Pinterest project which I accomplished by freecycling.


Everyone makes New Year’s resolutions and if they are anything like me they don’t accomplish the majority of them. An article that showed up on Gawker recently “The Pointlessness of Your Life Revealed in Email” got me thinking. Having taken a bit of a vacation from all forms of social media I can appreciate what the article points out which is very little changes in a person’s life from year to year and this can now be proven by taking a look back on what riveting things occurred a year ago via your facebook, twitter or gasp “your blog”.

Where do I want to be a year from now, what do I want to have accomplished. I started pondering; looking around thinking “something MUST change”. Obviously having just started the 30 year goal of trying to actually own the place we live it seems important for the house to be my main focus in the upcoming year. CAUSE LORD KNOWS WE ARE NEVER EVER MOVING!!!! So next year on November 17, 2012 I plan on doing a post about how I accomplished the following:

1. Get grown up living room furniture. The 34 (god your old) year old Stephanie should not be sitting on the same dog hair covered craigslist find on November 17, 2012.

2. Get the loft in order. Get rid of some damn bins. Even if you could fit back into the size 8 clothing you wore when you and Jedd met no one really wants to see you in a skirt that skims your butt cheeks, seriously!

3. Buy the boys some bow ties and rain jackets. It’s ok if Jedd thinks one sweater is enough. The boys deserve to look spiffy on occasion and stay dry. (Yes I do refer to the dogs as boys, so please no one report us to CPS thinking our children only own one sweater).

4. Get some proper dining room chairs. The black fold out chairs is a temporary fix. If you are still using those chairs a year from now then you’re lazier than even you knew.

5. Get a cable box for the spare bedroom that works. You’re wasting money every month you pay for a box that doesn’t work. And seeing items 1 – 4 listed above you don’t have a lot of money to waste.

6. Paint the bathrooms.

7. Buy a rug for the front entry way. Using a bunch of spread out beach towels when it rains is just sad. SAD!



Cross your fingers that I get something done.

Lemon-Garlic Shrimp & Grits…

Shrimp & Grits are kind of a big deal in Charleston, SC where we moved from. Jedd & I like to buck the trend so both of us managed to never have them the entire time we lived there. Yes the entire 5 years though it was served at every wedding I ever attended (and there were quite a few) I was never tempted. I actually thought it was kind of a gross idea, because grits are a breakfast food. It’s like having oatmeal with pork chops for dinner, cause in my mind grits require sugar.

Well thankfully Pinterest peaked my interest and I made some yummy shrimp and grits this week. Now I realize that when it comes to grits it’s really all about the butter. If you’re watching your figure you may not want to come have shrimp & grits at my house. The recipe I used was worthy of Paula Dean, there is like this little sauce that kind of sits on the top, Jedd’s all “what makes it so rich, what’s the sauce” to which I had to say “why honey that’s butter and cayenne” as if it wasn’t really alarming.

It’s going to be worth ruining your diet for, plus I’m not sure how scientific this is but I hear the citrus from lemon cuts fat and since this recipe calls for lemon juice in my mind it eliminates the butter. Either way you should make this for dinner…just cause.

Happy Hour: Adult Pumpkin Nog…

The problem with late September/early October is that it’s not technically anything. You might call it fall in some places but in DC it’s just confusing. It’s like a month of “surprise” weather. Today I left the house expecting a light drizzle and it turned out that today was a full on storm. Though it might be 50 degrees when I go to bed tonight it could very well be 90 degrees tomorrow. It’s because of this lack of consistency you could find yourself saying “I’ve got vanilla ice cream, sprinkles, 2/3 cups of pumpkin puree, pumpkin spice & some bourbon” what am I going to make with this. Thankfully someone thought of an answer which is why tonight’s drink of choice is what I’m calling Adult Pumpkin Nog but Jessica at How Sweet it Is calls Grown Up Pumpkin Pie Milkshakes.

Speaking of people referring to things that make absolutely no sense what would you call these:

I pour out those beautiful pellets of joy and Jedd’s all “something, something Jimmy’s”. I’m like what, come to find out some people (and by some people I mean Jedd) call sprinkles Jimmy’s. I didn’t believe it either so I had him Google it, in addition to Jimmy’s their also called hundreds and thousands. Who knew? I’m just going to keep calling them sprinkles myself, but I’m glad I know this just in case it’s ever a question on Jeopardy I have the answer.



Happy Friday!

