And again...

My laptop was supposed to inspire me to blog more often but it seems to have done the exact opposite.  I can't write, I have no desire to write, I don't even want to turn the laptop ON once I'm home.  I'm in a funk. A major major major funk.  I have no desire to leave my home.  All I want to do is be alone.  Plain and simple I'm depressed.  I'm stressed out.  I'm feeling rather hopeless in general.  Really the only thing that interests me is sleep and holding my dog and spending time with my husband.  I can't seem to handle much more then that.  I've been trying to overlook my deep need to do nothing and go to say the dog park with our new friends from the French Bulldog club so that my dog can at least have some fun.  When I'm out I just find myself counting the time till I can get home.

I'm not sure what is going on with me.  I don't feel sad I just feel nothing right now.  I'm indifferent to life.  I don't know what to do to get out of this funk so if you have a suggestion feel free to give me a heads up?

I've been working on getting my sewing room together in hopes that sewing will get me up and going and snap me out of this but I really don't know what is going on with that either.

I don't know any more.  I feel out of it and alone.  It's awesome :)

New Ideas...

When we moved in to this house the first big thing we did was the kitchen.  I felt that it was some what of a rushed reno but drastically needed.  The kitchen was so bad (imo) that I wouldn't even unpack my kitchen boxes to put stuff in the cabinets.  I felt that the kitchen was dirty and old and no matter how much time I spent scrubbing I wouldn't be able to get it clean.  So I preferred to leave all my pantry items, cookware, etc. in boxes.  We only lived here a few months before we demoed the kitchen....they say you should live in a place for a year before you do any major reno but trust me the kitchen was too horrible to live with for a year.

Want proof?

 

 

 Why do people do tiled countertops?  

The oven was in the middle of the room and to plug it in you had to take the plug around some weird pillar thingy and plug it in on the other side.  Oh and there were 3 outlets in the entire kitchen.  Don't get me started on the linoleum flooring.  Again...why do people like linoleum?  

 Clearly anything even if we screwed it up was going to be better then the kitchen we had.  Trust me.  

We took the kitchen down to the studs and unfortunately some things didn't turn out as perfect as I would like them.  We're STILL working on this kitchen a year and some time later.  Let me say that yes we're slow, we have lives, we have jobs that make it impossible to work on the house during the week, and we did so much work on the kitchen that we took a SERIOUS break from it.  I got so sick of working on the kitchen that once the stone was installed and the appliances were working I was happy.

 One of the things that didn't turn out so well was our vaulted ceiling.  When we were reframing things we realized just how much space we had in the attic.  We have so much room that it's almost enough room for another floor.  So we had the great idea of vaulting part of the kitchen (we couldn't vault the entire kitchen due to something that I don't recall.  Well the drywall wasn't installed so great.  I'll just say it, the tape and mud was done poorly and every day that I look at it I hate it.  I love the vaulted ceiling but you can see major flaws.  

See the wavy "line"?  Yeah that's not supposed to be like that.  My first though was to add some sort of beam to hide the "line".  Eh, we just haven't gotten around to it.  Then I was watching Sarah 101 and she redid a little boys room(seen here) and covered the ceiling with bead board.  I had an AH HAH moment and thought hello, beach-y kitchen + bead board ceiling = super beachy.  I mentioned it to the husband and he said it sounded good.  Then I saw the most recent post from Sand and Sisal which took me to her bead board ceiling post here and we were both sold. 

Then on top of that, today while driving to Home Depot to exchange a light my awesome husband said "Well why don't we install bead board on the walls and ceiling in the pantry/laundry/mud room?"

AHHHHHHHH

Yes why don't we?! 

Why is that exciting to me?  We have been putting this damn room off for so long.  It previously was more of an outdoor room that was enclosed by the previous owners.  It used to have our old knob and tube electrical box.  It's in gnarly shape.  We needed to take the old stucco down and put up drywall and drywall/tape/mud is soooooo not one of our favorite things to do.  In fact I think you could say we hate it.  IF we do bead board all we have to do is put the bead board up OVER the the walls.  No new drywall/tape/mud needed!!!!  Can I get a WOO WOO?! 

