Finally getting somewhere

Since we moved into our house last September, I have been slowly working on getting the house decorated. I'm sure it will take a good bit longer, but this week, I got two things finished--window treatments in the bathroom and on the door to the backyard. Both of the projects cost less than 5 dolllars, and took less than 15 minutes to complete--if only everything could be so easy!



Bathroom window:









And the kitchen door: I think I want to paint this door white. The outside paint needs to be redone as well. It's peeling pretty terribly.

My next projects:

-Hanging crosses on kitchen wall

-Fillling vases on cutout btw kitchen and living room

-Hanging living room shelves, decorating

-Painting kitchen cabinets white

-Start looking for monogram letter "C"s to hang on living room wall

From spring to summer

Our front door had a makeover this morning

From spring....

...to summer

I saw a wreath very similar to this one at Target yesterday....for 60 dollars. Instead, I spent 13 dollars at Hobby Lobby and pulled out the glue gun. I think it looks all right...and I think I'm starting to develop a real attachment to my hot glue gun.

Happy Birthday!

Today is Andy's 25th birthday! He is a quarter century old. Wow.

We had some fun today, including a birthday breakfast with cinnamon rolls and scrambled eggs and presents, and a special dinner with steak, roasted grape tomatoes (so delicious), these delicious potatoes, and orange fluff (aka Andy's favorite food...mom, it took me forever to find a recipe that matched yours....people were using cottage cheese--SICK).

I am so excited that this sweet man is my husband...and that it is his birthday. Babe, you are my perfect mate. You are the husband that God has designed for me, and I am oh so thankful that you are in my life. I cannot wait to celebrate many, many more birthdays with you.

Happy Birthday, sweet, sweet husband of mine.

Touring local law enforcement agencies

Today, I had some things I had to take care of downtown. To me, going downtown always seems like such a big deal, but it's really not. I mean, you just have to risk your life going down ridiculously steep and curvy hills, pretend to be a racecar driver, avoid hitting wayward pedestrians, narrowly miss hitting the semi parked in the street, find a parking spot, and make it to your destination in one piece. Nothing much, really.

Honestly, though, I don't love it. Downtown is really even a somewhat tolerable part of town, but I hate driving there. So I usually park somewhere that's about eight to ten blocks from where I'm going, and then just walk. Today I had to go to the library, the police department, and the sheriff's department. Why two law enforcement agencies? Oh you know....the usual....my lawbreaking habits and all. Or maybe I have to have a local criminal history in order to be employed. You can decide.

Anyway....first was the police department. It's seriously back in this shady little alley and if it weren't the police department I would feel so unsafe walking back there. But I like to think that criminals won't attack in front of the police department. As I was walking up there, I was thinking, "I'm so glad I don't have to come back here." So yeah...about an hour after I got home, the bank called to tell me I need to go to the police department to file a report on my stolen money last month. Fabulous. I guess I'll be back tomorrow.

After I hit the police station, I headed down to the sheriff's dept. It's a few blocks on down. And it smells. Like stale sweat and yuck. Seriously, I thought I was going to gag. But I survived. And I don't have to go there tomorrow. At least, I don't think I do.

Surprise!

Tonight, with the help of some friends, I threw Andy a surprise birthday party(he'll be 25 on Tuesday). We had a cookout in Hanover Park, and it was so much fun!

Earlier this week I had been talking to some of my friends from church about how every plan I had come up with for Andy's birthday had fallen through, and I was running out of ideas. So on Thursday, one of them suggested a surprise cookout...and I leapt at the idea. There were about four other families that met at the park before we got there and had everything set up. Andy thought we were going to meet the Hoffman's and hang out with them....and he really didn't get it at all until I turned and said, "Sweetie, this is your birthday party. It was a surprise."

We stuffed ourselves (go figure, get a group of Southern Baptists together and food is going to be involved :)) , and had a great time. The kids played on the playground, the men played cornhole, and the ladies sat and ate and talked. It was the perfect summer night, and so encouraging for my sweet husband. It was the perfect plan.

We also set up plans to watch the premiere of Wipeout next week...and hopefully every week with the Hoffman's. We discovered tonight that we shared a serious enjoyment for watching videos of people falling down and hurting themselves (ala America's Funniest Videos) and decided this show was going to be right up our alleys. Woohoo for hanging out with other couples :)

Food allergy?

I'm not sure, but I think I may have a food allergy. To nitrates/nitrites. Over the past few months, I started to realize I was getting really bad headaches at really weird times. Often it started out with my mouth feeling really salty, and my tongue feeling like it was enormous. Then I started to get a headache that verged on migraine-like proportions. After a few times, I started to keep track of when it happened, and a pattern emerged. It was after eating breakfast sausage, Italian sausage, a large amount of ham, bratwurst, and then today, a hot dog. Today was the worst. I ate at noon and my head is still pounding. I've been flat on the sofa for a few hours asleep.

So, I'm thinking it's time for me to give up the processed meats. Or at least cut them back to the ittiest bitties portions when I do have them.

I did notice, though, that I seem to be okay with turkey sausage/bacon. But I would imagine they are processed similarly, so I don't know what that's all about.

All in all, I'm pretty bummed. I'm rather a fan of my sausages. And so is my husband. Poor guy. The things he's given up to marry me.

Getting it together

When we first moved into our house last September, the landscaping was pretty eh, whatever. We knew we wanted to do some work on it. Here it is when we moved in.

Then, we had an unfortunate plumbing incident in October, that left an 18 inch white pipe sticking up in the middle of our yard. The plumber said he would be back in a few weeks to fix that. It's June. He hasn't been here. He wasn't the best...in fact, I could do an entire post on the inept workmen we have hired to fix our house....and the things they broke. But that's not the point of this story.

Come March, after months of no rain, we had monsoon like storms. And we figured out how well our yard did with water. Or how NOT well. Because it was terrible.

So with all of these things, we realized we had a lot of work ahead of us in our yard. Our first project: to extend the flower beds in the front for appearance, and to put in new beds along the back and side of the house to help with the drainage problems.

Today, after literally months of work (making lines, killing grass, taking care of killed grass, buying topsoil, adding topsoil, transplanting/splitting plants, buying new plants, and mulching) we finished those beds. And here are a few pictures so you can enjoy our handiwork. Or just so I can.