Meatless Monday: Mushroom-Cheddar Melts…

So we’ve met right? I’ve told you about all the crazy stuff I do called “dieting”? Well one of those things actually stuck and it’s Meatless Monday. If you’re not familiar with it than you can visit their website and learn all about it. Essentially for us we chose to participate in Meatless Monday as a way to force ourselves to explore meat free options several times a week. It’s easy to get into a rut with your menu and mine relies heavily on meat. Meatless Monday forced me to think about side of the box. Every week I try a new recipe in an effort to keep things exciting. Rachael Ray’s “Big, Beefy Mushroom-Cheddar Melts” were yummy, the Portobello’s tricked us into thinking we had meat.

Jedd had his with sweet potato French fries, but I had mine with seaweed chips because believe it or not the allergy I developed to potatoes is still going strong. You should try this recipe, it was yummy. Am I the only one who notices that Rachel Ray can make an otherwise healthy idea into a real bad idea? I did the calorie count for this meal and the burger comes around 520 calories and I cut down the cheese.

What's your favorite meat free meal?

DIY: The Dresser (Part 2)…

Man oh man, Sunday morning I wake up and I’m fuming because I have that dresser in the basement and I have to go back to Home Depot again. I can’t very well leave the dresser the color it is and I don’t want to move it upstairs unless it’s white. My only other solutions would be to put it back on craigslist and that doesn’t make any sense because I still need a dresser. So finally at 1 pm I force myself to go back and get my supplies. 1 and a half hour later I have everything:

But wait it costs me $157.00. How does this happen when YHL only spent $31.51 to include the cost of their dresser. Well I should mention that I speed read and when I go to their total I didn’t actually read the total tally up details, the majority of that stuff they already owned. Had I factored in the cost of the $50 sander and $22 dollar primer, or the $6 in paint brushes/rollers, etc. I would have realized this dresser was really going to cost me close to $200.00. Which was fine, but now I’m stressed because I’m thinking oh I hope this turns out alright. I mean how awesome would this be if I had the whole “this one time when I refinished a dresser” story verses a “the one time I spent $200 bucks to throw out a CL dresser” story. So I get home, spread out all my supplies, put the drop clothes down and get the dresser prepped for refinishing:

I’ve got such anxiety about this I don’t even eat lunch and I get to sanding. Important lesson #1 wear a hair cap.

I must say sanding the dresser wasn’t super hard. I’m looking at my handiwork and I am feeling a little better, but I’m just not sure how this is going to end up.

Next you have to prime it and I end up letting it dry over night, because I’ve exhausted myself.

The whole dresser thing is a long drawn out process, not giving me the instant gratification I need. I have to put three coats of white paint and then the poly which takes two days to completely dry. I will tell you in between the second and third coat of paint I did tell Jedd I didn't think it was going to look good. I could still see the grain of the wood peeking out, the third coat really made a huge difference.

Finally after five long days it’s ready to move back upstairs. I decide to keep the existing hardware because I just want to use the thing. Sorry the pictures are so dark, I didn’t realize until just now but I’ll have to put better ones up.

The dresser is actually white, though you can’t tell in the pictures because of the lighting. But you get the point. So now I have a hand sander, almost a whole gallon of left over primer and some poly. I’m on craigslist every day now looking for something else I can refinish. Looking back it wasn’t bad and finally I finished something. Plus it was nice after we got the dresser upstairs I looked at Jedd and said “see I showed you, I can refinish a dresser and it looks really good”.

DIY: The Dresser (Part 1)…

In the apartment there wasn’t enough space in our room for both of us to have a dresser. I needed one that would fit in a closet in the hallway and knowing it would be temporary I shelled out a few bucks and purchased a small white one. When it came time to move into the house Jedd took one look at the dresser and said it wouldn’t make the move. I thought he was wrong so we moved it…

Damn I hate it when he’s right. So I start looking and I’m just floored by what stores are asking for dressers. If it’s real wood they want several hundred dollars which wouldn’t be a problem, but I’m just not seeing exactly what I want. So then I start looking at craigslist and the prices are more reasonable but the color of every dresser I see is all wrong. At this time it just so happens YHL starts a project where they have to refinish some furniture they got which links back to them refinishing a dresser. So I casually mention to Jedd that I’m going to do this; refinish a dresser myself. He’s skeptical which just infuriates me. How dare he question (he doesn’t actually question he just gives me his “sure this phase will pass” look) my ability to refinish a dresser. Now before you go getting all defensive about how unsupportive he is I must admit I’m a bit of a quitter. The list of things I care to admit to have quit (so far in our 8 year relationship) include:

1. Golf: I did purchase the cutest set of pink golf clubs when we first started dating explaining to him I needed to look the part to really take it seriously. I played golf once with these clubs yet we’ve moved them four times. But it’s not my fault Golf is boring

2. Water/Juice fast: Well it was just a dumb idea.

3. Marathon training: So once when we were with the Joneses I decided I was going to do a marathon, then I talked myself down to a half marathon all within a 10 minute car ride. Then I got home and decided a 5k would be better because I’m an ugly runner. I think I did a total of three 5k (at a fast walk) and moved past it.