I'm ready to borrow the truck from work and do this next weekend...not joking.   Once that bead board is up, I can call up my tile guy and have him install the tile in that room and buy my shelves for my pantry and that room will be DONE.  DONE DONE DONE.  DONE DONE DONE.


/freak out fest

In other news, I made a decision on the pendant lights to replace the ones I had bought at the beginning of the renovation.  I really thought those lights were going to look great, but some times when all you have are a cabinet, a paint sample, a counter sample, and a backsplash sample...some times you make a wrong decision.  I think I've done better this time...

Excuse the messy kitchen...we actually use our kitchen and taking a picture perfect photo just isn't happening.

 

Actually here is a photo I posed on instagram...it may be more "pretty"

 

I'm very happy with them.  They are far beach-ier then the previous lights (which I don't think I have a picture of, oops) and they were inexpensive ($70 each I think), and the light they give off is great.  I'm a happy girl. 

I can't wait to finish this and move on to other projects.  I just wish I had more time to devote to my home.  I'm finally loving putting my home together and I don't want to leave.  My husband is enjoying putting the work into the house and beams with pride after he does something.  It's becoming a real home for us that we want to spend as much time as possible in.  I feel very blessed to have my husband and my dog, some days I feel like that's all I need.  I try to thank God daily for what he has given me...I may not have everything in the world that my heart dreams of but wow God has given me everything that I need.  It's up to me to appreciate it.

What a week!

I've done well with my workouts and although I don't notice a difference in the way I look, I do feel better.  I'm sure Jillian Michaels is a sweet gal and I'm sure she has lots of friends but dare I say she is an evil bitch?  I'm not even joking...she is trying hard to kill me.  If I ever saw her in person I'd probably hiss in her direction and give her my death stare.

Our furnace has been acting up and I finally had one of my HVAC subs from work come out and take a look at it.  He seemed to get it running last night and of course it was 78 degrees today so right now instead of turning the heater on I've got a few windows open.  He also took a look around and is going to provide me with a quote for air conditioning.  Can I get an OH YEAH?!  I swore at the end of this past summer that I would not go through one more summer in this house without air conditioning.  We have central heat so our ducting is already done and is fairly new.  We really only need the unit and the hook up.  When I was talking with my HVAC guy he said something magical that has had me day dreaming since last night.  He saw my eyes light up and said "OHHH I got the wheels turning now!"  Yes sir you do.  He told me...get this...I can move the Furnace up into the attic..............................................................................

*laaaa la laaaaaaaaaa*

I swear I heard angels sing when he said that.  I can honestly say I never even thought about that being a possibility!  This stupid furnace is the first thing you see when you walk into the hallway.  Okay you don't see it as it's in a closet behind an ugly door but *I* know it's there.  Did I mention how loud it is????  I don't care how much that will cost me, it's happening.  And I will be making that my closet for coats etc.  I'm so tickled about this that I could skip down the street. 

Saturday we're scheduled to go to my wood flooring guy to discuss our options with him.  It's really nice knowing good subcontractors that you can go to that won't rip you off.  I'm not getting my hopes up too much about wood floors.  We know how much floors cost, it's the labor to install them.  I truly do not want to take that task on ourselves because knowing us it will be two years before the floors are finished.  We're going to see what kind of deal we can get on the labor and if it's something we can do right now.  If I hear what I was told at another wood flooring store...$4-5 per sq. ft for the product, and if you want the install with it, make that $15 per sq ft.  ....I've got about 800 sq feet....do the math.  Yeah not happening.  Sorry folks, I don't hate my ugly disgusting laminate floors that much...I'll wait a year or two before we hit that up.  Or perhaps that's when we say okay maybe we do install them oursleves...we'll see.

Over and out from Socal...