Um I’m sure there are more, but you get the point, plus I’m past this list because you know…I like to quit things.

So back to the dresser. Now I’m all about proving Jedd wrong so the next day I get on CL and Google dresser and magically I see a post about a $25 dresser. I am jazzed $25 you can’t beat that. I pick it up and end up driving around for three days with it in the car.

Now I’m committed to doing this thing. I need supplies and I get on YHL and make myself a list thinking gosh this looks pretty easy. I’m also seeing how others did this and it’s soooo much cheaper than buying a new dresser. The list I come up with is as follows:

1. Hand sander

2. 200 grit sand paper

3. 80 grit sand paper

4. Plastic drop cloth

5. Cloth drop cloth

6. Gloves

7. Frog Tape

8. Kilz Clean Start No-Voc Primer

9. 2 small foam rollers

10. 2 inch paint brush

11. Things to pour paint in

12. Dust rags

13. White semi gloss latex paint

14. Minwax polygloss

15. Hardware



Fast forward to Saturday (Labor Day weekend) and we have on our to do’s to go to Hell to make my mom a spare key and I’m going to run in and get my 15 items. I should start this by saying we only had 30 minutes to get in and out.

As you can imagine it didn’t go well. First off it was packed and every time I stopped to get something some Home Depot employee would engage me and totally ruin my concentration. All came to a head at the drop cloths; I had gotten everything except for the paint and the drop cloths. I go to the isle with the drop cloths and someone (thankfully) had taken one out of the package already so I decide to spread it out in the isle to see if it’s the size I need. As I’m spreading it out this employee starts in on me “How much do you need, how big is the space your trying to cover” to which I’m like well I don’t know so I’m trying to figure it out, to which the employee snatches up the drop cloth and is like “well you’re not going to be able to cover the whole room and open all the packs” to which I say “first off I didn’t open that it was already open” and he’s all “well you should figure it out the size of the space first” I just leave, I’m super pissed cause I’m thinking where are you guys when I need some help, when I don’t need you your all interrupting my concentration and stressing me out. Now I’m hyperventilating and I see Jedd and he’s like do you have everything and I just go “f*ck it” and I leave the basket and we get the key and check out. He’s like what happened and I’m just like I needed more time I’m going to go back tomorrow.

I leave Home Depot thinking “Well if I abandon this project now all I’m out is $25.00 and a little pride”…

Tasting at the Brau.

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Do you Freecycle? & why I’m just getting my birthday gift in September…

In reading blogs I sometimes come across things that I have no idea what the person is talking about and Freecyle is was one of those. DIY Del Ray kept mentioning how they’d gotten things from Freecycle and am so glad I learned about it. Essentially freecyle is a method of recycling things you don’t want and ensuring (hopefully) that they don’t end up in the dump. For my purposes I have only used Freecycle to give away, listing an “offer” and within an hour I have been greeted with several (21) emails for people who wanted something that had no useful value to me.


In addition to offering you can post a want. I don’t know how that works out, but should I decide to use it for that purpose I’ll let you know.

But onto my “item that had no useful value to me” also known as things I purchased but didn’t really need item 1 million and 1. So every year I make New Year’s resolutions and one thing always on there is to lose a little weight. I ALWAYS decide on some crazy diet and this year was no different, I decided “juice fasting” was the key. Now I must mention that I was actually interested in water fasting but after reading about it decided that a short term water fast followed by a weeklong juice fast was going to be more doable to me, rather than a full 30 day water fast. I know what you’re thinking and yes it does occur to me NOW that for someone who loves to cook and also EAT the food I make a liquid fast of any type might be a little stupid, but you know.