First post in the New Year

Currently I'm in bed trying to stay warm while my husband is working on the heater/furnace/whatever you call it. I woke up this morning and the house was 57 INSIDE.  That's cold people!  It appears after two hours he has fixed it.  I love having a husband who can fix things.  I could never be married to a man who didn't know how to work on a car or fix something in the house. 

I started a new work out routine.  It's so totally not a resolution.  It's I'm going to Maui in July and I'm fat.  No, I'm not fat but I know I am not at the weight I should be, I feel like crap, I hate my body.  Typical woman right?  Right.  So I told myself I need to get back into what I was doing pre-wedding when I really liked my body.  I did a few weight lifting videos from P90x, oh and a cardio routine from the same plan.  I couldn't do all of the videos because I have such bad knees and that workout is pretty gnalry so I just did what I knew I could do.  It worked for me.  My current issue right now is getting back into it which is especially hard during the winter.  I don't want to come home and work out....I want to come home, grab my puppy and vegitate on the couch till it's time for bed.  Maui will be here before I know it and I don't want to have an emotional break down a week before I leave when I try on my bikini and realize it looks like shit. 

I pulled out the Jillian Michaels Ripped in 30....that woman is evil.  I felt good after I did the work out but during it....wow.  I think I may have muttered "I hate you" plus a few expletives directed towards her.

I'd like to lose 8 - 10 pounds by July.  I don't think we eat bad but there are days when we get lazy and will walk down to the burger joint and get a burger.  Clearly that's not a good choice so I just need to plan better meal for us during the week. 

*sigh*

I hate feeling inadequate and not good enough.  It's a shitty feeling.

Here is to hoping 8 pounds will make me feel better...probably not! 

Gobble Gobble

Is it too late to do a Thanksgiving update?  I know, I know, I'm a major slacker but I'm really trying to get better at blogging.

My last post was a bit of a downer but definately truthful in regards to the Thanksgiving aftermath.  I refuse to even think about that any more and will only recognize the good part of that day.  Really, it was 99% wonderful.

I feel like Thanksgiving is about friends and family (most people do am I right?)  Sure, our house isn't super large and I only have a table that seats 6 but who cares I invited our favorite people and had a good 12 people in the house.  Ian, Moi, Ian's dad, Mom, Bro, Yasu the Asian in our family, The R Family as in Doug, Carissa, and Makayla (the little one was missing) and Leilani and Vincent.  This group was awesome and my favorite memory was standing at the sink in the kitchen and looking around and every single one of those weirdos was around the kitchen island talking and laughing.  I'm so not good at sharing emotions with people but I smiled on the inside and I'll never forget that.

Here are a few pics from that night:

My father in law ,brother in law and the adopted son in the family Yasu

One of the tables set up looking pretty

Violet - 19lbs / Turkey 25lbs

Kayla didn't want her picture taken....

Carrot cake by moi, strawberry cheesecake trifle by Leilani and apple pie from Doug & Carissa

The husband carving the turkey...pay no attention to the ripped out portion of the wall behind him....

That's me...my mother in law, Carissa and Kayla in the background

Bunch of nerds...notice all three of them have their phones in their hands?  mmm hmm

Thanksgiving was filled with champagne, gorging on food and laughing with wonderful people.  I must also add that this year was my second year cooking and it was much easier this time around.  I think I'm getting good at this :)

A little here and there...

I'm loving the cooler weather and the ability to get more done on the weekends.  Each weekend we're accomplishing a little bit here and there and it feels great. 

This past Saturday Habitat for Humanity came over and picked up a bunch of old furniture that has sat in the garage for the past two years.  It wasn't great quality furniture but it wasn't bad, we simply had no room for it in the house.  I was able to borrow the truck from work and we got rid of the old windows that we recently replaced along with a few doors that Habitat wouldn't take.  We had intentions of putting the old windows up on Craigslist but I have way too many other things to do then deal with flaky craigslist people for a few bucks.  Know what I mean?  I had my coworker pick up the old "bar" that I bought when I moved out on my own.  It was a cute bar/wine rack with drawers from Target but with the kitchen remodel and the addition of a bar, I didn't need it.  She wanted to pay me but I told her if she came and removed it from my house that would be my payment.  Another thing out!