So I have this crazy idea and I know it’s crazy but I REALLY want a juicer. I have this little game I play with myself when I know I am about to embark on something truly absurd I make myself either earn the money or wait until my birthday or a holiday so I can ask someone else to purchase the item I surely don’t need for me. Luckily enough right around this time my birthday rolls up and OMG if Grandma Howard (who I absolutely love) doesn’t send me my birthday check. And if it isn’t right around the amount I need to make two purchases:

Oh when I purchase these two items at Target I cannot contain my glee. I embark on my two day water fast like my life depends on it, consuming NOTHING but water for 48 hours. Does this sound dull and unappealing? Well it should because it was. So then after talking to Jedd who thinks this is absolutely the worst idea and after getting a call from my friend who I haven’t seen in three years saying her and her kids were unexpectly in town I decide to allow myself one meal before the juice fast. That meal was a hamburger from Ted’s with peanut butter on it, but let’s not talk about that. So that night I get home and I make some juice and by some I mean A LOT. I make pitchers and pitchers of juice, we juice everything; carrots, grapes, strawberries, a whole freaking melon. I must juice $30 worth of produce in preparation for the seven juice fast which is to begin the next day. Well the next day I drink some juice, a lot of juice, but then that night I decide juice and water fasts are stupid and I start eating real food again.

Plus I really don’t like juice much; I have to be in the mood for it. Fast forward to Labor Day weekend and I realize I have no space for the juicer and it’s hard to clean. So I freecycle it but then I’m telling Jedd about it and he’s like “you basically just wasted Grandma’s birthday money”. Well every year I send Grandma a letter telling her what I did with my birthday money and I’m realizing now that I’m a horrible person because I didn’t write her that letter this year because I was too busy. Thankfully I’m a horrible person because now I can use the money for something else and I wasted my own money on a juicer (these are the little games I play with myself).

So honey when I come home today with some shoes or a purse you swear I don’t need just remember they were gifts from Grandma Howard.

Kitchen cubbies…

Obviously when you buy a house that isn’t new construction there are going to be some things you don’t like. For me the relatively short list does include one thing that has baffled me, what to do with the kitchen cubbies.

Obviously by the stuff I put in them you can tell I had no idea of what their possible use could be. I think they are probably a result of two things:

1. I think the cabinets were clearly installed wrong. I don’t know if that was by the previous owner’s choice or by accident. My reasoning for this is the cubbies face windows on both sides. I think they should actually be seen when you walk into the room. This would make them useful for housing photos or cook books. But as they are they seem pretty useless in my opinion.

2. If they were installed that way on purpose I think it was because an error was made when the kitchen was configured. I think maybe when the cabinets were ordered the previous owner was going to put the fridge where the stove was and vice versa. Instead it ended up being flipped, though I’m not sure it would have mattered the other way, and as a result the cabinet cubbies again are facing windows making them useless.

Or so I thought. It just so happens one of my fellow bloggers who I love moved into a new rental and low and behold her cabinets have the same cubbies. When I saw the picture of her new kitchen I could have kissed her because she had found not only a great solution for how to use her cubbies but she also stored dry goods in a manner similar to mine, which would also free up some inner cabinet space.

So fast forward to this weekend and I determine that using the cubbies to house my dry goods would also allow me to add about a dozen new mason jars, so we made that purchase from the Container Store and I was eagerly waiting for the appropriate time to tackle this project, which brings me to “A day in the life of” post number 1:

Let’s say you were to get an invitation to brunch at my house on a Sunday morning what would you expect me to be doing an hour before your arrival? Well if you guessed putting dry goods in mason jars to store in cabinet cubbies your guess would be spot on. An hour before Amy came to my house I set up my little station making sure to use a pan to catch the spillage so I wouldn’t be cleaning up the floor and table five minutes before she arrived.

I love this method of storing because it allows you to see what you have on hand.

I was a little baffled the first time I saw this wondering how Emily at the Daily Garnish knew when things expired, um is she a genius or what:

Clearly I am not because I have to steal all my home décor ideas from people I’ve never met on the Internet, but who cares. Oh no that’s not accurate I have actually met Julie so it makes knowing all about her new kitchen less strange. About five seconds before Amy walked through my front door I set up my cubbies and now they look like this:

Riveting, I know. What interesting things did you do this Labor Day weekend? Cool people set up cubbies, btw.

Brunch is AWESOME…

This weekend we had Amy over for brunch. Amy and I used to work together and were able to see each other five days a week for almost three years. I miss that then to make it even worse Amy moved an hour away to Baltimore making it harder to see her. I hate when people move, but I love when people come over for brunch. Everyone who knows me knows I may not say “Hey friend I am glad you’re my friend” to your face, nope instead I like to express how fortunate I am to have you in my life through food. I like Amy, A LOT as evidence by this:

That folks is some homemade French toast that will knock your socks off as found on How Sweet It Is. I would love to link you to the recipe but my work has some anti-How Sweet It Is block. I’ll have to update it when I get home.

And as if that wasn’t enough I also made some lovely individual egg cup thingies, also How Sweet It Is.

Then I sat down and stuffed my face before going to my least favorite place.

Oh before I divert my attention to DIY nightmares see this little guy…

That knife is by far the best knife I have. I am systematically going to replace all my knives with those. If you cook do yourself a favor and buy one of those knives. Thanks Heidi & Rob for giving us ours.

Maybe we are “handy”…

So this weekend was jammed packed full of miscellaneous home to do’s as you may have seen on the Labor Day list. The list is jammed packed full of things we want to do in preparation for being out of town next weekend (would be robbers don’t get excited because my mom and the boys will still be at the house). Some of our projects though small were important and also got me revved up for my big DIY project of refinishing the craigslist dresser I found. One of those projects was addressing the gap in our front door.

This is one of those things that every single time I looked at it I thought “what in the world was the previous owner doing with all her time”. The woman lived here 7 years and never ever took the time (15 minutes we timed it) to seal up that annoying space where the door didn’t meet the floor. At night the street light would be clearly visible under that crack making me think “I know all my air-conditioning is seeping out”.

Yes mom I do care about those things now that I’m paying my hard earned money for it… I didn’t believe you back when I was 13 but yes, yes air-conditioning staying in the house is very near and dear to my heart now too.

It surprised me how easy this appeared to be for Jedd to do. Basically he got a handy saw and this metal piece for the door from Home Depot (a.k.a Hell) which he then sawed down to the size of the door:

Once that happened we removed the door and installed the strip:

We're a real professional operation, we laid down a bunch of blankets and laid the door down in the gap between the hall way and living room, we go for the "whatever works" approach here:

After that we rehung the door, and kept all my a/c in the house:

Another exciting thing to happen was that I started attempting to refinish a dresser myself. I plan on doing a whole post dedicated to it but here’s a classy picture showing the importance of sanding with a hair cap on:

That’s not dandruff, its sawdust. Oh another thing kind of exciting happened this week and it's making our neighbors love us:

Time can be alarming…

I must admit I’m not very observant. People have commented on this to me often. Things will occur that let me know that time has passed, someone will ask how long we’ve been together and I’ll think um….damn has eight years passed stranger? I feel like I just met you. My boys will have another annual checkup and I’ll be all “didn’t I just bring you here for this last June…of 2010”. Today was one of those days where a blurb on msn made me realize damn, damn, damn I’m getting old. What was that blurb….Keanu Reeves turned 47.

Now why would this be so amazing to me…well I remember when my Keanu crush began in the 80s like most people when he was in a little movie called Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. In 1989 a crush was a crush there was no thought other than he was kind of cute, but in the movie really stupid. This was my first acknowledgment that maybe just maybe I leaned a little more towards liking boys because they were cute verses they had any substance. Most people wouldn’t know but my Keanu crush runs deep, I’ve seen each and every movie he’s ever been in. Most of them two or three times. Should he be on a rare TV interview I always stop. As time has passed my crush when from being based on his looks to the fact that he seemed, at least from my “fan” opinion interesting. I think it was some time in 2000 when I should have realized the transition into adulthood had begun, not for Keanu but for me. In 2000 I remember seeing him in both the Watcher and Sweet November and remembering that he didn’t seem as adult to me. He still wasn’t someone who if they presented themselves in real life would be of any interest, but he didn’t seem so far in age from me.

Recently things have happened that bring Keanu (yes, I refer to him by his first name because after a 20+ year love affair…all from my end of course, we’re on a first name basis) up in the news and now I think of him fondly. I wouldn’t say I have a crush, but I remember having a crush. I haven’t thought about it really until today. A little pic of Keanu with the caption “Happy 47th Birthday Keanu Reeves”.

The reason I knew that obviously not only had significant time passed for Keanu but it must have for me too. With hilarity I thought 47; I mean if things were different I’d actually consider dating a 47 year old. That’s a bit alarming, because 10 years ago he would have been way too old for me I thought. It’s the little things that make you look around and think “I have really got to pay attention because life is so fast…ten years has flown by”.

I don’t know what you’re doing right now, but stop, look around take a mental snap shot, because this too shall pass. Whether things are good, bad, or indifferent try and take it all in because it’s not just Life, its YOUR LIFE.