I was inspired by Sammy over at ReNew ReDo! and purchased a few tubes of Rub n' Buff.  It might be fair to say that I could possibly become addicted to this stuff.  Someone may need to stop me in the future....

Anyway, I sanded primed my garden stool and decided on the Grecian Gold Rub n' Buff.  I've got a good solid coat of the rub n' buff but there are a few areas of white still showing through.  I'll keep working on it then put a poly over it. 

And yes, I worked on it in my living room.  It was freezing outside...dealing with fumes seemed like a better idea then becoming an ice pop.

I have to add a picture of Miss Violet in front of it.  We caught her chewing on a purple sharpie...that's a look "What?  You mean I'm not allowed to chew on this?  I thought everything was my toy!"

I also was able to get my desk primed over the weekend.  I'm not sure the prime job came out that great.  I don't know if I should sand it a little and prime it again or what.  It's a laminate piece of furniture so I'm not expecting an amazing job but I want it to come out as good as possible.  We'll see how that goes.

Ian should be framing out the pass through window from the bar area to the dining room this weekend and it would be awesome if I could get it sanded, primed and painted by Thanksgiving but I don't want to jinx myself.  We'll see how this weekend goes!

Why isn't it Saturday yet? I'm ready to work on the house!

I've decided I want new pendants for over the island.  I hate the ones I picked.  This is why you don't purchase things super quickly just so you have something to install asap.  During the kitchen remodel I was rushed on picking those lights, I was also in the midst of spending lots of money on flooring, back splash etc and was not in the mood to spend a lot on pendants.  Well people, spend the money and take the time because you'll probably end up hating what you pick.  I hate the color.  I had been trying to tie them into the chandelier hanging over the dining table and they were $45 each and since I needed three...I thought I scored.  Now?  I'll pay YOU if you take them. 

Maybe I just pick new things to obsess over?  Hmm that's a thought....

Our friends Doug and Carissa came over on Saturday.  Friday night my husband informs me that Doug and him are going to tear apart the garage on Saturday.  I thought about it for a few minutes and then calmly brought the subject up again.  No, they will not be ripping the garage apart.  There is a kitchen and a laundry/pantry that still isn't complete and the garage will not be touched until said projects are completed.  Thank you.  Carry on.

I may have received a few comments the next day "HUH guess we have to finish this laundry room BEFORE we work on the garage"  but it didn't bother me in the slightest :) 

The electrical was ran to a new breaker outside and another outlet was installed.  Thanks boys!  xoxo

Can I also mention that the laundry room was cleaned by my husband?  BETTER then I have cleaned it.  Good man.

While the boys were doing what it is they do, Carissa bullied me into picking a paint color for the living room.  Did I say bully?  Oops.... (she reads this haha)

I think she may or may not be over the million paint chips that seem to float around the living room or the covered up paint all over the walls.  She had it with me!  She ripped down several paint chips and narrowed it down to two then GENTLY pushed for one particular color.  We had the boys bring back two paint samples, slapped them up on the wall and she was right, the bluer color is the right color. 

See the color on the left.  Carissa then took all my blue paint chips and tossed them.  Not just in the kitchen trash but in the dumpster outside.  She said she figured I would have gone and pulled them out once she left.  HA!  As if you know me!  Hmmph.

I started a few painting projects but I realize I didn't really take any photos so I'll have to get to that later.

I did manage to get a picture of my coworkers and I dressed up for Halloween.  We were competing for a week in a time share...I lost.  I was the shark.  I was robbed.  ROBBED!

My costume?  It was Ian's when he was about 7 years old.  Vintage baby.  BTW Pippy won.  I  call bs on that.

 

That my friends is my amazing French Bulldog Miss Violet and the pumpkin my amazing husband carved.


I requested a laptop for Christmas....in hopes of blogging more from the comfort of my couch while watching Real Housewives of *Insert city here*

We shall see!